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(3) After the same manner, therefore, the whole world being partible, is divided about the one and impartible light of the Gods. But this light is every where one and the same whole, and is impartibly present with all things that are able to participate of it; through an all perfect power fills all things, and by a certain causal comprehension, incloses and terminates the whole of things in itself, and is every where united to itself, and conjoins ends to beginnings. This too, all heaven and the world imitating, revolve with a circular motion, are united to themselves, and lead the elements which are carried round in a circle. Hence the world causes all things to be in each other, and to tend to each other, makes the end of one thing to coalesce with the beginning of another, as, for instance, earth with heaven, and produces one connexion and concord of wholes with wholes.

(28) That the Place of this World with its innermost Birth and Geniture unites or qualifies with the Heaven aloft above us, and so there is one Heart, one Being, one Will, one God, all in all.

(4) These hierarchies of Gods, then, being thus and [in this way] related, from bottom unto top, are [also] thus connected with each other, and tend towards themselves; so mortal things are bound to mortal, things sensible to sensible. The whole of [this grand scale of] Rulership, however, seems to Him [who is] the Highest Lord, either to be not many things, or rather [to be] one. For that from One all things depending, and flowing down from it,—when they are seen as separate, they’re thought to be as many as they possibly can be; but in their union it is one [thing], or rather two, from which all things are made;—that is, from Matter, by means of which the other things are made, and by the Will of Him, by nod of whom they’re brought to pass. XX

(8) And all are full of soul, and all are moved by it, each in its proper way; some round the Heaven, others around the Earth; [see] how the right [move] not unto the left, nor yet the left unto the right; nor the above below, nor the below above. And that all there are subject unto Genesis, My dearest Hermes, thou hast no longer need to learn of Me. For that they bodies are, have souls, and they are moved. But 'tis impossible for them to come together into one without some one to bring them [all] together. It must, then, be that such a one as this must be some one who's wholly One.

(2) H: Is not, again, this cosmos vast, [so vast] that than it there exists no body greater? A: Assuredly. H: And massive, too, for it is crammed with multitudes of other mighty frames, nay, rather all the other bodies that there are? A: It is. H: And yet the cosmos is a body? A: It is a body. H: And one that's moved?

(1) Of the extremes, therefore, one is supreme, transcendent, and perfect; but the other is last in dignity, deficient, and more imperfect. And the former, indeed, is capable of accomplishing all things at once, uniformly in an instant; but the latter is neither able to effect all things, nor at once, nor suddenly, nor impartibly. The former also generates and governs all things, without being inclined towards them; but the latter is naturally disposed to verge, and be converted to the things which it generates and governs. And the former, indeed, as primordial and cause, precedes all things in power; but the latter, being suspended from the will of the Gods, as from a cause, is from eternity consubsistent with it. The former, likewise, according to one vigorous acme, comprehends the ends of all energies and essences; but the latter passes from some things to others, and proceeds from the imperfect to the perfect.

(36) For in each World shineth the Triad, over which the Monad ruleth.

(5) How then can a multitude of essential beings be really one?

Obviously either the one essence will be entire in all, or the many will rise from a one which remains unaltered and yet includes the one- many in virtue of giving itself, without self-abandonment, to its own multiplication.

It is competent thus to give and remain, because while it penetrates all things it can never itself be sundered: this is an identity in variety.

There is no reason for dismissing this explanation: we may think of a science with its constituents standing as one total, the source of all those various elements: again, there is the seed, a whole, producing those new parts in which it comes to its division; each of the new growths is a whole while the whole remains undiminished: only the material element is under the mode of part, and all the multiplicity remains an entire identity still.

It may be objected that in the case of science the constituents are not each the whole.

But even in the science, while the constituent selected for handling to meet a particular need is present actually and takes the lead, still all the other constituents accompany it in a potential presence, so that the whole is in every part: only in this sense is the whole science distinguished from the part: all, we may say, is here simultaneously effected: each part is at your disposal as you choose to take it; the part invites the immediate interest, but its value consists in its approach to the whole.

