in Himself the will to generate nature within Himself." (Threefold Life, iv. 64.) We cannot conceive of a man without a body of some kind, nor of a universal God without a universal nature. The very essence which constitutes "man" is will and intelligence manifesting itself in a human form. God begins to exist as a being only when He is manifesting Himself in nature. From all eternity has God thus been revealing Himself to Himself; and the cause of this self-revelation rests first of all in the will of God in the Trinity and in the longing of eternal wisdom. "Of eternity we cannot speak otherwise than as of a spirit, for everything was spirit in the beginning; but it has also from all eternity evolved itself into being." (Menschwerdung, i. 2.) "That which is tranquil and without being, resting within itself, does not contain darkness, but is a calm, clear, lucid happiness. This then is eternity without anything else, and means above all God. But as God cannot be without being, He conceives within Himself a will, and this will is love." (Threefold Life, ii. 75.) will to imagina wisdom ground! own im "Wis to His H the won Owing become she ent she doe inclinati moves b ders of accordi neither "The whole of the divine Being is in a state of continual and eternal generation comparable to the mind of a man, but immutable. There are continually thoughts born from the mind of man, and from them arise desire and will. From desire and will orginates action, and the hands do their work, so as to render it substantial. Thus it is with eternal evolution. (Three Principles, ix. 35.) "At first the will is as thin as a nothing, and therefore it desires and longs to be something, and to be *"As the body desires for nutriment from the father of nature, i. ., from the stars and the elements, and receives it from him; so the soul desires for the celestial holy father, and is nourished by him with his spirit and joy. There are, however, not two fathers, but only one; for heaven is made out of his power, and the stars out of the wisdom which is in him. He is called our Father in heaven; not as if the heaven contained Him-for He is greater than All-but for the purpose of indicating that the glory and power of the Father appears pure, clear, and radiant in the celestial kingdom, wherein the holy Trinity is triumphantly manifest." (Aurora, iii. 2.) dark na dark na Throug *The i once this Parabrah brahmam is a sort seen as it that veili manifesta the prim imagination. The will beholding itself in the mirror or wisdom causes its own image to appear within the groundlessness, and thus it creates a foundation in its own imagination.' (Menschwerdung, ii. 1.) "Wisdom, the eternal virgin, the playmate of God to His honor and joy, becomes full of desire to behold the wonders of God that are contained within herself. Owing to this desire, the divine essences within her become active and attract the holy power, and thus she enters into a state of permanent being. By this she does not conceive of anything within herself; her inclination is resting in the Holy Spirit. She merely moves before God for the purpose of revealing the wonders of God." * (Three Principles, xiv. 87.) The possibility of such an "external" or corporeal revelation of God rests in the divine magic power, which exists within the divine life itself. It is the power of the magic will to produce that which it desires. "The magic power is the Spirit desirous for being. It is essentially nothing but will, but it enters into existence. It is the greatest mystery; it is above nature, and forces nature to assume forms according to the form of its will. It introduces the foundation into the abyss of the groundlessness, and changes nothing into something. It is the mother of eternity and of the essentiality of all beings. In it are contained all the forms of the latter. It is not the intellect, but it acts according to the will of the intellect. It is not majesty, neither the power itself, but a desire entering into the dark nature (matter) and proceeding by means of that dark nature into the fire, and through the fire into light. Through this magic power the wonders of the number *The identical idea is expressed by Subba Row as follows: "When once this ego, the Logos, starts into existence as a conscious being, Parabrahmam, its own source, appears to it as Mulaprakriti. Parabrahmam is the unconditioned and absolute Reality, and Mulaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown over it. Parabrahmam by itself cannot be seen as it is. It is seen by the Logos with a veil thrown over it, and that veil is the mighty expanse of cosmic matter, the basis of material manifestations therein." This veil is the mirror by means of which the primordial will conceives of its own self. Three become revealed by means of nature.” * (Six Mystical Points, v. 1-11.) "The corporeity of God results from His essentiality. This essentiality is not spirit, but it appears like impotency if compared with the power wherein the Three resides. This essentiality is the element of God, wherein is life but no intelligence." † (Threefold Life, v. 53.) A thesis presupposes the antithesis. In the One there exists no relation. There can be no consciousness manifest without something to be conscious of, and without that which is to be conscious. Without nature there could be no freedom of nature; without the positive there could be no negative; without the dark basis of fire there could be no light. "The One has nothing within itself which it could possibly desire, neither can such a unity feel its own self. This is possible only in a state of duality.” (Theosophical Questions, iii. 3.) "If everything were only one, that one could not become manifest to itself. If there were no anguish, joy could not be known.' (Mysterium, iv. 22.) "God introduces His will into nature for the purpose of revealing His power in light and in majesty, to constitute a kingdom of joy. If there were no nature originating within the eternal unity, there would be nothing else but eternal tranquillity. Nature entering into a state of pain, the tranquillity becomes changed into motion, and the powers become audible as the word."