Pippala, the sweet fruit of that tree upon which come _spirits who love the science_, and where the gods produce all marvels.
As in the Gogard, among the luxuriant branches of all these Mundane Trees, the "Serpent" dwells. But while the Macrocosmic Tree is the Serpent of Eternity and of absolute Wisdom itself, those who dwell in the Microcosmic Tree are the Serpents of the Manifested Wisdom. One is the One and All; the others are its _reflected_ parts. The "Tree" is man himself, of course, and the Serpent dwelling in each, the conscious Manas, the connecting link between Spirit and Matter, Heaven and Earth.
Everywhere, it is the same. The "Creating" Powers produce Man, but fail in their final object. All these Logoi strive to endow man with _conscious_ immortal Spirit, reflected in the Mind (Manas) alone; they fail, and they are all represented as being punished for the failure, if not for the attempt. What is the nature of the punishment? A sentence of imprisonment in the lower or nether region, which is _our Earth, the lowest_ in its Chain; an "Eternity"--meaning the duration of the Life-cycle--in the _darkness_ of Matter, or _within animal Man_. It pleased the half ignorant and half designing Church Fathers to disfigure the graphic symbol. They took advantage of the metaphor and allegory in every old religion to turn them to the benefit of the new one. Thus man was transformed into the darkness of a material Hell; his divine consciousness, obtained from his indwelling Principle, the Mânasa, or the incarnated Deva, became the glaring flames of the Infernal Region, and our Globe that Hell itself. Pippala, Haoma, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, were denounced as the _forbidden_ fruit, and the "Serpent of Wisdom," the voice of reason and consciousness, remained identified for ages with the Fallen Angel, which is the old Dragon, the Devil!
The same for the other high symbols. The Svastika, the most sacred and mystic symbol in India, the "Jaina Cross" as it is now called by the Masons, notwithstanding its direct connection, and even identity, with the Christian Cross, has become dishonoured in the same manner. It is the "devil's sign," we are told by the Indian missionaries. Does it not shine on the head of the great Serpent of Vishnu, on the thousand-headed Shesha- Ananta, in the depths of Pâtâla, the Hindû Naraka or Hell? It does: but what is Ananta? As Shesha, it is the almost endless Manvantaric Cycle of Time, and becomes _Infinite_ Time itself, when called Ananta, the great Seven-headed Serpent, on which rests Vishnu, the _Eternal Deity_, during Pralayic inactivity. What has Satan to do with this highly metaphysical symbol? The Svastika is the most philosophically scientific of all symbols, as also the most comprehensible. It is the summary in a few lines of the whole work of "creation," or evolution as one should rather say, from Cosmotheogony down to Anthropogony, from the indivisible unknown Parabrahman to the humble Moneron of materialistic Science, whose _genesis is as unknown_ to that Science as is that of the All-Deity Itself. The Svastika is found heading the religious symbols of every old nation. It is the "Worker's Hammer" in the Chaldæan _Book of Numbers_, the "Hammer," above referred to, in the _Book of Concealed Mystery_, "which striketh sparks from the flint" (Space), those sparks becoming Worlds. It is Thor's Hammer, the magic weapon forged by the Dwarfs against the Giants, or the Pre-cosmic Titanic Forces of Nature, which rebel and, while alive in the region of Matter, will not be subdued by the Gods--the agents of Universal Harmony--but have first to be destroyed. This is why the World is formed out of the relics of the murdered Ymir. The Svastika is the Miölnir, the "Storm-hammer"; and therefore it is said that when the Ases, the holy Gods, after having been purified by fire--the fire of the passions and suffering in their life-incarnations--become fit to dwell in Ida in eternal peace, then Miölnir will become useless. This will be when the bonds of Hel--the Goddess-queen of the region of the Dead--will bind them no longer, for the kingdom of evil will have passed away.