THEOSOPHY – THE WORD

SPACE

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The point in the hitherto immaculate Disk, Space and Eternity in Pralaya, denotes the dawn of differentiation. It is the Point in the Mundane Egg (see Part II., “The Mundane Egg”), the germ within the latter which will become the Universe, the ALL, the boundless, periodical Kosmos, this germ being latent and active, periodically and by turns. The one circle is divine Unity, from which all proceeds, whither all returns. Its circumference – forcibly limited symbol, in view of the limitation of the human mind – indicates the abstract, ever incognisable PRESENCE, and its plane, the Universal Soul, although the two are one.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p1]

Its one absolute attribute, which is ITSELF, eternal, ceaseless Motion, is called in esoteric parlance the “Great Breath,” which is the perpetual motion of the universe, in the sense of limitless, ever-present SPACE. That which is motionless cannot be Divine. But then there is nothing in fact and reality absolutely motionless within the universal soul.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p2]

... absolute Wisdom which transcends the ideas of Time and Space.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p2fn]

The first illustration being a plain disc , the second one in the Archaic symbol shows , a disc with a point in it – the first differentiation in the periodical manifestations of the ever-eternal nature, sexless and infinite “Aditi in THAT” (Rig Veda), the point in the disc, or potential Space within abstract Space.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p4]

They say that Absolute Unity cannot pass to infinity; for infinity presupposes the limitless extension of something, and the duration of that “something;” and the One All is like Space – which is its only mental and physical representation on this Earth, or our plane of existence – neither an object of, nor a subject to, perception. If one could suppose the Eternal Infinite All, the Omnipresent Unity, instead of being in Eternity, becoming through periodical manifestation a manifold Universe or a multiple personality, that Unity would cease to be one. Locke’s idea that “pure Space is capable of neither resistance nor Motion” – is incorrect. Space is neither a “limitless void,” nor a “conditioned fulness,” but both: being, on the plane of absolute abstraction, the ever-incognisable Deity, which is void only to finite minds, and on that of mayavic perception, the Plenum, the absolute Container of all that is, whether manifested or unmanifested: it is, therefore, that ABSOLUTE ALL. There is no difference between the Christian Apostle’s “In Him we live and move and have our being,” and the Hindu Rishi’s “The Universe lives in, proceeds from, and will return to, Brahma (Brahmâ):” for Brahma (neuter), the unmanifested, is that Universe in abscondito, and Brahmâ, the manifested, is the Logos, made male-female in the symbolical orthodox dogmas. The God of the Apostle-Initiate and of the Rishi being both the Unseen and the Visible SPACE. Space is called in the esoteric symbolism “the Seven-Skinned Eternal Mother-Father.” It is composed from its undifferentiated to its differentiated surface of seven layers.

“What is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is a Universe or not; whether there be gods or none?” asks the esoteric Senzar Catechism. And the answer made is – space.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p8-9]

“What is it that ever is?” “Space, the eternal Anupadaka.” “What is it that ever was?” “The Germ in the Root.” “What is it that is ever coming and going?” “The Great Breath.” “Then, there are three Eternals?” “No, the three are one. That which ever is one, that which ever was is one, that which is ever being and becoming is also one: and this is Space.”

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p11]

Space is called the “Mother before its Cosmic activity, and Father-Mother at the first stage of reawakening.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p18]

The “Parent Space” is the eternal, ever present cause of all – the incomprehensible DEITY, whose “invisible robes” are the mystic root of all matter, and of the Universe. Space is the one eternal thing that we can most easily imagine, immovable in its abstraction and uninfluenced by either the presence or absence in it of an objective Universe. It is without dimension, in every sense, and self-existent. Spirit is the first differentiation from THAT, the causeless cause of both Spirit and Matter. It is, as taught in the esoteric catechism, neither limitless void, nor conditioned fulness, but both. It was and ever will be. (See PROEM, pp. 2 et seq.)

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p35]

The appearance and disappearance of the Universe are pictured as an outbreathing and inbreathing of “the Great Breath,” which is eternal, and which, being Motion, is one of the three aspects of the Absolute – Abstract Space and Duration being the other two. When the “Great Breath” is projected, it is called the Divine Breath, and is regarded as the breathing of the Unknowable Deity – the One Existence – which breathes out a thought, as it were, which becomes the Kosmos. (See “Isis Unveiled.”) So also is it when the Divine Breath is inspired again the Universe disappears into the bosom of “the Great Mother,” who then sleeps “wrapped in her invisible robes.”

