The Path Into Infinity

At this time of year while there is an emphasis on finishing up and fulfilling undertakings, there is also a magnetic pull into the seasonal celebrations and the prospect of a fresh start with a new year. In a way we are both poised and yet fast moving forward like an arrow still in high flight between bow and target with the world seeming to rush by as we sail towards the New Year. Perhaps, in a wider sense, we are also poised in high-movement towards a new civilisation, fast leaving behind all that is increasingly apparent as belonging to the past when viewed from the perspective of a future almost within grasp. In a way every moment is the future of the preceding one. And so each moment offers the opportunity to more clearly see misdirected attitudes and values as they veer away from our set course towards the new goal ever unfolding before us.

From the sky-height of this trajectory our eagle view sweeps over the restricted outlooks glimpsed amongst the deeps and valleys of sectarian thought. Instead we soar through a vista of the whole world where details take appropriate, proportionate place and meaning – no longer dividing brother from brother, nation from nation, or one kingdom in nature from another.
We realise our shared essence and true relationship as the great synthesis of Spirit and Matter, of the Father and the Mother of the World, unfolds before our heightened and expanded gaze. In the Agni Yoga writings we are told:

…It is said that matter is crystallized spirit, but one can also say it differently, because everything, starting with the subtlest energies, is matter. It would be a great limitation for one to deny the principle of the one fundamental energy, for by doing this he will also deny matter…
…People want to see matter in everything, and they are right, but only if they acknowledge its many states and properties. The very word ‘matter’… is akin to the great concept of Maternal Matter. At present, in the age of the Mother of the World, one should pay special attention to all that is related to this magnificent Foundation. Besides, it should be understood that it is this concept of matter that includes all possible properties of the substance out of which all is born….
…a principle of constant learning… supports the freedom of the researcher. It only points to the beautiful matter, which is the Mother Herself. …The Thinker said, ‘Let us learn to revere the Mother, then we will understand the essence of Nature.’
[Supermundane III, 638.]

A recent TV program investigated the nature of the Monastery gardens wherein gardeners cooperated with nature to produce food and medicine needed to sustain life and thereby the capacity to celebrate the divine. Working in the garden was both a physical necessity and an act of devotion to the Spirit that informs all things through the agency of Nature. Everything we do, the more consciously, the more powerfully, leads to One Life.

And so the Archer looses His arrow and unites the worlds. Bow and target, intention and realisation, Spirit and Matter, are united. This mighty Oneness may be unseen by the superficial eye, yet it pervades the worlds and directs Life’s arrow. It expresses in the Son, the Soul, and thence in the soul in all things, subtle and manifest. In ignorance or wilfulness we might bypass this realisation and so hinder its progress – but only momentarily within the wider stretch of Time whereby the beneficent forces of Karma restore balance and constantly return the arrow’s flight to its true aim towards full knowing and complete being. The Agni Yoga writings explain:

Realizing that the path into Infinity is that shoreline toward which the highest spatial energy is impelled for fusion with the essence of everything that exists, one may affirm that Cosmos creates the consciousness of Be-ness. …The particles of matter needed for the vital breath are gathered in the supermundane spheres. The realization that in space there are a multitude of particles waiting anxiously to be awakened, will give impetus to the thought of affording to each particle the possibility of manifesting life. Wherever it turns, the mind will find the immutable shield of the Truth of Infinity. …How is it possible to annihilate the power of motion, and how can one not acknowledge this wise and eternal cause of the entire Cosmic Fire!

The evidence of the Cosmic Fire permeates every corner of the human dwelling, but as an extraneous manifestation. Man has detached himself from the best part of the creative impulse. The finding of Materia Lucida on the earthly sphere is possible only in spiritual consciousness. Clumsy hands may not touch the veil of the Mother of the World. A crude consciousness may not formulate the manifestation of cosmic energy. Only the yearning to perceive provides the access to higher matter…. We say, ‘Proceed irrevocably from the lower sphere to the far-off worlds. Strive unalterably toward the ascent into Infinity.’ And We add, ‘Strive without end’.[Infinity I, 57.]

We are now entering the Christmas Season when many celebrate a gentle Mother’s giving birth to a baby, both human and divine, a living at-one-ment of the Son of God and the son of man and a reflection of the union of Father Spirit and Mother Matter in all its perfected glory. The radiance of that Presence shines through the soul in all things and carries us – whether aware or not – into true relationship with one another and with all the kingdoms in nature both manifest and subtle.

The lineage of this living manifestation lives on in inspirational appearances. One of the best known and most beloved is Nelson Mandela whose passing has brought a timely reminder of a larger vision, a wider understanding and the gentle power of true humility in one who ever saw the whole of life and possibility. Another is Aung San Suu Kyi who recently brought the grace of her wisdom to Australia. And a lesser known might be the Animal Communicator who has opened a vast new understanding of animal / human relationship:-

As our understanding opens out into the greater whole, into the One in Whom we live and move and have our being, it brings power and life to every part – right to the very smallest – because each part manifests and radiates the essence of the whole. So we find that a small nation like East Timor can find recourse at the International Court of Justice to regain a more appropriate balance in the share of its natural resources with Australia. And even though counter forces may impede when separative, vested interests seek to obstruct, yet the world is always watching and growing in understanding of the need to restore true balance within the whole.

A return to balance restores the free-flow of life throughout our interdependent world. Nothing can then curtail our cooperative creativeness. When exclusivity, defensiveness and fear of difference disappear, Life will be freed to express in a multitudinous variety beyond anything we have known. A new age of creative expression will ignite wonderment and awe in the very heart of our humanity which will unfold in all its true beauty.

…a wondrous truth is in beauty. Cosmos affirms evolution by this formula. Cosmos directs the world to the mastery of beauty. Yes, verily, the Mother of the World possesses the Magnet of Beauty. And wherever the Spatial fire has collected the fiery affirmation of its forms, the fire of the spirit manifests itself. When the invisible process is revealed to the fiery spirit, it may then be said that the creative transmutation has been confirmed.” [Infinity I, 178]

Our world is in process of a great transmutation – one stone at a time, one plant, animal, human at a time and at such a fast accelerating rate that we may not perceive it if our eyes are blinkered by ordinariness. The vision of great souls can open the way to a new insight. Teilhard de Chardin revealed Maternal Matter’s power in these words from Hymn to the Universe:

‘If we are ever to reach you, matter, we must, having first established contact with the totality of all that lives and moves here below, come little by little to feel that the individual shapes of all we have laid hold on are melting away in our hands, until finally we are at grips with the single essence of all subsistencies and all unions.
‘If we are ever to possess you, having taken you rapturously in our arms, we must then go on to sublimate you through sorrow.
‘Your realm comprises those serene heights where saints think to avoid you — but where your flesh is so transparent and so agile as to be no longer distinguishable from spirit.
‘Raise me up then, matter, to those heights, through struggle and separation and death; raise me up until, at long last, it becomes possible for me in perfect chastity to embrace the universe.’

Then may we truly live in the reality of the Angel’s pronouncement: