THE SECRET DOCTRINE:THE SYNTHESIS
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"Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1888, by
H. P. Blavatsky, |
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This Work |
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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 |
viii PREFACE.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. 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. |
TABLE OF CONTENTS.————— INTRODUCTION ... xvii.
VOLUME FIRST.COSMOGENESIS.PROEM ... 1
————— BOOK I.
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PART I.
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x CONTENTS.STANZA II. — THE IDEA OF DIFFERENTIATION ... 53
————— STANZA III. — THE AWAKENING OF KOSMOS ... 62
————— STANZA IV. — THE SEPTENARY HIERARCHIES ... 86
————— STANZA V. — FOHAT: THE CHILD OF THE SEPTENARY HIERARCHIES ... 106
————— STANZA VI.— OUR WORLD, ITS GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT ... 136
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xi CONTENTS.
————— THEOSOPHICAL MISCONCEPTIONS ... 152
————— EXPLANATIONS CONCERNING THE GLOBES AND THE MONADS ... 170
————— STANZA VI.— CONTINUED ... 191
————— STANZA VII.— THE PARENTS OF MAN ON EARTH ... 213
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xii CONTENTS.
————— SUMMING UP ... 269
————— BOOK I.
—
PART II.
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xiii CONTENTS.VI. THE MUNDANE EGG ... 359
————— VII. THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF BRAHMA ... 368
————— VIII. THE LOTUS AS A UNIVERSAL SYMBOL ... 379
————— IX. DEUS LUNUS ... 386
————— X. TREE AND SERPENT AND CROCODILE WORSHIP ... 403
————— XI. DEMON EST DEUS INVERSUS ... 411
————— XII. THE THEOGONY OF THE CREATIVE GODS ... 424
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xiv CONTENTS.XIII. THE SEVEN CREATIONS ... 445
————— XIV. THE FOUR ELEMENTS. ... 460
————— XV. ON KWAN-SHI-YIN AND KWAN-YIN ... 470
————— BOOK I. —
PART III.
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xv CONTENTS.V. THE THEORIES OF ROTATION SCIENCE ... 500
————— VI. THE MASKS OF SCIENCE ... 506
————— VII. AN ATTACK ON THE SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF FORCE BY A MAN OF SCIENCE ... 523
————— VIII. LIFE, FORCE, OR GRAVITY? ... 529
————— IX. THE SOLAR THEORY ... 540
————— X. THE COMING FORCE ... 554
————— Xl. ON THE ELEMENTS AND ATOMS ... 566
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xvi CONTENTS.XII. ANCIENT THOUGHT IN MODERN DRESS ... 579
————— XIII. THE MODERN NEBULAR THEORY ... 588
————— XIV. FORCES — MODES OF MOTION OR INTELLIGENCES? ... 601
————— XV. GODS, MONADS, AND ATOMS ... 610
————— XVI. CYCLIC EVOLUTION AND KARMA ... 634
————— XVII. THE ZODIAC AND ITS ANTIQUITY ... 647
————— XVIII. SUMMARY OF THE MUTUAL POSITION ... 668
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INTRODUCTORY. ————— “Gently to hear, kindly to judge.” SINCE the appearance of Theosophical
literature in England, it has become customary to call its teachings “Esoteric
Buddhism.” And, having become a habit—as an old proverb based on daily
experience has it—“Error runs down an inclined plane, while Truth has to
laboriously climb its way up hill.” |
xviii INTRODUCTORY.title, though it meant no more than does the title of this work,
the “SECRET DOCTRINE.” It proved
unfortunate, because people are always in the habit of judging things by their
appearance, rather than their meaning; and because the error has now become so
universal, that even most of the Fellows of the Theosophical Society have fallen
victims to the same misconception. From the first, however, protests were raised
by Brahmins and others against the title; and, in justice to myself, I must add
that “Esoteric Buddhism” was presented to me as a completed volume, and that I
was entirely unaware of the manner in which the author intended to spell the
word “Budh-ism.” |
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xx INTRODUCTORY.suggests what to them, as Monotheists, are noxious doctrines.
Unwise is the correct term to use in their case. For the Esoteric philosophy is
alone calculated to withstand, in this age of crass and illogical materialism,
the repeated attacks on all and everything man holds most dear and sacred, in
his inner spiritual life. The true philosopher, the student of the Esoteric
Wisdom, entirely loses sight of personalities, dogmatic beliefs and special
religions. Moreover, Esoteric philosophy reconciles all religions, strips every
one of its outward, human garments, and shows the root of each to be identical
with that of every other great religion. It proves the necessity of an absolute
Divine Principle in nature. It denies Deity no more than it does the Sun.
Esoteric philosophy has never rejected God in Nature, nor Deity as the absolute
and abstract Ens. It only refuses to accept any of the gods of the so-called
monotheistic religions, gods created by man in his own image and likeness, a
blasphemous and sorry caricature of the Ever Unknowable. Furthermore, the
records we mean to place before the reader embrace the esoteric tenets of the
whole world since the beginning of our humanity, and Buddhistic occultism
occupies therein only its legitimate place, and no more. Indeed, the secret
portions of the “Dan” or “Jan-na” * (“Dhyan”) of Gautama’s
metaphysics—grand as they appear to one unacquainted with the tenets of the
Wisdom Religion of antiquity—are but a very small portion of the whole. The
Hindu Reformer limited his public teachings to the purely moral and
physiological aspect of the Wisdom-Religion, to Ethics and MAN
alone. Things “unseen and incorporeal,” the mystery of Being outside our
terrestrial sphere, the great Teacher left entirely untouched in his public
lectures, reserving the hidden Truths for a select circle of his Arhats. The
latter received their Initiation at the famous Saptaparna cave (the Sattapanni
of Mahavansa) near Mount Baibhâr (the Webhâra of the Pali MSS.). This cave was
in Rajagriha, the ancient capital of Mogadha, and was the Cheta cave of Fa-hian,
as rightly suspected by some archæologists.† *Dan, now become in modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics ch’an, is the general term for the esoteric schools, and their literature. In the old books, the word Janna is defined as “to reform one’s self by meditation and knowledge,” a second inner birth. Hence Dzan, Djan phonetically, the “Book of Dzyan.” † Mr. Beglor, the chief engineer at Buddhagaya, and a distinguished archæologist, was the first, we believe, to discover it. |
xxi INTRODUCTORY.sophy of these teachings, once that they were transplanted from
the secret and sacred circle of the Arhats, during the course of their work of
proselytism, into a soil less prepared for metaphysical conceptions than India;
i.e., once they were transferred into China, Japan, Siam, and Burmah. How the
pristine purity of these grand revelations was dealt with may be seen in
studying some of the so-called “esoteric” Buddhist schools of antiquity in their
modern garb, not only in China and other Buddhist countries in general, but even
in not a few schools in Thibet, left to the care of uninitiated Lamas and
Mongolian innovators. |
xxii INTRODUCTORY.yield, thus often giving out the rude outward form in place of
the inner meaning. Works, most remarkable for their ingenious deductions and
speculations, in circulo vicioso, foregone conclusions generally changing places
with premises as in the syllogisms of more than one Sanskrit and Pali scholar,
appeared rapidly in succession, over-flooding the libraries with dissertations
rather on phallic and sexual worship than on real symbology, and each
contradicting the other. |
xxiii INTRODUCTORY.to those who follow the methods of research prescribed by
official Science; but to the students of Occultism, and to every genuine
Occultist, this will be of little moment. The main body of the Doctrines given
is found scattered throughout hundreds and thousands of Sanskrit MSS., some
already translated—disfigured in their interpretations, as usual,—others still
awaiting their turn. Every scholar, therefore, has an opportunity of verifying
the statements herein made, and of checking most of the quotations. A few new
facts (new to the profane Orientalist, only) and passages quoted from the
Commentaries will be found difficult to trace. Several of the teachings, also,
have hitherto been transmitted orally: yet even those are in every instance
hinted at in the almost countless volumes of Brahminical, Chinese and Tibetan
temple-literature. * Prof. Max Müller shows that no bribes or threats of Akbar could extort from the Brahmans the original text of the Veda; and boasts that European Orientalists have it (Lecture on the “Science of Religion,” p. 23), Whether Europe has the complete text is very doubtful, and the future may have very disagreeable surprises in store for the Orientalists. |
xxiv INTRODUCTORY.direct references to the ancient mysteries, after having been
carefully copied in cryptographic characters, such as to defy the art of the
best and cleverest palæographer, was also destroyed to the last copy. During
Akbar’s reign, some fanatical courtiers, displeased at the Emperor’s sinful
prying into the religions of the infidels, themselves helped the Brahmans to
conceal their MSS. Such was Badáonì, who had all undisguised horror for Akbar’s
mania for idolatrous religions.* * Badáoní wrote in his Muntakhab at Tawarikh: “His Majesty relished inquiries into the sects of these infidels (who cannot be counted, so numerous they are, and who have no end of revealed books) . . . As they (the Sramana and Brahmins) surpass other learned men in their treatises on morals, on physical and religious sciences, and reach a high degree in their knowledge of the future, in spiritual power, and human perfection, they brought proofs based on reason and testimony, and inculcated their doctrines so firmly that no man could now raise a doubt in his Majesty even if mountains were to crumble to dust, or the heavens were to tear asunder.” This work “was kept secret, and was not published till the reign of Jahângir.” (Ain i Akbari, translated by Dr. Blochmann, p. 104, note.) † Karakorum mountains, Western Tibet. ‡ According to the same tradition the now desolate regions of the waterless land of Tarim—a true wilderness in the heart of Turkestan—were in the days of old covered with flourishing and wealthy cities. At present, hardly a few verdant oases relieve its dead solitude. One such, sprung on the sepulchre of a vast city swallowed by and buried under the sandy soil of the desert, belongs to no one, but is often visited by Mongolians and Buddhists. The same tradition speaks of immense subterranean abodes, of large corridors filled with tiles and cylinders. It may be an idle rumour, and it may be an actual fact. |
xxv INTRODUCTORY.the reader rejects the truthfulness of the reports, let him
pause and reflect over the following well known facts. The collective researches
of the Orientalists, and especially the labours of late years of the students of
comparative Philology and the Science of Religions have led them to ascertain as
follows: An immense, incalculable number of MSS., and even printed works known
to have existed, are now to be found no more. They have disappeared without
leaving the slightest trace behind them. Were they works of no importance they
might, in the natural course of time, have been left to perish, and their very
names would have been obliterated from human memory. But it is not so; for, as
now ascertained, most of them contained the true keys to works still extant, and
entirely incomprehensible, for the greater portion of their readers, without
those additional volumes of Commentaries and explanations. Such are, for
instance, the works of Lao-tse, the predecessor of Confucius.* * “If we turn to China, we find that the religion of Confucius is founded on the Five King and the Four Shu-books, in themselves of considerable extent and surrounded by voluminous Commentaries, without which even the most learned scholars would not venture to fathom the depth of their sacred canon.” (Lectures on the “Science of Religion,” p. 185. Max Müller.) But they have not fathomed it—and this is the complaint of the Confucianists, as a very learned member of that body, in Paris, complained in 1881, |
xxvi INTRODUCTORY. If one turns to the ancient literature of the
Semitic religions, to the Chaldean Scriptures, the elder sister and
instructress, if not the fountainhead of the Mosaic Bible, the basis and
starting-point of Christianity, what do the scholars find? To perpetuate the
memory of the ancient religions of Babylon; to record the vast cycle of
astronomical observations of the Chaldean Magi; to justify the tradition of
their splendid and eminently occult literature, what now remains?—only a few
fragments, said to be by Berosus. * Found out and proven only now, through the discoveries made by George Smith (vide his “Chaldean account of Genesis”), and which, thanks to this Armenian forger, have misled all the civilized nations for over 1,500 years into accepting Jewish derivations for direct Divine Revelation! †Bunsen’s “Egypt’s Place in History,” vol. i. p. 200 |
xxvii INTRODUCTORY. So that, with the exception of these more
than doubtful fragments, the entire Chaldean sacred literature has disappeared
from the eyes of the profane as completely as the lost Atlantis. A few facts
that were contained in the Berosian History are given in Part II. of Vol. II.,
and may throw a great light on the true origin of the Fallen Angels, personified
by Bel and the Dragon. * Spence Hardy, “The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists,” p. 66. † “Buddhism in Tibet,” p. 78. |
xxviii INTRODUCTORY.upon Buddha or his “Good Law,” the loss of nearly 76,000 tracts
does seem miraculous. Had it been vice versâ, every one acquainted with the
natural course of events would subscribe to the statement that, of these 76,000,
five or six thousand treatises might have been destroyed during the persecutions
in, and emigrations from, India. But as it is well ascertained that Buddhist
Arhats began their religious exodus, for the purpose of propagating the new
faith beyond Kashmir and the Himalayas, as early as the year 300 before our era,*
and reached China in the year 61 A.D. † when Kashyapa, at the invitation
of the Emperor Ming-ti, went there to acquaint the “Son of Heaven” with the
tenets of Buddhism, it does seem strange to hear the Orientalists speaking of
such a loss as though it were really possible. They do not seem to allow for one
moment the possibility that the texts may be lost only for West and for
themselves or, that the Asiatic people should have the unparalleled boldness to
keep their most sacred records out of the reach of foreigners, thus refusing to
deliver them to the profanation and misuse of races even so “vastly superior” to
themselves. * Lassen, (“Ind. Althersumkunde” Vol. II, p. 1,072) shows a Buddhist monastery erected in the Kailas range in 137 B.C.; and General Cunningham, earlier than that. † Reverend T. Edkins, “Chinese Buddhism.” |
xxix INTRODUCTORY.covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, and with the strange
pictures of gods and goddesses.
. . On rolls of papyrus, which seem to defy the ravages of time, we have
even fragments of what may be called the sacred books of the Egyptians; yet,
though much has been deciphered in the ancient records of that mysterious race,
the mainspring of the religion of Egypt and the original intention of its
ceremonial worship are far from being fully disclosed to us.” * Here again the
mysterious hieroglyphic documents remain, but the keys by which alone they
become intelligible have disappeared. * So little acquainted are our greatest Egyptologists with the funerary rites of the Egyptians and the outward marks of the difference of sexes made on the mummies, that it has led to the most ludicrous mistakes. Only a year or two since, one of that kind was discovered at Boulaq, Cairo. The mummy of what had been considered the wife of an unimportant Pharaoh, has turned out, thanks to an inscription found on an amulet hung on his neck, to be that of Sesostris—the greatest King of Egypt! |
xxx INTRODUCTORY.own conclusions, which may be very “scientific,” in the sight of
Oriental scholars, but yet very wide of the mark of actual truth. The
conflicting views on the subject of chronology, in the case of the Vedas, of the
various eminent philologists and Orientalists, from Martin Haug down to Mr. Max
Müller himself, are an evident proof that the statement has no historical basis
to stand upon, “internal evidence” being very often a Jack-o’-lantern, instead
of a safe beacon to follow. Nor has the Science of modern Comparative Mythology
any better proof to show, that those learned writers, who have insisted for the
last century or so that there must have been “fragments of a primeval
revelation, granted to the ancestors of the whole race of mankind.
. . preserved in the temples of Greece and Italy,” were entirely wrong.
For this is what all the Eastern Initiates and Pundits have been proclaiming to
the world from time to time. While a prominent Cinghalese priest assured the
writer that it was well known that the most important Buddhist tracts belonging
to the sacred canon were stored away in countries and places inaccessible to the
European pundits, the late Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, the greatest Sanskritist of
his day in India, assured some members of the Theosophical Society of the same
fact with regard to ancient Brahmanical works. When told that Professor Max
Müller had declared to the audiences of his “Lectures” that the theory
. . .“that there
was a primeval preternatural revelation granted to the fathers of the human
race, finds but few supporters at present,”—the holy and learned man laughed.
His answer was suggestive. “If Mr. Moksh Mooller, as he pronounced the name,
were a Brahmin, and came with me, I might take him to a gupta cave (a secret
crypt) near Okhee Math, in the Himalayas, where he would soon find out that what
crossed the Kalapani (the black waters of the ocean) from India to Europe were
only the bits of rejected copies of some passages from our sacred books. There
was a “primeval revelation,” and it still exists; nor will it ever be lost to
the world, but will reappear; though the Mlechchhas will of course have to
wait.” |
xxxi INTRODUCTORY.in that affair than the Missionaries and Colonel Wilford
themselves. The former, on the testimony of Sir William Jones himself (see Asiat.
Res., Vol. I., p. 272), were silly enough to maintain that “the Hindus were even
now almost Christians, because their Brahmâ, Vishnu and Mahesa were no other
than the Christian trinity.” * It was a good lesson. It made the Oriental
scholars doubly cautious; but perchance it has also made some of them too shy,
and caused, in its reaction, the pendulum of foregone conclusions to swing too
much the other way. For “that first supply on the Brahmanical market,” made for
Colonel Wilford, has now created an evident necessity and desire in the
Orientalists to declare nearly every archaic Sanskrit manuscript so modern as to
give to the missionaries full justification for availing themselves of the
opportunity. That they do so and to the full extent of their mental powers, is
shown by the absurd attempts of late to prove that the whole Purânic story about
Chrishna was plagiarized by the Brahmins from the Bible ! But the facts cited by
the Oxford Professor in his Lectures on the “Science of Religion,” concerning
the now famous interpolations, for the benefit, and later on to the sorrow, of
Col. Wilford, do not at all interfere with the conclusions to which one who
studies the Secret Doctrine must unavoidably come. For, if the results show that
neither the New nor even the Old Testament borrowed anything from the more
ancient religion of the Brahmans and Buddhists, it does not follow that the Jews
have not borrowed all they knew from the Chaldean records, the latter being
mutilated later on by Eusebius. As to the Chaldeans, they assuredly got their
primitive learning from the Brahmans, for Rawlinson shows an undeniably Vedic
influence in the early mythology of Babylon; and Col. Vans Kennedy has long
since justly declared that Babylonia was, from her origin, the seat of Sanskrit
and Brahman learning. But all such proofs must lose their value, in the presence
of the latest theory worked out by Prof. Max Müller. What it is everyone knows.
The code of phonetic laws has now become a universal solvent for every
identification and “connection” between * See Max Müller’s “Introduction to the Science of Religion.” Lecture On False Analogies in comparative Theology, pp. 288 and 296 et seq. This relates to the clever forgery (on leaves inserted in old Purânic MSS.), in correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pundits of Col. Wilford had heard from him about Adam and Abraham, Noah and his three sons, etc., etc. |
xxxii INTRODUCTORY.the gods of many nations. Thus, though the Mother of Mercury (Budha,
Thot-Hermes, etc.), was Maïa, the mother of Buddha (Gautama), also Mâyâ, and the
mother of Jesus, likewise Maya (illusion, for Mary is Mare, the Sea, the great
illusion symbolically)—yet these three characters have no connection, nor can
they have any, since Bopp has “laid down his code of phonetic laws.” |
xxxiii INTRODUCTORY.
“Not a pool, not a bush, not a house is seen, |
xxxiv INTRODUCTORY.woollen garment, her bosom was covered with golden stars, the
feet being left naked.” (From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky.) To this, the
famous traveller adds that all along their way on the river Tchertchen they
heard legends about twenty-three towns buried ages ago by the shifting sands of
the deserts. The same tradition exists on the Lob-nor and in the oasis of Kerya. |
xxxv INTRODUCTORY.any desire to monopolise the life-giving sacred lore. There were
portions of the Secret science that for incalculable ages had to remain
concealed from the profane gaze. But this was because to impart to the
unprepared multitude secrets of such tremendous importance, was equivalent to
giving a child a lighted candle in a powder magazine. |
xxxvi INTRODUCTORY.Imperial Libraries to show that, even so late as during the days
when Freemasonry, and Secret Societies of Mystics flourished unimpeded in
Russia, i.e., at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century,
more than one Russian Mystic travelled to Tibet via the Ural mountains in search
of knowledge and initiation in the unknown crypts of Central Asia. And more than
one returned years later, with a rich store of such information as could never
have been given him anywhere in Europe. Several cases could be cited, and
well-known names brought forward, but for the fact that such publicity might
annoy the surviving relatives of the said late Initiates. Let any one look over
the Annals and History of Freemasonry in the archives of the Russian metropolis,
and he will assure himself of the fact stated. |
xxxvii INTRODUCTORY.legislator in historical chronology, though a very modern Sage
in the World’s History, shown by Dr. Legge *—who calls him “emphatically
a transmitter, not a maker”—as saying: “I only hand on: I cannot create new
things. I believe in the ancients and therefore I love them.Ӡ (Quoted in
“Science of Religions” by Max Müller.) * Lün-Yü (§ I a) Schott. “Chinesische Literatur,” p. 7. † “Life of Confucius,” p. 96. ‡ This is no pretension to prophecy, but simply a statement based on the knowledge of facts. Every century an attempt is being made to show the world that Occultism is no vain superstition. Once the door permitted to be kept a little ajar, it will be opened wider with every new century. The times are ripe for a more serious knowledge than hitherto permitted, though still very limited, so far. |
xxxviii INTRODUCTORY.called “a modern forgery” even so recently as fifty years ago?
Was not Sanskrit proclaimed at one time the progeny of, and a dialect derived
from, the Greek, according to Lemprière and other scholars? About 1820, Prof.
Max Müller tells us, the sacred books of the Brahmans, of the Magians, and of
the Buddhists, “were all but unknown, their very existence was doubted, and
there was not a single scholar who could have translated a line of the Veda
. . . of the Zend
Avesta, or . . .of
the Buddhist Tripitaka, and now the Vedas are proved to be the work of the
highest antiquity whose ‘preservation amounts almost to a marvel’ (Lecture on
the Vedas). |
xxxix INTRODUCTORY.portions of the esoteric teachings that have now escaped from
confinement, unless the genuineness and authenticity—at any rate, the
probability—of the existence of such teachings was first established. Such
statements as will now be made, have to be shown warranted by various
authorities: those of ancient philosophers, classics and even certain learned
Church Fathers, some of whom knew these doctrines because they had studied them,
had seen and read works written upon them; and some of whom had even been
personally initiated into the ancient Mysteries, during the performance of which
the arcane doctrines were allegorically enacted. The writer will have to give
historical and trustworthy names, and to cite well-known authors, ancient and
modern, of recognized ability, good judgment, and truthfulness, as also to name
some of the famous proficients in the secret arts and science, along with the
mysteries of the latter, as they are divulged, or, rather, partially presented
before the public in their strange archaic form. |
xl INTRODUCTORY.following the Christian era, then he will find all this in
Volume III. of this work. |
xli INTRODUCTORY.mountain, valleys and highlands, seeking for and eager to destroy every obelisk and pillar, scroll or parchment they could lay their hands on, if it only bore the symbol of the tau, or any other sign borrowed and appropriated by the new faith; and he will then see plainly how it is that so little has remained of the records of the Past. Verily, the fiendish spirits of fanaticism, of early and mediæval Christianity and of Islam, have from the first loved to dwell in darkness and ignorance; and both have made —————“ the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, Both creeds have won their proselytes at the
point of the sword; both have built their churches on heaven-kissing hecatombs
of human victims. Over the gateway of Century I. of our era, the ominous words
“the KARMA OF ISRAEL,” fatally
glowed. Over the portals of our own, the future seer may discern other words,
that will point to the Karma for cunningly made-up HISTORY,
for events purposely perverted, and for great characters slandered by posterity,
mangled out of recognition, between the two cars of Jagannâtha—Bigotry and
Materialism; one accepting too much, the other denying all. Wise is he who holds
to the golden mid-point, who believes in the eternal justice of things. Says
Faigi Diwan, the “witness to the wonderful speeches of a free-thinker who
belongs to a thousand sects”: “In the assembly of the day of resurrection, when
past things shall be forgiven, the sins of the Ka’bah will be forgiven for the
sake of the dust of Christian churches.” To this, Professor Max Müller replies:
“The sins of Islam are as worthless as the dust of Christianity. On the day of
resurrection both Muhammadans and Christians will see the vanity of their
religious doctrines. Men fight about religion on earth; in heaven they shall
find out that there is only one true religion—the worship of God’s SPIRIT.”* * “Lectures on the Science of Religion,” by F. Max Müller, p. 257. |
xlii INTRODUCTORY.it rather, and, though entirely independent of the earlier work,
an indispensable corollary to it. Much of what was in ISIS
could hardly be understood by theosophists in those days. The Secret Doctrine
will now throw light on many a problem left unsolved in the first work,
especially on the opening pages, which have never been understood. * The name is used in the sense of the Greek word a]nqrwpo" |
xliii INTRODUCTORY. The “very old Book” is the original work from which the many
volumes of Kiu-ti were compiled. Not only this latter and the Siphrah Dzeniouta
but even the Sepher Jezirah,* the work attributed by the Hebrew Kabalists
to their Patriarch Abraham (!), the book of Shu-king, China’s primitive Bible,
the sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Purânas in India, and the
Chaldean Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch itself, are all derived from that
one small parent volume. Tradition says, that it was taken down in Senzar, the
secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of the Divine Beings, who dictated it
to the sons of Light, in Central Asia, at the very beginning of the 5th (our)
race; for there was a time when its language (the Sen-zar) was known to the
Initiates of every nation, when the forefathers of the Toltec understood it as
easily as the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis, who inherited it, in their turn,
from the sages of the 3rd Race, the Manushis, who learnt it direct from the
Devas of the 2nd and 1st Races. The “illustration” spoken of in “Isis” relates
to the evolution of these Races and of our 4th and 5th Race Humanity in the
Vaivasvata Manvantara or “Round;” each Round being composed of the Yugas of the
seven periods of Humanity; four of which are now passed in our life cycle, the
middle point of the 5th being nearly reached. The illustration is symbolical, as
every one can well understand, and covers the ground from the beginning. The old
book, having described Cosmic Evolution and explained the origin of everything
on earth, including physical man, after giving the true history of the races
from the First down to the Fifth (our) race, goes no further. It stops short at
the beginning of the Kali Yuga just 4989 years ago at the death of Krishna, the
bright “Sun-god,” the once living hero and reformer. * Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly declared that he had performed “miracles” by means of the Book of Sepher Jezireh, and challenged every sceptic. Franck, quoting from the Babylonian Talmud, names two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina and Oshoi. (See “Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin,” c. 7, etc.; and “Franck,” pp. 55, 56.) Many of the Mediæval Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists claimed the same; and even the late modern Magus, Eliphas Lévi, publicly asserts it in print in his books on Magic. |
xliv INTRODUCTORY.namely, about 5,000 years. In about nine years hence, the first
cycle of the first five millenniums, that began with the great cycle of the
Kali-Yuga, will end. And then the last prophecy contained in that book (the
first volume of the prophetic record for the Black Age) will be accomplished. We
have not long to wait, and many of us will witness the Dawn of the New Cycle, at
the end of which not a few accounts will be settled and squared between the
races. Volume II. of the Prophecies is nearly ready, having been in preparation
since the time of Buddha’s grand successor, Sankarâchârya. |
xlv INTRODUCTORY.one fountain head, the ever-flowing perennial source, at which
were fed all its streamlets—the later religions of all nations—from the first
down to the last. This period, beginning with Buddha and Pythagoras at the one
end and the Neo-Platonists and Gnostics at the other, is the only focus left in
History wherein converge for the last time the bright rays of light streaming
from the æons of time gone by, unobscured by the hand of bigotry and fanaticism. |
xlvi INTRODUCTORY.dictu, Buddhism and Brahmanism (!!!) As well charge Renan with
having stolen his Vie de Jésus from the Gospels, and Max Müller his “Sacred
Books of the East” or his “Chips” from the philosophies of the Brahmins and
Gautama, the Buddha. But to the public in general and the readers of the “Secret
Doctrine” I may repeat what I have stated all along, and which I now clothe in
the words of Montaigne: Gentlemen, “I HAVE HERE MADE ONLY A
NOSEGAY OF CULLED FLOWERS, AND HAVE BROUGHT NOTHING OF MY OWN BUT THE STRING
THAT TIES THEM.” |
xlvii INTRODUCTORY.a fact, and thus impart to it each of them 5/6 of certitude;
that fact will have then 35/36 of certitude; i.e., its probability will bear to
its improbability the ratio of 35 to 1. If three such evidences are joined
together the certitude will become 215216.
