CHAPTER VIII
THE WORK OF THE TRIPLE LOGOS
Each system of thought worthy of the name
Philosophy has in it many elements which cannot be tested by the limited intelligence of man.
Man's experiences deal mainly with a world
interpreted for him by his five senses; even
such faculties of the imagination as he has are
largely circumscribed by these experiences.
When, therefore, a philosophy tells of the beginnings of things, or unveils a panorama of
past or future events, no man can judge of its
truth by the standard of his own experiences.
This is the case with some of the teachings of
modern science; when science tells us that all
the planets and the sun once formed a nebula,
we can logically infer it by observing the many
nebulae existing in the heavens, but we should
be certain of it only if we were to see the original
nebula, and watch its process of division into
sun and planets. When science tells us of
the evolutionary process, of the building of
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molecules into protoplasm, and of protoplasm
into man, through definite stages of a ladder of
evolution, we accept the account, not because
we can prove it to be true, but because our
acceptance of it makes our intellectual life
more vital and fruitful. Logically, if the test
of truth were only man's own experiences, he
should put aside every statement of science or
philosophy which, for hm, is outside the range
of possible experience. But, on the other
hand, he would lose thereby most of his present
intellectual poise and imaginative vigor.
It is only as a man is continually imaginative, that he transcends the limitations which
a perishable body imposes upon his sense of
individuality. The larger is a man's intellectual horizon, the more powerful is his
imagination, and the combined result of both makes
him more forceful in his environment. Since
the sum total of any philosophy, in terms of
conduct, is to give us more power to change
our environment, philosophical ideas are esential for our life, even though at any
particular moment it may be beyond our capabilities to test their truth.
When a man is confronted by philosophical ideas which deal with subjects outside his
experience, he can survery them as a whole,
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and accept them only in so far as they appeal
to his sense of the fitness of things. If the intellectual edifice which a philosophy provides
for him proves not only sound but also inspiring, and if all the facts of which he is aware:
find logical and harmonious place in that
dwelling, he may as well accept that philosophy to live by as any other. Exactly this, no
more but no less, can be said of those particular
Theosophical ideas which form this chapter
and the next; while they are not likely to be
personally proved for many a life by the average inquirer, nevertheless they offer to the
mind a conception of life which is attractive to
man's reason and inspiring to his imagination.
1. The Divine Wisdom tells us that the
universe with its myriads of stars is the expression of a Conscious Life, called variously God,
Isvara, Ahura Mazda, Allah, or the Logos.
This One Life is, we are told, a Person but He
transcends all the limitations which necessarily
are associated with our ideas of Personality.
We are told that this Cosmic Logos is ever a
Unity, "One without a second" (ekam advitiyam); nevertheless, as He energizes a universe,
He energizes it as a Trinity of three fundamental modes of manifestation. God as a
Trinity is described in Hinduism as Brahma
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the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva
the Destroyer; in Christianity the Trinity is
stated as God the Father, God the Son, and
God the Holy Ghost. In other religions too,
we find names for the trinitarian modes of the
divine activities.
2. Associated with the work in the
universe of the Cosmic Logos are seven Embodiments of His Nature, called the Seven
Cosmic Planetary Logoi. All the stars in the
universe, each of which is the center of a great
evolutionary system, belong to one or other of
these great Seven, and are in some way expressions of Their life, as They in turn are
expressions of the One Life of the Cosmic Logos.
Fig. 60 is an attempt to symbolize the Primordial One and His seven Embodiments;
the seven small circles, within each of which
should be innumerable stars, both great and
small, represent the Seven Planetary Logoi,
while the large circle, embracing the seven
small circles, represents the Cosmic Logos.
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3. In all this vast splendor of universal
life, the Lord of our Solar System, the Solar
Logos, exists. As a Star, as the Lord of a
System among the myriads of stars, He lives
and moves and has His Being in His Father-Star, one of the great Seven; yet He mirrors
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directly the Life and Light and Glory of the
"One without a second". What is the special
purpose which the Solar Logos, with the Brother-Stars of His Company, fulfils in the growth
of the Universe, who can tell? But this at least is sure, that, for us men, He is God,
the ultimate of all our thought and imagination, the only God whom we can conceive,
because we ourselves are He and none other.
