From the Lambdoma of the Genesis of Ideas:
4.5 Design – Design is the radiant tracing of Thought
5.4 Canon – The Canon is the harmonizing Principle
This Polarity of Ideas expresses and realizes the primary relationship between:
4.4 Model – The Model is the reflection of Life
5.5 Manifestation – Manifestation is the emergence
of the divine Design
*
At the level of abstract Thinking, we try to understand and live the quadripartite relationship between Model, Manifestation, Design and Canon, that we can define as a squaring of the circle, at the centre between the World of Ideas (circle) and that of Forms (square).
Ideas are real energies and living Entities, they are the powers that produce precipitates, and directing our contemplation and reflection to these Sources of events and things raises our vibration and perception of existence.
Man draws his conclusions from the facts of life, comparing the evidence, however, with manifesta-tions already past. The conditioning of life by only what has been already experienced sets that slow pace to progress which is adopted by man. The severing of ideas from the current of life arrests humanity at the point where it manifests uncertainty of further progress.
Life is comprised of an eternal succession of ideas and of manifestations of cosmic energies. How can a spirit who does not project his thought into the realm of ideas adopt the concept of Infinity! … [1]
Beyond all finite existences and secondary causes, all laws, ideas and principles, there is an Intelligence or Mind [nous], the first principle of all principles, the Supreme Idea on which all other ideas are grounded… the ultimate substance from which all things derive their being and essence, the first and efficient cause of all the order, and harmony, and beauty and excellency, and goodness, which pervades the Universe. [2]
The Principle, one and triune, is therefore identified as a reference or Model (4/4) that reflects Life into manifestation.
The Model is activated by divine Thought (1/5), the realizing power of Life, through its incessant Vibration (2/5) or quiver of Substance, and oriented by its vital direction, that Ray which projects it into Space as Plan (3/5). Thought carves on it its own radiant tracing, the Design (4/5) from which the Manifestation (5/5) emerges, through which Life is spread out and conditioned ad infinitum, according to the Canon (5/4), the harmonizing principle of the Model.
The dual, manifold and multiform Manifestation, while unfolding in the innumerable variants of the One, remains unitary.
The Model is recognised at that level where the world of Ideas and that of forms come into contact and create a right relationship: man is called to place himself on the intuitive level, the fourth of the divine expression, in order to perform his own task, that is to embody the bridge between Heaven and Earth, reflecting one into the other.
So work, not for joy but towards it; not for reward, but from the inner need to help; not for gratitude, but from the urge that comes from having seen the vision and realisation of the part you have to play in bringing that vision down to earth. [3]
There can be no objective form on Earth (nor in the Universe either), without its astral prototype being first formed in Space. From Phidias down to the humblest workman in the ceramic art – a sculptor has had to create first of all a model in his mind, then sketch it in one and two dimensional lines, and then only can he reproduce it in a three dimensional or objective figure. And if human mind is a living demonstration of such successive stages in the process of evolution – how can it be otherwise when Nature’s Mind and creative powers are concerned? [4]
The Model carries within itself the universal value of harmony which is measure, relationship, rightness, proportion, balance, truth, beauty… Once expressed and implemented, harmony eliminates conflicts, distances and any kind of separation.
Each Idea is a reference unit that focuses on the Model (4/4), the reflection of Life, and identifies it within itself.
*
To achieve beauty, it is not enough to compose figures according to harmonious rules, just as it is not enough to copy a magnificent work in order to build in a sublime way, but it is necessary that all the thoughts, desires, motivations and actions of those who create are coherent with each other and with the universal aim. Only if these circumstances occur will the work of man resist and operate in Space with the constructive power of its fire.
The fourth, central level is not a place of peace, but a state in which harmony is achieved through conflict: humanity is constantly in such a context and it is difficult for men to obtain a real balance but, as fourth kingdom of nature, we have the task of bringing down to earth that harmony which, without the action of man, could not be attained.
