Theosophical Society,
Secret Doctrine Text Version
THE
SECRET DOCTRINE
BY
H. P. BLAVATSKY
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THE
SECRET DOCTRINE.
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HELENA
PETROVNA BLAVATSKY
1831-1891
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THE
SECRET DOCTRINE:
THE
SYNTHESIS
OF
SCIENCE,
RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY.
BY
H.
P. BLAVATSKY,
AUTHOR
OF "
[[devanagari
characters]]
"There
is no Religion higher than Truth."
VOL.
I. -- COSMOGENESIS.
THE
THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED.
7,
WILLIAM
Q. JUDGE,
117,
THE
MANAGER OF THE THEOSOPHIST,
Adyar,
---
1888.
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"Entered
according to Act of Congress in the year 1888, by H. P. Blavatsky,
in
the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C."
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This
Work
I
Dedicate to all True Theosophists,
In
every Country,
And
of every Race,
For
they called it forth, and for them it was recorded.
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PREFACE.
THE
Author -- the writer, rather -- feels it necessary to apologise for the long
delay which has occurred in the appearance of this work. It has been occasioned
by ill-health and the magnitude of the undertaking. Even the two volumes now
issued do not complete the scheme, and these do not treat exhaustively of the
subjects dealt with in them. A large quantity of material has already been
prepared, dealing with the history of occultism as contained in the lives of
the great Adepts of the Aryan Race, and showing the bearing of occult
philosophy upon the conduct of life, as it is and as it ought to be. Should the
present volumes meet with a favourable reception, no effort will be spared to
carry out the scheme of the work in its entirety. The third volume is entirely
ready; the fourth almost so.
This
scheme, it must be added, was not in contemplation when the preparation of the
work was first announced. As originally announced, it was intended that the
"Secret Doctrine" should be an amended and enlarged version of
"Isis Unveiled." It was, however, soon found that the explanations
which could be added to those already put before the world in the last-named
and other works dealing with esoteric science, were such as to require a
different method of treatment: and consequently the present volumes do not
contain, in all, twenty pages extracted from "Isis Unveiled."
The
author does not feel it necessary to ask the indulgence of her readers and
critics for the many defects of literary style, and the imperfect English which
may be found in these pages. She is a foreigner, and her knowledge of the
language was acquired late in life. The English tongue is employed because it
offers the most widely-diffused medium for conveying the truths which it had
become her duty to place before the world.
These
truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation; nor does the author claim
the position of a revealer of mystic lore, now made public for the first time
in the world's history. For what is contained in this work is to be found
scattered throughout thousands of volumes embodying the scriptures of the great
Asiatic and early European religions, hidden under glyph and symbol, and
hitherto left unnoticed because of this veil. What is now attempted is to
gather the oldest tenets together and to make of them one harmonious and
unbroken whole. The sole advantage which the writer has over her predecessors,
is that she need not resort to personal speculations and theories. For this
work is a partial statement of what she herself has been taught by more
advanced students, supplemented, in a few details only, by the results of her
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own
study and observation. The publication of many of the facts herein stated has
been rendered necessary by the wild and fanciful speculations in which many
Theosophists and students of mysticism have indulged, during the last few years,
in their endeavour to, as they imagined, work out a complete system of thought
from the few facts previously communicated to them.
It
is needless to explain that this book is not the Secret Doctrine in its
entirety, but a select number of fragments of its fundamental tenets, special
attention being paid to some facts which have been seized upon by various
writers, and distorted out of all resemblance to the truth.
But
it is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that the teachings, however fragmentary
and incomplete, contained in these volumes, belong neither to the Hindu, the
Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian religion, neither to Buddhism,
Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is the essence
of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the various religious schemes
are now made to merge back into their original element, out of which every
mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and become materialised.
It
is more than probable that the book will be regarded by a large section of the
public as a romance of the wildest kind; for who has ever even heard of the
book of Dzyan?
The
writer, therefore, is fully prepared to take all the responsibility for what is
contained in this work, and even to face the charge of having invented the
whole of it. That it has many shortcomings she is fully aware; all that she
claims for it is that, romantic as it may seem to many, its logical coherence
and consistency entitle this new Genesis to rank, at any rate, on a level with
the "working hypotheses" so freely accepted by modern science.
Further, it claims consideration, not by reason of any appeal to dogmatic
authority, but because it closely adheres to Nature, and follows the laws of
uniformity and analogy.
The
aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not "a
fortuitous concurrence of atoms," and to assign to man his rightful place
in the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic truths
which are the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to some extent, the
fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that the occult
side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern civilization.
If
this is in any degree accomplished, the writer is content. It is written in the
service of humanity, and by humanity and the future generations it must be
judged. Its author recognises no inferior court of appeal. Abuse she is
accustomed to; calumny she is daily acquainted with; at slander she smiles in
silent contempt.
De
minimis non curat lex.
H.P.B.
London,
October, 1888.
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TABLE
OF CONTENTS.
-------
PAGE.
INTRODUCTION
... xvii.
The
Need of such a Book ... xix.
The
Antiquity of Documents and MSS. ... xxiii.
What
the Book is intended to do ... xxviii.
-------
VOLUME
FIRST.
COSMOGENESIS.
PROEM
... 1
The
Oldest MSS. in the world and its Symbolism ... 2
The
One Life, Active and Passive ... 4
The
Secret Doctrine -- Pantheism -- Atheism ... 6
"Space"
in all Religions and in Occultism ... 9
Seven
Cosmic Elements -- Seven Races of Mankind ... 12
The
Three Postulates of the Secret Doctrine ... 14
Description
of the Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan ... 20
-------
BOOK
I. -- PART I.
COSMIC
EVOLUTION.
SEVEN
STANZAS FROM THE BOOK OF DZYAN ... 27
-------
STANZA
I. -- THE NIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE... 35
The
Seven Eternities ... 36
"Time"
... 37
The
Universal Mind and the Dhyan Chohans ... 38
Nidana
and Maya: The Causes of Misery ... 39
The
Great Breath ... 43
Being
and Non-Being ... 45
The
Eye of Dangma ... 47
Alaya,
the Universal Soul ... 49
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PAGE.
STANZA
II. -- THE IDEA OF DIFFERENTIATION ... 53
The
Absolute knows Itself not ... 55
The
Germ of Life was not yet ... 57
The
Universe was still concealed in the Divine Thought ... 61
-------
STANZA
III. -- THE AWAKENING OF KOSMOS ... 62
The
Great Vibration ... 63
Nature's
Symbols ... 65
The
Power of Numbers ... 67
The
Logoi and the Dragon ... 73
The
Astral Light ... 75
Primeval
Radiations from Unity ... 79
The
Web of Being ... 83
Conscious
Electricity: Fohat ... 85
-------
STANZA
IV. -- THE SEPTENARY HIERARCHIES ... 86
The
Sons of the Fire ... 86
The
Vehicle of the Universe -- the Dhyan Chohans ... 89
The
Army of the Voice ... 93
Speech
and Mind ... 95
The
Ogdoad and the Heptad ... 99
The
Stellar "Sons of Light" ... 103
-------
STANZA
V. -- FOHAT: THE CHILD OF THE SEPTENARY HIERARCHIES ... 106
The
Fiery Whirlwind and the Primordial Seven ... 106
They
Produce Fohat ... 108
The
Correlation of the "Gods" ... 113
Evolution
of the "Principles" of Nature ... 119
The
Mystery of the Fire ... 121
The
Secret of the Elements ... 123
The
Square of the Tabernacle ... 125
The
Planetary Spirits and the Lipika ... 129
The
Ring "Pass Not" ... 130
The
Sidereal Book of Life ... 131
The
Soul's Pilgrimage and its "Rest" ... 134
-------
STANZA
VI. -- OUR WORLD, ITS GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT ... 136
The
Logos ... 136
Mystery
of the Female Logos ... 137
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PAGE.
The
Seven Layu Centres ... 138
The
"Elementary Germs" ... 139
The
Evolution of the Elements ... 140
The
Building of the Worlds ... 145
A
Neutral Centre ... 147
"Dead"
Planets -- The Moon ... 149
-------
THEOSOPHICAL
MISCONCEPTIONS ... 152
The
Planetary Divisions and the Human Principles ... 153
The
Moon ... 155
Transmigrations
of the Ego ... 159
The
Septenary Chain ... 161
Relation
of the other Planets to the Earth ... 163
-------
EXPLANATIONS
CONCERNING THE GLOBES AND THE MONADS ... 170
The
Lunar Chain and the Earth Chain ... 172
The
Earth, the Child of the Moon ... 173
Classification
of the Monads ... 175
The
Monad Defined ... 177
The
Lunar Monads -- the Pitris ... 179
A
Triple Evolution in Nature ... 181
-------
STANZA
VI. -- CONTINUED ... 191
"Creation"
in the Fourth Round ... 191
The
"Curse," "Sin," and "War" ... 193
The
Struggle for Life and the Birth of the Worlds ... 202
The
Adepts and the Sacred Island ... 207
-------
STANZA
VII. -- THE PARENTS OF MAN ON EARTH ... 213
Divisions
of the Hierarchies ... 214
Correlations
of Beings ... 223
What
incarnates in Animal Man ... 233
Formation
of Man: the Thinker ... 238
Occult
and Kabalistic Pneumatics ... 243
Akasa
and Ether ... 257
The
Invisible "Lives" ... 259
Occult
Vital Chemistry and Bacteriology ... 261
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PAGE.
The
Watcher and his Shadow ... 265
Earth
peopled by the Shadows of the Gods ... 267
-------
SUMMING
UP ... 269
The
pith and marrow of the Secret Doctrine ... 273
Hermes
in Christian Garb ... 285
Some
Occult Aphorisms ... 289
The
Seven Powers of Nature ... 293
---------------------
BOOK
I. -- PART II.
THE
EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER.
§§
I.
SYMBOLISM AND IDEOGRAPHS ... 303
Emblem
and Symbol differ ... 305
Magic
Potency of Sound ... 307
Mystery
Language ... 309
-------
II.
THE MYSTERY LANGUAGE AND ITS KEYS ... 310
Egypt's
many Religions ... 311
The
Jews and their System ... 313
Moses
copied from Sargon ... 319
Identity
of Ancient Symbols ... 323
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III.
PRIMORDIAL SUBSTANCE AND DIVINE THOUGHT ... 325
Divine
Thought, or Cineritious Matter? ... 327
Ether
and Intelligence ... 330
The
Seven Prakritis ... 335
The
Mystic Fire ... 339
One
Tree of Knowledge ... 341
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IV.
CHAOS -- THEOS -- KOSMOS ... 342
The
Union of Chaos and Spirit ... 343
The
Birth of Mind ... 345
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V.
THE HIDDEN DEITY, ITS SYMBOLS AND GLYPHS ... 349
The
Gnostic Idea ... 351
International
Correlation of Gods ... 355
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§§
PAGE.
VI.
THE MUNDANE EGG ... 359
Egg-born
Logoi ... 363
The
Winged Globe ... 365
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VII.
THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF BRAHMA ... 368
Human
Gods and Divine Men ... 369
The
Rebirth of Gods ... 371
The
Puranic Prophecy ... 377
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VIII.
THE LOTUS AS A UNIVERSAL SYMBOL ... 379
Exoteric
and Esoteric ... 381
The
Purity of early Phallicism ... 383
The
Egyptian Lotus ... 385
-------
IX.
DEUS LUNUS ... 386
A
Glance at the Lunar Myth ... 387
A
Key-note to the Moon ... 389
Copies
and Originals... 393
The
Moon Bi-sexual ... 397
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X.
TREE AND SERPENT AND CROCODILE WORSHIP ... 403
Degeneration
of the Symbol ... 405
The
Seven-headed Dragons ... 407
Dragon
and Crocodile ... 409
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XI.
DEMON EST DEUS INVERSUS ... 411
Death
is Life ... 413
The
Fall of the Angels ... 418
Transformation
of the Legend ... 421
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XII.
THE THEOGONY OF THE CREATIVE GODS ... 424
The
Point within the Circle ... 426
The
Logos or Verbum ... 429
The
Factors of Creation ... 432
Identity
of the Hierarchies in all Religions ... 438
Difference
between the Aryan and Semitic Systems ... 444
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§§
PAGE.
XIII.
THE SEVEN CREATIONS ... 445
The
Gnostic and the Hindu Versions ... 449
The
Seven Puranic "Creations" ... 450
-------
XIV.
THE FOUR ELEMENTS. ... 460
The
"Gods" and the "Elements" ... 463
The
Language of the Elements ... 464
Pagan
and Christian Worship of the Elements ... 467
-------
XV.
ON KWAN-SHI-YIN AND KWAN-YIN ... 470
Kwan-Shi-Yin
and Phallicism ... 471
The
Real Meaning ... 472
---------------------
BOOK
I. -- PART III.
SCIENCE
AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED.
§§
I.
REASONS FOR THESE ADDENDA ... 477
Occultism
versus Materialism ... 479
The
Sabbath of the Mystic ... 481
-------
II.
MODERN PHYSICISTS ARE PLAYING AT BLIND MAN'S BUFF ... 482
-------
III.
AN LUMEN SIT CORPUS NEC NON? ... 483
The
Hypothetical Ether ... 485
Scientific
Theories of its Constitution ... 489
-------
IV.
IS GRAVITATION A LAW? ... 490
Intelligences
or Blind Forces? ... 493
The
Cause of Attraction ... 498
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§§
PAGE.
V.
THE THEORIES OF ROTATION SCIENCE ... 500
Conflicting
Hypotheses ... 502
More
Hypotheses ... 505
-------
VI.
THE MASKS OF SCIENCE ... 506
What
are the "Forces?" ... 508
The
View of the Occultists ... 510
Scientific
and Occult Theories on Heat ... 515
The
Atoms of Science ... 519
-------
VII.
AN ATTACK ON THE SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF FORCE BY A MAN OF SCIENCE ... 523
Ether
and Atoms ... 527
-------
VIII.
LIFE, FORCE, OR GRAVITY? ... 529
Dr.
Richardson on Nervous Ether ... 531
The
Senses and their Action ... 535
Too
much "Life" may Kill ... 539
-------
IX.
THE SOLAR THEORY ... 540
The
Primordial Element ... 542
Elements
and Meta-Elements ... 546
The
Tree of Life and Being ... 549
Prof.
Crookes on the Elements ... 552
-------
X.
THE COMING FORCE ... 554
Mr.
Keeley, an Unconscious Occultist ... 557
Inter-Etheric
Waves ... 561
The
Secrets of Sound and Odour ... 565
-------
Xl.
ON THE ELEMENTS AND ATOMS ... 566
Metaphysical
Chemistry ... 569
What
are the Seven Planets? ... 575
The
Cyclic Fall of the Gods ... 577
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§§
PAGE.
XII.
ANCIENT THOUGHT IN MODERN DRESS ... 579
All-Potential
Unity ... 583
The
"Seventh" in Chemistry ... 585
-------
XIII.
THE MODERN NEBULAR THEORY ... 588
Forces
are Emanations ... 591
What
is the Nebula? ... 595
-------
XIV.
FORCES -- MODES OF MOTION OR INTELLIGENCES? ... 601
The
Vital Principle ... 603
Occult
and Physical Science ... 605
-------
XV.
GODS, MONADS, AND ATOMS ... 610
The
Gods of the Ancients -- the Monads ... 613
The
Monad and the Duad ... 617
The
Genesis of the Elements ... 621
Hermes
and Huxley ... 625
The
Teaching of Leibnitz ... 627
The
Monads according to Occultism ... 632
-------
XVI.
CYCLIC EVOLUTION AND KARMA ... 634
Karmic
Cycles and Universal Ethics ... 637
Destiny
and Karma ... 639
Karma-Nemesis
... 643
-------
XVII.
THE ZODIAC AND ITS ANTIQUITY ... 647
The
Jewish Patriarchs and the Signs of the Zodiac ... 651
Zodiacal
Cycles ... 656
Hindu
Astronomy ... 661
-------
XVIII.
SUMMARY OF THE MUTUAL POSITION ... 668
Science
Confesses her Ignorance ... 669
Materialism
is leading Europe towards a catastrophe ... 675
-------
N.B.
-- The Index and Glossary will be found at the close of Volume II.
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INTRODUCTORY.
-------
"Gently
to hear, kindly to judge."
--
SHAKESPEARE.
SINCE
the appearance of Theosophical literature in England, it has become customary
to call its teachings "Esoteric Buddhism." And, having become a habit
-- as an old proverb based on daily experience has it -- "Error runs down
an inclined plane, while Truth has to laboriously climb its way up hill."
Old
truisms are often the wisest. The human mind can hardly remain entirely free
from bias, and decisive opinions are often formed before a thorough examination
of a subject from all its aspects has been made. This is said with reference to
the prevailing double mistake (a) of limiting Theosophy to Buddhism: and (b) of
confounding the tenets of the religious philosophy preached by Gautama, the
Buddha, with the doctrines broadly outlined in "Esoteric Buddhism."
Any thing more erroneous than this could be hardly imagined. It has enabled our
enemies to find an effective weapon against theosophy; because, as an eminent
Pali scholar very pointedly expressed it, there was in the volume named
"neither esotericism nor Buddhism." The esoteric truths, presented in
Mr. Sinnett's work, had ceased to be esoteric from the moment they were made
public; nor did it contain the religion of Buddha, but simply a few tenets from
a hitherto hidden teaching which are now supplemented by many more, enlarged
and explained in the present volumes. But even the latter, though giving out
many fundamental tenets from the SECRET DOCTRINE of the East, raise but a small
corner of the dark veil. For no one, not even the greatest living adept, would
be permitted to, or could -- even if he would -- give out promiscuously, to a
mocking, unbelieving world, that which has been so effectually concealed from
it for long aeons and ages.
"Esoteric
Buddhism" was an excellent work with a very unfortunate
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title,
though it meant no more than does the title of this work, the "SECRET
DOCTRINE." It proved unfortunate, because people are always in the habit
of judging things by their appearance, rather than their meaning; and because
the error has now become so universal, that even most of the Fellows of the
Theosophical Society have fallen victims to the same misconception. From the
first, however, protests were raised by Brahmins and others against the title;
and, in justice to myself, I must add that "Esoteric Buddhism" was
presented to me as a completed volume, and that I was entirely unaware of the
manner in which the author intended to spell the word "Budh-ism."
This
has to be laid directly at the door of those who, having been the first to
bring the subject under public notice, neglected to point out the difference
between "Buddhism" -- the religious system of ethics preached by the
Lord Gautama, and named after his title of Buddha, "the Enlightened"
-- and Budha, "Wisdom," or knowledge (Vidya), the faculty of
cognizing, from the Sanskrit root "Budh," to know. We theosophists of
India are ourselves the real culprits, although, at the time, we did our best
to correct the mistake. (See Theosophist, June, 1883.) To avoid this deplorable
misnomer was easy; the spelling of the word had only to be altered, and by
common consent both pronounced and written "Budhism," instead of
"Buddhism." Nor is the latter term correctly spelt and pronounced, as
it ought to be called, in English, Buddhaism, and its votaries
"Buddhaists."
This
explanation is absolutely necessary at the beginning of a work like this one.
The "Wisdom Religion" is the inheritance of all the nations, the
world over, though the statement was made in "Esoteric Buddhism"
(Preface to the original Edition) that "two years ago (i.e. 1883), neither
I nor any other European living, knew the alphabet of the Science, here for the
first time put into a scientific shape," etc. This error must have crept
in through inadvertence. For the present writer knew all that which is
"divulged" in "Esoteric Buddhism" -- and much more -- many
years before it became her duty (in 1880) to impart a small portion of the
Secret Doctrine to two European gentlemen, one of whom was the author of
"Esoteric Buddhism"; and surely the present writer has the undoubted,
though to her, rather equivocal, privilege of being a European, by birth and
education. Moreover, a considerable part of the philosophy
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expounded
by Mr. Sinnett was taught in America, even before Isis Unveiled was published,
to two Europeans and to my colleague, Colonel H. S. Olcott. Of the three
teachers the latter gentleman has had, the first was a Hungarian Initiate, the
second an Egyptian, the third a Hindu. As permitted, Colonel Olcott has given
out some of this teaching in various ways; if the other two have not, it has
been simply because they were not allowed: their time for public work having
not yet come. But for others it has, and the appearance of Mr. Sinnett's
several interesting books is a visible proof of the fact. It is above
everything important to keep in mind that no theosophical book acquires the
least additional value from pretended authority.
In
etymology Adi, and Adhi Budha, the one (or the First) and "Supreme
Wisdom" is a term used by Aryasanga in his Secret treatises, and now by
all the mystic Northern Buddhists. It is a Sanskrit term, and an appellation
given by the earliest Aryans to the Unknown deity; the word "Brahma"
not being found in the Vedas and the early works. It means the absolute Wisdom,
and "Adi-bhuta" is translated "the primeval uncreated cause of
all" by Fitzedward Hall. AEons of untold duration must have elapsed,
before the epithet of Buddha was so humanized, so to speak, as to allow of the
term being applied to mortals and finally appropriated to one whose
unparalleled virtues and knowledge caused him to receive the title of the
"Buddha of Wisdom unmoved." Bodha means the innate possession of divine
intellect or "understanding"; "Buddha," the acquirement of
it by personal efforts and merit; while Buddhi is the faculty of cognizing the
channel through which divine knowledge reaches the "Ego," the
discernment of good and evil, "divine conscience" also; and "Spiritual
Soul," which is the vehicle of Atma. "When Buddhi absorbs our EGOtism
(destroys it) with all its Vikaras, Avalokiteshvara becomes manifested to us,
and Nirvana, or Mukti, is reached," "Mukti" being the same as
Nirvana, i.e., freedom from the trammels of "Maya" or illusion.
"Bodhi" is likewise the name of a particular state of trance
condition, called Samadhi, during which the subject reaches the culmination of
spiritual knowledge.
Unwise
are those who, in their blind and, in our age, untimely hatred of Buddhism,
and, by re-action, of "Budhism," deny its esoteric teachings (which
are those also of the Brahmins), simply because the name
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suggests
what to them, as Monotheists, are noxious doctrines. Unwise is the correct term
to use in their case. For the Esoteric philosophy is alone calculated to
withstand, in this age of crass and illogical materialism, the repeated attacks
on all and everything man holds most dear and sacred, in his inner spiritual
life. The true philosopher, the student of the Esoteric Wisdom, entirely loses
sight of personalities, dogmatic beliefs and special religions. Moreover,
Esoteric philosophy reconciles all religions, strips every one of its outward,
human garments, and shows the root of each to be identical with that of every
other great religion. It proves the necessity of an absolute Divine Principle
in nature. It denies Deity no more than it does the Sun. Esoteric philosophy
has never rejected God in Nature, nor Deity as the absolute and abstract Ens.
It only refuses to accept any of the gods of the so-called monotheistic
religions, gods created by man in his own image and likeness, a blasphemous and
sorry caricature of the Ever Unknowable. Furthermore, the records we mean to
place before the reader embrace the esoteric tenets of the whole world since
the beginning of our humanity, and Buddhistic occultism occupies therein only
its legitimate place, and no more. Indeed, the secret portions of the
"Dan" or Jan-na"* ("Dhyan") of Gautama's metaphysics
-- grand as they appear to one unacquainted with the tenets of the Wisdom
Religion of antiquity -- are but a very small portion of the whole. The Hindu
Reformer limited his public teachings to the purely moral and physiological
aspect of the Wisdom Religion, to Ethics and MAN alone. Things "unseen and
incorporeal," the mystery of Being outside our terrestrial sphere, the
great Teacher left entirely untouched in his public lectures, reserving the
hidden Truths for a select circle of his Arhats. The latter received their
Initiation at the famous Saptaparna cave (the Sattapanni of Mahavansa) near
Mount Baibhar (the Webhara of the Pali MSS.). This cave was in Rajagriha, the
ancient capital of Mogadha, and was the Cheta cave of Fa-hian, as rightly
suspected by some archaeologists.**
Time
and human imagination made short work of the purity and philo-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Dan, now become in modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics ch'an, is the general
term for the esoteric schools, and their literature. In the old books, the word
Janna is defined as "to reform one's self by meditation and
knowledge," a second inner birth. Hence Dzan, Djan phonetically, the
"Book of Dzyan."
**
Mr. Beglor, the chief engineer at Buddhagaya, and a distinguished
archaeologist, was the first, we believe, to discover it.
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[[Vol.
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sophy
of these teachings, once that they were transplanted from the secret and sacred
circle of the Arhats, during the course of their work of proselytism, into a
soil less prepared for metaphysical conceptions than India; i.e., once they
were transferred into China, Japan, Siam, and Burmah. How the pristine purity
of these grand revelations was dealt with may be seen in studying some of the
so-called "esoteric" Buddhist schools of antiquity in their modern garb,
not only in China and other Buddhist countries in general, but even in not a
few schools in Thibet, left to the care of uninitiated Lamas and Mongolian
innovators.
Thus
the reader is asked to bear in mind the very important difference between
orthodox Buddhism -- i.e., the public teachings of Gautama the Buddha, and his
esoteric Budhism. His Secret Doctrine, however, differed in no wise from that
of the initiated Brahmins of his day. The Buddha was a child of the Aryan soil;
a born Hindu, a Kshatrya and a disciple of the "twice born" (the
initiated Brahmins) or Dwijas. His teachings, therefore, could not be different
from their doctrines, for the whole Buddhist reform merely consisted in giving
out a portion of that which had been kept secret from every man outside of the
"enchanted" circle of Temple-Initiates and ascetics. Unable to teach
all that had been imparted to him -- owing to his pledges -- though he taught a
philosophy built upon the ground-work of the true esoteric knowledge, the
Buddha gave to the world only its outward material body and kept its soul for
his Elect. (See also Volume II.) Many Chinese scholars among Orientalists have
heard of the "Soul Doctrine." None seem to have understood its real
meaning and importance.
That
doctrine was preserved secretly -- too secretly, perhaps -- within the
sanctuary. The mystery that shrouded its chief dogma and aspirations -- Nirvana
-- has so tried and irritated the curiosity of those scholars who have studied
it, that, unable to solve it logically and satisfactorily by untying the
Gordian knot, they cut it through, by declaring that Nirvana meant absolute
annihilation.
Toward
the end of the first quarter of this century, a distinct class of literature
appeared in the world, which became with every year more defined in its
tendency. Being based, soi-disant, on the scholarly researches of Sanskritists
and Orientalists in general, it was held scientific. Hindu, Egyptian, and other
ancient religions, myths, and emblems were made to yield anything the symbologist
wanted them to
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yield,
thus often giving out the rude outward form in place of the inner meaning.
Works, most remarkable for their ingenious deductions and speculations, in
circulo vicioso, foregone conclusions generally changing places with premisses
as in the syllogisms of more than one Sanskrit and Pali scholar, appeared
rapidly in succession, over-flooding the libraries with dissertations rather on
phallic and sexual worship than on real symbology, and each contradicting the
other.
