Theos-Talk Archives (November 2002 Message tt00749)

H.P. Blavatsky writes that the first fundamental proposition of 
the Secret Doctrine is:

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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 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." 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. 

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THE SECRET DOCTRINE, Vol. 1, Pages 14-16.
The footnotes to the above text have been deleted.

Easily access THE SECRET DOCTRINE at:

http://secretdoctrine.net

Daniel H. Caldwell
BLAVATSKY ARCHIVES
http://hpb.cc