{
  "meta": {
    "schema_version": "1.1",
    "endpoint": "/api/sources/secret-doctrine/vol-1-cosmogenesis/06-stanza-i----the-night-of-the-universe-35.json"
  },
  "work": {
    "slug": "vol-1-cosmogenesis",
    "name": "Volume I — Cosmogenesis"
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "secret-doctrine",
      "name": "The Secret Doctrine",
      "url": "/sources/secret-doctrine/"
    }
  ],
  "chapter": {
    "num": 4,
    "slug": "06-stanza-i----the-night-of-the-universe-35",
    "title": "STANZA I. -- THE NIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE... 35",
    "of": 48,
    "words": 7564,
    "text": "## STANZA I. -- THE NIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE... 35\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, Vol 1, bk 1, stanza 1\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 1\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 35 STANZA I.\n\n##### COMMENTARIES\n\nON THE SEVEN STANZAS AND THEIR TERMS, ACCORDING TO THEIR\n\nNUMERATION, IN STANZAS AND SLOKAS.\n\n##### STANZA I.\n\n1. \"**T**HE** E**TERNAL**\nP**ARENT (Space), WRAPPED IN HER EVER INVISIBLE ROBES,\nHAD SLUMBERED ONCE AGAIN FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES (*a*).\"\n\nThe \"Parent Space\" is the eternal, ever present cause\nof all -- the incomprehensible DEITY, whose \"invisible robes\"\nare the mystic root of all matter, and of the Universe. Space\nis the *one eternal thing *that we can most easily imagine,\nimmovable in its abstraction and uninfluenced by either the presence\nor absence in it of an objective Universe. It is without dimension,\nin every sense, and self-existent. Spirit is the first differentiation\nfrom **T**HAT, the causeless cause of both Spirit\nand Matter. It is, as taught in the esoteric catechism, neither\nlimitless void, nor conditioned fulness, but both. It was and\never will be. (See Proem pp. 2 *et seq.*)\n\nThus, the \"Robes\" stand for the noumenon of undifferentiated\nCosmic Matter. It is not matter as we know it, but the spiritual\nessence of matter, and is co-eternal and even one with Space in\nits abstract sense. Root-nature is also the source of the subtile\ninvisible properties in visible matter. It is the Soul, so to\nsay, of the ONE infinite Spirit. The Hindus call it Mulaprakriti,\nand say that it is the primordial substance, which is the basis\nof the Upadhi or vehicle of every phenomenon, whether physical,\nmental or psychic. It is the source from which Akasa radiates.\n\n(*a*)* *By the Seven \"Eternities,\" aeons\nor periods are meant. The word \"Eternity,\" as understood\nin Christian theology, has no meaning to the Asiatic ear, except\nin its application to the ONE existence; nor is\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 36 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nthe term sempiternity, the eternal only in futurity, anything\nbetter than a misnomer.* Such words do not and cannot exist in\nphilosophical metaphysics, and were unknown till the advent of\necclesiastical Christianity. The Seven Eternities meant are the\nseven periods, or a period answering in its duration to the seven\nperiods, of a Manvantara, and extending throughout a Maha-Kalpa\nor the \"Great Age\" -- 100 years of Brahma -- making\na total of 311,040,000,000,000 of years; each year of Brahma being\ncomposed of 360 \"days,\" and of the same number of \"nights\"\nof Brahma (reckoning by the Chandrayana or lunar year); and a\n\"Day of Brahma\" consisting of 4,320,000,000 of mortal\nyears. These \"Eternities\" belong to the most secret\ncalculations, in which, in order to arrive at the true total,\nevery figure must be 7*x* (7 to the power of *x*);*\nx *varying according to the nature of the cycle in the subjective\nor real world; and every figure or number relating to, or representing\nall the different cycles from the greatest to the smallest --\nin the objective or unreal world -- must necessarily be multiples\nof seven. The key to this cannot be given, for herein lies the\nmystery of esoteric calculations, and for the purposes of ordinary\ncalculation it has no sense. \"The number seven,\" says\nthe Kabala, \"is the great number of the Divine Mysteries;\"\nnumber ten is that of all human knowledge (Pythagorean decade);\n1,000 is the number ten to the third power, and therefore the\nnumber 7,000 is also symbolical. In the Secret Doctrine the figure\nand number 4 are the male symbol only on the highest plane of\nabstraction; on the plane of matter the 3 is the masculine and\nthe 4 the female: the upright and the horizontal in the fourth\nstage of symbolism, when the symbols became the glyphs of the\ngenerative powers on the physical plane.\n\n-------\n\n##### STANZA I. -- Continued.\n\n2. **T**IME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE\nBOSOM OF DURATION (*a*).\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* It is stated in Book II., ch. viii., of Vishnu Purana: \"By\nimmortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa;\"\nand Wilson, the translator, remarks in a footnote: \"This,\naccording to the Vedas, is all that is to be understood of the\nimmortality (or eternity) of the gods; they perish at the end\nof universal dissolution (or Pralaya).\" And Esoteric philosophy\nsays: They \"perish\" not, but are *re-absorbed.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 37 TIME AND UNIVERSAL MIND.\n\n(*a*) Time is only an illusion produced by the succession\nof our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration,\nand it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the\nillusion can be produced; but \"lies asleep.\" The present\nis only a mathematical line which divides that part of eternal\nduration which we call the future, from that part which we call\nthe past. Nothing on earth has real duration, for nothing remains\nwithout change -- or the same -- for the billionth part of a second;\nand the sensation we have of the actuality of the division of\n\"time\" known as the present, comes from the blurring\nof that momentary glimpse, or succession of glimpses, of things\nthat our senses give us, as those things pass from the region\nof ideals which we call the future, to the region of memories\nthat we name the past. In the same way we experience a sensation\nof duration in the case of the instantaneous electric spark, by\nreason of the blurred and continuing impression on the retina.