THE DIVINE LADDER

The expansion of consciousness over the spectrum of scales is discrete and step-by-step, rather than continuous. As we’ve discovered, in the Rig Veda, the expansion of consciousness was compared to ascending and descending a divine ladder whose rungs support all the worlds: “Those [steps] that are called descending are also termed ascending; and those that are called ascending are also termed descending; those [ascending and descending steps]...

In ancient times, ladders were often constructed by tying sticks to a single pole, a practice still common in rural India. Ancients equated the process of ascending and the process of descending because the enlightened soul must ascend toward the infinite and descend toward the infinitesimal simultaneously in order to maintain the cosmic balance; for each step of ascent there must be a corresponding step of descent so that the knowledge of the microscopic parts and macroscopic wholes grow together.

We can find a similar notion in the book of Genesis in which, in a dream, the divine ladder is revealed to Jacob, the grandson of Abraham: “And behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father.”⁶

The Vedic and Hebrew sages very well might have conceived similarly the spectrum of consciousness and used the same analogy (the divine ladder) to describe it.