The Prodigal Son by Peter A. Rousseau

“The Return of the Prodigal Son” (1773) by Italian painter Pompeo Batoni. The painting is based on Jesus Christ's parable of The Prodigal Son; Luke 15:11–32.

The Prodigal Son
by Peter A. Rousseau

Perhaps the most powerful of all the parables delivered by Christ Jesus is the well known story of the Prodigal Son. This great story has meaning on multiple levels. It has a surface meaning, the exoteric meaning, and reads as a story with the meaning wholly contained in the format of the words used. We learn of the impatient son, yearning to leave his father's estate on an adventuresome journey; of the heartbroken and concerned father, who knows that he must allow his son to depart, because he made him, after all a free will being; yet, the father is fearful for his son, because of his youth and inexperience and he yearns every day for his safe return.

We also know that the prodigal son upon leaving, took with him, the full measure of his inheritance and left home a rich man in every respect. He did, however, over time, squander his riches in riotous living and arrived at a state of destitution, having no longer any of the riches he arrived with. At this point he begins to reflect on his former life in his father's mansion and feels a yearning develop within himself to return, having exhausted himself during his long absence. Upon his return, his father prepared a celebration to commemorate the joyful arrival of his son who was lost, but now is once again found. Now let us discuss the parable from the esoteric viewpoint and gain deeper insight into the vastly more profound meaning hidden within this allegorical tale.

Before creation, humanity existed within the consciousness of Paramatma, the Supreme Spirit, in the form of virgin spirits. We lived in Divine Consciousness, and were in a state of constant bliss, sat-chit-ananda, although we were not conscious of it. All that the Father had was ours also, and this had been so from all eternity. One could say that we became restless and longed for manifestation, and Govinda, in His mercy and love, and in full accordance with His nature, allowed for billions of Divine sparks to be struck off from His eternal Being and be placed in manifestation; and this in no way limited or made minimal the Divine personality of the great Author of Life.

The virgin spirits had no concept or capacity to know that they were Divine creatures, because they had not become individualized and as such lacked a mind capable of rendering them self-conscious. This Divine mind was something that could only be acquired through a long process of evolution. It is for this reason, to acquire a Divine mind, that humanity left the bosom of Bhagavan, Almighty Father, in hopes of evolving the faculties necessary to cognize directly their own divinity.

The process wherein these virgin spirits descended from Paradise down into the material world is called “involution” and the developing life wave experienced differing conditions on many globes extending from the world of Divine Spirit all the way down into the chemical region of the physical world. On each of these globes, many revolutions were effected acclimating the evolving life to the conditions particular to that globe.

Initially, the globes that humanity found themselves on were very vague and diffuse, not in any sense crystalline. Gradually, subsequent globes were positioned in more crystalline substance on lower planes of creation and humanity began to lose the ability to function in the spiritual. Finally, this inner consciousness was completely lost to the human, and they became aware of themselves as physical beings. Now, the connection to higher planes of consciousness was lost entirely as humanity began the necessary experience in the material world. This became known as the “fall of man” and is recorded in the myth of Adam and Eve.

During each Manvantara (day of man), the evolving life must experience conditions in each of 7 great world periods. Each period contains 7 globes and humanity must make 7 revolutions around each of the 7 globes of each of these world periods to complete the great work of evolution. Three of the 7 great world periods have been completed, the Saturn, Sun and Moon periods. We are presently involved in the activities of the 4th period, the Earth period, and we are in the 4th revolution around the 7 globes of that period. Some 3,000,000 years ago, the nadir of materiality was reached, and the myriad gods and creative hierarchies who had guided humanity on the descent into matter, reversed the process, and are now guiding humanity as we ascend upward into rarer substance; now, we have begun the great work of evolution as we labor to ascend back to higher places whence we came many aeons ago.

These globes represent past and future incarnations of our earth, conditions through which it has passed, is now passing, or will pass in the future. We still have 3½ periods of activity ahead; the Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan periods. Upon completion of the activities of the 7 world periods, the now individualized virgin spirits, our current humanity, will have accomplished the great work of the Septinary Day of Manifestation. From now until that far away day arrives, the life wave will be entering finer and finer regions as we complete the Earth period and move onto the globes of the Jupiter period.

This process of evolution is propelled by an invincible force moving us constantly toward perfection, our ultimate objective. Now, we have embarked on our glorious ascension back to the Father's mansion. The journey ahead is long still, but now, with each passing day, we will become less and less physical and more and more spiritual, as the dross in our bodies is removed. Our capacity for love, power, intelligence and comprehension will continue to expand ultimately reaching infinite status when we become truly cosmic. These two processes then, involution and evolution, represent the two sides of the coin called life. Into matter and then out of matter defines this long pilgrimage of ours. We move from the Alone, the Solitary, the One, back to the Alone, the Solitary, the One, with one great difference. We now come back having fashioned for ourselves, through a long process of alchemical evolution, a Divine Mind, which brings us the conscious knowledge that we are Divine. We are as we were, but now, we know it; now, we live it, now we are it.

This is what Parsifal and the Knights of the Round Table sought in the elusive Holy Grail; what Hercules sought as he endured the Twelve Great Labors of the Soul, and what Odysseus hoped to attain in his wanderings following the Trojan War. What they sought was Spiritual Illumination, the transfiguration of their subtle and physical vehicles into the Philosopher's Stone, that which culminates both cycles of involution and evolution; the return to the perfection of the Father's Heavenly estate. The parable of the Prodigal Son is a metaphor for this process, and, as such, symbolizes the marvelous range and scope of the Father's Divine Plan, immutable, unchanging through all eternity.

Amen!

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Tags: mind body and spirit