1, Page]] 43 MOTIONS, THE "GREAT BREATH." sense, for it must give room to still further absolute perfection, according to a higher standard of excellence in the following period of activity -- just as a perfect flower must cease to be a perfect flower and die, in order to grow into a perfect fruit, -- if a somewhat Irish mode of expression may be permitted.
The Secret Doctrine teaches the progressive development of everything, worlds as well as atoms; and this stupendous development has neither conceivable beginning nor imaginable end.
Our "Universe" is only one of an infinite number of Universes, all of them "Sons of Necessity," because links in the great Cosmic chain of Universes, each one standing in the relation of an effect as regards its predecessor, and being a cause as regards its successor.
The appearance and disappearance of the Universe are pictured as an outbreathing and inbreathing of "the Great Breath," which is eternal, and which, being Motion, is one of the three aspects of the Absolute -- Abstract Space and Duration being the other two.
When the "Great Breath" is projected, it is called the Divine Breath, and is regarded as the breathing of the Unknowable Deity -- the One Existence -- which breathes out a thought, as it were, which becomes the Kosmos.
(See "Isis Unveiled.") So also is it when the Divine Breath is inspired again the Universe disappears into the bosom of "the Great Mother," who then sleeps "wrapped in her invisible robes." ( c ) By "that which is and yet is not" is meant the Great Breath itself, which we can only speak of as absolute existence, but cannot picture to our imagination as any form of existence that we can distinguish from Non-existence.
The three periods -- the Present, the Past, and the Future -- are in the esoteric philosophy a compound time; for the three are a composite number only in relation to the phenomenal plane, but in the realm of noumena have no abstract validity.
As said in the Scriptures: "The Past time is the Present time, as also the Future, which, though it has not come into existence, still is"; according to a precept in the Prasanga Madhyamika teaching, whose dogmas have been known ever since it broke away from the purely esoteric schools.* Our ideas, in short, on duration and time are all derived from our [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See Dzungarian "Mani Kumbum," the "Book of the 10,000 Precepts." Also consult Wassilief's "Der Buddhismus," pp.
327 and 357, etc.
[[Vol.
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sensations according to the laws of Association.
Inextricably bound up with the relativity of human knowledge, they nevertheless can have no existence except in the experience of the individual ego, and perish when its evolutionary march dispels the Maya of phenomenal existence.
What is Time, for instance, but the panoramic succession of our states of consciousness?
In the words of a Master, "I feel irritated at having to use these three clumsy words -- Past, Present, and Future -- miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective whole, they are about as ill-adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine carving." One has to acquire Paramartha lest one should become too easy a prey to Samvriti -- is a philosophical axiom.* ------- STANZA I.
-- Continued .
7.
T HE CAUSES OF EXISTENCE HAD BEEN DONE AWAY WITH ( a ); THE VISIBLE THAT WAS, AND THE INVISIBLE THAT IS, RESTED IN ETERNAL NON-BEING, THE ONE BEING ( b ).
( a ) "The Causes of Existence" mean not only the physical causes known to science, but the metaphysical causes, the chief of which is the desire to exist, an outcome of Nidana and Maya.
This desire for a sentient life shows itself in everything, from an atom to a sun, and is a reflection of the Divine Thought propelled into objective existence, into a law that the Universe should exist.
According to esoteric teaching, the real cause of that supposed desire, and of all existence, remains for ever hidden, and its first emanations are the most complete abstractions mind can conceive.
These abstractions must of necessity be postulated as the cause of the material Universe which presents itself to the senses and intellect; and they underlie the secondary and subordinate powers of Nature, which, anthropomorphized, have been worshipped as God and gods by the common herd of every age.
It is impossible to conceive anything without a cause; the attempt to do so makes the mind a blank.
[[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * In clearer words: "One has to acquire true Self-Consciousness in order to understand Samvriti, or the 'origin of delusion.'" Paramartha is the synonym of the Sanskrit term Svasam-vedana, or "the reflection which analyses itself." There is a difference in the interpretation of the meaning of " Paramartha " between the Yogacharyas and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom, however, explain the real and true esoteric sense of the expression.
See further, sloka No.
9.
[[Vol.
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This is virtually the condition to which the mind must come at last when we try to trace back the chain of causes and effects, but both science and religion jump to this condition of blankness much more quickly than is necessary; for they ignore the metaphysical abstractions which are the only conceivable cause of physical concretions.
These abstractions become more and more concrete as they approach our plane of existence, until finally they phenomenalise in the form of the material Universe, by a process of conversion of metaphysics into physics, analogous to that by which steam can be condensed into water, and the water frozen into ice.
( b ) The idea of Eternal Non-Being, which is the One Being, will appear a paradox to anyone who does not remember that we limit our ideas of being to our present consciousness of existence; making it a specific, instead of a generic term.
An unborn infant, could it think in our acceptation of that term, would necessarily limit its conception of being, in a similar manner, to the intrauterine life which alone it knows; and were it to endeavour to express to its consciousness the idea of life after birth (death to it), it would, in the absence of data to go upon, and of faculties to comprehend such data, probably express that life as "Non-Being which is Real Being." In our case the One Being is the noumenon of all the noumena which we know must underlie phenomena, and give them whatever shadow of reality they possess, but which we have not the senses or the intellect to cognize at present.
The doctrine of the periodic restoration or recurrence of all things to their original state after vast cycles.
The cyclical breathing of the Great Breath — the Universe appearing and then disappearing into the Great Mother's bosom — implies periodic restoration and recurrence of all things.
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
The Great Breath is 'that which is and yet is not' — absolute existence that 'we cannot picture to our imagination as any form of existence that we can distinguish from Non-Being,' and the real cause 'remains for ever hidden.'
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 how the universe comes into being through the Divine Breath projecting a thought that becomes the Kosmos, and how it returns to non-being, constituting a cosmogonic account.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The Unknowable Deity, the hidden real cause of existence, and the noumenon that 'we have not the senses or the intellect to cognize' all point to the supreme principle's radical concealment.
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 chain of Universes where each is 'an effect as regards its predecessor, and being a cause as regards its successor,' and the Great Breath projects a thought that becomes the Kosmos, forming a cascading emanation from the Absolute.
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.
The passage explicitly states 'Our Universe is only one of an infinite number of Universes' and that development 'has neither conceivable beginning nor imaginable end,' making cosmic infinity a central theme.
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 'the invisible that is' and the noumenal realm that underlies phenomena but cannot be cognized by our senses, implying a non-physical dimension of reality.
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 explicitly describes the staged descent: 'These abstractions become more and more concrete as they approach our plane of existence, until finally they phenomenalise in the form of the material Universe, by a process of conversion of metaphysics into physics, analogous to that by which steam can be condensed into water, and the water frozen into ice.'
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The Divine Breath 'breathes out a thought, as it were, which becomes the Kosmos' — a creative thought/word mediating between the Unknowable Deity and the material universe.
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 universe is 'a thought' breathed out by the One Existence, and the material world is the phenomenalisation of metaphysical abstractions — the cosmos is fundamentally mental in origin and nature.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The 'One Being' and 'the One Existence' are presented as the undivided source from which all multiplicity flows, with the Great Breath as its singular motion.
Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.
The central teaching is expressed as paradox: 'Eternal Non-Being, the One Being' and 'that which is and yet is not' — using apparent contradiction to point toward a reality beyond conceptual grasp.
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 the phenomenal plane (where Past, Present, Future have validity) from the noumenal realm (where they 'have no abstract validity'), holding both as legitimate on their own plane.
The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.
The inbreathing of the Great Breath and the Universe's disappearance 'into the bosom of the Great Mother' describe a return to the original undifferentiated state.
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 outbreathing and inbreathing of the Great Breath, the cyclical appearance and disappearance of the Universe, exemplify a measured cosmic oscillation between manifestation and dissolution.
The doctrine that the one Godhead or first principle subsists as three co-equal aspects or persons rather than a bare unity — the Christian Father/Son/Holy Ghost invoked in the recurring liturgical formula 'In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' but structurally the same pattern as the Egyptian Amen/Ptah/Osiris, the Hindu Brahma/Vishnu/Siva, and the Kabbalistic Chochmah/Binah/Kether triads that esoteric writers explicitly map onto it as instances of one universal law. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about internal plurality) and divine_simplicity (God as having no parts or divisions at all) in asserting a definite three-aspected differentiation within a single divine essence.
The Absolute is described as having three aspects: Motion (the Great Breath), Abstract Space, and Duration — a three-aspected structure of the ultimate principle.
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
The passage presents the One Being as the noumenon underlying all phenomena, and the Great Breath as absolute existence that is simultaneously being and non-being, asserting a single underlying reality.