Vol 4 Page 297

[ON SPIRIT AND MATTER]

[The Theosophist, Vol. IV, No. 4, January, 1883, pp. 89-90]

[Commenting on a correspondent’s letter, H. P. B. wrote:]

We fear our correspondent is labouring under various misconceptions. We will not touch upon his very original views of Karma—at its incipient stage—since his ideas are his own, and he is as much entitled to them as anyone else. But we will briefly answer his numbered questions at the close of the letter.
1. Spirit got itself entangled with gross matter for the same reason that life gets entangled with the foetus matter. It followed a law, and therefore could not help the entanglement occurring.
2. We know of no eastern philosophy that teaches that “matter originated out of Spirit.” Matter is as eternal and indestructible as Spirit and one cannot be made cognizant to our senses without the other—even to our, the highest, spiritual sense. Spirit per se is a non entity and non-existence. It is the negation of every affirmation and of all that is.

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3. No one ever held—as far as we know that Spirit could be annihilated under whatever circumstances. Spirit can get divorced of its manifested matter, its personality, in which case, it is the latter that is annihilated. Nor do we believe that “Spirit breathed out Matter”; but that, on the contrary, it is Matter which manifests Spirit. Otherwise, it would be a puzzle indeed.
4. Since we believe in neither “God” nor “Satan” as personalities or entities, hence there is neither “Heaven” nor “Hell” for us, in the vulgar generally accepted sense of the terms. Hence also—it would be a useless waste of time to discuss the question.

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