"The very names of the two chief deities, Brahma and Vishnu, ought to have long ago suggested their esoteric meanings. For the root of one, Brahmam, or Brahm, is derived by some from the word Brih, "to grow" or "to expand" (see Calcutta Review, vol. lxvi., p. 14); and of the other, Vishnu, from the root Vis, "to pervade," to enter in the nature of the essence; Brahma-Vishnu being this infinite SPACE, of which the gods, the Rishis, the Manus, and all in this universe are simply the potencies, Vibhutayah."
― The Theosophist - Volume VIII
Manvantara (Sanskrit: मन्वन्तर), sometimes spelled manwantara or manuantara, is a compound of manu (Sanskrit: मनु, 'man, mankind, or Manu, the progenitor of mankind') and antara (Sanskrit: अन्तर, 'interval, period, or term'), creating manu-antara or manvantara, literally meaning "the duration of a Manu", or his lifespan, with synonym meanings of "the interval, reign, period, or age of a Manu."
Manvantara (from Manu + Antara between). Between two Manus; a period of activity or manifestation.
Manu is the entities collectively aggregated into a unity which appear first at the beginning of manifestation and from which, like a cosmic tree, everything is derived or born. A Manvantara, therefore, is the period of activity between any two Manus, on any plane, since in any such period there is a Root-Manu at the beginning of evolution and a Seed-Manu at its close, preceding a Pralaya.
One has to gather from context what the meaning of the Manvantara referred to is, remembering that what is applicable to a lesser period applied also to a greater, and conversely. When speaking of a Manvantara of our planet, a period of one round of the planetary chain is usually meant.
There is also the Manvantara of any globe of the planetary chain. Seven rounds of the planetary chain make a Mahamanvantara of a planet, a Day of Brahma. A solar Manvantara is a period of seven Days of Brahma. The Life of Brahma is a Mahamanvantara or Mahakalpa of the solar system.
A minor or globe Manvantara is the duration of the seven root races on any particular globe of the planetary chain. Even a root race is sometimes called a Manvantara because there is a Root Manu and Seed-Manu to each race. The period of a human life is sometimes called a Paurusha Manvantara; the period of a planet’s life, a Bhaumika Manvantara; the life period of the solar system, a Saurya Manvantara, the life period of the universe, a Prakritika Manvantara, which last can become synonymous with the Saurya Manvantara.
When the time arrives for the re-opening of a planetary Manvantara, the planet “descends again into manifestation through the inner divine planetary thirst for active life and is directed to the same solar system, and to the same spot, relatively speaking, that its predecessor (its former self) had, attracted thither by magnetic and other forces on the lower planes. It forms, in the beginning of its course or journey downwards, a planetary nebula; after many aeons it becomes a comet, following ultimately an elliptical orbit around the sun of our solar system, thus being ‘captured,’ as our scientists wrongly say, by the sun; and finally condenses into a planet in its earliest physical condition. The comets of short periodic time are on their way to rebecoming planets in our solar system, provided they successfully elude the many dangers that beset such ethereal bodies before condensation and hardening of their matter shield them from destruction.”
In a similar manner at the re-opening of a solar manvantara, a cosmic nebula is gradually formed of the principles of the former cosmos with its sun and planets, etc.
“This cosmic nebula drifts from the place where it first was evolved, the guiding impulse of karma directing here and directing there, this luminous nebulosity moving circularly, and contracting, passing through other phases of nebular evolution, such as the spiral stage and the annular, until it becomes spherical, or rather a nebular series of concentric spheres. The nebula in space, as just said, takes often a spiral form, and from the core, the center, there stream forth branches, spiral branches, and they look like whirling wheels within wheels, and they whirl during many ages. When the time has come — when the whirling has developed pari passu with the indwelling lives and intelligences within the cosmic nebula — then the annular form appears, a form like a ring or concentric rings, with a heart in the center, and after long aeons, the central heart becomes the sun or central body of the new solar system, and the rings the planets. These rings condense into other bodies, and these other bodies are the planets circulating around their elder brother, the sun; elder, because he was the first to condense into a sphere.”
