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THE
SECRET DOCTRINE
H P Blavatsky
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CHAOS -- THEOS -- KOSMOS.
THESE
three are the containment of Space; or, as a learned Kabalist has defined it,
"Space, the all containing uncontained, is the primary embodiment of
simply Unity. . . . boundless extension."* But, he asks again,
"boundless extension of what?" -- and makes the correct reply --
"The unknown container of all, the Unknown FIRST CAUSE." This is a
most correct definition and answer, most esoteric and true, from every aspect
of occult teaching.
SPACE,
which, in their ignorance and iconoclastic tendency to destroy every
philosophic idea of old, the modern wiseacres have proclaimed "an abstract
idea" and a void, is, in reality, the container and the body of the
Universe with its seven principles. It is a body of limitless extent, whose
PRINCIPLES, in Occult phraseology -- each being in its turn a septenary --
manifest in our phenomenal world only the grossest fabric of their
sub-divisions. "No one has ever seen the Elements in their fulness,"
the Doctrine teaches. We have to search for our Wisdom in the original
expressions of the primeval people and in their synonyms. Even the latest of
them -- the Jews -- show in their Kabalistic teachings this idea, e.g., the
seven-headed Serpent of Space, called "the great Sea." "In the
beginning, the Alhim created the heavens and the earth; the 6 (Sephiroth). . .
. They created six, and on these all things are based. And those (six) depend
upon the seven forms of the cranium up to Dignity of all Dignities (Siphrah
Dzenioota, i, § 16), see part ii., vol. ii. "Ancient Divisions and the
Mystic Numbers."
Now
Wind, Air and Spirit have ever been synonymous with every nation. Pneuma
(Spirit) and Anemos (the wind) with the Greeks, Spiritus and Ventus with the
Latins, were convertible terms even if dissociated from the original idea of
the breath of life. In the "Forces" of Science we see but the
material effect of the spiritual affect of one or the other of the four
primordial Elements, transmitted to us by the 4th Race, as we shall transmit
Ether (or rather the gross subdivision of it) in its fulness to the Sixth Root
Race. This is explained in the text of this and the following Book.
"Chaos"
is called senseless by the ancients, because it represented and contained in
itself (Chaos and Space being synonymous) all the Elements in their
rudimentary, undifferentiated State. They made of Ether, the fifth element, the
synthesis of the other four; for the AEther of the Greek philosophers is not
its dregs -- of which indeed they knew more
NOTE
* "New Aspects of
Life," by Henry Pratt, M.D.
THE
than
science does now -- which are rightly enough supposed to act as an agent for
many forces that manifest on Earth. Their AEther was the Akasa of the Hindus;
the Ether accepted in physics is but one of its subdivisions, on our plane, --
the Astral Light of the Kabalists with all its evil as well as good effects.
On
account of the Essence of AEther, or the Unseen Space, being held divine as the
supposed veil of Deity, it was regarded as the medium between this life and the
next one. The ancients considered that when the directing active
"Intelligences" (the gods) retired from any portion of Ether in our
Space -- the four realms which they superintend -- then that particular place
was left in the possession of evil, so called by reason of the absence of the
Good from it.
"The
existence of spirit in the common mediator, the ether, is denied by
materialism; while theology makes of it a personal god. But the Kabalist holds
that both are wrong, saying that in ether, the elements represent but matter --
the blind cosmic forces of nature; while Spirit represents the intelligence
which directs them. The Aryan, Hermetic, Orphic, and Pythagorean cosmogonical
doctrines, as well as those of Sanchoniathon and Berosus, are all based upon
one irrefutable formula, viz., that the aether and chaos, or, in the Platonic
language, mind and matter, were the two primeval and eternal principles of the
universe, utterly independent of anything else. The former was the
all-vivifying intellectual principle; the chaos, a shapeless liquid principle,
without 'form or sense,' from the union of which two sprung into existence the
universe, or rather the universal world, the first androgynous deity -- the
chaotic matter becoming its body, and ether its soul. According to the
phraseology of a Fragment of Hermias, 'chaos, from this union with spirit,
obtaining sense, shone with pleasure, and thus was produced the Protogonos (the
first-born) light.'* This is the universal trinity, based on the metaphysical
conceptions of the ancients, who, reasoning by analogy, made of man, who is a
compound of intellect and matter, the microcosm of the macrocosm, or great
universe." (
"Nature
abhors Vacuum" said the Peripatetics, who comprehended perhaps, though
materialists in their way, why Democritus, with his instructor Leucippus,
taught that the first principles of all things contained in the Universe were
atoms and a vacuum. The latter means simply latent Deity or force; which,
before its first manifestation when it became WILL -- communicating the first
impulse to these atoms -- was the great Nothingness, Ain-Soph, or NO-THING;
was, therefore, to every sense, a Void -- or CHAOS.
