«Тайная Доктрина: Синтез науки, религии и философии»

Но все есть сомнение, отрицание, иконоборчество и грубое безразличие в наш век ста «измов» и отсутствия религии. Каждый идол разбит, кроме Золотого Тельца.

К сожалению, ни один народ или народы не могут избежать своей Кармической судьбы, так же как и единицы и индивидуумы. С историей так называемые историки обращаются так же бесцеремонно, как и с легендарными преданиями. За это Огюстен Тьерри принес amende honorable, если можно верить его биографам. Он оплакивал ошибочный принцип, который заставлял всех претендующих на звание историографов сбиваться с пути, и каждый из них брал на себя смелость исправлять традицию, «этот vox populi, который в девяти случаях из десяти есть vox Dei»; и в конце концов он признал, что в легенде одной покоится реальная история; ибо он добавляет:

Легенда — это живая традиция, и в трех случаях из четырех она правдивее того, что мы называем Историей.

В то время как Материалисты отрицают все во Вселенной, кроме Материи, Археологи пытаются принизить Древность и стремятся разрушить каждое притязание Древней Мудрости, фальсифицируя Хронологию. Наши современные востоковеды и исторические писатели для Древней Истории — то же, что белые муравьи для зданий в Индии. Еще более опасные, чем эти Термиты, современные Археологи — «авторитеты» будущего в вопросах Всемирной Истории — готовят для истории прошлых народов судьбу определенных зданий в тропических странах. Как сказал Мишле:

История рухнет и распадется на атомы в лоне двадцатого века, будучи до основания пожранной своими летописцами.

Очень скоро, действительно, под их объединенными усилиями она разделит судьбу тех разрушенных городов в обеих Америках, которые глубоко погребены под непроходимыми девственными лесами. Исторические факты останутся скрытыми от глаз из-за запутанных джунглей современных гипотез, отрицаний и скептицизма. Но, к счастью, актуальная История повторяет себя, ибо она движется, как и все остальное, циклами; и мертвые факты, и события, намеренно утопленные в море современного скептицизма, снова поднимутся и появятся на поверхности.

Во II Томе сам факт того, что работа с претензиями на Философию, которая также является изложением самых абстрактных проблем, должна быть начата с прослеживания эволюции человечества от того, что считается сверхъестественными существами — Духами, — вызовет самую злобную критику. Верующие в Тайную Доктрину и ее защитники, однако, должны будут вынести обвинение в безумии и худшем, так же философски, как это уже долгие годы делает автор. Всякий раз, когда Теософа обвиняют в безумии, он должен отвечать цитатой из «Персидских писем» Монтескье:

Так свободно открывая свои сумасшедшие дома для своих предполагаемых безумцев, люди лишь стремятся убедить друг друга в том, что они сами не безумны.

[Примечание транскрибатора: Очевидные опечатки исправлены.]

