The fire and the flame: The first vision

Making some reflections in the still of the night, I was beginning to meditate upon the "fire" as I was thinking about the subject of an essay to read in my Mother Lodge, and the first two ideas that appear on my mind was that from a physical or spiritual point of view, it was (is) a transcendental element in the mankind's evolution and that any attempt for undertake this issue reveals a typical audacity from a person who recognizes himself as an ignorant and shares that inexplicable and unstoppable wish to learn to fly, like the feeling that was inspiring Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

Likewise, it is certainly truth that any approach to this issue implies the analysis of the story of humanity, and how man started to take conscience about the reality that surrounds him through his senses, and discovered the presence of the fire, because of the flame, appeared by causes that goes beyond his control, that could be named consequences of casualties, but would have a better qualification as a demonstration of the Principle of Causality in nature. Try to figure out for a while, a primitive man who, as result of a ray fallen from the sky discover the flames -that revealed the existence of the fire- and lately realize that this element is the key to changes and renovations in the environment, and constitutes causes to his own enhancement.

Continuing the road to evolution, this man learn to use and provoke this fire, leaving the dependency to a random incident and winning the chance to get improvements on the physical world as consequences of this discovery, such as an illness reduction, through the alternative of modify food, cooking it, extent his conscious hours, to procure protection in the face of the attack of another species, and the chance to stay overnight in caves that provide shelter against the climate's cruelties.

This fire, understood as a creative principle is present all over. It will not be wrong to say that as in the physical world it can be awake and reflected as flame, than in turn it is shown by the light and the heat, taking fire in this way like the motor of the change in the material, the individuals that such as the human being find themselves in the evolution's superior stages, have an inner spiritual fire, the one that does not burn neither becomes extinguished.

This notion has perfect coherence with the Hermetic Principle of Vibration, and specifically with the fact that every being has its own bigger or minor vibration, in agreement with the elevation they possess, and that not all of the elements are susceptible of having the same intensity in the fire that they possess, if they have it at all.

The internal fire is appreciated for the Entered Apprentice through the flames that, perhaps during his profane life he had the chance to "see" as product of some sort of casualty, and in fact obey to causes that he didn't know. Fire that, as he goes roughing down his brutish stone, learns to provoke and to utilize, using in this process, the knowledge given to him through the Masonic light, in a way that -like the ancients Guardians of Fire- he can keep the fire burning in the interior of the temple that he is bound to edify, in order to introduce modifications that drive him to superior stages of existence, or put in another way -like the Catholic Church says- will let him reach sanctity through the presence of the Holly Spirit that lives inside him ( Acts 2:3,4 " They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.) Fire that in summary has aroused in his interior and becomes a friend and guide for the journey.

This first approach toward the theme can not leave sideways the fact that, even though we will be Entered Apprentices for all our existences, in the light of the spiritual fire takes special significance the teachings of the first degree, because if we desire to provoke and employ the fire it is required to strip our thoughts and actions from the distortions, bad habits and any other elements that belongs to the earthly life, under which influence the inner fire will burn without control and orientation, producing changes, but in most of the cases, against ourselves, our fellows and surroundings.

June 11, 2003

Q:.H:. Miguel de Pomar