CHAPTER 1: Fundamental Symbolism
Part 3: The Nature of the Gods
People have believed that the Gods were originally natural powers or phenomena of nature, endowed by primitive men with an anthropomorphic nature and a human personality. The truth is the reverse, as will be shown below. The Gods can be experienced in various ways, because they are the ruling principles and functions in the psyche. They are psychological reality, each representing a particular aspect of Reality. Their existence can be felt and understood, and their presence inspire and be seen with the eye of insight, for they do not live in some remote heaven, but within every human being, as traditional psychology teaches.
If one may speak of “degrees of reality”, it would be justifiable to say that the Gods are more real than man himself. Man clings to form and to the world of form around him, but ever loses it, because this world is ever changing. How then can this world of form be real? It is the reality of a house, that can be enlarged and beautified, but also burned and plundered. The Gods stand above this change, and in the course of thousands of years their symbols have remained the same. They are the dwellers in the house. In accordance with psychological contexts they are shape-changers. But in reality they are immortal, for they form the very essence and essential principles of the life of man. By realizing their presence people become immortal, because the Gods or Angels are aspects of Immortality and lead them to the Reality or God. This has been the experience of worshippers, prophets and seers in all ages and belonging to all religions. They have “talked with Angels” and “seen God face to face”, they have “heard the voice of God”, and “tasted of his sweetness”. These expressions do not denote psychic phenomena, but spiritual experiences. They are dressed in symbols with a precision no less exacting for their refusal to be confined within the specialism of an “exact science”.
Even if the Gods cannot be experienced as realities, they can still be admitted by the intellect and in that sense can figure as principles of an intelligently ordered plan — in modern terms, a working hypothesis.
For the tradition, which gave the Gods their forms and symbols, is the very creation of consciousness and the supreme among the sciences.
In a purely rational study particular things can be singled out for systematic treatment, but this method is not quite adequate for the study of symbols, for these are largely chosen in the unconscious. Sometimes they appear in the conscious minds like unexpected and uninvited guests — as every psychiatrist knows — and occasionally they come with a flash and a bang, and no one can say what they will do to him or how they will leave him — or, for that matter, the world. Once they have thus appeared, the rational mind should deal with them to the best of its ability, but ever suffering them to convey their transcendent message, and never seeking to impose itself upon them at their expense.
The symbolism of time. Time is symbolic in several ways. First of all the divisions of time — years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds — are symbolically indicative of the Seven Spheres in particular cases. This will become clear when we deal with the myths concerned. (See Diagram 1.)
Secondly the stages in the great time-scheme of the Zodiac are symbolically connected with the stages of the Fall of Man and the Spiritual Path. This is the case with the divisions of the year, the day, the week, and the Great Year. (See all the Diagrams except 1 and 4b.)
Time-indication in symbols. Many symbols are connected with special division of time. Generally the symbols with which a God or Angel appears, give a clue to the particular division of time on the Spiritual Path represented by him.
To take for example two aspects of Viṣṇu, the beginning-stage of the Zodiac, centered in Aquarius, is traditionally the stage of the Womb (see Diagrams 1b and 7). Viṣṇu in the aspect of Nārāyaṇa is that under which he was first worshipped. Nara is parallel to Adam, and Nārāyaṇa means something like “the son of man”. Nārāyaṇa further means the ayaṇa that is, abode, or place of motion, of nara, the waters. This form of Viṣṇu is generally represented in its first form, as a baby-boy, lying on a leaf of the sacred banyan tree, floating on the waters. The banyan is symbolically connected with the Element Air, as will be shown later. The aspect of Nārāyaṇa represents the stage of the Air-Sign of Aquarius, the hieroglyphic symbol of which is , representing “the Waters”. The Biblical parallel to the (symbolic) Womb-aspect of Viṣṇu, in the form of Nārāyaṇa, is, as we shall see later: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).