\nThe real person or thing does not consist solely of what is seen\nat any particular moment, but is composed of the sum of all its\nvarious and changing conditions from its appearance in the material\nform to its disappearance from the earth. It is these \"sum-totals\"\nthat exist from eternity in the \"future,\" and pass by\ndegrees through matter, to exist for eternity in the \"past.\"\nNo one could say that a bar of metal dropped into the sea came\ninto existence as it left the air, and ceased to exist as it entered\nthe water, and that the bar itself consisted only of that cross-section\nthereof which at any given moment coincided with the mathematical\nplane that separates, and, at the same time, joins, the atmosphere\nand the ocean. Even so of persons and things, which, dropping\nout of the to-be into the has-been, out of the future into the\npast -- present momentarily to our senses a cross-section, as\nit were, of their total selves, as they pass through time and\nspace (as matter) on their way from one eternity to another: and\nthese two constitute that \"duration\" in which alone\nanything has true existence, were our senses but able to cognize\nit there.\n\n-------\n\n##### STANZA I. -- Continued.\n\n3. *. .* . **U**NIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR\nTHERE WERE NO **A**H-HI (celestial beings) TO CONTAIN\n(hence to manifest) IT (*a*)*.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 38 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n(*a*) Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of\nConsciousness grouped under Thought, Will, and Feeling. During\ndeep sleep, ideation ceases on the physical plane, and memory\nis in abeyance; thus for the time-being \"Mind is not,\"\nbecause the organ, through which the Ego manifests ideation and\nmemory on the material plane, has temporarily ceased to function.\nA noumenon can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only\nby manifesting on that plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle;\nand during the long night of rest called Pralaya, when all the\nexistences are dissolved, the \"**U**NIVERSAL\n**M**IND\" remains as a permanent possibility\nof mental action, or as that abstract absolute thought, of which\nmind is the concrete relative manifestation. The **A**H-HI\n(Dhyan-Chohans) are the collective hosts of spiritual beings --\nthe Angelic Hosts of Christianity, the Elohim and \"Messengers\"\nof the Jews -- who are the vehicle for the manifestation of the\ndivine or universal thought and will. They are the Intelligent\nForces that give to and enact in Nature her \"laws,\"\nwhile themselves acting according to laws imposed upon them in\na similar manner by still higher Powers; but they are not \"the\npersonifications\" of the powers of Nature, as erroneously\nthought. This hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the\nUniversal Mind comes into action, is like an army -- a \"Host,\"\ntruly -- by means of which the fighting power of a nation manifests\nitself, and which is composed of army corps, divisions, brigades,\nregiments, and so forth, each with its separate individuality\nor life, and its limited freedom of action and limited responsibilities;\neach contained in a larger individuality, to which its own interests\nare subservient, and each containing lesser individualities in\nitself.\n\n-------\n\n##### STANZA I. -- Continued.\n\n4. **T**HE SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS (Moksha* or Nirvana)\nWERE NOT (*a*)*. ***T**HE GREAT CAUSES\nOF MISERY (Nidana** and Maya) WERE NOT, FOR THERE WAS NO ONE TO\nPRODUCE AND GET ENSNARED BY THEM (*b*).\n\n(*a*) There are seven \"Paths\" or \"Ways\"\nto the bliss of Non-Exist-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n*Nippang in China; Neibban in Burmah; or Moksha in India.\n\n** The \"12\" Nidanas (in Tibetan Ten-brel chug-nyi) the\nchief causes of existence, effects generated by a concatenation\nof causes produced (see Comment. II).\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 39 THE CAUSES OF BEING.\n\nence, which is absolute Being, Existence, and Consciousness. They\nwere not, because the Universe was, so far, empty, and existed\nonly in the Divine Thought. For it is . . .\n\n(*b*) The twelve Nidanas or causes of being. Each is the\neffect of its antecedent cause, and a cause, in its turn, to its\nsuccessor; the sum total of the Nidanas being based on the four\ntruths, a doctrine especially characteristic of the Hinayana System.*\nThey belong to the theory of the stream of catenated law which\nproduces merit and demerit, and finally brings Karma into full\nsway. It is based upon the great truth that re-incarnation is\nto be dreaded, as existence in this world only entails upon man\nsuffering, misery and pain; Death itself being unable to deliver\nman from it, since death is merely the door through which he passes\nto another life on earth after a little rest on its threshold\n-- Devachan. The Hinayana System, or School of the \"Little\nVehicle,\" is of very ancient growth; while the Mahayana is\nof a later period, having originated after the death of Buddha.\nYet the tenets of the latter are as old as the hills that have\ncontained such schools from time immemorial, and the Hinayana\nand Mahayana Schools (the latter, that of the \"Great Vehicle\")\nboth teach the same doctrine in reality. *Yana, *or Vehicle\n(in Sanskrit, Vahan) is a mystic expression, both \"vehicles\"\ninculcating that man may escape the sufferings of rebirths and\neven the false bliss of Devachan, by obtaining Wisdom and Knowledge,\nwhich alone can dispel the Fruits of Illusion and Ignorance.