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Biblical commentators consider this work of Jeremiah to be a lament for the fall of the city of Jerusalem. For an esoteric Christian it holds quite a different meaning. Historical facts are used throughout the Bible to conceal deeper truths.
Woman is the mother of the race; through her it has been propagated. Also, through the receptive, formative, feminine principle in both man and woman is all real spiritual progress accomplished. The masses of humanity have failed to take cognizance of this fact. Recognition of the feminine within man, its nature and development, is the chief objective of occult studies. Unfoldment and expression of this principle leads to communion with the "Still small voice." It was the Eve principle that "fell" in the Garden as man lost his spiritual consciousness. When lifted up it becomes the "Woman clothed with the Sun" of the Book of Revelation.
The Lamentations of Jeremiah bewail the non-recognition of this feminine principle in humanity and its fall. The Song of Solomon is a paean of triumph for its reawakening and union with the masculine or will principle. Such a consummation is the true ideal attainment, the finding of the kingdom of heaven within. The prophet gives the keynote of its development in the words: "How long wilt thou go about 0 thou backsliding daughter? for the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, a woman shall compass a man." (Jeremiah 32:22)
Judah (Leo, the heart or love nature) is captive and overtaken within the straits, signifying lack of harmony between the masculine and feminine principles as a result of the latter's fall. This lack of equilibrium causes the inequality between men and women in the world today. Inequality between the sexes in outer life can never be adjusted apart from a change of consciousness, an achievement for each one individually. Equality between the sexes will not come about until the masculine and feminine potentialities in each man and each woman are brought into harmonious unity.
This refers to the fall of man from a spiritual condition into a consciousness of mortality along with his fall from the etheric realms into the physical — a key to the truth conveyed in the Genesis account of the Garden of Eden.
The words gate, garden and wall refer to the feminine aspect of Nature. The Lord (cosmic Law) "hath stretched out a line" of vibratory power. Physical matter cannot vibrate at the rate of etheric substance. Therefore, when man lowered his consciousness through wrong living it was essential that he have a vehicle in harmony with his altered state of knowing; the result was his gradual fall into the present density of matter. As a consequence spiritual Law is but little understood; the veil of mortality is drawn before things of the spirit.
The concrete or purely intellectual mind, unillumined by spirit, sees only vain and foolish things. "Though there be prophesies they shall fail, though there be knowledge it shall vanish away." Love, the true, power of spirit, endures forever.
The third chapter of Lamentations expresses the wail of an imprisoned spirit in its longing for freedom from the alien land of materiality (limitations of the physical body):
The fourth chapter of Lamentations begins a dirge over the fall and closes on a note of victory over the lower nature (the daughter of Edom). it portrays present world conditions and the evolutionary status of the race.
Lamentations 4:4-8
The tongue of the suckling child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth
for thirst; the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto
them.
They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets; they that
were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is
greater than the punishment of the An of Sodom, that was overthrown
as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk,
they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of
sapphire!
Thew visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the
streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
Young children are the neophytes — those who, amidst depravity and degradation, still seek to find the true way leading to life eternal.
The Nazarites, an esoteric group, were still in possession of inner teachings concerning things of the spirit. They outlined two paths of development, namely, the mystical and the occult. The way of the mystic is the path of faith; it finds expression in teachings of the Church. Those who follow this line of development build a soul body purer than snow and whiter than milk. The way of the occultist is the path of knowledge and good works. Its followers demand an answer to all matters in doubt and require that the intellect be satisfied before the heart may speak. Such wear a garment of the soul more "rudy in body than rubies."
The latter remains the ideal of esoteric Brotherhoods which guide the evolution of earth, but few there be in the world today who possess any knowledge of spiritual mysteries. Few there are even among the so-called religious leaders who understand the nature of the soul body and the method of its development, or who make any effort to teach their followers anything about the subject. And yet, throughout the Bible, the supreme Textbook for the Western World, teachings pertaining to the soul are plainly delineated, and Scripture makes clear what a lack of such knowledge means to the human race.
The waters of eternal life (conserved essence of the holy life force) has been sacrificed to Mammon. Servants of the lower nature rule over the race. Men are no longer sons, but servants. The bread of life is laid waste and man makes materiality his god.
The luminous soul body is woven by pure and holy living: that is, through conservation of the life essence. Its misuse is the cause of soul famine. Soul famine, in turn, is externalized in world affairs. The bodies of famine victims are black compared to the luminous radiance of the "diamond body" of an adept. Yet this achievement, so rare among men, was actually planned for attainment in the present evolutionary epoch. Mankind is more than five thousand years behold his evolutionary schedule. Extension of the senses, conscious knowledge of inner planes, ability to function in the soul body apart from the physical body, are some of the lesser abilities that should now be a common attainment of the race in this post-Atlantean, Fifth Epoch. Instead, it is the rare heritage of a few foremost spiritual leaders.
The foxes (desire nature) walk upon the mountain of Zion because the crown (spiritual or firsthand knowledge) has fallen from our heads.
Despite ominous shadows of evil and wrong-doing cast by Josiah's successors, workings of divine Law in the lives of the few who remained faithful brightens the dark picture with gleams of golden light, attesting to the protective care of divine Hierarchies for that Remnant about which the prophets sing.
In Jeremiah's lifetime there appeared several prophets who aided in the Great Work: the priestly Zephaniah in the reign of Manasseh, Nahum in the reign of Jehoahaz; Obadiah in the final tragically changing days of Zedekiah. Never can the night be so dark but what somewhere the light still shines and may be seen by those who seek it. When it is night in the West, the Sun is shining in the East. When it is night in the Orient, the Sun shines on the Occident.
"Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you" is a Temple maxim as old as Wisdom itself, and as infallible.
— Corinne Heline
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