That
Chaos, however, became the "Soul of the World," according to Plato
and the Pythagoreans. According to Hindu teaching, Deity in the shape of AEther
(Akasa) pervades all things; and it was called there-
NOTE
* Damascius, in the
"Theogony," calls it Dis, "the disposer of all things."
Cory, "Ancient Fragments," p. 314.
fore
by the theurgists "the living fire," the "Spirit of Light,"
and sometimes Magnes. It was the highest Deity itself which, according to
Plato, built the Universe in the geometrical form of the Dodecahedron; and its
"first begotten" was born of Chaos and Primordial Light (the Central
Sun). This "First-Born," however, was only the aggregate of the Host
of the "Builders," the first constructive Forces, who are called in
ancient Cosmogonies the Ancients (born of the Deep, or Chaos) and the
"First Point." He is the Tetragrammaton, so-called, at the head of
the Seven lower Sephiroth. This was the belief of the Chaldees. "These
Chaldeans," writes Philo, the Jew, speaking very flippantly of the first
instructors of his ancestors, "were of opinion that the Kosmos, among the
things that exist (?) is a single point, either being itself God (Theos) or
that in it is God, comprehending the soul of all things." (See his "Migration
of Abraham," 32.)
Chaos-Theos-Kosmos
are but the three aspects of their synthesis -- SPACE. One can never hope to
solve the mystery of this Tetraktis by holding to the dead-letter even of the
old philosophies, as now extant. But, even in these CHAOS-THEOS-KOSMOS = SPACE,
are identified in all Eternity, as the One Unknown Space, the last word about
which will, perhaps, never be known before our seventh Round. Nevertheless, the
allegories and metaphysical symbols about the primeval and perfect CUBE, are
remarkable even in the exoteric Puranas.
There,
also, Brahma is the Theos, evolving out of Chaos, or the great
"Deep," the waters, over which Spirit = SPACE, personified by ayana
-- the Spirit moving over the face of the future boundless Kosmos -- is
silently hovering, in the first hour of re-awakening. It is also Vishnu,
sleeping on Ananta-Sesha, the great Serpent of Eternity, of which Western
theology, ignorant of the Kabala, the only key that opens the secrets of the
Bible, has made -- the Devil. It is the first triangle or the Pythagorean
triad, the "God of the three Aspects," before it is transformed
through its perfect quadrature of the infinite Circle into the "four-faced
Brahma."
"Of
him who is and yet is not, from the not-being, Eternal Cause, is born the Being-Purusha,"
says Manu, the legislator.
In
Isis Unveiled, it is said that:--
"In
the Egyptian mythology, Kneph, the Eternal Unrevealed God, is represented by a
snake emblem of Eternity encircling a water urn, with its head hovering over
the waters, which it incubates with its breath. In this case the serpent is the
Agathodaemon, the good spirit: in its opposite aspect, it is the Kakodaemon --
the bad one. In the Scandinavian Eddas, the honey dew, the fruit of the gods
and of the creative busy Yggdrasill (bees), falls during the hours of night,
when the atmosphere is impregnated with humidity; and in the Northern
mythologies, as the passive principle of creation, it typifies the
THE BIRTH OF MIND.
creation
of the universe out of water; this dew is the astral light in one of its
combinations, and possesses creative as well as destructive properties. In the
Chaldean legend of Berosus, Oannes or Dagon, the man-fish, instructing the
people, shows the infant world created out of water, and all beings originating
from this prima materia. Moses teaches that only earth and water can bring a
living soul: and we read in the Scriptures that herbs could not grow until the
Eternal caused it to rain upon earth. In the Mexican Popol-Vuh, man is created
out of mud or clay (terre glaise), taken from under the water. Brahma creates
the great Muni (or first man) seated on his lotus, only after having called
into being spirits who thus enjoyed over mortals a priority of existence, and
he creates him out of water, air and earth. Alchemists claim that the
primordial or pre-Adamic earth, when reduced to its first substance, is in its
second stage of transformation like clear water, the first being the alkahest
proper. This primordial substance is said to contain within itself the essence
of all that goes to make up man; it has not only all the elements of his
physical being, but even the "breath of life" itself in a latent state,
ready to be awakened. This it derives from the "incubation" of the
"Spirit of God" upon the face of the waters -- CHAOS: in fact, this
substance is chaos itself. From this it was that Paracelsus claimed to be able
to make his "homunculi;" and this is why Thales, the great natural
philosopher, maintained that water was the principle of all things in nature.*
. . . Job says, in chap. xxvi. 5, that "dead things are formed from under
the waters, and inhabitants thereof." In the original text, instead of "dead
things," it is written dead Rephaim (giants or mighty primitive men), from
whom "Evolution" may one day trace our present race."
