Love as the Cosmic Principle

One becomes conscious of the pure act of intelligence only by means of its reflection. We require an inner mirror in order to be conscious of the pure act. The breath of the Spirit – or the pure act of intelligence – is certainly an event, but it does not suffice, itself alone, for us to become conscious of it. Con-sciousness is the result of two principles – the active, activating principle and the passive, reflecting principle.

In order to know from where the breath of the Spirit comes and where it goes, Water is required to reflect it: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of Water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God (John iii, 5).

Reintegrated consciousness must be born of Water and Spirit, after Water has once again become Virginal and Spirit has once again become divine Breath or the Holy Spirit

Christian yoga does not aspire directly to unity, but rather to the unity of two. This is very important for understanding the standpoint which one takes towards the infinitely serious problem of unity and duality. For this problem can open the door to truly divine mysteries and can also close them to us….for ever, perhaps, who knows? Everything depends on its comprehension.

We can decide in favour of monism and say to ourselves that there can be one sole essence, one sole being. Or we can decide – in view of considerable historical and personal experience – in favour of dualism and say to ourselves that there are two principles in the world: good and evil, spirit and matter, and that, entirely incomprehensible though this duality is at root, it must be admitted as an incontestable fact.

We can, moreover, decide in favour of a third point of view, namely that of love as the cosmic principle which presupposes duality and postulates its non-substantial but essential unity. These three points of view are found at the basis of the Vedanta and Spinozism (monism), Manichaeism and certain gnostic schools (dualism) and the Judaeo-Christian current (love).

Meditations on the Tarot, Letter II, The High Priestess

Lambdoma

In the foreground stands the dual conception of God, which takes on undeniable importance from the data concerning the king of the world. According to this ancient tradition, a superior divinity (0/0), not further defined in this context, ordered our world initially on clearly established principles embodied by an intermediary, the King of the World, who was charged with supervising them.

One of the most significant aspects to emerge is an implicit dualism symbolised by the concepts of peace and justice. We have just stated that these words conceal polarised values, one positive and the other negative. It is well known that the construction of the world on the basis of two antithetical principles is an age-old concept: it is best known as the yang and yin of Chinese tradition, but also forms an important element of Pythagorean philosophy.

It must be emphasised that this dualism does not issue from the highest divinity (0/0) but only from the demiurgic one (1/1), in other words, that this dualism is by no means all-encompassing, but merely proper to “our” world. This involves a fundamental problem shared by all religions and philosophies and considered insoluble until now: the question of an explanation for evil in the world.

Fabre d’Olivet discusses it extensively in connection with Pythagorean ideas, though admittedly he is also unable to solve it, and refers only to ancient esotericism. We believe, however, that we are justified in treating this question too, in the light of the Lambdoma, since, as we have shown, the Lambdoma appears to be in very close agreement with the features of the King of the World, and hence with our world’s own principles.

Since in ancient traditions this cosmic dualism is mentioned in paired terms such as say and night, light and dark, etc, we can immediately assign everything negative, or evil, to one side of the Lambdoma (the”left”, as it were). If we look more closely, however, at the acoustic series, a new fact reveals itself: the overtone and undertone rows that give the diagram its apparent external symmetry are not equal principles in nature. As a natural law, only the overtones exist: it has never been possible to demonstrate undertones.

Therefore the so-called undertones rows of the Lambdoma are merely reflections, introduced susequently as it were: inversions of the mathematical law of the overtone row. They can be re-created not only in numbers, but also in the individual tones easily produced on a monochord. Unlike the overtone row that automatically appears at every generation of sound, however, the undertone row does not exist as a holistic natural phenomenon.

Consequently the second “negative” principle of the Lambdoma is only a derived one, extracted from the positive law by way of inversion (reciprocity) and thus artificial. We could almost apply t he same words metaphysically (and the justification for that we have already provided above). Accordingly, the evil in the world does not proceed from the highest divinity (0/0), nor is it an equal partner in a strict dualism, but it derives secondarily from a superior good by way of inversion. In other words, the evil in the world is in no way a property to be derived directly from God, but is o nly something “ordained”: intended, as it were, for our world, and having a very specific function.

Rufolf Haase, Harmonies and Sacred Tradition, from Cosmic Music, Musical Keys to the Interpretation of Reality edited by Joscelyn Godwin