We are told that Cancer and Capricorn are the two great Gates of the zodiac - Cancer the gate into incarnation, mass life, and human experience, and Capricorn the gate into the life of the spirit, and the Kingdom of God.
Gates symbolise passing from one state to another, from one world to another, from the known to the unknown, from light to darkness and from darkness to light. They lead us to the mysterious, and their dynamic and compelling psychological quality both indicates a threshold and invites us to cross it. They represent an invitation to a voyage into the unknown.
The passage to which they invite us is more often than not, in the symbolic sense of the term, a passage from the realm of the profane to that of the sacred. This is embodied in the doorways of cathedrals, Hindu torana, the gateways of Khmer cities and temples, and so on.
The gates of Chinese cities were set at four points of the compass and through them evil influences were expelled and good influences were drawn in and the virtues of the Emperor were disseminated to the four corners of the Empire. The doors of churches and porticos of temples allow the pilgrim to enter and approach the very cella, the Holy of Holies or the real presence of God. In themselves they sum up the symbolism of the sanctuary, which is the gate of Heaven.
Gates speak of initiation (entrance) or crossing a threshold. Janus, the Roman god of initiation into the mysteries, held the keys of the Doors of the Solstices, that is of the ascendant and descendant phases of the annual solar cycle. These were the Gateway of the Gods and the Gateway of Men opening onto the two roads of which Janus, like Ganesha in India, was the master - pitri-yana and deva-yana in Hindu tradition, the roads of the Ancestors and of the Gods. The two gates are also called janua coeli and janua inferni, the Gates of Heaven and Hell.
Another gateway is the Hindu torana associated with Kala the Devourer where the gate is the monster's mouth, the image of the passage from life to death but also from death to liberation. This is the twofold cycle of expansion and reintegration, kalpa and pralaya. In Khmer art, the kala disgorges a pair of sea monsters or makara and they, in turn, vomit out what becomes the lintel of the doorway - a divine rainbow symbolising the antahkarana or bridge from earth to heaven. Interestingly, in esoteric literature, makaras are crocodile-like creatures representing both Capricorn and a mystic class of devas, the Manasaputras, signifying Mind, (manas), the human soul, and the Intelligent principle, referred to as the 'Fifth' principle in esoteric philosophy. It is the mind which provides the support structure (lintel) for the gate or doorway that takes one into the light.
And so it goes on - gateway symbolism abounds in all spiritual traditions. In the Old and New Testaments, we must enter the gates of Jerusalem to attain eternal life, and God opens gates to shower His blessings upon mankind. i St John even went so far as to refer to the Christ as the gate to life ii
We are told that all souls come into incarnation to become human through the gateway of Cancer. It is known as "the doorway into life of those who must know death" while Capricorn, the other gate, is known as the "doorway into life of those who know not death. iii
Humanity cannot reach the doorway for those who know no death except by the doorway that leads to death. And no one would argue that death, in all its variations, is not one of the characteristics of life on this planet.
But we are living in times when the consciousness of the overshadowing soul of humanity is awakening en masse and Alice Bailey indicates this can be seen in the following developments:
1. The growth of societies, organisations and mass movements for the betterment of humanity everywhere.
2.The growing interest of the mass of the people in the common welfare……
3. Humanitarian and philanthropic effort is at its height, alongside the cruelties, hatreds and abnormalities which separativeness, overstressed national ideologies, aggressiveness and ambition have engendered in the life of all nations.
4. Education is rapidly becoming mass effort and the children of all nations from the highest to the lowest are being intellectually equipped as never before………
5. The growing recognition by those in authority that the man in the street is becoming a factor in world affairs. He is reached on all sides by the press and the radio, and is today intelligent enough and interested enough to be making the attempt to form his own opinions and come to his own conclusions. This is embryonic as yet………….the people are told just what is good for them; reservations and secret diplomacy colour the relation of the government to the masses, and the helplessness of the man in the street (in the face of authorities in the realm of politics, conditioning decisions such as war or peace, and theological impositions, as well as economic attitudes) is still pitiful, though not so great and so drastic as it was. The soul of humanity is awakening and the present situations may be regarded as temporary. iv
Of course, Bailey's description of 50 years ago does not include other aspects of the massive globalisation that has taken place in a single generation, including the development of television and the internet, dramatically increased international trade, and ease of travel to almost anywhere in the world. This has resulted in the gestation of a new life form - a global consciousness - and humanity is experiencing all the birth pangs associated with its appearance. As the process of what has been termed "planetisation" takes place, the forces of divergence which have for so long governed humanity are slowly giving way to the forces of convergence and as this convergence takes place, humanity is becoming conscious of itself as part of the one life and realizing its importance to the evolutionary process, or, in spiritual parlance, the Plan of God.
