Ganymede progression

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: I know Alex has seen this thread because he has thanked others and my understanding is he produced the lesson. So why the silence?? What is the big secret? Once again this failure to answer just smells like... well you know.

Perhaps finding the answers to your questions is part of the lessons? Or put another way, would Daniel have properly received the lessons of "wax-on, wax-off" if his sensei told him up front why he was making him do them?

EDIT: Transparency is by and large a desirable thing, but sometimes you gotta retain a little mystery.

Brick wrote:

Ari wrote: I guess. I just see people working through these lessons and their responses aren't really what I'd consider good enough

I hope you're not talking about me

Of course not, you're great.

Arisaig wrote:

Brick wrote: What did you find so weird about it that made you decline the lesson?

The only thing I think that's weird about it is the name. The rest of it seems pretty standard, I mean half the IP is basically 'write about your thought and feelings on *insert topic here*' :laugh:

Well yeah, stuff like that is in the IP... but I've been against such things in the AP and beyond for a while now. I dunno, just feels way too low level for knights and knights-in-training.

I've done stuff like it in my apprenticeship, with the chakras, but it isn't just my "thoughts and feeling about x topic", but a in depth analysing of my emotions, stresses, ect ect. That seems more on par of the higher standard that should be set beyond the IP. To regress down into IP level stuff after the IP just feels... meh.

Continued and repeated self reflection to me anyway is a very important and critical part of the path no matter where you are in it, up all the way and including master. We should always be checking ourselves to see if we have gone too far astray or have gotten blinded by many other distractions. It's also a too way to compare against previously done versions to see how we have evolved or devolved as well. It doesn't stop even after training is over.

The myth of Ganymede has nothing to do with paedophilia ... Besides, that practice in ancient Greek society was not like unto what is seen as child molestation (or sex with a minor) today. It was an honourable practice with some pretty strict terms attached to it.

Nevertheless, the rationale for why the lesson is called the Ganymede Progression does indeed have much to do with the myth. First, the "most beautiful of mortals" was a humble shepherd. Not a prince, not a rich Athenian -- just a shepherd boy. Zeus became enamoured by him and came to carry him up to Olympus. There, he became a favourite of all the gods - being the "cup bearer" ("cups" being a symbol of the heart, or our feeling/intuitive nature). Feeling precedes thought in all matters ; the rational (logic) is founded on the non-rational (feeling). The beauty of humility in service to divinity (review Campbell for that one -- or explore Eliade, and /or Buber ...)

Ganymede was the only one of Zeus' lovers to be immortalised. This invokes (and perhaps evokes -- but that is not clear, since the question is being posed) transcendence beyond the physical -- gaining favour with the "gods" (the giving of oneself to something greater than an individual is as an isolated being) thus transcending the limited identity of just being a "hot guy".

You will notice that none of those concepts/notions which the GP explores are very sophisticated abstractions from analytical philosophy : they are all relatively simple terms that we all think we know something about just through common sense (the worst kind of sense, when one thinks about it), but when we have to intro-outro-reintro-spect on them, we find their scope just a little out of our grasp. Hence, the dialogue with the TM is indispensable -- or a clergy person -- or just your dog/cat/goldfish sometimes.

Of course, I also have personal reasons for dedicating that lesson to Ganymede, but that has only to do with how the myth strikes me in my own experience of life with another's experience of life.

Note : Hera was furious....

@alex when was she not at him? ... smiley face

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: @alex when was she not at him? ... smiley face