In the first half of a Manvantara (planetary as well as human) there is the descent of spirit into matter, and in the second half an ascent of spirit at the expense of matter. A Manvantara or period of material manifestation is a temporary spiritual death, whereas the dawn of the succeeding pralaya is spiritual birth.
Esoteric philosophy, regarding as Maya (or the illusion of ignorance) every finite thing, must necessarily view in the same light every intra-Cosmic planet and body, as being something organized, hence finite.
The expression, therefore, "It proceeds from without inwardly, etc." refers in the first portion of the sentence to the dawn of the Mahamanvantaric period, or the great re-evolution after one of the complete periodical dissolutions of every compound form in Nature (from planet to molecule) into its ultimate essence or element; and in its second portion, to the partial or local Manvantara, which may be a solar or even a planetary one.
By "center," a center of energy or a Cosmic focus is meant; when the so-called "Creation," or formation of a planet, is accomplished by that force which is designated by the Occultists LIFE and by Science "energy," then the process takes place from within outwardly, every atom being said to contain in itself creative energy of the divine breath.
Hence, whereas after an absolute pralaya, or when the preexisting material consists but of ONE Element, and BREATH "is everywhere," the latter acts from without inwardly: after a minor pralaya, everything having remained in status quo - in a refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon - at the first flutter of Manvantara, the planet or planets begin their resurrection to life from within outwardly.
Brahma is Father-Mother-Son, or Spirit, Soul and Body at once; each personage being symbolical of an attribute, and each attribute or quality being a graduated efflux of Divine Breath in its cyclic differentiation, involutionary and evolutionary.
In the cosmicophysical sense, it is the Universe, the planetary chain and the earth; in the purely spiritual, the Unknown Deity, Planetary Spirit, and Man - the Son of the two, the creature of Spirit and Matter, and a manifestation of them in his periodical appearances on Earth during the "wheels," or the Manvantaras.
Here again we are touching upon the frontiers of forbidden things. You are touching upon astrology — real astrology, the science of the souls of the stars. Astronomy, as you will remember, means merely the science of the physical composition and of the movements of the stars and planets, whereas astrology means the science of the things themselves, the science of the souls of the stars.
What is a sun? A sun is an entity, the body of a god. Its body is composed of solar atoms. These atoms are of various sizes and of various capacities, and exist in various degrees of evolution, just as do the atoms of a human body. When the human body dies, it is either burnt or it decays or it is broken up in some other way. The atoms then pursue their transmigrations, their peregrinations, through the various kingdoms of nature as these kingdoms exist in the solar system.
These atoms are also of various evolutionary degrees of advancement — high, low, and intermediate. Similar are the atoms which compose the physical body of the sun. When the sun at the end of the solar Manvantara reaches its time to go into pralaya, it dies. It is ensouled by a being, a quasi-divine entity.
At the instant of the beginning of the solar pralaya the body of the sun vanishes like that [snaps fingers] and it is gone; the reason being that the inner controlling life and entity is withdrawn. Like the last throb of the heart in a human body, so is the golden cord snapped; and there being nothing remaining in the body of the sun to hold its atoms in coherent form, they are immediately dissipated, and thus the sun vanishes instantly, quicker than the wink of an eye. The sun was, and is now gone; but the atoms composing it, of many kinds, of many degrees of development, immediately begin their peregrinations through the kingdoms of cosmic space.
Now, some of these atoms are just ready to begin a life of their own, so to say, more or less away from the rigid control of the ensouling entity that is the god of the sun. These particular atoms, this class of atoms, I say, wander through space for aeons and aeons and aeons, until the time again strikes for the soul of the sun that was, the god of it in other words, to reimbody itself, to form thus a new solar system. Then these atom-entities are reattracted, are attracted back, to the magnetic center which this reimbodying sun forms or makes, and are drawn to this center from the deeps of interstellar space.
Such an atom — one of the kind I have spoken of as ready to pursue its own life-path — or aggregate of atoms first appears in the spacial deeps as a nebula. It is beginning then its descent into materialized existence or body.
