Friday 31 December 2021

Desmond Tutu on Universal Brother/Sisterhood

Desmond Mpilo Tutu OMSG CH GCStJ (7 October 1931 – 26 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner. He distinguished himself as a non-sectarian, inclusive champion of universal human rights. He espoused a perspective of  Liberal Christianity, a current inspired by Martin Luther King and Ghandi, which has Theosophical influences. His concepts of universal brotherhood are expressed through the notion of Ubuntu, God’s family, and the unity of humanity within diversity, using the term ‘Rainbow People’.

Dear child of God before we can become God’s partners, we must know what God wants from us. “I have a dream, “God says. Please help me realize it. It is a dream of a world whose ugliness and squalor and poverty, its war and hostility, its alienation and disharmony are changed into their glorious counterparts, where they will be more laughter, joy, and peace, where they will be justice and goodness and compassion and love and caring and sharing”. I have a dream that swords will be beaten into plough shares and spears into pruning hooks, that my children will know that they are members of one family, the human family, God’s family, my family (Tutu D 2004. God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time. Johannesburg: Rider, p.19).

In God’s family there are no outsiders, all are insiders black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Serb and Albanian, Hutu and Tutsi, Muslim and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu, Pakistani and Indian all belong (Tutu D 2004. God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time. Johannesburg: Rider, 20).

Ubuntu points out that those who seek to destroy and dehumanise are also victims. Never was this more obvious than during the apartheid years in South Africa. All humanity is inter-linked. The humanity of the perpetrators of apartheid was inexorable, bound to those of their victims when they dehumanise them by inflicting suffering and harm, they dehumanised themselves. The end of apartheid would put Ubuntu to the test, yet I never doubted its power of reconciliation. In fact I often recall the words of the man called Malusi Mpumlwana, an associate of Biko who even while he was being tortured by the security police looked at his torturers and realised that these were human beings too and that they needed him to help them.

We will grow in the knowledge that the white people are God’s children, even though they may be our oppressors, though they may be our enemies. Paradoxically and more truly, they are really our sisters and brothers, because we have the privilege to call God Abba our father. They belong together with us in the family of God, and their humanity is caught up in our humanity, as ours is caught up in theirs. (Tutu D 2004. God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time. Johannesburg: Rider, 71)

For this universe has been constructed in such a way that unless we live in accordance with its moral laws we will pay the price. And one such law is that we are bound together in what the bible calls “The bundle of life”. Our humanity is caught up in that of all others. We are human because we belong. We are made for community, for togetherness, for family to exist in a delicate net work of interdependence. Truly, ‘it is not good for man to be alone’. For none can be human alone. We are sisters and brothers of one another whether we like it or not Tutu
(Tutu D 1999. No Future Without Forgiveness. Johannesburg: Rider, 154)

At home in South Africa I have sometimes said in big meetings where you have black and white together: "Raise your hands!" Then I have said: "Move your hands," and I've said, "Look at your hands - different colours representing different people. (The Rainbow People of God: South Africa's Victory Over Apartheid by Desmond Tutu Doubleday, 1994)

We can be human only together. A person is a person to other persons. We so desperately long for all of us to learn that we are meant for one another. We are meant for complementarity. (Interview: Desmond Tutu on gay rights, the Middle East and Pope Francis September 13, 2013 Sarah Pulliam Bailey)

We have this thing called the extended family. When you are well to do it is quite amazing how many relatives you suddenly acquire. But the sense of family is something that the West longs for and lacks. Westerners are largely individualistic. (Tutu D 2004. God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time. Johannesburg:
Rider, 22)

I hope we can accept a wonderful truth – we are family! We are family! If we could get to believe this we would realize that care about ‘’the other’’ is not really altruistic, but it is the best form of self-interest. (qtd in Trystan Owain Hughes, The Compassion Quest, 2013)

Short Quotes

This is something that can unite us. We have 11 different official languages but only one word for the wonderful institution of braai (barbecue): in Xhosa, English, Afrikaans, whatever (September 2007)

We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God's family.

We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know.

God's dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.

In God's family, there are no outsiders, no enemies.

The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated.

God is not upset that Gandhi was not a Christian, because God is not a Christian! All of God's children and their different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God.

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity. And every human being is precious.

Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.

A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.

For goodness sake, will they hear, will white people hear what we are trying to say? Please, all we are asking you to do is to recognize that we are humans, too.

Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

How could you have a soccer team if all were goalkeepers? How would it be an orchestra if all were French horns? Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

Monday 20 December 2021

Astrology: Winter Solstice, December 21 2021, Part 2

New Frontiers

We arrive at the Winter Solstice with the final Saturn-Uranus square just three days later, a little over two weeks after the final two eclipses, marking the ending of the year in dramatic fashion.

Last year saw the start of three cycles with Saturn Pluto, Jupiter Pluto, and the Jupiter Saturn shift into 200 years of air transits.

Jupiter square Uranus, went exact not long after, on January 17. A month later, on February 17, the other major aspect of the year, Saturn square Uranus occurred marked in the United States on January 6th with violent pubic demonstrations at the senate buildings in the nation’s capital and in Myanmar where the army overturned the government, resulting in major public protests. The 2nd exact Saturn-Uranus square  occurred on June 14, a month later Afghanistan experienced the return of Taliban rule.