Сноски

1. See Theosophist, June, 1883. 2. Preface to the original edition. 3. Dan, in modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics Chhan, is the general term for the esoteric schools and their literature. In the old books, the word Janna is defined as “reforming one's self by meditation and knowledge,” a second inner birth. Hence Dzan, Djan phonetically; the Book of Dzyan. See Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 129, note. 4. Mr. Beglor, the chief engineer at Buddhagâya, and a distinguished archæologist, was the first, we believe, to discover it. 5. See Isis Unveiled, Vol. II, p. 27. 6. Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. 23. 7. Ain í Akbari, translated by Dr. Blochmann, quoted by Max Müller, op. cit. 8. Tao-te-King, p. xxvii. 9. Max Müller, op. cit., p. 114. 10. Found out and proven only now, through the discoveries made by George Smith (see his Chaldean Account of Genesis), and which, thanks to this Armenian forger, have misled all the “civilized nations” for over 1,500 years into accepting Jewish derivations for direct Divine Revelation. 11. Egypt's Place in History, i. 200. 12. Spence Hardy, The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, p. 66. 13. E. Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, p. 77. 14. Lassen (Ind. Althersumkunde, II, 1,072) shows a Buddhist monastery erected in the Kailâs. Range in 137 b.c.; and General Cunningham, one earlier than that. 15. Rev. J. Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 87. 16. See, for example, Max Müller's Lectures. 17. Op. cit., p. 118. 18. Op. cit., p. 318. 19. Asiatic Researches, I, 272. 20. See Max Müller, op. cit., pp. 288 et seq. This relates to the clever forgery, on leaves inserted in old Purânic MSS., and written in correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pandits had heard from Colonel Wilford about Adam and Abraham, Noah and his three sons, etc., etc. 21. From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky. 22. Lün-Yü (§ I a); Schott, Chinesische Literatur, p. 7; quoted by Max Müller. 23. Life and Teachings of Confucius, p. 96. 24. Op. cit., p. 257. 25. The name is used in the sense of the Greek word ἅνθρωπς. 26. Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about a.d. 72, openly declared that he had performed “miracles” by means of the book Sepher Jetzirah, and challenged every sceptic. Franck, quoting from the Babylonian Talmud, names two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina and Oshoi. (See Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, c. 7, etc.; and Franck, Die Kabbalah, pp. 55, 56). Many of the mediæval Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists have made the same claim; and even the late modern Magus, Éliphas Lévi, publicly asserts it in his books on Magic. 27. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the term Divine Thought, like that of Universal Mind, must not be regarded as even vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that exhibited by man. The “Unconscious,” according to von Hartmann, arrived at the vast creative, or rather evolutionary plan, “by a clairvoyant wisdom superior to all consciousness,” which in Vedântic language would mean absolute Wisdom. Only those who realize how far intuition soars above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought can form the faintest conception of that absolute Wisdom which transcends the ideas of Time and Space. Mind, as we know it, is resolvable into states of consciousness, of varying duration, intensity, complexity, etc., all, in the ultimate, resting on sensation, which is again Mâyâ. Sensation, again, necessarily postulates limitation. The Personal God of orthodox Theism perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels “fierce anger.” But the notion of such mental states clearly involves the unthinkable postulate of the externality of the exciting stimuli, to say nothing of the impossibility of ascribing changelessness to a being whose emotions fluctuate with events in the worlds he presides over. The conceptions of a Personal God as changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what is worse, unphilosophical. 28. Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in Cratylus that θεός is derived from θέειν, to move, to run, for the first astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called the planets θεοί, gods. Later the word produced another term, ἀλήθεια—the breath of God. 29. Nominalists, arguing with Berkeley that “it is impossible ... to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving” (Principles of Human Knowledge, Introd., par. 10), may put the question, What is that body, the producer of that motion? Is it a substance? Then you are believers in a Personal God? etc., etc. This will be answered farther on, in a further part of this work; meanwhile, we claim our rights of Conceptionalists as against Roscelini's materialistic views of Realism and Nominalism. “Has science,” says one of its ablest advocates, Edward Clodd, “revealed anything that weakens or opposes itself to the ancient words in which the essence of all religion, past, present, and to come, is given; to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before thy God?” And we agree, provided we connote by the word God, not the crude anthropomorphism which is still the backbone of our current theology, but the symbolic conception of that which is the Life and Motion of the Universe, to know which in the physical order is to know time past, present, and to come, in the existence of successions of phenomena; to know which, in the moral, is to know what has been, is, and will be, within human consciousness. (See Science and the Emotions, a Discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, London, December 27th, 1885.) 30. Isis Unveiled, II, 264-5. 31. Rig Veda. 32. We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American Kabalists, that in the Kabalah also “the value of the Jehovah name is that of the diameter of a circle.” Add to this the fact that Jehovah is the third of the Sephiroth, Binah, a feminine word, and you have the key to the mystery. By certain Kabalistic transformations this name, which is androgynous in the first chapters of Genesis, becomes in its transformations entirely masculine, Cainite and phallic. The choosing of a deity among the pagan gods and making of it a special national God, to call upon it as the “One Living God,” the “God of Gods,” and then proclaiming this worship monotheistic, does not change it into the One Principle whose “Unity admits not of multiplication, change, or form,” especially in the case of a priapic deity, as Jehovah is now demonstrated to be. 33. See that suggestive work, The Source of Measures, where the author explains the real meaning of the word Sacr' from which “sacred,” “sacrament,” are derived, words which have now become synonyms of holiness, though purely phallic! 34. Mândûkya Upanishad, I. 28. 35. Bodhimür, Book II. 36. See the Vedânta Sâra, by Major G. A. Jacob; and also The Aphorisms of Shândilya, translated by Cowell, p. 42. 37. Aitareya Upanishad. 38.

Тем не менее, предвзятые и довольно фанатичные христианские востоковеды хотели бы доказать, что это чистый Атеизм. Для доказательства этого сравните «Веданта-сару» майора Джейкоба. И все же вся древность вторит этой мысли:

Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse est Immortali ævo summa cum pace fruatur—

как говорит Лукреций — чисто ведантическая концепция.

39. The very names of the two chief deities, Brahmâ and Vishnu, ought to have long ago suggested their esoteric meanings. Brahman, or Brahm, is derived by some from the root brih, to grow or to expand (see Calcutta Review, vol. lxvi., p. 14); Vishnu, from the root vish, to pervade, to enter into the nature of the essence; Brahmâ-Vishnu thus being infinite Space, of which the Gods, the Rishis, the Manus, and all in this Universe are simply the Potencies (Vibhûtayah). 40. See Manu's account of Brahmâ separating his body into male and female, the latter the female Vâch, in whom he creates Virâj, and compare this with the esotericism of Chapters II, III, and IV of Genesis. 41.

Оккультизм действительно «носится в воздухе» на исходе нашего века. Среди многих других недавно опубликованных работ мы рекомендовали бы особенно студентам теоретического Оккультизма, которые не рискнули бы выйти за пределы сферы нашего особого человеческого плана, «Новые аспекты жизни и религии» д-ра Генри Пратта. Она полна эзотерических догм и философии, последняя, однако, в заключительных главах довольно ограничена тем, что кажется духом обусловленного позитивизма. Тем не менее, то, что сказано о Пространстве как о «Неизвестной Первопричине», заслуживает цитирования.

«Это неизвестное нечто, таким образом признанное и отождествленное с первичным воплощением Простого Единства, невидимо и неосязаемо [как абстрактное пространство, допустим]: и потому невидимое и неосязаемое, следовательно, непознаваемо. И эта непознаваемость привела к ошибке предположения, что это простая пустота, чисто восприимчивая способность. Но даже рассматриваемое как абсолютная пустота, пространство должно быть признано либо самосущим, бесконечным и вечным, либо имеющим первопричину вне, позади и за пределами самого себя.

И все же, если бы такую причину можно было найти и определить, это привело бы лишь к переносу на нее атрибутов, иначе присущих пространству, и, таким образом, лишь отбросило бы трудность возникновения на шаг назад, не давая дополнительного света относительно первичной причинности». (Op. cit., стр. 5.)