‡ (Grace, ii. 16.) "The One, the 'Yes,' is pure power, and the life and the truth of God, or God Himself; but God would be *The magic power of the will consists in the will being self-conscious, and therefore capable to act, not according to some impulse given to it by some other source, but according to its own desire. The wonders of the number Three become revealed in nature through will, thought and its manifestation revealing themselves as a triunity therein. †The one undifferentiated element is Mulaprakriti, sometimes called Avyaktam, the veil of Parabrahmam. The Hindu writers state that this word, which they call " Vach," is of four different kinds, according to the four planes of existence, on which it becomes manifest. 'No.' The latter is the antithesis or the opposite to the positive or the truth; it causes the latter to become revealed, and this is only possible by its being the opposite wherein eternal love may become active and perceptible." (Theosophical Questions, iii. 2.) "If there is to be a light, there must be a fire. The fire produces the light, and the light renders the fire manifest; it receives the nature of the fire within itself and resides in the fire." (Mysterium, xl. 2.) "Joy enters the state of desire for the purpose of producing a fiery love, a realm of happiness, which could not exist in the tranquillity." (Signature, vi. 2.) "The majesty of God could not become revealed in power, joy, and magnificence, if it were not for the attraction caused by desire. Likewise there could be no light, if desire were not entering and overshadowing, and thereby creating a state of darkness, which grows until the ignition of the fire takes place. (Grace, ii. 14.) Relative good cannot exist without relative evil, and evil cannot exist without good. The fire can no more exist without the light than the light without the fire. No multiplicity is possible without the unity. requires and therefore desires the other. "Light and darkness are opposed to each other, but there is between them a link, so that neither of them could exist without the other." (Threefold Life, ii. 86.) "In God there are two states, eternally and without end-namely, the eternal light and eternal darkness. The light is God, and in the darkness there would be no pain if it were not for the presence of the light. The light causes the darkness to long for the light and to suffer anguish therefor." (Three Principles, ix. 30.) "The will having issued from the state of unity (by assuming a position, as it were, against the unity in desiring its own self), enters as a state of desire, and this desire is magnetic-that is to say, indrawing; but the unity as such is outflowing; it seeks to issue outwardly, so as to become revealed. The will, having in itself, so as to attain sensation "The light-life has its own motion and impulse, and also the fire-life; but the latter generates the former and the former is the lord of the latter. If there were no fire, there would be no light and no spirit ; and if there were no spirit to breathe upon the fire, the latter would be extinguished and darkness would rule. Each of the two would be nothing without the other; both are mutually dependent upon each other." (Forty Questions, i. 62.) There is, however, no equality between this duality, for the unity is superior to the multiplicity, freedom to nature, light to fire; the higher always rules the lower. "The will as such is an insensible life, but it finds the desire, and in willing to desire it constitutes itself in a being. The will is superior to the desire, for although the desire is an exciting cause for the will, the will is a life without a cause, and it is also intelligence. It is, therefore, lord over desire. It rules the life of the desire and uses it as it pleases. This eternal will-spirit we know to be God, but the active life of the desire is eternal nature." (Inner Mystery, i. 1; iii. 2.) "God is from eternity Power and Light, and is therefore called God according to that, but not according to the fire-spirit. In regard to the latter, we speak of it not as God, but as 'the wrath of God' and the consuming part of His power. The light of God has also the quality of the fire, but in it the wrath is changed into love; hate and bitter pain into mild beneficence and sweet desire or satisfaction.' (Menschwerdung, i. 516.) "The fountain of love is a clasping and keeping of the stern wrathfulness, an overcoming of the harsh power, because meekness takes away the rule of the acrid and hard power of the fire. The light of peacefulness keeps the darkness imprisoned and resides in the darkness. The stern power desires only wrathfulness and imprisonment in death; but the mildness issues like |
