© 1996 by Eldon B. Tucker. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that new copies bear this notice and the full citation.

All rights reserved. Published 1996.

Published in the United States of America

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-oOo-

(This book is based upon the original edition, first published in 1932 by Rider & Co., London, and reprinted in 1947 by Theosophical University Press, Covina, California. Terminology has been standardized, footnotes merged into the text, and illustrations redone for the electronic edition. To aid in citations, the end of pages in the print edition are denoted by page numbers in braces. [57], for instance, denotes the end of page 57 in the original edition.)

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Preface

Dr. de Purucker, the present Leader of The Theosophical Society, which has its International Headquarters at Point Loma, California, delivered the lectures contained in this volume to members of the Esoteric Section during the years 1924-27. They were given under the direction of Katherine Tingley, then Leader of The Theosophical Society, in fulfillment of a long cherished plan to give to the world a work which would serve not only as a commentary upon The Secret Doctrine of H.P. Blavatsky, but at the same time would be the means of giving out certain esoteric keys, which would enable students to unlock for themselves the treasure of knowledge therein contained. Many are the educated men and women who have been forced to lay aside The Secret Doctrine as too abstruse and difficult, because they had no instruction and therefore no understanding of the fundamental conceptions upon which the Esoteric Philosophy is based.

To those who hunger for truth and spiritual knowledge, and who bring an open mind to the study of this book, it is not too much to say that in asking they will receive, and in seeking they will find.

The original stenographic report of these lectures was corrected by the Author, but he has not had the time to read the proofs, the responsibility for which he left to the Editor. The book owes much to the collaboration of Dr. J.H. Fussell who, in addition to doing some of the preliminary work of preparing the manuscript for publication, undertook the selection of the quotations which appear at the head of each chapter. It should be mentioned that all references to The Secret Doctrine are to the original Edition (1888) of that work.

A certain amount of criticism was aroused among students of Theosophy by the announcement that Dr. de Purucker had given in these pages teaching which is not contained in the works of H.P. Blavatsky. Moreover, these critics appear to base their objections upon isolated quotations from Madame Blavatsky, in an endeavor to show that it is impossible at this time that further genuine teaching can be given, and ipso facto anything that is given must be false. But students will recognize that anything in the nature of dogmatism is contrary to the spirit of the Esoteric Philosophy, and for that reason should be avoided. Inevitable [v] child of crystallized thought, it begins its lethal work by laying a shadow on the mind, and ends by producing a sect.

The tendency of the dogmatist is to read only those parts of the teaching which suit his own peculiar purpose, and the rest of the Teacher's writings are pushed into the background and thus prevented from doing their beneficent work. Shall we not see for ourselves how H.P. Blavatsky regarded the problem? In her Five Messages to the American Theosophists, she wrote:

Orthodoxy in Theosophy is a thing neither possible nor desirable. It is diversity of opinion, within certain limits, that keeps the Theosophical Society a living and a healthy body, its many other ugly features notwithstanding. Were it not, also, for the existence of a large amount of uncertainty in the minds of students of Theosophy, such healthy divergence would be impossible, and the Society would degenerate into a sect, in which a narrow and stereotyped creed would take the place of the living and breathing spirit of Truth and an ever-growing Knowledge.

According as people are prepared to receive it, so will new Theosophical teaching be given. But no more will be given than the world, on its present level of spirituality, can profit by. It depends on the spread of Theosophy - the assimilation of what has been already given - how much more will be revealed and how soon.

Again in the Introductory to The Secret Doctrine she wrote:

In Century the Twentieth some disciple more informed, and far better fitted, may be sent by the Masters of Wisdom to give final and irrefutable proofs that there exists a Science called Gupta-Vidya; and that, like the once-mysterious sources of the Nile, the source of all religions and philosophies now known to the world has been for many ages forgotten and lost to men, but is at last found.

These statements are quite enough to show that Madame Blavatsky never meant it to be understood that under no circumstances would additional teaching be given. On the contrary she clearly indicated that although the two volumes of The Secret Doctrine contained all that could be given to the world in the nineteenth century, the giving of further teaching would depend necessarily upon the readiness of people to receive it.

So far from claiming that her writings contain the whole of Theosophy she pointed out in her Introductory to The Secret Doctrine that she had raised "but a small corner of the dark veil" and "after long millenniums of silence and secrecy" had given but an "outline of a few fundamental truths ¼ because that which must remain unsaid could not be contained in a hundred such volumes". The Esoteric Doctrine in its totality has always existed in the keeping of The Adepts in The Sacred [vi] Science, and it is therefore a complete system of thought which does not evolve or change. But the whole of it never has and never will be given out publicly, and therefore since from time to time additional teaching is given, this does constitute for the public a further unfolding or evolution of the age-old Doctrine. In other words Theosophy - the Wisdom of the Gods - is eternal in Nature, but our understanding of it grows, and as "those who have ears to hear" become fit and ready to receive more teaching, more will be given. This fact is dearly brought out also by William Q. Judge:

If any persons regard H.P.B.'s writings as the infallible oracles of Theosophy, they go directly against her own words and the works themselves; they must be people who do not indulge in original thinking and cannot make much impression on the times.

As for the Theosophical Society, the moment it makes a hard and fast definition of Theosophy it will mark the first hour of its decay.

Inasmuch as Theosophy is the whole body of truth about man and nature, either known now or hereafter to be discovered, it has the "power of growth, progress and advancement," since every new truth makes it clearer. But among the truths will not be reckoned at any time the definitions, dogmas, creeds or beliefs laid down by man.

None the less it is a fact, paradoxical though it may seem to some, that no teaching calling itself Theosophical will bear the test of a thoroughly impartial investigation, unless it is consistent with the teaching of H.P. Blavatsky; and this precisely because her writings bear the stamp of consistency with the recorded teachings of all the great Sages and Seers of Antiquity.

Herein lies the strength of Dr. de Purucker, not only in this work but in his other writings. True to the lines laid down by Madame Blavatsky, he makes no appeal to dogmatic authority, but claims his right to an impartial hearing on the ground that his teaching "closely adheres to Nature, and follows the laws of uniformity and analogy". "Proof," he defines, "as the preponderance of evidence bringing conviction to the mind," and goes on to show that if Knowledge is to grow in us then it is necessary to check any tendency to crystallization of thought, i.e., to limit the understanding by closing the doors of the mind to further light upon any particular subject of study. The truth is that in the search for the Great Knowledge, progress is seen to be as endless as boundless Infinitude - inwards and upwards forever - towards the Unutterable. Herein perhaps also is the secret of humility.

The meaning of any part of this book is not to be understood by merely dipping into it here and there. A particular doctrine is touched upon in one chapter, outlined in another, then dealt [vii] with in fuller detail until in some later chapter the key thought to the whole subject is revealed if the preceding ideas have been grasped. Thus the mind of the reader is opened gradually to receive teaching which becomes ever deeper with each succeeding chapter, unfolding before the inner eye a vision of the age-old Path that leads at last from darkness into Light.

- A. Trevor Barker

70 Queen's Gate,

London, S.W. 7,

December 28, 1931 [viii]

Introduction

We sometimes lock ourselves in little boxes of opinion, and will not be free for fear. But still Sun shines, winds blow, waves "boom and blanche on the precipices"; and the winds and Sun of the spirit, the waves of time. While some are busy proving that no Teacher can come, one has appeared among us who Teaches.

The spirit will not be confined by rules that the petty mind dictates to it, and we can impose no Thou shalt nots upon inspiration. There are certain marks by which we may know what comes from the heights: a light to illumine life and the hidden things; a sublimity to enlarge the Soul. Do you not see that what is ever-living cannot be cribbed and cabined within what was spoken in this year or that, even by Speakers with Authority; because words are finite things: of value as carriers of the messages of the Spirit; harmful and tyrannous when we bow our souls to them, and would make their finiteness an absolute?

H.P. Blavatsky came not to shackle us with new creeds, but to bring greatness and freedom to our minds. She pointed the way to sublimity of life and thought: her keynote is sublimity. She never said, there is a place where evolution stops, or where knowledge stops. Because some have given out ridiculousness in place of her sublime, it does not mean that the great Lodge and its powers and wisdom are exhausted, or that there must be no advance in knowledge.

As I understand the book, it makes this appeal: Turn your eyes to the mountaintops of being; feed your souls on the grandeur of Truth. Who has H.P. Blavatsky as a living power in his thought is not coffined in a creed, but judges each new idea that comes to him by its power to illumine life.

- Kenneth Morris

Llwynypia, November 22, 1931 [ix]

Chapter I

THE SELF: MAN'S INMOST LINK WITH THE UNUTTERABLE: THE ESOTERIC PHILOSOPHY: TAUGHT IN ALL THE ANCIENT RELIGIONS.

¼ neither the collective Host (Demiurges), nor any of the working powers individually, are proper subjects for divine honors or worship. All are entitled to the grateful reverence of Humanity, however, and man ought to be ever striving to help the divine evolution of Ideas, by becoming to the best of his ability a coworker with nature in the cyclic task. The ever unknowable and incognizable Karana alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes, should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart - invisible, intangible, unmentioned, save through "the still small voice" of our spiritual consciousness. Those who worship before it ought to do so in the silence and the sanctified solitude of their Souls, making their spirit the sole mediator between them and the Universal Spirit, their good actions the only priests, and their sinful intentions the only visible and objective sacrificial victims to the Presence.

- Secret Doctrine, I, 280

Fellow-Students of the Ancient Wisdom:

We stand on holy ground. The Leader's call seems like the clarion voice of the Law, of the Ancient Wisdom, which, echoing down the ages, rings in our hearts at a moment like this, and seems to tell us in accents that we may interpret if we have the heart and the soul so to do: "Fideles, sursum corda: Up hearts, ye faithful ones!" And may we not answer in the same spirit which the Leader has shown, has manifested to us this evening: "Yea, verily, in the name of Truth, we lift our hearts to the shining god within each one of us"?

We are here this evening in the presence of the agent and the representative of the Exalted Men who form the Guardian Body of the Esoteric Philosophy. We must feel called. The hour is a solemn one. It is time for us to rise above personality and, face to face with ourselves, search our hearts, and endeavor so to speak the words which we have learned that, as the Teacher has told us, others who have had less chance than ourselves may in their turn pass on these truths of the inner life.

In our last two meetings we studied the Three Fundamental [1] Postulates or Principles in H.P. Blavatsky's wonderful work, The Secret Doctrine! remember in particular the Teacher's words in comment after the meeting had ended. They struck me as very beautiful, profoundly suggestive. She said:

Thinking towards the unthinkable is a wonderful, spiritualizing force; one cannot think toward it without a disposition either to think more or feel more - without opening up the inner consciousness of man. And when that inner consciousness is awakened, the soul finds itself closer to the infinite laws, closer to THAT, or that Great Center that no words can express.

We have endeavored to reach two planes, which we have to compare, to reach, by the appeal to the Inmost within ourselves. We are taught that there exists in man a link with the Unutterable, a cord, a communication, that extends from It to the inner consciousness; and that link - such is the teaching as it has come down to us - is the very Heart of Being. It arises in that super-sensory Principle, that Unutterable Mystery which H.P. Blavatsky defines in the first of the Three Fundamental Propositions as above human mind. Becoming one with that link, we can transcend the powers of ordinary human intellect, and reach (even if it be by striving out, upward, towards) that Unutterable, which is - though it is beyond human power to express it in words, or beyond human thought - which is, we know, the Concealed of the Concealed, the Life of Life, Truth of Truth, the ALL.

Here is the thought, it seems to me, which illustrates so well the Teacher's words; striving toward this inwards, towards the Inmost, we can attain to some conception, if not understanding, of the Infinite Principle of all that is. From It, in the course of endless duration, there spring into manifestation - so the teaching runs - at the end of the great Universal or Cosmic Pralaya, the beginnings of things. These beginnings eventuate in the forms of life and being that H.P. Blavatsky describes in the Second and Third Fundamental Propositions.

This inmost link with the Unutterable was called in ancient India by the term SELF, which has been often mistranslated 'Soul'. The Sanskrit word is Atman, and applies, in psychology, to the human entity. The upper end of the link, so to speak, to use human terms, was called Paramatman, or the 'Self Beyond', the permanent SELF - words which describe neatly and clearly to those who have studied this wonderful philosophy, somewhat of the nature and essence of the thing which man is, and the source from which, in that beginningless and endless duration, he sprang. Child of earth and child of heaven, he contains both in himself.

We pass now from considering the First Proposition to the [2] Second and the Third. And in order that we may understand what we mean when we use certain words, it will be useful to illustrate our usages of such words. Let us take up the very interesting and remarkably well translated book entitled The Song Celestial, the work of Sir Edwin Arnold. It is a translation into English verse of the Bhagavad-Gita. That work is an episode or an interlude in the Mahabharata, the greater of the two great Hindu epics. It is found in the sixth book of the Mahabharata, i.e., the 'Great Bharata'; and in the style of the Hindu writings it comprises a dissertation on religious, philosophical, and mystical subjects. It has been several times translated, more or less successfully. Possibly the best has been that of our second Teacher, William Quan Judge. His work is a recension, rather, of a translation by Wilkins, modified by Cockburn, and in turn corrected, according to the Esoteric Philosophy, by Mr. Judge. Sir Edwin's Song Celestial, in book the second, has the following:

¼ The soul which is not moved,

The soul that with a strong and constant calm

Takes sorrow and takes joy indifferently,

Lives in the life undying! That which is

Can never cease to be; that which is not

Will not exist. To see this truth of both

Is theirs who part essence from accident,

Substance from shadow. Indestructible,

Learn thou! the Life is, spreading life through all;

It cannot anywhere, by any means,

Be any wise diminished, stayed, or changed.

But for these fleeting frames which it informs

With spirit deathless, endless, infinite,

They perish ¼

Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never;

Never was time it was not, End and Beginning are dreams!

Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit forever;

Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!

Now these words are exquisitely beautiful. They nevertheless contain a mistranslation, a misrendering of the text of this wonderful little work. In the first place, Sir Edwin translates the Sanskrit word TAT, which we explained in our last study, first by the word soul and next by the word spirit. Of course, analogically, it has a reference to the Soul and the Spirit of Man; but the Sanskrit of it does not point particularly to the Soul of Man. I will read a translation in prose, of these same verses, made with no attempt at poetic thought, no attempt to use beautiful language, but simply to express the thought:

The man whom these do not lead astray, O Bull among men! who is the same in pain and pleasure, and of steady soul, he partakes of immortality. [3]

There is no existence for the unreal; there is no non-existence for the Real. Moreover, the ultimate characteristic of both these is seen by those who perceive true principles.

Know THAT to be indestructible by which this whole Universe was woven.

The Sanskrit word for That is TAT; and by that word the Vedic Sages described this Unutterable Principle, from which all sprang. The figure is that of the weaving of a web.

The destruction of this Imperishable, none is able to bring about.

These mortal bodies are said to be of the embodied Eternal, Indestructible, Immeasurable One ¼

He who knows It as the slayer, and he who thinks It to be the slain: both of them understand not. It slays not, nor is it slain.

It is not born, nor does it ever die; It was not produced, nor shall it ever be produced.

It is unborn, constant, everlasting, primeval. It is unhurt when the body is slain.

The application that the writer in the Bhagavad-Gita makes, is to the link which we have spoken of, the deathless, undying principle within us; and he describes it by the word THAT, and contrasts it with the manifested Universe, which, following the Ancient Teachings of India, was invariably spoken of as THIS: the Sanskrit word is IDAM.

The Sages of Olden Times left on record the inner teaching of the religions of the peoples among whom they lived. This inner teaching was the Esoteric Philosophy, the Theosophy of the period. In Hindustan this Theosophy is found in the Upanishads, a part of the Vedic literary cycle. The word itself implies 'Secret Doctrine' or 'Secret Teachings'. From the Upanishads and from other parts of the wonderful Vedic literature, the ancient sages of India produced what is called today the Vedanta - a compound Sanskrit word meaning 'the End (or Completion) of the Veda' - that is to say, instruction in the final and most perfect exposition of the meaning of the Vedic tenets.

In Ancient Greece there were various Schools and various Mysteries; and the Theosophy of Ancient Greece was held very secret; it was taught in the Mysteries and it was taught by different teachers to select bodies of their disciples. One of such great teachers was Pythagoras; another was Plato; and this Theosophy was more or less clearly outlined and embodied, after the fall of the so-called Pagan religions, in what is today called the Neo-Platonic philosophy. It represents actually the inner teachings of Pythagoras, Plato, and the inner sense of those mystical doctrines which passed current in Greece under the name of the Orphic poems.

Of the Theosophy of Egypt we have but scanty remains [4] such as exist in what is called 'The Book of the Dead'. Of the Theosophy of ancient America, of the Inca, the Mayan, empires we have next to nothing. The Theosophy of ancient Europe has passed away. All that remains to us is a certain number of mystical writings such as the Scandinavian Edda, and the Germanic books, which are represented, for instance, in the Sagas found written in the old High German and in the Anglo-Saxon tongues.

A study which anyone can make of the doctrines contained in the Upanishads, in 'The Book of the Dead', in the Neo-Platonic philosophy, in the Scandinavian Edda, and elsewhere, shows that they had one common basis, one foundation, one common truth. Various men in various ages at various times taught the same truth, using different words and different tropes, different figures, different metaphors; but underneath always was the Ancient Doctrine, the Secret Wisdom.

The Theosophy of the Jews was embodied in what was later called the Qabbalah, from a Hebrew word meaning 'to receive'; that is to say, it was the traditional doctrine handed down, or received (according to the statements of the Qabbalah itself) through the prophets and the sages of Jewry; and was said to have been first taught by "God Almighty to a select company of angels in Heaven".

We must understand, when we approach the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, that the ancient teachers spoke and thought and taught anthropocentrically; that is, that they all insisted on following the psychological laws of the human mind, and therefore taught in human figures of speech, oft using quaint metaphors, very odd, and yet so instinctive as figures of speech. How wise that was! because they were able to carry on the Ancient Teachings, and did so in such fashion that least of all did this anthropocentric system encourage the dogmatic rulings that have most truly blasted all that was best in the teachings of the Christian Church. These tropes, these metaphors, were so quaint that the mind understood almost instantly that they were but the vehicle embodying the Truth. Let us remember this, and our work becomes immensely more easy.

Now let us take the Qabbalah as a sample of the manner in which one Theosophy - the Jewish - approaches the mystery of how the Unmanifest produces the Manifest, how from that which is endless and beginningless duration, sprang forth matter, space in the sense of material extension, and time. But first let me quote from another Sanskrit work, one of the Upanishads, the Kena-Upanishad. Speaking of this Unutterable Mystery, it says:

The eye reacheth it not, language reacheth it not, nor does thought [5] reach to it at all; verily, we know not nor can we say how one should teach it; it is different from the known, it is beyond the unknown. Thus have we heard from the men of olden times, for they taught it to us.

The great Sankaracharya, perhaps the most famous of Indian commentators on the Upanishads and the marvelously beautiful system of philosophy drawn from them called the Vedanta, says, commenting on the Aitareya-Upanishad:

There is the One, sole, alone, apart from all duality, in which there appear not the multitudinous illusory presentments of unreal bodies and conditions of this universe of merely apparent reality; passionless, unmoving, pure, in utter peace; knowable only by the lack of every adjective epithet; unreachable by word or by thought.

The Qabbalah is the traditionary teaching of the sages among the Jews. It is a wonderful teaching; it contains in outline or in epitome every fundamental tenet or teaching that our own Secret Doctrine contains. The teachings of the Qabbalah are often couched in very quaint and sometimes amusing language; sometimes its language rises to the height of sublimity. What does the Zohar, the second of the great books that remain of the Jewish Qabbalah (the word 'Zohar' itself meaning 'Splendor'), have to say of the manner in which the Jewish religious books should be studied? It says this (iii, 152 a):

Woe be to the son of man who says that the Torah [the Hebrew Bible, especially the Pentateuch, or rather the first four books of the Bible excluding Deuteronomy, the fifth] contains common sayings and ordinary narratives. If this were the case we might in the present day compose a code of doctrines from profane writings which would excite greater respect. If the Law contains ordinary matter, then there are nobler sentiments in profane codes. Let us go and make a selection from them and we shall be able to compile a far superior code. No! Every word of the Law has a sublime sense and a heavenly mystery ¼ As the spiritual angels had to put on earthly garments when they descended to this earth, and as they could neither have remained nor be understood on the earth without putting on such a garment, so it is with the Law. When it descended on earth, the Law had to put on an earthly garment, in order to be understood by us, and the narratives are its garment ¼ Those who have understanding do not look at the garment but at the body [the esoteric meaning] beneath; whilst the wisest, the servants of the heavenly King, those who dwell on Mount Sinai, look at nothing but the soul -

i.e., at the ultimate Secret Doctrine or sacred wisdom hid under the 'body', under the exoteric narratives or stories of the Bible.

In these days, when Modernists and Fundamentalists quarrel - quarrel unnecessarily, quarrel about exoteric superficialities, quarrel about things which arise out of the egoism of men, quarrel [6] about the dogmatic teachings of the Christian Church, every one of them probably based on ancient Pagan Esoteric Philosophy - it is an immense pity that they do not know and understand that this teaching of the Qabbalah as expressed in the Zohar is a true one; it is the teaching of our three Leaders and Teachers; for under every garment is the life. As Jesus taught in parables, so the Bible was written in tropes, in figures of speech, in metaphors. [7]

Chapter II

WHERE IS REALITY? TRUTH CAN BE KNOWN. MAN'S COMPOSITE NATURE ACCORDING TO DIFFERENT SYSTEMS: THREEFOLD, FOURFOLD, FIVEFOLD, OR SEVENFOLD.

The fundamental Law in that system [i.e., the Esoteric Philosophy], the central point from which all emerged, around and toward which all gravitates, and upon which is hung the philosophy of the rest, is the One homogeneous divine SUBSTANCE-PRINCIPLE, the one radical cause.

It is called "Substance-Principle," for it becomes "substance" on the plane of the manifested Universe, an illusion, while it remains a "principle" in the beginningless and endless abstract, visible and invisible SPACE. It is the omnipresent Reality: impersonal, because it contains all and everything. Its impersonality is the fundamental conception of the System. It is latent in every atom in the Universe, and is the Universe itself.

- Secret Doctrine, I, 273

It is the True. It is the Self, and thou art It.

- Chhanadogya-Upanishad

The Tao which can be expressed in words is not the eternal Tao; the name which can be uttered is not its eternal name. Without a name, it is the Beginning of Heaven and Earth; with a name, it is the Mother of all things. Only one who is eternally free from earthly passions can apprehend its spiritual essence; he who is ever clogged by passions can see no more than its outer form. These two things, the spiritual and the material, though we call them by different names, in their origin are one and the same. This sameness is a mystery - the mystery of mysteries. It is the gate of all spirituality.

- Sayings of Lao-tse

We open Volume I of H.P. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine this evening at page 13, and we read the second paragraph, which is as follows:

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 Brahm_." [8]

We choose this as the general text of our study this evening. Following the Teacher's instructions, as we understand them, it seems not only appropriate but necessary to open our study of the more secret matters of which The Secret Doctrine treats, by asking in what manner or by what method do we obtain an understanding and a realization of these doctrines? Do they come to us as dogmatic teachings, or are they derived, following the definition that Webster gives of Theosophy in his dictionary, by inner spiritual communion with 'God'? There is something in Webster's definition which is true. The Theosophist does believe that he has within himself the faculty of approaching divine things, of raising the inner man so that he can thereby obtain a more accurate mental representation of things as they are, or of Reality.

But on the other hand, if everyone did this, without proper and capable guidance and leading and teaching, extreme vanity and human conceit as well as many other forces in the human economy, would inevitably lead to an immense diversity of opinions and teachings and doctrines, each man believing that he had the truth and he only, and hence that those who followed him and preached his views should form with him a special 'church' or 'sect' of their own. The words themselves would probably be avoided, but it would amount to that.

Therefore, here we find the use, the benefit, the appositeness, of the Theosophical doctrines which our Teachers have given to us, to the effect that these teachings have come down to us from immemorial antiquity - transmitted from one Teacher to another - and that originally they were communicated to the nascent human race, when once it became self-conscious, by Beings from a higher sphere - Beings who themselves were of divine origin; and further, that this communication or emanation of their spiritual and higher intellectual selves into us, gave us our own higher principles. For the Teachers have told us that these doctrines have been checked or proved age after age, generation after generation, by innumerable spiritual seers, to use Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's own words - checked in every respect, checked as to fact, checked as to origin, checked as to operation on the human mind.

Now then, as the older students of this School - many of whom are here present - know well, the faculties by which man can attain a knowledge of truth, of the Real, can be called upon or evoked at any moment in any place, provided the right conditions are made, so that the striving soul may thus reach successfully upward or inward, and know. Sometimes, in the most simple teachings are found the most divine truths. And why? Because the simple teachings are the fundamental ones. [9]

Consider for a moment, therefore, the seven principles of man, in their connection with the seven principles of the universe. The seven principles of man are a likeness or copy of the seven cosmic principles. They are actually the offspring of the seven cosmic principles, limited in their action in us by the workings of the Law of Karma, but running in their origin back into That which is beyond: into that which is the Essence of the universe or the Universal; in, beyond, within, to the Unmanifest, to the Unmanifestable, to that first Principle which Helena Petrovna Blavatsky enunciates as the leading thought of the Wisdom-Philosophy of The Secret Doctrine.

These principles of man are reckoned as seven in the philosophy by which the human, spiritual, and psychical economy has been explained to us in the present age. In other ages these principles, or parts, of man were differently reckoned - the Christian reckons them as Body, Soul, and Spirit, and does not know the difference between the soul and the spirit: he thinks there must be a difference but does not know what it is; and many say that the soul and spirit are the same.

Some of the Indian thinkers divided man into a basic fourfold entity, others into a fivefold. The Jewish philosophy, as found in the Qabbalah which is the esoteric tradition of the Jews, teaches that man is divided into four parts:

1. The highest and most spiritual of all, that principle or part which is to us a mere breath of being, they called Neshamah.

2. The second principle was called Ruahh or Spiritual Soul, spelled sometimes Ruach according to another method of transliteration.

3. The Astral Soul (or Vital Soul) was called Nefesh, the third next lower, which man has in common with the brutes.

4. Then comes the Guf or physical vehicle, the house in which all these others dwell.

Over all, and higher than all, higher than the Neshamah - which is not an emanation of this Highest, not a creation, not an evolution, but of which it was the production in a sense which we shall later have to explain - there is the Ineffable, the Boundless, called Ain Suf.

The Sanskrit terms which have been given by our Teachers to the seven principles of man in our own Theosophical Philosophy, are as follows, and we can get much help from explaining the original Sanskrit meanings of them, and illustrating the sense in which those words were used, and why they were chosen.

1. Sthula means coarse, gross, not refined, heavy, bulky, fat in the sense of bigness. Sharira comes from a root which can best be translated by saying that it is that which is easily dissolved, easily worn away; the idea being something transitory, foam-like, full [10] of holes, as it were. Note the meaning hid in this: it is very important.

2. The second principle let us call the Linga-sharira. Linga is a Sanskrit word which means characteristic mark; hence model, pattern. It, as we all know, forms the model or pattern on which the physical body is built - this physical body, composed mostly of porosity, if the expression be pardoned; the most unreal thing we know, full of holes, foamy as it were. We will revert to this thought later.

3. The third principle, commonly called the Life-Principle, is Prana. Now this word is used here by our Philosophy in a general sense. There are, as a matter of fact, a number of life-currents, vital fluids. They have several names. One system gives the number as three; another as five, which is the commonly accepted number; another as seven; another twelve, as is found in some Upanishads; and one old writer even gives them as thirteen.

4. Then there is the Kama-principle; the word kama means desire. It is the driving or impelling force in the human economy; colorless, neither good nor bad, only such as the mind and soul direct its use.

5. Then comes Manas; the Sanskrit root of this word means to think, to cogitate, to reflect mental activity, in short.

6. Then comes Buddhi, or the Spiritual Soul, the vehicle or carrier of the highest principle of all, the Atman. Now Buddhi comes from a Sanskrit root budh. This root is commonly translated, to enlighten, but a better translation is to awaken and, hence, to understand; Buddha, the past participle of this root is applied to one who is spiritually awakened, no longer living a living death, but awakened to the spiritual influence from within or from 'above'. Buddhi is the principle in us which gives us spiritual consciousness, and is the vehicle of the most high part of man. This highest part is the Atman.

7. This principle (Atman) is a universal one; but during incarnations its lowest parts, if we can so express it, take on attributes, because it is linked with the Buddhi as the Buddhi is linked with the Manas, as the Manas is linked to the Kama, and so on down the scale.

Atman is also sometimes used of the Universal Self or Spirit which is called in the Sanskrit writings Brahman (neuter), and the Brahman or Universal Spirit is also called the Paramatman, a compound Sanskrit term meaning the highest or most universal Atman. The root of Atman is hardly known. Its origin is uncertain, but the general meaning is that of self.

Beyond Brahman is the Para-brahman. Para is a Sanskrit word meaning beyond. Note the deep philosophical meaning of this; there is no attempt here to limit the Illimitable, the [11] Ineffable, by adjectives; it simply means beyond the Brahman. In the Sanskrit Vedas and in the works deriving therefrom and belonging to the Vedic literary cycle, this beyond is called That, as this world of manifestation is called This. Other very expressive terms are Sat, the Real; and Asat, the Unreal or the manifested universe; in another sense Asat means 'not Sat', i.e., even beyond (higher than) Sat.

Now this Para-brahman is intimately connected with Mula-prakriti - a word we shall explain in a moment. Their interaction and intermingling cause the first nebulous thrilling, if the words will pass, of the Universal Life when spiritual desire first arose in it in the beginnings of things. Such is the old teaching, employing of necessity the old anthropocentric tropes, clearly understood to be only human metaphors, human similes; for the conceptions of the Seers of ancient times, their teachings, their doctrines, had to be told in human language to the human mind.

Now then, a man can reach inward, going 'upward' step by step, climbing higher as his spiritual force and power wax greater and more subtle, until he reaches beyond his normal faculties, and steps beyond the 'Ring Pass Not', as Helena Petrovna Blavatsky calls it in her Secret Doctrine. Where and what is this 'Ring Pass Not'? It is, at any period of man's consciousness, the utmost reach that his spirit can attain. There he stops, and looks into the Beyond - into the Unmanifested from which we came. The Unmanifest is in us; it is the Inmost of the inmost in our souls, in our spirits, in our essential beings. We can reach towards it. We can actually reach it never.

Now, where is Reality? Is the Real, is the True, to be found in these lower ventures of materiality? Or is it to be found in the State of Being from which everything came?

The ancient Stoics in their really wonderful philosophy taught, and the same teaching originated in the esoteric philosophy of Hellas or Greece - as found later in the Neo-Platonic teachings - these ancient Stoics taught that Truth can be known; that the most real thing, the greatest thing, was to be found in ever-receding vistas, as the Spirit of man strived inward, and beyond, veil after veil falling away as the Wise Man (their technical term) advances in the evolution of his soul. They taught that the material universe was illusory precisely as our Teachers tell us of the Maya; and the Stoic understood (and this teaching is our own) that this apparently dense, gross, heavy, material universe is phenomenally unreal, mostly built up of holes, so to say - a teaching which is beginning to be reechoed even today in the writings and thoughts of the more intuitional of our scientists.

The Stoics taught that the ether was denser than the most dense material thing, fuller than the most full material thing - using [12] human words, of course. To us, with our human eyes, trained only to see objects of illusion, it appears to be the most diaphanous, the thinnest, the most ethereal. What was the Reality, the Real, behind this All? The real thing? They said it was God, Life of Life, Truth of Truth, Root of Matter, Root of Soul, Root of Spirit. When the Stoic was asked: What is God? he nobly answered: What is God not?

Turning now to the Ancient Wisdom of Hindustan, to the Upanishads, let us take from the Chhanadogya-Upanishad, mainly in the sixth lecture, a conversation between a father and his son. Hearken to the Ancient Wisdom, going back far beyond the time when the ancient Brahmanical teachings and the Brahmanas became what they are today - to the time when real men taught real things. The son asks:

If a man who has slept in his own house, rises and goes to another village, he knows that he has come from his own house. Why then do people not know that they have come from the Sat? [A Sanskrit word meaning the Real, the Ineffable of which we have spoken.]

And the father teaches his son as follows:

These rivers, my son, run, the eastern towards the east, the western towards the west. They go from sea to sea. They become indeed sea. And as those rivers, when they are in the sea, do not know, I am this or that river,

In the same manner, my son, all these creatures, when they have come from the True [that is the Real] know not that they have come from the True [on account of the Maya]. Whatever these creatures are here, whether a lion, or a wolf, or a boar, or a worm, or a midge, or a gnat, or a mosquito, that they become again and again.

Now listen:

"That which is that subtle essence, in it all that exists has its self. It is the True, It is the Self, and thou, O Svetaketu, art it." "Please, Sir, inform me still more," said the son. "Be it so, my child," the father replied.

Now the son is supposed to ask, "How is it that living beings, when in sleep or death they are merged again in the Sat [that is, the Real], are not destroyed? Waves, foam, and bubbles arise from the water, and when they merge again in the water, they are gone."

"If someone were to strike at the root of this large tree, here," says the father, "it would bleed, but live. If he were to strike at its stem, it would bleed, but live. If he were to strike at its top, it would bleed, but live. Pervaded by the living Self that tree stands firm, drinking in its nourishment and rejoicing;" [13]

"But if the life (the living Self) leaves one of its branches, that branch withers; if it leaves a second, that branch withers; if it leaves a third, that branch withers. If it leaves the whole tree, the whole tree withers. In exactly the same manner, my son, know this."

Thus he spoke:

"This (body) indeed withers and dies when the living self has left it; the living Self dies not. That which is that subtle essence, in it all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, O Svetaketu, art it."

"Please, Sir, inform me still more," said the son. "Be it so, my child!" the father replied. "Fetch me from thence a fruit of the Nyagrodha tree." "Here is one, Sir." "Break it." "It is broken Sir." "What do you see there?" "These seeds, almost infinitesimal." "Break one of them." "It is broken, Sir." "What do you see there?" "Not anything, Sir." The father said: "My son, that subtle essence which you do not perceive there, of that very essence this great Nyagrodha tree exists. Believe it, my son. That which is the subtle essence, in it all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, O Svetaketu, art it." "Please, Sir, inform me still more," said the son. "Be it so, my child," the father replied.

"Place this salt in water, and then wait on me in the morning." The son did as he was commanded. The father said to him: "Bring me the salt, which you placed in the water last night." The son having looked for it, found it not, for, of course, it was melted. The father said: "Taste it from the surface of the water. How is it?" The son replied: "It is salt." "Taste it from the middle. How is it?" The son replied: "It is salt." "Taste it from the bottom, how is it?" The son replied: "It is salt." The father said: "Throw it away and then wait on me." He did so; but salt exists forever. Then the father said: "Here also, in this body, forsooth, you do not perceive the True [Sat], my son; but there indeed it is."

"That which is the subtle essence [that is, the saltiness of the salt], in it all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, O Svetaketu, art it." "Please Sir, inform me still more," said the son. "Be it so, my child," the father replied. (Translation by Max Muller).

Let us turn to another part of this Upanishad, to the eighth lecture. And we read as follows: "Harih, Om." Hari is the name of several Deities - of Shiva, and Vishnu - but here, apparently, it is used for Shiva, which, as our first Teacher has taught us, is preeminently the divine protector of the mystic occultist. 'Om' is a word considered very holy in the Brahmanical literature. It is a syllable of invocation, and its general usage, as elucidated in the literature treating of it, which is rather voluminous, for this word 'Om' has attained to almost divinity, is that it should never be uttered aloud, or in the presence of an outsider, a foreigner, or a non-Initiate, but it should be uttered in the silence of one's heart, in the intimacy of one's inner closet. [14] We also have reason to believe, however, that it was uttered, and uttered aloud in a monotone by the disciples in the presence of their Teacher. This word is always placed at the beginning of any scripture that is considered of unusual sanctity.

The teaching is, that prolonging the uttering of this word, both of the O and the M, with the mouth closed (precisely as the Teacher has taught us to do it in this School), it reechoes in and arouses vibration in the skull, and affects, if the aspirations be pure, the different nervous centers of the body for great good.

The Brahmanas say that it is an unholy thing to utter this word in any place which is unholy. I now read:

There is this city of Brahman [that is, the heart and the body], and in it the palace, the small lotus (of the heart), and in it that small ether.

The Sanskrit word which Muller, the translator, has not given here for 'small ether', doubtless because he knew not how to translate it, is antarakasa, a compound Sanskrit word meaning within the Akasa. He called it 'small ether', doubtless because he knew not how to translate it - too difficult. I read again:

Now what exists within that small ether, that it is to be sought for, that is to be understood. And if they should say to him: "Now with regard to that city of Brahman, and the palace in it, i.e., the small lotus of the heart, and the small ether within the heart, what is there within it that deserves to be sought for, or that is to be understood?"

Then he should say: "As large as this ether (all space) is, so large is that ether within the heart. Both heaven and earth are contained within it, both fire and air, both Sun and Moon, both lightning and stars; and whatever there is of him (the Self) here in the world, and whatever is not [i.e., 'whatever has been or will be' says Max Muller], all that is contained within it."

And if they should say to him: "If everything that exists is contained in that city of Brahman, all beings and all desires (whatever can be imagined or desired), then what is left of it, when old age reaches it and scatters it, or when it falls to pieces?"

Then he should say: "By the old age of the body, that (the ether, or Brahman within it) does not age; by the death of the body, that (the ether, or the Brahman within it) is not killed. That (the Brahman) is the true Brahma-city (not the body). In it all [true] desires are contained. It is the Self, free from sin, free from old age, from death and grief, from hunger and thirst, which desires nothing but what it ought to desire, and imagines nothing but what it ought to imagine. Now as here on earth people follow as they are commanded, and depend on the object which they are attached to, be it a country or a piece of land,"

"And, as here on earth, whatever has been acquired by exertion, perishes, so perishes whatever is acquired for the next world by [15] sacrifices and other good actions performed on earth. Those who depart from hence without having discovered the Self and those true desires, for them there is no freedom in all the worlds. But those who depart from hence, after having discovered the Self and those true desires, for them there is freedom in all the worlds." [16]

Chapter III

THE DOCTRINE OF MAYA: OBJECTIVE IDEALISM THE BASIS OF MORALS: ROOTED IN THE SPIRITUAL UNITY - THE DIVINITY - OF THE ALL. THE SELF AND THE "SELVES".

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 Dhyani-Chohans, are, in degree, of the nature of shadows cast by a magic lantern on a colorless 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 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.

- Secret Doctrine, I, 39, 40

The Universe is called, with everything in it, MAYA, because all is temporary therein, from the ephemeral life of a firefly to that of the Sun. Compared to the eternal immutability of the One, and the changelessness of that Principle, the Universe, with its evanescent ever-changing forms, must be necessarily, in the mind of a philosopher, no better than a will-o'-the-wisp. Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is itself.

- Secret Doctrine, I, 274

In taking up again this evening our study of The Secret Doctrine at the point we reached a fortnight ago, I open Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's book, the first volume, at page 17, and read the third fundamental postulate - at least a portion of it:

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 - though 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 [17] 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).

Paul, the Apostle of the Christians "to the Gentiles", as they call him, according to the Christian Gospels in Acts, xvii, verses 23-28, spoke to an assembly of the Athenians on Mars Hill, commonly called the Areopagus, and he said the following (the translation being ours):

For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription: "To the Unknowable God." For in It we live and move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, "For we are also of Its line."

The poets of whom Paul speaks were probably Cleanthes the Stoic, and Aratus. It is perhaps well to mention that the sense of 'Unknowable', as used in connection with this word Agnostos, is that employed by Homer, by Plato, and by Aristotle. This Greek word Agnostos also permits the translation 'unknown', but merely because the Unknown in this connection is the Unknowable.

The Athenians had raised an altar to the Ineffable, and with the true spirit of religious devotion they left it without further qualification; and Paul, passing by and seeing it, thought he saw an excellent chance to 'make hay while the sun shone', so to say, and claimed the Unknowable to which this altar had been raised, as the Jewish God, Jehovah.

A fortnight ago, following the Teacher's instructions, we stated how it was that man could form some conception of that Ineffable Principle of which Helena Petrovna Blavatsky speaks on pages 14-19 of her Secret Doctrine, as being the first of the three fundamental postulates, necessary in order to understand the true teachings of the Esoteric Wisdom; and we saw that man has in himself, as was then said, a faculty transcending the ordinary human intellectual power - something in him by which he can raise himself upwards or, perhaps better, inwards, towards the Inmost Center of his own being, which in very truth is that Ineffable: from It we came, back to It we are journeying through the aeons of time.

All the ancient philosophers taught the truth concerning this same fundamental principle, each in his own way, each with different terms, each in the language of the country where it was promulgated, but always there was taught the central truth: that in the inmost being of man there lives a divinity, and this [18] divinity is the offspring of the Highest, and that man can become a God in the flesh or he can sink - as the Teacher's words have told us this evening - lower even than the common average of humanity, so that he becomes at first obsessed or beset, and finally possessed by the daemons of his own lower nature and by those of the lower sphere; and by these particular daemons we mean the elemental forces of life, of chaotic life, or of the material sphere of being.

Again, how is it that man cannot see these truths intimately and immediately? We all know the answer is, on account of the illusion under which his mind labors, the illusion which is a part of himself, not cast upon him from the outside: he sees, for instance, and his mind reacts to the vision, and the reaction is conducted along the lines of the illusion, which, taking the ancient Sanskrit word, our first Teacher has called Maya.

This is a technical term in the ancient Brahmanical philosophy. Let us examine its root. What does the word Maya come from? It comes from a Sanskrit root ma; the meaning of ma is to measure, and by a trope of speech - that is by a figure of speech - it comes to mean to effect, or to form, and hence to limit. There is an English word mete, meaning to measure out, from the same Indo-European root. It is found in the Anglo-Saxon as the root met, it is found in the Greek as med, and it is found in the Latin also in the same form.

Now Maya, as a technical term, has come to mean - ages ago in the wonderful Brahmanical philosophy it was understood very differently from what it is now usually understood to be - the fabrication by man's mind of ideas derived from interior and exterior impressions, and hence the illusory aspect of man's thoughts as he considers and tries to interpret and understand life and his surroundings - and thence was derived the sense which it technically bears, illusion. It does not mean that the exterior world is non-existent; if it were, it obviously could not be illusory; it exists, but is not. It is 'measured out' or it stands out to the human spirit as a mirage. In other words, we do not see clearly and plainly and in their reality the vision and the visions which our mind and senses present to the inner life and eye.

The familiar illustrations of Maya in the Vedanta, which is the highest form that the Brahmanical teachings have taken, and which is so near to our own teaching in many respects, were such as follows: A man at eventide sees a coiled rope on the ground, and springs aside, thinking it a serpent. The rope is there, but no serpent.

Another illustration is what is called the 'horns of the hare'. Now the animal called the hare has no horns, but when it also [19] is seen at eventide its long ears seem to project from its head in such fashion that it appears even to the seeing eye as being a creature with horns. The hare has no horns, but there is then in the mind an illusory belief that an animal with horns exists there.

That is what Maya means: not that a thing seen does not exist, but that we are blinded and our mind perverted by our own thoughts and our own imperfections, and do not as yet arrive at the real interpretation and meaning of the world, of the universe around us. By ascending inwardly, by rising up, by inner aspiration, by an elevation of soul, we can reach upwards or rather inwards toward that plane where Truth abides in fullness.

Bernard of Clairvaux, the French mystic of the Middle Ages, said that one way of doing this, and he spoke truly, was by 'emptying the mind', pouring out the trashy stuff it contains, the illusory beliefs, the false views, the hatreds, suspicions, carelessness, etc., and that by emptying out all this trash, the temple within is cleansed, and the light from the God within streams forth into the soul - a wonderful figure of thought for a Christian Mystic, but a true one.