The detail cannot be considered as something separate from the entire body of speculation: so treated it would have no technical or scientific value; it would be childish divagation. The one detail, when it is a matter of science, potentially includes all. Grasping one such constituent of his science, the expert deduces the rest by force of sequence.

the geometrician, in his analysis, shows that the single proposition includes all the items that go to constitute it and all the propositions which can be developed from it.

It is our feebleness that leads to doubt in these matters; the body obscures the truth, but There all stands out clear and separate.

(3) A: Assuredly. H: Of what size, then, must be the space in which it's moved, and of what kind [must be] the nature [of that space]? Must it not be far vaster [than the cosmos], in order that it may be able to find room for its continued course, so that the moved may not be cramped for want of room and lose its motion? A: Something, Thrice-greatest one, it needs must be, immensely vast.

(7) That this world has neither beginning nor end but exists for ever as long as the Supreme stands is certainly no novel teaching. And before this school rose it had been urged that commerce with the body is no gain to a Soul.

But to treat the human Soul as a fair presentment of the Soul of the Universe is like picking out potters and blacksmiths and making them warrant for discrediting an entire well-ordered city.

We must recognize how different is the governance exercised by the All-Soul; the relation is not the same: it is not in fetters. Among the very great number of differences it should not have been overlooked that the We lies under fetter; and this in a second limitation, for the Body-Kind, already fettered within the All-Soul, imprisons all that it grasps.

But the Soul of the Universe cannot be in bond to what itself has bound: it is sovereign and therefore immune of the lower things, over which we on the contrary are not masters. That in it which is directed to the Divine and Transcendent is ever unmingled, knows no encumbering; that in it which imparts life to the body admits nothing bodily to itself. It is the general fact that an inset , necessarily shares the conditions of its containing principle , and does not communicate its own conditions where that principle has an independent life: thus a graft will die if the stock dies, but the stock will live on by its proper life though the graft wither. The fire within your own self may be quenched, but the thing, fire, will exist still; and if fire itself were annihilated that would make no difference to the Soul, the Soul in the Supreme, but only to the plan of the material world; and if the other elements sufficed to maintain a Kosmos, the Soul in the Supreme would be unconcerned.

The constitution of the All is very different from that of the single, separate forms of life: there, the established rule commanding to permanence is sovereign; here things are like deserters kept to their own place and duty by a double bond; there is no outlet from the All, and therefore no need of restraining or of driving errants back to bounds: all remains where from the beginning the Soul's nature appointed.

The natural movement within the plan will be injurious to anything whose natural tendency it opposes: one group will sweep bravely onward with the great total to which it is adapted; the others, not able to comply with the larger order, are destroyed. A great choral is moving to its concerted plan; midway in the march, a tortoise is intercepted; unable to get away from the choral line it is trampled under foot; but if it could only range itself within the greater movement it too would suffer nothing.

(5) Herein lies its greatness, not in mass; mass is limited and may be whittled down to nothingness; in that order no such paring off is possible- nor, if it were, could there be any falling short. Where limitation is unthinkable, what fear can there be of absence at any point? Nowhere can that principle fail which is the unfailing, the everlasting, the undwindling; suppose it in flux and it must at some time flow to its end; since it is not in flux- and, besides , it has nowhere to flow to- it lies spread over the universe; in fact it is the universe, too great to be held by body, giving, therefore, to the material universe but little of itself, the little which that participant can take.

We may not make this principle the lesser, or if in the sense of mass we do, we must not begin to mistrust the power of that less to stretch to the greater. Of course, we have in fact no right to affirm it less or to measure the thing of magnitude against that which has none; as well talk of a doctor's skill being smaller than his body. This greatness is not to be thought of in terms of quantity; the greater and less of body have nothing to do with soul.

The nature of the greatness of soul is indicated by the fact that as the body grows, the larger mass is held by the same soul that sufficed to the smaller; it would be in many ways absurd to suppose a corresponding enlargement in the soul.

(19) But always remember that in all the millions of types of living forms, and the millions upon millions upon millions of individuals ensouling these forms, there is no real separateness. All life is One—and all Life but the Life of the World Soul. Therefore, in the symbol of the Rosicrucians—the countless points within the smaller circle, which in turn is enclosed within the larger circle—we have the picture of the Eternal Parent and its First Manifestation, the World Soul, the latter manifesting in the countless life-forms of the World of Manifestation. And, the work of Evolution is still underway, and higher and higher forms of expression will proceed from within the Involved Being of the World Soul which is ever striving and struggling to manifest itself in self-expression.

