There is nothing in this universe apart from God. ...
and though the Deity is no doubt infinitely greater than the universe which is His creation,
every part and particle of that universe, from the tiniest atom to the mightiest planet,
is essentially, entirely and thoroughly divine.
J. J. Van der Leeuw
The Fire of Creation
For the same reason, we can say that all geometry is sacred, along with all mathematics and all the laws of physics. The fundamental constants and relationships that science has found prevalent in the physical world are also fundamental clues to our relationship to the higher metaphysical dimensions. Geometric relationships such as the golden ratio and the natural logarithm, etc., as well as science's view of the time scale of the Big Bang universe and its connection to the physics of the subatomic world, are all important to metaphysical geometry.
However, in the strict sense of the meaning, when we refer to Sacred Geometry we are talking about methods, ancient or modern, of representing the metaphysical relationship between our physical existence and the spiritual source of existence -- between the consciousness of the individual and the Universal Consciousness of the transcendental dimension.
This relationship is the seed of Creation, a dynamic process at the root of our existence. It is the First Cause of all modes of being and is experienced as consciousness and time within the individual -- the source of the experience of "otherness" and the entire field of objective spacetime.
Sacred Geometry, then, is a way of conceptualizing and illustrating the fundamental principles of a spiritual universe: Transcendental Omnipresence, the One Source of all realities, and Polarity, its intrinsic creative aspect, the Force of Creation (Logos, the Word, Om, etc.).
Multidimensional Geometries
When we model a three-dimensional sphere on a two-dimensional page, we easily understand that the resulting circle is only a limited representation, and we have no problem visualizing the sphere within the conceptual space of our mind. With the use of shading and perspective, 3-D models on flat paper can be very convincing, making it still easier to use the conceptual 3-D space of our mind to visualize what the model is trying to represent. Modeling more than three dimensions gets a little more difficult since the conceptual space of our mind seems to be limited to the same three dimensions as the space of our objective experience. However, the mind is perfectly capable of conceptualizing more than three dimensions even though they cannot all be visualized at the same time.
This is exactly what is done in the Minkowski diagram. By 'collapsing' one dimension of space, all of three-dimensional space is represented by a flat plane, and the third space dimension can be used to represent time. As mentioned earlier, this flat plane is a hypersurface. The three-dimensional space that we see is represented by the surface of the past light-cone, which can also be thought of as a continuous series of ever-widening rings, each ring representing a set distance away from the observer in all directions -- the interior surface of a spherical plane.
Imagine, for example, the spherical plane surrounding you at this moment at a distance of one light-second (about 186,000 miles -- most of the way to the moon!). The surface of that sphere is represented in a Minkowski diagram by a ring one second back along the past light-cone, and is defined by where the plane of the hypersurface of one second ago intersects the light-cone. The human mind is able to understand that such models are limited representations of more complex, extra-dimensional structures, and the model can help us to better understand the extra-dimensional relationships represented in that limited way.
Often, in physics and metaphysics both, different geometric forms are used to represent the same state of reality, usually as representing different qualities, relationships, or perspectives of the same thing. With a simple transformation of the defining coordinate system, for example, a geometric form can take on an entirely different shape. As mentioned in "Realm of the Quasar", the hyperspherical model of a big bang universe with three-dimensional space visualized as the surface of an expanding balloon, can at the same time be thought of as being flat, or even hyperbolic, as far as relativistic geometry is concerned. In fact, many different geometries have been used throughout history to represent cosmological relationships.
In a late Sumerian cuneiform text of ca 2000 BC ... the name of the goddess-mother of the universe, Nammu, is denoted by an ideogram signifying "sea", and she is given praise as "the mother who gave birth to Heaven-and-Earth [ama tu an-ki]." Moreover, a second tablet of about the same date ... tells that when this "Heaven-and-Earth" emerged from the primal sea, its form was of a mountain whose summit, Heaven (An), was male, and lower portion, Earth (Ki), female; further, that from this dual being the air-god Enlil was born, by whom the two were separated. ...
But this, almost to the letter, is the myth preserved in the classical [Greek] legend of Earth and Heaven, Gaia and Ouranos, separated by their son Kronos. We recognize it also in the ancient Egyptian representation of the separation of Heaven and Earth by the air-god Shu, or ... by a god bearing on his head a mountain sign -- except that in Egypt the sexes of the world-parents are reversed, Heaven (Nut) being female, and Earth (Geb) male.
Joseph Campbell
The Mythic Image
1974, Princeton University Press
In these ancient examples, the tip of the cosmic mountain corresponds to the spiritual dimension, and thus to the Universal Singularity (at time t=0 of the Big Bang or the center point of a timeless hypersphere), and the tip of the individual's light-cone is a point at the foot of the cosmic mountain, in the physical dimension. In the Vedic tradition, the unfoldment of creation from the spiritual to the physical is generally represented by a series of concentric spheres, the center being the transcendental spiritual dimension and timeless source. Transcending the universal chakras to the spiritual source is often described as climbing a cosmic mountain. This theme is also reflected in the general form of the mandala, with the center of the motif representing the spiritual source of Creation.
We should always keep in mind that metaphysical geometries are a way of modeling higher-dimensional relationships that are more real than the geometries themselves. What is most important is to develop an intuitive understanding of the metaphysical relationship or principle being modeled, and as powerful as they are as teaching tools, we must not get too hung up on the models themselves. The realization of transcendental unity is the goal of any metaphysical system or spiritual teaching.
Hebrew Kabbalah
In the Zohar texts of the Hebrew Kabbalah, the geometry of the Tree of Life is fundamental. It is composed of ten Sefirot.