\n\nMaya or illusion is an element which enters into all finite things,\nfor everything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute,\nreality, since the appearance which the hidden noumenon assumes\nfor any observer depends upon his power of cognition. To the untrained\neye of the savage, a painting is at first an unmeaning confusion\nof streaks and daubs of color, while an educated eye sees instantly\na face or a landscape. Nothing is permanent except the one hidden\nabsolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all\nrealities. The existences belonging to every plane of being, up\nto the highest Dhyan-Chohans, are, in degree, of the nature of\nshadows cast by a magic lantern on a colourless screen; but all\nthings are relatively real, for the cogniser is also a reflection,\nand the things cognised are therefore as real to him as himself.\nWhatever reality things possess must be looked for in them\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* See Wassilief on Buddhism, pp. 97-950.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 40 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nbefore or after they have passed like a flash through the material\nworld; but we cannot cognise any such existence directly, so long\nas we have sense-instruments which bring only material existence\ninto the field of our consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness\nmay be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane\nare, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the\nscale of development we perceive that during the stages through\nwhich we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the\nupward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings,\neach advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have\nreached \"reality;\" but only when we shall have reached\nthe absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall\nwe be free from the delusions produced by Maya.\n\n-------\n\n##### STANZA I. -- Continued.\n\n5. **D**ARKNESS ALONE FILLED THE BOUNDLESS ALL (*a*),\nFOR FATHER, MOTHER AND SON WERE ONCE MORE ONE, AND THE SON HAD\nNOT AWAKENED YET FOR THE NEW WHEEL* AND HIS PILGRIMAGE THEREON\n(*b*).\n\n(*a*) \"Darkness is Father-Mother: light their son,\"\nsays an old Eastern proverb. Light is inconceivable except as\ncoming from some source which is the cause of it; and as, in the\ninstance of primordial light, that source is unknown, though as\nstrongly demanded by reason and logic, therefore it is called\n\"Darkness\" by us, from an intellectual point of view.\nAs to borrowed or secondary light, whatever its source, it can\nbe but of a temporary mayavic character. Darkness, then, is the\neternal\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* That which is called \"wheel\" is the symbolical expression\nfor a world or globe, which shows that the ancients were aware\nthat our Earth was a revolving globe, not a motionless square\nas some Christian Fathers taught. The \"Great Wheel\"\nis the whole duration of our Cycle of being, or Maha Kalpa, *i.e.*,\nthe whole revolution of our special chain of seven planets or\nSpheres from beginning to end; the \"Small Wheels\" meaning\nthe Rounds, of which there are also Seven.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 41 WHAT IS DARKNESS IN PHILOSOPHY?\n\nmatrix in which the sources of light appear and disappear. Nothing\nis added to darkness to make of it light, or to light to make\nit darkness, on this our plane. They are interchangeable, and\nscientifically light is but a mode of darkness and *vice versa.\n*Yet both are phenomena of the same noumenon -- which is absolute\ndarkness to the scientific mind, and but a gray twilight to the\nperception of the average mystic, though to that of the spiritual\neye of the Initiate it is absolute light. How far we discern the\nlight that shines in darkness depends upon our powers of vision.\nWhat is light to us is darkness to certain insects, and the eye\nof the clairvoyant sees illumination where the normal eye perceives\nonly blackness. When the whole universe was plunged in sleep --\nhad returned to its one primordial element -- there was neither\ncentre of luminosity, nor eye to perceive light, and darkness\nnecessarily filled the boundless all.\n\n(*b*)* *The Father-Mother are the male and female\nprinciples in root-nature, the opposite poles that manifest in\nall things on every plane of Kosmos, or Spirit and Substance,\nin a less allegorical aspect, the resultant of which is the Universe,\nor the Son. They are \"once more One\" when in \"The\nNight of Brahma,\" during Pralaya, all in the objective Universe\nhas returned to its one primal and eternal cause, to reappear\nat the following Dawn -- as it does periodically. \"Karana\"\n-- eternal cause -- was alone. To put it more plainly: Karana\nis alone during the \"Nights of Brahma.\" The previous\nobjective Universe has dissolved into its one primal and eternal\ncause, and is, so to say, held in solution in space, to differentiate\nagain and crystallize out anew at the following Manvantaric dawn,\nwhich is the commencement of a new \"Day\" or new activity\nof Brahma -- the symbol of the Universe. In esoteric parlance,\nBrahma is Father-Mother-Son, or Spirit, Soul and Body at once;\neach personage being symbolical of an attribute, and each attribute\nor quality being a graduated efflux of Divine Breath in its cyclic\ndifferentiation, involutionary and evolutionary. In the cosmicophysical\nsense, it is the Universe, the planetary chain and the earth;\nin the purely spiritual, the Unknown Deity, Planetary Spirit,\nand Man -- the Son of the two, the creature of Spirit and Matter,\nand a manifestation of them in his periodical appearances on Earth\nduring the \"wheels,\" or the Manvantaras. -- (*See\n*Part II. §: \"*Days and Nights of Brahma.*\")\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 42 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n##### STANZA I. -- Continued.\n\n6. **T**HE SEVEN SUBLIME **L**ORDS AND\nTHE SEVEN **T**RUTHS HAD CEASED TO BE (*a*),*\n*AND THE **U**NIVERSE, THE SON OF NECESSITY,\nWAS IMMERSED IN **P**ARANISHPANNA (*b*) (absolute\nperfection, Paranirvana, which is Yong-Grub) TO BE OUT-BREATHED\nBY THAT WHICH IS AND YET IS NOT. **N**AUGHT WAS (*c*).