King Solomon and the mystic space of the cosmos. A section from CAIRN-SPACE, Chapter 4:
There is a tradition of stories told about King Solomon that speak of his spiritual practice of prayer. The stories tell that Solomon carved out a prayer-space around himself with his words, his feelings, and his desires. The stories come from the Sufi tradition. Rumi (Jelaluddin Rumi, AD 1207) is the teller of many of these tales. These tales are about King Solomon’s cairn-space.
It is said that Solomon cleared a space around himself and filled it with the escaping power of his intention and love. He cleared a space to make a palace of prayer: words and sighs offered up to the Father. He found a way to convert time and space into an encountering and wrestling with God. He connected with the Source of All from within his own personal projections. He fashioned the air into a tabernacle of meeting.
It is hard for we modern-folk to recognize that things exist in the “invisibility” of space between objects. Fields exist in these places. Energy exists in these places. Despite our being surrounded by thousands of science fiction stories containing force-fields and energy waves, we are slow to realize that there is something between the electrons of an atom. There is something in the nothingness of space.
There is something present in the nothingness we behold. There is something between particles of matter. There is something between the earth and the moon. We may not see it, but there is something there. Perhaps the “something” that is there has myelin sheaths wrapped around it so information can be passed from one point to another. Perhaps the invisible holds millions of axons and dendrites passing neural data back and forth. Perhaps this whole universe is hardwired with the neural pathways of God; energy moving across the surface of the deep, in matter and in space.
This same field, this same energy surrounds us and permeates us as individuals. It is easy to perceive it on a day when someone is riled up and angry. The air around them is palpable. You can feel the anger. It is the same with mirth. When someone is exuberant with joy, you can feel the joy. We radiate feeling out into the “space” of our own lives; out into our immediate environment. The tenor of the space around us reflects the tenor of the heart.
The Fathers called these fields and energies that surround us and permeate us “logosmoi” (pronounced lo yose mee). Logosmoi are thought-forms. They are our thoughts, emotions, and desires taking shape and form as they dwell within us and as they leave us and enter into the world around us. They are very real.
Perhaps these logosmoi are the angels and demons the desert solitaires wrote about and did battle with in the deserts of Nitria, Scetis, and Kellia. Perhaps these logosmoi are the forces that we battle with in Church when someone leans over and says, “She hasn’t been to church since her husband had that affair.” Perhaps the logosmoi are what distract us from silent stillness in our prayer-spaces.
We weave a shelter around us with the fields of thought, emotion, and desire we generate from within and project out onto the world. These fields we are weaving create the “me” of our lives. They become what we consider to be the personality. In a real sense they precede us and are still around when we leave. If we fail to cut down an inappropriate logosmoi by returning to our practice, it enters the neural field of our communications about prayer.
Think of the affect certain people have when they walk into a room: some liven things up, while others shut down conversation. Some people exude an atmosphere of love and union, while others exude an atmosphere of distraction and chaos.
Scientists have discovered a whole “mirror” system within us. The mirroring begins with the “mirror neuron” which assumes the behavior and emotion in the immediate environment and then reflects it. Individuals mirror “the other” as if it were themselves. It is how we pick up feelings of conflict and dis-continuity. If someone is saying something with their mouth that they are in conflict with in their heart, their body language will relay that information to us and our mirror neurons will pick up the disconnect. It is that feeling that something does not ring true or is just a bit off.
If we are presenting ill-health and darkened logosmoi, we are setting the tone for the people around us. We are leading them into the valley of the shadow of distraction and separation.
It is believed that the use of language is somehow related to this notion of mirror neurons. Language carries mirroring information and that language is a part of the mirroring process. Emotions are clearly perceived in the mirroring process. Someone walks into the room who is depressed and you can feel the gloom affecting you.
We are not talking about magic. We are talking about the freedom of personal choice. We chose what we will project, but we can also just simply reflect what is all around us. We have control over the things we create in us and project out into the world around us, or we can relinquish control and mirror the world. People can affect the tenor of their own lives. There is a giving and taking in our lives and mirroring neurons are a part of the equation.
Perhaps the greatest wrong we commit on a daily basis is not recognizing that we have the freedom to create – today - the things we choose. We are bound only by what we choose to bind us. We can also choose what we mirror. This day, this moment do not have to mirror every other day or moment, or even the people around us. We can slow down enough to retrain our neural communications and develop sound and healthy habits and routines.
The process of purification at the outset of monastic therapy (purification, enlightenment, and union) is about purifying the inner man (the human nature) by destroying negative logosmoi and creating positive logosmoi. Spiritual practices help us to remove negative strands from the weaving of our personality and replace them with positive strands. Prayer, fasting, vigils, charity, scriptures, hymns, creeds, prostrations are all tools that work on the purification of the heart of man.
Rumi let us know that daily, Solomon would build a space at dawn made of mystical conversation, intention, and tender compassion: a place within which he could work with his own logosmoi. Rumi called it “The Far Mosque”. Solomon created a holy place around him where he could weave heaven and earth together into the fabric of his own personality. He built a prayer-space within which he could meet God through his spiritual practice and then enter into the stillness of the presence of the Most High. He kept within the scope of this ideal by always returning to praise, adoration, wonder, and awe before the Creative Father. He built in positive logosmoi; positive routines.
Solomon is one of the holy ones (in what will become a long tradition from Merkabah mysticism through the Hassidic movement) that sought to conjoin heaven and earth within himself. The “Far Mosque” – this prayer-space that King Solomon created daily -was Solomon’s place to flee to; his place to hide and be still.
It is said that all of his wisdom was given to him in this “Far Mosque”. His constructive prayer gave him a place within which to give and receive. He gave to the All-Wise his adoration and praise. He received back the wisdom of the ages. Because he made a place to give, he was given to, in return.
Among the wealth of wisdom he received, Rumi teaches that Solomon was taught the mystic use of all of the plants of the earth during this time. He was shown which plants healed which diseases. Solomon emptied himself to God in this space and God filled him back up.
He mirrored the wisdom of the Wise Father.
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