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p43]

“Bright Space, son of dark Space,” corresponds to 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.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p71]

As for Svabhavat, the Orientalists explain the term as meaning the Universal plastic matter diffused through Space,...

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p98fn]

The Circle was with every nation the symbol of the Unknown – “Boundless Space”, the abstract garb of an ever-present abstraction – the Incognizable Deity.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p113]

By the “Six directions of Space” is here meant the “Double Triangle,” the junction and blending together of pure Spirit and Matter, of the Arupa and the Rupa, of which the Triangles are a Symbol. This double Triangle is a sign of Vishnu, as it is Solomon’s seal, and the Sri-Antara of the Brahmins.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p118]

That which is the abyss of nothingness to the physicist, who knows only the world of visible causes and effects, is the boundless Space of the Divine Plenum to the Occultist.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p148]

... “the fourth dimension of Space.” To begin with, of course, the superficial absurdity of assuming that Space itself is measurable in any direction is of little consequence. The familiar phrase can only be an abbreviation of the fuller form – the “Fourth dimension of MATTER in Space.” But it is an unhappy phrase even thus expanded, because while it is perfectly true that the progress of evolution may be destined to introduce us to new characteristics of matter, those with which we are already familiar are really more numerous than the three dimensions. The faculties, or what is perhaps the best available term, the characteristics of matter, must clearly bear a direct relation always to the senses of man. Matter has extension, colour, motion (molecular motion), taste, and smell, corresponding to the existing senses of man, and by the time that it fully develops the next characteristic – let us call it for the moment PERMEABILITY – this will correspond to the next sense of man – let us call it “NORMAL CLAIRVOYANCE;” thus, when some bold thinkers have been thirsting for a fourth dimension to explain the passage of matter through matter, and the production of knots upon an endless cord, what they were really in want of, was a sixth characteristic of matter. The three dimensions belong really but to one attribute or characteristic of matter – extension; and popular common sense justly rebels against the idea that under any condition of things there can be more than three of such dimensions as length, breadth, and thickness. These terms, and the term “dimension” itself, all belong to one plane of thought, to one stage of evolution, to one characteristic of matter. So long as there are foot-rules within the resources of Kosmos, to apply to matter, so long will they be able to measure it three ways and no more; and from the time the idea of measurement first occupied a place in the human understanding, it has been possible to apply measurement in three directions and no more. But these considerations do not militate in any way against the certainty that in the progress of time – as the faculties of humanity are multiplied – so will the characteristics of matter be multiplied also. Meanwhile, the expression is far more incorrect than even the familiar one of the “Sun rising or setting.”

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p251-2]

It is called “Substance-Principle,” for it becomes “substance” on the plane of the manifested Universe, an illusion, while it remains a “principle” in the beginningless and endless abstract, visible and invisible SPACE. It is the omnipresent Reality: impersonal, because it contains all and everything. Its impersonality is the fundamental conception of the System. It is latent in every atom in the Universe, and is the Universe itself.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p273]

There is but one indivisible and absolute Omniscience and Intelligence in the Universe, and this thrills throughout every atom and infinitesimal point of the whole finite Kosmos which hath no bounds, and which people call SPACE, considered independently of anything contained in it.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p277]

Outside the latter it is to be round in its pristine purity only between (the solar systems or) the Stars of the Universe, the worlds already formed or forming; those in LAYA resting meanwhile in its bosom. As its substance is of a different kind from that known on earth, the inhabitants of the latter, seeing THROUGH IT, believe in their illusion and ignorance that it is empty space. There is not one finger’s breath (ANGULA) of void Space in the whole Boundless (Universe). . . . .

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p289]

In Hesiod, therefore, Chaos is infinite, boundless, endless and beginningless in duration, an abstraction at the same time as a visible presence. SPACE filled with darkness, which is primordial matter in its pre-cosmic state. For in its etymological sense, Chaos is Space, according to Aristotle, and Space is the ever Unseen and Unknowable Deity in our philosophy.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p336fn]

On account of the Essence of Aether, or the Unseen Space, being held divine as the supposed veil of Deity, it was regarded as the medium between this life and the next one. The ancients considered that when the directing active “Intelligences” (the gods) retired from any portion of Ether in our Space – the four realms which they superintend – then that particular place was left in the possession of evil, so called by reason of the absence of the Good from it.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p343]

But, even in these, CHAOS-THEOS-KOSMOS=SPACE, are identified in all Eternity, as the One Unknown Space, the last word about which will, perhaps, never be known before our seventh Round. Nevertheless, the allegories and metaphysical symbols about the primeval and perfect CUBE, are remarkable even in the exoteric Puranas.

