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Texts>The Nature of the Absolute
THE VEDIC TRIMURTI
It is proper that the Leader of Universals should be regarded as the head of the world and that its three complexions should be symbolized by faces. Speaking its word of power, each face caused to issue from its mouth a sacred symbol, by which the surfaces of the three worlds are agitated and caused to assume the semblance of creation.
CHAPTER TWO
GOD, THE DIVINE FOUNDATION
From the preceding lecture it is evident that any description or definition of unknowable ultimates is possible only in the terms of negation. In other words, every definition so-called must be eliminative, and that which remains when all else is taken away must necessarily be the only thing incapable of removal. When considering the nature of primordial substance, the average school of philosophy postulates an active first Cause; otherwise it is wholly at a loss to explain how creation can be the product of a passive power. Activity is accordingly postulated as a fundamental attribute of Being. To me, however it is inconceivable that the first Cause (or more correctly the Causeless Cause) should be either positive or negative. Rather it seems more fitting to posit a permanent condition which is neither positive in an "active" sense nor negative in a "passive" sense, but which is power in absolute suspension. For lack of a better defining term we might conceive of Eternal Being as an enduring neitherness, partaking of neither the presence nor the absence of any tangible force or condition. The condition of the Absolute can only be suggested by a suspended neitherness of both activity and inertia.
To attempt an analysis of the fabric of even the groundwork of SPACE far exceeds the capacity of any human intellect. Never in the history of philosophy has there been evolved a mind capable of grasping all the multitudinous elements of Being. The world is filled with people who foolishly try to teach or seek to be taught the length, breadth, and thickness of ultimates, when but a moment’s true thinking would demonstrate the fallacy and futility of such effort. Since the groundwork of SPACE – the ultimate abstraction – transcends every faculty and every dimension, it can never be comprehended by a reasoning organism that must necessarily arrive at its conclusions on the basis of faculty and dimension. For the human mind to understand that which is greater than itself is as impossible as for a mere man to swallow the ocean. The effort of the human mind to circumscribe the entirety of manifestation is comparable to a mollusk trying to enclose the sea within its shell. Realizing, therefore, how apropos is the ancient statement that to define Deity is to defile it, we are forced to accept the inevitable conclusion of the ages: namely, that the ultimates of beginning and end are alike unknowable. These conclusions are in harmony with the deductions of both Socrates and Buddha.
The gods may be conceived of in either the singular or the plural sense; in the singular if we consider the deities as fractional parts of one Creative Agent; in the plural if we look upon the various parts as separate vehicles of cosmic intelligence. Thus in many ancient doctrines we have evidence of a fundamental monotheism manifesting through a complex polytheism. For example, the Elohim, or secondary gods of the ancient Jews who, as the Creative Demiurgi, moved upon the face of the deep and together constitute a single cosmic deity. In the same way the elaborate pantheon of the Hindus is a mosaic of gods, who in combination form the nature of the supreme and all-powerful Brahma. The gods may be considered as symbolic of the individual states of consciousness continually unfolding within the nature of Absolute Being. The concept of a single personal Deity who was prudent enough to fashion himself without eyelids lest he fall asleep from that exhaustion which must necessarily result from an eternal vigil is hardly adequate to meet the evident needs of existence. Up to the present time the advocates of monotheism have advanced no concept of Deity adequate to control creation without the assistance of a privy council or celestial parliament. A few moments of serious consideration will reveal that a fundamental monotheism manifesting through an elaborate polytheism is by far the most noble concept of cosmic government, and is the basis of all the successful governments maintained by man upon earth. The modern world is inclined to look askance at the elaborate pantheons of the Greeks, Egyptians, and Hindus, and rather prides itself that it has outgrown such theological crudities. Even now, however, there is a definite reversion to the pantheistic cults of antiquity, and when properly understood the Orphic theogony will enjoy a glorious renaissance.
The subject of philosophic polytheism deserves further attention. Polytheism must not be considered synonymous with the blind adoration of an infinitude of imaginary superhuman beings, but rather as the recognition of a concatenated progression of evolving creatures, each influencing and to a certain degree controlling those inferior to itself, and in turn controlled by those superior to itself. The gods should not be considered as personally directing the destiny of individuals. Rather they are vast centers of radiant force consciously or unconsciously influencing anything that exists or subsists upon their sphere of manifestation. For example, a city does not willfully mold the character of its inhabitants; nevertheless it is an active factor in determining the character of each individual unit of its population. This simile, while possibly not apparent at first thought, is particularly apt, for as cells exist in the human body, so man is but a cell in a larger organism which he pleases to term a god. The cells of the human body may feel a similar veneration for man, who in the light of cell intelligence must be a boundless and infinitely powerful deity.
