Light

by Dorothy Hilton

The inspired apostle gave us a wonderful definition of deity when he said that ”God is Light ,”and therefore “Light” has been used to illustrate the nature of the Divine in the Rosicrucian Teachings, especially the mystery of the Trinity in Unity. It is clearly taught in the Holy Scriptures of all times that God is one and indivisible. At the same time, we find that as the one white light is refracted into three primary colours – red , yellow, and blue - so God appears in a threefold role during manifestation by the exercise of the three divine functions of creation, preservation, and dissolution.

Volumes, or rather libraries, have been written to explain the nature of God, but it is probably a universal experience that the more we read other people’s explanations, the less we understand. However, the description given by John, “GOD IS LIGHT,” is as illuminating as the others are befogging to the mind. Anyone who takes this passage for meditation occasionally will find a rich reward waiting, for no matter how many times we take up the subject, our own development during the passing years assures us that of a fuller and better understanding. Each time we sink ourselves in these words, we live in a spiritual foundation of inexhaustible depth, and each succeeding time we sound more thoroughly the divine depths and draw more closely to our Father in heaven.

To get in touch with our subject, let us go back in time and get our bearings and the direction of our future line of progress. The first time our consciousness was directed towards the Light was shortly after we had become endowed with mind and had entered definitely upon our evolution as human beings in Atlantis. This was the land of the mist, deep down in the basins of the Earth, where the warm mist emitted from the cooling earth hung like a dense fog over the land. Then the starry heights of the universe were never seen, nor could the silvery light of the Moon penetrate the dense foggy atmosphere which hung over the ancient land. When we look in the Memory of Nature pertaining to this time, we see that even the fiery splendour of the Sun was extinguished almost totally, and appeared very much as an arc lamp on a high pole looks to us when it’s foggy. It was exceedingly dim, and had an aura of various colours, very similar to those which we observe around an arc light.

But this light had a fascination. The ancient Atlanteans were taught by the divine Hierarchs who walked among them to aspire to the light, and as the spiritual sight was then already on the wane they aspired all the more ardently to the new light, for they feared the darkness of which they had become conscious through the gift if mind.

Then came the inevitable flood, when the mist cooled and condensed. The atmosphere cleared , and the “chosen people” were saved. Those who had worked within themselves and learnt how to build the necessary organs required to breathe in an atmosphere such as we have today, survived and came to the light. It was not an arbitrary choice; the work of the past consisted of body building. Those who had only gill clefts, such as the foetus still uses in its prenatal development, were as unfit physiologically to enter the new era as the foetus would be to be born if it neglected to build lungs. It would die as those ancient people died when the rare atmosphere made gill clefts useless.

Our bodies have been practically complete since the day when we came out of Atlantis, that is to say , no new vehicles are to be added; but from that time and from now on those who wish to follow the light must strive for soul growth. We are taught that the bodies which we have crystallised about us must be dissolved, and the quintessence of experience extracted, which as “soul” may be amalgamated with the Spirit to nourish it from impotence to omnipotence. Therefore, the Tabernacle in the Wilderness was given to the ancients, and the “Light” of God descended upon the Altar of Sacrifice. This is of great significance: The Ego had just descended into its tabernacle, the body. We all know the primitive instinct tends towards selfishness, and if we have studied the higher ethics we also know how subversive of good the indulgence of the egoistic tendency is; therefore, God immediately placed before mankind the Divine Light upon the Altar of Sacrifice.

Upon this altar they were forced by dire necessity to offer their cherished possessions for every transgression, God appearing to them as a hard taskmaster whose displeasure it was dangerous to incur. But still the Light drew them. They knew it was futile to attempt to escape from the hand of God. They had never heard the words from John, “God is Light,” but they had already learned from the heavens in measure the meaning of infinitude, as measured by the realm of light, for we hear David exclaim: “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into Heaven, thou art there: If I make my bed I hell, thou art there. If I say surely the darkness shall cover me , even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the light shineth as the day, for darkness and the light are both alike to thee.”

