The
Founder of the Theosophical Movement
Discusses
the Writings of the German Thinker
Carlos
Cardoso Aveline (Ed.)
Georg Hegel and
Helena Blavatsky
[Hegel’s portrait: an engraving by Lazarus Gottlieb
Sichling]
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Editorial Note
Georg W. F. Hegel
was born on August 27,
1770, in Germany.
He died on November 14,
1831, in the same year
as Blavatsky was born.
The following
paragraphs present some of the
references HPB
made to Hegel. The exact sources
are indicated at
the end of each quotation.
(Carlos Cardoso
Aveline)
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1) The Processes of the Infinite
* Ueberweg (A
History of Philosophy) defines Philosophy as “the Science of Principles”,
which, as all our members know, is the claim of Theosophy in its
branch-sciences of Alchemy, Astrology, and the occult sciences generally.
Hegel regards it as “the contemplation of the
self-development of the ABSOLUTE”, or in other words as “the representation of
the Idea” (Darstellung der Idee).
The whole of the Secret Doctrine - of which the work
bearing that name is but an atom - is such a contemplation and record, as far
as finite language and limited thought can record the processes of the
Infinite.
(From Blavatsky’s article “Philosophers and Philosophicules”, in her “Collected
Writings”, TPH, USA, Vol. XI, p. 435)
2) Absolute Being and Non-Being
* …The ABSOLUTE; the Parabrahm of the Vedantins [corresponds
to] the one Reality, SAT, which is, as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and
Non-Being.
3) Georg Hegel and Vedanta
* The Hegelian doctrine, which identifies Absolute Being or “Be-ness” with “non-Being”,
and represents the Universe as an eternal
becoming, is identical with the Vedanta philosophy.
4) Everything is Ever Becoming
[ HPB states that according to Occultism “Nature is
never stationary during manvantara, as it is ever becoming”. She then adds in a footnote: ]
* According to the great metaphysician Hegel also. For
him Nature was a perpetual becoming.
A purely esoteric conception. Creation or Origin, in the Christian sense of the
term, is absolutely unthinkable. As the above-quoted thinker said: “God (the
Universal Spirit) objectivises himself as
Nature, and again rises out of it.”
5) A Stone Becomes a God
* The Doctrine teaches that, in order to become a
divine, fully conscious god, - aye, even the highest - the Spiritual primeval
INTELLIGENCES must pass through the human stage. And when we say human, this
does not apply merely to our terrestrial humanity, but to the mortals that
inhabit any world, i.e., to those
Intelligences that have reached the appropriate equilibrium between matter and
spirit, as we have now, since the
middle point of the Fourth Root Race of the Fourth Round was passed. Each
Entity must have won for itself the right of becoming divine, through
self-experience. Hegel, the great German thinker, must have known or sensed
intuitionally this truth when saying, as he did, that the Unconscious evolved
the Universe only “in the hope of attaining clear self-consciousness”, of
becoming, in other words, MAN; for this is also the secret meaning of the usual
Puranic phrase about Brahma being constantly “moved by the desire to create”.
This explains also the hidden Kabalistic meaning of the saying: “The Breath becomes a stone; the stone, a
plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and the
spirit, a god.” The Mind-born Sons, the Rishis, the Builders, etc., were all
men - of whatever forms and shapes - in other worlds and the preceding
Manvantaras.
6) History Has an Aim
* …It is absolutely false, and but an additional demonstration of the great conceit of
our age, to assert (as men of science do) that all the great geological changes
and terrible convulsions have been produced by
ordinary and known physical forces. For these forces were but the tools and
final means for the accomplishment of certain purposes, acting periodically,
and apparently mechanically, through an inward impulse mixed up with, but
beyond their material nature. There is a purpose in every important act of
Nature, whose acts are all cyclic and periodical. But spiritual Forces having
been usually confused with the purely physical, the former are denied by, and
therefore, have to remain unknown to Science, because left unexamined.
