Daily Meditation: Friday, July 8, 2005

Matter - must become the mirror of spirit

07/08/2005

In terms of his soul and spirit, the human being is divine in essence, and he appears as such in the higher worlds. But he must also create the possibility for his soul and spirit to be known and to manifest themselves below through the matter of the physical body. It is this coexistence of spirit and matter in the same person, and their relationship, which make human life so complex and mysterious, symbolized by the image of the snake swallowing its tail. The head represents the Self on high, the spirit, and the tail represents the self below, in matter. The head eating the tail signifies that the spirit works on matter in order to manifest itself through it. The spirit which is on high, all-knowing and all-powerful, must be able to see itself below in matter, as if in a mirror. This is the purpose of initiation: to render matter capable of reflecting the image of the spirit back to itself.