Analogue 62

Analogue 62 

The Theory of Resemblances

The child who is born of a woman resembles the one she loves. If it is her husband, then it resembles him, but if she has an extra-marital lover, well then, it looks like him. Strangely, if a woman lies with her husband because he has coerced her, yet her heart lies elsewhere, her offspring will resemble the other one she loves. Those who go in to be with the Son of God are not in love with the system of this world, but rather with the Master, and so those who are conceived by them resemble him, and not this world.

It is natural for humans to unite with humans, horses with horses, and donkeys with donkeys. Species unite with like species in the same manner that Spirit unites with Spirit, Logos with Logos, and Light with Light. If you become human, you will be loved by humans. If you become Spirit, the Spirit will unite with you. If you become Logos, the Logos will come to you. If you become Light, the Light will become a companion to you. If you transcend, then Transcendence itself will rest upon you. If, however, you become horse-like, or behave like a donkey, calf, dog, sheep, or any other creature outside of or lower than yourself, you will be incapable of being loved by what is either human, Spirit, Logos, or Light, by what is transcendent to you, or by what is deeply immanent within you. None of these will be able to find rest within your heart, nor will you find a place of residence within theirs.

Those who have been enslaved against their will, are able to be liberated, while those who by the grace of their Master have been freed and yet sell themselves back into slavery, shall forfeit their freedom.

SYNOPSIS

• Interestingly this analogy suggests that we become what we love, and also what or the way we see. 
• The analogy of the conception of a child and the desire of the woman who conceives it is used as illustration. 
• Being “in love” with the Master in relationship to the Bridal Chamber is the focus. 
• Teachings concerning the “icon” of something or someone, existing some place else. 
• These concepts are akin to the idea of the social construction of the ego — our egoic selves resemble and are shaped by our love for and relationship with the world around us. 
• There are many unitings with their ‘resemblances (known as image and likeness) that occur in the Bridal Chamber. 
• Our work in the Bridal Chamber is to unite to Spirit, Logos, Light, Transcendence itself exists in the intimacy of immanence. 
• “Finding rest within your heart” refers to a settled place immanently within the heart.
• Indwelling refers to mutual resting in the heart as taking up residence within. 
• The possibility exists of forfeiting freedom: selling one’s self back into slavery by one’s own choices. 
• This analogue moves from resemblance to essence: resembling the Master through new birth, and then coming to possess the iconic qualities of the Master as essence. 

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COMMENTARY

Resemblances

There are obviously many different cultural nuances in this analogue which describes varieties of intimate relationships. It is difficult to completely understand just how the author(s) of this text are expressing these intimacies and their effects. Some are obviously positive and fulfilling, while others are negative and coercive, depleting and damages the human spirit. This analogue begins with an interesting, and certainly arcane notion of resemblances, leading to a spiritual conclusion about the Bridal Chamber. It is assumed that genetics was not known in the era of the writing of this Gospel. So the explanation as to why children did or did not resemble their parents was perhaps a subject of concern and conjecture. Rather than it being tied to genetic transmission, similarities between individuals in a single family could be construed to have something to do with inner desire rather than physical causes. Could it be that the strange experience of attraction to someone might influence the outer contours of face and form? This appears to be at the heart of the theory of resemblances represented in this text. The notion is related not simply to desire but to love and the attractions that love creates between human beings despite their physical circumstances and conditions. 

A woman, is it said, who is coerced into physical intimacy by her husband, and yet feels attracted to another individual, is thought to have passed on the characteristic features of her other lover even in physical form. What is perhaps realized in this theory is that hidden and unseen psychological and spiritual forces affect physical realities in the outer world, though perhaps not exactly in the way that this text surmises. This theory of resemblances, however, is applied to the inner relationship with the Master who is God’s child by another means of birth. Those who are bonded to him begin to resemble him because there has been a fresh form of birth from out of the relationship of intimacy inside the Bridal Chamber. In both cases the intimacy created by love is deep and consequential. Relational exchanges of Spirit at the level of the heart truly affect the individual in the outer world. This much is clearly understood. 

Principles of Attraction

This raises another psycho-spiritual issue of like-attracting-like. Beings that are like each other are drawn together and unite with each other on a deep and more consequential level. We can see the truth of this all around us in the natural world as like species are attracted to each other and unite for the purpose of pro-creation. In the world of transcendence, changes, transformations and relational exchanges are similarly taking place. But because human beings are not simply denizens of the physical, and have a foothold in the world of transcendence, they begin to reflect and express its realities as well. The world beyond this one is inhabited by the “species” of Spirit, Logos, Light. These are its living citizens belonging to the world of transcendence—a place in which we are invited to reside as we ourselves transcend the limits of this world and begin our residency there. 

Human beings are not simply physical creatures (inhabitants of the world of physical matter and energy), they are also vessels that transform into and become “Spirit.” They are sites where the “Logos” resides. They not only receive Light, they too can become Light-bearing being as radiant centers. The Sacred Spirit is beyond pure matter and material form. She transcends, animates, and yet flows through the physical world, making it alive in new ways, and is also the living breath that lifts matter beyond itself into even higher realms eventually transcending (but including) the material world itself. 

Transcendent Species

As one of the species occupying Transcendence, Logos is understood to be the first manifestation of the divine Mind speaking itself and being spoken as the word or language of revelation. Logos is not simply language, but is itself a “speaker:” an intelligent, ancient, and alive presence active in the world of being and becoming. The Logos brings all things into being though speech and speaking. Light is also a divine intelligence and consciousness that radiates upon and through Being, warming all things with its presence, giving awareness and consciousness to inanimate matter in the evolutionary unfolding of reality. Light is what enlightens all humankind into a knowing, self-aware consciousness so that it too can utter the word “I am,” as a being of intelligence and in the process of becoming who is also fully alive and just as aware.

