Sunday

WIT's Yantra

To think about ideas is to develop a theory, a hypothesis which, if tested by a return to the hot red plane of sense events, gives one scientific model of experience. But, ironically, to gain theoretical information, one moves toward high level of abstraction where the hot and immediate plane of events is left far behind. If one continues this process to develop a theory of theories, a structure of structures, a metalanguage, metamathematics, or metaphysics, then he moves further away from the plane of experience into the plane of pure abstraction. Here on the cool green plane of level IV, Logos, we encounter the paradox that there is an inverse relationship between sense experience and certainty: to the degree that (when) one develops an advanced science of nature one leaves the sense experience behind. The further we go into the yantra, the further we are into the cool shades of contemplation and the further we are the hot immediacy of events. At the level of Logos, there is the knower and the known, the primary duality, for two green triangles spring from the yellow plane of III to point toward the fourth plane, the green plane of Logos. But the structure of structures reflects the known back into the knower, for the Logos is not simply the structure by which the brain processes information, it is the formula by which the nerves fire and the stars pulse; it is the intelligibility principle that orders all forms: stars, nerves, crystals. The form which underlies all forms points to something beyond form, beyond knower and known. As we contrast physical consciousness to the vanishing point, knower and known dissolve into a single cosmic consciousness, and the point expands to infinity in a new dimension. From the green plane of Logos there are springs in the single triangle that points to the Point, pure Being. In terms of the Plotinus, this is the First Hypostasis, God the Father, Brahman beyond the creative universe itself. In the yantra pure Being is the color of ultraviolet, the sacred purple, for as the hot red of sensation is blended with the cool blue of contemplation, the spiritual resolution of is expressed as purple. It is not without reason that purple has always been revered as the spiritual color and that the amethyst was chosen for the stone of the bishop’s ring.

   When sensory consciousness begins to narrow, it discovers that there is another consciousness that widens in reciprocity with the others narrowing. On the red plane of Chaos, the triangle of Ontos is a tiny invisible point, but by the time we reach the center in Ontos, the triangle is at its widest. Then God is visible. At the level of physical sensation and Chaos, God is not visible. God is to the universe what grammar is to a language; just as I cannot rip the grammar of English out of my mouth to prove to you that it exists, so I can’t rip God out of the physical universe to show Him to you and prove that He exists.

   If the progression from Event to Logos seems abstract, then we can consider the lower line of the triangle, which express the same set of relationships in terms of sound. Since the Hopis and the Hindus say that the universe is music, not matter, that all is energy and vibration, then sound is a primary expression of the levels of consciousness.

   At the first level, the red plane, is physical sound. As we move inward, we come to patterned sound, to Melody. As melodies are articulated with one another, and the principles of counterpoint and harmony are developed, we approach the grammar of the language of sound, level III, Harmony. As we continue to move inward, we approach the music of music, the harmony of all harmonies, the metamusic that the Indians call the Nadam and the Kelper called the “Music of Spheres”. This Nadam is the sounds one listens to in meditation, the orchestration of all sounds, of every electron in its orbit and every planet in its orb.

   Thus these levels of sounds correspond to levels and planes of consciousness. The dog hears sounds, the child hears melodies, the musician hears harmonies, and the mystic hears the Nadam. These four planes of consciousness move in ascending order tp the point of Ontos; once we are in Ontos, we can then move in descending order of consciousness back to the physical plane of sounds. In the yantra this is expressed as going through the point from the left to the right and moving out of the major triangle on the left into the major triangle on the right. There we move from the pure Being of Ontos to plane I (the blue line), Nirbikalpa Samadhi. This is the highest state of mystical consciousness for man, the state of being in which one is conscious of God and man at the same time. This is the consciousness of the Gods. The second and lower state of Samandhi (expressed in the green line) is Sabikalpa Samadhi. This is the consciousness of the yogi who must close his eyes and withdraw from the world in meditation to see God. For an advanced yogi in nirbikalpa samadhi, meditation is not longer the only way to God; he continually sees God as the ground to any figure that might be before him. When we come down from the two stages of Samadhi to level II, Reflection, we come to the intellectual plane of consciousness in which the artist and scientist to their work. The rational plane of being expresses the present evolutionary level of man. As we move down to the next level, III, we come to Consciousness; this is the level of animals. Beyond that is level IV, Sentience, the level of irritability of plants.

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