Theos-Talk Archives (November 1997 Message tt00146)

>Date Fri, 07 Nov 1997 14:18:51 -0800
>From "Brenda S. Tucker" <brenda@theosophy.com>

>At 09:02 AM 11/7/1997 EST, you wrote:
>>According to Jerry Schueler:
>>>
>>> Good or bad can be found in the motive, not in the operation itself.
>>>
>>> Jerry S.

>I'm reading STUDIES IN THE BHAGAVAD GITA by A Dreamer to prepare for
......
> The book discusses how soul powers or latent egoic energies
>unfold in individuals in manifestation and one striking point is that
>the book doesn't claim we should use our egoic energies to always >keep
our vehicles under control. The book claims that pleasure draws >forth
the egoic energies and that pain forces a withdrawal of the ego >for the
desired effect: the vehicles, including of course the atoms, >can now
respond to all of the other outer lives around them. That >without a
harmonizing with the outer - Ishvara or Logos - in >manifestation, these
lives are being thwarted in their path towards >independence and
self-consciousness. The ego's purpose is to know >itself and through
contact with the lower worlds of form the egos >express and that once
these powers are revealed, the ego no longer >needs the form. At the
indrawing where the ego "lives in the eternal" >existing without form
consciousness, ....

This seems to me a set-up which would lead to hedonism. "The Voice"
says, "Believe thou not that lust can ever be satiasted. This is an
abomination, inspired by Mara." etc. it is by feeding it that it waxing
strong and grows. Our ego's purpose will forever be locked into the
lives of our body which if allowed free would certainly perform acts
binding to that Ego for incarnations to come.

The lives are lifted up the IMPRESS we leave upon them of our high
aspirations, higher manasic thinking, and altruistic living. It is by
our own purified living and conscious linking towards the divine that
they are made ours, and become semi-permanent atoms drawn back to us in
future incarnations, as our own Skandhas.

The second point, 'the Ego "lives in the eternal" existing without form
consciousness;' whether the Ego lives in the Nirmanakaya, Sambhodakaya
or Dharmakaya vesture, it is still WITH FORM CONSCIOUSNESS;
kaya=vesture, body, form. See VOICE p.77.

>the forms and the lesser lives making up the forms can react and
>respond to the macrocosm, which is very necessary. That's why for
>people who don't recognize cosmic intelligences, angels, etc., they
>are headed for pain, because an ego controlling its bodies is not >what
is intended by the scheme of evolution.

This word, "controlling" produces in our "independent" out-look
reactions, and we want to control nothing at all. We should use another
word and the reaction minimizes. The word, as I suggested is IMPRESS,
we have to impress the lives with our Buddhi-Manasic principle, thus
up-lifting them and preparing them for their place as a future humanity
in manvantaras to come. As to the lives being left to themselves to
move in their own areas 'macrocosm,' they woudl remain in their own
lowly, material world, unprogressing. I quote below from ISIS : --
"Most of the Western Christian Kabalists—pre-eminently Eliphas
Lévi—in their desire to reconcile the Occult Sciences with Church
dogmas, did their best to make of the "Astral Light" only and pre-
eminently the Pleroma of early Church Fathers, the abode of the Hosts
of the Fallen Angels, of the "Archons" and "Powers." But the
Astral Light, while only the lower aspect of the Absolute, is yet dual.
It is the Anima Mundi, and ought never to be viewed otherwise, except
for Kabalistic purposes. The difference which exists between its
"light" and its "Living Fire" ought to be ever present in the mind of
the Seer and the "Psychic." The higher aspect, without which only
creatures of matter from that Astral Light can be produced, is this
Living Fire, and it is the Seventh Principle. It is said in "Isis
Unveiled." In a complete description of it : —
 "The Astral Light or Anima Mundi is dual and bisexual. The (ideal)
male part of it is purely divine and spiritual, it is the Wisdom, it is
Spirit or Purusha ; while the female portion (the Spiritus of the
Nazarenes) is tainted, in one sense, with matter, is indeed matter, and
therefore is evil already. It is the life-principle of every living
creature, and furnishes the astral soul, the fluidic perisprit, to men,
animals, fowls of the air, and everything living. Animals have only the
latent germ of the highest immortal soul in them. . . . . This latter
will develop only after a series of countless evolutions ; the doctrine
of which
evolution is contained in the Kabalistic axiom : 'A stone becomes a
plant ; a plant, a beast ; a beast, a man ; a man, a spirit ; and the
spirit, a god.'" (Vol. I., p. 301, note.)
 The seven principles of the Eastern Initiates had not been explained
when "Isis was written, but only the three Kabalistic Faces of the
semi-exoteric Kabala. But these contain the description of the mystic
natures of the first group of Dhyan Chohans in the regimen ignis, the
region and "rule (or government) of fire." Which group is divided into
three classes, synthesized by the first, which makes four or the
"Tetraktis." (See Comments on Stanza VII, Book I.) If one studies the
Comments attentively he will find the same progression in the angelic
natures, viz., from the passive down to the active, the last of these
Beings being as near to the Ahamkara element (the region or plane
wherein ego-ship or the feeling of I-am-ness is beginning to be defined)
as the first ones are near to the undifferentiated essence. The former
are Arupa incorporeal ; the latter, Rupa, corporeal.
 In Volume II. of Isis (p. 183 et seq.) the philosophical systems of
the Gnostics and the primitive Jewish Christians, the Nazarenes and the
Ebionites, are fully considered. They show the views held in those
days—outside the circle of Mosaic Jews—about Jehovah. He was
identified by all the Gnostics with the evil, rather than with the good
principle. For them, he was Ilda-Baoth, "the son of Darkness," whose
mother, Sophia Achamoth, was the daughter of Sophia, the Divine
Wisdom (the female Holy Ghost of the early Christians)—Akasa;
while Sophia Achamoth personified the lower Astral Light or Ether.
Ilda-Baoth, or Jehovah, is simply one of the Elohim, the seven
___________
 * They are found, however, in the Chaldean Book of Numbers.
 † The astral light stands in the same relation of Akâsa and Anima
Mundi, as Satan stands to the Deity. They are one and the same thing
seen from two aspects : the spiritual and the psychic—the
super-ethereal or connecting link between matter and pure spirit, and
the physical. See for the difference between nous, the higher divine
wisdom, and psyche, the lower and terrestrial (St. James iii. V. 15-17).
Vide "Demon est Deus inversus," Part II. of this volume.
 ‡ Ilda-Baoth is a compound name made up of Ilda [Hebrew ], "a child,"
and Baoth ; both from [ Hebrew ] the egg, and [Hebrew ]Baoth, "chaos,"
emptiness, void, or desolation ; or the child born in the egg of Chaos,
like Brahmâ.
________
creative Spirits , and one of the lower Sephiroth. He produces from
himself seven other Gods, "Stellar Spirits" (or the lunar ancestors
*),...." S.D. I p.196-7.
~~~~~~~~~~
I am only trying to be helpful, in trying to clarify some thoughts,
 Sophia Nov.9, 1997