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responsible for wars, revolutions and things like that. An individual man is very little under planetary influences, because the part that can be affected by them is undeveloped. This undeveloped part is essence. To a certain extent man is also under the influence of the sun, and he can be under much higher influences if he develops higher centres and becomes connected with them. So development means passing from one kind of influences to another kind. At present we are more particularly under the influence of the moon. We have to become more and more conscious to come under higher influences. Q. In what way are we under the influence of the moon? A. The moon plays a very important part in our life, or rather the life of organic life on earth. The moon controls all our movements. If I move my arm, it is the moon that does it, because without the influence of the moon it cannot happen. The moon is like the weight on an old-fashioned clock and organic life is like the clock mechanism which is kept going by this weight. The action of the moon on our life is purely mechanical. It acts by sheer weight, and it receives higher energies which little by little make it alive. If you remember the four kinds of energy: mechanical energy, life energy, psychic energy and conscious energy, then the moon acts with mechanical energy, like a huge electro-magnet, attracting the matter of the soul. When it gets this matter its temperature changes. The moon is in a very low state, much lower than the earth. All our mechanicalness depends on the moon. We are like marionettes moved by wires, but we can be more free of the moon or less free. When we understand that, we will understand that the way to become more free is by not identifying, not considering, struggling with negative emotions, and so on. At present we cannot move a step without the energy of the moon; the wires cannot be cut at once, for then the marionettes would simply collapse. It is necessary to learn to move first. All sleeping people are under the influence of the moon. They have no resistance, but if man develops, he can gradually cut some of the wires that are undesirable and can open himself to higher influences. In this way he can become free from the moon, if not fully, at least considerably more than he is now. Q. Do lower influences come from the moon? A. More mechanical influences. If man is completely under the influence of the moon, he is a machine. Q. Do you mean that the moon affects us both physically and psychologically? A. The physical influence is different; this is normal. It is when the moon begins to affect our mind and emotions that it is wrong. It happens only when man is cut off from higher influences; but nothing can cut him off from them except himself. Q. Could you tell us more about this idea of feeding the moon?
A. First I must ask you a question: what does this idea signify to you? What is the chief principle you see in it? Q. I do not understand the first principle of it. A. You see, you can look at it from different sides even when you hear about it for the first time. When you see the right principle, then everything becomes clear. When I first heard it, it certainly seemed very strange, but at the same time I saw that the principle behind it was that everything is connected, that things do not exist separately, that in a certain way organic life connects earth and moon. Q. Does the moon actually cause human catastrophes by requiring certain food for its own being? A. The moon does not cause catastrophes; we are guilty ourselves—it is no use trying to accuse the moon. Suppose we neglect to repair a wall and it falls, whose fault is it? It falls because of physical laws, but at the same time it cannot be the fault of the physical laws. If cosmic influences fall on a right soil, there are no catastrophes, just as a wall does not fall if we repair it. But of course there may be big catastrophes that are not affected by our attitude. Q. Why is it that planets affect man in the mass and not individual man? A. Because the part of man which can be affected is either very small and undeveloped or too covered by personality. Personality reflects all these influences, and man is under the law of accident. If man lived in his essence, he would be under planetary influences or, in other words, under the law of fate. Whether this would be to his advantage or not is another question; it may be better in one case and worse in another, but generally better. Planetary rays cannot penetrate personality. People in the mass are affected by planetary influences in certain parts of themselves which are always there. Most people in a crowd are men No. 1, that is, men living in instinctive and moving centres. And the chief motive power of man No. 1 is imitation and imagination. When people are under the power of imitation and imagination, they very easily accept mechanical influences; they begin to imitate one another, so it produces a big effect. When people live as part of the mass, nobody can help them; they are so intermingled that you cannot separate one atom from another. On the level of the mass they are all the same. People can only expect to meet with favourable influences when they rise from the mass, not before. Influences affecting the mass are only unfavourable; they are influences that keep it down. There are favourable influences that help individuals to get out, but they can only help men who stand a little above the mass. We can expect help, but only on a certain level; for what would be the value of our efforts if someone could take us by the ears and drag us up? If we become conscious, it is the same as having will on a higher level;
