Masonic Articles and Essays
Conduits
Very Ills..... Bro... Kristine Wilson-Slack 33o
Date Published: 1/21/2021
Does Freemasonry teach us to become conduits of the Divine?
A conduit is a tube that runs from one place to another, to channel water or other fluid, or electrical wires, or wires that connect ‘things.’ Think, a farm to a water supply, or power lines buried underground, going to homes. Conduits provide not only a safe enclosure to run these essential elements but also contain them. Without this containment, they would disperse. Their energy would be diffuse and fall toward entropy, only to have to regenerate somewhere else anew. Likewise, the conduit protects these elements from being corrupted by outside forces.
Let’s take this a step further: a conduit must be kept in excellent condition in order for it to perform its function. It has to be free from the things that corrode it or threaten to break it. It must be kept in the proper shape and alignment, in order to conduct the elements to their proper locations. It also must be made out of the proper materials to support and safely deliver their goods. You do not run water through cardboard or lead conduits, as one breaks down and loses its form, and the other poisons the water.
In a recent group presentation, a fellow Brother stated that the human body needed to be able to be in top physical condition in order for it to be a conduit for the most effective spiritual work. This was part of a larger discussion regarding martial arts and the physical form, linking the whole to the work of the Freemason. Many martial arts are built on the totality of the human form – mental, spiritual, physical – moving in alignment with the will of the Divine. The masters of martial arts are the synthesis of Right Form, Right Mind, and Right Spirit. So, too, is the Freemason admonished to take care of his body, his senses, his mind, and his spirit, caring for each to the best of his abilities and offering the proper amount of focus to each. This means getting enough sleep and exercise, meditation and study, action, and work.
During the course of the conversation noted above, it was indicated the flow of energy was coming from the Divine to the Human, the connection running both ways but the energy itself running only one, like water running in a pipe to a cistern. This would indicate to me that the energy is converted by the human into useful creations; ideas or dreams, revelations, and intuition are flowing all the time into our lives, 24×7. We would then have the ability to turn on the “faucet” so to speak and have a ready supply of Divinity. Every single moment. The human form, being itself of a honed, pristine nature, is then able to use this energy consciously toward a higher purpose, toward the evolution of humanity.
If only this were so.
For the Freemason and any ritualist, it should be the first thing we wrangle. Oh, but we humans struggle. We struggle to control our desires and wants, from temperature to the hardness of chairs or the stiffness of our clothing. We are hungry; we are cold; we are sleepy. We lack the exercise our bodies need, the quality of food our cells require, and the mental stimulation of an excellent book or enlivening debate. We do not look for the work that challenges us to change and grow but to the work that is just a little easier on our bodies.
Even those of us who are the most disciplined struggle to maintain this homeostasis in a world filled with temptations. We could ask the question, “If I were God, would I channel through me?”
But, here’s the rub, I think: God, in whatever form you imagine it to be, does channel through us. Like a TV with an antenna that isn’t quite in tune with a signal, the Divine does make its way to us, through us maybe a little scrambled and yet still escapes in what we do. The signal is always there. The light that pours through the flawed prism is pure light – it is the imperfections in the glass that stunt the beauty. The Sun is always shining, regardless of our ability to see it. The God-Human-Connection, not an all or nothing situation. It’s an always-on condition. The question is, with our earthly shackles, can we hear It?
And, can It hear us?
It’s said that ritual is the interface between human and God. That interface, I believe, runs both ways.
Like a conduit of fiber-optic cable connects us to the cyber world, we are an energy source for the Divine. Upload and Download. Many believe that:
“…the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
[Ecclesiastes 12:7]
That being the case, it seems to me that we come back to the Divine, luggage in hand, ready to unpack our lifetime of learning. Again, much like the internet, we take bits of energy from the greater bucket of knowledge and in turn, upload some of the same. We contribute, mindfully or not, to the consciousness of the Divine. This Universal Consciousness doesn’t just pick up the perfect signals, the light from the perfect prism. The Divine picks up the flaws and corruption, the occlusions, and excrescences that cause variations in the communication.
I AM even going to stretch this further and say that the Divine, in concept, might be Universal Consciousness, which is the unfoldment of the universe. In metaphysical circles, this universal mind is “a metaphysical concept suggesting an underlying essence of all being and becoming in the universe.” This concept was first brought out by Anaxagoras, an early 5th Century B.C. philosopher who believed that the growth of all living things only comes about by the mind within the organism, being part of a larger conceptual “Mind.” Indeed, modern philosopher Philip Goff has coined the term “panpsychism” as an all-pervasive consciousness. In his terms, consciousness is “experience” and all forms of matter have experiences, regardless of the complex or simple structure of the being. The rock, the sun, the moon, the human, and the mouse all have experiences unique to their being, all contributing to what we might call Universal Mind, or perhaps God.
Therefore, we may be conduits of the Divine, with the goal of It, Divinity, or the Universe, becoming manifest in this reality. However, it is not unreasonable to assume that we too are conduits of experience filling the pool of the Universal Mind. And what if, simply, we contribute to the betterment of humanity by the pure act of filling the pool with the best we have to offer? In other words, the quality of our conduit equates to the quality of our experiences, and those experiences are ultimately adding to the “Perfecting of Humanity.” In actuality, they add to the perfection of all of the universe if matter is all-connected. This may be the legacy we leave to those who follow us, and perhaps to ourselves if we return again. If we truly want to work toward the perfection of Humanity, then it begins, as always, with our own self – body, mind, and spirit. It means becoming the best versions of ourselves, whoever we are and whatever we may be, living our dharma.
