(This is the first part of chapter two of William Q. Judge book "The Ocean of Theosophy," I added subheadings to make it easier to read, and my comments are in purple.)
The teachings of Theosophy deal for the present chiefly with our earth, although its purview extends to all the worlds, since no part of the manifested universe is outside the single body of laws which operate upon us.
Our globe being one of the solar system is certainly connected with Venus, Jupiter, and other planets, but as the great human family has to remain with its material vehicle —the earth— until all the units of the race which are ready are perfected, the evolution of that family is of greater importance to the members of it. Some particulars respecting the other planets may be given later on. First let us take a general view of the laws governing all.
The septenary structure
The universe evolves from the unknown, into which no man or mind, however high, can inquire, on seven planes or in seven ways or methods in all worlds, and this sevenfold differentiation causes all the worlds of the universe and the beings thereon to have a septenary constitution.
The law of correspondence
As was taught of old, the little worlds and the great are copies of the whole, and the minutest insect as well as the most highly developed being are replicas in little or in great of the vast inclusive original. Hence sprang the saying, "as above so below" which the Hermetic philosophers used.
The different planes of existence
The divisions of the sevenfold universe may be laid down roughly as: The Absolute, Spirit, Mind, Matter, Will, Akasa or Aether, and Life. In place of "the Absolute" we can use the word Space. For Space is that which ever is, and in which all manifestation must take place.
(Theosophically, this 'Space' is not the space known to scientists, but rather an abstract space without dimensions or time.)
As to the Absolute we can do no more than say IT IS. None of the great teachers of the School ascribe qualities to the Absolute although all the qualities exist in It.
Our knowledge begins with differentiation, and all manifested objects, beings, or powers are only differentiations of the Great Unknown. The most that can be said is that the Absolute periodically differentiates itself, and periodically withdraws the differentiated into itself.
The first differentiation — speaking metaphysically as to time — is Spirit, with which appears Matter and Mind.
The term Akasa, taken from the Sanskrit, is used in place of Aether, because the English language has not yet evolved a word to properly designate that tenuous state of matter which is now sometimes called Ether by scientists.
(I have read this association of Akasha with Ether on several occasions, but it is not correct because the ancient scientists theorized about the hypothetical existence of an invisible substance which they called "ether", which they considered to fill all of space and constitute the medium transmitting all manifestations of energy.
But later experiments showed them that this "ether" did not exist. In contrast, in Hinduism Akasha is the primordial substance, and the Masters affirm that it does exist.)
Akasa is produced from Matter and Spirit, Will is the force of Spirit in action and Life is a resultant of the action of Akasa, moved by Spirit, upon Matter.
But the Matter here spoken of is not that which is vulgarly known as such. It is the real Matter which is always invisible, and has sometimes been called Primordial Matter. In the Brahmanical system it is denominated Mulaprakriti. The ancient teaching always held, as is now admitted by Science, that we see or perceive only the phenomena but not the essential nature, body or being of matter.
Mind is the intelligent part of the Cosmos, and in the collection of seven differentiations above roughly sketched, Mind is that in which the plan of the Cosmos is fixed or contained. This plan is brought over from a prior period of manifestation which added to its ever-increasing perfectness, and no limit can be set to its evolutionary possibilities in perfectness, because there was never any beginning to the periodical manifestations of the Absolute, there never will be any end, but forever the going forth and withdrawing into the Unknown will go on.
Destruction at the end of the activity period
Wherever a world or system of worlds is evolving there the plan has been laid down in universal mind, the original force comes from spirit, the basis is matter —which is in fact invisible— Life sustains all the forms requiring life, and Akasa is the connecting link between matter on one side and spirit-mind on the other.
When a world or a system comes to the end of certain great cycles men record a cataclysm in history or tradition. These traditions abound; among the Jews in their flood; with the Babylonians in theirs; in Egyptian papyri; in the Hindu cosmology; and none of them as merely confirmatory of the little Jewish tradition, but all pointing to early teaching and dim recollection also of the periodical destructions and renovations. The Hebraic story is but a poor fragment torn from the pavement of the Temple of Truth.
Just as there are periodical minor cataclysms or partial destructions, so, the doctrine holds, there is the universal evolution and involution. Forever the Great Breath goes forth and returns again. As it proceeds outwards, objects, worlds and men appear; as it recedes all disappear into the original source.
This is the waking and the sleeping of the Great Being; the Day and the Night of Brahma; the prototype of our waking days and sleeping nights as men, of our disappearance from the scene at the end of one little human life, and our return again to take up the unfinished work in another life, in a new day.
OBSERVATIONS
William
Judge offered a different explanation from the one usually given by
instructors of Theosophy regarding the planes of existence, who
generally classify them as follows:
- The atmic or divine plane
- The bouddhic or spiritual plane
- The mental plane
- The kamic plane
- The vitality plane
- The astral plane
- The physical plane
William Judge, on the other hand, presented the following classification:
- The Absolute or Abstract Space
- The Divine Spirit
- The Divine Will
- The Divine Mind
- Mulaprakriti or "primordial matter"
- Akasha or the primordial substance
- Life
The structure taught by William Judge is correct, it just reveals other aspects, which I will explain below in a simplified way:
The Absolute is the highest reality we know, but it is such an abstract reality that to us it is more like NOTHINGNESS.
Blavatsky
explained that the Absolute cannot create because it is immutable, but
that it cyclically radiates the Divine Spirit (also known as The Logos,
Atman, Brahma, The Supreme God Creator of all, etc.)
And
it is the divine Spirit who will create the different planes of
existence from its own essence, producing transformations of itself.
First,
the divine Will is produced, since the divine Spirit is in a passive
state, and it is the divine Will that will create everything else.
Divine Will will create the Divine Mind, which in turn will create Mulaprakriti ("the primordial matter" which I prefer to call "the primordial essence" so that it is not confused with physical matter).
Then the Creator God transforms the primordial essence into primordial substance (Akasha).
And finally, from the primordial substance, it creates life.
~ * ~
William
Judge did not speak so much about the planes of existence as about the
creation and destruction of the planes of existence.
No comments:
Post a Comment