Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00432)

March 20 2005

Dear Friends:

Some recent postings show that there is vagueness about the fundamental
propositions THEOSOPHY offers.

This is how H P B expressed them:


FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS OF THEOSOPHY


 
THE SECRET DOCTRINE ESTABLISHES THREE FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS:
 
. Proposition I - God 

. Proposition II - Law  

. Proposition III - Being 


  
PROPOSITION I - GOD 


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 plane-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.. 
 


PROPOSITION II - LAW 


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 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." 

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. 
 
 

 

PROPOSITION III - BEING 


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 reincarnation. 

The SECRET DOCTRINE, Vol. I, p. 14 -19
 
=====================



 

TEN PROPOSITIONS OF ANCIENT ORIENTAL PSYCHOLOGY



To comprehend the principles of natural law involved in the several
phenomena hereinafter described, the reader must keep in mind the
fundamental propositions of the Oriental philosophy which we have
successively elucidated. Let us recapitulate very briefly : 


1. There is no miracle. Everything that happens is the result of
law-eternal, immutable, ever active. Apparent miracle is but the operation
of forces antagonistic to what Dr. W. B. Carpenter, F. R. S,--a man of great
learning but little knowledge--calls "the well-ascertained laws of nature."
Like many of his class, Dr. Carpenter ignores the fact that there may be
laws once "known," now unknown to science. 

2. Nature is triune : there is a visible, objective nature ; an invisible,
indwelling, energizing nature, the exact model of the other, and its vital
principle ; and, above these two, spirit, source of all forces, alone
eternal, and indestructible. The lower two constantly change; the higher
third does not. 

3. Man is also triune : he has his objective, physical body his vitalizing
astral body (or soul), the real man ; and these two are brooded over and
illuminated by the third-the sovereign, the immortal spirit. When the real
man succeeds in merging himself with the latter, he becomes an immortal
entity.

4. Magic, as a science, is the knowledge of these principles, and of the way
by which the omniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and its control over
nature's forces, may be acquired by the individual while still in the body.
Magic, as an art, is the application of this knowledge in practice. 

5. Arcane knowledge misapplied, is sorcery ; beneficently used, true Magic
or WISDOM.

6. Mediumship is the opposite of Adeptship ; the medium. is the passive
instrument of foreign influences, the adept, actively controls himself and
all inferior potencies. 

7. All things that ever were, that are, or that will be, having their record
upon the Astral Light, or Tablet of the unseen Universe, the initiated
adept, by using the vision. of his own spirit, can know all that has been
known or can be known. 

8. Races of men differ in spiritual gifts as in color, stature, or any other
external quality; among some peoples; seership naturally prevails, among
others mediumship. Some are addicted to sorcery, and transmit its secret
rules of practice from generation to generation, with a range of psychical
phenomena, more or less wide, as the, result. 

9. One phase of magical skill is the voluntary and conscious withdrawal of
the inner man (astral form) from the outer man (physical body). In the cases
of some. mediums withdrawal occurs, but it is unconscious and involuntary.
With the latter the body is more or less, cataleptic at such times; but with
the adept the absence of the astral form would not be noticed, for the
physical senses are alert, and the individual appears only as though in a
fit of abstraction-"a brown study," as some call it. 

10. The comer-stone of MAGIC is an intimate practical knowledge of magnetism
and electricity, their qualities, correlations, and potencies. Especially
necessary is a familiarity with their effects in and upon the animal kingdom
and man.

To sum up all in a few words, MAGIC is spiritual WISDOM ; nature, the
material ally, pupil and servant of the magician.

One common vital principle pervades all things, and this is controllable by
the perfected human will. 
 
ISIS UNVEILED, Vol. II,
pp. 587 - 589