The Creative Process in the Individual | Page 8

Enjoyment of Life, and so always keeping on
repeating the one Creative Process at an ever-rising level; and since
these are the sole working conditions, the progress is one which
logically admits of no finality. And this is where the importance of
realizing the Singleness of the Originating Power comes in, for with a
Duality each member would limit the other; in fact, Duality as the
Originating Power is inconceivable, for, once more to quote "Paddy's
Philosophy," "finality would be reached before anything was begun."
This Creative Process, therefore, can only be conceived of as limitless,
while at the same time strictly progressive, that is, proceeding stage by
stage, each stage being necessary as a preparation for the one that is to
follow. Let us then briefly sketch the stages by which things in our
world have got as far as they have. The interest of the enquiry lies in
the fact that if we can once get at the principle which is producing these
results, we may discover some way of giving it personal application.
On the hypothesis of the Self-contemplation of Spirit being the
originating power, we have found that a primary ether, or universal
substance, is the necessary correspondence to Spirit's simple awareness
of its own being. But though awareness of being is the necessary
foundation for any further possibilities it is, so to say, not much to talk
about. The foundation fact, of course, is to know that I Am; but
immediately on this consciousness there follows the desire for
Activity--I want to enjoy my I Am-ness by doing something with it.
Translating these words into a state of consciousness in the Cosmic
Mind they become a Law of Tendency leading to localised activity, and,
looking only at our own world, this would mean the condensation of
the universal etheric substance into the primary nebula which later on
becomes our solar system, this being the correspondence to the
Self-contemplation of Spirit as passing into specific activity instead of
remaining absorbed in simple awareness of Being. Then this
self-recognition would lead to the conception of still more specific
activity having its appropriate polar opposite, or material
correspondence, in the condensation of the nebula into a solar system.

Now at this stage Spirit's conception of itself is that of Activity, and
consequently the material correspondence is Motion, as distinguished
from the simple diffused ether which is the correspondence of mere
awareness of Being, But what sort of motion? Is the material movement
evolved at this stage bound to take any particular form? A little
consideration will show us that it is. At this initial stage, the first
awakening, so to say, of Spirit into activity, its consciousness can only
be that of activity absolute; that is, not as related to any other mode of
activity because as yet there is none, but only as related to an
all-embracing Being; so that the only possible conception of Activity at
this stage is that of Self-sustained activity, not depending on any
preceding mode of activity because there is none. The law of
reciprocity therefore demands a similar self-sustained motion in the
material correspondence, and mathematical considerations show that
the only sort of motion which can sustain a self-supporting body
moving in vacuo is a rotary motion bringing the body itself into a
spherical form. Now this is exactly what we find at both extremes of
the material world. At the big end the spheres of the planets rotating on
their axes and revolving round the sun; and at the little end the spheres
of the atoms consisting of particles which, modern science tells us, in
like manner rotate round a common center at distances which are
astronomical as compared with their own mass. Thus the two ultimate
units of physical manifestation, the atom and the planet, both follow the
same law of self-sustained motion which we have found that, on a
priori grounds, they ought in order to express the primary activity of
Spirit. And we may note in passing that this rotary, or absolute, motion
is the combination of the only two possible relative modes of motion,
namely, motion from a point and motion to it, that is to say centrifugal
and centripetal motion; so that in rotary, or absolute, motion we find
that both the polarities of motion are included, thus repeating on the
purely mechanical side the primordial principle of the Unity including
the Duality in itself.
But the Spirit wants something more than mechanical motion,
something more alive than the preliminary Rota, and so the first step
toward individualized consciousness meets us in plant life. Then on the
principle that each successive stage affords the platform for a further

outlook, plant life is followed by animal life, and this by the Human
order in which the liberty of