EPILOGUE - 2

One factor, as yet unmentioned, should not be forgotten: the speed of motion. At the level of molecular activity, the speed at which molecules move takes the form of measurable heat. At the human level, the possibility of accelerating the process of change parallels the possibility of a greater or lesser intensity of response, either to the avataric manifestation of a new aspect of archetypal Man or to an individual experience of one's spiritual Self and the realization of one's existential dharma.
      Intensity of response: how basic a factor in the lives of human beings these words reveal! The "laggards" in human evolution are the slow-minded, the hesitant, the individuals who, enamored of their narrowly defined sphere of being — of the contents of the mandala of their personhood — "take a long time" to resonate to the great bell announcing the opening of a new day. For whoever immediately takes hold of the opportunity for self-transcendence and with tremendous intensity of feeling commits the lesser in his or her nature to the greater — whose presence perhaps has been intimated only by a seemingly trivial event — will find the implications of every phase of existence appearing in a radically new light.
      As the inertial resistance of the past and its traditional formations are overcome, such an individual becomes resistlessly and undeviatingly attuned to the new Tone of the Movement of Wholeness perceived by his or her inner ears. The individual's sense of time, having lost its egocentric and culture-bound character, then can merge with the immeasurable continuum of change, unconditioned by clocks and planetary cycles. For such an individual, in fever of ever-accelerating experiences of culminating fulfillment, the Movement of Wholeness may seem the prodigiously fast whirling of the wheel of being, as sub-cycles are almost immediately compounded into ever larger cycles. The many colors scattered upon the whirling disc of a universe vibrant with incredible speed fuse into whiteness; and the whole Image of the cosmos which was envisioned by the Godhead at the Midnight hour may appear projected upon this whiteness of limitless space. Dimensionless, timeless, changeless: what else could the vision be called? The cyclic motion is so great that the wheel of change appears to stand still, radiantly frozen in Space, all relationships being worked out according to their formation in the compassionate Imagination of the Godhead. For a supreme Instant, the heat of ever-changing existential relationships becomes the light of Wholeness — but only for an Instant.
      The consciousness that has experienced such a state of wholeness may retain the mystery of the experience deep within; but seeking to formulate and perhaps communicate what has happened, the mind struggles with words and concepts that only dim and confuse the memory. Yet the numinous experience may have forever severed ancient and obstinate forms of bondage. A powerful sense of inner dynamism and unceasing movement may become a driving force of total transformation. As the "I" becomes the movement itself, the now unresisted motion leads the transfigured human being to his or her place in the Pleroma of Man, the sublime Company of all Illumined beings in which the Creative Word experiences Its perfect actualization.
      They watch; their united love sustains, even through the darkness that may follow the experience of too much light for the individual to bear and assimilate. Above and Below synchronize in conic duration. And in this interrelatedness and interpenetration of the greater and the lesser there is, for individuals still mostly human, power and certitude — an inner peace more stable than mystical ecstasy.
      Out of the ever-renewed chording of innumberable wholes, within wholes, within wholes . . . the cyclic melody of Wholeness rises. Is it a melody? Or is it one immense Tone sent forth by the gong of Space for countless wholes to resonate to — if they can, if they dare? Oh, blessed are those whose hearts respond to it, and in whose minds its overtones become Meaning, and Meaning, peace!