The agreement of ten persons giving each ½ of certitude will produce
10231024, etc.,
etc. The Occultist may remain satisfied, and care for no more. PROEM ————— PAGES FROM A PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD. AN
Archaic Manuscript — a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to water,
fire, and air, by some specific unknown process — is before the writer's eye. On
the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull black ground. On the
following page, the same disk, but with a central point. The first, the student
knows to represent Kosmos in Eternity, before the re-awakening of still
slumbering Energy, the emanation of the Word in later systems. The point in the
hitherto immaculate Disk, Space and Eternity in Pralaya, denotes the dawn of
differentiation. It is the Point in the Mundane Egg (see Part II., "The Mundane
Egg"), the germ within the latter which will become the Universe, the
ALL, the boundless, periodical Kosmos, this germ being
latent and active, periodically and by turns. The one circle is divine Unity,
from which all proceeds, whither all returns. Its circumference — a forcibly
limited symbol, in view of the limitation of the human mind — indicates the
abstract, ever incognisable PRESENCE, and its plane, the
Universal Soul, although the two are one. Only the face of the Disk being white
and the ground all around black, shows clearly that its plane is the only
knowledge, dim and hazy though it still is, that is attainable by man. It is on
this plane that the Manvantaric manifestations begin; for it is in this
SOUL that slumbers, during the Pralaya, the Divine
Thought,* wherein lies concealed the plan of every future Cosmogony and
Theogony. * It is hardly necessary to remind the reader once more that the term "Divine Thought," like that of "Universal Mind," must not be regarded as even vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that exhibited by man. The "Unconscious," according to von Hartmann, arrived at the vast creative, or rather Evolutionary Plan, "by a clairvoyant wisdom superior to all consciousness," which in the Vedantic language would mean absolute Wisdom. Only those who realize how far Intuition soars above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought can form the faintest conception of that absolute Wisdom which transcends the ideas of Time and Space. Mind, as we know it, is resolvable into states of consciousness, of varying duration, intensity, complexity, etc. — all, in the ultimate, resting on sensation, which is again Maya. Sensation, again, necessarily postulates limitation. The personal God of orthodox Theism perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels "fierce anger." But the notion of such mental states clearly involves the unthinkable postulate of the externality of the exciting stimuli, to say nothing of the impossibility of ascribing changelessness to a Being whose emotions fluctuate with events in the worlds he presides over. The conceptions of a Personal God as changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what is worse, unphilosophical. |
2 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.It is the ONE LIFE, eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without beginning or end, yet periodical in its regular manifestations, between which periods reigns the dark mystery of non-Being; unconscious, yet absolute Consciousness; unrealizable, yet the one self-existing reality; truly, "a chaos to the sense, a Kosmos to the reason." Its one absolute attribute, which is ITSELF, eternal, ceaseless Motion, is called in esoteric parlance the "Great Breath," * which is the perpetual motion of the universe, in the sense of limitless, ever-present SPACE. That which is motionless cannot be Divine. But then there is nothing in fact and reality absolutely motionless within the universal soul. Almost five centuries B.C. Leucippus, the instructor of Democritus, maintained that Space was filled eternally with atoms actuated by a ceaseless motion, the latter generating in due course of time, when those atoms aggregated, rotatory motion, through mutual collisions producing lateral movements. Epicurus and Lucretius taught the same, only adding to the lateral motion of the atoms the idea of affinity — an occult teaching. From the beginning of man's
inheritance, from the first appearance of the architects of the globe he lives
in, the unrevealed Deity was recognized and considered under its only
philosophical aspect — universal motion, the thrill of the creative Breath in
Nature. Occultism sums up the "One Existence" thus: "Deity is an arcane, living
(or moving) FIRE, and the eternal witnesses to this unseen
Presence are Light, Heat, Moisture," — this trinity including, and being the
cause of, every * Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in Cratylus that aed" is derived from the verb qevein , "to move," "to run," as the first astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called the planets qeoiv , the gods. (See Book II., "Symbolism of the Cross and Circle.") Later, the word produced another term, ajlhvqeia — "the breath of God." |
3 PROEMphenomenon in Nature.* Intra-Cosmic motion is eternal and ceaseless; cosmic motion (the visible, or that which is subject to perception) is finite and periodical. As an eternal abstraction it is the EVER-PRESENT; as a manifestation, it is finite both in the coming direction and the opposite, the two being the alpha and omega of successive reconstructions. Kosmos — the NOUMENON — has nought to do with the causal relations of the phenomenal World. It is only with reference to the intra-cosmic soul, the ideal Kosmos in the immutable Divine Thought, that we may say: "It never had a beginning nor will it have an end." With regard to its body or Cosmic organization, though it cannot be said that it had a first, or will ever have a last construction, yet at each new Manvantara, its organization may be regarded as the first and the last of its kind, as it evolutes every time on a higher plane . . . A few years ago only, it was stated that: — "The esoteric doctrine
teaches, like Buddhism and Brahminism, and even the Kabala, that the one
infinite and unknown Essence exists from all eternity, and in regular and
harmonious successions is either passive or active. In the poetical phraseology
of Manu these conditions are called the "Days" and the "Nights" of Brahmâ. The
latter is either "awake" or "asleep." The Svabhavikas, or philosophers of the
oldest school of Buddhism (which still exists in Nepal), speculate only upon the
active condition of this "Essence," which they call Svabhâvat, and deem it
foolish to theorize upon the abstract and "unknowable" power in its passive
condition. Hence they are called atheists by both Christian theologians and
modern scientists, for neither of the * Nominalists, arguing with Berkeley that "it is impossible . . . to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving" ("Prin. of Human Knowledge," Introd., par. 10), may put the question, "What is that body, the producer of that motion? Is it a substance? Then you are believers in a Personal God?" etc., etc. This will be answered farther on, in the Addendum to this Book; meanwhile, we claim our rights of Conceptionalists as against Roscelini's materialistic views of Realism and Nominalism. "Has science," says one of its ablest advocates, Edward Clodd, "revealed anything that weakens or opposes itself to the ancient words in which the Essence of all religion, past, present, and to come, is given; to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before thy God?" Provided we connote by the word God, not the crude anthropomorphism which is still the backbone of our current theology, but the symbolic conception of that which is Life and Motion of the Universe, to know which in physical order is to know time past, present, and to come, in the existence of successions of phenomena; to know which, in the moral, is to know what has been, is, and will be, within human consciousness. (See "Science and the Emotions." A Discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, London, Dec. 27th, 1885.) |
4 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.two are able to understand the profound logic of their philosophy. The former will allow of no other God than the personified secondary powers which have worked out the visible universe, and which became with them the anthropomorphic God of the Christians — the male Jehovah, roaring amid thunder and lightning. In its turn, rationalistic science greets the Buddhists and the Svabhâvikas as the "positivists" of the archaic ages. If we take a one-sided view of the philosophy of the latter, our materialists may be right in their own way. The Buddhists maintained that there is no Creator, but an infinitude of creative powers, which collectively form the one eternal substance, the essence of which is inscrutable — hence not a subject for speculation for any true philosopher. Socrates invariably refused to argue upon the mystery of universal being, yet no one would ever have thought of charging him with atheism, except those who were bent upon his destruction. Upon inaugurating an active period, says the Secret Doctrine, an expansion of this Divine essence from without inwardly and from within outwardly, occurs in obedience to eternal and immutable law, and the phenomenal or visible universe is the ultimate result of the long chain of cosmical forces thus progressively set in motion. In like manner, when the passive condition is resumed, a contraction of the Divine essence takes place, and the previous work of creation is gradually and progressively undone. The visible universe becomes disintegrated, its material dispersed; and 'darkness' solitary and alone, broods once more over the face of the 'deep.' To use a Metaphor from the Secret Books, which will convey the idea still more clearly, an out-breathing of the 'unknown essence' produces the world; and an inhalation causes it to disappear. This process has been going on from all eternity, and our present universe is but one of an infinite series, which had no beginning and will have no end." — (See "Isis Unveiled"; also "The Days and Nights of Brahmâ" in Part II.) This passage will be explained, as far as it is possible, in the present work. Though, as it now stands, it contains nothing new to the Orientalist, its esoteric interpretation may contain a good deal which has hitherto remained entirely unknown to the Western student. The first illustration
being a plain disc
|
5 PROEMWhen the diameter line is crossed by a
vertical one 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 —
* 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! |
6 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.Occultist will recognize as one of the "left-hand," and used in ceremonial magic. * It is hoped that during the
perusal of this work the erroneous ideas of the public in general with regard to
Pantheism will be modified. It is wrong and unjust to regard the Buddhists and
Advaitee Occultists as atheists. If not all of them philosophers, they are, at
any rate, all logicians, their objections and arguments being based on strict
reasoning. Indeed, if the Parabrahmam of the Hindus may be taken as a
representative of the hidden and nameless deities of other nations, this
absolute Principle will be found to be the prototype from which all the others
were copied. Parabrahm is not "God," because It is not a God. "It is that which
is supreme, and not supreme (paravara)," explains Mandukya Upanishad (2.28). IT
is "Supreme" as CAUSE, not supreme as effect. Parabrahm is
simply, as a "Secondless Reality," the all-inclusive Kosmos — or, rather, the
infinite Cosmic Space — in the highest spiritual sense, of course. Brahma
(neuter) being the unchanging, pure, free, undecaying supreme Root, "the
ONE true Existence, Paramarthika," and the absolute Chit
and Chaitanya (intelligence, consciousness) cannot be a cognize, "for
THAT can have no subject of cognition." Can the flame be
called the essence of Fire? This Essence is "the LIFE and
LIGHT of the Universe, the visible fire and flame are
destruction, death, and evil." "Fire and Flame destroy the body of an Arhat,
their essence makes him immortal." (Bodhi-mur, Book II.) "The
knowledge of the absolute Spirit, like the effulgence of the sun, or like heat
in fire, is naught else than the absolute Essence itself," says Sankaracharya.
IT — is "the Spirit of the Fire," not fire itself; therefore, "the
attributes of the latter, heat or flame, are not the attributes of the Spirit,
but of that of which that Spirit is the unconscious cause." Is not the above
sentence the true key-note of later Rosicrucian * We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American Kabalists, that in the Kabala also "the value of the Jehovah name is that of the diameter of a circle." Add to this the fact that Jehovah is the third Sephiroth, Binah, a feminine word, and you have the key to the mystery. By certain Kabalistic transformations this name, androgynous in the first chapters of Genesis, becomes in its transformations entirely masculine, Cainite and phallic. The fact of choosing a deity among the pagan gods and making of it a special national God, to call upon it as the "One living God," the "God of Gods," and then proclaim this worship Monotheistic, does not change it into the ONE Principle whose "Unity admits not of multiplication, change, or form," especially in the case of a priapic deity, as Jehovah now demonstrated to be. |
7 PROEMphilosophy? Parabrahm is, in short, the collective aggregate of Kosmos in its infinity and eternity, the "THAT" and "THIS" to which distributive aggregates can not be applied.* "In the beginning THIS was the Self, one only" (Aitareya Upanishad); the great Sankaracharya, explains that "THIS" referred to the Universe (Jagat); the sense of the words, "In the beginning," meaning before the reproduction of the phenomenal Universe. Therefore, when the
Pantheists echo the Upanishads, which state, as in the Secret Doctrine, that
"this" cannot create, they do not deny a Creator, or rather a collective
aggregate of creators, but only refuse, very logically, to attribute
"creation" and especially formation, something finite to an Infinite Principle.
With them, Parabrahmam is a passive because an Absolute Cause, the unconditioned
Mukta. It is only limited Omniscience and Omnipotence that are refused
to the latter, because these are still attributes (as reflected in man's
perceptions); and because Parabrahm, being the "Supreme ALL,"
the ever invisible spirit and Soul of Nature, changeless and eternal, can have
no attributes; absoluteness very naturally precluding any idea of the finite or
conditioned from being connected with it. And if the Vedantin postulates
attributes as belonging simply to its emanation, calling it "Iswara plus
Maya," and Avidya (Agnosticism and Nescience rather than ignorance), it is
difficult to find any Atheism in this conception.† Since there can be
neither two INFINITES nor two ABSOLUTES
in a Universe supposed to be Boundless, this Self-Existence can hardly be
conceived of as creating personally. In the sense and perceptions of finite
"Beings," THAT is Non-"being," in the sense that it is the
one BE-NESS; for, in this ALL lies
concealed its coeternal and coeval emanation or inherent radiation, which, upon
becoming periodically Brahmâ (the male-female Potency) becomes or expands itself
into the manifested Universe. Narayana moving on the (abstract) waters of Space,
is transformed into the Waters of concrete substance moved by him, who now
becomes the manifested WORD or Logos. * See "Vedanta Sara," by Major G. A. Jacob; as also "The Aphorisms of S'andilya," translated by Cowell, p. 42. † Nevertheless, prejudiced and rather fanatical Christian Orientalists would like to prove this pure Atheism. For proof of this, see about Major Jacob's "Vedanta Sara." Yet, the whole Antiquity echoes this Vedantic thought: —
"Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse est |
8 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.The orthodox Brahmins, those who rise the most against the Pantheists and Adwaitees, calling them Atheists, are forced, if Manu has any authority in this matter, to accept the death of Brahmâ, the creator, at the expiration of every "Age" of this (creative) deity (100 Divine years — a period which in our years requires fifteen figures to express it). Yet, no philosopher among them will view this "death" in any other sense than as a temporary disappearance from the manifested plane of existence, or as a periodical rest. The Occultists are,
therefore, at one with the Adwaita Vedantin philosophers as to the above tenet.
They show the impossibility of accepting on philosophical grounds the idea of
the absolute ALL creating or even evolving the "Golden Egg," into which it is
said to enter in order to transform itself into Brahmâ — the Creator, who
expands himself later into gods and all the visible Universe. They say that
Absolute Unity cannot pass to infinity; for infinity presupposes the limitless
extension of something, and the duration of that "something"; and the
One All is like Space — which is its only mental and physical representation on
this Earth, or our plane of existence — neither an object of, nor a subject to,
perception. If one could suppose the Eternal Infinite All, the Omnipresent
Unity, instead of being in Eternity, becoming through periodical manifestation a
manifold Universe or a multiple personality, that Unity would cease to be one.
Locke's idea that "pure Space is capable of neither resistance nor Motion" — is
incorrect. Space is neither a "limitless void," nor a "conditioned fulness," but
both: being, on the plane of absolute abstraction, the ever-incognisable Deity,
which is void only to finite minds,* and on that of mayavic perception,
the Plenum, the absolute Container of all that is, whether manifested or
unmanifested: it is, therefore, that ABSOLUTE ALL. There
is no difference between the Christian Apostle's "In Him we live and move and
have our being," and the Hindu Rishi's "The Universe lives in, proceeds from,
and will * The very names of the two chief deities, Brahmâ and Vishnu, ought to have long ago suggested their esoteric meanings. For the root of one, Brahmam, or Brahm, is derived by some from the word Brih, "to grow" or "to expand" (see Calcutta Review, vol. lxvi., p. 14); and of the other, Vishnu, from the root Vis, "to pervade," to enter in the nature of the essence; Brahmâ-Vishnu being this infinite SPACE, of which the gods, the Rishis, the Manus, and all in this universe are simply the potencies, Vibhutayah. |
9 PROEMreturn to, Brahma (Brahmâ)": for Brahma (neuter), the unmanifested, is that Universe in abscondito, and Brahmâ, the manifested, is the Logos, made male-female * in the symbolical orthodox dogmas. The God of the Apostle-Initiate and of the Rishi being both the Unseen and the Visible SPACE. Space is called in the esoteric symbolism "the Seven-Skinned Eternal Mother-Father." It is composed from its undifferentiated to its differentiated surface of seven layers. "What is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is a Universe or not; whether there be gods or none?" asks the esoteric Senzar Catechism. And the answer made is — SPACE. It is not the One Unknown
ever-present God in Nature, or Nature in abscondito, that is rejected,
but the God of human dogma and his humanized "Word." In his infinite
conceit and inherent pride and vanity, man shaped it himself with his
sacrilegious hand out of the material he found in his own small brain-fabric,
and forced it upon mankind as a direct revelation from the one unrevealed
SPACE.† The Occultist * See Manu's account of Brahmâ separating his body into male and female, the latter the female Vâch, in whom he creates Virâj, and compare this with the esotericism of Chapters II., III., and IV. of Genesis. † Occultism is indeed in the air at the close of this our century. Among many other works recently published, we would recommend one especially to students of theoretical Occultism who would not venture beyond the realm of our special human plane. It is called "New Aspects of Life and Religion," by Henry Pratt, M.D. It is full of esoteric dogmas and philosophy, the latter rather limited, in the concluding chapters, by what seems to be a spirit of conditioned positivism. Nevertheless, what is said of Space as "the Unknown First Cause," merits quotation. "This unknown something, thus recognised as, and identified with, the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is invisible and impalpable" — (abstract space, granted); "and because invisible and impalpable, therefore incognisable. And this incognisability has led to the error of supposing it to be a simple void, a mere receptive capacity. But, even viewed as an absolute void, space must be admitted to be either Self-existent, infinite, and eternal, or to have had a first cause outside, behind, and beyond itself. "And yet could such a cause be found and defined, this would only lead to the transferring thereto of the attributes otherwise accruing to space, and thus merely throw the difficulty of origination a step farther back, without gaining additional light as to primary causation." (p. 5.) This is precisely what has been done by the believers in an anthropomorphic Creator, an extracosmic, instead of an intracosmic God. Many — most of Mr. Pratt's subjects, we may say — are old Kabalistic ideas and theories which he presents in quite a new garb: "New Aspects" of the Occult in Nature, indeed. Space, however, viewed as a "Substantial Unity" — the "living Source of Life" — is as the "Unknown Causeless Cause," is the oldest dogma in Occultism, millenniums earlier than the Pater-Æther of the Greeks and Latins. So are the "Force and Matter, as Potencies of Space, inseparable, and the Unknown revealers of the Unknown." They are all found in Aryan philosophy personified by Visvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc. Still they are expressed very philosophically, and under many unusual aspects, in the work referred to. |
10 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.accepts revelation as coming from divine yet still finite Beings, the manifested lives, never from the Unmanifestable ONE LIFE; from those entities, called Primordial Man, Dhyani-Buddhas, or Dhyan-Chohans, the "Rishi-Prajâpati" of the Hindus, the Elohim or "Sons of God," the Planetary Spirits of all nations, who have become Gods for men. He also regards the Adi-Sakti — the direct emanation of Mulaprakriti, the eternal Root of THAT, and the female aspect of the Creative Cause Brahmâ, in her A'kásic form of the Universal Soul — as philosophically a Maya, and cause of human Maya. But this view does not prevent him from believing in its existence so long as it lasts, to wit, for one Mahamanvantara; nor from applying A'kâs'a, the radiation of Mulaprakriti,* to practical purposes, connected as the World-Soul is with all natural phenomena, known or unknown to science. The oldest religions of the
world — exoterically, for the esoteric root or foundation is one — are the
Indian, the Mazdean, and the Egyptian. Then comes the Chaldean, the outcome of
these — entirely lost to the world now, except in its disfigured Sabeanism as at
present rendered by the archæologists; then, passing over a number of religions
that will be mentioned later, comes the Jewish, esoterically, as in the Kabala,
following in the line of Babylonian Magism; exoterically, as in Genesis and the
Pentateuch, a collection of allegorical legends. Read by the light of the Zohar,
the initial four chapters of Genesis are the fragment * In contradistinction to the manifested universe of matter, the term Mulaprakriti (from Mula, "the root," and prakriti, "nature"), or the unmanifested primordial matter — called by Western alchemists Adam's Earth — is applied by the Vedantins to Parabrahmam. Matter is dual in religious metaphysics, and septenary in esoteric teachings, like everything else in the universe. As Mulaprakriti, it is undifferentiated and eternal; as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated and conditioned, according to Svetasvatara Upanishad, I. 8, and Devi Bhagavata Purâna. The author of the Four Lectures on the Bhagavad Gita, says, in speaking of Mulaprakriti: "From its (the Logos') objective standpoint, Parabrahmam appears to it as Mulaprakriti. . . . Of course this Mulaprakriti is material to it, as any material object is material to us. . . . Parabrahmam is an unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mulaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown over it." (Theosophist, Vol. VIII., p. 304.) |
11 PROEMof a highly philosophical page in the World's Cosmogony. (See Book III., Gupta Vidya and the Zohar.) Left in their symbolical disguise, they are a nursery tale, an ugly thorn in the side of science and logic, an evident effect of Karma. To have let them serve as a prologue to Christianity was a cruel revenge on the part of the Rabbis, who knew better what their Pentateuch meant. It was a silent protest against their spoliation, and the Jews have certainly now the better of their traditional persecutors. The above-named exoteric creeds will be explained in the light of the Universal doctrine as we proceed with it. The Occult Catechism contains the following questions and answers: "What is it that ever is?" "Space, the eternal Anupadaka."* "What is it that ever was?" "The Germ in the Root." "What is it that is ever coming and going?" "The Great Breath." "Then, there are three Eternals?" "No, the three are one. That which ever is is one, that which ever was is one, that which is ever being and becoming is also one: and this is Space." "Explain, oh Lanoo
(disciple)." — "The One is an unbroken Circle (ring)
with no circumference, for it is nowhere and everywhere; the One is the
boundless plane of the Circle, manifesting a diameter only during the
manvantaric periods; the One is the indivisible point found nowhere, perceived
everywhere during those periods; it is the Vertical and the Horizontal, the
Father and the Mother, the summit and base of the Father, the two extremities of
the Mother, reaching in reality nowhere, for the One is the Ring as also the
rings that are within that Ring. Light in darkness and darkness in light: the
'Breath which is eternal.' It proceeds from without inwardly,
when it is everywhere, and from within outwardly, when it is nowhere —
(i.e., maya,†one of the centres ‡ ). It
expands and * Meaning "parentless" — see farther on. † Esoteric philosophy, regarding as Maya (or the illusion of ignorance) every finite thing, must necessarily view in the same light every intra-Cosmic planet and body, as being something organized, hence finite. The expression, therefore, "it proceeds from without inwardly, etc." refers in the first portion of the sentence to the dawn of the Mahamanvantaric period, or the great re-evolution after one of the complete periodical dissolutions of every compound form in Nature (from planet to molecule) into its ultimate essence or element; and in its second portion, to the partial or local manvantara, which may be a solar or even a planetary one. ‡ By "centre," a centre of energy or a Cosmic focus is meant; when the so-called "Creation," or formation of a planet, is accomplished by that force which is designated by the Occultists LIFE and by Science "energy," then the process takes place from within outwardly, every atom being said to contain in itself creative energy of the divine breath. Hence, whereas after an absolute pralaya, or when the pre-existing material consists but of ONE Element, and BREATH "is everywhere," the latter acts from without inwardly: after a minor pralaya, everything having remained in statu quo — in a refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon — at the first flutter of manvantara, the planet or planets begin their resurrection to life from within outwardly. |
12 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.contracts (exhalation and inhalation). When it expands the mother diffuses and scatters; when it contracts, the mother draws back and ingathers. This produces the periods of Evolution and Dissolution, Manwantara and Pralaya. The Germ is invisible and fiery; the Root (the plane of the circle) is cool; but during Evolution and Manwantara her garment is cold and radiant. Hot Breath is the Father who devours the progeny of the many-faced Element (heterogeneous); and leaves the single-faced ones (homogeneous). Cool Breath is the Mother, who conceives, forms, brings forth, and receives them back into her bosom, to reform them at the Dawn (of the Day of Brahmâ, or Manvantara). . . . " For clearer understanding on the part of the
general reader, it must be stated that Occult Science recognizes Seven
Cosmical Elements — four entirely physical, and the fifth ( Ether )
semi-material, as it will become visible in the air towards the end of our
Fourth Round, to reign supreme over the others during the whole of the Fifth.
The remaining two are as yet absolutely beyond the range of human perception.