It may be asked: What relationship has our wonderful philosophy to the many so-called idealistic systems of Europe, particularly in Germany, and represented by Bishop Berkeley in Britain? The answer is that there are points of contact, naturally, because the men who evolved these systems of philosophy were earnest men, and no man can earnestly think and strive upwards without arriving at some visions of truth, some faint perceptions of the inner life - but none of the systems of idealism which they taught is exactly the idealism; which Theosophy is. Theosophy is not an absolute idealism, it does not teach that the external universe is absolutely non-existent and that all external phenomena merely exist in the mind.

Theosophy is not exactly either the idealism of Kant nor the wonderful pessimistic idealism of Schopenhauer - wonderful as this great thinker was, and wonderful precisely because he derived his knowledge (and confessed it openly) from the Orient. The idealism of Theosophy is nearest to the philosophy of the German philosopher, von Schelling, who taught (principally) that truth was to be perceived by receding inwards and taking it from the Spirit, and that the outward world is 'dead mind' or perhaps rather inert mind - not the mind of the thinker obviously, but the mind of the Deity. Now this is called 'objective idealism' because it recognizes the external object as having existence; it is not non-existent, as absolute idealism would put it. Schelling's ideas come nearest but by no means equal the grandiose [20] teaching which our great Teachers have taught us is the Truth.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky says on page 631 of the first volume of The Secret Doctrine:

Esoteric philosophy, teaching an objective Idealism - though it regards the objective Universe and all in it as Maya, temporary illusion - draws a practical distinction between collective illusion, Mahamaya, from the purely metaphysical standpoint, and the objective relations in it between various conscious Egos so long as this illusion lasts.

The teaching, as all older students of the Esoteric School know - and I believe that many of them are here present this evening - is that Maya is thus called from the action of Mula-prakriti, or root-nature, the coordinate principle of that other line of coactive consciousness which we call Para-brahman. We remember that we discussed these questions at our former meeting, and we say that from the moment when manifestation begins, it acts dualistically, that is to say, that everything in Nature from that point onwards is crossed by pairs of opposites, such as long and short, high and low, night and day, good and evil, consciousness and non-consciousness, etc. - and that all these things are essentially mayavic or illusory - real while they last, but the lasting is not eternal. It is through and by these pairs of opposites that the self-conscious soul learns Truth.

What is the basis of morals? This is the most important question that can be asked of any system of thought. Is morality based on the dicta of man? Is morality based on the conviction in most men's hearts that for human safety it is necessary to have certain abstract rules which it is merely convenient to follow? Are we mere opportunists? or is morality, ethics, based on Truth, which it is not merely expedient for man to follow, but needful, necessary? Surely upon the latter!

And in the third Fundamental Postulate which we read at the opening of our study this evening, we find, as was before said, the very elements, the very fundamentals, of a system of morality greater than which, profounder than which, more persuasive than which, perhaps, it would be impossible to imagine anything.

On what, then, is morality based? And by morality I mean not merely the opinion which some pseudo-philosophers have, that morality is more or less that which is 'good for the community', based on the mere meaning of the Latin word mores, 'good customs', as opposed to bad. No! morality is that instinctive hunger of the human heart to do righteousness, to do good to every man because it is good and satisfying and ennobling to do so.

When man realizes that he is one with all that is, inwards and outwards, high and low; that he is one with them, not merely [21] as members of a community are one, not merely as individuals of an army are one, but like the molecules of our own flesh, like the atoms of the molecule, like the electrons of the atom, composing one unity - not a mere union but a spiritual unity - then he sees Truth.

Everyone of us belongs to, and is an inhering part of, that Sublime and Ineffable Mystery - the ALL - which contains and is individual and spiritual unity.

We have all of us one inward universal Self, and each one has also his individual ego. The ego springs from the Self and the Self is the Ineffable, the Inmost of the Inmost, one in all of us - giving each one of us that sense of selfhood; although by extension of meaning we also speak, and properly speak, of the 'lower self', because this is a tiny ray from the Highest. Even the evil man, as our present great Teacher has taught us, has in himself not merely the spark of the divine, but the very ray of divinity itself: he is both the selfish ego and the Universal Self.

Why then are we taught that when we attain selflessness, we attain the Divine? Precisely because selflessness is the attribute of the Paramatman, the Universal Self, where all personality vanishes. Paramatman is a Sanskrit compound, meaning highest or supreme self.

If we examine our own spirits, if we reach inwards, if we stretch ourselves inwards, as it were, towards the Inmost, every one of us may know that as he goes farther, farther, farther in, the self becomes selfless, the light becomes pure glory.

What a thought, that in the heart of each one of us there dwells, there lives, the Ever-Unfolding, the Constant, the Eternal, the Changeless, knowing no death, knowing no sorrow, the very divinity of all! How it dignifies human life! What courage does it give to us! How does it clear away all of the old moldy superstitions! What unspeakable visions of Reality, of the Truth, do we obtain when we go inwards, after having emptied the mind, as Bernard says, of all the mental trash that encumbers it!

These are the doctrines of our Teachers; our present Outer Head is telling us it daily, hinting at it in this way and in that way, using these words and those words, taking the opportunity on every occasion that presents itself to awaken us, to instill these eternal truths into us.

When man has reached the state where he realizes this and has so 'emptied his mind' that it is filled only with the Self Itself, with the selfless selfhood of the Eternal - what did the ancients call this state? What did they call such a man himself? They called the state, 'Bodhi'; and they called the human, 'Buddha'; and the organ in and by which it was manifested, 'Buddhi'. All these words came from a Sanskrit root, meaning to awaken. [22] When man has awakened from the living death in which we live, when he has cast off the toils of mind and flesh and, to use the old Christian term, has put on the 'garments of eternity', then he has awakened, he is a Buddha. And the ancient Brahmanical teachings, found today even in the Vedanta, state that he has become one with - not 'absorbed' as is constantly translated - but has become one with the Self of selves, with the Paramatman, the Supreme Self.

Hearken a moment to the wisdom of the ancient Orient, not the voice of modern Brahmanism (excepting the Vedanta) but to a book which was ancient before our ancestors knew anything higher than the quasi-barbaric ideas which Europe had two thousand years ago.

We read from the Chhanadogya-Upanishad, one of the most important of the 108 or more Upanishads. The very word 'Upanishad' signifies 'Esoteric treatise'. We read from the eighth lecture, seventh, eighth, and ninth sections. They contain such truth that the Teacher has permitted us to take up our time in reading it.

"Prajapati said" - we interrupt by saying that Prajapati is a Sanskrit word meaning governor or lord or master of progeny. The word is applied to many of the Vedic gods, but in particular to Brahm_ - that is to say the third step from Para-brahman - the evolver-creator, the first and most recondite figure of the triad consisting of Brahm_, Vishnu, and Shiva. Brahm_ is the Emanator or Evolver, Vishnu the Sustainer or Preserver, and Shiva, which may be translated euphemistically perhaps as 'beneficent', the Regenerator. This name is very obscure. However:

Prajapati said: "The Self which is free from sin, free from old age, from death and grief, from hunger and thirst, which desires nothing but what it ought to desire, and imagines nothing but what it ought to imagine, that it is which we must search out, that it is which we must try to understand. He who has searched out that Self and understands it, obtains all worlds and all desires."

We interrupt to ask why? Because this Self of selves, this Inmost, is all worlds: it is All, it is Everything. Now to quote:

The Devas [gods] and Asuras [demons] both heard these words, and said: "Well, let us search for that Self by which, if one has searched it out, all worlds and all desires are obtained."

Thus saying Indra went from the Devas, Virochana from the Asuras, and both, without having communicated with each other, approached Prajapati, holding fuel in their hands, as is the custom for pupils approaching their master.

They dwelt there as pupils for thirty-two years. Then Prajapati asked them: "For what purpose have you dwelt here?" [23]

They replied: "A saying of yours is being repeated, viz. 'the Self which is free from sin, free from old age, from death and grief, from hunger and thirst, which desires nothing but what it ought to desire, and imagines nothing but what it ought to imagine, that it is which we must search out, that it is which we must try to understand. He who has searched out that Self and understands it, obtains all worlds and all desires.' Now we both have dwelt here because we wish is for that Self."

Prajapati said to them: "The person that is seen in the eye, that is the Self. This is what I have said. This is the immortal, the fearless, this is Brahman."

Interrupting: the Self that is seen in the eye is a figure of speech not infrequently found in the ancient Sanskrit writings; it signifies that sense of an indwelling presence that one sees when he looks into the eyes of another.

They asked: "Sir, he who is perceived in the water, and he who is perceived in a mirror, who is he?"

He replied: "He himself indeed is seen in all these."

(Eighth Section) "Look at your Self in a pan of water, and whatever you do not understand of your Self, come and tell me."

They looked in the water-pan. Then Prajapati said to them:

"What do you see?"

They said: "We both see the self thus altogether, a picture even to the very hairs and nails."

Prajapati said to them: "After you have adorned yourselves, look again into the water-pan."

They, after having adorned themselves, having put on their best clothes and cleaned themselves, looked into the water-pan.

Prajapati said: "What do you see?"

They said: "Just as we are, well adorned, with our best clothes and clean, thus we are both there, Sir, well adorned, with our best clothes and clean."

Prajapati said "That is the Self, this is the immortal, the fearless, this is Brahman."

Then both went away satisfied in their hearts.

And Prajapati, looking after them, said: "They both go away without having perceived and without having known the Self, and whoever of these two, whether Devas or Asuras, will follow this doctrine will perish."

Interrupting: they saw Maya and not the Self.

Now Virochana, satisfied in his heart, went to the Asuras and preached that doctrine to them, that the self (the body) alone is to be worshiped, that the self (the body) alone is to be served, and that he who worships the self, and serves the self, gains both worlds, this and the next.

Therefore they call even now a man who does not give alms here, who has no faith, and offers no sacrifices, an Asura, for this is the doctrine of Asuras. They deck out the body of the dead with perfumes, [24] flowers, and fine raiment by way of ornament, and think they will thus conquer that world.

(Ninth Section) But Indra, before he had returned to the Devas, saw this difficulty.

Interrupting: the difficulty now comes which Indra saw.

As this self (the shadow in the water) is well adorned, when the body is well adorned, well dressed, when the body is well dressed, well cleaned, if the body is well cleaned, that self will also be blind, if the body is blind, lame, if the body is lame, crippled if the body is crippled, and will perish in fact as soon as the body perishes. Therefore I see no good in this (doctrine).

Taking fuel in his hand he came again as a pupil to Prajapati. Prajapati said to him: "Maghavat [Indra], as you went away with Virochana, satisfied in your heart, for what purpose did you come back?"

He said: "Sir, as this self (the shadow) is well adorned, when the body is well adorned, well dressed, when the body is well dressed, well cleaned, if the body is well cleaned, that self will also be blind, if the body is blind, lame if the body is lame, crippled if the body is crippled, and will perish in fact as soon as the body perishes. Therefore I see no good in this (doctrine)."

"So it is indeed, Maghavat," replied Prajapati; "but I shall explain him (the true Self) further to you. Live with me another thirty-two years."

Indra was able to see beyond the maya of the personal self, and therefore was searching for the Real, for the True, the Self Itself.

The translation is Max Muller's. It may be well to add in conclusion that all translations which have been made and may hereafter be made are made by ourself, from any one of the ancient languages, and if any quotation is taken from another translator, his name will be given. [25]

Chapter IV

FROM PRIMORDIAL POINT TO UNIVERSE AND MAN. HOW DOES MANIFESTATION ARISE? MANVANTARA AND PRALAYA.

The Scintillas are the "Souls," and these Souls appear in the threefold form of Monads (units), atoms, and gods - according to our teaching. "Every atom becomes a visible complex unit (a molecule), and once attracted into the sphere of terrestrial activity, the Monadic Essence, passing through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, becomes man." (Esoteric Catechism.) Again, "God, Monad, and Atom are the correspondences of Spirit, Mind, and Body (Atma, Manas, and Sthula-sharira) in man." In their septenary aggregation they are the "Heavenly Man" (see Kabala for the latter term); thus, terrestrial man is the provisional reflection of the Heavenly ¼ "The Monads (Jivas) are the Souls of the Atoms, both are a fabric in which the Chohans (Dhyanis, gods) clothe themselves when a form is needed." (Esoteric Catechism.)

- Secret Doctrine, I, 619

Para-brahman (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 (Para-brahman) which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective.

¼

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." 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."

- Secret Doctrine, I, 15, 16

Before we open our study of The Secret Doctrine this evening, it should be said that the Teacher has asked me to repeat what was before stated with reference to the nature of these studies, that is, that they are a simplification of The Secret Doctrine in the sense of an explanation and unfolding of the meaning of the teachings that the book contains; and in order to achieve these ends, it will be of course necessary to bring to bear upon these doctrines for comparison and in order to show analogy or identity, lines of thought from [26] the great religions of the world and from the great minds of ancient times; because these, in their essence, have sprung from the central source of men's thought and religion which we today call Theosophy.

Yet before we can really embark upon the study of The Secret Doctrine itself, as a book, it will be necessary during the course of our studies to clear from our path certain stumbling-blocks which are in the way of each of us; certain ideas and so-called principles of thought which have been instilled into our minds from childhood, and which, on account of the psychological effect they have on our minds, really prevent us from grasping the truths of Being that Helena Petrovna Blavatsky has so masterly given us in The Secret Doctrine.

In addition, it will be necessary to investigate certain very ancient principles of thought, and to penetrate more deeply into the real meaning of the ancient religions and philosophies than has ever been done in any modern books, because those books have been written by men who know nothing about the Esoteric Philosophy, men who were mostly rebels against the barren ecclesiasticism of the Christian Church; who, in order to gain freedom from those chains of ecclesiasticism, actually went too far the other way, and saw nothing but priestcraft and evil-doing in these old religions, and in the acts and teachings of the men who taught them, priests, philosophers, or scientists.

We really, also, cannot understand The Secret Doctrine unless we have made these preliminary studies. We may read it as a book, as we would take down a book from the shelf in the public library and read it, but in doing so we do not get the essence, the heart, the core of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's meaning.

Another point always to keep in mind is, that we are, as the Teacher has told us more than once in these meetings, actually assembled here as fellow-students and members of the Inner School - we are undertaking the study of the very doctrines which formed the core of the heart of the teachings of the Mysteries of ancient days. These Mysteries were divided into two general parts, the Lesser Mysteries and the Greater.

The Lesser Mysteries were very largely composed of dramatic rites or ceremonies, with some teaching; the Greater Mysteries were composed of, or conducted almost entirely on the ground of, study, and later were proved by personal experience in initiation. In the latter was explained - among other things - the secret meaning of the mythologies of the old religions, as for instance the Greek.

The active and nimble mind of the Greeks produced a mythology which for grace and beauty is perhaps without equal, but it nevertheless is very difficult to explain; the Mysteries of Samothrace [27] and of Eleusis - the greater ones - explained among other things what these myths meant. These myths formed the basis of the exoteric religions; but note well that exotericism does not mean that the thing which is taught exoterically is in itself false, but merely that it is a teaching given without the key to it: such teaching is symbolic, illusory, touching on the truth: the truth is there, but without the key to it - which is the esoteric meaning - it yields no proper sense.

We open our study of The Secret Doctrine, this evening, by reading from Volume I, page 43, second and third paragraphs:

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 it is 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."

A fortnight ago we were studying the question of Maya and the relationship of the inner being of man to the Ineffable Essence; it remains for us briefly to study how man, who has a personal element in him, sprang forth from the very essence of impersonality, if one may so call it. We can say at once that the Infinite and Impersonal never becomes finite and personal. How, then, does the spirit of man (already the first film over the face of the Absolute, as it were) come into being? Let us remember that the manifestation of worlds, and, deductively, of the beings who inhabit those worlds, took place in the extension of matter popularly called 'space'. A center, first, is 'localized' - a very poor word to use! - and is, de facto, not infinite, not eternal; if it were, it could neither manifest nor come into outward existence, for this is limitation. The Eternal, the Ineffable, the Infinite, does not ever manifest at all, either partially or in toto. Words themselves are misleading in treating of these subjects; but what can we say? We must use human expressions in order to convey our Meaning.

How then arose manifestation? The Ancient Wisdom tells [28] us the following: In the seeds of life remaining in space from a planet which had previously run its Manvantara and had passed into latency or Prakriti Pralaya - there came (when the hour struck for manifestation to begin again) into being in these seeds of life the activity called in Sanskrit trishna (thirst, if you like, desire for manifestation), thus forming the center around which was to gather a new universe. It had by karmic necessity its particular place in space and was to produce its particular kind of progeny: gods, monads, atoms, men, and the three elementary - or elemental - kingdoms of the world as we see it around us: from the karmic seeds which were brought over and which were lying latent from the preceding Manvantara.

The Universe reembodies itself (it does not 'reincarnate', which means coming into flesh), following precisely the analogical lines, mutatis mutandis, that the soul of man does in reincarnating, making the necessary allowances for varying conditions. As man is the product of his former life, or rather of his lives, so is a universe, a solar system, a planet, an animal, an atom - the very great as well as the so-called infinitesimal - the fruitage, the flower, of what went before. Each of these bears its load of karma precisely as the soul of man does.

The teachings relating to the evolving of the inner planes of Being, which precede and produce the outer planes, are very esoteric, as our Teachers have told us, and belong to a study higher than we venture to approach at the present time, but we can form some general idea of how it is done, as has already been said, by analogy and by comparison with the life of man.

When manifestation begins, what is called 'duality' supervenes. It would seem to be a procession something like this, were we to symbolize it by the diagram shown.

Consider this uppermost straight line a hypothetical plane: it may be, humanly speaking, immeasurable miles in depth or in extension, but mere extension has nothing to do with the general concept. Above it stretches the infinitude of the Boundless, and below the diagram is the Boundless, and inwards through it is the Boundless, interpenetrating everywhere; but for purposes of our present illustration we will say that it is 'above'.

Let us place anywhere we may please a point A, another one A¢ here, and a third A² there. We have now reached, after a long period of latency or Pralaya has passed, a period of manifestation or Manvantara; such a point as A, or A¢ or A², we will call the Primordial Point, the first breaking-through into the cosmic plane below; the spirit-force above arising into activity in the seeds of being and forcing its way down into the lower life of manifestation - not pushed nor moved by anything outside of itself - is driven into manifestation by the karmic life of its own essential [29] [30] being, by the thirst of desire or blossoming forth, like a fresh upspringing in early summer of a flower, in which the tendency in manifestation is outward. This first appearance is conceived of in philosophy as the First or Primordial Point; this is the name given to it in the Jewish Theosophy called the Qabbalah.

From the moment that the Point, as it were the seed of life, the germ of being - all these are but names for the one thing, the spiritual atom, the spiritual monad, call it what you will - from the moment that it bursts through into the lower life as it were, differentiation or duality sets in and continues thenceforward to the end of the Great Cycle, forming the two side-lines of the diagrammatic triangle. We may call one A-B the Brahm_ (masculine), and the other A-C the Prakriti or Nature (feminine). Brahm_ is frequently also called Purusha, a Sanskrit word meaning Man, the Ideal Man, like the Qabbalistic Adam Qadmon, the primordial entity of space, containing in Prakriti or Nature all the septenary scales of manifested being.

At all times, from the very first instant when duality sets in, there is an unceasing attraction between these two lines or poles, and they join. Remember that this symbol is merely a paradigm, that it is merely a paradigmatic scheme or representation. Absolutely, it would be absurd to say that life and beings proceed into manifestation as geometric triangles only; but we can represent it symbolically to our minds in this fashion. When these two join, the Father and the Mother, spirit (or Reality) and illusion (or maya), Brahm_ (or Purusha) and Prakriti (or Nature), their union produces the Son. In the Christian scheme they give the spiritual or primordial Son the name of Christos; in the Egyptian scheme Osiris and Isis (or her twin sister Nephthys - which is merely the more recondite side of Isis) produce their son Horus, the spiritual Sun, physically the Sun or the Light-Bringer; and so similarly in the different schemes that the ancient world has handed down to us.

From the interaction of these three, by interpolar action, by the spiritual forces working in and out, two other lines fall downwards - according to the mystical way in which this scheme of emanation is taught - and they also join and form the square - or the manifested Kosmos.

Now from the Central or Primordial Point is born or proceeds the Sun of Life. By It and through It is our union with the Ineffable. Man may be down here a physical being on earth, or anywhere else a luminous, ethereal entity: but it matters not where he is or what his body: for once the seven principles of his being are in action, man the thinking entity, is produced, linked by his seventh principle, and his sixth, with that Sun of Life. [31]

To every 'man' of the unnamable multitudes of self-conscious beings belonging to this Kosmos or Universe, there extend respectively upwards or downwards, two natures: one of which is a ray of spirit connecting him with the divine of the Divinest, and from that extending upwards in all directions and linking us in every sense of the word with the Ineffable, the Boundless, which is, therefore, the core of our being, the center of our essence.

The appearance and evolution of man as a human being on this planet Terra, follow the same line of Nature's wonderful analogical working that a planet does in space, or a Sun does with its brothers of a solar system, the planets. Man, thus being in very truth a child of Infinity, the offspring of the Ineffable, has latent within himself the capacity of the Universe.

And on this fact depends what we have so often been told of the getting of 'powers'. The very method by which we do not get them, the very way of missing and losing them, is to run after them, strange as it may sound, because this is the impulse of vanity and selfishness. If we, then, selfishly seek them, what do we get? We get the action of the lower powers upon us; it is a growing thirst for sensation which we do get, and this leads us towards and into the nether abyss of Matter, the opposite pole of the Boundless, if it is followed.

But in the great Soul who has passed by and thrown off this thirst for personal acquisition, in whom the grasping spirit for self is no longer dominant, who feels his Oneness with everything that is, who feels that every human being, yea the very pismire that laboriously crawls up a sand-knob only to tumble down again, is himself - no metaphor but an actuality: a different body, but the same life, the same essence, the same things latent in it as in him - in him indeed lies the power of ascending the ladder of Being, drawn by the link with the Highest in his innermost nature. He and they are both filled full of latent powers and forces, and he and they may become in time very Gods, blazing, as it were, with power like the Sun; and the only way is utter selflessness, because selflessness, paradoxical as it may sound, is the only way to the Self, the Self Universal. The personal self shuts the door before us.

Of course we cannot crush out of our being the sense of selfhood, nor is that desirable; but in the lowest aspect it takes upon itself the forms of all selfishness, until the being of the man who follows the 'left-hand path', as they call it, or the path downwards, ends in what the early Christians - stealing from the Greeks - called Tartarus, the place of disintegration.

When man ascends beyond the reach of matter, he has cast off the bondage of Maya, or illusion. Let us remember that when [32] manifestation opens, Prakriti becomes or rather is Maya; and Brahm_, the Father, is the spirit of the consciousness, or the Individuality. These two are really one, yet they are also the two aspects of the one Life-ray acting and reacting upon itself, much as a man himself can say, "I am I". He has the faculty of self-analysis, or self-division; all of us know it, we can feel it in ourselves; one side of us, in our thoughts, can be called the Prakriti or the material element, or the Mayavi element, or the element of illusion; and the other, the spirit, the individuality, the God within.

Yet as man sees life, as he runs his eye down the scale of beings, he sees it through Maya; in fact, he is the child of Maya on one side, as he is of the Spirit on the other. Both are in him. His lesson is to learn that the two are one and that they are not separate; then he no longer is deceived. His lesson is to understand that Maya, the great Deluder, is the famous snake or serpent of antiquity, which leads us out from the 'Garden of Eden' (employing a Biblical metaphor), through experience and suffering to learn what illusion is - and is not.

Also matter, which is the mayavi manifestation of Prakriti on this plane (and I mean here physical matter), itself is not substantial. The most dense and rigid things we can think of, perhaps, are the metals, and actually they are, perhaps, the most porous, the most foamlike, the most evanescent, as seen from the other or higher side of being, from the other side of the plane. So well is this now beginning to be understood that even our more intuitive scientists are telling us that 'space', which seems to us so thin, and tenuous, is in reality more rigid than the hardest steel. Why is it that electricity prefers metals as a path, to common wood, or cotton-wool, or some other such thing?

Before we go farther, it would seem necessary to study a little what we mean by the words Manvantara and Pralaya. Let us take Manvantara first. This word is a Sanskrit compound, and as such means nothing more than 'between two Manus'; more literally, 'Manu - between'. 'Manu', or 'Dhyani-Chohan,' in the Esoteric System, is the entities collectively which appear first at the beginning of manifestation and from which, like a cosmic tree, everything is derived or born. Manu actually is the (spiritual) tree of life of any Planetary Chain, of manifested being. Manu is thus (in one sense) the third logos; as the second is the Father-Mother, the Brahm_ and Prakriti; and the first is what we call the Unmanifest Logos, or Brahman (neuter) and its cosmic veil Pradhana.

Pradhana is also a Sanskrit compound, meaning that which is 'placed before'; and from this, it has become a technical term in philosophy, and means what we would call the first [33] filmy appearance of root-matter, 'placed before', or rather around, Brahman, as a Veil. Root-matter is mula-prakriti, root-nature, and corresponding to it as the other or active pole, is Brahman (neuter). That from which the First or Unmanifest Logos proceeds is called Para-brahman, and Mula-prakriti is Its Kosmic Veil. Para-brahman is another Sanskrit compound, meaning 'beyond Brahman'. Mula-prakriti, again, as said above, is a Sanskrit compound meaning mula-root, prakriti-nature.

First, then, the Boundless, symbolized by the ¡; then Para-brahman, and Mula-prakriti its other pole; then lower, Brahman and its Veil Pradhana; then Brahm_-prakriti or Purusha-prakriti (Prakriti being also maya); the manifested Universe appearing through and by this last: Brahm_-prakriti, Father-Mother. In other words, the second logos, Father-Mother, is the producing cause of manifestation through their son, which in a Planetary Chain is Manu. A Manvantara, therefore, is the period of activity between any two Manus, on any plane, since in any such period there is a root-Menu at the beginning of Evolution, and a seed-Menu at its close, preceding a Pralaya.

Pralaya: this is also a Sanskrit compound, formed of laya, from a Sanskrit root li, and the prefix pra. What does li mean? It means to dissolve, to melt away, to liquefy, as when one pours water upon a cube of salt or of sugar. The cube of salt or of sugar vanishes in the water; it dissolves, changes its form; and this may be taken as a figure, as a symbol, of what Pralaya is: a crumbling away, a vanishing away of matter into something else which is yet in it, and surrounds it, and interpenetrates it. That is Pralaya, usually translated as the state of latency, state of rest, state of repose, between two Manvantaras or lifecycles. If we remember distinctly the meaning of the Sanskrit word, our minds take a new bent in direction, follow a new thought; we get new ideas; we penetrate into the arcanum of the thing that takes place.

Now there are many kinds of Manvantaras; also many kinds of Pralayas. There are, for instance, the Universal Manvantara and the Universal Pralaya, and these are called Prakritika, because it is the Pralaya or vanishing away, melting away, of Prakriti or Nature. Then there is the Solar Pralaya. Sun in Sanskrit is Surya, and the adjective from this is Saurya; hence, the Saurya Pralaya, Saurya Pralaya, the Pralaya of the solar system. Then, thirdly, there is the terrestrial or Planetary Pralaya. The Sanskrit word for earth is Bhumi, and the adjective corresponding to this is Bhaumika: hence, the Bhaumika Pralaya. Then we can say that there is the Pralaya or death of the individual man. Man is purusha; the corresponding adjective is paurusha: hence, the Paurusha Pralaya, or death of man. So, then, we have given examples of [34] various pralayas: first of the Prakritika, or dissolution of Nature; next the Solar Pralaya, the Saurya; next the Bhaumika or the passing away of the earth; and then the Paurusha, or the death of man. And these adjectives apply equally well to the several kinds of Manvantaras, or lifecycles.

There is another kind of Pralaya which is called Nitya. In its general sense, it means 'constant' or 'continuous', and can be exemplified by the constant or continuous change - life and death - of the cells of our bodies - it is a state in which the entity, the indwelling and dominating entity, remains, but its different principles and rupas undergo continuous change. Hence it is called Nitya. It applies to the body of man, to the outer sphere of earth, to the earth itself, to the solar system, and to all Nature.

It is likewise represented by a symbol that our first great Teacher, H.P. Blavatsky, has given us from the Oriental Wisdom, the out-breathing and in-breathing of Brahm_. This symbol, by the way, is not solely Indian. It is found in the ancient Egyptian texts, where one or another of the Gods, Khnumu, for instance, breathes forth from his mouth the cosmic egg. It is also found alluded to in the Orphic Hymns, where the cosmic serpent breathes forth as an egg the things which are to be, or the future universe. Everywhere, especially where ancient religion or philosophy has longest retained its hold, there do we find the symbol of the cosmic egg. Religions of less age and of less influence do not so often employ it. The cosmic egg was found as a symbol in Egypt; it was found in Hindustan; it was found in Peru, where the 'Mighty Man', the Sanskrit Purusha, the Ideal Man, the Paradigmatic Man, was called Manco Capac, and his wife and sister was called Mama Oello, which means 'Mother-egg'; these brought the universe into being, becoming later the Sun and the Moon respectively.

Why did the Ancients symbolize the beginning of manifestation under the form of an egg? Let us ask: Is it not a fine symbol? As the egg producing the chick contains the germ of life (laid by its mother, the hen, and fructified by the other pole of being) so the cosmic egg, which is the Primordial Point of which we spoke in the early part of our study this evening, also contains the germ of life. The egg itself also can be called the germ of life, and the germ of life within the egg can be called the inner germ - that more subtle point which receives those impulses of which we have spoken before, coming down from the highest center of communication between the outward world and the inner, the lines of inner magnetic action and reaction. And when the chick within the egg is formed, it bursts its shell and comes forth into the light of day, precisely as we saw was the case with the Primordial Point. When the karmic hour had struck, it burst forth, as it were, into [35] other spheres of manifestation and activity. The Ancients, carrying the figure still farther, even spoke of Heaven as a domelike affair, as the upper part of an egg-shell.

Let us think more deeply of these ancient symbols. The Ancients were not fools. There is a deep meaning in these olden figures of speech. Why did Homer speak of his Olympus, the abode of Zeus and the Gods, as being brazen, like brass, one of the hardest and most intractable things that the Greeks knew? Why did Hesiod speak of the same as made of iron? Because they realized that the life here in matter and of matter, was based upon an evanescent substratum, and that the lower world of matter is, as has been so often said, evanescent, foamy, full of holes, as it were, and unreal. [36]

Chapter V

THE ESOTERIC TEACHINGS AND THE NEBULAR THEORY. GODS BEHIND THE KOSMOS: WHY NATURE IS IMPERFECT.

To make of Science an integral whole necessitates, indeed, the study of spiritual and psychic, as well as physical, Nature. Otherwise it will ever be like the anatomy of man, discussed of old by the profane from the point of view of his shell-side and in ignorance of the interior work ¼

¼ The duty of the Occultist lies with the Soul and Spirit of Cosmic Space, not merely with its illusive appearance and behavior. That of official physical science is to analyze and study its shell - the Ultima Thule of the Universe and man, in the opinion of Materialism.

With the latter, Occultism has nought to do. It is only with the theories of such men of learning as Kepler, Kant, Oersted, and Sir W. Herschel, who believed in a Spiritual world, that Occult Cosmogony might treat, and attempt a satisfactory compromise. But the views of those physicists differed vastly from the latest modern speculations. Kant and Herschel had in their mind's eye speculations upon the origin and the final destiny, as well as the present aspect, of the Universe, from a far more philosophical and psychic standpoint; whereas modern Cosmology and Astronomy now repudiate anything like research into the mysteries of being. The result is what might be expected: complete failure and inextricable contradictions in the thousand and one varieties of so-called scientific theories, and in this theory as in all others.

The nebular hypothesis, involving the theory of the existence of a primeval matter, diffused in a nebulous condition, is of no modern date in astronomy as everyone knows. Anaximenes, of the Ionian school, had already taught that the sidereal bodies were formed through the progressive condensation of a primordial pregenetic matter, which had almost a negative weight, and was spread out through Space in an extremely sublimated condition.

- Secret Doctrine, I, 588-590

With the Teacher's permission there are three points which it would seem necessary to touch upon slightly, before we begin our evening's study.

The first is with regard to the question of morals, that is to say, right conduct based upon right views, right thinking. We have touched upon this matter at nearly every meeting of this Lodge, because the line, the path, of duty - of right conduct based upon right views - is the Path of all who would tread onward to the Ancient Wisdom and to the Ancient Mysteries. Our Teachers have told us this again and again, and the great thinkers, philosophers, and religious men, of all ages, have told us the same thing.

These meetings, as our present Teacher has told us so often, are not for purposes of intellectual study only, nor to amuse ourselves with abstruse and mystic knowledge; but mainly, firstly, principally, for the purpose of gaining a right foundation for right views, which shall govern human conduct. When we have this [37] foundation we have the beginnings of all laws; we can affect the world not only by our own views and by our own acts, but by those of other members who will come in and swell our number; and, further, we shall be able in time to affect for good even the governments of the world, not directly and immediately perhaps, but at least indirectly and in the course of time. All the horrible things that perplex and confuse and distress mankind today arise wholly, almost, out of a lack of right views, and hence, a lack of right conduct. We have the testimony of the Greek and Roman initiates and thinkers that the Ancient Mysteries of Greece taught men, above everything else, to live rightly and to have a noble hope for the life after death.

Next, the second point: in our last meeting we touched upon the Ancient Mysteries in the ancient Mystery Schools, and we took as examples those of Greece, from which the Romans derived their own Mysteries - but we touched upon one point only, the mythological aspect; and this mythological aspect comprises only a portion - a relatively small portion - of what was taught in the Mystery Schools, principally at Samothrace and at Eleusis. At Samothrace was taught the same Mystery Teaching that was current elsewhere in Greece, but here it was more developed and recondite; and the foundation of these Mystery Teachings was morals. The noblest and greatest men of ancient times in Greece were initiates in the Mysteries of these two seats of esoteric knowledge.

In other countries farther to the east they had other Mystery Schools or "colleges", and this word "college" by no means necessarily meant a mere temple or building; it meant "association", as in our modern word colleague, "associate". The Teutonic tribes of northern Europe, the Germanic tribes - which included Scandinavia - had their Mystery-colleges also; and teacher and neophytes stood on the bosom of Mother-Earth, under Father-Ether, the boundless sky, or in subterranean receptacles, and taught and learned. We state here at once that the core, the heart, the center, of the Ancient Mysteries was the abstruse problems dealing with Death. These teachings we still have, and when the Teacher says that it is time to give them out, they will be forthcoming; she is the judge as to when this shall be.

The third point is with regard to the paradigms or diagrams which we may find necessary to use from time to time in order to illustrate certain teachings. Remember that these paradigms are relative and changeable; they are not hard and fast or absolute things; this fact must be kept always clear in the mind, and around these diagrams or paradigms the mind should never be allowed to crystallize. Why? Because any paradigm, any particular combination of geometrical lines, can illustrate different [38] thoughts or things, as, for instance, the paradigm of the triangle from which hangs the square (as used at our last meeting) can apply equally as well to the highest combined principle in man, the spiritual-mental monad, as to the lower principles into which the monad falls at the beginning of incarnation or manifestation, and from which it will resurrect when the first chimes of the pralayic bells are heard in the Akasic spaces.

We will now resume our study. We take up, as our general theme, the same two paragraphs on p. 43 of Volume I of The Secret Doctrine, which we read at our last meeting: paragraphs one and two:

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."

It was the intention to take up this evening the dawn of manifestation as it is found in the "Hebrew Book of Beginnings", called Genesis, and to study this and to show its similarity and likeness, and the fundamental identity of truth on which it is based, as compared with the other religions of the world. But in view of the fact that we were obliged at our last study to touch upon the first coming-into-being of the veil cast over the face of the Ineffable, it would seem best this evening to undertake, if we have time, a short sketch of what in science is called the Nebular Theory, how far the esoteric teachings run with it, and where and when they part from it.

The Nebular Theory, as originally taught in science by the Frenchman Laplace - but derived by him from the great German thinker and philosopher, Immanuel Kant - stated that the space which is now occupied by the planets of the solar system, was originally filled with a very tenuous form of matter, in a highly incandescent (or burning) state. Let us say just here that this particular theory of Laplace as regards incandescence, has never [39] been proved, that it is not subject in all respects to mathematical demonstration, and cannot be, and that it itself, if taken as a whole, forms one of the greatest proofs against the truth of the nebular theory as it was then stated, and as it has since been modified in some degree by modern thinkers.

Laplace further stated that this nebula was in a condition of slow rotation, or circular moving, in the same direction in which the planets now move around in their orbits, and in the same direction in which the planets and the Sun now move around their axes. In other words, the present orbital revolution and rotation of the planets are derived from this mechanical, original, circular motion of the primal nebula.

Laplace further stated that this hot, immense object cooled, and as it cooled it shrank, according to a certain law of heat, and this shrinking, according to a law of dynamics, increased the velocity of rotation, and the momentum of any point on its surface. Now, as everyone knows, the parts of a wheel which are nearest the periphery, the circumference, move with the greatest momentum, and the greatest speed, though no faster, in another sense, than do the particles at the hub. This increase of rapidity in whirling around grew so great that a time came when the centrifugal force overcame the centripetal or cohesive force, and then this whirling nebula threw off a ring, and this ring also continued going around, and condensing, and finally formed a sphere or ball which became the outmost planet, Neptune. And so progressively the other planets came into being, the core of the nebula remaining as our Sun. In brief, as the nebular body contracted and condensed its matter, the same phenomenon occurred again in the same way, and thus the second outermost planet, Uranus, was thrown off, and so on until all the planets had come into being as spheres. Now some of these tenuous, still nebulous planets, by contracting and thus increasing their rotational velocity, themselves evolved rings around themselves, which in their turn were thrown off from their parent-planets, and following the same course as their parent-planets, became spheres, which thus became the satellites, the moons of the respective planets; while the center of the original nebula condensed into the (supposedly) incandescent or fiery ball which is the Sun.

When H.P. Blavatsky first brought the Theosophical teachings to the Western world, questions of cosmogony, or the beginning and primal development of the universe, came much to the fore, and she was asked, and her Teachers were also asked through her, in what respect the nebular theory ran side by side with and "corroborated" the exposition of the theory of the occultists, the esoteric theory; and the answer then given was called "an evasive answer". It aroused criticism and some angry language. [40] Why, it was asked, if the Teachers know these wonderful truths, had not they illuminated the world with the splendor of their teachings? Why did they keep them and other things hid? No teaching can be bad for man, if it is true, it was argued. Which was a very foolish argument, indeed, so far as it goes, because many teachings are true, and are yet utterly unfit for the average man to have. However, we are going to investigate that question to-night.

The nebular theory, the Teachers said, was, in its main outlines, and in certain respects only, fairly representative of what the esoteric teaching was, but it yet, for all that, had vital defects; and these defects they did not entirely specify nor did they fully outline them; but they gave clear hints where the defects lay and what they were; and they also gave a clear, logical, and concise reason for their reticence, which was obligatory and unavoidable.

Now the main defect in the theory of Laplace was - as probably the older students who are assembled here this evening know well enough - that it was a purely mechanical, purely mechanistic, purely materialistic hypothesis, in some respects uncorroborable even by mathematics, and based upon nothing but the fact that in the vast abysses of space, astronomers, investigating wastes of stellar light, found nebulae and nebulosities, and, adopting Kant's idea, argued dogmatically upon it. But, nevertheless, there was truth in the nebular theory - there was some truth. Now what is that truth? And what was the most vital defect? The most vital defect, first, was the fact - as hinted above - that it (the theory) omitted all action of spiritual beings in the universe as the drivers, the agents, the mechanics (or mechanicians) of the mechanism which undoubtedly exists. We are taught that the Esoteric Philosophy does not deny mechanical action in the Universe, but declares that where there is mechanical action there is government, or, specifically, mechanicians at work, producing the movements of the mechanism, in accordance with Karma. There must be lawgivers or law-makers or law-impulsors, if the expression may be used; and behind these there must be the Universal Life. In other words, the vital defect was that this nebular theory omitted the first truth of all Being - that the Gods were behind the Kosmos, spiritual Beings, spiritual Entities - the name matters nothing. Not God, but Gods. "Nature" is imperfect, hence of necessity makes "mistakes", because its action derives from hosts of Entities at work. What we see around us all the time is proof of it. "Nature" is not perfect. If it had sprung from the "hands of the Immutable Deity", hence perfect and immutable like its Parent, knowing no change, it would be a Perfect Work. It is much to the contrary, as we know, and its imperfections or "mistakes" arise from the fact [41] that the beings existing in and working in and controlling and making nature extend in endless hierarchies from the Inmost of the Inmost, from the Highest of the Highest, downwards forever, upwards forever, in all degrees of imperfection and of perfection, which is precisely what we see in the scenes of manifestation surrounding us. Our intuition tells us the truth concerning this, and we should trust it.

This was well known to the ancients. The Stoics expressed it and taught it in their magnificent philosophy. The Stoics of Rome and of Greece originally expressed it by what they called Theocracy. Theocracy has a compound meaning - Theos, a god, divine being, and krasis, meaning an intermingling - an intermingling of everything in the universe, intermingling with everything else, nothing possibly separable from the rest, the Whole. It is the cardinal heresy of the Oriental religions today, notably in that of the Buddhists, if a man thinks that he is separate or separable from the universe. This is their cardinal heresy, the most fundamental error that man can make. The early Christians called it the "sin against the Holy Ghost". If we look around us and if we look within, we realize that we are one entity, as it were, one great human host, one living tree of human life, woven inseparably into and from Nature, the ALL.

The next defect of the nebular theory was that the nebula was declared to be in its earliest stages incandescent, burning. The esoteric teaching is that it is indeed glowing, but glowing with a cold light, the same as, or similar to, that of the firefly, if you like. There is no more heat in a nebula than there is in the light of the firefly. This light in the nebula, this luminosity, is not from combustion of any kind; but, then, what is it from? It is from the indwelling Daivi--prakriti, "divine nature or light", in its manifestation on that plane, the same light which in sentient beings manifests in a higher form as consciousness in all its degrees, running from dull physical consciousness up through the soul and the ego: through the self up into the Selfless Self of the Paramatman, or the "Supreme Self" - a mere expression of convenience as meaning the acme or summit of a Hierarchy, because really there is no Supreme Self, which would mean a limit, hence finiteness. If there were, there would be a lowest self. Self is boundless, endless, the very heart of being, the foundation and dimensionless core of all that is.

Next, the third vital defect: The planets and the Sun were not evolved or born in the manner stated by the nebular theory. How are the Sun and the planets born?

(Let me say here by way of parenthesis, that this subject should come much later in our study, but there is a reason for referring to it now.)

Every solar or planetary body, the Sun and planets in our solar system, and [42] analogically (that is, by analogy), everywhere else, is the child or rather the result or reembodiment of a former cosmic entity, which, upon entering into its Pralaya, its Prakritika Pralaya - the dissolution of its lower principles - at the end of its long lifecycle, exists in space in the higher activity of its spiritual principles, and in the dispersion of its lowest principles, which latter latently exist in space as Skandhas, in what our Teachers have taught us is called in Sanskrit a laya-condition, from the root li, referred to in our last meeting, meaning to dissolve or to vanish away; hence, a laya-center is a "point of disappearance" - which is the Sanskrit meaning, and even the dictionary meaning; a laya-center is the mystical point where a thing disappears from one plane, if you like, and passes onwards to reappear on another plane.

