So in the Dhammapada it is said: “Mind it is which gives to things their quality, their foundation and their being,” to which Epictetus subscribes when he says: “Men are disturbed by their view of things and not by the things themselves,” and these two views are at the base of Idealism and Quietism, as we may learn from Plato and Laotze.
Figure 9.
It would therefore have been equally true in a symbolical sense had the Higher, Middle and Lower Worlds been called the Sun, Moon and Earth Worlds, for these answer to the Spirit, Soul and Body of man, and therefore to the worlds or states of being in which they function. Also by the same symbolism they may be called the worlds of Light, Twilight and Darkness, answering to the three Gunas or qualities of the Soul in the Hindu philosophy, namely, Sattva, Rajasa, and Tamas. But the employment of a purely cosmical symbolism gains point from the fact that whatever may be our views regarding these ultimate problems of life, they must necessarily take form from the things of our experience and find expression in terms of natural phenomena, or so much of the Great Handwriting as we may have mastered and can employ as symbols.
The argument from analogy is indeed strongly in favour of the view that all spiritual truths have their counterpart and illustration in the phenomenal world, that there is a natural law in the spiritual world, and that this law can only be interpreted in terms of natural phenomena. But it is also permissible to take the opposite view and to affirm that there is a spiritual law in the natural world and that this can only be understood and interpreted in the light of the Spirit. Indeed philosophy tends ultimately to the view that the mind of man is but a centre of consciousness in the Universal Mind, that it reflects the Ideas of that Mind, and that things have no real existence except as products of mind. We all recognize the fact that the idea precedes and outlasts the form that embodies it, and that there is no constant relation between the thing and the thought of which it is an expression.
This idea, applied to the subject of Involution and Evolution, gives rise to the momentous thought that the Archetypal Mind that holds the idea of this universe and is its Creator, is under no contract to complete the scheme of things. God is under no necessity to finish His work. The Great Artificer may at any time destroy his moulds! But long-suffering Nature comforts us with the idea of an infinite patience, and the human mind suggests something indefinitely more steadfast than its own caprice.
Meanwhile by the dim light of our minds we grope our way among the scattered symbols, seeking in them for some intelligible answer to our questionings, hoping to find in them, when all are understood, a solution of the problem of the human soul. Science, philosophy and religion all assure us that we have reasonable hope, if not indeed the definite promise of eventual success.
CHAPTER XIII
PLANETARY NUMBERS
In a section of my work on the Kabala of Numbers I gave the planetary numbers as they have been handed down to us, and my authority in that case was John Heydon, who in his Holy Guide has delivered the traditional values of the planets, showing their correspondence with certain numbers.
I am now able to cite another authority in the person of Godfridus, who in the year 1650 published a book called Things Unknown. Those who read the book, should they be fortunate enough to obtain a copy of this scarce old volume, will probably agree with me that most of the information he has collected is really not worth knowing, being in many instances fanciful and misleading.