\n\n(*a*) The seven sublime lords are the Seven Creative Spirits,\nthe Dhyan-Chohans, who correspond to the Hebrew Elohim. It is\nthe same hierarchy of Archangels to which St. Michael, St. Gabriel,\nand others belong, in the Christian theogony. Only while St. Michael,\nfor instance, is allowed in dogmatic Latin theology to watch over\nall the promontories and gulfs, in the Esoteric System, the Dhyanis\nwatch successively over one of the Rounds and the great Root-races\nof our planetary chain. They are, moreover, said to send their\nBhodisatvas, the human correspondents of the Dhyani-Buddhas (of\nwhom *vide infra*)* *during every Round and Race.\nOut of the Seven Truths and Revelations, or rather revealed secrets,\nfour only have been handed to us, as we are still in the Fourth\nRound, and the world also has only had four Buddhas, so far. This\nis a very complicated question, and will receive more ample treatment\nlater on.\n\nSo far \"There are only Four Truths, and Four Vedas\"\n-- say the Hindus and Buddhists. For a similar reason Irenaeus\ninsisted on the necessity of Four Gospels. But as every new Root-race\nat the head of a Round must have its revelation and revealers,\nthe next Round will bring the Fifth, the following the Sixth,\nand so on.\n\n(*b*)* *\"*Paranishpanna*\"* *is\nthe absolute perfection to which all existences attain at the\nclose of a great period of activity, or Maha-Manvantara, and in\nwhich they rest during the succeeding period of repose. In Tibetan\nit is called Yong-Grub. Up to the day of the Yogacharya school\nthe true nature of Paranirvana was taught publicly, but since\nthen it has become entirely esoteric; hence so many contradictory\ninterpretations of it. It is only a true Idealist who can understand\nit. Everything has to be viewed as ideal, with the exception of\nParanirvana, by him who would comprehend that state, and acquire\na knowledge of how Non Ego, Voidness, and Darkness are Three in\nOne and alone Self-existent and perfect. It is absolute, however,\nonly in a relative\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 43 MOTIONS, THE \"GREAT BREATH.\"\n\nsense, for it must give room to still further absolute perfection,\naccording to a higher standard of excellence in the following\nperiod of activity -- just as a perfect flower must cease to be\na perfect flower and die, in order to grow into a perfect fruit,\n-- if a somewhat Irish mode of expression may be permitted.\n\nThe Secret Doctrine teaches the progressive development of everything,\nworlds as well as atoms; and this stupendous development has neither\nconceivable beginning nor imaginable end. Our \"Universe\"\nis only one of an infinite number of Universes, all of them \"Sons\nof Necessity,\" because links in the great Cosmic chain of\nUniverses, each one standing in the relation of an effect as regards\nits predecessor, and being a cause as regards its successor.\n\nThe appearance and disappearance of the Universe are pictured\nas an outbreathing and inbreathing of \"the Great Breath,\"\nwhich is eternal, and which, being Motion, is one of the three\naspects of the Absolute -- Abstract Space and Duration being the\nother two. When the \"Great Breath\" is projected, it\nis called the Divine Breath, and is regarded as the breathing\nof the Unknowable Deity -- the One Existence -- which breathes\nout a thought, as it were, which becomes the Kosmos. (See \"Isis\nUnveiled.\") So also is it when the Divine Breath is inspired\nagain the Universe disappears into the bosom of \"the Great\nMother,\" who then sleeps \"wrapped in her invisible robes.\"\n\n(*c*)* *By \"that which is and yet is not\"\nis meant the Great Breath itself, which we can only speak of as\nabsolute existence, but cannot picture to our imagination as any\nform of existence that we can distinguish from Non-existence.\nThe three periods -- the Present, the Past, and the Future --\nare in the esoteric philosophy a compound time; for the three\nare a composite number only in relation to the phenomenal plane,\nbut in the realm of noumena have no abstract validity. As said\nin the Scriptures: \"The Past time is the Present time, as\nalso the Future, which, though it has not come into existence,\nstill is\"; according to a precept in the Prasanga Madhyamika\nteaching, whose dogmas have been known ever since it broke away\nfrom the purely esoteric schools.* Our ideas, in short, on duration\nand time are all derived from our\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* See Dzungarian \"Mani Kumbum,\" the \"Book of the\n10,000 Precepts.\" Also consult Wassilief's \"Der Buddhismus,\"\npp. 327 and 357, etc.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 44 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nsensations according to the laws of Association. Inextricably\nbound up with the relativity of human knowledge, they nevertheless\ncan have no existence except in the experience of the individual\nego, and perish when its evolutionary march dispels the Maya of\nphenomenal existence. What is Time, for instance, but the panoramic\nsuccession of our states of consciousness? In the words of a Master,\n\"I feel irritated at having to use these three clumsy words\n-- Past, Present, and Future -- miserable concepts of the objective\nphases of the subjective whole, they are about as ill-adapted\nfor the purpose as an axe for fine carving.\" One has to acquire\n*Paramartha *lest one should become too easy a prey to\n*Samvriti *-- is a philosophical axiom.*\n\n-------\n\n##### STANZA I. -- Continued.\n\n7. **T**HE CAUSES OF EXISTENCE HAD BEEN DONE AWAY\nWITH (*a*); THE VISIBLE THAT WAS, AND THE INVISIBLE THAT\nIS, RESTED IN ETERNAL NON-BEING, THE ONE BEING (*b*).