THE SECRET DOCTRINE OF THE ROSICRUCIANS/PART 5
PART
V
THE
ONE AND THE MANY
In
the Secret Doctrine of the Rosicrucians,
we find the
following Fourth Aphorism:
The Fourth
Aphorism IV.
The One becomes
Many. The Unity becomes
Diversity. The Identical becomes Variety. Yet
the Many remains One; the
Diversity remains Unity; and the Variety
remains Identical.
In
this Fourth Aphorism of Creation, the
Rosicrucian is directed
to apply his
attention to the
concept of the
World Soul—the First Manifestation of the Eternal Parent—as a One Manifesting as Many; a Unity manifesting as
Diversity; an Identical manifesting as
Variety: yet, notwithstanding such
manifestations, remaining ever One, Unity, and Identical.
This
concept of the World Soul, so manifesting itself in Manifoldness,
Diversity, and Variety,
yet ever remaining One, Unity, and Identical, is
represented by the
Rosicrucians by the
symbol of a small circle within
a larger circle, the
smaller circles being
filled with tiny
points or centres
of manifestation. The
outer circle is,
of course, the Infinite
Unmanifest; the smaller
circle, of course,
being the World
Soul; and the
small dots, or
points, being the individualized centres
of life, being,
and activity manifested
by the World
Soul.
That
all beings are, in truth, but expressions of the One
Being—centres of consciousness, form,
and activity within
itself,—is a fundamental
tenet of all
occult and esoteric teaching.
That all Being is One; all
Life, One; all
Form, One; all
Consciousness, One, is
known to all true
disciples of the
occult and esoteric
teachings of the
past and present,
occidental and oriental,
philosophical and
theological. Hidden behind
and under the
orthodox, exoteric
teachings, there is
always to be
found this insistence upon
Essential Oneness on
the part of
the Inner Teachings
of all schools.
That
there is but One Life, and not Many
Lives, is a
fundamental article of all
occult and esoteric
faith. The One Life,
moreover, is not
to be thought
of as dividing
and splitting itself up
into bits, parts, and particles, in
order to accomplish the
process of Creation,
and the Manifestation
of the World.
Instead, it is to be thought of
as merely reflecting itself in the many
individual mirrors of expression, just
as the sun reflects
itself as One
in the millions
of falling raindrops,
or in a
million tiny jars
filled with water.
There are millions of
reflections of the
One, but only
the one One
in reality. Or, using another
figure of speech, the
One may be thought
of as an
Infinite Ocean of
Being, in which there are millions of tiny bubbles, each apparently apart and
separate, but all
of which are
in reality, but centres of activity and
expression in the
One Great Ocean. Separateness is,
to quote a
writer, "but the
working fiction of Creation." All the apparently
separated Things are contained
within the circle of the
World Soul—and the
latter is contained
within the circle
of the Infinite Unmanifest.
Not
only is
this esoteric conception
of the Many
in One, and
the One in
Many, a fundamental
conception of the ancient
esoteric and occult
teachings, but the
same truth in
another form is presented by
advanced modern science in its conception
of the Universal
Substance. Science postulates
the existence of a Universal Substance, known under many
names, from which all Things proceed. It matters not whether
this Universal Substance be
called "Primordial
Substance," or "Infinite and
Eternal Energy," or
"The Universal Ether,"
the fact remains
that science postulates its
existence as a
fundamental, substantial Something, of and in which all forms and
phases of phenomenal existence
are but manifestations. In
the same way,
those schools of transcendental
philosophy which postulate the existence
of a
Universal Mind teach
that all forms
and phases of phenomenal existence are but Thought Forms
in the Universal Mind. And the old
Brahmanical teachings likewise hold that the Many exist but as incidents of the
"dream" or
"meditation" of the
Lord High Brahma.