There, also, Brahmâ is the Theos, evolving out of Chaos, or the great “Deep,” the waters, over which Spirit = SPACE, personified by ayana – Spirit moving over the face of the future boundless Kosmos -- silently hovering, in the first hour of re-awakening.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p344]

The word supernatural implies above or outside of nature. Nature and Space are one. Now Space for the metaphysician exists outside of any act of sensation, and is a purely subjective representation; materialism, which would connect it forcibly with one or the other datum of sensation, notwithstanding. For our senses, it is fairly subjective when independent of anything within it. How then can any phenomenon, or anything else, step outside of or be performed beyond that which has no limits? But when spacial extension becomes simply conceptual, and is thought of in an idea connected with certain actions, as by the materialists and the physicists, then again they have hardly a right to define and claim that which can or cannot be produced by Forces generated within even limited spaces, as they have not even an approximate idea of what those forces are.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p555fn]

The duty of the Occultist lies with the Soul and Spirit of Cosmic Space, not merely with its illusive appearance and behaviour.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p589]

Space is the real world, while our world is an artificial one. It is the One Unity throughout its infinitude: in its bottomless depths as on its illusive surface; a surface studded with countless phenomenal Universes, systems and mirage-like worlds.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.I, p615]

..........

“Ideal nature,” the abstract Space in which everything in the Universe is mysteriously and invisibly generated, is the same female side of pro-creative power in Nature in the Vedic as in every other Cosmogony. Aditi is Sephira, and the Sophia-Akhamoth of the Gnostics, and Isis, the virgin Mother of Horus. In every Cosmogony, behind and higher than the creative deity, there is a superior deity, a planner, an Architect, of whom the Creator is but the executive agent. And still higher, over and around, within and without, there is the UNKNOWABLE and the unknown, the Source and Cause of all these Emanations. . . . .

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p43]

“Creation” – out of pre-existent eternal substance, or matter, of course, which substance, according to our teachings, is boundless, ever-existing space.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p239fn]

... esoterically – Time and Space are forms of the One incognizable Deity.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p382fn]

Thus, space, in its abstract sense, was called “the realm of divine knowledge”, and by the Chaldees or Initiates Ab Soo, the habitat (or Father, i.e., the source) of knowledge, because it is in space that dwell the intelligent Powers which invisibly rule the Universe.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p502]

Now add to this the following verse from the Esoteric volumes:

“Space and Time are one. Space and Time are nameless, for they are the incognizable THAT, which can be sensed only through its seven rays – which are the Seven Creations, the Seven Worlds, the Seven Laws,” etc., etc., etc. . . .

Remembering that the Puranas insist on the identity of Vishnu with Time and Space; and that even the Rabbinical symbol for God is MAQOM, “Space,” it becomes clear why, for purposes of a manifesting Deity – Space, Matter, and Spirit – the one central point became the Triangle and Quaternary (the perfect Cube), hence Seven. Even the Pravaha wind (the mystic and occult Force that gives the impulse to, and regulates the course of the stars and planets) is septenary. The Kurma and Linga Puranas enumerate seven principal winds of that name, which winds are the principles of Cosmic Space. They are intimately connected with Dhruva (now Alpha), the Pole-Star, which is connected in its turn with the production of various phenomena through cosmic forces.

[The Secret Doctrine Vol.II, p612]

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... for we see with our naked eye planets and even stars at immeasurably greater distances; but it is owing to those six globes being outside our physical means of perception, or plane of being. It is not only that their material density, weight, or fabric are entirely different from those of our earth and the other known planets; but they are (to us) on an entirely different layer of space, so to speak; a layer not to be perceived or felt by our physical senses. And when I say "layer," please do not allow your fancy to suggest to you layers like strata or beds laid one over the other, for this would only lead to another absurd misconception. What I mean by "layer" is that plane of infinite space which by its nature cannot fall under our ordinary waking perceptions, whether mental or physical; but which exists in nature outside of our normal mentality or consciousness, outside of our three dimensional space, and outside of our division of time. Each of the seven fundamental planes (or layers) in space – of course as a whole, as the pure space of Locke's definition, not as our finite space – has its own objectivity and subjectivity, its own space and time, its own consciousness and set of senses. But all this will be hardly comprehensible to one trained in the modern ways of thought.