\n\n(*a*) \"The Causes of Existence\" mean not only\nthe physical causes known to science, but the metaphysical causes,\nthe chief of which is the desire to exist, an outcome of Nidana\nand Maya. This desire for a sentient life shows itself in everything,\nfrom an atom to a sun, and is a reflection of the Divine Thought\npropelled into objective existence, into a law that the Universe\nshould exist. According to esoteric teaching, the real cause of\nthat supposed desire, and of all existence, remains for ever hidden,\nand its first emanations are the most complete abstractions mind\ncan conceive. These abstractions must of necessity be postulated\nas the cause of the material Universe which presents itself to\nthe senses and intellect; and they underlie the secondary and\nsubordinate powers of Nature, which, anthropomorphized, have been\nworshipped as God and gods by the common herd of every age. It\nis impossible to conceive anything without a cause; the attempt\nto do so makes the mind a blank.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* In clearer words: \"One has to acquire true Self-Consciousness\nin order to understand *Samvriti, *or the 'origin of delusion.'\"\n*Paramartha* is the synonym of the Sanskrit term *Svasam-vedana,\n*or \"the reflection which analyses itself.\" There\nis a difference in the interpretation of the meaning of \"*Paramartha*\"*\n*between the Yogacharyas and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom,\nhowever, explain the real and true esoteric sense of the expression.\nSee further, sloka No. 9.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 45 BEING AND NON-BEING.\n\nThis is virtually the condition to which the mind must come at\nlast when we try to trace back the chain of causes and effects,\nbut both science and religion jump to this condition of blankness\nmuch more quickly than is necessary; for they ignore the metaphysical\nabstractions which are the only conceivable cause of physical\nconcretions. These abstractions become more and more concrete\nas they approach our plane of existence, until finally they phenomenalise\nin the form of the material Universe, by a process of conversion\nof metaphysics into physics, analogous to that by which steam\ncan be condensed into water, and the water frozen into ice.\n\n(*b*)* *The idea of Eternal Non-Being, which is\nthe One Being, will appear a paradox to anyone who does not remember\nthat we limit our ideas of being to our present consciousness\nof existence; making it a specific, instead of a generic term.\nAn unborn infant, could it think in our acceptation of that term,\nwould necessarily limit its conception of being, in a similar\nmanner, to the intrauterine life which alone it knows; and were\nit to endeavour to express to its consciousness the idea of life\nafter birth (death to it), it would, in the absence of data to\ngo upon, and of faculties to comprehend such data, probably express\nthat life as \"Non-Being which is Real Being.\" In our\ncase the One Being is the noumenon of all the noumena which we\nknow must underlie phenomena, and give them whatever shadow of\nreality they possess, but which we have not the senses or the\nintellect to cognize at present. The impalpable atoms of gold\nscattered through the substance of a ton of auriferous quartz\nmay be imperceptible to the naked eye of the miner, yet he knows\nthat they are not only present there but that they alone give\nhis quartz any appreciable value; and this relation of the gold\nto the quartz may faintly shadow forth that of the noumenon to\nthe phenomenon. But the miner knows what the gold will look like\nwhen extracted from the quartz, whereas the common mortal can\nform no conception of the reality of things separated from the\nMaya which veils them, and in which they are hidden. Alone the\nInitiate, rich with the lore acquired by numberless generations\nof his predecessors, directs the \"Eye of Dangma\" toward\nthe essence of things in which no Maya can have any influence.\nIt is here that the teachings of esoteric philosophy in relation\nto the Nidanas and the Four Truths become of the greatest importance;\nbut they are secret.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 46 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n##### STANZA I. -- Continued.\n\n8. **A**LONE, THE ONE FORM OF EXISTENCE STRETCHED\nBOUNDLESS, INFINITE, CAUSELESS, IN DREAMLESS SLEEP (*a*);\nAND LIFE PULSATED UNCONSCIOUS IN UNIVERSAL SPACE, THROUGHOUT THAT\n**A**LL-**P**RESENCE WHICH IS SENSED\nBY THE \"**O**PENED **E**YE\"*\nOF THE **D**ANGMA (*b*).**\n\n(*a*) The tendency of modern thought is to recur to the\narchaic idea of a homogeneous basis for apparently widely different\nthings -- heterogeneity developed from homogeneity. Biologists\nare now searching for their homogeneous protoplasm and chemists\nfor their protyle, while science is looking for the force of which\nelectricity, magnetism, heat, and so forth, are the differentiations.\nThe Secret Doctrine carries this idea into the region of metaphysics\nand postulates a \"One Form of Existence\" as the basis\nand source of all things. But perhaps the phrase, the \"One\nForm of Existence,\" is not altogether correct. The Sanskrit\nword is Prabhavapyaya, \"the place, or rather plane, whence\nemerges the origination, and into which is the resolution of all\nthings,\" says a commentator. It is not the \"Mother of\nthe World,\" as translated by Wilson (see Book I., Vishnu\nPurana); for Jagad Yoni (as shown by FitzEdward Hall) is scarcely\nso much \"the Mother of the World\" or \"the Womb\nof the World\" as the \"Material Cause of the Universe.\"\nThe Puranic Commentators explain it by Karana -- \"Cause\"\n-- but the Esoteric philosophy, by the *ideal spirit of that\ncause. *It is, in its secondary stage, the Svabhavat of the\nBuddhist philosopher, the eternal cause and effect, omnipresent\nyet abstract, the self-existent plastic Essence and the root of\nall things, viewed in the same dual light as the Vedantin views\nhis Parabrahm and Mulaprakriti, the one under two aspects. It\nseems indeed extraordinary to find great scholars speculating\non the possibility of the Vedanta, and the Uttara-Mimansa especially,\nhaving been \"evoked by the teachings of the Buddhists,\"\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* In India it is called \"The Eye of Siva,\" but beyond\nthe great range it is known as \"Dangma's opened eye\"\nin esoteric phraseology.