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Compassion - The Spirit of Truth

By Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

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Logos in the Light of Theosophy

Eternal Pilgrimage from Darkness to Light
The three Logoi are personified stages of Divine Consciousness’ eternal pilgrimage from the summits of Unmanifested Subjectivity, down to the rayless depths of Self-conscious Objectivity. They mark the beginning of another journey of self-analysing reflection through the flesh, a cycle of necessity. 
“DARKNESS” RADIATES LIGHT, [First Logos] AND LIGHT DROPS ONE SOLITARY RAY INTO THE WATERS, INTO THE MOTHER DEEP [Second Logos]. THE RAY SHOOTS THROUGH THE VIRGIN-EGG; THE RAY CAUSES THE ETERNAL EGG TO THRILL, AND DROP THE NON-ETERNAL (periodical) GERM, WHICH CONDENSES INTO THE WORLD EGG [Third Logos]. 1
Pythagoras speaks of the never manifested Monad which lives in solitude and darkness; when the hour strikes it radiates from itself One, the first number. This number descending, produces Two, the second number, and Two, in its turn, produces THREE, forming a triangle, the first complete geometrical figure in the world of form. It is this ideal or abstract triangle which is the Point in the Mundane Egg, which, after gestation, and in the third remove, will start from the Egg to form the Triangle.

Parabrahman Absoluteness
The first illustration  [of an Archaic Manuscript] being a plain disk Ã, . . . 3 
[Perfect consciousness, containing within Itself Precosmic Ideation, or germ of the Consciousness to be manifested, and Precosmic Substance.] 
“Thus this world is like a vast machine, having its centre [Deity] everywhere, and its circumference nowhere.”

First Logos 1 
Unconscious Universal Mind 
. . . the second [illustratio Ä n] in the Archaic symbol shows Å, a disk with a point in it 2 — the first differentiation in the periodical manifestations of the ever-eternal nature, sexless and infinite “Aditi in THAT” (Rig-Veda), the point in the disk, or potential Space within abstract Space.3 
THE LAST VIBRATION 4 OF THE SEVENTH ETERNITY THRILLS THROUGH INFINITUDE. THE MOTHER SWELLS, EXPANDING FROM WITHIN WITHOUT LIKE THE BUD OF THE LOTUS. 5 
THE VIBRATION SWEEPS ALONG, TOUCHING WITH ITS SWIFT WING (simultaneously) THE WHOLE UNIVERSE AND THE GERM THAT DWELLETH IN DARKNESS: THE DARKNESS THAT BREATHES (moves) OVER THE SLUMBERING WATERS OF LIFE. 6 
We have the plane of the circle, the face being black, the point in the circle being potentially white, and this is the first possible conception in our minds of the invisible Logos.
The Central Indivisible Point À 
The Central Point, or the great central sun of the Kosmos, as the Kabbalists call it, is the Deity.8 . . . the Spiritual Sun, who gives life to the whole Kosmos.9 
The Universe evolves “from the central Sun, the POINT, the ever-concealed germ.” 10
The Indivisible Point, which has no limit and cannot be comprehended because of its purity and brightness, expanded from without, forming a brightness that served the Indivisible Point as a veil; [yet the latter also] could not be viewed in consequence of its immeasurable light. It too expanded from without, and this expansion was its garment. Thus through a constant upheaving [motion] finally the world originated.

The Circle and the Diameter . . . 
In its third stage the Æ point is transformed into a diameter, thus Ç. It now symbolises a divine immaculate Mother-Nature within the all-embracing absolute Infinitude.2 
The circle is the symbol of the one Unmanifesting Principle, the plane of whose figure is infinitude eternally, and this is crossed by a diameter only during Manvantaras.3 
The idea of representing the hidden deity by the circumference of a Circle, and the Creative Power (male and female, or the Androgynous WORD), by the diameter across it, is one of the oldest symbols. It is upon this conception that every great Cosmogony was built. 4 
“The Circle is the THOUGHT; the diameter (or the line) is the WORD; and their union is LIFE.
This first, unmanifested Logos is simultaneous with the line drawn across the diameter of the Circle. The first line or diameter is the MotherFather; from it proceeds the Second Logos, which contains in itself the Third Manifested Word. In the Puranas, for instance, it is again said that the first production of Akasha is Sound, and Sound means in this case the “Word,” the expression of the unuttered thought, the manifested Logos, that of the Greeks and Platonists and St. John.

