There is an old Indian wisdom in the Upanishads, which says:
“Fetch me from thence a fruit of the Nyagrodha tree.” “Here is one, Sir.” “Break it.” “It is broken, Sir.” “What do you see there?” “These seeds, almost infinitesimal.” “Break one of them.” “It is broken, Sir. ” ” What do you see there? ” ” Not anything, Sir.”
The father said: “My son, that subtle essence which you do not perceive there, of that very essence this great Nyagrodha tree exists.”
“Believe it my son. That which is the subtle essence, in it all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, o Svetaketu, art it.” [1]
…
“He is my self within the heart, smaller than a corn of rice, smaller than a corn of barley, smaller than a mustard seed, smaller than a canary seed or the kernel of a canary seed. He also is my self within the heart, greater than the earth, greater than the sky, greater than heaven, greater than all these worlds.” [2]
Yes, the tiny little thing that is invisible is the driving force of everything. The tiny little thing is eternal and it transcends the temporal perceptions of our personality, which determine our everyday reality. There is a nuclear force inside the tiny little thing, which can also split itself and spread waves.
When we touch the tiny little thing, or rather when we withdraw internally and we let the tiny little thing to touch us, then the tiny little core activates and radiates an atmosphere around us that immediately affects our breathing field and pulls us out of our worries, fears and anxieties, from our wishes and demands, from our usual thoughts and usual way of thinking, simply from all our reactions. The heating up of that tiny little core can gradually transform the whole human essence, on the level of spirit, soul and body. It is indeed a nuclear reaction, involving fission, ignition and spreading in frequency waves, gradually throughout the system. It is a cascade of electromagnetic shocks. And this is also called the mystically spiritual path.
The tiny little thing contains enormous power and light, because it is the power of the beginning and the Light which was in the beginning (as in the Gospel of John). It is, as it is written in the Upanishads, the power from which a giant huge tree grew up.
The image of the tree often appears in spiritual texts (also in the Bible or in Comenius and others) to depict the life of a person or community or simply life in and of itself as an order and a matrix.
Jan van Rijckenborgh also writes in the book Gnosis in Present-day Manifestation about the perishable and imperishable seed. “The seed that is called imperishable, which we may use for the Light-birth of God, is the seed of the Rose of the heart. That is a completely new eroticism which Plato called Eros. […] The seed we are allowed to use for the Light-birth is the one of the Rose of the heart. It is not to be explained from nature. The seed of nature cannot possibly be used for the Light-birth of God. […] The Gnosis works with another, a very pure creative power, which we may, no, must liberate on the path of return. It is the creative potential of the Rose. To this end a marriage must be contracted, about which we have spoken so often, the marriage between the soul and the Rose-heart.”[3]
A huge tree has grown from an invisible nucleus. This nucleus is the principle of holy creation. You may also have wondered if there is pure creative power. You may have wondered about the usual natural creative force, which has a diverse form and tremendous momentum in man. You can often discover it as a stimulus for many of our ordinary dealings. And if you took a closer look, you may also have seen that all the usual natural life comes from natural seed.
And just by the “fruit” we can distinguish well, two different natural orders, the divine one and the natural one. Neither of them is bad. After all, human love and human life are great gifts. That which is human, temporarily emergency-like, is a very important tool, as seen from the viewpoint of the divine and permanently eternal order. But no cultivation of natural seed will grow a divine rose.
And if we are too overgrown with ordinary fruits from the natural realm, let us never forget, whether we experience something pleasant or vice versa, that behind it all is hidden the tiny, invisible and often forgotten seed of eternity, which includes all our lives and incarnations of the microcosm. Because it’s just that huge tree. Then we can experience relief, as in the Bible, where Jesus tells us to come to him when we are burdened, because his burden is not heavy but light. This divine tree of creation has a tremendous number of branches and abodes, so you cannot be alone or left without nourishment.
And in the end, from this tiny little seed, one has the potential to build a temple and a spiritual school in one’s own body and microcosm. Of course, not alone, because in addition to the potential of the spiritual seed, it possesses only and predominantly natural forces. That is why there are energetic spiritual foci such as spiritual schools and the Brotherhood chain.
Jan van Rijckenborgh states in the book The Brotherhood of Shamballa: “The activity of the Brotherhood in the sanctuary of the heart is referred to as a mystical development; activity in the sanctuary of the head as a magical development. The science by which these effects are evoked is called the Royal Art. The power by which this art is executed is divine wisdom, the fruit from the tree of life. This divine grace is for anyone who is lost on his own, who wants to leave the pig trough with a threshing and begin the journey to find the lost Fatherland. […] In your own microcosm, you must build both a temple and a spiritual school. […] When the seeker truly becomes a member of the Universal Church and a disciple of the Universal Brotherhood, after that, at given moment one is connected with the Royal Art itself, which means that it penetrates to the wisdom of the rhythm of the tree of life. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! In this rhythm, one becomes a shoot on the tree of life, immersed in the depths of knowledge standing with others on the path of service.”[4]
Yes, by this we also recognize that as natural people we live from the tree of knowledge of good and bad, the dialectical order. If you find inside yourself the tiny little seed of eternity, as an unchanging constant, in the growing desire for liberation of this seed, it will begin to germinate, growing from water and spirit up to the branch of the tree of Life.
As the seed grows like this, the next stage of its work and action begins.
May the work in God’s vineyard be constantly renewed in this way.
[1]Müller, F. Max (translation): The sacred books of the East, vol. I, The Upanishads, 1879, Chandogya Upanishad VI, 12.
[2]Ibidem, Chandogya Upanishad III, 14.3.
[3]Rijckenborgh, Jan van: The Gnosis in present-day manifestation. Haarlem, Rozekruis Pers, 1980 p. 226.
[4]Rijckenborgh, Jan van, Petri, Catharose de: The Brotherhood of Shamballa. Haarlem, Rozekruis Pers, 1950
