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Home Preface 5 Planes of Existence Introduction Five Planes of Manifestation A to Z Contact Related Information BIBLE VERSES |
YANG AND YINSymbols of Spirit and Matter, or of Life and Form. “The alternate action and inaction of Li, in the sphere of K’i, produced the positive and negative forms, Yang and Yin, variously represented as Light and Darkness, Heaven and Earth, Male and Female, etc., whose vicissitudes constitute the Tao or course of Nature, as reflected in the four seasons, the alternations of day and night, etc. The Yang and Yin contain the ‘Five elements’ in embryo, viz. metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, of which water and fire are regarded as the simplest forms. Each element possesses a Yang and a Yin quality, and all are pervaded by Li (Chucius).” – W. G. Walshe, “Cosmogony (Chinese),” Ency. Rel. and Ethics. The rhythm of the Great Breath produced the duality of Spirit and Matter, the active and receptive states of being. This primal duality is variously named in the sacred scriptures. Spirit and Matter unite in forming the five planes (elements) of the Cosmos, viz. Atma (water), Buddhi (fire), Mind (metal), Astral (wood), and Physical (earth). On each of the planes there is a Life (yang) and Form (yin) element, or active and passive aspects; and the Divine Life (Li) pervades all things. “Heaven represents the male (Yang) principle and earth the corresponding (Yin) female principle, on which two principles the whole of existence depends.” – Allen, Chinese Poetry, Pref. 27. “Yang and Yin signify light and darkness, perfection and imperfection, manifestation and obscurity, good and evil, the source of existence and the cause of decay. … The superior of these powers, by whatever name it is distinguished, rules in heaven and controls celestial objects, while the inferior which is female, governs on earth and directs terrestrial things.” – Kidd, China, pp. 137–138. “The Master said: ‘The trigrams Khien and Khwan may be regarded as the gate of the Yi. Khien represents what is of the yang nature (bright and active); Khwan what is of the yin nature (shaded and inactive). These two unite according to their qualities.’” – Yi King, Appendix III. § 2, 6, 45. “Man is yang, woman is yin, Heaven is yang, earth is yin, the south is yang, the north is yin, the sun is yang, the moon is yin.” – J. Edkins, Religion in China, p. 92. Spirit (Khien–heaven) is masculine, active, indwelling, enlightening, perfect, the Higher Self (sun). Matter (Khwan–earth) is feminine, receptive, exterior, ignorant, imperfect, the lower self (moon). These two unite and produce forms and qualities. They are the prime dual principles of manifestation of the Divine Life. “So far as observation can extend at present, life is a mysterious force or substance, or both in one, which seeks manifestation through matter without ever fully finding it. Life is free, matter is determined, and the whole history of the cosmos is the struggle of life to overcome the determinism of matter and use it as a medium for its own self-expression. Always it is more or less baffled in this endeavour, because of the resistance offered by matter to any attempt to turn it aside from its preordained path or make it do anything new. And yet, but for that struggle and that resistance, we should have no such thing as creation at all. Life, or whatever the reality is which reveals itself as life, would be utterly helpless without matter as its instrument; and yet that instrument can never be a perfect one, nor can the results it obtains be a full, final, and complete expression of the potentialities of the life that makes use of it. … At first the forms with which life clothed itself were gross and clumsy, and comparatively simple in structure. But as ages went by it replaced these by other and more complex forms until at last it has produced the human body and brain. But apparently it has always been the same life, always fundamentally one, manifold as its expressions have been and are.” – R. J. Campbell, Sermon, “God’s Gift of Life.” |
See Also
EARTH (primordial)
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