To repeat an illustration which we used in our last meeting: pour water on a cube of sugar or salt, and watch it dissolve - vanish as a cube or discrete entity. It has entered its laya-state as a cube or entity of sugar or salt. The form of it has gone, and itself - the sugar or salt - has entered into something else. When the higher principles of a cosmic body enter into something else, what is that something else into which they enter? They enter into the highest cosmic aether, first, and in due course go still higher into the intense activity of the spiritual planes; there long aeons are passed in states and conditions to us almost unimaginable. In due course of time, they begin their downward course into matter again, or reembodiment, and finally, by attraction, recollect their old skandhas hitherto lying latent, and thus form for themselves a new body, by passing into manifestation through and by the laya-center where those skahdhas were waiting.

Those lower principles were meanwhile in Nirvana, what we would call Devachan after the death of man, for Devachan as a state applies not to the highest or heavenly or divine monad, but only to the middle principles of man, to the personal ego, or the personal soul, in man. Applied to us this condition is the state of Devachan - the "land of the gods", if you like; but applied to a cosmic body it is the state of Nirvana. Nirvana is a Sanskrit compound, nir, out, and vana the past-participle passive of the root va, blow, i.e., literally "blown out".

So badly has the meaning of the ancient Indian thought (and even its language, the Sanskrit) been understood, that for many years very erudite European scholars were discussing whether being "blown out" meant actual entitative annihilation or not. I remember once talking with a Chinese savant - he happened to be a Chinese Buddhist - and he told me that the state of man after death was "like this" - and he took up a lighted candle which was on the table and blew upon it, and the light went out. And he said, "That way". He was right, because he was referring to the [43] lower principles in man. They (not we, our monadic or entitative essence), they are merely the vehicle in which we live; and when we die, our physical body is "blown out", breaks up, enters into its Pralaya or dissolution, and its molecules, its particles, go into the laya-state, and pass a certain time there until Nature calls them forth again: or, to put it more accurately in another way, until the indwelling impulse in each physical monadic particle through the thirst for active being, rises forth into manifestation again, and it reenters some body of appropriate kind and of similar evolutional degree.

This is one - and only one - facet of the secret of the much misunderstood doctrine of transmigration into animals. The lower elements, the astral body and the astral dregs of the animal or physical man, become the principles - not the latent higher, but the intermediate principles - of the beast world. They are human dregs cast off by man.

Now, the cosmic dust resulting from the dissolution of a former world rests in a laya-center; while the highest principles of that world or Planetary Chain are in their Para-nirvana, and remain there until the divine thirst for active life on the highest plane of descent, which rearises in the cosmic monad of a planet or Sun, pulls, pushes, or urges, or impels, that monad to the spiritual frontiers of manifestation; and when it arrives at those frontiers, it bursts through them as it were, or breaks through, or goes through, or cycles downward through, into the plane below it, and thus again and again through many planes, till finally the cycling monad reaches and touches or lightens all those lower elements which are remaining in the laya-center: awakens them, reawakens them, revivifies them, recalls them into being, reilluminates them from within; and this produces the luminosity or nebulosity seen in so many parts of interstellar space. Therefore, it is, actually, Daivi-prakriti, "divine Nature", "divine light", in one of its lowest forms - the seventh, counting downwards - and this same light, or force, on this our plane (our Teachers have told us) in one of its very lowest forms, is electricity and magnetism. Our Teachers have also told us that the physical universe here in which we live - the stones, metals, trees, etc. - is corporealized light. They are all formed of atoms, and these atoms, so to speak, are the mystic atoms of this light, the corpuscular part of light, because light is corpuscular: it is not a mere "mode of motion" or a wave or something else. Light (our light) is a body, as much a body as electricity - one of its forms - is a body, i.e., material, or subtle matter.

Now, then, when this nebula of which we have been speaking - let us give it the scientific name - has attained the point of development or evolution downwards into manifestation where the [44] reembodying principles of the former world or cosmos, or Sun, or planet, as the case may be, have sufficiently entered into it, it begins to rotate by a characteristic energy, similar to electromagnetism, inherent in itself. Plato tells us that circular motion is one of the first signs of entitative, free, existence - a saying which is often laughed at by our young savants of science, and quondam bigwigs of a transitory era of dogmatic thinking. Plato defines being as a "body which is capable of acting and being acted upon". It is a good definition to remember, for it implies both passive and active existence - or manifestation: and he said that, with reference to the highest essence of the cosmos - the Primal Principle of which our first great Teacher speaks as the Ineffable That, as the Sanskritists call it - it is not "a" being, hence limited, possessing bounds, because neither does it act nor is it acted upon. It is All, eternally, endlessly All.

So this cosmic nebula drifts from the place where it first was evolved, the guiding impulse of Karma directing here and directing there, this luminous nebulosity moving circularly, and contracting, passing through other phases of nebular evolution, such as the spiral stage and the annular; until it becomes spherical, or rather a nebular series of concentric spheres. The nebula in space, as just said, takes often a spiral form, and from the core, the center, there stream forth branches, spiral branches, and they look like whirling wheels within wheels, and they whirl during many ages. When the time has come - when the whirling has developed pari passu with the indwelling lives and intelligences within the cosmic nebula - then the annular form appears, a form like a ring or concentric rings, with a heart in the center, and after long aeons, the central heart becomes the Sun or central body of the new solar system, and the rings the planets. These rings condense into other bodies, and these other bodies are the planets circulating around their elder brother, the Sun; elder, because he was the first to condense into a sphere.

The idea of modern scientists that the nebular Sun threw off the planets, and that the earth after partial solidification threw off the Moon, and that the other planets having moons did likewise, is not the teaching of the Esoteric Philosophy. It has never been proved, and it is criticized daily by men as eminent as those who propounded these theories. The nebular theory as propounded and modified from time to time, Science has never proved; scientists have never been able to prove why so much heat could develop and be retained in so tenuous, so diaphanous an object. Why, if the luminosity arises from combustion of gaseous matter, does it not burn itself out? It had billions of years, countless ages, in which to burn out, and the sky is dotted with nebulae which have not burned out yet; and similarly with regard to the [45] Sun. The Sun is formed of the same matter as the nebulae, later becoming cometary matter. The Sun does not burn; it has no more heat in it than has a pane of glass which transmits the solar ray.

The Sun is not in combustion: it is the generator and storehouse of the mighty ocean of force and forces which feed our entire solar system. Matter is corporealized or crystallized Force; Force, inversely, may be called subtle Mater - or matter in its fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh states, for Force and Matter are One. The Sun is a storehouse and generator of Forces, and is itself Force in its first and second states - i.e., matter in its sixth and seventh states, counting upward. We shall study this subject more fully in a later lecture.

These are a bare outline of the teachings that we have received on the subjects treated of. The Moon comprises another subject, which will merit in due time very particular study, indeed.

First a nebula; then a comet; then a planet; but the above sketch outlines the state of a solar system in the first era of the Solar Manvantara. Now let us take any one planet and shortly, briefly, touch upon the nature of a Planetary Manvantara. The Sun, of course, remains throughout the Solar Manvantara. It began with it, and when the solar system comes to an end, its (the Sun's) Pralaya will also come. But the planets are different in certain respects. They have their Manvantara also, each one of them, lasting usually many billions of years; and when a Planetary Chain or body has reached its term, when its hour strikes for going into rest, or into Pralaya or dissolution, the Manvantara ends, and Pralaya begins, but in this case it is not a Prakritika Pralaya, which, you remember, we alluded to in our last meeting - it signifies or means the dissolution of Nature. The planetary body remains dead, as is now the Moon itself, but it sends its principles (precisely as the former solar system did - which we were studying) into a laya-center in space, and they remain there for "innumerable ages". Meanwhile the other planets of that solar system go through their cycles; but the planet which we have picked out for illustration, when its time comes again to descend into Manvantara, follows its line of development in precisely the same way as outlined before. It descends again into manifestation through the inner divine planetary thirst for active life and is directed to the same solar system, and to the same spot, relatively speaking, that its predecessor (its former self) had, attracted thither by magnetic and other forces on the lower planes. It forms, in the beginning of its course, or journey, downwards, a planetary nebula; after many aeons, it becomes a comet, following ultimately an elliptic orbit, around the Sun of our solar system, thus being "captured", as our scientists wrongly say, [46] by the Sun; and finally condenses into a planet in its earliest physical condition. The comets of short periodic time are on their way to rebecoming planets in our solar system, provided they successfully elude the many dangers that beset such ethereal bodies before condensation and hardening of their matter shield them from destruction. [47]

Chapter VI

THE DAWN OF MANIFESTATION: LAYA-CENTERS, A CONSCIOUS UNIVERSE - SPIRITUALLY PURPOSIVE. STOIC DOCTRINE OF THE INTERMINGLING OF ALL BEINGS: "LAWS OF NATURE." PHILOSOHPICAL POLYTHEISM AND THE DOCTRINE OF HIERARCHIES.

(a) The hierarchy of Creative Powers is divided into seven (or 4 and 3) esoteric, within the twelve great Orders, recorded in the twelve signs of the Zodiac, the seven of the manifesting scale being connected, moreover, with the Seven Planets. All this is subdivided into numberless groups of divine Spiritual, semi-Spiritual, and ethereal Beings.

The Chief Hierarchies among these are hinted at in the great Quaternary, or the "four bodies and the three faculties" of Brahm_ exoterically, and the Panchasyam, the five Brahm_s, or the five Dhyani-buddhas in the Buddhist system.

- Secret Doctrine, I, 213

¼ The refusal to admit in the whole Solar system of any other reasonable and intellectual beings on the human plane, than ourselves, is the greatest conceit of our age. All that science has a right to affirm is that there are no invisible Intelligences living under the same conditions as we do. It cannot deny point-blank the possibility of there being worlds within worlds, under totally different conditions to those that constitute the nature of our world; nor can it deny that there may be a certain limited communication between some of those worlds and our own. To the highest, we are taught, belong the seven orders of the purely divine Spirits, to the six lower ones belong hierarchies that can occasionally be seen and heard by men, and who do communicate with their progeny of the Earth, which progeny is indissolubly linked with them, each principle in man having its direct source in the nature of those great Beings who furnish us with the respective invisible elements in us.

- Secret Doctrine, I, 133

We open our study this evening by reading from H.P. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, Volume I, page 258, the second paragraph:

"Whatsoever quits the Laya State, becomes active life, it is drawn into the vortex of MOTION (the alchemical solvent of Life); Spirit and Matter are the two States of the ONE which is neither Spirit nor Matter, both being the absolute life, latent." (Book of Dzyan, Commentary, iii, par. 18) "¼ Spirit is the first differentiation of (and in) SPACE: and Matter the first differentiation of Spirit. That, which is neither Spirit nor Matter - that is IT - the Causeless CAUSE of Spirit and Matter, which are the Cause of Kosmos. And THAT we call the ONE LIFE or the Intra-Cosmic Breath.

In our study of a week ago, we embarked upon a brief discussion, or rather a short excursus, with regard to certain astronomical factors which enter very largely into the occult or [48] Esoteric teaching which leads to a proper comprehension of Cosmogony or World-Building, and also of Theogony or the Genesis of the Gods or Divine Intelligences who initiate and direct Cosmogony, as these are outlined in The Secret Doctrine. Within the time at our disposal we shortly reviewed the Esoteric formulae in which the ancient wisdom is embodied, and the effectual agencies which act at the Dawn of Manifestation; and this evening we shall undertake briefly to review the causal agencies or aspects of the same subject.

The dawn of manifestation, as The Secret Doctrine tells us, begins in and with the awakening of a laya-center. The Sanskrit word laya, as we saw before, signifies in Esotericism that point or spot - any point or any spot - in space, which, owing to karmic law, suddenly becomes the center of active life, first on a higher plane and later descending into manifestation through and by the lower planes. In one sense it (such a laya-center) may be conceived of as a canal, a channel, through which the vitality of the superior spheres is pouring down into, and inspiring, inbreathing into, the lower planes or states of matter, or rather of substance. But behind all this vitality there is a driving force, as was before remarked. There are mechanics in the universe, mechanics of many degrees of consciousness and power. But behind the pure mechanic stands the spiritual mechanician.

It would seem absolutely necessary first to soak our minds through and through with the thought that everything in our cosmical universe, i.e., the stellar universe, is alive, is directed by will and governed by intelligence. Behind every cosmic body that we see, there is a directing intelligence and a guiding will.

If Theosophy has one natural enemy against which it has fought and will always fight it is the materialistic view of life, the view that nothing exists except dead unconscious matter, and that the phenomena of life and thought and consciousness spring from it. This is not merely unnatural and therefore impossible; it is absurd as a hypothesis.

On the contrary, as we may read in The Secret Doctrine, the main, fundamental, and basic postulate of being is that the universe is driven by will and consciousness, guided by will and consciousness, and is spiritually purposive. When a laya-center is fired into action by the touch of these two on their downward way, becoming the embodying life of a solar system, or of a planet of a solar system, the center manifests first on its highest plane The Skandhas (which, as it will be remembered, we described in a former study) are awakened into life one after another: first the highest ones, next the intermediate ones, and lastly the inferior ones, cosmically and qualitatively speaking. [49]

In such laya-centers the embodying life shows itself first to our physical human eyes as a luminous nebula - matter, which we may describe as being of course on the fourth plane of Nature or Prakriti, but nevertheless in the second (counting downwards) of the seven principles or states of the material universe. It is a manifestation in that universe of Daivi-prakriti, i.e., "shining" Prakriti, or "divine" Prakriti. As the aeons pass, this laya-center now manifesting as a nebula, remains in space steadily though slowly developing and condensing (following the impulses of the forces that have awakened it into action on this plane) - as the aeons pass, I say, it is drawn towards that part or locality in space - if we are speaking of a solar system - or towards that Sun, if we are describing the coming into being of a planet, with which it has karmic - skandhic - affinities, or magnetic attraction, and eventually manifests in the latter case as a comet, the matter of which, by the way, is entirely different from the matter we have any knowledge of on earth, and which it is impossible to reproduce under any physical conditions in our laboratories, because this matter, while on the fourth plane of manifestation (otherwise we should not sense it with our fourth-plane eyes), is matter in another state than any known to us - probably in the sixth state, counting from below, or the second state counting from above.

Of such matter is the Sun, or rather the solar body, in its outward form, composed. It is physical matter in the sixth state, counting upwards, or in the second state counting downwards or outward; and its nucleus, which, as H.P. Blavatsky tells us in The Secret Doctrine, is a particle or a solar atom of primal matter-stuff, or spirit-stuff, is matter in the seventh state counting upwards, or the first or highest, counting downwards.

This comet in time, if it succeed in pursuing its way towards becoming what it is destined to be, becomes finally a planet; it so becomes unless it meet with some disaster, as when it is swallowed up by one or another of the suns which it may pass in its far-flung orbit. Some comets have already, in our solar system, so nearly reached the planetary state in its first stages, on the way to becoming a full-grown planet of the solar system, that their orbits lie within the confines or limits of this system. Such, for instance, is Encke's comet, having an elliptical orbit, and moving around the Sun in a closed curve in the space of two and a half or three years. Another one is Biela's, which, I believe, has not been seen again, after it appeared to break into two, I think in the 'fifties of last century. Another one was Faye's, having the largest orbit of all these three. Two others are de Vico's and Brorsen's.

It would seem as if all those comets which are drawn into [50] elliptical orbits around our Sun, were so drawn because they were karmically destined ultimately to become planets of our system; but others, again, suffer another fate. They perish, absorbed or torn to pieces by the inexpressibly active influences which surround not merely our own but all other suns, because each sun, while being the center of its own system of planets, and their life giver, from another aspect is a cosmical vampire.

There is much more on this subject that must be said, but it is very doubtful whether, at the present stage of our study, it would be wise to embark upon a wider exposition now; and also because we know not whether the Teacher would approve of our going into the matter more fully at present.

If possible, we desire this evening to return to the point where we were, before embarking upon this excursus, and to take up again the same thread of thought then interrupted, continuing it this evening with a study of the beginning of things as outlined in the Jewish book of Genesis, or "Beginning", and as illustrated more particularly by the Jewish Theosophy called the Qabbalah. If the time allotted to us be insufficient to do so this evening, we hope to begin that study at our next meeting.

Nothing in the universe is separate from any other thing. All things hang together not merely sympathetically and magnetically but because all beings are fundamentally one. We have one self, one Self of selves, manifesting in the inmost of the Inmost being of all. But we have many egos, and the study of the ego in that branch of our thought which is embraced under the head of psychology, is one of the most inherently necessary and one of the most interesting and important that can be undertaken.

Around the ego center, so far as we humans are concerned, some of the most important teachings of the Esoteric Wisdom. Without going into this study at some length, it is impossible for us to understand certain of the teachings in The Secret Doctrine. The ancient Stoics (the very wonderful philosophy originating with some of the Greek philosophers, and which became so deservedly popular among the deeper thinkers of Rome) taught that everything in the universe is intermingled, or interwoven, not by fundamentally distinct essences or entities interpenetrating each other, nor in what we theosophists today call "planes of being", merely, but by various aspects or differentiations of one common substance, the Root of all, and they expressed the principle through the three Greek words, Krasis di'holou, a mingling through everything, an intermingling of all the essences in the Cosmos, arising out of, and differentiated from, the Root-substance common to all. This is also the teaching of our own Esoteric Wisdom. It is the manifestation, in other words, of all beings, of all thinking, unthinking, and senseless [51] beings, and of all the gods giving direction and purpose to the complex universe, which we see around us today; and in this varied life was placed the primal cause of all the beauty, the concord as well as the strife and discord that do exist in Nature, and which is the cause of the so-called mistakes that Nature makes. The origin, in other words, of what some people and some Christians call the "insolvable riddle" of the "Origin of evil". What is the "origin of evil"? The Ancient Wisdom says that it is merely the conflict of wills of evolving beings - an inevitable and necessary phase of evolution.

Properly to understand this Intermingling involves another important subject of study which we shall take up at a later date, and this is the doctrine of Hierarchies. Hierarchy, of course, merely means that a scheme or system or state of delegated directive power and authority exists in a self-contained body, directed, guided, and taught by one having supreme authority, called the Hierarch. The name is used by us, by extension of meaning, as signifying the innumerable degrees, grades, and steps of evolving entities in the Kosmos, and as applying to all parts of the universe; and rightly so, because every different part of the universe - and their number is simply countless - is under the vital governance of a Divine Being, of a God, of a Spiritual Essence, and all material manifestations are simply the appearances on our plane of the workings and actions of these Spiritual Beings behind it. The series of Hierarchies extends infinitely in both directions. Man may, if he so choose, for purposes of thought, consider himself at the middle point, from which extends above him an unending series of steps upon steps of higher beings of all grades - growing constantly less material and more spiritual, and greater in all senses - towards an ineffable point, and there the imagination stops; not because the series itself stops, but because our thought can reach no farther out nor in. And similar to this series, an infinitely great series of beings and states of beings descends downwards (to use human terms) - downwards and downwards, until there again the imagination stops merely because our thought can go no farther.

The eternal action and interaction - or what the Stoics also called the intermingling - of these beings produce eternally the various so-called "planes of being", and the action of the will of these beings on matter or substances is the manifestation of what we call the "laws of Nature". This is a very inaccurate and misleading phrase; but it seems justifiable in a metaphorical sense, because as a human legislator or a human lawgiver will set forth or set down certain rules of conduct, certain schemes of action, which are to be obeyed, so the Intelligences behind the actions of Nature do the same thing, not in a legislative way, but [52] by the action of their own spiritual economy. So man himself, in similar fashion, lays down the "laws" for the less lives which compose his essences - the principles under the center which he governs - and which comprise even the physical body, and the lives building it. Each one of these lives, as was said before, is a microcosmic universe or cosmos, that is to say, an ordered entity, an entity ruled by inescapable or ineluctable habit, which the scientists of our own race, applying the rule to universal cosmical action, call the "laws" of Nature.

And they in turn, these less lives, have similar universes under them. It is unthinkable that the series can stop or have an end, because if it did, we should have an infinity that ends, an unthinkable proposition. It is merely the paucity of our ideas and the feebleness of our imagination which make us to suppose that there may be a stop at certain points; and it is this feebleness of thought which has given birth to and promoted the rise of the different religious systems; in one case the monotheism of the Christian Church, and in another case the monotheism of the Mohammedan peoples, and in another case still the monotheism of the Jewish people. Of these three, the Jews have had the longest history and the wisest history, for the Jews originally were never a monotheistic people. In their early history they were convinced polytheists - using the term in the philosophical sense, lest people imagine when they hear of Polytheism that it means our absurd modern Western misconception of what we think the cultured Romans and Greeks thought about their gods and goddesses, or what we think they ought to have believed, which is conceited nonsense.

The popular mythology of the Greeks and Romans, as also that of ancient Egypt or of Babylonia, and that of the Germanic or Celtic tribes of Europe, was understood in a different way from our gross misconception of it; and conceived of in a different way by the wise men in those days, who understood perfectly well all the usual symbols and allegories by which the esoteric teachings were outlined and taught in the popular mythologies. And we must remember that "exoteric" does not necessarily mean false. It means only that in exoteric teachings the keys to the esoteric teachings have not been given out.

We often hear the claim made by monotheistic believers, that the great "prophets" of Israel, the so-called wise men of that people, knew better than their ancient predecessors what their people ought to know and believe. They - these prophets - taught monotheism, we are assured, and redirected the thoughts of the people away from the ancient beliefs - indeed, the multiplicity of beliefs - towards one tribal God whom they called Jehovah, a word, by the way, which the later orthodox Jewish [53] religionists held - and still hold - so sacred that they would not even pronounce it aloud, but in reading aloud substituted for it another word, when this word "Jehovah" occurred in a sentence in the Jewish Bible. Now this substitute word is "Adonai", and means "my Lords" - in itself a true confession of polytheistic thought. Judaism is replete in its Law, or Bible, at least, with polytheism; and so prone is the human heart to follow the instincts of its spirit, that when the Christian Church in its blindness overthrew philosophical Polytheism, as an error in religion, the reaction, fully to be expected as a consequence, finally - and, indeed, very soon - set in, and that Church answered the cry of the human heart by substituting "saints" for the injured and banished Gods and Goddesses, thus inaugurating a cultural adoration of dead men and women for Powers, Intelligences, in Nature! They had to give them saints in order to supply the places of the forgotten Deities; and even gave to these saints more or less the same powers that the ancient gods and goddesses were reputed to have exercised and to have had. They had a saint as a patron or protector of city, state, or country - St. George for England, St. James for Spain, St. Denis for France, and so on. The same thought, the same function, the same desire satisfied - the instincts of the human heart cannot be ignored or violated with impunity. But how greatly different was the initiate view of the Wise Men in "Pagan" times!

Now when the Ancients spoke of the multiplicity of Gods they did so with wisdom, understanding, and reverence. Is it conceivable that the great men of the ancient days who then discovered and established the canons of belief followed by us - usually ignorant of our great debt to them - even today in all our lines of thought, and which we value like little children and have valued since the rebirth of literature in our Western world - is it conceivable, I say, that they had no conception of cosmical or of divine unity, something which even the average man of intelligence today will come to? How absurd! No! They could think and they knew as well as we do, but they also knew, yea, even the degenerated thinkers in the early ages of the Christian era, that if "God" made the world, being a perfect and infinite Being, his work (or Its work) could be only a perfect and infinite work, worthy of its perfect and infinite Maker, free from vanity, free from limitations, free from sin, free from decrepitude and ceaseless, gnawing change. Yet, as we see and consider the things around us, as we know that the world, being an exemplar of change and hence of limitations and decay, therefore cannot be and is not infinite, we know - the instincts of our being tell us - that it is the work of less beings, of minor and limited [54] Powers, however exalted spiritually; and as we penetrate into our own thoughts and study the life of the beings and of the nature around us, we see also that there is life within life, wheel within wheel, purpose within purpose, and that behind the outward manifestations or action (the "laws of Nature") of the so-called Gods, there are still more subtle Powers, still more exalted Intelligences at work: verily, wheels within wheels, lives within lives, and so on forever: an unending and boundless Unity in Multiplicity, and Multiplicity limitless and unbounded in Unity. So, as said before, when we speak of the unity of Life, or of the "divine unity", we merely mean that here our penetrating spirit has reached the limit of its present powers, a point at which human thought can go no farther. It has run to its utmost limits, and from the feebleness of it, we are bound in truth to say, Here is as far as our thought can go. It is our present "Ring called 'Pass Not!'" But this honest confession of human limitation does not mean that there is "nothing" beyond. On the contrary, it is a proof that Life and space are endless.

Now the Neo-Platonists who first came into prominence in the early centuries of the Christian era - and who, with the Stoics, provided Christianity with all that it had that was philosophically good and spiritual and true - taught that the summit, the acme, the flower, the highest point (that they called the "hyparxis") of any series of animate and "inanimate" beings, whether we enumerate the stages or degrees of the series as seven or ten or twelve (according to whichever system we follow), was the "divine unity" for that series or Hierarchy, and that this hyparxis or flower or summit or beginning or highest being was again in its turn the lowest being of the Hierarchy above it, and so extending onwards forever.

Change within change, wheel within wheel, each Hierarchy manifesting one facet, as it were, of the divine cosmic Life, each Hierarchy showing forth one thought, as it were, of the divine thinkers. Good and evil are relative, and rigidly offset and equilibrate each other. There is no absolute good, there is no absolute evil; these are mere human terms, only. "Evil" in any sphere of life, is imperfection, for it. "Good" in any sphere of life, is perfection, for it. But the good of one is the evil of another, because the latter is the shadow of something higher above it.

Just as "light" and "darkness" are not absolute but relative things. What is "darkness"? Darkness is absence of light, and the light that we know is itself the manifestation of life in matter - hence a material phenomenon. Each is (physically) a form of vibration, each is, therefore, a form of life.

Various names were given to these Hierarchies considered as [55] series of beings. For instance, let us take the standard and generalized Greek Hierarchy as shown by writers in periods preceding the rise of Christianity, though the Neo-Platonists, as we have seen, had their own Hierarchies, and gave the stages or degrees thereof special names. It is often asserted by those people who know everything - I mean the bigwigs of the modern day, who even believe that they know better what the ancients believed than the ancients did themselves - that Neo-Platonism was evolved merely to oppose and overthrow, and to take the place of the wonderful, soul-saving, spiritual doctrines of Christianity, forgetting that from Neo-Platonism and Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Stoicism, early Christianity drew nearly everything of religious and philosophic good that it had in it. But the Neo-Platonic doctrine was, in sober fact, actually the setting forth to a certain degree only of the esoteric doctrine of the Platonic school, and was, in its esoteric reach, the teaching which Plato and the early Pythagoreans taught secretly to their disciples.

We now resume our thread. The hyparxis, as we showed, means the summit or beginning of a Hierarchy. The scheme started with the divine, the highest point of the series or its Divinity:

(1) Divine. (2) Gods, or the spiritual. (3) Demigods, sometimes called divine heroes, involving a very mystical doctrine. (4) Heroes proper. (5) Men. (6) Beasts or animals. (7) Vegetable world. (8) Mineral world. (9) Elemental world, or what was called the realm of Hades. As said, the Divinity (or aggregate Divine Lives) itself was the hyparxis of this series of Hierarchies, because each of these nine stages was itself a subordinate Hierarchy. The names mean little, you may give them other names; the name itself matters not much; the important thing is to get the thought. Now, as said before, remember that this Esoteric Wisdom taught that this (or any other) Hierarchy of nine, hangs like a pendant jewel from the lowest Hierarchy above it, which made the tenth counting upwards, which we can call, if you like, the Super-Divine, the Hyper-Heavenly, and that this tenth was the lowest stage (or the ninth, counting downwards) of still another Hierarchy extending upwards; and so on, indefinitely.

Now when the Christians finally overthrew the ancient religion; when the karmic cycle had brought about an era of what Plato called spiritual barrenness - and we remember to divide the work of evolution into two parts, epochs of barrenness and epochs of fertility - when the Christian religion came in as part of an epoch of barrenness, the Christians took over very much of this ancient thought, as was only to be expected: history merely repeated itself. And they derived it, as was said [56] before, mainly from the Stoics and the Neo-Pythagoreans and the Neo-Platonists, but mostly from the Neo-Platonists. This was done in very large part, at Alexandria, the great center of Greek or Hellenistic culture at that time; the chiefest thinkers of the Neo-Platonists also lived in Alexandria. This Neo-Platonic stream of beautiful thought in the Christian religion, entered into it with special force around the fifth century, through the writings of a man who was called Dionysius the Areopagite, from the "Hill of Ares", or Mars, at Athens. The Christian legend runs that when Paul preached at Athens, he did so on Mars Hill, or the Areopagus, and that one of his first converts was a Greek called Dionysius; and Christian tradition goes on to say that he was, later, the first Christian Bishop of Athens. Now this may all be fable. However, the Christians claimed it as a fact.

Now in the fifth or sixth century, five hundred years more or less after Paul is supposed to have preached in Athens, there appeared in the Greek world a work calling itself the writings of Dionysius, the Areopagite - claiming authorship from this same man. It is evidently the work of a Neo-Platonist Christian. That is to say, of a Christian, who for reasons of his own, perhaps policy (social or financial), remained within the Christian Church, but was more or less a Greek pagan, a Neo-Platonist at heart. This work, by coming out under the name of the first (alleged) Bishop of Athens, Dionysius, almost immediately began to have immense vogue in the Christian Church; and it remains to this day, not indeed one of the canonical works, but one of the works which the Christians consider among the greatest they have on mystical lines, and perhaps their most spiritual work; it very deeply affected Christian theological thought from the time of its appearance.

One of the works comprised in this book, attributed by the Christians themselves to Dionysius, Paul's first convert in Athens, is a treatise on the Divine Hierarchies, in which the teaching is that God is infinite and therefore did the work of creation through less abstract and spiritual beings; and a scheme of Hierarchies is here set forth, one lower than another, one derived from the other; which is exactly the teaching in the Qabbalah, the Theosophy of the Jews; which also is exactly the teaching of the Neo-Platonists and essentially that of the Stoics, and of the old Greek mythology It is a "pagan" teaching throughout, and merely became Christianized because adapted to the new religion, and because Christian names are used: and, instead of saying and enumerating gods, divine heroes, demigods or heroes, men, animals, etc., the names are God, Archangels, Thrones, Powers, etc. But the schematic or essential thought is the same: [57] and, furthermore, there are actually passages in the works of this Dionysius which are taken word for word - wholesale - from the writings of the Neo-Platonist Plotinus, who lived and flourished and wrote voluminously on Neo-Platonic subjects in the third century.

Now this work, particularly in the field of dogmatic ecclesiastical thought, formed the basis of much of the theology of the Greek and Roman Churches; we may even say that on it their medieval theology was actually based. It formed the main source of the studies and writings of the Italian Thomas Aquinas (13th century), one of the greatest medieval doctors of the Christian religion, and of Johannes Scotus, called Erigena, an Irishman (9th century), and probably of Duns Scotus (13th century), a remarkable Scot; and of many more. Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, to speak only of English literature, are full of the spirit of these writings. They provided much of the mystical thought of the Dark Ages, and ultimately in a degenerate form helped to give rise to the hair-splitting and quibbling and squabbles of the quasi-religious writers known as the Schoolmen. But these men had lost the inner sense or heart of the thing through the ecclesiastical growth and political power of the Christian Church, and they began to argue about things of no spiritual consequence whatever; such as the query, "Which came first: the hen or the egg?" or, "How many angels can dance on the point of a needle?" or, "If an irresistible force meets an immovable obstacle, what then happens?" These most pragmatical and useful diversions and intellectual vagaries lasted for a certain time, and then, with the renaissance of thought in Europe, due largely to the labors of the devotees of Science and natural Philosophy, the European world gradually began to pull out of this mental slough, and brought in an era, which is now in full and strong current, and which has inaugurated and continued, for good or for ill (perhaps both), the streams of human thinking as we see it today. Do we Theosophists presume vainly to interpret the lessons of universal history when we say that we are the forerunners and the makers of the new era - a far nobler and more spiritual cycle - which is to come, and is even now dawning, albeit coming to being in no little sorrow and tribulation of both soul and intellect?

In conclusion, we may call attention to the fact that just about the time when the first 5000 years of the Hindu cycle called the Kali-yuga (lasting 432,000) came to an end, there also came to an end a certain "Messianic" cycle of twenty-one hundred years - (actually, if we come to exact figures, 2160), which is, note well, just one half of the Hindu-Babylonian root-cycle of 4320 years. [58]

In our next evening of study we hope to take up, with the Teacher's permission, the outline of Cosmogony and Theogony from the Polytheistic standpoint, as found in the Book of Genesis, the first of the Jewish Bible.

Chapter VII

"HIERARCHIES": ONE OF THE LOST KEYS OF THE ESOTERIC PHILOSOPHY. THE PYTHAGOREAN SACRED TETRACTYS. THE LADDER OF LIFE: THE LEGEND OF PADMAPANI.

Theophilosophy proceeds on broader lines. From the very beginning of Aeons - in time and space in our Round and Globe - the Mysteries of Nature (at any rate, those which it is lawful for our races to know) were recorded by the pupils of those same now invisible "heavenly men," in geometrical figures and symbols. The keys thereto passed from one generation of "wise men" to the other. Some of the symbols, thus passed from the east to the west, were brought therefrom by Pythagoras, who was not the inventor of his famous "Triangle." The latter figure, along with the plane cube and circle, are more eloquent and scientific descriptions of the order of the evolution of the Universe, spiritual and psychic, as well as physical, than volumes of descriptive Cosmogonies and revealed "Geneses." The ten points inscribed within that "Pythagorean triangle" are worth all the theogonies and angelologies ever emanated from the theological brain. For he who interprets them - on their very face, and in the order given - will find in these seventeen points (the seven Mathematical Points hidden) the uninterrupted series of the genealogies from the first Heavenly to terrestrial man. And, as they give the order of Beings, so they reveal the order in which were evolved the Kosmos, our earth, and the primordial elements by which the latter was generated. Begotten in the invisible Depths, and in the womb of the same "Mother" as its fellow-globes - he who will master the mysteries of our Earth will have mastered those of all others.

-Secret Doctrine, I, 612-3

It is that LIGHT which condenses into the forms of the 'Lords of Being' - the first and the highest of which are, collectively, JIVATMA, or Pratyagatma (said figuratively to issue from Paramatma. It is the Logos of the Greek philosophers - appearing at the beginning of every new Manvantara). From these downwards - formed from the ever-consolidating waves of that light, which becomes on the objective plane gross matter - proceed the numerous hierarchies of the Creative Forces, some formless, others having their own distinctive form, others, again, the lowest (elementals), having no form of their own, but assuming every form according to the surrounding conditions.

- Secret Doctrine, II, 33-4

We open our study this evening by reading from The Secret Doctrine, Volume I, page 274:

The whole Kosmos is guided, controlled, and animated by almost endless series of Hierarchies of sentient Beings, each having a mission to perform, and who - whether we give to them one name or another, and call them Dhyani-Chohans or Angels - are "messengers" in the sense only that they are the agents of Karmic and Cosmic Laws. They vary infinitely in their respective degrees of consciousness and intelligence; and to call them all pure Spirits without any of the earthly alloy "which time is wont to prey upon" is only to indulge in poetical fancy. For each of these Beings either was, [60] or prepares to become, a man, if not in the present, then in a past or a coming cycle (Manvantara).

When we ended our study last week, because of the short time that the Teacher has set for us in which to speak, we left unmentioned a number of very important things, which we shall have to take up this evening before we can proceed to the particular study that was to follow in proper course the excursus which we embarked upon three weeks ago.

First a few words more concerning the Nebular Theory or Hypothesis and the Planetary Theory deriving from it, as considered from the Theosophical standpoint, and consequently a further explanation or rather development of the doctrine of Hierarchies, which will lead us to the study towards which we have aimed, that is to say, the consideration of Cosmogony or the beginning of worlds as outlined in the Jewish Book of Genesis or "Beginnings".

About one hundred years ago, more or less within a few years of each other, there died three remarkable men, namely Kant, perhaps the greatest philosopher that Europe has produced; Sir William Herschel, the astronomer; and the Marquis de Laplace; the first a German, the second a German-Englishman, or an Anglo-German, and the third a Frenchman. All these three men in some degree were responsible for the enunciation and the development of the theory of world-beginning which eventuated in the Nebular Hypothesis of Laplace. It is interesting also to note that all three men were of humble birth, and by the force of their own intelligence and character became, all three of them, remarkable men. Kant was, I believe, the son of a saddler; Sir William Herschel was also of humble origin, and was in youth an oboist in the Hanoverian Guards; and Pierre Simon Laplace was the son of a farmer; Laplace was ennobled, and upon him was conferred the nobiliary title of Marquis.

Now the Nebular Theory really originated with Kant; he it was who laid down the basic lines, the fundamental ground, as it were, upon which the Nebular Theory was later developed mathematically by Laplace. Coincident with Kant's work and writings was the astronomical work of Herschel in England, and those two men were responsible for the fundamentals of the Nebular Theory. Laplace took it up after they had more or less laid down the main lines, developed it into what is called the "Nebular hypothesis or theory of Laplace", and on account of its explaining in mathematical form the mechanism of the universe, that is to say, of the solar system and the planets, and their satellites, it has been called a "magnificently audacious" hypothesis. It was Laplace who carried the theory a good deal farther than the work of Kant and Herschel - than the point [61] where Kant and Herschel had left it; and, in a sense, Laplace materialized it. As H.P. Blavatsky tells us, if the nebular theory had remained at the point where Kant and Herschel had left it, there would be little for the Theosophical writers and thinkers to do except to develop it and explain it in accordance with the Esoteric Philosophy.

It is very interesting to note that another great man, Swedenborg in Sweden, also worked upon the same theory and apparently had very nearly the same ideas that Kant and Herschel had as regards a nebular genesis of cosmical systems. Now these two latter men had a spiritual idea back of the theory which they enunciated, and it was the abandonment of that spiritual idea by Laplace, and the substitution by him of a mechanico-mathematical theory in its place, which furnished those influences which directed the nebular hypothesis away from the line and thought and teachings as laid down in the Esoteric Philosophy, as taught by the ancient Teachers.

The nebular hypothesis has in some respects been much changed since the day of Laplace; scientists have thought more about it, a fact which was also true in 1887 or 1888 when H.P. Blavatsky wrote The Secret Doctrine. There has been an attempt by later astronomers of our own day, Sir Norman Lockyer, and the American astronomer and mathematician See, to replace a nebular origin of cosmical bodies - at least in part - with what has been called a planetesimal hypothesis or a planetesimal origin - that is to say, that the bodies of the solar system have been built up of and by cosmic dust and tiny planets drawn together by the force of gravitation. Now this theory is, philosophically speaking, at an immense distance from the teachings of the Esoteric Philosophy, although this Philosophy does admit and teach that at a later stage in the evolution of cosmical bodies, collection and concretion of stellar dust is, actually, one of the phases in the growth of worlds.

Theosophy admits that a planet or a solar system, in the course of its formation, does gather to itself "stardust" and vagrant bodies dispersed in space; but this factor in its growth is not its origin. The origin of a sun, of a solar system and of the planets in it, and consequently of the entire universe within the encircling zone of the Milky Way, has a spiritual background, has spiritual essences or gods behind it, who form such a system, and direct it, and are the mechanicians in it and of it. Their work is carried on (more or less) along the main lines of the nebular theory as enunciated by Kant and Herschel: that is to say, space is eternally filled with matter in a certain state or condition of being, and when this matter, as Kant and Herschel would have said, receives the divine impulse, it is concreted and becomes luminous, [62] and this concretion is further (and later) strengthened by its drawing into itself, from the immense special expanse in which it is, material "stardust" and larger bodies.

Now, when we look up at the sky we see material bodies, fourth-plane bodies seen with our fourth-plane eyes, but behind these fourth-plane bodies there are spiritual intelligences, which are called in the Esoteric Philosophy, Dhyani-Chohans, or "Lords of Meditation". As the Ancients put it, every celestial body is an "animal". Now the word animal comes from the Latin, and means a living being. Commonly, in speech, we speak of "animals" when we should say "beasts" or "brutes"; that is to say, a "brute" is an entity which has not yet been raised to the level of a self-conscious entity; it is brute in the original Latin sense, i.e., "heavy", "gross", hence irrational and incomplete; it is not yet finished. But an animal really means a living being, and in that sense the word applies to men; also, in the view of the Ancients, it applies to the stellar, solar, and planetary bodies - they are "animals" in the sense of being living things, with a physical corpus or body, but nevertheless animate or ensouled: in the mystical teachings of the Esoteric Philosophy they are ensouled things, as indeed every atom is, every tiny universe, or tiny cosmos.

Now this ensouling is done by (or is the action of) what is commonly called Hierarchies. There is not for every individual entity in Kosmos, whether atom, beast, man, god, planet, or Sun, one concreted soul, as it were, derived from the universal World-Soul, with nothing - no connecting links - above it and nothing below it - not at all. There are no true vacancies in Nature, physical, astral, or spiritual: there are no vacuums. Everything is linked on to everything else, by literally countless bonds of union, which is another master key to the teachings of the Esoteric Philosophy. As in man, so in every other unit of being, in every other entity, the universal life manifests through a Hierarchy; the multiform and varied qualities of beings are but the life-rays of a Hierarchy, that is to say, grades or steps of consciousness and matter, ascending from below upward, or if you like, coming downwards from above, through all of which the center of consciousness - call it soul or ego for the moment - must pass in its evolution towards godhood.

Now this teaching of Hierarchies is fundamental. It is one of the present-day "lost keys" of the Esoteric Philosophy. Nothing can be understood adequately without a clear comprehension of it. As man is in our ordinary psychology considered to be a triad, or a triform entity - body, soul, and spirit - so he may be considered from another point of view as a fourfold entity, or as a fivefold, or a sixfold, or a sevenfold, or (the most esoteric [63] of all) as a tenfold entity. Why ten? Because ten, the Teachers have told us, is the key-number which explains the compound fabric of the universe. The universe is built on a denary scale, that is, on a scale counting by tens. In a few moments we shall develop in outline the philosophical import of seven and ten. Let us say now that man is septenary in our view only because we reckon in as principles, two elements of his being which are not, strictly speaking, human principles; one the physical body which really is not a "principle" at all: it is merely a house, his "carrier" in another sense, and no more belongs to man - except that he has excreted it, thrown it out from himself - this physical body, we say, is no more himself than is the house in which his body lives. He is a complete human being without it.

The second strictly non-human principle is the highest of all the seven, the Higher Self, the Atman, the seventh - non-human because it is universal. The Self no more belongs to me than to you or to anyone else. Selfhood is the same in all beings. But beyond the Atman, there is the Paramatman, which we have briefly studied before, the Supreme Self. The Atman is, as it were, the star of our own self-issue, the Root of our selfhood, the point where we cling, as it were, to the "Highest". If we can conceive of an ocean of super-spiritual ether, so to speak, and in that ocean - call it consciousness - a vortex, a laya-center, a point, a Primordial Point, whence the six principles below it flow forth into concrete manifestation through its vehicles - the souls or egos - we obtain a very crude conception of the Root of our being. It is the Atman, the channel or spiritual point where the super-spiritual breaks, as it were, from and through a barrier downwards into individualized life. This process we shall more fully explain later, and shall then illustrate it by diagram.

Now this matter of Hierarchies is dealt with in the different World Religions virtually in the same manner but under different names and in different paradigmatic schemes. For instance, you can think of the ten parts or grades or steps of a Hierarchy as one under the other, like the floors in a house, or like the flats in an apartment-house, a very gross simile, it is true, but having the advantage of suggesting steps or planes, and of suggesting high and low. We can think of a Hierarchy in another, more subtle, manner, as consisting in triads of spheres, or living centers, three triads hanging from the tenth or highest point; and that highest center is, as already explained, the point beyond which our thought and imagination can soar no higher, and we merely say that this center is the highest that the human intellect can reach. But we know that beyond it, this tenth which is our highest, [64] there is also the lowest center or plane of another Hierarchy still higher from which our Hierarchy hangs as a pendant; and so on endlessly. We cannot say of Infinity, that the Infinite begins here and ends there: if this were so, it would not be infinite, it would not be boundless. Our doctrine of Universal Life, of Universal Consciousness, of one Universal "Law" working everywhere, means that that "Law" manifests in every atom, and in every part of Universal Being, and in all directions, and for all duration, and in the same manner everywhere; because it cannot manifest in radically diverse ways; if so, it would be many fundamental "laws" and not one "Law".

