the twofold state of man

 ‘Hermes’ is the nature-born human being, who has received a new soul state on his path of liberation, and who now, working and building, realises the golden wedding garment. At a crucial moment, the new state of consciousness or hermetic consciousness is manifested in it. Once this consciousness makes itself felt, ‘Pymander’ comes to the fore: the omnipresent, Divine wisdom, ‘the word that is from the beginning’.

J van Rijckenborgh

‘Of all the creatures of nature only man is twofold,’ says Pymander. There exists in the human system the seed of immortality, the spirit spark, and there is the mortal human being, the natural figure. We cannot find another creature of a similar, twofold nature.

In this way, the fall of the original sons of God has created the strange situation that the seed of the Spirit is differentiated in myriads of mortal entities. And all these countless entities, in whom the seed of God is present, may cause the people of the children of God to grow into a multitude no one can count. It may happen and will happen that everything that was initially sin and guilt, with all its consequences, will finally change into a glory, more grandiose than ever could have been the case; a change unto a blessing that no one could possibly envisage.

But if this blessing is indeed to take shape, a strong intervention is essential; a great deal must then happen. However, this also implies a tremendous possibility; this also contains the mystery that, out of a fall, such a blessing can come about as proof that the Spirit, that love, is always victorious. He who achieves insight concerning the nature of his nature-born being, is enabled to free himself of his twofold state and to return to his original divine state. Do understand this, at least if you are at this moment aware of your twofold state: on the one hand, of your nature-born being, and on the other, of the rose heart within you, the original, true man.

Do see the possibility of deliverance, if you are conscious of possessing a spirit spark. Then you are not, as a natural being, personally guilty with respect to the being of sin, because as a nature-born entity you are wholly one with the being of dialectics. The course of things in the seventh cosmic plane was and is unavoidable for every entity, linked with this nature. No, as possessors of the rose, we can only become conscious of the existential imperfection, of an existential absurdity. This is the consciousness of sin as it has been understood in the Universal Teachings since the beginning: that the true, spiritual human being becomes aware of his prison, of his current state of being.

Awareness of sin means, according to verse 39, becoming conscious of our absolute immortality, to have power over all things and yet to suffer the fate of mortals, because we are subjected to fate. To be more eminent than all of dialectics, and yet to be its servant. To know: the Father is within me; He who is without sleep governs me, and yet I am imprisoned in the power of the subconscious.

This is awareness of sin, and it appears from Hermes’ words that his pupil understands it. The hermetic human being understands this situation, but for most people, all of this is a very great miracle, the miracle of the blending of nature with humanity and its dramatic aspects: the apparent fall that manifests itself in it and the guilt that arises from it. Notwithstanding, the Spirit wants to conquer and must conquer. A millionfold fragmentation develops through this dramatic event and, consequently, gives all those millions of people the power to become children of God again.

Verse 41 states that the blending of nature with humanity generated an astonishing miracle. Pymander describes the genesis of this miracle: The earth was the matrix; water the procreative element; the fire brought the process of genesis to maturity; nature received from the ether the breath of life and created the bodies according to the form of man.

When Pymander speaks of ‘man’, he refers to the original, divine man. For the rest, he speaks only of the body, the natural figure. The body received a sham human image. Here he describes how the natural figure was created from the etheric and astral radiations of the nature of death. The natural figure is simply called ‘the body’, and this is what the dialectical world is used to call ‘man’.

What a mistake! This mistake can be explained by the fact that the natural figure, by virtue of its disposition, possesses a life and a consciousness of its own, and is, in short, a living being. There are two lives within you: the original life and that of the natural figure. Pymander expresses this by saying: the true man originates from life and light. From the one true life, the true man has become a soul being, and from the universal light, a spirit-soul, that is, an inner being of the exceptional soul state that is linked with the spirit. The true man possesses a pure heart; he is the heart. He lives like a god in the heart of the natural figure.

