(3) The circle, however, must not be interpreted as conveying the idea of limitation; rather is it intended to convey the idea of limitlessness. The symbol, although the best possible for the purpose, is inadequate—this by reason of the impossibility of representing the Infinite by a finite symbol. The only adequate symbol of the Eternal Parent would be that of Infinite Space, and this, of course, cannot be represented by a sign, for no matter how wide the circle might be drawn there would always be Space beyond it. But, recognizing the impossibility of an adequate symbol, the ancient Rosicrucians have adopted the empty circle as the best possible finite symbol of the Infinite Unmanifest.

(5) Infinite Space, therefore, has always been the accepted occult and esoteric symbol by means of which men are able to "think of" the Infinite Unmanifest—the Eternal Parent, wrapped in the Sleep of the Cosmic Night. In one of the ancient occult catechisms, the question was asked: "What is that which ever has been, is now, and ever shall be, whether there be a Universe or not, and whether there be gods or not?" And the answer is: "Space!" The strength of this symbol of Infinite Space, as indicating the Infinite Unmanifest, is perceived when the mind tries to think, or even imagine, the absence of Infinite Space—either as absent before its creation, or else as absent after its destruction. It will, of course, be discovered that the human mind, and the human imagination, finds it impossible to think of Space being absent in either event. The mind is compelled to think of Space as being Infinite, and as being Eternal, without regard to whatever else is held to be either present or absent at any time, past, present, or future. And at the same time, the mind finds that it is unable to define Space as a Thing—yet it dare not regard it as a Nothing or Naught. It is found that Infinite Space must be always thought of as necessarily eternally present, and yet ever free from the limitations of Things.

(6) Moreover, as Infinite Space is invisible and beyond the other senses, it cannot be "known" or cognized as a Thing. Thought regarding it must always report "not this; not that" regarding it; and it answers to the ancient sage's statement of Reality that: "The Essence of Being is without attributes, formless, devoid of distinctions, and unconditioned. It is different from that which we know, and from that which we do not know. Words and thought turn from it without finding it. The wise answer only by silence all questions concerning its nature. To all suggestions concerning its qualities, properties, and attributes, the wise simply answer: 'neti, neti'—'not this, not that!' Of THAT the wise assert simply 'It IS.'" And as other ancient sages have said: "The imagination, the understanding, and abstract thinking will always strive in vain to represent the Infinite; for no form of finiteness (to which thought and speech also belong) can express the Infinite; nor can that which was timed express the Timeless and Eternal; nor can thought resultant from the chain of causation grasp the Causeless or Self-Existent." So, in every way, and from every angle of view, we discover that the concept of Infinite Space is a noble and worthy symbol of THAT which we mean when we try to think of the Infinite Unmanifest—of the Essence of Being before Manifestation into Activity and Form.

(33) For all Things are come to be Something out of Nothing: And every Creature has the Center, or the Circle of the Birth of Life in itself; and as the Elements lie hid in one another in one only Mother, and none of them comprehends the other, though they are Members one of another, so the created Creatures are hidden and invisible to one another. For every Creature looks but into its Mother that is fixed [or predominant] in it. The material Creature sees a material Substance, but an immaterial Substance (as the Spirits in the Fire and in the Air) it sees not; as the Body sees not the Soul, which yet dwells in it; or as the third Principle does not comprehend, nor apprehend the second Principle wherein God is; though indeed itself is in God, yet there is a Birth between: As it is with the Spirit of the Soul of Man, and the elementary Spirit in Man, the one being the Case, [Chest,] or Receptacle of the other; as you shall find, about the Creation of Man.

(4) The concept of Infinite Space has always been regarded by the Rosicrucians as the best possible concept with which to "think of" the Infinite Unmanifest, since the latter cannot be actually "thought" in consciousness as a Thing, and consciousness is capable of thinking only of Things. Strictly speaking, the Infinite Unmanifest is a "Nothing" rather than a "Thing"; and yet not such a "Nothing" as implies "not-ness" or "naught," but rather such a "Nothing" as implies "The Possibility of Everything, yet without the limitations of Thingness." Infinite Space cannot be considered a "Thing," for it has none of the characteristics of a "Thing." And yet it cannot be denied actual existence and presence. Roughly speaking, it may be defined as "A No-Thing, containing within itself the possibility of infinite Thingness, or the infinite possibility of Things." Infinite Space must be thought of as the Absolute Container of Everything, whether Manifest or Unmanifest—for outside of Infinite Space there is only Nothingness, or, more strictly speaking, there is no outside of Infinite Space.

