The Stanzas of Dzyan — A Study Guide

Table of Contents

Cosmogenesis

• H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (online)
  http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd-hp.htm
• H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (hardcopy)
  http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/ts/sd.htm
• H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (1.6 mb ASCII text file)
  http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd-ascii/sdcor.zip
~~~
• John P. Van Mater, Index to The Secret Doctrine (online)
  http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd-index/dx-00hp.htm
• John P. Van Mater, Index to The Secret Doctrine (hardcopy)
  http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/ts/sdidx.htm

      [The Absolute is] “ ... the ONE LIFE, eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without beginning or end, yet periodical in its regular manifestations, between which periods reigns the dark mystery of non-Being; unconscious, yet absolute Consciousness; unrealisable, yet the one self-existing reality; truly, ‘a chaos to the sense, a Kosmos to the reason.’ Its one absolute attribute, which is ITSELF, eternal, ceaseless Motion, is called in esoteric parlance the ‘Great Breath,’ which is the perpetual motion of the universe, in the sense of limitless, ever-present SPACE.” (SD vol 1 p 2)

      “...Darkness (matter).... This must not be confused with precosmic ‘DARKNESS,’ the Divine ALL.” (SD vol 1 p 250 and note)

• Absolute Being

        “The Absolute; the Parabrahm of the Vedantins or the one Reality, SAT, which is ... both Absolute Being and Non-Being.” (SD vol 1 p 16)

• Be-ness

        “...there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause — dimly formulated in the ‘Unconscious’ and ‘Unknowable’ of current European philosophy — is the rootless root of ‘all that was, is, or ever shall be.’ It is of course devoid of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested, finite Being. It is ‘Be-ness’ rather than Being (in Sanskrit, Sat), and is beyond all thought or speculation.” (SD vol 1 p 14)

• Darkness

        “The Darkness that breathes over the slumbering waters of life....” (Shloka i-3-2)
  
        “... darkness was upon the face of the deep....” (Genesis 1:1)
  
  

• Non-Being.

        “Non-Being ... is absolute Being.” (SD vol 1 p 53)
  
        “The causes of existence had been done away with; the visible that was, and the invisible that is, rested in eternal Non-Being — the One Being.” (Shloka i-1-7)
  
        “The producers of form from no-form — the root of the world — the Devamatri and Svabhavat, rested in the bliss of Non-Being.” (Shloka i-2-1)

• Adi-Buddha

        “In the esoteric, and even exoteric Buddhism of the North, Adi Buddha (Chogi dangpoi sangye), the One unknown, without beginning or end, identical with Parabrahm and Ain-Soph, emits a bright ray from its darkness. ” (SD vol 1 p 571)

• Ain-Soph

        “Ain Soph (Heb.). The ‘Boundless’ or Limitless; Deity emanating and extending. [w.w.w.] Ain Soph is also written En Soph and Ain Suph, no one, not even Rabbis, being sure of their vowels. In the religious metaphysics of the old Hebrew philosophers, the ONE Principle was an abstraction, like Parabrahmam, though modern Kabbalists have succeeded now, by dint of mere sophistry and paradoxes, in making a ‘Supreme God’ of it and nothing higher. But with the early Chaldean Kabbalists Ain Soph is ‘without form or being’, having ‘no likeness with anything else’ (Franck, Die Kabbala, p. 126). That Ain Soph has never been considered as the ‘Creator’ is proved by even such an orthodox Jew as Philo calling the ‘Creator’ the Logos, who stands next the ‘Limitless One’, and the ‘Second God’. ‘The Second God is its (Ain Soph’s) wisdom’, says Philo (Quaest. et Solut.). Deity is NO-THING; it is nameless, and therefore called Ain Soph; the word Ain meaning NOTHING.” (Theosophical Glossary, p. 12)

• The Boundless

        “Infinity cannot comprehend Finiteness. The Boundless can have no relation to the bounded and the conditioned.” (SD vol 1 p 56)

• Brahma (as opposed to Brahmâ)

        “The student must distinguish between Brahma the neuter, and Brahmâ, the male creator of the Indian Pantheon. The former, Brahma or Brahman, is the impersonal, supreme and uncognizable Principle of the Universe from the essence of which all emanates, and into which all returns, which is incorporeal, immaterial, unborn, eternal, beginningless and endless. It is all-pervading, animating the highest god as well as the smallest mineral atom. Brahmâ on the other hand, the male and the alleged Creator, exists periodically in his manifestation only, and then again goes into pralaya, i.e., disappears and is annihilated.” (Theosophical Glossary, p. 62)

• Causeless Cause

        “Alone the one form of existence stretched boundless, infinite, causeless, in dreamless sleep....” (Shloka i-1-8)
  
        “That, which is neither Spirit nor matter — that is IT — the Causeless CAUSE of Spirit and Matter, which are the Cause of Kosmos.” (SD vol 1 p 258)
  
        “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.” (SD vol 1 p 569)

        Please note that “First Cause” does not refer to the Absolute, it refers to the Logos or Father.

