ARCHETYPAL PERSONS IN THE BIBLE  



by BR JOHN MARTIN SAHAJANANDA



         If the mind is very philosophical, it speaks about levels of consciousness, as is the case in the Hindu tradition but if the mind is not very philosophical, then it projects symbolically. In the Biblical tradition, the writers don’t speak about levels of consciousness but they do describe archetypal persons. For example, in the Old Testament, we can see that the writers wanted to present the history of salvation as a story of human beings falling in the Divine-human relationship. The relationship with God dropped lower and lower. First, we have Adam. Adam is a symbol of humanity as a whole; there is no fragmentation or division. This is like the seventh level of mind. Then we have Adam and Eve; there is wholeness but it is divided into masculine and feminine. Adam and Eve were walking with God in the cool of the evening. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, they fell away from this union. When they committed sin, they lost their purity and fell into the ego, and from that act came Cane and Abel, good and evil. Before that there was no good and evil. Good and evil is the consequence of the fall of humanity from this direct experience of God.


         Noah is another archetypal figure. Noah was a righteous man and the rest of humanity was not righteous, and then humanity experienced the God of mercy and forgiveness. It was because of one man’s righteousness that God forgave the whole of humanity. Humanity fell from that relationship and then we have Abraham. Abraham represents a man of faith. Humanity fell from that relationship also and we have Moses. Moses represents a level of mind where we experience God as the God of authority, a God who is transcendent. People cannot see God. God reveals himself through the commandments. The Ten Commandments become the presence of God.


         At the time of Moses, people had a relationship with God through the law, but then they fell lower than that and then we have the period of the Judges. The Judges are not like judges in the sense of the legal court. ‘Judges’ refers to those who rule and deliver the people. God is more of a God of political deliverance in this period. The Judges did not give more commandments. Whenever there were difficulties with the surrounding people God sent a Judge to fight for them and then God delivered them from the enemies. The relationship with God was not permanent, but a temporary relationship with the Judge.


         Then the Israelites said that all the other peoples have kings, but we do not have a king. Please give us a king. Prophet Samuel told them ‘God is a great king. Why do you want a human king? A king will take away your lands, your daughters, your sons and make you into slaves’. They say, ‘No! We want a king over us. Then we shall be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles’ (1 Sam. 8:19-20). God told them they could have a king, and they received Saul, so they fell from the Judges into the period of the Kings. Then God became very remote, God could not speak to people directly, but still God did not abandon them. God sent the prophets to call the people back. People could not have access to God; only through a prophet did they know the will of God.


         The history of salvation is a history where humanity is falling away from the direct experience of God into an indirect experience of God. That is what we call a fall from the egoless state into the state of ego. If you read the Old Testament then you discover that the revelation of God is not something absolute. The revelation of God changes as the human beings fall. When people are in the lower levels of understanding, they project God in a certain way, such as revengeful and violent, but as our consciousness grows, so too the way we understand God changes. Christ said, ‘No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven – the Son of Man’ (John 3:13). That means humanity descends from the highest to the lowest level. Humanity loses its original oneness with God. The aim of the spiritual journey is then to ascend back to that original unity with the Divine; to find the kingdom of God within us.


‘The world is moving this way and that, and we may feel the world is going in the wrong direction, but then we discover that in this inner rest, God is somehow in control of everything: not only our own lives but also the lives of others.’



Extract from THE FOUR O’CLOCK TALKS – Discussions with JOHN MARTIN SAHAJANANDA Compiled by Carrie Lock Page 230-232







 

Make a free website with Yola