One Life

From Theosophy Wiki
Revision as of 19:58, 12 April 2013 by Pablo Sender (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

The One Life is a central Theosophical concept, representing the one single source from which everything in the universe manifests. It is defined as "the Absolute Deity",[1] "formless and Uncreate [from which] proceeds the Universe of lives".[2] H. P. Blavatsky wrote:

THE ONE LIFE—is deity itself, immutable, omnipresent, eternal. It is “subtle supersensuous matter” on this lower plane of ours.[3]

The One Life includes both what we call spirit and matter:

When we speak of our One Life we also say that it penetrates, nay is the essence of every atom of matter; and that therefore it not only has correspondence with matter but has all its properties likewise, etc. — hence is material, is matter itself.[4]

Although essentially matter (as well as spirit) is not different from the One Life, on the manifested planes it is seen as a vehicle of the Absolute Reality:

[M]atter in all its phases being merely a vehicle for the manifestation through it of LIFE—the Parabrahmic Breath——in its physically pantheistic aspect (as Dr. Richardson would say, we suppose) it is a super-sensuous state of matter, itself the vehicle of the ONE LIFE, the unconscious purposiveness of Parabrahm.[5]

The One life is frequently connected to the Great Breath,[6] or the Intra-Cosmic Breath,[7] where the "countless lives" are "the outbreathings of the One Life".[8]

See also Life

Online resources

Articles

Notes

  1. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 248.
  2. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 250.
  3. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. IX (Wheaton, Ill: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974), 78.
  4. Vicente Hao Chin, Jr. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 88 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 271.
  5. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. IX (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974), 80.
  6. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 226, fn.
  7. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 258.
  8. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 268.