As a young man, the desperate feeling that I was inwardly completely fragmented once crept up on me. I had laid down for a moment and in that quiet instant, this frightening truth penetrated me. Not that I understood where it came from and what its purpose was, but it was true and I knew it.
Since then, quite a few years have passed and I have come to understand my situation better. The problem with such a condition is the difficulty to determine your path in life: I did not know which way to go. Many fragments were chaotically intertwined and gave me no peace of mind. Whenever I focused on a particular aspect, after a short or longer time, the other fragments attacked me. These sides of myself also demanded attention. The puzzle was disorderly mixed up and therefore I always lived in tension: the turmoil of the unresolved inner conflict.
I think this inner chaos was the reason why later I started writing. On paper there was room for all aspects, there I could use all facets and forge them into a unity. It was (and is) a therapy for the soul: when I wrote I felt fulfilled. But real life is not made of paper, nor of computer screens, and in the end, you still stare into the reality of your own self.
Beinsa Douno, the Bulgarian spiritual teacher, says: “The power of the human soul lies in the fulfilment of the will of God.”[1] Although he says something that is very profound and important, I do not think the average person can do much with it. Is there such a thing as ‘God’s will’, and what would be the result of fulfilling that will? The young man that I was, would not have understood any of it.
Ocean of desire
Why is the statement of Beinsa Douno so difficult to fathom? It is because the world we know is an ocean of desires. What are we longing for? To what are our dreams, our desires and wishes directed? Love, freedom, knowledge, power, wealth, truth, harmony, beauty, development, eternal life…
The ocean of desires has so many aspects and outlooks. We see the most beautiful and colourful fish, but also hideous monsters. The joy of life of a dolphin, the tearing jaws of a shark. And the wind and the waves push everything along in an endless rhythm. “All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full…”[2]
What is desire? Not its realisation and concretisation, but the pure primal force that makes us strive. Can we say anything about that? Is it the force that keeps us moving, that propels us toward our goals, our dreams? Is it also the force that gives us no rest and peace, that attacks our imperfection, that sends us on our way again? Is it the urge that makes us seek because there must be more?
Lao Tzu says: “What is imperfect will become perfect. What is crooked will become straight. What is empty will become full. What is worn out will become new.”[3]
Although we may not be able to pinpoint the essence of the primal force of desire, we experience that this force propels us ever onwards. The abstract driving force manifests itself in a range of concrete desires. When a ray of light hits the water, the white light divides into several coloured rays. We can then admire the beauty and magic of the rainbow.
The Rainbow
Humanity is like a rainbow of colours, like a painter’s palette. One, and yet divided. One in the primal desire, divided in its revelation. Isn’t it extraordinary that all the billions of human faces are different? Our face and eyes express our individuality, our personal desire, our little piece of the rainbow.
There is fullness, unity, but also division. When we consider that humanity is divided into specific aspects, into individualities, then all human beings together form the fullness of the original human being. Do we find here a clue for our search, a signpost for our longing? Is it possible to undergo a transformation of consciousness? Can we overcome our fragmented I-central consciousness and reach a state of fullness and unity, of soul-consciousness?
We spring from unity, but as we do not as yet know ourselves, we fall apart into different qualities and aspects, we become individuals. Now we are consciously getting to know all these qualities, our entire wealth. What we see in another person is always a part of ourselves. We learn what love is. Love for another and therefore love for the other in ourselves. Love reunites us, makes us a unity, a fullness again. However, the difference is: now it is a conscious active unity of all aspects. It is the fulfilment of “Man, know yourself”. All men in one man, one man in all men.
Perhaps we could say that all human faces make up the face of God. Or, that we as human beings are letters that, if love joins them together in the right way, form the name of God.
“You have written the characters of nature with your hand, but no one can read them who has not learned in your school.”
The Word
The search for the ‘Ineffable name of God’ is a spiritual quest for fullness, unity and fulfilment. It is a subject that strongly appeals to the imagination because it is connected tightly to the ‘Word of power’. I have always found this ‘Word’ fascinating and the following quote gives a beautiful illustration of that:
“And then the twelve disciples heard a voice, a still, small voice, and just one word was said, a word they dared not speak; it was the Sacred name of God. And then Jesus said to them: ‘by this omnific Word you may control the elements and all the powers of air. And when within your souls you speak this Word, you have the keys of life and death; of things that are; of things that were; of things that are to be.”[4]
Please note and to clear up any misunderstandings, the disciples hear and speak this ‘Word’ in their souls. It means that only the new, the reborn Soul can understand and use this Word. Abuse is out of the question because the Soul reborn in God is unity, love and goodness. The Word can and must be used only for the good of all creatures.
