In order to understand the metaphysical nature of human consciousness, it is necessary to grasp the metaphysical nature of the larger Universe or Cosmos.  Both originate and evolve out of the same “root principles,” according to the same fundamental cosmic principles of creation and design.  The mystical axiom, “As above, so Below,” embodies this idea.  Blavatsky notes:

The Universe is worked and guided from within outwards.  As above so it is below, as in heaven so on earth; and man–the microcosm and miniature copy of the macrocosm–is the living witness to this Universal Law and to the mode of its action. (p. 274)

Blavatsky's descriptions of Cosmic creation thus provide keen insights into the metaphysical origin of both the macrocosmic Universe, and the microcosmic individualized human consciousness.
    Blavatsky labels any Cosmos as a “Son,” as a “wink of the Eye of Self-Existence,” and, as a “spark of eternity.”  Whether a Universe or the individual spiritual spark, the laws of nature manifest in the material worlds as due to spiritual forces and intelligences emerging from within/without through zero point dimensions.  These forces originate from within hidden super-sensuous dimensions of Being/Non-Being, and manifest without in material nature.  Any Cosmos, any Universe, any Monad (or spiritual spark),  any atom or quantum, is “worked and guided from within outwards”–hence the title of this work, Within-Without from Zero Points.

    We will consider the root principles which underlie the emergence of the Cosmos, while keeping in mind that these same root principles underlie the emergence of consciousness.  In particular, we will focus on Blavatsky’s descriptions of the Absolute as both void and plenum (or as Absolute Non-Being/Being), and as the Ceaseless Breath within the Eternal Parent Space.  These concepts find their counterpart in  modern physical views of the quantum vacuum as void/plenum, and in the continual fluctuations within the quantum ether of space.
    The first fundamental proposition of The Secret Doctrine postulates the existence of the Absolute.  This Absolute is identified with Absolute Being and Consciousness, and also with Absolute Non-Being and Unconsciousness.  It is described as ‘the void’ to finite minds, and the ‘divine plenum’ (the container of all) to the mystically awakened.  It is the Absolute Darkness and the Infinite Light.  In repeated paradoxical descriptions, Blavatsky elaborates upon the nature of Absolute Being, which is Absolute Non-Being.
    At times, Blavatsky refers simply to ‘THAT’–that beyond any conception of human thought or understanding–the ‘unspeakable’ Omnipresent, Eternal, Absolute Reality, which antecedes all manifested, conditioned being.  This is the Infinite and Eternal Cause, the rootless root of all manifestation.
    This Absolute Non-Being is not simply ‘nothing,’ but rather contains the potencies of life and creation in a latent state, in the fullness of the Divine Plenum:

"In the sense and perception of finite “Beings,”  THAT is Non-“being,” in the sense that it is the one BE-NESS; for, in this ALL lies concealed its coeternal and coeval emanation or inherent radiation, which, upon becoming periodically Brahma (the male-female Potency) becomes or expands itself into the manifested Universe."

The Absolute Being/Non-Being contains the potency of creation in a latent unmanifest form.  Yet due to our finite perception, we cannot discern the Absolute and take it as nothing but empty space.  It exists at a level or substrate of Being beyond the level of material differentiation, beyond the level of the quantum wherein we encounter the limits of the Planckian units.
    The Absolute Being/Non-Being is the ‘Eternal Matrix’–out of which sources of light, or manifest creation, appear and disappear.  The Absolute is the Parabrahman in Hinduism, and the Shunya or Void to the Buddhist.  Similarly, Yogananda describes the Spirit of God as “transcendental and aloof in the blissful uncreated void beyond the worlds of vibratory phenomenon.” (1972)

    The Cosmogenesis of The Secret Doctrine is based on the archaic Stanzas of Dzyan.   Stanza I depicts the Nights of Brahma before the creation or manifestation of a Universe or Son:

