PROEM
PAGES FROM A PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.
AN
Archaic Manuscript a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to water,
fire, and air, by some specific unknown process is before the writer's eye. On
the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull black ground. On the
following page, the same disk, but with a central point. The first, the student
knows to represent Kosmos in Eternity, before the re-awakening of still
slumbering Energy, the emanation of the Word in later systems. The point in the
hitherto immaculate Disk, Space and Eternity in Pralaya, denotes the dawn of
differentiation. It is the Point in the Mundane Egg (see Part II., "The Mundane
Egg"), the germ within the latter which will become the Universe, the ALL, the
boundless, periodical Kosmos, this germ being latent and active, periodically
and by turns. The one circle is divine Unity, from which all proceeds, whither
all returns. Its circumference a forcibly limited symbol, in view of the
limitation of the human mind indicates the abstract, ever incognisable
PRESENCE, and its
plane, the Universal Soul, although the two are one. Only the face of the Disk
being white and the ground all around black, shows clearly that its plane is the
only knowledge, dim and hazy though it still is, that is attainable by man. It
is on this plane that the Manvantaric manifestations begin; for it is in this
SOUL that slumbers, during the Pralaya, the Divine Thought,* wherein lies
concealed the plan of every future Cosmogony and Theogony.
*
It is hardly necessary to remind the reader once more 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 the Vedantic 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 Maya. 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.
2THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
It is the
ONE LIFE,
eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without beginning or end, yet periodical in
its regular manifestations, between which periods reigns the dark mystery of
non-Being; unconscious, yet absolute Consciousness; unrealizable, yet the one
self-existing reality; truly, "a chaos to the sense, a Kosmos to the reason."
Its one absolute attribute, which is
ITSELF,
eternal, ceaseless Motion, is called in esoteric parlance the "Great Breath,"
* which is the perpetual motion of the universe, in the sense of limitless,
ever-present SPACE.
That which is motionless cannot be Divine. But then there is nothing in fact and
reality absolutely motionless within the universal soul.
Almost five centuries
B.C. Leucippus, the instructor of Democritus, maintained that Space was
filled eternally with atoms actuated by a ceaseless motion, the latter
generating in due course of time, when those atoms aggregated, rotatory motion,
through mutual collisions producing lateral movements. Epicurus and Lucretius
taught the same, only adding to the lateral motion of the atoms the idea of
affinity an occult teaching.
From the beginning of man's inheritance, from the first appearance of the
architects of the globe he lives in, the unrevealed Deity was recognized and
considered under its only philosophical aspectuniversal motion, the thrill of
the creative Breath in Nature. Occultism sums up the "One Existence" thus:
"Deity is an arcane, living (or moving)
FIRE, and the eternal
witnesses to this unseen Presence are Light, Heat, Moisture," this trinity
including, and being the cause of, every
*
Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in Cratylus
that aed"
is derived from the verb
qevein
, "to move," "to run," as the first astronomers who observed the motions of the
heavenly bodies called the planets
qeoiv , the
gods. (See Book II., "Symbolism of the Cross and Circle.") Later, the word
produced another term,
ajlhvqeia "the breath of God."
3PROEM
phenomenon in Nature.*
Intra-Cosmic motion is eternal and ceaseless; cosmic motion (the visible, or
that which is subject to perception) is finite and periodical. As an eternal
abstraction it is the
EVER-PRESENT; as a manifestation, it is
finite both in the coming direction and the opposite, the two being the alpha
and omega of successive reconstructions. Kosmos the
NOUMENON has
nought to do with the causal relations of the phenomenal World. It is only with
reference to the intra-cosmic soul, the ideal Kosmos in the immutable Divine
Thought, that we may say: "It never had a beginning nor will it have an end."
With regard to its body or Cosmic organization, though it cannot be said that it
had a first, or will ever have a last construction, yet at each new Manvantara,
its organization may be regarded as the first and the last of its kind, as it
evolutes every time on a higher plane.....
A few years ago only, it was stated that:
"The esoteric doctrine teaches, like Buddhism and Brahminism, and even the
Kabala, that the one infinite and unknown Essence exists from all eternity, and
in regular and harmonious successions is either passive or active. In the
poetical phraseology of Manu these conditions are called the "Days" and the
"Nights" of Brahmβ. The latter is either "awake" or "asleep." The Svabhβvikas,
or philosophers of the oldest school of Buddhism (which still exists in Nepal),
speculate only upon the active condition of this "Essence," which they call
Svabhβvat, and deem it foolish to theorize upon the abstract and "unknowable"
power in its passive condition. Hence they are called atheists by both Christian
theologians and modern scientists, for neither of the
*
Nominalists, arguing with Berkeley that "it is impossible .
. . to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving" ("Prin.
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 the Addendum to this Book;
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?" 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 Life and Motion of the Universe, to know which in 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, Dec.
27th, 1885.)
4THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
two are able to understand
the profound logic of their philosophy. The former will allow of no other God
than the personified secondary powers which have worked out the visible
universe, and which became with them the anthropomorphic God of the Christians
the male Jehovah, roaring amid thunder and lightning. In its turn, rationalistic
science greets the Buddhists and the Svabhβvikas as the "positivists" of the
archaic ages. If we take a one-sided view of the philosophy of the latter, our
materialists may be right in their own way. The Buddhists maintained that there
is no Creator, but an infinitude of creative powers, which collectively form the
one eternal substance, the essence of which is inscrutable hence not a subject
for speculation for any true philosopher. Socrates invariably refused to argue
upon the mystery of universal being, yet no one would ever have thought of
charging him with atheism, except those who were bent upon his destruction. Upon
inaugurating an active period, says the Secret Doctrine, an expansion of this
Divine essence from without inwardly and from within outwardly, occurs in
obedience to eternal and immutable law, and the phenomenal or visible universe
is the ultimate result of the long chain of cosmical forces thus progressively
set in motion. In like manner, when the passive condition is resumed, a
contraction of the Divine essence takes place, and the previous work of creation
is gradually and progressively undone. The visible universe becomes
disintegrated, its material dispersed; and 'darkness' solitary and alone, broods
once more over the face of the 'deep.' To use a Metaphor from the Secret Books,
which will convey the idea still more clearly, an out-breathing of the 'unknown
essence' produces the world; and an inhalation causes it to disappear. This
process has been going on from all eternity, and our present universe is but one
of an infinite series, which had no beginning and will have no end." (See
"Isis Unveiled "; also "The Days and Nights of
Brahmβ " in Part II.)
This passage will be explained, as far as it is possible, in the present
work. Though, as it now stands, it contains nothing new to the Orientalist, its
esoteric interpretation may contain a good deal which has hitherto remained
entirely unknown to the Western student. The first illustration being a
plain disc ‘
the second one in the Archaic symbol
shows ?,
a disc with a point in it the first differentiation in the periodical
manifestations of the ever-eternal nature, sexless and infinite "Aditi in
THAT" (Rig Veda),
the point in the disc, or potential Space within abstract Space. In its third
stage the point is transformed into a
diameter, thus y
It now symbolises a divine immaculate
Mother-Nature within the all-embracing absolute Infinitude.
When the diameter line
is crossed by a vertical one
Ε,
it becomes the mundane cross. Humanity has reached its third root-race; it is
the sign for the origin of human life to begin. When the circumference
disappears and leaves only the
Θ
it is a sign that the fall of man into matter is accomplished, and the FOURTH
race begins. The Cross within a circle symbolises pure Pantheism; when the Cross
was left uninscribed, it became phallic. It had the same and yet other meanings
as a TAU inscribed within a circle
3
or as a "Thor's hammer," the Jaina cross, so-called, or simply Svastica within a
circle By
the third symbol the circle divided in two by the horizontal line of the
diameter the first manifestation of creative (still passive, because feminine)
Nature was meant. The first shadowy perception of man connected with procreation
is feminine, because man knows his mother more than his father. Hence female
deities were more sacred than the male. Nature is therefore feminine, and, to a
degree, objective and tangible, and the spirit Principle which fructifies it is
concealed. By adding to the circle with the horizontal line in it, a
perpendicular line, the tau was formed T
the oldest form of the letter. It was the glyph of the third root-race to the
day of its symbolical Fall
i.e., when the separation
of sexes by natural evolution took place when the figure became ,
the circle, or sexless life modified or separated a double glyph or symbol.
With the races of our Fifth Race it became in symbology the sacr', and in Hebrew
n'cabvah, of the first-formed races; * then it changed into the Egyptian (emblem
of life), and still later into the sign of Venus,
♀
Then comes the Svastica (Thor's hammer, or the "Hermetic Cross" now), entirely
separated from its Circle, thus becoming purely phallic. The esoteric symbol of
Kali Yuga is the five-pointed star reversed, thus
the sign of human sorcery, with its two points (horns) turned heavenward, a
position every
* 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, which have now become synonyms of "holiness," though purely phallic!
Occultist will recognize as
one of the "left-hand," and used in ceremonial magic.*
It is hoped that during the perusal of this work the erroneous ideas of the
public in general with regard to Pantheism will be modified. It is wrong and
unjust to regard the Buddhists and Advaitee Occultists as atheists. If not all
of them philosophers, they are, at any rate, all logicians, their objections and
arguments being based on strict reasoning. Indeed, if the Parabrahmam of the
Hindus may be taken as a representative of the hidden and nameless deities of
other nations, this absolute Principle will be found to be the prototype from
which all the others were copied. Parabrahm is not "God," because It is not a
God. "It is that which is supreme, and not supreme (paravara)," explains
Mandukya Upanishad (2.28). IT is "Supreme" as
CAUSE,
not supreme as effect. Parabrahm is simply, as a "Secondless Reality," the
all-inclusive Kosmos or, rather, the infinite Cosmic Space in the highest
spiritual sense, of course. Brahma (neuter) being the unchanging, pure, free,
undecaying supreme Root, "the
ONE true Existence, Paramarthika," and the absolute Chit and Chaitanya
(intelligence, consciousness) cannot be a cognize, "for
THAT can have no subject of cognition." Can the flame be called the essence
of Fire? This Essence is "the
LIFE and
LIGHT
of the Universe, the visible fire and flame are destruction, death, and evil."
"Fire and Flame destroy the body of an Arhat, their essence makes him immortal."
(Bodhi-mur, Book II.) "The knowledge of the
absolute Spirit, like the effulgence of the sun, or like heat in fire, is naught
else than the absolute Essence itself," says Sankaracharya.
IT
is "the Spirit of the Fire," not fire itself; therefore, "the attributes of
the latter, heat or flame, are not the attributes of the Spirit, but of that of
which that Spirit is the unconscious cause." Is not the above sentence the true
key-note of later Rosicrucian
*
We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American Kabalists, that in
the Kabala 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 Sephiroth,
Binah, a feminine word, and you have the key to the
mystery. By certain Kabalistic transformations this name,
androgynous in the first chapters
of Genesis, becomes in its transformations entirely masculine, Cainite and
phallic. The fact of choosing 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 proclaim 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 now demonstrated to be.
