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..:: The Monadic Plane ::..

By

Alan Schneider

            The Monadic Plane is the Sixth Plane of Ascension, and is analogous to two very interesting alternate classifications – the Sixth Chakra, Ajna, and the Hidden Sephirah of the Cabalistic Tree of Life – Daath.  An attempt will be made in this essay to illuminate the subtle relationships among these three apparently disparate classifications.  

            In the traditional Western Mysteries, the Monadic Plane is the focus in consciousness of the Monad, an interrelated group of twelve Souls that share a common Karmic bond upon release from the Logoic Plane, the Seventh Plane of Ascension. In Ascension Theory, the Logos only “sees”, or experiences, the Soul, and in the Western Mysteries, only the Monad – the family of Souls. This relationship of intimate familial association is seen in all of the subsequent expressions of the Planes of Ascension, right down to and including the Physical plane, where it takes the form of the biological, or nuclear, family. On the Atmic Plane, this is seen in the spiritual family of Initiates and Ascended Masters, on the Buddhic Plane in the form of Soul companions and partners, on the Mental Plane in the form of business, financial, and philosophical “partners”, and on the Astral Plane as archetypal interrelationships and psychic involvement. Naturally, these manifestations of interrelatedness tend to bleed over from Plane to Plane, and from form to form on a given Plane, but the concept of families of involvement remains consistent. Even on the level of the Logos and Logoic Plane, the Supreme Absolute Truth is experienced as Love and Unconditional Acceptance – the closest equivalent condition to this on the Physical Plane is the love of the mother for her child, another clear example of a most basic familial bond. As the Creator, God is the ultimate Cosmic Parent of the Universe and all it contains, including all of humanity. We are all God’s Divine spiritual children in physical form.  

            The Souls of the Monad may be assigned to any state of manifestation anywhere on any subsequent Plane – physical incarnation on the Physical Plane is not a requirement, although many elements of the Monad do reach physical expression. Nor does this expression have to be human – it may be as simple as a rock, tree, animal, or physical process. When human manifestation does occur, there is additionally no requirement for the humanly expressed Soul to ever interact with any other elements of the Monad that achieve human form – God’s plan does not require human understanding or involvement to manifest on the Physical, or any other, Plane. Thus, when we do meet another with whom we feel the unmistakable spiritual intimacy of the Monadic connection, this is an exceedingly rare event, and one of great spiritual significance. Even more rare is the manifestation of the Soul Mate so often touted by New Age practitioners – to meet and become intimately involved with such a person is the rarest of the gifts of the Logos to humanity.  The expressions of the Monad may lie dormant for eons before taking form anywhere – the Logos does not exist in linear time as we do on the Physical Plane. God simply is Love expressed as Creation, no more, and absolutely no less.  The perception of existence on the Logoic Plane is so far removed from the constructs of experience on the Physical Plane that one cannot even bring any perception of any lesser state of manifestation onto that level – even the Monad cannot pass back directly onto the Logoic Plane from which it was released, although the individual Soul can, under the right circumstances.  

            How does this perplexing state of affairs relate to the Chakra Ajna, as our next consideration? In Tantra and Yoga, the Divine Manifestation of the Seventh Chakra, Sahasrara, the abode of the Logos, can be perceived and communicated with from the perspective of Ajna, nominally the Third Eye of Hindu mythology, but an “Eye” that looks both within and without. When it looks without, the result is profound psychic vision and apperception on the Physical and other Planes. When it looks within, the result is the aforementioned communion with the Logos and Sahasrara.  The concentrated Soul energy of the Monad generates the intuitive power present in Ajna, the power to perceive beyond normal perception – in a word, extrasensory perception. This power is expressed in both the ability to perceive God, and the ability to intuitively perceive the deepest, most hidden relationships on the subsequent Planes below the Logoic, whether spiritual or literal. The Bodhisattva, and the Ascended Master,  may then choose to communicate about these higher perceptions back to God, or on the lesser Planes, including the Physical Plane and human the manifestations existing incarnate there, as these supremely spiritually gifted individuals deem appropriate. This level of communication is the expression of Divine Love on the Buddhic Plane. The Bodhisattva does not understand the Divine Plan – which is beyond human comprehension in any case – the Bodhisattva has become the living expression of the Divine Plan on the Physical Plane, and simply acts in accordance with the wishes of the Logos, particularly as this pertains to communication as Darshan given to Initiates, and lectures given to the public.  This is the influence on human perception of Ajna – inner and outer spiritual illumination and insight. 

