In our ongoing group Praxis meditations we have been exploring the unfolding pattern of light to better illuminate our understanding of the inner qualities and composition of natural laws. This aids our progress toward the benevolent goal of creation. By unfolding our understanding of the interior nature of nature we simultaneously deepen in rapport with those laws, coming into greater alignment with them. The goal of spiritual aspiration, whatever the form of practice or its tradition, aims at a more thorough disclosure of the changeless laws of creation.
We can only harmonize with those laws which we understand. Weather our understanding consist only of intuition, or includes coherent reasoning or their synthesis, comprehensive understanding enables us to conform our thoughts and actions to it. It is the very core of every spiritual training system that the true nature of the life-power, its qualities and inclinations, be brought out from behind the many veils of appearance. In our clear apprehension of its principles we are better able to bring the forces and activities of our own consciousness into full cooperation with it. This ultimately enables us to serve as its emissaries and exemplars, bringing about effects in our lives consistent with its Unified Will to Good.
While this [Praxis] is by no means a thorough system, it does draw from one, and applies its doctrines and methods in distilled and simplified form. Those with the inspiration and initiative to do so will have little difficulty in uncovering the source of that system, unearthing its treasures more completely than we are able to do with this offering alone. This is as true here as it is with the study of nature in general. It has many layers, and can provide value at each level. The degree our insights go is only limited to the degree to which one is able to digest and metabolize them, building them into our vehicles – a capacity governed more by our appetite than by any other skill.
We might observe here that a simplified and more general account both initiates and completes cycles of learning. Its only during the intermediary and advanced stages that complexity and refined distinctions are brought out into full view, defined, categorized and added to the vault of our storehouse of wisdom. Sustained meditation on the principles being described will inevitably lead to greater conscious understanding and the many headlines presented in analogy and symbol will be revised and inculcated into our storehouse with exquisite detail. After a fuller breadth of nuance is unfolded, its insights are summed up again in basic descriptions for easy access. The greater portion of nuance is dependent on and occurs within the private inner thoughts of the student, who making concerted efforts to gain a more detail understanding will, without fail, receive it.
A vast arena of corresponding meanings can be simply displayed in the ordinary notion of color without losing any of the essential depth. This is due to that aspect of universal law summed up in the hermetic axiom as “above so below”. The cherished goal of mystical revelation is the conscious apprehension and embodiment of the changeless universal laws. We can have reasoned faith in the notion that what is true on one level has its counter parts on all other levels as well. The branches of the tree are mirrored in its roots and to grasp firmly its outer expression is to get a feel for the structures that support it underneath. For this reason the study of any of the sciences or classical liberal arts opens doorways to each of the other correspondences.
When the cycles of learning and integration have gone through several rotations on the wheel of the law, a simple term, image, or even a tone, can have the power to call on a vast storehouse of corresponding meanings and shine an extraordinary light onto whatever we direct our attention towards.
While we use the analogy of stars e.g the White Sun , the Grey Sun etc.. and Lights of particular colors, we might also note that a number of other analogies would do, including spheres, centers of consciousness, inner holy planets and Lights of Emanation. For those versed in the Tree of Life, the sacred diagram of Qabalah, you will no doubt be aware that each of the Lights we are exploring in the VFHL series are the Ten Sephirot or the ten attributes of Divine Consciousness. Since my training consists of Qabalah, sacred tarot, and the Hermetic sciences the Source Vibrations offerings are unavoidably colored by this wisdom tradition. Its not necessary however that anyone have knowledge of the teachings to receive the benefits of these meditations. They are intentionally designed to be accessible to a general audience.
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In the Meditations on the VFHL we began with the White Sun. This is a common symbol for the higher soul, and the place where the infinite and absolute [Source Consciousness] comes into the field of activity. It is the Source of All That Is and contains within it all the qualities to come, but in latent form. Just as the white light contains all colors, enfolded within itself, the White Sun contains all the distinct qualities of the Self. To sort itself out so to speak, the White Sun puts on a series of limitations, much like shining a white light through a prism to differentiate its colors. All that we are and will become, is present at this level of being. This is why the eastern traditions refer to it [the crown chakra] as the flower of a thousand pedals. Qabalistically the number 1,000 represents fullness and totality.
It represents the illuminated mind, and is the place of communion where the individual finally becomes joined to the divine. It is the place of the completion of the cycle of evolution and is the point beyond which thought can not go. We begin at the crown rather than the base since the unfolding of creation is initiated there – but like the wheel we will inevitably return to the place everything begins.
As we proceed we will follow the decent of light, tracing its path of differentiation and specialization, into name and form. All qualities are enfolded in the White Light but for the Creative Intelligence to manifest in and as time and particular types of livingness it must first specialize itself. This process is a kin to passing a white light through a prism as was done in the famous optics experiment by Issac Neuton.
The white light we associate with the Higher – Self; the indivisible ONE (yekhida). We each partake of this Light as root and ground of our inner most being whether we are conscious of it or whether it yet remains concealed from our awareness. We visualize this light as a radiant White Sun to transmit the message to subconsciousness our intention to receive its illumination and unfold its sacred gifts.
That unfolding however must come from its own essence, since at this level of consciousness there is no prism to pass it through yet. It must first generate its own means of differentiation and distinction. The details of this process go a bit beyond the scope of our purposes here, but curious readers will find useful insights in the video material on the Praxis page, in “Source Consciousness and the Origin of Mind”.
