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THE SECRET
DOCTRINE.
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HELENA PETROVNA
BLAVATSKY
1831-1891
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THE SECRET
DOCTRINE:
THE SYNTHESIS
OF
SCIENCE,
RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY.
BY
H. P. BLAVATSKY,
AUTHOR OF "
"There is
no Religion higher than Truth."
VOL. I. --
COSMOGENESIS.
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.
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"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."
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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.
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PREFACE.
THE Author -- the
writer, rather -- feels it necessary to apologise 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
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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.
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TABLE OF
CONTENTS.
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PAGE.
INTRODUCTION ...
xvii.
The Need of such
a Book ... xix.
The Antiquity of
Documents and MSS. ... xxiii.
What the Book is
intended to do ... xxviii.
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VOLUME FIRST.
COSMOGENESIS.
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
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BOOK I. -- PART
I.
COSMIC
EVOLUTION.
SEVEN STANZAS
FROM THE BOOK OF DZYAN ... 27
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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
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PAGE.
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
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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
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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
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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
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STANZA VI. --
OUR WORLD, ITS GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT ... 136
The Logos ...
136
Mystery of the
Female Logos ... 137
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PAGE.
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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PAGE.
The Watcher and
his Shadow ... 265
Earth peopled by
the Shadows of the Gods ... 267
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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
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BOOK
THE EVOLUTION OF
SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER.
§§
I. SYMBOLISM AND
IDEOGRAPHS ... 303
Emblem and
Symbol differ ... 305
Magic Potency of
Sound ... 307
Mystery Language
... 309
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II. THE MYSTERY
LANGUAGE AND ITS KEYS ... 310
The Jews and
their System ... 313
Moses copied
from Sargon ... 319
Identity of
Ancient Symbols ... 323
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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
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IV. CHAOS --
THEOS -- KOSMOS ... 342
The
The Birth of
Mind ... 345
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V. THE HIDDEN
DEITY, ITS SYMBOLS AND GLYPHS ... 349
The Gnostic Idea
... 351
International
Correlation of Gods ... 355
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§§ PAGE.
VI. THE MUNDANE
EGG ... 359
Egg-born Logoi
... 363
The Winged Globe
... 365
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VII. THE DAYS
AND NIGHTS OF BRAHMA ... 368
Human Gods and
Divine Men ... 369
The Rebirth of
Gods ... 371
The Puranic
Prophecy ... 377
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VIII. THE LOTUS
AS A UNIVERSAL SYMBOL ... 379
Exoteric and
Esoteric ... 381
The Purity of
early Phallicism ... 383
The Egyptian
Lotus ... 385
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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
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X. TREE AND
SERPENT AND CROCODILE WORSHIP ... 403
Degeneration of
the Symbol ... 405
The Seven-headed
Dragons ... 407
Dragon and
Crocodile ... 409
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XI. DEMON EST
DEUS INVERSUS ... 411
Death is Life
... 413
The Fall of the
Angels ... 418
Transformation
of the Legend ... 421
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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
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§§ PAGE.
XIII. THE SEVEN
CREATIONS ... 445
The Gnostic and
the Hindu Versions ... 449
The Seven
Puranic "Creations" ... 450
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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
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XV. ON
KWAN-SHI-YIN AND KWAN-YIN ... 470
Kwan-Shi-Yin and
Phallicism ... 471
The Real Meaning
... 472
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BOOK
SCIENCE AND THE
SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED.
§§
I. REASONS FOR
THESE ADDENDA ... 477
Occultism versus
Materialism ... 479
The Sabbath of
the Mystic ... 481
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II. MODERN
PHYSICISTS ARE PLAYING AT BLIND MAN'S BUFF ... 482
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III. AN LUMEN
SIT CORPUS NEC NON? ... 483
The Hypothetical
Ether ... 485
Scientific
Theories of its Constitution ... 489
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IV. IS
GRAVITATION A LAW? ... 490
Intelligences or
Blind Forces? ... 493
The Cause of
Attraction ... 498
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§§ PAGE.
