PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION.

Seven Stanzas From The “Book Of Dzyan,” With Commentaries. Nor Aught nor Nought existed; yon bright sky Was not, nor heaven’s broad roof outstretched above. What covered all? What sheltered? What concealed? Was it the water’s fathomless abyss? There was no death—yet there was nought immortal, There was no confine betwixt day and night; The only One breathed breathless by Itself, Other than It there nothing since has been. Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled In gloom profound—an ocean without light. The germ that still lay covered in the husk Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat. Who knows the secret? Who proclaimed it here? Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang? The Gods themselves came later into being— Who knows from whence this great creation sprang? That, whence all this great creation came, Whether Its will created or was mute, The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven, He knows it—or perchance even he knows not. Gazing into eternity Ere the foundations of the earth were laid. Thou wert. And when the subterranean flame Shall burst its prison and devour the frame, Thou shalt be still as thou wert before And know no change, when time shall be no more. O, endless thought, divine Eternity. _Rig Veda_ (COLEBROOKE). Seven Stanzas From The “Book Of Dzyan” Stanza I. 1. The Eternal Parent, wrapped in her Ever‐Invisible Robes, had slumbered once again for Seven Eternities. 2. Time was not, for it lay asleep in the Infinite Bosom of Duration. 3. Universal Mind was not, for there were no Ah‐hi to contain it. 4. The Seven Ways to Bliss were not. The Great Causes of Misery were not, for there was no one to produce and get ensnared by them. 5. Darkness alone filled the Boundless All, for Father, Mother and Son were once more one, and the Son had not yet awakened for the new Wheel and his Pilgrimage thereon. 6. The Seven Sublime Lords and the Seven Truths had ceased to be, and the Universe, the Son of Necessity, was immersed in Paranishpanna, to be outbreathed by that which is, and yet is not. Naught was. 7. The Causes of Existence had been done away with; the Visible that was, and the Invisible that is, rested in Eternal Non‐Being—the One Being. 8. Alone, the One Form of Existence stretched boundless, infinite, causeless, in Dreamless Sleep; and Life pulsated unconscious in Universal Space, throughout that All‐Presence, which is sensed by the Opened Eye of Dangma. 9. But where was Dangma when the Âlaya of the Universe was in Paramârtha, and the Great Wheel was Anupâdaka? Stanza II. 1. ... Where were the Builders, the Luminous Sons of Manvantaric Dawn?... In the Unknown Darkness in their Ah‐hi Paranishpanna. The Producers of Form from No‐Form—the Root of the World—the Devamâtri and Svabhâvat, rested in the Bliss of Non‐Being. 2. ... Where was Silence? Where the ears to sense it? No, there was neither Silence nor Sound; naught save Ceaseless Eternal Breath, which knows itself not. 3. The Hour had not yet struck; the Ray had not yet flashed into the Germ; the Mâtripadma had not yet swollen. 4. Her Heart had not yet opened for the One Ray to enter, thence to fall, as Three into Four, into the Lap of Mâyâ. 5. The Seven were not yet born from the Web of Light. Darkness alone was Father‐Mother, Svabhâvat; and Svabhâvat was in Darkness. 6. These Two are the Germ, and the Germ is One. The Universe was still concealed in the Divine Thought and the Divine Bosom. Stanza III. 1. ... The last Vibration of the Seventh Eternity thrills through Infinitude. The Mother swells, expanding from within without, like the Bud of the Lotus. 2. The Vibration sweeps along, touching with its swift Wing the whole Universe and the Germ that dwelleth in Darkness, the Darkness that breathes over the slumbering Waters of Life. 3. Darkness radiates Light, and Light drops one solitary Ray into the Waters, into the Mother‐Deep. The Ray shoots through the Virgin Egg, the Ray causes the Eternal Egg to thrill, and drop the non‐eternal Germ, which condenses into the World‐Egg. 4. The Three fall into the Four. The Radiant Essence becomes Seven inside, Seven outside. The Luminous Egg, which in itself is Three, curdles and spreads in milk‐white Curds throughout the Depths of Mother, the Root that grows in the Depths of the Ocean of Life. 5. The Root remains, the Light remains, the Curds remain, and still Oeaohoo is One. 6. The Root of Life was in every Drop of the Ocean of Immortality, and the Ocean was Radiant Light, which was Fire, and Heat, and Motion. Darkness vanished and was no more; it disappeared in its own Essence, the Body of Fire and Water, of Father and Mother. 7. Behold, O Lanoo, the Radiant Child of the Two, the unparalleled refulgent Glory—Bright Space, Son of Dark Space, who emerges from the Depths of the great Dark Waters. It is Oeaohoo, the Younger, the ——. He shines forth as the Sun, he is the Blazing Divine Dragon of Wisdom; the Eka is Chatur, and Chatur takes to itself Tri, and the Union produces the Sapta, in whom are the Seven, which become the Tridasha, the Hosts and the Multitudes. Behold him lifting the Veil, and unfurling it from East to West. He shuts out the Above, and leaves the Below to be seen as the Great Illusion. He marks the places for the Shining Ones, and turns the Upper into a shoreless Sea of Fire, and the One Manifested into the Great Waters. 8. Where was the Germ, and where was now Darkness? Where is the Spirit of the Flame that burns in thy Lamp, O Lanoo? The Germ is That, and That is Light, the White Brilliant Son of the Dark Hidden Father. 9. Light is Cold Flame, and Flame is Fire, and Fire produces Heat, which yields Water—the Water of Life in the Great Mother. 10. Father‐Mother spin a Web, whose upper end is fastened to Spirit, the Light of the One Darkness, and the lower one to its shadowy end, Matter; and this Web is the Universe, spun out of the Two Substances made in One, which is Svabhâvat. 11. It expands when the Breath of Fire is upon it; it contracts when the Breath of the Mother touches it. Then the Sons dissociate and scatter, to return into their Mother’s Bosom, at the end of the Great Day, and re‐ become one with her. When it is cooling, it becomes radiant. Its Sons expand and contract through their own Selves and Hearts; they embrace Infinitude. 12. Then Svabhâvat sends Fohat to harden the Atoms. Each is a part of the Web. Reflecting the “Self‐Existent Lord,” like a Mirror, each becomes in turn a World. Stanza IV. 1. ... Listen, ye Sons of the Earth, to your Instructors—the Sons of the Fire. Learn, there is neither first nor last; for all is One Number, issued from No‐Number. 2. Learn what we, who descend from the Primordial Seven, we, who are born from the Primordial Flame, have learnt from our Fathers.... 3. From the Effulgency of Light—the Ray of the Ever‐Darkness—sprang in Space the reäwakened Energies; the One from the Egg, the Six, and the Five. Then the Three, the One, the Four, the One, the Five—the Twice Seven, the Sum Total. And these are the Essences, the Flames, the Elements, the Builders, the Numbers, the Arûpa, the Rûpa, and the Force or Divine Man, the Sum Total. And from the Divine Man emanated the Forms, the Sparks, the Sacred Animals, and the Messengers of the Sacred Fathers within the Holy Four. 4. This was the Army of the Voice, the Divine Mother of the Seven. The Sparks of the Seven are subject to, and the servants of, the First, the Second, the Third, the Fourth, the Fifth, the Sixth, and the Seventh of the Seven. These are called Spheres, Triangles, Cubes, Lines and Modellers; for thus stands the Eternal Nidâna—the Oi‐Ha‐Hou. 5. The Oi‐Ha‐Hou, which is Darkness, the Boundless, or the No‐Number, Âdi‐ Nidâna Svabhâvat, the [circle]: