Weekly Quote from The Secret Doctrine by HPB - Weekly Quote from The Secret Doctrine by HPB Archives at Zinester. Inspirational

__Ether, this hypothetical Proteus, one of the "representative Fictions" of modern Science - which, nevertheless, was so long accepted - is one of the lower "principles" of what we call PRIMORDIAL SUBSTANCE (Akasa, in Sanskrit), one of the dreams of old, and which has now become again the dream of modern science. It is the greatest, just as it is the boldest, of the surviving speculations of ancient philosophers. For the Occultists, however, both ETHER and the Primordial Substance are a reality. To put it plainly, ETHER is the Astral Light, and the Primordial Substance is AKASA, the Upadhi of DIVINE THOUGHT.

In modern language, the latter would be better named COSMIC IDEATION - Spirit; the former, COSMIC SUBSTANCE, Matter. These, the Alpha and the Omega of Being, are but the two facets of the one Absolute Existence. The latter was never addressed, or even mentioned, by any name in antiquity, except allegorically. In the oldest Aryan race, the Hindu, the worship of the intellectual classes never consisted (as with the Greeks) in a fervent adoration of marvellous form and art, which led later on to anthropomorphism. But while the Greek philosopher adored form, and the Hindu sage alone "perceived the true relation of earthly beauty and eternal truth" - the uneducated of every nation understood neither, at any time.

__They do not understand it even now. The evolution of the GOD-IDEA proceeds apace with man's own intellectual evolution. So true it is that the noblest ideal to which the religious Spirit of one age can soar, will appear but a gross caricature to the philosophic mind in a succeeding epoch! The philosophers themselves had to be initiated into perceptive mysteries, before they could grasp the correct idea of the ancients in relation to this most metaphysical subject. Otherwise - outside such initiation - for every thinker there will be a "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther," mapped out by his intellectual capacity, as clearly and as unmistakeably as there is for the progress of any nation or race in its cycle by the law of Karma. Outside of initiation, the ideals of contemporary religious thought must always have their wings clipped and remain unable to soar higher; for idealistic as well as realistic thinkers, and even free-thinkers, are but the outcome and the natural product of their respective environments and periods. The ideals of both are only the necessary results of their temperaments, and the outcome of that phase of intellectual progress to which a nation, in its collectivity, has attained. Hence, as already remarked, the highest flights of modern (Western) metaphysics have fallen far short of the truth. . . . .

__From the early ages of the Fourth Race, when Spirit alone was worshipped and the mystery was made manifest, down to the last palmy days of Grecian art at the dawn of Christianity - the Hellenes alone had dared to raise publicly an altar to the UNKNOWN GOD. Whatever St. Paul may have had in his profound mind when declaring to the Athenians that this "unknown," ignorantly worshipped by them, was the true God announced by himself - that Deity was not "Jehovah" (see "The Holy of Holies"), nor was he "The Maker of the world and all things." For it is not the "God of Israel" but the "Unknown" of the ancient and modern Pantheist that "dwelleth not in temples made with hands" (Acts xviii., 23-4).