CHAPTER EIGHT

 

 

 

Essences

 

 

It is often said, and in some cases believed, that everything in time changes. Or put the other way around ‘time changes everything’. But it is not true. If everything changed in time then there would be nothing to recognise change and no underlying structure to change it. And if there were nothing to recognise time then the concept would not even exist. It would certainly seem to be the case however that every physical thing or object changes in time, or changes in due course. However, gravity seems to be consistent: the quantum dimension of physics seems to be constant: electromagnetism seems to be consistent; and one could go on. There are also other less tangible things which exist throughout time which time and change does not effect. Love is no different today than it was ten thousand years ago or at the dawn of human existence on earth. Beauty does not change. The truth of mathematics does not change. Truth itself does not change. But these things are even much different from those of gravity and electromagnetism in that they are totally intangible.

 

Many have attempted to define and simplify such things as wisdom, love, beauty and truth: these are things known as essences. And yet we never really know what an essence is independent of that eternal quality we find in something itself. Both art and music are good examples. You cannot see an essence, you can only feel it. And yet feeling is not an outward sense detector and therefore the existing paradigm or at least many people do not accept it as true: for only things known by way of the five outer senses are true by many people in today’s world. All mystics have at least one thing in common—sensitivity to a high degree. The degree to which a human being can feel joy and pain is a direct correlation to which they can pick up cosmic vibes and the essences of being. So we get rid of all that emotional and essential phenomena. Do so and you will die whilst still alive—and not the mystic type of death but the existential one: into spiritual bankruptcy.

 

Life as we experience it on earth is more about feeling it than it is about seeing it, touching it, hearing it, smelling it, or tasting it. Feeling it is also more about knowing it than seeing it is. Thus it is, that even in a physical and changing world and universe, that the most important things in our lives are the evergreen essences themselves. The outer senses alone are but periscopes above the waves... but what are they attached to under the surface of time and space?

 

When you grow old you will begin to live in a world of the past—your own world of past experience. You will begin to feed off your own memories of this lifetime. At such time it is important to have many good memories, and not too much regret and remorse thrown in. It is a very strange thing indeed that in memory one can somehow come to feel it all over again... the essential quality of the events and relationships of your past life. Even more strange is that the inner re-living of such past events in memory can reproduce old sensations such as smell. But that is not all they can reproduce. One often hears the young say such things as ‘The poor old sod has nothing left but memories, and they live in the past’. My first reply would be that one hopes that the young will have a past worth remembering when they are old. My second reply would be to say do not feel sorry for them for they are having a whale of time living in the past. They are not of course ‘living’ in the past they are re-living it in memory only. But those memories also have the power (or rather the mind and psyche does) of re-emanating those known essences: for essences transcend the time and space of the temporal mind; and they are ALWAYS THE SAME and have the same effect and feeling: they never change. They always produce the same inner depth feeling.

 

The next miracle associated with this is that the essential quality and nature of past experiences can be felt even more when it is not actually happening in extended reality. This is very weird and strange: but true. There are many things which we like and enjoy which are happening at the time of course (hopefully): but such things become even more alive and potent in essential quality in mind than they were when the actual event itself was happening. Paradise itself is bit like that; except that you cannot even remember a past life at all whilst in it, the essences alone remain at ultimate operation.

 

What is an essence then? I am not sure. It is the proverbial breath of the divine. But one can perhaps best define it as that eternal quality which is intrinsic within something and which remains when the thing itself has gone. Strangely enough the essence of something can be known even better when the thing, object, or event which encapsulated it is in fact gone. Memory has more than one function it seems. One learns this fact by the very event of human memory itself, and even whilst alive on earth if you observe it closely. Moreover, why does one have to undergo this past recollection of life while in the mode of initial transcendence in one form or another? Some see pictures of their past life: others, like myself, simply feel those past experiences and somehow become forced to contemplate upon them: and this is not really by choice as it may seem to be at the time. Are we at that time passing collected information, and our reactions to it, on to somewhere else for some kind of cosmological record maybe? Maybe not. But it happens for a good reason.

