HPB-SD(ed.1) v.1 p.1 st.5 sl.4: Difference between revisions

(''a'') This tracing of “ Spiral lines ” refers to the evolution of man’s as well as Nature’s principles ; an evolution which takes place gradually (as will be seen in Book II., on “ The origin of the Human Races ”), as does everything else in nature. The Sixth principle in Man (Buddhi, the Divine Soul) though a mere breath, in our conceptions, is still something material when compared with divine “ Spirit ” (Atma) of which it is the carrier or vehicle. Fohat, in his capacity of Divine Love (''Eros''), the electric Power of affinity and sympathy, is shown allegorically as trying to bring the pure Spirit, the Ray inseparable from the one absolute, into union with the Soul, the two constituting in Man the Monad, and in Nature the first link between the ever unconditioned and the manifested. “ The first is now the second ” (world) — of the Lipikas — has reference to the same.

The “ First is the Second,” because the “ First ” cannot really be numbered or regarded as the First, as that is the realm of noumena in its primary manifestation : the threshold to the World of Truth, or Sat, through which the direct energy that radiates from the one reality — the Nameless Deity — reaches us. Here again, the untranslateable term Sat (''Be-ness'') is likely to lead into an erroneous conception, since that which is manifested cannot be Sat, but is something phenomenal, not everlasting, nor, in truth, even sempiternal. It is coeval and

{{Style P-No indent|Air is a mixture containing the gases Oxygen and Nitrogen. We view the Universe and the Earth as matter composed of definite chemical molecules. We speak of the primitive ten Earths, endowing each with a Greek or Latin name. We say that water is, chemically, a compound of Oxygen and Hydrogen. But what is {{Style S-Small capitals|Fire}} ? It is the effect of combustion, we are gravely answered. It is heat and light and motion, and a correlation of physical and chemical forces in general. And this scientific definition is philosophically supplemented by the theological one in Webster’s Dictionary, which explains fire as “ the instrument of punishment, or the punishment of the impenitent in another state ” — the “ state,” by the bye, being supposed to be spiritual ; but, alas ! the presence of fire would seem to be a convincing proof of its material nature. Yet, speaking of the illusion of regarding phenomena as simple, because they are familiar, Professor Bain says (''Logic. ''Part II.) : “ Very familiar facts seem to stand in no need of explanation themselves and to be the means of explaining whatever can be assimilated to them. Thus, the boiling and evaporation of a liquid is supposed to be a very simple phenomenon requiring no explanation, and a satisfactory explanation of rarer phenomena. That water should dry up is, to the uninstructed mind, a thing wholly intelligible ; whereas to the man acquainted with physical science the liquid state is anomalous and inexplicable. The lighting of a fire by a flame is a great scientific difficulty, yet few people think so ” (p. 125).}}

{{Style P-No indent|and fires of the whole globe without diminishing that flame. If the Deity, the radical One, is eternal and an infinite substance (“ the Lord thy God is a consuming fire ”) and never consumed, then it does not seem reasonable that the Occult teaching should be held as unphilosophical when it says : “ Thus were the Arupa and Rupa worlds formed : from One light seven lights ; from each of the seven, seven times seven,” etc., etc.}}