The Golden Star

VISION 8

The Kosmos

“This latter Lord is not the Absolute and Unknown Deity who contains the Universe within Himself, but a Logos who is connected with the procreation of species of a Planet or Globe. He becomes the Father of All, and between Him and the Infinite Deity stretches an Abyss; the Great Deep; the Great Mystery. And between Him and the Supreme Deity, there is the Hidden Logos; the Lord of that Kosmos.

“The seven Kosmic Planes are formed in the following manner: First and highest is the 7th Plane, represented by the Auric Envelope; then is made the 6th Plane, called the Ālayic-Prakritic, the Heart of the Spirit of the World, Anima Mundi, which is an aspect of God the Unknown. Primordial Substance is still in a latent pre-cosmic state of undifferentiated subjectivity. At a certain moment it receives the impress of Divine Thought and becomes receptive of the male aspect of the Hidden Logos, and its Heart opens. The Primordial Substance becomes separated and differentiated, the Ray enters—an immaculate conception—and the Trinity of Father, Mother and Son is born and transformed into the Quaternary—Father, Mother, Son, as a Unity, and the Life which radiates from the summits of the unreachable, concealed God. Thus the three principles needed for every body to become objective are Privation (which is the host of prototypes impressed in the Astral Light), Form, and Matter. The Ray is the Life Principle, producing the Living Manifestation. Thus Ālaya, as it is called, is the original base, and an eternal ever-becomings, and it is before all else.

“The next Plane is the 5th, or Mahatic Plane. This is the Plane of the creation of the senses and has to do with the nascent Centres of Force, intellectual and physical; the rudimentary Principles of nerve force; and the nascent apperception of the lower Kingdoms, such as the third order of Elementals, who are succeeded by the objective Kingdom of minerals in which this apperception is entirely latent, to re-develop only in the plants. It is the middle point between the two lower and two higher Planes of the esoteric Kosmos (*see Author’s note in sidebar).

“The 4th, or Fohatic Plane, is the Plane of conscious Force, of constructive force; it contains all force. The cosmic atoms are set in motion by Fohat, and cosmic consciousness acts on it. Fohat is the Light which emanates from the One Source of energy. Fohat is called the Builder of the Builders, the Force that He personifies having formed our Septenary Chain. On the Cosmic Plane He is behind all such manifestations as light, heat, sound, adhesion, and so on, and is the ‘spirit’ of electricity which is the Life of the Universe. Fohat is the guiding Spirit of intelligent Law and Sentient Life. He is no personal god, but the emanation of the powers behind him, and he is the Messenger of the primordial Sons of Life and Light.

“The 3rd Plane is the Jīvic. This is the Plane of Jīva, also called Prâna, the Life Principle. Jīva pervades everything and is present wherever there is an atom it can act upon. If there were not a particle of matter it could act upon, it would be quiescent—dead. The action of Fohat upon a compound, or even upon a simple, produces life. When the action of Fohat is withdrawn from a living body, the Life Principle—Jīva—is withdrawn also; but it retains its grip on the atoms and molecules which form the previously living, sentient body.

“The 2nd Plane is the Astral Plane, and the 1st, or lowest Plane is the objective material Plane.

"Here, in these Planes within the Auric Envelope, we have all the necessary ingredients of spiritual and material natures to give Life and Existence to a complete Kosmos.

“From the outside, the oval sphere of the Auric Egg shows a greater or lesser amount of radiance, according to its individual potency; and it is this glow which is perceived by the Higher Beings from other Planes; just as man might behold an atom. The future oceans lie asleep in the Waters that fill it; and also the continents, seas, mountains, planets, Gods, elementals and mankind.

“Thus lies the incipient chick concealed within the egg just laid; with all its potentialities in a latent state.

