(38) A writer has said of this: "The Ego may convert the circle of its life-motion into an advancing and rising spiral, which while carrying him around the life circle will at the same time raise him a stage higher at each turn. The Mountain of Attainment, around which winds the Spiral Path, is travelled only in this way. Around and around the Pilgrims travel, seemingly retracing their steps but in reality constantly mounting upward. By advancing the Central Point, by means of the Will , the wise and the strong convert the Circles into Spirals, and thus advance and attain. This, indeed, as the old aphorism states, 'is one of the highest forms of Mental Alchemy.'" The further the student penetrates in his investigations, along the lines of the physical, the mental, or the spiritual, the more will he become convinced of the truth of the ancient occult axiom that "Everything proceeds in circles." VI. The Principle of Polarity The Principle of Polarity manifests that universal fact of "the pairs of opposites," or "the antinomies," which is apparent in all the manifested world, from its highest to its lowest manifestation. The spirit of this principle was expressed in the ancient occult axiom: "Everything has its Opposite, which is the other pole of its manifestation." The Principle of Polarity may be stated as follows: "All phenomena manifest polarity, or opposite and contrasted sets of qualities, properties, or powers, operating in opposite and contrasted directions." The ancient philosophers made this one of the chief features of their teachings, under the name of "The Opposites," "The Pairs of Opposites," or "The Antinomies," according to the usage of the respective schools. They held that every phenomenal thing possesses and manifests these pairs of opposite qualities, properties, and powers. They also held that each and every set of polarized opposites constitutes a unity consisting of a reconciliation and balancing of the opposing poles. They also held that every phenomenal thing, itself, is one of a pair of polarized opposites which, together, constitute a greater unity; and so on, either to infinity or until the opposites find final reconciliation and harmony in an Infinite Reality.

(36) The Universe is immensely varied, the container of all the Reason-Principles and of infinite and diverse efficacies. In man, we are told, the eye has its power, and the bones have their varied powers, and so with each separate part of hand and of foot; and there is no member or organ without its own definite function, some separate power of its own- a diversity of which we can have no notion unless our studies take that direction. What is true of man must be true of the universe, and much more, since all this order is but a representation of the higher: it must contain an untellably wonderful variety of powers, with which, of course, the bodies moving through the heavens will be most richly endowed.

We cannot think of the universe as a soulless habitation, however vast and varied, a thing of materials easily told off, kind by kind- wood and stone and whatever else there be, all blending into a kosmos: it must be alert throughout, every member living by its own life, nothing that can have existence failing to exist within it.

And here we have the solution of the problem, "How an ensouled living form can include the soulless": for this account allows grades of living within the whole, grades to some of which we deny life only because they are not perceptibly self-moved: in the truth, all of these have a hidden life; and the thing whose life is patent to sense is made up of things which do not live to sense, but, none the less, confer upon their resultant total wonderful powers towards living. Man would never have reached to his actual height if the powers by which he acts were the completely soulless elements of his being; similarly the All could not have its huge life unless its every member had a life of its own; this however does not necessarily imply a deliberate intention; the All has no need of intention to bring about its acts: it is older than intention, and therefore its powers have many servitors.

(7) If the mind reels before something thus alien to all we know, we must take our stand on the things of this realm and strive thence to see. But, in the looking, beware of throwing outward; this Principle does not lie away somewhere leaving the rest void; to those of power to reach, it is present; to the inapt, absent. In our daily affairs we cannot hold an object in mind if we have given ourselves elsewhere, occupied upon some other matter; that very thing must be before us to be truly the object of observation. So here also; preoccupied by the impress of something else, we are withheld under that pressure from becoming aware of The Unity; a mind gripped and fastened by some definite thing cannot take the print of the very contrary. As Matter, it is agreed, must be void of quality in order to accept the types of the universe, so and much more must the soul be kept formless if there is to be no infixed impediment to prevent it being brimmed and lit by the Primal Principle.

In sum, we must withdraw from all the extern, pointed wholly inwards; no leaning to the outer; the total of things ignored, first in their relation to us and later in the very idea; the self put out of mind in the contemplation of the Supreme; all the commerce so closely There that, if report were possible, one might become to others reporter of that communion.

Such converse, we may suppose, was that of Minos, thence known as the Familiar of Zeus; and in that memory he established the laws which report it, enlarged to that task by his vision There. Some, on the other hand, there will be to disdain such citizen service, choosing to remain in the higher: these will be those that have seen much.

God- we read- is outside of none, present unperceived to all; we break away from Him, or rather from ourselves; what we turn from we cannot reach; astray ourselves, we cannot go in search of another; a child distraught will not recognise its father; to find ourselves is to know our source.

(9) A great occult teacher has written of this teaching, as follows: "The Esoteric Doctrine teaches, like Buddhism and Brahmanism, 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' * * * 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. 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 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." In this connection, the student of Herbert Spencer will find in the ancient occult doctrines and teachings an unsuspected firm basis for the teaching of his modern master. Spencer in his teaching of the universal presence and activity of Rhythm but echoes the old occult teachings on the subject. Note the following from the pen of the modern prophet of Evolution: "Apparently, the universally coexistent forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes—produce now an immeasurable period during which the attracting forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and then an immeasurable period, during which the repulsive forces predominating, cause universal diffusion—alternate eras of Evolution and Dissolution." The First Aphorism further states: "Light there was not: for the Flame of Spirit was not yet rekindled." This is apt to prove a "hard saying" to those who, having the half-truth only, and not realizing the existence of the other half, have thought of Infinite Reality as being Spirit, of which the Flame is of course the occult and esoteric symbol. But the best ancient wisdom, as voiced by the most careful teachers, have ever taught those qualified to know the whole truth that not only back of Matter, but also back of Spirit, there abides an Eternal and Infinite Essence, which is neither Spirit nor Matter, but which is the unconditioned root and source of both Spirit and Matter. Light and Flame—the two universally recognized esoteric and occult symbols of Spirit—have back of them the "lightless and heatless" Essence of Light and Heat. The Infinite Reality is the Essence of the Spirit Light and Flame—not the Light and Flame itself. The student will be aided in. grasping this truth, if he will contemplate the flame of a lamp, a candle, a gas-flame, or any other kind of physical flame; he will perceive to be present, under and at the centre of the flame, a dark, transparent, "something" which is the "essence" from which the Flame itself proceeds, and upon which it draws for support and sustenance. In occult terminology the counterpart of this on the higher planes of Being is called "the Dark Flame"—it is the Essence of the Flame and Light, and not Flame or Light itself. As an ancient writer has said: "The Essence is the 'spirit of the fire,' and not Fire itself; therefore, the attributes of Fire, i.e., heat, flame, and light, are not the attributes of the Essence, but rather of the Fire of which the Essence is the Cause." Therefore, the Infinite Unmanifest—the sleeping Eternal Parent—must not be thought of by the student as being Spirit, in the sense of the latter term as commonly employed in our thought. Rather is it akin to Pure Space from which the Flame emerges, and in which it is contained. There is close reasoning and distinction here, which will become clear to the student as he proceeds, but which must be noted even now in passing.