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This writer feels blessedly fortunate to remember taking his first step. It was one of the happiest moments of his life. The praise and encouragement he was given were pure, genuine and generous. It was like being in a glow of positivity. There was no thought about anything before or after the event. It was truly living in the moment. There have been other good moments in life but none to match the innocent, childlike joy in that achievement.
Things didn’t remain in that state of innocence. He grew up and became a questioning young man. His questioning did not have that childlike, purity and innocence. It wasn’t even genuine. It was vain. It was more about him than the things he was questioning.
Among the things he questioned was religion, even God. Influenced by what eventually proved to be sterile academic philosophy, he became an atheist for a short while. Atheism won him the attention he craved in his insecurity. He loved to ridicule religion. He would say things like, “He can’t be much of a God if he has to be patted on the back with praise.” Beneath all of that glibness, he was still insecure.
He continued to search and question. There seemed to be no good alternatives. In his youth, before atheism, when he would ask hard questions in church youth groups, he would be told, “that’s nice, here’s a cookie,” instead of being given an answer. He liked most of the other young people but they seemed satisfied with “cookie Christianity.” Academe had its own shortcomings. It opened him to all sorts of new ideas and even provided a few answers, but it lacked life and ultimacy. The beatnik counter culture had its own limitations, including drugs. Drugs produced illusions and promises of truth that eventually fell short. There was also no incentive. There is no freedom when a drug determines the direction of one’s consciousness.
With extremely good fortune, his dissatisfaction and questioning brought him to mysticism, first Theosophy and, shortly thereafter, to his spiritual home in Rosicrucian Christian Mysticism. Finding his spiritual home didn’t put an end to his questioning. It persists to this day. The difference is that in mysticism, he knows there are answers. The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, which was read for the first time in a span of two days, had answers to many questions he had never thought of asking. Moreover, in the Rosicrucian philosophy, there were means of getting answers and testing them.
The Universal Spirit is boundless. Because of that, some of the questions about it, are also boundless. We can come back to them again and again, and each time the answers are deeper, broader, and more satisfying. It wouldn’t be much of a spiritual universe if all of the questions were already answered, and the answers were pat. It would be boring. Max Heindel tells us contentment on the spiritual path amounts to the death of growth. Goethe ends his masterpiece, Faust, speaking of the “infinite feminine” ever leading us onward, leading us onward in divine curiosity.
One of those early questions is the basis of this essay. It goes something like, “If God doesn’t need praise, like a pat on the back, what is the place of praise in spiritual reality?”
In the Rosicrucian teachings we have astrology to help us answer questions like this. Traditionally, in astrology, praise is ruled by Jupiter. For centuries Jupiter has been called the greater benefic and Venus the lesser. Both are forces for the good. Jupiter represents not only the greater good, but also good in general. Simplistically, one could say that it is good to praise God. That is true but it isn’t very insightful, it is astrological “cookie astrology.” We want something more satisfying.
When we page through astrology books and focus on Jupiter, we don’t find many references to praise. Perhaps praise isn’t important to astrologers. Perhaps praise isn’t important to humanity. We do seem to carp and criticize a lot more than we praise. We are often negative about others, and we seem to suffer the illusion that lowering someone else, raises us. Negativity is ruled by Saturn, the planetary opposite of Jupiter. Saturn is the planet of selfishness and egoism, as well as materialism. Those planetary keywords for Saturn describe our outward condition pretty well. Contrariwise, praise is like Shakespeare’s “mercy” that blesses both the giver and the receiver.
Not finding much in the way of direct reference to praise in the Jupiter section of astrology texts, we can try indirect means. One of the most frequent descriptions and keywords for Jupiter is generosity. Jupiter loves to give. Individuals expressing the qualities of Jupiter will give to the exclusion of everything else. Even receiving for such people is a form of giving. Praise is a form of giving. With this in mind, our question takes the form of, “What do we have that is a worthy gift for God?” Experience.
In our present state, we can do things that God, the Universal Spirit, is not capable of. Some of these things are so simple that we take them for granted, and overlook their true value. Ocular vision is a good example. We are the only beings capable of peering self-consciously into the external world. We have the exclusive responsibility of being the self-conscious eyes and ears of God. This is no small gift. Imagine a gifted painter who could not see the final product of his/her work, but could only see it in the inner imagination. It would feel frustratingly incomplete. This gift of ours is necessary to the creation.