“Each of the seven Planes within the Auric Envelope contains, and corresponds with an antetype, one on each Plane; which in their turn correspond to the seven states of matter and all other forces in Nature. It contains the spiritual aroma of every personality to come, and in it is the material from which the Adepts form their Astral Bodies and the Gods build theirs; from the highest to the lowest. After the physical death of the Adept, he remains within the purer Astral Regions and there he lives and moves, in possession of all his principles except the Astral and physical vehicles, which he no longer needs, having acquired a spiritual instrument of manifestation of a much higher and finer nature. But always he still exists within the Worlds contained within the Auric Egg; just as the man who has not yet reached Adeptship dwells in the lower spheres surrounding the earthly planet between his incarnations.

“And Prâna, or Jiva, pervades all the space within the Egg. As the life-principle it has no number, although it emanates from the Fourth Plane, but each number of the seven Planes might be applied to it. Moreover, Kosmos is not produced by number or through number, but by following the proportions of numbers, or geometrically.

“The seven Planes are also mirrored in the seven colours of the prism; each colour having a definite number or rate of vibration, similar to the seven Planes.

“The outer shape of the Auric Envelope is the same as the faintly pale violet aura around an atom or a man; a transitory emanation, preceding the formation of all living bodies in the same manner as the Auric Egg precedes the formation of a Universe within it.

“Within the Auric Egg of a Kosmos are reflected all the thoughts, words, and deeds of man, and it is the storehouse of all his positive and negative powers received and given out at his will; and also of every thought and every potentiality, which then immediately becomes a potency.

“The Auric Fluid within the Egg is a combination of the Life and Will principles, and it is contained in all things and beings from which it flows and emanates, visible in the Auric Light which surrounds all bodies. It can be directed at will by the Adept and its flow restrained or intensified.

“The Auric Egg also receives the impression of all the higher Gods as well as of the Devas and other Angelic Beings. Its Essence is in perpetual motion during the constant correlations and transformations which take place within it.

“Outside the Auric Egg is the Spiritual Sun, or Universal Spirit, which ensouls the boundless Universe, whether within or beyond Space and Time. The Essence of that Divine Ego is pure flame, to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken. Therefore, it is never diminished by its countless creations, detached from it like flames from a flame. The flames of that Spiritual Sun burn for ever, and are inexhaustible.

“The Auric Egg is present in every form, plant, or animal; they each contain a replica of it; and the Auric Egg is to Man as the Astral Light is to Earth; or the surrounding Ether is to the Astral Light, or Akâsha—the Universal Soul—is to the Ether, which it surrounds as a supersubstantial Essence. In short: Akâsha is the substance which forms the Auric Egg—pure abstract substance. We have dwelled upon some of the principles of the Auric Egg and considered it from different angles on account of its enormous importance in the Kosmic Scheme. It cannot be studied too much, for all else in the Kosmos depends upon it.

“You will appreciate that vast as a cosmic system with its Sun and Planets seems to us, it is nothing but a drop in the Ocean of the Great Universe. Nevertheless, and in spite of our inevitably vague and shadowy conceptions of its origin and constitution, we all show the God-like natures within us, by our ability to assign to it its proper place in the Universe, and grasp a broad idea of the relative magnitude of the whole system, of which our Planetary Chain in which we are functioning at present is but a small fragment. We manifest this also when we acquire some conception of the respective periods of its evolution and the evolution of all things and beings upon these planets and in the Astral and other Regions.

“When the Supreme Logos Manifests Himself in the first Construction of the Auric Envelope, he brings with him the fruits of a past Kosmos; namely, the mighty Spiritual Intelligences who are to be his coworkers and Agents in the Kosmos now to be built. The highest of these are the ‘Seven,’ who are called the Logoi; each in His place is the Centre of a definite part within the Kosmos, just as the Supreme Logos is the Centre of the whole. These Seven Beings, who are in the Sun, are self-born from the inherent power in the matrix of Mother-substance, and the energy from which they spring into conscious existence is the Breath of Absoluteness. This spontaneous coming into conscious existence proceeds from the One manifested Life—which in itself is a reflection from the Absolute—and the One manifested Life is the Supreme Logos Himself.

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