 

Paradise, as I have mentioned, is really all about eternal essences, quality, and principles. The vision of the place itself seems to be simply that of (whatever it is in absolute terms) a place to do it in, (maybe a bit like a screen-saver)—in a reservoir of spirit and eternal truth. It is not about the actual vision even though the actual vision is the ultimate essence and principle of visual beauty and grandeur. But the vision is not what it is all about. No, it is about the knowing and the eternal and everlasting essences of being. Paradise is love without a created object of love. It is beauty without an object of beauty. It is wisdom with nothing to do about it or with it. It is about absolute pure truth without an event of truth (except paradise itself of course). It is wisdom also in knowing the truth of all these essential principles and qualities: and even beyond memory of anything other than it. And only this way is it made to be uncontradictable—by being in it.

 

Simply being told would not prove it, but being in it does prove it—and without argument or contradiction. You and I cannot do that for each other. Moreover, when back in temporal mind we can remember and feel all that, and the passion, just as though we were still in that transcendent realm of being, for the rest of our lives on earth even. They wonder why such people walk alone at times; but that is the effect. You can never ever forget it and you also continue to be affected by its essential nature acting on the topside mind and personality throughout your life. Is it worth knowing then? The after effect alone is indescribable. And what value could you put on it? How much would you pay for it if it were in a pill? Perhaps it is just a coincidence that I have never had an illness—not even a headache. Some pill to be sure.

 

It is a very strange thing indeed, but if I were asked to say as to what I personally knew in anything like human comprehension of ‘actual things’ whilst in that dimension of being then the concept was that of a jug, a container of some kind, but an open container like a pipe or conduit through which the life force and these essential qualities and principles flowed up through. Like an instrument of music being played upon. That sums it up just about perfect. Paradise is the essence of eternal being. It is the realm, dimension, field, in which everything is taken from you (in the act of absolute purgation; the last act of which is in annihilation itself): and then all that is left is the resurrection back into the original and primordial truth, beauty, gnosis, of the eternal essences of creation and being; which are evergreen truths and never change. Time does not change everything then; neither does it change everything which is in and operative throughout time.

 

I have also said elsewhere that Paradise is not the first cause but rather the ground of our being; the first event of created personalised mind itself; and which is self evident whilst in there. But that there is something even deeper than paradise itself is even known whilst in it. ‘Our father which art in heaven’—(our root of self in that dimension); is not the root and foundation of creation itself. We are but the first child of creation. Some religious priestcraft symbolises this as a human being on earth and thus distorts and ruins the truth. Well, not the truth as such but only that of peoples understanding of it on earth. Now, whatever that deeper ‘thing’ of no created thing is within itself, and which cannot be known independent of its emanations and essence anyway, it is obviously the root of where these essences have their origin. But in that root one would find that love, beauty, truth and wisdom are four faces and manifestations of the same thing.

 

Just as in the physical universe all the physical forces are emanations of one singular energy at root beyond time. Love is the recognition of beauty which is truth, a truth which is beauty and a beauty which is love. On earth these things are all different, but in paradise they are same thing... in ONE. The all in the ONE. I have also said that whilst in paradise we are also somehow connected, like an umbilical chord, to that deeper root and foundation of all being—the thing of no created thing (call it by whatever name you like, but a rose is a rose by any other). And that umbilical chord is that of these eternal principles, qualities, essences, which flow up through us whilst there; the channel is not blocked up at that level of our being; it is an open conduit... as it can also become on earth itself in the paradise on earth event; the Consummatum Incarnate, or the Reciprocal Convergence of spirit with spirit. It is all very strange and mysterious but true and knowable by direct experience. Not only that but it also makes sense—which is more than religions do! And it could be symbolised in a million different ways no doubt. Even in their clumsy way most religions have said that the good things endure and the bad things are destroyed. They have said it but they have also completely misunderstood it or misrepresented the truth of it. Do they (the religious academics) simply judge by what they know and experience on earth itself. But you cannot, for paradise is so different; it is nothing whatsoever like life on earth; it is kind of opposite, a reciprocal reality.

 

The essence and principles of all things remains then, (in paradise and at an even deeper level than paradise) but that which is not of essential nature does not remain. I have described what paradise is like elsewhere in this book and what it feels like and what you learn there; and what I have said about it is true and a fact. Only the good remains there then; so it is a mono-pole reality; a singularity. Why should it not be the other way around then? For it would not have been my problem if it had been all bad experience, for I did not create it. I have no axe to grind or anything to prove to anyone; I simply say it as it is known and experienced to be. Why should it not be then that paradise is everything bad and nothing which is good then? I do not know why; all I know is that that is how it is. Fact. I am nought but a reporter of these things—and I wish that I could make a better job of it.