According to Teilhard de Chardin, the French Jesuit paleontologist who lived from 1881-1955, this divergence was a "biological condition of discovery and enrichment allowing for the development of varied human potential". v But for several reasons divergence cannot be the chief force in human evolution. Even the spherical shape of the planet means that people cannot travel endlessly without encountering each other. Teilhard demonstrated this by the example of the meridians on a sphere which separate from one pole, reach a maximum divergence at the equator and move toward convergence at the opposite pole. Through the increases in population and the expanding communication network that encircles the earth in the twenty first century, the forces of divergence have been superseded by the forces of convergence and races, peoples and nations consolidate one another and complete one another by mutual fecundation. vi
The momentous implications for humanity are obvious and already apparent. Although the human race has been conditioned to divergence for millennia, we are being forced to develop the strategies and skills of convergence. At the same time, the divergence strategies of war, hostility, isolation, and separation, while perhaps appropriate in the past, are now counter to the evolutionary thrust and the development of global consciousness that is increasingly becoming the note of the mass consciousness of humanity.
While many fear that union means uniformity, Teilhard saw a single dynamic at work which he described under the notions of "complexity consciousness" and "differentiated centre to centre union". "In any domain, whether it be the cells of a body, the members of a society or the elements of a spiritual synthesis - union differentiatesvii. He went on to say that this union of elements does not absorb their identity or swallow up their individuality; rather it intensifies their identity through the energy that flows from centre to centre in the union. "Following the confluent orbits of their centre, the grains of consciousness do not tend to lose their outlines and blend, but, on the contrary, to accentuate the depth and incommunicability of their egos. The more other they become in the conjunction, the more they find themselves as self. viiiIt follows, then, that the more we unite with others, the greater is our ability to shine as individuals and fulfill the will of God for our lives. The individual waves rising from the Sea of Glass are still part of the sea and, indeed, cannot rise up in majesty without the support of the sea.
For Teilhard "complexification-consciousness", or the process of complexifying and deepening intelligence is the fundamental law of evolution. He saw earth as a series of envelopes - first, the lithosphere or the surface layer of rock, then the atmosphere develops, then the hydrosphere and after that, the biosphere. But his understanding was that in our time another layer is being added, the noosphere, a layer generated by human thought symbolized by the internet on one level, the Universal Mind on another.
He also introduced the concept of "hominisation" which is the way in which human thought transforms previously existing practices and functions of the earth. One example of this is that the earth makes decisions and choices all the time and this is referred to as natural selection. But when one adds human thought and imagination into the equation, it explodes all of the decisions that are being made all over the planet. Human decision hominises the natural selection process, for good or bad. Another example is the antics of young mammals; they play hide and seek and chase each other around and we hominise it by creating massive entertainment and sports and recreation industries. Everything goes through this explosion when touched by human imagination and thought. Teilhard postulated that love is also being hominised and this involves humanity taking the power of love and focusing and amplifying it to make it a driving and monumental force to further the evolution of humanity, in accordance with the will of God. As Teilhard contemplated these developments he gave us his most famous quote, "The day will come when we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for a second time the world would have discovered fire". ix
We are witnessing the hominisation of love in so many ways today. Recent examples are mass events including Live8, the enormous public interest in the G8 Summit, concerns about world poverty, the worldwide horror at localised terrorist attacks, working together to solve planetary problems such as global warming and so on.
It is interesting that Alice Bailey suggests that one way the impulse of the will of God is manifesting is through public opinion, and, in fact, "public opinion is being determined by the will of God". x She further suggests that just as consciousness expresses itself through light, public opinion, the voice of the masses, expresses itself through sound. Perhaps this may give us pause for reflection on the underlying spiritual energy of the Live8 concerts.
We must not underestimate the power of massed intent expressed through public opinion to bring about world change. Bailey again, "the massed power of goodwill, the dynamic effect of intelligent and active understanding, and the potency of a trained and alive public opinion which desires the greatest good of the greatest number, are beyond belief. This dynamic power has never been employed. It can, today, save the world". xi
In fact, we are also told that the door where evil dwells will be closed through "the sheer weight of public opinion" as goodwill and light stream forth into the hearts and minds of men to create a longing for right human relations and a determination to create a better and more peaceful world. xiiThis expresses itself as a will-to-good or in Teilhard's terminology, the hominisation of love.
