Author of "ISIS UNVEILED."
"There is no Religion higher than Truth."
—SCANNED AND EDITED TO —
A FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL EDITION OF 1888
THE THEOSOPHY COMPANY
LOS ANGELES CALIF.
This electronic version of
The Secret Doctrine follows the pagination and style of the
A FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL EDITION OF 1888
except for the footnotes, instead of breaking up the footnotes,
that are continued on other pages, due to lack of space, on the pages printed in paper books, we placed all the
information for each footnote together on the page of its' origin.
— Editor Theosophy Co. of Arizona
2005
London:
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED.
7, Duke Street, Adelphi, W.C.
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE,
117, Nassau Street, New York.
THE MANAGER OF THE THEOSOPHIST,
Adyar, Madras.
—
1888.
"Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1888, by
H. P. Blavatsky,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C."
This Work
I Dedicate to all True Theosophists,
In every Country,
And of every Race,
For they called it forth, and for them it was recorded.
THE THEOSOPHY
COMPANY
November 17, 1947
PUBLISHERS’ PREFACE
THE Theosophical Movement of the nineteenth century began in 1875. THE SECRET DOCTRINE, first published in 1888, was written by Madame H. P. Blavatsky to establish an authentic record of the teachings of the Theosophical philosophy. “The SECRET DOCTRINE is not,” she said, “a treatise, or a series of vague theories, but contains all that can be given out to the world in this century.” ( I, xxxviii. )
By 1925, fifty years after the inauguration of the Movement in New York City, the original edition had long been out of print. At that time, the mid-point of the centennial cycle of the Theosophical Movement, The Theosophy Company first made available a facsimile edition of Madame Blavatsky’s great work, in the form of a photographic reproduction of the original edition. The present volume is identical with previous printings of the facsimile edition, although from new plates.
Besides the original edition of 1888—the only one authorized by Madame Blavatsky—several other editions of this work have appeared. One of these, the so—called “Third and Revised Edition” of 1893, is marred by many thousands of alterations, some of them trivial, some actual mutilations of the original text. Included in later printings of this so-called “Revised Edition” is a spurious “Third Volume” of THE SECRET DOCTRINE, issued in 1897, six years after the death of H. P. Blavatsky. Compiled from miscellaneous papers found among her effects, this volume forms no part of the original SECRET DOCTRINE written by H.P.B.
The “Third and Revised Edition” was followed by another in 1938, this time in six volumes, called the “Adyar Edition.” Except for additional indexes, a biographical sketch of the author, various typographical changes, and the inclusion of material attempting to justify publication of the spurious “third volume,” this Adyar edition is substantially the same as the earlier “revised” version.
Still another edition of THE SECRET DOCTRINE has been printed from reset type. Except for gratuitous “corrections” of the author’s Sanskrit scholarship, and the addition of irrelevant sectarian matter, this edition is virtually an accurate reproduction of the original text. Its exact authenticity, however, cannot be determined without laborious comparison with the original.
The genuine SECRET DOCTRINE has only two volumes. While, as originally written, THE SECRET DOCTRINE was to be published in four volumes, only two volumes were given to the printer by H.P.B. The remaining two volumes, although complete, or nearly complete, were withheld by her for reasons clearly indicated at the close of the second volume of the original edition. (ii, 798.)
With the present printing of THE SECRET DOCTRINE, The
Theosophy Company continues its function of providing students and inquirers
with unaltered editions of the original literature of the Theosophical Movement.
The two volumes of the original edition are here bound in one for the
convenience of students; otherwise, this edition is a perfect facsimile of the
original edition and can be relied upon as such.
November 17, 1947
THE THEOSOPHY COMPANY
—————
THE Author
— the writer, rather —
feels it necessary to apologse for the long delay which has occurred in the
appearance of this work. It has been occasioned by ill-health and the magnitude
of the undertaking. Even the two volumes now issued do not complete the scheme,
and these do not treat exhaustively of the subjects dealt with in them. A large
quantity of material has already been prepared, dealing with the history of
occultism as contained in the lives of the great Adepts of the Aryan Race, and
showing the bearing of occult philosophy upon the conduct of life, as it is and
as it ought to be. Should the present volumes meet with a favourable reception,
no effort will be spared to carry out the scheme of the work in its entirety.
The third volume is entirely ready; the fourth almost so.
This scheme, it must be added, was not in contemplation when the preparation
of the work was first announced. As originally announced, it was intended that
the "Secret Doctrine" should be an amended and enlarged version of "Isis
Unveiled." It was, however, soon found that the explanations which could be
added to those already put before the world in the last-named and other works
dealing with esoteric science, were such as to require a different method of
treatment: and consequently the present volumes do not contain, in all, twenty
pages extracted from "Isis Unveiled."
The author does not feel it necessary to ask the indulgence of her readers
and critics for the many defects of literary style, and the imperfect English
which may be found in these pages. She is a foreigner, and her knowledge of the
language was acquired late in life. The English tongue is employed because it
offers the most widely-diffused medium for conveying the truths which it had
become her duty to place before the world.
These truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation; nor does
the author claim the position of a revealer of mystic lore, now made public for
the first time in the world's history. For what is contained in this work is to
be found scattered throughout thousands of volumes embodying the scriptures of
the great Asiatic and early European religions, hidden under glyph and symbol,
and hitherto left unnoticed because of this veil. What is now attempted is to
gather the oldest tenets together and to make of them one harmonious and
unbroken whole. The sole advantage which the writer has over her predecessors,
is that she need not resort to personal speculations and theories. For this work
is a partial statement of what she herself has been taught by more advanced
students, supplemented, in a few details only, by the results of her
own study and observation. The publication of many of the facts herein stated
has been rendered necessary by the wild and fanciful speculations in which many
Theosophists and students of mysticism have indulged, during the last few years,
in their endeavour to, as they imagined, work out a complete system of thought
from the few facts previously communicated to them.
It is needless to explain that this book is not the Secret Doctrine in its
entirety, but a select number of fragments of its fundamental tenets, special
attention being paid to some facts which have been seized upon by various
writers, and distorted out of all resemblance to the truth.
But it is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that the teachings,
however fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes, belong neither
to the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian religion, neither
to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is
the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the various religious
schemes are now made to merge back into their original element, out of which
every mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and become materialised.
It is more than probable that the book will be regarded by a large section
of the public as a romance of the wildest kind; for who has ever even heard of
the book of Dzyan?
The writer, therefore, is fully prepared to take all the responsibility for
what is contained in this work, and even to face the charge of having invented
the whole of it. That it has many shortcomings she is fully aware; all that she
claims for it is that, romantic as it may seem to many, its logical coherence
and consistency entitle this new Genesis to rank, at any rate, on a level with
the "working hypotheses" so freely accepted by modern science. Further, it
claims consideration, not by reason of any appeal to dogmatic authority, but
because it closely adheres to Nature, and follows the laws of uniformity and
analogy.
The aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not "a
fortuitous concurrence of atoms," and to assign to man his rightful place in the
scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are
the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to some extent, the fundamental
unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that the occult side of
Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern civilization.
If this is in any degree accomplished, the writer is content. It is
written in the service of humanity, and by humanity and the future generations
it must be judged. Its author recognises no inferior court of appeal. Abuse she
is accustomed to; calumny she is daily acquainted with; at slander she smiles in
silent contempt.
De minimis non curat lex.
H.P.B.
London, October, 1888.
—————
INTRODUCTION ... xvii.
The Need of such a Book ... xix.
The Antiquity of Documents and MSS. ... xxiii.
What the Book is intended to do ... xxviii.
PROEM ... 1
The Oldest MSS. in the world and its Symbolism ... 2
The One Life, Active and Passive ... 4
The Secret Doctrine — Pantheism — Atheism ... 6
"Space" in all Religions and in Occultism ... 9
Seven Cosmic Elements — Seven Races of Mankind ... 12
The Three Postulates of the Secret Doctrine ... 14
Description of the Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan ... 20
—————
SEVEN STANZAS FROM THE BOOK OF DZYAN ... 27
—————
STANZA I. — THE NIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE... 35
The Seven Eternities ... 36
"Time" ... 37
The Universal Mind and the Dhyan Chohans ... 38
Nidana and Maya: The Causes of Misery ... 39
The Great Breath ... 43
Being and Non-Being ... 45
The Eye of Dangma ... 47
Alaya, the Universal Soul ... 49
STANZA II. — THE IDEA OF DIFFERENTIATION ... 53
The Absolute knows Itself not ... 55
The Germ of Life was not yet ... 57
The Universe was still concealed in the Divine Thought ... 61
—————
STANZA III. — THE AWAKENING OF KOSMOS ... 62
The Great Vibration ... 63
Nature's Symbols ... 65
The Power of Numbers ... 67
The Logoi and the Dragon ... 73
The Astral Light ... 75
Primeval Radiations from Unity ... 79
The Web of Being ... 83
Conscious Electricity: Fohat ... 85
—————
STANZA IV. — THE SEPTENARY HIERARCHIES ... 86
The Sons of the Fire ... 86
The Vehicle of the Universe — the Dhyan Chohans ... 89
The Army of the Voice ... 93
Speech and Mind ... 95
The Ogdoad and the Heptad ... 99
The Stellar "Sons of Light" ... 103
—————
STANZA V. — FOHAT: THE CHILD OF THE SEPTENARY HIERARCHIES ... 106
The Fiery Whirlwind and the Primordial Seven ... 106
They Produce Fohat ... 108
The Correlation of the "Gods" ... 113
Evolution of the "Principles" of Nature ... 119
The Mystery of the Fire ... 121
The Secret of the Elements ... 123
The Square of the Tabernacle ... 125
The Planetary Spirits and the Lipika ... 129
The Ring "Pass Not" ... 130
The Sidereal Book of Life ... 131
The Soul's Pilgrimage and its "Rest" ... 134
—————
STANZA VI.— OUR WORLD, ITS GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT ... 136
The Seven Layu Centres ... 138
The "Elementary Germs" ... 139
The Evolution of the Elements ... 140
The Building of the Worlds ... 145
A Neutral Centre ... 147
"Dead" Planets — The Moon ... 149
—————
THEOSOPHICAL MISCONCEPTIONS ... 152
The Planetary Divisions and the Human Principles ... 153
The Moon ... 155
Transmigrations of the Ego ... 159
The Septenary Chain ... 161
Relation of the other Planets to the Earth ... 163
—————
EXPLANATIONS CONCERNING THE GLOBES AND THE MONADS ... 170
The Lunar Chain and the Earth Chain ... 172
The Earth, the Child of the Moon ... 173
Classification of the Monads ... 175
The Monad Defined ... 177
The Lunar Monads—the Pitris ... 179
A Triple Evolution in Nature ... 181
—————
STANZA VI.— CONTINUED ... 191
"Creation" in the Fourth Round ... 191
The "Curse," "Sin," and "War" ... 193
The Struggle for Life and the Birth of the Worlds ... 202
The Adepts and the Sacred Island ... 207
—————
STANZA VII.— THE PARENTS OF MAN ON EARTH ... 213
Divisions of the Hierarchies ... 214
Correlations of Beings ... 223
What incarnates in Animal Man ... 233
Formation of Man: the Thinker ... 238
Occult and Kabalistic Pneumatics ... 243
Akasa and Ether ... 257
The Invisible "Lives" ... 259
Occult Vital Chemistry and Bacteriology ... 261
The Watcher and his Shadow ... 265
Earth peopled by the Shadows of the Gods ... 267
—————
SUMMING UP ... 269
The pith and marrow of the Secret Doctrine ... 273
Hermes in Christian Garb ... 285
Some Occult Aphorisms ... 289
The Seven Powers of Nature ... 293
—————
I. SYMBOLISM AND IDEOGRAPHS ... 303
Emblem and Symbol differ ... 305
Magic Potency of Sound ... 307
Mystery Language ... 309
—————
II. THE MYSTERY LANGUAGE AND ITS KEYS ... 310
Egypt's many Religions ... 311
The Jews and their System ... 313
Moses copied from Sargon ... 319
Identity of Ancient Symbols ... 323
—————
III. PRIMORDIAL SUBSTANCE AND DIVINE THOUGHT ... 325
Divine Thought, or Cineritious Matter? ... 327
Ether and Intelligence ... 330
The Seven Prakritis ... 335
The Mystic Fire ... 339
One Tree of Knowledge ... 341
—————
IV. CHAOS — THEOS — KOSMOS ... 342
The Union of Chaos and Spirit ... 343
The Birth of Mind ... 345
—————
V. THE HIDDEN DEITY, ITS SYMBOLS AND GLYPHS ... 349
The Gnostic Idea ... 351
International Correlation of Gods ... 355
VI. THE MUNDANE EGG ... 359
—————
VII. THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF BRAHMA ... 368
Human Gods and Divine Men ... 369
The Rebirth of Gods ... 371
The Puranic Prophecy ... 377
—————
VIII. THE LOTUS AS A UNIVERSAL SYMBOL ... 379
Exoteric and Esoteric ... 381
The Purity of early Phallicism ... 383
The Egyptian Lotus ... 385
—————
IX. DEUS LUNUS ... 386
A Glance at the Lunar Myth ... 387
A Key-note to the Moon ... 389
Copies and Originals... 393
The Moon Bi-sexual ... 397
—————
X. TREE AND SERPENT AND CROCODILE WORSHIP ... 403
Degeneration of the Symbol ... 405
The Seven-headed Dragons ... 407
Dragon and Crocodile ... 409
—————
XI. DEMON EST DEUS INVERSUS ... 411
Death is Life ... 413
The Fall of the Angels ... 418
Transformation of the Legend ... 421
—————
XII. THE THEOGONY OF THE CREATIVE GODS ... 424
The Point within the Circle ... 426
The Logos or Verbum ... 429
The Factors of Creation ... 432
Identity of the Hierarchies in all Religions ... 438
Difference between the Aryan and Semitic Systems ... 444
XIII. THE SEVEN CREATIONS ... 445
The Gnostic and the Hindu Versions ... 449
The Seven Puranic "Creations" ... 450
—————
XIV. THE FOUR ELEMENTS. ... 460
The "Gods" and the "Elements" ... 463
The Language of the Elements ... 464
Pagan and Christian Worship of the Elements ... 467
—————
XV. ON KWAN-SHI-YIN AND KWAN-YIN ... 470
Kwan-Shi-Yin and Phallicism ... 471
The Real Meaning ... 472
—————
I. REASONS FOR THESE ADDENDA ... 477
Occultism versus Materialism ... 479
The Sabbath of the Mystic ... 481
—————
II. MODERN PHYSICISTS ARE PLAYING AT BLIND MAN'S BUFF ... 482
—————
III. AN LUMEN SIT CORPUS NEC NON? ... 483
The Hypothetical Ether ... 485
Scientific Theories of its Constitution ... 489
—————
IV. IS GRAVITATION A LAW? ... 490
Intelligences or Blind Forces? ... 493
The Cause of Attraction ... 498
V. THE THEORIES OF ROTATION SCIENCE ... 500
—————
VI. THE MASKS OF SCIENCE ... 506
What are the "Forces?" ... 508
The View of the Occultists ... 510
Scientific and Occult Theories on Heat ... 515
The Atoms of Science ... 519
—————
VII. AN ATTACK ON THE SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF FORCE BY A MAN OF SCIENCE ... 523
Ether and Atoms ... 527
—————
VIII. LIFE, FORCE, OR GRAVITY? ... 529
Dr. Richardson on Nervous Ether ... 531
The Senses and their Action ... 535
Too much "Life" may Kill ... 539
—————
IX. THE SOLAR THEORY ... 540
The Primordial Element ... 542
Elements and Meta-Elements ... 546
The Tree of Life and Being ... 549
Prof. Crookes on the Elements ... 552
—————
X. THE COMING FORCE ... 554
Mr. Keeley, an Unconscious Occultist ... 557
Inter-Etheric Waves ... 561
The Secrets of Sound and Odour ... 565
—————
Xl. ON THE ELEMENTS AND ATOMS ... 566
Metaphysical Chemistry ... 569
What are the Seven Planets? ... 575
The Cyclic Fall of the Gods ... 577
XII. ANCIENT THOUGHT IN MODERN DRESS ... 579
All-Potential Unity ... 583
The "Seventh" in Chemistry ... 585
—————
XIII. THE MODERN NEBULAR THEORY ... 588
—————
XIV. FORCES — MODES OF MOTION OR INTELLIGENCES? ... 601
The Vital Principle ... 603
Occult and Physical Science ... 605
—————
XV. GODS, MONADS, AND ATOMS ... 610
The Gods of the Ancients — the Monads ... 613
The Monad and the Duad ... 617
The Genesis of the Elements ... 621
Hermes and Huxley ... 625
The Teaching of Leibnitz ... 627
The Monads according to Occultism ... 632
—————
XVI. CYCLIC EVOLUTION AND KARMA ... 634
Karmic Cycles and Universal Ethics ... 637
Destiny and Karma ... 639
Karma-Nemesis ... 643
—————
XVII. THE ZODIAC AND ITS ANTIQUITY ... 647
The Jewish Patriarchs and the Signs of the Zodiac ... 651
Zodiacal Cycles ... 656
Hindu Astronomy ... 661
—————
XVIII. SUMMARY OF THE MUTUAL POSITION ... 668
Science Confesses her Ignorance ... 669
Materialism is leading Europe towards a catastrophe ... 675
—————
INTRODUCTORY.
—————
“Gently to hear, kindly to judge.”
—SHAKESPEARE.
SINCE the appearance of Theosophical
literature in England, it has become customary to call its teachings “Esoteric
Buddhism.” And, having become a habit—as an old proverb based on daily
experience has it—“Error runs down an inclined plane, while Truth has to
laboriously climb its way up hill.”
Old truisms are often the wisest. The human mind can hardly remain entirely
free from bias, and decisive opinions are often formed before a thorough
examination of a subject from all its aspects has been made. This is said with
reference to the prevailing double mistake (a) of limiting Theosophy to
Buddhism: and (b) of confounding the tenets of the religious philosophy preached
by Gautama, the Buddha, with the doctrines broadly outlined in “Esoteric
Buddhism.” Any thing more erroneous than this could be hardly imagined. It has
enabled our enemies to find an effective weapon against theosophy; because, as
an eminent Pali scholar very pointedly expressed it, there was in the volume
named “neither esotericism nor Buddhism.” The esoteric truths, presented in Mr.
Sinnett’s work, had ceased to be esoteric from the moment they were made public;
nor did it contain the religion of Buddha, but simply a few tenets from a
hitherto hidden teaching which are now supplemented by many more, enlarged and
explained in the present volumes. But even the latter, though giving out many
fundamental tenets from the SECRET DOCTRINE
of the East, raise but a small corner of the dark veil. For no one, not even the
greatest living adept, would be permitted to, or could—even if he would—give out
promiscuously, to a mocking, unbelieving world, that which has been so
effectually concealed from it for long æons and ages.
“Esoteric Buddhism” was an excellent work with a very unfortunate
xviii
INTRODUCTORY.
title, though it meant no more than does the title of this work,
the “SECRET DOCTRINE.” It proved
unfortunate, because people are always in the habit of judging things by their
appearance, rather than their meaning; and because the error has now become so
universal, that even most of the Fellows of the Theosophical Society have fallen
victims to the same misconception. From the first, however, protests were raised
by Brahmins and others against the title; and, in justice to myself, I must add
that “Esoteric Buddhism” was presented to me as a completed volume, and that I
was entirely unaware of the manner in which the author intended to spell the
word “Budh-ism.”
This has to be laid directly at the door of those who, having been the first
to bring the subject under public notice, neglected to point out the difference
between “Buddhism”—the religious system of ethics preached by the Lord Gautama,
and named after his title of Buddha, “the Enlightened”—and Budha, “Wisdom,” or
knowledge (Vidya), the faculty of cognizing, from the Sanskrit root “Budh,” to
know. We theosophists of India are ourselves the real culprits, although, at the
time, we did our best to correct the mistake. (See Theosophist, June, 1883.) To
avoid this deplorable misnomer was easy; the spelling of the word had only to be
altered, and by common consent both pronounced and written “Budhism,” instead of
“Buddhism.” Nor is the latter term correctly spelt and pronounced, as it ought
to be called, in English, Buddhaïsm, and its votaries “Buddhaïsts.”
This explanation is absolutely necessary at the beginning of a work like
this one. The “Wisdom religion” is the inheritance of all the nations, the world
over, though the statement was made in “Esoteric Buddhism” (Preface to the
original Edition) that “two years ago (i.e. 1883), neither I nor any other
European living, knew the alphabet of the Science, here for the first time put
into a scientific shape,” etc. This error must have crept in through
inadvertence. For the present writer knew all that which is “divulged” in
“Esoteric Buddhism”— and much more — many years before it became her duty (in
1880) to impart a small portion of the Secret Doctrine to two European
gentlemen, one of whom was the author of “Esoteric Buddhism”; and surely the
present writer has the undoubted, though to her, rather equivocal, privilege of
being a European, by birth and education. Moreover, a considerable part of the
philosophy
xix
INTRODUCTORY.
expounded by Mr. Sinnett was taught in America, even before Isis
Unveiled was published, to two Europeans and to my colleague, Colonel H. S.
Olcott. Of the three teachers the latter gentleman has had, the first was a
Hungarian Initiate, the second an Egyptian, the third a Hindu. As permitted,
Colonel Olcott has given out some of this teaching in various ways; if the other
two have not, it has been simply because they were not allowed: their time for
public work having not yet come. But for others it has, and the appearance of
Mr. Sinnett’s several interesting books is a visible proof of the fact. It is
above everything important to keep in mind that no theosophical book acquires
the least additional value from pretended authority.
In etymology Adi, and Adhi Budha, the one (or the First) and “Supreme
Wisdom” is a term used by Aryâsanga in his Secret treatises, and now by all the
mystic Northern Buddhists. It is a Sanskrit term, and an appellation given by
the earliest Aryans to the Unknown deity; the word “Brahmâ” not being found in
the Vedas and the early works. It means the absolute Wisdom, and “Adi-bhûta” is
translated “the primeval uncreated cause of all” by Fitzedward Hall. Æons of
untold duration must have elapsed, before the epithet of Buddha was so
humanized, so to speak, as to allow of the term being applied to mortals and
finally appropriated to one whose unparalleled virtues and knowledge caused him
to receive the title of the “Buddha of Wisdom unmoved” Bodha means the innate
possession of divine intellect or “understanding”; “Buddha,” the acquirement of
it by personal efforts and merit; while Buddhi is the faculty of cognizing the
channel through which divine knowledge reaches the “Ego,” the discernment of
good and evil, “divine conscience” also; and “Spiritual Soul,” which is the
vehicle of Atma. “When Buddhi absorbs our EGO-tism
(destroys it) with all its Vikaras, Avalôkitêshvara becomes manifested to us,
and Nirvana, or Mukti, is reached,” “Mukti” being the same as Nirvana, i.e.,
freedom from the trammels of “Maya” or illusion. “Bodhi” is likewise the name of
a particular state of trance condition, called Samadhi, during which the subject
reaches the culmination of spiritual knowledge.
Unwise are those who, in their blind and, in our age, untimely hatred of
Buddhism, and, by reaction, of “Budhism,” deny its esoteric teachings (which are
those also of the Brahmins), simply because the name
xx
INTRODUCTORY.
suggests what to them, as Monotheists, are noxious doctrines.
Unwise is the correct term to use in their case. For the Esoteric philosophy is
alone calculated to withstand, in this age of crass and illogical materialism,
the repeated attacks on all and everything man holds most dear and sacred, in
his inner spiritual life. The true philosopher, the student of the Esoteric
Wisdom, entirely loses sight of personalities, dogmatic beliefs and special
religions. Moreover, Esoteric philosophy reconciles all religions, strips every
one of its outward, human garments, and shows the root of each to be identical
with that of every other great religion. It proves the necessity of an absolute
Divine Principle in nature. It denies Deity no more than it does the Sun.
Esoteric philosophy has never rejected God in Nature, nor Deity as the absolute
and abstract Ens. It only refuses to accept any of the gods of the so-called
monotheistic religions, gods created by man in his own image and likeness, a
blasphemous and sorry caricature of the Ever Unknowable. Furthermore, the
records we mean to place before the reader embrace the esoteric tenets of the
whole world since the beginning of our humanity, and Buddhistic occultism
occupies therein only its legitimate place, and no more. Indeed, the secret
portions of the “Dan” or “Jan-na” * (“Dhyan”) of Gautama’s
metaphysics—grand as they appear to one unacquainted with the tenets of the
Wisdom Religion of antiquity—are but a very small portion of the whole. The
Hindu Reformer limited his public teachings to the purely moral and
physiological aspect of the Wisdom-Religion, to Ethics and MAN
alone. Things “unseen and incorporeal,” the mystery of Being outside our
terrestrial sphere, the great Teacher left entirely untouched in his public
lectures, reserving the hidden Truths for a select circle of his Arhats. The
latter received their Initiation at the famous Saptaparna cave (the Sattapanni
of Mahavansa) near Mount Baibhâr (the Webhâra of the Pali MSS.). This cave was
in Rajagriha, the ancient capital of Mogadha, and was the Cheta cave of Fa-hian,
as rightly suspected by some archæologists.†
Time and human imagination made short work of the purity and philo-
——————————————————————————————
* Dan, now become in modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics
ch’an, is the general term for the esoteric schools, and their literature. In
the old books, the word Janna is defined as “to reform one’s self by meditation
and knowledge,” a second inner birth. Hence Dzan, Djan phonetically, the “Book
of Dzyan.”
† Mr. Beglor, the chief engineer at Buddhagaya, and a
distinguished archæologist, was the first, we believe, to discover it.
xxi
INTRODUCTORY.
sophy of these teachings, once that they were transplanted from
the secret and sacred circle of the Arhats, during the course of their work of
proselytism, into a soil less prepared for metaphysical conceptions than India;
i.e., once they were transferred into China, Japan, Siam, and Burmah. How the
pristine purity of these grand revelations was dealt with may be seen in
studying some of the so-called “esoteric” Buddhist schools of antiquity in their
modern garb, not only in China and other Buddhist countries in general, but even
in not a few schools in Thibet, left to the care of uninitiated Lamas and
Mongolian innovators.
Thus the reader is asked to bear in mind the very important difference
between orthodox Buddhism—i.e., the public teachings of Gautama the Buddha, and
his esoteric Budhism. His Secret Doctrine, however, differed in no wise from
that of the initiated Brahmins of his day. The Buddha was a child of the Aryan
soil; a born Hindu, a Kshatrya and a disciple of the “twice born” (the initiated
Brahmins) or Dwijas. His teachings, therefore, could not be different from their
doctrines, for the whole Buddhist reform merely consisted in giving out a
portion of that which had been kept secret from every man outside of the
“enchanted” circle of Temple-Initiates and ascetics. Unable to teach all that
had been imparted to him—owing to his pledges—though he taught a philosophy
built upon the ground-work of the true esoteric knowledge, the Buddha gave to
the world only its outward material body and kept its soul for his Elect. (See
also Volume II.) Many Chinese scholars among Orientalists have heard of the
“Soul Doctrine.” None seem to have understood its real meaning and importance.
That doctrine was preserved secretly—too secretly,
perhaps—within the sanctuary. The mystery that shrouded its chief dogma and
aspirations—Nirvana—has so tried and irritated the curiosity of those scholars
who have studied it, that, unable to solve it logically and satisfactorily by
untying the Gordian knot, they cut it through, by declaring that Nirvana meant
absolute annihilation.
Toward the end of the first quarter of this century, a
distinct class of literature appeared in the world, which became with every year
more defined in its tendency. Being based, soi-disant, on the scholarly
researches of Sanskritists and Orientalists in general, it was held scientific.
Hindu, Egyptian, and other ancient religions, myths, and emblems were made to
yield anything the symbologist wanted them to
xxii
INTRODUCTORY.
yield, thus often giving out the rude outward form in place of
the inner meaning. Works, most remarkable for their ingenious deductions and
speculations, in circulo vicioso, foregone conclusions generally changing places
with premises as in the syllogisms of more than one Sanskrit and Pali scholar,
appeared rapidly in succession, over-flooding the libraries with dissertations
rather on phallic and sexual worship than on real symbology, and each
contradicting the other.
This is the true reason, perhaps, why the outline of a few fundamental
truths from the Secret Doctrine of the Archaic ages is now permitted to see the
light, after long millenniums of the most profound silence and secrecy. I say “a
few truths,” advisedly, because that which must remain unsaid could not be
contained in a hundred such volumes, nor could it be imparted to the present
generation of Sadducees. But, even the little that is now given is better than
complete silence upon those vital truths. The world of to-day, in its mad career
towards the unknown—which it is too ready to confound with the unknowable,
whenever the problem eludes the grasp of the physicist—is rapidly progressing on
the reverse, material plane of spirituality. It has now become a vast arena—a
true valley of discord and of eternal strife—a necropolis, wherein lie buried
the highest and the most holy aspirations of our Spirit-Soul. That soul becomes
with every new generation more paralyzed and atrophied. The “amiable infidels
and accomplished profligates” of Society, spoken of by Greeley, care little for
the revival of the dead sciences of the past; but there is a fair minority of
earnest students who are entitled to learn the few truths that may be given to
them now; and now much more than ten years ago, when “Isis Unveiled,” or even
the later attempts to explain the mysteries of esoteric science, were published.
One of the greatest, and, withal, the most serious objection to the
correctness and reliability of the whole work will be the preliminary STANZAS:
“How can the statements contained in them be verified?” True, if a great portion
of the Sanskrit, Chinese, and Mongolian works quoted in the present volumes are
known to some Orientalists, the chief work—that one from which the Stanzas are
given—is not in the possession of European Libraries. The Book of Dzyan (or “Dzan”)
is utterly unknown to our Philologists, or at any rate was never heard of by
them under its present name. This is, of course, a great drawback
xxiii
INTRODUCTORY.
to those who follow the methods of research prescribed by
official Science; but to the students of Occultism, and to every genuine
Occultist, this will be of little moment. The main body of the Doctrines given
is found scattered throughout hundreds and thousands of Sanskrit MSS., some
already translated—disfigured in their interpretations, as usual,—others still
awaiting their turn. Every scholar, therefore, has an opportunity of verifying
the statements herein made, and of checking most of the quotations. A few new
facts (new to the profane Orientalist, only) and passages quoted from the
Commentaries will be found difficult to trace. Several of the teachings, also,
have hitherto been transmitted orally: yet even those are in every instance
hinted at in the almost countless volumes of Brahminical, Chinese and Tibetan
temple-literature.
However it may be, and whatsoever is in store for the writer through
malevolent criticism, one fact is quite certain. The members of several esoteric
schools—the seat of which is beyond the Himalayas, and whose ramifications may
be found in China, Japan, India, Tibet, and even in Syria, besides South
America—claim to have in their possession the sum total of sacred and
philosophical works in MSS. and type: all the works, in fact, that have ever
been written, in whatever language or characters, since the art of writing
began; from the ideographic hieroglyphs down to the alphabet of Cadmus and the
Devanagari.
It has been claimed in all ages that ever since the destruction of the
Alexandrian Library (see Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., p. 27), every work of a
character that might have led the profane to the ultimate discovery and
comprehension of some of the mysteries of the Secret Science, was, owing to the
combined efforts of the members of the Brotherhoods, diligently searched for. It
is added, moreover, by those who know, that once found, save three copies left
and stored safely away, such works were all destroyed. In India, the last of the
precious manuscripts were secured and hidden during the reign of the Emperor
Akbar.*
It is maintained, furthermore, that every sacred book of that kind, whose
text was not sufficiently veiled in symbolism, or which had any
——————————————————————————————
* Prof. Max Müller shows that no bribes or threats of Akbar
could extort from the Brahmans the original text of the Veda; and boasts that
European Orientalists have it (Lecture on the “Science of Religion,” p. 23),
Whether Europe has the complete text is very doubtful, and the future may have
very disagreeable surprises in store for the Orientalists.
xxiv
INTRODUCTORY.
direct references to the ancient mysteries, after having been
carefully copied in cryptographic characters, such as to defy the art of the
best and cleverest palæographer, was also destroyed to the last copy. During
Akbar’s reign, some fanatical courtiers, displeased at the Emperor’s sinful
prying into the religions of the infidels, themselves helped the Brahmans to
conceal their MSS. Such was Badáonì, who had all undisguised horror for Akbar’s
mania for idolatrous religions.*
Moreover in all the large and wealthy lamaseries, there are subterranean
crypts and cave-libraries, cut in the rock, whenever the gonpa and the lhakhang
are situated in the mountains. Beyond the Western Tsaydam, in the solitary
passes of Kuen-lun † there are several such hiding-places. Along the
ridge of Altyn-Toga, whose soil no European foot has ever trodden so far, there
exists a certain hamlet, lost in a deep gorge. It is a small cluster of houses,
a hamlet rather than a monastery, with a poor-looking temple in it, with one old
lama, a hermit, living nearby to watch it. Pilgrims say that the subterranean
galleries and halls under it contain a collection of books, the number of which,
according to the accounts given, is too large to find room even in the British
Museum. ‡
All this is very likely to provoke a smile of doubt. But then, before
——————————————————————————————
* Badáoní wrote in his Muntakhab at Tawarikh: “His Majesty
relished inquiries into the sects of these infidels (who cannot be counted, so
numerous they are, and who have no end of revealed books) . . . As they (the
Sramana and Brahmins) surpass other learned men in their treatises on morals, on
physical and religious sciences, and reach a high degree in their knowledge of
the future, in spiritual power, and human perfection, they brought proofs based
on reason and testimony, and inculcated their doctrines so firmly that no man
could now raise a doubt in his Majesty even if mountains were to crumble to
dust, or the heavens were to tear asunder.” This work “was kept secret, and was
not published till the reign of Jahângir.” (Ain i Akbari, translated by Dr.
Blochmann, p. 104, note.)
† Karakorum mountains, Western Tibet.
‡ According to the same tradition the now desolate regions of
the waterless land of Tarim—a true wilderness in the heart of Turkestan—were in
the days of old covered with flourishing and wealthy cities. At present, hardly
a few verdant oases relieve its dead solitude. One such, sprung on the sepulchre
of a vast city swallowed by and buried under the sandy soil of the desert,
belongs to no one, but is often visited by Mongolians and Buddhists. The same
tradition speaks of immense subterranean abodes, of large corridors filled with
tiles and cylinders. It may be an idle rumour, and it may be an actual fact.
xxv
INTRODUCTORY.
the reader rejects the truthfulness of the reports, let him
pause and reflect over the following well known facts. The collective researches
of the Orientalists, and especially the labours of late years of the students of
comparative Philology and the Science of Religions have led them to ascertain as
follows: An immense, incalculable number of MSS., and even printed works known
to have existed, are now to be found no more. They have disappeared without
leaving the slightest trace behind them. Were they works of no importance they
might, in the natural course of time, have been left to perish, and their very
names would have been obliterated from human memory. But it is not so; for, as
now ascertained, most of them contained the true keys to works still extant, and
entirely incomprehensible, for the greater portion of their readers, without
those additional volumes of Commentaries and explanations. Such are, for
instance, the works of Lao-tse, the predecessor of Confucius.*
He is said to have written 930 books on Ethics and religions, and seventy on
magic, one thousand in all. His great work, however, the heart of his doctrine,
the “Tao-te-King,” or the sacred scriptures of the Taosse, has in it, as
Stanislas Julien shows, only “about 5,000 words” (Tao-te-King, p. xxvii.),
hardly a dozen of pages, yet Professor Max Müller finds that “the text is
unintelligible without commentaries, so that Mr. Julien had to consult more than
sixty commentators for the purpose of his translation,” the earliest going back
as far as the year 163 B.C., not earlier, as we see. During the four centuries
and a half that preceded this earliest of the commentators there was ample time
to veil the true Lao-tse doctrine from all but his initiated priests. The
Japanese, among whom are now to be found the most learned of the priests and
followers of Lao-tse, simply laugh at the blunders and hypotheses of the
European Chinese scholars; and tradition affirms that the commentaries to which
our Western Sinologues have access are not the real occult records, but
intentional veils, and that the true commentaries, as well as almost all the
texts, have long since disappeared from the eyes of the profane.
——————————————————————————————
* “If we turn to China, we find that the religion of
Confucius is founded on the Five King and the Four Shu-books, in themselves of
considerable extent and surrounded by voluminous Commentaries, without which
even the most learned scholars would not venture to fathom the depth of their
sacred canon.” (Lectures on the “Science of Religion,” p. 185. Max Müller.) But
they have not fathomed it—and this is the complaint of the Confucianists, as a
very learned member of that body, in Paris, complained in 1881,
xxvi
INTRODUCTORY.
If one turns to the ancient literature of the
Semitic religions, to the Chaldean Scriptures, the elder sister and
instructress, if not the fountainhead of the Mosaic Bible, the basis and
starting-point of Christianity, what do the scholars find? To perpetuate the
memory of the ancient religions of Babylon; to record the vast cycle of
astronomical observations of the Chaldean Magi; to justify the tradition of
their splendid and eminently occult literature, what now remains?—only a few
fragments, said to be by Berosus.
These, however, are almost valueless, even as a clue to the
character of what has disappeared. For they passed through the hands of his
Reverence the Bishop of Cæsarea—that self-constituted censor and editor of the
sacred records of other men’s religions—and they doubtless bear to this day the
mark of his eminently veracious and trustworthy hand. For what is the history of
this treatise on the once grand religion of Babylon?
Written in Greek by Berosus, a priest of the temple of Belus,
for Alexander the Great, from the astronomical and chronological records
preserved by the priests of that temple, and covering a period of 200,000 years,
it is now lost. In the first century B.C. Alexander Polyhistor made a series of
extracts from it—also lost. Eusebius used these extracts in writing his
Chronicon (270—340 A.D.). The points of resemblance—almost of identity—between
the Jewish and the Chaldean Scriptures,* made the latter most dangerous
to Eusebius, in his rôle of defender and champion of the new faith which had
adopted the Jewish Scriptures, and with them an absurd chronology. It is pretty
certain that Eusebius did not spare the Egyptian Synchronistic tables of
Manetho—so much so that Bunsen† charges him with mutilating history most
unscrupulously. And Socrates, a historian of the fifth century, and Syncellus,
vice-patriarch of Constantinople (eighth century), both denounce him as the most
daring and desperate forger.
Is it likely, then, that he dealt more tenderly with the Chaldean records, which
were already menacing the new religion, so rashly accepted?
——————————————————————————————
* Found out and proven only now, through the discoveries
made by George Smith (vide his “Chaldean account of Genesis”), and which, thanks
to this Armenian forger, have misled all the civilized nations for over 1,500
years into accepting Jewish derivations for direct Divine Revelation!
† Bunsen’s “Egypt’s Place in History,” vol. i. p. 200
xxvii
INTRODUCTORY.
So that, with the exception of these more
than doubtful fragments, the entire Chaldean sacred literature has disappeared
from the eyes of the profane as completely as the lost Atlantis. A few facts
that were contained in the Berosian History are given in Part II. of Vol. II.,
and may throw a great light on the true origin of the Fallen Angels, personified
by Bel and the Dragon.
Turning now to the oldest Aryan literature, the Rig-Veda, the student will
find, following strictly in this the data furnished by the said Orientalists
themselves, that, although the Rig-Veda contains only “about 10,580 verses, or
1,028 hymns,” in spite of the Brâhmanas and the mass of glosses and
commentaries, it is not understood correctly to this day. Why is this so?
Evidently because the Brâhmanas, “the scholastic and oldest treatises on the
primitive hymns,” themselves require a key, which the Orientalists have failed
to secure.
What do the scholars say of Buddhist literature? Have they got it in its
completeness? Assuredly not. Notwithstanding the 325 volumes of the Kanjur and
the Tanjur of the Northern Buddhists, each volume we are told, “weighing from
four to five pounds,” nothing, in truth, is known of Lamaism. Yet, the sacred
canon of the Southern Church is said to contain 29,368,000 letters in the
Saddharma alankâra,* or, exclusive of treatises and commentaries, “five
or six times the amount of the matter contained in the Bible,” the latter, in
the words of Professor Max Müller, rejoicing only in 3,567,180 letters.
Notwithstanding, then, these “325 volumes” (in reality there are 333, Kanjur
comprising 108, and Tanjur 225 volumes), “the translators, instead of supplying
us with correct versions, have interwoven them with their own commentaries, for
the purpose of justifying the dogmas of their several schools.Ӡ
Moreover, “according to a tradition preserved by the Buddhist schools, both of
the South and of the North, the sacred Buddhist Canon comprised originally
80,000 or 84,000 tracts, but most of them were lost, so that there remained but
6,000,” the professor tells his audiences. “Lost” as usual for Europeans. But
who can be quite sure that they are likewise lost for Buddhists and Brahmins?
Considering the sacredness for the Buddhists of every line written
——————————————————————————————
* Spence Hardy, “The Legends and Theories of the
Buddhists,” p. 66.
† “Buddhism in Tibet,” p. 78.
xxviii
INTRODUCTORY.
upon Buddha or his “Good Law,” the loss of nearly 76,000 tracts
does seem miraculous. Had it been vice versâ, every one acquainted with the
natural course of events would subscribe to the statement that, of these 76,000,
five or six thousand treatises might have been destroyed during the persecutions
in, and emigrations from, India. But as it is well ascertained that Buddhist
Arhats began their religious exodus, for the purpose of propagating the new
faith beyond Kashmir and the Himalayas, as early as the year 300 before our era,*
and reached China in the year 61 A.D. † when Kashyapa, at the invitation
of the Emperor Ming-ti, went there to acquaint the “Son of Heaven” with the
tenets of Buddhism, it does seem strange to hear the Orientalists speaking of
such a loss as though it were really possible. They do not seem to allow for one
moment the possibility that the texts may be lost only for West and for
themselves or, that the Asiatic people should have the unparalleled boldness to
keep their most sacred records out of the reach of foreigners, thus refusing to
deliver them to the profanation and misuse of races even so “vastly superior” to
themselves.
Owing to the expressed regrets and numerous confessions of almost every one
of the Orientalists (See Max Müller’s Lectures for example) the public may feel
sufficiently sure (a) that the students of ancient religions have indeed very
few data upon which to build such final conclusions as they generally do about
the old religions, and (b) that such lack of data does not prevent them in the
least from dogmatising. One would imagine that, thanks to the numerous records
of the Egyptian theogony and mysteries preserved in the classics, and in a
number of ancient writers, the rites and dogmas of Pharaonic Egypt ought to be
well understood at least; better, at any rate, than the too abstruse
philosophies and Pantheism of India, of whose religion and language Europe had
hardly any idea before the beginning of the present century. Along the Nile and
on the face of the whole country, there stand to this hour, exhumed yearly and
daily, fresh relics which eloquently tell their own history. Still it is not so.
The learned Oxford philologist himself confesses the truth by saying that
“Though . . . we
see still standing the Pyramids, and the ruins of temples and labyrinths, their
walls
——————————————————————————————
* Lassen, (“Ind. Althersumkunde” Vol. II, p. 1,072) shows
a Buddhist monastery erected in the Kailas range in 137 B.C.; and General
Cunningham, earlier than that.
† Reverend T. Edkins, “Chinese Buddhism.”
xxix
INTRODUCTORY.
covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, and with the strange
pictures of gods and goddesses.
. . On rolls of papyrus, which seem to defy the ravages of time, we have
even fragments of what may be called the sacred books of the Egyptians; yet,
though much has been deciphered in the ancient records of that mysterious race,
the mainspring of the religion of Egypt and the original intention of its
ceremonial worship are far from being fully disclosed to us.” * Here again the
mysterious hieroglyphic documents remain, but the keys by which alone they
become intelligible have disappeared.
Nevertheless, having found that “there is a natural connection between
language and religion”; and, secondly, that there was a common Aryan religion
before the separation of the Aryan race; a common Semitic religion before the
separation of the Semitic race; and a common Turanian religion before the
separation of the Chinese and the other tribes belonging to the Turanian class;
having, in fact, only discovered “three ancient centres of religion” and “three
centres of language,” and though as entirely ignorant of those primitive
religions and languages, as of their origin, the professor does not hesitate to
declare “that a truly historical basis for a scientific treatment of those
principal religions of the world has been gained!”
A “scientific treatment” of a subject is no guarantee for its “historical
basis”; and with such scarcity of data on hand, no philologist, even among the
most eminent, is justified in giving out his own conclusions for historical
facts. No doubt, the eminent Orientalist has proved thoroughly to the world’s
satisfaction, that according to Grimm’s law of phonetic rules, Odin and Buddha
are two different personages, quite distinct from each other, and he has shown
it scientifically. When, however he takes the opportunity of saying in the same
breath that Odin “was worshipped as the supreme deity during a period long
anterior to the age of the Veda and of Homer” (Compar. Theol., p. 318), he has
not the slightest “historical basis” for it. He makes history and fact
subservient to his
——————————————————————————————
* So little acquainted are our greatest Egyptologists with the
funerary rites of the Egyptians and the outward marks of the difference of sexes
made on the mummies, that it has led to the most ludicrous mistakes. Only a year
or two since, one of that kind was discovered at Boulaq, Cairo. The mummy of
what had been considered the wife of an unimportant Pharaoh, has turned out,
thanks to an inscription found on an amulet hung on his neck, to be that of
Sesostris—the greatest King of Egypt!
xxx
INTRODUCTORY.
own conclusions, which may be very “scientific,” in the sight of
Oriental scholars, but yet very wide of the mark of actual truth. The
conflicting views on the subject of chronology, in the case of the Vedas, of the
various eminent philologists and Orientalists, from Martin Haug down to Mr. Max
Müller himself, are an evident proof that the statement has no historical basis
to stand upon, “internal evidence” being very often a Jack-o’-lantern, instead
of a safe beacon to follow. Nor has the Science of modern Comparative Mythology
any better proof to show, that those learned writers, who have insisted for the
last century or so that there must have been “fragments of a primeval
revelation, granted to the ancestors of the whole race of mankind.
. . preserved in the temples of Greece and Italy,” were entirely wrong.
For this is what all the Eastern Initiates and Pundits have been proclaiming to
the world from time to time. While a prominent Cinghalese priest assured the
writer that it was well known that the most important Buddhist tracts belonging
to the sacred canon were stored away in countries and places inaccessible to the
European pundits, the late Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, the greatest Sanskritist of
his day in India, assured some members of the Theosophical Society of the same
fact with regard to ancient Brahmanical works. When told that Professor Max
Müller had declared to the audiences of his “Lectures” that the theory
. . .“that there
was a primeval preternatural revelation granted to the fathers of the human
race, finds but few supporters at present,”—the holy and learned man laughed.
His answer was suggestive. “If Mr. Moksh Mooller, as he pronounced the name,
were a Brahmin, and came with me, I might take him to a gupta cave (a secret
crypt) near Okhee Math, in the Himalayas, where he would soon find out that what
crossed the Kalapani (the black waters of the ocean) from India to Europe were
only the bits of rejected copies of some passages from our sacred books. There
was a “primeval revelation,” and it still exists; nor will it ever be lost to
the world, but will reappear; though the Mlechchhas will of course have to
wait.”
Questioned further on this point, he would say no more. This was at Meerut,
in 1880.
No doubt the mystification played, in the last century at Calcutta, by the
Brahmins upon Colonel Wilford and Sir William Jones was a cruel one. But it had
been well deserved, and no one was more to be blamed
xxxi
INTRODUCTORY.
in that affair than the Missionaries and Colonel Wilford
themselves. The former, on the testimony of Sir William Jones himself (see Asiat.
Res., Vol. I., p. 272), were silly enough to maintain that “the Hindus were even
now almost Christians, because their Brahmâ, Vishnu and Mahesa were no other
than the Christian trinity.” * It was a good lesson. It made the Oriental
scholars doubly cautious; but perchance it has also made some of them too shy,
and caused, in its reaction, the pendulum of foregone conclusions to swing too
much the other way. For “that first supply on the Brahmanical market,” made for
Colonel Wilford, has now created an evident necessity and desire in the
Orientalists to declare nearly every archaic Sanskrit manuscript so modern as to
give to the missionaries full justification for availing themselves of the
opportunity. That they do so and to the full extent of their mental powers, is
shown by the absurd attempts of late to prove that the whole Purânic story about
Chrishna was plagiarized by the Brahmins from the Bible ! But the facts cited by
the Oxford Professor in his Lectures on the “Science of Religion,” concerning
the now famous interpolations, for the benefit, and later on to the sorrow, of
Col. Wilford, do not at all interfere with the conclusions to which one who
studies the Secret Doctrine must unavoidably come. For, if the results show that
neither the New nor even the Old Testament borrowed anything from the more
ancient religion of the Brahmans and Buddhists, it does not follow that the Jews
have not borrowed all they knew from the Chaldean records, the latter being
mutilated later on by Eusebius. As to the Chaldeans, they assuredly got their
primitive learning from the Brahmans, for Rawlinson shows an undeniably Vedic
influence in the early mythology of Babylon; and Col. Vans Kennedy has long
since justly declared that Babylonia was, from her origin, the seat of Sanskrit
and Brahman learning. But all such proofs must lose their value, in the presence
of the latest theory worked out by Prof. Max Müller. What it is everyone knows.
The code of phonetic laws has now become a universal solvent for every
identification and “connection” between
——————————————————————————————
* See Max Müller’s “Introduction to the Science of Religion.”
Lecture On False Analogies in comparative Theology, pp. 288 and 296 et seq. This
relates to the clever forgery (on leaves inserted in old Purânic MSS.), in
correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pundits of Col. Wilford had heard
from him about Adam and Abraham, Noah and his three sons, etc., etc.
xxxii
INTRODUCTORY.
the gods of many nations. Thus, though the Mother of Mercury (Budha,
Thot-Hermes, etc.), was Maïa, the mother of Buddha (Gautama), also Mâyâ, and the
mother of Jesus, likewise Maya (illusion, for Mary is Mare, the Sea, the great
illusion symbolically)—yet these three characters have no connection, nor can
they have any, since Bopp has “laid down his code of phonetic laws.”
In their efforts to collect together the many skeins of unwritten history,
it is a bold step for our Orientalists to take, to deny, a priori, everything
that does not dovetail with their special conclusions. Thus, while new
discoveries are daily made of great arts and sciences having existed far back in
the night of time, even the knowledge of writing is refused to some of the most
ancient nations, and they are credited with barbarism instead of culture. Yet
the traces of an immense civilization, even in Central Asia, are still to be
found. This civilization is undeniably prehistoric. And how can there be
civilization without a literature, in some form, without annals or chronicles?
Common sense alone ought to supplement the broken links in the history of
departed nations. The gigantic, unbroken wall of the mountains that hem in the
whole table-land of Tibet, from the upper course of the river Khuan-Khé down to
the Kara-Korum hills, witnessed a civilization during milleniums of years, and
would have strange secrets to tell mankind. The Eastern and Central portions of
those regions—the Nan-Schayn and the Altyne-taga—were once upon a time covered
with cities that could well vie with Babylon. A whole geological period has
swept over the land, since those cities breathed their last, as the mounds of
shifting sand, and the sterile and now dead soil of the immense central plains
of the basin of Tarim testify. The borderlands alone are superficially known to
the traveller. Within those table-lands of sand there is water, and fresh oases
are found blooming there, wherein no European foot has ever yet ventured, or
trodden the now treacherous soil. Among these verdant oases there are some which
are entirely inaccessible even to the native profane traveller. Hurricanes may
“tear up the sands and sweep whole plains away,” they are powerless to destroy
that which is beyond their reach. Built deep in the bowels of the earth, the
subterranean stores are secure; and as their entrances are concealed in such
oases, there is little fear that anyone should discover them, even should
several armies invade the sandy wastes where—
xxxiii
INTRODUCTORY.
“Not a pool, not a bush, not a house is seen,
And the mountain-range forms a rugged screen
Round the parch’d flats of the dry, dry desert.
. .”
But there is no need to send the reader across the desert, when the same
proofs of ancient civilization are found even in comparatively populated regions
of the same country. The oasis of Tchertchen, for instance, situated about 4,000
feet above the level of the river Tchertchen D’arya, is surrounded with the
ruins of archaic towns and cities in every direction. There, some 3,000 human
beings represent the relics of about a hundred extinct nations and races—the
very names of which are now unknown to our ethnologists. An anthropologist would
feel more than embarrassed to class, divide and subdivide them; the more so, as
the respective descendants of all these antediluvian races and tribes known as
little of their own forefathers themselves, as if they had fallen from the moon.
When questioned about their origin, they reply that they know not whence their
fathers had come, but had heard that their first (or earliest) men were ruled by
the great genii of these deserts. This may be put down to ignorance and
superstition, yet in view of the teachings of the Secret Doctrine, the answer
may be based upon primeval tradition. Alone, the tribe of Khoorassan claims to
have come from what is now known as Afghanistan, long before the days of
Alexander, and brings legendary lore to that effect as corroboration. The
Russian traveller, Colonel (now General) Prjevalsky, found quite close to the
oasis of Tchertchen, the ruins of two enormous cities, the oldest of which was,
according to local tradition, ruined 3,000 years ago by a hero and giant; and
the other by the Mongolians in the tenth century of our era. “The emplacement of
the two cities is now covered, owing to shifting sands and the desert wind, with
strange and heterogeneous relics; with broken china and kitchen utensils and
human bones. The natives often find copper and gold coins, melted silver,
ingots, diamonds, and turquoises, and what is the most remarkable—broken glass.
. .” “Coffins of some undecaying wood, or material, also, within which
beautifully preserved embalmed bodies are found.
. . The male mummies are all extremely tall powerfully built men with
long waving hair. . .
A vault was found with twelve dead men sitting in it. Another time, in a
separate coffin, a young girl was discovered by us. Her eyes were closed with
golden discs, and the jaws held firm by a golden circlet running from under the
chin across the top of the head. Clad in a narrow
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INTRODUCTORY.
woollen garment, her bosom was covered with golden stars, the
feet being left naked.” (From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky.) To this, the
famous traveller adds that all along their way on the river Tchertchen they
heard legends about twenty-three towns buried ages ago by the shifting sands of
the deserts. The same tradition exists on the Lob-nor and in the oasis of Kerya.
The traces of such civilization, and these and like traditions, give us the
right to credit other legendary lore warranted by well educated and learned
natives of India and Mongolia, when they speak of immense libraries reclaimed
from the sand, together with various reliques of ancient MAGIC
lore, which have all been safely stowed away.
To recapitulate. The Secret Doctrine was the universally
diffused religion of the ancient and prehistoric world. Proofs of its diffusion,
authentic records of its history, a complete chain of documents, showing its
character and presence in every land, together with the teaching of all its
great adepts, exist to this day in the secret crypts of libraries belonging to
the Occult Fraternity.
This statement is rendered more credible by a consideration of the following
facts: the tradition of the thousands of ancient parchments saved when the
Alexandrian library was destroyed; the thousands of Sanskrit works which
disappeared in India in the reign of Akbar; the universal tradition in China and
Japan that the true old texts with the commentaries, which alone make them
comprehensible—amounting to many thousands of volumes—have long passed out of
the reach of profane hands; the disappearance of the vast sacred and occult
literature of Babylon; the loss of those keys which alone could solve the
thousand riddles of the Egyptian hieroglyphic records; the tradition in India
that the real secret commentaries which alone make the Veda intelligible, though
no longer visible to profane eyes, still remain for the initiate, hidden in
secret caves and crypts; and an identical belief among the Buddhists, with
regard to their secret books.
The Occultists assert that all these exist, safe from Western spoliating
hands, to re-appear in some more enlightened age, for which in the words of the
late Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, “the Mlechchhas (outcasts, savages, those beyond
the pale of Aryan civilization) will have to wait.”
For it is not the fault of the initiates that these documents are now “lost”
to the profane; nor was their policy dictated by selfishness, or
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INTRODUCTORY.
any desire to monopolise the life-giving sacred lore. There were
portions of the Secret science that for incalculable ages had to remain
concealed from the profane gaze. But this was because to impart to the
unprepared multitude secrets of such tremendous importance, was equivalent to
giving a child a lighted candle in a powder magazine.
The answer to a question which has frequently arisen in the minds of students,
when meeting with statements such as this, may be outlined here.
“We can understand,” they say, “the necessity for concealing from the herd
such secrets as the Vril, or the rock-destroying force, discovered by J. W.
Keely, of Philadelphia, but we cannot understand how any danger could arise from
the revelation of such a purely philosophic doctrine, as, e.g., the evolution of
the planetary chains.”
The danger was this: Doctrines such as the planetary chain, or the seven
races, at once give a clue to the seven-fold nature of man, for each principle
is correlated to a plane, a planet, and a race; and the human principles are, on
every plane, correlated to seven-fold occult forces—those of the higher planes
being of tremendous power. So that any septenary division at once gives a clue
to tremendous occult powers, the abuse of which would cause incalculable evil to
humanity. A clue, which is, perhaps, no clue to the present
generation—especially the Westerns—protected as they are by their very blindness
and ignorant materialistic disbelief in the occult; but a clue which would,
nevertheless, have been very real in the early centuries of the Christian era,
to people fully convinced of the reality of occultism, and entering a cycle of
degradation, which made them rife for abuse of occult powers and sorcery of the
worst description.
The documents were concealed, it is true, but the knowledge
itself and its actual existence had never been made a secret of by the
Hierophants of the Temple, wherein MYSTERIES have ever
been made a discipline and stimulus to virtue. This is very old news, and was
repeatedly made known by the great adepts, from Pythagoras and Plato down to the
Neoplatonists. It was the new religion of the Nazarenes that wrought a change
for the worse—in the policy of centuries.
Moreover, there is a well-known fact, a very curious one, corroborated to
the writer by a reverend gentleman attached for years to a Russian
Embassy—namely, that there are several documents in the St. Petersburg
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INTRODUCTORY.
Imperial Libraries to show that, even so late as during the days
when Freemasonry, and Secret Societies of Mystics flourished unimpeded in
Russia, i.e., at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century,
more than one Russian Mystic travelled to Tibet via the Ural mountains in search
of knowledge and initiation in the unknown crypts of Central Asia. And more than
one returned years later, with a rich store of such information as could never
have been given him anywhere in Europe. Several cases could be cited, and
well-known names brought forward, but for the fact that such publicity might
annoy the surviving relatives of the said late Initiates. Let any one look over
the Annals and History of Freemasonry in the archives of the Russian metropolis,
and he will assure himself of the fact stated.
This is a corroboration of that which has been stated many times before,
and, unfortunately, too indiscreetly. Instead of benefiting humanity, the
virulent charges of deliberate invention and imposture with a purpose thrown at
those who asserted but a truthful, if even a little known fact, have only
generated bad Karma for the slanderers. But now the mischief is done, and truth
should no longer be denied, whatever the consequences. Is it a new religion, we
are asked? By no means; it is not a religion, nor is its philosophy new; for, as
already stated, it is as old as thinking man. Its tenets are not now published
for the first time, but have been cautiously given out to, and taught by, more
than one European Initiate—especially by the late Ragon.
More than one great scholar has stated that there never was a religious
founder, whether Aryan, Semitic or Turanian, who had invented a new religion, or
revealed a new truth. These founders were all transmitters, not original
teachers. They were the authors of new forms and interpretations, while the
truths upon which the latter were based were as old as mankind. Selecting one or
more of those grand verities—actualities visible only to the eye of the real
Sage and Seer—out of the many orally revealed to man in the beginning, preserved
and perpetuated in the adyta of the temples through initiation, during the MYSTERIES
and by personal transmission—they revealed these truths to the masses. Thus
every nation received in its turn some of the said truths, under the veil of its
own local and special symbolism; which, as time went on, developed into a more
or less philosophical cultus, a Pantheon in mythical disguise. Therefore is
Confucius, a very ancient
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INTRODUCTORY.
legislator in historical chronology, though a very modern Sage
in the World’s History, shown by Dr. Legge *—who calls him “emphatically
a transmitter, not a maker”—as saying: “I only hand on: I cannot create new
things. I believe in the ancients and therefore I love them.Ӡ (Quoted in
“Science of Religions” by Max Müller.)
The writer loves them too, and therefore believes in the ancients, and the
modern heirs to their Wisdom. And believing in both, she now transmits that
which she has received and learnt herself to all those who will accept it. As to
those who may reject her testimony,—i.e., the great majority—she will bear them
no malice, for they will be as right in their way in denying, as she is right in
hers in affirming, since they look at TRUTH from two
entirely different stand-points. Agreeably with the rules of critical
scholarship, the Orientalist has to reject a priori whatever evidence he cannot
fully verify for himself. And how can a Western scholar accept on hearsay that
which he knows nothing about? Indeed, that which is given in these volumes is
selected from oral, as much as from written teachings. This first installment of
the esoteric doctrines is based upon Stanzas, which are the records of a people
unknown to ethnology; it is claimed that they are written in a tongue absent
from the nomenclature of languages and dialects with which philology is
acquainted; they are said to emanate from a source (Occultism) repudiated by
science; and, finally, they are offered through an agency, incessantly
discredited before the world by all those who hate unwelcome truths, or have
some special hobby of their own to defend. Therefore, the rejection of these
teachings may be expected, and must be accepted beforehand. No one styling
himself a “scholar,” in whatever department of exact science, will be permitted
to regard these teachings seriously. They will be derided and rejected a priori
in this century; but only in this one. For in the twentieth century of our era
scholars will begin to recognize that the Secret Doctrine has neither been
invented nor exaggerated, but, on the contrary, simply outlined; and finally,
that its teachings antedate the Vedas.‡ Have not the latter been derided,
rejected, and
——————————————————————————————
* Lün-Yü (§ I a) Schott. “Chinesische Literatur,”
p. 7.
† “Life of Confucius,” p. 96.
‡ This is no pretension to prophecy, but simply a statement
based on the knowledge of facts. Every century an attempt is being made to show
the world that Occultism is no vain superstition. Once the door permitted to be
kept a little ajar, it will be opened wider with every new century. The times
are ripe for a more serious knowledge than hitherto permitted, though still very
limited, so far.
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INTRODUCTORY.
called “a modern forgery” even so recently as fifty years ago?
Was not Sanskrit proclaimed at one time the progeny of, and a dialect derived
from, the Greek, according to Lemprière and other scholars? About 1820, Prof.
Max Müller tells us, the sacred books of the Brahmans, of the Magians, and of
the Buddhists, “were all but unknown, their very existence was doubted, and
there was not a single scholar who could have translated a line of the Veda
. . . of the Zend
Avesta, or . . .of
the Buddhist Tripitaka, and now the Vedas are proved to be the work of the
highest antiquity whose ‘preservation amounts almost to a marvel’ (Lecture on
the Vedas).
The same will be said of the Secret Archaic Doctrine, when proofs are given
of its undeniable existence and records. But it will take centuries before much
more is given from it. Speaking of the keys to the Zodiacal mysteries as being
almost lost to the world, it was remarked by the writer in “Isis Unveiled” some
ten years ago that: “The said key must be turned seven times before the whole
system is divulged. We will give it but one turn, and thereby allow the profane
one glimpse into the mystery. Happy he, who understands the whole!”
The same may be said of the whole Esoteric system. One turn of the key, and
no more, was given in “ISIS.” Much more is explained in
these volumes. In those days the writer hardly knew the language in which the
work was written, and the disclosure of many things, freely spoken about now,
was forbidden. In Century the Twentieth some disciple more informed, and far
better fitted, may be sent by the Masters of Wisdom to give final and
irrefutable proofs that there exists a Science called Gupta-Vidya; and that,
like the once-mysterious sources of the Nile, the source of all religions and
philosophies now known to the world has been for many ages forgotten and lost to
men, but is at last found.
Such a work as this has to be introduced with no simple Preface, but with a
volume rather; one that would give facts, not mere disquisitions, since the SECRET
DOCTRINE is not a treatise, or a series of vague theories,
but contains all that can be given out to the world in this century.
It would be worse than useless to publish in these pages even those
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INTRODUCTORY.
portions of the esoteric teachings that have now escaped from
confinement, unless the genuineness and authenticity—at any rate, the
probability—of the existence of such teachings was first established. Such
statements as will now be made, have to be shown warranted by various
authorities: those of ancient philosophers, classics and even certain learned
Church Fathers, some of whom knew these doctrines because they had studied them,
had seen and read works written upon them; and some of whom had even been
personally initiated into the ancient Mysteries, during the performance of which
the arcane doctrines were allegorically enacted. The writer will have to give
historical and trustworthy names, and to cite well-known authors, ancient and
modern, of recognized ability, good judgment, and truthfulness, as also to name
some of the famous proficients in the secret arts and science, along with the
mysteries of the latter, as they are divulged, or, rather, partially presented
before the public in their strange archaic form.
How is this to be done? What is the best way for achieving such an object?
was the ever-recurring question. To make our plan clearer, an illustration may
be attempted. When a tourist coming from a well-explored country, suddenly
reaches the borderland of a terra incognita, hedged in, and shut out from view
by a formidable barrier of impassable rocks, he may still refuse to acknowledge
himself baffled in his exploratory plans. Ingress beyond is forbidden. But, if
he cannot visit the mysterious region personally, he may still find a means of
examining it from as short a distance as can be arrived at. Helped by his
knowledge of landscapes left behind him, he can get a general and pretty correct
idea of the transmural view, if he will only climb to the loftiest summit of the
altitudes in front of him. Once there, he can gaze at it, at his leisure,
comparing that which he dimly perceives with that which he has just left below,
now that he is, thanks to his efforts, beyond the line of the mists and the
cloud-capped cliffs.
Such a point of preliminary observation, for those who would like to get a
more correct understanding of the mysteries of the pre-archaic periods given in
the texts, cannot be offered to them in these two volumes. But if the reader has
patience, and would glance at the present state of beliefs and creeds in Europe,
compare and check it with what is known to history of the ages directly
preceding and
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INTRODUCTORY.
following the Christian era, then he will find all this in
Volume III. of this work.
