Theos-Talk Archives (June 1998 Message tt00180)

June 6th 198

        RE:  Cycles, Cataclysms, as evidence of Chaos vs. Law.

Dear Jerry:

According to the Theosophy I am familiar with, tornadoes, tidal
waves, earthquakes, solar flares, draughts, floods, epidemics and
in fact all cataclysms are generated by the turbulent aspects of
our human emotions and thoughts -- their impact on the
"elements."  In which case even destructive events are the
product of the destructive aspects of our thinking and choosing.
They do not happen at random and when they do occur they involve
those persons who in this life or in earlier ones had contributed
to their formation.  You may say this is far-fetched.

But, if we are dealing with living beings everywhere, each with
its own intelligence and a nature that is not destroyed when it
is dispersed, then we are dealing with the ethical impact of our
acts, thoughts and feelings on those beings that compose our
bodies and the rest of our environment, in one way or another.
To look at such events as fortuitous, chancy, or lucky (or the
reverse) is to say that we do not yet know the laws under which
they occur.  But to say that there is no law simply means that we
do not know of any, yet.

The Theosophist says as I understand it, that there is a great
Law that causes all things to be.  And that embodied in this law
are the concepts of a perfection, or a kind of "graduation,"
towards which every class of being is progressing, each in its
own way.  It is expressed as cooperation and as brotherhood.

Man's mind enables him to view a far wider range of causation
than other beings can.  His problem as I se it, is that he is
encased in a body that has only a limited span of life and of
opportunity for progress, but his Mind enables him to span time
as a universal, and an eternal concept -- the two are at either
end of the spectrum of reason and therefore there is a continuing
conflict between the limits of the physical environment and the
unlimited range of the mind.

The range of the field of emotion (and desire or passion) form
still a different range of sensation and feeling, and they are
viewed with and through the mind's instrumentality.  Their nature
is not yet fully grasped and it seems to me that we are also in
the process of understanding and managing them at present.  it is
another of the several puzzles that we are presented with in our
lives.

Now if you say Karma does not operate anywhere, and it is a
figment of Theosophical delusion then I cannot say anything more.
But there is, as I see it an overwhelming flood of evidence to
show that causes produce effects according to the aim and
intensity of the actor or generator.  So why should Theosophy be
wrong in assigning a probable relationship between cataclysms and
man's generation of emotional cataclysms ?

When I used the word "chaos" I meant something that did not
happen under LAW.  And even cataclysms are the result of a rather
large operation of law.  They are the attempt of nature to bring
about an adjustment in the disturbance we human minds and wills
have imposed (as a great mass of thinking beings) on Nature's
hidden planes.  It is the objective manifestation of those causes
that are subjective (if you will allow me the use of those
terms).

And while we are at it, we could also ask if there is a universal
plan of evolution -- not just of the physical body, as considered
by the archaeologists and the paleo-physiologists, but as HPB
suggests in SD I 181, also of the soul (mind and emotional
natures) and the spiritual nature too.

Interestingly enough, HPB deals with the questions of returning
cycles in her article "The Theory of Cycles," THEOSOPHIST,  July
1880  (ULT Edn. of HPB Articles, Vol. 3, p. 72-3).  On p. 78 she
writes more on this  ("Ancient Doctrines Vindicated,"
THEOSOPHIST, May, 1881).  In her article "Stars and Numbers,"
THEOSOPHIST, June 1881, (p. 405-6 same book) she speaks of the
relation of conjunctions to the intersection of cycles on our
earth involving whole populations.  Dealing with epidemics in an
article entitled "Does Vaccination Prevent Smallpox ?"
THEOSOPHIST, March 1881,
(ULT Edn. HPB Articles, Vol. 1, p. 341) she offers information
about the cycle of the return of diseases.

If you would like to pursue this further then I will advance more
data, but I am sure that you are already aware of these things.

Best wishes,        Dallas.

> Date: Saturday, June 06, 1998 10:23 AM
> From: "Jerry Schueler" <gschueler@netgsi.com>
> Subject: Re: Re: KARMA -- PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE

>>But if we look around and into the affairs of nature we see
laws
>>operating everywhere, chaos nowhere, and cooperation and
harmony
>>far exceed disharmony and strife.  So why should it be
specially
>>absent in human affairs ?
==========================================>
>I am sorry, Dallas, but once again I just can't agree with you.
>I like nature and all, but when I look around I see chaos
everywhere.
>What about a tornado or hurricane or tidal wave? These are
>generally considered to be chaotic (i.e., unpredictable) events.
>Death is as prevalent in nature as life, and chaos as prevelant
>as harmony. Of course, we all tend to see what we want to see...
>
>Jerry S.