News /
Man taken to court for abusing Poland's president [35]
Traditional wisdom combined with inner understanding. Everything that occurs in this universe has an analogical correspondent on a divine level. Think of God as the supreme principle from which all conceptual possibilities derive from. Basically a Form to rule all forms, in the Platonic sense of the word. Manifestation is merely an unfolding of those principles into an infinite number of possibilities. There's also an infinite number of possible manifestations, each corresponding to an original matrix which is in itself a reflection of the totality that is God into various degrees of separation from the original model, of which of course there are an infinite number, like dots in a straight line.
Basically, creation is merely an aspect of the Creator. It is an unfolding of universal principles who's attributes permeate and define all the elements of creation at every strata, but the principles are by themselves unchanged and unchangeable for all eternity. When you look at life, you see those primal principles unfolding over and over again in different patterns and different possibilities, but the underlying nature of those principles remains immutable. The universe itself is merely an unfolding of a primordial matrix (again, one among many), which acts as a theme upon which each variation hinges upon, and the original theme of the universe is nothing other then man, who basically represents God himself manifesting his own being within the parameters of the original matrix. As such, while every natural phenomena and all the lifeforms of this universe express those universal principles as passive participants, man, being God's emissary on this earth, is allowed to bridge creation with the original model in a manner which involves the direct participation of consciousness, thus elevating those universal principle to their original, transcendent dimension.
In essence, creation actually begins with man, and everything else represents a possibility inherent to this particular model. So every plant, every animal, all of those things represent an unfolding of possibilities inherent in the primary elements that constitute man. So in the end, the beginning of creation coincides with the end result. Life exists so that man can exist. Likewise, creation exists so that the Creator can exist. Perfection cannot exist without imperfection. Totality cannot exist without parts, and so on and so forth. All the lifeforms in this universe exist because all possibilities have to manifest themselves in order for a given form to exist. If man is a being who moves through space by means of extremities, then every possible variation of this system will invariably manifest itself as conceptual possibilities, all adding up to a totality which exists only as an underlying principle, the "Form" which underpins the concept of moving through space by means of physical extremities. The same goes for every element of this universe. Since God is a radiant being, then radiance will manifest itself in every element of creation in all possible manners, many of which will serve as a reminder to man who in this case acts a spectator of creation, the sun being the most obvious example (as Schuon said many times, there is a reason things appear as they do. Those who worship the sun as a symbol of divine radiance are closer to the truth then the scientist who "knows" the actual physical composition of this star, because it is not by chance that we see the sun as we do).
So what is love, exactly? Well, that question can be understood only if we accept that man has two natures, a lower one, which is firmly rooted within the limitations of the original matrix from which our universe was build upon, and the "higher" nature, which points to the perfection of the original model. One is instinctive and unconscious, the other is conscious and requires direct effort to abide. Now, at the highest possible level, God is basically a totality without parts. Thus, the first step towards manifestation is a division into a primary duality, which in the human form manifests itself in what we call "male" and "female". The nature of this duality notwithstanding, by this rending man is basically made incomplete, much like God is rendered incomplete by the first duality, and each part will seek union with the other, in an effort to restore an experience of totality which can literally be defined as "paradisaical", one shooting across a given direction as an active force, the other, by offering the abundance necessary for the possibility to unfold. So God shone a light upon the formless void, and the universe was created. So man unites with a woman, and a new life is born. This union occurs at many levels, the most basic one being the purely physical level, that is, sexual union (again, there is a reason we see and experience certain things as we do). Alas, this physical conjoining is not sufficient in itself, since man is a creature constituted by many different elements (likewise, the begetting of children is not the only thing that is created by the marrying of masculinity with femininity, but i'll leave this for some other time). So union also occurs at a psychological or emotional level, but most important of all, union has to include a transcendental element, because it is only this latter that is "objective" and "eternal" in the real sense. This transcendental union has been established as an institution and consecrated with specific rites among all existing traditional cultures. Simply put, it is at this level that homosexual love has no place, being a deviation of a universal principle (such deviations exist for the same reason evil exists. That is, they exist because manifestation cannot be perfect, or it would not be manifestation, but God. An unfolding of possibilities apart from an undifferentiated primal principle must include "bad" or "defective" possibilities as well, by definition, or they would not be "apart', but they would be
the principle, which cannot be).
Thus, ultimately, homosexuality can only be "love" from the point of view of our lower selves. Since it is our inescapable imperative to elevate ourselves above our lower natures, homosexuality can only lead to degeneration, because the only thing preventing degeneration in the first place is our struggle to escape our fallen state (mind you that heterosexuality can be degenerated too), a struggle which can only point out to the original perfection, a perfection from which homosexuality is excluded from
a priori. Mind you that so far i've been talking of homosexuality from a conceptual point of view. This is because it is homosexuality in itself that is degenerate, not homosexuals in particular. As fallen creatures, we are all imperfect in one way or another, and each one of us possess qualities which are in violation of a celestial law or principle, or qualities which simply make a mockery of said principles. But because our destiny lies beyond this life, those imperfections only matter in light of our upward struggle. If an individual has this burden placed above him or her, it is still his or her duty to try to correct all internal blemishes, because in the end it is only our lower selves that are imperfect, and those lower selves will be no more once we die. If this seems unduly hard on some people, it is only because we are all in transit, each "manifestation" of our lesser selves being a reflection of the state our souls find themselves. We cannot change the state of those momentary "concretizations" of our consciousness into corporeal beings once the form has been realized, but we can still work for the betterment of our being even while we are still trapped into those imperfect forms. This process is greatly hindered by any attempt at destroying the integrity of an understanding of universal principles by claiming that a deviation is "correct" too, under the rubric of safeguarding the "rights" of our individual egos, where our entire existence in the next life hinges upon the degree of success in escaping those illusory and transitory individual egos to begin with, because the further we are pulled away from the primal principle, the more we will mire our spirits to increasingly degraded forms, until our being is trapped in a veritable "hellish" state, that is, a state which has no access to any transcendent element whatsoever.