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Esoteric Psychology I - Section One - II. Certain Questions and their Answers
The will of Deity colored the stream of energy units which we call by the name of the Ray of Will or Power, the first ray, and the impact of that stream on the matter of space insured that the hidden purpose of Deity would inevitably and eventually be revealed. It is a ray of such dynamic intensity that we call it the ray of the Destroyer. It is not as yet functioning actively. It will come into full play only when the time comes for the purpose to be safely revealed. Its units of energy in manifestation in the human kingdom are very few. As I earlier said, there is not a true first ray type in incarnation as yet. Its main potency is to be found in the mineral kingdom, and the key to the mystery of the first ray is to be found in radium. In the vegetable kingdom the second ray is peculiarly active, producing among other things the magnetic attractiveness [45] of flowers. The mystery of the second ray is found to be hidden in the significance of the perfume of flowers. Perfume and radium are related, being emanatory expressions of ray effects upon differing groupings of material substance. The third ray is, in its turn, peculiarly related to the animal kingdom, producing the tendency to intelligent activity which we note in the higher domestic animals. The correspondence to radioactivity and to emanatory perfumes which we found in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms, we here call devotion, the characteristic of the attractive interplay between the domestic animals and man. Devotees of personalities might more rapidly transmute that devotion into its higher correspondence - love of principles - if they realized that they were only displaying an animal emanation. The desire of the Deity expresses itself through the second Ray of Love-Wisdom. Desire is a word which has been prostituted to cover the tendency of humanity to crave material things or those pleasures which bring satisfaction to the sensuous nature. It is applied to those conditions which will satisfy the personality, but in the last analysis, desire is essentially love. This desire expresses itself by attractiveness, by its capacity to draw to itself and into the radius of its influence that which is loved. It is the bond of coherence, and is that principle of magnetic cohesion which lies behind all creative work and which produces the emergence into the light of manifestation of those forms or appearances through which it is possible to satisfy desire. This second ray is pre-eminently the ray of applied consciousness, and works through the creation and development of those forms which are found throughout the universe. They are essentially mechanisms for the development of responsiveness or awareness; they are sensitive machines, responsive to an enveloping environment. This is true of all [46] forms, from that of a crystal to that of a solar system. They have been created in the great process of satisfying desire and of providing the media of contact which will guarantee a progressive satisfaction. In the human family, the effect of this dual interplay of Life (desiring satisfaction) and of form (providing the field of experience) is a consciousness which is striving towards a love of the formless instead of desire for form, and the wise adaptation of all experience to the process of transmuting desire into love. Hence this ray is, par excellence, the dual ray of the solar Logos Himself, and hence colors all manifested forms, directing all consciousness in all forms in all kingdoms of nature, and in all fields of development; it carries the life through the range of forms in that basic search or urge for the attainment of bliss through the satisfaction of desire. This urge and the interaction of the pairs of opposites produced the varying types of conscious reaction to experience which, in their main stages, we call consciousness, animal consciousness, and allied differentiating phrases. This second ray is the ray of Deity Itself, and is colored by distinctive aspects of desire or love. They produce the totality of the manifested appearances, animated by the Life Which determines the quality. The Father, Spirit or Life, wills to seek the satisfaction of desire. The Mother or matter meets the desire and is attracted also by the Father. Their mutual response initiates the creative work, and the Son is born, inheriting from the Father the urge to desire or love, and from the Mother the tendency actively to create forms. Thus, in the language of symbolism, have the form worlds come into being, and through the evolutionary work the process is going forward of satisfying the desire of spirit. Thus in the two major rays of Will and Love we have the two main characteristics of the divine nature, which lie latent behind all the [47] myriad of forms. The aeons will see these two energies steadily dominating all appearance and driving the created world on to a full display of the divine nature. This is true of gods and men. But in the same way in which the Father contributes to the Son the divine qualities of will and love, so the Mother contributes much also, and the initial duality is increased and the qualities are enhanced by the addition of a quality inherent in matter itself, - the quality or Ray of Intelligent Activity. This is the third of the divine attributes and completes, if I may so express it, the equipment of the appearing forms, and predisposes all creation to an intelligent appreciation of the true goal of desire and to an intelligent use of the technique of form building in order to reveal divine purpose. The Knower (man) is the custodian of that wisdom which will enable him to further the divine plan and bring the will of God to fruition. The field of knowledge is so constituted that it vibrates with intelligent response to the slowly emerging will. Knowledge itself is that which knows its own ends and works towards those ends through the process of experiment, expectation, experience, examination and exaltation which produces a final exit. Words such as these are synthetic symbols, conveying a cosmic story in terms of constructive brevity. Thus the three rays of Will, Love and Intelligence produce appearance, donate quality and, through the life principle which is the underlying aspect of unity, ensure continuity of growth until such time as the will of God has evidenced itself as power, has attracted to itself the desired, has with wisdom utilized the experience of a gradually growing satisfaction, and has intelligently applied the gain of experience to the production of forms more sensitive, more beautiful and more fully expressive of the quality of the life. [48]
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