Peter Y. Chou
WisdomPortal.com

It's Christmas Day 2013 and my friend
took me hiking at Coyote Creek Trail.
Nearby is Creative Labs whose logo
struck me like lightning out of the blue.

Coyote Creek Trail Sign

Creative Labs Building

Creative Ad on Building

It was a warm sunny day on Christmas 2013. My friend took me to Coyote Creek Trail at Montague Expressway & Seely Ave in Milpitas. When passing by Creative Labs at 1901 McCarthy Boulevard, I was struck with awe by the company's logo— CREΛTIVE with A as Platonic Lambda Λ— "Soul of the Universe". Fortunately, the building was just a block away from our hike, so managed three nice photos of this logo. Photo Sources: Coyote Creek Hike (wisdomportal.com)

How fitting that the logo designer of Creative Labs placed at its center the Greek letter Lambda Λ that Plato called in Timaeus "Soul of the Universe". CREΛTIVE Labs Logo & Λ Background CREΛTIVE Labs Logo with Λ at Center The Platonic Lambda "Soul of the Universe" Plato's Timaeus 35b The word "CREATIVE" has the letter "A" near the center. However, the logo designer replaced "A" with the Greek letter Lambda Λ. Was the designer aware of its spiritual & cosmological symbol? Plato designated Λ as "Soul of the Universe" in his cosmology book Timaeus. I was not aware of the Λ Background formed by the dark trees behind the corporate logo sign until later.     The Platonic Lambda, "Soul of the Universe", is the sum of the two series (Timaeus 35b): Sum of the double interval series (powers of 2) = 20 + 21 + 22 + 23 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15 Sum of the triple interval series (powers of 3) = 30 + 31 + 32 + 33 = 1 + 3 + 9 + 27 = 40 Sum of the double & triple interval series (Timaeus) = 15 + 40 = 55 “Now God did not make the soul after the body, although we are speaking of them in this order; for having brought them together he would never have allowed that the elder should be ruled by the younger... First of all, he took away one part of the whole [1], and then he separated a second part which was double the first [2], and then he took away a third part which was half as much again as the second and three times as much as the first [3], and then he took a fourth part which was twice as much as the second [4], and a fifth part which was three times the third [9], and a sixth part which was eight times the first [8], and a seventh part which was twenty-seven times the first [27]. After this he filled up the double intervals [i.e. between 1, 2, 4, 8] and the triple [i.e. between 1, 3, 9, 27] cutting off yet other portions from the mixture and placing them in the intervals.” (Benjamin Jowett's translation Timaeus, 35b, F.M. Cornford, Plato's Cosmology, 1937, pp. 66-67). See also Number 55; Dante's 55 & Λ; Image Sources: Creative Labs Logo (wisdomportal.com); Platonic Lambda (wisdomportal.com) Does not everything begin with the Soul and all creation start from the centre?— A pebble thrown in water makes ripples spreading out from center to circumference. Michelangelo, God Creating Adam (1512) Jessica Bate's Rock Water Ripple (2013) The King James Bible tells about God creating man "a living soul" in Genesis 2.7: "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." This is best depicted in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam (1512) on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. There are 1,210,000 photos of "water ripple" in Google Images. I selected Jessica Bate's image as it has a calming effect with rocks below the water. Image Sources: God Creating Adam (wikipedia.org); "Rock Water Ripple" (jessiesphotography.deviantart.com) Buildings are centered by their foundations, plants grow better centered in their pots, seeds reside at the center of all fruits, and the home is center of all families. Foundation of Empire State Building looking Northwest (April 24, 1930) Tomato Plant Growing from Center of Pot Seeds at the Center of Valencia Orange Symbol of Home Formed from Fingers Empire State Building is a 103-story skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, at the intersection of 5th Avenue and West 34th Street. It stood as the world's tallest building (1454 feet high) for nearly 40 years, from its completion in early 1931. Excavation of the site began on January 22, 1930, and a photo of its foundation three months later (April 24, 1930) is shown above. Just as roots anchor trees, foundations beneath the ground support the building above. If plants are not centered in pots, the imbalance will tip the