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Illusion. Aspirants to the mysteries have always been warned about the possibility of illusion. We are told that it is easy to be fooled by the appearance of things versus their reality. As present day aspirants to the mystery school of the Rosicrucians, Christian mysticism, we are tempted to think we are not as subject to illusion as aspirants in the past because of its logical, scientific basis. We think that since our waking consciousness is focused in the chemical subdivision of the physical world, we are less subject to illusion than we would be if our consciousness was focused in the deceptive desire world. After all, we are mastering the physical world through rigorous skepticism which weeds out illusion. As students of Max Heindel, we are especially prone to believe we are free from illusion because everything he shared was so clear. It appeals to both intuition and logic.
This attitude about illusion is itself an illusion, an illusion that is easily dispelled.
When we read the works of Max Heindel, we think we know what he is say- ing. It is so clear that it couldn’t be anything but true. It is in that clarity that there is illusion, the illusion that we think we know what he has said. That is often not true.
On the title page of the first edition of the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception there is a simple quote from St. Paul: “Prove all things.” This sentiment is echoed in secular folk maxims, as in, “...the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” In spiritual aspiration there is one proof of knowledge that is paramount— life. We cannot say we know something spiritual unless we can live it. High ideals may help us in our quest but the true test of definitive knowledge is our life. If we knew the teachings of Max Heindel as we think we do, we would be initiates, and few are.
Beyond holding this illusion, there is farther intransigence in Rosicrucian aspirants with regard to the teachings of Max Heindel. We neither heed nor follow his directions and suggestions about how to study what he has given us. His writings are meant to be vessels for spiritual content, soul food if you will. We cannot benefit from our aliment until it is digested, absorbed and assimilated. There is a parallel with spiritual nutrition. We have to break it down, take it in, and make it our own. Max Heindel tells us repeatedly, especially in his letters, that to benefit from his writings, we must get beneath the surface of them which, in itself, is beautiful, inspiring and dense in wisdom. He describes it like digging for treasure and unearthing gems of unspeakable beauty. This writer has spoken with aspirants of varying ages and backgrounds and has found few who even try to follow this suggestion. Understanding why this happens has baffled this writer because, to the small extent that he has tried it, it has proven so spiritually rich and satisfying that he almost doesn’t want to study or ponder anything else.
One tentative answer as to why this happens is that this behavior is founded in another illusion. When intuition comes, it comes easily and effortlessly. Intuition happens. When intuition comes through the vehicle of reason, it seems even easier to be received and it has an added backstop of provability to prevent relapsing into disbelief. All of the writings of Max Heindel are like that and, perhaps, we have been spoiled by them. All of this happens despite Max Heindel telling us that we must build moral muscle, and that we do that through “prayer and work.”
What seems to happen is that people choose instead to seek more information and answers to things in other sources, which may or may not be attuned to the Rosicrucian Order to which we aspire. When that happens, aspiration is diluted and some even drift away.
This is not meant to be a polemic or an indictment of fellow Rosicrucian aspirants. It is meant as a reminder, and as an encouragement to do the work from one who, from the little of it as he has done, has nothing but gratitude and enthusiasm. Doing this does not have to mean laborious pondering on metaphysical concepts of convoluted logic. It can be as simple as applying the principles of Rosicrucian philosophy to the everyday world around us for deeper understanding, appreciation, and harmonious living with the purpose behind it all. It can be as simple as asking a question like “Why do birds sing?” or “Why do wolves howl?”
A biologist might say birds sing as a mating strategy or that they sing to mark territory. Someone with a romantic, religious temperament might say they sing to the glory of God, and to make the creation more beautiful. Both are no doubt correct, but are we content that those answers are all of it? Or that these are the most important reasons? Perhaps the Rosicrucian philosophy can help us to a more spiritually satisfying answer.
The great seers of the Rosicrucian Order have found that when our evolution carried us into the chemical subdivision of the physical world, the evolutionary conditions became markedly different from any that preceded them. Previously, in the higher worlds, our various vehicles of consciousness (even the physical), could be perpetuated for long periods of time and new vehicles could be generated without mating because of the fluent, unified nature of the higher worlds, and because we were bisexual (in the true meaning of the word.)
Things are different in the chemicals. The chemicals are the end of the line for us. In the chemicals there is only the “without,” an extreme limitation. It is the hard physical world of separation and specialization. To function here we had to separate and specialize our vehicles of consciousness pertaining to the physical world - the etheric and the chemical bodies. This specialization is called the separation of the sexes in Christian mysticism. It was more than the gender separation of complementary body types for procreation. There is also an internal division. Previous to the separation of the sexes, we are described as being in large, bag-like bodies. Vaguely, one could say that the structure resembled that of a large single cell with a creative nucleus. In it the becoming constitution was in something like a fetal shape.
