THE SECRET DOCTRINE OF THE ROSICRUCIANS/PART 3
PART
III
THE
SOUL OF THE WORLD
In
the Secret Doctrine of the
Rosicrucians we find
the following Second
Aphorism:
The
Second Aphorism II. The Germ within the
Cosmic Egg takes
unto itself Form. The Flame is
re-kindled. Time begins. A Thing exists. Action begins. The
Pairs of Opposites spring
into being. The
World Soul is
born, and awakens
into manifestation. The first
rays of the
new Cosmic Day
break over the
horizon.
In
this Second 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. This World
Soul—the First Manifestation—is represented by the Rosicrucians
by the symbol
of a circle
containing at its
centre a black
dot or point.
The circle, of
course, represents the Infinite
Unmanifest, and the
black dot or point represents
the Focal Point
of the new Manifestation—the "Germ
within the Cosmic
Egg," as the
old occultists poetically
expressed the idea.
The
Rosicrucian concept of the World Soul—the First
Manifestation—corresponds to similar
conceptions found, in various
forms, in most
of the ancient
occult teachings of the several great esoteric schools of philosophy.
In some philosophies it
is known as
the "Anima Mundi,"
or Life of the World,
Soul of the World, or World
Spirit. In others
it is known
as the Logos,
or Word. In
others, as the
Demiurge. The spirit
of the concept is
this: that from the unconditioned essence of
Infinite Unmanifestation there
arose an Elemental
and Universal Soul, clothed in the garments of the most tenuous,
elemental form of
Matter, which contained
within itself the potency
and latent possibility
of all the
future universes of
the new Cosmic
Circle, or Cosmic
Day. This World Soul
is spoken of
in the Second
Aphorism as "The
Germ within the
Cosmic Egg," inasmuch
as it is regarded
as the tiny
germ within the
egg which gradually
increases in size
and complexity, and
takes upon itself Form
and Activity.
The symbol
of the Cosmic
Egg, of which
the World Soul
is the Animating
Germ, is a
very old one, and one
widely spread in
usage in the ancient world.
As a
prominent occultist has
said: "Whence this universal symbol? The Egg
was incorporated as a sacred
sign in the
cosmogony of every
people on the
earth, and was revered
both on account
of its form
and its inner
mystery. From the
earliest mental conceptions
of man, it was known as that which
represented most successfully
the Origin and Secret of
Being. The gradual
development of the imperceptible
Germ within the
closed shell; the
inward working, without any apparent outward interference
of force, which from
a latent nothing
produced an active
something, needing naught save
heat; and which,
having gradually evolved into
a concrete, living
creature, broke its
shell, appearing to
the outward senses
of all a self-generated, and
self-created being—must have been
a standing miracle
from the beginning.
"The secret
teaching explains the
reason for this
reference by the
symbolism of the prehistoric
races. The 'First Cause'
had no name
in the beginnings.
Later, it was
pictured in the
fancy of the
thinkers as an
ever invisible Bird that
dropped an Egg
into Chaos, which
Egg became the
Universe. Hence, Brahm
was called 'Kalahansa,'
the Swan of Eternity
which laid at the beginning of
each Mahamanvantara a
'Golden Egg.' It
typifies the great
Circle, or circle, itself
a symbol for
the universe and
its spherical bodies.
* * *
The first manifestation
of the Cosmos
in the form of
an egg was
the most widely
diffused belief of
antiquity. It was
a symbol adopted among the Greeks, the Syrians,
Persians, and Egyptians. In the Egyptian
Ritual, Seb, the god of
Time and of
the Earth, is
spoken of as having
laid an egg,
or the Universe.
Ra is shown
like Brahma gestating in
the Egg of
the Universe. With
the Greeks the
Orphic Egg was
a part of
the Dionysiac and
other mysteries, during which
the Mundane Egg
was consecrated and
its significance explained.
The Christians—especially the
Greek and Latin Churches—have fully
adopted this symbol,
and see in
it a commemoration
of life eternal,
or salvation and resurrection. This is
found in and
corroborated by the
custom of 'Easter
Eggs.' From the
'Egg' of the pagan
Druids, to the
red Easter Egg
of the Slav,
a cycle has passed. And, yet, whether in civilized
Europe, or among the abject savages of Central America, we find the
same archaic, primitive
thought; if we
only search for it
and do
not disfigure—in the haughtiness
of our fancied mental and physical
superiority—the original idea
of the symbol."
The
concept of the World Soul,
in some form
of interpretation and
under some one
of many names,
may be said to
be practically universal.
