Even so of persons and things, which, dropping out of the to-be into the has-been, out of the future into the past -- present momentarily to our senses a cross-section, as it were, of their total selves, as they pass through time and space (as matter) on their way from one eternity to another: and these two constitute that "duration" in which alone anything has true existence, were our senses but able to cognize it there.
------- STANZA I.
-- Continued .
3.
.
.
.
U NIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR THERE WERE NO A H-HI (celestial beings) TO CONTAIN (hence to manifest) IT ( a ) .
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( a ) Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of Consciousness grouped under Thought, Will, and Feeling.
During deep sleep, ideation ceases on the physical plane, and memory is in abeyance; thus for the time-being "Mind is not," because the organ, through which the Ego manifests ideation and memory on the material plane, has temporarily ceased to function.
A noumenon can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle; and during the long night of rest called Pralaya, when all the existences are dissolved, the " U NIVERSAL M IND" remains as a permanent possibility of mental action, or as that abstract absolute thought, of which mind is the concrete relative manifestation.
The A H-HI (Dhyan-Chohans) are the collective hosts of spiritual beings -- the Angelic Hosts of Christianity, the Elohim and "Messengers" of the Jews -- who are the vehicle for the manifestation of the divine or universal thought and will.
They are the Intelligent Forces that give to and enact in Nature her "laws," while themselves acting according to laws imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers; but they are not "the personifications" of the powers of Nature, as erroneously thought.
This hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the Universal Mind comes into action, is like an army -- a "Host," truly -- by means of which the fighting power of a nation manifests itself, and which is composed of army corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, and so forth, each with its separate individuality or life, and its limited freedom of action and limited responsibilities; each contained in a larger individuality, to which its own interests are subservient, and each containing lesser individualities in itself.
------- STANZA I.
-- Continued .
4.
T HE SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS (Moksha* or Nirvana) WERE NOT ( a ) .
T HE GREAT CAUSES OF MISERY (Nidana** and Maya) WERE NOT, FOR THERE WAS NO ONE TO PRODUCE AND GET ENSNARED BY THEM ( b ).
( a ) There are seven "Paths" or "Ways" to the bliss of Non-Exist- [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- *Nippang in China; Neibban in Burmah; or Moksha in India.
** The "12" Nidanas (in Tibetan Ten-brel chug-nyi) the chief causes of existence, effects generated by a concatenation of causes produced (see Comment.
II).
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ence, which is absolute Being, Existence, and Consciousness.
They were not, because the Universe was, so far, empty, and existed only in the Divine Thought.
For it is .
.
.
( b ) The twelve Nidanas or causes of being.
Each is the effect of its antecedent cause, and a cause, in its turn, to its successor; the sum total of the Nidanas being based on the four truths, a doctrine especially characteristic of the Hinayana System.* They belong to the theory of the stream of catenated law which produces merit and demerit, and finally brings Karma into full sway.
It is based upon the great truth that re-incarnation is to be dreaded, as existence in this world only entails upon man suffering, misery and pain; Death itself being unable to deliver man from it, since death is merely the door through which he passes to another life on earth after a little rest on its threshold -- Devachan.
The Hinayana System, or School of the "Little Vehicle," is of very ancient growth; while the Mahayana is of a later period, having originated after the death of Buddha.
Yet the tenets of the latter are as old as the hills that have contained such schools from time immemorial, and the Hinayana and Mahayana Schools (the latter, that of the "Great Vehicle") both teach the same doctrine in reality.
Yana, or Vehicle (in Sanskrit, Vahan) is a mystic expression, both "vehicles" inculcating that man may escape the sufferings of rebirths and even the false bliss of Devachan, by obtaining Wisdom and Knowledge, which alone can dispel the Fruits of Illusion and Ignorance.
Maya or illusion is an element which enters into all finite things, for everything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality, since the appearance which the hidden noumenon assumes for any observer depends upon his power of cognition.
To the untrained eye of the savage, a painting is at first an unmeaning confusion of streaks and daubs of color, while an educated eye sees instantly a face or a landscape.
Nothing is permanent except the one hidden absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities.
The existences belonging to every plane of being, up to the highest Dhyan-Chohans, are, in degree, of the nature of shadows cast by a magic lantern on a colourless screen; but all things are relatively real, for the cogniser is also a reflection, and the things cognised are therefore as real to him as himself.
Whatever reality things possess must be looked for in them [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See Wassilief on Buddhism, pp.
97-950.
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before or after they have passed like a flash through the material world; but we cannot cognise any such existence directly, so long as we have sense-instruments which bring only material existence into the field of our consciousness.
Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities.
As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached "reality;" but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya.
------- STANZA I.
