First of all apologies for taking so long with this part. I tried to get it done by Wednesday but my comments were all over the place and I've still got couple pages to go! Will try to keep it more compact in the future.
The Proem circling around oneness was both revealing and baffling. In addition to this central theme, I found the skeleton descriptions of the stanzas helpful, and the description of different stages of logos very interesting. I could spend weeks and months in some of these paragraphs.
The jump from oneness to Logos intrigues me as the orthodox Brahmins way is critiqued by Blavatsky. Phanes comes to mind from the golden egg:
Secret Doctrine wrote:The orthodox Brahmins, those who rise the most against the Pantheists and Adwaitees, calling them Atheists, are forced, if Manu has any authority in this matter, to accept the death of Brahma, the creator, at the expiration of every “Age” of this (creative) deity (100 Divine years — a period which in our years requires fifteen figures to express it). Yet, no philosopher among them will view this “death” in any other sense than as a temporary disappearance from the manifested plane of existence, or as a periodical rest.
The Occultists are, therefore, at one with the Adwaita Vedantin philosophers as to the above tenet. They show the impossibility of accepting on philosophical grounds the idea of the absolute all creating or even evolving the “Golden Egg,” into which it is said to enter in order to transform itself into Brahma — the Creator, who expands himself later into gods and all the visible Universe.
The circling around the theme of oneness reminds me how we, who seek the truth, circle around this empty space half-blind while with the higher perception we can see the seven skins of the "Eternal Mother-Father", to which our inner lives connect. If I understand it right, the limited fallen things are included in oneness (it's problematic to exclude anything from it of course, but it seems necessary from the perspective of this dynamic plane) when the meaning, read in the skins, connect to the fallen principles. Our perception of material existence is only an approximate interpretation made by our logical system (brains with our five senses being part of it), and in this fallen state when meaning is lost we are drowning in lies that are sort of a feedback loop of misunderstanding Satan and in that way we close ourselves in a drape of detached materia through which the laws and the beauty of the gods - the law of the real inner world can't be seen.
Skeleton of Stanza I
The First Stanza describes the state of the one all during Pralaya, before the first flutter of re-awakening manifestation.
A moment’s thought shows that such a state can only be symbolised; to describe it is impossible. Nor can it be symbolised except in negatives; for, since it is the state of Absoluteness per se, it can possess none of those specific attributes which serve us to describe objects in positive terms. Hence that state can only be suggested by the negatives of all those most abstract attributes which men feel rather than conceive, as the remotest limits attainable by their power of conception.
Suggesting by negatives reminds me of the idea how Satan points to the opposite direction always, negating any attribute and thus pointing to the oneness.
Skeletons of Stanzas III & IV
I've understood that Monad is the master (more precisely Satan standing in the crossroad of every separation making the law visible for our eyes) embodying the whole of the higher triad of the Hieroglyphic Key. I find it interesting how the septenary of Dhyan-Chohans ie. archangels are suggested to appear down the hierarchy of emanation after monad, as if by becoming the master in our ascending path we rule, not only angles but archangels? It may be problematic to compare the language of "the orthodox" with the Eastern traditions as Blavatsky doesn't seem to find much sympathy from Christians laws. Anyway, I guess the state of the Dhyan-Chohans is so deeply soaked in the Monadic "command" that hierarchies and differentiation are only heuristic symbolic descriptions reaching towards our poor visibility (which is a thought I hope to find the key from to read the stanzas as Blavatsky suggests to be read them).
"Indeed it must be remembered that all these Stanzas appeal to the inner faculties rather than to the ordinary comprehension of the physical brain"
Skeletons of Stanzas V & VI
If I remember correctly the Mahatma Letters also dealt with the concept of the images or the ideas of planets existing in the total darkness of a pralaya afterwhich it will start to gather minerals to it's center in its spatial existence as will a human embryo in the womb of the mother.
Aquila wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2019 2:13 pm
During the coming pages it could be interesting to ponder and compare how and if the seven stanzas relate to other seven-fold systems in any ways like the seven days of creation, seven celestial archetypes, seven theosophical principles etc.
Secret Doctrine wrote:
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.
Long I have been thinking the seven archetypes form a kind of their own layer and thus a bit reluctantly seeing the seven planetary spirits connected to the septenary of Theosophic Principles, or The Hieroglyphic Key. The latter quote assures me to see the legitimacy in drawing correspondences between the principles lower and higher triads and the planetary spirits.