        “The ‘first’ presupposes necessarily something which is the ‘first brought forth, the first in time, space, and rank’ — and therefore finite and conditioned. The ‘first’ cannot be the absolute, for it is a manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All the ‘Causeless One Cause,’ the ‘Rootless Root,’ and limits the ‘First Cause’ to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this term.” (SD vol. 1 pp 14-15 note)

• Darkness

        “Darkness radiates Light, and Light drops one solitary Ray into the Mother-deep.” (Shloka i-3-3)
  
        “The essence of darkness [is] absolute light, Darkness is ... the appropriate allegorical representation of ... the Universe during Pralaya, or the term of absolute rest, or non-being....” (SD vol 1 p 69)
  
        “...the state of the Unitary Reality before its polarisation into Light and Forms, subject and object, if it is to be referred to at all (and, indeed, most were reluctant to do so), must be symbolised as Darkness since no words or thoughts of ours can compass its being.” (Man the Measure, p. 62)
  
        “...no nation has ever conceived the One principle as the immediate creator of the visible Universe, for no sane man would credit a planner and architect with having built the edifice he admires with his own hands. On the testimony of Damascius (IIe??’a????) they referred to it as ‘the Unknown DARKNESS.’ ” (SD vol 1 p 425)

• Ever-Darkness

        “From the effulgency of Light — the ray of the Ever-darkness — sprung in space the re-awakened energies....” (Shloka i-4-3)
  
        “Ever-Darkness [equals] Oeaohoo [equals] Parabrahman” (Man the Measure, p. 60)

• Infinite Unity

  “...in the Zohar it is stated: ‘The Infinite Unity, formless and without similitude, after the form of the heavenly man was created, used it. The Unknown Light (Darkness) used the ... (heavenly form) as a chariot ... through which to descend....’ ” (SD vol 1 p 356)

• No-Number

        “There is neither first nor last, for all is One: number issued from no number.” (Shloka i-4-1)
  
        “...no manifested thing can be thought of except as part of a larger whole: the total aggregate being the One manifested Universe that issues from the unmanifested or Absolute — called Non-Being or ‘No-Number,’ to distinguish it from BEING or ‘the One Number.’ ” (SD vol 1 p 88)

• Non-Being

        “...Absolute — called Non-Being or ‘No-Number,’....” (SD vol 1 p 88)

• Oeaohoo

        “The root remains, the light remains, the curds remain, and still Oeaohoo is One.” (Shloka i-3-5)
  
        “The Oeaohoo (Oi-ha-hou) is the ‘Darkness’ the Boundless, or the No-number....” (Shloka i-4-5)
  
        “Ever-Darkness [equals] Oeaohoo [equals] Parabrahman” (Man the Measure, p. 60)

  See also Oi-ha-hou.
