The Earth
THE SPIRITUAL EARTH
- Chapter 37 -
The first, lowest region of the air
Naturally, the first region is the lowest. It may be found where the atmospheric air rests upon the surface of the Earth, and where plants, animals, and human beings live. Here the spiritual is closely intermingled with the natural. Everything that is in accordance with nature appears in forms, but in reality everything is entirely spiritual.
Why is the word "spiritual" being used, and not "spirit"? Because in this region the spiritual and astral intelligence specifica must find and gradually take hold of one another, and unite into a perfect spiritual form as a complete being, conscious of itself. How is this to be understood?
Everywhere, a center is given for the complete unification of all spiritual specifica. This center is the true, closely-bound primordial spirit, the love-spark from Me. This spirit, or spark; mightily attracts everything that is of its essence. And be this spark of love ever so dispersed, it will nevertheless accommodate itself to that particular center to which it belongs, and, even though it retains its essential nature, it will take on different attributes with every center. An example will clarify this: observe, for instance, the education of several students at a school. Let us say a hundred students have the same teacher, learn from the same books, and write according to the same rule. However, observe these same students in later life: no two of them will have entirely the same pattern of thought or the same handwriting; and there will be many other such differences. And yet the spiritual nourishment of their education was the same. Each individual spirit among these students has, from a common instructional nourishment, taken precisely that which was particularly agreeable to him, without any influence from the teacher.
This example shows you how every spiritual center takes, out of the infinite multitude of the intelligence specifica, precisely what is necessary unto itself, just as the inherent central soul specificum of every seed finds and attracts exactly what it requires from the same water, the same air, the same earth, and the same light. Thus do the astral intelligences arrange themselves in order around the corresponding spiritual center. They flow towards this center, take on an intelligent form, and fashion themselves in accordance with the fundamental essence of this center. The true spiritual center is reflected in the form of a human being.
As an illustration, a word is also an excellent example of this process. Immediately upon being uttered, a word attracts everything which is necessary for the understanding of its idea. As a center, let us take the well-known word "commandment" as a center. It immediately unites within itself that which is necessary for it to be a commandment. What belongs to the word "commandment"? First, a commanding quality that has radical understanding of all things, why there is a commandment and to whom it is given. Secondly, there must be a free being in existence, endowed with understanding and will power, in order to accept, understand, and keep the commandment, what is required in order to create such a being, and what qualities the Creator must have so as to be able to create such a being. Thirdly, the commandment must receive the power of the law. Furthermore, what is necessary to make a commandment wise, just, and effective so as to raise it to the level of a law? Behold the infinite number of apprehensions, fundamental ideas, and powers which are at once bound up with the sole idea of the word "commandment."
Every word forms a particular spiritual center for itself. It attracts an immense number of ideas and unites them with itself, so that in one particular word the same ideas qualify something entirely different from those of another word. To the ideas of the words "love," "virtue," "humility," and "God" belong as many other ideas as with the word "commandment." They surrender their individual existence and merge, in character, with the main idea.
If you have understood, to a certain degree, what has been said, then you will realize that the lower region is the workshop for the restoration and reunification of spiritual and astral intelligence specifica, made one in a perfected spirit. Here is the place for broadcasting the soil, where in every single spiritual seed all pertinent connections of ideas are condensed into one form. The collection of all dispersed specifica of the soul takes place around a specified spiritual center.