"In
the primordial state of the creation," says Polier's Mythologie des
Indous, "the rudimental universe, submerged in water, reposed in the bosom
of Vishnu. Sprung from this chaos and darkness, Brahma, the architect of the
world, poised on a lotus-leaf, floated (moved) upon the waters, unable to
discern anything but water and darkness." Perceiving such a dismal state
of things, Brahma soliloquises in consternation: "Who am I? Whence came
I?" Then he hears a voice:** "Direct your thoughts to Bhagavat."
Brahma, rising from his natatory position, seats himself upon the lotus in an
attitude of contemplation, and reflects upon the Eternal, who, pleased with
this evidence of piety, disperses the primeval darkness and opens his
understanding. "After this Brahma issues from the universal egg (infinite
chaos) as light, for his understanding is now opened, and he sets himself to
work: he moves on the eternal waters, with the spirit of God within himself;
and in his capacity of mover of the waters he is Vishnu, or Narayana."
This is
NOTE
* With the Greeks, the
"River-gods," all of them the Sons of the primeval ocean (Chaos in
its masculine aspect), were the respective ancestors of the Hellenic races. For
them the OCEAN was the father of the Gods; and thus they had anticipated in
this connection the theories of Thales, as rightly observed by Aristotle
(Metaph. I., 3, 5).
** The
"Spirit," or hidden voice of the Mantras, the active manifestation of
the latent Force, or occult potency.
exoteric,
of course, yet in its main idea as identical as possible with the Egyptian
cosmogony, which shows in its opening sentences Athtor,* or Mother Night (which
represents illimitable darkness), as the primeval element which covered the
infinite abyss, animated by water and the universal spirit of the Eternal,
dwelling alone in Chaos. Similarly in the Jewish Scriptures, the history of the
creation opens with the spirit of God and his creative emanation -- another
Deity.**
The
Zohar teaches that it is the primordial elements -- the trinity of Fire, Air
and Water -- the four cardinal points, and all the Forces of Nature, which form
collectively the VOICE of the WILL Memrab, or the "Word," the Logos
of the Absolute Silent ALL. "The indivisible point, limitless and
unknowable" spreads itself over the endless space, and thus forms a veil
(the Mulaprakriti of Parabraham) which conceals this Absolute point. (Vide
infra).
In
the cosmogonies of all the nations it is the "Architects" synthesized
by Demiurgos (in the Bible the "Elohim"), who fashion Kosmos out of
Chaos, and who are the collective Theos, "male-female," Spirit and
matter. "By a series (yom) of foundations (hasoth) the Alhim caused earth
and heaven to be" (Gen. ii., 4). In the Bible it is first Alhim, then
Jahva-Alhim, and finally Jehovah --after the separation of the sexes in chapter
iv. of Genesis. It is noticeable that nowhere, except in the later, the last
Cosmogonies of our Fifth race, is the ineffable and unutterable NAME*** -- the
symbol of the Unknown Deity, which was used only in the MYSTERIES -- used in
connection with the "Creation" of the Universe. It is the
"Movers," the "Runners," the theoi (from [[theein]],
"to run"), who do the work of formation, the "Messengers"
of the manvantaric law, who have now become in Christianity the
"messengers" (malachim); and it seems the same in Hinduism or early
Brahmanism. For it is not Brahma who creates in the Rig Veda, but the
Prajapati, the "Lords of Being," who are the Rishis; the word Rishi (according
to Professor Mahadeo Kunte) being connected with the word to move, to lead on,
applied to them in their terrestrial character, when, as Patriarchs, they lead
their hosts on the Seven Rivers.
Moreover,
the very word "God" in the singular, embracing all the gods -- or
theos from theoi -- came to the "superior" civilized nations from a
strange source, one entirely and as pre-eminently phallic as the
NOTE
* Orthography of the
"Archaic Dictionary."
** We do not mean the
current or accepted Bible, but the real Jewish one, now explained
kabalistically.
*** It is
"unutterable" for the simple reason that it is non-existent. It never
was a name, nor any word at all, but an Idea that could not be expressed. A
substitute was created for it in the century preceding our era.
THE MYSTIC ELEMENTS.
sincere,
open-spoken lingham of
Chaos-Theos-Kosmos,
the triple deity, is all in all. Therefore, it is said to be male and female,
good and evil, positive and negative: the whole series of contrasted qualities.
