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    "name": "Volume I — Cosmogenesis"
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    "slug": "07-stanza-ii----the-idea-of-differentiation-53",
    "title": "STANZA II. -- THE IDEA OF DIFFERENTIATION ... 53",
    "of": 48,
    "words": 3576,
    "text": "## STANZA II. -- THE IDEA OF DIFFERENTIATION ... 53\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, Vol 1, bk 1, sec 2b\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 1\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 53 THE STATE OF PARANIRVANA.\n\n##### STANZA II.\n\n**C**OMMENTARY.\n\n1. . . . . **W**HERE WERE THE BUILDERS, THE LUMINOUS\nSONS OF MANVANTARIC DAWN (*a*)? . . . . IN THE UNKNOWN\nDARKNESS IN THEIR **A**H-HI (*Chohanic, Dhyani-Buddhic*)*\n***P**ARANISHPANNA, THE PRODUCERS OF FORM (*rupa*)*\n*FROM NO-FORM (*arupa*)*, *THE ROOT OF THE WORLD\n-- THE **D**EVAMATRI* AND **S**VABHAVAT,\nRESTED IN THE BLISS OF NON-BEING (*b*).\n\n(*a*) The \"Builders,\" the \"Sons of Manvantaric\nDawn,\" are the real creators of the Universe; and in this\ndoctrine, which deals only with our Planetary System, they, as\nthe architects of the latter, are also called the \"Watchers\"\nof the Seven Spheres, which exoterically are the Seven planets,\nand esoterically the seven earths or spheres (planets) of our\nchain also. The opening sentence of Stanza I., when mentioning\n\"Seven Eternities,\" is made to apply both to the *Maha-Kalpa\n*or \"the (great) Age of Brahma,\" as well as to the\nSolar *pralaya *and subsequent resurrection of our Planetary\nSystem on a higher plane. There are many kinds of *pralaya\n*(dissolution of a thing visible), as will be shown elsewhere.\n\n(*b*) Paranishpanna, remember, is the *summum bonum*,*\n*the Absolute, hence the same as Paranirvana. Besides being\nthe final state it is that condition of subjectivity which has\nno relation to anything but the one absolute truth (Para-marthasatya)\non its plane. It is that state which leads one to appreciate correctly\nthe full meaning of Non-Being, which, as explained, is *absolute\n*Being. Sooner or later, all that now *seemingly *exists,\nwill be in reality and actually in the state of Paranishpanna.\nBut there is a great difference between *conscious *and*\nunconscious *\"being.\"* *The condition of\nParanishpanna, without Paramartha, the Self-analys-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n\"Mother of the Gods,\" Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the\nZohar, she is called Sephira the Mother of the Sephiroth, and\nShekinah in her primordial form, *in* *abscondito.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 54 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ning consciousness (Svasamvedana), is no bliss, but simply extinction\n(for Seven Eternities). Thus, an iron ball placed under the scorching\nrays of the sun will get heated through, but will not feel or\nappreciate the warmth, while a man will. It is only \"with\na mind clear and undarkened by personality, and an assimilation\nof the merit of manifold existences devoted to being in its collectivity\n(the whole living and sentient Universe),\" that one gets\nrid of personal existence, merging into, becoming one with, the\nAbsolute,* and continuing in full possession of Paramartha.\n\n-------\n\n##### STANZA II. -- Continued.\n\n2. . . . . **W**HERE WAS SILENCE? **W**HERE\nWERE THE EARS TO SENSE IT? **N**O! **T**HERE\nWAS NEITHER SILENCE, NOR SOUND (*a*). **N**AUGHT\nSAVE CEASELESS, ETERNAL BREATH (*Motion*)* *WHICH\nKNOWS ITSELF NOT (*b*).\n\n(*a*) The idea that things can cease to exist and still\nBE, is a fundamental one in Eastern psychology. Under this apparent\ncontradiction in terms, there rests a fact of Nature to realise\nwhich in the mind, rather than to argue about words, is the important\nthing. A familiar instance of a similar paradox is afforded by\nchemical combination. The question whether Hydrogen and Oxygen\ncease to exist, when they combine to form water, is still a moot\none, some arguing that since they are found again when the water\nis decomposed they must be there all the while; others contending\nthat as they actually turn into something totally different they\nmust cease to exist as themselves for the time being; but neither\nside is able to form the faintest conception of the real condition\nof a thing, which has become something else and yet has not ceased\nto be itself. Existence as water may be said to be, for Oxygen\nand Hydrogen, a state of Non-being which is \"more real being\"\nthan their existence as gases; and it may faintly symbolise the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Hence* Non-being *is \"**A**BSOLUTE\nBeing,\" in esoteric philosophy. In the tenets of the latter\neven Adi-Budha (first or primeval wisdom) is, while manifested,\nin one sense an illusion, Maya, since all the gods, including\nBrahma, have to die at the end of the \"Age of Brahma\";\nthe abstraction called Parabrahm alone -- whether we call it Ensoph,\nor Herbert Spencer's Unknowable -- being \"the One Absolute\"\nReality. The One secondless Existence is ADWAITA, \"Without\na Second,\" and all the rest is *Maya, *teaches the\nAdwaita philosophy.