(3) And as all things have been & arose from one by ye mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.

(11) Its force is above all force. For it vanquishes every subtile thing & penetrates every solid thing.

(7) And since the higher exists, there must be the lower as well. The Universe is a thing of variety, and how could there be an inferior without a superior or a superior without an inferior? We cannot complain about the lower in the higher; rather, we must be grateful to the higher for giving something of itself to the lower.

In a word, those that would like evil driven out from the All would drive out Providence itself.

What would Providence have to provide for? Certainly not for itself or for the Good: when we speak of a Providence above, we mean an act upon something below.

That which resumes all under a unity is a Principle in which all things exist together and the single thing is All. From this Principle, which remains internally unmoved, particular things push forth as from a single root which never itself emerges. They are a branching into part, into multiplicity, each single outgrowth bearing its trace of the common source. Thus, phase by phase, there in finally the production into this world; some things close still to the root, others widely separate in the continuous progression until we have, in our metaphor, bough and crest, foliage and fruit. At the one side all is one point of unbroken rest, on the other is the ceaseless process, leaf and fruit, all the things of process carrying ever within themselves the Reason-Principles of the Upper Sphere, and striving to become trees in their own minor order and producing, if at all, only what is in strict gradation from themselves.

As for the abandoned spaces in what corresponds to the branches these two draw upon the root, from which, despite all their variance, they also derive; and the branches again operate upon their own furthest extremities: operation is to be traced only from point to next point, but, in the fact, there has been both inflow and outgo at the very root which, itself again, has its priors.

The things that act upon each other are branchings from a far-off beginning and so stand distinct; but they derive initially from the one source: all interaction is like that of brothers, resemblant as drawing life from the same parents.

(10) 'As the one air, after it has entered the world, though one, becomes different according to whatever it enters, thus the one Self within all things becomes different, according to whatever it enters, and exists also without.'

(32) If we can trace neither to material agencies nor to any deliberate intention the influences from without which reach to us and to the other forms of life and to the terrestrial in general, what cause satisfactory to reason remains?

The secret is: firstly, that this All is one universally comprehensive living being, encircling all the living beings within it, and having a soul, one soul, which extends to all its members in the degree of participant membership held by each; secondly, that every separate thing is an integral part of this All by belonging to the total material fabric- unrestrictedly a part by bodily membership, while, in so far as it has also some participation in the All. Soul, it possesses in that degree spiritual membership as well, perfect where participation is in the All-Soul alone, partial where there is also a union with a lower soul.

But, with all this gradation, each several thing is affected by all else in virtue of the common participation in the All, and to the degree of its own participation.

This One-All, therefore, is a sympathetic total and stands as one living being; the far is near; it happens as in one animal with its separate parts: talon, horn, finger, and any other member are not continuous and yet are effectively near; intermediate parts feel nothing, but at a distant point the local experience is known. Correspondent things not side by side but separated by others placed between, the sharing of experience by dint of like condition- this is enough to ensure that the action of any distant member be transmitted to its distant fellow. Where all is a living thing summing to a unity there is nothing so remote in point of place as not to be near by virtue of a nature which makes of the one living being a sympathetic organism.

Where there is similarity between a thing affected and the thing affecting it, the affection is not alien; where the affecting cause is dissimilar the affection is alien and unpleasant.

Such hurtful action of member upon member within one living being need not seem surprising: within ourselves, in our own activities, one constituent can be harmed by another; bile and animal spirit seem to press and goad other members of the human total: in the vegetal realm one part hurts another by sucking the moisture from it. And in the All there is something analogous to bile and animal spirit, as to other such constituents. For visibly it is not merely one living organism; it is also a manifold. In virtue of the unity the individual is preserved by the All: in virtue of the multiplicity of things having various contacts, difference often brings about mutual hurt; one thing, seeking its own need, is detrimental to another; what is at once related and different is seized as food; each thing, following its own natural path, wrenches from something else what is serviceable to itself, and destroys or checks in its own interest whatever is becoming a menace to it: each, occupied with its peculiar function, assists no doubt anything able to profit by that, but harms or destroys what is too weak to withstand the onslaught of its action, like fire withering things round it or greater animals in their march thrusting aside or trampling under foot the smaller.