7PROEM
philosophy? Parabrahm is,
in short, the collective aggregate of Kosmos in its infinity and eternity, the "THAT" and "THIS" to which distributive
aggregates can not be applied.* "In the beginning
THIS was the Self, one only"
(Aitareya Upanishad);
the great Sankaracharya, explains that "THIS"
referred to the Universe (Jagat); the sense of the words, "In the beginning,"
meaning before the reproduction of the phenomenal Universe.
Therefore, when the Pantheists echo the Upanishads, which state, as in the
Secret Doctrine, that "this" cannot create, they do not deny a Creator, or
rather a collective aggregate of creators, but only refuse, very
logically, to attribute "creation" and especially formation, something finite to
an Infinite Principle. With them, Parabrahmam is a passive because an Absolute
Cause, the unconditioned Mukta. It is only limited Omniscience and
Omnipotence that are refused to the latter, because these are still attributes
(as reflected in man's perceptions); and because Parabrahm, being the "Supreme
ALL," the ever invisible spirit and Soul of Nature, changeless and eternal, can
have no attributes; absoluteness very naturally precluding any idea of the
finite or conditioned from being connected with it. And if the Vedantin
postulates attributes as belonging simply to its emanation, calling it "Iswara
plus Maya," and Avidya (Agnosticism and Nescience rather than
ignorance), it is difficult to find any Atheism in this conception.
Since there can be neither two
INFINITES
nor two
ABSOLUTES in a
Universe supposed to be Boundless, this Self-Existence can hardly be conceived
of as creating personally. In the sense and perceptions of finite "Beings,"
THAT
is Non-"being," in the sense that it is the one
BE-NESS;
for, in this ALL lies concealed
its coeternal and coeval emanation or inherent radiation, which, upon becoming
periodically Brahmβ (the male-female Potency) becomes or expands itself into the
manifested Universe. Narayana moving on the (abstract) waters of Space, is
transformed into the Waters of concrete substance moved by him, who now becomes
the manifested WORD or Logos.
*
See "Vedanta Sara," by Major G. A. Jacob; as also "The
Aphorisms of S'βndilya," translated by Cowell, p. 42.
Nevertheless, prejudiced and rather fanatical Christian Orientalists
would like to prove this pure Atheism. For proof of this, see about Major
Jacob's "Vedanta Sara." Yet, the whole Antiquity echoes this Vedantic thought:
"Omnis enim per se divom
natura necesse est
Immortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur."
8THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The orthodox Brahmins,
those who rise the most against the Pantheists and Adwaitees, calling them
Atheists, are forced, if Manu has any authority in this matter, to accept the
death of Brahmβ, the creator, at the expiration of every "Age" of this
(creative) deity (100 Divine years a period which in our years requires
fifteen figures to express it). Yet, no philosopher among them will view this
"death" in any other sense than as a temporary disappearance from the manifested
plane of existence, or as a periodical rest.
The Occultists are, therefore, at one with the Adwaita Vedantin
philosophers as to the above tenet. They show the impossibility of accepting on
philosophical grounds the idea of the absolute ALL creating or even evolving the
"Golden Egg," into which it is said to enter in order to transform itself into
Brahmβ the Creator, who expands himself later into gods and all the visible
Universe. They say that Absolute Unity cannot pass to infinity; for infinity
presupposes the limitless extension of something, and the duration of
that "something"; and the One All is like Space which is its only mental and
physical representation on this Earth, or our plane of existence neither an
object of, nor a subject to, perception. If one could suppose the Eternal
Infinite All, the Omnipresent Unity, instead of being in Eternity, becoming
through periodical manifestation a manifold Universe or a multiple personality,
that Unity would cease to be one. Locke's idea that "pure Space is capable of
neither resistance nor Motion" is incorrect. Space is neither a "limitless
void," nor a "conditioned fulness," but both: being, on the plane of absolute
abstraction, the ever-incognisable Deity, which is void only to finite minds,*
and on that of mayavic perception, the Plenum, the absolute Container
of all that is, whether manifested or unmanifested: it is, therefore, that
ABSOLUTE ALL.
There is no difference between the Christian Apostle's "In Him we live and move
and have our being," and the Hindu Rishi's "The Universe lives in, proceeds
from, and will
* The very names of the two chief deities, Brahmβ and Vishnu, ought to have long ago suggested their esoteric meanings. For the root of one, Brahmam, or Brahm, is derived by some from the word Brih, "to grow" or "to expand" (see Calcutta Review, vol. lxvi., p. 14); and of the other, Vishnu, from the root Vis, "to pervade," to enter in the nature of the essence; Brahmβ-Vishnu being this infinite SPACE, of which the gods, the Rishis, the Manus, and all in this universe are simply the potencies, Vibhutayah.
9PROEM
return to, Brahma
(Brahmβ)": for Brahma (neuter), the unmanifested, is that Universe
in abscondito, and Brahmβ, the manifested, is the Logos,
made male-female* in the symbolical orthodox dogmas. The God of the
Apostle-Initiate and of the Rishi being both the Unseen and the Visible
SPACE.
Space is called in the esoteric symbolism "the Seven-Skinned Eternal
Mother-Father." It is composed from its undifferentiated to its differentiated
surface of seven layers.
"What is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is a Universe or
not; whether there be gods or none?" asks the esoteric Senzar Catechism. And the
answer made is SPACE.
It is not the One Unknown ever-present God in Nature, or Nature in
abscondito, that is rejected, but the God of human dogma and his
humanized "Word." In his infinite conceit and inherent pride and vanity,
man shaped it himself with his sacrilegious hand out of the material he found in
his own small brain-fabric, and forced it upon mankind as a direct revelation
from the one unrevealed
SPACE. The Occultist
*
See Manu's account of Brahmβ separating his body into male
and female, the latter the female Vβch, in whom he creates Viraj, and compare
this with the esotericism of Chapters II., III., and IV. of Genesis.
