By Sharron Rose

The Golden Age: The Age of Divinity

O people of the earth, born and made of the elements, but with the spirit of Divinity within you, rise from your sleep of ignorance! Be sober and thoughtful. Realize that your home is not on the earth but in the Light. Why have you delivered yourselves over unto death, having power to partake of immortality? Repent and change your minds. Depart from the dark light and forsake corruption forever. Prepare yourselves to climb through the Seven Rings and to blend your souls with the eternal light.

-The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus

There is in everyone [divine power] existing in a latent condition. . . . This is one power divided above and below; generating itself, making itself grow, seeking itself, finding itself, being mother of itself, father of itself, sister of itself, spouse of itself, daughter of itself, son of itself –-mother, father, unity, being a source of the entire circle of existence.

-Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies

According to the ancient texts human beings did not evolve from some inanimate and simplistic form, as our modern scientists would have us believe. Rather, we emerged fully realized at the start of the Golden Age. Every spiritual tradition speaks of this time, whether it is known as the primordial paradise, the Garden of Eden, the first world, the Dreamtime, or the Satya Yuga. In fact, teachings from spiritual traditions around the world describe this as an age of primal perfection in which humanity was one with nature and spiritual order prevailed.⁹

During this idyllic age, the world and all its components–from human beings to plants and minerals–were seen and experienced as the immense manifest body of the formless. We were part of the dance of Divinity unfolding itself. Therefore, we had no need of outward images, rites, and rituals to help us maintain our link with Divinity. According to the great French alchemist Fulcanelli, we experienced total balance and alignment with the universe. Female and male lived together in a state of continual bliss. Fulcanelli states, "Living a contemplative existence, in harmony with a fertile, rejuvenated earth; our blessed ancestors were unacquainted with desire, pain or suffering." In this luminous garden of delight we were at peace with ourselves, each other, and the world we inhabited.

In the Golden Age, which is extremely difficult for us to even imagine, let alone articulate, because of our current position in the cycle, our reality was not as solid as it appears to our modern earthbound senses, but rather an exquisitely subtle vibratory reality composed of light and sound. This was the period of new beginnings, when the divine intelligence manifested itself in the wealth of forms that make up our world and the spiritual realm became conscious of itself as the manifest world and as the divine power governing it.¹⁰ In this remarkable age all beings, knowing themselves to be the energy of Divinity fashioned into a luminous form, were naturally conscious of the world of spirit, and their external reality reflected this spiritual consciousness. This was the mythic age of goddesses and gods, the age of the immortals. There was no veil separating life and death, and our innate consciousness was free to fly between the spiritual and material realms.

In the myths and legends of many civilizations we discover these goddesses and gods, our divine progenitors. In their shimmering, translucent world of light, which existed prior to the formation of the veils of linear time, the process of entropy had not yet begun.¹¹The laws of physics and the forces of gravity of the later ages did not constrain these suprahuman beings. Therefore, in their deeds and demeanor they demonstrated abilities that appear extraordinary to our modern sensitivities.

This was an epoch of purity, innocence, beauty, and truth, the era that the Australian Aborigines refer to as the eternal Dreamtime that occurred before time began. In this first age of the Dreaming, it is said that the vast expanse of primordial space was infused with the power and intensity of great mythical energies and beings who realized their dreams and visions without the limitations of embodied existence.¹² As vital forms of fluid, divine energy joyously weaving, playing, and manifesting their inner light as external reality, they planted the essential seed emerging from the residue of the former Mahayuga. From this perspective our original ancestors were not primitive apes but a magical display of the very essence, nature and energy of the primordial source of all creation fashioned into a luminous form.

One of the most insightful explanations of the beings of the SatyaYuga or Golden Age can be found in the Tibetan Buddhist teachings. These teachings describe a subtle dimension of light known as the Sambhogakaya, or wealth dimension.¹³ It is a magical realm composed of the luminous essence of the elements that make up our concrete physical world. As we have seen in Chapter Two, to the initiate these essential energies appear as multiple symbolic forms or realized beings known as dakinis, dakas, bodhisattvas, herukas, and so forth. Each of these forms is perceived by the initiate as the personification of a principle of pure wisdom, and each serves as an inspirational role model whose qualities are in perfect alignment with the highest spiritual values. But this is not the only ancient tradition in which the sacred beings of light appear and interact with the awakened practitioner. The angels of the Judeo-Christian and Zoroastrian traditions, the kachinas of the Hopis, and the neters of the Egyptian tradition can all be considered present-day links to this extraordinary age. For this was a time in which dynamic archetypal energies radiated like shimmering rays of light from the primordial source of all becoming. How would it affect our perception of ourselves as human beings if we were to imagine that these radiant beings were our ancestors?