This
is the true reason, perhaps, why the outline of a few fundamental truths from
the Secret Doctrine of the Archaic ages is now permitted to see the light,
after long millenniums of the most profound silence and secrecy. I say "a
few truths," advisedly, because that which must remain unsaid could not be
contained in a hundred such volumes, nor could it be imparted to the present
generation of Sadducees. But, even the little that is now given is better than
complete silence upon those vital truths. The world of to-day, in its mad
career towards the unknown -- which it is too ready to confound with the
unknowable, whenever the problem eludes the grasp of the physicist -- is
rapidly progressing on the reverse, material plane of spirituality. It has now
become a vast arena -- a true valley of discord and of eternal strife -- a
necropolis, wherein lie buried the highest and the most holy aspirations of our
Spirit-Soul. That soul becomes with every new generation more paralyzed and
atrophied. The "amiable infidels and accomplished profligates" of
Society, spoken of by Greeley, care little for the revival of the dead sciences
of the past; but there is a fair minority of earnest students who are entitled
to learn the few truths that may be given to them now; and now much more than
ten years ago, when "Isis Unveiled," or even the later attempts to
explain the mysteries of esoteric science, were published.
One
of the greatest, and, withal, the most serious objection to the correctness and
reliability of the whole work will be the preliminary STANZAS: "How can
the statements contained in them be verified?" True, if a great portion of
the Sanskrit, Chinese, and Mongolian works quoted in the present volumes are
known to some Orientalists, the chief work -- that one from which the Stanzas
are given -- is not in the possession of European Libraries. The Book of Dzyan
(or "Dzan") is utterly unknown to our Philologists, or at any rate
was never heard of by them under its present name. This is, of course, a great
drawback
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to
those who follow the methods of research prescribed by official Science; but to
the students of Occultism, and to every genuine Occultist, this will be of
little moment. The main body of the Doctrines given is found scattered
throughout hundreds and thousands of Sanskrit MSS., some already translated --
disfigured in their interpretations, as usual, -- others still awaiting their
turn. Every scholar, therefore, has an opportunity of verifying the statements
herein made, and of checking most of the quotations. A few new facts (new to
the profane Orientalist, only) and passages quoted from the Commentaries will
be found difficult to trace. Several of the teachings, also, have hitherto been
transmitted orally: yet even those are in every instance hinted at in the
almost countless volumes of Brahminical, Chinese and Tibetan temple-literature.
However
it may be, and whatsoever is in store for the writer through malevolent
criticism, one fact is quite certain. The members of several esoteric schools
-- the seat of which is beyond the Himalayas, and whose ramifications may be
found in China, Japan, India, Tibet, and even in Syria, besides South America
-- claim to have in their possession the sum total of sacred and philosophical
works in MSS. and type: all the works, in fact, that have ever been written, in
whatever language or characters, since the art of writing began; from the
ideographic hieroglyphs down to the alphabet of Cadmus and the Devanagari.
It
has been claimed in all ages that ever since the destruction of the Alexandrian
Library (see Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., p. 27), every work of a character that
might have led the profane to the ultimate discovery and comprehension of some
of the mysteries of the Secret Science, was, owing to the combined efforts of
the members of the Brotherhoods, diligently searched for. It is added,
moreover, by those who know, that once found, save three copies left and stored
safely away, such works were all destroyed. In India, the last of the precious
manuscripts were secured and hidden during the reign of the Emperor Akbar.*
It
is maintained, furthermore, that every sacred book of that kind, whose text was
not sufficiently veiled in symbolism, or which had any
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Prof. Max Muller shows that no bribes or threats of Akbar could extort from the
Brahmans the original text of the Veda; and boasts that European Orientalists
have it (Lecture on the "Science of Religion," p. 23). Whether Europe
has the complete text is very doubtful, and the future may have very
disagreeable surprises in store for the Orientalists.
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direct
references to the ancient mysteries, after having been carefully copied in
cryptographic characters, such as to defy the art of the best and cleverest
palaeographer, was also destroyed to the last copy. During Akbar's reign, some
fanatical courtiers, displeased at the Emperor's sinful prying into the
religions of the infidels, themselves helped the Brahmans to conceal their MSS.
Such was Badaoni, who had an undisguised horror for Akbar's mania for
idolatrous religions.*
Moreover
in all the large and wealthy lamasaries, there are subterranean crypts and
cave-libraries, cut in the rock, whenever the gonpa and the lhakhang are
situated in the mountains. Beyond the Western Tsay-dam, in the solitary passes
of Kuen-lun** there are several such hiding places. Along the ridge of
Altyn-Toga, whose soil no European foot has ever trodden so far, there exists a
certain hamlet, lost in a deep gorge. It is a small cluster of houses, a hamlet
rather than a monastery, with a poor-looking temple in it, with one old lama, a
hermit, living near by to watch it. Pilgrims say that the subterranean
galleries and halls under it contain a collection of books, the number of
which, according to the accounts given, is too large to find room even in the
British Museum.***
All
this is very likely to provoke a smile of doubt. But then, before
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Badaoni wrote in his Muntakhab at Tawarikh: "His Majesty relished
inquiries into the sects of these infidels (who cannot be counted, so numerous
they are, and who have no end of revealed books) . . . As they (the Sramana and
Brahmins) surpass other learned men in their treatises on morals, on physical
and religious sciences, and reach a high degree in their knowledge of the
future, in spiritual power, and human perfection, they brought proofs based on
reason and testimony, and inculcated their doctrines so firmly that no man
could now raise a doubt in his Majesty even if mountains were to crumble to
dust, or the heavens were to tear asunder." This work "was kept
secret, and was not published till the reign of Jahangir." (Ain i Akbari,
translated by Dr. Blochmann, p. 104, note.)
**
Karakorum mountains, Western Tibet.
***
According to the same tradition the now desolate regions of the waterless land
of Tarim -- a true wilderness in the heart of Turkestan -- were in the days of
old covered with flourishing and wealthy cities. At present, hardly a few
verdant oases relieve its dead solitude. One such, sprung on the sepulchre of a
vast city swallowed by and buried under the sandy soil of the desert, belongs
to no one, but is often visited by Mongolians and Buddhists. The same tradition
speaks of immense subterranean abodes, of large corridors filled with tiles and
cylinders. It may be an idle rumour, and it may be an actual fact.
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the
reader rejects the truthfulness of the reports, let him pause and reflect over
the following well known facts. The collective researches of the Orientalists,
and especially the labours of late years of the students of comparative
Philology and the Science of Religions have led them to ascertain as follows:
An immense, incalculable number of MSS., and even printed works known to have
existed, are now to be found no more. They have disappeared without leaving the
slightest trace behind them. Were they works of no importance they might, in
the natural course of time, have been left to perish, and their very names
would have been obliterated from human memory. But it is not so; for, as now
ascertained, most of them contained the true keys to works still extant, and
entirely incomprehensible, for the greater portion of their readers, without
those additional volumes of Commentaries and explanations. Such are, for
instance, the works of Lao-tse, the predecessor of Confucius.*
He
is said to have written 930 books on Ethics and religions, and seventy on
magic, one thousand in all. His great work, however, the heart of his doctrine,
the "Tao-te-King," or the sacred scriptures of the Taosse, has in it,
as Stanislas Julien shows, only "about 5,000 words" (Tao-te-King, p.
xxvii.), hardly a dozen of pages, yet Professor Max Muller finds that "the
text is unintelligible without commentaries, so that Mr. Julien had to consult
more than sixty commentators for the purpose of his translation," the
earliest going back as far as the year 163 B.C., not earlier, as we see. During
the four centuries and a half that preceded this earliest of the commentators
there was ample time to veil the true Lao-tse doctrine from all but his
initiated priests. The Japanese, among whom are now to be found the most
learned of the priests and followers of Lao-tse, simply laugh at the blunders
and hypotheses of the European Chinese scholars; and tradition affirms that the
commentaries to which our Western Sinologues have access are not the real
occult records, but intentional veils, and that the true commentaries, as well
as almost all the texts, have long since disappeared from the eyes of the
profane.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"If we turn to China, we find that the religion of Confucius is founded on
the Five King and the Four Shu-books, in themselves of considerable extent and
surrounded by voluminous Commentaries, without which even the most learned
scholars would not venture to fathom the depth of their sacred canon."
(Lectures on the "Science of Religion," p. 185. Max Muller.) But they
have not fathomed it -- and this is the complaint of the Confucianists, as a
very learned member of that body, in Paris, complained in 1881.
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If
one turns to the ancient literature of the Semitic religions, to the Chaldean
Scriptures, the elder sister and instructress, if not the fountain-head of the
Mosaic Bible, the basis and starting-point of Christianity, what do the
scholars find? To perpetuate the memory of the ancient religions of Babylon; to
record the vast cycle of astronomical observations of the Chaldean Magi; to
justify the tradition of their splendid and eminently occult literature, what
now remains? -- only a few fragments, said to be by Berosus.
These,
however, are almost valueless, even as a clue to the character of what has
disappeared. For they passed through the hands of his Reverence the Bishop of
Caesarea -- that self-constituted censor and editor of the sacred records of
other men's religions -- and they doubtless bear to this day the mark of his
eminently veracious and trustworthy hand. For what is the history of this
treatise on the once grand religion of Babylon?
Written
in Greek by Berosus, a priest of the temple of Belus, for Alexander the Great,
from the astronomical and chronological records preserved by the priests of
that temple, and covering a period of 200,000 years, it is now lost. In the
first century B.C. Alexander Polyhistor made a series of extracts from it --
also lost. Eusebius used these extracts in writing his Chronicon (270-340
A.D.). The points of resemblance -- almost of identity -- between the Jewish
and the Chaldean Scriptures,* made the latter most dangerous to Eusebius, in
his role of defender and champion of the new faith which had adopted the Jewish
Scriptures, and with them an absurd chronology. It is pretty certain that
Eusebius did not spare the Egyptian Synchronistic tables of Manetho -- so much
so that Bunsen** charges him with mutilating history most unscrupulously. And
Socrates, a historian of the fifth century, and Syncellus, vice-patriarch of
Constantinople (eighth century), both denounce him as the most daring and
desperate forger.
Is
it likely, then, that he dealt more tenderly with the Chaldean records, which
were already menacing the new religion, so rashly accepted?
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Found out and proven only now, through the discoveries made by George Smith
(vide his "Chaldean account of Genesis"), and which, thanks to this
Armenian forger, have misled all the civilized nations for over 1,500 years
into accepting Jewish derivations for direct Divine Revelation!
**
Bunsen's "
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So
that, with the exception of these more than doubtful fragments, the entire
Chaldean sacred literature has disappeared from the eyes of the profane as
completely as the lost Atlantis. A few facts that were contained in the
Berosian History are given in Part II. of Vol. II., and may throw a great light
on the true origin of the Fallen Angels, personified by Bel and the Dragon.
Turning
now to the oldest Aryan literature, the Rig-Veda, the student will find,
following strictly in this the data furnished by the said Orientalists
themselves, that, although the Rig-Veda contains only "about 10,580
verses, or 1,028 hymns," in spite of the Brahmanas and the mass of glosses
and commentaries, it is not understood correctly to this day. Why is this so?
Evidently because the Brahmanas, "the scholastic and oldest treatises on
the primitive hymns," themselves require a key, which the Orientalists
have failed to secure.
What
do the scholars say of Buddhist literature? Have they got it in its
completeness? Assuredly not. Notwithstanding the 325 volumes of the Kanjur and
the Tanjur of the Northern Buddhists, each volume we are told, "weighing
from four to five pounds," nothing, in truth, is known of Lamaism. Yet,
the sacred canon of the Southern Church is said to contain 29,368,000 letters
in the Saddharma alankara,* or, exclusive of treatises and commentaries,
"five or six times the amount of the matter contained in the Bible,"
the latter, in the words of Professor Max Muller, rejoicing only in 3,567,180
letters. Notwithstanding, then, these "325 volumes" (in reality there
are 333, Kanjur comprising 108, and Tanjur 225 volumes), "the translators,
instead of supplying us with correct versions, have interwoven them with their
own commentaries, for the purpose of justifying the dogmas of their several
schools."** Moreover, "according to a tradition preserved by the
Buddhist schools, both of the South and of the North, the sacred Buddhist Canon
comprised originally 80,000 or 84,000 tracts, but most of them were lost, so
that there remained but 6,000," the professor tells his audiences.
"Lost" as usual for Europeans. But who can be quite sure that they
are likewise lost for Buddhists and Brahmins?
Considering
the sacredness for the Buddhists of every line written
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Spence Hardy, "The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists," p. 66.
**
"Buddhism in
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upon
Buddha or his "Good Law," the loss of nearly 76,000 tracts does seem
miraculous. Had it been vice versa, every one acquainted with the natural
course of events would subscribe to the statement that, of these 76,000, five
or six thousand treatises might have been destroyed during the persecutions in,
and emigrations from,
Owing
to the expressed regrets and numerous confessions of almost every one of the
Orientalists (See Max Muller's Lectures for example) the public may feel
sufficiently sure (a) that the students of ancient religions have indeed very
few data upon which to build such final conclusions as they generally do about
the old religions, and (b) that such lack of data does not prevent them in the
least from dogmatising. One would imagine that, thanks to the numerous records
of the Egyptian theogony and mysteries preserved in the classics, and in a
number of ancient writers, the rites and dogmas of Pharaonic Egypt ought to be
well understood at least; better, at any rate, than the too abstruse
philosophies and Pantheism of India, of whose religion and language Europe had
hardly any idea before the beginning of the present century. Along the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Lassen, ("Ind. Althersumkunde" Vol. II, p. 1,072) shows a Buddhist
monastery erected in the
**
Reverend T. Edkins, "Chinese Buddhism."
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[[Vol.
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covered
with hieroglyphic inscriptions, and with the strange pictures of gods and
goddesses. . . . . On rolls of papyrus, which seem to defy the ravages of time,
we have even fragments of what may be called the sacred books of the Egyptians;
yet, though much has been deciphered in the ancient records of that mysterious
race, the mainspring of the religion of Egypt and the original intention of its
ceremonial worship are far from being fully disclosed to us."* Here again
the mysterious hieroglyphic documents remain, but the keys by which alone they
become intelligible have disappeared.
Nevertheless,
having found that "there is a natural connection between language and
religion"; and, secondly, that there was a common Aryan religion before
the separation of the Aryan race; a common Semitic religion before the
separation of the Semitic race; and a common Turanian religion before the
separation of the Chinese and the other tribes belonging to the Turanian class;
having, in fact, only discovered "three ancient centres of religion"
and "three centres of language," and though as entirely ignorant of
those primitive religions and languages, as of their origin, the professor does
not hesitate to declare "that a truly historical basis for a scientific
treatment of those principal religions of the world has been gained!"
A
"scientific treatment" of a subject is no guarantee for its
"historical basis"; and with such scarcity of data on hand, no
philologist, even among the most eminent, is justified in giving out his own
conclusions for historical facts. No doubt, the eminent Orientalist has proved
thoroughly to the world's satisfaction, that according to Grimm's law of
phonetic rules, Odin and Buddha are two different personages, quite distinct
from each other, and he has shown it scientifically. When, however, he takes
the opportunity of saying in the same breath that Odin "was worshipped as
the supreme deity during a period long anterior to the age of the Veda and of
Homer" (Compar. Theol., p. 318), he has not the slightest "historical
basis" for it. He makes history and fact subservient to his
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
So little acquainted are our greatest Egyptologists with the funerary rites of
the Egyptians and the outward marks of the difference of sexes made on the
mummies, that it has led to the most ludicrous mistakes. Only a year or two
since, one of that kind was discovered at Boulaq,
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own
conclusions, which may be very "scientific," in the sight of Oriental
scholars, but yet very wide of the mark of actual truth. The conflicting views
on the subject of chronology, in the case of the Vedas, of the various eminent
philologists and Orientalists, from Martin Haug down to Mr. Max Muller himself,
are an evident proof that the statement has no historical basis to stand upon,
"internal evidence" being very often a jack-o'lantern, instead of a
safe beacon to follow. Nor has the Science of modern Comparative Mythology any
better proof to show, that those learned writers, who have insisted for the
last century or so that there must have been "fragments of a primeval
revelation, granted to the ancestors of the whole race of mankind . . . .
preserved in the temples of
Questioned
further on this point, he would say no more. This was at
No
doubt the mystification played, in the last century at
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in
that affair than the Missionaries and Colonel Wilford themselves. The former,
on the testimony of Sir William Jones himself (see Asiat. Res., Vol. I., p.
272), were silly enough to maintain that "the Hindus were even now almost
Christians, because their Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesa were no other than the
Christian trinity."* It was a good lesson. It made the Oriental scholars
doubly cautious; but perchance it has also made some of them too shy, and caused,
in its reaction, the pendulum of foregone conclusions to swing too much the
other way. For "that first supply on the Brahmanical market," made
for Colonel Wilford, has now created an evident necessity and desire in the
Orientalists to declare nearly every archaic Sanskrit manuscript so modern as
to give to the missionaries full justification for availing themselves of the
opportunity. That they do so and to the full extent of their mental powers, is
shown by the absurd attempts of late to prove that the whole Puranic story
about Chrishna was plagiarized by the Brahmins from the Bible! But the facts
cited by the Oxford Professor in his Lectures on the "Science of
Religion," concerning the now famous interpolations, for the benefit, and
later on to the sorrow, of Col. Wilford, do not at all interfere with the
conclusions to which one who studies the Secret Doctrine must unavoidably come.
For, if the results show that neither the New nor even the Old Testament
borrowed anything from the more ancient religion of the Brahmans and Buddhists,
it does not follow that the Jews have not borrowed all they knew from the
Chaldean records, the latter being mutilated later on by Eusebius. As to the
Chaldeans, they assuredly got their primitive learning from the Brahmans, for
Rawlinson shows an undeniably Vedic influence in the early mythology of
Babylon; and Col. Vans Kennedy has long since justly declared that Babylonia
was, from her origin, the seat of Sanskrit and Brahman learning. But all such
proofs must lose their value, in the presence of the latest theory worked out
by Prof. Max Muller. What it is everyone knows. The code of phonetic laws has
now become a universal solvent for every identification and
"connection" between
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Max Muller's "Introduction to the Science of Religion." Lecture
On False Analogies in comparative Theology, pp. 288 and 296 et seq. This
relates to the clever forgery (on leaves inserted in old Puranic MSS.), in
correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pundits of Col. Wilford had heard
from him about Adam and Abraham, Noah and his three sons, etc., etc
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the
gods of many nations. Thus, though the Mother of Mercury (Budha, Thot-Hermes,
etc.), was Maia, the mother of Buddha (Gautama), also Maya, and the mother of
Jesus, likewise Maya (illusion, for Mary is Mare, the Sea, the great illusion
symbolically) -- yet these three characters have no connection, nor can they
have any, since Bopp, has "laid down his code of phonetic laws."
In
their efforts to collect together the many skeins of unwritten history, it is a
bold step for our Orientalists to take, to deny, a priori, everything that does
not dovetail with their special conclusions. Thus, while new discoveries are
daily made of great arts and sciences having existed far back in the night of
time, even the knowledge of writing is refused to some of the most ancient
nations, and they are credited with barbarism instead of culture. Yet the
traces of an immense civilization, even in Central Asia, are still to be found.
This civilization is undeniably prehistoric. And how can there be civilization
without a literature, in some form, without annals or chronicles? Common sense
alone ought to supplement the broken links in the history of departed nations.
The gigantic, unbroken wall of the mountains that hem in the whole table-land
of Tibet, from the upper course of the river Khuan-Khe down to the Kara-Korum
hills, witnessed a civilization during millenniums of years, and would have
strange secrets to tell mankind. The Eastern and Central portions of those
regions -- the Nan-Schayn and the Altyne-taga -- were once upon a time covered
with cities that could well vie with Babylon. A whole geological period has
swept over the land, since those cities breathed their last, as the mounds of
shifting sand, and the sterile and now dead soil of the immense central plains
of the basin of Tarim testify. The borderlands alone are superficially known to
the traveller. Within those table-lands of sand there is water, and fresh oases
are found blooming there, wherein no European foot has ever yet ventured, or
trodden the now treacherous soil. Among these verdant oases there are some
which are entirely inaccessible even to the native profane traveller.
Hurricanes may "tear up the sands and sweep whole plains away," they
are powerless to destroy that which is beyond their reach. Built deep in the
bowels of the earth, the subterranean stores are secure; and as their entrances
are concealed in such oases, there is little fear that any one should discover
them, even should several armies invade the sandy wastes where --
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"Not
a pool, not a bush, not a house is seen,
And
the mountain-range forms a rugged screen
Round
the parch'd flats of the dry, dry desert. . . . ."
But
there is no need to send the reader across the desert, when the same proofs of
ancient civilization are found even in comparatively populated regions of the
same country. The oasis of Tchertchen, for instance, situated about 4,000 feet
above the level of the river Tchertchen-D'arya, is surrounded with the ruins of
archaic towns and cities in every direction. There, some 3,000 human beings
represent the relics of about a hundred extinct nations and races -- the very
names of which are now unknown to our ethnologists. An anthropologist would
feel more than embarrassed to class, divide and subdivide them; the more so, as
the respective descendants of all these antediluvian races and tribes know as
little of their own forefathers themselves, as if they had fallen from the
moon. When questioned about their origin, they reply that they know not whence
their fathers had come, but had heard that their first (or earliest) men were
ruled by the great genii of these deserts. This may be put down to ignorance
and superstition, yet in view of the teachings of the Secret Doctrine, the
answer may be based upon primeval tradition. Alone, the tribe of Khoorassan
claims to have come from what is now known as Afghanistan, long before the days
of Alexander, and brings legendary lore to that effect as corroboration. The
Russian traveller, Colonel (now General) Prjevalsky, found quite close to the
oasis of Tchertchen, the ruins of two enormous cities, the oldest of which was,
according to local tradition, ruined 3,000 years ago by a hero and giant; and
the other by the Mongolians in the tenth century of our era. "The
emplacement of the two cities is now covered, owing to shifting sands and the
desert wind, with strange and heterogeneous relics; with broken china and
kitchen utensils and human bones. The natives often find copper and gold coins,
melted silver, ingots, diamonds, and turquoises, and what is the most
remarkable -- broken glass. . . . ." "Coffins of some undecaying
wood, or material, also, within which beautifully preserved embalmed bodies are
found. . . . . The male mummies are all extremely tall powerfully built men
with long waving hair. . . . . A vault was found with twelve dead men sitting
in it. Another time, in a separate coffin, a young girl was discovered by us.
Her eyes were closed with golden discs, and the jaws held firm by a golden
circlet running from under the chin across the top of the head. Clad in a
narrow
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woollen
garment, her bosom was covered with golden stars, the feet being left
naked." (From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky.) To this, the famous
traveller adds that all along their way on the river Tchertchen they heard
legends about twenty-three towns buried ages ago by the shifting sands of the
deserts. The same tradition exists on the Lob-nor and in the oasis of Kerya.
The
traces of such civilization, and these and like traditions, give us the right
to credit other legendary lore warranted by well educated and learned natives
of India and Mongolia, when they speak of immense libraries reclaimed from the
sand, together with various reliques of ancient MAGIC lore, which have all been
safely stowed away.
To
recapitulate. The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused religion of the
ancient and prehistoric world. Proofs of its diffusion, authentic records of
its history, a complete chain of documents, showing its character and presence
in every land, together with the teaching of all its great adepts, exist to
this day in the secret crypts of libraries belonging to the Occult Fraternity.
This
statement is rendered more credible by a consideration of the following facts:
the tradition of the thousands of ancient parchments saved when the Alexandrian
library was destroyed; the thousands of Sanskrit works which disappeared in
India in the reign of Akbar; the universal tradition in China and Japan that
the true old texts with the commentaries, which alone make them comprehensible
-- amounting to many thousands of volumes -- have long passed out of the reach
of profane hands; the disappearance of the vast sacred and occult literature of
Babylon; the loss of those keys which alone could solve the thousand riddles of
the Egyptian hieroglyphic records; the tradition in India that the real secret
commentaries which alone make the Veda intelligible, though no longer visible
to profane eyes, still remain for the initiate, hidden in secret caves and
crypts; and an identical belief among the Buddhists, with regard to their
secret books.
The
Occultists assert that all these exist, safe from Western spoliating hands, to
re-appear in some more enlightened age, for which in the words of the late
Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, "the Mlechchhas (outcasts, savages, those beyond
the pale of Aryan civilization) will have to wait."
For
it is not the fault of the initiates that these documents are now
"lost" to the profane; nor was their policy dictated by selfishness,
or
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any
desire to monopolise the life-giving sacred lore. There were portions of the
Secret Science that for incalculable ages had to remain concealed from the
profane gaze. But this was because to impart to the unprepared multitude
secrets of such tremendous importance, was equivalent to giving a child a
lighted candle in a powder magazine.
The
answer to a question which has frequently arisen in the minds of students, when
meeting with statements such as this, may be outlined here.
"We
can understand," they say, "the necessity for concealing from the
herd such secrets as the Vril, or the rock-destroying force, discovered by J.
W. Keely, of Philadelphia, but we cannot understand how any danger could arise
from the revelation of such a purely philosophic doctrine, as, e.g., the
evolution of the planetary chains."
The
danger was this: Doctrines such as the planetary chain, or the seven races, at
once give a clue to the seven-fold nature of man, for each principle is
correlated to a plane, a planet, and a race; and the human principles are, on
every plane, correlated to seven-fold occult forces -- those of the higher
planes being of tremendous power. So that any septenary division at once gives
a clue to tremendous occult powers, the abuse of which would cause incalculable
evil to humanity. A clue, which is, perhaps, no clue to the present generation
-- especially the Westerns -- protected as they are by their very blindness and
ignorant materialistic disbelief in the occult; but a clue which would,
nevertheless, have been very real in the early centuries of the Christian era,
to people fully convinced of the reality of occultism, and entering a cycle of
degradation, which made them rife for abuse of occult powers and sorcery of the
worst description.
The
documents were concealed, it is true, but the knowledge itself and its actual
existence had never been made a secret of by the Hierophants of the Temple,
wherein MYSTERIES have ever been made a discipline and stimulus to virtue. This
is very old news, and was repeatedly made known by the great adepts, from
Pythagoras and Plato down to the Neoplatonists. It was the new religion of the
Nazarenes that wrought a change for the worse -- in the policy of centuries.
Moreover,
there is a well-known fact, a very curious one, corroborated to the writer by a
reverend gentleman attached for years to a Russian Embassy -- namely, that
there are several documents in the St. Peters-
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burg
Imperial Libraries to show that, even so late as during the days when
Freemasonry, and Secret Societies of Mystics flourished unimpeded in Russia,
i.e., at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century, more
than one Russian Mystic travelled to Tibet via the Ural mountains in search of
knowledge and initiation in the unknown crypts of Central Asia. And more than
one returned years later, with a rich store of such information as could never
have been given him anywhere in
This
is a corroboration of that which has been stated many times before, and,
unfortunately, too indiscreetly. Instead of benefiting humanity, the virulent
charges of deliberate invention and imposture with a purpose thrown at those
who asserted but a truthful, if even a little known fact, have only generated
bad Karma for the slanderers. But now the mischief is done, and truth should no
longer be denied, whatever the consequences. Is it a new religion, we are
asked? By no means; it is not a religion, nor is its philosophy new; for, as
already stated, it is as old as thinking man. Its tenets are not now published
for the first time, but have been cautiously given out to, and taught by, more
than one European Initiate -- especially by the late Ragon.
