Universal Mind
The Universal Mind, also known as Mahat, Cosmic Ideation, or Divine Thought, is the principle of intelligence that holds the plan for the manifestation of the universe. It is also the source of the different types of consciousness and intelligence in the cosmos.
General description
The Universal Mind or Ideation is as a "blueprint" for the building of the cosmos, process that is carried out by the hosts of Dhyāni-Chohans:
The plan [for the Cosmos] was furnished by the Ideation of the Universe, and the constructive labour was left to the Hosts of intelligent Powers and Forces.[1]
This principle is also the origin of human consciousness and intelligence in the lower planes:
Universal Ideation—or Mahat, if you like it—sends its homogeneous radiation into the heterogeneous world, and this reaches the human or personal minds through the Astral Light.[2]
Occult philosophy teaches us that the human mind (or lower Manas) is a direct ray or reflection of the Higher Principle, the Noëtic Mind. The latter is the reincarnating Ego which old Aryan philosophers call Manasaputra, the “Sons of Mind” or of Mahat, the Universal Cosmic Mind.[3]
According to Blavatsky, when this Ideation expresses in a human being through manas, it appears as what we call "mind." When it manifests through buddhi, it appears as a stream of spiritual intuition.[4]
Origins
The third sloka in the first stanza of Cosmogenesis in The Secret Doctrine states that, during Pralaya, the universal mind is latent does not exist because there are no celestial beings to manifest it.[5]
As Blavatsky explains, the Universal Mind is an expression of the eternal Absolute Mind, which manifests through the highest celestial beings or Ah-his.
As there are no finite differentiated minds during Pralaya, it is just as though there were no mind at all, because there is nothing to contain or perceive it. There is nothing to receive and reflect the ideation of the Absolute Mind. . . . Therefore, since the “Ah-hi were not,” there was no Universal Mind as a manifestation. A distinction had to be made between the Absolute Mind, which is ever present, and its reflection and manifestation in the Ah-hi, who, being on the highest plane, reflect the universal mind collectively at the first flutter of Manvantara.[6]
As our minds are but the product of the Universal Mind, so is the latter but a differentiated ray of the absolute Mind or No-Mind. The ONE, or Absoluteness, is the only eternal reality.[7]
See also
Online Resources
Articles
- Kosmic Mind by H. P. Blavatsky
- The Mind in Nature by H. P. Blavatsky
Notes
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 279.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. X (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1964), 252.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. XII (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 411.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), fn, 329.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 37.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 317.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. XII (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 412.