Friday, November 19, 2004
Thinking About Angels
All of us wonder, from time to time, about the question of reincarnation. Have we (or some form of what we think of as ourselves) lived before, in some other time period, some other place? Occasionally we get echoes—some feeling of deja vue (I’ve been here, done this, experienced this before)—or are stirred by what seems like inner recollection.
Another question which arises often is, Where does the sudden explosion of kundalini within the slumbering self come from if not some prior existence? How can someone, previously ignorant of the subtle energies and all their latent powers, unexpectedly be flooded with bliss, opened by unknown forces to an ecstasy she had never before suspected?
In the video version of “Angels in America” there are two brilliant scenes in which an angel appears, descending in splendor to embrace the human in explosive divine love. This love is physical as well as “spiritual.” It is felt as well as perceived. It is real, it is powerful, it is undeniable. It is the ultimate union of human and divine, leaving its earthly subjects astonished and transformed.
In the script of this powerful drama, the option is left open to interpret these heavenly visitations as delusions or dreams.
But what if angels are real? What if they come in unexpected moments and in unsuspected ways to rouse the divine element within the human makeup? What if kundalini itself is begotten of such angelic source, a mark of the divine claim upon us, a bond that cannot be broken?
Perhaps unconditional love is just this: to be taken into the embrace of angels and in that state to know what the divinized human can attain.
And now the final paradox emerges: What if the angelic being who seizes us in such love is in fact a version of ourselves, as we may once have been, in this realm or another? What if we are, all of us, turning into angels, as we reenact the glory from which we come?
"When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everthing,
Everything we look upon is blest."
W. B. Yeats
All of us wonder, from time to time, about the question of reincarnation. Have we (or some form of what we think of as ourselves) lived before, in some other time period, some other place? Occasionally we get echoes—some feeling of deja vue (I’ve been here, done this, experienced this before)—or are stirred by what seems like inner recollection.
Another question which arises often is, Where does the sudden explosion of kundalini within the slumbering self come from if not some prior existence? How can someone, previously ignorant of the subtle energies and all their latent powers, unexpectedly be flooded with bliss, opened by unknown forces to an ecstasy she had never before suspected?
In the video version of “Angels in America” there are two brilliant scenes in which an angel appears, descending in splendor to embrace the human in explosive divine love. This love is physical as well as “spiritual.” It is felt as well as perceived. It is real, it is powerful, it is undeniable. It is the ultimate union of human and divine, leaving its earthly subjects astonished and transformed.
In the script of this powerful drama, the option is left open to interpret these heavenly visitations as delusions or dreams.
But what if angels are real? What if they come in unexpected moments and in unsuspected ways to rouse the divine element within the human makeup? What if kundalini itself is begotten of such angelic source, a mark of the divine claim upon us, a bond that cannot be broken?
Perhaps unconditional love is just this: to be taken into the embrace of angels and in that state to know what the divinized human can attain.
And now the final paradox emerges: What if the angelic being who seizes us in such love is in fact a version of ourselves, as we may once have been, in this realm or another? What if we are, all of us, turning into angels, as we reenact the glory from which we come?
"When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everthing,
Everything we look upon is blest."
W. B. Yeats
