During this month of July, we are influenced by cosmic energies flowing through the constellation of Cancer where the miracle of birth takes place inside its fluid and feeling waters. This sign is connected with the law of rebirth and forms one of the ‘gateways’ through which the subtle realm enters the dense level of material existence.
There is an ancient collective correlation to this personal birthing process within this particular Zodiacal portal recorded in the Ageless Wisdom teachings. We are told that over 18 million years ago humankind was born in the Age of Cancer. We are referring to that momentous evolutionary event which occurred when the fire of self-reflective consciousness – a mental faculty that, ‘knows that it knows’ – was sparked within the animal-human form. It is said that for the first time in the evolution of life on Earth, all three aspects of the One Life (spirit, soul and matter) now lived together inside one manifested package: endowed with the power of Self-awareness.
Each sign of the Zodiac carries and transmits a special quality of Light which for the Constellation of Cancer is called: “The Light within the form”. Each incarnation can be seen as another opportunity to carry the light of the soul into the material realm and to reveal its inner luminescence by shaping and refining the temporal instrument of our personality through which it eventually shines. The spiritual motto of Cancer further amplifies and supports this dharmic task: “I build a lighted house and therein dwell”.
What does it mean to build a ‘lighted house’? Individually, it is the applied daily work of building the Temple of Self – incarnation-by-incarnation – in which the sacred fire of the soul can be housed. The Ageless Wisdom teaching explains that the true work of Freemasonry is the building of this sacred Temple. As we work on fashioning our individual lighthouses, our communities then become ‘lighted places’ – micro-climates of kindness, caring and sharing upon the planet. We could say that the Magnum Opus of our times is the building of the Temple of the New Humanity – a ‘heart-lighted house’ in which our one human family can reside and flourish and fulfill its destined role as a light-bringer and a living bridge between Heaven and Earth.
According to the scriptures, we are made in the image and likeness of the Creator. If true, then inside of us there burns a sacred flame – a spark of the original Creative Fire that pulses inside the heart of every atom as an inextinguishable promise. If we consider ourselves to be fractals of the One Life – a constellation of sentient holographic beings containing all of Creation – then we are essentially the destined carriers of an eternal promise and the appointed divine artisans assisting in the deep desire of the Creator to be expressed. Simply stated, our daily task as agents of ‘fiery hope’ is to deliver on this celestial promise through all that we think, say and do.
Each of these fractals constitutes a Universe of Self – an inner community of lives who looks to us, the Awakened Consciousness, as a Steward that will act lovingly and wisely as its guardian and guide. This multi-dimensional Ecosystem of Self is our primary sphere of responsibility and as we learn to create health and wellbeing throughout the whole of this personal universe, we grow the sensitivity, care and capacity to become stewards of an even greater sphere of life: namely, the Earth.
One of the guiding principles at the core of our work here at Meditation Mount is the Principle of Essential Divinity that affirms the aforementioned fact that as creatures born of the Creator, our Sovereign Self is a unique revelation of the One Life. It is though in order for this omnipotent and omniscient Life to know Itself, it needs to meet and touch Itself and sense the quality and substance of its own being first-hand. Thus, for the One to become Self-aware, the original Word of Creation needs to be ‘made flesh’ by entering into the magnificent and mundane drama that is being acted out on the stage of daily incarnated life. Instructions on how to best deliver on our promise are clearly mapped out in the Ageless Wisdom teaching and offered in the following manner.
It is posited that inside us there lives a Creative Force comprising two component parts we call the Divine Father and the Divine Mother. These two Presences represent the twin aspects of a Unified Field - the two poles of the Cosmic Magnet of Creation which in the Agni Yoga teaching is referred to as the Dual Origin. Their union is how the One Life manifests Itself – the One through its dual nature as the Two creates the Three which is the enlightened offspring of their Sacred Communion. This ‘child of consciousness’ enables a profoundly mysterious process to take place by which the One becomes aware of Itself and achieves Self-Realization. You and I are intimate and integral partners of this awesome process whereby new forms of beauty and grace seek to continuously express the Eternal Love that underlies all Life.
Bringing the Masculine and Feminine energies together in ‘right resonant relationship’ is key to giving birth to the Lighted Promise. Whenever these twin aspects of our Essential Nature are separated – the world suffers, coherence dissolves and love and goodness cease to flow and circulate around the great chain of being. Whenever the Divine Mother and Father are separated, the world descends into despair, chaos, war and strife.
However, when these inseverable aspects live in deep communion and sacred union with each other, it guarantees that the Holy Trinity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty sings and soars and shines inside our whole being. If something wishes to manifest its inner characteristics and qualities, it must first reach a point of potency and internal magnetization so there is a resultant precipitation of this super-saturated spiritual state as an embodied outer reality.
The birth of the Light of our Sovereign Self requires that first the Electric Fire of the Father quickens and magnetizes the seed. It then requires the unconditional love and embrace of The Mother to nurture and hold the fiery seed in the fecund field of Her body so that our whole being becomes pregnant and expectant with new life. This lighted promise cannot be born until the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine aspects of ourselves are in holy communion and sacred union with each other – until there is right resonant relationship between these two poles of the Cosmic Magnet that are present inside each Soul.
For me, the birth of this inner Child of Light is the radiant consummation of the Divine Marriage. In the Mystery teachings, this child is often called the Light of Christ Consciousness – a term that pre-dates Christianity. The revelation of this ‘Christed Consciousness’ takes place at all levels upon the scalar continuum from the Cosmic to the human and, in some mysterious and unfathomable way to our present level of awareness, constitutes the meta process of Self-Realization of the One Life.
These may sound like lofty concepts far removed from the challenges of everyday existence and yet our personal struggles and heart-felt strivings are the very labor pains that stretch and pull us towards the appointed time and place of the Great Birth. When the portal of birth fashioned through the Divine Marriage is fully dilated then, at a microcosmic level, we experience and glimpse first-hand the vastness and grandeur of the Generative Mystery of the Being ‘in whom we live and move and have our being’.
We are told that the Revelation of the Mysteries will occur in this present era. We are truly living in ‘Apocalyptic’ times as the Greek origin of the word ‘Apocalypse’ means to uncover, reveal or lay bare. So, standing together in expectant joy, may we draw upon the strength, loving wisdom and fiery daring of the Soul to reveal and deliver on the Promise of Light we each carry within the atomic heart of our Essential Self.
Michael Lindfield
Board President
Meditation Mount