The teachings of H. P. Blavatsky make clear that, from the metaphysical perspective, All is Fire and Fire is All. Even the air is in reality fluidic fire, while water is actually liquid fire, and earth is solid fire. The source of everything is Fire, the nature of everything is Fire, the underlying essence of everything is Fire. But this obviously means something immeasurably greater and more transcendental than the fire obtained by lighting a match.

The seven “principles” or components of both the Universe and the human being are themselves sevenfold, i.e. each human “principle” is comprised of seven sub-principles and each of the seven planes consists of seven sub-planes, thus allowing the fundamental Seven to be reflected on every level of existence. This 7 x 7 (seven times seven) scale of macrocosm and microcosm is frequently termed the Forty-Nine Fires in Theosophical teaching. Describing the whole of manifestation as 49 Fires is another way of memorably emphasising the point that everything is Fire in one degree or another.

Here is a small sample of some of the many statements from the pen of HPB which show the central importance accorded by her and her Master–Teachers to Agni or FIRE:

“Fire (Living). A figure of speech to denote deity, the “One” life. A theurgic term, used later by the Rosicrucians. The symbol of the living fire is the sun, certain of whose rays develope the fire of life in a diseased body, impart the knowledge of the future to the sluggish mind, and stimulate to active function a certain psychic and generally dormant faculty in man. The meaning is very occult.” (“The Theosophical Glossary” p. 119)

“Fire is Æther in its purest form, and hence is not regarded as matter, but it is the unity of Æther – the second manifested deity – in its universality. But there are two “Fires” and a distinction is made between them in the Occult teachings. The first, or the purely Formless and invisible Fire concealed in the Central Spiritual Sun, is spoken of as “triple” (metaphysically); while the Fire of the manifested Kosmos is Septenary, throughout both the Universe and our Solar System. “The fire or knowledge burns up all action on the plane of illusion,” says the commentary. “Therefore, those who have acquired it and are emancipated, are called ‘Fires.’” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 87)

“Can the flame be called the essence of Fire? This Essence is “the LIFE and LIGHT of the Universe, the visible fire and flame are destruction, death, and evil.” “Fire and Flame destroy the body of an Arhat, their essence makes him immortal.” (Bodhi-mur, Book II.)” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 6)

“. . . because the personal senses gravitate and strive to be connected with the impersonal Self, . . . the latter, which is FIRE, burns the lower five and purifies thereby the higher two [senses], “mind and understanding” or the higher aspects of Manas and Buddhi.” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 639)

“What says the esoteric teaching with regard to fire? “Fire,” it says, “is the most perfect and unadulterated reflection, in Heaven as on Earth, of the ONE FLAME. It is Life and Death, the origin and the end of every material thing. It is divine ‘SUBSTANCE.’” Thus, not only the FIRE-WORSHIPPER, the Parsee, but even the wandering . . . tribes of America, which proclaim themselves “born of fire,” show more science in their creeds and truth in their superstitions, than all the speculations of modern physics and learning. The Christian who says: “God is a living Fire,” and speaks of the Pentecostal “Tongues of Fire” and of the “burning bush” of Moses, is as much a fire-worshipper as any other “heathen.” The Rosicrucians, among all the mystics and Kabalists, were those who defined Fire in the right and most correct way.” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 121)

“The first after the ‘One’ is divine Fire . . . the LIFE, the heart and pulse of the Universe . . .” as said in the Commentary.” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 216)

“. . . the One Cosmic Element. This “One Element” is called figuratively “FIRE.”” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 101)

“The Spirit, beyond manifested Nature, is the fiery BREATH in its absolute Unity. In the manifested Universe, it is the Central Spiritual Sun, the electric Fire of all Life. In our System it is the visible Sun, the Spirit of Nature, the terrestrial god. And in, on, and around the Earth, the fiery Spirit thereof – air, fluidic fire; water, liquid fire; Earth, solid fire. All is fire – ignis [i.e. the Latin word for “fire,” related to the older Sanskrit “agni”], in its ultimate constitution, . . . the All in nature and its mind. Pro-Mater is divine fire. It is the Creator, the Destroyer, the Preserver. The primitive names of the gods are all connected with fire, from AGNI, the Aryan, to the Jewish god who “is a consuming fire.”” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 114)

“Agni Dhâtu Samâdhi (Sk.). A kind of contemplation in Yoga practice, when Kundalini is raised to the extreme and the infinitude appears as one sheet of fire. An ecstatic condition.” (“The Theosophical Glossary” p. 10)

