Theos-Talk Archives (June 1998 Message tt00758)

> >Could be more of a Dark Night of the Soul than an abyss.
> >These are two different things.
> ==========================================
>
> Dal:     Only a "dark night" (emotional description) to the lower
> mind.  But it has the capacity, with the help of the Higher Mind,
> (IMHO) to universalize and to dispel this dire anticipation,
> realizing that it, too, is an immortal and by learning it can
> dispell fear and the ignorance that causes it.
> =================================================
>
Dallas, have you gone through the Dark Night of the Soul yet?
I did. It wasn't pretty. And I would never say "only" a dark
night. The whole point of the Dark Night is that the ego is
cut off from the Ego or higher self and is filled with doubt.
I was obsessed with reading and study until the dawn finally
rose for me.


> Dallas:
> Yes, I too see order and seeming Chaos.  But I also mentally
> visualize a greater environment which runs in grand cycles of
> time, as also of place and being.  Are those to be called CHAOS,
> or is there not hinted in the  S D a regularity called the "great
> Breath" or the "pulsations" that vibrate throughout eternity ?
>  SD I 27  # 8 )
> >
Time and space form cosmos or order. This orderly cosmos rests
on a sea of Chaos. Light shines only in a background of
darkness. Existence only makes sense in terms of nonexistence.
HPB's vision of planetary chains involving and evolving
through manvantaras is her Theosophical description of cosmos,
but Darkness & Chaos are behind it all and just as valid.



> DAl:  I agree with Mr. Long.  We frame our own pictures of these
> things and sometiems our ability is not as extensive as is needed
> in terms of ideals, ultimates and universals -- so we find we
> have to change and enlarge them ultimately as more factors are
> grasped.  I fing this happening with me all the time.  But they
> are not destructive (I find)  of the original premises, merely
> details and add-ons to the picture.  Then I find that one has to
> be so careful in what one says and the illustrations one uses, as
> they can be so easily misunderstood.  So much time is then spent
> in adjusting ideas between each other.
>

OK. We seem to agree that our worldview must also change
to conform to our experiences.


> Dal:  I would say that the animal kingdom in all its diversity is
> illustrative of the many different kinds of instincts that are
> under development there, which lead ultimately in those immortal
> "Monads" that are animating the collective intellligence that we
> call "an animal," ( Potential Men)  to their ultimate
> individualization in another Manvantara yet to come.  HPB seems
> to me to describe this process in some detail beginning Vol. 1,
> p, 153 to p. 299.  She then amplifies the details in Vol. 2.  She
> says that the Secret Doctrine teaches "history"  SD I 267 top.  A
> rather significant statement.
>

OK. The only difference between a mineral, a plane, an
animal and a human being is time.



> Dal:
> It is not "chaos" that I would throw away at all, but behind
> either order or chaos must stand a larger background that
> encompasses them and of which we have only the S D to describe
> their probable arrangements -- which are under the primary Law of
> Karma, as I uinderstand it  (not human karma) but a UNIVERSAL
> KARMA.
>

Behind duality is nonduality. Karma is the law of causality
in our dualistic world. Nonduality doesn't need karma.
The SD says little to nothing about nonduality except to
call it the name Beness, which is as good as any.


> As "pairs of opposites" they cannot be "thrown away."  they need
> each other, but the fact that we can visualize them both,
> indicates that there is something in "us" which transcends those
> limits.  Or am I wrong ?

You are exactly right. It all must be transcended.


> Dal.  (SD I 90, 129-135)
> The "Ring Pass-Not" in the 'Book of the Dead' of Egypt, as I
> understand it, refers to the abyss between our life and the
> after-death states.  It also refers to the stages of Initiation
> whereby one passes up the ladder of becoming wise, and the,
> wiser.  Each life, for those who are determined, in retrospect
> shows evidence of this process.
>

There are many such ring-pass-nots. I think that we were
refering to the Great Outer Abyss (or Veil of the Abyss)
which is the ring-pass-not for the human mind (at a
point called Daath).


> The fact that this stage is described indicates to me that there
> are those who have passed through it consciousnly and are able to
> describe its purpose, as well as its being.  What man has done,
> Man can do !

Agreed. Consciousness is what passess through the Abyss, not
thinking.

Jerry S.