Это именно то, что было сделано верующими в антропоморфного творца, экстракосмического, а не интракосмического Бога. Многие темы д-ра Пратта — большинство из них, можно сказать — это старые Каббалистические идеи и теории, которые он представляет в совершенно новом обличье — действительно «Новые Аспекты» Оккультного в Природе. Пространство, однако, рассматриваемое как Субстанциальное Единство — живой Источник Жизни — является, как Неизвестная Беспричинная Причина, старейшей догмой в Оккультизме, на тысячелетия раньше Pater-Æther греков и латинян. Таковы же «Сила и Материя, как Потенции Пространства, неотделимы, и неизвестные открыватели Неизвестного». Все они найдены в арийской философии, олицетворенные как Вишвакарман, Индра, Вишну и т. д., и т. д. Тем не менее, они выражены очень философски и под многими необычными аспектами в упомянутой работе.

42. In contradistinction to the manifested Universe of matter, the term Mûlaprakriti (from mûla, root, and prakriti, nature), or the unmanifested primordial Matter—called by Western Alchemists Adam's Earth—is applied by the Vedântins to Parabrahman. Matter is dual in religious metaphysics, and in esoteric teachings septenary, like everything else in the Universe. As Mûlaprakriti, it is undifferentiated and eternal: as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated and conditioned, according to Shvetâshvatara Upanishad, I, 8, and Devî Bhâgavata Purâna. The author of the Four lectures on the Bhagavad Gîtâ, in speaking of Mûlaprakriti, says: “From its [the Logos'] objective standpoint, Parabrahman appears to it as Mûlaprakriti.... Of course this Mûlaprakriti is material to it, as any material object is material to us.... Parabrahman is an unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mûlaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown over it.” (Theosophist, VIII, 304.) 43. Esoteric Philosophy, regarding every finite thing as Mâyâ (or the illusion of ignorance), must necessarily view in the same light every intra-cosmic planet and body, seeing that it is something organized, hence finite. The sentence, therefore, “it proceeds from without inwardly, etc.”, in its first clause, refers to the dawn of the Mahâmanvantara, or the great reëvolution after one of the complete periodical dissolutions of every compound form in Nature, from planet to molecule, into its ultimate essence or element; and in its second clause, to the partial or local Manvantara, which may be a solar or even a planetary one. 44. By Centre, a centre of energy or a cosmic focus is meant; when the so-called “creation,” or formation, of a planet, is accomplished by that force which is designated by Occultists Life and by Science Energy, then the process takes place from within outwardly, every atom being said to contain in itself the creative energy of the divine Breath. And, whereas after an Absolute Pralaya, when the preëxisting material consists but of One Element, and Breath “is everywhere,” the latter acts from without inwardly; after a Minor Pralaya, when everything having remained in statu quo—in a refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon—then at the first flutter of Manvantara, the planet or planets begin their resurrection to life from within outwardly. 45. In the evolutionary cycles of ideas, it is curious to notice how ancient thought seems to be reflected in modern speculation. Had Mr. Herbert Spencer read and studied ancient Hindû philosophers when he wrote a certain passage in his First Principles (p. 482)? Or is it an independent flash of inner perception that made him say half correctly, half incorrectly, “motion as well as matter, being fixed in quantity [?], it would seem that the change in the distribution of matter which motion effects, coming to a limit in whichever direction it is carried [?], the indestructible motion thereupon necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally coëxistent forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes—produce now an immeasurable period during which the attracting forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and then an immeasurable period, during which the repulsive forces predominating, cause universal diffusion—alternate eras of evolution and dissolution.” 46. Whatever the news of Physical Science upon the subject, Occult Science has been teaching for ages that Âkâsha (of which Ether is the grossest form), the Fifth universal cosmic Principle—to which corresponds and from which proceeds human Manas—is, cosmically, a radiant, cool, diathermanous plastic matter, creative in its physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects and portions, immutable in its higher principles. In the creative condition it is called the Sub-Root; and in conjunction with radiant heat, it recalls “dead worlds to life.” In its higher aspect it is the Soul of the World; in its lower—the Destroyer. 47. Hypoth., 1675. 48. The “First” presupposes necessarily something which is the “first brought forth,” “the first in time, space, and rank”—and therefore finite and conditioned. The “first” cannot be Absolute for it is a manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All the One Causeless Cause, the Rootless Root, and limits the “First Cause” to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this term. 49. See T. Subba Row's four able lectures on the Bhagavad Gîtâ, in The Theosophist, Feb. 1887. 50. Called by Christian theology, Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc. 51. “Pilgrim” is the appellation given to our Monad (the Two in one) during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only immortal and eternal Principle in us, being an indivisible part of the integral whole—the Universal Spirit, from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the end of the cycle. When it is said to emanate from the One Spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has to be used for lack of appropriate words in English. The Vedântins call it Sûtrâtmâ (Thread-Soul), but their explanation differs somewhat from that of the Occultists; to explain which difference, however, is left to the Vedântins themselves. 