Theos-Talk Archives (January 1998 Message tt00086)

>Swabhava -- the mystery of the perceiving SELF seems to lie in each one of
>us, and develops its own views as it reaches out through metaphysics to
>certain ultimate ideas, which, in its own finiteness it cannot fully
>express.  Both the Hindu and Buddhist philosophies consider these, but do
>not define them as dogmas, only as concepts. Theosophy does the same.
>

Buddhism considers it a maya and something to overcome. Theosophy,
at least as G de P writes it, is more Hindu here than Buddhist.


>If we consider each "life-atom," or MONAD to be an immortal pilgrim, then
>it becomes rather easy to me to see it developing as time passes into a
>unit of consciousness which passing through the man-mind state may reach
>the highest states of Gnyan (Wisdom) and become a Buddha or a Dhyani or a
>Dhyan Chohan -- we really have no way to identify these levels of progress
>other than to say, they may exist.

But it is not an immortal pilgrim at all. Only its "ray" is. Thus while
Atma may evolve, the Monad does not. The Buddhist anatma doctrine
suggests that the Atma is illusion or conventional, while only the
Monad is permanent and unchanging. This is the biggest difference,
probably, between Buddhism and Hinduism.


Jerry S.