and if we can 'do', we can isolate ourselves from many of these planetary influences which affect the mass. Q. Is our aim to develop ourselves so that as individuals we can come under planetary influences? A. It will not be individual influence, it will be in accordance with your type. Individual men are different according to their essence. Essence or type of man is the result of planetary influences. Planets make us what we are. Different combinations of planetary influences make different essences. Q. You were saying that we come under cosmic laws to the extent that wars are caused by planetary influences. Is it fate? A. When I answer about what fate means, I take only what can really be called fate, but for many people fate is much more extended. When they are taken up by some big movement, such as political movements, wars, revolutions, for them this becomes fate. It must be understood why we spoke about planetary influences, why they were mentioned and in connection with what. The chief idea is that planetary influences may be very different. Our state attracts and repels planetary influences. We cannot know what they are, we can only know our state. If you remember yourself, you can attract good planetary influences; if you are mechanical, you attract wrong influences. Q. Do the many laws under whose influence we are produce the different 'I's in us? A. Yes, very many. Forces pass through man and he takes this as his own desires, sympathies, attractions. But it is only forces passing through him from all directions. Starting from World 3, forces reach man and can produce actions, attitudes, or they may be rejected. We can only study the effects they may produce. We are interested in everything from the point of view of our profit, the rest does not interest us. Higher forces or higher influences are normal, cosmic; but we can open ourselves to receive them, or shut ourselves off from them. If we are asleep, we are more closed to them, and the more we are asleep the more we are closed. If we awake, we open ourselves to higher influences. Q. You said we are under the law of accident. From what source of influence does this law come? Can we be free from it? A. Accident has many different manifestations. The simplest forms begin to disappear very quickly if we are more awake. But you cannot take this literally: this law is very big and many sided. It is a question of degree. Only in the Absolute are things absolute. For us it is a long stairway and on each step one is more free. If you are below, you cannot speak about what will happen when you are at the top. You can only say: 'If I begin to work so as to be free from the law of accident, would my life be less chaotic?' Certainly, if you have a permanent aim, you will be free from accidental aims. Forget about miracles. Each line of effort will bring results on that line, though there are connections.
Q. How can one extricate oneself from bad influences? A. Before we can even think about 'doing' we must try to understand what these influences are. This is a constant mistake that everybody makes always to think they can 'do'. We cannot 'do', but if we know, we may change something. Q. As we have not developed our higher centres, how do we receive the influences coming from higher worlds? A. Our ordinary state is relative; in our best moments we are receptive to higher influences. They reach us through centres. Though we are not permanently connected with higher centres, they influence us if they are not too deeply buried, and something manages to reach us through them. Q. What is the purpose of man's existence? A. Man and even mankind does not exist separately, but as a part of the whole of organic life. The earth needs organic life as a whole—men, animals, plants. The Ray of Creation is a growing branch, and this communication is necessary in order that the branch may grow further. Everything is connected, nothing is separate, and smaller things, if they exist, serve something bigger. Organic life serves planetary purposes, it does not exist for itself. An individual man is a highly specialized cell in it, but on that scale an individual cell does not exist—it is too small. Our ordinary points of view are very naive and homocentric: everything turns round man. But man is a very insignificant thing, part of a very big machine. Organic life is a particular cosmic unit and man is a unit in this big mass of organic life. He has the possibility of further development, but this development depends on man's own effort and understanding. It enters into the cosmic purpose that a certain number of men should develop, but not all, for that would contradict another cosmic purpose. Evidently mankind must be on earth and must lead this life and suffer. But a certain number of men can escape, this also enters into the cosmic purpose. So individually we are not important for the universe at all. We cannot speak even about humanity in relation to the universe—we can only speak about organic life. As I said, we are part of organic life, and organic life plays a certain part in the solar system, but it is a very big thing compared with us. We are used to thinking of ourselves individually, but very soon we lose this illusion. It is useful to think about different scales; take a thing on a wrong scale and you lose your way. Q. Did you say it was intended that some of us should develop? A. As far as we can see it is under the same law as, for instance, street accidents. It is well known that in every big town a certain number of people will be killed by traffic. Who will be killed is not determined, it need not necessarily be one or another person, but a certain number. In the same way a certain number of people may have a chance of escape— but there is no must about it in this case. This is the difference.