V. THE THEORIES
OF ROTATION SCIENCE ... 500
Conflicting
Hypotheses ... 502
More Hypotheses
... 505
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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
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VII. AN ATTACK
ON THE SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF FORCE BY A MAN OF SCIENCE ... 523
Ether and Atoms
... 527
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VIII. LIFE,
FORCE, OR GRAVITY? ... 529
Dr. Richardson
on Nervous Ether ... 531
The Senses and
their Action ... 535
Too much
"Life" may Kill ... 539
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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
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X. THE COMING
FORCE ... 554
Mr. Keeley, an
Unconscious Occultist ... 557
Inter-Etheric
Waves ... 561
The Secrets of
Sound and Odour ... 565
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Xl. ON THE
ELEMENTS AND ATOMS ... 566
Metaphysical
Chemistry ... 569
What are the
Seven Planets? ... 575
The Cyclic Fall
of the Gods ... 577
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§§ PAGE.
XII. ANCIENT
THOUGHT IN MODERN DRESS ... 579
All-Potential
Unity ... 583
The
"Seventh" in Chemistry ... 585
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XIII. THE MODERN
NEBULAR THEORY ... 588
Forces are
Emanations ... 591
What is the
Nebula? ... 595
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XIV. FORCES --
MODES OF MOTION OR INTELLIGENCES? ... 601
The Vital
Principle ... 603
Occult and
Physical Science ... 605
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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
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XVI. CYCLIC
EVOLUTION AND KARMA ... 634
Karmic Cycles
and Universal Ethics ... 637
Destiny and
Karma ... 639
Karma-Nemesis
... 643
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XVII. THE ZODIAC
AND ITS ANTIQUITY ... 647
The Jewish
Patriarchs and the Signs of the Zodiac ... 651
Zodiacal Cycles
... 656
Hindu Astronomy
... 661
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XVIII. SUMMARY
OF THE MUTUAL POSITION ... 668
Science
Confesses her Ignorance ... 669
Materialism is
leading
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N.B. -- The
Index and Glossary will be found at the close of Volume II.
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INTRODUCTORY.
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"Gently to
hear, kindly to judge."
-- SHAKESPEARE.
SINCE the
appearance of Theosophical literature in
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 aeons and ages.
"Esoteric
Buddhism" was an excellent work with a very unfortunate
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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
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
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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 Aryasanga 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 "Brahma" not being
found in the Vedas and the early works. It means the absolute Wisdom, and
"Adi-bhuta" is translated "the primeval uncreated cause of
all" by Fitzedward Hall. AEons 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 EGOtism (destroys it) with all its Vikaras,
Avalokiteshvara 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
re-action, of "Budhism," deny its esoteric teachings (which are those
also of the Brahmins), simply because the name
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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
Time and human
imagination made short work of the purity and philo-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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 archaeologist, was the
first, we believe, to discover it.
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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
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
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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 premisses 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
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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
It is maintained,
furthermore, that every sacred book of that kind, whose text was not
sufficiently veiled in symbolism, or which had any
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Prof. Max
Muller 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
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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
palaeographer, 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 Badaoni, who had an undisguised horror for Akbar's mania for
idolatrous religions.*
Moreover in all
the large and wealthy lamasaries, 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 Tsay-dam, 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 near by 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Badaoni 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 Jahangir." (Ain i Akbari, translated by
Dr. Blochmann, p. 104, note.)
**
*** According to
the same tradition the now desolate regions of the waterless
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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 Muller 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.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "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 Muller.) But they
have not fathomed it -- and this is the complaint of the Confucianists, as a
very learned member of that body, in
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If one turns to
the ancient literature of the Semitic religions, to the Chaldean Scriptures,
the elder sister and instructress, if not the fountain-head 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
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 Caesarea --
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
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 role 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?
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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
"
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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 Brahmanas and the mass of glosses and commentaries, it is not
understood correctly to this day. Why is this so? Evidently because the
Brahmanas, "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 alankara,* 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 Muller, 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."** 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Spence Hardy,
"The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists," p. 66.
**
"Buddhism in
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upon Buddha or
his "Good Law," the loss of nearly 76,000 tracts does seem
miraculous. Had it been vice versa, 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,
Owing to the
expressed regrets and numerous confessions of almost every one of the
Orientalists (See Max Muller'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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Lassen,
("Ind. Althersumkunde" Vol. II, p. 1,072) shows a Buddhist monastery
erected in the
** Reverend T.
Edkins, "Chinese Buddhism."
