THE BIBLICAL MYTH OF THE FLOOD

The sign of the covenant was presented to Noah after the Flood, when he emerged from the ark to survey the newly revealed land and offer praises to God.

Although the biblical myth of the Flood may very well have a historical basis in some ancient flood event, the story is much more than it seems on the surface.

According to the biblical myth, written by Moses and his inner circle, Noah was instructed by God to construct an ark designed to contain pairs of all living creatures so that Noah might ride the rising flood and preserve the seeds of all beings for a new generation to come. It proceeded to rain for forty days and nights. The earth was inundated by a cosmic flood, which destroyed all living creatures other than those on the ark. The ark, however, rode the rising flood, and came to rest eventually on the summit of Mount Ararat—the peak of Mount Salvation. Once the waters had subsided, Noah emerged from the ark and offered praises to God, at which point the covenant between heaven and earth was revealed: God promised Noah that he would never again destroy the earth in a cosmic flood.

In a spiritual context, the ark represents the limited form of enlightened consciousness that ascends through the metaphysical layers—the soul riding a rising flood of consciousness. The nature of enlightened consciousness is such that it embraces the two sets of layers above and below, which are organized into matched pairs (male and female).

The myth tells us that the rains fell for forty days and nights—symbolic of the forty layers above and below that the soul must traverse in order to arrive at the other shore, the shore of immortality, where a whole new immortal world can be seen. Here, the dissolved world is resurrected in the soul’s awareness—but rather than being resurrected out of the seven primordial elements, it is resurrected from pradhana, the imperishable substance of pure consciousness itself. In this case, the duality of the created elements within the cosmic egg and the uncreated elements within the seven cosmic shells is transcended. On the scale of the fortieth layer, both are seen as manifestations of the imperishable substance of pure consciousness itself.

As a result, the reconstructed appearance of the universe is rendered imperishable in the eyes of the soul, which means the soul will never again have to suffer the progressive dissolution of the universe in its awareness, as if by a cosmic flood. This is the real covenant between heaven and earth, and its sign is the sevenfold rainbow. The “bow” symbolizes the spectrum of seven cosmic shells that mediate the relationship between the perishable form of the universe cognized on the scale of the thirty-second layer and the imperishable form of the universe cognized on the scale of the fortieth layer.

In this way, we can see that the biblical myth presents a spiritual allegory related to the ascent of consciousness to the fortieth layer above the half measure, where the covenant between heaven and earth becomes established.