The Perpetual Motion of the Universe

“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.

“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.

“That which is motionless cannot be Divine. But then there is nothing in fact and reality absolutely motionless within the universal soul.”

“From the beginning of man’s inheritance, from the first appearance of the architects of the globe he lives in, the unrevealed Deity was recognized and considered under its only philosophical aspect —

“universal motion, the thrill of
the creative Breath in Nature.”

“Occultism sums up the ‘One Existence’ thus:  ‘Deity is an arcane, living (or moving) fire, and the eternal witnesses to this unseen Presence are Light, Heat, Moisture,’ — this trinity including, and being the cause of, every phenomenon in Nature.”

The Earth Breathes

“‘Entity’ may be thought a strange term to use in the case of a globe; but the ancient philosophers, who saw in the earth a huge ‘animal,’ were wiser in their generation than our modern geologists are in theirs; and Pliny, who called the Earth our kind nurse and mother, the only element which is not inimical to man. But this only shows how admirably the occult philosophy fits everything in Nature, and how much more logical are its tenets than the lifeless hypothetical speculations of physical science.” (The Secret Doctrine 1:154)

“Almost five centuries b.c. Leucippus, the instructor of Democritus, maintained that Space was filled eternally with atoms actuated by a ceaseless motion, the latter generating in due course of time, when those atoms aggregated, rotatory motion, through mutual collisions producing lateral movements.

“Epicurus and Lucretius taught the same, only adding to the lateral motion of the atoms the idea of affinity — an occult teaching.”

“Intra-Cosmic motion is eternal and ceaseless; cosmic motion (the visible, or that which is subject to perception) is finite and periodical. As an eternal abstraction it is the ever-present; as a manifestation, it is finite both in the coming direction and the opposite, the two being the alpha and omega of successive reconstructions.

“The esoteric doctrine teaches, like Buddhism and Brahminism, and even the Kabala, that the one infinite and unknown Essence exists from all eternity, and in regular and harmonious successions is either passive or active.

“In the poetical phraseology of Manu these conditions are called the ‘Days’ and the ‘Nights’ of Brahma. The latter is either ‘awake’ or ‘asleep.’

“The Svabhavikas, or philosophers of the oldest school of Buddhism (which still exists in Nepal), speculate only upon the active condition of this ‘Essence,’ which they call Svabhavat, and deem it foolish to theorize upon the abstract and ‘unknowable’ power in its passive condition.

“Hence they are called atheists by both Christian theologians and modern scientists, for neither of the two are able to understand the profound logic of their philosophy.

Plato and Aristotle

“Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in Cratylus that [[theos] is derived from the verb [[theein]], ‘to move,’ ‘to run,’ as the first astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called the planets [[theoi]], the gods.  Later, the word produced another term, [[aletheia]] — ‘the breath of God.’

“Upon inaugurating an active period, says the Secret Doctrine, an expansion of this Divine essence from without inwardly and from within outwardly, occurs in obedience to eternal and immutable law, and the phenomenal or visible universe is the ultimate result of the long chain of cosmical forces thus progressively set in motion.

Big Bang Standard Model

“In like manner, when the passive condition is resumed, a contraction of the Divine essence takes place, and the previous work of creation is gradually and progressively undone.

“The visible universe becomes disintegrated, its material dispersed; and ‘darkness’ solitary and alone, broods once more over the face of the ‘deep.’ To use a Metaphor from the Secret Books, which will convey the idea still more clearly, an out-breathing of the ‘unknown essence’ produces the world; and an inhalation causes it to disappear. This process has been going on from all eternity, and our present universe is but one of an infinite series, which had no beginning and will have no end.” —

– The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, p. 2.

“Spirituality is, then, a condition of Being which is beyond expression in language. Call it a rate of vibration, far beyond our cognizance. Its language is the language of motion, in its incipiency, and its perfection is beyond words and even thought.

“Vibration is the key to it all. The different states are only differences of vibration, and we do not recognize the astral or other planes because we are out of tune with their vibrations.

“This is why we now and then dimly feel that others are peering at us, or as if a host of people rushed by us with great things on hand, not seeing us and we not seeing them. It was an instant of synchronous vibration.

“But the important thing is to develop the Self in the self, and then the possessions of wisdom belonging to all wise men at once belong to us.”

• William Quan Judge

– W. Q. Judge, Letters That Have Helped Me, Vol. 1, Letter 11.