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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
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* 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,
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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 Muller 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
Questioned
further on this point, he would say no more. This was at
No doubt the
mystification played, in the last century at
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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 Brahma, 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 Puranic 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 Muller. What it is everyone knows. The code of phonetic laws has
now become a universal solvent for every identification and
"connection" between
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See Max
Muller'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 Puranic 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
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the gods of many
nations. Thus, though the Mother of Mercury (Budha, Thot-Hermes, etc.), was
Maia, the mother of Buddha (Gautama), also Maya, 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
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"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 know 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
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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
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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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
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
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
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burg 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
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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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."** (Quoted in
"Science of Religions" by Max Muller.)
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 instalment 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Lun Yu (§ 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
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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 Lempriere and other scholars? About 1820, Prof. Max Muller 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 "
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
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] 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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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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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
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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 mediaeval 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
In other words
-- "THERE IS NO RELIGION (OR LAW) HIGHER THAN TRUTH" -- "SATYAT
NASTI 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* "Lectures
on the Science of Religion," by F. Max Muller, p. 257.
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it rather, and,
though entirely independent of the earlier work, an indispensable corollary to
it. Much of what was in
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.
"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."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* The name is
used in the sense of the Greek word [[anthropos]].
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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 Puranas 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
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,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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 Mediaeval
Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists claimed the same; and even the late
modern Magus, Eliphas Levi, publicly asserts it in print in his books on Magic.
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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, Sankaracharya.
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
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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 aeons 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 Post-diluvian
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 Levi (!), Paracelsus (!!), and, mirabile
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dictu, Buddhism
and Brahmanism (!!!) As well charge Renan with having stolen his Vie de Jesus
from the Gospels, and Max Muller 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
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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
215/216. The agreement of ten persons giving each 1/2 of certitude will produce
1023/1024, etc., etc. The Occultist may remain satisfied, and care for no more.
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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.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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 realise how far Intuition soars above the tardy
processes of ratiocinative thought can form the faintest conception of [[Footnote
continued on next page]]
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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; unrealisable,
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 recognised 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] 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.
* Plato proves
himself an Initiate, when saying in Cratylus that [[theos]] is derived from the
verb [[theein]], "to move," "to run," as the first
astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called the planets
[[theoi]], the gods. (See Book II., "Symbolism of the Cross and
Circle.") Later, the word produced another term, [[aletheia]] -- "the
breath of God."
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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 Brahma. The latter is either "awake" or
"asleep." The Svabhavikas, or philosophers of the oldest
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Nominalists,
arguing with
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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 Svabhavikas 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 Brahma" 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 [[diagram]] the second one in the Archaic
symbol shows [[diagram]], 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 [[diagram]] It now symbolises a divine
immaculate Mother-Nature within the all-embracing absolute Infinitude.
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When the
diameter line is crossed by a vertical one [[diagram]], 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
[[diagram]] 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 [[diagram]] or as a
"Thor's hammer," the Jaina cross, so-called, or simply Svastica
within a circle [[diagram]]
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 -- [[diagram]] -- 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 [[diagram]], 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 [[diagram]] (emblem of life), and
still later into the sign of Venus, [[diagram]] 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 [[diagram]] -- the sign of human sorcery, with
its two points (horns) turned heavenward, a position every
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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!
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Occultist will
recognise 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
cogniser, "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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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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 Brahma (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.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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."
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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 Brahma, 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 Brahma -- 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* The very names
of the two chief deities, Brahma 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;
Brahma-Vishnu being this infinite SPACE, of which the gods, the Rishis, the
Manus, and all in this universe are simply the potencies, Vibhutayah.
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return to,
Brahma (Brahma)": for Brahma (neuter), the unmanifested, is that Universe
in abscondito, and Brahma, 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See Manu's
account of Brahma separating his body into male and female, the latter the
female Vach, in whom he creates Viraj, 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 "Un- [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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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-Prajapati" 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 Brahma, in her A'kasic 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 Akasa, 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 archaeologists; 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] known Causeless Cause," is the oldest dogma
in Occultism, millenniums earlier than the Pater-AEther 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.