 

Neither is there anything bad in Limbo or anywhere else in those fields; (other than what you cart there with you in memory of your past life of course) for there is nothing else in the Limbo field except your self and your past memories, and the time to think about them. I would mention also that an incident caused by another human being, no matter how bad it is, does not carry any remorse for yourself. It is only the mess which you cause that you have to live with for a while in that field of being.

 

Limbo is experienced as time without space (as far as consciousness and being in it is concerned anyway) and that paradise itself is space without moving time. As to what is happening in absolute objective terms beyond our experience then that can not only never be known but is also totally academic to you and I whilst in it. If the food you are eating is really good and yet tastes horrible... then it tastes horrible; ipso facto.

 

In this life on earth we know well enough that time and space are not the same thing but that they are somehow closely tied up together. Indeed there are some who even believe or assume that somehow they are the same thing: but they are not the same thing. Time is not a phenomenon as such: it is an effect of phenomena. Space is an extant phenomenon in which events take place and unfold and change. But it is the changing events themselves which give rise to the effect which we call time. Nothing ever changes in paradise and it is always now. It is beyond moving time. Limbo lasts just as long as there exists resolution and synthesis to be done by that individual on its way home to its ground of being.

 

Be warned then in regards to remorse and that which you cart there with you; for it is not exactly a nice place to hang around in for very long! But there is no such thing as an essence of something bad... and that is why they do not last. This does not mean that time is not real: for it is real; it is a real effect. But time does not cause anything or have any effect on anything. It is the things themselves, which effect each other that causes time to exist as an effect. Time does not make you grow old, it is the physics of your form and their actions and interactions which make you grow old. These events do not take place ‘IN’ time, they create time. Time is the effect of these events in space unfolding. And the realm of no time does its own teaching. How can one envisage no time? A simple but good analogy would be that of a turning wheel or disk. At the very dead centre of that wheel there is a point of no extension or duration that does not turn (the axle), it is like the focal point of all the turning (movement) but whilst itself is in repose. Like the dead centre of a hub of a wheel. Now, Paradise is not that reality of absolute no extension and duration but simply that of the first layer of movement around that point (the moving hub).

 

In paradise there is movement, and it IS an orbit. The mere fact that our level of mindful existence there does not perceive moving time is because there is no change within it, no changing events (except coming out of it at some point; but you do not know that is going to happen until it is about to happen). You and I in paradise are the right hand movement (hub) of the absolute; the first emanation of the central creative act; the inner hub around a stationary axle of which all temporality is an extended force field beyond it... but which alters every day, every moment, every fraction of a second. Thus it is that space is real in extant terms and that time is only real in terms of the effects of mass and movement. Space is an essential quality of creation whereas time is the product of the change and effects of actual extant phenomena in that space.

 

If, for example, only one object (mass or blob of matter) existed in the physical universe, and assuming that there was nothing to have effects upon that blob of matter, then time would not exist at all. If there were two objects in that space, and if they did not undergo change themselves, and their movement was in constant harmony with a similar velocity and direction then time would still not exist. There is only one thing in paradise, proto-physic consciousness, and we are all it. Like drops of rain water returning to the eternal sea.

 

It is often asked as to how an object can be said to occupy a point in space and yet be said to be moving through that space at the same instant... a so called paradox. It is not a paradox at all, for the thing does not move through objective space it occupies its own space and its own space moves with it in the vortices of all other objects spaces. The universe expands not by virtue of space but by virtue of mass, gravity and repulsion of mass and their radiation’s of energy fields. A thing requires its own space; and yet the density of its own gravity distorts not only physical light but also time itself as an effect. (Is not our own soul—the shell—our own space?). But it is not distorting something which exists independent and in its own right; it is only distorting (changing) its own effects and fields by virtue of its own emanation of existing mass gravity and radiation. It is not changing something which is ‘out there’ and independent of it; it is changing its own gravitational field, and hence time is its own product. Time was made for mind, not mind for time. Spiritual time and physical space-time however, are not the same identical thing.

 

Moreover, when you and I observe an object in space, even our own physical body, we see only the ‘end view’ of a vortex of emanation not the whole structure of that vortex. For the vortex itself does not exist in the physical universe which the senses know and experience. It exists in the cosmos of creation; and which is the sum of all dimensions, fields, and most of which we cannot even see, hear, taste, touch, smell, or even detect. But there is something that can detect it in this universe—YOU; the MIND ITSELF. You cannot even see or touch an idea—yet they are axiomatic. No tools will ever find paradise for tools cannot exist there or get there. Only that which is from paradise, made in paradise, can return there, and that is also the tool which can detect it; and that tool exists in this world and in that realm also. The mind of mankind, indeed all life, is eternally tied to the cross of time and eternity; or more correctly put as time and permanence; change and permanence. That is the cross upon which the mind of man is affixed.

