“Though I have said that we are one with God and this is taught us by Holy Writ, yet now I say that we must eternally remain other than God, distinct from Him. …

“And therefore I say further: that from the face of God, or from our highest feeling, a brightness shines upon the face of our inward being, which teaches us the truth of love and of all virtue: and especially are we taught in this brightness to feel God and ourselves in four ways. First, we feel God in his Grace; and when we apprehend this, we cannot remain idol. For like the sun, by its splendor and its heat, enlightens and gladdens and makes fruitful the whole world, So God does to us through His Grace. He enlightens and gladdens and makes fruitful all who desire to obey Him. If, however, we would feel God within us, and desire to have the fire of His love ever more burning within us, we must, of our own free will, help to kindle it in four ways: we must abide within ourselves, united with the fire. And we must go forth from ourselves toward all good people with loyalty and love. And we must bo beneath ourselves, betaking ourselves in all good works. And we must ascend above ourselves with the flame of this fire, through devotion, and praise, and fervent prayer, and must ever cleave to God with an upright intention and with love.” ~John of Ruysbroeck

One With God, Yet Individuals

When they are told that the goal of spiritual development is to unite with God, many people think this means that their individuality will be lost in doing do. In fact, there are some spiritual schools that teach that we lose our identity as we become one with God, comparing it to a drop of water that flows into the ocean where it mixes in and can never be separated again. But others teach that it is more like a brick being added to a brick wall. The brick is part of the wall but still retains its individuality.

A Brightness Shines

A brightness does shine on us from God, but not directly. God’s Light illuminates the Spiritual Sun and it is that Sun than shines down on us with God’s Light. And it shines on our outer being as well as our inner one. It shines on all beings, but most are unable to absorb it, so it just passes through them like neutrons. But for those who seek this Brightness of God, it awakens and nourishes the spirit and helps us develop higher levels of consciousness.

Four Ways

The Four Ways listed by Ruysbroeck may not be the only ways to keep us close to God, but they are certainly part of it. First, he says we must seek to unite “with the fire.” In other words, to be one with the Light, one with God, one with Heaven. In Cosolargy, we know that the best way to do this is to practice our solar techniques faithfully and regularly. Then we must, as Ruysbroeck puts it, “go forth from ourselves toward all good people”. In Cosolargy, We are taught to keep the teachings secret, just as was done in the mystery schools of the past, yet we can still reach out to others, inform them of what is happening, what the Awakening is all about, and invite them to join Cosolargy. Don’t be disappointed, however, if your friends and relatives are not ready to see the Light, and turn down your suggestion. The Light will come to them when they are ready, not before, but as the old saying goes, it helps to plant seeds. Third, we must, as Ruysbroeck says, go beneath ourselves to continue to labor in the world of matter. We remain part of the material world while developing our spiritual side, so we must continue to function in that world, and not withdraw from it. We function in it but avoid becoming attached to it, or to anything in the world of matter. And finally, we ascend above ourselves to “pray” or communicate with the Beings of Light and With God. This is the way to truly know God.

“Now that thou hast taken these names upon thee of good, modest, true; of emfrwn, sumfrwn, uperfrwn; take heed lest at any times by doing anything that is contrary, thou be but improperly so called, and lose thy right to these appellations. Or if thou do, return unto them again with all possible speed. And remember, that the word emfrwn notes unto thee an intent and intelligent consideration of every object that presents itself unto thee, without distraction. And the word emfrwn a ready and contented acceptation of whatsoever by the appointment of the common nature, happens unto thee. And the word sumfrwn, a super-extension, or a transcendent, and outreaching disposition of thy mind, whereby it passeth by all bodily pains and pleasures, honour and credit, death and whatsoever is of the same nature, as matters of absolute indifference, and in no wise to be stood upon by a wise man. These then if inviolably thou shalt observe, and shalt not be ambitious to be so called by others, both thou thyself shalt become a new man, and thou shalt begin a new life.” ~Marcus Aurelius

Emphrōn, Symphrōn, Hyperphrōn

Aurelius is making a little wordplay here with the last three adjectives in Greek which are emphrōn, symphrōn, and hyperphrōn. This is the translation in more modern English of that sentence.

“If you ever get to call yourself good, moral, honest, conscientious, amenable, and dignified, never exchange them for other labels or lose them. He is warning people that once they achieve such an honorable description, they take care not to lose it or violate it.

This doesn’t apply only to those attributes listed by Aurelius, but to all improvements made as part of your spiritual growth path and techniques, including the development of humility, and love for all.

Return to Them Again

Here, Aurelius is saying that if we should stray from the path of truth, justice, humility, and love, rather than quitting in frustration, we must make every attempt to get back on the path. While we shouldn’t brush it off as meaningless, we should also not give up too readily when we stray. For the vast majority of people, the path of spiritual development is often two steps forward, one step back, rather than a steady path forward. Partly, this is because the forces of darkness try so hard to pull us away from the Path of Light.

Intent and Intelligent Consideration

Here, Aurelius is telling us that one thing we can do to help prevent us from straying off The Path is to think out each thing before we do it carefully. Ask ourselves if it is what a peaceful, loving person of humility should do. If not, don’t do it. Some modern Christians would say, “Ask what would Jesus Do?” That would be good advice if they actually knew what Jesus would do, but they have made it clear that many of them have no idea what Jesus would do, only what their favorite preacher would do, and those preachers are rarely true representatives of the teachings of Jesus. By now we should all know that the true path to God and salvation is through humility and love, as well as Solar techniques, so by simply asking ourselves if the thing we are about to do or say meets those criteria, we should be heading in the right direction. Eventually, most of us develop our intuition well enough that it helps keep us from straying.

