08-16-2012, 06:42 PM
The Potentiator of the Spirit – The Lightning Struck Tower
![[Image: DFXj9.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/DFXj9.jpg)
78.11
79.20
80.13
In the evolution of the Spirit, what is at stake is the discovery of the True Self, known in the Ra Material as contact with Intelligent Infinity. It is the True Self which is capable of the ongoing flow which is experienced when one taps into the abundance of that which is spontaneously oneself. It is a dance, a song, an improvisation, a piece of profundity and beauty which could never have been as eloquent had it been planned. In short, the infinity of the True Self is what is called genius. This process of evolution, however, is exactly as the old masters said it was: there is nowhere to go, nothing to do. There is nothing to attain to because you are already enlightened. The Tao is not on a mountain, but in your bleary eyes as you awake each day. The Buddha is not something you become, but something you are. This is the great paradox of the evolution of the Spirit: as you evolve, you continue to discover more and more that what you are becoming is what you already are. This is why the imagery of light and darkness is the most appropriate metaphor for this cycle of evolution.
The Matrix, the deep darkness of the mysterious Spirit, existing already in fullness and completion, is not yet present to itself. It exists in completion, but does not witness that completion. This is the purpose of evolution: to witness the spiritual self in completion. The means by which we gain insight into that abundance, that plenum which already exists within the Spirit is through the Potentiator of the Spirit, the Lightning.
Consider lightning. No one knows exactly where or when it will strike. We can predict that there will be lightning soon based on other climate conditions: heavy clouds, storms, rain, wind. Lightning is known to occur in the context of great turbulence. It is this turbulence which presages the appearance of lightning, though, again, its striking cannot be predicted. However, once lightning does strike, its consequences are downright shocking, pun intended. In truth, shock is the first response to lightning. Human beings collapse, cannot believe what just happened, structures explode, trees burst into flames, and anyone who witnesses it is at first in a state of disbelief. Lightning is so profoundly jarring, so dramatically destructive that its consequences are not immediately recognized. One must first come to terms with the very fact that it happened at all.
This is how your True Self becomes known to you, and this experience is precisely what is targeted in Zen koans and other such instructional spiritual devices which are designed to circumvent the logical mind. In a flash of lightning, the entire landscape is illuminated for only an instant, and upon witnessing that incredible expanse, that amazing panorama which would never have been seen In the deep darkness of the Spirit's mystery had it not been for that one flash of lightning, upon this all too brief glimpse of the True Self, a simultaneous shock within the ego-self occurs. The consciousness may have seen unspeakable beauty, but the ego-self has just had its roof explode. In order for the lightning to reach and illuminate the spiritual darkness of the consciousness, it must strike through the ego, tearing apart the upper layers of that construct. This is the meaning of the Tower which is struck by the lightning. It is this ego-shock which then ripples outward into our lives.
And what is the Tower more precisely? The Tower is the structure upon which we stand and look out upon our lives. It is built out of what little knowledge we have of our world and of the content of our hearts. The materials are beliefs, fears, habits, social norms, expectations, desires, and the like. We bring all these things together, shape it into a beautiful Tower, the Tower of Babel reaching up to the heavens, and we tell ourselves “This is what I am!” – as if we can ever make this claim without simultaneously leaving an infinite amount of ourselves outside of that structure. So we stand upon this Tower and direct our lives, ignorantly believing that we know our True Selves.
Then there is a disturbance in the atmosphere. Something is not quite right. There is a wind blowing and a dampness which surrounds our Tower. Perhaps things are going too well, perhaps it is “too quiet,” perhaps we do not even notice this subtle change in the spiritual climate. Either way, this subtle change is the Matrix, female as she is, readying herself to receive the Potentiator. In truth, we have trapped our consciousness within the Tower and it is the great irony of the relationship between the Potentiator and Matrix that we believe we are looking out upon ourselves when we stand upon the Tower, but we are really only standing inside the Tower, admiring the Tower itself. If the consciousness were not inside the Tower when it is struck by lightning, it would not shock us as it does.
Then the Lightning Strikes. The top of the Tower, which represents the pinnacle of the caricature we have made of our True Selves, the highest achievement in this accomplishment, explodes, falls to the ground, and our ego-selves, with our consciousnesses, fall to the ground, shaken, in disbelief, disoriented, with no idea about where to turn next. When was the last time your world came crashing down? Was it the death of a loved one? Was it an injury? Were you humiliated in a very public way? Did you discover a truth about yourself from which there was no turning back? When the lightning strikes, everything is suddenly different, and you don't know how you will find normalcy again. However, you do know what you have seen. The Lightning may have destroyed your self-image, but it also gave you a glimpse of a much larger truth. Whether you remember this vision amidst the ensuing turmoil depends, of course, on the individual.
