The Cross in the Circle and the Tree

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Mystic Verse and Insights Series · 2 pages

Two pages holding one continuous passage from The Secret Doctrine, volume II, section xxiv, pages 588-89.

The passage describes what a particular kind of reader does with a symbol, and the answer is that he passes through it. For the follower of the archaic wisdom, who worships nothing outside the Absolute Unity — that ever-pulsating great Heart which beats in every atom of nature — each atom contains the germ from which the Tree of Knowledge may be raised. The Cross and the Circle, the Tree and the Tau remain, after every symbol relating to them has been applied and read one after another, still a profound mystery in their past, and it is to that past alone that his gaze is directed. What he cares little about is stated explicitly: not whether it is the seed from which the genealogical Tree of Being grows, and not the Three in One, the triple aspect of the seed in its form, colour and substance. What interests him is the Force which directs its growth — the force that makes the seed germinate, burst open and throw out shoots, form trunk and branches which bend down like the boughs of the Aśvattha, the holy Tree of Bodhi, and throw out their own seed to take root and procreate other trees. That force is called the only one that has reality for him, and the never-dying breath of life. The passage closes on the contrast it is built to make: the pagan philosopher sought for the Cause, while the modern is content with effects and looks for the former in the latter — rejecting, on this account, the only knowledge on which his science could securely rest.

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