Author: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Publisher: Philaletheians UK
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 44
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Book Description
Part 1. Aether is the Father of the Universe and the all-vivifying Spirit of Cosmic Matter. Myths always speak to those who listen. In Kosmos there are three higher principles: Chthonia (Chaos), Æther (Zeus) and Chronos (Time). Æther is the Spirit of Cosmic Matter, represented by Zeus, Osiris, and other androgynous deities; Astral Light is their shadow on earth. Fire is the unity of Æther in its universality. But there are two Kosmic “Fires,” and a distinction is made between them in the Occult teachings. Æther and Hemera are the light of the superior and the light of the inferior or terrestrial regions. Æther–Chaos–Akasha is Deity. The Æther of the Greeks is the Akasha of the Hindus; the Ether of modern physics is one of Æther’s subdivisions on our plane. Æther and Chaos (Plato’s Mind and Matter) are the two primeval and eternal principles of the universe, utterly independent of anything else. Æther is the all-vivifying intellectual principle; Chaos, a shapeless liquid principle, without “form or sense,” from the union of which two sprung into existence the Universe the first androgynous deity — the chaotic matter becoming its body, and æther its soul. Chaos–Theos–Kosmos are aspects of the Unknown Space. Deity, in the shape of Æther–Chaos–Akasha, Soul of the Universe and noumenon of Astral Light, pervades all things. The Theurgists called it the Living Fire, and the Spirit of Light. The science of physics, and of metaphysics for that matter, know nothing of Æther. Yet Father-Æther is re-welcomed with open arms; and wedded to gravitation. Æther is the source and cause of all forces, whether cohesive, chemical, thermal, electric, or magnetic. Æther is septenary, whether Akasha is meant by the term, or its lower principle — Ether. Akasha is the Matrix of the Universe and the “Mysterium Magnum,” from which all that exists is born by separation or differentiation: it is the cause of existence; it fills the infinite Space; and is Space itself, in one sense. But as the finite within the Infinite, this light must have its shadowy side — the “Astral Light,” which is no light. Individual human beings can overpower that “fatal light” but only by the holiness of their lives, and by acts of kindness and brotherly love. In Buddhism there are no compulsory beliefs. We are to believe only when the writing, doctrine, or teaching is corroborated by our own reason and consciousness. But then, we have to act accordingly and abundantly. Nihil is synonym for the impersonal divine Principle, the Infinite All, which is neither “being” nor “thing.” It is the Parabrahman of the Vedantist, The One Life of the Buddhist, “That” of the Chhandogya Upanishad, the Ain-Soph of the Kabbalah, The Absolute of Hegel. Lord Buddha taught that the Primitive Substance is eternal and unchangeable. Its vehicle is the pure, luminous Æther, boundless, infinite Space — still a creation of maya. Mastery of Buddhist dogmas can be attained only by following the Platonic deductive method, i.e., proceeding from universals to particulars. In Buddhist philosophy annihilation implies only a dispersion of matter in whatever form or semblance of form it may be. Even our astral bodies, pure ether, are but illusions of matter, so long as they retain their terrestrial outline. Æther is incorruptible. The spirits of creatures, who are emanations of the most sublimated portions of Æther, are Breaths not forms. The body of Jesus was abandoned to the earth while Christos, the Inner Man, was clothed with a luminous body made up of Æther. Part 2. Ether is the Mother of differentiated matter vivified by the formless Fire of Aether. When we recall pictures from the ether, the returning current meeting the outgoing wave of crystallised sound takes it up by magnetic attraction, and returns to us simultaneously the images of the past and the vibrations of its sounds. Each particle of matter is the register of all that has happened and previsionally apprehends even unspoken thought which, once conceived, displaces the particles of the brain by setting them in motion, and scatters its ideas throughout the universe, thus impressing them indelibly upon the eternal and boundless expanse of ether. The Divine Intellect is veiled in man. His animal brain alone philosophizes. When “astral light” circulates in harmony with the divine spirit, the occult powers of plants, animals, and minerals magically sympathize with the “superior natures,” and the divine soul of man attunes with the “inferior” ones. But during the barren periods, the latter lose their magic sympathy, and the spiritual sight of the majority of mankind is so blinded as to lose every notion of the innate powers of its divine lineage and essence. Spirit is the personal god of each mortal and his only divine element. The dual soul, on the contrary, is semidivine, i.e., potentially divine. It is only when the human individuality, soiled with earthly impurities, overcomes separateness and identifies itself with the divine intelligence within, that the aroma of personal experience can become immortal. Although