Emptiness and Fullness

"What is it that ever is?" "Space, the eternal Anupadaka."¹ "What is it that ever was?" "The Germ in the Root." "What is it that is ever coming and going?" "The Great Breath." "Then, there are three Eternals?" "No, the three are one. That which ever is is one, that which ever was is one, that which is ever being and becoming is also one: and this is Space."

— The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, p. 2

Among the wonderful teachings of the ancient wisdom called esoteric philosophy or Theosophy, perhaps none is so thought-provoking and mentally demanding as the doctrine of Space. In one of its aspects this doctrine is called Sunyata, a most important word found in the more mystical teachings of the Buddha Gautama, meaning emptiness or voidness. From another angle it is rendered by the Greek word Pleroma, meaning fullness, which the Gnostics used frequently.

Modern astronomers commonly speak of "empty space." Although at first glance this may seem almost the same as Sunyata, we reject the concept of empty space, that is, of an absolute void, of something that does not exist. Interestingly, even scientists, when pressed with questions, will admit that by this expression they mean only those parts of space that contain no "matter," that is, no physical matter they can detect with their instruments.

When we survey the immense expanse of the boundless space around us, as far as our sight and imagination reach, we see visible fields of cosmic emptiness sprinkled with glittering stars. With the power of the telescope there are added to these millions of specks of light called nebulae (vast masses of cosmic gaseous matter), seen as universes made of other stars and star clusters. Yet the nebulae are not merely gas. We must say that many, if not all, of these unresolvable nebulae belong to levels of matter higher than physical matter, which have not yet been studied in any laboratory. In other words, they are composed of matter belonging to a plane higher than our physical plane, that is, of aether (ether).

Wherever we look, we realize that the universe is an illimitable fullness. When we add to this our knowledge that matter is made of molecules and atoms, and these in turn of electrons, protons, and other particles, we understand that space which seems empty to us must in fact be fields of cosmic ether. Because these fields are etheric, we can neither see them with our eyes, nor perceive them by touch, nor subject them to experiment with our most sensitive instruments; hence to the ordinary eye we perceive them as emptiness.

Yet all these vast fields filled with luminous spheres are on the lowest cosmic plane, which we know as the physical or material universe. Going further, we understand that the physical sphere is an outer garment: it conceals inner or invisible worlds of incomprehensible extent, stretching upward from the physical to the ever-receding vistas of the cosmic spirit. Because these higher realms are formless to us, we call them the Spiritual Void or Sunyata. Yet Sunyata signifies not only the highest and most universal reaches of the boundless Infinite but also the Pleroma. Everything depends on the angle from which we look at reality.

The doctrine of Emptiness, then, is essentially the same as the doctrine of Fullness. There is only a subtle difference between them: the doctrine of Emptiness deals mainly with the superior elements of the kosmos,² the principles of the spaces reaching ever further inward; the doctrine of Fullness examines the kosmoi, the worlds, as they are manifested. We can more easily grasp the fullness of things through the idea that the countless manifestations of cosmic Being come to life out of the boundless Emptiness and, when their life cycles end, return to that same Emptiness and vanish. In other words, Emptiness points to the divine-spiritual side of Being, while Fullness (Pleroma)³ points to Prakriti (matter), the side of manifestation. This side of manifestation vanishes like a dream when the great Manvantara, the world's period of activity, comes to an end.

Another important point is that every being or thing that manifests is not eternal, because as a phenomenon it is bound to time. It is therefore maya, illusion, and it would be folly to seek cosmic reality in such phenomena. Everything that appears in the spaces of the boundless, whether a cluster of galaxies or an atom, however short or long its life, is an appearance, a phenomenon. It is therefore actually empty in the sense of "unreal." This is exactly the reverse of the earlier use of the term "empty" or "emptiness"; but this opposite meaning is entirely legitimate in metaphysical philosophy. This also explains why esoteric Buddhism constantly speaks of the whole manifested universe as Sunyata: the universe is not real, not permanent; it is transient and impermanent.

