104 @ The Secret Lfe fe Natureonly three kinds: rhythmic, nonrhythmic, and no-motion or stability.
From the interplay of these, all forms are derived, just as all possible col-
ors are derived from the three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue.
To theVedic Hindu, the atom is nothing but imprisoned light that
is released as free light and other forms of energy on breaking up the
atom in atomic fission. When the light of Shakti becomes bound by
Shiva with the noose of sound, the basis of all the atoms of the ele-
ments is born in Akasha in the sinews of quarks (or subquarks) and
e1ectrons.A~ explained by Steiner, the physical atom bears the same re-
lationship to the force of electricity that a lump of ice bears to the
water from which it has been frozen.The atom of physics, says Steiner,
is nothing but frozen electricity. And what is electricity? "It is exactly
as human thought, only viewed from inside and from outsiden-as
with astral vision. Even more stunning is Steiner's notion that each
atom in the universe contains in miniature the plans for the next world
in the next round that is to succeed the present. "The Logos," says
Steiner, "is continually slipping into the atom and thus the atom be-
comes the image of the future plan."
Down the ladder of creation from Cosmic Logos comes the
Manifest Logos and with it-in contradistinction to cosmic ideation-
logoic ideation, from which a manifested system begins to unfold in
terms of time and space. Space, it is explained, is more basic than time
because one has to have mental space in which to have mental images
that change and so produce time. Both space and time must depend on
the mind and its mental images. When the mind is without images
there is neither space nor time, only basic Reality, of which conscious-
ness, mind, and matter are but three projected aspects.
In Hindu philosophy the Manifest Logos, though a single personal-
ity, appears in three separate aspects: as Brahma the creator,Vishnu the
preserver, and Mahesha the regenerator. In the production of the dif-
ferent realms of manifestation this threefold Manifest Logos is said to
use three distinct forms of energy: fohat, prana, and kundalini-all de-
rivatives of Shakti and therefore all mysteriously linked.
When Brahma, the Third Logos, or third aspect of the Manifest
Logos, makes his appearance, his first activity, related to the form side