  
  
• One Form of Existence

        “Alone the One Form of Existence stretched boundless, infinite, causeless, in dreamless sleep; and life pulsated unconscious in universal space, throughout that all-presence which is sensed by the opened Eye of the Dangma.” (Shloka i-1-8)
  
        “The Secret Doctrine ... postulates a ‘One Form of Existence’ as the basis and source of all things. But perhaps the phrase, the ‘One Form of Existence,’ is not altogether correct. The Sanskrit word is Prabhavapyaya, ‘the place, or rather plane, whence emerges the origination, and into which is the resolution of all things,’ says a commentator.” (SD vol 1 p 46)

• (The) One Life

        “It is the ONE LIFE, eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without beginning or end, yet periodical in its regular manifestations, between which periods reigns the dark mystery of non-Being; unconscious, yet absolute Consciousness; unrealisable, yet the one self-existing reality; truly, ‘a chaos to the sense, a Kosmos to the reason.’ ” (SD vol 1 p 2)

• One Reality

        “...there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned, being.” (SD vol 1 p 14)
  
        {The Absolute is] “...unconscious, yet absolute Consciousness; unrealisable, yet the one self-existing reality....” (SD vol 1 p 2)

• Parabrahm

        “Parabrahm, being the ‘Supreme ALL,’ [the Absolute,] the ever invisible spirit and Soul of Nature, changeless and eternal, can have no attributes; absoluteness very naturally precluding any idea of the finite or conditioned from being connected with it.” (SD vol 1 p 7)

• Parabrahman

        “...Parabrahman, having no relation, as the absolute all, to the manifested world — the Infinite having no connection with the finite — can neither will nor create....” (SD vol 1 p 451)
  
        [Brahman] “...is known to Hindu thought as the Parabrahman in which knower, known, and knowledge are all one unity, and Buddhist thought as Shunya the 'Void', or as the Tathagata Garbha, the Womb of Buuddhahood; sometimes also as the Bhutakoti, the limit of being.” (Man the Measure, p. 48)

• Root of Consciousness

        “The Eternal Parent [in Shloka i-1-1] is not isolated from its source, the unitary Root of consciousness [the Absolute]....” (Man the Measure, p. 48)

• Rootless Root

        “...there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause — dimly formulated in the ‘Unconscious’ and ‘Unknowable’ of current European philosophy — is the rootless root of ‘all that was, is, or ever shall be.’ ” (SD vol 1 p 14)

• Source

        “This Source is known to Hindu thought as the Parabrahman [the Absolute]....” (Man the Measure, p. 48)

• Space

        “Space, ... viewed as a ‘Substantial Unity’ — the ‘living Source of Life’ — is as the ‘Unknown Causeless Cause’... ” (SD vol 1 pp 9-10 note)
  
        “ ‘What is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is a Universe or not; whether there be gods or none?’ asks the esoteric Senzar Catechism. And the answer made is — SPACE.” (SD vol 1 p 9)

        Space refers to the Absolute. It is called “Universal Space” in Shloka i-1-8 and “Dark Space” in Shloka i-3-7. (Please note that the phrase “Bright Space” in Shloka i-3-7 refers to Mahat (The Son) and not to the Absolute.)
  
  
• That

        “Spirit is the first differentiation from That, the causeless cause of both Spirit and Matter.” (SD vol 1 p 35)
  
        “In the sense and perceptions of finite ‘Beings,’ THAT is Non-‘being,’ in the sense that it is the one BE-NESS; for, in this ALL lies concealed its coeternal and coeval emanation or inherent radiation, which, upon becoming periodically Brahma (the male-female Potency) becomes or expands itself into the manifested Universe. ” (SD vol 1 p 7)

• Universal Space

        “Alone the one form of existence stretched boundless, infinite, causeless, in dreamless sleep; and life pulsated unconscious in universal Space, throughout that all-presence which is sensed by the opened eye of the dangma.” (Shloka i-1-8)
  
        “Universal Space is another of the symbols of the Darkness....” (Man the Measure, p. 72)

• Unknown (and Unknowable)

        “To know itself or oneself, necessitates consciousness and perception (both limited faculties in relation to any subject except Parabrahm), to be cognized. Hence the ‘Eternal Breath which knows itself not.’ Infinity cannot comprehend Finiteness. The Boundless can have no relation to the bounded and the conditioned. In the occult teachings, the Unknown and the Unknowable MOVER, or the Self-Existing, is the absolute divine Essence.” (SD vol 1 p 56)

• (The) Unspeakable

        [The Absolut] “...is beyond the range and reach of thought — in the words of Mandukya, ‘unthinkable and unspeakable.’ ” (SD vol 1 p 14)

