Virgo Festival Talk

REVEALING THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF GOD

Good evening everyone, and welcome to this Festival of Virgo, the great celebration of the Mother principle in all things. A warm welcome also to everyone listening on Blog Talk radio. These full moon Festivals as they are called, are opportunities for people of goodwill all over the world to come into closer contact with the Spiritual Hierarchy of the planet. The full moon is the time when the most sunlight pours into the earth because the moon is out of the way. It is when our Elder Brothers who guide and guard our evolution and living in the more highly refined spiritual dimensions, can make their closest approach to the dense physical plane in which we are living and likewise, we can aspire to lift up our own consciousness toward them. It is a reciprocal relationship. The increased capacity for union with the spiritual planes is a festival time indeed, so we can enter this moment together with a sense of joy in our shared purpose and brother/sisterhood. It is a beautiful image for those of us physically in this room, to see ourselves sitting with people all over the world, meditating on the inner planes as one body, and together creating the body of Christ, nurturing the inner life which will eventually and fully emerge from the perfected form.

Virgo represents the Mother and the child, together as one. The universal mother, the giver of life, is the originating beneficent influence for the child. She is the provider of nourishment as well as the actual substance of the body, the physical vehicle for the manifestation of the inner life, the hidden Christ. For any child, the Mother is the center of everything that is love. Our whole solar system is conditioned by the great energy of Love/Wisdom, so it seems appropriate to take a moment to focus ourselves as a group mind by using the mantram of love:

In the center of all love I stand
From that center, I, the soul, will outward move.
From that center, I, the one who serves, will work.
May the love of the divine Self be shed abroad
In my heart, through my group, and throughout the world.
OM

The great dual sign of Virgo, signifies the mother and child as a single unity, the two are not separate one from the other, matter and spirit are joined, they are inseparable and most importantly, equal. I am the mother and the child. I God, I matter am, says the soul in Virgo. The I Am, the soul, is as much a part of the Father principle, pure spirit, as it is of the Mother, the form nature or matter. The power of Virgo is encapsulated in the extraordinary statement of the Tibetan that, "its symbology concerns the whole goal of the evolutionary process which is to shield, nurture and finally reveal the hidden spiritual reality." These three aspects of Virgo; to shield, nurture and finally reveal the hidden spiritual life, summarize the entire mission of Virgo in our evolutionary scheme, making Virgo in a curious way, also a triple sign.

The virginal and pure archetypal Mother symbolizes everything regarding the idea of protection; The Mother principle, the outer form, shields and protects the fragile and growing spiritual child within, who symbolically is not yet ready for full emergence into the world and is unable to exist outside the body of the mother. The inner child, the growing spiritual force within, is the pulsating nucleus of life conceived as the result of the union of spirit and matter, the Father and Mother creating the child, the Son of God, the soul. While the inner child may be hidden from view, it is very known to the Mother and thus her powerful instinctive need to protect the growing life, occasionally impelling her to extraordinary feats of courage.

There have been many movements throughout human history that exemplify the courage and protective capability of mothers. One group making news in the 1970's and 80's was the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. These Argentine women were mothers of children who were "disappeared" by the government during what was known as "the Dirty War" of the military dictatorship. They began to march in front of the presidential palace in defiance of the state terrorism, trying to learn what happened to their children. They became internationally known and as a result, were able to bring pressure to their government about the atrocities it was perpetrating on its young people who were voicing opposition. In the traditional South American culture, these women are the nurturer, protector and educator of the family and the children, they are usually within the home, but their grief drove them into the public eye. They attracted support from groups across the world fighting for social justice and eventually broadened their movement into a fight against human rights violations.

In 1955, the Black Sash movement was founded in South Africa. It was a non-violent white women's resistance organization whose purpose was to fight the increasing apartheid legislation. These women used their positions of privilege in the white community to stand against racial injustice and seek human rights. Like the Mothers in Argentina, they kept vigils, pressured their government in various ways and stood for the values of equality, justice and human rights. Wearing a black sash, their members were often physically attacked, but they never gave up, knowing that any kind of separation goes against the Plan of God, suppresses the inner life and is contrary to the Life principle.

