True Inner Sight

When I think like this, I am experiencing light.

You are touched by a feeling – it is true inner sight.

I know those I love as the greater part of me,

But then the reason is unspeakable.

It must remain a mystery.

Still I would pray to feel the action of creation.

It is thought to me – your ecstasy –

My heart, your inspiration.

Is there a simple way to plan the course of each new day?

By free will, you are determining.

You are the teacher.

I am the way.

Hopes, dreams or visions?

The journey is yours –

Cast off all burdens and walk through the doors,

To me.

The encounter with souls?

Be as one:

Perfectly whole like a star. Overcome

Other reflections – those lunar rays

Dazzle the senses to madness in ways

Which mortal connections interpret as bliss.

But wholly uncertain is light-feigned.

RESIST.

A keen mind uncovers the mystery of age

With prophetic books. The curtain is raised

On secrets – the manuscripts – found and unfurled,

Longed-for and meant to bring sight to the world.

The essence of beauty is shown and unbound. Say:

“Darkness be banished to deep underground.”

How did it happen that we met him?

Truly, our life is guided – from the other side of it, so to speak – with a far greater wisdom than is ours in guiding it from this side. Often in later life we meet a human being who becomes of extreme importance in our life. When we think back: How did we live until the moment when we met him?

Then our entire life seems like the very pathway to the meeting. It is as though we had tended every step, that we might find him at the right moment – or that we might find him at all, at a certain moment.

We need only ponder the following: Think, my dear friends, what it signifies for fully conscious human reflection. Think of what it means to find another human being in a given year of life, thenceforth to experience, work or achieve – whatever it may be – in common with him.

Think what it means, what emerges as the impulse that led up to it, when we reflect on this quite consciously. When we begin to think: How did it happen that we met him? It will probably occur to us that we first had to experience an event with which many other people were connected, for otherwise the opportunity would not have arisen for us to meet him in this life. And, that this event might happen, we had to undergo still another event….and so on.

We find ourselves in the midst of the most complex chain of circumstances, all of which had to occur, into all which we had to enter, so as to reach this or that decisive experience. And now we may perhaps reflect: If the task had been set us – I will not say at the age of one, but let us say at the age of fourteen – to solve the riddle consciously: to bring about in our fiftieth year a decisive meeting with another human being; if we imagine that we had to solve it consciously, like a mathematical puzzle – think what it would involve!

Consciously, we human beings are so appallingly stupid, whereas what happens with us in the world is so infinitely wise, when we take into account such things as these. When we begin to think along these lines, we become aware of the immense intricacy and deep significance in the workings of our destiny or karma. And this all goes on in the domain of the human kingdom. All that thus happens to us is deep in the unconscious life. Until the moment when a decisive event approaches us it lies in the unconscious.

Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Esoteric Studies, Vol. 1

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

The Vale Atlantic

As I sat beside thee
In the world of other dreams,
I set out to find the truth.
From the beach my other seemed
So distant. He,
Of whom the dolphin sings.
Swam we two –
The pool of midnight
Stretched before us,
Shimmering strangely –
Slowly through the vale
Atlantic,
Shining waters,
Care of Neptune.
Swam we to
The graceful daughters,
Each would rake the moon’s reflection,
So we felt
In peeling sections
Waves, and sought our destination.
All before,
The dreaming Aeon,
All behind,
The reams of age.
All beneath,
Was darkness beckoning.
All above, with wings,
We praised.

The White Age

Come back now

Thank goodness that was over – a second more and I would definitely have started panicking – I wasn’t at my best underwater, but so often seemed to find myself in that position whenever I became conscious of my situation.

Why, I asked myself, did ‘holidays’ almost invariably end with being captured by the sea? The only time I had really experienced a watery destination and had managed to avoid going under was when I had gone to the prior existence of the light side with Peter, a place of virtual hieroglyphic communication, very close to the ancient Sanskrit lands. How I would love to recall that tale, for it was truly the epic journey of my most sublime imagination, an Arabian night made day.

There, the water had been azure, the vista of magical blue eternity studded with islands of far-reaching heart-felt wishes. A breathtaking view indeed and if I should ever recall or revisit that fathomless beach of my Odyssey, surely I would declare unto it the homage of a thousand sighs in words, without weeping.

This was the fantasy of the East as it was in the eye of the creator, reflection in light of the land near and far, mystical pre-incarnation of a maharaja’s dream. Never before seen were those crystal quartets of jewel-like structures, the bathing houses of ideal dimension, gleaming quadratics, defined manifestations of the glittering perception of marble queens. This was no ordinary era, it was the utmost peak of infinity. It was the white age.

There were reams of turquoise, ether avenues of ultraviolet stone, columns of mystique, the foundations of purity in a destination almost unseen, all at the origin of eternity’s horizon, whilst onward stretched the shore of our forever on the smoothest sea of love….

It’s at this point that my memory fails, though in my minds eye I still see the crystal waters, which none can remove from my understanding of mysteries, far beyond the green of the Zoroastrian glade.

