Blavatsky H.P. - Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge of The Theosophical Society

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Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge of The Theosophical Society

by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writtings, vol. 10, page(s) 298-406

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298

TRANSACTIONS OF THE BLAVATSKY LODGE OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

[Approximately in March 1890, and again in January 1891, the Theosophical Publishing Society, located at the time at 7, Duke Street, Adelphi, London, published two separate thin volumes under the title, Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge of The Theosophical Society, Parts I and II. They were also issued by William Quan Judge, 132 Nassau Street, New York. They contained discussions on some of the Stanzas of the First Volume of The Secret Doctrine, during certain meetings of the Blavatsky Lodge in London, when H. P. B. answered some rather abstruse questions regarding the teachings of the Esoteric Philosophy.

Part I deals with the meetings held on January 10, 17, 24 and 31, 1889, at 17, Lansdowne Road, London, when Stanzas I and II were discussed. An Appendix gives under the title of “Dreams” a “Summary of the teachings during several meetings which preceded the Transactions. . .”, namely those of December 20 and 27, 1888. This material will be found earlier in the present volume, in its correct chronological order.

Part II deals with the meetings held at the same address on February 7, 14, 21 and 28, and on March 7 and 14, 1889. At these gatherings Stanzas II, III and IV were discussed.

A Prefatory Note states that “the answers in all cases are based on the shorthand Reports, and are those of Esoteric Philosophy as given by H.P.B. herself.”

A review of Part I of the Transactions (Lucifer, London, Vol. VI, April 1890, pp. 173-74) states, among other things, that “enough matter remains for five more numbers on the same subject.” This statement may have had reference to the material contained in Part II, and which, at the time when the review was written, had not yet been published.

But what is much more difficult to understand is the fact that the Prefatory Note of both volumes or parts of the Transactions states that these are compiled “from shorthand notes taken at the meetings of the Blavatsky Lodge of the Theosophical Society, from January 10th to June 20th, 1889. . .” (italics ours).

It would appear, therefore, that there were similar meetings held later than March 14th, 1889, which is the date of the last printed discussion. Up to the middle of the Summer of 1889, H.P.B. was in London; in July, 1889, she made a trip to France, writing the greater part of The Voice of the Silence at Fontainebleau. She then 299went to St. Heliers, Jersey, and did not return to London until the middle of August. It is quite probable, therefore, that meetings of the Blavatsky Lodge continued up to the time of her departure for France, and that such meetings consisted of similar discussions to those embodied in the printed Transactions.

In November, 1889, prior therefore to the publication of Part I of the Transactions, George R.S. Mead, in his capacity of Secretary of the Blavatsky Lodge, published (Lucifer, Vol. V, p. 178) a “Notice to Those Interested in the ‘Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge’.” It runs as follows:

“The discussions on the first volume of The Secret Doctrine which have been reported by a stenographer were of so difficult a nature that much of the substance, as it stands, is entirely useless. The revision and rewording of these reports, which had to be undertaken by one of the busiest of the 17 Lansdowne Road household, is progressing, but it has to be again revised and prepared for press, and this no one can do but H.P.B.; owing, however, to her multifarious duties the work can progress but slowly. It is to be hoped that the anxiety of our friends will be relieved by the above explanation.”

It is of course evident that a certain portion of the MS. spoken of by Mead consisted of material taken down during the discussions at the meetings of January, February and early March, 1889, later published as Transactions, Parts I and II. But as this Notice appeared quite some time after the meetings of late March, April, May and June, 1889, it is most probable that he also had before him material pertaining to these later gatherings, especially when we bear in mind what is stated in the Prefatory Note to both volumes.

This is strongly supported by the fact that in Lucifer, Vol. VII, October 15th, 1890, p. 165, i.e., after the appearance of Part I, and before the publication of Part II, of the Transactions, it is stated that the reports of the Transactions “consist of twenty-four large longhand folios, four of which have been already printed.” If four of these folios went to make Part I of the Transactions (published March, 1890), with or without the essay on “Dreams,” and if Part II (published in January, 1891) was smaller than Part I, it is obvious, of course, that a considerable portion of the twenty-four folios has never been issued in printed form.

As an additional proof of this fact, we should bear in mind the direct statement of Mrs. Alice Leighton Cleather, who, writing her periodical Letter from London, under date of February, 1891, says: “The second part of the ‘Transactions––Blavatsky Lodge,’ is now out, and the third will shortly follow” (The Theosophist, Vol. XII, April, 1891, p. 438).

Almost two years after the passing of H.P.B., the Editors of Lucifer published in its pages some material from H.P.B.’s pen, under the 300general title of “Notes on the Gospel According to John” (Vol. XI, No. 66, February, 1893, pp. 449-56, and Vol. XII, No. 67, March, 1893, pp. 20-30). In a brief Introductory Note to this series in two instalments, George R. S. Mead states that “the following notes formed the basis of discussion at the meetings of the Blavatsky Lodge, in October, 1889. . .” As these “Notes” on St. John’s Gospel quote in one place from G.R.S. Mead’s own translation of the Gnostic Pistis-Sophia, namely from the first instalment thereof, published in Lucifer, Vol. VI, April, 1890, and actually give this magazine reference in a footnote, it would seem that these “Notes” were worked over and edited either after April, 1890, or possibly even after H.P.B.’s passing in May, 1891.

It would appear from the date mentioned by G.R.S. Mead, namely, October, 1889, that these “Notes” formed the basis of discussions at the Blavatsky Lodge after H.P.B.’s return from her trip to France. Even if the MS. of this material were to be considered as forming part of the “twenty-four large longhand folios” spoken of before, which is most unlikely, considering the various dates referred to, we still face the fact that some of the material of the Transactions is missing for one reason or another, and has most certainly never appeared in print.

As to the authenticity of this entire material, we quote below an important passage from a letter written by William Kingsland, one of the very close associates of H.P.B. in London, to Dr. Henry T. Edge, one of her personal pupils, later of Point Loma, California. The letter is dated from Claremont, The Strand, Ryde, I.W., 7th October, 1931, and the passage is as follows:

“. . .To the best of my recollection H.P.B. was present at every one of these meetings. The “Transactions” were partly compiled from notes taken of the answers at the time; but every one of them were revised by H.P.B. before they were printed. They are not verbatim as given by her at the time. They are in every way authentic as her own answers. . .”

—Compiler.]

301

I

Meeting held at 17, Lansdowne Road, London, W., on January 10th, 1889, at 8:30 p.m., Mr. T.B. Harbottle in the chair.

Subject:

THE STANZAS OF THE SECRET DOCTRINE—VOL. I

STANZA I.

Sloka (1). THE ETERNAL PARENT (Space), WRAPPED IN HER EVER INVISIBLE ROBES, HAD SLUMBERED ONCE AGAIN FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES.

Q. Space in the abstract is explained in the Proem (pp. 8-9) as follows:—

. . . . . . 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 return to, Brahma (Brahmâ):” for Brahma (neuter), the unmanifested, is that Universe in abscondito, and Brahmâ, the manifested, is the Logos, made male-female in the symbolical orthodox dogmas. The God of the Apostle-Initiate and of the Rishi being both the Unseen and the Visible SPACE. Space is called, in the esoteric symbolism “The Seven-Skinned Eternal Mother-Father.” It is composed from its undifferentiated to its differentiated surface of seven layers.

302 “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.

But why is the Eternal parent, Space, spoken of as feminine? A. Not in all cases, for in the above extract Space is called the “Eternal Mother-Father”; but when it is so spoken of the reason is that though it is impossible to define Parabrahm, yet once that we speak of that first something which can be conceived, it has to be treated of as a feminine principle. In all cosmogonies the first differentiation was considered feminine. It is Mulaprakriti which conceals or veils Parabrahm; Sephira the light that emanates first from Ain-Soph; and in Hesiod it is Gaea who springs from Chaos, preceding Eros (Theogony, 201-246). This is repeated in all subsequent and less abstract material creations, as witnessed by Eve, created from the rib of Adam, etc. It is the goddess and goddesses who come first. The first emanation becomes the immaculate Mother from whom proceed all the gods, or the anthropomorphized creative forces. We have to adopt the masculine or the feminine gender, for we cannot use the neuter it. From IT, strictly speaking, nothing can proceed, neither a radiation nor an emanation.

Q. Is this first emanation identical with the Egyptian Neïth?

A. In reality it is beyond Neith, but in one sense or in a lower aspect it is Neïth.

Q. Then the IT itself is not the “Seven-Skinned Eternal Mother-Father”?

A. Assuredly not. The IT is, in the Hindu philosophy, Parabrahm, that which is beyond Brahmâ, or, as it is now called in Europe, the “unknowable.” The space of which we speak is the female aspect of Brahmâ, the male. At the first flutter of differentiation, the Subjective proceeds to emanate, or fall, like a shadow into the Objective, and becomes what was called the Mother Goddess, from whom proceeds the Logos, the Son and Father God at the same time, both unmanifested, one the Potentiality, the other 303the Potency. But the former must not be confounded with the manifested Logos, also called the “Son” in all cosmogonies.

Q. Is the first differentiation from the absolute IT always feminine?

A. Only as a figure of speech; in strict philosophy it is sexless; but the female aspect is the first it assumes in human conceptions, its subsequent materialisation in any philosophy depending on the degree of the spirituality of the race or nation that produced the system. For instance: in the Kabbala of the Talmudists IT is called AIN-SOPH, the endless, the boundless, the infinite (the attribute being always negative), which absolute Principle is yet referred to as He!! From it, this negative, Boundless Circle of Infinite Light, emanates the first Sephira, the Crown, which the Talmudists call “Torah,” the law, explaining that she is the wife of Ain-Soph. This is anthropomorphising the Spiritual with a vengeance.

Q. Is it the same in the Hindu Philosophies?

A. Exactly the opposite. For if we turn to the Hindu cosmogonies, w e find that Parabrahm is not even mentioned therein, but only Mulaprakriti. The latter is, so to speak, the lining or aspect of Parabrahm in the invisible universe. Mulaprakriti means the Root of Nature or Matter. But Parabrahm cannot be called the “Root,” for it is the absolute Rootless Root of all. Therefore, we must begin with Mulaprakriti, or the Veil of this unknowable. Here again we see that the first is the Mother Goddess, the reflection of the subjective root, on the first plane of Substance. Then follows, issuing from, or rather residing in, this Mother Goddess, the unmanifested Logos, he who is both her Son and Husband at once, called the “concealed Father.” From these proceeds the first-manifested Logos, or Spirit, and the Son from whose substance emanate the Seven Logoi, whose synthesis, viewed as one collective Force, becomes the Architect of the Visible Universe. They are the Elohim of the Jews.

Q. What aspect of Space, or the unknown deity, called in the Vedas “THAT,” which is mentioned further on, is here called the “Eternal Parent”?

304 A. It is the Vedantic Mulaprakriti, and the Svabhavat of the Buddhists, or that androgynous something of which we have been speaking, which is both differentiated and undifferentiated. In its first principle it is a pure abstraction, which becomes differentiated only when it is transformed, in the process of time, into Prakriti. If compared with the human principles it corresponds to Buddhi, while Atma would correspond to Parabrahm, Manas to Mahat, and so on.

