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To John
With all ideas of sacredness at hand, “sacred love” seems to be nothing but the Divine, that is, most subtle and luminous love. At least, I see no point in settling for less. Perhaps, before talking about this kind of love supposedly nice and all – isn't it for this reason that poets should write about it? – it is worth revisiting the following passage from the Gospel:
Anyone who loves their father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
I had tried to sweeten the harshness of the above words as the reader might remember. Still, from the purely human perspective, this and some other statements about the Divine love as capable of being dismissive and outright harsh, or just honest observations and knowledge of life as it is, may be rather worrisome: this love doesn't seem to mind sufferings and death of living beings, humans included, when it is determined to see through its workings; or, when it withdraws its hoped-for protection and allows a hell of things to break loose; or, when it punishes someone directly in ways far from being charitable for reasons far from being intelligible. That is to say, apart from the fierce hatred of the subverted, there may be understandable grievances on part of those who had been far from falling as deep but were treated harshly by life all the same. The grievances can be aggravated, up to turning into a hatred, by the fact that the very Divine love is portrayed as kind, merciful, compassionate, patient, protecting, and having many other qualities that, being as appealing as they are, seem to be at odds with its ever imminent and incongruent 'shadowy side'. That is why, before talking about “sacred love”, I would like to make it a point that the subject in question is rather sublime, complex, evasive, and mysterious. Considering that this love may have created me and be watching me this very moment scribbling my destiny for the observable future, that adds a somewhat curious dimension to my attempts to write about it. To put it differently, “who will be writing about who” may be well overridden by “who will be writing who”. In any event, I will try my best to unravel the tangle, with all due reverence, of what to make of “sacred love” and what at least some of its or, rather, her mysterious forms and workings could be.
As somebody said, the manifested world is a symbol, presumably of something otherworldly and immaterial or, at least, more subtle than its symbolic material representations are. I have been talking about moon and sun, essentially feminine and masculine principles, which seem to be emblematic of something or, rather, someone who had created the world in the first place with its countless suns, moons, planets, Black Holes, and so on. If I stop orbiting around the subject, that someone would be God, and both masculinity and femininity seem to be inherent to His – or Her? Or Their? – nature. For practical reasons, I will be referring to masculine and feminine aspects of God, or the Godhead, as Light and Love, the sacred love that is. In their relationship within the Godhead, they seem to be complementary yet quite distinct from one another. I shall try to lift the veil off this distinction going by the principle “as below, so above”.
According to the Bible, man is created in the image of God. If that refers to the workings of the human psyche rather than physical appearance, let alone physiological functions of humans, Light and Love could be loosely likened with the intellect and emotions of the Godhead. It seems that in the manifested, created world, when ascending within the 'vortex' of Way, sun, the solar thread, tries to approximate Light whilst moon, the lunar coils, essentially seeks to imitate Love. The union of sun and moon in Divine self seems to impersonate to the greatest extent the primordial union of Light and Love, or Father and Mother, or Sky and Earth, or, borrowing from the Hindu scriptures, Shiva and Shakti.
The apparent duality of the Godhead suggests, among other things, different approaches of Persons towards the creation.
Light appears largely transcendent to the world, lit only when the creation becomes worthy of his presence. On a more poetic note (the translation is mine):
Light! Should you be able to warm
With your blue heavenly coat – it would be easier.
We would climb the precipitous rock, gravity-free,
Walk by your side to the other side of the moan
Through the tunnels of ice, through and away from the misery.
Love seems to be more involved with the creation which in its more or less unadulterated shape would reflect her forms and workings. For one thing, subversion as described in the previous chapter seems to have nothing to do with Love. In a way, the very act of creation signifies a cardinal breach to Light and Love's togetherness, and, apart from all other possible layers of meanings, the creation is set on reestablishing the unity. In other words, Love guides the creation towards Light and seems to be more forbearing of and accessible to those created, both physically and psychologically, unlike her more detached Companion. As a Hindu scripture has it:
You are the Goddess of Good Fortune, the Supreme Ruler, modesty, intelligence characterized by knowledge, bashfulness, nourishment, contentment, tranquility, and patience.
Apart from these and other legitimate qualities and drives in the human psyche, Love seems to manifest as an aspiration for something higher, a longing for truth, a desire for something more beautiful than there is. In short, this drive can be called Great Longing, essentially the longing for Light.
