Glossary
The Tree of Life
When we speak of the point of our ultimate origin we often talk of 'God', meaning the highest manifest being that we can comprehend. A very subtle part of the human mind doesn't feel satisfied unless it can 'comprehend' something, which literally means putting a circle around it or containing it. But if we could contain the infinite, it wouldn't be unmanifest and hence no longer infinite.
We have to let the infinite be what it is - the unmanifest. If we could reach the final limit it wouldn't be infinite but finite. An old Chinese text says the essence of emptiness is unfillability. This is a very interesting concept because it is not emptiness per se. Emptiness means unfillability. It is so profound, so infinite that it cannot be filled. Therefore it always seems empty, and that means constant growth. Because you cannot ever say: I am filled, I am complete, I have reached the limit of my development. So none of us can ever be 'full'. The Chinese said this emptiness is the womb which produces all things. It is the door through which heaven and earth first issued at their root.
The path back to the Source, the root of our being, lies in self-development - reuniting the lunar and solar strands of the self. And returning to the Source does not mean our embodied forms and unique self-natures disappearing and being swallowed up by it. On the contrary, it means rising to the highest level of the Tree of Life where beings blissfully exist in closest possible proximity to the Source, even entering it from time to time so that more of its infinite and inexhaustible wonders can be explored.
One of the most profound truths is that no manifest being, however high, can contain (i.e. possess exclusively) the life-energy source of his or her own existence. The Unmanifest Source of Limitless Love-Power-Wisdom alone can be the source of all manifest beings. We share our ultimate point of origin, that infinite and unmanifest source of energy, with all other manifest beings. This is why many traditions in our world have spoken of the oneness of existence, even stating that there is no real individuality - that the myriad forms we see in the world about us are simply an illusion. Yet this is an oversimplification. The truth is rather that cutting off oneself from the Source of Life through an illusion of self-sufficiency retards and undermines individuality. The more one repairs one's connection with the Source, the greater the degree to which we can express our abiding self-natures in bliss, wisdom and power. We are all at one or unified in terms of our origin and source. Yet as manifest beings, each of us with a unique self-nature, oneness can only be realized as harmonious divergence - every being expressing his or her self in the deepest way without infringing on the rights of or harming others. As we shall see, this is only possible in the three highest levels of the Tree of Life.
The origins of the Tree, and of the manifest pleroma of seven powers that upholds it, lies in primordial history, when a tragic error momentarily blinded a god, who, imagining that it would enhance his power, desired to contain the Source of Life within himself. But in seeking to manifest the source of life out of the unmanifest disaster came, as such a wish could only succeed in cutting him off from the flow and circuit of life, and he fell into a death-like dream. The effect of his instantaneously implemented wish was the evocation out of the unmanifest of something that was never meant to be made manifest: a monstrous image of evil, emanating pure lovelessness.
His divine consort then evoked her healing power to awaken him from his death-like dream, and as he awoke he rejected and expelled the horrible image of evil from himself. Many other beings rejected evil likewise, but still others, becoming intoxicated with the power they thought they could obtain through it (and not seeing that lovelessness is ultimately self-destructive), cut themselves off from the Source, this time consciously rejecting Love as they did so.
This brought the consequences of their choice immediately upon them, as for the first time the cosmic power of pleromic Saturn came into manifestation. And the fierce and inexorable power of karma created an impenetrable barrier that, as it expanded, pushed them further and further away from the Source of Life. The power of pleromic Moon then manifested in turn, creating yet another barrier separating the loveless ones from the Source of Life. Then followed further barriers as the powers of pleromic Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and finally Mercury manifested in turn, and thus the great Tree of Life was formed.
The purpose of the Tree is not to punish but to provide a long-term therapeutic measure by which all entities who chose evil could have time to see the consequences of their choices, reject it, be healed from it and recover their true natures.
