Conveyed by Brahn th Blessed
In part two of this deposition of the Essynian Mysteries I tried, probably too hard, to describe the fundamental relationship of two aspects of reality. Primordial Existence is called Spirit because it appears to be nothing and yet it holds the vast and boundless potential of everything, an unimaginably immense and relentless potential which is the driving force of the multiverse. It requires the awakened powers of Consciousness, which I call Maya, to transform this reservoir of potential into action and change. Spirit is what Maya IS, and Maya is what Spirit DOES. Spirit is Being, and Maya is Becoming. Lao Tzu spoke of Spirit as “the Eternal Tao” (the everlasting existence), whereas he called Maya (consciousness) “the Tao that can be told; the Mother of the Ten Thousand Things.” These are the two existences, Spirit and Maya. The former is the existence of potential being, and the latter is the existence of particular beings.
Science knows only Manifest/Particular Existence, the existence that we experience, that we see and feel, observe and measure, the existence of objects in space-time. Science cannot measure or observe our thoughts and imagination, our memories and our dreams; our inner world is sealed off from science, so it measures neurons firing in our brains, and would have us believe those sparks in the dark are our hopes and fears, our dreams and despair. But you know they are not. Firing neurons are an effect and not a cause of our mental and emotional activities. The objects of this material world have a fourth dimension that you cannot see, because you can only experience a single point in time. You cannot even experience the entirety of your own being, only the present being that is you. So much of you is forgotten in the past or hidden in the uncertain future. You see the ivory of a tusk and think you see the elephant. No. We see only a fraction of manifest existence; it is constantly changing over time. The whole of a being is a mystery to our perception, our experience, our understanding. But the hidden existence, the existence called spirit is the whole of the being, the beginning, the middle, and the end, the entirety of its potentials, all the possibilities of its existence, not only those that have been or will be realized, but all those uncounted potentials that have yet to be realized and indeed may never be realized. And this hidden existence rested before the dawn of time in the spiritual plane holding the promise of this universe, this galaxy, this planet, this person that was born to become you. It’s all one cohesive reality that flows across the eons of time, a single object painted in space-time on a canvas of experience by the artist Maya/consciousness, and you and I are embedded specks in the totality of it.
The notion of particularity, that you are one thing and I am another, distinct and separate in a world of such particular beings is a deception, not because we are not such particular beings, but because all such particular beings, such individual space-time objects arise from, abide upon, and ultimately return to an underlying primal ground of quantum energy, the energy that burst forth to create this space-time material plane 13.8 billion years ago. We are particular beings in the way that the white-foam waves are particular beings, riding on the ocean tides as if we are more than the waters that bring us forth, nourish and sustain us, and drink us back asunder. We do not appear from nowhere and we do not fade into nowhere; rather we are parts of an ongoing and everlasting continuum of being and becoming, of actions causing change in an ocean of time and flux and mutability.
When we look from the inside out, we appear as particular beings in a world of particular beings, but when we look from the outside in, we are one particular being composed of many particular beings, body systems, organs, cells, molecules, atoms, quantum particles… and every one of these particular beings experiences itself as a single particular being in a world of similar particular beings. We see these things as parts of our bodies; they experience their existence as individual particular beings, just like we do, but without the burden of human intelligence—they’re not bothered by their appearance or their social relationships or their personal wealth. We will return shortly to discussion of the worlds inside our bodies, but for now…
Maya is the illusionist who creates these appearances and disappearances as it realizes the hidden potential of existence through actions that cause change that pushes the second hand of time round and round its circled course. Each instant of time, each momentary “now” arises from the potential intrinsic to the instant just before it, fulfilling that potential by changing one moment into the next. Without change there is no time, and change is what Maya brings about by her actions and what she witnesses by her experiences. Maya is indeed the “Mother of the Ten Thousand Things”, creating new things as she destroys older things, ever creating and destroying, not for the purpose of creation or destruction mind you, but for the sole purpose of causing change and time, and experiencing change and time, and specifically to realize the boundless potentiality of existence. Maya gives manifest form and occurrence to Spirit. And when she has run her course and realized her full potential, Maya will rest again, sleeping in the arms of Spirit, becoming Spirit again, and in that time outside of time there will be only existence, only immutable spirit. Until Maya re-awakens.