More
than one great scholar has stated that there never was a religious founder,
whether Aryan, Semitic or Turanian, who had invented a new religion, or
revealed a new truth. These founders were all transmitters, not original
teachers. They were the authors of new forms and interpretations, while the
truths upon which the latter were based were as old as mankind. Selecting one
or more of those grand verities -- actualities visible only to the eye of the
real Sage and Seer -- out of the many orally revealed to man in the beginning,
preserved and perpetuated in the adyta of the temples through initiation, during
the MYSTERIES and by personal transmission -- they revealed these truths to the
masses. Thus every nation received in its turn some of the said truths, under
the veil of its own local and special symbolism; which, as time went on,
developed into a more or less philosophical cultus, a Pantheon in mythical
disguise. Therefore is Confucius, a very ancient
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legislator
in historical chronology, though a very modern Sage in the World's History,
shown by Dr. Legge* -- who calls him "emphatically a transmitter, not a
maker" -- as saying: "I only hand on: I cannot create new things. I
believe in the ancients and therefore I love them."** (Quoted in "Science
of Religions" by Max Muller.)
The
writer loves them too, and therefore believes in the ancients, and the modern
heirs to their Wisdom. And believing in both, she now transmits that which she
has received and learnt herself to all those who will accept it. As to those
who may reject her testimony, -- i.e., the great majority -- she will bear them
no malice, for they will be as right in their way in denying, as she is right
in hers in affirming, since they look at TRUTH from two entirely different stand-points.
Agreeably with the rules of critical scholarship, the Orientalist has to reject
a priori whatever evidence he cannot fully verify for himself. And how can a
Western scholar accept on hearsay that which he knows nothing about? Indeed,
that which is given in these volumes is selected from oral, as much as from
written teachings. This first instalment of the esoteric doctrines is based
upon Stanzas, which are the records of a people unknown to ethnology; it is
claimed that they are written in a tongue absent from the nomenclature of
languages and dialects with which philology is acquainted; they are said to
emanate from a source (Occultism) repudiated by science; and, finally, they are
offered through an agency, incessantly discredited before the world by all
those who hate unwelcome truths, or have some special hobby of their own to
defend. Therefore, the rejection of these teachings may be expected, and must
be accepted beforehand. No one styling himself a "scholar," in
whatever department of exact science, will be permitted to regard these
teachings seriously. They will be derided and rejected a priori in this
century; but only in this one. For in the twentieth century of our era scholars
will begin to recognize that the Secret Doctrine has neither been invented nor
exaggerated, but, on the contrary, simply outlined; and finally, that its
teachings antedate the Vedas.*** Have not the latter been derided, rejected,
and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Lun Yu (§ I a) Schott. "Chinesische Literatur," p. 7.
**
"Life of Confucius," p. 96.
***
This is no pretension to prophecy, but simply a statement based on the
knowledge of facts. Every century an attempt is being made to show the world
that Occultism [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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called
"a modern forgery" even so recently as fifty years ago? Was not
Sanskrit proclaimed at one time the progeny of, and a dialect derived from, the
Greek, according to Lempriere and other scholars? About 1820, Prof. Max Muller
tells us, the sacred books of the Brahmans, of the Magians, and of the
Buddhists, "were all but unknown, their very existence was doubted, and
there was not a single scholar who could have translated a line of the Veda . .
. of the Zend Avesta, or . . . of the Buddhist Tripitaka, and now the Vedas are
proved to be the work of the highest antiquity whose 'preservation amounts
almost to a marvel' (Lecture on the Vedas).
The
same will be said of the Secret Archaic Doctrine, when proofs are given of its
undeniable existence and records. But it will take centuries before much more
is given from it. Speaking of the keys to the Zodiacal mysteries as being
almost lost to the world, it was remarked by the writer in "Isis
Unveiled" some ten years ago that: "The said key must be turned seven
times before the whole system is divulged. We will give it but one turn, and
thereby allow the profane one glimpse into the mystery. Happy he, who
understands the whole!"
The
same may be said of the whole Esoteric system. One turn of the key, and no
more, was given in "
Such
a work as this has to be introduced with no simple Preface, but with a volume
rather; one that would give facts, not mere disquisitions, since the SECRET
DOCTRINE is not a treatise, or a series of vague theories, but contains all
that can be given out to the world in this century.
It
would be worse than useless to publish in these pages even those
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] is no vain superstition. Once the door permitted
to be kept a little ajar, it will be opened wider with every new century. The
times are ripe for a more serious knowledge than hitherto permitted, though
still very limited, so far.
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[[Vol.
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portions
of the esoteric teachings that have now escaped from confinement, unless the
genuineness and authenticity -- at any rate, the probability -- of the
existence of such teachings was first established. Such statements as will now
be made, have to be shown warranted by various authorities: those of ancient
philosophers, classics and even certain learned Church Fathers, some of whom
knew these doctrines because they had studied them, had seen and read works
written upon them; and some of whom had even been personally initiated into the
ancient Mysteries, during the performance of which the arcane doctrines were
allegorically enacted. The writer will have to give historical and trustworthy
names, and to cite well-known authors, ancient and modern, of recognized
ability, good judgment, and truthfulness, as also to name some of the famous
proficients in the secret arts and science, along with the mysteries of the
latter, as they are divulged, or, rather, partially presented before the public
in their strange archaic form.
How
is this to be done? What is the best way for achieving such an object? was the
ever-recurring question. To make our plan clearer, an illustration may be
attempted. When a tourist coming from a well-explored country, suddenly reaches
the borderland of a terra incognita, hedged in, and shut out from view by a
formidable barrier of impassable rocks, he may still refuse to acknowledge
himself baffled in his exploratory plans. Ingress beyond is forbidden. But, if
he cannot visit the mysterious region personally, he may still find a means of
examining it from as short a distance as can be arrived at. Helped by his
knowledge of landscapes left behind him, he can get a general and pretty correct
idea of the transmural view, if he will only climb to the loftiest summit of
the altitudes in front of him. Once there, he can gaze at it, at his leisure,
comparing that which he dimly perceives with that which he has just left below,
now that he is, thanks to his efforts, beyond the line of the mists and the
cloud-capped cliffs.
Such
a point of preliminary observation, for those who would like to get a more
correct understanding of the mysteries of the pre-archaic periods given in the
texts, cannot be offered to them in these two volumes. But if the reader has
patience, and would glance at the present state of beliefs and creeds in
Europe, compare and check it with what is known to history of the ages directly
preceding and
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following
the Christian era, then he will find all this in Volume III. of this work.
In
that volume a brief recapitulation will be made of all the principal adepts
known to history, and the downfall of the mysteries will be described; after
which began the disappearance and final and systematic elimination from the
memory of men of the real nature of initiation and the Sacred Science. From
that time its teachings became Occult, and Magic sailed but too often under the
venerable but frequently misleading name of Hermetic philosophy. As real
Occultism had been prevalent among the Mystics during the centuries that
preceded our era, so Magic, or rather Sorcery, with its Occult Arts, followed
the beginning of Christianity.
However
great and zealous the fanatical efforts, during those early centuries, to
obliterate every trace of the mental and intellectual labour of the Pagans, it
was a failure; but the same spirit of the dark demon of bigotry and intolerance
has perverted systematically and ever since, every bright page written in the
pre-Christian periods. Even in her uncertain records, history has preserved
enough of that which has survived to throw an impartial light upon the whole.
Let, then, the reader tarry a little while with the writer, on the spot of
observation selected. He is asked to give all his attention to that millennium
which divided the pre-Christian and the post-Christian periods, by the year ONE
of the Nativity. This event -- whether historically correct or not -- has
nevertheless been made to serve as a first signal for the erection of manifold
bulwarks against any possible return of, or even a glimpse into, the hated
religions of the Past; hated and dreaded -- because throwing such a vivid light
on the new and intentionally veiled interpretation of what is now known as the
"New Dispensation."
However
superhuman the efforts of the early Christian fathers to obliterate the Secret
Doctrine from the very memory of man, they all failed. Truth can never be
killed; hence the failure to sweep away entirely from the face of the earth
every vestige of that ancient Wisdom, and to shackle and gag every witness who
testified to it. Let one only think of the thousands, and perhaps millions, of
MSS. burnt; of monuments, with their too indiscreet inscriptions and pictorial
symbols, pulverised to dust; of the bands of early hermits and ascetics roaming
about among the ruined cities of Upper and Lower Egypt, in desert and
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[[Vol.
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mountain,
valleys and highlands, seeking for and eager to destroy every obelisk and
pillar, scroll or parchment they could lay their hands on, if it only bore the
symbol of the tau, or any other sign borrowed and appropriated by the new
faith; and he will then see plainly how it is that so little has remained of
the records of the Past. Verily, the fiendish spirits of fanaticism, of early and
mediaeval Christianity and of Islam, have from the first loved to dwell in
darkness and ignorance; and both have made
"--------------
the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,
The
tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom!"
Both
creeds have won their proselytes at the point of the sword; both have built
their churches on heaven-kissing hecatombs of human victims. Over the gateway
of
In
other words -- "THERE IS NO RELIGION (OR LAW) HIGHER THAN TRUTH" --
"SATYAT NASTI PARO DHARMAH" -- the motto of the Maharajah of Benares,
adopted by the Theosophical Society.
As
already said in the Preface, the Secret Doctrine is not a version of "Isis
Unveiled" -- as originally intended. It is a volume explanatory of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Lectures on the Science of Religion," by F. Max Muller, p. 257.
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[[Vol.
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it
rather, and, though entirely independent of the earlier work, an indispensable
corollary to it. Much of what was in
Concerned
simply with the philosophies within our historical times and the respective
symbolism of the fallen nations, only a hurried glance could be thrown at the
panorama of Occultism in the two volumes of Isis. In the present work, detailed
Cosmogony and the evolution of the four races that preceded our Fifth race
Humanity are given, and now two large volumes explain that which was stated on
the first page of ISIS UNVEILED alone, and in a few allusions scattered hither
and thither throughout that work. Nor could the vast catalogue of the Archaic
Sciences be attempted in the present volumes, before we have disposed of such
tremendous problems as Cosmic and Planetary Evolution, and the gradual
development of the mysterious Humanities and races that preceded our
"Adamic" Humanity. Therefore, the present attempt to elucidate some
mysteries of the Esoteric philosophy has, in truth, nothing to do with the
earlier work. As an instance, the writer must be allowed to illustrate what is
said.
"So
very old that our modern antiquarians might ponder over its pages an indefinite
time, and still not quite agree as to the nature of the fabric upon which it is
written. It is the only original copy now in existence. The most ancient Hebrew
document on occult learning -- the Siphrah Dzeniouta -- was compiled from it,
and that at a time when the former was already considered in the light of a
literary relic. One of its illustrations represents the Divine Essence
emanating from ADAM* like a luminous arc proceeding to form a circle; and then,
having attained the highest point of its circumference, the ineffable glory
bends back again, and returns to earth, bringing a higher type of humanity in
its vortex. As it approaches nearer and nearer to our planet, the Emanation
becomes more and more shadowy, until upon touching the ground it is as black as
night."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The name is used in the sense of the Greek word [[anthropos]].
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The
"very old Book" is the original work from which the many volumes of
Kiu-ti were compiled. Not only this latter and the Siphrah Dzeniouta but even
the Sepher Jezirah,* the work attributed by the Hebrew Kabalists to their
Patriarch Abraham (!), the book of Shu-king, China's primitive Bible, the
sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Puranas in India, and the
Chaldean Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch itself, are all derived from that one
small parent volume. Tradition says, that it was taken down in Senzar, the
secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of the Divine Beings, who dictated it
to the sons of Light, in Central Asia, at the very beginning of the 5th (our)
race; for there was a time when its language (the Sen-zar) was known to the
Initiates of every nation, when the forefathers of the Toltec understood it as
easily as the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis, who inherited it, in their
turn, from the sages of the 3rd Race, the Manushis, who learnt it direct from
the Devas of the 2nd and 1st Races. The "illustration" spoken of in
"Isis" relates to the evolution of these Races and of our 4th and 5th
Race Humanity in the Vaivasvata Manvantara or "Round"; each Round
being composed of the Yugas of the seven periods of Humanity; four of which are
now passed in our life cycle, the middle point of the 5th being nearly reached.
The illustration is symbolical, as every one can well understand, and covers
the ground from the beginning. The old book, having described Cosmic Evolution
and explained the origin of everything on earth, including physical man, after
giving the true history of the races from the First down to the Fifth (our)
race, goes no further. It stops short at the beginning of the Kali Yuga just
4989 years ago at the death of
But
there exists another book. None of its possessors regard it as very ancient, as
it was born with, and is only as old as the Black Age,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly declared that he
had performed "miracles" by means of the Book of Sepher Jezireh, and
challenged every sceptic. Franck, quoting from the Babylonian Talmud, names two
other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina and Oshoi. (See "Jerusalem Talmud,
Sanhedrin," c. 7, etc.; and "Franck," pp. 55, 56.) Many of the
Mediaeval Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists claimed the same; and even the late
modern Magus, Eliphas Levi, publicly asserts it in print in his books on Magic.
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[[Vol.
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namely,
about 5,000 years. In about nine years hence, the first cycle of the first five
millenniums, that began with the great cycle of the Kali-Yuga, will end. And
then the last prophecy contained in that book (the first volume of the
prophetic record for the Black Age) will be accomplished. We have not long to
wait, and many of us will witness the Dawn of the New Cycle, at the end of
which not a few accounts will be settled and squared between the races. Volume
II. of the Prophecies is nearly ready, having been in preparation since the
time of Buddha's grand successor, Sankaracharya.
One
more important point must be noticed, one that stands foremost in the series of
proofs given of the existence of one primeval, universal Wisdom -- at any rate
for the Christian Kabalists and students. The teachings were, at least,
partially known to several of the Fathers of the Church. It is maintained, on
purely historical grounds, that Origen, Synesius, and even Clemens
Alexandrinus, had been themselves initiated into the mysteries before adding to
the Neo-Platonism of the Alexandrian school, that of the Gnostics, under the
Christian veil. More than this, some of the doctrines of the Secret schools --
though by no means all -- were preserved in the Vatican, and have since become
part and parcel of the mysteries, in the shape of disfigured additions made to
the original Christian programme by the Latin Church. Such is the now
materialised dogma of the Immaculate Conception. This accounts for the great
persecutions set on foot by the Roman Catholic Church against Occultism, Masonry,
and heterodox mysticism generally.
The
days of
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one
fountain head, the ever-flowing perennial source, at which were fed all its
streamlets -- the later religions of all nations -- from the first down to the
last. This period, beginning with Buddha and Pythagoras at the one end and the
Neo-Platonists and Gnostics at the other, is the only focus left in History
wherein converge for the last time the bright rays of light streaming from the
aeons of time gone by, unobscured by the hand of bigotry and fanaticism.
This
accounts for the necessity under which the writer has laboured to be ever
explaining the facts given from the hoariest Past by evidence gathered from the
historical period. No other means was at hand, at the risk even of being once
more charged with a lack of method and system. The public must be made
acquainted with the efforts of many World-adepts, of initiated poets, writers,
and classics of every age, to preserve in the records of Humanity the Knowledge
of the existence, at least, of such a philosophy, if not actually of its
tenets. The Initiates of 1888 would indeed remain incomprehensible and ever a
seemingly impossible myth, were not like Initiates shown to have lived in every
other age of history. This could be done only by naming Chapter and Verse where
may be found mention of these great characters, who were preceded and followed
by a long and interminable line of other famous Antediluvian and Post-diluvian
Masters in the arts. Thus only could be shown, on semi-traditional and
semi-historical authority, that knowledge of the Occult and the powers it
confers on man, are not altogether fictions, but that they are as old as the
world itself.
To
my judges, past and future, therefore -- whether they are serious literary
critics, or those howling dervishes in literature who judge a book according to
the popularity or unpopularity of the author's name, who, hardly glancing at
its contents, fasten like lethal bacilli on the weakest points of the body -- I
have nothing to say. Nor shall I condescend to notice those crack-brained
slanderers -- fortunately very few in number -- who, hoping to attract public
attention by throwing discredit on every writer whose name is better known than
their own, foam and bark at their very shadows. These, having first maintained
for years that the doctrines taught in the Theosophist, and which culminated in
"Esoteric Buddhism," had been all invented by the present writer,
have finally turned round, and denounced "Isis Unveiled" and the rest
as a plagiarism from Eliphas Levi (!), Paracelsus (!!), and, mirabile
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[[Vol.
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dictu,
Buddhism and Brahmanism (!!!) As well charge Renan with having stolen his Vie
de Jesus from the Gospels, and Max Muller his "Sacred Books of the
East" or his "Chips" from the philosophies of the Brahmins and
Gautama, the Buddha. But to the public in general and the readers of the
"Secret Doctrine" I may repeat what I have stated all along, and
which I now clothe in the words of Montaigne: Gentlemen, "I HAVE HERE MADE
ONLY A NOSEGAY OF CULLED FLOWERS, AND HAVE BROUGHT NOTHING OF MY OWN BUT THE
STRING THAT TIES THEM."
Pull
the "string" to pieces and cut it up in shreds, if you will. As for
the nosegay of FACTS -- you will never be able to make away with these. You can
only ignore them, and no more.
We
may close with a parting word concerning this Volume I. In an INTRODUCTION
prefacing a Part dealing chiefly with Cosmogony, certain subjects brought
forward might be deemed out of place, but one more consideration added to those
already given have led me to touch upon them. Every reader will inevitably
judge the statements made from the stand-point of his own knowledge,
experience, and consciousness, based on what he has already learnt. This fact
the writer is constantly obliged to bear in mind: hence, also the frequent
references in this first Book to matters which, properly speaking, belong to a
later part of the work, but which could not be passed by in silence, lest the
reader should look down on this work as a fairy tale indeed -- a fiction of
some modern brain.
Thus,
the Past shall help to realise the PRESENT, and the latter to better appreciate
the PAST. The errors of the day must be explained and swept away, yet it is
more than probable -- and in the present case it amounts to certitude -- that
once more the testimony of long ages and of history will fail to impress anyone
but the very intuitional -- which is equal to saying the very few. But in this
as in all like cases, the true and the faithful may console themselves by
presenting the sceptical modern Sadducee with the mathematical proof and
memorial of his obdurate obstinacy and bigotry. There still exists somewhere in
the archives of the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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a
fact, and thus impart to it each of them 5/6 of certitude; that fact will have
then 35/36 of certitude; i.e., its probability will bear to its improbability
the ratio of 35 to 1. If three such evidences are joined together the certitude
will become 215/216. The agreement of ten persons giving each 1/2 of certitude
will produce 1023/1024, etc., etc. The Occultist may remain satisfied, and care
for no more.
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[[blank]]
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PROEM.
-------
PAGES
FROM A PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.
AN
Archaic Manuscript -- a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to water,
fire, and air, by some specific unknown process -- is before the writer's eye.
On the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull black ground. On
the following page, the same disk, but with a central point. The first, the
student knows to represent Kosmos in Eternity, before the re-awakening of still
slumbering Energy, the emanation of the Word in later systems. The point in the
hitherto immaculate Disk, Space and Eternity in Pralaya, denotes the dawn of
differentiation. It is the Point in the Mundane Egg (see Part II., "The
Mundane Egg"), the germ within the latter which will become the Universe,
the ALL, the boundless, periodical Kosmos, this germ being latent and active,
periodically and by turns. The one circle is divine Unity, from which all
proceeds, whither all returns. Its circumference -- a forcibly limited symbol,
in view of the limitation of the human mind -- indicates the abstract, ever
incognisable PRESENCE, and its plane, the Universal Soul, although the two are
one. Only the face of the Disk being white and the ground all around black,
shows clearly that its plane is the only knowledge, dim and hazy though it
still is, that is attainable by man. It is on this plane that the Manvantaric
manifestations begin; for it is in this SOUL that slumbers, during the Pralaya,
the Divine Thought,* wherein lies concealed the plan of every future Cosmogony
and Theogony.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is hardly necessary to remind the reader once more that the term
"Divine Thought," like that of "Universal Mind," must not
be regarded as even vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to
that exhibited by man. The "Unconscious," according to von Hartmann,
arrived at the vast creative, or rather Evolutionary Plan, "by a clairvoyant
wisdom superior to all consciousness," which in the Vedantic language
would mean absolute Wisdom. Only those who realise how far Intuition soars
above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought can form the faintest
conception of [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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It
is the ONE LIFE, eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without beginning or end,
yet periodical in its regular manifestations, between which periods reigns the
dark mystery of non-Being; unconscious, yet absolute Consciousness;
unrealisable, yet the one self-existing reality; truly, "a chaos to the
sense, a Kosmos to the reason." Its one absolute attribute, which is ITSELF,
eternal, ceaseless Motion, is called in esoteric parlance the "Great
Breath,"* which is the perpetual motion of the universe, in the sense of
limitless, ever-present SPACE. That which is motionless cannot be Divine. But
then there is nothing in fact and reality absolutely motionless within the
universal soul.
Almost
five centuries B.C. Leucippus, the instructor of Democritus, maintained that
Space was filled eternally with atoms actuated by a ceaseless motion, the
latter generating in due course of time, when those atoms aggregated, rotatory
motion, through mutual collisions producing lateral movements. Epicurus and
Lucretius taught the same, only adding to the lateral motion of the atoms the
idea of affinity -- an occult teaching.
From
the beginning of man's inheritance, from the first appearance of the architects
of the globe he lives in, the unrevealed Deity was recognised and considered
under its only philosophical aspect -- universal motion, the thrill of the
creative Breath in Nature. Occultism sums up the "One Existence"
thus: "Deity is an arcane, living (or moving) FIRE, and the eternal
witnesses to this unseen Presence are Light, Heat, Moisture," -- this
trinity including, and being the cause of, every
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] that absolute Wisdom which transcends the ideas
of Time and Space. Mind, as we know it, is resolvable into states of
consciousness, of varying duration, intensity, complexity, etc. -- all, in the
ultimate, resting on sensation, which is again Maya. Sensation, again,
necessarily postulates limitation. The personal God of orthodox Theism
perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels
"fierce anger." But the notion of such mental states clearly involves
the unthinkable postulate of the externality of the exciting stimuli, to say
nothing of the impossibility of ascribing changelessness to a Being whose
emotions fluctuate with events in the worlds he presides over. The conceptions
of a Personal God as changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what
is worse, unphilosophical.
*
Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in Cratylus that [[theos]] is
derived from the verb [[theein]], "to move," "to run," as
the first astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called
the planets [[theoi]], the gods. (See Book II., "Symbolism of the Cross
and Circle.") Later, the word produced another term, [[aletheia]] --
"the breath of God."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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phenomenon
in Nature.* Intra-Cosmic motion is eternal and ceaseless; cosmic motion (the
visible, or that which is subject to perception) is finite and periodical. As
an eternal abstraction it is the EVER-PRESENT; as a manifestation, it is finite
both in the coming direction and the opposite, the two being the alpha and
omega of successive reconstructions. Kosmos -- the NOUMENON -- has nought to do
with the causal relations of the phenomenal World. It is only with reference to
the intra-cosmic soul, the ideal Kosmos in the immutable Divine Thought, that
we may say: "It never had a beginning nor will it have an end." With
regard to its body or Cosmic organization, though it cannot be said that it had
a first, or will ever have a last construction, yet at each new Manvantara, its
organization may be regarded as the first and the last of its kind, as it
evolutes every time on a higher plane . . . .
A
few years ago only, it was stated that:--
"The
esoteric doctrine teaches, like Buddhism and Brahminism, and even the Kabala,
that the one infinite and unknown Essence exists from all eternity, and in
regular and harmonious successions is either passive or active. In the poetical
phraseology of Manu these conditions are called the "Days" and the
"Nights" of Brahma. The latter is either "awake" or
"asleep." The Svabhavikas, or philosophers of the oldest school of
Buddhism (which still exists in Nepaul), speculate only upon the active
condition of this "Essence," which they call Svabhavat, and deem it
foolish to theorise upon the abstract and "unknowable" power in its
passive condition. Hence they are called atheists by both Christian theologians
and modern scientists, for neither of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Nominalists, arguing with
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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two
are able to understand the profound logic of their philosophy. The former will
allow of no other God than the personified secondary powers which have worked
out the visible universe, and which became with them the anthropomorphic God of
the Christians -- the male Jehovah, roaring amid thunder and lightning. In its
turn, rationalistic science greets the Buddhists and the Svabhavikas as the
"positivists" of the archaic ages. If we take a one-sided view of the
philosophy of the latter, our materialists may be right in their own way. The
Buddhists maintained that there is no Creator, but an infinitude of creative
powers, which collectively form the one eternal substance, the essence of which
is inscrutable -- hence not a subject for speculation for any true philosopher.
Socrates invariably refused to argue upon the mystery of universal being, yet
no one would ever have thought of charging him with atheism, except those who
were bent upon his destruction. Upon inaugurating an active period, says the
Secret Doctrine, an expansion of this Divine essence from without inwardly and
from within outwardly, occurs in obedience to eternal and immutable law, and
the phenomenal or visible universe is the ultimate result of the long chain of
cosmical forces thus progressively set in motion. In like manner, when the
passive condition is resumed, a contraction of the Divine essence takes place,
and the previous work of creation is gradually and progressively undone. The
visible universe becomes disintegrated, its material dispersed; and 'darkness'
solitary and alone, broods once more over the face of the 'deep.' To use a
Metaphor from the Secret Books, which will convey the idea still more clearly,
an out-breathing of the 'unknown essence' produces the world; and an inhalation
causes it to disappear. This process has been going on from all eternity, and
our present universe is but one of an infinite series, which had no beginning
and will have no end." -- (See "Isis Unveiled"; also "The
Days and Nights of Brahma" in Part II.)
This
passage will be explained, as far as it is possible, in the present work.
Though, as it now stands, it contains nothing new to the Orientalist, its
esoteric interpretation may contain a good deal which has hitherto remained
entirely unknown to the Western student.
The
first illustration being a plain disc [[diagram]] the second one in the Archaic
symbol shows [[diagram]], a disc with a point in it -- the first
differentiation in the periodical manifestations of the ever-eternal nature,
sexless and infinite "Aditi in THAT" (Rig Veda), the point in the
disc, or potential Space within abstract Space. In its third stage the point is
transformed into a diameter, thus [[diagram]] It now symbolises a divine
immaculate Mother-Nature within the all-embracing absolute Infinitude.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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When
the diameter line is crossed by a vertical one [[diagram]], it becomes the
mundane cross. Humanity has reached its third root-race; it is the sign for the
origin of human life to begin. When the circumference disappears and leaves
only the [[diagram]] it is a sign that the fall of man into matter is
accomplished, and the FOURTH race begins. The Cross within a circle symbolises
pure Pantheism; when the Cross was left uninscribed, it became phallic. It had
the same and yet other meanings as a TAU inscribed within a circle [[diagram]]
or as a "Thor's hammer," the Jaina cross, so-called, or simply
Svastica within a circle [[diagram]]
By
the third symbol -- the circle divided in two by the horizontal line of the
diameter -- the first manifestation of creative (still passive, because
feminine) Nature was meant. The first shadowy perception of man connected with
procreation is feminine, because man knows his mother more than his father.
