1st Ray - Will and Power. Economy, Mother Earth and Money

2nd Ray, Will and Power, colour Red.

This is the ray of the Earth, the concreteness, practicality and pragmatism; it is that frequency that helps us materialise ideas through our actions; it represents the "doing" par excellence.

Direct, frank, practical, this ray gets straight to the point and sees whether something works out or not, it has focus and concentrates its forces and makes them converge to reach the goal. It embraces all jobs that are connected to the matter: construction, carpentry, agriculture, sports that particularly require the physical body, and professions closely linked to money.

Young children often intuitively use the color red to make their first drawings, precisely to anchor themselves to the earth and give way to their "doing".

The first ray carries within it the energy of Economy in its purest sense, from the Greek "oikonomìa", a name composed of the words oikos (house or family assets) and nomos (law, norm). In common language the word economy is immediately associated with the circle of money, businesses and finance but it is not only and above all this; relegating the concept of economy exclusively to these words is reductive and distracts from the true meaning that the true concept of economy carries within itself.

The economy is a virtuous circle, where there is never waste but a perpetual investment of resources/energy, which then yield results which in turn are re-invested according to desires, needs and requirements. This principle applies to and is valid in all spheres of life: personal, intimate, inner, relational and then it manifests itself in the ways in which we live our lives.

It can be said that through the implementation of the economy the best result is achieved with the minimum expenditure of energy.

The original idea of the economic archetype/deity was to observe the needs of all the kingdoms present on earth: mineral, vegetable, animal and human, to satisfy them by distributing goods, understood as "what is good and nourishes".

The economy is the first aspect of the Great Mother, a deity who provides for the Mater, that is, Matter, in relation to life on Earth and its inhabitants. She does this through mercy that is, having empathy for the pain of creatures and subsequently helping them according to their needs and requirements.

Over time, all this was heavily distorted, and almost only money remained in the economy as the coin. However, coins can be perceived in two different ways. It can be understood as money, or it can be gold (where with gold we refer to the beautiful and stable metal that it is) . In ancient times when during periods of war there was a clear distinction between knight-warriors and soldiers. The former studied and applied themselves carefully and intensively to the art of war, such as the samurai; theirs was a calling of the soul.

The knights (mystical-warrior caste, 7th ray) received monetary-gold compensation and freely chose that destiny.

The latter, however, the soldiers, were often farmers or artisans who were hired as mercenaries in exchange for a piece of land called "soldum"(money in Italian is soldi) , a secure and granted reward for their offspring.

This is therefore how the coin becomes a commodity of exchange with the individual's most precious asset: one's life! The chances of a soldier returning alive were so slim considering their lack of familiarity and skill in the battlefield.

Money is to Salary as Gold is to Honorary. The word salary derives from salt since in ancient Rome soldiers were paid with a ration of salt even though, with a little imagination we can also connect the words salary and salt to the salty sweat that fatigue, effort exploitation (therefore not real honoured work) bring about . With Gold we honour the service of a person by recognising their merits, talent, workforce, experience and knowledge. As you can see, they are two very different ways of receiving compensation and wages.

The pure concept of money, nowadays, has been forgotten but must be regained.

Often those who have a mystical-spiritual origin (6-7 ray), feel their principles are in contrast with "the vile penny", and they perceive it as dirty and far from spirituality, from God, Creator Principle, Absolute Being. For these people this will almost certainly result in economic problems: even though have do a job they like, they don't earn enough, and even though they handle a lot of money, in the end they have little left over, just enough to survive or almost. The problems related to money are varied and here I have cited only one example connected purely to the origin of one's soul ray. Another dynamic could concern not allowing oneself abundance or unconsciously feeling indebted to someone, to life, a difficult relationship with one's mother, etc.

The concept of Gold brings with it the desire to have abundance without harming others, contributing to a virtuous circl of well-being and well-ness. Through the sacred coin, a more subtle action is performed than simply paying. It's about honouring the work done by a person, this includes recognising and honouring the aptitude, predisposition, talent, passion and commitment that has been put into it.

Sri Aurobindo, father of Integral Yoga, said: “Most spiritual disciplines insist on complete self-control, on detachment and renunciation of any connection to money and wealth and any personal and selfish desire to possess them. Some even place an interdict declaring that a poor and naked life is the only spiritual condition. It is a mistake that leaves the power of money in the hands of hostile forces. Reclaiming money for the Divine to whom it belongs and using it divinely for divine life is the super-mental path that the sadhaka must follow.”

Possible distortions of the 1st ray: hyper-activity, hyper-doing, workaholicism, excess of volition, wanting to produce without stopping, feeling like you haven't done enough (even when this isn't the case), difficulty allowing yourself to rest, considering yourself lazy when you give yourself just the right amount of rest needed, hyper production of things etc.

