Symbols - What does heaven look like
Resurrection
Here we need to ignore any Christian conceptions of the meaning of this term, as this section aims to describe the symbolic meaning of the term.
The original symbol for resurrection is linked to reincarnation and is also tied to the symbols of Day and Night. For this you need to have open the picture and explanation of the Four Seasons and the Hours.
Going back to very early symbolism, for example that used in Ancient Egypt, the sun was seen each day to set in the West and disappear, only to reappear each morning in the East. The sun was thus resurrected - it appeared to die, only to be born again in the morning.
At the time this symbolism was developed, reincarnation was almost universally accepted, thus the sun setting in the West became a symbol of death and its reappearance in the East at dawn became a symbol of birth, in the endless round of reincarnation followed by reincarnation. One went round and round the wheel of life, disappearing at sunset and reapearing with a new Destiny and Personality at figurative Dawn.
In a sense the whole process was looked on as a sort of never ending revolving door, no one ever really died in the sense of obliteration, they just took on a new mask.
But there was also the belief that one could leave this wheel through the process of Initiation in the Mysteries, and by doing so moved on to 'higher planes of existence' the road to the Sun or in really advanced individuals the road to the Stars.
To be looked on as any form of god, to earn respect and awe, one thus had to figuratively die and figuratively be born again, go through 'Night' in a bodied state.
Part of this entire process of Initiation involved the Rebirth experience. But if we turn for a moment to the Wheel with six spokes, you will see there are a number of stages to this path that have to be taken. Once you have been through rebirth, there is a stage of Purification and Relearning before the final Enlightenment stages leading to Annihilation. This is often shown alchemically as a burning process - trial by fire and is as unpleasant as it sounds.
But if you survive all this, you are then 'annihilated' - I will quote the definition of this
"The final stage on the spiritual path and the ultimate spiritual experience. It involves death. The death of you as a personality. Annihilation serves to obliterate the personality of all those who have fulfilled their destiny absolutely. All Conscious thought transfers to the Higher spirit which takes over. It feels like a near death experience as it unfolds except that it continues to completion. ‘You’ meet your Higher spirit, but once you meet, you die, you join and then you die. Your body is still living, but in effect it becomes ‘divine’ – a sort of ‘god’ completely in touch with the spiritual world at all its levels, because all bodily action is directed by your Higher spirit."
And this is resurrection.
Observations
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- 1 Corinthians 15
- Ancient Egyptian - The symbolism of the bennu bird
- Ancient Egyptian - The symbolism of the god Seker
- Armageddon Prophecy (by Manly P Hall) Lecture
- Automatic writing and automatic drawing – a letter from Comfort to Mrs Newton Crosland
- Balzac, Honoré de - Louis Lambert - 09 Resurrection
- Chichen Itza - Mayan - Platform of the Jaguars and Eagles
- Chichen Itza - Mayan - The Great Ball Court
- Colonel Townsend resurrects himself – dies and comes back to life by his own volition
- Crowley - 18 The Moon
- Dr M Morse - From Closer to the Light - Egyptian rebirth reconstruction
- Gaudi - Professional work - 14 The Rosary of Montserrat
- Liszt - Christus-Oratorio - 03 4 Resurrexit! (He has risen!)
- Major F Yeats-Brown on the 'resurrection of the dead yogi'
- Mayan - Popol Vuh - 09 The Resurrection of Seven Hunahpu
- Michelangelo - 1508 Sistine Chapel - 05 Prophets Jonah
- Mircea Eliade - Eggs and the Mysteries
- Mircea Eliade - Eggs as a universal symbol
- Mircea Eliade - Eskimo initiation
- Nizami – Makhzanol Asrar (The Treasury of Mysteries) – from Poets and Poetry 04
- Nizami – Makhzanol Asrar (The Treasury of Mysteries) – from The Second Discourse 01
- Ogotommeli - The Smith
- Qu’ran - Death
- Resurrection of Osiris
- Rosary of the Philosophers - 20 The Saint
- Saadi - The Gulistan of Sa‘di – 03 from the Panegyric of the Padsham of Islam
- Sacred geography – Picts – Wheelhouses 05 - A’ Cheardach Bheag South Uist
- Schuré - The Great Initiates – 09 Reconstruction of an Initiation ceremony
- Schuré - The Great Initiates – Isis and Osiris
- Sibelius - Lemminkäinen Suite
- Spencer, Stanley - 1927 The Resurrection, Cookham
- Spencer, Stanley - 1945 to 1950 Resurrection pictures
- Sterry, Peter - Rebirth and Higher spirit described
- The Lotus Sutra - 15 Life span - 1 The Parable of the poisoned children
- The Resurrection of Harides the Yoghi
- The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine - Key 08
- Tyaga the Road of Fire - 11
- Vatican - St Peters square
- W.Y. Evans-Wentz - The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries - The Pyramids as the site of the Mysteries
- Watson, Lyall - Fountains and snakes
- Yasna - Daena
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Mushaf as-suwar - 5th Book of Magnesia picture 8 - Resurrection
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Vision of Zosimos - 08