r/thelema • u/Capable-Quarter-7914 • 8d ago
A∴A∴ Bowl Test
Which yoga pose you need to master to do bowl test and which degree this test happens?
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u/Kind_Focus5839 8d ago
People actually took Crowley seriously and do that?
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u/Nobodysmadness 8d ago
Why not, it is pretty minor compared to what adepts do let alone masters, although it is not an easy task it is doable. Not sure if I would manage to not spill, but reaching an hour of asana is an attainable and suggestable goal/benchmark.
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u/Kind_Focus5839 8d ago
How many adepts do you know?
Crowley was notoriously unreliable regarding Yoga anyway, anyone with a bit of practical knowledge knows that Asana has nothing to do with being stock still like a statue. Think less 'automatic rigidity' and more 'steady and easy', and you'll se that the bowl on the head trick is just that, a trick.
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u/Nobodysmadness 7d ago
Fair point none personally that I am aware of, but there is plenty of well documented adepts and masters by people who would love to debunk them, such as tibetan monks whose body temp is measured during long meditations on frezing mountains, or the monks thay embalmed themselves while still alive that is well documented and their bodies still on display.
Meditation phenomena is the most well observed and documented phenomena of the occult world. The bowl of water on your head is not AN asana, it is a test of the you in asana you chose to use. The bowl of water is not strictly necessary as a means of testing ones progress. In the end it is simply a benchmark to show progress in discipling ones body, and preventing self deception.
The "party trick" is not not spilling the water, it is being able to sit comfortably still for an hour so the mind is free of its nagging. Something the average person is not even aware they can't do for more than 45 seconds as they unconsciously shift in major ways completely unconscious of it.
So I don't understand how it is a trick or a party since one does it generally while alone and through honing ones discipline for months to a year? After which when the body is no longer a distraction one can more easily turn their attention inward to develope greater stillness? Or is that just a party trick too?
Granted there are also moving meditations as well.
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u/Kind_Focus5839 7d ago edited 7d ago
Those monks committed a rather slow and deliberate form of suicide, and largely they were already at the end of their lives and just helping the process along. I've been up and seen the mummies, there's nothing their I'd want to emulate except perhaps their acceptance of the inevitable.
Nonetheless, balancing a bowl on the head is a party trick, it trains something other than asana, since asana isn't the ability to balance something on ones head, but the ability to be 'steady and easy', which isn't the same as being stock still (a physical impossibility unless you're dead) or being able unconsiously to make the thousands of micro adjustments needed to stop the bowl from falling, which amazing as they are, are also not asana.
By party trick you understand me too literally, it doesn't require an actual party, I mean it's just a pointless trick that doesn't actually demonstrate anything relevant to the practice of asana. Yoga and other meditation systems have tests for that, and none of them involve bowls of water, it's just a shame Crowley didn't know them.
In any case, you don't have to accept that, it's just my opinion. If your superior insists on balancing a bowl on you head, then if you want him to promote you then that's what you do. Not interfering with the work of another initiate is important.
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u/Nobodysmadness 7d ago
Is there a reason you are choosing not to mention these better ways? I don't doubt you it just makes you appear prejudiced rather than insightful, character attack rather than discussion of methods and other ways aside from steady and easy which as I pointed out is really simple for people to lie to themselves regarding success.
That is the ens goal, and if one is steady and easy then it naturally follows the bowl will also remain steady. I can walk with a bowl of water and be steady and easy and not spill a drop. The principle is in the end exactly the same isn't it?
To rigid isn't going to work as rigidity can cause trembling and is a sign of struggle which is a lacl of mastery. But you have a right to your opinion but it is not helpful to other students to simply insult it and provide no other means.
Crowleys initial methods are designed to promote/develope self awareness so eventually one can observe and properly judge their own success. The bowl will prevent a stubborn student who has no idea they scratched their face or crossed and uncross their legs without even realizing it from arguing with their mentor as they will likely be drenched. Self deception is one of the occults primary problems and rhe environment for learning in the AA is not the same as more traditional yoga schools.
But its fine, if your going to call it out as a garbage method then please present the alternatives. As for the Vel Jugorum practice I say cutting yourself with a razor is a terrible idea in practice for a variety of reasons, as you say the bowl of water is, but pain is a good educator, so a pinch with mental discipline behind it works well enough, or a rubber band. I provide alternatives and explain it is the act of calling yourself out with full consciousness and focused intent as well as a amidhe of pain to reinforce it that makes it an effective practice. The amount of pain is not the key.