In all
forms, phases, and
schools of philosophy
we find this
insistence upon the presence and existence of
a One Something of which
all else are
but manifestations. In
fact, as the
wisest philosophers have informed
us, the whole purpose of philosophy is
to discover the
One Unconditioned Ground
of all that exists Conditionally. All philosophy worthy
of the name
is Monistic in
essence. A leading authority on the
history of philosophy
informs us the: "Monism
is, in strictness,
a name applicable to any system of thought
which sees in
the universe the manifestation or working of a single
principle. Such a unity
may be at once the
tacit presupposition and
the goal of all
philosophic effect, and in so far as a philosophy fails to harmonize
the apparently independent
and even conflicting facts
of experience, as
aspects or elements
within a larger
whole, it must
be held to
fall short of the
necessary ideal of
thought. Dualism, in
an ultimate metaphysical
reference, is a confession of the
failure of philosophy to
achieve its proper
task; and this
is a justification
of those who
consistently use the
word as a
term of reproach."
And,
now, let us take
a brief passing
glance at the
Rosicrucian teachings concerning the
manner in which
the One proceeded to
become the Many—the
Unity to become
Diversity—the Identical to
become Variety—and yet remain
the One, Unity,
Identity of the
World Soul, unaffected and unchanged by its plunge into Manifestation.
Evolution we see on all
sides around us, but all Evolution must be preceded by
Involution, as all occultists and scientists know
full well.
Modern
Science, in pursuing its discoveries along the lines of Evolution, has almost entirely ignored the twin-activity
of Manifestation, which is known as
Involution. Not so the
ancient occultists, however, for
they knew full well the
truth so forcibly
expressed in the words of a modern "plain speaking" philosopher
who said: "You
can never get out of a
thing anything which
is not already
involved in it."
And to the
ancient student of the esoteric teachings any
idea of Evolution
which did not
begin with the
teachings concerning Involution
was like the
play of Hamlet with
Hamlet left out.
There is an
ancient saying which runs:
"That which is evolved must previously
have been involved;" and
in this simple
statement is condensed
a volume of
important occult lore. The
term "Involve" means
"to wrap up;
to cover; to
hide; etc."
The term
"Evolve" means "to
unwrap; to unfold;
to un-roll; etc." With
these meanings in
mind, the student
sees at once
that before a
thing can be
"unwrapped, unfolded, un-rolled," it
must have first
been wrapped-up, folded-up,
rolled-up. We must
not lose sight
of the meaning attached
to the simple
terms, no matter how many high-sounding terms are substituted
for these. The same
thing remains the
same thing, no
matter how many
new names are
attached to it.
The
esoteric teachings, as has
been said, clearly
and positively state that before there began the wonderful
process of Evolution from simple to more
complex forms of manifestation—from lower
to higher—there must
first have been an
"involution" or in-folding
of the World
Soul into the
simple, gross, elemental
forms of matter.
The vibrations must have been
first lowered, before they can have been
increased.
Plunging at
once, with terrific
speed and force,
into the abyss
of Manifestation, the
World Soul created
for itself material garments
of the densest
and grossest elemental
matter. This extreme
form of elemental
matter is not known
to us today, for it has been discarded
in the course
of evolution on
this particular planet. It, however, still exists on other planets
of our solar
system. This form,
or forms, of
elemental matter is below the
scale of the minerals,
and is as
much lower than
the grossest mineral
known to science
as that mineral
is lower than
the highest plant. In
texture, structure, and
density the extreme
form of elemental
matter is as
much grosser than
the lowest form of
mineral known to
us, as the
latter is grosser
than the highest
form of ethereal
vapor or radiant matter known
to modern science.
It is useless
to try to
describe this form
of matter, for
the ordinary mind
cannot grasp it in
the absence of
concrete illustration.
When
the lowest point in
the scale of
Involution was reached,
then the Law
of Rhythm asserted
itself, and the upward climb began—the first movement of
Evolution began to
manifest itself. And,
at this precise
point, there was begun
the manifestation of
what may be
termed
"individualization,"
or the forming
of centres of
activity and consciousness. The
World Soul descended
into the depth
of Involution en
masse, and then
began to emerge
from those depths by
an apparent "splitting up"
process, in which
the active new-born
centres of activity
began to assert themselves and to move
upward toward self-expression. The
simpler centres which
occultists know to be the centers
of activity in the electrons of matter began
to form molecules.
