The Ray of Creation and the Law of Seven

In order to understand your self, it helps to know a little more about the cosmological world that we live in and the universal laws that govern this world. The Ray of Creation will give us a little more information about the vast cosmos that we inhabit. The law of seven will help us to understand why man asleep cannot do anything.

We live on the planet Earth in a solar system with eight other planets that revolve around the sun. For the most part, we are not even aware of our position in the solar system and how we are affected by the sun, the other planets and even the moon. According to Ouspensky everything in the cosmos has an effect on everything else.

To really understand our position in the solar system, we have to look at the whole picture. The Ray of Creation begins with the Absolute, the unknown beginning of all things. Fourth Way teachers hold that the Absolute is an intelligent force that is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the universe. Next in the Ray is All Worlds, all galaxies similar and dissimilar to our galaxy. Next is All Suns, all the suns within our galaxy. Then, comes Our Sun, the solar system. Then we have All Planets, the planets of our solar system. Next comes our Earth. And finally we have the moon. Notice that we have seven positions in the Ray. This is connected to the Law of Seven.

The Absolute is governed by only one law. By its own will and consciousness it creates all worlds. All Worlds is governed by three laws. Our galaxy is governed by six laws. The solar system is governed by twelve laws. Planets are governed by twenty-four laws. The Earth is governed by 48 laws and the moon is governed by 96 laws. Since man lives on the Earth, he is under 48 laws. He can escape from some of these laws if he raises his level of consciousness. If he remains in a state of sleep he can fall under more laws.

All this is very difficult to understand. We can find some of the laws that govern man, for instance the law of gravity holds man and everything else in one place. Most laws are more complicated than this. For example, Gurdjieff maintains that man asleep has no control over war. The planets send off certain vibrations that cause war at different times according to the alignment of the planets. As long as the majority of men are asleep wars will happen. At our level of being, it is not necessary to know all the laws that we are under. As we grow more and more conscious, we will discover more of the laws for ourselves.

The other planets in our solar system send vibrations to Earth that are necessary for its maintenance. However, there was nothing on Earth that could collect these vibrations. Therefore, the powers that be created organic life. Plants, animals, and men are apart of organic life. They pass vibrations from other planets to the earth. This is one of the ways that man pays for his existence in the universe.

The Ray does help us to understand scale. Man is just a cosmic dot in relationship to the cosmos. There is so much that we don’t understand and cannot understand at our level of being. We are not the center of the universe. As material beings we are only an insignificant part of our own planet.

There are other Rays in the cosmos, but since we live in this particular solar system the Work says that we need only understand this Ray. This Ray affects our lives and is the only Ray that is really relative to our being.

The Law of Seven controls all development in the universe. It says that no force works forever in the same direction. It works for some time and then diminishes in intensity, and either changes direction or undergoes an inner change... Every succession of events goes through a certain number of octaves to reach its completion. Every activity requires energy. Octaves can be ascending are descending. In an ascending octave, the number of vibrations between one note and the next doubles. At two places in the notes there is a gap. One cannot go on unless a special effort or shock transfers energy to this interval or gap. We have Do... Ri... Mi... Gap... Fa... So La... Gap... Si... Do... At the gap there is a retardation or loss of energy. Any event will deviate at this gap or sputter out.

We are all Do... Ri... Mi... men and woman because we can never get passed the first interval. I want to write a short story. I begin with a burst of enthusiasm. I am full of energy. About halfway through the story, I get bogged down and don’t know where to take my characters. I set it aside thinking that the muse will visit me and get the story going again. But, unless I make some special effort once I reach the note mi… the story will sit in my desk drawer with several others that sputtered out.

Ouspensky states that the Law of Seven expresses a cosmic law, and it was later applied to music in the form of the major scale. This is where most of us have some familiarity with the law. The semitones in a musical scale are related to the gaps in the Law of Seven. I’ve talked to several musicians about similarities between the Law of Seven and the musical scale, but they could not give me any help in understanding the Law of Seven.

Again, let me say that the Ray of Creation and the Law of Seven are very difficult subjects to understand. There are some articles on the Internet that can give you more information. The best source on this subject is Ouspensky’s book The Fourth Way. And as with everything in the Work your own observations on this subject can be very rewarding.