We humans here on Earth are so given to creating elaborate belief-systems in which we pigeon-hole our Spirits that experiencing the Potentiator of the Spirit as a destructive influence is unavoidable. Our illusions must be burst and the violence of this act cannot be avoided. In fact, the image on the card emphasizes that the unawakened and the initiated alike will still experience this destructive fall from the heights of self-certainty back to the ground. Even a so-called guru can find his way into a spiritual rut (have we not seen this all too often). It is this rut which is the brewing storm, for can we not see that when a spiritual guru has lost his humility, his spontaneity, and his ability to live what he preaches, can we not see that a profoundly humiliating experience is sure to find him, knocking him all the way back down to the ground?
The base of the Tower, however, is left unaffected. This is usually the case. Although the Lightning knocks us all the way to the ground, we do not normally have to sacrifice our entire world-view in order to accommodate the new reality. In fact, it is wise that we return to the foundation and observe what is still standing in order to find out which parts of our self-constructed reality could no longer contain the spirit and which parts fit more comfortably and smoothly upon the spirit. That we will one day rebuild the Tower is almost certain, just as it is almost certain that we will, once again, be struck down from it. It is only the truly enlightened who have learned to stop building Towers.
Again, the Spirit is a reflection in opposites of the Mind/Body. The Potentiator of the Mind is the infinite knowledge which is withheld from the mind and slowly attained, while the Potentiator of the Body is the infinite usefulness of the Body which is absent from the body and slowly learned. The Potentiator of the Spirit, however, is the infinite Being of the Spirit which is absent to itself in the form of a latent mystery, but is instantaneously realized. (Witness the Zen monk striking his student on the head with a stick.) The Potentiator of the Spirit can be thought of as sudden enlightenment, although this name does not apply insofar as it is sometimes thought that enlightenment happens only once.
78.11
Ra Wrote:The Matrix of the Spirit is what you may call the Night of the Soul or Primeval Darkness. Again we have that which is not capable of movement or work. The potential power of this extremely receptive matrix is such that the potentiator may be seen as Lightning. In your archetypical system called the tarot this has been refined into the concept complex of the Lightning Struck Tower. However, the original potentiator was light in its sudden and fiery form; that is, the lightning itself.
79.20
Ra Wrote:The Matrix of the Spirit is difficult to characterize since the nature of spirit is less motile. The energies and movements of the spirit are, by far, the most profound, yet, having more close association with time/space, do not have the characteristics of dynamic motion. Thusly one may see the Matrix as the deepest darkness and the Potentiator of Spirit as the most sudden awakening, illuminating, and generative influence.
80.13
Ra Wrote:The excursion of which you speak and the process of disassociation is most usually linked with that archetype you call Hope which we would prefer to call Faith. This archetype is the Catalyst of the Spirit and, because of the illuminations of the Potentiator of the Spirit, will begin to cause these changes in the adept’s viewpoint.
In the evolution of the Spirit, what is at stake is the discovery of the True Self, known in the Ra Material as contact with Intelligent Infinity. It is the True Self which is capable of the ongoing flow which is experienced when one taps into the abundance of that which is spontaneously oneself. It is a dance, a song, an improvisation, a piece of profundity and beauty which could never have been as eloquent had it been planned. In short, the infinity of the True Self is what is called genius. This process of evolution, however, is exactly as the old masters said it was: there is nowhere to go, nothing to do. There is nothing to attain to because you are already enlightened. The Tao is not on a mountain, but in your bleary eyes as you awake each day. The Buddha is not something you become, but something you are. This is the great paradox of the evolution of the Spirit: as you evolve, you continue to discover more and more that what you are becoming is what you already are. This is why the imagery of light and darkness is the most appropriate metaphor for this cycle of evolution.
The Matrix, the deep darkness of the mysterious Spirit, existing already in fullness and completion, is not yet present to itself. It exists in completion, but does not witness that completion. This is the purpose of evolution: to witness the spiritual self in completion. The means by which we gain insight into that abundance, that plenum which already exists within the Spirit is through the Potentiator of the Spirit, the Lightning.
Consider lightning. No one knows exactly where or when it will strike. We can predict that there will be lightning soon based on other climate conditions: heavy clouds, storms, rain, wind. Lightning is known to occur in the context of great turbulence. It is this turbulence which presages the appearance of lightning, though, again, its striking cannot be predicted. However, once lightning does strike, its consequences are downright shocking, pun intended. In truth, shock is the first response to lightning. Human beings collapse, cannot believe what just happened, structures explode, trees burst into flames, and anyone who witnesses it is at first in a state of disbelief. Lightning is so profoundly jarring, so dramatically destructive that its consequences are not immediately recognized. One must first come to terms with the very fact that it happened at all.
