 At the turning point of time The cosmic spirit-light stepped Into earthly evolution; Night darkness Had ended its reign; The bright light of day Streamed into human souls; Light That warms The poor shepherd hearts Light That enlightens The wise kings’ heads. |
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Light divine, Sun of Christ, Warm Our hearts — Enlighten Our heads,
So that good results From what Our hearts beget, What we By thinking Forcefully will to do.
Foundation Stone Meditation, Rudolf Steiner |
It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.
Like the ocean is your god-self;
It remains for ever undefiled.
And like the ether it lifts but the winged. Even like the sun is your god-self;
It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.
But your god-self dwells not alone in your being.
Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,
But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.
*
And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots;
And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.
And you judges who would be just,
What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?
What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?
And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,
Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?
And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?
Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?
Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.
Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.
And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?
Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self,
And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
The setting midsummer sun found the witness in a distinctly prayerful posture, shrouded by heady masala incense and calling Earth to witness. Venus had emerged, triumphant as a diamond on her band of gold, heralding the rising moon and guided to the altar by a vast and dominant Jupiter.
Pondering this crystal-clear sky, the witness could see how the dazzling quintessential force of the even-star was polarised by the glowing pharos of Mars, beckoning his paramour as he bequeathed to her the dark and endless night. The imperator of war was in a state of surrender at the temple of beauty.
The witness wondered about the effects of Mars’ conjunction with Venus, Jupiter and Mercury beyond the perfect moon, at that very instant deflecting onto captivated Earth the magnified potential for an alchemical wedding. This compelling planetary event was irresistibly conspiring with the precession of the equinoxes to create the most potent cosmic conditions that had ever been witnessed from Earth – at least since the Star of the Magi heralded the turning point of history.
Or so it seemed.
How can such a sign be ignored? thought the witness.
The answer was that it could not!
That the divine plan might remain unfulfilled was inconceivable, but how, precisely, it was to manifest would remain the Mother of all Mysteries.
Didn’t I see it just after Halle Bop showed up in ’96 and the moon was side by side with Jupiter?
Or perhaps it had been Venus….
Again there was no answer, but the witness now felt sure this was when the rare and ancient copy of ‘Pros Theon’, which translated into English as ‘By the Gods’, had last been consulted.
But where is it now, for heaven’s sake?
Who could say?
Precisely as the confident sun was crossed by a thick, scudding, cloud, the atmosphere in Mysteries was electrified by morbid anxiety verging on panic. To lose the book would be an unmitigated disaster, of that there could be no doubt. There were only seven known-of copies on the planet, the other two having been lost in the midst of time – one after being buried many moons ago by the earthly entrance to Shambhala – while three updated versions were yet to be recalled and translated from the Akashic records.
A well-preserved copy was with the Dalai Lama, while the elder Rabbi – who had denied its existence no less than 28 times because of his pathological obsession with total secrecy – kept a pristine version within a hidden compartment in his personal library. Mahavatar Babajihad also received a Pros Theon scroll that he subsequently left with his disciples, while an un-heard of Sufi Magician inherited the fifth from his grandfather.
The Catholic Church had the remaining extant copies of Pros Theon. The first was mostly in fragments and frequently misinterpreted due to the high number of puzzling gaps in crucial places, while a second had been retrieved by the Knights Templar from a vault below the Church of the Sepulchre in Jerusalem, shortly before mad caliph al-Hakim came to power in the dark ages.
Sealed in a ruby and amethyst-encrusted casket that was locked with a golden key bearing three perfect emeralds and a set of alchemical sigils that were barely understood by anyone alive or dead, this particular copy of Pros Theon had not been opened for almost 1,000 years and nor would it ever be again.
The witness felt a sudden chill. Was it possible that the only freely available text had been lost or – it hardly bore contemplating – stolen? Oh, the horrors if that were true! The very thought brought about cold sweats and a search that was renewed with marked zelatory.
Holy Moses and Mary, Christ the everlasting Lord, please don’t let Pros Theon fall into the wrong hands. Forgive me for so carelessly misplacing it, I beg of you to let me find The Book…I sense that the shift is now occurring and the world must be told what is written for The Days of Transformation!
If one goes deep enough in atomic physics one ends with a situation of pure chance *
The witness sighed, deep in thought, and approached an overloaded bookcase standing against the Eastern wall of Mysteries’ upper room, near to the point where horoscopes were cast.
Dazzling sunlight rendered a large cross-section of the case invisible with its blinding rays, while the lower parts were swathed in darkness, forming a vivid chiaroscuro on the rich mahogany canvas.
The lovingly burnished bookcase was home to a myriad esoteric masterworks and timeless classics. Ancient volumes interspersed with lavishly illustrated fairy tales and poetry written in the green language were stacked two-deep in places and upside-down in others.
It would not be a simple matter to extract from all of this the book that the witness had in Mind. Indeed, at that moment in time it would prove impossible.
Scanning the shelves intently, following the words on each well-worn spine with a neatly-nailed forefinger, everything but the item sought was readily apparent.
The shadow of a home-spun dream catcher – hypnotically swaying above the wide open window – crept inexorably along the ceiling like a spider’s web as minutes passed by into an hour of fruitless seeking. Church bells began ringing in the middle distance, heralding both an end of day and onset of night, bridging twilight with their other-worldly call to evensong.