Q. What, then, are the seven layers of Space, for in the “Proem” we read about the “Seven-skinned Mother-Father”?

A. Plato and Hermes Trismegistus would have regarded this as the Divine Thought, and Aristotle would have viewed this “Mother-Father” as the “privation” of matter. It is that which will become the seven planes of being, commencing with the spiritual and passing through the psychic to the material plane. The seven planes of thought or the seven states of consciousness correspond to these planes. All these septenaries are symbolized by the seven Skins.

Q. The divine ideas in the Divine Mind? But the Divine Mind is not yet.

A. The Divine Mind is, and must be, before differentiation takes place. It is called the divine Ideation, which is eternal in its Potentiality and periodical in its Potency, when it becomes Mahat, Anima Mundi or Universal Soul. But remember that, however you name it, each of these conceptions has its most metaphysical, most material, and also intermediate aspects.

Q. What is the meaning of the term “Ever invisible robes”?

A. It is of course, as every allegory in the Eastern philosophies, a figurative expression. Perhaps it may be the hypothetical Protyle that Professor Crookes is in search of, but which can certainly never be found on this our earth or plane. It is the non-differentiated substance or spiritual matter.

Q. Is it what is called “Laya”?

A. “Robes” and all are in the Laya condition, the point from which, or at which, the primordial substance 305begins to differentiate and thus gives birth to the universe and all in it.

Q. Are the “invisible robes” so called because they are not objective to any differentiation of consciousness?

A. Say rather, invisible to finite consciousness, if such consciousness were possible at that stage of evolution. Even for the Logos, Mulaprakriti is a veil, the Robes in which the Absolute is enveloped. Even the Logos cannot perceive the Absolute, say the Vedantins.

Q. Is Mulaprakriti the correct term to use?

A. The Mulaprakriti of the Vedantins is the Aditi of the Vedas. The Vedanta philosophy means literally “the end or Synthesis of all knowledge.” Now there are six schools of Hindu philosophy, which, however, will be found, on strict analysis, to agree perfectly in substance. Fundamentally they are identical, but there is such a wealth of names, such a quantity of side issues, details, and ornamentations—some emanations being their own fathers, and fathers born from their own daughters—that one becomes lost as in a jungle. State anything you please from the esoteric standpoint to a Hindu, and, if he so wishes, he can, from his own particular system, contradict or refute you. Each of the six schools has its own peculiar views and terms. So that unless the terminology of one school is adopted and used throughout the discussion, there is great danger of misunderstanding.

Q. Then the same identical term is used in quite a different sense by different philosophies? For instance, Buddhi has one meaning in the Esoteric and quite a different sense in the Sankhya philosophy. Is not this so?

A. Precisely, and quite a different sense in the Vishnu-Purâna, which speaks of seven Prakritis emanating from Mahat, and calls the latter Maha-Buddhi. Fundamentally, however, the ideas are the same, though the terms differ with each school, and the correct sense is lost in this maze of personifications. It would, perhaps, 306if possible, be best to invent for ourselves a new nomenclature. Owing, however, to the poverty of European languages, especially English, in philosophical terms, the undertaking would be somewhat difficult.

Q. Could not the term “Protyle” be employed to represent the Laya condition?

A. Scarcely; the Protyle of Professor Crookes is probably used to denote homogeneous matter on the most material plane of all, whereas the substance symbolized by the “Robes” of the “Eternal Parent” is on the seventh plane of matter counting upwards, or rather from without within. This can never be discovered on the lowest, or rather most outward and material plane.

Q. Is there, then, on each of the seven planes, matter relatively homogeneous for every plane?

A. That is so; but such matter is homogeneous only for those who are on the same plane of perception; so that if the Protyle of modern science is ever discovered, it will be homogeneous only to us. The illusion may last for some time, perhaps until the sixth race, for humanity is ever changing, physically and mentally, and let us hope spiritually too, perfecting itself more and more with every race and sub-race.

Q. Would it not be a great mistake to use any term which has been used by scientists with another meaning? Protoplasm had once almost the same sense as Proyle, but its meaning has now become narrowed.

A. It would most decidedly; the Hyle of the Greeks, however, most certainly did not apply to the matter of this plane, for they adopted it from the Chaldean cosmogony, where it was used in a highly metaphysical sense.

Q. But the word Hyle is now used by the materialists to express very nearly the same idea as that to which we apply the term Mulaprakriti.

A. It may be so; but Dr. Lewins and his brave half-dozen of Hylo-Idealists are hardly of this opinion, for in their system the metaphysical meaning is entirely disregarded and lost sight of.

Q. Then perhaps after all Laya is the best term to use?

307 A. Not so, for Laya does not mean any particular something or some plane or other, but denotes a state or condition. It is a Sanskrit term, conveying the idea of something in an undifferentiated and changeless state, a zero point wherein all differentiation ceases.

Q. The first differentiation would represent matter on its seventh plane: must we not, therefore, suppose that Professor Crookes’ Protyle is also matter on its seventh plane?

A. The ideal Protyle of Professor Crookes is matter in that state which he calls the “zero-point.”

Q. That is to say, the Laya point of this plane?

A. It is not at all clear whether Professor Crookes is occupied with other planes or admits their existence. The object of his search is the protylic atom, which, as no one has ever seen it, is simply a new working hypothesis of Science. For what in reality is an atom?

Q. It is a convenient definition of what is supposed to be, or rather a convenient term to divide up, a molecule.

A. But surely they must have come by this time to the conclusion that the atom is no more a convenient term than the supposed seventy odd elements. It has been the custom to laugh at the four and five elements of the ancients; but now Professor Crookes has come to the conclusion that, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a chemical element at all. In fact, so far from discovering the atom, a single simple molecule has not yet been arrived at.

Q. It should be remembered that Dalton, who first spoke on the subject, called it the “Atomic Theory.”

A. Quite so; but, as shown by Sir W. Hamilton, the term is used in an erroneous sense by the modern schools of science, which, while laughing at metaphysics, apply a purely metaphysical term to physics, so that nowadays “theory” begins to usurp the prerogatives of “axiom.”

Q. What are the “Seven Eternities,” and how can there be such a division in Pralaya, when there is no one to be conscious of time?

A. The modern astronomer knows the “ordinances of Heaven” by no means better than his ancient brother did. If asked whether he could “bring forth Mazzaroth 308in his season,” or if he was with “him” who “spread out the sky,” he would have to answer sadly, just as Job did, in the negative. Yet this in no wise prevents him from speculating about the age of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, and “calculating” geological periods from that time when there was not a living man, with or without consciousness, on earth. Why, therefore, should not the same privilege be granted to the ancients?

Q. But why should the term “Seven Eternities” be employed?

A. The term “Seven Eternities” is employed owing to the invariable law of analogy. As Manvantara is divided into seven periods, so is Pralaya; as day is composed of twelve hours so is night. Can we say that because we are asleep during the night and lose consciousness of time, that therefore the hours do not strike? Pralaya is the “Night” after the Manvantaric “Day.” There is no one by, and consciousness is asleep with the rest. But since it exists, and is in full activity during Manvantara; and since we are fully alive to the fact that the law of analogy and periodicity is immutable, and, being so, that it must act equally at both ends, why cannot the phrase be used?

Q. But how can an eternity be counted?

A. Perhaps the query arises owing to the general misunderstanding of the term “Eternity.” We Westerns are foolish enough to speculate about that which has neither beginning nor end, and we imagine that the ancients must have done the same. They did not, however: no philosopher in days of old ever took “Eternity” to mean beginningless and endless duration. Neither the Aeons of the Greeks nor the Neroses convey this meaning. In fact, they had no word to convey this precise sense. Parabrahm, Ain-Soph, and the Zeruana-Akerne of the Avesta alone represent such an Eternity; all the other periods are finite and astronomical, based on tropical years and other enormous cycles. The word Aeon, which in the Bible is translated by Eternity, means not only a finite period, but also an angel and being.

Q. But is it not correct to say that in Pralaya too there is the “Great Breath”?

309 A. Assuredly: for the “Great Breath” is ceaseless, and is, so to speak, the universal and eternal perpetuum mobile.

Q. If so, it is impossible to divide it into periods, for this does away with the idea of absolute and complete nothingness. It seems somewhat incompatible that any “number” of periods should be spoken of, although one might speak of so many out-breathings and indrawings of the “Great Breath.”

A. This would make away with the idea of absolute Rest, were not this absoluteness of Rest counteracted by the absoluteness of Motion. Therefore one expression is as good as the other. There is a magnificent poem on Pralaya, written by a very ancient Rishi, who compares the motion of the Great Breath during Pralaya to the rhythmical motions of the Unconscious Ocean.

Q. The difficulty is when the word “eternity” is used instead of “Aeon.”

A. Why should a Greek word be used when there is a more familiar expression, especially as it is fully explained in The Secret Doctrine? You may call it a relative, or a Manvantaric and Pralayic eternity, if you like. Q. Is the relation of Pralaya and Manvantara strictly analogous to the relations between sleeping and waking?

A. In a certain sense only; during night we all exist personally, and are individually, though we sleep and may be unconscious of so living. But during Pralaya everything differentiated, as every unit, disappears from the phenomenal universe and is merged in, or rather transferred into, the One noumenal. Therefore, de facto, there is a great difference.

Q. Sleep has been called the “shady side of life”; may Pralaya be called the shady side of Cosmic life?

A. It may in a certain way be called so. Pralaya is dissolution of the visible into the invisible, the heterogeneous into the homogeneous—a time of rest, therefore. Even cosmic matter, indestructible though it be in its essence, must have a time of rest, and return to its Laya state. The absoluteness of the all-containing One essence has to manifest itself equally in rest and activity.

Sloka (2). TIME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE BOSOM OF DURATION.

310 Q. What is the difference between Time and Duration?

A. Duration is; it has neither beginning nor end. How can you call that which has neither beginning nor end, Time? Duration is beginningless and endless; Time is finite.

Q. Is, then, Duration the infinite, and Time the finite conception?

A. Time can be divided; Duration—in our philosophy, at least—cannot. Time is divisible in Duration—or, as you put it, the one is something within Time and Space, whereas the other is outside of both.

Q. The only way one can define Time is by the motion of the earth.

A. But we can also define Time in our conceptions.

Q. Duration, rather?

A. No, Time; for as to Duration, it is impossible to divide it or set up landmarks therein. Duration with us is the one eternity, not relative, but absolute.

Q. Can it be said that the essential idea of Duration is existence?

A. No; existence has limited and definite periods, whereas Duration, having neither beginning nor end, is a perfect abstraction which contains Time. Duration is like Space, which is an abstraction too, and is equally without beginning or end. It is in its concretency and limitation only that it becomes a representation and something. Of course the distance between two points is called space; it may be enormous or it may be infinitesimal, yet it will always be space. But all such specifications are divisions in human conception. In reality Space is what the ancients called the One invisible and unknown (now unknowable) Deity.

Q. Then Time is the same as Space, being one in the abstract?

A. As two abstractions they may be one; but this would apply to Duration and Abstract Space rather than to Time and Space.

