By: Ranilo Abando (Manila, October 8, 2020) ***
Folks, in my last blog post I have mentioned in my interpretation of the holy mountain allegory that the human mind column appears to have two sections: the lower and the upper. I have tried looking for ancient sources that are relevant to that discussion. I have found the following three sources.
Ancient Mesopotamian Creation Stories
In an ancient Sumerian myth known today as Gilgamesh and the Netherworld, the heavens and earth were united a long time ago, only to be split apart later. In the Sumerian manuscript Eridu Genesis, the god Enlil plays a vital role in creation because he separated An (heaven) from Ki (earth).
My interpretation of the above is: The names of the gods mentioned are mere deification of concepts in order to convey the ideas in a story frame. The ancient Sumerians appear to had understood that the human mind was split into two sections in order to produce separate virtual realities of two types.
Ancient Egyptian Creation Story
Atum produced from his own semen, Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, the goddess of moisture. The brother and sister, curious about the primeval waters that surrounded them, went to explore the waters and disappeared into the darkness. Unable to bear his loss, Atum sent a fiery messenger, the Eye of Ra, to find his children.
My interpretation of the above is: The ancient Egyptians were good in using the technique of deification of concepts. Shu metaphorically represents the human higher mind, while Tefnut represents the lower mind. Air – because the higher mind has a less rigid and more refined composition. Moisture – because the lower mind has a less refined composition and more rigid. The waters refer to the surrounding primordial singularity from which part of the composition of our mind emerged. The Eye of Ra is the seat of consciousness in each of us. We build our own worlds.
Kalevala Creation Story
The following fragments of poetry is from the creation story in the Kalevala, the epic poem from Finland, which was written and documented from very old oral traditions passed from one generation to another:
Thereupon the duck in beauty,
Flying slowly, looking round her,
Spies the shoulders of the maiden,
Sees the knees of Ether’s daughter,
Now the hapless water-mother,
Thinks them to be grassy hillocks,
On the blue back of the ocean.
Thence she flies and hovers slowly,
Lightly on the knee she settles,
Finds a nesting-place befitting,
Where to lay her eggs in safety.
Here she builds her humble dwelling,
Lays her eggs within, at pleasure,
Six, the golden eggs she lays there,
Then a seventh, an egg of iron;
My interpretation of the above lines is the following: The “beauteous duck descending“ is a person’s seat of consciousness. It went down the column of the mind that was previously formed in order to initiate the building of virtual worlds. The maiden’s knee raised above waters is a metaphor for the emergent existence of the person’s mind column after its separation from the surrounding primordial singularity. The eggs laid refer to the different virtual worlds to be perceived by the seat of consciousness. The six golden eggs are the heavenly worlds, while the iron egg is the physical world. The former are metaphorically golden, because the upper mind that displays them has more refined composition and less rigid. The seventh egg is metaphorically iron, because it is more rigid and has less refined composition. The number seven is often used by ancients merely to imply the idea of completeness.
All the fragments come together
Forming pieces two in number,
One the upper, one the lower,
Equal to the one, the other.
From one half the egg, the lower,
Grows the nether vault of Terra:
From the upper half remaining,
Grows the upper vault of Heaven;
My interpretation of the above lines is the following: In the above lines, the broken eggs metaphorically refer to the separation of the mind column into two sections: the lower which builds the virtual physical world and the upper which builds the virtual heavenly worlds. Each of us builds his or her own worlds. Creation happened inside each and everyone of us.
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I recommend that anybody who wants to access the details of the above sources find some time to do some research of his own. All the materials are widely available in the internet. Thank you.
(Thanks to pexels.com for the heavenly photo above)