Din and Chesed, the Church
at Sardis
Back in the Wilderness:
and the Rough Places, Plain
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The small, but full, brown pea rolled out
of the prayer wheel's open gate, from the right towards the left,
and stopped a little distance away from its cage, directly beneath
the man. Its embryo was not damaged in the least.
It was thankful for this sign of health; for
it had much work to do before the morning and would need all
its strength. It must grow to full maturity within the man and
multiply exceedingly; for tomorrow was a day the man would walk
among the people. His every word and deed would be judged by
the Watchers according to their proofs of this night's work.
The man's mind would be the seed's sunlight;
his life experience would be its soil; the seed would drink from
the man's reservoirs of compassion. Every seed knows the parable
of the sower, and this seed knew it would survive the night to
grow in beauty and in strength: the light in the man was bright;
his soil, rich; and his compassion, deep. The collective memory
of the seed's kind was clear in its understanding, and it was
thankful to be able to follow his ancestors' best example. The
Vine would be well served by morning
The light in many men is weak because they
imagine many centers in which to focus their souls' energies--
as whether they should focus their consciousness upon or against
a thing, or whether they should be in fear or in hope concerning
any development that might occur. The ancients Aharon and Moshe
had warned of the folly of this manner of focus; but a later
king had sorely tested the people by fashioning convincing images
of aspects of the True Light and placing them far apart, one
from the other. Confusion followed.
The distance between these images and the
true image of the Light at Yahrushaliem made it difficult for
the people to see how the lesser lights were lacking in comparison
with the True. The idols of judgment and of mercy could never
convey the unity of the Elohim of judgment and mercy.
The people were careless in their life before
the calves of fire: and so, they were deceived; and their lives
became vain. They would build a while at this center, then at
another; then they would abandon their labors entirely for uncertain
lengths of time, only to build anew at yet some other unsuitable
location when the True Light would momentarily reappear to their
minds, convicting them of the impropriety of their focus.
The young vine knew well the true significance
of those images made by Yravam: it could feel its proof in its
first branches. Every vine is fashioned to focus only upon the
True Light, which is as a center pillar in its growth. It consumes
that pillar inch by inch, moment by moment, as it grows. Without
the living, center pillar, the vine would surely languish; but
without the supportive pillars of left and right, the vine would
sprawl aimlessly upon the ground. Even this parable, however,
had been more truly stated in the temple of Light established
in Yahrushaliem.
The growing vine's ancestors had taught him
that the pillar on the left hand, as vines look into the sky,
represents the services of tillage; the right-hand pillar, the
services of irrigation. These two functions are essential to
the process of growth, but the beginning of growth comes only
in response to the warmth of the central pillar's light. Moreover,
as the pillars at the sides stand by to assist the vine in its
season of growth, it is surely the True Light's crossings in
the sky that enable the branches of the vine to lean somewhat
on the lesser pillars in the breathtaking process of maturation.
The man's focus was strong; for the left and
right functions in him were fully dedicated to their services
in the earth. When the downward thrust of these functions reached
the man's foundational center, they spontaneously turned of themselves
to channel their full energies upwards along the center path
in the man, thus uniting every faculty in the service of the
single Light manifest in him.
It is told among the vines of earth that the
three pillars are universal in all things. A growing thing that
imagines itself as containing only one of the three knows little
of himself. Such a one is searching his soul as from without--
from the right or from the left. By such means there is no strength
to contend with the forces of life. A house divided so cannot
stand.
All things have their own, proper center in
the single Light of creation. Focused therein, all things are
both clean and supportive of life. It is prophesied that when
this knowledge spreads upon the earth from the greatest to the
least, that Earth will reel under the weight of its own productivity;
for all life will then unite in knowledgeable cooperation, as
One in One.
Tomorrow's increase would serve that day.
Already, the vine's blossoms had opened. Already, they had been
pollinated in the interchange between form and function. Already,
the young kernels were nearing completion. If the man should
also be blessed in his slumbers as he had been blessed in the
evening sacrifice, the morning would provide him abundant seed
to take to the marketplace to exchange for garments and to give
as alms for the renewal of friendships.
As the vine began to wither in its full age,
it was content. The night had been one that would be remembered
among the ancients of the peas. It is not that this particular
specimen would be celebrated in the stories of the species, but
that the True Vine had been faithfully served by the life of
one of its extensions in the service of One.
The man stirred from his sleep. He had been
dreaming of a herd of deer standing quietly by the window and
looking in at him. Morning had come upon Earth, and he understood
that the deer were waiting to be fed. He smiled at the Watchers
and untangled his long arms and legs from around the Lotus. As
he stretched into the Light of another new beginning, his hands
were filled with seed.
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