Heading towards the Winter Solstice, we had the Lunar Eclipse of November 19. Some events at that time included:

China's treatment of Uyghur Muslims has been a point of great concern for the international community, and talks of a diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Games in China emerged.

Rioting broke out at The Hague  over the Dutch government's new coronavirus measures. Elsewhere, an estimated 40,000 people on Saturday crowded the streets of Vienna in the country's biggest coronavirus-related protest to date.

Sudan's military chief reinstated Abdalla Hamdok as prime minister, almost a month after he was ousted in a military takeover. Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan appeared with Hamdok at a signing ceremony in the Presidential Palace. Hamdok and Al-Burhan also agreed on a power-sharing deal between civilian and military leadership.

Many high-profile court cases charged with social tensions in the US reached a conclusion: District Judge Royce Lamberth sentenced Jacob Chansley, the Jan. 6 Capitol rioter known as the "QAnon Shaman," to 41 months in prison on Wednesday for his role in the insurrection. Travis McMichael, his father, Greg McMichael, William (Roddie) Bryan were convicted of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. A jury acquitted teenager Kyle Rittenhouse on Friday of murder in the fatal shooting of two men during racial justice protests following the non-fatal shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer. Moreover,  two men convicted of assassinating Malcolm X were exonerated after a renewed investigation uncovered evidence proving authorities had withheld evidence that they were not the ones who gunned down the civil rights activist.

The U.S. recorded 100,306 drug-overdose deaths in the 12 months that ran through April, the most ever, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Wednesday. It was the first 12-month period in which overdoses surpassed 100,000. The record marked nearly a 29 percent rise compared to the same period a year earlier, indicating a sharp rise during the coronavirus pandemic.  Five people were killed and more than 40 were injured when a vehicle drove into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

We then had the Solar Eclipse of December 3.  Some events at that time included:

The US joined with international allies to impose new sanctions on Belarus in response to the migrant crisis on the border with Poland and the political repression and ongoing human rights violations committed by the regime of Belarus's longtime strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko.

It emerged that China recently tested a hypersonic weapon system, and is rapidly building up its nuclear arsenal, aiming to bring it to at least 1,000 warheads by 2030. Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations for the US Space Force, says China is developing its space capabilities at "twice the rate" of the US, and could overtake the US by the end of the decade. 

There is increasing concern over the potential for Russian aggression against Ukraine. Russia has rapidly escalated its military presence along the countries' shared border, amassing up to 175,000 troops there.

In Michigan , Ethan Crumbley, a 15-year-old is accused of fatally shooting four classmates and injuring several others at a Michigan high school.

The US is averaging more than 100,000 new Covid-19 cases a day, the first time the country has crossed that threshold in two months. Deaths are also on the rise, with an average of 1,651 people dying from Covid-19 each day over seven days. Scientists scramble to determine whether Omicron is more transmissible and more virulent than other strains. 

Final Saturn-Uranus square, December 24

The chart for this date is quite intense. There is a Moon, Mars, Jupiter T-Square, but with a Sun, Moon, Jupiter Triangle of Potential to facilitate positive resolution. According to Astrology Café:

We have an unusual situation in which Saturn, the conservative planet, is in a progressive sign, Aquarius, while Uranus, the progressive planet, is in a conservative sign, Taurus. There can be tension experienced as our needs for freedom and spontaneity seem to clash with a need for structure and stability. Rules and limitations can feel more challenging to tolerate, but without some lines drawn, life feels too chaotic. Attempts to assert our individuality, freedom, and originality tend to undermine our feeling of groundedness and security. There may be sudden and unexpected twists that force us to do something different or free ourselves from old habits. Ideally, we can find creative ways to satisfy these diverging needs, perhaps by giving form to our ideals and quest for progress. Adjusting our plans may be in order, and striking a balance between convention and innovation is the challenge. While this aspect is active, however, we can feel some real frustration (Café Astrology).

The current rise in Covid cases highlights the tension between necessary restrictions and the necessary freedom, since heavy isolating brings about mental health, substance abuse, and violence problems, and so it becomes necessary to find a balance in managing the crisis that keeps the infection numbers down without being overly stressful.

Judging from the previous ones, the third and final Saturn-Uranus square could bring some heavy difficulties, but it is also an opportunity to come to terms with the previous conflicts. It can be considered as a final reality check before this aspect gradually fades, embarking on a new, optimistic, constructive phase that the Jupiter-Saturn cycle brings.

2022

2022 will be marked by creativity with Jupiter conjunct Neptune in Pisces on 12 April, although this aspect does not look favorable for the pandemic, we'll have to see what the fall season looks like, as it is becoming apparent that the virus is becoming endemic. A brief outline of the major events:

Feb 17 – Jupiter sextile Uranus
Apr 12 – Jupiter conjunct Neptune
Apr 30 – Solar Eclipse
May 03 – Jupiter sextile Pluto
May 16 – Lunar Eclipse
Oct 25 – Solar Eclipse

Afterwards, we'll be experiencing some significant  new outlooks as three outer planets change signs over an exceptionally short period: Pluto enters Aquarius – 2023-24, Neptune enters Aries – 2025, Uranus enters Gemini – 2025. Between 2025-2028, the optimistic Jovian phase of the Jupiter-Saturn cycle will reach its height with some positive outer planet sextiles and trines before the more stern Saturn phase ensues around the Jupiter-Saturn opposition in 2030.