-- Continued .
5.
Divine archetypal beings or eternal attributes dwelling within the Pleroma, often arranged in male-female syzygies.
The AH-HI (Dhyan-Chohans) are described as 'the collective hosts of spiritual beings' who serve as vehicles for the manifestation of divine thought and will, functioning as archetypal divine beings within a structured hierarchy.
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
The passage repeatedly negates existence in the pre-manifestation state: 'Universal Mind was not,' 'The Seven Ways to Bliss were not,' 'The Great Causes of Misery were not, for there was no one to produce and get ensnared by them'—describing the ultimate by what it is not.
A state of awareness transcending ordinary human consciousness, often involving unity with the universe or higher dimensions.
The 'absolute Consciousness' toward which the Ego progresses and with which it eventually blends represents a state of awareness transcending ordinary human consciousness.
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 passage narrates the pre-manifestation state ('the Universe was, so far, empty, and existed only in the Divine Thought') and the process by which the AH-HI bring the Universal Mind into action, constituting a cosmogonic account.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The 'one hidden absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities' that cannot be cognized directly 'so long as we have sense-instruments which bring only material existence into the field of our consciousness' describes radical divine concealment.
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.
The passage implies the divine pervades all planes ('whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities') but does not make the explicit claim of immanence in all things.
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 explicitly describes a hierarchical cascade of spiritual beings (AH-HI/Dhyan-Chohans) structured like an army with corps, divisions, brigades, and regiments, each contained in a larger individuality, through which the Universal Mind descends into manifestation.
Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.
The passage states that 'man may escape the sufferings of rebirths and even the false bliss of Devachan, by obtaining Wisdom and Knowledge, which alone can dispel the Fruits of Illusion and Ignorance,' positioning direct knowledge as the soteriological means.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The text is structured as esoteric stanzas with elaborate commentary, and the very framing of The Secret Doctrine as hidden teaching reserved for the prepared implies the doctrine of concealed liberating truth.
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 describes multiple planes of existence beyond the physical, including the realm of the Dhyan-Chohans and the state of Pralaya, where existences are dissolved and the Universal Mind remains as a 'permanent possibility' imperceptible to physical senses.
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 describes the Universal Mind as a 'permanent possibility of mental action' that becomes manifest through successive levels of the AH-HI hierarchy—a directional descent from abstract absolute thought to concrete relative manifestation.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The Universal Mind is described as 'that abstract absolute thought, of which mind is the concrete relative manifestation'—an ordering principle that mediates between the transcendent absolute and the manifested world.
The Hermetic doctrine that THE ALL is Mind, and the Universe is mental in nature — a created thought held in the mind of THE ALL. Distinct from unity_of_being in specifying WHAT the underlying oneness is (mind, not an unspecified single substance), and from logos (a mediating ordering word BETWEEN a transcendent God and a separate material world) in collapsing that mediation entirely — under mentalism there is no world outside mind to mediate to.
The Universal Mind is described as 'that abstract absolute thought, of which mind is the concrete relative manifestation,' and the pre-manifestation Universe 'existed only in the Divine Thought'—the cosmos is fundamentally mental in nature.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The 'one hidden absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities' functions as an undivided first principle from which all multiplicity flows.
The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.
The passage explicitly states that 'only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya'—a merger of individual and absolute consciousness.
The divine fullness or totality of the highest realm, populated by aeons and divine attributes, contrasted with the deficient material world.
The 'one hidden absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities' and the 'Divine Thought' in which the Universe existed prior to manifestation function as a pleromatic fullness from which all relative existence derives.
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 extensively develops the doctrine that 'everything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality' while simultaneously affirming that 'all things are relatively real, for the cogniser is also a reflection, and the things cognised are therefore as real to him as himself'—two coexisting registers of truth.
The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.
The Seven Ways to Bliss (Moksha/Nirvana) and the goal of blending one's consciousness with 'the absolute Consciousness' to be freed from Maya constitute a return to the divine origin.
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 oscillation between Pralaya (the 'long night of rest' when existences are dissolved) and active manifestation implies a cosmic pendulum motion between dissolution and creation.
The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.
The 'upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached reality' frames self-recognition across planes as the path to liberation.
The passage explicitly discusses reincarnation as a central doctrine: 're-incarnation is to be dreaded, as existence in this world only entails upon man suffering, misery and pain; Death itself being unable to deliver man from it, since death is merely the door through which he passes to another life on earth.'
A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.
The 'upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings' through successive planes of being toward the absolute Consciousness describes a staged upward journey.
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
The passage asserts that 'nothing is permanent except the one hidden absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities,' positing a single underlying reality from which all apparent multiplicity derives.