Now this requires some explanation before proceeding any further. To do so especially for the benefit of our Âryan Hindû brethren—whose Esoteric interpretations may differ from our own—we shall have to explain to them the foregoing by certain passages in their own exoteric [pg 061] books, namely, the Purânas. In the allegories of the latter, Brahmâ, who is collectively the Creative Force of the Universe, is thus described:
At the beginning of the Yugas [Cycles] ... possessed of the desire and of the power to create, and impelled by the potencies of what is to be created, again and again does he, at the outset of a Kalpa, put forth a similar creation.[126]
It is now proposed to examine the exoteric account in the Vishnu Purâna, and see how much it may agree or disagree with our Occult version.
Creation of Divine Beings in the Exoteric Accounts.
In the Vishnu Purâna, which is certainly the earliest of all the scriptures of that name, we find, as in all the others, Brahmâ, as the male God, assuming, for purposes of creation, “four Bodies invested by three qualities.”[127] It is said:
In this manner, Maitreya, Jyotsnâ (dawn), Râtri (night), Ahan (day), and Sandhyâ (evening [twilight]) are the four bodies of Brahmâ.[128]
As Parâshara explains it, when Brahmâ wishes to create the world anew and construct progeny through his will, in the fourfold condition, or the four Orders of Beings, termed Gods (Dhyân Chohans), Demons[129] (i.e., more material Devas), Progenitors (Pitris) and Men, “he collects [Yoga-like] his mind into itself” (Yûyuge).
Strange to say, he begins by creating Demons, who thus take precedence over the Angels or Gods. This is no incongruity, nor is it due to inconsistency, but has, like all the rest, a profound Esoteric meaning, quite clear to one free from Christian theological prejudice. He who bears in mind that the principle Mahat, or Intellect, the “Universal Mind” (literally the “Great”), which Esoteric Philosophy explains as the “Manifested Omniscience”—the “first product” of Pradhâna, Primordial Matter, as the Vishnu Purâna says, but the first Cosmic Aspect of Parabrahman or the Esoteric Sat, the Universal Soul,[130] as Occultism teaches—is at the root of Self-Consciousness, [pg 062] will understand the reason why. The so-called Demons—who are Esoterically the Self-asserting and intellectually active Principle—are the positive pole of creation, so to say; hence, the first produced. This is in brief the process as narrated allegorically in the Purânas.
Having concentrated his mind into itself and the Quality of Darkness pervading Brahmâ's assumed body, the Asuras, issuing from his Thigh, were first produced; after which, abandoning this body, it was transformed into Night.