"As above, so below; as below, so above."

The saying comes from Hermes, the Greek name for the Egyptian god Thoth.  The meaning is that our universe is not an anarchy, but is guided, from top downward by universal principles.  The higher reflects itself in the lower, and the lower is an expression of the higher.  All things are essentially linked; nothing is separate from anything else.  If we carefully search with acute awareness within our lives, we would find that our lives are built around the principle of hierarchy.  For example, our families are hierarchical; typically, the order is, father or mother as head, followed by children, grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins.  Let's look how schools are organized: board of education, superintendent, principle, vice-principle, counselors, teachers, coaches, students, support staff.  Probably the most familiar hierarchy pattern is the 'organization chart" of directors, C.E.O.'s, Dept. V.P's, and so on down the line.

Virtually all manner of systems and organizations are hierarchically structured.  In Nature, we see the same hierarchic principle expressed.  Here on our earth its,  humans, insect kingdom, plant kingdom, mineral kingdom.  If you read the ancient Greek Philosopher, Plato, you will find that he said, paraphrasing, that all things manifest, originate and have their equivalent representation in the realm of the ideal, which he termed, "'nous."  In Buddhism, all their principles and doctrines originate and unfold from the idea of "basic goodness."  In the Christian Church, their hierarchic pattern is as follows: first, God the summit, then the Seraphim, then the Cherubim, then the Thrones, then the Dominations, Virtues, then Powers, the Principalities, the Arch-angles, then angles.  What we see operative within hierarchies is a pattern of movement from top or apex moving sequentially downward, in a descending order, like a latter. 

Whether you know it our not, hierarchies are the natural alignment of Universal Nature. The knowledge of which was known from the remotest of antiquity.  Case in point, there exists an ancient Greek mystical view of a chain of living beings, one end of which included the Divinities in their various grades of authority, and the other end of which ran downwards through inferior gods, heroes, and sages, to ordinary humans, and to beings below humans.  Each link of this living chain inspired and instructed the chain below itself, thus communicating link to link, the love, wisdom, and the knowledge concerning the secrets of the Universe.  This living chain was called, the Hermetic Chain.  

Our cosmic life is a cosmic drama in which each entity, be it a supergod, god or demigod, or man or beast, or atom, plays his or its proportionate part; and that all these dramatic presentations are welded together, leading up to one vast cosmic climax, without an anti climax. So that every day we are coming closer to that time in the immensely distant future when we all shall, once more reunited, enter into the womb of utter cosmic Being--call it God, divinity, spirit, or what have you.  As the poet, Edwin Arnold said, ..."the dewdrop slips into the shining sea"--finally realization.

                                        One truth, many paths.   Be good, do good.

                                                        Louis DiVirgilio