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Biblioteca Esoterica Esonet.ORG
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organization, according to the complex, impersonal rhythms of an immense cycle of
changes and transformations. (I shall discuss the subjective aspect of the postmortem
processes in Chapter II.)
Passage through the Gate of Silence takes on a different aspect, however, when we
think of the human state as the embodiment of one of the four phases of the cosmic and
metacosmic (Day and Night) cycle of being. This "human" phase leads to a new one, to
which the term inistence refers. The human phase, however, refers to humanity-as-awhole,
or more generally and archetypally.to Man (Anthropos) as a functional part (or
level) of the total being of the earth. (In the next chapter I shall outline the sequence of
developments marking the slow but progressive evolution of humanity-as-a-whole
toward the final condition of Illumined Man and the passage through the Gate of Silence
— the ultimate phase of "human history" at the planetary "end of time," "Last Day," or
omega state.)
What follows this final condition of Illumined Man — and what individuals who even
now constitute the far-advanced spearhead of human evolution already are experiencing
— should not be considered a negation of being. From the point of view of Wholeness, the
two opposite principles of Unity and Multiplicity, symmetrically waxing and waning, are
equally significant. 21 Each principle should be understood as an affirmation of being, be it
a subjective, contracting or an objective, expansionistic affirmation; an affirmation of the
experience of unity (selfhood) in terms of consciousness or an affirmation of the feeling of
space-conquest through the spreading differentiation of energy.
In the cycle of the seasons, these two types of affirmation correspond to the summer
and winter solstices. They reach their most characteristic and powerful formulations at the
symbolic Midday and Midnight of the entire cycle of Wholeness. Midnight symbolizes the
predominance of the principle of Unity. All there is is condensed within what I call the
Godhead state. Yet this Godhead is not "the Absolute." Neither is it "One without a
second," nor does it transcend the Movement of Wholeness. Wholeness, being allinclusive,
has a place for the Godhead as it has for all living beings and for Man — Man
considered as an archetype and as a particular phase of the all encompassing cycle of
being. The Godhead is the culmination of being in terms of Unity, but it is not a Supreme
Being. Natural Man (the symbolic Noon) is the culmination of being in terms of the most
extreme differentiation possible during the Day hemicycle of existence. It is thus the
triumph of Multiplicity and also of what we call nature. The term Natural Man therefore
refers to a vast number (a multiplicity) of human beings.
When I speak of Godhead, I do not mean what some great mystics like Meister Eckart
meant by the term or what Hindu philosophers named Parabrahman (the unmanifest
aspect of Brahman) — to them the "Supreme Reality." The term refers to supreme
condition, but it is a conditon of supreme Unity, and Unity is no more absolutely "real"
21 Of course metaphysicians can argue as to whether Unity and Multiplicity are two aspects of Wholeness, or
if Wholeness is the result of cyclic interaction. It is like arguing about what came first, the chicken or the egg.
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