We can observe that certain changeless laws have an essential function here. Namely that of the laws of polarity, gender and rhythm. In order for the one light to come into expression and for its livingness to have definite existence, it must become something less than a totality. For this to take place it uses the law of opposites, reversing its polarity from totality to emptiness, and from being an unmanifest potential to an actuality. This brings about its opposite and compliment the Black Sun and the Grey Sun. The science of light describes these three lights as the “Supernal Triad”. This can be illustrated in the dynamics of electromagnetism with there being a positive pole, a negative pole and an equilibrating force. This level of being is the root of electricity and magnetism in the cosmic sense. For individual consciousness it constitutes the most foundational aspects of cognition we can conceive of, for this reason the black sun is associated to “Understanding” and the Grey Sun to “Wisdom”. I should mention also that positive and negative don’t mean good and bad, here we simply mean it in the electrical sense. One force gives us a descending current [moving toward form], and the other gives us an ascending current [moving toward unity] and through their balanced interplay we get the root principles which help to bring about each of the distinct color frequencies or aspects of consciousness to follow.
These three lights can be thought of as the Heavenly Trinity of Primordial Consciousness. The Black Light (or space) then is the light of understanding, and makes room in the manifest to receive the light from the White Sun in order to give it shape and definition. The Grey light represents the light of wisdom and the three great lights together make up the first configuration of the primordial blue print of consciousness. The observer the observed and the process of observation, the yin and yang or passive and active principles involved in every form. They have also been given the attributes of the Divine Mother and Father principles. This proto-pattern enables the existence of everything else to follow. In a sense we could say they are the prism through which the undifferentiated light is separated into its various colors.
Further meditation on the root principles of the supernal triad will reveal their ubiquitous presence at all levels of life. The dance of opposites is so fundamental a pattern of creation that not a single thought or sense impression could exist without it. Every wave of light, every sound, every touch, every movement, stripped of all its seeming complexity is made of vibratory motion. Whether that be waves of light enabling us to see, waves of the air enabling us to hear or waves of electrochemical activity in our brain and nervous systems, everything is vibrating, everything is moving. That movement consists of the dynamic interplay of opposites connected by a unifying force. Whether we look to the larger cosmic scale of things in the whirling motion of galaxies, or the mechanical movement required to walk – one leg after the next – or the very smallest particle of existence, whatever is is constituted at its most basic level of three forces, and active principle, a passive principle and an equilibrating principle. Yet we might also recognize that this triplicity is also a unity, acting as one whole. Just as our left and right legs are united in the wholeness of the body, so are Understanding and Wisdom united in the wholeness of the One Light.
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In VFHL 2 we meditate on the black light and the grey light to convey the message to our consciousness that we aim to gain wisdom and understanding through the proper interplay of these primal forces. We might think of the white sun as the ALL. The original substance constituting all this. That light is received into the boundless vessel of space where its out growths will take shape. The grey light, being a mixture of both the vessel of understanding (black sun) and the radiance of infinite light is involved in balancing and unifying the two forces into a harmonious system of emanation.
Lets consider one of the ways we might experience this primordial dance of wisdom and understanding. When we have learned something, that learning often begins with breaking things down into their basic parts. We learn about discrete identities and their properties. Things are given names and the functions they serve are defined. We know for instance that a leaf is a part of the tree. It has a particular shape and color relative to the specific variety of course. Yet all leaves, we learn, perform the same function and except for slight variations, all leaves are basically the same. We know that leaves help to turn light in to usable energy for the tree. Our knowledge of this form and function is brought about by the attribute we are calling the black sun. We understand it, and its form and function gives us that understanding.
Wisdom on the other hand relies on wholes rather than parts. It sees overarching patterns and principles behind any specific thing. Together the two can be likened to the relationship between the logical mind and the creative mind. While understanding structures, categorizes, and gives form to ideas, wisdom is the direct, unmediated apprehension of truth—a flash of inspiration or a sudden realization that transcends rational analysis. For the grey light in us the leaf and the tree are one whole body. There’s not merely a conglomeration of parts and processes, but one whole treeness. That “ness” we could say, referring to the essence of a thing is spontaneously alive to all qualities.
To extend the analogy of the tree even further, we might say that wisdom contains the seed, holding the whole pattern for the tree, including its pattern of unfoldment from germination to full maturity. Hence it signifies the Divine Father principle. The grey light then is simultaneous, non-linear and outside of time and specific instances. Rather it is the synthesis of knowledge and understanding that comprehends the principle behind every individual thing or event. It shines the whole pattern into space to be become manifest as specific forms. From this we can gain the insight that the cosmic principles are always expressed in the practical. The esoteric is demonstrated in the particular, and the universal is embodied in the personal.
This meditation then aims to plant the seeds that, all things great and small are but the play of primal forces in some phase of their activity. Moreover, they are in us and provide us the very means by which their countenance becomes known. Because our very consciousness is made from these sublime forces, they are available to us for our complete understanding. We may gain knowledge slowly at first, and it may be only a glimmer of supernal light in its initial inception, yet that understanding inevitably grows. As we see more and more vividly that it is the One Light – that divine substance shaping guiding all that is, is there putting on a near endless number of costumes.
What a clever shapeshifter it is that light! Which is why incidentally it is associated to mercury – some times called “the mercury of the sages”. It is both itself and its opposite, both the changeless and the ever changing, both solid and liquid, both understanding and wisdom. This easily escapes our view since we are, at least at first, more focused on the outer costume, those individual types of its expression. Individual, objects, identities and personalities, leaves, branches, trees. We tend to prioritize, differences looking to the specific characteristics of things in order to better understand them. This is a perfectly natural and necessary thing without exception. Yet when we begin to include in our awareness, the universals, seeing the tree from the leaves, seeing the way that the branches mirror its roots, and looking to the forest even as we admire the individual tree, we see the wholes embracing their parts. Then, understanding becomes united in and blessed in wisdom. In this blessing the One Light is seen in its radiant splendor behind each of its masks.