Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries - Annie Besant (ebook reader that looks like a book .TXT) 📗

used to sacrifice every third year to 'Him who is one and three.' There was a Chinese saying, 'Fo is one person but has three forms.' ... In the lofty philosophical system known in China as Taoism, a trinity also figures: 'Eternal Reason produced One, One produced Two, Two produced Three, and Three produced all things,' which, as Le Compte goes on to say, 'seems to show as if they had some knowledge of the Trinity.'"[264]

In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity we find a complete agreement with other faiths as to the functions of the three Divine Persons, the word Person coming from _persona_, a mask, that which covers something, the mask of the One Existence, Its Self-revelation under a form. The Father is the Origin and End of all; the Son is dual in His nature, and is the Word, or the Wisdom; the Holy Spirit is the creative Intelligence, that brooding over the chaos of primeval matter organises it into the materials out of which forms can be constructed.

It is this identity of functions under so many varying names which shows that we have here not a mere outer likeness, but an expression of an inner truth. There is something of which this triplicity is a manifestation, something that can be traced in nature and in evolution, and which, being recognised, will render intelligible the growth of man, the stages of his evolving life. Further, we find that in the universal language of symbolism the Persons are distinguished by certain emblems, and may be recognised by these under diversity of forms and names.

But there is one other point that must be remembered ere we leave the exoteric statement of the Trinity--that in connection with all these Trinities there is a fourth fundamental manifestation, the Power of the God, and this has always a feminine form. In Hinduism each Person in the Trinity has His manifested Power, the One and these six aspects making up the sacred Seven. With many of the Trinities one feminine form appears, then ever specially connected with the Second Person, and then there is the sacred Quaternary.

Let us now see the inner truth.

The One becomes manifest as the First Being, the Self-Existent Lord, the Root of all, the Supreme Father; the word Will, or Power, seems best to express this primary Self-revealing, since until there is Will to manifest there can be no manifestation, and until there is Will manifested, impulse is lacking for further unfoldment. The universe may be said to be rooted in the divine Will. Then follows the second aspect of the One--Wisdom; Power is guided by Wisdom, and therefore it is written that "without Him was not anything made that is made;"[265] Wisdom is dual in its nature, as will presently be seen. When the aspects of Will and Wisdom are revealed, a third aspect must follow to make them effective--Creative Intelligence, the divine mind in Action. A Jewish prophet writes: "He hath made the earth by His Power, He hath established the world by His Wisdom; and hath stretched out the heaven by His Understanding,"[266] the reference to the three functions being very clear.[267] These Three are inseparable, indivisible, three aspects of One. Their functions may be thought of separately, for the sake of clearness, but cannot be disjoined. Each is necessary to each, and each is present in each. In the First Being, Will, Power, is seen as predominant, as characteristic, but Wisdom and Creative Action are also present; in the Second Being, Wisdom is seen as predominant, but Power and Creative Action are none the less inherent in Him; in the Third Being, Creative Action is seen as predominant, but Power and Wisdom are ever also to be seen. And though the words First, Second, Third are used, because the Beings are thus manifested in Time, in the order of Self-unfolding, yet in Eternity they are known as interdependent and co-equal, "None is greater or less than Another."[268]

This Trinity is the divine Self, the divine Spirit, the Manifested God, He that "was and is and is to come,"[269] and He is the root of the fundamental triplicity in life, in consciousness.

But we saw that there was a Fourth Person, or in some religions a second Trinity, feminine, the Mother. This is That which makes manifestation possible, That which eternally in the One is the root of limitation and division, and which, when manifested, is called Matter. This is the divine Not-Self, the divine Matter, the manifested Nature. Regarded as One, She is the Fourth, making possible the activity of the Three, the Field of Their operations by virtue of Her infinite divisibility, at once the "Handmaid of the Lord,"[270] and also His Mother, yielding of Her substance to form His Body, the universe, when overshadowed by His power.[271] Regarded carefully She is seen to be triple also, existing in three inseparable aspects, without which She could not be. These are Stability--Inertia or Resistance--Motion, and Rhythm; the fundamental or essential qualities of Matter, these are called. They alone render Spirit effective, and have therefore been regarded as the manifested Powers of the Trinity. Stability or Inertia affords a basis, the fulcrum for the lever; Motion is then rendered manifest, but could make only chaos, then Rhythm is imposed, and there is Matter in vibration, capable of being shaped and moulded. When the three qualities are in equilibrium, there is the One, the Virgin Matter, unproductive. When the power of the Highest overshadows Her, and the breath of the Spirit comes upon Her, the qualities are thrown out of equilibrium, and She becomes the divine Mother of the worlds.