Pain, Pleasure, Death, and Indifference

Aurelius says that pain, pleasure, death, and indifference are “in no wise to be stood upon by a wise man.” So he is advising us to avoid doing anything that brings pain or death to others and to avoid being indifferent to the pains and difficulties of others, even strangers. Pleasures may seem out of place here, but there are different kinds of pleasures, and Aurelius is warning us not to take pleasure in things that are mostly physical in nature, such as overeating and sexual indulgences. It is not so much that such things are bad in themselves, but that we tend to get attached to physical pleasures and then they easily distract us away from the spiritual. The ancient spiritual teachers warned that becoming attached to physical things tends to slow down, if not stop, our spiritual progress. And it provides openings for the dark beings to attack and manipulate us. So as Marcus warns, do not be ambitious, and become a new man or woman.

The image used to illustrate this post shows Marcus Aurelius granting clemency to prisoners rather than having them put to death, so he practiced what he preached.

“The belief that nearly all diseases have their origin in the invisible nature of Man (the Astrum) is a fundamental precept of Hermetic medicine, for while hermeticists in no way disregard the physical body, they believed that man’s material constitution was an emanation from, or an objectification of, his invisible spiritual principles. A brief, but it is believed fairly comprehensive, resume of the hermetic principles of Paracelsus follows:

There is one vital substance in Nature upon which all things subsist. It is called, archeus, or vital life force, and is synonymous with the astral light or spiritual air of the ancients. In regard to this substance, Eliphas Levi has written, ‘Light, that creative agent, the vibrations of which are the movement and life of all things; Light, latent in the universal ether, radiating about absorbing centers, which, being saturated thereby, project movement and life in their turn, so forming creative currents; Light; actualized in the stars, animated in animals, humanized in human beings; Light, which vegetates all plants, glistens in metals, produces all forms of Nature and equilibrates all by the laws of universal sympathy—this is the Light which exhibits the phenomena of magnetism, divined by Paracelsus, which tinctures the blood, being released from the air as it is inhaled and discharged by the hermetic bellows of the lungs’ (The History of Magic)

“This vital energy has its origin in the spiritual body.” ~Manly P. Hall

Invisible Nature of Man

While Mr. Hall equates the “invisible nature of Man” with “the Astrum,” I find that Astrum is derived from Latin, and means a star. So he is saying, I believe, that man gets his invisible nature from the stars, or from a star, which could only mean the Sun. While that is not exactly correct, it is true that the Light referred to later in the quote does reach us through the sun, and the most spiritual frequencies of it from the Spiritual Sun.

Another note: spirits are invisible to the physical senses, but not to the spiritual ones, so awakening the spiritual senses allows us to “see” spirits on another level.

Material Nature an Emination from Spirit

In a sense, it is true that the material body is an emanation from the spirit, but not because spirits set forth to generate physical bodies. It is because, the false god, the Demiurge, created the realm of matter by altering some of the spiritual realm. As a result, we can say that everything material has some spirit within it and behind it, and it is the goal of all true spiritual development to return that which is material back to its original state as spirit.

Vital Life Force

Paracelsus calls the Vital Life Force, “archeus”. The definition I found online says that the Archeus is a term that “generally refers to the lowest and most dense aspect of the astral plane which presides over the growth and continuation of material life. In short, it is the link between matter and spirit.

When I look up Vital Life Force, I find several similar definitions that basically say it is a vital essence (or energy) that animates all living things. Wikipedia relates it to the Ayurvedic “prana” which permeates reality on all levels. The most interesting part of this definition is when they add that “prana is sometimes described as originating from the Sun and connecting the elements.” So we can say that the Vital Life Force is that which generates life, feeds and maintains life, and encourages the existence of life.

Of course, some of the more materialistic definitions laugh at the concept, such as this from The Free Dictionary: “A hypothetical force (not physical or chemical) once thought by Henri Bergson to cause the evolution and development of organisms”

Creative Vibrations of Light

There are indeed creative vibrations in light. Both physical and spiritual light generate life on one level or another. Physical light is responsible for material life. Plants are the most obvious as they live almost entirely on light and water. Animals get light directly from the sun, but also indirectly from plants that they eat. Man also gets physical light for his physical body, but humans are also capable of taking in spiritual Light from the Spiritual Sun for their spiritual Self. Even without trying, we take in a little spiritual Light, but to fully awaken and develop our Spirits, we need to take in more spiritual Light by seeking it and accepting it in Love and humility. Spiritual Light will not flow to greedy and arrogant individuals.

Phenomena of Magnetism

We know that magnetism is not a force that is found in light, but when Paracelsus said that it was, it was at a time when magnetism and electricity were considered the same thing. While the two are related, magnetism and electricity are not the same. So I think Paracelsus was saying that light is responsible for electricity. While that is not true either, there is some connection. We know that electricity can produce light under certain circumstances, and light can produce electricity at times. But It may be that Paracelsus was trying to say that Light gives us the “electricity” or “magnetism” of the Vital Life Force, so to strengthen and extend our life, we must turn to the Light.