In view of everything said thus far, some passages from scriptures may reveal a previously overlooked plethora of meaning.
For instance, the Koran has the following verse:
Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth; a likeness of His light is as a niche in which is a lamp, the lamp is in a glass, (and) the glass is as it were a brightly shining star, lit from a blessed olive-tree, neither eastern nor western, the oil whereof almost gives light though fire touch it not – light upon light – Allah guides to His light whom He pleases, and Allah sets forth parables for men, and Allah is Cognizant of all things.
Here, oil of the blessed olive-tree seems to emblemize Great Longing. For one thing, an inflammable liquid that oil is, unlike, say, the seawater (see the interpretation of Icarus' crash), is a great symbol for sublime femininity for reasons previously explained. Being located neither in east nor in west, that is, in a center, is indicative of the middle way or Way. Most importantly, the oil is closely related to Light being its fuel or medium, presumably in enlightening the human awareness.
The biblical passage“The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” would probably start making more sense as long as Spirit is synonymous of Light, and bride is yet another name of Love, say, in her form of Great Longing.
In tracking down the same bride yet in a different wedding outfit – a sari? – Kundalini shakti or the bride of Shiva in the Hindu tradition appears to be the right find. Whereas the Koran and the Bible mostly speak in metaphors, Hindu scriptures describe Kundalini's workings and the whole setup in rather concrete, even physiological terms. For instance, the 'bedroom' of Kundalini in the human body would be located in the sacrum bone at the base of the spine. Her awakening is closely associated with reaching a relatively high state of harmony between sun and moon as reflected in chakras, so-called 'energy centres' corresponding to major nervous plexuses, and mediated by nadies, 'energy channels', running along the spine and to the brain. The final destination of the awakened Kundalini would be 'the crown chakra' at the top of the head, 'the bridechamber' where she is to unite with Shiva, her betrothed. Below is a more or less classical chart of this 'subtle anatomy':
I could put here a host of other references to, citations, and poems talking about or alluding to Kundalini's workings, then go back to the Koran and the Bible and draw even more parallels across all these. Yet, this way I would depart from the topic which I have no intention of. I don't will to turn into a scribe either. The main point is: Love, or sacred love, as mysterious as she is, seems to have very close relationship with the creation in a motherly sort of way. Great Longing, which I identified as one of her forms, apart from manifesting as a rather sublime emotion and being implicated in the higher states of the human awareness, seems to be embedded into the human physiological setup in a very specific and intricate fashion. It seems that without Great Longing's workings there is no way for human beings to come to close terms with Light which seems to be their ultimate predestination. Finally, this kind of relationship between the two has found its reflection, metaphorical or otherwise, in scriptures and texts of various spiritual traditions.
Speaking of Light being as transcendent as he is, he does appear to have his say in the yet unenlightened creation in a fatherly sort of way, more indisputable, stern, judgmental, up to being merciless and cruel. Paradoxically or quite predictably, the flip-side of that would be extreme love and forgiveness on his part. This way, Light balances out Love with her motherly forbearance as it were and her being less extreme in manifestations of either love or rage. What seems to be Light's leverage in the creation as well as Love's medium in it is Child or, more specifically, Son. In his innocence, Son appears to be reflective of both Parents, and though his more natural tendency seems to be mirroring Love or Mother, he also seems to be perfectly in tune with Light's or Fatherly will. Moreover, it appears that the distinction line between something created and this way prone to be easily discarded or destroyed from one side and a child to be looked after from the other runs through Son – he seems to enable Parents to have fatherly and motherly sentiments towards the creation. It might come as no surprise that Son would be nothing but Way guiding moon and sun for them to ultimately reflect Love and Light as he does.
On my plunging back into comparative religion, Christ's address to the apostles “You are no longer slaves but children of God”could be now seen in a broader perspective. Followers of the Sufi tradition would go with less familial terms referring to this closeness with the Divine such as wali, “a friend of God”, that stays valid all the same.
The triplicity of Father, Mother, and Son seems to have also found its reflection in rather dissimilar spiritual traditions. Among other things, the Taoist sacred text “Tao Te Ching” has the following lines (I slightly modified the translation):
First, the Tao is One; One becomes Two; Two become Three; Three produce All things.