In that volume a brief recapitulation will be made of all the principal
adepts known to history, and the downfall of the mysteries will be described;
after which began the disappearance and final and systematic elimination from
the memory of men of the real nature of initiation and the Sacred Science. From
that time its teachings became Occult, and Magic sailed but too often under the
venerable but frequently misleading name of Hermetic philosophy. As real
Occultism had been prevalent among the Mystics during the centuries that
preceded our era, so Magic, or rather Sorcery, with its Occult Arts, followed
the beginning of Christianity.
However great and zealous the fanatical efforts, during those early
centuries, to obliterate every trace of the mental and intellectual labour of
the Pagans, it was a failure; but the same spirit of the dark demon of bigotry
and intolerance has perverted systematically and ever since, every bright page
written in the pre-Christian periods. Even in her uncertain records, history has
preserved enough of that which has survived to throw an impartial light upon the
whole. Let, then, the reader tarry a little while with the writer, on the spot
of observation selected. He is asked to give all his attention to that
millennium which divided the pre-Christian and the post-Christian periods, by
the year ONE of the Nativity. This event—whether
historically correct or not—has nevertheless been made to serve as a first
signal for the erection of manifold bulwarks against any possible return of, or
even a glimpse into, the hated religions of the Past; hated and dreaded—because
throwing such a vivid light on the new and intentionally veiled interpretation
of what is now known as the “New Dispensation.”
However superhuman the efforts of the early Christian fathers to obliterate
the Secret Doctrine from the very memory of man, they all failed. Truth can
never be killed; hence the failure to sweep away entirely from the face of the
earth every vestige of that ancient Wisdom, and to shackle and gag every witness
who testified to it. Let one only think of the thousands, and perhaps millions,
of MSS. burnt; of monuments, with their too indiscreet inscriptions and
pictorial symbols, pulverised to dust; of the bands of early hermits and
ascetics roaming about among the ruined cities of Upper and Lower Egypt, in
desert and
xli
INTRODUCTORY.
mountain, valleys and highlands, seeking for and eager to destroy every obelisk and pillar, scroll or parchment they could lay their hands on, if it only bore the symbol of the tau, or any other sign borrowed and appropriated by the new faith; and he will then see plainly how it is that so little has remained of the records of the Past. Verily, the fiendish spirits of fanaticism, of early and mediæval Christianity and of Islam, have from the first loved to dwell in darkness and ignorance; and both have made
—————“ the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom!”
Both creeds have won their proselytes at the
point of the sword; both have built their churches on heaven-kissing hecatombs
of human victims. Over the gateway of Century I. of our era, the ominous words
“the KARMA OF ISRAEL,” fatally
glowed. Over the portals of our own, the future seer may discern other words,
that will point to the Karma for cunningly made-up HISTORY,
for events purposely perverted, and for great characters slandered by posterity,
mangled out of recognition, between the two cars of Jagannâtha—Bigotry and
Materialism; one accepting too much, the other denying all. Wise is he who holds
to the golden mid-point, who believes in the eternal justice of things. Says
Faigi Diwan, the “witness to the wonderful speeches of a free-thinker who
belongs to a thousand sects”: “In the assembly of the day of resurrection, when
past things shall be forgiven, the sins of the Ka’bah will be forgiven for the
sake of the dust of Christian churches.” To this, Professor Max Müller replies:
“The sins of Islam are as worthless as the dust of Christianity. On the day of
resurrection both Muhammadans and Christians will see the vanity of their
religious doctrines. Men fight about religion on earth; in heaven they shall
find out that there is only one true religion—the worship of God’s SPIRIT.”*
In other words—“THERE IS NO RELIGION (OR LAW) HIGHER THAN
TRUTH”—“SATYÂT NÂSTI PARO DHARMAH”—the motto of the Maharajah of Benares,
adopted by the Theosophical Society.
As already said in the Preface, the Secret Doctrine is not a
version of “Isis Unveiled”—as originally intended. It is a volume explanatory of
——————————————————————————————
* “Lectures on the Science of Religion,” by F. Max Müller, p.
257.
xlii
INTRODUCTORY.
it rather, and, though entirely independent of the earlier work,
an indispensable corollary to it. Much of what was in ISIS
could hardly be understood by theosophists in those days. The Secret Doctrine
will now throw light on many a problem left unsolved in the first work,
especially on the opening pages, which have never been understood.
Concerned simply with the philosophies within our historical times and the
respective symbolism of the fallen nations, only a hurried glance could be
thrown at the panorama of Occultism in the two volumes of Isis. In the present
work, detailed Cosmogony and the evolution of the four races that preceded our
Fifth race Humanity are given, and now two large volumes explain that which was
stated on the first page of ISIS UNVEILED
alone, and in a few allusions scattered hither and thither throughout
that work. Nor could the vast catalogue of the Archaic Sciences be attempted in
the present volumes, before we have disposed of such tremendous problems as
Cosmic and Planetary Evolution, and the gradual development of the mysterious
Humanities and races that preceded our “Adamic” Humanity. Therefore, the present
attempt to elucidate some mysteries of the Esoteric philosophy has, in truth,
nothing to do with the earlier work. As an instance, the writer must be allowed
to illustrate what is said.
Volume I. of “Isis” begins with a reference to “an old book”—
“So very old that our modern antiquarians might ponder over its pages an
indefinite time, and still not quite agree as to the nature of the fabric upon
which it is written. It is the only original copy now in existence. The most
ancient Hebrew document on occult learning—the Siphrah Dzeniouta—was compiled
from it, and that at a time when the former was already considered in the light
of a literary relic. One of its illustrations represents the Divine Essence
emanating from ADAM * like a luminous arc proceeding to
form a circle; and then, having attained the highest point of its circumference,
the ineffable glory bends back again, and returns to earth, bringing a higher
type of humanity in its vortex. As it approaches nearer and nearer to our
planet, the Emanation becomes more and more shadowy, until upon touching the
ground it is as black as night.”
——————————————————————————————
* The name is used in the sense of the Greek word a]nqrwpo"
xliii
INTRODUCTORY.
The “very old Book” is the original work from which the many
volumes of Kiu-ti were compiled. Not only this latter and the Siphrah Dzeniouta
but even the Sepher Jezirah,* the work attributed by the Hebrew Kabalists
to their Patriarch Abraham (!), the book of Shu-king, China’s primitive Bible,
the sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Purânas in India, and the
Chaldean Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch itself, are all derived from that
one small parent volume. Tradition says, that it was taken down in Senzar, the
secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of the Divine Beings, who dictated it
to the sons of Light, in Central Asia, at the very beginning of the 5th (our)
race; for there was a time when its language (the Sen-zar) was known to the
Initiates of every nation, when the forefathers of the Toltec understood it as
easily as the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis, who inherited it, in their turn,
from the sages of the 3rd Race, the Manushis, who learnt it direct from the
Devas of the 2nd and 1st Races. The “illustration” spoken of in “Isis” relates
to the evolution of these Races and of our 4th and 5th Race Humanity in the
Vaivasvata Manvantara or “Round;” each Round being composed of the Yugas of the
seven periods of Humanity; four of which are now passed in our life cycle, the
middle point of the 5th being nearly reached. The illustration is symbolical, as
every one can well understand, and covers the ground from the beginning. The old
book, having described Cosmic Evolution and explained the origin of everything
on earth, including physical man, after giving the true history of the races
from the First down to the Fifth (our) race, goes no further. It stops short at
the beginning of the Kali Yuga just 4989 years ago at the death of Krishna, the
bright “Sun-god,” the once living hero and reformer.
But there exists another book. None of its possessors regard it as very
ancient, as it was born with, and is only as old as the Black Age,
——————————————————————————————
* Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly
declared that he had performed “miracles” by means of the Book of Sepher Jezireh,
and challenged every sceptic. Franck, quoting from the Babylonian Talmud, names
two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina and Oshoi. (See “Jerusalem Talmud,
Sanhedrin,” c. 7, etc.; and “Franck,” pp. 55, 56.) Many of the Mediæval
Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists claimed the same; and even the late modern
Magus, Eliphas Lévi, publicly asserts it in print in his books on Magic.
xliv
INTRODUCTORY.
namely, about 5,000 years. In about nine years hence, the first
cycle of the first five millenniums, that began with the great cycle of the
Kali-Yuga, will end. And then the last prophecy contained in that book (the
first volume of the prophetic record for the Black Age) will be accomplished. We
have not long to wait, and many of us will witness the Dawn of the New Cycle, at
the end of which not a few accounts will be settled and squared between the
races. Volume II. of the Prophecies is nearly ready, having been in preparation
since the time of Buddha’s grand successor, Sankarâchârya.
One more important point must be noticed, one that stands foremost in the
series of proofs given of the existence of one primeval, universal Wisdom—at any
rate for the Christian Kabalists and students. The teachings were, at least,
partially known to several of the Fathers of the Church. It is maintained, on
purely historical grounds, that Origen, Synesius, and even Clemens Alexandrinus,
had been themselves initiated into the mysteries before adding to the
Neo-Platonism of the Alexandrian school, that of the Gnostics, under the
Christian veil. More than this, some of the doctrines of the Secret
schools—though by no means all—were preserved in the Vatican, and have since
become part and parcel of the mysteries, in the shape of disfigured additions
made to the original Christian programme by the Latin Church. Such is the now
materialised dogma of the Immaculate Conception. This accounts for the great
persecutions set on foot by the Roman Catholic Church against Occultism,
Masonry, and heterodox mysticism generally.
The days of Constantine were the last turning-point in history, the period
of the Supreme struggle that ended in the Western world throttling the old
religions in favour of the new one, built on their bodies. From thence the vista
into the far distant Past, beyond the “Deluge” and the Garden of Eden, began to
be forcibly and relentlessly closed by every fair and unfair means against the
indiscreet gaze of posterity. Every issue was blocked up, every record that
hands could be laid upon, destroyed. Yet there remains enough, even among such
mutilated records, to warrant us in saying that there is in them every possible
evidence of the actual existence of a Parent Doctrine. Fragments have survived
geological and political cataclysms to tell the story; and every survival shows
evidence that the now Secret Wisdom was once the
xlv
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one fountain head, the ever-flowing perennial source, at which
were fed all its streamlets—the later religions of all nations—from the first
down to the last. This period, beginning with Buddha and Pythagoras at the one
end and the Neo-Platonists and Gnostics at the other, is the only focus left in
History wherein converge for the last time the bright rays of light streaming
from the æons of time gone by, unobscured by the hand of bigotry and fanaticism.
This accounts for the necessity under which the writer has laboured to be
ever explaining the facts given from the hoariest Past by evidence gathered from
the historical period. No other means was at hand, at the risk even of being
once more charged with a lack of method and system. The public must be made
acquainted with the efforts of many World-adepts, of initiated poets, writers,
and classics of every age, to preserve in the records of Humanity the Knowledge
of the existence, at least, of such a philosophy, if not actually of its tenets.
The Initiates of 1888 would indeed remain incomprehensible and ever a seemingly
impossible myth, were not like Initiates shown to have lived in every other age
of history. This could be done only by naming Chapter and Verse where may be
found mention of these great characters, who were preceded and followed by a
long and interminable line of other famous Antediluvian and Postdiluvian Masters
in the arts. Thus only could be shown, on semi-traditional and semi-historical
authority, that knowledge of the Occult and the powers it confers on man, are
not altogether fictions, but that they are as old as the world itself.
To my judges, past and future, therefore—whether they are serious literary
critics, or those howling dervishes in literature who judge a book according to
the popularity or unpopularity of the author’s name, who, hardly glancing at its
contents, fasten like lethal bacilli on the weakest points of the body—I have
nothing to say. Nor shall I condescend to notice those crack-brained
slanderers—fortunately very few in number—who, hoping to attract public
attention by throwing discredit on every writer whose name is better known than
their own, foam and bark at their very shadows. These, having first maintained
for years that the doctrines taught in the Theosophist, and which culminated in
“Esoteric Buddhism,” had been all invented by the present writer, have finally
turned round, and denounced “Isis Unveiled” and the rest as a plagiarism from
Eliphas Lévi (!), Paracelsus (!!), and, mirabile
xlvi
INTRODUCTORY.
dictu, Buddhism and Brahmanism (!!!) As well charge Renan with
having stolen his Vie de Jésus from the Gospels, and Max Müller his “Sacred
Books of the East” or his “Chips” from the philosophies of the Brahmins and
Gautama, the Buddha. But to the public in general and the readers of the “Secret
Doctrine” I may repeat what I have stated all along, and which I now clothe in
the words of Montaigne: Gentlemen, “I HAVE HERE MADE ONLY A
NOSEGAY OF CULLED FLOWERS, AND HAVE BROUGHT NOTHING OF MY OWN BUT THE STRING
THAT TIES THEM.”
Pull the “string” to pieces and cut it up in shreds, if you will. As for the
nosegay of FACTS—you will never be able to make away with
these. You can only ignore them, and no more.
We may close with a parting word concerning this Volume I. In an INTRODUCTION
prefacing a Part dealing chiefly with Cosmogony, certain subjects brought
forward might be deemed out of place, but one more consideration added to those
already given have led me to touch upon them. Every reader will inevitably judge
the statements made from the stand-point of his own knowledge, experience, and
consciousness, based on what he has already learnt. This fact the writer is
constantly obliged to bear in mind: hence, also the frequent references in this
first Book to matters which, properly speaking, belong to a later part of the
work, but which could not be passed by in silence, lest the reader should look
down on this work as a fairy tale indeed—a fiction of some modern brain.
Thus, the Past shall help to realise the PRESENT, and
the latter to better appreciate the PAST. The errors of
the day must be explained and swept away, yet it is more than probable—and in
the present case it amounts to certitude—that once more the testimony of long
ages and of history will fail to impress anyone but the very intuitional—which
is equal to saying the very few. But in this as in all like cases, the true and
the faithful may console themselves by presenting the sceptical modern Sadducee
with the mathematical proof and memorial of his obdurate obstinacy and bigotry.
There still exists somewhere in the archives of the French Academy, the famous
law of probabilities worked out by an algebraical process for the benefit of
sceptics by certain mathematicians. It runs thus: If two persons give their
evidence to
xlvii
INTRODUCTORY.
a fact, and thus impart to it each of them 5/6 of certitude;
that fact will have then 35/36 of certitude; i.e., its probability will bear to
its improbability the ratio of 35 to 1. If three such evidences are joined
together the certitude will become 215216.
The agreement of ten persons giving each ½ of certitude will produce
10231024, etc.,
etc. The Occultist may remain satisfied, and care for no more.
PROEM
—————
PAGES FROM A PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.
AN
Archaic Manuscript — a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to water,
fire, and air, by some specific unknown process — is before the writer's eye. On
the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull black ground. On the
following page, the same disk, but with a central point. The first, the student
knows to represent Kosmos in Eternity, before the re-awakening of still
slumbering Energy, the emanation of the Word in later systems. The point in the
hitherto immaculate Disk, Space and Eternity in Pralaya, denotes the dawn of
differentiation. It is the Point in the Mundane Egg (see Part II., "The Mundane
Egg"), the germ within the latter which will become the Universe, the
ALL, the boundless, periodical Kosmos, this germ being
latent and active, periodically and by turns. The one circle is divine Unity,
from which all proceeds, whither all returns. Its circumference — a forcibly
limited symbol, in view of the limitation of the human mind — indicates the
abstract, ever incognisable PRESENCE, and its plane, the
Universal Soul, although the two are one. Only the face of the Disk being white
and the ground all around black, shows clearly that its plane is the only
knowledge, dim and hazy though it still is, that is attainable by man. It is on
this plane that the Manvantaric manifestations begin; for it is in this
SOUL that slumbers, during the Pralaya, the Divine
Thought,* wherein lies concealed the plan of every future Cosmogony and
Theogony.
——————————————————————————————
*
It is hardly necessary to remind the reader once more that the term "Divine
Thought," like that of "Universal Mind," must not be regarded as even vaguely
shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that exhibited by man. The
"Unconscious," according to von Hartmann, arrived at the vast creative, or
rather Evolutionary Plan, "by a clairvoyant wisdom superior to all
consciousness," which in the Vedantic language would mean absolute Wisdom. Only
those who realize how far Intuition soars above the tardy processes of
ratiocinative thought can form the faintest conception of that absolute Wisdom
which transcends the ideas of Time and Space. Mind, as we know it, is resolvable
into states of consciousness, of varying duration, intensity, complexity, etc. —
all, in the ultimate, resting on sensation, which is again Maya. Sensation,
again, necessarily postulates limitation. The personal God of orthodox Theism
perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels "fierce
anger." But the notion of such mental states clearly involves the unthinkable
postulate of the externality of the exciting stimuli, to say nothing of the
impossibility of ascribing changelessness to a Being whose emotions fluctuate
with events in the worlds he presides over. The conceptions of a Personal God as
changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what is worse,
unphilosophical.
It is the ONE LIFE, eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without beginning or end, yet periodical in its regular manifestations, between which periods reigns the dark mystery of non-Being; unconscious, yet absolute Consciousness; unrealizable, yet the one self-existing reality; truly, "a chaos to the sense, a Kosmos to the reason." Its one absolute attribute, which is ITSELF, eternal, ceaseless Motion, is called in esoteric parlance the "Great Breath," * which is the perpetual motion of the universe, in the sense of limitless, ever-present SPACE. That which is motionless cannot be Divine. But then there is nothing in fact and reality absolutely motionless within the universal soul.
Almost five centuries B.C. Leucippus, the instructor of Democritus, maintained that Space was filled eternally with atoms actuated by a ceaseless motion, the latter generating in due course of time, when those atoms aggregated, rotatory motion, through mutual collisions producing lateral movements. Epicurus and Lucretius taught the same, only adding to the lateral motion of the atoms the idea of affinity — an occult teaching.
From the beginning of man's
inheritance, from the first appearance of the architects of the globe he lives
in, the unrevealed Deity was recognized and considered under its only
philosophical aspect — universal motion, the thrill of the creative Breath in
Nature. Occultism sums up the "One Existence" thus: "Deity is an arcane, living
(or moving) FIRE, and the eternal witnesses to this unseen
Presence are Light, Heat, Moisture," — this trinity including, and being the
cause of, every
——————————————————————————————
*
Plato proves himself an
Initiate, when saying in Cratylus that
qeo;"
is
derived from the verb
qevein
, "to move," "to run," as the
first astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called the
planets
qeoiv
, the
gods. (See Book II., "Symbolism of the Cross and Circle.") Later, the word
produced another term,
ajlhvqeia
— "the breath of God."
phenomenon in Nature.* Intra-Cosmic motion is eternal and ceaseless; cosmic motion (the visible, or that which is subject to perception) is finite and periodical. As an eternal abstraction it is the EVER-PRESENT; as a manifestation, it is finite both in the coming direction and the opposite, the two being the alpha and omega of successive reconstructions. Kosmos — the NOUMENON — has nought to do with the causal relations of the phenomenal World. It is only with reference to the intra-cosmic soul, the ideal Kosmos in the immutable Divine Thought, that we may say: "It never had a beginning nor will it have an end." With regard to its body or Cosmic organization, though it cannot be said that it had a first, or will ever have a last construction, yet at each new Manvantara, its organization may be regarded as the first and the last of its kind, as it evolutes every time on a higher plane . . .
A few years ago only, it was stated that: —
"The esoteric doctrine
teaches, like Buddhism and Brahminism, and even the Kabala, that the one
infinite and unknown Essence exists from all eternity, and in regular and
harmonious successions is either passive or active. In the poetical phraseology
of Manu these conditions are called the "Days" and the "Nights" of Brahmâ. The
latter is either "awake" or "asleep." The Svabhavikas, or philosophers of the
oldest school of Buddhism (which still exists in Nepal), speculate only upon the
active condition of this "Essence," which they call Svabhâvat, and deem it
foolish to theorize upon the abstract and "unknowable" power in its passive
condition. Hence they are called atheists by both Christian theologians and
modern scientists, for neither of the
——————————————————————————————
*
Nominalists, arguing with
Berkeley that "it is impossible . . . to form the abstract idea of motion
distinct from the body moving" ("Prin. of Human Knowledge," Introd.,
par. 10), may put the question, "What is that body, the producer of that
motion? Is it a substance? Then you are believers in a Personal God?" etc., etc.
This will be answered farther on, in the Addendum to this Book; meanwhile, we
claim our rights of Conceptionalists as against Roscelini's materialistic views
of Realism and Nominalism. "Has science," says one of its ablest advocates,
Edward Clodd, "revealed anything that weakens or opposes itself to the ancient
words in which the Essence of all religion, past, present, and to come, is
given; to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before thy God?" Provided we
connote by the word God, not the crude anthropomorphism which is still the
backbone of our current theology, but the symbolic conception of that which is
Life and Motion of the Universe, to know which in physical order is to know
time past, present, and to come, in the existence of successions of phenomena;
to know which, in the moral, is to know what has been, is, and will be, within
human consciousness. (See "Science and the Emotions." A
Discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, London, Dec. 27th,
1885.)
two are able to understand the profound logic of their philosophy. The former will allow of no other God than the personified secondary powers which have worked out the visible universe, and which became with them the anthropomorphic God of the Christians — the male Jehovah, roaring amid thunder and lightning. In its turn, rationalistic science greets the Buddhists and the Svabhâvikas as the "positivists" of the archaic ages. If we take a one-sided view of the philosophy of the latter, our materialists may be right in their own way. The Buddhists maintained that there is no Creator, but an infinitude of creative powers, which collectively form the one eternal substance, the essence of which is inscrutable — hence not a subject for speculation for any true philosopher. Socrates invariably refused to argue upon the mystery of universal being, yet no one would ever have thought of charging him with atheism, except those who were bent upon his destruction. Upon inaugurating an active period, says the Secret Doctrine, an expansion of this Divine essence from without inwardly and from within outwardly, occurs in obedience to eternal and immutable law, and the phenomenal or visible universe is the ultimate result of the long chain of cosmical forces thus progressively set in motion. In like manner, when the passive condition is resumed, a contraction of the Divine essence takes place, and the previous work of creation is gradually and progressively undone. The visible universe becomes disintegrated, its material dispersed; and 'darkness' solitary and alone, broods once more over the face of the 'deep.' To use a Metaphor from the Secret Books, which will convey the idea still more clearly, an out-breathing of the 'unknown essence' produces the world; and an inhalation causes it to disappear. This process has been going on from all eternity, and our present universe is but one of an infinite series, which had no beginning and will have no end." — (See "Isis Unveiled"; also "The Days and Nights of Brahmâ" in Part II.)
This passage will be explained, as far as it is possible, in the present work. Though, as it now stands, it contains nothing new to the Orientalist, its esoteric interpretation may contain a good deal which has hitherto remained entirely unknown to the Western student.
The first illustration
being a plain disc
the
second one in the Archaic symbol shows
, a
disc with a point in it — the first differentiation in the periodical
manifestations of the ever-eternal nature, sexless and infinite "Aditi in
THAT"
(Rig Veda), the point in the disc, or potential Space within abstract Space. In
its third stage the point is transformed into a diameter, thus
It now
symbolises a divine immaculate Mother-Nature within the all-embracing absolute
Infinitude.
When the diameter line is crossed by a
vertical one 
,
it becomes the mundane cross. Humanity has reached its third root-race; it is
the sign for the origin of human life to begin. When the circumference
disappears and leaves only the
it is a
sign that the fall of man into matter is accomplished, and the
FOURTH race begins. The Cross within a circle symbolises pure Pantheism;
when the Cross was left uninscribed, it became phallic. It had the same and yet
other meanings as a TAU inscribed within a circle
or as a
"Thor's hammer," the Jaina cross, so-called, or simply Svastica within a circle
By the third symbol — the
circle divided in two by the horizontal line of the diameter — the first
manifestation of creative (still passive, because feminine) Nature was meant.
The first shadowy perception of man connected with procreation is feminine,
because man knows his mother more than his father. Hence female deities were
more sacred than the male. Nature is therefore feminine, and, to a degree,
objective and tangible, and the spirit Principle which fructifies it is
concealed. By adding to the circle with the horizontal line in it, a
perpendicular line, the tau was formed —
— the
oldest form of the letter. It was the glyph of the third root-race to the day of
its symbolical Fall — i.e., when the separation of sexes by natural
evolution took place — when the figure became
, the
circle, or sexless life modified or separated — a double glyph or symbol. With
the races of our Fifth Race it became in symbology the sacr', and in Hebrew
n'cabvah, of the first-formed races; * then it changed into the Egyptian
(emblem
of life), and still later into the sign of Venus,
Then
comes the Svastica (Thor's hammer, or the "Hermetic Cross" now), entirely
separated from its Circle, thus becoming purely phallic. The esoteric symbol of
Kali Yuga is the five-pointed star reversed, thus
— the
sign of human sorcery, with its two points (horns) turned heavenward, a position
every
——————————————————————————————
*
See that suggestive work,
"The Source of Measures," where the author explains the real meaning of the word
"sacr'," from which "sacred," "sacrament," are derived, which have now become
synonyms of "holiness," though purely phallic!
Occultist will recognize as one of the "left-hand," and used in ceremonial magic. *
It is hoped that during the
perusal of this work the erroneous ideas of the public in general with regard to
Pantheism will be modified. It is wrong and unjust to regard the Buddhists and
Advaitee Occultists as atheists. If not all of them philosophers, they are, at
any rate, all logicians, their objections and arguments being based on strict
reasoning. Indeed, if the Parabrahmam of the Hindus may be taken as a
representative of the hidden and nameless deities of other nations, this
absolute Principle will be found to be the prototype from which all the others
were copied. Parabrahm is not "God," because It is not a God. "It is that which
is supreme, and not supreme (paravara)," explains Mandukya Upanishad (2.28). IT
is "Supreme" as CAUSE, not supreme as effect. Parabrahm is
simply, as a "Secondless Reality," the all-inclusive Kosmos — or, rather, the
infinite Cosmic Space — in the highest spiritual sense, of course. Brahma
(neuter) being the unchanging, pure, free, undecaying supreme Root, "the
ONE true Existence, Paramarthika," and the absolute Chit
and Chaitanya (intelligence, consciousness) cannot be a cognize, "for
THAT can have no subject of cognition." Can the flame be
called the essence of Fire? This Essence is "the LIFE and
LIGHT of the Universe, the visible fire and flame are
destruction, death, and evil." "Fire and Flame destroy the body of an Arhat,
their essence makes him immortal." (Bodhi-mur, Book II.) "The
knowledge of the absolute Spirit, like the effulgence of the sun, or like heat
in fire, is naught else than the absolute Essence itself," says Sankaracharya.
IT — is "the Spirit of the Fire," not fire itself; therefore, "the
attributes of the latter, heat or flame, are not the attributes of the Spirit,
but of that of which that Spirit is the unconscious cause." Is not the above
sentence the true key-note of later Rosicrucian
——————————————————————————————
*
We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American Kabalists, that in
the Kabala also "the value of the Jehovah name is that of the diameter of a
circle." Add to this the fact that Jehovah is the third Sephiroth, Binah,
a feminine word, and you have the key to the mystery. By certain Kabalistic
transformations this name, androgynous in the first chapters of
Genesis, becomes in its transformations entirely masculine, Cainite and phallic.
The fact of choosing a deity among the pagan gods and making of it a special
national God, to call upon it as the "One living God," the "God of Gods," and
then proclaim this worship Monotheistic, does not change it into the ONE
Principle whose "Unity admits not of multiplication, change, or form,"
especially in the case of a priapic deity, as Jehovah now demonstrated to be.
philosophy? Parabrahm is, in short, the collective aggregate of Kosmos in its infinity and eternity, the "THAT" and "THIS" to which distributive aggregates can not be applied.* "In the beginning THIS was the Self, one only" (Aitareya Upanishad); the great Sankaracharya, explains that "THIS" referred to the Universe (Jagat); the sense of the words, "In the beginning," meaning before the reproduction of the phenomenal Universe.
Therefore, when the
Pantheists echo the Upanishads, which state, as in the Secret Doctrine, that
"this" cannot create, they do not deny a Creator, or rather a collective
aggregate of creators, but only refuse, very logically, to attribute
"creation" and especially formation, something finite to an Infinite Principle.
With them, Parabrahmam is a passive because an Absolute Cause, the unconditioned
Mukta. It is only limited Omniscience and Omnipotence that are refused
to the latter, because these are still attributes (as reflected in man's
perceptions); and because Parabrahm, being the "Supreme ALL,"
the ever invisible spirit and Soul of Nature, changeless and eternal, can have
no attributes; absoluteness very naturally precluding any idea of the finite or
conditioned from being connected with it. And if the Vedantin postulates
attributes as belonging simply to its emanation, calling it "Iswara plus
Maya," and Avidya (Agnosticism and Nescience rather than ignorance), it is
difficult to find any Atheism in this conception.† Since there can be
neither two INFINITES nor two ABSOLUTES
in a Universe supposed to be Boundless, this Self-Existence can hardly be
conceived of as creating personally. In the sense and perceptions of finite
"Beings," THAT is Non-"being," in the sense that it is the
one BE-NESS; for, in this ALL lies
concealed its coeternal and coeval emanation or inherent radiation, which, upon
becoming periodically Brahmâ (the male-female Potency) becomes or expands itself
into the manifested Universe. Narayana moving on the (abstract) waters of Space,
is transformed into the Waters of concrete substance moved by him, who now
becomes the manifested WORD or Logos.
——————————————————————————————
*
See "Vedanta Sara," by
Major G. A. Jacob; as also "The Aphorisms of S'andilya," translated by Cowell,
p. 42.
† Nevertheless, prejudiced
and rather fanatical Christian Orientalists would like to prove this pure
Atheism. For proof of this, see about Major Jacob's "Vedanta Sara." Yet, the
whole Antiquity echoes this Vedantic thought: —
"Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse est
Immortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur."
The orthodox Brahmins, those who rise the most against the Pantheists and Adwaitees, calling them Atheists, are forced, if Manu has any authority in this matter, to accept the death of Brahmâ, the creator, at the expiration of every "Age" of this (creative) deity (100 Divine years — a period which in our years requires fifteen figures to express it). Yet, no philosopher among them will view this "death" in any other sense than as a temporary disappearance from the manifested plane of existence, or as a periodical rest.
The Occultists are,
therefore, at one with the Adwaita Vedantin philosophers as to the above tenet.
They show the impossibility of accepting on philosophical grounds the idea of
the absolute ALL creating or even evolving the "Golden Egg," into which it is
said to enter in order to transform itself into Brahmâ — the Creator, who
expands himself later into gods and all the visible Universe. They say that
Absolute Unity cannot pass to infinity; for infinity presupposes the limitless
extension of something, and the duration of that "something"; and the
One All is like Space — which is its only mental and physical representation on
this Earth, or our plane of existence — neither an object of, nor a subject to,
perception. If one could suppose the Eternal Infinite All, the Omnipresent
Unity, instead of being in Eternity, becoming through periodical manifestation a
manifold Universe or a multiple personality, that Unity would cease to be one.
Locke's idea that "pure Space is capable of neither resistance nor Motion" — is
incorrect. Space is neither a "limitless void," nor a "conditioned fulness," but
both: being, on the plane of absolute abstraction, the ever-incognisable Deity,
which is void only to finite minds,* and on that of mayavic perception,
the Plenum, the absolute Container of all that is, whether manifested or
unmanifested: it is, therefore, that ABSOLUTE ALL. There
is no difference between the Christian Apostle's "In Him we live and move and
have our being," and the Hindu Rishi's "The Universe lives in, proceeds from,
and will
——————————————————————————————
*
The very names of the two chief deities,
Brahmâ and Vishnu, ought to have long ago suggested their esoteric meanings. For
the root of one, Brahmam, or Brahm, is derived by some from the word Brih, "to
grow" or "to expand" (see Calcutta Review, vol. lxvi., p. 14); and of
the other, Vishnu, from the root Vis, "to pervade," to enter in the nature of
the essence; Brahmâ-Vishnu being this infinite SPACE, of which the gods, the
Rishis, the Manus, and all in this universe are simply the potencies,
Vibhutayah.
return to, Brahma (Brahmâ)": for Brahma (neuter), the unmanifested, is that Universe in abscondito, and Brahmâ, the manifested, is the Logos, made male-female * in the symbolical orthodox dogmas. The God of the Apostle-Initiate and of the Rishi being both the Unseen and the Visible SPACE. Space is called in the esoteric symbolism "the Seven-Skinned Eternal Mother-Father." It is composed from its undifferentiated to its differentiated surface of seven layers.
"What is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is a Universe or not; whether there be gods or none?" asks the esoteric Senzar Catechism. And the answer made is — SPACE.
It is not the One Unknown
ever-present God in Nature, or Nature in abscondito, that is rejected,
but the God of human dogma and his humanized "Word." In his infinite
conceit and inherent pride and vanity, man shaped it himself with his
sacrilegious hand out of the material he found in his own small brain-fabric,
and forced it upon mankind as a direct revelation from the one unrevealed
SPACE.† The Occultist
——————————————————————————————
*
See Manu's account of
Brahmâ separating his body into male and female, the latter the female Vâch, in
whom he creates Virâj, and compare this with the esotericism of Chapters II.,
III., and IV. of Genesis.
† Occultism is indeed in the
air at the close of this our century. Among many other works recently published,
we would recommend one especially to students of theoretical Occultism who would
not venture beyond the realm of our special human plane. It is called "New
Aspects of Life and Religion," by Henry Pratt, M.D. It is full of esoteric
dogmas and philosophy, the latter rather limited, in the concluding chapters, by
what seems to be a spirit of conditioned positivism. Nevertheless, what is said
of Space as "the Unknown First Cause," merits quotation. "This unknown
something, thus recognised as, and identified with, the primary embodiment of
Simple Unity, is invisible and impalpable" — (abstract space, granted);
"and because invisible and impalpable, therefore incognisable. And this
incognisability has led to the error of supposing it to be a simple void, a mere
receptive capacity. But, even viewed as an absolute void, space must be admitted
to be either Self-existent, infinite, and eternal, or to have had a first cause
outside, behind, and beyond itself.
"And yet could such a cause be found and defined, this would
only lead to the transferring thereto of the attributes otherwise accruing to
space, and thus merely throw the difficulty of origination a step farther back,
without gaining additional light as to primary causation." (p. 5.)
This is precisely what has been done by the believers in an anthropomorphic
Creator, an extracosmic, instead of an intracosmic God. Many — most of Mr.
Pratt's subjects, we may say — are old Kabalistic ideas and theories which he
presents in quite a new garb: "New Aspects" of the Occult in Nature, indeed.
Space, however, viewed as a "Substantial Unity" — the "living Source of Life" —
is as the "Unknown Causeless Cause," is the oldest dogma in Occultism,
millenniums earlier than the Pater-Æther of the Greeks and Latins. So
are the "Force and Matter, as Potencies of Space, inseparable, and the Unknown
revealers of the Unknown." They are all found in Aryan philosophy personified by
Visvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc. Still they are expressed very
philosophically, and under many unusual aspects, in the work referred to.
accepts revelation as coming from divine yet still finite Beings, the manifested lives, never from the Unmanifestable ONE LIFE; from those entities, called Primordial Man, Dhyani-Buddhas, or Dhyan-Chohans, the "Rishi-Prajâpati" of the Hindus, the Elohim or "Sons of God," the Planetary Spirits of all nations, who have become Gods for men. He also regards the Adi-Sakti — the direct emanation of Mulaprakriti, the eternal Root of THAT, and the female aspect of the Creative Cause Brahmâ, in her A'kásic form of the Universal Soul — as philosophically a Maya, and cause of human Maya. But this view does not prevent him from believing in its existence so long as it lasts, to wit, for one Mahamanvantara; nor from applying A'kâs'a, the radiation of Mulaprakriti,* to practical purposes, connected as the World-Soul is with all natural phenomena, known or unknown to science.
The oldest religions of the
world — exoterically, for the esoteric root or foundation is one — are the
Indian, the Mazdean, and the Egyptian. Then comes the Chaldean, the outcome of
these — entirely lost to the world now, except in its disfigured Sabeanism as at
present rendered by the archæologists; then, passing over a number of religions
that will be mentioned later, comes the Jewish, esoterically, as in the Kabala,
following in the line of Babylonian Magism; exoterically, as in Genesis and the
Pentateuch, a collection of allegorical legends. Read by the light of the Zohar,
the initial four chapters of Genesis are the fragment
——————————————————————————————
*
In contradistinction to
the manifested universe of matter, the term Mulaprakriti (from Mula,
"the root," and prakriti, "nature"), or the unmanifested
primordial matter — called by Western alchemists Adam's Earth — is applied by
the Vedantins to Parabrahmam. Matter is dual in religious metaphysics,
and septenary in esoteric teachings, like everything else in the universe. As
Mulaprakriti, it is undifferentiated and eternal; as Vyakta, it becomes
differentiated and conditioned, according to Svetasvatara Upanishad,
I.
8, and Devi Bhagavata Purâna. The author of
the Four Lectures on the Bhagavad Gita, says, in speaking of Mulaprakriti:
"From its (the Logos') objective standpoint, Parabrahmam appears
to it as Mulaprakriti. . . . Of course this Mulaprakriti is
material to it, as any material object is material to us. . . . Parabrahmam
is an unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mulaprakriti is a
sort of veil thrown over it." (Theosophist, Vol. VIII., p.
304.)
of a highly philosophical page in the World's Cosmogony. (See Book III., Gupta Vidya and the Zohar.) Left in their symbolical disguise, they are a nursery tale, an ugly thorn in the side of science and logic, an evident effect of Karma. To have let them serve as a prologue to Christianity was a cruel revenge on the part of the Rabbis, who knew better what their Pentateuch meant. It was a silent protest against their spoliation, and the Jews have certainly now the better of their traditional persecutors. The above-named exoteric creeds will be explained in the light of the Universal doctrine as we proceed with it.
The Occult Catechism contains the following questions and answers:
"What is it that ever is?" "Space, the eternal Anupadaka."* "What is it that ever was?" "The Germ in the Root." "What is it that is ever coming and going?" "The Great Breath." "Then, there are three Eternals?" "No, the three are one. That which ever is is one, that which ever was is one, that which is ever being and becoming is also one: and this is Space."
"Explain, oh Lanoo
(disciple)." — "The One is an unbroken Circle (ring)
with no circumference, for it is nowhere and everywhere; the One is the
boundless plane of the Circle, manifesting a diameter only during the
manvantaric periods; the One is the indivisible point found nowhere, perceived
everywhere during those periods; it is the Vertical and the Horizontal, the
Father and the Mother, the summit and base of the Father, the two extremities of
the Mother, reaching in reality nowhere, for the One is the Ring as also the
rings that are within that Ring. Light in darkness and darkness in light: the
'Breath which is eternal.' It proceeds from without inwardly,
when it is everywhere, and from within outwardly, when it is nowhere —
(i.e., maya,†one of the centres ‡ ). It
expands and
——————————————————————————————
*
Meaning "parentless" — see farther on.
†
Esoteric philosophy,
regarding as Maya (or the illusion of ignorance) every finite thing, must
necessarily view in the same light every intra-Cosmic planet and body, as being
something organized, hence finite. The expression, therefore, "it proceeds from
without inwardly, etc." refers in the first portion of the sentence to the dawn
of the Mahamanvantaric period, or the great re-evolution after one of the
complete periodical dissolutions of every compound form in Nature (from planet
to molecule) into its ultimate essence or element; and in its second portion, to
the partial or local manvantara, which may be a solar or even a planetary one.
‡ By "centre," a centre of
energy or a Cosmic focus is meant; when the so-called "Creation," or formation
of a planet, is accomplished by that force which is designated by the Occultists
LIFE and by Science "energy," then the process takes place from within
outwardly, every atom being said to contain in itself creative energy of the
divine breath. Hence, whereas after an absolute pralaya, or when the
pre-existing material consists but of ONE Element, and BREATH "is everywhere,"
the latter acts from without inwardly: after a minor pralaya, everything having
remained in statu quo — in a refrigerated state, so to say,
like the moon — at the first flutter of manvantara, the planet or planets begin
their resurrection to life from within outwardly.
contracts (exhalation and inhalation). When it expands the mother diffuses and scatters; when it contracts, the mother draws back and ingathers. This produces the periods of Evolution and Dissolution, Manwantara and Pralaya. The Germ is invisible and fiery; the Root (the plane of the circle) is cool; but during Evolution and Manwantara her garment is cold and radiant. Hot Breath is the Father who devours the progeny of the many-faced Element (heterogeneous); and leaves the single-faced ones (homogeneous). Cool Breath is the Mother, who conceives, forms, brings forth, and receives them back into her bosom, to reform them at the Dawn (of the Day of Brahmâ, or Manvantara). . . . "
For clearer understanding on the part of the
general reader, it must be stated that Occult Science recognizes Seven
Cosmical Elements — four entirely physical, and the fifth ( Ether )
semi-material, as it will become visible in the air towards the end of our
Fourth Round, to reign supreme over the others during the whole of the Fifth.
The remaining two are as yet absolutely beyond the range of human perception.
These latter will, however, appear as presentments during the 6th and 7th Races
of this Round, and will become known in the 6th and 7th Rounds respectively.
* These seven elements with their numberless Sub-Elements
——————————————————————————————
*
It is curious to notice
how, in the evolutionary cycles of ideas, ancient thought seems to be reflected
in modern speculation. Had Mr. Herbert Spencer read and studied ancient Hindu
philosophers when he wrote a certain passage in his "First Principles" (p. 482),
or is it an independent flash of inner perception that made him say half
correctly, half incorrectly, "motion as well as matter, being fixed in quantity
(?), it would seem that the change in the distribution of Matter which Motion
effects, coming to a limit in whichever direction it is carried (?), the
indestructible Motion thereupon necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently,
the universally co-existent forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have
seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the Universe, also
necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes — produce now an immeasurable
period during which the attracting forces predominating, cause universal
concentration, and then an immeasurable period, during which the repulsive
forces predominating, cause universal diffusion — alternate eras of Evolution
and dissolution."
far more numerous than those known to Science) are simply conditional modifications and aspects of the ONE and only Element. This latter is not Ether,* not even A'kâśa but the Source of these. The Fifth Element, now advocated quite freely by Science, is not the Ether hypothesised by Sir Isaac Newton — although he calls it by that name, having associated it in his mind probably with the Æther, "Father-Mother" of Antiquity. As Newton intuitionally says, "Nature is a perpetual circulatory worker, generating fluids out of solids, fixed things out of volatile, and volatile out of fixed, subtile out of gross, and gross out of subtile. . . . Thus, perhaps, may all things be originated from Ether," (Hypoth, 1675).
The reader has to bear in mind that the Stanzas given treat only of the Cosmogony of our own planetary System and what is visible around it, after a Solar Pralaya. The secret teachings with regard to the Evolution of the Universal Kosmos cannot be given, since they could not be understood by the highest minds in this age, and there seem to be very few Initiates, even among the greatest, who are allowed to speculate upon this subject. Moreover the Teachers say openly that not even the highest Dhyani-Chohans have ever penetrated the mysteries beyond those boundaries that separate the milliards of Solar systems from the "Central Sun," as it is called. Therefore, that which is given, relates only to our visible Kosmos, after a "Night of Brahmâ."
Before the reader proceeds to the
consideration of the Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan which form the basis of the
present work, it is absolutely necessary that he should be made acquainted with
the few fundamental conceptions which underlie and pervade the entire system of
thought to which his attention is invited. These basic ideas are few in number,
and on their clear apprehension depends the understanding of all that follows;
therefore no apology is required for asking the reader to make himself familiar
with them first, before entering on the perusal of the work itself.
——————————————————————————————
*
Whatever the views of physical Science upon the subject, Occult Science has been
teaching for ages that A'kâsa — of which Ether is the grossest form — the fifth
universal Cosmic Principle (to which corresponds and from which proceeds human
Manas) is, cosmically, a radiant, cool, diathermanous plastic matter, creative
in its physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects and portions,
immutable in its higher principles. In the former condition it is called the
Sub-Root; and in conjunction with radiant heat, it recalls "dead worlds to
life." In its higher aspect it is the Soul of the World; in its lower — the
DESTROYER.
The Secret Doctrine establishes three fundamental propositions: —
(a) An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. It is beyond the range and reach of thought — in the words of Mandukya, "unthinkable and unspeakable."
To render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with the postulate that there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause — dimly formulated in the "Unconscious" and "Unknowable" of current European philosophy — is the rootless root of "all that was, is, or ever shall be." It is of course devoid of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested, finite Being. It is "Be-ness" rather than Being (in Sanskrit, Sat), and is beyond all thought or speculation.
This "Be-ness" is symbolised in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On the one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, the one thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or conceive of by itself. On the other, absolute Abstract Motion representing Unconditioned Consciousness. Even our Western thinkers have shown that Consciousness is inconceivable to us apart from change, and motion best symbolises change, its essential characteristic. This latter aspect of the one Reality, is also symbolised by the term "The Great Breath," a symbol sufficiently graphic to need no further elucidation. Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE — BE-NESS — symbolised by finite intelligence as the theological Trinity.
It may, however, assist the student if a few further explanations are given here.
Herbert Spencer has of late so far modified his
Agnosticism, as to assert that the nature of the "First Cause," * which
the Occultist more logically derives from the "Causeless Cause," the "Eternal,"
and the "Unknowable," may be essentially the same as that of the Consciousness
which wells up within us: in short, that the impersonal reality pervading
——————————————————————————————
* The
"first" presupposes necessarily something which is the "first brought forth, the
first in time, space, and rank" —
and therefore finite and conditioned. The "first"
cannot be the absolute, for it is a manifestation. Therefore, Eastern
Occultism calls the Abstract All the "Causeless One Cause," the "Rootless Root,"
and limits the "First Cause" to the Logos, in the sense that Plato
gives to this term.
the Kosmos is the pure noumenon of thought. This advance on his part brings him very near to the esoteric and Vedantin tenet. *
Parabrahm (the One Reality, the Absolute) is the field of Absolute Consciousness, i.e., that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence, and of which conscious existence is a conditioned symbol. But once that we pass in thought from this (to us) Absolute Negation, duality supervenes in the contrast of Spirit (or consciousness) and Matter, Subject and Object.
Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as independent realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm), which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective.
Considering this metaphysical triad as the Root from which proceeds all manifestation, the great Breath assumes the character of precosmic Ideation. It is the fons et origo of force and of all individual consciousness, and supplies the guiding intelligence in the vast scheme of cosmic Evolution. On the other hand, precosmic root-substance (Mulaprakriti) is that aspect of the Absolute which underlies all the objective planes of Nature.
Just as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual consciousness, so pre-Cosmic Substance is the substratum of matter in the various grades of its differentiation.
Hence it will be apparent that the contrast of these two aspects of the Absolute is essential to the existence of the "Manifested Universe." Apart from Cosmic Substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest as individual consciousness, since it is only through a vehicle † of matter that consciousness wells up as "I am I," a physical basis being necessary to focus a ray of the Universal Mind at a certain stage of complexity. Again, apart from Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty abstraction, and no emergence of consciousness could ensue.
The "Manifested Universe," therefore, is pervaded by
duality, which is, as it were, the very essence of its EX-istence as
"manifestation."
——————————————————————————————
* See Mr. Subba Row's four
able lectures on the Bhagavad Gita, "Theosophist," February, 1887.
† Called in Sanskrit:
"Upadhi."
But just as the opposite poles of subject and object, spirit and matter, are but aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized, so, in the manifested Universe, there is "that" which links spirit to matter, subject to object.
This something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by the occultists Fohat. It is the "bridge" by which the "Ideas" existing in the "Divine Thought" are impressed on Cosmic substance as the "laws of Nature." Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic Ideation; or, regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power of all manifestation, the "Thought Divine" transmitted and made manifest through the Dhyan Chohans,* the Architects of the visible World. Thus from Spirit, or Cosmic Ideation, comes our consciousness; from Cosmic Substance the several vehicles in which that consciousness is individualised and attains to self — or reflective — consciousness; while Fohat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life.
The following summary will afford a clearer idea to the reader.
(1.) The ABSOLUTE; the Parabrahm of the Vedantins or the one Reality, SAT, which is, as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and Non-Being.
(2.) The first manifestation, the impersonal, and, in philosophy, unmanifested Logos, the precursor of the "manifested." This is the "First Cause," the "Unconscious" of European Pantheists.
(3.) Spirit-matter, LIFE; the "Spirit of the Universe," the Purusha and Prakriti, or the second Logos.
(4.) Cosmic Ideation, MAHAT or Intelligence, the Universal World-Soul; the Cosmic Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations in and of Nature, also called MAHA-BUDDHI.
The ONE REALITY; its dual aspects in the conditioned Universe.
Further, the Secret Doctrine affirms: —
(b.) The Eternity of the Universe in
toto as a boundless plane; periodically "the playground of numberless
Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing," called "the manifesting
stars," and the "sparks of Eternity." "The Eternity of the Pilgrim" †
is like a wink
——————————————————————————————
* Called by Christian theology:
Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc.
† "Pilgrim" is the appellation
given to our Monad (the two in one) during its cycle of incarnations.
It is the only immortal and eternal principle in us, being an indivisible part
of the integral whole — the
Universal Spirit, from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the
end of the cycle. When it is said to emanate from the one
spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has to be used, for lack of
appropriate words in English. The Vedantins call it Sutratma (Thread-Soul), but
their explanation, too, differs somewhat from that of the occultists; to explain
which difference, however, is left to the Vedantins themselves.
of the Eye of Self-Existence (Book of Dzyan.) "The appearance and disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb of flux and reflux." (See Part II., "Days and Nights of Brahmâ.")
This second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is the absolute universality of that law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow, which physical science has observed and recorded in all departments of nature. An alternation such as that of Day and Night, Life and Death, Sleeping and Waking, is a fact so common, so perfectly universal and without exception, that it is easy to comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of the universe.
Moreover, the Secret Doctrine teaches: —
(c) The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul — a spark of the former — through the Cycle of Incarnation (or "Necessity") in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole term. In other words, no purely spiritual Buddhi (divine Soul) can have an independent (conscious) existence before the spark which issued from the pure Essence of the Universal Sixth principle, — or the OVER-SOUL, — has (a) passed through every elemental form of the phenomenal world of that Manvantara, and (b) acquired individuality, first by natural impulse, and then by self-induced and self-devised efforts (checked by its Karma), thus ascending through all the degrees of intelligence, from the lowest to the highest Manas, from mineral and plant, up to the holiest archangel (Dhyani-Buddha). The pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special gifts in man, save those won by his own Ego through personal effort and merit throughout a long series of metempsychoses and reincarnations. This is why the Hindus say that the Universe is Brahma and Brahmâ, for Brahma is in every atom of the universe, the six principles in Nature being all the outcome — the variously differentiated aspects — of the SEVENTH and ONE, the only reality in the Universe whether Cosmical or micro-cosmical; and also why the permutations (psychic, spiritual and physical), on the plane of manifestation and form, of the sixth (Brahmâ the vehicle of Brahma) are viewed by metaphysical
antiphrasis as illusive and Mayavic. For although the root of every atom individually and of every form collectively, is that seventh principle or the one Reality, still, in its manifested phenomenal and temporary appearance, it is no better than an evanescent illusion of our senses. (See, for clearer definition, Addendum "Gods, Monads and Atoms," and also "Theophania," "Bodhisatvas and Reincarnation," etc., etc.)
In its absoluteness, the One Principle under its two
aspects (of Parabrahmam and Mulaprakriti) is sexless, unconditioned and eternal.
Its periodical (manvantaric) emanation — or primal radiation — is also One,
androgynous and phenomenally finite. When the radiation radiates in its turn,
all its radiations are also androgynous, to become male and female principles in
their lower aspects. After Pralaya, whether the great or the minor Pralaya ( the
latter leaving the worlds in statu quo * ), the first
that re-awakes to active life is the plastic A'kâs'a,
Father-Mother, the Spirit and Soul of Ether, or the plane on the surface of the
Circle. Space is called the "Mother" before its Cosmic activity, and
Father-Mother at the first stage of re-awakening. (See Comments, Stanza II.) In
the Kabala it is also Father-Mother-Son. But whereas in the Eastern doctrine,
these are the Seventh Principle of the manifested Universe, or its
"Atma-Buddhi-Manas" (Spirit, Soul, Intelligence), the triad branching off and
dividing into the seven cosmical and seven human principles, in the Western
Kabala of the Christian mystics it is the Triad or Trinity, and with their
occultists, the male-female Jehovah, Jah-Havah. In this lies the whole
difference between the esoteric and the Christian trinities. The Mystics and the
Philosophers, the Eastern and Western Pantheists, synthesize their pregenetic
triad in the pure divine abstraction. The orthodox, anthropomorphize it.
Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and Sankara — the three hypostases
of the manifesting "Spirit of the Supreme Spirit" (by which title Prithivi — the
Earth — greets Vishnu in his first Avatar) — are the purely metaphysical
abstract qualities of formation, preservation, and destruction, and are the
three divine Avasthas (lit. hypostases) of that which "does
——————————————————————————————
* It is not the physical organisms
that remain in statu quo, least of all their psychical principles,
during the great Cosmic or even Solar pralayas, but only their Akâsic or astral
"photographs." But during the minor pralayas, once over-taken by the "Night,"
the planets remain intact, though dead, as a huge animal, caught and embedded in
the polar ice, remains the same for ages.
19
PROEM
not perish with created things" (or Achyuta, a name of Vishnu); whereas the orthodox Christian separates his personal creative Deity into the three personages of the Trinity, and admits of no higher Deity. The latter, in Occultism, is the abstract Triangle; with the orthodox, the perfect Cube. The creative god or the aggregate gods are regarded by the Eastern philosopher as Bhrantidarsanatah — "false apprehension," something "conceived of, by reason of erroneous appearances, as a material form," and explained as arising from the illusive conception of the Egotistic personal and human Soul (lower fifth principle). It is beautifully expressed in a new translation of Vishnu Purâna. "That Brahmâ in its totality has essentially the aspect of Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved (Mulaprakriti), and also the aspect of Spirit and the aspect of Time. Spirit, O twice born, is the leading aspect of the Supreme Brahma.* The next is a twofold aspect,— Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved, and is the time last." Kronos is shown in the Orphic theogony as being also a generated god or agent.
At this stage of the re-awakening of the Universe, the
sacred symbolism represents it as a perfect Circle with the (root) point in the
Centre. This sign was universal, therefore we find it in the Kabala also. The
Western Kabala, however, now in the hands of Christian mystics, ignores it
altogether, though it is plainly shown in the Zohar. These sectarians begin at
the end, and show as the symbol of pregenetic Kosmos this sign
, calling it "the Union of the Rose and
Cross," the great mystery of occult generation, from whence the name —
Rosicrucians ( Rose Cross )!
As may be judged, however, from the most important, as
the best known of the Rosicrucians' symbols, there is one which has never been
hitherto understood even by modern mystics. It is that of the "Pelican" tearing
open its breast to feed its seven little ones — the real creed of the Brothers
of the Rosie-Cross and a direct outcome from the Eastern
——————————————————————————————
* Thus Spencer, who, nevertheless, like
Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, only reflects an aspect of the old esoteric
philosophers, and hence lands his readers on the bleak shore of Agnostic despair
— reverently formulates the grand mystery; "that which persists unchanging in
quantity, but ever changing in form, under these sensible appearances which the
Universe presents to us, is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are
obliged to recognise as without limit in Space and without beginning or end in
time." It is only daring Theology — never Science or philosophy — which seeks to
gauge the Infinite and unveil the Fathomless and Unknowable.
Secret Doctrine. Brahma (neuter) is called Kalahansa, meaning, as explained by Western Orientalists, the Eternal Swan or goose (see Stanza III., Comment. 8), and so is Brahmâ, the Creator. A great mistake is thus brought under notice; it is Brahma (neuter) who ought to be referred to as Hansa-vahana (He who uses the swan as his Vehicle) and not Brahmâ the Creator, who is the real Kalahansa, while Brahma (neuter) is hamsa, and "A-hamsa," as will be explained in the Commentary. Let it be understood that the terms Brahmâ and Parabrahmam are not used here because they belong to our Esoteric nomenclature, but simply because they are more familiar to the students in the West. Both are the perfect equivalents of our one, three, and seven vowelled terms, which stand for the ONE ALL, and the One "All in all."
Such are the basic conceptions on which the Secret Doctrine rests.
It would not be in place here to enter upon any defence or proof of their inherent reasonableness; nor can I pause to show how they are, in fact, contained — though too often under a misleading guise — in every system of thought or philosophy worthy of the name.
Once that the reader has gained a clear comprehension of them and realised the light which they throw on every problem of life, they will need no further justification in his eyes, because their truth will be to him as evident as the sun in heaven. I pass on, therefore, to the subject matter of the Stanzas as given in this volume, adding a skeleton outline of them, in the hope of thereby rendering the task of the student more easy, by placing before him in a few words the general conception therein explained.
Stanza I. The history of cosmic evolution, as traced in the Stanzas, is, so to say, the abstract algebraical formula of that Evolution. Hence the student must not expect to find there an account of all the stages and transformations which intervene between the first beginnings of "Universal" evolution and our present state. To give such an account would be as impossible as it would be incomprehensible to men who cannot even grasp the nature of the plane of existence next to that to which, for the moment, their consciousness is limited.
The Stanzas, therefore, give an abstract formula which can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to all evolution: to that of our tiny earth, to
that of the chain of planets of which that earth forms one, to the solar Universe to which that chain belongs, and so on, in an ascending scale, till the mind reels and is exhausted in the effort.
The seven Stanzas given in this volume represent the seven terms of this abstract formula. They refer to, and describe the seven great stages of the evolutionary process, which are spoken of in the Purânas as the "Seven Creations," and in the Bible as the "Days" of Creation.
—————
The First Stanza describes the state of the ONE ALL during Pralaya, before the first flutter of re-awakening manifestation.
A moment's thought shows that such a state can only be symbolised; to describe it is impossible. Nor can it be symbolised except in negatives; for, since it is the state of Absoluteness per se, it can possess none of those specific attributes which serve us to describe objects in positive terms. Hence that state can only be suggested by the negatives of all those most abstract attributes which men feel rather than conceive, as the remotest limits attainable by their power of conception.
The stage described in Stanza II. is, to a western mind , so nearly identical with that mentioned in the first Stanza, that to express the idea of its difference would require a treatise in itself. Hence it must be left to the intuition and the higher faculties of the reader to grasp, as far as he can, the meaning of the allegorical phrases used. Indeed it must be remembered that all these Stanzas appeal to the inner faculties rather than to the ordinary comprehension of the physical brain.
Stanza III. describes the Re-awakening of the Universe to life after Pralaya. It depicts the emergence of the "Monads" from their state of absorption within the ONE; the earliest and highest stage in the formation of "Worlds," the term Monad being one which may apply equally to the vastest Solar System or the tiniest atom.
Stanza IV. shows the differentiation of the "Germ" of the Universe
into the septenary hierarchy of conscious Divine Powers, who are the active manifestations of the One Supreme Energy. They are the framers, shapers, and ultimately the creators of all the manifested Universe, in the only sense in which the name "Creator" is intelligible; they inform and guide it; they are the intelligent Beings who adjust and control evolution, embodying in themselves those manifestations of the ONE LAW, which we know as "The Laws of Nature."
Generically, they are known as the Dhyan Chohans, though each of the various groups has its own designation in the Secret Doctrine.
This stage of evolution is spoken of in Hindu mythology as the "Creation" of the Gods.
In Stanza V. the process of world-formation is described: — First, diffused Cosmic Matter, then the fiery "whirlwind," the first stage in the formation of a nebula. That nebula condenses, and after passing through various transformations, forms a Solar Universe, a planetary chain, or a single planet, as the case may be.
The subsequent stages in the formation of a "World" are indicated in Stanza VI., which brings the evolution of such a world down to its fourth great period, corresponding to the period in which we are now living.
Stanza VII. continues the history, tracing the descent of life down to the appearance of Man; and thus closes the first Book of the Secret Doctrine.
The development of "Man" from his first appearance on this earth in this Round to the state in which we now find him will form the subject of Book II.
—————
than useless to make the subject still more difficult by introducing the archaic phraseology of the original, with its puzzling style and words. Extracts are given from the Chinese Thibetan and Sanskrit translations of the original Senzar Commentaries and Glosses on the Book of DZYAN — these being now rendered for the first time into a European language. It is almost unnecessary to state that only portions of the seven Stanzas are here given. Were they published complete they would remain incomprehensible to all save the few higher occultists. Nor is there any need to assure the reader that, no more than most of the profane, does the writer, or rather the humble recorder, understand those forbidden passages. To facilitate the reading, and to avoid the too frequent reference to foot-notes, it was thought best to blend together texts and glosses, using the Sanskrit and Tibetan proper names whenever those cannot be avoided, in preference to giving the originals. The more so as the said terms are all accepted synonyms, the former only being used between a Master and his chelas (or disciples).
Thus, were one to translate into English, using only the substantives and technical terms as employed in one of the Tibetan and Senzar versions, Verse I would read as follows: — "Tho-ag in Zhi-gyu slept seven Khorlo. Zodmanas zhiba. All Nyug bosom. Konch-hog not; Thyan-Kam not; Lha-Chohan not; Tenbrel Chugnyi not; Dharmakaya ceased; Tgenchang not become; Barnang and Ssa in Ngovonyidj; alone Tho-og Yinsin in night of Sun-chan and Yong-grub (Parinishpanna), &c., &c.," which would sound like pure Abracadabra.
As this work is written for the instruction of students of Occultism, and not for the benefit of philologists, we may well avoid such foreign terms wherever it is possible to do so. The untranslateable terms alone, incomprehensible unless explained in their meanings, are left, but all such terms are rendered in their Sanskrit form. Needless to remind the reader that these are, in almost every case, the late developments of the later language, and pertain to the Fifth Root-Race. Sanskrit, as now known, was not spoken by the Atlanteans, and most of the philosophical terms used in the systems of the India of the post-Mahabharatan period are not found in the Vedas, nor are they to be met with in the original Stanzas, but only their equivalents. The reader who is not a Theosophist, is once more invited to regard all that which follows as a fairy tale, if he likes; at best as one of the yet unproven speculations of
dreamers; and, at the worst, as an additional hypothesis to the many Scientific hypotheses past, present and future, some exploded, others still lingering. It is not in any sense worse than are many of the so called Scientific theories; and it is in every case more philosophical and probable.
In view of the abundant comments and explanations required, the references to the footnotes are given in the usual way, while the sentences to be commented upon are marked with figures. Additional matter will be found in the Chapters on Symbolism forming Part II., as well as in Part III., these being often more full of information than the text.
—————
—————
Nor Aught nor Nought existed; yon bright sky
Was not, nor heaven's broad roof outstretched above.
What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed?
Was it the water's fathomless abyss?
There was not death — yet there was
nought immortal,
There was no confine betwixt day and night;
The only One breathed breathless by itself,
Other than It there nothing since has been.
Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled
In gloom profound — an ocean without
light —
The germ that still lay covered in the husk
Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.
. . . . . . . .
Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here?
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The Gods themselves came later into being —
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
That, whence all this great creation came,
Whether Its will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it — or perchance even He
knows not."
"Gazing into eternity
. . .
Ere the foundations of the earth were laid,
. . . . .
Thou wert. And when the subterranean flame
Shall burst its prison and devour the frame
. . .
Thou shalt be still as Thou wert before
And knew no change, when time shall be no more.
Oh! endless thought, divine ETERNITY."
In Seven Stanzas translated from the Book of Dzyan.
—————
1. THE ETERNAL PARENT WRAPPED IN HER EVER INVISIBLE ROBES HAD SLUMBERED ONCE AGAIN FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES.
2. TIME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE BOSOM OF DURATION.
3. UNIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR THERE WERE NO AH-HI TO CONTAIN IT.
4. THE SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS WERE NOT. THE GREAT CAUSES OF MISERY WERE NOT, FOR THERE WAS NO ONE TO PRODUCE AND GET ENSNARED BY THEM.
5. DARKNESS ALONE FILLED THE BOUNDLESS ALL, FOR FATHER, MOTHER AND SON WERE ONCE MORE ONE, AND THE SON HAD NOT AWAKENED YET FOR THE NEW WHEEL, AND HIS PILGRIMAGE THEREON.
6. THE SEVEN SUBLIME LORDS AND THE SEVEN TRUTHS HAD CEASED TO BE, AND THE UNIVERSE, THE SON OF NECESSITY, WAS IMMERSED IN PARANISHPANNA, TO BE OUTBREATHED BY THAT WHICH IS AND YET IS NOT. NAUGHT WAS.
7. THE CAUSES OF EXISTENCE HAD BEEN DONE AWAY WITH; THE VISIBLE THAT WAS, AND THE INVISIBLE THAT IS, RESTED IN ETERNAL NON-BEING — THE ONE BEING.
8. ALONE THE ONE FORM OF EXISTENCE STRETCHED BOUNDLESS, INFINITE, CAUSELESS, IN DREAMLESS SLEEP; AND LIFE PULSATED UNCONSCIOUS IN UNIVERSAL SPACE, THROUGHOUT THAT ALL-PRESENCE WHICH IS SENSED BY THE OPENED EYE OF THE DANGMA.
9. BUT WHERE WAS THE DANGMA WHEN THE ALAYA OF THE UNIVERSE WAS IN PARAMARTHA AND THE GREAT WHEEL WAS ANUPADAKA?
1. . . . WHERE WERE THE BUILDERS, THE LUMINOUS SONS OF MANVANTARIC DAWN? . . . IN THE UNKNOWN DARKNESS IN THEIR AH-HI PARANISHPANNA. THE PRODUCERS OF FORM FROM NO-FORM — THE ROOT OF THE WORLD — THE DEVAMATRI AND SVABHAVAT, RESTED IN THE BLISS OF NON-BEING.
2. . . . WHERE WAS SILENCE? WHERE THE EARS TO SENSE IT? NO, THERE WAS NEITHER SILENCE NOR SOUND; NAUGHT SAVE CEASELESS ETERNAL BREATH, WHICH KNOWS ITSELF NOT.
