The Tower Beyond Tragedy

The Christmas Season approaches as a timely reminder of the great inflow of divine energies embodied in the Christ, of the divine within each and every one, and of the soul in all things and in all kingdoms in nature. Christmas stories abound with the significance of the plant kingdom, of the animal and human kingdoms, and of the angelic hosts ever alert to serve divine purpose. Such stories warm and expand the heart into deeper and wider understanding and a finer, subtler sense of being. They trigger far memories of a distant past when we have flown forth as the arrow of self-awareness to become embedded in the realm of matter where we expand, linking the fragments of the One Soul until, as One, we pervade all the dimensions back to our Source in those rarefied planes, as subtle as pure being. It is the story of the Soul, the Christ essence, immersing in matter and then pervading the material world with life, light and upliftment. Christ’s words, as recorded in the Bible, resonate with this shared livingness:

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit… 9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love… 11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. 12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” John 15:4-12

When we have been entranced by a “good book”, a movie or a piece of music we realise that if we “give ourselves up” to something, or become fully immersed in it, it comes alive for us. We can become completely lost in it so that our usual perception of the world and sense of identity fade into the faint background and we suspend our disbelief in the imaginary construct in which we are engaged. It can be so all-embracing that we might physically twitch and move in reaction as stirred emotions flow through us and our mind is engrossed in the constructed characters, circumstances and events.

One might wonder, then, at how a soul, incarnating through a personality may bring to life the experience of that persona, entering into its world almost as a character in a computer game enters a virtual world requiring focused attention and operation of its controls to maintain a virtual life. Then, once the action ends, the identity returns to itself, the soul, with the memory of all the virtual experiences and perhaps a deeper understanding of the relationship of its own essential and enduring identity with its temporary counterpart in an imaginary or virtual world.

Yet strangely we tend to apply the analogy the other way around – as though we are the temporary persona in a more real sense and the realm of the soul is a fantasy or perhaps a faintly sensed world of nebulous shape and shadow. We might theoretically know about our soul identity but to live it as the centre of our very being would involve our complete immersion in it. Then as one progressively expands awareness there comes the point of immersion in a still greater life, a much subtler and more pervasive extent of being, as the Tibetan describes:

It has been…defined as something akin to ‘immersion in a realised state of Being,’ because the initiate is a conscious aspect of that of which he forms an integral part.” The Rays and the Initiations, page 723

Perhaps what we are discovering and unveiling, as we immerse in various identities, is that there are layers of being and while the outer layers may seem more real in a material and tactile way one might ask at what layer does the actual “self” reside? If we can peel away these layers and still know ourselves to be, perhaps all of the layers are as constructs which the true Self has created so that it can be present and express through all the dimensions. Perhaps, too, the layers have breadth as well as depth – if we can immerse in and identify with a character in a story it is also within our power to identify with all other human beings. The doorway is open to knowing and living through others’ experience of the world and also through the living experience of other kingdoms – animal, plant, and mineral – and of the spiritual realms. Amongst many initiatives, to bridge between the kingdoms and the worlds, the growing appreciation of animal “whisperers” is opening that door more widely for us to enter into shared being with other life-forms ensouled as we all are with fragments of the anima mundi, the soul of the world we might call God.

Meanwhile the surface events of the world and the movements of its inhabitants are highlighting all the illusory barriers to this realisation which are pressing to be dissolved. As the world reflects on the impact and implications of the Paris bombings and weaves its response into the thread of attacks linking Iraq, Syria, Beirut and so many more places through time, we find that the thread stretches out as a tightrope along which humanity has been walking into what appears to be an uncertain future world. For many the immediacy of the impacts has narrowed vision down to base instinctual reactions of fear and defensiveness throwing up an indiscriminate screen through which clarity of direction and purpose becomes blurred and lost. For many others their heart is stirred to compassion and care, moving to speak and act from a more humane perspective and deeper understanding. Amongst the many examples this interview with a father and son at the scene of the Bataclan attacks speaks to the heart.
https://www.facebook.com/jrous92/videos/10156190732035487/

And the voices of the wise and far-sighted are becoming increasingly heard. They resound through the neural pathways of the worldwide web, flooding the major arteries and trickling through the tributaries and streams out to all those who are in need of heartening and who resonate with the underlying reality of our humanity and its oneness within itself and with the planet as a whole, living and vibrant Life. They are beginning to gain enlightened influence on world events. A long awaited example is Aung San Suu Kyi’s party taking a majority in the Myanmar parliament:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-13/suu-kyi-claims-myanmar-election-victory/6939524

We are coming to realise that if there is an identifiable enemy then it is one of our own making. Looking more deeply into the rise of any so-called terrorist group or oppressive regime and how its members came to participate in it, we might find a sense of perceived lack – lack of understanding, of opportunity, of dignity, of recognition, of a sense of power over circumstances. In some way, however distorted through wounded vision, they may be seeking fulfilment, achievement, meaning and significance in order to build a sense of stable identity. In some way human society has failed them and continues to marginalise them as pariahs, thus reinforcing their distorted view of their humanity – a circular vortex that can only spiral downwards.

Fear is a virus that infects, cripples and spreads wherever it finds its own shadow – fear of loss, of disconnection, of separation, perhaps of being lost in a world that seems to happily proceed without us unless we do something extreme enough to be noticed and taken seriously. In many cases those we have branded “terrorists” are those we have disenfranchised in some way or perhaps have rendered stateless through our half-thought, pre-emptive actions in defence of a familiar view of the world to which we try to cling long beyond its time of relevance (or “use by” date).

On an increasingly human-wide scale the waves of new life are toppling the old world view of a series of distinct and separate categories of living expression. And instead, the mighty tides of change are revealing the underlying synthesis of shared aspirations and challenges. They are drawing forth an expanded and deepened understanding and a readiness to envision our world anew – how we relate and operate within it – a world where the good of any one part depends on the common good and advancement of all; a world in which we are immersed “as conscious aspect of that of which we are integral parts”. These lines from “The Tower Beyond Tragedy” by Robinson Jeffers, were quoted in “To Choose Life”, the first chapter in a series called “Coming Back to Life” in the recent Kosmos Journal. They seem to capture the awakening that is rippling through our world:

I entered the life of the brown forest,
And the great life of the ancient peaks, the patience of stone,
I felt the
changes in the veins
In the throat of the mountain, a grain in many centuries, we have our own
time, not yours; and I was the stream
Draining the mountain wood; and I the stag drinking; and I was the stars
Boiling with light, wandering alone, each one the lord of his own summit;
and I was the darkness
Outside the stars, I included them, they were a part of me. I was mankind
also, a moving lichen
On the cheek of the round stone…
how can I express the excellence I have found, that has no color but clearness;
No honey but ecstasy …

                                        “The Tower Beyond Tragedy” by Robinson Jeffers