In Hinduism, Shiva and Shakti, the Two, have their own eternal
Child portrayed as Ganesh, a male elephant-headed deity, the Third. This rather peculiar form presumably indicates his innocence, among other things. Christian Trinity may well be interpreted along the same lines, with the Holy Spirit seen as Mother, or Love, or Shakti – the reader is invited to pick his or her favorite if I am allowed such a frivolity. Speaking of Christianity, provided that Jesus Christ is a historical figure that would fully embody the principle of Son, this words of his could now be understood in a much broader sense:
I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
That is to say, it is not those following Christ formally would come to be one with Father. Rather, it is all about sun and moon heading for Light and Love as guided by Way regardless of the religious affiliation...
...If I keep pushing my luck with “as below, so above” principle,
I may go on to ask: could there be any conflicts between two Spouses as they happen in human marriages? Is it possible to talk about deviations in “the sancta sanctorum”? Is there anything not meant to be made public? Here, I can only guess. I would assume though that Light's fits of rage towards the creation may be rather unsettling for Love however legitimate his disgust could be. After all, by bearing “All things” inside her she appears to feel their sufferings more poignantly. In his turn, Light may have reservations about some of Love's doings as he may see more clearly what would come out of them, including negative consequences. Love seems to be more guided with... love, faith, and hope than crystalclear knowledge or well-informed conjectures. This way, she seems more prone to 'spoil' her creation as it were. And should conflicts do arise between Spouses, in this or some other regards, I have no way of finding out how they settle their disputes.
In the beginning of the chapter, I put forth a rather uneasy question about the sacred love as capable of being paradoxically harsh. After all, how to gravitate towards such a love for those created without harboring hard feelings and being cautious? As somebody put it, love and fear, let alone hatred cannot go together.
In light of all above, certain reservations could have dropped off.
Concerning sufferings, the Divine, as already said, does appear to feel the agony of living beings. Likewise, what living beings may feel as their own suffering might well be that of the Divine, with Love being repressed or facing some extreme forms of evilness.
That is to say, life might be a source of great distress not only to those created but also to the forbearing Creator. This mutual vulnerability could be seen as a Divine fairness.
Yet, at least to a point, Love appears to expect those on the way to the enlightenment to go through certain hardships. An advantage of being on close terms with Love here seems to be an enhanced ability to withstand these rather than being spared of them. Apart from much greater forbearance, 'an archetype of hero' would become enacted in the aspirant's psyche enabling him or her to have an above-than-average courage. Something to emphasize: hardships in this scenario seem to be mostly about overcoming inertia, something that prevents one from achieving a higher harmony rather than unjustified, uncalled-for, and injurious perseverance of pain.
How to conclude all this? The luminous Gibran might be of help:
Then said Almitra, “Speak to us of Love.”
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
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Now that everything is put into perspective, I shall introduce two more principles that would help see the human history's convolutions, not just individual ups and downs, in a somewhat different light: Elephant Walk and thieves in the window (I can't help coming up with a new lingo for the reader to come to grips with). I am also going to provide my reflections on religion, including on reasons behind great religious diversity. In the end, I will connect everything in the confluence of today with a language having rather strong apocalyptic leaning.
I have been talking about deviations, basically about how they incline one to grossness. If my calculations are accurate, someone with unchecked idealism, for instance, would be bound to strong sexual desire or, say, gluttony, or depression, or others' appraisal of his or her doings much at the expense of the more inwardly oriented sense of fairness. That is to say, grossness can be also understood as an excessive outwardness or extroversion. A situation with repressed love would be marked with rather naive ideation and more outbursts of aggression towards 'otherness', among other things. With regards to inversion when the polarization occurs between 'peers' – rings and strap – sooner or later these would meet through their mutual attraction. An example of that would be crude domination with a domineering strap in one individual finding the corresponding submissiveness of rings in another. Either way, there appears to be the inevitability of effects germinating from causes, whether it be a deviation, inversion, or a relatively high harmony, a healthy situation that is. What seems to be responsible for that is the movement of Way which can be described as Elephant Walk. Apart from an allusion to the elephant-headed deity Ganesh, it is to emphasize the unstoppable, irresistible nature of the movement: whatever is thrown into Way, healthy or otherwise, would be carried or dragged along and brought to some logical outcome. Perhaps, a good illustration of that would be a platform rising in a shaft with hooks sticking out of its walls. Those on the platform would have their feet firmly set into it, with a choice of either standing upright or trying to cling to hooks. In the latter case, hooks would be torn out, and those clinging to them would be flung to the opposite direction. Thus or otherwise, Way is by no means static, it moves and, in its innocence, invariably brings all setups of sun and moon to fruition unlike just allowing them to 'hang around' indefinitely. A more familiar term would be the law of karma.
On another note, Way doesn't seem to be just moving without a particular destination or roadmap. In the long run, it appears to be narrowing down into 'the funnel' of Divine self, not just individually but also in a sort of the collective destiny of the humankind (I will expand on that later). This way, both the past and the future shape the present. Deviations or, say, inversion aren't limited to individuals either – overall, nations or the entire humanity can be swept with or mapped across them. Collective karma that is. In this light, karma isn't necessarily understood as something welldeserved or 'fair' – it is more about the workings of iron-clad laws, innocent and merciless, based on the polarization of and attraction between sun and moon in all variety of their manifestations...
...Coming back to where it all started, humankind had been originally embedded in religiosity, more like its crude form coming from rings – an inkling of the Divine principle that could have been shaped into a variety of ways, including quite barbaric. Among other things, it was meant to become more sophisticated so that coils would come into play along with thread to pair them up. At least, that's my understanding of it. It seems that whatever necessary components would become left out or suppressed in the course of this development, they would return in a somewhat misshapen or grosser compensatory way. To put it differently, throw nature out the door, and it would return through the window. Hence thieves in the window.
An example of such 'thief' would be science liberated from morality or the idea of liberalism overall. In other words, thread, a higher ideation, would have to find an outlet in the setup where coils – subtle love and its satellites including religiosity – had been paired with crude ideation of strap. The situation of repressed love that is. Being just an outlet at first, liberalism would turn into another kind of deviation – unchecked idealism, a close-knit relationship between thread, a higher ideation, and gross sensuality of rings. The inevitable downfall would be marked with more prominence of strap and rings and yet another, coarser thief springing up. An example of this could be capitalism, the exploitation of the Earth's riches for selfish ends, an inversion at its finest and, at the same, a very trivialized idea of harmony between sun and moon. It would be countered with socialism, an attempt to straighten out the skew with a collective identity and more subtle love, yet paired with just another strap of authoritarianism. Overall, the dynamics seems to be this: repressed love would become the mother of unchecked idealism which, in turn, may water down to inversion. The latter two would host thieves of all shapes and forms trivializing or misrepresenting the nature of Way as the intuitive inklings of its dynamics would still remain. Feminism could well be another thief as it appears to be a very concrete representation, hence misrepresentation of repressed love. Or, the idea of free love grossly understood as sexual freedom unlike pairing up subtle love of coils with a higher ideation of thread would be an example of thievery. The LGBT movement where feminized men alongside masculinized women are given prominence appears to be nothing but a vulgarized notion of thread and coils having one another's imprints and closely interacting at higher harmonies – a rather hardened one. Perhaps, the widespread fondness for pets is just making up for the loss of innocence, Way's fundamental quality, on the outside. Another thief yet.
Coming back to the motif of “fierce hatred”, a major source of it appears to be between those containing polarized components of Way yet never capable of representing it in its entirety. By and large, the divide line seem to run between conservatism and liberalism, with the former, again, having its roots in the illpracticed religiosity or repressed love and the latter, essentially unchecked idealism, being the prodigal son of sorts.
Although the “thieves” part suggests some criminality or unnaturalness, their manifestations may be robust just as well. For instance, art appears to be a legitimate outlet reflecting the harmonies that are yet to be achieved. To the point: precisely because the artwork of a creator may not match up his or her awareness, creator self is among the lowest in the makeup of Self. This way, art becomes something to marvel and aspire for, whether it be through painting, music, architecture, poetry, and so on. For instance, the already mentioned Buddhist stupa appears to be a very concrete manifestation of Way's dynamics in reaching higher harmonies. It could be also exemplified, say, with the structure of an Indian raga having, among other things, a slow pace in the beginning with gradual acceleration towards the end...
...Before I provide some thoughts on the religious diversity as outlined, I will take a closer look into the technicalities of repressing love, or sacred love for that matter, in a religion. As the reader shall see, repressing love may become not just a precursor to essentially non-religious movements, whether it be unchecked idealism or inversion, but also to the new religious teachings. In what will follow, my personal take on the genesis of religions will also become more pronounced, that is, more 'cards' of mine will be turned over.