Q. Are we given the possibility or must we create it in the teeth of circumstances? A. The possibility is given. Every normal person has this possibility. The rest depends on us. Individually men exist only for themselves. But even for themselves they do not serve any useful purpose. If a man grows and becomes different, he may become important individually in some way, although we cannot know that for certain. But this can refer only to a man of higher development, not to a mechanical man. Q. Why do the sun, the planets and the moon want to communicate? A. It is all one thing; only to us do things look separate, in reality they are all linked together like different parts of the body. It is like the circulation of blood in an organism, or the flow of sap in a growing branch. This is why communication is necessary. Q. How many laws does a man live under? A. We do not know. We can only speak about the earth, which is under forty-eight laws, but you cannot use the same scale in relation to man. You can only say approximately that organic life stands in the same relation to the earth as the moon and is therefore under ninety-six laws. But this is only the principle. Man is under many more laws. Q. Could you give an example of the forty-eight laws? A. It is not a question of a catalogue but of understanding what the idea means. Man is not under one type of law but under many different types. First of all man, like every creature on earth, lives under physical laws, which means that he can live only within certain limits of temperature. Then, there must be a particular amount of humidity in the air, and the air must be of a special chemical consistency for man to breathe. Man is also limited to a certain kind of food which he can digest. These things are all laws for man. Then, coming to quite simple laws, there is, for instance, our ignorance. We do not know ourselves—this is a law. If we begin to know ourselves, we get rid of a law. As I said, we cannot make a catalogue of them, for some of them have no names, but some we know. For example, we know that all men live under the law of identi fication—this is another law. Those who begin to remember themselves begin to get rid of the law of identification. So in order to free oneself from laws it is first necessary to find one law from which one can liberate oneself, and get free from it. Then, when one has freed oneself from this law, one can find another. Again one liberates oneself, and so on. This is the practical way to study laws. Q. There are so many laws which we cannot help obeying, for instance the necessity to sleep so many hours every night. Is this a way of understanding how much man is a machine? A. No, not quite, because this law of sleep is a cosmic law. Man is made like that; many cosmic laws maintain this arrangement. But there are laws which hinder us on all sides or keep us in subjection, and which are not
necessary at all—there is no beneficial side and no cosmic necessity. We are under too many unnecessary laws, and chiefly the law of our own mechanicalness This is what particularly keeps us down For instance, we live under the law of negative emotions—it is not a necessary law at all, we can live much more happily without negative emotions, although people do not believe it. Q. Do you mean we must be subject to all these laws? A We cannot fall, or not fall, under them, they do not ask us—we are chained They govern, control and direct us Q. Can we get free? A We can—on conditions The Ways enter here The four Ways are ways of liberation from unnecessary laws Without schools one cannot know from which laws one can get free, or find means of getting free from them The idea is that we are under too many mechanical laws Eventually we can get rid of some of them by becoming subject to other laws. The only way to get out of the power of one law is to put oneself under another law. But this is only the general idea You can be shown the way but you must work yourself Q. Does not the acceptance of new laws in a school lead to words and a new crop of academism? A The outcome of work on oneself is not creation of new laws but liberation from unnecessary laws Discipline, necessary for the period of study, is only a means, not an end In study of oneself, understanding is necessary and being conscious You cannot escape with words This is exactly what is impossible. Q. Does the possibility of attaining permanent 'I' depend on the number of laws one is subject to? A. Yes Try to find an analogy to what it means to be under more laws and fewer laws Suppose a man lives an ordinary life, then there is conscription and he enters military service While he is in the army he is under more laws, when he ends his period of military service he is under fewer laws. Then suppose that while he is in the army he commits a crime and is sent to prison. He is then under prison laws in addition to military laws, the laws of his country, physical and biological laws and so on This is the kind of analogy we must find to understand the idea For instance, if a man is well, he is under a certain number of laws, if he is ill, he is under more laws. Q. Not in reality? A. Yes, certainly, he has to obey his doctor or go to hospital and be under the laws of the hospital Q. What purpose is there if I have a toothache? A. I see none. Q. Is it not part of the cosmic design? A. No, there is no design. You cannot speak of purpose without scale
