FAMILY TREE 26 – THE LEGENDARY KINGS OF ATHENS
The goddess Athena represents a spiritual force which ensures that humanity reaches a complete development and a perfect mastery of the external being (mental, vital and body) by the growth of the inner being. It therefore represents the inner master. It integrates both the progression in the ascent of the planes of consciousness and the path of purification towards total liberation.
Athens, as a city, is the structure that supports this progression. It therefore represents the organization of yoga or sâdhanâ that the seeker sets up for this purpose, more or less consciously. The kings of Athens are the most important elements as the seeker progress.
Their succession is described in detail on the page “EUROPA, THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR, DAEDALUS AND ICARUS“.
The first three kings represent the period before entering the path. They lay the foundations. With the two following kings, the seeker of Truth enters the spiritual path more or less consciously and takes for goal “the exact action” or “the act which is born from within”.
The reigns of the sixth, seventh and eighth kings are marked by the encounter of the “master” and / or the discovery of the personal path. The eighth king, Pandion II “the one who gives everything to achieve union in consciousness with the Real” represents the part of the seeker eager to devote everything to the quest. However, he was ousted from the throne by one of his nephews. It is this usurpation of the direction of the quest by the analytical mind in the service of the ego which allows the birth and development of a serious spiritual deviance justified by a magnificent mental construction which absorbs everything in its system (the Minotaur enclosed by Daedalus in the labyrinth). This error will lead to a temporary weakening of the forces devoted to the quest (the tribute imposed by Minos to Athens).
The son of Pandion, Aegeus, ninth king of Athens, celebrated the Panathenaic Games, symbol of the seeker who devotes “all” (Pan) to the quest (Athens).
The tenth king, son of the precedent, is Theseus “the conscience turned inward (or which acts from within)”. He is the great purifier at the beginning of the path and he is he who will overcome the deviance illustrated by the Minotaur.
The last two kings of Athens for whom there are few reliable myths are treated in the page “THE LAST FEATS OF THESEUS”.