To continue the weekly review as announced by High Priestess Lydia Coventina, I will be sharing by notes and understanding of Ἐραστὴς καὶ Ἐρώμενος: Attraction, Love and True Initiation:
https://templeofzeus.org/advancedphilosophy-erasteskaieromenos
And I will start with this quote from the page:
"Plato set the soul's allegiance before birth, in the procession of heaven where each soul followed its God."
This makes me wonder about the concept of choice and will and how each soul following its God could be meaning their perception of Zeus or maybe their Guardian Daemon. Our creation is one where our innate connection to the Gods is our source and reference to Divine Order, but if we had "the choice" to have never felt or had this in the first place, I would argue Humans wouldn't even be Humans anymore. At the very most, we'd be Andrapods.
So I would say here that certain Humans can try to sever this connection and therefore sever their potential toward the Theophoric Human condition, but the Temple of Zeus is here now as the world's greatest opposition against Izfet.
Now for those whose connection was severed to soon and for the soul memory to eventually forget, I do wonder what it would take for them to restore this or find the connections once again.
Moving on, when it comes to the binary of certain people not having any bonds with the Gods, I would like to pose a question. Can you perceive how that would feel like to not a connection to the Gods?
I can attempt to look into their minds, and maybe I'm not spiritually advanced enough to this, but it feels almost impossible. I can maybe imagine it, but it feels like I'm trying to perceive what it would feel like to lose my identity. My connection to the Gods feels as if the very power to perceive and to think, is completely attached to it.
From my understanding, knowing that we lack what it is we desire, is the beginning of our pursuit to attract it. The Gods are within us already, and we desire to manifest them here in our lives. A lot of people always say things such as "I can't wait to see the Gods again." Or "I can't wait for them to come down on Earth, or I can't wait to go where they are." These are all statements of lack. These are all statements of the Striver.
The Initiate is the one who can begin to say, "I see the Gods every day."
So another quote from the page:
"The followers of Zeus, Plato adds, seek a soul like Zeus,"
This now reminds me of what we seek within our own family members, within our friends, within our husbands and wives, within our children and grandchildren, and within ourselves. I truly believe that if we've seen this soul within us, then at least on some level, we've seen it in others as well. This is evident to me as another example of the Gods being here with us already.
The next quote I'm left to ponder on is:
"None of the Gods loves wisdom or desires to become wise, for he is wise; nor does anyone else who is wise love wisdom."
High Priest Zevios Metathronos and other advanced members have told us that we shouldn't delusion ourselves into completely believing we have the things we don't, such as anyone doing performing financial workings but pretending they have a million dollars in their wallet already. I understand that visualization is important during the practice itself, but without the material work that is involved to attract this, the affirmations alone won't manifest. So the above quote is describing the one who has manifested already, giving us a glimpse and understanding of what that feels like. Of what the mind naturally perceives.
Of all the reasons why a Striver can fail, they all seem connected to the failure to understand the love they should have for themselves as well. How do we feel the Gods? How do we receive their gifts? It's through ourselves. The generation of a Higher Power, of a divine feeling or of an epiphany, comes through us properly aligning ourselves through the Gods. Many fail because they build a barrier between what they believe is external and internal power, and they don't realize that a love of one's self, opens up to receive the love of the Gods as well.
So the Initiated understands that when love is received and given back, it is a shared perpetual cycle of Beauty being expressed. This is the summit of creation, where "seeking a soul like Zeus" is no longer a potential dream, but a constant back and forth flow of existence. The manifestation and expression of Heaven on Earth. The soul who manifests Heaven and Earth is an aspect of the Perfected Human. And towards the final quotes of this page:
"The man who uses rightly the reminders of what he once saw, "being always initiated into perfect initiations, alone becomes truly perfect,"
An additional note I will add:
To the Strivers who who have shown consistency, wether in meditation, ritual performance, forum activity, translations, outreach, even VT social activity or any of the other projects the Temple has been working on, and then suddenly (or even progressively), stopped altogether. And not only for a break, but for months on end or even years.
If you're lurking and reading this right now, then simply put, you're already one foot past the door to come back. It's better than not reading in the forums at all, which for others who aren't here at all anymore, it is their challenge alone to at least take a peak at the forums once again. Even for you coming back to read, it can feel like a challenge in itself. There could be shame that needed to be overcome, feelings of insecurity that needed to be silenced, or simply reallocating mental energy from a busy day to focusing on coming back to the Zevist community.
Just know that you can be proud of your first step reading and coming back, and to become Initiated into the Love of the Gods, let's get past whatever the situation or mental state that has been holding you back.
This is it. It is time.
Thank you all for reading and I'm looking forward to reading your reviews here as well.