Monday, April 29, 2013

On Earth as it is in Heaven

“On earth as it is in heaven” is a phrase from the Lord’s Prayer but it expresses a much older sentiment.

The ancients looked into the skies and saw the power of the divine there. The vast over-arching, starry sky, which they envisioned as a dome over the earth, was the primal deity— or sometimes simply the home of the invisible primal deity—the father-mother of everything, while the planets and stars were this deity’s children and messengers of its desires and will.

Heaven—the perfect primal state of balance, harmony, perfection, and beauty; of order wrought from primordial chaos. Heaven—the source and template of how things were meant to be on earth. Heaven held the Wisdom that organizes life, that creates the templates, that sets the patterns—sun, moon, stars, seasons, life, death, male, female—of how life “runs.”

As can be seen by the great number of sacred mountains, pyramids, omphaloi, and temples containing a “holy of holies” chamber, humankind has always sought not only to communicate with the divine source, but to bring its power, harmony, and balance down to earth. Stone circles with alignments to the moon, various stars, and solstice and equinox points mutely attest some of these ancient attempts. Major earthworks, such as the Glastonbury Zodiac and others, may also be examples of attempts to align earth landscapes with the star patterns in the sky, and thus bring the star powers to earth. Perhaps people thought that this bringing of heaven to earth helped humanity commune with the Divine, or even become divine themselves.

At the very least, these endeavors definitely seem to be attempts to connect the earthly realm with the divine powers of the sky realm, because it was thought that earth was intended to be a reflection of beauty and perfection of the heavens.

“As above, so below,” which sounds like a statement of fact or belief, may well have been perceived as a divine mission. 

There are many ways we humans have tried to create heaven on earth through the ages. We noticed earth-sky correspondences in land formations and rivers, and sanctified those spots by building sacred sanctuaries there.  We have built churches, temples, and tabernacles as places for the Divine presence on earth to dwell. Often we’ve built them in accord with the principles of sacred geometry—the better to house this divine energy in a suitably sacred place.

We have done rituals in these tabernacles, tents, temples, and churches, basing our ceremonies on the seasonal movements of sun, stars and planets. We have created works of beauty—art, dance, and music inspired by the divine presence as we saw and felt it in earth and sky, to lift our hearts and minds to the heavens and try to touch this vast over-arching power of divinity and bring at least some of it down to earth.

But in this Aquarian Age, the most suitable dwelling for heaven on this earth, for the Divine Presence, is within the human heart and consciousness. And this was actually the true meaning of the teachings of Jesus.

His greatest message, perhaps only now being fully acknowledged after 2000 years, is that the bringing of heaven to earth must include humanity, too. It is fine to build sanctuaries, temples, and “Holy of Holies,” but the real tabernacles for the Divine Presence—the Holy Spirit, the Shekhinah— must be the tabernacles in our hearts and minds. Humans must revere not only  themselves, but each other, as well as the earth and all her creatures, recognizing them as part of divinity. All life is sacred; we are all related.

This can happen only within the heart and consciousness...

When this has been accomplished, the Messiah has come and the “Second Coming” has occurred. Osiris and Isis, Yahweh and his Asherah, Christ and Sophia/Shekhinah—the masculine and feminine aspects of the One Divine Source—are reunited, wholeness is achieved, and the rift between heaven and earth is mended.