https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=prYdfyxB80c
The microcosm that’s easiest to understand is the one you just said, which relates an individual to the entire universe. And when we say that, we’re talking about the cosmos that’s in the Bible, not the materialistic one that we have today, the mechanistic one. We’re talking about the universe as described in traditional cosmology, where you have heaven and earth, and you have a mediator, which is man. When you look at it like that, and when you understand the idea that earth means factual reality, physical reality, and heaven means ideas or theories or principles that are not manifest or that are not concrete or practical, something like that, then you can start to see that individual human beings, their shape is the same as that cosmos, and it’s actually pretty obvious. We no longer see it that much because we no longer see the cosmos in the ancient way, so we’re not used to seeing those connections. But when you do, then you realize that an individual has a mind and a body. The mind is the equivalent of heaven, and the body is the equivalent of earth. And in the Bible, it’s pretty clear when God creates Adam, and by the way, Adam means humanity, so I think that’s important to mention because that’s just another example that the Bible can be interpreted at different scales, because the word Adam means an individual, a human, it’s the name of an individual, but it also means humanity at large. It means man itself. Yes, so humanity, something like that. So whenever there’s, in the Bible it talks about Adam, in the story of Adam and Eve, it’s talking about humanity at large, and it’s also talking about an individual, so that’s something to be aware of, it’s just an example of microcosm. That example you gave itself is an example of how it’s using a particular image, a particular, let’s say, story of a man to be the microcosm of all of humanity. And so even in the story itself, it’s built to be that way. And then the shape of man, let’s say at the beginning of Genesis when God creates heaven and earth, it says, God created heaven and earth, the earth was chaos and void, and the spirit of God was above the waters. And so you have this idea of spirit, and spirit is wind or breath, it’s all the same word. Yes, that’s also important to say. When it says the word spirit, it means wind, it also means breath, because breath is wind. There’s no difference between the two. Like what you said in the last video, it’s not a metaphor, breath is wind, breath is actually wind. And the only difference, which is important, that’s another example of a word that we have to sort of redefine, the word spirit, breath, soul, all those words, they refer to the breath, it means breath. And right away if you understand that, you can see the relationship with heaven. And in the story it says God formed Adam from the dust of the earth and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. So right there you can see that it’s all about joining heaven and earth. So the breath comes from heaven and he raises some earth, and then that’s man. Man is made from that union. And it’s exactly when you talk about the mediator, then it shows exactly that man is the mediator, because in the beginning these two things are completely separate. You have heaven and spirit and breath and wind above, and then you have this chaotic, formless earth at the bottom, and those two things don’t touch each other, they’re separate. And then there’s the creation of the different strats of creation, the heavens and then the grass, and then it comes closer and closer and closer until you reach the human being. And then the human being has the heaven enter into the earth and joins with the earth so that quite explicitly in the story, man is that… Is the microcosm of heaven and earth. But also the mediator because he joins them together. He’s not just a representation of that separation, but actually a representation of that union. And then within man, there’s another microcosm, which is the separation of man and woman, which represents again heaven and earth, which are separated, man being heaven and woman being earth, but then united at the same time. So then that keeps… These microcosms keep embedding themselves into each other to create this fractal structure that we’re talking about. The Bible is just full of those fractal-like structures. Yeah, I was thinking an example again of that man is a mediator between heaven and earth. So when God asks Adam to name the animals, that’s a perfect example of being a mediator between heaven and earth because then what Adam has to do is take an abstract idea that he has and then bring it into concrete manifestation. So he names the animals according to certain ideas that he has. That’s the idea. So he’s seeing his ideas embodied in certain beings in the world and he’s giving that identity to those animals. And it’s important to see it because this is one thing that people struggle with is that the idea when you say he has these ideas about the world, people right away think, oh, it’s relativity, subjectivity. It’s like, no, that’s not it. Because he’s a mediator between heaven and earth, the connection between the idea and the phenomena that is appearing before him is a unitive and a real thing. It’s actually the thing itself. It’s the capacity to participate in the thing itself as well. It’s not just like he has a fantasy or whatever. It’s not just a whim. Right. Right. It’s based on his reason, it’s based on his intellect. But his intellect is connected. He is the connection between heaven and earth. So he is the point where those phenomena that he is encountering actually connects with their meaning. Like it’s not in a way like he doesn’t have a choice like the way we think of choice today in naming the animals. He sees the light of his eye like the and his word come together and participate in the being of that of that thing that’s in front of in front of him. It’s hard to think about in such kind of direct way because we you know, our experience of the world is more is more let’s say deluded, let’s say. But we have to understand that the story in Genesis, Adam represents man as such in a kind of pure, let’s say, untrammeled way, let’s say before the fall, we would say in Christian terms. So yeah, and it’s related. The idea of the fall is related to losing that capacity. Yeah. So losing the capacity of correctly naming the animals or correctly perceiving the world according to its spiritual meaning. So, yeah, so we can’t imagine what that means. And in the Bible, that image is there in the story because when Adam and Eve are chased from the garden, the consequences that are that God gives to Adam and Eve are that like the idea that that Adam will have to work. The ground and the idea also that there will be thorns is this notion that it’s as if the earth is revolting against Adam’s mediating, mediating principle or else he’s losing his capacity to be a natural mediator. And so he has to to supplement that that that state with with effort like yes, he has to he has to be careful because the the the the potential the world. The deal is that the created role becomes dangerous for him. And so he has to fight it off in some ways and he has to hold it at bay so that he can continue to play that role as mediator. Yeah. Well, yeah, the idea is that well, this this will give us other examples of microcosm in the Bible as well. So the idea is that after the fall, humanity has to to correct or fix certain things artificially in order for the meaning and the fact to match correctly.