In Search of the Miraculous

finer, more sensitive receptive apparatus is necessary. Organic life, therefore, has to

evolve, to adapt itself to the needs of the planets and the earth. Likewise also the moon can be satisfied at one period with the food which is given her by organic life of a

certain quality, but afterwards the time comes when she ceases to be satisfied with this

food, cannot grow on it, and begins to get hungry. Organic life must be able to satisfy

this hunger, otherwise it does not fulfill its function, does not answer its purpose. This means that in order to answer its purpose organic life must evolve and stand on the

level of the needs of the planets, the earth, and the moon.

"We must remember that the ray of creation, as we have taken it, from the Absolute

to the moon, is like a branch of a tree—a growing branch. The end of this branch, the

end out of which come new shoots, is the moon. If the moon does not grow, if it

neither gives nor promises to give new shoots, it means that either the growth of the

whole ray of creation will stop or that it must find another path for its growth, give out some kind of lateral branch. At the same time from what has been said before

we see that the growth of the moon depends on organic life on earth. It follows that

the growth of the ray of creation depends on organic life on earth. If this organic life

disappears or dies the whole branch will immediately wither, in any case all that part

of the branch which lies beyond organic life. The same thing must happen, only more

slowly, if organic life is arrested in its development, in its evolution, and fails to

respond to the demands made upon it. The branch may wither. This must be

remembered. To the ray of creation, or let us say to its part earth-moon, exactly the

same possibility of development and growth has been given as is given to each

separate branch of a big tree. But the accomplishment of this growth is not at all

guaranteed, it depends upon the harmonious and right action of its own tissues. The

development of one tissue stops and all the others stop. Everything that can be said of

the ray of creation or of its part earth-moon equally refers to organic life on earth.

Organic life on earth is a complex phenomenon in which the separate parts depend

upon one another. General growth is possible only on the condition that the 'end of the

branch' grows. Or, speaking more precisely, there are in organic life tissues which are

evolving, and there are tissues which serve as food and medium for those which are

evolving. Then there are evolving cells within the evolving tissues, and cells which

serve as food and medium for those which are evolving. In each separate evolving cell

there are evolving parts and there are parts which serve as food for those which are

evolving. But always and in everything it must be remembered that evolution is never

guaranteed, it is possible only and it can stop at any moment and in any place.

"The evolving part of organic life is humanity. Humanity also has its evolving part

but we will speak of this later; in the meantime we will take humanity as a whole. If

humanity does not evolve it means that the evolution of organic life will stop and this

in its turn will cause the growth of the ray of creation to stop. At the same time if

humanity ceases to evolve it becomes useless from the point of view of the aims for

which it was created and as such it may be destroyed. In this way the cessation of

evolution may mean the destruction of humanity.

"We have no clues from which we are able to tell in what period of planetary

evolution we exist and whether the moon and the earth have time to await the

corresponding evolution of organic life or not. But people who know may, of course,

have exact information about it, that is, they may know at what stage in their possible

evolution are the earth, the moon, and humanity. We cannot know this but we should

bear in mind that the number of possibilities is never infinite.

"At the same time in examining the life of humanity as we know it historically we

are bound to acknowledge that humanity is moving in a circle. In one century it

destroys everything it creates in another and the progress in mechanical things of the

past hundred years has proceeded at

the cost of losing many other things which perhaps were much more important for it.

Speaking in general there is every reason to think and to assert that humanity is at a

standstill and from a standstill there is a straight path to downfall and degeneration. A standstill means that a process has become balanced. The appearance of any one

quality immediately evokes the appearance of another quality opposed to it. The

growth of knowledge in one domain evokes the growth of ignorance in another;

refinement on the one hand evokes vulgarity on the other; freedom in one connection

evokes slavery in another; the disappearance of some superstitions evokes the

appearance and the growth of others; and so on.

"Now if we recall the law of octaves we shall see that a balanced process