Post by david on Oct 9, 2020 18:32:57 GMT
Dear friends,
It moves but never changes place.
A lot of people are seeking spiritual development by stillness and they are trying to do this by moving slower and slower until we cannot tell which way they are walking. There is stillness of a different kind.
The wheel is a very simple symbol reducing the whole of Creation to very simple logic but when you examine it you find it contains a curious illogicality. The rim never stops moving while the centre stays still but the rim never moves away from the centre and each point returns to the same place but the same place is not the same place because when the wheel turns the vehicle moves. The centre does not move in relation to the wheel or the vehicle but it does move. You cannot walk round in a circle and arrive back in the same spot because by the time
you have done so the Earth has moved through space and you are at a different point in the Universe. You find the wheel confusing? This is not surprising since nothing disorientates the
mind more than a fast spin. We are investigating the reason why confusion is in the world.
The centre of the wheel moves at the same speed as the vehicle and the highest point moves at twice this speed. The lowest point is stationary. This gives it something in common with the centre. Both are in a sense stationary and in a sense moving. This makes it possible for the two points to be confused. Spiritual teachers tell us that we should be ruled by the most still but which is the most still? Since they are both equally still do they not both have an equal right to be the centre of the turning?
This stillness of the lowest point is a paradoxical thing since it is achieved by being twice as fast as everything else. If you think this is strange look what happens when they invent railways. The flange of the wheel is even faster than the rim, that is more than twice the speed of the vehicle. When the flange goes below the rail it goes backwards as its contribution to the forwards movement of the train. When it reaches the lowest point both the stationary points are directly above it so it has difficulty distinguishing one from the other.
Now swiftness is the nature of the flange so it must do everything the quickest way and the quickest way for it to complete its circuit is to circle round the nearer of the two points. It recognizes its natural leader.
Anybody who knows anything about Egyptian mysticism will realize that you should be careful where you lie down. Stillness is a tricky thing. The myths state that Set and his seventy two followers asked Osiris to try out a coffin for size and nailed down the lid on him. Set was always depicted by some strange animal now thought to be a greyhound with a camel's head. This is an unnatural animal. Act greyhound, think greyhound. Modern occultists do not like to see Set as evil but it is not possible for a perfect being to come into conflict with a perfect being. It is not possible for a perfect being to be tricked either. These myths, in their original form, were meant not only to describe states of archetypal perfection but the decline from perfection into manifestation and the return to perfection.
The nature of a greyhound is swiftness and a camel is endurance. Now if we look again at this lowest point of the wheel we see it supports the entire weight of the wheel. Set considered he had the right to rule because he was the strongest. I have never seen a strong greyhound. Horus challenged him to a stone boat race. The Egyptians used the same word for a boat that carried stone as one made of stone. Set made a stone boat and sank.
The curious thing about this lowest point is that its stillness is never still. It is a different point of the wheel that is always at this point. Any one point on the rim is still momentarily and supports the weight momentarily. Only the centre supports weight all the time. Anyone who has done labouring work will know that correctly used speed can temporarily have the same effect as strength. Never pause while bearing weight. When wrestling someone much bigger than yourself circle him fast with repeated attacks. Set never had a chance because he had a camel's head.
The runners who endure most are the best at running uphill and they are the smallest and slowest. When the small lose swiftness their only chance is to keep going and head for the high ground. What lifts the rim of the wheel is the spoke. These are emanations of the centre and reflect the centre at the rim. They represent the World Pillar which is reflected into every created being. They are not phallic symbols because they only function if they radiate in all directions like sun rays.
The name of the Greek sorceress Circe is also the name of a kind of hawk that flies round in circles. It does this in order to look for a prey and then descends vertically down
like a shaft of the sun. The spoke descends from the hub which turns round the centre at a point closer to the centre than the rim. The rim is the fallen Creation reflecting the archetypal activity of the hub.
We live in a world that believes strength to be the source of action and many people want to be strong whose nature is not to be strong. Most particularly is it seen as an expression of masculinity. The turning of the wheel properly comes from the centre and the equivalent symbol in the mesocosm is the throne which is the still centre that governs the movements of the world. The Egyptian deity whose name means throne and was depicted with a throne on her head was the Goddess Isis. Only when we examine the wheel from the centre do we see that its movements never cease to be logical.
The creation of imperfect existence is a result of a turning from perfect existence. That which turns first will draw others after it and become a kind of anti-centre of the imperfect world.
Technology is a temporary aberration based on non-renewable energy. The carriage is meant to represent the corporeal body whose motive impulse comes from beyond the world. The power of an engine is independent of a conscious will and is a less contemplative system. The drive shaft of a steam locomotive is offset from the centre so as to symbolically invert the relationship between the centre and the hub. Utilitarian objects should as far as possible be made in accordance with contemplative symbols.
The power of technology comes from a submission of the human will to matter which we should attempt to rise above by correct contemplative choices in all things. If this is done the human will can become independent of material limitations.
May She be with you,
David.