(11) It is infinite also by right of being a pure unity with nothing towards which to direct any partial content. Absolutely One, it has never known measure and stands outside of number, and so is under no limit either in regard to any extern or within itself; for any such determination would bring something of the dual into it. And having no constituent parts it accepts no pattern, forms no shape.

Reason recognising it as such a nature, you may not hope to see it with mortal eyes, nor in any way that would be imagined by those who make sense the test of reality and so annul the supremely real. For what passes for the most truly existent is most truly non-existent- the thing of extension least real of all- while this unseen First is the source and principle of Being and sovereign over Reality.

You must turn appearances about or you will be left void of God. You will be like those at the festivals who in their gluttony cram themselves with things which none going to the gods may touch; they hold these goods to be more real than the vision of the God who is to be honoured and they go away having had no share in the sanctities of the shrine.

In these celebrations of which we speak, the unseen god leaves those in doubt of his existence who think nothing patent but what may be known to the flesh: it happens as if a man slept a life through and took the dream world in perfect trust; wake him, and he would refuse belief to the report of his open eyes and settle down to sleep again.

(4) For its beginning doth depend on Aeon, as Aeon doth on God. Now Genesis and Time, in Heaven and upon the Earth, are of two natures. In Heaven they are unchangeable and indestructible, but on the Earth they're subject unto change and to destruction. Further, the Aeon's soul is God; the Cosmos' soul is Aeon; the Earth's soul, Heaven. And God in Mind; and Mind, in Soul; and Soul, in Matter; and all of them through Aeon. But all this Body, in which are all the bodies, is full of Soul; and Soul is full of Mind, and Mind of God. It fills it from within, and from without encircles it, making the All to live. Without, this vast and perfect Life [encircles] Cosmos; within, it fills [it with] all lives; above, in Heaven, continuing in sameness; below, on Earth, changing becoming.

(29) As has been frequently stated in this consideration of the First Aphorism, the state of Being of the Infinite and Absolute Reality—the Eternal Parent—during this state of the Infinite Unmanifest cannot be expressed in words, for it is beyond words. It can be thought of only symbolically—by means of Its only possible symbol, i.e., that of Infinite Space. Even symbolized, it can be thought of only in terms of negation; for being in the state of Absolute Being (which as Hegel says is practically identical with Non-Being, when the term "Being" is used in the sense of finite, conditioned, and qualified Being), it cannot be thought of as possessing any of the qualities, attributes, or properties of Thingness. Therefore, its state of Being can be suggested only by using the terms implying the negation of all those qualities, properties, and attributes which men ascribe to Things—even to those Things which they feel rather than conceive, and which represent even the remotest limits of their mentative efforts.

(2) "Now, therefore, the mystery of the Ineffable knoweth wherefor all these have arisen of whom I have spoken unto you in openness, and through which all these have arisen. It is the mystery which is in them all; and it is the out-going of them all, and it is the up-going of them all, and it is the setting-up of them all. "And the mystery of the Ineffable is the mystery which is in all these of whom I have spoken unto you, and of whom I will speak unto you at the expansion of the universe. And it is the mystery which is in them all, and it is the one only mystery of the Ineffable and the gnosis of all these of whom I have spoken unto you, and of whom I will speak unto you, and of whom I have not spoken. Of these will I speak unto you at the expansion of the universe and of their total gnosis one with another, wherefor they have arisen. It is the one and only word of the Ineffable. "And I will tell you the expansion of all mysteries and the types of every one of them and the manner of their completion in all their figures. And I will tell you the mystery of the One and Only, the Ineffable, and all its types, all its figures and its whole economy, wherefor it hath come forth from the last Limb of the Ineffable. For that mystery is the setting-up of them all.

(2) And what of lower things?

: the single thing here is not an all but a part and limited to a given segment of space; that other realm is all, is space, so to speak, and is subject to no hindrance or control, for in itself it is all that is.

And men?

As a self, each is a personal whole, no doubt; but as member of the universe, each is a partial thing.

But if, wherever the circling body be, it possesses the Soul, what need of the circling?

Because everywhere it finds something else besides the Soul .

The circular movement would be explained, too, if the Soul's power may be taken as resident at its centre.

Here, however, we must distinguish between a centre in reference to the two different natures, body and Soul.

In body, centre is a point of place; in Soul it is a source, the source of some other nature. The word, which without qualification would mean the midpoint of a spheric mass, may serve in the double reference; and, as in a material mass so in the Soul, there must be a centre, that around which the object, Soul or material mass, revolves.

The Soul exists in revolution around God to whom it clings in love, holding itself to the utmost of its power near to Him as the Being on which all depends; and since it cannot coincide with God it circles about Him.

Why then do not all souls thus circle about the Godhead?

Every Soul does in its own rank and place.

And why not our very bodies, also?