      “In the ABSOLUTE or Divine Thought everything exists and there has been no time when it did not so exist; but Divine Ideation is limited by the Universal Manvantaras.” (Transactions, vol 2 pp. 10-11)

      “In the ABSOLUTE or Divine Thought everything exists and there has been no time when it did not so exist; but Divine Ideation is limited by the Universal Manvantaras.” (Transactions, vol 2 p 10)

      “The Logos is the mirror reflecting DIVINE MIND, and the Universe is the mirror of the Logos, though the latter is the esse of that Universe.” (SD vol 2 p 25)

      “As the Logos reflects the Universe in the Divine Mind, and the manifested Universe reflects itself in each of its Monads, as Leibnitz put it, repeating an Eastern teaching, so the MONAD has, during the cycle of its incarnations, to reflect in itself every root-form of each kingdom.” (SD vol 2 p 186)

      “Universal Mind was not, for there were no Ah-hi (Celestial Beings) to contain (hence to manifest) it.” (Shloka i-1-3)

      “Universal or Absolute Mind always is during Pralaya as well as Manvantara; it is immutable.” (Transactions, vol 2 p 8)

“Simultaneously with the evolution of the Universal Mind, the concealed Wisdom of Adi-Buddha - the One Supreme and eternal - manifests itself as Avalokiteshwara (or manifested Iswara), which is the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Heavenly Man of the Hermetic philosopher, the Logos of the Platonists, and the Atman of the Vedantins. By the action of the manifested Wisdom, or Mahat, represented by these innumerable centres of spiritual Energy in the Kosmos, the reflection of the Universal Mind, which is Cosmic Ideation and the intellectual Force accompanying such ideation, becomes objectively the Fohat of the Buddhist esoteric philosopher. Fohat, running along the seven principles of AKASA, acts upon manifested substance or the One Element, as declared above, and by differentiating it into various centres of Energy, sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to the Ideation of the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various states of being in the manifested Solar System.” SD vol 1 p 110)

      “Darkness alone was Father-Mother.” (refers to the idea that, before the beginning of our universe, the Father and Mother had not yet appeared.) (Shloka i-2-5)

• Adi-Nidana

        “The Oeaohoo (Oi-Ha-Hou) is the “Darkness” the Boundless, or the No-Number, Adi-Nidana Svabhavat......” (Shloka i-4-5)
  
        “Enumerating the principles of causation, the verse first mentions the Darkness itself, Oeaohoo, the No-Number and Primal Self-becoming Cause (Adi Nidana Svabhavat).” (Man the Measure, p. 212)

  Adi-Nidana refers to Spirit (Purusha), the First Cause.

        Adi; the ‘First’ (SD vol 1 p 129)
  
        “Nidanas; the chief causes of existence” (SD vol 1 p 38)

        Please note Adi-Nidana refers to Father (Spirit), and Swabhavat refers to Mother (Mulaprakriti), so the term “Ani-Nidana Swabhavat” in Shloka i-4-5 refers to Father-Mother.
  
  
• Avalokiteshvara (Avalokiteshwara) (higher aspect of)

        “ ... Avalokiteshvara is both the unmanifested Father and the manifested Son, the latter proceding from, and identical with the other....” (Barker, The Mahatma Letters, p. 344)

• Father

        “Darkness alone filled the boundless all, for Father, Mother and Son were once more one, and the Son had not awakened yet for the new Wheel, and his pilgrimage thereon..” (Shloka i-1-5)
  
        “Darkness vanished and was no more; it disappeared in its own essence, the body of fire and water, or Father and Mother.” (Shloka i-3-6)

• Father-Light

        [The Father has not yet appeared as of Shloka i-2-4.] “Just as the Spirit or Father-Light is not yet ready to flash forth its great ‘I am’ [in Shloka i-2-4], so the Matrix or Root of Matter is not yet ready, not sufficiently differentiated from the ‘sleeping’ unity of the Night, to undertake its role of receptivity, of being ‘That is’.” (Man the Measure, p. 93)

• Fire

        “It (the Web) expands when the breath of fire (the Father) is upon it; it contracts when the breath of the Mother (the root of matter) touches it..” (Shloka i-3-11)
  
        [Fire stands] “... in every philosophical and religious system as a representation of the Spirit of Deity, the active, male, generative principle....” (SD vol 1 p 57)
  
        “The ‘Spirit of God moving on Chaos’ was symbolized by every nation in the shape of a fiery serpent breathing fire and light upon the primordial waters, until it had incubated cosmic matter....” (SD vol 1 p 74)

• Heavenly Man

        “...the ‘ten limbs’ of the Heavenly Man are the ten Sephiroth; but the first Heavenly Man is the unmanifested Spirit of the Universe....” (SD vol 1 p 215)

• “I am.”