The separation of the sexes took place over a long period of time and several things happened. The form opened and became more linear. Organs developed. Everything happened gradually. Even the nucleus divided and found expression in two centers at the ends of the developing spine: the generative organs for one, and the brain and larynx for the other. Gradually we developed organs to meet our needs in the hardening discrete conditions of the world around us. We could do this because only part of the creative energy was used cooperatively for procreation and the rest was available for body building. Previously, the process was analogous to mitosis, after which division both new cells must rest because of the taxing demands of the division. In the developing organism less creative energy was used in procreation and more at the nucleus at the other end of the developing spine. At that nucleus special emphasis was placed on developing the brain and central nervous system. This was done so the spirit could enter into its body and function here through the concrete mind with the brain as its vehicle. This took place over many millennia. Nature works slowly and perfectly.
During this span there was a recapitulation of old evolutionary work done in the new conditions. When we recapitulated the work of the Moon Period, (a period in which we went through an animal-like stage, developing the ability to feel, emote and desire), we again went through various emotional and desire complexes in animal-like human forms. As we outgrew these animal-like complexes, we retained their essences, transformed into human expressions. We then discarded the forms which were no longer necessary. The discarding was not like the discarding of a food wrapper which would have been a waste. Nothing is wasted in nature. Instead, the forms were passed along to the animals whose evolution follows ours one step behind. It was similar to hand-me-downs in a family of several children.
From these basic forms all sorts of species have ramified, developed and evolved. The book of Genesis (2:20) describes this as, “Adam gave names to the animals,” a phrase with which Mark Twain had great fun in his Diaries of Adam and Eve, with delightful humor. However, Mark Twain was biblically incorrect, because Genesis tells us the naming occurred before the appearance of Eve, i.e., before the separation of sexes was completed. Juxtaposing the Genesis idea with an evolutionary table, such as the one on page 416 of the Cosmo-Conception, we can learn when, in the span of the recapitulatory process, the separation of the sexes took place. It was a gradual process, as are all evolutionary processes.
The means of the expulsion of the animal forms is fascinating and it is pertinent to why birds sing.
During the time of the “naming” we, the emerging and becoming humans, were still creatively potent in the world around us. We did not create in the world with machines as we do now. We created more directly from ourselves, like magicians. We were also more morally pure. With this combination of potency and purity we could, under the guidance and direction of divine hierarchies, focus on the panoply of desire forms within us, retain human versions of them, and externalize the forms for the use of the animals. Doing this gave us the freedom to become human. The formative work was accomplished through voice. Did we sing the species forms into existence? Only careful clairvoyant investigation can tell.
This brings us back to why birds sing. This mystical view of the relationship of voice and creation agrees with the biologist’s connection of birdsong and mating, but it doesn’t give us an answer to the question we are asking. However, if we remember the basic nature of the chemical subdivision of the physical world, we can come to at least a partial answer.
The physical world is different from all of the other worlds in which we work, in that is has no “within.” It is interpenetrated as are all of the worlds but it has no within. If we slice through an apple to see what is within, we see only two different withouts but no within. A form in the desire world has a character within that is different from its exterior, and both the without and the within can be seen by clairvoyants who warn us about surface illusions. Forces from the higher worlds enter chemical bodies and the chemical world resonantly through the positive poles of the ethers if there are vital bodies. However, many forms do not have desire bodies and some physical forms do not have vital bodies. Limitation.
This chemical world is glorious but it still needs direct expressions of higher forces to evolve. There are the mechanical forces expressed as sounds, such as the winds, but nothing direct from the within. There is no hosannah chorus in the chemical world, as there is in the inner worlds. But we do have the birds ... and the wolves. Each avian species has its specific song which brings a particular spiritual force into the world. A wren gives everything it has to deliver its song. Its entire body shudders in the effort, and it sometimes does this for hours, in an effort that would exhaust a human many times over.
Why do birds sing? They sing to bring forces into the world that can come into the world in no other way, and they do it wholeheartedly. To be in a jungle where a multitude of sources are constantly singing and bringing sound into this world is a wonder that must be experienced to be appreciated.
We humans do not have the purity and potency we had when through our voices we named the animals. However, we are growing in soul power and virtue through experience so our words are progressively more potent — which should give us pause to ponder before we speak and bring forces into the world through our voices. We have a responsibility in self-consciousness that the birds do not have, which suggests thinking thoroughly before we speak.
The relationship between voice and procreative potency may potentially also answer a question puzzling contemporary, evolutionary biologists. Among the tens of thousands of bird species only three percent have penises. That fact is remarkable in itself, but what is more remarkable is that there is evidence that in the evolutionary past all species of birds had penises. This condition has prompted questions about the why and how of it. Several theses have been put forth as to the why of this, such as flight being easier with less weight. The how of it is more difficult to explain, except to say there was a gradual diminution. The Rosicrucian philosophy can offer a speculative answer as to how this came about. We know that in male humans the voice changes at puberty and that we lose our voices when we weaken. It is likely that there are similar relationships between voice and potency in birds. Thus, it is possible that the birds with heartfelt singing may have sung their penises away. To this writer’s knowledge there has been no study to prove or disprove this tentative hypothesis. If it is true, it might mean that the current animals, through the birds, will be less likely to fall for the reason we did when they reach the human stage. Not only that, they will have had the joy of soaring away from plodding on the earth.
Are there other reasons why birds sing? Perhaps. What do you think?
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