3. THE HOUR HAD NOT YET STRUCK; THE RAY HAD NOT YET FLASHED INTO THE GERM; THE MATRIPADMA HAD NOT YET SWOLLEN.
4. HER HEART HAD NOT YET OPENED FOR THE ONE RAY TO ENTER, THENCE TO FALL, AS THREE INTO FOUR, INTO THE LAP OF MAYA.
5. THE SEVEN SONS WERE NOT YET BORN FROM THE WEB OF LIGHT. DARKNESS ALONE WAS FATHER-MOTHER, SVABHAVAT; AND SVABHAVAT WAS IN DARKNESS.
6. THESE TWO ARE THE GERM, AND THE GERM IS ONE. THE UNIVERSE WAS STILL CONCEALED IN THE DIVINE THOUGHT AND THE DIVINE BOSOM.. . . .
—————
1. . . . THE LAST VIBRATION OF THE SEVENTH ETERNITY THRILLS THROUGH INFINITUDE. THE MOTHER SWELLS, EXPANDING FROM WITHIN WITHOUT, LIKE THE BUD OF THE LOTUS.
2. THE VIBRATION SWEEPS ALONG, TOUCHING WITH ITS SWIFT WING THE WHOLE UNIVERSE AND THE GERM THAT DWELLETH IN DARKNESS: THE DARKNESS THAT BREATHES OVER THE SLUMBERING WATERS OF LIFE. . . .
3. DARKNESS RADIATES LIGHT, AND LIGHT DROPS ONE SOLITARY RAY INTO THE MOTHER-DEEP. THE RAY SHOOTS THROUGH THE VIRGIN EGG, THE RAY CAUSES THE ETERNAL EGG TO THRILL, AND DROP THE NON-ETERNAL GERM, WHICH CONDENSES INTO THE WORLD-EGG.
4. THEN THE THREE FALL INTO THE FOUR. THE RADIANT ESSENCE BECOMES SEVEN INSIDE, SEVEN OUTSIDE. THE LUMINOUS EGG, WHICH IN ITSELF IS THREE, CURDLES AND SPREADS IN MILK-WHITE CURDS THROUGHOUT THE DEPTHS OF MOTHER, THE ROOT THAT GROWS IN THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN OF LIFE.
5. THE ROOT REMAINS, THE LIGHT REMAINS, THE CURDS REMAIN, AND STILL OEAOHOO IS ONE.
6. THE ROOT OF LIFE WAS IN EVERY DROP OF THE OCEAN OF IMMORTALITY, AND THE OCEAN WAS RADIANT LIGHT, WHICH WAS FIRE, AND HEAT, AND MOTION. DARKNESS VANISHED AND WAS NO MORE; IT DISAPPEARED IN ITS OWN ESSENCE, THE BODY OF FIRE AND WATER, OR FATHER AND MOTHER.
7. BEHOLD, OH LANOO! THE RADIANT CHILD OF THE TWO, THE UNPARALLELED REFULGENT GLORY: BRIGHT SPACE SON OF DARK SPACE, WHICH EMERGES FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE GREAT DARK WATERS. IT IS OEAOHOO THE YOUNGER, THE * * * HE SHINES FORTH AS THE SON; HE IS THE BLAZING DIVINE DRAGON OF WISDOM; THE ONE IS FOUR, AND FOUR TAKES TO ITSELF THREE, † AND THE UNION PRODUCES THE SAPTA, IN WHOM ARE THE SEVEN WHICH BECOME THE TRIDASA (OR THE HOSTS AND THE MULTITUDES). BEHOLD HIM LIFTING THE VEIL AND UNFURLING IT FROM EAST TO WEST. HE SHUTS OUT THE ABOVE, AND LEAVES THE BELOW TO BE SEEN AS THE GREAT ILLUSION. HE MARKS THE PLACES FOR THE SHINING ONES, AND TURNS THE UPPER INTO A SHORELESS SEA OF FIRE, AND THE ONE MANIFESTED INTO THE GREAT WATERS.
8. WHERE WAS THE GERM AND WHERE WAS NOW DARKNESS? WHERE IS THE SPIRIT OF THE FLAME THAT BURNS IN THY LAMP, OH LANOO? THE GERM IS THAT, AND THAT IS LIGHT, THE WHITE BRILLIANT SON OF THE DARK HIDDEN FATHER.
9. LIGHT IS COLD FLAME, AND FLAME IS FIRE, AND FIRE PRODUCES HEAT, WHICH YIELDS WATER: THE WATER OF LIFE IN THE GREAT MOTHER.
10.
FATHER-MOTHER SPIN A WEB WHOSE UPPER
END IS FASTENED TO SPIRIT—THE LIGHT OF THE ONE DARKNESS—AND THE LOWER ONE TO ITS
SHADOWY END, MATTER; AND THIS WEB IS THE UNIVERSE SPUN OUT OF THE TWO SUBSTANCES
MADE IN ONE, WHICH IS SVABHAVAT.
——————————————————————————————
† In the English translation from the Sanskrit the
numbers are given in that language, Eka, Chatur, etc., etc. It was
thought best to give them in English.
11. IT EXPANDS WHEN THE BREATH OF FIRE IS UPON IT; IT CONTRACTS WHEN THE BREATH OF THE MOTHER TOUCHES IT. THEN THE SONS DISSOCIATE AND SCATTER, TO RETURN INTO THEIR MOTHER'S BOSOM AT THE END OF THE GREAT DAY, AND RE-BECOME ONE WITH HER; WHEN IT IS COOLING IT BECOMES RADIANT, AND THE SONS EXPAND AND CONTRACT THROUGH THEIR OWN SELVES AND HEARTS; THEY EMBRACE INFINITUDE.
12. THEN SVABHAVAT SENDS FOHAT TO HARDEN THE ATOMS. EACH IS A PART OF THE WEB. REFLECTING THE "SELF-EXISTENT LORD" LIKE A MIRROR, EACH BECOMES IN TURN A WORLD.
—————
1. . . LISTEN, YE SONS OF THE EARTH, TO YOUR INSTRUCTORS — THE SONS OF THE FIRE. LEARN, THERE IS NEITHER FIRST NOR LAST, FOR ALL IS ONE: NUMBER ISSUED FROM NO NUMBER.
2. LEARN WHAT WE WHO DESCEND FROM THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, WE WHO ARE BORN FROM THE PRIMORDIAL FLAME, HAVE LEARNT FROM OUR FATHERS. . .
3. FROM THE EFFULGENCY OF LIGHT — THE RAY OF THE EVER-DARKNESS — SPRUNG IN SPACE THE RE-AWAKENED ENERGIES; THE ONE FROM THE EGG, THE SIX, AND THE FIVE. THEN THE THREE, THE ONE, THE FOUR, THE ONE, THE FIVE — THE TWICE SEVEN THE SUM TOTAL. AND THESE ARE THE ESSENCES, THE FLAMES, THE ELEMENTS, THE BUILDERS, THE NUMBERS, THE ARUPA, THE RUPA, AND THE FORCE OF DIVINE MAN — THE SUM TOTAL. AND FROM THE DIVINE MAN EMANATED THE FORMS, THE SPARKS, THE SACRED ANIMALS, AND THE MESSENGERS OF THE SACRED FATHERS WITHIN THE HOLY FOUR.
4. THIS WAS THE ARMY OF THE VOICE — THE DIVINE MOTHER OF THE SEVEN. THE SPARKS OF THE SEVEN ARE SUBJECT TO, AND THE SERVANTS OF, THE FIRST, THE SECOND, THE THIRD, THE FOURTH, THE FIFTH, THE SIXTH, AND THE SEVENTH OF THE SEVEN. THESE "SPARKS" ARE CALLED SPHERES, TRIANGLES, CUBES, LINES, AND MODELLERS; FOR THUS STANDS THE ETERNAL NIDANA — THE OEAOHOO, WHICH IS:
5. "DARKNESS" THE BOUNDLESS, OR THE NO-NUMBER, ADI-NIDANA SVABHAVAT:—
I. THE ADI-SANAT, THE NUMBER, FOR HE IS ONE.
II. THE VOICE OF THE LORD SVABHAVAT, THE NUMBERS, FOR HE IS ONE AND NINE.
III. THE "FORMLESS SQUARE."
AND THESE THREE ENCLOSED WITHIN THE
ARE THE SACRED FOUR; AND THE TEN ARE THE
ARUPA UNIVERSE. THEN COME THE "SONS," THE SEVEN FIGHTERS, THE
ONE, THE EIGHTH LEFT OUT, AND HIS BREATH WHICH IS THE LIGHT-MAKER.
6. THEN THE SECOND SEVEN, WHO ARE THE LIPIKA, PRODUCED BY THE THREE. THE REJECTED SON IS ONE. THE "SON-SUNS" ARE COUNTLESS.
—————
1. THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, THE FIRST SEVEN BREATHS OF THE DRAGON OF WISDOM, PRODUCE IN THEIR TURN FROM THEIR HOLY CIRCUMGYRATING BREATHS THE FIERY WHIRLWIND.
2. THEY MAKE OF HIM THE MESSENGER OF THEIR WILL. THE DZYU BECOMES FOHAT, THE SWIFT SON OF THE DIVINE SONS WHOSE SONS ARE THE LIPIKA, RUNS CIRCULAR ERRANDS. FOHAT IS THE STEED AND THE THOUGHT IS THE RIDER. HE PASSES LIKE LIGHTNING THROUGH THE FIERY CLOUDS; TAKES THREE, AND FIVE, AND SEVEN STRIDES THROUGH THE SEVEN REGIONS ABOVE, AND THE SEVEN BELOW. HE LIFTS HIS VOICE, AND CALLS THE INNUMERABLE SPARKS, AND JOINS THEM.
3. HE IS THEIR GUIDING SPIRIT AND LEADER. WHEN HE COMMENCES WORK, HE SEPARATES THE SPARKS OF THE LOWER KINGDOM THAT FLOAT AND THRILL WITH JOY IN THEIR RADIANT DWELLINGS, AND FORMS THEREWITH THE GERMS OF WHEELS. HE PLACES THEM IN THE SIX DIRECTIONS OF SPACE, AND ONE IN THE MIDDLE — THE CENTRAL WHEEL.
4. FOHAT TRACES SPIRAL LINES TO UNITE THE SIXTH TO THE SEVENTH — THE CROWN; AN ARMY OF THE SONS OF LIGHT STANDS AT EACH ANGLE, AND THE LIPIKA IN THE MIDDLE WHEEL, THEY SAY: THIS IS GOOD, THE
FIRST DIVINE WORLD IS READY, THE FIRST IS NOW THE SECOND. THEN THE "DIVINE ARUPA" REFLECTS ITSELF IN CHHAYA LOKA, THE FIRST GARMENT OF THE ANUPADAKA.
5. FOHAT TAKES FIVE STRIDES AND BUILDS A WINGED WHEEL AT EACH CORNER OF THE SQUARE, FOR THE FOUR HOLY ONES AND THEIR ARMIES.
6. THE LIPIKA CIRCUMSCRIBE THE TRIANGLE, THE FIRST ONE, THE CUBE, THE SECOND ONE, AND THE PENTACLE WITHIN THE EGG. IT IS THE RING CALLED "PASS NOT" FOR THOSE WHO DESCEND AND ASCEND. ALSO FOR THOSE WHO DURING THE KALPA ARE PROGRESSING TOWARDS THE GREAT DAY "BE WITH US." THUS WERE FORMED THE RUPA AND THE ARUPA: FROM ONE LIGHT SEVEN LIGHTS; FROM EACH OF THE SEVEN, SEVEN TIMES SEVEN LIGHTS. THE WHEELS WATCH THE RING. . . .
—————
1. BY THE POWER OF THE MOTHER OF MERCY AND KNOWLEDGE — KWAN-YIN — THE "TRIPLE" OF KWAN-SHAI-YIN, RESIDING IN KWAN-YIN-TIEN, FOHAT, THE BREATH OF THEIR PROGENY, THE SON OF THE SONS, HAVING CALLED FORTH, FROM THE LOWER ABYSS, THE ILLUSIVE FORM OF SIEN-TCHANG AND THE SEVEN ELEMENTS: *
2. THE SWIFT AND RADIANT ONE PRODUCES THE SEVEN LAYA CENTRES, AGAINST WHICH NONE WILL PREVAIL TO THE GREAT DAY "BE-WITH-US," AND SEATS THE UNIVERSE ON THESE ETERNAL FOUNDATIONS SURROUNDING TSIEN-TCHAN WITH THE ELEMENTARY GERMS.
3.
OF THE
SEVEN—FIRST ONE MANIFESTED, SIX
CONCEALED, TWO MANIFESTED, FIVE CONCEALED; THREE MANIFESTED, FOUR CONCEALED;
FOUR PRODUCED, THREE HIDDEN; FOUR AND ONE TSAN REVEALED, TWO AND ONE HALF
CONCEALED; SIX TO BE MANIFESTED, ONE LAID ASIDE.
LASTLY, SEVEN
SMALL WHEELS REVOLVING; ONE GIVING BIRTH TO THE OTHER.
——————————————————————————————
* Verse 1 of Stanza VI. is of a far later date than the
other Stanzas, though still very ancient. The old text of this verse, having
names entirely unknown to the Orientalists would give no clue to the student.
4. HE BUILDS THEM IN THE LIKENESS OF OLDER WHEELS, PLACING THEM ON THE IMPERISHABLE CENTRES.
HOW DOES FOHAT BUILD THEM? HE COLLECTS THE FIERY DUST. HE MAKES BALLS OF FIRE, RUNS THROUGH THEM, AND ROUND THEM, INFUSING LIFE THEREINTO THEN' SETS THEM INTO MOTION; SOME ONE WAY, SOME THE OTHER WAY. THEY ARE COLD, HE MAKES THEM HOT. THEY ARE DRY, HE MAKES THEM MOIST. THEY SHINE, HE FANS AND COOLS THEM. THUS ACTS FOHAT FROM ONE TWILIGHT TO THE OTHER, DURING SEVEN ETERNITIES.
5. AT THE FOURTH, THE SONS ARE TOLD TO CREATE THEIR IMAGES. ONE THIRD REFUSES — TWO OBEY.
THE CURSE IS PRONOUNCED; THEY WILL BE BORN ON THE FOURTH, SUFFER AND CAUSE SUFFERING; THIS IS THE FIRST WAR.
6. THE OLDER WHEELS ROTATED DOWNWARDS AND UPWARDS. . . THE MOTHER'S SPAWN FILLED THE WHOLE. THERE WERE BATTLES FOUGHT BETWEEN THE CREATORS AND THE DESTROYERS, AND BATTLES FOUGHT FOR SPACE; THE SEED APPEARING AND RE-APPEARING CONTINUOUSLY.
7. MAKE THY CALCULATIONS, LANOO, IF THOU WOULDEST LEARN THE CORRECT AGE OF THY SMALL WHEEL. ITS FOURTH SPOKE IS OUR MOTHER. REACH THE FOURTH "FRUIT" OF THE FOURTH PATH OF KNOWLEDGE THAT LEADS TO NIRVANA, AND THOU SHALT COMPREHEND, FOR THOU SHALT SEE. . .
—————
1. BEHOLD THE BEGINNING OF SENTIENT FORMLESS LIFE.
FIRST THE DIVINE, THE ONE FROM THE MOTHER-SPIRIT; THEN THE SPIRITUAL; THE THREE FROM THE ONE, THE FOUR FROM THE ONE, AND THE FIVE FROM WHICH THE THREE, THE FIVE, AND THE SEVEN. THESE ARE THE THREE-FOLD, THE FOUR-FOLD DOWNWARD; THE "MIND-BORN" SONS OF THE FIRST LORD; THE SHINING SEVEN.
IT IS THEY WHO ARE THOU, ME, HIM, OH LANOO. THEY, WHO WATCH OVER THEE, AND THY MOTHER EARTH.
34
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
2. THE ONE RAY MULTIPLIES THE SMALLER RAYS. LIFE PRECEDES FORM, AND LIFE SURVIVES THE LAST ATOM OF FORM. THROUGH THE COUNTLESS RAYS PROCEEDS THE LIFE-RAY, THE ONE, LIKE A THREAD THROUGH MANY JEWELS.
3. WHEN THE ONE BECOMES TWO, THE THREEFOLD APPEARS, AND THE THREE ARE ONE; AND IT IS OUR THREAD, OH LANOO, THE HEART OF THE MAN-PLANT CALLED SAPTASARMA.
4. IT IS THE ROOT THAT NEVER DIES; THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME OF THE FOUR WICKS. THE WICKS ARE THE SPARKS, THAT DRAW FROM THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME SHOT OUT BY THE SEVEN — THEIR FLAME — THE BEAMS AND SPARKS OF ONE MOON REFLECTED IN THE RUNNING WAVES OF ALL THE RIVERS OF EARTH.
5. THE SPARK HANGS FROM THE FLAME BY THE FINEST THREAD OF FOHAT. IT JOURNEYS THROUGH THE SEVEN WORLDS OF MAYA. IT STOPS IN THE FIRST, AND IS A METAL AND A STONE; IT PASSES INTO THE SECOND AND BEHOLD — A PLANT; THE PLANT WHIRLS THROUGH SEVEN CHANGES AND BECOMES A SACRED ANIMAL. FROM THE COMBINED ATTRIBUTES OF THESE, MANU, THE THINKER IS FORMED. WHO FORMS HIM? THE SEVEN LIVES, AND THE ONE LIFE. WHO COMPLETES HIM? THE FIVE-FOLD LHA. AND WHO PERFECTS THE LAST BODY? FISH, SIN, AND SOMA. . . .
6. FROM THE FIRST-BORN THE THREAD BETWEEN THE SILENT WATCHER AND HIS SHADOW BECOMES MORE STRONG AND RADIANT WITH EVERY CHANGE. THE MORNING SUN-LIGHT HAS CHANGED INTO NOON-DAY GLORY. . . .
7. THIS IS THY PRESENT WHEEL, SAID THE FLAME TO THE SPARK. THOU ART MYSELF, MY IMAGE, AND MY SHADOW. I HAVE CLOTHED MYSELF IN THEE, AND THOU ART MY VAHAN TO THE DAY, "BE WITH US," WHEN THOU SHALT RE-BECOME MYSELF AND OTHERS, THYSELF AND ME. THEN THE BUILDERS, HAVING DONNED THEIR FIRST CLOTHING, DESCEND ON RADIANT EARTH AND REIGN OVER MEN — WHO ARE THEMSELVES. . . .
Thus ends this portion of the archaic narrative, dark, confused, almost incomprehensible. An attempt will now be made to throw light into this darkness, to make sense out of this apparent NON-SENSE.
ON THE SEVEN STANZAS AND THEIR TERMS, ACCORDING TO THEIR
NUMERATION, IN STANZAS AND SLOKAS.
1. "THE ETERNAL PARENT (Space), WRAPPED IN HER EVER INVISIBLE ROBES, HAD SLUMBERED ONCE AGAIN FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES (a)."
The "Parent Space" is the eternal, ever present cause of all — the incomprehensible DEITY, whose "invisible robes" are the mystic root of all matter, and of the Universe. Space is the one eternal thing that we can most easily imagine, immovable in its abstraction and uninfluenced by either the presence or absence in it of an objective Universe. It is without dimension, in every sense, and self-existent. Spirit is the first differentiation from THAT, the causeless cause of both Spirit and Matter. It is, as taught in the esoteric catechism, neither limitless void, nor conditioned fulness, but both. It was and ever will be. (See Proem pp. 2 et seq.)
Thus, the "Robes" stand for the noumenon of undifferentiated Cosmic Matter. It is not matter as we know it, but the spiritual essence of matter, and is co-eternal and even one with Space in its abstract sense. Root-nature is also the source of the subtile invisible properties in visible matter. It is the Soul, so to say, of the ONE infinite Spirit. The Hindus call it Mulaprakriti, and say that it is the primordial substance, which is the basis of the Upadhi or vehicle of every phenomenon, whether physical, mental or psychic. It is the source from which Akâsa radiates.
(a) By the Seven "Eternities," æons or periods are meant. The word "Eternity," as understood in Christian theology, has no meaning to the Asiatic ear, except in its application to the ONE existence; nor is
the term sempiternity, the eternal only in futurity, anything better than a misnomer.* Such words do not and cannot exist in philosophical metaphysics, and were unknown till the advent of ecclesiastical Christianity. The Seven Eternities meant are the seven periods, or a period answering in its duration to the seven periods, of a Manvantara, and extending throughout a Maha-Kalpa or the "Great Age" — 100 years of Brahmâ — making a total of 311,040,000,000,000 of years; each year of Brahmâ being composed of 360 "days," and of the same number of "nights" of Brahmâ (reckoning by the Chandrayana or lunar year); and a "Day of Brahmâ " consisting of 4,320,000,000 of mortal years. These "Eternities" belong to the most secret calculations, in which, in order to arrive at the true total, every figure must be 7x (7 to the power of x); x varying according to the nature of the cycle in the subjective or real world; and every figure or number relating to, or representing all the different cycles from the greatest to the smallest — in the objective or unreal world — must necessarily be multiples of seven. The key to this cannot be given, for herein lies the mystery of esoteric calculations, and for the purposes of ordinary calculation it has no sense. "The number seven," says the Kabala, "is the great number of the Divine Mysteries;" number ten is that of all human knowledge (Pythagorean decade); 1,000 is the number ten to the third power, and therefore the number 7,000 is also symbolical. In the Secret Doctrine the figure and number 4 are the male symbol only on the highest plane of abstraction; on the plane of matter the 3 is the masculine and the 4 the female: the upright and the horizontal in the fourth stage of symbolism, when the symbols became the glyphs of the generative powers on the physical plane.
—————
2. TIME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE BOSOM OF
DURATION (a).
——————————————————————————————
* It is stated in Book II., ch. viii., of Vishnu Purâna:
"By immortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa;" and Wilson, the
translator, remarks in a footnote: "This, according to the Vedas, is all that is
to be understood of the immortality (or eternity) of the gods; they perish at
the end of universal dissolution (or Pralaya)." And Esoteric philosophy says:
They "perish" not, but are re-absorbed.
(a) Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced; but "lies asleep." The present is only a mathematical line which divides that part of eternal duration which we call the future, from that part which we call the past. Nothing on earth has real duration, for nothing remains without change — or the same — for the billionth part of a second; and the sensation we have of the actuality of the division of "time" known as the present, comes from the blurring of that momentary glimpse, or succession of glimpses, of things that our senses give us, as those things pass from the region of ideals which we call the future, to the region of memories that we name the past. In the same way we experience a sensation of duration in the case of the instantaneous electric spark, by reason of the blurred and continuing impression on the retina. The real person or thing does not consist solely of what is seen at any particular moment, but is composed of the sum of all its various and changing conditions from its appearance in the material form to its disappearance from the earth. It is these "sum-totals" that exist from eternity in the "future," and pass by degrees through matter, to exist for eternity in the "past." No one could say that a bar of metal dropped into the sea came into existence as it left the air, and ceased to exist as it entered the water, and that the bar itself consisted only of that cross-section thereof which at any given moment coincided with the mathematical plane that separates, and, at the same time, joins, the atmosphere and the ocean. Even so of persons and things, which, dropping out of the to-be into the has-been, out of the future into the past — present momentarily to our senses a cross-section, as it were, of their total selves, as they pass through time and space (as matter) on their way from one eternity to another: and these two constitute that "duration" in which alone anything has true existence, were our senses but able to cognize it there.
—————
3. . . . UNIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR THERE WERE NO AH-HI (celestial beings) TO CONTAIN (hence to manifest) IT (a).
(a) Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of Consciousness grouped under Thought, Will, and Feeling. During deep sleep, ideation ceases on the physical plane, and memory is in abeyance; thus for the time-being "Mind is not," because the organ, through which the Ego manifests ideation and memory on the material plane, has temporarily ceased to function. A noumenon can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle; and during the long night of rest called Pralaya, when all the existences are dissolved, the "UNIVERSAL MIND" remains as a permanent possibility of mental action, or as that abstract absolute thought, of which mind is the concrete relative manifestation. The AH-HI (Dhyan-Chohans) are the collective hosts of spiritual beings — the Angelic Hosts of Christianity, the Elohim and "Messengers" of the Jews — who are the vehicle for the manifestation of the divine or universal thought and will. They are the Intelligent Forces that give to and enact in Nature her "laws," while themselves acting according to laws imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers; but they are not "the personifications" of the powers of Nature, as erroneously thought. This hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the Universal Mind comes into action, is like an army — a "Host," truly—by means of which the fighting power of a nation manifests itself, and which is composed of army corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, and so forth, each with its separate individuality or life, and its limited freedom of action and limited responsibilities; each contained in a larger individuality, to which its own interests are subservient, and each containing lesser individualities in itself.
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4. THE SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS (Moksha* or Nirvana) WERE NOT (a). THE GREAT CAUSES OF MISERY (Nidana † and Maya) WERE NOT, FOR THERE WAS NO ONE TO PRODUCE AND GET ENSNARED BY THEM (b).
(a) There are seven "Paths" or "Ways" to the bliss of Non-Exist-
——————————————————————————————
*Nippang in China; Neibban in Burmah; or Moksha in India.
† The "12"
Nidanas (in Tibetan Ten-brel chug-nyi) the chief causes of existence, effects
generated by a concatenation of causes produced (see Comment. II).
ence, which is absolute Being, Existence, and Consciousness. They were not, because the Universe was, so far, empty, and existed only in the Divine Thought. For it is . . . .
(b) The twelve Nidanas or causes of being. Each is the effect of its antecedent cause, and a cause, in its turn, to its successor; the sum total of the Nidanas being based on the four truths, a doctrine especially characteristic of the Hînayâna System.* They belong to the theory of the stream of catenated law which produces merit and demerit, and finally brings Karma into full sway. It is based upon the great truth that re-incarnation is to be dreaded, as existence in this world only entails upon man suffering, misery and pain; Death itself being unable to deliver man from it, since death is merely the door through which he passes to another life on earth after a little rest on its threshold—Devachan. The Hînayâna System, or School of the "Little Vehicle," is of very ancient growth; while the Mahâyânâ is of a later period, having originated after the death of Buddha. Yet the tenets of the latter are as old as the hills that have contained such schools from time immemorial, and the Hînayâna and Mahâyânâ Schools (the latter, that of the "Great Vehicle") both teach the same doctrine in reality. Yana, or Vehicle (in Sanskrit, Vahan) is a mystic expression, both "vehicles" inculcating that man may escape the sufferings of rebirths and even the false bliss of Devachan, by obtaining Wisdom and Knowledge, which alone can dispel the Fruits of Illusion and Ignorance.
Maya or illusion is an element which enters into all finite things, for
everything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality, since the
appearance which the hidden noumenon assumes for any observer depends upon his
power of cognition. To the untrained eye of the savage, a painting is at first
an unmeaning confusion of streaks and daubs of color, while an educated eye sees
instantly a face or a landscape. Nothing is permanent except the one hidden
absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities. The
existences belonging to every plane of being, up to the highest Dhyan-Chohans,
are, in degree, of the nature of shadows cast by a magic lantern on a colourless
screen; but all things are relatively real, for the cogniser is also a
reflection, and the things cognised are therefore as real to him as himself.
Whatever reality things possess must be looked for in them
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* See Wassilief on Buddhism, pp. 97-950.
before or after they have passed like a flash through the material world; but we cannot cognise any such existence directly, so long as we have sense-instruments which bring only material existence into the field of our consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached "reality;" but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya.
—————
5. DARKNESS ALONE FILLED THE BOUNDLESS ALL (a), FOR FATHER, MOTHER AND SON WERE ONCE MORE ONE, AND THE SON HAD NOT AWAKENED YET FOR THE NEW WHEEL* AND HIS PILGRIMAGE THEREON (b).
(a) "Darkness is Father-Mother: light their son," says an old
Eastern proverb. Light is inconceivable except as coming from some source which
is the cause of it; and as, in the instance of primordial light, that source is
unknown, though as strongly demanded by reason and logic, therefore it is called
"Darkness" by us, from an intellectual point of view. As to borrowed or
secondary light, whatever its source, it can be but of a temporary mayavic
character. Darkness, then, is the eternal
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* That which is called "wheel" is the symbolical
expression for a world or globe, which shows that the ancients were aware that
our Earth was a revolving globe, not a motionless square as some Christian
Fathers taught. The "Great Wheel" is the whole duration of our Cycle of being,
or Maha Kalpa, i.e., the whole revolution of our special chain of seven
planets or Spheres from beginning to end; the "Small Wheels" meaning the Rounds,
of which there are also Seven.
matrix in which the sources of light appear and disappear. Nothing is added to darkness to make of it light, or to light to make it darkness, on this our plane. They are interchangeable, and scientifically light is but a mode of darkness and vice versâ. Yet both are phenomena of the same noumenon — which is absolute darkness to the scientific mind, and but a gray twilight to the perception of the average mystic, though to that of the spiritual eye of the Initiate it is absolute light. How far we discern the light that shines in darkness depends upon our powers of vision. What is light to us is darkness to certain insects, and the eye of the clairvoyant sees illumination where the normal eye perceives only blackness. When the whole universe was plunged in sleep — had returned to its one primordial element — there was neither centre of luminosity, nor eye to perceive light, and darkness necessarily filled the boundless all.
(b) The Father-Mother are the male and female principles in root-nature, the opposite poles that manifest in all things on every plane of Kosmos, or Spirit and Substance, in a less allegorical aspect, the resultant of which is the Universe, or the Son. They are "once more One" when in "The Night of Brahmâ," during Pralaya, all in the objective Universe has returned to its one primal and eternal cause, to reappear at the following Dawn — as it does periodically. "Karana" — eternal cause — was alone. To put it more plainly: Karana is alone during the "Nights of Brahmâ." The previous objective Universe has dissolved into its one primal and eternal cause, and is, so to say, held in solution in space, to differentiate again and crystallize out anew at the following Manvantaric dawn, which is the commencement of a new "Day" or new activity of Brahmâ — the symbol of the Universe. In esoteric parlance, Brahmâ is Father-Mother-Son, or Spirit, Soul and Body at once; each personage being symbolical of an attribute, and each attribute or quality being a graduated efflux of Divine Breath in its cyclic differentiation, involutionary and evolutionary. In the cosmicophysical sense, it is the Universe, the planetary chain and the earth; in the purely spiritual, the Unknown Deity, Planetary Spirit, and Man — the Son of the two, the creature of Spirit and Matter, and a manifestation of them in his periodical appearances on Earth during the "wheels," or the Manvantaras. — (See Part II. §: "Days and Nights of Brahmâ.")
6. THE SEVEN SUBLIME LORDS AND THE SEVEN TRUTHS HAD CEASED TO BE (a), AND THE UNIVERSE, THE SON OF NECESSITY, WAS IMMERSED IN PARANISHPANNA (b) (absolute perfection, Paranirvana, which is Yong-Grub) TO BE OUT-BREATHED BY THAT WHICH IS AND YET IS NOT. NAUGHT WAS (c).
(a) The seven sublime lords are the Seven Creative Spirits, the Dhyan-Chohans, who correspond to the Hebrew Elohim. It is the same hierarchy of Archangels to which St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and others belong, in the Christian theogony. Only while St. Michael, for instance, is allowed in dogmatic Latin theology to watch over all the promontories and gulfs, in the Esoteric System, the Dhyanis watch successively over one of the Rounds and the great Root-races of our planetary chain. They are, moreover, said to send their Bhodisatvas, the human correspondents of the Dhyani-Buddhas (of whom vide infra) during every Round and Race. Out of the Seven Truths and Revelations, or rather revealed secrets, four only have been handed to us, as we are still in the Fourth Round, and the world also has only had four Buddhas, so far. This is a very complicated question, and will receive more ample treatment later on.
So far "There are only Four Truths, and Four Vedas" — say the Hindus and Buddhists. For a similar reason Irenæus insisted on the necessity of Four Gospels. But as every new Root-race at the head of a Round must have its revelation and revealers, the next Round will bring the Fifth, the following the Sixth, and so on.
(b) "Paranishpanna" is the absolute perfection to which all existences attain at the close of a great period of activity, or Maha-Manvantara, and in which they rest during the succeeding period of repose. In Tibetan it is called Yong-Grub. Up to the day of the Yogâchârya school the true nature of Paranirvana was taught publicly, but since then it has become entirely esoteric; hence so many contradictory interpretations of it. It is only a true Idealist who can understand it. Everything has to be viewed as ideal, with the exception of Paranirvana, by him who would comprehend that state, and acquire a knowledge of how Non Ego, Voidness, and Darkness are Three in One and alone Self-existent and perfect. It is absolute, however, only in a relative
sense, for it must give room to still further absolute perfection, according to a higher standard of excellence in the following period of activity — just as a perfect flower must cease to be a perfect flower and die, in order to grow into a perfect fruit, — if a somewhat Irish mode of expression may be permitted.
The Secret Doctrine teaches the progressive development of everything, worlds as well as atoms; and this stupendous development has neither conceivable beginning nor imaginable end. Our "Universe" is only one of an infinite number of Universes, all of them "Sons of Necessity," because links in the great Cosmic chain of Universes, each one standing in the relation of an effect as regards its predecessor, and being a cause as regards its successor.
The appearance and disappearance of the Universe are pictured as an outbreathing and inbreathing of "the Great Breath," which is eternal, and which, being Motion, is one of the three aspects of the Absolute — Abstract Space and Duration being the other two. When the "Great Breath" is projected, it is called the Divine Breath, and is regarded as the breathing of the Unknowable Deity — the One Existence — which breathes out a thought, as it were, which becomes the Kosmos. (See "Isis Unveiled.") So also is it when the Divine Breath is inspired again the Universe disappears into the bosom of "the Great Mother," who then sleeps "wrapped in her invisible robes."
(c) By "that which is and yet is not" is meant the Great
Breath itself, which we can only speak of as absolute existence, but cannot
picture to our imagination as any form of existence that we can distinguish from
Non-existence. The three periods — the Present,
the Past, and the Future — are in the esoteric
philosophy a compound time; for the three are a composite number only in
relation to the phenomenal plane, but in the realm of noumena have no abstract
validity. As said in the Scriptures: "The Past time is the Present time, as also
the Future, which, though it has not come into existence, still is"; according
to a precept in the Prasanga Madhyamika teaching, whose dogmas have been known
ever since it broke away from the purely esoteric schools.* Our ideas, in
short, on duration and time are all derived from our
——————————————————————————————
* See Dzungarian "Mani Kumbum," the "Book of the 10,000
Precepts." Also consult Wassilief's "Der Buddhismus," pp. 327 and 357, etc.
sensations according to the laws of Association. Inextricably bound up with the relativity of human knowledge, they nevertheless can have no existence except in the experience of the individual ego, and perish when its evolutionary march dispels the Maya of phenomenal existence. What is Time, for instance, but the panoramic succession of our states of consciousness? In the words of a Master, "I feel irritated at having to use these three clumsy words — Past, Present, and Future — miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective whole, they are about as ill-adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine carving." One has to acquire Paramârtha lest one should become too easy a prey to Samvriti—is a philosophical axiom.*
—————
7. THE CAUSES OF EXISTENCE HAD BEEN DONE AWAY WITH (a); THE VISIBLE THAT WAS, AND THE INVISIBLE THAT IS, RESTED IN ETERNAL NON-BEING, THE ONE BEING (b).
(a) "The Causes of Existence" mean not only the physical causes
known to science, but the metaphysical causes, the chief of which is the desire
to exist, an outcome of Nidana and Maya. This desire for a sentient life shows
itself in everything, from an atom to a sun, and is a reflection of the Divine
Thought propelled into objective existence, into a law that the Universe should
exist. According to esoteric teaching, the real cause of that supposed desire,
and of all existence, remains for ever hidden, and its first emanations are the
most complete abstractions mind can conceive. These abstractions must of
necessity be postulated as the cause of the material Universe which presents
itself to the senses and intellect; and they underlie the secondary and
subordinate powers of Nature, which, anthropomorphized, have been worshipped as
God and gods by the common herd of every age. It is impossible to conceive
anything without a cause; the attempt to do so makes the mind a blank.
——————————————————————————————
* In clearer words: "One has to acquire true
Self-Consciousness in order to understand Samvriti, or the 'origin of
delusion.'" Paramârtha
is the synonym of the Sanskrit term Svasam-vedana, or "the reflection
which analyses itself." There is a difference in the interpretation of the
meaning of "Paramârtha"
between the Yogâchâryas
and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom, however, explain the real and true
esoteric sense of the expression. See further, sloka No. 9.
This is virtually the condition to which the mind must come at last when we try to trace back the chain of causes and effects, but both science and religion jump to this condition of blankness much more quickly than is necessary; for they ignore the metaphysical abstractions which are the only conceivable cause of physical concretions. These abstractions become more and more concrete as they approach our plane of existence, until finally they phenomenalise in the form of the material Universe, by a process of conversion of metaphysics into physics, analogous to that by which steam can be condensed into water, and the water frozen into ice.
(b) The idea of Eternal Non-Being, which is the One Being, will appear a paradox to anyone who does not remember that we limit our ideas of being to our present consciousness of existence; making it a specific, instead of a generic term. An unborn infant, could it think in our acceptation of that term, would necessarily limit its conception of being, in a similar manner, to the intrauterine life which alone it knows; and were it to endeavour to express to its consciousness the idea of life after birth (death to it), it would, in the absence of data to go upon, and of faculties to comprehend such data, probably express that life as "Non-Being which is Real Being." In our case the One Being is the noumenon of all the noumena which we know must underlie phenomena, and give them whatever shadow of reality they possess, but which we have not the senses or the intellect to cognize at present. The impalpable atoms of gold scattered through the substance of a ton of auriferous quartz may be imperceptible to the naked eye of the miner, yet he knows that they are not only present there but that they alone give his quartz any appreciable value; and this relation of the gold to the quartz may faintly shadow forth that of the noumenon to the phenomenon. But the miner knows what the gold will look like when extracted from the quartz, whereas the common mortal can form no conception of the reality of things separated from the Maya which veils them, and in which they are hidden. Alone the Initiate, rich with the lore acquired by numberless generations of his predecessors, directs the "Eye of Dangma" toward the essence of things in which no Maya can have any influence. It is here that the teachings of esoteric philosophy in relation to the Nidanas and the Four Truths become of the greatest importance; but they are secret.
8. ALONE, THE ONE FORM OF EXISTENCE STRETCHED BOUNDLESS, INFINITE, CAUSELESS, IN DREAMLESS SLEEP (a); AND LIFE PULSATED UNCONSCIOUS IN UNIVERSAL SPACE, THROUGHOUT THAT ALL-PRESENCE WHICH IS SENSED BY THE "OPENED EYE" * OF THE DANGMA (b).†
(a) The tendency of modern thought is to recur to the archaic idea
of a homogeneous basis for apparently widely different things — heterogeneity developed from homogeneity.
Biologists are now searching for their homogeneous protoplasm and chemists for
their protyle, while science is looking for the force of which electricity,
magnetism, heat, and so forth, are the differentiations. The Secret Doctrine
carries this idea into the region of metaphysics and postulates a "One Form of
Existence" as the basis and source of all things. But perhaps the phrase, the
"One Form of Existence," is not altogether correct. The Sanskrit word is
Prabhavapyaya, "the place, or rather plane, whence emerges the origination, and
into which is the resolution of all things," says a commentator. It is not the
"Mother of the World," as translated by Wilson (see Book I., Vishnu Purana); for
Jagad Yoni (as shown by FitzEdward Hall) is scarcely so much "the Mother of the
World" or "the Womb of the World" as the "Material Cause of the Universe." The
Purânic Commentators explain it by Karana — "Cause" — but the
Esoteric philosophy, by the ideal spirit of that cause. It is, in its
secondary stage, the Svâbhâvat
of the Buddhist philosopher, the eternal cause and effect, omnipresent yet
abstract, the self-existent plastic Essence and the root of all things, viewed
in the same dual light as the Vedantin views his Parabrahm and Mulaprakriti, the
one under two aspects. It seems indeed extraordinary to find great scholars
speculating on the possibility of the Vedanta, and the Uttara-Mimansa
especially, having been "evoked by the teachings of the Buddhists,"
——————————————————————————————
* In India it is called "The Eye of Siva," but beyond the
great range it is known as "Dangma's opened eye" in esoteric phraseology.
† Dangma means a
purified soul, one who has become a Jivanmukta, the highest adept, or rather a
Mahatma so-called. His "opened eye" is the inner spiritual eye of the seer, and
the faculty which manifests through it is not clairvoyance as ordinarily
understood, i.e., the power of seeing at a distance, but rather the
faculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is
obtainable. This faculty is intimately connected with the "third eye," which
mythological tradition ascribes to certain races of men. Fuller explanations
will be found in Book II.
whereas, it is on the contrary Buddhism (of Gautama, the Buddha) that was "evoked" and entirely upreared on the tenets of the Secret Doctrine, of which a partial sketch is here attempted, and on which, also, the Upanishads are made to rest.* The above, according to the teachings of Sri Sankarâchârya, † is undeniable.
(b) Dreamless sleep is one of the seven states of consciousness known in Oriental esotericism. In each of these states a different portion of the mind comes into action; or as a Vedantin would express it, the individual is conscious in a different plane of his being. The term "dreamless sleep," in this case is applied allegorically to the Universe to express a condition somewhat analogous to that state of consciousness in man, which, not being remembered in a waking state, seems a blank, just as the sleep of the mesmerised subject seems to him an unconscious blank when he returns to his normal condition, although he has been talking and acting as a conscious individual would.
—————
9.
BUT WHERE WAS THE
DANGMA WHEN THE
ALAYA OF THE
UNIVERSE
(Soul as the basis
of all, Anima Mundi) WAS IN
PARAMARTHA
(a)
(Absolute Being and Consciousness which are Absolute Non-Being and
Unconsciousness) AND THE GREAT WHEEL WAS
ANUPADAKA
(b)?
——————————————————————————————
* And yet, one, claiming
authority, namely, Sir Monier Williams, Boden Professor of Sanskrit at
Oxford, has just denied this fact. This is what he taught his audience, on June
the 4th, 1888, in his annual address before the Victoria Institute of Great
Britain: "Originally, Buddhism set its face against all solitary asceticism .
. . to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no
esoteric system of doctrine . . . withheld from ordinary men" (!!)
And, again: " . . . When Gautama Buddha began his career, the later and
lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known." And then,
contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith informs his audience that
"We learn from Lalita-Vistara that various forms of bodily torture,
self-maceration, and austerity were common in Gautama's time." (!!) But the
lecturer seems quite unaware that this kind of torture and self-maceration is
precisely the lower form of Yoga, Hatha Yoga, which was
"little known" and yet so "common" in Gautama's time.
†
It is even argued that all the Six Darsanas (Schools of
philosophy) show traces of Buddha's influence, being either taken from Buddhism
or due to Greek teaching! (See Weber, Max Müller, etc.) We labour under the
impression that Colebrooke, "the highest authority" in such matters, had long
ago settled the question by showing, that "the Hindus were in this instance the
teachers, not the learners."
(a) Here we have before us the subject of
centuries of scholastic disputations. The two terms "Alaya" and "Paramârtha"
have been the causes of dividing schools and splitting the truth into more
different aspects than any other mystic terms. Alaya is literally the "Soul of
the World" or Anima Mundi, the "Over-Soul" of Emerson, and according to esoteric
teaching it changes periodically its nature. Alaya, though eternal and
changeless in its inner essence on the planes which are unreachable by either
men or Cosmic Gods (Dhyani Buddhas), alters during the active life-period with
respect to the lower planes, ours included. During that time not only the
Dhyani-Buddhas are one with Alaya in Soul and Essence, but even the man strong
in the Yoga (mystic meditation) "is able to merge his soul with it" (Aryasanga,
the Bumapa school). This is not Nirvana, but a condition next to it.
Hence the disagreement. Thus, while the Yogâchâryas (of the Mahâyânâ school) say
that Alaya is the personification of the Voidness, and yet Alaya (Nyingpo
and Tsang in Tibetan) is the basis of every visible and invisible
thing, and that, though it is eternal and immutable in its essence, it reflects
itself in every object of the Universe "like the moon in clear tranquil water";
other schools dispute the statement. The same for Paramârtha: the Yogâchâryas
interpret the term as that which is also dependent upon other things (paratantra);
and the Madhyamikas say that Paramârtha is limited to Paranishpanna or
absolute perfection; i.e., in the exposition of these "two
truths" (out of four), the former believe and maintain that (on this plane, at
any rate) there exists only Samvritisatya or relative truth; and the latter
teach the existence of Paramârthasatya, the "absolute truth." * "No
Arhat, oh mendicants, can reach absolute knowledge before he becomes one with
Paranirvana. Parikalpita and Paratantra are his two great
enemies" (Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas). Parikalpita (in Tibetan
Kun-ttag) is error, made by those unable to realize the emptiness
and illusionary nature of all; who believe something to exist which does not —
e.g., the Non-Ego. And
——————————————————————————————
*"Paramârtha" is self-consciousness in
Sanskrit, Svasamvedana, or the "self-analysing reflection" — from two words,
parama (above everything) and artha (comprehension), Satya meaning absolute true
being, or Esse. In Tibetan Paramârthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite of
this absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya — the relative truth only
— "Samvriti" meaning "false conception" and being the origin of illusion, Maya;
in Tibetan Kundzabchi-denpa, "illusion-creating appearance."
Paratantra is that, whatever it is, which exists only through a dependent or causal connexion, and which has to disappear as soon as the cause from which it proceeds is removed — e.g., the light of a wick. Destroy or extinguish it, and light disappears.
Esoteric philosophy teaches that everything lives and is conscious, but not that all life and consciousness are similar to those of human or even animal beings. Life we look upon as "the one form of existence," manifesting in what is called matter; or, as in man, what, incorrectly separating them, we name Spirit, Soul and Matter. Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation of soul on this plane of existence, and soul is the vehicle on a higher plane for the manifestation of spirit, and these three are a trinity synthesized by Life, which pervades them all. The idea of universal life is one of those ancient conceptions which are returning to the human mind in this century, as a consequence of its liberation from anthropomorphic theology. Science, it is true, contents itself with tracing or postulating the signs of universal life, and has not yet been bold enough even to whisper "Anima Mundi!" The idea of "crystalline life," now familiar to science, would have been scouted half a century ago. Botanists are now searching for the nerves of plants; not that they suppose that plants can feel or think as animals do, but because they believe that some structure, bearing the same relation functionally to plant life that nerves bear to animal life, is necessary to explain vegetable growth and nutrition. It hardly seems possible that science can disguise from itself much longer, by the mere use of terms such as "force" and "energy," the fact that things that have life are living things, whether they be atoms or planets.
But what is the belief of the inner esoteric Schools?
the reader may ask. What are the doctrines taught on this subject by the
Esoteric "Buddhists"? With them "Alaya" has a double and even a triple meaning.
In the Yogâchârya system of the contemplative Mahâyânâ school, Alaya is both the
Universal Soul (Anima Mundi) and the Self of a progressed adept. "He who is
strong in the Yoga can introduce at will his Alaya by means of meditation into
the true Nature of Existence." The "Alaya has an absolute eternal existence,"
says Aryâsanga — the rival of Nagârjuna.* In one sense it is Pradhâna;
which
——————————————————————————————
* Aryasanga was a pre-Christian
Adept and founder of a Buddhist esoteric school, though Csoma di Köros places
him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh centure
A.D. There was another Aryâsanga, who lived during the first centuries of our
era and the Hungarian scholar most probably confuses the two.
is explained in Vishnu Purâna as: "that which is the unevolved cause, is emphatically called by the most eminent sages Pradhâna, original base, which is subtile Prakriti, viz., that which is eternal, and which at once is (or comprehends) what is and what is not, or is mere process." "Prakriti," however, is an incorrect word, and Alaya would explain it better; for Prakriti is not the "uncognizable Brahma." * It is a mistake of those who know nothing of the Universality of the Occult doctrines from the very cradle of the human races, and especially so of those scholars who reject the very idea of a "primordial revelation," to teach that the Anima Mundi, the One Life or "Universal Soul," was made known only by Anaxagoras, or during his age. This philosopher brought the teaching forward simply to oppose the too materialistic conceptions on Cosmogony of Democritus, based on his exoteric theory of blindly driven atoms. Anaxagoras of Clazomene was not its inventor but only its propagator, as also was Plato. That which he called Mundane Intelligence, the nous ( nou'" ), the principle that according to his views is absolutely separated and free from matter and acts on design,† was called Motion, the ONE LIFE, or Jivatma, ages before the year 500 B.C. in India. Only the Aryan philosophers never endowed the principle, which with them is infinite, with the finite "attribute" of "thinking."
This leads the reader naturally to the "Supreme Spirit"
of Hegel and the German Transcendentalists as a contrast that it may be useful
to point out. The schools of Schelling and Fichte have diverged widely from the
primitive archaic conception of an ABSOLUTE principle, and have mirrored only an
aspect of the basic idea of the Vedanta. Even the "Absoluter Geist" shadowed
forth by von Hartman in his pessimistic philosophy of the Unconscious, while it
is, perhaps, the closest approximation made by European speculation to the Hindu
Adwaitee Doctrines, similarly falls far short of the reality.
——————————————————————————————
* "The indiscreet cause which is uniform,
and both cause and effect, and which those who are acquainted with first
principles call Pradhâna and Prakriti, is the incognizable Brahma who was before
all" (Vâyu Purâna); i.e., Brahma does not put forth evolution itself or
create, but only exhibits various aspects of itself, one of which is Prakriti,
an aspect of Pradhâna.
† Finite Self-consciousness, I mean. For how can
the absolute attain it otherwise than as simply an aspect,
the highest of which known to us is human consciousness?
According to Hegel, the "Unconscious" would never have undertaken the vast and laborious task of evolving the Universe, except in the hope of attaining clear Self-consciousness. In this connection it is to be borne in mind that in designating Spirit, which the European Pantheists use as equivalent to Parabrahm, as unconscious, they do not attach to that expression of "Spirit" — one employed in the absence of a better to symbolise a profound mystery — the connotation it usually bears.
The "Absolute Consciousness," they tell us, "behind" phenomena, which is only termed unconsciousness in the absence of any element of personality, transcends human conception. Man, unable to form one concept except in terms of empirical phenomena, is powerless from the very constitution of his being to raise the veil that shrouds the majesty of the Absolute. Only the liberated Spirit is able to faintly realise the nature of the source whence it sprung and whither it must eventually return. . . . As the highest Dhyan Chohan, however, can but bow in ignorance before the awful mystery of Absolute Being; and since, even in that culmination of conscious existence — "the merging of the individual in the universal consciousness" — to use a phrase of Fichte's — the Finite cannot conceive the Infinite, nor can it apply to it its own standard of mental experiences, how can it be said that the "Unconscious" and the Absolute can have even an instinctive impulse or hope of attaining clear self-consciousness? * A Vedantin would never admit this Hegelian idea; and the Occultist would say that it applies perfectly to the awakened MAHAT, the Universal Mind already projected into the phenomenal world as the first aspect of the changeless ABSOLUTE, but never to the latter. "Spirit and Matter, or Purusha and Prakriti are but the two primeval aspects of the One and Secondless," we are taught.
The matter-moving Nous, the animating Soul, immanent in
every atom, manifested in man, latent in the stone, has different degrees of
power; and this pantheistic idea of a general Spirit-Soul pervading all Nature
is the oldest of all the philosophical notions. Nor was the Archæus a discovery
of Paracelsus nor of his pupil Van Helmont; for it is again the same Archæus or
"Father-Ether," — the manifested basis
——————————————————————————————
* See Schwegler's "Handbook of the
History of Philosophy" in Sterling's translation, p. 28.
and source of the innumerable phenomena of life — localised. The whole series of the numberless speculations of this kind are but variations on this theme, the key-note of which was struck in this primeval Revelation. (See Part II., "Primordial Substance.")
(b) The term Anupadaka, "parentless,"
or without progenitors, is a mystical designation having several meanings in the
philosophy. By this name celestial beings, the Dhyan-Chohans or Dhyani-Buddhas,
are generally meant. But as these correspond mystically to the human Buddhas and
Bodhisattwas, known as the "Mânushi (or human) Buddhas," the latter are also
designated "Anupadaka," once that their whole personality is merged in their
compound sixth and seventh principles — or Atma-Buddhi, and that they have
become the "diamond-souled" (Vajra-sattvas),* the full Mahatmas. The
"Concealed Lord" (Sangbai Dag-po), "the one merged with the absolute," can have
no parents since he is Self-existent, and one with the Universal Spirit (Svayambhu),
† the Svâbhâvat in the highest aspect. The mystery in the hierarchy of the
Anupadaka is great, its apex being the universal Spirit-Soul, and the lower rung
the Mânushi-Buddha; and even every Soul-endowed man is an Anupadaka in a latent
state. Hence, when speaking of the Universe in its formless, eternal, or
absolute condition, before it was fashioned by the "Builders" — the expression,
"the Universe was Anupadaka." (See Part II., "Primordial Substance.")
——————————————————————————————
* Vajra — diamond-holder. In Tibetan
Dorjesempa; sempa meaning the soul, its adamantine quality referring to its
indestructibility in the hereafter. The explanation with regard to the
"Anupadaka" given in the Kala Chakra, the first in the Gyu(t) division of the
Kanjur, is half esoteric. It has misled the Orientalists into erroneous
speculations with respect to the Dhyani-Buddhas and their earthly
correspondencies, the Manushi-Buddhas. The real tenet is hinted at in a
subsequent Volume, (see "The Mystery about Buddha"), and will be more fully
explained in its proper place.
† To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling
practically accepted the Pantheistic conception of periodical Avatars (special
incarnations of the World-Spirit in Man, as seen in the case of all the great
religious reformers) . . . . "the essence of man is spirit . . . . only by
stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure
self-consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ-man, as man in whom the
Unity of God-man (identity of the individual with the Universal consciousness as
taught by the Vedantins and some Adwaitees) appeared, has, in his death and
history generally, himself presented the eternal history of Spirit — a history
which every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as Spirit." —
Philosophy of History. Sibree's English translation, p. 340.
COMMENTARY.
1. . . . . WHERE WERE THE BUILDERS, THE LUMINOUS SONS OF MANVANTARIC DAWN (a)? . . . . IN THE UNKNOWN DARKNESS IN THEIR AH-HI (Chohanic, Dhyani-Buddhic) PARANISHPANNA, THE PRODUCERS OF FORM (rupa) FROM NO-FORM (arupa), THE ROOT OF THE WORLD — THE DEVAMATRI * AND SVABHAVAT, RESTED IN THE BLISS OF NON-BEING (b).
(a) The "Builders," the "Sons of Manvantaric Dawn," are the real creators of the Universe; and in this doctrine, which deals only with our Planetary System, they, as the architects of the latter, are also called the "Watchers" of the Seven Spheres, which exoterically are the Seven planets, and esoterically the seven earths or spheres (planets) of our chain also. The opening sentence of Stanza I., when mentioning "Seven Eternities," is made to apply both to the Maha-Kalpa or "the (great) Age of Brahmâ," as well as to the Solar pralaya and subsequent resurrection of our Planetary System on a higher plane. There are many kinds of pralaya (dissolution of a thing visible), as will be shown elsewhere.
(b) Paranishpanna, remember, is the summum
bonum, the Absolute, hence the same as Paranirvana. Besides being
the final state it is that condition of subjectivity which has no relation to
anything but the one absolute truth (Para-mârthasatya) on its plane. It is that
state which leads one to appreciate correctly the full meaning of Non-Being,
which, as explained, is absolute Being. Sooner or later, all that now
seemingly exists, will be in reality and actually in the state of
Paranishpanna. But there is a great difference between conscious and
unconscious "being." The condition of Paranishpanna, without
Paramârtha, the Self-analys-
——————————————————————————————
* "Mother of
the Gods," Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the Zohar, she is called Sephira the
Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her primordial form, in
abscondito.
ing consciousness (Svasamvedana), is no bliss, but simply extinction (for Seven Eternities). Thus, an iron ball placed under the scorching rays of the sun will get heated through, but will not feel or appreciate the warmth, while a man will. It is only "with a mind clear and undarkened by personality, and an assimilation of the merit of manifold existences devoted to being in its collectivity (the whole living and sentient Universe)," that one gets rid of personal existence, merging into, becoming one with, the Absolute,* and continuing in full possession of Paramârtha.
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2. . . WHERE WAS SILENCE? WHERE WERE THE EARS TO SENSE IT? NO! THERE WAS NEITHER SILENCE, NOR SOUND (a). NAUGHT SAVE CEASELESS, ETERNAL BREATH (Motion) WHICH KNOWS ITSELF NOT (b).
(a) The idea that things can cease to exist and
still BE, is a fundamental one in Eastern psychology. Under this apparent
contradiction in terms, there rests a fact of Nature to realise which in the
mind, rather than to argue about words, is the important thing. A familiar
instance of a similar paradox is afforded by chemical combination. The question
whether Hydrogen and Oxygen cease to exist, when they combine to form water, is
still a moot one, some arguing that since they are found again when the water is
decomposed they must be there all the while; others contending that as they
actually turn into something totally different they must cease to exist as
themselves for the time being; but neither side is able to form the faintest
conception of the real condition of a thing, which has become something else and
yet has not ceased to be itself. Existence as water may be said to be, for
Oxygen and Hydrogen, a state of Non-being which is "more real being" than their
existence as gases; and it may faintly symbolise the
——————————————————————————————
* Hence Non-being is "ABSOLUTE
Being," in esoteric philosophy. In the tenets of the latter even Adi-Budha
(first or primeval wisdom) is, while manifested, in one sense an illusion, Maya,
since all the gods, including Brahmâ, have to die at the end of the "Age of
Brahmâ"; the abstraction called Parabrahm alone — whether we call it Ensoph, or
Herbert Spencer's Unknowable — being "the One Absolute" Reality. The One
secondless Existence is ADWAITA, "Without a Second," and all the rest is
Maya, teaches the Adwaita philosophy.
condition of the Universe when it goes to sleep, or ceases to be, during the "Nights of Brahmâ" — to awaken or reappear again, when the dawn of the new Manvantara recalls it to what we call existence.
(b) The "Breath" of the One Existence is used in its application only to the spiritual aspect of Cosmogony by Archaic esotericism; otherwise, it is replaced by its equivalent in the material plane — Motion. The One Eternal Element, or element-containing Vehicle, is Space, dimensionless in every sense; co-existent with which are — endless duration, primordial (hence indestructible) matter, and motion — absolute "perpetual motion" which is the "breath" of the "One" Element. This breath, as seen, can never cease, not even during the Pralayic eternities. (See "Chaos, Theos, Kosmos," in Part II.)
But the "Breath of the One Existence" does not, all the same, apply to the One Causeless Cause or the "All Be-ness" (in contradistinction to All-Being, which is Brahmâ, or the Universe). Brahmâ (or Hari) the four-faced god who, after lifting the Earth out of the waters, "accomplished the Creation," is held to be only the instrumental, and not, as clearly implied, the ideal Cause. No Orientalist, so far, seems to have thoroughly comprehended the real sense of the verses in the Purâna, that treat of "creation."
Therein Brahmâ is the cause of the potencies that are to be generated subsequently for the work of "creation." When a translator says, "And from him proceed the potencies to be created, after they had become the real cause": "and from IT proceed the potencies that will create as they become the real cause" (on the material plane) would perhaps be more correct? Save that one (causeless) ideal cause there is no other to which the universe can be referred. "Worthiest of ascetics! through its potency — i.e., through the potency of that cause — every created thing comes by its inherent or proper nature." If, in the Vedanta and Nyaya, nimitta is the efficient cause, as contrasted with upadána, the material cause, (and in the Sankhya, pradhána implies the functions of both); in the Esoteric philosophy, which reconciles all these systems, and the nearest exponent of which is the Vedanta as expounded by the Advaita Vedantists, none but the upadána can be speculated upon; that which is in the minds of the Vaishnavas (the Vasishta-dvaita) as the ideal in contradistinction to the real — or Parabrahm and Isvara — can find no room in published speculations, since
that ideal even is a misnomer, when applied to that of which no human reason, even that of an adept, can conceive.
To know itself or oneself, necessitates consciousness and perception (both limited faculties in relation to any subject except Parabrahm), to be cognized. Hence the "Eternal Breath which knows itself not." Infinity cannot comprehend Finiteness. The Boundless can have no relation to the bounded and the conditioned. In the occult teachings, the Unknown and the Unknowable MOVER, or the Self-Existing, is the absolute divine Essence. And thus being Absolute Consciousness, and Absolute Motion — to the limited senses of those who describe this indescribable — it is unconsciousness and immoveableness. Concrete consciousness cannot be predicated of abstract Consciousness, any more than the quality wet can be predicated of water — wetness being its own attribute and the cause of the wet quality in other things. Consciousness implies limitations and qualifications; something to be conscious of, and someone to be conscious of it. But Absolute Consciousness contains the cognizer, the thing cognized and the cognition, all three in itself and all three one. No man is conscious of more than that portion of his knowledge that happens to have been recalled to his mind at any particular time, yet such is the poverty of language that we have no term to distinguish the knowledge not actively thought of, from knowledge we are unable to recall to memory. To forget is synonymous with not to remember. How much greater must be the difficulty of finding terms to describe, and to distinguish between, abstract metaphysical facts or differences. It must not be forgotten, also, that we give names to things according to the appearances they assume for ourselves. We call absolute consciousness "unconsciousness," because it seems to us that it must necessarily be so, just as we call the Absolute, "Darkness," because to our finite understanding it appears quite impenetrable, yet we recognize fully that our perception of such things does not do them justice. We involuntarily distinguish in our minds, for instance, between unconscious absolute consciousness, and unconsciousness, by secretly endowing the former with some indefinite quality that corresponds, on a higher plane than our thoughts can reach, with what we know as consciousness in ourselves. But this is not any kind of consciousness that we can manage to distinguish from what appears to us as unconsciousness.
3. THE HOUR HAD NOT YET STRUCK; THE RAY HAD NOT YET FLASHED INTO THE GERM (a); THE MATRI-PADMA (mother lotus) HAD NOT YET SWOLLEN (b).*
(a) The ray of the "Ever Darkness" becomes, as it is emitted, a ray of effulgent light or life, and flashes into the "Germ" — the point in the Mundane Egg, represented by matter in its abstract sense. But the term "Point" must not be understood as applying to any particular point in Space, for a germ exists in the centre of every atom, and these collectively form "the Germ;" or rather, as no atom can be made visible to our physical eye, the collectivity of these (if the term can be applied to something which is boundless and infinite) forms the noumenon of eternal and indestructible matter.
(b) One of the symbolical figures for the Dual creative power in Nature (matter and force on the material plane) is Padma, the water-lily of India. The Lotus is the product of heat (fire) and water (vapour or Ether); fire standing in every philosophical and religious system as a representation of the Spirit of Deity, † the active, male, generative principle; and Ether, or the Soul of matter, the light of the fire, for the passive female principle from which everything in this Universe emanated. Hence, Ether or Water is the Mother, and Fire is the Father. Sir W. Jones (and before him archaic botany) showed that the seeds of the Lotus contain — even before they germinate — perfectly formed leaves, the miniature shape of what one day, as perfect plants, they will become: nature thus giving us a specimen of the preformation of its production . . . the seed of all phanerogamous plants bearing proper flowers containing an embryo plantlet ready formed. ‡ (See Part II., "The Lotus Flower as an Universal Symbol.") This explains the sentence "The Mother had not yet swollen"— the form being usually sacrificed to the inner or root idea in Archaic symbology.
The Lotus, or Padma, is, moreover, a very ancient and
favourite
——————————————————————————————
* An unpoetical term, yet still
very graphic. (See foot-note to Stanza III.)
†
Even in Christianity. (See Part II., "Primordial Substance and
Divine Thought.")
‡ Gross, "The Heathen Religion," p. 195.
simile for the Kosmos itself, and also for man. The popular reasons given are, firstly, the fact just mentioned, that the Lotus-seed contains within itself a perfect miniature of the future plant, which typifies the fact that the spiritual prototypes of all things exist in the immaterial world before those things become materialised on Earth. Secondly, the fact that the Lotus plant grows up through the water, having its root in the Ilus, or mud, and spreading its flower in the air above. The Lotus thus typifies the life of man and also that of the Kosmos; for the Secret Doctrine teaches that the elements of both are the same, and that both are developing in the same direction. The root of the Lotus sunk in the mud represents material life, the stalk passing up through the water typifies existence in the astral world, and the flower floating on the water and opening to the sky is emblematical of spiritual being.
—————
4. HER HEART HAD NOT YET OPENED FOR THE ONE RAY TO ENTER, THENCE TO FALL AS THREE INTO FOUR IN THE LAP OF MAYA (a).
(a) The Primordial Substance had not yet passed out of its precosmic latency into differentiated objectivity, or even become the (to man, so far,) invisible Protyle of Science. But, as the hour strikes and it becomes receptive of the Fohatic impress of the Divine Thought (the Logos, or the male aspect of the Anima Mundi, Alaya) — its heart opens. It differentiates, and the THREE (Father, Mother, Son) are transformed into four. Herein lies the origin of the double mystery of the Trinity and the immaculate Conception. The first and Fundamental dogma of Occultism is Universal Unity (or Homogeneity) under three aspects. This led to a possible conception of Deity, which as an absolute unity must remain forever incomprehensible to finite intellects. "If thou wouldest believe in the Power which acts within the root of a plant, or imagine the root concealed under the soil, thou hast to think of its stalk or trunk and of its leaves and flowers. Thou canst not imagine that Power independently of these objects. Life can be known only by the Tree of Life. . . ." (Precepts for Yoga). The idea of Absolute Unity
would be broken entirely in our conception, had we not
something concrete before our eyes to contain that Unity. And the deity being
absolute, must be omnipresent, hence not an atom but contains IT within itself.