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True, we are rooted in the "One without a
second"; but we abide in that glory only as
seeds within the seed-pod. The action of the
Solar Logos is to nourish us till we grow into.
Individuality, as the mother nourishes the
embryo till it can begin its separate existence as
an entity. But for His thinking we could not
think, but for His loving we could not love, but
for His living we. could not live. Our Individualities are fractions of the Total of His
Individuality, circles inscribed on the vast
sphere of His Being. His field of activity is a
vast sphere, whose radius begins with the sun
and ends with the last satellite of the farther-most planet yet to be discovered. Within this
sphere, in "bright-space", He works, ever impelling His system to reveal more and more of
His wondrous nature as the cycles pass, patiently waiting for the Day when all the life of the
system which has come forth from Him shall
return to Him, conscious of its revealed glory.
4. "As above, so below." In the image of
the. Cosmic Logos, the Logos of the solar system is also a Trinity when He energizes His
system. He works in three fundamental
modes, which are symbolized in the great religions as those of the Creator, the Preserver,
and the Destroyer; or the Father, the Son, and
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the Holy Ghost. In modern Theosophical.
nomenclature, this triple activity is described
as that of the First Logos (Father), the Second
Logos (Son), and the Third Logos (Holy
Ghost). The First Logos, the Second Logos
and the Third Logos are but three Aspects of
the one Solar Logos; while three in manifestation, He is yet ever the one indivisible Godhead. (Fig. 61.)
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in the Hebrew and Christian tradition the
"Seven Spirits before the Throne of God." [Revelation 4:5]
The energies of these Seven control and
direct all that takes place within the solar
system; each of the Seven contributes His typical nature as a vibratory response even to each
atom, so that when an atom is affected by the
sun's ray, the seven "minor strands" of the
atom flash out the seven prismatic colors.
Each of the Seven is the Head and Ruler of
hierarchies of creative entities who work under
His direction in the building and sustaining
of the solar system. Under each are ranged
those Devas (Shining Ones) or "Angelic Hosts,
called in Oriental religions Adityas, Vasus,
Phyani Buddhas, Dhyan Chohans, etc., and
in the Christian tradition, Angels, Archangels,
Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, Virtues,
Powers, Cherubim and Seraphim.
6. In Fig. 63 we have a condensed summary
of the work of the Triple Logos within His
system.
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The Logos works through three aspects or modes, whose fundamental characteristics may be stated as follows:
I. First Logos: Divinity-Humanity.
II. Second Logos: Life-Form.
III. Third Logos: Force-Matter.
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Before the Logos began the work of the
system, He created on the "Plane of the Divine
Mind" (see Fig. 51) the system as it was to be,
from its commencement to its end. He created
all the Archetypes of forces, forms, emotions, thoughts and intuitions, and determined how and
by what stages in civilization each should be realized in the evolutionary scheme of His system.
Then, in that part of space selected
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by Him for the work of His Plan, He commenced His work through His Third Aspect,
the Third Logos as Force-Matter.
The vast sphere in space, within which the
sun and its planets were to arise, contained at
the beginning no substance in any way akin to
matter (visible or invisible) which we have
within the system today. There was only
Mulaprakrti or "root-matter", that ether of
space once postulated by science which is incomprehensible to our imagination, since it is
only out of "holes in the aether" that matter
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such as we know is composed. In our Theosophical studies we have called this primordial
ether or negation of matter "Koilon", the
"emptiness". (Fig. 64.)
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Into this Koilon, or primordial ether of
"space, the Cosmic Logos poured His energy,
pressing back the Koilon from innumerable
points within it. (Fig. 65.)
