The name Philosophy of Wholeness was coined by Dane Rudhyar in his final book: “Rhythm of Wholeness”, published a year before his death. In it, Rudhyar carefully formulates his metaphysical philosophy of reality, which I have adopted and adapted to our twenty-first century. Let me give a quick overview of themes that will be discussed in detail in subsequent articles where I will be more rigorous.
Reality, according to Rudhyar, is the interplay of two opposites: Unity and Multiplicity. A good mental image for Wholeness is that of a sphere with Unity at its nucleus and Multiplicity on the surface. There is a constant “pulsation”, called the Movement of Wholeness, that alternates between those two poles. However, in a manner similar to the Tao which is the interplay of Yang and Yin, there is neither absolute Unity at the core nor absolute Multiplicity at the surface of Wholeness. In fact, the philosophy does not embrace any absolute concepts, in particular, neither an infinity of space nor timelessness are possible; all reality is contained, so to speak, within Wholeness.
Cosmology of Wholeness
Cosmologically speaking, the Movement of Wholeness implies a Cycle of Being alternating between a state of maximum Unity, symbolized as the midnight of the cycle, and that of maximum Multiplicity at the symbolic midday. We can thus distinguish a symbolic sunrise when both are equal in strength but Multiplicity is increasing, and an opposite symbolic sunset when Unity becomes prevalent. These two, sunrise and sunset, divide the Cycle of Being in two symbolic halves: a daytime of objective existence and a nighttime of subjective “inistence”.
Whole-making forces that impulse the necessary processes of integration from Multiplicity to Unity, for instance gravity, are agents of the Principle of Wholeness which, when applied to the realm of life, is Spirit. Thus, Spirit is not an entity and most certainly not God, although the integrating forces that originate and maintain life are spiritual forces. Since the state of maximum Unity is not absolute, there is a “radiation” pushing outwardly, towards Multiplicity, not unlike the emanations found in Neoplatonism by which the One gives rise to the Nous and the Nous to the “world of souls” which, in turn, generates our phenomenal world. Once again, a key distinction is that the state of maximum Unity is not an absolute monad, unlike the One and even the Nous.
Despite impulsing the disintegration of wholes, such radiating forces are not agents of Evil, the opposite of Spirit. The continuous motion within Wholeness results in a centrifugal “push” towards the surface and higher levels of Multiplicity, thereby bringing the randomness and diversity required for evolution to the order and homogeneity found in Unity. While Evil must be contained in Wholeness, and indeed we identify two types: cosmic and existential, we should not characterize the radiating forces as “evil” just because they don’t impulse integration; they are simply the result of the aforementioned Movement of Wholeness.
Cycle of Being
As I mentioned earlier, the symbolic night phases are totally subjective and thus we rely on symmetry with the opposing phase at daytime to extract some meaning. It should also be noted that Dane Rudhyar was, first and foremost, a philosopher with extensive knowledge of Asian cultures, notably Indian, and of occult traditions, in addition to being an early member of the Theosophical Society after it moved to California. It should be obvious that he used such knowledge in the development of his metaphysics of reality. That said, and keeping it as simple as possible, let me wrap up this introduction to Wholeness by outlining some characteristics of the four main phases in the Cycle of Being:
At the symbolic midnight, Wholeness is in a state of nearly total Unity. This is a state of maximum subjective inistence, pure Aeonic Consciousness in what could be called a Godhead state. Such state gives rise to Divine Compassion towards the total or partial failures of the past cycle. Thus, in the phase between midnight and sunrise, such Compassion fuels the formulation of a new figurative “plan of redemption” to be implemented by a hierarchy of archetypes that will address past failures, giving them a “second chance”. As you can imagine, the growing power of Multiplicity makes each level in the hierarchy, that is, each type of archetypes, more specific as it nears sunrise. The archetypes will include the Word (Logos) with an uncountable number of Letters, or Spiritual Qualities, to be actualized existentially during “daytime”.