pot on growth of branches. When cutting a fruit, seeds are found at its center where they germinated (fruit anatomy). Home is the center of families. Parents may leave for work, children go to schools, but they return home for dinner, rest, and sleep. There are 139,000,000 photos of "home and family" in Google Images, with parents and kids in front of the lawn of their house (sample). However, I've selected the "Home Symbol" image formed from four hands as the most ideal. In Hebrew Aleph () is the "father" of the Aleph-Bet. while Bet () means house. The letter A symbolizes first principle— Ain Soph Aur (infinite light) of the Kabbalah. "A" is then non-being or ground of our being, out of which being arises. We've seen earlier how "A" resembles Λ "Soul of the Universe". B (Beth) is the house or container of the Lord (Aleph). I recall attending a lecture by Carlos Suarès, author of Cipher of Genesis (1970) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (circa 1974). He said that Bayt (Beth) is the container, archetype of all dwellings, the bowl housing this universe. The Hebrew glyph Bet () resembles a house constructed of three Vav (). When rotated 90o clockwise, resembles the house in the "Home Symbol" with Λ as its roof. The blue sky with clouds above and grassy ground below represent heaven & earth, or yang and yin in harmony with the Tao. The house of creation is then the life of the universe. Image Sources: Empire State Building (keithyorkcity.wordpress.com); Tomato Plant (countrywomanmagazine.com); Orange Seeds (cnseed.org); Home Symbol (netcam-watcher.com) The nine planets circle around the Sun like electrons orbiting the atom's nucleus. Milky Way has a black hole at its center, and our universe is born from the Big Bang. Solar System with 9 Planets Circling the Sun Electrons Orbiting Nucleus like Planets around the Sun Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way Galaxy Big Bang Creating the Expanding Universe Copernican Revolution was the paradigm shift from Ptolemaic model of the cosmos with Earth stationary at the center of the universe, to the heliocentric model with the Sun at the center of the Solar System (1543). Six planets were known since ancient Greece until 1781 when Uranus was discovered. With the discovery of Neptune in 1846 and Pluto in 1930, nine planets revolved around the Sun in our Solar System. (In 2006, Pluto was demoted to a Dwarf Planet). The atom is the smallest unit that defines chemical elements. A single strand of human hair is about one million carbon atoms wide. Every atom is made of a nucleus made of protons & neutrons (Hydrogen has no neutrons). The nucleus is surrounded by a cloud of electrons that swirl around it. Thus on the microscopic scale, the atomic nucleus & electrons mimics the solar system's Sun & planets on the macroscopic scale. The Sun orbits the center of Milky Way at a distance of approximately 24000-26000 light-years from the galactic center, completing one clockwise orbit, as viewed from the galactic north pole, in about 225-250 million years. In 1974, it was discovered that the Milky Way's galactic center contain a supermassive black hole. The Big Bang theory says our cosmos is expanding from a dense single point that was the beginning of the universe. Measurements place this moment at approximately 13.8 billion years ago, which is thus considered the age of the universe. Photo Sources: Solar System (ou.org); Atom with Electrons around Nucleus (phys.org); Milky Way with Black Hole (news.nationalgeographic.coa); Big Bang (io9.com) God had an angel with a flaming sword guarding Tree of Life in the Garden's midst, so afraid Adam would steal the sacred fruit that would make him godlike and immortal. Michelangelo's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (1511) Sistine Chapel ceiling, Vatican City Gustav Klimt's Tree of Life (1909) Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, Austria "The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden" from Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling painting shows the Serpent giving Adam and Eve fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. At the right, an Angel with the flaming sword has his blade on Adam's neck as he and Eve shrinks in fear departing from the Garden of Eden. Passage from Genesis III.22-24— “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.