[The Key to Theosophy, p88-9]

The latter is an astral locality, the limbus of scholastic theology, the Hades of the ancients, and, strictly speaking, a locality only in a relative sense. It has neither a definite area nor boundary, but exists within subjective space; i. e., is beyond our sensuous perceptions. Still it exists, and it is there that the astral eidolons of all the beings that have lived, animals included, await their second death. For the animals it comes with the disintegration and the entire fading out of their astral particles to the last. For the human eidolon it begins when the Atma-Buddhi-Manasic triad is said to "separate" itself from its lower principles, or the reflection of the ex-personality, by falling into the Devachanic state.

[The Key to Theosophy, p143-4]

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Spirit or LIFE is indivisible. And when we speak of the seventh principle it is neither quality nor quantity nor yet form that are meant, but rather the space occupied in that ocean of spirit by the results or effects – (beneficent as are all those of a co-worker with nature) – impressed thereon.

[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 44, Chronological Edition or Letter 121, Barker Numbering.]

... every atom being part of itself, pervades throughout space and is space in fact ...

[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 65, Chronological Edition or Letter 168, Barker Numbering.]

Spirit, life and matter, are not natural principles existing independently of each other but the effects of combinations produced by eternal motion in Space...

[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 93B, Chronological Edition or Letter 317, Barker Numbering.]

Space and time may be -- as Kant has it -- not the product bu the regulators of the sensations, but only so far as our sensations on earth are concerned, not those in Devachan. There we do not find the a priori ideas of this “space and time” controlling the perceptions of the denizen of Devachan in respect to the objects of his sense; but, on the contrary, we discover that it is the devachanee himself who absolutely creates both and annihilates them at the same time. Thus, the “after states,” so called, can never be correctly judged by practical reason since the latter can have active being only in the sphere of final causes or ends, and can hardly be regarded with Kant (with whom it means on one page reason and on the next – will) as the highest spiritual power in man, having for its sphere that WILL.

[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 104, Chronological Edition or Letter 357, Barker Numbering.]

The “Deep” is Space – both male and female. “Purush (as Brahma) breathes in the Eternity; when ‘he’ in-breathes, Prakriti (as manifested Substance) disappears in his bosom; when ‘he’ out-breathes she reappears as Maya,” says the sloka. The One reality is Mulaprakriti (undifferentiated Substance) – the “Rootless root,”...

[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 111, Chronological Edition or Letter 379, Barker Numbering.]

The book of Kiu-te teaches us that space is infinity itself. It is formless, immutable and absolute. Like the human mind, which is the exhaustless generator of ideas, the Universal Mind or Space has its ideation which is projected into objectivity at the appointed time; but space itself is not affected thereby. Even your Hamilton has shown that infinity can never be conceived by any series of additions. Whenever you talk of place in infinity, you dethrone infinity and degrade its absolute, unconditioned character.

[Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 119, Chronological Edition or Letter 407, Barker Numbering.]

(5) What is the one eternal thing in the universe independent of every other thing?
Space.
(6) What things are co-existent with space?
(i) Duration.
(ii) Matter.
(iii) Motion, for this is the imperishable life (conscious or unconscious as the case may be) of matter, even during the pralaya, or night of mind.
When Chyang or omniscience, and Chyang-mi-shi-khon -- ignorance, both sleep, this latent unconscious life still maintains the matter it animates in sleepless unceasing motion.
(iv) The Akasa (Bar-nang) or Kosmic atmosphere, or Astral light or celestial ether, which whether in its latent or active condition, surrounds and interpenetrates all matter in motion of which it is at once a result and the medium by which the Kosmic energy acts on its source.
(v) The Purush or 7th principle of the universe.
Ling Sharir is composed of the ethereal elements of its (? Body's) organism, never leaves body but at death and remains near.

(7) Are we to understand Purush as another name for space, or as a different thing occupying every part of space?
Same. Swayambu occupies every part of space which itself is boundless and eternal, hence must be space in one sense. Swayambu becomes Purush when coming in contact with matter.

[The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, Appendix 2, p508-9]

(11) All matter consists of ultimate molecules. How may we conceive the different states of matter?
As the molecules go on ratifying, so in proportion they become attenuated and the greater the distance between our globe and them – I do not mean here the region within the reach of your science – the greater the change in their polarity, the negative pole acquiring a stronger property of repulsion, and the positive losing gradually its power of attraction.

