Choice - Past And Present

Definitions:

Microcosm = Man ("the little cosmos")
Cosmos = Earth
Macrocosm = Solar System
Personality = the four-fold human vehicle (physical body, etheric double, desire body, mental body)
involution = the downward arc of human development; involvement in matter
nadir = the lowest point; point of greatest adversity and despair
evolution = the upward arc of human development; escape from matter; the return Home

[QUOTING]

For a number of years, humanity has been taken up in a mighty intercosmic turmoil, the turmoil of the Great Transfiguration., which is taking place in several stages. It is a turmoil that touches all of humanity, passing nobody over. It confronts each of us with the great choice: resurrection or de-naturation.

An example from the past will illustrate what we mean. In the days of Atlantis the atmosphere of the earth was much heavier and denser than it is today. It was something between air and water, and respiration as we know it today was then, organically, completely impossible. At the time, two organs lying to the right and left side of the neck and co-operating with the thyroid gland, inhaled the water vapor together with the oxygen and separated them into air and water. In this way, the excess water was eliminated from the human system.

Lungs, as we posses them today, had not yet developed and were present in the body only as the germs of a new respiratory system. Only when the earthly atmosphere began to change, becoming much thinner, more tenuous and brighter, and the sun began to break through the thick layers of cloud, did the pulmonary system become necessary for maintaining life in the new atmosphere. All those who had not adapted themselves  to this fundamental change in the earth's atmosphere in time had to perish, or at the very least, degenerate. The present microcosmic turmoil has, in fact, an identical purpose, albeit on a different plane.

The Atlantean intercosmic turmoil was, among other things, intended to free and clean the human head sanctuary of the excess water with which it was filled to the brim as a consequence of the atmospheric conditions prevalent at that time. After this cleansing, the human thinking faculty was liberated and from then on, the human being became more and more conscious of the nadir of materiality. When the first Atlantean refugees arrived in great numbers in the, at that time, uninhabited, continents humanity reached the lowest point of its involution in a process, and it had become fully conscious of this. For this reason, a multi-faceted cultural period developed after Atlantis in order to make humanity conscious of all aspects and characteristics of this nadir. In this way, the world and humanity gradually approached the state of a totally different and new Apocalypse, namely, the period of the Great Resurrection.

Before we continue, we have to draw your attention to yet another aspect of the human development. The microcosm (g: the "soul" of man) contains two paths of development, which nobody should lose sight of, and before which, all of us are placed. Firstly, there is the path of development from the point of departure, an involution leading to a predetermined nadir, and secondly, there is, out of that nadir, an evolution back to the point of departure.

Perhaps you understand the reason for this: the microcosm contains a plan and all the possibilities to realize that plan, whereby cosmos and macrocosm fulfill a leading, stimulating, and therefore helping task. But if this Divine Plan is to be fulfilled by and in all of this, it is necessary that a method of self-realization be put into practice as soon as possible. In the beginning, this was still completely impossible. Then the microscosm was endowed with a spirit-spark only and did not yet possess anything else. Certainly, this spirit-spark contained everything, but it had to be realized, it had to be brought into manifestation. To this end, first a personality had to develop in the microcosm, a mortal personality. After all, the personality did not realize itself, but had developed in a process as the result of external influences that were assisting in the realization of The Plan.

However, immortality had to become a matter of self-realization, so that on this basis, the Divine Plan could  be called a complete success. As soon as somewhere in the world a human being might rise up out of the nadir of materiality through self-realization and realize The Plan, a cry of joy would resound through the whole universe, as proof that the Divine Plan had been realized. That is why the genesis of the personality precedes the process of self-realization.

Therefore, the mortal personality had to be formed by the external focus; next, it must be made conscious of itself; and then, in this growing consciousness, it must be made susceptible to all kinds of "good" and "evil". The personality must pass through many kinds of experience, both of good and evil, so that, we repeat, this would ultimately result in the True Self in the microcosm, and finally a start could be made on the Great Work, the Mysterium Magnum. This means: the development of the Resurrection, the Great Revolution, the Transmutation of the mortal being into the immortal one.

[END QUOTING]

End of Part I

From Chapter II of "The Mighty Signs Of God's Counsel" J. van Rjickenborgh, Catharore de Petri (1965)

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