This nebula takes on various forms and finally begins to whirl and so continues until it becomes more or less materialized or compacted. It gathers to itself atoms of similar type of a lower degree, which strengthen the material character of its body. It then begins to wander and becomes a comet. It is attracted magnetically, electromagnetically, psychomagnetically, spiritually, to the center where the reimbodied or reimbodying sun is; and as the aeons pass, this comet settles from an erratic orbit around this sun, this new sun — the old sun that was which is now a sun again — until finally the comet acquires an elliptic orbit like a planet. It is now settled for life around the new sun, its former parent, of which it formerly was a part of the body; and thus settles in life as a planet.
Such was the history of our present planets — our Earth for instance, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Mercury, Venus. All planets begin naturally in an ethereal state.
From the human standpoint, Space may be considered as being the higher principle-elements of a cosmos in the Boundless. Here we see another reason why Space is much more than a mere container of things. It has, it is true, the ordinary meaning of distance between objects; but, more importantly, Space is distance or extension inwards and upwards towards spirit and beyond into the abysmal deeps of the Divine.
As H. P. Blavatsky has written:
"It is in space that dwell the intelligent Powers which invisibly rule the Universe."
― Helena Petrovna Blavatsky - The Secret Doctrine - Volume II
Any universe, or any smaller entity within it, such as a sun or a planet or a man, is a god imbodied. Consider man: a physical body in his lowest part, in his highest part a divine monad, a god; and in between there are all the intermediate and invisible ranges of his constitution.
Just so is it with any universe, or sun, or planet. Going a step farther, we see that the space of any one universe is the visible invisible 'body' of such universe. Its essence is divine, just as man in his essence is divine, although a physical human being when in incarnation upon earth, or when in a comparable imbodiment on any other globe of our planetary chain. It is because Space, that is any spacial unit, is both conscious and substantial, that we can view the space of any one universe as an entity — a god.
Essentially it is a divine entity of which we see only the material and energic aspect, behind which is the causal life and intelligence. There are innumerable such 'spaces' in the frontierless fields of the Boundless, and every such unit is a larger or smaller Egg of Brahma or a cosmos, all existing within and forming part of the structure of an incomprehensibly vaster Space inclosing all. Every spacial unit or celestial entity, like our solar system or our galaxy or some still greater kosmic unit, is a being, alive, infilled with mind, having its own karmic destiny and thus repeating on the grand scale what we and all other smaller units enact in our own microcosmic spheres.
Space, therefore, is at once consciousness throughout and substance throughout. It is, indeed, Consciousness Mind Substance. For all space is alive, quivering with incessant activity; indeed, every point of infinite space can truly be looked upon as a consciousness center or monad, whether these monads be actively engaged in Manvantaric operations and experience, or whether crystallized in passivity awaiting the coming of the magic touch from the spirit within. Moreover, every organic part of space, that is, every spacial unit or cosmic entity, as an aggregate, differs from all others because of its indwelling swabhava or characteristic individuality.
From the time when H.P.B. began to write more or less openly about the esoteric aspect of the theosophical teachings, there have been in use certain terms, mostly taken from the Sanskrit language, to describe Space, Aether, Ether, Pleroma, etc. Among them, akasa — from the verbal root akas, signifying to shine, to be bright, like light — has been the most frequently employed. It is essentially the spiritual and ethereal 'body' of manifested cosmic space, the subtle and ethereal cosmic 'fluid' pervading every manifested universe. It is the invisible cosmic field in and from which all the celestial bodies are born, in which they exist during their respective Manvantaras, and into which they are again gathered at the Manvantaric end.
Now because akasa is of such extremely tenuous or immaterial character, it is often rather loosely spoken of as being the emptiness of space, i.e. free of matter; yet, in truth, akasa is really the spacial body of the universe, and hence is manifested space itself.
