It may be useful to show what the Monad was, and what its origin, in the teachings of the old Initiates.
Modern exact Science, as soon as it began to grow out of its teens, perceived the great, and to it hitherto esoteric, axiom, that nothing, whether in the spiritual, psychic, or physical realm of Being, could come into existence out of nothing. There is no cause in the manifested Universe without its adequate effects, whether in Space or Time; nor can there be an effect without its primal cause, which itself owes its existence to a still higher one—the final and absolute Cause having to remain to man for ever an incomprehensible Causeless Cause. But even this is no solution, and must be viewed, if at all, from the highest philosophical and metaphysical standpoints, otherwise the problem had better be left unapproached. It is an abstraction, on the verge of which human reason—however trained in metaphysical subtleties—trembles, threatening to collapse. This may be demonstrated to any European, who would undertake to solve the problem of existence, by the articles of faith of the true Vedântin for instance. Let him read and study the sublime teachings of Shankarâchârya, on the subject of Soul and Spirit, and the reader will realize what is now said.[968]
While the Christian is taught that the human Soul is a breath of God, being created by him for sempiternal existence, having a beginning, but no end—and therefore never to be called eternal—the Occult Teaching says: Nothing is created, it is only transformed. Nothing can manifest itself in this Universe—from a globe down to a vague, rapid thought—that was not in the Universe already; everything on the subjective plane is an eternal is; as everything on the objective plane is an ever-becoming—because all is transitory.
The Monad—a truly “indivisible thing,” as defined by Good, who did not give it the sense we now do—is here rendered as the Âtmâ, in conjunction with Buddhi and the higher Manas. This trinity is one and eternal, the latter being absorbed in the former at the termination of all conditioned and illusive life. The Monad, then, can be traced through the course of its pilgrimage and in its changes of transitory vehicles, only from the incipient stage of the manifested Universe. In Pralaya, the intermediate period between two Manvantaras, it loses its name, as it loses it when the real One Self of man merges into Brahman, in cases of high Samâdhi (the Turîya state), or final Nirvâna; in the words of Shankara:
When the disciple having attained that primeval consciousness, absolute bliss, of which the nature is truth, which is without form and action, abandons this illusive body that has been assumed by the Âtmâ just as an actor (abandons) the dress (put on).
For Buddhi, the Anandamaya Sheath, is but a mirror which reflects absolute bliss; and, moreover, that reflection itself is yet not free from ignorance, and is not the Supreme Spirit, since it is subject to conditions, is a spiritual modification of Prakriti, and is an effect; Âtmâ alone is the one real and eternal substratum of all, the Essence and Absolute Knowledge, the Kshetrajña. Now that the Revised Version of the Gospels has been published and the most glaring mistranslations of the old versions are corrected, one can understand better the words in 1 John v. 6: “It is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth.” The words that follow in the mistranslated version about the “three witnesses,” hitherto supposed to stand for “the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,” show the real meaning of the writer very clearly, thus still more forcibly identifying his teaching in this respect with that of Shankarâchârya. For what can the sentence mean, “there are three that bear witness ... the Spirit and the Water and the Blood”—if it bears no relation to, nor connection with, the more philosophical statement of the great Vedântin teacher, who, speaking of the Sheaths—the principles in man—Jîva, Vijñânamaya, etc., which are, in their physical manifestation, “Water and Blood” or Life, adds that Âtmâ, Spirit, alone is what remains after the subtraction of the Sheaths and that it is the Only Witness, or synthesized unity. The less spiritual and philosophical school, solely with an eye to a Trinity, made three witnesses out of “one,” thus connecting it more with Earth than with Heaven. It is called in Esoteric Philosophy the “One [pg 624] Witness,” and, while it rests in Devachan, is referred to as the “Three Witnesses to Karma.”
Âtmâ, our seventh principle, being identical with the Universal Spirit, and man being one with it in his essence, what is then the Monad proper? It is that homogeneous spark which radiates in millions of rays from the primeval Seven;—of which Seven something will be said further on. It is the emanating Spark from the uncreated Ray—a mystery. In the esoteric, and even exoteric Buddhism of the North, Âdi-Buddha (Chogi Dangpoi Sangye), the One Unknown, without beginning or end, identical with Parabrahman and Ain Suph, emits a bright Ray from its Darkness.