52. It is not the physical organisms that remain in statu quo, least of all their psychic principles, during the great Cosmic or even Solar Pralayas, but only their âkâshic or astral “photographs.” But during the Minor Pralayas, once overtaken by the “Night,” the planets remain intact, though dead, just as a huge animal, caught and embedded in the polar ice, remains the same for ages. 53. Thus Spencer, who, nevertheless, like Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, only reflects an aspect of the old esoteric philosophers, and hence lands his readers on the bleak shore of Agnostic despair—reverently formulates the grand mystery; “that which persists unchanging in quantity, but ever changing in form, under these sensible appearances which the Universe presents to us, is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognize as without limit in Space and without beginning or end in Time.” It is only daring Theology—never Science or Philosophy—which seeks to gauge the Infinite and unveil the Fathomless and Unknowable. 54. Space. 55. It is stated in Book II, ch. viii, of Vishnu Purâna: “By immortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa”; and Wilson, the translator, remarks in a foot-note: “This, according to the Vedas, is all that is to be understood of the immortality [or eternity] of the gods; they perish at the end of universal dissolution [or Pralaya].” And Esoteric Philosophy says: “They ‘perish’ not, but are reäbsorbed.” 56. Celestial Beings. 57. And hence to manifest it. 58. Nirvâna. Nippang in Chinese; Neibban in Burmese; Moksha in India. 59. Nidâna and Mâyâ. The “Twelve” Nidânas (in Tibetan Ten-brel Chug-nyi) are the chief causes of existence, effects generated by a concatenation of causes produced. 60. See Wassilief, Der Buddhismus, pp. 97-128. 61. The term “Wheel” is the symbolical expression for a world or globe, which shows that the ancients were aware that our Earth was a revolving globe, not a motionless square as some Christian Fathers taught. The “Great Wheel” is the whole duration of our Cycle of Being, or Mahâkalpa, i.e., the whole revolution of our special Chain of seven Globes or Spheres from beginning to end; the “Small Wheels” meaning the Rounds, of which there are also seven. 62. Absolute Perfection, Paranirvâna, which is Yong-Grub. 63. See Dzungarian Mani Kumbum, the “Book of the 10,000 Precepts.” Also consult Wassilief's Der Buddhismus, pp. 327 and 357, etc. 64. In clearer words: One has to acquire true Self-Consciousness in order to understand Samvriti, or the “origin of delusion.” Paramârtha is the synonym of the term Svasamvedanâ, or the “reflection which analyses itself.” There is a difference in the interpretation of the meaning of Paramârtha between the Yogâchâryas and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom, however, explain the real and true esoteric sense of the expression. 65. In India it is called the “Eye of Shiva,” but beyond the Great Range it is known in Esoteric phraseology as “Dangma's Opened Eye.” Dangma means a purified soul, one who has become a Jîvanmukta, the highest Adept, or rather a Mahâtmâ so-called. His “Opened Eye” is the inner spiritual eye of the seer; and the faculty which manifests through it, is not clairvoyance as ordinarily understood, i.e., the power of seeing at a distance, but rather the faculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is obtainable. This faculty is intimately connected with the “third eye,” which mythological tradition ascribes to certain races of men. 66. Vishnu Purâna, I. 21. 67. And yet, one, claiming authority, namely, Sir Monier Williams, Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, has just denied the fact. This is what he taught his audience, on June the 4th, 1888, in his annual address before the Victoria Institute of Great Britain: “Originally, Buddhism set its face against all solitary asceticism ... to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no esoteric system of doctrine ... withheld from ordinary men” (!!). And, again: “... When Gautama Buddha began his career, the later and lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known.” And then, contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith informs his audience that “we learn from Lalita-Vistara that various forms of bodily torture, self-maceration, and austerity were common in Gautama's time.” (!!) But the lecturer seems quite unaware that this kind of torture and self-maceration is precisely the lower form of Yoga, Hatha Yoga, which was “little known” and yet so “common” in Gautama's time. 68. It is even argued that all the Six Darshanas, or Schools of Philosophy, show traces of Buddha's influence, being either taken from Buddhism or due to Greek teaching! (See Weber, Max Müller, etc.) We labour under the impression that Colebrooke, “the highest authority” in such matters, had long ago settled the question by showing that “the Hindûs were in this instance the teachers, not the learners.” 69. Soul, as the basis of all, Anima Mundi. 70. Absolute Being and Consciousness, which are Absolute Non-Being and Unconsciousness. 71. “Paramârthasatya” is self-consciousness; Svasamvedanâ, or self-analyzing reflection—from parama, above everything, and artha, comprehension; satya meaning absolute true being, or esse. In Tibetan Paramârthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite of this absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya—the relative truth only—Samvriti meaning “false conception” and being the origin of Illusion, Mâyâ; in Tibetan Kundzabchidenpa, “illusion-creating appearance.” 72. Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas. 73. Âryâsanga was a pre-Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist esoteric school, though Csoma de Körös places him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh century a.d. There was another Aryâsanga, who lived during the first centuries of our era, and the Hungarian scholar most probably confuses the two. 74. Vâyu Purâna. 75. Vishnu Purâna, Wilson, I. 20. 76. Finite self-consciousness, I mean. For how can the Absolute attain this otherwise than simply as an aspect, the highest of which aspects known to us is human consciousness? 77. See Schwegler's Handbook of the History of Philosophy, in Sterling's translation, p. 28. 