* 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,
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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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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 organised, 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 [[Footnote continued on next
page]]
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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 Brahma, or Manvantara). . . . ."
For clearer
understanding on the part of the general reader, it must be stated that Occult
Science recognises 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] 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.
* 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."
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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'kasa
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 AEther,
"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 Brahma."
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.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Whatever the
views of physical Science upon the subject, Occult Science has been teaching
for ages that A'kasa -- 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.
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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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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" [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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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."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] 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.
* See Mr. Subba
Row's four able lectures on the Bhagavad Gita, "Theosophist,"
February, 1887.
** Called in
Sanskrit: "Upadhi."
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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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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 [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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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 Brahma.")
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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] 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.
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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'kasa, 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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
Akasic 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.
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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 Purana.
"That Brahma 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 [[diagram]], calling it "the
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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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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 Brahma, 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 Brahma 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 Brahma 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
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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 Puranas 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
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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.
---------------------
NOTE.
The Stanzas
which form the thesis of every section are given throughout in their modern translated
version, as it would be worse
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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
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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.
---------------------
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PART I.
COSMIC
EVOLUTION.
---------------------
SEVEN STANZAS
TRANSLATED WITH COMMENTARIES
FROM THE
SECRET BOOK OF
DZYAN.
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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."
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COSMIC
EVOLUTION.
In Seven Stanzas
translated from the Book of Dzyan.
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STANZA I.
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
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?
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STANZA II.
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. . . .
-------
STANZA III.
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.
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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
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
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
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.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
** 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.
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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.
-------
STANZA IV.
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
4. THIS WAS THE
ARMY OF THE VOICE -- THE DIVINE MOTHER OF THE SEVEN. THE
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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 [[diagram]] 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.
-------
STANZA V.
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
3. HE IS THEIR
GUIDING SPIRIT AND LEADER. WHEN HE COMMENCES WORK, HE SEPARATES THE
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
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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. . . . .
-------
STANZA VI.
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.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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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
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 . . . . .
-------
STANZA VII.
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.
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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
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.
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COMMENTARIES
ON THE SEVEN
STANZAS AND THEIR TERMS, ACCORDING TO THEIR NUMERATION, IN STANZAS AND SLOKAS.
STANZA I.
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 Akasa radiates.
(a) By the Seven
"Eternities," aeons 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
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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 Brahma -- making a total of 311,040,000,000,000 of years; each
year of Brahma being composed of 360 "days," and of the same number
of "nights" of Brahma (reckoning by the Chandrayana or lunar year);
and a "Day of Brahma" 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).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* It is stated
in Book II., ch. viii., of Vishnu Purana: "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.
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(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).
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(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
(a) There are
seven "Paths" or "Ways" to the bliss of Non-Exist-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Nippang in
** 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).
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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 Hinayana
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 Hinayana System, or School of the "Little Vehicle,"
is of very ancient growth; while the Mahayana 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
Hinayana and Mahayana 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See Wassilief
on Buddhism, pp. 97-950.
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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.
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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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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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
versa. 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 Brahma," 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
Brahma." 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 Brahma -- the symbol
of the Universe. In esoteric parlance, Brahma 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 Brahma.")
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STANZA I. --
Continued.
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 Irenaeus 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 Yogacharya 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
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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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See Dzungarian
"Mani Kumbum," the "Book of the 10,000 Precepts." Also
consult Wassilief's "Der Buddhismus," pp. 327 and 357, etc.
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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 Paramartha lest one should become too easy a prey to
Samvriti -- is a philosophical axiom.*
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STANZA I. --
Continued.
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.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* In clearer
words: "One has to acquire true Self-Consciousness in order to understand
Samvriti, or the 'origin of delusion.'" Paramartha 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
"Paramartha" between the Yogacharyas and the Madhyamikas, neither of
whom, however, explain the real and true esoteric sense of the expression. See
further, sloka No. 9.
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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.
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STANZA I. --
Continued.
