Jan van Rijckenborgh writes about the human will:
The will is the magic soul attribute par excellence. The will is the great, almost impetuous mover of the soul and therefore of our whole life. (…) Man is able to make concrete and to use a magnetic power, which is abstract, with the help of the will. [1]
Originally, the will was the power of Epigenesis, the voluntarily deciding, the conscious self-creative activity of the human spirit. This is a most dangerous power, a royal power (Aries), and a secret power, which may become fatal (Scorpio), but which may also lead toward glorious horizons. The will is the beginning or the end of everything; it is that eternal power governing life and death.[2]
There is a wealth of wisdom and truth hidden in these brief descriptions. Hidden? Yes, because it is not easy to fathom the mystery of the will.
We can more or less monitor our thoughts, although we cannot control them. We can identify which thoughts are harmful and which are beneficial. The same applies to our feelings. We don’t have to be an initiate to understand that feelings such as hatred and jealousy lead us to the abyss. But what about our will?
The will is abstract and intangible. This is because the will relates to life itself, to the life force that propels us. Magnetic power is made concrete and driven through our nervous system as an etheric force. Through this impulse of power, we proceed to real action.
The double-edged sword
“This is a most dangerous power, a royal power, and a secret power, which may become fatal.” Why is the will such a dangerous force? Because the will breathes light and life into an idea. Then, clothed in this fiery etheric force, this idea starts to reveal itself in our lives.
Suppose we pursue a certain spiritual idea, but this idea is not pure: it is mixed with I-central motives. In pursuing the idea, we use our will to achieve our goal. In this way our conception comes to life; it cloaks itself in fiery etheric power. Now that our idea has become luminous, it aggravates the dangers enormously. We are blinded by our own light and think we are receiving an impulse from the spiritual world.
People who have read ‘The Gnostic Mysteries of the Pistis Sophia’ can presume what will happen next. The Pistis Sophia also looked down from an impure spiritual position and saw a source of light. She thought this was the light of gnosis and descended. She did not understand that these lights were projections of her own ideas, clothed with the light force emanated by her will.
We do the same and follow the path of the Pistis Sophia. However, when we arrive in the chaos of the lower astral realms, a bitter disappointment awaits us. We getsurrounded by hostile forces and our light and life force is stolen. We are left disillusioned and exhausted: we are on the brink of total destruction.
How could it happen that we so easily made a victim of ourselves? Mainly because we did not understand what the will is and how it works. We lacked self-knowledge.
The will has to do with the application of creative power. It is a magical activity related to formation, to the creation of worlds.
As is our personal, small world, so we experience the universe. When we apply creative force within ourselves, making certain ideas luminous and bringing them to life, then we experience the world which surrounds us accordingly. We attract other forces and our perception undergoes a change.
The criterion
The criterion, the main issue, is whether our personal idea, our creation, relates harmoniously to the eternal ideas, forces and laws that govern the universe. If so, then our development unfolds harmoniously. The problem is that an I-central consciousness cannot achieve a pure spiritual contemplation. At best, it is a mixture of spiritual and materialistic images. But because a seeker of truth, freedom and justice strives for values that are not of this world, the will, which is part of the threefold I-central consciousness, starts to breathe fire into these mingled conceptions. Then, like the Pistis Sophia, we see an imitation. However, we do not yet understand this.
We look down and descend. So the ever continuing fall is very directly connected to the human will. Arriving below, we are trapped by all kinds of forces that have similarity with us because of the false lights we have kindled within ourselves. Through these lines of force we are then robbed and left exhausted and empty-handed.
Jan van Rijckenborgh, with his magnificent insight into the path of liberation, says about this situation of the Pistis Sophia:
However, she does possess one certainty: Pistis has died, but also delusion. For the first time she has come to know well her own Authades [the I-central will]. She has become as nothing. She is sitting on the ruins like Job. Nothing is left to her, but for the first time something glimmers: insight like an open gate.
Golgotha
As dramatic as it may be, there is a deep mystery hidden in the apparent destruction of the Pistis Sophia. Certain similarities to Golgotha loom before us.
As a first key to this mystery, we can use the following: the path of evil is destruction; sooner or later, evil perishes by its own hand. When the Pistis Sophia is surrounded, robbed and destroyed, it means that the evil within her is destroyed by the evil outside of her. What is evil other than the I-centered striving that is always seeking the best place for itself?
The Lord works in mysterious ways; especially for the I-centered consciousness. Who would expect evil to lend a helping hand without knowing it?