For instance - as regards Hierarchies - in our last study we considered the Hierarchy of the Neo-Platonic philosophy, which is really the esoteric teaching of ancient Greece in the form that Plato gave to it. And there were nine stages, nine degrees, hanging, as it were, from the topmost, the spiritual Sun or the central Sun. We can conceive of these Hierarchies as seven concentric circles around and deriving from a central point, the Highest Triad, which we can call the infinite or the Primordial Point; or, again, we can call this primordial point the Atman or Self of the thinking entity, man, and then the other spheres or circles of being around him, will stand for his six other principles, somewhat in the fashion shown.

This is one way of representing a human individual Hierarchy, the different spheres or concentric circles, six of them, all flowing forth from the center, or seventh element, the Self. All Hierarchies are divided into seven, nine, or ten. The reason for this is a question that we shall have to go into by and by. There is no need to represent all these methods or paradigmatic schemes, but the idea is the same in all. Another way of representing a [65] Hierarchy by paradigm is, as said before, by like lines, ten of them, in the way shown, or by representing the nine stages or spheres as three triads on three planes, and the tenth on its own fourth plane.

We have studied the system of the Neo-Platonic Hierarchies in brief outline; and, if we have time, we shall take up this evening two other paradigmatic schemes by which Hierarchies are variously represented. Let us call earnest attention here to the important fact, before going farther, that these schemes, these paradigmatic representations on a flat surface, do not mean that the grades or steps or planes of being are either flat surfaces, or are like "nests" of boxes; they merely show by analogy, by hints, the relations and the functions of the grades among themselves.

It is obvious to any thinking man that the Hierarchies of being do not rise one above another like the floors of a house; it is perhaps true that all over the world they are so represented by different systems; but this is merely to show that there is a high and a low, a series of conditions or states of spirit and matter. Just as we would teach children, so the ancient Teachers taught us, in simple ways. Nor are we to imagine that the Hierarchies actually extend somewhere in space in the form of triangles or circles. We represent them in this way in order to show their [66] intermingling relations and their interpenetrating functions among each other. Why, however, do we separate the grades into triads? Because certain ones of these grades or planes are more nearly related, intermingle more easily, function more easily together, since their conditions or states are more closely akin. (1) The first triad, the highest; (2) the intermediate; (3) the lowest triad; and all overshadowing the corpus, the physical body. Or we can take another scheme, and have the three lowest centers forming the bottom triad; the three intermediate centers next; and then the three highest; all the three triads hanging from a point, the Primordial Point, "God", if you like.

Now let us consider the question: "Have the Christians a Hierarchy in their theology?" They have; and by this I mean that the Christians had one, apparently from the earliest times, till the natural resiliency of the human mind began to exert itself in rebellion against the dogmatism and materialization of the Christian teaching which reached its climax in the epoch preceding the Renaissance of thought, when the discoveries of science freed the human mind from its dogmatic shackles. Nevertheless, up till that time this teaching of Hierarchies controlling living beings flourished in the Christian Church, and it originated in the form it then had, as we pointed out in our last study, in the writings of Dionysius, "the Areopagite". One of his works was called On the Celestial Hierarchy, and it showed how all spiritual being was divided into a Hierarchy of ten degrees or stages, the tenth or highest being God. This mystic writer followed this work with another called On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and he claimed as a good Christian, or in order to please his good Christian friends - there is every reason to believe that he copied the hierarchical scheme of the Neo-Platonic philosophy, which was purely pagan, of course - that on earth the celestial Hierarchy was reenacted or reflected or repeated in an ecclesiastical Hierarchy, which was the Christian Church, topped by Jesus as the highest representative thereof and as the "Logos of God"!

Now what were the names that Dionysius gave to the grades or stages of his Hierarchy? First, God, as the summit, the Divine Spirit; then came the Seraphim; then the Cherubim; then the Thrones, forming the first triad. Then Dominations, Virtues, Powers, forming the second triad. Then Principalities, then Archangels, then Angels, the third triad counting downward.

It is interesting to note that this Hierarchy is syncretistic, that is, composite, taken from different sources, and built up into a unity. Seraphim and Cherubim are from the Hebrew. This [67] plural word Seraphim comes from a Hebrew root meaning to "burn with fire", hence, to be inflamed with love. Cherubim is a curious word, but scholars generally think that it means "forms". The Seraphim are mystically believed to be red in color, and the Cherubim dark blue. The Thrones, the Dominations, the Virtues, the Powers, the Principalities, are all taken from the Christian teachings of Paul in the Epistles, Ephesians i, 21, and Colossians i, 16, and are distinctly mystic. The two last, the archangels and the angels, are not at all Christian in their origin, but are derived in indirect and tortuous descent from the ancient Greek and Asiatic - especially old Persian - system of thought which recognized messengers or ministers or transmitters between man and the spiritual world; the Greek word angel originally meant "messenger", and the highest type of these were called archangels, or angels of the highest degree.

Now the fault, or rather inadequacy, of this Christian system is that its highest point reached no higher than this god here, a modification on Greek lines of the Jewish Jehovah; and it went no farther below in reach or extent than man himself. The Ineffable, Unthinkable, on the one hand, and the immeasurable spheres of beings below man, on the other hand, are ignored. It was merely a chapter torn out of the Ancient Wisdom and taken over into Christianity; but small and imperfect as it was, it provided Christianity with all the mysticism and spiritualizing thought that saved it from utter materialism in religion during the Middle Ages.

Let us now take up another Hierarchy, the Jewish scheme of the Qabbalah. You see that there are nine degrees here, nine degrees all pendant from the Supreme Self or God. Now the Jewish Qabbalistic Hierarchy, or Hierarchies, or system of Hierarchies, is an outgrowth of the teachings and thinkings of the Jewish doctors or Rabbis, from a time very far back, and is actually a reflection of esoteric Babylonian teachings.

As the Book of Genesis (the first few chapters of it at least) is very largely taken from the Babylonians, so the Jews derived their Angelology, or system of angels or angelical Hierarchies, from that same source. Now this teaching found its finest expression in the Jewish Theosophy, called the Qabbalah (this word, as said before, meaning to receive - i.e., traditionary lore handed down from teacher to teacher), and the teaching of the Hierarchies in the Qabbalah is fundamental, the whole system being based on it: it implies the intermingling and the interchange of all life and all beings, between low and high, in this regard exactly as in our own teaching. Hence the Qabbalah is so far as it goes, a faithful reflection of the Esoteric Philosophy. The Qabbalah, as outlined in the book Zohar - a word meaning [68] splendor; this book is often called the "Bible of the Qabbalists" - is in large part exoteric from the Theosophical viewpoint, because all our teachings, with regard to certain things, are in the Zohar, but not all the explanations are there, and this fact makes the book exoteric, in so far as the keys are lacking.

Now the teaching in the Qabbalah with regard to the Hierarchies and the Ladder of Life, is, that from the Boundless, or Ain Suph, down to infinity below, the Ladder of Life consists of steps, or degrees, or grades, of consciousness and of consciousnesses, and of being and of beings, and that there is a constant interchange, an interflow of communication, between these innumerable grades of the various Hierarchies or worlds. Precisely our teaching - naturally! The Qabbalistic Hierarchy consists of, or more accurately is typified by, nine grades or planes or spheres hanging from a tenth (or a first, if you like), all together making ten. They bore the following names. The first is called the Crown, the Primordial Point, the first and highest of the Sefiroth (sometimes spelt Sephiroth) or the grades, steps, planes, spheres, before spoken of. The next Sephira is called Wisdom.

(We have no time now to give the Hebrew words here; they may be found in any book on the Qabbalah. See Isis Unveiled, II, 213, and Theosophical Glossary.)

The next, the third, is called Understanding, or, perhaps better, Intelligence. These form the head and two shoulders of the Adam Qadmon, or Archetypal Man, or Ideal Man. According to the thinking of the Qabbalists, as these Hierarchies are particularly and sympathetically related to certain respective parts of the human body, so these three just spoken of have each its respective relation: certain parts about the crown of the head, or in the head, or from the head, or belonging to the head, for the first Sephira; the right shoulder to Wisdom; the left to Understanding. The right arm is called Greatness, or sometimes Love; the left arm is called Power, or sometimes Justice, and is considered a feminine quality; the breast or region of the chest or heart is called Beauty. The right leg (remember I am speaking generally of the Archetypal Man) is called Subtleity; the left leg is called Majesty, and is considered a feminine quality. The generative organs are called Foundation.

Now these make nine. Each of these grades is assumed to emanate from the one above it. First the Crown; from the Crown, Wisdom; from the Crown and Wisdom, Understanding; from the three - Crown, Wisdom, and Understanding - comes the fourth; from the four all together comes the fifth; from the five all together comes the sixth; and so on down to the ninth; and [69] the ninth, with all the forces and qualities of the others behind it, produces this round being, an egg-shaped container or "carrier", or vehicle, an auric egg, and this auric egg, as the tenth, is called Kingdom, or sometimes Dwelling-Place, because it is the fruit or result or emanation, or field of action of all the others, manifesting through these different planes of being.

Now why should the Hierarchies sometimes be numbered or reckoned as seven, and sometimes as ten? Because ten is the most sacred fundamental number in occultism. It is that upon which the universe is built. The fabric of being is built along the lines of the decad or ten. The Pythagoreans, members of one of the most mystic of the ancient Greek schools of thinking, had what they called the sacred Tetractys, a word referring to the number four; and how did they represent this Tetractys? In this fashion: First a point above and alone, the Monad; then two points below that, or the Duad; then three points below these. or the Triad; and then four points below these, or the Tetrad - ten points altogether. They had an oath which they considered the most sacred adjuration of the Pythagorean School, which they uttered when they swore by the "Holy Tetractys". What is this oath? It is worth remembering: "Yea, by the Tetraktys, which has supplied to our soul the fountain containing the roots of everflowing nature". This is just full of profound thought. Finally, the tetraktys emblematized (among other things) the procession of beings into manifestation. First the Primordial point, then the line, then the superficies, then the cube - 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10.

Now what, finally, is the difference between the system of seven and that of ten? The seven is the fundamental number of the manifested universe; but over the seven hovers eternally the infinite and immortal Triad, the Unmanifest. This is the key. Some religions specialize in sevens; but all religions have the ten, also, in their various numerical schemes.

As H.P. Blavatsky says - we have not time to read her words in full tonight, although I had intended to read, after finishing this explanation, her own words on this very subject from her esoteric Instructions number one (we must remember that this is an esoteric gathering) and also from The Secret Doctrine - the number ten is the secret or sephirical principle of the universe, because on and through this denary system the universe is [70] formed and built. Man (as a whole) is tenfold, the universe (as a whole) is tenfold, but both are septenary in manifestation. Every atom, every living being, and every universe is a complete Hierarchy of ten degrees: three highest considered as the Root, and seven lower in active manifestation. This Root, or Highest Triad, is a Mystery Teaching, concerning which very little open explanation is to be found even in the ancient literatures.

In The Secret Doctrine, Volume I, page 98, H.P. Blavatsky first enumerates certain things which you can see for yourself in the Stanza there printed, to wit: - "The Voice of the Word, Swabhavat, the Numbers, for he is One and Nine"; to which she joins the following as a footnote:

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 popularized Qabbalah. The esoteric Qabbalists, however, following the Eastern Occultists, divide the upper Sephiroth triangle from the rest (or Sephira, Chochmah and Binah [that is, the Crown, Wisdom and Understanding]) which leaves seven Sephiroth ¼

Then on page 360 (very unfortunately we did not have time to refer to this at our last meeting) she says here in relation to other matters: "The 10, being the sacred number of the universe, was secret and esoteric ¼"; and on page 362: "¼ the whole astronomical and geometrical portion of the secret sacerdotal language was built upon the number 10 ¼"

It may be interesting and well worthwhile to point out here, that these quotations give the reason why the numerical computations of the Esoteric Philosophy have not yet been satisfactorily solved by students with a mathematical turn of mind - because they will persist in working with the number seven, alone, in spite of Madame Blavatsky's open hints to the contrary, for she says openly that the number seven must be used in calculations in a manner hitherto unknown to Western mathematics. The hint ought to be sufficient in itself alone, because the seven, considered as a basis for computation, is a very unwieldy and awkward number with which to calculate. The subject is alluded to in veiled manner in Instructions number one, page nine, in speaking of Padmapani, or the "Lotus-handed" - one of the names in Tibetan mysticism of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. H.P. Blavatsky says, after narrating a legend concerning this character:

He vowed to perform the feat before the end of the Kalpa, adding that in case of failure he wished that his head would split into numberless [71] fragments. The Kalpa closed; but Humanity felt him not within its cold, evil heart. Then Padmapani's head split and was shattered into a thousand fragments. Moved with compassion, the Deity reformed the pieces into ten heads, three white and seven of various colors. And since that day man has become a perfect number, or Ten.

In this allegory the potency of SOUND, COLOR, AND NUMBER is so ingeniously introduced as to veil the real esoteric meaning. To the outsider it reads like one of the many meaningless fairy tales of creation; but it is pregnant with spiritual and divine, physical and magical, meaning. From Amitabha - no color or the white glory - are born the seven differentiated colors of the prism. These each emit a corresponding sound, forming the seven of the musical scale. As Geometry among the Mathematical Sciences is specially related to Architecture, and also - proceeding to Universals - to Cosmogony, so the ten Jods of the Pythagorean Tetrad, or Tetraktys, being made to symbolize the Macrocosm, the Microcosm, or man, its image, had also to be divided into ten points. For this Nature herself has provided, as will be seen.

One more citation, in order to finish the subject. On page 15, H.P. Blavatsky writes shortly as follows:

As the Universe, the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, are ten, why should we divide Man into seven "principles"? This is the reason why the perfect number ten is divided into two, a reason which cannot be given out publicly: In their completeness, i.e., super-spiritually and physically, the forces are TEN: to wit, three on the subjective and inconceivable, and seven on the objective plane. Bear in mind that I am now giving you the description of the two opposite poles: (a) the primordial triangle, which as soon as it has reflected itself in the "Heavenly Man," the highest of the lower seven - disappears, returning into "Silence and Darkness"; and (b) the astral paradigmatic man, whose Monad (Atma) is also represented by a triangle, as it has to become a ternary in conscious Devachanic interludes. [72]

Chapter VIII

TRACES OF THE ESOTERIC PHILOSOPHY IN GENESIS.

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 Sabaeanism as at present rendered by the archaeologists; then, passing over a number of religions that will be mentioned later, comes the Jewish, esoterically, as in the Qabbalah, 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 of a highly philosophical page in the World's Cosmogony.

- Secret Doctrine, I, 10

The first lesson taught in Esoteric philosophy is, that the incognisable Cause does not put forth evolution, whether consciously or unconsciously, but only exhibits periodically different aspects of itself to the perception of finite Minds. Now the collective Mind - the Universal - composed of various and numberless Hosts of Creative Powers, however infinite in manifested Time, is still finite when contrasted with the unborn and undecaying Space in its supreme essential aspect. That which is finite cannot be perfect ¼

The Hebrew Elohim, called in the translations "God," and who create "light," are identical with the Aryan Asuras. They are also referred to as the "Sons of Darkness" as a philosophical and logical contrast to light immutable and eternal ¼ The Zoroastrian Amshaspends create the world in six days or periods also, and rest on the Seventh; whereas that Seventh is the first period or "day," in esoteric philosophy (Primary creation in the Aryan cosmogony). It is that intermediate Aeon which is the Prologue to creation, and which stands on the borderland between the uncreated eternal Causation and the produced finite effects; a state of nascent activity and energy as the first aspect of the eternal immutable Quiescence. In Genesis, on which no metaphysical energy has been spent, but only an extraordinary acuteness and ingenuity to veil the esoteric Truth, "Creation" begins at the third stage of manifestation. "God" or the Elohim are the "Seven Regents" of Pymander. They are identical with all the other Creators.

- Secret Doctrine, II, 487-8

This evening we open our study with the following citation from the first volume of The Secret Doctrine, page 224:

Mankind in its first prototypal, shadowy form, is the offspring of the Elohim of Life (or Pitris); in its qualitative and physical aspect it is the direct progeny of the "Ancestors," the lowest Dhyanis, or Spirits of the Earth; for its moral, psychic, and spiritual nature, it is indebted to a group of divine Beings, the name and characteristics of which will be given in Book II. Collectively, men are the handiwork of hosts of various spirits; distributively, the tabernacles of those hosts; and occasionally and singly, the vehicles of some of them.

And on page 225, second paragraph:

Man is not, nor could he ever be, the complete product of the "Lord God"; but he is the child of the Elohim, so arbitrarily changed into [73] the singular masculine gender. The first Dhyanis, commissioned to "create" man in their image, could only throw off their shadows, like a delicate model for the Nature Spirits of matter to work upon. (See Book II.) Man is, beyond any doubt, formed physically out of the dust of the Earth, but his creators and fashioners were many.

In opening our study this evening it seems advisable first to speak of two things, a less thing and a greater thing; we take the less thing first. As has been seen from the beginning of our studies, as outlined by the Teacher, we have been bringing forward for our consideration at every one of our meetings, teachings found in the great religions of the world, mostly of the past, which are similar to or identical with our own. This has been done in order to join all these teachings, as found in the old religions, with the teachings as given by H.P. Blavatsky today, that is, with Theosophy. This shows the universality of thought in religions and thereby induces a spirit of kindliness and brotherhood, and leads to the accentuation of the moral sense which so greatly lacks in the comparative religious study of the doctrines of the predominant ancient religions by the mass of scholars in the Occident today. It does away at one sweep with the egoistic opinion that "we are more perfect and morally better than you are", with the idea that we Occidentals are a superior people, and with the idea that a certain race and a certain religion are, by the fiat of the Deity, the chosen receptacles or vehicles for the only truth: that all the other religions are false, and that those who professed them in ancient times were merely brands prepared for the burning!

The second thing and the greater, is this. We have constantly been bringing forward certain religious or philosophical analogies and certain points of view thereupon which are veritable doctrinal touchstones; our aim being that those who may read these studies, as outlined by the Teacher, shall be enabled to have at hand, and - through the thoughts therein expressed - to have clear-set in their own minds, keys by which to test the truth and reality of the essential or fundamental doctrines of these ancient religions; because all these doctrines in their essence and in their inner meaning, in those old religions, are true. In this sense Brahmanism is true, in this sense Buddhism is true, likewise Confucianism, and the doctrines of Lao-tse called Taoism. They are all true in that sense.

But all of them have been, in greater or less degree, subject to the influences of certain creations of human fancy; and for one who has not been trained in these studies, it is often difficult to separate the merely human fancies from the Nature-true teachings of the ancient Wisdom-Religion. All the ancient religions sprang from that same source - Theosophy, as it is called today. But [74] it is, as said before, sometimes difficult to know what is the original teaching and what the merely human accretion or creation. These creations of human fantasy and irreligious fear are very evident in the two modern monotheistic religions, which have sprung from Judaism, that is to say in Christianity and in Islam. In these two the human accretions of phantasm are very marked; but in both of them there exists a solid substratum of mystical thought based on the ancient teachings of the Wisdom-Religion.

In Christianity it is particularly in the Neo-Pythagorean and the Neo-Platonic forms, as Christianized somewhat and as manifested in the teachings of Dionysius, called "the Areopagite"; and in the later Mohammedan religion it is manifested somewhat more distantly in the borrowings from Greek thought mainly, though also from other sources, as we find them outlined by the Mohammedan doctors and thinkers, such as Ibn Sina, commonly called Avicenna in Europe, a Persian, who lived and wrote at the end of the tenth century; by Averroes in Cordova, Spain, properly called Roshd, who flourished during the twelfth century; and by another eminent Mohammedan scholar (mentioning these three out of many) Al Farabi, of the tenth century, by descent a Turk. The Ancient Wisdom also affected the teachings of Mohammed in a highly mystical form, though greatly changed, as shown in the Sufi doctrines, which are particularly and manifestly of Persian origin, owing their rise to that spiritual-minded and subtle people, the Persians. These doctrines are a very welcome contrast with the hard and mechanical religious beliefs which arose out of the egoism of the crude Arabian tribes of that period.

Now the main theme of our study this evening is the consideration of the opening verses of the "Book of Beginnings", called Genesis - the first book in the Law of the Jews. We shall first read the English translation of these verses as found in the so-called "authorized version", and of the same chapters we shall make a translation for ourselves, in which you will be enabled to see the difference from the former; and we will explain what the difference is, and how it comes to be, and for this purpose we shall have to go into a brief exposition of certain peculiarities of the ancient Hebrew tongue.

In the "authorized version" of the English Bible, called the version of King James, the Book of Genesis opens as follows, Chapter I, verse I:

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. [75]

3. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.

4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

Verse 26:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Now, in the first place, Hebrew is a Semitic tongue, one of the company of languages of which Arabic and Ethiopic and Aramaean (or Aramaic) and Phoenician and Assyrian are other members. The Hebrew in which the Bible is written is called the Biblical Hebrew. It is ancient Hebrew. The language spoken in Palestine at the time when Jesus is supposed to have lived upon the earth in Jerusalem and around that district, was Aramaean, and not Hebrew, which was then extinct as a spoken language, and of course when he spoke to his disciples he spoke to them in Aramaean.

The Hebrew language as found in the ancient manuscripts of the Bible - none earlier, probably, than the ninth century of the Christian era - is written with "points", taking the place of vowels, because Hebrew writing is a consonantal system - its alphabet is wholly consonantal. It has the alef, or "a", which is nevertheless reckoned as a consonant. It has the waw, or "w", and it also is reckoned as a consonant; and it has the yod, or "y", also reckoned as a consonant, but it has no vowel-signs proper.

Thus, the language is written without true vowels. Furthermore, in the most ancient manuscripts - and certainly it was so in the original or pre-Christian era texts - the letters are all "run together", following one after another, without separation of [76] words. There were some marks possibly, by which certain things in the text were pointed out as of particular importance; but the letters followed one another interminably, with no separation into words, and without vowels. So, you see, there is an open field for many kinds of speculation, even for very able Hebrew scholars, as to what any certain combination of letters found in this endless stream may have originally meant. This way of writing was universal, practically, in ancient times; the earliest Greek and Latin manuscripts of the New Testament are written in this fashion, which merely followed the ancient custom, as may still be seen on the ruins of public buildings in Greece and Rome. Obviously, interpretation, or correct reading, was often dubious: the reader might be very doubtful of the original sense of a passage in a manuscript so written.

So much was this the case that there arose in Palestine at an undetermined date - but we know that it may go back to about the time of the fall of Jerusalem before Titus, or, say, about the beginning of the Christian era - a school of interpreters, who interpreted by what they were pleased to call "tradition", Masorah, that is to say, "traditional" knowledge, how the Hebrew Bible should be read, how these streams of consonants should be divided up in reading into words, and what vowel points should be put there in order to fix the pronunciation in accordance therewith. This system of "points" was probably not introduced into the text till the seventh century. This school was called the School of the Masorah, and its expounders and followers were called Massoretes.

This school of the Masorah reached its fullest development and completion probably in the ninth century of the Christian era. But while this school depended upon what it called "tradition", there is no certainty of proof that their interpretations of their own combinations of letters into words were always correct. They seemed to have got, however, and to have passed down to posterity, some knowledge of the general original sense.

In order to illustrate this matter, let us take the first five English words of Genesis: we drop all the vowels, retaining only the consonants, and we have this: Nthbgnnnggdcrtd. You could here insert vowels almost ad libitum, in seeking a meaning. "In the beginning God created", and now imagine endless lines of such consonants!

Add to it the fact that Hebrew writing begins at the right hand and runs to the left. Furthermore, it begins at what we would call the end of the book, and runs to the front, as writings in other Semitic tongues do. This fashion of writing was not uncommon with other peoples in ancient days. Greek and Latin writing in ancient times sometimes followed this system, but [77] later, as you can see today if you have been in Greece or in Rome, in the old inscriptions on the temples and elsewhere, it usually began at the left and went to the right, usually with no breaks for words. In the very old Greek writings (and elsewhere too) they also had what they called boustrophedon, from two Greek words meaning ox-turning, taken from the path followed by the plowing ox: when it starts, let us say, from one end of a field it goes to the other end and then turns and goes back and over it, in the opposite direction, but aside and parallel with the other line, in plowing its furrows. This method is not followed in the Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible that we possess.

Now, in beginning our translation of the first verses of Genesis, we are met, in the very first two words, by a difficulty. These words can be translated in two or three different ways. The translation as given in the European Bibles, and as found in the "authorized" English version, is a fairly correct rendering so far as mere words go; but anyone who has undertaken translations from a foreign tongue and particularly from a dead tongue, and more especially again from a tongue which is a religious tongue and evidently written more or less in cipher, can realize the difficulties there lie in picking out the various meanings which any one word may have, in choosing which is the word that is best for the translation, which word carries the meaning nearest to the intention of the writer. The first two words as usually read are "be" and "reshith"; and so divided, their meanings are as here follow: Be means in, reshith means beginning, this second word being a feminine form, and coming originally from the masculine word Resh, or Rosh, meaning (among several other things) head, chief part, first part. Hence we may translate Be reshith as "In first part", or "In highest part", etc.

But this same combination of letters - Brashith - could also be translated (by dividing differently) as Bore, one word, a verb, and shith, another word, a noun; meaning Bore, or "forming", and shith, an "institution", "establishment", "arrangement". "Forming the establishment (or arrangement)" - of what? The text goes on to say what is arranged or established - By arranging "formed the Elohim Heaven and Earth."

Furthermore, the word resh, or rosh, above selected, may also mean "head" as before said, signifying "wisdom", or "knowledge ": hence, "In wisdom the Elohim formed Heavens and Earth". Remember, it is permissible to put in vowels almost at choice, because vowels do not exist in the original text of the book, in the Bible, itself; hence the opening for more than merely one interpretation.

Resh, or rosh, then, also means "head"; it also means "wisdom"; it also means "host" or "multitude". So here [78] we may select still another - a translation: Beresh, "in multitude", or "by multitude". Yithbare would then be the next word, "formed Elohim". Here comes again another remarkable change in meaning - and I am making these remarks in order to point out how the Hebrew text of the Bible may bear many translations. Supposing then that we divide the first fourteen Hebrew letters of the text into the following word-combinations: Be-resh yithbare Elohim, we get (by using yithbare, which is one of the forms of the Hebrew verb, called the reflexive form, meaning action upon oneself) the following translation: "By multitude", "Through multitude, the Gods formed themselves". What follows in the text? "into the heavens and the earth". That is: "In a host (or multitude) the gods formed (made) themselves into the Heavens and the Earth". See the vast difference in meaning from the "authorized version". This last translation we believe is the best; it shows at once the identity of thought with all other ancient cosmogonic systems.

" By multitude formed" (or "evolved": this word Bara means to "fatten", to "shape", to "become heavy or gross", to "cut", to "form", to "be born", to "evolve") - "by (or in) multitude" or "through (or in) multitude evolved Elohim themselves into the heavens and the earth".

Now the fourth word, Elohim. This is a very curious word. The first part of it alone is el, meaning God, divinity, from which comes the second, a feminine form, eloh, Goddess. Im is merely the masculine plural. So, if we translate every element in this single word, it would mean, "God, Goddess, plural" - showing the androgynous essence of the divinities, as it were: the polar opposites of the Hierarchy; the essential duality in life.

Verse 2. "And the earth became ethereal". Now the second word - a verb - in the Hebrew text of the second verse answers to two Latin verbs: esse, to be, and fieri, to become; but almost always its original sense is fieri, to become, like the Greek gignomai, meaning to become, to grow into a new state of something. "And the earth became" or "grew into ethereality". The two next words (" tohu" and "bohu") of the text, which we here translate "ethereality", are very difficult words rightly to interpret. They both mean "emptiness", "waste", "Immateriality", hence "dissolution"; the fundamental idea means something unsubstantial, not materially gross. We continue our translation: "And darkness upon the face of the ethers. And the Ruahh (the spirit-soul) of the Gods (of Elohim) (fluttered, hovered) brooding." The word we translate "brooded" is derived from and means the action of a hen which flutters, and hovers, and broods over the eggs in its nest. How graphic, how significant is this figure of speech! [79]

You see the same thought here that you see in practically all the ancient teachings; the figure or symbol of the cosmic soul brooding over the waters of space, preparing the world-egg: that of the cosmic egg and the divine bird laying the cosmic egg. "And the spirit-soul of Elohim brooding upon the face of the waters", says the Hebrew text. Now "waters", as we have shown before, was a common expression or symbol for space, the ethereal expansion, as it were. We continue our translation: "And said (the) Elohim (The Gods) - Light, come-into-being! and Light came-into-being. And saw (the) Gods the light, that (it was) good. And divided Elohim between the light and between the darkness. And called Elohim the light day, and the darkness called they night. And (there) came-into-being eve, and (there) came-into-being morn. Day one. And said Elohim (let there) come-into-being an expanse in (the) midst of the waters, and let it be a separator (divider) between waters and waters. And made Elohim (or the Gods) the expanse, and they separated between the waters which (were) below the expanse, and between the waters which (were) above the expanse, and (it) came-to-be so. And called Elohim (the Gods) the expanse heavens, and (there) came-into-being eve, and (there) came-into-being morn. Day second. And said Elohim (the Gods) "(let there) be-gathered-together (i.e., solidified, condensed) the waters above the heavens into one place, and (let there) be-seen the dry-part (the solidified or manifested part)" (the word means "dry", in opposition to humidity. Humidity means water, standing for space. It means, therefore, the collected matter of a planet to be, of a solar system to be, or a universe to be), "and (it) came-to-be so. And called the Gods the dry-part earth, and the solidification (gathering-together) of the waters called they seas. And saw Elohim (the Gods) that (it was) good."

Now turn to verses 26, 27, 28 of the same, the first, chapter. "And said (the Gods) Elohim, Let us make humanity (the word is Adam) in our shadowy image (in our shadow, in our phantom. The word is tselem), according to our pattern (or model). And let them descend into the fish of the sea and into the flying creatures of the heavens, and into the beast, and into all the earth, and into all moving creatures which move upon the earth. And formed (or shaped or evolved, the same verb as above, Bara) Elohim (the Gods) humanity in their phantom, in the shadowy image of Elohim, formed (or evolved) they him."

Now come two very interesting words, usually translated "male and female", which are two of the meanings respectively found in the dictionaries; but the root-meanings of these words are the following: "thinker and receiver" (or receptacle): "thinker and receptacle evolved they them. And blessed them [80] the Elohim", that is, the Elohim blessed them, "and said to them the Elohim, 'be fruitful, increase, and fill the earth'," and so forth.

You see, therefore, that here, merely by using other words than those usually chosen by Christian translators, or later Jewish translators, and yet recognized dictionary words, and by forcing no meanings, we have found the identical meanings of the Esoteric teachings as outlined in The Secret Doctrine when treating of these subjects. First the Hierarchy and its manifested divinities evolving the universe or Kosmos out of themselves, using the reflexive form of the Hebrew verb bara, as shown above. Furthermore, a study of the first verse of Genesis will show us that the evolution treated in it has no relation solely and especially to the creation of this earth or of any other particular earth, but is a general doctrine having reference rather to the first manifestation of material being in ethereal space, and that the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea and the beasts, which are spoken of, do not necessarily refer (although they could) to the particular animals which we know under those names on earth, but do also refer (in accord with a well known fact of ancient mythology) to the "animals of the heavens" of which we spoke in our last study, i.e., to every globe of the starry spheres, to every nebula and to every comet, all such being considered in the ancient teachings to be a living being, an "animal" having its physical corpus or body, and having behind it its Director, or Governor, or Divine Essence, or Spirit.

Furthermore, we see that the Elohim evolved Man, Humanity, out of themselves, and told them to become, then to enter into and inform these other creatures. Indeed, these sons of the Elohim are, in our teachings, the children of light, the sons of light, which are we ourselves, and yet different from ourselves, because higher, yet they are our own very selves inwardly; for, in fact, the Elohim became, evolved into, their own offspring, remaining in a sense still always the inspiring Light, within - or rather above - according to the interpretation authorized by the very words chosen from the dictionary - and flaunting no rule of Hebrew grammar. For, following the ancient teachings of the Esoteric Philosophy, and strengthened by exactly similar thought in the Babylonian religious teachings from which these Hebrew teachings originally came, we see that the Elohim projected themselves into the nascent forms of the then "humanity", which thenceforward were "men," however imperfect their development still was.

What were these Elohim, these divinities, these Gods? In the hierarchical system of the Qabbalah they are the sixth in derivation from above, from the first or the Crown, and thus are by no means the highest. They were, cosmogonically, the manifested [81] Formers, or Weavers, of the Web of the Universe. Jehovah, spoken of in the second chapter of Genesis, is the third angelic potency, counting downwards from the Crown - the summit of the Hierarchy of the Qabbalah.

In chapter five of Genesis, verses 1 and 2, there is an interesting expression. We translate: "This (the) book of the generations of humanity (Adam). In the day of Elohim (of the Gods) evolving humanity, in the pattern (or model) of the Elohim, made they him. Thinker-and-receptacle made they them, and blessed them and called their name humanity (or Adam) in the day of their making." Evidently, it is not here question of a single human pair, of a man and a woman in our sense, but of nascent androgynous humanity, and they had one name, Adam, and their attributes were thinker and casket (or receptacle): ethereal beings - children of the Elohim - who are themselves - capable of thinking and of receiving and understanding and developing under the lessons which were to follow from their incarnations in the lower fleshly beings they themselves evolved, and signified under the terms as set forth here - the "fowls" of the "air", and the "fish" of the "sea", and every living thing which moveth upon the face of the earth.

These ancient writings have more than one mystical or esoteric application, or, as H.P. Blavatsky says, they have more than one key. But, again, what or who were these Elohim? They were our theosophical monads. It is curious, by the way, that Leibnitz, the great Slavic-German philosopher, evolved a theory of monadic evolution which is singularly like our own in some respects. For him, the universe was replete with progressing entities, which he called "monads", spiritual beings which evolved through the forces innate in themselves, yet acting and reacting upon each other - a faithful echo, in so far as it goes, of the Ancient Wisdom-Religion.

Again, what do we mean when we speak respectively of emanation, evolution, and creation? Emanation and evolution are closely similar in meaning. Emanation is from a Latin word meaning "flowing out", and in all the ancient teachings of importance the idea was that the Gods actively, transitively, "flowed out" from themselves their offspring or children. Evolution is also a Latin word and means "rolling out", "unfolding", something which is unfolded; and obviously a thing which is "flowed out", using the words "flowed out" transitively, is also unrolled out, unfolded out.

Now creation originally in its Latin sense meant practically the same as does this Hebrew word Bara. It meant "making", "shaping", "carving", "cutting" - of course out of preexisting material or matter, and the Christian theory (which was [82] more or less that of the Jews in their later days) that God made the world "out of nothing", is preposterous, absurd, both historically and linguistically. It is founded on no ancient teaching whatever, and it arose naturally enough, in a sense, from the monotheistic mania, which endeavored to make God extra-cosmic, apart from the universe, and above it, a pure spirit, having no relation of ineluctable union with his creatures, God the "Father and Maker" of them, and yet an absolute personal non-entity - having no "body, parts, or passions", yet a Person withall! Of course the two concepts are contradictory and mutually destructive, and had we the time it would be easy to dilate further the preposterous absurdity of which we speak.

We can see, therefore, in closing our study this evening, that it is very difficult to say which of these three: Emanation, Evolution, Creation, is first in the order of procession. Was it emanation, followed by evolution, followed by creation; or was it evolution, followed by emanation, followed by creation? Certainly, creation - in its original sense of shaping, forming - comes the last of the three, as is easily shown. The difficulty lies in the fact that in every cosmic act of emanation we immediately perceive an act of evolution or unfolding; and in every act of evolution we immediately perceive an act of emanation. Every monad pari passu passes from one into the other, just as all mankind evolved pari passu from one into the other. We should, probably, say that emanation, evolution, creation, work simultaneously and coordinately, during manifestation.

But taking the question from a purely philosophical standpoint, it is probably accurate and best to say that the first step from what we call the Unmanifest into the Manifest is emanation, a flowing out from its source of a monad or rather a host of monads, which, as they in turn follow the pattern set for them by their source and their Karmic past, grow darker, and more material, proportionately as they recede from their central fount of life; and, again, as they emanate, they also evolve, bringing out from within that which they innately are or have, and they do this in accordance with the karmic lines or patterns upon which we have faintly touched in previous studies, when speaking of the Skandhas, because every act of emanation and of evolution begins a new lifecycle following the Pralaya or rest period of a former life-period or Manvantara. Then finally, when the period of self-consciousness is reached in the cyclical progression of evolution, comes a period of will, conscious choice, when man begins to "create" or fashion voluntarily; that is, through the exercise of his will and his intuition and his intellect, he carves his own destiny and likewise affects the world creationally which exists around him. [83]

Chapter IX

OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC COSMOGONY. GLOBES, ROUNDS AND RACES: COSMIC TIME PERIODS.

Can one fail to recognize in Creuzer great powers of intuition, when, being almost unacquainted with the Aryan Hindu philosophies, little known in his day, ho wrote:

We modern Europeans fed surprised when hearing talk of the Spirits of the Sun, Moon, etc. But we repeat again, the natural good sense and the upright judgement of the ancient peoples, quite foreign to our entirely material ideas upon celestial mechanics and physical sciences ¼ could not see in the stars and planets only that which we see: namely, simple masses of light, or opaque bodies moving in circuits in sidereal space, merely according to the laws of attraction or repulsion; but they saw in them living bodies, animated by spirits as they saw the same in every kingdom of nature ¼ This doctrine of spirits, so consistent and conformable to nature, from which it was derived, formed a grand and unique conception, wherein the physical, the moral, and the political aspects were all blended together ¼ (Egypte, 450-55)

It is such a conception only that can lead man to form a correct conclusion about his origin and the genesis of everything in the universe - of Heaven and Earth, between which he is a living link. Without such a psychological link, and the feeling of its presence, no science can ever progress, and the realm of knowledge must be limited to the analysis of physical matter only.

- Secret Doctrine, II, 369-70

We open our study tonight by reading once again from page 224 and page 225, of The Secret Doctrine, Volume I, as follows:

Mankind in its first prototypal, shadowy form, is the offspring of the Elohim of Life (or Pitris); in its qualitative and physical aspect it is the direct progeny of the "Ancestors," the lowest Dhyanis, or Spirits of the Earth; for its moral, psychic, and spiritual nature it is indebted to a group of divine Beings, the name and characteristics of which will be given in Book II. Collectively, men are the handiwork of hosts of various spirits; distributively, the tabernacles of those hosts; and occasionally and singly, the vehicles of some of them.

And the second paragraph on page 225:

Man is not, nor could he ever be, the complete product of the "Lord God"; but he is the child of the Elohim, so arbitrarily changed into the singular masculine gender. The first Dhyanis, commissioned to "create" man in their image, could only throw off their shadows, like a delicate model, for the Nature Spirits of matter to work upon. (See Book II.) Man is, beyond any doubt, formed physically out of the dust of the Earth, but his creators and fashioners were many.

In our last study we called attention to the first chapter of [84] the Hebrew Book of Gcnesis, and translated verses 1 to 10, and verses 25, 26, and 27 thereof. The intention was to show that the Ancient Wisdom was outlined even in the Jewish Book of Beginnings, even as it is elsewhere found in the scriptures of the other great World Religions. Of course, in all meetings where the time at one's disposal is limited, such as it is in these meetings, it is impossible adequately to treat every point of interest, and to deal with every phase of the subject at once; for this reason the Teacher has instructed me first to sketch an outline of a subject under discussion, and in later studies to return to the details.

Now in continuation of our study of the esoteric sense underlying this first chapter of Genesis, we must point out that this chapter does not deal with man as we now know him. The "man" spoken of in this first chapter is the spiritual being which descended into matter in the First Round of this Manvantara, as a spiritual, or rather ethereal, being; and consequently, when in verse 27 we translated the peculiar phrase, "Thinker and receiver formed (or evolved) they him", we must understand that this allusion does not refer to sexual man and woman of the present time. These words, thinker and receiver, refer to the spiritual nature of the then ethereal vehicles of humanity, not to our present day man or woman; and the word receiver can also be translated receptacle, the vehicle or house of the higher nature. Also, at the period dealt with in this verse 27 of the first chapter of Genesis, man in the general sense - humanity - was of double sex, or androgyne; hence, obviously, there was no "woman" then. This first chapter practically ignores the first, purely sexless, state of ethereal Adam; and enters upon its description of "man" when the latter was already sinking into material existence as a semi-self-conscious ethereal androgyne. In other words, the first chapter does not detail the separation of the sexes, which occurred far later. This general statement is plainly shown by even the exoteric rendering of the teaching - but let us read from another chapter of Genesis, verse 5 of Chapter II:

And every plant of the field BEFORE IT WAS IN THE EARTH, and every herb of the field BEFORE IT GREW: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there WAS NOT A MAN to till the ground.

"Man" had not yet come. Let me preface future explanations by saying that this second chapter of Genesis deals with the Third and the Fourth Rounds of our Manvantara, the latter or fourth being our present Round; and more particularly with the Third Root Race of our Fourth Round; whereas chapter first is a highly generalized and succinct Jewish epitome of early cosmogony, and ends with a similarly brief allusion to Rounds first and second. [85]

And in verses 19, 20, 21, and 22, we find the following:

19. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a helpmate for him.

21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

As in verse 5 above, I use here the ordinary English translation of the so-called "Authorized Version", although, as a matter of fact, a very luminously different translation could be made of these verses. It would lead us too far from our main point to do so now.

Now, in the first place, this second chapter records a different method from that recorded in Chapter I, and a change as regards the evolving of the ethereal being from the Elohim, having reference to the making of physical humanity, or "man", from the "dust of the ground" (verse 7). In the second place, this English word rib of verses 21 and 22 should be translated side, the allusion being to the separation of the androgyne or dual-sexed humanity of Race the Third of our Fourth Round into sexed humanity as now existent.

Now Plato in his Banquet, page 189, alludes to this same historical physiological fact of prehistory, and says that (one of) the early races of mankind was bisexually formed; that they had great and terrible powers, and that their wickedness and ambition waxed very great, so that Zeus grew angry at their wickedness, and decided to cut them in two, as one would divide an egg with a hair. This Zeus did; and bade Apollo to render the two halves more shapely, etc. Apollo so did, and he closed up the flesh of the two halves. Since then all mankind was man and woman. A typically Platonic tale, embodying actual facts of forgotten history.

This deals with the earliest portion of the Fourth Root Race, and much more especially with the middle period of the Third Root Race of the Fourth - or present - Round on this planet. Up to the present time we have not had the need to set forth the teaching regarding the Rounds and Races; but we are fast approaching the time when we shall have to develop that subject.

We will now leave, for the present, with a few more words of explanation, the outline of emanation and evolution as found in [86] the Jewish Bible and as outlined by us at our last study and thus far this evening; and therefore first, before leaving it, it will be well to say a few words on the question of the Elohim, a subject upon which we touched last week.

Elohim is a word frequently found in the Jewish Bible, and is, as stated in our last preceding lecture, in itself an evidence of the polytheistic bias, teachings, and beliefs of the ancient Jewish people. The Bible itself shows it. Usually this word - a plural common noun - is to be translated as "Gods". But in most places where it occurs in the Hebrew text it is translated in the English "Authorized Version" as God. There is no true or solid reason for such a translation; the proper rendering is Gods; but the monotheistic and Christian tendencies of the translators made them set the translation for what they considered to be the best interests of the Christian Church, and their God Almighty; so they translated it in various places by various names, as for instance, it is translated as "Judges" in Exodus xxi, 6; xxii, 8, 9; and in many other places; but the essential, intrinsic meaning is always Gods, or beings having divine standing.