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 Puranic Commentators explain it by Karana --
"Cause" -- but the Esoteric philosophy, by the ideal spirit of that
cause. It is, in its secondary stage, the Svabhavat 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,"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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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 Sankaracharya,** 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.
-------
STANZA I. --
Continued.
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)?
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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 Muller, 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."
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(a) Here we have
before us the subject of centuries of scholastic disputations. The two terms
"Alaya" and "Paramartha" 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 Yogacharyas (of the Mahayana 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 Paramartha: the Yogacharyas interpret
the term as that which is also dependent upon other things (paratantra); and
the Madhyamikas say that Paramartha 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 Paramarthasatya, 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Paramartha" 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 Paramarthasatya 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."
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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
Yogacharya system of the contemplative Mahayana 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 Aryasanga -- the rival of Nagarjuna.* In one
sense it is Pradhana; which
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* Aryasanga was
a pre-Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist esoteric school, though Csoma
di Koros places him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh century
[[Footnote continued on next page]]
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is explained in
Vishnu Purana as: "that which is the unevolved cause, is emphatically
called by the most eminent sages Pradhana, 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 ([[nous]]), 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.
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] A.D. There was another Aryasanga, who lived
during the first centuries of our era and the Hungarian scholar most probably
confuses the two.
* "The
indiscreet cause which is uniform, and both cause and effect, and which those
who are acquainted with first principles call Pradhana and Prakriti, is the
incognizable Brahma who was before all" (Vayu Purana); 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 Pradhana.
** 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?
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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 Archaeus a discovery of Paracelsus nor of
his pupil Van Helmont; for it is again the same Archaeus or
"Father-Ether," -- the manifested basis
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See
Schwegler's "Handbook of the History of Philosophy" in Sterling's
translation, p. 28.
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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
"Manushi (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 Svabhavat 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 Manushi-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.")
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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STANZA II.
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 Brahma," 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-marthasatya)
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
Paramartha, the Self-analys-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
"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.
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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 Paramartha.
-------
STANZA II. --
Continued.
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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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 Brahma, have to
die at the end of the "Age of Brahma"; 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.
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condition of the
Universe when it goes to sleep, or ceases to be, during the "Nights of
Brahma" -- 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 Brahma, or the Universe). Brahma (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 Purana, that treat of
"creation."
Therein Brahma
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 upadana, the material cause, (and in the
Sankhya, pradhana 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 upadana 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
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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.
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STANZA II. --
Continued.
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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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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.
-------
STANZA II. --
Continued.
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
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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 Brahma; 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'
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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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.
-------
STANZA II. --
Continued.
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.")
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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 "Subhava," "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."
Subhava, from which Svabhavat, is composed of two words: Su "fair,"
"handsome," "good"; Sva, "self"; and bhava,
"being" or "states of being."
-------
STANZA II. --
Continued.
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.
Brahma, 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.
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STANZA III.
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 (Khandakala). 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 Pradhana (undifferentiated
substance, or the periodical aspect of Mulaprakriti, the root of Nature), which
(Pradhana) 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
Gnana (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 Brahma." 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
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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 "AEon," 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 Brahma," 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.
-------
STANZA III. --
continued.
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).
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(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 Narayana (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.
-------
STANZA III. --
Continued.
2. [[3.]]
"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
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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
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stated in Vishnu
Purana, where elements are translated "Envelopes" and a secret one is
added: "Aham-kara" (see Wilson's Vishnu Purana, 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").
-------
STANZA III. --
Continued.
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 Brahma, 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 Puranas, 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
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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 Brahmana" 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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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 Brahmanas, 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.
-------
STANZA III. --
Continued.
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),*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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
Sanatsugatiya and The Anugita," trans- [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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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."
-------
STANZA III. --
Continued.
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-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] lated 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.
* Amrita is
"immortality."
** See
Commentary No. 1 to this Stanza.
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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-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* See
"Kwan-Shai-Yin." The real name from the text cannot be given.
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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.)
---------
STANZA III. --
Continued.
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 Judaeus. He is
called the "Blazing Dragon of Wisdom,"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
** 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.
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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 Avalokiteshwara, 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.)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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
Brahma-Vach in Manu and the Puranas. 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
Avalokiteshwaras 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.
