THE LOTUS CUBE

One of the most prominent conceptions of the Supreme Being in the Vedic tradition was that of Vishnu, meaning “all-pervading.” According to the Vedic creation myth, in his archetypal form as pundarika-aksha, Vishnu grew a cosmic lotus from his navel.

The term pundarika-aksha is often translated as the “lotus eye” of the Supreme Being—but it also means “lotus (pundarika) cube (aksha),” referring to the archetypal form of the all-pervading Being cognized on the scale of the fortieth layer above the half measure. This immortal archetype not only has the form of a cube, but also has the form of a fully blossomed cosmic lotus, consisting of twenty-six parnas (cosmic whirlpools) enclosed within the cube. In the Vedic tradition, the immortal archetype was viewed as having the form of a divine lotus cube.

The importance of this archetype within the Vedic tradition cannot be overemphasized. When an individual is initiated into the practice of meditation designed to deliver the awareness to the state of pure consciousness, a sacred verse is recited traditionally at the beginning of the initiation ceremony: “Whether purity or impurity is pervading everywhere, whoever remembers the lotus cube obtains both inner and outer purity.”

This remembrance marks the culmination of the evolutionary process. Once the soul has ascended through the thirty-nine layers that represent its evolutionary course and has broken through the outermost shell of the cosmic egg, it then “remembers” the divine lotus cube as the archetypal form of its own eternal and all-pervading self. This is the Great Sacred Seal, the mark of immortality impressed upon the soul when it becomes established in the fortieth layer.

According to tradition, the cosmic lotus has twenty-six aspects. The two cosmic whirlpools that lie along the main axis of vision were called the stem and stamen, and the other twenty-four whirlpools, which lie obliquely to the main axis, were called the twenty-four petals. The cosmic lotus was assigned creative potential: The circulating streams of all twenty-six whirlpools wrap around the cosmic egg like the coils of an enclosing serpent, and these enclosing coils serve to churn out the created form of the universe, much as curds are churned from milk.

As a result, all created forms of existence within the universe display forms of rotation or spin. The stars rotate around the center of the galaxy, the planets rotate around the stars, electrons rotate around the atomic nucleus, and every individual elementary particle spins on its own axis. All of these created forms of rotational motion have their ultimate basis in the twenty-six rotational streams of consciousness that wrap around the cosmic egg and stir the field of cosmic intelligence that lies within. Therefore, the unborn Creator can be said to have twenty-six rotational aspects.

We can find support for this in the tradition of kabbalah in which the deity identified with the outermost shell of the cosmic egg (the shell of cosmic intelligence) was known as YHVH (Jehovah), the unborn Creator. According to the ancient system gematria, the Hebrew letters can be assigned numerical meanings so that Hebrew words have an alternate interpretation as numerical formulas. In this way, the four-lettered name of God (YHVH) is assigned a secret number, which, Hebrew scholars tell us, is the number twenty-six. This is representative of the twenty-six rotational aspects of the unborn Creator, which serve to churn the created universe from the field of pure consciousness, the perishable from the imperishable.