Wednesday 15 December 2021

Astrology: Winter Solstice, December 21 2021, Part 1

Cognitive Dissonance

We arrive at the Winter Solstice with the final Saturn-Uranus square just three days later, a little over a week after the final two eclipses, marking the ending of the year in dramatic fashion. This chart gives a snapshot of the coming quarter.

An interesting chart with a tight Moon (in Cancer) in opposition to a tight Venus-Pluto

conjunction (in Capricorn) , but with some interesting added complexities, because the Moon is also the center of a Yod with the Sun and Jupiter, with Venus/Pluto forming the 4th element of a Yod Kite or Boomerang. The Moon is also in trine to both Neptune and Mars (had Mars been 10 degrees back, there would have been a full Grand Trine kite).

Moon, Sun, Jupiter Yod

Moon Quincunx (Inconjunct) Jupiter You always “land on your feet” but often so far away from where you expected or where you said you will be, that you confuse others.

Sun Quincunx (Inconjunct) Moon As others misunderstand your intentions and you misjudge others’ motivations, natural corrections occur for you.

Sun sextile Jupiter excellent time for financial transactions, making plans for the future, making investments, resolving conflicts with others, and boosting your self-confidence; feeling particularly vital and confident.

A 4th element forms a boomerang, in this case a Venus/Pluto conjunction

Venus conjunct Pluto Passions are strong and intense. the desire to sway, coerce, and manipulate others; focused and confident, especially business and finances, as well as with regards to love and partnership.

Moon opposition Venus Interference that prevents you from doing something; domestic matters might burden you; minor social upsets or problems with love affair; an unusual attraction to someone perhaps unsuitable; minor problems with money, and some hypersensitivity.

Moon opposition Pluto An issue from the past may come up to haunt you now, or you could lose something; that which is hidden has a tendency to surface; someone close to you might be dredging up the past; intensity in your personal relationships and/or inner emotional turmoil difficulty in letting go of something.

Moreover, Neptune and Mars bring in three easier aspects help resolve the intense Moon-Venus/Pluto opposition

Moon trine Mars Self-confidence and ability to assert yourself without ruffling the feathers of people around you; esire nature and emotions are cooperating beautifull; you feel “in sync” with your environment.

Moon trine Neptune charming, compassionate, and easily touched now;  more vulnerable than usual, and open to outside influences; detour away from your routine–or longing for a break.

Saturn square Neptune

Three easy aspects help deal with the Saturn square Neptune aspect (see previous posts)

Venus sextile Neptune more imaginative and attuned to the world of beauty and romance; appreciate the subtleties of human interactions now, and you could notice some interesting synchronicities occurring in your own relationships or with your personal finances.

Mars trine Saturn a good time to appreciate determined effort and actions; sense of responsibility and purposefulness.

Mercury trine Uranus good to communicate online, and to take part in activities involving computers, science, or metaphysics; Original, creative ideas are easy to come by now, and progressive conversations.

Some minor added confusion

Mars square Jupiter boastful or overestimate your capabilities; tremendous energy; forgetting or ignoring important details; ideas or plans may be too big; excitable and competitive.

Neptune square Sun self-deception may be your biggest “enemy”, and for some, deception from others might be a theme; a time of illusions and confusion; more idealistic than usual, which can cause a few problems if you’re not careful.

Summary

A very interesting, intense chart, with a very energized Cancer-Capricorn axis, just three days prior to the third and final exact Saturn-Uranus square. The picture is one were passions and exuberances are causing misunderstandings and past relationship issues are needing to be addressed, but there are exceptional supports to resolve matters and straighten things out. In terms of the pandemic, the theme could be how the pandemic affects your relationships, both family and professional. Astrology Café gives some insights, on how to resolve this Moon, Sun, Jupiter, Venus/Pluto boomerang:

Avoid confrontations and mind games. Things shouldn’t be forced, To really understand others and life itself, you need to allow others to know you. Practice being more reliable; then, you will understand yourself, others and life all at once. Your optimism needs focus and to be harnessed to specific projects. Your perceptions of others and of life circumstances alter as you get older. It is through concentrating on the core values of communication in relationships that you make major adjustments between your ego drives and your emotional needs. This becomes a critical mechanism for personal growth and development.

 References

https://cafeastrology.com/events/saturn-square-uranus/

 

Thursday 9 December 2021

Eliphas Levi and Theosophy I

In some recent posts we covered the occult axiom, ‘’Toknow, to dare, to will, and to be silent’’ which Eliphas Levi uses in his Dogme et rituel de la haute magie and other works. Indeed the writings of Eliphas Levi have many instances of esoteric explanations similar to Theosophical doctrines, some of  which early theosophists have commented on. Below is an excerpt from an early example, the colored text being notes by H. P. Blavatsky. The series of three unpublished essays mentioned are in addition to another series of ten unpublished essays by Eliphas Levi published in The Theosophist that same year. Egregore is a Greek term meaning watcher. About half of Levi's text is presented below, although the full text is worth reading.

Essay Selections by Éliphas Lévi (translated from French) | Notes by H.P.B.