\n\n** Dangma means a purified soul, one who has become a Jivanmukta,\nthe highest adept, or rather a Mahatma so-called. His \"opened\neye\" is the inner spiritual eye of the seer, and the faculty\nwhich manifests through it is not clairvoyance as ordinarily understood,\n*i.e.*, the power of seeing at a distance, but rather the\nfaculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain\nknowledge is obtainable. This faculty is intimately connected\nwith the \"third eye,\" which mythological tradition ascribes\nto certain races of men. Fuller explanations will be found in\nBook II.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 47 THE EYE OF DANGMA.\n\nwhereas, it is on the contrary Buddhism (of Gautama, the Buddha)\nthat was \"evoked\" and entirely upreared on the tenets\nof the Secret Doctrine, of which a partial sketch is here attempted,\nand on which, also, the Upanishads are made to rest.* The above,\naccording to the teachings of Sri Sankaracharya,** is undeniable.\n\n(*b*) Dreamless sleep is one of the seven states of consciousness\nknown in Oriental esotericism. In each of these states a different\nportion of the mind comes into action; or as a Vedantin would\nexpress it, the individual is conscious in a different plane of\nhis being. The term \"dreamless sleep,\" in this case\nis applied allegorically to the Universe to express a condition\nsomewhat analogous to that state of consciousness in man, which,\nnot being remembered in a waking state, seems a blank, just as\nthe sleep of the mesmerised subject seems to him an unconscious\nblank when he returns to his normal condition, although he has\nbeen talking and acting as a conscious individual would.\n\n-------\n\n##### STANZA I. -- Continued.\n\n9. **B**UT WHERE WAS THE **D**ANGMA\nWHEN THE **A**LAYA OF THE **U**NIVERSE\n(*Soul as the basis of all, Anima Mundi*)* *WAS\nIN **P**ARAMARTHA (*a*) (*Absolute Being\nand Consciousness which are Absolute Non-Being and* *Unconsciousness*)*\n*AND THE GREAT WHEEL WAS **A**NUPADAKA (*b*)?\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* And yet, one, *claiming authority, *namely, Sir Monier\nWilliams, Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, has just denied\nthis fact. This is what he taught his audience, on June the 4th,\n1888, in his annual address before the Victoria Institute of Great\nBritain: \"Originally, Buddhism set its face against all solitary\nasceticism . *. .* to attain sublime heights of knowledge.\nIt *had no occult, no esoteric system *of doctrine . *.\n.* withheld from ordinary men\" (!!) And, again: \"\n. . . When Gautama Buddha began his career, the *later and\nlower *form of Yoga seems to have been little known.\"\nAnd then, contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith\ninforms his audience that \"We learn from* Lalita-Vistara\n*that various forms of bodily torture, self-maceration, and\nausterity were common in Gautama's time.\" (!!) But the lecturer\nseems quite unaware that this kind of torture and self-maceration\nis precisely the *lower *form of Yoga, *Hatha *Yoga,\nwhich was \"little known\" and yet so \"*common*\"*\n*in Gautama's time.\n\n** It is even argued that all the Six Darsanas (Schools of philosophy)\nshow traces of Buddha's influence, being either taken from Buddhism\nor due to Greek teaching! (See Weber, Max Muller, etc.) We labour\nunder the impression that Colebrooke, \"the highest authority\"\nin such matters, had long ago settled the question by showing,\nthat \"the Hindus were in this instance the teachers, not\nthe learners.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 48 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n(*a*) Here we have before us the subject of centuries of\nscholastic disputations. The two terms \"Alaya\" and \"Paramartha\"\nhave been the causes of dividing schools and splitting the truth\ninto more different aspects than any other mystic terms. Alaya\nis literally the \"Soul of the World\" or Anima Mundi,\nthe \"Over-Soul\" of Emerson, and according to esoteric\nteaching it changes periodically its nature. Alaya, though eternal\nand changeless in its inner essence on the planes which are unreachable\nby either men or Cosmic Gods (Dhyani Buddhas), alters during the\nactive life-period with respect to the lower planes, ours included.\nDuring that time not only the Dhyani-Buddhas are one with Alaya\nin Soul and Essence, but even the man strong in the Yoga (mystic\nmeditation) \"is able to merge his soul with it\" (Aryasanga,\nthe* Bumapa *school). This is not Nirvana, but a condition\nnext to it. Hence the disagreement. Thus, while the Yogacharyas\n(of the Mahayana school) say that Alaya is the personification\nof the Voidness, and yet Alaya (*Nyingpo *and* Tsang\n*in Tibetan) is the basis of every visible and invisible thing,\nand that, though it is eternal and immutable in its essence, it\nreflects itself in every object of the Universe \"like the\nmoon in clear tranquil water\"; other schools dispute the\nstatement. The same for Paramartha: the Yogacharyas interpret\nthe term as that which is also dependent upon other things (*paratantra*);*\n*and the Madhyamikas say that Paramartha is limited to Paranishpanna\nor absolute perfection; *i.e.*,* *in the exposition\nof these \"two truths\" (out of four), the former believe\nand maintain that (on this plane, at any rate) there exists only\nSamvritisatya or relative truth; and the latter teach the existence\nof Paramarthasatya, the \"absolute truth.\"* \"No\nArhat, oh mendicants, can reach absolute knowledge before he becomes\none with Paranirvana. *Parikalpita *and *Paratantra\n*are his two great enemies\" (Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas).\n*Parikalpita *(in Tibetan *Kun-ttag*)* *is\nerror, made by those unable to realize the emptiness and illusionary\nnature of all; who believe something to exist which does not --\n*e.g.