Section 5

Now that which ever liveth, differs from the Eternal, for He hath not been brought to being by another, and even if He have been brought to being, He hath not been brought into being by Himself, but ever is brought into being.
For the Eternal, in that It is eternal, is the all. The Father is Himself eternal of Him- self, but Cosmos hath become eternal and immortal by the Father.
For truly first of all, eternal and tran- scending birth, is God the universalis Maker. Second is he [after his image], Cosmos, brought into being by Him, sustained and
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fed by Him, made deathless, as by his own Sire, living for aye, as ever free from death.
The first and ultimate principle is God, the uni- versal's Maker. By the universals he means those verities which are everywhere the same and which are interchangeable. The term is used in contra- distinction to particulars. In this we have a funda- mental principle of the ancient philosophy. The two principles below God are universals and par- ticulars. By particulars is meant things and the processes engendering particular things. By the universals they mean those processes which are not in any sense particular, which relate to all things without distinction. These universals are to a certain extent identical with the Great Supernal Gods, though not exactly. Now God is spoken of as the maker of the universals. That is to say the universals came into being through their having been emanated from God. In other words, the universals are the fundamental attributes of God projected into manifestations through Kosmos. Now this God, the universals' maker, is the first of all, because all particulars come from universals and all universals come from God. Therefore He is first of all because all things proceed either di- rectly or indirectly from Him. Eternal and trans- cending birth, because all births emanate from Him. As He is the bearer of all that is there is nothing left to bear Him. He cannot be born because all things are born by Him, therefore He transcends birth. In this sense it would be somewhat more correct to say She, because the God alluded to here is Ku, the feminine divine essence. After this God, we come to the second. Second is He after His image. After His image, — that is the Kosmos. Kosmos is after the image of God, because, in the true sense of the word, it is God's image, that is, it is God made manifest, and
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this comes forth out of God. It is brought into being by God, is sustained and fed by Him. That is to say, it has no source of existence, apart from God, is absolutely dependent upon God for ali things, and is not only brought into being, but is continuously sustained and fed and nourished by God. In other words, Kosmos has not been brought into being by God, but is in continuous process of being brought into being by Him. As God is indeed and in truth the Father and Mother of Kos- mos, it must be that Kosmos will partake of the nature of his Father and Mother, consequently Kosmos has been made deathless by his Sire. That is made deathless in and through the very process of having been brought into being by the Father. Living for aye. as ever free from death, because the kosmic life is continuous and uninter- ruptedly sustained by the life of God.
Now that which ever-liveth, differs from the Eternal; for He hath not been brought to being by another, and even if He have been brought to being, He hath not been brought into being by Himself, but ever is brought into being.
He draws some very fine distinctions here. For instance, he draws the distinction between the ever- living and the Eternal. The ever-living is not the same as the Eternal, and he shows the distinction. The Eternal hath not been brought into being by another, and even if the Eternal has been brought into being. He hath not been brought into being by Himself. That is to say, the Eternal cannot create Himself, and this self-creation would not constitute eternity, but this of which he speaks ever is brought into being. There is the process of perpetual bringing into being and there is this fine distinction vrhich must alwavs be borne in
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mind, eternity is beginningiess and endless, though the ever-living may have a beginning, but it can never have an end. But the Eternal is in perpetu- ity to infinity, both backward and forw^ard; ever is being brought into being, and yet this is not something that has always been stable, it is some- thing in perpetual process of coming into being and yet the process is from infinity to infinity.
For the Eternal, in that It is eternal, is the all. The Father is Himself eternal of Himself, but Cosmos hath become eternal and immortal by the Father.