The symbolic sunrise represents the Big Bang, when Multiplicity finally prevails and gives rise to matter, but Unity is still strong enough to determine the initial state which becomes the collective Dharma for the Aeon, itself defined as the cycle from one midnight to the next when taken as a whole. From then on, the radiating force towards Multiplicity takes over, creating atoms, stars, galaxies, and life forms of all kinds until it reaches a maximum of diversity at the symbolic midday. At each level, the diminishing amount of Unity allows for more and more diversity. As an example, notice how dozens of distinct elements, all formed from a handful of subatomic particles, are used to create the still uncountable forms of life on Earth.
Such process stops abruptly at midday and no more new species are formed. A change of direction happens when the Godhead’s Compassion is requested by the final unconscious archetype, figuratively speaking. In response, Spirit “descended” to a protohuman species, presumably homo sapiens, to endow them with what Teilhard de Chardin called reflective consciousness—the ability to be self-conscious—and free them from the instinctual animal realm to become what Rudhyar called Natural Men. This is the fire of Prometheus that marked the advent of humanity, who is given the task of realizing the myriad of Qualities or Letters in the original Logos. Human history and evolution happens between the symbolic midday and sunset. Such evolution is aided by the coming of various series of Avatars that periodically bring new archetypes to humanity, in accordance to the latter’s needs and ability to handle them.
At sunset, consciousness overtakes matter and there are no more human beings nor objective universe. At that time, the result is known: there will be successes and failures, but what is not known is their respective numbers. A success is what Rudhyar called an Illumined Man: a Spiritual Quality incarnated in the Divine Marriage of Spirit and matter, a human being deemed enlightened whose mind is one with the Aeonic Mind. On the other hand, both partial and total failures result from existential evil generated by human beings when they use their free will to go against the spiritual movement towards conscious Unity.
Presumably, the period from sunset to midnight is one of increasing integration in consciousness, leaving diversity further behind as midnight nears, and gaining Divine Wisdom that will result in the Divine Compassion needed for the next cycle. Incidentally, it is during this phase that cosmic evil may be generated.
Cycle of Man
Just as Wholeness defines the Cycle of Being, it also compels an equivalent Cycle of Man during the midday to sunset phase of the former cycle. This time, however, the “daytime” half cycle corresponds to our objective existence, from birth to death, when we try to actualize our life’s personal destiny—our dharma—through evolutionary growth. Meanwhile, “nighttime” corresponds to the process by which a new dharma is designed to harmonize some existing karma and begin another cycle—a new human life—in the overall process towards incarnating one Spiritual Quality. This process, which Rudhyar calls individualization, should not be confused with Carl Jung’s process of individuation, which is the integration of a personality centered in the Self within one lifetime.
A somewhat integrated personality is needed at the very least, however, to first identify and then fulfill our personal dharma. As we will see, individuation is impulsed by Spirit through two forces: the Day Force to integrate our individuality and the Night Force for our relatedness, reaching their maximum strength in Cancer and Capricorn, respectively. Therefore, these two signs represent maximum Unity for each of those two aspects of a personality.
We already saw that Multiplicity is the result of letting the centrifugal radiation run amok, so to speak, unimpeded by the unifying Principle of Wholeness. Looking in the zodiac, Multiplicity is least weak at the equinoxes, when the Spirit forces are less focused. Seeing them this way, Aries may be interpreted as the sign of diverse individualities and Libra that of diverse modes of relationship.
Coda
Wholeness has profound implications that will be presented in later postings. In particular, the same Principle of Polarity observed in Unity and Multiplicity gives rise in Physics to Time and Space. Moreover, all physical manifestation is in the form of cyclo-cosmic wholes, where a whole is a field of activity resulting from the functional relationships of its component parts, as defined by Jan Smuts in his 1926 book: “Holism and Evolution”.
That said, the most practical application of Wholeness is to serve as the foundation for what Rudhyar initially called Transpersonal Astrology, using the Latin prefix “trans-” to mean “through” and not only “beyond”, a branch of astrology that deals with fulfilling our personal destiny on our way to become a member of the Pleroma of Illumined Men.
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