The Tower of Alchemy: An Advanced Guide to the Great Work by Goddard David

Author:Goddard, David [Goddard, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781609252311
Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
Published: 1999-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Robe of Glory

In this and the previous chapter, reference has been made to the Six Yogas of Naropa, with the intention of showing that this “Science of the Sages” is the spiritual heritage of all humanity, part of the primordial Planetary Tradition, rather than one belonging exclusively to either the Eastern or Western esoteric traditions. We have also intimated how a golem, or a body of light, was, and is, used by advanced practitioners to traverse the Earth—or more accurately, to travel within the etheric zone girdling the Earth. But in the cases of the greater adepts, this has other ramifications. For they, having integrated all their vehicles into a unity, the physical body attains the properties of the astral body and can so be teleported, not only to other physical locations, but also into other planes of existence and back again, at will. And, we are further given to understand that this ability manifests even before the full mastery—the corpus incorruptibilis—is attained.

For example, some of Dion Fortune's pupils attest that she physically stepped into Faerie (the Assiah-Yetzirah interface, the “Lower Eden”) and back again. While in 1980, at his monastery in Rumtek, Sikkhim, the 16th Gyalwa-Karmapa manifested the “rainbow body” during a ceremonial empowerment. His transfiguration was witnessed by many people and was caught on camera. Thorough professional examination of the negative and of a giant print showed that no ordinary explanation, such as double-exposure, was possible for the phenomenon.

Originally, among the Six Yogas of Naropa, there was also a seventh that some Tibetan traditions say was lost—although I am personally persuaded that it was probably withdrawn. The full title of this seventh yoga is “The Lord Naropa's Transcendental Doctrine Called The Great Chariot for Entering upon the Sublime Path, the Guide to Transmutation and Transference.” This same “transmutation and transference” is the esoteric meaning behind the title of Hermes-Trismegistos, the Thrice Great, for it refers to one who can step through all the three lower worlds at will. Also, in the Jewish tradition, Elijah (the Elias-Artisian of the alchemists) can appear anywhere, in any guise, and at any time, which is why a vacant chair is placed for him at the seder table of Passover. The same ability to step through the world at will is told of Guru Rimpoché, Melchizadek, Jesus, the bodisattvas, and of many others. It is reported of the eighty-four Great Siddhas of Mahayana Buddhism (who include Naropa and Arya-Nagarjuna), that—apart from those few who have remained incarnate to teach others—most of them, after lives spanning between five and seven hundred years—were assumed bodily into the Paradise of the Dakinis. Indeed, many of the Mahasiddhas also took numbers of their pupils with them.

The Gnostics termed the solar, or rainbow body, the “robe of glory”—“robe” meaning a vesture or sheath for the spirit. The poet Bardesanes wrote The Hymn of the Robe of Glory, which tells of the soul's descent into matter and its ultimate re-ascent. The “pearl” mentioned at the end of the

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