Occultism is indeed in the air at the close of this our century. Among
many other works recently published, we would recommend one especially to
students of theoretical Occultism who would not venture beyond the realm of our
special human plane. It is called "New Aspects of Life and Religion," by Henry
Pratt, M.D. It is full of esoteric dogmas and philosophy, the latter rather
limited, in the concluding chapters, by what seems to be a spirit of conditioned
positivism. Nevertheless, what is said of Space as "the Unknown First Cause,"
merits quotation. "This unknown something, thus recognised as, and identified
with, the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is invisible and impalpable" (abstract
space, granted); "and because invisible and impalpable, therefore
incognisable. And this incognisability has led to the error of supposing it to
be a simple void, a mere receptive capacity. But, even viewed as an absolute
void, space must be admitted to be either Self-existent, infinite, and eternal,
or to have had a first cause outside, behind, and beyond itself.
"And yet could such a cause be found and defined, this would only lead to
the transferring thereto of the attributes otherwise accruing to space, and thus
merely throw the difficulty of origination a step farther back, without gaining
additional light as to primary causation."(p.5.)
This is precisely what has been done by the believers in an anthropomorphic
Creator, an extracosmic, instead of an intracosmic God. Many most of Mr.
Pratt's subjects, we may say are old Kabalistic ideas and theories which he
presents in quite a new garb: "New Aspects" of the Occult in Nature, indeed.
Space, however, viewed as a "Substantial Unity" the "living Source of Life"
is as the "Unknown Causeless Cause," is the oldest dogma in Occultism,
millenniums earlier than the Pater-Ζther
of the Greeks and Latins. So are the "Force and Matter, as Potencies
of Space, inseparable, and the Unknown revealers of the Unknown." They are all
found in Aryan philosophy personified by Visvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc.
Still they are expressed very philosophically, and under many unusual aspects,
in the work referred to.
10THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
accepts revelation as
coming from divine yet still finite Beings, the manifested lives, never from the
Unmanifestable ONE
LIFE; from those entities, called
Primordial Man, Dhyani-Buddhas, or Dhyan-Chohans, the "Rishi-Prajβpati" of the
Hindus, the Elohim or "Sons of God," the Planetary Spirits of all nations, who
have become Gods for men. He also regards the Adi-Sakti the direct emanation
of Mulaprakriti, the eternal Root of
THAT, and the female aspect of the Creative Cause Brahmβ, in her A'kαsic
form of the Universal Soul as philosophically a Maya, and cause of human Maya.
But this view does not prevent him from believing in its existence so long as it
lasts, to wit, for one Mahamanvantara; nor from applying Akβśa, the radiation
of Mulaprakriti,* to practical purposes, connected as the World-Soul is
with all natural phenomena, known or unknown to science.
The oldest religions of the world exoterically, for the esoteric root or
foundation is one are the Indian, the Mazdean, and the Egyptian. Then comes
the Chaldean, the outcome of these entirely lost to the world now, except in
its disfigured Sabeanism as at present rendered by the archζologists; then,
passing over a number of religions that will be mentioned later, comes the
Jewish, esoterically, as in the Kabala, following in the line of Babylonian
Magism; exoterically, as in Genesis and the Pentateuch, a collection of
allegorical legends. Read by the light of the Zohar, the initial four chapters
of Genesis are the fragment
*
In contradistinction to the manifested universe of matter,
the term Mulaprakriti (from
Mula, "the root," and
prakriti, "nature"), or the unmanifested primordial matter called
by Western alchemists Adam's Earth is applied by the Vedantins to
Parabrahmam. Matter is dual in
religious metaphysics, and septenary in esoteric teachings, like everything else
in the universe. As Mulaprakriti,
it is undifferentiated and eternal; as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated
and conditioned, according to Svetasvatara
Upanishad, I.
8, and Devi Bhagavata Purβna. The author of the Four Lectures on
the Bhagavad Gita, says, in speaking of
Mulaprakriti: "From its (the Logos') objective standpoint,
Parabrahmam appears to it as
Mulaprakriti. . . . Of course this
Mulaprakriti is material to
it, as any material object is material to us. . . .
Parabrahmam is an unconditioned
and absolute reality, and Mulaprakriti
is a sort of veil thrown over it." (Theosophist,
Vol. VIII., p. 304.)
11PROEM
of a highly philosophical
page in the World's Cosmogony. (See Book III., Gupta Vidya and the
Zohar.) Left in their symbolical disguise, they are a nursery
tale, an ugly thorn in the side of science and logic, an evident effect of
Karma. To have let them serve as a prologue to Christianity was a cruel revenge
on the part of the Rabbis, who knew better what their Pentateuch meant. It was a
silent protest against their spoliation, and the Jews have certainly now the
better of their traditional persecutors. The above-named exoteric creeds will be
explained in the light of the Universal doctrine as we proceed with it.
The Occult Catechism contains the following questions and answers:
"What is it that ever is?" "Space, the eternal Anupadaka."*
"What is it that ever was?" "The Germ in the Root." "What is it
that is ever coming and going?" "The Great Breath." "Then, there are three
Eternals?" "No, the three are one. That which ever is is one,
that which ever was is one, that which is ever being and becoming is also one:
and this is Space."
"Explain, oh Lanoo (disciple)."
"The
One is an unbroken Circle (ring)
with no circumference, for it is nowhere and everywhere; the One is the
boundless plane of the Circle, manifesting a diameter only during the
manvantaric periods; the One is the indivisible point found nowhere, perceived
everywhere during those periods; it is the Vertical and the Horizontal, the
Father and the Mother, the summit and base of the Father, the two extremities of
the Mother, reaching in reality nowhere, for the One is the Ring as also the
rings that are within that Ring. Light in darkness and darkness in light: the
'Breath which is eternal.'
It proceeds from without inwardly, when it is everywhere, and from within
outwardly, when it is nowhere
(i.e., maya,one
of the centres ). It
expands and
*
Meaning "parentless" see farther on.
Esoteric philosophy,
regarding as Maya (or the illusion of ignorance) every finite thing, must
necessarily view in the same light every intra-Cosmic planet and body, as being
something organized, hence finite. The expression, therefore, "it proceeds from
without inwardly, etc." refers in the first portion of the sentence to the dawn
of the Mahamanvantaric period, or the great re-evolution 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 portion, to
the partial or local manvantara, which may be a solar or even a planetary one.
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 the Occultists LIFE and by Science "energy," then the
process takes place from within outwardly, every atom being said to contain in
itself creative energy of the divine breath. Hence, whereas after an absolute
pralaya, or when the pre-existing material consists but of ONE Element, and
BREATH "is everywhere," the latter acts from without inwardly: after a minor
pralaya, everything having remained in
statu quo in a
refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon at the first flutter of
manvantara, the planet or planets begin their resurrection to life from within
outwardly.
12THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
contracts
(exhalation and inhalation). When
it expands the mother diffuses and scatters; when it contracts, the mother draws
back and ingathers. This produces the periods of Evolution and Dissolution,
Manwantara and Pralaya. The Germ is invisible and fiery; the Root (the
plane of the circle) is cool; but during Evolution and Manwantara her
garment is cold and radiant. Hot Breath is the Father who devours the progeny of
the many-faced Element (heterogeneous); and leaves the
single-faced ones (homogeneous). Cool Breath is the Mother, who conceives, forms, brings forth, and
receives them back into her bosom, to reform them at the Dawn (of
the Day of Brahma, or Manvantara).
. . . "
For clearer understanding on the part of the general reader, it must be
stated that Occult Science recognizes Seven Cosmical Elements four
entirely physical, and the fifth ( Ether ) semi-material, as it will become
visible in the air towards the end of our Fourth Round, to reign supreme over
the others during the whole of the Fifth. The remaining two are as yet
absolutely beyond the range of human perception. These latter will, however,
appear as presentments during the 6th and 7th Races of this Round, and will
become known in the 6th and 7th Rounds respectively. * These seven
elements with their numberless Sub-Elements
*
It is curious to notice how, in the evolutionary cycles of
ideas, ancient thought seems to be reflected in modern speculation. Had Mr.
Herbert Spencer read and studied ancient Hindu 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 co-existent
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."
11PROEM
far more numerous than
those known to Science) are simply conditional modifications and
aspects of the ONE and only Element. This latter is not Ether,*
not even Akβśa but the Source
of these. The Fifth Element, now advocated quite freely by Science, is not
the Ether hypothesised by Sir Isaac Newton although he calls it by that name,
having associated it in his mind probably with the Ζther, "Father-Mother" of
Antiquity. As Newton intuitionally says, "Nature is a perpetual circulatory
worker, generating fluids out of solids, fixed things out of volatile, and
volatile out of fixed, subtile out of gross, and gross out of subtile.
. . . Thus, perhaps, may all things be
originated from Ether," (Hypoth, 1675).
The reader has to bear in mind that the Stanzas given treat only of the
Cosmogony of our own planetary System and what is visible around it, after a
Solar Pralaya. The secret teachings with regard to the Evolution of the
Universal Kosmos cannot be given, since they could not be understood by the
highest minds in this age, and there seem to be very few Initiates, even among
the greatest, who are allowed to speculate upon this subject. Moreover the
Teachers say openly that not even the highest Dhyani-Chohans have ever
penetrated the mysteries beyond those boundaries that separate the milliards of
Solar systems from the "Central Sun," as it is called. Therefore, that which is
given, relates only to our visible Kosmos, after a "Night of Brahmβ."
Before the reader proceeds to the consideration of the Stanzas from the
Book of Dzyan which form the basis of the present work, it is absolutely
necessary that he should be made acquainted with the few fundamental conceptions
which underlie and pervade the entire system of thought to which his attention
is invited. These basic ideas are few in number, and on their clear apprehension
depends the understanding of all that follows; therefore no apology is required
for asking the reader to make himself familiar with them first, before entering
on the perusal of the work itself.
*
Whatever the views of physical Science upon the subject, Occult Science has been
teaching for ages that A΄kβsa 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 former 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.
14THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The Secret Doctrine
establishes three fundamental propositions:
(a) An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable
PRINCIPLE on
which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human
conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. It
is beyond the range and reach of thought in the words of Mandukya,
"unthinkable and unspeakable."
To render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with
the postulate that there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested,
conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause dimly formulated in the
"Unconscious" and "Unknowable" of current European philosophy is the rootless
root of "all that was, is, or ever shall be." It is of course devoid of all
attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested, finite Being.
It is "Be-ness" rather than Being (in Sanskrit, Sat), and is beyond all
thought or speculation.
This "Be-ness" is symbolised in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On
the one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, the one
thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or conceive of
by itself. On the other, absolute Abstract Motion representing Unconditioned
Consciousness. Even our Western thinkers have shown that Consciousness is
inconceivable to us apart from change, and motion best symbolises change, its
essential characteristic. This latter aspect of the one Reality, is also
symbolised by the term "The Great Breath," a symbol sufficiently graphic to need
no further elucidation. Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret
Doctrine is this metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE
BE-NESS
symbolised by finite intelligence as
the theological Trinity.
It may, however, assist the student if a few further explanations are given
here.
Herbert Spencer has of late so far modified his Agnosticism, as to assert
that the nature of the "First Cause," * which the Occultist more
logically derives from the "Causeless Cause," the "Eternal," and the
"Unknowable," may be essentially the same as that of the Consciousness which
wells up within us: in short, that the impersonal reality pervading
*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 the absolute,
for it is a manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All
the "Causeless One Cause," the "Rootless Root," and limits the "First Cause" to
the Logos, in the
sense that Plato gives to this term.
15PROEM
the Kosmos is the pure
noumenon of thought. This advance on his part brings him very near to the
esoteric and Vedantin tenet. *
Parabrahm (the One Reality, the Absolute) is the field of Absolute
Consciousness, i.e., that Essence which is out of all relation to
conditioned existence, and of which conscious existence is a conditioned symbol.
But once that we pass in thought from this (to us) Absolute Negation, duality
supervenes in the contrast of Spirit (or consciousness) and Matter, Subject and
Object.
Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as
independent realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute
(Parabrahm), which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective
or objective.
Considering this metaphysical triad as the Root from which proceeds all
manifestation, the great Breath assumes the character of precosmic Ideation. It
is the fons et origo of force and of all individual consciousness, and
supplies the guiding intelligence in the vast scheme of cosmic Evolution. On the
other hand, precosmic root-substance (Mulaprakriti) is that aspect of
the Absolute which underlies all the objective planes of Nature.
Just as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual consciousness, so
pre-Cosmic Substance is the substratum of matter in the various grades of its
differentiation.
Hence it will be apparent that the contrast of these two aspects of the
Absolute is essential to the existence of the "Manifested Universe." Apart from
Cosmic Substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest as individual
consciousness, since it is only through a vehicle of matter that
consciousness wells up as "I am I," a physical basis being necessary to focus a
ray of the Universal Mind at a certain stage of complexity. Again, apart from
Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty abstraction, and no
emergence of consciousness could ensue.
The "Manifested Universe," therefore, is pervaded by duality, which is, as
it were, the very essence of its EX-istence as "manifestation."
*
See Mr. Subba Row's four able lectures on the Bhagavad Gita, "Theosophist,"
February, 1887.
Called in Sanskrit: "Upadhi."
16THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
But just as the opposite
poles of subject and object, spirit and matter, are but aspects of the One Unity
in which they are synthesized, so, in the manifested Universe, there is "that"
which links spirit to matter, subject to object.
This something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by the
occultists Fohat. It is the "bridge" by which the "Ideas" existing in the
"Divine Thought" are impressed on Cosmic substance as the "laws of Nature."
Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic Ideation; or, regarded from the other
side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power of all manifestation, the
"Thought Divine" transmitted and made manifest through the Dhyan Chohans,*
the Architects of the visible World. Thus from Spirit, or Cosmic Ideation, comes
our consciousness; from Cosmic Substance the several vehicles in which that
consciousness is individualised and attains to self or reflective
consciousness; while Fohat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious
link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle electrifying every atom
into life.
The following summary will afford a clearer idea to the reader.
(1.) The
ABSOLUTE; the
Parabrahm of the Vedantins or
the one Reality, SAT, which is, as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and
Non-Being.
(2.) The first manifestation, the impersonal, and, in philosophy,
unmanifested Logos, the precursor
of the "manifested." This is the "First Cause," the "Unconscious" of European
Pantheists.
(3.) Spirit-matter, LIFE; the "Spirit of the Universe," the Purusha and Prakriti, or the
second Logos.
(4.) Cosmic Ideation, MAHAT or Intelligence, the Universal World-Soul; the Cosmic
Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations in and of Nature,
also called MAHA-BUDDHI.
The ONE REALITY; its
dual aspects in the conditioned Universe.
Further, the Secret Doctrine affirms:
(b.) The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a
boundless plane; periodically "the playground of numberless Universes
incessantly manifesting and disappearing," called "the manifesting stars," and
the "sparks of Eternity." "The Eternity of the Pilgrim" is like a wink
*
Called by Christian theology:
Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc.
"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 Vedantins call it
Sutratma (Thread-Soul), but their explanation, too, differs somewhat from that
of the occultists; to explain which difference, however, is left to the
Vedantins themselves.
17PROEM
of the Eye of
Self-Existence (Book of Dzyan.) "The appearance and disappearance of Worlds is
like a regular tidal ebb of flux and reflux." (See Part II., "Days and Nights of
Brahmβ.")
This second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is the absolute universality
of that law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow, which physical
science has observed and recorded in all departments of nature. An alternation
such as that of Day and Night, Life and Death, Sleeping and Waking, is a fact so
common, so perfectly universal and without exception, that it is easy to
comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of the
universe.
