[The Sun as spiritual “longing.” ~excerpts from Psychology of the Unconscious.]
In Mysticism the inwardly perceived, divine vision is often merely sun or light, and is very little, or not at all, personified.
In the Mithraic liturgy there is found, for example, a significant quotation:
“The path of the visible Gods will appear through the sun, the God my Father.”
Hildegarde von Bmgen (1100-1178) expresses herself in the following manner:
” But the light I see is not local, but far off, and brighter than the cloud which supports the sun. I can in no way know the form of this light since I cannot entirely see the sun’s disc.
But within this light I see at times, and infrequently, another light which is called by me the living light, but when and in what manner I see this I do not know how to say, and when I see it all weariness and need is lifted from me, then too, I feel like a simple girl and not like an old woman ”
Symeon, the New Theologian (970-1040), says the following:
” My tongue lacks words, and what happens in me my spirit sees clearly but does not explain.
It sees the invisible, that emptiness of all forms, simple throughout, not complex, and in extent infinite.
For it sees no beginning, and it sees no end.
It is entirely unconscious of the meanings, and does not know what to call that which it sees.
Something complete appears, it seems to me, not indeed through the being itself, but through a participation.
For you enkindle fire from fire, and you receive the whole fire, but this remains undiminished and undivided, as before.
Similarly, that which is divided separates itself from the first ; and like something corporeal spreads itself into several lights.
This, however, is something spiritual, immeasurable, indivisible, and inexhaustible.
For it is not separated when it becomes many, but remains undivided and is in me, and enters within my poor heart like a sun or circular disc of the sun, similar to the light, for it is a light.”
That that thing, perceived as inner light, as the sun of the other world, is longing, is clearly shown by Symeon’s words.
“And following It ray spirit demanded to embrace the splendor beheld, but it found It not as creature and did not succeed my coming out from among created beings, so that it might embrace that uncreated and uncomprehended splendor.
Nevertheless it wandered everywhere, and strove to behold It. It penetrated the air, it wandered over the Heavens, it crossed over the abysses, it
searched, as it seemed to it, the ends of the world.”
But in all of that it found nothing, for all was created. And I lamented and was sorrowful, and my ‘breast burned, and I lived as one distraught in mind.
But It came, as It would, and descending like a luminous mystic cloud, It seemed to envelop my whole head so that dismayed I cried out. But flying away again It left me alone.
And when I, troubled, sought for It, I realized suddenly that It was in me, myself, and in the midst of my heart It appeared as the light of a spherical sun.”
The invocation is, as one sees, almost inexhaustible in light and fire attributes, and can be likened in its extravagance only to the synonymous attributes of love of the mystic of the Middle Ages.
Among the innumerable texts which might be used as an illustration of this, I select a passage from the writings of Mechtild von Magdebuig (1212-1277):
” O Lord love me excessively and love me often and long; the oftener you love me, so much the purer do I become, the more excessively you love me, the more beautiful I become, the longer you love me, the more holy will I become here upon earth.”
God answered: “That I love you often, that I have from my nature, for I myself am love. That I love you excessively, that I have from my desire, for I too desire that men love me excessively That I love you long, that I have from my everlastingness, for I am without end.”
An excerpt from the Mithraic Dieterich Liturgy:
Hear me, grant me my prayer Binding together the fiery bolts of heaven with spirit, two-bodied fiery sky, creator of humanity, fire-breathing, fiery-spirited, spiritual being rejoicing in fire, beauty of humanity, ruler of humanity of fiery body, light-giver to men, fire-scattering, fire-agitated, life famed among men, increasing the human race, enlightening humanity, conqueror of stars.
