Previous

'But now let's return to our consideration of the cube! A few minutes ago you started at one corner of the cube and cut it in such a way that a plane contained all three dimensions. In this way you cut off a corner of the cube; then three more corners. But by starting at the other corner points of the cube you could make four more cuts and you would find the cube doesn't contain just one tetrahedron, but two of them, one within the other, each an exact reflection of the other. These two tetrahedrons represent the innermost law of the recognizable world: the inseparable relationship between the two complementary halves - the positive and the negative - which, self -contained each within the other, form a perfect equilibrium and sit, as creative spirits, on the right hand and on the left hand of divinity. In creation they rule as two opposite laws: the law of spirit and the law of matter.

'Spirit is life, matter is resistance. The law of the spirit is radiation, giving, selflessness. The law of matter is drawing inward, cooling off, paralysis.

'There is only one single creature that is able consciously to combine the two laws: man. He is the connecting link between the world of the spirit and that of matter. He is able to live at one and the same time by the laws of both worlds. His thoughts, words and deeds can be an act of giving, radiating selflessness and universal love. On the other hand, his body belongs to the material world and lives by the laws of matter. At its right place and in its right time, every law is divine, but the opposite is satanic.

'Without the resistance of matter creation would be impossible. In unmanifested divinity all creative forces are still at rest in unity, in complete repose and equilibrium, representing merely potential, only power possibilities. Creation begins in that one force separates itself from unity and sets itself up opposite the creator as resistance. That is the 'first born son' of God, the spirit of resistance which the father sends out to act throughout aeons and aeons of time as a negative and opposite pole to himself, to bear the frequencies of creation, and by resisting them make it possible for creation to take place. This spirit of resistance is the opposite pole to the manifesting aspect of God. By virtue of its centripetal, chilling and coagulating characteristics, it is the cause of the creation of matter.

'Pick up a stone for example. The power that makes it a stone and holds it together as matter is the very self-same law of resistance tending to chill, harden and hold everything together. As long as this law manifests itself in matter and as matter, the law is operating in its place and consequently in a divine manner. But inert matter becomes living matter when the divine spirit, the self, clothes itself in matter and becomes flesh. The self, life, penetrates the inert matter, and out of the law of matter there arises a living spirit: the reflected image which has only been able to become spirit by virtue of the fact that God, as the self of the living creatures, has breathed his own life into matter, is Satan. Thus you can see that satan is the law of matter come alive through the divine spirit. Satan lies dead in matter, as its law, until with its own life the divine spirit makes him come alive.

'Whenever man's consciousness identifies itself with the law of matter so that his thinking, words and deeds, instead of serving the divine law, serve the law of matter, man is bringing satan to life, man is becoming satanic himself. Without man satan cannot exist; for without the self of man, satan is only an unconscious force, a necessary natural law of matter.

'Satan can come to life only in the consciousness of a person who manifests the law of matter, the law of the flesh, in his spirit; who identifies his consciousness with his person, with his lower nature, with the drives and urges dwelling in the flesh, with the urge of self-preservation and propagation of the species. Such a person manifests the centripetal, coagulating power of matter as spiritual characteristics such as avarice, envy, vanity, hard-heartedness and selfishness. No living creature has ever met satan by himself, for without man satan has no existence at all. Without man satan is only the law of matter. We can meet the living satan only in the human being; only in a human face can we recognize satan as the expression of this face.

'When after the death of the body of such a person the self separates itself, satan remains behind in the corpse as the law of matter. He became satan through the vitalizing power of the self in the consciousness. But the consciousness of a person who has identified himself with the law of matter and thus become satanic himself dies with satan and becomes unconscious after death. Satan draws him, his slave, into inert matter, into the darkness, into loss of consciousness, into himself.

'On the other hand, the consciousness of a person who has identified himself with the law of the divine spirit and served this law remains awake and alert after the body has been put off; liberated from its chains, freed of the isolation of matter, it merges into eternal light, into God.

'The two tetrahedrons contained within each other represent the two poles of creation in complete equilibrium. All creation - the world of unrest and motion - is based on this divine equilibrium. It is the inner law operating through all forms and therefore in the crystallizations of matter also. As you've been able to see for yourself, the primordial form of matter, the cube, is built up around the divine tetrahedron. The triangles making up the faces of the tetrahedron are identical with the planes connecting the corner points of the cube. Man too, in his inner being, has a plane of contact with the divine self. And that's why he can only find his own divine being within himself, never by directing his attention towards the outside world.

'When man directs his attention towards the outside world, he is forced in accordance with divine law into more and more spiritual prisons, until after many pains and tortures, he finds divinity.

'But now let's examine the different kinds of forms of crystals based on the shape of the cube.

'Take six geometric forms which have the shape of a house roof and a base area exactly equal to that of the face of the cube, then place these six forms on the faces of this cube in such a way that their different edges are adjacent to each other.

'In this way you form a geometric body which we call a pentagonal dodecahedron consisting of twelve equilateral pentagons. The pentagonal dodecahedron reveals further laws of the long path of the consciousness. But now we want to look at the result manifested by the last crystal form in this series: the icosahedron made up of twenty equilateral triangles.

'Thus starting with the tetrahedron we can develop a total of four regular crystal forms with equal areas: the tetrahedron, the cube, the pentagonal dodecahedron and the icosahedron.

'It is only possible to form regular crystal shapes from triangles, rectangles and pentagons: from triangles, the tetrahedron, the octahedron and the icosahedron: from squares only the cube; from pentagons only the pentagonal dodecahedron.

'Except for octahedron you are already acquainted with all these geometrical bodies. You can construct an octahedron by drawing three equally long lines, one in each of the three dimensions - length., breadth and height - at an angle of 45 degrees in such a way that the middle of the three lines is identical. When you join the endpoints of the three lines, you form the eight triangles which go to make up the octahedron. Thus, you see the octahedron consists of two pyramids joined at their base, one standing normally, the other upside down.

"And now pay very close attention. If we cut the octahedron with planes at equal distances from each other and pass through in each of the three dimensions, we create innumerable little octahedrons. But these octahedrons do not fill the space in the big octahedron. On the contrary, the spaces between the little octahedrons form little tetrahedrons just as you observed in the space within the cube. You can divide up the space in an endless number of larger or smaller octahedrons, and the little tetrahedrons in between will always be there. Thus you can see that in every one of its points three-dimensional space is based on the divine tetrahedron representing absolute harmony and absolute equilibrium.

'In just the same manner all of visible creation rests in every one of its points on the divinity which stands above all manifestation, reposing unmanifested within itself. God is omnipresent!

'But now let's come back to the various geometric bodies contained within each other or superimposed on each other: tetrahedron, cube, pentagonal dodecahedron and icosahedron. Here are some further laws revealed by their relationships.

'If we take half the number of faces of each of the geometric bodies we've talked about - the tetrahedron, cube, pentagonal dodecahedron, and icosahedron, we get the numbers 2, 3, 6 and 10. If we multiply these numbers together, we get the number 360, the number of degrees in the circle. And if we add these numbers together, we get 21 the number of possible connections between the seven factors of the key number of the three-dimensional world, the number 7!'

Ptahotep stops speaking, and I stand before him in silence and awe.

[...]


Next