Theosophical Society,
THE
SECRET DOCTRINE
H P Blavatsky
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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 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).
NOTE
* 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.
TIME AND UNIVERSAL MIND
(a)
Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of
consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion
can be produced; but "lies asleep." The present is only a mathematical
line which divides that part of eternal duration which we call the future, from
that part which we call the past. Nothing on earth has real duration, for
nothing remains without change -- or the same -- for the billionth part of a
second; and the sensation we have of the actuality of the division of
"time" known as the present, comes from the blurring of that
momentary glimpse, or succession of glimpses, of things that our senses give
us, as those things pass from the region of ideals which we call the future, to
the region of memories that we name the past. In the same way we experience a
sensation of duration in the case of the instantaneous electric spark, by
reason of the blurred and continuing impression on the retina. The real person
or thing does not consist solely of what is seen at any particular moment, but
is composed of the sum of all its various and changing conditions from its
appearance in the material form to its disappearance from the earth. It is
these "sum-totals" that exist from eternity in the
"future," and pass by degrees through matter, to exist for eternity
in the "past." No one could say that a bar of metal dropped into the
sea came into existence as it left the air, and ceased to exist as it entered
the water, and that the bar itself consisted only of that cross-section thereof
which at any given moment coincided with the mathematical plane that separates,
and, at the same time, joins, the atmosphere and the ocean. Even so of persons
and things, which, dropping out of the to-be into the has-been, out of the
future into the past -- present momentarily to our senses a cross-section, as
it were, of their total selves, as they pass through time and space (as matter)
on their way from one eternity to another: and these two constitute that
"duration" in which alone anything has true existence, were our
senses but able to cognize it there.
3.
. . . UNIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR THERE WERE NO AH-HI
(celestial beings) TO CONTAIN (hence to manifest) IT (a).
(a)
Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of Consciousness grouped under
Thought, Will, and Feeling. During deep sleep, ideation ceases on the physical
plane, and memory is in abeyance; thus for the time-being "Mind is
not," because the organ, through which the Ego manifests ideation and
memory on the material plane, has temporarily ceased to function. A noumenon
can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that
plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle; and during the long night of
rest called Pralaya, when all the existences are dissolved, the "UNIVERSAL
MIND" remains as a permanent possibility of mental action, or as that
abstract absolute thought, of which mind is the concrete relative
manifestation. The AH-HI (Dhyan-Chohans) are the collective hosts of spiritual
beings -- the Angelic Hosts of Christianity, the Elohim and "Messengers"
of the Jews -- who are the vehicle for the manifestation of the divine or
universal thought and will. They are the Intelligent Forces that give to and
enact in Nature her "laws," while themselves acting according to laws
imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers; but they are not
"the personifications" of the powers of Nature, as erroneously
thought. This hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the Universal Mind
comes into action, is like an army -- a "Host," truly -- by means of
which the fighting power of a nation manifests itself, and which is composed of
army corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, and so forth, each with its
separate individuality or life, and its limited freedom of action and limited
responsibilities; each contained in a larger individuality, to which its own
interests are subservient, and each containing lesser individualities in
itself.
4.
THE
(a)
There are seven "Paths" or "Ways" to the bliss of
Non-Exist-
NOTE
* 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).
THE CAUSES OF BEING.
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
NOTE
* See Wassilief on
Buddhism, pp. 97-950.
before or after they have passed like a flash through
the material world; but we cannot cognise any such existence directly, so long
as we have sense-instruments which bring only material existence into the field
of our consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both
we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only
realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the
stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the
upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance
bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached
"reality;" but only when we shall have reached the absolute
Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions
produced by Maya.
5.
DARKNESS ALONE FILLED THE BOUNDLESS ALL (a), FOR FATHER, MOTHER AND SON WERE
ONCE MORE ONE, AND THE SON HAD NOT AWAKENED YET FOR THE NEW WHEEL* AND HIS
PILGRIMAGE THEREON (b).
(a)
"Darkness is Father-Mother: light their son," says an old Eastern
proverb. Light is inconceivable except as coming from some source which is the
cause of it; and as, in the instance of primordial light, that source is
unknown, though as strongly demanded by reason and logic, therefore it is
called "Darkness" by us, from an intellectual point of view. As to
borrowed or secondary light, whatever its source, it can be but of a temporary
mayavic character. Darkness, then, is the eternal
NOTE
* 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.
WHAT IS DARKNESS IN
PHILOSOPHY?
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.")
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
MOTIONS, THE "GREAT
BREATH."
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 "
(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
NOTE
* See Dzungarian
"Mani Kumbum," the "Book of the 10,000 Precepts." Also
consult Wassilief's "Der Buddhismus," pp. 327 and 357, etc.
sensations according to the laws of Association.
