Seven Rays
Description
A Theosophical Handbook
by
Ernest Wood
There are seven Forces in Man and in all Nature. The real substance of the Concealed (Sun) is a nucleus of Mother-Substance. It is the Heart and Matrix of all the living and existing Forces in our Solar Universe. It is the Kernel from which proceed to spread on their cyclic journeys all the Powers that set in action the Atoms, in their fundamental duties, and the Focus within which they again meet in their Seventh Essence every eleventh year. He who tells thee he has seen the Sun, laugh at him, as if he had said that the Sun moves really onward in his diurnal path.
It is on account of this septenary nature that the Sun is spoken of by the ancients as one who is driven by seven horses equal to the metres of the Vedas; or, again, that, though he is identified with the seven Gana (Classes of Being) in his orb, he is distant from them, as he is, indeed; as also that he has Seven Rays, as indeed he has.
13 point font
**************
Excerpt:
The Seven Beings in the Sun are the Seven Holy Ones, self-born from the inherent power in the Matrix of Mother-Substance. It is they who send the seven principal Forces, called Rays, which, at the beginning of Pralaya, will centre into seven new Suns for the next Manvantara. The energy from which they spring into conscious existence in every Sun is what some people call Vishnu, which is the Breath of the Absoluteness.
I see no means to avoid, in the writing of this book, and the putting forth of what I hope are clear ideas about the Rays, certain matters of a rather abstract character, and foremost among them a statement about the universality of God or Brahman, whom some regard as living far away on a high plane somewhere beyond our vision. The fact is that the Sachchidananda Brahman. is here and now, before us and with us every day. Analyse the entire world of your experience, and you will find that it is composed of three parts: there is first a great mass of objects of all kinds, which are material on every plane, however high; secondly, there are vast numbers of living beings, with consciousness evolved in various degrees; and thirdly, there is yourself. The first of these three is the world of sat, existence; the second is that of chit, consciousness; and the third is ananda, happiness, the true self.
This will be better understood if we recall the story of the great pillar of light. The great being Narayana, Vishnu, the soul and life of the Universe, thousand-eyed and omniscient, was reclining upon his couch, the body of the great serpent Sesha or Ananta, endless time, which lay coiled up on the waters of space, for it was the night of being. Then Brahma, the great creator of the world of being, called sat, came to him and touched him with his hand, and said: "Who art thou?" And an argument arose between those two as to who was the greater, and while this was going on, and as it threatened to become furious, there appeared before them a great pillar of fire and light, incomparable and indescribable, which astonished the disputants so much that they forgot their quarrel and agreed to search for the end of so wonderful a thing. Vishnu plunged downwards for a thousand years, but he could not find its base, and Brahma flew upwards for a thousand years, but he could not find its top, and both returned baffled. Then Shiva, whose nature is ananda, stood before them and explained that they two were one in him their overlord, the pillar of light, who was three in one, and that in the coming age Brahma would be born from Vishnu, and Vishnu should cherish him, until at the end of it they both should see their overlord again.
People sometimes think that by going upwards they may find God, but the truth is that even were they to go downwards below their present state and search for a thousand years they could not find the end of Him. This does not mean that He is here but invisible and unknown to us. He is here visible and known; for the world that we see with our eyes is His sat, and the consciousness by which we know it is His chit, and the self that we cannot but affirm ourselves to be is His ananda. Each one of us is in that pillar of light, no matter where he may move in the space of being, nor where he may go in the time of consciousness. And no man will ever escape these three realities: he cannot say: "I am not"; he cannot say: "I am unconscious"; not can he at last fail to rest his knowledge upon the outer world of being. Though there be millions of worlds within worlds and beings within beings, sat, chit and ananda are everywhere present, and everywhere in one. The things that we see and touch and taste and smell and hear are sat, true being, and in that realm of being no man will ever escape from that upon which all rely, the evidence of their senses, even though his clairvoyance may extend through all possible planes up the pillar of light.
God the Universe, the Sachchidananda Brahman, is not composed of three realities put together B sat, chit and ananda -but That [We need here a new pronoun. English writers have long been feeling the necessity of one that will comprise both he and she, and yet be singular in number; but here we want one to include the sense of it as well] spreads itself out in space and time, in what is called manifestation, where and when the qualities of sat and chit come into activity amid the mysterious cyclic changes that go on in the life of the eternal super-being.
We find ourselves in such a dual world of matter and consciousness, the great passive and active principles.
172 pages - 7 x 8½ softcover