The roots, the trunk and its many branches are three distinct objects, yet they
are one tree. Say the Kabalists: "The Deity is one, because It is infinite. It
is triple, because it is ever manifesting." This manifestation is triple in its
aspects, for it requires, as Aristotle has it, three principles for every
natural body to become objective: privation, form, and matter.* Privation
meant in the mind of the great philosopher that which the Occultists call the
prototypes impressed in the Astral Light —
the lowest plane and world of Anima Mundi. The union of these three principles
depends upon a fourth —
the LIFE which radiates from the summits of the Unreachable, to become an
universally diffused Essence on the manifested planes of Existence. And this
QUATERNARY (Father, Mother, Son, as a UNITY, and a quaternary, as a living
manifestation) has been the means of leading to the very archaic Idea of
Immaculate Conception, now finally crystallized into a dogma of the Christian
Church, which carnalized this metaphysical idea beyond any common sense. For one
has but to read the Kabala and study its numerical methods of interpretation to
find the origin of that dogma. It is purely astronomical, mathematical, and
pre-eminently metaphysical: the Male element in Nature (personified by the male
deities and Logoi —
Viraj, or Brahmâ; Horus, or Osiris, etc., etc.) is born through, not from, an
immaculate source, personified by the "Mother"; because that Male having a
Mother cannot have a "Father" —
the abstract Deity being sexless, and not even a Being but Be-ness, or Life
itself. Let us render this in the mathematical language of the author of "The
Source of Measures." Speaking of the "Measure of a Man" and his numerical
(Kabalistic) value, he writes that in Genesis, ch. iv., v. 1, "It is called the
'Man even Jehovah'
——————————————————————————————
* A Vedantin of the Visishtadwaita
philosophy would say that, though the only independent Reality, Parabrahmam is
inseparable from his trinity. That He is three, "Parabrahmam, Chit, and Achit,"
the last two being dependent realities unable to exist separately; or, to make
it clearer, Parabrahmam is the SUBSTANCE
— changeless, eternal, and
incognizable —
and Chit (Atma), and Achit (Anatma) are its qualities, as form and colour are
the qualities of any object. The two are the garment, or body, or rather
attribute (Sarira) of Parabrahmam. But an Occultist would find much to say
against this claim, and so would the Adwaitee Vedantin.
Measure, and this is obtained in this way, viz.: 113 x 5 = 565, and the value 565 can be placed under the form of expression 56.5 x 10 = 565. Here the Man-number 113 becomes a factor of 56.5 x 10, and the (Kabalistic) reading of this last numbered expression is Jod, He, Vau, He, or Jehovah. . . . The expansion of 565 into 56.5 x 10 is purposed to show the emanation of the male (Jod) from the female (Eva) principle; or, so to speak, the birth of a male element from an immaculate source, in other words, an immaculate conception."
Thus is repeated on Earth the mystery enacted, according to the Seers, on the divine plane. The "Son" of the immaculate Celestial Virgin (or the undifferentiated cosmic protyle, Matter in its infinitude) is born again on Earth as the Son of the terrestrial Eve — our mother Earth, and becomes Humanity as a total — past, present, and future — for Jehovah or Jod-he-vau-he is androgyne, or both male and female. Above, the Son is the whole KOSMOS; below, he is MANKIND. The triad or triangle becomes Tetraktis, the Sacred Pythagorean number, the perfect Square, and a 6-faced cube on Earth. The Macroprosopus (the Great Face) is now Microprosopus (the lesser face); or, as the Kabalists have it, the "Ancient of Days," descending on Adam Kadmon whom he uses as his vehicle to manifest through, gets transformed into Tetragrammaton. It is now in the "Lap of Maya," the Great Illusion, and between itself and the Reality has the Astral Light, the great Deceiver of man's limited senses, unless Knowledge through Paramarthasatya comes to the rescue.
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5. THE SEVEN (Sons) WERE NOT YET BORN FROM THE WEB OF LIGHT. DARKNESS ALONE WAS FATHER-MOTHER, SVABHAVAT, AND SVABHAVAT WAS IN DARKNESS (a).
(a) The Secret Doctrine, in the Stanzas given here, occupies itself chiefly, if not entirely, with our Solar System, and especially with our planetary chain. The "Seven Sons," therefore, are the creators of the latter. This teaching will be explained more fully hereafter. (See Part II., "Theogony of the Creative Gods.")
Svabhavat, the "Plastic Essence" that fills the Universe, is the root of all things. Svabhavat is, so to say, the Buddhistic concrete aspect of the abstraction called in Hindu philosophy Mulaprakriti. It is the body of the Soul, and that which Ether would be to Akasa, the latter being the informing principle of the former. Chinese mystics have made of it the synonym of "being." In the Ekasloka-Shastra of Nagarjuna (the Lung-shu of China) called by the Chinese the Yih-shu-lu-kia-lun, it is said that the original word of Yeu is "Being" or "Subhâva," "the Substance giving substance to itself," also explained by him as meaning " without action and with action," "the nature which has no nature of its own." Subhâva, from which Svâbhâvat, is composed of two words: Su "fair," "handsome," "good"; Sva, "self"; and bhava, "being" or "states of being."
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6 . THESE TWO ARE THE GERM, AND THE GERM IS — ONE. THE UNIVERSE WAS STILL CONCEALED IN THE DIVINE THOUGHT AND THE DIVINE BOSOM.
The "Divine Thought" does not imply the idea of a Divine thinker. The Universe, not only past, present, and future — which is a human and finite idea expressed by finite thought — but in its totality, the Sat (an untranslateable term), the absolute being, with the Past and Future crystallized in an eternal Present, is that Thought itself reflected in a secondary or manifest cause. Brahma (neuter) as the Mysterium Magnum of Paracelsus is an absolute mystery to the human mind. Brahmâ, the male-female, its aspect and anthropomorphic reflection, is conceivable to the perceptions of blind faith, though rejected by human intellect when it attains its majority. (See Part II., "Primordial Substance and Divine Thought.")
Hence the statement that during the prologue, so to say, of the drama of Creation, or the beginning of cosmic evolution, the Universe or the "Son" lies still concealed "in the Divine Thought," which had not yet penetrated "into the Divine Bosom." This idea, note well, is at the root, and forms the origin of all the allegories about the "Sons of God" born of immaculate virgins.
COMMENTARY.
1. THE LAST VIBRATION OF THE SEVENTH ETERNITY THRILLS THROUGH INFINITUDE (a). THE MOTHER SWELLS, EXPANDING FROM WITHIN WITHOUT LIKE THE BUD OF THE LOTUS (b).
(a) The seemingly paradoxical use of the sentence "Seventh Eternity," thus dividing the indivisible, is sanctified in esoteric philosophy. The latter divides boundless duration into unconditionally eternal and universal Time and a conditioned one (Khandakâla). One is the abstraction or noumenon of infinite time (Kala); the other its phenomenon appearing periodically, as the effect of Mahat (the Universal Intelligence limited by Manvantaric duration). With some schools, Mahat is "the first-born" of Pradhâna (undifferentiated substance, or the periodical aspect of Mulaprakriti, the root of Nature), which (Pradhâna) is called Maya, the Illusion. In this respect, I believe, esoteric teaching differs from the Vedantin doctrines of both the Adwaita and the Visishtadwaita schools. For it says that, while Mulaprakriti, the noumenon, is self-existing and without any origin — is, in short, parentless, Anupadaka (as one with Brahmam) — Prakriti, its phenomenon, is periodical and no better than a phantasm of the former, so Mahat, with the Occultists, the first-born of Gnâna (or gnosis) knowledge, wisdom or the Logos — is a phantasm reflected from the Absolute NIRGUNA (Parabrahm, the one reality, "devoid of attributes and qualities"; see Upanishads); while with some Vedantins Mahat is a manifestation of Prakriti, or Matter.
(b) Therefore, the "last vibration of the Seventh Eternity" was "fore-ordained" — by no God in particular, but occurred in virtue of the eternal and changeless LAW which causes the great periods of Activity and Rest, called so graphically, and at the same time so poetically, the "Days and Nights of Brahmâ." The expansion "from within without" of the Mother, called elsewhere the "Waters of Space," "Universal Matrix," etc., does not allude to an expansion from a small centre or focus, but, without reference to size or limitation or area, means the development of limitless subjectivity into as limitless objectivity. "The ever (to us) invisible and immaterial Substance present in eternity, threw its periodical shadow from its own plane into the lap
of Maya." It implies that this expansion, not being an increase in size — for infinite extension admits of no enlargement — was a change of condition. It "expanded like the bud of the Lotus"; for the Lotus plant exists not only as a miniature embryo in its seed (a physical characteristic), but its prototype is present in an ideal form in the Astral Light from "Dawn" to "Night" during the Manvantaric period, like everything else, as a matter of fact, in this objective Universe; from man down to mite, from giant trees down to the tiniest blades of grass.
All this, teaches the hidden Science, is but the temporary reflection, the shadow of the eternal ideal prototype in Divine Thought — the word "Eternal," note well again, standing here only in the sense of "Æon," as lasting throughout the seemingly interminable, but still limited cycle of activity, called by us Manvantara. For what is the real esoteric meaning of Manvantara, or rather a Manu-Antara? It means, esoterically, "between two Manus," of whom there are fourteen in every "Day of Brahmâ," such a "Day" consisting of 1,000 aggregates of four ages, or 1,000 "Great Ages," Mahayugas. Let us now analyse the word or name Manu. Orientalists and their Dictionaries tell us that the term "Manu" is from the root Man, "to think"; hence "the thinking man." But, esoterically, every Manu, as an anthropomorphized patron of his special cycle (or Round), is but the personified idea of the "Thought Divine" (as the Hermetic "Pymander"); each of the Manus, therefore, being the special god, the creator and fashioner of all that appears during his own respective cycle of being or Manvantara. Fohat runs the Manus' (or Dhyan-Chohans') errands, and causes the ideal prototypes to expand from within without — viz., to cross gradually, on a descending scale, all the planes from the noumenon to the lowest phenomenon, to bloom finally on the last into full objectivity — the acme of illusion, or the grossest matter.
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2. THE VIBRATION SWEEPS ALONG, TOUCHING WITH ITS SWIFT WING (simultaneously) THE WHOLE UNIVERSE, AND THE GERM THAT DWELLETH IN DARKNESS: THE DARKNESS THAT BREATHES (moves) OVER THE SLUMBERING WATERS OF LIFE (a).
(a) The Pythagorean Monad is also said to dwell in solitude and darkness like the "germ." The idea of the "breath" of Darkness moving over "the slumbering Waters of life," which is primordial matter with the latent Spirit in it, recalls the first chapter of Genesis. Its original is the Brahminical Nârâyana (the mover on the Waters), who is the personification of the eternal Breath of the unconscious All (or Parabrahm) of the Eastern Occultists. The Waters of Life, or Chaos — the female principle in symbolism — are the vacuum (to our mental sight) in which lie the latent Spirit and Matter. This it was that made Democritus assert, after his instructor Leucippus, that the primordial principles of all were atoms and a vacuum, in the sense of space, but not of empty space, as "Nature abhors a vacuum" according to the Peripatetics, and every ancient philosopher.
In all Cosmogonies "Water" plays the same important part. It is the base and source of material existence. Scientists, mistaking the word for the thing, understood by water the definite chemical combination of oxygen and hydrogen, thus giving a specific meaning to a term used by Occultists in a generic sense, and which is used in Cosmogony with a metaphysical and mystical meaning. Ice is not water, neither is steam, although all three have precisely the same chemical composition.
—————
2. "DARKNESS" RADIATES LIGHT, AND LIGHT DROPS ONE SOLITARY RAY INTO THE WATERS, INTO THE MOTHER DEEP. THE RAY SHOOTS THROUGH THE VIRGIN-EGG; THE RAY CAUSES THE ETERNAL EGG TO THRILL, AND DROP THE NON-ETERNAL (periodical) GERM, WHICH CONDENSES INTO THE WORLD EGG (a).
(a) The solitary ray dropping into the mother deep may be taken as meaning Divine Thought or Intelligence, impregnating chaos. This, however, occurs on the plane of metaphysical abstraction, or rather the plane whereon that which we call a metaphysical abstraction is a reality. The Virgin-egg being in one sense abstract Egg-ness, or the power of becoming developed through fecundation, is eternal and for ever the same. And just as the fecundation of an egg takes place before it is dropped; so the non-eternal periodical germ which becomes later in
symbolism the mundane egg, contains in itself, when it emerges from the said symbol, "the promise and potency" of all the Universe. Though the idea per se is, of course, an abstraction, a symbolical mode of expression, it is a symbol truly, as it suggests the idea of infinity as an endless circle. It brings before the mind's eye the picture of Kosmos emerging from and in boundless space, a Universe as shoreless in magnitude if not as endless in its objective manifestation. The simile of an egg also expresses the fact taught in Occultism that the primordial form of everything manifested, from atom to globe, from man to angel, is spheroidal, the sphere having been with all nations the emblem of eternity and infinity — a serpent swallowing its tail. To realize the meaning, however, the sphere must be thought of as seen from its centre. The field of vision or of thought is like a sphere whose radii proceed from one's self in every direction, and extend out into space, opening up boundless vistas all around. It is the symbolical circle of Pascal and the Kabalists, "whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere," a conception which enters into the compound idea of this emblem.
The "Mundane Egg" is, perhaps, one of the most universally adopted symbols, highly suggestive as it is, equally in the spiritual, physiological, and cosmological sense. Therefore, it is found in every world-theogony, where it is largely associated with the serpent symbol; the latter being everywhere, in philosophy as in religious symbolism, an emblem of eternity, infinitude, regeneration, and rejuvenation, as well as of wisdom. (See Part II. "Tree and Serpent and Crocodile Worship.") The mystery of apparent self-generation and evolution through its own creative power repeating in miniature the process of Cosmic evolution in the egg, both being due to heat and moisture under the efflux of the unseen creative spirit, justified fully the selection of this graphic symbol. The "Virgin Egg" is the microcosmic symbol of the macrocosmic prototype — the "Virgin Mother" — Chaos or the Primeval Deep. The male Creator (under whatever name) springs forth from the Virgin female, the immaculate root fructified by the Ray. Who, if versed in astronomy and natural sciences, can fail to see its suggestiveness? Cosmos as receptive Nature is an Egg fructified — yet left immaculate; once regarded as boundless, it could have no other representation than a spheroid. The Golden Egg was surrounded by seven natural elements (ether, fire, air, water), "four ready, three secret." It may be found
stated in Vishnu Purâna, where elements are translated "Envelopes" and a secret one is added: "Aham-kara" (see Wilson's Vishnu Purâna, Book I., p. 40). The original text has no "Aham-kara;" it mentions seven Elements without specifying the last three (see Part II. on "The Mundane Egg").
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4. (Then) THE THREE (triangle) FALL INTO THE FOUR (quaternary). THE RADIANT ESSENCE BECOMES SEVEN INSIDE, SEVEN OUTSIDE (a). THE LUMINOUS EGG (Hiranyagarbha), WHICH IN ITSELF IS THREE (the triple hypostases of Brahmâ, or Vishnu, the three "Avasthas"), CURDLES AND SPREADS IN MILK-WHITE CURDS THROUGHOUT THE DEPTHS OF MOTHER, THE ROOT THAT GROWS IN THE OCEAN OF LIFE (b).
The use of geometrical figures and the frequent allusions to figures in all ancient scriptures (see Purânas, Egyptian papyri, the "Book of the Dead" and even the Bible) must be explained. In the "Book of Dzyan," as in the Kabala, there are two kinds of numerals to be studied — the figures, often simple blinds, and the Sacred Numbers, the values of which are all known to the Occultists through Initiation. The former is but a conventional glyph, the latter is the basic symbol of all. That is to say, that one is purely physical, the other purely metaphysical, the two standing in relation to each other as matter stands to spirit — the extreme poles of the ONE Substance.
As Balzac, the unconscious Occultist of French literature, says somewhere, the Number is to Mind the same as it is to matter: "an incomprehensible agent;" (perhaps so to the profane, never to the Initiated mind). Number is, as the great writer thought, an Entity, and, at the same time, a Breath emanating from what he called God and what we call the ALL; the breath which alone could organize the physical Kosmos, "where naught obtains its form but through the Deity, which is an effect of Number." It is instructive to quote Balzac's words upon this subject: —
"The smallest as the most immense creations, are they not to be distinguished from each other by their quantities, their qualities, their dimensions, their forces and attributes, all begotten by the NUMBER? The infinitude of the Numbers is a fact proven to our mind, but of which no proof can be physically
given. The mathematician will tell us that the infinitude of the numbers exists but is not to be demonstrated. God is a Number endowed with motion, which is felt but not demonstrated. As Unity, it begins the Numbers, with which it has nothing in common. . . . The existence of the Number depends on Unity, which, without a single Number, begets them all. . . . . What! unable either to measure the first abstraction yielded to you by the Deity, or to get hold of it, you still hope to subject to your measurements the mystery of the Secret Sciences which emanate from that Deity? . . . . And what would you feel, were I to plunge you into the abysses of MOTION, the Force which organizes the Number? What would you think, were I to add that Motion and Number* are begotten by the WORD, the Supreme Reason of the Seers and Prophets, who, in days of old, sensed the mighty Breath of God, a witness to which is the Apocalypse?"
(b) "The radiant essence curdled and spread
throughout the depths" of Space. From an astronomical point of view this is easy
of explanation: it is the "milky way," the world-stuff, or primordial matter in
its first form. It is more difficult, however, to explain it in a few words or
even lines, from the standpoint of Occult Science and Symbolism, as it is the
most complicated of glyphs. Herein are enshrined more than a dozen symbols. To
begin with, the whole pantheon of mysterious objects, ‡ every one of
them having some definite Occult meaning, extracted from the allegorical
"churning of the ocean" by the Hindu gods. Besides Amrita, the
water of life or immortality, "Surabhi" the "cow of plenty," called
"the fountain of milk and curds," was extracted from this "Sea of Milk." Hence
the universal adoration of the cow and bull, one the productive, the other the
generative power in Nature: symbols connected with both the Solar and the Cosmic
deities. The specific properties, for occult purposes, of the "fourteen precious
things," being explained only at the fourth Initiation, cannot be given here;
but the following may be remarked. In the "Satapatha Brâhmana" it is stated that
the churning of the "Ocean of Milk" took place in the Satya Yug, the first age
which immediately followed the "Deluge." As, however, neither the Rig-Veda nor
——————————————————————————————
* Number, truly; but never
MOTION. It is Motion which begets the Logos, the Word, in
occultism.
‡ The "Fourteen precious things." The narrative or
allegory is found in the Satapatha Brahmana and others. The Japanese Secret
Science of the Buddhist Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has "seven
precious things." We will speak of them, hereafter.
Manu — both preceding Vaivasvata's "deluge," that of the bulk of the Fourth Race — mention this deluge, it is evident that it is not the "great" deluge, nor that which carried away Atlantis, nor even the deluge of Noah, which is meant here. This "churning" relates to a period before the earth's formation, and is in direct connection with that other universal legend, the various and contradictory versions of which culminated in the Christian dogma of the "War in Heaven," and the fall of the Angels (see Book II., also Revelations chap. xii.). The Brâhmanas, reproached by the Orientalists with their versions on the same subjects, often clashing with each other, are pre-eminently occult works, hence used purposely as blinds. They were allowed to survive for public use and property only because they were and are absolutely unintelligible to the masses. Otherwise they would have disappeared from circulation as long ago as the days of Akbar.
—————
5. THE ROOT REMAINS, THE LIGHT REMAINS, THE CURDS REMAIN, AND STILL OEAOHOO (a) IS ONE (b).
(a) OEAOHOO is rendered "Father-Mother of the Gods" in the Commentaries, or the SIX IN ONE, or the septenary root from which all proceeds. All depends upon the accent given to these seven vowels, which may be pronounced as one, three, or even seven syllables by adding an e after the letter "o." This mystic name is given out, because without a thorough mastery of the triple pronunciation it remains for ever ineffectual.
(b) This refers to the
Non-Separateness of all that lives and has its being, whether in active or
passive state. In one sense, Oeaohoo is the "Rootless Root of All"; hence, one
with Parabrahmam; in another sense it is a name for the manifested
ONE LIFE, the
Eternal living Unity. The "Root" means, as already explained, pure knowledge
(Sattva),*
——————————————————————————————
* The original for Understanding is
Sattva, which Sankara (acharya) renders antahkarana.
"Refined," he says, "by sacrifices and other sanctifying operations." In the
Katha, at p. 148, Sattva is said by Sankara to mean buddhi
—
a common use of the word. ("The BHAGAVATGITA with The
Sanatsugâtîya
and The Anugitâ," translated by Kashinath Trimbak Telang, M.A.; edited by Max Muller.) Whatever meaning
various schools may give the term, Sattva is the name given among
Occult students of the Aryasanga School to the dual Monad or Atma-buddhi, and
Atma-buddhi on this plane corresponds to Parabrahm and Mulaprakriti on the
higher plane.
eternal (Nitya) unconditioned reality or SAT (Satya), whether we call it Parabrahmam or Mulaprakriti, for these are the two aspects of the ONE. The "Light" is the same Omnipresent Spiritual Ray, which has entered and now fecundated the Divine Egg, and calls cosmic matter to begin its long series of differentiations. The curds are the first differentiation, and probably refer also to that cosmic matter which is supposed to be the origin of the "Milky Way" — the matter we know. This "matter," which, according to the revelation received from the primeval Dhyani-Buddhas, is, during the periodical sleep of the Universe, of the ultimate tenuity conceivable to the eye of the perfect Bodhisatva — this matter, radical and cool, becomes, at the first reawakening of cosmic motion, scattered through Space; appearing, when seen from the Earth, in clusters and lumps, like curds in thin milk. These are the seeds of the future worlds, the "Star-stuff."
—————
6. THE ROOT OF LIFE WAS IN EVERY DROP OF THE OCEAN OF IMMORTALITY (Amrita)* AND THE OCEAN WAS RADIANT LIGHT, WHICH WAS FIRE AND HEAT AND MOTION. DARKNESS VANISHED AND WAS NO MORE.† IT DISAPPEARED IN ITS OWN ESSENCE, THE BODY OF FIRE AND WATER, OF FATHER AND MOTHER (a).
(a) The essence of darkness being absolute
light, Darkness is taken as the appropriate allegorical representation of the
condition of the Universe during Pralaya, or the term of absolute rest, or
non-being, as it appears to our finite minds. The "fire," "heat," and "motion"
here spoken of, are, of course, not the fire, heat, and motion of physical
science, but the underlying abstractions, the noumena, or the soul, of the
essence of these material manifestations —
the "things in themselves," which, as modern science confesses, entirely elude
the instru-
——————————————————————————————
* Amrita is "immortality."
† See Commentary No. 1 to this Stanza.
ments of the laboratory, and which even the mind cannot grasp, although it can equally little avoid the conclusion that these underlying essences of things must exist. Fire and Water, or Father * and Mother, may be taken here to mean the divine Ray and Chaos. "Chaos, from this union with Spirit obtaining sense, shone with pleasure, and thus was produced the Protogonos (the first-born light)," says a fragment of Hermas. Damascius calls it Dis in "Theogony" — "The disposer of all things." (See Cory's "Ancient Fragments," p. 314.)
According to the Rosicrucian tenets, as handled and explained by the profane for once correctly, if only partially, so "Light and Darkness are identical in themselves, being only divisible in the human mind"; and according to Robert Fludd, "Darkness adopted illumination in order to make itself visible" (On Rosenkranz). According to the tenets of Eastern Occultism, DARKNESS is the one true actuality, the basis and the root of light, without which the latter could never manifest itself, nor even exist. Light is matter, and DARKNESS pure Spirit. Darkness, in its radical, metaphysical basis, is subjective and absolute light; while the latter in all its seeming effulgence and glory, is merely a mass of shadows, as it can never be eternal, and is simply an illusion, or Maya.
Even in the mind-baffling and science-harassing Genesis,
light is created out of darkness "and darkness was upon the face of the deep"
(ch. i. v. 2.) — and
not vice versa. "In him (in darkness) was life; and the life was
the light of men" (John i. 4). A day may come when the eyes of men
will be opened; and then they may comprehend better than they do now, that verse
in the Gospel of John that says "And the light shineth in darkness; and the
darkness comprehendeth it not." They will see then that the word "darkness" does
not apply to man's spiritual eyesight, but indeed to "Darkness," the absolute,
that comprehendeth not (cannot cognize) transient light, however transcendent to
human eyes. Demon est Deus inversus. The devil is now called Darkness
by the Church, whereas, in the Bible he is called the "Son of God" (see Job),
the bright star of the early morning, Lucifer (see Isaiah). There is a whole
philosophy of dogmatic craft in the reason why the first Archangel, who sprang
from the depths of Chaos, was called Lux (Lucifer), the "Luminous Son of the
Morning," or man-
——————————————————————————————
* See "Kwan-Shai-Yin." The real name from
the text cannot be given.
vantaric Dawn. He was transformed by the Church into Lucifer or Satan, because he is higher and older than Jehovah, and had to be sacrificed to the new dogma. (See Book II.)
7. BEHOLD, OH LANOO!† THE RADIANT CHILD OF THE TWO, THE UNPARALLELED REFULGENT GLORY, BRIGHT SPACE, SON OF DARK SPACE, WHO EMERGES FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE GREAT DARK WATERS. IT IS OEAOHOO, THE YOUNGER, THE * * * (whom thou knowest now as Kwan-Shai-Yin. — Comment) (a). HE SHINES FORTH AS THE SUN. HE IS THE BLAZING DIVINE DRAGON OF WISDOM. THE EKA IS CHATUR (four), AND CHATUR TAKES TO ITSELF THREE, AND THE UNION PRODUCES THE SAPTA (seven) IN WHOM ARE THE SEVEN WHICH BECOME THE TRIDASA ‡ (the thrice ten) THE HOSTS AND THE MULTITUDES (b). BEHOLD HIM LIFTING THE VEIL, AND UNFURLING IT FROM EAST TO WEST. HE SHUTS OUT THE ABOVE AND LEAVES THE BELOW TO BE SEEN AS THE GREAT ILLUSION. HE MARKS THE PLACES FOR THE SHINING ONES (stars) AND TURNS THE UPPER (space) INTO A SHORELESS SEA OF FIRE, AND THE ONE MANIFESTED (element) INTO THE GREAT WATERS (c).
"Bright Space, son of dark Space," corresponds to the
Ray dropped at the first thrill of the new "Dawn" into the great Cosmic depths,
from which it re-emerges differentiated as Oeaohoo the younger, (the "new
LIFE"), to become, to the end of the life-cycle, the germ of all things. He is
"the Incorporeal man who contains in himself the divine Idea," — the generator of Light and
Life, to use an expression of Philo Judæus. He is called the "Blazing Dragon of
Wisdom,"
——————————————————————————————
† Lanoo is a student, a chela who
studies practical Esotericism.
‡ "Tri-dasa," or three times ten (30), alludes to
the Vedic deities, in round numbers, or more accurately 33
— a sacred
number. They are the 12 Adityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and 2 Aswins—the
twin sons of the Sun and the Sky. This is the root-number of the Hindu Pantheon,
which enumerates 33 crores or over three hundred millions of gods and goddesses.
because, firstly, he is that which the Greek philosophers called the Logos, the Verbum of the Thought Divine; and secondly, because in Esoteric philosophy this first manifestation, being the synthesis or the aggregate of Universal Wisdom, Oeaohoo, "the Son of the Son," contains in himself the Seven Creative Hosts (The Sephiroth), and is thus the essence of manifested Wisdom. "He who bathes in the light of Oeaohoo will never be deceived by the veil of Maya."
Kwan-Shai-Yin is identical with, and an equivalent of
the Sanskrit Avalôkitêshwara, and as such he is an androgynous deity,
like the Tetragrammaton and all the Logoi * of antiquity. It is only by
some sects in China that he is anthropomorphized and represented with female
attributes,† when, under his female aspect, he becomes Kwan-Yin, the
goddess of mercy, called the "Divine Voice."‡ The latter is the patron
deity of Thibet and of the island of Puto in China, where both deities have a
number of monasteries.§ (See Part II. Kwan-Shai-Yin and Kwan-yin.)
——————————————————————————————
* Hence all the higher gods of antiquity
are all "Sons of the Mother" before they become those of the "Father." The
Logoi, like Jupiter or Zeus, Son of Kronos-Saturn, "Infinite Time" (or Kala), in
their origin were represented as male-female. Zeus is said to be the "beautiful
Virgin," and Venus is made bearded. Apollo is originally bisexual, so is Brahmâ-Vâch
in Manu and the Purânas.
Osiris is interchangeable with Isis, and Horus is of both sexes. Finally St.
John's vision in Revelation, that of the Logos, who is now connected with Jesus — is
hermaphrodite, for he is described as having female breasts. So is the
Tetragrammaton = Jehovah. But there are two Avalôkitêshwaras in Esotericism; the
first and the second Logos.
† No religious symbol can
escape profanation and even derision in our days of politics and Science. In
Southern India the writer has seen a converted native making pujah with
offerings before a statue of Jesus clad in woman's clothes and with a ring in
his nose. When asking the meaning of the masquerade we were answered that it was
Jesu-Maria blended in one, and that it was done by the permission of the Padri,
as the zealous convert had no money to purchase two statues or "idols" as they,
very properly, were called by a witness
— another
but a non-converted Hindu. Blasphemous this will appear to a dogmatic Christian,
but the Theosophist and the Occultist must award the palm of logic to the
converted Hindu. The esoteric Christos in the gnosis is, of course,
sexless, but in exoteric theology he is male and female.
‡ The Gnostic Sophia, "Wisdom"
who is "the Mother" of the Ogdoad (Aditi, in a certain sense, with her eight
sons), is the Holy Ghost and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The
"father" is a far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female
everywhere —
the mother of the seven planetary powers.
§ See "Chinese Buddhism," by
the Rev. J. C. Edkins, who always gives correct facts, although his conclusions
are very frequently erroneous.
(b) "The "Dragon of Wisdom" is the One, the
"Eka" (Sanskrit) or Saka. It is curious that Jehovah's name in Hebrew should
also be One, Echod. "His name is Echod": say the Rabbins. The philologists ought
to decide which of the two is derived from the other—linguistically and
symbolically: surely, not the Sanskrit? The "One" and the Dragon are expressions
used by the ancients in connection with their respective Logoi. Jehovah — esoterically (as Elohim) — is also the Serpent
or Dragon that tempted Eve, and the "Dragon" is an old glyph for "Astral Light"
(Primordial Principle), "which is the Wisdom of Chaos." Archaic philosophy,
recognizing neither Good nor Evil as a fundamental or independent power, but
starting from the Absolute ALL (Universal Perfection eternally), traced both
through the course of natural evolution to pure Light condensing gradually into
form, hence becoming Matter or Evil. It was left with the early and ignorant
Christian fathers to degrade the philosophical and highly scientific idea of
this emblem (the Dragon) into the absurd superstition called the "Devil." They
took it from the later Zoroastrians, who saw devils or the Evil in the Hindu
Devas, and the word Evil thus became by a double transmutation D'Evil
in every tongue (Diabolos, Diable, Diavolo, Teufel). But the Pagans have always
shown a philosophical discrimination in their symbols. The primitive symbol of
the serpent symbolised divine Wisdom and Perfection, and had always stood for
psychical Regeneration and Immortality. Hence —
Hermes, calling the serpent the most spiritual of all beings; Moses, initiated
in the wisdom of Hermes, following suit in Genesis; the Gnostic's Serpent with
the seven vowels over its head, being the emblem of the seven hierarchies of the
Septenary or Planetary Creators. Hence, also, the Hindu serpent Sesha or Ananta,
"the Infinite," a name of Vishnu, whose first Vahan or vehicle on the primordial
waters is this serpent.* Yet they all made a difference between the good
and the bad Serpent (the Astral Light of
——————————————————————————————
* Like the logoi and the
Hierarchies of Powers, however, the "Serpents" have to be distinguished one from
the other. Sesha or Ananta, "the couch of Vishnu," is an allegorical
abstraction, symbolizing infinite Time in Space, which contains the germ and
throws off periodically the efflorescence of this germ, the manifested
Universe; whereas, the gnostic Ophis contained the same triple
symbolism in its seven vowels as the One, Three and Seven-syllabled Oeaohoo
of the Archaic doctrine; i.e., the One Unmanifested Logos, the
Second manifested, the triangle concreting into the Quaternary or Tetragrammaton,
and the rays of the latter on the material plane.
the Kabalists) —
between the former, the embodiment of divine Wisdom in the region of the
Spiritual, and the latter, Evil, on the plane of matter.* Jesus accepted
the serpent as a synonym of Wisdom, and this formed part of his teaching: "Be ye
wise as serpents," he says. "In the beginning, before Mother became
Father-Mother, the fiery Dragon moved in the infinitudes alone" (Book of
Sarparajni.) The Aitareya Brahmana calls the Earth Sarparâjni,
"the Serpent Queen," and "the Mother of all that moves." Before our globe became
egg-shaped (and the Universe also) "a long trail of Cosmic dust (or fire mist)
moved and writhed like a serpent in Space." The "Spirit of God moving on Chaos"
was symbolized by every nation in the shape of a fiery serpent breathing fire
and light upon the primordial waters, until it had incubated cosmic matter and
made it assume the annular shape of a serpent with its tail in its mouth — which symbolises not only
Eternity and Infinitude, but also the globular shape of all the bodies formed
within the Universe from that fiery mist. The Universe, as well as the Earth and
Man, cast off periodically, serpent-like, their old skins, to assume new ones
after a time of rest. The serpent is, surely, a not less graceful or a more
unpoetical image than the caterpillar and chrysalis from which springs the
butterfly, the Greek emblem of Psyche, the human soul. The "Dragon" was also the
symbol of the Logos with the Egyptians, as with the Gnostics. In the "Book of
Hermes," Pymander, the oldest and the most spiritual of the Logoi of the Western
Continent, appears to Hermes in the shape of a Fiery Dragon of "Light, Fire, and
Flame." Pymander, the "Thought Divine" personified, says: The Light is me, I am
the Nous (the mind or Manu), I am thy God, and I am far older than the human
principle which escapes from the shadow ("Darkness," or the
concealed Deity). I am the germ of thought, the resplendent Word, the
Son of God. All that thus sees and hears in thee is the Verbum
of the Master, it is the Thought (Mahat) which is God, the
Father.†
——————————————————————————————
*The Astral Light, or the Æther, of
the ancient pagans (for the name of Astral Light is quite modern) is Spirit . .
. . Matter. Beginning with the pure spiritual plane, it becomes grosser as it
descends until it becomes the Maya or the tempting and deceitful
serpent on our plane.
† By "God, the Father," the seventh principle in
Man and Kosmos are here unmistakeably meant, this principle being inseparable in
its Esse and Nature from the seventh Cosmic principle. In one sense it is the
Logos of the Greeks and the Avalôkitêswara of the esoteric Buddhists.
The celestial Ocean, the Æther . . . . is the Breath of the Father, the life-giving principle, the Mother, the Holy Spirit, . . . .for these are not separated, and their union is LIFE."
Here we find the unmistakeable echo of the Archaic
Secret Doctrine, as now expounded. Only the latter does not place at the head
and Evolution of Life "the Father," who comes third and is the "Son of the
Mother," but the "Eternal and Ceaseless Breath of the ALL." The Mahat
(Understanding, Universal Mind, Thought, etc.), before it manifests itself as
Brahmâ or Siva, appears as Vishnu, says Sânkhya Sâra (p. 16); hence
Mahat has several aspects, just as the logos has. Mahat
is called the Lord, in the Primary Creation, and is, in this sense,
Universal Cognition or Thought Divine; but, "That Mahat which
was first produced is (afterwards) called Ego-ism, when it is born as
"I," that is said to be the second Creation" (Anugîtâ,
ch. xxvi.). And the translator (an able and learned Brahmin, not a European
Orientalist) explains in a foot-note (6), "i.e., when Mahat develops
into the feeling of Self-Consciousness —
I — then it assumes
the name of Egoism," which, translated into our esoteric phraseology, means when
Mahat is transformed into the human Manas (or even that of the
finite gods), and becomes Aham-ship. Why it is called the
Mahat of the Second creation (or the ninth, that of the
Kumâra in Vishnu Purâna) will be explained in Book
II. The "Sea of Fire" is then the Super-Astral (i.e., noumenal) Light,
the first radiation from the Root, the Mulaprakriti, the
undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which becomes Astral Matter. It is
also called the "Fiery Serpent," as above described. If the student bears in
mind that there is but One Universal Element, which is infinite, unborn, and
undying, and that all the rest —
as in the world of phenomena —
are but so many various differentiated aspects and transformations
(correlations, they are now called) of that One, from Cosmical down to
microcosmical effects, from super-human down to human and sub-human beings, the
totality, in short, of objective existence —
then the first and chief difficulty will disappear and Occult Cosmology may be
mastered.* All the Kabalists and Occultists, Eastern and Western, recognise (a)
——————————————————————————————
* In the Egyptian as in the Indian
theogony there was a concealed deity, the ONE, and the creative,
androgynous god. Thus Shoo is the god of creation and Osiris is, in his
original primary form, the "god whose name is unknown." (See Mariette's Abydos
II., p. 63, and Vol. III., pp. 413, 414, No. 1122.)
the identity of "Father-Mother" with primordial Æther or Akâsa, (Astral Light)*; and (b) its homogeneity before the evolution of the "Son," cosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. "Fohat hardens and scatters the seven brothers" (Book III. Dzyan); which means that the primordial Electric Entity — for the Eastern Occultists insist that Electricity is an Entity — electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness. "There exists an universal agent unique of all forms and of life, that is called Od,† Ob, and Aour, active and passive, positive and negative, like day and night: it is the first light in Creation" (Eliphas Lévi's Kabala): — the first Light of the primordial Elohim — the Adam, "male and female" — or (scientifically) ELECTRICITY AND LIFE.
(c) The ancients represented it by a serpent,
for "Fohat hisses as he glides hither and thither" (in zigzags). The Kabala
figures it with the Hebrew letter Teth
,
whose symbol is the serpent which played such a prominent part in the Mysteries.
Its universal value is nine, for it is the ninth letter of the alphabet and the
ninth door of the fifty portals or gateways that lead to the concealed mysteries
of being. It is the magical agent par excellence, and designates in
Hermetic philosophy "Life infused into primordial matter," the essence that
composes all things, and the spirit that determines their form. But there are
two secret Hermetical operations, one spiritual, the other material-correlative,
and for ever united. "Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire, the subtile
from the solid . . . that which ascends from earth to heaven and descends
again from heaven to earth. It (the subtile light), is the strong force of every
force, for it conquers every subtile thing and penetrates into every solid. Thus
was the world formed" (Hermes).
It was not Zeno alone, the founder of the Stoics, who
taught that the
——————————————————————————————
* See next note.
† Od is the pure life-giving Light, or magnetic
fluid; Ob the messenger of death used by the sorcerers, the nefarious evil
fluid; Aour is the synthesis of the two, Astral Light proper. Can the
Philologists tell why Od —
a term used by Reichenbach to denominate the vital fluid — is
also a Tibetan word meaning light, brightness, radiancy? It equally means "Sky"
in an occult sense. Whence the root of the word? But Akasa is not quite
Ether, but far higher than that, as will be shown.
Universe evolves, when its primary substance is transformed from the state of fire into that of air, then into water, etc. Heracleitus of Ephesus maintained that the one principle that underlies all phenomena in Nature is fire. The intelligence that moves the Universe is fire, and fires is intelligence. And while Anaximenes said the same of air, and Thales of Miletus (600 years B.C.) of water, the Esoteric Doctrine reconciles all those philosophers by showing that though each was right the system of none was complete.
—————
8. WHERE WAS THE GERM, AND WHERE WAS NOW DARKNESS? WHERE IS THE SPIRIT OF THE FLAME THAT BURNS IN THY LAMP, OH LANOO? THE GERM IS THAT, AND THAT IS LIGHT; THE WHITE BRILLIANT SON OF THE DARK HIDDEN FATHER (a).
(a) The answer to the first question, suggested by the second, which is the reply of the teacher to the pupil, contains in a single phrase one of the most essential truths of occult philosophy. It indicates the existence of things imperceptible to our physical senses which are of far greater importance, more real and more permanent, than those that appeal to these senses themselves. Before the Lanoo can hope to understand the transcendentally metaphysical problem contained in the first question he must be able to answer the second, while the very answer he gives to the second will furnish him with the clue to the correct reply to the first.
In the Sanscrit Commentary on this Stanza, the terms used for the concealed and the unrevealed Principle are many. In the earliest MSS. of Indian literature this Unrevealed, Abstract Deity has no name. It is called generally "That" (Tad in Sanskrit), and means all that is, was, and will be, or that can be so received by the human mind.
Among such appellations, given, of course, only in esoteric philosophy, as the "Unfathomable Darkness," the "Whirlwind," etc. — it is also called the "It of the Kalahansa, the Kala-ham-sa," and even the "Kali Hamsa," (Black swan). Here the m and the n are convertible, and
both sound like the nasal French an or am,
or, again, en or em (Ennui, Embarras,
etc.) As in the Hebrew Bible, many a mysterious sacred name in Sanscrit
conveys to the profane ear no more than some ordinary, and often vulgar word,
because it is concealed anagrammatically or otherwise. This word of Hansa or
esoterically "hamsa" is just such a case. Hamsa is equal to a-ham-sa, three
words meaning "I am he" (in English), while divided in still another way it will
read "So-ham," "he (is) I" —
Soham being equal to Sah, "he," and aham, "I," or "I am he." In this alone is
contained the universal mystery, the doctrine of the identity of man's essence
with god-essence, for him who understands the language of wisdom. Hence the
glyph of, and the allegory about, Kalahansa (or hamsa), and the name given to
Brahma neuter (later on, to the male Brahmâ) of "Hansa-Vahana," he who uses the
Hansa as his vehicle." The same word may be read "Kalaham-sa" or "I am I" in the
eternity of Time, answering to the Biblical, or rather Zoroastrian "I am that I
am." The same doctrine is found in the Kabala, as witness the following extract
from an unpublished MS. by Mr. S. Liddell McGregor Mathers, the learned Kabalist:
"The three pronouns 
, Hoa, Atah, Ani; He,
Thou, I; are used to symbolize the ideas of Macroprosopus and Microprosopus in
the Hebrew Qabalah. Hoa, "He," is applied to the hidden and concealed
Macroprosopus; Atah, "Thou," to Microprosopus; and Ani, "I," to the latter when
He is represented as speaking. (See Lesser Holy Assembly, 204 et
seq.) It is to be noted that each of these names consists of three letters,
of which the letter Aleph 
, A, forms the
conclusion of the first word Hoa, and the commencement of Atah and Ani, as if it
were the connecting link between them. But
is the symbol of the Unity and consequently of the unvarying Idea of the Divine
operating through all these. But behind the
in the name Hoa are the letters
and
,
the symbols of the numbers Six and Five, the Male and the Female, the Hexagram
and the Pentagram. And the numbers of these three words, Hoa Atah Ani, are 12,
406, and 61, which are resumed in the key numbers of 3, 10, and 7, by the
Qabalah of the Nine Chambers, which is a form of the exegetical rule of Temura."
It is useless to attempt to explain the mystery in full. Materialists and the men of modern Science will never understand it, since, in order
to obtain clear perception of it, one has first of all to admit the postulate of a universally diffused, omnipresent, eternal Deity in Nature; secondly, to have fathomed the mystery of electricity in its true essence; and thirdly, to credit man with being the septenary symbol, on the terrestrial plane, of the One Great UNIT (the Logos), which is Itself the Seven-vowelled sign, the Breath crystallized into the WORD. * He who believes in all this, has also to believe in the multiple combination of the seven planets of Occultism and of the Kabala, with the twelve zodiacal signs; to attribute, as we do, to each planet and to each constellation an influence which, in the words of Ely Star (a French Occultist), "is proper to it, beneficent or maleficent, and this, after the planetary Spirit which rules it, who, in his turn, is capable of influencing men and things which are found in harmony with him and with which he has any affinity." For these reasons, and since few believe in the foregoing, all that can now be given is that in both cases the symbol of Hansa (whether "I," "He," Goose or Swan) is an important symbol, representing, for instance, Divine Wisdom, Wisdom in darkness beyond the reach of men. For all exoteric purposes, Hansa, as every Hindu knows, is a fabulous bird, which, when given milk mixed with water for its food (in the allegory) separated the two, drinking the milk and leaving the water; thus showing inherent wisdom — milk standing symbolically for spirit, and water for matter.
That this allegory is very ancient and dates from the
very earliest archaic period, is shown by the mention (in Bhagavata Purâna) of a
certain caste named "Hamsa" or "Hansa," which was the "one caste" par
excellence; when far back in the mists of a forgotten past there was among
the Hindus only "One Veda, One Deity, One Caste." There is also a range in the
Himalayas, described in the old books as being situated north of Mount Meru,
called "Hamsa," and connected with episodes pertaining to the history of
religious mysteries and initiations. As to the name of Kâla-Hansa being the
supposed vehicle of Brahmâ-Prajâpati, in the exoteric texts and translations of
the
——————————————————————————————
* This is again similar to the doctrine
of Fichte and German Pantheists. The former reveres Jesus as the great teacher
who inculcated the unity of the spirit of man with the God-Spirit (the Adwaita
doctrine) or universal Principle. It is difficult to find a single speculation
in Western metaphysics which has not been anticipated by Archaic Eastern
philosophy. From Kant to Herbert Spencer, it is all a more or less distorted
echo of the Dwaita, Adwaita, and Vedantic doctrines generally.
Orientalists, it is quite a mistake. Brahma, the neuter, is called by them Kala-Hansa and Brahmâ, the male, Hansa-Vahana, because forsooth "his vehicle or Vahan is a swan or goose" (vide "the Hindu Classical Dictionary.") This is a purely exoteric gloss. Esoterically and logically, if Brahma, the infinite, is all that is described by the Orientalists, namely, agreeably with the Vedantic texts, an abstract deity in no way characterised by the description of any human attributes, and it is still maintained that he or it is called Kala-Hansa — then how can it ever become the Vahan of Brahmâ, the manifested finite god? It is quite the reverse. The "Swan or goose" (Hansa) is the symbol of that male or temporary deity, as he, the emanation of the primordial Ray, is made to serve as a Vahan or vehicle for that divine Ray, which otherwise could not manifest itself in the Universe, being, antiphrastically, itself an emanation of "Darkness" — for our human intellect, at any rate. It is Brahmâ, then, who is Kala-Hansa, and the Ray, the Hansa-Vahana.
As to the strange symbol chosen, it is equally
suggestive; the true mystic significance being the idea of a universal matrix,
figured by the primordial waters of the "deep," or the opening for the
reception, and subsequently for the issue, of that one ray (the Logos), which
contains in itself the other seven procreative rays or powers (the logoi or
builders). Hence the choice by the Rosecroix of the aquatic fowl—whether swan or
pelican,* with seven young ones for a symbol, modified and adapted to the
religion of every country. En-Soph is called the "Fiery Soul of the Pelican" in
the Book of Numbers. † (See Part II. "The Hidden Deity and its Symbols
and Glyphs.") Appearing with every Manvantara as Narâyan, or Swayambhuva (the
——————————————————————————————
* Whether the genus of the bird be
cygnus, anser, or pelecanus, it is no matter, as it is an
aquatic bird floating or moving on the waters like the Spirit, and then issuing
from those waters to give birth to other beings. The true significance of the
symbol of the Eighteenth Degree of the Rose-Croix is precisely this, though
poetised later on into the motherly feeling of the Pelican rending its bosom to
feed its seven little ones with its blood.
† The reason why Moses forbids eating the pelican and swan,
classing the two among the unclean fowls, and permits eating "bald locusts,
beetles, and the grasshopper after his kind" (Leviticus xi. and Deuteronomy
xiv.) is a purely physiological one, and has to do with mystic symbology only in
so far as the word "unclean," like every other word, ought not to be read and
understood literally, as it is esoteric like all the
rest, and may as well mean "holy"
as not. It is a blind, very suggestive in connection with certain superstitions —
e.g., that of the Russian people who will not use the pigeon for food;
not because it is "unclean," but because the "Holy Ghost" is credited with
having appeared under the form of a Dove.
Self-Existent), and penetrating into the Mundane Egg, it emerges from it at the end of the divine incubation as Brahmâ or Prajâpati, a progenitor of the future Universe into which he expands. He is Purusha (spirit), but he is also Prakriti (matter). Therefore it is only after separating himself into two halves — Brahmâ-vach (the female) and Brahmâ-Virâj (the male), that the Prajâpati becomes the male Brahmâ.
—————
9. LIGHT IS COLD FLAME, AND FLAME IS FIRE, AND THE FIRE PRODUCES HEAT, WHICH YIELDS WATER, THE WATER OF LIFE IN THE GREAT MOTHER (Chaos) (a).
(a) It must be remembered that the words "Light," "Fire," and "Flame" used in the Stanzas have been adopted by the translators thereof from the vocabulary of the old "Fire philosophers,"† in order to render better the meaning of the archaic terms and symbols employed in the original. Otherwise they would have remained entirely unintelligible to a European reader. But to a student of the Occult the terms used will be sufficiently clear.
All these —
"Light," "Flame," "Hot," "Cold," "Fire," "Heat," "Water," and the "water of
life" are all, on our plane, the progeny; or as a modern physicist would say,
the correlations of ELECTRICITY. Mighty word, and a still mightier symbol!
Sacred generator of a no less sacred progeny; of fire — the creator, the preserver
and the destroyer; of light —
the essence of our divine ancestors; of flame —
the Soul of things. Electricity, the ONE Life at the upper rung of Being, and
Astral Fluid, the Athanor of the Alchemists, at its lowest; GOD and DEVIL,
GOOD and EVIL. . . .
——————————————————————————————
† Not the Mediæval
Alchemists, but the Magi and Fire-Worshippers, from whom the Rosicrucians or the
Philosophers per ignem, the successors of the theurgists borrowed all
their ideas concerning Fire, as a mystic and divine element.
Now, why is Light called in the Stanzas "cold flame"?
Because in the order of Cosmic evolution (as taught by the Occultist), the
energy that actuates matter after its first formation into atoms is generated on
our plane by Cosmic heat; and because Kosmos, in the sense of dissociated
matter, was not, before that period. The first primordial matter, eternal and
coeval with Space, "which has neither a beginning nor an end," is "neither hot
nor cold, but is of its own special nature," says the Commentary (Book II). Heat
and cold are relative qualities and pertain to the realms of the manifested
worlds, which all proceed from the manifested Hyle, which, in its
absolutely latent aspect, is referred to as the "cold Virgin," and when awakened
to life, as the "Mother." The ancient Western Cosmogonic myths state that at
first there was but cold mist which was the Father, and the prolific slime (the
Mother, Ilus or Hyle), from which crept forth the Mundane snake-matter, (Isis,
vol. i., p. 146). Primordial matter, then, before it emerges from the plane
of the never-manifesting, and awakens to the thrill of action under the impulse
of Fohat, is but "a cool Radiance, colourless, formless, tasteless, and devoid
of every quality and aspect." Even such are her first-born, the "four sons," who
"are One, and become Seven," —
the entities, by whose qualifications and names the ancient Eastern Occultists
called the four of the seven primal "centres of Forces," or atoms, that develop
later into the great Cosmic "Elements," now divided into the seventy or so
sub-elements, known to science. The four primal natures of the first Dhyan
Chohans, are the so-called (for want of better terms) "Akasic," "Ethereal,"
"Watery," and "Fiery," answering, in the terminology of practical occultism, to
scientific definitions of gases, which, to convey a clear idea to both
Occultists and laymen, must be defined as Parahydrogenic,* Paraoxygenic,
Oxyhydrogenic, and Ozonic, or perhaps Nitr-ozonic; the latter forces or gases
(in Occultism, supersensuous, yet atomic substances) being the most effective
and active when energising on the plane of more grossly differentiated matter.†
These are both electro-positive and electro-negative.
——————————————————————————————
*
par;a
, "beyond," outside.
† Each of these and many more are probably the missing
links of chemistry. They are known by other names in Alchemy and to the
Occultists who practise in phenomenal powers. It is by combining and recombining
in a certain way (or dissociating) the "Elements" by means of astral fire that
the greatest phenomena are produced.
10. FATHER-MOTHER SPIN A WEB WHOSE UPPER END IS FASTENED TO SPIRIT (Purusha), THE LIGHT OF THE ONE DARKNESS, AND THE LOWER ONE TO MATTER (Prakriti) ITS (the Spirit's) SHADOWY END; AND THIS WEB IS THE UNIVERSE SPUN OUT OF THE TWO SUBSTANCES MADE IN ONE, WHICH IS SWABHAVAT (a).
(a) In the Mandukya (Mundaka) Upanishad it is written, "As a spider throws out and retracts its web, as herbs spring up in the ground . . . so is the Universe derived from the undecaying one" (I. 1. 7). Brahmâ, as "the germ of unknown Darkness," is the material from which all evolves and develops "as the web from the spider, as foam from the water," etc. This is only graphic and true, if Brahmâ the "Creator" is, as a term, derived from the root brih, to increase or expand. Brahmâ "expands" and becomes the Universe woven out of his own substance.
The same idea has been beautifully expressed by Goethe, who says:
"Thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply,
And weave for God the garment thou see'st Him by."
—————
11. IT (the Web) EXPANDS WHEN THE BREATH OF FIRE (the Father) IS UPON IT; IT CONTRACTS WHEN THE BREATH OF THE MOTHER (the root of Matter) TOUCHES IT. THEN THE SONS (the Elements with their respective Powers, or Intelligences) DISSOCIATE AND SCATTER, TO RETURN INTO THEIR MOTHER'S BOSOM AT THE END OF THE "GREAT DAY" AND REBECOME ONE WITH HER (a). WHEN IT (the Web) IS COOLING, IT BECOMES RADIANT, ITS SONS EXPAND AND CONTRACT THROUGH THEIR OWN SELVES AND HEARTS; THEY EMBRACE INFINITUDE. (b)
The expanding of the Universe under the breath of FIRE is very suggestive in the light of the "Fire mist" period of which modern science speaks so much, and knows in reality so little.
Great heat breaks up the compound elements and resolves the
heavenly bodies into their primeval one element, explains the commentary. "Once disintegrated into its primal constituent by getting within the attraction and reach of a focus, or centre of heat (energy), of which many are carried about to and fro in space, a body, whether alive or dead, will be vapourised and held in "the bosom of the Mother" until Fohat, gathering a few of the clusters of Cosmic matter (nebulæ) will, by giving it an impulse, set it in motion anew, develop the required heat, and then leave it to follow its own new growth.
The expanding and contracting of the Web —i.e., the world stuff or atoms — expresses here the pulsatory movement; for it is the regular contraction and expansion of the infinite and shoreless Ocean of that which we may call the noumenon of matter emanated by Swâbhâvat, which causes the universal vibration of atoms. But it is also suggestive of something else. It shows that the ancients were acquainted with that which is now the puzzle of many scientists and especially of astronomers: the cause of the first ignition of matter or the world-stuff, the paradox of the heat produced by the refrigerative contraction and other such Cosmic riddles. For it points unmistakeably to a knowledge by the ancients of such phenomena. "There is heat internal and heat external in every atom," say the manuscript Commentaries, to which the writer has had access; "the breath of the Father (or Spirit) and the breath (or heat) of the Mother (matter);" and they give explanations which show that the modern theory of the extinction of the solar fires by loss of heat through radiation, is erroneous. The assumption is false even on the Scientists' own admission. For as Professor Newcomb points out (Popular Astronomy, pp. 506-508), "by losing heat, a gaseous body contracts, and the heat generated by the contraction exceeds that which it had to lose in order to produce the contraction." This paradox, that a body gets hotter as the shrinking produced by its getting colder is greater, led to long disputes. The surplus of heat, it was argued, was lost by radiation, and to assume that the temperature is not lowered pari passu with a decrease of volume under a constant pressure, is to set at nought the law of Charles (Nebular Theory, Winchell). Contraction develops heat, it is true; but contraction (from cooling) is incapable of developing the whole amount of heat at any time existing in the mass, or even of maintaining a body at a constant temperature, etc. Professor Winchell tries to reconcile the paradox — only a seeming one in fact, as
Homer Lanes proved, — by suggesting "something besides heat." "May it not be," he asks, "simply a repulsion among the molecules, which varies according to some law of the distance?" But even this will be found irreconcileable, unless this "something besides heat" is ticketed "Causeless Heat," the "Breath of Fire," the all-creative Force Plus ABSOLUTE INTELLIGENCE, which physical science is not likely to accept.
However it may be, the reading of this Stanza shows it, notwithstanding its archaic phraseology, to be more scientific than even modern science.
—————
12. THEN SVÂBHÂVAT SENDS FOHAT TO HARDEN THE ATOMS. EACH (of these) IS A PART OF THE WEB (Universe). REFLECTING THE "SELF-EXISTENT LORD" (Primeval Light) LIKE A MIRROR, EACH BECOMES IN TURN A WORLD.* . . .
"Fohat hardens the atoms"; i.e., by infusing energy into them: he scatters the atoms or primordial matter. "He scatters himself while scattering matter into atoms" (MSS. Commentaries.)
It is through Fohat that the ideas of the Universal Mind
are impressed upon matter. Some faint idea of the nature of Fohat may be
gathered from the appellation "Cosmic Electricity" sometimes applied to it; but
to the commonly known properties of electricity must, in this case, be added
others, including intelligence. It is of interest to note that modern science
has come to the conclusion, that all cerebration and brain-activity are attended
by electrical phenomena. (For further details as to "Fohat"
See Stanza V. and Comments.")
——————————————————————————————
* This is said in the sense that the
flame from a fire is endless, and that the lights of the whole Universe could be
lit at one simple rush-light without diminishing its flame.
—————
COMMENTARY.
1. LISTEN, YE SONS OF THE EARTH, TO YOUR INSTRUCTORS — THE SONS OF THE FIRE (a). LEARN THERE IS NEITHER FIRST NOR LAST; FOR ALL IS ONE NUMBER, ISSUED FROM NO NUMBER (b).
(a) These terms, the "Sons of the Fire," the "Sons of the Fire-Mist," and the like, require explanation. They are connected with a great primordial and universal mystery, and it is not easy to make it clear. There is a passage in the Bhagavatgîtâ (ch. viii.) wherein Krishna, speaking symbolically and esoterically, says: "I will state the times (conditions) . . . at which devotees departing (from this life) do so never to return (be reborn), or to return (to incarnate again). The Fire, the Flame, the day, the bright (lucky) fortnight, the six months of the Northern solstice, departing (dying) in these, those who know the Brahman (Yogis) go to the Brahman. Smoke, night, the dark (unlucky) fortnight, the six months of the Southern solstice, (dying) in these, the devotee goes to the lunar light (or mansion the astral light also) and returns (is reborn). These two paths, bright and dark, are said to be eternal in this world (or great kalpa, 'Age'). By the one a man goes never to come back, by the other he returns." Now these names, "Fire," "Flame," "Day," the "bright fortnight," etc., as "Smoke," "Night," and so on, leading only to the end of the lunar path are incomprehensible without a knowledge of Esotericism. These are all names of various deities which preside over the Cosmo-psychic Powers. We often speak of the Hierarchy of "Flames" (see Book II.) of the "Sons of Fire," etc. Sankarachârya the greatest of the Esoteric masters of India, says that fire means a deity which presides over Time (kâla). The able translator of Bhagavatgitâ, Kashinâth Trimbak Telang, M.A., of Bombay, confesses he has "no clear notion of the meaning of these verses" (p. 81, footnote). It seems quite clear, on the contrary, to him who knows the occult doctrine. With these verses the mystic sense of the solar and lunar symbols are connected: the Pitris are lunar deities and our ancestors, because they created the physical man.
The Agnishwatha, the Kumâra (the seven mystic sages), are solar deities, though the former are Pitris also; and these are the "fashioners of the Inner Man." (See Book II.) They are: —
"The Sons of Fire" — because they are the first Beings (in the Secret Doctrine they are called "Minds"), evolved from Primordial Fire. "The Lord is a consuming Fire" (Deuteronomy iv. 24); "The Lord (Christos) shall be revealed with his mighty angels in flaming fire" (2 Thessal. i. 7, 8). The Holy Ghost descended on the Apostles like "cloven tongues of fire," (Acts ii. v. 3); Vishnu will return on Kalki, the White Horse, as the last Avatar amid fire and flames; and Sosiosh will be brought down equally on a White Horse in a "tornado of fire." "And I saw heaven open and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him . . . . is called the Word of God," (Rev. xix. 13) amid flaming Fire. Fire is Æther in its purest form, and hence is not regarded as matter, but it is the unity of Æther — the second manifested deity — in its universality. But there are two "Fires" and a distinction is made between them in the Occult teachings. The first, or the purely Formless and invisible Fire concealed in the Central Spiritual Sun, is spoken of as "triple" (metaphysically); while the Fire of the manifested Kosmos is Septenary, throughout both the Universe and our Solar System. "The fire or knowledge burns up all action on the plane of illusion," says the commentary. "Therefore, those who have acquired it and are emancipated, are called 'Fires.' " Speaking of the seven senses symbolised as Hotris, priests, the Brahmana says in Anugîtâ: "Thus these seven (senses, smell and taste, and colour, and sound, etc., etc.) are the causes of emancipation;" and the commentator adds: "It is from these seven from which the Self is to be emancipated. 'I' (am here devoid of qualities) must mean the Self, not the Brâhmana who speaks." ("Sacred Books of the East," ed. by Max Müller, Vol. VIII., 278.)
(b) The expression "All is One Number, issued from No Number" relates again to that universal and philosophical tenet just explained in Stanza III. (Comm. 4). That which is absolute is of course No Number; but in its later significance it has an application in Space as in Time. It means that not only every increment of time is part of a larger increment, up to the most indefinitely prolonged duration conceivable by the human intellect, but also that no manifested thing can
be thought of except as part of a larger whole: the total aggregate being the One manifested Universe that issues from the unmanifested or Absolute— called Non-Being or "No-Number," to distinguish it from BEING or "the One Number."
—————
(2) LEARN WHAT WE, WHO DESCEND FROM THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, WE, WHO ARE BORN FROM THE PRIMORDIAL FLAME, HAVE LEARNED FROM OUR FATHERS (a).
(a) This is explained in Book II., and this name, "Primordial Flame," corroborates what is said in the first paragraph of the preceding commentary on Stanza IV.
The distinction between the "Primordial" and the subsequent seven Builders is this: The former are the Ray and direct emanation of the first "Sacred Four," the Tetraktis, that is, the eternally Self-Existent One (Eternal in Essence note well, not in manifestation, and distinct from the universal ONE). Latent, during Pralaya, and active, during Manvantara, the "Primordial" proceed from "Father-Mother" (Spirit-Hyle, or Ilus); whereas the other manifested Quaternary and the Seven proceed from the Mother alone. It is the latter who is the immaculate Virgin-Mother, who is overshadowed, not impregnated, by the Universal MYSTERY — when she emerges from her state of Laya or undifferentiated condition. In reality, they are, of course, all one; but their aspects on the various planes of being are different. (See Part II., "Theogony of the Creative Gods.")
The first "Primordial" are the highest Beings on the Scale of Existence. They are the Archangels of Christianity, those who refuse — as Michael did in the latter system, and as did the eldest "Mind-born sons" of Brahmâ (Veddhas) — to create or rather to multiply.
—————
3. FROM THE EFFULGENCY OF LIGHT — THE RAY OF THE EVER-DARKNESS — SPRUNG IN SPACE THE RE-AWAKENED ENERGIES (Dhyan Chohans): THE ONE FROM THE EGG, THE SIX AND THE FIVE (a); THEN THE THREE, THE ONE,
THE FOUR, THE ONE, THE FIVE — THE TWICE SEVEN, THE SUM TOTAL (b). AND THESE ARE: THE ESSENCES, THE FLAMES, THE ELEMENTS, THE BUILDERS, THE NUMBERS, THE ARUPA (formless), THE RUPA (with bodies), AND THE FORCE OR DIVINE MAN — THE SUM TOTAL. AND FROM THE DIVINE MAN EMANATED THE FORMS, THE SPARKS, THE SACRED ANIMALS, AND THE MESSENGERS OF THE SACRED FATHERS (the Pitris) WITHIN THE HOLY FOUR.*
(a) This relates to the sacred Science of the Numerals: so sacred, indeed, and so important in the study of Occultism that the subject can hardly be skimmed, even in such a large work as the present. It is on the Hierarchies and correct numbers of these Beings invisible (to us) except upon very rare occasions, that the mystery of the whole Universe is built. The Kumaras, for instance, are called the "Four" though in reality seven in number, because Sanaka, Sananda, Sanatana and Sanat-Kumara are the chief Vaidhâtra (their patronymic name), as they spring from the "four-fold mystery." To make the whole clearer we have to turn for our illustrations to tenets more familiar to some of our readers, namely, the Brahminical.
According to Manu, Hiranyagarbha is Brahmâ the first male formed by the undiscernible Causeless CAUSE in a "Golden Egg resplendent as the Sun," as states the Hindu Classical Dictionary. "Hiranyagarbha" means the golden, or rather the "Effulgent Womb" or Egg. The meaning tallies awkwardly with the epithet of "male." Surely the esoteric meaning of the sentence is clear enough. In the Rig Veda it is said: — "THAT, the one Lord of all beings . . . . the one animating principle of gods and man," arose, in the beginning, in the Golden Womb, Hiranyagarbha — which is the Mundane Egg or sphere of our Universe. That Being is surely androgynous, and the allegory of Brahmâ separating into two and recreating in one of his halves (the female Vâch) himself as Virâj, is a proof of it.
"The One from the Egg, the Six and the Five," give the
number 1065, the value of the first-born (later on the male and female
Brahmâ-Prajâpati), who answers to the numbers 7, and 14, and 21 respectively.