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Each action in
the making of these spirals, from the spiral
of the first order to the physical atom, is due
to the focussing of the consciousness of the
Third Logos to that particular purpose; each
order of spirals retains its formation only because His consciousness continues to hold it
so. Our physical atom is not "matter"; it is
in reality myriads of points of the consciousness
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of the Third Cosmic Logos, held by the Solar
Logos in a particular formation to do a specific
work — that of building the physical plane.
But the building of the physical plane is preceded by the building of the
superphysical planes; to grasp this we must revert to Fig. 63. In that diagram,
we find that the little circle representing the Third Logos has two lines issuing
from the right side; these two lines denote two activities which build the planes
and sub-planes. The shorter line refers to the first action of all of the
Third Logos which is, as already described, that of grouping the
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bubbles in Koilon; these bubbles are the final
units, the bricks so to say, out of which all the I
seven planes of the solar system are made.
The first or Adi plane is made out of the
bubbles in Koilon directly, and the atom of
this plane is one bubble. The atom of the next
plane, the Anupadaka, is made out of 49 bubbles. The Atmic atom is made out of 492 or
2,401 bubbles. We have the atoms of the
lower planes then made in succession with
bubbles to the number as follows: atom of the
Buddhic plane, 493 or 49 x 2,401 bubbles; atom
of the Mental plane, 494 or 2,401 x 2,401
bubbles; atom of the Astral plane, 495 or 49 x
2,401 x 2,401 bubbles; atom of the Physical
plane, 496 or 2,401 x 2,401 x 2,401 bubbles,
with a definite number of bubbles in addition,
owing to the peculiar formation of the physical
atom.
When the atoms of each of the seven planes
have been created, then the Third Logos creates the sub-planes of each plane. (The longer
line, issuing to the right from the small circle
of the Third Logos, denotes this second action.) The atoms of each plane are swept into
groups of two, three, four, etc., to make the
sub-planes. The first or highest sub-plane is
composed of the single atoms themselves, while
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the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and
seventh sub-planes are made by combinations
of these atoms into molecules. Thus, on the
physical plane, the highest sub-plane is composed of unit physical atoms, of two varieties,
the positive and the negative. Then, by combination of these positive and negative atoms,
there are built the remaining, sub-planes,
called sub-atomic, super-etheric, etheric, gaseous, liquid and solid. It is in the course of
building the sub-planes of the physical world,
that the chemical elements are produced, as will
later be explained when dealing with the subject of Occult Chemistry.
The work of the Third Logos, then, builds
the seven great planes, with their sub-planes,
of the solar system. That building is not complete, and it is still proceeding apace. He is
the ensouling Force in the Matter of all the
planes; electricity is one expression of His force
through the matter of the physical plane; another expression, which is totally distinct, is
Kundalini, the mysterious "serpent fire" which
operates in all higher organisms.
In the seven great planes thus built by the
Third Logos, next appears the work of the
Second Logos. His energy is essentially of an
order best described as Life-Form; with this
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energy He ensouls the matter of the seven
planes, and enables it to build forms which
have that mysterious quality which we call
"life". This life builds the matter of the planes
into varying forms, and, each form persists only
so long as the life of the Second Logos holds the
matter in that form.
Now for the first time appear the phenomena
of birth, growth, decay and death. A form is
born because the Life of the Second Logos has
a work of evolution to do through that form;
it grows while that work is progressing to its
culmination; it shows signs of decay because the
Second Logos slowly withdraws the life from
the form, since the life has evolved all it can
through that form; it dies when finally the
"Second Logos withdraws all of the life, in order
to send it back once again to build a newer
and better form, which can give the evolving
life the new experiences necessary for its further
growth and self-revelation. On the physical
plane, the expression of the force of the second
Logos is Prana, Vitality.
When manifest on the four highest planes of
the solar system, that life of the Second Logos
is called the Monadic Essence; it descends
stage by stage, gaining at each stage the growth
which has been planned for it in the Great
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Plan. During a long period of time, called a
Chain, it first manifests in the matter of the
Adi plane; at the end of the Chain, it returns
to the Second Logos, from whom it issues forth
again at the beginning of the succeeding Chain,
in order to ensoul the matter of the second, the
Anupadaka plane. It commences the work
of the second Chain, with all the experiences
of the first Chain inherent in it as tendencies
and capacities.