Tension swiftly mounted in the upper room, causing a very mild sweat to break out on the witness’ furrowing brow. Thoughts from what was by any standards a wide-open brow chakra permeated the charged atmosphere with a note of concern.
Where on Earth IS the magic book?
* John Fowles, The Magus
At the very end of the New Testament John described the holy of holies that he saw in his vision. There was the throne of God and the Lamb, there was the river of the water of life, and there was the tree of life. The servants of God and the Lamb saw his face and had his name on their foreheads. They stood in a place of perpetual heavenly light, needing neither lamp no sun, and the reigned fore ever (Rev.22.1-5). For the first Christians, this was their vision of heaven.
They were standing in the temple, but not the temple rebuilt by Herod and completed only a few years earlier. They were standing in the temple as it should have been, as it had once been and as they hoped it soon would be, because in their vision they were standing in the true temple. The temple they knew – or had known, since there is no way of dating this vision – had neither the heavenly throne nor the tree of life in the holy of holies. Josephus says that at the end of the second temple period, the holy of holies was empty.
In another part of the vision of the temple, John saw the ark (Rev.11.19) which had been lost for centuries. Later tradition remembered it had disappeared in the time of King Josiah, during the temple purges of 623 BCE. It would be restored in the time of the Messiah, along with the other things that had been in the first temple but not in the second: the fire, the menorah, the Spirit and the cherubim. Since the first temple furnishings symbolised the temple teachings, this was saying that the faith of the second temple was very different from the faith of the original temple.
Margaret Barker, The Mother of the Lord
The clear bead at the center changes everything.
There are no edges to my loving now.
You have heard it said that there is a window
that opens from one mind to another.
But if there is no wall, there is no need
for fitting the window, or the latch.
We take long trips.
We puzzle over the meaning of a painting or a book,
when what we are wanting to see and understand in this world,
we are that.
Does sunset sometimes look like the sun is coming up?
Do you know what a faithful love is like?
You are crying. You say you have burned yourself.
But can you think of anyone who is not hazy with smoke?
Daylight, full of small dancing particles,
and the one great turning,
our souls are dancing with you.
Without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?
They try to say what you are, spiritual or sexual.
They wonder about Solomon and all his wives.
In the body of this world, they say,
there is a soul, and you are that.
But we have ways within each other
that will never be said by anyone.
This human shape is a ghost
made of distraction and pain.
Sometimes pure light, sometimes cruel,
trying wildly to open,
this image so tightly held within itself.
*
The Sufi opens his hand to the universe
and gives away each instant, free.
Unlike someone on the street who begs for money to survive,
a dervish begs to give you his life.
*
Not until someone dissolves,
can he or she know what union is.
That descends only into emptiness.
A lie does not change to truth
with just talking about it.
Soul of this world,
no life, no world remain,
no beautiful men and women longing.
Only this ancient love
circling the holy black stone of nothing,
where the lover is the love,
the horizon and everything within it.
It may be sometimes noisy in the school of love,
but there is never any distinguishing past from present.
No judge decides a precedent here.
In matters of love, judges cannot speak.
Rumi, Ursa Major: The Great Bear, the Big Dipper
True, without error, certain and most true: that which is above is as that which is below, and that which is below is as that which is above, to perform the miracles of the One Thing.
And as all things were from One, by the meditation of One, so from this One Thing come all things by adaptation. Its father is the Sun, its mother is the Moon, the wind carried it in its belly, the nurse thereof is the Earth.
It is the father of all perfection and the consummation of the whole world. Its power is integral if it be turned to Earth.
Thou shalt separate the Earth from the Fire, the subtle from the coarse, gently and with much ingenuity. It ascends from Earth to heaven and descends again to Earth, and receives the power of the superiors and the inferiors.
Thus thou hast the glory of the whole world; therefore let all obscurity flee before thee. This is the strong fortitude of all fortitude, overcoming every subtle and penetrating every solid thing. Thus the world was created. Hence are all wonderful adaptations, of which this is the manner.
Therefore am I called Hermes the Thrice Great, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. That is finished which I have to say concerning the operation of the Sun.
Tabula Smaragdina
Write the language of the book on steles of turquoise. My son, it is proper to write this book on steles of turquoise, in hieroglyphic characters. For Mind himself has become overseer of these. Therefore, I command that this teaching be carved on stone, and that you place it in my sanctuary. Eight guardians guard it with […] of the Sun. The males on the right are frog-faced, and the females on the left are cat-faced. And put a square milk-stone at the base of the turquoise tablets, and write the name on the azure stone tablet in hieroglyphic characters. My son, you will do this when I am in Virgo, and the sun is in the first half of the day, and fifteen degrees have passed by me.”
The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth, Nag Hammadi
I have been tossed between moon and sun and stars and visions of water, wind, hills and forests. They come to me as ancient intimates. I had known them millions of years ago. They were once within me. We parted from ourselves I know not how or why.
We have played hide-and-seek with each other through the aeons. And now they come near. The spirit in them is as near to me as the beatings of my own heart. Now we meet again it is like the meeting of lovers who had parted but yesterday. The immortals never forget their loves through all inbreathings and outbreathings of the universe.
A.E. The Avatars