Stanza VII
1. Behold the beginings of sentient formless life. First the Divine, the one from the Mother-Spirit; then the Spiritual; the three from the one, the four from the one, and the five from which the three, the five, and the seven. These are the three-fold, the four-fold downward; the “mind-born” sons of the first Lord; the shining seven. It is they who are thou, me, him, oh Lanoo. They, who watch over thee, and thy mother earth.
2. The one ray multiplies the smaller rays. Life precedes form, and lfe survives the last atom of form. Through the countless rays proceeds the life-ray, the one, like a thread through many jewels.
3. When the one becomes two, the threefold appears, and the three are one; and it is our thread, oh Lanoo, the heart of the man-plant called Saptaparna.
“Mr. Old: Question 2. You speak of the Unknowable. “Is the Unknowable of Occultism the same as the Unknowable of {Herbert} Spencer?”
Mme. Blavatsky: Well, that is just what I want to tell you, because there is a very great difference. It is not. Herbert Spencer’s “Unknowable” is that which we Occultists would simply call the “unknown”, or that first invisible and intangible, yet logically necessary, existing principle which some call the first cause.
Now, the Unknowable of Herbert Spencer is that which he calls the first cause, and we would never call the first cause, but the first Logos. We do not call Parabrahm the first cause, because Parabrahm is the all-cause, the universal cause, or the causeless cause, which is quite a different thing.
The first cause has a cause preceding it, and from which it emanates. The causeless cause has no cause, because it is the Absolute Cause itself. The Unknowable or Parabrahm of the Vedantin philosophy cannot manifest, since it is Absolute, hence the immutable; it can undergo no change whatever.
To understand this Occult doctrine one would do well to study critically the quarrel between Harrison, the Positivist (Frederic Harrison, British jurist and historian), with Herbert Spencer, in regard to this term.
Now, as I understand it, Unknowable, which to Harrison means Unknown – has anyone of you read this thing between Harrison and Herbert Spencer?
Mr. Burrows: Yes.
Mme. Blavatsky: So you know it then. You will tell me, if you please, if it is as I understand it. The “Unknowable” Harrison would replace by the word “Unknown”. Neither Spencer nor Harrison makes this abstract doctrine any clearer by their discussion and coined terms, for both of them are right, and both are wrong.
It is as if one insisted that the diurnal period of 24 hours should be termed day, and the other would insist upon calling it night; it is both a day and a night that make up in our perception that period, and one without the other would at once become meaningless. It is both the Unknowable and the Unknown.
If then you blend together the Unknowable of Herbert Spencer and the Unknown of Harrison, the sum total will give you a relative idea of what we Occultists mean by the term, and why the words Jiva, Prana, Monad – the latter in its universal application of aggregate – are in reality all one; but yet on this plane of manifestation we are obliged to differentiate them and give a name to each and not mix them up.
Now, Herbert Spencer thinks that the final aim and expression of the deific idea is an unconditioned and illimitable absoluteness, and he is right. For us there exists only one absolute certitude, viz. this: that the human spirit or consciousness finds itself constantly, uninterruptedly in the presence of infinite and eternal energy, whence emanates – or rather, radiates – all that which exists, or is. Is the idea of Herbert Spencer this?
Mr. Burrows: Yes, in the main.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 