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..:: The Monadic
Plane ::..
By
Alan Schneider
The Monadic Plane is the Sixth
Plane of Ascension, and is analogous to two very interesting alternate
classifications – the Sixth Chakra, Ajna, and the Hidden
Sephirah of the Cabalistic Tree of Life – Daath. An attempt
will be made in this essay to illuminate the subtle relationships among
these three apparently disparate classifications.
In the traditional Western
Mysteries, the Monadic Plane is the focus in consciousness of the
Monad, an interrelated group of twelve Souls that share a common
Karmic bond upon release from the Logoic Plane, the Seventh Plane of
Ascension. In Ascension Theory, the Logos only “sees”, or experiences,
the Soul, and in the Western Mysteries, only the Monad – the
family of Souls. This relationship of intimate familial association is
seen in all of the subsequent expressions of the Planes of Ascension,
right down to and including the Physical plane, where it takes the form
of the biological, or nuclear, family. On the Atmic Plane, this
is seen in the spiritual family of Initiates and Ascended Masters, on
the Buddhic Plane in the form of Soul companions and partners, on the
Mental Plane in the form of business, financial, and philosophical
“partners”, and on the Astral Plane as archetypal interrelationships and
psychic involvement. Naturally, these manifestations of interrelatedness
tend to bleed over from Plane to Plane, and from form to form on a given
Plane, but the concept of families of involvement remains consistent.
Even on the level of the Logos and Logoic Plane, the Supreme Absolute
Truth is experienced as Love and Unconditional Acceptance – the closest
equivalent condition to this on the Physical Plane is the love of the
mother for her child, another clear example of a most basic
familial bond. As the Creator, God is the ultimate Cosmic Parent of the
Universe and all it contains, including all of humanity. We are all
God’s Divine spiritual children in physical form.
The Souls of the Monad may be
assigned to any state of manifestation anywhere on any subsequent Plane
– physical incarnation on the Physical Plane is not a requirement,
although many elements of the Monad do reach physical expression.
Nor does this expression have to be human – it may be as simple
as a rock, tree, animal, or physical process. When human manifestation
does occur, there is additionally no requirement for the humanly
expressed Soul to ever interact with any other elements of the
Monad that achieve human form – God’s plan does not require human
understanding or involvement to manifest on the Physical, or any other,
Plane. Thus, when we do meet another with whom we feel the
unmistakable spiritual intimacy of the Monadic connection, this is an
exceedingly rare event, and one of great spiritual significance.
Even more rare is the manifestation of the Soul Mate so often
touted by New Age practitioners – to meet and become intimately involved
with such a person is the rarest of the gifts of the Logos to
humanity. The expressions of the Monad may lie dormant for eons before
taking form anywhere – the Logos does not exist in linear time as
we do on the Physical Plane. God simply is Love expressed as
Creation, no more, and absolutely no less. The perception of
existence on the Logoic Plane is so far removed from the constructs of
experience on the Physical Plane that one cannot even bring any
perception of any lesser state of manifestation onto that level –
even the Monad cannot pass back directly onto the Logoic Plane from
which it was released, although the individual Soul can, under
the right circumstances.
How does this perplexing
state of affairs relate to the Chakra Ajna, as our next consideration?
In Tantra and Yoga, the Divine Manifestation of the Seventh Chakra,
Sahasrara, the abode of the Logos, can be perceived and communicated
with from the perspective of Ajna, nominally the Third Eye of Hindu
mythology, but an “Eye” that looks both within and without. When
it looks without, the result is profound psychic vision and apperception
on the Physical and other Planes. When it looks within, the result is
the aforementioned communion with the Logos and Sahasrara. The
concentrated Soul energy of the Monad generates the intuitive power
present in Ajna, the power to perceive beyond normal perception –
in a word, extrasensory perception. This power is expressed in
both the ability to perceive God, and the ability to intuitively
perceive the deepest, most hidden relationships on the subsequent Planes
below the Logoic, whether spiritual or literal. The Bodhisattva, and the
Ascended Master, may then choose to communicate about these higher
perceptions back to God, or on the lesser Planes, including the Physical
Plane and human the manifestations existing incarnate there, as these
supremely spiritually gifted individuals deem appropriate. This level
of communication is the expression of Divine Love on the Buddhic
Plane. The Bodhisattva does not understand the Divine Plan –
which is beyond human comprehension in any case – the Bodhisattva has
become the living expression of the Divine Plan on the
Physical Plane, and simply acts in accordance with the wishes of the
Logos, particularly as this pertains to communication as Darshan
given to Initiates, and lectures given to the public. This is
the influence on human perception of Ajna – inner and outer spiritual
illumination and insight.