In the Surangama Sutra (IV, p. 64; see Samuel Beal, A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, 1871) we find:

Therefore, in this inquiry, you must clearly understand that all earthly forms entering into the composition of the phenomenal world are transient and perishable. Ananda! Of all these forms you see, and the fictitious qualities ascribed to them, which is indestructible? All are destined to be burned; but after they have perished there is one thing that will never perish, and that is the void of space.

Nevertheless, it is these vast clusters of worlds that make up the Pleroma, the Fullness, of manifested space. The difficulty arises from this double use of the words Sunyata and Pleroma; yet once the root ideas are grasped, the matter is easily understood. In the words of H. P. Blavatsky:

Space is neither a "limitless void," nor a "conditioned fullness," but both: being, on the plane of absolute abstraction, the ever-incognisable Deity, which is void only to finite minds, and on that of mayavic perception, the Plenum, the absolute Container of all that is, whether manifested or unmanifested: it is, therefore, that ABSOLUTE ALL.

— The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, p. 8

So the word Sunyata can carry two different but related meanings. Taken as a positive term, it signifies the boundless All, Space in its highest and most abstract sense: the infinite and boundless endlessness that has no attributes, and at the same time the infinite Totality that contains everything. Seen from the standpoint of the spiritual-divine realms, which appear as the Great Void (Mahasunya) to intelligences living in the lower spheres, it is the universe itself with all that is in it.⁴

Taken in its negative sense, Sunyata represents the idea of cosmic illusion, Mahamaya. From the standpoint of divine-spiritual consciousness, the whole objective universe, visible or invisible, is unreal and illusory because it is impermanent; it is empty because it is fleeting. This does not mean that the manifested universe does not exist; the universe is not what it seems, and in the way it is perceived it creates an illusion. Thus both the positive and the negative meanings of Sunyata rest on the same basic idea: the reality of the divine-spiritual and the relative reality of everything objective. The manifested kosmos, relatively false and deceptive, has no importance in itself when compared with the Real that it covers like a veil. It has only a relative reality, which it derives from the noumenal⁵ Root of which it is the phenomenal face.

Let us return to the Surangama Sutra (V, p. 8):

Pure Nature is empty in its essential Being; therefore the factors that bring about birth are like a magical illusion. The absence of action, the absence of beginning and end, are likewise false ideas, like a flower in the sky. The word "false" brings forth (reveals) what is true; false and true together are equally false... Is not everything around us like a bubble of foam?

The infinitude of boundless, all-encompassing Space is clearly something no human understanding can reach; for it is both formless and without limits to bind it. Yet it is spoken of as "the sparks of Eternity," for it is the cosmic womb of all visible universes.

This is why mystics of every age and every land have called it the Void. In fact, this was also the original and truly sublime idea adopted by the early Christian theologians: it was called "nothing." But this idea was later not only distorted but also lost its original grandeur, and was finally in a sense rendered void.

Since then Orthodox theology has maintained that Almighty God created the world out of nothing, which is absurd. Had they conceived of this cosmic Absoluteness as "No-Thing," that which is not a thing, a non-thing, they would have preserved the true idea. But they reduced it to nothingness. They kept the ancient saying; yet only the name remained in their hands, and the essence was lost.

Through the ages man, in his uninitiated mind, debased the intuitions of his soul and confused the objective and illusory with the Real. Graver still for his moral and spiritual well-being, he uprooted and cast away the intelligence that eagerly searched for truth.

Let us remember that we are children of the Boundless. We advance through inner struggles and trials set in motion by the driving energy of our essence (Spirit); we move ever toward the final fulfillment of our spiritual self with that boundless Wonder which is always innermost. Yet this Wonder, the most marvelous of paradoxes, is forever unattainable, for it is infinite Space and boundless Duration.