Page 42 (part 2)

"All the Souls go into the gilgoolah ," into a cyclic or revolving process; i.e. , they all proceed on the cyclic path of re-births. Some Kabalists interpret this doctrine to mean only a kind of purgatory for the souls of the wicked. But this is not so. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 569 PANTHEISM VERSUS MATERIALISM. Soul (entirely distinct from immortal Spirit when the former is enshrined latent in it, as it is in every atomic speck), was composed of a fine, tender essence, formed from the smoothest , roundest , and finest atoms. And this shows that the ancient Initiates, who were followed more or less closely by all profane antiquity, meant by the term "ATOM," a Soul, a Genius or Angel, the first-born of the ever-concealed CAUSE of all causes; and in this sense their teachings become comprehensible. They claimed, as do their successors, the existence of Gods and Genii, angels or "demons," not outside, or independent of, the Universal Plenum , but within it. Only this Plenum , during the life-cycles, is infinite. They admitted and taught a good deal of that which modern Science teaches now --namely, the existence of a primordial "World-stuff or Cosmic Substance," from which worlds are formed, ever and eternally homogeneous, except during its periodic existence, when it differentiates its universal diffusion throughout infinite space; and the gradual formation of sidereal bodies from it. They taught the revolution of the Heavens, the Earth's rotation, the Heliocentric System, and the Atomic Vortices -- Atoms -- in reality Souls and intelligences. But those "Atomists" were spiritual, most transcendental, and philosophical Pantheists. It is not they who would have ever conceived, or dreamt that monstrous contrasted progeny, the nightmare of our modern civilized Race; namely -- inanimate material, self-guiding atoms, on the one hand, and an extra-Cosmic God on the other. It may be useful to show what, in the teachings of the old Initiates, the Monad was, and what its origin. Modern exact Science, as soon as it began to grow out of its teens, perceived the great, and, to it, hitherto esoteric axiom, that nothing -- whether in the spiritual, psychic, or physical realm of being -- could come into existence out of nothing. There is no cause in the manifested universe without its adequate effects, whether in space or time; nor can there be an effect without its primal cause, which itself owes its existence to a still higher one -- the final and absolute cause having to remain to man for ever an incomprehensible C AUSELESS C AUSE. But even this is no solution, and must be viewed, if at all, from the highest philosophical and metaphysical standpoints, otherwise the problem had better be left unapproached. It is an abstraction, on the verge of which human reason -- however trained to metaphysical subtleties -- trembles, threatening to collapse. This may be demonstrated to any European who would undertake to solve the problem of existence by the articles of faith of the true Vedantin, for instance. Let him read and study the sublime teachings on the subject of Soul and Spirit, of [[Vol. 1, Page]] 570 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Sankaracharya ( Viveka Chudamani )*, and the reader will realize what is now said. While the Christian is taught that the human soul is a breath of God -- being created by him for sempiternal existence, i.e. , having a beginning, but no end (and therefore never to be called eternal) -- the Occult teaching says, " Nothing is created , but is only transformed. Nothing can manifest itself in this universe -- from a globe down to a vague, rapid thought -- that was not in the universe already; everything on the subjective plane is an eternal IS; as everything on the objective plane is an ever becoming -- because transitory." The monad -- a truly "indivisible thing," as defined by Good, who did not give it the sense we now do -- is here rendered as the Atma in conjunction with Buddhi and the higher Manas. This trinity is one and eternal, the latter being absorbed in the former at the termination of all conditioned and illusive life. The monad, then, can be traced through the course of its pilgrimage and its changes of transitory vehicles only from the incipient stage of the manifested Universe. In Pralaya, or the intermediate period between two manvantaras, it loses its name, as it loses it when the real ONE self of man merges into Brahm in cases of high Samadhi (the Turiya state) or final Nirvana; "when the disciple" in the words of Sankara, "having attained that primeval consciousness, absolute bliss, of which the nature is truth, which is without form and action, abandons this illusive body that has been assumed by the atma just as an actor (abandons) the dress (put on)." For Buddhi (the Anandamaya sheath ) is but a mirror which reflects absolute bliss; and, moreover, that reflection itself is yet not free from ignorance, and is not the Supreme Spirit, being subject to conditions, being a spiritual modification of Prakriti, and an effect; Atma alone is the one real and eternal substratum of all -- the essence and absolute knowledge -- the Kshetragna. ** It is called in the Esoteric philosophy "the One Witness," [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Translated for the Theosophist , by Mohini M. Chatterji as "Crest Jewel of Wisdom," 1886. (See Theosophist , July and August numbers). ** Now that the revised version of the gospels has been published and the most glaring mistranslations of the old versions are corrected, one will understand better the words in St. John v., vi., and vii.: "It is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is the truth." The words that follow in the mistranslated version about the "three witnesses," -- hitherto supposed to stand for "the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost" -- show the real meaning of the writer (St. John) very clearly, thus still more forcibly identifying his teaching in this respect with that of Sankaracharya. For what can the sentence, "there are three who bear witness: the Spirit and the Water and the Blood " -- mean, if they bear no relation to, or connection with, the more philosophical statement of the great Vedanta teacher, who, speaking of the sheaths (the principles in man) Jiva , Vignanamaya , etc., which are , in their physical manifestation, " water and blood " or life, adds that atma (spirit) alone is what remains after the [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol. 1, Page]] 571 THE DIAMOND HEART.