COSMOGENESIS

THE ORIGIN OF THE COSMOS

COSMOGENESIS


SECRET DOCTRINE PART 2

STANZAS OF DZYAN

VIDEOS

COSMOGENESIS

  • Cosmogenesis is presented as an esoteric exposition of the universe’s origin and structure, rooted in what she calls the Ancient Wisdom Tradition. It is not a scientific account but a symbolic and metaphysical one, drawn largely from Eastern texts (notably Hindu, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian scriptures), blended with Western esotericism, Kabbalah, and Neoplatonism.

  • All religions preserve fragments of one primordial doctrine, and that this universal teaching explains the birth, cycles, and destiny of cosmos and humanity.

SUMMARY SECRET DOCTRINE PART 1

1. Foundational Framework

2. The Proem – Three
    Fundamental Propositions

    Three axioms on which all of Cosmogenesis
    rests:

    1. The Absolute
  • An omnipresent, eternal, boundless, and immutable principle.
  • Beyond attributes, thought, or existence.
  • It is the rootless root of all that was, is, and will be.

    2. Cyclic Manifestation
  • The universe unfolds and withdraws in periodic cycles, like breaths of the Absolute.
  • Creation is not a singular event, but an eternal rhythm of Manvantaras (periods of manifestation) and Pralayas (periods of rest/dissolution).

    3. Fundamental Unity of All Souls with the
        Oversoul
  • Every monad (spiritual essence) is identical in nature with the Universal Soul, though differentiated in form and degree of consciousness.
  • Evolution is the journey of these monads through countless forms, returning eventually to divine self-consciousness.

3. The Stanzas of Dzyan

    The Stanzas of Dzyan
  • The core of Cosmogenesis is Blavatsky’s commentary on the Stanzas of Dzyan – a set of archaic verses which are part of the Book of Dzyan, an esoteric Tibetan text hidden in secret libraries. The Stanzas describe cosmogenesis in symbolic imagery. 

     Stanza I: The Night of the Universe
  • The universe is in Pralaya.
  • No time, no space, no consciousness, no form – all is latent within the Absolute.

     Stanza II: The Awakening of the Universe
  • The Great Breath stirs; space becomes differentiated.
  • The first movement toward manifestation.

     Stanza III: The Primordial Light
  • Emergence of cosmic ideation (the Logos) and cosmic substance (Mulaprakriti).
  • Duality begins: Spirit and Matter as aspects of the One.

     Stanza IV: The Seven Hierarchies
  • Manifestation proceeds through seven creative hierarchies (Dhyan Chohans).
  • These are spiritual intelligences that shape worlds, galaxies, and life forms.

     Stanza V: Fohat and the Building of the Cosmos
  • Fohat is introduced: the dynamic cosmic electricity, the link between spirit and matter.
  • Fohat organizes primordial substance into structures: atoms, suns, and planetary systems.

     Stanza VI: The Seven Planes of Being
  • The universe unfolds in seven planes, from the most spiritual to the densest material.
  • This septenary principle mirrors itself in everything: cosmos, solar systems, humanity.

     Stanza VII: The Evolution of Worlds
  • Planets and systems undergo cycles of birth, growth, decay, and dissolution.
  • Karma and cyclic law govern not only individuals but entire worlds.

4. Key Doctrines in Cosmogenesis

    Unity of Spirit and Matter
  • There is no dead matter; everything is ensouled. Spirit and matter are two poles of one reality. 

     Hierarchy of Beings
  • Creation is not a mechanical process but guided by hosts of spiritual intelligences, who mediate between the Absolute and the manifest cosmos.

     Law of Correspondencese
  • The same structures repeat across all scales (macrocosm and microcosm).
  • “As above, so below” is a governing principle.

     Cycles and Reincarnation of Worlds
  • Just as humans reincarnate, so do planets, stars, and universes.
  • Periodicity is the heartbeat of existence.

    Esoteric Interpretation of Religions
  • Myths of creation (Genesis, Vedic hymns, Zoroastrian cosmology, etc.) are allegories for these universal processes.

 

5. Purpose of Cosmogenesis

     Ccosmogenesis is not abstract speculation, but
     has practical esoteric significance:

  • To understand the cosmos is to understand the human being, for the same laws govern both.

  • Knowledge of these cycles and principles awakens a sense of spiritual responsibility and conscious participation in evolution.

  • The occult student learns to perceive behind physical phenomena the inner spiritual realities.

6. In Essence

  • Cosmogenesis in The Secret Doctrine is a vision of the universe as an eternal, living, cyclic manifestation of the Absolute, shaped by intelligences, governed by law, and mirrored in every atom of existence. 

  • It seeks to reconcile science, religion, and philosophy by unveiling the symbolic core behind all traditions.

1. The Eternal Parent (Space) wrapped in her ever-invisible robes, had slumbered once again for seven eternities.

2. Time was not, for it lay asleep in the infinite bosom of duration.

3. . . . Universal mind was not, for there were no Ah-hi (celestial beings) to contain (hence to manifest) it. 

4. The seven ways to bliss (Mokṣa or Nirvāṇa) were not. The great causes of misery (Nidāna and Māyā) were not, for there was no one to produce and get ensnared by them. 

5. Darkness alone filled the boundless all, for father, mother and son were once more one, and the son had not awakened yet for the new wheel, and his pilgrimage thereon.

6. The seven sublime Lords and the seven Truths had ceased to be, and the Universe, the son of necessity, was immersed in Paranishpanna (absolute perfection, Paranirvāṇa, which is Yong-Grub), to be outbreathed by that which is and yet is not. Naught was.

7. The causes of existence had been done away with; the visible that was, and the invisible that is, rested in eternal non-being — the one being.

8. Alone the one form of existence stretched boundless, infinite, causeless, in dreamless sleep; and life pulsated unconscious in universal space, throughout that All-Presence which is sensed by the "Opened Eye" of the Dangma.

9. But where was the Dangma when the Ālaya of the Universe (Soul as the basis of all, Anima Mundi) was in Paramārtha (Absolute Being and Consciousness which are Absolute Non-Being and Unconsciousness) and the great wheel was Anupādaka?

STANZA 1

STANZAS OF DZYAN

THE NIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE

1. . . . Where were the Builders, the luminous sons of manvantaric dawn? . . . In the unknown darkness in their Ah-hi (Chohanic, Dhyāni-Buddhic) Paranishpanna. The producers of form (rūpa) from no-form (arūpa)—the root of the world—the Devamātri and Svabhavat, rested in the bliss of non-being.

2. . . . Where was silence? Where were the ears to sense it? No, there was neither silence, nor sound; naught save ceaseless eternal breath (Motion), which knows itself not.

3. The hour had not yet struck; the ray had not yet flashed into the germ; the Mātripadma (mother-lotus) had not yet swollen.

4. Her heart had not yet opened for the one ray to enter, thence to fall, as three into four, into the lap of Māyā.

STANZA 2

THE IDEA OF DIFFERATION

1. . . . The last vibration of the seventh eternity thrills through infinitude. The mother swells, expanding from within without, like the bud of the lotus.

2. The vibration sweeps along, touching with its swift wing (simultaneously) the whole universe and the germ that dwelleth in darkness: the darkness that breathes (moves) over the slumbering waters of life.

3. "Darkness" radiates light, and light drops one solitary ray into the waters, into the mother-deep. The ray shoots through the virgin egg; the ray causes the eternal egg to thrill, and drop the non-eternal (periodical) germ, which condenses into the world-egg.

4. Then the three (triangle) fall into the four (quaternary). The radiant essence becomes seven inside, seven outside. The luminous egg (Hiraṇyagarbha), which in itself is three (the triple hypostases of Brahmā, or Vishṇu, the three "Avasthās"), curdles and spreads in milk-white curds throughout the depths of mother, the root that grows in the depths of the ocean of life.

STANZA 3

5. The root remains, the light remains, the curds remain, and still Oeaohoo is one. 

6. The root of life was in every drop of the ocean of immortality (Amṛita) and the ocean was radiant light, which was fire, and heat, and motion. Darkness vanished and was no more; it disappeared in its own essence, the body of fire and water, or father and mother. 

7. Behold, oh Lanoo! The radiant Child of the two, the unparalleled refulgent Glory: Bright Space Son of Dark Space, which emerges from the depths of the great Dark Waters. It is Oeaohoo the younger, the * * * (whom thou knowest now as Kwan-Shi-Yin.--Comment). He shines forth as the Sun; he is the blazing Divine Dragon of Wisdom; the Eka (one) is Chatur (four), and Chatur takes to itself three, and the union produces the Sapta (seven), in whom are the seven which become the Tridaśa (the thrice ten) or the hosts and the multitudes. Behold him lifting the Veil and unfurling it from East to West. He shuts out the above, and leaves the below to be seen as the great Illusion. He marks the places for the shining ones (stars), and turns the upper (space) into a shoreless Sea of Fire, and the One manifested (element) into the Great Waters.7. Behold, oh Lanoo! The radiant Child of the two, the unparalleled refulgent Glory: Bright Space Son of Dark Space, which emerges from the depths of the great Dark Waters. It is Oeaohoo the younger, the * * * (whom thou knowest now as Kwan-Shi-Yin.--Comment). He shines forth as the Sun; he is the blazing Divine Dragon of Wisdom; the Eka (one) is Chatur (four), and Chatur takes to itself three, and the union produces the Sapta (seven), in whom are the seven which become the Tridaśa (the thrice ten) or the hosts and the multitudes. Behold him lifting the Veil and unfurling it from East to West. He shuts out the above, and leaves the below to be seen as the great Illusion. He marks the places for the shining ones (stars), and turns the upper (space) into a shoreless Sea of Fire, and the One manifested (element) into the Great Waters.

8. Where was the germ and where was now darkness? Where is the spirit of the flame that burns in thy lamp, O Lanoo? The germ is that, and that is light, the white brilliant son of the dark hidden father.

9. Light is cold flame, and flame is fire, and fire produces heat, which yields water: the water of life in the great mother Chaos.

10. Father-Mother spin a web whose upper end is fastened to Spirit (Puruṣa) — the light of the one Darkness — and the lower one to Matter (Prakṛti), its (the Spirit's) shadowy end; and this web is the Universe spun out of the two substances made in one, which is Svabhavat.

11. It (the Web) expands when the breath of fire (the Father) is upon it; it contracts when the breath of the mother (the root of Matter) touches it. Then the sons (the Elements with their respective Powers, or Intelligences) dissociate and scatter, to return into their mother’s bosom at the end of the "great day", and re-become one with her. When it (the Web) is cooling, it becomes radiant, and the sons expand and contract through their own selves and hearts; they embrace infinitude.

12. Then Svabhavat sends Fohat to harden the atoms. Each (of these) is a part of the web (Universe). Reflecting the “Self-Existent Lord” (Primeval Light) like a mirror, each becomes in turn a world.

THE PRIMORDAL LIGHT

1. Listen, ye Sons of the Earth, to your instructors — the Sons of the Fire. Learn, there is neither first nor last, for All is one number, issued from no-number.

2. Learn what we, who descend from the Primordial Seven, we, who are born from the Primordial Flame, have learned from our Fathers.

3. From the effulgency of light — the ray of the ever-darkness — sprang in space the re-awakened energies (Dhyāni-Chohans): the one from the egg, the six, and the five. Then the three, the one, the four, the one, the five — the twice seven the sum total. And these are the essences, the flames, the elements, the builders, the numbers, the arūpa (formless), the rūpa (with bodies), and the force of divine man — the sum total. And from the divine man emanated the forms, the sparks, the sacred animals, and the messengers of the sacred fathers (the Pitṛs) within the holy four.

4. This was the army of the voice — the Divine Septenary. The sparks of the seven are subject to, and the servants of, the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh of the seven. These (“sparks”) are called spheres, triangles, cubes, lines, and modellers; for thus stands the Eternal Nidāna — the Oi-Ha-Hou (the permutation of Oeaohoo)

STANZA 4

5. ...which is:

“Darkness” the Boundless, or the No-Number, Ādi-Nidāna Svabhavat: The (circle) (for x, unknown quantity)

I. The Ādi-Sanat, the Number, for he is One.

II. The Voice of the Word, Svabhavat, the Numbers, for he is One and Nine.

III. The “Formless Square” (Arūpa)

And these three enclosed within the (boundless) circle, are the sacred four; and the ten are the Arūpa (subjective, formless) Universe. Then come the “Sons,” the seven Fighters, the One, the eighth left out, and his Breath which is the Light-Maker (Bhāskara).

6. . . . Then the Second Seven, who are the Lipikas, produced by the three (Word, Voice and Spirit). The rejected Son is One. The “Son-Suns” are countless.

THE 7 HIERARCHIES

1. The Primordial Seven, the first seven Breaths of the Dragon of Wisdom, produce in their turn from their holy circumgyrating Breaths the Fiery Whirlwind.

2. They make of him the messenger of their will. The Dgyu becomes Fohat, the Swift Son of the Divine Sons, whose sons are the Lipikas, runs circular errands. Fohat is the steed and the Thought is the rider (i.e., he is under the influence of their guiding thought). He passes like lightning through the fiery clouds (cosmic mists); takes three, and five, and seven strides through the seven regions above, and the seven below (the world to be). He lifts his voice, and calls the innumerable sparks (atoms), and joins them together.

3. He is their guiding spirit and leader. When he commences work, he separates the sparks of the lower kingdom (mineral atoms) that float and thrill with joy in their radiant dwellings (gaseous clouds), and forms therewith the germs of wheels. He places them in the six directions of space, and one in the middle — the central wheel.

4. Fohat traces spiral lines to unite the sixth to the seventh — the Crown; an Army of the Sons of Light stands at each angle, and the Lipikas — in the middle wheel. They (the Lipikas) say: "This is good". The first Divine World is ready, the first is now the second (world). Then the “Divine Arūpa” (the formless Universe of Thought) reflects itself in Chāyāloka (the shadowy world of primal form, or the intellectual), the first garment of the Anupādaka.

STANZA 5

5. Fohat takes five strides (having already taken the first three) and builds a winged wheel at each corner of the square, for the four holy ones and their armies (hosts).

6. The Lipikas circumscribe the triangle, the first one (the vertical line or the figure I), the cube, the second one, and the pentacle within the egg (circle). It is the ring called “Pass Not”, for those who descend and ascend (as also for those) who, during the Kalpa, are progressing towards the great day “Be with us”. . . . Thus were formed the Arūpa and the Rūpa (the Formless World and the World of Forms): from one light seven lights; from each of the seven, seven times seven lights. The "Wheels" watch the ring. . . .

FOHAT AND THE BUIDLING OF COSMOS

1. By the power of the Mother of Mercy and Knowledge — Kuan-Yin — the “triple” of Kuan-Shih-Yin, residing in Kuan-yin-T'ien, Fohat, the breath of their progeny, the Son of the Sons, having called forth, from the lower abyss (chaos), the illusive form of Hsien-chan (our Universe) and the seven elements:

2. The Swift and Radiant One produces the Seven Laya Centres, against which none will prevail to the great day “Be-with-Us,” and seats the Universe on these eternal foundations, surrounding Hsien-chan with the Elementary Germs.