The three Essays—the first of which is now given—belong to the unpublished MSS. of the late French Occultist, a series of whose other Lectures on Secret Sciences is being published serially in the Journal of the Theosophical Society. These three papers were kindly copied and sent for this Magazine by our respected Brother, Baron Spedalieri, F.T.S., of Marseilles. We hope to give, in good time, the translation of every scrap ever written by this remarkable “Professor of High Transcendental Sciences and Occult Philosophy,” whose only mistake was to pander rather conspicuously to the dogmas of the established church—the church that unfrocked him.

Essay 1. The Eggregores.1

1. The giants of Enoch.—Translator.

One Spirit fills Immensity. It is the Spirit of God that nothing limits, nothing divides, which is all in all and everywhere; which pervades every atom, and that nothing can shut out.2

2. In other words, it is the confession of Vedantic faith: “All this universe indeed is Brahm; from brahm does it proceed; into Brahm it is dissolved; in Brahm it breathes.”

Created Spirits3 could not live without envelopes suited to their surroundings, permitting action while limiting it, and preventing them from becoming absorbed into the infinity. . . .

3. The term “created” is a perfect misnomer when used by an Occultist, and always a blind in the works of Éliphas Lévi, who is quite aware of the fallacy implied in the word “Creation,” in the theistic sense, and shows this repeatedly in his writings. It is the last tribute, we hope, paid by our century to an unscientific dogma of the Past.

There can be no such things as spirits, formless or without an envelope.4

4. Again an incorrect term. A “spirit” is––spirit only so long as it is formless and arupa; and it loses its name as soon as it becomes entangled in matter or substance of any kind known to us. A “Spiritual Entity” would answer better.

Their forms correspond to the sphere they inhabit; and in our atmosphere, for example, no spirits can exist save those of men—with bodies as we see them here—and those of animals, of whose nature and destiny we are so far ignorant.5 . . .

5. So little was E. L. “ignorant” of the nature—and ultimate destiny—of animals that he devotes to this a number of pages in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie. No true Occultist can be in the dark upon this subject. The prudent author pandered, we are afraid, to public prejudice and superstition.

According to some ancient Hierophants matter is but the substratum of created spirits.6

6. Or the highest Dhyan Chohans of Occultism. At the beginning of Manvantara, the Fohat which they radiate awakens and differentiates Mahattattva, itself the radiation of Mulaprakriti.

Deity does not immediately create matter. Out of God emanate the powers, the Elohim, which constitute Heaven and Earth. According to this doctrine, the first sentence of Genesis ought to be interpreted in the following wise:—Bereshith, the head of first principle Bara, created (rather formed out of pre-existence material) the Elohim, the Powers7 Ath aschamain onath aoris, which are, or which (virtually) constitute heaven and earth. . . .

7. Among the Hindus Kasyapa (Brahma) begets the Adityas (Dhyan Chohans).

These Elohim or Powers are regarded as the great souls of worlds, whose forms would thus become the specified substances in their elementary virtues. In order to create a world, the Deity, it is said, had to bind together four genii, who in the act of resisting and wrestling first produced chaos; and who, forced to take rest after the struggle, thus formed the harmony of the Elements. . . . the great law of equilibrium or harmony—called the will of God—preventing the ever-going struggle from destroying the worlds, before the time allotted to them for their transfiguration.8 . . .

8. This is the doctrine of the Manvantaric and 1st Pralayic periods plainly taught in Esoteric Buddhism.

The worlds like the Elohim are bound together by magnetic chains which, in their everlasting mutiny, they try to break. Suns have other suns for rivals; planets other planets opposing the chains of attraction in equal energy of repulsion, to avoid being absorbed, and thus preserve each an individual existence.

These colossal powers have sometimes assumed a form and presented themselves under the appearance of giants: they are the Eggregores of the Book of Enoch:9 terrible creatures . ..

9. The “giants” of Genesis who loved the daughters of men: an allusion to the first prehuman (so to say) races of men evoluted, not born—the Alpha and the Omega of Humanity in this our “Round.”

The study of nature enables us to observe contradictions that amaze us. We are detecting everywhere signs of intelligence, but as often we stumble upon, and have to recognize entirely blind forces.10 Scourges denote perturbations . . . Plagues, inundations, earth-quakes, famines are not the work of God. To attribute them to the devil, i.e., to an angel damned, whose evil deeds are permitted by God, amounts to calling God a hypocrite hiding behind the back of a responsible but evil-famed manager. . . .


10. A “blind” action does not necessarily constitute an undeniable proof that the agent it emanates from is devoid of individual consciousness or “intelligence.” It may simply point out the superiority of one force over the other, domineering, and hence guiding forcibly the actions of the weakest. There are no “blind” forces in nature in the sense the author places on the adjective. Every atom of the universe is permeated with the Universal Intelligence, from the latent spark in the mineral up to the quasi-divine light in man’s brain. It is all as E. L. says “action and reaction,” attraction or repulsion, two forces of equal potentiality being often brought to a dead standstill only owing to a mutual neutralization of power.—Translator.

According to the doctrine the planets busy themselves but with their sympathies and antipathies. Your sun—whose spots you regard as a commencement of his cooling off11—is slowly and fatally drawn toward the constellation of Hercules. One day he will become short of heat and light—for planets get old and have to die as well as men . . .

11. E. L. says “you regard”; for, he himself, as an Occultist, does not so regard them. The real occult doctrine upon solar physics is given out plainly enough in the September number of The Theosophist (1883), Art. Replies to an English F. T. S.

