Christopher Murphy elaborates on each verse of the Hekatombe of Guidance, a treatise composed by him consisting of 100 verses on spiritual cultivation and on living a philosophic way of life.

The Hekatombe of Guidance

Verse 13. Delight in the association with the wise and prefer their company to all others. As Plato says in his epistles, when the master and the disciple contemplate the higher realities together over and over, a self-sustaining flame leaps from the heart of the master and ignites in the disciple. The all-consuming flame of wisdom in your own self is easiest lit by another flame.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 13: Association With The Wise

Verse 12: The waking-self is a different person in a different world than the dream-self. The dream-self is a different person in a different world than the waking-self. Both feel that their world is valid, both have their own history and purpose, their own cares and concerns. All of the cares of the waking-self disappear when the dream-self arises, and all of the cares of the dream-self disappear when the waking-self arises. The parent who loves their children so much in the daytime cannot even remember the names of their children during the night while sleeping. The dream self may be in the midst of a grave battle to save their friends all night long but can't even remember the battle or their friends upon waking. The waking-self doesn't know the dream-self, nor the dream-self the waking-self; who is it that knows both and is therefore neither? Turn your contemplations towards that self who neither wakes nor dreams.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 12: The Waking Self And The Dream Self

Verse 15. It is good to learn to think and even speak without constant dependence on the first- person pronouns, so as to gradually wean the mind off of its dependence on self. It is even better to avoid applying "I-ness" to all objects, since objects never have been and never will be part of the "I". Let the table rest on its own, without calling it "my table". Let a friend be a friend without being "my friend". There is no such thing as "mine". Will you then make life decisions about imaginary things?

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 15: Privatizing Life

Verse 14: Take friendship seriously and do not treat it like a light thing that only exists for your own amusement or pleasure. A real friendship is a coming together in spirit between people and is ruled by The Good twice over; once for the union of what was separate, and once for the mutual betterment that results from real friendship. The Good is itself the cause of union and betterment, and this is why the Greeks called Zeus the God of Friendship, and why Plato so often remembers him in this office during the dialogues.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 14: Taking Friendship Seriously

Verse 16. Be an original thinker and strip yourself naked of all previous conditioning from culture, era, family, friends, and teachers. Investigate your own mind and see how many thoughts are not your own but come from others. Rid yourself of these as much as possible and learn to think freely and originally.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 16: Original Thinking

Verse 17. Do not be attached to memory; it is merely an imagination. Do not have reactions and ideas about your memories; they are merely imaginations of imaginations. What is an imagination of an imagination? Insanity, delusion, and oblivion.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 17: Memory As Imagination

Verse 18: Do not worry about things over which you have no power or influence; the world is mostly made of things you have no control over. You are not the master of providence and fate, so accept these things as belonging to a God more powerful than you. Worry more over how you respond to the work of Providence than the work of Providence itself.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 18: Fortune, Fate, And Providence

Verse 19: Before you do anything, know what it is you do. Then you will be prepared for the outcome of your actions as much as mortals are allotted. If you go to reconcile two people with each other then there are only two likely outcomes; they are reconciled, or they are not. Is it any wonder if either of these two occur? Then why act surprised?

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 19: Outcome Of Action

Verse 20: Consider the action more than the result, for the action you have some power over but the result is an offering - willing or unwilling - to the god of Providence and Fate. The willing sacrifice receives the boon of a sacrifice well made, but the unwilling laments and wails as if that very sacrifice were not a boon but a tax and a penalty.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 20: Action And Reward

Verse 1: Do not leave behind one virtue for the sake of another. Is it virtuous to destroy one virtue in pursuit of another? Always find the best course of action with your own investigation. If there is no good course of action then the action itself lacks goodness so abandon it completely and move on.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 1: Prioritizing Virtues

Verse 2: Tend to the cares of the body; there is virtue in strength and health. A body full of its natural virtues is better soil for the seeds of wisdom than a body that is weak and sick. By tending to what is lower you nourish what is higher, and by tending to what is higher you nourish what is lower. What is lower is the body, and the self-control and discipline required for a sound body will also support a sound mind and intellect. What is higher is the Intellect, and the philosopher who tends to it through reason and contemplation will likewise realize the importance of the body and take care to nourish it.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 2: Care Of Body And Intellect

Verse 3: The philosophic work must be continued at all times; waking or sleeping, sick or healthy, still or moving, laying down or standing up. Do you want a realization that comes and goes, or one that is always present? A practice that comes and goes will produce a realization that comes and goes, but a practice that is unceasing will give rise to an unceasing Gnosis.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 3: On Persistence

Verse 4: Otherness is the sickness of the soul, but sameness is its medicine. Balance your inner sameness with your inner otherness and enjoy a happy life. Gradually purify yourself of all otherness and the unity of Intellect will gradually unveil itself. Immediately drop all otherness and spontaneous enlightenment shines forth. Forget even the existence of otherness and all that remains is the One.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 4: Sameness And Otherness

Verse 5. If you hope for any progress in the spiritual life then treat others as yourself. This is a double-edged sword; on the one side it cuts your own ego, and on the other it severs the knots of difference and otherness. To treat others as others is to affirm your own ego and separation from the One.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 5: Treat Others As Yourself

Verse 6: Always be contemplating your own nature. The turning of the mind on itself over and over gradually rubs it away in the friction of contemplation until nothing of the mind remains.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 6: Constant Contemplation Of Our Nature

Verse 7: By respecting living things we honor what is good in them; by honoring what is good in them we honor the Good itself; by honoring the Good itself we draw nearer to Goodness.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 7: Honoring The Good

Verse 8: Call to attention the good traits of a person over their vices and weaknesses, preferring to remember what is good and beautiful in someone instead of what is ugly. In this way you diminish what is ugly and pitiful in them and strengthen what is good and noble.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 8: Seeing Good In Others

Verse 9: The Sun shines its light and gives life in abundance, Nature gives rise to the myriad things and nourishes them in abundance, and all that is great signifies its greatness by its unending outpouring from its own abundance. So too do the sages pour their own abundant goodness out to all beings, shining like the Sun, nourishing like nature.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 9: Outpouring Of Goodness

Verse 10. Contemplate your own death so that you might remember what was there before you were born and what will remain after you have died. Do not think about name and fame, but instead assume no one will remember you for long after you have passed away. Even your own family - which you loved so much and who cared for you so deeply - will think of you less and less after they have dropped you in a hole in the ground or burned your body into ashes. Socrates has said that philosophy is preparation for death, so prepare yourself for what nothing can escape save that which is immortal and deathless. But what is it that dies? That which was born. Then what is it that is deathless? That which was never born.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 10: Contemplating Death

Verse 11. Virtue demands true genuineness. To be genuine means to be wholly one person; the same in private as in public. Is virtue only a public or private affair? It must illumine the life of the person completely. Without real genuineness of character a person becomes many people; one person in private and another in public, one person with friends and another with strangers, one person at work and another when home. Such a person is not living one life but many, and so the virtue will only shine in one of their many lives instead of shining in the whole of their life. A partial virtue is not real virtue. Only a life that has become whole and true to itself is capable of being truly virtuous.

https://www.3awakenings.com/

Hekatombe Verse 11: Genuineness And Virtue

Philosophy is the pathless path; our inborn search for Truth. It is the hope of Christopher Murphy that through his teaching endeavors he can remind others of this innate search for Truth and empower them to see the Eternal with their own eyes.

thethreeawakenings@gmail.com

The Hekatombe of Guidance

Three Awakenings