Therefore, it is not surprising that we are told that the "arousing of public opinion to world rights, and to inclusive human interests and to international co-operation is the true goal of present spiritual endeavour (emphasis mine). xiii How many of us have considered this as we contemplate how best to serve? The importance of public opinion is perhaps summed up by two great American presidents: Thomas Jefferson - "the force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to", and Abraham Lincoln - ""Public opinion in this country is everything."
In recognition of the power of an informed public opinion, we are told that the efforts of the Christ and Hierarchy have been directed to clarifying issues in the minds of humanity towards indicating the lines along which right action should be taken. "From the realm of ideas (or of soul knowledge) energy pours through. The "public opinion" of the soul realm seeps little by little into the dense minds of men, and to it can be traced all the forward movements of the present time, all organisation of general welfare and of group betterment; all religious concepts and all outer knowledge of the Causes which produce objectivity. These ideas assume a mental form, first of all, and some mind grasps them and ponders upon them, or passes them on to some group of thinkers, and the work of "thinking through" goes forward. Then the quality of desire begins to enter in, and there is an emotional reaction to the thoughts which the ideas have evoked, and the form is gradually built." xiv
If that is the case, then we all have a role to play to ensure that public opinion is educated and enlightened so that it can continue to increase in potency and reflect the will of God. One way we can do this is to become informed ourselves and speak out on issues that impact on humanity. We can also channel the energies of evolution towards convergence and the organic, personalised global consciousness it is producing.
We entered the gate of Cancer to assist with the work of salvation by bringing spirit into matter according to the plan of God which is evolutionary in expression. Revealing the nature, quality and character of God in manifestation is Cancer in Activity. For untold numbers of lifetimes we become trapped in the very matter we came to redeem and express the keynote of Cancer for the undeveloped person, "the blind unit is lost". But as we grow in consciousness we start to take note of our surroundings so that we come to demonstrate the keynote for the advanced person, "The unit awakens to that which is around". Finally, the disciple in Cancer expresses the climax of the Cancer experience, "the Whole is seen as one".
Teilhard is one disciple who saw the whole as one and who had utter faith in the evolutionary process expressed through the Cancer experience, "When I consider the inexorable nature of the universal impulse which for more than six million years has ceaselessly promoted the global rise of consciousness on the earth's surface, driving on through an endlessly multiplying network of opposing hazards; when I reflect upon the irresistible forces (geographical, ethnic, economic and psychic) whose combined effect is to thrust the human mass ever more tightly in upon itself; when finally, on the occasion of some great act of collaboration or devotion, I perceive as though in a lightning flash the prodigious, still-slumbering affinity which draws the "thinking molecules" of the world together - wherever I look I am forced to the same conclusion: that the earth is more likely to stop turning than is Mankind, as a whole, likely to stop organising and unifying itself". xv
Writing to his cousin just after WWII, Teilhard said, "the future is more beautiful than all the pasts". xvi Alice Bailey shares that view and tells us, "the race as a whole stands now at the very entrance to the Path of Discipleship. The racial gaze is forward to the vision, whether it is the vision of the soul, a vision of a better way of life, of an improved economic situation, or of better inter-racial relationship. That this vision is oft distorted, that it is materially oriented or only partially seen is sadly true; but in some form or another there exists today an appreciable grasp of the "new and desirable" by the masses-a thing hitherto unknown. In the past, it was the intelligentsia or the elect who were privileged to have the vision. Today, it is the mass of men. Humanity, therefore, as a whole stands ready for a general alignment process". xvii
Having come through "the doorway into life of those who know death" we are now preparing to approach "the doorway into life of those who know not death". We are living in a time of planned mass initiation, the first such occurrence since humanity appeared on earth. The energies of convergence cannot be stopped - convergence not just of our minds but also of our hearts, a point that Teilhard stressed with passion and fervent faith in the outcome. For those of us who love and serve humanity, this is the culmination of our joy, the reward of our labours.
At the recent Live8 concert, Bob Geldof said, "Mahatma Gandhi freed a continent, Martin Luther King freed a people, Nelson Mandela freed a country. It does work". It does, indeed, work and the time is approaching when humanity as a whole will be the liberator and take all creation through the doorway into the life of those who know not death.