Polytheism therefore may be best defined as a veneration for causal agencies. Obedience to the will of the gods was regarded as the basis of human happiness and simply meant that only those who lived in harmony with natural law could hope for a tranquil existence. To the ancients it seemed essential that intelligence should manifest from an intelligent Creator; in other words, the manifesting thought proved the existence of the unmanifested Thinker. Intelligence exists in every department of creation. The entire universe is controlled by definite laws that evidence the omniscience of the Eternal Thinker. From the fountainhead of immeasurable Mind the cogitations of Deity stream forth to make fertile with thought the whole area of Being. Broken up by creations as upon a prism, the Mind-Light of Deity becomes manifest as an infinite order of separate and specialized intelligences. Thus upon the surface of the sea of Universal Mind appear numberless foci, each controlling a definite phase of cosmic activity. The gods are such foci; so are men, but to a more limited degree. The sum of all these individual minds is the one Universal Mind, so that in the last analysis gods, men, and worlds are each fragments of the whole. The philosophers of all ages have realized that the achievement of perfect wisdom lies in the elevation of the power of comprehension to that state where it is able to grasp the relation of the parts of existence to the sum of existence, which the Buddhists designate the Self.
All great systems of religious philosophy agree that anterior to the gods is the One and Undivided, who is the very foundation of manifested existence or the first limitation of Absolute Being, and who may properly be designated the Father of gods and men. We shall now turn our attention to a consideration of the powers and attributes of this first of all mortals, the chief of those who die, the first-born of Absolute Self. In seventy-two languages men call this first power God, the first and most perfect of creations, the eldest of the old, and the Most Ancient of the Most Ancient. God is best defined as the first manifestation of Infinite Existence, the limitation of Limitlessness. In his adoration of Deity man is prone to consider God as synonymous with ALL in that God is synonymous with all that man can hope to comprehend. But behind comprehension is that which is incomprehensible, the thrice-black darkness which exists unhonored and unsung through the unmeasured duration of eternity, and upon whose placid surface time comes and goes, and beginnings and ends are but incidental. To return to the symbolism of the preceding lecture, God is the dot, the first island floating in and upon the permanent depths of Unlimited Existence. God is therefore capable of definition in the terms of the Dervish, by whom as chief of beings he is denominated the Axis of the world, or that immovable center about which all revolves.
Before it is possible to approach Deity through philosophy, it is necessary to nullify the traditional practice prevalent throughout Christendom of referring to Deity as a masculine potency and ascribing to him most human vices, which, however, become virtues by reason of his unquestioned position as despotic arbiter of right and wrong. The modern religious thinker is no longer inclined to venerate a deity who is simply a highly glorified King George III. In that now vanishing picturesque period of absolute monarchies when fretful and senile princes, arrayed in ridiculous periwigs, ruled by "divine right," God was invested with all the propensities of the "blood royal," and the celestial hierarchies were metamorphosed into landed gentry.
In spite of the repeated emphasis upon our age of enlightenment, the majority of people still continue the age-honored practice of molding God into a likeness of themselves. The reason for this probably lies in the fact that man, possessing a spark of Divinity within himself, feels his kinship with God and believes himself privileged to rush in where angels fear to tread, and give definition to the undefinable. God being, as Ingersoll so well expressed it, "the noblest work of man," we find in the attributes of the God people worship, a definite key to their own ethical and philosophic status. It is noticeable that people with puerile intelligences and petty concerns conceive God to be localized as a neighborhood sprite who spends most of his time eavesdropping, and who can afford to ignore universal concerns while he heaps maledictions upon some poor, benighted wretch who did not keep his eyes closed during grace! On the other hand, those who have learned to know something of the greater verities of life worship a growing God. This does not presuppose that God is necessarily increasing, but rather that man’ increasing capacity to comprehend ever reveals more of the stupendous nature of Divinity. As a person approaches a physical object, the object apparently increases in size. The same is true of the mind as it approaches the subject of its consideration. Hence, to the philosopher God extends through the infinitude of time, distance, and thought, and to him it is inconceivable that even for a second Deity should descend into a state less dignified than the all-inclusiveness of its intrinsic nature.
Among many ancient peoples God was considered as being androgynous, and referred to as the Great Father-Mother. When the Creator was represented by an image, various subtle devices were employed to indicate its hermaphroditic nature. The Iswara of the Hindus is depicted with one side of his body male and the other female. In Greek and Roman statuary frequent examples are found of a masculine divinity wearing female garments and vice versa, or a heavily-bearded god may have his hair arranged in a distinctly feminine coiffure. Again, the structure of the face of such deities as Bacchus and Dionysus often shows a sensitive, feminine countenance disguised by a beard or some article of masculine adornment. In other cases the feminine counterpart of the deity is considered as a separate individuality. For this reason each of the gods was declared to have had his consort or feminine aspect of his own being. Thus Mithras, the Persian Light-Savior, is considered to be masculine, but a certain portion of himself divided from the rest becomes Mithra, a feminine and maternal potency. As previously noted, in India each god has his shakti, or feminine part.
