Esoteric Catechism

[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

“What is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is a Universe or not; whether there be gods or none?” asks the esoteric Senzar Catechism. And the answer made is—SPACE.

The Occult Catechism contains the following questions and answers:

“What is it that ever is?” “Space, the eternal Anupadaka.” “What is it that ever was?” “The Germ in the Root.” “What is it that is ever coming and going?” “The Great Breath.” “Then, there are three Eternals?” “No, the three are one. That which ever is one, that which ever was is one, that which is ever being and becoming is also one: and this is Space.”

“Explain, oh Lanoo (disciple).”—“The One is an unbroken Circle (ring) with no circumference, for it is nowhere and everywhere; the One is the boundless plane of the Circle, manifesting a diameter only during the manvantaric periods; the One is the indivisible point found nowhere, perceived everywhere during those periods; it is the Vertical and the Horizontal, the Father and the Mother, the summit and base of the Father, the two extremities of the Mother, reaching in reality nowhere, for the One is the Ring as also the rings that are within that Ring. Light in darkness and darkness in light: the ‘Breath which is eternal.’ It proceeds from without inwardly, when it is everywhere, and from within outwardly, when it is nowhere—(i.e., maya, one of the centres). It expands and contracts (exhalation and inhalation). When it expands the mother diffuses and scatters; when it contracts, the mother draws back and ingathers. This produces the periods of Evolution and Dissolution, Manwantara and Pralaya. The Germ is invisible and fiery; the Root (the plane of the circle) is cool; but during Evolution and Manwantara her garment is cold, and radiant. Hot Breath is the Father who devours the progeny of the many-faced Element (heterogeneous); and leaves the single-faced ones (homogeneous). Cool Breath is the Mother, who conceives, forms, brings forth, and, receives them back into her bosom, to reform them at the Dawn (of the Day of Brahmâ, or Manvantara) . . . . .”

In the Catechism, the Master is made to ask the pupil:—

“Lift thy head, oh Lanoo; dost thou see one, or countless lights above thee, burning in the dark midnight sky?”

“I sense one Flame, oh Gurudeva, I see countless undetached sparks shining in it.”

“Thou sayest well. And now look around and into thyself. That light which burns inside thee, dost thou feel it different in anywise from the light that shines in thy Brother-men?”

“It is in no way different, though the prisoner is held in bondage by Karma, and though its outer garments delude the ignorant into saying, ‘Thy Soul and My Soul.’ ”

“Every atom becomes a visible complex unit (a molecule), and once attracted into the sphere of terrestial activity, the Monadic Essence, passing through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, becomes man.” (Esot. Catechism.)

“The Monads (Jivas) are the Souls of the Atoms, both are the fabric in which the Chohans (Dhyanis, gods) cloth themselves when a form is needed.” (Esot. Cat.)

Occult Science teaches that “Mother” lies stretched in infinity (during Pralaya) as the great Deep, the “dry Waters of Space,” according to the quaint expression in the Catechism, and becomes wet only after the separation and the moving over its face of Narayana, the “Spirit which is invisible Flame, which never burns, but sets on fire all that it touches, and gives it life and generation.”

In the Universe with all its incalculable myriads of systems and worlds disappearing and re-appearing in eternity, the anthropomorphised powers, or gods, their Souls, had to disappear from view with their bodies:—“The breath returning to the eternal bosom which exhales and inhales them,” says our Catechism.

Says the Catechism (Commentaries):—

“It is from the material Worlds that descend they, who fashion physical man at the new Manvantaras. They are inferior Lha (Spirits), possessed of a dual body (an astral within an ethereal form). They are the fashioners and creators of our body of illusion.”

“Into the forms projected by the Lha (Pitris) the two letters † (the Monad, called also the ‘Double Dragon’) descend from the spheres of expectation. ‡( But they are like a roof with no walls, nor pillars to rest upon.” “Man needs four flames and three fires to become one on Earth, and he requires the essence of the forty-nine fires§ to be perfect. It is those who have deserted the Superior Spheres, the Gods of Will,|| who complete the Manu of illusion. For the ‘Double Dragon’ has no hold upon the mere form. It is like the breeze where there is no tree or branch to receive and harbour it. It cannot affect the form where there is no agent of transmission (Manas, “Mind”) and the form knows it not.” “In the highest worlds, the three are one, ¶ on Earth (at first) the one becomes two. They are like the two (side) lines of a triangle that has lost its bottom line—which is the third fire.” (Catechism Book III., sec. 9.)

Spirit is the first differentiation from THAT, the causeless cause of both Spirit and Matter. It is, as taught in the esoteric catechism, neither limitless void, nor conditioned fulness, but both. It was and ever will be.

“The great Breath digs through Space seven holes into Laya to cause them to circumgyrate during Manvantara” (Occult Catechism).

“The inner man of the first * * * only changes his body from time to time; he is ever the same, knowing neither rest nor Nirvana, spurning Devachan and remaining constantly on Earth for the salvation of mankind. . . . .” “Out of the seven virgin-men (Kumâra) four sacrificed themselves for the sins of the world and the instruction of he ignorant, to remain till the end of the present Manvantara. Though unseen, they are ever present. When people say of one of them, “He is dead”; behold, he is alive! and under another form. These are the Head, the Heart, the Soul, and the Seed of undying knowledge (Gnyana). Thou shalt never speak, O Lanoo, of these great ones (Maha . . . ) before a multitude, mentioning them by their names. The wise alone will understand.” . . . (Catechism of the inner Schools.)

For speaking of the “vesture” or form (rupa) of the incarnating Egos, it is said in the Occult Catechism that they, the Mânasaputras or Sons of Wisdom, use for the consolidation of their forms, in order to descend into lower spheres, the dregs of Swabhâvat, or that plastic matter which is throughout Space, in other words, primordial ilus.

We may answer these seven questions of the Esoteric Catechism thus:

(1) Q.––What is the Eternal Absolute? A.––THAT.

(2) Q.––How came Kosmos into being? A.––Through THAT.

(3) Q.––How, or what will it be when it falls back into Pralaya? A.––In THAT.

(4) Q.––Whence all the animate, and suppositionally, the “inanimate” nature? A.––From THAT.

(5) Q.––What is the Substance and Essence of which the Universe is formed? A.––THAT.

(6) Q.––Into what has it been and will be again and again resolved? A.––Into THAT.

(7) Q.––Is THAT then both the instrumental and material cause of the Universe? A.––What else is it or can it be than THAT?

“The seven Builders graft the divine and the beneficent forces on to the gross material nature of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms every Second Round”––says the Catechism of Lanoos.