From the gospels, we know that three crosses were erected on Golgotha. Two murderers were crucified simultaneously with Jesus the Lord. Symbolically, the I-centered will is among the aspects represented by the murderers. Selfishness is evil and evil leads to destruction. The I-central will is the concrete destroyer: the executioner or the soldier. Behind this soldier, however, are our emotional life and thinking, where the mental ability is the strategist, the general. And this general is in turn influenced and manipulated by the court advisor, who seeks to gain the desired benefits through various intrigues. King-I consists of these three together: the court advisor, the general and the soldier. It is the triple I-consciousness: heart, head and hands.
Three keys
And yet a human being is much more than king-I. Two wonderful keys still lie hidden beneath the deceptive surface. The second key is the objective consciousness, which is consciousness purified by self-knowledge. Through suffering and experience caused by inner evil, the first key, the objective consciousness increases greatly in strength. This consciousness is observing, accepting and resigned; it is highly realistic. It does not fight, it does not resist evil. Should this consciousness begin to fight, it would immediately become subjective and personal again and thus decay into evil. The objective consciousness loves very much the Truth, symbolized by the third cross with Jesus the Lord. Now that subjective evil has died, this consciousness bestows insight like an open gate. All illusions are destroyed. Through this gate we see the light in the distance: this time the true Light.
Mystery
We know that Jesus died on Golgotha. This drama leads us to the real mystery. Jesus represents the new consciousness: it is a consciousness that arises from the spiritual core of a human being. This central spirit spark is the divine primordial idea of the original human being, our true name. This new consciousness, this new human being, was given the opportunity to develop itself because the objective I-consciousness gave living space to this soul principle. The objective insight brings silence, inner space and non-conflict: neutrality with respect to polarities.
The objective consciousness has knowledge of the New Man who is emerging in the same system. That is why the objective murderer says to Jesus: “Lord, I know thy kingdom comes, the kingdom that the world can never comprehend”[3]. Here the ‘world’ can be understood as the subjective consciousness, whose motive is survival at all costs. For the ‘world’ living out of this consciousness, the path of liberation remains utterly obscure and unnatural. For that world, which is the reality of the subjective murderer, Golgotha is only the hill of skulls and bones.
The inner state of the objective murderer differs greatly from that of the ‘world’. Jesus answers the objective consciousness, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”[4] It sounds rather mystical, but we can understand it as follows. When the objective consciousness focuses absolutely on the New Man, completely serves and follows him, then the love, wisdom and power coming from the New Man also radiates into and through the objective I-consciousness. Although that objective person is still walking around on earth, they experience a paradisiacal state in the present, that is, here and now. Because of this peaceful fulfilment, which is called ‘enlightenment’, they can now truly help their fellow human beings; then the ‘murderer’ has died.
That the two murderers meet their death on Calvary is still understandable: the subjective one pays the karmic bill; the objective one dissolves in the divine power of love. But why does the new soul consciousness, the Jesus aspect, die on Calvary? Why does the New Man, in whom Pilate saw no evil, also perish on Golgotha?
Transformation
It has to do with the transformation that must take place. For that purpose, the blood of Jesus the Christ has to flow onto the earth.
When we as human beings have an old and a new part, there is inner division. The dissolution of this cleavage can only occur through transformation. This unification, this transformation, becomes possible through the sacrifice of both the old and the new. The old consents because it understands that there is no other way to be liberated from its own self-centeredness. The new consents because without the transforming power of the Light, unity cannot be achieved. Thus, the sacrifice of the Christ is a spiritual transformation process in which all inner divisions are dissolved. Symbolically, the transformation is initiated as the blood of Jesus the Christ flows on the earth.
The light force, the Christ force, willingly imprisons itself within the earth, and proceeds to accomplish the transformation from within. The light force will then raise the level of vibration of our atoms and cells so that our earthly body is transfigured into a spiritual body. Lead is transformed into gold. The New Man, who was seemingly dead, comes to resurrection in a transfigured body. The phoenix rises from its own ashes, leaving behind an empty grave.
“And Jesus opened his eyes and said, All hail the rising sun; the coming of the day of righteousness!”[5]
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[1] https://www.goldenrosycross.org/books/the-gnosis-in-present-day-manifestation-, part IV, chapter IV.
[2] https://www.goldenrosycross.org/books/dei-gloria-intacta, The Mars Initiation of the First Sevencircle.
[3] The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, chapter 170:28.
[4] Luke 23:43.
[5] The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, chapter 172:35.