The Prajâpati are, like the Sephiroth, only seven, including the
——————————————————————————————
* The 4, represented in the Occult
numerals by the Tetraktis, the Sacred or Perfect Square, is a Sacred Number with
the mystics of every nation and race. It has one and the same significance in
Brahmanism, Buddhism, the Kabala and in the Egyptian, Chaldean and other
numerical systems.
synthetic Sephira of the triad from which they spring. Thus from Hiranyagarbha or Prajâpati, the triune (primeval Vedic Trimurti, Agni, Vayu, and Surya), emanate the other seven, or again ten, if we separate the first three which exist in one, and one in three, all, moreover, being comprehended within that one "supreme" Parama, called Guhya or " secret," and Sarvâtma, the "Super-Soul." "The seven Lords of Being lie concealed in Sarvâtma like thoughts in one brain." So are the Sephiroth. It is either seven when counting from the upper Triad headed by Kether, or ten — exoterically. In the Mahabhârata the Prajapati are 21 in number, or ten, six, and five (1065), thrice seven.*
(b) "The Three, the One, the Four, the
One, the Five" (in their totality —
twice seven) represent 31415 —
the numerical hierarchy of the Dhyan-Chohans of various orders, and of the inner
or circumscribed world.† When placed on the boundary of the great circle
of "Pass not" (see Stanza V.), called also the Dhyanipasa, the "rope of the
Angels," the "rope" that hedges off the phenomenal from the noumenal Kosmos,
(not falling within the range of our present objective consciousness); this
number, when not enlarged by permutation and expansion, is ever 31415
anagrammatically and Kabalistically, being both the number of the circle and the
mystic Svastica, the twice seven once more; for whatever way the two sets of
figures are counted, when added separately, one figure after another, whether
crossways, from right or from left, they will always yield fourteen.
Mathematically they represent the well-known calculation, namely, that the ratio
of the diameter to the circumference of a circle is as 1 to 3.1415, or the value
of the
p (pi), as this ratio is called —
the symbol
p being always used in
——————————————————————————————
* In the Kabala the same numbers are a
value of Jehovah, viz., 1065, since the numerical values of the three letters
which compose his name —
Jod, Vau and twice He —
are respectively 10 (
), 6 (
) and 5 (
); or again thrice seven, 21. "Ten is the
Mother of the Soul, for Life and Light are therein united," says Hermes. "For
number one is born of the Spirit and the number ten from matter (chaos,
feminine); the unity has made the ten, the ten the unity" (Book of the Keys).
By the means of the Temura, the anagrammatical method of the Kabala, and
the knowledge of 1065 (21), a universal science may be obtained regarding Kosmos
and its mysteries" (Rabbi Yogel). The Rabbis regard the numbers 10, 6, and 5 as
the most sacred of all.
† The reader may be told that
an American Kabalist has now discovered the same number for the Elohim. It came
to the Jews from Chaldæa. See "Hebrew Metrology" in the Masonic Review, July,
1885, McMillan Lodge, No. 141.
mathematical formulae to express it. This set of figures
must have the same meaning, since the 1 : 314,159, and then again 1 : 3 :
1,415,927 are worked out in the secret calculations to express the various
cycles and ages of the "first born," or 311,040,000,000,000 with fractions, and
yield the same 13,415 by a process we are not concerned with at present. And it
may be shown that Mr. Ralston Skinner, author of The Source of Measures,
reads the Hebrew word Alhim in the same number values, by omitting, as
said, the ciphers and by permutation —
13,514: since (a) is 1 :
(l) is 3 (or 30);
(h) is 5;
(i) 1 for 10; and
(m) is 4 (40), and anagrammatically — 31,415 as explained
by him.
Thus, while in the metaphysical world, the circle with
the one central Point in it has no number, and is called Anupadaka (parentless
and numberless) —
viz., it can fall under no calculation, —
in the manifested world the mundane Egg or Circle is circumscribed within the
groups called the Line, the Triangle, the Pentacle, the second Line and the Cube
(or 13514); and when the Point having generated a Line, thus becomes a diameter
which stands for the androgynous Logos, then the figures become 31415, or a
triangle, a line, a cube, the second line, and a pentacle. "When the Son
separates from the Mother he becomes the Father," the diameter standing for
Nature, or the feminine principle. Therefore it is said: "In the world of being,
the one Point fructifies the Line —
the Virgin Matrix of Kosmos (the egg-shaped zero)
— and the immaculate Mother gives birth to the form
that combines all forms." Prajâpati is called the first procreating male, and
"his Mother's husband." * This gives the key-note to all the later divine
sons from immaculate mothers. It is greatly corroborated by the significant fact
that Anna (the name of the Mother of the Virgin Mary) now represented by the
Roman Catholic church as having given birth to her daughter in an immaculate way
("Mary conceived without sin"), is derived from the Chaldean Ana, heaven, or
Astral Light, Anima Mundi; whence Anaitia, Devi-durga, the wife of Siva, is also
called Annapurna
——————————————————————————————
* We find the same expression in Egypt.
Mout signifies, for one thing, "Mother," and shows the character assigned to her
in the triad of that country. "She was no less the mother than the wife of
Ammon, one of the principle titles of the god being "the husband of his mother."
The goddess Mout, or Mut, is addressed as "our lady," the "queen of Heaven" and
of "the Earth," thus "sharing these titles with the other mother goddesses,
Isis, Hathor, etc." (Maspero).
and Kanya, the Virgin; "Uma-Kanya" being her esoteric name, and meaning the "Virgin of light," Astral Light in one of its multitudinous aspects.
(c) The Devas, Pitris, Rishis; the Suras and the Asuras; the Daityas and Adityas; the Danavas and Gandharvas, etc., etc., have all their synonyms in our Secret Doctrine, as well as in the Kabala and the Hebrew Angelology; but it is useless to give their ancient names, as it would only create confusion. Many of these may be also found now, even in the Christian hierarchy of divine and celestial powers. All those Thrones and Dominions, Virtues and Principalities, Cherubs, Seraphs and demons, the various denizens of the Sidereal World, are the modern copies of archaic prototypes. The very symbolism in their names, when transliterated and arranged in Greek and Latin, are sufficient to show it, as will be proved in several cases further on.
The "Sacred Animals" are found in the Bible as well as
in the Kabala, and they have their meaning (a very profound one, too) on the
page of the origins of Life. In the Sepher Jezirah it is stated that "God
engraved in the Holy Four the throne of his glory, the Ophanim (Wheels or the
World-Spheres), the Seraphim,* the Sacred Animals, and the ministering
angels, and from these three (the Air, Water, and Fire or Ether) he formed his
habitation." Thus was the world made "through three Seraphim — Sepher, Saphar, and Sipur,"
or "through Number, Numbers, and Numbered." With the astronomical key these
"Sacred Animals" become the signs of the Zodiac.
——————————————————————————————
* This is the literal translation from
the IXth and Xth Sections: "Ten numbers without what? One: the spirit of the
living God . . . . who liveth in eternities! Voice and Spirit and Word, and this
is the Holy Spirit. Two: Spirit out of Spirit. He designed and hewed therewith
twenty-two letters of foundation, three Mothers and seven double and Twelve
single, and one spirit out of them. Three: Water out of spirit; he designed and
hewed with them the barren and the void, mud and earth. He designed them as a
flowerbed, hewed them as a wall, covered them as a paving. Four: Fire out of
water. He designed and hewed therewith the throne of glory and the wheels, and
the seraphim and the holy animals and the ministering angels, and of the three
He founded his dwelling, as it is said, He makes his angels spirits and his
servants fiery flames!" Which words "founded his dwelling" show clearly that in
the Kabala, as in India, the Deity was considered as the Universe, and was not,
in his origin, the extra-cosmic God he is now.
4. THIS WAS THE ARMY OF THE VOICE — THE DIVINE SEPTENARY. THE SPARKS OF THE SEVEN ARE SUBJECT TO, AND THE SERVANTS OF, THE FIRST, SECOND, THIRD, FOURTH, FIFTH, SIXTH, AND THE SEVENTH OF THE SEVEN (a). THESE ("sparks") ARE CALLED SPHERES, TRIANGLES, CUBES, LINES, AND MODELLERS; FOR THUS STANDS THE ETERNAL NIDANA—THE OI-HA-HOU (the Permutation of Oeaohoo) (b).*
(a) This Sloka gives again a brief analysis of the Hierarchies of the Dhyan Chohans, called Devas (gods) in India, or the conscious intelligent powers in Nature. To this Hierarchy correspond the actual types into which humanity may be divided; for humanity, as a whole, is in reality a materialized though as yet imperfect expression thereof. The "army of the Voice" is a term closely connected with the mystery of Sound and Speech, as an effect and corollary of the cause — Divine Thought. As beautifully expressed by P. Christian, the learned author of "The History of Magic" and of "L'Homme Rouge des Tuileries," the word spoken by, as well as the name of, every individual largely determine his future fate. Why? Because —
— "When our Soul (mind) creates or evokes a thought, the representative sign of that thought is self-engraved upon the astral fluid, which is the receptacle and, so to say, the mirror of all the manifestations of being.
"The sign expresses the thing: the thing is the (hidden or occult) virtue of the sign.
"To pronounce a word is to evoke a thought, and make
it present: the magnetic potency of the human speech is the commencement of
every manifestation in the Occult World. To utter a Name is not only to define
a Being (an Entity), but to place it under and condemn it through the emission
of the Word (Verbum), to the influence of one or more Occult potencies. Things
are, for every one of us, that which it (the Word) makes them while naming
them. The Word (Verbum) or the speech of every man is, quite unconsciously to
himself, a BLESSING or a CURSE; this is why our present ignorance about the
properties or attributes of the IDEA as well as about the attributes and
properties of MATTER, is often fatal to us.
——————————————————————————————
* The literal signification of the word
is, among the Eastern Occultists of the North, a circular wind, whirlwind; but
in this instance, it is a term to denote the ceaseless and eternal Cosmic
Motion; or rather the Force that moves it, which Force is tacitly accepted as
the Deity but never named. It is the eternal Karana, the ever-acting
Cause.
"Yes, names (and words) are either BENEFICENT or MALEFICENT; they are, in a certain sense, either venomous or health-giving, according to the hidden influences attached by Supreme Wisdom to their elements, that is to say, to the LETTERS which compose them, and the NUMBERS correlative to these letters."
This is strictly true as an esoteric teaching accepted by all the Eastern Schools of Occultism. In the Sanskrit, as also in the Hebrew and all other alphabets, every letter has its occult meaning and its rationale; it is a cause and an effect of a preceding cause and a combination of these very often produces the most magical effect. The vowels, especially, contain the most occult and formidable potencies. The Mantras (esoterically, magical rather than religious) are chanted by the Brahmins and so are the Vedas and other Scriptures.
The "Army of the Voice," is the prototype of the "Host of the Logos," or the "WORD" of the Sepher Jezirah, called in the Secret Doctrine "the One Number issued from No-Number" — the One Eternal Principle. The esoteric theogony begins with the One, manifested, therefore not eternal in its presence and being, if eternal in its essence; the number of the numbers and numbered — the latter proceeding from the Voice, the feminine Vâch, Satarupa "of the hundred forms," or Nature. It is from this number 10, or creative nature, the Mother (the occult cypher, or "nought," ever procreating and multiplying in union with the Unit "I," one, or the Spirit of Life), that the whole Universe proceeded.
In the Anugîtâ a conversation is given (ch.
vi., 15) between a Brahmana and his wife, on the origin of Speech and its occult
properties.* The wife asks how Speech came into existence, and which was
prior to the other, Speech or Mind. The Brahmana tells her that the Apâna (inspirational
breath) becoming lord, changes that intelligence, which does not
understand Speech or Words, into the state of Apâna, and thus opens the mind.
Thereupon he tells her a story, a dialogue between Speech and Mind. "Both went
to the Self of Being (i.e., to the individual Higher Self, as
Nilakantha thinks, to Prajâpati, according to the commentator Arjuna Misra), and
asked him to destroy their doubts and decide which of them preceded and was
superior to the
——————————————————————————————
* Anugîtâ
forms part of the Asvamedha Parvan of the "Mahâbhârata." The translator of the
Bhagavatgitâ, edited by Max Muller, regards it as a continuation of the
Bhagavatgîtâ. Its original is one of the oldest Upanishads.
other. To this the lord said: 'Mind is Superior.' But Speech answered the Self of Being, by saying: 'I verily yield (you) your desires,' meaning that by speech he acquired what he desired. Thereupon again, the Self told her that there are two minds, the 'movable' and the 'immovable.' 'The immovable is with me,' he said, 'the movable is in your dominion' (i.e. of Speech) on the plane of matter. To that you are superior. But inasmuch, O beautiful one, as you came personally to speak to me (in the way you did, i.e. proudly), therefore, O, Sarasvati! you shall never speak after (hard) exhalation." "The goddess Speech" (Sarasvati, a later form or aspect of Vâch, the goddess also of secret learning or Esoteric Wisdom), "verily, dwelt always between the Prâna and the Apâna. But O noble one ! going with the Apâna wind (vital air), though impelled, without the Prâna (expirational breath), she ran up to Prajâpati (Brahmâ), saying, 'Be pleased, O venerable sir!' Then the Prâna appeared again, nourishing Speech. And, therefore, Speech never speaks after (hard or inspirational) exhalation. It is always noisy or noiseless. Of these two, the noiseless is the superior to the noisy (Speech) . . . . The (speech) which is produced in the body by means of the Prâna, and which then goes (is transformed) into Apâna, and then becoming assimilated with the Udâna (physical organs of Speech) . . . then finally dwells in the Samâna ('at the navel in the form of sound, as the material cause of all words,' says Arjûna Misra). So Speech formerly spoke. Hence the mind is distinguished by reason of its being immovable, and the Goddess (Speech) by reason of her being movable."
This allegory is at the root of the Occult law, which prescribes silence upon the knowledge of certain secret and invisible things perceptible only to the spiritual mind (the 6th sense), and which cannot be expressed by "noisy" or uttered speech. This chapter of Anugîtâ explains, says Arjuna Misra, Prânâyâma, or regulation of the breath in Yoga practices. This mode, however, without the previous acquisition of, or at least full understanding of the two higher senses, of which there are seven, as will be shown, pertains rather to the lower Yoga. The Hâtha so called was and still is discountenanced by the Arhats. It is injurious to the health and alone can never develop into Raj Yoga. This story is quoted to show how inseparably connected are, in the metaphysics of old, intelligent beings, or rather "Intelligences," with every sense or
function whether physical or mental. The Occult claim that there are seven senses in man, as in nature, as there are seven states of consciousness, is corroborated in the same work, chapter vii., on Pratyâhâra (the restraint and regulation of the senses, Prânâyâma being that of the "vital winds" or breath). The Brâhmana speaks in it "of the institution of the seven sacrificial Priests (Hotris). He says: "The nose and the eyes, and the tongue, and the skin and the ear as the fifth (or smell, sight, taste, touch and hearing), mind and understanding are the seven sacrificial priests separately stationed"; and which "dwelling in a minute space (still) do not perceive each other" on this sensuous plane, none of them except mind. For mind says: "The nose smells not without me, the eye does not take in colour, etc., etc. I am the eternal chief among all elements (i.e., senses). Without me, the senses never shine, like an empty dwelling, or like fires the flames of which are extinct. Without me, all beings, like fuel half dried and half moist, fail to apprehend qualities or objects even with the senses exerting themselves." *
This, of course, with regard only to mind on the sensuous plane. Spiritual mind (the upper portion or aspect of the impersonal MANAS) takes no cognisance of the senses in physical man. How well the ancients were acquainted with the correlation of forces and all the recently discovered phenomena of mental and physical faculties and functions, with many more mysteries also — may be found in reading chapters vii. and viii. of this (in philosophy and mystic learning) priceless work. See the quarrel of the senses about their respective superiority and their taking the Brahman, the lord of all creatures, for their arbiter. "You are all greatest and not greatest," or superior to objects, as A. Misra says, none being independent of the other. "You are all possessed of one another's qualities. All are greatest in their own spheres and all support one another. There is one unmoving (life-wind or breath, the 'Yoga inhalation,' so called, which is the breath of the One or Higher SELF). That is the (or my) own Self, accumulated in numerous (forms)."
This Breath, Voice, Self or "Wind" (pneuma?)
is the Synthesis of the Seven Senses, noumenally all minor deities
and esoterically — the
septenary and the "Army of the VOICE."
——————————————————————————————
* This shows the modern metaphysicians,
added to all past and present Hægels, Berkeleys, Schopenhauers, Hartmanns,
Herbert Spencers, and even the modern Hylo-Idealists to boot, no better than the
pale copyists of hoary antiquity.
(b) Next we see Cosmic matter scattering and forming itself into elements; grouped into the mystic four within the fifth element — Ether, the lining of Akasa, the Anima Mundi or Mother of Kosmos. "Dots, Lines, Triangles, Cubes, Circles" and finally "Spheres" — why or how? Because, says the Commentary, such is the first law of Nature, and because Nature geometrizes universally in all her manifestations. There is an inherent law — not only in the primordial, but also in the manifested matter of our phenomenal plane — by which Nature correlates her geometrical forms, and later, also, her compound elements; and in which there is no place for accident or chance. It is a fundamental law in Occultism, that there is no rest or cessation of motion in Nature.* That which seems rest is only the change of one form into another; the change of substance going hand in hand with that of form — as we are taught in Occult physics, which thus seem to have anticipated the discovery of the "Conservation of matter" by a considerable time. Says the ancient Commentary † to Stanza IV.: —
"The Mother is the fiery Fish of Life. She scatters
her spawn and the Breath (Motion) heats and quickens it. The
grains (of spawn) are soon attracted to each other and form
the curds in the Ocean (of Space). The larger lumps coalesce
and receive new spawn —in
fiery dots, triangles and cubes, which ripen, and at the appointed time some of
the lumps detach themselves and assume spheroidal form, a process which they
effect only when not interfered with by the others. After which, law No. *
* * comes into operation. Motion (the Breath) becomes the
whirlwind and sets them into rotation."‡
——————————————————————————————
* It is the knowledge of this law
that permits and helps the Arhat to perform his Siddhis, or various
phenomena, such as disintegration of matter, the transport of objects from one
place to another.
† These are ancient Commentaries attached with
modern Glossaries to the Stanzas, as the Commentaries in their symbolical
language are usually as difficult to understand as the Stanzas themselves.
‡ In a polemical scientific work, "The Modern
Genesis," the author, the Rev. W. B. Slaughter, criticising the
position assumed by the astronomers, asks:
— "It is to
be regretted that the advocates of this (nebular) theory have not entered more
largely into the discussion of it (the beginning of rotation). No one
condescends to give us the rationale of it. How does the process of
cooling and contracting the mass impart to it a rotatory motion?" The question
is amply treated in the Addendum. It is not materialistic science that can ever
solve it. "Motion is eternal in the unmanifested, and periodical in the
manifest," says an Occult teaching. It is "when heat caused by
the descent of FLAME into primordial matter causes its particles to move, which
motion becomes Whirlwind." A drop of liquid assumes a spheroidal form owing to
its atoms moving around themselves in their ultimate, unresolvable, and noumenal
essence; unresolvable for physical science, at any rate.
5. . . . . . WHICH IS:—
"DARKNESS," THE
BOUNDLESS
OR THE NO-NUMBER,
ADI-NIDANA
SVÂBHÂVAT: THE
(for x,
unknown quantity):
I. THE ADI-SANAT, THE NUMBER, FOR HE IS ONE (a).
II. THE VOICE OF THE WORD, SVÂBHÂVAT, THE NUMBERS, FOR HE IS ONE AND NINE.*
III. THE "FORMLESS SQUARE." (Arupa.) (b).
AND THESE THREE ENCLOSED WITHIN THE
(boundless circle),
ARE THE
SACRED FOUR, AND THE TEN ARE THE ARUPA
(subjective,
formless) UNIVERSE (c); THEN COME THE
"SONS,"
THE SEVEN FIGHTERS, THE
ONE, THE EIGHTH LEFT
OUT, AND HIS BREATH WHICH IS THE
LIGHT-MAKER
(Bhâskara) (d).
(a) "Adi-Sanat," translated literally is the First or "primeval" ancient, which name identifies the Kabalistic "Ancient of Days" and the "Holy Aged" (Sephira and Adam Kadmon) with Brahmâ the Creator, called also Sanat among his other names and titles.
Svâbhâvat is the mystic Essence, the plastic root of
physical Nature —
"Numbers" when manifested; the Number, in its Unity of Substance, on the highest
plane. The name is of Buddhist use and a Synonym for the four-fold Anima Mundi,
the Kabalistic "Archetypal World," from whence proceed the "Creative, Formative,
and the
——————————————————————————————
* Which makes ten, or the perfect
number applied to the "Creator," the name given to the totality of the Creators
blended by the Monotheists into One, as the "Elohim," Adam Kadmon or Sephira
—
the Crown —
are the androgyne synthesis of the 10 Sephiroth, who stand for the symbol of the
manifested Universe in the popularised Kabala. The esoteric Kabalists, however,
following the Eastern Occultists, divide the upper Sephirothal triangle from the
rest (or Sephira, Chochmah and Binah), which leaves seven Sephiroth. As for
Svâbhâvat, the Orientalists explain the term as meaning the Universal plastic
matter diffused through Space, with, perhaps, half an eye to the Ether of
Science. But the Occultists identify it with "FATHER-MOTHER" on the mystic
plane. (Vide supra.)
Material Worlds"; the Scintillæ or Sparks, — the various other worlds contained in the last three. The Worlds are all subject to Rulers or Regents — Rishis and Pitris with the Hindus, Angels with the Jews and Christians, Gods, with the Ancients in general.
(b)
This
means that the "Boundless Circle" (Zero) becomes a figure or number, only when
one of the nine figures precedes it, and thus manifests its value and potency,
the Word or Logos in union with VOICE and Spirit* (the expression and
source of Consciousness) standing for the nine figures and thus forming, with
the Cypher, the Decade which contains in itself all the Universe. The triad
forms within the circle the Tetraktis or Sacred Four, the Square within the
Circle being the most potent of all the magical figures.
(c) The "One Rejected" is the Sun of our
system. The exoteric version may be found in the oldest Sanskrit Scriptures. In
the Rig Veda, Aditi, "The Boundless" or infinite Space, translated by Mr. Max
Müller, "the visible infinite, visible by the naked eye (!!); the endless
expanse beyond the Earth, beyond the clouds, beyond the sky," is the equivalent
of "Mother-Space" coeval with "Darkness." She is very properly called "The
Mother of the Gods," DEVA-MATRI,
as it is from her Cosmic matrix that all the heavenly bodies of our system were
born—Sun and Planets. Thus she is described, allegorically, in this wise: "Eight
Sons were born from the body of Aditi; she approached the gods with seven, but
cast away the eighth, Martanda," our sun. The seven sons called the Aditya are,
cosmically or astronomically, the seven planets; and the Sun being excluded from
their number shows plainly that the Hindus may have known, and in fact knew of a
seventh planet, without calling it Uranus.† But esoterically and
theologically,
——————————————————————————————
* "In union with the Spirit and
the Voice," referring to the Abstract Thought and concrete Voice, or the
manifestation thereof, the effect of the Cause. Adam Kadmon or Tetragrammaton is
the Logos in the Kabala; therefore this triad answers in the latter to the
highest triangle of Kether, Chochmah and Binah, the last a female potency and at
the same time the male Jehovah, as partaking of the nature of Chochmah, or the
male Wisdom.
†
The Secret Doctrine teaches that the Sun is a central Star and not a planet. Yet
the Ancients knew of and worshipped seven great gods, excluding the Sun and
Earth. Which was that "Mystery God" they set apart? Of course not Uranus,
discovered only by Herschel in 1781. But could it not be known by another name?
Says the
author of "Maconnerie Occulte": —
"Occult Sciences having discovered through astronomical calculations that the
number of the planets must be seven, the ancients were led to introduce the Sun
into the scale of the celestial harmonies, and make him occupy the vacant place.
Thus, every time they perceived an influence that pertained to none of the six
planets known, they attributed it to the Sun. The error only seems important,
but was not so in practical results, if the ancient astrologers replaced Uranus
by the Sun, which is a central Star relatively motionless, turning only on its
axis and regulating time and measure; and which cannot be turned aside from its
true functions." . . . . . . The nomenclature of the days of the week is thus
faulty. "The Sun-Day ought to be Uranus-day (Urani dies, Urandi)," adds the
learned writer, Ragon.
so to say, the Adityas are, in their primitive most ancient meanings, the eight, and the twelve great gods of the Hindu Pantheon. "The Seven allow the mortals to see their dwellings, but show themselves only to the Arhats," says an old proverb, "their dwellings" standing here for planets. The ancient Commentary gives an allegory and explains it:—
"Eight houses were built by Mother. Eight houses for her Eight Divine sons; four large and four small ones. Eight brilliant suns, according to their age and merits. Bal-ilu (Martanda) was not satisfied, though his house was the largest. He began (to work) as the huge elephants do. He breathed (drew in) into his stomach the vital airs of his brothers. He sought to devour them. The larger four were far away; far, on the margin of their kingdom.* They were not robbed (affected), and laughed. Do your worst, Sir, you cannot reach us, they said. But the smaller wept. They complained to the Mother. She exiled Bal-i-lu to the centre of her Kingdom, from whence he could not move. (Since then) he (only) watches and threatens. He pursues them, turning slowly around himself, they turning swiftly from him, and he following from afar the direction in which his brothers move on the path that encircles their houses.†From that day he feeds on the sweat of the Mother's body. He fills himself with her breath and refuse. Therefore, she rejected him."
Thus the "rejected Son" being our Sun, evidently, as
shown above, the "Sun-Sons" refer not only to our planets but to the heavenly
bodies in general. Himself only a reflection of the Central Spiritual Sun,
Surya is the prototype of all those bodies that evolved after him. In the
Vedas he is called Loka-Chakshuh, "the Eye of the World" (our
——————————————————————————————
* Planetary System.
†
"The Sun rotates on his axis always in the same direction in which the planets
revolve in their respective orbits," astronomy teaches us.
planetary world), and he is one of the three chief deities. He is called indifferently the Son of Dyaus and of Aditi, because no distinction is made with reference to, or scope allowed for, the esoteric meaning. Thus he is depicted as drawn by seven horses, and by one horse with seven heads; the former referring to his seven planets, the latter to their one common origin from the One Cosmic Element. This "One Element" is called figuratively "FIRE." The Vedas (Aitareya-Brâhmana of Haug also; p. i) teach "that the fire verily is all the deities." (Narada in Anugîtâ).
The meaning of the allegory is plain, for we have both the Dzyan Commentary and modern science to explain it, though the two differ in more than one particular. The Occult Doctrine rejects the hypothesis born out of the Nebular Theory, that the (seven) great planets have evolved from the Sun's central mass, not of this our visible Sun, at any rate. The first condensation of Cosmic matter of course took place about a central nucleus, its parent Sun; but our sun, it is taught, merely detached itself earlier than all the others, as the rotating mass contracted, and is their elder, bigger brother therefore, not their father. The eight Adityas, "the gods," are all formed from the eternal substance (Cometary matter * — the Mother) or the "World-Stuff " which is both the fifth and the sixth COSMIC Principle, the Upadhi or basis of the Universal Soul, just as in man, the Microcosm, Manas † is the Upadhi of Buddhi. ‡
(d) There is a whole poem on the pregenetic
battles fought by the growing planets before the final formation of Kosmos, thus
accounting for the seemingly disturbed position of the systems of several
planets, the plane of the satellites of some (of Neptune and Uranus, for
instance, of which the ancients knew nothing, it is said) being tilted over,
thus giving them an appearance of retrograde motion. These planets are called
the warriors, the Architects, and are accepted by the
——————————————————————————————
* This Essence of Cometary matter, Occult
Science teaches, is totally different from any of the chemical or physical
characteristics with which modern science is acquainted. It is homogeneous in
its primitive form beyond the Solar Systems, and differentiates entirely once it
crosses the boundaries of our Earth's region, vitiated by the atmospheres of the
planets and the already compound matter of the interplanetary stuff,
heterogeneous only in our manifested world.
†
Manas —
the Mind-Principle, or the human Soul.
‡ Buddhi —
the divine Soul.
Roman Church as the leaders of the heavenly Hosts, thus showing the same traditions. Having evolved from Cosmic Space, and before the final formation of the primaries and the annulation of the planetary nebula, the Sun, we are taught, drew into the depths of its mass all the Cosmic vitality he could, threatening to engulf his weaker "brothers" before the law of attraction and repulsion was finally adjusted; after which he began feeding on "The Mother's refuse and sweat"; in other words, on those portions of Ether (the "breath of the Universal Soul") of the existence and constitution of which science is as yet absolutely ignorant. A theory of this kind having been propounded by Sir William Grove (see "Correlation of the Physical Forces," 1843, p. 81; and "Address to the British Association, 1866"), who theorized that the systems "are gradually changing by atmospheric additions or subtractions, or by accretions and diminutions arising from nebular substances" . . . and again that "the Sun may condense gaseous matter as it travels in Space and so heat may be produced" — the archaic teaching seems scientific enough, even in this age.* Mr. W. Mattieu Williams suggested that the diffused matter or Ether which is the recipient of the heat radiations of the Universe is thereby drawn into the depths of the solar mass. Expelling thence the previously condensed and thermally exhausted Ether, it becomes compressed and gives up its heat, to be in turn itself driven out in a rarified and cooled state, to absorb a fresh supply of heat, which he supposes to be in this way taken up by the Ether, and again concentrated and redistributed by the Suns of the Universe.†
This is about as close an approximation to the Occult
teachings as Science ever imagined; for Occultism explains it by "the dead
breath" given back by Martanda and his feeding on the "sweat and refuse" of
"Mother Space." What could affect Neptune, ‡
Saturn and Jupiter,
——————————————————————————————
* Very similar ideas in Mr. W. Mattieu
Williams' "The Fuel of the Sun;" in Dr. C. William Siemens' "On
the Conservation of Solar Energy" (Nature, XXV., p.
440-444, March 9, 1882); and also in Dr. P. Martin Duncan's "Address of the
President of the Geological Society," London, May, 1877.
†
See "Comparative Geology," by
Alexander Winchell, LL.D., p. 56.
‡ When
we speak of Neptune it is not as an Occultist but as a European. The true
Eastern Occultist will maintain that, whereas there are many yet undiscovered
planets in our system, Neptune does not belong to it, his apparent connection
with our sun and the influence of the latter upon Neptune notwithstanding. This
connection is mayavic, imaginary, they say.
but little, would have killed such comparatively small "Houses" as Mercury, Venus and Mars. As Uranus was not known before the end of the eighteenth century, the name of the fourth planet mentioned in the allegory must remain to us, so far, a mystery.
The "Breath" of all the "seven" is said to be Bhâskara (light-making), because they (the planets) were all comets and suns in their origin. They evolve into Manvantaric life from primæval Chaos (now the noumenon of irresolvable nebulæ) by aggregation and accumulation of the primary differentiations of the eternal matter, according to the beautiful expression in the Commentary, "Thus the Sons of Light clothed themselves in the fabric of Darkness." They are called allegorically "the Heavenly Snails," on account of their (to us) formless INTELLIGENCES inhabiting unseen their starry and planetary homes, and, so to speak, carrying them as the snails do along with themselves in their revolution. The doctrine of a common origin for all the heavenly bodies and planets, was, as we see, inculcated by the Archaic astronomers, before Kepler, Newton, Leibnitz, Kant, Herschel and Laplace. Heat (the Breath), attraction and repulsion — the three great factors of Motion — are the conditions under which all the members of all this primitive family are born, developed, and die, to be reborn after a "Night of Brahmâ," during which eternal matter relapses periodically into its primary undifferentiated state. The most attenuated gases can give no idea of its nature to the modern physicist. Centres of Forces at first, the invisible sparks of primordial atoms differentiate into molecules, and become Suns — passing gradually into objectivity gaseous, radiant, cosmic, the one "Whirlwind" (or motion) finally giving the impulse to the form, and the initial motion, regulated and sustained by the never-resting Breaths — the Dhyan Chohans.
—————
6. . . . . THEN THE SECOND SEVEN, WHO ARE THE LIPIKA, PRODUCED BY THE THREE (Word, Voice, and Spirit). THE REJECTED SON IS ONE, THE "SON-SUNS" ARE COUNTLESS.
The Lipi-ka, from the word lipi, "writing," means literally the
"Scribes."* Mystically, these Divine Beings are connected with Karma, the Law of Retribution, for they are the Recorders or Annalists who impress on the (to us) invisible tablets of the Astral Light, "the great picture-gallery of eternity" — a faithful record of every act, and even thought, of man, of all that was, is, or ever will be, in the phenomenal Universe. As said in "Isis," this divine and unseen canvas is the BOOK OF LIFE. As it is the Lipika who project into objectivity from the passive Universal Mind the ideal plan of the universe, upon which the "Builders" reconstruct the Kosmos after every Pralaya, it is they who stand parallel to the Seven Angels of the Presence, whom the Christians recognise in the Seven "Planetary Spirits" or the "Spirits of the Stars;" for thus it is they who are the direct amanuenses of the Eternal Ideation — or, as called by Plato, the "Divine Thought." The Eternal Record is no fantastic dream, for we meet with the same records in the world of gross matter. "A shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving thereupon a permanent trace which might be made visible by resorting to proper processes," says Dr. Draper. . . . "The portraits of our friends or landscape-views may be hidden on the sensitive surface from the eye, but they are ready to make their appearance as soon as proper developers are resorted to. A spectre is concealed on a silver or a glassy surface, until, by our necromancy, we make it come forth into the visible world. Upon the walls of our most private apartments, where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out, and our retirement can never be profaned, there exist the vestiges of all our acts, silhouettes of whatever we have done." † Drs. Jevons and Babbage believe that every thought, displacing the particles of the brain and setting them in motion, scatters them throughout the Universe, and they think that "each particle of the existing matter must be a register of all that has happened." (Principles of Science, Vol. II. p. 455.) Thus the ancient doctrine has begun to acquire rights of citizenship in the speculations of the scientific world.
The forty "Assessors" who stand in the region of
Amenti as the accusers of the Soul before Osiris, belong
to the same class of deities as the Lipika, and might stand paralleled, were not
the Egyptian gods so
——————————————————————————————
* These are the four "Immortals"
which are mentioned in Atharva Veda as the "Watchers" or Guardians of
the four quarters of the sky (see ch. lxxvi., 1-4, et seq.).
†
"Conflict between Religion and Science."
— Draper, pp. 132 and 133.
little understood in their esoteric meaning. The Hindu Chitra-Gupta who reads out the account of every Soul's life from his register, called Agra-Sandhani; the "Assessors" who read theirs from the heart of the defunct, which becomes an open book before (whether) Yama, Minos, Osiris, or Karma — are all so many copies of, and variants from the Lipika, and their Astral Records. Nevertheless, the Lipi-ka are not deities connected with Death, but with Life Eternal.
Connected as the Lipika are with the destiny of every
man and the birth of every child, whose life is already traced in the Astral
Light not fatalistically, but only because the future, like the PAST, is ever
alive in the PRESENT —
they may also be said to exercise an influence on the Science of Horoscopy. We
must admit the truth of the latter whether we will or not. For, as observed by
one of the modern adepts of Astrology, "Now that photography has revealed to us
the chemical influence of the Sidereal system, by fixing on the sensitized plate
of the apparatus milliards of stars and planets that had hitherto baffled the
efforts of the most powerful telescopes to discover them, it becomes easier to
understand how our solar system can, at the birth of a child, influence his
brain — virgin of any
impression — in a
definite manner and according to the presence on the zenith of such or another
zodiacal constellation."†
——————————————————————————————
†
Les Mysteres de l'Horoscope, p. XI.
—————
1. THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, THE FIRST SEVEN BREATHS OF THE DRAGON OF WISDOM, PRODUCE IN THEIR TURN FROM THEIR HOLY CIRCUMGYRATING BREATHS THE FIERY WHIRLWIND (a).
(a) This is, perhaps, the most difficult of all the Stanzas to explain. Its language is comprehensible only to him who is thoroughly versed in Eastern allegory and its purposely obscure phraseology. The question will surely be asked, "Do the Occultists believe in all these 'Builders,' 'Lipika,' and 'Sons of Light' as Entities, or are they merely imageries?" To this the answer is given as plainly: "After due allowance for the imagery of personified Powers, we must admit the existence of these Entities, if we would not reject the existence of spiritual humanity within physical mankind. For the hosts of these Sons of Light and 'Mind-born Sons' of the first manifested Ray of the UNKNOWN ALL, are the very root of spiritual man." Unless we want to believe the unphilosophical dogma of a specially created soul for every human birth — a fresh supply of these pouring in daily, since "Adam" — we have to admit the occult teachings. This will be explained in its place. Let us see, now, what may be the occult meaning of this Stanza.
The Doctrine teaches that, in order to become a divine, fully conscious god, — aye, even the highest — the Spiritual primeval INTELLIGENCES must pass through the human stage. And when we say human, this does not apply merely to our terrestrial humanity, but to the mortals that inhabit any world, i.e., to those Intelligences that have reached the appropriate equilibrium between matter and spirit, as we have now, since the middle point of the Fourth Root Race of the Fourth Round was passed. Each Entity must have won for itself the right of becoming divine, through self-experience. Hegel, the great German thinker, must have known or sensed intuitionally this truth when saying, as he did, that the Unconscious evolved the Universe only "in the hope of attaining clear self-consciousness," of becoming, in other words, MAN; for this is also the secret meaning of the usual Purânic phrase about
Brahmâ being constantly "moved by the desire to create." This explains also the hidden Kabalistic meaning of the saying: "The Breath becomes a stone; the stone, a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god." The Mind-born Sons, the Rishis, the Builders, etc., were all men — of whatever forms and shapes — in other worlds and the preceding Manvantaras.
This subject, being so very mystical, is therefore the most difficult to explain in all its details and bearings; since the whole mystery of evolutionary creation is contained in it. A sentence or two in it vividly recalls to mind similar ones in the Kabala and the phraseology of the King Psalmist (civ.), as both, when speaking of God, show him making the wind his messenger and his "ministers a flaming fire." But in the Esoteric doctrine it is used figuratively. The "fiery Wind" is the incandescent Cosmic dust which only follows magnetically, as the iron filings follow the magnet, the directing thought of the "Creative Forces." Yet, this cosmic dust is something more; for every atom in the Universe has the potentiality of self-consciousness in it, and is, like the Monads of Leibnitz, a Universe in itself, and for itself. It is an atom and an angel.
In this connection it should be noted that one of the luminaries of the modern Evolutionist School, Mr. A. R. Wallace, when discussing the inadequacy of "natural selection" as the sole factor in the development of physical man, practically concedes the whole point here discussed. He holds that the evolution of man was directed and furthered by superior Intelligences, whose agency is a necessary factor in the scheme of Nature. But once the operation of these Intelligences is admitted in one place, it is only a logical deduction to extend it still further. No hard and fast line can be drawn.
—————
2. THEY MAKE OF HIM THE MESSENGER OF
THEIR WILL (a). THE
DZYU BECOMES
FOHAT; THE
SWIFT
SON OF
THE DIVINE
SONS, WHOSE SONS ARE THE
LIPIKA,* RUNS CIRCULAR ERRANDS.
HE IS
THE STEED, AND
——————————————————————————————
* The difference between the
"Builders," the Planetary Spirits, and the Lipika must not be lost sight of.
(See Nos. 5 and 6 of this Commentary.)
THE THOUGHT IS THE RIDER (i.e., he is under the influence of their guiding thought). HE PASSES LIKE LIGHTNING THROUGH THE FIERY CLOUDS (cosmic mists) (b); TAKES THREE, AND FIVE, AND SEVEN STRIDES THROUGH THE SEVEN REGIONS ABOVE AND THE SEVEN BELOW (the world to be). HE LIFTS HIS VOICE, AND CALLS THE INNUMERABLE SPARKS (atoms) AND JOINS THEM TOGETHER (c).
(a) This shows the "Primordial Seven" using for their Vahan (vehicle, or the manifested subject which becomes the symbol of the Power directing it), Fohat, called in consequence, the "Messenger of their will" — the fiery whirlwind.
"Dzyu becomes Fohat" — the expression itself shows it. Dzyu is the one real (magical) knowledge, or Occult Wisdom; which, dealing with eternal truths and primal causes, becomes almost omnipotence when applied in the right direction. Its antithesis is Dzyu-mi, that which deals with illusions and false appearances only, as in our exoteric modern sciences. In this case, Dzyu is the expression of the collective Wisdom of the Dhyani-Buddhas.
(b) As the reader is supposed not to
be acquainted with the Dhyani-Buddhas, it is as well to say at once that,
according to the Orientalists, there are five Dhyanis who are the
"celestial" Buddhas, of whom the human Buddhas are the manifestations in the
world of form and matter. Esoterically, however, the Dhyani-Buddhas are seven,
of whom five only have hitherto manifested,* and two are to come in the
sixth and seventh Root-races. They are, so to speak, the eternal prototypes of
the Buddhas who appear on this earth, each of whom has his particular divine
prototype. So, for instance, Amitâbha is the Dhyani-Buddha of Gautama Sakyamuni,
manifesting through him whenever this great Soul incarnates on earth as He did
in Tzon-kha-pa.†
As the synthesis of the seven Dhyani-Buddhas, Avalôkitêswara was the first
Buddha (the Logos), so Amitâbha is the inner "God" of Gautama, who, in China, is
called Amita(-Buddha). They are, as Mr. Rhys Davids
——————————————————————————————
* See A. P. Sinnett's "Esoteric
Buddhism," 5th annotated edition, pp. 171-173.
†
The first and greatest Reformer who founded the "Yellow-Caps,"
Gyalugpas. He was born in the year 1355 A.D. in Amdo, and was the Avatar
of Amitâbha, the celestial name of Gautama Buddha.
correctly states, "the glorious counterparts in the mystic world, free from the debasing conditions of this material life" of every earthly mortal Buddha — the liberated Manushi-Buddhas appointed to govern the Earth in this Round. They are the "Buddhas of Contemplation," and are all Anupadaka (parentless), i.e., self-born of divine essence. The exoteric teaching which says that every Dhyani-Buddha has the faculty of creating from himself, an equally celestial son — a Dhyani-Bodhisattva — who, after the decease of the Manushi (human) Buddha, has to carry out the work of the latter, rests on the fact that owing to the highest initiation performed by one overshadowed by the "Spirit of Buddha" — (who is credited by the Orientalists with having created the five Dhyani-Buddhas!), — a candidate becomes virtually a Bodhisattva, created such by the High Initiator.
(c) Fohat, being one of the most, if not the most important character in esoteric Cosmogony, should be minutely described. As in the oldest Grecian Cosmogony, differing widely from the later mythology, Eros is the third person in the primeval trinity: Chaos, Gæa, Eros: answering to the Kabalistic En-Soph (for Chaos is SPACE, Caino , "void") the Boundless ALL, Shekinah and the Ancient of Days, or the Holy Ghost; so Fohat is one thing in the yet unmanifested Universe and another in the phenomenal and Cosmic World. In the latter, he is that Occult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first impulse which becomes in time law. But in the unmanifested Universe, Fohat is no more this, than Eros is the later brilliant winged Cupid, or LOVE. Fohat has naught to do with Kosmos yet, since Kosmos is not born, and the gods still sleep in the bosom of "Father-Mother." He is an abstract philosophical idea. He produces nothing yet by himself; he is simply that potential creative power in virtue of whose action the NOUMENON of all future phenomena divides, so to speak, but to reunite in a mystic supersensuous act, and emit the creative ray. When the "Divine Son" breaks forth, then Fohat becomes the propelling force, the active Power which causes the ONE to become TWO and THREE — on the Cosmic plane of manifestation. The triple One differentiates into the many, and then Fohat is transformed into that force which brings together the elemental atoms and makes them aggregate and combine. We find an echo of this primeval teaching
in early Greek mythology. Erebos and Nux are born out of Chaos, and, under the action of Eros, give birth in their turn to Æther and Hemera, the light of the superior and the light of the inferior or terrestrial regions. Darkness generates light. See in the Purânas Brahmâ's "Will" or desire to create; and in the Phoenician Cosmogony of Sanchoniathon the doctrine that Desire, povqo" , is the principle of creation.
Fohat is closely related to the "ONE LIFE." From the Unknown One, the Infinite TOTALITY, the manifested ONE, or the periodical, Manvantaric Deity, emanates; and this is the Universal Mind, which, separated from its Fountain-Source, is the Demiurgos or the creative Logos of the Western Kabalists, and the four-faced Brahmâ of the Hindu religion. In its totality, viewed from the standpoint of manifested Divine Thought in the esoteric doctrine, it represents the Hosts of the higher creative Dhyan Chohans. Simultaneously with the evolution of the Universal Mind, the concealed Wisdom of Adi-Buddha — the One Supreme and eternal — manifests itself as Avalôkitêshwara (or manifested Iswara), which is the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Heavenly Man of the Hermetic philosopher, the Logos of the Platonists, and the Atman of the Vedantins.* By the action of the manifested Wisdom, or Mahat, represented by these innumerable centres of spiritual Energy in the Kosmos, the reflection of the Universal Mind, which is Cosmic Ideation and the intellectual Force accompanying such ideation, becomes objectively the Fohat of the Buddhist esoteric philosopher. Fohat, running along the seven principles of AKASA, acts upon manifested substance or the One Element, as declared above, and by differentiating it into various centres of Energy, sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to the Ideation of the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various states of being in the manifested Solar System.
The Solar System, brought into existence by these
agencies, consists of Seven Principles, like everything else within these
centres. Such is the teaching of the trans-Himalayan Esotericism. Every
philosophy, however, has its own way of dividing these principles.
——————————————————————————————
* Mr. Subba Row seems to identify him
with, and to call him, the LOGOS.
(See his four lectures on the "Bhagavadgita" in the Theosophist.)
Fohat, then, is the personified electric vital power,
the transcendental binding Unity of all Cosmic Energies, on the unseen as on the
manifested planes, the action of which resembles —
on an immense scale —
that of a living Force created by WILL, in those phenomena where the seemingly
subjective acts on the seemingly objective and propels it to action. Fohat is
not only the living Symbol and Container of that Force, but is looked upon by
the Occultists as an Entity —
the forces he acts upon being cosmic, human and terrestrial, and exercising
their influence on all those planes respectively. On the earthly plane his
influence is felt in the magnetic and active force generated by the strong
desire of the magnetizer. On the Cosmic, it is present in the constructive power
that carries out, in the formation of things —
from the planetary system down to the glow-worm and simple daisy — the plan in the mind of
nature, or in the Divine Thought, with regard to the development and growth of
that special thing. He is, metaphysically, the objectivised thought of the gods;
the "Word made flesh," on a lower scale, and the messenger of Cosmic and human
ideations: the active force in Universal Life. In his secondary aspect, Fohat is
the Solar Energy, the electric vital fluid,* and the preserving fourth
——————————————————————————————
* In 1882 the President of the
Theosophical Society, Col. Olcott, was taken to task for asserting in one of his
lectures that Electricity is matter. Such, nevertheless, is the teaching of the
Occult Doctrine. "Force," "Energy," may be a better name for it, so long as
European Science knows so little about its true nature; yet matter it is, as
much as Ether is matter, since it is as atomic, though several removes from the
latter. It seems ridiculous to argue that because a thing is imponderable to
Science, therefore it cannot be called matter. Electricity is "immaterial" in
the sense that its molecules are not subject to perception and experiment; yet
it may be —
and Occultism says it is —
atomic; therefore it is matter. But even supposing it were unscientific to speak
of it in such terms, once Electricity is called in Science a source of Energy,
Energy simply, and a Force —
where is that Force or that Energy which can be thought of without thinking of
matter? Maxwell, a mathematician and one of the greatest authorities upon
Electricity and its phenomena, said, years ago, that Electricity was matter, not
motion merely. "If we accept the hypothesis that the elementary substances are
composed of atoms we cannot avoid concluding that electricity also, positive as
well as negative, is divided into definite elementary portions, which behave
like atoms of electricity." (Helmholtz, Faraday Lecture, 1881). We will
go further than that, and assert that Electricity is not only Substance but that
it is an emanation from an Entity, which is neither God nor Devil, but one of
the numberless Entities that rule and guide our world according to the eternal
Law of KARMA. (See the Addendum to this Book.)
principle, the animal Soul of Nature, so to say, or—Electricity. In India, Fohat is connected with Vishnu and Surya in the early character of the (first) God; for Vishnu is not a high god in the Rig Veda. The name Vishnu is from the root vish, "to pervade," and Fohat is called the "Pervader" and the Manufacturer, because he shapes the atoms from crude material.* In the sacred texts of the Rig Veda, Vishnu, also, is "a manifestation of the Solar Energy," and he is described as striding through the Seven regions of the Universe in three steps, the Vedic God having little in common with the Vishnu of later times. Therefore the two are identical in this particular feature, and one is the copy of the other.
The "three and seven" strides refer to the Seven spheres
inhabited by man, of the esoteric Doctrine, as well as to the Seven regions of
the Earth. Notwithstanding the frequent objections made by would-be
Orientalists, the Seven Worlds or spheres of our planetary chain are distinctly
referred to in the exoteric Hindu scriptures. But how strangely all these
numbers are connected with like numbers in other Cosmogonies and with their
symbols, can be seen from comparisons and parallelisms made by students of old
religions. The "three strides of Vishnu" through the "seven regions of the
Universe," of the Rig Veda, have been variously explained by commentators as
meaning "fire, lightning and the Sun" cosmically; and as having been taken in
the Earth, the atmosphere, and the sky; also as the "three steps" of the dwarf
(Vishnu's incarnation), though more philosophically — and in the astronomical
sense, very correctly —
they are explained by Aurnavâbha as being the various positions of the sun,
rising, noon, and setting. Esoteric philosophy alone explains it clearly, and
the Zohar laid it down very philosophically and comprehensively. It is said and
plainly demonstrated therein that in the beginning the Elohim (Elhim) were
called Echod, "one," or the "Deity is one in many," a very simple idea in a
pantheistic conception (in its philosophical sense, of course). Then came the
change, "Jehovah is Elohim," thus unifying the multiplicity and taking the first
step towards Monotheism. Now to the query, "How is Jehovah Elohim?" the answer
is, "By three Steps" from below.
——————————————————————————————
* It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal
plate in vibration assumes a series of regular curved figures of various
descriptions. Can Science give a complete explanation of this fact?
The meaning is plain.* They are all symbols, and emblematic, mutually and correlatively, of Spirit, Soul and Body (MAN); of the circle transformed into Spirit, the Soul of the World, and its body (or Earth). Stepping out of the Circle of Infinity, that no man comprehendeth, Ain-Soph (the Kabalistic synonym for Parabrahm, for the Zeroana Akerne, of the Mazdeans, or for any other "UNKNOWABLE") becomes "One" — the ECHOD, the EKA, the AHU — then he (or it) is transformed by evolution into the One in many, the Dhyani-Buddhas or the Elohim, or again the Amshaspends, his third Step being taken into generation of the flesh, or "Man." And from man, or Jah-Hova, "male female," the inner divine entity becomes, on the metaphysical plane, once more the Elohim.
The Kabalistic idea is identical with the Esotericism of
the Archaic period. This esotericism is the common property of all, and belongs
neither to the Aryan 5th Race, nor to any of its numerous Sub-races. It cannot
be claimed by the Turanians, so-called, the Egyptians, Chinese, Chaldeans, nor
any of the Seven divisions of the Fifth Root Race, but really belongs to the
Third and Fourth Root Races, whose descendants we find in the Seed of the Fifth,
the earliest Aryans. The Circle was with every nation the symbol of the Unknown — "Boundless Space,"
the abstract garb of an ever present abstraction —
the Incognisable Deity. It represents limitless Time in Eternity. The Zeroana
Akerne is also the "Boundless Circle of the Unknown Time," from which Circle
issues the radiant light —
the Universal SUN, or Ormazd
† —
and the latter
——————————————————————————————
* The numbers 3, 5, and 7 are prominent
in speculative masonry, as shown in "Isis." A mason writes: —"There are
the 3, 5, and 7 steps to show a circular walk. The three faces of 3, 3;
5, 3; and 7, 3; etc., etc. Sometimes it comes in this form — 7532
= 376.5 and 76352
= 3817.5 and the ratio of 206126561
feet for cubit measure gives the Great Pyramid measures," etc., etc. Three, five
and seven are mystical numbers, and the last and the first are as greatly
honoured by Masons as by the Parsis — the
triangle being a symbol of Deity everywhere. (See the Masonic Cyclopedia,
and "Pythagorean Triangle," Oliver.) As a matter of
course, doctors of divinity (Cassel, for instance) show the Zohar explaining and
supporting the Christian trinity (!). It is the latter, however, that had its
origin from the
of the Heathen, in the
Archaic Occultism and Symbology. The three strides relate metaphysically to the
descent of Spirit into matter, of the Logos falling as a ray into the Spirit,
then into the Soul, and finally into the human physical form of man, in which it
becomes LIFE.
† Ormazd
is the Logos, the "First Born" and the Sun.
is identical with Kronos, in his Æolian form, that of a
Circle. For the circle is Sar, and Saros, or cycle, and was the Babylonian god
whose circular horizon was the visible symbol of the invisible, while the sun
was the ONE Circle from which proceeded the Cosmic orbs, and of which he was
considered the leader. Zero-ana, is the Chakra or circle of Vishnu, the
mysterious emblem which is, according to the definition of a mystic, "a curve of
such a nature that as to any, the least possible part thereof, if the curve be
protracted either way it will proceed and finally re-enter upon itself, and form
one and the same curve —
or that which we call the circle." No better definition could thus be given of
the natural symbol and the evident nature of Deity, which having its
circumference everywhere (the boundless) has, therefore, its central point also
everywhere; in other words, is in every point of the Universe. The invisible
Deity is thus also the Dhyan Chohans, or the Rishis, the primitive seven, and
the nine, without, and ten, including, their synthetical unit; from which
IT
steps into Man. Returning to the Commentary (4) of Stanza IV. the reader will
understand why, while the trans-Himalayan Chakra has inscribed within it
| 
| 
(triangle, first line, cube second
line, and a pentacle with a dot in the centre thus:
, and some other variations), the
Kabalistic circle of the Elohim reveals, when the letters of the word
(Alhim or Elohim) are numerically read,
the famous numerals 13514, or by anagram 31415 —
the astronomical p
(pi) number, or the hidden meaning of Dhyani-Buddhas, of the Gebers, the Geborim, the Kabeiri, and the Elohim, all signifying "great men,"
"Titans," "Heavenly Men," and, on earth, "the giants."
The Seven was a Sacred Number with every nation; but
none applied it to more physiologically materialistic uses than the Hebrews.
With these it was pre-eminently the generative number and 9 the male causative
one, forming as shown by the Kabalists the
or otz — "the Tree of the Garden of
Eden,"* the "double hermaphrodite rod" of the fourth race. Whereas
with the Hindus and Aryans generally, the significance was manifold, and related
almost entirely to purely metaphysical
——————————————————————————————
* This was the symbol of the "Holy of Holies," the 3 and
the 4 of sexual separation. Nearly every one of the 22 Hebrew letters are merely
phallic symbols. Of the two letters —
as shown above — one,
the ayin, is a negative female letter, symbolically an eye;
the other a male letter, tza, a fish-hook or a dart.
and astronomical truths.* Their Rishis and gods,
their Demons and Heroes, have historical and ethical meanings, and the Aryans
never made their religion rest solely on physiological symbols, as the old
Hebrews have done. This is found in the exoteric Hindu Scriptures. That these
accounts are blinds is shown by their contradicting each other, a different
construction being found in almost every Purâna and epic poem. Read esoterically — they will all yield
the same meaning. Thus one account enumerates Seven worlds, exclusive of the
nether worlds, also seven in number; these fourteen upper and nether worlds have
——————————————————————————————
* We are told by a Kabalist, who in a
work not yet published contrasts the Kabala and Zohar with Aryan Esotericism,
that "The Hebrew clear, short, terse and exact modes far and beyond measure
surpass the toddling word-talk of the Hindus
— just as
by parallelisms the Psalmist says, 'My mouth speaks with my tongue, I know not
thy numbers' (lxxi., 15). . . . The Hindu Glyph shows by its
insufficiency in the large admixture of adventitious sides the same borrowed
plumage that the Greeks (the lying Greeks) had, and that Masonry has: which in
the rough monosyllabic (and apparent) poverty of the Hebrew, shows the latter to
have come down from a far more remote antiquity than any of these, and to have
been the source (!?), or nearer the old original source than any of them." This
is entirely erroneous. Our learned brother and correspondent judges apparently
the Hindu religious systems by their Shastras and Purânas, probably the latter,
and in their modern translation moreover, which is disfigured out of all
recognition, by the Orientalists. It is to their philosophical systems that one
has to turn, to their esoteric teaching, if he would make a point of comparison.
No doubt the symbology of the Pentateuch and even of the New Testament, comes
from the same source. But surely the Pyramid of Cheops, whose measurements are
all found repeated by Professor Piazzi Smythe in Solomon's alleged and mythical
temple, is not of a later date than the Mosaic books? Hence, if there is any
such great identity as claimed, it must be due to servile copying on the part of
the Jews, not on that of the Egyptians. The Jewish glyphs—and even their
language, the Hebrew—are not original. They are borrowed from the Egyptians,
from whom Moses got his Wisdom; from the Coptic, the probable kinsman, if not
parent, of the old Phoenician and from the Hyksos, their (alleged) ancestors, as
Josephus shows in his "Against Apion," I., 25. Aye;
but who are the Hyksos shepherds? And who the Egyptians? History knows nothing
of the question, and speculates and theorizes out of the depths of the
respective consciousnesses of her historians. (See Isis Unveiled,
vol. II., p. 430-438.) "Khamism, or old Coptic," says Bunsen, "is from
Western Asia, and contains some germ of the Semitic, thus bearing witness to the
primitive cognate unity of the Aryan and Semitic races"; and he places the great
events in Egypt 9,000 years B.C. The fact is that in archaic
Esotericism and Aryan thought we find a grand philosophy, whereas in the Hebrew
records we find only the most surprising ingenuity in inventing apotheoses for
phallic worship and sexual theogony.
nothing to do with the classification of the septenary chain and belong to the purely æthereal, invisible worlds. These will be noticed elsewhere. Suffice for the present to show that they are purposely referred to as though they belonged to the chain. "Another enumeration calls the Seven worlds — earth, sky, heaven, middle region, place of birth, mansion of the blest, and abode of truth; placing the 'Sons of Brahmâ' in the sixth division, and stating the fifth, or Jana Loka, to be that where animals destroyed in the general conflagration are born again." (see Hindu Classical Dictionary.) Some real esoteric teaching is given in the "Symbolism." He who is prepared for it will understand the hidden meaning.
—————
3. HE IS THEIR GUIDING SPIRIT AND LEADER. WHEN HE COMMENCES WORK, HE SEPARATES THE SPARKS OF THE LOWER KINGDOM (mineral atoms) THAT FLOAT AND THRILL WITH JOY IN THEIR RADIANT DWELLINGS (gaseous clouds), AND FORMS THEREWITH THE GERMS OF WHEELS. HE PLACES THEM IN THE SIX DIRECTIONS OF SPACE AND ONE IN THE MIDDLE — THE CENTRAL WHEEL (a).
(a) "Wheels," as already explained, are the
centres of force, around which primordial Cosmic matter expands, and, passing
through all the six stages of consolidation, becomes spheroidal and ends by
being transformed into globes or spheres. It is one of the fundamental dogmas of
Esoteric Cosmogony, that during the Kalpas (or æons) of life, MOTION, which,
during the periods of Rest "pulsates and thrills through every slumbering atom"*
(Commentary on Dzyan), assumes an evergrowing
——————————————————————————————
* It may be asked, as also the
writer has not failed to ask, "Who is there to ascertain the difference in that
motion, since all nature is reduced to its primal essence, and there can be no
one —
not even one of the Dhyani-Chohans, who are all in Nirvana — to see it?"
The answer to this is: "Everything in Nature has to be judged by analogy. Though
the highest Deities (Archangels or Dhyani-Buddhas) are unable to penetrate the
mysteries too far beyond our planetary system and the visible Kosmos, yet there
were great seers and prophets in olden times who were enabled to perceive the
mystery of Breath and Motion retrospectively, when the systems of worlds were at
rest and plunged in their periodic sleep."
tendency, from the first awakening of Kosmos to a new "Day," to circular movement. The "Deity becomes a WHIRLWIND." They are also called Rotæ — the moving wheels of the celestial orbs participating in the world's creation — when the meaning refers to the animating principle of the stars and planets; for in the Kabala, they are represented by the Ophanim, the Angels of the Spheres and stars, of which they are the informing Souls. (See Kabala Denudata, "De Anima," p. 113.)
This law of vortical movement in primordial matter, is
one of the oldest conceptions of Greek philosophy, whose first historical Sages
were nearly all Initiates of the Mysteries. The Greeks had it from the
Egyptians, and the latter from the Chaldeans, who had been the pupils of
Brahmins of the esoteric school. Leucippus, and Democritus of Abdera — the pupil of the Magi — taught that this
gyratory movement of the atoms and spheres existed from eternity.*
Hicetas, Heraclides, Ecphantus, Pythagoras, and all his pupils, taught the
rotation of the earth; and Aryabhata of India, Aristarchus, Seleucus, and
Archimedes calculated its revolution as scientifically as the astronomers do
now; while the theory of the Elemental Vortices was known to Anaxagoras, and
maintained by him 500 years B.C., or nearly 2,000 before it was taken up by
Galileo, Descartes, Swedenborg, and finally, with slight modifications, by Sir
W. Thomson. (See his "Vortical Atoms.") All such
knowledge, if justice be only done to it, is an echo of the archaic doctrine, an
attempt to explain which is now being made. How men of the last few centuries
have come to the same ideas and conclusions that were taught as axiomatic truths
in the secrecy of the Adyta dozens of
——————————————————————————————
* "The doctrine of the rotation of the
earth about an axis is taught by the Pythagorean Hicetas, probably as early as
500 B.C. It was also taught by his pupil Ecphantus, and by
Heraclides, a pupil of Plato. The immobility of the Sun and the orbital rotation
of the earth were shown by Aristarchus of Samos as early as 281 B.C.
to be suppositions accordant with facts of observation. The Heliocentric theory
was taught about 150 B.C., by Seleucus of Seleucia on the
Tigris.
—
[It was taught 500 B.C. by Pythagoras.—H. P. B.]
It is said also that Archimedes, in a work entitled Psammites, inculcated the
Heliocentric theory. The sphericity of the earth was distinctly taught by
Aristotle, who appealed for proof to the figure of the Earth's shadow on the
moon in eclipses (Aristotle, De Cœlo, lib. II, cap. XIV.). The same idea was
defended by Pliny (Nat. Hist., II., 65). These views seem to have been lost from
knowledge for more than a thousand years. . . ." (Comparative
Geology, Part IV., "Pre-Kantian Speculation," p. 551, by Alex. Winchell,
LL.D.).
millenniums ago, is a question that is treated separately. Some were led to it by the natural progress in physical science and by independent observation; others — such as Copernicus, Swedenborg, and a few more — their great learning notwithstanding, owed their knowledge far more to intuitive than to acquired ideas, developed in the usual way by a course of study.* (See "A Mystery about Buddha.")
By the "Six directions of Space" is here meant the "Double Triangle," the junction and blending together of pure Spirit and Matter, of the Arupa and the Rupa, of which the Triangles are a Symbol. This double Triangle is a sign of Vishnu, as it is Solomon's seal, and the Sri-Antara of the Brahmins.
—————
4.
FOHAT TRACES SPIRAL LINES TO UNITE
THE SIX TO THE SEVENTH —
THE CROWN (a); AN
ARMY OF THE
SONS
OF LIGHT STANDS AT EACH ANGLE (and)
THE
LIPIKA —
IN THE MIDDLE WHEEL. THEY (the Lipika)
SAY,
"THIS IS GOOD" (b).
THE FIRST
DIVINE WORLD IS READY, THE FIRST (is now), THE SECOND
(world),
THEN THE "DIVINE
ARUPA" (the formless
Universe
——————————————————————————————
* That Swedenborg, who could not possibly
have known anything of the esoteric ideas of Buddhism, came independently near
the Occult teaching in his general conceptions, is shown by his essay on the
Vortical Theory. In Clissold's translation of it, quoted by Prof. Winchell, we
find the following resume:
— "The
first Cause is the Infinite or Unlimited. This gives existence to the First
Finite or Limited." (The Logos in His manifestation and the Universe.) "That
which produces a limit is analogous to motion. (See first Stanza, supra.)
The limit produced is a point, the Essence of which is Motion; but being without
parts, this Essence is not actual Motion, but only a connatus to it." (In our
Doctrine it is not a "connatus," but a change from eternal vibration in the
unmanifested, to Vortical Motion in the phenomenal or manifested World). . .
"From this first proceed Extension, Space, Figure, and Succession, or Time. As
in Geometry a point generates a line, a line a surface, and a surface a solid,
so here the connatus of a point tends towards lines, surfaces and solids. In
other words, the Universe is contained in ovo in the first natural
point . . . the Motion toward which the connatus tends, is circular, since the
circle is the most perfect of all figures . . . The most perfect figure of a
Motion . . . must be the perpetually circular, that is to say, it must
proceed from the centre to the periphery and from the periphery to the centre."
(Quoted from Principia Rerum Naturalia.) This is Occultism
pure and simple.
of Thought) REFLECTS ITSELF IN CHHAYALOKA (the shadowy world of primal form, or the intellectual) THE FIRST GARMENT OF (the) ANUPADAKA (c).
