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The Structure of the Cycle of Being - 3
Biblioteca Esoterica Esonet.ORG
http://www.esonet.ORG
These human states eventually lead to the crucial moment of equilibrium between the
principles of Unity and Multiplicity — to the symbolic Sunset and Illumined Man. Beyond
this stage we have to imagine a state of being in which predominant subjectivity takes the
place or function of objective materiality and corporeality. Existence fades out as inistence
develops its essential characteristics. The symbolic Night follows Day.
When Western religious philosophers (and St. John quoting Jesus in Revelations 1:8)
speak of alpha and omega, they refer to the beginning and the end of only the half-cycle of
existence — that is, of the physical universe. Occult traditions hold that the entire alphabet
symbolizes only the unfoldment of this universe. 20 This universe is the only reality most
human beings, even today, actually are able to consider as a field of activity susceptible of
being understood and affected by their thoughts and behavior. For the materialist, this is
all there can possibly be. For religious persons who deeply feel that there must be some
condition of being beyond "this" world, such a condition is mysterious and for many
people frightening. Yet human consciousness has reached a stage of development at which
we should no longer have to think of beginning and end, but instead of a cyclic process
without beginning or end. We should be able to realize that what we call birth and death
— either of a single human organism or an entire universe — are two "Gates" through
which the cyclic process of being passes.
Through the "Gate of Sound" at the cosmic level, the energy that creates, "in-forms,"
and sustains all modes of existence issues forth. It manifests in the life-field of a planet (its
biosphere) as vital energy (prana) and breath — the first breath of a newborn. At the "Gate
of Silence," human beings who are ready experience for a brief, nearly timeless moment
according to their individual stage of evolution and understanding, a degree of
"Illumination." This illumination reveals the essential meaning of the realities of their lifespan,
which is then ending. As individual persons, they "die" into a state of increasingly
subjective being; their physical-psychic nature gradually undifferentiates. The elements of
which this nature had been constituted since conception are returned to the planetary
fields from which they were drawn. These elements that had been combined into a whole
of existence disintegrate, only to be eventually recombined into new forms of
20 The letter mu occurs at the midpoint of the Greek alphabet which starts with alpha and ends with omega.
These three letters and their sounds have a profound symbolic meaning. Zen training often uses the constant
repetition of the sound Mu (or moo — see Three Pillars of Zen by Phillip Kapleau). An old tradition tells of
an ancient continent called Lemuria, of which Australia, New Zealand, and some Pacific Islands are said to
be the remains. Life on this continent is supposed to have marked the midpoint of the whole scheme of
human evolution, which is said to encompass seven large periods. It was in Lemuria (at the midpoint of the
third period) that Man began to appear in his essential character, as a being endowed with "selfconsciousness"
(the "Promethean gift"). In Sanskrit, the primordial mantram is the sacred word AUM —
beginning, end, and middle. But in Latin the word amo means "I love" — the human form taken by the
principle of Unity
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