I’ve said all I can think to say about Spirit and Maya, and the Two Existences. Now I should segue to discuss the two realms of being. For those of you who read my article on Meneology, the menes may help you understand this—or of course they might just confuse the hell out of you. In the beginning there is Spirit (whose mene is zero/0) the unborn and undying, everlasting existence. Its realm is the realm of being, pure being, called the Spiritual Plane, where there is neither space nor time, but only raw, boundless potentiality. What is potentiality? It is undifferentiated existential power, whose temporal equivalent is Mind and whose spatial/physical equivalent is Energy. Spirit is hyper-equivalent to Maya (whose mene is nine/9), as those two menes are also hyper-equivalent to each other. When Spirit “awakens”, it becomes Maya, and when Maya “sleeps” it becomes Spirit. The awakening of Maya is the first change that begins the flow of time, and the dawn of time creates the Astral Plane which is the Hidden Realm of the Mind. The first changes brought about by Maya evolve her pure consciousness into conscious mind. Gradually, she develops memory, then imagination; from imagination arises cognition, from cognition arises volition, and from volition slowly arise the emotions, and desire. She realized that she was alone without distraction, and without relief. Her universe was her mind, and her mind alone; this condition drove her imagination to incredible powers and discipline.
In some measureless expanse of time, Maya devised some kind of plan for birthing a space-time universe as we know it today in our brief roles of this metaphysical drama. Be assured that no-one knows how that came about except that, as my wife delighted in affirming, “Once upon a time, there was no universe; and then ‘Poof!’, a universe appeared from out of nowhere.” She found it hilarious that, removing the bullshit of one theory or another, this was the best explanation that science, philosophy, or religion could provide. I make no claim to do better, except insofar as the Essynian Mysteries assure us that existence has no beginning and no end; rather Essynia tells us that existence always has been present and always will be present. Only its manifest form has changed, over and over again, owing to the activity of awakened consciousness. Here’s an Essynian myth about creation.
Maya created twelve elemental energies that she stored away in mental constructs called protocosms; these protocosms comprise what we Essynians identify as the twelve Elemental Planes. Finally, she made a thirteenth protocosm that was the focal center of the other protocosms and she formed an astral body in the image of her conscious mind and incarnated that astral body into the thirteenth protocosm. This action caused the elemental energies from the other twelve protocosms to converge upon the central protocosm, combining their fierce energies into one massive burst of energy that caused space-time to appear inside the protocosm and expand even to super-luminal speeds. Wherever the massive web of energies expanded, more space-time was created. This was the birth of a new realm, called the Material Plane.
Because space-time exists only inside the material plane, it has no exterior size or shape. It has no exterior size or shape because it is an astral plane object, a mental construct in the mind of Maya. Inside the protocosm the universe may expand to trillions of light years, vast beyond measure. Outside it appears only as another idea or mental construct, another astral form. Maya has incarnated her astral body into the twelve energies of creation; the universe is now her body, her space-time embodiment. And it is a body, a body whose energy density and temperature at birth exceeded a hundred million suns. As her physical energy-body expanded, the twelve elemental energies became cosmic webs that we call Quantum Energy Fields. Science has yet to identify all twelve of these quantum webs. The explanation of dark matter, when fully discovered, will add to our understanding, but some of the webs are astral energies because the universe is the body of a conscious mind… the body of Maya.