Among many of
the ancient schools
of philosophy it
was taught that
there was an Anima
Mundi, or World Soul, of which all the individual souls
were but
apparently separated (though not
actually separated) units. The
conviction that Life
was One is
expressed through nearly
all of the best
of ancient philosophies; and, in
fact, in subtly
disguised forms, may
be said to
rest at the
base of the
best of modern philosophies.
In the
philosophical concept of the Logos,
we find another, and more advanced, form of this
same fundamental concept. The
term, Logos, first
became prominent in the
philosophy of Heraclitus of
Ephesus, where it
appears as the Law
of Nature, objective
in the world,
giving order and
regularity to the
movement of things.
The Logos formed an
important part of
the Stoic System
of Philosophy. The
Active Principle, abiding in
the world, they
called the Logos,
the term being likewise applied
to the Universal Productive Cause. An authority
on the history
of philosophy has
said of the
concept of the
Logos: "The Logos,
a being intermediate between
God and the
World, is diffused
through the world
of the senses.
The Logos does
not exist from Eternity
like God, and
yet its genesis
is not like our own
and that of
all other created
beings. It is the First-Begotten of
God, and is
for us imperfect
beings almost as a God.
Through the agency
of the Logos,
God created the World."
In
the philosophical concept of the Demiurge,
we find another
form of the
same fundamental concept.
The Demiurge was the
name given by
the Platonian philosophers
to an exalted
and mysterious agent
by whom God was
supposed to have
created the universe.
He was akin
to the Nature-God
of the Pantheists,
and to the
"Living Nature" of other
schools of philosophy. The Demiurge was the Life of the
World, or Universal Life,
of which all the
innumerable lives of
finite creatures are
but sparks in
the flame or
drops of water
in the ocean.
And, yet, in its
true sense, the
concept of the
Demiurge was not
identified with that of
God, but was
rather a concept
of the First Great
Manifestation of God,
by means of
which He creates
and sustains the
World.
The idea
of a Universal
Will, a primal
manifestation of God,
existing at the
Heart of Nature,
and operating to build
up and sustain the Universe, is
found in many modern philosophies. Cudsworth, the English philosopher
has sought to indicate
this conception in his idea
of "Plastic Nature,"
of which he says:
"It seems not
so agreeable that
Nature, as a
distinct thing from
the Deity, should
be quite superseded or made to signifying nothing, God Himself doing all things immediately and miraculously;
from whence it
would follow also that
they are all
done either forcibly
and violently, or
else artificially only, and
none of them
by any inward principle
of their own.
This opinion is
further confuted by
that slow and
gradual process that
in the generation of
things, which would
seem to be
but a vain
and idle pomp
or a trifling
formality if the
moving power were omnipotent;
as also by
those errors and
bungles which are
committed where the
matter is inept
and contumacious; which argue
that the moving
power be not
irresistible, and that Nature is
such a thing
as is not altogether incapable (as well as human art)
of being sometimes frustrated and disappointed by
the indisposition of
matter. Whereas
an omnipotent moving
power, as it
could dispatch its
work in a
moment, so would
it always do it infallibly and irresistibly, no
ineptitude and stubbornness of matter being ever able to
hinder such a one, or make him
bungle or fumble
in anything.
"Therefore, since
neither all things
are produced fortuitously,
or by the
unguided mechanism of
matter, nor God himself
may be reasonably
thought to do
all things immediately
and miraculously, it may well
be concluded that there
is a Plastic
Nature under him,
which, as an
inferior and subordinate
instrument, doth drudgingly
execute that part of his providence
which consists in
the regular and
orderly motion of
matter; yet so
as there is
also besides this a higher
providence to be
acknowledged, which, presiding
over it, doth
often supply the
defects of it,
and sometimes overrules it,
forasmuch as the
Plastic Nature cannot
act electively nor
with discretion." Other
schools of philosophy, notably that founded by Schopenhauer, have postulated
the presence of
a Universal Spirit (whose
chief attribute is
Desire-Will) from whom
the universe of
creatures has proceeded.
This Universal Spirit is
held to be
filled with a
longing, craving, seeking, striving
desire to express itself in phenomenal existence. Schopenhauer calls it "The Will to
Live." It is
described as instinctive
rather than intellectual, and as
creating intellect with
which to better
serve its purposes
of self-expression. Other
philosophers have proceeded along the main lines of the concept
of Schopenhauer, with
various modifications. The
same idea is expressed by some of
the old Buddhistic philosophers, the
very term "The
Will-to-Live" being used
to express the
essential nature of the Universal Spirit. But, it must
be noted, in
such philosophies the
Universal Spirit is
considered rather as the
Eternal Parent than
as its First
Manifestation. In the
same way a certain school of thinkers postulate
the existence of a
"Living Nature," which
expresses itself in
innumerable living creatures
and things—all Things
in the universe being
held to possess
Life in some form and degree, as,
indeed, the Rosicrucian
creatures also hold.