Q. Space is the objective and Time the subjective side of all manifestation. In reality they are the only attributes of the infinite; but attribute is perhaps a bad term to use, inasmuch as they are, so to speak, co-extensive with the infinite. It may, 311however, be objected that they are nothing but the creations of our own intellect; simply the forms in which we cannot help conceiving things.

A. That sounds like an argument of our friends the Hylo-idealists; but here we speak of the noumenal and not of the phenomenal universe. In the occult catechism (Vide Secret Doctrine) it is asked: “What is that which always IS, which you cannot imagine as not being, do what you may?” The answer is—SPACE. For there may not be a single man in the universe to think of it, not a single eye to perceive it, nor a single brain to sense it, but still Space is, ever was, and ever will be, and you cannot make away with it.

Q. Because we cannot help thinking of it, perhaps?

A. Our thinking of it has nothing to do with the question. Try, rather, if you can think of anything with Space excluded and you will soon find out the impossibility of such a conception. Space exists where there is nothing else, and must so exist whether the Universe is one absolute vacuum or a full Pleroma.

Q. Modern Philosophers have reduced it to this, that space and time are nothing but attributes, nothing but accidents.

A. And they would be right, were their reduction the fruit of true science instead of being the result of Avidya and Maya. We find also Buddha saying that even Nirvâna, after all, is but Maya, or an illusion; but the Lord Buddha based what he said on knowledge, not speculation.

Q. But are eternal Space and Duration the only attributes of the Infinite?

A. Space and Duration, being eternal, cannot be called attributes, as they are only the aspects of that Infinite. Nor can that Infinite, if you mean by it The Absolute Principle, have any attributes whatever as only that which is itself finite and conditioned can have any relation to something else. All this is philosophically wrong.

Q. We can conceive of no matter which is not extended, no extension which is not extension of something. Is it the same on higher planes? And if so, what is the substance which fills absolute space, and is it identical with that space?

312 A. If your “trained intellect” cannot conceive of any other kind of matter, perhaps one less trained but more open to spiritual perceptions can. It does not follow, because you say so, that such a conception of Space is the only one possible, even on our Earth. For even on this plane of ours there are other and various intellects, besides those of man, in creatures visible and invisible, from minds of subjective high and low Beings to objective animals and the lowest organisms, in short, “from the Deva to the elephant, from the elemental to the ant.” Now, in relation to its own plane of conception and perception, the ant has as good an intellect as we have ourselves, and a better one; for though it cannot express it in words, yet, over and above instinct, the ant shows very high reasoning powers, as all of us know. Thus finding on our own plane—if we credit the teachings of Occultism—so many and such varied states of consciousness and intelligence, we have no right to take into consideration and account only our own human consciousness, as though no other existed outside of it. And if we cannot presume to decide how far insect consciousness goes, how can we limit consciousness, of which Science knows nothing, to this plane.

Q. But why not? surely natural science can discover all that has to be discovered, even in the ant?

A. Such is your view; to the occultist, however, such confidence is misplaced, in spite of Sir John Lubbock’s labours. Science may speculate, but, with its present methods, will never be able to prove the certitude of such speculations. If a scientist could become an ant for a while, and think as an ant, and remember his experience on returning to his own sphere of consciousness, then only would he know something for certain of this interesting insect. As it is, he can only speculate, making inferences from the ant’s behaviour.

Q. The ant’s conception of time and space are not our own, then. Is it this that you mean?

A. Precisely; the ant has conceptions of time and space which are its own, not ours; conceptions which are entirely on another plane; we have, therefore, no right to 313deny a priori the existence of other planes only because we can form no idea of them, but which exist nevertheless—planes higher and lower than our own by many degrees, as witness the ant.

Q. The difference between the animal and man from this point of view seems to be that the former is born more or less with all its faculties, and, generally speaking, does not appreciably gain on this, while the latter is gradually learning and improving. Is not that really the point?

A. Just so; but you have to remember why: not because man has one “principle” more than the tiniest insect, but because man is a perfected animal, the vehicle of a fully developed monad, self-conscious and deliberately following its own line of progress, whereas in the insect, and even the higher animal, the higher triad of principles is absolutely dormant.

Q. Is there any consciousness, or conscious being, to cognize and make a division of time at the first flutter of manifestation? In his “Notes on the Bhagavad-Gita,” Mr. Subba Row, in speaking of the First Logos, seems to imply both consciousness and intelligence.

A. But he did not explain which Logos was referred to, and I believe he spoke in general. In the Esoteric Philosophy the First is the unmanifested, and the Second the manifested Logos. Iswara stands for that Second, and Nârâyana for the unmanifested Logos. Subba Row is an Adwaitee and a learned Vedantin, and explained from his standpoint. We do so from ours. In The Secret Doctrine, that from which the manifested Logos is born is translated by the “Eternal Mother-Father”; while in the Vishnu-Purâna it is described as the Egg of the World, surrounded by seven skins, layers or zones. It is in this Golden Egg that Brahmâ, the male, is born and that Brahmâ is in reality the Second Logos or even the Third, according to the enumeration adopted; for a certainty he is not the First or highest, the point which is everywhere and nowhere. Mahat, in the Esoteric interpretations, is in reality the Third Logos or the Synthesis of the Seven creative rays, the Seven Logoi. Out of the seven so-called Creations, Mahat is the third, for it is the 314Universal and Intelligent Soul, Divine Ideation, combining the ideal plans and prototypes of all things in the manifested objective as well as subjective world. In the Sânkhya and Purânic doctrines Mahat is the first product of Pradhâna, informed by Kshetrajñâ, “Spirit-Substance.” In Esoteric philosophy Kshetrajñâ is the name given to our informing EGOS.

Q. Is it then the first manifestation in our objective universe?

A. It is the first Principle in it, made sensible or perceptible to divine though not human senses. But if we proceed from the Unknowable, we will find it to be the third, and corresponding to Manas, or rather Buddhi-Manas.

Q. Then the First Logos is the first point within the circle?

A. The point within the circle which has neither limit nor boundaries, nor can it have any name or attribute. This first unmanifested Logos is simultaneous with the line drawn across the diameter of the Circle. The first line or diameter is the Mother-Father; from it proceeds the Second Logos, which contains in itself the Third Manifested Word. In the Purânas, for instance, it is again said that the first production of Akâsa is Sound, and Sound means in this case the “Word,” the expression of the unuttered thought, the manifested Logos, that of the Greeks and Platonists and St. John. Dr. Wilson and other Orientalists speak of this conception of the Hindus as an absurdity, for according to them Akâsa and Chaos are identical. But if they knew that Akâsa and Pradhâna are but two aspects of the same thing, and remember that Mahat, the divine ideation on our plane—is that manifested Sound or Logos, they would laugh at themselves and their own ignorance.

Q. With reference to the following passage, what is the consciousness which takes cognizance of time? Is the consciousness of time limited to the plane of waking physical consciousness or does it exist on higher planes? In “The Secret Doctrine,” I, 37, it is said that:—“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. . . .”

315 A. Here consciousness only on our plane is meant, not the eternal divine Consciousness which we call the Absolute. The consciousness of time, in the present sense of the word, does not exist even in sleep; much less, therefore, can it exist in the essentially absolute. Can the sea be said to have a conception of time in its rhythmical striking on the shore, or in the movement of its waves? The Absolute cannot be said to have a consciousness, or, at any rate, a consciousness such as we have here. It has neither consciousness, nor desire, nor wish, nor thought, because it is absolute thought, absolute desire, absolute consciousness, absolute “all.”

Q. Is it what we refer to as BE-NESS, or SAT?

A. Our kind critics have found the word “Be-ness” very amusing, but there is no other way of translating the Sanskrit term, Sat. It is not existence, for existence can only apply to phenomena, never to noumena, the very etymology of the Latin term contradicting such assertion, as ex means “from” or “out of,” and sistere “to stand”; therefore, something appearing being then [there?] where it was not before. Existence, moreover, implies something having a beginning and an end. How can the term, therefore, be applied to that which ever was, and of which it cannot be predicated that it ever issued from something else?

Q. The Hebrew Jehovah was “I am.”

A. And so was Ormuzd, the Ahura-Mazda of the old Mazdeans. In this sense every man as much as every God can boast of his existence, saying “I am that I am.”

Q. But surely “Be-ness” has some connection with the word “to be”?

A. Yes; but “Be-ness” is not being, for it is equally non-being. We cannot conceive it, for our intellects are finite and our language far more limited and conditioned even than our minds. How, therefore, can we express that which we can only conceive of by a series of negatives?

Q. A German could more easily express it by the word “sein”; “das sein” would be a very good equivalent of “Be-ness”; the latter term may sound absurd to unaccustomed English ears, 316but “das sein” is a perfectly familiar term and idea to a German. But we were speaking of consciousness in Space and Time.

A. This Consciousness is finite, having beginning and end. But where is the word for such finite Consciousness which still, owing to Mâya, believes itself infinite? Not even the Devachanee is conscious of time. All is present in Devachan; there is no past, otherwise the Ego would recall and regret it; no future, or it would desire to have it. Seeing, therefore, that Devachan is a state of bliss in which everything is present, the Devachanee is said to have no conception or idea of time; everything is to him as in a vivid dream, a reality.

Q. But we may dream a lifetime in half a second, being conscious of a succession of states of consciousness, events taking place one after the other.

A. After the dream only; no such consciousness exists while dreaming.

Q. May we not compare the recollection of a dream to a person giving the description of a picture, and having to mention all the parts and details because he cannot present the whole before the mind’s eye of the listener?

A. That is a very good analogy.

–––––––

II

Meeting held at 17, Lansdowne Road, London, W., on January 17th, 1889, Mr. T.B. Harbottle in the Chair.

STANZA I (continued)

Sloka (3). . . . .UNIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR THERE WERE NO AH-HI (celestial beings) TO CONTAIN (hence to manifest) IT.

Q. This sloka seems to imply that the Universal Mind has no existence apart from the Ah-hi; but in the Commentary it is stated that:

A noumenon can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that plane through an appropriate basis 317or 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 who are the vehicles 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; . . . . . . This hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the Universal Mind comes into action, is like an army—a “Host,” truly. . . . . . .

The Commentary suggests that the Ah-hi are not themselves the Universal Mind, but only the vehicle for its manifestation.

A. The meaning of this sloka is, I think, very clear; it means that, as there are no finite differentiated minds during Pralaya, it is just as though there were no mind at all, because there is nothing to contain or perceive it. There is nothing to receive and reflect the ideation of the Absolute Mind; therefore, it is not. Everything outside of the Absolute and immutable Sat (Be-ness), is necessarily finite and conditioned, since it has beginning and end. Therefore, since the “Ah-hi were not,” there was no Universal Mind as a manifestation. A distinction had to be made between the Absolute Mind, which is ever present, and its reflection and manifestation in the Ah-hi, who, being on the highest plane, reflect the universal mind collectively at the first flutter of Manvantara. After which they begin the work of evolution of all the lower forces throughout the seven planes, down to the lowest—our own. The Ah-hi are the primordial seven rays, or Logoi, emanated from the first Logos, triple, yet one in its essence.

