End
of the Microcosm
THE mighty hero of extraordinary powers —able to lift Mount Govardhan
on a finger, and to fill himself with the terrible glory of
the universe—is each of us: not the physical self visible in the mirror,
but the king within. Krishna declares: "I am the Self, seated
in the hearts of all creatures. I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of
all beings."' This, precisely, is the sense of the
prayers for the dead, at the moment of personal dissolution: that
the individual should now return to his pristine knowledge of
the world-creative divinity who during life was reflected
within
his heart. "When
he comes to weakness—whether he come to weakness
through
old age or through disease—this person frees himself from
these limbs just as a mango, or a fig, or a berry releases itself from its
bond; and he hastens again, according to the entrance and place of origin, back
to life. As noblemen, policemen, chariot-drivers,
village-heads wait with food, drink, and lodgings for a king who is coming, and
cry: 'Here he comes! Here he comes!'
so indeed do all things wait for him who has this knowledge and cry: 'Here is
the Imperishable coming! Here is the Imperishable coming!'" The
idea is sounded already in the Coffin Texts of ancient Egypt,
where the dead man sings of himself as one with God:
I
am Re at his first appearance.
I
am the Great God, self-generator,
Who
fashioned his names, lord of gods,
Whom
none approaches among the gods.
I
was yesterday, I know tomorrow.
The
battle-field of the gods was made when I spoke.
I
know the name of that Great God who is therein.
"Praise
of Re" is his name.
I
am that great Phoenix which is in Heliopolis.
But,
as in the death of the Buddha, the power to make a full transit
back through the epochs of emanation depends on the character
of the man when he was alive. The myths tell of a dangerous journey of the
soul, with obstacles to be passed. The
Eskimos
in Greenland enumerate a boiling kettle, a pelvis bone, a
large burning lamp, monster guardians, and two rocks that strike
together and open again.
Such elements are standard features of world
folklore and heroic legend. We have discussed them
above, in our chapters of the "Adventure of the Hero." They
have
received their most elaborate and significant development in the
mythology of the soul's last journey. An
Aztec prayer to be said at the deathbed warns the departed of the dangers along
the way back to the skeleton god of the
dead, Tzontemoc, "He of the Falling Hair." "Dear child! Thou
hast passed through and survived the labors of this life. Now
it hath pleased our Lord to carry thee away. For we do not enjoy this world
everlastingly, only briefly; our life is like warming
of oneself in the sun. And the Lord hath conferred on us
the blessing of knowing and conversing with each other in this
existence; but now, at this moment, the god who is called Mictlantecutli,
or Aculnahuacatl, or again Tzontemoc, and the goddess
known as Mictecacihuatl, have transported thee away. Thou
art brought before His seat; for we all must go there: that place
is intended for us all, and it is vast.
"We
are to have of thee no further recollection. Thou wilt reside
in that place most dark, where there is neither light nor window.
Thou wilt not return or depart from thence; nor wilt thou
think about or concern thyself with the matter of return.
Thou
wilt be absent from among us for ever more. Poor and orphaned hast thou left
thy children, thy grandchildren; nor dost thou
know how they will end, how they will pass through the labors
of this life. As for ourselves, we shall soon be going there where
thou art to be." The
Aztec ancients and officials prepared the body for the funeral,
and, when they had properly wrapped it, took a little water
and poured it on the head, saying to the deceased: "This thou
didst enjoy when thou wert living in the world." And they took
a small jug of water and presented it to him, saying: "Here is
something for thy journey"; they set it in the fold of his shroud.
Then they wrapped the deceased in his blankets, secured him strongly, and
placed before him, one at a time, certain papers
that had been prepared: "Lo, with this thou wilt be able to
go between the mountains that clash." "With this thou wilt
pass
along the road where the serpent watcheth." "This will satisfy the
little green lizard, Xochitonal." "And behold, with this thou
wilt make the transit of the eight deserts of freezing cold." "Here
is that by which thou wilt go across the eight small
hills."
"Here is that by which thou wilt survive the wind of the obsidian
knives."
The
departed was to take a little dog with him, of bright reddish hair. Around its
neck they placed a soft thread of cotton; they
killed it and cremated it with the corpse. The departed swam on this small animal when
he passed the river of the underworld. And,
after four years of passage, he arrived with it before the
god,
to whom he presented his papers and gifts. Whereupon hewas
admitted, together with his faithful companion, to the"Ninth
Abyss."
The
Chinese tell of a crossing of the Fairy Bridge under guidance of the Jade
Maiden and the Golden Youth. The Hindus picture
a towering firmament of heavens and a many-leveled underworld of hells. The
soul gravitates after death to the story appropriate to its relative density,
there to digest and assimilate
the
whole meaning of its past life. When the lesson has been learned,
it returns to the world, to prepare itself for the next degree of experience.