Over the years, with the aid of the greatest telescopes which the ingenuity and mechanical skill of man have been able to construct to pierce the depths of space, it becomes more evident that the infinitude of light teaches us the infinitude of God. When we hear that “men loved darkness rather than Light because of their evil deeds,” that also rings true to what we unfortunately know as present day facts and illuminates the nature of God for us. It is not that we always feel endangered in the dark, but that the light gives us a sense of safety which is akin to the feeling of a child who feels the protecting hand of its Father.

To render permanent this condition of being in the light was the next step in God’s work with us. This culminated in the birth of Christ who was the bodily presence of the Father. He bore about in himself that Light, for the Light came into the world that whosoever should believe in Christ should not perish, but have everlasting life. He said, “I am the Light of the world.” The altar in the Tabernacle had illustrated the principle of sacrifice as the medium of regeneration, so Christ said to His disciples: “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

In The Rosicrucian Philosophy, in Questions and Answers, Vol. II, it is started that “Light” is a property of matter in the Desire World (p. 193), and that light may be refracted into three primary colours -blue, yellow and red (p. 488). In The Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures, “Spiritual Sight-Spiritual Worlds; the Etheric Region of the Physical World,” we see that the Rosicrucians, in harmony with other occult schools, divide each World into seven “regions” or states of matter. Our visible world comprises three such regions namely: Solid, Liquid and Gaseous. The invisible ether occupies the four remaining regions, known collectively as the Etheric Region. This region is the medium through which the solar energy flows into the dense bodies of plants, animals & humanity, and thus it forms a basis for manifestation of life and vitality. Of the four ethers in this region, the Light Ether is the medium of manifestation of the forces which produce heat, motion and the circulation of the blood in man and animal and of the sap in plants. Through it the green chlorophyll is deposited on the leaves, and so is the colouring on flowers, animals and humanity. In humanity and animals the forces of this ether are fully operative, but only partially in plants. In The Cosmo Conception more detailed information of the Light ether is given on page 36.

In conclusion, we quote from The Rosicrucian Mysteries: “Truly, God is One and Undivided. He enfolds within His Being all that is, as the white light embraces all colours. But He appears threefold in manifestation, as the white light is refracted in three primary colours blue, yellow and red. Wherever we see these colours they are emblematical of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These three primary rays of Divine Life are diffused or radiated through the Sun and produce life, consciousness and form upon each of the seven light bearers, the planets, which are called the ‘Seven Spirits before the Throne.’ Their names are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. Bode’s law proves that as Neptune does not belong to our solar system and the reader is referred to Simplified, Scientific Astrology by Max Heindal, for mathematical demonstration of this condition.

Each of the seven planets receives the light of the sun in a different measure, according to its proximity to the central orb and the constitution of its atmosphere. The beings on each planet, according to their stage of development, have affinity for some of the solar rays. The planets absorb the colour or colours congruous to them, and reflect the rest upon the other planets. This reflected ray bears with it an impulse of the nature of the beings which it has been in contact.

Thus the divine Light and Life comes to each planet, either directly from the Sun, or reflected from its six sister planets, and as the summer breeze which has ben wafted over blooming fields carries upon its silent, invisible wings the blended fragrances from The Garden of God, bring to us the commingled impulses of all the Planetary Spirits and in that light we live and move and have our being.

The rays which come directly from the Sun are productive of Spiritual illumination; the reflected rays from other planets make for added consciousness and moral development, and the rays reflected from the Moon give physical growth. But as each planet can absorb only a certain quantity of one or more colours according to the general stage of evolution there, so each being upon Earth - mineral, plant and humanity - can only absorb and thrive upon a certain quantity of the various rays projected upon the Earth. The remainder do not affect it or produce sensation any more than the blind are conscious of light and colour which exists everywhere around them. Therefore each being is affected differently by the stellar rays, and the science of Astrology, a fundamental truth in nature, is of enormous benefit in the attainment of spiritual growth.

“When Light unveiled her radiant face, and wrapped the world in her embrace, when into space the planets swung - this song the Heavenly Choir sung: ‘O sacred pulse! O law divine! All purpose and all power are thine, for Life goes on forever.’ (The musical scale and the scheme of evolution).

“In Him was Life; and the life was the light of men. And the Light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” John 1

by Dorothy Hilton (first published in Rays of the Rose Cross, August 1986)