Inextricably bound up with the relativity of human knowledge, they nevertheless
can have no existence except in the experience of the individual ego, and
perish when its evolutionary march dispels the Maya of phenomenal existence.
What is Time, for instance, but the panoramic succession of our states of
consciousness? In the words of a Master, "I feel irritated at having to
use these three clumsy words -- Past, Present, and Future -- miserable concepts
of the objective phases of the subjective whole, they are about as ill-adapted
for the purpose as an axe for fine carving." One has to acquire Paramartha
lest one should become too easy a prey to Samvriti -- is a philosophical
axiom.*
7.
THE CAUSES OF EXISTENCE HAD BEEN DONE AWAY WITH (a); THE VISIBLE THAT WAS, AND
THE INVISIBLE THAT IS, RESTED IN ETERNAL NON-BEING, THE ONE BEING (b).
(a)
"The Causes of Existence" mean not only the physical causes known to
science, but the metaphysical causes, the chief of which is the desire to
exist, an outcome of Nidana and Maya. This desire for a sentient life shows
itself in everything, from an atom to a sun, and is a reflection of the Divine
Thought propelled into objective existence, into a law that the Universe should
exist. According to esoteric teaching, the real cause of that supposed desire,
and of all existence, remains for ever hidden, and its first emanations are the
most complete abstractions mind can conceive. These abstractions must of
necessity be postulated as the cause of the material Universe which presents
itself to the senses and intellect; and they underlie the secondary and
subordinate powers of Nature, which, anthropomorphized, have been worshipped as
God and gods by the common herd of every age. It is impossible to conceive
anything without a cause; the attempt to do so makes the mind a blank.
NOTE
* 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.
BEING AND NON-BEING.
This
is virtually the condition to which the mind must come at last when we try to
trace back the chain of causes and effects, but both science and religion jump
to this condition of blankness much more quickly than is necessary; for they
ignore the metaphysical abstractions which are the only conceivable cause of
physical concretions. These abstractions become more and more concrete as they
approach our plane of existence, until finally they phenomenalise in the form
of the material Universe, by a process of conversion of metaphysics into
physics, analogous to that by which steam can be condensed into water, and the
water frozen into ice.
(b)
The idea of Eternal Non-Being, which is the One Being, will appear a paradox to
anyone who does not remember that we limit our ideas of being to our present
consciousness of existence; making it a specific, instead of a generic term. An
unborn infant, could it think in our acceptation of that term, would
necessarily limit its conception of being, in a similar manner, to the
intrauterine life which alone it knows; and were it to endeavour to express to
its consciousness the idea of life after birth (death to it), it would, in the
absence of data to go upon, and of faculties to comprehend such data, probably
express that life as "Non-Being which is Real Being." In our case the
One Being is the noumenon of all the noumena which we know must underlie
phenomena, and give them whatever shadow of reality they possess, but which we
have not the senses or the intellect to cognize at present. The impalpable
atoms of gold scattered through the substance of a ton of auriferous quartz may
be imperceptible to the naked eye of the miner, yet he knows that they are not
only present there but that they alone give his quartz any appreciable value;
and this relation of the gold to the quartz may faintly shadow forth that of
the noumenon to the phenomenon. But the miner knows what the gold will look
like when extracted from the quartz, whereas the common mortal can form no
conception of the reality of things separated from the Maya which veils them,
and in which they are hidden. Alone the Initiate, rich with the lore acquired
by numberless generations of his predecessors, directs the "Eye of
Dangma" toward the essence of things in which no Maya can have any
influence. It is here that the teachings of esoteric philosophy in relation to
the Nidanas and the Four Truths become of the greatest importance; but they are
secret.
8.
ALONE, THE ONE FORM OF EXISTENCE STRETCHED BOUNDLESS, INFINITE, CAUSELESS, IN
DREAMLESS SLEEP (a); AND LIFE PULSATED UNCONSCIOUS IN UNIVERSAL SPACE,
THROUGHOUT THAT ALL-PRESENCE WHICH IS SENSED BY THE "OPENED EYE"* OF
THE DANGMA (b).**
(a)
The tendency of modern thought is to recur to the archaic idea of a homogeneous
basis for apparently widely different things -- heterogeneity developed from
homogeneity. Biologists are now searching for their homogeneous protoplasm and
chemists for their protyle, while science is looking for the force of which
electricity, magnetism, heat, and so forth, are the differentiations. The
Secret Doctrine carries this idea into the region of metaphysics and postulates
a "One Form of Existence" as the basis and source of all things. But
perhaps the phrase, the "One Form of Existence," is not altogether
correct. The Sanskrit word is Prabhavapyaya, "the place, or rather plane,
whence emerges the origination, and into which is the resolution of all
things," says a commentator. It is not the "Mother of the
World," as translated by
NOTE
* In
** 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.
THE EYE OF DANGMA.