*, the Non-Ego. And\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n*\"Paramartha\" is self-consciousness in Sanskrit, Svasamvedana,\nor the \"self-analysing reflection\" -- from two words,\nparama (above everything) and artha (comprehension), Satya meaning\nabsolute true being, or Esse. In Tibetan Paramarthasatya is Dondampaidenpa.\nThe opposite of this absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya\n-- the relative truth only -- \"Samvriti\" meaning \"false\nconception\" and being the origin of illusion, Maya; in Tibetan\nKundzabchi-denpa, \"illusion-creating appearance.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 49 ALAYA, THE UNIVERSAL SOUL.\n\n*Paratantra *is that, whatever it is, which exists only\nthrough a dependent or causal connexion, and which has to disappear\nas soon as the cause from which it proceeds is removed -- *e.g*.,\nthe light of a wick. Destroy or extinguish it, and light disappears.\n\nEsoteric philosophy teaches that everything lives and is conscious,\nbut not that all life and consciousness are similar to those of\nhuman or even animal beings. Life we look upon as \"the one\nform of existence,\" manifesting in what is called matter;\nor, as in man, what, incorrectly separating them, we name Spirit,\nSoul and Matter. Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation of\nsoul on this plane of existence, and soul is the vehicle on a\nhigher plane for the manifestation of spirit, and these three\nare a trinity synthesized by Life, which pervades them all. The\nidea of universal life is one of those ancient conceptions which\nare returning to the human mind in this century, as a consequence\nof its liberation from anthropomorphic theology. Science, it is\ntrue, contents itself with tracing or postulating the signs of\nuniversal life, and has not yet been bold enough even to whisper\n\"Anima Mundi!\" The idea of \"crystalline life,\"\nnow familiar to science, would have been scouted half a century\nago. Botanists are now searching for the nerves of plants; not\nthat they suppose that plants can feel or think as animals do,\nbut because they believe that some structure, bearing the same\nrelation functionally to plant life that nerves bear to animal\nlife, is necessary to explain vegetable growth and nutrition.\nIt hardly seems possible that science can disguise from itself\nmuch longer, by the mere use of terms such as \"force\"\nand \"energy,\" the fact that things that have life are\nliving things, whether they be atoms or planets.\n\nBut what is the belief of the inner esoteric Schools? the reader\nmay ask. What are the doctrines taught on this subject by the\nEsoteric \"Buddhists\"? With them \"Alaya\" has\na double and even a triple meaning. In the Yogacharya system of\nthe contemplative Mahayana school, Alaya is both the Universal\nSoul (Anima Mundi) and the Self of a progressed adept. \"He\nwho is strong in the Yoga can introduce at will his Alaya by means\nof meditation into the true Nature of Existence.\" The \"Alaya\nhas an absolute eternal existence,\" says Aryasanga -- the\nrival of Nagarjuna.* In one sense it is *Pradhana; *which\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Aryasanga was a pre-Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist\nesoteric school, though Csoma di Koros places him, for some reasons\nof his own, in the seventh century [[Footnote continued on next\npage]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 50 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nis explained in Vishnu Purana as: \"that which is the unevolved\ncause, is emphatically called by the most eminent sages Pradhana,\noriginal base, which is subtile Prakriti, viz., that which is\neternal, and which at once is (or comprehends) what is and what\nis not, or is mere process.\" \"Prakriti,\" however,\nis an incorrect word, and Alaya would explain it better; for Prakriti\nis not the \"uncognizable Brahma.\"* It is a mistake of\nthose who know nothing of the Universality of the Occult doctrines\nfrom the very cradle of the human races, and especially so of\nthose scholars who reject the very idea of a \"primordial\nrevelation,\" to teach that the Anima Mundi, the One Life\nor \"Universal Soul,\" was made known only by Anaxagoras,\nor during his age. This philosopher brought the teaching forward\nsimply to oppose the too materialistic conceptions on Cosmogony\nof Democritus, based on his exoteric theory of *blindly *driven\natoms. Anaxagoras of Clazomene was not its inventor but only its\npropagator, as also was Plato. That which he called Mundane Intelligence,\nthe nous ([[*nous*]]), the principle that according to\nhis views is absolutely separated and free from matter and acts\non design,** was called Motion, the ONE LIFE, or *Jivatma*,\nages* *before the year 500 B.C. in India. Only the Aryan\nphilosophers never endowed the principle, which with them is infinite,\nwith the finite \"attribute\" of \"thinking.\"\n\nThis leads the reader naturally to the \"Supreme Spirit\"\nof Hegel and the German Transcendentalists as a contrast that\nit may be useful to point out. The schools of Schelling and Fichte\nhave diverged widely from the primitive archaic conception of\nan ABSOLUTE principle, and have mirrored only an aspect of the\nbasic idea of the Vedanta. Even the \"Absoluter Geist\"\nshadowed forth by von Hartman in his pessimistic philosophy of\nthe Unconscious, while it is, perhaps, the closest approximation\nmade by European speculation to the Hindu Adwaitee Doctrines,\nsimilarly falls far short of the reality.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] A.D. There was another\nAryasanga, who lived during the first centuries of our era and\nthe Hungarian scholar most probably confuses the two.\n\n* \"The indiscreet cause which is uniform, and both cause\nand effect, and which those who are acquainted with first principles\ncall Pradhana and Prakriti, is the incognizable Brahma who was\nbefore all\" (Vayu Purana); *i.e.*, Brahma does not\nput forth evolution itself or create, but only exhibits various\naspects of itself, one of which is Prakriti, an aspect of Pradhana.