Toward the Light

The very name of Daena brings together several aspects that should not be fragmented or opposed to oneanother, but should be recaptured in the unity of her "Person." Etymologically (Avestan "day", Sanskrit "dhi"), she is the visionary soul or the visionary organ of the soul, the light it throws and which makes it possible to see, and at the same time the light that is seen, the celestial figure that comes face to face with the soul at the dawn of its eternity. Daena is the vision of the celestial world as it is lived, that is, as religion and professed faith, and for that very reason it is the essential individuality, the transcendent celestial "I." By the conjunction of these two aspects or ideas in her person, she proclaims that realization unfailingly corresponds to faith. In this sense, because she is the archetype, the guardian Angel who guides and inspires the life of the believer, she is also his judge, she who reveals to him the degree to which his earthly existence has satisfied the most personal law of his being in the living expression of it. When the soul in amazement asks "Who are you?" the maiden, more resplendent than any beauty ever glimpsed in the terrestrial world, moves toward the entrance of the Chinvat Bridge and answers: "I am you own Daena,"  which means: I am in person the faith you have professed and she who inspired it in you, I am she for whom you answered and she who guided you, who comforted you and who now judges you, for I am in person the Image set before you since the birth of your being and the Image which, finally, you yourself desired. - Henry Corbin, Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth

Man is a gateway, through which you pass from the outer world of God, daimons, and souls into the inner world, out of the greater world into the smaller world. Small and inane is man, already he is behind you, and once again you find yourselves in endless space, in the smaller or inner infinity.At immeasurable distance a lonely star stands in the zenith.This is the one God of this one man, this is his world, his Pleroma, his divinity.In this world, man is Abraxas, the creator and destroyer of his own world.This star is the God and the goal of man.This is his one guiding God.In him man goes to his rest.Toward him goes the long journey of the soul after death, in him everything that man withdraws from the greater world shines resplendently.To this one God man shall pray.Prayer increases the light of the star.It throws a bridge across death.It prepares a life for the smaller world, and assuages the hopeless desires of the greater.When the greater world turns cold, the star shines.Nothing stands between man and his one God, so  long as man can turn away his eyes from the flaming spectacle of Abraxas.Man here, God there.Weakness and nothingness here, eternally creative power there.Here nothing but darkness and clammy cold.There total sun. - Carl Jung's Red Book

When the pupil has got so far as to have an experience of Intuition, then in addition to having knowledge of the pictures that belong to the world of soul and spirit, and being able to read from the Hidden Script how these pictures are interrelated, he also comes to know the Beings through whose co-operation the world to which man belongs has been called into existence. Then too he learns to know himself in his own archetypal form as a soul-and-spirit being in the world of soul and spirit. He has wrestled his way through to a perception of his Higher Self, and now sees clearly what he has still to achieve in order to gain control over his Double, the “Guardian of the Threshold” who stands there before him, continually calling upon him to work on further at his development. This “Greater Guardian of the Threshold” now becomes for him the Ideal, the Example that he will do his utmost to follow. Having once come to this resolve, the pupil will be enabled to recognize who it is that is there before him as the “Greater Guardian of the Threshold.” For now this Greater Guardian changes for the eyes of the pupil into the figure of Christ, whose nature and whose part in the evolution of Earth have been explained in the earlier chapters of this book. Through this experience the pupil is initiated into the sublime Mystery that is connected with the name of Christ. Christ shows himself to him as the great human Prototype and Example, united with the Earth's true evolution. - Rudolf Steiner, An Outline of Esoteric Science

Returning now to man's life between death and a new birth, after the earliest period which I have already described to you, our study brings us to a world where dwell the Beings of the Second Hierarchy, the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, and instead of earthly existence we have a Sun-existence. For even when we pass beyond the region of the stars, the sun still radiates, though not in the physical sense; and it continues to radiate as we live through the time between death and a new birth. Whereas here on earth the sun shines down upon us with its physical influences, in the life between death and a new birth the sun shines upwards to us; that is to say, we are borne and sustained by the Beings of the sun, by Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes. But in the world wherein we are then living, the natural laws which obtain in earthly life have no meaning at all, for everything is governed by spiritual laws, laws of soul-and-spirit. In that world there is no need for grass to grow; no cow needs grass to eat; for neither cows nor grass exist. Everything is spiritual. And within this Spirit-realm we can bring to realisation the intentions in the soul which cannot be realised in the earthly realm, so little realised that in extreme cases the good can lead to unhappiness and the evil to happiness. Everything in the realm of the sun finds fulfilment and expression according to its inner worth, its intrinsic nature, and it is therefore impossible for the good not to take effect in proportion to its power of goodness and the evil in proportion to its power of evil. — There is a very special reason why this is so. — From the Sun-existence which enshrines the Second Hierarchy, the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, a kindly, gracious welcome is extended to all the good intentions and purposes that were harboured in our life of soul on earth. This could also be expressed by saying that whatever has lived in a man's soul with any nuance of goodness is received in this Sun-existence with graciousness, but the evil is utterly rejected; it cannot enter. - Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships Vol. II, Lecture X