The first interaction is between Her and the Third Person of the Trinity; by His action She becomes capable of giving birth to form. Then is revealed the Second Person, who clothes Himself in the material thus provided, and thus become the Mediator, linking in His own Person Spirit and Matter, the Archetype of all forms. Only through Him does the First Person become revealed, as the Father of all Spirits.

It is now possible to see why the Second Person of the Trinity of Spirit is ever dual; He is the One who clothes Himself in Matter, in whom the twin-halves of Deity appear in union, not as one. Hence also is He Wisdom; for Wisdom on the side of Spirit is the Pure Reason that knows itself as the One Self and knows all things in that Self, and on the side of Matter it is Love, drawing the infinite diversity of forms together, and making each form a unit, not a mere heap of particles--the principle of attraction which holds the worlds and all in them in a perfect order and balance. This is the Wisdom which is spoken of as "mightily and sweetly ordering all things,"[272] which sustains and preserves the universe.

In the world-symbols, found in every religion, the Point--that which has position only--has been taken as a symbol of the First Person in the Trinity. On this symbol St. Clement of Alexandria remarks that we abstract from a body its properties, then depth, then breadth, then length; "the point which remains is a unit, so to speak, having position; from which if we abstract position, there is the conception of unity."[273] He shines out, as it were, from the infinite Darkness, a Point of Light, the centre of a future universe, a Unit, in whom all exists inseparate; the matter which is to form the universe, the field of His work, is marked out by the backward and forward vibration of the Point in every direction, a vast sphere, limited by His Will, His Power. This is the making of "the earth by His Power," spoken of by Jeremiah.[274] Thus the full symbol is a Point within a sphere, represented usually as a Point within a circle. The Second Person is represented by a Line, a diameter of this circle, a single complete vibration of the Point, and this Line is equally in every direction within the sphere; this Line dividing the circle in twain signifies also His duality, that in Him Matter and Spirit--a unity in the First Person--are visibly two, though in union. The Third Person is represented by a Cross formed by two diameters at right angles to each other within the circle, the second line of the Cross separating the upper part of the circle from the lower. This is the Greek Cross.[275]

When the Trinity is represented as a Unity, the Triangle is used, either inscribed within a circle, or free. The universe is symbolised by two triangles interlaced, the Trinity of Spirit with the apex of the triangle upward, the Trinity of Matter with the apex of the triangle downward, and if colours are used, the first is white, yellow, golden or flame-coloured, and the second black, or some dark shade.

The kosmic process can now be readily followed. The One has become Two, and the Two Three, and the Trinity is revealed. The Matter of the universe is marked out and awaits the action of Spirit. This is the "in the beginning" of Genesis, when "God created the heaven and the earth,"[276] a statement further elucidated by the repeated phrases that He "laid the foundations of the earth;"[277] we have here the marking out of the material, but a mere chaos, "without form and void."[278]

On this begins the action of the Creative Intelligence, the Holy Spirit, who "moved upon the face of the waters,"[279] the vast ocean of matter. Thus His was the first activity, though He was the Third Person--a point of great importance.

In the Mysteries this work was shown in its detail as the preparation of the matter of the universe, the formation of atoms, the drawing of these together into aggregates, and the grouping of these together into elements, and of these again into gaseous, liquid, and solid compounds. This work includes not only the kind of matter called physical, but also all the subtle states of matter in the invisible worlds. He further as the "Spirit of Understanding" conceived the forms into which the prepared matter should be shaped, not building the forms, but by the action of the Creative Intelligence producing the Ideas of them, the heavenly prototypes, as they are often called. This is the work referred to when it is written, He "stretched out the heaven by His Understanding."[280]

The work of the Second Person follows that of the Third. He by virtue of His Wisdom "established the world,"[281] building all globes and all things upon them, "all things were made by Him."[282] He is the organising Life of the worlds, and all beings are rooted in Him.[283] The life of the Son thus manifested in the matter prepared by the Holy Spirit--again the great "Myth" of the Incarnation--is the life that builds up, preserves, and maintains all forms, for He is the Love, the attracting power, that gives cohesion to forms, enabling them to grow without falling apart, the Preserver, the Supporter, the Saviour. That is why all must be subject to the Son,[284] all must be gathered up in Him, and why "no man cometh unto the Father but by" Him.[285]

For the work of the First Person follows that of the Second, as that of the Second follows that of the Third. He is spoken of as "the Father of Spirits,"[286] the "God of the Spirits of all flesh,"[287] and His is the gift of the divine Spirit, the true Self in man. The human Spirit is the outpoured divine Life of the Father, poured into the vessel prepared by the Son, out of the materials vivified by the Spirit. And this Spirit in man, being from the Father--from whom came forth the Son and the Holy Spirit--is a Unity like