Wisdom has built her house,
she has set up her seven pillars
(Proverbs ix, 1)
Dear Unknown Friend,
As set forth in the preceding Letter, the Magician is the arcanum of intellectual geniality and cordiality, the arcanum of true spontaneity. Concentration without effort and the perception of correspondences in accordance with the law of analogy are the principal implications of this arcanum of spiritual fecundity. It is the arcanum of the pure act of intelligence. But the pure act is like fire or wind: it appears and disappears, and when exhausted it gives way to another act.
The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John iii, 8)
The pure act in itself cannot be grasped; it is only its reflection which renders it perceptible, comparable and understandable or, in other words, it is by virtue of the reflection that we become conscious of it. The reflection of the pure act produces an inner representation, which becomes retained by the memory; memory becomes the source of communication by means of the spoken word; and the communicated word becomes fixed by means of writing, by producing the "book".
The second Arcanum, the High Priestess, is that of the reflection of the pure act of the first Arcanum up to the point where it becomes "book". It shows us how Fire and Wind become Science and Book. Or, in other words, how "Wisdom builds her house".
As we have pointed out, one becomes conscious of the pure act of intelligence only by means of its reflection. We require an inner mirror in order to be conscious of the pure act or to know "whence it comes or whither it goes". The breath of the Spirit — or the pure act of intelligence — is certainly an event, but it does not suffice, itself alone, for us to become conscious of it. Con-sciousness (conscience) is the result of two principles — the active, activating principle and the passive, reflecting principle. In order to know from where the breath of the Spirit comes and where it goes. Water is required to reflect it. This is why the conversation of the Master with Nicodemus, to which we have referred, enunciates the absolute condition for the conscious experience of the Divine Spirit — or the Kingdom of God:
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of Water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. (John iii, 5)
"Truly, truly" — the Master refers here twice to "truth" in this mantric (i.e. magical) formula of the reality of con-sciousness. By these words he states that full consciousness of the truth is the result of "inbreathed" truth and reflected truth. Reintegrated consciousness, which is the Kingdom of God, presupposes two renovations, of a significance comparable to birth, in the two constituent elements of consciousness — active Spirit and reflecting Water. Spirit must become divine Breath in place of arbitrary, personal activity, and Water must become a perfect mirror of the divine Breath instead of being agitated by disturbances of the imagination, passions and personal desires. Reintegrated consciousness must be born of Water and Spirit, after Water has once again become Virginal and Spirit has once again become divine Breath or the Holy Spirit. Reintegrated consciousness therefore becomes born within the human soul in a way analogous to the birth or historical incarnation of the WORD"
Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine. (By the power of the Holy Spirit the Word became incarnate from the Virgin Mary)
The re-birth from Water and Spirit which the Master indicates to Nicodemus is the re-establishment of the state of consciousness prior to the Fall, where the Spirit was divine Breath and where this Breath was reflected by virginal Nature. This is Christian yoga. Its aim is not "radical deliverance" (mukti), i.e. the state of consciousness without breath and without reflection, but rather "baptism from Water and the Spirit", which is the complete and perfect response to divine action. These two kinds of baptism bring about the reintegration of the two constituent elements of consciousness as such — the active element and the passive element. There is no consciousness without these two elements, and the suppression of this duality by means of a practical method such as that inspired by the ideal of unity (advaita — non-duality) must necessarily lead to the extinction not of being but rather of consciousness. Then this would not be a new birth of consciousness, but instead would be its return to the pre-natal embryonic cosmic state.
On the other hand, this is what Plotinus says concerning the duality underlying all forms and every level of consciousness, namely the active principle and its mirror:
...when the mirror is there, the mirror-image is produced, but when it is not there or is not in the right state, the object of which the image would have been is (all the same) actually there. In the same way as regards the soul, when that kind of thing in us which mirrors the images of thought and intellect is undisturbed, we see them and know them in a way parallel to sense-perception, along with the prior knowledge that it is intellect and thought that are active. But when this is broken because the harmony of the body is upset, thought and intellect operate without an image, and then intellectual activity takes place without a mind-picture. (Plotinus, Ennead I. Iv. 10; trsl. A. H. Armstrong, London, 1966, pp. 199 and 201)
This is the Platonic conception of consciousness, the thorough study of which can serve by way of introduction to the nocturnal conversation of the Master with Nicodemus on the reintegration of consciousness or the aim of Christian yoga.
Christian yoga does not aspire directly to unity, but rather to the unity of two. This is very important for understanding the standpoint which one takes towards the infinitely serious problem of unity and duality. For this problem can open the door to truly divine mysteries and can also close them to us...for ever, perhaps, who knows? Everything depends on its comprehension. We can decide in favour of monism and say to ourselves that there can be only one sole essence, one sole being. Or we can decide — in view of considerable historical and personal experience — in favour of dualism and say to ourselves that there are two principles in the world; good and evil, spirit and matter, and that , entirely incomprehensible though this duality is at root, it must be admitted as an incontestable fact. WE can, moreover, decide in favour of a third point of view, namely that of love as the cosmic principle which presupposes duality and postulates its non-substantial but essential unity.
These three points of view are found at the basis of the Vedanta (advaita) and Spinozism (monism), Manichaeism and certain gnostic schools (dualism), and the Judaeo-Christian current (love).
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