Among some peoples Deity has been considered for ages as primarily feminine, as the Brahmans who refer to God as "the Great Mother." In Roman Catholicism there is also a definite tendency to idealize the feminine principle of God through the person of the Virgin Mary, who is elevated to a most exalted position as "Queen of Heaven." The custom of depicting God either as male or female is the outgrowth of man’s oldest form of worship: phallicism. Masculine and feminine properties are presumed to be positive and negative respectively. Hence God, being an active or positive agent, was conceived to be masculine; nature, being a passive or negative body, was regarded as feminine in that it received into itself and nurtured to maturity the germinal essences of Divine Life. The proponents of a masculine God declare that in the beginning was activity, the positive cause of existence. On the other hand, the proponents of the pre-eminence of the feminine principle declare that activity first issued from a universal matrix; consequently that which comes forth from the matrix is subordinate to its own origin. To a certain degree the Madonna expresses this concept, for the man child is creation born out of the womb of SPACE – the Holy Mother of Ages.
To the philosopher, God, as the first manifestation of unmanifested and incomprehensible ALL-ness, contains both the potencies of the mother and the father in equilibrium. Material existence is the result of the hypothetical division taking place within the nature of this androgynous Deity, from whose higher (or masculine) nature is created the superphysical universe, and from whose inferior (or feminine) nature is divided the world of form. From this point of view God does not act upon an extraneous body, but action and reaction are simply the interaction of the parts of one universal Deity. The word God is comparatively meaningless, as it gives no hint of the gender or dignity of Divinity other than merely signifying "good." Since either a masculine or a feminine term is inappropriate and obviously incomplete, and a neuter term entirely too negative, a word is needed which will express the undivided potencies of both positive and negative in equilibrium.
When the terms masculine and feminine were used in philosophic symbolism the ancients gave a certain supremacy to the masculine principle for two reasons: (1) as the male was endowed with greater physical endurance, among primitive peoples physical strength was considered the most necessary attribute of Divinity; (2) as the tribal or state government was a patriarchate, it necessarily followed that God as the Supreme Ruler became dignified as a masculine entity. Those races, however, which elevated woman to a high social status were more prone to endow Deity with distinctive feminine characteristics than were those peoples where woman was regarded as little better than a slave. As time went on man thus became the personification of the positive principle and woman of the negative. This viewpoint, however, will not bear close philosophic scrutiny. The so-called inferiority of the female is simply a symbolic figure, having no reference whatever to either the political or ecclesiastical status of woman. It is surprising, however, the extent to which the stigma of this little-understood symbolism has influenced both the racial and individual life of woman. It is still not uncommon to meet people who, while they can give no definite explanation for their feelings, are convinced that the feminine organism lacks some peculiar psychical or soul quality which has been reserved exclusively for masculine expression. The popular misconception (presumably promulgated by the Moslems) that heaven was a place accessible to woman as the result of special intercession on the part of her husband, while not publicly taught in Christendom, is nevertheless painfully evident to those able to analyze accurately the mental and emotional reactions of the average man. Woman’s responsibilities as the mother of humanity afford ample evidence to the profound thinker that she is far from being a "negative" creature. The maternal principle was elevated by the Greeks to first place, and the Mater Deorum (Mother of the Gods) was esteemed worthy of universal veneration.
The relative superiority or inferiority of either the positive or negative principles leads to one inevitable conclusion: namely, that all manifestation being ordered by Divine Providence, it is impossible to determine intelligently the ultimate importance of conditions, each of which is essential to all. God as the Father impregnates SPACE with his seed; God as the Mother receives this seed into herself and protects it through the ages necessary for its unfoldment; and God as the Child is himself the very seed which as God the Father he sowed. Thus is explained the ancient Rosicrucian adage: "All is in All; All is All."
