02 August 2021

Faces of God - Part 1

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“The language in which God wrote the universe is

mathematics” - Galileo

Text: Emilia Wróblewska-Ćwiek Image: Free-Photo`s on Pixabay CCO

Galileo stated that "the language in which God wrote the universe is mathematics". It
rules both in the subtle worlds invisible to our eyes and in the material world; in the
macrocosm and in the microcosm that is man. In the Kabbalistic teachings, there is
the term macroprosopus [1] which is a compound of two Greek words "macro" and
"prosopo" (person) and which translates as "the vast or great countenance". Its
counterpart is the Aramaic concept of Arikh-Anpin - the Longer Face, in its highest, or
abstract, metaphysical sense, referring to the primal manifestation of the Infinity, the
vehicle of Ain Soph, the crowning of the Tree of Life, and to Adam Kadmon, the
prototype of the perfect, divine man, the microcosm that has connected Heaven and
Earth. In contrast to him is Zair Anpin, the Lesser Face, the fallen and chained Adam of
Eden (of whom all people on Earth are "descendants") and who is also called
microprosopus. Interestingly, the term microprosopus also occurs in teratology (from
the Greek words teratos - monster and logos - science), which studies the causes and
effects of abnormal development, and it is used to describe "a monster with a
defective face" (from The Century Dictionary). Can we find a metaphorically expressed
truth about contemporary man in these unpleasant words? If so, how does this
"defective face" determine our awareness and knowledge of ourselves? Are we aware
of our condition? Do we identify with our "human face"? Can "monsters" with defective
faces transform and turn, like the Beast from a fairy tale, into beings with a perfect
face? Finally, are we able to know the true "face" of God at our present level of
development? And what is it?

In many languages, for example in Polish and English, there is a synonym for the word
"face", associating it with a number or counting. In Polish, the word is "oblicze", in
English - "countenance". Whoever has come across numerology (Pythagorean,
Kabbalistic or Chaldean) knows that it says that the world was created through
numbers. Numbers are the original ideas from Plato’s teachings. They have their own
character, soul and enormous power of influence, both on the subtle worlds and on the
material world. In Hebrew, one and the same symbol defines both a letter and a
number. Letters are inseparable from numbers and are the building blocks of all that
exists.
In Sefer Yezirah we read that all revealed reality is based on ten primal numbers. But
behind that which is revealed there is something we do not know; a Being that is
unavailable to our imperfect senses. Some silent, invisible, powerful Consciousness
that never directly shows itself to its earthly children. It hides so effectively that many
of us - humans inhabiting the material world and clothed in physical bodies- deny Its
existence. Nay! Even representatives of science deny this, and the view that there is a
work without an author seems very illogical. However, for those in whom the divine
atom in the heart is active, endowing the spiritual sense of intuition, it is clear that
behind the revealed world there must be a Being invisible to us, who can be
recognized by its fruits, by its works. And it’s they which are its faces, or perhaps
masks.

For at this point the question arises whether in a world like ours, we have contact with
the True God. Was this world founded on the initiative of the original Source of our
existence? Or is it the work of a benevolent demiurge who, as Plato claimed, did not
create it directly, but by introducing into the chaotic world of matter the world of ideas
with which he brought it to order? Or maybe this world is not a product of a good
being, but of an evil and satanic creature, as the old Gnostics claimed?

The latter concept may seem shocking, heretical and iconoclastic at first. However,
when we think about the fact that we live in the reality of the food chain, in which one
eats the other, then we can confront our “monstrous” face, then the idea may begin to
grow in us that maybe there is something to it - perhaps we live in a world created by
an imperfect being. Since, in order to survive, one has to rob another creature of life,
we start to think that this idea must have arisen in the consciousness of someone in
whom there is some fundamental lack. And since in the hearts of most of us there is a
natural striving for good, a desire to be good and to do good, we feel that, after all,
there must be a true God somewhere who is pure Goodness, pure Perfection, who has
planted this striving in us.

Probably each of us encountered the appeal placed at the entrance to the temple in
Delphi: "Man, know thyself, and you will know the universe and the gods". It leads us
to the clue that perhaps God (gods?) should not be sought in the outside world, but in
the place where the sight cannot reach. Because looking outside „we see only a
reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now we know in part; then we
shall know fully, even as we are fully known” as the beautiful biblical Hymn to Love
proclaims (1 Corinthians 13:12). In its earlier verses (9-11) we read more: „For we
know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part
disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned
like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me”.

These words seem to say that man at the present level of development is not yet truly
developed; he is imperfect, his evolution is not over yet and therefore he sees dimly,
he does not see reality in its true essence, but only through the mirror of its material
garment.

It turns out that getting to know yourself is not as easy as it may seem. Even when we
try to get to know ourselves on an inner level, we cannot get rid of the habit of
identifying ourselves with the image of ourselves in our head for a very long time.
Instead of peace in the heart, we often find fear. Masks and beliefs about who we are
embedded in us. The Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz wrote in his book “Ferdydurke”
that "there is no escape from the mug (a social mask) but in another mug" [2].
Together, these masks create a false identity we call the "ego". And one can say,
following Gombrowicz, that "ego" - this false image of ourselves - we can really
overcome only with another "image", but not the one that is a product of our mind.

(To be continued in part 2)

[1] H. P. Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary

[2] Witold Gombrowicz (August 4, 1904 – July 24, 1969) was a Polish writer and
playwright. In 1937 he published his first novel, Ferdydurke, of which he said:
‘We live in an era of violent changes, of accelerated development, in which settled
forms are breaking under life’s pressure […] The need to find a form for what is yet
immature, uncrystalized and underdeveloped, as well as the groan at the impossibility
of such a postulate - this is the chief excitement of my book”.

‘Mug’- in the original Polish version „gęba” is a metaphor for a kind of disguise, a form
that one should not disregard.