These latter will, however, appear as presentments during the 6th and 7th Races
of this Round, and will become known in the 6th and 7th Rounds respectively.*
These seven elements with their numberless Sub-Elements |
13 PROEMfar more numerous than those known to Science) are simply conditional modifications and aspects of the ONE and only Element. This latter is not Ether,* not even A'kâśa but the Source of these. The Fifth Element, now advocated quite freely by Science, is not the Ether hypothesised by Sir Isaac Newton — although he calls it by that name, having associated it in his mind probably with the Æther, "Father-Mother" of Antiquity. As Newton intuitionally says, "Nature is a perpetual circulatory worker, generating fluids out of solids, fixed things out of volatile, and volatile out of fixed, subtile out of gross, and gross out of subtile. . . . Thus, perhaps, may all things be originated from Ether," (Hypoth, 1675). The reader has to bear in mind that the Stanzas given treat only of the Cosmogony of our own planetary System and what is visible around it, after a Solar Pralaya. The secret teachings with regard to the Evolution of the Universal Kosmos cannot be given, since they could not be understood by the highest minds in this age, and there seem to be very few Initiates, even among the greatest, who are allowed to speculate upon this subject. Moreover the Teachers say openly that not even the highest Dhyani-Chohans have ever penetrated the mysteries beyond those boundaries that separate the milliards of Solar systems from the "Central Sun," as it is called. Therefore, that which is given, relates only to our visible Kosmos, after a "Night of Brahmâ." Before the reader proceeds to the
consideration of the Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan which form the basis of the
present work, it is absolutely necessary that he should be made acquainted with
the few fundamental conceptions which underlie and pervade the entire system of
thought to which his attention is invited. These basic ideas are few in number,
and on their clear apprehension depends the understanding of all that follows;
therefore no apology is required for asking the reader to make himself familiar
with them first, before entering on the perusal of the work itself. * Whatever the views of physical Science upon the subject, Occult Science has been teaching for ages that A'kâsa — of which Ether is the grossest form — the fifth universal Cosmic Principle (to which corresponds and from which proceeds human Manas) is, cosmically, a radiant, cool, diathermanous plastic matter, creative in its physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects and portions, immutable in its higher principles. In the former condition it is called the Sub-Root; and in conjunction with radiant heat, it recalls "dead worlds to life." In its higher aspect it is the Soul of the World; in its lower — the DESTROYER. |
14 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.The Secret Doctrine establishes three fundamental propositions: — (a) An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. It is beyond the range and reach of thought — in the words of Mandukya, "unthinkable and unspeakable." To render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with the postulate that there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause — dimly formulated in the "Unconscious" and "Unknowable" of current European philosophy — is the rootless root of "all that was, is, or ever shall be." It is of course devoid of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested, finite Being. It is "Be-ness" rather than Being (in Sanskrit, Sat), and is beyond all thought or speculation. This "Be-ness" is symbolised in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On the one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, the one thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or conceive of by itself. On the other, absolute Abstract Motion representing Unconditioned Consciousness. Even our Western thinkers have shown that Consciousness is inconceivable to us apart from change, and motion best symbolises change, its essential characteristic. This latter aspect of the one Reality, is also symbolised by the term "The Great Breath," a symbol sufficiently graphic to need no further elucidation. Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE — BE-NESS — symbolised by finite intelligence as the theological Trinity. It may, however, assist the student if a few further explanations are given here. Herbert Spencer has of late so far modified his
Agnosticism, as to assert that the nature of the "First Cause," * which
the Occultist more logically derives from the "Causeless Cause," the "Eternal,"
and the "Unknowable," may be essentially the same as that of the Consciousness
which wells up within us: in short, that the impersonal reality pervading * The "first" presupposes necessarily something which is the "first brought forth, the first in time, space, and rank" — and therefore finite and conditioned. The "first" cannot be the absolute, for it is a manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All the "Causeless One Cause," the "Rootless Root," and limits the "First Cause" to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this term. |
15 PROEMthe Kosmos is the pure noumenon of thought. This advance on his part brings him very near to the esoteric and Vedantin tenet. * Parabrahm (the One Reality, the Absolute) is the field of Absolute Consciousness, i.e., that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence, and of which conscious existence is a conditioned symbol. But once that we pass in thought from this (to us) Absolute Negation, duality supervenes in the contrast of Spirit (or consciousness) and Matter, Subject and Object. Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as independent realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm), which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective. Considering this metaphysical triad as the Root from which proceeds all manifestation, the great Breath assumes the character of precosmic Ideation. It is the fons et origo of force and of all individual consciousness, and supplies the guiding intelligence in the vast scheme of cosmic Evolution. On the other hand, precosmic root-substance (Mulaprakriti) is that aspect of the Absolute which underlies all the objective planes of Nature. Just as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual consciousness, so pre-Cosmic Substance is the substratum of matter in the various grades of its differentiation. Hence it will be apparent that the contrast of these two aspects of the Absolute is essential to the existence of the "Manifested Universe." Apart from Cosmic Substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest as individual consciousness, since it is only through a vehicle † of matter that consciousness wells up as "I am I," a physical basis being necessary to focus a ray of the Universal Mind at a certain stage of complexity. Again, apart from Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty abstraction, and no emergence of consciousness could ensue. The "Manifested Universe," therefore, is pervaded by duality, which is, as it were, the very essence of its EX-istence as "manifestation." * See Mr. Subba Row's four able lectures on the Bhagavad Gita, "Theosophist," February, 1887. † Called in Sanskrit: "Upadhi." |
16 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.But just as the opposite poles of subject and object, spirit and matter, are but aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized, so, in the manifested Universe, there is "that" which links spirit to matter, subject to object. This something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by the occultists Fohat. It is the "bridge" by which the "Ideas" existing in the "Divine Thought" are impressed on Cosmic substance as the "laws of Nature." Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic Ideation; or, regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power of all manifestation, the "Thought Divine" transmitted and made manifest through the Dhyan Chohans,* the Architects of the visible World. Thus from Spirit, or Cosmic Ideation, comes our consciousness; from Cosmic Substance the several vehicles in which that consciousness is individualised and attains to self — or reflective — consciousness; while Fohat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life. The following summary will afford a clearer idea to the reader. (1.) The ABSOLUTE; the Parabrahm of the Vedantins or the one Reality, SAT, which is, as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and Non-Being. (2.) The first manifestation, the impersonal, and, in philosophy, unmanifested Logos, the precursor of the "manifested." This is the "First Cause," the "Unconscious" of European Pantheists. (3.) Spirit-matter, LIFE; the "Spirit of the Universe," the Purusha and Prakriti, or the second Logos. (4.) Cosmic Ideation, MAHAT or Intelligence, the Universal World-Soul; the Cosmic Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations in and of Nature, also called MAHA-BUDDHI. The ONE REALITY; its dual aspects in the conditioned Universe. Further, the Secret Doctrine affirms: — (b.) The Eternity of the Universe in
toto as a boundless plane; periodically "the playground of numberless
Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing," called "the manifesting
stars," and the "sparks of Eternity." "The Eternity of the Pilgrim" †
is like a wink * Called by Christian theology: Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc. † "Pilgrim" is the appellation given to our Monad (the two in one) during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only immortal and eternal principle in us, being an indivisible part of the integral whole — the Universal Spirit, from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the end of the cycle. When it is said to emanate from the one spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has to be used, for lack of appropriate words in English. The Vedantins call it Sutratma (Thread-Soul), but their explanation, too, differs somewhat from that of the occultists; to explain which difference, however, is left to the Vedantins themselves. |
17 PROEMof the Eye of Self-Existence (Book of Dzyan.) "The appearance and disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb of flux and reflux." (See Part II., "Days and Nights of Brahmâ.") This second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is the absolute universality of that law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow, which physical science has observed and recorded in all departments of nature. An alternation such as that of Day and Night, Life and Death, Sleeping and Waking, is a fact so common, so perfectly universal and without exception, that it is easy to comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of the universe. Moreover, the Secret Doctrine teaches: — (c) The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul — a spark of the former — through the Cycle of Incarnation (or "Necessity") in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole term. In other words, no purely spiritual Buddhi (divine Soul) can have an independent (conscious) existence before the spark which issued from the pure Essence of the Universal Sixth principle, — or the OVER-SOUL, — has (a) passed through every elemental form of the phenomenal world of that Manvantara, and (b) acquired individuality, first by natural impulse, and then by self-induced and self-devised efforts (checked by its Karma), thus ascending through all the degrees of intelligence, from the lowest to the highest Manas, from mineral and plant, up to the holiest archangel (Dhyani-Buddha). The pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special gifts in man, save those won by his own Ego through personal effort and merit throughout a long series of metempsychoses and reincarnations. This is why the Hindus say that the Universe is Brahma and Brahmâ, for Brahma is in every atom of the universe, the six principles in Nature being all the outcome — the variously differentiated aspects — of the SEVENTH and ONE, the only reality in the Universe whether Cosmical or micro-cosmical; and also why the permutations (psychic, spiritual and physical), on the plane of manifestation and form, of the sixth (Brahmâ the vehicle of Brahma) are viewed by metaphysical |
18 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.antiphrasis as illusive and Mayavic. For although the root of every atom individually and of every form collectively, is that seventh principle or the one Reality, still, in its manifested phenomenal and temporary appearance, it is no better than an evanescent illusion of our senses. (See, for clearer definition, Addendum "Gods, Monads and Atoms," and also "Theophania," "Bodhisatvas and Reincarnation," etc., etc.) In its absoluteness, the One Principle under its two
aspects (of Parabrahmam and Mulaprakriti) is sexless, unconditioned and eternal.
Its periodical (manvantaric) emanation — or primal radiation — is also One,
androgynous and phenomenally finite. When the radiation radiates in its turn,
all its radiations are also androgynous, to become male and female principles in
their lower aspects. After Pralaya, whether the great or the minor Pralaya ( the
latter leaving the worlds in statu quo * ), the first
that re-awakes to active life is the plastic A'kâs'a,
Father-Mother, the Spirit and Soul of Ether, or the plane on the surface of the
Circle. Space is called the "Mother" before its Cosmic activity, and
Father-Mother at the first stage of re-awakening. (See Comments, Stanza II.) In
the Kabala it is also Father-Mother-Son. But whereas in the Eastern doctrine,
these are the Seventh Principle of the manifested Universe, or its
"Atma-Buddhi-Manas" (Spirit, Soul, Intelligence), the triad branching off and
dividing into the seven cosmical and seven human principles, in the Western
Kabala of the Christian mystics it is the Triad or Trinity, and with their
occultists, the male-female Jehovah, Jah-Havah. In this lies the whole
difference between the esoteric and the Christian trinities. The Mystics and the
Philosophers, the Eastern and Western Pantheists, synthesize their pregenetic
triad in the pure divine abstraction. The orthodox, anthropomorphize it.
Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and Sankara — the three hypostases
of the manifesting "Spirit of the Supreme Spirit" (by which title Prithivi — the
Earth — greets Vishnu in his first Avatar) — are the purely metaphysical
abstract qualities of formation, preservation, and destruction, and are the
three divine Avasthas (lit. hypostases) of that which "does * It is not the physical organisms that remain in statu quo, least of all their psychical principles, during the great Cosmic or even Solar pralayas, but only their Akâsic or astral "photographs." But during the minor pralayas, once over-taken by the "Night," the planets remain intact, though dead, as a huge animal, caught and embedded in the polar ice, remains the same for ages. |
19 PROEMnot perish with created things" (or Achyuta, a name of Vishnu); whereas the orthodox Christian separates his personal creative Deity into the three personages of the Trinity, and admits of no higher Deity. The latter, in Occultism, is the abstract Triangle; with the orthodox, the perfect Cube. The creative god or the aggregate gods are regarded by the Eastern philosopher as Bhrantidarsanatah — "false apprehension," something "conceived of, by reason of erroneous appearances, as a material form," and explained as arising from the illusive conception of the Egotistic personal and human Soul (lower fifth principle). It is beautifully expressed in a new translation of Vishnu Purâna. "That Brahmâ in its totality has essentially the aspect of Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved (Mulaprakriti), and also the aspect of Spirit and the aspect of Time. Spirit, O twice born, is the leading aspect of the Supreme Brahma.* The next is a twofold aspect,— Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved, and is the time last." Kronos is shown in the Orphic theogony as being also a generated god or agent. At this stage of the re-awakening of the Universe, the
sacred symbolism represents it as a perfect Circle with the (root) point in the
Centre. This sign was universal, therefore we find it in the Kabala also. The
Western Kabala, however, now in the hands of Christian mystics, ignores it
altogether, though it is plainly shown in the Zohar. These sectarians begin at
the end, and show as the symbol of pregenetic Kosmos this sign
As may be judged, however, from the most important, as
the best known of the Rosicrucians' symbols, there is one which has never been
hitherto understood even by modern mystics. It is that of the "Pelican" tearing
open its breast to feed its seven little ones — the real creed of the Brothers
of the Rosie-Cross and a direct outcome from the Eastern * Thus Spencer, who, nevertheless, like Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, only reflects an aspect of the old esoteric philosophers, and hence lands his readers on the bleak shore of Agnostic despair — reverently formulates the grand mystery; "that which persists unchanging in quantity, but ever changing in form, under these sensible appearances which the Universe presents to us, is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognise as without limit in Space and without beginning or end in time." It is only daring Theology — never Science or philosophy — which seeks to gauge the Infinite and unveil the Fathomless and Unknowable. |
20 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.Secret Doctrine. Brahma (neuter) is called Kalahansa, meaning, as explained by Western Orientalists, the Eternal Swan or goose (see Stanza III., Comment. 8), and so is Brahmâ, the Creator. A great mistake is thus brought under notice; it is Brahma (neuter) who ought to be referred to as Hansa-vahana (He who uses the swan as his Vehicle) and not Brahmâ the Creator, who is the real Kalahansa, while Brahma (neuter) is hamsa, and "A-hamsa," as will be explained in the Commentary. Let it be understood that the terms Brahmâ and Parabrahmam are not used here because they belong to our Esoteric nomenclature, but simply because they are more familiar to the students in the West. Both are the perfect equivalents of our one, three, and seven vowelled terms, which stand for the ONE ALL, and the One "All in all." Such are the basic conceptions on which the Secret Doctrine rests. It would not be in place here to enter upon any defence or proof of their inherent reasonableness; nor can I pause to show how they are, in fact, contained — though too often under a misleading guise — in every system of thought or philosophy worthy of the name. Once that the reader has gained a clear comprehension of them and realised the light which they throw on every problem of life, they will need no further justification in his eyes, because their truth will be to him as evident as the sun in heaven. I pass on, therefore, to the subject matter of the Stanzas as given in this volume, adding a skeleton outline of them, in the hope of thereby rendering the task of the student more easy, by placing before him in a few words the general conception therein explained. Stanza I. The history of cosmic evolution, as traced in the Stanzas, is, so to say, the abstract algebraical formula of that Evolution. Hence the student must not expect to find there an account of all the stages and transformations which intervene between the first beginnings of "Universal" evolution and our present state. To give such an account would be as impossible as it would be incomprehensible to men who cannot even grasp the nature of the plane of existence next to that to which, for the moment, their consciousness is limited. The Stanzas, therefore, give an abstract formula which can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to all evolution: to that of our tiny earth, to |
21 PROEMthat of the chain of planets of which that earth forms one, to the solar Universe to which that chain belongs, and so on, in an ascending scale, till the mind reels and is exhausted in the effort. The seven Stanzas given in this volume represent the seven terms of this abstract formula. They refer to, and describe the seven great stages of the evolutionary process, which are spoken of in the Purânas as the "Seven Creations," and in the Bible as the "Days" of Creation. ————— The First Stanza describes the state of the ONE ALL during Pralaya, before the first flutter of re-awakening manifestation. A moment's thought shows that such a state can only be symbolised; to describe it is impossible. Nor can it be symbolised except in negatives; for, since it is the state of Absoluteness per se, it can possess none of those specific attributes which serve us to describe objects in positive terms. Hence that state can only be suggested by the negatives of all those most abstract attributes which men feel rather than conceive, as the remotest limits attainable by their power of conception. The stage described in Stanza II. is, to a western mind , so nearly identical with that mentioned in the first Stanza, that to express the idea of its difference would require a treatise in itself. Hence it must be left to the intuition and the higher faculties of the reader to grasp, as far as he can, the meaning of the allegorical phrases used. Indeed it must be remembered that all these Stanzas appeal to the inner faculties rather than to the ordinary comprehension of the physical brain. Stanza III. describes the Re-awakening of the Universe to life after Pralaya. It depicts the emergence of the "Monads" from their state of absorption within the ONE; the earliest and highest stage in the formation of "Worlds," the term Monad being one which may apply equally to the vastest Solar System or the tiniest atom. Stanza IV. shows the differentiation of the "Germ" of the Universe |
22 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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 |
23 PROEMthan useless to make the subject still more difficult by introducing the archaic phraseology of the original, with its puzzling style and words. Extracts are given from the Chinese Thibetan and Sanskrit translations of the original Senzar Commentaries and Glosses on the Book of DZYAN — these being now rendered for the first time into a European language. It is almost unnecessary to state that only portions of the seven Stanzas are here given. Were they published complete they would remain incomprehensible to all save the few higher occultists. Nor is there any need to assure the reader that, no more than most of the profane, does the writer, or rather the humble recorder, understand those forbidden passages. To facilitate the reading, and to avoid the too frequent reference to foot-notes, it was thought best to blend together texts and glosses, using the Sanskrit and Tibetan proper names whenever those cannot be avoided, in preference to giving the originals. The more so as the said terms are all accepted synonyms, the former only being used between a Master and his chelas (or disciples). Thus, were one to translate into English, using only the substantives and technical terms as employed in one of the Tibetan and Senzar versions, Verse I would read as follows: — "Tho-ag in Zhi-gyu slept seven Khorlo. Zodmanas zhiba. All Nyug bosom. Konch-hog not; Thyan-Kam not; Lha-Chohan not; Tenbrel Chugnyi not; Dharmakaya ceased; Tgenchang not become; Barnang and Ssa in Ngovonyidj; alone Tho-og Yinsin in night of Sun-chan and Yong-grub (Parinishpanna), &c., &c.," which would sound like pure Abracadabra. As this work is written for the instruction of students of Occultism, and not for the benefit of philologists, we may well avoid such foreign terms wherever it is possible to do so. The untranslateable terms alone, incomprehensible unless explained in their meanings, are left, but all such terms are rendered in their Sanskrit form. Needless to remind the reader that these are, in almost every case, the late developments of the later language, and pertain to the Fifth Root-Race. Sanskrit, as now known, was not spoken by the Atlanteans, and most of the philosophical terms used in the systems of the India of the post-Mahabharatan period are not found in the Vedas, nor are they to be met with in the original Stanzas, but only their equivalents. The reader who is not a Theosophist, is once more invited to regard all that which follows as a fairy tale, if he likes; at best as one of the yet unproven speculations of |
24 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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. ————— |
PART I.COSMIC EVOLUTION.————— SEVEN STANZAS
TRANSLATED WITH COMMENTARIES
|
|
Nor Aught nor Nought existed; yon bright sky . . . . . . . .
Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here?
"Gazing into eternity . . . . . . . .
Thou wert. And when the subterranean flame |
27 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.COSMIC EVOLUTION.In Seven Stanzas translated from the Book of Dzyan. ————— 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 SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS WERE NOT. THE GREAT CAUSES OF MISERY WERE NOT, FOR THERE WAS NO ONE TO PRODUCE AND GET ENSNARED BY THEM. 5. DARKNESS ALONE FILLED THE BOUNDLESS ALL, FOR FATHER, MOTHER AND SON WERE ONCE MORE ONE, AND THE SON HAD NOT AWAKENED YET FOR THE NEW WHEEL, AND HIS PILGRIMAGE THEREON. 6. THE SEVEN SUBLIME LORDS AND THE SEVEN TRUTHS HAD CEASED TO BE, AND THE UNIVERSE, THE SON OF NECESSITY, WAS IMMERSED IN PARANISHPANNA, TO BE OUTBREATHED BY THAT WHICH IS AND YET IS NOT. NAUGHT WAS. 7. THE CAUSES OF EXISTENCE HAD BEEN DONE AWAY WITH; THE VISIBLE THAT WAS, AND THE INVISIBLE THAT IS, RESTED IN ETERNAL NON-BEING — THE ONE BEING. 8. ALONE THE ONE FORM OF EXISTENCE STRETCHED BOUNDLESS, INFINITE, CAUSELESS, IN DREAMLESS SLEEP; AND LIFE PULSATED UNCONSCIOUS IN UNIVERSAL SPACE, THROUGHOUT THAT ALL-PRESENCE WHICH IS SENSED BY THE OPENED EYE OF THE DANGMA. 9. BUT WHERE WAS THE DANGMA WHEN THE ALAYA OF THE UNIVERSE WAS IN PARAMARTHA AND THE GREAT WHEEL WAS ANUPADAKA? |
28 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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. |
29 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.4. THEN THE THREE FALL INTO THE FOUR. THE RADIANT ESSENCE BECOMES SEVEN INSIDE, SEVEN OUTSIDE. THE LUMINOUS EGG, WHICH IN ITSELF IS THREE, CURDLES AND SPREADS IN MILK-WHITE CURDS THROUGHOUT THE DEPTHS OF MOTHER, THE ROOT THAT GROWS IN THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN OF LIFE. 5. THE ROOT REMAINS, THE LIGHT REMAINS, THE CURDS REMAIN, AND STILL OEAOHOO IS ONE. 6. THE ROOT OF LIFE WAS IN EVERY DROP OF THE OCEAN OF IMMORTALITY, AND THE OCEAN WAS RADIANT LIGHT, WHICH WAS FIRE, AND HEAT, AND MOTION. DARKNESS VANISHED AND WAS NO MORE; IT DISAPPEARED IN ITS OWN ESSENCE, THE BODY OF FIRE AND WATER, OR FATHER AND MOTHER. 7. BEHOLD, OH LANOO! THE RADIANT CHILD OF THE TWO, THE UNPARALLELED REFULGENT GLORY: BRIGHT SPACE SON OF DARK SPACE, WHICH EMERGES FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE GREAT DARK WATERS. IT IS OEAOHOO THE YOUNGER, THE * * * HE SHINES FORTH AS THE SON; HE IS THE BLAZING DIVINE DRAGON OF WISDOM; THE ONE IS FOUR, AND FOUR TAKES TO ITSELF THREE, † AND THE UNION PRODUCES THE SAPTA, IN WHOM ARE THE SEVEN WHICH BECOME THE TRIDASA (OR THE HOSTS AND THE MULTITUDES). BEHOLD HIM LIFTING THE VEIL AND UNFURLING IT FROM EAST TO WEST. HE SHUTS OUT THE ABOVE, AND LEAVES THE BELOW TO BE SEEN AS THE GREAT ILLUSION. HE MARKS THE PLACES FOR THE SHINING ONES, AND TURNS THE UPPER INTO A SHORELESS SEA OF FIRE, AND THE ONE MANIFESTED INTO THE GREAT WATERS. 8. WHERE WAS THE GERM AND WHERE WAS NOW DARKNESS? WHERE IS THE SPIRIT OF THE FLAME THAT BURNS IN THY LAMP, OH LANOO? THE GERM IS THAT, AND THAT IS LIGHT, THE WHITE BRILLIANT SON OF THE DARK HIDDEN FATHER. 9. LIGHT IS COLD FLAME, AND FLAME IS FIRE, AND FIRE PRODUCES HEAT, WHICH YIELDS WATER: THE WATER OF LIFE IN THE GREAT MOTHER. 10.
FATHER-MOTHER SPIN A WEB WHOSE UPPER
END IS FASTENED TO SPIRIT—THE LIGHT OF THE ONE DARKNESS—AND THE LOWER ONE TO ITS
SHADOWY END, MATTER; AND THIS WEB IS THE UNIVERSE SPUN OUT OF THE TWO SUBSTANCES
MADE IN ONE, WHICH IS SVABHAVAT. † In the English translation from the Sanskrit the numbers are given in that language, Eka, Chatur, etc., etc. It was thought best to give them in English. |
30 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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 SPARKS, THE SACRED ANIMALS, AND THE MESSENGERS OF THE SACRED FATHERS WITHIN THE HOLY FOUR. 4. THIS WAS THE ARMY OF THE VOICE — THE DIVINE MOTHER OF THE SEVEN. THE SPARKS OF THE SEVEN ARE SUBJECT TO, AND THE SERVANTS OF, THE FIRST, THE SECOND, THE THIRD, THE FOURTH, THE FIFTH, THE SIXTH, AND THE SEVENTH OF THE SEVEN. THESE "SPARKS" ARE CALLED SPHERES, TRIANGLES, CUBES, LINES, AND MODELLERS; FOR THUS STANDS THE ETERNAL NIDANA — THE OEAOHOO, WHICH IS: |
31 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.5. "DARKNESS" THE BOUNDLESS, OR THE NO-NUMBER, ADI-NIDANA SVABHAVAT:—
AND THESE THREE ENCLOSED WITHIN THE
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 SPARKS, AND JOINS THEM. 3. HE IS THEIR GUIDING SPIRIT AND LEADER. WHEN HE COMMENCES WORK, HE SEPARATES THE SPARKS OF THE LOWER KINGDOM THAT FLOAT AND THRILL WITH JOY IN THEIR RADIANT DWELLINGS, AND FORMS THEREWITH THE GERMS OF WHEELS. HE PLACES THEM IN THE SIX DIRECTIONS OF SPACE, AND ONE IN THE MIDDLE — THE CENTRAL WHEEL. 4. FOHAT TRACES SPIRAL LINES TO UNITE THE SIXTH TO THE SEVENTH — THE CROWN; AN ARMY OF THE SONS OF LIGHT STANDS AT EACH ANGLE, AND THE LIPIKA IN THE MIDDLE WHEEL, THEY SAY: THIS IS GOOD, THE |
32 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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. * 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. |
33 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.4. HE BUILDS THEM IN THE LIKENESS OF OLDER WHEELS, PLACING THEM ON THE IMPERISHABLE CENTRES. HOW DOES FOHAT BUILD THEM? HE COLLECTS THE FIERY DUST. HE MAKES BALLS OF FIRE, RUNS THROUGH THEM, AND ROUND THEM, INFUSING LIFE THEREINTO THEN' SETS THEM INTO MOTION; SOME ONE WAY, SOME THE OTHER WAY. THEY ARE COLD, HE MAKES THEM HOT. THEY ARE DRY, HE MAKES THEM MOIST. THEY SHINE, HE FANS AND COOLS THEM. THUS ACTS FOHAT FROM ONE TWILIGHT TO THE OTHER, DURING SEVEN ETERNITIES. 5. AT THE FOURTH, THE SONS ARE TOLD TO CREATE THEIR IMAGES. ONE THIRD REFUSES — TWO OBEY. THE CURSE IS PRONOUNCED; THEY WILL BE BORN ON THE FOURTH, SUFFER AND CAUSE SUFFERING; THIS IS THE FIRST WAR. 6. THE OLDER WHEELS ROTATED DOWNWARDS AND UPWARDS. . . THE MOTHER'S SPAWN FILLED THE WHOLE. THERE WERE BATTLES FOUGHT BETWEEN THE CREATORS AND THE DESTROYERS, AND BATTLES FOUGHT FOR SPACE; THE SEED APPEARING AND RE-APPEARING CONTINUOUSLY. 7. MAKE THY CALCULATIONS, LANOO, IF THOU WOULDEST LEARN THE CORRECT AGE OF THY SMALL WHEEL. ITS FOURTH SPOKE IS OUR MOTHER. REACH THE FOURTH "FRUIT" OF THE FOURTH PATH OF KNOWLEDGE THAT LEADS TO NIRVANA, AND THOU SHALT COMPREHEND, FOR THOU SHALT SEE. . . ————— 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. |
34 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.2. THE ONE RAY MULTIPLIES THE SMALLER RAYS. LIFE PRECEDES FORM, AND LIFE SURVIVES THE LAST ATOM OF FORM. THROUGH THE COUNTLESS RAYS PROCEEDS THE LIFE-RAY, THE ONE, LIKE A THREAD THROUGH MANY JEWELS. 3. WHEN THE ONE BECOMES TWO, THE THREEFOLD APPEARS, AND THE THREE ARE ONE; AND IT IS OUR THREAD, OH LANOO, THE HEART OF THE MAN-PLANT CALLED SAPTASARMA. 4. IT IS THE ROOT THAT NEVER DIES; THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME OF THE FOUR WICKS. THE WICKS ARE THE SPARKS, THAT DRAW FROM THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME SHOT OUT BY THE SEVEN — THEIR FLAME — THE BEAMS AND SPARKS OF ONE MOON REFLECTED IN THE RUNNING WAVES OF ALL THE RIVERS OF EARTH. 5. THE SPARK HANGS FROM THE FLAME BY THE FINEST THREAD OF FOHAT. IT JOURNEYS THROUGH THE SEVEN WORLDS OF MAYA. IT STOPS IN THE FIRST, AND IS A METAL AND A STONE; IT PASSES INTO THE SECOND AND BEHOLD — A PLANT; THE PLANT WHIRLS THROUGH SEVEN CHANGES AND BECOMES A SACRED ANIMAL. FROM THE COMBINED ATTRIBUTES OF THESE, MANU, THE THINKER IS FORMED. WHO FORMS HIM? THE SEVEN LIVES, AND THE ONE LIFE. WHO COMPLETES HIM? THE FIVE-FOLD LHA. AND WHO PERFECTS THE LAST BODY? FISH, SIN, AND SOMA. . . . 6. FROM THE FIRST-BORN THE THREAD BETWEEN THE SILENT WATCHER AND HIS SHADOW BECOMES MORE STRONG AND RADIANT WITH EVERY CHANGE. THE MORNING SUN-LIGHT HAS CHANGED INTO NOON-DAY GLORY. . . . 7. THIS IS THY PRESENT WHEEL, SAID THE FLAME TO THE SPARK. THOU ART MYSELF, MY IMAGE, AND MY SHADOW. I HAVE CLOTHED MYSELF IN THEE, AND THOU ART MY VAHAN TO THE DAY, "BE WITH US," WHEN THOU SHALT RE-BECOME MYSELF AND OTHERS, THYSELF AND ME. THEN THE BUILDERS, HAVING DONNED THEIR FIRST CLOTHING, DESCEND ON RADIANT EARTH AND REIGN OVER MEN — WHO ARE THEMSELVES. . . . Thus ends this portion of the archaic narrative, dark, confused, almost incomprehensible. An attempt will now be made to throw light into this darkness, to make sense out of this apparent NON-SENSE. |
35 STANZA I.COMMENTARIESON THE SEVEN STANZAS AND THEIR TERMS, ACCORDING TO THEIR 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 Akâsa radiates. (a) By the Seven "Eternities," æons or periods are meant. The word "Eternity," as understood in Christian theology, has no meaning to the Asiatic ear, except in its application to the ONE existence; nor is |
36 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.the term sempiternity, the eternal only in futurity, anything better than a misnomer.* Such words do not and cannot exist in philosophical metaphysics, and were unknown till the advent of ecclesiastical Christianity. The Seven Eternities meant are the seven periods, or a period answering in its duration to the seven periods, of a Manvantara, and extending throughout a Maha-Kalpa or the "Great Age" — 100 years of Brahmâ — making a total of 311,040,000,000,000 of years; each year of Brahmâ being composed of 360 "days," and of the same number of "nights" of Brahmâ (reckoning by the Chandrayana or lunar year); and a "Day of Brahmâ " consisting of 4,320,000,000 of mortal years. These "Eternities" belong to the most secret calculations, in which, in order to arrive at the true total, every figure must be 7x (7 to the power of x); x varying according to the nature of the cycle in the subjective or real world; and every figure or number relating to, or representing all the different cycles from the greatest to the smallest — in the objective or unreal world — must necessarily be multiples of seven. The key to this cannot be given, for herein lies the mystery of esoteric calculations, and for the purposes of ordinary calculation it has no sense. "The number seven," says the Kabala, "is the great number of the Divine Mysteries;" number ten is that of all human knowledge (Pythagorean decade); 1,000 is the number ten to the third power, and therefore the number 7,000 is also symbolical. In the Secret Doctrine the figure and number 4 are the male symbol only on the highest plane of abstraction; on the plane of matter the 3 is the masculine and the 4 the female: the upright and the horizontal in the fourth stage of symbolism, when the symbols became the glyphs of the generative powers on the physical plane. ————— STANZA I. — Continued.2. TIME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE BOSOM OF
DURATION (a). * It is stated in Book II., ch. viii., of Vishnu Purâna: "By immortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa;" and Wilson, the translator, remarks in a footnote: "This, according to the Vedas, is all that is to be understood of the immortality (or eternity) of the gods; they perish at the end of universal dissolution (or Pralaya)." And Esoteric philosophy says: They "perish" not, but are re-absorbed. |
37 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. ————— STANZA I. — Continued.3. . . . UNIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR THERE WERE NO AH-HI (celestial beings) TO CONTAIN (hence to manifest) IT (a). |
38 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.(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. ————— STANZA I. — Continued.4. THE SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS (Moksha* or Nirvana) WERE NOT (a). THE GREAT CAUSES OF MISERY (Nidana† and Maya) WERE NOT, FOR THERE WAS NO ONE TO PRODUCE AND GET ENSNARED BY THEM (b). (a) There are seven "Paths" or "Ways" to the bliss of Non-Exist- *Nippang in China; Neibban in Burmah; or Moksha in India. † The "12" Nidanas (in Tibetan Ten-brel chug-nyi) the chief causes of existence, effects generated by a concatenation of causes produced (see Comment. II). |
39 THE CAUSES OF BEINGence, which is absolute Being, Existence, and Consciousness. They were not, because the Universe was, so far, empty, and existed only in the Divine Thought. For it is . . . . (b) The twelve Nidanas or causes of being. Each is the effect of its antecedent cause, and a cause, in its turn, to its successor; the sum total of the Nidanas being based on the four truths, a doctrine especially characteristic of the Hînayâna System.* They belong to the theory of the stream of catenated law which produces merit and demerit, and finally brings Karma into full sway. It is based upon the great truth that re-incarnation is to be dreaded, as existence in this world only entails upon man suffering, misery and pain; Death itself being unable to deliver man from it, since death is merely the door through which he passes to another life on earth after a little rest on its threshold—Devachan. The Hînayâna System, or School of the "Little Vehicle," is of very ancient growth; while the Mahâyânâ is of a later period, having originated after the death of Buddha. Yet the tenets of the latter are as old as the hills that have contained such schools from time immemorial, and the Hînayâna and Mahâyânâ Schools (the latter, that of the "Great Vehicle") both teach the same doctrine in reality. Yana, or Vehicle (in Sanskrit, Vahan) is a mystic expression, both "vehicles" inculcating that man may escape the sufferings of rebirths and even the false bliss of Devachan, by obtaining Wisdom and Knowledge, which alone can dispel the Fruits of Illusion and Ignorance. Maya or illusion is an element which enters into all finite things, for
everything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality, since the
appearance which the hidden noumenon assumes for any observer depends upon his
power of cognition. To the untrained eye of the savage, a painting is at first
an unmeaning confusion of streaks and daubs of color, while an educated eye sees
instantly a face or a landscape. Nothing is permanent except the one hidden
absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities. The
existences belonging to every plane of being, up to the highest Dhyan-Chohans,
are, in degree, of the nature of shadows cast by a magic lantern on a colourless
screen; but all things are relatively real, for the cogniser is also a
reflection, and the things cognised are therefore as real to him as himself.
