The full moon of Taurus is uniquely associated with the Buddha, who according to ancient tradition was born, achieved enlightenment, and died on the Taurus full moon. After he achieved his breakthrough under the bodhi tree those millennia ago, the Buddha was asked, who are you? He responded “I am awake”. This offers an insight into the keynote of Taurus, I see and when the Eye is opened, all is light.
Patanjali, one of the earliest spiritual Guides whose origin is so ancient that no date can be ascribed, taught that there is a “raincloud of knowable things” ready to be precipitated into prepared human minds. This raincloud is described as that impending, overshadowing and revelatory storehouse of energy which is the immediate cause of all events on Earth and which indicates the emergence of that which is new and better and progressively right—IF we have eyes to see. Perhaps this raincloud can best be summed up as the sense of that which is imminent, hovering over humanity and available for precipitation and recognition by receptive human minds—when we can detach our eyes from all that concerns the physical, emotional, and mental life of the personal self. It is on these levels that the fog, confusion and glamour of life create such a powerful, all-enveloping cloud.
The dispelling of this cloud was the Buddha’s mission throughout the following decades, as he went about teaching that desire is the cause of all suffering, a force so powerful that it could only be overcome by transforming desire into the energy of the spiritual will. Now, the writings of Alice Bailey tell us, this compelling power is increasingly pouring into the world, precipitating a “cleansing but terrible process”, stimulating the will-to-power in susceptible individuals but, at the same time, strengthening the will to the good of the whole in those who seek to love and serve something beyond their own self-interest. This shift of vision can open up an entirely new perspective. As the poet William Blake put it, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear as it is, Infinite.”
We think of the eye and of vision as a personal attribute, but its true function, divinely bestowed, comes through considering the human eye as the means by which Deity, God, sees into the world. As Dag Hammarskjold wrote in Markings, “You are merely the lens”. This realization leaves us with fewer and fewer excuses for not paying attention to the world condition, for turning a blind eye to the foibles and stumbling of human affairs and retreating into matters of self-interest. With modern media and the worldwide spread of information, the old excuse of “I didn’t know” no longer suffices. We must pay attention—extend our field of vision ever more broadly to observe the world, interpret it, and recognize the part that each of us can play in its transformation. As a science writer put it in a recent New York Times op-ed, “Humans are the brain—the consciousness—of the planet. We are Earth made aware of itself.” This seems to be confirmed by quantum theory which has discovered that the state of all possibilities of any quantum particle collapse into a set entity as soon as it is observed or measurement is taken. This suggests that the consciousness of the observer brings the observed object into being. As Lynn McTaggert put it in The Field, “Every minute of every day we are creating our world.”
In this we see the enormous transformative power of the spiritual will. Alice Bailey wrote that the word “recognition” is one of the most important in the language of esoteric teaching because “it holds the clue to the mystery of Being”. As the keynote of Taurus declares, I see and when the Eye is opened, all is light. The full moon of Taurus is regarded in esoteric teaching as the highpoint of the spiritual year, a moment in the annual cycle when it is possible, through group meditation, to align the enlightened wills of spiritually awakening seekers with the great divine Will-to-good of the whole. Let us strive to fulfil this promise by giving our fullest participation in this worldwide meditation.
