My 3-74 experience, then, was not so much my experience as that of the Urgrund. It amounted to a replication of the Urgrund here rather than there. The totality of the Godhead was recapitulated within me through a process of rolling back spurious or temporary layers to expose the permanent within. Thus it can be said that I was really the Urgrund, or at least a faithful mirror image thereof. The entire objective of creating me, of creating the universe as such and the life forms within it, was arrived at. Viewed this way, my life and that of my ancestors could be viewed teleologically: as moving through evolutionary stages toward that moment. My experience did not represent a stage in evolution but the ultimate stage or goal, at least if the premise stated in this paper is correct.
It is not a question of degree of reflection; it is a question of reflection of the totality of the Urgrund or none at all. Full reflection was achieved, whereupon, as I say, the Urgrund was born out of the universe, the sequence represented this way:
Urgrund creates artifact which projects universe which gives rise to life forms which evolve to a stage in which the Urgrund is “born” or reflected.
This reflects the sequence of stages envisioned in the Hindu religion. First there is creation by Brahma, then Vishnu sustains the universe; then Shiva destroys it, which should be understood as receiving it back into its origin. A full cycle of birth, life, and then return is enacted. When the universe has reached the evolutionary stage where it can faithfully replicate the Urgrund, it is ready to be absorbed back. Thus I say, the deity that reigns now is Shiva/Dionysos/Cernunnos/Christ, who restores us to our Urgrund or Father: our source of being.
That Shiva the destroyer god is now active signals the fact that the cycle of creation has returned to its source, or rather, that the life forms of it are ready to return to their source. Shiva possesses a third or Ajna eye, which, when turned inwardly, gives him understanding to an absolute degree; when turned outward, it destroys. The manifestation of Shiva (of the Hindu system) is equated with the Day of Wrath in the Christian systern. What must be understood about this world-destroying deity is that it is also the herdsman of souls. With one of his four hands, Shiva is shown expressing reassurance that he will not harm the virtuous man. The same is true of Christ as Lord and Judge of the Universe. Although the world (the spurious projection of the artifact) is to be abolished, the good man need fear nothing.
Nonetheless, judgment is being pronounced. The division of mankind into two parts by Christ is taking place. These are the same divisions expressed in the Egyptian system (as ruled by Osiris and Ma’at) and in the Iranian (by the Wise Mind). Through the total insight given him by his Ajna eye, Shiva the destroyer perceives that which he must destroy in the service of justice. Through that total insight he also perceives those whom he must protect. Thus he has a dual nature: destroyer of the wicked, protector of the weak, the victims of the world, the helpless. Christ possesses precisely these two natures, as Divine Judge and Good Shepherd. Cernunnos is both a warrior god and a healer god.
It is difficult for humans to comprehend how these apparently opposite qualities can be combined into one deity. However, if attention is turned to the situation, it can be understood.
The artifact’s projected world has begun to serve its final and sole real purpose. Now, with the artifact about to be destroyed, that world will end; it was never real in the first place. (This reflects the quality of destroyer assigned to Christ/Shiva/Dionysos.) But the elements of the world that have done their task will be selected out — that is saved — exactly as Dionysos is depicted as the protector of small, helpless wild animals. Dionysos is the destroyer of prisons, of tyrannical rulers, and the savior of the small, the weak. These attributes are assigned to Shiva/Cernunnos/Christ/Dionysos because of the nature of the task now required: a twin task, one of destroying, one of saving.
When the Son of Man comes in his glory. . . he will take his seat on his throne of glory. All the nations will be assembled before him and he will separate men one from another as the shepherd separates sheep from goats. He will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right hand, “Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take for your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world.” . . . Next he will say to those on his left hand, “Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” [Matthew 25:31-42].
I have inferred the necessity of these dual qualities of the deity involved back from the situation itself. The situation calls for (1) destruction of what Christ calls the “hostile” world; and (2) the protection of deserving souls. Given this situation, the dual nature of the presiding deity can be comprehended as necessary. In Matthew 25 it is made clear that this great and final judgment is not arbitrary. Who can quarrel with the outline for separation between those on the left hand and those on the right?
Those taken to his right hand (the sheep spared): “For when I was hungry you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome; naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me.” Then the virtuous will say to him in reply, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you; or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome; naked and clothe you; sick or in prison and go to see you?” And the King will answer, “I tell you solemnly, insofar as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.” Next he will say to those on his left hand, “. . . For I was hungry and you never gave me food; I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink; I was a stranger and you never made me welcome, naked and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me.” Then it will be their turn to ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?” Then he will answer, “I tell you solemnly, insofar as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to me.” And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the virtuous to eternal life [Matthew 25:35-47].
A major aspect of the First Advent was such direct expressions as this by the presiding deity. No one reading this passage from Matthew could misunderstand it. They are not only told that they will be judged; they are told the basis of the judgment. If any man find the stated basis unfair, he has already failed to receive the divine message and is lost, for the basis of decision stated is the most noble and wise possible. However, those who see Christ only as “gentle Jesus meek and mild” are ignoring this opposing aspect of him. The Urgrund, of which Christ is a microform, contains within itself absolute opposites. It is for reasons such as this that the Urgrund set into motion a mechanism by which it could “see” itself, confront itself, and evaluate (comprehend) itself. It contains everything. It, without its many reflecting mirrors, is essentially unconscious (the human unconscious contains opposites; consciousness is a state in which these bipolarities are separated, one half of each repressed, the other expressed). It is we, as mirrors, who act to make the Urgrund conscious — or, as the Hindu religion says of Brahman, “Sometime it sleeps and sometime it dances.” We were constructed to bring the Urgrund into wakefulness, and the instant we acquire anamnesis and faithfully reflect back the totality of the Urgrund, we bring it to consciousness. Thus we perform a major — a necessary — task for it. However, when we have performed that task, it will protect and support us forever; it will never desert us. Christ, in his statement in Matthew 25, makes clear that the attempt (with no envisioned goal of an ultimate nature, but merely human love and human help and human kindness) in itself is sufficient. What is not comprehended — although the meaning of the passage is evident — is that the poor, the hungry, the sick, the estranged, the naked, the imprisoned — all are forms of the presiding deity, or at least must be treated as such. To act so as to clothe, to feed, to give shelter and medicine and comfort — those all constitute reflections of the Urgrund to itself. Those acts are the Urgrund, made plural, ministering to itself in its diversified forms. No right act is too small to matter. We know the basis of judgment and we know the permanent consequences (such metaphors as “eternal fires,” “eternal damnation,” merely indicate that the decision once rendered is permanent; we are talking about the final disposition of the universe).