This is an ongoing series that highlights the 12 intelligences every soul must gather throughout the one-year cycle of the zodiac to rise higher on his or her spiritual journey.
In Gnostic mythology, the great Goddess of Wisdom, Sophia, helps create this world through a series of mistakes. In the process, pieces of her being are scattered across creation. She must gather them up before she is capable of transcending this world and returning to the divine realm.
Her story of scattered parts is a myth that has been repeated in other cultures. For example, the story of Isis and Osiris. In a battle with a rival, Osiris is torn into 14 parts, which are then scattered up and down the length of the Nile River. His wife, Isis searches for and finds all but one part of her husband. She gathers together the 13 parts and wraps them like a mummy, then hides him away.
What is the meaning of these ancient myths? There is actually a deep meaning that speaks to the fact that none of us is whole. We are all broken into multiple parts. And we cannot transcend this worldly existence until we gather together all of the pieces of ourselves.
These stories speak directly to the Zodiacal sign of Gemini. It’s the only sign that is represented by a multiple — twins. The very theme is duality.
This multiplicity in humans can manifest into negative outcomes. According to SignsofIntelligence.com:
“Possessing a wild and exuberant ‘monkey mind,’ the conceptual world of the Gemini can change like a flickering kaleidoscopic light show. Because of his fast-moving thought stream, he flits from idea to idea like an adrenalin-driven hummingbird … Gemini can overwhelm and confuse himself by pursuing too many interests at once. Scattering his energy in many directions, he accomplishes little or burns himself out with anxiety or nervous exhaustion. Learning to focus his attention on a few chosen goals is of prime importance to his success; otherwise, he will become a jack of all trades and master of none.”
Our Complex Human Personalities
In The Gospel and the Zodiac, author Bill Darlison writes:
“We are all ‘split personalities’ since, as Aldous Huxley tells us, the complex human personality is made up of ‘a quite astonishingly improbable combination of traits.’ … Thus a man can be at once the craftiest of politicians and the dupe of his own verbiage, can have a passion for brandy and money, and an equal passion for the poetry of George Meredith and young women and his mother, for horse-racing and detective stories and the good of his country — the whole accompanied by a sneaking fear of hell-fire, a hatred of Spinoza and an unblemished record for Sunday churchgoing.”
Esoteric author P. O. Ouspensky, “tells us that the fragmented personality is the normal condition of all human beings: Man is divided into different I’s or groups of I’s which are unconnected with one another. Then if one I knows one thing, a second I another thing, a third I yet another, and they never meet, what kind of understanding is possible? … This is the state of an ordinary man’s being, and it proves that as he is, he cannot have understanding. Understanding always means connecting things with the whole, and if one does not know the whole, how can one connect? Ouspensky likens this condition to a house full of servants without a master to control them. Each one does as he pleases, with no one performing the duty to which he was originally assigned: the cook works in the stable, the housemaid in the kitchen, the footman in the garden, and so on.”
The Bhagavad Gita says: ‘When a man lacks discrimination, his will wanders in all directions, after innumerable aims.’
(It should be noted that the many horses that Krishna controls in the chariot on the battlefield of Kuruksetra as he prepares for the Mahabharata war represent the many aspects of our mind.)
“The practitioners of Assagioli’s system of personality integration, psychosynthesis, often refer to the crowd-like nature of the human psyche. Geminian Salman Rushdie writes:
‘0, the dissociations of which the human mind is capable, marveled Saladin gloomily. 0, the conflicting selves jostling and joggling within these bags of skin. No wonder we are unable to remain focused on anything for long; no wonder we invent remote-control channel-hopping devices. If we turned these instruments on ourselves we’d discover more channels than a cable or satellite mogul ever dreamed of.’
What Gemini requires is a controlling ‘I,’ a steward who will integrate the separate functions, and see that each is carried out correctly. This process of integration, says Ouspensky, is a lengthy one, but so important that it is a prerequisite of all spiritual progress.
Integrate Our Many Parts with Singlemindedness
What is required for the human mind, says Darlison, is equilibrium and harmony among the warring members, not denial or sublimation. This difficult movement towards simplicity … is what, in large part, any genuine spiritual practical attempts to effect.
“Aldous Huxley maintains that the saint is characterized by simplicity and singularity of purpose, qualities which are completely at odds with the lifestyle and appetites of sophisticated and mentally active people.”
Darlison illustrates his point with the story of John the Baptist and his death at the hands of King Herod, who beheads him (renders him into two pieces), and gives his head to his stepdaughter.
This is a cautionary tale depicting the catastrophic results which follow when we are incapable of exorcizing the legion of contradictions which inhabit our carnal selves.”
Further, Darlison describes an incident that he says “expresses the notion of fragmentation and scattering the sign symbolizes. The turbulent waters represent the emotional and spiritual turbulence that the neophyte experiences when faced with the diversity of life’s options. This can result in action without direction, movement to no purpose, going fast only to be standing still.
“The parable teaches us that calm is a prerequisite for the spiritual life. The ‘master,’ the divine self within each of us is ‘asleep’ and needs to be awakened so that we can direct our attention towards our goal and not be caught in the frantic rush of activity, which dissipates our energies and weakens our resolve.
“Similar sentiments, with similar imagery, are expressed again in the Bhagavad Gita:
The mind
That gives itself to follow shows of sense
Seeth its helm of wisdom rent away,
And, like a ship in waves of whirlwind, drives
To wreck and death.
Only with him, great Prince!
Whose senses are not swayed by things of sense.
Only with him who holds his mastery,
Shows wisdom perfect.
Our task is to integrate the many parts of ourself into one whole. As such, it should come as no surprise that the intelligence that we must attain during the period of Gemini is singlemindedness.