Another aspect of Viṣṇu — Padmanābha — applies to the same stage of Aquarius, but with reference to other matters. Padmanābha means “the Lotus navel One “. In this form Viṣṇu lies at full length on the coiled-up World-Serpent ādiśeṣa, “the Primary Serpent”, also called Ananta, “the Endless”. Aquarius is the centre of the stage of rest in the Zodiac, called Pralaya in Hindu tradition. The Divine has withdrawn from activity in the world and is immersed in its own state of realization and bliss. This is again the Womb state. Ādiśeṣa is generally represented as floating on the waters. But in the Womb of Time the coming cycle is prepared and foreshadowed. From the navel of the Resting Lord a lotus is seen to come forth. It is the Lotus of the Guru, Jupiter. In it the world to be born is present in its germ state. From the Lotus issues a tiny form of Brahmā, the Creator. The Navel represents the Centre of the All from the point of view of Creation. The child-form of the Creator is the embryo of the world to be born. It will later be clear that this symbolism has no reference to the creation of the material universe, but to the genesis of man, in the symbolical sense.
Some of the most important Gods of various traditions have twelve aspects, representing them in forms applying to the stages of the Spiritual Path, marked by the Signs of the Zodiac.
Astrology. Astrology, in both its Western and Eastern forms, has preserved many of the elements and symbols of traditional psychology, but in a rather dogmatic form, because insight into the meaning of the older traditions has been lost. Modern astrology embodies on the whole little more than a method of making predictions regarding the profane life of people, though sometimes, especially in Hinduism, it serves as an aid to psychology or religion. The original Astrology is a grand science which is inseparable from traditional psychology. It will be shown that all religions are based upon it. In the previous volumes in this series — The Key to the First Chapter of Genesis and Evolution, Paradise and the Fall — it has been explained that it forms the fundamental tradition of the Bible. This will also be shown in the present book, and numerous teachings in both the Old and the New Testaments, which are based upon Genesis, will be dealt with, side by side with parallel teachings in other religions.
For the understanding of the true Astrology, constituting the symbolic time-scheme of traditional psychology, aspects of which are dealt with in this book, a technical knowledge of modern astrology and the casting of a horoscope is not required. Horoscopes are not referred to at all. Some of the basic symbols of astrology — though not those which necessitate reference to astrological books — are used. The terms “Signs” and “Houses” are used practically as synonyms, keeping in view that “Signs” are symbols and “Houses” psychological stages or abodes on the Path.
The technical distinction made by (Western) astrology between “Signs” and “Houses” is not adhered to. The difference implied in this astrological distinction is explained where it is necessary. The Great Year is called “a Round” and its meaning is explained.
The main traditions which astrology has preserved are those of the three times four Elements of the Signs of the Zodiac and the Ruler of the Signs (see Diagram 1a).
Heaven and Hell. “The heavens above” are symbolically connected with “the heavens within”. The sky above our head, with its sun, moon, planets and stars, symbolically represents the dynamic World of the Manifested Godhead, with its Seven Spheres. The Zodiac is the Path through the starry heavens, which are conceived as the Vehicle, Chariot or Throne of the Static, Immovable, Eternal and Unchanging God-Reality. Further it is the Great Wheel of Creation and Dissolution, and of the Fall and the Genesis of Man, which ever turns around the Fixed Centre of God-Reality, the symbol of which is the pole star.
In the Fall these grand truths are gradually hidden. Both God-Reality and the Tradition which forms the guide to it, become concealed. When ultimately they are fully eclipsed and hidden by the influence of psychical darkness, the heavens are by then turned into so many hells. The original meaning is still present in the Dutch word “helen”, meaning to “conceal stolen goods”. Etymologically the word “hell”, means conceal. Hell is not a remote abode that is attained in a here-after, but symbolizes a state of mind psychologically very real because experienced in the very here and now of life.
What is “the Fall” and how was it caused? The next section will introduce the underlying traditional conceptions.