Q. Then the Ah-hi and Universal Mind are necessary complements of one another?

A. Not at all: Universal or Absolute Mind always is during Pralaya as well as Manvantara; it is immutable. The Ah-hi are the highest Dhyanis, the Logoi as just 318said, those who begin the downward evolution, or emanation. During Pralaya there are no Ah-hi, because they come into being only with the first radiation of the Universal Mind, which, per se, cannot be differentiated, and the radiation from which is the first dawn of Manvantara. The Absolute is dormant, latent mind, and cannot be otherwise in true metaphysical perception; it is only Its shadow which becomes differentiated in the collectivity of these Dhyanis.

Q. Does this mean that it was absolute consciousness, but is so no longer?

A. It is absolute consciousness eternally, which consciousness becomes relative consciousness periodically, at every “Manvantaric dawn.” Let us picture to ourselves this latent or potential consciousness as a kind of vacuum in a vessel. Break the vessel, and what becomes of the vacuum; where shall we look for it? It has disappeared; it is everywhere and nowhere. It is something, yet nothing: a vacuum, yet a plenum. But what in reality is a vacuum as understood by Modern Science—a homogeneous something, or what? Is not absolute Vacuum a figment of our fancy? A pure negation, a supposed Space where nothing exists? This being so, destroy the vessel, and—to our perceptions at any rate—nothing exists. Therefore, the Stanza puts it very correctly; “Universal Mind was not,” because there was no vehicle to contain it.

Q. What are the higher powers which condition the Ah-hi?

A. They cannot be called powers; power or perhaps Potentiality would be better. The Ah-hi are conditioned by the awakening into manifestation of the periodical, universal LAW, which becomes successively active and inactive. It is by this law that they are conditioned or formed, not created. “Created” is an impossible term to use in Philosophy.

Q. Then the power or Potentiality which precedes and is higher than the Ah-hi, is the law which necessitates manifestation?

A. Just so; periodical manifestation. When the hour strikes, the law comes into action, and the Ah-hi appear on the first rung of the ladder of manifestation.

319 Q. But surely this is THE law and not A law?

A. Precisely, since it is absolute and “Secondless”— therefore it is not an attribute, but that Absoluteness itself.

Q. The great difficulty is to account for this law?

A. That would be trying to go beyond the first manifestation and supreme causality. It will take all our limited intellect to vaguely understand even the latter; try as we may, we can never, limited as we are, approach the Absolute, which is to us, at our present stage of mental development, merely a logical speculation, though dating back to thousands and thousands of years.

Q. With reference to the sloka under discussion, would not “cosmic mind” be a better term than “Universal mind”?

A. No; cosmic mind appears at the third stage, or degree, and is confined or limited to the manifested universe. In the Purânas Mahat (the “great” Principle of mind, or Intellect) appears only at the third of the Seven “Creations” or stages of evolution. Cosmic Mind is Mahat, or divine ideation in active (creative) operation, and thus only the periodical manifestation in time and in actu of the Eternal Universal Mind—in potentia. In strict truth, Universal Mind, being only another Name for the Absolute, out of time and Space, this Cosmic Ideation, or Mind, is not an evolution at all (least of all a “creation”), but simply one of the aspects of the former, which knows no change, which ever was, which is, and will be. Thus, I say again, the sloka implies that universal ideation was not, i.e., did not exist for perception, because there were no minds to perceive it, since Cosmic Mind was still latent, or a mere potentiality. As the stanzas speak of manifestation, we are compelled so to translate them, and not from any other standpoint.

Q. We use the word “cosmic” as applied to the manifested universe in all its forms. The sloka apparently does not refer to this, but to the first absolute Consciousness, or Non-consciousness, and seems to imply that the absolute consciousness could not be that universal mind because it was not, or could not be, expressed: there was, therefore, no expression for it. But it may be objected 320that though there was no expression for it, still it was there. Can we say that, like Sat, it was and was not?

A. That will not help the interpretation.

Q. When it is said that it was not, the idea conveyed then is that it was not in the Absolute?

A. By no means; simply “it was not.”

Q. There seems to be a distinction, certainly; for if we could say “it was,” it would be taking a very one-sided view of the idea of Sat, and equivalent to saying that Sat was BEING. Still, someone may say that the phrase “Universal Mind was not,” as it stands, suggests that it is a manifestation, but mind is not a manifestation.

A. Mind, in the act of ideation, is a manifestation; but Universal Mind is not the same thing, as no conditioned and relative act can be predicated of that which is Absolute. Universal ideation was as soon as the Ah-hi appeared, and continues throughout the Manvantara.

Q. To what cosmic plane do the Ah-hi, here spoken of, belong?

A. They belong to the first, second, and third planes—the last plane being really the starting point of the primordial manifestation—the objective reflection of the unmanifested. Like the Pythagorean Monas, the first Logos, having emanated the first triad, disappears into silence and darkness.

Q. Does this mean that the three Logoi emanated from the primordial Radiation in Macrocosm correspond to Atma, Buddhi, and Manas, in the Microcosm?

A. Just so; they correspond, but must not be confounded with them. We are now speaking of the Macrocosm at the first flutter of Manvantaric dawn, when evolution begins, and not of Microcosm or Man.

Q. Are the three planes to which the three Logoi belong simultaneous emanations, or do they evolve one from another?

A. It is most misleading to apply mechanical laws to the higher metaphysics of cosmogony, or to space and time, as we know them for neither existed then. The reflection of the triad in space and time or the objective universe comes later.

COLONEL HENRY STEEL OLCOTT Originally published in The Word, Vol. XXII, October, 1915.

321 Q. Have the Ah-hi been men in previous Manvantaras, or will they become so?

A. Every living creature, of whatever description, was, is, or will become a human being in one or another Manvantara.

Q. But do they in this Manvantara remain permanently on the same very exalted plane during the whole period of the life-cycle?

A. If you mean by “life cycle” a duration of time which extends over fifteen figures, then my answer is most decidedly—no. The “Ah-hi” pass through all the planes, beginning to manifest on the third. Like all other Hierarchies, on the highest plane they are arupa, i.e., formless, bodiless, without any substance, mere breaths. On the second plane, they first approach to Rupa, or form. On the third, they become Manasaputras, those who became incarnated in men. With every plane they reach they are called by different names—there is a continual differentiation of their original homogeneous substance; we call it substance, although in reality it is no substance of which we can conceive Later, they become Rupa—ethereal forms.

Q. Then the Ah-hi of this Manvantara. . . . . . ?

A. Exist no longer; they have long ago become Planetary, Solar, Lunar, and lastly, incarnating Egos, for, as said, “they are the collective hosts of spiritual beings.”

Q. But it was stated above that the Ah-hi did not become men in this Manvantara.

A. Nor do they as the formless “Ah-hi.” But they do as their own transformations. The Manvantaras should not be confounded. The fifteen-figure Manvantaric cycle applies to the solar system; but there is a Manvantara which relates to the whole of the objective universe, the Mother-Father, and many minor Manvantaras. The slokas relating to the former have been generally selected, and only two or three relating to the latter given. Many slokas, therefore, have been omitted because of their difficult nature.

Q. Then, on reawakening, will the men of one Manvantara have to pass through a state corresponding to the Ah-hi stage in the next Manvantara?

322 A. In some of the Manvantaras, the tail is in the mouth of the serpent. Think over this Symbolism.

Q. A man can choose what he will think about; can the analogy be applied to the Ah-hi?

A. No; because a man has free will and Ah-hi have none. They are obliged to act simultaneously, for the law under which they must act gives them the impulse. Free will can only exist in a Man who has both mind and consciousness, which act and make him perceive things both within and without himself. The “Ah-hi” are Forces, not human Beings.

Q. But are they not conscious agents in the work?

A. Conscious in as far as they act within the universal consciousness. But the consciousness of the Manasa-putra on the third plane is quite different. It is only then that they become Thinkers. Besides, Occultism, unlike modern Science, maintains that every atom of matter, when once differentiated, becomes endowed with its own kind of Consciousness. Every cell in the human body (as in every animal) is endowed with its own peculiar discrimination, instinct, and, speaking relatively, with intelligence.

Q. Can the Ah-hi be said to be enjoying bliss?

A. How can they be subject to bliss or non-bliss? Bliss can only be appreciated, and becomes such when suffering is known.

Q. But there is a distinction between happiness and bliss.

A. Granting that there may be, still there can be neither happiness nor bliss without a contrasting experience of suffering and pain.

Q. But we understand that bliss, as the state of the Absolute, was intended to be referred to.

A. This is still more illogical. How can the ABSOLUTE be said to feel? The Absolute can have no condition nor attribute. It is only that which is finite and differentiated which can have any feeling or attitude predicated of it.

Q. Then the Ah-hi cannot be said to be conscious intelligences, when intelligence is so complex?

A. Perhaps the term is erroneous, but owing to the poverty of European languages there seems to be no other choice.

323 Q. But perhaps a phrase would represent the idea more correctly? The term seems to mean a force which is a unity, not a complex action and reaction of several forces, which would be implied by the word “intelligence.” The noumenal aspect of phenomenal force would perhaps better express the idea.

A. Or perhaps we may represent to ourselves the idea as a flame, a unity; the rays from this flame will be complex, each acting in its own straight line.

Q. But they only become complex when they find receptacles in lower forms.

A. Just so; still the Ah-hi are the flame from which the rays stream forth, becoming more and more differentiated as they fall deeper into matter, until they finally reach this world of ours, with its teeming millions of inhabitants and sensuous beings, and then they become truly complex.

Q. The Ah-hi, then, considered as a primary essence, would be unity? Can we regard them as such?

A. You may; but the strict truth is that they only proceed from unity, and are the first of its seven rays.

Q. Then can we call them the reflection of unity?

A. Are not the prismatic rays fundamentally one single white ray? From the one they become three; from the three, seven; from which seven primaries they fall into infinitude. Referring back to the so-called “consciousness” of the Ah-hi, that consciousness cannot be judged by the standard of human perceptions. It is on quite another plane.

Q. “During deep sleep, mind is not on the material plane”; is it therefore to be inferred that during this period mind is active on another plane? Is there any definition of the characteristics which distinguish mind in the waking state from mind during the sleep of the body?

A. There is, of course; but I do not think that a discussion upon it would be pertinent or useful now; suffice to say that often the reasoning faculty of the higher mind may be asleep, and the instinctual mind be fully awake. It is the physiological distinction between the cerebrum and the cerebellum; the one sleeps and the other is awake.

324 Q. What is meant by the term instinctual mind?

A. The instinctual mind finds expression through the cerebellum, and is also that of the animals. With man during sleep the functions of the cerebrum cease, and the cerebellum carries him on to the Astral plane, a still more unreal state than even the waking plane of illusion; for so we call this state which the majority of you think so real. And the Astral plane is still more deceptive, because it reflects indiscriminately the good and the bad, and is so chaotic.

Q. The fundamental conditions of the mind in the waking state are space and time: do these exist for the mind (Manas) during the sleep of the physical body?

A. Not as we know them. Moreover, the answer depends on which Manas you mean—the higher or the lower. It is only the latter which is susceptible of hallucinations about space and time; for instance, a man in the dreaming state may live in a few seconds the events of a life-time. For the perceptions and apprehensions of the Higher Ego there is neither space nor time.