We now approach in our studies very difficult and, indeed, highly esoteric matters. In the first place, let us never forget that the Eolhim, the Gods, who are spoken of under various names in the various religions of the ancient world as the creators or rather evolvers or parents of mankind, are spiritual beings - who are ourselves. And the key to this apparent riddle is found in the doctrine and exposition of the Hierarchies of individualized life, as outlined in a former study.

A Hierarchy can be considered as an aggregate unit, as a collective entity in the same sense that an army is; nevertheless, an army is composed of units; and yet, again, this army of beings in any one Hierarchy is indeed from another aspect more than a mere collective entity, because it is united in its apex, in what is actually the fount of that Hierarchy. This fount is the hyparxis or spiritual Sun from which all the other nine planes or classes of the Hierarchy emanate and evolve down to the lowest, thence beginning a new Hierarchy; even as the hyparxis of any one Hierarchy is the lowest class or plane of a superior Hierarchy, and so practically ad infinitum.

Man is a spiritual being throughout, through and through and through. Matter itself is but one manifestation of spirit. We live in a universe of spirit, and although matter exists it exists as Maya, illusion; not as a mere illusionary nothing, but as something, as a modality, so to say, of spirit; but as we grow higher into the upper planes of the hierarchical scale, the maya, for the sphere of life embraced by that Hierarchy, fades away from [87] before our eyes, and we see truth in greater degree and progressively more widely the higher we go.

With regard to the descent into matter, or falling into matter, of mankind, that is to say the descent into manifested being of the spiritual entities, the spiritual hierarchy which man actually and properly is, we must remember that we cannot understand this profound subject very well without undertaking an outline or sketch, more or less complete, of what are the Rounds and Races; yet before doing this, we must clear away from our minds certain scientific conceptions, or rather misconceptions, which have been implanted in us by intensive teaching from childhood, and which have for that reason become a part of our mental life.

Two main pillars of our modern science are the following: first, the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy: that is to say, that the amount of force or of energy in the universe is constant, and no increase can be created to add unto it, and no amount can be taken away from it; the second great pillar is the doctrine of the Correlation, or the Convertibility, of Forces: that is to say, that any force can, at least theoretically, be converted into some other force, as mechanical motion into electrical and electrical into mechanical, and so forth as regards the other forces working in matter.

Now these two theories or doctrines of science do make an approach in certain respects to the esoteric conception of the wonderful element back of and causative of all the changes in Nature, but nevertheless the conception of the Esoteric Philosophy, as our Teachers have shown it to us, cannot accept either of these two doctrine pillars of science as thus conceived. First, the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy. It is perfectly true that no "new" force can be "created", and it is likewise perfectly true that no energy or force can ever be utterly lost. Forces are not converted or transformed, as the twin doctrine of science has it, it is possible, however, for a force to pass from one plane of being into another - to come into one plane from a higher, or, indeed, from a lower. In other words, it is possible for a force- or energy-element outside of some plane to enter into being and manifestation upon it. Hence, the materialistic doctrine of a universe of dead, lifeless, non-vital matter - nothing above it or beyond it or below it or through it - cannot be accepted by the students of the Esoteric Philosophy.

As regards the correlation or Convertibility of Energy. It is true, in one sense, that all the forces in the universe are correlated. It is a fundamental axiom of Theosophy that the Universe, our Universe, any Universe, is a living organism, and hence that its energies or forces, and all of them, are correlated; but this does not mean that one force can become another. The idea offends the [88] very essence, the very foundation of the Esoteric teaching with regard to manifestation, its Hierarchies, and individual lives - all offspring of the ONE LIFE. What happens is rather this: That one force is not turned into or converted into another, but evokes or calls forth or arouses into active life or manifestation a "force" which was not "latent" - a curious contradiction of sense - but which was in equilibrium. When the modern scientist speaks of latent or potential energy, it is to the Occultist a consummate logical absurdity, the very name energy or force meaning activity, and to talk about a "latent force" is like talking about "latent activity" or "dead life", or a square triangle, or a flat sphere. It is impossible as long as we base our conception on the scientific postulates. But - and note this well, please: a Theosophist, an Occultist, could use this phrase "latent force", because in his mouth the phrase has a meaning and sense.

For instance, a spiritual - hence latent or non-material - force is not "converted" into matter; a material force is not "converted" into spirit. Why? Because spirit and matter, or force and matter, are not two, but fundamentally and essentially ONE. Throughout the long period of manvantaric time there is a gradual evolution of one thing into another, but this procession of life is not accomplished along the lines or by the methods of the scientific theories which apply in the doctrine called the Convertibility of material Energy. The latter is a dream to us: it does not exist.

This is, in fact, a subject which we shall have to develop more fully at a later period of our study, but we come now to the question of the descent of spiritual and then ethereal man into matter, down the ten steps of the Hierarchical scale. We saw in a former study that this descent was begun by the entrance through a laya-center of the spiritual entities seeking manifestation on lower planes, the time having struck for them to open their great Maha-manvantara or the world-period which was to follow. As soon as the spiritual essences touched the highest degree of the lower plane, our fourth-matter plane, it stirred the particular laya-center therein to which they were directed by karmic energy, into corresponding activity or sympathetic life. This first manifestation thereof as seen from the same plane was the nebula, a cloudy nebula; the second stage, aeons later, was a spiral nebula; and the third, aeons still later, was an annular nucleated nebula, like a ring with a globe in the center; the latest stage, before the evolving body settled into life as a planet, was a comet, directed or drawn to that particular solar system or Sun to which it was karmically related in the former Planetary Manvantara.

Now the lifecycle, or Manvantara, of a planet, consists [89] objectively of seven Rounds, or smaller Manvantaras, around seven globes; but this is preceded by three elemental cycles - ten in all. The first three stages or cycles, call them the three elemental Rounds, if you will, are on the three archetypal planes above the seven; this period is not yet really ethereal manifestation: it is the first descent of the Arupa (or bodiless) beings, of spiritual nature, into sub-spiritual manifestation; but when the third or lowest of the three archetypal planes has been traversed, by that time the life-wave or life-essence has consolidated sufficiently in ethereal matter to form an airy shape or ethereal globe. This globe thence starts on the manvantaric cycle down into matter, a cycle which proceeds in several stages, actually seven, and upon and in seven globes, as already stated.

During the First Round, upon the first globe, the life-wave has to complete a Ring consisting of seven Root Races on that globe; after, or rather at, the end of the evolution of each Root Race, respectively, its (the Root Race's) surplus energy is thereupon exploded or protruded into the sphere lower and there forms the first, second, third, etc., element of the second globe of the First Round; the life-energy or life-wave has to run a ring of seven Root Races in and upon that second globe, and when each such Root Race has reached its end there, its surplus energy is thereupon exploded or protruded exactly as before into a magnetic center below it, and the seven there, after all have arrived, form the third globe, and so on till the seven globes are formed. This is the First Round. Beginning with the Second Round on the seven globes, the process is altered in important particulars, because all the seven globes are already formed, as globes.

At the end of the First Round there is a planetary Obscuration or rest period, when the entities leave the last globe, the seventh, and enter into a (lower) nirvanic period of manvantaric repose, answering to the devachanic or between-life states of the human entity between its respective lives. And so also at the end of the Second Round, and of the third, when we reach the fourth, which is our present Round.

As the life-wave cycles down into matter, it grows with every Yuga (or Age) grosser, and more material, until the middle of the Fourth Round (ours), when it begins to ascend. Every Round is grosser than its preceding one until the present, our fourth, the most material, is reached. This descent is called the "Shadowy Arc", or "Cycle of Darkness". We have, already, passed the lowest or middle period of the Fourth Round, and in consequence now have begun the Ascending Arc, or the "Luminous Arc"; we have three and a half more Rounds to run before we reach the end of the Kalpa, or Planetary Manvantara, when the great [90] Nirvana or Para-nirvana of the entire septenary Planetary Chain of the seven globes takes place.

Now as regards the geometrical outline of the course followed by this descent into matter, we may consider it to be in the form of an epicycloid. Let me try to explain diagramatically what is here meant by an epicycloid. An epicycloid is formed when a point on a small circle, which runs around and upon the convex side of the circumference of a larger circle, traces a curve which touches the circumference of the larger circle at the beginning and end of each revolution of the smaller circle thereupon, as at A and B in the figure. The curve A-B is the epicycloid. For instance, this figure shows the two circles: we will say that the point on the smaller circle begins its curve at A, rolling upwards to the left; at B, the point on the smaller circle has completed a full revolution; the curve A-B is the epicycloid.

Any point on this smaller circle as the latter rolls along the outside of the circumference of the larger circle will describe or generate a curve, which is an epicycloid; and as there is a geometrical relation between the commensurable radii of any two circles: for instance, if the radius of this smaller circle is one and the radius of the larger circle is seven, the proportion being 1:7, the rolling point will describe or generate seven arcs or cusps around and upon the circumference of the larger circle.

Now each one of these seven arcs represents here, geometrically, a globe of a Round. (Equally well does it represent geometrically one of the seven Root Races on each globe during any Round.)

In the First Round, the life-wave, starting from the seventh or highest plane, after its third full elemental cycle of and in the arupa world, begins to form the rupa or form world; and as the smaller circle rolls along the circumference of the greatest cycle, so to say, the life-wave (or globe) progressively grows more material, each one of these arcs which the cycling smaller circle makes on the circumference of the greater, representing a sphere of being, and also geometrically represents the life-wave of the planet beginning the evolution of material existence, "rising upward" (or increasing in material density) until it reaches its maximum of materiality, and then "descending" or decreasing in materiality until it again touches the plane of departure, the circumference of the greater circle (or cycle).

The process by which the spirit descends into matter is called in Sanskrit Pravritti (which we may paraphrase into English as [91] "earth-birth", or "earth-day "), practically the same word as evolution or emanation, in our modern tongues; the process of entering upon or ascending along the "Luminous Arc", ultimately to find itself home again in the spiritual world, is called Nivritti. Both words are from the Sanskrit root vrit, meaning to revolve, or to roll. The prefix pra answers to the preposition forth or forward, and the prefix ni to the prepositional phrases "out of", "away from", hence backwards, or reverse action. Pravritti is therefore used to mean the evolution or emanation of matter, which is equivalent to the involution of spirit; Nivritti, the evolution of spirit - the reverse process.

What are the durations of the time periods during which the life-wave manifests in the Manvantara of seven Rounds, and in the seven respective planets of each Round? As our first great Teacher, H.P. Blavatsky, has told us, the doctrines concerning the time periods have been from immemorial time considered too esoteric to be given to the outward world in anything at all approaching fullness of teaching or detail, but throughout the teachings that have been openly given there are many hints of immense value. For instance, the time required for one Round - that is the cycle from globe A to the last globe of the seven (we will call it Z), starting from the Root-Manu or collective "humanity" of globe A and ending with the Seed-Manu or collective "humanity" of globe Z - is called a Round Manvantara, and its period is 306,720,000 years. It is called "Manvantara" because it is the "reign of one Manu" - say a certain quality of Humanity. Now this word "Manvantara" is Sanskrit and means between Manus, i.e., between a Root-Manu on globe A and the Seed-Manu on globe Z, for a Round Manvantara. Now to this period of 306,720,000 years must be added the length of the Sandhi, meaning "connection", or "junction", or interval, according to a certain method of calculation, necessary in order fully to complete the evolution of the planet for the Round; this sandhi is of the length of a Krita-yuga, or 1,728,000 years, which brings the complete period or term of a Round Manvantara to 308,448,000 years of mortals.

As has already been stated, there is, after the end of every Round, an obscuration which also lasts for a certain period which we do not here specify; but this can be found by any reader of these studies who cares to give the subject thought, and to be guided by the teachings already given.

But how long a period do the seven Rounds take for their course? What is the period of a Maha-manvantara, or great Manvantara, sometimes called a Kalpa, after which the globes no longer go into mere obscuration or repose, but die utterly? The period of the Maha-manvantara or Kalpa is also called a [92] "Day of Brahm_", and its length is 4,320,000,000; and the "Night of Brahm_", the planetary rest period, which is also called the para-nirvanic period, is of equal length. Seven Rounds, as said, form a Day of Brahm_.

These figures are the Brahmanical figures, and they are also the figures of esoteric Buddhism (for we insist that Buddhism has an esoteric doctrine); the root-number 432, as any student knows, is also found in the chronological doctrines of ancient Babylonia; it is likewise the real meaning in the chronological line of the Pythagorean Tetraktys, 1-2-3-4, the 432 springing from the unity or monad, a subject of which we spoke in our last study.

We are also told that the duration of a planet's life, i.e., of a Planetary Chain of seven globes, is one of 360 divine days, corresponding to a divine year, and that Brahm_'s life (or the life of the universal system) is one hundred of those divine years - expressed in 15 figures of years of mortals. A Planetary Manvantara is also related to the duration of life of a solar system; a Planetary Manvantara (or seven Rounds) is a "day" of Brahm_, as already said; each of these days lasting 4,320,000,000 years of mortals, which really means the lifetime of a planet during its seven Rounds, and corresponding to one incarnation of a human life on earth.

How long, then, does Brahm_ live in any one of his manifested universes, which we know are called the "out-breathings of the Self-Existent"? We can calculate it - 4,320,000,000 times 100, times 360, or in other words, 36,000, lives has any planet to live before the Prakritika Pralaya (or the Elemental Pralaya) sets in, the end of that life (or pravritti) of the Universal system.

What happens when comes the end of a solar system? At a former meeting we spoke of the "bells of Pralaya". It was with no intention of attempting to be rhetorical, or of employing oratorical phraseology that we used this phrase. We have no such ambition. We chose the words because the teachings are that when the great (or Maha-) Pralaya comes upon the planets of any system, and their Sun, then strange noises of various kinds are heard in the air of a planet belonging to such a solar system; and these noises are repeated in miniature, so to say, not only at the end of the Planetary Manvantara (or the lifetime of the planet), but also in still smaller miniature at the end of every Round. These phenomena are likewise alluded to in other religions than the Indian, as for instance in the Christian and Jewish: in Revelation, vi, 14; and in Isaiah, xxxiv, 4. The Christian writers speak of the time, 2 Peter, iii, 10, 12, when the "elements shall melt with the fervent heat", and "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise", but they "look for new heavens and a new earth" - or a new Planetary Manvantara - and allude to [93] Pralayas as the time when "the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together", etc. These allusions to pralayic disintegration are figurative to a certain extent, but are sufficiently along the lines of the ancient Eastern thought to show us whence they came - from the archaic Wisdom-Religion (Theosophy) of the Orient. We are told that some of the strange Noises that will occur towards the end of the Prakritika Manvantara, before the cosmic or Prakritika Pralaya sets in, are strange hollow booming sounds, strange crackling as of musketry-fire, strange bell-like ringing as of the snapping of immense metallic belts.

Now the Sun is both the heart and the brain of our solar system, and sends seven-faceted life into every atom of its universe, the solar universe of which we and our planet Terra are a part. The Sun itself is in some respects a vampire, but it is also preeminently and essentially a life giver; it is, cosmogonically, our Elder Brother, and not at all our physical parent as modern scientific wiseacres would have it; it is also in a vital sense our Father-Mother, because through it, from planes superior to our own, come down the life-streams from worlds (systems) above ours - yet our planet - as all the other planets - also in a relative degree receives these life-streams, as every individual atom and every human being, in the smallest miniature thereof, receives the same individually from the Inmost of the Inmost within itself or himself. This is, as you will remember was stated in former studies, the same spiritual life; but cosmically, that is to say, with regard to the universe, the Sun is the brain and heart of our system, vitalizing and informing the endless hosts of beings under its systemic sway.

We do not see the (true) Sun. The Sun is not burning, or incandescent. Heat exists around the Sun, but it is not from burning gases or incandescence. We see the Sun's robes, or reflection, but we do not see the Sun itself. It is, in very truth, a spiritual thing, and we think we receive our entire supply of heat and light from it because the forces flowing from the Sun act in conjunction and reactively with the forces on our own earth - forces working in the universal nature around us. If most of our light is due to the Sun, this is not the case with 75 percent of the heat which we receive, which comes - most of it - from our own globe and its forces, and especially from the immensely thick clouds of cosmic dust which fills all space. The electromagnetic forces at work between this cosmic dust and our earth furnish most of the terrestrial heat.

I wish this evening, before closing, to call your attention to the fact that the ancient initiate-astronomers,when speaking of the seven sacred spheres of our universe, the seven or nine in which the bodies of the solar system and the stars were set - beyond [94] which was the Empyrean or the fiery sphere - desired to convey a meaning which is now lost - for the masses. There was a meaning of deep and wide significance also in their geocentric teachings. They knew as well as do we (and we have proofs of it), that the earth and the other planets whirl around the Sun in elliptical orbits, but they had a reason for teaching the geocentric doctrines in public, and some day we shall have need to go into an analysis and proof of this assertion.

Let us close our evening's study in calling attention to the fact that Theosophy is a doctrine of hope; it is a doctrine of spirituality; it is a doctrine which refines and elevates man; it is a doctrine in which there is room for the humblest to understand something and for the brightest and highest and most spiritual of us to put their feet on the lowest steps of that spiritual stair along which they may climb in hierarchical ascending up to the highest, not only in our own planet, hand in hand with the great Buddhas of former times, and of the times to come, but beyond our planet and beyond our own solar system into those illimitable spiritual spheres in which the solar system now exists, and through which we derive our life - spiritual, mental, psychical, pranic, and physical. [95]

Chapter X

THE DOCTRINE OF SWABHAVA - SELF-BECOMING - CHARACTERISTIC INDIVIDUALITY. MAN, SELF-EVOLVED, HIS OWN CREATOR. "MONADOLOGIE" OF LEIBNITZ CONTRASTED WITH TEACHINGS OF THE ESOTERIC PHILOSOPHY.

The MONAD emerges from its state of spiritual and intellectual unconsciousness; and, skipping the first two palnes - too near the ABSOLUTE to permit of any correlation with anything on a lower plane - it gets direct into the plane of Mentality. But there is no plane in the whole universe with a wider margin, or a wider field of action in its almost endless gradations of perceptive and apperceptive qualities, than this plane, which has in its turn an appropriate smaller plane for every "form," from the "mineral" monad up to the time when that monad blossoms forth by evolution into the DIVINE MONAD. But all the time it is still one and the same Monad, differing only in its incarnations, throughout its ever succeeding cycles of partial or total obscuration of spirit, or the partial or total obscuration of matter - two polar antitheses - as it ascends into the realms of mental spirituality, or descends into the depths of materiality.

-Secret Doctrine, I, 175

¼ 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.

- Secret Doctrine, I, 17

The general text of our study this evening is found in The Secret Doctrine, Volume I, page 83, stanza 3, verse 10:

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) In the Mandukya (Mundaka) Upanishad it is written, "As a spider throws out and retracts its web, as herbs spring up in the ground ¼ so is the Universe derived from the undecaying one" (I, 1, 7). Brahm_, 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 Brahm_ the "Creator" is, as a term, derived from the root brih, to increase or expand. Brahm_ "expands" and becomes the Universe woven out of his own substance. [96]

The same idea has been beautifully expressed by Goethe, who says:

Thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply,

And weave for God the garment thou see'st Him by.

In the course of our studies we have been advancing stage by stage, step by step, from general principles, and our course has been always towards that point of emanation and evolution which finds itself at the dawn of manifestation, or the opening of Manvantara. We have touched upon many subjects but lightly, because the intricacy of the theme did not at the time permit us to go into and to follow side-avenues of thought, however attractive and important they might be; but these avenues we shall have to explore as time and opportunity bring once more before us, in the course of our study, the portals which we have passed and perhaps have merely glanced into.

As the Teacher has directed, we have brought to the attention of those who will read these studies certain fundamental natural principles, as fundamental and important in their respective bearings as the two foundation-stones of popular Theosophy today, called Reincarnation and Karma. One of these principles is the doctrine of Hierarchies, upon which much more could and should be said than has hitherto been said, and it will be said in due time.

Another such fundamental principle or doctrine - a true key opening the very heart of being, and, besides other things, reaching into the root-meaning of the so-called "origin of evil" and of the inner urge towards right and righteousness, which man calls his moral sense - is that which flows forth from the philosophical conceptions behind the word Swabhava, meaning, generally, the essential characteristic of anything; the medieval scholastics spoke of this essentiality of things as their Quidditas, or Quiddity - the whatness of anything: that which is its heart, its essential nature, its characteristic essentiality. The word Swabhava (a noun) itself is derived from the Sanskrit root Bhu, meaning "to become", or "to be", and the prefix of the word, the three preceding letters, sva, is also of course Sanskrit and means "self." The word thus translated means "self-becomingness", a technical term, a keyword, in which philosophical conceptions of immense and wide-reaching import inhere. We shall develop some of these more fully as we proceed with our studies.

In the quotation from the stanzas which we have read this evening, you will have noticed the word Swabhavat, from the same elements as is Swabhava, from the same Sanskrit root. Swabhavat is the present participle of the verb bhu, meaning that which becomes itself, or develops from within outwardly its [97] essential self by emanation, evolution; in other words, that which by self-urge develops the potencies latent in its nature, in its self, in its Being of being. We have often spoken of the "Inmost of the Inmost", as implying that "inmost" link or root by which we (and all other things) flow forth from the very essence of the heart of things, which is our UTTER SELF, and we have spoken of it sometimes with the hand placed upon the breast; but we must be exceedingly careful not to think that this Inmost of the Inmost is in the physical body. Let me explain just what I mean. The Qabbalists divide the planes of nature into which the ten Sephiroth became - queer English, this, but very accurately and correctly expressing the thought - into four during manifestation, and they were called the four 'Olam, a word having originally the meaning of "concealed" or "hid" or "secret", but also used for time, likewise used almost exactly in the sense of the Gnostic teaching of "Aions", (aeons) as spheres, Lokas in Sanskrit. The highest of the Qabbalistic 'Olams, or spheres, was 'Olam Atsiloth, meaning the "aeon" or "age" or the "Loka" of "condensation." The second was called 'Olam Hab-Beriah, meaning the aeon or age or Loka of "creation". The third in descent and increasing materiality was called 'Olam Ha-Yetsirah or Loka of Form. The fourth, last, most material and grossest, was called 'Olam Ha-'A siah, meaning the aeon or world of "action" or "causes". This last plane or sphere or world is the lowest of the four, and is sometimes called the world of Matter, or, again, of "shells", man (and other physical entities) sometimes being considered a shell in the sense of being the garment or the vehicle or "shell" or corpus of the indwelling spirit.

Now psychologically these four spheres were considered as being copied, or reflected, or as having a locus (place) in the human body; and, in order to correspond with the four basic principles into which the Jewish Qabbalistic philosophers divided man, Neshamah (or spirit) was supposed to have its locus in the head, or rather hovering thereover; the second, Ruahh (or Soul), was supposed to have its locus or center in the breast or chest; the third, the lowest of the active principles, called Nefesh (or the animal-astral soul), was supposed to have its locus or center in the abdomen. The fourth vehicle was Guf, or the inclosing shell of the physical body. The Neshamah, the highest of all, from which the others emanated stage by stage - the Ruahh from the Neshamah, the Nefesh from the Ruahh, and the Guf from the Nefesh (the Guf actually is the Linga-sharira, esoterically, and secretes the human physical body) - should not be considered so much in the head as overshadowing as it were the head and body It may be likened to a solar ray, or to an electric ray, or again to the so-called "golden chain" of the great Greek poet Homer [98] and the far later Neo-Platonic philosophers, which connects Zeus and all lower entities; or to the chain of beings in a Hierarchy linked by their hyparxis with the lowest plane of the next higher Hierarchy.

Now this "Inmost of the Inmost" is in that part of us which overshadows us, which is above us physically, rather than in us. And it really is our spiritual Monad. Therefore, before we can know what we mean by the Swabhava, and the wonderful doctrine fundamentally emanating therefrom, we must understand what we mean by Monad and the sense in which the word Monad is used. Those who were students of H.P. Blavatsky while she was alive with us, and who have studied under our two other Teachers, W.Q. Judge, and the present one, Katherine Tingley, will realize the necessity of making our sense clear by choosing words which shall convey clearly and sensibly, and without possibility of misconception, the thoughts which lie behind the words. In European philosophy, monad, as a philosophical word, seems to have been first employed by the great Italian philosopher, the noted Giordano Bruno, in thought a Neo-Platonist, who derived his inspiration from the philosophy of Greece, now called Neo-Platonism; a more modern use of the word monad, in a spiritual-philosophical sense, was that of the Slavic-German philosopher, Leibnitz. Monadism formed the heart of all his teachings, and he said that the universe was composed, built up, of monads: that is to say, he conceived them to be spiritual centers having no extension, but having an inner and inherent energy of development, the respective hosts of monads being of various degrees and each one achieving its own development by an innate characteristic nature (or Swabhava). The essential meaning of this, as it is at once seen, is characteristic Individuality, which is Self, pursuing its own unfoldment and growing by stages higher and higher through self-unfolding or self-becoming (or Swabhava). Leibnitz taught that these monads were connected, spiritually, psychically, and physically, by a "law of harmony", as he expressed it, which is our Swabhavat - the Self-Existent, developing during manifestation into the Hosts of monads, or monadic centers.

Now Leibnitz seems to have taken (at least in part) the main philosophical conception, as regards his monads, as developed in his philosophy - in his Monadologie - from the Flemish-Netherlandish mystic, Van Helmont. This man Van Helmont, however, took it from Bruno, or, perhaps, directly, as Bruno did, from the Neo-Platonic philosophers. As far as the basic ideas of Bruno, Van Helmont, and Leibnitz go, they very much resemble each other; they resemble also the teaching on this subject of the Esoteric Wisdom, Esoteric Theosophy, but only in so far as we [99] consider manifestation, because the monads themselves, in their ultimate, enter into the "silence and darkness", as Pythagoras would have put it, when the great Maha-pralaya or cosmical Dissolution begins. A monad in the ancient teachings now called Theosophy - remember that "Theosophy" really means the Wisdom which the Gods or divine beings study, a truly divine thing - means a spiritual atom - we are compelled here to use popular language; and a spiritual atom is equivalent to saying pure Individuality, the selfness of the Self, the essential nature or characteristic or Swabhavic core of every spiritual being, the self of itself. This Esoteric Wisdom derives this Self - not its ego, which is an entirely different and lower and inferior thing - it derives this divine Monad, it derives this divine Substance-consciousness, from the Paramatman (which we have studied before), the so-called "Supreme" Self, not that this Supreme Self is God in the curiously contradictory Christian sense, not supreme in that sense, but supreme in the sense of absolute, unconditioned, and all-pervading universality for and in a single cosmical aggregation of Hierarchies, for it is the summit, acme, pinnacle, and Source thereof.

Now, if we remember what we have studied in our former meetings in this connection, and the conceptions that we figurated on the blackboard by means of paradigmatic schemes, or diagrams, we shall recollect that we represented the highest that we could intellectually conceive of as a triangle, figuring it thus in our minds - not that this highest actually is a triangle, which would be ludicrous, but representing it diagrammatically to ourselves in that fashion; and the highest sphere - in the mathematical sense of being without physical extension as we conceive of such - from which all the succeeding ten steps, planes, degrees of any Hierarchy radiated, we called the Boundless, the Without Bounds - the Ain Suph as the Qabbalists said: and that the two aspects of the Boundless formed, so to speak, the two sides of this divine triangle, one of these two aspects being Para-brahman ("beyond Brahman"), and the other being Mula-prakriti (or "root-nature"). It must be remembered, in this connection, that any diagrammatic representation may and often does figurate different conceptions when the premises differ. And next, that from this divine triangle there was a reflection, as it were, an emanation, into the lower shadow, into the substance or matter below, the rays of the upper Sun shining into the lower atmosphere, so to say, and illuminating it, and that this lower illuminated atmosphere or substance was called the lower monad, and the upper was called the higher monad; and that, as the energy or life-waves swept downwards through the second monad or the lower monad, the square or manifested nature came into being as the third stage of [100] evolution. With the premises before stated, therefore, this upper triangle, which may be considered as one, or a trinity in unity, is the upper monad, or the Inmost of the Inmost, the self of the Self; and the lower triangle is its emanation, its three lines representing Father, Mother, and Son. The Father, again, may be considered as the Primal Point of the second or lower triangle, that is to say the point forming the apex of the triangle, which is a laya-center through which stream down into our sphere the manifesting forces which themselves become the universe.

And herein we may see an example of the philosophical value of the hierarchical system considered as a representation of Nature's symmetrical architecture, because each stage of the downward progress, each step or plane downwards, is informed, ensouled, by the upper parts which remain above; while the lower planes or parts are spiritually and ethereally and physically secreted and excreted step by step, plane after plane, and cast forth like foam on the substratal waves of life. The physical nature as we see it even on this our own plane, is, so to speak, concreted divinity, and it actually is concreted light, because light is ethereal matter or substance.

Some day we shall have to study this question of spirit and substance, force and matter, and their relations and interactions, [101] more thoroughly than we have been able to do thus far in our lectures.

Now, from the highest of the highest, from what is to us the unknown of the unknown, the inmost of the Inmost, through all these planes, there streams down, as it were, the Divine Ray, passing from one Hierarchy to another Hierarchy below it, and then to another still lower, and then to a third yet more material, and so on till the limit of the cosmical aggregate is reached, when it begins to ascend along the stupendous Round, returning towards its primal Source. Note carefully that as it descends it evolves these various Hierarchies from itself; and on its ascending Round, draws them back into itself again. Surrounding this immense spiritual aggregate, we are taught to conceive an aura as it were, taking the shape of an egg, which we can call, if you like, following the example of the Qabbalists, the Shechinah, a Hebrew word meaning dwelling or vehicle, or what the Esoteric Philosophy calls the Auric Egg in the case of man, and representing in this paradigmatic scheme the universe which we see around us in its highest aspects, for this aura is the very outgrowth of Mula-prakriti; while this mystical line which we draw in the figure as running down through all the various grades of the Hierarchy, is the stream of the Self, the Unconditioned Consciousness, welling up in the inmost of everything.

Now to come back to the word Swabhavat, the "self-becoming", the "self-Existing". It is, in the super-spiritual, following the above paradigmatic scheme, the second Divine Monad or second Divine Logos; or, looking at it in another and lower way, it is the first cosmic Monad, the reflection of the primeval or primal Divine Monad above it, and is the first manifestation or quiver of cosmic life when the end of Universal Pralaya having come, the cry goes forth, so to say, on the watch-tower of eternity, "Let there be manifestation and light!"

The Elohim in a former stage were Monads; and you remember that we translated verses 25, 26, and 27 of the first chapter of Genesis, a translation radically different from that given in any European translation, and we saw that these Elohim said, "Let us make man in our own shadow, (or phantom) (that is, in our own shadow-selves or matter-selves), and in our own pattern", in other words, they made man by becoming him; in other words again, Humanity is the lower principles of the Elohim themselves as Monads.

So the monad is the inmost of ourselves, not as a soul, as a "gift of God", but as the highest part of ourselves; and our very bodies are concreted spirit, which is on this plane the lowest, the shadowy end, the matter-end, of the self-Hierarchy which each one of us is. [102]

Let us remember again that each Hierarchy has its Swabhava, or specific characteristic. To exemplify it by colors, one Hierarchy is predominantly blue, another is predominantly red, another green, another yellow or golden, and so on; but each one has its own forty-nine roots or divisions, forty-nine aspects of the one underlying Root-Substance common to all, so that of necessity each one of these forty-nine in its turn develops one of the other colors. So that, if we could perceive it spiritually, we should see all nature around us everywhere flashing and coruscating in a most marvelous interplay of colors - a wonderful picture! This is sheer fact, not a metaphor. And, furthermore, there is for every Kosmos a cosmic Hierarchy which includes all the lesser Hierarchies thereof, and each Hierarchy, large or small, is linked on, above and below, (or outward and inward) to other Hierarchies, higher and lower, and each separate, individual Hierarchy consists of nine (or ten) planes or degrees. Seven of these are, throughout, on the manifesting planes. Hence, a Hierarchy, strictly speaking, consists of ten planes housing ten states of matter and ten forces; but seven thereof are manifesting forces; the seven in manifestation run from the arupa (or formless) to the rupa (or form) worlds; and they are all linked together, coordinated together, combined together, beyond present human conception or understanding.

It is along these lines of spiritual thought that the dogmatic religious or scientific system quarrels, if we may use this expression, with the Esoteric Philosophy, because that system is based - at least as regards the scientific view - upon purely mechanical and materialistic hypotheses, invented by the scientists of the last century concerning the nature and action of what is called "matter" and "force", as if there could in reason be a true definition or explanation of these two on a basis of fortuitous mechanicalism arising out of utterly lifeless "matter".

Let us say now, although it is departing a little from our main theme, that force is simply matter on a higher plane - ethereal matter, if you will; and that physical matter is simply force on our plane: matter actually is naught but concreted force; or, to reverse the idea, force is nothing but sublimated or etherealized matter, because the two, matter and spirit, are one. It is best and truest to say that matter is concreted or compacted force; just as Nature (matter as we know it) is equilibrated spirit.

Now we may once more return to this wonderful teaching of Swabhava, after this rather long but necessary explanation or introduction. The Monad is our inmost Self; each man has his own - or rather is his own - Monad; each being of whatever degree or kind has its particular characteristic nature - not merely the outer or vehicular characteristics that change from [103] incarnation to incarnation, and from Manvantara to Manvantara - but every entity, high or low, has, so to say, a keynote of its being, and this is its Swabhava: the selfhood of the Self, essential characteristic of the Self, by the urge of which the Self becomes the many selves, producing and manifesting the hosts of varied qualities and types and degrees. Now note carefully: The urge behind evolution or development is not external to the evolving entity but within itself; and the future results to be achieved in evolution - that which the evolving entity becomes - lie in germ or seed in itself; both this urge and this germ or seed, arise out of one thing, and THIS IS ITS SWABHAVA.

Remember what we said in our former study about the nature and evolution of the universe. What is a - or any - universe? It is a self-contained and self-sustained and self-sufficient entity in manifestation, but is merely one of countless hosts of other universes, all children of the Boundless; there is, for instance, an atomic universe, and a terrestrial or planetary universe, and a man or human universe, and a solar universe, and so on indefinitely; yet all hang together, interpenetrate each other, and form any cosmical aggregate. And how and why? Because each universe, great or small, is a Hierarchy, and each Hierarchy represents and is the development of and is a part of the spiritual urge and evolving germ arising out of the Self, thereof, of the Self of each, each developing and evolving its own particular essential characteristic; and all these forces taken together are the Swabhava of any entity. Swabhava, in short, may be called the essential Individuality of any monad, expressing its own characteristics, qualities, and type, by self-urged evolution.

We should note also in passing, that perhaps the most mystic school in Buddhism, which H.P. Blavatsky says has practically kept most faithfully to this one of the esoteric teachings of Gautama Buddha, is a school still extant in Nepal, which is called the Swabhavika school, a Sanskrit adjective derived from the noun Swabhava; this school comprises those who follow the doctrine of Swabhava, or the doctrine which teaches the becoming or unfolding of the Self by inner impulse - the Self-becoming. We do not, according to it, become "through the grace of a God", we become whatever we are or are to be through our own selves; we make ourselves; derive ourselves from ourselves; become our own children; have always done so, and will forever do so. This applies not only to man, but to all beings everywhere. Herein we see the root, the force, the meaning, of morals. Responsible for every act we do, for every thought we think, responsible to the uttermost farthing, never anything "forgiven", never anything "wiped out," except when we ourselves turn the evil we have done into good. We shall have to discuss more fully, some time, the question [104] of the "origin of evil" which is involved herein. We may note in passing that this school is called "atheistic" and "materialistic", simply because of two reasons: first, the profound thought of this doctrine is misinterpreted by Occidental scholars; second, many of its followers have, in fact, degenerated.

You see immediately the ethical force of such a doctrine as this of the Swabhava, when it is properly understood. We become, what we are in germ in our inmost essence; we also follow and make a part of (likewise) the type and the course of evolution of the particular Planetary Chain to which we belong by affinity, of which we spoke briefly in our last meeting. We first follow along the Shadowy Arc down into matter, and when we have reached the lowest point of that arc, then, through the inner impulses of our nature, through what our present Teacher Katherine Tingley calls "self-directed evolution" - which is the very heart of this doctrine of Swabhava, one of the most fundamental doctrines in the esoteric philosophy - when we have reached the bottom, I repeat, then the same inner impulse carries us (provided that we have passed the danger point of being attracted into the lower sphere of matter) up the Luminous Arc, up and back into the higher spiritual spheres, but beyond the point of departure whence we first started downward on our cyclical journey into material experience for that Manvantara.

We make our own bodies, we make our own lives, we make our own destinies, and we are responsible for it all, spiritually, morally, intellectually, psychically, and even physically. It is a manly doctrine; there is no room in it for moral cowardice; no room in it for casting our responsibility upon the shoulders of another - God, angel, man, or demon. We can become Gods, because we are gods in the germ even now, inwardly. We start upon our evolutionary journey as an unselfconscious God-spark, and we return to our primal source of being, following the great cycle of the Maha-manvantara, a self-conscious God.

Let us say here that we have come at this point to what is a great puzzle for most of our Occidental Orientalists. They cannot understand the distinctions that the wonderful old philosophers of the Orient make as regards the various classes of the Devas. They say, in substance: "What funny contradictions there are in these teachings, which in many respects are profound and seem so wonderful. Some of these Devas (or divine beings) are said to be less than man; some of these writings even say that a good man is nobler than any god. And yet other parts of these teachings declare that there are gods higher even than the Devas, and yet are called Devas. What does this mean?"

The Devas or divine beings, one class of them, are the unselfconscious sparks of Divinity, cycling down into matter in order [105] to bring out from within themselves and to unfold or evolve self-consciousness, the Swabhava of Divinity within. They begin their reascent always on the Luminous Arc, which never ends, in a sense; and they are Gods, self-conscious Gods, henceforth, taking a definite and divine part in the "great work", as the Mystics have said, of being builders, evolvers, leaders, of Hierarchies; in other words, they are monads which have become their own innermost selves; which have passed the "Ring Pass-Not", separating the spiritual from the divine. Remember and reflect upon these old sayings in our books; every one of them is pregnant with meaning, full of thought.

Now this, therefore, is the doctrine of Swabhava: the doctrine of inner development, of bringing out that particular essential characteristic, or Individuality, which is within, of self-directed evolution; and you must perforce see the immense reach that it has in the moral world, in the theological world, in the philosophical world, yea, even in the scientific world as regards the knotty problems of evolution, such as the "evolution of species", inheritance, development of root-types, and many more.

We shall one day have to study more carefully, than the mere sketch we have given here, these divine, very divine, doctrines, especially in their bearing on questions of human psychology; for upon these doctrines depends the further (and a better) comprehension of the very tenets which we have outlined this evening and at former meetings. We cannot understand the universe nor the working and interplay of the forces therein until we have mastered at least to some degree, and followed out, the injunction of the Delphic Oracle, "Man, Know Thyself!" A man who knows himself truly, knows all, because he is, fundamentally, all. He is every Hierarchy; he is gods and demons and worlds and spheres and forces, and matter and consciousness and spirit - everything is in him. He is in one sense built of the roots of everything, and he is the fruit of everything; he has endless time behind him and endless time before him. What a gospel of hope, what a gospel of wonder, is this; how it raises the human soul; how the inmost part of us aspires when we reflect upon this teaching! No wonder that it is called the "teaching (or Wisdom) of the Gods", Theosophia - that is to say, the teaching which the Gods themselves study. How does a man become a Mahatma or Great Self? Through self-directed evolution, through becoming that which he is in himself, in his innermost. This is the doctrine of Swabhava.

And here we should at least allude to the mystery of individuality. Remember that personality is the mask (persona, as the Latins said) or reflection in matter of the individuality; but being a material thing it can lead us downward, although it is in essence [106] a reflection of the highest. It is an old saying that those things are most dangerous which have reality or truth in them; not those things which are truly unreal or false, because they of themselves fall to pieces and vanish away in time.

Monads, psychologically (we have the four monads, the divine, intellectual, psychical, and astral, corresponding to the four basic planes of matter, but all four Monads deriving from the highest) from the standpoint of generalization, are spiritual atoms, Buddhic atoms, being universal principles so far as are concerned the planes below, the Buddhi being perhaps the most mysterious of the seven principles of man, and, from our present viewpoint, the most important. But the human monad (as contrasted with the divine monad above it), the potentially immortal man, comprises the three principles, Atman, Buddhi, and the higher Manas. These three principles are required in order to make a self-conscious God. Atman and Buddhi alone cannot make a self-conscious God; they are a god-spark, an undeveloped or unevolved God-spark. We have to use in this connection human terms; we have not the proper terms in English nor in any other European language properly to express these subtle thoughts.

In conclusion, let us remember that while each man has the "Christ" within himself, and can be "saved" only by that "Christ", he can be saved by that inner "Christ" only when he chooses to save himself; the initiative must come from below, from himself. And while some people, through misunderstanding of this wonderful doctrine of Swabhava, may speak of "fatalism", we can do no more this evening than to say emphatically that this doctrine is not fatalism; it is absolutely the contrary of the fatalistic hypothesis, which asserts that there is a blind or unknown or conscious or unconscious force outside of man, directing him, driving him, in his choice, acts, and evolution, to annihilation or heaven or hell. That is not the doctrine of Swabhava and it is not taught in the Esoteric Philosophy. [107]

Chapter XI

THE COSMIC PILGRIMAGE. FROM UNSELFCONSCIOUS GOD-SPARK TO FULLY SELF-CONSCIOUS GOD.

Unveil, O Thou that givest sustenance to the Universe, from whom all proceeds, to whom all must return, the face of the True Sun, now hidden by a vase of Golden Light, that we may see the Truth and do our whole duty on our journey towards thy Sacred Seat.

- Paraphrase of The Gayatri, one of the most

sacred verses of the Hindu Scriptures.

On page 605 of the first volume of The Secret Doctrine we find the following:

But one has to understand the phraseology of Occultism before criticizing what it asserts. For example, the Doctrine refuses (as Science does, in one sense) to use the words "above" and "below," "higher" and "lower," in reference to invisible spheres, as being without meaning. Even the terms "East" and "West" are merely conventional, necessary only to aid our human perceptions. For, though the Earth has its two fixed points in the poles, North and South, yet both East and West are variable relatively to our own position on the Earth's surface, and in consequence of its rotation from West to East. Hence, when "other worlds" are mentioned - whether better or worse, more spiritual or still more material, though both invisible - the Occultist does not locate these spheres either outside or inside our Earth, as the theologians and the poets do; for their location is nowhere in the space known to, and conceived by, the profane. They are, as it were, blended with our world - interpenetrating it and interpenetrated by it. There are millions and millions of worlds and firmaments visible to us; there are still greater numbers beyond those visible to the telescopes, and many of the latter kind do not belong to our objective sphere of existence. Although as invisible as if they were millions of miles beyond our solar system, they are yet with us, near us, within our own world, as objective and material to their respective inhabitants as ours is to us. But, again, the relation of these worlds to ours is not that of a series of egg-shaped boxes enclosed one within the other, like the toys called Chinese nests; each is entirely under its own special laws and conditions, having no direct relation to our sphere. The inhabitants of these, as already said, may be, for all we know, or feel, passing through and around us as if through empty space, their very habitations and countries being interblended with ours, though not disturbing our vision, because we have not yet the faculties necessary for discerning them.