[The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, Appendix 2, p509]

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The explanation of ... of the undulatory theory of light holds now as good as ever, and shows that what we call light is simply an impression produced upon the retina of the eye by the wave-like motion of the particles of matter. Light, then, like heat – of which it is the crown - is simply the ghost, the shadow of matter in motion, the boundless, eternal, infinite SPACE, MOTION and DURATION, the trinitarian essence of that which the Deists call God, and we – the One Element; Spirit-matter, or Matter-spirit, whose septenary properties we circumscribe under its triple abstract form in the equilateral triangle.

[C.W.IV, p220]

This is the direct result of the present conception of a three-dimensional space. The turn of a four-dimensional world is near, but the puzzle of science will ever continue until their concepts reach the natural dimensions of visible and invisible space – in its septenary completeness. “The Infinite and the Absolute are only the names for two counter imbecilities of the human (uninitiated) mind”; and to regard them as the transmuted “properties of the nature of things – of two subjective negatives converted into objective affirmatives,” as Sir W. Hamilton puts it, is to know nothing of the infinite operations of human liberated spirit,...

[C.W.V, p151-2]

“It permeates the Moon and Stars, and is yet different from the Moon and Stars.”

It is no such absurdity as an extra-Cosmic Deity. It is like the space in which a visible object lies. The space is in the object and is yet different from it, though the spirit of the object is nothing but the space.

[C.W.VI, p142-3]

Now it is a well-known principle of Occultism that the ONE LIFE which pervades ALL connects all the bodies in space.... Every thought, as much as action, is dynamic and is impressed in the imperishable Book of Nature – the Akasa, the objective aspect of the UNMANIFESTED LIFE. All our thoughts and actions thus produce the vibrations in space, which mould our future career.

[C.W.VI, p228]

Again (1) “It is said” (by the advocates of the theory) “that we live unconditionally in our three-dimensional space! Perchance” (unconditionally) “just because we are able to comprehend only such space, and absolutely incapable, owing to our organization, to realize it in any other, but a three-dimensional way!”
(2) In other words, “even our three-dimensional space is not something existing independently, but represents merely the product of our understanding and perceptions.”

To the first statement Occultism answers that those “incapable to realize” any other space but a three-dimensional one, do well to leave alone all others. But it is not “owing to our [human] organization,” but only to the intellectual organization of those who are not able to conceive of any other; to organisms undeveloped spiritually and even mentally in the right direction. To the second statement it would reply, that the “opponent” is absolutely wrong in the first, and absolutely right in the last portion of his sentence. For, though the “fourth dimension” – if we must so call it – exists no more independently of our perceptions and senses than our three-dimensional imagined space, nor as a locality, it still is, and exists for the beings evoluted and born in it as “a product of their understanding and their perceptions.”

[C.W.VII, p87]

Oh, poor Kant! And yet we are told that one of his fundamental principles was – that our three-dimensional space is not an absolute one; and that “even in respect to such axioms as those of Euclid’s geometry, our knowledge and sciences can only be relatively exact and real.”

But why should exact science be thought in danger only because spiritualists try to explain their phenomena on that plane? And on what other could they explain that which is inexplicable if we undertake to analyze it on the three-dimensional conceptions of terrestrial science, if not by the fourth-dimensional conception?

So far as the Occultists are concerned, they are at one with the man of strict orthodox science, when to the offer made “to experiment and to observe whether there may not occur in our three-dimensional world phenomena, explainable only on the hypothesis of the existence of a space of four dimensions,” they answer as they do. “Well” – they say – “and shall observation and experiment give us a satisfactory answer to our question concerning the real existence of a higher four-dimensional space? Or, solve for us a dilemma unsolvable from whatever side we approach it? How can our human observation and our human experiments, possible only unconditionally within the limits of a space of three dimensions, serve us as a point of departure for the recognition of phenomena which can be explained “only if we admit the existence of a four-dimensional space”?

[C.W.VII, p89]

Shall the noblest aspirations of mankind after the knowledge of real spiritual existence on those planes of being that are now confused with the “four-dimensional space” be the nearer to solution, because exact science shall have admitted as a physical law the action of one man walking deliberately through the physical body of another man, or through a stone wall? Occult sciences teach us that at the end of the Fourth Race, matter, which evolutes, progresses and changes, as we do along with the rest of the kingdoms of nature, shall acquire its fourth sense, as it acquires an additional one with every new Race. Therefore, to an Occultist there is nothing surprising in the idea that the physical world should be developing and acquiring new faculties – a simple modification of matter, new as it now seems to science, as incomprehensible as were at first the powers of steam, sound, electricity. . .