“ This Biblical passage has always intrigued me. Why is God so afraid that man will eat from the Tree of Life and become immortal? If God created us in his own image, why is he keeping the best for himself and not sharing it. I told myself not to shrink with fear like Adam but be more daring like Jacob and keep on wrestling with the Angel until he is blessed (Genesis XXXII.24-26). Here's one of my favorite paintings— Delacroix's Jacob Wrestling the Angel (1861) from Saint-Sulpice Cathedral in Paris.     I feel that the Tree of Life is man's heritage as well as the gods. So like Prometheus bringing man fire, it as our birthright! What is this Tree of Life that God deemed so precious that it was withheld from mankind? Tree of Life is a mystical concept, a metaphor for common descent or a motif in various world theologies and philosophies. The Tree of Life is at the center of Paradise and signifies regeneration, return to the primordial state of perfection. It is the cosmic axis and is unitary, transcending good and evil. Immortality is obtained either by eating the fruit of the Tree of Life, as with the peach of immortality in the midst of the Taoist-Buddhist Western Paradise, or from drinking the juice extracted from the tree, as the Iranian Haoma from the haoma tree. In Kabbalah, it resembles the ten Sephirot or emanations of God. The Sephirotic Tree has a right- and a left-hand column representing duality, but a middle column balances them and restores unity and lead us back to the Creator. In the Katha Upanishad VI.1, the Tree of Life has its roots above and branches below (like a genealogical tree). The Tree of Life appears in Norse religion as Yggdrasil, the world tree, a massive tree (sometimes considered a yew or ash tree) with extensive lore surrounding it. (Reference: E.O. James, Tree of Life, E.J. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands, 1966). Photo Sources: Michelangelo's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (wikipedia.org); Klimt's Tree of Life (gustav-klimt.com) Blake got it right painting God creating the world with a compass in his hand. All creation begins at the centre because that is where the Soul abides. William Blake's Ancient of Days (1794) God the Geometer (c. 1425) by Metz God Divine Architect (c. 1250) Austrian National Library Christ the Geometer (c. 1252) Cathedral Museum, Toledo Ancient of Days is a name for God in the Biblical Book of Daniel 7:9: "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire." In his engraving The Ancient of Days frontispiece to Europe a Prophecy (1794), William Blake depicts God creating the world holding a compass in his hand with the dark void below. Many medieval manuscripts have shown God the Geometer creating the world. Since Plato's cosmology book Timaeus (360 BC) was widely read during the Middle Ages, these artists were familiar with the Platonic Lambda Λ "Soul of the Universe" where everything had its beginning. For "Soul abiding at the centre" image, I chose the Sun's symbol with a point at the circle's center. Euclid defined the point as having no dimension (Elements I.1), quite symbolic of the Soul that's invisible, the single dense point out of which this universe had its birth. According to the oldest symbolism, the circle enclosing a dot represented the primal womb containing the spark of creation, like the bindu within the Yoni Yantra of Hindu tradition. (Barbara G. Walker, Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects, 1986, p. 15). The central dot is the sun with the planets circling around it as the circumference. Plotinus (204-270 A.D.) alludes to this symbol in describing the Sun in The Enneads I.7.1: "Existing beyond and above Being, It must be beyond and above Act, Mind, or Intellection. That only can be named the Good to which all is bound and Itself to none. It must be unmoved while all circles around It, as a circumference around a centre from which all the radii proceed. Another example would be the sun, central to the light which streams from it and is yet linked to it; try as you will to separate the sun from its light, for ever the light is connected with the sun." Image Sources: Blake's Ancient of Days (commons.wikimedia.org); God the Geometer (luminarium.org); God the Divine Architect (commons.wikimedia.org); Christ the Geometer (luminarium.org) — Peter Y. Chou     Mountain View, 11-22-2014 | Top of Page | "Autumn Leaves" | Poems 2014 | Poems 2013 | Poems 2012 | Poems 2011 | Poems 2010 | | Haikus 2014 | Haikus 2013 | Haikus 2012 | Haikus 2011 | CPITS | Books | A-Z Portals | Home | © Peter Y. Chou, Wisdom Portal P.O. Box 390707, Mountain View, CA 94039 email: (11-22-2014)