Theos-Talk Archives (January 1998 Message tt00076)

Jan 12th 1998

Dallas would like to interject a few reflections  IMHO always:

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> From: "Thoa Thi-Kim Tran" <thoalight@aol.com>
> Subject: Re:Fractals
> Date: Sunday, January 11, 1998 10:32 AM
>
> Philip Greenfield:
> >A friend of mine told that, having seen the programme "The Colours of
> >Infinity"( in which Arthur C. Clarke explains Fractal Geometry and the
> >Mandelbrot Set), how he caught a glimpse of  a possible convergence of
> >viewpoints of the scientist and the religious explorer.
> /iter.htm:

=====================================================
DTB:	I do not think that any system of appreciation, research or recording
is isolated from any other.  We, men-minds, do the apportioning, so that we
can recall facts and decisions we made.  Things-in-themselves are facts and
part of the universal record (Akasa) of progress in a developing and
educative Universe (as I see it).
======================================================


> >"So while the mathematicians ponder fractals, scientists apply fractal
> >boundaries to their data, us common folk have a harmony with their
> >method, their vision.
> >This common ground should not go unnoticed.
> >There seems to be a commonality of language that expresses what is found
> >at the frontiers of knowledge, be it physics or religion..This does not
> >mean that there is a commonality of what is investigated, but only of
> >the way it is expressed.
> >But "the way in which it is expressed" is us, us humans, trying to
> >understand our world.
> >In this, the religious explorer is united with the scientist.
> >And, as the Dalai Lama has said on many occasions..getting to know the
> >world is practice, science is practice.
>
==================================================

DTB;	It seems inevitable that we will assign our own words to the ideas
that we have, and hope that others will tolerate those meanings, and
perhaps we can agree.  As a group we seek confirmation of ideas, in an
attempt to verify their accuracy--at least that is my motive.

=====================================================

> I believe we are multi-dimensional.  Scientists and mathematicians are
also
> in love with the arts, be it music, performance, or the visual arts.  Art
> in the 20th century have evolved beyond being purely sensual.  Art now is
> also abstract, geometrical, mathematical, and conceptual.  When people
> don't understand modern art, it is because they don't understand that art
> has gone beyond the sensual.  Their first and foremost idea when looking
> art is how it appeals to their sensual.  Nowadays, with the advent of the
> computer artist, the boundary between the artist and the engineer is
> further blurred.  Are we evolving into more well-rounded human beings?
>Or, if you believe in reincarnation, is it because the past life
experiences
> and talents have turned up multi-talented souls?  I do not know,
> grasshopper.
>
===================================================
DTB;	Without the concept (and for me, the reality) of reincarnation there
would be no reason for learning, for endeavor, for a concept of progress
and learning and improving and getting to know how and why the Universe
ticks in all its many ways, why this universal sensitivity and relation ?

	If reincarnation is true, then what in me reincarnates ?  Certainly not
the personal ego of this life, but something which surpasses the
ratiocination and curiosity of the personal self, because it can see it in
operation, and sometimes make suggestions that are constructive and
educative to it.  I think HPB in SD II 167 makes a good case for the TWO
EGOS in man, and then supplements these with her answers in TRANSACTIONS OF
THE BLAVATSKY LODGE,  (ULT Edition) pp. 66-76.

=======================================================

> >If you take the cold reality of science and subject it to the warmth of
> >the religious outlook, then a pattern of ethics emerges..You know what
> >to do..And you can be assured of the resonance of your choice between
> >reason and religion.

=======================================================
DTB:  	If by religion you mean re-ligere -- to bind together -- such
binding can be either of cooperative and similarly focused minds, or it can
be an attempt to force superficial agreement in word and and deeds on a
group of people -- a congregation, etc...  which has no read permanency or
value.  The only true value to religion, science and philosophy lies, to my
understanding, in their entire freedom from any external constraints.

If Science is called "cold" then that is because it is supposed to be a
record of events and facts, not of opinions.  If Religion is termed
authority, then what is that authority to rest on ?  opinion, or fact, or
conjecture ?  If Philosophy is to remain pure, then what is its base,
unless, like science or mathematics it relies on impersonal Logic and
Metaphysics that are all- inclusive, impartial and timeless ?

=====================================================
>
> Science, religion, philosophy, psychology, mathematics, and the arts have
> all blurred together, although some hate to admit it.  Everywhere I look,
I
> cannot find one without the others.  The linearity of mathematics have
> given in to non-linearity (intuitional). With linearity, everything can
be
> plotted, compartmentalized and an efficient answer given.  However, >
further knowledge have proven that our world does not act that way.  This
> non-linearity have given us fractals, non-void space, and the quirkiness
of
> quarks.  In addition, separation does not exist.  We find that
objectivity,
> the idea of a thing unaffected by any other thing, does not really exist.

> Even religion has to realize that there is no such thing as separation
> between the omnipotent God with inflexible rules, and people.  With the
> rise of thinking independent of church dogmas, churches find their
> membership dwindling.  To increase and maintain membership, some >
churches have changed their rules to fit with the times.  This is Hegel's
dialectism at work.  It is important that there is an interaction between
religion and reality.

=================================================
DTB:
	Unfortunately what is now called religion and religions are almost,
without exception, in the hands of autocrats (called priests) who claim
(but cannot prove) that they have the ear of a higher but undefinable Power
which they name "God,"...etc...  Hierarchies of imposition have been built
on this basis and as a result there is confusion, ignorance, blind-faith,
and the imposition for the sake of money and power of the will of the
clever over the many wills of the ignorant and the lazy (who do not care to
think or to investigate).

	If the idea of the Law of Karma were accepted generally, and if people
realized they received from just and impartial, impersonal Nature (the
Universe), exactly what they gave out in the way of "goodness-generosity,"
or "badness-selfishness" then there would be responsibility.  As things are
today most of us have been brought up in some religion or another in which
in most cases the idea of responsibility and the LOGIC behind it have not
been taught.  [ Note, IMHO, the failure to teach the basis for ethics and
morality is the failure of all priesthoods everywhere, no matter how much
"good" they do to the poor, etc... They are dedicated to keeping people
ignorant and to hope they can receive "something for nothing." ]

The link lies in understanding what the "skandhas" are and do.  They are
MONADS on the way to self-consciousness, which for the time being adopt a
"lesser" position, so that they can be used by developing self-conscious
minds (you and I).  Their main function is to provide the active agents of
the law of karma in evolution and being connected with Mind-Men, they bring
to each one the exact results of his/her choices as required by universal
justice and mercy.

The education process demands equality for all in opportunity;  and
therefore every choice is balanced with an equal reaction.  Since this may
involve many others the actual event of retribution or of beneficial
accident may take time and show itself in unexpected ways.  Nut, again, we
have not been taught that the Universe was either wise, just or universally
sensitive.  So we encounter these ideas in Theosophy as though they were
new, and sometimes to be feared, as in retrospect our memories are filled
with decisions we made that we knew then, and are reminded now, were not of
the best or highest of motives.
=================================================

I started to read about Hegel and Krisnamurti.  From Krisnamurti, I
> discovered that K used the theory of relativity to come up with mind is
> matter.  From the study of special relativity, I discovered quantum
> mechanics.  From quantum mechanics, I discovered the purely mathematical
> superstring theory.  Finally, from all that, I try to tie it back in with
> the mystical again.
>
===============================================

Thank goodness for the mystical and the philosophical.        Dallas
					Dec 12th 1998

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> Thoa :o)
>
>
>
>