Human beings are not simply physical creatures (inhabitants of the world of physical matter and energy), they are also vessels that transform into and become “Spirit.” They are sites where the “Logos” resides. They not only receive Light, they too can become Light-bearing beings, as radiant centers.

Companions of Immanence

Each of these higher orders of transcendent reality are not hidden away or unattainable. They are made available as shared realities. They become companions in our own self-unfolding. In this analogue, They are said to be both available to us as they are in their transcendence, but also in their immanence within us, as companions and guides. These are rich gifts made to us through an unutterably astounding invitation to transcend our normal limitations as a species and grow into something greater and larger that is aligned both to our original Source and true to our eternal destiny. 

We can, of course, move in an altogether different directions, taking on the characteristic features of beings made up of lesser light or intelligence. We can descend into “animal-like” behavior that is programmed only by what is largely rote or instinctual. However, we offered the opportunity of moving toward greater freedom and autonomy, which is less physically or socially restricted. We can know the more open world of Spirit, the language of the divine Mind speaking creatively, and move through higher levels of consciousness that are less pre-determined. All of these orders of reality are personal in their relationship to us. They need to take up residence within us at the level of the heart, finding a place to “rest” inside of us, as we also find a home, resting inside of them. This reciprocity is called mutual in-dwelling, which is a form of relational participation freely given by the Master of Spirit, who is also Logos, and Light, and who donates each of these to the human soul. To turn back from that invitation is to fall back into slavery, forfeiting the freedom that transcendence allows and affords us. 

 

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. Without the science of genetics, questions about human resemblances has been a topic of discussion both in the ancient past as well as today. We assign almost all physical features to genetics, which appear to be inherited characteristics according to the patterns of DNA in an individual. We are less sure about personality and other behavioral characteristics. How are these passed along? What is your own sense of these features? How are you both like and unlike your parents? What have you inherited from them? Could other features be inherited in other ways?
2. Evolutionary changes occur spiritually as well as physically. Human beings experience transcendence. They can also devolve, becoming animal like. How have you experienced both descent and ascent? 
3. This text suggests that just as there is a physical DNA structure, there is also something equivalent to it in the spiritual realm with features manifesting from a higher order of reality. The elements (the genetics of this divine DNA) are often described as Spirit, Logos and Light—manifesting forms of spiritual characteristics passed along to us by the Master in the intimacy of the Bridal Chamber. These need a rest-point to be gestated in the womb-like structure of the heart. How might you have known these features in your own experience?
4. What is this “rest-point” (or womb-liked structure) of the heart? How is intimacy involved with that place inside of you? In the way that it is described and envisioned in this text, how do you nurture this place and prepare it for its intimate exchanges as a part of the Bridal Chamber experience? Would it be helpful to think of this as becoming “pregnant with” Spirit, Logos, and Light? Is this a good analogy or is there another one more helpful to you? If you gave birth to these characteristics as the child of your own being, what form would this “child” take?
5. What might it mean for you to become Spirit, or Logos, or Light? How would you describe their manifestation in a human being and not simply in the world of Transcendence, but immanently in the kardial space within you? This text speaks of these as coming into being through loving relationships and as a result of forms of intimacy in the site known as the Bridal Chamber through its experiences. How might you have personally known this? 
6. How have you found freedom? Have you ever forfeited your freedom for something lower or lesser than your true or transcendent nature? What is your experience of that? 

 

NOTES FOR FURTHER STUDY 

AND REFERENCE

1. As in other analogues, this analogue is making use of an implicit metaphysics which sees that there are levels of being in an apparent t embedded hierarchy. This is part of a traditional understanding that views the nature of Being not to be a single dimension, but a realm of multiple dimensions ranging from material to non-material realities, intensities of energy and qualities, each with its own unique characteristics. Each smaller dimension is held within a larger domain transcendent to it and upon which the lower depends. This embedded hierarchy has sometimes been called “the great chain of being” because each link of it is important to the whole to which it is connected and belongs. Spirit, Logos, and Light are sources for the manifestation of being and appear in all of those domains and dimension of the hierarchy. Their opposites or counter-point in a human being is sometimes given the name of some animal form whose characteristic features appear analogically. 
2. The heart is a rest-point situated in the depths of human being, it acts as a residency possessing a womb-like structure in which something can be conceived and gestated until it comes to full term after which it can be born into manifestation in the external world. There, it must be tested by the challenges inherent in duality, passing through the tests into a level of maturation without which it cannot continue to grow and thrive. This involves the spiritual evolution of a human soul from the highest to the lowest levels existent within each individual soul. 
3. The possibility of devolution is also discussed in this analogue. Having reached a particular height, the processes of evolution may possibly be reversed as a soul loses these descending into less complex forms, with lesser levels of spiritual intelligence and quality. The ultimate destiny of such a devolving process is unknown to the the author of this text. The ultimate reconciliation of all things is taught as a central focus throughout this Gospel as well, which ultimately points toward a positive outcome. 

Notes on the Translation

• The extra-marital lover in the original text is said to be an “adulterer.”
• The words abide with are simply “with” in the original text.
• There are multiple Coptic and Greek terms used in the second paragraph to designate union or uniting intimately with someone or something. Each has its specific distinction, in general the issue seems to be the union of likeness to likeness.
• The terms transcendent and immanent are directly expressed in the Coptic idiom.