Читать книгу Beyond Soul Growth - Lynn Sparrow Christy - Страница 30

On the surface, we have an enormous problem. Contemporary evolutionary spirituality heralds the arrival of self-reflective awareness a few thousand years ago at most, while the Cayce readings—like much New Age thought as well as the theosophical traditions—speak of advanced civilizations in the past which held deep spiritual knowledge that has since been lost to the masses. Atlantis and Egypt figure heavily in such lore. Take, for example, this very representative reading which suggests that the pyramids of Egypt hold the records of ancient wisdom:

…The entity also aided in the laying of, and should be an interpreter of that given to the world as a lasting memorial of the relationships between man and man, man and the Creative Forces; and that [which] it brings through being at an at-oneness with, instead of at an at-variance with, Creative Energy in a material world.⁵⁴

Another reading (part of which is quoted as an epigraph to this chapter) states that during this same period “there were many who sought to bring to man a better understanding of the close relationship between the Creative Forces and that created, between man and man, and man and his Maker.”

Notice particularly how prominent is the theme of “Creative Forces” and “Creative Energy” when the Cayce source speaks of ancient wisdom. If Cayce is correct, earlier civilizations did indeed understand that our role is a co-creative one. In accordance with much esoteric tradition, the Cayce readings tell us that this ancient knowledge was carefully preserved so that it could be passed on to future generations. In speaking of lost civilizations such as Atlantis, the readings suggest that much of the record-keeping in ancient Egypt was centered upon preserving the history and knowledge of a civilization already submerged in both time and the ocean, knowledge that was to be “…manifested again and again in the earth as that manner or way for the gods of the high heavens to make themselves felt and known among the children of the earth plane.”⁵⁵

To the modern evolutionary, whose views are formed by both science and post-mythic spirituality, such claims may well sound preposterous. It is understandable if they are cast aside as mythic beliefs carried over from more naïve, less scientifically informed times. Seen in that light, they create an enormous gulf between the evolutionary path described in the Cayce legacy and that of the contemporary evolutionary. Yet there is meeting ground. If we are to understand how these assertions of ancient sagacity may in fact be compatible with modern evolutionary thinking, we must step back, re-consider that paradox of manifest/unmanifest reality, and realize that it is even more finely shaded than we have yet acknowledged.