This seems to be a very appropriate general text for us to choose in closing our sketch of the Hierarchies; and more [108] particularly this evening our development of the doctrine of Swabhava, upon which we touched in our last meeting - the doctrine of the characteristic nature, of the individuality, or type-essentiality, of each individual monad, growing and manifesting and becoming itself in the manifested world in which it is itself the seed of its own individuality. The bearing of this concept on the doctrine of evolution - "rolling out or unfolding of what is within" - and especially on the mooted and knotty problem of the so-called "origin of species", is simply immense, for it is the key thereof.

We can use the word individuality for the meaning of Swabhava, provided we do not use it in contradistinction with personality. It is individuality in the sense of signifying the being and the unfolding of that particular quality or essential characteristic which distinguishes one monad, one human entity, one cosmos, one atom, from another of the same kind. Fundamental as is the doctrine of Hierarchies, and illuminating as is the light that it throws upon other problems, it itself cannot be properly understood without its complementary doctrine of Swabhava; and, vice versa, we cannot properly understand the doctrine of Swabhava without understanding the doctrine of Hierarchies.

We hope this evening to develop the true meaning of Swabhava, and thus to finish this part of our study, having now reached the frontiers, as it were, of cosmical manifestation; and in beginning our study of it in detail, we are obliged to touch upon a very essential aspect of the Doctrine, another aspect of it which is fundamental for the proper understanding of this portion of the teaching of the Ancient Wisdom; it is a portion which pertains to psychology. Indeed, this doctrine of Hierarchies and this its complementary doctrine of Swabhava, are both in a very large measure fundamentally psychological.

Swabhava is a Sanskrit term, a noun derived from the root Bhu, meaning "to become", and hence "to be", a psychological concord which is found also in several other languages, as in both Greek and English for instance. In Greek the word is gignomai; and in English it is be. In old Anglo-Saxon we have this word with the essential future sense completely retained and psychologically distinctly felt; to wit: ic beo, thu bist or byst, he bith or biath etc., meaning "I, thou, he will be", in the future sense of become. It is obvious that the psychological force of this means that being is essentially a becoming - a growth or evolution or unfolding of inner faculty.

English, as a matter of fact, had originally and still has only the two natural grammatical tenses - the imperfect tense, or the tense of imperfect or incomplete action, commonly called the [109] "present"; and the perfect tense of perfected or completed action, or the past.

Now what constitutes one Hierarchy, as different in essence - or Swabhava - from another Hierarchy? It is its Swabhava, or the seed of individuality which is it and is in it. It is that seed, which developing, makes a Hierarchy, and that seed in developing, follows the laws (or rather nature) of its own essential being, and this is its Swabhava. In The Secret Doctrine, H.P. Blavatsky often speaks of one particular quality or plane of Universal Being, which she calls Swabhavat, the neuter present participle of the same root Bhu (spoken of a moment agone) and used as a noun. Like Swabhava, it is derived from the same root, with the same prefix, and means that particular thing which exists and becomes of and in its own essential essence; call it the "Self-Existent", if you like; it is, though a Sanskrit word, a Buddhist term, and its Brahmanical equivalent in the Vedanta would probably be the cosmical side of Paramatman - "Supreme Self", the individualized aspect of Paramatman-Mula-prakriti - Super-Spirit-Root-matter.

Swabhavat is the spiritual essence, the fundamental root or Spirit-Substance, the Father-Mother of the beginning of manifestation, and from it grow or become all things. It can be conceived of as Spinoza did - the Netherlandish Jewish philosopher, the absolute idealist - as God, as the one Underlying Being or Substance; though in our studies we have eschewed most sedulously the use of the term "God", for a reason hereinafter to be set forth. Or it can be conceived of as Leibnitz did, as a collective Unity of an infinitude of emanated monads or "entelechies", to use Aristotle's term. Spinoza was an absolute idealist, while Leibnitz was an "objective idealist", which we also are, by the way. Swabhava is the characteristic nature, the type-essence, the individuality, of Swabhavat - of any Swabhavat, each such Swabhavat having its own Swabhava.

Now the main and essential meaning of the doctrine of Swabhava is the following - and it is so fundamental, so important in order properly to understand what follows, that we are going emphatically to urge it upon the attention of everyone. When cosmical manifestation begins or opens, it does not open helter-skelter, in disordered confusion, or by chance; it begins in conformity with the characteristic seeds of life, called, commonly, "laws", which have been in latent existence through the period of the Maha-pralaya preceding the beginning of the new Manvantara, and these "laws" - we use the term under strong protest - are really the intrinsic and ineluctable karmic habits of nature to be this or that, its Swabhavas, in short its hosts of innumerable entities or essential natures; and these "laws" [110] are actually impressed, stamped, upon ethereal and physical matter by the monadic essences or the monads. The Swabhavas of the monads give their Swabhavic natures to Nature! The monads are individuals, and conceiving them as collected together in a unity and forming a body of a still greater Monad, Leibnitz gave to this greatest Monad the Latin term Monas Monadum - the "Monad of monads". This Monad is, in short, our Hierarchical summit, of which we have several times spoken before. But where is there any need to call this "Monad of monads", this Hierarchical apex or summit, "God"? We can conceive of something still higher, and so forth almost at will. To stop at any point and call it "God" would simply be creating a deity - a "God" man-made, truly!

However, a man must pause somewhere in thought. So we begin with Swabhava, which, being an abstract term, is not a limit or boundary in itself. It is pure Individuality working in spirit-matter of which it is the highest part, or summit. Now this essential nature (or Swabhava) of a monad develops and becomes in matter a Hierarchy, whether that Hierarchy be an atom, a man, a planet, a Sun, a solar system, or a cosmical universe (or a universal cosmos) such as we find within the encircling zone of the Milky Way. The monad does so following the driving essential urge of its own inner essence, its individuality, its Swabhava. Hence it is that as the monads are individuals, so are the resultant Hierarchies individualized. And generalizing, as the monad grows into or becomes the Hierarchy, descending the "Shadowy Arc" - that is, descending into matter - as it becomes matter in its lower parts - the upper portion of the monad remaining always in its own pure unadulterated state - it reaches a certain point which is the end of its cyclical development for that period of evolution (or Manvantara), and then it begins cycling upward and back again, and this part of its journey is called the "Luminous Arc", because its tendency is towards "light", or spirit, following the phraseology of the ancient sages.

We studied some time ago in the Hebrew Bible, Chapter I, verses 25 and 26, how the Elohim (in the translation that we made) said: "Let us make 'man' in our own shadowy image (in our own shadow), and in our archetypal pattern". These Elohim who so "spoke" were monads, together forming a Hierarchy, each one of them, again, a Hierarchy by itself. As each individual man is a subordinate Hierarchy of the greater Hierarchy of Humanity, so Humanity is a subordinate Hierarchy of the still greater Hierarchy of the planet, and the planet Terra a subordinate Hierarchy of the still greater Hierarchy of the solar system; and so forth, as long as you care to follow the [111] thought. Man is himself composed of less beings; he himself is a microcosm, or little universe; he to these less beings is as a God - he to them is the Monas monadum, the Monad of monads. We shall later see reasons of great force why we have sedulously eschewed using this word "God". It is a colored word, spoiled with the thoughts which have been tacked on to it, attached to it; colored by them all, and it is for these reasons a dangerous word to use, because both misleading and inadequate.

As this monad in the beginning of manifestation in cosmos breaks through the laya-center, which you will remember we have studied before - that is to say through the neutral point, the vanishing point where spirit becomes matter, or vice versa (you can call it the Atman of the six lower degrees or principles which are to follow in sequential evolution) - as the descending monad breaks through the encircling matter of the cosmos around it, it follows in its course its own inner urge, or, rather, is driven thereby; it is self-expressive, but still self-unconscious; but when any particular "atomic" part of this cosmic monad reaches self-consciousness, and becomes a man, the path that its evolution follows thenceforward is consciously self-directed, as our present Teacher has so constantly taught us. Up to the time of the entrance of the self-conscious mind into man (a matter which we will explain in a few moments), the evolving entity is under the impulse, the propulsion, of dire and implacable necessity, which, however, is most emphatically not fate; and this is because, up to this critical point in evolution, the evolving entity is an imperfect being still: it is not a self-conscious thing, but an unselfconscious god-spark. It cannot as yet direct its own destiny on the planes of manifestation, but automatically follows the course of the Hierarchy to which it belongs. This spiritual-mental impotency ceases when the self-conscious state has been reached, which is in man; from this moment, in growing degree, man becomes himself a creator - a creator, self-consciously, of himself; he reaches upward or inward or outward - the adverb matters not - and becomes that which he essentially is within, continually aspiring toward the Inmost of the Inmost; and he finally reaches the point, at the end of this Day of Brahm_ - after seven Planetary Rounds - where he blossoms forth into a self-conscious god, not yet "God", or the summit of the Hierarchy to which he belongs by karmic descent, but a god. No longer is he a non-self-conscious monad, but a self-conscious monad, a planetary spirit, a Dhyani-Chohan, to use a beautiful Buddhist term, a "Lord of Meditation", one of that Wondrous Host of spiritual beings who are the full-blown Flowers of former World-Periods or Manvantaras. This Wondrous Host are the Perfect Men of those former World-Periods; and they guide the [112] evolution of this planet in its present Manvantara. They are our own spiritual Lords, Leaders, and Saviors. They supervise us now in our evolution here, and we follow the path of the general evolution outlined by them in our own present cyclic pilgrimage. When we first started on this pilgrimage as unselfconscious god-sparks, destined to become self-conscious men in this our Manvantara, it was these Dhyani-Chohans - Flowers of the former Manvantara - who opened the path for us, who guided our uncertain steps as we became Men, incarnations of our higher selves. But when we became self-conscious entities or Men, we began to guide ourselves; and to work consciously with them according to our evolution, to "work with nature", as H.P. Blavatsky nobly expressed it, is our highest duty and our brightest hope. It is our future destiny to become such godlike beings ourselves, thereafter, in our turn, to inform, inspire, and guide less evolved entities in future Manvantaras, as we have been informed, inspired, and guided by them; and finally, after many kalpas, after many Days of Brahm_ - each one of such "Days" a period of seven Planetary Rounds - we shall become a conscious part of the Cosmical Logos, the Brahmic Logos, using the phrase Brahmic Logos as meaning the highest conscious entitative intelligence of the solar system; thence upward and upward forever.

We return to our main theme. Now when the monad has reached the first point of cosmic manifestation, it has already descended through the first three of the ten planes or degrees or steps, i.e., through the three planes or degrees or steps forming the upper triangle or triad of the ten planes, in and on which the universe is built. It now begins definitely to cycle downward, and its entrance into cosmic manifestation, as already said, is the laya-center which is the Atman or universal spirit, no more belonging to any particular entity or man than does the Atman of any entity or man in any other planet of any other solar system. Atman is ourselves merely because it is the link which connects us with the Higher. As a matter of fact, the human being or man consists of five principles, because the Atman is not his except as a "plank of salvation"; and his gross physical body is not really a principle at all. This matter of component principles in man we shall have to go into more fully when we take up our study of human psychological composition.

Now the upper triangle of the ten above alluded to, actually is extended or developed out from the monad itself, as the petals and leaves of a flower are extended or evolved out of its seed: it draws its life and being from within itself. It is the elemental world, spiritually speaking; as the three worlds below our mineral kingdom are the elemental worlds of ourselves, materially [113] speaking, forming an elemental world, "spiritually" speaking, of Hierarchy below our own.

This inner urge driving the monad to express itself in manifestation and form, is the will of higher beings, working through itself, of which higher beings it forms an integral part: just as our brain, or our body, follows the implacable, dire law of necessity, which we impose upon brain or body by our thoughts and our will, yet both brain and body are parts of ourselves in matter. The monad must reach self-consciousness in order to "free" itself and thus become a self-conscious, self-directed god.

These things are so important for properly understanding our future study that we feel necessitated again and again to return to them. They are basically fundamental, lying at the very root of all our teaching. Understand clearly and well that this is not fatalism. That doctrine runs directly contrary to the doctrine of Swabhava, the doctrine of self-expressoin.

As an egg unfolds within itself the germ which is to become the future chick; or the human egg, the ovum, unfolds the germ within it which is to become the future child of man, similarly does the universe develop, similarly does an atom develop, thus also does a monad develop. It is unfolded within the auric egg. The human ovum, the seed of the plant, each is nothing but an egg. The shape may differ, the life form may differ, but this has nothing to do with the principle of unfoldment of which we are speaking. The encasement within the auric egg envelops the germ of individuality - or Swabhava - which is destined to follow its course along its own characteristic line of unfoldment: what is in the egg or seed comes out, each species according to its own kind, and this is its Swabhava. The Greek Stoic School taught the existence - both cosmically and infinitesimally - of spermatic logoi, "seed-logoi", each such spermatic logos producing creatures after its kind and according to its own essence - like the Hebrew Biblical Elohim - and this is again Swabhava.

We saw in our study of the Qabbalah - I think it was last week, or the week before - how the highest world unfolded itself and from itself emanated or evolved the second world, thus actually becoming the second world: being thus both parent and child. The second world was thus the child of the first; the third was the child of the first and the second; and the fourth, the "world of shells" - or of beings living in gross bodies, or "shells" - was the child of the first, the second, and the third, all working together in order to produce this fourth. Note well, however, that each superior sphere or world remains intact on its own plane, though evolving from itself the next succeeding inferior world.

The Stoics had a doctrine of development which in its essence [114] is the pure teaching of our own philosophy, though expressed in different form and under different names. They expressed it in this wise, following the mechanical mode so agreeable and dear to the Greek mind. It is curious, by the way, that the Oriental mind has always preferred to follow the psychological and spiritual lines of thought, rather than the mechanical, or, as we would now say, the "scientific". But the Stoics taught in Greece, and later in Rome, that the mechanism of the Essential Nature of the Deity - and this essential nature is our Swabhava, what we would call "Father-Mother" - was tension, and slackening of this tension, this slackening of tension being the first act of World-Building. They took as an analogy in illustration of the idea the well known fact that when a metal grows hot it then expands, and finally is vaporized; and using this simple matter-of-fact analogy they said that the "natural" state of Pneuma ("Spirit", the Deity) is fire - not physical fire, but the seed of that cosmic element from which physical fire springs. The slackening of this tension produced the first differentiation of the Primal Substance - or Pneuma, "God" - and this differentiation then awoke to active life the life-seeds, slumbering or latent, which came over from the previous period of manifested life; the life-seeds, or seed-lives - their spermatic logoi, alluded to before by us - thus awaking, proceeded to build and guide the forthcoming World Period and all the entities in it, each such seed life bringing forth from itself its essential species, or characteristic essence - our Swabhava. This is the teaching, in miniature, but as the Stoics gave it, of the Esoteric Philosophy.

Now when the universe was to come forth from its own being, taught the Stoics, the "tension" of the Primal Substance or Divine Fire slackened, or contracted as it were, and this contraction, by condensation, gave birth to the aether; next, as the tension slackened in the aether, this gave birth to "air"; and it, next, to "water"; and it, finally, to "earth". We are not speaking of the material fire, air, water, earth, that we see around us, but we refer to the Elements or "seeds" of these, the earth and the water and the air and the fire that we see around us being merely material samples or the last progeny, as it were, of the elemental seeds from which these respectively sprang. "Fire" gave birth to the "aether", the latter being its shadow, the shadow of itself. The "aether" gave birth to its shadow, or "air", its encasement or body; and the "air" to "water"; and the "water" to "earth". The Stoics taught further that all these things can be respectively transformed one into the other - the dream of the alchemist, and also the dream, psychologically, of initiates in our own School, who aim and strive to transform the base into the pure, the material into the spiritual. [115]

Returning once more to our main theme, it is to be noted that naturally, as the Monad - the root or the individuality of a Hierarchy of any kind - cycles down into matter, it produces from itself, it expands outwardly from itself its own shadows (or lower vehicles) which grow constantly more dense in direct proportion to the greater descent of the Monad. In this connection the question arises, that as there are certainly worlds of happiness, worlds of peace, in the higher spheres, how about those nether worlds: how about those lowest states of being of which H.P. Blavatsky speaks as the avichi? All our Teachers have told us, and our present Teacher emphasizes it constantly, that there is no hell in the Christian sense. Such a "hell" is a vague bogey of the imagination; but there are, in very truth, lower spheres; just as there are higher, so there must be lower. There cannot be good without evil, for the one is the shadow of the other and balances it in nature. These lowest spheres have a well defined part to play in the great Cosmic Drama. They are the Cleansing Houses, so to say, of the souls of those who persist in evil-doing. Like attracts like. These lower spheres are necessarily entered into by those who willfully, through a prolonged series of incarnations, refuse to follow the spiritual light within themselves. Like attracts like, we repeat it. As a matter of fact, such souls, so stained and weighted with evil, are actually pursuing their own cyclical pilgrimage, drawn by attraction to like spheres and dwellings. As our Teachers have said, during the cyclic pilgrimage of the atom-souls down into matter many millions and millions have failed to pass the danger point and, instead of thereupon beginning their journey "homeward" up the "Luminous Arc", are swept into the terrible maelstrom of the current that goes downward farther into matter! Therefore, into relatively greater suffering. These must wait until their time comes again in the next Manvantara, and another chance in the future kalpa of the earth. For this Day of Brahm_, for this Manvantara of seven Rounds, all is ended for them as regards their conscious journey back to their divine source.

These are doctrines (such as that of the Avichi-nirvana, just hinted at and alluded to in the preceding few sentences) which were taught in the ancient esoteric schools. From them, by misunderstanding and corruption of them, have been derived the bogey doctrines of a fiery, material Hell in which are, for eternity, to burn the ethereal souls of willful sinners! These souls are said to be of an asbestos-like nature, forever burning fiercely yet never consumed, like pitch burning for utter eternity in utterly endless fire! What frightful nightmares of a gross and materialistic "religious" teaching! It is amazing how the mind of man will invent things to torture itself with. But it [116] also shows that back of all these fearful, nightmare doctrines and dogmas there is some fundamental fact which the untaught mind sees through thick clouds darkly and falsely, and distorts; some element of truth which needs only proper explanation for understanding.

And how the human heart must melt in pity! Do we realize how real these doctrines were to our ancestors of only a few score years ago? And that in some backward-looking churches today these same horrible doctrines are still taught as actualities, though more or less secretly as if in utter shame, and that there are misguided and unhappy men who believe them, and on their death-beds suffer in anticipation the tortures of the damned, tortures worse, certainly, than any which nature has prepared for them as guerdon for their mistakes and sins? Think of the horror of it! Think of the duty that we owe to our fellow man to teach them the proper explanation and meaning of these distorted and tortured doctrines in all their sanity, in all their beautiful hope! There is a moral element involved in it for us. People sometimes ask what is the use of studying The Secret Doctrine? What is the use of spending so much time in studying the Rounds and Races? Here is one of the uses. Essentially you cannot change men until you have changed their minds. Teach men properly and nobly to think, and you teach them properly and nobly to live, and properly and nobly to die. There is nothing like a noble thought to lift a man. It is sheer folly and egoism that says, "What is the use of these so-called noble thoughts? My thoughts are good enough for me".

After all that has previously been said, nevertheless, we have just begun our exposition of Swabhava. We shall not have this evening the time and opportunity to touch upon the very important psychological aspects of it which we had hoped to do. We have still a few moments of time, however. Let us then try to illustrate more clearly this doctrine of Swabhava on the line of it chosen before. Imagine, then, an individual monad sending its ray, or descending, through that sphere which becomes the spiritual-atomic plane of the six planes below it. It (this ray) forms it itself into respective principles and planes as time passes, and it gathers and gleans the experiences of each separate plane. Leaving that spiritual-atomic or Atmic plane, it evolves out of itself its shadow, which is like an encasement, an aura, thus forming its auric egg there, and this second plane or principle we call our Buddhi, and as the monadic life or ray passes still farther down into that shadowy life, this buddhic plane and principle become to it the Real and the True. As cycles of time pass on, the descending monadic ray (or seed) evolves another shadow, another encasement, another subtle body, another aura, another [117] auric egg, out of itself, and this is our Manas. Each of these three principles - as indeed have all the seven - has seven degrees, seven stages, from the "atomic" of any one of the three down to its lowest, which is its "corpus" or "body". And so on with the remaining four lower planes and principles of man. Each one of these principles is "fully" developed on our globe in the respective and similar one of the Rounds of the seven of the Day of Brahm_. Further, on each one of the seven globes of the Planetary Chain, one of the seven principles especially is developed. Again, as just shown, at the end of each Round, one plane and one principle of the seven is developed, preparatory to evolving the succeeding one in another Round. It takes fully two Rounds, for instance, to bring out two planes and two principles in full: but during the First and the Second Rounds, for example, the other planes and principles have been coming up by degrees, evolving little by little, developing step by step. The chick does not grow in a day: the child does not become a man in a week; his soul does not develop within him in a fortnight. If a man lived the life he should, he would be at his best and noblest at the time when he thinks it is time for him to draw up his legs in bed and die. The physical body may be then ready to die, but the man within, that which is the real being, should be growing greater and nobler and grander. It is for this that we really live.

And so runs the course of evolution to the end of the seven Rounds, each Round bringing out one principle and one plane, as said; in each Round, each one of the remaining principles is brought out or evolved in less degree, there being thus - to use Ezekiel's figure - "wheels within wheels". At the midpoint of the Fourth Round, which is the middle Round, there comes a time when the monadic ray reaches the very acme of materiality - when the life-wave reaches a point where it branches both downward and upward, and then, in the words of Ezekiel, chapter 18, "the soul that sinneth, it shall surely die", meaning that the monadic ray courses downward, and loses all chance for ascent back homeward along the "Luminous Arc", for that Manvantara. It follows the downward path. But those others that can and do follow on, they indeed pass the danger point. I have spoken of this twice already this evening, because it will probably be the matter of our next study.

A Day of Brahm_ is composed of seven Rounds, a period of 4320 million solar or rather terrestrial years. Seven of these Days, again, are required to make a Solar Manvantara, which is a term used in the Esoteric Philosophy in a peculiar sense, because seven times seven Rounds are needed in order to bring out to their fullest, each of the seven principles and seven planes of [118] which the manifesting Hierarchy is composed. Of the life of Brahm_, we are told one-half is already passed, one-half of 311,040,000,000,000 plus some few more billions of our years! I refer to the Surya-Siddhanta, an ancient Sanskrit cosmogonical and astronomical work, which, from the statements and facts given within it, claims an age of somewhat more than two million years, according to popular interpretation. I think our modern Orientalists in their great wisdom give its origin as occurring more or less around the beginning of the Christian era, or later, simply on the one ground that the Greeks brought to northwestern India certain forms of computation, which are found in the Surya-Siddhanta, a theory which is purely arbitrary, and based upon no certainly ascertained fact except the self-evolved or "Swabhavic" theories of the Orientalists themselves! [119]

Chapter XII

PSYCHOLOGY: ACCORDING TO THE ESOTERIC PHILOSOPHY. IMMORTALITY IS CONDITIONAL: THE LOSS OF THE SOUL.

Stoop not down, for a precipice lies below the earth,

Drawing under a descent of seven steps, beneath which

Is the throne of dire necessity.

-Psellus, 6, Plet. 2; (Cory, Chaldean Oracles)

Devilish (asurya) are those worlds called,

With blind darkness (tames) covered o'er!

Unto them, on deceasing, go

Whatever folk are slayers of the Self.

- Isa-Upanishad, 3. (R. E. Hume's translation, 362)

In opening our study of the Holy Science which we are privileged here again tonight to investigate, let us begin by reading from H.P. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, Volume I, the last paragraph on page 272:

(1) The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages ¼

Next page, second paragraph:

(2) The fundamental Law in that system, the central point from which all emerged, around and toward which all gravitates, and upon which is hung the philosophy of the rest, is the One homogeneous divine SUBSTANCE-PRINCIPLE, the one radical cause.

Last paragraph:

(3) The Universe is the periodical manifestation of this unknown Absolute Essence.

Next page, second paragraph:

(4) The Universe is called, with everything in it, MAYA, because all is temporary therein, from the ephemeral life of a firefly to that of the Sun.

Last paragraph:

(6) The Universe is worked and guided from within outwards. As above so it is below, as in heaven so on earth; and man - the microcosm and miniature copy of the macrocosm - is the living witness to this Universal Law and to the mode of its action. We see that every external motion, act, gesture, whether voluntary or mechanical, organic or mental, is produced and preceded by internal feeling or emotion, will or volition, and thought or mind. As no outward motion or change, when normal, in man's external body can take place unless provoked by an inward impulse, given through one of the three functions [120] named, so with external or manifested Universe. The whole Kosmos is guided, controlled, and animated by almost endless series of Hierarchies of sentient Beings, each having a mission to perform, and who - whether we give to them one name or another, and call them Dhyani-Chohans or Angels - are "Messengers" in the sense only that they are the agents of Karmic and Cosmic Laws. They vary infinitely in their respective degrees of consciousness and intelligence; and to call them all pure Spirits without any of the earthly alloy "which time is wont to prey upon" is only to indulge in poetical fancy. For each of these Beings either was, or prepares to become, a man, if not in the present, then in a past or a coming cycle (Manvantara). They are perfected, when not incipient, men; and differ morally from the terrestrial human beings on their higher (less material) spheres, only in that they are devoid of the feeling of personality and of the human emotional nature - two purely earthly characteristics.

And on pages 21 and 22, beginning in the middle of the sentence:

¼ the differentiation of the "germ" of the Universe into the septenary hierarchy of conscious Divine Powers, who are the active manifestations of the One Supreme Energy. They are the framers, shapers, and ultimately the creators of all the manifested Universe, in the only sense in which the name "Creator" is intelligible; they inform and guide it; they are the intelligent Beings who adjust and control evolution, embodying in themselves those manifestations of the ONE LAW, which we know as "The Laws of Nature".

Resuming our thought from our last study of two weeks ago, we shall take up this evening an outline of the psychological nature of man, because, as mentioned before, if man understands himself, he understands that from which he came, and which he is - he understands the universe proportionately with his own development of spirit and of mind and of the percipient faculties that go with the development of spirit and of mind in man. In order to enable us more easily to understand, and more clearly to set forth, the essential characteristics of man's psychological economy, we shall endeavor to show how closely these are related to two fundamental theorems, or principles, or doctrines, of the Wisdom-Religion; and these two are (1) the Law, or rather the fact of Hierarchies; and (2) the Law (we use the term again under strong protest) of the Essential Nature of things, called Swabhava; as said before, the latter is a Sanskrit term meaning self-evolution, self-formation, self-development, self-becoming. In it inheres the foundation of the law of morals. As is obvious, Man is responsible to himself, and because man is a part of other things, he is therefore responsible to other things also. Likewise, as a corollary of the foregoing, after death man does not "meet his Creator", but verily he has to meet and to [121] reckon with his creature, that which he has built up in himself during his life - his astral self.

What makes a rose bring forth a rose always? Why does the seed of an apple invariably bring forth apples? Why does it not bring forth thistles, or daisies, or pansies? The answer is very simple; very profound, however. It is because of the Swabhava, the essential nature in and of the seed. Its Swabhava can bring forth only that which itself is, its essential characteristic, its own inner nature. The Stoics of Greece and Rome expressed this fact of evolution by saying that in the opening of a period of Manifestation, it is the Pneuma - "Spirit" - which relaxes its tension, condensation or concretion thereupon ensuing of the said Pneuma or Spirit, and evolution begins, emanation and evolution both begin, following the causes set up and active in the preceding period of Manifestation. There spring into life coordinately with the opening of the new period the "spermatic logoi", the "seed-logoi", an expression translated from the Greek spermatikoi logoi), spermatic reasons, seed-reasons, "Logos" meaning "reason", hence "cause", among other things. It was these seed-logoi, or spermatic logoi, which were the fruits or results, the karmas, as we would say, of former periods of activity. Having attained a certain stage of evolution or development, or quality, or characteristic, or individuality in the preceding Manvantara; when the next period of evolution came, they could produce nothing else but that which they were themselves, their own inner natures, as seeds do. The seed can produce nothing but what it itself is, what is in it; and this is the heart and essence of the doctrine of Swabhava. The philosophical, scientific, and religious reach of this Doctrine is simply immense; it is of the first importance.

The habit, or, if you like the word, the "law" (we use this word again under protest), of Swabhava can work only in that which is itself, because only its own vehicle, its own self, is appropriate for the manifestation of itself - obviously! Hence, the manner of evolution and emanation, and the progress of the Hierarchies, are as set forth before; that is, that from the highest, evolution and emanation proceed downward into the more material; and so on down the line of the "Shadowy Arc" into matter, until the turning point of the descent is attained; whereupon begins the ascent along the "Luminous Arc".

We must note well, however, that the higher does not leave its own sphere in this process; the higher does not wholly become the lower, and the lower wholly become the still lower, leaving a vacuum or an emptiness above. The higher spheres remain always. It is like the flame of a candle laid at the wick of another candle; and from that one candle, as our first great Teacher has [122] said, you can light all the candles of the universe, without diminution of its energy or of its force or of its characteristic essence. The highest remains always the highest; it is that part of itself, as it were, that is the developing energy acting from within; its Skandhas it is - which you will remember we have studied before - which produce, as the Stoics would have said, this "relaxation of tension", this condensation or concretion of parts of itself. A perfect analogy is found in the introuterine development of man, and his descent into incarnation. His spiritual nature does not come down and become his actual body; it remains always his spiritual nature; but from it it throws out parts of itself, its lower aspects or principles, if we may so put the idea; and these, as the manvantaric cycle proceeds, in their turn, each one in its turn, secretes, protrudes, and excretes something lower. So that the physical man, the body, is in very truth the "Temple of the living God", which is itself the Glory thereof, hence a part of the Temple; the Temple, verily, is the lowest manifestation of the living God within.

Now Swabhava works through the Hierarchies. We have returned to these two capital matters time after time, because it is all-important from the philosophic, from the spiritual, and from the ethical aspects, that these things should be as clear as possible in our minds. Take, for instance, the cosmogonical relation. We are not created by an extra-cosmic God; Karma, on the other hand, is not an extra-cosmic entity which said, "I create", and the world sprang into being. The highest essence, the inmost of the essence of every Hierarchy, of the practical infinitudes of Hierarchies, interlocked and corelated and working together and forming the universal cosmos in which we live - the highest part of each one of these Hierarchies is a super-divine monad, which we can call Para-brahman-Mula-prakriti. And its first manifestation or downward-looking energy, its first breaking-forth into the plane below, is Brahman acting in turn through its cosmic veil, Pradhana, as you will remember we have before studied; and then comes Brahm_-prakriti, otherwise called Purusha-prakriti, which is the cosmic soul or individual, and the nature or the vehicle in which it manifests; the logos and its universe; the monad, and its sheaths, and so on.

Having these things clearly in mind, we can now take up directly and more easily, more comprehensibly, the study of what we mean by the psychology of man. The word is ordinarily used to signify in our days and in the seats of learning in the Occident a study more or less cloudy, mostly beclouded with doubts and hypotheses, actual guesswork, meaning little more than a kind of mental physiology, practically nothing more than the working of the brain-mind in the lowest astral-psychical apparatus of the [123] human mind. But in our philosophy, as we all know, the word psychology is used to mean something very different, and of a nobler character: we might call it pneumatology, or the science or the study of spirit, because all the inner faculties and powers of man ultimately spring from his spirit. But as this word "pneumatology" is an unusual one and might cause confusion, let us retain the word "psychology". We mean by it the study of the inner economy of man, the interconnection of his principles, so to speak, or centers of energy or force - what the man really is inwardly.

Man, like everything else in the universe, is founded upon the dekadic skeleton or numerical framework of being - the number ten. Three of these ten Elements or planes or principles belong to the arupa or formless world, and seven belong to the world of manifestation and form. These seven latter principles produce each other on a downward scale in the process of manifestation, exactly as the Hierarchies do, each one emanating or evolving a lower, and this lower evolving or emanating a still lower one, and so down to the seventh or lowest.

Man can be considered as a being composed of three essential bases; the Sanskrit term is Upadhi. The meaning of the word is that which stands forth following a model or pattern, as a canvas, so to say, upon which the light from a projecting lantern plays. It is a play of shadow and form, compared with the ultimate Reality. These three bases or upadhis are, first, the Monadic or spiritual; second, that which is supplied by the Lords of Light, the so-called Manasa-Dhyanis, meaning the intellectual and intuitive side of man, the element-principle that makes man Man; and the third basis or Upadhi we can call the vital-astral-physical, if you please.

Now these three bases spring from three different lines of evolution, from three different and separate Hierarchies of being. Remember that each Hierarchy possesses in itself in embryo everything that the entire universe is and has, the least as the greatest, if we can say "least" and "greatest" of that which is endless - at any rate the least and greatest of any period of manifestation. This is the reason why man is composite. He is not one sole and unmixed entity; he is a composite entity, he is a thing built up of various Elements, and hence his principles are, to a certain extent, separable. Any one of these three bases can be temporarily separated from the two others, without bringing about the death of the man physically. But the Elements, so to say, that go to form any one of these bases, cannot be separated without bringing about physical dissolution or inner dissolution.

Now these three lines of evolution, these three aspects or [124] qualities of man, as said, come from three different Hierarchies, or states, often spoken of as three different planes of being. The lowest comes from the earth; ultimately from the Moon, our cosmogonic mother. The middle, the manasic or intellectual-intuitional, from the Sun. The monadic from the Monad of monads, the supreme flower, or acme, or rather the supreme seed of the Universal Hierarchy which forms our Cosmical Universe or Universal Cosmos.

It depends upon a correct understanding of the general interconnection or the interworking of these three separate parts of the economy of the inner man, whether we shall obtain a proper grasp of our future studies. We meet, as we have seen, at every step - if we have followed our studies properly - new ideas, new thoughts; new links with the universe of light and being around us, and of which we also are children. How terrible it would be if we were to reach the limit of all that it was possible to know! On the contrary, endless vistas of growing knowledge are always before us, and we cannot attain them otherwise than by mounting the steps of knowledge one by one.

We have heard it said by our Teachers that immortality is conditional. This is a certain Truth. Immortality is not unconditional, and why? For the reasons just pointed out. Man is a composite being, and, as the Buddha said in the closing words of his life, "Brothers, all that is, is composite and transitory. Therefore work out your own salvation". This contains the core of the whole philosophy of evolution, and occultly designates ultimate immortality or annihilation for any one Manvantara, for man as a thinking entity.

Immortality is assured if the central principles which compose the intellectual-intuitional man, have succeeded in rising to the monadic plane where they become one with the monad, shining upon them as a spiritual Sun. And the loss of a soul for the Manvantara is assured if its Swabhava, its essential, characteristic, energies, are directed downwards into brute matter.

The Teachers have told us, however, that the loss of the soul cannot ensue as long as even one sole, single, spiritual aspiration remains functionally active. Only when the unhappy entity has arrived at the point where it can say, "Evil, be thou my God!" when not one single, quivering aspiration spiritward remains, is it "lost" for the Manvantara, when its essence, as it were, is inverted, and its tendency is downwards, downward into the avichi, where, as the Teachers have told us, circumstances may bring about an almost immediate annihilation of it, or, perhaps, a Manvantara of Avichi-nirvana, a fearful state indeed, contrasted with the wondrous Nirvana of the Dhyani-Chohans, or Lords of Meditation. [125]

On the one hand we may raise ourselves to become a God, yea, even while dwelling in the flesh. On the other hand we may allow ourselves to sink to the eighth sphere, where we pass into the yawning portals of the "Planet of Death". Has it ever occurred to any one of us to ask, Why are we here? Why, having had an infinity in which to evolve, are we not higher than we are now? Has it ever occurred to any one of us to ask whether we may not be the "fallen angels", those very spiritual "athletes" who in a former great Manvantara failed to win onwards to the goal, failed to rise, failed to make the goal intended for them, and were "cast down" to work our weary way upward again?

Again, what do we mean by "soul" as contrasted with "spirit"? We speak of the human soul and the spiritual soul, and we speak of the astral soul, and we speak of the animal soul. But we do not use those terms in connection with the word "spirit". It is our Teachers who first have used those expressions in the connections noted above. Does it not teach us that the meaning of soul is that of a vehicle, an upadhi, in general; that vehicle, or any vehicle, in which the monad, in any sphere of manifestation, is working out its destiny? But these vehicles are conscious vehicles, they are living and sentient vehicles having each one its own consciousness and its own thinking faculty; even these gross physical bodies of ours are not merely insensible stocks. The physical body has its avenues of dull consciousness and life; it can feel, and, after its own poor dull manner, it can think.

So, then, the loss of the soul is the loss of that which we, through interminable ages, very, very laboriously have built up as our inner temple, our home, in which we should rise to meet the Gods, to become one with them; and more - it is the vehicle through which we should carry up with us entities below us at present, but through us approaching our own dignity of humanity - entities of which the soul is actually composed, even as the atoms in our physical bodies are infant-souls, physical entities, embryonic things which we are informing and inspiring, if, indeed, we are not sentencing them to a cycle of woe.

With Knowledge comes responsibility. The moral law will not be thwarted. It cannot be played with. At every step, with every morn, at every turn, at every choice, we face the right- or the left-hand path, and we are forced to choose; we must see to it, every time, whether our feet are to be set upon the "Luminous Arc", or upon the "path of shadows" leading us downwards. [126]

Chapter XIII

THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION. SELF, EGO, AND SOUL: "I AM" AND "I AM I".

¼ Nothing in nature springs into existence suddenly, all being subjected to the same law of gradual evolution. Realize but once the process of the maha cycle, of one sphere, and you have realized them all. One man is born like another man, one race evolves, develops and declines like another and all other races. Nature follows the same groove from the "creation" of a universe down to that of a mosquito. In studying esoteric cosmogony, keep a spiritual eye upon the physiological process of human birth; proceed from cause to effect establishing ¼ analogies between the ¼ man and that of a world ¼ Cosmology is the physiology of the universe spiritualized, for there is but one law.

- Mahatma Letters, 70-1

We open our study of The Secret Doctrine this evening by reading from page 178, and a small portion from page 179, of the first volume of The Secret Doctrine, as follows:

Now the Monadic, or rather Cosmic, Essence (if such a term be permitted) in the mineral, vegetable, and animal, though the same throughout the series of cycles from the lowest elemental up to the Deva Kingdom, yet differs in the scale of progression. It would be very misleading to imagine a Monad as a separate Entity trailing its slow way in a distinct path through the lower Kingdoms, and after an incalculable series of transformations flowering into a human being; in short, that the Monad of a Humboldt dates back to the Monad of an atom of horneblende. Instead of saying a "Mineral Monad," the more correct phraseology in physical Science, which differentiates every atom, would of course have been to call it "the Monad manifesting in that form of Prakriti called the Mineral Kingdom."

As the Monads are uncompounded things, as correctly defined by Leibnitz, it is the spiritual essence which vivifies them in their degrees of differentiation, which properly constitutes the Monad - not the atomic aggregation, which is only the vehicle and the substance through which thrill the lower and the higher degrees of intelligence.

Now, in resuming this evening our study from last week, it will perhaps be well to preface it by reminding ourselves of the two general desires which the Teacher had in mind, in inaugurating our studies; first, the elucidation of the teachings contained in H.P. Blavatsky's wonderful work; and secondly, the providing of tests, doctrinal tests, as it were, not tests in a dogmatic sense, but doctrinal or mental tests which each one of us may have in [127] mind to remember and to apply when he takes up some book treating of the ancient religions of the world, or of the modern theories concerning those religions as given out by some modern thinker.

The world at the present day is simply overwhelmed with books of various sorts treating of quasi-spiritual, and of so-called psychic and quasi-psychic matters, and to one who does not know the key doctrines of Theosophy, who has not, as H.P. Blavatsky had, at his mental elbow, so to say, the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom-Religion by which all these various matters may be tested and proved, there is place for much mental confusion, indecision, and doubt as to what the real sense or meaning thereof may be, because many of these books are written very ably; but ability in writing well is no sign or proof that an author understands properly the ancient thought; such ability is merely the capacity of presenting certain thoughts - the writer's own views - clearly and often very praiseworthily; but merely praiseworthy writing is certainly no proof that a writer possesses an adequate and sufficient criterion of the ancient truth itself.

Having therefore these doctrines of the Ancient Wisdom-Religion (Theosophy) in mind, and properly understanding them, we have tests by which we may prove to ourselves whether such and such a doctrine of any religion, ancient or modern, or such and such a teaching of any thinker, ancient or modern, is in accord with that primeval spiritual and natural revelation granted to the first members of the first human and truly thinking race by the spiritual beings from whom we likewise derived our inner essence and life, and who are, really, our own present spiritual selves. Not being tests in a dogmatic religious sense at all, they are not "necessary to salvation". Heavens and hells do not depend for their reality upon their acceptance or rejection by men, for instance; but we mean that Theosophy provides us with tests which are tests in the same way as are the facts which an expert in mathematics or in chemistry or in any other branch of science or natural philosophy is enabled to employ in order to ascertain when something new comes under his eye, or under his hand, whether this new thing agrees with the truths already established by himself and his collaborators in work.

At our last meeting we treated perforce only vaguely, and in a mere sketch, of the difference existing between the spirit and the soul. The spirit is the immortal element in us, the deathless flame within us which dies never, which never was born, and which retains throughout the entire Maha-manvantara its own quality, essence, and life, sending down into our own being and into our various planes, certain of its rays or garments or souls which we are; and furthermore, that these rays, in descending, [128] constituted the life-essences of a Hierarchy, whether we treat of our own selves as individual human begins, or whether we think of the atom, or of the solar system, or of the universal cosmos.

We have this evening to consider more particularly the nature and differences of Self and ego; and if we have time we shall have need to remark at some length upon a doctrine which is very strange to Western ears, and yet which contains in itself the core, the very heart of what emanational evolution is, and which also shows to us what our destiny is. It is that destiny which leads us both downwards and then upwards, back to our spiritual source, but possessing - rather being - something more than we possessed - or rather were - when we began our great evolutionary pilgrimage.

Now, before we start upon a sketch of the nature of, and the difference between, self and ego, let us undertake very briefly an analysis of what we mean when we speak of karma, for it is necessary here. As we all know, karma is a Sanskrit word, and it is derived from the Sanskrit root kri, a verb meaning to make or to do. By adding the suffix ma to the root kri or the stem kar, which comes, through one of the rules of the Sanskrit grammar, from the root kri, we have the abstract noun, Karma. Literally it means doing, making, hence action. It is a technical term, that is, a term from which hangs a whole series of philosophical doctrines.

We can consider it best from the standpoint of translating it by the word results, because this word "results", or "fruits", seems to be its most general application in the technical sense of the Esoteric Philosophy. Now Karma is not a law; no God made it. A human law, let us remember, is a maxim of conduct or order of right, laid down by a lawgiver, forbidding what is wrong and inculcating and commanding what is right. Karma is not that. Karma is the habit of universal and eternal Nature, a habit inveterate, primordial, which so works that an act is necessarily, by destiny, followed by an ineluctable result, a reaction from the Nature in which we live. It was called by Mr. A.P. Sinnett, one of H.P. Blavatsky's early helpers, the "law of ethical causation", an inadequate and misleading term, because, first, Karma is more than ethical, it is both spiritual and material and all between. It has its application on the spiritual, mental, psychical, and physical planes. To call it the "law of cause and effect" is much better, because more general, but even this does not describe it adequately at all. The very essence of the meaning of this doctrine is, that when anything acts in any state of embodied consciousness, it sets up an immediate chain of causation, acting on every plane to which that chain of causation reaches, to which the force extends. [129]

Human karma is born within man himself. We are its creators and generators, and also do we suffer from it or are clarified through it, by our own previous actions. But what is this habit in itself, das Ding an sich, as Kant would have said, this inveterate, primordial habit of nature, which makes it react to an arousing cause! That is a question which we shall, at some future time, have to go into more fully than we can do it this evening; but we may say this much: that it is the will of the spiritual beings who have preceded us in bygone kalpas or great Manvantaras, and who now stand as Gods, and whose will and thought direct and protect the mechanism and the type and quality of the universe in which we live. These great beings were once men in some former great Manvantara. It is our destiny ultimately to become like unto them, and to be of their number, if we run the race of kalpic evolution successfully.