Whatever reality things possess must be looked for in them * See Wassilief on Buddhism, pp. 97-950. |
40 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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. ————— STANZA I. — Continued.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 * 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. |
41 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 versâ. Yet both are phenomena of the same noumenon — which is absolute darkness to the scientific mind, and but a gray twilight to the perception of the average mystic, though to that of the spiritual eye of the Initiate it is absolute light. How far we discern the light that shines in darkness depends upon our powers of vision. What is light to us is darkness to certain insects, and the eye of the clairvoyant sees illumination where the normal eye perceives only blackness. When the whole universe was plunged in sleep — had returned to its one primordial element — there was neither centre of luminosity, nor eye to perceive light, and darkness necessarily filled the boundless all. (b) The Father-Mother are the male and female principles in root-nature, the opposite poles that manifest in all things on every plane of Kosmos, or Spirit and Substance, in a less allegorical aspect, the resultant of which is the Universe, or the Son. They are "once more One" when in "The Night of Brahmâ," during Pralaya, all in the objective Universe has returned to its one primal and eternal cause, to reappear at the following Dawn — as it does periodically. "Karana" — eternal cause — was alone. To put it more plainly: Karana is alone during the "Nights of Brahmâ." The previous objective Universe has dissolved into its one primal and eternal cause, and is, so to say, held in solution in space, to differentiate again and crystallize out anew at the following Manvantaric dawn, which is the commencement of a new "Day" or new activity of Brahmâ — the symbol of the Universe. In esoteric parlance, Brahmâ is Father-Mother-Son, or Spirit, Soul and Body at once; each personage being symbolical of an attribute, and each attribute or quality being a graduated efflux of Divine Breath in its cyclic differentiation, involutionary and evolutionary. In the cosmicophysical sense, it is the Universe, the planetary chain and the earth; in the purely spiritual, the Unknown Deity, Planetary Spirit, and Man — the Son of the two, the creature of Spirit and Matter, and a manifestation of them in his periodical appearances on Earth during the "wheels," or the Manvantaras. — (See Part II. §: "Days and Nights of Brahmâ.") |
42 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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 Irenæus insisted on the necessity of Four Gospels. But as every new Root-race at the head of a Round must have its revelation and revealers, the next Round will bring the Fifth, the following the Sixth, and so on. (b) "Paranishpanna" is the absolute perfection to which all existences attain at the close of a great period of activity, or Maha-Manvantara, and in which they rest during the succeeding period of repose. In Tibetan it is called Yong-Grub. Up to the day of the Yogâchârya school the true nature of Paranirvana was taught publicly, but since then it has become entirely esoteric; hence so many contradictory interpretations of it. It is only a true Idealist who can understand it. Everything has to be viewed as ideal, with the exception of Paranirvana, by him who would comprehend that state, and acquire a knowledge of how Non Ego, Voidness, and Darkness are Three in One and alone Self-existent and perfect. It is absolute, however, only in a relative |
43 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 "Isis Unveiled.") So also is it when the Divine Breath is inspired again the Universe disappears into the bosom of "the Great Mother," who then sleeps "wrapped in her invisible robes." (c) By "that which is and yet is not" is meant the Great
Breath itself, which we can only speak of as absolute existence, but cannot
picture to our imagination as any form of existence that we can distinguish from
Non-existence. The three periods — the Present,
the Past, and the Future — are in the esoteric
philosophy a compound time; for the three are a composite number only in
relation to the phenomenal plane, but in the realm of noumena have no abstract
validity. As said in the Scriptures: "The Past time is the Present time, as also
the Future, which, though it has not come into existence, still is"; according
to a precept in the Prasanga Madhyamika teaching, whose dogmas have been known
ever since it broke away from the purely esoteric schools.* Our ideas, in
short, on duration and time are all derived from our * See Dzungarian "Mani Kumbum," the "Book of the 10,000 Precepts." Also consult Wassilief's "Der Buddhismus," pp. 327 and 357, etc. |
44 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.sensations according to the laws of Association. Inextricably bound up with the relativity of human knowledge, they nevertheless can have no existence except in the experience of the individual ego, and perish when its evolutionary march dispels the Maya of phenomenal existence. What is Time, for instance, but the panoramic succession of our states of consciousness? In the words of a Master, "I feel irritated at having to use these three clumsy words — Past, Present, and Future — miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective whole, they are about as ill-adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine carving." One has to acquire Paramârtha lest one should become too easy a prey to Samvriti—is a philosophical axiom.* ————— 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. * In clearer words: "One has to acquire true Self-Consciousness in order to understand Samvriti, or the 'origin of delusion.'" Paramârtha is the synonym of the Sanskrit term Svasam-vedana, or "the reflection which analyses itself." There is a difference in the interpretation of the meaning of "Paramârtha" between the Yogâchâryas and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom, however, explain the real and true esoteric sense of the expression. See further, sloka No. 9. |
45 BEING AND NON-BEINGThis 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. |
46 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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
Purânic Commentators explain it by Karana — "Cause" — but the
Esoteric philosophy, by the ideal spirit of that cause. It is, in its
secondary stage, the Svâbhâvat
of the Buddhist philosopher, the eternal cause and effect, omnipresent yet
abstract, the self-existent plastic Essence and the root of all things, viewed
in the same dual light as the Vedantin views his Parabrahm and Mulaprakriti, the
one under two aspects. It seems indeed extraordinary to find great scholars
speculating on the possibility of the Vedanta, and the Uttara-Mimansa
especially, having been "evoked by the teachings of the Buddhists," * In India it is called "The Eye of Siva," but beyond the great range it is known as "Dangma's opened eye" in esoteric phraseology. † Dangma means a purified soul, one who has become a Jivanmukta, the highest adept, or rather a Mahatma so-called. His "opened eye" is the inner spiritual eye of the seer, and the faculty which manifests through it is not clairvoyance as ordinarily understood, i.e., the power of seeing at a distance, but rather the faculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is obtainable. This faculty is intimately connected with the "third eye," which mythological tradition ascribes to certain races of men. Fuller explanations will be found in Book II. |
47 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 Sankarâchârya, † is undeniable. (b) Dreamless sleep is one of the seven states of consciousness known in Oriental esotericism. In each of these states a different portion of the mind comes into action; or as a Vedantin would express it, the individual is conscious in a different plane of his being. The term "dreamless sleep," in this case is applied allegorically to the Universe to express a condition somewhat analogous to that state of consciousness in man, which, not being remembered in a waking state, seems a blank, just as the sleep of the mesmerised subject seems to him an unconscious blank when he returns to his normal condition, although he has been talking and acting as a conscious individual would. ————— 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)? * And yet, one, claiming authority, namely, Sir Monier Williams, Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, has just denied this fact. This is what he taught his audience, on June the 4th, 1888, in his annual address before the Victoria Institute of Great Britain: "Originally, Buddhism set its face against all solitary asceticism . . . to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no esoteric system of doctrine . . . withheld from ordinary men" (!!) And, again: " . . . When Gautama Buddha began his career, the later and lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known." And then, contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith informs his audience that "We learn from Lalita-Vistara that various forms of bodily torture, self-maceration, and austerity were common in Gautama's time." (!!) But the lecturer seems quite unaware that this kind of torture and self-maceration is precisely the lower form of Yoga, Hatha Yoga, which was "little known" and yet so "common" in Gautama's time. † It is even argued that all the Six Darsanas (Schools of philosophy) show traces of Buddha's influence, being either taken from Buddhism or due to Greek teaching! (See Weber, Max Müller, etc.) We labour under the impression that Colebrooke, "the highest authority" in such matters, had long ago settled the question by showing, that "the Hindus were in this instance the teachers, not the learners." |
48 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. (a) Here we have before us the subject of
centuries of scholastic disputations. The two terms "Alaya" and "Paramârtha"
have been the causes of dividing schools and splitting the truth into more
different aspects than any other mystic terms. Alaya is literally the "Soul of
the World" or Anima Mundi, the "Over-Soul" of Emerson, and according to esoteric
teaching it changes periodically its nature. Alaya, though eternal and
changeless in its inner essence on the planes which are unreachable by either
men or Cosmic Gods (Dhyani Buddhas), alters during the active life-period with
respect to the lower planes, ours included. During that time not only the
Dhyani-Buddhas are one with Alaya in Soul and Essence, but even the man strong
in the Yoga (mystic meditation) "is able to merge his soul with it" (Aryasanga,
the Bumapa school). This is not Nirvana, but a condition next to it.
Hence the disagreement. Thus, while the Yogâchâryas (of the Mahâyânâ school) say
that Alaya is the personification of the Voidness, and yet Alaya (Nyingpo
and Tsang in Tibetan) is the basis of every visible and invisible
thing, and that, though it is eternal and immutable in its essence, it reflects
itself in every object of the Universe "like the moon in clear tranquil water";
other schools dispute the statement. The same for Paramârtha: the Yogâchâryas
interpret the term as that which is also dependent upon other things (paratantra);
and the Madhyamikas say that Paramârtha is limited to Paranishpanna or
absolute perfection; i.e., in the exposition of these "two
truths" (out of four), the former believe and maintain that (on this plane, at
any rate) there exists only Samvritisatya or relative truth; and the latter
teach the existence of Paramârthasatya, the "absolute truth." * "No
Arhat, oh mendicants, can reach absolute knowledge before he becomes one with
Paranirvana. Parikalpita and Paratantra are his two great
enemies" (Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas). Parikalpita (in Tibetan
Kun-ttag) is error, made by those unable to realize the emptiness
and illusionary nature of all; who believe something to exist which does not —
e.g., the Non-Ego. And *"Paramârtha" is self-consciousness in Sanskrit, Svasamvedana, or the "self-analysing reflection" — from two words, parama (above everything) and artha (comprehension), Satya meaning absolute true being, or Esse. In Tibetan Paramârthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite of this absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya — the relative truth only — "Samvriti" meaning "false conception" and being the origin of illusion, Maya; in Tibetan Kundzabchi-denpa, "illusion-creating appearance." |
49 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 Yogâchârya system of the contemplative Mahâyânâ school, Alaya is both the
Universal Soul (Anima Mundi) and the Self of a progressed adept. "He who is
strong in the Yoga can introduce at will his Alaya by means of meditation into
the true Nature of Existence." The "Alaya has an absolute eternal existence,"
says Aryâsanga — the rival of Nagârjuna.* In one sense it is Pradhâna;
which * Aryasanga was a pre-Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist esoteric school, though Csoma di Köros places him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh centure A.D. There was another Aryâsanga, who lived during the first centuries of our era and the Hungarian scholar most probably confuses the two. |
50 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.is explained in Vishnu Purâna as: "that which is the unevolved cause, is emphatically called by the most eminent sages Pradhâna, original base, which is subtile Prakriti, viz., that which is eternal, and which at once is (or comprehends) what is and what is not, or is mere process." "Prakriti," however, is an incorrect word, and Alaya would explain it better; for Prakriti is not the "uncognizable Brahma." * It is a mistake of those who know nothing of the Universality of the Occult doctrines from the very cradle of the human races, and especially so of those scholars who reject the very idea of a "primordial revelation," to teach that the Anima Mundi, the One Life or "Universal Soul," was made known only by Anaxagoras, or during his age. This philosopher brought the teaching forward simply to oppose the too materialistic conceptions on Cosmogony of Democritus, based on his exoteric theory of blindly driven atoms. Anaxagoras of Clazomene was not its inventor but only its propagator, as also was Plato. That which he called Mundane Intelligence, the nous ( nou'" ), the principle that according to his views is absolutely separated and free from matter and acts on design,† was called Motion, the ONE LIFE, or Jivatma, ages before the year 500 B.C. in India. Only the Aryan philosophers never endowed the principle, which with them is infinite, with the finite "attribute" of "thinking." This leads the reader naturally to the "Supreme Spirit"
of Hegel and the German Transcendentalists as a contrast that it may be useful
to point out. The schools of Schelling and Fichte have diverged widely from the
primitive archaic conception of an ABSOLUTE principle, and have mirrored only an
aspect of the basic idea of the Vedanta. Even the "Absoluter Geist" shadowed
forth by von Hartman in his pessimistic philosophy of the Unconscious, while it
is, perhaps, the closest approximation made by European speculation to the Hindu
Adwaitee Doctrines, similarly falls far short of the reality. * "The indiscreet cause which is uniform, and both cause and effect, and which those who are acquainted with first principles call Pradhâna and Prakriti, is the incognizable Brahma who was before all" (Vâyu Purâna); i.e., Brahma does not put forth evolution itself or create, but only exhibits various aspects of itself, one of which is Prakriti, an aspect of Pradhâna. † Finite Self-consciousness, I mean. For how can the absolute attain it otherwise than as simply an aspect, the highest of which known to us is human consciousness? |
51 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 Archæus a discovery
of Paracelsus nor of his pupil Van Helmont; for it is again the same Archæus or
"Father-Ether," — the manifested basis * See Schwegler's "Handbook of the History of Philosophy" in Sterling's translation, p. 28. |
52 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.and source of the innumerable phenomena of life — localised. The whole series of the numberless speculations of this kind are but variations on this theme, the key-note of which was struck in this primeval Revelation. (See Part II., "Primordial Substance.") (b) The term Anupadaka, "parentless,"
or without progenitors, is a mystical designation having several meanings in the
philosophy. By this name celestial beings, the Dhyan-Chohans or Dhyani-Buddhas,
are generally meant. But as these correspond mystically to the human Buddhas and
Bodhisattwas, known as the "Mânushi (or human) Buddhas," the latter are also
designated "Anupadaka," once that their whole personality is merged in their
compound sixth and seventh principles — or Atma-Buddhi, and that they have
become the "diamond-souled" (Vajra-sattvas),* the full Mahatmas. The
"Concealed Lord" (Sangbai Dag-po), "the one merged with the absolute," can have
no parents since he is Self-existent, and one with the Universal Spirit (Svayambhu),
† the Svâbhâvat in the highest aspect. The mystery in the hierarchy of the
Anupadaka is great, its apex being the universal Spirit-Soul, and the lower rung
the Mânushi-Buddha; and even every Soul-endowed man is an Anupadaka in a latent
state. Hence, when speaking of the Universe in its formless, eternal, or
absolute condition, before it was fashioned by the "Builders" — the expression,
"the Universe was Anupadaka." (See Part II., "Primordial Substance.") * Vajra — diamond-holder. In Tibetan Dorjesempa; sempa meaning the soul, its adamantine quality referring to its indestructibility in the hereafter. The explanation with regard to the "Anupadaka" given in the Kala Chakra, the first in the Gyu(t) division of the Kanjur, is half esoteric. It has misled the Orientalists into erroneous speculations with respect to the Dhyani-Buddhas and their earthly correspondencies, the Manushi-Buddhas. The real tenet is hinted at in a subsequent Volume, (see "The Mystery about Buddha"), and will be more fully explained in its proper place. † To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling practically accepted the Pantheistic conception of periodical Avatars (special incarnations of the World-Spirit in Man, as seen in the case of all the great religious reformers) . . . . "the essence of man is spirit . . . . only by stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure self-consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ-man, as man in whom the Unity of God-man (identity of the individual with the Universal consciousness as taught by the Vedantins and some Adwaitees) appeared, has, in his death and history generally, himself presented the eternal history of Spirit — a history which every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as Spirit." — Philosophy of History. Sibree's English translation, p. 340. |
53 THE STATE OF PARANIRVANA.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 Brahmâ," as well as to the Solar pralaya and subsequent resurrection of our Planetary System on a higher plane. There are many kinds of pralaya (dissolution of a thing visible), as will be shown elsewhere. (b) Paranishpanna, remember, is the summum
bonum, the Absolute, hence the same as Paranirvana. Besides being
the final state it is that condition of subjectivity which has no relation to
anything but the one absolute truth (Para-mârthasatya) on its plane. It is that
state which leads one to appreciate correctly the full meaning of Non-Being,
which, as explained, is absolute Being. Sooner or later, all that now
seemingly exists, will be in reality and actually in the state of
Paranishpanna. But there is a great difference between conscious and
unconscious "being." The condition of Paranishpanna, without
Paramârtha, the Self-analys- * "Mother of the Gods," Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the Zohar, she is called Sephira the Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her primordial form, in abscondito. |
54 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.ing consciousness (Svasamvedana), is no bliss, but simply extinction (for Seven Eternities). Thus, an iron ball placed under the scorching rays of the sun will get heated through, but will not feel or appreciate the warmth, while a man will. It is only "with a mind clear and undarkened by personality, and an assimilation of the merit of manifold existences devoted to being in its collectivity (the whole living and sentient Universe)," that one gets rid of personal existence, merging into, becoming one with, the Absolute,* and continuing in full possession of Paramârtha. ————— 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 * Hence Non-being is "ABSOLUTE Being," in esoteric philosophy. In the tenets of the latter even Adi-Budha (first or primeval wisdom) is, while manifested, in one sense an illusion, Maya, since all the gods, including Brahmâ, have to die at the end of the "Age of Brahmâ"; the abstraction called Parabrahm alone — whether we call it Ensoph, or Herbert Spencer's Unknowable — being "the One Absolute" Reality. The One secondless Existence is ADWAITA, "Without a Second," and all the rest is Maya, teaches the Adwaita philosophy. |
55 THE ABSOLUTE KNOWS ITSELF NOT.condition of the Universe when it goes to sleep, or ceases to be, during the "Nights of Brahmâ" — to awaken or reappear again, when the dawn of the new Manvantara recalls it to what we call existence. (b) The "Breath" of the One Existence is used in its application only to the spiritual aspect of Cosmogony by Archaic esotericism; otherwise, it is replaced by its equivalent in the material plane — Motion. The One Eternal Element, or element-containing Vehicle, is Space, dimensionless in every sense; co-existent with which are — endless duration, primordial (hence indestructible) matter, and motion — absolute "perpetual motion" which is the "breath" of the "One" Element. This breath, as seen, can never cease, not even during the Pralayic eternities. (See "Chaos, Theos, Kosmos," in Part II.) But the "Breath of the One Existence" does not, all the same, apply to the One Causeless Cause or the "All Be-ness" (in contradistinction to All-Being, which is Brahmâ, or the Universe). Brahmâ (or Hari) the four-faced god who, after lifting the Earth out of the waters, "accomplished the Creation," is held to be only the instrumental, and not, as clearly implied, the ideal Cause. No Orientalist, so far, seems to have thoroughly comprehended the real sense of the verses in the Purâna, that treat of "creation." Therein Brahmâ is the cause of the potencies that are to be generated subsequently for the work of "creation." When a translator says, "And from him proceed the potencies to be created, after they had become the real cause": "and from IT proceed the potencies that will create as they become the real cause" (on the material plane) would perhaps be more correct? Save that one (causeless) ideal cause there is no other to which the universe can be referred. "Worthiest of ascetics! through its potency — i.e., through the potency of that cause — every created thing comes by its inherent or proper nature." If, in the Vedanta and Nyaya, nimitta is the efficient cause, as contrasted with upadána, the material cause, (and in the Sankhya, pradhána implies the functions of both); in the Esoteric philosophy, which reconciles all these systems, and the nearest exponent of which is the Vedanta as expounded by the Advaita Vedantists, none but the upadána can be speculated upon; that which is in the minds of the Vaishnavas (the Vasishta-dvaita) as the ideal in contradistinction to the real — or Parabrahm and Isvara — can find no room in published speculations, since |
56 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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. |
57 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 India. The Lotus is the product of heat (fire) and water (vapour or Ether); fire standing in every philosophical and religious system as a representation of the Spirit of Deity,†the active, male, generative principle; and Ether, or the Soul of matter, the light of the fire, for the passive female principle from which everything in this Universe emanated. Hence, Ether or Water is the Mother, and Fire is the Father. Sir W. Jones (and before him archaic botany) showed that the seeds of the Lotus contain — even before they germinate — perfectly formed leaves, the miniature shape of what one day, as perfect plants, they will become: nature thus giving us a specimen of the preformation of its production . . . the seed of all phanerogamous plants bearing proper flowers containing an embryo plantlet ready formed‡ (See Part II., "The Lotus Flower as an Universal Symbol.") This explains the sentence "The Mother had not yet swollen"— the form being usually sacrificed to the inner or root idea in Archaic symbology. The Lotus, or Padma, is, moreover, a very ancient and
favourite * An unpoetical term, yet still very graphic. (See foot-note to Stanza III.) † Even in Christianity. (See Part II., "Primordial Substance and Divine Thought.") ‡Gross, "The Heathen Religion," p. 195. |
58 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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 |
59 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 Brahmâ; Horus, or Osiris, etc., etc.) is born through, not from, an
immaculate source, personified by the "Mother"; because that Male having a
Mother cannot have a "Father" —
the abstract Deity being sexless, and not even a Being but Be-ness, or Life
itself. Let us render this in the mathematical language of the author of "The
Source of Measures." Speaking of the "Measure of a Man" and his numerical
(Kabalistic) value, he writes that in Genesis, ch. iv., v. 1, "It is called the
'Man even Jehovah' * A Vedantin of the Visishtadwaita philosophy would say that, though the only independent Reality, Parabrahmam is inseparable from his trinity. That He is three, "Parabrahmam, Chit, and Achit," the last two being dependent realities unable to exist separately; or, to make it clearer, Parabrahmam is the SUBSTANCE — changeless, eternal, and incognizable — and Chit (Atma), and Achit (Anatma) are its qualities, as form and colour are the qualities of any object. The two are the garment, or body, or rather attribute (Sarira) of Parabrahmam. But an Occultist would find much to say against this claim, and so would the Adwaitee Vedantin. |
60 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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.") |
61 DIVINE THOUGHT, DIVINE THINKERS.Svabhavat, the "Plastic Essence" that fills the Universe, is the root of all things. Svabhavat is, so to say, the Buddhistic concrete aspect of the abstraction called in Hindu philosophy Mulaprakriti. It is the body of the Soul, and that which Ether would be to Akasa, the latter being the informing principle of the former. Chinese mystics have made of it the synonym of "being." In the Ekasloka-Shastra of Nagarjuna (the Lung-shu of China) called by the Chinese the Yih-shu-lu-kia-lun, it is said that the original word of Yeu is "Being" or "Subhâva," "the Substance giving substance to itself," also explained by him as meaning " without action and with action," "the nature which has no nature of its own." Subhâva, from which Svâbhâvat, is composed of two words: Su "fair," "handsome," "good"; Sva, "self"; and bhava, "being" or "states of being." ————— 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. Brahmâ, the male-female, its aspect and anthropomorphic reflection, is conceivable to the perceptions of blind faith, though rejected by human intellect when it attains its majority. (See Part II., "Primordial Substance and Divine Thought.") Hence the statement that during the prologue, so to say, of the drama of Creation, or the beginning of cosmic evolution, the Universe or the "Son" lies still concealed "in the Divine Thought," which had not yet penetrated "into the Divine Bosom." This idea, note well, is at the root, and forms the origin of all the allegories about the "Sons of God" born of immaculate virgins. |
62 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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 (Khandakâla). One is the abstraction or noumenon of infinite time (Kala); the other its phenomenon appearing periodically, as the effect of Mahat (the Universal Intelligence limited by Manvantaric duration). With some schools, Mahat is "the first-born" of Pradhâna (undifferentiated substance, or the periodical aspect of Mulaprakriti, the root of Nature), which (Pradhâna) is called Maya, the Illusion. In this respect, I believe, esoteric teaching differs from the Vedantin doctrines of both the Adwaita and the Visishtadwaita schools. For it says that, while Mulaprakriti, the noumenon, is self-existing and without any origin — is, in short, parentless, Anupadaka (as one with Brahmam) — Prakriti, its phenomenon, is periodical and no better than a phantasm of the former, so Mahat, with the Occultists, the first-born of Gnâna (or gnosis) knowledge, wisdom or the Logos — is a phantasm reflected from the Absolute NIRGUNA (Parabrahm, the one reality, "devoid of attributes and qualities"; see Upanishads); while with some Vedantins Mahat is a manifestation of Prakriti, or Matter. (b) Therefore, the "last vibration of the Seventh Eternity" was "fore-ordained" — by no God in particular, but occurred in virtue of the eternal and changeless LAW which causes the great periods of Activity and Rest, called so graphically, and at the same time so poetically, the "Days and Nights of Brahmâ." The expansion "from within without" of the Mother, called elsewhere the "Waters of Space," "Universal Matrix," etc., does not allude to an expansion from a small centre or focus, but, without reference to size or limitation or area, means the development of limitless subjectivity into as limitless objectivity. "The ever (to us) invisible and immaterial Substance present in eternity, threw its periodical shadow from its own plane into the lap |
63 THE UNIVERSE, A FLITTING SHADOW.of Maya." It implies that this expansion, not being an increase in size — for infinite extension admits of no enlargement — was a change of condition. It "expanded like the bud of the Lotus"; for the Lotus plant exists not only as a miniature embryo in its seed (a physical characteristic), but its prototype is present in an ideal form in the Astral Light from "Dawn" to "Night" during the Manvantaric period, like everything else, as a matter of fact, in this objective Universe; from man down to mite, from giant trees down to the tiniest blades of grass. All this, teaches the hidden Science, is but the temporary reflection, the shadow of the eternal ideal prototype in Divine Thought — the word "Eternal," note well again, standing here only in the sense of "Æon," as lasting throughout the seemingly interminable, but still limited cycle of activity, called by us Manvantara. For what is the real esoteric meaning of Manvantara, or rather a Manu-Antara? It means, esoterically, "between two Manus," of whom there are fourteen in every "Day of Brahmâ," such a "Day" consisting of 1,000 aggregates of four ages, or 1,000 "Great Ages," Mahayugas. Let us now analyse the word or name Manu. Orientalists and their Dictionaries tell us that the term "Manu" is from the root Man, "to think"; hence "the thinking man." But, esoterically, every Manu, as an anthropomorphized patron of his special cycle (or Round), is but the personified idea of the "Thought Divine" (as the Hermetic "Pymander"); each of the Manus, therefore, being the special god, the creator and fashioner of all that appears during his own respective cycle of being or Manvantara. Fohat runs the Manus' (or Dhyan-Chohans') errands, and causes the ideal prototypes to expand from within without — viz., to cross gradually, on a descending scale, all the planes from the noumenon to the lowest phenomenon, to bloom finally on the last into full objectivity — the acme of illusion, or the grossest matter. ————— 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). |
