The Elder took Theophile the Younger to a secret place, in the heart of the mountain, where they would meet a member of the Masters of the Wisdom Assembly. They walked silently for a long time, and finally reached a place hidden by thick bush and protected by some trees.
A bit out of breath, the Elder explained:
– You are going to meet my spiritual Master, the one who has always been guiding me on the path of Truth. He will answer a great many questions.
Both men bowed respectfully to an ageless man, a man whose apparent frailty was denied by the force he radiated.
The Sage – My warm greetings to you, he said in a soft clear voice, though he didn’t seem to have even spoken at all.
The Elder – Would you please accept to enlighten my young friend who has so many questions to ask concerning his destiny?
The Sage – Yes of course. We are brothers here, aren’t we?
Everything is according to God’s will. God permitting, we shall walk together through eternity. Human attachments are no longer relevant in our dimension. We are all linked together. We pay little attention to our respective identities, even though we are able to differentiate them. Love, His Love, unites us all. Our task consists in bringing the whole mankind to that dimension of Love. There is still much work to be done, but our patience is infinite, because at heart we can already perceive the moment when such a union will effectively emerge. The secret is in seeing all souls from God before they were created, at the moment when they set the Pact with the Lord; it also lies in knowing and stating that such an eternal bond, which is there in every divine creature, will soon be revealed in each of them. There is no rupture, but only a chain of continuity in Love.
Theo – What do we live in between those two moments? Is it what we call maya (illusion)?
The Sage – It all belongs to Reality. It is like creation.
Theo. – I’m afraid I am lost…
The Sage – You will understand in due time. Any incarnated being will find it difficult to understand the need for incarnation. God’s will was to create us in His own image, which means that He bestowed man with all his attributes, including the power to create. A creator can’t have any limit. The Lord therefore offered Himself within each of His human creatures, then He let each one of their cells develop at will. Covers have created what you know and their effects have been such that they should fade and finally disappear in the persons having identities comparing with those you see in the Assembly of Wisdom. There, the members’ creative power has reached its highest potential. We can each show our full capacity, and since we are one, we give our full capacity in doing what God expects from us. Can you understand? There is no personal will, but only a breath, an energy oriented in one unique direction. So, we are multi-directional, starting from the Divine Centre, which was liberated within each one of us. We also represent God’s completeness. We can still be perceived, though we are indistinct. We are a shade, a sound, an expression of the divine perfection, and what emerges from it all is His masterpiece.
The masterpiece is in progress, when seen from the time filter, but there where we abide, it has already been completed. That is what you call the Plan, but there is no plan, strictly speaking, because everything is already there. When you live in a space-time dimension, you can fulfill God’s plan. God’s creatures cannot be put under any constraint, since the constraint would create an impression within the being and limit God’s creative power. This is the reason why freewill exists. Each being has to go through an evolutionary process of maturing, which may take thousands of years. When human beings are ready – just like the chick in the egg breaks through its shell – they’ll become what we are, here, in the Assembly of Wisdom and be in the image of God. Then, God’s work has been completed. Having multiplied infinitely in all spaces and dimensions, He can be happy. He is no longer alone. He has perpetuated within our selves in all His greatness. Human beings’ potentialities are unlimited. This is where we can go, if we want it, and that is great. The Lord’s patience is infinite. He is awaiting, and he rejoices every time one of His creatures becomes like Him.
Theo – What can hinder the process?
The Sage – Our selves. All that results from our creative power. We use it at will; otherwise there would not be any full extent of the Divine within us. We are like kittens and get diverted by whatever happens around us, a ball of wool, a butterfly, etc. We have been endowed with the capacity to wonder, to be spontaneous and innocent. Yet we often end being like a cat, which can be motionless for hours or, when hunting, will be concentrating only and totally on the object of the hunt.
When human beings have put an end to their amusements and to the joy youth usually draw from discovering their environment, we can say that they have achieved the experiences allowing them to fit with the surrounding world. Once it all appears to suffice, they turn their attention towards their inner world where they are going to discover God. They can feel in their hearts’ core an aspiration that’ll become more and more intense until the man in them becomes one with Him; then man is similar to God in his incarnated form and the cycle has been completed. See, Theo, how God has divinized his creature: each stage in the process has to be accomplished as a contribution to His work. It compares with the foetus, which starts from one, then two cells, and so on, and has to go through all the stages of its development. Having started in the aquatic environment, it will go on developing within an airborne one where he will have to go through all the dimensions of the soul.
At that very moment, Theophile the Younger seemed to emerge from a deep meditation. He found himself sitting somewhere in the mountain, next to the Elder who was keeping his eyes half-closed, his face showing but a light smile. Theophile the Younger could not say whether he had really moved there and met the Sage, or whether he had only plunged into the depth of his heart.
Unwilling to show how troubled he was, he just said:
– What a beautiful dimension you have showed to me! I wish I could access it more often.
The old man did not move an inch and went on smiling silently.
Theophile the Elder
An excerpt from Dialogs with Theophile the Elder
Theophile the Younger’s initiation