Darkness alone filled the Boundless All, for Father, Mother and Son were once more one, and the Son had not awakened yet for the new wheel ... Naught was ... The causes of existence had been done away with:  the visible that was, and the invisible that is, rested in Eternal Non-Being–the One Being. (Stanza 1 -  5, 6, 7)

    The One Omnipresent Life is periodic in its manifestations giving rise to the Days and Nights of Brahma (the Creator), and the pilgrimages (or incarnations) of the Son.  Between periods of cosmic manifestation reigns “the dark mystery of non-Being.”  Any created Cosmos emerges out of the Absolute Being/Non-Being at the beginning of time, and resolves back into THAT at the end of time.  Further, the  root principles of the Void/Plenum sustain any existent Cosmos.
    The first fundamental proposition of The Secret Doctrine dealt with the idea that there is one Absolute Reality, Deity and Unity which antedates manifest creation.  The second fundamental proposition affirms:

The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane; periodically “the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing,” called “the manifesting stars,” and the “sparks of Eternity.”  “Eternity of the Pilgrim” is like a wink of the Eye of Self-Existence.  The appearance and disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb of flux and reflux.  (pp. 16-17)

The Secret Doctrine proposes a basic “law of periodicity,” whereby all cosmic phenomenon undergo periods of creation and dissolution, ebb and flow, activity and passivity.  Even the whole of the present Universe is but one of “numberless Universes,” all sparks of Eternity.  Any Universe or Cosmos is manifested for a certain period of time out of the root Substance or Divine Plenum of the Absolute, and then disappears at the end of time, reabsorbed into the same Plenum/Void, the Eternal Parent Space.
    The term ‘Brahma’ or ‘creator’ is derived from the root ‘brih,’ which means to expand or increase.  During the inauguration of an active period of creation, Brahma  expands from within without–like the budding of a lotus.  Eventually, the creative intelligences withdraw without/within –back into the root principles of the Void/Plenum.  In modern terminology, these descriptions are of expanding and contracting Universes in infinite series; out of, and then back into, singularities and the Absolute.
    Each cosmos is a “Son,” a “wink of the Eye of Self-Existence,” and a “spark of eternity.”  This description applies equally to the existence of a macroscopic Universe, and to the quanta of consciousness–the spiritual or divine sparks, the jivatma, or Monads.  Everything is rooted within the One, the Absolute Non-Being/Being, whether a manifested cosmos or an individual monad, or a unitary quantum.

    Another key to the mysteries of creation lies within the doctrine of the Eternal Parent Space.  In this view, the phenomenal world is an outgrowth or unfolding of patterns of creation inherent within the Root Principle of the ultimate Aether–which is the Eternal Parent Space.  All created Cosmos, a universe or a monad, (and even quanta), are spaces which emerge out of the Eternal Parent Space.  In the terms of modern physics, the Eternal Parent Space is a higher seven dimensional hyperspace, the zero point field, or the big foam of the quantum vacuum.  Blavatsky describes the Eternal Parent Space as giving rise to innumerable manifest four-dimensional space-time continuum, or Sons.  Blavatsky provides this description of the Eternal Parent Space–as both the void and plenum:

Space is neither a “limitless void,” nor a “conditioned fullness,” but both:  being, on the plane of absolute abstraction, the ever-incognizable Deity, which is void only to finite minds, and on that of mayavic perception, the Plenum, the absolute Container of all that is, whether manifested or unmanifest:  it is, therefore, that ABSOLUTE ALL.” (p. 8)

Space is one aspect of the Unity in which we live and move and have our being.  The Eternal Parent Space is the Divine Plenum, the apparent Nothingness which contains all things.   It is also the  Aether (or ether)–a form of Absolute Space and Eternity, in contrast to the relative time/space continuum of manifest creation.