(a) This tracing of "Spiral lines" refers to the evolution of man's as well as Nature's principles; an evolution which takes place gradually (as will be seen in Book II., on "The origin of the Human Races"), as does everything else in nature. The Sixth principle in Man (Buddhi, the Divine Soul) though a mere breath, in our conceptions, is still something material when compared with divine "Spirit" (Atma) of which it is the carrier or vehicle. Fohat, in his capacity of DIVINE LOVE (Eros), the electric Power of affinity and sympathy, is shown allegorically as trying to bring the pure Spirit, the Ray inseparable from the ONE absolute, into union with the Soul, the two constituting in Man the MONAD, and in Nature the first link between the ever unconditioned and the manifested. "The first is now the second" (world) — of the Lipikas — has reference to the same.
(b) The "Army" at each angle is the Host of angelic Beings (Dhyan-Chohans) appointed to guide and watch over each respective region from the beginning to the end of Manvantara. They are the "Mystic Watchers" of the Christian Kabalists and Alchemists, and relate, symbolically as well as cosmogonically, to the numerical system of the Universe. The numbers with which these celestial Beings are connected are extremely difficult to explain, as each number refers to several groups of distinct ideas, according to the particular group of "Angels" which it is intended to represent. Herein lies the nodus in the study of symbology, with which, unable to untie by disentangling it, so many scholars have preferred dealing as Alexander dealt with the Gordian knot; hence erroneous conceptions and teachings, as a direct result.
The "First is the Second," because the "First" cannot really be numbered or regarded as the First, as that is the realm of noumena in its primary manifestation: the threshold to the World of Truth, or SAT, through which the direct energy that radiates from the ONE REALITY — the Nameless Deity — reaches us. Here again, the untranslateable term SAT (Be-ness) is likely to lead into an erroneous conception, since that which is manifested cannot be SAT, but is something phenomenal, not everlasting, nor, in truth, even sempiternal. It is coeval and
coexistent with the One Life, "Secondless," but as a manifestation it is still a Maya—like the rest. This "World of Truth" can be described only in the words of the Commentary as "A bright star dropped from the heart of Eternity; the beacon of hope on whose Seven Rays hang the Seven Worlds of Being." Truly so; since those are the Seven Lights whose reflections are the human immortal Monads — the Atma, or the irradiating Spirit of every creature of the human family. First, this septenary Light; then: —
(c) The "Divine World" — the countless Lights lit at the primeval Light — the Buddhis, or formless divine Souls, of the last Arupa (formless) world; the "Sum Total," in the mysterious language of the old Stanza. In the Catechism, the Master is made to ask the pupil: —
"Lift thy head, oh Lanoo; dost thou see one, or countless lights above thee, burning in the dark midnight sky?"
"I sense one Flame, oh Gurudeva, I see countless undetached sparks shining in it."
"Thou sayest well. And now look around and into thyself. That light which burns inside thee, dost thou feel it different in anywise from the light that shines in thy Brother-men?"
"It is in no way different, though the prisoner is held in bondage by Karma, and though its outer garments delude the ignorant into saying, 'Thy Soul and My Soul.' "
The radical unity of the ultimate essence of each
constituent part of compounds in Nature —
from Star to mineral Atom, from the highest Dhyan Chohan to the smallest
infusoria, in the fullest acceptation of the term, and whether applied to the
spiritual, intellectual, or physical worlds —
this is the one fundamental law in Occult Science. "The Deity is boundless and
infinite expansion," says an Occult axiom; and hence, as remarked, the name of
Brahmâ.* There is a deep philosophy underlying the earliest worship in
the world, that of the Sun and of Fire. Of all the Elements known to physical
science, Fire is the one that has ever eluded definite analysis. It is
confidently asserted that
——————————————————————————————
* In the Rig Veda we find the
names Brahmanaspati and Brihaspati alternating and equivalent
to each other. Also see "Brihad Upanishad"; Brihaspati is a deity called "the
Father of the gods."
Air is a mixture containing the gases Oxygen and Nitrogen. We view the Universe and the Earth as matter composed of definite chemical molecules. We speak of the primitive ten Earths, endowing each with a Greek or Latin name. We say that water is, chemically, a compound of Oxygen and Hydrogen. But what is FIRE? It is the effect of combustion, we are gravely answered. It is heat and light and motion, and a correlation of physical and chemical forces in general. And this scientific definition is philosophically supplemented by the theological one in Webster's Dictionary, which explains fire as "the instrument of punishment, or the punishment of the impenitent in another state" — the "state," by the bye, being supposed to be spiritual; but, alas! the presence of fire would seem to be a convincing proof of its material nature. Yet, speaking of the illusion of regarding phenomena as simple, because they are familiar, Professor Bain says (Logic. Part II.): "Very familiar facts seem to stand in no need of explanation themselves and to be the means of explaining whatever can be assimilated to them. Thus, the boiling and evaporation of a liquid is supposed to be a very simple phenomenon requiring no explanation, and a satisfactory explanation of rarer phenomena. That water should dry up is, to the uninstructed mind, a thing wholly intelligible; whereas to the man acquainted with physical science the liquid state is anomalous and inexplicable. The lighting of a fire by a flame is a GREAT SCIENTIFIC DIFFICULTY, yet few people think so" (p. 125).
What says the esoteric teaching with regard to fire? "Fire," it says, "is the most perfect and unadulterated reflection, in Heaven as on Earth, of the ONE FLAME. It is Life and Death, the origin and the end of every material thing. It is divine 'SUBSTANCE.' " Thus, not only the FIRE-WORSHIPPER, the Parsee, but even the wandering savage tribes of America, which proclaim themselves "born of fire," show more science in their creeds and truth in their superstitions, than all the speculations of modern physics and learning. The Christian who says: "God is a living Fire," and speaks of the Pentecostal "Tongues of Fire" and of the "burning bush" of Moses, is as much a fire-worshipper as any other "heathen." The Rosicrucians, among all the mystics and Kabalists, were those who defined Fire in the right and most correct way. Procure a sixpenny lamp, keep it only supplied with oil, and you will be able to light at its flame the lamps, candles,
and fires of the whole globe without diminishing that flame. If the Deity, the radical One, is eternal and an infinite substance ("the Lord thy God is a consuming fire") and never consumed, then it does not seem reasonable that the Occult teaching should be held as unphilosophical when it says: "Thus were the Arupa and Rupa worlds formed: from ONE light seven lights; from each of the seven, seven times seven," etc., etc.
—————
5. FOHAT TAKES FIVE STRIDES (having already taken the first three) (a), AND BUILDS A WINGED WHEEL AT EACH CORNER OF THE SQUARE FOR THE FOUR HOLY ONES . . . . . AND THEIR ARMIES (hosts) (b).
(a) The "strides," as already explained (see Commentary on Stanza IV.), refer to both the Cosmic and the Human principles — the latter of which consist, in the exoteric division, of three (Spirit, Soul, and Body), and, in the esoteric calculation, of seven principles — three rays of the Essence and four aspects.* Those who have studied Mr. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism" can easily grasp the nomenclature. There are two esoteric schools — or rather one school, divided into two parts — one for the inner Lanoos, the other for the outer or semi-lay chelas beyond the Himalayas; the first teaching a septenary, the other a six-fold division of human principles.
From a Cosmic point of view, Fohat taking "five strides" refers here to the five upper planes of Consciousness and Being, the sixth and the seventh (counting downwards) being the astral and the terrestrial, or the two lower planes.
(b) "Four winged wheels at each corner . . . .
. for the four holy ones and their armies (hosts)" . . . . . These are the "four
Maharajahs" or great Kings of the Dhyan-Chohans, the Devas who preside, each
over one of the four cardinal points. They are the Regents or Angels who rule
over the Cosmical Forces of North, South,
——————————————————————————————
* The four aspects are the body, its life or vitality,
and the "Double" of the body, the triad which disappears with the death of the
person, and the Kama-rupa which disintegrates in Kama-loka.
East and West, Forces having each a distinct occult property. These BEINGS are also connected with Karma, as the latter needs physical and material agents to carry out her decrees, such as the four kinds of winds, for instance, professedly admitted by Science to have their respective evil and beneficent influences upon the health of Mankind and every living thing. There is occult philosophy in that Roman Catholic doctrine which traces the various public calamities, such as epidemics of disease, and wars, and so on, to the invisible "Messengers" from North and West. "The glory of God comes from the way of the East" says Ezekiel; while Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the Psalmist assure their readers that all the evil under the Sun comes from the North and the West — which proposition, when applied to the Jewish nation, sounds like an undeniable prophecy for themselves. And this accounts also for St. Ambrose (On Amos, ch. iv.) declaring that it is precisely for that reason that "we curse the North-Wind, and that during the ceremony of baptism we begin by turning towards the West (Sidereal), to renounce the better him who inhabits it; after which we turn to the East."
Belief in the "Four Maharajahs" — the Regents of the Four
cardinal points — was
universal and is now that of Christians,* who call them, after St. Augustine,
"Angelic Virtues," and "Spirits" when enumerated by themselves, and "Devils"
when named by Pagans. But where is the difference between the Pagans and the
Christians in this cause? Following Plato, Aristotle explained that the term
stoichei'a
was understood only as meaning the incorporeal principles placed at each of the
four great divisions of our Cosmical world to supervise them. Thus, no more than
the Christians did, do they adore and worship the Elements and
the cardinal (imaginary) points, but the "gods" that ruled these respectively.
For the Church there are two kinds of Sidereal beings, the
——————————————————————————————
* Says the scholarly Vossius, in
his Theol. Cir. I. VII.: "Though St. Augustine has said that every visible thing
in this world had an angelic virtue as an overseer near it, it is not
individuals but entire species of things that must be understood, each such
species having indeed its particular angel to watch it. He is at one in this
with all the philosophers . . . For us these angels are spirits separated from
the objects . . . whereas for the philosophers (pagan) they were gods."
Considering the Ritual established by the Roman Catholic Church for "Spirits of
the Stars," the latter look suspiciously like "Gods," and were no more honoured
and prayed to by the ancient and modern pagan rabble than they are now at Rome
by the highly cultured Catholic Christians.
Angels and the Devils. For the Kabalist and Occultist
there is but one; and neither of them makes any difference between "the Rectors
of Light" and the Cosmocratores, or "Rectores tenebrarum harum," whom the Roman
Church imagines and discovers in a "Rector of Light" as soon as he is called by
another name than the one she addresses him by. It is not the "Rector" or
"Maharajah" who punishes or rewards, with or without "God's" permission or
order, but man himself —
his deeds or Karma, attracting individually and collectively (as in the case of
whole nations sometimes), every kind of evil and calamity. We produce
CAUSES,
and these awaken the corresponding powers in the sidereal world; which powers
are magnetically and irresistibly attracted to —
and react upon — those
who produced these causes; whether such persons are practically the evil-doers,
or simply Thinkers who brood mischief. Thought is matter,* we are taught
by modern Science; and "every particle of the existing matter must be a register
of all that has happened," as in their "Principles of Science"
Messrs. Jevons and Babbage tell the profane. Modern Science is drawn more every
day into the maëlstrom of Occultism; unconsciously, no doubt, still very
sensibly. The two main theories of science —
re the relations between Mind and Matter
— are Monism and Materialism. These two cover the
whole ground of negative psychology with the exception of the quasi-occult views
of the pantheistic German schools.†
——————————————————————————————
* Not of course in the sense of
the German Materialist Moleschott, who assures us that "Thought is the movement
of matter," a statement of almost unequalled absurdity. Mental states and bodily
states are utterly contrasted as such. But that does not affect the position
that every thought, in addition to its physical accompaniment (brain-change),
exhibits an objective —
though to us supersensuously objective —
aspect on the astral plane. (See "The Occult World," pp. 89, 90.)
†
The views of our present-day scientific thinkers as to the relations between
mind and matter may be reduced to two hypotheses. These show that both views
equally exclude the possibility of an independent Soul, distinct from the
physical brain through which it functions. They are:
—
(1.) MATERIALISM, the
theory which regards mental phenomena as the product of molecular change in the
brain; i.e., as the outcome of a transformation of motion into feeling
(!). The cruder school once went so far as to identify mind with a "peculiar
mode of motion" (!!), but this view is now happily regarded as absurd by most of
the men of science themselves.
(2.) MONISM, or the Single Substance Doctrine, is the more
subtle form of negative psychology, which one of its advocates, Professor Bain,
ably terms "guarded
—
Materialism." This doctrine, which commands a very wide assent, counting among
its upholders such men as Lewis, Spencer, Ferrier, and others, while positing
thought and mental phenomena generally as radically contrasted with matter,
regards both as equal to the two sides, or aspects, of one and the same
substance in some of its conditions. Thought as thought, they say, is utterly
contrasted with material phenomena, but it must be also regarded as only "the
subjective side of nervous motion" whatever our learned men may mean by this.
125 THE REAL MEANING OF THE TABERNACLE.
In the Egyptian temples, according to Clemens
Alexandrinus, an immense curtain separated the tabernacle from the place for the
congregation. The Jews had the same. In both, the curtain was drawn over five
pillars (the Pentacle) symbolising our five senses and five Root-races
esoterically, while the four colours of the curtain represented the four
cardinal points and the four terrestrial elements. The whole was an allegorical
symbol. It is through the four high Rulers over the four points and Elements
that our five senses may become cognisant of the hidden truths of Nature; and
not at all, as Clemens would have it, that it is the elements per se
that furnished the Pagans with divine Knowledge or the knowledge of God.*
While the Egyptian emblem was spiritual, that of the Jews was purely
materialistic, and, indeed, honoured only the blind Elements and the imaginary
"Points." For what was the meaning of the square tabernacle raised by Moses in
the wilderness, if it had not the same cosmical significance? "Thou shalt make
an hanging . . . of blue, purple, and scarlet" and "five pillars of shittim wood
for the hanging . . . four brazen rings in the four corners thereof . . . boards
of fine wood for the four sides, North, South, West, and East . . . of the
Tabernacle . . . with Cherubims of cunning work." (Exodus, ch. xxvi., xxvii.)
The Tabernacle and the square courtyard, Cherubim and all, were precisely the
same as those in the Egyptian temples. The square form of the Tabernacle meant
just the same thing as it still means, to this day, in the exoteric worship of
the Chinese and Tibetans —
the four cardinal points signifying that which the four sides of the pyramids,
obelisks, and other such square erections mean. Josephus takes care to explain
the whole thing. He declares that the Tabernacle pillars are the same
——————————————————————————————
* Thus the sentence, "Natura
Elementorum obtinet revelationem Dei," (In Clemens's Stromata, R.
IV., para. 6), is applicable to both or neither. Consult the
Zends, vol II., p. 228, and Plutarch De Iside, as compared by
Layard, Academie des Inscriptions, 1854, Vol. XV.
as those raised at Tyre to the four Elements, which were placed on pedestals whose four angles faced the four cardinal points: adding that "the angles of the pedestals had equally the four figures of the Zodiac" on them, which represented the same orientation (Antiquities I., VIII., ch. xxii.). —
The idea may be traced in the Zoroastrian caves, in the rock-cut temples of India, as in all the sacred square buildings of antiquity that have survived to this day. This is shown definitely by Layard, who finds the four cardinal points, and the four primitive elements, in the religion of every country, under the shape of square obelisks, the four sides of the pyramids, etc., etc. Of these elements and their points the four Maharajahs were the regents and the directors.
If the student would know more of them, he has but to compare the Vision of Ezekiel (chap. i.) with what is known of Chinese Buddhism (even in its exoteric teachings); and examine the outward shape of these "Great Kings." In the opinion of the Rev. Joseph Edkins, they are "the Devas who preside each over one of the four continents into which the Hindus divide the world." * Each leads an army of spiritual beings to protect mankind and Buddhism. With the exception of favouritism towards Buddhism, the four celestial beings are precisely this. They are the protectors of mankind and also the Agents of Karma on Earth, whereas the Lipika are concerned with Humanity's hereafter. At the same time they are the four living creatures "who have the likeness of a man" of Ezekiel's visions, called by the translators of the Bible, "Cherubim," "Seraphim," etc.; and by the Occultists, "the winged Globes," the "Fiery Wheels," and in the Hindu Pantheon by a number of different names. All these Gandharvas, the "Sweet Songsters," the Asuras, Kinnaras, and Nagas, are the allegorical descriptions of the "four Maharajahs." The Seraphim are the fiery Serpents of Heaven which we find in a passage describing Mount Meru as: "the exalted mass of glory, the venerable haunt of gods and heavenly choristers . . . . not to be reached by sinful men . . . . because guarded by Serpents." They are called the Avengers, and the "Winged Wheels."
Their mission and character being explained, let us see
what the
——————————————————————————————
* The Hindus happen to divide the world
into seven continents, exoterically as esoterically; and their four cosmic Devas
are eight, presiding over the eight points of the compass and not the
Continents. (Compare "Chinese Buddhism," p. 216.)
Christian Bible-interpreters say of the Cherubim: — "The word signifies in Hebrew, fullness of knowledge; these angels are so called from their exquisite Knowledge, and were therefore used for the punishment of men who affected divine Knowledge." (Interpreted by Cruden in his Concordance, from Genesis iii., 24.) Very well; and vague as the information is, it shows that the Cherub placed at the gate of the garden of Eden after the "Fall," suggested to the venerable Interpreters the idea of punishment connected with forbidden Science or divine Knowledge — one that generally leads to another "Fall," that of the gods, or "God," in man's estimation. But as the good old Cruden knew nought of Karma, he may be forgiven. Yet the allegory is suggestive. From Meru, the abode of gods, to Eden, the distance is very small, and from the Hindu Serpents to the Ophite Cherubim, the third out of the seven of which was the Dragon, the separation is still smaller, for both watched the entrance to the realm of Secret Knowledge. But Ezekiel plainly describes the four Cosmic Angels: "I looked, and behold, a whirlwind, a cloud and fire infolding it . . . also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures . . . they had the likeness of a man. And every one had four faces and four wings . . . the face of a man, and the face of a lion, the face of an ox, and the face of an eagle . . . " ("Man" was here substituted for "Dragon." Compare the "Ophite Spirits."*) . . . "Now as I beheld the living creatures behold one wheel upon the Earth with his four faces . . . as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel . . . for the support of the living creature was in the wheel . . . their appearance was like coals of fire . . ." etc. (Ezekiel, ch. i.)
There are three chief groups of Builders and as many of
the Planetary Spirits and the Lipika, each group being again divided into Seven
sub-groups. It is impossible, even in such a large work as this, to enter into a
minute examination of even the three principal groups, as it would demand an
extra volume. The "Builders" are the representatives of the first "Mind-Born"
Entities, therefore of the primeval Rishi-Prajapati: also of the Seven great
Gods of Egypt, of which Osiris is the chief: of the Seven Amshaspends of the
Zoroastrians, with
——————————————————————————————
* The Angels recognised by the Roman
Catholic Church who correspond to these "Faces" were with the Ophites:
—
Dragon — Raphael; Lion — Michael; Bull, or ox — Uriel; and Eagle —
Gabriel. The four keep company with the four Evangelists, and preface the
Gospels.
Ormazd at their head: or the "Seven Spirits of the Face": the Seven Sephiroth separated from the first Triad, etc., etc.*
They build or rather rebuild every "System" after the "Night." The Second group of the Builders is the Architect of our planetary chain exclusively; and the third, the progenitor of our Humanity — the Macrocosmic prototype of the microcosm.
The Planetary Spirits are the informing spirits of the Stars in general, and of the Planets especially. They rule the destinies of men who are all born under one or other of their constellations; the second and third groups pertaining to other systems have the same functions, and all rule various departments in Nature. In the Hindu exoteric Pantheon they are the guardian deities who preside over the eight points of the compass — the four cardinal and the four intermediate points — and are called Loka-Pâlas, "Supporters or guardians of the World" (in our visible Kosmos), of which Indra (East), Yama (South), Varuna (West), and Kuvera (North) are the chief; their elephants and their spouses pertaining of course to fancy and afterthought, though all of them have an occult significance.
The Lipika (a description of whom is given in the
Commentary on Stanza IV. No. 6) are the Spirits of the
Universe, whereas the Builders are only our own planetary deities. The former
belong to the most occult portion of Cosmogenesis, which cannot be given here.
Whether the Adepts (even the highest) know this angelic order in the
completeness of its triple degrees, or only the lower one connected with the
records of our world, is something which the writer is unprepared to say, and
she would incline rather to the latter supposition. Of its highest grade one
thing only is taught: the Lipika are connected with Karma — being its direct Recorders.†
——————————————————————————————
* The Jews, save the Kabalists, having no
names for East, West, South, and North, expressed the idea by words signifying
before, behind, right and left, and very often confounded the terms
exoterically, thus making the blinds in the Bible more confused and difficult to
interpret. Add to this the fact that out of the forty-seven translators of King
James I. of England's Bible "only three understood Hebrew, and of these two died
before the Psalms were translated" (Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia),
and one may easily understand what reliance can be placed on the English
version of the Bible. In this work the Douay Roman Catholic version is generally
followed.
†
The Symbol for Sacred and Secret Knowledge was universally in
antiquity, a Tree, by which a Scripture or a Record was also meant. Hence the
word Lipika, the
"writers" or scribes; the "Dragons," symbols of wisdom, who guard the Trees of
Knowledge; the "golden" apple Tree of the Hesperides; the "Luxuriant Trees" and
vegetation of Mount Meru guarded by a Serpent. Juno giving to Jupiter, on her
marriage with him, a Tree with golden fruit is another form of Eve offering Adam
the apple from the Tree of Knowledge.
6. THE LIPIKA CIRCUMSCRIBE THE TRIANGLE, THE FIRST ONE (the vertical line or the figure 1.), THE CUBE, THE SECOND ONE, AND THE PENTACLE WITHIN THE EGG (circle) (a). IT IS THE RING CALLED "PASS NOT," FOR THOSE WHO DESCEND AND ASCEND (as also for those) WHO, DURING THE KALPA, ARE PROGRESSING TOWARD THE GREAT DAY "BE WITH US" (b). . . . THUS WERE FORMED THE ARUPA AND THE RUPA (the Formless World and the World of Forms); FROM ONE LIGHT SEVEN LIGHTS; FROM EACH OF THE SEVEN SEVEN TIMES SEVEN LIGHTS. THE "WHEELS" WATCH THE RING.
The Stanza proceeds with a minute classification of the Orders of Angelic Hierarchy. From the group of Four and Seven emanates the "mind-born" group of Ten, of Twelve, of Twenty-one, etc., all these divided again into sub-groups of septenaries, novenaries, duodecimals, and so on, until the mind is lost in this endless enumeration of celestial hosts and Beings, each having its distinct task in the ruling of the visible Kosmos during its existence.
(a) The esoteric meaning of the first sentence of the Sloka is, that those who have been called Lipikas, the Recorders of the Karmic ledger, make an impassible barrier between the personal EGO and the impersonal SELF, the Noumenon and Parent-Source of the former. Hence the allegory. They circumscribe the manifested world of matter within the RING "Pass-Not." This world is the symbol (objective) of the ONE divided into the many, on the planes of Illusion, of Adi (the "First") or of Eka (the "One"); and this One is the collective aggregate, or totality, of the principal Creators or Architects of this visible universe. In Hebrew Occultism their name is both Achath, feminine, "One," and Achod, "One" again, but masculine. The monotheists have taken (and are still taking) advantage of the profound esotericism of the Kabala to apply the name by which the One Supreme Essence is known to ITS manifestation, the Sephiroth-Elohim, and call it Jehovah. But this is
quite arbitrary and against all reason and logic, as the term Elohim is a plural noun, identical with the plural word Chiim, often compounded with the Elohim.* Moreover, in Occult metaphysics there are, properly speaking, two "ONES" — the One on the unreachable plane of Absoluteness and Infinity, on which no speculation is possible, and the Second "One" on the plane of Emanations. The former can neither emanate nor be divided, as it is eternal, absolute, and immutable. The Second, being, so to speak, the reflection of the first One (for it is the Logos, or Iswara, in the Universe of Illusion), can do all this.† It emanates from itself — as the upper Sephirothal Triad emanates the lower seven Sephiroth — the seven Rays or Dhyan Chohans; in other words, the Homogeneous becomes the Heterogeneous, the "Protyle" differentiates into the Elements. But these, unless they return into their primal Element, can never cross beyond the Laya, or zero-point.
Hence the allegory. The Lipika separate the world (or plane) of pure spirit
from that of Matter. Those who "descend and ascend" —
the incarnating Monads, and men striving towards purification and "ascending,"
but still not having quite reached the goal — may
cross the "circle of the Pass-Not," only on the day "Be-With-Us"; that day when
man, freeing himself from the trammels of ignorance, and recog-
——————————————————————————————
* The sentence in the Sepher Jezirah and elsewhere:
"Achath-Ruach-Elohim-Chiim" denotes the Elohim as androgynous at best, the
feminine element almost predominating, as it would read: "ONE
is She the Spirit of the Elohim of Life." As said above, Echath (or Achath) is
feminine, and Echod (or Achod) masculine, both meaning
ONE.
† This metaphysical
tenet can hardly be better described than Mr. Subba Row's in "Bhagavadgita"
lectures: "Mulaprakriti (the veil of Parabrahmam) acts as the one energy through
the Logos (or 'Eswara'). Now Parabrahmam, is the one essence from which starts
into existence a centre of energy, which I shall for the present call the Logos.
. . . It is called the Verbum . . . by the Christians, and it is the divine
Christos who is eternal in the bosom of his father. It is called Avalôkitêshwara
by the Buddhists. . . . In almost every doctrine, they have formulated the
existence of a centre of spiritual energy which is unborn and eternal, and which
exists in the bosom of Parabrahmam at the time of Pralaya, and starts as a
centre of conscious energy at the time of Cosmic activity. . . ." For, as the
lecturer premised by saying, Parabraham is not this or that, it is not even
consciousness, as it cannot be related to matter or anything conditioned. It is
not Ego nor is it Non-ego, not even Atma, but verily the one source of all
manifestations and modes of existence.
nising fully the non-separateness of the Ego within his personality — erroneously regarded as his own — from the UNIVERSAL EGO (Anima Supra-Mundi), merges thereby into the One Essence to become not only one "with us" (the manifested universal lives which are "ONE" LIFE), but that very life itself.
Astronomically, the "Ring PASS-NOT" that the Lipika trace around the Triangle, the First One, the Cube, the Second One, and the Pentacle to circumscribe these figures, is thus shown to contain the symbol of 31415 again, or the coefficient constantly used in mathematical tables (the value of p , pi), the geometrical figures standing here for numerical figures. According to the general philosophical teachings, this ring is beyond the region of what are called nebulæ in astronomy. But this is as erroneous a conception as that of the topography and the descriptions, given in Purânic and other exoteric Scriptures, about the 1008 worlds of the Devaloka worlds and firmaments. There are worlds, of course, in the esoteric as well as in the profane scientific teachings, at such incalculable distances that the light of the nearest of them which has just reached our modern Chaldees, had left its luminary long before the day on which the words "Let there be Light" were pronounced; but these are no worlds on the Devaloka plane, but in our Kosmos.
The chemist goes to the laya or zero point of the plane of matter with which he deals, and then stops short. The physicist or the astronomer counts by billions of miles beyond the nebulæ, and then they also stop short; the semi-initiated Occultist will represent this laya-point to himself as existing on some plane which, if not physical, is still conceivable to the human intellect. But the full Initiate knows that the ring "Pass-Not" is neither a locality nor can it be measured by distance, but that it exists in the absoluteness of infinity. In this "Infinity" of the full Initiate there is neither height, breadth nor thickness, but all is fathomless profundity, reaching down from the physical to the "para-para-metaphysical." In using the word "down," essential depth — "nowhere and everywhere" — is meant, not depth of physical matter.
If one searches carefully through the exoteric and grossly anthropomorphic allegories of popular religions, even in these the doctrine embodied in the circle of "Pass-Not" thus guarded by the Lipika, may be dimly perceived. Thus one finds it even in the teachings of
the Vedantin sect of the Visishtadwaita, the most tenaciously anthropomorphic in all India. For we read of the released soul that: —
After reaching Moksha (a state of bliss meaning "release from Bandha" or bondage), bliss is enjoyed by it in a place called PARAMAPADHA, which place is not material, but made of Suddasatwa (the essence, of which the body of Iswara — "the Lord" — is formed). There, Muktas or Jivatmas (Monads) who have attained Moksha, are never again subject to the qualities of either matter or Karma. "But if they choose, for the sake of doing good to the world, they may incarnate on Earth."* The way to Paramapadha, or the immaterial worlds, from this world, is called Devayana. When a person has attained Moksha and the body dies: —
"The Jiva (Soul) goes with Sukshma Sarira† from the heart of the body, to the Brahmarandra in the crown of the head, traversing Sushumna, a nerve connecting the heart with the Brahmarandra. The Jiva breaks through the Brahmarandra and goes to the region of the Sun (Suryamandala) through the solar Rays. Then it goes, through a dark spot in the Sun, to Paramapadha. The Jiva is directed on its way by the Supreme Wisdom acquired by Yoga.‡ The Jiva thus proceeds to Paramapadha by the aid of Athivahikas (bearers in transit), known by the names of Archi-Ahas . . . Aditya, Prajapati, etc. The Archis here mentioned are certain pure Souls, etc., etc." (Visishtadwaita Catechism, by Pundit Bhashyacharya, F.T.S.)
No Spirit except the "Recorders" (Lipika) has ever crossed its forbidden
line, nor will any do so until the day of the next Pralaya, for it is the
boundary that separates the finite — however
infinite in man's sight — from the truly
INFINITE.
The Spirits referred to, therefore, as those who "ascend and descend" are the
"Hosts" of what we loosely call "celestial Beings." But they are, in fact,
nothing of the kind.
——————————————————————————————
* These voluntary re-incarnations are referred to in our
Doctrine as Nirmanakayas (the surviving spiritual principles of men).
† Sukshma-sarira,
"dream-like" illusive body, with which are clothed the inferior Dhyanis of the
celestial Hierarchy.
‡ Compare this esoteric
tenet with the Gnostic doctrine found in "Pistis-Sophia" (Knowledge = Wisdom),
in which treatise Sophia Achamoth is shown lost in the waters of Chaos (matter),
on her way to Supreme Light, and Christos delivering and helping her on the
right Path. Note well, "Christos" with the Gnostics meant the impersonal
principal, the Atman of the Universe, and the Atma within every man's soul
— not Jesus; though in the old Coptic MSS.
in the British Museum "Christos" is almost constantly replaced by "Jesus."
They are Entities of the higher worlds in the hierarchy of Being, so
immeasurably high that, to us, they must appear as Gods, and collectively
— GOD. But so we, mortal men,
must appear to the ant, which reasons on the scale of its special capacities.
The ant may also, for all we know, see the avenging finger of a personal God in
the hand of the urchin who, in one moment, under the impulse of mischief,
destroys its anthill, the labour of many weeks —
long years in the chronology of insects. The ant, feeling it acutely, and
attributing the undeserved calamity to a combination of Providence and sin, may
also, like man, see in it the result of the sin of its first parent. Who knows
and who can affirm or deny? The refusal to admit in the whole Solar system of
any other reasonable and intellectual beings on the human plane, than ourselves,
is the greatest conceit of our age. All that science has a right to affirm, is
that there are no invisible Intelligences living under the same conditions as we
do. It cannot deny point-blank the possibility of there being worlds within
worlds, under totally different conditions to those that constitute the nature
of our world; nor can it deny that there may be a certain limited communication
* between some of those worlds and our own. To the highest, we are taught,
belong the seven orders of the purely divine Spirits; to the six lower ones
belong hierarchies that can occasionally be seen and heard by men, and who do
communicate with their progeny of the Earth; which progeny is indissolubly
linked with them, each principle in man having its direct source in the nature
of those great Beings, who furnish us with the respective invisible elements in
us. Physical Science is welcome to speculate upon the physiological mechanism of
living beings, and to continue her fruitless efforts in trying to resolve our
feelings, our sensations, mental and spiritual, into functions of their
inorganic vehicles. Nevertheless, all that will ever be accomplished in this
direction has already been done, and Science will go no farther.
——————————————————————————————
* The greatest philosopher of European birth, Imanuel Kant,
assures us that such a communication is in no way improbable. "I confess I am
much disposed to assert the existence of Immaterial natures in the world, and to
place my own soul in the class of these beings. It will hereafter, I know not
where, or when, yet be proved that the human soul stands even in this life in
indissoluble connection with all immaterial natures in the spirit-world, that it
reciprocally acts upon these and receives impressions from them." (Traume eines
Geistersehers, quoted by C. C. Massey, in his preface to Von Hartmann's "Spiritismus.")
She is before a dead wall, on the face of which she traces, as she imagines, great physiological and psychic discoveries, but every one of which will be shown later on to be no better than the cobwebs spun by her scientific fancies and illusions. The tissues of our objective framework alone are subservient to the analysis and researches of physiological science.* The six higher principles in them will evade for ever the hand that is guided by an animus that purposely ignores and rejects the Occult Sciences.
The "Great Day of BE-WITH-US," then, is an expression the
only merit of which lies in its literal translation. Its significance is not so
easily revealed to a public, unacquainted with the mystic tenets of Occultism,
or rather of Esoteric Wisdom or "Budhism." It is an expression peculiar to the
latter, and as hazy for the profane as that of the Egyptians who called the same
the "Day of COME-TO-US,"†
which
——————————————————————————————
* E.g., all
that modern physiological research in connection with psychological problems
has, and owing to the nature of things, could have shown, is, that every
thought, sensation, and emotion is attended with a re-marshalling of the
molecules of certain nerves. The inference drawn by scientists of the type of
Buchner, Vogt, and others, that thought is molecular motion, necessitates a
complete abstraction being made of the fact of our subjective consciousness.
† See "Le Livre des
Morts," by Paul Pierret; "Le Jour de 'Viens a nous' . . . c'est le jour ou
Osiris a dit au Soleil: Viens! Je le vois rencontrant le Soleil dans l'Amenti."
(Chap. xvii., p. 61.) The Sun here stands for the Logos (or Christos, or Horus)
as central Essence synthetically, and as a diffused essence of radiated
Entities, different in substance, but not in essence. As expressed by the
Bhagavadgita lecturer, "it must not be supposed that the Logos is but a
single centre of energy manifested from Parabrahmam; there are innumerable other
centres . . . and their number is almost infinite in the bosom of Parabrahmam."
Hence the expressions, "The Day of Come to us" and "The Day of Be with us," etc.
Just as the square is the Symbol of the Four sacred Forces or Powers
— Tetraktis — so the
Circle shows the boundary within the Infinity that no man can cross, even in
spirit, nor Deva nor Dhyan Chohan. The Spirits of those who "descend and ascend"
during the course of cyclic evolution shall cross the "iron-bound world" only on
the day of their approach to the threshold of Paranirvana. If they reach it
— they will rest in the bosom of Parabrahmam, or
the "Unknown Darkness," which shall then become for all of them Light
— during the whole period of Mahapralaya, the
"Great NIGHT," namely, 311,040,000,000,000 years of absorption
in Brahm. The day of "Be-With-Us" is this period of rest or Paranirvana. See
also for other data on this peculiar expression, the day of "Come-To-Us,"
The Funerary Ritual of the Egyptians, by Viscount de Rouge. It
corresponds to the Day of the Last Judgment of the Christians, which has been
sorely materialised by their religion.
is identical with the former, though the verb "be" in this sense, might be still better replaced with either of the two words "Remain" or "Rest-with-us," as it refers to that long period of REST which is called Paranirvana. As in the exoteric interpretation of the Egyptian rites the soul of every defunct person — from the Hierophant down to the sacred bull Apis — became an Osiris, was Osirified, though the Secret Doctrine had always taught, that the real Osirification was the lot of every Monad only after 3,000 cycles of Existences; so in the present case. The "Monad," born of the nature and the very Essence of the "Seven" (its highest principle becoming immediately enshrined in the Seventh Cosmic Element), has to perform its septenary gyration throughout the Cycle of Being and forms, from the highest to the lowest; and then again from man to God. At the threshold of Paranirvana it reassumes its primeval Essence and becomes the Absolute once more.
—————
1. BY THE POWER OF THE MOTHER OF MERCY AND KNOWLEDGE (a), KWAN-YIN,* THE "TRIPLE" OF KWAN-SHAI-YIN, RESIDING IN KWAN-YIN-TIEN (b), FOHAT, THE BREATH OF THEIR PROGENY, THE SON OF THE SONS, HAVING CALLED FORTH FROM THE LOWER ABYSS (chaos) THE ILLUSIVE FORM OF SIEN-TCHAN (our Universe) AND THE SEVEN ELEMENTS:—
(a.) The Mother of Mercy and Knowledge is
called "the triple" of Kwan-Shai-Yin because in her correlations, metaphysical
and cosmical, she is the "Mother, the Wife and the Daughter" of the Logos,
just as in the later theological translations she became "the Father, Son
and (the female) Holy Ghost"—the Sakti or Energy—the Essence of the
three. Thus in the Esotericism of the Vedantins, Daiviprakriti, the
Light manifested through Eswara, the Logos,
† is at one and the same time the Mother and also the Daughter of the
Logos or Verbum of Parabrahmam; while in that of the trans-Himalayan teachings
it is—in the hierarchy of allegorical and metaphysical theogony—"the
MOTHER"
or abstract, ideal matter, Mulaprakriti, the Root of Nature;—from the
metaphysical standpoint, a correlation of Adi-Bhûta, manifested in the Logos,
Avalokitêshwâra;—and from the purely occult and
——————————————————————————————
* This stanza is translated from
the Chinese text, and the names, as the equivalents of the original terms, are
preserved. The real esoteric nomenclature cannot be given, as it would only
confuse the reader. The Brahmanical doctrine has no equivalent to these. Vach
seems, in many an aspect, to approach the Chinese Kwan-yin, but there is no
regular worship of Vâch under this name in India, as there is of Kwan-Yin in
China. No exoteric religious system has ever adopted a female Creator, and thus
woman was regarded and treated, from the first dawn of popular religions, as
inferior to man. It is only in China and Egypt that Kwan-Yin and Isis were
placed on a par with the male gods. Esotericism ignores both sexes. Its highest
Deity is sexless as it is formless, neither Father nor Mother; and its first
manifested beings, celestial and terrestrial alike, become only gradually
androgynous and finally separate into distinct sexes.
† The "Theosophist" of February, 1887, p. 305,
first lecture on the Bhagavadgita.
Cosmical, Fohat,* the "Son of the Son," the androgynous energy resulting from this "Light of the Logos," and which manifests in the plane of the objective Universe as the hidden, as much as the revealed, Electricity—which is LIFE.
(b) Kwan-Yin-Tien means the "melodious heaven of Sound," the abode of Kwan-Yin, or the "Divine Voice" literally. This "Voice" is a synonym of the Verbum or the Word: "Speech," as the expression of thought. Thus may be traced the connection with, and even the origin of the Hebrew Bath-Kol, the "daughter of the Divine Voice," or Verbum, or the male and female Logos, the "Heavenly Man" or Adam Kadmon, who is at the same time Sephira. The latter was surely anticipated by the Hindu Vâch, the goddess of Speech, or of the Word. For Vâch—the daughter and the female portion, as is stated, of Brahmâ, one "generated by the gods"—is, in company with Kwan-Yin, with Isis (also the daughter, wife and sister of Osiris) and other goddesses, the female Logos, so to speak, the goddess of the active forces in Nature, the Word, Voice or Sound, and Speech. If Kwan-Yin is the "melodious Voice," so is Vâch; "the melodious cow who milked forth sustenance and water" (the female principle)—"who yields us nourishment and sustenance," as Mother-Nature. She is associated in the work of creation with the Prajâpati. She is male and female ad libitum, as Eve is with Adam. And she is a form of Aditi—the principle higher than Ether—in Akâsa, the synthesis of all the forces in Nature; thus Vâch and Kwan-Yin are both the magic potency of Occult sound in Nature and Ether—which "Voice" calls forth Sien-Tchan, the illusive form of the Universe out of Chaos and the Seven Elements.
Thus in Manu Brahmâ (the Logos also) is shown
dividing his body into two parts, male and female, and creating in the latter,
who is Vâch, Viraj, who is himself, or Brahmâ again—it is in this way a learned
Vedantin Occultist speaks of that "goddess," explaining the reason why Eswara
(or Brahmâ) is called Verbum or Logos; why in fact it
is called Sabda Brahmam:—
——————————————————————————————
* Says the lecturer on p. 306: "Evolution
is commenced by the intellectual energy of the Logos, not merely on
account of the potentialities locked up in Mulaprakriti. This light of
the Logos is the link . . . between objective matter and the subjective thought
of Eswara (or Logos). It is called in several Buddhist books Fohat.
It is the one instrument with which the Logos works."
"The explanation I am going to give you will appear thoroughly mystical; but if mystical, it has a tremendous significance when properly understood. Our old writers said that Vach is of four kinds (see Rig Veda and the Upanishads). Vaikhari-Vach is what we utter. Every kind of Vaikhari-Vâch exists in its Madhyama, further in its Pasyanti, and ultimately in its Para form.* The reason why this Pranava is called Vâch is this, that the four principles of the great Kosmos correspond to these four forms of Vâch. Now the whole manifested solar System exists in its Sukshma form in the light or energy of the Logos, because its energy is caught up and transferred to Cosmic matter. . . . The whole Kosmos in its objective form is Vaikhari-Vâch, the light of the Logos is the Madhyama form, and the Logos itself the Pasyanti form, and Parabrahm the Para form or aspect of that Vach. It is by the light of this explanation that we must try to understand certain statements made by various philosophers to the effect that the manifested Kosmos is the Verbum manifested as Kosmos" (see Lecture on the Bhagavadgita, referred to above).
—————
2. THE SWIFT AND THE RADIANT ONE PRODUCES THE SEVEN Layu † (a) CENTRES, AGAINST WHICH NONE WILL PREVAIL TO THE GREAT DAY "BE WITH US"—AND SEATS THE UNIVERSE ON THESE ETERNAL FOUNDATIONS, SURROUNDING SIEN-TCHAN WITH THE ELEMENTARY GERMS (b).
(a.) The seven Layu centres are the
seven Zero points, using the term Zero in the same sense that Chemists do, to
indicate a point at which, in Esotericism, the scale of reckoning of
differentiation begins. From the Centres—beyond which Esoteric philosophy allows
us to perceive the dim metaphysical outlines of the "Seven Sons" of Life and
Light, the Seven Logoi of the Hermetic and all other philosophers—begins
——————————————————————————————
* Madhya
is said of something whose commencement and end are unknown, and
Para means infinite. These expressions all relate to infinitude and to division
of time.
† From the Sanskrit Laya, the point of matter where every differentiation has ceased.
the differentiation of the elements which enter into the constitution of our Solar System. It has often been asked what was the exact definition of Fohat and his powers and functions, as he seems to exercise those of a Personal God as understood in the popular religions. The answer has just been given in the comment on Stanza V. As well said in the Bhagavadgita Lectures, "The whole Kosmos must necessarily exist in the One Source of energy from which this light (Fohat) emanates." Whether we count the principles in Kosmos and man as seven or only as four, the forces of, and in, physical Nature are Seven; and it is stated by the same authority that "Pragna, or the capacity of perception, exists in seven different aspects corresponding to the seven conditions of matter" (Personal and impersonal God). For, "just as a human being is composed of seven principles, differentiated matter in the Solar System exists in seven different conditions" (ibid). So does Fohat.* He is One and Seven, and on the Cosmic plane is behind all such manifestations as light, heat, sound, adhesion, etc., etc., and is the "spirit" of ELECTRICITY, which is the LIFE of the Universe. As an abstraction, we call it the ONE LIFE; as an objective and evident Reality, we speak of a septenary scale of manifestation, which begins at the upper rung with the One Unknowable CAUSALITY, and ends as Omnipresent Mind and Life immanent in every atom of Matter. Thus, while science speaks of its evolution through brute matter, blind force, and senseless motion, the Occultists point to intelligent LAW and sentient LIFE, and add that Fohat is the guiding Spirit of all this. Yet he is no personal god at all, but the emanation of those other Powers behind him whom the Christians call the "Messengers" of their God (who is in reality only the Elohim, or rather one of the Seven Creators called Elohim), and we, the "Messenger of the primordial Sons of Life and Light."
(b.) The "Elementary Germs" with which
he fills Sien-Tchan (the "Universe") from Tien-Sin (the "Heaven of Mind,"
literally, or that which is absolute) are the Atoms of Science and the Monads of
Leibnitz.
——————————————————————————————
* "Fohat" has several meanings.
(See Stanza V., Commentary et infra). He is called the
"Builder of the Builders," the Force that he personifies having formed our
Septenary chain.
3. OF THE SEVEN (elements)—FIRST ONE MANIFESTED, SIX CONCEALED; TWO MANIFESTED—FIVE CONCEALED; THREE MANIFESTED—FOUR CONCEALED; FOUR PRODUCED—THREE HIDDEN; FOUR AND ONE TSAN (fraction) REVEALED—TWO AND ONE HALF CONCEALED; SIX TO BE MANIFESTED—ONE LAID ASIDE (a). LASTLY, SEVEN SMALL WHEELS REVOLVING; ONE GIVING BIRTH TO THE OTHER (b).
(a.) Although these Stanzas refer to the whole
Universe after a Mahapralaya (universal destruction), yet this sentence, as any
student of Occultism may see, refers also by analogy to the evolution and final
formation of the primitive (though compound) Seven Elements on our Earth. Of
these, four elements are now fully manifested, while the fifth—Ether—is only
partially so, as we are hardly in the second half of the Fourth Round, and
consequently the fifth Element will manifest fully only in the Fifth Round. The
Worlds, including our own, were of course, as germs, primarily evolved from the
ONE Element in its second stage ("Father-Mother," the differentiated World's
Soul, not what is termed the "Over-Soul" by Emerson), whether we call it, with
modern Science, Cosmic dust and Fire Mist, or with Occultism—Akâsa, Jivâtma,
divine Astral Light, or the "Soul of the World." But this first stage of
Evolution was in due course of time followed by the next. No world, as no
heavenly body, could be constructed on the objective plane, had not the Elements
been sufficiently differentiated already from their primeval Ilus,
resting in Laya. The latter term is a synonym of Nirvana. It is, in
fact, the Nirvanic dissociation of all substances, merged after a life-cycle
into the latency of their primary conditions. It is the luminous but bodiless
shadow of the matter that was, the realm of negativeness—wherein
lie latent during their period of rest the active Forces of the Universe. Now,
speaking of Elements, it is made the standing reproach of the Ancients, that
they "supposed their Elements simple and undecomposable." * Once more
this is an unwarrantable state-
——————————————————————————————
* The shades of our pre-historical
ancestors might return the compliment to modern physicists, now that new
discoveries in chemistry have led Mr. Crookes, F.R.S., to admit
that Science is yet a thousand leagues from the knowledge of the compound nature
of the simplest molecule. From him we learn that such a thing as a really simple
molecule entirely homogeneous is terra incognita in chemistry. "Where
are we to draw the line?" he asks; "is there no way out of this perplexity? Must
we either make the elementary examinations so stiff that only 60 or 70
candidates can pass, or must we open the examination doors so wide that the
number of admissions is limited only by the number of applicants?" And then the
learned gentleman gives striking instances. He says: "Take the case of yttrium.
It has its definite atomic weight, it behaved in every respect as a simple body,
an element, to which we might indeed add, but from which we could not take away.
Yet this yttrium, this supposed homogeneous whole, on being submitted to a
certain method of fractionation, is resolved into portions not absolutely
identical among themselves, and exhibiting a gradation of properties. Or take
the case of didymium. Here was a body betraying all the recognised characters of
an element. It had been separated with much difficulty from other bodies which
approximated closely to it in their properties, and during this crucial process
it had undergone very severe treatment and very close scrutiny. But then came
another chemist, who, treating this assumed homogeneous body by a peculiar
process of fractionation, resolved it into the two bodies praseodymium and
neodymium, between which certain distinctions are perceptible. Further, we even
now have no certainty that neodymium and praseodymium are simple bodies. On the
contrary, they likewise exhibit symptoms of splitting up. Now, if one supposed
element on proper treatment is thus found to comprise dissimilar molecules, we
are surely warranted in asking whether similar results might not be obtained in
other elements, perhaps in all elements, if treated in the right way. We may
even ask where the process of sorting-out is to stop—a process which of course
pre-supposes variations between the individual molecules of each species. And in
these successive separations we naturally find bodies approaching more and more
closely to each other." (Presidential address before the Royal Society of
Chemists, March, 1888.)
ment; as, at any rate, their initiated philosophers can hardly come under such an imputation, since it is they who have invented allegories and religious myths from the beginning. Had they been ignorant of the Heterogeneity of their Elements they would have had no personifications of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Æther; their Cosmic gods and goddesses would never have been blessed with such posterity, with so many sons and daughters, elements born from and within each respective Element. Alchemy and occult phenomena would have been a delusion and a snare, even in theory, had the Ancients been ignorant of the potentialities and correlative functions and attributes of every element that enters into the composition of Air, Water, Earth, and even Fire—the latter a terra incognita to this day to modern Science, which is obliged to call it Motion, evolution of light and heat, state of ignition, defining it by its outward aspects in short, and remaining ignorant of its nature. But that which
modern Science seems to fail to perceive is that, differentiated as may have been those simple chemical atoms—which archaic philosophy called "the creators of their respective Parents," fathers, brothers, husbands of their mothers, and those mothers the daughters of their own sons, like Aditi and Daksha, for example—differentiated as these elements were in the beginning, still, they were not the compound bodies known to science, as they are now. Neither Water, Air, Earth (synonym for solids generally) existed in their present form, representing the three states of matter alone recognised by Science; for all these are the productions already recombined by the atmospheres of globes completely formed—even to fire—so that in the first periods of the earth's formation they were something quite sui generis. Now that the conditions and laws ruling our solar system are fully developed; and that the atmosphere of our earth, as of every other globe, has become, so to say, a crucible of its own, Occult Science teaches that there is a perpetual exchange taking place in space of molecules, or of atoms rather, correlating, and thus changing their combining equivalents on every planet. Some men of Science, and those among the greatest physicists and chemists, begin to suspect this fact, which has been known for ages to the Occultists. The spectroscope only shows the probable similarity (on external evidence) of terrestrial and sidereal substance; it is unable to go any farther, or to show whether atoms gravitate towards one another in the same way and under the same conditions as they are supposed to do on our planet, physically and chemically. The scale of temperature, from the highest degree to the lowest that can be conceived of, may be imagined to be one and the same in and for the whole Universe; nevertheless, its properties, other than those of dissociation and reassociation, differ on every planet; and thus atoms enter into new forms of existence, undreamt of, and incognizable to, physical Science. As already expressed in "Five Years of Theosophy," the essence of Cometary matter, for instance, "is totally different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with which the greatest chemists and physicists of the earth are acquainted" (p. 242). And even that matter, during rapid passage through our atmosphere, undergoes a certain change in its nature. Thus not alone the elements of our planets, but even those of all its sisters in the Solar System, differ as widely from each other in their combinations, as from the Cosmic elements beyond our
Solar limits.* Therefore, they cannot be taken as
a standard for comparison with the same in other worlds. † Enshrined in their
virgin, pristine state within the bosom of the Eternal Mother, every atom born
beyond the threshold of her realm is doomed to incessant differentiation. "The
Mother sleeps, yet is ever breathing." And every breath sends out into the plane
of manifestation her Protean products, which, carried on by the wave of the
efflux, are scattered by Fohat, and driven toward and beyond this or another
planetary atmosphere. Once caught by the latter, the atom is lost; its pristine
purity is gone for ever, unless Fate dissociates it by leading it to "a current
of EFFLUX" (an occult term meaning quite a different process from that which the
ordinary term implies); when it may be carried once more to the borderland where
it had perished, and taking its flight, not into Space above but into
Space within, it will be brought under a state of differential
equilibrium and happily re-absorbed. Were a truly learned Occultist-alchemist to
write the "Life and Adventures of an Atom" he would secure thereby the eternal
scorn of the modern chemist, perchance also his subsequent
——————————————————————————————
* This is again corroborated by
the same man of science in the same lecture, who quotes Clerk Maxwell, saying
"that the elements are not absolutely homogeneous." He writes: "It is difficult
to conceive of selection and elimination of intermediate varieties, for where
can these eliminated molecules have gone to, if, as we have reason to believe,
the hydrogen, &c. of the fixed stars is composed of molecules identical in all
respects with our own." And he adds: "In the first place we may call in question
this absolute molecular identity, since we have hitherto had no means for coming
to a conclusion save the means furnished by the spectroscope, while it is
admitted that, for accurately comparing and discriminating the spectra of two
bodies, they should be examined under identical states of temperature, pressure,
and all other physical conditions. We have certainly seen, in the spectrum of
the sun, rays which we have not been able to identify."
† "Each world has its Fohat, who is omnipresent in his own sphere of action. But there are as many Fohats as there are worlds, each varying in power and degree of manifestations. The individual Fohats make one Universal, Collective Fohat—the aspect-Entity of the one absolute Non-Entity, which is absolute Be-Ness, 'SAT.' "Millions and billions of worlds are produced at every Manvantara"—it is said. Therefore there must be many Fohats, whom we consider as conscious and intelligent Forces. This, no doubt, to the disgust of scientific minds. Nevertheless the Occultists, who have good reasons for it, consider all the forces of Nature as veritable, though supersensuous, states of Matter; and as possible objects of perception to Beings endowed with the requisite senses.
gratitude.* However it may be, "The Breath of the Father-Mother issues cold and radiant and gets hot and corrupt, to cool once more, and be purified in the eternal bosom of inner Space," says the Commentary. Man absorbs cold pure air on the mountain-top, and throws it out impure, hot and transformed. Thus—the higher atmosphere being the mouth, and the lower one the lungs of every globe—the man of our planet breathes only the refuse of "Mother"; therefore, "he is doomed to die on it." †
(b) The process referred to as "the small wheels giving birth, one to the other," takes place in the sixth region from above, and on the plane of the most material world of all in the manifested Kosmos—our terrestrial plane. These "Seven Wheels" are our planetary chain (see Commentary Nos. 5 and 6). By "Wheels" the various spheres and centres of forces are generally meant; but in this case they refer to our septenary ring.
—————
4. HE BUILDS THEM IN THE LIKENESS OF OLDER WHEELS (worlds), PLACING THEM ON THE IMPERISHABLE CENTRES (a).
HOW DOES FOHAT BUILD THEM? HE COLLECTS THE FIERY DUST. HE MAKES BALLS OF FIRE, RUNS THROUGH THEM AND ROUND THEM, INFUSING LIFE THEREINTO; THEN SETS THEM INTO MOTION, SOME ONE, SOME THE OTHER WAY. THEY ARE COLD—HE MAKES THEM HOT. THEY ARE DRY—HE MAKES THEM MOIST. THEY SHINE—HE FANS AND COOLS THEM (b).
THUS ACTS FOHAT FROM ONE Twilight TO THE OTHER DURING SEVEN ETERNITIES.‡
(a) The Worlds are built "in the likeness of
older Wheels"—i.e., those that existed in preceding Manvantaras and
went into Pralaya,
——————————————————————————————
* Indeed, if such an imaginary Chemist
happened to be intuitional, and would for a moment step out of the habitual
groove of strictly "Exact Science," as the Alchemists of old did, he might be
repaid for his audacity.
† He who would allotropise sluggish oxygen into Ozone to a measure of alchemical activity, reducing it to its pure essence (for which there are means), would discover thereby a substitute for an "Elixir of Life" and prepare it for practical use.
‡ A period of 311,040,000,000,000 years, according to Brahminical calculations.
because the LAW for the birth, growth, and decay of everything in Kosmos, from the Sun to the glow-worm in the grass, is ONE. It is an everlasting work of perfection with every new appearance, but the Substance-Matter and Forces are all one and the same. But this LAW acts on every planet through minor and varying laws. The "imperishable Laya Centres" have a great importance, and their meaning must be fully understood if we would have a clear conception of the Archaic Cosmogony, whose theories have now passed into Occultism. At present, one thing may be stated. The worlds are built neither upon, nor over, nor in the Laya centres, the zero-point being a condition, not any mathematical point.
(b) Bear in mind that Fohat, the constructive
Force of Cosmic Electricity, is said, metaphorically, to have sprung like Rudra
from Brahmâ "from the brain of the Father and the bosom of the Mother," and then
to have metamorphosed himself into a male and a female, i.e., polarity,
into positive and negative electricity. He has seven sons who are
his brothers; and Fohat is forced to be born time after time whenever any
two of his son-brothers indulge in too close contact—whether an embrace
or a fight. To avoid this, he binds together and unites those of unlike nature
and separates those of similar temperaments. This, of course, relates, as any
one can see, to electricity generated by friction and to the law involving
attraction between two objects of unlike, and repulsion between those of like
polarity. The Seven "Sons-brothers," however, represent and personify the seven
forms of Cosmic magnetism called in practical Occultism the "Seven
Radicals," whose co-operative and active progeny are, among other energies,
Electricity, Magnetism, Sound, Light, Heat, Cohesion, etc. Occult Science
defines all these as Super-sensuous effects in their hidden behaviour, and as
objective phenomena in the world of senses; the former requiring abnormal
faculties to perceive them—the latter, our ordinary physical senses. They all
pertain to, and are the emanations of, still more supersensuous spiritual
qualities, not personated by, but belonging to, real and conscious CAUSES. To
attempt a description of such ENTITIES would be worse than useless. The reader
must bear in mind that, according to our teaching which regards this phenomenal
Universe as a great Illusion, the nearer a body is to the
UNKNOWN
SUBSTANCE, the more it approaches
reality, as being removed the farther
from this world of Maya. Therefore, though the
molecular constitution of their bodies is not deducible from their
manifestations on this plane of consciousness, they nevertheless (from the
standpoint of the adept Occultist) possess a distinctive objective if not
material structure, in the relatively noumenal—as opposed to the
phenomenal—Universe. Men of science may term them Force or Forces generated by
matter, or "modes of its motion," if they will; Occultism sees in the effects
"Elemental" (forces), and, in the direct causes producing them, intelligent
DIVINE Workmen. The intimate connection of those Elementals
(guided by the unerring hand of the Rulers)—their correlation we might call
it—with the elements of pure Matter, results in our terrestrial phenomena, such
as light, heat, magnetism, etc., etc. Of course we shall never agree with the
American Substantialists * who call every Force and Energy—whether Light,
Heat, Electricity or Cohesion—an "Entity"; for this would be equivalent to
calling the noise produced by the rolling of the wheels of a vehicle an
Entity—thus confusing and identifying that "noise" with the driver
outside, and the guiding Master Intelligence within the vehicle. But
we certainly give that name to the "drivers" and to these guiding
Intelligences—the ruling Dhyan Chohans, as shown. The "Elementals," the
Nature-Forces, are the acting, though invisible, or rather imperceptible,
secondary Causes and in themselves the effects of primary Causes behind the Veil
of all terrestrial phenomena. Electricity, light, heat, etc., have been aptly
termed the "Ghost or Shadow of Matter in Motion," i.e., supersensuous
states of matter whose effects only we are able to cognize. To expand, then, the
simile given above. The sensation of light is like the sound of the rolling
wheels—a purely phenomenal effect, having no existence outside the observer; the
proximate exciting cause of the sensation is comparable to the driver—a
supersensuous state of matter in motion, a Nature-Force or Elemental. But,
behind even this, stand—just as the owner of the carriage directs the driver
from within—the higher and noumenal causes, the Intelligences
from whose essence radiate these States of "Mother,"
generating the countless milliards of Elementals or psychic Nature-Spirits, just
as every drop of water generates its physical
——————————————————————————————
* See "Scientific Arena," a
monthly Journal devoted to current philosophical teaching and its bearing upon
the religious thought of the Age. New York: A. Wilford Hall, Ph.D., LL.D.,
Editor. (1886, July, August, and September.)
infinitesimal Infusoria. (See "Gods, Monads, and Atoms," in Part III.) It is Fohat who guides the transfer of the principles from one planet to the other, from one star to another—child-star. When a planet dies, its informing principles are transferred to a laya or sleeping centre, with potential but latent energy in it, which is thus awakened into life and begins to form itself into a new sidereal body. (Vide infra, "A Few Theosophical Misconceptions, etc.")
It is most remarkable that, while honestly confessing their entire ignorance of the true Nature of even terrestrial matter—primordial substance being regarded more as a dream than as a sober reality—the physicists should set themselves up as judges, nevertheless, of that matter, and claim to know what it is able and is not able to do, in various combinations. Scientists know it (matter) hardly skin-deep, and yet they will dogmatise. It is "a mode of motion" and nothing else. But the force that is inherent in a living person's breath, when blowing a speck of dust from the table, is also, and undeniably, "a mode of motion"; and it is as undeniably not a quality of the matter, or the particles of that speck, and it emanates from the living and thinking Entity that breathed, whether the impulse originated consciously or unconsciously. Indeed, to endow matter—something of which nothing is known so far—with an inherent quality called Force, of the nature of which still less is known, is to create a far more serious difficulty than that which lies in the acceptation of the intervention of our "Nature-Spirits" in every natural phenomenon.
The Occultists, who do not say—if they would express themselves correctly—that matter, but only the substance or essence of matter, is indestructible and eternal, (i.e., the Root of all, Mulaprakriti): assert that all the so-called Forces of Nature, Electricity, Magnetism, Light, Heat, etc., etc., far from being modes of motion of material particles, are in esse, i.e., in their ultimate constitution, the differentiated aspects of that Universal Motion which is discussed and explained in the first pages of this volume (See Proem). When Fohat is said to produce "Seven Laya Centres," it means that for formative or creative purposes, the GREAT LAW (Theists may call it God) stops, or rather modifies its perpetual motion on seven invisible points within the area of the manifested Universe. "The great Breath digs through Space seven holes into Laya to cause them to circumgyrate during Manvantara" (Occult Catechism). We
have said that Laya is what Science may call the Zero-point or line; the realm of absolute negativeness, or the one real absolute Force, the NOUMENON of the Seventh State of that which we ignorantly call and recognise as "Force"; or again the Noumenon of Undifferentiated Cosmic Substance which is itself an unreachable and unknowable object to finite perception; the root and basis of all states of objectivity and subjectivity too; the neutral axis, not one of the many aspects, but its centre. It may serve to elucidate the meaning if we attempt to imagine a neutral centre—the dream of those who would discover perpetual motion. A "neutral centre" is, in one aspect, the limiting point of any given set of senses. Thus, imagine two consecutive planes of matter as already formed; each of these corresponding to an appropriate set of perceptive organs. We are forced to admit that between these two planes of matter an incessant circulation takes place; and if we follow the atoms and molecules of (say) the lower in their transformation upwards, these will come to a point where they pass altogether beyond the range of the faculties we are using on the lower plane. In fact, to us the matter of the lower plane there vanishes from our perception into nothing—or rather it passes on to the higher plane, and the state of matter corresponding to such a point of transition must certainly possess special and not readily discoverable properties. Such "Seven Neutral Centres," * then, are produced by Fohat, who, when, as Milton has it—
"Fair foundations (are) laid whereon to build . . ."
quickens matter into activity and evolution.
The Primordial Atom (anu)
cannot be multiplied either in its pregenetic state, or its primogeneity;
therefore it is called "SUM TOTAL," figuratively, of course, as that "SUM TOTAL"
is boundless. (See Addendum to this Book.) That which is the abyss of
nothingness to the physicist, who knows only the world of visible causes and
effects, is the boundless Space of the Divine Plenum to the Occultist.
Among many other objections to the doctrine of an endless evolution and
re-involution (or re-absorption) of the Kosmos, a process which, according to
the Brahminical and Esoteric Doctrine, is without a beginning or an end, the
Occultist is told that it cannot be, since "by all the admissions of
——————————————————————————————
* Such, we believe, is the name applied
by Mr. Keely, of Philadelphia, the inventor of the famous "Motor"—destined, as
his admirers have hoped, to revolutionise the motor power of the world—to what
he again calls the "Etheric Centres."
modern scientific philosophy it is a necessity of Nature
to run down." If the tendency of Nature "to run down" is to be considered so
forcible an objection to Occult Cosmogony, "How," we may ask, "do your
Positivists and Free-thinkers and Scientists account for the phalanx around us
of active stellar systems?" They had eternity to "run down" in; why, then, is
not the Kosmos a huge inert mass? Even the moon is only hypothetically believed
to be a dead planet, "run down," and astronomy does not seem to be acquainted
with many such dead planets. * The query is unanswerable. But apart from
this it must be noted that the idea of the amount of "transformable energy" in
our little system coming to an end is based purely on the fallacious conception
of a "white-hot, incandescent Sun" perpetually radiating away his heat without
compensation into Space. To this we reply that nature runs down and disappears
from the objective plane, only to re-emerge after a time of rest out of the
subjective and to reascend once more. Our Kosmos and Nature will run down only
to reappear on a more perfect plane after every
PRALAYA. The
matter of the Eastern philosophers is not the "matter" and Nature of
the Western metaphysicians. For what is Matter? And above all, what is our
scientific philosophy but that which was so justly and so politely defined by
Kant as "the Science of the limits to our Knowledge"? Where have the
many attempts made by Science to bind, to connect, and define all the phenomena
of organic life by mere physical and chemical manifestations, brought it to? To
speculation generally—mere soap-bubbles, that burst one after the other before
the men of Science were permitted to discover real facts. All this would have
been avoided, and the progress of knowledge would have proceeded with gigantic
strides, had only Science and its philosophy abstained from accepting hypotheses
on the mere one-sided Knowledge of their Matter. †
——————————————————————————————
* The moon is dead only
so far as regards her inner "principles"—i.e., psychically
and spiritually, however absurd the statement may seem.
Physically, she is only as a semi-paralysed body may be. She is aptly referred
to in Occultism as the "insane mother," the great sidereal lunatic.
