To the Editors of Lucifer.
In the last issue of Lucifer is a paper “Self-Evident Truths and Logical Deductions.” The paper is important, but is not, in my opinion, sufficiently clear. “One is a Unity and cannot be divided into two Ones.” This is so if we understand Unity to be many entities, parts, or forms, organised into a body of harmony so forming a Unity.
I would like to ask, if the Universe, the One or All, must not be of a certain size; and if so, is the Original One, the ever produced, not of the same size?
Also, being an organic Whole, what is the form of the All? And is the form, whatever it is, not also the form of the self-existent Cause or God?
Is nature co-eternal with God? Or was there a time, or rather state, when God, the self-existent One, was all in all, before nature was produced from himself? I cannot think of anything of nature, spirit, soul, or God, without the ideas of size, form, number, and relation. So there can be no Life, Law, Cause, or Force, formless in itself, yet causative of forms. All evolutions are in, by, and unto forms; the All-evolver is Himself all Form.
The truth of the Universe is the Form of the Universe. The Truth of God is the Form of God. What Form is that? To attain to that is the great attainment for the intelligence at least. In these few lines my aim is mainly an enquiry.
Edinburgh, 29th March, 1888.
Respectfully yours,
J. W. Hunter.
Editors’ Reply [H.P.B.]
According to the Eastern philosophy a unity composed of “many entities, parts, or forms” is a compound unity on the plane of Maya—illusion or ignorance. The One universal divine Unity cannot be a differentiated whole, however much “organized into a body of harmony.” Organization implies external work out of materials at hand, and can never be connected with the self-existent, eternal, and unconditioned Absolute Unity.
This one self, absolute intelligence and existence, therefore non-intelligence and non-existence (to the finite and conditioned perception of man), is “impartite, beyond the range of speech and thought and is the substract of all” teaches Vedantasara in its introductory Stanza.
How, then, can the Infinite and the Boundless, the unconditioned and the absolute, be of any size? The question can only apply to a dwarfed reflection of the uncreate ray on the mayavic plane, or our phenomenal Universe; to one of the finite Elohim, who was most probably in the mind of our correspondent. To the (philosophically) untrained Pantheist, who identifies the objective Kosmos with the abstract Deity, and for whom Kosmos and Deity are synonymous terms, the form of the illusive objectivity must be the form of that Deity. To the (philosophically) trained Pantheist, the abstraction, or the noumenon, is the ever to be unknown Deity, the one eternal reality, formless, because homogeneous and impartite; boundless, because Omnipresent—as otherwise it would only be a contradiction in ideas not only in terms; and the concrete phenomenal form—its vehicle—no better than an aberration of the ever-deceiving physical senses.
“Is nature co-eternal with God?” It depends on what is meant by “nature.” If it is objective phenomenal nature, then the answer is—though ever latent in divine Ideation, but being only periodical as a manifestation, it cannot be co-eternal. But “abstract” nature and Deity, or what our correspondent calls “Self-existent cause or God,” are inseparable and even identical. Theosophy objects to the masculine pronoun used in connection with the Self-existent Cause, or Deity. It says it—inasmuch as that “Cause” the rootless root of all—is neither male, female, nor anything to which an attribute—something always conditioned, finite, and limited—can be applied. The confession made by our esteemed correspondent that he “cannot think of anything of nature, spirit [!], soul or God [!!] without the ideas of size, form, number, and relation,” is a living example of the sad spirit of anthropomorphism in this age of ours. It is this theological and dogmatic anthropomorphism which has begotten and is the legitimate parent of materialism. If once we realize that form is merely a temporary perception dependent on our physical senses and the idiosyncrasies of our physical brain and has no existence, per se, then this illusion that formless cause cannot be causative of forms will soon vanish. 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. And in such case, why should this part be better than its fellow-parts? Why not believe in Gods—the other rays of the All-Light? To say—“Among the gods who is like Thee O Lord” does not make the God so addressed really “the god of gods” or any better than his fellow-gods; it simply shows that every nation made a god of its own, and then, in its great ignorance and superstition, served and flattered and tried to propitiate that god. Polytheism on such lines, is more rational and philosophical than anthropomorphous monotheism.