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 55 THE ABSOLUTE KNOWS ITSELF NOT.\n\ncondition of the Universe when it goes to sleep, or ceases to\nbe, during the \"Nights of Brahma\" -- to awaken or reappear\nagain, when the dawn of the new Manvantara recalls it to what\nwe call existence.\n\n(*b*)* *The \"Breath\" of the One Existence\nis used in its application only to the spiritual aspect of Cosmogony\nby Archaic esotericism; otherwise, it is replaced by its equivalent\nin the material plane -- Motion. The One Eternal Element, or element-containing\nVehicle, is *Space*, dimensionless in every sense; co-existent\nwith which are -- endless *duration*, primordial (hence\nindestructible) *matter*, and* motion* --* *absolute\n\"perpetual motion\" which is the \"breath\" of\nthe \"One\" Element. This breath, as seen, can never cease,\nnot even during the Pralayic eternities. (*See *\"*Chaos*,*\nTheos*,* Kosmos*,\"* *in Part II.)\n\nBut the \"Breath of the One Existence\" does not, all\nthe same, apply to the *One Causeless Cause *or the \"All\nBe-ness\" (in contradistinction to All-Being, which is Brahma,\nor the Universe). Brahma (or Hari) the four-faced god who, after\nlifting the Earth out of the waters, \"accomplished the Creation,\"\nis held to be only the instrumental, and not, as clearly implied,\nthe ideal Cause. No Orientalist, so far, seems to have thoroughly\ncomprehended the real sense of the verses in the Purana, that\ntreat of \"creation.\"\n\nTherein Brahma is the cause of the potencies that are to be generated\nsubsequently for the work of \"creation.\" When a translator\nsays, \"And from him proceed the potencies to be created,\nafter they had become the real cause\": \"and from IT\nproceed the potencies that *will **create *as they\n*become *the real cause\" (on the material plane) would\nperhaps be more correct? Save that one (causeless) ideal cause\nthere is no other to which the universe can be referred. \"Worthiest\nof ascetics! through its potency -- *i.e.*, through the\npotency of that cause -- every created thing comes by its inherent\nor proper nature.\" If, in the Vedanta and Nyaya, *nimitta\n*is the efficient cause, as contrasted with *upadana, *the\nmaterial cause, (and in the Sankhya, *pradhana *implies\nthe functions of both); in the Esoteric philosophy, which reconciles\nall these systems, and the nearest exponent of which is the Vedanta\nas expounded by the Advaita Vedantists, none but the *upadana\n*can be speculated upon; that which is in the minds of the\nVaishnavas (the Vasishta-dvaita) as the ideal in contradistinction\nto the real -- or Parabrahm and Isvara -- can find no room in\npublished speculations, since\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 56 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nthat ideal even is a misnomer, when applied to that of which no\nhuman reason, even that of an adept, can conceive.\n\nTo know itself or oneself, necessitates consciousness and perception\n(both limited faculties in relation to any subject except Parabrahm),\nto be cognized. Hence the \"Eternal Breath which knows itself\nnot.\" Infinity cannot comprehend Finiteness. The Boundless\ncan have no relation to the bounded and the conditioned. In the\noccult teachings, the Unknown and the Unknowable MOVER, or the\nSelf-Existing, is the absolute divine Essence. And thus being\n*Absolute *Consciousness, and *Absolute *Motion\n-- to the limited senses of those who describe this indescribable\n-- it is unconsciousness and immoveableness. Concrete consciousness\ncannot be predicated of abstract Consciousness, any more than\nthe quality wet can be predicated of water -- wetness being its\nown attribute and the cause of the wet quality in other things.