The Seven Levels of the Tree:
The Pleromic Saturn Sector
(comprising all world types from 1 through 10)
It is within the seventh level of the Tree of Life - the one most remote from the Source of Life, that our earth and all other Pluto-type worlds are located. In any type of world in the Saturnian sector of the Tree, predation is strongly marked (an inevitable consequence of the rejection of love). This means that conditions of psychosis, disease, stress, relatively short-youthfulness and swift aging cause much misery among the inhabitants of these worlds. Yet all is not hopeless, as Saturn or karma is a most excellent teacher through experience, and the limitations and difficulties inherent in life in these worlds not only protect most of the inhabitants against further degeneration, but help them gradually evolve into a more loving state of consciousness. They can then pass into a higher sector of the Tree.
The gradual rescue of many beings from the Saturnian sector of the Tree has been going on for eons. Yet very long ago it was foreseen that human beings in all Pluto-type worlds would discover plutonium, develop the atomic bomb and also destroy the biospheres of their worlds with burgeoning technology. And when that happened, multitudes of beings not yet ready to incarnate on higher worlds would be stranded without a place of suitable incarnation.
To forestall this outcome the higher beings devised and have already set into motion the Cosmic Lion Path. This means that every life-bearing planet (of whatever type of world) will undergo a planetary-wide transformation. World types 1-9 have already undergone this, and multitudes of inhabitants of all these worlds are now being incarnated in higher types of worlds. The Pluto-type worlds are now in the final stages of their Lion Path transformation.
When a life-bearing planet completes its Lion Path process, it is released from its eons-long responsibility to provide a refuge and place of incarnation for all the beings in its biosphere. Biological life-forms (human and non-human alike) then die out on the planet and are reborn elsewhere. But when the Pluto-type worlds wind up this creates a special problem because, in the wake of the widespread insanity and misery caused by their technocracies, countless beings become either so traumatized or criminally insane that they could not incarnate on any higher world type. Special refuges and therapeutic centers have been set up on worlds of type 33 and 34 to accommodate them, of which more later.
The Pleromic Moon Sector (comprising world types 11 through 32)
As explained earlier under Bardo-jumping, people who successfully walk the earth's Lion Path will be able to reincarnate in higher world types belonging to this sector of the Tree of Life. The many-faceted world types governed by Pleromic Moon are planets in which beings learn to fulfill the quest of their lunar strands to rejoin with their solar strands. Incarnation in every successively higher world type enables their inhabitants to develop an extra power of shamanic control, which is reflected in greater and greater degrees of ecological symbiosis. In all these worlds symbiosis is greater than predation. Consequently their inhabitants enjoy prolonged youth and vigor, as well as longer and happier lives than are possible in worlds of the Saturnian sector.
The Pleromic Venus Sector (comprising all worlds of type 33)
These very beautiful worlds are completely symbiotic - totally free of predation. Those who incarnate in these worlds because of merit are not only free from either disease or aging and are virtually immortal, but learn here how to exercise their wills without creating disharmony.
This is no sinecure, because these natural inhabitants are not only interacting with beings of their own level of evolution, but have also chosen to take on the responsibility of parenting (i.e. providing incarnational opportunities) for beings from Pluto-type worlds who are unfit (either because of severe trauma or hardened evil traits) to incarnate on any intermediate type of world.
Those needing drastic soul-rescue measures must necessarily be born on type-33 worlds. Incarnations do not take place in the intensive therapy worlds of type 34 because such souls must first be prepared for drastic therapies by a preliminary spell of life in a non-predatory environment. These victims and criminal perpetrators are, however, in need of far more radical treatments and so are sent away at relatively early ages, passing through special gates from the world of their birth into that of a healing world.
Eventually many of the natural inhabitants of these Venusian worlds go on to train as therapists in the healing worlds.
The Pleromic Sun Sector (comprising the Healing Worlds - type 34)
These worlds are ruled by the pleromic Sun because their therapies are centered upon healing wounded or criminal lunar strands of souls by reconnecting them with their healing solar strands. Accessing the power of the solar strand allows the most powerful forms of healing to take place, for the solar strand in every being is their own personal gateway to the Source of Life.
