In our house metaphor, I would describe the Void as the dark blackness one first encounters when opening the attic door, before our eyes and senses adjust to the lack of light within. Once we gain our equilibrium and have adjusted our vision, the blackness is not dark at all. The dim light that seems not like light at all reveals the hidden treasures of our exploration. Metaphorically, these treasures are the Beatitudes, our next-level Unity beyond the Void.

The Beatitudes are all the qualities that are "perfect blessedness." They are all that is holy, sacred and consecrated. This energy is "Grace" from God. As defined by Adolph Tanqueray, Grace is a "supernatural, transient help from our Lord." Simply, this perfect blessedness or Grace is divine goodness that provides a supernatural helping hand on our spiritual journey. The inner 12 graces of this Unity Plane become expressed in outer objectivity as the 12 "gifts of the Holy Spirit."

Take a Journey through our 
Spirit/Matter Universe

Our Attic of Unification

by Jef Bartow

Within the house of the human being, the Spiritual Plane and the highest Energy Node of Keter, Divine Will or Spiritual Will would represent the ceiling of our living space. But in most homes, there is an attic above the living space in which we store our treasures from the past and/or those items of potential use for the future. Moving inward from the Spiritual Plane, the next higher objective spiritual energies are those of the Unity Plane. This attic of unity is a major bridge between the existence of a human being and the life of those cosmic Beings responsible for our evolution.

Although inconsistent with our previous figures, the figure below is drawn to more accurately represent this bridge. This is why the central column of our Tree of Life extending beyond our first or Spiritual Energy Node connects through the Unity Plane to the central column Energy Node of our Monad, or divine source beyond our humanness. Beyond the delineation of these spiritual energies, I have also included key terms for the consciousness that we have the potential to develop as this bridge. I will not describe them in detail in this article, but only outline their key pivotal place in our spiritual existence on the Path of spiritual growth.

Since there is not an Energy Node in the Unity Plane, we do not develop senses or a body of experience here. We do develop consciousness here which becomes our conscious bridge to the synthesizing Planes and Realms of our spiritual universe. Before describing this bridge, let's outline the energies of this Unity Plane.


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The pivotal energies of the pivotal Unity Plane I simply define as Unity. Sri Aurobindo equates unity with "Oneness." He describes this light and force as one of the two eternal aspects of existence; "this complete and unreserved self-giving." Other Eastern mystical terms for this energy or state is integral awareness, one chi, Divine Reality and Divine Subtle Origin

Philosophically according to Leibniz, unity is the "way of pre-established harmony." For F. H. Bradley, there is a supreme unity: "a super relational, differentiated harmony of experience, not self, and not God." The state of unity can best be defined as that "ultimate reality regarded as one and yet as the source of varieties; as complete, or perfect, and yet as not divorced from the finite, imperfect world."

Beyond this Unity, we encounter the state of Presence. This Presence can be defined as "an influence or a supernatural or Divine Spirit felt to be present." According to Aurobindo, this is a state of Integral Perfection. Evelyn Underhill documents the state as an "atmosphere of Eternity, unified with the Absolute." It is the "self-fulfillment in the union of heart and Will."

At the top of our attic of existence, we encounter Purpose. We interpret this energy as the energy of our God, the Monad as it conditions and influences the Thousand-petal lotus (our Head Center), the Egoic Lotus (our Heart Center) and our entire objective existence. Metaphysically, purpose is "the energy which brings about synthesis; Divine Will implementing Divine Intention." It is the "passive counterpart to Will, which is active."

Purpose is our reason for being. It is the energy which communicates from our Monad and various levels of God beyond us into us. The communication of this energy we experience as directed unifying will.
Our Bridging Consciousness

In advanced stages on the Spiritual Path, we build a conscious bridge from our spiritual center to our Monad, the spiritual source of our Being. Until we do this, there is an Angel which stands in and provides this bridge for us. This Angel is called the “Angel of the Presence.” It provides a bridge between our humanness and our true spirituality, just as the Solar Angel provides the bridge between our personality and potential Beingness until we become a self-conscious Soul. Other terms for this Angel include God consciousness and God-image.

From Aurobindo, the spiritual work proceeds until all the components of our spirituality are actualized. Completion of this work creates what he terms the "Master of the Works." We realize our "true self" by realizing Sachchidananda. This is the "unity of the many-sidedness of manifested things, the eternal harmony of all their variations and oppositions, the infinite perfection which justifies their limitations and is the goal of their imperfections."  



Unifying Energies

If the Unity Plane in the bridge, and there must be some gulf to be crossed. The first energies encountered in the Unity Plane have been described as the "Void." A keyword for this Void is ineffable: "too overwhelming to be expressed or described by words; to awesome or sacred to be spoken." Another description describes this Void as "shadowy substance; insubstantial Absolute; emptiness of contemplative experience."

From Western mysticism, this void is an "unfathomable Abyss; Divine Dark; the deep yet dazzling Dark; and Desert of the Godhead." It is the "inaccessible light wherein the Lord is said to dwell."


Within transpersonal psychology, various terms for this transcendental consciousness include High-Causal Self and God-image. I equate this to individualizing our "spark of God" into objective manifested expression.

Just as we build a conscious bridge from our personality to our Mind and spiritual energies (The Antakarana) on the spiritual Path, at a higher level we later build a conscious bridge to our spiritual source (our Monad). In doing so, the Angel that has stood in for us at this level for a very long time leaves. With this transition, we become our own spiritual consciousness in embodiment. We become the Master of the Works, our own God-consciousness. We are then able to directly communicate with those energies and Beings which inhabit the higher Cosmic Planes and Realms.