78. Vajrapâni or Vajradhara means the diamond-holder; in Tibetan Dorjesempa, sempa meaning the soul; its adamantine quality referring to its indestructibility in the hereafter. The explanation with regard to the Anupâdaka given in the Kâla Chakra, the first in the Gyut division of the Kanjur, is half esoteric. It has misled the Orientalists into erroneous speculations with respect to the Dhyâni-Buddhas and their earthly correspondencies, the Mânushi-Buddhas. The real tenet is hinted at in a subsequent volume, and will be more fully explained in its proper place. 79. To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling practically accepted the Pantheistic conception of periodical Avatâras (special incarnations of the World-Spirit in Man, as seen in the case of all the great religious reformers): “The essence of man is spirit ... only by stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure self-consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ-man, as man in whom the Unity of God-man [identity of the individual with the universal Consciousness as taught by the Vedântins and some Advaitees] appeared, has, in his death and history generally, himself presented the eternal history of Spirit—a history which every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as Spirit.”—Philosophy of History, Sibree's English Translation, p. 340. 80. Chohanic, Dhyâni-Buddhic. 81. Rûpa. 82. Arûpa. 83. “Mother of the Gods,” Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the Zohar, she is called Sephira, the Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her primordial form, in abscondita. 84. Hence Non-Being is “Absolute Being,” in Esoteric Philosophy. In the tenets of the latter even Âdi-Buddha (the First or Primeval Wisdom) is, while manifested, in one sense an Illusion, Mâyâ, since all the gods, including Brahmâ, have to die at the end of the Age of Brahmâ; the abstraction called Parabrahman—whether we call it Ain Suph, or with Herbert Spencer the Unknowable—alone being the One Absolute Reality. The One Secondless Existence is Advaita, “Without a Second,” and all the rest is Mâyâ, so teaches the Advaita Philosophy. 85. Motion. 86. Wilson, I. iv. 87. Mother-Lotus. 88. An unpoetical term, yet still very graphic. 89. Gross, The Heathen Religion, p. 195. 90. Precepts for Yoga. 91. A Vedântin of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy would say that, though the only independent Reality, Parabrahman is inseparable from His Trinity. That He is three, “Parabrahman, Chit, and Achit,” the last two being dependent Realities unable to exist separately; or, to make it clearer, Parabrahman is the Substance—changeless, eternal, and incognizable—and Chit (Âtmâ) and Achit (Anâtmâ) and its qualities, as form and colour are the qualities of any object. The two are the garment, or body, or rather aspect (sharîra) of Parabrahman. But an Occultist would find much to say against this claim, and so would the Advaiti Vedântin. 92. Sc., Sons. 93. Simultaneously. 94. Moves. 95. Periodical. 96. Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, I. 40. 97. Triangle. 98. Quaternary. 99. Hiranyagarbha. 100. The three hypostases of Brahmâ, or Vishnu, the three Avasthâs. 101. Number, truly; but never Motion. It is Motion which begets the Logos, the Word, in Occultism. 102. The “fourteen precious things.” The narrative or allegory is found in the Shatapatha Brâmanah and others. The Japanese Secret Science of the Buddhist Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has “seven precious things.” We will speak of them, hereafter. 103. “The original for Understanding is Sattva, which Shankara renders Antaskarana. ‘Refined,’ he says, ‘by sacrifices and other sanctifying operations.’ In the Katha, at p. 148, Sattva is rendered by Shankara to mean Buddhi—a common use of the word.” (Bhagavadgîtâ, etc., translated by Kâshinâth Trimbak Telang, M.A.; edited by Max Müller, p. 193.) Whatever meaning various schools may give the term, Sattva is the name given among Occult students of the Âryâsanga School to the dual Monad, or Âtmâ-Buddhi, and Âtmâ-Buddhi on this plane corresponds to Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti on the higher plane. 104. Amrita. 105. Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 314. 106. On Rosenkranz. 107. i. 2. 108. John, i. 4. 109. Lanoo is a student, a Chelâ who studies practical Esotericism. 110. “Whom thou knowest now as Kwan-Shai-Yin.”—Comment. 111. Eka is One; Chatur, Four; Tri, Three; and Sapta, Seven. 112. “Tridasha,” or Thirty, three times ten, alludes to the Vedic deities in round numbers, or more accurately 33—a sacred number. They are the 12 Âdityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and the 2 Ashvins—the twin sons of the Sun and Sky. This is the root-number of the Hindû Pantheon, which enumerates 33 crores, or three hundred and thirty millions of gods and goddesses. 113. Stars. 114. The Upper Space. 115. Element. 116. The Gnostic Sophia, “Wisdom,” who is the “Mother” of the Ogdoad (Aditi, in a certain sense, with her eight sons), is the Holy Ghost and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The “Father” is a far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere—the mother of the seven planetary powers. 117. See Chinese Buddhism, by the Rev. Joseph Edkins, who always gives correct facts, although his conclusions are very frequently erroneous. 118. Book of Sarparâjni. 119. By “God, the Father,” the seventh principle in Man and Kosmos are here unmistakably meant, this principle being inseparable in its Esse and Nature from the seventh cosmic principle. In one sense it is the Logos of the Greeks and the Avalokiteshvara of the Esoteric “Buddhists.” 120. Fitzedward Hall's edition, in the Bibliotheca Indica, p. 16. 121. Anugîtâ, ch. xxvi, K. T. Telang's Translation, p. 333. 122. See Mariette's Abydos, II. 63, and III. 413, 414, No. 1,122. 123. Book of Dzyan, III. 124. Od is the pure life-giving Light, or magnetic fluid; Ob the messenger of death used by sorcerers, the nefarious evil fluid; Aour is the synthesis of the two, Astral Light proper. Can the Philologists tell why Od—a term used by Reichenbach to denominate the vital fluid—is also a Tibetan word meaning light, brightness, radiancy? It also means “sky” in an Occult sense. Whence the root of the word?

