The Secret Doctrine by H.
P.
Blavatsky -- Vol.
1 [[Vol.
1, Page]] 35 STANZA I.
COMMENTARIES ON THE SEVEN STANZAS AND THEIR TERMS, ACCORDING TO THEIR NUMERATION, IN STANZAS AND SLOKAS.
STANZA I.
1.
" T HE E TERNAL P ARENT (Space), WRAPPED IN HER EVER INVISIBLE ROBES, HAD SLUMBERED ONCE AGAIN FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES ( a )." The "Parent Space" is the eternal, ever present cause of all -- the incomprehensible DEITY, whose "invisible robes" are the mystic root of all matter, and of the Universe.
Space is the one eternal thing that we can most easily imagine, immovable in its abstraction and uninfluenced by either the presence or absence in it of an objective Universe.
It is without dimension, in every sense, and self-existent.
Spirit is the first differentiation from T HAT, the causeless cause of both Spirit and Matter.
It is, as taught in the esoteric catechism, neither limitless void, nor conditioned fulness, but both.
It was and ever will be.
(See Proem pp.
2 et seq.
) Thus, the "Robes" stand for the noumenon of undifferentiated Cosmic Matter.
It is not matter as we know it, but the spiritual essence of matter, and is co-eternal and even one with Space in its abstract sense.
Root-nature is also the source of the subtile invisible properties in visible matter.
It is the Soul, so to say, of the ONE infinite Spirit.
The Hindus call it Mulaprakriti, and say that it is the primordial substance, which is the basis of the Upadhi or vehicle of every phenomenon, whether physical, mental or psychic.
It is the source from which Akasa radiates.
( a ) By the Seven "Eternities," aeons or periods are meant.
The word "Eternity," as understood in Christian theology, has no meaning to the Asiatic ear, except in its application to the ONE existence; nor is [[Vol.
1, Page]] 36 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the term sempiternity, the eternal only in futurity, anything better than a misnomer.* Such words do not and cannot exist in philosophical metaphysics, and were unknown till the advent of ecclesiastical Christianity.
The Seven Eternities meant are the seven periods, or a period answering in its duration to the seven periods, of a Manvantara, and extending throughout a Maha-Kalpa or the "Great Age" -- 100 years of Brahma -- making a total of 311,040,000,000,000 of years; each year of Brahma being composed of 360 "days," and of the same number of "nights" of Brahma (reckoning by the Chandrayana or lunar year); and a "Day of Brahma" consisting of 4,320,000,000 of mortal years.
These "Eternities" belong to the most secret calculations, in which, in order to arrive at the true total, every figure must be 7 x (7 to the power of x ); x varying according to the nature of the cycle in the subjective or real world; and every figure or number relating to, or representing all the different cycles from the greatest to the smallest -- in the objective or unreal world -- must necessarily be multiples of seven.
The key to this cannot be given, for herein lies the mystery of esoteric calculations, and for the purposes of ordinary calculation it has no sense.
"The number seven," says the Kabala, "is the great number of the Divine Mysteries;" number ten is that of all human knowledge (Pythagorean decade); 1,000 is the number ten to the third power, and therefore the number 7,000 is also symbolical.
In the Secret Doctrine the figure and number 4 are the male symbol only on the highest plane of abstraction; on the plane of matter the 3 is the masculine and the 4 the female: the upright and the horizontal in the fourth stage of symbolism, when the symbols became the glyphs of the generative powers on the physical plane.
------- STANZA I.
-- Continued .
2.
T IME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE BOSOM OF DURATION ( a ).
[[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * It is stated in Book II., ch.
viii., of Vishnu Purana: "By immortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa;" and Wilson, the translator, remarks in a footnote: "This, according to the Vedas, is all that is to be understood of the immortality (or eternity) of the gods; they perish at the end of universal dissolution (or Pralaya)." And Esoteric philosophy says: They "perish" not, but are re-absorbed.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 37 TIME AND UNIVERSAL MIND.
( a ) Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced; but "lies asleep." The present is only a mathematical line which divides that part of eternal duration which we call the future, from that part which we call the past.
Nothing on earth has real duration, for nothing remains without change -- or the same -- for the billionth part of a second; and the sensation we have of the actuality of the division of "time" known as the present, comes from the blurring of that momentary glimpse, or succession of glimpses, of things that our senses give us, as those things pass from the region of ideals which we call the future, to the region of memories that we name the past.
In the same way we experience a sensation of duration in the case of the instantaneous electric spark, by reason of the blurred and continuing impression on the retina.
The real person or thing does not consist solely of what is seen at any particular moment, but is composed of the sum of all its various and changing conditions from its appearance in the material form to its disappearance from the earth.
It is these "sum-totals" that exist from eternity in the "future," and pass by degrees through matter, to exist for eternity in the "past." No one could say that a bar of metal dropped into the sea came into existence as it left the air, and ceased to exist as it entered the water, and that the bar itself consisted only of that cross-section thereof which at any given moment coincided with the mathematical plane that separates, and, at the same time, joins, the atmosphere and the ocean.
The doctrine of the periodic restoration or recurrence of all things to their original state after vast cycles.