and relativity It is impossible that the same purpose should apply both on a big and on a small scale. Everything has a cause, but not everything has an aim or purpose, you must not forget the idea of scale. Q. Nature seems to be very unjust and very cruel to man. A. What do you call nature? An earthquake is also nature. But for the moment we apply the word 'nature' to organic life. Evidently it was created like it is because there was no other means. If we do not like it, we can study methods of how to run away. We are too small individually to be known by any higher forces So who is just or unjust? We operate with imaginary ideas In a small limited circle, in definite limited conditions, there can be justice and injustice. But on a larger scale this idea loses its meaning There are many such ideas which have a certain meaning on a small scale but lose all meaning on a larger scale. At the same time this idea of justice is interesting because people lose a great amount of energy on this point. We can stop this waste, but we cannot correct things in the world. All life from beginning to end is an injustice. For instance, we have to die—it is most unjust. We divide things into just and unjust, and what right have we? All organic life is based on injustice; it is a self-supporting farm to breed cats and rats. Cats eat rats and rats eat cats. What is justice among cats and rats? This is life. It is nothing very beautiful. Our aim is to get out; it is not our business to feel indignation, that is simply loss of energy. But we must not pretend that facts are different from what they are. Q. Are you going to put man on the same footing as the rest of organic life? A. There is no difference, only other units are fully developed and man is only half developed. Q. How is it that man, who is but one manifestation of organic life, should be chosen to have a chance of further development? A I do not think it is a question of choice, I think this question needs quite a different approach. From this point of view all organic life can be regarded as a long work of experimenting with the idea of producing a self-evolving being. If man can reach a higher state it is because he is made that way—he is created to be self-evolving. Other beings are only experiments for developing different features, they do not possess all the qualities that man possesses. Man is a machine, but there are different machines, and machines can be made for a special purpose. If a machine is used for the purpose it is made for, it is in the right place, but if it is made for one purpose and used for another, it is in a wrong place. Man is a special machine, made for a certain purpose; he is made a recipient of certain higher influences coming from worlds 3, 6, 12 and because he can receive these influences from higher worlds he can become independent of the world surrounding him.
Q. How can man escape from his situation? A. He can escape from some of the laws. On different levels things are under different laws. Q. Then is man in a higher state of consciousness subject to fewer laws than we are? A. Certainly, because most of the laws we have to obey are the result of our sleep and our unconsciousness. Every step we make in becoming more conscious sets us more free. Suppose a man is satisfied with mechanical life; then he cuts himself off from higher influences and receives only influences beginning with world 24. Certainly he is then in a worse position than a man who receives influences from higher worlds. Laws or influences from worlds 3 and 6 can only come through higher mental centre and influences of world 12 through higher emotional centre. You must understand, besides, that many influences can be received mechanically, but many others need effort. Moreover, influences do not remain as they are in man— they are transformed in him. It all depends on how they are transformed. Q. Are men responsible for what they do and animals not responsible? A. Men 1, 2 and 3 are less responsible; men No. 4 and so on are more responsible; responsibility grows. An animal has nothing to lose, but man has. When a man has started to grow, he has to pay for every mistake he makes. If one has no control, as in sleep, one has no responsibility, but if one has even a small possibility of control, a possibility of being more awake or less awake, as in our case, one is already responsible. Q. That implies justice. A. No, nobody would call it justice if you had to pay for your mistakes. Most people think that justice is getting what we want and not what we deserve. Justice must mean some co-ordination between actions and results of actions. This certainly does not exist, and cannot exist, under the law of accident—and we live under the law of accident. When we know the chief laws, we understand that we live in a bad place, a really bad place. But we cannot live in any other, so we must see what we can do here. Only we must not imagine that things are better than they are. This question of justice and injustice is a very good subject for thinking, because people spend much energy on this problem. They use the words but do not give an account to themselves why they call one thing just and another unjust. Yet one thing is always connected with another, one thing inevitably follows from another. It is our assumption that there must be justice on each scale. Try to explain what is just and what is unjust. How can you know? People are machines. How can machines be just? It is not a quality that belongs to machines. If they are responsible, like man No. 5, then you can speak about justice and injustice; but if they act in the way conditions and circumstances make them, what can you expect? Very
