Dissolution and Creation

Wisdom Teachings
Eternal Wisdom

Creation is a cyclical movement with constant formation, development, and dissolution for yet another building of forms. All things come to be through time and leave through it again. Time brings everything and takes it away again. The Wisdom Teachings, however, say that there is nothing that is not eternal because existence is the background of creation. Be it visibly or invisibly, everything always exists. Thus, matter is eternal; it makes an appearance and disappears again. Just as the forces do or the souls. They are eternal, just as the cosmos is eternal in the sense that it exists either in manifested form or as potential. Before every manifestation, everything exists already in its mere potential. Sometimes we take on a subtle form, and sometimes a dense one. Just because the dense form is not anymore, we cannot say that we ceased to exist. Dissolution makes things invisible, but everything exists always on all planes, at different points in time.

According to the Wisdom Teachings, three quarters of creation are invisible, while only one quarter is visible. Periodically, cyclical radiations bring creation to its dense plane, from which it is led back by periodicity. This globe consists of a series of seven pulsations of which only the fourth, the D-globe, is visible - at least to ordinary man who perceives the world through the senses. The visibility or invisibility of things corresponds with the level of consciousness of a man. Through spiritual discipline, we learn to recognize the more subtle planes of existence.

The year, with the four cornerstones of solstices and equinoxes, the month with the phases of the full moon, new moon, and the eight moon phases, as well as the day with its four cardinal points, contain all secrets of creation and their conditioning by time. The sunrise is an accurate symbol of the beginning of creation, on another scale it is our individual birth or our waking up from sleep. No matter how bright a day will become, it will have to yield to dusk eventually. Just as the sunset is the symbol of endings, is our sleep the symbol of total subjectivity which we call dissolution or Pralaya. Of every night follows a new day, of every dissolution a new creation. Every conclusion bears in itself the seed of a new beginning.

When we are awake, we exist and are conscious of ourselves. During sleep, we find ourselves in a state without awareness; but we do exist. Our existence does not begin with the emergence from the motherly womb and does not end with the disrobing of the body. In Pralaya, the complete dissolution, we continue to exist in potential form.

The core of our being neither has a name nor a form, but is our primal identity and the pulsating life principle. We are indestructible. Because of that, we are called Nara. Nara means “indestructible” in Sanskrit. It also means “water,” the waters of space or ether. They constantly move from the most subtle to the dense, the path of formation, and back again on the path of dissolution and ascent. This entire motion is called the path of the waters of space, Nara-ayana (ayana = path). In the word Narayana the entire life-pulsation of the creation cycle is contained; it is invoked with the Mantra OM Namo Narayanaya. In India, the symbolic depiction of Lord Narayana is known as resting on a bed of snakes. Out of his navel, a lotus emerges in which the four-faced creator sits. The key to the proper understanding of this image, however, is not known.

Narayana is the boundless blue of the waters of space, the snake is the coiled energies of time. Out of pure existence, potential space, a bubble emerges which takes on the shape of an egg, the horizon of the future creation. According to the Devi-Purana, there are other universes outside of ours, just as different bubbles can emerge from the pulsating space. But we are only occupied with our own creation.

Through the formation of the egg, a separation between the centre and the perimeter takes place; and with it, a limitation within the unlimited. The symbol of the circle with the point in its centre is given to all spiritual disciples for meditating on the birth of the I AM-consciousness. The point in the centre is the passage from subjectivity to objectivity, visualised at the centre of our forehead, the Ajna-centre, the point of awakening.

Before creation unfolds, it is an egg, afterwards it becomes a lotus. The lotus embodies the principle of the unfolding of the consciousness. The growth of man in the mother’s womb and his birth in the tenth month correlate with the birth of the cosmos. The first to develop during the time of insemination is the head centre. With the formation of the spinal channel, the creative consciousness descends. The Bhagavatam describes how the creator, upon awakening, realized that he was sitting in a lotus. He didn’t know where he was coming from and all he could see around him was blue. Because of his long sleep, he didn’t remember who he was. The scriptures say that the creator had slept for 1,000 Yugas (ages) and just as long the creation has taken before. Upon awakening, the creator now recognized that he was sitting in a lotus and asked himself, “Where am I and from where does this lotus sprout?” He experienced himself as separate from the limitless, pulsating principle and was thus drawn into the illusion of a separate existence. He looked outside of himself and undertook a journey down the stalk – the spine – to find his origins in the depths. When he didn’t arrive at any end, he returned. He searched in all directions, but didn’t find anything. Ever again, he asked himself, “Who am I, where am I, and what am I to do?” There he heard a voice: “Meditate upon it!” Through meditation in the pulsating principle of his heart, he experienced his existence. He realized that existence is the background of everything, unlimited and indefinable, and that it projects itself as the creator through whom the creation comes out. In this, he had the feeling that the work of creation was much to great for him. Then he heard the absolute God say to him, ”You don’t need to create, everything is already there. Open your mouth and everything will come out of it. They will think that you have created everything, but the truth is that you don’t create anything at all.”

That which emerges again, is called the germination of the creator. It is His task to let creation take place through Him. Thus, the four principles, or four planes of existence, came to be: existence, awareness, ideation or mind, and manifestation. They are called the four Kumaras, or the four sons of the creator. Sanatana is the Kumara on the supra-cosmic plane, Sanaka on the cosmic, Sanandana on the solar, and Sanat Kumara on the planetary plane. Sanat Kumara, thus, is the Lord of our planet. Like flames, the Kumaras’ energies are always directed upward; they form the vertical line of existence between the head-and base centre in us. The part above the brow is called Sanatana, the eternal light; the part from the throat to the brow is called Sanaka; the part from the heart to the throat is called Sanandana; and the one from the heart to the base of the spine is called Sanat Kumara.

The Kumaras emerged as the first-born of creation, as perfect beings. They had already achieved perfection in the earlier creation. When the creator asked them to assist Him in creation, they only smiled, but didn’t follow Him because they had a different task in the cosmic plan which the creator didn’t know about. In the Secret Doctrine, this is called the disobedience of the Kumaras. Their work, however, is a different one: they help all beings on their search for the Divine. They are also called Agnishvattas, who lent the fire of consciousness to man at a later point in creation, from the middle of the third root race on. Hence, there are many sublime stories in the wisdom teachings of the East that hold the secret knowledge of the creation of the cosmos and of man. We should contemplate on these concepts whenever we lay down to sleep and emerge again. This will help us to understand how creation came to be, where we are coming from, and on what our lives are based.

Sources used: K. P. Kumar: The Aquarian Cross / seminar notes / E. Krishnamacharya: Wisdom of the Heavens. The World Teacher Trust - Dhanishta, Visakhapatnam, India.