IX. Meeting held at 17, Lansdowne Road, London, W., on March 7th, 1889; Sloka (10). FATHER-MOTHER SPIN A WEB WHOSE UPPER Q. Spirit and matter are the opposite ends of the same web; light and darkness, heat and cold, void or space and fulness of all that exists are also opposites. In what sense are these three parts of opposites associated with Spirit and Matter? A. In the sense in which everything in the universe is associated with either Spirit or Matter, one of these being taken as the permanent element 32 or both. Pure Matter is pure Spirit and cannot be understood even if admitted by our finite intellects. Neither light nor darkness as optical effects, are matter, nor are they spirit, but they are the qualities of the former (matter). Q. In what relation does Ether stand to Spirit and Matter? A. Make a difference between Ether and Ether, the former being divine, the latter physical and infernal. Ether is the lowest of the septenate division of Akâsa-Pradhana, primordial Fire-Substance. Ether-Akâsa is the fifth and sixth principles of the body of Kosmos-thus corresponding to Buddhi-Manas, in Man; Ether is its Kosmic sediment mingling with the highest layer of the Astral Light. Beginning with the fifth root-race, it 6th Budd will develop fully only at the beginning of the fifth round. Æther is 23 Manas Akâsa in its higher aspect, and Ether Akâsa, in its lowest. In one sense it is equivalent to the Father-Creator, Zeus, Pater Æther; on the other to Vol. i., p. 83. Earth, as Manas to the Monad and body. Therefore, Ether has nought to do with Spirit, but a good deal, with subjective matter and our Earth. Q. "Brahmâ, as the germ of unknown Darkness', is the material from which all evolves and developes." It is one of the axioms of logic that it is impossible for the mind to believe anything of that of which it comprehends nothing. Now if this "material" which is Brahma, be formless, then no idea concerning it can enter the mind for the mind can conceive nothing where there is no form. It is the garment or manifestation in the form of "God" which we can perceive, and it is by this and this alone that we can know anything of him. What, therefore, is the first form of this material which human consciousness can recognise ? A. Your axioms of logic can be applied to the lower Manas only and it is from the perceptions of Kama Manas alone that you argue. But Occultism teaches only that which it derives from the cognition of the Higher Ego or the Buddhi Manas. But, I will try to answer you on your own familiar lines. The first and only form of the prima materia our brain-consciousness can cognise, is a circle. Train your thought first of all to a thorough acquaintance with a limited circle, and expand it gradually. You will soon come to a point when without its ceasing to be a circle in thought, it yet becomes infinite and limitless even to the inner perceptions. It is this circle which we call Brahma, the germ, atom or anu: a latent atom embracing infinitude and boundless Eternity during Pralaya, an active one during the life-cycles; but one which has neither circumference nor plane, only limitless expansion. Therefore the Circle is the first geometrical figure and symbol in the subjective world, and it becomes a Triangle in the objective. The Triangle is the next figure after the Circle. The first figure, the Circle with the Point, is really no figure; it is simply a primeval germ, the first thing you can imagine at the beginning of differentiation; the Triangle must be conceived of once that matter has passed the zero point, or Layam. Brahmâ is called an atom, because we have to imagine it as a mathematical point, which, however, can be extended into absoluteness. Nota Bene, it is the divine germ and not the atom of the chemists. But beware of the illusion of form. Once you drag down your Deity into human form you limit and condition it, and behold, you have created an anthropomorphic god. Sloka (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. WHEN IT (the Web) IS COOLING, IT Q. Is the word "expand" here used in the sense of differentiating or evolving, and "contract" in that of involution, or do these terms refer to Manvantara and Pralaya; or again to a constant vibrating motion of the world-stuff or atoms? Is this expansion and contraction simultaneous or successive? A. The Web is the ever-existent primordial substance-pure spirit to 30 our conception-the material from which the objective universe or universes are evolved. When the breath of fire or Father, is upon it, it expands; that is to say, as subjective material it is limitless, eternal, indestructible. When the breath of the Mother touches it, that is when the time of manifestation arrives and it has to come into objectivity of form, it contracts, for there is no such thing as an objective material form which is limitless. Though Newton's proposition that every particle of matter has the property of attraction for every other particle, is on the whole correct; and though Leibnitz's proposition that every atom is a universe in itself, and acts through its own inherent force, is also true; yet both are incomplete. For man is also an atom, possessing attraction and repulsion, and is the Microcosm of the Macrocosm. But would it be also true to say that because of the force and intelligence in him he moves independently of every other human unit, or could act and move, unless there were a greater force and intelligence than his own to allow him to live and move in that higher element of Force and Intelligence? One of the objects of the Secret Doctrine is to prove that planetary movements cannot be satisfactorily accounted for by the theory of gravitation alone. Besides the force acting in matter there is also a force acting on matter. When we speak of the modified conditions of Spirit-Matter (which is in reality Force), and call them by various names such as heat, cold, light and darkness, attraction and repulsion, electricity and magnetism, &c., &c., to the occultist they are simple names, expressions of difference in manifestations of one and the same Force (always dual in differentiation), but not any specific difference of forces. For