often our idea of injustice is based on a very narrow view. We do not compare things and see that it is the natural order of things. We cannot speak about injustice so long as we think of it as an exception. When we see it as the rule, we may think of how to escape from it. There can be no justice in our present state, no justice in prison. The only thing one can seriously think about when one realizes that one is in prison is how to escape, not sit and cry about injustice in prison. People are machines, they are pushed in a certain way and roll, and when they hit a wall they stop and then begin to roll back. Justice, like many other things, depends on place. Let us start placing it from the point of view of the system. We start with the division of humanity into different circles. Now we can see where the misunderstanding about justice arises. Justice really begins in the second circle, when people begin to understand one another better; and there is more justice in the circle inside that one and still more in the innermost circle. In the outer circle justice can only be accidental, like everything else. Justice, like many other things real and imaginary, such as positive emotion, knowledge of certain things like future life, understanding between people and so on, which we want to find here in the outer circle, exist, if they exist at all, only in the inner circles and are impossible here. Q. Will things remain as they are unless everyone is conscious? A. Things will remain as they are, but we can escape. It needs much knowledge to know from what we can escape and from what we cannot escape. But the first lesson we must learn, the first thing that prevents us escaping, is that we do not even realize the necessity of knowing our position. Whoever knows it is already in a better position. Q. If man is analogous to the worlds, can we understand which are the three laws of man? A. Yes we can. If we take World 6, we see that there are six orders of laws, three from the world above and three of its own. So we can say that the laws belonging to World 6 are half of the totality of laws under which it exists. Now take World 12. Three laws of its own make one-half, equal to the other nine laws which make the other half; and so on, until we come to man. Three laws of man's own make a half of the total number of laws under which man lives. You will see from this that the finer the forces, the less of them comes to man. Q. Why do they represent half? A. Because they occupy half the place, and may even occupy the whole, and other forces may not work at all. All depends on which influences we are open to—higher or lower. Q. You said that organic life is governed by ninety-six laws, the same as the moon? A. The same number, but quite a different manifestation. Organic life is not similar to the moon. The moon is a cosmic body, organic life is a
film on the surface of the earth. The number of laws only shows the relation of a given unit to the rest, but not its being and consistency. Q. Did you say that planets affect situations—wars and so forth? A. Yes, they may create wars. The whole solar system is a unit, so everything in it is connected with cosmic causes and it all affects life on earth. Causes of things that happen on earth are often outside the earth. But when there are causes that can produce wars it depends on the state of humanity at a given place and time. People can show more resistance or less resistance. If people at a certain time in a given country are in a better state, they show more resistance. Q. Does the earth affect the moon and other planets as well? A. Yes, but we are only interested in what affects organic life and, through organic life, ourselves. Q. How can we test the arbitrary statements about the role of organic life and about the moon being the youngest in the Ray? A. There are no arbitrary statements—it all comes from the system. It is not my system, I have not invented it. Just as a theory it presents no interest: it is interesting only if we realize that it comes from higher mind. I started with the psychological side to give you a possibility to acquire valuation of these ideas. If you have got it, you will be patient with this side. Q. Are we working against nature? I often get the idea that to a certain extent we are. A. We are working against nature, but nature is a relative term. In these concentric circles of worlds within worlds, if you work against nature you work against one concentric circle, but it may not be against another circle. It is not all one nature; you cannot work against nature outside of nature; if you go outside of one nature you are inside another nature. Q. On what evidence is the assumption based that man can revolt from his place in the universe and that this is not another illusion? A. But man cannot. Man cannot go away from the earth, but he can be under different laws while remaining in the same position and on the same earth. He can be under one set of laws or another set of laws, and it is possible to observe this if we know what it means. We can observe people living under different sets of laws in ordinary life and when we prove it even in a small way, we can easily understand that it can go further. You must think of what it means to live under different laws. Even such as we are, we have a certain choice, maybe not a full choice, but we can change many things just by choosing rightly. Q. Must you have a great deal of knowledge before you can choose between influences? A. This is a very important question, because it is not a question of knowledge but of being. Man lives under influences coming from different parts of the universe. In one state one kind of influence conquers, in
