Theos-Talk Archives (January 2001 Message tt00127)

>Even though there is in Buddhism no explicit cosmogonical teaching
>regarding any of these terms, it is a fact that every day, thousands of
>Buddhists who perform tantric sadhana (meditation practice based on the
>Buddhist tantras, Blavatsky's Books of Kiu-te) begin by dissolving the
>universe into emptiness, and then generate their meditational universe
>out of emptiness. Emptiness thus becomes, in this practice, the origin
>of the (at least imagined) universe. Though emptiness is certainly not
>conceived of here as an ultimate essence or substance like Blavatsky's
>svabhava, but rather as empty space, we are reminded of a statement from
>a secret commentary found in The Secret Doctrine that I have had
>occasion to quote elsewhere (Blavatsky's Secret Books, p. 120):
>
>. . . As its substance is of a different kind from that known on earth,
>the inhabitants of the latter, seeing through it, believe in their
>illusion and ignorance that it is empty space. There is not one finger's
>breadth (angula) of void Space in the whole Boundless (Universe) . . .
>.
>(The Secret Doctrine, vol. I, p. 289)

Referring to the above text extracted from David Reigle's Review related to 
the topic of whether or not svabhava can be considered a "substance" that 
precedes the manifest universe, we might try to look at it this way: 

If we use a mental experiential method, similar to the meditation practice of 
tantric sadhana, to reduce the universe, or "reverse engineer" it, so to 
speak, down to an initial "emptiness" (of form and substance) in logical 
stages, ideally based on the scientifically accepted physical laws of 
"absolute symmetry" and "conservation of energy," along with the 
mathematically postulated "Superstring/M-brane" theory that most closely 
conforms to the ten dimensional aspects of the universe as described by 
Blavatsky -- we might imagine the following:

1. The Cosmic "space," when manifest, is contained, like bubbles within 
bubbles within bubbles, everywhere within one "boundless" (multidimensional, 
infinite continuity) spherical energy "spin field" that emanated initially 
out of the so called "emptiness" of pre-manifest primal space. 
(To visualize, ideally, the multidimensionality and infinite continuity of 
the initial and subsequent rays emanating out of any zero-point in primal or 
manifest space, see symbolic, cross sectional field diagrams at:
http://members.aol.com/uniwldarts/uniworld.artisans.guild/chakrafield.html )

2. This cosmic spatial energy field contains within it all the "substantial" 
energy spin-fields that make up the unitary and composite external and 
internal or explicate and implicate nature of all beings -- from stars to the 
smallest "particle-wave" or "quantum" of "light" -- on each of their seven 
fold levels of universal consciousness in addition to the three higher levels 
of cosmic consciousness. Thus, all such "particles" and conglomerates of such 
particles are composed of manifest "space" in varying states of 
"substantiality" or relative density and energy, related to vibrational 
frequency.

3. Since "energy can neither be created nor destroyed," These individual 
energy "fields," together, contain all the total energy or force that was 
available for manifestation prior to the initial emanation.

4. The force of each such field as well as their sum total can be 
represented as angular momentum -- which may be described as "substance or 
mass in circular motion" centripitally connected to a stationary zero-point 
center.

5. When all such fields are reduced to zero (diameter) or zero-point 
non-dimensional space, their total forces can still be represented as angular 
momentum -- with its previous metric dimensional or linear motion now 
transformed into non-metric, non-dimensional, nonlinear "abstract motion" or 
"spinergy." This, then, can be considered the root "substance" of 
pre-manifest as well as manifest space. 

Thus, this pre-manifest "spinergy" or "zero-point energy," representing all 
the resolved force and motion of the mass-equivalence of substantial space as 
well as all other energetic aspects of the manifest Universe or Cosmos, fully 
conforms to Blavatsky's statement; ". . . As its substance is of a different 
kind from that known on earth, the inhabitants of the latter, seeing through 
it, believe in their illusion and ignorance that it is empty space. There is 
not one finger's breadth (angula) of void Space in the whole Boundless 
(Universe) . . ." (The Secret Doctrine, vol. I, p. 289)

I hope this might be helpful.

LHM