The meaning of the Sephirah
Daath is even more subtle than that of Ajna. Daath is customarily
represented as a toroid – a donut-shaped ring – that is conceived of as
concealed in what Cabala refers to as “The Abyss of Ignorance”
immediately below the Supernal Triangle of Kether, Chokma, and Binah.
Daath is very mysterious, frequently not even directly referred to as a
Sephirah (due to its toroidal form?), and some Cabalists do not speak of
it at all. When it is represented on the Tree, it falls on the
Middle Pillar of Mildness, the central Path of Ascension in this system,
directly above Tippareth, the “Heart” Sephirah (to which the description
“Beauty” is ascribed), and is given the quality of “Knowledge” as its
ascription! Daath’s location in the Abyss of Ignorance is the first
clue to its identity in the Ascension process – the “ignorance” referred
to is the entire consciousness of all that lies below the
Supernal Triangle, and the “Knowledge” is the residual “knowing” of the
ego. From the perspective of Cabala, all lesser states of consciousness
below the Divine level represented by the Supernal Triangle are so
fallen, regardless of their spiritual content, that they are essentially
ignorant in comparison to the Light of the Logos, and we carry
this ignorance into the Abyss with us during the Ascension process.
Furthermore, this ignorant condition is directly linked to the physical
sensory perception of the body – the most ignorant, vulgar manifestation
of all!
Daath is the Gate through
which we must pass to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and there is a
Guardian at this portal, one with many names in many traditions, but I
personally prefer the name Kali – the insane black Goddess of
Chaos and Destruction of Yoga and Tantra, and the God Shiva’s most
feared Shakti, or female expression. The Sephirah immediately
beyond Daath is Binah, symbolically corresponding to Shiva,
while the additional Sephiroth of the Supernal Triangle correspond to
Vishnu, the Preserver (Chokma), and Brahma, the Creator (Kether).
The Path of Ascension on the Tree of Life zigzags through all of
the Sephiroth in succession, passing from Chesed, through Daath, and on
to Binah. In Doors In Disguise, I referred to Daath as “The
Portal of Shiva” as a means of describing the significance of this
Sephirah as the Gateway to the Supernal Triangle. As an aside here, the
relationship of the Gods to the Goddesses in Hindu cosmology is quite
interesting. The Gods generate Divine Concepts, essentially
motivational ideas – the Goddesses then perform the actions
instigated by those motivational states. Shiva first thinks of
destruction of some specific kind, and directed at some specific object,
then one of his several Shaktis carries that thought into action and
performs the literal deed – the Goddesses are the agents of an
action, the Gods are the inspiration for that action.
Kali’s task is universally
acknowledged in Hindu cosmology to be the elimination of the ego,
and ego-related mental states. The essential meaning of this with regard
to Daath is that one cannot take any form of personal attachment into
the presence of God, represented by the Supernal Triangle – these are
all ego affiliated mental states, and are completely incompatible with
the Divine Condition of Pure Love which is the Logos. Only
the Pure Soul having absolutely no ego residue – i.e.
vestige of self interest or personal expectation – will pass beyond
Kali’s bloody sword (reminiscent of the Sword of Fire that God armed the
Angel guarding the East Gate of Eden with), and on through Daath to
Binah in the Supernal Triangle.
