Theos-Talk Archives (December 1996 Message tl00061)

liesel@dreamscape.com (liesel f. deutsch) wrote:

>The idea of "brotherhood" is that everything in the universe is interrelated.

This raises a question I have had for a long time.  HPB, in "The Secret
Doctrine," used the word "universe" in both its singular and its plural
form.  I do not see how using it in its singular form could refer to
anything but a limited space, whereas I think of the "universe" as, like
numbers, limitless.  If it is, there is no such thing as "the whole
universe."  The word "universe" might be appropriate in referring to a
limited space, such as the space that scientists have discovered, which is
somewhere around 10 to 20 billion light years across, but it is a misnomer
if it attempts to refer to anything that is both definite and infinite,
which is contradictory.  I hope to hear from someone who knows some detail
about how HPB saw what she called the "universe."  I recently read "Sex,
Ecology, Spirituality," by Ken Wilber, in which he expresses very clearly
how there is nothing that is not both a whole and a part, the direct
conclusion from which is that there is nothing so vast that it is not part
of something more vast, so that there is nothing which could be called "the
universe."