† The instance of Uranus and Neptune, whose satellites, four and one respectively, revolved, it was thought, in their orbits from East to West, whereas all the other satellites rotate from West to East, is a very good one, as showing how unreliable are all a priori speculations even when based on the strictest mathematical analysis. The famous hypothesis of the formation of our Solar System out of the nebulous rings, put forward by Kant and Laplace, was chiefly based on the above fact that all the planets revolved in the same direction. It is on this fact, mathematically demonstrated during the time of Laplace, that this great astronomer, calculating on the theory of probabilities, offered to bet three milliards to one that the next planet discovered would have in its system the same peculiarity of motion Eastward. The immutable laws of scientific mathematics got "worsted by further experiments and observations," it was said. This idea of Laplace's mistake prevails generally to this day; but some astronomers have finally succeeded in demonstrating (?) that the mistake had been in accepting Laplace's assertion for a mistake; and steps to correct it without attracting general attention to the bévue are now being taken. Many such unpleasant surprises are in store for hypotheses of even a purely physical character. What further disillusions, then, may there not be in questions of a transcendental, Occult Nature? At any rate, Occultism teaches that the so-called "reverse rotation" is a fact.
If no physical intellect is capable of counting the
grains of sand covering a few miles of sea-shore; or to fathom the ultimate
nature and essence of those grains, palpable and visible on the palm of the
naturalist, how can any materialist limit the laws changing the conditions and
being of the atoms in primordial chaos, or know anything certain about the
capabilities and potency of their atoms and molecules before and after their
formation into worlds? These changeless and eternal molecules—far thicker in
space than the grains on the ocean shore—may differ in their constitution along
the line of their planes of existence, as the soul-substance differs from its
vehicle, the body. Each atom has seven planes of being or existence, we are
taught; and each plane is governed by its specific laws of evolution and
absorption. Ignorant of any, even approximate, chronological data from which to
start in attempting to decide the age of our planet or the origin of the solar
system, astronomers, geologists, and physicists are drifting with each new
hypothesis farther and farther away from the shores of fact into the fathomless
depths of speculative ontology.* The Law of Analogy in the plan of
structure between the trans-Solar systems and the intra-Solar planets, does not
necessarily bear upon the finite conditions to which every visible body is
subject, in this our plane of being. In Occult Science this law is the first and
most important key to Cosmic physics; but it has to be studied in its minutest
details and, "to be
——————————————————————————————
* The Occultists, having most
perfect faith in their own exact records, astronomical and mathematical,
calculate the age of Humanity, and assert that the latter (as separate sexes)
has existed in this Round just 18,618,727 years, as the Brahmanical teachings
and even some Hindu calendars declare.
turned seven times," before one comes to understand it. Occult philosophy is the only science that can teach it. How, then, can anyone hang the truth or the untruth of the Occultist's proposition that "the Kosmos is eternal in its unconditioned collectivity, and finite but in its conditioned manifestations" on this one-sided physical enunciation that "it is a necessity of Nature to run down?"
—————
With these verses—the 4th Sloka of Stanza VI.—ends that portion of the Stanzas which relates to the Universal Cosmogony after the last Mahapralaya or Universal destruction, which, when it comes, sweeps out of Space every differentiated thing, Gods as atoms, like so many dry leaves. From this verse onwards, the Stanzas are concerned only with our Solar System in general, with the planetary chains therein, inferentially, and with the history of our globe (the 4th and its chain) especially. All the Stanzas and verses which follow in this Book I. refer only to the evolution of, and on, our Earth. With regard to the latter, a strange tenet—strange from the modern scientific stand-point only, of course—is held, which ought to be made known.
But before entirely new and rather startling theories are presented to the reader, they must be prefaced by a few words of explanation. This is absolutely necessary, as these theories clash not only with modern science, but contradict, on certain points, earlier statements made by other Theosophists, who claim to base their explanations and renderings of these teachings on the same authority as we do.*
This may give rise to the idea that there is a decided
contradiction between the expounders of the same doctrine; whereas the
difference, in reality, arises from the incompleteness of the information given
to earlier writers, who thus drew some erroneous conclusions and indulged in
premature speculations, in their endeavour to present a complete system to the
public. Thus the reader, who is already a student of Theosophy, must not be
surprised to find in these pages the rectification of certain statements made in
various Theosophical works, and also the explanation of certain points which
have remained obscure, because they were necessarily left incomplete. Many are
the questions upon which even the author of "Esoteric Buddhism" (the best and
——————————————————————————————
* "Esoteric Buddhism" and
"Man."
most accurate of all such works) has not touched. On the other hand, even he has introduced several mistaken notions which must now be presented in their true mystic light, as far as the present writer is capable of doing so.
Let us then make a short break between the Slokas just explained and those which follow, for the Cosmic periods which separate them are of immense duration. This will afford us ample time to take a bird's eye view of some points pertaining to the Secret Doctrine, which have been presented to the public under a more or less uncertain and sometimes mistaken light.
—————
Among the eleven Stanzas omitted * there is one which
gives a full description of the formation of the planetary chains one after
another, after the first Cosmic and Atomic differentiation had commenced in the
primitive Acosmism. It is idle to speak of "laws arising when Deity
prepares to create" for (a) laws or rather
LAW is
eternal and uncreated; and (b) that Deity is Law, and vice versa.
Moreover, the one eternal LAW unfolds everything in the
(to be) manifested Nature on a sevenfold principle; among the rest, the
countless circular chains of worlds, composed of seven globes, graduated on the
four lower planes of the world of formation (the three others belonging to the
Archetypal Universe). Out of these seven only one, the lowest and
the most material of those globes, is within our plane or means of
perception, the six others lying outside of it and being therefore invisible to
the terrestrial eye. Every such chain of worlds is the progeny and creation of
another, lower, and dead chain—its reincarnation,
so to say. To make it clearer: we are told of the planets—of which
seven only were held as sacred, as being ruled by the highest regents or
gods, and not at all because the ancients knew nothing of the others †—that each
of these, whether known or unknown, is a septenary, as is the chain to which the
Earth belongs (see "Esoteric
——————————————————————————————
* See the note which follows the
Commentary on the preceding page, and also the summary of the Stanzas in the
Proem, page 22.
† Many more planets are enumerated in the Secret
Books than in modern astronomical works.
Buddhism"). For instance, all such planets as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, etc., etc., or our Earth, are as visible to us as our globe, probably, is to the inhabitants of the other planets, if any, because they are all on the same plane; while the superior fellow-globes of these planets are on other planes quite outside that of our terrestrial senses. As their relative position is given further on, and also in the diagram appended to the Comments on Verse 7 of Stanza VI., a few words of explanation is all that is needed at present. These invisible companions correspond curiously to that which we call "the principles in Man." The seven are on three material planes and one spiritual plane, answering to the three Upadhis (material bases) and one spiritual vehicle (Vahan) of our seven principles in the human division. If, for the sake of a clearer mental conception, we imagine the human principles to be arranged as in the following scheme, we shall obtain the annexed diagram of correspondences:—
DIAGRAM I.
——————————————————————————————
*As we are proceeding here from
Universals to Particulars, instead of using the inductive or Aristotelean
method, the numbers are reversed. Spirit is enumerated the first instead of
seventh, as is usually done, but, in truth, ought not to be done.
† Or as usually named after the manner of Esoteric
Buddhism and others: 1, Atma; 2, Buddhi (or Spiritual Soul); 3, Manas
(Human Soul); 4, Kama Rupa (Vehicle of Desires and Passions); 5, Linga Sarira;
6, Prana; 7, Sthula Sarira.
The dark horizontal lines of the lower planes are the Upadhis in one case, and the planes in the case of the planetary chain. Of course, as regards the human principles, the diagram does not place them quite in order, yet it shows the correspondence and analogy to which attention is now drawn. As the reader will see, it is a case of descent into matter, the adjustment—in both the mystic and the physical senses—of the two, and their interblending for the great coming "struggle of life" that awaits both the entities. "Entity" may be thought a strange term to use in the case of a globe; but the ancient philosophers, who saw in the earth a huge "animal," were wiser in their generation than our modern geologists are in theirs; and Pliny, who called the Earth our kind nurse and mother, the only element which is not inimical to man, spoke more truly than Watts, who fancied that he saw in her the footstool of God. For Earth is only the footstool of man in his ascension to higher regions; the vestibule—
". . . . . . . to glorious mansions,
Through which a moving crowd for ever press."
But this only shows how admirably the occult philosophy fits everything in Nature, and how much more logical are its tenets than the lifeless hypothetical speculations of physical science.
Having learned thus much, the mystic will be better prepared to understand the occult teaching, though every formal student of modern science may, and probably will, regard it as preposterous nonsense. The student of occultism, however, holds that the theory at present under discussion is far more philosophical and probable than any other. It is more logical, at any rate, than the theory recently advanced which made of the moon the projection of a portion of our Earth extruded when the latter was but a globe in fusion, a molten plastic mass. *
It is said that the planetary chains having their "Days"
and their
——————————————————————————————
* Says the author of "Modern
Science and Modern Thought," Mr. Samuel Laing: "The astronomical conclusions are
theories based on data so uncertain, that while in some cases they give results
incredibly short, like that of 15 millions of years for the whole past process
of formation of the solar system, in others they give results almost incredibly
long, as in that which supposes the moon to have been thrown off when the
Earth was rotating in three hours, while the utmost actual retardation
obtained from observation would require 600 millions of years to make it
rotate in twenty-three hours instead of twenty-four" (p. 48). And if physicists
persist, why should the chronology of the Hindus be laughed at as exaggerated?
"Nights"—i.e., periods of activity or life, and of inertia or death—and behave in heaven as do men on Earth: they generate their likes, get old, and become personally extinct, their spiritual principles only living in their progeny as a survival of themselves.
Without attempting the very difficult task of giving out
the whole process in all its cosmic details, enough may be said to give an
approximate idea of it. When a planetary chain is in its last Round, its Globe 1
or A, before finally dying out, sends all its energy and "principles"
into a neutral centre of latent force, a "laya centre," and thereby informs a
new nucleus of undifferentiated substance or matter, i.e.,
calls it into activity or gives it life. Suppose such a process to have taken
place in the lunar "planetary" chain; suppose again, for argument's sake (though
Mr. Darwin's theory quoted below has lately been upset, even if the fact has not
yet been ascertained by mathematical calculation) that the moon is far older
than the Earth. Imagine the six fellow-globes of the moon—æons before the first
globe of our seven was evolved—just in the same position in relation to each
other as the fellow-globes of our chain occupy in regard to our Earth now. (See
in "Esoteric Buddhism," "The Constitution of Man," and the "Planetary Chain.")
And now it will be easy to imagine further Globe A of the lunar chain informing
Globe A of the terrestrial chain, and—dying; Globe B of the former sending after
that its energy into Globe B of the new chain; then Globe C of the lunar,
creating its progeny sphere C of the terrene chain; then the Moon (our
Satellite*) pouring forth into
——————————————————————————————
* She is the satellite,
undeniably, but this does not invalidate the theory that she has given to the
Earth all but her corpse. For Darwin's theory to hold good, besides the
hypothesis just upset (vide last footnote), other still more incongruous
speculations had to be invented. The Moon, it is said, has cooled nearly six
times as rapidly as the Earth (Winchell's "World-Life"): "The Moon, if the earth
is 14,000,000 years old since its incrustation, is only eleven and two thirds
millions of years old since that stage . . ." etc. And if our Moon is but a
splash from our Earth, why can no similar inference be established for the Moons
of other planets? The Astronomers "do not know." Why should Venus and Mercury
have no satellites, and by what, when they exist, were they formed? Because, we
say, science has only one key—the key of matter—to open the mysteries of nature
withal, while occult philosophy has seven keys and explains that which science
fails to see. Mercury and Venus have no satellites but they had "parents" just
as the earth had. Both are far older than the Earth and, before the latter
reaches her seventh Round, her mother Moon will have dissolved
into thin air, as the "Moons" of the other planets have, or have not, as the
case may be, since there are planets which have several moons—a mystery again
which no Œdipus of astronomy has solved.
the lowest globe of our planetary ring—Globe D, our Earth—all its life, energy and powers; and, having transferred them to a new centre becoming virtually a dead planet, in which rotation has almost ceased since the birth of our globe. The Moon is now the cold residual quantity, the shadow dragged after the new body, into which her living powers and "principles" are transfused. She now is doomed for long ages to be ever pursuing the Earth, to be attracted by and to attract her progeny. Constantly vampirised by her child, she revenges herself on it by soaking it through and through with the nefarious, invisible, and poisoned influence which emanates from the occult side of her nature. For she is a dead, yet a living body. The particles of her decaying corpse are full of active and destructive life, although the body which they had formed is soulless and lifeless. Therefore its emanations are at the same time beneficent and maleficent—this circumstance finding its parallel on earth in the fact that the grass and plants are nowhere more juicy and thriving than on the graves; while at the same time it is the graveyard or corpse-emanations, which kill. And like all ghouls or vampires, the moon is the friend of the sorcerers and the foe of the unwary. From the archaic æons and the later times of the witches of Thessaly, down to some of the present tantrikas of Bengal, her nature and properties were known to every Occultist, but have remained a closed book for physicists.
Such is the moon from the astronomical, geological, and physical standpoints. As to her metaphysical and psychic nature it must remain an occult secret in this work, as it was in the volume on "Esoteric Buddhism," notwithstanding the rather sanguine statement made therein on p. 113 (5th edition) that "there is not much mystery left now in the riddle of the eighth sphere." These are topics, indeed, "on which the adepts are very reserved in their communications to uninitiated pupils," and since they have, moreover, never sanctioned or permitted any published speculations upon them, the less said the better.
Yet without treading upon the forbidden ground of the "eighth sphere," it may be useful to state some additional facts with regard to ex-monads of the lunar chain—the "lunar ancestors"—as they play a
leading part in the coming Anthropogenesis. This brings us directly to the septenary constitution of man; and as some discussion has arisen of late about the best classification to be adopted for the division of the microcosmic entity, two systems are now appended with a view to facilitate comparison. The subjoined short article is from the pen of Mr. T. Subba Row, a learned Vedantin scholar. He prefers the Brahmanical division of the Raja Yoga, and from a metaphysical point of view he is quite right. But, as it is a question of simple choice and expediency, we hold in this work to the "time-honoured" classification of the trans-Himalayan "Arhat Esoteric School." The following table and its explanatory text are reprinted from the "Theosophist" of Madras, and they are also contained in "Five Years of Theosophy":—
SEPTENARY DIVISION IN DIFFERENT INDIAN SYSTEMS.
"We give below in a tabular form the classifications adopted by the Buddhist and Vedantic teachers of the principles of man:—
——————————————————————————————
* Kosa (kosha) is "Sheath"
literally, the sheath of every principle.
† "Life."
‡ The astral body or Linga Sarira.
§ Sthula-Upadhi, or basis of the principle.
∫∫ Buddhi.
From the foregoing table it will be seen that the third principle in the Buddhist classification is not separately mentioned in the Vedantic division, as it is merely the vehicle of Prana. It will also be seen that the Fourth principle is included in the third Kosa (Sheath), as the same principle is but the vehicle of will-power, which is but an energy of the mind. It must also be noticed that the Vignanamaya Kosa is considered to be distinct from the Manomaya Kosa, as a division is made after death between the lower part of the mind, as it were, which has a closer affinity with the fourth principle than with the sixth; and its higher part, which attaches itself to the latter, and which is, in fact, the basis for the higher spiritual individuality of man.
We may also here point out to our readers that the classification mentioned in the last column is, for all practical purposes, connected with Raja Yoga, the best and simplest. Though there are seven principles in man, there are but three distinct Upadhis (bases), in each of which his Atma may work independently of the rest. These three Upadhis can be separated by an Adept without killing himself. He cannot separate the seven principles from each other without destroying his constitution."
The student will now be better prepared to see that between the three Upadhis of the Raja Yoga and its Atma, and our three Upadhis, Atma, and the additional three divisions, there is in reality but very little difference. Moreover, as every adept in cis-Himalayan or trans-Himalayan India, of the Patanjali, the Aryasanga or the Mahayana schools, has to become a Raja Yogi, he must, therefore, accept the Taraka Raja classification in principle and theory whatever classification he resorts to for practical and occult purposes. Thus, it matters very little whether one speaks of the three Upadhis with their three aspects and Atma, the eternal and immortal synthesis, or calls them the "seven principles."
For the benefit of those who may not have read, or, if they have, may not have clearly understood, in Theosophical writings, the doctrine of the septenary chains of worlds in the Solar Kosmos, the teaching is briefly thus:—
1. Everything in the metaphysical as in the physical
Universe is septenary. Hence every sidereal body, every planet, whether visible
or invisible, is credited with six companion globes. (See Diagram No. 3, after verse 6 of this commentary.) The evolution of life proceeds on these seven globes or bodies from the 1st to the 7th in Seven ROUNDS or Seven Cycles.
2. These globes are formed by a process which the Occultists call the "rebirth of planetary chains (or rings)." When the seventh and last Round of one of such rings has been entered upon, the highest or first globe "A," followed by all the others down to the last, instead of entering upon a certain time of rest—or "obscuration," as in their previous Rounds—begins to die out. The "planetary" dissolution (pralaya) is at hand, and its hour has struck; each globe has to transfer its life and energy to another planet. (See diagram No. 2 infra, "The Moon and the Earth.")
3. Our Earth, as the visible representative of its invisible superior fellow globes, its "lords" or "principles" (see diagram No. 1), has to live, as have the others, through seven Rounds. During the first three, it forms and consolidates; during the fourth it settles and hardens; during the last three it gradually returns to its first ethereal form: it is spiritualised, so to say.
4. Its Humanity develops fully only in the Fourth—our present Round. Up to this fourth Life-Cycle, it is referred to as "humanity" only for lack of a more appropriate term. Like the grub which becomes chrysalis and butterfly, Man, or rather that which becomes man, passes through all the forms and kingdoms during the first Round and through all the human shapes during the two following Rounds. Arrived on our Earth at the commencement of the Fourth in the present series of life-cycles and races, MAN is the first form that appears thereon, being preceded only by the mineral and vegetable kingdoms—even the latter having to develop and continue its further evolution through man. This will be explained in Book II. During the three Rounds to come, Humanity, like the globe on which it lives, will be ever tending to reassume its primeval form, that of a Dhyan Chohanic Host. Man tends to become a God and then—GOD, like every other atom in the Universe.
"Beginning so early as with the 2nd round, Evolution proceeds already on quite a different plan. It is only during the 1st round that (heavenly) man becomes a human being on globe A (rebecomes) a mineral, a plant, an animal, on globe B and C, etc. The process changes
entirely from the second round—but you have learned prudence . . . and I advise you to say nothing before the time for saying it has come. . ." (Extract from the Teacher's letters on various topics.)
5. Every life-cycle on Globe D (our Earth)* is composed of seven root-races. They commence with the Ethereal and end with the spiritual on the double line of physical and moral evolution—from the beginning of the terrestrial round to its close. (One is a "planetary round" from Globe A to Globe G, the seventh; the other, the "globe round," or the terrestrial).
This is very well described in "Esoteric Buddhism" and needs no further elucidation for the time being.
6. The first root-race, i.e., the first "men" on earth (irrespective of form) were the progeny of the "celestial men," called rightly in Indian philosophy the "Lunar Ancestors" or the Pitris, of which there are seven classes or Hierarchies. As all this will be sufficiently explained in the following sections and in Book II., no more need be said of it here.
But the two works already mentioned, both of which treat of subjects from the occult doctrine, need particular notice. "Esoteric Buddhism" is too well known in Theosophical circles, and even to the outside world, for it to be necessary to enter at length upon its merits here. It is an excellent book, and has done still more excellent work. But this does not alter the fact that it contains some mistaken notions, and that it has led many Theosophists and lay-readers to form an erroneous conception of the Secret Eastern Doctrines. Moreover it seems, perhaps, a little too materialistic.
"MAN," which came later, was an attempt
to present the archaic doctrine from a more ideal standpoint, to translate some
visions in and from the Astral Light, to render some teachings partly gathered
from a Master's thoughts, but unfortunately misunderstood. This work also speaks
of the evolution of the early Races of men on Earth, and contains some excellent
pages of a philosophical character. But so far it is only an interesting little
mystical romance. It has failed in its mission, because the conditions required
for a correct translation of these visions were not present. Hence the reader
must not wonder if our Volumes contradict these earlier descriptions in several
particulars.
——————————————————————————————
* We are not concerned with the
other Globes in this work except incidentally.
Esoteric "Cosmogony" in general, and the evolution of the human Monad especially, differ so essentially in these two books and in other Theosophical works written independently by beginners, that it becomes impossible to proceed with the present work without special mention of these two earlier volumes, for both have a number of admirers—"Esoteric Buddhism" especially. The time has arrived for the explanation of some matters in this direction. Mistakes have now to be checked by the original teachings and corrected. If one of the said works has too pronounced a bias toward materialistic science, the other is decidedly too idealistic, and is, at times, fantastic.
From the doctrine—rather incomprehensible to western minds—which deals with the periodical "obscurations" and successive "Rounds" of the Globes along their circular chains, were born the first perplexities and misconceptions. One of such has reference to the "Fifth-" and even "Sixth-Rounders." Those who knew that a Round was preceded and followed by a long Pralaya, a pause of rest which created an impassable gulf between two Rounds until the time came for a renewed cycle of life, could not understand the "fallacy" of talking about "fifth and sixth Rounders" in our Fourth Round. Gautama Buddha, it was held, was a Sixth-Rounder, Plato and some other great philosophers and minds, "Fifth-Rounders." How could it be? One Master taught and affirmed that there were such "Fifth-Rounders" even now on Earth; and though understood to say that mankind was yet "in the Fourth Round," in another place he seemed to say that we were in the Fifth. To this an "apocalyptic answer" was returned by another Teacher:—"A few drops of rain do not make a Monsoon, though they presage it." . . . "No, we are not in the Fifth Round, but Fifth Round men have been coming in for the last few thousand years." This was worse than the riddle of the Sphinx! Students of Occultism subjected their brains to the wildest work of speculation. For a considerable time they tried to outvie Œdipus and reconcile the two statements. And as the Masters kept as silent as the stony Sphinx herself, they were accused of inconsistency, "contradiction," and "discrepancies." But they were simply allowing the speculations to go on, in order to teach a lesson which the Western mind sorely needs. In their conceit and arrogance, as in their habit of materializing every metaphysical conception and term without allowing any margin for Eastern
metaphor and allegory, the Orientalists have made a jumble of the Hindu exoteric philosophy, and the Theosophists were now doing the same with regard to esoteric teachings. To this day it is evident that the latter have utterly failed to understand the meaning of the term "Fifth and Sixth Rounders." But it is simply this: every "Round" brings about a new development and even an entire change in the mental, psychic, spiritual and physical constitution of man, all these principles evoluting on an ever ascending scale. Thence it follows that those persons who, like Confucius and Plato, belonged psychically, mentally and spiritually to the higher planes of evolution, were in our Fourth Round as the average man will be in the Fifth Round, whose mankind is destined to find itself, on this scale of Evolution, immensely higher than is our present humanity. Similarly Gautama Buddha—Wisdom incarnate—was still higher and greater than all the men we have mentioned, who are called Fifth Rounders, while Buddha and Sankaracharya are termed Sixth Rounders, allegorically. Thence again the concealed wisdom of the remark, pronounced at the time "evasive"—that a few drops of rain do not make the Monsoon, though they presage it."
And now the truth of the remark made in "Esoteric Buddhism" by its author will be fully apparent:—
"It is impossible, when the complicated facts of an entirely unfamiliar science are being presented to untrained minds for the first time, to put them forward with all their appropriate qualifications . . . and abnormal developments. . . . We must be content to take the broad rules first and deal with the exceptions afterwards, and especially is this the case with study, in connection with which the traditional methods of teaching, generally followed, aim at impressing every fresh idea on the memory by provoking the perplexity it at last relieves."
As the author of the remark was himself, as he says, "an untrained mind" in Occultism, his own inferences, and his better knowledge of modern astronomical speculations than of archaic doctrines led him quite naturally, and as unconsciously to himself, to commit a few mistakes of detail rather than of any "broad rule." One such will now be noticed. It is a trifling one, still it is calculated to lead many a beginner into erroneous conceptions. But as the mistaken notions of the earlier editions were corrected in the annotations of the fifth edition, so the sixth may be revised and perfected. There were several reasons
for such mistakes. (1) They were due to the necessity under which the teachers laboured of giving what were considered as "evasive answers": the questions being too persistently pressed to be left unnoticed, while, on the other hand, they could only be partially answered. (2) This position notwithstanding, the confession that "half a loaf is better than no bread" was but too often misunderstood and hardly appreciated as it ought to have been. As a result thereof gratuitous speculations were sometimes indulged in by the European lay-chelas. Among such were (a) the "Mystery of the Eighth Sphere" in its relation to the Moon; and (b) the erroneous statement that two of the superior Globes of the terrestrial chain were two of our well-known planets: "besides the Earth . . . there are only two other worlds of our chain which are visible. . . . Mars and Mercury. . . ." (Esoteric Buddhism; p. 136.)
This was a great mistake. But the blame for it is to be attached as much to the vagueness and incompleteness of the Master's answer as to the question of the learner itself, which was equally vague and indefinite.
It was asked: "What planets, of those known to ordinary
science, besides Mercury, belong to our system of worlds?" Now if by "System of
Worlds" our terrestrial chain or "string" was intended in the mind of
the querist, instead of the "Solar System of Worlds," as it should have been,
then of course the answer was likely to be misunderstood. For the reply was:
"Mars, etc., and four other planets of which astronomy knows nothing. Neither A,
B, nor YZ are known nor can they be seen through physical means however
perfected." This is plain: (a) Astronomy as yet knows nothing in reality of the
planets, neither the ancient ones, nor those discovered in modern times. (b) No
companion planets from A to Z, i.e., no upper globes of any
chain in the Solar System, can be seen.* As to Mars, Mercury, and "the four
other planets," they bear
——————————————————————————————
* With the exception of course of
all the planets which come fourth in number, as our earth, the moon,
etc., etc. Copies of all the letters ever received or sent, with the exception
of a few private ones—"in which there was no teaching" the
Master says—are with the writer. As it was her duty, in the beginning, to answer
and explain certain points not touched upon, it is more than likely that
notwithstanding the many annotations on these copies, the writer, in her
ignorance of English and her fear of saying too much, may have bungled the
information given. She takes the whole blame for it upon herself in any and
every case. But it is impossible for her to allow students to remain any
longer under erroneous impressions, or to believe that the fault lies with the
esoteric system.
a relation to Earth of which no master or high Occultist will ever speak, much less explain the nature.*
Let it now be distinctly stated, then, that the theory broached is impossible, with or without the additional evidence furnished by modern Astronomy. Physical Science can supply corroborative, though still very uncertain, evidence, but only as regards heavenly bodies on the same plane of materiality as our objective Universe. Mars and Mercury, Venus and Jupiter, like every hitherto discovered planet (or those still to be discovered), are all, per se, the representatives on our plane of such chains. As distinctly stated in one of the numerous letters of Mr. Sinnett's "Teacher," "there are other and innumerable Manvantaric chains of globes which bear intelligent Beings both in and outside our solar system." But neither Mars nor Mercury belong to our chain. They are, along with the other planets, septenary Units in the great host of "chains" of our system, and all are as visible as their upper globes are invisible.
If it is still argued that certain expressions in the
Teacher's letters were liable to mislead, the answer comes:—Amen; so it was. The
author of "Esoteric Buddhism" understood it well when he wrote that such are
"the traditional modes of teaching . . . by provoking the perplexity" . . . they
do, or do not relieve—as the case may be. At all events, if it
is urged that this might have been explained earlier, and the true nature of the
planets given out as they now are, the answer comes that: "it was not found
expedient to do so at the time, as it would have opened the way to a series of
additional questions which could never be answered on account of their
esoteric nature, and thus would only become embarrassing." It had been
declared from the first and has been repeatedly asserted since that (1st) no
Theosophist, not even as an accepted chela—let alone lay
students—could expect to have the secret teachings explained to him thoroughly
and completely, before he had irretrievably pledged himself to the
Brotherhood and passed through at least one initiation, because no
figures and numbers could be given to the public, for figures and numbers are
the key to the esoteric system. (2.) That
——————————————————————————————
* In this same letter the
impossibility is distinctly stated:— . . . "Try to understand that you are
putting me questions pertaining to the highest initiation; that I can give you
(only) a general view, but that I dare not nor will I enter upon details .
. ." wrote one of the Teachers to the author of "Esoteric Buddhism."
what was revealed was merely the esoteric lining of that which is contained in almost all the exoteric Scriptures of the world-religions—pre-eminently in the Brâhmanas, and the Upanishads of the Vedas and even in the Purânas. It was a small portion of what is divulged far more fully now in the present volumes; and even this is very incomplete and fragmentary.
When the present work was commenced, the writer, feeling sure that the speculation about Mars and Mercury was a mistake, applied to the Teachers by letter for explanation and an authoritative version. Both came in due time, and verbatim extracts from these are now given.
". . . . . It is quite correct that Mars is in a state of obscuration at present, and Mercury just beginning to get out of it. You might add that Venus is in her last Round. . . . . . . . . . . If neither Mercury nor Venus have satellites, it is because of the reasons . . . (vide footnote supra, where those reasons are given), and also because Mars has two satellites to which he has no right. . . . . Phëbos, the supposed INNER satellite, is no satellite at all. As remarked long ago by Laplace and now by Faye (see COMPTES RENDUS, Tome XC., p. 569), Phëbos keeps a too short periodic time, and therefore there 'must exist some defect in the mother idea of the theory' as Faye justly observes. . . . . Again, both (Mars and Mercury) are septenary chains, as independent of the Earth's sidereal lords and superiors as you are independent of the 'principles' of Daumling (Tom Thumb)—which were perhaps his six brothers, with or without night-caps. . . . . . . . . . 'Gratification of curiosity is the end of knowledge for some men,' was said by Bacon, who was as right in postulating this truism, as those who were familiar with it before him were right in hedging off WISDOM from Knowledge, and tracing limits to that which is to be given out at one time. . . . Remember:—
'. . . . . . . . . . . knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men,
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. . . .'
You can never impress it too profoundly on the minds of those to whom you impart some of the esoteric teachings. . ."
Again, here are more extracts from another letter written by the same authority. This time it is in answer to some objections laid before the Teachers. They are based upon extremely scientific, and as
futile, reasonings about the advisability of trying to reconcile the Esoteric theories with the speculations of Modern Science, and were written by a young Theosophist as a warning against the "Secret Doctrine" and in reference to the same subject. He had declared that if there were such companion Earths "they must be only a wee bit less material than our globe." How then was it that they could not be seen? The answer was:—
". . . . Were psychic and spiritual teachings more fully understood, it would become next to impossible to even imagine such an incongruity. Unless less trouble is taken to reconcile the irreconcileable—that is to say, the metaphysical and spiritual sciences with physical or natural philosophy, 'natural' being a synonym to them (men of science) of that matter which falls under the perception of their corporeal senses—no progress can be really achieved. Our Globe, as taught from the first, is at the bottom of the arc of descent, where the matter of our perceptions exhibits itself in its grossest form. . . . . . . Hence it only stands to reason that the globes which overshadow our Earth must be on different and superior planes. In short, as Globes, they are in CO-ADUNITION but not IN CONSUBSTANTIALITY WITH OUR EARTH and thus pertain to quite another state of consciousness. Our planet (like all those we see) is adapted to the peculiar state of its human stock, that state which enables us to see with our naked eye the sidereal bodies which are co-essential with our terrene plane and substance, just as their respective inhabitants, the Jovians, Martians and others can perceive our little world: because our planes of consciousness, differing as they do in degree but being the same in kind, are on the same layer of differentiated matter. . . . . What I wrote was 'The minor Pralaya concerns only our little STRINGS OF GLOBES.' (We called chains 'Strings' in those days of lip-confusion.) . . . 'To such a string our Earth belongs.' This ought to have shown plainly that the other planets were also 'strings' or CHAINS. . . If he (meaning the objector) would perceive even the dim silhouette of one of such 'planets' on the higher planes, he has to first throw off even the thin clouds of the astral matter that stands between him and the next plane. . . . ."
It becomes patent why we could not perceive, even with the help of the best earthly telescopes, that which is outside our world of matter. Those alone, whom we call adepts, who know how to direct their mental vision and to transfer their consciousness—physical and psychic both—
to other planes of being, are able to speak with authority on such subjects. And they tell us plainly:—
"Lead the life necessary for the acquisition of such knowledge and powers, and Wisdom will come to you naturally. Whenever your are able to attune your consciousness to any of the seven chords of 'Universal Consciousness,' those chords that run along the sounding-board of Kosmos, vibrating from one Eternity to another; when you have studied thoroughly 'the music of the Spheres,' then only will you become quite free to share your knowledge with those with whom it is safe to do so. Meanwhile, be prudent. Do not give out the great Truths that are the inheritance of the future Races, to our present generation. Do not attempt to unveil the secret of being and non-being to those unable to see the hidden meaning of Apollo's HEPTACHORD—the lyre of the radiant god, in each of the seven strings of which dwelleth the Spirit, Soul and Astral body of the Kosmos, whose shell only has now fallen into the hands of Modern Science. . . . . . Be prudent, we say, prudent and wise, and above all take care what those who learn from you believe in; lest by deceiving themselves they deceive others . . . . . for such is the fate of every truth with which men are, as yet, unfamiliar. . . . Let rather the planetary chains and other super- and sub-cosmic mysteries remain a dreamland for those who can neither see, nor yet believe that others can. . . ."
It is to be regretted that few of us have followed the wise advice; and that many a priceless pearl, many a jewel of wisdom, has been cast to an enemy unable to understand its value and who has turned round and rent us.
" 'Let us imagine,' wrote the same Master to his two 'lay chelas,' as he called the author of 'Esoteric Buddhism' and another gentleman, his co-student for some time—'let us imagine THAT OUR EARTH IS ONE OF A GROUP OF SEVEN PLANETS OR MAN-BEARING WORLDS. . . . . . (The SEVEN planets are the sacred planets of antiquity, and are all septenary.) Now the life-impulse reaches A, or rather that which is destined to become A, and which so far is but cosmic dust (a "laya centre") . . etc.' "
In these early letters, in which the terms had to be invented and words coined, the "Rings" very often became "Rounds," and the "Rounds" life-cycles, and vice versa. To a correspondent who called a "Round" a "World-Ring," the Teacher wrote: "I believe this will lead to a further confusion. A Round we are agreed to call the passage
of a monad from Globe A to Globe G or Z. . . The 'World-Ring' is correct. . . Advise Mr. . . . strongly, to agree upon a nomenclature before going any further. . . "
Notwithstanding this agreement, many mistakes, owing to this confusion, crept into the earliest teachings. The Races even were occasionally mixed up with the "Rounds" and "Rings," and led to similar mistakes in "Man." From the first the Master had written—
"Not being permitted to give you the whole truth, or divulge the number of isolated fractions . . . I am unable to satisfy you."
This in answer to the questions, "If we are right, then the total existence prior to the man-period is 637," etc., etc. To all the queries relating to figures, the reply was, "Try to solve the problem of 777 incarnations. . . . Though I am obliged to withhold information . . . yet if you should work out the problem by yourself, it will be my duty to tell you so."
But they never were so worked out, and the results were—never-ceasing perplexity and mistakes.
Even the teaching about the Septenary constitution of
the sidereal bodies and of the macrocosm—from which the septenary division of
the microcosm, or Man—has until now been among the most esoteric. In olden times
it used to be divulged only at the Initiation and along with the most sacred
figures of the cycles. Now, as stated in one of the Theosophical journals, *
the revelation of the whole system of Cosmogony had not been contemplated, nor
even thought for one moment possible, at a time when a few bits of information
were sparingly given out in answer to letters written by the author of "Esoteric
Buddhism," in which he put forward a multiplicity of questions. Among these were
questions on such problems as no MASTER, however
high and independent he might be, would have the right to answer,
thus divulging to the world the most time-honoured and archaic of the mysteries
of the ancient college-temples. Hence only a few of the doctrines were
revealed in their broad outlines, while details were constantly withheld, and
all the efforts made to elicit more information about them were systematically
eluded from the beginning. This is perfectly natural. Of the four Vidyas—out of
the seven branches of Knowledge mentioned in the Purânas—namely, "Yajna-Vidya"
(the performance of religious rites in order to
——————————————————————————————
* "Lucifer," May,
1888.
produce certain results); "Maha-Vidya," the great (Magic) knowledge, now degenerated into Tantrika worship; "Guhya-Vidya," the science of Mantras and their true rhythm or chanting, of mystical incantations, etc.—it is only the last one, "Atma-Vidya," or the true Spiritual and Divine wisdom, which can throw absolute and final light upon the teachings of the three first named. Without the help of Atma-Vidya, the other three remain no better than surface sciences, geometrical magnitudes having length and breadth, but no thickness. They are like the soul, limbs, and mind of a sleeping man: capable of mechanical motions, of chaotic dreams and even sleep-walking, of producing visible effects, but stimulated by instinctual not intellectual causes, least of all by fully conscious spiritual impulses. A good deal can be given out and explained from the three first-named sciences. But unless the key to their teachings is furnished by Atma-Vidya, they will remain for ever like the fragments of a mangled text-book, like the adumbrations of great truths, dimly perceived by the most spiritual, but distorted out of all proportion by those who would nail every shadow to the wall.
Then, again, another great perplexity was created in the minds of students by the incomplete exposition of the doctrine of the evolution of the Monads. To be fully realised, both this process and that of the birth of the Globes must be examined far more from their metaphysical aspect than from what one might call a statistical standpoint, involving figures and numbers which are rarely permitted to be broadly used. Unfortunately, there are few who are inclined to handle these doctrines only metaphysically. Even the best of the Western writers upon our doctrine declares in his work that "on pure metaphysics of that sort we are not now engaged," when speaking of the evolution of the Monads ("Esoteric Buddhism," p. 46). And in such case, as the Teacher remarks in a letter to him, "Why this preaching of our doctrines, all this uphill work and swimming in adversum flumen? Why should the West . . . learn . . . from the East . . . that which can never meet the requirements of the special tastes of the aesthetics?" And he draws his correspondent's attention "to the formidable difficulties encountered by us (the Adepts) in every attempt we make to explain our metaphysics to the Western mind."
And well he may; for outside of metaphysics no occult philosophy, no esotericism is possible. It is like trying to explain the aspirations and affections, the love and hatred, the most private and sacred workings in
the soul and mind of the living man, by an anatomical description of the chest and brain of his dead body.
Let us now examine two tenets mentioned above and hardly alluded to in "Esoteric Buddhism," and supplement them as far as lies in our power.
—————
Two statements made in "Esoteric Buddhism" must be noticed and the author's opinions quoted. On p. 47 (fifth edition) it is said:—
" . . . the spiritual monads. . . do not fully complete their mineral existence on Globe A, then complete it on Globe B, and so on. They pass several times round the whole circle as minerals, and then again several times round as vegetables, and several times as animals. We purposely refrain for the present from going into figures," etc., etc.
This was a wise course to adopt in view of the great secrecy maintained with regard to figures and numbers. This reticence is now partially relinquished; but it would perhaps have been better had the real numbers concerning Rounds and evolutional gyrations been either entirely divulged at the time, or as entirely withheld. Mr. Sinnett understood this difficulty well when saying (p. 140) that: "For reasons which are not easy for the outsider to divine, the possessors of occult knowledge are especially reluctant to give out facts relating to Cosmogony, though it is hard for the uninitiated to understand why they should be withheld."
That there were such reasons is evident. Nevertheless, it is to this reticence that most of the confused ideas of some Eastern as well as Western pupils are due. The difficulties in the way of the acceptance of the two particular tenets under consideration seemed great, just because of the absence of any data to go upon. But there it was. For the figures belonging to the Occult calculations cannot be given—as the Masters have many times declared—outside the circle of pledged chelas, and not even these can break the rules.
To make things plainer, without touching upon the mathematical aspects of the doctrine, the teaching given may be expanded and some obscure
points solved. As the evolution of the Globes and that of the Monads are so closely interblended, we will make of the two teachings one. In reference to the Monads, the reader is asked to bear in mind that Eastern philosophy rejects the Western theological dogma of a newly-created soul for every baby born, as being as unphilosophical as it is impossible in the economy of Nature. There must be a limited number of Monads evolving and growing more and more perfect through their assimilation of many successive personalities, in every new Manvantara. This is absolutely necessary in view of the doctrines of Rebirth, Karma, and the gradual return of the human Monad to its source—absolute Deity. Thus, although the hosts of more or less progressed Monads are almost incalculable, they are still finite, as is everything in this Universe of differentiation and finiteness.
As shown in the double diagram of the human "principles" and the ascending Globes of the world-chains, there is an eternal concatenation of causes and effects, and a perfect analogy which runs through, and links together, all the lines of evolution. One begets the other—globes as personalities. But, let us begin at the beginning.
The general outline of the process by which the successive planetary chains are formed has just been given. To prevent future misconceptions, some further details may be offered which will also throw light on the history of humanity on our own chain, the progeny of that of the Moon.
In the diagrams on p. 172, Fig. 1 represents the "lunar-chain" of seven planets at the outset of its seventh or last Round; while Fig. 2 represents the "earth-chain" which will be, but is not yet in existence. The seven Globes of each chain are distinguished in their cyclic order by the letters A to G, the Globes of the Earth-chain being further marked by a cross—+—the symbol of the Earth.
Now, it must be remembered that the Monads cycling round any septenary chain are divided into seven classes or hierarchies according to their respective stages of evolution, consciousness, and merit. Let us follow, then, the order of their appearance on planet A, in the first Round. The time-spaces between the appearances of these hierarchies on any one Globe are so adjusted that when Class 7, the last, appears on Globe A, Class 1, the first, has just passed on to Globe B, and so on, step by step, all round the chain.
Again, in the Seventh Round on the Lunar chain, when Class 7, the
last, quits Globe A, that Globe, instead of falling asleep, as it had done in previous Rounds, begins to die (to go into its planetary pralaya);* and in dying it transfers successively, as just said, its "principles," or life-elements and energy, etc., one after the other to a new "laya-centre," which commences the formation of Globe A of the Earth Chain. A similar process takes place for each of the Globes of the "lunar chain" one after the other, each forming a fresh Globe of the "earth-chain." Our Moon was the fourth Globe of the series, and was
on the same plane of perception as our Earth. But Globe
A of the lunar chain is not fully "dead" till the first Monads of the first
class have passed from Globe G or Z, the last of the "lunar chain," into the
Nirvana
——————————————————————————————
* Occultism divides the periods of
Rest (Pralaya) into several kinds; there is the individual pralaya of
each Globe, as humanity and life pass on to the next; seven minor Pralayas in
each Round; the planetary Pralaya, when seven Rounds are
completed; the Solar Pralaya, when the whole system is at an end; and
finally the Universal Maha—or Brahmâ—Pralaya at the close of the "Age of
Brahmâ." These are the three chief pralayas or "destruction periods."
There are many other minor ones, but with these we are not concerned at present.
which awaits them between the two chains; and similarly for all the other Globes as stated, each giving birth to the corresponding globe of the "earth-chain."
Further, when Globe A of the new chain is ready, the first class or Hierarchy of Monads from the Lunar chain incarnate upon it in the lowest kingdom, and so on successively. The result of this is, that it is only the first class of Monads which attains the human state of development during the first Round, since the second class, on each planet, arriving later, has not time to reach that stage. Thus the Monads of Class 2 reach the incipient human stage only in the Second Round, and so on up to the middle of the Fourth Round. But at this point—and on this Fourth Round in which the human stage will be fully developed—the "Door" into the human kingdom closes; and henceforward the number of "human" Monads, i.e., Monads in the human stage of development, is complete. For the Monads which had not reached the human stage by this point will, owing to the evolution of humanity itself, find themselves so far behind that they will reach the human stage only at the close of the seventh and last Round. They will, therefore, not be men on this chain, but will form the humanity of a future Manvantara and be rewarded by becoming "Men" on a higher chain altogether, thus receiving their Karmic compensation. To this there is but one solitary exception, for very good reasons, of which we shall speak farther on. But this accounts for the difference in the races.
It thus becomes apparent how perfect is the analogy between the processes of Nature in the Kosmos and in the individual man. The latter lives through his life-cycle, and dies. His "higher principles," corresponding in the development of a planetary chain to the cycling Monads, pass into Devachan, which corresponds to the "Nirvana" and states of rest intervening between two chains. The Man's lower "principles" are disintegrated in time and are used by Nature again for the formation of new human principles, and the same process takes place in the disintegration and formation of Worlds. Analogy is thus the surest guide to the comprehension of the Occult teachings.
This is one of the "seven mysteries of the Moon," and it is now revealed. The seven "mysteries" are called by the Japanese Yamaboosis, the mystics of the Lao-Tze sect and the ascetic monks of Kioto, the Dzenodoo—the "seven jewels." Only the Japanese and the Chinese
Buddhist ascetics and Initiates are, if possible, even more reticent in giving out their "Knowledge" than are the Hindus.
But the reader must not be allowed to lose sight of the Monads, and must be enlightened as to their nature, as far as permitted, without trespassing upon the highest mysteries, of which the writer does not in any way pretend to know the last or final word.
The Monadic Host may be roughly divided into three great classes:—
1. The most developed Monads (the Lunar Gods or "Spirits," called, in India, the Pitris), whose function it is to pass in the first Round through the whole triple cycle of the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms in their most ethereal, filmy, and rudimentary forms, in order to clothe themselves in, and assimilate, the nature of the newly formed chain. They are those who first reach the human form (if there can be any form in the realm of the almost subjective) on Globe A in the first Round. It is they, therefore, who lead and represent the human element during the second and third Rounds, and finally evolve their shadows at the beginning of the Fourth Round for the second class, or those who come behind them.
2. Those Monads that are the first to reach the human
stage during the three and a half Rounds, and to become men.*
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* We are forced to use here the
misleading word "Men," and this is a clear proof of how little any European
language is adapted to express these subtle distinctions.
It stands to reason that these "Men" did not
resemble the men of to-day, either in form or nature. Why then, it may be asked,
call them "Men" at all? Because there is no other term in any Western language
which approximately conveys the idea intended. The word "Men" at least indicates
that these beings were "MANUS," thinking entities, however they differed in form
and intellection from ourselves. But in reality they were, in respect of
spirituality and intellection, rather "gods" than "Men."
The same difficulty of language is met with in
describing the "stages" through which the Monad passes. Metaphysically speaking,
it is of course an absurdity to talk of the "development" of a Monad, or to say
that it becomes "Man." But any attempt to preserve metaphysical accuracy
of language in the use of such a tongue as the English would necessitate at
least three extra volumes of this work, and would entail an amount of verbal
repetition which would be wearisome in the extreme. It stands to reason that a
MONAD cannot either progress or develop, or even be affected by
the changes of states it passes through. It is not of this world or plane,
and may be compared only to an indestructible star of divine light and
fire, thrown down on to our Earth as a plank of salvation for the personalities
in which it indwells. It is for the latter to cling to it; and thus partaking of
its divine nature, obtain immortality. Left to itself the Monad will cling to no
one; but, like the "plank," be drifted away to another incarnation by the unresting current of
evolution.
3. The laggards; the Monads which are retarded, and which will not reach, by reason of Karmic impediments, the human stage at all during this cycle or Round, save one exception which will be spoken of elsewhere as already promised.
Now the evolution of the external form or body round the astral is produced by the terrestrial forces, just as in the case of the lower kingdoms; but the evolution of the internal or real MAN is purely spiritual. It is now no more a passage of the impersonal Monad through many and various forms of matter—endowed at best with instinct and consciousness on quite a different plane—as in the case of external evolution, but a journey of the "pilgrim-soul" through various states of not only matter but Self-consciousness and self-perception, or of perception from apperception. (See "Gods, Monads and Atoms.")
The MONAD emerges from its state of spiritual and intellectual unconsciousness; and, skipping the first two planes —too near the ABSOLUTE to permit of any correlation with anything on a lower plane—it gets direct into the plane of Mentality. But there is no plane in the whole universe with a wider margin, or a wider field of action in its almost endless gradations of perceptive and apperceptive qualities, than this plane, which has in its turn an appropriate smaller plane for every "form," from the "mineral" monad up to the time when that monad blossoms forth by evolution into the DIVINE MONAD. But all the time it is still one and the same Monad, differing only in its incarnations, throughout its ever succeeding cycles of partial or total obscuration of spirit, or the partial or total obscuration of matter—two polar antitheses—as it ascends into the realms of mental spirituality, or descends into the depths of materiality.
To return to "Esoteric Buddhism." It is there stated
with regard to the enormous period intervening between the mineral epoch on
Globe A, and the man-epoch, * that: "The full development of the
——————————————————————————————
* The term "Man epoch" is here
used because of the necessity of giving a name to that fourth kingdom which
follows the animal. But in truth the "Man" on Globe A during the First Round is
no Man, but only his prototype or dimensionless image from the astral regions.
mineral epoch on Globe A, prepares the way for the vegetable development, and, as soon as this begins, the mineral life-impulse overflows into Globe B. Then, when the vegetable development on Globe A is complete and the animal development begins, the vegetable life-impulse overflows to Globe B, and the mineral impulse passes on to Globe C. Then finally comes the human life-impulse on Globe A." (Page 49.)
And so it goes on for three Rounds, when it slackens, and finally stops at the threshold of our Globe, at the Fourth Round; because the human period (of the true physical men to be), the seventh, is now reached. This is evident, for as said, " . . . there are processes of evolution which precede the mineral kingdom, and thus a wave of evolution, indeed several waves of evolution, precede the mineral wave in its progress round the spheres" (ibid).
And now we have to quote from another article, "The Mineral Monad" in "Five Years of Theosophy," p. 273 et seq.
"There are seven kingdoms. The first group comprises three degrees of elementals, or nascent centres of forces—from the first stage of differentiation of (from) Mulaprakriti (or rather Pradhâna, primordial homogeneous matter) to its third degree—i.e., from full unconsciousness to semi-perception; the second or higher group embraces the kingdoms from vegetable to man; the mineral kingdom thus forming the central or turning point in the degrees of the "Monadic Essence," considered as an evoluting energy. Three stages (sub-physical) on the elemental side; the mineral kingdom; three stages on the objective physical * side—these are the (first or preliminary) seven links of the evolutionary chain."
"Preliminary" because they are preparatory, and though belonging in fact to the natural, they yet would be more correctly described as sub-natural evolution. This process makes a halt in its stages at the Third, at the threshold of the Fourth stage, when it becomes, on the plane of the natural evolution, the first really manward stage, thus forming with the three elemental kingdoms, the ten, the Sephirothal number. It is at this point that begins:—
"A descent of spirit into matter equivalent to an ascent
in physical
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* "Physical" here means
differentiated for cosmical purposes and work; that "physical side,"
nevertheless, if objective to the apperception of beings from other planes, is
yet quite subjective to us on our plane.
evolution; a re-ascent from the deepest depths of materiality (the mineral) towards its status quo ante, with a corresponding dissipation of concrete organism—up to Nirvana, the vanishing point of differentiated matter." ("Five Years of Theosophy," p. 276.)
Therefore it becomes evident why that which is pertinently called in Esoteric Buddhism "Wave of Evolution," and mineral-, vegetable-, animal- and man-"impulse," stops at the door of our Globe, at its Fourth cycle or Round. It is at this point that the Cosmic Monad (Buddhi) will be wedded to and become the vehicle of the Atmic Ray, i.e., it (Buddhi) will awaken to an apperception of it (Atman); and thus enter on the first step of a new septenary ladder of evolution, which will lead it eventually to the tenth (counting from the lowest upwards) of the Sephirothal tree, the Crown.
Everything in the Universe follows analogy. "As above, so below"; Man is the microcosm of the Universe. That which takes place on the spiritual plane repeats itself on the Cosmic plane. Concretion follows the lines of abstraction; corresponding to the highest must be the lowest; the material to the spiritual. Thus, corresponding to the Sephirothal Crown (or upper triad) there are the three elemental Kingdoms, which precede the Mineral (see diagram on p. 277 in Five Years of Theosophy), and which, using the language of the Kabalists, answer in the Cosmic differentiation to the worlds of Form and Matter from the Super-Spiritual to the Archetypal.
Now what is a "Monad?" And what relation does it bear to an Atom? The following reply is based upon the explanations given in answer to these questions in the above-cited article: "The Mineral Monad," written by the author.
"None whatever," is answered to the second question, "to the atom or molecule as existing in the scientific conception at present. It can neither be compared with the microscopic organism, once classed among polygastric infusoria, and now regarded as vegetable, and classed among Algæ; nor is it quite the Monas of the Peripatetics. Physically or constitutionally the mineral monad differs, of course, from the human monad, which is neither physical nor can its constitution be rendered by chemical symbols and elements." In short, as the spiritual Monad is One, Universal, Boundless and Impartite, whose rays, nevertheless, form what we, in our ignorance, call the "Individual Monads" of men,
so the Mineral Monad—being at the opposite point of the circle—is also One—and from it proceed the countless physical atoms, which Science is beginning to regard as individualized.
Otherwise how could one account for and explain mathematically the evolutionary and spiral progress of the Four Kingdoms? The "Monad" is the combination of the last two "principles" in man, the 6th and the 7th, and, properly speaking, the term "human monad" applies only to the dual soul (Atma-Buddhi), not to its highest spiritual vivifying Principle, Atma, alone. But since the Spiritual Soul, if divorced from the latter (Atma) could have no existence, no being, it has thus been called . . . . Now the Monadic, or rather Cosmic, Essence (if such a term be permitted) in the mineral, vegetable, and animal, though the same throughout the series of cycles from the lowest elemental up to the Deva Kingdom, yet differs in the scale of progression. It would be very misleading to imagine a Monad as a separate Entity trailing its slow way in a distinct path through the lower Kingdoms, and after an incalculable series of transformations flowering into a human being; in short, that the Monad of a Humboldt dates back to the Monad of an atom of horneblende. Instead of saying a "Mineral Monad," the more correct phraseology in physical Science, which differentiates every atom, would of course have been to call it "the Monad manifesting in that form of Prakriti called the Mineral Kingdom." The atom, as represented in the ordinary scientific hypothesis, is not a particle of something, animated by a psychic something, destined after æons to blossom as a man. But it is a concrete manifestation of the Universal Energy which itself has not yet become individualized; a sequential manifestation of the one Universal Monas. The ocean (of matter) does not divide into its potential and constituent drops until the sweep of the life-impulse reaches the evolutionary stage of man-birth. The tendency towards segregation into individual Monads is gradual, and in the higher animals comes almost to the point. The Peripatetics applied the word Monas to the whole Kosmos, in the pantheistic sense; and the Occultists, while accepting this thought for convenience sake, distinguish the progressive stages of the evolution of the concrete from the abstract by terms of which the "Mineral, Vegetable, Animal, (etc.), Monad" are examples. The term merely means that the tidal wave of spiritual evolution is passing through that arc of its circuit. The "Monadic
Essence" begins to imperceptibly differentiate towards individual consciousness in the Vegetable Kingdom. As the Monads are uncompounded things, as correctly defined by Leibnitz, it is the spiritual essence which vivifies them in their degrees of differentiation, which properly constitutes the Monad—not the atomic aggregation, which is only the vehicle and the substance through which thrill the lower and the higher degrees of intelligence.
Leibnitz conceived of the Monads as elementary and indestructible units endowed with the power of giving and receiving with respect to other units, and thus of determining all spiritual and physical phenomena. It is he who invented the term apperception, which together with nerve- (not perception, but rather)—sensation, expresses the state of the Monadic consciousness through all the Kingdoms up to Man.
Thus it may be wrong on strictly metaphysical lines to call Atma-Buddhi a MONAD, since in the materialistic view it is dual and therefore compound. But as Matter is Spirit, and vice versa; and since the Universe and the Deity which informs it are unthinkable apart from each other; so in the case of Atma-Buddhi. The latter being the vehicle of the former, Buddhi stands in the same relation to Atma, as Adam-Kadmon, the Kabalistic Logos, does to En-Soph, or Mulaprakriti to Parabrahm.
A few words more of the Moon.
What, it may be asked, are the "Lunar Monads," just spoken of? The description of the seven classes of Pitris will come later, but now some general explanations may be given. It must be plain to everyone that they are Monads, who, having ended their life-cycle on the lunar chain, which is inferior to the terrestrial chain, have incarnated on this one. But there are some further details which may be added, though they border too closely on forbidden ground to be treated of fully. The last word of the mystery is divulged only to the adepts, but it may be stated that our satellite is only the gross body of its invisible principles. Seeing then that there are 7 Earths, so there are 7 Moons, the last one alone being visible; the same for the Sun, whose visible body is called a Maya, a reflection, just as man's body is. "The real Sun and the real Moon are as invisible as the real man," says an occult maxim.
And it may be remarked en passant that those ancients were not so foolish after all who first started the idea of "the seven moons." For though
this conception is now taken solely as an astronomical measure of time, in a very materialised form, yet underlying the husk there can still be recognised the traces of a profoundly philosophical idea.
In reality the Moon is only the satellite of the Earth in one respect, viz., that physically the Moon revolves round the Earth. But in every other respect it is the Earth which is the satellite of the Moon, and not vice versa. Startling as the statement may seem it is not without confirmation from scientific knowledge. It is evidenced by the tides, by the cyclic changes in many forms of disease which coincide with the lunar phases; it can be traced in the growth of plants, and is very marked in the phenomena of human gestation and conception. The importance of the Moon and its influence on the Earth were recognized in every ancient religion, notably the Jewish, and have been remarked by many observers of psychical and physical phenomena. But, so far as Science knows, the Earth's action on the Moon is confined to the physical attraction, which causes her to circle in her orbit. And should an objector insist that this fact alone is sufficient evidence that the Moon is truly the Earth's satellite on other planes of action, one may reply by asking whether a mother, who walks round and round her child's cradle keeping watch over the infant, is the subordinate of her child or dependent upon it; though in one sense she is its satellite, yet she is certainly older and more fully developed than the child she watches.
It is, then, the Moon that plays the largest and most important part, as well in the formation of the Earth itself, as in the peopling thereof with human beings. The "Lunar Monads" or Pitris, the ancestors of man, become in reality man himself. They are the "Monads" who enter on the cycle of evolution on Globe A, and who, passing round the chain of planets, evolve the human form as has just been shown. At the beginning of the human stage of the Fourth Round on this Globe, they "ooze out" their astral doubles from the "ape-like" forms which they had evolved in Round III. And it is this subtle, finer form, which serves as the model round which Nature builds physical man. These "Monads" or "divine sparks" are thus the "Lunar" ancestors, the Pitris themselves. For these "Lunar Spirits" have to become "Men" in order that their "Monads" may reach a higher plane of activity and self-consciousness, i.e., the plane of the Manasa-Putras, those who
endow the "senseless" shells, created and informed by the Pitris, with "mind" in the latter part of the Third Root-Race.
In the same way the "Monads" or Egos of the men of the seventh Round of our Earth, after our own Globes A, B, C, D, et seq., parting with their life-energy, will have informed and thereby called to life other laya-centres destined to live and act on a still higher plane of being—in the same way will the Terrene "Ancestors" create those who will become their superiors.
It now becomes plain that there exists in Nature a triple evolutionary scheme, for the formation of the three periodical Upadhis; or rather three separate schemes of evolution, which in our system are inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point. These are the Monadic (or spiritual), the intellectual, and the physical evolutions. These three are the finite aspects or the reflections on the field of Cosmic Illusion of ATMA, the seventh, the ONE REALITY.
1. The Monadic is, as the name implies, concerned with the growth and development into still higher phases of activity of the Monad in conjunction with:—
2. The Intellectual, represented by the Manasa-Dhyanis (the Solar Devas, or the Agnishwatta Pitris) the "givers of intelligence and consciousness" * to man and:—
3. The Physical, represented by the Chhayas of the lunar Pitris, round which Nature has concreted the present physical body. This body serves as the vehicle for the "growth" (to use a misleading word) and the transformations through Manas and—owing to the accumulation of experiences—of the finite into the INFINITE, of the transient into the Eternal and Absolute.
Each of these three systems has its own laws, and is ruled and guided by different sets of the highest Dhyanis or "Logoi." Each is represented in the constitution of man, the Microcosm of the great Macrocosm; and it is the union of these three streams in him which makes him the complex being he now is.
"Nature," the physical evolutionary Power, could never
evolve intelligence unaided—she can only create "senseless forms," as will be
seen in our "ANTHROPOGENESIS." The "Lunar
Monads" cannot progress, for they have not yet had sufficient touch with the
forms
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* Vide
CONCLUSION in Part II. of this Book.
created by "Nature" to allow of their accumulating experiences through its means. It is the Manasa-Dhyanis who fill up the gap, and they represent the evolutionary power of Intelligence and Mind, the link between "Spirit" and "Matter"—in this Round.
Also it must be borne in mind that the Monads which enter upon the evolutionary cycle upon Globe A, in the first Round, are in very different stages of development. Hence the matter becomes somewhat complicated. . . . Let us recapitulate.
The most developed Monads (the lunar) reach the human germ-stage in the first Round; become terrestrial, though very ethereal human beings towards the end of the Third Round, remaining on it (the globe) through the "obscuration" period as the seed for future mankind in the Fourth Round, and thus become the pioneers of Humanity at the beginning of this, the Fourth Round. Others reach the Human stage only during later Rounds, i.e., in the second, third, or first half of the Fourth Round. And finally the most retarded of all, i.e., those still occupying animal forms after the middle turning-point of the Fourth Round—will not become men at all during this Manwantara. They will reach to the verge of humanity only at the close of the seventh Round to be, in their turn, ushered into a new chain after pralaya—by older pioneers, the progenitors of humanity, or the Seed-Humanity (Sishta), viz., the men who will be at the head of all at the end of these Rounds.
The student hardly needs any further explanation on the part played by the fourth Globe and the fourth Round in the scheme of evolution.
From the preceding diagrams, which are applicable, mutatis mutandis, to Rounds, Globes or Races, it will be seen that the fourth member of a series occupies a unique position. Unlike the others, the Fourth has no "sister" Globe on the same plane as itself, and it thus forms the fulcrum of the "balance" represented by the whole chain. It is the sphere of final evolutionary adjustments, the world of Karmic scales, the Hall of Justice, where the balance is struck which determines the future course of the Monad during the remainder of its incarnations in the cycle. And therefore it is, that, after this central turning-point has been passed in the Great Cycle,—i.e., after the middle point of the Fourth Race in the Fourth Round on our Globe—no more Monads can enter the human kingdom. The door is closed for this Cycle and the balance struck. For were it otherwise—had there been a new soul
created for each of the countless milliards of human beings that have passed away, and had there been no reincarnation—it would become difficult indeed to provide room for the disembodied "Spirits;" nor could the origin and cause of suffering ever be accounted for. It is the ignorance of the occult tenets and the enforcement of false conceptions under the guise of religious education, which have created materialism and atheism as a protest against the asserted divine order of things.
The only exceptions to the rule just stated are the "dumb races," whose Monads are already within the human stage, in virtue of the fact that these "animals" are later than, and even half descended from man, their last descendants being the anthropoid and other apes. These "human presentments" are in truth only the distorted copies of the early humanity. But this will receive full attention in the next Book.
As the Commentary, broadly rendered, says:—
1. "Every form on earth, and every speck (atom) in Space strives in its efforts towards self-formation to follow the model placed for it in the ' HEAVENLY MAN.' . . . Its (the atom's) involution and evolution, its external and internal growth and development, have all one and the same object—man; man, as the highest physical and ultimate form on this earth; the MONAD, in its absolute totality and awakened condition—as the culmination of the divine incarnations on Earth."
2. "The Dhyanis (Pitris) are those who have evolved their BHUTA (doubles) from themselves, which RUPA (form) has become the vehicle of monads (seventh and sixth principles) that had completed their cycle of transmigration in the three preceding Kalpas (Rounds). Then, they (the astral doubles) became the men of the first Human Race of the Round. But they were not complete, and were senseless."
This will be explained in the Books that follow. Meanwhile man—or rather his Monad—has existed on the earth from the very beginning of this Round. But, up to our own Fifth Race, the external shapes which covered those divine astral doubles changed and consolidated with every sub-race; the form and physical structure of the fauna changing at the same time, as they had to be adapted to the ever-changing conditions of life on this globe during the geological periods of its formative cycle. And thus shall they go on changing with every
Root Race and every chief sub-race down to the last one of the Seventh in this Round.
3. "The inner, now concealed, man, was then (in the beginnings) the external man. The progeny of the Dhyanis (Pitris), he was 'the son like unto his father.' Like the lotus, whose external shape assumes gradually the form of the model within itself, so did the form of man in the beginning evolve from within without. After the cycle in which man began to procreate his species after the fashion of the present animal kingdom, it became the reverse. The human fœtus follows now in its transformations all the forms that the physical frame of man had assumed throughout the three Kalpas (Rounds) during the tentative efforts at Plastic formation around the monad by senseless, because imperfect, matter, in her blind wanderings. In the present age, the physical embryo is a plant, a reptile, an animal, before it finally becomes man, evolving within himself his own ethereal counterpart, in his turn. In the beginning it was that counterpart (astral man) which, being senseless, got entangled in the meshes of matter."
But this "man" belongs to the fourth Round. As shown, the MONAD had passed through, journeyed and been imprisoned in, every transitional form throughout every kingdom of nature during the three preceding Rounds. But the monad which becomes human is not the Man. In this Round—with the exception of the highest mammals after man, the anthropoids destined to die out in this our race, when their monads will be liberated and pass into the astral human forms (or the highest elementals) of the Sixth * and the Seventh Races, and then into lowest human forms in the fifth Round—no units of either of the kingdoms are animated any longer by monads destined to become human in their next stage, but only by the lower Elementals of their respective realms. †
The last human Monad incarnated before the beginning of
the 5th
——————————————————————————————
* Nature never repeats
herself, therefore the anthropoids of our day have not existed at any time since
the middle of the Miocene period; when, like all cross breeds, they began to
show a tendency, more and more marked as time went on, to return to the type of
their first parent, the black and yellow gigantic Lemuro-Atlantean. To search
for the "Missing Link" is useless. To the scientists of the closing sixth
Root-race, millions and millions of years hence, our modern races, or rather
their fossils, will appear as those of small insignificant apes—an extinct
species of the genus homo.