Hence female deities were more sacred than the male. Nature is therefore
feminine, and, to a degree, objective and tangible, and the spirit Principle
which fructifies it is concealed. By adding to the circle with the horizontal
line in it, a perpendicular line, the tau was formed -- [[diagram]] -- the
oldest form of the letter. It was the glyph of the third root-race to the day
of its symbolical Fall -- i.e., when the separation of sexes by natural
evolution took place -- when the figure became [[diagram]], the circle, or
sexless life modified or separated -- a double glyph or symbol. With the races
of our Fifth Race it became in symbology the sacr', and in Hebrew n'cabvah, of
the first-formed races;* then it changed into the Egyptian [[diagram]] (emblem
of life), and still later into the sign of Venus, [[diagram]] Then comes the
Svastica (Thor's hammer, or the "Hermetic Cross" now), entirely
separated from its Circle, thus becoming purely phallic. The esoteric symbol of
Kali Yuga is the five-pointed star reversed, thus [[diagram]] -- the sign of
human sorcery, with its two points (horns) turned heavenward, a position every
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See that suggestive work, "The Source of Measures," where the author
explains the real meaning of the word "sacr'," from which
"sacred," "sacrament," are derived, which have now become
synonyms of "holiness," though purely phallic!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Occultist
will recognise as one of the "left-hand," and used in ceremonial
magic.*
It
is hoped that during the perusal of this work the erroneous ideas of the public
in general with regard to Pantheism will be modified. It is wrong and unjust to
regard the Buddhists and Advaitee Occultists as atheists. If not all of them
philosophers, they are, at any rate, all logicians, their objections and
arguments being based on strict reasoning. Indeed, if the Parabrahmam of the
Hindus may be taken as a representative of the hidden and nameless deities of
other nations, this absolute Principle will be found to be the prototype from
which all the others were copied. Parabrahm is not "God," because It
is not a God. "It is that which is supreme, and not supreme
(paravara)," explains Mandukya Upanishad (2.28). IT is "Supreme"
as CAUSE, not supreme as effect. Parabrahm is simply, as a "Secondless
Reality," the all-inclusive Kosmos -- or, rather, the infinite Cosmic
Space -- in the highest spiritual sense, of course. Brahma (neuter) being the
unchanging, pure, free, undecaying supreme Root, "the ONE true Existence,
Paramarthika," and the absolute Chit and Chaitanya (intelligence, consciousness)
cannot be a cogniser, "for THAT can have no subject of cognition."
Can the flame be called the essence of Fire? This Essence is "the LIFE and
LIGHT of the Universe, the visible fire and flame are destruction, death, and
evil." "Fire and Flame destroy the body of an Arhat, their essence
makes him immortal." (Bodhi-mur, Book II.) "The knowledge of the
absolute Spirit, like the effulgence of the sun, or like heat in fire, is
naught else than the absolute Essence itself," says Sankaracharya. IT -- is
"the Spirit of the Fire," not fire itself; therefore, "the
attributes of the latter, heat or flame, are not the attributes of the Spirit,
but of that of which that Spirit is the unconscious cause." Is not the
above sentence the true key-note of later Rosicrucian
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American Kabalists, that in
the Kabala also "the value of the Jehovah name is that of the diameter of
a circle." Add to this the fact that Jehovah is the third Sephiroth,
Binah, a feminine word, and you have the key to the mystery. By certain
Kabalistic transformations this name, androgynous in the first chapters of
Genesis, becomes in its transformations entirely masculine, Cainite and phallic.
The fact of choosing a deity among the pagan gods and making of it a special
national God, to call upon it as the "One living God," the "God
of Gods," and then proclaim this worship Monotheistic, does not change it
into the ONE Principle whose "Unity admits not of multiplication, change,
or form," especially in the case of a priapic deity, as Jehovah now
demonstrated to be.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 7 PROEM.
philosophy?
Parabrahm is, in short, the collective aggregate of Kosmos in its infinity and
eternity, the "THAT" and "THIS" to which distributive
aggregates can not be applied.* "In the beginning THIS was the Self, one
only" (Aitareya Upanishad); the great Sankaracharya, explains that
"THIS" referred to the Universe (Jagat); the sense of the words,
"In the beginning," meaning before the reproduction of the phenomenal
Universe.
Therefore,
when the Pantheists echo the Upanishads, which state, as in the Secret
Doctrine, that "this" cannot create, they do not deny a Creator, or
rather a collective aggregate of creators, but only refuse, very logically, to
attribute "creation" and especially formation, something finite to an
Infinite Principle. With them, Parabrahmam is a passive because an Absolute
Cause, the unconditioned Mukta. It is only limited Omniscience and Omnipotence
that are refused to the latter, because these are still attributes (as
reflected in man's perceptions); and because Parabrahm, being the "Supreme
ALL," the ever invisible spirit and Soul of Nature, changeless and
eternal, can have no attributes; absoluteness very naturally precluding any
idea of the finite or conditioned from being connected with it. And if the
Vedantin postulates attributes as belonging simply to its emanation, calling it
"Iswara plus Maya," and Avidya (Agnosticism and Nescience rather than
ignorance), it is difficult to find any Atheism in this conception.** Since
there can be neither two INFINITES nor two ABSOLUTES in a Universe supposed to
be Boundless, this Self-Existence can hardly be conceived of as creating
personally. In the sense and perceptions of finite "Beings," THAT is
Non-"being," in the sense that it is the one BE-NESS; for, in this
ALL lies concealed its coeternal and coeval emanation or inherent radiation,
which, upon becoming periodically Brahma (the male-female Potency) becomes or
expands itself into the manifested Universe. Narayana moving on the (abstract)
waters of Space, is transformed into the Waters of concrete substance moved by
him, who now becomes the manifested WORD or Logos.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Vedanta Sara," by Major G. A. Jacob; as also "The Aphorisms
of S'andilya," translated by Cowell, p. 42.
**
Nevertheless, prejudiced and rather fanatical Christian Orientalists would like
to prove this pure Atheism. For proof of this, see about Major Jacob's
"Vedanta Sara." Yet, the whole Antiquity echoes this Vedantic
thought:--
"Omnis
enim per se divom natura necesse est
Immortali
aevo summa cum pace fruatur."
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[[Vol.
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The
orthodox Brahmins, those who rise the most against the Pantheists and
Adwaitees, calling them Atheists, are forced, if Manu has any authority in this
matter, to accept the death of Brahma, the creator, at the expiration of every
"Age" of this (creative) deity (100 Divine years -- a period which in
our years requires fifteen figures to express it). Yet, no philosopher among
them will view this "death" in any other sense than as a temporary
disappearance from the manifested plane of existence, or as a periodical rest.
The
Occultists are, therefore, at one with the Adwaita Vedantin philosophers as to
the above tenet. They show the impossibility of accepting on philosophical
grounds the idea of the absolute ALL creating or even evolving the "Golden
Egg," into which it is said to enter in order to transform itself into
Brahma -- the Creator, who expands himself later into gods and all the visible
Universe. They say that Absolute Unity cannot pass to infinity; for infinity
presupposes the limitless extension of something, and the duration of that
"something"; and the One All is like Space -- which is its only
mental and physical representation on this Earth, or our plane of existence --
neither an object of, nor a subject to, perception. If one could suppose the
Eternal Infinite All, the Omnipresent Unity, instead of being in Eternity,
becoming through periodical manifestation a manifold Universe or a multiple
personality, that Unity would cease to be one. Locke's idea that "pure
Space is capable of neither resistance nor Motion" -- is incorrect. Space
is neither a "limitless void," nor a "conditioned fulness,"
but both: being, on the plane of absolute abstraction, the ever-incognisable
Deity, which is void only to finite minds,* and on that of mayavic perception,
the Plenum, the absolute Container of all that is, whether manifested or
unmanifested: it is, therefore, that ABSOLUTE ALL. There is no difference
between the Christian Apostle's "In Him we live and move and have our
being," and the Hindu Rishi's "The Universe lives in, proceeds from,
and will
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The very names of the two chief deities, Brahma and Vishnu, ought to have long
ago suggested their esoteric meanings. For the root of one, Brahmam, or Brahm,
is derived by some from the word Brih, "to grow" or "to
expand" (see Calcutta Review, vol. lxvi., p. 14); and of the other,
Vishnu, from the root Vis, "to pervade," to enter in the nature of
the essence; Brahma-Vishnu being this infinite SPACE, of which the gods, the
Rishis, the Manus, and all in this universe are simply the potencies,
Vibhutayah.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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return
to, Brahma (Brahma)": for Brahma (neuter), the unmanifested, is that
Universe in abscondito, and Brahma, the manifested, is the Logos, made
male-female* in the symbolical orthodox dogmas. The God of the Apostle-Initiate
and of the Rishi being both the Unseen and the Visible SPACE. Space is called
in the esoteric symbolism "the Seven-Skinned Eternal Mother-Father."
It is composed from its undifferentiated to its differentiated surface of seven
layers.
"What
is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is a Universe or not; whether
there be gods or none?" asks the esoteric Senzar Catechism. And the answer
made is -- SPACE.
It
is not the One Unknown ever-present God in Nature, or Nature in abscondito,
that is rejected, but the God of human dogma and his humanized
"Word." In his infinite conceit and inherent pride and vanity, man
shaped it himself with his sacrilegious hand out of the material he found in
his own small brain-fabric, and forced it upon mankind as a direct revelation
from the one unrevealed SPACE.** The Occultist
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Manu's account of Brahma separating his body into male and female, the
latter the female Vach, in whom he creates Viraj, and compare this with the
esotericism of Chapters II., III., and IV. of Genesis.
**
Occultism is indeed in the air at the close of this our century. Among many
other works recently published, we would recommend one especially to students
of theoretical Occultism who would not venture beyond the realm of our special
human plane. It is called "New Aspects of Life and Religion," by
Henry Pratt, M.D. It is full of esoteric dogmas and philosophy, the latter
rather limited, in the concluding chapters, by what seems to be a spirit of
conditioned positivism. Nevertheless, what is said of Space as "the
Unknown First Cause," merits quotation. "This unknown something, thus
recognised as, and identified with, the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is
invisible and impalpable" -- (abstract space, granted); "and because
invisible and impalpable, therefore incognisable. And this incognisability has
led to the error of supposing it to be a simple void, a mere receptive
capacity. But, even viewed as an absolute void, space must be admitted to be
either Self-existent, infinite, and eternal, or to have had a first cause
outside, behind, and beyond itself.
"And
yet could such a cause be found and defined, this would only lead to the
transferring thereto of the attributes otherwise accruing to space, and thus
merely throw the difficulty of origination a step farther back, without gaining
additional light as to primary causation." (p. 5.)
This
is precisely what has been done by the believers in an anthropomorphic Creator,
an extracosmic, instead of an intracosmic God. Many -- most of Mr. Pratt's
subjects, we may say -- are old Kabalistic ideas and theories which he presents
in quite a new garb: "New Aspects" of the Occult in Nature, indeed.
Space, however, viewed as a "Substantial Unity" -- the "living
Source of Life" -- is as the "Un- [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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accepts
revelation as coming from divine yet still finite Beings, the manifested lives,
never from the Unmanifestable ONE LIFE; from those entities, called Primordial
Man, Dhyani-Buddhas, or Dhyan-Chohans, the "Rishi-Prajapati" of the
Hindus, the Elohim or "Sons of God," the Planetary Spirits of all
nations, who have become Gods for men. He also regards the Adi-Sakti -- the
direct emanation of Mulaprakriti, the eternal Root of THAT, and the female
aspect of the Creative Cause Brahma, in her A'kasic form of the Universal Soul
-- as philosophically a Maya, and cause of human Maya. But this view does not
prevent him from believing in its existence so long as it lasts, to wit, for
one Mahamanvantara; nor from applying Akasa, the radiation of Mulaprakriti,* to
practical purposes, connected as the World-Soul is with all natural phenomena,
known or unknown to science.
The
oldest religions of the world -- exoterically, for the esoteric root or foundation
is one -- are the Indian, the Mazdean, and the Egyptian. Then comes the
Chaldean, the outcome of these -- entirely lost to the world now, except in its
disfigured Sabeanism as at present rendered by the archaeologists; then,
passing over a number of religions that will be mentioned later, comes the
Jewish, esoterically, as in the Kabala, following in the line of Babylonian
Magism; exoterically, as in Genesis and the Pentateuch, a collection of
allegorical legends. Read by the light of the Zohar, the initial four chapters
of Genesis are the fragment
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] known Causeless Cause," is the oldest dogma
in Occultism, millenniums earlier than the Pater-AEther of the Greeks and
Latins. So are the "Force and Matter, as Potencies of Space, inseparable,
and the Unknown revealers of the Unknown." They are all found in Aryan
philosophy personified by Visvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc. Still they are
expressed very philosophically, and under many unusual aspects, in the work
referred to.
*
In contradistinction to the manifested universe of matter, the term
Mulaprakriti (from Mula, "the root," and prakriti,
"nature"), or the unmanifested primordial matter -- called by Western
alchemists Adam's Earth -- is applied by the Vedantins to Parabrahmam. Matter
is dual in religious metaphysics, and septenary in esoteric teachings, like
everything else in the universe. As Mulaprakriti, it is undifferentiated and eternal;
as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated and conditioned, according to Svetasvatara
Upanishad, I. 8, and Devi Bhagavata Purana. The author of the Four Lectures on
the Bhagavad Gita, says, in speaking of Mulaprakriti: "From its (the
Logos') objective standpoint, Parabrahmam appears to it as Mulaprakriti. . . .
Of course this Mulaprakriti is material to it, as any material object is
material to us. . . . Parabrahmam is an unconditioned and absolute reality, and
Mulaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown over it." (Theosophist, Vol. VIII.,
p. 304.)
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[[Vol.
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of
a highly philosophical page in the World's Cosmogony. (See Book III., Gupta
Vidya and the Zohar.) Left in their symbolical disguise, they are a nursery
tale, an ugly thorn in the side of science and logic, an evident effect of
Karma. To have let them serve as a prologue to Christianity was a cruel revenge
on the part of the Rabbis, who knew better what their Pentateuch meant. It was
a silent protest against their spoliation, and the Jews have certainly now the
better of their traditional persecutors. The above-named exoteric creeds will
be explained in the light of the Universal doctrine as we proceed with it.
The
Occult Catechism contains the following questions and answers:
"What
is it that ever is?" "Space, the eternal Anupadaka."* "What
is it that ever was?" "The Germ in the Root." "What is it
that is ever coming and going?" "The Great Breath." "Then, there
are three Eternals?" "No, the three are one. That which ever is is
one, that which ever was is one, that which is ever being and becoming is also
one: and this is Space."
"Explain,
oh Lanoo (disciple)." -- "The One is an unbroken Circle (ring) with
no circumference, for it is nowhere and everywhere; the One is the boundless
plane of the Circle, manifesting a diameter only during the manvantaric
periods; the One is the indivisible point found nowhere, perceived everywhere
during those periods; it is the Vertical and the Horizontal, the Father and the
Mother, the summit and base of the Father, the two extremities of the Mother,
reaching in reality nowhere, for the One is the Ring as also the rings that are
within that Ring. Light in darkness and darkness in light: the 'Breath which is
eternal.' It proceeds from without inwardly, when it is everywhere, and from
within outwardly, when it is nowhere -- (i.e., maya,** one of the centres***).
It expands and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Meaning "parentless" -- see farther on.
**
Esoteric philosophy, regarding as Maya (or the illusion of ignorance) every
finite thing, must necessarily view in the same light every intra-Cosmic planet
and body, as being something organised, hence finite. The expression,
therefore, "it proceeds from without inwardly, etc." refers in the
first portion of the sentence to the dawn of the Mahamanvantaric period, or the
great re-evolution after one of the complete periodical dissolutions of every
compound form in Nature (from planet to molecule) into its ultimate essence or
element; and in its second portion, to the partial or local manvantara, which
may be a solar or even a planetary one.
***
By "centre," a centre of energy or a Cosmic focus is meant; when the
so-called "Creation," or formation of a planet, is accomplished by
that force which is designated by the Occultists LIFE and by Science
"energy," then the process takes place [[Footnote continued on next
page]]
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[[Vol.
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contracts
(exhalation and inhalation). When it expands the mother diffuses and scatters;
when it contracts, the mother draws back and ingathers. This produces the
periods of Evolution and Dissolution, Manwantara and Pralaya. The Germ is
invisible and fiery; the Root (the plane of the circle) is cool; but during
Evolution and Manwantara her garment is cold and radiant. Hot Breath is the
Father who devours the progeny of the many-faced Element (heterogeneous); and
leaves the single-faced ones (homogeneous). Cool Breath is the Mother, who
conceives, forms, brings forth, and receives them back into her bosom, to
reform them at the Dawn (of the Day of Brahma, or Manvantara). . . . ."
For
clearer understanding on the part of the general reader, it must be stated that
Occult Science recognises Seven Cosmical Elements -- four entirely physical,
and the fifth (Ether) semi-material, as it will become visible in the air
towards the end of our Fourth Round, to reign supreme over the others during
the whole of the Fifth. The remaining two are as yet absolutely beyond the
range of human perception. These latter will, however, appear as presentments
during the 6th and 7th Races of this Round, and will become known in the 6th
and 7th Rounds respectively.* These seven elements with their numberless
Sub-Elements
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] from within outwardly, every atom being said to
contain in itself creative energy of the divine breath. Hence, whereas after an
absolute pralaya, or when the pre-existing material consists but of ONE
Element, and BREATH "is everywhere," the latter acts from without
inwardly: after a minor pralaya, everything having remained in statu quo -- in
a refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon -- at the first flutter of
manvantara, the planet or planets begin their resurrection to life from within
outwardly.
*
It is curious to notice how, in the evolutionary cycles of ideas, ancient
thought seems to be reflected in modern speculation. Had Mr. Herbert Spencer
read and studied ancient Hindu philosophers when he wrote a certain passage in
his "First Principles" (p. 482), or is it an independent flash of
inner perception that made him say half correctly, half incorrectly,
"motion as well as matter, being fixed in quantity (?), it would seem that
the change in the distribution of Matter which Motion effects, coming to a
limit in whichever direction it is carried (?), the indestructible Motion
thereupon necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally
co-existent forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have seen,
necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the Universe, also
necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes -- produce now an
immeasurable period during which the attracting forces predominating, cause
universal concentration, and then an immeasurable period, during which the
repulsive forces predominating, cause universal diffusion -- alternate eras of
Evolution and dissolution."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 13 PROEM.
far
more numerous than those known to Science) are simply conditional modifications
and aspects of the ONE and only Element. This latter is not Ether,* not even
A'kasa but the Source of these. The Fifth Element, now advocated quite freely
by Science, is not the Ether hypothesised by Sir Isaac Newton -- although he
calls it by that name, having associated it in his mind probably with the
AEther, "Father-Mother" of Antiquity. As Newton intuitionally says,
"Nature is a perpetual circulatory worker, generating fluids out of
solids, fixed things out of volatile, and volatile out of fixed, subtile out of
gross, and gross out of subtile. . . . . Thus, perhaps, may all things be
originated from Ether," (Hypoth, 1675).
The
reader has to bear in mind that the Stanzas given treat only of the Cosmogony
of our own planetary System and what is visible around it, after a Solar
Pralaya. The secret teachings with regard to the Evolution of the Universal
Kosmos cannot be given, since they could not be understood by the highest minds
in this age, and there seem to be very few Initiates, even among the greatest,
who are allowed to speculate upon this subject. Moreover the Teachers say
openly that not even the highest Dhyani-Chohans have ever penetrated the
mysteries beyond those boundaries that separate the milliards of Solar systems
from the "Central Sun," as it is called. Therefore, that which is
given, relates only to our visible Kosmos, after a "Night of Brahma."
Before
the reader proceeds to the consideration of the Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan
which form the basis of the present work, it is absolutely necessary that he
should be made acquainted with the few fundamental conceptions which underlie
and pervade the entire system of thought to which his attention is invited.
These basic ideas are few in number, and on their clear apprehension depends
the understanding of all that follows; therefore no apology is required for
asking the reader to make himself familiar with them first, before entering on
the perusal of the work itself.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Whatever the views of physical Science upon the subject, Occult Science has
been teaching for ages that A'kasa -- of which Ether is the grossest form --
the fifth universal Cosmic Principle (to which corresponds and from which
proceeds human Manas) is, cosmically, a radiant, cool, diathermanous plastic
matter, creative in its physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects
and portions, immutable in its higher principles. In the former condition it is
called the Sub-Root; and in conjunction with radiant heat, it recalls
"dead worlds to life." In its higher aspect it is the Soul of the
World; in its lower -- the DESTROYER.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 14 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The
Secret Doctrine establishes three fundamental propositions:--
(a)
An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE on which all
speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception and
could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. It is beyond the
range and reach of thought -- in the words of Mandukya, "unthinkable and
unspeakable."
To
render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with the
postulate that there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested,
conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause -- dimly formulated in the
"Unconscious" and "Unknowable" of current European
philosophy -- is the rootless root of "all that was, is, or ever shall
be." It is of course devoid of all attributes and is essentially without
any relation to manifested, finite Being. It is "Be-ness" rather than
Being (in Sanskrit, Sat), and is beyond all thought or speculation.
This
"Be-ness" is symbolised in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On
the one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, the one
thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or conceive
of by itself. On the other, absolute Abstract Motion representing Unconditioned
Consciousness. Even our Western thinkers have shown that Consciousness is
inconceivable to us apart from change, and motion best symbolises change, its
essential characteristic. This latter aspect of the one Reality, is also symbolised
by the term "The Great Breath," a symbol sufficiently graphic to need
no further elucidation. Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret
Doctrine is this metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE -- BE-NESS -- symbolised by finite
intelligence as the theological Trinity.
It
may, however, assist the student if a few further explanations are given here.
Herbert
Spencer has of late so far modified his Agnosticism, as to assert that the
nature of the "First Cause,"* which the Occultist more logically derives
from the "Causeless Cause," the "Eternal," and the
"Unknowable," may be essentially the same as that of the
Consciousness which wells up within us: in short, that the impersonal reality
pervading
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "first" presupposes necessarily something which is the
"first brought forth, the first in time, space, and rank" -- and
therefore finite and conditioned. The "first" [[Footnote continued on
next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 15 PROEM.
the
Kosmos is the pure noumenon of thought. This advance on his part brings him
very near to the esoteric and Vedantin tenet.*
Parabrahm
(the One Reality, the Absolute) is the field of Absolute Consciousness, i.e.,
that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence, and of
which conscious existence is a conditioned symbol. But once that we pass in
thought from this (to us) Absolute Negation, duality supervenes in the contrast
of Spirit (or consciousness) and Matter, Subject and Object.
Spirit
(or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as independent
realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm), which
constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective.
Considering
this metaphysical triad as the Root from which proceeds all manifestation, the
great Breath assumes the character of precosmic Ideation. It is the fons et
origo of force and of all individual consciousness, and supplies the guiding
intelligence in the vast scheme of cosmic Evolution. On the other hand,
precosmic root-substance (Mulaprakriti) is that aspect of the Absolute which
underlies all the objective planes of Nature.
Just
as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual consciousness, so
pre-Cosmic Substance is the substratum of matter in the various grades of its
differentiation.
Hence
it will be apparent that the contrast of these two aspects of the Absolute is
essential to the existence of the "Manifested Universe." Apart from
Cosmic Substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest as individual
consciousness, since it is only through a vehicle** of matter that
consciousness wells up as "I am I," a physical basis being necessary
to focus a ray of the Universal Mind at a certain stage of complexity. Again,
apart from Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty abstraction,
and no emergence of consciousness could ensue.
The
"Manifested Universe," therefore, is pervaded by duality, which is,
as it were, the very essence of its EX-istence as "manifestation."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] cannot be the absolute, for it is a manifestation.
Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All the "Causeless One
Cause," the "Rootless Root," and limits the "First
Cause" to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this term.
*
See Mr. Subba Row's four able lectures on the Bhagavad Gita,
"Theosophist," February, 1887.
**
Called in Sanskrit: "Upadhi."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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But
just as the opposite poles of subject and object, spirit and matter, are but
aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized, so, in the manifested
Universe, there is "that" which links spirit to matter, subject to
object.
This
something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by the occultists
Fohat. It is the "bridge" by which the "Ideas" existing in
the "Divine Thought" are impressed on Cosmic substance as the
"laws of Nature." Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic
Ideation; or, regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the
guiding power of all manifestation, the "Thought Divine" transmitted
and made manifest through the Dhyan Chohans,* the Architects of the visible
World. Thus from Spirit, or Cosmic Ideation, comes our consciousness; from
Cosmic Substance the several vehicles in which that consciousness is
individualised and attains to self -- or reflective -- consciousness; while
Fohat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious link between Mind and
Matter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life.
The
following summary will afford a clearer idea to the reader.
(1.)
The ABSOLUTE; the Parabrahm of the Vedantins or the one Reality, SAT, which is,
as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and Non-Being.
(2.)
The first manifestation, the impersonal, and, in philosophy, unmanifested
Logos, the precursor of the "manifested." This is the "First
Cause," the "Unconscious" of European Pantheists.
(3.)
Spirit-matter, LIFE; the "Spirit of the Universe," the Purusha and
Prakriti, or the second Logos.
(4.)
Cosmic Ideation, MAHAT or Intelligence, the Universal World-Soul; the Cosmic
Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations in and of Nature,
also called MAHA-BUDDHI.
The
ONE REALITY; its dual aspects in the conditioned Universe.
Further,
the Secret Doctrine affirms:--
(b.)
The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane; periodically
"the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and
disappearing," called "the manifesting stars," and the
"sparks of Eternity." "The Eternity of the Pilgrim"** is
like a wink
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Called by Christian theology: Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc.
**
"Pilgrim" is the appellation given to our Monad (the two in one)
during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only immortal and eternal principle
in us, being an indivisible part of the integral whole -- the Universal Spirit,
from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the end of the cycle.
When it is said to emanate from the one [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 17 PROEM.
of
the Eye of Self-Existence (Book of Dzyan.) "The appearance and
disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb of flux and reflux."
(See Part II., "Days and Nights of Brahma.")
This
second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is the absolute universality of that
law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow, which physical science
has observed and recorded in all departments of nature. An alternation such as
that of Day and Night, Life and Death, Sleeping and Waking, is a fact so
common, so perfectly universal and without exception, that it is easy to
comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of the
universe.