64 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.(a) The Pythagorean Monad is also said to dwell in solitude and darkness like the "germ." The idea of the "breath" of Darkness moving over "the slumbering Waters of life," which is primordial matter with the latent Spirit in it, recalls the first chapter of Genesis. Its original is the Brahminical Nârâyana (the mover on the Waters), who is the personification of the eternal Breath of the unconscious All (or Parabrahm) of the Eastern Occultists. The Waters of Life, or Chaos — the female principle in symbolism — are the vacuum (to our mental sight) in which lie the latent Spirit and Matter. This it was that made Democritus assert, after his instructor Leucippus, that the primordial principles of all were atoms and a vacuum, in the sense of space, but not of empty space, as "Nature abhors a vacuum" according to the Peripatetics, and every ancient philosopher. In all Cosmogonies "Water" plays the same important part. It is the base and source of material existence. Scientists, mistaking the word for the thing, understood by water the definite chemical combination of oxygen and hydrogen, thus giving a specific meaning to a term used by Occultists in a generic sense, and which is used in Cosmogony with a metaphysical and mystical meaning. Ice is not water, neither is steam, although all three have precisely the same chemical composition. ————— STANZA III. — Continued.2. "DARKNESS" RADIATES LIGHT, AND LIGHT DROPS ONE SOLITARY RAY INTO THE WATERS, INTO THE MOTHER DEEP. THE RAY SHOOTS THROUGH THE VIRGIN-EGG; THE RAY CAUSES THE ETERNAL EGG TO THRILL, AND DROP THE NON-ETERNAL (periodical) GERM, WHICH CONDENSES INTO THE WORLD EGG (a). (a) The solitary ray dropping into the mother deep may be taken as meaning Divine Thought or Intelligence, impregnating chaos. This, however, occurs on the plane of metaphysical abstraction, or rather the plane whereon that which we call a metaphysical abstraction is a reality. The Virgin-egg being in one sense abstract Egg-ness, or the power of becoming developed through fecundation, is eternal and for ever the same. And just as the fecundation of an egg takes place before it is dropped; so the non-eternal periodical germ which becomes later in |
65 NATURE'S SYMBOLS.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 |
66 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.stated in Vishnu Purâna, where elements are translated "Envelopes" and a secret one is added: "Aham-kara" (see Wilson's Vishnu Purâna, Book I., p. 40). The original text has no "Aham-kara;" it mentions seven Elements without specifying the last three (see Part II. on "The Mundane Egg"). ————— 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 Brahmâ, or Vishnu, the three "Avasthas"), CURDLES AND SPREADS IN MILK-WHITE CURDS THROUGHOUT THE DEPTHS OF MOTHER, THE ROOT THAT GROWS IN THE OCEAN OF LIFE (b). The use of geometrical figures and the frequent allusions to figures in all ancient scriptures (see Purânas, Egyptian papyri, the "Book of the Dead" and even the Bible) must be explained. In the "Book of Dzyan," as in the Kabala, there are two kinds of numerals to be studied — the figures, often simple blinds, and the Sacred Numbers, the values of which are all known to the Occultists through Initiation. The former is but a conventional glyph, the latter is the basic symbol of all. That is to say, that one is purely physical, the other purely metaphysical, the two standing in relation to each other as matter stands to spirit — the extreme poles of the ONE Substance. As Balzac, the unconscious Occultist of French literature, says somewhere, the Number is to Mind the same as it is to matter: "an incomprehensible agent;" (perhaps so to the profane, never to the Initiated mind). Number is, as the great writer thought, an Entity, and, at the same time, a Breath emanating from what he called God and what we call the ALL; the breath which alone could organize the physical Kosmos, "where naught obtains its form but through the Deity, which is an effect of Number." It is instructive to quote Balzac's words upon this subject: — "The smallest as the most immense creations, are they not to be distinguished from each other by their quantities, their qualities, their dimensions, their forces and attributes, all begotten by the NUMBER? The infinitude of the Numbers is a fact proven to our mind, but of which no proof can be physically |
67 THE POWER OF NUMBERS.given. The mathematician will tell us that the infinitude of the numbers exists but is not to be demonstrated. God is a Number endowed with motion, which is felt but not demonstrated. As Unity, it begins the Numbers, with which it has nothing in common. . . . The existence of the Number depends on Unity, which, without a single Number, begets them all. . . . . What! unable either to measure the first abstraction yielded to you by the Deity, or to get hold of it, you still hope to subject to your measurements the mystery of the Secret Sciences which emanate from that Deity? . . . . And what would you feel, were I to plunge you into the abysses of MOTION, the Force which organizes the Number? What would you think, were I to add that Motion and Number* are begotten by the WORD, the Supreme Reason of the Seers and Prophets, who, in days of old, sensed the mighty Breath of God, a witness to which is the Apocalypse?" (b) "The radiant essence curdled and spread
throughout the depths" of Space. From an astronomical point of view this is easy
of explanation: it is the "milky way," the world-stuff, or primordial matter in
its first form. It is more difficult, however, to explain it in a few words or
even lines, from the standpoint of Occult Science and Symbolism, as it is the
most complicated of glyphs. Herein are enshrined more than a dozen symbols. To
begin with, the whole pantheon of mysterious objects,‡ every one of
them having some definite Occult meaning, extracted from the allegorical
"churning of the ocean" by the Hindu gods. Besides Amrita, the
water of life or immortality, "Surabhi" the "cow of plenty," called
"the fountain of milk and curds," was extracted from this "Sea of Milk." Hence
the universal adoration of the cow and bull, one the productive, the other the
generative power in Nature: symbols connected with both the Solar and the Cosmic
deities. The specific properties, for occult purposes, of the "fourteen precious
things," being explained only at the fourth Initiation, cannot be given here;
but the following may be remarked. In the "Satapatha Brâhmana" it is stated that
the churning of the "Ocean of Milk" took place in the Satya Yug, the first age
which immediately followed the "Deluge." As, however, neither the Rig-Veda nor * Number, truly; but never MOTION. It is Motion which begets the Logos, the Word, in occultism. ‡ The "Fourteen precious things." The narrative or allegory is found in the Satapatha Brahmana and others. The Japanese Secret Science of the Buddhist Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has "seven precious things." We will speak of them, hereafter. |
68 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.Manu — both preceding Vaivasvata's "deluge," that of the bulk of the Fourth Race — mention this deluge, it is evident that it is not the "great" deluge, nor that which carried away Atlantis, nor even the deluge of Noah, which is meant here. This "churning" relates to a period before the earth's formation, and is in direct connection with that other universal legend, the various and contradictory versions of which culminated in the Christian dogma of the "War in Heaven," and the fall of the Angels (see Book II., also Revelations chap. xii.). The Brâhmanas, reproached by the Orientalists with their versions on the same subjects, often clashing with each other, are pre-eminently occult works, hence used purposely as blinds. They were allowed to survive for public use and property only because they were and are absolutely unintelligible to the masses. Otherwise they would have disappeared from circulation as long ago as the days of Akbar. ————— 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),* * The original for Understanding is Sattva, which Sankara (acharya) renders antahkarana. "Refined," he says, "by sacrifices and other sanctifying operations." In the Katha, at p. 148, Sattva is said by Sankara to mean buddhi — a common use of the word. ("The BHAGAVATGITA with The Sanatsugâtîya and The Anugitâ," translated by Kashinath Trimbak Telang, M.A.; edited by Max Muller.) Whatever meaning various schools may give the term, Sattva is the name given among Occult students of the Aryasanga School to the dual Monad or Atma-buddhi, and Atma-buddhi on this plane corresponds to Parabrahm and Mulaprakriti on the higher plane. |
69 THE BLOSSOM OF THE ROOT OF LIFE.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- * Amrita is "immortality." † See Commentary No. 1 to this Stanza. |
70 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.ments of the laboratory, and which even the mind cannot grasp, although it can equally little avoid the conclusion that these underlying essences of things must exist. Fire and Water, or Father * and Mother, may be taken here to mean the divine Ray and Chaos. "Chaos, from this union with Spirit obtaining sense, shone with pleasure, and thus was produced the Protogonos (the first-born light)," says a fragment of Hermas. Damascius calls it Dis in "Theogony" — "The disposer of all things." (See Cory's "Ancient Fragments," p. 314.) According to the Rosicrucian tenets, as handled and explained by the profane for once correctly, if only partially, so "Light and Darkness are identical in themselves, being only divisible in the human mind"; and according to Robert Fludd, "Darkness adopted illumination in order to make itself visible" (On Rosenkranz). According to the tenets of Eastern Occultism, DARKNESS is the one true actuality, the basis and the root of light, without which the latter could never manifest itself, nor even exist. Light is matter, and DARKNESS pure Spirit. Darkness, in its radical, metaphysical basis, is subjective and absolute light; while the latter in all its seeming effulgence and glory, is merely a mass of shadows, as it can never be eternal, and is simply an illusion, or Maya. Even in the mind-baffling and science-harassing Genesis,
light is created out of darkness "and darkness was upon the face of the deep"
(ch. i. v. 2.) — and
not vice versa. "In him (in darkness) was life; and the life was
the light of men" (John i. 4). A day may come when the eyes of men
will be opened; and then they may comprehend better than they do now, that verse
in the Gospel of John that says "And the light shineth in darkness; and the
darkness comprehendeth it not." They will see then that the word "darkness" does
not apply to man's spiritual eyesight, but indeed to "Darkness," the absolute,
that comprehendeth not (cannot cognize) transient light, however transcendent to
human eyes. Demon est Deus inversus. The devil is now called Darkness
by the Church, whereas, in the Bible he is called the "Son of God" (see Job),
the bright star of the early morning, Lucifer (see Isaiah). There is a whole
philosophy of dogmatic craft in the reason why the first Archangel, who sprang
from the depths of Chaos, was called Lux (Lucifer), the "Luminous Son of the
Morning," or man- * See "Kwan-Shai-Yin." The real name from the text cannot be given. |
71 LIGHT EMERGES FROM DARKNESS.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 Judæus. He is called the "Blazing Dragon of
Wisdom," † Lanoo is a student, a chela who studies practical Esotericism. ‡ "Tri-dasa," or three times ten (30), alludes to the Vedic deities, in round numbers, or more accurately 33 — a sacred number. They are the 12 Adityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and 2 Aswins—the twin sons of the Sun and the Sky. This is the root-number of the Hindu Pantheon, which enumerates 33 crores or over three hundred millions of gods and goddesses. |
72 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.because, firstly, he is that which the Greek philosophers called the Logos, the Verbum of the Thought Divine; and secondly, because in Esoteric philosophy this first manifestation, being the synthesis or the aggregate of Universal Wisdom, Oeaohoo, "the Son of the Son," contains in himself the Seven Creative Hosts (The Sephiroth), and is thus the essence of manifested Wisdom. "He who bathes in the light of Oeaohoo will never be deceived by the veil of Maya." Kwan-Shai-Yin is identical with, and an equivalent of
the Sanskrit Avalôkitêshwara, and as such he is an androgynous deity,
like the Tetragrammaton and all the Logoi * of antiquity. It is only by
some sects in China that he is anthropomorphized and represented with female
attributes,† when, under his female aspect, he becomes Kwan-Yin, the
goddess of mercy, called the "Divine Voice."‡ The latter is the patron
deity of Thibet and of the island of Puto in China, where both deities have a
number of monasteries.§ (See Part II. Kwan-Shai-Yin and Kwan-yin.) * Hence all the higher gods of antiquity are all "Sons of the Mother" before they become those of the "Father." The Logoi, like Jupiter or Zeus, Son of Kronos-Saturn, "Infinite Time" (or Kala), in their origin were represented as male-female. Zeus is said to be the "beautiful Virgin," and Venus is made bearded. Apollo is originally bisexual, so is Brahmâ-Vâch in Manu and the Purânas. Osiris is interchangeable with Isis, and Horus is of both sexes. Finally St. John's vision in Revelation, that of the Logos, who is now connected with Jesus — is hermaphrodite, for he is described as having female breasts. So is the Tetragrammaton = Jehovah. But there are two Avalôkitêshwaras in Esotericism; the first and the second Logos. † No religious symbol can escape profanation and even derision in our days of politics and Science. In Southern India the writer has seen a converted native making pujah with offerings before a statue of Jesus clad in woman's clothes and with a ring in his nose. When asking the meaning of the masquerade we were answered that it was Jesu-Maria blended in one, and that it was done by the permission of the Padri, as the zealous convert had no money to purchase two statues or "idols" as they, very properly, were called by a witness — another but a non-converted Hindu. Blasphemous this will appear to a dogmatic Christian, but the Theosophist and the Occultist must award the palm of logic to the converted Hindu. The esoteric Christos in the gnosis is, of course, sexless, but in exoteric theology he is male and female. ‡ The Gnostic Sophia, "Wisdom" who is "the Mother" of the Ogdoad (Aditi, in a certain sense, with her eight sons), is the Holy Ghost and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The "father" is a far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere — the mother of the seven planetary powers. § See "Chinese Buddhism," by the Rev. J. C. Edkins, who always gives correct facts, although his conclusions are very frequently erroneous. |
73 THE DRAGON AND THE LOGOI. (b) "The "Dragon of Wisdom" is the One, the
"Eka" (Sanskrit) or Saka. It is curious that Jehovah's name in Hebrew should
also be One, Echod. "His name is Echod": say the Rabbins. The philologists ought
to decide which of the two is derived from the other—linguistically and
symbolically: surely, not the Sanskrit? The "One" and the Dragon are expressions
used by the ancients in connection with their respective Logoi. Jehovah — esoterically (as Elohim) — is also the Serpent
or Dragon that tempted Eve, and the "Dragon" is an old glyph for "Astral Light"
(Primordial Principle), "which is the Wisdom of Chaos." Archaic philosophy,
recognizing neither Good nor Evil as a fundamental or independent power, but
starting from the Absolute ALL (Universal Perfection eternally), traced both
through the course of natural evolution to pure Light condensing gradually into
form, hence becoming Matter or Evil. It was left with the early and ignorant
Christian fathers to degrade the philosophical and highly scientific idea of
this emblem (the Dragon) into the absurd superstition called the "Devil." They
took it from the later Zoroastrians, who saw devils or the Evil in the Hindu
Devas, and the word Evil thus became by a double transmutation D'Evil
in every tongue (Diabolos, Diable, Diavolo, Teufel). But the Pagans have always
shown a philosophical discrimination in their symbols. The primitive symbol of
the serpent symbolised divine Wisdom and Perfection, and had always stood for
psychical Regeneration and Immortality. Hence —
Hermes, calling the serpent the most spiritual of all beings; Moses, initiated
in the wisdom of Hermes, following suit in Genesis; the Gnostic's Serpent with
the seven vowels over its head, being the emblem of the seven hierarchies of the
Septenary or Planetary Creators. Hence, also, the Hindu serpent Sesha or Ananta,
"the Infinite," a name of Vishnu, whose first Vahan or vehicle on the primordial
waters is this serpent.* Yet they all made a difference between the good
and the bad Serpent (the Astral Light of * Like the logoi and the Hierarchies of Powers, however, the "Serpents" have to be distinguished one from the other. Sesha or Ananta, "the couch of Vishnu," is an allegorical abstraction, symbolizing infinite Time in Space, which contains the germ and throws off periodically the efflorescence of this germ, the manifested Universe; whereas, the gnostic Ophis contained the same triple symbolism in its seven vowels as the One, Three and Seven-syllabled Oeaohoo of the Archaic doctrine; i.e., the One Unmanifested Logos, the Second manifested, the triangle concreting into the Quaternary or Tetragrammaton, and the rays of the latter on the material plane. |
74 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.the Kabalists) —
between the former, the embodiment of divine Wisdom in the region of the
Spiritual, and the latter, Evil, on the plane of matter.* Jesus accepted
the serpent as a synonym of Wisdom, and this formed part of his teaching: "Be ye
wise as serpents," he says. "In the beginning, before Mother became
Father-Mother, the fiery Dragon moved in the infinitudes alone" (Book of
Sarparajni.) The Aitareya Brahmana calls the Earth Sarparâjni,
"the Serpent Queen," and "the Mother of all that moves." Before our globe became
egg-shaped (and the Universe also) "a long trail of Cosmic dust (or fire mist)
moved and writhed like a serpent in Space." The "Spirit of God moving on Chaos"
was symbolized by every nation in the shape of a fiery serpent breathing fire
and light upon the primordial waters, until it had incubated cosmic matter and
made it assume the annular shape of a serpent with its tail in its mouth — which symbolises not only
Eternity and Infinitude, but also the globular shape of all the bodies formed
within the Universe from that fiery mist. The Universe, as well as the Earth and
Man, cast off periodically, serpent-like, their old skins, to assume new ones
after a time of rest. The serpent is, surely, a not less graceful or a more
unpoetical image than the caterpillar and chrysalis from which springs the
butterfly, the Greek emblem of Psyche, the human soul. The "Dragon" was also the
symbol of the Logos with the Egyptians, as with the Gnostics. In the "Book of
Hermes," Pymander, the oldest and the most spiritual of the Logoi of the Western
Continent, appears to Hermes in the shape of a Fiery Dragon of "Light, Fire, and
Flame." Pymander, the "Thought Divine" personified, says: The Light is me, I am
the Nous (the mind or Manu), I am thy God, and I am far older than the human
principle which escapes from the shadow ("Darkness," or the
concealed Deity). I am the germ of thought, the resplendent Word, the
Son of God. All that thus sees and hears in thee is the Verbum
of the Master, it is the Thought (Mahat) which is God, the
Father.† *The Astral Light, or the Æther, of the ancient pagans (for the name of Astral Light is quite modern) is Spirit . . . . Matter. Beginning with the pure spiritual plane, it becomes grosser as it descends until it becomes the Maya or the tempting and deceitful serpent on our plane. † By "God, the Father," the seventh principle in Man and Kosmos are here unmistakeably meant, this principle being inseparable in its Esse and Nature from the seventh Cosmic principle. In one sense it is the Logos of the Greeks and the Avalôkitêswara of the esoteric Buddhists. |
75 NOUMENAL AND PHENOMENAL LIGHT.The celestial Ocean, the Æther . . . . is the Breath of the Father, the life-giving principle, the Mother, the Holy Spirit, . . . .for these are not separated, and their union is LIFE." Here we find the unmistakeable echo of the Archaic
Secret Doctrine, as now expounded. Only the latter does not place at the head
and Evolution of Life "the Father," who comes third and is the "Son of the
Mother," but the "Eternal and Ceaseless Breath of the ALL." The Mahat
(Understanding, Universal Mind, Thought, etc.), before it manifests itself as
Brahmâ or Siva, appears as Vishnu, says Sânkhya Sâra (p. 16); hence
Mahat has several aspects, just as the logos has. Mahat
is called the Lord, in the Primary Creation, and is, in this sense,
Universal Cognition or Thought Divine; but, "That Mahat which
was first produced is (afterwards) called Ego-ism, when it is born as
"I," that is said to be the second Creation" (Anugîtâ,
ch. xxvi.). And the translator (an able and learned Brahmin, not a European
Orientalist) explains in a foot-note (6), "i.e., when Mahat develops
into the feeling of Self-Consciousness —
I — then it assumes
the name of Egoism," which, translated into our esoteric phraseology, means when
Mahat is transformed into the human Manas (or even that of the
finite gods), and becomes Aham-ship. Why it is called the
Mahat of the Second creation (or the ninth, that of the
Kumâra in Vishnu Purâna) will be explained in Book
II. The "Sea of Fire" is then the Super-Astral (i.e., noumenal) Light,
the first radiation from the Root, the Mulaprakriti, the
undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which becomes Astral Matter. It is
also called the "Fiery Serpent," as above described. If the student bears in
mind that there is but One Universal Element, which is infinite, unborn, and
undying, and that all the rest —
as in the world of phenomena —
are but so many various differentiated aspects and transformations
(correlations, they are now called) of that One, from Cosmical down to
microcosmical effects, from super-human down to human and sub-human beings, the
totality, in short, of objective existence —
then the first and chief difficulty will disappear and Occult Cosmology may be
mastered.* All the Kabalists and Occultists, Eastern and Western, recognise (a) * In the Egyptian as in the Indian theogony there was a concealed deity, the ONE, and the creative, androgynous god. Thus Shoo is the god of creation and Osiris is, in his original primary form, the "god whose name is unknown." (See Mariette's Abydos II., p. 63, and Vol. III., pp. 413, 414, No. 1122.) |
76 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.the identity of "Father-Mother" with primordial Æther or Akâsa, (Astral Light)*; and (b) its homogeneity before the evolution of the "Son," cosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. "Fohat hardens and scatters the seven brothers" (Book III. Dzyan); which means that the primordial Electric Entity — for the Eastern Occultists insist that Electricity is an Entity — electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness. "There exists an universal agent unique of all forms and of life, that is called Od,† Ob, and Aour, active and passive, positive and negative, like day and night: it is the first light in Creation" (Eliphas Lévi's Kabala): — the first Light of the primordial Elohim — the Adam, "male and female" — or (scientifically) ELECTRICITY AND LIFE. (c) The ancients represented it by a serpent,
for "Fohat hisses as he glides hither and thither" (in zigzags). The Kabala
figures it with the Hebrew letter Teth
It was not Zeno alone, the founder of the Stoics, who
taught that the * See next note. † Od is the pure life-giving Light, or magnetic fluid; Ob the messenger of death used by the sorcerers, the nefarious evil fluid; Aour is the synthesis of the two, Astral Light proper. Can the Philologists tell why Od — a term used by Reichenbach to denominate the vital fluid — is also a Tibetan word meaning light, brightness, radiancy? It equally means "Sky" in an occult sense. Whence the root of the word? But Akasa is not quite Ether, but far higher than that, as will be shown. |
77 DEITY IN SPACE AND TIME.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 |
78 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.both sound like the nasal French an or am,
or, again, en or em (Ennui, Embarras,
etc.) As in the Hebrew Bible, many a mysterious sacred name in Sanscrit
conveys to the profane ear no more than some ordinary, and often vulgar word,
because it is concealed anagrammatically or otherwise. This word of Hansa or
esoterically "hamsa" is just such a case. Hamsa is equal to a-ham-sa, three
words meaning "I am he" (in English), while divided in still another way it will
read "So-ham," "he (is) I" —
Soham being equal to Sah, "he," and aham, "I," or "I am he." In this alone is
contained the universal mystery, the doctrine of the identity of man's essence
with god-essence, for him who understands the language of wisdom. Hence the
glyph of, and the allegory about, Kalahansa (or hamsa), and the name given to
Brahma neuter (later on, to the male Brahmâ) of "Hansa-Vahana," he who uses the
Hansa as his vehicle." The same word may be read "Kalaham-sa" or "I am I" in the
eternity of Time, answering to the Biblical, or rather Zoroastrian "I am that I
am." The same doctrine is found in the Kabala, as witness the following extract
from an unpublished MS. by Mr. S. Liddell McGregor Mathers, the learned Kabalist:
"The three pronouns 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 |
79 PRIMEVAL RADIATIONS FROM THE UNITY.to obtain clear perception of it, one has first of all to admit the postulate of a universally diffused, omnipresent, eternal Deity in Nature; secondly, to have fathomed the mystery of electricity in its true essence; and thirdly, to credit man with being the septenary symbol, on the terrestrial plane, of the One Great UNIT (the Logos), which is Itself the Seven-vowelled sign, the Breath crystallized into the WORD. * He who believes in all this, has also to believe in the multiple combination of the seven planets of Occultism and of the Kabala, with the twelve zodiacal signs; to attribute, as we do, to each planet and to each constellation an influence which, in the words of Ely Star (a French Occultist), "is proper to it, beneficent or maleficent, and this, after the planetary Spirit which rules it, who, in his turn, is capable of influencing men and things which are found in harmony with him and with which he has any affinity." For these reasons, and since few believe in the foregoing, all that can now be given is that in both cases the symbol of Hansa (whether "I," "He," Goose or Swan) is an important symbol, representing, for instance, Divine Wisdom, Wisdom in darkness beyond the reach of men. For all exoteric purposes, Hansa, as every Hindu knows, is a fabulous bird, which, when given milk mixed with water for its food (in the allegory) separated the two, drinking the milk and leaving the water; thus showing inherent wisdom — milk standing symbolically for spirit, and water for matter. That this allegory is very ancient and dates from the
very earliest archaic period, is shown by the mention (in Bhagavata Purâna) of a
certain caste named "Hamsa" or "Hansa," which was the "one caste" par
excellence; when far back in the mists of a forgotten past there was among
the Hindus only "One Veda, One Deity, One Caste." There is also a range in the
Himalayas, described in the old books as being situated north of Mount Meru,
called "Hamsa," and connected with episodes pertaining to the history of
religious mysteries and initiations. As to the name of Kâla-Hansa being the
supposed vehicle of Brahmâ-Prajâpati, in the exoteric texts and translations of
the * This is again similar to the doctrine of Fichte and German Pantheists. The former reveres Jesus as the great teacher who inculcated the unity of the spirit of man with the God-Spirit (the Adwaita doctrine) or universal Principle. It is difficult to find a single speculation in Western metaphysics which has not been anticipated by Archaic Eastern philosophy. From Kant to Herbert Spencer, it is all a more or less distorted echo of the Dwaita, Adwaita, and Vedantic doctrines generally. |
80 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.Orientalists, it is quite a mistake. Brahma, the neuter, is called by them Kala-Hansa and Brahmâ, the male, Hansa-Vahana, because forsooth "his vehicle or Vahan is a swan or goose" (vide "the Hindu Classical Dictionary.") This is a purely exoteric gloss. Esoterically and logically, if Brahma, the infinite, is all that is described by the Orientalists, namely, agreeably with the Vedantic texts, an abstract deity in no way characterised by the description of any human attributes, and it is still maintained that he or it is called Kala-Hansa — then how can it ever become the Vahan of Brahmâ, the manifested finite god? It is quite the reverse. The "Swan or goose" (Hansa) is the symbol of that male or temporary deity, as he, the emanation of the primordial Ray, is made to serve as a Vahan or vehicle for that divine Ray, which otherwise could not manifest itself in the Universe, being, antiphrastically, itself an emanation of "Darkness" — for our human intellect, at any rate. It is Brahmâ, then, who is Kala-Hansa, and the Ray, the Hansa-Vahana. As to the strange symbol chosen, it is equally
suggestive; the true mystic significance being the idea of a universal matrix,
figured by the primordial waters of the "deep," or the opening for the
reception, and subsequently for the issue, of that one ray (the Logos), which
contains in itself the other seven procreative rays or powers (the logoi or
builders). Hence the choice by the Rosecroix of the aquatic fowl—whether swan or
pelican,* with seven young ones for a symbol, modified and adapted to the
religion of every country. En-Soph is called the "Fiery Soul of the Pelican" in
the Book of Numbers.† (See Part II. "The Hidden Deity and its Symbols
and Glyphs.") Appearing with every Manvantara as Narâyan, or Swayambhuva (the * Whether the genus of the bird be cygnus, anser, or pelecanus, it is no matter, as it is an aquatic bird floating or moving on the waters like the Spirit, and then issuing from those waters to give birth to other beings. The true significance of the symbol of the Eighteenth Degree of the Rose-Croix is precisely this, though poetised later on into the motherly feeling of the Pelican rending its bosom to feed its seven little ones with its blood. † The reason why Moses forbids eating the pelican and swan, classing the two among the unclean fowls, and permits eating "bald locusts, beetles, and the grasshopper after his kind" (Leviticus xi. and Deuteronomy xiv.) is a purely physiological one, and has to do with mystic symbology only in so far as the word "unclean," like every other word, ought not to be read and understood literally, as it is esoteric like all the rest, and may as well mean "holy" as not. It is a blind, very suggestive in connection with certain superstitions — e.g., that of the Russian people who will not use the pigeon for food; not because it is "unclean," but because the "Holy Ghost" is credited with having appeared under the form of a Dove. |
81 PRIMEVAL DIFFERENTIATIONS.Self-Existent), and penetrating into the Mundane Egg, it emerges from it at the end of the divine incubation as Brahmâ or Prajâpati, a progenitor of the future Universe into which he expands. He is Purusha (spirit), but he is also Prakriti (matter). Therefore it is only after separating himself into two halves — Brahmâ-vach (the female) and Brahmâ-Virâj (the male), that the Prajâpati becomes the male Brahmâ. ————— 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. . . . † Not the Mediæval Alchemists, but the Magi and Fire-Worshippers, from whom the Rosicrucians or the Philosophers per ignem, the successors of the theurgists borrowed all their ideas concerning Fire, as a mystic and divine element. |
82 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Now, why is Light called in the Stanzas "cold flame"?
