I. An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless and Immutable PRINCIPLE, on which

all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception and can only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. It is beyond the range and reach of thought—in the words of the _Mândûkya_, “unthinkable and unspeakable.” To render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with the postulate that there is One Absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned Being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause—dimly formulated in the “Unconscious” and “Unknowable” of current European philosophy—is the Rootless Root of “all that was, is, or ever shall be.” It is of course devoid of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested, finite Being. It is “Be‐ness” rather than Being, Sat in Sanskrit, and is beyond all thought or speculation. This Be‐ness is symbolized in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On the one hand, absolute Abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, the one thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or conceive of by itself. On the other, absolute Abstract Motion representing Unconditioned Consciousness. Even our Western thinkers have shown that consciousness is inconceivable to us apart from change, and motion best symbolizes change, its essential characteristic. This latter aspect of the One Reality, is also symbolized by the term the Great Breath, a symbol sufficiently graphic to need no further elucidation. Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical One Absolute BE‐NESS—symbolized by finite intelligence as the theological Trinity. It may, however, assist the student if a few further explanations are here given. Herbert Spencer has of late so far modified his Agnosticism, as to assert that the nature of the “First Cause,”(48) which the Occultist more logically derives from the Causeless Cause, the “Eternal,” and the “Unknowable,” may be essentially the same as that of the consciousness which wells up within us: in short, that the impersonal Reality pervading the Kosmos is the pure noumenon of thought. This advance on his part brings him very near to the Esoteric and Vedântin tenet.(49) Parabrahman, the One Reality, the Absolute, is the field of Absolute Consciousness, _i.e._, that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence, and of which conscious existence is a conditioned symbol. But once that we pass in thought from this (to us) Absolute Negation, duality supervenes in the contrast of Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter, Subject and Object. Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as independent realities, but as the two symbols or aspects of the Absolute, Parabrahman, which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective. Considering this metaphysical triad as the Root from which proceeds all manifestation, the Great Breath assumes the character of Pre‐cosmic Ideation. It is the _fons et origo_ of Force and of all individual Consciousness, and supplies the guiding intelligence in the vast scheme of cosmic Evolution. On the other hand, Pre‐cosmic Root‐Substance (Mûlaprakriti) is that aspect of the Absolute which underlies all the objective planes of Nature. Just as Pre‐cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual Consciousness, so Pre‐cosmic Substance is the substratum of Matter in the various grades of its differentiation. Hence it will be apparent that the contrast of these two aspects of the Absolute is essential to the existence of the Manifested Universe. Apart from Cosmic Substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest as individual Consciousness, since it is only through a vehicle (_upâdhi_) of matter that consciousness wells up as “I am I,” a physical basis being necessary to focus a Ray of the Universal Mind at a certain stage of complexity. Again, apart from Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty abstraction, and no emergence of Consciousness could ensue. The Manifested Universe, therefore, is pervaded by duality, which is, as it were, the very essence of its _Ex_‐istence as Manifestation. But just as the opposite poles of Subject and Object, Spirit and Matter, are but aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized, so, in the Manifested Universe, there is “that” which links Spirit to Matter, Subject to Object. This something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by Occultists Fohat. It is the “bridge” by which the Ideas existing in the Divine Thought are impressed on Cosmic Substance as the Laws of Nature. Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic Ideation; or, regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power of all manifestation, the Thought Divine transmitted and made manifest through the Dhyân Chohans,(50) the Architects of the visible World. Thus from Spirit, or Cosmic Ideation, comes our Consciousness, from Cosmic Substance the several Vehicles in which that Consciousness is individualized and attains to self—or reflective—consciousness; while Fohat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life. The following summary will afford a clearer idea to the reader. (1.) ABSOLUTENESS: the Parabrahman of the Vedântins or the One Reality, Sat, which is, as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and Non‐Being. (2.) The _First_ Logos: the impersonal, and, in philosophy, Unmanifested Logos, the precursor of the Manifested. This is the “First Cause,” the “Unconscious” of European Pantheists. (3.) The _Second_ Logos: Spirit‐Matter, Life; the “Spirit of the Universe,” Purusha and Prakriti. (4.) The _Third_ Logos: Cosmic Ideation, Mahat or Intelligence, the Universal World‐Soul; the Cosmic Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations in and of Nature, also called Mahâ‐Buddhi. The ONE REALITY: its _dual_ aspects in the conditioned Universe. Further, the Secret Doctrine affirms: