The Lineage of the Ageless Wisdom: “Leonardo Da Vinci’s Greatest Gift”
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The Lineage of the Ageless Wisdom: “Leonardo Da Vinci’s Greatest Gift”
Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 in a small Italian town called Vinci. He hailed from the period of history known as the Renaissance, where much was changing across a Europe that had been ravaged by war, plague and religious oppression for more than a thousand years.
As a result, no significant developments were made in science during this period.[1] Throughout the Dark and Middle Ages, freedom of expression had been quashed and all lived under the impositions of feudalism and religious fear-mongering. The Catholic Church wielded influence over all levels of society, bastardising divinity for the purpose of control and prolonging entrapment and misery. The average person was imprisoned by the church’s domineering mental constructs and owned by their impounding ideals and beliefs. This powerful elect controlled not only the political and financial systems too, but their influence ran through education as well. Those who opposed the teachings of the Church were threatened, ostracised, or worse, brutally tortured or even killed if they refused to recant.
The beginning of the end of the tyranny and oppression of the church in its hold over Europe came about with the reawakening and rebirth in Europe (renaissance = re-birth) of the values and lived wisdom of The Ageless Wisdom.
These values date back to antiquity and beyond and hold mankind as being the equal, Divine Sons of an all-loving God rather than unworthy sinners, confined to lives of penance and suffering, and destined for an eternity in the fires of Hell if not seen to toe the party line of the religious dogma of the church. During this period the teachings of the true ancient Greek schools (Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato etc.) returned to Europe through the Byzantine refugees fleeing from the East after the fall of Constantinople. The teachings of the Ageless Wisdom had been held safe in the East for over one thousand years since the death of Hypatia and the fall of Alexandria to the forces which sought to crush its expression. The invention of the printing press in Germany, and later perfected in Italy, allowed for the efficient and mass reproduction of this Wisdom and facilitated a rapid spread of wisdom and ideas throughout Europe.[2]
Leonardo da Vinci, despite having not received an education, became well acquainted with the works of such Wisdom, which included: Pythagoras, Plato, Euclid, Hipparchus, Eratosthenes, Thales and Hypatia; however, his self-taught learning was an accompaniment to the immense and ongoing outpouring of knowledge, wisdom and science which came naturally through him, via his lived connection to his inner-heart.
"Leonardo understood what any true advanced Initiate knows, and that is that it is easy being a universal man. In these words we see the fact of Soul, the fact of its otherworldly intelligence and insight, and we see the fact that he or she who is truly Soul-full has access to other dimensions and all that comes with that vastness of knowledge, which includes the fact of The Hierarchy."
Serge Benhayon Time, Space and all of us, Book 2 – Space, p 344
The circumstances of his illegitimate birth deprived Leonardo of the formal education that so befitted a man of his creative talents, and instead of attending formal schooling he was at age 14 sent by his father to study art in a studio in Florence, where he rapidly became known for his outstanding abilities with various art forms and design.
Free from the dogma and the restricted and controlled way of thinking of his day, Leonardo reflected to his contemporaries a way to approach problems from a fresh, ‘new’ perspective – a method which did not rely on the teachings or way of thinking of the controlling few, but on a connection to one’s true self and through that connection to a universal wisdom which was equally available to all. His drawing of the Vitruvian Man, for instance, depicts his very simple and easy solution to the age-old puzzle – the “squaring of the circle”.
Whilst he studied under the artist Andrea del Verrocchio alongside other artists such as Botticelli, Leonardo quickly established himself as a man of extraordinary artistic talent. He quickly superseded his master and through his innovative techniques in perspective, light and shade, and the application of ‘Divine Proportion’ (or, The Golden Ratio) to his works, changed the course of European art. After six years of study, Leonardo da Vinci qualified as a Master Artist in the Guild of Saint Luke and established his own workshop in Florence.