Moreover, the Secret Doctrine teaches:
(c)
The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul, the
latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage
for every Soul a spark of the former through the Cycle of Incarnation (or
"Necessity") in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole term. In
other words, no purely spiritual Buddhi (divine Soul) can have an independent
(conscious) existence before the spark which issued from the pure Essence of the
Universal Sixth principle, or the
OVER-SOUL,
has (a) passed through every elemental form of the phenomenal world of that
Manvantara, and (b) acquired individuality, first by natural impulse, and then
by self-induced and self-devised efforts (checked by its Karma), thus ascending
through all the degrees of intelligence, from the lowest to the highest Manas,
from mineral and plant, up to the holiest archangel (Dhyani-Buddha). The pivotal
doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special gifts in
man, save those won by his own Ego through personal effort and merit throughout
a long series of metempsychoses and reincarnations. This is why the Hindus say
that the Universe is Brahma and Brahmβ, for Brahma is in every atom of the
universe, the six principles in Nature being all the outcome the variously
differentiated aspects of the
SEVENTH
and ONE, the only
reality in the Universe whether Cosmical or micro-cosmical; and also why the
permutations (psychic, spiritual and physical), on the plane of manifestation
and form, of the sixth (Brahmβ the vehicle of Brahma) are viewed by metaphysical
18THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
antiphrasis as illusive and
Mayavic. For although the root of every atom individually and of every form
collectively, is that seventh principle or the one Reality, still, in its
manifested phenomenal and temporary appearance, it is no better than an
evanescent illusion of our senses. (See, for clearer definition, Addendum "Gods,
Monads and Atoms," and also "Theophania," "Bodhisatvas and Reincarnation," etc.,
etc.)
In its absoluteness, the One Principle under its two aspects (of
Parabrahmam and Mulaprakriti) is sexless, unconditioned and eternal. Its
periodical (manvantaric) emanation or primal radiation is also One,
androgynous and phenomenally finite. When the radiation radiates in its turn,
all its radiations are also androgynous, to become male and female principles in
their lower aspects. After Pralaya, whether the great or the minor Pralaya ( the
latter leaving the worlds in statu quo * ), the first
that re-awakes to active life is the plastic A'kβśa, Father-Mother, the Spirit
and Soul of Ether, or the plane on the surface of the Circle. Space is called
the "Mother" before its Cosmic activity, and Father-Mother at the first stage of
re-awakening. (See Comments, Stanza II.) In the Kabala it is also
Father-Mother-Son. But whereas in the Eastern doctrine, these are the Seventh
Principle of the manifested Universe, or its "Atma-Buddhi-Manas" (Spirit, Soul,
Intelligence), the triad branching off and dividing into the seven cosmical and
seven human principles, in the Western Kabala of the Christian mystics it is the
Triad or Trinity, and with their occultists, the male-female Jehovah, Jah-Havah.
In this lies the whole difference between the esoteric and the Christian
trinities. The Mystics and the Philosophers, the Eastern and Western Pantheists,
synthesize their pregenetic triad in the pure divine abstraction. The orthodox,
anthropomorphize it. Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and Sankara the
three hypostases of the manifesting "Spirit of the Supreme Spirit" (by
which title Prithivi the Earth greets Vishnu in his first Avatar) are the
purely metaphysical abstract qualities of formation, preservation, and
destruction, and are the three divine Avasthas (lit. hypostases) of that which
"does
*
It is not the physical organisms that remain in
statu quo, least of all their
psychical principles, during the great Cosmic or even Solar pralayas, but only
their Akβsic or astral "photographs." But during the minor pralayas, once
over-taken by the "Night," the planets remain intact, though dead, as a huge
animal, caught and embedded in the polar ice, remains the same for ages.
19PROEM
not perish with created
things" (or Achyuta, a name of Vishnu); whereas the orthodox Christian separates
his personal creative Deity into the three personages of the Trinity, and admits
of no higher Deity. The latter, in Occultism, is the abstract Triangle; with the
orthodox, the perfect Cube. The creative god or the aggregate gods are regarded
by the Eastern philosopher as Bhrantidarsanatah "false
apprehension," something "conceived of, by reason of erroneous appearances,
as a material form," and explained as arising from the illusive conception of
the Egotistic personal and human Soul (lower fifth principle). It is beautifully
expressed in a new translation of Vishnu Purana. "That Brahma in its totality
has essentially the aspect of Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved
(Mulaprakriti), and also the aspect of Spirit and the aspect of Time. Spirit, O
twice born, is the leading aspect of the Supreme Brahma.* The next is a twofold
aspect, Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved, and is the time last." Kronos is
shown in the Orphic theogony as being also a generated god or agent.
At this stage of the re-awakening of the Universe, the sacred symbolism
represents it as a perfect Circle with the (root) point in the Centre. This sign
was universal, therefore we find it in the Kabala also. The Western Kabala,
however, now in the hands of Christian mystics, ignores it altogether, though it
is plainly shown in the Zohar. These sectarians begin at the end, and show as
the symbol of pregenetic Kosmos this sign
Ε
, calling it "the Union of the Rose
and Cross," the great mystery of occult generation, from whence the name
Rosicrucians ( Rose Cross )!
As may be judged, however, from the most important, as the best known of
the Rosicrucians' symbols, there is one which has never been hitherto understood
even by modern mystics. It is that of the "Pelican" tearing open its breast to
feed its seven little ones the real creed of the Brothers of the Rosie-Cross
and a direct outcome from the Eastern
* 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 recognise 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.
20THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Secret Doctrine. Brahma (neuter) is called Kalahansa, meaning, as explained by Western Orientalists, the Eternal Swan or goose (see Stanza III., Comment. 8), and so is Brahmβ, the Creator. A great mistake is thus brought under notice; it is Brahma (neuter) who ought to be referred to as Hansa-vahana (He who uses the swan as his Vehicle) and not Brahmβ the Creator, who is the real Kalahansa, while Brahma (neuter) is hamsa, and "A-hamsa," as will be explained in the Commentary. Let it be understood that the terms Brahmβ and Parabrahmam are not used here because they belong to our Esoteric nomenclature, but simply because they are more familiar to the students in the West. Both are the perfect equivalents of our one, three, and seven vowelled terms, which stand for the ONE ALL, and the One "All in all."
Such are the basic conceptions on which the Secret Doctrine rests.