The commentaries of the Cabalists upon the early Hebrew Scriptures contain lengthy dissertations upon the nature of God as the first being or power to manifest itself upon the surface of AIN SOPH, the limitless and boundless Sea of Eternal Potentiality. According to the Cabalistic version, there appeared upon and in AIN SOPH a great, gleaming, jewel-encrusted crown. This John Heydon calls the wise man’s crown set with suns, moons, and stars and ornamented with archangels. Ten sparkling sapphires sent streamers of celestial splendor from their faceted surfaces, and the great crown, Kether, which was the foundation of the world, rested upon the intangible but immovable foundation of Absolute Divinity. From the crown issued forth the multitudes of divine and elementary beings who sued forth the multitudes of divine and elementary beings who people the forty spheres comprising the Cabalistic universe. Thus, to a certain degree, the crown is an ark which, resting upon the hypothetical Ararat of Limitless Being – the Mount of Eternity – caused to issue from itself by twos and by sevens all that pageantry of life which had been preserved within it through the pralaya, or deluge of cosmic oblivion. Kether, the Ancient of Ancients, the Long Face, the Opened Eye, the Holy One, and the Father Foundation, enthroned in the midst of Being, wills creation and it is. Kether has neither shape nor form imaginable to us, but in an effort to conceive in part its dignity we ascribe to it the noblest forms within the vista of our comprehension. The sphere is the most perfect of all bodies and was therefore chosen by both Pythagoras and Plato as the most perfect symbol of "Him who shall remain." It is evident, however, that this Being does not actually resemble a crown, and opened eye or, as the Cabalists affirm, a bald head. These figures of speech in no way limit or change the enduring nature of this first power. Whether we call It Father or Mother or Son; whether we consider It as androgynous or sexless, human or composite, personal or impersonal, It remains forever itself, the first manifestation of unmanifested power. It was in the beginning, for Its appearance marks the term of beginning and end, and Time has its inception with the establishment of this first Divinity. God is as enduring as Time, but Time and God are both servants of Infinity.
The meditation of the mystics upon the nature of the first God revealed to them that Deity occupies a position somewhat analogous to a focal point. In God the unknowable potentialities of Absolute Existence were concentrated, and through the nature of Deity pass downward and are distributed as active potencies throughout the negative sphere or field of manifestation. Infinite Being thus flows through God into creation, and existence ascends through God to its Infinite Source. God is therefore the least material and the most spiritual of all created things; of all beings the eldest; of all things the newest. Yet, being differentiated from Immortal Being, Deity is mortal and subject to ultimate reabsorption into Universal SPACE. In the most abstract sense, God is a hypothetical point established in the midst of Absolute Self through which It (Absolute Self) manifests forth into tangibility and consequent impermanent existence. God is the All made One; the universe is the One made All.
Of all the terms with which Deity has been invested there is none more simple and yet more consistent with the nature of ALL than that used by Plato, who defines God as the unmoved, self-moving Mover. God is unmoved in the sense that It is the sure foundation which will remain as long as time. God is self-moving in that activity is its innate quality. God is the all-mover in that it is the life-giving principle animating all the structures which combine to form the inferior universe. God is the seed in the field of SPACE. From the dark philosophic earth of Infinite Being it draws all that it manifests. In the symbolism of the Far East, God comes as a lotus bud upon the surface of the Great Sea which, after living its appointed span, dies back into the infinite Ocean of Chaos. God is the first-born, the infinite Monad so well described by Democritus in his development of the atomic theory.
Now comes the legitimate question: If Absolute Being is unlimited and unconditioned with all its forces in a state of suspension, what causes these periodic centers or deities to come into being and what law governs their continuance and ultimate dissolution? In other words, if the Absolute possesses neither will nor activity in a centralized or manifesting state, how is the genesis of gods and worlds to be explained? Why does not the Absolute remain throughout duration in the same unknowing and all-pervading state?
It is difficult to conceive of a perfect state giving birth to an impeded state, and yet, according to philosophy, this is exactly what occurs when Universal Being supports ephemeral creation upon the surface of itself, or, as the Hindu mythologist would say, Varaha (the boar incarnation of Vishnu) elevates cosmos upon its tusks. The answer to the problem of first Cause has confounded several otherwise excellent systems of theology, and the solution advanced by mystical philosophy is one of the most daring postulates of the human mind. Yet for man with his limited intelligence to ponder too deeply upon such abstract mysteries is highly dangerous, for the solidarity of thought itself is jeopardized.
Sir Francis Bacon, one of the greatest thinkers of the modern world, realized how fatal to the success of the seeker after truth is the assumption of knowledge. Knowledge he declared to be the end, not the beginning, of the rational quest after facts. Much of the body of truth, however, is ascertained by the aid of certain fundamental postulations which must then run the gauntlet of observation and experimentation. Unable to delineate the boundaries or profiles of Universal Cause, the mind must necessarily reduce cosmic phenomena to terms apprehensible to human reason. To cope with the problems of the abstract the mind must first discover in the concrete the analogy of the abstract. Having found a simple natural analogy, the philosopher employs the most basic of all the Hermetic axioms: namely, that which is below is like unto that which is above. The law of analogy is the most powerful weapon ever placed in the hands of man with which to solve the riddle of the Unknown, for by analogy he is able to classify the orders of invisible life, and chart that vast interval between the limitation of human nature and the limitlessness of Divine nature.