Chain by Chain, the Monadic Essence descends from plane to plane,
and at the beginning of its fifth cycle, it begins to ensoul the
matter of the higher mental plane. Up to this
point, the Monadic Essence was not limited
for its experiences to one "scheme ofevolution";
but henceforth its experiences are restricted to those obtainable in our "scheme of
evolution". From the time of its entrance into
the matter of our mental plane, it is called
Elemental Essence. During the period of its
growth in higher mental matter, this life of the
Second Logos is called the First Elemental
Essence; after the end of a Chain, it reappears
at the commencement of a new Chain, and
ensouls lower mental matter; at this stage it is ...
1 In the next chapter the terms "chain" and "scheme of evolution" will be fully explained.
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called the Second Elemental Essence. At the
next Chain, it becomes the Third Elemental
Essence, and ensouls the matter of the astral
plane.
It is this ensouling life of the Second Logos
which gives to mental and astral matter their
peculiarly living quality, so that the faintest
vibration caused in the mental world by a
thought, or in the astral world by desire, makes
the mental and astral matter swiftly generate
shapes and forms, and causes it to crystallize
into "thought-forms".
Still "descending into matter" Chain by
Chain, the life of the Second Logos, after ensouling astral matter, next ensouls physical
matter. The first effect of this new ensouling
is to give to the chemical elements a power of
combination among themselves. While the
Third Logos creates hydrogen and oxygen, it
is only when the life of the Second Logos appears that two atoms of hydrogen can combine
with one of oxygen to make water. Physical
matter as we know it today appears with the
work of the Second Logos; under His guidance
there now appears the mineral kingdom, ready
to build a solid earth. In terms of rhythm and
beauty, matter now crystallizes with mathematical precision; through each physical
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encasement the work of the Second Logos is
done according to the Plan. To our eyes, the
mineral is inert and lifeless, mere earth; yet
all the while the Second Logos is at work in
that seemingly inert matter. Of a truth is the
God now "dead and buried", crucified on a
cross of matter.
The life of the Second Logos, after its lowest
descent into matter as the mineral kingdom,
now begins its ascent. Its next manifestation
is as the vegetable kingdom. At the commencement of this stage, the substances of
earth develop a new capacity, that of becoming
a vehicle for life, such life as our eyes can see.
The chemical elements group themselves together, and a mysterious life appears among
them, and builds them into protoplasm.
Guided by the Second Logos, this protoplasm
undergoes transformation, becoming in process
of time the vegetable kingdom. (Fig. 4.)
After long experiences of growth, slowly evolving during the period of a Chain, the vegetable
kingdom appears in a subsequent Chain as the
animal kingdom. (Fig. 5.) In due course of time,
out of the animal kingdom, arise those highest
animals which are capable of individualization.
When the animal group-soul has been built,
as has been explained in the previous chapter,
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and a particular animal is ready for individualization, then begins the action of the First
Logos. He sends a Fragment of Himself, a
"Monad", to make an Individuality in a
Causal Body. A Soul of Man, made "in the
image of his Maker", then begins his evolution, which is to discover the Divinity in
himself, in his fellowmen, and in all the life of
nature which surrounds him. On the physical
plane the expression of the force of the First
Logos is the Immortal Soul in a mortal body.
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Thus swiftly we have surveyed the mighty
work of the Triple Logos, which began long,
long ago, and yet is, as says the Upanishad,
still "in the womb". Creator, Preserver and
Destroyer, He builds, and unbuilds, and builds
again, coming by each stage one step nearer to
the Perfection of His Plan. To see that Plan
is to have the Beatific Vision; to work for that
Plan is to change one's mortal nature to that
of a deathless immortal. Deathlessness in
life, Eternity in time, Divinity in humanity,
are his who, understanding the Plan, works
for it unceasingly.
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