There was of
course manifested the
presence of mind
within this gross matter—but only the
faint glimmerings were
manifested, for the
gross enveloping sheaths of matter almost smothered the mental
principles involved within
them.
The Process
of Evolution once
begun, it proceeded
rapidly. Higher and higher in the
scale of manifestation rose the
Things—in spiralic process,
each spiral rising
above the one
beneath it, and
yet each proceeding
apparently in a circle,
as do all
proceeding things. In due time
the first signs
of the mineral
kingdom began to
show themselves, building upon
the basis of
the sub-mineral forms
of matter. In
the mineral kingdom
began to manifest
higher forms of life
and mind—for, as
the occultists know
well, the minerals
possess both life
and mind in
a certain degree. And
then later appeared
the first signs
of plant life—forms but
slightly above those
of certain crystals.
When the
temperature of the
earth was at
a point at which life is commonly believed to
be impossible, there
were present certain strange
forms of life,
which may be
described as half
mineral—half plant. These
crystals reproduced
themselves by a
splitting up process,
and grew from
the inside as
do plants. These
life forms were composed
of the same
materials as the
crystals from which
they evolved—but they
possessed a greater
degree of life and
mind, and while
from one point
of view they
may be said
to have been
minerals, yet from
another they may truly
be said to
have been plants.
These strange creatures have
disappeared as have all other
"intermediate forms" which have
played the parts
of bridges in
the evolutionary process. But they have left their traces
in the
material bodies of
both plants and
animals. For it
must be remembered
that even the
bodies of the highest
forms of plant
or animal life
are composed of
certain chemical elements
which were derived
from the mineral kingdom,
as for instance,
oxygen, hydrogen, carbon,
nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, etc.
The first
forms of real
plant life are
described by the
old teachers as
having been a
now-extinct lowly form
of plant-life scarcely more
than a crystal
in appearance, and
yet manifesting the
characteristics of plant
life. Then appeared the
ancestors of what
are now known
as the "chlomacea" which
are a strange
group of lowly
creatures, comprising the characteristics of both plant
and mineral life,
and being found
even today in
the deposits upon damp
rocks, the bark
of trees, etc. From this and simpler creatures evolved the ancestors
of what are
now known as the
"angiospores," or lowest
forms of plant-life;
and later, the ancestors of the "gymnospores,"
which are probably the lowest forms
of animal-life known
to science today.
The Process
of Evolution is
caused by the
constant striving of
the Life and
Mind within the
sheaths of matter— the
striving to express
more and still
more of themselves,
and to mould
and use the
sheaths of matter
in the work of
self-expression. Protoplasm, the physical
basis of plant
and animal life, was evolved in this way. Then came the
single-celled creature which
dwelt in the
slime of the
ancient ocean beds.
Then forms of
life composed of colonies
of cells appeared.
Then more complex
forms of cell-combination, and
so on, and
on, until the
highest forms of life
known to us
today were evolved.
Finally, primitive
man was evolved. Then man began to improve
in mind and
feeling. And he
is still making
progress along these
lines. But man
(of today) is merely
a high stage
of the evolutionary process, and
he, in turn,
will be succeeded
by the Super-Men
of the future, and
these in turn
by the god-like
angelic creatures, the
like of whom
are in existence
on other and
high spheres even this
day.
But
always remember that in
all the millions
of types of
living forms, and the millions
upon millions upon millions of
individuals ensouling these forms, there is no real
separateness. All life
is One—and all
Life but the Life
of the World
Soul. Therefore, in
the symbol of
the Rosicrucians—the countless
points within the
smaller circle, which in
turn is enclosed
within the larger
circle—we have the
picture of the
Eternal Parent and
its First Manifestation, the
World Soul, the
latter manifesting in
the countless life-forms
of the World
of Manifestation. And, the
work of Evolution
is still underway,
and higher and
higher forms of
expression will proceed
from within the Involved
Being of the
World Soul which
is ever striving
and struggling to
manifest itself in
self-expression.
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