Moreover,
the Secret Doctrine teaches:--
(c)
The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul, the latter
being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage for
every Soul -- a spark of the former -- through the Cycle of Incarnation (or
"Necessity") in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic law, during the
whole term. In other words, no purely spiritual Buddhi (divine Soul) can have
an independent (conscious) existence before the spark which issued from the
pure Essence of the Universal Sixth principle, -- or the OVER-SOUL, -- has (a)
passed through every elemental form of the phenomenal world of that Manvantara,
and (b) acquired individuality, first by natural impulse, and then by
self-induced and self-devised efforts (checked by its Karma), thus ascending
through all the degrees of intelligence, from the lowest to the highest Manas,
from mineral and plant, up to the holiest archangel (Dhyani-Buddha). The
pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special
gifts in man, save those won by his own Ego through personal effort and merit
throughout a long series of metempsychoses and reincarnations. This is why the
Hindus say that the Universe is Brahma and Brahmâ, for Brahma is in every atom
of the universe, the six principles in Nature being all the outcome -- the
variously differentiated aspects -- of the SEVENTH and ONE, the only reality in
the Universe whether Cosmical or micro-cosmical; and also why the permutations
(psychic, spiritual and physical), on the plane of manifestation and form, of
the sixth (Brahmâ the vehicle of Brahma) are viewed by metaphysical
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has
to be used, for lack of appropriate words in English. The Vedantins call it
Sutratma (Thread-Soul), but their explanation, too, differs somewhat from that
of the occultists; to explain which difference, however, is left to the
Vedantins themselves.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 18 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
antiphrasis
as illusive and Mayavic. For although the root of every atom individually and
of every form collectively, is that seventh principle or the one Reality,
still, in its manifested phenomenal and temporary appearance, it is no better
than an evanescent illusion of our senses. (See, for clearer definition,
Addendum "Gods, Monads and Atoms," and also "Theophania,"
"Bodhisatvas and Reincarnation," etc., etc.)
In
its absoluteness, the One Principle under its two aspects (of Parabrahmam and
Mulaprakriti) is sexless, unconditioned and eternal. Its periodical
(manvantaric) emanation -- or primal radiation -- is also One, androgynous and
phenomenally finite. When the radiation radiates in its turn, all its
radiations are also androgynous, to become male and female principles in their
lower aspects. After Pralaya, whether the great or the minor Pralaya (the
latter leaving the worlds in statu quo*), the first that re-awakes to active
life is the plastic A'kasa, Father-Mother, the Spirit and Soul of Ether, or the
plane on the surface of the Circle. Space is called the "Mother"
before its Cosmic activity, and Father-Mother at the first stage of
re-awakening. (See Comments, Stanza II.) In the Kabala it is also
Father-Mother-Son. But whereas in the Eastern doctrine, these are the Seventh
Principle of the manifested Universe, or its "Atma-Buddhi-Manas"
(Spirit, Soul, Intelligence), the triad branching off and dividing into the
seven cosmical and seven human principles, in the Western Kabala of the
Christian mystics it is the Triad or Trinity, and with their occultists, the
male-female Jehovah, Jah-Havah. In this lies the whole difference between the
esoteric and the Christian trinities. The Mystics and the Philosophers, the
Eastern and Western Pantheists, synthesize their pregenetic triad in the pure
divine abstraction. The orthodox, anthropomorphize it. Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and
Sankara -- the three hypostases of the manifesting "Spirit of the Supreme
Spirit" (by which title Prithivi -- the Earth -- greets Vishnu in his
first Avatar) -- are the purely metaphysical abstract qualities of formation,
preservation, and destruction, and are the three divine Avasthas (lit.
hypostases) of that which "does
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is not the physical organisms that remain in statu quo, least of all their
psychical principles, during the great Cosmic or even Solar pralayas, but only
their Akasic or astral "photographs." But during the minor pralayas,
once over-taken by the "Night," the planets remain intact, though
dead, as a huge animal, caught and embedded in the polar ice, remains the same
for ages.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 19 PROEM.
not
perish with created things" (or Achyuta, a name of Vishnu); whereas the
orthodox Christian separates his personal creative Deity into the three
personages of the Trinity, and admits of no higher Deity. The latter, in
Occultism, is the abstract Triangle; with the orthodox, the perfect Cube. The
creative god or the aggregate gods are regarded by the Eastern philosopher as
Bhrantidarsanatah -- "false apprehension," something "conceived
of, by reason of erroneous appearances, as a material form," and explained
as arising from the illusive conception of the Egotistic personal and human
Soul (lower fifth principle). It is beautifully expressed in a new translation
of Vishnu Purana. "That Brahma in its totality has essentially the aspect
of Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved (Mulaprakriti), and also the aspect of
Spirit and the aspect of Time. Spirit, O twice born, is the leading aspect of
the Supreme Brahma.* The next is a twofold aspect, -- Prakriti, both evolved
and unevolved, and is the time last." Kronos is shown in the Orphic
theogony as being also a generated god or agent.
At
this stage of the re-awakening of the Universe, the sacred symbolism represents
it as a perfect Circle with the (root) point in the Centre. This sign was
universal, therefore we find it in the Kabala also. The Western Kabala,
however, now in the hands of Christian mystics, ignores it altogether, though
it is plainly shown in the Zohar. These sectarians begin at the end, and show
as the symbol of pregenetic Kosmos this sign [[diagram]], calling it "the
Union of the Rose and Cross," the great mystery of occult generation, from
whence the name -- Rosicrucians (Rose Cross)!
As
may be judged, however, from the most important, as the best known of the
Rosicrucians' symbols, there is one which has never been hitherto understood
even by modern mystics. It is that of the "Pelican" tearing open its
breast to feed its seven little ones -- the real creed of the Brothers of the
Rosie-Cross and a direct outcome from the Eastern
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Thus Spencer, who, nevertheless, like Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, only
reflects an aspect of the old esoteric philosophers, and hence lands his
readers on the bleak shore of Agnostic despair -- reverently formulates the
grand mystery; "that which persists unchanging in quantity, but ever
changing in form, under these sensible appearances which the Universe presents
to us, is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognise as
without limit in Space and without beginning or end in time." It is only
daring Theology -- never Science or philosophy -- which seeks to gauge the
Infinite and unveil the Fathomless and Unknowable.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Secret
Doctrine. Brahma (neuter) is called Kalahansa, meaning, as explained by Western
Orientalists, the Eternal Swan or goose (see Stanza III., Comment. 8), and so
is Brahma, the Creator. A great mistake is thus brought under notice; it is
Brahma (neuter) who ought to be referred to as Hansa-vahana (He who uses the
swan as his Vehicle) and not Brahma the Creator, who is the real Kalahansa,
while Brahma (neuter) is hamsa, and "A-hamsa," as will be explained
in the Commentary. Let it be understood that the terms Brahma and Parabrahmam
are not used here because they belong to our Esoteric nomenclature, but simply
because they are more familiar to the students in the West. Both are the
perfect equivalents of our one, three, and seven vowelled terms, which stand
for the ONE ALL, and the One "All in all."
Such
are the basic conceptions on which the Secret Doctrine rests.
It
would not be in place here to enter upon any defence or proof of their inherent
reasonableness; nor can I pause to show how they are, in fact, contained --
though too often under a misleading guise -- in every system of thought or
philosophy worthy of the name.
Once
that the reader has gained a clear comprehension of them and realised the light
which they throw on every problem of life, they will need no further
justification in his eyes, because their truth will be to him as evident as the
sun in heaven. I pass on, therefore, to the subject matter of the Stanzas as
given in this volume, adding a skeleton outline of them, in the hope of thereby
rendering the task of the student more easy, by placing before him in a few
words the general conception therein explained.
Stanza
I. The history of cosmic evolution, as traced in the Stanzas, is, so to say,
the abstract algebraical formula of that Evolution. Hence the student must not
expect to find there an account of all the stages and transformations which
intervene between the first beginnings of "Universal" evolution and
our present state. To give such an account would be as impossible as it would
be incomprehensible to men who cannot even grasp the nature of the plane of
existence next to that to which, for the moment, their consciousness is
limited.
The
Stanzas, therefore, give an abstract formula which can be applied, mutatis
mutandis, to all evolution: to that of our tiny earth, to
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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that
of the chain of planets of which that earth forms one, to the solar Universe to
which that chain belongs, and so on, in an ascending scale, till the mind reels
and is exhausted in the effort.
The
seven Stanzas given in this volume represent the seven terms of this abstract
formula. They refer to, and describe the seven great stages of the evolutionary
process, which are spoken of in the Puranas as the "Seven Creations,"
and in the Bible as the "Days" of Creation.
---------------------
The
First Stanza describes the state of the ONE ALL during Pralaya, before the
first flutter of re-awakening manifestation.
A
moment's thought shows that such a state can only be symbolised; to describe it
is impossible. Nor can it be symbolised except in negatives; for, since it is
the state of Absoluteness per se, it can possess none of those specific
attributes which serve us to describe objects in positive terms. Hence that
state can only be suggested by the negatives of all those most abstract
attributes which men feel rather than conceive, as the remotest limits
attainable by their power of conception.
The
stage described in Stanza II. is, to a western mind, so nearly identical with
that mentioned in the first Stanza, that to express the idea of its difference
would require a treatise in itself. Hence it must be left to the intuition and
the higher faculties of the reader to grasp, as far as he can, the meaning of
the allegorical phrases used. Indeed it must be remembered that all these
Stanzas appeal to the inner faculties rather than to the ordinary comprehension
of the physical brain.
Stanza
III. describes the Re-awakening of the Universe to life after Pralaya. It
depicts the emergence of the "Monads" from their state of absorption
within the ONE; the earliest and highest stage in the formation of
"Worlds," the term Monad being one which may apply equally to the
vastest Solar System or the tiniest atom.
Stanza
IV. shows the differentiation of the "Germ" of the Universe
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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into
the septenary hierarchy of conscious Divine Powers, who are the active
manifestations of the One Supreme Energy. They are the framers, shapers, and
ultimately the creators of all the manifested Universe, in the only sense in
which the name "Creator" is intelligible; they inform and guide it;
they are the intelligent Beings who adjust and control evolution, embodying in
themselves those manifestations of the ONE LAW, which we know as "The Laws
of Nature."
Generically,
they are known as the Dhyan Chohans, though each of the various groups has its
own designation in the Secret Doctrine.
This
stage of evolution is spoken of in Hindu mythology as the "Creation"
of the Gods.
In
Stanza V. the process of world-formation is described:--- First, diffused
Cosmic Matter, then the fiery "whirlwind," the first stage in the
formation of a nebula. That nebula condenses, and after passing through various
transformations, forms a Solar Universe, a planetary chain, or a single planet,
as the case may be.
The
subsequent stages in the formation of a "World" are indicated in
Stanza VI., which brings the evolution of such a world down to its fourth great
period, corresponding to the period in which we are now living.
Stanza
VII. continues the history, tracing the descent of life down to the appearance
of Man; and thus closes the first Book of the Secret Doctrine.
The
development of "Man" from his first appearance on this earth in this
Round to the state in which we now find him will form the subject of Book II.
---------------------
NOTE.
The
Stanzas which form the thesis of every section are given throughout in their
modern translated version, as it would be worse
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 23 PROEM.
than
useless to make the subject still more difficult by introducing the archaic
phraseology of the original, with its puzzling style and words. Extracts are
given from the Chinese Thibetan and Sanskrit translations of the original
Senzar Commentaries and Glosses on the Book of DZYAN -- these being now
rendered for the first time into a European language. It is almost unnecessary
to state that only portions of the seven Stanzas are here given. Were they
published complete they would remain incomprehensible to all save the few
higher occultists. Nor is there any need to assure the reader that, no more
than most of the profane, does the writer, or rather the humble recorder,
understand those forbidden passages. To facilitate the reading, and to avoid
the too frequent reference to foot-notes, it was thought best to blend together
texts and glosses, using the Sanskrit and Tibetan proper names whenever those
cannot be avoided, in preference to giving the originals. The more so as the
said terms are all accepted synonyms, the former only being used between a
Master and his chelas (or disciples).
Thus,
were one to translate into English, using only the substantives and technical
terms as employed in one of the Tibetan and Senzar versions, Verse I would read
as follows:--- "Tho-ag in Zhi-gyu slept seven Khorlo. Zodmanas zhiba. All
Nyug bosom. Konch-hog not; Thyan-Kam not; Lha-Chohan not; Tenbrel Chugnyi not;
Dharmakaya ceased; Tgenchang not become; Barnang and Ssa in Ngovonyidj; alone
Tho-og Yinsin in night of Sun-chan and Yong-grub (Parinishpanna), &c.,
&c.," which would sound like pure Abracadabra.
As
this work is written for the instruction of students of Occultism, and not for
the benefit of philologists, we may well avoid such foreign terms wherever it
is possible to do so. The untranslateable terms alone, incomprehensible unless
explained in their meanings, are left, but all such terms are rendered in their
Sanskrit form. Needless to remind the reader that these are, in almost every
case, the late developments of the later language, and pertain to the Fifth
Root-Race. Sanskrit, as now known, was not spoken by the Atlanteans, and most
of the philosophical terms used in the systems of the India of the
post-Mahabharatan period are not found in the Vedas, nor are they to be met
with in the original Stanzas, but only their equivalents. The reader who is not
a Theosophist, is once more invited to regard all that which follows as a fairy
tale, if he likes; at best as one of the yet unproven speculations of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 24 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
dreamers;
and, at the worst, as an additional hypothesis to the many Scientific
hypotheses past, present and future, some exploded, others still lingering. It
is not in any sense worse than are many of the so called Scientific theories;
and it is in every case more philosophical and probable.
In
view of the abundant comments and explanations required, the references to the
footnotes are given in the usual way, while the sentences to be commented upon
are marked with figures. Additional matter will be found in the Chapters on
Symbolism forming Part II., as well as in Part III., these being often more
full of information than the text.
---------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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PART
I.
COSMIC
EVOLUTION.
---------------------
SEVEN
STANZAS TRANSLATED WITH COMMENTARIES
FROM
THE
SECRET
BOOK OF DZYAN.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page 26]]
Nor
Aught nor Nought existed; yon bright sky
Was
not, nor heaven's broad roof outstretched above.
What
covered all? what sheltered? what concealed?
Was
it the water's fathomless abyss?
There
was not death -- yet there was nought immortal,
There
was no confine betwixt day and night;
The
only One breathed breathless by itself,
Other
than It there nothing since has been.
Darkness
there was, and all at first was veiled
In
gloom profound -- an ocean without light --
The
germ that still lay covered in the husk
Burst
forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.
.
. . . . . . .
Who
knows the secret? who proclaimed it here?
Whence,
whence this manifold creation sprang?
The
Gods themselves came later into being --
Who
knows from whence this great creation sprang?
That,
whence all this great creation came,
Whether
Its will created or was mute,
The
Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He
knows it -- or perchance even He knows not."
"Gazing
into eternity . . .
Ere
the foundations of the earth were laid,
.
. . . .
Thou
wert. And when the subterranean flame
Shall
burst its prison and devour the frame . . .
Thou
shalt be still as Thou wert before
And
knew no change, when time shall be no more.
Oh!
endless thought, divine ETERNITY."
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[[Vol.
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COSMIC
EVOLUTION.
In
Seven Stanzas translated from the Book of Dzyan.
---------------------
STANZA
I.
1.
THE ETERNAL PARENT WRAPPED IN HER EVER INVISIBLE ROBES HAD SLUMBERED ONCE AGAIN
FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES.
2.
TIME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE BOSOM OF DURATION.
3.
UNIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR THERE WERE NO AH-HI TO CONTAIN IT.
4.
THE SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS WERE NOT. THE GREAT CAUSES OF MISERY WERE NOT, FOR
THERE WAS NO ONE TO PRODUCE AND GET ENSNARED BY THEM.
5.
DARKNESS ALONE FILLED THE BOUNDLESS ALL, FOR FATHER, MOTHER AND SON WERE ONCE
MORE ONE, AND THE SON HAD NOT AWAKENED YET FOR THE NEW WHEEL, AND HIS
PILGRIMAGE THEREON.
6.
THE SEVEN SUBLIME LORDS AND THE SEVEN TRUTHS HAD CEASED TO BE, AND THE
UNIVERSE, THE SON OF NECESSITY, WAS IMMERSED IN PARANISHPANNA, TO BE OUTBREATHED
BY THAT WHICH IS AND YET IS NOT. NAUGHT WAS.
7.
THE CAUSES OF EXISTENCE HAD BEEN DONE AWAY WITH; THE VISIBLE THAT WAS, AND THE
INVISIBLE THAT IS, RESTED IN ETERNAL NON-BEING -- THE ONE BEING.
8.
ALONE THE ONE FORM OF EXISTENCE STRETCHED BOUNDLESS, INFINITE, CAUSELESS, IN
DREAMLESS SLEEP; AND LIFE PULSATED UNCONSCIOUS IN UNIVERSAL SPACE, THROUGHOUT
THAT ALL-PRESENCE WHICH IS SENSED BY THE OPENED EYE OF THE DANGMA.
9.
BUT WHERE WAS THE DANGMA WHEN THE ALAYA OF THE UNIVERSE WAS IN PARAMARTHA AND
THE GREAT WHEEL WAS ANUPADAKA?
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[[Vol.
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STANZA
II.
1.
. . . WHERE WERE THE BUILDERS, THE LUMINOUS SONS OF MANVANTARIC DAWN? . . . IN
THE UNKNOWN DARKNESS IN THEIR AH-HI PARANISHPANNA. THE PRODUCERS OF FORM FROM
NO-FORM -- THE ROOT OF THE WORLD -- THE DEVAMATRI AND SVABHAVAT, RESTED IN THE
BLISS OF NON-BEING.
2.
. . . WHERE WAS SILENCE? WHERE THE EARS TO SENSE IT? NO, THERE WAS NEITHER SILENCE
NOR SOUND; NAUGHT SAVE CEASELESS ETERNAL BREATH, WHICH KNOWS ITSELF NOT.
3.
THE HOUR HAD NOT YET STRUCK; THE RAY HAD NOT YET FLASHED INTO THE GERM; THE
MATRIPADMA HAD NOT YET SWOLLEN.
4.
HER HEART HAD NOT YET OPENED FOR THE ONE RAY TO ENTER, THENCE TO FALL, AS THREE
INTO FOUR, INTO THE LAP OF MAYA.
5.
THE SEVEN SONS WERE NOT YET BORN FROM THE WEB OF LIGHT. DARKNESS ALONE WAS
FATHER-MOTHER, SVABHAVAT; AND SVABHAVAT WAS IN DARKNESS.
6.
THESE TWO ARE THE GERM, AND THE GERM IS ONE. THE UNIVERSE WAS STILL CONCEALED
IN THE DIVINE THOUGHT AND THE DIVINE BOSOM. . . .
-------
STANZA
III.
1.
. . . THE LAST VIBRATION OF THE SEVENTH ETERNITY THRILLS THROUGH INFINITUDE.
THE MOTHER SWELLS, EXPANDING FROM WITHIN WITHOUT, LIKE THE BUD OF THE LOTUS.
2.
THE VIBRATION SWEEPS ALONG, TOUCHING WITH ITS SWIFT WING THE WHOLE UNIVERSE AND
THE GERM THAT DWELLETH IN DARKNESS: THE DARKNESS THAT BREATHES OVER THE
SLUMBERING WATERS OF LIFE. . .
3.
DARKNESS RADIATES LIGHT, AND LIGHT DROPS ONE SOLITARY RAY INTO THE MOTHER-DEEP.
THE RAY SHOOTS THROUGH THE VIRGIN EGG, THE RAY CAUSES THE ETERNAL EGG TO
THRILL, AND DROP THE NON-ETERNAL GERM, WHICH CONDENSES INTO THE WORLD-EGG.
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4.
THEN THE THREE FALL INTO THE FOUR. THE RADIANT ESSENCE BECOMES SEVEN INSIDE,
SEVEN OUTSIDE. THE LUMINOUS EGG, WHICH IN ITSELF IS THREE, CURDLES AND SPREADS
IN MILK-WHITE CURDS THROUGHOUT THE DEPTHS OF MOTHER, THE ROOT THAT GROWS IN THE
DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN OF LIFE.
5.
THE ROOT REMAINS, THE LIGHT REMAINS, THE CURDS REMAIN, AND STILL OEAOHOO IS
ONE.
6.
THE ROOT OF LIFE WAS IN EVERY DROP OF THE OCEAN OF IMMORTALITY, AND THE OCEAN
WAS RADIANT LIGHT, WHICH WAS FIRE, AND HEAT, AND MOTION. DARKNESS VANISHED AND
WAS NO MORE; IT DISAPPEARED IN ITS OWN ESSENCE, THE BODY OF FIRE AND WATER, OR
FATHER AND MOTHER.
7.
BEHOLD, OH LANOO! THE RADIANT CHILD OF THE TWO, THE UNPARALLELED REFULGENT
GLORY: BRIGHT SPACE SON OF DARK SPACE, WHICH EMERGES FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE
GREAT DARK WATERS. IT IS OEAOHOO THE YOUNGER, THE * * * HE SHINES FORTH AS THE
SON; HE IS THE BLAZING DIVINE DRAGON OF WISDOM; THE ONE IS FOUR, AND FOUR TAKES
TO ITSELF THREE,** AND THE UNION PRODUCES THE SAPTA, IN WHOM ARE THE SEVEN
WHICH BECOME THE TRIDASA (OR THE HOSTS AND THE MULTITUDES). BEHOLD HIM LIFTING
THE VEIL AND UNFURLING IT FROM EAST TO WEST. HE SHUTS OUT THE ABOVE, AND LEAVES
THE BELOW TO BE SEEN AS THE GREAT ILLUSION. HE MARKS THE PLACES FOR THE SHINING
ONES, AND TURNS THE UPPER INTO A SHORELESS SEA OF FIRE, AND THE ONE MANIFESTED
INTO THE GREAT WATERS.
8.
WHERE WAS THE GERM AND WHERE WAS NOW DARKNESS? WHERE IS THE SPIRIT OF THE FLAME
THAT BURNS IN THY LAMP, OH LANOO? THE GERM IS THAT, AND THAT IS LIGHT, THE
WHITE BRILLIANT SON OF THE DARK HIDDEN FATHER.
9.
LIGHT IS COLD FLAME, AND FLAME IS FIRE, AND FIRE PRODUCES HEAT, WHICH YIELDS
WATER: THE WATER OF LIFE IN THE GREAT MOTHER.
10.
FATHER-MOTHER SPIN A WEB WHOSE UPPER END IS FASTENED TO SPIRIT -- THE LIGHT OF
THE ONE DARKNESS -- AND THE LOWER ONE TO ITS SHADOWY END, MATTER; AND THIS WEB
IS THE UNIVERSE SPUN OUT OF THE TWO SUBSTANCES MADE IN ONE, WHICH IS SVABHAVAT.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
**
In the English translation from the Sanskrit the numbers are given in that
language, Eka, Chatur, etc., etc. It was thought best to give them in English.
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[[Vol.
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11.
IT EXPANDS WHEN THE BREATH OF FIRE IS UPON IT; IT CONTRACTS WHEN THE BREATH OF
THE MOTHER TOUCHES IT. THEN THE SONS DISSOCIATE AND SCATTER, TO RETURN INTO
THEIR MOTHER'S BOSOM AT THE END OF THE GREAT DAY, AND RE-BECOME ONE WITH HER;
WHEN IT IS COOLING IT BECOMES RADIANT, AND THE SONS EXPAND AND CONTRACT THROUGH
THEIR OWN SELVES AND HEARTS; THEY EMBRACE INFINITUDE.
12.
THEN SVABHAVAT SENDS FOHAT TO HARDEN THE ATOMS. EACH IS A PART OF THE WEB.
REFLECTING THE "SELF-EXISTENT LORD" LIKE A MIRROR, EACH BECOMES IN
TURN A WORLD.
-------
STANZA
IV.
1.
. . . LISTEN, YE SONS OF THE EARTH, TO YOUR INSTRUCTORS -- THE SONS OF THE
FIRE. LEARN, THERE IS NEITHER FIRST NOR LAST, FOR ALL IS ONE: NUMBER ISSUED
FROM NO NUMBER.
2.
LEARN WHAT WE WHO DESCEND FROM THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, WE WHO ARE BORN FROM THE
PRIMORDIAL FLAME, HAVE LEARNT FROM OUR FATHERS. . . .
3.
FROM THE EFFULGENCY OF LIGHT -- THE RAY OF THE EVER-DARKNESS -- SPRUNG IN SPACE
THE RE-AWAKENED ENERGIES; THE ONE FROM THE EGG, THE SIX, AND THE FIVE. THEN THE
THREE, THE ONE, THE FOUR, THE ONE, THE FIVE -- THE TWICE SEVEN THE SUM TOTAL.
AND THESE ARE THE ESSENCES, THE FLAMES, THE ELEMENTS, THE BUILDERS, THE
NUMBERS, THE ARUPA, THE RUPA, AND THE FORCE OF DIVINE MAN -- THE SUM TOTAL. AND
FROM THE DIVINE MAN EMANATED THE FORMS, THE SPARKS, THE SACRED ANIMALS, AND THE
MESSENGERS OF THE SACRED FATHERS WITHIN THE HOLY FOUR.
4.
THIS WAS THE ARMY OF THE VOICE -- THE DIVINE MOTHER OF THE SEVEN. THE SPARKS OF
THE SEVEN ARE SUBJECT TO, AND THE SERVANTS OF, THE FIRST, THE SECOND, THE
THIRD, THE FOURTH, THE FIFTH, THE SIXTH, AND THE SEVENTH OF THE SEVEN. THESE
"SPARKS" ARE CALLED SPHERES, TRIANGLES, CUBES, LINES, AND MODELLERS;
FOR THUS STANDS THE ETERNAL NIDANA -- THE OEAOHOO, WHICH IS:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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5.
"DARKNESS" THE BOUNDLESS, OR THE NO-NUMBER, ADI-NIDANA SVABHAVAT:--
I.
THE ADI-SANAT, THE NUMBER, FOR HE IS ONE.
II.
THE VOICE OF THE LORD SVABHAVAT, THE NUMBERS, FOR HE IS ONE AND NINE.
III.
THE "FORMLESS SQUARE."
AND
THESE THREE ENCLOSED WITHIN THE [[diagram]] ARE THE SACRED FOUR; AND THE TEN
ARE THE ARUPA UNIVERSE. THEN COME THE "SONS," THE SEVEN FIGHTERS, THE
ONE, THE EIGHTH LEFT OUT, AND HIS BREATH WHICH IS THE LIGHT-MAKER.
6.
THEN THE SECOND SEVEN, WHO ARE THE LIPIKA, PRODUCED BY THE THREE. THE REJECTED
SON IS ONE. THE "SON-SUNS" ARE COUNTLESS.
-------
STANZA
V.
1.
THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, THE FIRST SEVEN BREATHS OF THE DRAGON OF WISDOM, PRODUCE
IN THEIR TURN FROM THEIR HOLY CIRCUMGYRATING BREATHS THE FIERY WHIRLWIND.
2.
THEY MAKE OF HIM THE MESSENGER OF THEIR WILL. THE DZYU BECOMES FOHAT, THE SWIFT
SON OF THE DIVINE SONS WHOSE SONS ARE THE LIPIKA, RUNS CIRCULAR ERRANDS. FOHAT
IS THE STEED AND THE THOUGHT IS THE RIDER. HE PASSES LIKE LIGHTNING THROUGH THE
FIERY CLOUDS; TAKES THREE, AND FIVE, AND SEVEN STRIDES THROUGH THE SEVEN
REGIONS ABOVE, AND THE SEVEN BELOW. HE LIFTS HIS VOICE, AND CALLS THE
INNUMERABLE SPARKS, AND JOINS THEM.
3.
