(Continued fromPart 1.)
No, I’m afraid I know of no accounts of mergence. Even Hilarion, who speaks of a point well before it, says that the human ability to describe reaches its end at some point.
“When after ages of struggle and many victories the final battle is won, the final secret demanded, then you are prepared for a further path. When the final secret of this great lesson is told, in it is opened the mystery of the new way — a path which leads out of all human experience, and which is utterly beyond human perception or imagination.” (10)
Paramahansa Yogananda tells us that creation will not be dissolved until all of us reach that point of mergence:
“The dissolving of all creation is impossible until all souls cease to desire anything at all and thus become fully emancipated in God.” (11)
But now that we have this new information from Archangel Michael, we know it would be possible for the stragglers to leapfrog to mergence if the end of creation in the process of mahalaya or “cosmic sleep” were desired.
How could we expect mergence to be known when God Itself cannot be known? How many sages agree that God is not susceptible to our understanding? Let’s listen to a few of them.
The Upanishads
“He can neither be conceived of nor spoken of. [Brahman, God] is beyond all thought.” (12)
Sri Krishna
“I know all beings, Arjuna: past, present and to come. But no one knows me.” (13)
Sri Ramakrishna
“If you ask me what Brahman [God] is like, all I can say is that It cannot be described in words. Even when one has realized Brahman, one cannot describe It. If someone asks you what ghee is like, your answer will be, ‘Ghee is like ghee.’ The only analogy for Brahman is Brahman.” (14)
Pseudo-Dionysius
“If all knowledge is of that which is and is limited to the realm of the existent, then whatever transcends being must also transcend knowledge.” (15)
St John of the Cross
“God is … a dark night to man in this life.” (16)
Although we don’t know it, we’re drawn to It by an ineluctable longing for liberation. (17) Even Archangel Michael himself said that the longing for liberation impacted archangels and described the impact on himself. But let me leave that for another article.
Footnotes
(1) We’ll eventually have a transcript of that conversation.
(2) He reassured me that when they left the body they did not need to continue with the human rung of evolution but could return to the angelic realm.
(3) “Maha-parinibbana Sutta: Last Days of the Buddha,” translated from the Pali by Sister Vajira & Francis Story,” at http://tinyurl.com/k5v6szk.
(4) Genesis 28:12-14.
(5) Rumi, in Anne and Christopher Fremantle, In Love with Love. 100 of the Greatest Mystical Poems. New York, etc.: Paulist Press, 1978., 58.
(6) Sri Krishna in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944, 105.
(7) Hazrat Inayat Khan, Way of Illumination. Delhi, etc.: Motilal Banarsidass, 1988, 237.
(8) Philokalia, 2, 355.
(9) Al-Ghazzali in The Alchemy of Happiness. trans. Claud Field. Lahore: ASHRAF, 1971; c1964, 17.
(10) Ascended Master, probably the Master Hilarion, channelling through Mabel Collins, Light on the Path and an Essay on Karma. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974, 11-2.
(11) Paramahansa Yogananda, The Second Coming of Christ. Three vols. Dallas: Amrita Foundation, 1979, 1, 16.
(12) Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, trans., The Upanishads. Breath of the Eternal. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1957; c1948, 47.
(13) Sri Krishna in BG, 73.
(14) Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1978; c1942, 920.
(15) Pseudo-Dionysius in Cohn Luibheid, trans., Pseudo-Dionysus, His Complete Works. New York and Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1989, 53.
(16) St. John of the Cross in Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, trans. Complete Works of St. John of the Cross. Washington: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1973., 75.
(17) “The Longing for Liberation” at http://goldenageofgaia.com/spiritual-essays/the-longing-for-liberation/.
source.
http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/06/is-the-nature-of-final-mergence-knowable-part-22/