Thus gradually it makes its way through all the
levels of life-value until it has broken past the confines of the cosmic
egg. Dante's Divina Commedia is an exhaustive review of
the
stages: "Inferno," the misery of the spirit bound to the prides and
actions of the flesh; "Purgatorio," the process of transmuting fleshly
into spiritual experience; '"Paradiso," the degrees of spiritual
realization. A
deep and awesome vision of the journey is that of the Egyptian
Book of the Dead. T he man or woman who
has died is identified
with and actually called Osiris. The texts open with hymns
of praise to Re and Osiris and then proceed to the mysteries of the unswathing
of the spirit in the world beneath. In the
"Chapter of Giving a Mouth to Osiris N.,"we read the
phrase:
"I rise out of the egg in the hidden land." This is the announcement
of the idea of death as a rebirth. Then, in the "Chapter of Opening the
Mouth of Osiris N.," the awakening spirit prays:
"May the god Ptah open my mouth, and may the god of my
city loose the swathings, even the swathings which are over
my
mouth. The "Chapter of Making Osiris N. to
possess Memory in the Underworld" and the "Chapter of Giving a Heart
to
of
the awesome judge. The
Book of the Dead was buried with the mummy as a guide
book
to the perils of the difficult way, and chapters were recited at
the time of burial. At one stage in the preparation of the mummy,
the heart of the dead man was cut open and a basalt scarab
in a gold setting, symbolic of the sun, was placed therein with
the prayer: "My heart, my mother, my heart, my mother; my
heart of transformations." This is prescribed in the "Chapter of
not Letting the Heart of Osiris N. be Taken from Him in the Underworld."
Next we read, in the "Chapter of Beating Back
west.
. . . Get thee back, O crocodile that dwellest in the south. .
. . Get thee back, O crocodile that dwellest in the north. . . . The
things which are created are in the hollow of my hand, and those
which have not yet come into being are in my body. I am clothed
and wholly provided with thy magical words, O Re, the which
are in heaven above me and in the earth beneath me. . . ." The
"Chapter of Repulsing Serpents" follows, then the "Chapter of
Driving Away Apshait." The soul cries at the latter demon: "Depart
from me, O thou who hast lips that gnaw." In the "Chapter
of Driving Back the Two Merti Goddesses" the soul declares
its purpose, and protects itself by stating its claim to be the
son of the father: " . .. I shine
from the Sektet boat, I am Horus
the son of Osiris, and I have come to see my father Osiris."
The "Chapter of Living by Air in the Underworld" and the
"Chapter of Driving Back the Serpent Rerek in the Underworld" carry
the hero still further along his way, and then comes
the
great proclamation of the "Chapter of Driving Away the Slaughterings
which are Performed in the Underworld": "My hair
is the hair of Nu. My face is the face of the Disk. My eyes are
the eyes of Hathor. My ears are the ears of Apuat. My nose
is
the nose of Khenti-khas. My lips are the lips of Anpu. My teeth
are the teeth of Serget. My neck is the neck of the divine goddess
Isis. My hands are the hands of Ba-neb-Tattu. My forearms are the forearms of
Neith, the Lady of Sais. My backbone is
the backbone of Suti. My phallus is the phallus of Osiris. My loins
are the loins of the Lords of Kher-aba. My chest is the chest
of the Mighty One of Terror There is no member of my
body that is not the member of some God. The god Thoth
not be dragged back by the arms, and none shall lay violent hold upon my hands. . . ." As in the much later Buddhist image of the Bodhisattva within whose nimbus stand five hundred transformed Buddhas, each attended by five hundred Bodhisattvas, and each of these, in turn, by innumerable gods, so here, the soul comes to the fulness of its stature and power through assimilating the deities that formerly had been thought to be separate from and outside
of it. They are projections of its own being; and as it returns to its true state they are all reassumed. In the "Chapter of Snuffing the Air and of having the Masteryover the Water of the Underworld," the soul proclaims itself to
be the guardian of the cosmic egg: "Hail, thou sycamore-tree of the goddess Nut! Grant thou to me of the water and of the air which dwell in thee. I embrace the throne which is in Hermopolis. And I watch and guard the egg of the Great Cackler. It groweth, I grow; it liveth, I live; it snuffeth the air, I snuff the air, I the Osiris N\, in triumph." There follow the "Chapter of not Letting the Soul of a Man be taken from him in the Underworld" and the "Chapter of Drinking Water in the Underworld and of not being Burnt by Fire," and then we come to the great culmination —the "Chapter of Coming Forth by Day in the Underworld," wherein the soul and the universal being are known to be one: "I am Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, and I have the power to be born a second time;
I am the divine hidden Soul who createth the gods, and who
giveth sepulchral meals iinto the denizens of the Underworld of
Amentet and of Heaven. I am the rudder of the east, the possessor of two divine faces wherein his beams are seen. I am the lord
of the men who are raised up; the lord who cometh forth out of
darkness, and whose forms of existence are of the house wherein
are the dead. Hail, ye two hawks who are perched upon your
resting-places, who harken unto the things which are said by
him, who guide the bier to the hidden place, who lead along Re,
and who follow him into the uppermost place of the shrine
which is in the celestial heights! Hail, lord of the shrine which standeth
in the middle of the earth. He is I, and I am he, and
Ftah
hath covered his sky with crystal. . . ."
Thereafter,
the soul may range the universe at will, as is shown
in
the "Chapter of Lifting up the Feet and of Corning forth upon
the
Earth," the "Chapter of Journeying to Heliopolis and of Receiving a
Throne therein," the "Chapter of a Man Transforming
himself
into Whatever Form he Pleaseth," the "Chapter of Entering into the
Great House," and the "Chapter of Going into the
Presence
of the Divine Sovereign Princes of Osiris." The chapters of the so-called
Negative Confession declare the moral purity
of
the man who has been redeemed: "I have not done iniquity. . . .
I
have not robbed with violence.... I have not done violence to any
m
a n . . .. I have not committed the f t
. . .. I have not slain man or
woman
" The book concludes with addresses of praise of the
gods,
and then: the "Chapter of Living N'igh unto Re," die "Chapter of
Causing a Man to Come Back to See his House upon Earth,"
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