Home
Preface
5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
A to Z
Related Information
|
ZODIAC OF TWELVE SIGNS
A symbol of the Cycle of Life through which the
Soul's development is accomplished. The Soul, or indwelling Self
(sun), proceeds in a spiral course, whose cyclic progression is in
twelve stages corresponding to the twelve signs. These stages are
related to human life inasmuch as they each answer to certain parts
of the Archetypal Man, and each part has its stage of development in
relation to the whole, and every department of human experience is
expressed in them.
"In the Soul is the spiritual circle or Zodiac, wherein is fulfilled
what the twelve signs represent in the natural Zodiacal system of
the Universe Macrocosm." - JOHN WARD, Zion's Works, Vol. II. p. 238.
"When he prepared the heavens I was there when he set a circle upon
the face of the depth." - PROV. viii. 27.
The Higher Self came forth on the upper buddhic plane (Aries), and
the Cycle of Life was described in the mentality of the lower
nature. "Thou, Pragâpati, dividest thy person in twelve parts, and
thou becomest the Twelve Adityas." - Vana Parva, v. 189.
The Archetypal Man as the "year or Zodiac is dismembered in twelve
parts, related to the twelve stages of the Cycle of Life.
"Zoroaster, Plato says, having been placed on the funeral pyre, rose
again to life in twelve days. He alludes perchance to the
resurrection, or perchance to the fact that the path for souls to
ascension lies through the twelve signs of the zodiac; and he
himself says that the descending pathway to birth is the same, ..
after which the soul obtains release from this entire world." -
CLEMENT OF ALEX., Miscellanies, Bk. V.
The Soul (Zoroaster) descends to the lower planes for experience and
purification (funeral pyre), afterwards it ascends in the
resurrection, and is liberated from the lower nature.
“Theologians admitted therefore two gates (between heaven and
earth), Cancer and Capricorn, and Plato also meant these by what he
calls the two mouths. Of these they affirm that Cancer is the gate
through which souls descend, but Capricorn that through which they
ascend [and exchange a material for a divine condition of being]" (Porphyrius).
- MAX MÜLLER, Theosophy, etc., p. 144.
Cancer corresponds to the lower mind plane on the side of
involution, that is, where the Soul descends into the lower nature;
while on the side of evolution, Capricorn corresponds to the higher
mind plane, that is, where the souls of humanity ascend from the
lower nature and put on immortality. "The Indian Capricorn is an
elephant emerging from a makara, or leviathan." - A. LILLIE, Budd.
in Christendom, p. 7.
This signifies wisdom (the soul) emerging from the cycle of the
lower nature (leviathan).
“Owing to the complex and manifold nature of existence, every sphere
or plane of man's being requires for itself a redemptive process;
and, for each, this process consists of three degrees. Of these the
first three relate to the Body, the second three to the Mind, the
third three to the Heart, and the fourth three to the Spirit. There
are thus, in all, twelve Degrees 'Houses' of the Perfect Man or
Microcosm, as there are twelve Zodiacal Signs or Mansions of the Sun
in his course through the heavens of the Macrocosm. And the Gospels
set forth mainly the six of the Heart and Spirit. The crown both of
the twelve degrees and of the six acts- that which constitutes alike
the 'Sabbath' of the Hebrews, the Nirvana' of the Buddhists, and the
Transmutation' of the Alchemists-is the 'The Divine Marriage " - The
Perfect Way, p. 245.
The “Body" must be taken to mean the astral body of desire ; the
Mind," the mental-body; and the Heart the causal-body, the "shrine
of the Spirit of the man" (ibid., p. 246). The "Perfect Man" is the
Archetypal Man.
|
See Also
|