THE AIRY TRIPLICITY.
♊ ♎ ♒
♎, OR OBEYING ORDERS.
The spirit of mortal, alas, is proud. Not realizing itself as nothing but a shadowy reflect, it arrogates to itself, while yet a minor, its birthright of Divinity and heritage of immortality, as if it had already attained its majority and come into possession of its estate.
Obedience is a difficult attainment, perhaps the most difficult of all, and yet all the boasted free will of a mortal ends in his obedience, in spite of himself, for one grand command comprises all the lesser orders. The others are but copies, or reprints, of the original.
This One Supreme is that Divine love principle which binds polar opposites into one. And true is the command: “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder,” for mortal cannot put it asunder. He cannot accomplish the impossible and unthinkable, and there is but one punishment for attempted disobedience. He does not alter the law, but, as far as he himself is concerned, he realizes the results in accordance with his disregard of the law, whether intentional or not.
To fulfill this great law of love is peace, equilibrium, harmony and life; to ignore or defy it is strife, confusion, discord and death.
And thus the mortal obeys the law in spite of himself, for death is not a change preparatory to another state or condition of life, in which the mortal, or reflect, is given another chance to obey the order which comprises all orders.
THE EQUILIBRIUM OR EQUALITY OF RATIOS.
Love.
♎
Justice.
In walking, which is propelling the body through the air, the process of locomotion is threefold, or triune; i. e., there are three great centers of locomotion. First, the arms and shoulders; second, the legs, especially the muscles of the calves, and the third is that portion of the body which is the point of equilibrium between the two, and this portion perfectly describes an old-fashioned balance, or pair of scales, ♎. It includes the reins, or kidneys, and extends to the loins, or hips. Now, in walking, as the weight of the body is thrown on one leg the opposite hip, like one end of the beam of the scales, comes up and the other hip goes down, then vice versa, and so on. This is so in true, natural walking; but alas! the fine, true, harmonious, stately gait is very rare in this degenerate age. Yet if this perfect equipoise of the body were maintained at every step, walking could be continued indefinitely without fatigue.
But to one who understands the esoteric meaning of symbols there can be no more significant and saddening sight than to watch for a moment the hurrying, swaying, shuffling throng of a crowded street.
Truly is the world blind to the knowledge of soul poise, and disobedient to the law which binds polar opposites into a unity.
On the reflected and phenomenal plane this law has special reference to the forms of union called marriage and partnership. The same law which governs marriage governs partnership, no matter whether the parties are composed of nations or only two individuals, and looking out into the world to-day, with its teeming millions, a very serious state of affairs is presented to the eyes of the warrior.
Inharmony, discord, strife everywhere. No marriage, all lust; no partnership, all monopoly. And nowhere is this more apparent than among those who profess to have found Truth — to know the real from the unreal.
However, as the warrior rises to a higher plane, and regards the present condition of humanity in a larger sense, he only sees them with pitying and tender eyes, as infants learning to walk, tottering, and in constant danger of losing their balance; swayed first by one strong passion and then another, and then he knows just how far it is possible for one soul to help another — only in so far as a child can be helped to walk. But the child must walk for itself; no one can walk for it. I can, by my understanding of truth, influence another person to do a virtuous deed. This deed would be the result of an action on my part; so, unless there is also a reaction on the part of the person performing the deed, there has been no equilibrium established whereby any inner purity has been evolved on his part, and he has not, consciously, taken a single step for himself toward truth. I have only lifted him up and carried him, and perhaps delayed him in the process of walking. He will look for some one else walking for himself. The soul cannot grow vicariously, anymore than the child can so walk.
Now this belief in the possibility of a vicarious union of polar opposites, or At-one-ment, is the great delusion of the age. Truly there is but one way under the Sun whereby men can be saved. It is by obedience to the law of equilibrium. Not a stupid, passive obedience, for, like everything else under the Sun, obedience is dual — active and passive, positive and negative. Therefore, while I accept the fact that every soul must walk for itself, yet at the same time I remember that it must have its seeming props and helps, while learning to walk, until it attains its majority. So I must help all about me. Thus, for the time being, I seem to hinder, but only in order to help. This is that awful law of contradictories, so bewildering to the child soul, wherein we seemingly disobey in order to obey. Herein consists the duality of obedience. In order to realize absolute good I must, for the time being, accept relative, or seeming, evil; but it is only in accordance with the higher law, which evolves the perfect harmony out of seeming discord, whereby I gain my spiritual insight and read aright the esoteric meaning from the exoteric symbol. If I accept seeming evil for any other purpose, I am at once bound in chains of sense and seeming and sink deeper and deeper in the shadows, until that which should be a symbol for the very highest, following the law of contradictories, becomes the very lowest and foulest, as is now so generally the case with symbolic marriages.
In the particular phase of soul unfoldment through which humanity is at present passing, the last and highest symbol for mortal to comprehend is marriage — the union of man and woman. The very fact that there is a symbol proves there is a reality. The fact of a shadow proves there must be a substance. Just so the exoteric form we know as marriage proves, of necessity, a true soul marriage, and further, for the warrior this is a most significant fact and means another lesson, which cannot be omitted. The reason this At-one-ment is seldom or never realized is, as we have just seen, humanity has not yet developed to the point of soul equilibrium. It cannot yet walk; therefore this soul union can only take place in the next phase or condition of development. Man can no more realize soul marriage than our domestic animals could live our present family life.
But right here, at this point, the warrior who has mastered the former lessons, stands forth in the strength of his God-given heritage, scorning the shadow symbols, determined to know only the real; he foregoes all the sensuous and seeming and becomes the true celibate. He sees that one of the factors in the attainment of his celestial heritage is the union with his polar opposite. The immortality of his soul is an utter unthinkability without this At-one-ment. He can never come into possession of his Kingdom until he places a Queen upon the Throne by his side. He cannot be knighted until he has found and won his lady. Thus is he justified in putting aside earthly ties, only in order to realize the celestial union which follows obedience to the love which binds together polar opposites.
(This continues the series of excerpts from the Sarah Stanley Grimke Collected Works. Having already shared posts on Henry Wallace and Theodore Roosevelt as examples of Libran and Scorpio politicians, I will comment on Elbert Benjamine’s Sagittarian perspective in December. But have another Scorpio esotericist to feature next month, Alexandra David-Neel. SSG’s Tour of the Zodiac resumes in October with her Scorpio chapter. The “dauntless, intrepid explorer of dangerous territory” and “author of travel narratives” theme fits this woman as well as it does Theodore Roosevelt.)