Jupiter is positive. Jupiter sees the good. When we are in our right minds, and look out into the world, we see that it is good, that it is spectacular. A true artist knows intuitively when his/her work is good. It is even better when the creation is completely understood and appreciated. The objectivity of an independent witness closes the circle of creation. When we witness the glorious good without, we intuit that it is good. It is an authentic good, and we rejoice in it. In this there is no false praise. To pat God on the back is blasphemous insolence.
Jupiter is expansive. Jupiter does things in a big way. Jupiter is inclusive. The gift of praise is not given in only one small instance of praise. Our lives are filled with such instances and, being self-consciously aware of them, we give praise without even knowing it. We are experiencing the joy of authentic existence. With Jupiter, there is always more. The more, in this instance, is all of us. Billions in our life wave are giving the gift of experience in several worlds in many rebirths. One could discuss other epochs or revolutions or periods, but the attempt to do so, might dilute and distract our conscious attention.
Jupiter is big spirited enough to be open to incorporating the views of others. If we do that with regard to the Creator, while trying to answer our question, we encounter something of almost unspeakable awe. It is not possible for us, at this time, to comprehend the creation with the consciousness of the Creator. Part Two of The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception gives us a wonderful view of the creation but it is external, and only skeletal. If, in our imagination, we try to grasp the creation from the initial, grand, creative, spiritual impulse down to the dust beneath our feet, from within, it is beyond words. When we realize that all of us, including all other creatures and creators, are developing unique, creative views of the creation, it is almost incomprehensible. As amazing as such a view is, it is only partially internal. If we could see it with a God’s eye perspective, we would experience every being coming to waking, conscious, recognition of the glory of the creation. Each being gives back to God a new and creative, independent perspective of the creation as it is realized. This is true praise in the form of genuine, appreciative realization. Thus, the Creator, in giving and sharing the creation with us, receives a new and wondrous outlook from each and every participant in the creation. It is no wonder that this ongoing revelation between Creator and living creations, is experienced as divine hymns of praise and glory.
At this point, it is obvious that the subject matter beggars the cognitive capacity of the writer and his ability to put it into words. Fortunately, for writers there is a reprieve. A writer can always cite someone who says it better. One of the best examples of the feeling of praise for the divine is the fourth chapter of the Book of Revelation:
“…and immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne Proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou has created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”
It is clear that the reporter of this experience also struggled with the magnitude and glory of the task. However, there is wisdom in the temperance of the author of this book, in choosing to use symbols to describe something that is currently beyond human language. Another thing that adds perspective to this passage is that there are divine beings, beings beyond humans, offering praise. In this regard it is like the nativity story in St. Luke’s Gospel where angel choirs raise their voices to God in paeans of joy.
We humans in our materialistic blindness suffer in many illusions. One of them is that we think we are the highest product of evolution because we are advanced beyond the creatures we see around us. It is hard to praise something greater when one thinks one is the highest. “Praise God for making us the best” is not really praise. Having the scales of materialism and vanity removed from one’s eyes, one realizes this almost immediately. One is humbled and, in humility, is more willing to offer up praise when one sees one is on the lower rungs of Jacob’s Ladder of apotheosis. Even a brief baptism of the Holy Ghost accomplishes this. Recipients of such a blessing often cry out, “Praise the Lord.”
Jupiter rules the abstract subdivision of the world of thought, the home of the Holy Ghost in macrocosm, and the Human Spirit in microcosm. Both are ideas. Spirit is spirit but God and Self, or spiritual Ego, are ideas. They are holy, divine ideas, important ideas. Some of their divine value is to be found in something like praise in the abstract subdivision of the world of thought.
On page 52 of The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception is an invaluable diagram. In that diagram, the permanency of the spiritual worlds and the means of manifestation of the concrete worlds is likened to a stereopticon. The center of the mind in the world of thought is the lens of the stereopticon. In the diagram, the Divine Spirit is both the Creator and the operator of the stereopticon. The will of Divine Spirit engenders spiritual light and the capacity to imagine, in Life Spirit. Through Life Spirit abstract ideas are imagined in the abstract subdivision of the world of thought. The will of Divine Spirit projects the ideas through the lens of mind, and they become concretions. This activity takes place analogously in the divine macrocosm, and the human microcosm. In the concrete macrocosm, the worlds of thought, desire and physical stuff, are the products. In the concrete microcosm, the products are forms in concrete thought, desire and physical matter.