            The meaning of the Sephirah Daath is even more subtle than that of Ajna. Daath is customarily represented as a toroid – a donut-shaped ring – that is conceived of as concealed in what Cabala refers to as “The Abyss of Ignorance” immediately below the Supernal Triangle of Kether, Chokma, and Binah.  Daath is very mysterious, frequently not even directly referred to as a Sephirah (due to its toroidal form?), and some Cabalists do not speak of it at all. When it is represented on the Tree, it falls on the Middle Pillar of Mildness, the central Path of Ascension in this system, directly above Tippareth, the “Heart” Sephirah (to which the description “Beauty” is ascribed), and is given the quality of “Knowledge” as its ascription!  Daath’s location in the Abyss of Ignorance is the first clue to its identity in the Ascension process – the “ignorance” referred to is the entire consciousness of all that lies below the Supernal Triangle, and the “Knowledge” is the residual “knowing” of the ego. From the perspective of Cabala, all lesser states of consciousness below the Divine level represented by the Supernal Triangle are so fallen, regardless of their spiritual content, that they are essentially ignorant in comparison to the Light of the Logos, and we carry this ignorance into the Abyss with us during the Ascension process. Furthermore, this ignorant condition is directly linked to the physical sensory perception of the body – the most ignorant, vulgar manifestation of all!  

            Daath is the Gate through which we must pass to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and there is a Guardian at this portal, one with many names in many traditions, but I personally prefer the name Kali – the insane black Goddess of Chaos and Destruction of Yoga and Tantra, and the God Shiva’s most feared Shakti, or female expression. The Sephirah immediately beyond Daath is Binah, symbolically corresponding to Shiva,  while the additional Sephiroth of the Supernal Triangle correspond to Vishnu, the Preserver (Chokma), and Brahma, the Creator (Kether). The Path of Ascension on the Tree of Life zigzags through all of the Sephiroth in succession, passing from Chesed, through Daath, and on to Binah. In Doors In Disguise,  I referred to Daath as “The Portal of Shiva” as a means of describing the significance of this Sephirah as the Gateway to the Supernal Triangle. As an aside here, the relationship of the Gods to the Goddesses in Hindu cosmology is quite interesting. The Gods generate Divine Concepts, essentially motivational ideas – the Goddesses then perform the actions instigated by those motivational states. Shiva first thinks of destruction of some specific kind, and directed at some specific object, then one of his several Shaktis carries that thought into action and performs the literal deed – the Goddesses are the agents of an action, the Gods are the inspiration for that action.

            Kali’s task is universally acknowledged in Hindu cosmology to be the elimination of the ego, and ego-related mental states. The essential meaning of this with regard to Daath is that one cannot take any form of personal attachment into the presence of God, represented by the Supernal Triangle – these are all ego affiliated mental states, and are completely incompatible with the Divine Condition of Pure Love which is the Logos. Only the Pure Soul having absolutely no ego residue – i.e. vestige of self interest or personal expectation – will pass beyond Kali’s bloody sword (reminiscent of the Sword of Fire that God armed the Angel guarding the East Gate of Eden with), and on through Daath to Binah in the Supernal Triangle.  

