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Home Preface 5 Planes of Existence Introduction Five Planes of Manifestation A to Z Contact Related Information BIBLE VERSES |
WHEEL OF LIFEA symbol of the great cycle of Life, the progress of the Spirit or Self through the lower nature. In it the Spirit descends, as it were, in involution on the one side, and rises in evolution on the other, thus completing the circle. "The progression and the return (of things) form a circular activity. . . . In the great circle to and from the Principle of all, all things are involved" (Proclus). - T. WHITTAKER, The Neo-Platonists, p. 167. "We meditate upon that deity, the Demiurgus (Isvara), as the wheel with one felly and three tires, with sixteen peripheries, with fifty spokes and twenty wedges to fix the spokes, a wheel that is multiform, with one cord, with three diverse paths, and with one illusion proceeding from two causes." - Svetas. Upanishad, I. The one “felly" signifies the whole cycle of life; the "three tires" are the three gunas that bind the qualities to the cycle; the "sixteen peripheries" are sixteen powers and qualities exercised by the soul; the "fifty spokes and twenty wedges" are the many conditions of the manifesting life on the different planes. The one cord "is the one Divine Life; the "three paths are of duty, truth, and love; and the "two causes are the sense of separateness and ignorance which make the unreal appear to be the real. "The originating principle is the glory of the deity that keeps the wheel of Brahman, the cosmic cycle, still revolving. It is the all-knowing author of time, all perfect, by whom this world is eternally pervaded." - Svetas. Upanishad, VI. He is the reality of reality; from him spring forth, as sparks from the fire, all the vital spirits, all worlds, all gods, all living creatures; in him they are all fixed, like spokes in the nave of a wheel." - DEUSSEN, Phil. of Upanishads, p. 232. "'Universe after Universe is like an interminable succession of wheels for ever coming into view, for ever rolling onwards, disappearing and reappearing; for ever passing from being to non-being, and again from non-being to being. In short, the constant revolving of the wheel of life in one eternal circle, according to fixed and immutable laws, is perhaps after all the sum and substance of the philosophy of Buddhism. And this eternal wheel or circle has, so to speak, six spokes representing six forms of existence." - MON. WILLIAMS, Buddhism, pp. 119, 122. |
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CIRCLE OF EXISTENCE |