"Geometry is a science explained
by Pythagoras and demonstrated by him. It is the science of
God and its formulas are illustrative of the fact of the very
energy of life that can be focused in the angle, in the pyramid,
in the octagon, in the cell structure that is also geometric.
"Form itself designed by God is a protection
for the eternal Flame. Even the form you wear has a design
of the star-fire body intended to be, geometrically speaking,
the ultimate protection for the soul. The geometry of the
chakras and the beauty of the unfolding of the flower becomes
a model of contemplation that ought to be considered when
designing the physical temple.
"The poem that is “lovely as a
tree” reflected in these evergreens high in the Himalayas
and in the Rocky Mountains of the north presents an exquisite
design that also has a formula whereby life is enhanced and
the sacred energies of nature are released. Even the starry
bodies and the rays that come to earth to stimulate the very
growth of the hairs on your head are eternally and perfectly
designed.
"Thus, beauty and mathematics, proportion
and the golden ratio serve to enhance the message of the Word
itself. Thus, we sought and ever seek in our retreat to bring
to life the ancient records of akasha of the great souls who
have ensouled a living flame. We study the geometry of virtue
as it can be seen in the etheric plane. We study the dimensions
of the aura and how the vibrations of light and their harmony
enable the individual to carry greater and greater light.
"We would transfer to our teachers in
our schools here some understanding of the necessity
for grace and line and movement, which brings us to the subject—whether
of yoga or ballet or the dance or marching—of the natural
grace of the soul that ought to be expressed in the body form
for the release of fohat, for the release of the sacred fire
breath. Patterns of sound and music outpictured become the
means for the opening of the heart chakra, the lessening of
tension and therefore the increase of love and appreciation
for life.
"We come back then to the purpose
of art to enhance the love of Christ always. The shepherds of
the people who contain that pure love will neither lead them
astray nor abandon the people in the hour of tragedy or danger.
"Thus, when there is the loss of Christ,
of the divine spark and the light of the soul, all else suffers
and art is no longer true; and there is a violation and abuse
of science. That which can never lie is mathematics itself.
People may attempt to fool one another by the manipulation
of statistics, but number itself cannot be denied. And the
number one as the Law of the One comes back to the central
point of love—the Great Central Sun."
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Mikolaj Kopernik [Nicolaus Copernicus] is a founder
of modern astronomy. He graduated in mathematics and optics from
the Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland; in canon law from the
University of Bologna, Italy. On his return from Italy Copernicus
became a canon of the Frombork cathedral where he continued a sheltered
academic life for the rest of his days.
For relaxation Copernicus painted and translated
Greek poetry into Latin. His interest in astronomy grew gradually,
his quiet research was carried out alone, without assistance or
consultation. His astronomical observations were made 'bare eyeball'
as a century was still to pass before the invention of a telescope.
In 1530 Nicolaus Copernicus presented his great
work "De Revolutionibus" to the world, in which he asserted
that the earth rotated on its axis once daily and circled the sun
once annually: indeed a fantastic concept for the times. Until Copernicus'
days the western world believed in the Ptolemean theory that the
universe was a sphere suspended in a void.
At about 150 A.D. Claudius Ptolemy, an Egyptian
from Alexandria developed a theory that the earth was a fixed, inert,
immovable mass firmly positioned in the center of the universe.
All celestial bodies, including the sun and fixed stars, revolved
around it.
Copernicus was in no hurry to publish his new theory
though parts of his work were circulated among a few of his colleagues;
indeed Copernicus' work might not have ever been published if not
for a young man who sought out the master in 1539. George Rheticus
was a 25-year-old German math teacher who read one of Copernicus'
papers and was fascinated with his theories.
Copernicus' reluctance to publish was not due to
his concern what the church might say about his novel theory ("De
Revolutionibus" was placed on the famous and infamous Church
Index in 1616 and removed only in 1835) but rather because he was
a perfectionist. Even after working on his theory for thirty years,
Copernicus did not believe that his work was finished—there
still were observations to be checked and rechecked.
The original manuscript of "De Revolutionibus"
was lost for 300 years and eventually found in Prague in the middle
of the XIXth century. The MS shows that throughout his life Copernicus
was continually adding revision after revision; all in Latin, as
was en vogue for scholarly writings in those days.
Copernicus died in 1543, never to hear of the stir
his work would cause. His theory went against any and all philosophical
and religious beliefs of the mediaeval times. Two other Italian
scientists of the century, Galileo and Bruno unreservedly embraced
the Copernican doctrine and both greatly suffered at the hands of
the ever-powerful church inquisitors.
Bruno was one of the most brilliant men of his day. He instructed
the French king Henry III in the art of memory, taught philosophy
at the University of Toulouse and mingled with the literary circle
that surrounded England's Queen Elizabeth I. His prolific and unusual
writings gained a small but ardent following.
He was either far ahead of or far behind his times. His ideas about
the universe presaged some of the discoveries of twentieth-century
physics. But Bruno was not a scientist. In the nineteenth century,
intellectuals revered him as a martyr to scientific inquiry and
freedom of thought, largely for his defense of Copernicus' sun-centered
view of the solar system.
Bruno even shared enemies with the Copernicans—one of his
inquisitors, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, would also question Galileo
about his observations that the earth revolved around the sun. However,
Bruno did not share Copernicus' scientific world view.
It was mysticism and philosophy that brought Bruno
to his vision of innumerable worlds. Bruno agreed with Copernicus
that the earth could not be the center of the universe. But, as
he saw it, neither was the sun. He believed the earth was only one
among an infinite number of worlds.
At a time when most people thought the stars were permanently pasted
to the sky, Bruno detailed his revolutionary beliefs: "There
is a single general space, a single vast immensity which we may
freely call Void; in it are innumerable globes like this on which
we live and grow. This space we declare to be infinite . . . In
it are an infinity of worlds of the same kind as our own."
For Bruno, the idea of infinite worlds opened the door to the idea
of infinite human possibility. If there are infinite worlds, then
why can't there be infinite opportunity in which to explore them?
A person, whether in or out of a body, Bruno wrote, "is never
completed. He has the opportunity to experience life in different
forms. Even as infinite space is around us, so is infinite potentiality,
capacity, reception, malleability, matter."
The Church would later claim that Bruno was not
burned for his defense of Copernicus or for his doctrine of infinite
worlds but rather for his theological errors and belief in magic.
But trial records reveal that both infinite worlds and reincarnation
were at issue. The two ideas appear in his original indictment,
which also accused Bruno—still officially a monk—of
boasting of his female conquests and joking about the final judgment.
Bruno was tried by the Inquisition, condemned and
burned at the stake in 1600 for his belief in Copernican theories.
Galileo, threatened with torture and death in 1633, was forced to
renounce on his knees any and all association with Copernican ideas
and was thereafter sentenced to life imprisonment.
Goethe wrote: "Of all discoveries and theories
none may have had a greater effect upon human spirit than the doctrine
of Copernicus. The world had scarcely become known as round and
complete when it was asked to give up its tremendous privilege of
being the center of the universe. Never, perhaps, was a greater
demand made on mankind—for by this admission so much irretrievably
vanished into thin air!
"What became of our Eden, our world of innocence,
piety and poetry; our testimony of the senses, our poetic or religious
faith? No wonder Copernicus' contemporaries did not wish to let
all of this go and offered every possible resistance to the doctrine
which demanded from its believers freedom of convictions and greatness
of thought so far unknown, indeed not even dreamt of." |