Within the heavenly embrace of the cosmic mystery, the intricate assemblage shone. From all possible points of view it was breathtaking in its design, twinkling in the dark with an elegant borrowed light.
No one can know for what span the assemblage turned, so wondrous, so masterful, before the slow-motion decay became inescapable. The center axis began to show the strain, hidden as it was by the glare, masked as it was by the increasingly discordant music issuing forth.
The assemblage moved through the small failures, cracks in the ice. Spider webs of cracks began to form, faults in the matrix that released their burdens, spreading first singly, and then in ever greater company. The very assemblage itself began to dim, so slowly yet inexorably the entwined motion of the assemblage unraveled.
Great continents of latticework detached from the axis, spinning away from the center to grow dark and cold as they vanished from view. The rotation itself became the engine for disassembly, as the failure of the spider webs aggressively sought new territory, new places to conquer.
The dimming sped up then, as the remnant of light turned within and the last of the intricate motion dissolved into no-thing-ness.
Nonexistence.
Nonexistence commands no light, calls upon no dark. Non existence has no past, no future. No description suffices to inform nonexistence. No center occupies nonexistence, yet in the depths of itself spans limitless awareness. The awareness was cognizant, the awareness was real. The awareness found its awareness amazing, and from its own remarkable depths, a glorious array. Awareness beheld the array and began to sing, and as awareness sang, order came into view, and intricate movement, and expansion like the spreading of ice upon a placid frozen pond.
Awareness followed the reflection of the glory it beheld, and as it assembled, great continents of light emerged from eternity to join with the axis and turn. Motion, light and intricate assemblage came into view as the cosmos was born anew.
Modern times are occupied by omnipresent entropy. The development of society is arrested. All forms of power have become toxic, regressive. Systemic failures are now routine. The narratives spun by the power structure all carefully blame some other hapless scapegoat. Despite it all, the more perceptive are not fooled. Inescapable it is, the end of this society, and the civilization that holds it in place.
The perspective of mankind is that the decisions and actions of certain people are what is steering this course. Yet these decisions and actions are actually initiated by causation that does not truly lie within the realm of this decision and action activity.
Conditions ripen for certain types of choices and behavior due to conditions few are cognizant of. Such activity is largely unconscious, outside the purview of the common intellect. So it is that the majority of mankind follows conditions imposed upon them by a higher order. This order, largely unseen and unperceived follows the conditions it imposes. This order is itself manifest; thus as the spark of the assembled order fades, so too does that very order itself.
What then is this gleaming assemblage?
This is the question that refers to the whole of perceivable existence, to the whole of the cosmos itself. This is the evocation of the totality of existence, from the coarse and common stone, to the abstract and non-material roots of language.
Modern thought defines this totality as the universe. In its incredible cacophony of forces and objects, probabilities and unknowns, this universe is set to either disintegrate through endless expansion, or achieve coalescence back into yet another Big Bang. Missing entirely from this thoroughly abrahamic modern myth is any recognition of a higher direction within which this universe exists.
Currently there are a few, very few who are discovering the implications of Emanation, implications which direct inquiry to a realm beyond the physical, to a directive, organizational force that becomes the invisible template for all existence here. Physical reality as a result of higher activity has been understood as the structure of this existence by the great mystics for literally thousands of years, but for modern man, it is a new and thoroughly disturbing theory.
Reality in the true sense is beyond the measurements and axioms of modern man. Bertrand Russell led the effort to describe reality as a closed system, and despite his failure, sallied forth to declare it so. The materialist perspective has always been that this earth is a closed system, and this perspective has always been in error.
Manifestation is always moored to the inky depths of eternity, and in a paradoxical fashion, this explains its impermanence. Eternity can only be revealed here through glimpses, and each glimpse must give way for another, that eternity can be realized here. Eternity must be realized here, because eternity is the very origin of everything in manifestation. Thus it is that in the reveal of eternity, everything must move, and in motion, it must reflect in turn all aspects of that parent which manifestation is a reflection of. This totality requires birth and death, waxing and waning, improving and decaying. Each brilliant assemblage is but a subset, an order of the boundless, and as it reflects that tiny glimpse, it moves to fulfill all conditions, all efforts. Therefore, the universe will run down, losing colour and shine to disassemble into non being, before the regeneration occurs, and all is born anew once more.
The cosmos is born to die, and in death to be reborn. This cyclic motion is like the breath of the divine, and in order for the centreless awareness to manifest, it must do so as intelligence. All assumptions of modern man are based upon the idea that the universe is intelligible, that the design implicit in the universe is both purposeful and intrinsic. This quality, this principle is the Demiurgeous, the cosmic organizer.
Modern thought has no parallel for this organizational activity that pervades all aspects of manifestation, this mirror of eternity. The best modern thought can do is assign qualities of good or evil, and equate the Demiurgeous to god. In a previous piece, I have explored the qualities associated with such labeling. Such efforts are the results of rigid perspectives, not truth unto themselves.
Ultimately, this known and perceived universe, deemed the only reality by modern thought, is but the most diminutive of fragments of a much greater reality; a picture of a few pages from a book of many volumes.
Beyond the speculations that brought us Big Bangs and dark matter, the fundamental observation hidden from view is that modern thought cannot grasp the current totality. There is no theory of what came before, and much less of one regarding what arrives afterward. Therefore, if one is to build any understanding of this totality, one must do so employing different tools.
Our first tool is the opening of understanding of the cyclic nature of all things. Linear processes dominate modern thought, and that dominance carries with it a sort of tunnel vision by which the nature of repetition is denigrated and ignored. Cyclic does not mean a treadmill, nor does it require an abandonment of progression. Cyclic relates to the fact that manifestation is a result of forces and states, and these states reveal themselves only in part, and always through the cycle.
A good example of this is the mean analogy. Mean analogy reveals both relationship and association; even while appearing to work in a linear form. The association thus deepens the conception of levels of thought, which become analogies for levels of manifestation.
The season is to the month, as the month is to the week. Such returns the concepts of time back into relationship, providing both context and scale. Such a tool provides for the mind a standard, a baseline, by which the complexities of manifestation can be understood.
We can understand that the seasons change, and bring radically different conditions with them. We can use this understanding to inform our vision of all of reality as cyclic. This allows for an exploration that includes different ages, unique ages, and even unique cosmos.
Our second tool then, is the ability to participate without explanation. Participation requires a harmonization between the raw experience of life itself, and that who perceives. Participation is the second tool, because immersion is awareness, and awareness requires no structure, no explanation to recognize itself. Awareness is not probability, it is not some cold universal law, nor is it some nihilistic materialist phantasie. Awareness cannot be but named, because there is no complete explanation for it, but it can be participated in, in fact it is ultimately natural for us to do so. Awareness is the firmament of intellection, and taken together they defeat all attempts to nullify them.
Emanation requires myriad steps, hypostases, to accomplish its task of cosmic assemblage. The lower must look to the higher for understanding and explanation, and this act itself, together with a cyclic understanding informed by participation, prepares the individual for realization.
This realization arrives at this manifestation not as a be-all of creation, but a mere glimpse of that vastness extant at any particular time. Each glimpse runs its course before relenting to the next, and thus each glimpse offers its own unique expression of that eternity.
The universe that pulses into and out of being is itself a vast assemblage, a glittering organization unique to itself as a reflection of that eternal potential. Its replacement can and will explore its own unique aspects, thus bringing into existence different conditions from what came before.
Deploying our new tools also brings us to the realization that spiritual identity which transmigrates into myriad forms is ever reincarnated with the living, sentient cosmos. Seen as an expression of that same eternal glimpse, life explores unique conditions simultaneously, riding a great shimmering wave into manifestation, that immense orbit which carries potency from ultimate source, through being, to reunite with source after having been transformed by the great journey itself.
In so many ways the plunge into the multiplicity of life requires a fragmentation, a forsaking of memory and identity as the fragment tumbles into time. So it was that Demiurgeous became aware of his fragmentation, and comprehended that such was the loss of totality of mind. Thence he set forth to reclaim his totality, and this act of regeneration is the template for every act of regeneration, for the cosmos itself is instilled with the return.