Second Logos 1 
Semi-Conscious Universal Mind “Ever-Darkness Ê” is eternal, the Ray periodical. Having flashed out from this central point and thrilled through the Germ, the Ray is withdrawn again within this point and the Germ develops into the Second Logos, the triangle 2 within the Mundane Egg.3 
“Spirit and Matter, or Purusha and Prakriti are but the two primeval aspects of the One and Secondless,” we are taught.4 
“Whatsoever quits the Laya State, becomes active life; it is drawn into the vortex of MOTION [the alchemical solvent of Life]; Spirit and Matter are the two States of the ONE, which is neither Spirit nor Matter, both being the absolute life, latent.” (Book of Dzyan, Comm. III, par. 18) . . . “Spirit is the first differentiation of (and in) SPACE; and Matter the first differentiation of Spirit. That, which is neither Spirit nor matter — that is IT — the Causeless CAUSE of Spirit and Matter, which are the Cause of Kosmos. And THAT we call the ONE LIFE or the IntraCosmic Breath.” 5 Father-Mother is a compound term which means primordial Substance or Spirit-matter. When from Homogeneity it begins through differentiation to fall into Heterogeneity, it becomes positive and negative; thus from the “Zero-state” (or laya) it becomes active and passive, instead of the latter alone; and, in consequence of this differentiation (the resultant of which is evolution and the subsequent Universe) — the “Son” is produced, the Son being that same Universe, or manifested Kosmos, till a new Mahapralaya. 6

This needs explanation. The diameter, when found isolated in a circle, stands for female nature, for the first ideal World, self-generated and self-impregnated by the universally diffused Spirit of Life — referring thus to the primitive Root-Race also. It becomes androgynous as the Races and all on Earth develop into their physical forms, and the symbol is transformed into a circle with a diameter from which runs a vertical line: expressive of male and female, not separated as yet — the first and earliest Egyptian Tau c.

Third Logos 2 Self-Conscious Cosmic Mind
When the diameter line is crossed by a vertical one Ï, it becomes the mundane cross. Humanity has reached its third RootRace; it is the sign for the origin of human life to begin.
Stanza III.10. FATHER-MOTHER SPIN A WEB WHOSE UPPER END IS FASTENED TO SPIRIT (Purusha) — THE LIGHT OF THE ONE DARKNESS — AND THE LOWER ONE TO MATTER (Prakriti), ITS (the Spirit’s) SHADOWY END; AND THIS WEB IS THE UNIVERSE SPUN OUT OF THE TWO SUBSTANCES MADE IN ONE, WHICH IS SVABHAVA. 
In the Mundaka Upanishad it is written, “As a spider throws out and retracts its web, as herbs spring up in the ground . . . so is the Universe derived from the undecaying one” (I, i, 7). Brahma, as “the germ of unknown Darkness,” is the material from which all evolves and develops “as the web from the spider, as foam from the water,” etc. This is only graphic and true, if Brahma the “Creator” is, as a term, derived from the root brih, to increase or expand. Brahma “expands” and becomes the Universe woven out of his own substance.
The same idea has been beautifully expressed by Goethe, who says:
“Thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply, And weave for God the garment thou see’st Him by.”
Mahabuddhi (Great Soul) or Mahat, the vehicle of Spirit and Manvantaric aspect of Alaya,1 comes into being. 
UNIVERSAL SOUL is not the inert Cause of Creation or (Para) Brahman, but simply that which we call the sixth principle of intellectual Kosmos, on the manifested plane of being. It is Mahat, or Mahabuddhi, the great Soul, the vehicle of Spirit, the first primeval reflection of the formless CAUSE, and that which is even beyond SPIRIT.
Logos falls into Matter
When the circumference disappears and leaves only the Ñ it is a sign that the fall of man into matter is accomplished, and the FOURTH race begins. The Cross within a circle symbolises pure Pantheism; when the Cross was left uninscribed, it became phallic. It had the same and yet other meanings as a TAU inscribed within a circle Ë or as a “Thor’s hammer,” the Jaina cross, so-called, or simply Svastika within a circle.

The drama and struggle for life begins 
The birth of the celestial bodies in Space is compared to a crowd or multitude of “pilgrims” at the festival of the “Fires.” Seven ascetics appear on the threshold of the temple with seven lighted sticks of incense. At the light of these the first row of pilgrims light their incense sticks. After which, every ascetic begins whirling his stick around his head in space, and furnishes the rest with fire. Thus with the heavenly bodies. A laya-centre is lighted and awakened into life by the fires of another “pilgrim,” after which the new “centre” rushes into space and becomes a comet. It is only after losing its velocity, and hence its fiery tail, that the “Fiery Dragon” settles down into quiet and steady life as a regular respectable citizen of the sidereal family.

Therefore it is said: 
Born in the unfathomable depths of Space, out of the homogeneous Element called the World-Soul, every nucleus of Cosmic matter, suddenly launched into being, begins life under the most hostile circumstances.1 Through a series of countless ages, it has to conquer for itself a place in the infinitudes. It circles round and round between denser and already fixed bodies, moving by jerks, and pulling towards some given point or centre that attracts it, trying to avoid, like a ship drawn into a channel dotted with reefs and sunken rocks, other bodies that draw and repel it in turn; many perish, their mass disintegrating through stronger masses, and, when born within a system, chiefly within the insatiable stomachs of various Suns.2 Those which move slower and are propelled into an elliptic course are doomed to annihilation sooner or later. Others moving in parabolic curves generally escape destruction, owing to their velocity.