This is the Logos, the First, or Vajradhara, the Supreme Buddha, also called Dorjechang. As the Lord of all Mysteries he cannot manifest, but sends into the world of manifestation his Heart—the “Diamond Heart,” Vajrasattva or Dorjesempa. This is the Second Logos of Creation, from whom emanate the seven—in the exoteric blind the five—Dhyâni-Buddhas, called the Anupâdaka, the “Parentless.” These Buddhas are the primeval Monads from the World of Incorporeal Being, the Arûpa World, wherein the Intelligences (on that plane only) have neither shape nor name, in the exoteric system, but have their distinct seven names in the Esoteric Philosophy. These Dhyâni-Buddhas emanate, or create from themselves, by virtue of Dhyâna, celestial Selves—the super-human Bodhisattvas. These, incarnating at the beginning of every human cycle on Earth as mortal men, become occasionally, owing to their personal merit, Bodhisattvas among the Sons of Humanity, after which they may reäppear as Mânushi, or Human, Buddhas. The Anupâdaka, or Dhyâni-Buddhas, are thus identical with the Brâhmanical Mânasaputra, Mind-born Sons—whether of Brahmâ, or of either of the other two Trimûrtian Hypostases; they are identical also with the Rishis and Prajâpatis. Thus, a passage is found in Anugîtâ, which, read esoterically, shows plainly, though under another imagery, the same idea and system. It says:
Whatever entities there are in this world, moveable or immoveable, they are the very first to be dissolved [at Pralaya]; and next the developments produced from the elements [from which the visible universe is fashioned]; and (after) these developments [evolved entities], all the elements. Such is the upward gradation among entities. Gods, Men, Gandharvas, Pishâchas, Asuras, Râkshasas, all have been created by Nature [Svabhâva, or Prakriti, plastic Nature], not by actions, nor by a cause [not by any physical cause]. These Brâhmanas [the Rishi Prajâpati?], the creators of the world, are born here (on earth) again and again. [pg 625]And whatever is produced from them is dissolved in due time in those very five great elements [the five, or rather seven, Dhyâni-Buddhas, also called “Elements”of Mankind], like billows in the ocean. These great elements are in every way (beyond) the elements that make up the world [the gross elements]. And he who is released, even from these five elements [the Tanmâtras],[969] goes to the highest goal. The Lord Prajâpati [Brahmâ] created all this by the mind only [by Dhyâna, or abstract meditation and mystic powers, like the Dhyâni-Buddhas].[970]
Evidently then, these Brâhmanas are identical with the terrestrial Bodhisattvas of the heavenly Dhyâni-Buddhas. Both, as primordial, intelligent “Elements,” become the Creators or the Emanators of the Monads destined to become human in that cycle; after which they evolve themselves, or, so to say, expand into their own Selves as Bodhisattvas or Brâhmanas, in heaven and earth, to become at last simple men. “The creators of the world are born here, on earth again and again”—truly. In the Northern Buddhist system, or the popular exoteric religion, it is taught that every Buddha, while preaching the Good Law on Earth, manifests himself simultaneously in three Worlds: in the Formless World as a Dhyâni-Buddha, in the World of Forms as a Bodhisattva, and in the World of Desire, the lowest or our World, as a man. Esoterically the teaching differs. The divine, purely Âdi-Buddhic Monad manifests as the universal Buddhi, the Mahâ-Buddhi or Mahat, in Hindû philosophies, the spiritual, omniscient and omnipotent Root of divine Intelligence, the highest Anima Mundi or the Logos. This descends “like a flame spreading from the eternal Fire, immoveable, without increase or decrease, ever the same to the end” of the cycle of existence, and becomes Universal Life on the Mundane Plane. From this Plane of conscious Life shoot out, like seven fiery tongues, the Sons of Light, the Logoi of Life; then the Dhyâni-Buddhas of contemplation, the concrete forms of their formless Fathers, the Seven Sons of Light, still themselves, to whom maybe applied the Brâhmanical mystic phrase: “Thou art That”—Brahman. It is from these Dhyâni-Buddhas that emanate their Chhâyâs or Shadows, the Bodhisattvas of the celestial realms, the prototypes of the super-terrestrial Bodhisattvas, and of the terrestrial Buddhas, and finally of men. The Seven Sons of Light are also called Stars.