A new creation will emerge out of chaos, and we shall be reborn as a new species better fitted to struggle against the stupid bulk of the Eggregores. Such changes will take place up to the time when the great Adam will be entirely reconstituted12—Adam—that Spirit of spirits, that Form of forms, that collective giant who makes up the totality of creation . . .

12. The seventh and last race of the seventh Round.

(The Theosophist, March, 1884)

Thursday 2 December 2021

Secret Doctrine I study notes, Stanzas of Dzyan, Third Stanza 3/3

3.10. Spirit-Substance spin a web whose upper end is fastened to Spirit, the matter of the Pure Spirit, and the lower one to Matter, Spirit’s shadowy end; and the web is the Universe spun out of the two substances made in one, which is Swabhava, the plastic essence that fills the Universe.

3.11. The web of the Universe expands when the Heat of Fire is upon it; it contracts when the heat of the Root of Matter touches it. Then the Elements with their respective Powers, or Intelligences dissociate and scatter, to return into the source of the Root of Matter at the end of the great cycle and merge with it. When the web is cooling, it becomes radiant, the Elements expand and contract through their own selves and hearts; they embrace infinitude.

3.12. Then the self-existent plastic Essence sends the primordial Electric Entity to electrify into life, and separate primordial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness. (i.e., by infusing energy into them: he scatters the atoms or primordial matter). Each of these is a part of the structure of the Universe. Reflecting the Primeval Light (Mahat) like a mirror (It is through Fohat that the ideas of the Universal Mind are impressed upon matter), each becomes in turn a world (like a fire that can light an endless amount of candles, without diminishing its flame).

10. Father-Mother spin a web whose upper end is fastened to Spirit (Purusha), the light of the one Darkness, and the lower one to Matter (Prakriti) its (the Spirits) shadowy end; and this web is the Universe spun out of the two substances made in one, which is Swabhava (a).

Brahma, as “the germ of unknown Darkness,” is the material from which all evolves and develops “as the web from the spider, as foam from the water,” etc. This is only graphic and true, if Brahma the “Creator” is, as a term, derived from the root brih, to increase or expand. Brahma “expands” and becomes the Universe woven out of his own substance. (SD1, 83)

Father-Mother:  the male and female principles in root-nature, the opposite poles that manifest in all things on every plane of Kosmos, or Spirit and Substance, in a less allegorical aspect, the resultant of which is the Universe, or the Son.  (SD1, 41)

Purusha: Spirit. (SD1, 83)

Prakriti: Matter (SD1, 83)

Darkness: Darkness, then, is the eternal matrix in which the sources of light appear and disappear. “Darkness is Father-Mother: light their son,” says an old Eastern proverb. (SD1, 40-4) The essence of darkness being absolute light, Darkness is taken as the appropriate allegorical representation of the condition of the Universe during Pralaya, or the term of absolute rest, or non-being, as it appears to our finite minds. … According to the tenets of Eastern Occultism, Darkness is the one true actuality, the basis and the root of light, without which the latter could never manifest itself, nor even exist. Light is matter, and Darkness pure Spirit. Darkness, in its radical, metaphysical basis, is subjective and absolute light; while the latter in all its seeming effulgence and glory, is merely a mass of shadows, as it can never be eternal, and is simply an illusion, or Maya. (SD1, 70)

Svabhava: the “Plastic Essence” that fills the Universe, is the root of all things. Svabhavat is, so to say, the Buddhistic concrete aspect of the abstraction called in Hindu philosophy Mulaprakriti. It is the body of the Soul, and that which Ether would be to Akasa, the latter being the informing principle of the former. Chinese mystics have made of it the synonym of “being.” In the Ekasloka-Shastra of Nagarjuna (the Lung-shu of China) called by the Chinese the Yih-shu-lu-kia-lun, it is said that the original word of Yeu is “Being” or “Subhava,” “the Substance giving substance to itself,” also explained by him as meaning “without action and with action,” “the nature which has no nature of its own.” Subhava, from which Svabhavat, is composed of two words: Su “fair,” “handsome,” “good”; Sva, “self”; and bhava, “being” or “states of being.” (SD1, 61)

Spirit-Substance spin a web whose upper end is fastened to Spirit, the matter of the Pure Spirit, and the lower one to Matter, Spirit’s shadowy end; and the web is the Universe spun out of the two substances made in one, which is Svhabhava, the plastic essence that fills the Universe.

11. It (the Web) expands when the breath of fire (the Father) is upon it; it contracts when the breath of the mother (the root of Matter) touches it. Then the sons (the Elements with their respective Powers, or Intelligences) dissociate and scatter, to return into their mother’s bosom at the end of the “great day” and rebecome one with her (a). When it (the Web) is cooling, it becomes radiant, its sons expand and contract through their own selves and hearts; they embrace infinitude. (b)

The expanding of the Universe under the breath of Fire is very suggestive in the light of the “Fire mist” period of which modern science speaks so much, and knows in reality so little.