Q. Manas is said to be the vehicle of Buddhi, but the universal mind has been spoken of as a Maha-Buddhi. What then is the distinction between the terms Manas and Buddhi, employed in a universal sense, and Manas and Buddhi as manifested in man?

A. Cosmic Buddhi, the emanation of the Spiritual Soul Alaya, is the vehicle of Mahat only when that Buddhi corresponds to Prakriti. Then it is called Maha-Buddhi. This Buddhi differentiates through seven planes, whereas the Buddhi in man is the vehicle of Atman, which vehicle is of the essence of the highest plane of Akaśa and therefore does not differentiate. The difference between Manas and Buddhi in man is the same as the difference between the Manasa-putra and the Ah-hi in Kosmos.

325 Q. Manas is mind, and the Ah-hi, it is said, can no more have any individual Mind, or that which we call mind, on this plane than Buddhi can. Can there be Consciousness without Mind?

A. Not on this plane of matter. But why not on some other and higher plane? Once we postulate a Universal Mind, both the brain, the mind’s vehicle, and Consciousness, its faculty, must be quite different on a higher plane from what they are here. They are nearer to the Absolute ALL, and must therefore be represented by a substance infinitely more homogeneous; something sui generis, and entirely beyond the reach of our intellectual perceptions. Let us call or imagine it an incipient and incognizable state of primeval differentiation. On that higher plane, as it seems to me, Mahat—the great Manvantaric Principle of Intelligence—acts as a Brain, through which the Universal and Eternal Mind radiates the Ah-hi, representing the resultant consciousness or ideation. As the shadow of this primordial triangle falls lower and lower through the descending planes, it becomes with every stage more material.

Q. It becomes the plane on which Consciousness perceives objective manifestations. Is it so?

A. Yes. But here we come face to face with the great problem of Consciousness, and shall have to fight Materialism. For what is Consciousness? According to modern Science it is a faculty of the Mind like volition. We say so too; but add that while Consciousness is not a thing per se, Mind is distinctly—in its Manvantaric functions at least—an Entity. Such is the opinion of all the Eastern Idealists.

Q. It is, however, the fashion nowadays to speak slightingly of the idea that the mind is an entity.

A. Nevertheless, mind is a term perfectly synonymous with Soul. Those who deny the existence of the latter will of course contend that there is no such thing as consciousness apart from brain, and at death consciousness ceases. Occultists, on the contrary, affirm that consciousness exists after death, and that then only the real consciousness and freedom of the Ego commences, when it is no longer impeded by terrestrial matter.

326 Q. Perhaps the former view arises from limiting the meaning of the term “consciousness” to the faculty of perception?

A. If so, occultism is entirely opposed to such a view.

Sloka (4) THE SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS (Moksha or Nirvana) WERE NOT. THE GREAT CAUSES OF MISERY (Nidana and Maya) WERE NOT, FOR THERE WAS NO ONE TO PRODUCE AND GET ENSNARED BY THEM.

Q. What are the seven ways to bliss?

A. They are certain faculties of which the student will know more when he goes deeper into occultism.

Q. Are the Four Truths of the Hinayâna school the same as those mentioned by Sir Edwin Arnold in “The Light of Asia”; the first of which is the Path of Sorrow; the second of Sorrow’s cause: the third of Sorrow’s ceasing; and the fourth is the WAY?

A. All this is theological and exoteric, and to be found in all the Buddhist scriptures; and the above seems to be taken from Singhalese or Southern Buddhism. The subject, however, is far more fully treated of in the Aryasangha School. Still even there the four truths have one meaning for the regular priest of the Yellow Robe, and quite another for the real Mystics.

Q. Are Nidâna and Maya (the great causes of misery) aspects of the Absolute?

A. Nidâna means the concatenation of cause and effect; the twelve Nidânas are the enumeration of the chief causes which produce the severest reaction or effects under the Karmic law. Although there is no connection between the terms Nidâna and Maya in themselves, Maya being simply illusion, yet if we consider the universe as Maya or illusion, then certainly the Nidânas, as being moral agents in the universe, are included in Maya. It is Maya, illusion or ignorance, which awakens Nidânas; and the cause or causes having been produced, the effects follow according to Karmic law. To take an instance: we all regard ourselves as Units, although essentially we are one indivisible Unit, drops in the ocean of Being, not to be distinguished from other drops. Having then produced 327this cause, the whole discord of life follows immediately as an effect; in reality it is the endeavour of nature to restore harmony and maintain equilibrium. It is this sense of separateness which is the root of all evil.

Q. Perhaps it would therefore be better to separate the two terms, and state whether Maya is an aspect of the Absolute?

A. This can hardly be so, since Maya is the Cause, and at the same time an aspect, of differentiation, if of anything. Moreover, the Absolute can never be differentiated. Maya is a manifestation; the Absolute can have no manifestation, but only a reflection, a shadow which is radiated periodical]y from it—not by it.

Q. Yet Maya is said to be the Cause of manifestation or differentiation?

A. What of that? Certainly if there were no Maya there would be no differentiation, or, rather, no objective universe would be perceived. But this does not make of it an aspect of the Absolute, but simply something coeval and coexistent with the manifested Universe or the heterogeneous differentiation of pure Homogeneity.

Q. By a parity of reason, then, if no differentiation, no Maya? But we are speaking of Maya now as THE CAUSE of the Universe, so that the moment we get behind differentiation, we may ask ourselves—Where is Maya?

A. Maya is everywhere, and in every thing that has a beginning and an end; therefore, every thing is an aspect of that which is eternal, and in that sense, of course Maya itself is an aspect of SAT, or that which is eternally present in the universe, whether during Manvantara or Mahapralaya. Only remember that it has been said of even Nirvâna that it is only Maya when compared with the Absolute.

Q. Is then Maya a collective term for all manifestations?

A. I do not think this would explain the term. Maya is the perceptive faculty of every Ego which considers itself a Unit separate from, and independent of, the One infinite and eternal SAT, or “Be-ness.” Maya is explained in exoteric philosophy and the Purânas, as the personified active Will of the Creative God—the latter being but a personified Maya himself—a passing deception of the 328senses of man, who began anthropomorphising pure abstraction from the beginning of his speculations. Maya. in the conception of an orthodox Hindu, is quite different from the Maya of a Vedantin Idealist or an Occultist The Vedanta states that Maya, or the deceptive influence of illusion alone, constitutes belief in the real existence of matter or anything differentiated. The Bhagavata Purana identifies Maya with Prakriti (manifested nature and matter). Do not some advanced European metaphysicians, such as Kant, Schopenhauer, and others, assert the same? Of` course they got their ideas about it from the East—especially from Buddhism; yet the doctrine of the unreality of this universe has been pretty correctly worked out by our philosophers—on general lines, at any rate. Now, although no two people can see things and objects in exactly the same way, and that each of us sees them in his own way, yet all labour more or less under illusions, and chiefly under the great illusion (Maya) that they are, as personalities, distinct beings from other beings, and that even their Selves or Egos will prevail in the eternity (or sempiternity, at any rate) as such; whereas not only we ourselves, but the whole visible and invisible universe, are only a temporary part of the one beginningless and endless WHOLE, or that which ever was, is, and will be.

Q. The term seems to apply to the complex points of differentiation: differentiation applying to the unit and Maya to the collection of units. But we may now put e side question.

With regard to the preceding part of the discussion, reference has been made to the cerebrum and cerebellum, and the latter described as the instinctual organ. An animal is supposed to have an instinctive mind; but the cerebellum is said to be simply the organ of vegetative life, and to control the functions of the body alone; whereas the sensual mind is the mind into which the senses open, and there can be no thought or ideation, nothing of which we predicate intellect or instinct anywhere, except in that part of the brain assigned to such functions, namely, the cerebrum.

A. However that may be, this cerebellum is the organ of instinctual animal functions, which reflect themselves in, or produce, dreams which for the most part are chaotic and inconsequent. Dreams, however, which are 329remembered, and present a sequence of events, are due to the vision of the higher Ego.

Q. Is not the cerebellum what we may call the organ of habit?

A. Being instinctual, it may very well be called so, I believe.

Q. Except that habit may be referred to whet we may cell the present stage of existence, and instinct to a past stage.

A. Whatever the name may be, the cerebellum alone—as you were already told (vide “On dreams,” Appendix)—functions during sleep, not the cerebrum; and the dreams, or emanations, or instinctive feelings, which we experience on waking, are the result of such activity.

Q. The consecutiveness is brought about entirely by the coordinating faculty. But surely the cerebrum also acts, a proof of which is that the nearer we approach the sleep-waking state the more vivid our dreams become.

A. Quite so, when you are waking; but not before. We may compare this state of the cerebellum to a bar of metal, or something of the same nature, which has been heated during the day and emanates or radiates heat during the night; so the energy of the brain radiates unconsciously during the night.

Q. Still we cannot say that the brain is incapable of registering impressions during sleep. A sleeping man can be awakened by a noise, and when awake will be frequently able to trace his dream to the impression caused by the noise. This fact seems to prove conclusively the brain’s activity during sleep.

A. A mechanical activity certainly; if under such circumstances there is the slightest perception, or the least glimpse of the dream state, memory comes into play, and the dream can be reconstructed. In the discussion on dreams, the dream state passing into the waking state was compared to the embers of a dying fire; we may very well continue the simile, and compare the play of the memory to a current of air re-kindling them. That is to say that 330the waking consciousness recalls to activity the cerebellum, which was fading below the threshold of consciousness.

Q. But does the cerebellum ever cease functioning?

A. NO; but it is lost in the functions of the cerebrum.

Q. That is to say that the stimuli which proceed from the cerebellum during waking life fall below the threshold of waking consciousness, the field of consciousness being entirely occupied by the cerebrum, and this continues till sleep supervenes, when the stimuli from the cerebellum begin in their turn to form the field of consciousness. It is not, therefore, correct-to say that the cerebrum is the only seat of consciousness.

A. Quite so; the function of the cerebrum is to polish, perfect, or co-ordinate ideas, whereas that of the cerebellum produces conscious desires, and So on.

Q. Evidently we have to extend our idea of consciousness. For instance, there is no reason why a sensitive plant should not have consciousness. Du Prel, in his “Philosophie der Mystik,” cites some very curious experiments showing a kind of local consciousness, perhaps a kind of reflex connection. He even goes further than this, demonstrating, from a large number of well authenticated cases, such as those of clairvoyants, who can perceive by the pit of the stomach, that the threshold of consciousness is capable of a very wide extension, far wider than we are accustomed to give to it, both upwards and downwards.

A. We may congratulate ourselves on the experiments of Du Prel as an antidote to the theories of Professor Huxley, which are absolutely irreconcilable with the teachings of occultism.

III

Meeting held at 17, Lansdowne Road, London, W., on January 24th, 1889; MR. T. B. HARBOTTLE in the Chair.

STANZA I (continued)

Sloka (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.

331 Q. Is “Darkness” the same as the “Eternal Parent Space” spoken of in Sloka (1)?

A. Not at all. Here “the boundless all” is the “Parent Space”; and Cosmic Space is something already with attributes, at least potentially. “Darkness,” on the other hand, and in this instance, is that of which no attributes can be postulated: it is the Unknown Principle filling Cosmic Space.