\nConsciousness implies limitations and qualifications; something\nto be conscious of, and someone to be conscious of it. But Absolute\nConsciousness contains the cognizer, the thing cognized and the\ncognition, all three in itself and all three *one. *No\nman is conscious of more than that portion of his knowledge that\nhappens to have been recalled to his mind at any particular time,\nyet such is the poverty of language that we have no term to distinguish\nthe knowledge not actively thought of, from knowledge we are unable\nto recall to memory. To forget is synonymous with not to remember.\nHow much greater must be the difficulty of finding terms to describe,\nand to distinguish between, abstract metaphysical facts or differences.\nIt must not be forgotten, also, that we give names to things according\nto the appearances they assume for ourselves. We call absolute\nconsciousness \"unconsciousness,\" because it seems to\nus that it must necessarily be so, just as we call the Absolute,\n\"Darkness,\" because to our finite understanding it appears\nquite impenetrable, yet we recognize fully that our perception\nof such things does not do them justice. We involuntarily distinguish\nin our minds, for instance, between unconscious absolute consciousness,\nand unconsciousness, by secretly endowing the former with some\nindefinite quality that corresponds, on a higher plane than our\nthoughts can reach, with what we know as consciousness in ourselves.\nBut this is not any kind of consciousness that we can manage to\ndistinguish from what appears to us as unconsciousness.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 57 THE GERM OF LIFE.\n\n##### STANZA II. -- Continued.\n\n3. **T**HE HOUR HAD NOT YET STRUCK; THE RAY HAD NOT\nYET FLASHED INTO THE GERM (*a*); THE MATRI-PADMA (*mother\nlotus*)* *HAD NOT YET SWOLLEN (*b*).*\n\n(*a*) The ray of the \"Ever Darkness\" becomes,\nas it is emitted, a ray of effulgent light or life, and flashes\ninto the \"Germ\" -- the point in the Mundane Egg, represented\nby matter in its abstract sense. But the term \"Point\"\nmust not be understood as applying to any particular point in\nSpace, for a germ exists in the centre of every atom, and these\ncollectively form \"the Germ;\" or rather, as no atom\ncan be made visible to our physical eye, the collectivity of these\n(if the term can be applied to something which is boundless and\ninfinite) forms the noumenon of eternal and indestructible matter.\n\n(*b*)* *One of the symbolical figures for the Dual\ncreative power in Nature (matter and force on the material plane)\nis *Padma*, the water-lily of India. The Lotus is the product\nof heat (fire) and water (vapour or Ether); fire standing in every\nphilosophical and religious system as a representation of the\nSpirit of Deity,** the active, male, generative principle; and\nEther, or the Soul of matter, the light of the fire, for the passive\nfemale principle from which everything in this Universe emanated.\nHence, Ether or Water is the Mother, and Fire is the Father. Sir\nW. Jones (and before him archaic botany) showed that the seeds\nof the Lotus contain -- even before they germinate -- perfectly\nformed leaves, the miniature shape of what one day, as perfect\nplants, they will become: nature thus giving us a specimen of\nthe preformation of its production . . . the seed of all phanerogamous\nplants bearing proper flowers containing an embryo plantlet ready\nformed.*** (See Part II., \"The Lotus Flower as an Universal\nSymbol.\") This explains the sentence \"The Mother had\nnot yet swollen\" -- the form being usually sacrificed to\nthe inner or root idea in Archaic symbology.\n\nThe Lotus, or Padma, is, moreover, a very ancient and favourite\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* An unpoetical term, yet still very graphic. (See foot-note to\nStanza III.)\n\n** Even in Christianity. (See Part II., \"Primordial Substance\nand Divine Thought.\")\n\n*** Gross, \"The Heathen Religion,\" p. 195.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 58 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nsimile for the Kosmos itself, and also for man. The popular reasons\ngiven are, firstly, the fact just mentioned, that the Lotus-seed\ncontains within itself a perfect miniature of the future plant,\nwhich typifies the fact that the spiritual prototypes of all things\nexist in the immaterial world before those things become materialised\non Earth. Secondly, the fact that the Lotus plant grows up through\nthe water, having its root in the Ilus, or mud, and spreading\nits flower in the air above. The Lotus thus typifies the life\nof man and also that of the Kosmos; for the Secret Doctrine teaches\nthat the elements of both are the same, and that both are developing\nin the same direction. The root of the Lotus sunk in the mud represents\nmaterial life, the stalk passing up through the water typifies\nexistence in the astral world, and the flower floating on the\nwater and opening to the sky is emblematical of spiritual being.