More kinesthetic and sporty than contemplative, 1st ray individuals or those who belong to a large extent to the first ray, do not do well with static meditative techniques; they don't work for them and/or can trigger adverse reactions. However, there are ways that favour the entrance into a meditative state and these include physical actions such as simply washing the dishes, chopping wood, walking, dancing and playing sports are welcomed.

A story for the 1st ray:

Once upon a time there was a builder named Egeta. On his right wrist he would wear a watch whose hands were spinning wildly, thus making him believe time was never enough. He felt time slipped away at every moment, and stunned and desperate he looked at the watch helplessly with open arms... until a small ant flew into his ear... going down, down, down, he decided to make Egeta's sternum its own nest. During a walk Egeta stopped in front of a field with some tools left there, without harmony or grace, near which there were some trees, some bricks, and an unroofed and half-broken house. What he saw through his eyes was a set of raw elements scattered here and there that could be masterfully combined to make solid and stable constructions; the tools were there, the earth too, the water too, the fire could be called if needed and the air was omnipresent. The elements were all there. Thus began his construction work, he dedicated himself to it day and night, and when he arrived home he seemed to put the accelerator on to fix what needed fixing, he ate while running from one room to another and didn't even stop for a second. So he started putting brick upon brick... he was very effective in giving shape to the constructions that were in his thoughts, but he wanted to do even more. Once a building was built, he no longer spent more than a few hours enjoying the completion of his project before another one immediately began. It had to be done, because time was short and it had to be optimised. One morning, running towards the construction site, he stumbled upon a child's toy. Furious and angry, he took it in his hand and was about to throw it off the bridge he was on, fortunately the toy bounced off the small columns that delimited the road and acted as a balustrade to the bridge. The toy fell to the floor and a child ran panting towards it; out of breath and with his big, shining eyes, he picked up his Sun-shaped toy and said to Egeta.. “oh thanks!! I thought I had lost it! It's my favorite toy, it's the sun, did you see how beautiful it was at sunset yesterday? “And with a big smile he turned and ran back to mom. Egeta was a little taken aback, he didn't quite understand what had happened to him, “toy in the shape of a sun... child... huh??” he thought.. he then continued his wild thing, and started building like every other day. A few years passed and the field that had initially met Egeta's eyes had transformed into a jungle of grey skyscrapers. The sun struggled to pass and make its way between those concrete giants. Egeta went up to the top floor of a skyscraper... he watched the sun set and remembered the words of that child who he had met on the street some time before. He was very sorry to see that the sun was unable to reach the earth, and he understood that his own desire to do things had gotten out of his control... making him act on its behalf. Great undertakings are possible, but when there is only the will to do, execute, and build without heart, without moderation, without sentient conscience, many ideas turn out to be rather sad works. Egeta decided that his ability to give shape to ideas would be used differently from now onwards, since walking down the street his skin had darkened due to the lack of the gentle touch of the Sun.

Egeta's brother, Olaf, was a farmer. He lived in a quiet and sunny rural village. They cultivated the land and raised animals to be able to sustain themselves in the harsh cold and winter times. The population of the village began to grow very quickly and over the years other neighboring settlements were formed until they formed a single large village. Everything proceeded according to the rhythms of nature until a great famine arrived, due to violent natural disasters. Many inhabitants died of hunger, others perished and became ill, and Olaf, from the top of his half-destroyed barn, looked in despair at what was happening before his eyes. He then thought that by intensively raising livestock it was possible to obtain more meat to sustain oneself, and building greenhouses for winter cultivation would significantly increase the quantity of food available even in the difficult months. Times passed, so did the years. Living conditions had become less difficult, but intensive farming and greenhouse cultivation had taken hold and there was no intention to recalibrate the working method applied so far to re-tune to sustainable life models for the man and for the earth with all its inhabitants. The idea of battery farming intensive agriculture seemed to be perfect from a theoretical point of view but some factors that had not been foreseen a priori got excluded: lack of sunlight and therefore of vitamin D for the animals; confined spaces, lack of air... all factors that contributed to making the livestock ill and thus resulting in a loss, both by having to throw away their sick bodies and by having to treat the unfortunate people who found ruined and diseased food on their plates. The intent to give everyone the necessary for subsistence ended in overproduction with consequent high toll, waste and exploitation of Mother Nature's resources. Olaf understood that production must be combined with conscience and compassion. He created new fields to grow herbs, plants and vegetables, deeply understanding how an efficient and respectful economy must respect the times, possibilities and rhythms of the Earth and its inhabitants.