The rise of all these forms of being and their modification, whether to their loss or gain, all goes to the fulfillment of the natural unhindered life of that one living being: for it was not possible for the single thing to be as if it stood alone; the final purpose could not serve to that only end, intent upon the partial: the concern must be for the whole to which each item is member: things are different both from each other and in their own stages, therefore cannot be complete in one unchanging form of life; nor could anything remain utterly without modification if the All is to be durable; for the permanence of an All demands varying forms.

(12) To return: How is that Power present to the universe?

As a One Life.

Consider the life in any living thing; it does not reach only to some fixed point, unable to permeate the entire being; it is omnipresent. If on this again we are asked How, we appeal to the character of this power, not subject to quantity but such that though you divide it mentally for ever you still have the same power, infinite to the core; in it there is no Matter to make it grow less and less according to the measured mass.

Conceive it as a power of an ever-fresh infinity, a principle unfailing, inexhaustible, at no point giving out, brimming over with its own vitality. If you look to some definite spot and seek to fasten on some definite thing, you will not find it. The contrary is your only way; you cannot pass on to where it is not; you will never halt at a dwindling point where it fails at last and can no longer give; you will always be able to move with it- better, to be in its entirety- and so seek no further; denying it, you have strayed away to something of another order and you fall; looking elsewhere you do not see what stands there before you.

But supposing you do thus "seek no further," how do you experience it?

In that you have entered into the All, no longer content with the part; you cease to think of yourself as under limit but, laying all such determination aside, you become an All. No doubt you were always that, but there has been an addition and by that addition you are diminished; for the addition was not from the realm of Being- you can add nothing to Being- but from non-Being. It is not by some admixture of non-Being that one becomes an entire, but by putting non-Being away. By the lessening of the alien in you, you increase. Cast it aside and there is the All within you; engaged in the alien, you will not find the All. Not that it has to come and so be present to you; it is you that have turned from it. And turn though you may, you have not severed yourself; it is there; you are not in some far region: still there before it, you have faced to its contrary.

It is so with the lesser gods; of many standing in their presence it is often one alone that sees them; that one alone was alone in the power to see. These are the gods who "in many guises seek our cities"; but there is That Other whom the cities seek, and all the earth and heaven, everywhere with God and in Him, possessing through Him their Being and the Real Beings about them, down to soul and life, all bound to Him and so moving to that unity which by its very lack of extension is infinite.

(5) That there is but One Life, and not Many Lives, is a fundamental article of all occult and esoteric faith. The One Life, moreover, is not to be thought of as dividing and splitting itself up into bits, parts, and particles, in order to accomplish the process of Creation, and the Manifestation of the World. Instead, it is to be thought of as merely reflecting itself in the many individual mirrors of expression, just as the sun reflects itself as One in the millions of falling raindrops, or in a million tiny jars filled with water. There are millions of reflections of the One, but only the one One in reality. Or, using another figure of speech, the One may be thought of as an Infinite Ocean of Being, in which there are millions of tiny bubbles, each apparently apart and separate, but all of which are in reality, but centres of activity and expression in the One Great Ocean.

(7) But all the proportions of nature individually are comprehended in the whole nature of the whole, within one unconfused union; and in the soul, the powers of each several part are provident of the whole body in a uniform fashion. There is nothing out of place then, that, by ascending from obscure images to the Cause of all, we should contemplate, with supermundane eyes, all things in the Cause of all, even those contrary to each other, after a single fashion and unitedly. For It is Source of things existing, from which are both being itself, and all things however being; every source, every term, every life, every immortality, every wisdom, every order, every harmony, every power, every protection, every stability, every endurance, every conception, every word, every sensible perception, every habit, every standing, every movement, every union, every mingling, every friendship, every agreement, every difference, every limit, and whatever other things existing by being, characterize all things being.