\n\n##### STANZA II. -- Continued.\n\n4. **H**ER HEART HAD NOT YET OPENED FOR THE ONE RAY\nTO ENTER, THENCE TO FALL AS THREE INTO FOUR IN THE LAP OF **M**AYA\n(*a*).\n\n(*a*) The Primordial Substance had not yet passed out of\nits precosmic latency into differentiated objectivity, or even\nbecome the (to man, so far,) invisible Protyle of Science. But,\nas the hour strikes and it becomes receptive of the Fohatic impress\nof the Divine Thought (the Logos, or the male aspect of the Anima\nMundi, Alaya) -- its heart opens. It differentiates, and the THREE\n(Father, Mother, Son) are transformed into four. Herein lies the\norigin of the double mystery of the Trinity and the immaculate\nConception. The first and Fundamental dogma of Occultism is Universal\nUnity (or Homogeneity) under three aspects. This led to a possible\nconception of Deity, which as an absolute unity must remain forever\nincomprehensible to finite intellects. \"If thou wouldest\nbelieve in the Power which acts within the root of a plant, or\nimagine the root concealed under the soil, thou hast to think\nof its stalk or trunk and of its leaves and flowers. Thou canst\nnot imagine that Power independently of these objects. Life can\nbe known only by the Tree of Life. . . .\" (Precepts for Yoga).\nThe idea of *Absolute *Unity\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 59 ASTRAL LIGHT IS NOT THE ANIMA MUNDI.\n\nwould be broken entirely in our conception, had we not something\nconcrete before our eyes to contain that Unity. And the deity\nbeing absolute, must be omnipresent, hence not an atom but contains\nIT within itself. The roots, the trunk and its many branches are\nthree distinct objects, yet they are one tree. Say the Kabalists:\n\"The Deity is one, because It is infinite. It is triple,\nbecause it is ever manifesting.\" This manifestation is triple\nin its aspects, for it requires, as Aristotle has it, three principles\nfor every natural body to become objective: privation, form, and\nmatter.* Privation meant in the mind of the great philosopher\nthat which the Occultists call the prototypes impressed in the\nAstral Light -- the lowest plane and world of Anima Mundi. The\nunion of these three principles depends upon a fourth -- the LIFE\nwhich radiates from the summits of the Unreachable, to become\nan universally diffused Essence on the manifested planes of Existence.\nAnd this QUATERNARY (Father, Mother, Son, as a UNITY, and a quaternary,\nas a living manifestation) has been the means of leading to the\nvery archaic Idea of Immaculate Conception, now finally crystallized\ninto a dogma of the Christian Church, which carnalized this metaphysical\nidea beyond any common sense. For one has but to read the Kabala\nand study its numerical methods of interpretation to find the\norigin of that dogma. It is purely astronomical, mathematical,\nand pre-eminently metaphysical: the Male element in Nature (personified\nby the male deities and Logoi -- Viraj, or Brahma; Horus, or Osiris,\netc., etc.) is born through, not from, an immaculate source, personified\nby the \"Mother\"; because that Male having a Mother cannot\nhave a \"Father\" -- the abstract Deity being sexless,\nand not even a Being but Be-ness, or Life itself. Let us render\nthis in the mathematical language of the author of \"The Source\nof Measures.\" Speaking of the \"Measure of a Man\"\nand his numerical (Kabalistic) value, he writes that in Genesis,\nch. iv., v. 1, \"It is called the 'Man even Jehovah'\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* A Vedantin of the Visishtadwaita philosophy would say that,\nthough the only independent Reality, Parabrahmam is inseparable\nfrom his trinity. That He is three, \"Parabrahmam, Chit, and\nAchit,\" the last two being dependent realities unable to\nexist separately; or, to make it clearer, Parabrahmam is the SUBSTANCE\n-- changeless, eternal, and incognizable -- and Chit (Atma), and\nAchit (Anatma) are its qualities, as form and colour are the qualities\nof any object. The two are the garment, or body, or rather attribute\n(Sarira) of Parabrahmam. But an Occultist would find much to say\nagainst this claim, and so would the Adwaitee Vedantin.