Because in the order of Cosmic evolution (as taught by the Occultist), the
energy that actuates matter after its first formation into atoms is generated on
our plane by Cosmic heat; and because Kosmos, in the sense of dissociated
matter, was not, before that period. The first primordial matter, eternal and
coeval with Space, "which has neither a beginning nor an end," is "neither hot
nor cold, but is of its own special nature," says the Commentary (Book II). Heat
and cold are relative qualities and pertain to the realms of the manifested
worlds, which all proceed from the manifested Hyle, which, in its
absolutely latent aspect, is referred to as the "cold Virgin," and when awakened
to life, as the "Mother." The ancient Western Cosmogonic myths state that at
first there was but cold mist which was the Father, and the prolific slime (the
Mother, Ilus or Hyle), from which crept forth the Mundane snake-matter, (Isis,
vol. i., p. 146). Primordial matter, then, before it emerges from the plane
of the never-manifesting, and awakens to the thrill of action under the impulse
of Fohat, is but "a cool Radiance, colourless, formless, tasteless, and devoid
of every quality and aspect." Even such are her first-born, the "four sons," who
"are One, and become Seven," —
the entities, by whose qualifications and names the ancient Eastern Occultists
called the four of the seven primal "centres of Forces," or atoms, that develop
later into the great Cosmic "Elements," now divided into the seventy or so
sub-elements, known to science. The four primal natures of the first Dhyan
Chohans, are the so-called (for want of better terms) "Akasic," "Ethereal,"
"Watery," and "Fiery," answering, in the terminology of practical occultism, to
scientific definitions of gases, which, to convey a clear idea to both
Occultists and laymen, must be defined as Parahydrogenic,* Paraoxygenic,
Oxyhydrogenic, and Ozonic, or perhaps Nitr-ozonic; the latter forces or gases
(in Occultism, supersensuous, yet atomic substances) being the most effective
and active when energising on the plane of more grossly differentiated matter.†
These are both electro-positive and electro-negative. * par;a , "beyond," outside. † Each of these and many more are probably the missing links of chemistry. They are known by other names in Alchemy and to the Occultists who practise in phenomenal powers. It is by combining and recombining in a certain way (or dissociating) the "Elements" by means of astral fire that the greatest phenomena are produced. |
83 THE WEB OF BEING.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). Brahmâ, as "the germ of unknown Darkness," is the material from which all evolves and develops "as the web from the spider, as foam from the water," etc. This is only graphic and true, if Brahmâ the "Creator" is, as a term, derived from the root brih, to increase or expand. Brahmâ "expands" and becomes the Universe woven out of his own substance. The same idea has been beautifully expressed by Goethe, who says:
————— 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 |
84 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.heavenly bodies into their primeval one element, explains the commentary. "Once disintegrated into its primal constituent by getting within the attraction and reach of a focus, or centre of heat (energy), of which many are carried about to and fro in space, a body, whether alive or dead, will be vapourised and held in "the bosom of the Mother" until Fohat, gathering a few of the clusters of Cosmic matter (nebulæ) will, by giving it an impulse, set it in motion anew, develop the required heat, and then leave it to follow its own new growth. The expanding and contracting of the Web —i.e., the world stuff or atoms — expresses here the pulsatory movement; for it is the regular contraction and expansion of the infinite and shoreless Ocean of that which we may call the noumenon of matter emanated by Swâbhâvat, which causes the universal vibration of atoms. But it is also suggestive of something else. It shows that the ancients were acquainted with that which is now the puzzle of many scientists and especially of astronomers: the cause of the first ignition of matter or the world-stuff, the paradox of the heat produced by the refrigerative contraction and other such Cosmic riddles. For it points unmistakeably to a knowledge by the ancients of such phenomena. "There is heat internal and heat external in every atom," say the manuscript Commentaries, to which the writer has had access; "the breath of the Father (or Spirit) and the breath (or heat) of the Mother (matter);" and they give explanations which show that the modern theory of the extinction of the solar fires by loss of heat through radiation, is erroneous. The assumption is false even on the Scientists' own admission. For as Professor Newcomb points out (Popular Astronomy, pp. 506-508), "by losing heat, a gaseous body contracts, and the heat generated by the contraction exceeds that which it had to lose in order to produce the contraction." This paradox, that a body gets hotter as the shrinking produced by its getting colder is greater, led to long disputes. The surplus of heat, it was argued, was lost by radiation, and to assume that the temperature is not lowered pari passu with a decrease of volume under a constant pressure, is to set at nought the law of Charles (Nebular Theory, Winchell). Contraction develops heat, it is true; but contraction (from cooling) is incapable of developing the whole amount of heat at any time existing in the mass, or even of maintaining a body at a constant temperature, etc. Professor Winchell tries to reconcile the paradox — only a seeming one in fact, as |
85 CONSCIOUS ELECTRICITY.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 SVÂBHÂVAT SENDS FOHAT TO HARDEN THE ATOMS. EACH (of these) IS A PART OF THE WEB (Universe). REFLECTING THE "SELF-EXISTENT LORD" (Primeval Light) LIKE A MIRROR, EACH BECOMES IN TURN A WORLD.* . . . "Fohat hardens the atoms"; i.e., by infusing energy into them: he scatters the atoms or primordial matter. "He scatters himself while scattering matter into atoms" (MSS. Commentaries.) It is through Fohat that the ideas of the Universal Mind
are impressed upon matter. Some faint idea of the nature of Fohat may be
gathered from the appellation "Cosmic Electricity" sometimes applied to it; but
to the commonly known properties of electricity must, in this case, be added
others, including intelligence. It is of interest to note that modern science
has come to the conclusion, that all cerebration and brain-activity are attended
by electrical phenomena. (For further details as to "Fohat"
See Stanza V. and Comments.") * This is said in the sense that the flame from a fire is endless, and that the lights of the whole Universe could be lit at one simple rush-light without diminishing its flame. ————— |
86 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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 Bhagavatgîtâ (ch. viii.) wherein Krishna, speaking symbolically and esoterically, says: "I will state the times (conditions) . . . at which devotees departing (from this life) do so never to return (be reborn), or to return (to incarnate again). The Fire, the Flame, the day, the bright (lucky) fortnight, the six months of the Northern solstice, departing (dying) in these, those who know the Brahman (Yogis) go to the Brahman. Smoke, night, the dark (unlucky) fortnight, the six months of the Southern solstice, (dying) in these, the devotee goes to the lunar light (or mansion the astral light also) and returns (is reborn). These two paths, bright and dark, are said to be eternal in this world (or great kalpa, 'Age'). By the one a man goes never to come back, by the other he returns." Now these names, "Fire," "Flame," "Day," the "bright fortnight," etc., as "Smoke," "Night," and so on, leading only to the end of the lunar path are incomprehensible without a knowledge of Esotericism. These are all names of various deities which preside over the Cosmo-psychic Powers. We often speak of the Hierarchy of "Flames" (see Book II.) of the "Sons of Fire," etc. Sankarachârya the greatest of the Esoteric masters of India, says that fire means a deity which presides over Time (kâla). The able translator of Bhagavatgitâ, Kashinâth Trimbak Telang, M.A., of Bombay, confesses he has "no clear notion of the meaning of these verses" (p. 81, footnote). It seems quite clear, on the contrary, to him who knows the occult doctrine. With these verses the mystic sense of the solar and lunar symbols are connected: the Pitris are lunar deities and our ancestors, because they created the physical man. |
87 THE SEVEN MYSTIC SENSES.The Agnishwatha, the Kumâra (the seven mystic sages), are solar deities, though the former are Pitris also; and these are the "fashioners of the Inner Man." (See Book II.) They are: — "The Sons of Fire" — because they are the first Beings (in the Secret Doctrine they are called "Minds"), evolved from Primordial Fire. "The Lord is a consuming Fire" (Deuteronomy iv. 24); "The Lord (Christos) shall be revealed with his mighty angels in flaming fire" (2 Thessal. i. 7, 8). The Holy Ghost descended on the Apostles like "cloven tongues of fire," (Acts ii. v. 3); Vishnu will return on Kalki, the White Horse, as the last Avatar amid fire and flames; and Sosiosh will be brought down equally on a White Horse in a "tornado of fire." "And I saw heaven open and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him . . . . is called the Word of God," (Rev. xix. 13) amid flaming Fire. Fire is Æther in its purest form, and hence is not regarded as matter, but it is the unity of Æther — the second manifested deity — in its universality. But there are two "Fires" and a distinction is made between them in the Occult teachings. The first, or the purely Formless and invisible Fire concealed in the Central Spiritual Sun, is spoken of as "triple" (metaphysically); while the Fire of the manifested Kosmos is Septenary, throughout both the Universe and our Solar System. "The fire or knowledge burns up all action on the plane of illusion," says the commentary. "Therefore, those who have acquired it and are emancipated, are called 'Fires.' " Speaking of the seven senses symbolised as Hotris, priests, the Brahmana says in Anugîtâ: "Thus these seven (senses, smell and taste, and colour, and sound, etc., etc.) are the causes of emancipation;" and the commentator adds: "It is from these seven from which the Self is to be emancipated. 'I' (am here devoid of qualities) must mean the Self, not the Brâhmana who speaks." ("Sacred Books of the East," ed. by Max Müller, Vol. VIII., 278.) (b) The expression "All is One Number, issued from No Number" relates again to that universal and philosophical tenet just explained in Stanza III. (Comm. 4). That which is absolute is of course No Number; but in its later significance it has an application in Space as in Time. It means that not only every increment of time is part of a larger increment, up to the most indefinitely prolonged duration conceivable by the human intellect, but also that no manifested thing can |
88 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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 Brahmâ (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, |
89 THE VEHICLE OF THE UNIVERSE.THE FOUR, THE ONE, THE FIVE — THE TWICE SEVEN, THE SUM TOTAL (b). AND THESE ARE: THE ESSENCES, THE FLAMES, THE ELEMENTS, THE BUILDERS, THE NUMBERS, THE ARUPA (formless), THE RUPA (with bodies), AND THE FORCE OR DIVINE MAN — THE SUM TOTAL. AND FROM THE DIVINE MAN EMANATED THE FORMS, THE SPARKS, THE SACRED ANIMALS, AND THE MESSENGERS OF THE SACRED FATHERS (the Pitris) WITHIN THE HOLY FOUR.* (a) This relates to the sacred Science of the Numerals: so sacred, indeed, and so important in the study of Occultism that the subject can hardly be skimmed, even in such a large work as the present. It is on the Hierarchies and correct numbers of these Beings invisible (to us) except upon very rare occasions, that the mystery of the whole Universe is built. The Kumaras, for instance, are called the "Four" though in reality seven in number, because Sanaka, Sananda, Sanatana and Sanat-Kumara are the chief Vaidhâtra (their patronymic name), as they spring from the "four-fold mystery." To make the whole clearer we have to turn for our illustrations to tenets more familiar to some of our readers, namely, the Brahminical. According to Manu, Hiranyagarbha is Brahmâ the first male formed by the undiscernible Causeless CAUSE in a "Golden Egg resplendent as the Sun," as states the Hindu Classical Dictionary. "Hiranyagarbha" means the golden, or rather the "Effulgent Womb" or Egg. The meaning tallies awkwardly with the epithet of "male." Surely the esoteric meaning of the sentence is clear enough. In the Rig Veda it is said: — "THAT, the one Lord of all beings . . . . the one animating principle of gods and man," arose, in the beginning, in the Golden Womb, Hiranyagarbha — which is the Mundane Egg or sphere of our Universe. That Being is surely androgynous, and the allegory of Brahmâ separating into two and recreating in one of his halves (the female Vâch) himself as Virâj, is a proof of it. "The One from the Egg, the Six and the Five," give the
number 1065, the value of the first-born (later on the male and female
Brahmâ-Prajâpati), who answers to the numbers 7, and 14, and 21 respectively.
The Prajâpati are, like the Sephiroth, only seven, including the * The 4, represented in the Occult numerals by the Tetraktis, the Sacred or Perfect Square, is a Sacred Number with the mystics of every nation and race. It has one and the same significance in Brahmanism, Buddhism, the Kabala and in the Egyptian, Chaldean and other numerical systems. |
90 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.synthetic Sephira of the triad from which they spring. Thus from Hiranyagarbha or Prajâpati, the triune (primeval Vedic Trimurti, Agni, Vayu, and Surya), emanate the other seven, or again ten, if we separate the first three which exist in one, and one in three, all, moreover, being comprehended within that one "supreme" Parama, called Guhya or " secret," and Sarvâtma, the "Super-Soul." "The seven Lords of Being lie concealed in Sarvâtma like thoughts in one brain." So are the Sephiroth. It is either seven when counting from the upper Triad headed by Kether, or ten — exoterically. In the Mahabhârata the Prajapati are 21 in number, or ten, six, and five (1065), thrice seven.* (b) "The Three, the One, the Four, the
One, the Five" (in their totality —
twice seven) represent 31415 —
the numerical hierarchy of the Dhyan-Chohans of various orders, and of the inner
or circumscribed world.† When placed on the boundary of the great circle
of "Pass not" (see Stanza V.), called also the Dhyanipasa, the "rope of the
Angels," the "rope" that hedges off the phenomenal from the noumenal Kosmos,
(not falling within the range of our present objective consciousness); this
number, when not enlarged by permutation and expansion, is ever 31415
anagrammatically and Kabalistically, being both the number of the circle and the
mystic Svastica, the twice seven once more; for whatever way the two sets of
figures are counted, when added separately, one figure after another, whether
crossways, from right or from left, they will always yield fourteen.
Mathematically they represent the well-known calculation, namely, that the ratio
of the diameter to the circumference of a circle is as 1 to 3.1415, or the value
of the
p (pi), as this ratio is called —
the symbol
p being always used in * In the Kabala the same numbers are a value of Jehovah, viz., 1065, since the numerical values of the three letters which compose his name — Jod, Vau and twice He — are respectively 10 (  ), 6 (
 ) and 5 (
 ); or again thrice seven, 21. "Ten is the
Mother of the Soul, for Life and Light are therein united," says Hermes. "For
number one is born of the Spirit and the number ten from matter (chaos,
feminine); the unity has made the ten, the ten the unity" (Book of the Keys).
By the means of the Temura, the anagrammatical method of the Kabala, and
the knowledge of 1065 (21), a universal science may be obtained regarding Kosmos
and its mysteries" (Rabbi Yogel). The Rabbis regard the numbers 10, 6, and 5 as
the most sacred of all.† The reader may be told that an American Kabalist has now discovered the same number for the Elohim. It came to the Jews from Chaldæa. See "Hebrew Metrology" in the Masonic Review, July, 1885, McMillan Lodge, No. 141. |
91 THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTIONS.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 Thus, while in the metaphysical world, the circle with
the one central Point in it has no number, and is called Anupadaka (parentless
and numberless) —
viz., it can fall under no calculation, —
in the manifested world the mundane Egg or Circle is circumscribed within the
groups called the Line, the Triangle, the Pentacle, the second Line and the Cube
(or 13514); and when the Point having generated a Line, thus becomes a diameter
which stands for the androgynous Logos, then the figures become 31415, or a
triangle, a line, a cube, the second line, and a pentacle. "When the Son
separates from the Mother he becomes the Father," the diameter standing for
Nature, or the feminine principle. Therefore it is said: "In the world of being,
the one Point fructifies the Line —
the Virgin Matrix of Kosmos (the egg-shaped zero)
— and the immaculate Mother gives birth to the form
that combines all forms." Prajâpati is called the first procreating male, and
"his Mother's husband." * This gives the key-note to all the later divine
sons from immaculate mothers. It is greatly corroborated by the significant fact
that Anna (the name of the Mother of the Virgin Mary) now represented by the
Roman Catholic church as having given birth to her daughter in an immaculate way
("Mary conceived without sin"), is derived from the Chaldean Ana, heaven, or
Astral Light, Anima Mundi; whence Anaitia, Devi-durga, the wife of Siva, is also
called Annapurna * We find the same expression in Egypt. Mout signifies, for one thing, "Mother," and shows the character assigned to her in the triad of that country. "She was no less the mother than the wife of Ammon, one of the principle titles of the god being "the husband of his mother." The goddess Mout, or Mut, is addressed as "our lady," the "queen of Heaven" and of "the Earth," thus "sharing these titles with the other mother goddesses, Isis, Hathor, etc." (Maspero). |
92 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.and Kanya, the Virgin; "Uma-Kanya" being her esoteric name, and meaning the "Virgin of light," Astral Light in one of its multitudinous aspects. (c) The Devas, Pitris, Rishis; the Suras and the Asuras; the Daityas and Adityas; the Danavas and Gandharvas, etc., etc., have all their synonyms in our Secret Doctrine, as well as in the Kabala and the Hebrew Angelology; but it is useless to give their ancient names, as it would only create confusion. Many of these may be also found now, even in the Christian hierarchy of divine and celestial powers. All those Thrones and Dominions, Virtues and Principalities, Cherubs, Seraphs and demons, the various denizens of the Sidereal World, are the modern copies of archaic prototypes. The very symbolism in their names, when transliterated and arranged in Greek and Latin, are sufficient to show it, as will be proved in several cases further on. The "Sacred Animals" are found in the Bible as well as
in the Kabala, and they have their meaning (a very profound one, too) on the
page of the origins of Life. In the Sepher Jezirah it is stated that "God
engraved in the Holy Four the throne of his glory, the Ophanim (Wheels or the
World-Spheres), the Seraphim,* the Sacred Animals, and the ministering
angels, and from these three (the Air, Water, and Fire or Ether) he formed his
habitation." Thus was the world made "through three Seraphim — Sepher, Saphar, and Sipur,"
or "through Number, Numbers, and Numbered." With the astronomical key these
"Sacred Animals" become the signs of the Zodiac. * This is the literal translation from the IXth and Xth Sections: "Ten numbers without what? One: the spirit of the living God . . . . who liveth in eternities! Voice and Spirit and Word, and this is the Holy Spirit. Two: Spirit out of Spirit. He designed and hewed therewith twenty-two letters of foundation, three Mothers and seven double and Twelve single, and one spirit out of them. Three: Water out of spirit; he designed and hewed with them the barren and the void, mud and earth. He designed them as a flowerbed, hewed them as a wall, covered them as a paving. Four: Fire out of water. He designed and hewed therewith the throne of glory and the wheels, and the seraphim and the holy animals and the ministering angels, and of the three He founded his dwelling, as it is said, He makes his angels spirits and his servants fiery flames!" Which words "founded his dwelling" show clearly that in the Kabala, as in India, the Deity was considered as the Universe, and was not, in his origin, the extra-cosmic God he is now. |
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. * 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. |
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 Vâch, Satarupa "of the hundred forms," or Nature. It is from this number 10, or creative nature, the Mother (the occult cypher, or "nought," ever procreating and multiplying in union with the Unit "I," one, or the Spirit of Life), that the whole Universe proceeded. In the Anugîtâ a conversation is given (ch.
vi., 15) between a Brahmana and his wife, on the origin of Speech and its occult
properties.* The wife asks how Speech came into existence, and which was
prior to the other, Speech or Mind. The Brahmana tells her that the Apâna (inspirational
breath) becoming lord, changes that intelligence, which does not
understand Speech or Words, into the state of Apâna, and thus opens the mind.
Thereupon he tells her a story, a dialogue between Speech and Mind. "Both went
to the Self of Being (i.e., to the individual Higher Self, as
Nilakantha thinks, to Prajâpati, according to the commentator Arjuna Misra), and
asked him to destroy their doubts and decide which of them preceded and was
superior to the * Anugîtâ forms part of the Asvamedha Parvan of the "Mahâbhârata." The translator of the Bhagavatgitâ, edited by Max Muller, regards it as a continuation of the Bhagavatgîtâ. Its original is one of the oldest Upanishads. |
95 SPEECH AND MIND.other. To this the lord said: 'Mind is Superior.' But Speech answered the Self of Being, by saying: 'I verily yield (you) your desires,' meaning that by speech he acquired what he desired. Thereupon again, the Self told her that there are two minds, the 'movable' and the 'immovable.' 'The immovable is with me,' he said, 'the movable is in your dominion' (i.e. of Speech) on the plane of matter. To that you are superior. But inasmuch, O beautiful one, as you came personally to speak to me (in the way you did, i.e. proudly), therefore, O, Sarasvati! you shall never speak after (hard) exhalation." "The goddess Speech" (Sarasvati, a later form or aspect of Vâch, the goddess also of secret learning or Esoteric Wisdom), "verily, dwelt always between the Prâna and the Apâna. But O noble one ! going with the Apâna wind (vital air), though impelled, without the Prâna (expirational breath), she ran up to Prajâpati (Brahmâ), saying, 'Be pleased, O venerable sir!' Then the Prâna appeared again, nourishing Speech. And, therefore, Speech never speaks after (hard or inspirational) exhalation. It is always noisy or noiseless. Of these two, the noiseless is the superior to the noisy (Speech) . . . . The (speech) which is produced in the body by means of the Prâna, and which then goes (is transformed) into Apâna, and then becoming assimilated with the Udâna (physical organs of Speech) . . . then finally dwells in the Samâna ('at the navel in the form of sound, as the material cause of all words,' says Arjûna Misra). So Speech formerly spoke. Hence the mind is distinguished by reason of its being immovable, and the Goddess (Speech) by reason of her being movable." This allegory is at the root of the Occult law, which prescribes silence upon the knowledge of certain secret and invisible things perceptible only to the spiritual mind (the 6th sense), and which cannot be expressed by "noisy" or uttered speech. This chapter of Anugîtâ explains, says Arjuna Misra, Prânâyâma, or regulation of the breath in Yoga practices. This mode, however, without the previous acquisition of, or at least full understanding of the two higher senses, of which there are seven, as will be shown, pertains rather to the lower Yoga. The Hâtha so called was and still is discountenanced by the Arhats. It is injurious to the health and alone can never develop into Raj Yoga. This story is quoted to show how inseparably connected are, in the metaphysics of old, intelligent beings, or rather "Intelligences," with every sense or |
96 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.function whether physical or mental. The Occult claim that there are seven senses in man, as in nature, as there are seven states of consciousness, is corroborated in the same work, chapter vii., on Pratyâhâra (the restraint and regulation of the senses, Prânâyâma being that of the "vital winds" or breath). The Brâhmana speaks in it "of the institution of the seven sacrificial Priests (Hotris). He says: "The nose and the eyes, and the tongue, and the skin and the ear as the fifth (or smell, sight, taste, touch and hearing), mind and understanding are the seven sacrificial priests separately stationed"; and which "dwelling in a minute space (still) do not perceive each other" on this sensuous plane, none of them except mind. For mind says: "The nose smells not without me, the eye does not take in colour, etc., etc. I am the eternal chief among all elements (i.e., senses). Without me, the senses never shine, like an empty dwelling, or like fires the flames of which are extinct. Without me, all beings, like fuel half dried and half moist, fail to apprehend qualities or objects even with the senses exerting themselves." * This, of course, with regard only to mind on the sensuous plane. Spiritual mind (the upper portion or aspect of the impersonal MANAS) takes no cognisance of the senses in physical man. How well the ancients were acquainted with the correlation of forces and all the recently discovered phenomena of mental and physical faculties and functions, with many more mysteries also — may be found in reading chapters vii. and viii. of this (in philosophy and mystic learning) priceless work. See the quarrel of the senses about their respective superiority and their taking the Brahman, the lord of all creatures, for their arbiter. "You are all greatest and not greatest," or superior to objects, as A. Misra says, none being independent of the other. "You are all possessed of one another's qualities. All are greatest in their own spheres and all support one another. There is one unmoving (life-wind or breath, the 'Yoga inhalation,' so called, which is the breath of the One or Higher SELF). That is the (or my) own Self, accumulated in numerous (forms)." This Breath, Voice, Self or "Wind" (pneuma?)