HE IS THEIR GUIDING SPIRIT AND LEADER. WHEN HE COMMENCES WORK, HE SEPARATES THE
SPARKS OF THE LOWER KINGDOM THAT FLOAT AND THRILL WITH JOY IN THEIR RADIANT
DWELLINGS, AND FORMS THEREWITH THE GERMS OF WHEELS. HE PLACES THEM IN THE SIX
DIRECTIONS OF SPACE, AND ONE IN THE MIDDLE -- THE CENTRAL WHEEL.
4.
FOHAT TRACES SPIRAL LINES TO UNITE THE SIXTH TO THE SEVENTH -- THE CROWN; AN
ARMY OF THE SONS OF LIGHT STANDS AT EACH ANGLE, AND THE LIPIKA IN THE MIDDLE
WHEEL, THEY SAY: THIS IS GOOD, THE
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[[Vol.
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FIRST
DIVINE WORLD IS READY, THE FIRST IS NOW THE SECOND. THEN THE "DIVINE
ARUPA" REFLECTS ITSELF IN CHHAYA LOKA, THE FIRST GARMENT OF THE ANUPADAKA.
5.
FOHAT TAKES FIVE STRIDES AND BUILDS A WINGED WHEEL AT EACH CORNER OF THE
SQUARE, FOR THE FOUR HOLY ONES AND THEIR ARMIES.
6.
THE LIPIKA CIRCUMSCRIBE THE TRIANGLE, THE FIRST ONE, THE CUBE, THE SECOND ONE,
AND THE PENTACLE WITHIN THE EGG. IT IS THE RING CALLED "PASS NOT" FOR
THOSE WHO DESCEND AND ASCEND. ALSO FOR THOSE WHO DURING THE KALPA ARE
PROGRESSING TOWARDS THE GREAT DAY "BE WITH US." THUS WERE FORMED THE
RUPA AND THE ARUPA: FROM ONE LIGHT SEVEN LIGHTS; FROM EACH OF THE SEVEN, SEVEN
TIMES SEVEN LIGHTS. THE WHEELS WATCH THE RING. . . . .
-------
STANZA
VI.
1.
BY THE POWER OF THE MOTHER OF MERCY AND KNOWLEDGE -- KWAN-YIN -- THE
"TRIPLE" OF KWAN-SHAI-YIN, RESIDING IN KWAN-YIN-TIEN, FOHAT, THE
BREATH OF THEIR PROGENY, THE SON OF THE SONS, HAVING CALLED FORTH, FROM THE
LOWER ABYSS, THE ILLUSIVE FORM OF SIEN-TCHANG AND THE SEVEN ELEMENTS:*
2.
THE SWIFT AND RADIANT ONE PRODUCES THE SEVEN LAYA CENTRES, AGAINST WHICH NONE
WILL PREVAIL TO THE GREAT DAY "BE-WITH-US," AND SEATS THE UNIVERSE ON
THESE ETERNAL FOUNDATIONS SURROUNDING TSIEN-TCHAN WITH THE ELEMENTARY GERMS.
3.
OF THE SEVEN -- FIRST ONE MANIFESTED, SIX CONCEALED, TWO MANIFESTED, FIVE
CONCEALED; THREE MANIFESTED, FOUR CONCEALED; FOUR PRODUCED, THREE HIDDEN; FOUR
AND ONE TSAN REVEALED, TWO AND ONE HALF CONCEALED; SIX TO BE MANIFESTED, ONE
LAID ASIDE. LASTLY, SEVEN SMALL WHEELS REVOLVING; ONE GIVING BIRTH TO THE
OTHER.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Verse 1 of Stanza VI. is of a far later date than the other Stanzas, though
still very ancient. The old text of this verse, having names entirely unknown
to the Orientalists would give no clue to the student.
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[[Vol.
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4.
HE BUILDS THEM IN THE LIKENESS OF OLDER WHEELS, PLACING THEM ON THE
IMPERISHABLE CENTRES.
HOW
DOES FOHAT BUILD THEM? HE COLLECTS THE FIERY DUST. HE MAKES BALLS OF FIRE, RUNS
THROUGH THEM, AND ROUND THEM, INFUSING LIFE THEREINTO THEN' SETS THEM INTO
MOTION; SOME ONE WAY, SOME THE OTHER WAY. THEY ARE COLD, HE MAKES THEM HOT.
THEY ARE DRY, HE MAKES THEM MOIST. THEY SHINE, HE FANS AND COOLS THEM. THUS
ACTS FOHAT FROM ONE TWILIGHT TO THE OTHER, DURING SEVEN ETERNITIES.
5.
AT THE FOURTH, THE SONS ARE TOLD TO CREATE THEIR IMAGES. ONE THIRD REFUSES --
TWO OBEY.
THE
CURSE IS PRONOUNCED; THEY WILL BE BORN ON THE FOURTH, SUFFER AND CAUSE
SUFFERING; THIS IS THE FIRST WAR.
6.
THE OLDER WHEELS ROTATED DOWNWARDS AND UPWARDS. . . . THE MOTHER'S SPAWN FILLED
THE WHOLE. THERE WERE BATTLES FOUGHT BETWEEN THE CREATORS AND THE DESTROYERS,
AND BATTLES FOUGHT FOR SPACE; THE SEED APPEARING AND RE-APPEARING CONTINUOUSLY.
7.
MAKE THY CALCULATIONS, LANOO, IF THOU WOULDEST LEARN THE CORRECT AGE OF THY
SMALL WHEEL. ITS FOURTH SPOKE IS OUR MOTHER. REACH THE FOURTH "FRUIT"
OF THE FOURTH PATH OF KNOWLEDGE THAT LEADS TO NIRVANA, AND THOU SHALT
COMPREHEND, FOR THOU SHALT SEE . . . . .
-------
STANZA
VII.
1.
BEHOLD THE BEGINNING OF SENTIENT FORMLESS LIFE.
FIRST
THE DIVINE, THE ONE FROM THE MOTHER-SPIRIT; THEN THE SPIRITUAL; THE THREE FROM
THE ONE, THE FOUR FROM THE ONE, AND THE FIVE FROM WHICH THE THREE, THE FIVE,
AND THE SEVEN. THESE ARE THE THREE-FOLD, THE FOUR-FOLD DOWNWARD; THE
"MIND-BORN" SONS OF THE FIRST LORD; THE SHINING SEVEN.
IT
IS THEY WHO ARE THOU, ME, HIM, OH LANOO. THEY, WHO WATCH OVER THEE, AND THY
MOTHER EARTH.
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[[Vol.
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2.
THE ONE RAY MULTIPLIES THE SMALLER RAYS. LIFE PRECEDES FORM, AND LIFE SURVIVES
THE LAST ATOM OF FORM. THROUGH THE COUNTLESS RAYS PROCEEDS THE LIFE-RAY, THE
ONE, LIKE A THREAD THROUGH MANY JEWELS.
3.
WHEN THE ONE BECOMES TWO, THE THREEFOLD APPEARS, AND THE THREE ARE ONE; AND IT
IS OUR THREAD, OH LANOO, THE HEART OF THE MAN-PLANT CALLED SAPTASARMA.
4.
IT IS THE ROOT THAT NEVER DIES; THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME OF THE FOUR WICKS. THE
WICKS ARE THE SPARKS, THAT DRAW FROM THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME SHOT OUT BY THE
SEVEN -- THEIR FLAME -- THE BEAMS AND SPARKS OF ONE MOON REFLECTED IN THE
RUNNING WAVES OF ALL THE RIVERS OF EARTH.
5.
THE SPARK HANGS FROM THE FLAME BY THE FINEST THREAD OF FOHAT. IT JOURNEYS
THROUGH THE SEVEN WORLDS OF MAYA. IT STOPS IN THE FIRST, AND IS A METAL AND A
STONE; IT PASSES INTO THE SECOND AND BEHOLD -- A PLANT; THE PLANT WHIRLS
THROUGH SEVEN CHANGES AND BECOMES A SACRED ANIMAL. FROM THE COMBINED ATTRIBUTES
OF THESE, MANU, THE THINKER IS FORMED. WHO FORMS HIM? THE SEVEN LIVES, AND THE
ONE LIFE. WHO COMPLETES HIM? THE FIVE-FOLD LHA. AND WHO PERFECTS THE LAST BODY?
FISH, SIN, AND SOMA. . . . .
6.
FROM THE FIRST-BORN THE THREAD BETWEEN THE SILENT WATCHER AND HIS SHADOW
BECOMES MORE STRONG AND RADIANT WITH EVERY CHANGE. THE MORNING SUN-LIGHT HAS
CHANGED INTO NOON-DAY GLORY. . . . .
7.
THIS IS THY PRESENT WHEEL, SAID THE FLAME TO THE SPARK. THOU ART MYSELF, MY
IMAGE, AND MY SHADOW. I HAVE CLOTHED MYSELF IN THEE, AND THOU ART MY VAHAN TO
THE DAY, "BE WITH US," WHEN THOU SHALT RE-BECOME MYSELF AND OTHERS,
THYSELF AND ME. THEN THE BUILDERS, HAVING DONNED THEIR FIRST CLOTHING, DESCEND
ON RADIANT EARTH AND REIGN OVER MEN -- WHO ARE THEMSELVES. . . .
Thus
ends this portion of the archaic narrative, dark, confused, almost
incomprehensible. An attempt will now be made to throw light into this
darkness, to make sense out of this apparent NON-SENSE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 35 STANZA I.
COMMENTARIES
ON
THE SEVEN STANZAS AND THEIR TERMS, ACCORDING TO THEIR NUMERATION, IN STANZAS
AND SLOKAS.
STANZA
I.
1.
"THE ETERNAL PARENT (Space), WRAPPED IN HER EVER INVISIBLE ROBES, HAD
SLUMBERED ONCE AGAIN FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES (a)."
The
"Parent Space" is the eternal, ever present cause of all -- the
incomprehensible DEITY, whose "invisible robes" are the mystic root
of all matter, and of the Universe. Space is the one eternal thing that we can
most easily imagine, immovable in its abstraction and uninfluenced by either
the presence or absence in it of an objective Universe. It is without
dimension, in every sense, and self-existent. Spirit is the first
differentiation from THAT, the causeless cause of both Spirit and Matter. It
is, as taught in the esoteric catechism, neither limitless void, nor
conditioned fulness, but both. It was and ever will be. (See Proem pp. 2 et
seq.)
Thus,
the "Robes" stand for the noumenon of undifferentiated Cosmic Matter.
It is not matter as we know it, but the spiritual essence of matter, and is
co-eternal and even one with Space in its abstract sense. Root-nature is also
the source of the subtile invisible properties in visible matter. It is the
Soul, so to say, of the ONE infinite Spirit. The Hindus call it Mulaprakriti,
and say that it is the primordial substance, which is the basis of the Upadhi
or vehicle of every phenomenon, whether physical, mental or psychic. It is the
source from which Akasa radiates.
(a)
By the Seven "Eternities," aeons or periods are meant. The word "Eternity,"
as understood in Christian theology, has no meaning to the Asiatic ear, except
in its application to the ONE existence; nor is
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[[Vol.
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the
term sempiternity, the eternal only in futurity, anything better than a
misnomer.* Such words do not and cannot exist in philosophical metaphysics, and
were unknown till the advent of ecclesiastical Christianity. The Seven
Eternities meant are the seven periods, or a period answering in its duration
to the seven periods, of a Manvantara, and extending throughout a Maha-Kalpa or
the "Great Age" -- 100 years of Brahma -- making a total of
311,040,000,000,000 of years; each year of Brahma being composed of 360
"days," and of the same number of "nights" of Brahma
(reckoning by the Chandrayana or lunar year); and a "Day of Brahma"
consisting of 4,320,000,000 of mortal years. These "Eternities"
belong to the most secret calculations, in which, in order to arrive at the
true total, every figure must be 7x (7 to the power of x); x varying according
to the nature of the cycle in the subjective or real world; and every figure or
number relating to, or representing all the different cycles from the greatest
to the smallest -- in the objective or unreal world -- must necessarily be
multiples of seven. The key to this cannot be given, for herein lies the
mystery of esoteric calculations, and for the purposes of ordinary calculation
it has no sense. "The number seven," says the Kabala, "is the
great number of the Divine Mysteries;" number ten is that of all human
knowledge (Pythagorean decade); 1,000 is the number ten to the third power, and
therefore the number 7,000 is also symbolical. In the Secret Doctrine the figure
and number 4 are the male symbol only on the highest plane of abstraction; on
the plane of matter the 3 is the masculine and the 4 the female: the upright
and the horizontal in the fourth stage of symbolism, when the symbols became
the glyphs of the generative powers on the physical plane.
-------
STANZA
I. -- Continued.
2.
TIME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE BOSOM OF DURATION (a).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is stated in Book II., ch. viii., of Vishnu Purana: "By immortality is
meant existence to the end of the Kalpa;" and Wilson, the translator,
remarks in a footnote: "This, according to the Vedas, is all that is to be
understood of the immortality (or eternity) of the gods; they perish at the end
of universal dissolution (or Pralaya)." And Esoteric philosophy says: They
"perish" not, but are re-absorbed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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(a)
Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of
consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist
where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced; but
"lies asleep." The present is only a mathematical line which divides
that part of eternal duration which we call the future, from that part which we
call the past. Nothing on earth has real duration, for nothing remains without
change -- or the same -- for the billionth part of a second; and the sensation
we have of the actuality of the division of "time" known as the
present, comes from the blurring of that momentary glimpse, or succession of
glimpses, of things that our senses give us, as those things pass from the
region of ideals which we call the future, to the region of memories that we
name the past. In the same way we experience a sensation of duration in the
case of the instantaneous electric spark, by reason of the blurred and
continuing impression on the retina. The real person or thing does not consist
solely of what is seen at any particular moment, but is composed of the sum of
all its various and changing conditions from its appearance in the material
form to its disappearance from the earth. It is these "sum-totals"
that exist from eternity in the "future," and pass by degrees through
matter, to exist for eternity in the "past." No one could say that a
bar of metal dropped into the sea came into existence as it left the air, and
ceased to exist as it entered the water, and that the bar itself consisted only
of that cross-section thereof which at any given moment coincided with the
mathematical plane that separates, and, at the same time, joins, the atmosphere
and the ocean. Even so of persons and things, which, dropping out of the to-be
into the has-been, out of the future into the past -- present momentarily to
our senses a cross-section, as it were, of their total selves, as they pass
through time and space (as matter) on their way from one eternity to another:
and these two constitute that "duration" in which alone anything has
true existence, were our senses but able to cognize it there.
-------
STANZA
I. -- Continued.
3.
. . . UNIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR THERE WERE NO AH-HI (celestial beings) TO
CONTAIN (hence to manifest) IT (a).
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[[Vol.
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(a)
Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of Consciousness grouped under
Thought, Will, and Feeling. During deep sleep, ideation ceases on the physical
plane, and memory is in abeyance; thus for the time-being "Mind is
not," because the organ, through which the Ego manifests ideation and
memory on the material plane, has temporarily ceased to function. A noumenon
can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that
plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle; and during the long night of
rest called Pralaya, when all the existences are dissolved, the "UNIVERSAL
MIND" remains as a permanent possibility of mental action, or as that
abstract absolute thought, of which mind is the concrete relative
manifestation. The AH-HI (Dhyan-Chohans) are the collective hosts of spiritual
beings -- the Angelic Hosts of Christianity, the Elohim and "Messengers"
of the Jews -- who are the vehicle for the manifestation of the divine or
universal thought and will. They are the Intelligent Forces that give to and
enact in Nature her "laws," while themselves acting according to laws
imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers; but they are not
"the personifications" of the powers of Nature, as erroneously
thought. This hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the Universal Mind
comes into action, is like an army -- a "Host," truly -- by means of
which the fighting power of a nation manifests itself, and which is composed of
army corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, and so forth, each with its
separate individuality or life, and its limited freedom of action and limited
responsibilities; each contained in a larger individuality, to which its own
interests are subservient, and each containing lesser individualities in
itself.
-------
STANZA
I. -- Continued.
4.
THE SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS (Moksha* or Nirvana) WERE NOT (a). THE GREAT CAUSES OF
MISERY (Nidana** and Maya) WERE NOT, FOR THERE WAS NO ONE TO PRODUCE AND GET
ENSNARED BY THEM (b).
(a)
There are seven "Paths" or "Ways" to the bliss of
Non-Exist-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Nippang in China; Neibban in Burmah; or Moksha in India.
**
The "12" Nidanas (in Tibetan Ten-brel chug-nyi) the chief causes of
existence, effects generated by a concatenation of causes produced (see
Comment. II).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 39 THE CAUSES OF BEING.
ence,
which is absolute Being, Existence, and Consciousness. They were not, because
the Universe was, so far, empty, and existed only in the Divine Thought. For it
is . . .
(b)
The twelve Nidanas or causes of being. Each is the effect of its antecedent
cause, and a cause, in its turn, to its successor; the sum total of the Nidanas
being based on the four truths, a doctrine especially characteristic of the
Hinayana System.* They belong to the theory of the stream of catenated law
which produces merit and demerit, and finally brings Karma into full sway. It
is based upon the great truth that re-incarnation is to be dreaded, as
existence in this world only entails upon man suffering, misery and pain; Death
itself being unable to deliver man from it, since death is merely the door
through which he passes to another life on earth after a little rest on its
threshold -- Devachan. The Hinayana System, or School of the "Little
Vehicle," is of very ancient growth; while the Mahayana is of a later
period, having originated after the death of Buddha. Yet the tenets of the
latter are as old as the hills that have contained such schools from time
immemorial, and the Hinayana and Mahayana Schools (the latter, that of the
"Great Vehicle") both teach the same doctrine in reality. Yana, or
Vehicle (in Sanskrit, Vahan) is a mystic expression, both "vehicles"
inculcating that man may escape the sufferings of rebirths and even the false
bliss of Devachan, by obtaining Wisdom and Knowledge, which alone can dispel
the Fruits of Illusion and Ignorance.
Maya
or illusion is an element which enters into all finite things, for everything
that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality, since the appearance
which the hidden noumenon assumes for any observer depends upon his power of
cognition. To the untrained eye of the savage, a painting is at first an
unmeaning confusion of streaks and daubs of color, while an educated eye sees
instantly a face or a landscape. Nothing is permanent except the one hidden
absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities. The
existences belonging to every plane of being, up to the highest Dhyan-Chohans,
are, in degree, of the nature of shadows cast by a magic lantern on a
colourless screen; but all things are relatively real, for the cogniser is also
a reflection, and the things cognised are therefore as real to him as himself.
Whatever reality things possess must be looked for in them
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Wassilief on Buddhism, pp. 97-950.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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before
or after they have passed like a flash through the material world; but we
cannot cognise any such existence directly, so long as we have
sense-instruments which bring only material existence into the field of our
consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and
the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities.
As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages
through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward
progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance
bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached
"reality;" but only when we shall have reached the absolute
Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions
produced by Maya.
-------
STANZA
I. -- Continued.
5.
DARKNESS ALONE FILLED THE BOUNDLESS ALL (a), FOR FATHER, MOTHER AND SON WERE
ONCE MORE ONE, AND THE SON HAD NOT AWAKENED YET FOR THE NEW WHEEL* AND HIS
PILGRIMAGE THEREON (b).
(a)
"Darkness is Father-Mother: light their son," says an old Eastern
proverb. Light is inconceivable except as coming from some source which is the
cause of it; and as, in the instance of primordial light, that source is
unknown, though as strongly demanded by reason and logic, therefore it is
called "Darkness" by us, from an intellectual point of view. As to
borrowed or secondary light, whatever its source, it can be but of a temporary
mayavic character. Darkness, then, is the eternal
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
That which is called "wheel" is the symbolical expression for a world
or globe, which shows that the ancients were aware that our Earth was a
revolving globe, not a motionless square as some Christian Fathers taught. The
"Great Wheel" is the whole duration of our Cycle of being, or Maha
Kalpa, i.e., the whole revolution of our special chain of seven planets or
Spheres from beginning to end; the "Small Wheels" meaning the Rounds,
of which there are also Seven.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 41 WHAT IS DARKNESS IN PHILOSOPHY?
matrix
in which the sources of light appear and disappear. Nothing is added to
darkness to make of it light, or to light to make it darkness, on this our
plane. They are interchangeable, and scientifically light is but a mode of
darkness and vice versa. Yet both are phenomena of the same noumenon -- which
is absolute darkness to the scientific mind, and but a gray twilight to the
perception of the average mystic, though to that of the spiritual eye of the
Initiate it is absolute light. How far we discern the light that shines in
darkness depends upon our powers of vision. What is light to us is darkness to
certain insects, and the eye of the clairvoyant sees illumination where the
normal eye perceives only blackness. When the whole universe was plunged in
sleep -- had returned to its one primordial element -- there was neither centre
of luminosity, nor eye to perceive light, and darkness necessarily filled the
boundless all.
(b)
The Father-Mother are the male and female principles in root-nature, the
opposite poles that manifest in all things on every plane of Kosmos, or Spirit
and Substance, in a less allegorical aspect, the resultant of which is the
Universe, or the Son. They are "once more One" when in "The
Night of Brahma," during Pralaya, all in the objective Universe has
returned to its one primal and eternal cause, to reappear at the following Dawn
-- as it does periodically. "Karana" -- eternal cause -- was alone.
To put it more plainly: Karana is alone during the "Nights of
Brahma." The previous objective Universe has dissolved into its one primal
and eternal cause, and is, so to say, held in solution in space, to
differentiate again and crystallize out anew at the following Manvantaric dawn,
which is the commencement of a new "Day" or new activity of Brahma --
the symbol of the Universe. In esoteric parlance, Brahma is Father-Mother-Son,
or Spirit, Soul and Body at once; each personage being symbolical of an
attribute, and each attribute or quality being a graduated efflux of Divine
Breath in its cyclic differentiation, involutionary and evolutionary. In the
cosmicophysical sense, it is the Universe, the planetary chain and the earth;
in the purely spiritual, the Unknown Deity, Planetary Spirit, and Man -- the
Son of the two, the creature of Spirit and Matter, and a manifestation of them
in his periodical appearances on Earth during the "wheels," or the
Manvantaras. -- (See Part II. §: "Days and Nights of Brahma.")
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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STANZA
I. -- Continued.
6.
THE SEVEN SUBLIME LORDS AND THE SEVEN TRUTHS HAD CEASED TO BE (a), AND THE
UNIVERSE, THE SON OF NECESSITY, WAS IMMERSED IN PARANISHPANNA (b) (absolute
perfection, Paranirvana, which is Yong-Grub) TO BE OUT-BREATHED BY THAT WHICH
IS AND YET IS NOT. NAUGHT WAS (c).
(a)
The seven sublime lords are the Seven Creative Spirits, the Dhyan-Chohans, who
correspond to the Hebrew Elohim. It is the same hierarchy of Archangels to
which St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and others belong, in the Christian theogony.
Only while St. Michael, for instance, is allowed in dogmatic Latin theology to
watch over all the promontories and gulfs, in the Esoteric System, the Dhyanis
watch successively over one of the Rounds and the great Root-races of our
planetary chain. They are, moreover, said to send their Bhodisatvas, the human
correspondents of the Dhyani-Buddhas (of whom vide infra) during every Round
and Race. Out of the Seven Truths and Revelations, or rather revealed secrets,
four only have been handed to us, as we are still in the Fourth Round, and the
world also has only had four Buddhas, so far. This is a very complicated
question, and will receive more ample treatment later on.
So
far "There are only Four Truths, and Four Vedas" -- say the Hindus
and Buddhists. For a similar reason Irenaeus insisted on the necessity of Four
Gospels. But as every new Root-race at the head of a Round must have its
revelation and revealers, the next Round will bring the Fifth, the following
the Sixth, and so on.
(b)
"Paranishpanna" is the absolute perfection to which all existences
attain at the close of a great period of activity, or Maha-Manvantara, and in
which they rest during the succeeding period of repose. In Tibetan it is called
Yong-Grub. Up to the day of the Yogacharya school the true nature of
Paranirvana was taught publicly, but since then it has become entirely
esoteric; hence so many contradictory interpretations of it. It is only a true
Idealist who can understand it. Everything has to be viewed as ideal, with the
exception of Paranirvana, by him who would comprehend that state, and acquire a
knowledge of how Non Ego, Voidness, and Darkness are Three in One and alone
Self-existent and perfect. It is absolute, however, only in a relative
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 43 MOTIONS, THE "GREAT BREATH."
sense,
for it must give room to still further absolute perfection, according to a
higher standard of excellence in the following period of activity -- just as a
perfect flower must cease to be a perfect flower and die, in order to grow into
a perfect fruit, -- if a somewhat Irish mode of expression may be permitted.
The
Secret Doctrine teaches the progressive development of everything, worlds as
well as atoms; and this stupendous development has neither conceivable
beginning nor imaginable end. Our "Universe" is only one of an
infinite number of Universes, all of them "Sons of Necessity,"
because links in the great Cosmic chain of Universes, each one standing in the
relation of an effect as regards its predecessor, and being a cause as regards
its successor.
The
appearance and disappearance of the Universe are pictured as an outbreathing
and inbreathing of "the Great Breath," which is eternal, and which,
being Motion, is one of the three aspects of the Absolute -- Abstract Space and
Duration being the other two. When the "Great Breath" is projected,
it is called the Divine Breath, and is regarded as the breathing of the
Unknowable Deity -- the One Existence -- which breathes out a thought, as it
were, which becomes the Kosmos. (See "Isis Unveiled.") So also is it
when the Divine Breath is inspired again the Universe disappears into the bosom
of "the Great Mother," who then sleeps "wrapped in her invisible
robes."
(c)
By "that which is and yet is not" is meant the Great Breath itself,
which we can only speak of as absolute existence, but cannot picture to our
imagination as any form of existence that we can distinguish from
Non-existence. The three periods -- the Present, the Past, and the Future --
are in the esoteric philosophy a compound time; for the three are a composite
number only in relation to the phenomenal plane, but in the realm of noumena
have no abstract validity. As said in the Scriptures: "The Past time is
the Present time, as also the Future, which, though it has not come into existence,
still is"; according to a precept in the Prasanga Madhyamika teaching,
whose dogmas have been known ever since it broke away from the purely esoteric
schools.* Our ideas, in short, on duration and time are all derived from our
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Dzungarian "Mani Kumbum," the "Book of the 10,000
Precepts." Also consult Wassilief's "Der Buddhismus," pp. 327
and 357, etc.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 44 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
sensations
according to the laws of Association. Inextricably bound up with the relativity
of human knowledge, they nevertheless can have no existence except in the
experience of the individual ego, and perish when its evolutionary march
dispels the Maya of phenomenal existence. What is Time, for instance, but the
panoramic succession of our states of consciousness? In the words of a Master,
"I feel irritated at having to use these three clumsy words -- Past, Present,
and Future -- miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective
whole, they are about as ill-adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine
carving." One has to acquire Paramartha lest one should become too easy a
prey to Samvriti -- is a philosophical axiom.*
-------
STANZA
I. -- Continued.
7.
THE CAUSES OF EXISTENCE HAD BEEN DONE AWAY WITH (a); THE VISIBLE THAT WAS, AND
THE INVISIBLE THAT IS, RESTED IN ETERNAL NON-BEING, THE ONE BEING (b).
