THE LIFE OF THE UNIVERSE
There was a time when only gaseous, glowing, dispersed matter existed in the universe along with centres of force (non-material points of energy or magnetism with their own structure were moving around the universe in such a way and on such paths as today’s planets). They were the foundations of future planets in the form of energy. In the universe, centri fugal force governed – and hence the material dispersion.
Just as inhalation follows exhalation, centripetal force affected the universe and replaced the ruling centrifugal force. The centres of force were then activated and began attracting the dispersed glowing gas towards themselves. Thus, the non-material centres of energy became material, though still gaseous planets. The gaseous planets through the effect of steady centripetal force condensed into glowing liquid matter and in this form they pilgrimaged on their predestined paths.
After a long period of time, but still in exact time rhythm, another influence became effective in the universe – this time it was the influence of peace and coldness. Glowing molecules of space matter were calming their vibrations under this influence, the matter of the hot and liquid planets began to cool down and harden slowly. On the liquid surface darker spots were appearing slowly (as today on the Sun) – the first floating continents.
According to force ratios in the universe, some planets were cooling faster, while others – those that were closer to the centres or were themselves the centres were cooling down more slowly. And so the process has reached our present time. We are living in a time of quietening of the universe – the time of its cooling, just in one of the tiny fractions of the cosmic process that we find so enormously long. Material life of the universe is manifested according to environment. Our planet finds itself at a certain point of the cooling process with the present conditions, with which we are familiar. Under these conditions life manifests itself just as we live it now. As the change in these conditions of life proceeds, the form and way of life will alter too.
To put it in other words: Life is not only what we understand under this term. Life is, according to current conditions, very changeable in its form.
The life finds itself in “the Podstata” from which everything, including the universe, arose. It is in the entire universe, on the planets as well as in interplanetary space – everywhere and in various possible forms. For example, life is now even on the Sun. It is not, however, in the material form that we are familiar with on our planet in this period of time.
So we are living in the planet’s era of cooling, the era of cosmic inhalation. Time goes on. The planet will gradually continue to cool. Even the Sun will go the same way. Life will be changing form and everything will be waiting for another impulse that will permeate the universe one day to claim power for a limited time. The cosmic influence of a new heat will come. All the planets will warm up. Their matter, which was divided into elements and compounds, crystals and rocks, and then became organic, will melt and become homogeneous again. Planets will be transformed into liquid, then gas but they will still exist in their specific existence. The era of fire and glowing will rule in the universe. When its time passes, the centrifugal impulse will come again. Everything will disperse. Individual components of the matter will be repelled from each other. Only gas and immaterial centres of force will exist in the universe. But life cannot be lost. The centres of force will continue wandering on their eternal paths as planets and only the environment around them will change in the course of time. One day, another centripetal impulse will occur, followed by others that are quiescent, fiery and eventually centrifugal again. And then, once again – in the next succession – the centripetal and quiescent impulses as a constructive influence, in which everything is organising itself and emerging, will be followed by the impulses of heat and dispersion as a destructive influence, in which everything ceases to exist.
And thus we can see these cosmic processes as constructive and destructive, as a law of the rhythm of life, which we can observe in other areas of time in the same way, as I have stated earlier. For example: in the course of our year there is the creative spring and summer, and destructive autumn and winter. Or, an inhalation with the end-of-inspiration pause is creative and exhalation with the end-of-expiration pause is destructive for humans. It is a single rhythm – the same in its principle, differing only in time within the Creative Work. However, this differentiation according to subjects is only in time. In the timelessness, in the eternal existence of the Podstata, it exists and persists in its unity.
The matter of the universe is pulsing. It heats up and disperses so as to organise itself again. Exactly the same applies to the spiritual component. The multiplicity disperses to become the initial component again – that component which it was in the beginning of the Creative Work’s genesis. The organised psychic form of multiplicities of being will disperse in the heat of enthusiasm to meet again and to re-create the unit of being that is so close and familiar to us.
The universe lives and pulses in this way. The whole of the Creative Work in which the universe is embraced pulses in this way. Everything that exists pulses in this way.
The universe inhales and exhales, and we, with our life’s history, cover just a tiny and insignificant part of its inhalation. How minute we are, what a small grain of sand in its vast structure we are! To what an extent the importance of human personality is challenged when we realize it! What a pitiful creature in evolution the little human worm is and how insignificant his knowledge of life is! It is now when the modesty and humility come, not as a virtue recommended or cultivated by any doctrine, but as a life commonplace which should become a natural human quality. If we become aware of the breathing of the universe and rest our eye in awe at these great and eternal events, we suddenly become so inconsiderable and our personal life problems become quite insignificant. Now we are modest and humble. But not because we should be like this, it is because we know and realize our tinyness. An unaware man who disciplines himself only within a doctrine or a church can be humble within the discipline of his church, but this is really just discipline. The one who reaches higher understanding, who gets higher in his evolution, will be, as a result of his comprehension, modest in his usual understanding and hence in his own substance.