is the Synthesis of the Seven Senses, noumenally all minor deities
and esoterically — the
septenary and the "Army of the VOICE." * This shows the modern metaphysicians, added to all past and present Hægels, Berkeleys, Schopenhauers, Hartmanns, Herbert Spencers, and even the modern Hylo-Idealists to boot, no better than the pale copyists of hoary antiquity. |
97 NATURE, THE PERPETUAL MOTION.(b) Next we see Cosmic matter scattering and forming itself into elements; grouped into the mystic four within the fifth element — Ether, the lining of Akasa, the Anima Mundi or Mother of Kosmos. "Dots, Lines, Triangles, Cubes, Circles" and finally "Spheres" — why or how? Because, says the Commentary, such is the first law of Nature, and because Nature geometrizes universally in all her manifestations. There is an inherent law — not only in the primordial, but also in the manifested matter of our phenomenal plane — by which Nature correlates her geometrical forms, and later, also, her compound elements; and in which there is no place for accident or chance. It is a fundamental law in Occultism, that there is no rest or cessation of motion in Nature.* That which seems rest is only the change of one form into another; the change of substance going hand in hand with that of form — as we are taught in Occult physics, which thus seem to have anticipated the discovery of the "Conservation of matter" by a considerable time. Says the ancient Commentary† to Stanza IV.: — "The Mother is the fiery Fish of Life. She scatters
her spawn and the Breath (Motion) heats and quickens it. The
grains (of spawn) are soon attracted to each other and form
the curds in the Ocean (of Space). The larger lumps coalesce
and receive new spawn —in
fiery dots, triangles and cubes, which ripen, and at the appointed time some of
the lumps detach themselves and assume spheroidal form, a process which they
effect only when not interfered with by the others. After which, law No. *
* * comes into operation. Motion (the Breath) becomes the
whirlwind and sets them into rotation."‡ * It is the knowledge of this law that permits and helps the Arhat to perform his Siddhis, or various phenomena, such as disintegration of matter, the transport of objects from one place to another. †These are ancient Commentaries attached with modern Glossaries to the Stanzas, as the Commentaries in their symbolical language are usually as difficult to understand as the Stanzas themselves. ‡ In a polemical scientific work, "The Modern Genesis," the author, the Rev. W. B. Slaughter, criticising the position assumed by the astronomers, asks: — "It is to be regretted that the advocates of this (nebular) theory have not entered more largely into the discussion of it (the beginning of rotation). No one condescends to give us the rationale of it. How does the process of cooling and contracting the mass impart to it a rotatory motion?" The question is amply treated in the Addendum. It is not materialistic science that can ever solve it. "Motion is eternal in the unmanifested, and periodical in the manifest," says an Occult teaching. It is "when heat caused by the descent of FLAME into primordial matter causes its particles to move, which motion becomes Whirlwind." A drop of liquid assumes a spheroidal form owing to its atoms moving around themselves in their ultimate, unresolvable, and noumenal essence; unresolvable for physical science, at any rate. |
98 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.STANZA IV. — Continued.5. . . . . . WHICH IS:— "DARKNESS," THE
BOUNDLESS
OR THE NO-NUMBER,
ADI-NIDANA
SVÂBHÂVAT: THE
I. THE ADI-SANAT, THE NUMBER, FOR HE IS ONE (a). II. THE VOICE OF THE WORD, SVÂBHÂVAT, THE NUMBERS, FOR HE IS ONE AND NINE.* III. THE "FORMLESS SQUARE." (Arupa.) (b). AND THESE THREE ENCLOSED WITHIN THE
(a) "Adi-Sanat," translated literally is the First or "primeval" ancient, which name identifies the Kabalistic "Ancient of Days" and the "Holy Aged" (Sephira and Adam Kadmon) with Brahmâ the Creator, called also Sanat among his other names and titles. Svâbhâvat is the mystic Essence, the plastic root of
physical Nature —
"Numbers" when manifested; the Number, in its Unity of Substance, on the highest
plane. The name is of Buddhist use and a Synonym for the four-fold Anima Mundi,
the Kabalistic "Archetypal World," from whence proceed the "Creative, Formative,
and the * Which makes ten, or the perfect number applied to the "Creator," the name given to the totality of the Creators blended by the Monotheists into One, as the "Elohim," Adam Kadmon or Sephira — the Crown — are the androgyne synthesis of the 10 Sephiroth, who stand for the symbol of the manifested Universe in the popularised Kabala. The esoteric Kabalists, however, following the Eastern Occultists, divide the upper Sephirothal triangle from the rest (or Sephira, Chochmah and Binah), which leaves seven Sephiroth. As for Svâbhâvat, the Orientalists explain the term as meaning the Universal plastic matter diffused through Space, with, perhaps, half an eye to the Ether of Science. But the Occultists identify it with "FATHER-MOTHER" on the mystic plane. (Vide supra.) |
99 THE OGDOAD AND HEPTAD.Material Worlds"; the Scintillæ or Sparks, — the various other worlds contained in the last three. The Worlds are all subject to Rulers or Regents — Rishis and Pitris with the Hindus, Angels with the Jews and Christians, Gods, with the Ancients in general. (b)
(c) The "One Rejected" is the Sun of our
system. The exoteric version may be found in the oldest Sanskrit Scriptures. In
the Rig Veda, Aditi, "The Boundless" or infinite Space, translated by Mr. Max
Müller, "the visible infinite, visible by the naked eye (!!); the endless
expanse beyond the Earth, beyond the clouds, beyond the sky," is the equivalent
of "Mother-Space" coeval with "Darkness." She is very properly called "The
Mother of the Gods," DEVA-MATRI,
as it is from her Cosmic matrix that all the heavenly bodies of our system were
born—Sun and Planets. Thus she is described, allegorically, in this wise: "Eight
Sons were born from the body of Aditi; she approached the gods with seven, but
cast away the eighth, Martanda," our sun. The seven sons called the Aditya are,
cosmically or astronomically, the seven planets; and the Sun being excluded from
their number shows plainly that the Hindus may have known, and in fact knew of a
seventh planet, without calling it Uranus.† But esoterically and
theologically, * "In union with the Spirit and the Voice," referring to the Abstract Thought and concrete Voice, or the manifestation thereof, the effect of the Cause. Adam Kadmon or Tetragrammaton is the Logos in the Kabala; therefore this triad answers in the latter to the highest triangle of Kether, Chochmah and Binah, the last a female potency and at the same time the male Jehovah, as partaking of the nature of Chochmah, or the male Wisdom. † The Secret Doctrine teaches that the Sun is a central Star and not a planet. Yet the Ancients knew of and worshipped seven great gods, excluding the Sun and Earth. Which was that "Mystery God" they set apart? Of course not Uranus, discovered only by Herschel in 1781. But could it not be known by another name? Says the author of "Maconnerie Occulte": — "Occult Sciences having discovered through astronomical calculations that the number of the planets must be seven, the ancients were led to introduce the Sun into the scale of the celestial harmonies, and make him occupy the vacant place. Thus, every time they perceived an influence that pertained to none of the six planets known, they attributed it to the Sun. The error only seems important, but was not so in practical results, if the ancient astrologers replaced Uranus by the Sun, which is a central Star relatively motionless, turning only on its axis and regulating time and measure; and which cannot be turned aside from its true functions." . . . . . . The nomenclature of the days of the week is thus faulty. "The Sun-Day ought to be Uranus-day (Urani dies, Urandi)," adds the learned writer, Ragon. |
100 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.so to say, the Adityas are, in their primitive most ancient meanings, the eight, and the twelve great gods of the Hindu Pantheon. "The Seven allow the mortals to see their dwellings, but show themselves only to the Arhats," says an old proverb, "their dwellings" standing here for planets. The ancient Commentary gives an allegory and explains it:— "Eight houses were built by Mother. Eight houses for her Eight Divine sons; four large and four small ones. Eight brilliant suns, according to their age and merits. Bal-ilu (Martanda) was not satisfied, though his house was the largest. He began (to work) as the huge elephants do. He breathed (drew in) into his stomach the vital airs of his brothers. He sought to devour them. The larger four were far away; far, on the margin of their kingdom.* They were not robbed (affected), and laughed. Do your worst, Sir, you cannot reach us, they said. But the smaller wept. They complained to the Mother. She exiled Bal-i-lu to the centre of her Kingdom, from whence he could not move. (Since then) he (only) watches and threatens. He pursues them, turning slowly around himself, they turning swiftly from him, and he following from afar the direction in which his brothers move on the path that encircles their houses.†From that day he feeds on the sweat of the Mother's body. He fills himself with her breath and refuse. Therefore, she rejected him." Thus the "rejected Son" being our Sun, evidently, as
shown above, the "Sun-Sons" refer not only to our planets but to the heavenly
bodies in general. Himself only a reflection of the Central Spiritual Sun,
Surya is the prototype of all those bodies that evolved after him. In the
Vedas he is called Loka-Chakshuh, "the Eye of the World" (our * Planetary System. † "The Sun rotates on his axis always in the same direction in which the planets revolve in their respective orbits," astronomy teaches us. |
101 FIRE, THE GREAT SYMBOL OF DEITY.planetary world), and he is one of the three chief deities. He is called indifferently the Son of Dyaus and of Aditi, because no distinction is made with reference to, or scope allowed for, the esoteric meaning. Thus he is depicted as drawn by seven horses, and by one horse with seven heads; the former referring to his seven planets, the latter to their one common origin from the One Cosmic Element. This "One Element" is called figuratively "FIRE." The Vedas (Aitareya-Brâhmana of Haug also; p. i) teach "that the fire verily is all the deities." (Narada in Anugîtâ). The meaning of the allegory is plain, for we have both the Dzyan Commentary and modern science to explain it, though the two differ in more than one particular. The Occult Doctrine rejects the hypothesis born out of the Nebular Theory, that the (seven) great planets have evolved from the Sun's central mass, not of this our visible Sun, at any rate. The first condensation of Cosmic matter of course took place about a central nucleus, its parent Sun; but our sun, it is taught, merely detached itself earlier than all the others, as the rotating mass contracted, and is their elder, bigger brother therefore, not their father. The eight Adityas, "the gods," are all formed from the eternal substance (Cometary matter * — the Mother) or the "World-Stuff " which is both the fifth and the sixth COSMIC Principle, the Upadhi or basis of the Universal Soul, just as in man, the Microcosm, Manas† is the Upadhi of Buddhi.‡ (d) There is a whole poem on the pregenetic
battles fought by the growing planets before the final formation of Kosmos, thus
accounting for the seemingly disturbed position of the systems of several
planets, the plane of the satellites of some (of Neptune and Uranus, for
instance, of which the ancients knew nothing, it is said) being tilted over,
thus giving them an appearance of retrograde motion. These planets are called
the warriors, the Architects, and are accepted by the * This Essence of Cometary matter, Occult Science teaches, is totally different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with which modern science is acquainted. It is homogeneous in its primitive form beyond the Solar Systems, and differentiates entirely once it crosses the boundaries of our Earth's region, vitiated by the atmospheres of the planets and the already compound matter of the interplanetary stuff, heterogeneous only in our manifested world. † Manas — the Mind-Principle, or the human Soul. ‡ Buddhi — the divine Soul. |
102 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.Roman Church as the leaders of the heavenly Hosts, thus showing the same traditions. Having evolved from Cosmic Space, and before the final formation of the primaries and the annulation of the planetary nebula, the Sun, we are taught, drew into the depths of its mass all the Cosmic vitality he could, threatening to engulf his weaker "brothers" before the law of attraction and repulsion was finally adjusted; after which he began feeding on "The Mother's refuse and sweat"; in other words, on those portions of Ether (the "breath of the Universal Soul") of the existence and constitution of which science is as yet absolutely ignorant. A theory of this kind having been propounded by Sir William Grove (see "Correlation of the Physical Forces," 1843, p. 81; and "Address to the British Association, 1866"), who theorized that the systems "are gradually changing by atmospheric additions or subtractions, or by accretions and diminutions arising from nebular substances" . . . and again that "the Sun may condense gaseous matter as it travels in Space and so heat may be produced" — the archaic teaching seems scientific enough, even in this age.* Mr. W. Mattieu Williams suggested that the diffused matter or Ether which is the recipient of the heat radiations of the Universe is thereby drawn into the depths of the solar mass. Expelling thence the previously condensed and thermally exhausted Ether, it becomes compressed and gives up its heat, to be in turn itself driven out in a rarified and cooled state, to absorb a fresh supply of heat, which he supposes to be in this way taken up by the Ether, and again concentrated and redistributed by the Suns of the Universe.† This is about as close an approximation to the Occult
teachings as Science ever imagined; for Occultism explains it by "the dead
breath" given back by Martanda and his feeding on the "sweat and refuse" of
"Mother Space." What could affect Neptune,‡
Saturn and Jupiter, * Very similar ideas in Mr. W. Mattieu Williams' "The Fuel of the Sun;" in Dr. C. William Siemens' "On the Conservation of Solar Energy" (Nature, XXV., p. 440-444, March 9, 1882); and also in Dr. P. Martin Duncan's "Address of the President of the Geological Society," London, May, 1877. † See "Comparative Geology," by Alexander Winchell, LL.D., p. 56. ‡ When we speak of Neptune it is not as an Occultist but as a European. The true Eastern Occultist will maintain that, whereas there are many yet undiscovered planets in our system, Neptune does not belong to it, his apparent connection with our sun and the influence of the latter upon Neptune notwithstanding. This connection is mayavic, imaginary, they say. |
103 THE STELLAR "SONS OF LIGHT."but little, would have killed such comparatively small "Houses" as Mercury, Venus and Mars. As Uranus was not known before the end of the eighteenth century, the name of the fourth planet mentioned in the allegory must remain to us, so far, a mystery. The "Breath" of all the "seven" is said to be Bhâskara (light-making), because they (the planets) were all comets and suns in their origin. They evolve into Manvantaric life from primæval Chaos (now the noumenon of irresolvable nebulæ) by aggregation and accumulation of the primary differentiations of the eternal matter, according to the beautiful expression in the Commentary, "Thus the Sons of Light clothed themselves in the fabric of Darkness." They are called allegorically "the Heavenly Snails," on account of their (to us) formless INTELLIGENCES inhabiting unseen their starry and planetary homes, and, so to speak, carrying them as the snails do along with themselves in their revolution. The doctrine of a common origin for all the heavenly bodies and planets, was, as we see, inculcated by the Archaic astronomers, before Kepler, Newton, Leibnitz, Kant, Herschel and Laplace. Heat (the Breath), attraction and repulsion — the three great factors of Motion — are the conditions under which all the members of all this primitive family are born, developed, and die, to be reborn after a "Night of Brahmâ," during which eternal matter relapses periodically into its primary undifferentiated state. The most attenuated gases can give no idea of its nature to the modern physicist. Centres of Forces at first, the invisible sparks of primordial atoms differentiate into molecules, and become Suns — passing gradually into objectivity gaseous, radiant, cosmic, the one "Whirlwind" (or motion) finally giving the impulse to the form, and the initial motion, regulated and sustained by the never-resting Breaths — the Dhyan Chohans. ————— STANZA IV. — Continued.6. . . . . THEN THE SECOND SEVEN, WHO ARE THE LIPIKA, PRODUCED BY THE THREE (Word, Voice, and Spirit). THE REJECTED SON IS ONE, THE "SON-SUNS" ARE COUNTLESS. The Lipi-ka, from the word lipi, "writing," means literally the |
104 THE SECRET DOCTRINE."Scribes."* Mystically, these Divine Beings are connected with Karma, the Law of Retribution, for they are the Recorders or Annalists who impress on the (to us) invisible tablets of the Astral Light, "the great picture-gallery of eternity" — a faithful record of every act, and even thought, of man, of all that was, is, or ever will be, in the phenomenal Universe. As said in "Isis," this divine and unseen canvas is the BOOK OF LIFE. As it is the Lipika who project into objectivity from the passive Universal Mind the ideal plan of the universe, upon which the "Builders" reconstruct the Kosmos after every Pralaya, it is they who stand parallel to the Seven Angels of the Presence, whom the Christians recognise in the Seven "Planetary Spirits" or the "Spirits of the Stars;" for thus it is they who are the direct amanuenses of the Eternal Ideation — or, as called by Plato, the "Divine Thought." The Eternal Record is no fantastic dream, for we meet with the same records in the world of gross matter. "A shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving thereupon a permanent trace which might be made visible by resorting to proper processes," says Dr. Draper. . . . "The portraits of our friends or landscape-views may be hidden on the sensitive surface from the eye, but they are ready to make their appearance as soon as proper developers are resorted to. A spectre is concealed on a silver or a glassy surface, until, by our necromancy, we make it come forth into the visible world. Upon the walls of our most private apartments, where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out, and our retirement can never be profaned, there exist the vestiges of all our acts, silhouettes of whatever we have done." † Drs. Jevons and Babbage believe that every thought, displacing the particles of the brain and setting them in motion, scatters them throughout the Universe, and they think that "each particle of the existing matter must be a register of all that has happened." (Principles of Science, Vol. II. p. 455.) Thus the ancient doctrine has begun to acquire rights of citizenship in the speculations of the scientific world. The forty "Assessors" who stand in the region of
Amenti as the accusers of the Soul before Osiris, belong
to the same class of deities as the Lipika, and might stand paralleled, were not
the Egyptian gods so * These are the four "Immortals" which are mentioned in Atharva Veda as the "Watchers" or Guardians of the four quarters of the sky (see ch. lxxvi., 1-4, et seq.). † "Conflict between Religion and Science." — Draper, pp. 132 and 133. |
105 THE DIVINE RECORDERS.little understood in their esoteric meaning. The Hindu Chitra-Gupta who reads out the account of every Soul's life from his register, called Agra-Sandhani; the "Assessors" who read theirs from the heart of the defunct, which becomes an open book before (whether) Yama, Minos, Osiris, or Karma — are all so many copies of, and variants from the Lipika, and their Astral Records. Nevertheless, the Lipi-ka are not deities connected with Death, but with Life Eternal. Connected as the Lipika are with the destiny of every
man and the birth of every child, whose life is already traced in the Astral
Light not fatalistically, but only because the future, like the PAST, is ever
alive in the PRESENT —
they may also be said to exercise an influence on the Science of Horoscopy. We
must admit the truth of the latter whether we will or not. For, as observed by
one of the modern adepts of Astrology, "Now that photography has revealed to us
the chemical influence of the Sidereal system, by fixing on the sensitized plate
of the apparatus milliards of stars and planets that had hitherto baffled the
efforts of the most powerful telescopes to discover them, it becomes easier to
understand how our solar system can, at the birth of a child, influence his
brain — virgin of any
impression — in a
definite manner and according to the presence on the zenith of such or another
zodiacal constellation."† † Les Mysteres de l'Horoscope, p. XI. ————— |
106 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.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 (a). COMMENTARY.(a) This is, perhaps, the most difficult of all the Stanzas to explain. Its language is comprehensible only to him who is thoroughly versed in Eastern allegory and its purposely obscure phraseology. The question will surely be asked, "Do the Occultists believe in all these 'Builders,' 'Lipika,' and 'Sons of Light' as Entities, or are they merely imageries?" To this the answer is given as plainly: "After due allowance for the imagery of personified Powers, we must admit the existence of these Entities, if we would not reject the existence of spiritual humanity within physical mankind. For the hosts of these Sons of Light and 'Mind-born Sons' of the first manifested Ray of the UNKNOWN ALL, are the very root of spiritual man." Unless we want to believe the unphilosophical dogma of a specially created soul for every human birth — a fresh supply of these pouring in daily, since "Adam" — we have to admit the occult teachings. This will be explained in its place. Let us see, now, what may be the occult meaning of this Stanza. The Doctrine teaches that, in order to become a divine, fully conscious god, — aye, even the highest — the Spiritual primeval INTELLIGENCES must pass through the human stage. And when we say human, this does not apply merely to our terrestrial humanity, but to the mortals that inhabit any world, i.e., to those Intelligences that have reached the appropriate equilibrium between matter and spirit, as we have now, since the middle point of the Fourth Root Race of the Fourth Round was passed. Each Entity must have won for itself the right of becoming divine, through self-experience. Hegel, the great German thinker, must have known or sensed intuitionally this truth when saying, as he did, that the Unconscious evolved the Universe only "in the hope of attaining clear self-consciousness," of becoming, in other words, MAN; for this is also the secret meaning of the usual Purânic phrase about |
107 NO MAN — NO GOD.Brahmâ being constantly "moved by the desire to create." This explains also the hidden Kabalistic meaning of the saying: "The Breath becomes a stone; the stone, a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god." The Mind-born Sons, the Rishis, the Builders, etc., were all men — of whatever forms and shapes — in other worlds and the preceding Manvantaras. This subject, being so very mystical, is therefore the most difficult to explain in all its details and bearings; since the whole mystery of evolutionary creation is contained in it. A sentence or two in it vividly recalls to mind similar ones in the Kabala and the phraseology of the King Psalmist (civ.), as both, when speaking of God, show him making the wind his messenger and his "ministers a flaming fire." But in the Esoteric doctrine it is used figuratively. The "fiery Wind" is the incandescent Cosmic dust which only follows magnetically, as the iron filings follow the magnet, the directing thought of the "Creative Forces." Yet, this cosmic dust is something more; for every atom in the Universe has the potentiality of self-consciousness in it, and is, like the Monads of Leibnitz, a Universe in itself, and for itself. It is an atom and an angel. In this connection it should be noted that one of the luminaries of the modern Evolutionist School, Mr. A. R. Wallace, when discussing the inadequacy of "natural selection" as the sole factor in the development of physical man, practically concedes the whole point here discussed. He holds that the evolution of man was directed and furthered by superior Intelligences, whose agency is a necessary factor in the scheme of Nature. But once the operation of these Intelligences is admitted in one place, it is only a logical deduction to extend it still further. No hard and fast line can be drawn. ————— STANZA V. — Continued.2. THEY MAKE OF HIM THE MESSENGER OF
THEIR WILL (a). THE
DZYU BECOMES
FOHAT; THE
SWIFT
SON OF
THE DIVINE
SONS, WHOSE SONS ARE THE
LIPIKA,* RUNS CIRCULAR ERRANDS.
HE IS
THE STEED, AND * The difference between the "Builders," the Planetary Spirits, and the Lipika must not be lost sight of. (See Nos. 5 and 6 of this Commentary.) |
108 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.THE THOUGHT IS THE RIDER (i.e., he is under the influence of their guiding thought). HE PASSES LIKE LIGHTNING THROUGH THE FIERY CLOUDS (cosmic mists) (b); TAKES THREE, AND FIVE, AND SEVEN STRIDES THROUGH THE SEVEN REGIONS ABOVE AND THE SEVEN BELOW (the world to be). HE LIFTS HIS VOICE, AND CALLS THE INNUMERABLE SPARKS (atoms) AND JOINS THEM TOGETHER (c). (a) This shows the "Primordial Seven" using for their Vahan (vehicle, or the manifested subject which becomes the symbol of the Power directing it), Fohat, called in consequence, the "Messenger of their will" — the fiery whirlwind. "Dzyu becomes Fohat" — the expression itself shows it. Dzyu is the one real (magical) knowledge, or Occult Wisdom; which, dealing with eternal truths and primal causes, becomes almost omnipotence when applied in the right direction. Its antithesis is Dzyu-mi, that which deals with illusions and false appearances only, as in our exoteric modern sciences. In this case, Dzyu is the expression of the collective Wisdom of the Dhyani-Buddhas. (b) As the reader is supposed not to
be acquainted with the Dhyani-Buddhas, it is as well to say at once that,
according to the Orientalists, there are five Dhyanis who are the
"celestial" Buddhas, of whom the human Buddhas are the manifestations in the
world of form and matter. Esoterically, however, the Dhyani-Buddhas are seven,
of whom five only have hitherto manifested,* and two are to come in the
sixth and seventh Root-races. They are, so to speak, the eternal prototypes of
the Buddhas who appear on this earth, each of whom has his particular divine
prototype. So, for instance, Amitâbha is the Dhyani-Buddha of Gautama Sakyamuni,
manifesting through him whenever this great Soul incarnates on earth as He did
in Tzon-kha-pa.†
As the synthesis of the seven Dhyani-Buddhas, Avalôkitêswara was the first
Buddha (the Logos), so Amitâbha is the inner "God" of Gautama, who, in China, is
called Amita(-Buddha). They are, as Mr. Rhys Davids * See A. P. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism," 5th annotated edition, pp. 171-173. † The first and greatest Reformer who founded the "Yellow-Caps," Gyalugpas. He was born in the year 1355 A.D. in Amdo, and was the Avatar of Amitâbha, the celestial name of Gautama Buddha. |
109 THEOGONY OF THE CREATORS.correctly states, "the glorious counterparts in the mystic world, free from the debasing conditions of this material life" of every earthly mortal Buddha — the liberated Manushi-Buddhas appointed to govern the Earth in this Round. They are the "Buddhas of Contemplation," and are all Anupadaka (parentless), i.e., self-born of divine essence. The exoteric teaching which says that every Dhyani-Buddha has the faculty of creating from himself, an equally celestial son — a Dhyani-Bodhisattva — who, after the decease of the Manushi (human) Buddha, has to carry out the work of the latter, rests on the fact that owing to the highest initiation performed by one overshadowed by the "Spirit of Buddha" — (who is credited by the Orientalists with having created the five Dhyani-Buddhas!), — a candidate becomes virtually a Bodhisattva, created such by the High Initiator. (c) Fohat, being one of the most, if not the most important character in esoteric Cosmogony, should be minutely described. As in the oldest Grecian Cosmogony, differing widely from the later mythology, Eros is the third person in the primeval trinity: Chaos, Gæa, Eros: answering to the Kabalistic En-Soph (for Chaos is SPACE, Caino , "void") the Boundless ALL, Shekinah and the Ancient of Days, or the Holy Ghost; so Fohat is one thing in the yet unmanifested Universe and another in the phenomenal and Cosmic World. In the latter, he is that Occult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first impulse which becomes in time law. But in the unmanifested Universe, Fohat is no more this, than Eros is the later brilliant winged Cupid, or LOVE. Fohat has naught to do with Kosmos yet, since Kosmos is not born, and the gods still sleep in the bosom of "Father-Mother." He is an abstract philosophical idea. He produces nothing yet by himself; he is simply that potential creative power in virtue of whose action the NOUMENON of all future phenomena divides, so to speak, but to reunite in a mystic supersensuous act, and emit the creative ray. When the "Divine Son" breaks forth, then Fohat becomes the propelling force, the active Power which causes the ONE to become TWO and THREE — on the Cosmic plane of manifestation. The triple One differentiates into the many, and then Fohat is transformed into that force which brings together the elemental atoms and makes them aggregate and combine. We find an echo of this primeval teaching |
110 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.in early Greek mythology. Erebos and Nux are born out of Chaos, and, under the action of Eros, give birth in their turn to Æther and Hemera, the light of the superior and the light of the inferior or terrestrial regions. Darkness generates light. See in the Purânas Brahmâ's "Will" or desire to create; and in the Phoenician Cosmogony of Sanchoniathon the doctrine that Desire, povqo" , is the principle of creation. Fohat is closely related to the "ONE LIFE." From the Unknown One, the Infinite TOTALITY, the manifested ONE, or the periodical, Manvantaric Deity, emanates; and this is the Universal Mind, which, separated from its Fountain-Source, is the Demiurgos or the creative Logos of the Western Kabalists, and the four-faced Brahmâ of the Hindu religion. In its totality, viewed from the standpoint of manifested Divine Thought in the esoteric doctrine, it represents the Hosts of the higher creative Dhyan Chohans. Simultaneously with the evolution of the Universal Mind, the concealed Wisdom of Adi-Buddha — the One Supreme and eternal — manifests itself as Avalôkitêshwara (or manifested Iswara), which is the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Heavenly Man of the Hermetic philosopher, the Logos of the Platonists, and the Atman of the Vedantins.* By the action of the manifested Wisdom, or Mahat, represented by these innumerable centres of spiritual Energy in the Kosmos, the reflection of the Universal Mind, which is Cosmic Ideation and the intellectual Force accompanying such ideation, becomes objectively the Fohat of the Buddhist esoteric philosopher. Fohat, running along the seven principles of AKASA, acts upon manifested substance or the One Element, as declared above, and by differentiating it into various centres of Energy, sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to the Ideation of the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various states of being in the manifested Solar System. The Solar System, brought into existence by these
agencies, consists of Seven Principles, like everything else within these
centres. Such is the teaching of the trans-Himalayan Esotericism. Every
philosophy, however, has its own way of dividing these principles. * Mr. Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the LOGOS. (See his four lectures on the "Bhagavadgita" in the Theosophist.) |
111 THE PROTEAN SPIRIT-SUBSTANCE. Fohat, then, is the personified electric vital power,
the transcendental binding Unity of all Cosmic Energies, on the unseen as on the
manifested planes, the action of which resembles —
on an immense scale —
that of a living Force created by WILL, in those phenomena where the seemingly
subjective acts on the seemingly objective and propels it to action. Fohat is
not only the living Symbol and Container of that Force, but is looked upon by
the Occultists as an Entity —
the forces he acts upon being cosmic, human and terrestrial, and exercising
their influence on all those planes respectively. On the earthly plane his
influence is felt in the magnetic and active force generated by the strong
desire of the magnetizer. On the Cosmic, it is present in the constructive power
that carries out, in the formation of things —
from the planetary system down to the glow-worm and simple daisy — the plan in the mind of
nature, or in the Divine Thought, with regard to the development and growth of
that special thing. He is, metaphysically, the objectivised thought of the gods;
the "Word made flesh," on a lower scale, and the messenger of Cosmic and human
ideations: the active force in Universal Life. In his secondary aspect, Fohat is
the Solar Energy, the electric vital fluid,* and the preserving fourth * In 1882 the President of the Theosophical Society, Col. Olcott, was taken to task for asserting in one of his lectures that Electricity is matter. Such, nevertheless, is the teaching of the Occult Doctrine. "Force," "Energy," may be a better name for it, so long as European Science knows so little about its true nature; yet matter it is, as much as Ether is matter, since it is as atomic, though several removes from the latter. It seems ridiculous to argue that because a thing is imponderable to Science, therefore it cannot be called matter. Electricity is "immaterial" in the sense that its molecules are not subject to perception and experiment; yet it may be — and Occultism says it is — atomic; therefore it is matter. But even supposing it were unscientific to speak of it in such terms, once Electricity is called in Science a source of Energy, Energy simply, and a Force — where is that Force or that Energy which can be thought of without thinking of matter? Maxwell, a mathematician and one of the greatest authorities upon Electricity and its phenomena, said, years ago, that Electricity was matter, not motion merely. "If we accept the hypothesis that the elementary substances are composed of atoms we cannot avoid concluding that electricity also, positive as well as negative, is divided into definite elementary portions, which behave like atoms of electricity." (Helmholtz, Faraday Lecture, 1881). We will go further than that, and assert that Electricity is not only Substance but that it is an emanation from an Entity, which is neither God nor Devil, but one of the numberless Entities that rule and guide our world according to the eternal Law of KARMA. (See the Addendum to this Book.) |
112 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.principle, the animal Soul of Nature, so to say, or—Electricity. In India, Fohat is connected with Vishnu and Surya in the early character of the (first) God; for Vishnu is not a high god in the Rig Veda. The name Vishnu is from the root vish, "to pervade," and Fohat is called the "Pervader" and the Manufacturer, because he shapes the atoms from crude material.* In the sacred texts of the Rig Veda, Vishnu, also, is "a manifestation of the Solar Energy," and he is described as striding through the Seven regions of the Universe in three steps, the Vedic God having little in common with the Vishnu of later times. Therefore the two are identical in this particular feature, and one is the copy of the other. The "three and seven" strides refer to the Seven spheres
inhabited by man, of the esoteric Doctrine, as well as to the Seven regions of
the Earth. Notwithstanding the frequent objections made by would-be
Orientalists, the Seven Worlds or spheres of our planetary chain are distinctly
referred to in the exoteric Hindu scriptures. But how strangely all these
numbers are connected with like numbers in other Cosmogonies and with their
symbols, can be seen from comparisons and parallelisms made by students of old
religions. The "three strides of Vishnu" through the "seven regions of the
Universe," of the Rig Veda, have been variously explained by commentators as
meaning "fire, lightning and the Sun" cosmically; and as having been taken in
the Earth, the atmosphere, and the sky; also as the "three steps" of the dwarf
(Vishnu's incarnation), though more philosophically — and in the astronomical
sense, very correctly —
they are explained by Aurnavâbha as being the various positions of the sun,
rising, noon, and setting. Esoteric philosophy alone explains it clearly, and
the Zohar laid it down very philosophically and comprehensively. It is said and
plainly demonstrated therein that in the beginning the Elohim (Elhim) were
called Echod, "one," or the "Deity is one in many," a very simple idea in a
pantheistic conception (in its philosophical sense, of course). Then came the
change, "Jehovah is Elohim," thus unifying the multiplicity and taking the first
step towards Monotheism. Now to the query, "How is Jehovah Elohim?" the answer
is, "By three Steps" from below. * It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in vibration assumes a series of regular curved figures of various descriptions. Can Science give a complete explanation of this fact? |
113 THE CORRELATION OF THE GODS.The meaning is plain.* They are all symbols, and emblematic, mutually and correlatively, of Spirit, Soul and Body (MAN); of the circle transformed into Spirit, the Soul of the World, and its body (or Earth). Stepping out of the Circle of Infinity, that no man comprehendeth, Ain-Soph (the Kabalistic synonym for Parabrahm, for the Zeroana Akerne, of the Mazdeans, or for any other "UNKNOWABLE") becomes "One" — the ECHOD, the EKA, the AHU — then he (or it) is transformed by evolution into the One in many, the Dhyani-Buddhas or the Elohim, or again the Amshaspends, his third Step being taken into generation of the flesh, or "Man." And from man, or Jah-Hova, "male female," the inner divine entity becomes, on the metaphysical plane, once more the Elohim. The Kabalistic idea is identical with the Esotericism of
the Archaic period. This esotericism is the common property of all, and belongs
neither to the Aryan 5th Race, nor to any of its numerous Sub-races. It cannot
be claimed by the Turanians, so-called, the Egyptians, Chinese, Chaldeans, nor
any of the Seven divisions of the Fifth Root Race, but really belongs to the
Third and Fourth Root Races, whose descendants we find in the Seed of the Fifth,
the earliest Aryans. The Circle was with every nation the symbol of the Unknown — "Boundless Space,"
the abstract garb of an ever present abstraction —
the Incognisable Deity. It represents limitless Time in Eternity. The Zeroana
Akerne is also the "Boundless Circle of the Unknown Time," from which Circle
issues the radiant light —
the Universal SUN, or Ormazd
† —
and the latter * The numbers 3, 5, and 7 are prominent in speculative masonry, as shown in "Isis." A mason writes: —"There are the 3, 5, and 7 steps to show a circular walk. The three faces of 3, 3; 5, 3; and 7, 3; etc., etc. Sometimes it comes in this form — 7532 = 376.5 and 76352 = 3817.5 and the ratio of 206126561 feet for cubit measure gives the Great Pyramid measures," etc., etc. Three, five and seven are mystical numbers, and the last and the first are as greatly honoured by Masons as by the Parsis — the triangle being a symbol of Deity everywhere. (See the Masonic Cyclopedia, and "Pythagorean Triangle," Oliver.) As a matter of course, doctors of divinity (Cassel, for instance) show the Zohar explaining and supporting the Christian trinity (!). It is the latter, however, that had its origin from the 
of the Heathen, in the
Archaic Occultism and Symbology. The three strides relate metaphysically to the
descent of Spirit into matter, of the Logos falling as a ray into the Spirit,
then into the Soul, and finally into the human physical form of man, in which it
becomes LIFE. † Ormazd is the Logos, the "First Born" and the Sun. |
114 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.is identical with Kronos, in his Æolian form, that of a
Circle. For the circle is Sar, and Saros, or cycle, and was the Babylonian god
whose circular horizon was the visible symbol of the invisible, while the sun
was the ONE Circle from which proceeded the Cosmic orbs, and of which he was
considered the leader. Zero-ana, is the Chakra or circle of Vishnu, the
mysterious emblem which is, according to the definition of a mystic, "a curve of
such a nature that as to any, the least possible part thereof, if the curve be
protracted either way it will proceed and finally re-enter upon itself, and form
one and the same curve —
or that which we call the circle." No better definition could thus be given of
the natural symbol and the evident nature of Deity, which having its
circumference everywhere (the boundless) has, therefore, its central point also
everywhere; in other words, is in every point of the Universe. The invisible
Deity is thus also the Dhyan Chohans, or the Rishis, the primitive seven, and
the nine, without, and ten, including, their synthetical unit; from which
IT
steps into Man. Returning to the Commentary (4) of Stanza IV. the reader will
understand why, while the trans-Himalayan Chakra has inscribed within it
The Seven was a Sacred Number with every nation; but
none applied it to more physiologically materialistic uses than the Hebrews.