“Creation is played out between 4 and 5”: the Model reflects the Will of the Creator/Logos according to its own constructive Canon and projects it into the Manifestation through an executive Design.
Four meets Five, which in the solar system are expressed by Mercury and Venus:
Mercury expresses the fourth Ray and is that Guide who confidently walks the tightrope over spatial abysses: “beautifully, carefully, and fleetly”. He is the balance between unmanifest and manifest and he is the great Master of imitation and harmony.
Due to its high frequency He is the accelerator of evolution and his great gift is Beauty: governed by Mercury, all Ideas are beautiful. In the great solar Work Mercury has the task of reflecting the higher world, the third Level, into the fifth, the mental.
Venus expresses the fifth Ray, the principle of the intellect, and exercises the magic of the fifth emanation, that is, the mysterious ability to create dualism: Formulas precipitate as Forms and these begin to manifest their content.
The meeting between these two central Luminaries is the essential premise for the birth of appearances, as far as the Plan of the System [solar, planetary or human] is concerned, because one is imitative (4) and the other constructive (5), in order to manifest the law of the Model according to canons of Beauty, those ‘unalterable sources of infinite meanings’.
There is nothing that can be separated from a model and there is no model disconnected from the supreme source, Life, of which it is the reflection and the bridge, that, by connecting high and low, allows the Evolution of consciousness, and that is travelled through relentlessly descending into form and ascending towards the One.
*
At the base of classicism there is the rule that underlies the balance and the indissoluble knot of Greek art is the Canon that allows artists to bind together the harmony and movement of their eternal works of art. The Canon is based on the fundamental principle of pondus, a Latin term that carries the value of stathmòs, of balance, a dynamic balance because the statue has its stability even when it is in apparent motion.
Dynamic balance becomes an essential condition, which will reverberate throughout the history of art transcending the times, to the point of being considered fundamental even by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky who, with the pondus (weight, value, gravitas) of the visual elements on the painting, lays the foundations of abstract art. In art there is therefore an ongoing search for balance, for a canon that brings harmony to the represented figure.
The Greek canon, therefore, leads to the proportion, in measure and weight, of the parts with the whole and here it has been defined as a harmonizing principle which, applied to different works, makes them appropriate to their function. By following a given canon, harmonic actions are created, proportionate to a single value criterion.
This inevitably leads us to the golden section, the divine proportion, and to the confirmation of the relationship between macrocosm and microcosm, between the whole and the part, between the greater and the lesser part, replicating itself infinitely and in the Infinite.
In boundless harmony is contained the whole cosmic creativeness. Only harmony can reveal to the planet the higher spheres. Only harmony can establish the chain of aspirations to the far-off worlds. The conception of the far-off worlds should be applied to all which strives toward perfection. Therefore Our harmonies are so powerful. The fire of the centers is harmony; the fire of the spirit is harmony; the fire of the heart is harmony. [5]
The artist has always had to create, first of all, a model in his mind, then to represent it through a design, according to a canon and finally to manifest it in an objective figure: if man can do this it is because he imitates the infinite work of the universal Mind, thus aligning with the criterion of beauty used by Life to express itself in the works of nature.
There is no finite or primordial design, except in relation to organized matter. The project is Kyen, a cause that arises from a primary cause. The underlying design has always existed in the one eternal and unborn atom, or central point, which is found everywhere and nowhere… [6]
At the basis of the manifested Universe is Thought (1.5), the realizing power of Life which reflects its causal Light in Space through the Model, thus expressing the Plan which is the projection of divine Thought and embodies the Purpose of the Lord of the World.
So the divine Purpose emerges through a rhythmic, progressive, ordered and incisive Plan-Design: the Purpose impresses its Design on the Plan, the radiant tracing of Thought, following the Canon, with the subsequent emergence of the Manifestation which is realised at different levels, from the more subtle ones to the denser ones, thanks to the Thinkers, to the point of falling into the infinity of forms in which Life is confined for a certain time; then, we arrive at the inversion of motion in which the process of abstraction and liberation begins, bringing the parts back to the One.
The Manifestation on Earth designs this Plan at all levels and, as far as we are concerned, we must interpret and express it in an ever more harmonious way.
Standards are shifting things and change with man’s growth towards divinity. They vary also according to man’s destiny as it is affected by his time and age, his nature and surroundings. They alter also according to the point of evolutionary development. The standard for attainment is not today what it was one thousand years ago, nor a thousand years hence will it be what it is today. [7]
The Idea or root of every manifestation sinks into boundless spaces of Reality and horizons of Thought. According to the esoteric Tradition, that common Root of Eternal Wisdom from which all the mysteries, religions and civilisations of human history have developed, the entire universe is a manifestation and a conditioned symbol of the one Absolute Reality that contains it.
“There is one Boundless Immutable Principle; one Absolute Reality which, antecedes all manifested conditioned Being. It is beyond the range and reach of any human thought or expression. The manifested Universe is contained within this Absolute Reality and is a conditioned symbol of it.” In this “one Beness lies concealed its coeternal and coeval emanation or inherent radiation” [8], cause of its periodic manifestation.
The Teachings tell us that, as far as our solar System is concerned, in addition to the seven Rays, twelve creative Hierarchies (in assonance with the 12 signs of the Zodiac and the planets recognised by Astrology), seven of which are “manifest and into expression at a planetary level”, contribute to its construction. Such Hierarchies are the lives and substance of all that exists.
Among the manifest creative hierarchies, the human being is the “least conscious creator”, a monad or life which, by evolution, has acquired the capacity of self-consciousness on an individual level, capable of reflecting in itself the realities of creation and manifestation. In the hierarchical scale of conscious creators of the solar system, the monad or human unit is in fact placed at the third degree, after the solar and planetary Logoi.
In the process of Creation, the assumption of a physical form marks an important and decisive cycle: it is the lowest point of descent as far as the manifestation of Life is concerned, which, due to the weight of its shell and the consequent very slow vibration, finds a limit that must be overcome with the activation of consciousness, which, by venturing into the cycle of existence, aims at lightening the form in order to gradually free Life.
Nature is the appearance of the physical body of the Logos, and the laws of nature are the laws governing the natural processes of that body. The Life of God, His energy, and vitality, are found in every manifested atom; His essence indwells all forms. This we call Spirit, yet He Himself is other than those forms, just as man knows himself to be other than his bodies. He knows himself to be a will, and a purpose, and as he progresses in evolution that purpose and will become to him ever more consciously defined. So with the planetary Logos and solar Logos. They dwell within, yet are found without, the planetary scheme or solar system. [9]
In order to attain a new human Culture and, therefore, a new esoteric world Religion, according to the work guidelines of the current year 6.1, the synthesis of energies 4.5 – 5.4 is very important because here are at play the divine virtues that realize the part of the hierarchical Plan which will give life, consciousness and form to the civilisation of the age of Aquarius.
The four produces images without figures, the five provides for their formal execution and their collaboration is perfect because the first imitates the figures and the second creates them, causing a great flow of precipitates that will appear in the concrete world and modify it.
Man has the opportunity to actively participate in the creation of his own future cultural state, which will give birth to the next flow of planetary civilisation. The difficulties are many because, since the construction of the Work is purely mental, it will not be accepted by all those consciousnesses that believe only in concreteness and practicality and that admit only in a confused way the possibility of mental constructive power. All this, however, is taking place because the Teaching and the higher help are preparing us for this more elevated form of human activity, without resorting to banal practical methods that act on the present effects, rather than collaborating to form their causes.
Love was the impelling motive for manifestation, and love it is that keeps all in ordered sequence; love bears all on the path of return to the Father’s bosom, and love eventually perfects all that is. [10]
from the Heavens to the Earth, from the Earth to the Heavens
This article is published in assonance with the heliocentric conjunction between Mercury and Venus, sacred to the 4th and 5th Ray.