The common names we have given the twelve elemental energies include (the three Earth Energies are… ) Mud is Earth becoming Water (NNW, 1100hrs), Stone is Pure Earth (due North, 1200hrs), and Magma is Earth becoming Fire (NNE, 0100hrs); (the three Fire Energies are… ) Ashes are Fire becoming Earth (ENE, 0200hrs), Flame is Pure Fire (due East, 0300hrs), and Smoke is Fire becoming Air (ESE, 0400hrs); (the three Air Energies are… ) Lightning is Air becoming Fire (SSE, 0500hrs), Wind is Pure Air (due South, 0600hrs), Rain is Air becoming Water (SSW, 0700hrs); and (the three Water Energies are… ) Mist is Water becoming Air (WSW, 0800hrs), River is Pure Water (due West, 0900hrs), Ice is Water becoming Earth (WNW, 1000hrs). Earth is associated with Mind, Time, Solids, Crystal & the Force of Gravity. Fire is associated with Action, Change, Plasmas, Metal & the Strong Nuclear Force. Air is associated with The Body, Space-Time, Gases, Wood & the Electro-Magnetic Force. Water is associated with Experience, Knowledge, Liquids, Sand/Glass & the Weak Nuclear Force.
You and I, reader, and all real conscious beings in this universe, are spirit beings whose existence and its potentials defines what we can and cannot do, what we can and cannot become in our existence. We are also conscious minds, every last being who is capable of action and experience; spirit and conscious mind comprise the inner part of our being. Finally, we are all physical beings embodied in physical energy-bodies during our periods of incarnation. Thus, we are all Spirit – Mind – Body. Existence (Spirit) is the unmoving center of our being. Our conscious minds are the invisible I-inside, our inner self that none but the self may ever know. And our outer selves are the part of us that is visible to others, our bodies and behaviours. Spirit exists in the Spiritual Plane, the conscious mind (our soul if you will) exists in the Astral Plane, and our body exists and acts in the Material Plane.
When I speak of the two realms of our existence, I am speaking of the Hidden Inner Realm of the Mind in the Astral Plane of Time (Earth), and the Shared Outer Realm of the Seven Worlds in the Material Plane of Space-Time (Air/Sky). We exist in both these realms, else we could not experience them. And we do experience both of them, each in unique ways that are unmistakable. Of the fourteen kinds of experiences (called kana), seven belong to our sensory perceptions of the outer realm and seven belong to to our mental activities in the inner realm. These are:
- Count Sensory Perceptions Mental Activities
- ♦ (1) Contact, Touch Memory, Remembrance
- ♦ (2) Vision, Sight Imagination, Creativity
- ♦ (3) Hearing, Sound Cognition, Thought
- ♦ (4) Olfactory, Smell Volition, Choice
- ♦ (5) Savour, Taste Emotion, Affect
- ♦ (6) Gravity, Balance Desire, Want
- ♦ (7) Temperature, Heat Intuition, Insight
It should be clear to anyone that the content of our sensory perceptions is distinctly different from the content of our mental activities. Thoughts and emotions have no size or shape, because they don’t exist in space; they are not physical objects. Bottles and clocks, trees and rivers have locations because they do indeed exist in space. Volition has no temperature, nor does it have texture, because it doesn’t exist in space. And yet we exist in both realms, in both of these realities, else we could not experience them both. Many materialists will be quick to disavow any credence to such a view, but is their skepticism born of logic or born of devotion to their long-held beliefs? It can be difficult to examine an issue from a different perspective and accept that other perspective as more valid than ideas you have lived by for years. For some of us, it is damned near impossible. I ask every reader to examine their experiences, categorize them carefully, considerately, as perceptions or mental activities; then figure what distinguishes one category from another. It is the presence and absence of space. It is the volatility of the contents—if you put down a book you’ve been reading, it remains on the table, but if you put down an idea you’ve been considering, it disappears and becomes absent, hidden somewhere in memory. It can readily be recalled to the attention, but from where?
Although Entanglement suggests a necessary means for particles to be connected across great spans of distance in such a manner that a change to one particle immediately affects the other particle in like manner, regardless of distance, many scientists still have difficulty contemplating a reality outside space-time, and these materialists therefore reject the concept of a reality existing only in time, without space. The absence of space logically entails the absences of all qualities contingent on space, like size and shape and location, but including substance, multiplicity, and motion. The laws of the physical universe would not all apply to a reality outside of space. I understand why such a realm might be difficult for a materialist to comprehend. But we should neither deny the world around us nor the world within us; this dichotomy is real. And if the materialist demands of me how such a thing as mind, existing in a reality/realm only of time and no space can interact with the physical realm of our universe (?), I will offer him/her only this Essynian myth about birth and death.