The biosphere on a world of type 34 differs in one crucial respect from that of a type-33. It is an outpost of the Q (Quintessential) Universe and sustained by a steady stream of cellular-renewing energy coming directly from Q itself. This stream of energy, renewing bodily cells nanosecond by nanosecond, ensures the non-aging of those undergoing therapy. The simple fact is that the minds of victims and criminals (blocked from love either by deep fear, or hate, or a combination of both and undergoing tremendous stress during treatment) would otherwise age and deteriorate rapidly, perhaps leading to their deaths before their therapies were complete. The stream of energy from Q preserves their bodies in a state of maximal youth and health for the time of the treatment.
Although no one is born directly into a world of type 34, these worlds do however possess bardos for reasons of therapy. Healers can release patients' souls into the bardo during sleep to conduct more intensive psychotherapies and to speed up the soul's reconstruction process. In the anti-time of the bardo time works in reverse, so that the future becomes like the past and the past like the future. This means that habits of the past become as if they are in the future (i.e. as if they had not yet happened) and can be made malleable and melt in the fire of consciousness. The future becoming like the past means that latent abilities, as yet simply undeveloped potential, are evoked as if they have been already achieved.
Criminal perpetrators - people who have deeply ingrained habits of causing others grievous harm - are contained in special areas of a healing world where they can no longer victimize people more helpless and gentle than they are. These would include not only the kinds of despots that willingly sent countless others to their deaths to satisfy their ambition and sadistic need to control, but also those who were placed in positions of great power and harmed others through indifference to anything but short-term greed.
One of the therapies that these people will experience are custom-built nightmares, in which the things they did to others they now experience, the shoe being on the other foot. Such drastic therapies are the only hope for such pathologically self-centered souls to have to chance to turn-around into sanity, and if they do, the way back is necessarily long and hard because of the huge weight of accumulated karma from harming others. The reality is that it is much harder to heal a perpetrator than a victim.
Another important form of therapy is a partial memory wipe-out. This is a deep and irrevocable cleansing at the level of the soul, unimaginably different from the crude and cruel methods (such as electro-shock treatment) that people have been subjected to on earth. Parts of the transincarnational memory of a patient's lunar strand are permanently erased. This is done for victims so that the memories that deeply wounded and traumatized them can be mercifully erased. For former perpetrators who are now contrite and anxious to repudiate their former behavior, erasing certain memories may be appropriate if the person would otherwise be so mired in guilt that they could not respond healthily to others.
Such partial memory erasures are most expertly and carefully applied to individual souls, because the restoration to love and sanity should involve more than the simple erasure of all memory of evil. The return to a higher stage of evolution should include acquiring the maximum wisdom distilled out of the intimate confrontation with and rejection of brute, conscious, all-devouring evil. One's higher nature should include a heroic quality, able to protect oneself and others against lovelessness.
But in the case of a soul where the lunar strand of the soul is so poisoned by evil that it consistently rejects all therapy, the entire memory of its diseased lunar strand would be wiped out. Then the cleansed lunar strand has a new chance to fulfill and not to betray the nature of its solar strand. An appropriate type of world would then be selected for their next incarnation as they would then need a strong dose of experience on molecular worlds to partially regain their lost development. Though healed, it is karmically appropriate and inevitable that their evolution will be always behind that of those they have victimized and those who have heroically redeemed themselves.
As mentioned before, deeply traumatized victims are not simply compensated by erasure of their pain and simple restoration of what they were before such traumas. Their therapies then include evolutionary acceleration - the activation of latent potentials within so that they can be reincarnated on a very high world type, and their path back to the highest level of the Tree of Life consequently eased and smoothed.
It is of course relatively rare that a soul is either almost completely victimized or, at the other end of the scale, completely criminal. There are many shades and graduations between these two extremes, and the vast majority of victims become, to some extent, perpetrators of misery on others. The therapists in the healing worlds can plumb the depths of each soul, perceiving the exact proportions of victimization and criminal behaviour that have affected it, and adjust their therapies accordingly for maximal efficacy and swiftest possible healing and resolution of the soul's complexes.
