Two reasons why I thought I’d start this topic was first this subject came up in that one gay thread, and I thought I’d repost an old post I wrote going into more detail about how I see things – I as in my personal views and not absolute truth – before fools start thinking I’m stupid. Second reason is because I’d like to actually see how others here may define and understand the Left Hand Path to be, in their own words.
A little background to the repost: A few months ago I was active at religiousforums.com where I spent 90% of my time answering peoples questions about Buddhism and fighting with those stupid Hindus in the Dharma DIR ((I can’t stand Hindus)).
Occasionally I would post in the Left Hand Path DIR where I eventually started getting into fights with the Setians because at the time me and my friends were picking on Aquino at the 600 club via our joint account lol.
So I was defaming Aquino and making fun of him to his Setians talking about how Aquino and LaVey were wack suckers who took Madam Blavatski’s warped misrepresentation of the Left Path ((Vamachara/Vamarga/Kulacharaya)) and ran off with the idea.
As the debate was getting good the Setains went to tattle tail on me for talking about their Grampa Adamms and I got banned from the forum and was unable to participate in the debate any further.
I came back to the forum under the nym “Perris Hilton,” To take care of unfinished business. Perris by the way is this shitty city in Southern Cali bear Hemet and Moreno Valley and Sun Valley. If you know the area, then you’ll get the humor in “Perris Hilton.”
But my second time around that forum, I got side tracked into this one forum where some Jew guy was asking questions. I get side tracked easily so I went to go pick on the Jew instead.
I was posting all of these subtle antisemetic posts because this guy was an idiot. Then I remembered I had to post something about my thoughts on the left hand and right hand paths for my casual audience. I made the post and the next day the Jewish guy ratted on me and I got banned again.
Essentially my own personal understandings of what the “Left Path” is comes from Shaivism, Shaktism, and Kulacharya. I’ll try and explain things. It is when “Maya” ((illusion)) is “Loga Manussa,” which are two words that roughly means the “World of Man,” this term does not mean the earth or nature as earth and nature have their own worlds. Log Sat Manuss ((as it is called in Khmer meaning the World of the Human Animal)) is human civilization and the facade of “human” civility.
The arbitrary construct and abstract nature of human civilization… the costume party of human politics and human religion… the laws people make, causes us to be dis-located from the rest of Nature, and drives us to believe that we are in some way not a part of nature and creation, that we are special and thus to transcend the basal animal world to some delusional greater state of being.
So in this context Shiva is the destroyer of that delusion which we call civilization… cities… States… kingdoms. Once these are destroyed the mental limits of our urban conditioned Chitta ((mind/consciousness)) is Liberated to flow in harmony with the rest of creation. This is not to say that we as humans must seek to live like animals, go about naked and eat grass. Each kind has its own mode of existence and flow ((dharma)).
So in this regard, Shiva represents an adversarial antinomian state of mind. By Adversarial here I mean to say or suggest not just a simple renunciation ((upaksha)) of urban society, but an dialectical opposition to the very idea that we are urban organism created by some city patron god to live in man made cities as domesticated law abiding apes. By antinomian I mean to say or suggest the understanding that there is nothing righteous or sacred about the arbitrary laws of a City-State which and in understanding one transcends that City-State conditioning and its laws to Liberate oneself.
There is a part where Shakti asks Shiva what it is real if the world of man ((the prop we call human civilization and our human civil domesticated sense of self)) is a delusion to be transcended.
Shiva in return says that the alternative is the most powerful and natural tantra known to him: Kulachara. The word Kula basically means a “Tribe,” a “Clan,” a social order kinfolk. Charaya roughly means “practice,” or s teaching. The tantra of Kulachara – the living in tribes and clans in harmony with nature and creation – brings the dislocated Chitta of man away from the abstract and unreal city-state and focuses it to what is real: the earth, nature, his kinfolk and companions in life.
To get from the being a domesticated ape born and raised and psychologically conditioned in an urban environment to the real and natural world beyond the walls of our city and beyond the psychological walls of the city-state religion, Shiva offers the one seeking Liberation Vama Marga which means the “Left Path.” Right Path ((Dakshina Marga)) in this context refers to the Vedas and the world order established by the Vedic Traditions that permeated ancient India.