“The history of the World begins with its general
aim”, says Hegel; “the realization of the Idea of Spirit - only in an implicit form (an sich), that is, as Nature; a hidden, most profoundly hidden
unconscious instinct, and the whole process of History . . . is directed to
rendering this unconscious impulse a conscious one. Thus appearing in the form
of merely natural existence, natural will - that which has been called the
subjective side - physical craving, instinct, passion, private interest, as
also opinion and subjective conception - spontaneously present themselves at
the very commencement. This vast
congeries of volitions, interests and activities constitute the instruments and
means of the WORLD SPIRIT for
attaining its object; bringing it to consciousness and realising it. And
this aim is none other than finding itself - coming to itself - and
contemplating itself in concrete actuality. But that those manifestations of
vitality on the part of individuals and peoples, in which they seek and satisfy
their own purposes, are at the same time the
means and instruments of a higher power, of a higher and broader purpose of
which they know nothing - which they realise unconsciously - might be made
a matter of question; rather has been questioned . . . on this point I
announced my view at the very outset, and asserted our hypothesis . . . and our
belief that Reason governs the World and has consequently governed its history.
In relation to this independently universal and substantial existence - all
else is subordinate, subservient to it, and the means for its development.” [1]
No metaphysician or theosophist could demur to these
truths, which are all embodied in esoteric teachings. There is a predestination in the geological
life of our globe, as in the history, past and future, of races and nations.
This is closely connected with what we call Karma
and Western Pantheists, “Nemesis” and “Cycles”. The law of evolution is now
carrying us along the ascending arc of our
cycle, when the effects will be once more
re-merged into, and re-become the (now neutralized) causes, and all things
affected by the former will have regained their original harmony. This will be
the cycle of our special “Round”, a moment in the duration of the great cycle,
or the Mahayuga.
The fine philosophical remarks of Hegel are found to
have their application in the teachings of Occult Science, which shows nature
ever acting with a given purpose, whose results are always dual. This was
stated in our first Occult volumes, in Isis
Unveiled, p. 34, Vol. I [2] in
the following words: -
“As our planet revolves once every year around the sun, and at the same
time turns once in every twenty-four hours upon its own axis, thus traversing
minor circles within a larger one, so is the work of the smaller cyclic periods
accomplished and recommenced, within the Great Saros.”
“The revolution of the physical world, according to the ancient
doctrine, is attended by a like revolution in the world of intellect - the
spiritual evolution of the world proceeding in cycles, like the physical one.”
“Thus we see in history a regular alternation of ebb and flow in the
tide of human progress. The great kingdoms and empires of the world, after
reaching the culmination of their greatness, descend again, in accordance with
the same law by which they ascended; till, having reached the lowest point,
humanity reasserts itself and mounts up once more, the height of its attainment
being, by this law of ascending progression by cycles, somewhat higher than the
point from which it had before descended.”
But these cycles - wheels within wheels, so
comprehensively and ingeniously symbolized by the various Manus and Rishis in
India, and by the Kabiri in the West - do
not affect all mankind at one and the same time - as explained in the Racial division of Cycles. Hence, as we
see, the difficulty of comprehending, and discriminating between them, with
regard to their physical and spiritual effects, without having thoroughly mastered
their relations with, and action upon the respective positions of nations and
races, in their destiny and evolution. This system cannot be comprehended if
the spiritual action of these periods - pre-ordained,
so to say, by Karmic law - is separated from their physical course. The
calculations of the best astrologers would fail, or at any rate remain
imperfect, unless this dual action is thoroughly taken into consideration and
dealt with upon these lines. And this mastery can be achieved only through
INITIATION.
7) The Various Meanings of the Word ‘Alaya’
* But what is the belief of the inner esoteric
Schools? the reader may ask. What are the doctrines taught on this subject by
the Esoteric “Buddhists”? With them “Alaya” has a double and even a triple
meaning. In the Yogacharya system of the contemplative Mahayana school, Alaya
is both the Universal Soul (Anima Mundi) and the Self of a progressed adept. “He
who is strong in the Yoga can introduce at will his Alaya by means of
meditation into the true Nature of Existence”. The “Alaya has an absolute
eternal existence”, says Aryasanga - the rival of Nagarjuna. [3] In one sense it is Pradhana; which is explained in Vishnu Purana as: “that which is
the unevolved cause, is emphatically called by the most eminent sages Pradhana,
original base, which is subtile Prakriti, viz., that which is eternal, and
which at once is (or comprehends) what is and what is not, or is mere process”.
