As in the consideration of the monad, we shall observe the duad first from the universal or cosmic viewpoint and afterward from the personal angle. In a study of the duad we find the beginnings of division, separation, duality, contrasts. Pythagoras says: "Two is the imperfect condition into which being falls when it becomes detached from the Monad of God. Spiritual beings emanating from God are enveloped in the Duad and therefore receive only illusory impressions."
The symbol or numeral of the figure 2 represents the descent of spirit into matter. God moves on he face of the waters to create. So the masculine principle of God operates in conjunction with the powers of the erstwhile prostrate feminine principle and thus it is that all formative processes begin. In this manner the firmament was made manifest. The waters which were under the firmament were divided from the waters which were above the firmament; and there was evening and there was morning a second day. (Genesis 1:7-8) The duad is the silent secretive, mysterious, occult feminine principle — the power behind the throne, as it were, unheralded and unseen, yet innermost heart and life of all created essences.
The fundamental of Pythagorean mathematics is given as follows: "The first natural division of numbers is into even and odd. An even number is one which is divisible into two equal parts without leaving a monad between them. All even numbers (except the duad) may be divided into two equal parts, and also into two unequal parts. For example, 8 divides into 4 and 4, and also into 5 and 3; 6 into 3 and 3, and also into 4 and 2; 4 into 2 and 2, and also into 3 and 1; 10 into 5 and 5, as well as into 7 and 3." The duad, being composed only of two simple unities, allows no such further division. The reason for this will be considered in the delineation of the number 11.
The ten great principles or numbers are focusing points or attractive mediums of high cosmic forces, and without these central transmitting stations there could be no manifest or visible creation.
In the second phase of God-manifestation, known as the initial home of the great Feminine by reason of the necessary evolutionary processes of differentiation, the first veils of illusion are manifest. The duad is the first center in which is experienced sorrow and sacrifice. It is out of its pain and grief and sacrificial service that the Spirit of Beauty is first born.
Let us understand that when dealing with the high realms of the first beginnings of God-manifestation, we are dealing with purely abstract ideas. The Kaballah defines beauty as follows: "Beauty is the luminous conception of equilibrium in form; it is the mediating principle between Creator and the created."
The nearer we approach the inner and deeper comprehension of the duad, the more intimate will become our appreciation and realization of beauty. We have associated beauty with mere externalities for so long that we find it difficult to grasp its significance in terms of an inner revealing and transforming power. It is only as we reawaken the sleeping, or fallen, feminine factor with, — that factor which is the great formative principle of the duad or Word potency of God — that we shall discover anew the latent powers of beauty and come to understand how and why its attributes are always so closely associated with the feminine pole of man's being. "Beauty is Truth, Truth is Beauty. That is all ye know and all ye need to know." The poet sang these high words from an exalted place of inner knowing.
The monad and the duad, the masculine and the feminine, form the two columns upon which all world structures are founded. They are the Strength and the Beauty of the mystic seer of biblical times, King Solomon, whose name in three languages means 'the wisdom of the Sun'. It was in the light of the dual process of form-building that Solomon composed these strange, sphinx-like utterances which we know as the Book of Ecclesiastes.
The far-reaching symbolism of the Masonic Lodge is builded around the mystery of the sleeping Feminine. It is only as this hidden truth is comprehended by a Lodge that it awakens to its ability and opportunity to serve as a center of manifested working power for the betterment of man. Its possibilities as such a unit of service are as yet undreamed of by the great majority of this noble Fraternity. Jah-Hovah in Hebrew is the Male-Female life operating in the highest realms of spirit, and which is reflected in the lower worlds as sex. The name Jehovah, in its final analysis, signifies the Law of Polarity by which alone man is made complete.