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page 60]] THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nMeasure, and this is obtained in this way, viz.: 113 x 5 = 565,\nand the value 565 can be placed under the form of expression 56.5\nx 10 = 565. Here the Man-number 113 becomes a factor of 56.5 x\n10, and the (Kabalistic) reading of this last numbered expression\nis Jod, He, Vau, He, or Jehovah. . . . The expansion of 565 into\n56.5 x 10 is purposed to show the emanation of the male (Jod)\nfrom the female (Eva) principle; or, so to speak, the birth of\na male element from an immaculate source, in other words, an immaculate\nconception.\"\n\nThus is repeated on Earth the mystery enacted, according to the\nSeers, on the divine plane. The \"Son\" of the immaculate\nCelestial Virgin (or the undifferentiated cosmic protyle, Matter\nin its infinitude) is born again on Earth as the Son of the terrestrial\nEve -- our mother Earth, and becomes Humanity as a total -- past,\npresent, and future -- for Jehovah or Jod-he-vau-he is androgyne,\nor both male and female. Above, the Son is the whole **K**OSMOS;\nbelow, he is **M**ANKIND. The triad or triangle becomes\nTetraktis, the Sacred Pythagorean number, the perfect Square,\nand a 6-faced cube on Earth. The Macroprosopus (the Great Face)\nis now Microprosopus (the lesser face); or, as the Kabalists have\nit, the \"Ancient of Days,\" descending on Adam Kadmon\nwhom he uses as his vehicle to manifest through, gets transformed\ninto Tetragrammaton. It is now in the \"Lap of Maya,\"\nthe Great Illusion, and between itself and the Reality has the\nAstral Light, the great Deceiver of man's limited senses, unless\nKnowledge through Paramarthasatya comes to the rescue.\n\n-------\n\n##### STANZA II. -- Continued.\n\n5. **T**HE **S**EVEN (*Sons*)*\nWERE *NOT YET BORN FROM THE **W**EB OF **L**IGHT.\n**D**ARKNESS ALONE WAS **F**ATHER-**M**OTHER,\n**S**VABHAVAT, AND **S**VABHAVAT WAS\nIN DARKNESS (*a*).\n\n(*a*) The Secret Doctrine, in the Stanzas given here, occupies\nitself chiefly, if not entirely, with our Solar System, and especially\nwith our planetary chain. The \"Seven Sons,\" therefore,\nare the creators of the latter. This teaching will be explained\nmore fully hereafter. (See Part II., \"Theogony of the Creative\nGods.\")\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 61 DIVINE THOUGHT, DIVINE THINKERS.\n\nSvabhavat, the \"Plastic Essence\" that fills the Universe,\nis the root of all things. Svabhavat is, so to say, the Buddhistic\nconcrete aspect of the abstraction called in Hindu philosophy\n*Mulaprakriti. *It is the body of the Soul, and that which\nEther would be to Akasa, the latter being the informing principle\nof the former. Chinese mystics have made of it the synonym of\n\"being.\" In the *Ekasloka-Shastra *of* Nagarjuna\n*(the* Lung-shu *of China) called by the Chinese the\n*Yih-shu-lu-kia-lun*,* *it is said that the original\nword of Yeu is \"Being\" or \"Subhava,\" \"the\nSubstance giving substance to itself,\" also explained by\nhim as meaning \" without action and with action,\" \"the\nnature which has no nature of its own.\" *Subhava*,*\n*from which *Svabhavat*,* *is composed of two\nwords: Su \"fair,\" \"handsome,\" \"good\";\nSva, \"self\"; and bhava, \"being\" or \"states\nof being.\"\n\n-------\n\n##### STANZA II. -- Continued.\n\n6. **T**HESE TWO ARE THE **G**ERM, AND\nTHE **G**ERM IS -- ONE. **T**HE **U**NIVERSE\nWAS STILL CONCEALED IN THE **D**IVINE **T**HOUGHT\nAND THE **D**IVINE **B**OSOM.\n\nThe \"*Divine Thought*\"* *does not imply\nthe idea of a Divine thinker. The Universe, not only past, present,\nand future -- which is a human and finite idea expressed by finite\nthought -- but in its totality, the *Sat *(an untranslateable\nterm), the absolute being, with the Past and Future crystallized\nin an eternal Present, is that Thought itself reflected in a secondary\nor manifest cause. Brahma (neuter) as the Mysterium Magnum of\nParacelsus is an absolute mystery to the human mind. Brahma, the\nmale-female, its aspect and anthropomorphic reflection, is conceivable\nto the perceptions of blind faith, though rejected by human intellect\nwhen it attains its majority. (See Part II., \"Primordial\nSubstance and Divine Thought.\")\n\nHence the statement that during the prologue, so to say, of the\ndrama of Creation, or the beginning of cosmic evolution, the Universe\nor the \"Son\" lies still concealed \"in the Divine\nThought,\" which had not yet penetrated \"into the Divine\nBosom.\" This idea, note well, is at the root, and forms the\norigin of all the allegories about the \"Sons of God\"\nborn of immaculate virgins.\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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