invisible, thought is a material force. Let the least cerebral motion reverberate in the Ether of Space and it will produce a disturbance reaching to infinity. Akasha is not the Holy Ghost, because it would then be Shekh?nah (M?laprakriti). Akasha is the noumenon of the Cosmic Septenary, whose soul is Ether. Ether is the lining of Akasha, and Akasha is the Anima Mundi and Mother of Kosmos. Akasha, whose lowest form is the Ether of Space, is entirely different from the medium of Science. Fire is the Spirit of Deity, the active, male, generative principle; and Ether, the Soul of Matter, is the light of the Fire, the passive female principle from which everything in this Universe emanated. Hence, Ether or “Water” is Mother, and Fire is Father. Sound is the characteristic of Akasha (Ether): it generates air, the property of which is touch, and which, by friction, generates colour and light. The ether of Science is the grossest manifestation of Akasha, though on our plane, it is the seventh principle of the astral light, and three degrees higher than “radiant matter.” When ether penetrates or informs something, it may be molecular because it takes on the form of the latter, and its atoms inform the particles of that “something.” We may perhaps call matter “crystallised ether.” There is no such things as light, heat, sound, or electricity. There is nothing but radiant energy due to one thing — Motion of Ether. Modern Science may divide its hypothetically conceived ether in as many ways as it likes; the real Ether of Space, i.e., Æther, will remain as it is throughout. Ether is the vibrating sound-board in Nature, in all of her seven differentiations. Where there was no Ether there would be no sound. The “Astral Light,” or Ether of Space, preserves the images of all beings and things on its sensitised waves. An occult explanation of “Spirit” photographs is that they are objective copies from subjective photographs impressed upon the ether, and constantly thrown out by our thoughts, words, and deeds. There exists an infinite ocean of ether, in which all material substance floats, and through which are transmitted all forces in the physical universe. So long as “Spirit” photography, instead of being regarded a science, is presented to the public as a new revelation from the God of Israel and Jacob, the jury will go on deliberating much longer. The mediumistic rapping is a correlation of vital force, emitted from the person of the rapper, with the potential energy of the ether. Cyprianus, the reformed sorcerer of Antioch, confessed that he knew of the Chaldæan division of ether into parts. Part 3. The Seven Cosmic Elements, with their numberless sub-Elements, are modifications of One Element. There is but One Element in Nature, and at its rootless root is Deity. The so-called Seven Elements, of which five have already manifested and asserted their existence, are the fabric veiling Deity. Father-Æther has pre-eminence over, and is the synthesis of, all elements. Chaos-Theos-Kosmos is Unknown Space, producing the four primary Elements, which are known on the terrestrial plane as Seven Cosmic Elements. The attempt to derive God from the Anglo-Saxon word “good” is an abandoned idea. God is Jod, a phallic hook. He may be the creator of physical man, “out of nothing,” but not the spark of divine intelligence that “fell” in order to make animal man divine. The Seven “immortal gods who give birth and life to all” are constantly forming matter under the never-ceasing impulse of the One Element. The Seven Cosmic Elements, with their numberless sub-Elements, are modifications and aspects of the One and only Element. Four are entirely physical, and the fifth (Ether) semi-material. Akasha, of which Ether is the grossest form, is the Fifth Cosmic Principle which corresponds to, and from which unfolds, the human Manas. The first four numbers in German are named after four elements. But the Ancients represented the world by five elements. Had they been ignorant of the heterogeneity of the elements they would have had no personifications of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Æther. Of the Seven Elements on our Earth, four are now fully manifested, while the fifth — Ether — is only partially so, as we are hardly in the second half of the Fourth Round and, consequently, the Fifth Element will manifest fully only in the Fifth Round. It will only be in the next, or Fifth Round, that Ether, the gross body of Akasha, will become a familiar fact of Nature to all men, as air is familiar to us now. Cosmic Elements are the noumena of the terrestrial elements. “Water” is Matter in its precosmic state. Ether contains all other states of matter and their properties. The “waters” of creation are not the liquid we know, but Æther — the Fiery Waters of Invisible Space. Fohat is the “Son of Æther,” in its highest aspect. From Mahat-Intelligence proceeds ether; from ether, air; from air, heat; from heat, water; and from water, earth with everything on her. Æther is universal Fire — imponderable power and potency. Ether is one of Seven Cosmic Principles. Akasha is the synthesis of Æther; and Ether, an aspect of Akasha. The Astral Light is no “light,” it is the dark side of Ether, teeming with conscious, semi-conscious, and unconscious entities.
