Theos-Talk Archives (January 1998 Message tt00205)

Dear folks,

Thinking about the unthinkable Absolute is one of my favorite hobbies and
Blavatsky, specially in the first twenty pages of The Secret Doctrine, cooks
up one of the best foods for thought, though you need the stomach for it,
because reading the unreadable can be quite a challenge.
Especially interesting are Blavatsky's thoughts on the relation between the
Absolute and manifestation, which go parallel to an earlier quote:

>> Although speaking strictly metaphysically, the Absolute cannot have a
>> point of view or a relation to any thing. This would create a duality
>> and therefore not be Absolute.

After quoting Blavatsky, I'll present some stir-fry from my own kitchen:

"This Infinite and Eternal Cause [the Absolute in western philosophy,
Parabrahm in Hinduism, Ain-soph in the Kabbalah, Adi Buddha in Mahayana
Buddhism]... 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,
and is beyond all thought or speculation." (The Secret Doctrine, vol.II,
p.14)

"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..." (Ibid, p. 15)
Conditioned existence then is the field where the duality of Spirit and
Matter, Subject and Object, exists.  But..:

"Spirit 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." (p.15)

As aspects of the Absolute, Spirit and Matter are then named 'pre-Cosmic
Ideation' and 'pre-Cosmic Substance' and

"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."

These two aspects are also intimately related to each other:

"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."

In other words consciousness can not exist if it is not conscious of
something like matter, whether as form, energy or meaning. Likewise matter
will not exist if there is no consciousness directed at it.  Both are
relative in the sense of being related to something different than their own
essence.

In contrast Absolute consciousness is not consciousness of something,
otherwise it would be dual and not absolute anymore, as was well noted in
your quote.  This means that the Absolute is not conscious of manifestation,
though it provides manifestation its foundation.

At the same time we can not phantom in what way the Absolute is conscious,
because we can only comprehend consciousness in its dual aspect, i.e. as an
intentional act towards matter. Even comprehension itself, as a tool of
grasping the meaning of the Absolute, is a mode of consciousness directed
toward an object, hence dual and failing to unite with or touch the
Absolute.

Meanwhile the Absolute must be very, very close to us, we, beings of Spirit
and Matter, because its our foundation of existence. Maybe it is so
eternally close that it evades detection and we are not trained properly to
detect it, because our consciousness always operates in a dual mode.  Advise
in the vein of 'become the Absolute,' or 'dissolve into Parabrahm' or 'stop
being dual' will not do if we have no clear idea what we have to leave
behind.

A very illuminating parallel I found to this 'problem,'  (and here I want to
end also with some reflections about the "Word") is in the way sound and
silence are connected.  Sound--the "Word"--being manifestation, and silence
being the Absolute. In common sense logic the two terms are mutually
exclusive. If there is sound, then there is no silence; if there is no
silence, there must be sound.  But what if, whether there is sound or its
absence, there is always silence? And if there is sound, the silence embeds
it, is its natural background?  The "Word" emerges from silence and will
return back to it.  If this parallel between silence and the Absolute holds
than inner quietude together with listening to the voice of silence behind
the "Word" might be a nice start towards sensing Parabrahm.

all the best

Govert