Course I - Teaching 12: Twelve Rays of Love

The first ray of love is animal, instinct, which drives to preserve the species; in a crazy rhythm, throughout times, fighting, killing and even succumbing by this hectic desire of self-preservation, several types of animals and human races emerge victorious. It is like a whirlpool which, starting with a short vortex becomes an immense whirlwind inexorably absorbing and absorbing.
Everything perishes; up to its last breath, flesh fights hand-to-hand for its preservation. So, with this magnificent and unconscious desire of being, thousands and thousands of stars in the space are preserved, going all of them inexorably in search for the hidden magnet that keeps them in motion: love.
But in the second ray of love, this desire of being acquires by defense, the self-consciousness of what it is; and this loving defense extends and comprises the need of a defender, the very defender, the offspring, food and all the rest that is indispensable to life.
For defense, families, clans, nations, codes and even societies of protection and mutual help were formed. This subconscious defensive love took so powerful roots in human beings that now, when it is not necessary any more for them, they are unable to get rid of it, and it is a cause of their ruin, destruction and death. When man felt relatively sure in his defensive environment that he created, started devoting his animal love to the Third Ray of love: his own body.
This love to our own body is something indefinite, mysterious and subtle.
Since a child sees his own body reflected on the water of a spring or on a mirror in his house, this strange vibration, sometimes subconsciously shameful, of self-attraction has its origin. It is as if he had found someone else that he would have sought his whole life; it is like a morbid satisfaction, a definite descent into matter.
As time passes by, this love becomes more and more strong and selfish, specially for those who do not find another satisfaction in their lives, and constitutes an obsession, and a continuous fear that their bodies are not well cared, attended and pampered; all this is little for our own body, everything is not enough, because this blind love drives and enslaves our own body, and ties us more and more to our flesh.
And what may we expect from so much love to our own body but the entry to the Fourth Ray of love, which provides the body with every animal pleasure of life, those animal pleasures that do not admit happiness or co-operation of others, but only satisfaction of our own delight.
Even among men already civilized, these curious aspects of love appear; among men who are unable to think of enlivening the pleasure of others, but that only think of satiating their own appetites.
All aspects of animal love are quite important to preserve vegetal and animal species, so indispensable to human life; but for a human being with freewill and thought, these types of love, instead of raising him to the Divine, strongly drag him toward animal or lower life.
The Fifth Ray of love is already human; it drives a being to feel for others what he feels for himself. He accepts his pleasure may be pleasure for others, his happiness may be the happiness for other beings, and ascertains he is not the only one who feels, suffers or loves, but that here are other beings that experience these same sensations.
When a being enjoys, subconsciously he enjoys more, because he knows his pleasure is a heritage of all his species, and by this means he is able to respect his fellow men, to understand their needs, and to give them refuge and protection.
In the Sixth Ray of love, human love becomes attractive.
Dante described this with insuperable words: “Amor che nullo amate, amar perdona”, that is, “love demands love”.
A lover wants pleasure for himself and for the loved being. Even though the circle of his affection is reduced, sometimes so much that encompasses only one person, however it is all for him; for this love he fights, works, suffers and even knows to die. He cannot tolerate anyone to rob his affection and sometimes, when this affection disappears, he gives up and despairs, and then hates and kills.
In the Seventh Ray of love, human love extends from a person to several persons, to the whole collective.
This is the human love that seeks wider horizons, wants to transform itself into real love; in short, he does not want to die, because starts understanding this old saying: “dead love was not love”.
He loves his children, the fruit of his pleasure; he knows perishable affections with attractive form, which sooner or later must finish, shall survive his offspring, and shall extend more and more, by generation, through that indestructible heritage thread of types of blood.
The Eight Ray makes human love compassionate; a being suffers from sorrows of others and his wishes of wellbeing comprise the wellbeing of all his people.
Even though he acquires wellbeing for himself, over all he admits the wellbeing for others. He protects those who inspire him sympathy, helps those of his own race, favors those who praise him; and even though he forgives those who are against him, he does the best he can, provided it fosters his own satisfaction and for the sake of his self-love.
But human love, a relative love like all things with a form, is not Real Love. Just Divine Love is Real Love. The Ninth Ray of love is divine because he who love, loves for the sake of loving, gives for the sake of giving, not expecting any reward.
How can we make distinctions between one man and another when everything emanated from the same divine essence and all must return to it? Who cares when we are not corresponded or do not get the flame of a loved being, if the whole Flame is in the hand of the true Lover?
True devotees say their love for God and for the whole Mankind drives them crazy.
Here we pass to the Tenth Ray of love.
If Divine Love is so much extended and lofty, embracing everything, not asking anything, how wonderful shall be this Love focused on some those creatures that are around it.
Just a being like that can know the true friendship. Unfortunately this beautiful word grew weakened by those who use it, for a true friendship is love, which he only enjoys by seeing his loved being happy, even at the price of his own sacrifice.
Certain student entered the Spiritual Life and was particularly distinguished by his Great Master. He would sent for him many time by side to talk to him about spiritual things and Divine Love; many times the Master took him in this strolls and the disciple believed his own soul to be sheltered under the Master’s soul. But one day the Master did not call him again, and when he met him, his greeting was not so particular. One day, in despair, the disciple threw himself at the Master’s feet to know which was his fault and why he has been removed in such a way; but the Master replied: “Today I love you as much as yesterday; rather, my love is of a kind that every day becomes stronger; but this love would be imperfect if we looked for our own personal satisfaction; you were little before, you needed my word and my presence; today you have created wings and are able to manage by yourself; the contact would more harmful than useful; go out and learn this: true love is not love of men, which says “far from eyes, far from heart”, but invariable love, “always, far and near, in life and death”.
In the Eleventh Ray, Divine Love becomes ecstatic. There is no measure between one love and another, between one form and another.
Any expression of love, the most insignificant event, kindles such a flame in the chest that melts a soul in Divine Love through Ecstasy.
By the beauty of the sky and of a flying bird, the little Ramakrishna went into Ecstasy.
A child who passed by the street remembered Saint John of the Cross the beauty of the Child Jesus and he went into such great ecstasy that his face seemed to burn up like in flames.
The Twelfth Ray of Divine Love reintegrates an ecstatic soul to the way of the heart or to the way of the mind, to that First and Universal Source from which the first expression of life sprouted, driven by the Eternal Love.
It is there where the Real Love melts in such a way with the Divine, being difficult to point out a limit between manifested and not manifested.
But even here, at these lofty heights, we can remember these words of the Indian philosopher: “Love is the beginning and the end of the Way”.