The true man is a hermaphrodite, although male or female outwardly. The natural figures, on the other hand, were sexually separated. The natural being is either male or female, although sometimes male, sometimes female outwardly. There are male soul entities and female soul entities, although they are not sexually separated. However, the natural figure is always to be seen in the sexual appearance we know, so that through endless experiences and endless births the plan of salvation can be executed. Through the continuous grinding in the nature of death, through the continual vivification of the microcosm, a concrete possibility always exists to discover the original life again.

Significant is the law that applies to every true Rosicrucian ‘that he shall not desire to live longer than God allows him’, because the dialectical human being, impelled by his nature-born state, always runs the risk of sinking below the level of the dialectical order. The purpose of the separation of the sexes is to ensure that new natural beings are continually born, while life itself ensures that they will die again. In this way, the plan of salvation can be executed through the hard school of profound experience. In this way, the path of self-knowledge can be walked. The separation of the sexes is necessary because, as a consequence, the wheel of birth and death unceasingly revolves and, so Pymander states, the course through life is the indispensable school of experience.

He who is spurred on in this school of life and possesses the spirit-soul, that is, a heart sanctuary that is able to vibrate in accordance with the rose, and is open to the gnostic light, will one day know himself as to his true nature and will deeply feel its twofold state. Such a person will then know that the love for the natural figure, the desire, is the cause of death with all its consequences. In this way, the blending was initiated and the procreation of the species on the basis of the separation of the sexes began, just like in the animal and the vegetable kingdom.

He who achieves self-knowledge in this way, is led upon the path of soul humanity. He who continues to embrace the natural figure, continues to wander about in darkness and will experience in a painful way what death is.

As a nature-born person, you can only renounce and reject the natural figure for the sake of your conscious yearning and your actual striving to go up into the soul figure again. However, when you do not seek or do not want to walk the upward path, causing the hormonal passions to remain absolutely unchanged and the natural figure to loiter in this hormonal fire, it is inevitable that an unnatural development will occur.

There is still another aspect of verse 48 of the book Pymander, to which we would like to draw your attention. This verse has often been misunderstood, and these words from the hermetic philosophy were considered to be a kind of warning. It is said: ‘Whoever has loved the body that has issued from the error of desire, continues to wander in darkness.’ On more than one occasion, these words from Hermes have been understood as a warning against earthly marriage and everything related to it. But this is not the case! On the contrary, it is clear from the Arch-Gnosis that the separation of the sexes with its consequences is necessary to keep the wheel of life and death in motion. Loving the body that has issued from the error of desire, refers to the love for dialectical nature, of which the verses 37, 38 and 39 speak, and which resulted in the development of the mortal natural figure. Whether you face this either married or unmarried, with a loathing of nature or not, in solitude or in duality, does not make any difference. He who wants to overcome the natural figure, will, in accordance with the divine plan of redemption, have to leave the dialectical world and everything inherent in it, and walk the path of the soul, the upward path of return.

Therefore, if future humanity were prevented from following its natural course and the efforts to prolong life were to succeed, this would mean the irrevocable end. Before long, the whole emergency order, including humanity, would sink below the level of natural laws. To love and to be wholly wrapped up in our natural figure, considering it to be man, is the mistake, to which Hermes refers in verse 48.

If you understand this and ask yourself how to achieve the purification of life that is conditional to deliverance, you should know that the purity, for which a human being has to strive with his natural figure, always concerns the purity of the heart, the sevenfold purification of the heart sanctuary. In a sense, the heart is the abode of the rose. The heart sanctuary is the mirror of the universal light. The heart sanctuary is God. Pymander speaks to the candidate in the heart.

(Taken from an article in a series with this title, in which we would like to make Hermes speak again, in the way J van Rijckenborgh transmitted his ‘voice’ to his pupils in his commentaries to the Corpus Hermeticum.)

 © Lectorium Rosicrucianum 2009.

From Pentagram No 4, 2009