“He it is whose Limbs (Members) make a myriad of myriads of Powers, each one of which comes from Him.” (F., 547).
This graphic symbolism of the Limbs is derived from the tradition of the Osiric Mysteries. Many a passage could be quoted in illustration from The Book of the Coming-forth by Day, that strange and marvellous collection of Egyptian Rituals commonly known as the Book of the Dead; but perhaps the under-meaning of the mystery is nowhere more clearly shown than in the following magnificent passage from The Litany of the Sun, inscribed on the Tombs of the Kings of ancient Thebes:
“The Kingly Osiris is an intelligent Essence. His Limbs conduct Him; His ‘Fleshes’ open the way for Him. Those who are born from Him create Him. They rest when they have caused the Kingly Osiris to be born.
“It is He who causes them to be born. It is He who engenders them. It is He who causes them to exist. His Birth is the Birth of Rā in Amenti. He causes the Kingly Osiris to be born; He causes the Birth of Himself.”
(See my World-Mystery, 2nd ed., p. 162.)
It requires no elaboration to show that this is precisely the same mystery as the secret set forth in our Vision of the Cross. The Kingly Osiris is Ātman, the Self, the True Man, the Monad. This is the Kingly Osiris in his male-female nature, self-creative. Ātman is both the producer and product of evolution. In a restricted sense the above may be interpreted from the standpoint of the individuality and its series of personalities in incarnation.
15. And now to return to the text. The Race is the Upper Nature, now scattered abroad in the hearts of men; it is the true Spirit of man, the hidden Divinity within him. It is this which re-turns, and so causes the man to turn or repent. It is obedient, that is audient, to the Voice of the Self, the compelling Utterance of the Logos. He who not only hears, but hearkens to or obeys the sweet counsels of this Great Persuasion, becomes this Upper Nature consciously; and therefore it no longer is what it was, for it is conscious in the man, and so the man is above men of the lower nature.
16. These mysterious sentences all set forth the state of true Self-consciousness. So long as man is not conscious that he is Divine, so long is the Divine in him not what it really is; the “lower” “limits” the “higher.” Union is attained by “hearkening,” by “attention.” Then it is that the man becomes his Higher Self, and that Higher Self becomes in its turn the Self, having taken his self in separation into his Self as union.
17. This “attention” is the straining or striving towards the One; and therefore no attention must be paid to the many. The whole strife of warring opinions and doubts must be reconciled, or at-oned, within the Mystery. The thought must be allowed to dwell but little on “those without.” A height must be reached from which the whole human drama can be seen as a spectacle below and within; this height is not with regard to space and place, but with respect to consciousness and realization that all is taking place within the man’s Great Body as the operations of the Divine economy. They who are “without the mystery” are not arbitrarily excluded, but are those who prefer to go forth without instead of returning within.
18. They who have re-turned, or turned back on themselves, and entered into themselves for the realization of true Self-consciousness, alone can understand the meaning of the Great Passion, as has been so admirably set forth in the Mystery-Ritual of the Dance.