When latent (in pralaya) it is incognizable and becomes the unknowable Deity.
It can be known only in its active functions; hence as matter-Force and living
Spirit, the correlations and outcome, or the expression, on the visible plane,
of the ultimate and ever-to-be unknown UNITY.
In
its turn this triple unit is the producer of the four primary
"Elements,"* which are known in our visible terrestrial nature as the
seven (so far the five) Elements, each divisible into forty-nine (or seven
times seven) sub-elements, with about seventy of which Chemistry is acquainted.
Every Cosmical Element such as Fire, Air, Water, Earth, partaking of the
qualities and defects of their Primaries, are in their nature Good and Evil,
Force (or Spirit) and Matter, etc., etc.; and each, therefore, is at one and
the same time Life and Death, Health and Disease, Action and Reaction. (See
Section XIV., "The Four Elements.") They are ever and constantly
forming matter under the never-ceasing impulse of the ONE Element (the
incognizable), represented in the world of phenomena by 'AEther, or "the
immortal gods who give birth and life to all."
In
"the Philosophical writings of Solomon Ben Yehudah Ibn Gebirol"
(translated in Mr. Isaac Myer's Kabbalah, just published) it is said on the
structure of the Universe, "R. Yehudah began, it is written:-- 'Elohim
said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.' Come, see, at the
time that the Holy. . . . created the World, He
NOTE
* The Cosmic Tabernacle
of Moses, erected by him in the Desert, was square, representing the four
cardinal points and the four Elements, as Josephus tells his readers (Antiq. 1,
viii ch., xxii.) It is the idea taken from the pyramids in
created
7 heavens above, 7 earths below, 7 seas, 7 days, 7 rivers, 7 weeks, 7 years, 7
times, and 7,000 years that the world has been. The Holy is the seventh of
all," etc. (p. 415).
This,
besides showing a strange identity with the cosmogony of the Puranas (e.g.,
Vishnu Purana 1st Book), corroborates with regard to number seven, all our
teachings as briefly given in "Esoteric Buddhism."
The
Hindus have an endless series of allegories to express this idea. In the
primordial Chaos, before it became developed into the Seven Oceans (Sapta
Samudra) -- emblematical of the seven gunas (conditioned qualities) composed of
trigunas (Satwa, Rajas and Tamas, see Puranas) -- lie latent both Amrita
(immortality) and Visha (poison, death, evil). This allegory is found in the
"Churning of the Ocean" by the gods. Amrita is beyond any guna, for
it is UNCONDITIONED per se; yet when fallen into the phenomenal creation it got
mixed up with EVIL, Chaos, with latent theos in it, and before Kosmos was
evolved. Hence, one finds Vishnu -- standing here for eternal Law --
periodically calling forth Kosmos into activity -- "churning out of the
primitive Ocean (boundless Chaos) the Amrita of Eternity, reserved only for the
gods and devas; and he has to employ in the task Nagas and Asuras -- demons in exoteric
Hinduism. The whole allegory is highly philosophical, and we find it repeated
in every philosophical System. Plato, having fully embraced the ideas of
Pythagoras -- who had brought them from
"The
Egyptians," says Dunlap,** "distinguish between an older and younger
Horus; the former the brother of Osiris, the latter the son of Osiris and
Isis." The first is the Idea of the world remaining in the Demiurgic Mind,
"born in darkness before the creation of the world." The second Horus
is this "Idea" going forth from the Logos, becoming clothed with
matter, and assuming an actual existence.***
"The
Mundane God, eternal, boundless, young and old, of winding form,"**** say
the Chaldean oracles.
This
"winding form" is a figure to express the vibratory motion of the
Astral Light, with which the ancient priests were perfectly well acquainted,
though its name was invented by the Martinists.
Now
Cosmolatry has the finger of scorn pointed at its superstitions by modern
Science, which ought, however, as advised by a French
NOTE
* Plutarch, "Isis
and Osiris,"
** "Spirit History
of Man," p. 88.
*** Mover's
"Phoinizer," 268.
**** Cory,
"Fragments," 240.
THE MANY ARE ONE.
savant,
before laughing at it "to remodel entirely its own system of
cosmo-pneumatological education." Satis eloquentiae, sapientiae parvum.
Cosmolatry like Pantheism may be made to yield in its ultimate expression the
words applied to Vishnu . . . . "He is only the ideal Cause of the
Potencies to be created in the work of creation; and from him proceed the
potencies to be created, after they have become the real cause. Save that one
ideal cause, there is no other to which the world can be referred. . . .
Through the potency of that cause, every created thing comes by its proper
nature." (Original Sanskrit Texts, Part iv., pp. 32, 33.)
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