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A LL IS L IFE, and every atom of even mineral dust is a L IFE, though beyond our comprehension and perception, because it is outside the range of the [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Read in Isis, vol. ii., pp. 297-303, the doctrine of the Codex Nazaraeus -- every tenet of our teaching is found there under a different form and allegory. ** The word "Sin" is curious, but has a particular Occult relation to the Moon, besides being its Chaldean equivalent. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 249 MATTER, LIFE AND SUBSTANCE. laws known to those who reject Occultism. "The very Atoms," says Tyndall, "seem instinct with a desire for life." Whence, then, we would ask, comes the tendency "to run into organic form"? Is it in any way explicable except according to the teachings of Occult Science? " The worlds , to the profane ," says a Commentary , " are built up of the known Elements. To the conception of an Arhat , these Elements are themselves collectively a divine Life; distributively , on the plane of manifestations , the numberless and countless crores of lives.* Fire alone is ONE , on the plane of the One [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Is Pasteur unconsciously taking the first step toward Occult Science in declaring that, if he dared express his full idea upon this subject, he would say that the Organic cells are endowed with a vital potency that does not cease its activity with the cessation of a current of Oxygen towards them, and does not, on that account, break off its relations with life itself, which is supported by the influence of that gas? "I would add," goes on Pasteur, "that the evolution of the germ is accomplished by means of complicated phenomena, among which we must class processes of fermentation"; and life, according to Claude Bernard and Pasteur, is nothing else than a process of fermentation. That there exist in Nature Beings or Lives that can live and thrive without air, even on our globe, was demonstrated by the same men of science. Pasteur found that many of the lower lives, such as Vibriones, and some microbes and bacteria, could exist without air, which, on the contrary, killed them. They derived the oxygen necessary for their multiplication from the various substances that surround them. He calls them AErobes , living on the tissues of our matter when the latter has ceased to form a part of an integral and living whole (then called very unscientifically by science "dead matter"), and Anaerobes. The one kind binds oxygen, and contributes vastly to the destruction of animal life and vegetable tissues, furnishing to the atmosphere materials which enter later on into the constitution of other organisms; the other destroys, or rather annihilates finally, the so-called organic substance; ultimate decay being impossible without their participation. Certain germ-cells, such as those of yeast, develop and multiply in air, but when deprived of it, they will adapt themselves to life without air and become ferments, absorbing oxygen from substances coming in contact with them, and thereby ruining the latter. The cells in fruit, when lacking free oxygen, act as ferments and stimulate fermentation. "Therefore the vegetable cell manifests in this case its life as an anaerobic being. Why, then, should an organic cell form in this case an exception"? asks Professor Bogolubof. Pasteur shows that in the substance of our tissues and organs, the cell, not finding sufficient oxygen for itself, stimulates fermentation in the same way as the fruit-cell, and Claude Bernard thought that Pasteur's idea of the formation of ferments found its application and corroboration in the fact that Urea increases in the blood during strangulation: L IFE therefore is everywhere in the Universe, and, Occultism teaches us, it is also in the atom. Also see infra , at the close of this Section. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 250 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Reality: on that of manifested , hence illusive , being , its particles are fiery lives which live and have their being at the expense of every other life that they consume. Therefore they are named the " DEVOURERS . " . . . " Every visible thing in this Universe was built by such LIVES , front conscious and divine primordial man down to the unconscious agents that construct matter. " . . . " From the ONE LIFE formless and Uncreate , proceeds the Universe of lives. First was manifested from the Deep ( Chaos ) cold luminous fire ( gaseous light? ) which formed the curds in Space. " ( Irresolvable nebulae , perhaps? ). . . . . . ." . . . These fought , and a great heat was developed by the encountering and collision , which produced rotation. Then came the first manifested MATERIAL , Fire , the hot flames , the wanderers in heaven ( comets ) ; heat generates moist vapour; that forms solid water ( ? ) ; then dry mist , then liquid mist , watery , that puts out the luminous brightness of the pilgrims ( comets? ) and forms solid watery wheels ( MATTER globes ) . Bhumi ( the Earth ) appears with six sisters.* These produce by their continuous motion the inferior fire , heat , and an aqueous mist , which yields the third World - Element -- WATER ; and from the breath of all ( atmospheric ) AIR is born. These four are the four lives of the first four periods ( Rounds ) of Manvantara. The three last will follow. " This means that every new Round develops one of the Compound Elements, as now known to Science, -- which rejects the primitive nomenclature, preferring to subdivide them into constituents. If Nature is the "Ever-becoming" on the manifested plane, then those Elements are to be regarded in the same light: they have to evolve, progress, and increase to the Manvantaric end. Thus the First Round, we are taught, developed but one Element, and a nature and humanity in what may be called one aspect of Nature -- called by some, very unscientifically, though it may be so de facto , "One-dimensional Space." [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * It is a Vedic teaching that "there are three Earths corresponding to three Heavens, and our Earth (the fourth) is called Bhumi." This is the explanation given by our exoteric Western Orientalists. But the esoteric meaning and allusion to it in the Vedas is that it refers to our planetary chain, three "Earths" on the descending arc, and three "heavens" which are the three Earths or globes also, only far more ethereal, on the ascending or spiritual arc: by the first three we descend into matter, by the other three we ascend into Spirit; the lower one, Bhumi , our Earth, forming the turning point, so to say, and containing potentially as much of Spirit as it does of Matter. We shall treat of this hereafter. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 251 THE FOUR DIMENSIONS OF SPACE.