Not too far back

Universal Time Piece

With the roll steady I faced the window, through which both the moon and Venus could be seen shining on that particular night, in conjunction. I clearly remember seeing them and can picture them now, because they were spectacularly close together. Standing between them I stood stock still.

Apart from my right arm, that is, which was busy from the elbow out, apparently winding something up that was seriously heavy. Perhaps the actual universal time piece. The movement had been clockwise.

I had always assumed that the world turned in 3 ways simultaneously, so in an attempt to get the third way right I turned in the opposite direction and started to make a slow elliptical movement with my hips, in a position facing the guitar case belonging to my boyfriend, that was propped against the wall.

For some reason this provoked an undeniable sense of danger which I tried in vain to place.

After a few seconds I was disturbed to realize that I had been unconsciously yet meditatively staring into the small silver clasps at the bottom of the case. These threw off a distinct enough reflection of myself to warrant a hasty turnaround.

At this point I struck the first of two strong convictions that I happened upon that night; namely: that I must at all costs avoid the sight of my own reflection whilst in that particular (alternative) state of consciousness. The second was about not being trapped in time.

After a few more disturbed gyrations, my actions somehow arrested by having thought too hard, I fell light-heartedly onto the bed and closed my eyes, feeling wonderfully satisfied with my spinning achievement.

Precession of the Equinoxes

Descending twilight saw the Master sitting on the floor facing East in a distinctly prayerful posture, calling the Earth to witness. By the time the sun had set and Venus rose like a diamond on its band of gold, each cardinal direction and each of the elements had been called upon in turn.

Flame, Air, Water, Earth, Reflection; Starlight is the love inflection.

Looking up at the sky, the Master saw how the quintessential force was thrown into relief by the glowing pharos of Mars, silently beckoning his paramour as he bequeathed to her the dark and endless night.

The god of war was preparing his surrender at the temple of beauty, but he also had a message for the Master and this was the key to understanding other things:

Here in orbit turn the star-lings – planets binding, suns inclining – in such ways that whole dimensions fold inside the vaults of Heaven.

Mars was in perfect conjunction with Venus and the half moon, signaling the return of The Lovers to Earth.

Not only this, but the equinoxes were on the verge of their precession; together they gave rise to the most potent cosmic conditions that had been witnessed from Earth since the Star of the Magi heralded the turning point of history.

That the cosmic design might remain undefined was inconceivable, but how, precisely, it manifest was a mystery beyond even this:

“Meek”, He said, “the World is Thine,

This the reason: Just, Divine.

Bless these words, inform the start.

Energy, Created Art.”

Soaring Eagle

Half an hour later the Master re-emerged sans magazine or whiskey glass but clutching to heart an exceedingly large, old and important-looking volume.

The much-lamented loss of Pros Theon had abruptly ended a few short minutes after entering the small, cluttered bathroom, where it was at the bottom of an ever-increasing pile of toilet-reading material and duly rescued by its ecstatic owner.

Tremendously relieved, ten or twelve years of life added back on – a full Jupiter return! – the Master placed the book on the desk in the study, switched on the ancient desk lamp and turned to the penultimate section:

‘Los Días de la Transformación’; The Days of Transformation.

Translating and interpreting the elaborate text was a mission. It took every effort of will and much metaphorical ploughing for the book to yield its rare fruits.

After only half an hour the Master, who had a surprisingly short attention span for one given to meditating, looked up from the text and out of the window for inspiration. In that same instant a piercing set of eyes imparted the truth – a reminder – with almost unfathomable simplicity:

‘‘Forwards backwards; time is taking
Cosmic steps through every section.
Herein find the secret waiting:
Future from the past; reflection.’

Soaring Eagle then spread his wings and flew towards the Master, who felt like a very small child in that same instant and rushed towards the great bird as if pulled along on some invisible line between them.

Quill of Hermes

Marked these words the quill of Hermes:
Raise the green-lipped youth Adonis.
Listen well, as if to Eros,
See the truth within his promise.

Through the self, a solar system
Metes out time. The planets singing,
Seal in lines the great revision.
“Light!” The cosmic bells are ringing.

Truth reflects within the like minds,
As are scanned the skies sky for giants’
Astronomic temples; sun-signs
Trace the thread of ancient science.

There in orbit turn the star-lings,
Planets binding, suns inclining,
In such ways that whole dimensions
Fold inside the vaults of Heaven.

Angels watch the hidden stargates –
One from North, a second South-side –
East and West. The seal is six-faced,
Secret form: A cube-shaped inside.

Know the birds sing as you enter
Into space. The sidereal turning
Back reveals inside the memories,
Log-book of a life-times’ journeys.

Star flight is the love inflection,
Four plus one, the whole quintessence.
Flame, Air, Water, Earth, Reflection,
Quantum leaps in five directions.

Twelve the signs that mark the time-piece,
Zodiacal months and sections.
Fiery Water, Earth-Air, star suite.
‘Now behold the Ram,’ says Hermes.