As the aggregated fields of the spaces of any Egg of Brahma, whether a galaxy or a solar system, akasa is the field of action of cosmic fohat — the vital force of the universe — guided as it always is by cosmic mind. Like all other things in nature, akasa is divisible into different planes or degrees, increasing in ethereality until it merges into pure kosmic spirit. Its higher portions are called anima mundi, the soul of our universe, just as its lowest ranges comprise the astral light. Like the Latin word spatium, akasa conveys the idea of extension or spacial deeps, but from a somewhat different viewpoint the term also is used for both aether and ether. In the enumeration of the seven cosmic principles or tattwas, akasa is reckoned as the fifth highest which, in mediaeval European mystic thought, was called the quinta essentia — the 'fifth essence' — our word quintessence.
I have used this term spaces of Space under the happy illusion that it would help others to gain still another magnificent conception of nature: that there is in both concrete and abstract space not a needle's point which lacks life, substance, being and consciousness.
To phrase it otherwise: within our physical space there is a space more ethereal, with its worlds, its suns and planets, its comets and nebulae; celestial globes with their mountains and lakes, their forests and fields and their inhabitants. Within this second space, there is a still finer, a more ethereal and a more spiritual space, the cause of the two former, each inner space being a mother or producer of the outer space; and thus we carry these spaces within space onwards and upwards and inwards indefinitely. This is what I mean by the phrase the spaces of Space.
It is evident that the vast multitudes of progressing entities which compose the hierarchies infilling the spaces of Space are not in a state of quiescence, but are all without exception in continuous motion both in time and space, as well as in evolutionary growth.
Nothing in the universe stands still, for this is contrary to the fundamental impulses of cosmic life, the most marked of whose attributes is unceasing activity — at least during the course of a Manvantara or world-period.
Now these growing or evolving souls are the causal factors in evolution, and are likewise compounded beings — not pure monadic essences. They evolve because they pass through stages from the imperfect to the relatively perfect; and then when the grand round of peregrinations or revolvings in the solar system is accomplished and the solar Manvantara comes to its end, these evolving souls are withdrawn into the cosmic oversoul, and therein remain for the entire term of the solar pralaya or period of cosmic rest.
When the solar pralaya in its turn has reached its end, and a new solar Manvantara is about to open in a new period of cosmic manifestation, these perfected monads then reissue forth to begin a new course of life and activity therein, but on higher series of worlds or planes.
The fact of the mergence into cosmic spirit of all beings at the time of the solar pralaya is what H. P. Blavatsky referred to, in part, when she said:
“Theosophy considers humanity as an emanation from Divinity on its return path thereto.”
When divinity is thus reached, the individual monads merge their respective monadic consciousnesses into their divine source, and thus during pralaya partake of the character and vast reach of the consciousness of the divine originant — to re-emerge again as monads when a new Manvantara opens.
Although cosmic mind, time and space are all one, they appear to be three different entities during kosmic Manvantara, and this apparent division of the One into the three is what archaic philosophy calls Mahamaya.
As just said, what the scientific space-time continuum needs is the recognition that space-time is identic with kosmic consciousness or kosmic mind, and equally so with kosmic substance. Blend these into a single unified and fundamental Reality, and we have the idea in a thumbnail picture.
The space-time continuum is but a first hesitant step towards truth, an intuition as it were of the archaic teaching that, when all the manifested universes are resolved back into their primordial superspiritual condition, the many re-enter the One.
Manifestation dissolves into primordial spiritual homogeneity, so that not only does manifested space disappear and time likewise end with space its alter ego, but also kosmic mind re-enters kosmic spirit and therefore vanishes away.
In the words of the Chhandogya-Upanishad (I, 9, 1):
"To what does this world go back?"
"To space (akasa)," said he. "Verily, all things here arise out of space. They disappear back into space, for space alone is greater than these; space is the final goal."
When Brahman breathes forth the universe, it is the outflowing of the Great Breath which thereupon instantly becomes Brahma; the kosmic (or cosmic) manvantara is the life term of Brahma.
When this life term ends, then Brahma re-enters its own spiritual essence or Brahman, and all manifested space vanishes into abstract or potential Space, and this is the indrawing of the Great Breath, or the beginning of kosmic pralaya.