What is known, but often not given equal attention, is Leonardo’s influence extending well beyond Art and into the realms of invention, innovations in technology, and scientific discovery. Leonardo did not separate Art from Science and used his art to communicate many facets of knowledge that would be needed well into the future:
"Art is the Queen of all sciences, communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world."[3]
Leonardo Da Vinci
The creativity and totally new approach which he brought to these fields stemmed not from any innate genius which only he was gifted with, nor from any superior learning or access to book knowledge, but from the fact that Leonardo was free from the constricting consciousness of the religion and education of his day.
With this came his responsibility and commitment to live in such a way as to ensure he remained free of such oppressive structures: much is known about his vegetarianism and abstinence from alcohol and excessive food, but less of his deeply loving nature, his quiet observation of all life around him, and his commitment and fastidiousness with which he worked and served throughout his entire life.
During his life, Leonardo gained significant popularity and influence, securing the support of the powerful Medici family, who were also patrons of Verrocchio, the young Botticelli, and Neo-Platonist Marcilio Ficino, a great scholar of the Ageless Wisdom in Renaissance Florence. Leonardo’s great light and mastery over life, as well as his apparent genius in any field into which he put his energy, attracted the force of jealousy from some of those around him who could see he was free from the oppressive consciousness’ of the day. Early in his career, at around age 22, he was falsely accused of being homosexual (a crime punishable by death) – the outplay of group jealousy channelled towards him. He was forced to leave Florence and not much is known of his whereabouts for several years after this incident. He thus left behind the comfort of a life as a popular artist, with many influential friends, to live a very disciplined life on the move, under the constant threat of assassination by the deeply illusioned few, foregoing the joys of traditional family life.
“He who offends others, does not secure himself”
“Evil thinking is either Envy or ingratitude...
"No sooner Virtue is born than Envy comes into this world, to attack it: and sooner will there be a body without a shadow than Virtue without Envy”.[4]
Despite being the target of the aforementioned jealousy of some of his peers, Leonardo was undeterred and continued to produce prolific volumes of material throughout his life, recording everything carefully in a series of notebooks. The contents of his notebooks were revelatory and revolutionary, covering a wide range of areas including architecture, town planning, engineering, optics, physics, hydrology, geology, botany, medicine, anatomy, mechanics and industrial design.
Examples of these further works can be seen in his description of how to construct kit homes and build houses with optimum features to allow sunlight to keep the homes well lit and ventilated to improve hygiene and visual amenity. His designs included 3-speed gears, bicycles, armoured tanks, a mechanical knight, scuba diving equipment, flying machines including helicopters, and much more. His redesigned looms revolutionized the textile industry (an industry which would later, in the 1700s, play a central role in the Industrial Revolution). The volume of his work was unprecedented and in laying the foundations brought revolutions in industry, science, medicine and art that have lasted till this day. And his work continues to inspire innovation and design, an example being a ‘Da Vinci’ robot, which is being used to treat prostate cancer.
"Science is the observation of things possible, whether present or past. Prescience is the knowledge of things which may come to pass, though but slowly."[5]
Leonardo Da Vinci
Leonardo’s greatest gift to humanity perhaps, was his ability to show and teach others that it is possible for anyone, through their choices and commitment, to access the Ageless Wisdom and hence equally live as a universal man or woman – indeed, it is who we naturally are when removed from the hold of the otherwise oppressive and toxic consciousness’ that seek to dominate our lives.
This example Leonardo lived consistently throughout his life. And thus, although he delivered to the world so much by way of innovations in many sciences and practical disciplines, Leonardo was no genius, as he is erroneously thought of today: rather, he was a true man, living in connection with his Soul, through which The Hierarchy could ground all that was needed for humanity to learn and heal at that time. Everything he was, everything he did, came from his Soul. And the fact that he did not have what was deemed the proper and elite education of the day beckons us all to ponder more deeply on where our true intelligence comes from and how it can be used when it is applied with the wisdom of the inner-heart .
Most importantly, the way in which Leonardo carried out his work on Earth allowed others to access the same source from which came all of his great knowledge, creativity and skill. The vast volumes and quality of his work seeded forth the works of many great scientists to follow him, including Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and many more men and women who would also stand up for truth in Science, Religion and Philosophy, and continue to carry the beacon of the Lineage of the Ageless Wisdom throughout the Ages.
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