The Gods are Beyond All Beings
Riffing on Eternity #8
All that we sense with our sense perception occurs below the realm of the gods. And what of all that we intuit with our inner light? What of that? Can we then find traces of the gods? Surely, if they are beyond all beings, yet we know of them, and sense their providence in our lives, how does this sense work? Is it the gods themselves in us finding their traces through the material world? and what does Proclus mean here by “beings”? Surely he must mean the created beings, not the beings of the gods themselves. It must be a way to refer to the gods as beyond our limitation of understanding, rather than anything more than that.
I mean, what is beyond all beings? Does he mean all individuated beings, perhaps? Or all living and dying and created beings? Are these the ones he is referring to?
I have to ask the gods themselves for their answer to this, for my personal standpoint is too limited to be able to undertake this. Which of the gods can respond, and how do I ask them? I can light a candle, or burn incense, or say a prayer, or sing a calling song to them. I can cry out to them with the heart of a lover. I can dance barefoot on the earth or I can perhaps use the time of day, the sun’s arc across the sky from dawn to noon to dusk to call them and ask them - what does it mean that you are beyond all beings?
These questions don’t really matter, you know. What we are doing is using these questions to lift ourselves up from the denseness of the earth, so the gods can come with gentle hands extended to take us up beyond this life - it is called the life of “generation” and these are the beings that are referred to by Proclus. For the beings that live and die, even those which may exist for eons, are still not of the same stuff as the gods.
Are the gods eternal? yes. And not to be seen in any other way. They are not dependent on any of the aspects, waves and changes of the world, on any of the shifts in fortune or in temperament, or on anything whatsoever. They are the closest to the One, the Good, and have all of creation suspended from them.
Now what is the relation between the gods and the demiurge? Is the demiurge a god? Yes, a first god. This entire realm of the gods is what Proclus is referring us to. He is drawing our consciousness up through the realms past all life and death and all cycles of the soul. It is beyond all that, and there is a comfort to us to know this is so, for here there is a glimpse of eternity, a blessing on earth and a safe harbour after so much of the long journey.
Still we are absorbed by the gods eventually in a way to live in their realm as immortal souls. These immortal souls are also beyond the created life. Here we find ourselves in a company of the great ancients of yore who sit together beaming loving intelligence to all the created universe of life and light, sharing in its unfolding of the endless streams of beings - in bodies and without bodies, in form with souls and in form as entities beyond the soul, not only the ensouled and embodied but all that IS.
Here we find ourselves lifted to glimpse past the sphere of general understanding, to a dazzling and well-created upliftment to the classical architecture which holds in its inner temples the great votive altars and tripods of each of the gods, who are beyond being because they are the gods. It is that simple.
Don’t relate to them as if they were beings, relate to them as the gods, and with all that is due to them. Don’t bring them down into your physical or mental conception, that is a jail they will not enter. But they can send down beams of light which, if followed, lead you upward into the realm of their temples. Here all is music, light and forms divine. Love pervades and life is seen in the fountain as a spring of truth that can only be known through entering it.
Here the souls in their cycles turn and turn, rising and falling into the general pool then rising again in a new form, then dropping down again. These lives and lifetimes are forever in perpetuity. Until there is the great shift of realization and understanding in which the soul breaks free of this fountain and is released. Its wings unfurl and, newly-freed, takes its place in the realm of the immortals.
Here we find ourselves in the company of the greats. They could be saying: “There is a longstanding puzzle that we are beside the temple of the gods but not in that temple. For we are not gods, yet we are as gods. We are not to be worshipped, but we are to be known by the souls who receive our special assistance.
Just as the gods assist those on earth, so do we, for we have been there and understand how difficult the life on earth can be. We guard and keep you once you have found us. There may be a guardian angel, that is not who we are. There is a guardian daemon, that is not us either. We are the great teachers of humanity and we are beaming our love to the world in real time, our vision is not that of the gods who are in play for the universe and all its purposes. We are here to help your intelligence rise to meet us, and we call to us those who are to join us here. This is a sort of inner Mount Olympus, a sort of temple, a sort of cloud realm, but more than that.
We are embodiments of the metaphysics that are particular to the evolution of the souls, and our play and love is always calling you upwards to join us. It happens not at death but at the death within life, we call you to die before death.
The mysteries of the gods are enacted so we can observe your tendencies and readiness for our contact and communication. Our communion. As you join us innerly we educate you. We are the actual academy and the actual training ground. We are the teachers of humanity. We lead you to the gods and the gods come to you through our beams of light as well. For we are the ancients and in our semicircle is your embrace.”
More of my notes on Plato study here, at Riffing on Eternity.