THEOSOPHY, Vol. 76, No. 7, May, 1988
(Pages 208-211; Size: 11K)THE ATOM(1)
ALL IS LIFE, and every atom of even mineral dust is a LIFE, though beyond our comprehension and perception, because it is outside the range of the laws known to those who reject Occultism. "The very Atoms," says Tyndall, "seem instinct with a desire for life." Whence, then, we would ask, comes the tendency "to run into organic form"? Is it in any way explicable except according to the teachings of Occult Science? (I, 248-249.)
The radical unity of the ultimate essence of each constituent part of compounds in Nature -- from Star to mineral Atom, from the highest Dhyan Chohan to the smallest infusoria, in the fullest acceptation of the term, and whether applied to the spiritual, intellectual, or physical worlds -- this is the one fundamental law in Occult Science. (I, 120.)
No atom is ever "created," for the atoms are eternal within the bosom of the One Atom --the "atom of atoms." (I, 582.)
No one has ever seen, smelt, heard, touched or tasted an "atom." The atom belongs wholly to the domain of metaphysics. It is an entified abstraction --at any rate for physical Science -- and has nought to do with physics, strictly speaking, as it can never be brought to the test of retort or balance. (I, 513.)
Every atom in the Universe has the potentiality of self-consciousness in it, and is, like the Monads of Leibnitz, a Universe in itself, and for itself. It is an atom and an angel. (I, 107.)
Enshrined in their virgin, pristine state within the bosom of the Eternal Mother, every atom born beyond the threshold of her realm is doomed to incessant differentiation. (I, 143.)
It is on the doctrine of the illusive nature of matter, and the infinite divisibility of the atom, that the whole science of Occultism is built. (I, 520.)
When the adept or alchemist adds that, though matter is eternal, for it is PRADHÂNA, yet atoms are born at every new manvantara, or reconstruction of the universe, it is no such contradiction as a materialist, who believes in nothing beyond the atom, might think. There is a difference between manifested and unmanifested matter, between pradhâna, the beginningless and endless cause, and prakriti, or the manifested effect. (I, 545.)
The Universe ... manifests periodically, for purposes of the collective progress of the countless lives, the outbreathings of the One Life; in order that through the Ever-Becoming, every cosmic atom in this infinite Universe, passing from the formless and the intangible, through the mixed natures of the semi-terrestrial, down to matter in full generation, and then back again, reascending at each new period higher and nearer the final goal; that each atom, we say, may reach through individual merits and efforts that plane where it re-becomes the one unconditioned ALL. (I, 268.)
The Doctrine teaches that, in order to become a divine, fully conscious god, -- aye, even the highest -- the Spiritual primeval INTELLIGENCES must pass through the human stage. And when we say human, this does not apply merely to our terrestrial humanity, but to the mortals that inhabit any world, i.e., to those Intelligences that have reached the appropriate equilibrium between matter and spirit. ... Each Entity must have won for itself the right of becoming divine, through self-experience. Hegel, the great German thinker, must have known or sensed intuitionally this truth when saying, as he did, that the Unconscious evolved the Universe only "in the hope of attaining clear self-consciousness," or becoming, in other words, MAN; for this is also the secret meaning of the usual Purânic phrase about Brahmâ being constantly "moved by the desire to create." This explains also the hidden Kabalistic meaning of the saying: "The Breath becomes a stone; the stone, a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god." (I, 106-7.)
"Every form on earth, and every speck (atom) in Space strives in its efforts towards self-formation to follow the model placed for it in the 'HEAVENLY MAN.' Its (the atom's) involution and evolution, its external and internal growth and development, have all one and the same object -- man; man, as the highest physical and ultimate form on this earth; the MONAD, in its absolute totality and awakened condition -- as the culmination of the divine incarnations on earth." (I, 183.)
"Every atom becomes a visible complex unit (a molecule), and once attracted into the sphere of terrestrial activity, the Monadic Essence, passing through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, becomes man." "God, Monad, and Atom are the correspondences of Spirit, Mind, and Body in man." ..... In their septenary aggregation they are the "Heavenly Man"; thus, terrestrial man is the provisional reflection of the Heavenly. (I, 619.)
The collective aggregation of these atoms forms thus the Anima Mundi of our Solar system, the soul of our little universe, each atom of which ... is endowed with consciousness, hence with memory. (II, 672 fn.)
When the Occultist speaks of "Elements," .... it is because he knows what he is talking about. When he says "Man" and Elements, he neither means "man" in his present physiological and anthropological form, nor the elemental atoms, those hypothetical conceptions, the entitative abstractions of matter in its highly attenuated state, as existing at present in scientific minds; nor, again, the compound Elements of antiquity. In Occultism the word Element means "rudiment" in every case. ... With regard to "Element," when the term is used metaphysically, it means, in distinction to the mortal, the incipient divine man; and, in its physical usage, inchoate matter in its first undifferentiated condition, or in the laya state, which is the eternal and the normal condition of substance, differentiating only periodically, and is during that differentiation in an abnormal state -- in other words, a transitory illusion of the senses.
As to the "elemental atoms," so called, the Occultists refer to them by that name with a meaning analogous to that which is given by the Hindu to Brahmâ when he calls him ANU, the "Atom." Every elemental atom is ... a SOUL; not necessarily a disembodied soul, but a jiva, as the Hindus call it, a centre of POTENTIAL VITALITY, with latent intelligence in it, and, in the case of compound Souls -- an intelligent active EXISTENCE, from the highest to the lowest order, a form composed of more or less differentiations. It requires a metaphysician -- and an Eastern metaphysician -- to understand our meaning. All those atom-Souls are differentiations from the ONE, and in the same relation to it as the divine Soul -- the Buddhi -- to its informing and inseparable Spirit, or Atman. (I, 566-567.)
The ancient Initiates, who were followed more or less closely by all profane antiquity, meant by the term "ATOM," a Soul, a Genius or Angel, the first-born of the ever-concealed CAUSE of all causes; and in this sense their teachings become comprehensible. ... It is not they who would have ever conceived, or dreamt that monstrous contrasted progeny, the nightmare of our modern civilized Race; namely -- inanimate material, self-guiding atoms, on the one hand, and an extra-Cosmic God on the other. (I, 569.)
Occultism does not deny the certainty of the mechanical origin of the Universe; it only claims the absolute necessity of mechanicians of some sort behind those Elements (or within) --a dogma with us. It is not the fortuitous assistance of the atoms of Lucretius, who himself knew better, that built the Kosmos and all in it. Nature herself contradicts such a theory.
To become complete and comprehensible, a cosmogonical theory has to start with a primordial Substance diffused throughout boundless Space, of an intellectual and divine Nature. ... It is easy for an astronomer, if endowed with an imaginative faculty, to build a theory of the emergence of the universe out of chaos, by simply applying to it the principles of mechanics. But such a universe will always prove, with respect to its scientific human creator, a Frankenstein's monster; it will lead him into endless perplexities. The application of the mechanical laws only can never carry the speculator beyond the objective world; nor will it unveil to men the origin and final destiny of Kosmos. (I, 594.)
COMPILER'S NOTE: The following is a separate item which followed the above article but was on the same page. I felt it was useful to include it here:
Man considers the surrounding atmosphere as a part of himself, and gains bodily health by inhaling the pure air. Similarly, he should look upon surrounding nature as a part of himself, and breathe in the Divine spirit that dwells therein.
--FRIEDRICH FROEBEL
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