Dearly beloved reader friends:
It is with great pleasure that I send you this engraving entitled…
…SOLA VIRTUS EST FUNERIS EXPERS
─’Only virtue is exempt from death’─
This engraving is part of a book of emblems called Emblemata Liber ─’the book of emblems’─, whose drawings were made by Jean-Jacques Boissard (1528-1602), a French humanist, writer, poet in the Latin language, editor and draughtsman.
In this image we are shown the virtue on the left with a sword and a shield in her hands. The three Moirai [Fates] ─Clotho, the spinner, Lachesis, the one who allots the destinies, and Atropos, the cutter─, and death near them carrying his hourglass. The moira Lachesis writes on a funeral stone ─namely: tombstone─: Sic Visum Superis: ‘This is how the Gods want it.’
In Greek mythology, the Moirai ─Parcae to the Romans─ were the personifications of destiny. They controlled the metaphorical thread of the life of every mortal and immortal from birth to death.
They were in charge of taking the deceased souls to the places where they belong ─hell, heaven, purgatory─. The three were dedicated to spinning, they cut the thread that measured the length of life with a scissors to fix the moment of someone’s death. They spun white wool and intermingled gold threads and black woolen threads. The golden threads indicated the happy moments in people’s lives and the black wool, the sad ones.
There is a translation of the text that accompanies the emblem in the book:
“Everything that is valued in this world is subject to destruction: strength, health, wealth, dignity and, in general, everything that makes the train of this life easier; it changes suddenly and disappears in a moment like the line of lightning, because nothing is lasting in nature. That is why the sage affirms that the only truth is virtue as a permanent treasure. Certainly we also disappoint this life so brief and transitory; without reason we call it life.
We do not recognize ourselves in childhood, we only babble then; youth leaves us stunned for half our lives, and when in some maturity judgment is given to us, it is wrapped in an infinity of work and worries. Our decadence meets with the painful old age, which governs us with a cold hand until the end of our path. Beauty withers suddenly; joy and fun pass in the blink of an eye; the enjoyment of possessions is debated and there is nothing certain, even in retaining them we only have a burden on the mind. The forces of nature are weakened by the force of disease; we are persecuted by poverty, which covers us with contempt; friends are rare. In short, let us say that heaven does not cover anything on which we can anchor our safety because we are the spoils of death. Only virtue allows us to escape from all dangers and guarantees us the oppression of all these defects. It is immortal, and he who adjusts his life to its nature redoubles it, even perpetuates it forever.”
What does all this mean?
It means, esteemed readers, that the only thing that has true meaning in our existence is to live for the BEING and His virtues. The BEING is everything and is capable of defeating death. With the BEING we continue in the region of the dead but enjoying dignity, intelligence, Consciousness and enjoying a fullness that is difficult to define. We are not like those creatures who spent their earthly lives absolutely identified, in a stupid way, with the physical body, with apparent health, who only take advantage of it to give free rein to their violent egoic passions, or attached to material riches, having within them a fear, a terror of losing them, even knowing that, when the day of death comes, all that will be left behind…
As Gnosis so well emphasizes to us, we are humanoids who are born with the Consciousness asleep, we grow up full of fantasies, we mature believing ourselves to be intelligent, we grow old full of objections and complaints of all kinds until, finally, we leave this valley of tears and go to other dimensions again with the Consciousness asleep. In short: it is the repetition of a NONSENSE, a life based on psychic hypnosis that in no way allows us to see, feel and touch the GREAT REALITY.
The three Moirai come to represent for us the forces of destiny that is fulfilled whether we like it or not. However, in our engraving, the one that remains standing firmly is virtue. Only virtues overcome all difficulties and become hopes when all seems lost in our illusory world.
At the foot of the three Moirai we see amphorae, jugs, crowns, arrows and trunks full of treasures. Why? ANSWER: Because they exercise the true government of the existence of all beings. That is why we are told that our life can change suddenly from one moment to the next like the flash of lightning. And in this it is unquestionable that the Moirai act together with the Archons of Karma.
For those who have worked on themselves, life acquires another meaning, because each day that passes they perceive the reason for certain circumstances, and from each of them they acquire a teaching that enriches their Consciousness. When the Consciousness expands more and more it becomes omniscience, and in such a state of consciousness we are no longer little machines that simply receive energies from the Cosmos to retransmit them to the upper layers of the Earth so that it continues to rotate on its own axis.
We have only two alternatives in our existence:
- To live for the Ego, for the “I” and its innumerable appetites, with the consequent destruction of our sacred individuality and our final destination will be the abyss.
- Or to live for the BEING, which is accompanied by a determination to renounce the illusions of the “I” ─whatever they may be─ and the practice of the three factors of the Revolution of Consciousness, namely:
- TO DIE ─psychologically─.
- TO BE BORN ─to create a new inner life being helped by the art of Alchemy─.
- SACRIFICING OURSELVES FOR HUMANITY ─to develop virtues through voluntary suffering and conscious sacrifices─.
At this point, I would like to offer you some phrases from the analysis of some great beings who have existed in our world:
“Conscience is God present in man.”
Victor Hugo
“Conscience is the voice of the soul.”
Chateaubriend
“There is not greater theater for virtue than Conscience.”
Cicero
“Consciousness is a flash of the purity of the primitive state of man.”
Bacon
“Our Conscience is an infallible judge, when we have not yet murdered it.”
Balzac
PAX VOBISCUM.
─‘Peace be with you’.
KWEN KHAN KHU
