Christ reveals wisdom’s quintessential way, restoring the eternal life of glory in Aramaic, Syriac Orthodoxy, travelling along the Silk Road from Antioch to Sufiism’s remembrance of God in Asia, from Edessa to wisdom’s radiant, rainbow completeness in Tibet and from Nisibis to wisdom’s hidden Golden Flower of ancient Taoism in China, bearing witness to the Gospel that Mar Thomas planted in India. Wisdom’s restoration of the glory of love turned early Buddhist wisdom round into a Boddishatva’s embrace, then into the clarity of diamond wisdom that sustained and completed all three great turns, quintessential wisdom restoring glory’s original completeness in three all-encompassing ways. Christ’s quintessential wisdom is more subtle than all thought or imagination, so is not just a passive witness to the glory of creation but an active partner directly participating in glory’s uncreated creativity. The hidden flower of golden wisdom is not a way among many ways or means, but the way turning turns and seeing sees. It is quintessential transmission itself, not one way among other ways but Christ’s way of quintessential wisdom, his transmission of the Father’s way of unveiling his Name and the Spirit’s way, glorification of God and glorification of saints in God. But although wisdom’s transmission was forgotten then lost many times over the centuries, it has also been found and restored again many times, because it is wisdom’s unceasing love of glory and glory’s unbroken love of wisdom, Holy Trinity ceaselessly sharing quintessential wisdom and glory.
Christ’s quintessential wisdom was indeed gratefully received by some Jews, Christians and Muslims but was rejected by others in every generation. It has renewed some inner circles in Buddhism and Taoism but was martyred again and again in the name of conformity to conventional, national regimes. It has restored and sustained the Eternal Gospel of Mar Thomas in India but was reduced to conventional conformity so as to survive within the caste system of Hindu India. It was martyred to the point of extinction in imperial Japan, but everywhere it abides as the quintessential way of wisdom, the way of the Name and glory, transcending name and form. In Japan it was secretly handed on at the heart of radiant grace in Pure Land enlightenment, even when its outer forms were in decline and its verbal transmission was under the violent attack of ruthless persecution. Extremes tend to revert to wisdom’s holy norms because neither dim shallows nor dull narrows are truly sustainable. Golden wisdom flowers when turning truly turns and seeing truly sees, for golden wisdom always flowered best when its martyred witness in uncreated light secretly unveiled uncreated glory. Awareness reverses dissipation when wisdom turns the light right round and unveils realms of quintessential glory in the midst. Glory manifests as centred openness when awareness opens to the presence of uncreated awareness. Turning the light of awareness round opens the whole creation to the uncreated light of glory, unveiling wisdom in the midst.
Uncreated light crystallises as a transfigured body of light in saints for whom turning and seeing have become their way of life. This is the practice of glorification that completes purification and illumination. Hesychast tradition sustains its ancient, spiritual, desert culture that encourages quintessential wisdom to survive but is nevertheless always under siege from the narrows and shallows of conventional religion. Everywhere, martyrdom of Christ’s way of light drives wisdom into exile or crucifies it outside urban walls, only to resurrect it anew in glorious hiddenness. The original face of turned glory awakened wisdom anew in the Bridal Chamber of the Holy of Holies, even when the profound poetics of prophecy was no longer understood. Baptismal waters conjoin with Pentecostal fires in the alchemical secrets of glorification, even when, in conventional circles, prophetic mysteries have been reduced to external rites of secular passage.
The Spirit’s unceasing prayer is for quintessential wisdom to newly rise again to reveal rainbow completeness in the saints, transfiguring gross energy with uncreated glory, turning the light of awareness round from mindless breath to the golden flower of uncreated Spirit. Quintessential wisdom persistently turns the light of awareness round, revealing the glory of God’s earthly heavens, spontaneously conjoining with his heavenly earth. Golden wisdom flowers as glory throughout all realms of awakening light, but if no-one turns to look back, the netherworld of addictive oblivion continuously reigns. Phenomena revert to the stillness of primordial glory quite naturally once quintessential wisdom centres on the omnipresent light of Holy Trinity. No wonder wisdom traditions are gloriously renewed whenever quintessential wisdom unveils Christ’s ineffable completeness! No wonder quintessential turning heals every sclerosis of the heart, curing habitual oblivion and distraction! Quintessential wisdom is most subtle in its transmission of the hidden mysteries of Christ’s glory, unveiling Christ way beyond the old boundaries of visible Christendom or the secularised limits of modern Christianity. Wisdom’s quintessential way makes all things new, nourishing the beauty of holiness as it restores sacred traditions to their original glory, beyond cultural wars and the divisive exclusions of religious identity.