“Deep companion of the beings of light! In your mercy, give me your strength and help me with your own hand. Dress my soul, O lord, and speak to me. Help me when enemies close in. Their deceitful body would ravage and torture me. Beneficent friend, free me. My soul is crying in my body at every blow and dagger stab. My hour of life and this form in flesh is over, and all its days of turbulence. My hour tumbled about as on troubled water, pain after pain ravaging my inner place. I walked in anguish, fire at my ankles, fog a smoke in my face. Springs of darkness opened, and the giant fishes transfixed me with fear. My soul fainted before those dreadful forms, hideous to look at. Their bodies lack a human shape. These are the demons, the banished princes, transfixing me with terror. Their fury assembled like sea bodies of fire. They rose to drown me. In every neighborhood there were storm winds. Rain, the mist of all fogs, lightning and drums of thunder, shores of clouds, hail, crashing sea. The skiff rose over the crest of a wave and glided into a hidden trough. All the clamps got loose, iron rivets fell out. With the drownings the sails swallowed water, and the masts shook together in the turmoil. The rudders dropped into the sea. Those left on board turned to stone. The helmsmen and his pilots wailed bitterly at the top of their lungs.”

-Parthian Songs

Companion of the Beings of Light

The companion of the Beings of Light is God. Why the writer of this song chose to say it that way, I don’t know, but God is, of course, a companion of the Beings of Light that dwell in Heaven. The song asks God to speak to the one singing and to help when enemies close in. Enemies do not mean other people, but the beings and forces of Darkness: Devils and Demons.

My Soul is Crying

This line that ends with the singer being hit and stabbed makes us think that it is a martyr doing the singing, although it is possible that the line is allegorical. The next line makes it clear that this person is dying, and probably not of natural causes. The person properly indicates that it is just his body of flesh that is dying.

On Troubled Water

This part is definitely allegorical. Now this person is relating his dying state racked with pain as being on troubled waters. The allegory continues when he adds that “springs of darkness opened and “giant fishes transfixed me with fear.” The giant fishes represent demonic beings in frightful forms. He makes this clear a few lines later saying that: “These are the demons, the banished princes, transfixing me with terror.” That is, of course, one thing demons do. Sometimes they take forms that are frightening to us. Other times, they take forms that we like so we will listen to their lies.

There Fury Assembled

The song now seems to take a turn from describing what is happening to one dying person to the more general attacks on people by demons. The writer does stick with his allegory of being on Troubled Water, but now he talks of a ship with a number of sailors on board. First, he says there were storms and wind, lightning and thunder, hail and crashing waves. The demonic “storm” tears the ship apart drowning, or turning to stone, all of those aboard. This allegory is tricky to decipher, but here is my opinion. I think the ship and the sailors on it represent one of the many false churches that teach their members they are saved simply by belonging to the church and donating to it. In the End Times, represented here by a great storm, the demons destroy the false church, or at least the false teachings. We in Cosolargy know that all falsehood must be cleansed from the world as part of the process of returning it to its original state as a World of Light.

Wednesday, September 4, 2024

This past Saturday’s readings are from the Gnostic Book of Baruch and from The Prophecy to the Races of Man, Chapter 69: The Parousia (pp. 448 – 453). Click here to read the first scriptural reading, and click the audio button below to hear the reading from our Second Advent scripture.

Once again, please feel free to ask me any questions by calling 775-786-7432 or emailing me at messages@cosolargy.org. I am always at your service.

In Light+,

Gene

Japanese-style Second Advent Cross PHOTO: Yukako Kawai

“As the portrait painter keeps an eye upon the king’s face as he draws, and when the king’s face is toward him, he draws the portrait easily, but when the king turns his face away, he cannot draw. In like manner, Christ, the good artist to those who believe in him and gaze continually at him, straightaway portrays after his own image a heavenly person. Out of his own spirit, out of the substance of Light itself, the ineffable Light, he paints a heavenly image. If a person does not gaze constantly at Christ, the Lord will not paint his image with His own Light. We must, therefore, gaze upon him, believing him and loving him, throwing away all else and attending to him in order that he may paint His own heavenly Image and send it into our souls, and thus, wearing Christ, we may receive eternal life, and have full assurance and be at rest.

“As the golden coin, if it does not receive the imprint of the King’s image, does not come upon the market, but is discarded, so the soul, if it has not the image of the Heavenly Spirit in Light, is not fit for the treasures above.”

–St Macarius the Egyptian

The Portrait Painter

It seems odd to think of Christ as a portrait painter, but this is an obvious use of metaphor and allegory.

While I’ve never been a portrait painter myself, I can understand how one would get frustrated if the subject kept turning away or changing position. That is why many portrait painters today will take photos of the subject, and then work from the photos, perhaps only asking the subject to sit for a short while at the end to complete the final details.

At first, it sounds like St. Macarius is saying that Christ is painting a portrait of us, but if you read the quote carefully, you will see that he is painting a portrait of Himself upon our Soul.

Macarius tells us we must be continuously looking at Christ for this to happen. That is impossible to do, in a literal sense, and still function in the material world. What it really means is that we must keep a mental image of Christ in our minds at all times. In Cosolargy, we are taught to keep an image of the Cosolargy Cross in our minds at all times, which is the same thing as that cross is a symbol of Christ.

The Ineffable Light

Those of us who have been in Cosolargy for more than a few months know that when we talk about the Light, we don’t mean the basic light of a light bulb, or even the light of the material sun, but we seek out a greater Light that is Spiritual and comes to us through the Spiritual Sun. St. Macarius calls this “the ineffable Light, which is a good name for it. Ineffable means something so great or powerful that it can’t be described accurately in words. That is the Light we all seek.

Believe in God and Love God

St. Macarius tends to use Christ and God as if they mean the same thing, but we in Cosolargy know that they are not the same. Macarius is correct in saying we must believe in God and Love God if we are to receive God’s greatest gift, that Spiritual Light that awakens and develops the spirit into a conscious Soul, and makes us truly immortal.

The Golden Coin

This is another allegorical way to tell us that we must have Christ in our spirit and soul, we must have that Divine Light in our soul if we are to reach heaven when we leave the world. While it makes many people happy to believe they will get to heaven without having to do anything to earn that great privilege, it is a fantasy. The great mystery schools of the world and the founders of the major religions never taught that. They have always taught that getting to Heaven was a privilege that had to be earned.