It would not be in place here to enter upon any defence or proof of their inherent reasonableness; nor can I pause to show how they are, in fact, contained though too often under a misleading guise in every system of thought or philosophy worthy of the name.
Once that the reader has gained a clear comprehension of them and realised the light which they throw on every problem of life, they will need no further justification in his eyes, because their truth will be to him as evident as the sun in heaven. I pass on, therefore, to the subject matter of the Stanzas as given in this volume, adding a skeleton outline of them, in the hope of thereby rendering the task of the student more easy, by placing before him in a few words the general conception therein explained.
Stanza I. The history of cosmic evolution, as traced in the Stanzas, is, so to say, the abstract algebraical formula of that Evolution. Hence the student must not expect to find there an account of all the stages and transformations which intervene between the first beginnings of "Universal" evolution and our present state. To give such an account would be as impossible as it would be incomprehensible to men who cannot even grasp the nature of the plane of existence next to that to which, for the moment, their consciousness is limited.
The Stanzas, therefore, give an abstract formula which can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to all evolution: to that of our tiny earth, to
21PROEM
that of the chain of planets of which that earth forms one, to the solar Universe to which that chain belongs, and so on, in an ascending scale, till the mind reels and is exhausted in the effort.
The seven Stanzas given in this volume represent the seven terms of this abstract formula. They refer to, and describe the seven great stages of the evolutionary process, which are spoken of in the Puranas as the "Seven Creations," and in the Bible as the "Days" of Creation.
The First Stanza describes the state of the ONE ALL during Pralaya, before the first flutter of re-awakening manifestation.
A moment's thought shows that such a state can only be symbolised; to describe it is impossible. Nor can it be symbolised except in negatives; for, since it is the state of Absoluteness per se, it can possess none of those specific attributes which serve us to describe objects in positive terms. Hence that state can only be suggested by the negatives of all those most abstract attributes which men feel rather than conceive, as the remotest limits attainable by their power of conception.
The stage described in Stanza II. is, to a western mind , so nearly identical with that mentioned in the first Stanza, that to express the idea of its difference would require a treatise in itself. Hence it must be left to the intuition and the higher faculties of the reader to grasp, as far as he can, the meaning of the allegorical phrases used. Indeed it must be remembered that all these Stanzas appeal to the inner faculties rather than to the ordinary comprehension of the physical brain.
Stanza III. describes the Re-awakening of the Universe to life after Pralaya. It depicts the emergence of the "Monads" from their state of absorption within the ONE; the earliest and highest stage in the formation of "Worlds," the term Monad being one which may apply equally to the vastest Solar System or the tiniest atom.
Stanza IV. shows the differentiation of the "Germ" of the Universe
into the septenary
hierarchy of conscious Divine Powers, who are the active manifestations of the
One Supreme Energy. They are the framers, shapers, and ultimately the creators
of all the manifested Universe, in the only sense in which the name "Creator" is
intelligible; they inform and guide it; they are the intelligent Beings who
adjust and control evolution, embodying in themselves those manifestations of
the ONE LAW, which we know as "The Laws of Nature."
Generically, they are known as the Dhyan Chohans, though each of the
various groups has its own designation in the Secret Doctrine.
This stage of evolution is spoken of in Hindu mythology as the "Creation" of the Gods.
In Stanza V. the process of world-formation is described: First, diffused Cosmic Matter, then the fiery "whirlwind," the first stage in the formation of a nebula. That nebula condenses, and after passing through various transformations, forms a Solar Universe, a planetary chain, or a single planet, as the case may be.
The subsequent stages in the formation of a "World" are indicated in Stanza VI., which brings the evolution of such a world down to its fourth great period, corresponding to the period in which we are now living.
Stanza VII. continues the history, tracing the descent of life down to the appearance of Man; and thus closes the first Book of the Secret Doctrine.
The development of "Man" from his first appearance on this earth in this Round to the state in which we now find him will form the subject of Book II.
23PROEM
Thus, were one to translate into English, using only the substantives and technical terms as employed in one of the Tibetan and Senzar versions, Verse I would read as follows: "Tho-ag in Zhi-gyu slept seven Khorlo. Zodmanas zhiba. All Nyug bosom. Konch-hog not; Thyan-Kam not; Lha-Chohan not; Tenbrel Chugnyi not; Dharmakaya ceased; Tgenchang not become; Barnang and Ssa in Ngovonyidj; alone Tho-og Yinsin in night of Sun-chan and Yong-grub (Parinishpanna), &c., &c.," which would sound like pure Abracadabra.
As this work is written for the instruction of students of Occultism, and not for the benefit of philologists, we may well avoid such foreign terms wherever it is possible to do so. The untranslateable terms alone, incomprehensible unless explained in their meanings, are left, but all such terms are rendered in their Sanskrit form. Needless to remind the reader that these are, in almost every case, the late developments of the later language, and pertain to the Fifth Root-Race. Sanskrit, as now known, was not spoken by the Atlanteans, and most of the philosophical terms used in the systems of the India of the post-Mahabharatan period are not found in the Vedas, nor are they to be met with in the original Stanzas, but only their equivalents. The reader who is not a Theosophist, is once more invited to regard all that which follows as a fairy tale, if he likes; at best as one of the yet unproven speculations of
24THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
dreamers;
and, at the worst, as an additional hypothesis
to the many Scientific hypotheses past, present and future, some exploded,
others still lingering. It is not in any sense worse than are many of the so
called Scientific theories; and it is in every case more philosophical and
probable.
In view of the abundant comments and explanations required, the
references to the footnotes are given in the usual way, while the sentences to
be commented upon are marked with figures. Additional matter will be found in
the Chapters on Symbolism forming Part II., as well as in Part III., these being
often more full of information than the text.