This is the diflference, both the Father and Mother on the one hand and Kosmos on the other are eternal, Ionian. But there is a distinction, the Eternal, in that it is eternal, that is in Its character of eternity, is the all, there can be no particularity. Being eternal, though the particular may be ever- living, yet it can never be eternal. But the eternal must in the very nature of things be limitless. The Father-Mother, the Absolute God, is Himself eternal of Himself. That is to say, His eternity is engendered from Himself or of Himself. In other v/ords. His nature or energy is eternal and there- fore in no sense dependent upon anything else. In a word, God is not subject to generation, is in no sense generated by anything else. He is the ingen- erate whose eternity subsists in His action. Being in His action eternal. He is dependent upon nothing apart from Himself. The Kosmos, how- ever, has become eternal and immortal by the Father. In other words, it is the reflection of the immortality and eternity of the Father in substance that constitutes the eternity and immortality of the Kosmos. Kosmos is eternal and immortal because it is the active manifestation of an eternal and
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immortal verity. It is this which makes Kosmos eternal. Kosmos, in other words, is eternally gen- erated, while the eternity of the Father is self- subsistent and not subject to generation. In a word, were all else to be blotted out God would still be eternal, but were God to be blotted out Kosmos would cease to be. The eternity of the Kosmos is therefore conferred eternity. One that lives in Kosmos is the result of another Eternity, but the Eternity of God is absolute. At the same time, the one is as eternal as the other. Kosmos cannot disappear during the eternity of God. It is also beginningless and endless. At the same time it is an eternity that is perpetually being induced, but this is Kosmos as a whole that possesses this Eternity. The dififerent parts of Kosmos are ever- living but not eternal.
LESSON IV
The Eternity of Matter
3. And of the matter stored beneath it, the Father made of it a universal body, and packing it together made it spherical — wrapping it round the life — [a sphere] which is immortal in itself, and that doth make materiality eternal.
But He, the Father, full-filled with His ideas, did sow the lives into the sphere, and shut them in as in a cave, willing to order forth the life with every kind of living.
So He with deathlessness enclosed the uni- versal body, that matter might not wish to separate itself from body's composition, and so dissolve into its own [original] unorder.
For matter, son, when it was yet incorpo- rate, was in unorder. And it doth still retain down here this [nature of unorder] evolv- ing the rest of the small lives — that increase- and-decrease which men call death.
And of the matter stored beneath it, the Father made of it a universal body, and packing it together made it spherical^ — wrapping it round the life — [a sphere] which is immortal in itself, and that doth make materiality eternal.
After speaking of the nature of Kosmos, Hermes next comes to the consideration of the matter stored beneath Kosmos. We must bear in mind that at
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the time of which he speaks, matter was in a state of chaos, for there was neither form nor order manifested in this sub-kosmic matter. We are in- formed that of the matter stored beneath Kosmos, the Father made a universal body. That is to say, by the action of the divine power, working through the instrumentality of the Kosmic Powers, the cha- otic matter beneath the Kosmos was gathered together into one body which was to constitute the universe. This voluminous body of matter was packed together and concentrated into a massive body. It was given a spherical form. It was in fact a universal Egg, which was to contain all things of the universe within its depths and from it they were each and all to be hatched forth into individual life. It was given this spherical form by wrapping the matter round the life which was within its depths. The universe is therefore in the form of a hollow sphere within the depths of which is enclosed the life which therefore gives forth life to all parts of the universal shell. Because the universal life is enfolded within the universal form this life is continually vitalizing the entire struc- ture of the universe, and thus the universe becomes a body that is immortal in itself. It does not derive its immortality from without, but from the life enclosed by itself. Because of the life which is continually renewing and vitalizing the universal body, both in whole and in part, materiality is made eternal, and hence is organized matter in the universe immortal by reason of the life which it contains, this is the true cause of the eternity of matter.
But He, the Father, full-filled with His ideas, did sov^ the lives into the sphere, and shut them in as in a cave, willing to order forth the life with every kind of living.
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The Father being filled to the full with His ideas; for the nature of the Father is to think, and hence He lives in His ideas; His thinking tends at all times to radiate His ideas, and in this way to diffuse them through all space. This being the case, the lives were sown within the universal sphere. They were received within the sphere, and were there enclosed so that they might not escape. These lives must not be confounded with the life that was enclosed within the sphere in the begin- ning. Neither must they be confused with the small lives. They are rather the great lives, or the material Gods. They are the Vital and the Etherial Gods as well as the Terrene Gods. They are there- fore enclosed within the sphere, so that it will not be possible for them to separate themselves from the universal sphere. They were enclosed in the sphere that they might order forth, or send forth in accordance with order, the enclosed life, causing it to assume every form of living, that is, to differ- entiate itself into the diverse lives that will give life to all forms of living things. It is this life as the germ that causes all species to come into being in the earth. This is the true explanation of the monadic origin of all the diverse forms of terrene life, and this is the sense in which every thing has come from a germ in the earth. It is also to be borne in mind that while this is an account of the creation of the universe, at the same time all the spheres were formed in the same man- ner, and all this applies to the earth as well as to the entire universe. Thus it is true that it is the ordering forth of the enclosed life, under the im- pulse of the lives that causes all the forms of living things to come into being on the earth. They are literally born from within the depths of the earth. The earth is in fact the Mother and the fecund womb from which all forms of living things are born, after they have been conceived and
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gestated within her maternal womb. Thus is the earth literally the mother of all things earthly, and not merely in a figurative sense.