   A key to understanding these mystical doctrines has to do with grasping the concept of these remarkable zero points.  Blavatsky uses various terms to depict these invisible points, often labeling them “layu centers,” or “laya centers.”   The influences of spiritual realms upon the physical realm emerge through these zero points which exist beyond the level of material differentiation.  Blavatsky offers profound descriptions of these invisible, zero-points, and how the nominal realm acts through such points to ‘inform’ natural phenomenon and the laws of nature:

A “neutral center” is, in one aspect, the limiting point of any given set of senses.  Thus, imagine two consecutive planes of matter as already formed; each of these corresponding to an appropriate set of perceptive organs.  We are forced to admit that between these two planes of matter an incessant circulation takes place; and if we follow the atoms and molecules of (say) the lower in their transformation upwards, these will come to a point where they pass altogether beyond the range of the faculties we are using on the lower plane.  In fact, to us the matter of the lower plane there vanishes from our perception into nothing–or rather it passes on to the higher plane, and the state of matter corresponding to such a point of transition must certainly possess special and not readily discoverable properties.  (pp.147-8)

    Blavatsky explains that the views of the mystic philosopher Leibnitz represent The Secret Doctrine teaching of how a dimensionless point within material reality might extend inwardly into the infinity of a metaphysical realm:

... Leibnitz ... could not rest content in assuming that matter composed of a finite number of very small parts.  His mathematical mind forced him to carry out the argument in infinitum.  And what became of the atoms then?  They lost their extension and they retained only their property of resistance; they were the centers of force.  They were reduced to mathematical points ... but if their existence in space was nothing, so much fuller was their inner life.  Assuming that inner existence, such as that of the human mind, is a new dimension, not a geometrical but a metaphysical dimension ... having reduced the geometrical extension of the atoms to nothing, Leibnitz endowed them with an infinite extension in the direction of their metaphysical dimension.  After having lost sight of them in the world of space, the mind has, as it were, to dive into a metaphysical world to find and grasp the real essence of what appears in space merely as a mathematical point.  . . .
As a cone stands on its point, or a perpendicular straight line cuts a horizontal plane only in one mathematical point, but may extend infinitely in height and depth, so the essences of things real have only a punctual existence in this physical world of space; but have an infinite depth of inner life in the metaphysical world ...  This is the spirit, the very root of occult doctrine and thought.  The “Spirit-Matter” and “Matter-Spirit” extend infinitely in depth ... . (p. 628)

At the heart of Being are the Infinite Root Principles–the Aether of the Eternal Parent Space and the Absolute Being/Non-Being.  In this view, any point within the relative time/space continuum extends inwardly into the infinity of the metaphysical realm which pervades and sustains creation.
    In order to understand this doctrine of the Zero-points, we must realize that they are beyond the level of discrimination as far as manifest creation is concerned.

The Chemist goes to the laya or zero-point of the plane of matter with which he deals, and then stops short. ... But the full Initiate knows that the Ring “Pass Not” is neither locality, nor can it be measured by distance, but that is exists in the absoluteness of Infinity.  In this “Infinity” ... there is neither height, breadth nor thickness, but all is fathomless profundity, reaching down from the physical to the para-metaphysical. (p. 156)

The creation and dissolution of any Universe, whether a cosmos, a spiritual spark, or a quantum are out of, and back into, Zero points.  Creation, or the descent of spirit into matter, involves an emergence from dimensionless zero-points.  Further, the forces of nature are due to the within/without dynamics of the zero points.   In physics, these concepts anticipate modern ideas of the rolled up, compacted dimensions existing at every point in the four large dimensions, and serving as the foundations for physical laws.  What Blavatsky describes as the Zero-Point, or the Ring Pass Not is at the level of the Planckian units, where physical manifestation becomes apparent, and beyond which the lower mind and awareness cannot penetrate.
    These remarkable claims of Blavatsky provide profound insights into many enigmas and theories of modern science, and were elaborated well before the advent of modern quantum theory, or views of singularities and vacuum genesis!