The color of 2 is gold. It is the golden Water of Life that brings form out of Chaos. Evil and misfortune have long been associated with duality and hence with the number 2; The Romans dedicated the second month to Pluto, God of the underworld, and on the second day of this particular month it was their custom to offer sacrifices to the Manos, or the spirits of the dead. This association of evil with the duad comes from the introduction of duality into human consciousness on the lower or illusive planes. In the higher realms, as we have previously seen, duality is polarity, or the alternating cycles of rhythm and harmony which is all good. On the lower or deceptive rounds we lose sight of this high truth, and in this loss know only the alternation of extremes, namely, light and dark, heat and cold, life and death, youth and age, disease and health, poverty and wealth, sorrow and joy, war and peace, friends and enemies.
The ego vacillating between the varied experiences of those two opposites has learned to associate misfortune with 2 because, as previously noted, it is in the heart of the duad that sorrow is born through this process of diversity or alternation. An illustration of this fact may be observed in the history of English kings. Those who have borne the H of any name have been the bearers of sorrow and misfortune. William II, Edward II, and Richard II were all murdered.
The Ten Principles are magnetic centers of force and represent, not arbitrary, but potential and universal powers. The spiritual tendency of numbers is to raise all that come under their influence above their present limitations. Remembering in this connection that Beauty and Truth characterize the inmost being of the duad, it is to these qualities that consciousness must rise in order to avoid the misfortune and the sorrow so commonly associated with 2. The two person must learn to tune into that high plane of being wherein there is no shadow of turning. He must learn to focus his consciousness in life rather than in death, in light rather than in darkness.
Joshua, the best beloved disciple of Moses, and the greatest of the Old Dispensation teachers, and John, the beloved of our Lord, the Christ, and the supreme Evangel of the New Day, are illustrious examples of individuals who have demonstrated the ability to rise above the limitations of the human vibratory rate of 2 and raise it to its initial celestial degree in which it sounds the "word that was with God and the Word that was God and without which not anything was made that was made."
Proclus wrote: "The Duad is the medium between Unity and Number, for unity by addition produces more than by multiplication; the duad whether added to itself or multiplied by itself produces the same."
The duad symbolizes both love and sacrifice because it was willing to separate itself from the central source, or the monad, and to undergo the sorrowful experiences which this separation entailed in order that it might thereby further the evolution of life.
In the creation story of Genesis we have the following account of how the one became two:
The sorrow of 2 grows out of the deep and ever-recurrent spirit-recollection which it has of this separation, and also out of its loneliness and longing for a return to unity. The early Christian esotericists identified the highest expression of 2 with the power of the Holy Ghost, or union with Christ.
With the Fall of man came the subjection of spirit to matter. The monad lost its glorious light and became submerged by the seductive, illusory projections of the duad.
Since that introduction of dualtiy into the consciousness ages ago, man has been conscious of two selves, the higher and the lower, or as the German scientists describe it, the "me and the not-me". So long as man is conscious only of the not-me, or personality, the mere outer reflection of the duad, he will remain subject to the cycles of alternation, and suffer the impacts of their extremities, experiencing to the full the sorrows of this illusory existence. The more severe these impacts, the sooner will the real man awaken from his delusive dream and learn to discriminate between the real and the unreal, the false and the true. It is thus that he will learn in time to distinguish clearly between the me and the not-me, which is the great aim and purpose of the repetition of the life cycles upon the earth planet.
All the important characters in biblical history have the dual consciousness represented in their lives in the symbology of women. In some instances the woman represents the lower aspect of the feminine principle, in others, the higher. Each of the illustrious Bible characters has at some time or other stood at the cross-roads of decision, and not until the union with the higher was accomplished, was there the light and the power necessary for the performance of those great works which made them immortal.
To illustrate: In the legend of Abraham, we find both Hagar and Sarah; in the experiences of Jacob, we observe the dominance of Leah and Rachel; in the life of Lazarus, Martha and Mary; and in that of Christ Jesus, the supreme Way-Shower for all men, we note the influence of Mary Magdalene and the blessed Virgin Mary, the Madonna.
When man awakens to an awareness of the "me", the true spirit-man within, he begins the ascent of the mountain peaks of consciousness such as Abraham knew in his communion with the angels; and that Jacob found in his ecstatic vision; and which Lazarus experienced in the glories of his resurrection day; and which the Christ attained to on the mountain peaks of the Transfiguration and the Ascension.