The passage describes the Eternal Parent as having 'slumbered once again for seven eternities,' implying periodic cycles of dissolution and re-manifestation of the cosmos.
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
The divine is described as 'incomprehensible,' 'ever invisible,' and 'without dimension, in every sense'—known only by what it is not (not void, not fulness, not dimensional).
The universal fluid or medium of occult philosophy — Lévi's Great Magical Agent — that transmits will, thought, and magical influence between minds and matter, and preserves the impress of all forms and actions as a book of consciences; cognate with akasha and the anima mundi. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (a doctrine of hidden affinity) in being a substantival medium that can be charged, directed, and abused.
The passage states that Root-nature 'is the source from which Akasa radiates,' directly invoking the Akasha concept cognate with astral light as a universal medium.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The passage maps different numerical symbols (4 as male on the highest plane, 3 as masculine and 4 as female on the plane of matter) across planes of being, reflecting structure at different scales.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The entire passage is a cosmogonic account: the Eternal Parent slumbers, then Spirit differentiates, then Root-nature emerges, then Akasa radiates—describing the origin and unfolding of the cosmos from a primordial undifferentiated state.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The Eternal Parent is 'wrapped in her ever invisible robes' and described as 'the incomprehensible DEITY'—radically concealed beyond ordinary knowledge or perception.
The doctrine that the divine is present within all things and the universe itself, pervading creation rather than remaining solely transcendent above it. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about whether that substance indwells its parts) and from kingdom_within (the divine present specifically IN THE INDIVIDUAL human, accessible without mediation) — divine_immanence is the general pervading-presence claim applied to all of creation, not a human-specific indwelling.
Space is described as 'the eternal, ever present cause of all' and Root-nature as 'the Soul, so to say, of the ONE infinite Spirit' pervading all phenomena, suggesting the divine indwells creation.
The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.
The Eternal Parent/Space is described as 'without dimension, in every sense, and self-existent,' 'the one eternal thing,' and 'the incomprehensible DEITY'—a pure undivided being with no parts or composite attributes.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage describes a clear cascade from the Eternal Parent (Space) through Spirit (first differentiation) to Root-nature/Mulaprakriti to Akasa to matter, each level a further differentiation from the undifferentiated source.
The Hermetic doctrine that a masculine-feminine generative principle operates on every plane of being, not only the biological — present at all times as a structural feature of creation itself. Distinct from divine_marriage (a specific reunification event or symbol) and aeons (paired divine beings arranged in syzygies, not a universal structural claim).
The passage explicitly states that a masculine-feminine generative principle operates on every plane: 'the figure and number 4 are the male symbol only on the highest plane of abstraction; on the plane of matter the 3 is the masculine and the 4 the female,' and references 'the glyphs of the generative powers on the physical plane.'
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage explicitly states 'The key to this cannot be given, for herein lies the mystery of esoteric calculations,' and frames the entire text as a commentary on stanzas with inner meaning accessible only to those initiated.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
Space is described as 'without dimension, in every sense, and self-existent,' and the cosmos operates on a scale of 311,040,000,000,000 years, presenting a boundless, centerless reality.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The passage references 'subtile invisible properties in visible matter' and the 'invisible robes' as the mystic root of all matter, implying a non-physical dimension underlying the physical.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The passage traces a directional descent from the undifferentiated (Space/Parent) through Spirit to Root-nature to Akasa to matter, naming the staged process of spirit descending into materialization.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The Eternal Parent (Space) is described as 'the one eternal thing,' 'without dimension, in every sense, and self-existent,' and 'the causeless cause of both Spirit and Matter'—a simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity flows.
Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.
The passage is saturated with numerical mysticism: the number seven as 'the great number of the Divine Mysteries,' the Pythagorean decade, 1000 as ten cubed, 7000 as symbolical, and the formula 7×(7^x) for esoteric calculations.
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
The passage states the first principle is 'neither limitless void, nor conditioned fulness, but both,' collapsing apparent opposites into a single reality that transcends the binary.
The doctrine that reality has two registers — an Absolute truth as the divine or ultimate mind knows it, and a Relative truth as finite human reason perceives and must act on — with both held as legitimate on their own plane rather than the second being simply an error to correct. Distinct from apophatic_theology (a claim about how the divine may be described, by negation) and unity_of_being (a claim that being is ultimately one) in being a claim about two coexisting registers of truth-claim itself.
The passage distinguishes between the 'subjective or real world' and the 'objective or unreal world,' presenting two registers of reality with different mathematical structures for each.
The Hermetic doctrine of a measured swing or pendulum motion between poles — action and reaction, flow and outflow, rise and fall — operating in mental, physical, and cosmic-historical registers alike. Distinct from apocatastasis (cosmic-scale eschatological restoration after vast cycles) in naming a constant, ever-present oscillation rather than a singular restorative event.
The passage describes cyclical cosmic periods (Days and Nights of Brahma, Manvantara, Maha-Kalpa) as structured oscillations of the cosmos through vast ages.
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
The passage asserts that Root-nature 'is co-eternal and even one with Space in its abstract sense' and that the first principle is 'the causeless cause of both Spirit and Matter,' presenting all existence as ultimately one reality.