Inverted ∀ is a resource of ancient and contemporary documents pertaining to the mystical, metaphysical, esoteric, and scientific studies of cosmic consciousness.

THE MEDITATION ON ALEPH

From The Book of Tokens by: Dr. Paul Foster Case. ©, 1968 by Builders of the Adytum.

          * * * * 
1. I am, 
Without beginning, without end, 
Older than night or day, 
Younger than the babe new-born, 
    Brighter than light, 
    Darker than darkness. 
Beyond all things and creatures, 
Yet fixed in the heart of every one. 

2. From me the shining worlds flow forth, 
To me all at last return, 
Yet to me neither men nor angels 
May draw nigh, 
For I am known only to myself. 

Ever the same is mine inmost being; 
Absolutely one, complete, whole, perfect; 
    Always itself; 
Eternal, infinite, ultimate; 
Formless, indivisible, changeless. 

3. Of all existences I am the source, 
The continuation, and the end. 
    I am the germ, 
    I am the growth, 
    I am the decay. 
All things and creatures I send forth; 
I support them while yet they stand without; 
And when the dream of separation ends, 
I cause their return unto myself. 

I am the Life, 
And the Wheel of the Law, 
And the Way that, leadeth to the Beyond. 
There is none else. 

4. I am the Fire of Mind 
Which divideth itself 
Into the Superior and Inferior natures, 
And putteth on a robe of flesh 
To come down. 

I am the vital principle of all that is. 
Nothing is that does not live, 
And of that life I am the source. 

As it is written: 
   "First the stone, 
    Then the plant, 
    Then the animal, 
    And then the human." 
But before the stone, I am the FIRE,
Distributed equally in space, 
Nowhere absent, filling all. 
And before the Fire, hidden within it, 
I am the pure KNOWING 
Whence all forms flow forth. 

5.  Apart from me 
    There is neither wisdom, 
    Nor knowledge, nor understanding. 
Into every state of knowledge do I enter, 
Into false knowledge as well as into true, 
So that I am not less the ignorance of the deluded 
Than the wisdom of the sage. 
For what thou callest ignorance and folly 
Is my pure knowing, 
Imperfectly expressed 
Through an uncompleted image 
Of my divine perfection. 

Woe unto them 
Who condemn these my works unfinished! 
Behold, they who presume to judge 
Are themselves incomplete. 
Through many a fiery trial of sorrow 
    Must they pass, 
Ere the clear beauty of my wisdom 
May shine from out their hearts, 
    Like unto a light 
Burning in a lamp of alabaster. 

6. I am the doer of all. 
Nothing moveth but by my power.
 
Mine is the healing influence 
Flowing down from consecrated hands, 
Mine the venom of the adder's fang. 
    Nothing falleth but by me 
And in whatsoever riseth 
Mine is the power that lifteth up. 

7. My presence is the substance of all things. 
I am the virgin snow on mountain heights; 
I am the fruitful loam in valley depths. 
I am the gold and silver of the temple vessels; 
I am the mire on sandals left by the faithful 
    at the temple gate.
 
See me and regard me equally in all, O Israel, 
And thou shalt see indeed.
 
8. For seeing thus, shalt thou see, too, 
That nothing is, or can be, my antagonist. 
    All, and in all 
    Shall I fight myself? 
What hath power to limit or defeat 
The very source of power?
 
Know then, that all thy sense of conflict 
Is but the shadow-play of ignorance. 
Wait with patience on me, thy Lord, 
And in my appointed time 
Will I make clear what now is dark, 
And show before thee, straight and true, 
    A path of safety 
In the very place where now an abyss of terror 
Seems to open at thy feet. 

9. I am the beginning of all beginnings, 
Checked by neither time nor space, 
Held by no bonds of name or form. 
    Present everywhere, 
Centering the full perfection 
Of mine exhaustless power, 
I am thy Lord, O Israel, 
And Lord of countless hosts.
 
Seek me in the Holy of Holies, 
In the heart of the true Temple, 
On the Holy Mountain. 
Behold, I am with thee always, 
And I never sleep. 

10. I am the Height above all heights. 
My descent reacheth likewise below all depths. 
Yet am I poised forever between Height and Depth 
    In perfect balance. 
Consider me under the aspect of ALEPH; 
There shalt thou find both Height and Depth 
And the path also which joineth them 
    For descent and return. 

11. ALEPH in truth am I, 
The ox of solar fire 
Whose radiance lighteth all the world, 
Whose life-breath ebbeth and floweth 
In creatures great and small, 
Whose power taketh form 
In all the acts of men, of beasts, of plants, 
Yea, and of things which seem inanimate, as well. 

ALEPH am I, the patient burden-bearer, 
Strong to carry the heavy load of the manifest. 

ALEPH am I, the Eternal Worker, 
By whose might all fields are tilled, 
And from whose life all seeds 
Derive their growth and increase. 

ALEPH am I, 
    The First and the Root. 
From mine unfathomable Will 
The universe hath its beginning. 
In my boundless Wisdom 
Are the types and patterns of all things. 

    Before all worlds I WAS; 
    In all worlds I AM; 
And when worlds are but a memory, 
    I SHALL BE. 

THE TROPISM OF REASON

From The Field of Transformations by: Bika Reed. Copyright © 1987 Bika Reed

          * * * *
Following its hereditary, organic, and mental specification, reason, inseparable from awareness, issues subjective definitions. In its verbal articulation, reason acts indirectly as the antenna of intuition. At the same time it follows in its interpretation of life the individual codes of our hereditary personality. Thus individuality arises through and not from subjectivity within the intelligence of creation as a mental specification and a judge. Reason, which may be compared to the activities of the physical seed, reveals this individuality as a hidden entity, the "I" inherent in the universe.

Regardless of the combinations of parental genes from which the specific nature of the physical existence of an individual is decided, and thus regardless of the orientation of its reason, organic individuality is the pre-aware thinker within us. Inscribed as a memory––an abstract seed––this thinker evolves as a potential bearer of the link between the natural "I" of our awareness and the inconceivable "I." This link is manifested through awareness in which all trends of intelligence meet. As such, awareness, the fruit of the genesis of flesh, is the condition of the awakening in us of the sleeping ancestor, dormant in every life. This ancestor reveals themself through the evolution of synthetic intellect, the thinker, who manifests initially through reason, which is the intellect's force of definition.

Our natural reason, however, as a mental faculty of organizing a priori concepts within a logical framework, is a form of tropism or responsive movement to an external stimulus. The very word "reflection," qualifying the act of reasoning, indicates its secondary and responsive nature.

Reason, in fact, reflects and automatically responds to a priori, nonverbal structure of logic, in the same way as an animal instinctively responds to stimuli in its environment. Through reason, the structural codes of the universe and life are automatically reflected in our verbal logic. Being the structurally deviated contractive force of soul (or wholeness), reason is the soul's force of coherence. But it is an unaware actor in all this. Its awareness is a stranger to soul, which is its true identity.

While we identify and define the codes of nature through reason, we identify ourselves neither with these codes nor with reason, but only with our "I"––the "I" of intellect, the thinker who reasons. Yet this thinker, inseparable from reason, poses its reason as an eye through which, separated from its only observable origin, it naturally interprets life.

Thus, at the root of our intelligence, we are faced with a relationship between our individual awareness and pre-aware nature: a relationship that we can only define through a limited and conditioned form of intelligence, our reason. One with pre-aware nature and its codes of behaviour, reason gains its position as our definer and judge only through the structural division at the base of the human brain, which in fact causes the relationship between pre-awareness and awareness, both of which are beyond the reach of reason.