Virgo 2010: The Future Mystery Schools. Purification and Healing.
Keynote
“I am the Mother and the Child, I God, I matter am.”
Esoteric astrology is the science of the soul’s purpose, whether that is the individual, any of the other kingdoms, a rootrace, a group, a nation, the planet itself; as opposed to exoteric astrology which is related more to the personality per se, to the visible forms and structures that we see around us. (See Astrology introductions on this site.)
The right approach to the science of esoteric astrology and the seven rays, through study and meditation, will lead the earnest student to not only a profound understanding of their deepest psychological characteristics, but subsequent integrations that follow such realisations, leading to a closer alignment with the higher self; this in turn leads to a greater realisation of individual soul purpose – which is not separate from the purpose of one’s soul group.
For those who are building the antahkarana between personality and soul, esoteric astrology serves one purpose, and for those who are starting to build that bridge between the soul and the monad, it serves another. Yet at all stages of unfoldment, esoteric astrology serves as a great unifying and synthesising factor, as it has been rightly called “the science of all sciences”. One of its sub-sciences is the Science of Initiation, which brings an understanding of where we stand upon the way – in order to understand the nature of the next step in the soul’s journey and its peculiar testings.
Virgo is an ancient sign, so ancient that it conditioned much of what we call the “first solar system”, that is, the incarnation or life before the solar system that we currently inhabit. The energy associated with Virgo then was that of creative intelligence and this is still quite evident when the Virgo subject is considered – with their extremely refined mental characteristics and discriminative abilities.
Yet Virgo in this cycle is the sign that is receiving the strongest focus of the second ray of Love-Wisdom. Indeed, Virgo represents the soul gestating within the womb of matter: “Christ in you, the hope of glory”.
Virgo rules the caves under the earth, those womb-like places where the ancient mysteries would be enacted for candidates to the mysteries. The ancient Greek festival of Demeter in the month of Boedromion (September-Virgo) was known as the Eleusian Mysteries.
Candidates for initiation were led through dark underground caves in their quest for the light of knowledge and wisdom. These rituals are still enacted and preserved in Masonic lodges around the world. The seed grain of Virgo is emblematic of the Bread of Christ, the Love-Wisdom ray which expresses so strongly in Virgo. Bethlehem is the “house of bread” and connects Virgo with the first initiation:
“… the first initiation; the initiate-disciple still works in the dimly lit “cave of the spiritual birth”; he has to continue his struggle to reveal divinity, primarily on the physical plane – symbolised for us in the word “Bethlehem” which means the “house of bread.””1 “Simultaneously, large masses will take the first initiation and “in the house of bread” stand before the Initiator.”2
The opposite sign/month is Pisces/February, known as the “lesser mysteries” for which the masses were admitted. Pisces is ruled by Neptune, a planet related to mass consciousness, but it is also a “mass” sign. The parable of the “loaves and the fishes” is also intimately connected to Virgo-Pisces.
It is worthy to note that Greece today is ruled by Virgo at the soul level, reflecting its role as an ancient repository of the mysteries, as were of course all the Greek myths. Greece is also where one of the fourteen esoteric schools will be located in the future. New Zealand is a Virgo personality and will have a beginners school like Greece. Australia and Ireland are also Virgo souls and they will be the locations of two of the advanced schools.
Virgo and the second ray of love-wisdom are intimately related. Virgos are known for their scholarly approach to life – in this respect, the second ray has been referred to as the “ray of meticulous entirety”. Virgo loves studying and absorbing wisdom, hence one of the glamours of the second ray, “too much study”. Nevertheless, the connection to education and the new schools can be seen.
All of the zodiac signs have intricate relations with one another, not least Leo-Virgo, the Lion-Virgin, or enigmatic sphinx, emblem of the divine union of spirit-matter, soul and form, mind and heart, will and love; the “divine flames” and “divine builders”, hearkening back to a time when forms were created through “kriyashakti”, that is, the mysterious power of thought which enables it to produce external results by its own inherent energy. Physical sex is not involved, hence Virgo the Virgin and the “Christ child” born of the Virgin.
Virgo is associated with purification, a process that is constantly required at various stages of the path. We are mostly familiar with Virgo’s physical purification themes, such as diet, health, hygiene, yoga etc., all practiced around the time of the first initiation – as an integrative balancing of the etheric-physical that has just been stimulated by the inner Christ principle. It is interesting to note that Leo is also connected to the first degree, hence again the close association of these two signs.
The glyph for Virgo (F) symbolises the three-fold personality that must be purified, brought under control and aligned with the will of the higher self. The astral or desire nature is therefore a major area that those of the first degree working toward the second degree are confronted by. One of the major expressions of the astral desire nature is through sex and its right use. Virgo precedes Libra and Scorpio, the signs most associated with sex. Virgo can be puritanical about sex, bringing in a host of religious conditioning and other attitudes that can spoil its natural expression.
Virgo is intimately connected to the deva kingdom (the mother of the world) those divine builders that build all forms in nature. This building can take place on various levels, the physical plane or the thought-forms that are constructed upon the mental plane. Virgo is exoterically connected to Mercury, planet of the mind and the discriminating nature.
The mental plane is a major area of purification for Virgo, given its association with exoteric Mercury and the mind. The ancient sage Vyasa, when commenting upon the beings that constitute the higher planes, said, “Their lives are chaste,” i.e., free from impurity, or the limitations of the lower forms.
The shadow of the discriminating Virgo mind is separative criticism, something Virgo’s are well known for in their quest for perfection in themselves and others! This is where the Pisces polar opposite must be invoked so that loving understanding and compassion, forgiveness and acceptance can win over the lower mind. Virgo is a paradox in this respect – on the one hand the strong mental nature, and on the other the flowing through of the second ray of love-wisdom.
The latter force is of course the motivation behind Virgo the healer. Mercury is now in his guise as the caduceus symbol, the staff with intertwined serpents crowned by the wings of the soul. The serpents are the ida and pingala etheric nadis and the staff is the sushumna nadi.
Virgo the Mother, is the nurturer and the healer, with love-wisdom, invoking the healing devas, utilising the herbs and plants of the earth – applied with a deeply loving heart.
Rays two, four and six all find their way through Virgo. The fourth ray of harmony through conflict comes via the rulers of Virgo and the fourth ray, Mercury and the Moon. The Moon is of course the builder of forms but also very much the “conflict” part of the “harmony through conflict” equation. Virgo’s work is ever to raise matter “into heaven” and that process always brings in conflict between that which has been and that which is becoming.
Virgo is connected with the two other earth signs Taurus and Capricorn. Taurus acquires the light of knowledge, Virgo guards the light of wisdom and Capricorn shines the light of initiation through that which has been acquired and integrated in the two previous signs.
The Tibetan refers to the fact that Humanity is entering the “eighth month of a gestation period” counting from Virgo to Aquarius, the sign into which the Sun is now precessing for 2,160 years. There are eight signs: Virgo, Leo, Cancer, Gemini, Taurus, Aries, Pisces and Aquarius. The analogy is that Humanity are about to be “born”, the birth of a new era and new consciousness as well as the new civilisation and culture that goes with that; it could be taken even further into the “ninth month”, the age of Capricorn starting in a couple of millennia. There the results of the Aquarian cycle may make themselves the most manifest, in terms of the success of groups taking various initiations and liberating themselves from matter.
Phillip Lindsay © 2010.
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