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.
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)?
NOTE
* And yet, one, claiming
authority, namely, Sir Monier Williams, Boden Professor of Sanskrit at
** 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."
(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
NOTE
* "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."
ALAYA, THE UNIVERSAL
SOUL
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
NOTE
* 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. There was another Aryasanga, who lived during the first centuries of
our era and the Hungarian scholar most probably confuses the two.
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.
NOTE
* "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?
CAN THE FINITE CONCEIVE
THE INFINITE?
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
NOTE
* See Schwegler's
"Handbook of the History of Philosophy" in
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.")
NOTE
* 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.
THE STATE OF
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
(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-
NOTE
"Mother of the
Gods," Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the
Zohar, she is called Sephira the Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her
primordial form, in abscondito.
ing consciousness (Svasamvedana), is no bliss, but
simply extinction (for Seven Eternities). Thus, an iron ball
placed under the scorching rays of the sun will get heated through, but
will not feel or appreciate the warmth, while a man will. It is only "with
a mind clear and undarkened by personality, and an assimilation of the merit of
manifold existences devoted to being in its collectivity (the whole living and
sentient Universe)," that one gets rid of personal existence, merging
into, becoming one with, the Absolute,* and continuing in full possession of
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
NOTE
* 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.
THE ABSOLUTE KNOWS
ITSELF NOT.
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
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.
THE GERM OF LIFE.
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
The
Lotus, or Padma, is, moreover, a very ancient and favourite
NOTE
* An unpoetical term, yet
still very graphic. (See foot-note to Stanza III.)
** Even in Christianity.
(See Part II., "Primordial Substance and Divine
Thought.")
*** Gross, "The
Heathen Religion," p. 195.
simile for the Kosmos itself, and also for man. The
popular reasons given are, firstly, the fact just mentioned, that the
Lotus-seed contains within itself a perfect miniature of the future plant,
which typifies the fact that the spiritual prototypes of all things exist in
the immaterial world before those things become materialised on Earth. Secondly, the fact that the Lotus plant grows up through the water,
having its root in the Ilus, or mud, and spreading its flower in the air above.
The Lotus thus typifies the life of man and also that of the Kosmos; for the
Secret Doctrine teaches that the elements of both are the same, and that both
are developing in the same direction. The root of the Lotus sunk in the mud
represents material life, the stalk passing up through the water typifies
existence in the astral world, and the flower floating on the water and opening
to the sky is emblematical of spiritual being.
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
ASTRAL LIGHT IS NOT THE
ANIMA MUNDI.
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'
NOTE
* A Vedantin of the
Visishtadwaita philosophy would say that, though the only independent Reality,
Parabrahmam is inseparable from his trinity. That He is three,
"Parabrahmam, Chit, and Achit," the last two being dependent
realities unable to exist separately; or, to make it clearer, Parabrahmam is
the SUBSTANCE -- changeless, eternal, and incognizable -- and Chit (Atma), and
Achit (Anatma) are its qualities, as form and colour are the qualities of any
object. The two are the garment, or body, or rather attribute (Sarira) of
Parabrahmam. But an Occultist would find much to say against this claim, and so
would the Adwaitee Vedantin.
Measure, and this is obtained in this way, viz.:
113 x 5 = 565, and the value 565 can be placed under the form of expression
56.5 x 10 = 565. Here the Man-number 113 becomes a factor of 56.5 x 10, and the
(Kabalistic) reading of this last numbered expression is Jod, He, Vau, He, or
Jehovah. . . . The expansion of 565 into 56.5 x 10 is purposed to show the
emanation of the male (Jod) from the female (Eva) principle; or, so to speak,
the birth of a male element from an immaculate source, in other words, an
immaculate conception."
Thus is repeated on Earth the mystery enacted, according to the Seers, on the divine plane. The "Son" of the immaculate Celestial Virgin (or the undifferentiated cosmic protyle, Matter in its infinitude) is born again on Earth as the Son of the terrestrial Eve -- our mother Earth, and becomes Humanity as a total -- past, present, and future -- for Jehovah or Jod-he-vau-he is androgyne, or both male and female. Above, the Son is the whole KOSMOS; below, he is MANKIND. The triad or triangle becomes Tetraktis, the Sacred Pythagorean number, the perfect Square, and a 6-faced cube on Earth. The Macroprosopus (the Great Face) is now Microprosopus (the lesser face); or, as the Kabalists have it, the "Ancient of Days," descending on Adam Kadmon whom he uses as his vehicle to manifest through, gets transformed into Tetragrammaton. It is now in the "Lap of Maya," the Great Illusion, and between itself and the Reality has the Astral Light, the great Deceiver of man's limited senses, unless Kno