The Ascension of Man--Lifting up the Serpent in the Wilderness--Part 4

[Guest guest]

The Ascension of Man--Lifting up the Serpent in the Wilderness--Part 4

(Dialogue With Nicodemus, Part II)

 

(p.259) " And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from

heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the

serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that

whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. " (John

3:13-15)

 

(p.263) Jesus' words in this passage make clear that all souls who are promoted

back to heaven had originally descended from heaven and become entrapped in

earthbound desires by the spurious realism of the cosmic drama, but were able to

reascend by conquering every delusive attachment to material allurements. Again

and again in the Gospels, Jesus emphasizes that what he attained, all may

attain. His next remark to Nicodemus shows how.

 

" Lifting up the serpent " : kundalini

force at the base of the spine

 

Jesus said that each son of man, each bodily consciousness, must be lifted from

the plane of the senses to the astral kingdom by reversing the matter-bent

outflowing of the life force to ascension through the serpent-like coiled

passage at the base of the spine--the son of man is lifted up when this

serpentine force is uplifted, " as Moses lifted up the serpent in the

wilderness. " [1] (p.264) We must reascend, just as Moses, in the spiritual

wilderness of silence in which all his desires were no more, lifted his soul

from body consciousness into God-consciousness through the same path by which it

had descended.

 

As explained earlier, man's physical, astral, and causal bodies are tied

together and work as one by a knotting of life force and consciousness in the

seven cerebrospinal centers. In descending order, the final tie is the coiled

knot at the base of the spine, preventing the ascension of consciousness into

the heavenly astral kingdom. Unless one knows how to open this knot of astral

and physical power, the life and consciousness remain attracted to the mortal

realm, emanating outward into the body and sensory consciousness.

 

Most energy moves through space in a spiral form--a ubiquitous motif in the

macrocosmic and microscopic architecture of the universe. Beginning with

galactic nebulae--the cosmic birth-cradle of all matter--energy flows in coiled

or circular or vortex-like patterns. The theme is repeated in the orbital dance

of electrons around their atomic nucleus, and (as cited in Hindu scriptures of

ancient origin) of planets and suns and stellar systems spinning through space

around a grand center of the universe. Many galaxies are spiral-shaped; and

countless other phenomena in nature--plants, animals, the winds and

storms--similarly evidence the invisible whorls of energy underlying their shape

and structure. [2] (p.265) Such is the " serpent force " ('kundalini') in the

microcosm of the human body: the coiled current at the base of the spine, a

tremendous dynamo of life that when directed outward sustains the physical body

and its sensory consciousness; and when consciously directed upward, opens the

wonders of the astral cerebrospinal centers.

 

When the soul, in its subtle sheaths of causal and astral bodies, enters

physical incarnation at the time of conception, the entire body grows from the

seed cell formed from the united sperm and ovum, beginning with the first

vestiges of the medulla oblongata, brain, and spinal cord.

 

From its original seat in the medulla, the intelligent life energy of the astral

body flows downward--activating the specialized powers in the astral

cerebrospinal 'chakras' that create and give life to the physical spine, nervous

system, and all other bodily organs. When the work of the primal life force in

creating the body is complete, it comes to rest in a coiled passage in the

lowest, or coccygeal, center. The coiled configuration in this astral center

gives to the life energy therein the terminology of 'kundalini' or serpent force

(from Sanskrit 'kundala', " coiled " ). Its creative work completed, the

concentration of life force in this center is said to be " sleeping " 'kundalini',

for as it emanates outward into the body, continuously enlivening the physical

region of the senses--of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, and of the

earthbound physical creative force of sex--it causes the consciousness to become

strongly identified with the delusive dreams of the senses and their domain of

activity and desires.

 

Moses, Jesus, the Hindu yogis, all knew the secret of scientific spiritual life.

They unanimously demonstrated that every person who is yet physically minded

must master the art of lifting up the serpent force from sensory body

consciousness in order to accomplish the first retracing of the inward steps

toward Spirit.

 

(p.266) Any saint of any religion who has attained God-consciousness has, in

effect, withdrawn his consciousness and life force from the sense regions up

through the spinal passage and plexuses to the center of God-consciousness in

the brain, and thence into omnipresent Spirit.