They gathered together on the night of the Full Moon and, casting the Circle of the World and dedicating the elemental quarters, they drew the Moon down into their Priestess, drew down the lunar spirit to bond with the spirit of their Priestess and answer questions asked of her by the members gathered within the circle. And the Priest, in time, circled around to Lady Seramond saying “Tell me, Lady, what question is in your heart that you would ask of the Queen of Heaven on this holy night within this sacred circle?”
And she paused and looked the Priest in the eyes, and said, “M’Lord Silverstaff, you know that I lost my child of seventeen months only three weeks ago to childhood leukemia.” Silverstaff held her hands as tears washed down her face. “I pray you, Essynia, Queen of Heaven, to tell me again the story of Birth and Death and the Immortality of the human spirit, that I may know my darling Jenna is well.”
The Priestess sat completely still and silent for about a long minute, then she stood and spoke. “In the beginning, Mother Nature created the twelve Elemental Energies and placed each of them in their eggs. Then she formed herself into an astral body and placed that body in the Thirteenth Egg. There, she released the twelve elemental energies to converge upon her, and she conceived and brought forth the universe, her material body in whom her astral body was incarnated. That astral body connects the conscious mind to the physical world.
“When energy began to form into particles, each particle had its own piece of the astral body and the mind of Nature. This event, in which the One became many, is called Multiplicity. In that moment the imaginary universe became real. Now every body/object in the universe is a piece of the universe, a piece of the cosmic Mind of Nature, a piece of Maya the Maker.
“Each star in all the galaxies of stars is a piece of the galaxy, and each galaxy is a piece of the universe. Galaxies arise from the universe and in time they may return to the universe, but their lives are measured in billions of years. It takes our Milky Way galaxy 250 million years to spin around once; that’s a day to her. As she spins through space-time, stars are born from her clouds of gas; they live their stellar lives and die, as you live your human lives and die. But their spirits do not die, and neither do yours. So new stars are born, and new planets around them. Your spirits too, when they have rested a while in the Earth from which they come, return to human lives again. Nothing is lost… ever.
“You must grieve your child, for she is lost to you, but she is not lost to Mother Earth. In the Summerlands she plays and is cared for and loved as her spirit slowly returns to maturity; her disease, as you know, does not accompany her to the Summerlands. In time, she will be prepared for reincarnation into another life. Yes, she will slowly forget her painful life, but her wisdom will carry forward the love and caring she received and the arms that held her all those long nights. You have given her a beautiful gift that will live with her through many lives to come as a comfort, a confidence, and a compassion.
“For a time, her spirit and her conscious mind (her soul) will abide in the loving embrace of Mother Earth from whom you all come and to whom you all return, but she will be reborn into another life, even as you, Lady Seramond, have been reborn into your life. You humans are mortal and short-lived, but you grow wise in every life and carry that wisdom forth from life to life. It is buried deep within you, for you are not permitted to carry memories from life to life, but it is there, and it gradually evolves your race into the higher beings that your spirits portend. Come now my little sister, and let us embrace that I may share your grief sorrow and bring you peace.”
You must understand that the Universe comes from Maya and the Galaxy comes from the Universe, and understand that the Stars and Planets come from the Galaxy, and humans come from this planet, your Mother Earth. This is your lineage and your heritage; this is your hidden immortality. Death is not the end of you; it is only a time of rest and restoration before a new adventure begins.
So ends Part Three. In Part Four, we will discuss the Seven Worlds that arose in the Material Plane, and perhaps we will discuss Volition and its role in Creation.
The writer was born with moonlight in his heart and is dedicated to her service. He is a pantheistic neoPagan mystic, the coordinator of Crows Nest, the Global CAW Cybernest, and an editor of Green Egg Magazine–by which magazine he was first introduced into the neoPagan community in 1972. He is also an Elder of the Essynian Witchcraft Tradition that he founded in 2021, and he is also the Most High Swami-Pajami at the Nashville Temple of Eris Discordiana & Towing Service…If You Need a Tow, Come Rain or Come Snow, We’re on the Go, And We Won’t be Slow!