 

For anything to happen in a closed system then that pure system requires a catalytic agent. Suppose for example that only paradise existed and nothing else; (and which seems to have been the case before time transgressed the repose of mind), some would say that this would be wonderful; nonsense it would not be wonderful at all. An impurity has to be added to a closed system to activate any differential happening or event. Now, impurity does not mean something bad or something evil it means something to stir it up a bit (I like doing that also). An impurity is the catalytic agent. It simply means something of a different order from that pure unadulterated system itself.  ‘I AM’ is obviously the impurity (catalyst) in the pond of no created thing and no extension. And this is why we are thrown out into extended orbit—by virtue of the catalytic reaction. Clever isn’t it. We were not thrown out of paradise for being naughty but because of an energy which we feel and call love; and love is the strangest and deepest catalytic essence of them all, and the original catalyst itself it seems. Love IS an energy form: an ‘E’ motion, if you like. And does not E = MC 2? Volition, passion and energy are the creative impulse. Love blew my mind; and that is a fact. I guess it could then blow the universe as well.

 

What is the whole creation worth a damn if there is nothing in it (or out of it) which you love? Be honest with your self—is there anything better? Now, how could you ever come to say “I love you” if you were not free and unique to affirm it, say it, feel it and know it? Does a slave love its keeper then? Does the keeper love its prisoner? For if it loved it then it would not keep it a prisoner. We cannot stay in paradise you see; for love lets go. There is no freedom in paradise. In paradise you are the prisoner of the divine (not that we complain). Yes; you are free of pain in there right enough; free from worry; free from work; free from fear; free from the grind of the day; free of doubt and uncertainty; free from poverty. But give me all these things any day, any time, any where; for then I am also free to say “I love you”! Love needs to love something other—hence the need of duality. Creation and creative potential have to be dualistic—the creator and the created; the observer and the observed.

 

There is the so-called paradox of instantaneous action at a distance. Paradoxes are fun are they not? But no such thing exists in reality; other than our ignorance of it. How, for example can a gravitational field come into existence at exactly the same time as the mass itself? Because of the underlying reality of the next dimension down in the connected structure itself. Existence is not flat. The fastest radiation in the space-time fabric is that of a quanta of light so they say, and yet even light takes time to travel in physical space-time. So how come then that a gravitational field exists instantaneously with the mass itself? Look at it this way: they are already connected below that space-time fabric and it CAUSES the space-time fabric to exist. Imagine that the space-time fabric (dimension of) was the surface of a flat pond (a very crude analogy is this). Imagine something the shape of an orange squeezer was located just under the surface of that water and thus out of sight and unknown because it is in another dimension of reality. Imagine then that this phenomena (the top of its vortex) being pushed up from below the surface of the pond. The outer rim of the orange squeezer would pop up above the surface at the same instant as the peak (the mass) at the centre of the object. The peak (the bit the orange goes on) is the body of mass: the extended rim (which appears not to be connected to it) is the radiation field. In space-time (above the water surface) they appear as two distinct things and phenomena, but under the surface they are but two facets of one vortex of emanation deeper than space-time emanations. Creation has to be constructed somehow you know. It is not an illusion of mind.

 

Imagine a tuning fork type energy of which we could only see the two flat ends of the fork part. Imagine turning this in such a way that the central axis is one of the flat visible ends. The other end would appear to be in orbit of a central part. This central mass would itself spin on its axis... hence instantaneous action at a distance from an observers reference point, for they do not seem to be connected and yet the reaction is faster than the speed of light in the dimension which exists in-between the two ends. It would seem then, that somewhere, somehow, all the stars in space are connected up in some mysterious way: indeed all matter. All minds are likewise connected up... in paradise.

               

You and I (our essential cognition) is not the only thing which is eternal and everlasting; for so too are these essences and eternal principles of creation. You are directly connected to that no created thing at the point of no duration and extension by way of such things as love, beauty, truth, wisdom, passion, comprehension, and the joy and affirmation of being. These are only names which we give to forces, energies, acting within us. It is learned to be so in that dimension, and understood, comprehended therein. In paradise you and I are the eternal wisdom, understanding, nous or gnosis of creation, cognition: and the being which is the love of wisdom. But there is one thing even greater and more profound than even that of the love of wisdom (which is us)... and that is the Wisdom of love itself.