With the assistance of the law of analogy, let us then approach the problem of first Cause. Sleep is a state somewhat resembling death; in fact St. Paul definitely relates them to each other. Death, moreover, is analogous to the state of the Absolute in that it is the cessation of that activity which destroys the tranquility of infinite duration. Again, no sense of time, place, or condition is apparent during sleep. A few seconds of a distorted dream may represent a lifetime in which persons and places come and go with kaleidoscopic speed. Speed also partakes of the nature of the Absolute in that the objective world disappears; the sleeper rests in an unknowing state and an almost Nirvanic trance-like condition controls the functioning parts. During sleep there is neither will nor rational activity in the objective world; oblivious to the entire panorama of existence, the objective soul lies in a state which is neither light nor darkness and which defies intelligent definition.
Sleep, however, does not override the claims of habit. If a person is accustomed to awake at a certain hour, when that hour arrives consciousness seemingly rises out of unconsciousness with no apparent motivation other than the subtle, innate urge of habit. The individual wakes, and grasping with drowsy fingers the sense perceptions, assumes the labors of the day. The mind was never told to rouse the sleeper, nor did he have any realization that some intangible agent would at a certain time dissipate the state of dreaming and force the life back into wakeful activity. The sleeper suddenly opens his eyes and discovers it to be the usual rising hour. Habit is seemingly stronger than the state of sleep, for it is something that awakens the sleeper even when he cannot wake himself. Therefore, says the Ancient Doctrine, the comings and goings of creation upon the surface of infinite expanse are the impulses of the law of periodicity. Thus periodicity may be defined as the habit of Infinite SPACE. Habit causes the unknown elements and agencies comprising the Absolute periodically to spawn forth worlds and to draw them back again into itself periodically. Habit causes the sleeping universe to awaken after the Seven Nights of Rest, and after its Seven Days of Labor habit and necessity again cause the tired creation to sink back into the arms of SPACE.
Though not a thinking substance, SPACE contains the potentiality of thought. Thought is simply one of the numerous limited expressions of SPACE and does not come into manifestation until the creative processes have limited the ALL to that condition known as intelligence. That is the reason why the law of periodicity, or the spontaneous awakening of life, is necessary, in that SPACE possesses no tangible urge or force other than habit, which is itself a purely hypothetical term. It is the supreme and eternal habit of Absolute Being to create and also to take creation back again into itself. Thus the outpouring and the inflowing may be likened to the ebb and flow of an eternal sea. Creation sinking into SPACE is no better able to conceive of the Absolute than is man to conceive of the substance of sleep. Nor do the Seven Sleepers upon awakening from their ages of slumber have any more concept of the condition from which they have emerged than has man when he rises from his slumbers. It is a daring thought to define cosmic law as the habit of SPACE, but the urges which immutably direct all things to their predestined end are thus explained. Periodically upon the face of Not-Being (which is ALL Being) there appear centers of life – the charkas or seeds of future worlds. The swastika is their proper symbol, for it is the whirling cross that represents the centralizing motion of the Eternal ALL. This first all-inclusive bubble, a magnificent iridescent sphere floating gracefully through eternity, is called God, and within its transparent shell creation lives and moves and has its being. Its purpose finally fulfilled, the bubble bursts and disappears, its parts are reabsorbed into the surrounding apparent nothingness.
All that man is or can ever hope to be depends upon his concept of God. No individual is greater than the God he worships, nor is he capable of worshiping a concept of God greater than himself. Thus is established a vicious circle. The noble concept of Baron von Leibnitz that the universe is made up of monads or metaphysical germs all contained within one great Monad may be contrasted with the theological concept of the last century which conceived the Deity to be a married man who took strange delight (as Voltaire has noted) in watching his creation eat the body of his beloved son at the sacrament. Man’s concept of God must pass through three definite states symbolized by the dot, the line, and the circle, which received so much consideration in the preceding lecture. The lowest concept of God is as a personality, a physical entity, whose symbol is the circumference of the circle. Superior to this concept is that of God as an individuality, a mental entity, whose symbol is the line. The third and highest definable concept is that of God as a spiritual entity, a permeating and diffusing life-giving principle, whose symbol is the dot. But above all these concepts and superior to God even as a spiritual entity is that concept of Absolute SPACE – formless and definitionless – whose only symbol is the blank sheet of paper.
In every philosophic system God is either the beginning or the end of the chain of thought. We may invest our concept of Deity with certain qualities and conditions and, accepting that as a starting point, seek to grasp the necessary process involved in the creation of the phenomenal sphere. Or we may posit as our working formula certain divine manifestation in the material universe, and by induction seek to understand the nature of a Deity capable of producing such phenomena out of its own nature. Thus in our investigation we either begin with the dot and travel toward the circumference, or we begin with the circumference and travel toward the dot. On the one hand we posit a Deity and then, imagining ourselves to be that Deity, construct a universe; on the other hand we posit a minute atom and through an infinite series of combinations and unfoldments trace manifesting life back to its spiritual source. Antiquity posited Divinity and then constructed the universe; the twentieth century first posits the universe and then looks for God. As God, however, is not obvious to the crass materialist, he is often entirely eliminated in the findings of that particular type of scientist. You will remember that upon reading Laplace’s great work upon astronomy Napoleon made the remark, "But you make no mention of God," to which the great scientist haughtily replied, "Sire, I have no need for that hypothesis."
