In The Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky considers the idea of the "fourth dimension" as follows:
It is worth while to call attention to the real meaning of the sound but incomplete intuition that has prompted the use of the modern expression, "the fourth dimension of Space." ... The familiar phrase can only be an abbreviation of the fuller form — the "Fourth dimension of Matter in Space." But it is an unhappy phrase even thus expanded, because while it is perfectly true that the progress of evolution may be destined to introduce us to new characteristics of matter, those with which we are already familiar are really more numerous than the three dimensions. The faculties, or what is perhaps the best available term, the characteristics of matter, must clearly bear a direct relation always to the senses of man. Matter has extension, colour, motion (molecular motion), taste, and smell, corresponding to the existing senses of man, and by the time that it fully develops the next characteristic — let us call it for the moment "Permeability" — this will correspond to the next sense of man — let us call it "Normal Clairvoyance." Thus, when some bold thinkers have been thirsting for a fourth dimension to explain the passage of matter through matter, and the production of knots upon an endless cord, what they were really in want of, was a sixth characteristic of matter. The three dimensions belong really but to one attribute or characteristic of matter — extension; and popular common sense justly rebels against the idea that under any condition of things there can be more than three of such dimensions as length, breadth, and thickness. These terms, and the term "dimension" itself, all belong to one plane of thought, to one stage of evolution, to one characteristic of matter. So long as there are foot-rules within the resources of Kosmos, to apply to matter, so long will they be able to measure it three ways and no more... But these considerations do not militate in any way against the certainty that in the progress of time — as the faculties of humanity are multiplied — so will the characteristics of matter be multiplied also.
The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, pp. 251-252
From the standpoint of the esoteric philosophy, it is never correct to speak of abstract Space as something having length, breadth and depth, for these dimensions apply only to manifested space. For convenience we may say that Space exists in two forms: abstract Space, or the Boundless, and, corresponding to it, manifested space, which we may call limited space. In other words, whether they are compound systems such as a solar system or smaller entities such as a human being or an atom, all are manifested entities. Only among such manifested spatial bodies, great or small, can we correctly speak of dimensions, for dimensions express distance and direction as well as position and volume. Our solar system, therefore, is a portion of the manifested space that exists within the abstract Space of the Boundless.
To speak of more than three dimensions of space is a plain misuse of terms, for dimension means "measure," and only concrete things can be measured. The Infinite, for instance, cannot be measured and therefore has no dimensions. Nevertheless, the idea of a fourth, fifth or sixth dimension is an intuition of directions and distances reaching toward the inner and transcendent worlds, toward the invisible spheres, so to speak. Had the word "dimension" been confined to this meaning alone, there would be no objection. Unfortunately, modern science and philosophy have not yet clearly grasped the reality of the worlds and spheres that lie within the outer worlds and spheres and cannot be seen from them. On the other hand, scientific theory and speculation are in some respects becoming so metaphysical that at certain points they not only meet the teachings of the esoteric philosophy but in some cases go beyond them to an extreme.
The idea that the universe is expanding, and that all the celestial bodies are receding from one another at speeds that increase in proportion to their distances apart, rests largely on the Abbé Lemaître. The theory seems to have been wholly adopted by Eddington, whose intuition was often strong, and by some other scientists. There are, however, several reasons that make the concept of an expanding universe untenable. (See G. de Purucker, The Esoteric Tradition, 3rd revised edition, pp. 218-219.)
At times, in both science and philosophy, it seems to be forgotten that the mathematical mill grinds only what is put into it, just as nothing comes out of the other end of a mincing machine but what has been put into the hopper. Mathematics is an instrument of human thought, an intellectual instrument of immeasurable value; but clearly it cannot by itself produce either reality or truths.
Occultism teaches that everything, great or small, whether a universe, a sun, a human being or any other entity, has a continuous, long-cycled (secular-cyclical) character similar to that of the human heart, working by diastole and systole. These cyclical expansions and contractions are manifestations of the cosmic polarities, of what we might perhaps call the universal heartbeat. The Dutch astronomer and mathematical physicist Willem de Sitter seems to have sensed this truth to some extent. But Lemaître's idea of the expanding universe, conceived as the enormous cosmic expansion of a gigantic primeval atom, is entirely mistaken.
Such a cosmic diastole and systole bears no resemblance to an expanding universe. The framework or body of the universe, whether by this term we mean one galaxy or the sum of the galaxies, is relatively constant in both structure and form throughout the Manvantara (period of manifestation), just as is the fully grown and mature human heart.
Scientists overlook the fact that, since space is boundless and, according to their theory, constantly expanding, the nebulae and other celestial bodies receding from us must eventually reach speeds far greater than that of light. Yet according to modern scientific theory itself, and to Einstein's general theory of relativity, this is impossible!
A little reflection is enough to show that it is utterly impossible to think of space apart from time, or rather of time apart from space. Were there no time connected with space, space could not exist for two successive moments; in the same way, time exists only because the space that gives rise to it endures. Cosmic mind not only fills space but is itself space and time; and because cosmic mind exists throughout endless duration, without interruption, time itself also exists in endless duration.