 

You and I do not create these things: we only come to see them, know them, learn them, understand them, and hopefully, like a mirror, come to reflect them; and to let it flow through us out into the world like radiation from within our own spiritual mass. It is the reflection, the giving out, the giving away, which is all that matters in creation in so far as what you and I can ever come to do: and that is what creation itself is. Do not want to have your god, or even exist in it; but get rid of it; get rid of it into the outside world. For what you already have then you are not in need of, and you can never ever be disconnected from that; for if you were then you would never be existing in the first place. You cannot lose that which is yours eternally. You can give it away all the time and yet your cup will never run dry, for it is not a thing of time and space, it is eternal and ever lasting. And getting rid of it from within you lets it come into the world; not in form but in essence, quality and effect. And your giving it away spreads that energy by effect. Not even an ant can exist on this world without changing this world. And you have a lot more scope than an ant.

 

In a very crude analogy we could say that we are the germ in the divine order, the muck, the catalyst. But in reality (and do not forget that we are brought forth anyway) we are the instrument of its own movement, for without us there is no spiritual cognitive movement. The physical universe itself is an emanation of the spiritual reality, but we are the cognition and volition of it in action, knowledge and awareness. If we do not let this thing live and flow, then nothing else in creation can. That is some task; some responsibility; how important then is your lot: and you yourself?

 

When a black hole evaporates then the stuff which made the physical universe exist has simply returned to its original mode, (annihilation is its horizon also): and well beyond time. But it also comes back to do the job again. Matter goes into a black hole; consciousness goes into a white hole. The separation of the parts was once called ‘judgement’; but it is a discrimination, separation, of the parts however. You will see and know it. The blind will see in more ways than one. The physical eyes are a very poor replica when compared to the vision of the spirit; and you do not need glasses in those realms. To put it bluntly and in more common terms of ‘religion speak’; it is the case that the divine life force gives us life and existence by modulation of its self in some way: perhaps a lowering of part of its own frequency vibrations or whatever. But it is we here on earth which can, by our own choice and actions of freedom, give IT existence on earth; by way of its essences... letting them flow through us.

 

We could have been made as robots to do this task. But we were not; we can choose not to do it. And this is not only the deepest profundity in our own lives but also the deepest secret and mystery in a mystical creation itself. The divine could not exist in its own extended creation without you and me; and without you and me inviting it through us. Loved we may be; for that is how we feel it... but needed we ARE!

 

So we must get a grip on the essences of creation in order to make a better job of it. Is that not why we are loved—because we are a part of it? This kind of depth love is not sentimentality; it is cosmic passion; the stuff that blew the universe out there. Good is not good, such movement is simply experienced as good for we are that resonance and reality before our own emanation into extension. Only through us can the eternal spirit and essence of being exist on earth then... and in its own creation at that. That is the wisdom of love: and that is understanding and commitment to being and freedom: freedom from the divine... in order that it can live and manifest on earth as it is in paradise. Fools would want to stay in paradise for ever; but the work is out here. We must get the job done you know, for nobody else will.

 

Christians want the divine; to be with the divine... but no, not I, I want it to live and go on working. If you love creation it will always exist; for that is what creation is about; existence for the love of it. The passion is also reciprocated you see. Creation is not about having it, it is about letting it go; it is about giving it away. Love is not about having it; it is about letting it go: beauty is not about having; it is about letting it go. This does not mean your house or your money; it means your love and your vitality in being. Be a genius, or be a fool and make people laugh; sing or dance; do what you are when you are it—for that is existing to the fullness of our being. Likewise the physical universe could not exist without electrons; but electrons do not create the physical universe; they are but a part of that creation without which it could not exist. We are another part; and a vital part at that. You cannot have life; you can only live it and let it flow through you and out the other side. So what are these essences? I am not sure. I only know that they exist and that they can be felt and known in all things on earth also. I know also that they are all that you do know whilst in paradise, and to their ultimate heightened and unadulterated degree of perfection. Only beyond memory of all extended existence can you exist in the full undiluted essence and principle of being. I know that they are the food and inspiration of the spirit and soul and that they can become the food also of the incarnate human temporal mind on earth as well; as it is in heaven. So is there any point then in we human beings going in to that paradise and coming out again whilst during a lifetime on earth? You think about it, for I don’t have to; I did that a long time ago. You have that journey in front of you, and I envy you. Would that I had made a better job of the journey. Give it at least some thought then.

 

On earth this love is not forced down our throat so to speak as it is in paradise. You are not free to run away in there either. In paradise there is no choice, no freedom: no games of chess around a nice fire with a pint of best ale and a smoke. My god this world is good. Learn to love it and feel it; for you will not be here long in this lifetime. In paradise you get what you get and you get what it is. But on earth you get all that plus what you make of it here also. Is that not miraculous? Wouldn’t it be nice if all the fundamentalist religious tribes were to stay in paradise for ever, and for which they long and hope and pray; while you and I could stay on this world and let it come right; and without religious wars and hostility. I tell you, it is the mystics that inherit the world not the meek and mild sheep-like cretins who refuse to think for themselves.

 

These essences whilst on earth are a food of which you may eat if you wish to eat or reject if you wish to reject them; for that is the power of the discretion of the discursive human mind on earth with its power of freedom of choice... incredible and magic power. The ‘angels’ in paradise would admire our power and potentials. But would they admire what we do with them? Think on it. When you know paradise you know your true self also. But what is even more important is that you know that which is NOT your self... and among which entails the rest of creation itself also. Would your eternal inner ‘angel’ in paradise be proud of you then? Would you be proud of yourself when you know your self from the other perspective? That is what I mean by dignity; the dignity of man.

 

There is no person on earth, or has been, or will be, that has known these things whilst on earth who would not sacrifice their own life for this truth; for their life on earth is nothing in comparison to this love and this truth. In paradise it is as though something has sacrificed its own existence in order that you and I can live there; be there; exist there. But on this world it is as though you and I have sacrificed our eternal life (of being in there) that IT can itself live... OUT HERE. Do you see? It is a reciprocity of love and wisdom. Creation is epiphytal. But we do not cast ourselves from paradise; so what is in need then? What then needs us out here? You have a think about it. But we do not even have to do that (sacrifice ourselves), for it is already done in annihilation itself. We cannot sacrifice ourselves for this love. We are not allowed to. For you are ever resurrected from the death of non existence at annihilation. In the last act of the trinity you will see and know your other self objectively, (some kind of anti-part); but when the two become as one... you will then be in, and know, paradise. On earth male and female are kind of opposites. The ancients used this as a symbol. They said that when the female becomes as the male, then they will know paradise. They made these kind of symbolic analogies willy-nilly and some people today take them as being literal. When the opposites meet they will annihilate each other; and then only the spirit exists—in paradise. My friend, you have an anti-part—and that part does not evolve; it needs you.

 

In the past many have attempted to speak of these things. Some, a few, have done so in a way which is so beautiful and so true (within their terms of reference of their concepts at those times of course). Some have put words together which are not only true but are also like pearls strung together (note the end of this chapter). They really knew the reality of which they were talking or writing about, but they were also gifted with words and the power of communication at the same time. Would that we all were. But most, like myself, simply mumble and stumble and probably do not make any sense to anyone at all. But there you go. To try is just fine however: but to fail is human. Do not fear failure in this life, but simply love the trying, and the partaking; the event itself. For an event such as we know out here does not last for ever and it will never ever exist again in the annuls of time and space. But the essence lasts for ever and ever; both in time and beyond. So when they tell you that everything changes in time; well simply ask them as to how they know that; for if they can experience the fact that things change then they are using something, a tool, which is eternal in order to recognise it. They will learn what they have to learn; what exists to be learned. For in due course you can do no other, you can only learn what exists to be learned; like it or not. The strange thing is that we come to like it; and we come to like it because it is what we are made of, what we are, and from whence we come.

 

Why do you weep when you are happy? Why do you weep at the sight of ultimate beauty? Why do you weep when in absolute joy? Why do you weep when observing altruistic actions by other human beings? You do so because the inner part of you is recognising something from home; an eternal essence and principle of the Divine Order. That is why; that IS indeed why. The spirit and soul recognises something which comes from beyond the horizon of annihilation. The inner spirit can cope with such beauty; the soul field can even cope with such beauty; but the incarnate human mind simply collapses under the gravity of the passion and emotion in the face of a divine essence on earth. And those very essences can also drag you home by their gravity whilst even alive on earth.