Great heat breaks up the compound elements and resolves the heavenly bodies into their primeval one element, explains the commentary. “Once disintegrated into its primal constituent by getting within the attraction and reach of a focus, or centre of heat (energy), of which many are carried about to and fro in space, a body, whether alive or dead, will be vapourised and held in “the bosom of the Mother” until Fohat, gathering a few of the clusters of Cosmic matter (nebulae) will, by giving it an impulse, set it in motion anew, develop the required heat, and then leave it to follow its own new growth. (SD1, 83-84)

There is heat internal and heat external in every atom,” say the manuscript Commentaries, to which the writer has had access; “the breath of the Father (or Spirit) and the breath (or heat) of the Mother (matter);” (SD1, 84)

The expanding and contracting of the Web — i.e., the world stuff or atoms — expresses here the pulsatory movement; for it is the regular contraction and expansion of the infinite and shoreless Ocean of that which we may call the noumenon of matter emanated by Swabhavat, which causes the universal vibration of atoms. (SD1, 84)

But even this will be found irreconcileable, unless this “something besides heat” is ticketed “Causeless Heat,” the “Breath of Fire,” the all-creative Force plus absolute intelligence, which physical science is not likely to accept. (SD1, 85)

The web of the Universe expands when the Heat of Fire is upon it; it contracts when the heat of the Root of Matter touches it. Then the Elements with their respective Powers, or Intelligences dissociate and scatter, to return into the source of the Root of Matter at the end of the great cycle and merge with it. When the web is cooling, it becomes radiant, the Elements expand and contract through their own selves and hearts; they are infinite.

12. Then Svabhava sends Fohat to harden the atoms. Each (of these) is a part of the web (Universe). Reflecting the “Self-Existent Lord” (Primeval Light) like a mirror, each becomes in turn a world.* . . .

* This is said in the sense that the flame from a fire is endless, and that the lights of the whole Universe could be lit at one simple rush-light without diminishing its flame.

“Fohat hardens the atoms”; i.e., by infusing energy into them: he scatters the atoms or primordial matter. “He scatters himself while scattering matter into atoms” (MSS. Commentaries.)

Fohat: It is through Fohat that the ideas of the Universal Mind are impressed upon matter. Some faint idea of the nature of Fohat may be gathered from the appellation “Cosmic Electricity” sometimes applied to it; but to the commonly known properties of electricity must, in this case, be added others, including intelligence. It is of interest to note that modern science has come to the conclusion, that all cerebration and brain-activity are attended by electrical phenomena. (SD1, 85)

Self-Existent Lord: Primeval Light. The Mahat (Understanding, Universal Mind, Thought, etc.), before it manifests itself as Brahma or Siva, appears as Vishnu, says Sankhya Sara (p. 16); hence Mahat has several aspects, just as the logos has. Mahat is called the Lord, in the Primary Creation, and is, in this sense, Universal Cognition or Thought Divine; but, “That Mahat which was first produced is (afterwards) called Ego-ism, when it is born as “I,” that is said to be the second Creation” (Anugita, ch. xxvi.). (SD1, 76)

All the Kabalists and Occultists, Eastern and Western, recognise (a) the identity of “Father-Mother” with primordial AEther or Akasa, (Astral Light)*; and (b) its homogeneity before the evolution of the “Son,” cosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. “Fohat hardens and scatters the seven brothers” (Book III. Dzyan); which means that the primordial Electric Entity — for the Eastern Occultists insist that Electricity is an Entity — electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness. “There exists an universal agent unique of all forms and of life, that is called Od,† Ob, and Aour, active and passive, positive and negative, like day and night: it is the first light in Creation” (Eliphas Levi’s Kabala): — the first Light of the primordial Elohim — the Adam, “male and female” — or (scientifically) electricity and life. (SD1, 76)

Primordial matter, then, before it emerges from the plane of the never-manifesting, and awakens to the thrill of action under the impulse of Fohat, is but “a cool Radiance, colourless, formless, tasteless, and devoid of every quality and aspect.” Even such are her first-born, the “four sons,” who “are One, and become Seven,” — the entities, by whose qualifications and names the ancient Eastern Occultists called the four of the seven primal “centres of Forces,” or atoms, that develop later into the great Cosmic “Elements,” now divided into the seventy or so sub-elements, known to science. (SD1, 82)

Then the self-existent plastic Essence sends the primordial Electric Entity to electrify into life, and separate primordial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness. (i.e., by infusing energy into them: he scatters the atoms or primordial matter). Each of these is a part of the structure of the Universe. Reflecting the Primeval Light (Mahat) like a mirror (It is through Fohat that the ideas of the Universal Mind are impressed upon matter), each becomes in turn a world, (like a fire that can light an endless amount of candles, without diminishing its flame).

Thursday 25 November 2021

Secret Doctrine I study notes, Stanzas of Dzyan, Third Stanza 2/3

3.7. The radiant result of  the union of the two (the divine Ray and Chaos), the unparalleled refulgent glory, manifested Space, the progeny of unmanifested space, emerges from the depths of chaos. It is Oeaohoo, the younger (Avalokitesvara), the Logos, the synthesis of Universal Wisdom, the essence of manifested Wisdom.(a)

He shines forth like the sun. He is the Logos (this first manifestation, being the synthesis or the aggregate of Universal Wisdom). This one is four, and the four takes to itself three, and the union produces the seven in whom are the seven (the Seven Creative Hosts) which become the hosts and the multitudes, the root-number which is thirty-three (12 Adityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and 2 Aswins).(b)

He lifts the veil and unfurls it from East to West. He shuts out the above and leaves the below to be seen as the great illusion. He marks the places for the stars and turns the upper space into infinite Akasha (the first radiation from the Root, the Mulaprakriti, the undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which becomes Astral Matter), and the one manifested element into pregenetic matter. (c)

3.8. Where was abstract matter? And where was the Eternal Matrix? Where is the spirit of the flame that burns in your lamp? Abstract Matter is THAT (the concealed and the unrevealed Principle), and THAT is Light (the same Omnipresent Spiritual Ray, which has entered and now fecundated the Divine Egg); that male or temporary deity, as he, the emanation of the primordial Ray, is made to serve as a Vahan or vehicle for that divine Ray, which otherwise could not manifest itself in the Universe.

