In Search of the Miraculous

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