all such differences in the objective world result only from the peculiarities of differentiation of matter on which the one free force acts, helped in this by that portion of its essence which we call imprisoned force, or material molecules. The worker within, the inherent force, ever tends to unite with its parent essence without; and * Vol. I., p. 83. thus, the Mother acting within, causes the Web to contract; and the Father acting without, to expand. Science calls this gravitation; Occultists, the work of the universal Life-Force, which radiates from that Absolute and Unknowable FORCE which is outside of all Space and Time. This is the work of Eternal evolution and involution, or expansion and contraction. Q. What is the meaning of the phrase "the Web cooling", and when does this take place? A. Evidently it is itself which is cooling, and not anything outside of itself. When? We are told that it begins when the imprisoned force and intelligence inherent in every atom of differentiated as well as of homogeneous matter arrives at a point when both become the slaves of a higher intelligent Force whose mission it is to guide and shape it. It is the Force which we call the divine Free-Will, represented by the Dhyani-Buddhas. When the centripetal and centrifugal forces of life and being are subjected by the one nameless Force which brings order in disorder, and establishes harmony in Chaos-then it begins cooling. It is impossible to give the exact time in a process the duration of which is unknown. Q. Is form the result of the interaction of the centrifugal and centripetal forces in matter and nature ? A. Every form, we are told, is built in accordance with the model traced for it in the Eternity and reflected in the DIVINE MIND. There are hierarchies of "Builders of form", and series of forms and degrees, from the highest to the lowest. While the former are shaped under the guidance of the "Builders" the gods "Cosmocratores ", the latter are fashioned by the Elementals or Nature Spirits. As an example of this, look at the strange insects and at some reptiles and non-vertebrate creatures, which so closely imitate, not only in their colour but by their outward shape, leaves, flowers, moss-covered branches and other so-called "inanimate" things. Shall we take "natural selection" and the explanations of Darwinists as a solution? I trust not. The theory of natural selection is not only utterly inadequate to explain this mysterious faculty of imitation in the realm of being, but gives also an entirely false conception of the importance of such imitative faculty, as a "potent weapon in the struggle for life". And if this imitative faculty is once proved-as it can easily be-an absolute misfit for the Darwinian frame; i.e., if its alleged use, in connection with the so-called "survival of the fittest" is shown to be a speculation which cannot stand close analysis, to what then can the fact of this faculty be attributed? All of you have seen insects which copy with almost a mirror-like fidelity the colour and even outward form of plants, leaves, flowers, pieces of dead twigs, etc. Nor is this a law but rather a frequent exception. What then but an invisible intelligence outside the insect can copy with such accuracy from larger originals? 2. But does not Mr. Wallace show that such imitation has its object in nature? That it is just this which proves the “natural selection" theory, and the innate instinct in the weaker creatures to seck security behind the borrowed garb of certain objects? The insectivora which do not feed upon plants and leaves, will thus leave a leaf-like or moss-like insect safe from attack. This seems very plausible. as a A. Very plausible, indeed, if, besides negative facts, there were no very positive evidence to show the unfitness of the natural selection theory to account for the phenomena of imitation. A fact to hold good, must be shown to apply if not universally, then, at any rate, always under the same conditions, e.g., the correspondence and identity of colour between the animals of one and the same locality and the soil of that region would be a general manifestation. But how about the camel of the desert with his coat of the same "protecting" colour as the plains he lives in, and the zebra whose intense, dark stripes cannot protect him on the open plains of South Africa, as Mr. Darwin himself admitted. We are assured by Science that this imitation of the colour of the soil is invariably found in the weaker animals, and yet we find the lion-who need fear no stronger enemies than himself in the desert-with a coat that can hardly be distinguished from the rocks and sandy plains he inhabits! We are asked to believe that this "imitation of protecting colours is caused by the use and benefit it offers the imitator", potent weapon in the struggle for life"; and yet, daily experience shows to us quite the reverse. Thus, it points to a number of animals in which the most pronounced forms of the imitative faculty are entirely useless, or, worse than that, pernicious and often self-destructive. What good, I ask, is the imitation of human speech to the magpie and parrotexcept leading them to be shut up in a cage? Of what use to the monkey its mimicking faculty which brings so many of them to grief and occasionally to great bodily harm and self-destruction; or to a herd of idiotic sheep, in blindly following their leader, even if he happens to tumble down a precipice? This irrepressible desire, also (of imitating their leaders) has led more than one unlucky Darwinist, while seeking to prove his favourite hobby, into the most absurdly incongruous statements. Thus, our Hæckelian friend, Mr. Grant Allen, in his work upon the subject under discussion, speaks of a certain Indian lizard blessed with three large parasites of different kinds. Each of these three imitates to perfection the colour of the scales of that part of the body it dwells on the parasite on the stomach. of the creature, is yellow like its stomach; the second parasite having chosen its abode on the back, is as variegated in colour as the dorsal scales; while the third having selected its hermitage on the lizard's brown |