But Âkâsha is not quite Ether, but far higher than that, as will be shown. 125. This is again similar to the doctrine of Fichte and German Pantheists. The former reveres Jesus as the great teacher who inculcated the unity of the spirit of man with the God-Spirit or Universal Principle (the Advaita doctrine). It is difficult to find a single speculation in Western metaphysics which has not been anticipated by archaic Eastern philosophy. From Kant to Herbert Spencer, it is all a more or less distorted echo of the Dvaita, Advaita, and Vedântic doctrines generally. 126. Compare Dowson's Dictionary of Hindû Mythology, p. 57. 127. Whether the genus of the bird be cygnus, anser, or pelecanus, it is no matter, as it is an aquatic bird floating or moving on the waters like the Spirit, and then issuing from those waters to give birth to other beings. The true significance of the symbol of the Eighteenth Degree of the Rosecroix is precisely this, though it was later on poetised into the motherly feeling of the pelican rending its bosom to feed its seven little ones with its blood. 128. The reason why Moses forbids eating the pelican and swan (Deuteronomy, xiv. 16, 17), classing the two among the unclean fowls, and permits eating “the bald locusts, beetles, and the grasshopper after his kind” (Leviticus xi. 22.), is a purely physiological one, and has to do with mystic symbology only in so far as the word “unclean,” like every other word, ought not to be understood literally; for it is esoteric like all the rest, and may as well mean “holy” as not. It is a very suggestive blind in connection with certain superstitions—e.g., that of the Russian people, who will not use the pigeon for food; not because it is “unclean” but because the “Holy Ghost” is credited with having appeared under the form of a dove. 129. Chaos. 130. Not the Mediæval Alchemists, but the Magi and Fire-Worshippers, from whom the Rosicrucians, or the Philosophers per ignem, the successors of the Theurgists, borrowed all their ideas concerning Fire, as a mystic and divine element. 131. Isis Unveiled, I. 146. 132. “Para” gives the force of beyond, outside. 133. Purusha. 134. Prakriti. 135. I, I. 7. 136. The Web. 137. The Father. 138. The Root of Matter. 139. The Elements, with their respective Powers, or Intelligences. 140. The Web. 141. Popular Astronomy, pp. 507, 508. 142. American Journal of Science, July, 1870. 143. Winchell, World-Life, pp. 83-5. 144. Of the Atoms. 145. The Universe. 146. Primeval Light. 147. This is said in view of the fact that the flame from a fire is inexhaustible, and that the lights of the whole Universe could be lit from one simple rush-light without diminishing the flame. 148. Chap. viii., p. 80, Telang's Translation. 149. Deuteronomy, iv 24. 150. Thess., i. 7, 8. 151. Acts, ii. 3. 152. Rev., xix. 13. 153. Telang's Translation, Sacred Books of the East, viii. 278. 154. Dhyân Chohans. 155. Formless. 156. With Bodies. 157. Pitris. 158. The Four, represented in the Occult numerals by the Tetraktys, the Sacred or Perfect Square, is a Sacred Number with the Mystics of every nation and race. It has one and the same significance in Brâhmanism, Buddhism, in Kabalism and in the Egyptian, Chaldean and other numerical systems. 159. In the Kabalah, the same numbers, viz., 1065 are a value of Jehovah, since the numerical values of the three letters which compose his name—Jod, Vau and twice Hé—are respectively 10 (י), 6 (ו) and 5 (ה); or again thrice seven, 21. “Ten is the Mother of the Soul, for Life and Light are therein united,” says Hermes. “For number one is born of the Spirit and the number ten from Matter [Chaos, feminine]; the unity has made the ten, the ten the unity.” (Book of the Keys.) By means of Temura, the anagrammatical method of the Kabalah, and the knowledge of 1065 (21), a universal science may be obtained regarding Cosmos and its mysteries (Rabbi Yogel). The Rabbis regard the numbers 10, 6, and 5 as the most sacred of all. 160. The reader may be told that an American Kabalist has now discovered the same number for the Elohim. It came to the Jews from Chaldæa. See “Hebrew Metrology,” in The Masonic Review, July, 1885, McMillan Lodge, No. 141. 161. We find the same expression in Egypt. Mout signifies, for one thing, “Mother,” and shows the character assigned to her in the triad of that country. She was no less the mother than the wife of Ammon, one of the principal titles of the god being “the husband of his mother.” The goddess Mout, or Mût, is addressed as “Our Lady,” the “Queen of Heaven” and “of the Earth,” thus “sharing these titles with the other mother goddesses, Isis, Hathor, etc.” (Maspero). 162. The Sparks. 163. The permutation of Oeaohoo. The literal signification of the word is, among the Eastern Occultists of the North, a circular wind, whirlwind; but in this instance, it is a term to denote the ceaseless and eternal Cosmic Motion, or rather the Force that moves it, which Force is tacitly accepted as the Deity, but never named. It is the eternal Kârana, the ever-acting Cause. 164. vi. 15. The Anugîtâ forms part of the Ashvamedha Parvan of the Mahâbhârata. The translator of the Bhagavadgîtâ, edited by Max Müller, regards it as a continuation of the Bhagavadgîtâ. Its original is one of the oldest Upanishads. 165. This shows the modern metaphysicians, added to all past and present Hegels, Berkeleys, Schopenhauers, Hartmanns, Herbert Spencers, and even the modern Hylo-Idealists to boot, no better than the pale copyists of hoary antiquity. 166. It is the knowledge of this law that permits and helps the Arhat to perform his Siddhis, or various phenomena, such as the disintegration of matter, the transport of objects from one place to another, etc. 167. These are ancient Commentaries attached with modern Glossaries to the Stanzas, for the Commentaries in their symbolical language are usually as difficult to understand as the Stanzas themselves. 