All of creation vibrates in the sound of the world-soul. I hear it where the suffering of all life is transformed, where it joins in the joy of cosmic harmony. It is the sound which can be experienced by devotional mindfulness and reverence for the sacred – a pure and healing vibration that permeates us, down to every fibre of the body.
I can hear the pure sound of the world-soul when my soul is on its way to becoming a “Sophia”, an “Isis”, a “Parvati”, a soul that breathes and draws from the pure Spirit.
In a community, we have the possibility to dive together into the world-soul field and help to purify and creatively enliven it, just as the world-soul in turn strengthens and dynamises our soul forces.
About the pain of the world-soul
But – if we listen sensitively, we can also feel the pain of the world-soul.
Not only pure, purified soul forces, but also the most terrible soul wounds caused by human beings enter the vibration field of the world-soul. There they are embraced by the infinite love-power of the liberated souls of all times. Only all-encompassing love can heal the constant, recurring wounds.
Do I feel the gigantic cosmic task of the world-soul?
What is my task in the world plan?
What can I do?
The more receptive I become to the work of the world-soul, the more open I also become to its wound, its vulnerability. Questions arise in me: Can the world soul be wounded at all? Doesn’t its essence contain something invulnerable, indestructible? Both seem to be the case.
I clearly feel that I am walking a fine line in my receptivity. In my openness, I can also be quickly carried away, drawn into a maelstrom of activism, of external action, can quickly lose my inner balance. Only when I stand firmly in my centre, in intimate connection with the Tao principle, can I act decisively and powerfully on the outside.
Respecting the sacred
Chapter 29 of the Tao teh King states:
When man wants to perfect the realm through actions,
I see that he fails.
The kingdom is a holy vase of sacrifice
that must not be worked on.
If you work on it, you spoil it.
If you reach for it, you lose it.
In his explanations of the Tao Teh King, in the book The Chinese Gnosis, Jan van Rijckenborgh describes that the realm, the creation is at the same time
the earth as a planet […] in which the human personality must fully reveal itself according to its formal side. The realm is furthermore the “heaven-earth”, the real dwelling place of God, which He has assigned to humanity as a dwelling place for the revelation of the real human being according to spirit, soul and body. You must see the earthly earth and the heaven-earth as “two-in-one”. They are inseparable and form the “realm”.
The holy sacrificial vase the Tao Teh King speaks of, is a symbol which corresponds to the sacred “mixing vessel” described by Hermes Trismegistos in the Corpus Hermeticum. It is the “two-unity” of the earthly earth and the heaven-earth. This mixing vessel is a place of meeting and penetration: There is, on the one hand, the sacrificing power of the divine, sending out its messengers such as Lao Tse, Hermes Trismegistos, Buddha or Jesus Christ. And on the other hand, there are all the human beings who would like to become real human beings, bodily witnesses of the Spirit. From the very beginning, the monads, the God-sparks in the depths of the human being, relate to this glorious divine power of the holy vase of sacrifice.
Now it is a question of the personality […] becoming a true instrument in the service of the monad, in the service of this sacred divine power. (Jan van Rijckenborgh)
In this attitude I can take joint responsibility for the physical and the sacred nature of the earth. Physical and spiritual life are intimately intertwined and must not be separated. Spirit wants to connect with matter (the mater, the mother). Everyday life and spiritual life flow into each other. Every reaction, every expression of life is significant and testifies of my conscious being.
Nature waits for our devotion
This conscious being nourishes and energises the whole creation with all the kingdoms of nature. Every smallest and seemingly insignificant devotional attention to creation, to stones and minerals, to plants, animals, my fellow human beings, enters the world soul as a vibration.
I become aware: the divine unity of life is within us and all around us. When we walk in silence through nature, we can feel the heartbeat of life and the miracle that comes with it. Our steps become steps of remembering.
We can as it were walk in a “sacred way” when we feel, in every step we take, the connection with the sacred earth and our gratitude to it. We can encounter the sacred with awe and wonder by listening to the morning chorus of birds and feeling a deep joy of life. At night, the stars can remind us of what is eternal and infinite within us and in the world. And the wonder of the sunrise can awaken in us the vitality of new beginnings.
Do we succeed in establishing a living connection to our spiritual heart and to the heart of the world? Do we really feel part of this beautiful and at the same time suffering planet? Can we feel its need?
Then this connection becomes powerful and vital, becomes a living stream that flows from our heart and embraces all life. Then we are able, based on the heart-brain-unity, not only to think anew but also to feel anew our connectedness with creation, the two-unity of earthly-earth and heaven-earth. The all-embracing love that transcends all understanding wants to flow through us into matter and make us responsible co-creators, “faces of God”, “cosmic human beings”.
Literature:
Jan van Rijckenborgh, The Chinese Gnosis, Haarlem
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Spiritual Ecology, The Call of the Earth