Actually, the lens of mind is a two-way lens. (It is also a variable focus lens, but that is for another essay.) It is through the lens of mind that the essence of experience in concretion is taken into the spirit as soul material. This is done through various grades of retrospection.
Also, both surfaces of the lens of mind are reflecting. The center of the mind is a mirror as well as a lens. We know all too well how the lower nature in the desire body takes hold of the lens-mirror and reflects a multitude of all sorts of pseudo thoughts to satisfy desire. Unless the Spirit, the Self, controls the mind from within, the desire nature will use it to its own cunning ends. It is amazingly cunning, but it can only counterfeit illusory thoughts, it cannot create. Creation belongs to the Spirit.
The side of the lens facing the abstract mind is also reflecting. Sometimes in our quiet moments, we reflect on the higher meanings of things. This kind of transcendental reflection can be raised to exalted states of consciousness through spiritual practices. Those exercises, which follow concentration, are called meditation, contemplation and adoration in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception. Like many other things in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, that passage begs elucidation.
There are definite goals for us in the evolutionary creation. One of them is waking, objective, self-consciousness. Though this is a definite objective, our attainment in this goal is open-ended. Unlimited attainment is in the very nature of spirit. Being unlimited does not mean that there is nothing that cannot be done. Perhaps a discussion of states of spirit will clarify this.
As spiritual entities, we are threefold spirits. This is true in our microcosm, and the spiritual macrocosm of the One. The threefold spirit, whether in microcosm or macrocosm, consists of Divine Spirit, Life Spirit, and Human Spirit. The Human Spirit is sometimes also called the Spiritual Ego or the Self. Being in the abstract subdivision of the world of thought, the Self is an idea, a divinely conceived idea. In the macrocosm, that idea is named God, which is not the Universal Spirit, only its focus. The Rosicrucian philosophy points out that Human Spirit is different from Life Spirit or Divine Spirit. Life Spirit and Divine Spirit are called states of pure spirit. By this it is meant that they do not have the internal structure and quasi-limitation that principles and ideas do. Principles and ideas are universal but not complete, as the incompleteness theorem Gödel demonstrates. They are truths, not the truth. Ideas, including the idea of Self, are conceptions. They are conceived in the imaginative capacity of Life Spirit, which Max Heindel sometimes refers to as the spiritual feminine. Since they are conceived within the Universal Spirit, without any outside agency, mystics have called ideas “immaculate conceptions.” The Self, whether in microcosm or macrocosm, is an objectification—not a concrete object but an abstract objectification.
There are various transcendental relationships between the states of spirit that unite to form a threefold spirit. In theogony and cosmogony there is a progressive relationship. Divine Spirit is the spiritual will to be. It just is, and its being is both active and passive. Life Spirit is the love-wisdom which carries out being into spiritual life. It has the capability to conceive a being of life. Human Spirit is the conception. It is a being, albeit an abstract entity. Another way of trying to get at this exceedingly difficult matter, is to see ideas, the idea of Self included, as truths. Then Life Spirit is pure truth from which truths are formed. Life Spirit is the light of truth and Divine Spirit is the ultimate, subsistent, authentic reality behind truth.
In our current incarnate consciousness, it is difficult to understand transcendental, spiritual consciousness. Unless we are in the Spirit, it is foreign to us. “The ways of God are strange to the ways of men.” In the transcendent spiritual worlds, everything is whole. Here, in concretion, things are experienced in parts — “now we know in part, but then we shall know even as we are known.” Thus, to understand waking, objective self-consciousness, we have to try to grasp parts of it and hope that, in spirit, we can unite them to get the gist of the whole. It is something like using a springboard out of concretion.
Chiseled into the lintel of an ancient Greek mystery school were the words, “Gnothi se auton,” “know thy self.” That command is easier said than done. We have many different self-conceptions. The Self is singular but in the concrete worlds, its manifestation is manifold. It takes practice to attain to and maintain consciousness in and of the Self. If we are observant in our daily lives, over time we recognize a constancy of our being. Self-conceits and identifications come and go but this remains constant. That constancy exists outside of time as we know it. To recognize and place our attention in it, is a beginning of self-consciousness.