Q. Is Darkness, then, used in the sense of the opposite pole to Light?

A. Yes, in the sense of the Unmanifested and the Unknown as the opposite pole to manifestation, and that which falls under the possibility of speculation.

Q. Darkness is not opposed to Light, then, but to differentiation; or rather, may it not be taken as the symbol of Negativeness?

A. The “Darkness” here meant can be opposed to neither Light nor Differentiation, as both are the legitimate effects of the Manvantaric evolution—the cycle of Activity. It is the “Darkness upon the face of the Deep,” in Genesis: Deep being here “the bright son of the Dark Father”—Space.

Q. Is it that there is no Light or simply nothing to manifest, and no one to perceive it?

A. Both. In the sense of objectivity, both light and darkness are illusions—maya; in this case, it is not Darkness as absence of Light, but as one incomprehensible primordial Principle, which, being Absoluteness itself, has for our intellectual perceptions neither form, colour, substantiality, nor anything that could be expressed by words.

Q. When does Light proceed from that Darkness?

A. Subsequently, when the first hour for manifestation strikes.

Q. Light, then, is the first manifestation?

A. It is, after differentiation has begun and at the third stage of evolution only. Bear in mind that in philosophy we use the word “Light” in a dual sense: one to signify eternal, absolute light, in potentia, ever present in the bosom of the unknown Darkness, coexistent and coeval with the latter in Eternity, or in other words, identical with it; and the other as a Manifestation of heterogeneity and a contrast 332to it. For one who reads the Vishnu-Purâna, for instance, understandingly, will find the difference between the two terms well expressed in Vishnu; one with Brahmâ, and yet distinct from him. There, Vishnu is the eternal x, and at the same time every term of the equation. He is Brahma (neuter) essentially matter and Spirit, which are Brahma’s two primordial aspects—Spirit being the abstract light. In the Vedas, however, we find Vishnu held in small esteem, and no mention made whatever of Brahmâ (the male).

Q. What is the meaning of the sentence, “Father, Mother and Son were once more one”?

A. It means that the three Logoi—the unmanifested “Father,” the semi-manifested “Mother” and the Universe, which is the third Logos of our philosophy or Brahmâ, were during the (periodical) pralaya once more one; differentiated essence had rebecome undifferentiated. The sentence, “Father, Mother, and Son,” is the antetype 333of the Christian type—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—the last of which was, in early Christianity and Gnosticism, the female “Sophia.” It means that all creative and sensitive forces and the effects of such forces which constitute the universe had returned to their primordial state: all was merged into one. During the Mahapralayas naught but the Absolute is.

Q. What are the different meanings of` Father, Mother and Son? In the Commentary, they are explained as (a) Spirit, Substance and Universe, (b) Spirit, Soul and Body, (c) Universe, Planetary Chain and Man.

A. I have just completed it with my extra definition, which is clear, I think. There is nothing to be added to this explanation, unless we begin to anthropomorphise abstract conceptions.

Q. Taking the last terms of the three series, do the ideas Son, Universe, Man, Body correspond with one another?

A. Of course they do.

Q. And are these terms produced from the remaining pair of terms of each trinity; for instance, the Son from the Father and Mother, the men from the Chain and the Universe, etc., etc., and finally in Pralaya is the son merged back again into its parents?

A. Before the question is answered, you must be reminded that the period preceding so-called Creation is not spoken about; but only that when matter had begun to differentiate, but had not yet assumed form. Father-Mother is a compound term which means primordial Substance or Spirit-matter. When from Homogeneity it begins through differentiation to fall into Heterogeneity, it becomes positive and negative; thus from the “Zero-state” (or laya) it becomes active and passive, instead of the latter alone; and, in consequence of this differentiation (the resultant of which is evolution and the subsequent Universe),—the “Son” is produced, the Son being that same Universe, or manifested Kosmos, till a new Mahapralaya.

Q. Or—the ultimate state in laya, or in the zero point, as in the beginning before the stage of the Father, Mother and Son?

A. There is but slight reference to that which was before the Father-Mother period in The Secret Doctrine. If there 334is Father-Mother, there can, of course, be no such condition as Laya.

Q. Father, Mother are therefore later than the Laya condition?

A. Quite so; individual objects may be in Laya, but the Universe cannot be so when Father-Mother appears.

Q. Is Fohat one of the three, Father, Mother and Son?

A. Fohat is a generic term and used in many senses. He is the light (Daiviprakriti) of all the three logoi—the personified symbols of the three spiritual stages of Evolution. Fohat is the aggregate of all the spiritual creative ideations above, and of all the electro-dynamic and creative forces below, in Heaven and on Earth. There seems to be great confusion and misunderstanding concerning the First and Second Logos. The first is the already present yet still unmanifested potentiality in the bosom of Father-Mother; the Second is the abstract collectivity of creators called “Demiurgi” by the Greeks or the Builders of the Universe. The third logos is the ultimate differentiation of the Second and the individualization of Cosmic Forces, of which Fohat is the chief; for Fohat is the synthesis of the Seven Creative Rays or Dhyan Chohans which proceed from the third Logos. Q. During Manvantara when the Son is in existence or awake, does the Father-Mother exist independently or only as manifested in the Son?

A. In using the terms Father, Mother, and Son, we should be on our guard against anthropomorphising the conception; the two former are simply centrifugal and centripetal forces and their product is the “Son”; moreover, it is impossible to exclude either of these factors from the conception in the Esoteric Philosophy.

Q. If so then comes this other point: it is possible to conceive of centripetal and centrifugal forces existing independently of the effects they produce. The effects are always regarded as secondary to the cause or causes.

A. But it is very doubtful whether such a conception can be maintained in, and applied to, our Symbology; if these forces exist they must be producing effects, and if the effects cease, the forces cease with them, for who can know of them?

335 Q. But they exist as separate entities for mathematical purposes, do they not?

A. That is a different thing; there is a great difference between nature and science, reality and philosophical symbolism. For the same reason we divide man into seven principles, but this does not mean that he has, as it were, seven skins, or entities, or souls. These principles are all aspects of one principle, and even this principle is but a temporary and periodical ray of the One eternal and infinite Flame or Fire.

Sloka (6). THE SEVEN SUBLIME LORDS AND THE SEVEN TRUTHS HAD CEASED TO BE, AND THE UNIVERSE, THE SON OF NECESSITY, WAS IMMERSED IN PARANISHPANNA (absolute perfection, Paranirvana, which is Yong-Grub), TO BE OUT-BREATHED BY THAT WHICH IS AND YET IS NOT.

NAUGHT WAS.

Sloka (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.

Q. If the “Causes of existence” had been done away with how did they come again into existence? It is stated in the Commentary that the chief cause of existence is “the desire to exist,” but in the sloka, the universe is called the “son of necessity.”

A. “The causes of existence had been done away with” refers to the last Manvantara, or age of Brahmâ, but the cause which makes the Wheel of Time and Space run into Eternity, which is out of Space and Time, has nothing to do with finite causes or what we call Nidânas. There seems to me no contradiction in the statements.

Q. There certainly is a contrast. If the causes of existence had been done away with, how did they come into existence again? But the answer removes the difficulty, for it is stated that one Manvantara had disappeared into Pralaya, and that the cause which led the previous Manvantara to exist is now behind the limits of Space and Time, and therefore causes another Manvantara to come into being.

A. Quite so. This one eternal and therefore, “causeless cause” is immutable and has nothing to do with the causes on any of the planes which are concerned with finite and conditioned being. The cause can therefore by no 336means be a finite consciousness or desire. It is an absurdity to postulate desire or necessity of the Absolute; the striking of a clock does not suggest the desire of the clock to strike.

Q. But the clock is wound up, and needs a Winder?

A. The same may be said of the universe and this cause, the Absolute containing both clock and Winder, once it is the Absolute; the only difference is that the former is wound up in Space and Time and the latter out of Space and Time, that is to say in Eternity.

Q. The question really requests an explanation of the cause, in the Absolute, of differentiation.

A. That is outside the province of legitimate speculation. Parabrahm is not a cause, neither is there any cause that can compel it to emanate or create. Strictly speaking, Parabrahm is not even the Absolute but Absoluteness. Parabrahm is not the cause, but the causality, or the propelling but not volitional power, in every manifesting Cause. We may have some hazy idea that there is such a thing as this eternal Causeless Cause or Causality. But to define it is impossible. In the “Lectures on the Bhagavad Gita,” by Mr. Subba Row, it is stated that logically even the First Logos cannot cognize Parabrahm, but only Mulaprakriti, its veil. When, therefore, we have yet no clear idea of Mulaprakriti, the first basic aspect of Parabrahm, what can we know of that Supreme Total which is veiled by Mulaprakriti (the root of nature or Prakriti) even to the Logos.

Q. What is the meaning of the expression in sloka (7), “the visible that was, and the invisible that is”?

A. “The visible that was” means the universe of the past Manvantara which had passed into Eternity and was no more. “The invisible that is” signifies the eternal, ever-present and ever-invisible deity, which we call by many names, such as abstract Space, Absolute Sat, etc., and know, in reality, nothing about it.

Sloka (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.

337 Q. Does the “Eye” open upon the Absolute: or are the “one form of existence” and the “All-Presence” other than the Absolute, or various names for the same Principle?

A. It is all one, of course; simply metaphorical expressions. Please notice that the “Eye” is not said to “see”; it only “sensed” the “All-Presence.”

Q. It is through this “Eye” then, that we receive such sense, or feeling, or consciousness?

A. Through that “Eye,” most decidedly; but then one must have such an “Eye” before he can see, or become a Dangma, or a Seer.

Q. The highest spiritual faculty, presumably?

A. Very well; but where, at that stage, was the happy possessor of it? There was no Dangma to sense the “All-Presence,” because there were as yet no men.

Q. With reference to sloka (6), it was stated that the cause of Light was Darkness?

A. Darkness has, here again, to be read in a metaphorical sense. It is Darkness most unquestionably to our intellect, inasmuch as we can know nothing of it. I told you already that neither Darkness nor Light are to be used in the sense of opposites, as in the differentiated world. Darkness is the term which will give rise to the least misconceptions. For instance, if the term “Chaos” were used, it would be liable to be confounded with chaotic matter.

Q. The term light was, of course, never used for physical light?

A. Of course not. Here light is the first potentiality awakening from its laya condition to become a potency; it is the first flutter in undifferentiated matter which throws it into objectivity and into a plane from which will start manifestation.

Q. Later on in “The Secret Doctrine,” it is stated that light is made visible by darkness, or rather that darkness exists originally, and that light is the result of the presence of objects to reflect it, that is of the objective world. Now if we take a globe of water and pass an electric beam through it, we shall find that this beam is invisible, unless there are opaque particles in the water, in which case, specks of light will be seen. Is this a good analogy?

A. It is a very fair illustration, I believe.

338 Q. Is not Light a differentiation of vibration?

A. So we are told in Science; and Sound is also. And so we see that the senses are to a certain extent interchangeable. How would you account, for instance, for the fact that in trance a clairvoyant can read a letter, sometimes placed on the forehead, at the soles of the feet, or on the stomach-pit?