168. In a polemical scientific work, The Modern Genesis (p. 48), the Rev. W. B. Slaughter, criticizing the position assumed by the astronomers, says: “It is to be regretted that the advocates of this [nebular] theory have not entered more largely into the discussion of it [the beginning of rotation] No one condescends to give us the rationale of it. How does the process of cooling and contracting the mass impart to it a rotatory motion?” (Quoted by Winchell, World-Life, p. 94.) It is not materialistic Science that can ever solve it. “Motion is eternal in the unmanifested, and periodical in the manifest,” says an Occult teaching. It is “when heat caused by the descent of Flame into primordial matter causes its particles to move, which motion becomes the Whirlwind.” A drop of liquid assumes a spheroidal form owing to its atoms moving around themselves in their ultimate, unresolvable, and noumenal essence; unresolvable for Physical Science, at any rate. The question is amply treated later on. 169. The x, the unknown quantity. 170. Which makes Ten, or the perfect number, applied to the “Creator,” the name given to the totality of the Creators blended by the Monotheists into One, as the “Elohim,” Adam Kadmon or Sephira, the Crown—are the androgyne synthesis of the ten Sephiroth, who stand for the symbol of the manifested Universe in the popularized Kabalah. The Esoteric Kabalists, however, following the Eastern Occultists, divide the upper Sephirothal triangle (or Sephira, Chokmah and Binah) from the rest, which leaves seven Sephiroth. As for Svabhâvat, the Orientalists explain the term as meaning the universal plastic matter diffused through space, with, perhaps, half an eye to the Ether of Science. But the Occultists identify it with “Father-Mother” on the mystic plane. 171. Arûpa. 172. Boundless Circle. 173. Subjective, Formless. 174. Bhâskara. 175. This refers to the Abstract Thought and concrete Voice, or the manifestation thereof, the effect of the Cause. Adam Kadmon, or Tetragrammaton, is the Logos in the Kabalah. Therefore this Triad answers in the latter to the highest Triangle of Kether, Chokmah and Binah, the last a female potency, and at the same time the male Jehovah, as partaking of the nature of Chokmah, or the male Wisdom. 176. The Secret Doctrine teaches that the Sun is a central star and not a planet. Yet the ancients knew of and worshipped seven great gods, excluding the Sun and Earth. Which was that “Mystery God” they set apart? Of course not Uranus, only discovered by Herschel in 1781. But could it not be known by another name? Says Ragon: “Occult Sciences having discovered through astronomical calculations that the number of the planets must be seven, the ancients were led to introduce the Sun into the scale of the celestial harmonies, and make him occupy the vacant place. Thus, every time they perceived an influence that pertained to none of the six planets known, they attributed it to the Sun.... The error seems important, but was not so in practical results, if the astrologers replaced Uranus by the Sun, which ... is a central Star relatively motionless, turning only on its axis and regulating time and measure; and which cannot be turned aside from its true functions.” (Maçonnerie Occulte, p. 447.) The nomenclature of the days of the week is also faulty. “The Sun-day ought to be Uranus-day (Urani dies, Urandi),” adds the learned writer. 177. Planetary System. 178. “The Sun rotates on its axis always in the same direction in which the planets revolve in their respective orbits,” astronomy teaches us. 179. See Anugîtâ, Telang, x. 9; and Aitareya Brâhmana, Haug, p. 1. 180. This essence of cometary matter, Occult Science teaches, is totally different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with which Modern Science is acquainted. It is homogeneous in its primitive form beyond the Solar Systems, and differentiates entirely once it crosses the boundaries of our Earth's region; vitiated by the atmospheres of the planets and the already compound matter of the interplanetary stuff, it is heterogeneous only in our manifested world. 181. Manas—the Mind-Principle, or the Human Soul. 182. Buddhi—the Divine Soul. 183. See Correlation of Physical Forces, 1843, p. 81; and Address to the British Association, 1866. 184. Very similar ideas were those of W. Mattieu Williams, in The Fuel of the Sun; of Dr. C. William Siemens, On the Conservation of Solar Energy (Nature, XXV, 440-444, March 9, 1882); and also of Dr. P. Martin Duncan in an Address, as the President of the Geological Society, London, May, 1877. See World-Life, by Alexander Winchell, LL.D., p. 53, et seq. 185. When we speak of Neptune, it is not as an Occultist but as a European. The true Eastern Occultist will maintain that, whereas there are many yet undiscovered planets in our system, Neptune does not really belong to it, in spite of its apparent connection with our Sun and the influence of the latter upon it. This connection is mâyâvic, imaginary, they say. 186. Word, Voice and Spirit. 187. These are the four “Immortals,” which are mentioned in the Atharva Veda as the “Watchers” or Guardians of the four quarters of the sky. (See Ch. lxxvi., 1-4, et seq.) 188. Conflict between Religion and Science, pp. 132 and 133. 189. Principles of Science, II. 455. 190. Les Mystères de l'Horoscope, Ely Star, p. xi. 191. Psalms, civ. 4. 192. The difference between the Builders, the Planetary Spirits, and the Lipika must not be lost sight of. (See Shlokas 5 and 6 of this Commentary.) 193. That is, he is under the influence of their guiding thought. 194. Cosmic mists. 195. The World to be. 196. Atoms. 197. See A. P. Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism, 5th annotated edition, pp. 171-173. 198. The first and greatest Tibetan Reformer who founded the “Yellow-Caps,” Gelukpas. He was born in the year 1355 a.d., in the district of Amdo, and was the Avatâra of Amitâbha, the celestial name of Gautama Buddha. 