One Life
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
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Notes
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 248.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 250.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. IX (Wheaton, Ill: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974), 78.
- ↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 88 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 271.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. IX (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974), 80.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 226, fn.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 258.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 268.