THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE BECOMES THE ROYAL MAZE
This is one of the most complicated Books in the Book of T and is central to its design. The meaning of the Royal Maze is Destiny. The seven spheres of consciousness are upheld by the two lions: The Actor and Feeler, Mind and Feeling, but as we have seen the Feeler is the Prime Mover. Between the two the web is spun.
The web of the Spider over the head of the Nameless One is invisible. This is its manifest web. And like the spider’s eight legs, it is divided into eight sections – the spokes of the web.
At the center is the crown with its five jewels.
The five jewels may be related to the five senses.
This is the tree of the Citadel looked at from above. The seven circles represent the seven levels of consciousness, also the seven chakras – the white circle surrounding the crown being the white light of the crown chakra or Brahmanic consciousness.
It said in the notes, “There are no entrances nor exits to the Maze”.
Yet one has to get into the Maze in order to get out of the Maze; and the “only way out is up” – that is, through the crown center.
Not everyone can or will enter the Maze. Thus it is called the Royal Maze, relating to the Royal Way or path. The path of the Nameless One to the One goal, the Self, or divine consciousness, is assuredly royal in that only a noble Arjuna such as the Victorious One who has triumphed in the battle of the Self may find the way.
From one standpoint, the Royal Maze may be regarded as an obstacle, yet it is also the purpose or part of the primary purpose of the manifestation; only by getting involved in it can one be truly free. The method through it might be likened to karma yoga in which one must act without being attached to the fruit of one’s actions. For Destiny entraps only when the past out-weighs the present Now and causes one to be attached to results rather than to the moving point of beingness itself.
It was partly to enter the Maze and be free of it that the Nameless One embarked upon his journey.
For only through bindings and attachment and the web of earth spun between the moon and sun or what is called karma can one find the source of all actions and events and move from and within the One which is everywhere and at all times present in the Maze but not of it. One can’t get out of the Maze without first getting into it – and it is a necessary step, for only through entering the Maze can one find the crown at its center. And only through the crown, where one transcends the five senses, can one find the way “out” which is “up”.
Formerly the Royal Maze was the Wheel of Fortune, and the old Wheel of Fortune, guarded by the Sphinx with her sword, represented inalterable karma in which the good forever alternated with the bad. Typhon descended, Anubis ascended the Wheel. It was a shadow play in duality, in opposites, in cause and effect and in contrasts. The play of Destiny was set. There was no escaping it. And those who were bound to the Wheel of duality were forever bound to the Wheel.
The Royal Maze could be such a trap except for the crown center.
But the Maze refers not only to the sphere of earth. It contains and describes the entire mandala of consciousness and of the Manifestation. In its four quarters, bisected by the X, which is red, we see the symbols of fire, air, water and earth: the torch, the sail-boat, the cup and the symbol of infinity. These are the basic alchemical symbols, the four elements, and the basis of the division of the twelve signs of the zodiac into the elements of fire, earth, air, and water.
It is also related to the minor arcane of the Tarot which was divided into four suits, each one representing an element, as well as to breath, pranic energy and the cycle of life, birth and death. The elements of consciousness represented by fire, earth, air and water are simultaneously present at all moments in all manifestation. The point of the mandala, expressed in the Royal Maze Book by the crown center, cannot be regarded as being separate from its constant in-and-out-flow into the circle of the manifest. But this is a squared circle or a square within and super-imposed upon a circle. The square is the builder’s stone.
The Royal Maze presents the supreme challenge of the entire Book of T, for it is here that one must cut the thread of the Spider in order to rise through the crown chakra into the One consciousness. It is here one must cut the umbilical cord and become one’s own mother and father. This is only done through the gates of Death, as will be seen in the Renewer Book.
Above the Maze are three inter-locked links, the links of a chain. The links of the chain cannot be separated. The tails of the two lions who up-hold the Maze are similarly intertwined. The Mind and the Prime Mover is intermeshed and acts together. It is neither to separate the links of the chain nor to untangle the tails of the lions that one has entered the Maze.
It is to realize, through the bindings of Destiny, the way out which is up.
Yet the Royal Maze is a picture of the entire principle of the Manifestation, and is not to be regarded as a trap but rather as a field in which one may learn to freely operate.
Destiny, after all, is the manifestation of the Tarot, and Destiny is always NOW.