† These "Elementals" will become human Monads, in their turn, only at the next great planetary Manvantara.
Root-Race. * The cycle of metempsychosis
for the human monad is closed, for we are in the Fourth Round and the
Fifth
Root-Race. The reader will have to bear in mind—at any rate one who has made
himself acquainted with "Esoteric Buddhism"—that the Stanzas which follow in
this Book and Book II speak of the evolution in our Fourth Round only. The
latter is the cycle of the turning-point, after which, matter,
——————————————————————————————
* Such anthropoids form an exception
because they were not intended by Nature, but are the direct product and
creation of "senseless" man. The Hindus give a divine origin to the apes and
monkeys because the men of the Third Race were gods from another plane who had
become "senseless" mortals. This subject had already been touched upon in "Isis
Unveiled" twelve years ago as plainly as was then possible. On pp. 278-279, the
reader is referred "to the Brahmins, if he would know the reason of the regard
they have for the monkeys. For then he (the reader) would perhaps learn—were the
Brahman to judge him worthy of an explanation—that the Hindu sees in the ape but
what Manu desired he should: the transformation of species most directly
connected with that of the human family, a bastard branch engrafted on their own
stock before the final perfection of the latter. He might learn, further, that
in the eyes of the educated 'heathen' the spiritual or inner man is one thing,
and his terrestrial physical casket another. That physical nature, the great
combination of physical correlations of forces, ever creeping onward towards
perfection, has to avail herself of the material at hand; she models and
remodels as she proceeds, and finishing her crowning work in man, presents him
alone as a fit tabernacle for the overshadowing of the divine Spirit."
Moreover, a German scientific work is mentioned
in a footnote on the same page. It says that a Hanoverian scientist had recently
published a Book entitled "Ueber die Auflosung der Arten durch Naturliche
Zucht-wahl," in which he shows, with great ingenuity, that Darwin was wholly
mistaken in tracing man back to the ape. On the contrary, he maintains that it
is the ape which is evolved from man. He shows that, in the beginning, mankind
were morally and physically the types and prototypes of our present Race, and of
our human dignity, by their beauty of form, regularity of feature, cranial
development, nobility of sentiments, heroic impulses, and grandeur of ideal
conception. This is a purely Brahmanic, Buddhistic and Kabalistic philosophy.
The Book is copiously illustrated with diagrams, tables, etc. It asserts that
the gradual debasement and degradation of man, morally and physically, can be
readily traced throughout the ethnological transformation down to our time. And,
as one portion has already degenerated into apes, so the civilized man of the
present day will at last, under the action of the inevitable law of necessity,
be also succeeded by like descendants. If we may judge of the future by the
actual Present, it certainly does seem possible that so unspiritual and
materialistic a body should end as Simia rather than as Seraphs. But though the
apes descend from man, it is certainly not the fact that the human Monad, which
has once reached the level of humanity, ever incarnates again in the form of an
animal.
having reached its lowest depths, begins to strive onward and to get spiritualized with every new Race and with every fresh cycle. Therefore the student must take care not to see contradiction where there is none, as in "Esoteric Buddhism" Rounds are spoken of in general, while here only the Fourth, or our present Round, is meant. Then it was the work of formation; now it is that of reformation and evolutionary perfection.
Finally, to close this chapter anent various, but unavoidable misconceptions, we must refer to a statement in "Esoteric Buddhism" which has produced a very fatal impression upon the minds of many Theosophists. One unfortunate sentence from the work just referred to is constantly brought forward to prove the materialism of the doctrine. On p. 48, 5th Edition, the Author, referring to the progress of organisms on the Globes, says that "the mineral kingdom will no more develop the vegetable . . . than the Earth was able to develop man from the ape, till it received an impulse."
Whether this sentence renders literally the thought of the author, or is simply (as we believe it is) a lapsus calami, may remain an open question.
It is really with surprise that we have ascertained the fact that "Esoteric Buddhism" was so little understood by some Theosophists, as to have led them into the belief that it thoroughly supported Darwinian evolution, and especially the theory of the descent of man from a pithecoid ancestor. As one member writes: "I suppose you realise that three-fourths of Theosophists and even outsiders imagine that, as far as the evolution of man is concerned, Darwinism and Theosophy kiss one another." Nothing of the kind was ever realised, nor is there any great warrant for it, so far as we know, in "Esoteric Buddhism." It has been repeatedly stated that evolution as taught by Manu and Kapila was the groundwork of the modern teachings, but neither Occultism nor Theosophy has ever supported the wild theories of the present Darwinists—least of all the descent of man from an ape. Of this, more hereafter. But one has only to turn to p. 47 of "Esoteric Buddhism," 5th edition, to find there the statement that "Man belongs to a kingdom distinctly separate from that of the animals." With such a plain and unequivocal statement before him, it is very strange that any careful student should have been so misled unless he is prepared to charge the author with a gross contradiction.
Every Round repeats on a higher scale the evolutionary work of the preceding Round. With the exception of some higher anthropoids, as just mentioned, the Monadic inflow, or inner evolution, is at an end till the next Manvantara. It can never be too often repeated, that the full-blown human Monads have to be first disposed of, before the new crop of candidates appears on this Globe at the beginning of the next cycle. Thus there is a lull; and this is why, during the Fourth Round, man appears on Earth earlier than any animal creation, as will be described.
But it is still urged that the author of "Esoteric Buddhism" has "preached Darwinism" all along. Certain passages would undoubtedly seem to lend countenance to this inference. Besides which the Occultists themselves are ready to concede partial correctness to the Darwinian hypothesis, in later details, bye-laws of Evolution, and after the midway point of the Fourth Race. Of that which has taken place, physical science can really know nothing, for such matters lie entirely outside of its sphere of investigation. But what the Occultists have never admitted, nor will they ever admit, is that man was an ape in this or in any other Round; or that he ever could be one, however much he may have been "ape-like." This is vouched for by the very authority from whom the author of "Esoteric Buddhism" got his information.
Thus to those who confront the Occultists with these lines from the above-named volume: "It is enough to show that we may as reasonably—and that we must, if we would talk about these matters at all—conceive a life-impulse giving birth to mineral form, as of the same sort of impulse concerned to raise a race of apes into a race of rudimentary men." To those who bring this passage forward as showing "decided Darwinism," the Occultists answer by pointing to the explanation of the Master (Mr. Sinnett's "teacher") which would contradict these lines, were they written in the spirit attributed to them. A copy of this letter was sent to the writer, together with others, two years ago (1886), with additional marginal remarks, to quote from, in the "Secret Doctrine." It begins by considering the difficulty experienced by the Western student, in reconciling some facts, previously given, with the evolution of man from the animal, i.e., from the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, and advises the student to hold to the doctrine of analogy and correspondences. Then it touches upon the mystery of the Devas,
and even Gods, having to pass through states which it was agreed to refer to as "Inmetallization, Inherbation, Inzoonization and finally Incarnation," and explains this by hinting at the necessity of failures even in the ethereal races of Dhyan Chohans. Concerning this it says:
"Still, as these 'failures' are too far progressed and spiritualized to be thrown back forcibly from Dhyan Chohanship into the vortex of a new primordial evolution through the lower kingdoms. . . ." After which only a hint is given about the mystery contained in the allegory of the fallen Asuras, which will be expanded and explained in Book II. When Karma has reached them at the stage of human evolution, "they will have to drink it to the last drop in the bitter cup of retribution. Then they become an active force and commingle with the Elementals, the progressed entities of the pure animal kingdom, to develop little by little the full type of humanity."
These Dhyan Chohans, as we see, do not pass through the three kingdoms as do the lower Pitris; nor do they incarnate in man until the Third Root Race. Thus, as the teaching stands:
"Man in the First Round and First Race on Globe D, our Earth, was an ethereal being (a Lunar Dhyani, as man), non-intelligent but superspiritual; and correspondingly, on the law of analogy, in the First Race of the Fourth Round. In each of the subsequent races and sub-races . . . he grows more and more into an encased or incarnate being, but still preponderatingly ethereal. . . . He is sexless, and, like the animal and vegetable he develops monstrous bodies correspondential with his coarser surroundings.
"II. Round. He (Man) is still gigantic and ethereal but growing firmer and more condensed in body, a more physical man. Yet still less intelligent than spiritual (1), for mind is a slower and more difficult evolution than is the physical frame . . .
"III. Round. He has now a perfectly concrete or compacted body, at first the form of a giant-ape, and now more intelligent, or rather cunning, than spiritual. For, on the downward arc, he has now reached a point where his primordial spirituality is eclipsed and overshadowed by nascent mentality (2). In the last half of the Third Round his gigantic stature decreases, and his body improves in texture, and he becomes a more rational being, though still more an ape than a
Deva. . . . (All this is almost exactly repeated in the third Root-Race of the Fourth Round.)
"IV. Round. Intellect has an enormous development in this Round. The (hitherto) dumb races acquire our (present) human speech on this globe, on which, from the Fourth Race, language is perfected and knowledge increases. At this half-way point of the Fourth Round (as of the Fourth Root, or Atlantean, race) humanity passes the axial point of the minor Manvantara cycle . . . . the world teeming with the results of intellectual activity and spiritual decrease . . . ."
This is from the authentic letter; what follows are the later remarks and additional explanations traced by the same hand in the form of footnotes.
(1.) " . . . The original letter contained general teaching—a 'bird's eye view'—and particularized nothing. . . . To speak of 'physical man' while limiting the statement to the early Rounds would be drifting back to the miraculous and instantaneous 'coats of skin.' . . . The first 'Nature,' the first 'body,' the first 'mind' on the first plane of perception, on the first Globe in the first Round, is what was meant.* For Karma and evolution have—
' . . . centred in our make such strange extremes!
From different Natures * marvellously mixed . . .'
(2.) "Restore: he has now reached the point (by analogy, and as the Third Root Race in the Fourth Round) where his ("the angel"-man's) primordial spirituality is eclipsed and overshadowed by nascent human mentality, and you have the true version on your thumb-nail. . ."
These are the words of the Teacher—text, words and
sentences in brackets, and explanatory footnotes. It stands to reason that there
must be an enormous difference in such terms as "objectivity" and
"subjectivity," "materiality" and "spirituality," when the same terms are
applied to different planes of being and perception. All this must be taken in
its relative sense. And therefore there is little to be wondered at, if, left to
his own speculations, an author, however eager to learn, yet quite inexperienced
in these abstruse teachings, has fallen
——————————————————————————————
* The Natures of the
seven hierarchies or classes of Pitris and Dhyan Chohans which compose our
nature and Bodies are here meant.
into an error. Neither was the difference between the "Rounds" and the "Races" sufficiently defined in the letters received, nor was there anything of the kind required before, as the ordinary Eastern disciple would have found out the difference in a moment. Moreover, to quote from a letter of the Master's (188-), "the teachings were imparted under protest. . . . They were, so to say, smuggled goods . . . and when I remained face to face with only one correspondent, the other, Mr. . . . ., had so far tossed all the cards into confusion, that little remained to be said without trespassing upon law." Theosophists, "whom it may concern," will understand what is meant.
The outcome of all this is that nothing had ever been said in the "letters" to warrant the assurance that the Occult doctrine has ever taught, or any Adept believed in, the preposterous modern theory of the descent of man from a common ancestor with the ape—an anthropoid of the actual animal kind, unless metaphorically. To this day the world is more full of "ape-like men" than the woods are of "men-like apes." The ape is sacred in India because its origin is well known to the Initiates, though concealed under a thick veil of allegory. Hanuman is the son of Pavana (Vayu, "the god of the wind") by Anjana, a monster called Kesarî, though his genealogy varies. The reader who bears this in mind will find in Book II. passim, the whole explanation of this ingenious allegory. The "Men" of the Third Race (who separated) were "Gods" by their spirituality and purity, though senseless, and as yet destitute of mind, as men.
These "Men" of the Third Race—the ancestors of the
Atlanteans—were just such ape-like, intellectually senseless giants as were
those beings, who, during the Third Round, represented Humanity. Morally
irresponsible, it was these third Race "men" who, through promiscuous connection
with animal species lower than themselves, created that missing link which
became ages later (in the tertiary period only) the remote ancestor of the real
ape as we find it now in the pithecoid family.*
——————————————————————————————
* And if this is found clashing
with that other statement which shows the animal later than man, then the reader
is asked to bear in mind that the placental mammal only is meant. In
those days there were animals of which zoology does not even dream in our own;
and the modes of reproduction were not identical with the notions which
modern physiology has upon the subject. It is not altogether convenient to touch
upon such questions in public, but there is no contradiction or
impossibility in this whatever.
Thus the earlier teachings, however unsatisfactory, vague and fragmentary, did not teach the evolution of "man" from the "ape." Nor does the author of "Esoteric Buddhism" assert it anywhere in his work in so many words; but, owing to his inclination towards modern science, he uses language which might perhaps justify such an inference. The man who preceded the Fourth, the Atlantean race, however much he may have looked physically like a "gigantic ape"—"the counterfeit of man who hath not the life of a man"— was still a thinking and already a speaking man. The "Lemuro-Atlantean" was a highly civilized race, and if one accepts tradition, which is better history than the speculative fiction which now passes under that name, he was higher than we are with all our sciences and the degraded civilization of the day: at any rate, the Lemuro-Atlantean of the closing Third Race was so.
And now we may return to the Stanzas.
—————
5. AT THE FOURTH (Round, or revolution of life and being around "the seven smaller wheels") (a), THE SONS ARE TOLD TO CREATE THEIR IMAGES. ONE THIRD REFUSES. TWO (thirds) OBEY.
The full meaning of this sloka can be fully comprehended only after reading the detailed additional explanations in the "Anthropogenesis" and its commentaries, in Book II. Between this Sloka and the last, Sloka 4 in this same Stanza, extend long ages; and there now gleams the dawn and sunrise of another æon. The drama enacted on our planet is at the beginning of its fourth act, but for a clearer comprehension of the whole play the reader will have to turn back before he can proceed onward. For this verse belongs to the general Cosmogony given in the archaic volumes, whereas Book II. will give a detailed account of the "Creation" or rather the formation, of the first human beings, followed by the second humanity, and then by the third; or, as they are called, "the first, second, and the third Root-Races." As the solid Earth began by being a ball of liquid fire, of fiery dust and its protoplasmic phantom, so did man.
(a) That which is meant by the qualification the "Fourth" is explained as the "fourth Round" only on the authority of the Commentaries. It can equally mean fourth "Eternity" as "Fourth Round," or even the fourth (our) Globe. For, as will repeatedly be shown, it is the fourth Sphere on the fourth or lowest plane of material life. And it so happens that we are in the Fourth Round, at the middle point of which the perfect equilibrium between Spirit and Matter had to take place. * Says the Commentary explaining the verse:—
"The holy youths (the gods) refused to multiply and create species after their likeness, after their kind. They are not fit forms (rupas) for us. They have to grow. They refuse to enter the chhayas (shadows or images) of their inferiors. Thus had selfish feeling prevailed from the beginning, even among the gods, and they fell under the eye of the Karmic Lipikas."
They had to suffer for it in later births. How the punishment reached the gods will be seen in the second volume.
—————
6. THE CURSE IS PRONOUNCED (a): THEY WILL BE BORN IN THE FOURTH (Race), SUFFER AND CAUSE SUFFERING (b). THIS IS THE FIRST WAR (c).
(a) It is a universal tradition that,
before the physiological "Fall," propagation of one's kind, whether human or
animal, took place through the WILL of the Creators, or of their progeny. It was
the Fall of Spirit into generation, not the Fall of mortal man. It has already
been stated that, to become a Self-Conscious Spirit, the latter must pass
through every cycle of being, culminating in its highest point on earth in Man.
——————————————————————————————
* It was, as we shall see, at this
period—during the highest point of civilization and knowledge, as also of human
intellectuality, of the fourth, Atlantean Race—that, owing to the final crisis
of physiologico-spiritual adjustment of the races, humanity branched off into
its two diametrically opposite paths: the RIGHT- and the LEFT-hand paths of
knowledge or of Vidya. "Thus were the germs of the White and the Black Magic
sown in those days. The seeds lay latent for some time, to sprout only
during the early period of the Fifth (our Race)."
(Commentary.)
Spirit per se is an unconscious negative ABSTRACTION. Its purity is inherent, not acquired by merit; hence, as already shown, to become the highest Dhyan Chohan it is necessary for each Ego to attain to full self-consciousness as a human, i.e., conscious Being, which is synthesized for us in Man. The Jewish Kabalists arguing that no Spirit could belong to the divine hierarchy unless Ruach (Spirit) was united to Nephesh (living Soul), only repeat the Eastern Esoteric teaching. "A Dhyani has to be an Atma-Buddhi; once the Buddhi-Manas breaks loose from its immortal Atma of which it (Buddhi) is the vehicle, Atman passes into NON-BEING, which is absolute Being." This means that the purely Nirvanic state is a passage of Spirit back to the ideal abstraction of Be-ness which has no relation to the plane on which our Universe is accomplishing its cycle.
(b) "The curse is pronounced" does not mean, in this instance, that any personal Being, god, or superior Spirit, pronounced it, but simply that the cause which could but create bad results had been generated, and that the effects of a Karmic cause could lead the "Beings" that counteracted the laws of Nature, and thus impeded her legitimate progress, only to bad incarnations, hence to suffering.
(c) "There were many wars" refers to several struggles of adjustment, spiritual, cosmical, and astronomical, but chiefly to the mystery of the evolution of man as he is now. Powers—pure Essences—"that were told to create" is a sentence that relates to a mystery explained, as already said, elsewhere. It is not only one of the most hidden secrets of Nature—that of generation, over whose solution the Embryologists have vainly put their heads together—but likewise a divine function that involves that other religious, or rather dogmatic, mystery, the "Fall" of the Angels, as it is called. Satan and his rebellious host would thus prove, when the meaning of the allegory is explained, to have refused to create physical man, only to become the direct Saviours and the Creators of "divine Man." The symbolical teaching is more than mystical and religious, it is purely scientific, as will be seen later on. For, instead of remaining a mere blind, functioning medium, impelled and guided by fathomless LAW, the "rebellious" Angel claimed and enforced his right of independent judgment and will, his
right of free-agency and responsibility, since man and angel are alike under Karmic Law.*
"And there was war in Heaven. . . . Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon; and the Dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in Heaven. And the Dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world."
The Kabalistic version of the same story is given in the Codex Nazareus, the scripture of the Nazarenes, the real mystic Christians of John the Baptist and the Initiates of Christos. Bahak-Zivo, the "Father of the Genii," is ordered to construct creatures (to create). But, as he is "ignorant of Orcus," he fails to do so, and calls in Fetahil, a still purer spirit, to his aid, who fails still worse. This is a repetition of the failure of the "Fathers," the lords of light who fail one after the other. (Book II, Sloka 17.)
We will now quote from our earlier Volumes:—
"Then steps on the stage of creation the spirit †
(of the Earth so-called, or the Soul, Psyche, which St. James calls 'devilish')
the lower portion the Anima Mundi or Astral Light. (See the close of
this Sloka). With the Nazarenes and the Gnostics this Spirit was
——————————————————————————————
* Explaining Kabalistic views, the author
of the "New Aspects of Life" says of the Fallen Angels that,
"According to the symbolical teaching, Spirit, from being simply a functionary
agent of God, became volitional in its developed and developing action; and,
substituting its own will for the Divine desire in its regard, so fell. Hence
the Kingdom and reign of Spirits and spiritual action, which flow from and are
the product of Spirit-volition, are outside, and contrasted with, and in
contradiction to the Kingdom of Souls and Divine action." So far, so good; but
what does the Author mean by saying, "When man was created, he was human in
constitution, with human affections, human hopes and aspirations. From this
state he fell—into the brute and savage"? This is diametrically opposite to our
Eastern teaching, and even to the Kabalistic notion so far as we understand it,
and to the Bible itself. This looks like Corporealism and Substantialism
colouring positive philosophy, though it is rather hard to feel quite sure of
the Author's meaning (see p. 235). A FALL, however, "from the natural into the
supernatural and the animal"—supernatural meaning the purely spiritual in this
case—means what we suggest.
† On the authority of Irenæus, of Justin Martyr and the "Codex" itself, Dunlap shows that the Nazarenes regarded "Spirit" as a female and Evil Power in its connection with our Earth. (Dunlap: "Sod," the Son of the Man, p. 52).
feminine. Thus the spirit of the Earth perceiving that for Fetahil, * the newest man (the latest), the splendour was 'changed,' and that for splendour existed 'decrease and damage,' she awakes Karabtanos, † 'who was frantic and without sense and judgment,' and says to him:—'Arise, see, the splendour (light) of the newest man (Fetahil) has failed (to produce or create men), the decrease of this splendour is visible. Rise up, come with thy MOTHER (the Spiritus) and free thee from limits by which thou art held, and those more ample than the whole world.' After which follows the union of the frantic and blind matter, guided by the insinuations of the spirit (not the Divine breath but the Astral spirit, which by its double essence is already tainted with matter); and the offer of the MOTHER being accepted, the Spiritus conceives "Seven Figures," and the seven stellars (planets) which represent also the seven capital sins, the progeny of an astral soul separated from its divine source (spirit) and matter, the blind demon of concupiscence. Seeing this, Fetahil extends his hand towards the abyss of matter, and says:—'Let the Earth exist, just as the abode of the powers has existed.' Dipping his hand in the chaos, which he condenses, he creates our planet." ‡
"Then the Codex proceeds to tell how Bahak-Zivo was
separated from the Spiritus, and the Genii or angels from the rebels. § Then Mano
∫∫ (the greatest), who dwells with the greatest
FERHO, call Kebar-Zivo
(known also by the name of Nebat-Iavar bar Iufin Ifafin), Helm and Vine
of the food of life, ¶ he being the third life, and commiserating the
rebellious and foolish Genii, on account of the magnitude of their ambition,
says: 'Lord of the Genii ** (Æons), see what the Genii, the
——————————————————————————————
* Fetahil is identical with the host of
the Pitris who "created Man" as only a "shell." He was, with the Nazarenes, the
king of light, and the creator; but in this instance he is the unlucky
Prometheus, who fails to get hold of the Living Fire necessary for the formation
of the divine Soul, as he is ignorant of the secret name, the ineffable or
incommunicable name of the Kabalists.
† The spirit of Matter and Concupiscence; "Kamarupa" minus "Manas," Mind.
‡ See Franck's "Codex Nazaraeus," and Dunlap's "Sod, the Son of the Man."
§ Codex Nazaræus, ii., 233.
∫∫ This Mano of the Nazarenes strangely resembles the Hindu Manu, the Heavenly Man of the "Rig Vedas."
¶ "I am the true Vine, and my father is the husbandman." (John xv., 1.)
** With the Gnostics, Christ, as well as Michael who is identical with him in some respects, was the "Chief of the Æons."
rebellious angels do, and about what they are consulting.* They say, 'Let us call for the world, and let us call the 'powers' into existence." The Genii are the Principles, the "Sons of Light," but thou art the "Messenger of Life." †
And in order to counteract the influence of the seven "badly disposed" principles, the progeny of Spiritus, CABAR-ZIO, the mighty Lord of Splendor, produces seven other lives (the cardinal virtues) who shine in their own form and light "from on high" ‡ and thus re-establish the balance between good and evil, light and darkness.
Here one finds a repetition of the early allegorical, dual systems, as the Zoroastrian, and detects a germ of the dogmatic and dualistic religions of the future, a germ which has grown into such a luxuriant tree in ecclesiastical Christianity. It is already the outline of the two "Supremes"—God and Satan. But in the Stanzas no such idea exists.
Most of the Western Christian Kabalists—pre-eminently Eliphas Levi—in their desire to reconcile the Occult Sciences with Church dogmas, did their best to make of the "Astral Light" only and preeminently the Pleroma of early Church Fathers, the abode of the Hosts of the Fallen Angels, of the "Archons" and "Powers." But the Astral Light, while only the lower aspect of the Absolute, is yet dual. It is the Anima Mundi, and ought never to be viewed otherwise, except for Kabalistic purposes. The difference which exists between its "light" and its "Living Fire" ought to be ever present in the mind of the Seer and the "Psychic." The higher aspect, without which only creatures of matter from that Astral Light can be produced, is this Living Fire, and it is the Seventh Principle. It is said in "Isis Unveiled," in a complete description of it:—
"The Astral Light or Anima Mundi is dual and
bisexual. The (ideal) male part of it is purely divine and spiritual, it is the
Wisdom, it is Spirit or Purusha; while the female portion (the
Spiritus of the Nazarenes) is tainted, in one sense, with matter, is
indeed matter, and therefore is evil already. It is the life-principle of every
living creature, and furnishes the astral soul, the fluidic perisprit,
to men, animals, fowls of the air, and everything living. Animals have only
the latent germ of the highest immortal soul in them. . . . . This latter will
develop
——————————————————————————————
*
Codex Nazaræus, i, 135.
† Ibid.
‡ See the Cosmogony of Pherecydes.
only after a series of countless evolutions; the doctrine of which evolution is contained in the Kabalistic axiom: 'A stone becomes a plant; a plant, a beast; a beast, a man; a man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god.'" (Vol. I., p. 301, note.)
The seven principles of the Eastern Initiates had not been explained when "Isis" was written, but only the three Kabalistic Faces of the semi-exoteric Kabala.* But these contain the description of the mystic natures of the first group of Dhyan Chohans in the regimen ignis, the region and "rule (or government) of fire," which group is divided into three classes, synthesized by the first, which makes four or the "Tetraktis." (See Comments on Stanza VII. Book I.) If one studies the Comments attentively he will find the same progression in the angelic natures, viz., from the passive down to the active, the last of these Beings being as near to the Ahamkara element (the region or plane wherein Egoship or the feeling of I-am-ness is beginning to be defined) as the first ones are near to the undifferentiated essence. The former are Arupa, incorporeal; the latter, Rupa, corporeal.
In Volume II. of Isis (p. 183 et
seq.) the philosophical systems of the Gnostics and the primitive
Jewish Christians, the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, are fully considered. They
show the views held in those days—outside the circle of Mosaic Jews—about
Jehovah. He was identified by all the Gnostics with the evil, rather than with
the good principle. For them, he was Ilda-Baoth, "the son of
Darkness," whose mother, Sophia Achamoth, was the daughter of Sophia, the Divine
Wisdom (the female Holy Ghost of the early Christians)—Akâsa; † while
Sophia Achamoth personified the lower Astral Light or Ether. Ilda-Baoth,
‡ or Jehovah, is simply one of the Elohim, the seven
——————————————————————————————
* They are found, however, in the
Chaldean Book of Numbers.
† The astral light stands in the same relation to Akâsa and Anima Mundi, as Satan stands to the Deity. They are one and the same thing seen from two aspects: the spiritual and the psychic—the super-ethereal or connecting link between matter and pure spirit, and the physical. See for the difference between nous, the higher divine wisdom, and psyche, the lower and terrestrial (St. James iii. v. 15-17). Vide "Demon est Deus inversus," Part II. of this volume.
‡ Ilda-Baoth is a compound name
made up of Ilda,
, "a child,"
and Baoth; both from
the egg, and
Baoth, "chaos,"
emptiness, void, or desolation; or the child born in the egg of Chaos, like
Brahmâ.
creative Spirits, and one of the lower Sephiroth. He produces from himself seven other Gods, "Stellar Spirits" (or the lunar ancestors *), for they are all the same. † They are all in his own image (the "Spirits of the Face"), and the reflections one of the other, and have become darker and more material as they successively receded from their originator. They also inhabit seven regions disposed like a ladder, as its rungs slope up and down the scale of spirit and matter. ‡ With Pagans and Christians, with Hindus and Chaldeans, with the Greek as with the Roman Catholics—with a slight variation of the texts in their interpretations—they all were the Genii of the seven planets, as of the seven planetary spheres of our septenary chain, of which Earth is the lowest. (See Isis, Vol. II. p. 186.) This connects the "Stellar" and "Lunar" Spirits with the higher planetary Angels and the Saptarishis (the seven Rishis of the Stars) of the Hindus—as subordinate Angels (Messengers) to these "Rishis," the emanations, on the descending scale, of the former. Such, in the opinion of the philosophical Gnostics, were the God and the Archangels now worshipped by the Christians! The "Fallen Angels" and the legend of the "War in Heaven" is thus purely pagan in its origin and comes from India via Persia and Chaldea. The only reference to it in the Christian canon is found in Revelations xii., as quoted a few pages back.
Thus "SATAN,"
once he ceases to be viewed in the superstitious, dogmatic, unphilosophical
spirit of the Churches, grows into the grandiose image of one who made of
terrestrial a divine MAN; who gave him, throughout the long cycle of Maha-kalpa
the law of the Spirit of Life, and made him free from the Sin of Ignorance,
hence of death. (See the Section On Satan in Part II. Vol. II.)
——————————————————————————————
* Jehovah's connection with the
moon in the Kabala is well known to students.
† About the Nazarenes see Isis, Vol. II. p. 131 and 132; the true followers of the true Christos were all Nazarenes and Christians, and were the opponents of the later Christians.
‡ Vide supra, the diagram of the lunar ring of seven worlds, where, as in our or any other chain, the upper worlds are spiritual, while the lowest, whether Moon, Earth, or any planet, is dark with matter.
6. THE OLDER WHEELS ROTATED DOWNWARD AND UPWARD (a). . . . THE MOTHER'S SPAWN FILLED THE WHOLE (Kosmos).* THERE WERE BATTLES FOUGHT BETWEEN THE CREATORS AND THE DESTROYERS, AND BATTLES FOUGHT FOR SPACE; THE SEED APPEARING AND REAPPEARING CONTINUOUSLY (b). †
(a) Here, having finished for the time being with our side-issues—which, however they may break the flow of the narrative, are necessary for the elucidation of the whole scheme—the reader must return once more to Cosmogony. The phrase "Older wheels" refers to the worlds or Globes of our chain as they were during the "previous Rounds." The present Stanza, when explained esoterically, is found embodied entirely in the Kabalistic works. Therein will be found the very history of the evolution of those countless Globes which evolve after a periodical Pralaya, rebuilt from old material into new forms. The previous Globes disintegrate and reappear transformed and perfected for a new phase of life. In the Kabala, worlds are compared to sparks which fly from under the hammer of the great Architect—LAW, the law which rules all the smaller Creators.
The following comparative diagram shows the identity between the two systems, the Kabalistic and the Eastern. The three upper are the three higher planes of consciousness, revealed and explained in both schools only to the Initiates, the lower ones represent the four lower planes—the lowest being our plane, or the visible Universe.
These seven planes correspond to the seven
states of consciousness in man. It remains with him to attune the three
higher states in himself to the three higher planes in Kosmos. But before he can
attempt to attune, he must awaken the three "seats" to life and activity. And
how many are capable of bringing themselves to even a superficial comprehension
of Atma-Vidya (Spirit-Knowledge), or what is called by the Sufis,
Rohanee! In Section the VIIth of this Book, in Sub-section
3,
—————————————————————————————
* The reader is reminded that
Kosmos often means in our Stanzas only our own Solar System, not the Infinite
Universe.
† This is purely astronomical.
the reader will find a still clearer explanation of the above in the Commentary upon Saptaparna—the man-plant. See also the Section of that name in Part II.
——————————————————————————————
*
The Arupa or
"formless," there where form ceases to exist, on the objective plane.
† The word "Archetypal" must not be taken here in the sense that the Platonists gave to it, i.e., the world as it existed in the Mind of the Deity; but in that of a world made as a first model, to be followed and improved upon by the worlds which succeed it physically—though deteriorating in purity.
‡ These are the four lower planes of Cosmic Consciousness, the three higher planes being inaccessible to human intellect as developed at present. The seven states of human consciousness pertain to quite another question.
(b) "The Seed appears and disappears continuously." Here "Seed" stands for "the World-germ," viewed by Science as material particles in a highly attenuated condition, but in Occult physics as "Spiritual particles," i.e., supersensuous matter existing in a state of primeval
differentiation.* In theogony, every Seed is an ethereal organism, from which evolves later on a celestial being, a God.
In the "beginning," that which is called in mystic phraseology "Cosmic Desire" evolves into absolute Light. Now light without any shadow would be absolute light—in other words, absolute darkness—as physical science seeks to prove. That shadow appears under the form of primordial matter, allegorized—if one likes—in the shape of the Spirit of Creative Fire or Heat. If, rejecting the poetical form and allegory, science chooses to see in this the primordial Fire-Mist, it is welcome to do so. Whether one way or the other, whether Fohat or the famous FORCE of Science, nameless, and as difficult of definition as our Fohat himself, that Something "caused the Universe to move with circular motion," as Plato has it; or, as the Occult teaching expresses it:
"The Central Sun causes Fohat to collect primordial
dust in the form of balls, to impel them to move in converging lines
and finally to approach each other and aggregate." (Book of
Dzyan) . . . . . "Being scattered in Space, without order or
system, the world-germs come into frequent collision until their final
aggregation, after which they become wanderers (Comets).
Then the battles and struggles begin. The older (bodies)
attract the younger, while others repel them. Many perish,
devoured by their stronger companions. Those that escape become worlds."
†
——————————————————————————————
* To see and appreciate the
difference—the immense gulf that separates terrestrial matter from the finer
grades of supersensuous matter—every astronomer, every chemist and physicist
ought to be a psychometer, to say the least; he ought to
be able to sense for himself that difference in which he now refuses to believe.
Mrs. Elizabeth Denton, one of the most learned, and also one of the most
materialistic and sceptical women of her age—the wife of Professor Denton, the
well-known American geologist and the author of "The Soul of Things"—was,
nevertheless, one of the most wonderful psychometers some years ago. This is
what she described in one of her experiments; with a particle of a meteorite
placed on her forehead, in an envelope, the lady, not being aware of what it
contained, said:
"What a difference between that which we
recognise as matter here and that which seems like matter there! In the one, the
elements are so coarse and so angular, I wonder that we can
endure it all, much more that we can desire to continue our present relations to
it; in the other, all the elements are so refined, they are so free from those
great, rough angularities, which characterize the elements here, that I can but
regard that as by so much the more than this, the real existence." (Vol.
III. p. 345-6.)
† When carefully analysed and reflected upon, this will be found as scientific as Science could make it, even at our late period.
We have been assured that there exist several modern works of speculative fancy upon such struggles for life in sidereal heaven, especially in the German language. We rejoice to hear it, for ours is an Occult teaching lost in the darkness of archaic ages. We have treated of it fully in "Isis Unveiled," and the idea of Darwinian-like evolution, of struggle for life and supremacy, and of the "survival of the fittest" among the Hosts above as the Hosts below, runs throughout both the volumes of our earlier work, written in 1876 (See Index in "Isis Unveiled" at the words "Evolution"—"Darwin"—"Kapila"—"Battle of Life," etc. etc.) But the idea was not ours, it is that of antiquity.
Even the Purânic writers have ingeniously interwoven allegory with Cosmic facts and human events. Any symbologist may discern the astro-cosmical allusion even though he be unable to grasp the whole meaning. The great "Wars in Heaven," in the Purânas; the wars of the Titans, in Hesiod and other classical writers; the "struggles," also in the Egyptian legend between Osiris and Typhon, and even those in the Scandinavian legends, all refer to the same subject. Northern Mythology refers to it as the battle of the Flames, the sons of Muspel who fought on the field of Wigred. All these relate to Heaven and Earth, and have a double and often even a triple meaning, and esoteric application to things above as to things below. They relate severally to astronomical, theogonical and human struggles; to the adjustment of orbs, and the supremacy among nations and tribes. The "Struggle for Existence" and the "Survival of the Fittest" reigned supreme from the moment that Kosmos manifested into being, and could hardly escape the observant eye of the ancient Sages. Hence the incessant fights of Indra, the god of the Firmament, with the Asuras—degraded from high gods into Cosmic demons; and with Vritri or Ah-hi; the battles fought between stars and constellations, between Moon and planets—later on incarnated as kings and mortals. Hence also the War in Heaven of Michael and his Host against the Dragon (Jupiter and Lucifer-Venus), when a third of the stars of the rebellious host was hurled down into Space, and "its place was found no more in Heaven." As said long ago—"This is the basic and fundamental stone of the secret cycles. It shows that the Brahmins and Tanaim . . . speculated on the creation and development of the world quite in a Darwinian way, both anticipating him and his school in the natural selection of species, the survival of the fittest,
and transformation. . . . There were old worlds that perished conquered by the new," etc., etc. ("Isis Unveiled," Vol. II., p. 260.) The assertion that all the worlds (Stars, planets, etc.)—as soon as a nucleus of primordial substance in the laya (undifferentiated) state is informed by the freed principles, of a just deceased sidereal body—become first comets, and then Suns to cool down to inhabitable worlds, is a teaching as old as the Rishis.
Thus the Secret Books distinctly teach, as we see, an astronomy that would not be rejected even by modern speculation could the latter thoroughly understand its teachings.
For, archaic astronomy, and the ancient, physical and mathematical sciences, expressed views identical with those of modern science, and many of far more momentous import. A "struggle for life" as a "survival of the fittest" in the worlds above, as on our planet here below, are distinctly taught. This teaching, however, although it would not be "entirely rejected" by Science, is sure to be repudiated as an integral whole. For it avers that there are only seven Self-born primordial "gods" emanated from the trinitarian ONE. In other words, it means that all the worlds or sidereal bodies (always on strict analogy) are formed one from the other, after the primordial manifestation at the beginning of the "Great Age" is accomplished. The birth of the celestial bodies in Space is compared to a crowd or multitude of "pilgrims" at the festival of the "Fires." Seven ascetics appear on the threshold of the temple with seven lighted sticks of incense. At the light of these the first row of pilgrims light their incense sticks. After which every ascetic begins whirling his stick around his head in space, and furnishes the rest with fire. Thus with the heavenly bodies. A laya-centre is lighted and awakened into life by the fires of another "pilgrim," after which the new "centre" rushes into space and becomes a comet. It is only after losing its velocity, and hence its fiery tail, that the "Fiery Dragon" settles down into quiet and steady life as a regular respectable citizen of the sidereal family. Therefore it is said:—
Born in the unfathomable depths of Space, out of the
homogeneous Element called the World-Soul, every nucleus of Cosmic matter,
suddenly launched into being, begins life under the most hostile circumstances.
Through a series of countless ages, it has to conquer
for itself a place in the infinitudes. It circles round and round between denser and already fixed bodies, moving by jerks, and pulling towards some given point or centre that attracts it, trying to avoid, like a ship drawn into a channel dotted with reefs and sunken rocks, other bodies that draw and repel it in turn; many perish, their mass disintegrating through stronger masses, and, when born within a system, chiefly within the insatiable stomachs of various Suns. (See Comm. to Stanza IV). Those which move slower and are propelled into an elliptic course are doomed to annihilation sooner or later. Others moving in parabolic curves generally escape destruction, owing to their velocity.
Some very critical readers will perhaps imagine that this teaching, as to the cometary stage passed through by all heavenly bodies, is in contradiction with the statements just made as to the moon being the mother of the earth. They will perhaps fancy that intuition is needed to harmonize the two. But no intuition is in truth required. What does Science know of Comets, their genesis, growth, and ultimate behaviour? Nothing—absolutely nothing! And what is there so impossible that a laya centre—a lump of cosmic protoplasm, homogeneous and latent, when suddenly animated or fired up—should rush from its bed in Space and whirl throughout the abysmal depths in order to strengthen its homogeneous organism by an accumulation and addition of differentiated elements? And why should not such a comet settle in life, live, and become an inhabited globe!
"The abodes of Fohat are many," it is said. "He places his four fiery (electro-positive) Sons in the "Four circles"; these Circles are the Equator, the Ecliptic, and the two parallels of declination, or the tropics—to preside over the climates of which are placed the Four mystical Entities. Then again: "Other seven (sons) are commissioned to preside over the seven hot, and seven cold lokas (the hells of the orthodox Brahmins) at the two ends of the Egg of Matter (our Earth and its poles). The seven lokas are also called the "Rings," elsewhere, and the "Circles." The ancients made the polar circles seven instead of two, as Europeans do; for Mount Meru, which is the North Pole, is said to have seven gold and seven silver steps leading to it.
The strange statement made in one of the Stanzas: "The Songs of Fohat and his Sons were radiant as the noon-tide Sun and the Moon combined;" and that the four Sons on the middle four-fold
205 SEEING
SOUND, HEARING COLOURS.
Circle "saw their father's songs and heard his Solar-selenic radiance;" is explained in the Commentary in these words: "The agitation of the Fohatic Forces at the two cold ends (North and South Poles) of the Earth which resulted in a multicoloured radiance at night, have in them several of the properties of Akâsa (Ether) colour and sound as well." . . . . . . "Sound is the characteristic of Akâsa (Ether): it generates air, the property of which is Touch; which (by friction) becomes productive of Colour and Light." . . . . . . (Vishnu Purâna.)
Perhaps the above will be regarded as archaic nonsense, but it will be better comprehended, if the reader remembers the Aurora Borealis and Australis, both of which take place at the very centres of terrestrial electric and magnetic forces. The two poles are said to be the store-houses, the receptacles and liberators, at the same time, of Cosmic and terrestrial Vitality (Electricity); from the surplus of which the Earth, had it not been for these two natural "safety-valves," would have been rent to pieces long ago. At the same time it is now a theory that has lately become an axiom, that the phenomenon of polar lights is accompanied by, and productive of, strong sounds, like whistling, hissing, and cracking. (But see Professor Trumholdt's works on the Aurora Borealis, and his correspondence regarding this moot question.)
—————
7. MAKE THY CALCULATIONS, O LANOO, IF THOU WOULDST LEARN THE CORRECT AGE OF THY SMALL WHEEL (chain). ITS FOURTH SPOKE IS OUR MOTHER (Earth) (a). REACH THE FOURTH "FRUIT" OF THE FOURTH PATH OF KNOWLEDGE THAT LEADS TO NIRVANA, AND THOU SHALT COMPREHEND, FOR THOU SHALT SEE (b).
(a) The "small wheel" is our chain of spheres,
and the fourth spoke is our Earth, the fourth in the chain. It is one of those
on which the "hot (positive) breath of the Sun" has a direct effect.*
——————————————————————————————
*
The seven fundamental
transformations of the globes or heavenly spheres, or rather of their
constituent particles of matter, is described as follows: (1) The
homogeneous; (2) the æriform and radiant (gaseous); (3)
Curd-like (nebulous); (4) Atomic, Ethereal
(beginning of motion, hence of differentiation); (5) Germinal,
fiery, (differentiated, but composed of the germs only of the
Elements, in their earliest states, they having seven states, when completely
developed on our earth); (6) Four-fold, vapoury (the future
Earth); (7) Cold and depending (on the Sun for life and light).
To calculate its age, however, as the pupil is asked to do in the Stanza, is rather difficult, since we are not given the figures of the Great Kalpa, and are not allowed to publish those of our small Yugas, except as to the approximate duration of these. "The older wheels rotated for one Eternity and one half of an Eternity," it says. We know that by "Eternity" the seventh part of 311,040,000,000,000 years, or an age of Brahmâ is meant. But what of that? We also know that, to begin with, if we take for our basis the above figures, we have first of all to eliminate from the 100 years of Brahmâ (or 311,040,000,000,000 years) two years taken up by the Sandhyas (twilights), which leaves 98, as we have to bring it to the mystical combination 14 x 7. But we have no knowledge at what time precisely the evolution and formation of our little earth began. Therefore it is impossible to calculate its age, unless the time of its birth is given—which the TEACHERS refuse to do, so far. At the close of this Book and in Book II., however, some chronological hints will be given. We must remember, moreover, that the law of Analogy holds good for the worlds, as it does for man; and that as "The ONE (Deity) becomes Two (Deva or Angel) and Two becomes Three (or man)," etc., etc., so we are taught that the Curds (world-stuff) become wanderers, (Comets), these become stars, and the stars (the centres of vortices) our sun and planets—to put it briefly.*
(b) There are four grades of initiation
mentioned in exoteric works, which are known respectively in Sanskrit as "Sҫrôtâpanna,"
"Sagardagan," "Anagamin," and "Arhan"—the four paths to Nirvana, in this, our
fourth Round, bearing the same appellations. The Arhan, though he can see the
Past, the Present, and the Future, is not yet the highest Initiate; for the
Adept himself, the initiated candidate, becomes chela (pupil) to a
higher Initiate. Three further higher grades have to be conquered by the Arhan
who would reach the apex of the ladder of Arhatship. There are those who have
reached it even in this fifth race of ours, but the faculties necessary for the
attainment of these higher
——————————————————————————————
* This cannot be so very
unscientific, since Descartes thought also that "the planets
rotate on their axes because they were once lucid stars, the centres of
Vortices."
grades will be fully developed in the average ascetic only at the end of this Root-Race, and in the Sixth and Seventh. Thus there will always be Initiates and the Profane till the end of this minor Manvantara, the present life-cycle. The Arhats of the "fire-mist" of the 7th rung are but one remove from the Root-Base of their Hierarchy—the highest on Earth, and our Terrestrial chain. This "Root-Base" has a name which can only be translated by several compound words into English"—"the ever-living-human-Banyan." This "Wondrous Being" descended from a "high region," they say, in the early part of the Third Age, before the separation of the sexes of the Third Race.
This Third Race is sometimes called collectively "the Sons of Passive Yoga," i.e., it was produced unconsciously by the second Race, which, as it was intellectually inactive, is supposed to have been constantly plunged in a kind of blank or abstract contemplation, as required by the conditions of the Yoga state. In the first or earlier portion of the existence of this third race, while it was yet in its state of purity, the "Sons of Wisdom," who, as will be seen, incarnated in this Third Race, produced by Kriyasakti a progeny called the "Sons of Ad" or "of the Fire-Mist," the "Sons of Will and Yoga," etc. They were a conscious production, as a portion of the race was already animated with the divine spark of spiritual, superior intelligence. It was not a Race, this progeny. It was at first a wondrous Being, called the "Initiator," and after him a group of semi-divine and semi-human beings. "Set apart" in Archaic genesis for certain purposes, they are those in whom are said to have incarnated the highest Dhyanis, "Munis and Rishis from previous Manvantaras"—to form the nursery for future human adepts, on this earth and during the present cycle. These "Sons of Will and Yoga" born, so to speak, in an immaculate way, remained, it is explained, entirely apart from the rest of mankind.
The "BEING" just referred to, which has to remain nameless, is the Tree from which, in subsequent ages, all the great historically known Sages and Hierophants, such as the Rishi Kapila, Hermes, Enoch, Orpheus, etc., etc., have branched off. As objective man, he is the mysterious (to the profane—the ever invisible) yet ever present Personage about whom legends are rife in the East, especially among the Occultists and the students of the Sacred Science. It is he who changes form, yet remains ever the same. And it is he again who holds spiritual sway over the
initiated Adepts throughout the whole world. He is, as said, the "Nameless One" who has so many names, and yet whose names and whose very nature are unknown. He is the "Initiator," called the "GREAT SACRIFICE." For, sitting at the threshold of LIGHT, he looks into it from within the circle of Darkness, which he will not cross; nor will he quit his post till the last day of this life-cycle. Why does the solitary Watcher remain at his self-chosen post? Why does he sit by the fountain of primeval Wisdom, of which he drinks no longer, as he has naught to learn which he does not know—aye, neither on this Earth, nor in its heaven? Because the lonely, sore-footed pilgrims on their way back to their home are never sure to the last moment of not losing their way in this limitless desert of illusion and matter called Earth-Life. Because he would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from which he is a voluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion. Because, in short, he has sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind, though but a few Elect may profit by the GREAT SACRIFICE.
It is under the direct, silent guidance of this
MAHA—(great)—GURU that all the other less divine
Teachers and instructors of mankind became, from the first awakening of human
consciousness, the guides of early Humanity. It is through these "Sons of God"
that infant humanity got its first notions of all the arts and sciences, as well
as of spiritual knowledge; and it is they who have laid the first
foundation-stone of those ancient civilizations that puzzle so sorely our modern
generation of students and scholars.*
——————————————————————————————
* Let those who doubt this
statement explain the mystery of the extraordinary knowledge possessed by the
ancients—alleged to have developed from lower and animal-like savages, the
cave-men of the Palæolithic age—on any other equally reasonable grounds. Let
them turn to such works as those of Vitruvius Pollio of the Augustan age, on
architecture, for instance, in which all the rules of proportion are those
taught anciently at initiations, if he would acquaint himself with
the truly divine art, and understand the deep esoteric significance hidden
in every rule and law of proportion. No man descended from a Palæolithic
cave-dweller could ever evolve such a science unaided, even in millenniums of
thought and intellectual evolution. It is the pupils of those incarnated Rishis
and Devas of the third Root Race, who handed their knowledge from one generation
to another, to Egypt and Greece with its now lost canon of proportion;
as it is the Disciples of the Initiates of the 4th, the Atlanteans, who handed
it over to their Cyclopes, the "Sons of Cycles" or of the
"Infinite," from whom the name passed to the still later generations of Gnostic
priests. "It is owing to the divine perfection
of those architectural proportions that
the Ancients could build those wonders of all the subsequent ages, their Fanes,
Pyramids, Cave-Temples, Cromlechs, Cairns, Altars, proving they had the powers
of machinery and a knowledge of mechanics to which modern skill is like a
child's play, and which that skill refers
to itself as the 'works of hundred-handed giants.'" (See "Book of
God," Kenealy.) Modern architects may not altogether have
neglected those rules, but they have superadded enough empirical innovations to
destroy those just proportions. It is Vitruvius who gave to posterity the rules
of construction of the Grecian temples erected to the immortal gods; and the ten
books of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio on Architecture, of one, in short, who was
an initiate, can only be studied esoterically. The Druidical
circles, the Dolmen, the Temples of India, Egypt and Greece, the Towers and the
127 towns in Europe which were found "Cyclopean in origin" by the French
Institute, are all the work of initiated Priest-Architects, the descendants of
those primarily taught by the "Sons of God," justly called "The Builders." This
is what appreciative posterity says of those descendants. "They used neither
mortar nor cement, nor steel nor iron to cut the stones with; and yet they were
so artfully wrought that in many places the joints are not seen, though many of
the stones, as in Peru, are 18 ft. thick, and in the walls of the fortress of
Cuzco there are stones of a still greater size." (Acosta, vi.,
14.) "Again, the walls of Syene, built 5,400 years ago, when that spot was
exactly under the tropic, which it has now ceased to be, were so constructed
that at noon, at the precise moment of the solar solstice, the entire disc of
the Sun was seen reflected on their surface—a work which the united skill of all
the astronomers of Europe would not now be able to effect."—(Kenealy, "Book
of God.")
Although these matters were barely hinted at in "Isis Unveiled," it will be well to remind the reader of what was said in Vol. I., pp. 587 to 593, concerning a certain Sacred Island in Central Asia, and to refer him for further details to the chapter in Book II. on "The Sons of God and the Sacred Island." A few more explanations, however, though thrown out in a fragmentary form, may help the student to obtain a glimpse into the present mystery.
To state at least one detail concerning these mysterious "Sons of God" in plain words. It is from them, these Brahmaputras, that the high Dwijas, the initiated Brahmins of old justly claimed descent, while the modern Brahmin would have the lowest castes believe literally that they issued direct from the mouth of Brahmâ. This is the esoteric teaching, which adds moreover that, although these descendants (spiritually of course) from the "sons of Will and Yoga," became in time divided into opposite sexes, as their "Kriyasakti" progenitors did themselves, later on; yet even their degenerate descendants have down to the present day retained a veneration and respect for the creative
function, and still regard it in the light of a religious ceremony, whereas the more civilized nations consider it as a mere animal function. Compare the western views and practice in these matters with the Institutions of Manu in regard to the laws of Grihasta and married life. The true Brahmin is thus indeed "he whose seven forefathers have drunk the juice of the moon-plant (Soma)," and who is a "Trisuparna," for he has understood the secret of the Vedas.
And, to this day, such Brahmins know that, during its
early beginnings, psychic and physical intellect being dormant and consciousness
still undeveloped, the spiritual conceptions of that race were quite unconnected
with its physical surroundings. That divine man dwelt in his
animal—though externally human—form; and, if there was instinct in him, no
self-consciousness came to enlighten the darkness of the latent fifth principle.
When, moved by the law of Evolution, the Lords of Wisdom infused into him the
spark of consciousness, the first feeling it awoke to life and activity was a
sense of solidarity, of one-ness with his spiritual creators. As the child's
first feeling is for its mother and nurse, so the first aspirations of the
awakening consciousness in primitive man were for those whose element he felt
within himself, and who yet were outside, and independent of him.
DEVOTION
arose out of that feeling, and became the first and foremost motor in his
nature; for it is the only one which is natural in our heart, which is innate in
us, and which we find alike in human babe and the young of the animal. This
feeling of irrepressible, instinctive aspiration in primitive man is
beautifully, and one may say intuitionally, described by Carlyle. "The great
antique heart," he exclaims, "how like a child's in its simplicity, like a man's
in its earnest solemnity and depth! heaven lies over him wheresoever he goes or
stands on the earth; making all the earth a mystic temple to him, the earth's
business all a kind of worship. Glimpses of bright creatures flash in the common
sunlight; angels yet hover, doing God's messages among men . . . . . Wonder,
miracle, encompass the man; he lives in an element of miracle * . . . . A
great law of duty, high as these two infinitudes (heaven and hell), dwarfing all
else, annihilating all else—it was a reality, and it is one: the garment
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* That which was natural
in the sight of primitive man has become only now miracle to us; and
that which was to him a miracle could never be expressed in our language.
only of it is dead; the essence of it lives through all times and all eternity!"
It lives undeniably, and has settled in all its ineradicable strength and power in the Asiatic Aryan heart from the Third Race direct through its first "mind-born" sons,—the fruits of Kriyasakti. As time rolled on the holy caste of Initiates produced but rarely, and from age to age, such perfect creatures: beings apart, inwardly, though the same as those who produced them, outwardly.
While in the infancy of the third primitive race:—
"A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and therefore was designed;
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast
For empire formed and fit to rule the rest. . . . ."
It was called into being, a ready and perfect vehicle for the incarnating denizens of higher spheres, who took forthwith their abodes in these forms born of Spiritual WILL and the natural divine power in man. It was a child of pure Spirit, mentally unalloyed with any tincture of earthly element. Its physical frame alone was of time and of life, as it drew its intelligence direct from above. It was the living tree of divine wisdom; and may therefore be likened to the Mundane Tree of the Norse Legend, which cannot wither and die until the last battle of life shall be fought, while its roots are gnawed all the time by the dragon Nidhogg; for even so, the first and holy Son of Kriyasakti had his body gnawed by the tooth of time, but the roots of his inner being remained for ever undecaying and strong, because they grew and expanded in heaven not on earth. He was the first of the FIRST, and he was the seed of all the others. There were other "Sons of Kriyasakti" produced by a second Spiritual effort, but the first one has remained to this day the Seed of divine Knowledge, the One and the Supreme among the terrestrial "Sons of Wisdom." Of this subject we can say no more, except to add that in every age—aye, even in our own—there have been great intellects who have understood the problem correctly.
How comes our physical body to the state of perfection it is found in now? Through millions of years of evolution, of course, yet never through, or from, animals, as taught by materialism. For, as Carlyle says:—". . . The essence of our being, the mystery in us that calls itself 'I,'—what words have we for such things?—it is a breath of Heaven,
the highest Being reveals himself in man. This body, these faculties, this life of ours, is it not all as a vesture for the UNNAMED?"
The breath of heaven, or rather the breath of life, called in the Bible Nephesh, is in every animal, in every animate speck as in every mineral atom. But none of these has, like man, the consciousness of the nature of that highest Being,* as none has that divine harmony in its form which man possesses. It is, as Novalis said, and no one since has said it better, as repeated by Carlyle:—
"There is but one temple in the universe, and that is
the body of man. Nothing is holier than that high form . . . . We touch heaven
when we lay our hand on a human body!" "This sounds like a mere flourish of
rhetoric," adds Carlyle, "but it is not so. If well meditated it will turn out
to be a scientific fact; the expression . . . of the actual truth of the thing.
We are the miracle of miracles,—the great inscrutable Mystery."
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* There is no nation in the world
in which the feeling of devotion or of religious mysticism is more developed and
prominent than in the Hindu people. See what Max Müller says of this
idiosyncracy and national feature in his works. This is direct inheritance from
the primitive conscious men of the Third Race.
—————
1. BEHOLD THE BEGINNING OF SENTIENT FORMLESS LIFE (a).
FIRST, THE DIVINE (vehicle) (b), THE ONE FROM THE MOTHER-SPIRIT (Atman); THEN THE SPIRITUAL—(Atma-Buddhi, Spirit-soul) * (c); (again) THE THREE FROM THE ONE (d), THE FOUR FROM THE ONE (e), AND THE FIVE (f), FROM WHICH THE THREE, THE FIVE AND THE SEVEN (g)—THESE ARE THE THREE-FOLD AND THE FOUR-FOLD DOWNWARD; THE "MIND-BORN SONS OF THE FIRST LORD (Avalôkitêswara) THE SHINING SEVEN (the "Builders"). † IT IS THEY WHO ARE THOU, ME, HIM, O LANOO; THEY WHO WATCH OVER THEE AND THY MOTHER, BHUMI (the Earth).
(a) The hierarchy of Creative Powers is divided into seven (or 4 and 3) esoteric, within the twelve great Orders, recorded in the twelve signs of the Zodiac; the seven of the manifesting scale being connected, moreover, with the Seven Planets. All this is subdivided into numberless groups of divine Spiritual, semi-Spiritual, and ethereal Beings.
The Chief Hierarchies among these are hinted at in the great Quaternary, or the "four bodies and the three faculties" of Brahmâ exoterically, and the Panchâsyam, the five Brahmâs, or the five Dhyani-Buddhas in the Buddhist system.
The highest group is composed of the divine Flames, so-called, also spoken of as the "Fiery Lions" and the "Lions of Life," whose esotericism is securely hidden in the Zodiacal sign of Leo. It is the nucleole of the superior divine World (see Commentary in first pages of Addendum). They are the formless Fiery Breaths, identical in one aspect with the upper Sephirothal TRIAD, which is placed by the Kabalists in the "Archetypal World."
The same hierarchy, with the same numbers, is found in
the Japanese system, in the "Beginnings" as taught by both the Shinto and the
Buddhist sects. In this system, Anthropogenesis precedes Cosmogenesis, as the
Divine merges into the human, and creates—
——————————————————————————————
* This relates to the Cosmic
principles.
† The seven creative Rishis now connected with the
constellation of the Great Bear
midway in its descent into matter—the visible Universe. The legendary personages—remarks reverentially Omoie—"having to be understood as the stereotyped embodiment of the higher (secret) doctrine, and its sublime truths." To state it at full length, however, would occupy too much of our space, but a few words on this old system cannot be out of place. The following is a short synopsis of this Anthropo-Cosmogenesis, and it shows how closely the most separated notions echoed one and the same Archaic teaching.
When all was as yet Chaos (Kon-ton) three spiritual Beings appeared on the stage of future creation: (1) Ame no ani naka nushi no Kami, "Divine Monarch of the Central Heaven"; (2) Taka mi onosubi no Kami, "Exalted, imperial Divine offspring of Heaven and the Earth"; and (3) Kamu mi musubi no Kami, "Offspring of the Gods," simply.
These were without form or substance (our arupa triad), as neither the celestial nor the terrestrial substance had yet differentiated, "nor had the essence of things been formed."
In the Zohar—which, as now arranged and re-edited by
Moses de Leon, with the help of Syrian and Chaldean Christian Gnostics in the
XIIth century, and corrected and revised still later by many Christian hands, is
only a little less exoteric than the Bible itself—this divine "Vehicle" no
longer appears as it does in the "Chaldean Book of Numbers." True enough,
Ain-Soph, the ABSOLUTE
ENDLESS
NO-THING,
uses also the form of the ONE, the manifested "Heavenly man"
(the FIRST CAUSE) as its chariot (Mercabah, in Hebrew;
Vahan, in Sanskrit) or vehicle to descend into, and manifest
through, in the phenomenal world. But the Kabalists neither make it plain how
the ABSOLUTE can use anything, or exercise any attribute
whatever, since, as the Absolute, it is devoid of attributes; nor do they
explain that in reality it is the First Cause (Plato's Logos)
the original and eternal IDEA, that manifests through Adam Kadmon, the
Second Logos, so to speak. In the "Book of Numbers" it is explained that
EN (or Ain, Aior) is the only self-existent,
whereas its "Depth" (Bythos or Buthon of the
Gnostics, called Propator) is only periodical. The latter is
Brahmâ as differentiated from Brahma or Parabrahm. It is the Depth, the Source of
Light, or Propator, which is the unmanifested Logos or the abstract
Idea, and not Ain-Soph, whose ray uses Adam-Kadmon or the
manifested Logos (the objective Universe) "male and female"—as a chariot
through which to manifest. But in the Zohar we read the following incongruity: "Senior
occultatus est et absconditus; Microprosopus manifestus est, et non manifestus." (Rosenroth; Liber Mysterii, IV., 1.) This is a fallacy, since Microprosopus or the microcosm, can only exist during its manifestations, and is destroyed during the Maha-Pralayas. Rosenroth's Kabala is no guide, but very often a puzzle.
(b) As in the Japanese system, in the
Egyptian, and every old cosmogony—at this divine FLAME, The "One," are lit the
three descending groups. Having their potential being in the higher group, they
now become distinct and separate Entities. These are called the "Virgins of
Life," the "Great Illusion," etc., etc., and collectively the "Six-pointed
Star." The latter is the symbol, in almost every religion, of the Logos
as the first emanation. It is that of Vishnu in India (the Chakra,
or wheel), and the glyph of the Tetragrammaton, the "He of the four
letters" or—metaphorically—"the limbs of Microprosopos" in the Kabala, which are
ten and six respectively. The later Kabalists however, especially the Christian
mystics, have played sad havoc with this magnificent symbol.* For the "ten
limbs" of the Heavenly Man are the ten Sephiroth; but the first Heavenly Man is
the unmanifested Spirit of the Universe, and ought never to be degraded into
Microprosopus—the lesser Face or Countenance, the prototype of man on the
terrestrial plane. † Of this, however, later on. The six-pointed Star
refers to the six Forces or Powers of Nature, the six planes, principles, etc.,
etc., all synthesized by the seventh, or the central point in the Star. All
these, the upper and lower hierarchies included, emanate from the "Heavenly or
Celestial Virgin," ‡ the great mother in all religions, the Androgyne,
the
——————————————————————————————
* Indeed, the Microprosopus—who
is, philosophically speaking, quite distinct from the unmanifested eternal Logos
"one with the Father,"—has been finally brought, by centuries of incessant
efforts, of sophistry and paradoxes, to be considered as one with Jehovah, or
the ONE living God (!), whereas Jehovah is no better than Binah, a female
Sephiroth. This fact cannot be too frequently impressed upon the reader.
† The Microprosopus is, as just said, the Logos manifested, and of such there are many.
‡ Sephira is the Crown, KETHER, in the abstract principle only, as a mathematical x (the unknown quantity). On the plane of differentiated nature she is the female counterpart of Adam Kadmon—the first Androgyne. The Kabala teaches that the word "Fiat Lux" (Genesis ch. i.) referred to the formation and evolution of the Sephiroth, and not to light as opposed to darkness. Rabbi Simeon says: "Oh companions, companions, man as an emanation was both man and woman, Adam Kadmon verily, and this is the sense of the words 'Let there be Light, and it was Light.' And this is the two-fold man." (Auszuge aus dem Zohar, pp. 13-15.)
216 THE
SECRET DOCTRINE.
Sephira-Adam-Kadmon. In its Unity, primordial light is the seventh, or highest, principle, Daivi-prakriti, the light of the unmanifested Logos. But in its differentiation it becomes Fohat, or the "Seven Sons." The former is symbolised by the Central point in the double-Triangle; the latter by the hexagon itself, or the "six limbs" of the Microprosopus the Seventh being Malkuth, the "Bride" of the Christian Kabalists, or our Earth. Hence the expressions:
"The first after the 'One' is divine Fire; the second, Fire and Æther; the third is composed of Fire, Æther and Water; the fourth of Fire, Æther, Water, and Air."* The One is not concerned with Man-bearing globes, but with the inner invisible Spheres. "The 'First-Born' are the LIFE, the heart and pulse of the Universe; the Second are its MIND or Consciousness," † as said in the Commentary.
(c) The second Order of Celestial Beings, those of Fire and Æther (corresponding to Spirit and Soul, or the Atma-Buddhi) whose names are legion, are still formless, but more definitely "substantial." They are the first differentiation in the Secondary Evolution or "Creation"—a misleading word. As the name shows, they are the prototypes of the incarnating Jivas or Monads, and are composed of the Fiery Spirit of Life. It is through these that passes, like a pure solar beam, the ray which is furnished by them with its future vehicle, the Divine Soul, Buddhi. These are directly concerned with the Hosts of the higher world of our system. From these twofold Units emanate the threefold.
In the cosmogony of Japan, when, out of the chaotic
mass, an egg like nucleus appears, having within itself the germ and potency of
all the universal as well as of all terrestrial life, it is the "three-fold"
just named, which differentiates. "The male æthereal" (Yo) principle
——————————————————————————————
* See next footnote. These
elements of Fire, Air, etc., are not our compound elements.
† This "Consciousness" has no
relation to our consciousness. The consciousness of the "One manifested," if not
absolute, is still unconditioned. Mahat (the Universal Mind) is the first
production of the Brahmâ-Creator, but also of the Pradhâna (undifferentiated
matter).
ascends and the female grosser or more material principle (In) is precipitated into the Universe of substance, when a separation occurs between the celestial and the terrestrial. From this the female, the mother, the first rudimentary objective being is born. It is ethereal, without form or sex, and yet it is from this