But it
must be always
noted that in
the Secret Doctrine
of the Rosicrucians
the World Soul is
not regarded as the
Infinite Reality, but
merely as the
First Manifestation thereof, from which all subsequent
manifestations proceed and into
which they are
finally resolved. The
World Soul is
not Eternal, but,
on the contrary, appears and disappears according to the rhythm
of the Cosmic
Nights and Days.
The
Second Aphorism states: "The Flame is rekindled."
The
Dark Light once more bursts into Flame
throughout the form
of the World
Soul, and the
new Universe begins.
It also
states: "Time begins."
This is seen
to be true because Change has begun, and Change is the
essence of Time, and
Time the measure of Change.
Again:
"A Thing exists." This because
the World Soul
is truly a Thing, with all the characteristics of Thingness. It can be defined and
described in positive
terms; it can
be thought of
logically and in terms
of intellect, though perhaps
not capable of being pictured
in the imagination.
Again:
"Action begins." This because from the very inception
of the Germ in the Cosmic Egg
there is the manifestation of
Activity, Motion, and
Change. The World
Soul is in
constant and uninterrupted
activity from the moment
of its faintest
dawn until the
moment of its
expiring quiver.
Again:
"The Pairs of Opposites spring into being." As all Thingness
is accompanied by
the presence of the
Pairs of
Opposites—the contrasting sets
of qualities, it
follows that from
the first faint
breath of the
World Spirit differentiation begins,
and the polarity
of qualities exhibit
themselves.
Again:
"The World Soul is born, and awakens into
manifestation." The World Soul awakens into active
manifestation from the
very moment of
its birth. Finding
within itself the impelling urge of the Will-to-Live and of Expression,
it proceeds at
once, along the
lines of elementary
Instinct to prepare for manifestation of higher and more complex
forms of life
and action.
Again: "The
first rays of the new
Cosmic Day break
over the horizon." With
the coming of
the World Soul the
new Cosmic Day
is indeed begun, and
proceeds without interruption
until the shades
of the Cosmic
Night once more
overtake it in
cyclic sequence.
The
Rosicrucian Teaching is that
the World Soul
is not a
soul lacking a
body, but that,
on the contrary,
it is clothed in the garments
of the most
tenuous and ethereal
substance—a substance as
much finer and
more ethereal than the
Ether of Space, of the
material scientists, as
the latter is
much finer and
more ethereal than
the hardest steel or
granite. From this ethereal substance
the World Soul
weaves bodies for
its manifestations, even the
densest forms of
matter—and even the tenuous bodily form of the highest forms
of life, far removed from our comparatively gross earth-plane.
The
Rosicrucians further hold that it
is not correct
to think of the
World Soul as having been created "out of nothing" by the Eternal Parent, and still
less so think
of it having
been created from the
substantial essence of the
Eternal Parent by
division, separation, or
partition (such ideas
being held to
be logically impossible and fallacious). On
the contrary, it is held
that the World
Soul exists as
an IDEA of the Eternal
Parent—just as, in a
day dream, or
a reverie, or
a full dream,
we may picture
a Thing as in being. Or in other terms, even the World Soul exists
merely as a
PICTURE in the
Infinite Imagination of
the Eternal Parent,
and at the
last is but a
SHADOW of Reality, and not
Reality itself.
The
World Soul, at the Dawn
of the Cosmic
Day, may be said to
be like a dreamer freshly awakened
from a deep sleep,
and striving to
regain consciousness of
himself. It does
not know what it is, nor does it know
that it is but
an Idea
of the Eternal
Parent. If it could express its thought in words it would say
that it has always
been, but had
been asleep before
that moment. It feels within
itself the urge toward expression and
manifestation, along unconscious and instinctive lines—this urge
being a part
of its nature
and character and implanted
into it by the content
of the Idea
of the Eternal
Parent which brought
it into being.
Like the newborn babe,
it struggles for
breath and begins
to move its
limbs. And as
it struggles and moves, there
comes to it a
response from all
of its nature,
and its active
life begins. And
here we leave
the World Soul,
for the moment, struggling
for breath and
striving to move
its limbs (figuratively
speaking, of course).
Its future is related
in the succeeding
Aphorisms.
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