“Prakriti”, however, is an incorrect word, and Alaya would explain it better;
for Prakriti is not the “uncognizable Brahma”. It is a mistake of those who
know nothing of the Universality of the Occult doctrines from the very cradle
of the human races, and especially so of those scholars who reject the very
idea of a “primordial revelation”, to teach that the Anima Mundi, the One Life
or “Universal Soul”, was made known only by Anaxagoras, or during his age. This
philosopher brought the teaching forward simply to oppose the too materialistic
conceptions on Cosmogony of Democritus, based on his exoteric theory of blindly driven atoms. Anaxagoras of
Clazomene was not its inventor but only its propagator, as also was Plato. That
which he called Mundane Intelligence, the nous, the principle that according
to his views is absolutely separated and free from matter and acts on design [4], was called Motion, the ONE LIFE,
or Jivatma, ages before the year 500
B.C. in India. Only the Aryan philosophers never endowed the principle, which
with them is infinite, with the finite “attribute” of “thinking”.
This leads the reader naturally to the “Supreme Spirit”
of Hegel and the German Transcendentalists as a contrast that it may be useful
to point out. The schools of Schelling and Fichte have diverged widely from the
primitive archaic conception of an ABSOLUTE principle, and have mirrored only
an aspect of the basic idea of the Vedanta. Even the “Absoluter Geist” shadowed
forth by von Hartman in his pessimistic philosophy of the Unconscious, while it
is, perhaps, the closest approximation made by European speculation to the
Hindu Adwaitee Doctrines, similarly falls far short of the reality.
8) The Reason for Evolving the Universe
* According to Hegel, the “Unconscious” would never
have undertaken the vast and laborious task of evolving the Universe, except in
the hope of attaining clear Self-consciousness. In this connection it is to be
borne in mind that in designating Spirit, which the European Pantheists use as
equivalent to Parabrahm, as unconscious, they do not attach to that expression
of “Spirit” - one employed in the absence of a better to symbolise a profound
mystery - the connotation it usually bears.
The “Absolute Consciousness”, they tell us, “behind”
phenomena, which is only termed unconsciousness in the absence of any element
of personality, transcends human conception. Man, unable to form one concept
except in terms of empirical phenomena, is powerless from the very constitution
of his being to raise the veil that shrouds the majesty of the Absolute. Only
the liberated Spirit is able to faintly realise the nature of the source whence
it sprung and whither it must eventually return. . . . As the highest Dhyan
Chohan, however, can but bow in ignorance before the awful mystery of Absolute
Being; and since, even in that culmination of conscious existence - “the merging of the individual in the
universal consciousness” - to use a phrase of Fichte’s - the Finite cannot
conceive the Infinite, nor can it apply to it its own standard of mental
experiences, how can it be said that the “Unconscious” and the Absolute can
have even an instinctive impulse or hope of attaining clear self-consciousness?
[5] A Vedantin would never admit
this Hegelian idea; and the Occultist would say that it applies perfectly to
the awakened MAHAT, the Universal Mind already projected into the phenomenal
world as the first aspect of the changeless ABSOLUTE, but never to the latter.
“Spirit and Matter, or Purusha and Prakriti are but the two primeval aspects of
the One and Secondless”, we are taught.
9) Hegel and the Periodical Avatars
* … To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling
practically accepted the Pantheistic conception of periodical Avatars (special
incarnations of the World-Spirit in Man, as seen in the case of all the great
religious reformers) . . . . “the essence of man is spirit . . . . only by
stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure
self-consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ-man, as man in whom the
Unity of God-man (identity of the individual with the Universal consciousness
as taught by the Vedantins and some Adwaitees) appeared, has, in his death and
history generally, himself presented the eternal history of Spirit - a history
which every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as Spirit.” - Philosophy of History, Sibree’s English
translation, p. 340.
NOTES:
[1] “On World History” in “Philosophy of History” p. 26.
(Sibree’s Eng. Transl.). (Note by HPB)
[2] In the 1888 edition of “The Secret Doctrine”, this
reference is wrongly given as p. 268, Vol. II. One must say thanks to Boris de
Zirkoff, who corrected it in his edition of the SD. (CCA)
[3] Aryasanga was a pre-Christian
Adept and founder of a Buddhist esoteric school, though Csoma di Köros places
him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh century A.D. There was another
Aryasanga, who lived during the first centuries of our era and the Hungarian
scholar most probably confuses the two. (Note by HPB)
[4] Finite Self-consciousness, I
mean. For how can the absolute attain
it otherwise than as simply an aspect,
the highest of which known to us is human consciousness? (Note by HPB)
[5] See Schwegler’s “Handbook of
the History of Philosophy” in Sterling’s translation, p. 28. (Note by HPB)
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The above article
was published on 14 October 2019.
On Theosophy and
Hegel, see also Blavatsky’s article “Spinoza and Western Philosophers”.
Read other texts
and books on Western Philosophy and Modern Theosophy.
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