With these it was pre-eminently the generative number and 9 the male causative
one, forming as shown by the Kabalists the
* This was the symbol of the "Holy of Holies," the 3 and the 4 of sexual separation. Nearly every one of the 22 Hebrew letters are merely phallic symbols. Of the two letters — as shown above — one, the ayin, is a negative female letter, symbolically an eye; the other a male letter, tza, a fish-hook or a dart. |
115 MANIFESTED SYMBOLS.and astronomical truths.* Their Rishis and gods,
their Demons and Heroes, have historical and ethical meanings, and the Aryans
never made their religion rest solely on physiological symbols, as the old
Hebrews have done. This is found in the exoteric Hindu Scriptures. That these
accounts are blinds is shown by their contradicting each other, a different
construction being found in almost every Purâna and epic poem. Read esoterically — they will all yield
the same meaning. Thus one account enumerates Seven worlds, exclusive of the
nether worlds, also seven in number; these fourteen upper and nether worlds have * We are told by a Kabalist, who in a work not yet published contrasts the Kabala and Zohar with Aryan Esotericism, that "The Hebrew clear, short, terse and exact modes far and beyond measure surpass the toddling word-talk of the Hindus — just as by parallelisms the Psalmist says, 'My mouth speaks with my tongue, I know not thy numbers' (lxxi., 15). . . . The Hindu Glyph shows by its insufficiency in the large admixture of adventitious sides the same borrowed plumage that the Greeks (the lying Greeks) had, and that Masonry has: which in the rough monosyllabic (and apparent) poverty of the Hebrew, shows the latter to have come down from a far more remote antiquity than any of these, and to have been the source (!?), or nearer the old original source than any of them." This is entirely erroneous. Our learned brother and correspondent judges apparently the Hindu religious systems by their Shastras and Purânas, probably the latter, and in their modern translation moreover, which is disfigured out of all recognition, by the Orientalists. It is to their philosophical systems that one has to turn, to their esoteric teaching, if he would make a point of comparison. No doubt the symbology of the Pentateuch and even of the New Testament, comes from the same source. But surely the Pyramid of Cheops, whose measurements are all found repeated by Professor Piazzi Smythe in Solomon's alleged and mythical temple, is not of a later date than the Mosaic books? Hence, if there is any such great identity as claimed, it must be due to servile copying on the part of the Jews, not on that of the Egyptians. The Jewish glyphs—and even their language, the Hebrew—are not original. They are borrowed from the Egyptians, from whom Moses got his Wisdom; from the Coptic, the probable kinsman, if not parent, of the old Phoenician and from the Hyksos, their (alleged) ancestors, as Josephus shows in his "Against Apion," I., 25. Aye; but who are the Hyksos shepherds? And who the Egyptians? History knows nothing of the question, and speculates and theorizes out of the depths of the respective consciousnesses of her historians. (See Isis Unveiled, vol. II., p. 430-438.) "Khamism, or old Coptic," says Bunsen, "is from Western Asia, and contains some germ of the Semitic, thus bearing witness to the primitive cognate unity of the Aryan and Semitic races"; and he places the great events in Egypt 9,000 years B.C. The fact is that in archaic Esotericism and Aryan thought we find a grand philosophy, whereas in the Hebrew records we find only the most surprising ingenuity in inventing apotheoses for phallic worship and sexual theogony. |
116 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.nothing to do with the classification of the septenary chain and belong to the purely æthereal, invisible worlds. These will be noticed elsewhere. Suffice for the present to show that they are purposely referred to as though they belonged to the chain. "Another enumeration calls the Seven worlds — earth, sky, heaven, middle region, place of birth, mansion of the blest, and abode of truth; placing the 'Sons of Brahmâ' in the sixth division, and stating the fifth, or Jana Loka, to be that where animals destroyed in the general conflagration are born again." (see Hindu Classical Dictionary.) Some real esoteric teaching is given in the "Symbolism." He who is prepared for it will understand the hidden meaning. ————— STANZA V. — Continued.3. HE IS THEIR GUIDING SPIRIT AND LEADER. WHEN HE COMMENCES WORK, HE SEPARATES THE SPARKS OF THE LOWER KINGDOM (mineral atoms) THAT FLOAT AND THRILL WITH JOY IN THEIR RADIANT DWELLINGS (gaseous clouds), AND FORMS THEREWITH THE GERMS OF WHEELS. HE PLACES THEM IN THE SIX DIRECTIONS OF SPACE AND ONE IN THE MIDDLE — THE CENTRAL WHEEL (a). (a) "Wheels," as already explained, are the
centres of force, around which primordial Cosmic matter expands, and, passing
through all the six stages of consolidation, becomes spheroidal and ends by
being transformed into globes or spheres. It is one of the fundamental dogmas of
Esoteric Cosmogony, that during the Kalpas (or æons) of life, MOTION, which,
during the periods of Rest "pulsates and thrills through every slumbering atom"*
(Commentary on Dzyan), assumes an evergrowing * It may be asked, as also the writer has not failed to ask, "Who is there to ascertain the difference in that motion, since all nature is reduced to its primal essence, and there can be no one — not even one of the Dhyani-Chohans, who are all in Nirvana — to see it?" The answer to this is: "Everything in Nature has to be judged by analogy. Though the highest Deities (Archangels or Dhyani-Buddhas) are unable to penetrate the mysteries too far beyond our planetary system and the visible Kosmos, yet there were great seers and prophets in olden times who were enabled to perceive the mystery of Breath and Motion retrospectively, when the systems of worlds were at rest and plunged in their periodic sleep." |
117 THE ANTIQUITY OF PHYSICAL SCIENCES.tendency, from the first awakening of Kosmos to a new "Day," to circular movement. The "Deity becomes a WHIRLWIND." They are also called Rotæ — the moving wheels of the celestial orbs participating in the world's creation — when the meaning refers to the animating principle of the stars and planets; for in the Kabala, they are represented by the Ophanim, the Angels of the Spheres and stars, of which they are the informing Souls. (See Kabala Denudata, "De Anima," p. 113.) This law of vortical movement in primordial matter, is
one of the oldest conceptions of Greek philosophy, whose first historical Sages
were nearly all Initiates of the Mysteries. The Greeks had it from the
Egyptians, and the latter from the Chaldeans, who had been the pupils of
Brahmins of the esoteric school. Leucippus, and Democritus of Abdera — the pupil of the Magi — taught that this
gyratory movement of the atoms and spheres existed from eternity.*
Hicetas, Heraclides, Ecphantus, Pythagoras, and all his pupils, taught the
rotation of the earth; and Aryabhata of India, Aristarchus, Seleucus, and
Archimedes calculated its revolution as scientifically as the astronomers do
now; while the theory of the Elemental Vortices was known to Anaxagoras, and
maintained by him 500 years B.C., or nearly 2,000 before it was taken up by
Galileo, Descartes, Swedenborg, and finally, with slight modifications, by Sir
W. Thomson. (See his "Vortical Atoms.") All such
knowledge, if justice be only done to it, is an echo of the archaic doctrine, an
attempt to explain which is now being made. How men of the last few centuries
have come to the same ideas and conclusions that were taught as axiomatic truths
in the secrecy of the Adyta dozens of * "The doctrine of the rotation of the earth about an axis is taught by the Pythagorean Hicetas, probably as early as 500 B.C. It was also taught by his pupil Ecphantus, and by Heraclides, a pupil of Plato. The immobility of the Sun and the orbital rotation of the earth were shown by Aristarchus of Samos as early as 281 B.C. to be suppositions accordant with facts of observation. The Heliocentric theory was taught about 150 B.C., by Seleucus of Seleucia on the Tigris. — [It was taught 500 B.C. by Pythagoras.—H. P. B.] It is said also that Archimedes, in a work entitled Psammites, inculcated the Heliocentric theory. The sphericity of the earth was distinctly taught by Aristotle, who appealed for proof to the figure of the Earth's shadow on the moon in eclipses (Aristotle, De Cœlo, lib. II, cap. XIV.). The same idea was defended by Pliny (Nat. Hist., II., 65). These views seem to have been lost from knowledge for more than a thousand years. . . ." (Comparative Geology, Part IV., "Pre-Kantian Speculation," p. 551, by Alex. Winchell, LL.D.). |
118 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.millenniums ago, is a question that is treated separately. Some were led to it by the natural progress in physical science and by independent observation; others — such as Copernicus, Swedenborg, and a few more — their great learning notwithstanding, owed their knowledge far more to intuitive than to acquired ideas, developed in the usual way by a course of study.* (See "A Mystery about Buddha.") By the "Six directions of Space" is here meant the "Double Triangle," the junction and blending together of pure Spirit and Matter, of the Arupa and the Rupa, of which the Triangles are a Symbol. This double Triangle is a sign of Vishnu, as it is Solomon's seal, and the Sri-Antara of the Brahmins. ————— STANZA V. — (Continued.) 4.
FOHAT TRACES SPIRAL LINES TO UNITE
THE SIX TO THE SEVENTH —
THE CROWN (a); AN
ARMY OF THE
SONS
OF LIGHT STANDS AT EACH ANGLE (and)
THE
LIPIKA —
IN THE MIDDLE WHEEL. THEY (the Lipika)
SAY,
"THIS IS GOOD" (b).
THE FIRST
DIVINE WORLD IS READY, THE FIRST (is now), THE SECOND
(world),
THEN THE "DIVINE
ARUPA" (the formless
Universe * That Swedenborg, who could not possibly have known anything of the esoteric ideas of Buddhism, came independently near the Occult teaching in his general conceptions, is shown by his essay on the Vortical Theory. In Clissold's translation of it, quoted by Prof. Winchell, we find the following resume: — "The first Cause is the Infinite or Unlimited. This gives existence to the First Finite or Limited." (The Logos in His manifestation and the Universe.) "That which produces a limit is analogous to motion. (See first Stanza, supra.) The limit produced is a point, the Essence of which is Motion; but being without parts, this Essence is not actual Motion, but only a connatus to it." (In our Doctrine it is not a "connatus," but a change from eternal vibration in the unmanifested, to Vortical Motion in the phenomenal or manifested World). . . "From this first proceed Extension, Space, Figure, and Succession, or Time. As in Geometry a point generates a line, a line a surface, and a surface a solid, so here the connatus of a point tends towards lines, surfaces and solids. In other words, the Universe is contained in ovo in the first natural point . . . the Motion toward which the connatus tends, is circular, since the circle is the most perfect of all figures . . . The most perfect figure of a Motion . . . must be the perpetually circular, that is to say, it must proceed from the centre to the periphery and from the periphery to the centre." (Quoted from Principia Rerum Naturalia.) This is Occultism pure and simple. |
119 THE EVOLUTION OF THE PRINCIPLES.of Thought) REFLECTS ITSELF IN CHHAYALOKA (the shadowy world of primal form, or the intellectual) THE FIRST GARMENT OF (the) ANUPADAKA (c). (a) This tracing of "Spiral lines" refers to the evolution of man's as well as Nature's principles; an evolution which takes place gradually (as will be seen in Book II., on "The origin of the Human Races"), as does everything else in nature. The Sixth principle in Man (Buddhi, the Divine Soul) though a mere breath, in our conceptions, is still something material when compared with divine "Spirit" (Atma) of which it is the carrier or vehicle. Fohat, in his capacity of DIVINE LOVE (Eros), the electric Power of affinity and sympathy, is shown allegorically as trying to bring the pure Spirit, the Ray inseparable from the ONE absolute, into union with the Soul, the two constituting in Man the MONAD, and in Nature the first link between the ever unconditioned and the manifested. "The first is now the second" (world) — of the Lipikas — has reference to the same. (b) The "Army" at each angle is the Host of angelic Beings (Dhyan-Chohans) appointed to guide and watch over each respective region from the beginning to the end of Manvantara. They are the "Mystic Watchers" of the Christian Kabalists and Alchemists, and relate, symbolically as well as cosmogonically, to the numerical system of the Universe. The numbers with which these celestial Beings are connected are extremely difficult to explain, as each number refers to several groups of distinct ideas, according to the particular group of "Angels" which it is intended to represent. Herein lies the nodus in the study of symbology, with which, unable to untie by disentangling it, so many scholars have preferred dealing as Alexander dealt with the Gordian knot; hence erroneous conceptions and teachings, as a direct result. The "First is the Second," because the "First" cannot really be numbered or regarded as the First, as that is the realm of noumena in its primary manifestation: the threshold to the World of Truth, or SAT, through which the direct energy that radiates from the ONE REALITY — the Nameless Deity — reaches us. Here again, the untranslateable term SAT (Be-ness) is likely to lead into an erroneous conception, since that which is manifested cannot be SAT, but is something phenomenal, not everlasting, nor, in truth, even sempiternal. It is coeval and |
120 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.coexistent with the One Life, "Secondless," but as a manifestation it is still a Maya—like the rest. This "World of Truth" can be described only in the words of the Commentary as "A bright star dropped from the heart of Eternity; the beacon of hope on whose Seven Rays hang the Seven Worlds of Being." Truly so; since those are the Seven Lights whose reflections are the human immortal Monads — the Atma, or the irradiating Spirit of every creature of the human family. First, this septenary Light; then: — (c) The "Divine World" — the countless Lights lit at the primeval Light — the Buddhis, or formless divine Souls, of the last Arupa (formless) world; the "Sum Total," in the mysterious language of the old Stanza. In the Catechism, the Master is made to ask the pupil: — "Lift thy head, oh Lanoo; dost thou see one, or countless lights above thee, burning in the dark midnight sky?" "I sense one Flame, oh Gurudeva, I see countless undetached sparks shining in it." "Thou sayest well. And now look around and into thyself. That light which burns inside thee, dost thou feel it different in anywise from the light that shines in thy Brother-men?" "It is in no way different, though the prisoner is held in bondage by Karma, and though its outer garments delude the ignorant into saying, 'Thy Soul and My Soul.' " The radical unity of the ultimate essence of each
constituent part of compounds in Nature —
from Star to mineral Atom, from the highest Dhyan Chohan to the smallest
infusoria, in the fullest acceptation of the term, and whether applied to the
spiritual, intellectual, or physical worlds —
this is the one fundamental law in Occult Science. "The Deity is boundless and
infinite expansion," says an Occult axiom; and hence, as remarked, the name of
Brahmâ.* There is a deep philosophy underlying the earliest worship in
the world, that of the Sun and of Fire. Of all the Elements known to physical
science, Fire is the one that has ever eluded definite analysis. It is
confidently asserted that * In the Rig Veda we find the names Brahmanaspati and Brihaspati alternating and equivalent to each other. Also see "Brihad Upanishad"; Brihaspati is a deity called "the Father of the gods." |
121 THE MYSTERY OF THE FIRE.Air is a mixture containing the gases Oxygen and Nitrogen. We view the Universe and the Earth as matter composed of definite chemical molecules. We speak of the primitive ten Earths, endowing each with a Greek or Latin name. We say that water is, chemically, a compound of Oxygen and Hydrogen. But what is FIRE? It is the effect of combustion, we are gravely answered. It is heat and light and motion, and a correlation of physical and chemical forces in general. And this scientific definition is philosophically supplemented by the theological one in Webster's Dictionary, which explains fire as "the instrument of punishment, or the punishment of the impenitent in another state" — the "state," by the bye, being supposed to be spiritual; but, alas! the presence of fire would seem to be a convincing proof of its material nature. Yet, speaking of the illusion of regarding phenomena as simple, because they are familiar, Professor Bain says (Logic. Part II.): "Very familiar facts seem to stand in no need of explanation themselves and to be the means of explaining whatever can be assimilated to them. Thus, the boiling and evaporation of a liquid is supposed to be a very simple phenomenon requiring no explanation, and a satisfactory explanation of rarer phenomena. That water should dry up is, to the uninstructed mind, a thing wholly intelligible; whereas to the man acquainted with physical science the liquid state is anomalous and inexplicable. The lighting of a fire by a flame is a GREAT SCIENTIFIC DIFFICULTY, yet few people think so" (p. 125). What says the esoteric teaching with regard to fire? "Fire," it says, "is the most perfect and unadulterated reflection, in Heaven as on Earth, of the ONE FLAME. It is Life and Death, the origin and the end of every material thing. It is divine 'SUBSTANCE.' " Thus, not only the FIRE-WORSHIPPER, the Parsee, but even the wandering savage tribes of America, which proclaim themselves "born of fire," show more science in their creeds and truth in their superstitions, than all the speculations of modern physics and learning. The Christian who says: "God is a living Fire," and speaks of the Pentecostal "Tongues of Fire" and of the "burning bush" of Moses, is as much a fire-worshipper as any other "heathen." The Rosicrucians, among all the mystics and Kabalists, were those who defined Fire in the right and most correct way. Procure a sixpenny lamp, keep it only supplied with oil, and you will be able to light at its flame the lamps, candles, |
122 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.and fires of the whole globe without diminishing that flame. If the Deity, the radical One, is eternal and an infinite substance ("the Lord thy God is a consuming fire") and never consumed, then it does not seem reasonable that the Occult teaching should be held as unphilosophical when it says: "Thus were the Arupa and Rupa worlds formed: from ONE light seven lights; from each of the seven, seven times seven," etc., etc. ————— STANZA V. — Continued.5. FOHAT TAKES FIVE STRIDES (having already taken the first three) (a), AND BUILDS A WINGED WHEEL AT EACH CORNER OF THE SQUARE FOR THE FOUR HOLY ONES . . . . . AND THEIR ARMIES (hosts) (b). (a) The "strides," as already explained (see Commentary on Stanza IV.), refer to both the Cosmic and the Human principles — the latter of which consist, in the exoteric division, of three (Spirit, Soul, and Body), and, in the esoteric calculation, of seven principles — three rays of the Essence and four aspects.* Those who have studied Mr. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism" can easily grasp the nomenclature. There are two esoteric schools — or rather one school, divided into two parts — one for the inner Lanoos, the other for the outer or semi-lay chelas beyond the Himalayas; the first teaching a septenary, the other a six-fold division of human principles. From a Cosmic point of view, Fohat taking "five strides" refers here to the five upper planes of Consciousness and Being, the sixth and the seventh (counting downwards) being the astral and the terrestrial, or the two lower planes. (b) "Four winged wheels at each corner . . . .
. for the four holy ones and their armies (hosts)" . . . . . These are the "four
Maharajahs" or great Kings of the Dhyan-Chohans, the Devas who preside, each
over one of the four cardinal points. They are the Regents or Angels who rule
over the Cosmical Forces of North, South, * The four aspects are the body, its life or vitality, and the "Double" of the body, the triad which disappears with the death of the person, and the Kama-rupa which disintegrates in Kama-loka. |
123 THE SECRET OF THE ELEMENTS.East and West, Forces having each a distinct occult property. These BEINGS are also connected with Karma, as the latter needs physical and material agents to carry out her decrees, such as the four kinds of winds, for instance, professedly admitted by Science to have their respective evil and beneficent influences upon the health of Mankind and every living thing. There is occult philosophy in that Roman Catholic doctrine which traces the various public calamities, such as epidemics of disease, and wars, and so on, to the invisible "Messengers" from North and West. "The glory of God comes from the way of the East" says Ezekiel; while Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the Psalmist assure their readers that all the evil under the Sun comes from the North and the West — which proposition, when applied to the Jewish nation, sounds like an undeniable prophecy for themselves. And this accounts also for St. Ambrose (On Amos, ch. iv.) declaring that it is precisely for that reason that "we curse the North-Wind, and that during the ceremony of baptism we begin by turning towards the West (Sidereal), to renounce the better him who inhabits it; after which we turn to the East." Belief in the "Four Maharajahs" — the Regents of the Four
cardinal points — was
universal and is now that of Christians,* who call them, after St. Augustine,
"Angelic Virtues," and "Spirits" when enumerated by themselves, and "Devils"
when named by Pagans. But where is the difference between the Pagans and the
Christians in this cause? Following Plato, Aristotle explained that the term
stoichei'a
was understood only as meaning the incorporeal principles placed at each of the
four great divisions of our Cosmical world to supervise them. Thus, no more than
the Christians did, do they adore and worship the Elements and
the cardinal (imaginary) points, but the "gods" that ruled these respectively.
For the Church there are two kinds of Sidereal beings, the * Says the scholarly Vossius, in his Theol. Cir. I. VII.: "Though St. Augustine has said that every visible thing in this world had an angelic virtue as an overseer near it, it is not individuals but entire species of things that must be understood, each such species having indeed its particular angel to watch it. He is at one in this with all the philosophers . . . For us these |
the
second one in the Archaic symbol shows
, a
disc with a point in it — the first differentiation in the periodical
manifestations of the ever-eternal nature, sexless and infinite "Aditi in
THAT"
(Rig Veda), the point in the disc, or potential Space within abstract Space. In
its third stage the point is transformed into a diameter, thus
It now
symbolises a divine immaculate Mother-Nature within the all-embracing absolute
Infinitude.
,
it becomes the mundane cross. Humanity has reached its third root-race; it is
the sign for the origin of human life to begin. When the circumference
disappears and leaves only the
it is a
sign that the fall of man into matter is accomplished, and the
FOURTH race begins. The Cross within a circle symbolises pure Pantheism;
when the Cross was left uninscribed, it became phallic. It had the same and yet
other meanings as a TAU inscribed within a circle
or as a
"Thor's hammer," the Jaina cross, so-called, or simply Svastica within a circle
— the
oldest form of the letter. It was the glyph of the third root-race to the day of
its symbolical Fall — i.e., when the separation of sexes by natural
evolution took place — when the figure became
, the
circle, or sexless life modified or separated — a double glyph or symbol. With
the races of our Fifth Race it became in symbology the sacr', and in Hebrew
n'cabvah, of the first-formed races; * then it changed into the Egyptian
(emblem
of life), and still later into the sign of Venus,
Then
comes the Svastica (Thor's hammer, or the "Hermetic Cross" now), entirely
separated from its Circle, thus becoming purely phallic. The esoteric symbol of
Kali Yuga is the five-pointed star reversed, thus
— the
sign of human sorcery, with its two points (horns) turned heavenward, a position
every
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.
,
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).
, Hoa, Atah, Ani; He,
Thou, I; are used to symbolize the ideas of Macroprosopus and Microprosopus in
the Hebrew Qabalah. Hoa, "He," is applied to the hidden and concealed
Macroprosopus; Atah, "Thou," to Microprosopus; and Ani, "I," to the latter when
He is represented as speaking. (See Lesser Holy Assembly, 204 et
seq.) It is to be noted that each of these names consists of three letters,
of which the letter Aleph 
, A, forms the
conclusion of the first word Hoa, and the commencement of Atah and Ani, as if it
were the connecting link between them. But
(l) is 3 (or 30);
(m) is 4 (40), and anagrammatically — 31,415 as explained
by him.
| 
(triangle, first line, cube second
line, and a pentacle with a dot in the centre thus:
(Alhim or Elohim) are numerically read,
the famous numerals 13514, or by anagram 31415 —
the astronomical p
(pi) number, or the hidden meaning of
Dhyani-Buddhas, of the Gebers, the Geborim, the Kabeiri, and the
Elohim, all signifying "great men," "Titans," "Heavenly Men," and, on
earth, "the giants."
or otz — "the Tree of the Garden of
Eden,"* the "double hermaphrodite rod" of the fourth race. Whereas
with the Hindus and Aryans generally, the significance was manifold, and related
almost entirely to purely metaphysical