Man, as our first great Teacher has set it forth, weaves around himself from birth to death a web of action and of thought - each one of them producing results, some immediately, some later. Each act is a seed. And that seed inevitably, by the doctrine of Swabhava, which we have been studying, will produce the results which belong to it, and none other.

Swabhava, as we remember, is the doctrine of the essential characteristic of anything, that is, that which makes it what it is, and not something else: that which makes the lily a lily, and not a rose or a violet; that which makes one being a horse, and another a fly, and another a blade of grass, and so on - its essential nature.

Now in our study of the Hierarchies in former meetings, we remember that we noticed that each Hierarchy proceeded from its own seed, its own seed-logos or the highest part of it, its crown or pinnacle; and that everything rolled down from it, rolled out from the seed into being. So the human body grows from a microscopic seed, as it were, into the man we know, partaking of the nature around it, because it is a composite being. All composite things are temporary and transitory. If they were not composite, they could not manifest in any manner whatever. It is the compositeness, the compound nature of them which enables them to learn and to mingle with, and to be one in the manifested sense with all the manifested universe around us.

You doubtless remember what we mentioned in former studies of the wonderful doctrine of the ancient Stoics of Greece and Rome, called the Krasis di' holou, the mingling through everything, the intermingling of all; when this doctrine was applied to the Gods, the ancient Stoics called it Theocrasy, not theocracy, which means something else entirely. Theocrasy means the intermingling of the Gods, even as human thoughts mingle on earth. [130]

Now the Self remains eternally itself on its own plane, but in manifestation it intermingles, if we may use that term, with the spheres of matter by raying itself, as does the Sun; by communicating itself as the divine ray; it shoots down into the spiritual world, and thence into the intellectual world, and thence into the psychic world, and thence into the astral world, and thence into the physical. It creates at each one of these stages, at each plane of the Hierarchy, a vehicle, a sheath, a clothing, a garment, and these, just expressed by various names, on the higher plane are called "souls", and on the lower plane, "bodies", and it is the destiny of these souls - "garments" or "vehicles" or "sheaths" of the spirit - ultimately to be raised upwards to divinity.

There is an immense difference - which is the strange doctrine alluded to a short while ago and which we shall have to study this evening - between purely unconscious spirit life, and fully self-developed, self-conscious spirituality. The monad starts out on its cyclic journey, as was said before, as unselfconscious god-spark, and ends it as a self-conscious God, but it does this through assimilation of manifested life and by carrying up with itself the various souls which it has created in its cyclic pilgrimage, in them developing its inner essence and through them understanding and coming into relation with other monads and other soul-selves. It is the raising of the soul (or rather the souls) through the Self, to divinity, that constitutes the process of evolution, the unfolding of the potentialities and capacities of the divine Seed.

We may now ask: What is the difference between the Self and the ego? The individual Self, we know, is a spiritual or rather monadic "Atom". It is that which in all things says "I am", and hence is pure consciousness, direct consciousness, not reflected consciousness. The ego is that which says "I am I" - indirect or reflected consciousness, consciousness reflected back upon itself as it were, recognizing its own mayavi existence as a "separate" entity. See how marvelous these teachings are, for if we understand this doctrine aright, it means spiritual salvation for us; and if we understand it wrongly, it means our going downwards! For instance, intensity of egoism is the understanding of it wrongly; and, paradox of paradoxes, impersonality is the understanding of it rightly. As Jesus said in the first three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, voicing one of the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, "He who saves his life shall lose it, but he who gives up his life for my sake, shall find it."

Here we have the real meaning embodied in a "dark saying" of a matter that we studied somewhat at our last meeting: the doctrine of the "loss of the soul", which we cannot touch upon more at length this evening. We shall do so, however, at some future meeting; but there, in words ascribed to Jesus and thrice [131] repeated, we have the inner meaning of this mystery: the because, the why, and the how of it.

We return to the strange doctrine mentioned before, strange to Western ears, strange to Western thought. You will remember that H.P. Blavatsky frequently describes the processes of evolution and of development, as the starting out of the spiritual essence down the "Shadowy Arc" into matter, and its growing more and more dense, compact, and heavy the deeper it goes into the ocean of the material world, until it passes a certain point - the turning point of the forces which arising in itself urge it forward in that Maha-manvantara; and that then it begins to rise again along the upward cycle, the "Luminous Arc", back towards the divinity from which it emanated as a Ray or Rays. This monadic essence, this monadic stream, passing into evolution, is, like an army or host, composed of a quasi-infinitude of individual monads. We may call them spiritual "Atoms", unselfconscious God-sparks. They gather to themselves as they descend into matter - which is eternally there from the infinitude of evolving beings in all stages of development which had preceded them - or, rather, they derive reflected or indirect consciousness (self-consciousness) from that contact and intermingling. They begin to have more than the mere feeling or rather simple cognition of "I am", or pure consciousness; they begin to feel themselves self-consciously at one with all that is. The unselfconscious God-spark is beginning self-consciously to recognize its own essential and inherent divinity. It is developing self-consciousness, and this self-consciousness is what we call the "ego", the recognition that "I am I", a part or ray of the ALL recognizing that wondrous truth.

Now consider the Hierarchy of the human being growing from the Self as its Seed - ten stages, three on the arupa or immaterial plane; and seven (or perhaps better, six) on the plane of matter or manifestation. On each one of these seven planes (or six planes), the Self or Paramatman develops a sheath or garment, the upper ones spun of spirit, or light if you will; and the lower ones spun of shadow or matter; and each such sheath or garment is a soul; and between the Self and a soul - any soul - is the ego. First in order is the Self, the divine entity or thing, or monad, behind all; and growing from within it, like a Sun developing from within its own essence, along the karmic lines or paths of the memories or "results" or "fruits" brought over from the preceding great Manvantara, thus developing strictly according to the Skandhas in its own nature, is the ego, contacting and intermingling with matter and the other hosts of intelligences of this Maha-manvantara. The ego throws out from itself - as the seed will throw out its green blade, developing into the tree with its [132] branches and its twigs and its numberless leaves - it throws out from itself its garment or sheath or vehicle spun of light or spun of shadow, according to the plane or point upon which it is; and this ethereal or spiritual or astral garment of the ego is the soul - that is, any soul.

There are many souls in man. There are likewise many egos in man; but back of them all, both egos and souls, is the deathless flame, the Self. Remember that the ancient Egyptians also taught of the various souls of man, of the manifold selves of man, of the several egos of man. We have not spoken often as yet of the ancient Egyptian teachings, because they are exceedingly difficult on account of being enwrapped in complicate symbol and allegory; they are the most hid, perhaps, the most enshrouded with tropes and figures of speech of any ancient system. But the old truths are there; they are the same age-old teachings.

Now evolution is the unfolding, the developing, the bringing out from the divine Seed within of all its latent capacities, its Swabhava in short: its individual characteristics or the essence of its being. The whole effort of evolution, however, is not merely to bring out that which is within each individual Seed; but also that each individual monad, and each ego, and each soul, shall gather up from the matter in which it works, other less progressed entities which become parts of itself, and shall carry them along with it on the arc of the evolutionary journey upwards.

Each one of us is therefore a potential Christ, a potential Christos, because while we are, each one of us, a Christos within, intrinsically, each one of us is, or should be, a "savior" of his fellow man likewise, and of all the lower beings under him, under his guidance and sway. If a man or woman ill-treats or treats nobly the atoms of his or her body, he or she is held responsible at the hands of karma, so to say, before the Divine Tribunal of his own Self; yea, to the very last farthing, he shall be held to a strict accounting. Look at the dignity with which this noble teaching endows and crowns our human species! What a sublime meaning do the doctrines of our Teachers have in this light! Man is responsible; because when he has achieved self-consciousness even in minor degree he becomes a creator thereby, and becomes therefore responsible to a coordinate extent. He becomes a collaborator and coworker with the Gods whom he is destined to join as one of themselves.

If the life-stream, if the stream of monads, if any individual monad has passed the lowest point of its manvantaric cycles safely, has safely swung past the path leading downward at the midpoint of the Fourth Round, and successfully starts out on the upward way, along the "Luminous Arc", it is safe to a certain extent, but not yet wholly so, because that same test comes [133] again at the midpoint in each Round. But the midpoint of the Fourth Round is the most critical. We all know what a Round is, and the seven through which we must pass before we complete our evolutionary pilgrimage on this planet. But if the monadic spark passes safely through each of the three Rounds to come, then in the last Round, on the last or seventh globe, in the last race of that globe, he shall blossom out as a Dhyani-Chohan, a "Lord of Meditation". Already almost a God. And those of us who shall have made the race successfully, shall, after the long Nirvana that awaits us after the seven Rounds are completed, which Nirvana is a period of unspeakable bliss corresponding to the devachan between two earth-lives; those of us, I say, who shall have become these Lords of Meditation, shall become the forerunners, the makers, the developers, the Gods of the future planet which shall be the child of this, as this globe, Terra, was the child of our mother, the Moon; and so on forever, but always advancing higher and higher up the rungs of the wondrous Ladder of Cosmic Life.

Now this is the strange and wonderful doctrine, strange and wonderful to Western ears. Endless are the ramifications of thought which spring from it. Think of the destiny before us! Yes: and it is also wise, as our Teachers have often told us, to look at the other side. Let us turn our faces from the morning sunlight occasionally, and look in the other direction. Remember that we have innate and ineluctable moral responsibilities where ethical problems are involved. We have, to a certain extent, knowledge; hence power, hence responsibility. Behind us, trailing upwards, are infinitudes of beings who are less than we. Each one of them is on the same path whereon we have trodden, ourselves; each one of them having to go over that same path, stained with the blood from our own feet. And shall they fail for lack of our help? They shall have to pass the danger point, even as we have done; because the teaching is that at the middle point of every evolution there is a downward path, leading into spheres of being grosser and more material than ours.

When our planet first started, or rather first was started, on its course of emanational evolution, the propelling agents in that were the Dhyani-Chohans from the lunar chain, i.e., those who had run the evolutionary race successfully there; and behind them, trailing after them, we came, seven classes of us, the most evolved, the less, the less, the less, the less, the animals, the vegetables, and the minerals.

Our time is drawing to a close this evening, but there is one point which it seems incumbent upon us to touch upon at least slightly. When Leibnitz, the great German philosopher, spoke of the inherent urge in every monad propelling it into manifestation, [134] he spoke from the ancient books, from the Pythagorean and the Neo-Platonic teachings, of which he was a student, and he meant what we do when we speak of the Swabhava, the essential nature of a thing. There is, however, one point of his teaching to which we must allude, where he says in substance that our world is the best possible world in the universe. Those of you who are acquainted with the great French philosopher, Voltaire, may remember his book, Candide, or "Optimism", in which Voltaire evidently is tilting at the optimistic theories of Leibnitz, and in which two of his characters are the inveterately irrational optimist, Dr. Pangloss, and the young man, Candide, Dr. Pangloss's pupil, a young philosopher, a thorough-going selfish optimist, who accepted all the rebuffs of life with great indifference and calmness, and with a smile at human misery. And Voltaire has a passage commenting upon these two characters (Candide, Chapter VI), where he says, with all that pungent, aphoristic point, which is so great an ornament of the French genius, "Si c'est ici le meilleur des mondes possibles, que vent donc les autres?" That is, "If this is the best of all possible worlds, how about the others"? A very comprehensive remark indeed, and a very true one. It is not the best possible of all worlds. Far from it. It were indeed a weary and hopeless outlook for our human kind, if it were! Yet the great German philosopher was right in this sense, that it is the best possible world which the world's karma has enabled it to be or to produce; and if it is not better, we ourselves are largely responsible for it.

We see in this amusing reference to the theories of Leibnitz and Voltaire, the true meaning of the word optimism. Our own majestic philosophy gives us a far wider vision, a more penetrating insight into things; a profounder understanding of the so-called Riddle of Life. Everything is relative, one of the greatest teachings of the Esoteric philosophy. There are no absolutes (in the usual European sense of that word) anywhere. Everything is relative, because everything is interlinked and intermingles with every other thing. If there were an absolute, in the European sense, there could be nothing but the barren silence and immutability of complete and utter perfection, which is impossible, for there would be in such case, there could be, no growth, no future growth, no past development, spiritually, mentally, or in any other wise.

We now close. At our next meeting, upon the Teacher's direction, we shall take up the study of the so-called Hells and Heavens, for this branch of our investigation is a very necessary part of the psychological side of our study which we began at our last meeting; and we say this evening only this, that, as before often remarked, all the doctrines and dogmas and teachings and [135] tenets of the great World Religions, are based fundamentally upon some more or less obscure truth: usually very much obscured by ignorance or fanaticism, or by both; and, in conclusion, let us note well that there are no hells, and there are no heavens, as these are commonly supposed to be; but spheres of life and experience corresponding to each class of the myriad degrees of entities in being. As Jesus is said to have stated in the Christian Gospels: "In my Father's house are many mansions". There are in the endless Kosmos innumerable appropriate places of retributive bliss or retributive woe for all grades of souls, and in these karmically appropriate places, the countless hosts of evolving entities of all classes find their properly and exactly adjusted places. [136]

Chapter XIV

"HEAVENS" AND "HELLS": TEACHINGS OF THE ESOTERIC PHILOSOPHY, AND OF THE EXOTERIC RELIGIONS.

The devachan ['heaven'] merges from its highest into its lowest degree - by insensible gradations; while from the last step of devachan [downwards] the Ego will often find itself in Avichi's ['hell's'] faintest state, which, towards the end of the "spiritual selection" of events may become a bona fide "Avichi."

- Mahatma Letters, 188

From Kama-loka then ¼ the newly translated "Souls" go all (but the shells) according to their attractions, either to Devachan or Avichi.

-Mahatma Letters, 199

Ye suffer from yourselves, none else compels ¼

- Light of Asia (Arnold)

We open our study this evening by reading from The Secret Doctrine, Volume II, page 273, the following:

For the evolution of Spirit into matter could never have been achieved; nor would it have received its first impulse, had not the bright spirits sacrificed their own respective super-ethereal essences to animate the man of clay, by endowing each of his inner principles with a portion, or rather, a reflection of that essence. The Dhyanis of the Seven Heavens (the seven planes of Being) are the NOUMENOI of the actual and the future Elements, just as the Angels of the Seven Powers of nature - the grosser effects of which are perceived by us in what Science is pleased to call the "modes of motion" - the imponderable forces and what not - are the still higher noumenoi of still higher Hierarchies.

This is an exceedingly interesting paragraph. It contains, in small compass, the entire outline of the studies that we have been pursuing for some weeks past.

In taking up this evening the study of the so-called "heavens" and "hells", it may be well first of all to repeat what was said in the conclusion of our last study: that there are no heavens and there are no hells, as these are outlined in the exoteric religions. Those conceptions are based, however, upon teachings which actually came from the Mystery Doctrines, and, as we have before said, they contain in themselves the outline of a truth, indeed, of a great truth, when properly understood. But while we do not accept the Christian heaven and the Christian hell, nor the Mohammedan heavens nor the Mohammedan hells, nor the literal exoteric teachings concerning them as found among the [137] Buddhists and the ancient Greeks and the Romans, nevertheless there actually are in Nature certain spheres of being in which those portions of man's constitution which survive the death of the physical body, find appropriate dwelling-places; they are, in fact, retributive realms or spheres of being, to which are magnetically attracted those parts of his constitution which in him are of similar or identical quality.

Jesus, in the Gospel "according to John", 14th Chapter, the second verse, says the following: "In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you". He said this in the long final address which he gave to his disciples before his arrest and appearance before the authorities, according to the Christian legends.

Now there is no great religion of the ancient time which does not teach in more or less clear and definite form the existence of certain forces of "reward" or of retribution, acting after man's death in appropriate spheres in which the so-called soul of man meets with retribution, or, as some say, "punishment" or "reward", after physical death. Those spheres in which the soul shall receive appropriate retributive purgation, or "punishment", are called hells, in the English tongue; and those in which the soul shall receive appropriate retributive repose and reward are commonly called heavens; and because these words are familiar to Europeans, and represent with fair accuracy the general idea of post mortem retribution prevalent in all great religions, it may be best for us to use them. But we must positively clear out of our minds, wash our minds clean of, all ideas that have been put into them by the miseducation of the dogmatic theologies, if we are to gain a correct idea of what the Esoteric Philosophy teaches on these lines.

We must remember that we are studying the occultism of the archaic ages. Now this word "occultism" meant originally only the science of things hid; even in the Middle Ages of Europe, those philosophers who were the forerunners of the modern scientists, those who then studied physical nature, called their science "occultism", and their studies "occult", meaning the things that were hid, or not known to the common run of mankind. Such a medieval philosopher was Albertus Magnus, a German; and so also was Roger Bacon, an Englishman; both of the thirteenth century of the Christian Era.

Therefore, "occultism" as we use the term, and as it should be used, means the study of the hid things of being, the science of life or universal Nature; in one sense this word can be used to mean the study of unusual "phenomena", which meaning it usually has today among people who do not think, or who will not think, of the vastly larger field of causes which "Occultism", [138] properly speaking, investigates. Doubtless mere "phenomena" have their place in study, but they are on the frontier, as it were, on the outskirts - and they are the superficialities - of occultism. In studying true occultism we must penetrate deep into the causal mysteries of being; and, in very truth, we have been doing this since the Teacher inaugurated these studies: step by step, have we been going deeper into the realm of causes.

Now, in order fully to comprehend the destiny of the soul, post mortem, and before its next rebirth in a physical body on this plane, it is incumbent upon us first to say that there is a vast field of teachings with regard to death upon which we do not feel at present privileged to roam. This is a matter which rests entirely with the Teacher's discretion, and only upon her explicit instructions will anything be said regarding that field in these studies. Yet there are certain things which we can touch upon. The reason for our necessary reticence and silence with regard to the forbidden field mentioned, is this, that, as remarked in one of our former studies, the teachings with regard to the deeper mysteries of death give keys to mysteries of still greater magnitude and scope, and in ancient days were communicated only to a chosen few, at any time. Any one of you who chooses to look into the religious mystical literatures of the world, can prove this fact for himself.

In former studies we have traced the peregrination of the monad from the state of latency into manifestation, as viewed from below. Now the monad is a spiritual "atom", so to say; let us call it this evening a spiritual radical (radicle), using this word "radical" in precisely the double sense in which H.P. Blavatsky used the word "radical" when she spoke of comets as "those long-haired sidereal radicals" - with a touch of real humor in one sense, but also hinting, by the use of the word, at a great truth of the Esoteric Philosophy with regard to comets in calling them "radicals". You know what radical originally meant. It meant a (little) root, from the Latin radix, hence its application to a comet as the root or the germ of a future world. So, also, a monad is a radical, a radical in both the senses in which she used them, an "aggressive" (in the sense of self-acting, self-developing) entity, and also a root, a germ of a future God.

Now this radical, in order to attain self-consciousness, and conscious self-consciousness, must pass down the "arc of shadows" until it reaches the turning point of the great Cycle in that Manvantara, and as an integral part of and belonging to the Hierarchy evolving in that Manvantara. By that time, if its Karma is so, it has reached conscious self-consciousness, and is manifesting on our plane as a man. Thereupon it starts upwards along the "Luminous Arc", or the arc of ascension, and if it is successful [139] in its cyclic pilgrimage, it finally blossoms forth into a God. We must remember this general outline if we wish to understand clearly what we mean by "heavens" and "hells".

The whole aim of evolution, the entire destiny of the spiritual radical, is the elevating of the consciously personal into the consciously impersonal - so important a thought that we are obliged to say that it lies as the very first conception and as the root of the whole Esoteric Philosophy. A self-conscious God can be such only because it has a vehicle of self to work through; and this is what the spiritual radical lacks when it starts out on its cyclic pilgrimage. Manhood must be raised to Godhood.

Now we may begin to see here the meaning of what our first Teacher spoke of as the "loss of the soul". At every step downward, as its self-consciousness is slowly and gradually evolved in any Manvantara, the monad fabricates into itself, or secretes from itself, and excretes from itself, vehicles proper for its cognizing the forces and matter on the various planes through which it passes, and in which it manifests. Those on the higher planes are egos, and each ego secretes its own appropriate vehicle, called a soul. Consequently, there is an ego and a soul for each step downward: a dual vehicle for manifesting the monadic essence on every plane. Through the whole, as a golden cord, runs the Self, the innermost consciousness, the spiritual "I am". The ego-soul gives to the monad the consciousness "I am I". The Self, however, is the same in all of us. "I am I" is the quality only of the ego. Therefore the important thing is to "save" the ego. The higher egos are saved because of previous salvation gained in former Manvantaras. But the lower egos and their souls are built up out of the matter and consciousness of this Manvantara, and they must be "saved". The state of human consciousness in which we - mankind - now live in this epoch and in this Manvantara, is called in the individual the human soul, the human ego; and this human soul and this human ego must be "saved", because our self-consciousness is centered therein. We use the word "saved", because none better occurs to us: at least the word is familiar. This "saving" means that the ego-soul must be rescued from the magnetic attraction of matter.

But what happens if its education is incomplete when at the bottom of the arc, before beginning the ascent along the "Luminous Arc", and it becomes unable to run the race and fails? Suppose that the pull of matter is too strong and that its attraction is downward. Slowly, in that case, the links with the higher Self are broken, the golden chain is ruptured, and the whole effort of the monad in that Manvantara is lost. The entity cycling downward is what is called a "lost soul".

Now a "lost soul" has naught to do with the "heavens" and [140] the "hells". The state of Nirvana, again, has nothing to do with the "heavens" and the "hells". The "heavens" and the "hells" concern only the truly human entity: that is, the human ego and the human soul; only this grade of consciousness, for to it belong those consciousnesses which can partake of the conception of, and can experience, felicity or misery. Nirvana is beyond felicity; it is, of course, beyond misery; its opposite pole is Nirvana-avichi, a subject which we shall have to discuss, if we have time for it, either this evening or at our next study. Nirvana-avichi the utter contrast of Nirvana, it is the lowest point, the nether pole of conscious being.

Now when the body breaks up at physical death the astral Elements remain in the "shadow world" with the same conscious center, as in life, clinging within them, still vitalizing them; and certain processes there go on of which our Teachers have more or less fully told us; and consequently there is no need for us to take time this evening in discussing what Kama-loka is or Devachan is, particularly. But when the "second death", after that of the physical body, takes place - and there are many deaths, that is to say many changes of the vehicles of the ego - when the second death takes place, what becomes of the human center, the truly human entity? We have been told that the higher part of it withdraws into itself all that aspires towards it, and takes that "all" with it into the devachan; and that the Atman, with the Buddhi, and with the higher part of the Manas - which is the so-called human soul; or the mind - becomes thereupon the spiritual monad of man. Strictly speaking, this is the divine monad within its vehicle - Atman and Buddhi - combined with the human ego in its higher manasic element; but they are joined into one after death, and are hence spoken of as the spiritual monad.

The human monad "goes" to Devachan. Devachan is a Tibetan word and may be translated as God-land, God-country, God-region. There are many degrees in Devachan: the highest, the intermediate, and the lowest. What becomes of the entity, on the other hand, the lower human soul, that is so befouled with earth-thought and the lower instincts that it cannot rise? There may be enough in it of the spirit-nature to hold it together as an entity and enable it to become a reincarnating entity, but it is foul, it is heavy; its tendency is consequently downwards. Can it therefore rise into a heavenly felicity? Can it go even into the lower realms of Devachan and there enjoy its modicum of the beatitude, bliss, of everything that is noble and beautiful? No. There is an appropriate sphere, a sphere appropriate for every degree of development of the ego-soul, and it gravitates to that sphere and remains there until it is thoroughly purged, until the sin has been washed out, so to say. [141]

These are the so-called "hells", beneath even the lowest parts of Devachan; and the "arupa heavens" are the highest parts of the Devachan. Nirvana is a very different thing from the "heavens". Nirvana is a state of utter bliss and complete, untrammeled consciousness, a state of absorption in pure Being, and is the wondrous destiny of those who have reached superhuman knowledge and purity and spiritual illumination. It really is personal absorption into or identification with the Self - the Highest SELF. It is also the state of the monadic entities in the period that intervenes between minor Manvantaras, or Rounds, of a Planetary Chain; and more fully so between each seven-Round Period, or Day of Brahm_, and the succeeding Day or new Kalpa of a Planetary Chain. At these last times, starting forth from the seventh sphere in the Seventh Round, the monadic entities have passed far beyond even the highest state of Devachan. Too pure and too far advanced even for such a condition as the devachanic felicity, they go to their appropriate sphere and condition, which latter is the Nirvana following the end of the Seventh Round.

Now what do the Ancients say in their exoteric religions, about these so-called "heavens" and "hells"? Every such ancient religion taught that the so-called heavens are divided into steps or grades of ascending bliss and purity; and the so-called hells into steps or grades of increasing purgation or suffering. Now the Esoteric Doctrine, our Occultism, teaches that the one is not a "punishment", nor is the other, strictly speaking, a reward. The teaching is, simply, that each entity after physical death is drawn to the appropriate sphere to which the karmic destiny of the entity magnetically attracts it. As a man works, as a man sows, in his life, that and that only shall he reap after death. Good seed produces good fruit; bad seed, tares - and perhaps even nothing of value or of spiritual use follows a negative and colorless life. There is no "law" of karma; we repeat, there is no "law" of karma. There are no "laws" of nature; we repeat, there are no "laws" of nature. What is a natural "law"? Is a natural "law" a God? Is it a being? Is it an entity? Is it a Force? Is it an energy? If so, what God produces it? The word "law", however, is convenient enough provided we understand what we mean by it. Perhaps no better word, in our day, could be found for ordinary usage in writing popularly or in conversation. But do not let us make the mistake of taking abstractions for realities. In this study of the marvelous doctrines of our Occultism we shall never move a step forward towards a proper understanding of Nature, if we do make this mistake. We must wash our minds clean of occidental scientific and theological miseducation. The so-called "laws of nature" and the "law of Karma" are simply [142] the various workings of consciousnesses in Nature: truly and actually, they are Habits, habits of beings. We replace the abstractions of occidental science and theology with the action and the ineluctable results thereof of consciousnesses and wills in the spheres of being of the Hierarchies of Life. We are simply abusing our intelligence, stultifying our intellects, when we go around and around the vicious circles of materialistic theory and think we have satisfied our inquiring minds by replacing the work of endless Hosts of Beings in and of Nature with an abstraction called "law" or "laws". Think of it! Do we realize that not one single great thinker of the ancients, until the Christian era, ever talked about "laws of Nature", as if these "laws" were living beings; as if these abstractions were actual entities which did things? Did the "laws of navigation" ever navigate a ship? Does the "law of gravity" pull the planets together? Does it unite or pull the atoms together? Nonsense. This word "law" is simply an abstraction, an expression for the action of entities in Nature. The word "law", as said before, is perhaps a convenient term, and if we understand what we mean when we use it, then all right. But we must understand it. The ancients put realities, living beings, in the place of "laws", which, as we use the term, are only abstractions; they did not cheat themselves so easily with words. They called them Gods. Very good; call them, then, Gods. They called them spiritual entities. Very good, then. Call them so. Call them Dhyanis, or by any other name you please. But pin your faith, direct your intellects, to actual, living beings, to realities, not to nothingnesses, not to abstractions, which have no reality except as modes of speech.

Let us take for example the ancient Brahmanical teachings. There, we find many divisions of "heavens" and "hells"; but the common one is the division into seven lower spheres, or Lokas, or "hells", or infernal halls; and the seven superior Lokas, which we may call "heavens". The Buddhist teaching usually gives the number as 21 hells, for which the common word is Narakas; and the Buddhists also used the word Lokas for the higher spheres; but note well that in all ancient systems, these higher and lower spheres or grades were in ascending and descending steps. There was the highest, and all the others which followed, decreasing in felicity and purity by degrees, each one growing more material and less happy with each step downward, until they passed insensibly into the higher hells, and here again still further increasing in materiality downward until the end of the Hierarchy of these stages was reached.

Now among the very lowest of these hells, the Buddhists placed Avichi; this is a Sanskrit word, and its general meaning is "waveless", having no waves, or movement, suggesting the stagnation [143] of life and being in immobility; it also means "without happiness"; or "without repose"; and below that another Hierarchy begins, a new world! What endless realms for speculation open to us here!

We can here but sketch - our remaining time this evening is so short - an outline of the doctrines concerning the "heavens" and the "hells". In beginning with a general outline, we are pursuing the general plan of study as it has been authorized by the Teacher. First, we try to give the general sketch, the general view, later filling in the necessary details as we pursue our subject, although frequently alluding to another teaching connected with it, purposely doing so; and in this way we are following the ancient system or method of teaching these different subjects. In our modern Occidental institutions of learning, it is customary, perhaps a rigorous requirement, that the lecturer shall pursue to the end all details of a subject embarked upon: opening one line of investigation and not deviating from it until everything in theory and practice, or supposed to be there, is known, or thought to be known; and when that one line of study is fully exhausted, and when the intellect is completely crystallized in that form, and weary, then opening a new line of investigation. This method is positively contrary to Nature. Neither child nor adult learns life's lessons in such artificial fashion. The ancients knew better the psychology of teaching and learning. They built up, first, the general view, such as has a man on a mountaintop with the general topographical view before his vision, whence he constructs a topographical survey which he retains in his mind; and when he goes down into the valley, he is enabled easily to fill in all necessary details. This is Nature's method, if we may so speak of it; and it is what is called the Platonic method: first the general, then the particular. In logic, this is called the deductive system, as opposed to the Aristotelian or inductive method, on which modern Western teaching is based.

Now the Egyptians, as we know from their papyri, taught the existence of many spheres after death, the many planes of felicity and beatitude and the many planes of suffering or purgation, spheres which the defunct entity had to pass through before it reached one or the other of the goals of post mortem life: "heaven" or "hell". The teachers of ancient times had a way, an allegorical way, of expressing the course of life after death, and in this manner kept the intuition alive and active without touching upon forbidden matters, secrets or mysteries of the sanctuaries. Let us take in this connection, as illustration, the teaching of the Mithraic religion, which came very close, at one time, to ousting completely the Christian doctrine. The Mithraists taught the existence of seven (and nine) heavens, each one preceded and [144] followed by another one, inferior or superior, respectively; and each one was to be attained by a "ladder", which was only a graphic, a neat, way of speaking. Of course they meant only that the "ladder" was a representation of the steps, grades, or degrees, which the soul had to climb, in order to attain the goal; and the "ladder" was likewise a figure of the degrees of the hierarchy - the steps, the planes, the spheres, of which it is composed. They had also their seven degrees of initiation, based upon the rising scale existent in Nature; and two other degrees which were considered as too sacred to speak of openly; and this makes nine degrees in all.

How about the ancient Scandinavians? Take the case of their Niflheim, a word meaning "cloudy (or misty) dwelling-place", "home", or "mansion". This nebulous region was the ninth, the lowest, in their system, and itself was composed of nine minor worlds or spheres. Very careful indeed were the writers of the Eddas in the way they taught; but they give us enough to show us the same identical teachings as found elsewhere over the world. I am speaking here more particularly of the Prose Edda, which is more open in its esoteric allusions than is the poetic Edda, the Edda of verse. Now the Prose Edda tells us that on one side, the northern, of the cosmic space, were cold and gloom, and it gives to this sphere the name Nifl ("nebulous region"), which is a generalizing of the meaning of the name; Nifl had nine divisions or degrees; but more particularly Nifl was the name of the lowest of the nine; still, the Edda gave that name to the entire series of nine spheres, on the north. A middle region was the Ginnungagap, an Old Norse word which can be translated perhaps as yawning abyss, or abyss (or Gap) of abysses; this was the middle or intermediate sphere; and then came Muspellheim, to the south, a place of fire and flame and warmth, not necessarily anything like the Christian hell, for, as a matter of fact, it was nearer like a heaven than a hell; elemental or divine beings lived there, a natural thought to the cold-enduring Scandinavians. Their hell was cold; and the hells of Southrons were hot; these words being merely appropriate ways of expressing things to be easily apprehended by the people.

What did the early Christians or the medieval Christians believe as regards "heaven" and "hell"? Let us choose the descriptions of Dante, the great Italian poet, for instance; for he echoes the ancient pagan teaching remarkably in some ways; always in a distorted manner, it is true; but you can see the ancient truth under all that he wrote. How significant it is that he made Vergil, the great Latin poet, his conductor through his Infernos, or hells, and through his Purgatory; but in due deference to his Christian teachers and the Christian age in which he lived, when he came to [145] the heavens, which he describes, he has a Christian guide, his Beatrice, and of course he had to follow his Christian doctrines. Dante divides his hells into nine circles. He divides his Purgatory into seven circles, preceded by the Ante-purgatory, and followed by the Terrestrial Paradise, which make again nine. In each of these hells, and in each of these divisions of Purgatory - places of purification - he shows the lowest as the most terrible; the second above it is not quite so fearful, and the third less so than the second; and so on up through the eighteen circles or degrees of Hells and Purgatory to the topmost one of the Purgatory, which is scarcely, if at all, unpleasant. Finally, Dante divides his heavens into nine, and these are topped by the Empyrean, the dwelling-place of God and his Angels!! Thus, there are nine hells; seven divisions of Purgatory, with the Ante-purgatory and the Terrestrial Paradise - again nine; nine heavens; the Empyrean: 9 + 9 + 9 + 1 = 28, divisions of non-physical life, each one appropriated to punish certain vices or reward certain virtues after death. A curiously faithful, curiously distorted, and often grotesque, parody of the archaic doctrine. [146]

Chapter XV

THE EVOLUTION OF THE "ABSOLUTE". GENERALIZED PLAN OF EVOLUTION ON ALL PLAINES. SEVEN KEYS TO WISDOM AND FUTURE INITIATIONS.

Containing all things in the one summit of his own hyparxis, he himself subsists wholly beyond.

- Proclus: The Theology of Plato, 212 (Cory)

You will not understand it, as when understanding some particular thing.

- Damascius (Cory)

Things divine are not attainable by mortals who understand body,

But only as many as are lightly armed arrive at the summit.

- Proclus: Commentary on the Cratylus of Plato. (Cory)

In opening our study this evening we read first from The

Secret Doctrine, Volume I, page 570, the first paragraph:

While the Christian is taught that the human soul is a breath of God - being created by him for sempiternal existence, i.e., having a beginning, but no end (and therefore never to be called eternal) - the Occult teaching says, "Nothing is created, but is only transformed. Nothing can manifest itself in this universe - from a globe down to a vague, rapid thought - that was not in the universe already; everything on the subjective plane is an eternal IS: as everything on the objective plane is an ever becoming - because transitory."

Now, in resuming our study this evening, you will remember that at our last meeting, on account of the lack of time, we were obliged to confine ourselves to a short review of the subject of the Heavens and Hells as doctrinally held by various exoteric religions; and in considering several theological or philosophical or mythological teachings about them, we had reached the viewpoint of the medieval Christian theology, as represented in the Divina Commedia of the great Italian poet, Dante; and we found in that really noble poem that Dante wrote of nine Circles comprised in his Inferno or Hell; seven belonging properly to his Purgatory, but preceded by the Ante-purgatory, and the seventh Circle of the Purgatory followed by his Terrestrial Paradise, thus forming nine Circles or Departments in that division. Then he speaks of the nine Heavens, topped finally by the Empyrean, in which last sits God surrounded by the holy Angels and the spirits of the Just. So that we find here once again, as we found in the other systems that we have mentioned, the wonderful number nine as the root-number of division. [147]

We also touched briefly upon the ancient Scandinavian beliefs in regard to this subject as found in the Younger or Prose Edda, and merely vaguely alluded to the teachings therein contained. We also spoke of the beliefs of the Greek and Latin Stoics; and we might also have pointed out that in an important so-called "Hermetic" work, supposed to have had its origin in Egypt, but which has been greatly altered by later Christian hands - the work I refer to being called The Divine Poemandres - there are seven spheres or stages of being spoken of, as also vague allusions to an eighth, while a ninth is merely hinted at also.

Now turning to ancient Greece again, we find that the great Greek poet Homer, in the Eighth Book of the Iliad, makes his Zeus speak, in addressing the gods and goddesses, of the "Golden Chain". Zeus tells the other divinities in very masterful language of his supreme power, and that if they all, the gods and goddesses of high Olympus, were to drag downward at one end of that Chain, and he were to hold the other, he Zeus himself, alone, could drag it upwards with all the gods and goddesses, all the seas and the earths, and hang that Golden Chain, with them all at the nether end, to one of the pinnacles of heaven. What is the meaning of this curious tale? The following:

This Golden Chain represents the concatenation of the living Hierarchies which we have studied before. The Golden Chain of all Being, inward and outward. In the same address to the assembly of the Divinities of Olympus, Zeus speaks as follows: "Any one of you who despises my words and will, I shall cast down into gloomy Tartarus ¼ which is as far below Hades as Earth is below Olympus". This shows us somewhat of Homer's representation of the framework of Kosmos, which was somewhat as follows: Earth, or rather the Universe, was represented as a sphere: Olympus was placed at the upper or northern side or pole; what was called "Earth" was the next part below; below Earth was Hades; and at the nether pole from Olympus was placed Tartarus. Homer, through his Zeus, tells us that as far below Olympus as Earth is, so far below Hades is Tartarus.

The Greek poet Hesiod, in his Theogony, beginning with Verse 721, also tells us that if a brazen anvil were allowed to fall from Olympus to Earth it would take nine days to fall, and would reach the Earth on the tenth; and if that same brazen anvil, in continuing its course, were to fall from Earth to Tartarus, it would again take nine days to fall, and would reach Tartarus on the tenth. So the Latin poet Vergil, Aeneid, vi, 577-9, has the same general idea.

We see therefore in Greek and Latin mystical thought the same principle of Hierarchies and scales of nines and tens that we have met with before. The theory calls for a continuous succession [148] of planes or spheres of being, ranging from higher to lower; repeated uninterruptedly throughout the range of any general hierarchical system of worlds. For instance here, beginning at Tartarus, there follows a new Sub-Hierarchy, a new sphere, a new Egg, of Being; just as the Olympus of any one such system is the nether pole of a still higher Hierarchy than itself. And so on throughout the Universe.

Now this "nine days' falling" of Hesiod's "brazen anvil", and any other similar figure, is simply the well known mythological way of speaking, rendering in an easily understood form for the general public, with their sleeping minds, the esoteric doctrines, the doctrines of Occultism, that is to say, the facts of Inner Being, as those are found in all the mystical teachings of all the ancient nations.

Now this subject of the Hells and Heavens, as was pointed out in our last study, rests upon several fundamental esoteric factors which we have been studying continuously since the Teacher inaugurated these meetings last January. As said at our last meeting, there are in very truth no "Hells" and no "Heavens", in the ordinary Christian sense, at all. But there are Spheres of Retribution, Spheres of Probation, which are particular spheres of being; and some of these hells, as described for instance in the Brahmanical and in the Buddhist religions, are actually spheres of near-pleasure, rather agreeable than otherwise; they are described as really very pleasant and interesting places! But they are still lower than the heavens, so-called.

We might consider the description of some of the so-called Heavens, on the other hand, as not so exceedingly pleasant; the idea being that just as are the conditions among men on earth, so it is among appropriate spheres of retribution or probation or purgatorial cleansing: when the compass of man's life on earth has been brought to its end, everything then moves according to strict analogy and according to strict gravitational attraction. Nothing can go to any sphere or go into any state for which it is unfit. Everything finds its exactly appropriate and similar goal, or home, or sphere.

These heavens and hells are states, of course; so is earth life a state. But if a thing is a state it is also the state of a thing; and if it is a thing, it must have place, or position, or locality, That is obvious. So, therefore, while these heavens and hells are states, they are likewise localities, places. The Ancient Wisdom speaks of them in general, refers to them in general, by the Sanskrit word meaning "The three worlds" - Tri-bhuvana, i.e., meaning three briefly generalized abodes or mansions or dwelling-places; as Jesus says in the Christian scriptures: "In my Father's house are many mansions". As the Teacher has just [149] pointed out, they are states of mind for the entities who dwell therein, and it is through these states of mind that the purgatorial cleansing of the soul-nature is accomplished.

Why does a man go to hell? Because he wants to go to hell. Why does a man go to heaven? Because he desires to go to heaven. A man goes wherever he wills to go. If during his life he has lived an evil existence, it is because the impulses and attractions of his being were such; and can such a soul, enwrapped with earthly attractions, ascend into spiritual spheres? Can the operations of spiritual beings, of the so-called higher "laws of nature", attract a man whose soul is absorbed in heavenly aspirations into one of the lower and pain-racked spheres of purgation? Never. Think of the meaning involved in this thought. We must therefore take warning therefrom, and live in accordance therewith. Let us hearken to these doctrines, sublime in their grandeur. Every word of them is pregnant with profound meanings.

Now let us go a little farther. You may remember that some months ago we pointed out that in the Ancient Wisdom, in the ancient Occultism, there was a teaching which actually had originated a modern scientific doctrine, born nevertheless in a distorted form of materialism, regarding the operations of nature, the so-called "conservation of energy", which is one of the great pillars of modern materialistic science; and also its twin dogma, the so-called "correlation of forces". Those two scientific doctrines were born of the supposition that there is nothing in existence but inert, lifeless, soulless matter, impelled by strange and unknown and perhaps undiscoverable impulses, which were called "forces", springing forth in some unknown and perhaps undiscoverable way. Science is changing its viewpoints in many directions, it is quite true, but yet some materialistic ideas still remain. Now, in our time, everything is supposed to be fundamentally force; matter itself is supposed to be force. The ideas, as you readily see, still are the same; the words alone are changing. It is, however, a step ahead, but we should not let ourselves be carried away by mere words, providing the thought behind the words is the same and as fully materialistic as ever.

But there are signs that other changes also are rapidly taking place in scientific realms. Within three weeks, the present speaker read the report of an address by an eminent English physicist, an honor and credit to his country, intuitional in some ways, who tells us what the latest discoveries are demonstrating to the scientists of the time. What is this new light? Just what we pointed out some months ago as a fundamental teaching of the ancient Occultism, that Force is simply Matter in an ethereal state; or, to put it in another and a truer way, Matter is simply [150] crystallized Force, so to say, Force and Matter being in essence one. This scientist further tells us that modern thinkers are now beginning to believe that Matter is not eternal. Of course, we also believe that, provided that by "Matter" we mean merely physical matter, the basic maya - or "illusion" - of physical being. But if we mean by "Matter" the substratum, the essential substance of being, we differ instantly, for indeed That is eternal. IT is Mula-prakriti, root-substance, the Garment of Para-brahman.

Now again, what do we mean when we speak of Para-brahman and Mula-prakriti, Essential Consciousness, and Essential Nature - or Essential Substance or "Matter"? We mean this: that Para-brahman-Mula-prakriti can be for any human intellect merely the absolute state of the Hierarchy, the highest portion, its Flower, its Principle, its Root, its Seed - That from which the rest evolves, or goes out and becomes the manifested universe we live in and know and are a part of. As Paul says in the Christian Gospels, "In him [that is, in It - the Greek allows this translation] we live and move and have our being", i.e., we are It, in other words; that is, in the sense of being essentially a part of the Flower of our Hierarchy, the highest to us, for IT is the Root of Consciousness of and in our Kosmical Universe or Universal Kosmos, which latter is all that is comprehended within the zone of the Milky Way, that is, the Universal Kosmos that we know of. The Summit of it, is this Root from which all these numberless inferior worlds or universes inside it have come forth, have evolved forth; its children the solar systems, the suns, the stars, the planets: all the living beings, all the atoms, all the worlds or universes; in short, the Kosmos; all come forth from IT. It is the Summit, the Flower, the Acme, as also the Seed; it is the Absolute Paramatman, Supreme Self, which you will remember we have studied before, as we have more or less all the teachings that we are now passing briefly in review, because this is, as the Teacher has told us this evening, the last of our present studies until her return from Europe.