[C.W.VII, p90]

... the student will find that there is one space of silence within him where he can find refuge from thoughts and desires, from the turmoil of the senses and the delusions of the mind. By sinking his consciousness deep into his heart he can reach this place – at first only when he is alone in silence and darkness. But when the need for the silence has grown great enough, he will turn to seek it even in the midst of the struggle with self, and he will find it. Only he must not let go of his outer self, or his body; he must learn to retire into this citadel when the battle grows fierce, but to do so without losing sight of the battle; without allowing himself to fancy that by so doing he has won the victory. That victory is won only when all is silence without as within the inner citadel. Fighting thus, from within that silence, the student will find that he has solved the first great paradox.

[C.W.VIII, p127-8]

It thus follows that although Macroprosopus – or Kether, the crown of numbers, for it is the white head, or O, the cipher, is still removed from Ain-Soph, being only its universal reflection or light – that it is not the tetragram. It is simply SPACE, the boundless and the inscrutable, the supernal soil in which are concealed the archetypal ideas or forms of all; from which grows the ROOT of Kosmos, the universal Tree of Life in the creative world.

[C.W.VIII, p145-6]

To think of Space in relation to any limited area, basing oneself on its three dimensions of length, breadth, and thickness, is strictly in accordance with mechanical ideas; but it is inapplicable in metaphysics and transcendental philosophy. To say then that “The Truth of God is the Form of God,” is to ignore even the exotericism of the Old Testament. “And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude. . . .” (Deut., iv, 12). And to think of the All-Evolver as something which has “size, form, number, and relation,” is to think of a finite and conditioned personal God, a part only of the ALL.

[C.W.IX, p168-9]

But Brahmâ, the Creator, dies and disappears when his age is at an end, and the hour for the MAHA PRALAYA strikes. Then NO-THING reigns supreme and alone in Boundless Infinitude and that No-thing is non-differentiated space which is no-space, and the ABSOLUTE, “The most excellent male is worshipped by men, but the soul of wisdom, THAT in which there are no attributes of name or form is worshipped by Sages (Yogins)”.

[C.W.X, p44]

But we must also demure to the idea that SPACE can ever be “used up”, whether during Manvantara (or life cycle) or during pralaya, the period of absolute Rest, when SPACE remains the same, i.e., eternal, immutable, as it ever was and as it will every be, since abstract SPACE is but another name for the absolute ALL.

[C.W.X, p175-6]

The point represents the first formation of the root of all things growing out of the rootless ROOT, or what the Vedantins call “Parabrahm”. It is the periodical and ever-recurring primordial manfiestation after every “Night of Brahmâ”, or of potential space within abstract space: not Jehovah, assuredly not; but the “Unknown God” of the Athenians, the IT which St. Paul, the master Mason and the INITIATE, declared unto them. It is the unmanifested LOGOS.

[C.W.X, p242]

Q. Space in the abstract is explained in the Proem (pp. 8-9) as follows:—
... Absolute Unity cannot pass to infinity; for infinity presupposes the limitless extension of something, and the duration of that “something”; and the One All is like Space -- which is its only mental and physical representation on this Earth, or our plane of existence – neither an object of, nor a subject to, perception. If one could suppose the Eternal Infinite All, the Omnipresent Unity, instead of being in Eternity, becoming through periodical manifestation a manifold Universe or a multiple personality, that Unity would cease to be one. Locke’s idea that “pure Space is capable of neither resistance nor Motion” – is incorrect. Space is neither a “limitless void,” nor a “conditioned fulness,” but both: being, on the plane of absolute abstraction, the ever-incognisable Deity, which is void only to finite minds, and on that of mayavic perception, the Plenum, the absolute Container of all that is, whether manifested or unmanifested; it is, therefore, that ABSOLUTE ALL.

[C.W.X, p301]

“What is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is a Universe or not; whether there be gods or none?” asks the esoteric Senzar Catechism. And the answer made is SPACE.
But why is the Eternal parent, Space, spoken of as feminine?
A. Not in all cases, for in the above extract Space is called the “Eternal Mother-Father”; but when it is so spoken of the reason is that though it is impossible to define Parabrahm, yet once that we speak of that first something which can be conceived, it has to be treated of as a feminine principle.

