THE LIFE OF THE UNIVERSE
This is how matter and spirit emerged as parts of the Creative Work from the podstata part. Both of these fundamental components are identical, as we have already reasoned. It is only our perception of them that differs in various ways but as soon as we come to understanding, we see that their characteristics are the same. Both are a single idea that we creatures perceive in various ways – either as matter or as spirit. Their fundamental characteristics are the same: centripetal force, centrifugal force, fire and peace. They are a single notion, which manifests itself in different creative spheres. And these creative spheres are only a notion springing from our understanding. With our “I am” – our notion of existence, we can be directed towards perceiving the podstata unit (this would happen if we were the most perfect being, but that is a matter for our distant future). We do not, then, sense the division of matter and spirit; we perceive them as a single idea. Or we see this as a single idea divided into matter and spirit – this happens when our perception is directed towards the division or the Creative Work – for the present time.
This also means that our “I”, our notion of existence, pulsates in the same way as everything else. Sometimes our perception is constructive (our time of perfection), other times it is destructive (the time of our imperfection, the present time in which our “I am” currently finds itself).
Our notion of existence pulsates in the same way as everything else. Everything is the same and constant. Only our perception of everything is dual. Today, we understand that everything is dividing; we are now going through this division. It is the destructive period for our “I am” and if we compared it to a time of year, it would be autumn and winter. For breathing, it can be compared to the time of exhalation and the endof- exhalation pause. Eventually the constructive period will return like spring and summer or another inhala tion and end-of-inhalation pause. Then our notion of existence will again sense the whole fundamental idea in an integrated way – reassembled into the original unit – timelessly, without progression. Such is the pulsation of everything – in two strokes – and we recognise the nucleus of life and its constant manifestation. This is the rhythmic change from the Creative Work to the podstata part and back again to the Creative Work followed by the podstata part again, the pattern endlessly repeating itself. This is the pulsation of our “I am” – I am unified and I am separate and then again I am unified, I am separate, on and on in the same way.
This pulsation of life – of events – belongs to the manifested Creative Work which pulsates from its subdivisions (IA-UE*) to its podstata part (O*) and also, of course, to our notion of life, to our “I am” which is part of the Creative Work. In the Podstata this life element appears in everything – in the state of peace and in timeless events.
There is another, third component which we can call life – life, the vital force or soul. (A note of caution; certain doctrines consider soul to be a being. Here, we mean life force.) This life force, upon entering the Creative Work, starts moving. It pulsates and vitalises the 2 aforementioned fundamental components – matter and spirit. It comes from the Podstata and divides into two branches, one of which moves through matter and the other through spirit.
So we have substantiated the life force – the force which courses through the entire universe, through the entire Creative Work and vitalises it. What the vitalising and life pulsation means, what its genesis and lawfulness is, how we can understand it and how to use the knowledge for the benefit of the whole and us will be discussed in a separate chapter.
We have said that there is fundamental (inorganic) matter on one hand and fundamental (also inorganic) spirit on the other, and that the life force from the podstata source streams through both of them. Inorganic matter is not lifeless, then. It possesses life. Under its influence it crystallises precisely according to the character of its elements. The same applies to spirit. Its components live in the same way as the inorganic matter.
The universe exhaled. An impulse of coldness came and concentrated planets began to cool down slowly. In solar systems this process started from the outside towards the centre. The cooling process was strongest on the planets most distant from the centre – from the cores of solar systems – from their suns. This progressed towards the centre and the planets cooled over the course of time.
On the surface of our still hot and liquid planet a crust of firmer matter started slowly forming. In the course of cooling it grew until the first signs of solid land appeared. The Earth’s crust grew larger. One day the time came when water separated, still in the form of vapour. Later, it started to condense and fall to the ground as liquid water. It was evaporated on the hot surface, ascending, condensing again and whipping the surface of the cooling planet as warm rain. It was around this time that the conditions emerged on the planet that enabled life to manifest itself in the form we know today. Life adapted to new conditions. It changed its manifestation as well as its characteristics according to the prevailing opportunities.
The planet’s inorganic matter, which was homo - geneous in the gaseous and latterly liquid states, started to divide. It divided into elements. These in turn created a great variety of compounds. Constituents of matter crystallised into their particular forms according to their characteristics. Erosion resulted in the creation of sediments, rocks and so on.
On one hand there was inorganic matter. On the other – according to current thinking – there was ethereal inorganic spirit. Homogenous, uniform and analogical to inorganic matter as we know it. By “inorganic spirit” I mean the spiritual component that arose from the Podstata, separated from it and here it supplies the building blocks for the construction of the subsequent psychic (or spiritual – mental) part. Of course, its fundamental construction finds the Creative Four manifested within itself. This means that its construction corresponds to the four fundamental forces, just like matter and everything that exists, according to our notion. It is the building material, not the plan from which it is built. The plan is the central spiritual part, which in genesis is marked with the O* sound.
One day a time came when life could manifest itself differently than beforehand. On the planet such conditions emerged that inorganic matter and spirit could unite and create a new life form for a certain period of cosmic exhalation. It was but a moment in the cosmic breathing pattern but a very long time from the human point of view. It was very long and very important for us if we could observe just a small segment of the whole spectre of life from the point of view of an organic creature.
A particle of inorganic matter united with a par ticle of inorganic spirit. In the beginning it was the simplest, the most primitive union which created the first and simplest being. It was a being of a small particle of matter which corresponded with small particles of spirit. It was the first perception of material existence, the first perception of “I” in the matter. We might call such primary being a “virus”. There was an ability – the creation of form – which had been transferred from inorganic matter. There was also an ability that had been transferred from the inorganic spirit: the creation of character in the spiritual sense analogical with the matter – the creation of corresponding character. The inorganic matter carried a centripetal characteristic to create individual crystalline form, and thus, the inorganic spirit carried the same character – to create a centripetal notion – which separated the individual “I” from the notion of the whole existence. This is how individual matter and the individual notion of existence – the first “I am” distinct from the whole – emerged. So the first separate particle of spirit created the first organic matter, which contained the first notion of existence, or the first incarnate BEING.
This being lived its first life and thus received the first perception and the first experience of the new manifestation of life. It fed on the surrounding matter and spirit, its material size and psychic (spiritual) potency grew too. It divided into identical beings, growing and dividing again. The number of such beings grew. Old ones died as new ones were born. Various effects of the environment including temperature changes, changes in the balance of forces and atmospheric effects were sources of new experiences for the new beings. The psychic component was enriched by these experiences and developed faster and thus the psychic form (this term will be used further in connection with the psychic component of the being) moved towards perfection (figuratively speaking).
Since the material and psychic forms of a being are interrelated, the growth of the new spiritual form conditioned the creation of a new – initially only slightly different – species.
And so a new evolutionary species branched off from the new form of being. Through the course of time the number of such branches increased, increasing the variety of beings on our planet. New evolutionary species multiplied, a new type of life began – the life of a being.