Amwell, 15.4.50
THE RAY OF CREATION
Maurice Nicoll
Recently there has been talk about God. Some people say: "Why do we not talk about God in a direct fashion?" The Ray of Creation illustrates God. It is a diagram of God. In the Ray of Creation all proceeds from the Absolute, which means the unconditioned. The Ray says that everything starts from this Unknowable called the Absolute, which divides into Three Forces and then into the Law of Seven. That is why it is said that God is hard to understand because He is first One and then Three and then Seven. I do not understand why some say that the acceptance of the Ray of Creation is nothing to do with reason but must be an act of faith. The Ray of Creation says that we are all part of something else. Taking it quite literally—that is, sensorily, or naturally—is it not quite true that our Sun or Solar System is part of our Galaxy and is composed also of planets of which we take one called the Earth with its child the Moon ? I do not see that the Ray of Creation is unreasonable to the logical senses and has to be accepted as an act of faith.
Someone asks: "What does Divine Intelligence mean? Is it not the Intelligence of God Himself ?" No—not of the Absolute. Now we pass from the literal meaning of the Ray, as it is shewn to the senses. We must understand that our external visible Sun is really part of the external visible Galaxy called the Milky Way and designated in the Ray as the note La, our own Sun being designated appropriately as Sol. But the Sun is also in us. As I said, we must pass now from the physical meaning of the Ray to the psychological meaning. Taking the Ray of Creation psychologically, it represents levels of being rather than external physical objects. A person who is on the level of being called Sol would have divine intelligence in comparison with our own, but in comparison with the intelligence of our Galaxy the intelligence of the Sun is not divine. And the intelligence of all the Galaxies united must be very close to the Intelligence of the Absolute, which embraces All. In speaking of this, Mr. Ouspensky said on one occasion that to a dog we have divine intelligence. We can make things, we can open doors, we can cook food, which to the dog is absolutely marvellous— namely, divine to the dog. So the dog sees divinity in his master— that is, divine intelligence in comparison with his own. But for us to imagine that we, as we are, could get directly in touch with the Intelli- gence of the Absolute would be foolish. Is it not said in Scripture that Man's intelligence is foolishness to God ? Notice that we are taking the Ray of Creation not only as an external thing visible to the senses, but as an internal thing existing in ourselves as levels of understanding, comprehension, and intelligence. So we have the task of ascending ourselves. The Ray of Creation is within you—up to a point.
One person says: "God is all power for Good." But the Creator of the Universe, the Absolute, may have quite different ideas from yours as to what is good for His immeasurable creation. Once you use the word God too familiarly, I fancy you really mean what you want. Remember that the Absolute in manifestation becomes Three Forces, two opposing forces and a neutralizing force. I have already called attention several times recently to these three aspects of the Absolute, one creative, one preservative, and one destructive. If in creation there were no destructive force, there would be no meaning in it at all. In fact, it would be impossible. The sea would become solid with fish in a year or two. However, we are allowed to catch fish and eat them, and other aspects of the destructive side kill us too. From the point of view of the Supreme Intelligence, all this is necessary, it is all good to keep the machinery running. Do you think this is a very difficult thought? If you do, reflect on it, because the Work says that everything eats everything else and it adds: "We should try to be eaten by the right people"—namely, Archangels, rather than devils. But of course if you are sentimental, and in consequence not able to think very clearly, you will think it horrible that a cat kills a mouse. Yes, the Work says we must try to be eaten by the right influence. If we serve life only, however successfully, we shall be eaten by influences which are wrong for us, because we were hiddenly constructed to come under a different neutralizing force from life. Life does not develop us. Do you not think a farmer who sees weeds growing amongst the wheat and feels sentimental about them will be a very bad farmer unless he does something about them ? And we are told not to let negative emotions have too strong a growth in the mental field of ourselves. What are you going to select in this mental field? What influence? What God? You have got to check many things in yourselves and you have got to do it, as you will see for yourselves. You have got to make inner stop about thoughts that lead you down to the slums of yourselves. You do not have to save the weeds, but eschew them, that something else can grow up in the psychological country, the field of your mind, a little better than what was there formerly. So therefore God is selective and if we want to understand on our level what God is, reflected down the Ray through increasingly mechanical laws, we must understand (we can only understand through esoteric teaching) what it is we have to do to obey God—that is, follow certain influences.
The Divine Intelligence of the Sun is, as I said, God for us, and I suspect that this Intelligence throws out every form of negative emotion. This is clearly not like our Intelligence which so easily harbours negative emotion of every kind. But after a time in the Work you will find that behind all you are trying to do there is another Intelligence in you, an Onlooker, which is Real I in yourself. I suppose I have never been more conscious in myself of this other Intelligence which stands behind and looks on at what I am trying to do with Nicoll and all his devils. Yet I cannot get in direct touch with this Real Intelligence, but I am aware of it. It is entirely uncritical and yet when I feel the presence of this Intelligence I know that I am wrong in myself. I realize that all this time I have mistaken who I am. Now this feeling of another In- telligence behind any intelligence that I have is the beginning of the feeling of Real I, and, as G. once said: "Behind Real I lies God." But G. added that not all the Ray is represented in us.
As you know, the Work says we are covered with many overcoats or, as Ibsen says, Man is like an onion with many skins which can be peeled off, and G. used that image. Christ said: "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you", and therefore God is not outside you but within you, and the pathway of the Work is to reach the Real I, behind which lies God. If you have anything real in you, if there is a kernel in the onion, this thing I mean that questions life without being bitter, by peeling off these coats or onion skins, you come closer and closer to what is really yourself. I do not say that this God that stands behind Real I is the Absolute. It is for us relatively God—i.e. Divine Intelligence compared with our own. Would you like to meet the Absolute who is controlling the whole of Creation, who is conscious of every movement in every Galaxy, every Moon, and every atom, and who keeps the whole thing going? Would you care to meet an Intelligence on that scale? Don't you see it would blast you? For us, if we could rise to the Intelligence of the Sun, which is a small body among celestial Beings, it would be far and away enough for us.
Now every expansion of consciousness leads to a development of intelligence, leading to more consciousness of ourselves and of other people connected with us. This is a development, a growth of intelligence, and if we practise this long enough and undergo all the temptations, all the attacks of 'I's in us that do not wish the Work and hate it, if we defend the Truth of the Work and are passive to attacks on it, then after a time we will become aware of this Intelligence that I spoke of that is behind everything that you do and is at present an Onlooker, quite uncritical, quite impersonal. This, as I said, means that you are approaching Real I, behind which God lies—i.e. the God that belongs to our level of Being and is Divine in comparison with our own level. Each higher note in the Octave of the Ray of Creation, when we try to ascend it as by a ladder, is divine to us as we are and therefore God to us. If you will handle the Ray of Creation intelligently in yourselves psychologically, you will see what I mean. Speaking in terms of the Ray, we have below us the note Re, represented externally by the Moon, and above us the note Fa. Fa therefore represents a relatively divine intelligence compared with the note Mi. And again Sol represents a much higher Intelligence through the development of inner understanding, and I fancy that most of us would be marvellously content if we could sometimes touch the Intelligence represented by Sol internally and the Sun externally. But try to conceive for a moment what preparation would be necessary. If our Higher Centres came through we would go mad. So, the Work says, we must work on lower centres and prepare them for the possible reception of Higher Centres.
Higher Centres are God to us—but notice they could destroy you if wrongly approached.
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