        “The Builders are [in Shloka i-2-1] still in the darkness of latency, since the two Poles between which they work, the Mother and the Father, are still undifferentiated.... The latter is the subjective Pole of Being, the Father who, becoming Self, says 'I am', the transcendent Self of all that is.” (Man the Measure, p. 90)

        See also “I am.” vs. “That is.” in Man the Measure, p. 93.
  
  
• Purusha

        “Father-Mother spin a web whose upper end is fastened to Spirit (Purusha)....” (Shloka i-3-10)
  
        “Spirit and Matter, or Purusha and Prakriti are but the two primeval aspects of the One and Secondless....” (quoted in SD vol 1 p 51)
  
  

• Root of Consciousness

        “...the Purusha or unchanging Root of Consciousness....” (Man the Measure, p. 80 note)

• Root of Self (as opposed to Root of Matter)

        “The Father-Light [is the] Transcendent Self or Root of Self (Shanta Atman).” (Man the Measure, p. 94)

• Shanta Atman

        “The Father-Light [is the] Transcendent Self or Root of Self (Shanta Atman).” (Man the Measure, p. 94)

• Silence (as opposed to Sound)

        “Where was Silence? Where the ears to sense it? No, there was neither Silence nor Sound; naught save ceaseless Eternal Breath (motion) , which knows itself not.” (Shloka i-2-2)
  
        “...the two Poles are mentioned [in Shloka i-2-2], this time under the symbols of Silence and Sound; apt symbols for the Two, the Silent Sky watching in calm the Sounding Sea below.” (Man the Measure, p. 90)

• Spirit

        “Spirit is the first differentiation from That, the causeless cause of both Spirit and Matter.” (SD vol 1 p 35)
  
        “Father-Mother spin a web whose upper end is fastened to Spirit (Purusha) — the light of the one darkness — and the lower one to its (the spirit's) shadowy end, Matter (Prakriti)....” (Shloka i-3-10)
  
        [Shloka i-3-10] “...describes Spirit as the 'light of the One Darkness', and [Shloka i-3-8] told us that light is the 'white brilliant Son' or Universal Mind, the Subject of the universe. This 'Spirit' is then the light of integral consciousness shining in every point within universal Space.” (Man the Measure, p. 153)

• Subjective aspect of the One Reality

        “The subjective and objective aspects of [The] One are known symbolically as the Father and Mother respectively.” (Man the Measure, p. 58)

• That which impregnates or illuminates the dark Mother

        “The Father, on the other hand, is the subjective aspect of the same Reality, the invisible Light of which we have spoken before and which is destined to impregnate, i.e. illuminate, the dark Mother, and so, by uniting with Her, to produce the offspring who is sometimes described as androgynous, the Universal Mind mentioned in [Shloka i-1-5].” (Man the Measure, p. 63)

• Transcendent Self

        “The Father-Light [is the] Transcendent Self or Root of Self (Shanta Atman).” (Man the Measure, p. 94)

      “The Mother is that Eternal Parent ..., the Great Mother of so many religions in the ancient world, She who, philosophically conceived, appears as the Matrix, the eternal root of all objectivity and womb of creation.” (Man the Measure, p. 63).