To my mind, historically there have been individuals who would represent or, on rarer occasions, embody Way as was the case with Jesus of Nazareth, for instance, who seems to be the full embodiment of Way or Son. The king of Dwaraka Krishna, a few thousands of years before him, could have well embodied the Fatherly aspect of Way. Amongst Way's prominent representatives would huddle Laozi, Buddha, Prophet Muhammad, Guru Nanak, and some other illustrious ones, by and large, the originators of major religious and philosophical teachings. These, let alone Way's embodiments or incarnations, could be referred to as 'true teachers' (the analogous Sanskrit term would be “sat guru”) as submitting oneself to them would be identical to paying obeisance to Way. Among other things, this would impart the initial stability in the aspirant's makeup of selves, mainly through the submissiveness of rings. Apart from that, what seemed to further the stabilization and refinement were purification and communion rituals, meditation techniques, artistry, the mix of 'dos' and 'don'ts' in contemplating self, the overall idea of God or some sort of cosmology, and the idea of what should have been expected from following a teaching, a reference point as it were. For instance, Muslims had been supposed to become profoundly peaceful, Christians – loving and wise, Buddhists – tranquil and compassionate. In terms of some final destination, the seventh heaven of the paradise, being born again from Spirit, and achieving Nirvana correspondingly had been promised to the faithful. In sum, under the ideal scenario, a religion would comprise a right allegiance, right rituals, right ideation, and right doings. What should be added to these is the subtle workings of Love – an allegiance or deeds would be either 'accommodating' or repressing but never substituting them. That is to say, achieving a higher harmony is rather a living process than a mere algebraic summation of necessary preconditions.
What could have possibly gone wrong? The allegiance to a wrong, unauthorized teacher unrepresentative of Way would seem to make a heavy blow to the long-term stability of Self. With major world religions, that wouldn't seem to be an issue unless following a 'deviant' sect or movement within them. Another major blow would come from a skew in the contemplating self affected, for instance, by the crudeness of rings and strap, that is, blind faithfulness and rather concrete, naive, limited ideation. In this case, the emphasis would be put on rituals much at the expense of the emotional and intuitive aspect of coils. There could be also ideas of God not reflecting His true nature. An example of these would be seeing God as deterministically involved in every bit and piece of the creation unlike having a more 'laissez faire' approach. Even if everything would go well in terms of allegiance and ideation, deeds might be at odds with them yet. For instance, one might have fears, justified or otherwise, to act on what he or she holds true. Or, one's impulsiveness would distort the original benign intentions resulting in a mismatch or disharmony between the inside and outside. In both cases, the lack of the meditation experience or some sort of mental discipline would appear to be the culprit.
Given all the preconditions for a religion to actually work, and provided that God would respect the freedom of human beings, albeit limited, to do as they will, it is no wonder why the fate of all religions would be ritualization and crude rationalization, that is, leaving few outlets for repressed love to take its adherents to a whole different, more spectacular level. In the worst scenario, a religion would become trivialized to inversion, that is, being tangled with rings and strap in my lingo or, using a more conventional language, being engrossed in wealth and power.
Coming back to the crude rationalization part, a generalized portrait of it merits a closer look. The following features seem to describe it: very literal and limited understanding of the foundational scripture; the sense of superiority and infallibility of one's religious denomination; rather deterministic look on God's or universe's workings; conceptualizing the final destination in otherworldly terms rather than as the state of the awareness; glorification of the past, including presenting the hardships more as 'Divine tests' unlike fruits of one's failings; formal hierarchy of clergy; standardized religious education; the low status of women. Perhaps, that sums it all. On a brighter side, the discrimination between good and evil or, say, the idea of the imminent retribution would leave some space, albeit stifled, for the working of Love. In keeping with inventing new lingo, such a situation could be called 'spiritual dwarfism', with religions being 'dwarfs' as compared to their declared high standing.
Given the inevitability of dwarfism and now connecting it to the religious diversity, having just one 'dwarf' for Love to work with would have made things even grimmer as “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. That is to say, all negative tendencies of the crude rationalization described above would have become even more entrenched without some serious challenges to it. Having a few 'dwarfs' on the other side would potentially push them to develop a broader outlook or, at least, that would curb their sense of self-righteousness and pride. In other words,