Each Sefirah [singular] has distinctive properties, qualities, and, kabbalistically, lessons to be absorbed and mastered. Together, arranged in Right, Left, and Central Columns, the ten make up what kabbalists call "the Tree of Life". As we increase our spiritual competency by ascending each Sefirah, we simultaneously increase our spiritual capacity, giving us the ability to connect with and contain more and more Light. In other words, we are able to draw even nearer to the Creator.
Rav P. S. Berg
The Essential Zohar
2002, Bell Tower, New York
This geometry from the Kabbalah represents Ein-Sof, the transcendental source of all that is, and the angelic hierarchies.
Flower of Life
The Flower of Life pattern can be traced back to ancient times. It has been found in Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Europe, India, Japan, etc., and in ancient Buddhist and Chinese temples. It is generally incorporated into religious structures.
The code of the FLOWER OF LIFE actually contains all the wisdom found in the universe, similar to the genetic code contained within our own DNA. This geometric code goes beyond ordinary forms of teaching and lies beneath the very structure of reality itself.
All the harmonics of light, sound and music exist within this geometric structure, which exists as a holographic pattern, defining the shape of both atoms and galaxies alike. This image has been used throughout the world and has been found in all the major religions in all countries. ... The Flower of Life pattern was considered so sacred to the ancients, that it was kept secret and has only been found in a few known Egyptian sites.
Drunvalo Melchizedek
from Flower of Life Research
Flower of Life on Egyptian Temple, Abydos
Flower of Life floor mosaic in Ephesos, Turkey
The circles of this sacred geometry pattern actually represent spheres in a 3-dimensional pattern pervading all of space, representing the female elements of Creation. This provides the field for Metatron's Cube, which contains the Platonic Solids, formed by the ray-like male movements of Creation.
The Seed of Life
The Fruit of Life (lighter blue circles) and Metatron's Cube (red lines),
representing the male and female movements of Creation
Book of Dzyan
The earliest known illustration of Sacred Geometry is mentioned by Helena Blavatsky in the opening pages of the Secret Doctrine. She refers to a text from prehistory called The Book of Dzyan.
An Archaic Manuscript -- a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to water, fire, and air, by some specific unknown process -- is before the writer's eye. On the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull black background. On the following page, the same disk, but with a central point. The first, the student knows to represent Kosmos in Eternity, before the reawakening of still slumbering Energy, the emanation of the Word in later systems. The point in the hitherto immaculate disk ... denotes the dawn of differentiation.
H. P. Blavatsky
The Secret Doctrine - Vol. 1, Cosmogenesis
1978, The Theosophical Publishing House
Physics and Geometry
The mathematics of Relativity and quantum physics is multi-dimensional and complex, yet it describes a reality which is fundamentally simple and based on geometry -- the geometry of quantum fields within the geometry of spacetime. As a representation of reality, geometry is arguably even more fundamental than the mathematics which describes it. The geometry of spacetime existed long before Einstein developed the equations of Relativity. The exact value of pi is intrinsic to the geometry of the circle, yet it cannot be precisely expressed as a number.
The Gnostics of the 12th Century had a geometric conception of Logos as "an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere". (Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophers, a 12th-century text) Today, this geometric mind-bender could be represented by an infinite hypersphere, a four-dimensional sphere with infinite radius. Rather than a standard spherical plane with a surface and a radius, an infinite hypersphere is actually a spherical state of polarity, the polarity between singularity and infinity, with the infinity being a dimension beyond our three-dimensional experience of infinity.
Intriguingly, an interpretation of unified field physics suggests that a hyperspherical polarity of the Universal Superforce is the most fundamental expression of existence which can be realized from the physical plane, like a Geometric Logos. In this picture, all quantum processes which define matter and energy, along with the seed of individual consciousness, are represented by simple geometric elements within the hyperspherical geometry, radius rays (or vectors) and equatorial rings. With this geometry representing the quantum realm in its most fundamental form, it can be thought of as forming the central reality of any of the current unified field models.
As strange as this might seem, the idea actually makes more sense than having to imagine there must be an infinite number of parallel universes, for example, in order to account for the superposition of all possible realities inherent in the quantum wavefunction. It is especially intriguing considering that it also provides a better understanding of all the other bizarre implications of modern physics, while revealing a fascinating insight into the metaphysics of the Ancient Wisdom.
This is basically an interpretation of the Kaluza-Klein model, a classic unified field theory from Einstein's era, forms of which are used in string theory today. It unifies the electromagnetic and gravitational fields in a mathematically beautiful way by adding a fourth dimension of space at the Planck scale (about 20 orders of magnitude smaller than a proton). In the Kaluza-Klein model, we are living in a five-dimensional (or more) spacetime in which the fourth dimension of space is confined to tiny Planck-scale spheres, an infinite number of them filling all of space, which are ultimately responsible all we see and experience.
The unification of all things inherent in the quantum entanglement of modern physics, as well as in the philosophy of Nondualism, is realized in the possibility that all of those tiny fourth dimension spheres which fill all of three-dimensional space, are actually different rings on the same sphere within that fourth dimension, representing every quantum process in the Universe combined into one reality
The idea is much like imagining the Planck Time of the Big Bang (10-43 seconds after the Universal Singularity at t=0) as a timeless state which continuously creates our experience of a dynamic Universe, while remaining unchanged in its unified state in its higher dimension. Subatomic physics understands that the entire history of the Universe, from the Big Bang to the present, is reflected in the subatomic structure of matter.
An evolution of consciousness is the central motive of terrestrial existence.
The evolutionary working of Nature has a double process:
an evolution of forms, and evolution of the soul. ...
Man occupies the crest of the evolutionary wave.
With him occurs the passage from an unconscious to a conscious evolution. ...
The nature of the next step is indicated by the deep aspirations awakening in the human race.
Sri Aurobindo
The Future Evolution of Man