 

The Second Coming of Christ (The Resurrection of the Christ Within

You) Volume 1, Discourse 14, pg. 259; 263-266

Paramahansa Yogananda

Printed in the United States of America 1434-J881

ISBN-13:978-0-87612-557-1

ISBN-10:0-87612-557-7

 

Notes:

 

[1] Reference is to Exodus 4:2-4. When in the wilderness God spoke to Moses out

of the burning bush, Moses asked of God some sign of spiritual authority by

which he could be recognized as sent by God to accomplish the tasks to which God

had appointed him. " And the Lord said unto him, 'What is that in thine hand?'

And he said, 'A rod.' And He said, 'Cast it on the ground.' And he cast it on

the ground, and it became a serpent....And the Lord said unto Moses, 'Put forth

thine hand, and take it by the tail.' And he put forth his hand, and caught it,

and it became a rod in his hand. "

 

The " rod " is the spine, in which reside the subtle astral centers of life and

consciousness that are the dynamos not only of all physical vitalities, but of

all divine powers and spiritual perceptions when awakened by the lifting of the

fiery serpent of life force at the base, " tail, " of the spine. The metaphors of

the " serpent " and " rod " are variously repeated in the story of Moses, in keeping

with scriptural tradition of linking historical events with esoteric symbology.

The rod, or staff, of Moses was the medium through which he demonstrated

miraculous powers according to the will of God in carrying out his special

dispensation to free the Israelites from thralldom in Egypt--such as the

oft-recited parting of the Red Sea; and the saving of the people, in the

wilderness, from death by fiery serpents created by their misdeeds, to

counteract which the Lord directed Moses: " Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it

upon a pole: and...every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall

live " (Numbers 21:6-8). Spiritual death results from the misuse of the animating

fiery life force; spiritual life is the blessing bestowed when the life force

and consciousness are uplifted to the highest center of divine consciousness in

the body at the top of the spinal " pole " in the cerebrum, where God dwells as

the soul.

 

A similar analogy exists in the scriptures of India, citing the serpentine life

force at the base of the spine, as described in this Discourse, and the spine

itself referred to as 'meru-danda'. Mt. Meru is the loftiest of mythological

mountains; and 'danda', " a rod, a staff, " is representative of the spine with

its spiritual centers, the crest of which is referred to as the holy Meru, the

highest center of divine consciousness. Many yogis honor this symbology by

keeping among their sparse ascetic accoutrements a 'danda', staff, in

recognition of the spine as the symbolic scepter of the soul's sovereign power

over the kingdom of the body.

 

[2] In 1953, scientists discovered that DNA, the basic molecule of life, is also

constructed in a helical shape. The deep-seeing Italian mathematician Leonardo

Fibonacci (1170-1250) perceived that countless patterns in nature conform to a

spiral shape mathematically expressed as a logarithm deriving from the so-called

Fibonacci numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, etc.), where each number is

the sum of the two preceding in the series. This exact spiral appears in such

seemingly disparate manifestations as the pattern of petals in sunflower

blossoms and of leaves in pineapples, artichokes, and many trees; the

progressive volume of chambers in a nautilus seashell; the light-years-wide

sweep of spiral galaxies.

 

Philosophers down the centuries have inferred the intelligence of a Divine

Architect from the fact that the further one progresses in the Fibonacci series,

the closer the terms come to expressing " the golden mean " or " golden ratio "

(1:1.618033989) and its derivative " golden rectangle " and " golden spiral " --a

" sacred geometry " observable throughout nature. In 'Atomic Vortex Theorem of

Energy Motion', quantum physicist Derek Bond discusses the theory that all

energy expresses in a vortex pattern: " This is evidenced to us constantly from

the largest things, such as our spiral galaxies and the very curve of space-time

itself, to the very smallest as evidenced by the miniature atomic vortices

created by atomic particles. The vortical flow in particles' atomic path

vortices, as imaged by the CERN 3.7 meter bubble chamber, when measured, is in

accordance with ratio of 1:1.618033989. This ratio is a never-ending decimal and

is a perfect pattern for infinite flows in time/space. This ratio will repeat

the same proportion infinitely. Many spiral galaxies' arms and these atomic

particle paths make a perfect match with the 'golden ratio' and prove that these

particles are traveling in infinite flows. "

 

The golden ratio is considered to be the basis of harmony and beauty of form in

classical art, architecture, and design--identified as such by (among many

others) Pythagoras, Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, and the builders of the Great

Pyramids at Giza. ('Publisher's Note')