3.9. Light, is the unmanifested soul of things, and the soul of things (flame) is the creator, preserver and destoyer of light (fire),  the soul of things (fire) produces Cosmic heat, the energy that actuates matter after its first formation into atoms our plane (water of life) in chaos.

7. Behold, oh Lanoo!† the radiant Child of the two, the unparalleled refulgent Glory, Bright Space, Son of Dark Space, who emerges from the depths of the great Dark Waters. It is Oeaohoo, the Younger, the * * * (whom thou knowest now as Kwan-Shai-Yin.Comment) (a).

Bright Space, son of dark Space: the Ray dropped at the first thrill of the new “Dawn” into the great Cosmic depths, from which it re-emerges differentiated as Oeaohoo the younger, (the “new LIFE”), to become, to the end of the life-cycle, the germ of all things. He is “the Incorporeal man who contains in himself the divine Idea,” — the generator of Light and Life, to use an expression of Philo Judaeus. (SD1, 70)

The radiant result of  the union of the two (the divine Ray and Chaos), the unparalleled refulgent glory, Bright Space, the progeny of dark space, emerges from the depths of chaos. It is Oeaohoo, the younger (Avalokitesvara), the Logos, the synthesis of Universal Wisdom, the essence of manifested Wisdom.(a)

He shines forth as the Sun. He is the blazing Divine Dragon of Wisdom. The Eka is Chatur (four), and Chatur takes to itself three, and the union produces the Sapta (seven) in whom are the seven which become the Tridasa‡ (the thrice ten) the hosts and the multitudes (b).

Blazing Dragon of Wisdom: is that which the Greek philosophers called the Logos, the Verbum of the Thought Divine; and secondly, because in Esoteric philosophy this first manifestation, being the synthesis or the aggregate of Universal Wisdom, Oeaohoo, “the Son of the Son,” contains in himself the Seven Creative Hosts (The Sephiroth), and is thus the essence of manifested Wisdom. “He who bathes in the light of Oeaohoo will never be deceived by the veil of Maya.” (SD1, 70-71)… “The “Dragon of Wisdom” is the One, the “Eka” (Sanskrit) or Saka. (SD1, 73)

Tri-dasa:  three times ten (30), alludes to the Vedic deities, in round numbers, or more accurately 33 — a sacred number. They are the 12 Adityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and 2 Aswins — the twin sons of the Sun and the Sky. This is the root-number of the Hindu Pantheon, which enumerates 33 crores or over three hundred millions of gods and goddesses.

whereas, the gnostic Ophis contained the same triple symbolism in its seven vowels as the One, Three and Seven-syllabled Oeaohoo of the Archaic doctrine; i.e., the One Unmanifested Logos, the Second manifested, the triangle concreting into the Quaternary or Tetragrammaton, and the rays of the latter on the material plane. (SD1, 73)

The “Spirit of God moving on Chaos” was symbolized by every nation in the shape of a fiery serpent breathing fire and light upon the primordial waters, until it had incubated cosmic matter and made it assume the annular shape of a serpent with its tail in its mouth — which symbolises not only Eternity and Infinitude, but also the globular shape of all the bodies formed within the Universe from that fiery mist. (SD1, 74)

† By “God, the Father,” the seventh principle in Man and Kosmos are here unmistakeably meant, this principle being inseparable in its Esse and Nature from the seventh Cosmic principle. In one sense it is the Logos of the Greeks and the Avalokiteswara of the esoteric Buddhists. (SD1, 74)


He shines forth like the sun. He is the blazing dragon of divine wisdom, the Logos (this first manifestation, being the synthesis or the aggregate of Universal Wisdom). This one is four, and the four takes to itself three, and the union produces the seven in whom are the seven (the Seven Creative Hosts) which become the hosts and the multitudes, the root-number which is thirty-three (12 Adityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and 2 Aswins).

Behold him lifting the Veil, and unfurling it from East to West. He shuts out the above and leaves the below to be seen as the great Illusion. He marks the places for the shining ones (stars) and turns the upper (space) into a shoreless Sea of Fire, and the One manifested (element) into the Great Waters (c).

Sea of Fire: is then the Super-Astral (i.e., noumenal) Light, the first radiation from the Root, the Mulaprakriti, the undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which becomes Astral Matter. It is also called the “Fiery Serpent,” as above described. (SD1, 75)

All the Kabalists and Occultists, Eastern and Western, recognise (a) the identity of “Father-Mother” with primordial AEther or Akasa, (Astral Light)*; and (b) its homogeneity before the evolution of the “Son,” cosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. “Fohat hardens and scatters the seven brothers” (Book III. Dzyan); which means that the primordial Electric Entity — for the Eastern Occultists insist that Electricity is an Entity — electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness.  (SD1,  75-76)

But there are two secret Hermetical operations, one spiritual, the other material-correlative, and for ever united. “Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the solid . . . that which ascends from earth to heaven and descends again from heaven to earth. It (the subtile light), is the strong force of every force, for it conquers every subtile thing and penetrates into every solid. Thus was the world formed” (Hermes). (SD1, 76)

The veil is lifted and unfurled from East to West. The spiritual plane is shut out and the material plane is left to be seen as the great illusion. He marks the places for the stars and turns the upper space into infinite Akasha (the first radiation from the Root, the Mulaprakriti, the undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which becomes Astral Matter), and the one manifested element into pregenetic matter.

