The Path in a Symbol

(18) The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will be."

Jesus said, "Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death."

The path of spiritual development is explained in the ancient Egyptian symbol of the Ankh, below.

 

  

Overview
The central theme of the symbol is the horizontal line that separates the above from below. Above we observe the circular, womb shape and below, a singular line. The creative principle represented by the womb shape is obvious if considered and the fact that it is whole and undivided speaks to the greater integrated totality of the original creative principle - the unconditioned.

The vertical line that emanates from the creative principle, drives forward into the void, separating the horizontal line that demarks its emergence and instantly transforming the hitherto passive void into a seething sea of dynamic tensions of discriminative duality and conditional dependence. Left versus right, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Yin-Yang, the field of subjective conceptualisations is immediately created, with an infinite array of distortions and discriminations available for the experience of ego consciousness - conditioned existence.

The vertical line emanating from the creative unity, suggests a divergence from that principle the further removed one may be. In this spectrum of consciousness, one may see the wise and self-realised entities as closer to the horizontal line, while the ignorant and dependent being further removed. Which if viewed in reverse order describes a hierarchy of development bringing one closer to the infinite creative principle (the unconditioned) from which the finite, individualised consciousness was born (the conditioned). In fact, the vertical line indicates that not only is there a spectrum of Ignorance, but that there is only a single point at which it is possible to penetrate that creative principle from the position of individualised awareness.

 

The vertical line thus delineates a path back through the void of conditioned existence in which concepts of duality and separateness must be balanced to return to the infinite wholeness of that which exists without condition - the unconditioned. The Left-hand Path does not exist without the Right-hand Path and it is up to the seeker to realise that all such discriminative conceptualisations are but distortions keeping one suspended and isolated in the void and off the path of return.

In this graphical way we can see that it is the realisation of the middle-way, of neither identifying with the self nor others while remaining detached from the conceptualisations that entrap the mind within the horizontal spectrum of discriminative subjectivity, that provides our path to enlightenment. That is, a profound realisation of Śūnyatā is the path to the Bodhi mind.

The Axes

The vertical and horizontal axes of the Ankh represent the axes of a Cartesian coordinate system, indicating the degree of divergence from the path with respect to Attachment (Horizontal) and the degree of divergence from the original creative principle with respect to Ignorance (Vertical).

·         The vertical axis of the lower portion of the figure is seen to represent the spectrum of “Ignorance”; total ignorance at the bottom, rising in degrees of increasing wisdom to the perfection of wisdom (Prajñāpāramitā in Sanskrit) at the top.

·         The horizontal axis of the Ankh represents the positive and negative expressions of “Attachment” to subjective discrimination of conceptualisations (distortions), centred around a zero point of detached compassion.

The Path

As indicated by the inward sloping lines of the axes, the path of spiritual development and enlightenment is in toward the centre; achieving both the elimination of discriminative thoughts in the horizontal plane and perfecting wisdom in the vertical brings one back into union with the original creative principle. It is important to realise the significance of this.  No amount of eliminating of desires and attachments will bring one closer to enlightenment without perfecting one’s wisdom. One may be completely unmoved by the phenomenal world of material existence, be completely beyond temptation of any kind, yet such a one will only attain enlightenment through progressively eliminating its ignorance and perfecting its wisdom.  Similarly, one may be extremely wise, able to understand the nature of reality and communicate it to others, but that will not help very much if such a one has still not overcome its desires and clings to concepts of form and discriminative subjectivity (the ego).

The path must be both attained and progressed to reach enlightenment, the Bodhi mind, the Kingdom, Nirvana, or whatever the equivalent concept is in your religion of choice.  Also to be noted in this Ankh symbol, there is no priority for perfecting wisdom over eradicating attachment or vice versa. Both are equally important and it is the work of the adept to bring both together, refining and cultivating both characteristics to find one's own path back toward the original creative principle. It is a personal process that one must take conscious responsibility for, because the chances of randomly bringing the elements together perfectly to cross the threshold to enlightenment are zero, as that would presume some form of ignorance remained.