This is, of course, exoteric; yet, in its main idea, it is as identical as possible with the Egyptian Cosmogony, which, in its opening sentences, shows Athtor,[517] or Mother Night, representing Illimitable Darkness, as the Primeval Element which covered the Infinite Abyss, animated by Water and the Universal Spirit of the Eternal, dwelling alone in Chaos. Similarly in the Jewish Scriptures, the history of the creation opens with the Spirit of God and his creative Emanation—another Deity.[518]
The Zohar teaches that it is the Primordial Elements—the trinity of Fire, Air and Water—the Four Cardinal Points, and all the Forces of Nature, which form collectively the Voice of the Will, Memrab, or the Word, the Logos of the Absolute Silent All. “The indivisible Point, limitless and unknowable,” spreads itself over space, and thus forms a Veil, the Mûlaprakriti of Parabrahman, which conceals this Absolute Point.
In the Cosmogonies of all the nations it is the Architects, synthesized by the Demiurge, in the Bible the Elohim, or Alhim, who fashion Kosmos out of Chaos, and who are the collective Theos, male-female, Spirit and Matter. “By a series (yom) of foundations (hasoth), the Alhim caused earth and heaven to be.”[519] In Genesis, it is first Alhim, [pg 370] then Jahva-Alhim, and finally Jehovah—after the separation of the sexes in the fourth chapter. It is noticeable that nowhere, except in the later, or rather the last, Cosmogonies of our Fifth Race does the ineffable and unutterable Name[520]—the symbol of the Unknown Deity, which was used only in the Mysteries—occur in connection with the “Creation” of the Universe. It is the Movers, the Runners, the Theoi (from θέειν to run), who do the work of formation, the Messengers of the Manvantaric Law, who have now become in Christianity simply the “Messengers” (Malachim). This seems to be also the case in Hindûism or early Brâhmanism. For in the Rig Veda, it is not Brahmâ who creates, but the Prajâpatis, the “Lords of Being,” who are also the Rishis; the term Rishi, according to Professor Mahadeo Kunte, being connected with the word to move, to lead on, applied to them in their terrestrial character, when, as Patriarchs, they lead their Hosts on the Seven Rivers.
Moreover, the very word “God,” in the singular, embracing all the Gods, or Theoi, came to the “superior” civilized nations from a strange source, one as entirely and preëminently phallic as the sincere outspokenness of the Indian Lingham. The attempt to derive God from the Anglo-Saxon synonym Good is an abandoned idea, for in no other language, from the Persian Khoda down to the Latin Deus, has an instance been found of the name for God being derived from the attribute of Goodness. To the Latin races it comes from the Âryan Dyaus (the Day); to the Slavonian, from the Greek Bacchus (Bagh-bog); and to the Saxon races directly from the Hebrew Yod, or Jod. The latter is י the number-letter 10, male and female, and Yod is the phallic hook. Hence the Saxon Godh, the Germanic Gott, and the English God. This symbolic term may be said to represent the Creator of Physical Humanity, on the terrestrial plane; but surely it had nothing to do with the Formation, or “Creation,” of either Spirit, Gods, or Kosmos?
Chaos-Theos-Kosmos, the Triple Deity, is all in all. Therefore, it is said to be male and female, good and evil, positive and negative; the whole series of contrasted qualities. When latent, in Pralaya, it is incognizable and becomes the Unknowable Deity. It can be known only in its active functions; hence as Matter-Force and living Spirit, the correlations and outcome, or the expression, on the visible plane, of the ultimate and ever-to-be unknown Unity.
In its turn this Triple Unit is the producer of the Four Primary Elements,[521] which are known, in our visible terrestrial Nature, as the seven (so far the five) Elements, each divisible into forty-nine—seven times seven—sub-elements, with about seventy of which Chemistry is acquainted. Every Cosmical Element, such as Fire, Air, Water, Earth, partaking of the qualities and defects of its Primaries, is in its nature Good and Evil, Force or Spirit, and Matter, etc.; and each, therefore, is at one and the same time Life and Death, Health and Disease, Action and Reaction. They are ever forming Matter, under the never-ceasing impulse of the One Element, the Incognizable, represented in the world of phenomena by Æther. They are “the immortal Gods who give birth and life to all.”
In The Philosophical Writings of Solomon Ben Yehudah Ibn Gebirol, in treating of the structure of the Universe, it is said:
R. Yehudah began, it is written: “Elohim said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.” Come, see! At the time that the Holy ... created the World, He created 7 heavens Above. He created 7 earths Below, 7 seas, 7 days, 7 rivers, 7 weeks, 7 years, 7 times, and 7,000 years that the World has been. The Holy is in the seventh of all.[522]
This, besides showing a strange identity with the Cosmogony of the Purânas,[523] corroborates all our teachings with regard to number seven, as briefly given in Esoteric Buddhism.
The Hindûs have an endless series of allegories to express this idea. In the Primordial Chaos, before it became developed into the Sapta Samudra, or Seven Oceans—emblematical of the Seven Gunas, or conditioned Qualities, composed of Trigunas (Sattva, Rajas and Tamas)—lie latent both Amrita, or Immortality, and Visha, or Poison, Death, Evil. This is to be found in the allegorical Churning of the Ocean by the Gods. Amrita is beyond any Guna, for it is unconditioned, per se; but when once fallen into phenomenal creation, it became mixed with Evil, Chaos, with latent Theos in it, before Kosmos was evolved. Hence we find Vishnu, the personification of Eternal Law, periodically calling forth Kosmos into activity, or, in allegorical phraseology, churning out of the Primitive Ocean, or Boundless Chaos, the Amrita of Eternity, reserved only for the Gods and Devas; and in the task he has [pg 372] to employ Nâgas and Asuras, or Demons in exoteric Hindûism. The whole allegory is highly philosophical, and indeed we find it repeated in every ancient system of philosophy. Thus we find it in Plato, who having fully embraced the ideas which Pythagoras had brought from India, compiled and published them in a form more intelligible than the original mysterious numerals of the Samian Sage. Thus the Kosmos is the “Son” with Plato, having for his Father and Mother Divine Thought and Matter.[524]