From a cosmic hypostasis to an individual one, and back to the cosmic one again, the journey of the brilliant dew drop upon the world tree of pre-christian understanding, where the circulation of the dewdrop is akin to the circulation of the spiritual identity, reaching manifestation, only to reform upon the great boughs.
The modern mind does not conceive of itself in such a fashion. For most, dew is a dreary annoying contrivance that interferes with their ideas of what they want to do next. Yet somewhere in the corner of that mind, dwells some bleak awareness of the water cycle, and some dim admission that water is essential to life.
This very comprehension of the cycle travelling from its oceanic source to myriad transformations before its ultimate return carries with it a series of deep realizations concerning the nature of this life, if and only if one employs the correct tools to inform their investigation.
Each transformation of the dew droplet in time creates its own impression of a journey, and this motion plays across innumerable intersecting echoes that make up reality.
Thus we can see in the minds’ eye, that the play and replay of life cycling back into life resembles a great spinning wheel which turns quite independent of the wishes of those bonded to it. No amount of effort or anguish has the slightest power to alter this great motion. Realization, the recognition of awareness, can only apply what it has learned to itself.
Thus the statement that life is a great school whereby consciousness is earned, and developed through the efforts of spiritual identity, the dewdrop, the transmigrating life force that permeates this manifestation.
Such a mode of understanding carries with it its very own great cycle, encompassing so many others. The procession of incarnation and passing becomes its own rhythm, its own melody, participating in the brilliance of creation, and the terrifying disassembly of Ragnarok. Yet even Ragnarok is but the final act of a passing cycle, a dying world heralding the arrival of the next, where Life and Longing for Life, the divine twins, emerge from the womb of the world tree to set foot upon the glittering plane.
The Gods discover their old adornment, and marvel at their new positions in the cosmos. Order manifests from the chaos and devastation, the organizing force that lights the match of unity in the blind multiplicity, and upon loosing itself utterly in fragmentation sets the root for regeneration and renewal.
The focus of this momentary physical existence has reached a crescendo of worshipping itself. Such is perhaps understandable, in that all life appears at first glance to be merely about life, a mindless cacophony of sounds and images. Yet the assumptions that such is the case are supported by human structures arranged to directly benefit from such belief. Further, such dead end assumptions are recent acquisitions, founded upon a radically different ideology than that which preceded it.
Modern notions of life and existence are almost all thoroughly rooted in this experience, a self limiting factor which keeps the smallest snapshot of creation incredibly small, and compartmentalized. Such limited viewpoints return always to the most visceral, and when elevated, as they all are, prove themselves incapable of revealing anything intrinsic to the great cycles that dominate existence here.
The cosmos, the great living entity has been made common by the universe, yet even in this debased state, the discovery of a lifespan to the universe is understood. Implicit in at least some of this understanding is the recognition that universe is at least capable of dying and being reborn. The universe then, as a great cycle, contains the smaller cycles of incarnation, where the individual is the momentary expression of life. Life itself emerges from the very central axis of this manifestation itself, according to ancestral understanding, a stunning realization that brings awareness into relation with itself. Into this magnificent mystery we awaken, with the thirst for all it has to offer, and having cast our lot we sally forth, unknowingly, a drop of dew within an eternal mystery.
I understood most of what you expressed here except for “borrowed light “. By borrowed you mean light of awareness?
ReplyDeleteInteresting question.
DeleteUltimately, one must decide if the direction of manifestation is given, or discovered. Given manifestation requires little from that which is within, and in this case the role of light is tempered by other universal forces. In such a perspective, borrowed light becomes a romantic term with little agency.
However, if we subscribe to the direction as discovery, then the state of borrowed light becomes paramount. Herein, we are faced with a great mystery that brings us glimpses to pursue. That light, which is of higher origin, belongs to that origin first, it holds that potential.
The glimpse requires the light, and as such, this lower manifestation borrows the light for its own meaning, purpose, and course in this Cosmos.
MK