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Page 40
The dots, or beads, seem to be the constituents of all matter of which we,
at present, know anything; astral, mental and buddhic atoms are built of
them, so we may fairly regard them as fundamental units, the basis of
matter.
These units are all alike, spherical and absolutely simple in construction.
Though they are the basis of all matter, they are not themselves matter;
they are not blocks but bubbles. They do not resemble bubbles floating in
the air, which consist of a thin film of water separating the air within
them from the air outside, so that the film has both an outer and an inner
surface. Their analogy is rather with the bubbles that we see rising in
water, before they reach the surface, bubbles which may be said to have
only one surface--that of the water which is pushed back by the contained
air. Just as such bubbles are not water, but are precisely the spots from
which water is absent, so these units are not koilon, but the absence of
koilon--the only spots where it is not--specks of nothingness floating in
it, so to speak, for the interior of these space-bubbles is an absolute
void to the highest power of vision that we can turn upon them.
That is the startling, well-nigh incredible, fact. Matter is nothingness,
the space obtained by pressing back an infinitely dense substance; Fohat
"digs holes in space" of a verity, and the holes are the airy
nothingnesses, the bubbles, of which "solid" universes are built.
What are they, then, these bubbles, or rather, what is their content, the
force which can blow bubbles in a substance of infinite density? The
ancients called that force "the Breath," a graphic symbol, which seems to
imply that they who used it had seen the kosmic process, had seen the LOGOS
when He breathed into the "waters of space," and made the bubbles which
build universes. Scientists may call this "Force" by what names they
will--names are nothing; to us, Theosophists, it is the Breath of the
LOGOS, we know not whether of the LOGOS of this solar system or of a yet
mightier Being; the latter would seem the more likely, since in the
above-quoted occult treatise all visible suns are said to have this as
their substance.
The Breath of the LOGOS, then, is the force which fills these spaces; His
the force which holds them open against the tremendous pressure of the
koilon; they are full of His Life, of Himself, and everything we call
matter, on however high or low a plane, is instinct with divinity; these
units of force, of life, the bricks with which He builds His universe, are
His very life scattered through space; truly is it written: "I established
this universe with a portion of myself." And when He draws in His breath,
the waters of space will close in again, and the universe will have
disappeared. It is only a breath.
The outbreathing which makes these bubbles is quite distinct from, and long
antecedent to, the three outpourings, or Life-Waves, so familiar to the
theosophical student. The first Life-Wave catches up these bubbles, and
whirls them into the various arrangements which we call the atoms of the
several planes, and aggregates them into the molecules, and on the physical
plane into the chemical elements. The worlds are built out of these voids,
these emptinesses, which seem to us "nothing" but are divine force. It is
matter made from the privation of matter. How true were H.P.B.'s statements
in "The Secret Doctrine": "Matter is nothing but an aggregation of atomic
forces" (iii, 398); "Buddha taught that the primitive substance is eternal
and unchangeable. Its vehicle is the pure luminous �ther, the boundless
infinite space, not a void, resulting from the absence of all forms, but on
the contrary, the foundation of all forms" (iii, 402).
How vividly, how unmistakably this knowledge brings home to us the great
doctrine of M�y�, the transitoriness and unreality of earthly things, the
utterly deceptive nature of appearances! When the candidate for initiation
sees (not merely believes, remember, but actually _sees_) that what has
always before seemed to him empty space is in reality a solid mass of
inconceivable density, and that the matter which has appeared to be the one
tangible and certain basis of things is not only by comparison tenuous as
gossamer (the "web" spun by "Father-Mother"), but is actually composed of
emptiness and nothingness--is itself the very negation of matter--then for
the first time he thoroughly appreciates the valuelessness of the physical
senses as guides to the truth. Yet even more clearly still stands out the
glorious certainty of the immanence of the Divine; not only is everything
ensouled by the LOGOS, but even its visible manifestation is literally part
of Him, is built of His very substance, so that Matter as well as Spirit
becomes sacred to the student who really understands.
The koilon in which all these bubbles are formed undoubtedly represents a
part, and perhaps the principal part, of what science describes as the
luminiferous �ther. Whether it is actually the bearer of the vibrations of
light and heat through interplanetary space is as yet undetermined. It is
certain that these vibrations impinge upon and are perceptible to our
bodily senses only through the etheric matter of the physical plane. But
this by no means proves that they are conveyed through space in the same
manner, for we know very little of the extent to which the physical etheric
matter exists in interplanetary and interstellar space, though the
examination of meteoric matter and kosmic dust shows that at least some of
it is scattered there.
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