An excerpt from “TMI or Karma Yoga: A Fool’s Journey”

By Soror Beth Shemesh

( Published in The Lifted Lance, Vol.VI, Issue II)

Since I found out it existed, I have always wanted to bring NOTOCON to Salem (even before the temple moved to our fair city). Four years later, I wrote my proposal after the Kaaba Officers suggested we might not need to wait until 2009 e.v., as I had envisioned.

I have experienced so much love and hospitality at home and by traveling to various local bodies for initiations, small events, and, of course, NOTOCONs. I wanted to give it back on a LARGE scale with a vision to reflect and transmit the delight from my experiences. It seemed the logical choice for me, as I wrote in my letter to the Conference Committee:

Carae Sorores et Fratres of the NOTOCON Committee,

Please accept this proposal as an offer and oath to coordinate and host the 2007 National OTO Conference. You will find attached a basic proposal outlining where I am presently in its development.

I have had the honor of attending two consecutive conferences and hope that I have learned from the examples set by my brave Sistren who guided these events into beautiful fruition. We each have our own backgrounds and skill sets, but we all began our careers in the OTO learning the same fundamentals of Fraternity and Hospitality.

When one attends NOTOCON it is for the express purpose of gathering within the bonds of our Fraternity; to bask in the company of our brethren. Without the hospitality of our hosts, however, it would be a pale shadow of that which each of us finds in our own Thelemic communities.

I have built much of my work within the Order around these two concepts, learning to walk the path of Karma Yoga; to do the work without thought to the reward or recognition that may result.

I see hosting NOTOCON as the obvious next step on my Fool’s Journey… the ultimate opportunity to receive and entertain my Brethren ‘with kindness and without reward’; in short to emulate the highest standards of hospitality which I first experienced on my journey to the City of the Sun.

Now I could really take my new philosophy for a walk; it has been grand and I hope it goes well and everyone has a wonderful time. A lot of wonderful persons have poured their essence into this Love In, pursuing alternately the path of knowledge or of action.

“The world is imprisoned in its own activity, except when actions are performed as worship of God. Therefore you must perform every action sacramentally, and be free from all attachments to results” (Prabhavananda and Isherwood, 1995: p18).

A few years ago I would have been freaking out right now from the stress and work, but I am calm, ten days prior to the event. It must be the benefit of this non-attachment suit I have been trying to wear. I have had moments of weakness, but tried to keep it close and personal. I have even been sick less, which was often proportional to my stress levels. I have noticed personal improvements as a side effect of my work, not an objective.

Of objectives, there can be only one: Thou hast no right but to do thy will (CCXX, I:42). The Love must be for the Divine. I pray to my daemon, I offer up energies, emotions, and ecstasies, all upon the altar of my Beloved. My Work is in Their Honor. I tip my hat to the Secret Lover who inspires me, even when I know Them not. I see the ideal me in Them. I see Them in all of you. We are One. We are None.

“In the calm of self-surrender you can free yourself from the bondage of virtue and vice during this very life. Devote yourself therefore to reaching union with Brahman. To unite the heart with Brahman and then to act: that is the secret of non-attached work. In the calm of self-surrender, the seers renounce the fruits of their actions, and so reach enlightenment “(P&I, p13).