8. Where was the germ, and where was now darkness? Where is the spirit of the flame that burns in thy lamp, oh Lanoo? The germ is that, and that is light; the white brilliant son of the dark hidden father (a).

Germ: the point in the Mundane Egg, represented by matter in its abstract sense.sd 1 57 The Pythagorean Monad is also said to dwell in solitude and darkness like the “germ.” (SD1, 63)

Darkness: Darkness, then, is the eternal matrix in which the sources of light appear and disappear. “Darkness is Father-Mother: light their son,” says an old Eastern proverb. (SD1, 40-41)

That: In the Sanscrit Commentary on this Stanza, the terms used for the concealed and the unrevealed Principle are many. In the earliest MSS. of Indian literature this Unrevealed, Abstract Deity has no name. It is called generally “That” (Tad in Sanskrit), and means all that is, was, and will be, or that can be so received by the human mind.

Among such appellations, given, of course, only in esoteric philosophy, as the “Unfathomable Darkness,” the “Whirlwind,” etc. — it is also called the “It of the Kalahansa, the Kala-ham-sa,” and even the “Kali Hamsa,” (Black swan). Here the m and the n are convertible, and both sound like the nasal French an or am, or, again, en or em (Ennui, Embarras, etc.) (SD1, 78)

As to the strange symbol chosen, it is equally suggestive; the true mystic significance being the idea of a universal matrix, figured by the primordial waters of the “deep,” or the opening for the reception, and subsequently for the issue, of that one ray (the Logos), which contains in itself the other seven procreative rays or powers (the logoi or builders). (SD1, 80)

Light: the same Omnipresent Spiritual Ray, which has entered and now fecundated the Divine Egg, and calls cosmic matter to begin its long series of differentiations. (SD1, 68)

White Brillant Son of Dark Father: The “Swan or goose” (Hansa) is the symbol of that male or temporary deity, as he, the emanation of the primordial Ray, is made to serve as a Vahan or vehicle for that divine Ray, which otherwise could not manifest itself in the Universe, being, antiphrastically, itself an emanation of “Darkness” — for our human intellect, at any rate. It is Brahma, then, who is Kala-Hansa, and the Ray, the Hansa-Vahana. (SD1, 80)

The answer to the first question, suggested by the second, which is the reply of the teacher to the pupil, contains in a single phrase one of the most essential truths of occult philosophy. It indicates the existence of things imperceptible to our physical senses which are of far greater importance, more real and more permanent, than those that appeal to these senses themselves. Before the Lanoo can hope to understand the transcendentally metaphysical problem contained in the first question he must be able to answer the second, while the very answer he gives to the second will furnish him with the clue to the correct reply to the first. (SD1, 77)

Where was abstract matter? And where was the Eternal Matrix? Where is the spirit of the flame that burns in your lamp? Abstract Matter is THAT (the concealed and the unrevealed Principle), and THAT is Light (the same Omnipresent Spiritual Ray, which has entered and now fecundated the Divine Egg); that male or temporary deity, as he, the emanation of the primordial Ray, is made to serve as a Vahan or vehicle for that divine Ray, which otherwise could not manifest itself in the Universe.

9. Light is cold flame, and flame is fire, and the fire produces heat, which yields water, the water of life in the great mother (Chaos) (a).

All these — “Light,” “Flame,” “Hot,” “Cold,” “Fire,” “Heat,” “Water,” and the “water of life” are all, on our plane, the progeny; or as a modern physicist would say, the correlations of electricity. (SD1, 81)

Electricity: Electricity, the one Life at the upper rung of Being, and Astral Fluid

Fire: the creator, the preserver and the destroyer; of light — the essence of our divine ancestors;

Flame: the Soul of things.

Cosmic heat: the energy that actuates matter after its first formation into atoms our plane

Water of Life: matter after its first formation into atoms our plane.

Now, why is Light called in the Stanzas “cold flame”? Because in the order of Cosmic evolution (as taught by the Occultist), the energy that actuates matter after its first formation into atoms is generated on our plane by Cosmic heat; and because Kosmos, in the sense of dissociated matter, was not, before that period. The first primordial matter, eternal and coeval with Space, “which has neither a beginning nor an end,” is “neither hot nor cold, but is of its own special nature,” says the Commentary (Book II). Heat and cold are relative qualities and pertain to the realms of the manifested worlds, which all proceed from the manifested Hyle, which, in its absolutely latent aspect, is referred to as the “cold Virgin,” and when awakened to life, as the “Mother.”… (SD1, 82)

Light, is the unmanifested soul of things, and the soul of things (flame) is the creator, preserver and destroyer of light (fire),  the soul of things (fire) produces Cosmic heat, the energy that actuates matter after its first formation into atoms our plane (water of life) in chaos.