Secret Doctrine wrote:
It is the one life, eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without beginning or end, yet periodical in its regular manifestations, between which periods reigns the dark mystery of non-Being; unconscious, yet absolute Consciousness; unrealisable, yet the one self-existing reality; truly, “a chaos to the sense, a Kosmos to the reason.”
This seems to point that understanding or knowing metaphysical laws is the divine consciousness. Thus truly knowing is breaking free of the sensory world of maya, and which pralaya is a representation of in a cosmic scale.
Secret Doctrine wrote: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.
Reminds me of art discussion on the Finnish forums which brought back, yet again, some precious childhood memories of ever falling motion (revealed by a seemingly still moment) of perpetual horror.
Secret Doctrine wrote:Intra-Cosmic motion is eternal and ceaseless
Manu I understand to be the human spirit risen to be the Lord of a Manvantara and thus is this motion with the next Manu who is prepared for such an initiation with the rest of humanitys inner progression.
Secret Doctrine wrote:Occultism sums up the “One Existence” thus: “Deity is an arcane, living (or moving) fire, and the eternal witnesses to this unseen Presence are Light, Heat, Moisture,” — this trinity including, and being the cause of, every phenomenon in Nature.
This fire I'm interpreting as the Monad which can be artificially divided in to manas-light, budhi-warmth & atma-moisture (will sweating itself alive). When we understand the gods working in us we receive flashes of this unseen fire. The seeming immobility of gods might be seen actually the only real movement of the universe. When we see a stone falling from a cliff it's only real in our meaningful interpretation/immediate "fohatic beeingness" that is both in the monad of the stone and the interpreter.
In the complex term jungle Blavatsky forms (apparently almost entirely according to the 19th century orientalist preferences) worsened by the Finnish translation, it is much of a relief to find in the middle of this jungle a familiar names, or so I presume, for the baffling complexity:
"Hot Breath is the Father who devours the progeny of the many-faced Element (heterogeneous) ; and leaves the single-faced ones (homogeneous)."
Saturn, right? Also reminding of the Celestial Hymn of Mercury where we close thousand eyes and open one. Sort of a reversed Saturn to meet Mercury.
"Cool Breath is the Mother, who conceives, forms, brings forth, and receives them back into her bosom, to reform them at the Dawn (of the Day of Brahmâ..."
Venus-Lucifer?
Polyhymnia wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2019 8:15 pm
A) ONE ABSOLUTE- BE-NESS- symbolized by finite intelligence as the theological trinity. An omnipresent, eternal, boundless and immutable PRINCIPLE on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude.
“Be-ness” rather than Being and beyond all thought or speculation. Symbolized under two aspects: Absolute abstract space, representing bare subjectivity, the one thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception or conceive by itself. Absolute motion, representing unconditioned consciousness. Motion best symbolizing change. The Great Breath.
Ok, so in relation to the Hieroglyphic Key, the first proposition would be represented by Monad? And Atma, Manas, an Buddhi representing the theological Trinity? I feel as though I'm overlooking something. In the book, is the theological Trinity she refers to the trinity of absolute abstract space (bare subjectivity), absolute abstract motion (unconditioned consciousness), but I can't seem to figure out what the third is.
If we are to follow the propositions a, b, c spanning over the pages 14 to 17 the third might be c) "The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul" ie. buddhi with an obvious connection to atma (this higher triad, I suppose, is never in separation but is always one ideal). I can see atma in bare subjectivity but also buddhi in the abstract space, while absolute abstract motion I'd easily connect to manas. But this feels a bit rigid, not sure if there's a good reason for it.
Cerastes wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2019 11:21 pm
It will take me a few more days to arrange my thoughts so that they can be understood. By now I read it in English and my native language and for some reason the English version is easier to understand. Blavatsky and me are probably not getting best friends but many things that I read over very fast last time make a lot more sense now. Still I'm a very slow reader who needs to stop and think every few sentences to put the picture together and the more I think about it, the more questions accure and the more associations with other texts appear.
By the way...Does anyone understand the difference between Brahma and Parabrahma?
I can easily relate to your experience with the text.
When the difference between Brahma and Brahmā is opened, I can't see the difference between Brahma and Parabrahma, but am eager to find the difference if such a thing exists. Maybe it's the same seemingly minimal difference that is between the 1st and the 2nd stanzas.