• original (pre-cosmic) matter, which is called undifferentiated matter
• atomic matter (of today's universe), which is called differentiated matter

      “Matter is eternal, becoming atomic (its aspect) only periodically.” (SD vol 1 p 552)

• Aditi

        “The Mulaprakriti of the Vedantins is the Aditi of the Vedas.” (Transactions, vol 1 p 6)
  
        “...the Mother, who is also Aditi, mother of Adityas, the luminous gods or bright Spaces.” (Man the Measure, p. 142)

• Alaya (from Tibetan)

        “Alaya [means] indissoluble; equivalent to Akasa. The Universal Soul. The name belongs to the Tibetan system of the contemplative Mahayana School. Identical with Akasa in its mystic sense, and with Mulaprakriti, in its essence, as it is the basis or root of all things.” (Theosophical Glossary, p. 14)

• Avidya

        [Mother] “...is also known as Avidya, a word which plays on the double meaning of the root vid, to know and to be, for Avidya is the great non-knowing as well as the great non-being.” (Man the Measure, p. 46)

• Darkness
  
        Be careful not to confuse (1) Darkness that symbolzes Mulaprakriti with (2) Darkness that symbolizes the Absolute.

        “...Darkness (matter).... This must not be confused with precosmic ‘DARKNESS,’ the Divine ALL.” (SD vol 1 p 250 and note)

• Devamatri

        “In the unknown darkness in their Ah-hi Paranishpanna. the producers of form from no-form — the root of the world — the Devamatri and Svabhavat, rested in the bliss of non-being.” (Shloka i-2-1)
  
        “... Mother [is] Devamatri, the Mother of the Gods....” (Man the Measure, p. 90)

• Matri-padma

        “The Ray had not yet flashed into the germ; the Matripadma (Mother Lotus) had not yet swollen..” (Shloka i-2-3)
  
        “...in [the] compound word matri-padma is set forth the whole idea of the Universal Mind already existing in germ as a potentiality or possibility of manifestation within the Matrix, awaiting that which shall call it forth, as the lotus awaits the sun's rays to cause it to bloom.” (Man the Measure, p. 46)

  Matri is Mother and Padma is the Lotus plant.

        “...the seeds of the Lotus contain - even before they germinate - perfectly formed leaves, the miniature shape of what one day, as perfect plants, they will become: nature thus giving us a specimen of the preformation of its production.... This explains the sentence ‘The Mother had not yet swollen’....” (SD vol 1 p 57)

• Matrix

        [The] “Eternal Parent [of Shloka i-1-1] is the great Matrix, the great Mother, Universal Nature, known to Hindu philosophy as Mulaprakriti and to Spinoza as Natura naturans. She is the Womb out of which is born all that will be born in the Universe. ” (Man the Measure, p. 46)

• Matter
  
        In The Secret Doctrine, the word matter usually refers to atoms, i.e., physical atoms, astral atoms, mental atoms, etc.

        “...the fall of man into matter....” (SD vol 1 p 5)

        Physical matter is called differentiated matter, which is derived from undifferentiated matter (the basic substance of the universe called Mulaprakriti).

        [Mulaprakriti, or Mother, is not physical matter,] “...for 'matter' does not yet exist [in the period of time before our universe existed]; yet she is that out of which what is called matter will emerge and is, so to speak, the ontological basis of what seems to us 'stuff'. It is useless to try and describe her in neat intellectual counters for, even when not 'slumbering', i.e. even when a cosmos is manifested, she is still what Hindu thought terms avyakta, unmanifest.” (Man the Measure, p. 46)

  (It is important to note that “Cosmos” refers to the entire universe, while “kosmos” only refers to our solar system. See SD vol 1 p 199 note).
  
  However, Matter comes in two forms, undifferentiated matter (Mulaprakriti) and differentiated matter (Vyaktra or Akasha).

        “Matter is dual in religious metaphysics, and septenary in esoteric teachings, like everything else in the universe. As Mulaprakriti, it is undifferentiated and eternal; as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated and conditioned....” (SD vol 1 p 10 note)

  The Secret Doctrine sometimes uses the word “matter” to mean undifferentiated matter, and sometimes uses it to mean differentiated matter. (Such useage is quite confusing). In this example, matter refers to undifferentiated matter (Mulaprakriti):

        “Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as independent realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm), which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective.” (Sd vol 1 p 15)

  In this example, matter refers to differentiated matter (Akasha):

        “...Astral Matter.” (Sd vol 1 p 75)
  
        “...according to the Orientalists, there are five Dhyanis who are the ‘celestial’ Buddhas, of whom the human Buddhas are t