199. T. Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the Logos. (See his Lectures on the Bhagavadgîtâ, in the Theosophist, vol. ix.) 200. Helmholtz, Faraday Lecture, 1881. 201. It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in vibration, assumes a series of regular figures of various descriptions. Can Science give a complete explanation of this fact? 202. See The Masonic Cyclopædia, Mackenzie; and The Pythagorean Triangle, Oliver. 203. Ormazd is the Logos, the “First Born,” and the Sun. 204. Against Apion, I, 25. 205. See Isis Unveiled, II., 430-438. 206. See Dowson's Hindû Classical Dictionary. 207. The mineral atoms. 208. Gaseous clouds. 209. See Kabbalah Denudata, “De Anima,” p. 113. 210. “The doctrine of the rotation of the earth about an axis was taught by the Pythagorean Hicetas, probably as early as 500 b.c. It was also taught by his pupil Ecphantus, and by Heraclides, a pupil of Plato. The immobility of the sun and the orbital rotation of the earth were shown by Aristarchus of Samos as early as 281 b.c. to be suppositions accordant with facts of observation. The heliocentric theory was also taught about 150 b.c., by Seleucus of Seleucia on the Tigris. [It was taught 500 b.c. by Pythagoras.—H.P.B.] It is said also that Archimedes, in a work entitled Psammites, inculcated the heliocentric theory. The sphericity of the earth was distinctly taught by Aristotle, who appealed for proof to the figure of the earth's shadow on the moon in eclipses. (Aristotle, De Cælo, lib. II., cap, XIV.) The same idea was defended by Pliny. (Nat. Hist., II., 65.) These views seem to have been lost from knowledge for more than a thousand years....” (Winchell, World-Life, 551-2.) 211. On Vortex Atoms. 212. Op. cit., 567. 213. Abridged from Principia Rerum Naturalium. 214. The Lipika. 215. That is: the First is now the Second World. 216. The Formless Universe of Thought. 217. The Shadowy World of Primal Form, or the Intellectual. 218. In the Rig Veda, we find the names Brahmanaspati and Brihaspati alternating with, and equivalent to, each other. Also see Brihadâranyaka Upanishad; Brihaspati is a deity called the “Father of the Gods.” 219. Logic, II. 125. 220. Having already taken the first three. 221. Hosts. 222. The four Aspects are the body, its life or vitality, and the “double” of the body—the triad which disappears with the death of the person—and the Kâma Rûpa which disintegrates in Kâma Loka. 223. On Amos, iv. 224. Theol. Cir., I. vii. 225. See The Occult World, pp. 89, 90. 226. Thus the sentence, “Natura Elementorum obtinet revelationem Dei” (Clemens, Stromata, IV. 6), is applicable to both or neither. Consult the Zends, II. 228, and Plutarch De Iside, as compared by Layard, Académie des Inscriptions, 1854, Vol. XV. 227. Exodus xxvi, xxvii. 228. Antiquities, I. VIII, ch. xxii. 229. Chinese Buddhism, p. 216. 230. “Man” was here substituted for “Dragon.” Compare the Ophite Spirits. The Angels recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, who correspond to these “Faces,” were with the Ophites: Dragon—Raphael; Lion—Michael; Bull, or Ox—Uriel; and Eagle—Gabriel. The four keep company with the four Evangelists, and preface the Gospels. 231. Ezekiel, i. 232. The Jews, save the Kabalists, having no names for East, West, South, and North, expressed the idea by words signifying before, behind, right and left, and very often confounded the terms exoterically, thus making the blinds in the Bible more confused and difficult to interpret. Add to this the fact that out of the forty-seven translators of King James' Bible “only three understood Hebrew, and of these two died before the Psalms were translated” (Royal Masonic Cyclopædia), and one may easily understand what reliance can be placed on the English version of the Bible. In this work the Douay Roman Catholic version is generally followed. 233. The vertical line or the figure 1. 234. Circle. 235. Also for those who, etc. 236. The Formless World and the World of Forms. 237. Theosophist, Feb., 1877, p. 303. 238. These voluntary reïncarnations are referred to in our Doctrine as Nirmânakâyas—the surviving spiritual principles of men. 239. Sûkshma Sharîra, “dream-like” illusive body, with which are clothed the inferior Dhyânis of the celestial Hierarchy. 240. Compare this Esoteric tenet with the Gnostic doctrine found in Pistis-Sophia (Knowledge-Wisdom), in which treatise Sophia (Achamôth) is shown lost in the waters of Chaos (Matter), on her way to the Supreme Light, and Christos delivering and helping her on the right Path. Note well, that “Christos” with the Gnostics meant the Impersonal Principle, the Âtman of the Universe, and the Âtmâ within every man's soul—and not Jesus; though in the old Coptic MS., in the British Museum, “Christos” is replaced by “Jesus” and other terms. 241. A Catechism of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy, by N. Bhâshiyacharya, F.T.S., late Pandit of the Adyar Library. 242. Träume eines Geistersehers, quoted by C. C. Massey, in his preface to Von Hartmann's Spiritismus. 243. Le Livre des Morts, Paul Pierret, Chap. xvii. p. 61. 244. See also for other data on this peculiar expression, the Day of “Come To Us,” The Funerary Ritual of the Egyptians, by Viscount de Rougé. 245. Chaos. 246. Our Universe. 247. The Theosophist, Feb., 1887, p. 305. 248. Op. cit., p. 306. 249. Madhya is said of something whose commencement and end are unknown, and Para means infinite. These expressions all relate to infinitude and to division of time. 250. Op. cit., p. 307. 251. From the Sanskrit Laya, the point of matter where every differentiation has ceased. 252. Five Years of Theosophy, Art., “Personal and Impersonal God,” p. 200. 253. Elements. 254. Fraction. 255. Presidential Address before the Royal Society of Chemists, March, 1888. 256. P. 242. 257.