Generally speaking, the elimination of God by the scientist is only a passing symptom. It occurs at that stage where the scientist, like the precocious child, upon reaching the summit of Fool’s Mountain decides that he himself is sufficient to postulate a cause for the universe and is qualified to manipulate it according to his own whims. Upon essaying the role of general manager of cosmos, man invariably discovers that the task is far too arduous, and so eventually returns to God his universe. Modern thought, which is basically skeptical, declares God to exist only when discovered. As yet, however, none has discovered Deity. The only discovery thus far made is the absolute necessity of a first Cause, and this paramount need for such a Supreme Activity is conclusive proof of the existence of such a force or being.
To summarize, the modern world bases its entire philosophy of life upon the reality of the visible, whereas the ancient world conceived the invisible to be the real. Thus we have two diametrically opposing viewpoints. In the final analysis it is evident that the viewpoint of antiquity is correct. In the first place, the visible is actually such a small part of existing Nature, it is inconceivable that it should be accorded a position of first importance. All bodies float in a vast sea of SPACE, forming but a fractional part of the contents of this great sphere of Being. The invisible life must be superior to its vehicle of manifestation. Therefore the great Reality – life –cannot actually be considered a part of the phenomenal universe. It is a strange but fundamental truth that the least permanent thing in the universe is a rock, and the most permanent is so-called empty space; for the time will come when the rock will cease to be, but space will never pass away. Form can be destroyed and is ever changing, but space, by its very nature, is indestructible and forever the same.
We now come to the nature of emptiness. Emptiness merely implies the absence of form; but the formless active agent, being all-permeating, fills all existence. You may pour the water out of a glass and then declare the glass to be empty because apparently it contains nothing. Any scientist, however, will assure you that the empty glass contains a sufficient number of atoms to blow the earth out of its orbit if their combined energy could be properly directionalized. Emptiness, therefore, is paradoxically an incomprehensible fullness. Philosophically considered, the absence of form means impossibility of destruction. That which has no form cannot have the form taken away. Emptiness, so-called, is consequently more permanent than fullness. In its conventional sense, fullness means that the container is filled to capacity with physical elements. The true fullness, however, is that area which is completely filled with spiritual and eternal agencies. Of such a nature is SPACE which, far from being empty, may be likened to a spiritual solid, whereas the physical world may be best described as a spiritual vacuum.
According to the Platonists, all the creations manifesting outward from the nature of God are arranged in the order of their proximity to first Cause. Those nearer the source of life partake more of the celestial effulgence than those more distant; in other words, the light radiating from a flame more closely resembles the flame at the source than at the extremity of its rays. The order of the gods is therefore determined by their proximity to the central creative fire of the universe, which is termed the Altar of Vesta or the Tower of the All-Wise Father. The gods are not to be considered as independent entities or forces, but rather as monads with numerous subordinate powers and intelligences dependent upon them. Each deity is, in turn, a dependency of a superior being, until at last all unite in a common dependency upon the benevolence of first Cause. Thus each individual deity may be symbolized by the dot, the line, and the circle. As a dot, each god is the central monad of a host of inferior dependencies; as a line, each god is a streaming radiance nourishing its subordinate parts; and as a circle or circumference each god is a fractional part of a still greater monadic entity. The majesty of these divinities is therefore established by the law of relativity. Each god is the father of a multitudinous progeny of a still higher and more exalted power to which it renders homage. Thus each deity is both a creator and a creation in one. As man ascends the ladder uniting effect with cause, he approaches ever closer to conscious realization of Source. He therefore passes through the angelic choirs described by Dante in his Paradisio. These choirs in concatenated circles about the flaming throne of the Eternal Father represent the orders of divine emanations. Thus the central flame is ever surrounded by a many-ringed nimbus of subordinate lights supporting all creation.
Let us approach the problem of macrocosmic interdependency through a consideration of certain microcosmic realities. The human body may be considered either as a single unit or as a host of minute living organisms combining in accordance with certain definite laws. Each individual cell is a living and immortal creature and it also has been definitely established that various organs of the human body possess at least a selective intelligence. Yet all these separate, living parts are suspended, as it were, from the single monad of the human heart. The heart is to the body what the sun is to the solar system and first Cause to existence. If one of the cells within the body dies, the body still lives, but if the chief governing monad ceases to function, then all the cells or dependent parts partake of the general dissolution. As the life of the body is centalized in the heart even though a general life is diffused throughout the body, so, while life may be discovered in every creature existing in the manifested sphere, all these subordinate lives are swept to a common destruction if the Great Monad upon which they depend be removed. The lesser lives have their origin in the greater and must always remain its dependents. Deity as the first Monad of the world is the foundation of the universe, the Sacred Island, sometimes analogous to Shamballah, the City of the Gods. Upon this Monad is erected all creation; with its dissolution the far-reaching and diversified phenomena collapse like a house of cards. Therefore God may be defined as that upon which a lesser part depends; our God is the Monad from whose nature we as lesser monads hang by hypothetical threads. Hence there are many gods, for all beings, both great and small, hang as dependencies upon the natures of superior forms of life.