Thus, what we see in Daath is
the third aspect of the Monadic Plane – the “Ring-Pass-Not” mechanism
placed there by the Logos as a conditional restrictor that will allow
the Monad to exit, but will only allow the individual Soul
reenter under very specific circumstances of spiritual purity. When
this is taken under combined consideration with the roles of Ajna as a
psychic “view port”, and the Monad as a “Soul Transmission” onto the
Lower Planes, we have the combined function of a supervised
perceptual conduit entering and leaving the Supernal Triangle, with
the supernatural “supervisors” primary task being to monitor Soul
traffic for the Logos! What better way to ensure the purity and
consistency of a state of Being than to Create a subordinate Expression
having the sole function of screening what approaches it?
Perhaps the Trinitary aspect
of the Monadic Plane is the result of its spiritual proximity to the
Logoic Plane, itself a Trinitary manifestation in the form of the
Cabalistic Supernal Triangle, and the correspondent Hindu Godhead of
Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Certainly, a tripartite Deity would tend to
exude a tripartite expression of Itself as the natural result of Its
inner form, and, as a subordinate expression, that secondary Entity
would be a lesser manifestation than its Creator. In turn, the essence
of that “lesser” manifestation would be the dedication to a net purpose
apart from Creation, the ultimate action of the Logos. Supervision
is just such a function – less than Creation, but still essential to the
process of Creation.
The concept of supervision
also applies to the Over Soul, conceived of as a complex amalgam of Soul
consciousness that possesses independent volition, motivation, and
purpose – much like the Archangels and other primary archetypal symbols.
The Over Soul may, in fact, be analogous to Kali as the Guardian of
Daath. As has been stated in a previous essay in this series, the
clarity of roles and action beyond the Atmic Plane becomes problematic,
as we Ascend onto more and more rarefied, abstract levels of conscious
perception. What I am certain of is that there is some
kind of supervisory Presence operating on the Monadic Plane that serves
to deflect the ego and related mental states from entry onto the Logoic
Plane, and that this Presence is subordinate to, and expressed on a
lesser level, than the Logoic Plane, hence the identification of the
Monadic Plane as its source. The Jungian Sphere of the Psyche, by far
the most scientific model of consciousness, makes no further
classification beyond the Collective Unconscious region, and the
Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, until the Self is reached at
the center of the Sphere, effectively bypassing the Mental, Atmic,
Buddhic, and Monadic Planes and all of their supposed contents!
Jung himself had only
“Ascended” to the Buddhic level of consciousness, and doubted the
existence of the Monadic and Logoic levels, hence the classification of
the Self as a higher personal conscious state, as opposed to a
Deific manifestation. Yet, the presence of the Archetypes and their
Collective Symbols strongly suggests that personal consciousness is a
relatively small portion of the total Psyche, which must extend far
beyond the physical boundary of the body and the social boundary of the
ego. In all probability, Jung’s allegiance to Western Science as the
alternative to the blind superstition and ignorance of the Mid-Victorian
world in which both he and Freud did their seminal work prevented him
from taking the sequence of “Leaps of Faith” required to completely
transcend the ego and its tyrannical domination of awareness. “I don’t
know” is frequently the politically correct form of “I don’t want to
know” when we are confronted with inconvenient truths, particularly
spiritual ones!
So, we are confronted with the need to make more than just the
first Leap onto the Buddhic level of conscious perception along the
Path of Ascension. Beyond this, we are called upon to seriously
challenge the supposed confinement of experience to the personal body of
flesh, and, again, make a Leap onto, first, the Atmic, and then the Monadic Plane. This is, of
course, a daunting prospect, because there we must surrender all that is
the remainder of personal identification and perception to Kali to pass
on to the Logoic Plane – the final and highest attainable realm of
manifestation. This is the level of the Cabalist Supernal Triangle, the Tantric Seventh Chakra, and perhaps even the Core of the Jungian Self at
the Centre of the Psyche. Once again, please continue to return to this
series of essays, as we conduct the revelation of the seventh,
and final, Plane of Ascension!
- With Love, Alan -
(CR2008, Alan Schneider)
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