Theos-Talk Archives (January 1998 Message tt00183)

Dear Keith/Kazimir

I'm not sure who I am addressing.

In any case the ABSOLUTENESS (or ABSOLUTE) is not a "thing" in the sense
that we limit things in our physical world.  [ The investigations of
Science take us down in the sub-atomic to particles of force (or waves
?)--something intangible which can only be dealt with mathematically and
non-physically -- conceptually.  So in "reality" we deal with 2 ides:  the
extremely large ABSOLUTE and the extremely "small" also IRRESOLVALBE FORCES
-- THE SAME ABSOLUTE VIEWED DIFFERENTLY.  The tendency we all have is to
reduce analogies to physical things we can grasp with physical mind-sets.

I used the analogy of a "background" having no dimensions in time, space or
in movement.

Look also at "fire."  You can with one candle light all the fires in the
whole Universe and still the original flame (given enough fuel) will
continue undiminished to burn.  In other words it imparts its properties to
others and loses nothing thereby.

I would say that there are to our minds several infinites and several
indefinitenesses.  Hence the confusion and trouble.

Come again if not understood.				Dallas



Dallas TenBroeck

dalval@nwc.net                        (818) 222-8023
                   23145 Park Contessa,
            Calabasas, Ca., 91302, USA.

----------
> From: "Keith Price" <email.msn.com>
> Subject: The word is not the ding-thing
> Date: Saturday, January 17, 1998 9:31 AM
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Kazimir Majorinc" <kmajor@public.srce.hr>
> Date: Thursday, January 15, 1998 4:32 PM
> Subject: Is ABSOLUTE relative?
>
>
> >
> >Dear theosophists,
> >
> >
> >I'd like to comment this Dallas TenBroeck's cite:
> >
> > >> Generally as I read in Theosophy the term "Unmanifested" relates to
the
> >    ABSOLUTE or to ABSOLUTENESS, which is a logical necessity, a
background
> >    from which any "manifestation" (or MAYA) emanates. <<
> >
> >By my opinion, it is too hard word for that meaning. If there is
something
> >'emanated' from that you called ABSOLUTE, than it is clearly that
ABSOLUTE
> >is (at least in some meaning) different from that what is emanated. In
that
> >case
> >ABSOLUTE is limited by this difference.
> >
> >We may propose next characterization of ABSOLUTE:
> >If something is ABSOLUTE, than there is nothing different from it, in
any
> >possible meaning of the world 'different'.
> >
> >If one decide to limit this obviousely extremly strong requirement, he
just
> >limited ABSOLUTENESS. This limitation is not important for most
theories.
> >One may use somehow  smaller words, like THE PRINCIPLE, MOKSHA, GOD, THE
> >ONE, ETERNAL, SUPREME REALITY, SUPREME BEING, GREAT ARCHITECT OF THE
> >UNIVERSE, INFINITY etc... instead the ABSOLUTE.
> >
> >This arguments are similar to what I wrote here before few months
against
> >perfection, although not completely same: they are more logical and do
not
> >involve ethical propositions.
> >
> >================================================

Small or big words are immaterial in conveying ideas.  The real purpose is
to not confuse, but to show what we can all find out concerning such
matters.

We are all seekers for truth.  We present ideas to each other.

So of course we are not going to agree right away, and we need patience to
consider another's ideas and see if they agree with what we know.  any
attempt to do this will inevitably add to our own range of understanding.

Danger lies in "instant rejection," or in "impatience."  Then, indeed, we
may loose a perspective and have to labor a long time to return to it.

Le me return to the illustration of "fire."  Take a closed room, preferably
a large one.  Light a candle and let it burn until it transforms all the
oxygen into carbon dioxide, and ceases to burn because one of the
necessities to burning is reduced to another substance which does not allow
fire.  The room as a whole remains untouched and nothing has been added.
There has been an internal transformation, but the whole taken as a WHOLE
is the same as what we started with, AS A TOTAL.

The illustration has its limits, but, if we view the whole of the ABSOLUTE,
then it is without limits that we can discern.  Within IT innumerable
transformations occur.  IT is not concerned with these.  The products of
transformation may be compared to the interaction of SPIRIT and MATTER.
You may, for the moment of this discussion and analogy, assign to each
element a degree of "intelligence," or of "apparently independent
consciousness."  Are we, humans not able to say:  "I am" and mean that
while we recognize inter-dependence on many cooperating but diverse levels
and involving many other elements, we are essentially ENTITIES ?  Our
"Thinking Selves" are essentially residents within a physical form and yet
we are independent to a large degree from it.

If you desire to query "perfection," then I would simply say that given the
immortality of the Mind-being" it has no time limits within which to
finalize its journey of accumulating experiences.  If you limit the
mind-being in time (say, to this life in this single physical body) you
have an impossible situation, because "perfection" is the result of
"knowing everything, of seeing the inter-acting laws that govern the whole
of Evolution, and finally of cooperating in an appropriate place with all
that.

As to the matter of ethics and morality.  Can this not be simplified and
taken out of the limits of community and the one-life situation.  suppose
that we are indeed living in an unlimited Universe, and that we as finite
Mind-beings can apprehend this infinitude (although we are limited) does
this not indicate that there are Universal Laws which govern all
relationships ?  Are not the bodies that we live in borrowed from Nature,
and are these not subject to the general laws of that kind of matter of
which they are made ?  We could not begin, even with the advances of
Science today, to duplicate a viable human body.  We cannot even create an
ameba.  Nature does this by processes we are still investigating.  I would
say that learning the Laws of Nature, which are universal and impersonal is
the path to acquiring a good ethical and moral basis.  These evidently are
at the root of the idea of Brotherhood, since all beings cooperate
ultimately.

It therefore stands to reason that any being who acts as an independent
agent in opposition to those laws, violates them and turns the whole weight
of natural law on him, not to punish, but to straighten out the error made.
 Our sense of "I-am-ness" of personal "isolation," of the desire to "own
and to possess," these are the errors that we make all the time.
The suffering and the pain we experience and the difficulties in life that
we encounter are the result of Nature trying to draw our attention to our
own ,misguided choices and impulses.

But I also realize that this may be to facile a way of presenting this
concept and also, I may be totally wrong in all that I am presenting.

							Dallas
			====================