Next we must consider the philosophic principle of priority. Of a number of things related to each other, that which is fundamental is primary or first, and the rest are dependencies. For example, a ship may carry a large and diversified cargo. If any part of the cargo be thrown overboard, the safety of the ship is not necessarily endangered. If, however, the ship should sink, all its cargo goes down too. Thus the cargo depends upon the ship for its preservation, but the ship does not depend upon the cargo. The priority of either a science or a living organism is established by the degree of its fundamental importance to all other sciences and organisms. The destruction of priority automatically annihilates all its dependencies. If you destroy that which is first, that which is secondary also ceases. If you destroy that which is secondary you in no way injure that which is first; you simply limit some phase of its manifestation. Pythagoras used the science of mathematics to illustrate the principle of priority. Remove mathematics and you destroy every form of human knowledge which is in any way dependent upon numbers or the theory of mathematics. For example, consider the relationship between mathematics and music. The science of harmonics is wholly dependent upon mathematics. If you remove the knowledge of music from the world, you destroy a certain phase of mathematics, but the body of numbers is left uninjured. On the other hand, if you remove mathematics from the world, the entire theory of harmonics perishes. Of the two mathematics is primary and music secondary. Another simple illustration: The tree has one trunk and many branches. The branches are dependencies of the trunk, for if one of the branches be removed the life of the tree is not seriously impaired and the other branches remain unaffected. Destroy the trunk, however, and all the branches die together. In the search for knowledge the highest wisdom is first to learn those things which have priority. To learn mathematics, for example, is to possess already a certain knowledge of all sciences, because it is the first among the sciences. For this reason the Greeks and Egyptians demanded of all disciples seeking initiation into the Mysteries an understanding of mathematics.
The identity of first things can be determined by applying the principle of priority. Things are considered of greater or lesser importance according to what they depend upon and what is dependent upon them. Man is master over those forms of life dependent upon him, but a slave to that infinity of forces which he depends upon for every expression and manifestation. The gods are merely symbolic representations of states of relative dependency. The gods are greater than man because they represent the members of existence upon which man depends. Such a chain of dependency is well represented by the institution of feudalism. A country was divided among a group of nobles whose relative importance depended upon the extent of their individual domains. A certain number of baronies constituted an earldom, and a group of earldoms, in turn, formed a dukedom. Above the dukedom was the principality, and over all the king, who on a smaller scale was the god of his nation. Greatness depends upon constructive and destructive power – destructive in the sense of changing rather than annihilating.
A further thought concerning the term dependency. Our hands and feet are dependent upon us for their animating principle; we are dependent upon them for the expression of certain innate desires and attitudes. Our hands and feet protect us, but they are obviously less than that which they protect. They may be likened to vassals or stewards. In the days of knighthood, when knights went into battle they were attended by esquires or stewards who rode behind their masters to free them from their heavy armor in the event they were unhorsed, or to arrange for a ransom with their conqueror. In ancient philosophy the gods represent the hands and feet and vital members of the cosmic body. Like the cherubim of the Jews, they run back and forth in the whirlwinds, executing the orders of the Most High even as our busy fingers carry out the dictates of our brain. The one Supreme Power manifesting throughout the cosmic organism should be considered as manifesting throughout all created things, each of which is a faculty or member of minor or major importance.
An interesting story came to our attention of an East Indian pundit who was trying to explain to a rather bigoted Christian missionary the reason for the great number of heads appearing upon the shoulders of certain Hindu divinities. "My dear sir," exclaimed the missionary, "yonder many-headed image is a ghastly caricature of a god, and how can any people who have risen above an aboriginal state worship such a grotesque and unnatural concept of God?" The pundit similingly replied: "You do not understand our method of symbolizing divine agencies. In your own scriptures it is plainly implied that God is all there is and that in him we live and move and have our being. God is the heavens and the earth and all the creatures that inhabit them. You have a head, I have a head, all human beings have heads. Has God, therefore, not as many heads as there are heads, as many hands as there are hands, and as many feet as there are feet? Are not all minds his mind, all thoughts his thoughts, and all works accomplished for him done by him through his manifested parts? Therefore, my dear sir, our failure is not for lack of comprehension but because no artist alive is able to carve enough heads to adequately represent the nature of the Creator."