\n\n** Finite Self-consciousness, I mean. For how can the *absolute\n*attain it otherwise than as simply an *aspect*,*\n*the highest of which known to us is human consciousness?\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 51 CAN THE FINITE CONCEIVE THE INFINITE?\n\nAccording to Hegel, the \"Unconscious\" would never have\nundertaken the vast and laborious task of evolving the Universe,\nexcept in the hope of attaining clear Self-consciousness. In this\nconnection it is to be borne in mind that in designating Spirit,\nwhich the European Pantheists use as equivalent to Parabrahm,\nas unconscious, they do not attach to that expression of \"Spirit\"\n-- one employed in the absence of a better to symbolise a profound\nmystery -- the connotation it usually bears.\n\nThe \"Absolute Consciousness,\" they tell us, \"behind\"\nphenomena, which is only termed unconsciousness in the absence\nof any element of personality, transcends human conception. Man,\nunable to form one concept except in terms of empirical phenomena,\nis powerless from the very constitution of his being to raise\nthe veil that shrouds the majesty of the Absolute. Only the liberated\nSpirit is able to faintly realise the nature of the source whence\nit sprung and whither it must eventually return. . . . As the\nhighest Dhyan Chohan, however, can but bow in ignorance before\nthe awful mystery of Absolute Being; and since, even in that culmination\nof conscious existence -- \"the merging of the individual\nin the universal consciousness\" -- to use a phrase of Fichte's\n-- the Finite cannot conceive the Infinite, nor can it apply to\nit its own standard of mental experiences, how can it be said\nthat the \"Unconscious\" and the Absolute can have even\nan instinctive impulse or hope of attaining clear self-consciousness?*\nA Vedantin would never admit this Hegelian idea; and the Occultist\nwould say that it applies perfectly to the awakened MAHAT, the\nUniversal Mind already projected into the phenomenal world as\nthe first aspect of the changeless ABSOLUTE, but never to the\nlatter. \"Spirit and Matter, or Purusha and Prakriti are but\nthe two primeval aspects of the One and Secondless,\" we are\ntaught.\n\nThe matter-moving Nous, the animating Soul, immanent in every\natom, manifested in man, latent in the stone, has different degrees\nof power; and this pantheistic idea of a general Spirit-Soul pervading\nall Nature is the oldest of all the philosophical notions. Nor\nwas the Archaeus a discovery of Paracelsus nor of his pupil Van\nHelmont; for it is again the same Archaeus or \"Father-Ether,\"\n-- the manifested basis\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* See Schwegler's \"Handbook of the History of Philosophy\"\nin Sterling's translation, p. 28.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 52 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nand source of the innumerable phenomena of life -- localised.\nThe whole series of the numberless speculations of this kind are\nbut variations on this theme, the key-note of which was struck\nin this primeval Revelation. (See Part II., \"Primordial Substance.\")\n\n(*b*)* *The term Anupadaka, \"parentless,\"\nor without progenitors, is a mystical designation having several\nmeanings in the philosophy. By this name celestial beings, the\nDhyan-Chohans or Dhyani-Buddhas, are generally meant. But as these\ncorrespond mystically to the human Buddhas and Bodhisattwas, known\nas the \"Manushi (or human) Buddhas,\" the latter are\nalso designated \"Anupadaka,\" once that their whole personality\nis merged in their compound sixth and seventh principles -- or\nAtma-Buddhi, and that they have become the \"diamond-souled\"\n(Vajra-sattvas),* the full Mahatmas. The \"Concealed Lord\"\n(Sangbai Dag-po), \"the one merged with the absolute,\"\ncan have no parents since he is Self-existent, and one with the\nUniversal Spirit (Svayambhu),** the Svabhavat in the highest aspect.\nThe mystery in the hierarchy of the Anupadaka is great, its apex\nbeing the universal Spirit-Soul, and the lower rung the Manushi-Buddha;\nand even every Soul-endowed man is an Anupadaka in a latent state.\nHence, when speaking of the Universe in its formless, eternal,\nor absolute condition, before it was fashioned by the \"Builders\"\n-- the expression, \"the Universe was Anupadaka.\" (See\nPart II., \"Primordial Substance.\")\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Vajra -- diamond-holder. In Tibetan *Dorjesempa; sempa *meaning\nthe soul, its adamantine quality referring to its indestructibility\nin the hereafter. The explanation with regard to the \"Anupadaka\"\ngiven in the Kala Chakra, the first in the Gyu(t) division of\nthe Kanjur, is half esoteric. It has misled the Orientalists into\nerroneous speculations with respect to the Dhyani-Buddhas and\ntheir earthly correspondencies, the Manushi-Buddhas. The real\ntenet is hinted at in a subsequent Volume, (see \"The Mystery\nabout Buddha\"), and will be more fully explained in its proper\nplace.\n\n** To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling practically accepted\nthe Pantheistic conception of periodical Avatars (special incarnations\nof the World-Spirit in Man, as seen in the case of all the great\nreligious reformers) . . . . \"the essence of man is spirit\n. . . . only by stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering\nhimself to pure self-consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ-man,\nas man in whom the Unity of God-man (identity of the individual\nwith the Universal consciousness as taught by the Vedantins and\nsome Adwaitees) appeared, has, in his death and history generally,\nhimself presented the eternal history of Spirit -- a history which\nevery man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as Spirit.\"\n-- *Philosophy of History. *Sibree's English translation,\np. 340.\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
    "project_translation": false,
    "license": null,
    "methodology_url": null
  }
}