For writers, of course, finding their own word or voice is interesting. But not only for them, because writing is a more specific form of general human search. Searching for truth, wisdom and love; searching for significance and meaningfulness.
We all know that words are made up of letters, but how these characters are interpreted varies from person to person. In school we learn that the alphabet consists of vowels and consonants, and that’s it. However, there are people who discover a whole world behind a letter: the letters become spiritual archetypes for them.
A new consciousness, a reborn Soul, comes into contact with the rays of the Spirit. The Cathars designated these rays with the vowels A-E-I-O-U. (For fans of cymatics, the visualization of sound, this video is interesting.) The disciples heard the ‘Word’ in their souls. A soul connected to the Spirit, to the living vowels, resonates with the Source of all Life. Then, provided the body is sufficiently attuned to the soul, the body too becomes a consonant, a vehicle of the Spirit. That way we become a living Word, a unity of spiritual vowels and consonants.
Teth
In ancient languages, used when mankind had not yet descended so deeply into matter, the relationship between spiritual content and material form is more pronounced. The letters of these languages have a pictorial character; we can also call them symbols. For example, in Hebrew, the letter ‘Teth’ is represented by the following character:
It is a symbol related to birth and rebirth and corresponds to the number 9. This character also points to an inner source of Light and Life, of potential goodness.
I think we can read the whole human development in this sign. It begins with the dot in the center: the spiritual primordial idea, the spiritual seed, the divine creative thought, the Word. The human being who emerges from this Word is potentially perfect, but he does not yet know himself. He is Light in Light. In an incomprehensibly long process, he descends to the material level, the elements known to us. We see this involution in the descending semicircle on the right. Now he is light in the darkness. He carries within him his spiritual origin, his birthright and inheritance, but is no longer aware of it. Then he goes his way through the desert of life, he swims in the ocean of desires. We are now at the horizontal line at the bottom of the Teth, utterly fragmented as we absorb into ourselves the contradictions inherent in the elements. We eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil.
Through the endless tidal movements of the ocean, through the circular courses of nature, man becomes very tired and desperate. He finds himself empty-handed again and again, always opening a new door in the labyrinth. As a result, he starts intensely longing for an outcome, for a solution. Mortality gnaws at his soul and he yearns for eternal values. And now comes the mystery of a human being, for his spiritual inheritance, his ‘first love’, has in fact never left him. He always carried her inside himself.
This new desire changes him. He focuses on his inner spiritual centre and the power of his first love becomes his salvation, his liberation. He breaks his chains with matter, one by one. Inwardly he turns around, he ‘converts’. He opens his heart and head to the Truth. This is the vertically ascending line on the left side of the Teth. He takes the liberating path and returns to his Father.
The number ‘9’ indicates the True Man, the recreation of the original man according to Spirit, Soul and Body. This is why we see three lines at the top of the Teth. A human being reborn and transfigured in this way has become a ‘thrice great’, like Hermes Trismegistus. Then a human being has become an autonomous, self-creating emanation of Truth, Wisdom and Love. Now he is the living Word. He is free and uses this freedom to make his fellow men aware of their inner wealth, their high origin. Therefore, from the circle of the number 9 there descends a line: eternity descends into time. It is the call of the Father, an invitation to all his children.
To the mental Western man, it can seem rather childish and naive to interpret letters and numbers in a spiritual way. However, that is the problem of intellectual ballast, not seeing the wood for the trees. When the material mind is disconnected from the Spirit-Soul, it starts digging into matter. Or, as the Aquarian Gospel puts it, “the rushing forth of man into the fens of wickedness“[5]. Where does that lead? We see it all around us: robots receive us at the counter and artificial intelligence answers our questions and writes our essays. But sadly, the living Word remains far from us. We have gone far, but only in the wrong direction…
Christian Rosycross took a different path. He went the way of the open heart and the ‘bare head’. In order to drink in the spiritual vowels, and speak the living Word, he threw aside the mental frenzy and regained the childlike innocence of his soul. That is Life. That is Truth. That is Love.
All people have their own path. It has been said that there are as many paths as there are people. Writing is part of my path. It is about finding the living letters, the vowels that make up the spiritual rainbow. I think I am always trying to write the fullness of the living Word into my soul. To return to the beginning. In the beginning was the Word![6]
References:
[1] Peter Deunov -Wisdommaster of Love – LOGON
[2] Ecclesiastes 1:7
[3] Tao Te Ching chapter 22 (https://www.goldenrosycross.org/books/the-chinese-gnosis)
[4] The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ 89: 7-9
[5] The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ 13:15
[6] John 1:1