Author: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Publisher: Philaletheians UK
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 13
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Book Description
The Inner Man is a trinity, not a duality. By adding the physical body, he becomes a Tetractys, or quaternity. Plato never confused the périsprit with the soul or spirit. In common with every other philosopher, he called it neither nous nor psyche, but gave it the name eidolon, sometimes that of imago or simulacrum. The psychic element never seems to have been in the odour of sanctity, either with the Saints of Christianity or with the Philosophers of Paganism. Let us now compare this philosophic quaternary, composed of the body, the périsprit, the soul, and the spirit — to the ether and its subsequent correlations. Spirit is the personal god of each mortal and his only divine element. On the contrary, the dual soul is semidivine, i.e., potentially divine. It is only when the human individuality, soiled with earthly impurities, overcomes separateness and identifies itself with the divine intelligence within, that the aroma of personal experience can become immortal. Thought is a material force, although invisible. Let the least cerebral motion reverberate in the Ether of Space and it will produce a disturbance reaching to infinity. Nothing is stationary in nature; everything must advance or fall back, and an incurable drunkard, a debauchee wholly immersed in materiality, having never made the least effort towards the good, dead or living, will never make progress! Sentimentality has no place in our ranks; he who does not feel ready to sacrifice his dearest personal hopes to the Eternal Truth may become a member of the Theosophical Society, but will never belong to our Esoteric Circle. Our Masters are Patañjali, Kapila, Kanada, and all the systems and schools of Aryavarta which served as inexhaustible mines for the Greek philosophers, from Pythagoras to Proclus. It is based on the esoteric wisdom of ancient Egypt, where Moses, like Plato, went to learn from the Hierophants and Adepts in the East; it was therefore developed by methods that do not proceed by inference, but decide by strict analogy alone, and are based on the immutability of universal laws.
Author: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, et al.
Publisher: Philaletheians UK
ISBN: 0955040027
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 402
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Book Description
Assimilation of universal laws is the first key to manhood. Sacrificing the ephemeral to the eternal is the final key. Sacrificing others is a crime against Nature, for sacrifice is always a voluntary, not an enforced, act. Sacrifice proper is unselfish love of humanity in person and in secret. Defiling the altars of gods with blood is worse than murder. Four Metaphysical and Philosophical Keys to Theosophy: 1. Parabrahman or Absoluteness is the One and Only Reality. 2. Mulaprakriti or Noumenon of Matter is a veil thrown over Parabrahman. 3. Logos or Word is Divine Thought Concealed. 4. Fohat or Light of Logos is Divine Thought Revealed. The Three Fundamental Propositions of The Secret Doctrine analysed and amplified. How The One Becomes Two Ones: Parabrahman and Logos, and then Three. And how The Three Live within The One. Allusions to Logos in the Bhagavad Gita examined in the Light of Theosophy. Deity is Life and Law, and vice versa. Compassion is the Divine Law of Universal Sympathy and Sacrifice. Overseen by Spiritual Intelligences above, Compassion is enacted by the Intelligence of Nature and Her dual forces below. Deity is Unerring Karman or Abstract Nature: the Mind and Soul of the Universe. The One Eternal Life and Law, triple in its manifestation, is underpinned by the three Propositions of The Secret Doctrine. Each proposition is examined according to The Bhagavad-Gita, and in the light of Theosophy. Narada and Krishna speak with One Voice. Narada is the Deva Rishi of Occultism. He impelled animal man towards intellectual freedom. Narada’s aphorisms on Devotional Love and Krishna’s precepts to Arjuna are impossible to tell apart. A recension of Narada Bhakti Sutra in the light of Theosophy: 1. O Lanoo, listen to the Voice of the Heart Doctrine. 