Matter

Matter, in the Theosophical view, is a manifestation of the One Principle beyond the range and reach of thought, the Absolute. Matter, as well as spirit, are just aspects of this Principle, though they appear to our perception as being different. In one of his letters, Mahatma K.H. wrote to A. O. Hume:

The conception of matter and spirit as entirely distinct, and both eternal could certainly never have entered my head, however little I may know of them, for it is one of the elementary and fundamental doctrines of Occultism that the two are one, and are distinct but in their respective manifestations, and only in the limited perceptions of the world of senses.

In the book of Kiu-te, Spirit is called the ultimate sublimation of matter, and matter the crystallization of spirit. And no better illustration could be afforded than in the very simple phenomenon of ice, water, vapour and the final dispersion of the latter, the phenomenon being reversed in its consecutive manifestations and called the Spirit falling into generation or matter.

About this, W. Q. Judge wrote:

Theosophy postulates an eternal principle called the unknown . . . The perceived universe is the manifestation of this unknown, including spirit and matter, for Theosophy holds that those are but the two opposite poles of the one unknown principle. They coexist, are not separate nor separable from each other, or, as the Hindu scriptures say, there is no particle of matter without spirit, and no particle of spirit without matter.

For this reason, matter in its essence (sometimes called "substance"), is seen as eternal. Mahatma K.H. wrote:

Matter we know to be eternal, i.e., having had no beginning (a) because matter is Nature herself (b) because that which cannot annihilate itself and is indestructible exists necessarily — and therefore it could not begin to be, nor can it cease to be (c) because the accumulated experience of countless ages, and that of exact science show to us matter (or nature) acting by her own peculiar energy, of which not an atom is ever in an absolute state of rest, and therefore it must have always existed, i.e., its materials ever changing form, combinations and properties, but its principles or elements being absolutely indestructible.

Spirit (or life) and matter being the two aspects of the same principle, there is no matter without spirit (or life), and no spirit without matter of some kind. H. P. Blavatsky is reported to have said:

There is no dead matter. Every last atom is alive. It cannot be otherwise since every atom is itself fundamentally Absolute Being. Therefore there is no such thing as ‘spaces’ of Ether, or Akasha, or call it what you like, in which angels and elementals disport themselves like trout in water. That’s a common idea. The true idea shows every atom of substance no matter of what plane to be in itself a LIFE.

Theosophy postulates the existence of different states of matter, from the highest cosmic matter down to the physical matter, forming seven planes "each more dense on the way down to the plane of our senses than its predecessor, the substance in all being the same only differing in degree." All forms of matter are differentiations of a primordial one element, differentiation that is ultimately a māyā or illusion:

The homogeneous primordial Element is simple and single only on the terrestrial plane of consciousness and sensation, since matter, after all, is nothing else than the sequence of our own states of consciousness, and Spirit an idea of psychic intuition. Even on the next higher plane, that single element which is defined on our earth by current science, as the ultimate undecomposable constituent of some kind of matter, would be pronounced in the world of a higher spiritual perception as something very complex indeed.

Differentiation of matter

The highest state of matter (many times referred to as "substance") is Mulaprakriti, variously called "primordial cosmic substance", "undiferentiated cosmic substance", Pre-cosmic substance, the root of matter, etc. During the manvantaric impulse it becomes svabhavat, and later akasha or the "cosmic substance". Further on this becomes cosmic matter, which differentiates into the different manifested planes.

The Stanza I.1 states that before the re-awakening of the universe the "eternal parent" was "wrapped in her ever invisible robes." According to Mme. Blavatsky, the robes refer to "the substance . . . on the seventh plane of matter counting upwards, or rather from without within."

The opposite process, that of coming back to the source substance, was described by Master K.H. in one of his letters as follows:

There is a moment in the existence of every molecule and atom of matter when, for one cause or another, the last spark of spirit or motion or life (call it by whatever name) is withdrawn, and in the same instant with the swiftness which surpasses that of the lightning glance of thought the atom or molecule or an aggregation of molecules is annihilated to return to its pristine purity of intra-cosmic matter. It is drawn to the mother fount with the velocity of a globule of quicksilver to the central mass.