"Cryptic" Reflections
Number 1, The Ante-Chamber
June, 2001
The Ante-Chamber is in the shape of a semi-circle. Semi-circles do not occur in Nature. Hence, the semi-circular shape of the ante-chamber is an artificial contrivance suggesting incompleteness.
Where is the other half of the circle? It is in the Ritual Crypt proper, which is dedicated to recognition of the presence of the Unknown God.
The Ante-Chamber is approached through a vestibule where the needs of the body are recognised. It affords facilities whereby the body may be made as comfortable as possible in order to minimise physical distraction in attaining recognition of the constant and ubiquitous presence of a Single Deity Whose Absolute Laws underlie all the manifestations of the Universal Creation and give coherence to all human experience. The shape of the Ante-Chamber helps to emphasise the incompleteness of a life that refuses to recognise the Ultimate Reality of the One God.
So the Ante-Chamber is a space where persons who desire to attain completeness may compose themselves, lay aside the cares of the world, and prepare to concentrate their minds on the presence and significance of the One God Which created them and Which sustains them, body, soul and Spirit.
The centre of the circle is in the doorway to the Ritual Crypt. It is reminiscent of an expression sometimes attributed to Empedocles (fl. c. 450 BCE) : "The nature of God is a circle of which the centre is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere".
Does this "ring true" for you? If it does, is it not because you already have some recognition that God IS your Centre? Such a recognition implies that attempting to escape from your own Centre is equivalent to committing moral suicide.
Although the One God whose Presence underlies the whole of Nature must perforce be incomprehensible to our limited human understanding, thinking of God and our relationships with the manifold aspects of Nature requires us to designate some symbol or name to "stand for" God in our thinking and conversation. But we should always try to keep in mind that any such symbols or names, and any qualities we may attribute to such symbols or names, are bound to fall far short of the Ultimate Reality. It is our human failure to realise this that gives rise to all religious disputes, many of which escalate into wars. Is it not foolish to quarrel about different names for our Common Creator? Should we not all benefit from realising that it is the One God that animates each and every one of us? If we take time to reflect upon this, are we not driven to the conclusion that, in our deepest beings, we are all the same?
The wall that divides the Ante-Chamber from the Ritual Crypt is a diameter of a circle. As soon as we enter the Crypt proper from the Ante-Chamber, we become aware of the other half of the circle. We are able to reflect on the fact that if we keep going around the circumference of a circle, we keep coming back to where we were before. There seems to be no end to it. This helps us to "make sense" of the cyclic variations which occur in so many aspects of Nature: breathing; daily sunrise and sunset; the phases of the moon; the seasons of the year; the life of man...
A diameter of a circle can also be an axis about which the circle revolves to generate a sphere. In the case of our crypt, this implies the co-operation of God and man to generate new material manifestations. The sphere is an idealised representation of many things which occur in Nature, notably fruits. This serves to remind us that material manifestations do not arise from human effort alone: the co-operation of God is required to supply the raw material and the cohesive forces which confer temporary stability on what we are prone to think of as "our" creations. Whether we know it or not, God provides the axis about which all our lives revolve.
Does this not imply that the more we strive to understand God's Natural Laws and co-operate with them, the more "powerful" we are likely to become?