In 1980 in the United States, a handful of mothers who had been devastated by the loss of their children as the result of drunk driving accidents, began a movement called Mothers Against Drunk Driving, MADD. Their campaign quickly spread and the organization grew to national proportions. Part of their work is to, "provide grassroots leadership to create major social change in the attitude and behavior of Americans toward drunk driving." Since its inception, MADD has helped save more than 300,000 lives and there has been a noticeable shift in the attitudes of society about driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Like the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, these women harnessed their grief and outrage to make lasting changes in the culture for the benefit not only of the children, but everyone, protecting and saving lives. These early pioneering groups of women, a few among many, embody the following message of Helena Roerich:

In the hands of woman lies the salvation of humanity and of our planet. Woman must realize her significance, the great mission of the Mother of the World; she should be prepared to take responsibility for the destiny of humanity. Mother, the life-giver, has every right to direct the destiny of her children. The voice of woman, the mother, should be heard amongst the leaders of humanity. The mother suggests the first conscious thoughts to her child. She gives direction and quality to all his aspirations and abilities. [Letters, Volume I, page 6]

Virgo is often depicted as a woman holding a sheaf of wheat symbolizing the bounty of the harvest and feeding the world; the matter aspect nourishing the inner spiritual life, making manifestation possible. She could just as easily be seen as a pregnant woman, radiant with the knowledge of the precious life within still hidden from view to the outside. She is in her own deep contemplation with the Child, the inner spiritual life, and they live in a secret place together. The inner life sleeps deeply within the womb of time, in the dark and secret cave, receiving sustenance from the actual substance of the mother. It silently awaits the crisis of the birth hour, all the while growing stronger. The Mother gives all, withholding nothing of value, nothing necessary for the support of life.

Just as a human mother gives all to her child, humanity is held and nurtured by Mother Earth. Our physical forms are sustained and nourished by the plants and sometimes animals, air and water, and together with the Sun, the Father, we are complete. All the elements we need for life on earth are given freely by the planet on which we live. In recent decades, the realization that our physical resources are not unlimited and that we must protect the physical environment has been steadily growing in the public consciousness, and the conflicts arising from disputes over how this should happen can be seen in the smallest town planning board or the largest national fossil fuel extraction project. Virgo represents purity and cleanliness, it builds the forms suitable for the inhabiting Christ life, and without a clean environment, life on earth cannot be supported. Together, humanity is recognizing its oneness with and dependence on its Mother Earth as the support of its physical form.

It is the will of God to manifest itself through form and the form nature is no less divine than the highest spiritual Being. The notion that the body is evil or that matter isn't "spiritual" is not the lesson we learn through Virgo. The myriad forms of creation, the majestic animals, under water life, the endless variety in the vegetable kingdom, the beauty and shine of minerals; every form protecting the life within is part of the body of the Logos and every atom of substance has within it a germ or seed of divinity, a life force which the outer form hides. Form is meant to express the life of God through its myriad appearances and the beauty without is a testament to the divinity of the Life within. The principle of the unity of spirit and matter underlies the entire evolutionary scheme of our system, which is why the sign of Virgo is so important. This is expressed through the inspired statement of HP Blavatsky: "Matter is spirit at its lowest point and spirit is matter at its highest." Virgo is a dual sign and yet in this duality, there is unity, because both aspects, spirit and matter, the inner life and outer form, are inseparable one from the other in the course of evolution. They are completely dependent on one another and have equal value; they are the "blended dual Light."

Because Virgo is so instrumental in our evolutionary process, a contemplation of this earth sign helps to expand our thinking to visualize the journey of humanity as a whole within the large sweep of time. We should be inspired to think synthetically, holistically and see humanity as the world disciple, treading the Path of evolution, slowly and surely discovering its divine nature, the Father aspect, which the divine Mother makes manifest. We can see ourselves as an integral part of God's creation, not separate from it, but co-creators in the womb of time and space, continually growing closer to a full manifestation of the mature Christ life, the true inner reality as expressed through the soul.

Virgo is referred to as the "incentive behind discipleship." For an unknown time, the soul has been held captive in form while the identification of the human has been focused solely on the form, not the inner life. For immeasurable lifetimes, every aspect of form and all types of concrete thinking have been experienced; all physical appetites exhausted, every emotional condition endured and numerous mental states explored. All states of maya, glamour and illusion have been undergone, recognized for what they are and discarded; the form alone found to be incomplete. Selfish materialism has dominated the life experience of the man on earth. The resources of the Mother have been used up and the man is still left wanting. It is now at this time of deep and quiet crisis that the inner Christ, the spiritual Child begins to make itself felt within the form. This is the magic moment, the final phase of Virgo's work, the revelation of the hidden spiritual reality.

When a human being feels the presence of this hidden life force, this pulsing and insistent pull, everything is changed. Something within is totally new, there is a new note, a fresh feeling. The attraction of form has lost its allure and the growing spiritual pressure creates a magnetic attraction on the consciousness. One is inexorably drawn to the inner light and the "incentive to discipleship" begins. The inner Christ is stirring, demanding attention and recognition. The Path has begun and the revelation of the new life is birthed.