Another way to self-awareness is arrived at in doing things. Some tasks in life require deep concentration to fulfill them. We have to deliberately apply ourselves to do these things. If we apply ourselves deeply and deliberately enough, we become aware of ourselves as the Doer, the Self. This is one of the goals of our concentration exercise. If we attain to this and shift our attention from the concentration to the Concentrator, concentration becomes meditation. In this state one realizes that one is much more than one has ever believed. Recognizing the divinity of one’s being in this state is a baptism of the Holy Spirit. Baptisms of the Holy Spirit can occur in other ways, such as momentarily letting go of personal, preconceived notions, but that is not the way Rosicrucian aspirants go about it. Control is passed, or surrendered, from the personality to the individuality, but there is control.
This is waking self-consciousness. In waking self-consciousness, one cannot truly know something, without also simultaneously knowing one’s Self.
It is ironically paradoxical that as one becomes transcendentally self-conscious in this manner, one is less selfishly oriented. One realizes that divinity resides as selfhood in others, human and divine. This realization approaches altruism but it is not quite altruism. Altruism occurs when one transcends the Human Spirit to Life Spirit. We remember that a Self is a conception in the pure imagination of Life Spirit. Altruism is a manifestation of the universal love of the love-wisdom aspect of Life Spirit. However, we must be careful to not think of universal love as a thing or an object, as we are prone to do in our concrete consciousness, such as we do with definite, concrete emotions. In light of what we are doing, which is following transcendental, antecedent causation back to origins, it is better to penetrate and transcend selfhood itself. When we do that, we see that Life Spirit is the selfness out of which selves are conceived. When one knows Life Spirit selfness, one knows all selves. One doesn’t have to practice altruism. Once one has realized that universal love is the essence of all individual beings, altruism is a fact. However, love, including altruistic love, requires an object, something to love, and altruism conceives the selves as objects to love. This is the basis of seeing the Spiritual Feminine as the Divine Mother, which is, indeed, virgin.
Paradoxical irony continues when we consider objectivity. The physical world, along with the worlds of thought and desire, are worlds of objects. They are not objective. Objects, including the Self, have points of view and points of view are subjective. The specific knowing of things in subjective points of view, is the purpose of subjectivity. Objectivity is the experience of all subjective points of view at once. Objectivity is experienced in Life Spirit and the transcendent worlds beyond it. (Scientists like to think of their work as objective because anyone can do an experiment and come to the same conclusion. There is objectivity in their work, and there is faceless universality, but it is a faint and distant echo far from complete objectivity and, in a way, it is really a grand subjectivity.) The worlds of objects are for experience. The essence of experience becomes spiritual consciousness in the transcendental spiritual worlds.
We have arrived at a vague and crude idea about the nature of waking, objective, self-consciousness. It is not the same thing as a direct experience, such as a baptism of the Holy Spirit, but it can help us to reach the real experience, provided that we don’t objectify it, which would block our way. More irony. In the real experience, one knows one’s divinity without doubt. That is one of the purposes of spiritual exercises.
Mystical aspirants are truth seekers. In mythology truth seekers are portrayed as heroes or heroines. One theme common to hero myths is the seeker needing to know his/her self. In myths this often takes the form of not knowing fundamental origins — “Whence came I?” This is true to direct spiritual aspiration. Self-knowledge is divine knowledge. Though there is a higher spiritual logic, self-knowing is not just proving a theory. One experientially knows divinity, but one also knows the internal limitations inherent in selfhood. One wants to get beyond one’s Self. Grand and supernal as it is, there is cramping in the experience of self-knowledge. One realizes as Dostoyevsky did, that “God is what it is all about.” Hence, we have exercises such as contemplation to experience Life Spirit and adoration to experience Divine Spirit. These exercises are not merely to satisfy the aspirant, they have purpose. In contemplation and adoration there is a completion of spiritual being. In these lofty spiritual exercises, the effects of waking, objective, self-consciousness in the Human Spirit are reflected into the higher states of spirit. It is not that waking, objective, self-consciousness is not intrinsic to the higher states of spirit. It had to have been, because those higher states are its origin, but its being in the higher states is implicit. If it was not implicit, the states of pure spirit could not be states of pure spirit. There would not be the pure unity that there is. It is not merely for the sake of creative, spiritual sharing that all of the spiritual entities are created. It is for creative fulfillment AND the fulfillment is not merely for satisfaction, it is because it is GOOD. Thus, when the threefold spirit ponders Self, all of the qualities of higher states of spirit manifest in the Self are reflected back on themselves without extinguishing their purity. These reflections are thus a true, and probably the highest, form of praise of the Universal Spirit.
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Contemporary Mystic Christianity |
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