(a)
"The Causes of Existence" mean not only the physical causes known to
science, but the metaphysical causes, the chief of which is the desire to
exist, an outcome of Nidana and Maya. This desire for a sentient life shows
itself in everything, from an atom to a sun, and is a reflection of the Divine
Thought propelled into objective existence, into a law that the Universe should
exist. According to esoteric teaching, the real cause of that supposed desire,
and of all existence, remains for ever hidden, and its first emanations are the
most complete abstractions mind can conceive. These abstractions must of
necessity be postulated as the cause of the material Universe which presents
itself to the senses and intellect; and they underlie the secondary and
subordinate powers of Nature, which, anthropomorphized, have been worshipped as
God and gods by the common herd of every age. It is impossible to conceive
anything without a cause; the attempt to do so makes the mind a blank.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In clearer words: "One has to acquire true Self-Consciousness in order to
understand Samvriti, or the 'origin of delusion.'" Paramartha is the
synonym of the Sanskrit term Svasam-vedana, or "the reflection which
analyses itself." There is a difference in the interpretation of the
meaning of "Paramartha" between the Yogacharyas and the Madhyamikas,
neither of whom, however, explain the real and true esoteric sense of the
expression. See further, sloka No. 9.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 45 BEING AND NON-BEING.
This
is virtually the condition to which the mind must come at last when we try to
trace back the chain of causes and effects, but both science and religion jump
to this condition of blankness much more quickly than is necessary; for they
ignore the metaphysical abstractions which are the only conceivable cause of
physical concretions. These abstractions become more and more concrete as they
approach our plane of existence, until finally they phenomenalise in the form
of the material Universe, by a process of conversion of metaphysics into
physics, analogous to that by which steam can be condensed into water, and the
water frozen into ice.
(b)
The idea of Eternal Non-Being, which is the One Being, will appear a paradox to
anyone who does not remember that we limit our ideas of being to our present
consciousness of existence; making it a specific, instead of a generic term. An
unborn infant, could it think in our acceptation of that term, would
necessarily limit its conception of being, in a similar manner, to the
intrauterine life which alone it knows; and were it to endeavour to express to
its consciousness the idea of life after birth (death to it), it would, in the
absence of data to go upon, and of faculties to comprehend such data, probably
express that life as "Non-Being which is Real Being." In our case the
One Being is the noumenon of all the noumena which we know must underlie
phenomena, and give them whatever shadow of reality they possess, but which we
have not the senses or the intellect to cognize at present. The impalpable
atoms of gold scattered through the substance of a ton of auriferous quartz may
be imperceptible to the naked eye of the miner, yet he knows that they are not
only present there but that they alone give his quartz any appreciable value;
and this relation of the gold to the quartz may faintly shadow forth that of
the noumenon to the phenomenon. But the miner knows what the gold will look
like when extracted from the quartz, whereas the common mortal can form no
conception of the reality of things separated from the Maya which veils them,
and in which they are hidden. Alone the Initiate, rich with the lore acquired
by numberless generations of his predecessors, directs the "Eye of
Dangma" toward the essence of things in which no Maya can have any
influence. It is here that the teachings of esoteric philosophy in relation to
the Nidanas and the Four Truths become of the greatest importance; but they are
secret.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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STANZA
I. -- Continued.
8.
ALONE, THE ONE FORM OF EXISTENCE STRETCHED BOUNDLESS, INFINITE, CAUSELESS, IN
DREAMLESS SLEEP (a); AND LIFE PULSATED UNCONSCIOUS IN UNIVERSAL SPACE,
THROUGHOUT THAT ALL-PRESENCE WHICH IS SENSED BY THE "OPENED EYE"* OF
THE DANGMA (b).**
(a)
The tendency of modern thought is to recur to the archaic idea of a homogeneous
basis for apparently widely different things -- heterogeneity developed from
homogeneity. Biologists are now searching for their homogeneous protoplasm and
chemists for their protyle, while science is looking for the force of which
electricity, magnetism, heat, and so forth, are the differentiations. The
Secret Doctrine carries this idea into the region of metaphysics and postulates
a "One Form of Existence" as the basis and source of all things. But
perhaps the phrase, the "One Form of Existence," is not altogether
correct. The Sanskrit word is Prabhavapyaya, "the place, or rather plane,
whence emerges the origination, and into which is the resolution of all
things," says a commentator. It is not the "Mother of the
World," as translated by Wilson (see Book I., Vishnu Purana); for Jagad
Yoni (as shown by FitzEdward Hall) is scarcely so much "the Mother of the
World" or "the Womb of the World" as the "Material Cause of
the Universe." The Puranic Commentators explain it by Karana --
"Cause" -- but the Esoteric philosophy, by the ideal spirit of that
cause. It is, in its secondary stage, the Svabhavat of the Buddhist
philosopher, the eternal cause and effect, omnipresent yet abstract, the
self-existent plastic Essence and the root of all things, viewed in the same
dual light as the Vedantin views his Parabrahm and Mulaprakriti, the one under
two aspects. It seems indeed extraordinary to find great scholars speculating
on the possibility of the Vedanta, and the Uttara-Mimansa especially, having
been "evoked by the teachings of the Buddhists,"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In India it is called "The Eye of Siva," but beyond the great range
it is known as "Dangma's opened eye" in esoteric phraseology.
**
Dangma means a purified soul, one who has become a Jivanmukta, the highest
adept, or rather a Mahatma so-called. His "opened eye" is the inner
spiritual eye of the seer, and the faculty which manifests through it is not
clairvoyance as ordinarily understood, i.e., the power of seeing at a distance,
but rather the faculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain
knowledge is obtainable. This faculty is intimately connected with the
"third eye," which mythological tradition ascribes to certain races
of men. Fuller explanations will be found in Book II.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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whereas,
it is on the contrary Buddhism (of Gautama, the Buddha) that was
"evoked" and entirely upreared on the tenets of the Secret Doctrine,
of which a partial sketch is here attempted, and on which, also, the Upanishads
are made to rest.* The above, according to the teachings of Sri
Sankaracharya,** is undeniable.
(b)
Dreamless sleep is one of the seven states of consciousness known in Oriental
esotericism. In each of these states a different portion of the mind comes into
action; or as a Vedantin would express it, the individual is conscious in a
different plane of his being. The term "dreamless sleep," in this
case is applied allegorically to the Universe to express a condition somewhat
analogous to that state of consciousness in man, which, not being remembered in
a waking state, seems a blank, just as the sleep of the mesmerised subject
seems to him an unconscious blank when he returns to his normal condition,
although he has been talking and acting as a conscious individual would.
-------
STANZA
I. -- Continued.
9.
BUT WHERE WAS THE DANGMA WHEN THE ALAYA OF THE UNIVERSE (Soul as the basis of
all, Anima Mundi) WAS IN PARAMARTHA (a) (Absolute Being and Consciousness which
are Absolute Non-Being and Unconsciousness) AND THE GREAT WHEEL WAS ANUPADAKA
(b)?
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
And yet, one, claiming authority, namely, Sir Monier Williams, Boden Professor
of Sanskrit at Oxford, has just denied this fact. This is what he taught his
audience, on June the 4th, 1888, in his annual address before the Victoria
Institute of Great Britain: "Originally, Buddhism set its face against all
solitary asceticism . . . to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no
occult, no esoteric system of doctrine . . . withheld from ordinary men"
(!!) And, again: " . . . When Gautama Buddha began his career, the later
and lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known." And then,
contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith informs his audience that
"We learn from Lalita-Vistara that various forms of bodily torture,
self-maceration, and austerity were common in Gautama's time." (!!) But the
lecturer seems quite unaware that this kind of torture and self-maceration is
precisely the lower form of Yoga, Hatha Yoga, which was "little
known" and yet so "common" in Gautama's time.
**
It is even argued that all the Six Darsanas (Schools of philosophy) show traces
of Buddha's influence, being either taken from Buddhism or due to Greek
teaching! (See Weber, Max Muller, etc.) We labour under the impression that
Colebrooke, "the highest authority" in such matters, had long ago
settled the question by showing, that "the Hindus were in this instance
the teachers, not the learners."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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(a)
Here we have before us the subject of centuries of scholastic disputations. The
two terms "Alaya" and "Paramartha" have been the causes of
dividing schools and splitting the truth into more different aspects than any
other mystic terms. Alaya is literally the "Soul of the World" or
Anima Mundi, the "Over-Soul" of Emerson, and according to esoteric
teaching it changes periodically its nature. Alaya, though eternal and
changeless in its inner essence on the planes which are unreachable by either
men or Cosmic Gods (Dhyani Buddhas), alters during the active life-period with
respect to the lower planes, ours included. During that time not only the
Dhyani-Buddhas are one with Alaya in Soul and Essence, but even the man strong
in the Yoga (mystic meditation) "is able to merge his soul with it"
(Aryasanga, the Bumapa school). This is not Nirvana, but a condition next to
it. Hence the disagreement. Thus, while the Yogacharyas (of the Mahayana
school) say that Alaya is the personification of the Voidness, and yet Alaya
(Nyingpo and Tsang in Tibetan) is the basis of every visible and invisible
thing, and that, though it is eternal and immutable in its essence, it reflects
itself in every object of the Universe "like the moon in clear tranquil
water"; other schools dispute the statement. The same for Paramartha: the
Yogacharyas interpret the term as that which is also dependent upon other
things (paratantra); and the Madhyamikas say that Paramartha is limited to
Paranishpanna or absolute perfection; i.e., in the exposition of these
"two truths" (out of four), the former believe and maintain that (on
this plane, at any rate) there exists only Samvritisatya or relative truth; and
the latter teach the existence of Paramarthasatya, the "absolute
truth."* "No Arhat, oh mendicants, can reach absolute knowledge
before he becomes one with Paranirvana. Parikalpita and Paratantra are his two
great enemies" (Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas). Parikalpita (in Tibetan
Kun-ttag) is error, made by those unable to realize the emptiness and
illusionary nature of all; who believe something to exist which does not --
e.g., the Non-Ego. And
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Paramartha" is self-consciousness in Sanskrit, Svasamvedana, or the
"self-analysing reflection" -- from two words, parama (above everything)
and artha (comprehension), Satya meaning absolute true being, or Esse. In
Tibetan Paramarthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite of this absolute
reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya -- the relative truth only --
"Samvriti" meaning "false conception" and being the origin
of illusion, Maya; in Tibetan Kundzabchi-denpa, "illusion-creating
appearance."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 49 ALAYA, THE UNIVERSAL SOUL.
Paratantra
is that, whatever it is, which exists only through a dependent or causal
connexion, and which has to disappear as soon as the cause from which it
proceeds is removed -- e.g., the light of a wick. Destroy or extinguish it, and
light disappears.
Esoteric
philosophy teaches that everything lives and is conscious, but not that all
life and consciousness are similar to those of human or even animal beings.
Life we look upon as "the one form of existence," manifesting in what
is called matter; or, as in man, what, incorrectly separating them, we name
Spirit, Soul and Matter. Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation of soul on
this plane of existence, and soul is the vehicle on a higher plane for the
manifestation of spirit, and these three are a trinity synthesized by Life,
which pervades them all. The idea of universal life is one of those ancient
conceptions which are returning to the human mind in this century, as a
consequence of its liberation from anthropomorphic theology. Science, it is
true, contents itself with tracing or postulating the signs of universal life,
and has not yet been bold enough even to whisper "Anima Mundi!" The
idea of "crystalline life," now familiar to science, would have been
scouted half a century ago. Botanists are now searching for the nerves of
plants; not that they suppose that plants can feel or think as animals do, but
because they believe that some structure, bearing the same relation
functionally to plant life that nerves bear to animal life, is necessary to
explain vegetable growth and nutrition. It hardly seems possible that science
can disguise from itself much longer, by the mere use of terms such as
"force" and "energy," the fact that things that have life
are living things, whether they be atoms or planets.
But
what is the belief of the inner esoteric Schools? the reader may ask. What are
the doctrines taught on this subject by the Esoteric "Buddhists"?
With them "Alaya" has a double and even a triple meaning. In the
Yogacharya system of the contemplative Mahayana school, Alaya is both the
Universal Soul (Anima Mundi) and the Self of a progressed adept. "He who
is strong in the Yoga can introduce at will his Alaya by means of meditation
into the true Nature of Existence." The "Alaya has an absolute
eternal existence," says Aryasanga -- the rival of Nagarjuna.* In one
sense it is Pradhana; which
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Aryasanga was a pre-Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist esoteric school,
though Csoma di Koros places him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh
century [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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is
explained in Vishnu Purana as: "that which is the unevolved cause, is
emphatically called by the most eminent sages Pradhana, original base, which is
subtile Prakriti, viz., that which is eternal, and which at once is (or
comprehends) what is and what is not, or is mere process." "Prakriti,"
however, is an incorrect word, and Alaya would explain it better; for Prakriti
is not the "uncognizable Brahma."* It is a mistake of those who know
nothing of the Universality of the Occult doctrines from the very cradle of the
human races, and especially so of those scholars who reject the very idea of a
"primordial revelation," to teach that the Anima Mundi, the One Life
or "Universal Soul," was made known only by Anaxagoras, or during his
age. This philosopher brought the teaching forward simply to oppose the too
materialistic conceptions on Cosmogony of Democritus, based on his exoteric
theory of blindly driven atoms. Anaxagoras of Clazomene was not its inventor
but only its propagator, as also was Plato. That which he called Mundane
Intelligence, the nous ([[nous]]), the principle that according to his views is
absolutely separated and free from matter and acts on design,** was called
Motion, the ONE LIFE, or Jivatma, ages before the year 500 B.C. in India. Only
the Aryan philosophers never endowed the principle, which with them is
infinite, with the finite "attribute" of "thinking."
This
leads the reader naturally to the "Supreme Spirit" of Hegel and the
German Transcendentalists as a contrast that it may be useful to point out. The
schools of Schelling and Fichte have diverged widely from the primitive archaic
conception of an ABSOLUTE principle, and have mirrored only an aspect of the
basic idea of the Vedanta. Even the "Absoluter Geist" shadowed forth
by von Hartman in his pessimistic philosophy of the Unconscious, while it is,
perhaps, the closest approximation made by European speculation to the Hindu
Adwaitee Doctrines, similarly falls far short of the reality.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] A.D. There was another Aryasanga, who lived
during the first centuries of our era and the Hungarian scholar most probably
confuses the two.
*
"The indiscreet cause which is uniform, and both cause and effect, and
which those who are acquainted with first principles call Pradhana and
Prakriti, is the incognizable Brahma who was before all" (Vayu Purana);
i.e., Brahma does not put forth evolution itself or create, but only exhibits
various aspects of itself, one of which is Prakriti, an aspect of Pradhana.
**
Finite Self-consciousness, I mean. For how can the absolute attain it otherwise
than as simply an aspect, the highest of which known to us is human
consciousness?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 51 CAN THE FINITE CONCEIVE THE INFINITE?
According
to Hegel, the "Unconscious" would never have undertaken the vast and
laborious task of evolving the Universe, except in the hope of attaining clear
Self-consciousness. In this connection it is to be borne in mind that in
designating Spirit, which the European Pantheists use as equivalent to
Parabrahm, as unconscious, they do not attach to that expression of
"Spirit" -- one employed in the absence of a better to symbolise a profound
mystery -- the connotation it usually bears.
The
"Absolute Consciousness," they tell us, "behind" phenomena,
which is only termed unconsciousness in the absence of any element of
personality, transcends human conception. Man, unable to form one concept
except in terms of empirical phenomena, is powerless from the very constitution
of his being to raise the veil that shrouds the majesty of the Absolute. Only
the liberated Spirit is able to faintly realise the nature of the source whence
it sprung and whither it must eventually return. . . . As the highest Dhyan
Chohan, however, can but bow in ignorance before the awful mystery of Absolute
Being; and since, even in that culmination of conscious existence -- "the
merging of the individual in the universal consciousness" -- to use a
phrase of Fichte's -- the Finite cannot conceive the Infinite, nor can it apply
to it its own standard of mental experiences, how can it be said that the
"Unconscious" and the Absolute can have even an instinctive impulse or
hope of attaining clear self-consciousness?* A Vedantin would never admit this
Hegelian idea; and the Occultist would say that it applies perfectly to the
awakened MAHAT, the Universal Mind already projected into the phenomenal world
as the first aspect of the changeless ABSOLUTE, but never to the latter.
"Spirit and Matter, or Purusha and Prakriti are but the two primeval
aspects of the One and Secondless," we are taught.
The
matter-moving Nous, the animating Soul, immanent in every atom, manifested in
man, latent in the stone, has different degrees of power; and this pantheistic
idea of a general Spirit-Soul pervading all Nature is the oldest of all the
philosophical notions. Nor was the Archaeus a discovery of Paracelsus nor of
his pupil Van Helmont; for it is again the same Archaeus or
"Father-Ether," -- the manifested basis
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Schwegler's "Handbook of the History of Philosophy" in Sterling's
translation, p. 28.
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[[Vol.
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and
source of the innumerable phenomena of life -- localised. The whole series of
the numberless speculations of this kind are but variations on this theme, the
key-note of which was struck in this primeval Revelation. (See Part II.,
"Primordial Substance.")
(b)
The term Anupadaka, "parentless," or without progenitors, is a
mystical designation having several meanings in the philosophy. By this name
celestial beings, the Dhyan-Chohans or Dhyani-Buddhas, are generally meant. But
as these correspond mystically to the human Buddhas and Bodhisattwas, known as
the "Manushi (or human) Buddhas," the latter are also designated
"Anupadaka," once that their whole personality is merged in their
compound sixth and seventh principles -- or Atma-Buddhi, and that they have
become the "diamond-souled" (Vajra-sattvas),* the full Mahatmas. The
"Concealed Lord" (Sangbai Dag-po), "the one merged with the
absolute," can have no parents since he is Self-existent, and one with the
Universal Spirit (Svayambhu),** the Svabhavat in the highest aspect. The
mystery in the hierarchy of the Anupadaka is great, its apex being the
universal Spirit-Soul, and the lower rung the Manushi-Buddha; and even every
Soul-endowed man is an Anupadaka in a latent state. Hence, when speaking of the
Universe in its formless, eternal, or absolute condition, before it was
fashioned by the "Builders" -- the expression, "the Universe was
Anupadaka." (See Part II., "Primordial Substance.")
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vajra -- diamond-holder. In Tibetan Dorjesempa; sempa meaning the soul, its
adamantine quality referring to its indestructibility in the hereafter. The
explanation with regard to the "Anupadaka" given in the Kala Chakra,
the first in the Gyu(t) division of the Kanjur, is half esoteric. It has misled
the Orientalists into erroneous speculations with respect to the Dhyani-Buddhas
and their earthly correspondencies, the Manushi-Buddhas. The real tenet is
hinted at in a subsequent Volume, (see "The Mystery about Buddha"),
and will be more fully explained in its proper place.
**
To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling practically accepted the Pantheistic
conception of periodical Avatars (special incarnations of the World-Spirit in
Man, as seen in the case of all the great religious reformers) . . . .
"the essence of man is spirit . . . . only by stripping himself of his
finiteness and surrendering himself to pure self-consciousness does he attain
the truth. Christ-man, as man in whom the Unity of God-man (identity of the
individual with the Universal consciousness as taught by the Vedantins and some
Adwaitees) appeared, has, in his death and history generally, himself presented
the eternal history of Spirit -- a history which every man has to accomplish in
himself, in order to exist as Spirit." -- Philosophy of History. Sibree's
English translation, p. 340.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 53 THE STATE OF PARANIRVANA.
STANZA
II.
COMMENTARY.
1.
. . . . WHERE WERE THE BUILDERS, THE LUMINOUS SONS OF MANVANTARIC DAWN (a)? . .
. . IN THE UNKNOWN DARKNESS IN THEIR AH-HI (Chohanic, Dhyani-Buddhic)
PARANISHPANNA, THE PRODUCERS OF FORM (rupa) FROM NO-FORM (arupa), THE ROOT OF
THE WORLD -- THE DEVAMATRI* AND SVABHAVAT, RESTED IN THE BLISS OF NON-BEING
(b).
(a)
The "Builders," the "Sons of Manvantaric Dawn," are the
real creators of the Universe; and in this doctrine, which deals only with our
Planetary System, they, as the architects of the latter, are also called the
"Watchers" of the Seven Spheres, which exoterically are the Seven
planets, and esoterically the seven earths or spheres (planets) of our chain
also. The opening sentence of Stanza I., when mentioning "Seven
Eternities," is made to apply both to the Maha-Kalpa or "the (great)
Age of Brahma," as well as to the Solar pralaya and subsequent
resurrection of our Planetary System on a higher plane. There are many kinds of
pralaya (dissolution of a thing visible), as will be shown elsewhere.
(b)
Paranishpanna, remember, is the summum bonum, the Absolute, hence the same as
Paranirvana. Besides being the final state it is that condition of subjectivity
which has no relation to anything but the one absolute truth (Para-marthasatya)
on its plane. It is that state which leads one to appreciate correctly the full
meaning of Non-Being, which, as explained, is absolute Being. Sooner or later,
all that now seemingly exists, will be in reality and actually in the state of
Paranishpanna. But there is a great difference between conscious and
unconscious "being." The condition of Paranishpanna, without
Paramartha, the Self-analys-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
"Mother
of the Gods," Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the Zohar, she is called Sephira
the Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her primordial form, in
abscondito.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 54 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
ing
consciousness (Svasamvedana), is no bliss, but simply extinction (for Seven
Eternities). Thus, an iron ball placed under the scorching rays of the sun will
get heated through, but will not feel or appreciate the warmth, while a man
will. It is only "with a mind clear and undarkened by personality, and an
assimilation of the merit of manifold existences devoted to being in its
collectivity (the whole living and sentient Universe)," that one gets rid
of personal existence, merging into, becoming one with, the Absolute,* and
continuing in full possession of Paramartha.
-------
STANZA
II. -- Continued.
2.
. . . . WHERE WAS SILENCE? WHERE WERE THE EARS TO SENSE IT? NO! THERE WAS
NEITHER SILENCE, NOR SOUND (a). NAUGHT SAVE CEASELESS, ETERNAL BREATH (Motion)
WHICH KNOWS ITSELF NOT (b).
(a)
The idea that things can cease to exist and still BE, is a fundamental one in
Eastern psychology. Under this apparent contradiction in terms, there rests a
fact of Nature to realise which in the mind, rather than to argue about words,
is the important thing. A familiar instance of a similar paradox is afforded by
chemical combination. The question whether Hydrogen and Oxygen cease to exist,
when they combine to form water, is still a moot one, some arguing that since
they are found again when the water is decomposed they must be there all the
while; others contending that as they actually turn into something totally
different they must cease to exist as themselves for the time being; but
neither side is able to form the faintest conception of the real condition of a
thing, which has become something else and yet has not ceased to be itself.
Existence as water may be said to be, for Oxygen and Hydrogen, a state of
Non-being which is "more real being" than their existence as gases;
and it may faintly symbolise the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Hence Non-being is "ABSOLUTE Being," in esoteric philosophy. In the
tenets of the latter even Adi-Budha (first or primeval wisdom) is, while
manifested, in one sense an illusion, Maya, since all the gods, including
Brahma, have to die at the end of the "Age of Brahma"; the
abstraction called Parabrahm alone -- whether we call it Ensoph, or Herbert
Spencer's Unknowable -- being "the One Absolute" Reality. The One
secondless Existence is ADWAITA, "Without a Second," and all the rest
is Maya, teaches the Adwaita philosophy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 55 THE ABSOLUTE KNOWS ITSELF NOT.
condition
of the Universe when it goes to sleep, or ceases to be, during the "Nights
of Brahma" -- to awaken or reappear again, when the dawn of the new
Manvantara recalls it to what we call existence.
(b)
The "Breath" of the One Existence is used in its application only to
the spiritual aspect of Cosmogony by Archaic esotericism; otherwise, it is
replaced by its equivalent in the material plane -- Motion. The One Eternal
Element, or element-containing Vehicle, is Space, dimensionless in every sense;
co-existent with which are -- endless duration, primordial (hence
indestructible) matter, and motion -- absolute "perpetual motion"
which is the "breath" of the "One" Element. This breath, as
seen, can never cease, not even during the Pralayic eternities. (See
"Chaos, Theos, Kosmos," in Part II.)
But
the "Breath of the One Existence" does not, all the same, apply to
the One Causeless Cause or the "All Be-ness" (in contradistinction to
All-Being, which is Brahma, or the Universe). Brahma (or Hari) the four-faced
god who, after lifting the Earth out of the waters, "accomplished the
Creation," is held to be only the instrumental, and not, as clearly
implied, the ideal Cause. No Orientalist, so far, seems to have thoroughly
comprehended the real sense of the verses in the Purana, that treat of
"creation."
Therein
Brahma is the cause of the potencies that are to be generated subsequently for
the work of "creation." When a translator says, "And from him
proceed the potencies to be created, after they had become the real
cause": "and from IT proceed the potencies that will create as they
become the real cause" (on the material plane) would perhaps be more
correct? Save that one (causeless) ideal cause there is no other to which the
universe can be referred. "Worthiest of ascetics! through its potency --
i.e., through the potency of that cause -- every created thing comes by its
inherent or proper nature." If, in the Vedanta and Nyaya, nimitta is the
efficient cause, as contrasted with upadana, the material cause, (and in the
Sankhya, pradhana implies the functions of both); in the Esoteric philosophy,
which reconciles all these systems, and the nearest exponent of which is the Vedanta
as expounded by the Advaita Vedantists, none but the upadana can be speculated
upon; that which is in the minds of the Vaishnavas (the Vasishta-dvaita) as the
ideal in contradistinction to the real -- or Parabrahm and Isvara -- can find
no room in published speculations, since
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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that
ideal even is a misnomer, when applied to that of which no human reason, even
that of an adept, can conceive.
To
know itself or oneself, necessitates consciousness and perception (both limited
faculties in relation to any subject except Parabrahm), to be cognized. Hence
the "Eternal Breath which knows itself not." Infinity cannot
comprehend Finiteness. The Boundless can have no relation to the bounded and
the conditioned. In the occult teachings, the Unknown and the Unknowable MOVER,
or the Self-Existing, is the absolute divine Essence. And thus being Absolute
Consciousness, and Absolute Motion -- to the limited senses of those who
describe this indescribable -- it is unconsciousness and immoveableness.
Concrete consciousness cannot be predicated of abstract Consciousness, any more
than the quality wet can be predicated of water -- wetness being its own attribute
and the cause of the wet quality in other things. Consciousness implies
limitations and qualifications; something to be conscious of, and someone to be
conscious of it. But Absolute Consciousness contains the cognizer, the thing
cognized and the cognition, all three in itself and all three one. No man is
conscious of more than that portion of his knowledge that happens to have been
recalled to his mind at any particular time, yet such is the poverty of
language that we have no term to distinguish the knowledge not actively thought
of, from knowledge we are unable to recall to memory. To forget is synonymous
with not to remember. How much greater must be the difficulty of finding terms
to describe, and to distinguish between, abstract metaphysical facts or
differences. It must not be forgotten, also, that we give names to things
according to the appearances they assume for ourselves. We call absolute
consciousness "unconsciousness," because it seems to us that it must
necessarily be so, just as we call the Absolute, "Darkness," because
to our finite understanding it appears quite impenetrable, yet we recognize
fully that our perception of such things does not do them justice. We
involuntarily distinguish in our minds, for instance, between unconscious
absolute consciousness, and unconsciousness, by secretly endowing the former
with some indefinite quality that corresponds, on a higher plane than our
thoughts can reach, with what we know as consciousness in ourselves. But this
is not any kind of consciousness that we can manage to distinguish from what
appears to us as unconsciousness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 57 THE GERM OF LIFE.
