35 § The Cave and the World Egg
W E have already said that the initiatic cave is considered as an image of the world; but on the other hand by reason of its symbolic assimilation with the
heart, it represents more particularly the heart's most central part. There might seem to be here two different points of view, but in reality they in no way contradict one another, and what we have explained about the World Egg is enough to reconcile them and even to identify them in a certain sense. In fact, the World Egg is central in relation to the cosmos and, at the same time, it contains in seed all that the cosmos will contain in its fully manifested state. All things are to be found in the World Egg, therefore, but in a state of 'envelopment' which also is represented, precisely, by the situation of the cave, as we have explained, that is, by its hiddenness and its inaccessibility. The two halves into which the World Egg is divided, according to one of the most common aspects of its symbolism, become respectively heaven and earth. Likewise, in the cave, the ground corresponds to the earth and the vault to heaven; so there is nothing in all this that is not perfectly coherent and normal.
There is still another question to be considered, one that is particularly important from an initiatic point of view: we have spoken of the cave as the place of the 'second birth'; but between this 'second birth' and the 'third birth' there is an essential distinction to be made that corresponds to the distinction between initiation into the Lesser Mysteries and initiation into the Greater Mysteries. If the third birth is also represented as taking place in a cave, how does the symbolism of the cave adapt itself to this? The second birth, which can be rightly called 'psychic regeneration', takes place in the domain of the subtle possibilities of the human individuality. The third birth, on the contrary, being realised directly in the spiritual order and no longer in the psychic order, gives access to the domain of supra-individual possibilities. The one is thus strictly a 'birth in the cosmos' (to which the birth of the Avatära corresponds in the macrocosmic order), and consequently it is logical that it be represented as taking place entirely within the cave; but the other is a 'birth out of the cosmos', and to this 'exit from the cosmos' (according to the expression of Hermes), [1] there must correspond (in order that the symbolism be complete) a final exit from the cave; for the cave contains only the possibilities included within the cosmos, those possibilities precisely which the initiate must pass beyond in this new phase of the development of his being, of which the 'second birth' was only the starting point.
Certain relationships have naturally to be modified here: the cave becomes once more a 'sepulchre', this time no longer only because it is subterranean, but because the entire cosmos is in a sense the sepulchre from which the being must now come forth. The 'third birth' is necessarily preceded by the 'second death', which is no longer death to the profane world but truly 'death to the cosmos' (and also 'in the cosmos'), and this is why the 'extra-cosmic' birth is always assimilated to a 'resurrection'. [2] In order that this resurrection (which
is at the same time the exit from the cave) may take place, it is necessary that the stone which covers the opening of the 'sepulchre' (that is, of the cave itself) be removed. In what follows we will see how this can be represented in certain cases in ritual symbolism.
On the other hand, when what is outside the cave represented only the profane world or the 'outer' darkness, the cave then appeared as the sole illuminated place and, moreover, necessarily illuminated from within, for no light could then come to it from without. Now, since 'extra-cosmic' possibilities have to be taken into account, the cave, despite this illumination, becomes relatively dark in reference, we do not say to whatever is outside it without distinction, but more precisely, to what is above it, beyond its vault, for there indeed is what represents the 'extra-cosmic' domain. In accordance with this new point of view, one could then consider this inner illumination as being only the reflection of a light which penetrates through the 'roof of the world; by the 'solar gateway' or 'sun door' which is the 'eye' of the cosmic vault or the upper opening of the cave. In the microcosm this opening corresponds to the Brahma-randhra, that is, to the individual's point of contact with the 'seventh ray' of the spiritual sun, [3] the point which is 'localised' according to organic correspondences, on the crown of the head, [4] and which is also represented by the upper opening of the Hermetic athanor. [5] Let us add, in this connection, that the 'philosophical egg' which manifestly plays the part of the 'World Egg', is enclosed within the athanor, but that the athanor can itself be assimilated to the cosmos in both the macrocosmic and the microcosmic sense. The cave can thus also be identified symbolically with the 'philosophical egg' and with the athanor according to the particular degree of development in the initiatic process that is being referred to; but in any case the fundamental meaning of the cave will not be altered in any way on that account.
It is also to be noted that this illumination by reflection takes us back to the Platonic image of the cave, in which only shadows are seen, thanks to a light that comes from without; [6] and this light is indeed extra-cosmic, for its source is the 'intelligible Sun'. The liberation of the prisoners and their exodus from the cave is a 'coming into the daylight' in which they can contemplate directly the reality of which they had hitherto seen merely a reflection. This reality is that of the eternal archetypes, the possibilities contained in the permanent actuality of the immutable Essence.
Finally, it is important to note that the two 'births' we have spoken of, being two successive phases of the full initiation, are also by that very fact,
two stages on one and the same path, and that this path is essentially 'axial', as is also, in its symbolism, the solar ray we have just been alluding to, which indicates the spiritual 'direction' that the being must follow, raising himself unswervingly in order to attain in the end to his true Centre. [7] Within the limits of the microcosm, this axial direction is that of the sushumnā which extends all the way to the crown of the head, beyond which it is prolonged 'extra-individually' so to speak, by the solar ray itself that is to be followed in reascending order towards its source. Along the sushumnā are the chakras, the subtle centres of the individuality, and to some of these correspond the different positions of the luz or 'kernel of immortality', which we have considered previously, so that these same positions, or the successive 'awakenings' of the corresponding chakras, are always also to be considered as stages on the same axial path. Furthermore, since the World Axis is to be identified naturally with the vertical direction which answers perfectly to this idea of an ascending way, the upper opening, which corresponds microcosmically to the crown of the head, will normally have to be situated at the zenith of the cave, that is at the very summit of the vault. The question is however none the less somewhat complicated in fact owing to two different modalities of symbolism, one polar and the other solar. For this reason some further points must be made in connection with the exit from the cave; these will also serve to illustrate the relationships between the two modalities, the respective predominance of which tallied originally with different cyclic periods but which were subsequently often associated and combined in many different ways.