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(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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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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 Sarparajni,
"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.**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* The Astral
Light, or the AEther, 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 Avalokiteswara of the esoteric Buddhists.
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The celestial
Ocean, the 'Ether . . . . 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 Brahma or Siva, appears as
Vishnu, says Sankhya Sara (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" (Anugita, 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 Kumara in Vishnu Purana) 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)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.)
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the identity of
"Father-Mother" with primordial AEther or Akasa, (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 Levi'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
[[hebrew]], 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
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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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.
-------
STANZA III. --
Continued.
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
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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 Brahma) 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
[[hebrew]], 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 [[hebrew]],
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 [[hebrew]] is the
symbol of the Unity and consequently of the unvarying Idea of the Divine
operating through all these. But behind the [[hebrew]] in the name Hoa are the
letters [[hebrew]] and [[hebrew]], 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
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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 Purana) 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 Kala-Hansa being the
supposed vehicle of Brahma-Prajapati, in the exoteric texts and translations of
the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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Orientalists, it
is quite a mistake. Brahma, the neuter, is called by them Kala-Hansa and
Brahma, 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 Brahma, 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 Brahma, 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 Narayan, or Swayambhuva (the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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 [[Footnote continued on
next page]]
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Self-Existent),
and penetrating into the Mundane Egg, it emerges from it at the end of the
divine incubation as Brahma or Prajapati, 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 --
Brahma-vach (the female) and Brahma-Viraj (the male), that the Prajapati
becomes the male Brahma.
-------
STANZA III. --
Continued.
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. . . .
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] 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.
** Not the
Mediaeval 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.
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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.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* [[para]],
"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.
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STANZA III. --
Continued.
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). Brahma, 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 Brahma the "Creator" is, as a term, derived
from the root brih, to increase or expand. Brahma "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."
-------
STANZA III. --
Continued.
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
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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 (nebulae) 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 Swabhavat, 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
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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.
-------
STANZA III. --
Continued.
12. THEN
SVABHAVAT 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.")
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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STANZA IV.
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 Bhagavatgita (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. Sankaracharya the greatest of the Esoteric
masters of India, says that fire means a deity which presides over Time (kala).
The able translator of Bhagavatgita, Kashinath 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.
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The Agnishwatha,
the Kumara (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 AEther in its purest form,
and hence is not regarded as matter, but it is the unity of Aether -- 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 Anugita:
"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 Brahmana who speaks."
("Sacred Books of the East," ed. by Max Muller, 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
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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."
-------
STANZA IV. --
Continued.
(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 Brahma
(Veddhas) -- to create or rather to multiply.
-------
STANZA IV. --
Continued.
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,
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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 Vaidhatra (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 Brahma 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 Brahma separating into two and recreating in one of his halves
(the female Vach) himself as Viraj, 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 Brahma-Prajapati), who answers to
the numbers 7, and 14, and 21 respectively. The Prajapati are, like the
Sephiroth, only seven, including the
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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synthetic
Sephira of the triad from which they spring. Thus from Hiranyagarbha or
Prajapati, 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 Sarvatma,
the "Super-Soul." "The seven Lords of Being lie concealed in
Sarvatma 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 Mahabharata 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 (pi), as this
ratio is called -- the symbol being always used in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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 ( [[hebrew]]), 6 ( [[hebrew]]) and 5 ( [[hebrew]]); 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 Chaldaea. See "Hebrew Metrology"
in the Masonic Review, July, 1885, McMillan Lodge, No. 141.
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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 [[hebrew]] (a) is 1 : [[hebrew]] (l) is 3 (or 30); [[hebrew]]
(h) is 5; [[hebrew]] (i) 1 for 10; and [[hebrew]] (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." Prajapati 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,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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).
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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.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
* 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.
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http://www.theosophycardiff.org[[Vol.
1, Page]] 93 THE POTENCY OF SPEECH AND SOUND.
STANZA IV. --
Continued.
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.
[[Footnote(s)]]
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* 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.
-------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales-------
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http://www.theosophycardiff.org[[Vol.
1, Page]] 94 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"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 Vach, 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 Anugita a conversation is given (ch. vi.,