STANZA
II. -- Continued.
3.
THE HOUR HAD NOT YET STRUCK; THE RAY HAD NOT YET FLASHED INTO THE GERM (a); THE
MATRI-PADMA (mother lotus) HAD NOT YET SWOLLEN (b).*
(a)
The ray of the "Ever Darkness" becomes, as it is emitted, a ray of
effulgent light or life, and flashes into the "Germ" -- the point in
the Mundane Egg, represented by matter in its abstract sense. But the term
"Point" must not be understood as applying to any particular point in
Space, for a germ exists in the centre of every atom, and these collectively
form "the Germ;" or rather, as no atom can be made visible to our
physical eye, the collectivity of these (if the term can be applied to
something which is boundless and infinite) forms the noumenon of eternal and
indestructible matter.
(b)
One of the symbolical figures for the Dual creative power in Nature (matter and
force on the material plane) is Padma, the water-lily of India. The Lotus is
the product of heat (fire) and water (vapour or Ether); fire standing in every
philosophical and religious system as a representation of the Spirit of
Deity,** the active, male, generative principle; and Ether, or the Soul of
matter, the light of the fire, for the passive female principle from which
everything in this Universe emanated. Hence, Ether or Water is the Mother, and
Fire is the Father. Sir W. Jones (and before him archaic botany) showed that
the seeds of the Lotus contain -- even before they germinate -- perfectly
formed leaves, the miniature shape of what one day, as perfect plants, they
will become: nature thus giving us a specimen of the preformation of its
production . . . the seed of all phanerogamous plants bearing proper flowers
containing an embryo plantlet ready formed.*** (See Part II., "The Lotus
Flower as an Universal Symbol.") This explains the sentence "The Mother
had not yet swollen" -- the form being usually sacrificed to the inner or
root idea in Archaic symbology.
The
Lotus, or Padma, is, moreover, a very ancient and favourite
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
An unpoetical term, yet still very graphic. (See foot-note to Stanza III.)
**
Even in Christianity. (See Part II., "Primordial Substance and Divine
Thought.")
***
Gross, "The Heathen Religion," p. 195.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 58 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
simile
for the Kosmos itself, and also for man. The popular reasons given are,
firstly, the fact just mentioned, that the Lotus-seed contains within itself a
perfect miniature of the future plant, which typifies the fact that the
spiritual prototypes of all things exist in the immaterial world before those
things become materialised on Earth. Secondly, the fact that the Lotus plant
grows up through the water, having its root in the Ilus, or mud, and spreading
its flower in the air above. The Lotus thus typifies the life of man and also
that of the Kosmos; for the Secret Doctrine teaches that the elements of both
are the same, and that both are developing in the same direction. The root of
the Lotus sunk in the mud represents material life, the stalk passing up
through the water typifies existence in the astral world, and the flower
floating on the water and opening to the sky is emblematical of spiritual
being.
-------
STANZA
II. -- Continued.
4.
HER HEART HAD NOT YET OPENED FOR THE ONE RAY TO ENTER, THENCE TO FALL AS THREE
INTO FOUR IN THE LAP OF MAYA (a).
(a)
The Primordial Substance had not yet passed out of its precosmic latency into
differentiated objectivity, or even become the (to man, so far,) invisible
Protyle of Science. But, as the hour strikes and it becomes receptive of the
Fohatic impress of the Divine Thought (the Logos, or the male aspect of the
Anima Mundi, Alaya) -- its heart opens. It differentiates, and the THREE
(Father, Mother, Son) are transformed into four. Herein lies the origin of the
double mystery of the Trinity and the immaculate Conception. The first and
Fundamental dogma of Occultism is Universal Unity (or Homogeneity) under three
aspects. This led to a possible conception of Deity, which as an absolute unity
must remain forever incomprehensible to finite intellects. "If thou
wouldest believe in the Power which acts within the root of a plant, or imagine
the root concealed under the soil, thou hast to think of its stalk or trunk and
of its leaves and flowers. Thou canst not imagine that Power independently of
these objects. Life can be known only by the Tree of Life. . . ."
(Precepts for Yoga). The idea of Absolute Unity
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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would
be broken entirely in our conception, had we not something concrete before our
eyes to contain that Unity. And the deity being absolute, must be omnipresent,
hence not an atom but contains IT within itself. The roots, the trunk and its
many branches are three distinct objects, yet they are one tree. Say the
Kabalists: "The Deity is one, because It is infinite. It is triple,
because it is ever manifesting." This manifestation is triple in its
aspects, for it requires, as Aristotle has it, three principles for every
natural body to become objective: privation, form, and matter.* Privation meant
in the mind of the great philosopher that which the Occultists call the prototypes
impressed in the Astral Light -- the lowest plane and world of Anima Mundi. The
union of these three principles depends upon a fourth -- the LIFE which
radiates from the summits of the Unreachable, to become an universally diffused
Essence on the manifested planes of Existence. And this QUATERNARY (Father,
Mother, Son, as a UNITY, and a quaternary, as a living manifestation) has been
the means of leading to the very archaic Idea of Immaculate Conception, now
finally crystallized into a dogma of the Christian Church, which carnalized
this metaphysical idea beyond any common sense. For one has but to read the
Kabala and study its numerical methods of interpretation to find the origin of
that dogma. It is purely astronomical, mathematical, and pre-eminently
metaphysical: the Male element in Nature (personified by the male deities and
Logoi -- Viraj, or Brahma; Horus, or Osiris, etc., etc.) is born through, not
from, an immaculate source, personified by the "Mother"; because that
Male having a Mother cannot have a "Father" -- the abstract Deity
being sexless, and not even a Being but Be-ness, or Life itself. Let us render
this in the mathematical language of the author of "The Source of
Measures." Speaking of the "Measure of a Man" and his numerical
(Kabalistic) value, he writes that in Genesis, ch. iv., v. 1, "It is
called the 'Man even Jehovah'
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
A Vedantin of the Visishtadwaita philosophy would say that, though the only
independent Reality, Parabrahmam is inseparable from his trinity. That He is
three, "Parabrahmam, Chit, and Achit," the last two being dependent
realities unable to exist separately; or, to make it clearer, Parabrahmam is
the SUBSTANCE -- changeless, eternal, and incognizable -- and Chit (Atma), and
Achit (Anatma) are its qualities, as form and colour are the qualities of any
object. The two are the garment, or body, or rather attribute (Sarira) of
Parabrahmam. But an Occultist would find much to say against this claim, and so
would the Adwaitee Vedantin.
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[[Vol.
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Measure,
and this is obtained in this way, viz.: 113 x 5 = 565, and the value 565 can be
placed under the form of expression 56.5 x 10 = 565. Here the Man-number 113
becomes a factor of 56.5 x 10, and the (Kabalistic) reading of this last
numbered expression is Jod, He, Vau, He, or Jehovah. . . . The expansion of 565
into 56.5 x 10 is purposed to show the emanation of the male (Jod) from the
female (Eva) principle; or, so to speak, the birth of a male element from an
immaculate source, in other words, an immaculate conception."
Thus
is repeated on Earth the mystery enacted, according to the Seers, on the divine
plane. The "Son" of the immaculate Celestial Virgin (or the
undifferentiated cosmic protyle, Matter in its infinitude) is born again on
Earth as the Son of the terrestrial Eve -- our mother Earth, and becomes
Humanity as a total -- past, present, and future -- for Jehovah or
Jod-he-vau-he is androgyne, or both male and female. Above, the Son is the
whole KOSMOS; below, he is MANKIND. The triad or triangle becomes Tetraktis,
the Sacred Pythagorean number, the perfect Square, and a 6-faced cube on Earth.
The Macroprosopus (the Great Face) is now Microprosopus (the lesser face); or,
as the Kabalists have it, the "Ancient of Days," descending on Adam
Kadmon whom he uses as his vehicle to manifest through, gets transformed into
Tetragrammaton. It is now in the "Lap of Maya," the Great Illusion,
and between itself and the Reality has the Astral Light, the great Deceiver of
man's limited senses, unless Knowledge through Paramarthasatya comes to the
rescue.
-------
STANZA
II. -- Continued.
5.
THE SEVEN (Sons) WERE NOT YET BORN FROM THE WEB OF LIGHT. DARKNESS ALONE WAS
FATHER-MOTHER, SVABHAVAT, AND SVABHAVAT WAS IN DARKNESS (a).
(a)
The Secret Doctrine, in the Stanzas given here, occupies itself chiefly, if not
entirely, with our Solar System, and especially with our planetary chain. The
"Seven Sons," therefore, are the creators of the latter. This
teaching will be explained more fully hereafter. (See Part II., "Theogony
of the Creative Gods.")
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 61 DIVINE THOUGHT, DIVINE THINKERS.
Svabhavat,
the "Plastic Essence" that fills the Universe, is the root of all
things. Svabhavat is, so to say, the Buddhistic concrete aspect of the
abstraction called in Hindu philosophy Mulaprakriti. It is the body of the
Soul, and that which Ether would be to Akasa, the latter being the informing
principle of the former. Chinese mystics have made of it the synonym of
"being." In the Ekasloka-Shastra of Nagarjuna (the Lung-shu of China)
called by the Chinese the Yih-shu-lu-kia-lun, it is said that the original word
of Yeu is "Being" or "Subhava," "the Substance giving
substance to itself," also explained by him as meaning " without
action and with action," "the nature which has no nature of its
own." Subhava, from which Svabhavat, is composed of two words: Su
"fair," "handsome," "good"; Sva,
"self"; and bhava, "being" or "states of being."
-------
STANZA
II. -- Continued.
6.
THESE TWO ARE THE GERM, AND THE GERM IS -- ONE. THE UNIVERSE WAS STILL
CONCEALED IN THE DIVINE THOUGHT AND THE DIVINE BOSOM.
The
"Divine Thought" does not imply the idea of a Divine thinker. The
Universe, not only past, present, and future -- which is a human and finite
idea expressed by finite thought -- but in its totality, the Sat (an
untranslateable term), the absolute being, with the Past and Future
crystallized in an eternal Present, is that Thought itself reflected in a
secondary or manifest cause. Brahma (neuter) as the Mysterium Magnum of Paracelsus
is an absolute mystery to the human mind. Brahma, the male-female, its aspect
and anthropomorphic reflection, is conceivable to the perceptions of blind
faith, though rejected by human intellect when it attains its majority. (See
Part II., "Primordial Substance and Divine Thought.")
Hence
the statement that during the prologue, so to say, of the drama of Creation, or
the beginning of cosmic evolution, the Universe or the "Son" lies
still concealed "in the Divine Thought," which had not yet penetrated
"into the Divine Bosom." This idea, note well, is at the root, and
forms the origin of all the allegories about the "Sons of God" born
of immaculate virgins.
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STANZA
III.
COMMENTARY.
1.
THE LAST VIBRATION OF THE SEVENTH ETERNITY THRILLS THROUGH INFINITUDE (a). THE
MOTHER SWELLS, EXPANDING FROM WITHIN WITHOUT LIKE THE BUD OF THE LOTUS (b).
(a)
The seemingly paradoxical use of the sentence "Seventh Eternity,"
thus dividing the indivisible, is sanctified in esoteric philosophy. The latter
divides boundless duration into unconditionally eternal and universal Time and
a conditioned one (Khandakala). One is the abstraction or noumenon of infinite
time (Kala); the other its phenomenon appearing periodically, as the effect of
Mahat (the Universal Intelligence limited by Manvantaric duration). With some
schools, Mahat is "the first-born" of Pradhana (undifferentiated
substance, or the periodical aspect of Mulaprakriti, the root of Nature), which
(Pradhana) is called Maya, the Illusion. In this respect, I believe, esoteric
teaching differs from the Vedantin doctrines of both the Adwaita and the
Visishtadwaita schools. For it says that, while Mulaprakriti, the noumenon, is
self-existing and without any origin -- is, in short, parentless, Anupadaka (as
one with Brahmam) -- Prakriti, its phenomenon, is periodical and no better than
a phantasm of the former, so Mahat, with the Occultists, the first-born of
Gnana (or gnosis) knowledge, wisdom or the Logos -- is a phantasm reflected
from the Absolute NIRGUNA (Parabrahm, the one reality, "devoid of
attributes and qualities"; see Upanishads); while with some Vedantins
Mahat is a manifestation of Prakriti, or Matter.
(b)
Therefore, the "last vibration of the Seventh Eternity" was
"fore-ordained" -- by no God in particular, but occurred in virtue of
the eternal and changeless LAW which causes the great periods of Activity and
Rest, called so graphically, and at the same time so poetically, the "Days
and Nights of Brahma." The expansion "from within without" of
the Mother, called elsewhere the "Waters of Space," "Universal
Matrix," etc., does not allude to an expansion from a small centre or
focus, but, without reference to size or limitation or area, means the
development of limitless subjectivity into as limitless objectivity. "The
ever (to us) invisible and immaterial Substance present in eternity, threw its
periodical shadow from its own plane into the lap
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of
Maya." It implies that this expansion, not being an increase in size --
for infinite extension admits of no enlargement -- was a change of condition.
It "expanded like the bud of the Lotus"; for the Lotus plant exists
not only as a miniature embryo in its seed (a physical characteristic), but its
prototype is present in an ideal form in the Astral Light from "Dawn"
to "Night" during the Manvantaric period, like everything else, as a
matter of fact, in this objective Universe; from man down to mite, from giant
trees down to the tiniest blades of grass.
All
this, teaches the hidden Science, is but the temporary reflection, the shadow
of the eternal ideal prototype in Divine Thought -- the word
"Eternal," note well again, standing here only in the sense of
"AEon," as lasting throughout the seemingly interminable, but still
limited cycle of activity, called by us Manvantara. For what is the real
esoteric meaning of Manvantara, or rather a Manu-Antara? It means,
esoterically, "between two Manus," of whom there are fourteen in
every "Day of Brahma," such a "Day" consisting of 1,000
aggregates of four ages, or 1,000 "Great Ages," Mahayugas. Let us now
analyse the word or name Manu. Orientalists and their Dictionaries tell us that
the term "Manu" is from the root Man, "to think"; hence
"the thinking man." But, esoterically, every Manu, as an
anthropomorphized patron of his special cycle (or Round), is but the
personified idea of the "Thought Divine" (as the Hermetic
"Pymander"); each of the Manus, therefore, being the special god, the
creator and fashioner of all that appears during his own respective cycle of
being or Manvantara. Fohat runs the Manus' (or Dhyan-Chohans') errands, and
causes the ideal prototypes to expand from within without -- viz., to cross
gradually, on a descending scale, all the planes from the noumenon to the
lowest phenomenon, to bloom finally on the last into full objectivity -- the
acme of illusion, or the grossest matter.
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STANZA
III. -- continued.
2.
THE VIBRATION SWEEPS ALONG, TOUCHING WITH ITS SWIFT WING (simultaneously) THE
WHOLE UNIVERSE, AND THE GERM THAT DWELLETH IN DARKNESS: THE DARKNESS THAT
BREATHES (moves) OVER THE SLUMBERING WATERS OF LIFE (a).
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(a)
The Pythagorean Monad is also said to dwell in solitude and darkness like the
"germ." The idea of the "breath" of Darkness moving over
"the slumbering Waters of life," which is primordial matter with the
latent Spirit in it, recalls the first chapter of Genesis. Its original is the
Brahminical Narayana (the mover on the Waters), who is the personification of
the eternal Breath of the unconscious All (or Parabrahm) of the Eastern
Occultists. The Waters of Life, or Chaos -- the female principle in symbolism
-- are the vacuum (to our mental sight) in which lie the latent Spirit and
Matter. This it was that made Democritus assert, after his instructor
Leucippus, that the primordial principles of all were atoms and a vacuum, in
the sense of space, but not of empty space, as "Nature abhors a
vacuum" according to the Peripatetics, and every ancient philosopher.
In
all Cosmogonies "Water" plays the same important part. It is the base
and source of material existence. Scientists, mistaking the word for the thing,
understood by water the definite chemical combination of oxygen and hydrogen,
thus giving a specific meaning to a term used by Occultists in a generic sense,
and which is used in Cosmogony with a metaphysical and mystical meaning. Ice is
not water, neither is steam, although all three have precisely the same chemical
composition.
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STANZA
III. -- Continued.
2.
[[3.]] "DARKNESS" RADIATES LIGHT, AND LIGHT DROPS ONE SOLITARY RAY
INTO THE WATERS, INTO THE MOTHER DEEP. THE RAY SHOOTS THROUGH THE VIRGIN-EGG;
THE RAY CAUSES THE ETERNAL EGG TO THRILL, AND DROP THE NON-ETERNAL (periodical)
GERM, WHICH CONDENSES INTO THE WORLD EGG (a).
(a)
The solitary ray dropping into the mother deep may be taken as meaning Divine
Thought or Intelligence, impregnating chaos. This, however, occurs on the plane
of metaphysical abstraction, or rather the plane whereon that which we call a
metaphysical abstraction is a reality. The Virgin-egg being in one sense
abstract Egg-ness, or the power of becoming developed through fecundation, is
eternal and for ever the same. And just as the fecundation of an egg takes
place before it is dropped; so the non-eternal periodical germ which becomes
later in
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[[Vol.
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symbolism
the mundane egg, contains in itself, when it emerges from the said symbol,
"the promise and potency" of all the Universe. Though the idea per se
is, of course, an abstraction, a symbolical mode of expression, it is a symbol
truly, as it suggests the idea of infinity as an endless circle. It brings
before the mind's eye the picture of Kosmos emerging from and in boundless
space, a Universe as shoreless in magnitude if not as endless in its objective
manifestation. The simile of an egg also expresses the fact taught in Occultism
that the primordial form of everything manifested, from atom to globe, from man
to angel, is spheroidal, the sphere having been with all nations the emblem of
eternity and infinity -- a serpent swallowing its tail. To realize the meaning,
however, the sphere must be thought of as seen from its centre. The field of
vision or of thought is like a sphere whose radii proceed from one's self in
every direction, and extend out into space, opening up boundless vistas all
around. It is the symbolical circle of Pascal and the Kabalists, "whose
centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere," a conception which enters
into the compound idea of this emblem.
The
"Mundane Egg" is, perhaps, one of the most universally adopted
symbols, highly suggestive as it is, equally in the spiritual, physiological,
and cosmological sense. Therefore, it is found in every world-theogony, where
it is largely associated with the serpent symbol; the latter being everywhere,
in philosophy as in religious symbolism, an emblem of eternity, infinitude,
regeneration, and rejuvenation, as well as of wisdom. (See Part II. "Tree
and Serpent and Crocodile Worship.") The mystery of apparent
self-generation and evolution through its own creative power repeating in miniature
the process of Cosmic evolution in the egg, both being due to heat and moisture
under the efflux of the unseen creative spirit, justified fully the selection
of this graphic symbol. The "Virgin Egg" is the microcosmic symbol of
the macrocosmic prototype -- the "Virgin Mother" -- Chaos or the
Primeval Deep. The male Creator (under whatever name) springs forth from the
Virgin female, the immaculate root fructified by the Ray. Who, if versed in
astronomy and natural sciences, can fail to see its suggestiveness? Cosmos as
receptive Nature is an Egg fructified -- yet left immaculate; once regarded as
boundless, it could have no other representation than a spheroid. The Golden
Egg was surrounded by seven natural elements (ether, fire, air, water),
"four ready, three secret." It may be found
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stated
in Vishnu Purana, where elements are translated "Envelopes" and a
secret one is added: "Aham-kara" (see Wilson's Vishnu Purana, Book
I., p. 40). The original text has no "Aham-kara;" it mentions seven
Elements without specifying the last three (see Part II. on "The Mundane
Egg").
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STANZA
III. -- Continued.
4.
(Then) THE THREE (triangle) FALL INTO THE FOUR (quaternary). THE RADIANT
ESSENCE BECOMES SEVEN INSIDE, SEVEN OUTSIDE (a). THE LUMINOUS EGG
(Hiranyagarbha), WHICH IN ITSELF IS THREE (the triple hypostases of Brahma, or
Vishnu, the three "Avasthas"), CURDLES AND SPREADS IN MILK-WHITE
CURDS THROUGHOUT THE DEPTHS OF MOTHER, THE ROOT THAT GROWS IN THE OCEAN OF LIFE
(b).
The
use of geometrical figures and the frequent allusions to figures in all ancient
scriptures (see Puranas, Egyptian papyri, the "Book of the Dead" and
even the Bible) must be explained. In the "Book of Dzyan," as in the
Kabala, there are two kinds of numerals to be studied -- the figures, often
simple blinds, and the Sacred Numbers, the values of which are all known to the
Occultists through Initiation. The former is but a conventional glyph, the
latter is the basic symbol of all. That is to say, that one is purely physical,
the other purely metaphysical, the two standing in relation to each other as
matter stands to spirit -- the extreme poles of the ONE Substance.
As
Balzac, the unconscious Occultist of French literature, says somewhere, the
Number is to Mind the same as it is to matter: "an incomprehensible
agent;" (perhaps so to the profane, never to the Initiated mind). Number
is, as the great writer thought, an Entity, and, at the same time, a Breath
emanating from what he called God and what we call the ALL; the breath which
alone could organize the physical Kosmos, "where naught obtains its form
but through the Deity, which is an effect of Number." It is instructive to
quote Balzac's words upon this subject:--
"The
smallest as the most immense creations, are they not to be distinguished from
each other by their quantities, their qualities, their dimensions, their forces
and attributes, all begotten by the NUMBER? The infinitude of the Numbers is a
fact proven to our mind, but of which no proof can be physically
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given.
The mathematician will tell us that the infinitude of the numbers exists but is
not to be demonstrated. God is a Number endowed with motion, which is felt but
not demonstrated. As Unity, it begins the Numbers, with which it has nothing in
common. . . . . The existence of the Number depends on Unity, which, without a
single Number, begets them all. . . . . What! unable either to measure the
first abstraction yielded to you by the Deity, or to get hold of it, you still
hope to subject to your measurements the mystery of the Secret Sciences which
emanate from that Deity? . . . . And what would you feel, were I to plunge you
into the abysses of MOTION, the Force which organizes the Number? What would
you think, were I to add that Motion and Number* are begotten by the WORD, the
Supreme Reason of the Seers and Prophets, who, in days of old, sensed the
mighty Breath of God, a witness to which is the Apocalypse?"
(b)
"The radiant essence curdled and spread throughout the depths" of
Space. From an astronomical point of view this is easy of explanation: it is
the "milky way," the world-stuff, or primordial matter in its first
form. It is more difficult, however, to explain it in a few words or even
lines, from the standpoint of Occult Science and Symbolism, as it is the most
complicated of glyphs. Herein are enshrined more than a dozen symbols. To begin
with, the whole pantheon of mysterious objects,** every one of them having some
definite Occult meaning, extracted from the allegorical "churning of the
ocean" by the Hindu gods. Besides Amrita, the water of life or
immortality, "Surabhi" the "cow of plenty," called
"the fountain of milk and curds," was extracted from this "Sea
of Milk." Hence the universal adoration of the cow and bull, one the
productive, the other the generative power in Nature: symbols connected with
both the Solar and the Cosmic deities. The specific properties, for occult
purposes, of the "fourteen precious things," being explained only at
the fourth Initiation, cannot be given here; but the following may be remarked.
In the "Satapatha Brahmana" it is stated that the churning of the
"Ocean of Milk" took place in the Satya Yug, the first age which
immediately followed the "Deluge." As, however, neither the Rig-Veda
nor
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Number, truly; but never MOTION. It is Motion which begets the Logos, the Word,
in occultism.
**
The "Fourteen precious things." The narrative or allegory is found in
the Satapatha Brahmana and others. The Japanese Secret Science of the Buddhist
Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has "seven precious things." We will speak
of them, hereafter.
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Manu
-- both preceding Vaivasvata's "deluge," that of the bulk of the
Fourth Race -- mention this deluge, it is evident that it is not the
"great" deluge, nor that which carried away Atlantis, nor even the
deluge of Noah, which is meant here. This "churning" relates to a
period before the earth's formation, and is in direct connection with that
other universal legend, the various and contradictory versions of which
culminated in the Christian dogma of the "War in Heaven," and the
fall of the Angels (see Book II., also Revelations chap. xii.). The Brahmanas,
reproached by the Orientalists with their versions on the same subjects, often
clashing with each other, are pre-eminently occult works, hence used purposely
as blinds. They were allowed to survive for public use and property only
because they were and are absolutely unintelligible to the masses. Otherwise
they would have disappeared from circulation as long ago as the days of Akbar.
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STANZA
III. -- Continued.
5.
THE ROOT REMAINS, THE LIGHT REMAINS, THE CURDS REMAIN, AND STILL OEAOHOO (a) IS
ONE (b).
(a)
OEAOHOO is rendered "Father-Mother of the Gods" in the Commentaries,
or the SIX IN ONE, or the septenary root from which all proceeds. All depends
upon the accent given to these seven vowels, which may be pronounced as one,
three, or even seven syllables by adding an e after the letter "o."
This mystic name is given out, because without a thorough mastery of the triple
pronunciation it remains for ever ineffectual.
(b)
This refers to the Non-Separateness of all that lives and has its being,
whether in active or passive state. In one sense, Oeaohoo is the "Rootless
Root of All"; hence, one with Parabrahmam; in another sense it is a name
for the manifested ONE LIFE, the Eternal living Unity. The "Root"
means, as already explained, pure knowledge (Sattva),*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The original for Understanding is Sattva, which Sankara (acharya) renders
antahkarana. "Refined," he says, "by sacrifices and other
sanctifying operations." In the Katha, at p. 148, Sattva is said by
Sankara to mean buddhi -- a common use of the word. ("The BHAGAVATGITA
with The Sanatsugatiya and The Anugita," trans- [[Footnote continued on
next page]]
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[[Vol.
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eternal
(Nitya) unconditioned reality or SAT (Satya), whether we call it Parabrahmam or
Mulaprakriti, for these are the two aspects of the ONE. The "Light"
is the same Omnipresent Spiritual Ray, which has entered and now fecundated the
Divine Egg, and calls cosmic matter to begin its long series of
differentiations. The curds are the first differentiation, and probably refer
also to that cosmic matter which is supposed to be the origin of the
"Milky Way" -- the matter we know. This "matter," which,
according to the revelation received from the primeval Dhyani-Buddhas, is,
during the periodical sleep of the Universe, of the ultimate tenuity
conceivable to the eye of the perfect Bodhisatva -- this matter, radical and
cool, becomes, at the first reawakening of cosmic motion, scattered through
Space; appearing, when seen from the Earth, in clusters and lumps, like curds
in thin milk. These are the seeds of the future worlds, the "Star-stuff."
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STANZA
III. -- Continued.