3. Of the seven (elements) — first one manifested, six concealed, two manifested — five concealed; three manifested — four concealed; four produced — three hidden; four and one tsan (fraction) revealed, two and one half concealed; six to be manifested, one laid aside. Lastly, seven small wheels revolving; one giving birth to the other.

4. He builds them in the likeness of older Wheels (worlds), placing them on the imperishable centres.

How does Fohat build them? He collects the fiery dust. He makes balls of fire, runs through them, and round them, infusing life thereinto, then sets them into motion; some one way, some the other way. They are cold, he makes them hot. They are dry, he makes them moist. They shine, he fans and cools them.

Thus acts Fohat from one Twilight to the other, during Seven Eternities.

STANZA 6

5. At the fourth (Round, or revolution of life and being around "the seven smaller wheels"), the sons are told to create their images. One third refuses — two (thirds) obey.
The curse is pronounced; they will be born on the fourth (Race), suffer and cause suffering; this is the first war.

6. The older wheels rotated downwards and upwards. . . . The Mother’s spawn filled the whole (Kosmos). There were battles fought between the Creators and the Destroyers, and battles fought for space; the seed appearing and re-appearing continuously.

7. Make thy calculations, O Lanoo, if thou wouldest learn the correct age of thy small wheel (chain). Its fourth spoke is our mother (Earth). Reach the fourth “fruit” of the fourth path of knowledge that leads to Nirvāṇa, and thou shalt comprehend, for thou shalt see.

THE 7 PLANES OF BEING

1. Behold the beginning of sentient formless life.

First the Divine (vehicle), the one from the Mother-Spirit (Ātman); then the Spiritual (Ātma-Buddhi, the Spirit-Soul); (again) the three from the one, the four from the one, and the five from which the three, the five, and the seven. These are the threefold, the fourfold downward; the “mind-born” sons of the first Lord (Avalokiteśvara); the Shining Seven (the "Builders").

It is they who are thou, me, him, O Lanoo. They, who watch over thee and thy mother, Bhūmi (The Earth).

2. The one ray multiplies the smaller rays. Life precedes form, and life survives the last atom (of Form Stūla-Śharīra, external body). Through the countless rays proceeds the life-ray, the one, like a thread through beads (pearls).

3. When the one becomes two, the "threefold" appears. The three are (linked into) one; and it is our thread, O Lanoo, the heart of the man-plant, called Saptaparna.

4. It is the root that never dies; the three-tongued flame of the four wicks . . . The wicks are the sparks, that draw from the three-tongued flame (their upper triad) shot out by the seven — their flame; the beams and sparks of one moon reflected in the running waves of all the rivers of earth ("Bhūmi", or "Pritivī").

STANZA 7

5. The spark hangs from the flame by the finest thread of Fohat. It journeys through the Seven Worlds of Māyā. It stops in the first (kingdom), and is a metal and a stone; it passes into the second (kingdom) and behold — a plant; the plant whirls through seven forms and becomes a sacred animal (the first shadow of the physical man).

From the combined attributes of these, Manu (man), the thinker, is formed.

Who forms him? The seven lives, and the one life. Who completes him? The five-fold Lha. And who perfects the last body? Fish, sin, and soma (the moon).

6. From the first-born (primitive, or the first man) the thread between the silent watcher and his shadow becomes more strong and radiant with every change (reincarnation). The morning sunlight has changed into noonday glory. . . . .

7. This is thy present wheel, said the Flame to the Spark. Thou art myself, my image, and my shadow. I have clothed myself in thee, and thou art my Vahan (vehicle) to the day, “Be-with-us,” when thou shalt re-become myself and others, thyself and me. Then the builders, having donned their first clothing, descend on radiant earth and reign over men — who are themselves.

THE EVOLUTION OF WORLDS

ANTROPOGENESIS

The Origing of Man

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