The outbreathing which makes these bubbles is quite distinct from, and long antecedent to, the three outpourings, or Life-Waves, so familiar to the theosophical student.  The first Life-Wave catches up these bubbles, and whirls them into the various arrangements which we call the atoms of the several planes, and aggregates them into the molecules, and on the physical plane into the chemical elements.  The worlds are built out of these voids, these emptinesses, which seem to us “nothing” but are divine force.  It is matter made from the privation of matter.  How true were H.P.B.’s statements in “The Secret Doctrine”:  “Matter is nothing but an aggregation of atomic forces” (iii, 398); “Buddha taught that the primitive substance is eternal and unchangeable.  Its vehicle is the pure luminous aether, the boundless infinite space, not a void, resulting from the absence of all forms, but on the contrary, the foundation of all forms” (iii, 402).

How vividly, how unmistakably this knowledge brings home to us the great doctrine of Maya, the transitoriness and unreality of earthly things, the utterly deceptive nature of appearances!  When the candidate for initiation sees (not merely believes, remember, but actually sees) that what has always before seemed to him empty space is in reality a solid mass of inconceivable density, and that the matter which has appeared to be the one tangible and certain basis of things is not only by comparison tenuous as gossamer (the “web” spun by “Father-Mother"), but is actually composed of emptiness and nothingness—­is itself the very negation of matter—­then for the first time he thoroughly appreciates the valuelessness of the physical senses as guides to the truth.  Yet even more clearly still stands out the glorious certainty of the immanence of the Divine; not only is everything ensouled by the LOGOS, but even its visible manifestation is literally part of Him, is built of His very substance, so that Matter as well as Spirit becomes sacred to the student who really understands.

The koilon in which all these bubbles are formed undoubtedly represents a part, and perhaps the principal part, of what science describes as the luminiferous aether.  Whether it is actually the bearer of the vibrations of light and heat through interplanetary space is as yet undetermined.  It is certain that these vibrations impinge upon and are perceptible to our bodily senses only through the etheric matter of the physical plane.  But this by no means proves that they are conveyed through space in the same manner, for we know very little of the extent to which the physical etheric matter exists in interplanetary and interstellar space, though the examination of meteoric matter and kosmic dust shows that at least some of it is scattered there.

The scientific theory is that the aether has some quality which enables it to transmit at a certain definite velocity transverse waves of all lengths and intensities—­that velocity being what is commonly called the speed of light, 190,000 miles per second.  Quite probably this may be true of koilon, and if so it must also be capable of communicating those waves to bubbles or aggregations of bubbles, and before the light can reach our eyes there must be a downward transference from plane to plane similar to that taking place when a thought awakens emotion or causes action.