Following this line of thought, we also see that abstract mind or consciousness, what is sometimes called spirit or divinity, must, in order to endure, exist within such a space possessing time or duration. Since there cannot be three separate infinities such as cosmic mind, cosmic space and unending time (this would be a logical monstrosity), they are in their essence not three separate things but three aspects of the one underlying and ever-enduring Reality.
Mind or consciousness, duration or abstract time, and space are therefore fundamentally one. During manifestation, however, because of the limitations brought about by the evolution of entities, all of which are limited, we meet with these appearances, with this maya, or rather Mahamaya: duration is divided into periods of time, abstract space is separated into spatial units, and cosmic intelligence or consciousness expresses itself in small intelligences, in streams of conscious beings, ranging from the most sacred level of the divine down to the grossest beings in the material worlds. It is these illusory divisions, these rivers of manifesting life, that give rise to the differences and the wonderful variety around us. In the end they produce the illusion, the maya, that flowing time is one thing, space something quite different, and consciousness something essentially different again.
Thus duration is identical both with space and with cosmic mind. Yet even Space-Mind-Duration, the mystery of mysteries, is a product, an appearance, of the indescribable Mystery called the Nameless or "That," as far as our highest intelligence can grasp it. In the same way we realize that past and future, rightly understood, melt together in the "eternal now."
In The Secret Doctrine (Vol. I, p. 37), H. P. Blavatsky makes the following remarkable statement about time:
Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced; but "lies asleep." The present is only a mathematical line which divides that part of eternal duration which we call the future, from that part which we call the past. Nothing on earth has real duration, for nothing remains without change — or the same — for the billionth part of a second; and the sensation we have of the actuality of the division of "time" known as the present, comes from the blurring of that momentary glimpse, or succession of glimpses, of things that our senses give us, as those things pass from the region of ideals which we call the future, to the region of memories that we name the past. In the same way we experience a sensation of duration in the case of the instantaneous electric spark, by reason of the blurred and continuing impression on the retina. The real person or thing does not consist solely of what is seen at any particular moment, but is composed of the sum of all its various and changing conditions from its appearance in the material form to its disappearance from the earth. It is these "sum-totals" that exist from eternity in the "future," and pass by degrees through matter, to exist for eternity in the "past."
And again (Vol. I, p. 62):
The ancient wisdom divides boundless duration into unconditionally eternal and universal Time and a conditioned one (Khandakala). One is the abstraction or noumenon of infinite time (Kala); the other its phenomenon appearing periodically, as the effect of Mahat (the Universal Intelligence limited by Manvantaric duration).
It may be useful to note that Khandakala is a Sanskrit compound meaning "broken time": in the manifested universe, duration appears divided into periods of time, long or short. A year, for example, is a "breaking off" of abstract time into a limited period of about 365 days. As years succeed one another, they produce the Mayavic (illusory) effect of what we call continuously flowing time; yet because of their cyclical nature they give us the impression that time manifests in a divided or broken form while being undivided in itself. The only error in this understanding is to regard time as a thing in itself, as something different from the space and the mind within which these periods of time appear.
The space-time continuum is an expression we owe mainly to the mathematical and philosophical genius of Einstein. Since mathematicians' views differ widely, it is not always easy to determine exactly what is meant by it; but the general idea is clear: space and time are not two separate and distinct absolutes but two aspects of the universe; in essence they are one and the same entity. What is missing is a far greater understanding: the recognition that space and time, as interrelated factors in manifestation, are both a result of cosmic Spirit and matter. Nevertheless, some philosophers of science, such as Sir James Jeans, have sensed that the space-time continuum is mysteriously connected with cosmic mind.
Although cosmic mind, time and space are one, during the cosmic Manvantara they appear to be three separate entities; this apparent division of the One into three is what the ancient philosophy calls Mahamaya. As we have just said, what the scientific concept of the space-time continuum lacks is the recognition that space-time is identical with cosmic consciousness or cosmic mind, and equally with cosmic matter. Fuse these into one unified and fundamental reality, and you will realize that we have an idea of only a small part of the great picture that emerges.
The space-time continuum is a first, hesitant step toward the truth. It is an intuition of what the ancient teaching says: that when all the manifested universes return to their primordial super-spiritual state, the many re-enter the One and are contained in it.
Manifestation dissolves into the primordial spiritual homogeneity. Thus not only does manifested space vanish, and with it time, its other face (its alter ego), come to an end; cosmic mind too merges again into cosmic Spirit and therefore disappears.
In the words of the Chandogya Upanishad (I, 9, 1):
"To what does this world return?"
"To space (Akasha)," he said. "Truly, all things here arise from space and return to space; for space is greater than all these, space is the final goal."
When Brahman breathes forth the universe, this is the outflowing of the Great Breath, and as a result Brahman at once becomes Brahma. This is the cosmic Manvantara, the life span of Brahma. When this life span comes to an end, Brahma re-enters his own spiritual essence, his Brahman; all manifested space is lost in abstract or potential Space. This is the indrawing of the Great Breath, the beginning of the cosmic Pralaya (the period of universal rest and dissolution).
