"Matter or substance necessarily presupposes the existence of force or energy. This does not mean that a dualistic conception of the world is necessary. The concepts of matter and force are as relative as everything else. In the Absolute, where all is one, matter and force are also one. But in this connection matter and force are not taken as real principles of the world in itself, but as properties or characteristics of the phenomenal world observed by us. To begin the study of the universe it is sufficient to have an elementary idea of matter and energy, such as we get by immediate observation through our organs of sense. The 'constant' is taken as material, as matter, and 'changes' in the state of the 'constant,' or of matter, are called manifestations of force or energy. All these changes can be regarded as the result of vibrations or undulatory motions which begin in the center, that is, in the Absolute, and go in all directions, crossing one another, colliding, and merging together, until they stop altogether at the end of the ray of creation.
"From this point of view, then, the world consists of vibrations and matter, or of matter in a state of vibration, of vibrating matter. The rate of vibration is in inverse ratio to the density of matter.
"In the Absolute vibrations are the most rapid and matter is the least dense. In the next world vibrations are slower and matter denser; and further on matter is still more dense and vibrations correspondingly slower.
" 'Matter' may be regarded as consisting of 'atoms.' Atoms in this connection are taken also as the result of the final division of matter. In every order of matter they are simply certain small particles of the given matter which are indivisible only on the given plane. The atoms of the Absolute alone are really indivisible, the atom of the next plane, that is, of world 3, consists of three atoms of the Absolute or, in other words, it is three times bigger and three times heavier, and its movements are correspondingly slower. The atom of world 6 consists of six atoms of the Absolute merged together, as it were, and forming one atom. Its movements are correspondingly slower. The atom of the next world consists of twelve primordial particles, and of the next worlds, of twenty-four, forty-eight, and ninety-six. The atom of world 96 is of an enormous size compared with the atom of world 1; its movements are correspondingly slower, and the matter which is made up of such atoms is correspondingly denser.
П AN ATOM OF THE ABSOLUTE.
□m AN ATOM OF 'ALL WORLDS'.
Щ0 AN ATOM OF 'ALL SUNS'.
-- AN ATOM OF THE SUN.
AN ATOM OF ALL PLANETS'.
AN ATOM OF THE EARTH.
AN ATOM OF THE MOON,
Fig. 4
"The seven worlds of the ray of creation represent seven orders of materiality. The materiality of the moon is different from the materiality of the earth; the materiality of the earth is different from the materiality of the planetary world; the materiality of the planetary world is different from the materiality of the sun, and so on.
"Thus instead of one concept of matter we have seven kinds of matter, but our ordinary conception of materiality only with difficulty embraces the materiality of worlds 96 and 48. The matter of world 24 is much too rarefied to be regarded as matter from the scientific point of view of our physics and chemistry; such matter is practically hypothetical. The still finer matter of world 12 has, for ordinary investigation, no characteristics of materiality at all. All these matters belonging to the various orders of the universe are not separated into layers but are intermixed, or, rather, they interpenetrate one another. We can get an idea of similar interpenetration of matters of different densities from the penetration of one matter by another matter of different densities known to us. A piece of wood may be saturated with water, water may in its turn be filled with gas. Exactly the same relation between different kinds of matter may be observed in the whole of the universe: the finer matters permeate the coarser ones.
"Matter that possesses characteristics of materiality comprehensible to us is divided for us into several states according to its density: solid, liquid, gaseous; further gradations of matter are: radiant energy, that is, electricity, light, magnetism; and so on. But on every plane, that is to say, in every order of materiality, similar relations and divisions of the various states of a given matter may be found; but, as has been already said, matter of a higher plane is not material at all for the lower planes.
"All the matter of the world that surrounds us, the food that we eat, the water that we drink, the air that we breathe, the stones that our houses are built of, our own bodies—everything is permeated by all the matters that exist in the universe. There is no need to study or investigate the sun in order to discover the matter of the solar world: this matter exists in ourselves and is the result of the division of our atoms. In the same way we have in us the matter of all other worlds. Man is, in the full sense of the term, a 'miniature universe'; in him are all the matters of which the universe consists; the same forces, the same laws that govern the life of the universe, operate in him; therefore in studying man we can study the whole world, just as in studying the world we can study man.
"But a complete parallel between man and the world can only be drawn if we take 'man' in the full sense of the word, that is, a man whose inherent powers are developed. An undeveloped man, a man who has not completed the course of his evolution, cannot be taken as a complete picture or plan of the universe—he is an unfinished world.
"As has been said already, the study of oneself must go side by side with the study of the fundamental laws of the universe. The laws are the same everywhere and on all planes. But the very same laws manifesting themselves in different worlds, that is, under different conditions, produce different phenomena. The study of the relation of laws to the planes upon which they are manifested brings us to the study of relativity.
"The idea of relativity occupies a very important place in this teaching, and, later on, we shall return to it. But before anything else it is necessary to understand the relativity of each thing and of each manifestation according to the place it occupies in the cosmic order.
"We are on the earth and we depend entirely upon the laws that are operating on the earth. The earth is a very bad place from the cosmic point of view—it is like the most remote part of northern Siberia, very far from everywhere, it is cold, life is very hard. Everything that in another place either comes by itself or is easily obtained, is here acquired only by hard labor; everything must be fought for both in life and in the work. In life it still happens sometimes that a man gets a legacy and afterwards lives without doing anything. But such a thing does not happen in the work. All are equal and all are equally beggars.
"Returning to the law of three, one must learn to find the manifestations of this law in everything we do and in everything we study. The application of this law in any sphere at once reveals much that is new, much that we did not see before. Take chemistry, for instance. Ordinary science does not know of the law of three and it studies matter without taking into consideration its cosmic properties. But besides ordinary chemistry there exists another, a special chemistry, or alchemy if you like, which studies matter taking into consideration its cosmic properties. As has been said before, the cosmic properties of each substance are determined first by its place, and secondly by the force which is acting through it at the given moment. Even in the same place the nature of a given substance undergoes a great change dependent upon the force which is being manifested through it. Each substance can be the conductor of any one of the three forces and, in accordance with this, it can be active, passive, or neutralizing. And it can be neither the first, nor the second, nor the third, if no force is manifesting through it at the given moment or if it is taken without relation to the manifestation of forces. In this way every substance appears, as it were, in four different aspects or states. In this connection it must be noted that when we speak of matter we do not speak of chemical elements. The special chemistry of which I speak looks upon every substance having a separate function, even the most complex, as an element. In this way only is it possible to study the cosmic properties of matter, because all complex compounds have their own cosmic purpose and significance. From this point of view an atom of a given substance is the smallest amount of the given substance which retains all its chemical, physical, and cosmic properties. Consequently the size of the 'atom' of different substances is not the same. And in some cases an 'atom' may be a particle even visible to the naked eye.