Vama Marga originally is not a set of beliefs or concept, because adopting a set of different beliefs does not liberate your body and mind from its urban setting and urban conditioning. You are still domesticated and not free or feral like Rudrashivaya is. Rudra roughly meaning feral, free, carefree, etc. Vama Marga was originally a set of methedologies ((sadhana)) to be practiced and applied in life. Different sadhanas and tantras that the chela performs generates something like a “culture shock” or rude awakening, from which the Chitta is freed from its conditioned urban way of seeing and interpreting the world.
For example there are tantras that involved the chela to engage in all manners of sexual acts with everything and everyone you can imagine… incest, and bestiality to name a few. This isn’t to suggest that such tantras are continual ways of life and practice. They have the intent of shocking your mind out of the grip of the self righteous domesticated weltanschauung and self image one has. Once that liberation is obtained you move on to the next sadhana or tantra.
There are other sadhanas and tantras in Vama Marga ((the original one)) that requires the chela to live for a time along in the jungle, or places where the Hindus cremate their dead. Other sadhanas and tantras call for the chela to go as far as performing human sacrifice and cannibalism. And again, these methodologies or practices are not continual rituals that one performs forever. The intent is to force you to shock yourself out of the urban conditioning. Like a new born baby in the womb is shaken rudely at birth out of its comfort zone.
When you have shaken yourself enough, you Awaken ((Buddhi)) from your past delusions and are liberated. This is called Illumination. Sometimes depending on the school it is called Moksha (liberation) other schools call this state of awakening to one’s true nature “mahanirvana” or nirvana which was later borrowed by Buddhism. “Nir” meaning “Not” and “Vana” meaning “Born/birth.” Nirvana roughly refers to the state of mind when you are awakened to your nature as a free and feral living being so that you do not return to the city-state mind set… not being born in that mindset again.
Nirvana meaning Not-Born or “beyond birth” is the same line of thinking as when Christianity says that you are “Born Again” when you have conditioned yourself to accept their world view and beliefs. But with Vama Marga you want to stay away from being “Born Again.” When you are a human and you are born, into what are you actually born? A city-state as a domesticated ape, that’s where the symbolism comes from.
Anyways, here’s the repost:
***quoting myself***
Not that I want or like to debate, but I’ll share some insights as how I understand the terms. You guys can pick at it and dissect all you want without me.
On one level of pathei-mathos I understand the difference between “Lhp,” and “Rhp” to be like the difference between “A Prioi Intellectualization” ((Rhp)) and “A Posteriori Realization.” ((Lhp)).
By “a priori intellectualization” I would mean that a person comes to know something intellectually or apprehends an idea, concept, or world view without personal direct experience. Think of Plato’s cave allegory and the people needing middle men to tell them what the dancing shadows mean.
By “a posteriori realization” I would mean here that a person emotionally and wordlessly realizes something after this person has experienced something on its own account. Think of the boy in Plato’s cave who out of curiosity and defiance of established norms ventures outside the cave and directly experiences and Realizes the Cause of the dancing shadows on his own.
So on a very simple and human terms I can say that Rhp is like my mom telling me, “Shugz, your young, stay away from boys! They will hurt you, break your heart, and you’ll just mess the rest of your life up if you get pregnant now.”
Which may be conventionally true, and I could accept it as truth and live by her Word. This would be an example of what I mean when I use the term “a priori intellectualization.” Because I myself never actually experienced a boyfriend, or heart break or know intimately how or why getting pregnant at my age will mess my life up, but I nevertheless Accept it as fact/truth and live by it, juggling and doing mental gymnastics to justify my following of such Words.
To me the Lhp approach to this scenario would be me “forging” my own path and experience by saying to myself, “I understand my mom cares for me and doesn’t want me to get hurt, but I need to experience life on my own terms and learn from such experiences, and grow from what mistakes I will make.” So I go out and “defy” my mom’s Words for the experience and self growth. Chances are, she will be right. But BELIEVING her Word and BELIEVING that she is right, is very different than REALIZING from experience.