So He with deathlessness enclosed the universal body, that matter might not wish to separate itself from body's composition, and so dissolve into its own [original] unorder.
Because the life was enclosed within the uni- versal body, and because the great lives or the lesser Gods were sown within the earth, and the life became active, it followed that the universal body was enclosed with deathlessness, seeing that it was the vehicle for the manifestation of death- less powers, it followed that the body itself was made deathless. Matter is therefore eternally united with the composition of universal body, and can no more separate itself from it, hence, matter can only exist in the composition of the universal body. All matter must exist in the composition of bodies, and can never exist in any other way. Thus, organized matter can never be dissolved into the state of unorder from which it has come into order, but can only remain under the form of organized bodies.
For matter, son, when it was yet incorpo- rate, was in unorder. And it doth still retain down here this [nature of unorder] envelop- ing the rest of the small lives — that increase- and-decrease which men call death.
Before matter was incorporated, it was in a state of unorder. It was the incorporation of matter, so that it became corporate, that is, a part of the universal body, that brought it into the state of
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order. While down here, that is, on the physical; plane, this nature of unorder, still persists in mat- ter, for physical matter is not subject to the control of the Kosmic Powers as is the matter of finer grades. Because of this condition, the rest of the small lives, that is the life principle of every living thing springing from the life contained within the earth, are enveloped in this matter in its state of unorder, and for this reason are they all subject to the process of increase-and-decrease which men call death. Because the matter of the earth does not freely respond to the transformative processes of the higher powers, the changes in it may not be spontaneous as they are above. This being true, corporeal bodies in the earth experience are bound to pass through periods of increase, after which they must experience a process of decrease. This is due to the fact that the two processes are not permitted to go on simultaneously, and in equal proportions, but there must be a period of increase, follow^ed by a period of decrease. It is this which leads to the throwing off of the outer shell, when it has survived its usefulness, and this men in their ignorance call death. This teaches us a very im- portant lesson in the Hermetic Art. Death as it is vulgarly called, is due to the fact that a body is built up of such gross matter, and held together in such rigidity that the forces cannot manifest freely through it, and hence the transformations are not permitted to go on within it as rapidly as is its construction, hence, after a time, these life forces, being unable to so transform it, as to mani- fest through it as a vehicle, will become destructive, and hence the dissolution of that form will result. Death, simply means that life forces are not made use of in their normal action, and hence being permitted to accumulate through uselessness and idleness, they become, in time, disintegrative. The cure for death is therefore to preserve a perfect
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balance between the forces of growth and of disin- tegration. So long as this is kept up, one will not only not die, but he will grow no older. All the energy within the body must at all times be made use of. None of it must ever be permitted to remain idle for a single moment. If it is utilized at all times, it will in this way act constructively at all times, and hence there will be no decrease, as well as no increase, but at all times the perfect equilibrium will be maintained, hence there will be no death.
4. It is round earthly lives that this unorder doth exist. For that the bodies of the heavenly ones preserve one order allotted to them from the Father as their rule ; and it is by the restoration of each one [of them] this order is preserved indissolute.
The ''restoration'' then of bodies on the earth is [thus their] composition, whereas their dissolution restores them to those bodies which can never be dissolved, that is to say, which know no death. Privation, thus, of sense is brought about, not loss of bodies.
It is round earthly lives that this unorder doth exist. For that the bodies of the heav- enly ones preserve one order allotted to them from the Father as their rule ; and it is by the restoration of each one [of them] this order is preserved indissolute.
This state of unorder is confined to earthly lives, for they only are encumbered with envelopes of matter so gross that this order cannot manifest