Now what do we mean by the word "Absolute"? Do we mean "God"? If you like that word. If you really wish to call it "God". But do you know anything about "God"? Don't we see that the instant in which we stultify our intellects, cripple our intuition, limit the soaring of our interior faculties by speaking of bounds, whether inferred in thought or word, then we reach ends and halt? Now, remember always in this connection, that beyond and beyond and beyond the Kosmical Universe, beyond our ken, beyond our imagination, there is always endless life, endless being, for there is no end anywhere; and this thought is what was meant in the ancient Occultism when its teachers [151] spoke of that "circle whose circumference is nowhere and whose center is everywhere", the "Boundless", the "Without Bounds". This Latin word "Absolute", misused as it is in modern philosophy and even among our own selves, is the exact translation of the Sanskrit Mukti, or Moksha, which I will allude to in a moment. "Absolute" is the modern English form of the past participle passive of the Latin word absolvere, meaning "to loosen", "to set free", "to release", and hence "perfected". Not utter, limitless perfection like the immortal gods in some religions were supposed to have, which is always impossible. But the relative perfection, the Summit, the Acme, the Flower, the Root, the Seed, of any Hierarchy; and particularly for us of that Hierarchy which is for us the highest - our Kosmical Universe, of which we have spoken.

Now the Sanskrit words Mukti or Moksha: the former comes from the Sanskrit root much, meaning "to release", "to set free", as said. Moksha from the Sanskrit Moksh, with an almost identical meaning, and probably a derivative of the same root much. The meaning is that when a spirit, a monad, or a spiritual radical, has so grown in manifestation that it has first become a man, and is set free interiorly, inwardly, and from a man has become a Planetary Spirit or Dhyani-Chohan, or Lord of Meditation, and has gone still higher, to become interiorly a Brahman, and from a Brahman the Para-brahman for its Hierarchy, then it is absolutely perfected, free, released: perfected for that great period of time which to us seems almost an eternity, so long is it, virtually incomputable by the human intellect. Now this is the "Absolute"; limited in comparison with things still more immense, still more sublime; but so far as we can think of it, "released" or "freed" from the chains or bonds of material existence.

When the great period of the Universal Kosmic Pralaya occurs, and the universe is indrawn (following the Oriental metaphor) into the bosom of Para-brahman, what then happens? The spiritual entities then enter into their Para-nirvana, which means exactly for them what is meant for us when we speak of the death of the human being. They are drawn by their spiritual gravitational attractions into still higher Hierarchies of being, into still higher spiritual realms, therein still higher rising and growing and learning and living; while the lower Elements of the Kosmos, the body of the universe (even as does our physical body when the change called death comes - Death, the "Twin Sister of Life", to follow our Teacher's beautiful metaphor, her beautiful trope of speech), follow their own particular gravitational attractions: the physical body to dust; the vital breath to the vital breath of the Kosmos; dust to dust, breath to [152] breath: so with the other Kosmic principles, as with man's principles at his decease: the kama of our nature to the universal reservoir of the kamic organism; our manas into its Dhyani-Chohanic rest; our monads into their own higher life. Then when the clock of eternity points once again for the Kosmos to the hour of "coming forth into light" - which is "death" for the spiritual being, as death for us is life for the inner man - when the Manvantara of material life comes around again (the period of spiritual death for the Kosmos is the material life of manifestation) then in the distant abysms of space and time the Kosmic Life Centers are aroused into activity once more: first the stage of the nebular fiery cloud; then the whirling nebula; then the spiral nebula; then the ringed nebula; then the Sun and the planets, and finally the human and other beings that grow on the last; each one of these planets having its seven Rounds to fulfill in the forthcoming Planetary Periods, time after time, during endless life. Endless hope and experience lie in this marvelous scheme; but always at every step on the Path there is a dividing of the ways for those Entities which have attained moral responsibility, an up and a down, for the "moment of choice" is really continuous.

At the present period (for our great Maha-manvantara we have lived somewhat more than half of the maha-manvantaric cycle) we are, for the Maha-manvantara of our Kosmical Solar System, at the point where matter has already reached its ultimate degree of development in our Hierarchy. We have lived, according to the ancient numerical teaching, one hundred and fifty-five trillion, five hundred and twenty odd billion solar years. One-half of our Maha-manvantara is gone; and there still remain nearly one hundred and fifty-five trillion, five hundred and twenty billion solar years. More accurately, we have slowly passed the actual lowest point of the great Universal Kosmical Cycle. That lowest point, where matter reached its greatest degree of physical manifestation for us, for our great Wave of Life,was when the Moon had reached the middle point of its Fourth Round, which was ages and aeons before it became our physical satellite. The ancient teachings are that as the great Para-brahman of our hierarchical System has one hundred (Divine) Years of life to live, each year having three hundred and sixty Days, and each Year being divided into twelve months, and as Fifty Divine Years have passed, therefore on this planet Terra, on this Earth, we have attained to or reached the first (Divine) Day of the first Divine Month of the ascending cycle of the second Period of Fifty Divine Years. We have, then, come down the cycles for the last one hundred fifty-five trillion, five hundred twenty odd billion years, cycling down, in and through our Hierarchy, to the [153] lowest point of it in the Moon; and have, since that point was reached ages agone, slowly and painfully begun our climb upwards again towards the Ineffable, the Summit of our hierarchical System, our "Absolute". Please remember very carefully that we use this word "Absolute" only in the sense and meaning herein before explained.

How did the "Absolute" become the "Absolute"? By chance? There is no "chance". There is nothing but endless life and endless consciousness and endless duration, working according to the Principles and Elements of inherent nature, which is called Swabhava in our Sanskrit works. The root meaning of this word Swabhava is "self-generation", "self-becoming". We generate ourselves throughout all times: give ourselves our own bodies; climb our own ladders, step by step; seek our own hells and find our own heavens. And, the whole purpose, the whole effort, of universal evolution, according to the teaching of this Ancient Wisdom, is this: raising personality into Individuality; substance into divinity; matter into spirit; grossness into purity.

Whence then came the "Absolute", the "supreme self", or "spirit" or Paramatman, of which we are sparks? By growth from within outwards; and from without inwards. It was once in incalculable aeons gone by, a Man. Think of the sublimity involved in this teaching; consider the almost endless aeons of the past; and that what in its far, far-away origin was a spark of divinity, a spark of another and former "Absolute", is now our "God", our Paramatman, our "Supreme Self", of which we are verily the children, and "in which we move and live and have our being". What is the main lesson that we may draw from this? What was the psychological mystery hinted at by us in our last meeting, and to which allusion was then but slightly made, because the Teacher had to close our evening's study before we had ended our theme? It is this - and we touch but lightly upon it here, because it belongs to a higher degree than this present one. Our human souls are gods in embryo; our human souls were formerly animal souls; our present animal souls will in a future Manvantara become human souls. Our human souls in a future Manvantara will become Monads. Man, if he make the manvantaric race successfully, is destined to be the composite Logos of a forthcoming Hierarchy; as he now in fact is, in the inferior Hierarchy of himself, the Logos of the quasi-infinitude of less beings composing his personal nature. Reflect long over this mystery, wonderful, sublime!

Are these teachings not thought-compelling and wonderful? No wonder we have held them secret and sacred in the Ancient Wisdom. Why? For many reasons. First, because they [154] could not be understood without the necessary spiritual and intellectual training; and yet it is remarkable, it is truly astonishing, how often and how, in so many ways, we see allusions to them in the ancient exoteric teachings of the various religions. Remember that "exoteric", in the ancient religions, does not mean "false". The word merely means those teachings for which the key has not been openly given.

I have noticed and read in some of the translations from the Welsh made for us by our own Theosophical Welsh scholar, Professor Kenneth Morris, teachings that I believe to be taken from the ancient Welsh books, which have caused me to gasp in amazement, that these teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, so sacred and occult, should have been so boldly put forth by the ancient bards in open language. But I looked again, and I saw how a Master hand had worked, disguising and hiding while openly teaching. The arrangement, the very beauty, of the imagery used, misled the too inquiring and the too clever mind. But for him who has the key, as we students have, it is easy to follow. Likewise have I found the same method not only in the wonderful Celtic teachings, but also in the teachings of ancient Egypt, and of other countries.

The Teacher has told me that at a former meeting I touched too slightly upon the "much vexed question", as some people call it, of good and evil. That is a subject which properly comes at the close of the studies concerning "Purgatory", "Hells and Heavens", which end this evening, and which we shall now briefly treat of. Christian thinkers have found it impossible to solve this problem satisfactorily to any thinking and reflective mind. But though it is to them and others a "much vexed question", to a student of the Ancient Wisdom it is really very simple. How can a Christian who believes that his God, that his Creator of all that is, One who therefore must be likewise the creator of evil - how can he reconcile this necessary conclusion with his other teachings concerning his Deity, for instance that God is all good, and from Him proceeds necessarily therefore nothing but good? Is evil then the work of the Devil? What child would not then ask, Whence then the Devil and the evil proceeding from him? From God? But is God not all good? Hence the inevitable deduction that God is either not all-good or not all-powerful. Evil would not be, could not be, by their theory, unless a fruit of God's wisdom, because if the case were otherwise, it would exist without the divine permission, i.e., contrary to God's will, which ex hypothesi is impossible, since God is all-powerful. The logical difficulty under their theory is complete and unanswerable by it.

Now what then really is the origin of what is called "good" [155] and "evil"? The explanation lies in the teaching we have spoken of more clearly this evening than previously. Good and evil arise out of the conflicting action of the multi-myriad wills in manifestation. Good is relative; there is no absolute good. Evil is relative; there is no absolute evil. If good were absolute, its opposite, its shadow, or nether pole evil, must also be absolute. Both, however, are relative things. They offset and balance in Nature the one the other, like all other "pairs of opposites", such as heat and cold, high and low, day and night, north and south, etc. They arise, as just said, out of the conflict of wills, conscious and unconscious. All the innumerable, multitudinous beings in manifestation, are, each one of them, more or less "selfish", more or less seeking its own, hungering and thirsting for sensation of various kinds. Even spiritual evil exists; and there are high agents of "spiritual wickedness", of which the Christian Apostle Paul has spoken, forming the opposite agencies to the high agents of good. The latter ones, agents of spiritual wickedness, are called by us the "Brothers of the Shadow", and the others are called by us the "Brothers of the Light". The Brothers of the Shadow work in and with matter, for material and selfish purposes. The Brothers of the Light work in and with Nature for spirit, for impersonal purposes. They contrast one with another.

These two bodies represent two fundamental Paths in Nature, the one the Right-Hand Path, the other the Left, and are so-called in the Ancient Occultism. The Sanskrit name for one, the "Left-Hand Path", is Pratyeka-Yana. Yana means "Path" or "Road", and also "Vehicle"; and we can translate Pratyeka in this connection by the paraphrase "every one for himself". Our first Teacher, H.P. Blavatsky, as you will well remember, has spoken of the Pratyeka-buddhas, high and in one sense holy beings indeed, but craving spiritual wisdom, spiritual enlightenment, for themselves alone, selfishly, in indifference to the sorrow and pain of the world, yet so pure withal that they are actually Buddhas of a kind.

The other body follow the Path which in Sanskrit is called Amrita-Yana, the Immortal Vehicle or Path of Immortality.

The one, the former, is the path of the personality; the other, the latter, is the path of the individuality; the one is the path of matter; the other is the path of spirit; the one leads downward, the other Path loses itself in the ineffable glories of conscious immortality in "eternity".

Now these are the two bodies of entities representing the two sides of Nature, and the conflicts or oppositions of these two sides of Nature, together with the battles of will with will, of the hosts of beings in manifested existence, produce the so-called evil [156] in the world, arising out of the selfish activities of the inferior or less developed or evolved entities. Selfishness, therefore, is the root of all evil. The old teaching is true, and that is all there is to it. On the highest planes of being, there is neither good nor evil; there is neither life in our sense, nor death; there is neither beginning nor end of personal action of any kind. But there is what is called in the wonderful ancient Brahmanical teachings, Sat, Chit, Ananda; Sat meaning "pure being"; Chit, "pure thought"; Ananda, "bliss"; and this is the state of what one may call the "Absolute".

In closing our study this evening, let us remember that the Kosmic work of the Monad, the spiritual radical, is so important that we refer to it again here. It itself can evolve only by raising inferior souls and psychological vehicles into self-conscious entities, which thus in turn themselves become Monads. THIS IS THE GENERALIZED AND ENTIRE PLAN OF EVOLUTION ON ALL PLANES. This is our Great Work. This is our high destiny. Our Supreme Self, our Paramatman, our Supreme Monad, our Highest Self, the Summit of our Hierarchy, is doing that work consciously; we as self-conscious humans are doing it in our smaller way; and this is the whole plan of manifested being, the generalized outline of kosmic evolution, as said just now. No man can live unto himself alone; no man can rise to spirit alone. It is of the very essence of Nature, that he must, willy nilly, carry with him, up or down, innumerable other entities and inferior selves, along the upward or the downward path.

Now a few words more on a very important subject. The Ancient Wisdom tells us that there are seven doctrinal Keys to Wisdom and future Initiations. With the Teacher's instruction and permission, during the studies which we began last January, of those seven Keys we have briefly alluded to five. What are they? These seven keys, the ancients called the Sapta-Ratnani, the "Seven Jewels" or "Gems", or "Treasures", and they are as follows. First, that operation of Nature - using Nature in the sense of the absolute, total aggregation of all that is: inside and outside, backwards and forwards, up and down, right and left, everything, everywhere - that is, that operation of Nature which in Man manifests as Reembodiment, or Reincarnation, and which can be briefly expressed as the change of his vehicle or body when his inner state or condition changes; for by the operations of Nature he is finally called to gravitate towards, or must go to, another state or condition and place. This is called death, but it is another form of life. There is the first Key. Apply it to our teachings in its many and various reaches.

The second Key is the doctrine of Action and Reaction, called Karma. These first two Keys we have but briefly touched upon [157] in these preparatory studies. In future studies we shall find it necessary to go into them more in detail.

The third Key is the doctrine of interpenetrating Beings or Existences, otherwise called the doctrine of Hierarchies, which are also inseparable and universally interpenetrating Planes or Spheres. EVERYTHING EXISTS IN EVERYTHING ELSE. There are, in strict truth, no absolute divisions, anywhere, neither high nor low, neither within nor without, neither right nor wrong, nor up nor down. Fundamentally, there is naught but an eternal IS and an eternal NOW. As the ancient Stoics said so finely, Everything interpenetrates everything else. The very atmosphere we breathe, for instance, is vibrant and living with the multitudinous Lives; they are in the air we breathe; the monadic essences or lives are in the air we breathe, in our bones, in our blood, in our flesh, in everything. Think of it, then; let your thought go free, release yourself inwardly. Let your imagination carry you into the wonders that these Keys open up to our minds. Conscientious study of the Ancient Wisdom and a pure and unselfish life will be your unfailing guides.

The fourth Key is the doctrine of Swabhava, the doctrine of the essential characteristic of any entity, of any spiritual radical; the doctrine also of self-generation or self-becoming, in manifestation, thus affirming one's responsibility in and for oneself. This is the most abstruse, the most mystic, of the four Keys, hitherto mentioned, for actually it is the Key to the other three Keys!

The fifth is the key to self-conscious Being and Existence, a subject to which we have alluded this evening and also in our last study; for the entire aim, method, and operation of Universal Being is the raising of the inferior to the Superior; and this Great Work cannot ever be achieved by following the "Path for Oneself", the Pratyeka-Yana, but by following the Amrita-Yana, the Immortal Vehicle, or the Path of self-consciousness in Immortality. Make your thought free, I repeat; let it go out released!

As regards the other two Keys, I ought to say, perhaps, that they belong to high degrees of Initiation. I know but very little of the seventh. The Teacher has told me almost nothing; and my studies have taught me very little about it, so closely is it hid. I know this, however, that understanding and use of this seventh Key can be reached by very few men on this earth. As regards the sixth Key, we are taught that it can be reached by great effort in the higher degrees of Initiation, the lower degrees of which we all have the opportunity of undergoing in the Teacher's presence.

This evening closes the last of our preparatory studies. We shall go to higher themes in the future. [158]

Chapter XVI

ATMA-VIDYA: HOW THE ONE BECOMES THE MANY. "LOST SOULS" AND "SOULLESS BEINGS". MAN, A COMPOSITE BEING: NO ABIDING PRINCIPLE IN MAN.

Thus, therefore, the doctrine of the Egyptians concerning principles, proceeding from on high as far as to the last of things, begins from one principle and descends to a multitude which is governed by this one; and everywhere an indefinite nature is under the dominion of a certain definite measure, and of the supreme unical cause of all things.

- Iamblichus, on The Mysteries, Section viii, 3 (Thomas Taylor)

¼ But at the close of the minor cycle, after the completion of all the seven Rounds, there awaits us no other mercy but the cup of good deeds, of merit, outweighing that of evil deeds and demerit in the scales of Retributive Justice. Bad, irretrievably bad must be that Ego that yields no mite from its fifth Principle, and has to be annihilated, to disappear in the Eighth Sphere. A mite, as I say, collected from the Personal Ego suffices to save him from the dreary Fate. Not so after the completion of the great cycle: ether a long Nirvana of Bliss (unconscious though it be in the, and according to, your crude conceptions); after which - life as a Dhyani-Chohan for a whole Manvantara, or else "Avichi-nirvana" and a Manvantara of misery and horror as a - you must not hear the word, nor I pronounce or write it. But "those" have nought to do with the mortals who pass through the seven spheres. The collective Karma of a future Planetary is as lovely as the collective Karma of a -- is terrible. Enough. I have said too much already.

- Mahatma Letters, 171

We open our evening studies, taking them up tonight at the point where we left them last summer, by reading extracts from The Secret Doctrine, Volume I, pages 206-8.

There are four grades of initiation mentioned in exoteric works ¼ Three further higher grades have to be conquered by the Arhans who would reach the apex of the ladder of Arhatship ¼ The Arhats of the "fire-mist" of the seventh rung are but one remove from the Root-Base of their Hierarchy - the highest on Earth, and our Terrestrial chain. This "Root-Base" has a name which can only be translated by several compound words into English - "the Ever-living Human Banyan." This "Wondrous Being" descended from a "high region," they say, in the early part of the Third Age, before the separation of the sexes of the Third Race.

¼ It was not a Race, this progeny. It was at first a wondrous Being, called the "Initiator," and after him a group of semi-divine and semi-human beings. "Set apart" in Archaic genesis for certain purposes, they are those in whom are said to have incarnated the highest Dhyanis ¼ to form the nursery for future human adepts, on this earth and during the present cycle. These "Sons of Will and [159] Yoga" born, so to speak, in an immaculate way, remained, it is explained, entirely apart from the rest of mankind.

The "BEING" just referred to, which has to remain nameless, is the Tree from which, in subsequent ages, all the great historically known Sages and Hierophants ¼ have branched off. As objective man, he is the mysterious (to the profane - the ever invisible) yet ever-present Personage about whom legends are rife in the East, especially among the Occultists and the students of the Sacred Science. It is he who changes form, yet remains ever the same. And it is he again who holds spiritual sway over the initiated Adepts throughout the whole world. He is, as said, the "Nameless One" who has so many names, and yet whose names and whose very nature are unknown. He is the "Initiator", called the "GREAT SACRIFICE". For, sitting at the threshold of LIGHT, he looks into it from within the circle of Darkness, which he will not cross; nor will he quit his post till the last day of this lifecycle. Why does the solitary Watcher remain at his self-chosen post? Why does he sit by the fountain of primeval Wisdom, of which he drinks no longer, as he has naught to learn which he does not know - aye, neither on this Earth, nor in its heaven? Because the lonely, sore-footed pilgrims on their way back to their home are never sure to the last moment of not losing their way in this limitless desert of illusion and matter called Earth Life. Because he would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from which he is a voluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion. Because, in short, he has sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind, though but a few Elect may profit by the GREAT SACRIFICE.

We have here read one of the most sublime passages in this wonderful book; and the beautiful words that we have heard read from our Teacher's manuscript, lead up to them in a manner which is appropriate and which opens the way for what we have to say this evening.

It is hoped to comment upon and illustrate, if possible, the matters spoken of in what we have just read from The Secret Doctrine. We cannot do this altogether directly; the subject is too profound and no sufficient preparatory study has been made; but we can do so indirectly to some extent. It is necessary to do so to some degree because this sublime subject is the seventh of the seven Jewels (counting upwards) which, you will remember, we spoke of in one of our late meetings. You will remember that these seven Jewels or Gems or Treasures were given as follows, counting from below upwards: The first or lowest is Rebirth, or rather Reembodiment, better still, perhaps, Regeneration. In Sanskrit it is called Punarjanman; and in Greek it is called Palingenesis; both words representing practically the same thought: the first element in each word meaning "again" or "anew", and the second element in each meaning "generation" or "birth" - "coming into being". [160]

The second Jewel, counting upwards, is the doctrine or fact in Nature called Karma, the doctrine of "Results". The third Jewel, counting again upwards, is the doctrine of "Hierarchies", of which the Sanskrit term is Lokas. The fourth, again upwards, is the doctrine of "Swabhava", which we have studied somewhat, as you will remember, in former meetings, this Sanskrit word having two general philosophical meanings: first, self-begetting, self-generation, self-becoming, the general idea being that there is no merely mechanical or soulless activity of Nature in bringing us into being for we brought ourselves forth, in and through and by Nature, of which we are a part of the conscious forces, and are our own children.

The second meaning is that each and every entity that exists is the result of what he actually is in his own higher nature; he brings forth that which he is in himself interiorly, nothing else. A particular Race, for instance, remains and is that Race as long as the particular Race-swabhava remains in the racial Seed and manifests thus; and so forth. Likewise is the case the same with a man, a tree, a star, a god - what not!

The fifth Jewel, counting still upwards, is the doctrine of "Evolution", which we have already very briefly studied in the Theosophical sense. This esoteric teaching is not the doctrine of transformism, which is, properly speaking, the correct name for the materialistic doctrine of Darwin, and of the Frenchman Lamarck from whom, doubtless, he drew the idea; but the theosophical idea of unfolding, or unwrapping; a doctrine - with its corollary, "Involution" - expressed by two words, these Sanskrit words being first, Pravritti, meaning the unfolding-forth of the spirit-entity into matter, or of matter-lives into spirit-entities, as the case may be; and the other word is Nivritti, meaning the infolding of spirit-entities into matter, or of matter-lives into spirit-entities, as the case may be.

Now the sixth and the seventh Treasures, or Jewels, were touched upon very slightly at one of our recent meetings. We venture now to add a few more ideas to what was said before. The sixth Jewel is the doctrine expressed here also by two compound words of contrasted sense: first Amrita-Yana, a Sanskrit word meaning "Immortality-vehicle", "carriage" or "bearer", or rather "Path", of Immortality, and referring to the individual man; and the other word is Pratyeka-Yana, a Sanskrit word meaning (in paraphrase) the "Path of each one for himself". It is impossible to translate this latter compound word into English by a single word. Both the idea and the vocable do not exist in English. It may perhaps be approached by the Theosophic idea latent in the word personality; and the mysterious relation of Individuality to personality is included in these two compound [161] "catchwords" or technical terms; and therefrom hangs an entire doctrine or department of thought of the wonderful philosophy of Occultism, the Esoteric Doctrine. With it - as also with the seventh Jewel - are connected closely the doctrines of the Ancient Wisdom relating to the Monads of the various classes: Whence they came, How they came, yes, and Why they came.

We are touching upon all these profound subjects very lightly at present, because they will all recur again and again in future studies, and will in due course be more fully illustrated and explained more clearly - as far as we may go in this Group.

Now, the last or the seventh Jewel, counting upwards, is called Atma-Vidya, literally meaning the "Knowledge of the Self"; this compound is only a catchword as are the others; but it embodies and hides a doctrine which is truly sublime. You will remember that the present speaker, in connection with this seventh Jewel, stated that he knew little, or almost nothing, of it. This phrase was badly chosen, and perhaps produced a misleading impression. It was not the intention, if so, to give that impression. It is well understood that any earnest and devoted student of this Esoteric School can understand at least appropriate parts of this mysterious doctrine - something at least - the degree of his apprehension thereof depending upon his inner state of enlightenment, his fidelity to his Teachers, his loyalty to the principles of the Esoteric School, and his ability in understanding and penetrating somewhat into the depth of the teachings of this School.

But while this is the case with the students, each one according to his capacity, others higher than we are can understand more of it; naturally, the Teachers understand more of it than we do. Probably, however, there are not ten men today on earth who can understand this doctrine in its fullness. It is a Wonder Teaching that even our Masters have probably not solved utterly. The Masters of the Masters know more of it than the latter do, i.e., the Chohans, as they are called - "Chohans", a Tibetan word meaning "Lord", used in the sense of Preceptor, or Teacher. But the main and essential meaning of this wondrous doctrine, running all through it, is this, which is its keynote: HOW THE ONE BECOMES THE MANY: and this is the most difficult problem that the human spirit has ever attempted to solve!

Take as an analogy, for instance, the Monad. To speak of the Monad as "descending" into matter, is to speak wrongly, though constantly this phrase is used, because it is a convenient method of expression; and if this fact is understood, it is probably permissible as a phrase. But actually, when we come to study the facts, very soon we see and we know that the Monad does not "descend" into matter. Similarly, the One, though it is appropriate [162] and convenient to speak of it as "becoming the Many", never becomes many, remains eternally itself, the Summit of the Hierarchy, its Root-Base, which is this Wondrous Being, the Supreme Initiator, on whatever plane it may be placed. Yet the Many flow forth from It; and It is their Supreme Self, their Paramatman.

This, then, is the general theme of our discourse this evening; but because we have no time now to make a complete resume of our studies during the course of last Spring and Winter, the Teacher has permitted me this evening to go over very shortly a few doctrines which were touched upon in former studies, for the sake of brushing up our recollection of them. The first one that we turn back to, then, is the doctrine of Swabhava, as contrasted in meaning with the ideas involved in the kin-expression, Swabhavat. This difference in meaning, which is very great, is not generally understood, and the two words often have been sadly confused by students. They are very different in meaning, though both come from the same Sanskrit root Bhu: Swabhava; Swabhavat. Let me tell you here that the Sanskrit sound represented in English as "a", is pronounced like the "u" in but or tub; but when the "a" is written as "_", with the macron accent, it is pronounced ah, as in father. This difference of pronunciation is very important.

Now Swabhava means what has before been explained, this evening and also at former meetings. As just said, these two words are both nouns derived from the same Sanskrit word Bhu, meaning "to become" - not "to be" in the passive sense so much, but "to become", to "grow into" something. The quasi-pronominal prefix Swa, means "self"; hence the noun means "self-becoming", "self-generation", "self-growing" into something. Yet the essential or fundamental or integral Self, as said before, does not do so. Like the monads, like the One, the Self Fundamental sends down a Ray from itself, as the Sun sends a ray from itself into the darkness of matter; and it is this spiritual Ray which "descends" into matter; self-generating or self-becoming a self-conscious entity in its turn; the solar light, the Sun itself, remaining ever in its own integrity or ens, never descending, never commingling integrally as an entity, with the multitudinous hosts of matter-lives, its own children!

Now, Swabhavat is called by H.P. Blavatsky, "Father-Mother". It is a state or condition of Kosmic consciousness-substance, where spirit and matter, which you know are fundamentally one, no longer are dual as in manifestation, but one: that which is neither manifested matter, nor manifested spirit, alone, but both are the primeval Unity; spiritual Akasa; where matter merges into spirit, and both now being really one, are called [163] "Father-Mother", the spiritualization, so to say, of spirit-substance. See how we have to hunt for adequately expressive words in our wretchedly imperfect European languages! The Sanskrit word expresses the idea, if you understand it, instantly.

These two nouns, then, as you see, are from the same root, and the two words are closely connected in origin, but they are not the same in meaning at all Swabhava is the self-generation of anything, of any entity, of any monad. Swabhavat is the Father-Mother, the kalpic akasic Spirit-Substance, never descending from its own state or condition, or from its own plane, but the quasi-infinite reservoir of being, of consciousness, of light, of life, and the source of what science, in our day, so ridiculously calls the "Forces" of Nature Universal.

These deeply mystical and very profound themes we shall have to go into more fully in the future; but for the present it will suffice to remember that Swabhavat is Kosmical Spirit-Substance, the Reservoir of Being and of Beings. The northern Buddhists call it Swabhavat, more mystically Adi-buddhi - "Primeval Buddhi"; the Brahmanical scriptures call it "Akasa"; and the Hebrew Old Testament refers to it as the Kosmic "Waters".

Now the next subject which needed a little illustration, was the very solemn question of "lost souls", as contrasted with "soulless" beings. It may be well to say that these three or four subjects are briefly again touched upon this evening because it has come to attention that these matters have been mistaken by some of our hearers. There is an immense difference between "lost souls" and "soulless" beings. A "lost soul" is one in whom the "golden thread" uniting the lower thinking entity with its Higher Self is completely ruptured, broken off from its higher essence or root, its true Self. The case here is hopeless, virtually; there can be no more union for that lower self, which, at the moment of final rupture, commences sinking immediately into the "Eighth Sphere", the so-called "Planet of Death". A "soulless" being, a "soulless" man, is one in whom the thread has been worn, so to speak, very thin; or, rather, where the spiritual and impersonal aspirations in this life and in other lives have been so few, the attempts to unite with the higher part of the self have been so weak, that slowly the spiritual ray has been withdrawing itself from the lower part; but it is not yet ruptured completely. It still remains; and even one single holy and impersonal aspiration may cause reunion. It is not a "lost soul"; but so far as the human entity is practically concerned, it is properly called a "soulless" being, for the entity lives almost wholly in his lower principles. "Soulless" beings furnish those cases which are popularly spoken of among men as [164] "men and women without conscience". They seem to have no moral sense, although their mental and psychical faculties may still be strong and keen.

These are the worst cases of "soulless" human beings. Other cases are those of men and women who merely do not seem to care for anything that is good and beautiful and true, noble and high and lofty; their desires are of the earth, earthly; their passions are strong and their intuitions are weak. These cases are very common indeed; so much so that our first great Teacher, H.P. Blavatsky, says in her Isis Unveiled that we "shoulder soulless men" every day of our lives. Look into the faces of the men and the women whom you see on the streets. Remember that our present Teacher has been telling us for years about the men and women whom she sees or has met and talked with in her functions as Teacher and philanthropist. Go to town; go anywhere; go into the streets of a great city. Look even into the eyes of those of your own fireside, perhaps; I do not allude, necessarily, to any one here; but I am speaking generally. The situation actually is a terrible one. There is a full possibility that a weak-soured human being, perhaps beginning merely in giving way to the lusts of the will, and to the passions of the mind, and to the instincts of the lower nature, may, little by little, but inevitably and surely, starve out, or wear away by attrition, all the attachments of the higher Ray which bind it into the lower nature, and which, if they were fully strong and active, would make the man (or woman) a walking god among us; verily, a god in the flesh. Instead of this, in the worst cases of the "soulless" being, you would have before you little more than a human shell (alive, but spiritually almost dead) in the man or the woman, as the case may be. A "soulless" being was once an ensouled man or woman; who, before the former state, had the same chance successfully to run the race that we all have. This is indeed a solemn verity, and one which our first Teacher has told us should be taught and reiterated in our teaching, because it is truly helpful as a warning. Not one of us is absolutely safe at this midway stage of our evolutionary journey; for not one of us knows what he is capable of, either for good or ill. I have listened to our Teacher speaking, hinting at these truths, and I have read her words in print and in manuscript, and I have wondered sometimes how many have caught the thought - her warning.

There is the truth; and it is no trifling matter. Is there any reason for wonder that all our teachers have told us repeatedly that every teaching that is given in our School is founded upon what men commonly call "ethical principles of conduct", and must be studied in that light? It is the only thing that, put into [165] sincere practice, will save us surely; for these principles come first and in the middle and at the end of our studies.

Now, in future studies we shall have to trace to the end the destiny of these two classes of beings; but it may be well to say a few words now of the fate of the "lost soul". There are two general classes of these: the lower, but not the worse; and the higher, the worse. In order to make the meaning of this very difficult subject more clear, I shall have to go into a new but collateral thought, which is the key. MAN IS A COMPOSITE BEING. On this fact of human nature reposes a most wonderful truth which is at the foundation of the marvelous psychological doctrines of the Lord Gautama Buddha. It is as follows, a corollary of the immediately preceding statement. There is no abiding principle whatsoever in "man". Fix this like steel into the core of your minds. It will save you from myriad dangers if rightly understood. "Man" is not his higher nature; "man" is that which is called the "human nature". Do you realize how greatly men and women live in what the Hebrews call the Nefesh, i.e., live in their astral souls? We do so realize it, as students of this School, probably every one of us. To a certain extent such unison with our lower principles is necessary; but to follow the beautiful old simile of the ancient philosophers, the astral soul should be our vehicle, our "bearer"; so to say it should be made a "horse" to carry us on our journey; or, to change the figure, a chariot in which we should ride; a "horse" which we must drive. We, the inner Self, should govern and drive our astral steed; but should never allow it to control us.

In order to make this more clear, examine the diagram on page 182. You will notice that man's seven Principles and Elements are divided into three separate parts: a lowest triad, purely mortal and perishable; an intermediate duad, psychical, composite, and mostly mortal: Kama-manas, the "man" proper, or "human nature"; and a Higher Duad, Atma-Buddhi; immortal, imperishable; the Monad. At the death of the human being, this Higher Duad carries away with it all the spiritual essence, the aroma, of the lower or intermediate duad; and then the Higher Duad is the Higher Self, the Reincarnating Individuality, or Egoic Monad. Man's ordinary consciousness in life at this stage of evolution is almost wholly in the lower or intermediate duad; when he raises his consciousness to become one with the Higher Duad, he becomes a Mahatma, a Master.

Now this lower part of the nature is composite. There is nothing permanent per se in it whatever; as an entity, nothing abides. It is ordinary "man" as he is today, and in him there is no abiding self-principle whatsoever. If you fasten your thoughts and your affections to the things of the lower nature, [166] you will de facto, of necessity, follow it, and become it, as outlined and shown in and by the doctrine of Swabhava. As a man thinks, so is is he! Now the Hebrew words in this old saying, which is taken from Proverbs, Chapter 23, verse 7, are translated: "As he thinketh in his heart (Nefesh), so is he", but the Hebrew word nefesh used here really means "As he thinks in his lower nature, that he is (becomes)". A Sanskrit commentator, Yaska (Nirukta, X, 17), in his glossary on a certain Vedic text, has the following remark, exactly to the point on the same subject: Yad yad

rupam kamayate devata, tat tad devata bhavati, that is: Whatever body (or form, or shape) a divine being (divinity) longs for (that is, wants, desires, i.e., gives himself up to), that very thing the divine being becomes. Here is the secret of the whole thing. We are what we make ourselves, our own children. Nothing but that. And, if our thoughts are upwards, we come finally into the companionship of the divinities; and, before reaching them, come into the companionship of the Holy Teachers, because we make ourselves such, we become like them; and they, in turn, answer the call.

But if, on the contrary, our thoughts are running downwards, [167] and we wear away the "silver thread" or the "golden thread" which binds us to our Higher Nature, we then naturally gravitate or go downwards: down, down, down; until at last the final rupture of the Golden Chain or Thread comes, and the soul becomes the "lost soul", a lost astral soul; and its destiny is as follows There are two classes of this kind of soul, as remarked before. The first class is the lower but not the worse; the first class, then, consists of those human beings on this planet (or on any other planet which possesses a humanity similar to ours) who through native weaknesses of soul and from lack of spiritual attraction upwards, go to pieces after a certain interval of time, long or short as the case may be: the lower part of the nature being composite and impermanent and non-enduring, following "natural laws" finally simply breaks up and vanishes much as the human body dies and decays. That is the end of it; it is finally annihilated.

The monad of such a soul, meanwhile, there being nothing, no "aroma" of aspiration or yearning upwards, to take away from that life or from those lives - because, mind you, it is perfectly true that "lost souls" as well as soul-beings can reincarnate. They can indeed. There are children born "lost souls"; as a fact it is very rare, perhaps; but the fact can and does take place - the Monad, I say, of such a "lost soul", in due course of time "reincarnates" again; and the "lost soul" episode is like a blank page in its "book of Lives".

Now the second class, and the worse by far, are those in which the soul is vitally strong. They are those who are spiritually evil, paradoxical as it may sound; those which the Christian teachers have spoken of in the New Testament as beings of spiritual wickedness and iniquity. One may wonder how it can come to pass that a being which has ruptured the Golden Thread can still have spiritual qualities or parts. That is one of the dark and solemn mysteries which we may have to go into in more detail later. We have no time this evening to do so, beyond pointing out that the explanation lies in an understanding of esoteric psychology, and of the nature of high astral matter. But let me point out this: if a soul can receive an impress, can receive an impulse, and it most certainly does, that impress or impulse will carry it on until its initial strength is exhausted, until the impulse no longer exists, until the impulse has worked itself out. Now, through many, many, lives of spiritual evil-doing, these beings who have eventuated as "lost souls" have built up through the intensity of their will a bank account, so to speak, of certain forces of nature, impulses of evil, of pure matter, running hot and strong. And when I say "hot" I do not mean in the ordinary emotional sense, as when one speaks of the "heat of passion". [168] All such passion is dead. Nay. But running hot like the fires of hell: revenge, hatred, and antagonism to anything that is highly good or nobly beautiful, and all such things. These impulses here exist, and they have a spiritual source, for they are degraded spiritual energies, spirit fallen and crystallized into matter, so to speak. Very difficult to explain, indeed, is this abstruse subject; but this is the gist of it. Lastly, I might add that these beings can (and do), under certain conditions, go far lower: they enter the Lower Path, and go still farther down: and if the evil be strong enough in certain rare cases, their terrible destiny is what our Teachers have called an Avichi-nirvana (avichi being a generalized term for what is popularly called "hell"), aeons of unspeakable misery, self-imposed, until final dissolution ensues - and Nature knows them no more.

Of course you remember that we have studied the subject of Hells and Heavens before, but as yet we have had no time to go into this matter at length. Avichi is a generalized term for places of evil realizations, but not of "punishment" in the Christian sense; where the will for evil, and the unsatisfied evil longings for pure selfishness, find their chance for expansion - and final extinction of the entity itself. Avichi has many degrees, or grades. Nature has all things in her; if she has Heavens where good men and true men find rest and peace and bliss, so has she other spheres and states, where go or gravitate those who must find an outlet for the evil passions burning within. They, at the end of their Avichi-nirvana, go to pieces and are ground over and over, and vanish away finally like a shadow before the sunlight in the air - ground over in Nature's laboratory.

Now, you remember that we spoke in other studies of the so-called "laws of Nature", and it was pointed out that in our esoteric teachings there are no "laws of Nature", and this for two reasons: first, because there is no such thing as "Nature". Nature is not an entity; it is an abstraction. Nature is not a goddess or a god; it is not a being or a planet; it is not a sphere or a universe. Nature is the abstract aggregate, so to speak, the immense aggregate, of all beings and things, interblending and acting and interacting upon each other: spiritual, intermediate, and lower; and their interblending and interconnection produce what we call "Nature". The beings here referred to, of course, are of all grades, from the most material, the most degraded, up to the highest, of any Hierarchy. And the second reason is that these aggregated beings that we call very conveniently by the term of Nature, are not "ruled" by "law". Who or what makes any laws that Nature shall or must follow or does follow? No one, neither devil nor god. But the query may and ought to arise: Does not Nature follow certain courses, and when the [169] circumstances and conditions are identical, are not those courses always the same, which are what we call laws? Of course, yes; nobody denies a fact. We deny the explanation. Explanations are important. If a man comes to you and says something to you and you find that he is merely talking, giving you words when you want the bread of life, are you going to take what he says for truth? Are you going to take the words only, and be satisfied with husks? Or are you going to think, and say: "My dear Sir, I have looked into what you tell me; what you say is merely words; nobody denies the facts that are; but I want an explanation of those words and of those facts. I want something that will feed my soul". Do you get any food for your soul when you hear mere talk about mechanical, incomprehensible "laws of Nature"? Do you realize that no great thinker in antiquity at anytime ever used such empty language as "laws of Nature" with the concomitant ideas - or lack of ideas? Never. The expression containing the notion "laws of Nature" is a modern product derived from two sources: first from the Christian religion; and second from modern scientific materialism. Men, during all the ages, have been fully aware that "Nature" pursued certain very regular courses, modernly called "laws", and always followed the same courses; but our forebears had other and wiser explanations of these regular courses in natural phenomena, for they knew more of the inner mysteries of being, because they had true Religion behind and within themselves; they had a universal philosophy; and last but not least they had what were called Initiates, who personally could go behind and into Nature, enter into her and know her at first hand.

Now what causes Nature to act as she does? The modern scientist will tell you that he means by the "laws of Nature" those sequences of events which always happen in the same way when the circumstances and conditions are the same; the regular order of phenomena and forces. The Christian theologian tells you what he means by the "laws of Nature" probably somewhat as follows:

Well, brother, it is probably the Will of God Almighty, who, it is true, has not vouchsafed to us a full explanation of these difficult problems; but it is fundamentally the Divine Will which has once and for all time created the machine of Nature and has set it in running.

About two or three or four or five or six hundred years ago these gentlemen had another explanation, somewhat different from the above, because modern science had not yet begun to be aggressively vocal with views or a view of its own; and this other theological explanation was that it was God Almighty Himself who personally and actively guided and ordered these things which "Nature" produces.

"He sent his rain upon the just and the unjust; he caused the [170] Sun to shine, and the rain to fall", and much more to the same tune. But then came along certain skeptical thinkers and they said,

Ha, ha, God the Creator! Then He created diseases; He creates the evils in men's hearts. It must be so, not otherwise, because He created man and all things else, and, being all-wise, He must have known what He was doing. Therefore, why punish a man for doing what he cannot avoid doing, because God created man and his mind and his heart and his will?

So the theologians' later idea, apparently, was that God manufactured the world with His own Almighty Hand, and set it to spinning, and set the various elements thereof each to running in its own way, and let it go forth with a primal impress of the Divine Intelligence upon it.

I think that I am quoting correctly the early modern theological idea.

Now the Initiates, knowing Nature's arcane, had words fitted to express exactly what they desired to say; words which are impressive and which are not mere abstractions; although when convenient they too used abstractions; they used such words as "Principles" and "Elements" of Nature. It is quite true that such words are catchwords, technical words; but they knew precisely what they meant by them. They also spoke mystically and theologically of the "gods". It is one of the most lamentable things for scholars today, that owing to the deliberate and willful suppression by the Christian Church of so many of the truths of antiquity, the average scholar or student has no more idea of what the ancients meant by the "gods" and their actions, than he has of what is taking place at this moment on the star Sirius. Yet, when understood and properly explained, Polytheism is seen to be a wonderful and a sublime teaching. It does not mean, for instance, that each god is as great and as single as, or omnipotent and omniscient like, the Christian theological notion of their God. Not at all. The gods, i.e., spiritual entities, are the higher inhabitants of Nature. They are an intrinsic part of Nature itself, for they are its informing Principles; they are as much subject to the wills of still higher Beings - call these wills the "laws" of higher beings, if you will - as we are, and as are the animals below us. We are gods to the beings composing our bodies. The atoms in our body are, in their way, conscious, and we are like gods to them. And what they might call the "laws of Nature" are what we think and what we will. Nature is conscious from beginning to end, in varying degrees; although in reality there is no "beginning" and no "end", which are vain dreams.

Furthermore, Nature has two aspects, a positive aspect and a negative aspect. Please understand that I am using the word [171] "Nature", with the meaning pointed out before, because the ordinary expression is convenient, the term is understood; if a speaker has to spend some three minutes or more in order to explain each time anew an already explained use of a word, he will never arrive at the end of what h