another state another kind In the life of the same man he can be one day under one kind of influence and another day under another Q. Do we put ourselves under more laws because of our false personality? A. Quite right, under many quite useless mechanical laws Q What is the value of studying tables and diagrams? A. When you started studying the system you must have had many questions and thoughts about the world, about the relation of different things, and about yourself, in the world Diagrams and study of laws give you a new point of view: you had thought of things in one way and now, through these diagrams and principles, you begin to think in another way. Q. Will this theoretical knowledge of cosmology help understanding to grow? A It is not theoretical, it is very practical, and certainly it will help understanding to grow, because it will create a firm ground for it The Ray of Creation is a system of elimination, of simplification—it does away with all knowledge that is not practical With the help of the Ray of Creation we eliminate from the universe all that has no personal relation to us, all that cannot be understood practically As I said, in studying the Ray of Creation we use the principle of scale This applies to our perception of things, and yet, from another point of view, it also refers to things in themselves This is what must be understood it is not only subjective, because things on different scales are under different laws Besides, all big ideas like the Ray of Creation and the fundamental laws of the universe are necessary because they keep our thought in the right channels They do not let it spread without any results, so they also help self-remembering. If you discard them, if you try only to self-remember and exclude all other ideas it will not come Now we must speak about the matters from which the universe is made All the matters of the world surrounding us, the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, the stones of our houses, our own bodies— are permeated by all the matters existing in the universe There is no need to study or analyse the sun in order to find solar matter, this matter is in ourselves, it is the result of the division of our atoms In the same way we have in us matters of all other worlds In this sense, man is indeed a miniature universe, he has in him all the matters which compose the universe, the same forces, the same laws which govern the life of the whole world act in him Therefore, as I said, by studying man we study the universe, and vice versa But a full parallel between man and the universe can be drawn only if we take man in the full sense of the word, that is, a man whose inherent powers and possibilities are developed An under developed man, a man
who has not completed his evolution, cannot be taken as a complete picture of the world—he is an unfinished world. As has been said earlier, laws are everywhere the same, on all planes. These same laws, manifesting in different worlds, that is, in different conditions, produce different phenomena. The study of the relation of laws to the planes on which they manifest themselves brings us to the study of relativity. If we take the Ray of Creation, we must remember that the worlds are connected with one another and affect one another in accordance with the Law of Three. In other words, the first three worlds, taken together, produce the phenomenon which influences the following worlds, and so on. In the first three worlds the Absolute is the conductor of the active force. World 3 the conductor of the passive force, and World 6 the conductor of the neutralizing force. In other words, the Absolute is Carbon, World 3 is Oxygen and World 6 is Nitrogen. If we place the three forces in sequence, according to the order in which they unite, we will get the order 1, 2, 3; but the matters serving as conductors of these forces will, according to their density, stand in the order: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen. So when the triad begins to form, they stand in the order 1, 3, 2. When matters stand in this order, phenomena are produced. But for subsequent creation, for the formation of the next triad, nitrogen must, as it were, return once more to the third place, to the order 1, 2, 3, and in this way become carbon of the next triad, for the second triad comes from the neutralizing force of the first triad becoming active. This change of place of matters in the triad is a kind of cosmic dance which produces action. Let us now try to see how forces emerging from the Absolute in order to manifest themselves in World 3 must first pass through World 6. An analogy shows us quite plainly the necessity of this direction of force. As I said, man's will can influence a fragment of tissue in certain parts of his body. But a tissue is composed of cells. In order to affect the tissue man's will must first influence the cells composing the given fragment of tissue. The tissue is a different world from cells, but at the same time tissues do not exist apart from cells for they are composed of cells. World 3 is a separate world from World 6, and at the same time it is composed of Worlds 6, that is of worlds similar to our Milky Way. So in order to influence a part of World 3 (All Worlds) the Absolute must first influence a certain number of Worlds (All Suns) of which World 3 is composed. Thus, in the passage of forces. Worlds 1, 3, 6 stand, at first, in the order 1, 3, 6, then in the order 1, 6, 3, and then, for a further passage of forces, they must again resume the order 1, 3, 6. In the next triad the Milky Way is carbon, the sun oxygen and the planets nitrogen. Since nitrogen stands between carbon and oxygen, the force coming from the Milky Way, that