THE MAHATMA LETTERS

Does your B.T.S.²²⁴ know the meaning of the white and black interlaced triangles of the Parent Society's seal that it has also adopted? Shall I explain? The double triangle viewed by the Jewish Kabalists as Solomon's Seal is, as many of you doubtless know the Sri-yantra of the archaic Aryan Temple, the "mystery of Mysteries," a geometrical synthesis of the whole occult doctrine. The two interlaced triangles are the Buddhangams of Creation. They contain the "squaring of the circle," the "philosophers' stone," the great problems of Life and Death, and — the Mystery of Evil. The chela who can explain this sign from every one of its aspects — is virtually an adept. How is it then, that the only one among you who has come so near to unravelling the mystery is also the only one who got none of her ideas from books? Unconsciously she gives out — to him who has the key — the first syllable of the Ineffable Name! Of course you know that the double-triangle — the Satkona Chakram of Vishnu — or the six-pointed star, is the perfect seven. In all the old Sanskrit works — Vedic and Tantrik — you find the number 6 mentioned more often than the 7 — this last figure, the central point, being implied, for it is the germ of the six and their matrix. It is then thus²²⁵ . . . — the central point standing for seventh, and the circle, the Mahâkâsha — endless space — for the seventh Universal Principle. In one sense, both are viewed as Avalokitesvara, for they are respectively the Macrocosm and the microcosm. The interlaced triangles — the upper pointing one is Wisdom concealed, and the downward pointing one Wisdom revealed (in the phenomenal world). The circle indicates the bounding, circumscribing quality of the All, the Universal Principle which from any given point expands so as to embrace all things, while embodying the potentiality of every action in the Cosmos. As the point, then, is the centre round which the circle is traced they are identical and one, though from the standpoint of Maya and Avidya — (illusion and ignorance) — one is separated from the other by the manifested triangle, the 3 sides of which represent the three gunas²²⁶ — finite attributes. In symbology the central point is Jivâtma (the 7th principle), and hence Avalokitesvara, the Kwan-Shai-yin, the manifested "Voice" (or Logos), the germ point of manifested activity; hence, in the phraseology of the Christian Kabalists, "the Son of the Father and Mother," and agreeably to ours — "the Self manifested in Self — Yi-hsin, the "one form of existence," the child of Dharmakaya (the universally diffused Essence), both male and female. Parabrahm or "Adi-Buddha," while acting through that germ point outwardly as an active force, reacts from the circumference inwardly as the Supreme but latent Potency. The double triangles symbolize the Great Passive and the Great Active; the male and female; Purusha and Prakriti. Each triangle is a Trinity because presenting a triple aspect. The white represents in its straight lines: Jnanam — (Knowledge); Jnata — (the Knower); and Jneyam — (that which is known). The black — form, colour, and substance, also the creative, preservative, and destructive forces, and [these] are mutually correlating, etc., etc.

Well may you admire and more should you wonder at the marvellous lucidity of that remarkable seeress, who ignorant of Sanskrit or Pali, and thus shut out from their metaphysical treasures, has yet seen a great light shining from behind the dark hills of exoteric religions. How, think you, did the writers of "the Perfect Way" come to know that Adonai was the Son and not the Father; or that the third Person of the Christian Trinity is — female? Verily, in that work they lay their hands several times upon the keystone of Occultism. Only does the lady — who persists using without an explanation the misleading term "God" in her writings — know how nearly she comes up to our doctrine when saying: — "Having for Father Spirit which is Life (the endless Circle or Parabrahm) and for Mother the Great Deep, which is Substance (Prakriti in its undifferentiated condition) — Adonai possesses the potency of both and wields the dual powers of all things."? We would say triple, but in the sense as given this will do. Pythagoras had a reason for never using the finite, useless figure — 2, and for altogether discarding it. The ONE, can when manifesting, become only 3. The unmanifested when a simple duality remains passive and concealed. The dual monad (the 7th and 6th principles) has, in order to manifest itself as a Logos, the "Kwan-shai-yin," to first become a triad (7th, 6th, and half of the 5th); then, on the bosom of the "Great Deep," attracting within itself the One Circle, form out of it the perfect Square, thus "squaring the circle" — the greatest of all the mysteries, friend — and inscribing within the latter the WORD (the Ineffable Name) — otherwise the duality could never tarry as such, and would have to be reabsorbed into the ONE. The "Deep" is Space — both male and female. "Purush (as Brahma) breathes in the Eternity; when 'he' in-breathes, Prakriti (as manifested Substance) disappears in his bosom; when 'he' out-breathes she reappears as Maya," says the sloka. The One reality is Mulaprakriti (undifferentiated Substance) — the "Rootless root," the. . . But we have to stop, lest there should remain but little to tell for your own intuitions.

Well may the Geometer of the R.S.²²⁷ not know that the apparent absurdity of attempting to square the circle covers a mystery ineffable. It would hardly be found among the foundation stones of Mr. Roden Noel's speculations upon the "pneumatical body. . . of our Lord," nor among the débris of Mr. Farmer's "A New Basis of Belief in Immortality"; and to many such metaphysical minds it would be worse than useless to divulge the fact that the Unmanifested Circle — the Father, or Absolute Life — is non-existent outside the Triangle and Perfect Square, and is only manifested in the Son; and that it is when reversing the action and returning to its absolute state of Unity, and the square expands once more into the Circle, that "the Son returns to the bosom of the Father." There it remains until called back by his Mother, the "Great Deep," to remanifest as a triad — the Son partaking at once of the Essence of the Father and of that of the Mother — the active Substance, Prakriti in its differentiated condition. "My Mother — (Sophia, the manifested Wisdom) — took me," says Jesus in a Gnostic treatise; and he asks his disciples to tarry till he comes. . . The true "Word" may only be found by tracing the mystery of the passage inward and outward of the Eternal Life, through the states typified in these three geometric figures.