So for me, on a more sectarian or religious level the difference between Rhp and Lhp would be similar.
With Religion such Hinduism you have a certain set of established standards, conventional a priori belief patterns, myths, rites, arbitrary sets of moral laws, and orthodoxy of BELIEF. These are things that one would be expected to Follow. Adopting and agreeing with such things has nothing to do with direct personal experience. All one will end up doing is intellectually juggling – “cognitive process” and mind chatter – these beliefs, world views, and coming up with conjectures to support and justify such a priori BELIEFS.
Whereas in something more Lhp ((more in line to how it is apprehended in the East)) the Lhp is a Methodology of gaining direct a posteriori Realization.
I’m using Eastern LHP conception at this moment. So for example within the RHP approach to a concept of something like God or Divinity, you have a set of priests, a holy book, or a conventional truth that says “god is real, that is the end of the discussion, Believe it!” But within the LHP approach to this same concept of God, one acts or tries to directly experience life and nature somehow on one’s own terms so that one eventually gains direct a posteriori Realization of weather such God or divinity and the nature of such god and divinity is real or unreal.
So in this example you have RHP Vedic religious conventional beliefs of Gods, which most people just intellectually accept as being real, and such Hindus will remain within the established limits of “orthodoxy” of established rites, beliefs, and customs.
But in this culture you have heterodoxic Methodologies ((as opposed to merely agreeing and believing)) such as Vamamarga, Vamachara, Kulachara, ((such as the Kapalas and Aghoris)) where the individual person discards Vedic orthodoxy and conventionalism, and goes out to somehow gain direct Realization via direct experience of life and nature. This is not to say that at the end of a kapala’s personal journey that he will realize that Brahma actually exists as a four faced deva.
Rhp and Lhp can also be used in terms of Statism. Nation-States are like established Rhp Institutions. There are sets of conventional laws, conventional social morals, conventional world views, etc which the Citizen is expected to orthodoxically follow and accept and intellectualize. The Lhp approach would be to go beyond such conventional limits in Methodology – such as “crime” – to gain personal a posteriori Realization of what a State is, what laws are, why States and laws exists and so on.
So from my own personal experience the LHp really has nothing to do with a “Satan” or black magic or even defiance. It realizing that Beliefs are just beliefs based on a priori conjecture, and that there is a Methodological – practical, application, pragmatism, praxis – approach to Life beyond acception of conventional belief patterns where one directly experienced Life and Nature on one’s own terms to gain a more direct a posteriori Realization of Life, Nature, the Nature of who we are, the Nature our place in the Cosmos. Such Lhp Methodology can and does incorporate heterodoxic methods of action and behavior that ascends and transcends conventional morals, conventional laws/rule, conventional ways of thinking, and conventionalism altogether.
Or it is like science. Rhp would be reading a science text book and nodding in your head in agreement. Lhp would be you empirically trying to gain a direct apprehension of a theory by the scientific Method where experiments are done so that you learn from your own actions and Methodology, such that you do not need text books or preachers spoon feeding you a priori facts.
In the end, what one experiences and Realizes on this Lhp is unique and not some belief based on the reading of some book or listening to the preachings of some intellectual or priest. It is a wordless knowing, and from that wordless knowing is a personal growth and evolution.
By “wordless” knowing I mean it like sex. There was a time when we were all young – in our teens – when we were curious about sex and where we were getting a priori information from our peers and sex education at school. This is a priori intellectualization. Then there was the moment in all of our lives where we actually experienced sex directly ourselves, in which the Nature of sex was Realized and apprehended wordlessly.
I’m not sure if this made any sense or is congruent to how the West defines and understands “LHP,” but I tried.
***end quote***
Feel free to disagree with me, build onto it, or better yet, share your own understandings of what the Left Hand Path is to you, because I’m interested.
I did say that Blavatsky was very misinformed as to what the Left Hand Path was and I did say that Aquino and LaVey ran off with that misrepresented idea, but I didn’t mean it in a bad way.
Things evolve you see. Both LaVey and Aquino took what they had and constructed their own unique memeplexes out of it.