In such illumined contacts the true spirit power of the 2 is born; the path of regeneration and redemption is found. In connection with this lesson, the student is requested to study the seventh chapter of Romans and to meditate long and carefully upon the truths contained therein. In it Paul has outlined the operation of this dual consciousness in man and the results that attend each phase of its development.
The two upright columns of the Masonic Lodge, the Jachin and Boaz, represent the highest manifestation of the duad. The elaborate ceremonial of the Lodge is designed for the lofty purpose of assisting the participants to regenerate their natures and raise the fallen feminine principle to its proper place. In the symbolism of the Lodge, the broken pillar must be restored; equilibrium must be reestablished. Not until this is done can that glorious temple, "not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens" be erected.
The Theosophical arithmetic states: "One is the spirit of the living God. It is the name of Him who liveth forever. Two is the spirit from this spirit. In it He engraved the 22 letters." Two is the formative mother principle, the heart. It is the Keeper of the Cosmic Records. Two is the emotional life, unleashed on the lower planes, and transmuted on the higher.
The words 'seer' and 'gold' both vibrate to 2. In the Book of Joshua in the Old Testament and in the Gospel of John in the New, we are given instructions as to how to subjugate the emotions, how to lift them up, and how to make the heart the great love center of the body. When the work outlined in these instructions has been accomplished, true seership is attained, and the soul is robed in a luminous wedding garment fashioned of the purest gold of the spirit. Such was the attainment of John the Divine, and, also in a lesser degree, of Joshua, whose privilege it was to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. Those coming under the vibratory law of 2 are admonished to study frequently the books by both John and Joshua.
The number I is symbolized by the crown; the number 2 is symbolized by the cross. The crown and the cross are inseparably associated because they are essentially one, being different and separate in a relative sense only. One is identified with the head and the crown; Two relates to the heart and the cross. When the mystic marriage of the head and the heart is consummated, the cross becomes the yoke that is easy and the burden that is Light — the Light of the crown of Immortal Life.
Two on the material plane manifests as duality, and in its lower aspect expresses itself as indecision, purposelessness, and vacillation. On the higher or spiritual plane, Two manifests as equilibrium, which may be characterized as balance, poise and steadfastness. These higher qualifications may be noted as representative of the life and attainments of both Joshua and John, the beloved disciple. They both typify the highest attributes of 2.
The keynote of the Book of Joshua may be summed up in the single word 'Jehovah' with the full signification of all its meanings. Jehovah is a four-power word. Four is an accentuation and doubling of the life forces of 2. In his final admonition to his disciples, Joshua differentiates between the evil and the good, or the high and the low manifestations of 2. It is to the manifestation of the lower aspects of 2 that Hoshua refers in the words: "Choose you this day whom. ye shall serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah." — Joshua 24:15
The name John digits twenty (20), which is 2 complemented by the cipher. This implies tremendously increased working power of 2. The naught symbolizes the mysteries of infinitude which we can appropriate in terms of sublimation and the consciousness of the Absolute. It is the power that lifts above and beyond the limited spheres of life and death as we know these alternating phases of being on this mundane plane. It represents that unbroken and untrampled existence into which the spirit of John had ascended, and to which the supreme Lord of Life and Death referred when He said; "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" (John 21:23). May the Two inspired by this illustrious example lift unto this same exalted consciousness and state of being.
Questons for Number Two
1. What role in the redemptive process of matter do you
consider is represented by 2?
2. What connection do you find between 2 and the second
zodiacal sign, Taurus?
3. Name a biblical character who you consider correlated to the forces of 2?
4. Give some keywords particularly descriptive of 2.
Note: These lessons are not intended for casual reading, but for careful study and meditation wherein it is hoped that by a lifting of consciousness the student may be able to contact the inner man — that source of light eternal which makes life complete both within and without.
— Corinne Heline