[C.W.X, p302]

Q. What aspect of Space, or the unknown deity, called in the Vedas “THAT,” which is mentioned further on, is here called the “Eternal Parent”?
A. It is the Vedantic Mulaprakriti, and the Svabhavat of the Buddhists, or that androgynous something of which we have been speaking, which is both differentiated and undifferentiated. In its first principle it is a pure abstraction, which becomes differentiated only when it is transformed, in the process of time, into Prakriti. If compared with the human principles it corresponds to Buddhi, while Atma would correspond to Parabrahm, Manas to Mahat, and so on.

Q. What, then, are the seven layers of Space, for in the “Proem” we read about the “Seven-skinned Mother-Father”?
A. Plato and Hermes Trismegistus would have regarded this as the Divine Thought, and Aristotle would have viewed this “Mother-Father” as the “privation” of matter. It is that which will become the seven planes of being, commencing with the spiritual and passing through the psychic to the material plane. The seven planes of thought or the seven states of consciousness correspond to these planes. All these septenaries are symbolized by the seven Skins.

[C.W.X, p303-4]

... here we speak of the noumenal and not of the phenomenal universe. In the occult catechism (Vide Secret Doctrine) it is asked: “What is that which always IS, which you cannot imagine as not being, do what you may?” The answer is – SPACE. For there may not be a single man in the universe to think of it, not a single eye to perceive it, nor a single brain to sense it, but still Space is, ever was, and ever will be, and you cannot make away with it.

Q. Because we cannot help thinking of it, perhaps?
A. Our thinking of it has nothing to do with the question. Try, rather, if you can think of anything with Space excluded and you will soon find out the impossibility of such a conception. Space exists where there is nothing else, and must so exist whether the Universe is one absolute vacuum or a full Pleroma.

[C.W.X, p311]

Q. Is “Darkness” the same as the “Eternal Parent Space” spoken of in Sloka (1)?
A. Not at all. Here “the boundless all” is the “Parent Space”; and Cosmic Space is something already with attributes, at least potentially. “Darkness,” on the other hand, and in this instance, is that of which no attributes can be postulated: it is the Unknown Principle filling Cosmic Space.

[C.W.X, p331]

Q. How are we to understand the expression that the vibration touches the whole universe and also the germ?
A. First of all the terms used must be defined as far as possible, for the language used is purely figurative. The Universe does not mean the Kosmos or world of forms but the formless space, the future vehicle of the Universe which will be manifested. This space is synonymous with the “waters of space,” with (to us) eternal darkness, in fact with Parabrahm. In short the whole Sloka refers to the “period” before there was any manifestation whatever. In the same way the Germ – the Germ is eternal, the undifferentiated atoms of future matter – is one with space, as infinite as it is indestructible, and as eternal as space itself. Similarly with “vibration,” which corresponds with the Point, the unmanifested Logos.

[C.W.X, p367]

Q. What is the difference between Spirit, Voice and Word?
A. The same as between Atma, Buddhi and Manas, in one sense. Spirit emanates from the unknown Darkness, the mystery into which none of us can penetrate. That Spirit – call it the “Spirit of God” or Primordial Substance – mirrors itself in the Waters of Space – or the still undifferentiated matter of the future Universe – and produces thereby the first flutter of differentiation in the homogeneity of primordial matter. This is the Voice, pioneer of the “Word” or the first manifestation; and from that Voice emanates the Word or Logos, that is to say, the definite and objective expression of that which has hitherto remained in the depths of the Concealed Thought. That which mirrors itself in Space is the Third Logos. We may express this Trinity also by the terms Colour, Sound, and Numbers.

[C.W.X, p406]

Thus he [the lecturer] asks:
Where then is there room in this for a mechanical theory? Objectors might argue that this is so only in appearance, while in reality all these have a spatial extension. But such an argument would be entirely erroneous. Our sole reason for believing that objects perceived by the senses have such extension in the external world, rests on the idea that they seem to do so, as far as they can be watched and observed through the senses of sight and touch. With regard, however, to the realm of our inner senses even that supposed foundation loses its force and there is no ground for admitting it.

The winding up argument of the lecturer is most interesting to Theosophists. Says this physiologist of the modern school of Materialism:
Thus, a deeper and more direct acquaintance with our inner nature unveils to us a world entirely unlike the world represented to us by our external senses, and reveals the most heterogenous faculties, shows objects having nought to do with spatial extension, and phenomena absolutely disconnected with those that fall under mechanical laws.

