It may naturally be asked how, if all this be so, it is possible that we can move about freely in a solid ten thousand million times denser, as Sir Oliver Lodge says, than platinum. The obvious answer is that, where densities differ sufficiently, they can move through each other with perfect freedom; water or air can pass through cloth; air can pass through water; an astral form passes unconsciously through a physical wall, or through an ordinary human body; many of us have seen an astral form walk through a physical, neither being conscious of the passage; it does not matter whether we say that a ghost has passed through a wall, or a wall has passed through a ghost. A gnome passes freely through a rock, and walks about within the earth, as comfortably as we walk about in the air. A deeper answer is that consciousness can recognize only consciousness, that since we are of the nature of the Logos we can sense only those things which are also of His nature. These bubbles are His essence, His life, and, therefore, we, who also are part of Him, can see the matter which is built of his substance, for all forms are but manifestations of Him. The koilon is to us non-manifestation, because we have not unfolded powers which enable us to cognise it, and it may be the manifestation of a loftier order of Logoi, utterly beyond our ken.
As none of our investigators can raise his consciousness to the highest plane of our universe, the âdi-tattva plane, it may be of interest to explain how it is possible for them to see what may very probably be the atom of that plane. That this may be understood it is essential to remember that the power of magnification by means of which these experiments are conducted is quite apart from the faculty of functioning upon one or other of the planes. The latter is the result of a slow and gradual unfoldment of the Self, while the former is merely a special development of one of the many powers latent in man. All the planes are round us here, just as much as any other point in space, and if a man sharpens his sight until he can see their tiniest atoms he can make a study of them, even though he may as yet be far from the level necessary to enable him to understand and function upon the higher planes as a whole, or to come into touch with the glorious Intelligences who gather those atoms into vehicles for Themselves.
A partial analogy may be found in the position of the astronomer with regard to the stellar universe, or let us say the Milky Way. He can observe its constituent parts and learn a good deal about them along various lines, but it is absolutely impossible for him to see it as a whole from outside, or to form any certain conception of its true shape, and to know what it really is. Suppose that the universe is, as many of the ancients thought, some inconceivably vast Being, it is utterly impossible for us, here in the midst of it, to know what that Being is or is doing, for that would mean raising ourselves to a height comparable with His; but we may make extensive and detailed examination of such particles of His body as happen to be within our reach, for that means only the patient use of powers and machinery already at our command.
Let it not be supposed that, in thus unfolding a little more of the wonders of Divine Truth by pushing our investigations to the very farthest point at present possible to us, we in any way alter or modify all that has been written in theosophical books of the shape and constitution of the physical atom, and of the wonderful and orderly arrangements by which it is grouped into the various chemical molecules; all this remains entirely unaffected.
Nor is any change introduced as regards the three outpourings from the Logos, and the marvellous facility with which the matter of the various planes is by them moulded into forms for the service of the evolving life. But if we wish to have a right view of the realities underlying manifestation in this universe, we must to a considerable extent reverse the ordinary conception as to what this matter essentially is. Instead of thinking of its ultimate constituents as solid specks floating in a void, we must realise that it is the apparent void itself which is solid, and that the specks are but bubbles on it. That fact once grasped, all the rest remains as before. The relative position of what we have hitherto called matter and force is still for us the same as ever; it is only that, on closer examination, both of these conceptions prove to be variants of force, the one ensouling combinations of the other, and the real "matter," koilon, is seen to be something which has hitherto been altogether outside our scheme of thought.
In view of this marvellous distribution of Himself in "space," the familiar concept of the "sacrifice of the Logos" takes on a new depth and splendour; this is His "dying in matter," His "perpetual sacrifice," and it may be the very glory of the Logos that He can sacrifice Himself to the uttermost by thus permeating and making Himself one with that portion of koilon which He chooses as the field of His universe.
What koilon is, what its origin, whether it is itself changed by the Divine Breath which is poured into it—does "Dark Space" thus become "Bright Space" at the beginning of a manifestation?—these are questions to which we cannot at present even indicate answers. Perchance an intelligent study of the great Scriptures of the world may yield replies.
NOTES
[1] See footnote in next Chapter.