." It was called into being, a ready and perfect vehicle for the incarnating denizens of higher spheres, who took forthwith their abodes in these forms born of Spiritual WILL and the natural divine power in man.
It was a child of pure Spirit, mentally unalloyed with any tincture of earthly element.
Its physical frame alone was of time and of life, as it drew its intelligence direct from above.
It was the living tree of divine wisdom; and may therefore be likened to the Mundane Tree of the Norse Legend, which cannot wither and die until the last battle of life shall be fought, while its roots are gnawed all the time by the dragon Nidhogg; for even so, the first and holy Son of Kriyasakti had his body gnawed by the tooth of time, but the roots of his inner being remained for ever undecaying and strong, because they grew and expanded in heaven not on earth.
He was the first of the F IRST, and he was the seed of all the others.
There were other "Sons of Kriyasakti" produced by a second Spiritual effort, but the first one has remained to this day the Seed of divine Knowledge, the One and the Supreme among the terrestrial "Sons of Wisdom." Of this subject we can say no more, except to add that in every age -- aye, even in our own -- there have been great intellects who have understood the problem correctly.
How comes our physical body to the state of perfection it is found in now?
Through millions of years of evolution, of course, yet never through, or from, animals, as taught by materialism.
For, as Carlyle says: -- ".
.
.
The essence of our being, the mystery in us that calls itself 'I,' -- what words have we for such things?
-- it is a breath of Heaven, [[Vol.
1, Page]] 212 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the highest Being reveals himself in man.
This body, these faculties, this life of ours, is it not all as a vesture for the UNNAMED?" The breath of heaven, or rather the breath of life, called in the Bible Nephesh , is in every animal, in every animate speck as in every mineral atom.
But none of these has, like man, the consciousness of the nature of that highest Being,* as none has that divine harmony in its form which man possesses.
It is, as Novalis said, and no one since has said it better, as repeated by Carlyle: -- "There is but one temple in the universe, and that is the body of man.
Nothing is holier than that high form .
.
.
.
We touch heaven when we lay our hand on a human body!" "This sounds like a mere flourish of rhetoric," adds Carlyle, "but it is not so.
If well meditated it will turn out to be a scientific fact; the expression .
.
.
of the actual truth of the thing.
We are the miracle of miracles, -- the great inscrutable Mystery." [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * There is no nation in the world in which the feeling of devotion or of religious mysticism is more developed and prominent than in the Hindu people.
See what Max Muller says of this idiosyncracy and national feature in his works.
This is direct inheritance from the primitive conscious men of the Third Race.
---------------------
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 origin of the first Son of Kriyasakti, the production of subsequent Sons by a second spiritual effort, and the evolution of the human body through millions of years, all describing how things came into being.
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 asserts that 'the breath of Heaven' (Nephesh) is in every animate speck and mineral atom, and that 'the highest Being reveals himself in man,' presenting the divine as pervading all of creation rather than remaining solely transcendent.
The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.
The first Son is described as 'a child of pure Spirit, mentally unalloyed with any tincture of earthly element,' suggesting an undivided, simple spiritual nature prior to any composite mixture.
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 hierarchical structure of 'Sons of Kriyasakti' produced by successive spiritual efforts, with the first being supreme among the terrestrial 'Sons of Wisdom,' forming a cascade from a higher source.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage explicitly limits itself with 'Of this subject we can say no more,' suggesting that the full teaching is concealed and reserved for those ready to receive it.
The doctrine that the divine or a spiritual principle takes on a specific, bounded material or bodily form — descending from an unconditioned state into individual, corporeal existence — as a discrete act rather than a diffuse pervading presence. The Christian Word made flesh, the Hindu avatara, the Egyptian pharaoh as living Horus, the Vajrayana tulku. Distinct from divine_immanence (the general claim that the divine pervades all of creation diffusely, not a specific embodiment-event) and separation_from_source (the felt exile FROM origin, the opposite motion) in describing a specific, individuated descent INTO a particular body or form.
The passage describes the first Son as a specific divine being who took on a bounded physical form ('a ready and perfect vehicle'), with 'incarnating denizens of higher spheres' taking abodes in these forms, describing a discrete descent into corporeal existence.
The divine spark or luminous quality residing within the human person, potentially recognisable through introspection.
The passage states that man uniquely possesses 'the consciousness of the nature of that highest Being' and a 'divine harmony in its form,' suggesting a luminous divine quality residing within the human person.
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 descent of 'incarnating denizens of higher spheres' into physical forms born of spiritual will, and the terrestrial 'Sons of Wisdom' as products of a structured descent from a higher spiritual source into material existence.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The passage's central claim via Novalis and Carlyle is that 'the body of man' is 'the one temple in the universe,' that 'the highest Being reveals himself in man,' and that the human form possesses a 'divine harmony' unique among all creatures, making the human the privileged mirror of the cosmos.
A vertical structure connecting cosmic levels — a tree, pillar, mountain, or ladder linking heaven, earth, and underworld around which the cosmos is organised. Yggdrasil binding the Nine Worlds in Norse cosmology, the Kalevala's Sampo as world-pillar, the Mayan ceiba, the Vedic Aśvattha, the shamanic central tree of Eliade's analyses. Cosmic-structural in character: distinct from sefirot_tree (a kabbalistic emanation diagram) and emanation_hierarchy (an ontological cascade); world_tree_axis is the cosmos's spine rather than the divine's outflow.
The passage explicitly likens the first Son to the Mundane Tree (Yggdrasil) of Norse Legend, with roots gnawed by Nidhogg and an inner being that 'grew and expanded in heaven not on earth,' making the tree a cosmic axis connecting heaven and earth.