Dara Eklund
It is an old Hindu aphorism that "An Arch never sleeps."(Quoted by James Fergusson in a History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, p. 210.) Here truly is an image for the triumphant assault on any peak of consciousness. When we are there, our firm hold realized that conquest must exalt the whole of life. There is never any Rest for the conqueror. Just as the view encompassed is greater the higher we go, so must our love become more boundless for the whole. Our vigilance for every life atom on its way up to manhood is just as strong as our aspirations to span the starry heights.
"The Window is not the view; the window allows the view!" a recent parable from Notes on Love and Courage (Hugh Prather, N.Y., 1977, privately published.) reminds us. We are allowed to press ahead, not for our own vain glory, but because the whole of Life is on an evolutionary spiral onwards and inwards. If we intently participate in these evolutionary Laws of unfolding consciousness, indeed the "Force is with us," to quote the Hero of a recent film epic! Not pride as some may imagine. Rather is it valor. Our battle over, the warrior prepares his steed for the next. "Fohat is the steed, thought is the rider, " It is electrifying to envision our true range of possibilities once the Real in us takes the reins. We are only minutely aware of how vast an influence we already provide to the minute particles even within the tip of a little finger.
Another parable in the aforementioned work really provokes a thought about the One Life that the Real in us "arches" over:
"It isn't possible to be enlightened and know it. What you hold yourself superior to is a part of you."
The lotus arises from the mud out of the confusion of the world yet shows to the sun a pure face. In Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge, p. 138, HPB provides a stunning imperative for non-separateness:
He who would be an occultist must not separate either himself or anything else from the rest of creation or non-creation. For, the moment he distinguishes himself from even a vessel of dishonor, he will not be able to join himself to any vessel of honour. He must think of himself as an infinitesimal something, not even as an individual atom, but as a part of the world-atoms as a whole, or become an illusion, a nobody, and vanish like a breath leaving no trace behind. As illusions, we are separate distinct bodies, living in masks furnished by Maya. ... There is a series of vehicles becoming more and more gross, from spirit to the densest matter, so that with each step downward and outward we get more and more the sense of separateness developed in us. Yet this is illusory, for if there were a real and complete separation between any two human beings, they could not communicate with or understand each other in any way.
The Buddhic Splendor is an ineffable radiance, for which no black hole or selfhood can exist in space. Just as any one fire lights many flames, no man achieves true enlightenment for himself alone. If he hoards the light of his own wick it perishes for want of fuel. A shadow envelopes his small flame and the steady beneficence of inner radiance is cut off. A jar can be placed over a candle and it will go out even though the glass is transparent and may render the illusion of light for the moment. What makes the element of fire unique? It triumphs over all other forms. In consuming them they become part of the flame. Shankara says in Awakening to the Self:
In the knowledge of the Self, there is no need that it should be known by anything else. A light does not need another light; it shines of itself ...
The difference between knower, knowing, and known exists not in the Self, for through its own Consciousness and Bliss it shines Self-luminous.
That is why it is not possible to become enlightened and know it. But it is possible to radiate enlightenment. Just as we know the sun's warmth by experiencing it, or that fire burns by touching it, when we touch that vast LOVE which arches over the Universe we verily become part of It.
We triumph in it. We are it!
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