Q. That is an extra sense.

A. Not at all; it is simply that the sense of seeing can be interchanged with the sense of touch.

Q. But is not the sense of perception the beginning of the sixth sense?

A. That is going beyond the present case, which is simply the interchanging of the senses of touch and sight. Such clairvoyants, however, will not be able to tell the contents of a letter which they have not seen or been brought into contact with; this requires the exercise of the sixth sense, the former is an exercise of senses on the physical plane, the latter of a sense on a higher plane.

Q. It seems very probable from physiology that every sense may be resolved into the sense of touch, which may be called the co-ordinating sense. This deduction is made from embryological research, which shows that the sense of touch is the first and primary sense, and that all the rest are evolved from it. All the senses, therefore, are more highly specialised or differentiated forms of touch.

A. This is not the view of Eastern philosophy; in the Anugita, we read of a conversation between “Brahman” and his wife concerning the senses, seven are spoken of, “mind and understanding” being the other two, according to Mr. Trimbak Telang and Professor Max Müller’s translation; these terms, however, do not convey the correct meaning of the Sanskrit terms. Now, the first sense, according to the Hindus, is connected with sound. This can hardly be the sense of touch.

Q. By touch most probably sensibility, or some sense medium, is meant?

A. In the Eastern philosophy, however, the sense of sound is first manifested, and next the sense of sight, sounds passing into colours. Clairvoyants can see sounds and detect every note and modulation far more distinctly than 339they would by the ordinary sense of sound—vibration, or hearing.

Q. Is it, then, that sound is perceived as a sort of rhythmic movement?

A. Yes; and such vibrations can be seen at a greater distance than they can be heard.

Q. But supposing the physical hearing were stopped, and a person perceived sounds clairvoyantly, could not this sensation be translated into clairaudience as well?

A. One sense must certainly merge at some point into the other. So also sound can be translated into taste. There are sounds which taste exceedingly acid in the mouths of some sensitives, while others generate the taste of sweetness, in fact, the whole scale of senses is susceptible of correlations.

Q. Then there must be the same extension of the sense of smell?

A. Very naturally, as has been already shown before. The senses are interchangeable once we admit correlation. Moreover they can all be intensified or modified very considerably. You will now understand the reference in the Vedas and Upanishads, where sounds are said to be perceived.

Q. There was a curious story in the last number of “Harper’s Magazine” of a tribe on an island in the South Seas which has virtually lost the art and habit of speaking and conversing. Yet, they appeared to understand one another and see plainly what each other thought.

A. Such a “Palace of Truth” would hardly suit modern society. However, it was by just such means that the early races are said to have communicated with one another, thought taking an objective form, before speech developed into a distinct spoken language. If so, then there must have been a period in the evolution of the human races when the whole Humanity was composed of sensitives and clairvoyants.

340

IV

Meeting held at 17, Lansdowne Road, London, W., on January 31st, 1889; MR. T. B. HARBOTTLE in the Chair.

STANZA I (continued)

Q. With reference to sloka (6), where it speaks of the “Seven Lords,” since confusion is apt to arise as to the correct application of the terms, what is the distinction between Dhyan-Chohans, Planetary Spirits, Builders and Dhyani-Buddhas?

A. As an additional two volumes of The Secret Doctrine would be required to explain all the Hierarchies; therefore, much relating to them has been omitted from the Stanzas and Commentaries. A short definition may, however, be tried. Dhyan-Chohan is a generic term for all Devas, or celestial beings. A Planetary Spirit is a Ruler of a planet, a kind of finite or personal god. There is a marked difference, however, between the Rulers of the Sacred Planets and the Rulers of a small “chain” of worlds like our own. It is no serious objection to say that the earth has, nevertheless, six invisible companions and four different planes, as every other planet, for the difference between them is vital in many a point. Say what one may, our Earth was never numbered among the seven sacred planets of the ancients, though in exoteric, popular astrology it stood as a substitute for a secret planet now lost to astronomy, yet well known to initiated specialists. Nor were the Sun or the Moon in that number, though accepted in our day by modern astrology; for the Sun is a Central Star, and the Moon a dead planet. Q. Were none of the six globes of the “terrene” chain numbered among the sacred planets?

A. None. The latter were all planets on our plane, and some of them have been discovered later.

Q. Can you tell us something of the planets for which the Sun and the Moon were substitutes?

A. There is no secret in it, though our modern astrologers are ignorant of these planets. One is an intra-mercurial planet, which is supposed to have been discovered, and named by anticipation Vulcan, and the other a 341planet with a retrograde motion, sometimes visible at a certain hour of night and apparently near the moon. The occult influence of this planet is transmitted by the moon.

Q. What is it that made these planets sacred or secret?

A. Their occult influences, as far as I know.

Q. Then do the Planetary Spirits of the Seven Sacred Planets belong to another hierarchy than to that of the earth?

A. Evidently; since the terrestrial spirit of the earth is not of a very high grade. It must be remembered that the planetary spirit has nothing to do with the spiritual man, but with things of matter and cosmic beings. The gods and rulers of our Earth are cosmic Rulers; that is to say, they form into shape and fashion cosmic matter, for which they were called Cosmocratores. They never had any concern with spirit; the Dhyani-Buddhas, belonging to quite a different hierarchy, are especially concerned with the latter.

Q. These seven Planetary Spirits have therefore nothing really to do with the earth except incidentally?

A. On the contrary, the “Planetary”—who are not the Dhyani-Buddhas—have everything to do with the earth, physically and morally. It is they who rule its destinies and the fate of men. They are Karmic agencies.

Q. Have they anything to do with the fifth principle—the higher Manas?

A. No: they have no concern with the three higher principles; they have, however, something to do with the fourth. To recapitulate, therefore; the term “Dhyan-Chohan” is a generic name for all celestial beings. The “Dhyani-Buddhas” are concerned with the human higher triad in a mysterious way that need not be explained here. The “Builders” are a class called, as I already explained, Cosmocratores, or the invisible but intelligent Masons, who fashion matter according to the ideal plan ready for them in that which we call Divine and Cosmic ideation. They were called by the early Masons the “Grand Architect of the Universe” collectively: but now the modern Masons make of their G. A. O. T. U. a personal and singular Deity.

Q. Are they not also Planetary Spirits?

342 A. In a sense they are—as the Earth is also a Planet—but of a lower order.

Q. Do they act under the guidance of the Terrestrial Planetary Spirit?

A. I have just said that they were collectively that Spirit themselves. I wish you to understand that they are not an Entity, a kind of a personal God, but Forces of nature acting under one immutable Law, on the nature of which it is certainly useless for us to speculate.

Q. But are there not Builders of Universes, and Builders of Systems, as there are Builders of our earth?

A. Assuredly there are.

Q. Then the terrestrial Builders are a Planetary “Spirit” like the rest of them, only inferior in kind?

A. I would certainly say so.

Q. Are they inferior according to the size of the planet or inferior in quality?

A. The latter, as we are taught. You see the ancients lacked our modern, and especially theological, conceit, which makes of this little speck of mud of ours something ineffably grander than any of the stars and planets known to us. If, for instance, Esoteric Philosophy teaches that the “Spirit” (collectively again) of Jupiter is far superior to the Terrestrial Spirit, it is not because Jupiter is so many times larger than our earth, but because its substance and texture are so much finer than, and superior to, that of the earth. And it is in proportion to this quality that the Hierarchies of respective “Planetary Builders” reflect and act upon the ideations they find planned for them in the Universal Consciousness, the real great Architect of the Universe.

Q. The soul of the World, or “Anima Mundi”?

A. Call it so, if you like. It is the Antetype of these Hierarchies, which are its differentiated types. The one impersonal Great Architect of the Universe is MAHAT, the Universal Mind. And Mahat is a symbol, an abstraction, an aspect which assumed a hazy, entitative form in the all-materializing conceptions of men.

Q. What is the real difference between the Dhyani-Buddhas in the orthodox and the esoteric conceptions?

343 A. A very great one philosophically. They are—as higher Devas—called by the Buddhists, Bodhisattvas. Exoterically they are five in number, whereas in the esoteric schools they are seven, and not single Entities but Hierarchies. It is stated in The Secret Doctrine that five Buddhas have come and that two are to come in the sixth and seventh races. Exoterically their president is Vajrasattva, the “Supreme Intelligence” or “Supreme Buddha,” but more transcendant still is Vajradhara, even as Parabrahm transcends Brahmâ or Mahat. Thus the exoteric and occult significations of the Dhyani-Buddhas are entirely different. Exoterically each is a trinity, three in one, all three manifesting simultaneously in three worlds—as a human Buddha on earth, a Dhyani-Buddha in the world of astral forms, and an arupa, or formless, Buddha in the highest Nirvanic realm. Thus for a human Buddha, an incarnation of one of these Dhyanis, the stay on earth is limited from seven to seven thousand years in various bodies, since as men they are subjected to normal conditions, accidents and death. In Esoteric philosophy, on the other hand, this means that only five out of the “Seven Dhyani-Buddhas”—or, rather, the Seven Hierarchies of these Dhyanis, who, in Buddhist mysticism, are identical with the higher incarnating Intelligences, or the Kumâras of the Hindus—five only have hitherto appeared on earth in regular succession of incarnations, the last two having to come during the sixth and seventh Root-Races. This is, again, semi-allegorical, if not entirely so. For the sixth and seventh Hierarchies have been already incarnated on this earth together with the rest. But as they have reached “Buddhaship,” so called, almost from the beginning of the fourth Root-Race, they are said to rest since then in conscious bliss and freedom till the beginning of the Seventh Round, when they will lead Humanity as a new race of Buddhas. These Dhyanis are connected only with Humanity, and, strictly speaking, only with the highest “principles” of men.

Q. Do the Dhyani-Buddhas and the Planetary Spirits in charge of the globes go into pralaya when their planets enter that state?

344 A. Only at the end of the seventh Round, and not between each round, for they have to watch over the working of the laws during these minor pralayas. Fuller details on this subject have already been written in the third volume of the Secret Doctrine. But all these differences in fact are merely functional, for they are all aspects of one and the same Essence.

Q. Does the hierarchy of Dhyanis, whose province it is to watch over a Round, watch during its period of activity, over the whole series of globes, or only over a particular globe?

A. There are incarnating and there are watching Dhyanis. Of the functions of the former you have just been told; the latter appear to do their work in this wise. Every class or hierarchy corresponds to one of the Rounds, the first and lowest hierarchy to the first and less developed Round, the second to the second, and so on till the seventh Round is reached, which is under the supervision of the highest Hierarchy of the Seven Dhyanis. At the last, they will appear on earth, as also will some of the Planetary, for the whole humanity will have become Bodhisattvas, their own “sons,” i.e., the “Sons” of their own Spirit and Essence or—themselves. Thus there is only a functionaI difference between the Dhyanis and the Planetary. The one are entirely divine, the other sidereal. The former only are called Anupadaka, parentless, because they radiated directly from that which is neither Father nor Mother but the unmanifested Logos. They are, in fact, the spiritual 345aspect of the seven Logoi; and the Planetary Spirits are in their totality, as the seven Sephiroth (the three higher being supercosmic abstractions and blinds in the Kabala), and constitute the Heavenly man, or Adam Kadmon; Dhyani is a generic name in Buddhism, an abbreviation for all the gods. Yet it must be ever remembered that though they are “gods,” still they are not to be worshipped.

Q. Why not, if they are gods?

A. Because Eastern philosophy rejects the idea of a personal and extra-cosmic deity. And to those who call this atheism, I would say the following. It is illogical to worship one such god, for, as said in the Bible, “There be Lords many and Gods many.” Therefore, if worship is desirable, we have to choose either the worship of many gods, each being no better or less limited than the other, viz., polytheism and idolatry, or choose, as the Israelites have done, one tribal or racial god from among them, and while believing in the existence of many gods, ignore and show contempt for the others, regarding our own as the highest and the “God of Gods.” But this is logically unwarrantable, for such a god can be neither infinite nor absolute, but must be finite, that is to say, limited and conditioned by space and time. With the Pralaya the tribal god disappears, and Brahmâ and all the other Devas, and the gods are merged into the Absolute. Therefore, occultists do not worship or offer prayers to them, because if we did, we should have either to worship many gods, or pray to the Absolute, which, having no attributes, can have no ears to hear us. The worshipper even of many gods must of necessity be unjust to all the other gods; however far he extends his worship it is simply impossible for him to worship each severally; and in his ignorance, if he choose out any one in particular, he may by no means select the most perfect. Therefore, he would do better far to remember that every man has a god within, a direct ray from the Absolute, the celestial ray from the One; that he has his “ god “ within, not outside of, himself.

Q. Is there any name that can be applied to the planetary Hierarchy or spirit, which watches over the entire evolution of our own globe, such as Brahma for instance?

346 A. None, except the generic name, since it is a septenary and a Hierarchy; unless, indeed, we call it as some Kabalists do—“the Spirit of the Earth.”

Q. It is very difficult to remember all these infinite Hierarchies of gods.

A. Not more so than to a chemist to remember the endless symbols of chemistry, if he is a Specialist. In India, alone, however, there are over 300 millions of gods and goddesses. The Manus and Rishis are also planetary gods, for they are said to have appeared at the beginning of the human races to watch over their evolution, and to have incarnated and descended on earth subsequently in order to teach mankind. Then, there are the Sapta Rishis, the “Seven Rishis,” said exoterically to reside in the constellation of the Great Bear. There are also planetary gods.

Q. Are they higher than Brahma?

A. It depends in what aspect one views Brahmâ. In esoteric philosophy he is the synthesis of the seven logoi. In exoteric theology he is an aspect of Vishnu with the Vaishnavas, with others something else, as in the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity, he is the chief creator, whereas Vishnu is the Preserver, and Siva the Destroyer. In the Kabala he is certainly Adam Kadmon—the “male-female” man of the first chapter of Genesis. For the Manus proceed from Brahmâ as the Sephiroth proceed from Adam Kadmon, and they are also seven and ten, as circumstances require.

But we may just as well pass on to another Sloka of the Stanzas you want explained.

Sloka (9). —BUT WHERE WAS THE DANGMA WHEN THE ALAYA OF THE UNIVERSE (Soul as the basis of all, Anima Mundi) WAS IN PARAMARTHA (Absolute Being and Consciousness which are Absolute Non-Being and Unconsciousness) AND THE GREAT WHEEL WAS ANUPADAKA?

Q. Does “Alaya” mean that which is never manifested and dissolved, and is it derived from “a,” the negative particle, and “laya”?

A. If it is so etymologically—and I am certainly not prepared to answer you one way or the other—it would 347mean the reverse, since laya itself is just that which is not manifested; therefore it would signify that which is not unmanifested if anything. Whatever may be the etymological vivisection of the word, it is simply the “Soul of the World,” Anima Mundi. This is shown by the very wording of the Sloka, which speaks of Alaya being in Paramartha—i.e., in Absolute Non-Being and Unconsciousness, being at the same time absolute perfection or Absoluteness itself. This word, however, is the bone of contention between the Yogâchârya and the Madhyamika schools of Northern Buddhism. The scholasticism of the latter makes of Paramartha (Satya) something dependent on, and, therefore, relative to other things, thereby vitiating the whole metaphysical philosophy of the word Absoluteness. The other school very rightly denies this interpretation.

Q. Does not the Esoteric Philosophy teach the same doctrines as the Yogâchârya School?

A. Not quite. But let us go on.

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STANZA II

Sloka (1) . . . . WHERE WERE THE BUILDERS, THE LUMINOUS SONS OF MANVANTARIC DAWN? . . . . 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 NONBEING.

Q. Are the “luminous sons of manvantaric dawn” perfected human spirits of the last Manvantara, or are they on their way to humanity in this or a subsequent Manvantara?

A. In this case, which is that of a Maha-manvantara after a Maha-pralaya, they are the latter. They are the primordial seven rays from which will emanate in their turn all the other luminous and non-luminous lives, whether Archangels, Devils, men or apes. Some have been and some will only now become human beings. It is only after the differentiation of the seven rays and after the seven forces of nature have taken them in hand and 348worked upon them, that they become cornerstones, or rejected pieces of clay. Everything, therefore, is in these seven rays, but it is impossible to say at this stage in which, because they are not yet differentiated and individualized.

Q. In the following passage:—

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.

By planetary system is the solar system meant or the chain to which our earth belongs?

A. The Builders are those who build and fashion things into a form. The term is equally applied to the Builders of the Universe and to the small globes like those of our chain. By planetary system our solar system alone is meant .

Sloka (2) . . . . WHERE WAS SILENCE? WHERE WERE THE EARS TO SENSE IT? NO! THERE WAS NEITHER SILENCE, NOR SOUND . . . .

Q. With reference to the following passage:—

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 in Nature to realize 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. . . .

Would it be correct to say that what we perceive is a different “element” of the same substance? For example, when a substance is in the gaseous state, could we say that it is the element Air which is perceived, and that when combined to form water, oxygen and hydrogen appear under the guise of the Element Water, and when in the solid state, ice, we then perceive the element Earth?

349 A. The ignorant judge of all things by their appearance and not by what they are in reality. On this earth, of course, water is an element quite distinct from any other element, using the latter term in the sense of different manifestations of the one element. The root elements, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, are far more comprehensive states of differentiation. Such being the case, in Occultism Transubstantiation becomes a possibility, seeing that nothing which exists is in reality that which it is supposed to be.

Q. But oxygen which is usually found in its gaseous state, may be liquified and even solidified. When oxygen, then, is found in the gaseous condition, is it the occult element Air which is perceived, and when in the liquid condition the element Water, and in the solid state the element Earth?

A. Most assuredly: we have first of all the Element Fire, not the common fire, but the Fire of the Mediaeval Rosicrucians, the one flame, the fire of Life. In differentiation this becomes fire in different aspects. Occultism easily disposes of the puzzle as to whether oxygen and hydrogen cease to exist when combined to form water. Nothing that is in the Universe can disappear from it. For the time being, then, these two gases when combined to form water, are in abscondito, but have not ceased to be. For, had they been annihilated, Science, by decomposing the water again into oxygen and hydrogen, would have created something out of nothing, and would, therefore, have no quarrel with Theology. Therefore, water is an element, if we choose to call it so, on this plane only. In the same way, oxygen and hydrogen in their turn can be split up into other more subtle elements, all being differentiations of one element or universal essence.

Q. Then all substances on the physical plane are really so many correlations or combinations of these root elements, and ultimately of the one element?

A. Most assuredly. In occultism it is always best to proceed from universals to particulars.

Q. Apparently, then, the whole basis of occultism lies in this, that there is latent within every man a power which can give him true knowledge, a power of perception of truth, which enables him to 350deal first hand with universals if he will be strictly logical and face the facts. Thus we can proceed from universals to particulars by this innate spiritual force which is in every man.

A. Quite so: this power is inherent in all, but paralyzed by our methods of education, and especially by the Aristotelian and Baconian methods. Hypothesis now reigns triumphant.

Q. It is curious to read Schopenhauer and Hartmann and mark how, step by step, by strict logic and pure reason, they have arrived at the same bases of thought that had been centuries ago adopted in India, especially by the Vedantin System. It may, however, be objected that they have arrived at this by the inductive method. But in Schopenhauer’s case at any rate it was not so. He acknowledges himself that the idea came to him like a flash; having thus got his fundamental idea he set to work to arrange his facts, so that the reader imagines that what was in reality an intuitive idea, is a logical deduction drawn from the facts.

A. This is not only true of the Schopenhauerian philosophy, but also of all the great discoveries of modern times. How, for instance, did Newton discover the law of gravity? Was it not by the simple fall of an apple, and not by an elaborate series of experiments. The time will come when the Platonic method will not be so entirely ignored and men will look with favour on methods of education which will enable them to develop this most spiritual faculty.

–––––––

V

Meeting held at 17, Lansdowne Road, London, W., on February 7th, 1889; MR. W. KINGSLAND in the Chair.

STANZA II (continued)

Sloka (3). THE HOUR HAD NOT YET STRUCK; THE RAY HAD NOT YET FLASHED INTO THE GERM; THE MATRI-PADMA (mother lotus) HAD NOT YET SWOLLEN.

“The ray of the ‘Ever-Darkness’ becomes, as it is emitted, a ray of effulgent light or life, and flashes into 351the ‘Germ’—the point in the Mundane Egg, represented by matter in its abstract sense.”

Q. Is the Point in the Mundane Egg the same as the Point in the Circle, the Unmanifested Logos?

A. Certainly not: the Point in the Circle is the Unmanifested Logos, the Manifested Logos is the Triangle. Pythagoras speaks of the never manifested Monad which lives in solitude and darkness; when the hour strikes it radiates from itself ONE, the first number. This number descending, produces Two, the second number, and Two, in its turn, produces THREE, forming a triangle, the first complete geometrical figure in the world of form. It is this ideal or abstract triangle which is the Point in the Mundane Egg, which, after gestation, and in the third remove, will start from the Egg to form the Triangle. This is Brahmâ-Vâch-Virâj in the Hindu Philosophy and Kether-Chochmah-Binah in the Zohar. The First Manifested Logos is the Potentia, the unrevealed Cause; the Second, the still latent thought; the Third, the Demiurgus, the active Will evolving from its universal Self the active effect, which, in its turn, becomes the cause on a lower plane.

Q. What is Ever-Darkness in the sense used here?

A. Ever-Darkness means, I suppose, the ever-unknowable mystery, behind the veil—in fact, Parabrahm. Even the Logos can see only Mulaprakriti, it cannot see that which is beyond the veil. It is that which is the “Ever-unknowable Darkness.”

Q. What is the Ray in this connection?

A. I will recapitulate. We have the plane of the circle, the face being black, the point in the circle being potentially white, and this is the first possible conception in our minds of the invisible Logos. “Ever-Darkness” is eternal, the Ray periodical. Having flashed out from this central point and thrilled through the Germ, the Ray is withdrawn again within this point and the Germ develops into the Second Logos, the triangle within the Mundane Egg.

352

Footnotes

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