The Pleromic Mars Sector (comprising all worlds of type 35)
Once someone has spent some time on a type-34 world as healer and therapist, they are then ready for the next stage of evolutionary development in a type-35 world. These worlds contain temple of high initiations and the inhabitants practice methods of transducing energy and consciousness that prepare them for the Q-universe that lies beyond. Pleromic Mars rules mental clarity and healing, as well as the ability to focus ones energy to transfer into a higher type world -- it is the principle of shamanic journeying in its highest application. It is within these worlds that people learn how to function in the worlds of the Q.
The Pleromic Jupiter Sector (comprising the central Q-Universe)
The inhabitants of the seven worlds of the Q are profoundly wise and bodhisattvic beings who administer the entire multiverse (three universes containing huge numbers of worlds of each type). They are semi-divine beings who, though, their bodies are molecular, are nevertheless immortal because constant cellular renewal takes place. They choose to be in Q and subject to the relative restraints of molecular embodiment so that they can minister to the needs of beings in lower world types.
The Mercury Pleromic Sector - the 7-D-Universe
This is the realm of eternal, nonmolecular life where divine beings have wondrous bodies that, like waves of light, can take any beauteous form they desire, so they are not indefinitely confined to any one kind of body shape, color, pattern of appearance or function. Though of infinite duration, life is characterized by unimaginable heights of bliss, power and wisdom.
The Cosmic Lion Path and the Denouement of the Tree of Life
As we have seen, the Tree of Life came into being with the Cosmic Pleroma so that that the greatest possible number of beings who chose lovelessness in the primordial disaster could have a chance to disavow it and re-choose love and sanity. The therapeutic measures built into the structure of the Tree itself have given countless beings the opportunity to ascend through the types of worlds and recover their original self-natures and powers. The Tree of Life and its seven pleromic levels could not continue indefinitely, however, because of the free will of evil that would be exercised on certain worlds to destroy the biospheres and ruin these worlds as karmic rehabilitation centers.
Therefore the Cosmic Lion Path was initiated to rescue all the inhabitants of world types 1 through 32 either (a) through their walking the planetary Lion Path when it came to their world or (b) giving special therapies and karmic compensation in accelerated evolution to deeply traumatized victims of evil or (c), the most difficult task of all - rehabilitating the most evil souls who resist love to the last. Some might ask, why bother? Why not let them destroy themselves? The answer lies is that no matter how evil a soul becomes, its solar strand or higher self is innocent of the crimes committed by its diseased lunar strand. Rescue is undertaken through the cleansing of the lunar strand so that its solar strand, has another chance to manifest and fulfill its unique and infinite potential.
There will come a time when all worlds with any degree of predation (types 1 through 32) will have completed their Lion Path development. The only populated world types then left, other than the Q-universe and the 7-D world, will be types 33, 34 and 35. These may well continue for a very long time until all the residual evil souls have either renounced lovelessness of their own free will or in some cases, have had their lunar strands (and all the memories and sense of identity therewith) totally cleansed and scoured out. Such souls would then probably need an extended period of time in which to experience life in molecular form and situations whereby they could be vetted and their trustworthiness assessed.
So far we have been looking at the Cosmic Lion Path from the perspective of rescuing beings in biological life forms (humans, fauna and flora). Yet the rocks and the minerals, the very atoms themselves, are also forms of life that, like us, lost their higher nonmolecular forms in the primordial disaster. Their turn comes when the rescue of all beings in biological life forms has been completed. Then all the molecular worlds (even those of the central administrative Q-universe) disappear. As explained in The Lion Path: The Big Picture, our universe is part of a four-part multiverse (the three universes of love, will and wisdom, and the central Q-universe) which comprise 15 dimensions of space in all. There is also a 7-D universe that lies beyond it. When all the effects of the primordial disaster have been corrected, this 22-D scheme of things enlarges into a greater 24-D one. With this dimensional enlargement, the entire molecular-based multiverse re-appears in its higher nonmolecular form: two other parallel universes, equal in degree and power and sharing the same time-dimension as the 7-D world. Though each one of these universes has a special emphasis on love, will or wisdom, the resonant harmony between the three of them will be greater than ever before possible.