2. Give it all away or you will lose it. 3. Let your life become an example to unbelievers. 4. True life can only be found through Devotion to All. 5. With subdued heart place all thy works on Me. 6. Rise above the trappings of personal life. 7. Feel the Great Heart within. 8. With unfettered mind throw every deed on Me. 9. Intoxicate yourself with the right attitude and ethic. Avataras are our Watchers and Guardians. Prince Siddhartha Gautama locked mankind within one embrace. Jesus was a martyred Adept, not an Avatara. The real Christ is Krishna: Internal Light, not external symbols. The “still small voice” is the Heart and Pulse of the Universe. She is the Voice of the Great Sacrifice. Voice of the Silence and Light on the Path: two books, One Voice! Who speaks with a “still small voice”? Where is The Voice? When will The Voice speak? Where will The Voice speak? Under what conditions? What will The Voice say? How will I know if The Voice is genuine? What will I learn? With twenty-one tips for Pilgrim Souls: 1. Rise above the Fog of Separateness. 2. Seek Darkness with the Lamp of Faith. 3. Confirm Faith by Reason and Experience. 4. Validate Imagination by Faith and Will. 5. Lose yourself in the Sea of Devotion. 6. Realise your Ideals. 7. Live your Dreams. 8. Axe the Ashvattha Tree. 9. Slay your Mind. 10. Charity begins at home? 11. Be wise! Restrain thyself! 12. Head learning versus soul wisdom. 13. The false is nothing but an imitation of the true. 14. Act in person but Impersonally. 15. Thoughts and emotions are one and the same. 16. Action speaks louder than words. 17. Higher versus lower altruism. 18. Charity is a debt of honour. 19. Merge self in Self. 20. Seek out the fifth way of Loving. 21. Listen to the Clarion Call. Followed by four parting thoughts: - Master thyself and protect others. - Despise the life that only seeks its own. - Let thy pulses beat to heaven’s own music. - Let us be true to each other. And twelve Appendices on: Theosophists described metaphysically and ethically. Action, Renunciation, and their endless variants. At the threshold of two paths. Parabrahman: aspects, epithets, synonyms. Mulaprakriti: aspects, epithets, synonyms. Logos: aspects, epithets, synonyms. Fohat: aspects, epithets, synonyms. AUM: definitions, derivatives, parallels. Conscience and Consciousness. A Marriage made in Heaven. Alaya: aspects, epithets, synonyms. Providence rules the Power of the Will and the Necessity of Destiny.
Author: Origen
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
ISBN: 0870612808
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 576
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Book Description
Origen’s On First Principles is a foundational work in the development of Christian thought and doctrine: it is the first attempt in history at a systematic Christian theology. For over a decade it has been out of print with only expensive used copies available; now it is available at an affordable price and in a more accessible format. On First Principles is the most important surviving text written by third-century Church father, Origen. Origen wrote in a time when fundamental doctrines had not yet been fully articulated by the Church, and contributed to the very formation of Christianity. Readers see Origen grappling with the mysteries of salvation and brainstorming how they can be understood. This edition presents G. W. Butterworth’s trusted translation in a new, more readable format, retains the introduction by Henri de Lubac, and includes a new foreword by John C. Cavadini. As St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Doctor of the Church, wrote: “Origen is the stone on which all of us were sharpened.”
Author: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Author: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Author: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Author: George Frederick Shrady
Author: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Author: C. S. Lewis
Author: C.U.M. Smith