Virgo is an elegant illustration of the concept of God Imminent. The inner God lives within and is ultimately revealed to the form. The hidden reality of the existence of the Father, the spirit, becomes exposed as supernal light stimulates the good, beautiful and true. Imagine the good fortune of a small child of 4 or 5 years old, who after having a bad dream, is told by the mother, "But sweetie, you could hurt your body in some way, you could break your arm or something, but that's not the real you. Nothing can hurt the real you because the real you, the inner you, is God!" This mother has articulated the secret of the will for her child, has exposed the reality of its own divine nature and given the greatest gift, the seed of the truth of "Christ in you, the hope of glory", expressed in a way a child can understand. Imagine the impression of this statement on a five year old mind! Imagine how the thinking of this child will be informed for the entire life! This is eventually what all mothers will tell their children, and when they do, the truth of the living God within will transform the consciousness of humanity. The coming age will demonstrate our interrelatedness through Christ, the Son of God who is also the Son of Man, and we will truly see the era of the one human race.

Humanity as a whole is now on the verge of the 1st initiation, the birth of the living Christ in the cave of the heart, the revelation of love within the form. We are entering the Aquarian Age and the emergence of an era of true spiritual living is at hand. It appears that the old platitude "it's always darkest before the dawn" is especially true today as wars, conflicts and environmental destruction; pollution, hatred, separation and poverty seem to be all we hear on the news or on the internet. One in 6 people in this richest country in the world are hungry, and a billion people worldwide are living in poverty. We are abusing our Mother Earth and she is reacting through extreme weather events causing death and destruction affecting many vulnerable people. Humanity is enduring hardship and deprivation, but learning the value of persistence through struggle and undergoing what the Tibetan refers to as "experiences of the dark time", the time just before birth into the light, the "crisis of the birth hour."

While it is important to observe the trends and crises in humanity, focusing our awareness on the evening news doesn't give a complete picture. The new group of world servers and men and women of goodwill everywhere are more active and effective than ever before. The many thousands of human and animal welfare movements and earth stewardship organizations are testament to the fact that the heart of humanity is sound. There are trends emerging everywhere to develop the inner spiritual nature. Meditation, at least in the West, is no longer seen as strange and has become almost mainstream. Groups everywhere are going on spiritual retreats to beautiful places and there is an increased focus on the inner life in academia, church groups, counseling groups and others. People are recognizing the truth of the inner reality and are noticeably choosing life not death, love not hate. Thousands of so called ordinary people are making lasting changes toward spiritual living.

Let us for a moment visualize the many places of natural beauty on the earth we may have visited or seen pictures of; national parks with grand vistas, spectacular waterfalls, small but magical places in the forest, anything in nature that comes to mind that gives us a sense of peace, quiet and wonder at God's creation. We easily appreciate the special quality of the natural world and the extraordinary beauty of our planet. Now let us imagine the many places of manmade beauty created through human ingenuity and skill; temples, cathedrals, museums, the Taj Mahal, great works of art or music, the places and things that uplift and inspire. These are the physical containers, the outer forms in which the inner spiritual life is revealed, where we naturally commune with the soul and know the reality of the inner God. We can sense the presence of the Ashram within these natural and manmade places and can more easily align ourselves with Hierarchy and be nourished by the resulting down flow of our invocation.

Humanity as the world disciple, is meant to reveal the kingdom of God on Earth, to manifest the Father aspect through the form, to merge the negative polarity of the Mother with the positive polarity of the Father, via the soul, the living Christ. It is the destiny of humanity to merge and fuse with the 5th Kingdom, the spiritual Hierarchy, and for the Kingdom of God to manifest on Earth. We are helping tonight in our small act of service to condition the mental field for this tremendous process as we join together with many other groups all over the world in meditation contemplating Virgo. The constellation of Virgo is especially characterized by service because it simultaneously stimulates the life within the form as well as producing the form itself, each aspect thereby serving the other. Virgo is our cosmic Mother, the revealer of love.

The anthroposophical astrologer, John Jocelyn, wrote this poem on Virgo:

O turn thy thoughts to cosmic life,
Embrace the world beyond the strife,
Take in the view within the light,
Beyond the sense, Spirit-bright.

O cleanse thy soul and understand
The movement of the Spirit-band,
The Elohim, and living whole,
The Christ Himself, who feeds thy soul.

Get wise to life, ennobled be,
Serve God, and man and live as free;
The body's barrier, woven tight,
Must loosened be to see the light.

A second man must come to birth
Within the person on the Earth;
If man will live the life, and love,
He brings to birth the Lord above.

FESTIVAL OF VIRGO
New York, September 18, 2013
Barbara Valocore