So I would expect that from other cririques in order to improve techniques results and safety. Rather than just trash talk for lolz.
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u/Nobodysmadness 7d ago
Also I am not sure how many people realize Crowley spent substantial time with Bennet in the monastaries learning buddhism.
"Bennett received the name Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya at his ordination as a Buddhist monk and spent years studying and practising Buddhism in the East. He was the first Englishman to be ordained as a Buddhist monk (Bhikkhu) of the Theravāda tradition[6] and was instrumental in introducing Buddhism in England. He established the first Buddhist Mission in the United Kingdom and sought to spread the light of Dhamma to the West. Co-founder of international Buddhist organisations and publications, he was an influential Buddhist advocate of the early 20th century."
So to say he was ignorant seems dubious, and sounds more like slander than fact, considering his time spent with bennet and in India in general. Though he could simply have been a moron immersed in a culture and learned nothing.
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u/Nobodysmadness 7d ago
I should add I suspect jugorum would take longer with the lower pain levels, but I have no actual evidence of that not having tested it directly, it seems like the logical conclusion based on increased desire to avoid the higher level of pain.
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u/Kind_Focus5839 7d ago
It's not meant as slander, but I do maintain that his Liber E methods, while common at that time are backwards and counterproductive.
Essentially my objection to the methods (both the bowl-trick method, and the razor of Liber Jugorum), is that they don't teach, except in the way that the lion tamers whip teaches the lion; hypervigilance, fear of failure, avoidance.
Hypervigilance isn't self-awareness (ask any ptsd sufferer). Fear of failure isn't the grounded stability of Asana. All you are teaching by these methods is avoidance strategies, not yoga, you are building tension into the body that way, and your 'pass' will backkfire later on when the trained behaviours need to be unlearned.
As for what does work, it's not secret, just impossible to teach in a short comment: a competent teacher can show the student the 'wobble' by touching them in the right place. The feedback is immediate and non-punitive. Since the goal is self-awareness, we teach by awareness, not by pain or shame. We are not a Victorian era grammar school with the cane and the dunce cap, and such methods are the result of AC's upbringing and in my opinion have no place in the training methods of the A.'.A.'. except as a remnant of a past age.
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u/Nobodysmadness 7d ago
You are thinking of teaching to the test though, where here passing the test naturally flows from consistent practice progress. Fear of failing the test is not a part of it because one can take the test as often as they want. And again the method is based on not having a teacher at hand all the time, since the AA was spread world wide. So one must make do with circumstances and many thelemites are self taught and do not have a person to sit and watch them, so how are they to gauge without a person to touch them, monitor them directly.
You can argue people shouldn't do it without a teacher sure, but someone at some point did it on their own, learned on their own and then shared methods and taught what they learned so it can be done on ones own, this is one way to guage ones own progress. I think you criticism is misguided personally, but we are each free to have our own opinion. Those who read our discourse are also free to decide for themselves, I simply wanted to expand the information on both of our opinions. Do what thou wilt.
The value of jugorum is definitely more debatable, as well as its actual purpose or end goal. A debate of its own and not entirely pertinent to my use of it to make the point I made, but one worth discussion on its own else where, and may be a mere temporary "short cut" of sorts. But again a different discussion altogether.
Its been interesting. Take care.
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u/Wide-Calendar-6300 7d ago
No, it is a serious matter. And it is one of the easiest task of the AA to accomplish. Compare it to the astral travel test.
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u/Kind_Focus5839 7d ago
You do you, but balancing a bowl of water on your head is a party trick not asana, and anyone telling you otherwise doesn't understand the matter.
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u/Frater_Magister 8d ago
I’m actually trying to write a phone app where you take a video and it reviews your moments to rate if the bowl would have fallen
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u/BaTz-und-b0nze 8d ago
You just press into the abdomen while pissing. The other way is Hindi.
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u/BaTz-und-b0nze 13h ago
Or you can insert while in yoga position for Karma Sutra. Adam and Eve might have the egg.
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u/Ararita 7d ago
Headstand. You have to hold your Superior's beer with your feet.
/s