Since it’s topical, here’s a reprint of a similarly themed but less verbose post I made back in May 2006, in a thread entitled “The Nature of God”, which has affectionately become known as “Erwin’s Khabs & Khu post”:

First, definitions. The “Khabs” is the individual essence, an individual’s true nature. Since nature depends entirely on behaviour (even the colour of an object is determined by how it interacts with light) this is really indistinguishable from true will.

This individual essence is, of course, an integral part of totality, and being so integral cannot perceive itself as separate to the universe. This being so, it cannot consciously experience from a position of self awareness. Thus, it “clothes” or “veils” itself with self awareness and consciousness. This awareness gives the individual essence the appearance of being able to direct its own actions and being able to experience from an individual (i.e. separate) point of view. This clothing, this veil, is the “Khu”.

It is this veiling of the individual essence, the creation of the sense of self, which is the source of all suffering – the sorrows that “are but as shadows (II:9)”, but as described above it is also clearly the source of all experience. This is the story of creation outlined in Liber AL, “For I am divided [made separate] for love’s sake, for the chance of union [experience]. (I:29)” Nuit, being the sum of all possibility, cannot experience those possibilities without creating self aware individuals, since experience requires at least one object doing the experiencing, and other object being experienced. Therefore at least one of those objects must be aware of itself as being distinct from the other.

The “old aeon” approach to the problem of suffering is familiar, to be reborn through effort. The key is that it was assumed an individual had to develop, to reach a new state, to become something more than – or more simply, something other than – he already is. This belief is widely held today, as can be evidenced by all the self help books (“How you can change your life!”), moral guidance (“do the right thing!”), career guidance (“how to get ahead at work!”), mental health treatments (“be more like us!”), oppressive socialist governments (“fit into society!”) and any host of other phemomena you care to mention. Whatever the problem is, the solution today is always to do something different, be something different, be someone different. Whatever the topic of interest is, you can be sure that whatever you are, or whatever you are doing, is wrong, and that the way forward is to fix it, to do or to become something else.

The quote from I:8 that I gave puts a lie to this lunacy. “The Khabs is in the Khu” – the individual essence, the true will, is inside what you commonly call yourself. “not the Khu in the Khabs” – what you commonly call yourself is not something that needs to reach out to an external object, whether it be god or anything else, to fulfill itself. The Khu is merely the vehicle of the Khabs, to give any credence to its idea of self-interest is madness; the Khu is not the true individual, but its possession.

The confusion of the old aeon is that suffering – awareness – is a symptom of a problem, and that that problem needs to be fixed by joining with – in other words, becoming – something else, something new. The answer of the new aeon is to recognize that suffering as what it is, “shadows…that pass & are done (II:9)”, and to simply (!) shift the seat of consciousness to the individual essence, the true will – “Worship then the Khabs (I:9)”. Suffering is a phenomena of the consciousness, and the consciousness belongs to the individual, not he to it. One does not (usually) feel pain when one’s car is damaged. He will then naturally conduct himself properly along the lines of his true will (since the shadows will no longer distort it) instead of according to some arbitrary moral code (“The word of Sin is Restriction (I:41)”) which characterized the last two millenia, i.e. he will “behold my light shed over you (I:9)”. Those who mistake the suffering they experience for their own – they who mistake their Khu for themselves – are trapped, for they base their entire existence on a mistaken belief, that they must become something other than they are, when in reality they must do exactly the opposite, to “become more themselves than they already are”, i.e. to smooth the veils of the Khu until they become transparent. By definition, you cannot become something other than you are without physical death, so the cycle of misery will be endless until this point if you accept this erroneous concept.

“Yea! deem not of change: ye shall be as ye are, & not other. Therefore the kings of the earth shall be Kings for ever: the slaves shall serve. There is none that shall be cast down or lifted up: all is ever as it was. (II:58)”