“Fire is the most mystic of all the five elements, as also the most divine. Therefore to give an explanation of its various meanings on our plane alone, leaving all he other planes entirely out of the question, would be much too arduous, in addition to its being entirely incomprehensible for the vast majority. Fire is the father of light, light the parent of heat and air (vital air). If the absolute deity can be referred to as Darkness or the Dark Fire, the light, its first progeny, is truly the first self-conscious god. For what is light in its primordial root but the world-illuminating and life-giving deity? Light is that, which from an abstraction has become a reality. No one has ever seen real or primordial light; what we see is only its broken rays or reflections, which become denser and less luminous as they descend into form and matter. Fire, therefore, is a term which comprehends ALL. Fire is the invisible deity, “the Father,” and the manifesting light is God “the Son,” and also the Sun. Fire – in the occult sense – is aether, and aether is born of motion, and motion is the eternal dark, invisible Fire. Light sets in motion and controls all in nature, from the highest primordial aether down to the tiniest molecule in Space. MOTION is eternal per se, and in the manifested Kosmos it is the Alpha and Omega of that which is called electricity, galvanism, magnetism, sensation – moral and physical – thought, and even life, on this plane. Thus fire, on our plane, is simply the manifestation of motion, or life.” (“Transactions of The Blavatsky Lodge” p. 114-115)

“The highest group [of the Hierarchies of Dhyan Chohans or celestial beings] is composed of the divine Flames, so-called, also spoken of as the “Fiery Lions” and the “Lions of Life,” whose esotericism is securely hidden in the Zodiacal sign of Leo. It is the nucleole of the superior divine World . . . They are the formless Fiery Breaths, identical in one aspect with the upper sephirothal TRIAD [of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life] . . .” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 213)

“As the solid Earth began by being a ball of liquid fire, of fiery dust and its protoplasmic phantom, so did man.” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 191)

“Hence, tradition shows the celestial Yogis offering themselves as voluntary victims in order to redeem Humanity – created god-like and perfect at first – and to endow him with human affections and aspirations. To do this they had to give up their natural status and, descending on our globe, take up their abode on it for the whole cycle of the Mahayuga, thus exchanging their impersonal individualities for individual personalities – the bliss of sidereal existence for the curse of terrestrial life. This voluntary sacrifice of the Fiery Angels, whose nature was Knowledge and Love, was construed by the exoteric theologies into a statement that shows “the rebel angels hurled down from heaven into the darkness of Hell” – our Earth.” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 246)

““In the beginning, before Mother became Father-Mother, the fiery Dragon moved in the infinitudes alone” (Book of Sarparâjni.) The Aitareya Brâhmana calls the Earth Sarparâjni, “the Serpent Queen,” and “the Mother of all that moves.” Before our globe became egg-shaped (and the Universe also) “a long trail of Cosmic dust (or fire mist) moved and writhed like a serpent in Space.” The “Spirit of God moving on Chaos” was symbolized by every nation in the shape of a fiery serpent breathing fire and light upon the primordial waters, until it had incubated cosmic matter and made it assume the annular shape of a serpent with its tail in its mouth – which symbolises not only Eternity and Infinitude, but also the globular shape of all the bodies formed within the Universe from that fiery mist. The Universe, as well as the Earth and Man, cast off periodically, serpent-like, their old skins, to assume new ones after a time of rest. The serpent is, surely, a not less graceful or a more unpoetical image than the caterpillar and chrysalis from which springs the butterfly, the Greek emblem of Psyche, the human soul. The “Dragon” was also the symbol of the Logos with the Egyptians, as with the Gnostics. In the “Book of Hermes,” Pymander, the oldest and the most spiritual of the Logoi of the Western Continent, appears to Hermes in the shape of a Fiery Dragon of “Light, Fire, and Flame.”” (“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 74)

“Thus Fire may be called the unity of the Universe. Pure cosmic fire (without, so to speak, fuel) is Deity in its universality; for cosmic fire, or heat which it calls forth, is every atom of matter in manifested nature. There is not a thing or a particle in the Universe which does not contain in it latent fire.” (“Transactions of The Blavatsky Lodge” p. 115-116)

Theosophy also speaks of the Ultimate Reality in a number of other ways, two of the most common being Absolute Abstract Space and Absolute Abstract Motion. In our article Space, Motion, Duration, Matter we commented:

“And knowing that HPB and the Masters also repeatedly refer to the One Ultimate Reality or Divine Principle as FIRE, one can bear in mind that the nature of Fire is eternal motion. Fire is perhaps the clearest and most vivid image and representation of ceaseless motion, for whereas the other elements – air, water, and earth – can be, and sometimes are, completely still, unmoving, and physically motionless, fire is constantly in motion and there is no such thing as a completely still, motionless, unmoving flame or fire. In “Transactions of The Blavatsky Lodge” it is stated that “Motion is the eternal dark, invisible Fire.” (p. 115) The great abstractness of the subject of this article can thus be lessened by mentally substituting the word “Motion” with “Fire” and thinking in such terms as “the Fire of Space” or “Fiery Space.” In the Stanzas of Dzyan on which “The Secret Doctrine” is based, infinite Space is spoken of as “A SHORELESS SEA OF FIRE.””

 ~ * ~

“The path that leadeth on, is lighted by one fire 
– the light of daring, burning in the heart.” 
(“The Voice of The Silence,” translated by H. P. Blavatsky  from The Book of The Golden Precepts)

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