Because the forward path is characteristic of body and because all the body's impulses are to other ends and because what in us is of this circling nature is hampered in its motion by the clay it bears with it, while in the higher realm everything flows on its course, lightly and easily, with nothing to check it, once there is any principle of motion in it at all.

And it may very well be that even in us the Spirit which dwells with the Soul does thus circle about the divinity. For since God is omnipresent the Soul desiring perfect union must take the circular course: God is not stationed.

Similarly Plato attributes to the stars not only the spheric movement belonging to the universe as a whole but also to each a revolution around their common centre; each- not by way of thought but by links of natural necessity- has in its own place taken hold of God and exults.

(8) Every soul that knows its history is aware, also, that its movement, unthwarted, is not that of an outgoing line; its natural course may be likened to that in which a circle turns not upon some external but on its own centre, the point to which it owes its rise. The soul's movement will be about its source; to this it will hold, poised intent towards that unity to which all souls should move and the divine souls always move, divine in virtue of that movement; for to be a god is to be integral with the Supreme; what stands away is man still multiple, or beast.

Is then this "centre" of our souls the Principle for which we are seeking?

We must look yet further: we must admit a Principle in which all these centres coincide: it will be a centre by analogy with the centre of the circle we know. The soul is not a circle in the sense of the geometric figure but in that it at once contains the Primal Nature and is contained by it , that it owes its origin to such a centre and still more that the soul, uncontaminated, is a self-contained entity.

In our present state- part of our being weighed down by the body, as one might have the feet under water with all the rest untouched- we bear- ourselves aloft by that- intact part and, in that, hold through our own centre to the centre of all the centres, just as the centres of the great circles of a sphere coincide with that of the sphere to which all belong. Thus we are secure.

If these circles were material and not spiritual, the link with the centres would be local; they would lie round it where it lay at some distant point: since the souls are of the Intellectual, and the Supreme still loftier, we understand that contact is otherwise procured, that is by those powers which connect Intellectual agent with Intellectual Object; this all the more, since the Intellect grasps the Intellectual object by the way of similarity, identity, in the sure link of kindred. Material mass cannot blend into other material mass: unbodied beings are not under this bodily limitation; their separation is solely that of otherness, of differentiation; in the absence of otherness, it is similars mutually present.

Thus the Supreme as containing no otherness is ever present with us; we with it when we put otherness away. It is not that the Supreme reaches out to us seeking our communion: we reach towards the Supreme; it is we that become present. We are always before it: but we do not always look: thus a choir, singing set in due order about the conductor, may turn away from that centre to which all should attend: let it but face aright and it sings with beauty, present effectively. We are ever before the Supreme- cut off is utter dissolution; we can no longer be- but we do not always attend: when we look, our Term is attained; this is rest; this is the end of singing ill; effectively before Him, we lift a choral song full of God.

(7) These ten Sephiroth which are, moreover, ineffable, have their end even as their beginning, conjoined, even as is a flame to a burning coal: for our God is superlative in his unity, and does not permit any second one. And who canst thou place before the only one?

(21) As we see that here out of the Earth there springs Plants, Herbs, and Fruits, which receive their Virtue from the Sun, and from the Constellation: So the Heaven or the heavenly Limbus is instead of the Earth; and the Light of God instead of the Sun; and the eternal Father instead of the Virtue of the Stars. The Depth of this Substance is without Beginning and End, its Breadth cannot be reached, there are neither Years nor Time, no Cold nor Heat; no moving of the Air; no Sun nor Stars; no Water nor Fire; no Sight of evil Spirits; no Knowledge nor Apprehension of the Affliction of this World; no stony Rock nor Earth; and yet a figured Substance of all the Creatures of this World. For all the Creatures of this World have appeared to this End, that they might be an eternal figured Similitude; not that they continue in this Spirit in their Substance, no not so: All the Creatures return into their a Ether, and the Spirit corrupts [or fades,] but the Figure and the Shadow continue eternally.

(3) The source, therfore, of all is God; their essence, Aeon; their matter, Cosmos. God's power is Aeon; Aeon's work is Cosmos - which never hath become, yet ever doth become by Aeon. Therefore will Cosmos never be destroyed, for Aeon's indestructible; nor doth a whit of things in Cosmos perish, for Cosmos is enwrapped by Aeon round on every side. Hermes: But God's Wisdom - what is that? Mind: The Good and Beautiful, and Blessedness, and Virtue's all, and Aeon. Aeon, then, ordereth [Cosmos], imparting deathlessness and lastingness to matter.

(8) Absolute or Perfect, because it is the means of the primordial, which has no root by which it can cleave, nor rest, except in the hidden places Of GEDULAH. Magnificence, which emanate from its own proper essence.

(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.