According to sages, the one formless God, decided that It wished to know itself, a circumstance that was difficult when It is all there is. Reflecting upon the matter, it hit upon a Plan – a Divine Plan.
It decided to create a temporary and fictitious Other. The Formless would create an Other in form and then unite with this Second to create a Third. It would then hide this Third in a multitude of other fictitious and temporary forms created by the Second.
It would set for this multitude of others the task of knowing themselves as the essence of their forms, at which point the Unknown would become known. God would meet God if only for a flash in a moment of our enlightenment.
And so it set about to divide itself. The patriarchal ancients named the Indivisible the “Father.” And the Other, which was created from the formless Father, the form that moved and spoke and acted upon the physical elements (“moved upon the waters”), they named the “Mother.”
In fact she was given many names: Shakti, the Holy Spirit, Wisdom, Prakriti/Procreatrix, Aum/Amen. And so the One became Two … or so it seemed.
And the Two created a Third. This fragment of the Father, which the ancients called the Self, the Christ and the Atman, was embedded in countless individual forms created by the Mother.
This individuated Self was again fictitious, a time-bomb that would, when the match was lit and the time was right, burst into light and (eventually) return to the One that was All, leaving only the One again. The Christ would make itself subject to the Father again so that the Father became All in all is the way I believe Jesus phrased it.
Only the Mother can be visualized; the Father is formless and unknowable
But in the process the One, ever mirthful, ever blissful, would catch a glimpse of Itself.
What a wonderful game had been created, the Game of Life! It was a masked ball, a game of hide-and-seek, a game of blind man’s bluff.
The Father, the Mother and the Child. In altered order: the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Or Brahman, Atman, and Shakti if you prefer. All the same.
This Trinity represents the three levels of reality that we all must know before we reach the mountaintop of human life, the top of the stairway to heaven, the pinnacle of Jacob’s ladder.
And we do so by realizing these three members of the Trinity in reverse order: Child, Mother, Father.
When the spiritual current or kundalini reaches the fourth or heart chakra, we realize the Child or Christ, as a discrete light burning in the darkness. We experience spiritual awakening or stream-entering.
When the kundalini reaches the sixth or brow chakra, the Third Eye is opened and we realize the Mother, the Light in all creation. We experience cosmic consciousness or saviklapa samadhi, samadhi with differences intact.
When the kundalini reaches the seventh or crown chakra, we realize the Father, the Light beyond creation, the Transcendental Absolute. We experience Brahmajnana (God Realization) or kevalya nirvikalpa samadhi, samadhi with a temporary heart opening, samadhi without differences.
Ah, but that is not all. Even that, though it shows us all three members of the Trinity, is not the end of the tale. Next the kundalini reaches the spiritual heart or hridayam and the temporary heart opening becomes permanent. This is sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi and brings us liberation from birth and death.
The Child is the Self, the Christ, the Atman, the Light always burning on the alter of the heart
Now we’ve truly reached the mountaintop that humans must climb. But off in the distance as far as the eye can see, we glimpse more mountains rising range upon range.
And we see more travellers, in different forms, some with bodies of light, some with wings, all of them marching on or returning. Angels ascending and descending Jacob’s ladder.
And ever as we climb, we know ourselves more deeply as love, bliss and wisdom. Ever as we climb, our experience of life expands and our needs and desires fall away, save the one desire to reach the pinnacle of the highest mountain that we can see, where waits for us the Secret of Life.
The One became Two and the Two became Three. And the Three became a multitude and went out into the world. The Mother taught her children well and showed them the direction of the journey they must take.
The prodigal Child enjoyed the material world; ate, drank and made merry. And when finished with all the delights of the world, it took up the journey again, driven on by an inextinguishable longing that only God could satisfy, placed there by God himself to drive us on.
And It tasked all who had completed the journey to return and help the numberless children along by showing them the way.
And the Three became Two and the Two become One and the journey was complete. And this realized One, this realized Child who had become the Father, went out again into the world to help the many.
And so the cycle continues, world without end.