Philosophy is not solely an intellectual reasoning process whereby certain definite conclusions are reached concerning macrocosmic and microcosmic realities. Philosophy utterly fails in its mission unless that mystical elixir – understanding – tinctures the whole. Understanding is the rarest of all faculties. It is a subtle power which adds to the intellectual concept a definite stimulating realization or intuitive grasp of the fundamental elements involved in any problem and their relationship to each other. Understanding is the ultimate stage of knowledge; it is the perfect realization of the purpose and meaning of things. For two thousand years the men of the church have been studying Christianity; orators have shouted its precepts from the housetops; the Crusaders carried the message with the sword, the monk with the crucifix, and the Holy Inquisition with the firebrand. For nearly two thousand years men and women of devout spirit have prayed and fasted and meditated; they have even died as martyrs that the spirit of their faith might go on. Of this host of propagandists of Christianity, most had either an intellectual or an emotional concept of the Master Jesus and his mission. Only here and there was one who understood, and too often his fate was to fall before the mob of enthusiastic but misunderstanding zealots. Today there are innumerable truths which remain unrevealed to the seeker after knowledge because he does not possess the philosophic open-sesame. To the understanding mind all doors open; to those without understanding life must ever remain a tormenting enigma.
At the beginning of this chapter is a diagram showing the god Brahma as the creator of the universe. From his three heads, representative of the triune nature of first Cause, extend three streamers of force outward to form the foundations of the three worlds. In modern Hindu mysticism Brahma is generally represented with four heads and occasionally with five, one of which is supposed to have been cut off by Shiva. The four headed Brahma is a demiurgic god, being the foundation of the four elements. The three-headed Brahma here referred to signifies the abstract Creative Logos, or the dot, manifesting as primitive potencies the threefold darkness of the Absolute, from whose incomprehensibility Brahma is but one degree removed. The three mouths of Brahma breathe forth the saved whirlwinds of cosmic breath, which become incarnate in the universe as the creative Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, and which correspond to the first trinity of all peoples. From one mouth issues the breath which is to become spirit, which, after passing through numerous modifications, manifests as the causal agent throughout the worlds. From the second mouth streams that force which is to be the intermediary state throughout the universe. This state is most tangible as mind or that mysterious thinking air which, permeating the objective thinking structure, manifests as continuity of reason, perception, and ultimately apperception. The third head breathes forth the Maker of worlds and his angels, and from these outpouring essences are fashioned the objective spheres and their diversified genera.
In mystical philosophy the dot, or first emanation, is presumed to have three faces. The key to their meaning is at once apparent if the word phases is substituted for faces. The dot contains three phases of one power, yet in an undifferentiated state. Thus God in mystic Christianity is the dot, while the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are his phases, or the first manifested Trimurti. The three phases or faces are sometimes referred to as the three modes of Being. From these primary modes manifests an infinitude of complex organisms. Between this cosmological mystery and the allegory of Noah’s ark there is a certain analogy. Noah is the dot, his three sons are the faces, and their wives are the shakti, or negative expressions of these faces. As from the positive pole of Being there is manifested this triad of agencies, so from the negative pole of Being is manifested the quaternary of demiurgic forces. The two combine to form the sacred septenary so appropriately symbolized in the Masonic apron with its triangle rising out of or falling into (according to the degree) the square. The descend of the 3 into the 4 properly symbolizes the ensoulment of the world by its spiritual cause; the ascent of the 3 out of the 4, the resurrection of life from its sepulcher of form.
The process by which the entire objective universe is caused to issue forth from the first monadic dot can be likened to that process by which the oak tree emerges from the acorn. It is unreasonable to assume that the oak tree manifests any qualities that were not originally in its seed, yet that so much should have come from apparently so little is indeed a mystery. The oak tree is in the acorn in potentiality, yet when these potentialities come into objective existence they seem vastly greater than their source. According to the Oriental mystics, the universe is an inverted tree. The seed is the dot from which springs forth the World Tree whose branches are the gods and whose leaves are creation. This is the great tree of the Cabalists and also the illusional banyan of the Hindus, for it exists but a moment upon the substances of Eternity and then falls back again into SPACE.
From the three mouths of the first Trimurti issue powers: spiritual, intellectual, and material; divine, human, and animal; also the creative elements of air, fire, and water, air being symbolic of the intangible Father, fire of the radiant Son, and water of the Demiurgus who seeks with material impulses to quench the fire of spiritual light. These three are personified as the Builders of the world. The Father is King Solomon, the Son is Hiram Abiff, and the Holy Spirit is Hiram of Tyre, who furnishes the materials.
Having thus established the fundamental nature of the dot, we now pass to the constitution of the line wherein is revealed the mystery of the Savior-God of all ages and the second Principle of existence