 

What, for example, is music? I am not sure. But as well as being an essence known and loved by the discursive rational mind it is also a dimension of mind within the soul itself. Music is like divine butterflies in a sunlit garden of eternal wonder. Music can conjure up and reveal all the emotions known to the soul and change your personality like no other thing known on earth. It can be tragic, sad, humorous, jolly, gentle and soft or wild and passionate, profound and divine. I could live in the world of music for a thousand million years—and still be hungry for more and more. Music has the power to inspire the mind, elevate the soul, and expand consciousness. Fact.

 

 

*    *    *

 

 

ORATION

 

 

On the Dignity of Man.

 

 

 

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

The Count of Mirandola 1463-94.

 

 

 

Manifesto of the Enlightenment

 

 

                I have read in the records of the Arabian’s, reverend fathers, that Abdala, the Saracen, when questioned as to what on this stage of the world, as it were, could be seen to be most worthy of wonder, replied; “There is nothing to be seen more wonderful than Man”. In agreement with this opinion is the saying of Hermes Trismegistus.... “A great miracle, Asclepios, is Man”.

 

At last it seems to me I have come to understand why Man is the most fortunate of creatures and consequently, worthy of all admiration. And what precisely is that rank which is his lot in the Universal chain of being—a rank to be envied not only by brutes but even by the stars and by minds beyond this world. The best of artisans—the creative powers—addressed Man thus...

 

“The nature of all other beings is limited and constrained within the bounds and laws prescribed by us. Thou, constrained by no limits in accordance with thine own free will in who’s hand we have placed thee, thou shalt ordain for thyself the limits of thy nature. Thou shalt have the power to degenerate into the lower forms of life, which are brutish. Thou shalt have the power, out of thy souls judgement, to be reborn into the higher forms, which are Divine. Whatever seeds each man cultivates will grow to maturity and bear in him their own fruit. If they be vegetative, he will be like a plant. If of the senses, he will become brutish. If intellectual, he will become an angel in the son of God. If rational, he will grow into a heavenly being. And if—happy in the lot of no created thing—he withdraws into the centre of his own unity, his spirit made one with God, in the solitary darkness of God, who is such above all things, he shall surpass them all”.

 

So let a certain holy ambition invade our souls, so that, not content with the mediocre, we shall pant after the highest, and, since we may, if we wish, toil with all our strength to obtain it, full of Divine power, we shall no longer be ourselves but shall become with he Himself who made us, for he who knows himself in himself knows all things—as Zoroaster first wrote.

 

I have also proposed theorems dealing with magic, in which I have indicated that magic has two forms, one of which depends entirely on the work and authority of demons—a thing to be abhorred, so help me the God of Truth, and a monstrous thing. The other, when it is rightly pursued, is nothing else than the utter perfection of natural philosophy. The former can claim for itself the name of neither art nor science, but the latter, abounding in the loftiest mysteries, embraces the deepest contemplation of the most secret things, and—at last—the knowledge of all nature. As the farmer weds his vines to elms, so does the Magus wed Earth to heaven, that is, he weds the lower things to the endowments and powers of the higher things.

 

If all of this appears new and strange to you reverend fathers, then think on how the Sphinxes carved into the temples of the Egyptians reminded them that the mystic doctrine should be kept inviolable from the common herd by means of the knots of riddles. The theologian, Origen, asserts that Jesus Christ—a teacher of life—made many revelations to his disciples which they were unwilling to write down lest they become commonplaces to the rabble. This is in the highest degree confirmed by Dionysius the Areopagite, who says, that the hidden mysteries were conveyed by the founders of religion from mind to mind, without writing, through the medium of speech. Let us consult the apostle Paul, a chosen vessel, when he himself was exulted to the third heaven. He will answer, according to the secret interpretations of Dionysius, that he saw the cherubim being purified then being illuminated, and, at last, being made perfect.

 

When we have been so soothingly called, so kindly urged, we shall with winged feet fly up like Earthly Mercurys, to the embraces of our blessed Mother and enjoy that wished for peace, most holy peace, indivisible bond, in one accord, with the friendship through which all rational souls not only shall come into harmony with the one mind—which is above all minds—but shall, in some ineffable way, become altogether one. This is that peace which God creates in His heavens, which angels descending to Earth proclaim to men of good will, that through it, men might ascend to heaven and become angels. Let us wish this peace for our friends—for our century.

 

 

 -PDM

 

 

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