[C.W.XII, p140-1]

It is from Padma-yoni – “the bosom of the lotus” – from the absolute space of the Universe, outside of space and time, that came forth the Cosmos conditioned and limited by time and space. The Hiranya-Garbha, the golden “egg” (or matrix), from which Brahmâ came forth was often called the celestial lotus.

[C.W.XII, p177]

Let not the students of the Esoteric School commit the same mistake. It has often been explained that neither the cosmic planes of substance nor even the human principles – with the exception of the lowest material plane or world and the physical body, which, as has been said, are no “principles” – can be located or thought of as being in Space and Time. As the former are seven in One, so are we seven in One – that same Absolute soul of the World, which is both matter and non-matter, spirit and non-spirit, being and non-being. Impress yourselves well with this idea, all those of you who would study the mysteries of SELF.

[C.W.XII, p528]

The Pleroma of Valentinus is absolutely the Space of Occult Philosophy; for Pleroma means the “Fullness,” the superior regions. It is the sum total of all the divine manifestations and emanations expressing the plenum or totality of the rays proceeding from the ONE, differentiating on all the planes, and transforming themselves into divine Powers, called Angels and Planetary Spirits in the philosophy of every nation.

[C.W.XII, p570]

In The Secret Doctrine it is almost revealed that the “Sons of Fohat” are the personified forces known, in a general way as Motion, Sound, Heat, Light, Cohesion, Electricity (or Electric) Fluid, and Nerve Force (or Magnetism)....

For, in the realm of hidden Forces, an audible sound is but a subjective colour; and a perceptible colour, but an inaudible sound; both proceed from the same potential substance, which Physicists used to call ether, and now refer to under various other names; but which we call plastic, though invisible, SPACE.

[C.W.XII, p620]

... Matter is “primordial” only at the beginning of every new reconstruction of the Universe: matter in abscondito, as it is called by the Alchemists, is eternal, indestructible, without beginning or end. It is regarded by Eastern Occultists as the eternal Root of all, the Mulaprakriti of the Vedantin, and the Svabhavat of the Buddhist; the Divine Essence, in short, or Substance; the radiations from This are periodically aggregated into graduated forms, from pure Spirit to gross Matter; the Root, or Space, is in its abstract presence the Deity Itself, the Ineffable and Unknown One Cause.

[C.W.XIV, p233-4]

Chaos, as shown elsewhere, is Theos, which becomes Kosmos: it is Space, the container of everything in the Universe. As Occult Teachings assert, it is called by the Chaldaeans, Egyptians, and every other nation Tohu-vah-bohu, or Chaos, Confusion, because Space is the great storehouse of Creation, whence proceed, not forms alone, but also ideas, which could receive their expression only through the Logos, the Word, Verbum, or Sound.

[C.W.XIV, p243]

Father, which is Boundless Time, generates Mother, which is infinite Space, in Eternity; and Mother generates Father in Manvantaras, which are divisions of durations, that Day when that world becomes one ocean. Then the Mother becomes Nara (Waters— the Great Deep) for Nara (the Supreme Spirit) to rest – or move – upon, when, it is said, that 1, 2, 3, 4 descend and abide in the world of the unseen, while the 4, 3, 2, become the limits in the visible world to deal with the manifestations of Father (Time).

[C.W.XIV, p244]

Akasa. It is next to impossible to render the mystic word “Tho-og” by any other term than “Space”, and yet, unless coined on purpose, no new appellation can render it so well to the mind of the Occultist. The term “Aditi” is also translated “Space”, and there is a world of meaning in it.

[C.W.XIV, p408fn]

... Buddha held only two things as eternal – Akasa and Nirvana. But Akasa being the same as Aditi, and both being translated as “Space”, thre is no discrepancy so far, since Nirvana as well as Moksha, is a state.

[C.W.XIV, p411]

Aditi is, according to the Rig-Veda, “the Father and Mother of all the Gods”; and Akasa is held by southern Buddhism as the Root of all, whence everything in the Universe came out, in obedience to a law of motion inherent in it; and this is the Tibetan “Space” (Tho-og).

[C.W.XIV, p411fn]

Buddha taught that the primitive Substance is eternal and unchangeable. Its vehicle is the pure, luminous ether, the boundless, infinite Space.

[C.W.XIV, p419]

--oOo--