As it is from the Divine love that is in and from him that the Lord appears in heaven like a sun, so all in the heavens are turned constantly to him—those in the celestial kingdom to him as a sun and those in the spiritual kingdom to him as a moon. But those that are in hell turn themselves to an opposite darkness and dense darkness, that is, they turn backwards, away from the Lord; and for the reason that all in the hells are in love of self and the world, thus antagonistic to the Lord.Those who turn themselves to the dense darkness that is in the place where this world’s sun is are in the hells behind, and are called genii; while those that turn themselves to the darkness that is in the place of the moon are in the hells more in front, and are called spirits. This is why those in the hells are said to be in darkness, and those in the heavens in light, “darkness” signifying falsity from evil, and “light” truth from good. They so turn themselves because all in the other life look toward what rules in their interiors, thus to their loves; and with angels and spirits the interiors determine the face; and in the spiritual world quarters are not fixed, as in the natural world, but are determined by the face. In respect to his spirit man turns himself in like manner as a spirit does, backwards from the Lord if he is in love of self and the world, and toward the Lord if he is in love to the Lord and the neighbor. But of this man is ignorant, because he is in the natural world where quarters are determined by the rising and setting of the sun. But as this cannot be easily comprehended by men it will be elucidated hereafter when quarters, space, and time in heaven are treated of. Because the Lord is the sun of heaven and everything that is from him looks to him, he is also the common center, the source of all direction and determination. So, too, all things beneath are in his presence and under his auspices, both in the heavens and on the earths. - Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell 123-124

Death is a possibility-of-Being which Dasein itself has to take over in every case. With death, Dasein stands before itself in its ownmost possibility-for-Being. ... If Dasein stands before itself as this possibility, it has been fully assigned to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. When it stands before itself in this way, all its relations to any other Dasein have been undone. This ownmost non-relational possibility is at the same time the uttermost one. - Martin Heidegger, Being and Time

The experience of the ego death, marking the transition between BPM III and BPM IV (two levels of experience cataloged by Grof of those on psychedelic drugs), is usually dramatic and catastrophic. We might be bombarded with images from the past and present and in evaluating them we may feel that we haven ever done anything right and that we are absolute failures. We are convinced that we are pitiful and powerless and that nothing we might think or do would change our desperate situation. Our entire world seems to collapse and we lose all meaningful reference points in our lives - personal accomplishments, loved ones, support systems, hopes, and dreams all seem for naught. The route to freedom from the despair and helplessness we feel is through surrender - the very thing our egos are fighting. The experience of total personal surrender is a necessary prerequisite for connecting with a transpersonal source. Recovering alcoholics and addicts know this place as the moment where one admits complete powerlessness and discovers the Higher Power.After we have hit bottom, we are suddenly struck by visions of blinding white or golden light of supernatural radiance and beauty. There is a feeling of space expanding around us, and we are filled to overflowing with a sense of liberation, redemption, salvation, and forgiveness. We feel purged as if we have just been released from all heaviness in our lives - guilt, aggression, anxiety, and other forms of difficult emotions seem to all away. We may feel overwhelming love for our fellow humans, deep appreciation for the warmth of human contact, solidarity with all life, and a sense of oneness with nature and the universe. The arrogance and defensiveness tend to fade away as we discover the power of humility, perhaps prompting us to be of service to others. Exaggerated ambition, as well as cravings for material wealth, status, and power, suddenly seem childish, absurd, and useless. - Stanislav Grof, The Holotropic Mind: The Three Levels of Human Consciousness and How they Shape our Lives