            Thus, what we see in Daath is the third aspect of the Monadic Plane – the “Ring-Pass-Not” mechanism placed there by the Logos as a conditional restrictor that will allow the Monad to exit, but will only allow the individual Soul reenter under very specific circumstances of spiritual purity. When this is taken under combined consideration with the roles of Ajna as a psychic “view port”, and the Monad as a “Soul Transmission” onto the Lower Planes, we have the combined function of a supervised perceptual conduit entering and leaving the Supernal Triangle, with the supernatural “supervisors” primary task being to monitor Soul traffic for the Logos! What better way to ensure the purity and consistency of a state of Being than to Create a subordinate Expression having the sole function of screening what approaches it?  

            Perhaps the Trinitary aspect of the Monadic Plane is the result of its spiritual proximity to the Logoic Plane, itself a Trinitary manifestation in the form of the Cabalistic Supernal Triangle, and the correspondent Hindu Godhead of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Certainly, a tripartite Deity would tend to exude a tripartite expression of Itself  as the natural result of Its inner form, and, as a subordinate expression, that secondary Entity would be a lesser manifestation than its Creator.  In turn, the essence of that “lesser” manifestation would be the dedication to a net purpose apart from Creation, the ultimate action of the Logos. Supervision is just such a function – less than Creation, but still essential to the process of Creation.  

            The concept of supervision also applies to the Over Soul, conceived of as a complex amalgam of Soul consciousness that possesses independent volition, motivation, and purpose – much like the Archangels and other primary archetypal symbols. The Over Soul may, in fact, be analogous to Kali as the Guardian of Daath.  As has been stated in a previous essay in this series, the clarity of roles and action beyond the Atmic Plane becomes problematic, as we Ascend onto more and more rarefied, abstract levels of conscious perception. What I am certain of is that there is some kind of supervisory Presence operating on the Monadic Plane that serves to deflect the ego and related mental states from entry onto the Logoic Plane, and that this Presence is subordinate to, and expressed on a lesser level, than the Logoic Plane, hence the identification of the Monadic Plane as its source. The Jungian Sphere of the Psyche, by far the most scientific model of consciousness, makes no further classification beyond the Collective Unconscious region, and the Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, until the Self is reached at the center of the Sphere, effectively bypassing the Mental, Atmic, Buddhic, and Monadic Planes and all of their supposed contents!

            Jung himself had only “Ascended” to the Buddhic level of consciousness, and doubted the existence of the Monadic and Logoic levels, hence the classification of the Self as a higher personal conscious state, as opposed to a Deific manifestation. Yet, the presence of the Archetypes and their Collective Symbols strongly suggests that personal consciousness is a relatively small portion of the total Psyche, which must extend far beyond the physical boundary of the body and the social boundary of the ego.  In all probability, Jung’s allegiance to Western Science as the alternative to the blind superstition and ignorance of the Mid-Victorian world in which both he and Freud did their seminal work prevented him from taking the sequence of “Leaps of Faith” required to completely transcend the ego and its tyrannical domination of awareness. “I don’t know” is frequently the politically correct form of “I don’t want to know” when we are confronted with inconvenient truths, particularly spiritual ones!  

            So, we are confronted with the need to make more than just the first Leap onto the Buddhic level of conscious perception along the Path of Ascension. Beyond this, we are called upon to seriously challenge the supposed confinement of experience to the personal body of flesh, and, again, make a Leap onto, first, the Atmic, and then the Monadic Plane. This is, of course, a daunting prospect, because there we must surrender all that is the remainder of personal identification and perception to Kali to pass on to the Logoic Plane – the final and highest attainable realm of manifestation. This is the level of the Cabalist Supernal Triangle, the Tantric Seventh Chakra, and perhaps even the Core of the Jungian Self at the Centre of the Psyche. Once again, please continue to return to this series of essays, as we conduct the revelation of the seventh, and final, Plane of Ascension!

                                                                              - With Love, Alan -

                                                                      (CR2008, Alan Schneider) 

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