This is how your True Self becomes known to you, and this experience is precisely what is targeted in Zen koans and other such instructional spiritual devices which are designed to circumvent the logical mind. In a flash of lightning, the entire landscape is illuminated for only an instant, and upon witnessing that incredible expanse, that amazing panorama which would never have been seen In the deep darkness of the Spirit's mystery had it not been for that one flash of lightning, upon this all too brief glimpse of the True Self, a simultaneous shock within the ego-self occurs. The consciousness may have seen unspeakable beauty, but the ego-self has just had its roof explode. In order for the lightning to reach and illuminate the spiritual darkness of the consciousness, it must strike through the ego, tearing apart the upper layers of that construct. This is the meaning of the Tower which is struck by the lightning. It is this ego-shock which then ripples outward into our lives.
And what is the Tower more precisely? The Tower is the structure upon which we stand and look out upon our lives. It is built out of what little knowledge we have of our world and of the content of our hearts. The materials are beliefs, fears, habits, social norms, expectations, desires, and the like. We bring all these things together, shape it into a beautiful Tower, the Tower of Babel reaching up to the heavens, and we tell ourselves “This is what I am!” – as if we can ever make this claim without simultaneously leaving an infinite amount of ourselves outside of that structure. So we stand upon this Tower and direct our lives, ignorantly believing that we know our True Selves.
Then there is a disturbance in the atmosphere. Something is not quite right. There is a wind blowing and a dampness which surrounds our Tower. Perhaps things are going too well, perhaps it is “too quiet,” perhaps we do not even notice this subtle change in the spiritual climate. Either way, this subtle change is the Matrix, female as she is, readying herself to receive the Potentiator. In truth, we have trapped our consciousness within the Tower and it is the great irony of the relationship between the Potentiator and Matrix that we believe we are looking out upon ourselves when we stand upon the Tower, but we are really only standing inside the Tower, admiring the Tower itself. If the consciousness were not inside the Tower when it is struck by lightning, it would not shock us as it does.
Then the Lightning Strikes. The top of the Tower, which represents the pinnacle of the caricature we have made of our True Selves, the highest achievement in this accomplishment, explodes, falls to the ground, and our ego-selves, with our consciousnesses, fall to the ground, shaken, in disbelief, disoriented, with no idea about where to turn next. When was the last time your world came crashing down? Was it the death of a loved one? Was it an injury? Were you humiliated in a very public way? Did you discover a truth about yourself from which there was no turning back? When the lightning strikes, everything is suddenly different, and you don't know how you will find normalcy again. However, you do know what you have seen. The Lightning may have destroyed your self-image, but it also gave you a glimpse of a much larger truth. Whether you remember this vision amidst the ensuing turmoil depends, of course, on the individual.
We humans here on Earth are so given to creating elaborate belief-systems in which we pigeon-hole our Spirits that experiencing the Potentiator of the Spirit as a destructive influence is unavoidable. Our illusions must be burst and the violence of this act cannot be avoided. In fact, the image on the card emphasizes that the unawakened and the initiated alike will still experience this destructive fall from the heights of self-certainty back to the ground. Even a so-called guru can find his way into a spiritual rut (have we not seen this all too often). It is this rut which is the brewing storm, for can we not see that when a spiritual guru has lost his humility, his spontaneity, and his ability to live what he preaches, can we not see that a profoundly humiliating experience is sure to find him, knocking him all the way back down to the ground?
The base of the Tower, however, is left unaffected. This is usually the case. Although the Lightning knocks us all the way to the ground, we do not normally have to sacrifice our entire world-view in order to accommodate the new reality. In fact, it is wise that we return to the foundation and observe what is still standing in order to find out which parts of our self-constructed reality could no longer contain the spirit and which parts fit more comfortably and smoothly upon the spirit. That we will one day rebuild the Tower is almost certain, just as it is almost certain that we will, once again, be struck down from it. It is only the truly enlightened who have learned to stop building Towers.
Again, the Spirit is a reflection in opposites of the Mind/Body. The Potentiator of the Mind is the infinite knowledge which is withheld from the mind and slowly attained, while the Potentiator of the Body is the infinite usefulness of the Body which is absent from the body and slowly learned. The Potentiator of the Spirit, however, is the infinite Being of the Spirit which is absent to itself in the form of a latent mystery, but is instantaneously realized. (Witness the Zen monk striking his student on the head with a stick.) The Potentiator of the Spirit can be thought of as sudden enlightenment, although this name does not apply insofar as it is sometimes thought that enlightenment happens only once.
. It would help others like me who are more intuitive- minded, and may struggle with the intellectual grasp of the concepts you are explicating.