Theos-Talk Archives (July 1998 Message tt00166)

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> From: "Brenda S Tucker" <brenda@theosophy.com>
> Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 08:01:40 -0700
> Subject: karma
>
> At 09:02 AM 11/7/1997 EST, you wrote:
> >According to Jerry Schueler:
> >>
> >> Good or bad can be found in the motive, not in the operation itself.
> >>
> >> Jerry S.
> >
> >That's disregarding the *effect* of the "operation" on others.
> >Which can certainly be good or bad, or mixed.
>
> I'm reading STUDIES IN THE BHAGAVAD GITA by A Dreamer to prepare for a
> speech on karma and reincarnation that's coming up and I'm really learning
> something. The book discusses how soul powers or latent egoic energies
> unfold in individuals in manifestation and one striking point is that the
> book doesn't claim we should use our egoic energies to always keep our
> vehicles under control. The book claims that pleasure draws forth the egoic
> energies and that pain forces a withdrawal of the ego for the desired
> effect: the vehicles, including of course the atoms, can now respond to all
> of the other outer lives around them. That without a harmonizing with the
> outer - Ishvara or Logos - in manifestation, these lives are being thwarted
> in their path towards independence and self-consciousness. The ego's
> purpose is to know itself and through contact with the lower worlds of form
> the egos express and that once these powers are revealed, the ego no longer
> needs the form. At the indrawing where the ego "lives in the eternal"
> existing without form consciousness, the forms and the lesser lives making
> up the forms can react and respond to the macrocosm, which is very
> necessary. That's why for people who don't recognize cosmic intelligences,
> angels, etc., they are headed for pain, because an ego controlling its
> bodies is not what is intended by the scheme of evolution. The ego is to
> unfold its powers and then live without bodies for a time. The atoms have
> to be developed by the ego's energies and vibrations, but also by the
> energies which man must recognize: cosmic laws of logoic forces, so we only
> have a part in raising them to self-consciousness. The Logos has the other
> part.
>
> Hi Brenda,

I don't know which version of the Bhagavad Gita you are reading but it doesn't sound like one
that gives a literal transalation of the Sanskrit.  Most of the above is utter hogwash.   The
Gita is all about personality and form, and marks this as the highest goal.  Unfortunately
impersonalist writers over the years have added their own agenda to the Gita, totally ignored or
twisted the direct plainly evident words or Lord Krishna and used the whole lot to satisfy there
own outlook.  The only Gita I would recommend (even though I don't agree with many of the
purports) is the Bhagavad Gita As It Is  by Swami Prabupada.  The great benefit of this edition
is that the translator gives the Sanskrit, Sanskrit in roman letters, a word for word breakdown
of each Sanskrit word followed by a paragraphical translation of the sentence.   This is then
followed by a purport which is the authors viewpoint or interpretation.  Although the author
makes great show of not having altered anything and presents the Gita as it is, because he has
gone to great lengths with the Sanskrit as outlined above, you can clearly see where he has in
fact used either his or someones else's idea.



>
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> From: "Brenda S Tucker" <brenda@theosophy.com>
> Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 08:01:46 -0700
> Subject: Re: karma
>
> Dear Sophia,
>
> The book describes it like this. (Keep in mind I've only read the first two
> chapters.) The ego sends forth its energies into the forms at different
> times during any one life. The reason it pours forth its energy is that the
> forms have experienced a pleasureful event that "calls" forth the ego's
> powers. (I guess the ego finds the vibration similar to its own.) The
> problem is that if man focuses only on this aspect of life - the outpouring
> of the ego into form - the form is unable to sustain the level of work
> required by such a constant egoic outpouring. We all need cycles of rest
> and activity. If there is an excess of egoic energies pouring into a form,
> the form becomes frozen or paralyzed according to this author, unable to act.

This sounds like a load of nonsensical gobbledigook to me. It is clearly illogical and
unsustainable.  How did this ego arise, where did it come from, why did it come from, how did
all these illusions transpire and why, and why are we suffering when according to the above, the
formation of an individual is a false or temporary state, is the ALL so aweful and horrible that
it forces egos to suffer.  That is what we are talking about here.  As soon as you make us all
ONE, the one is a monster, a sado a maschist of terrible proportions because it being one, has
no personal free will of others to concern it's self with and can end all this sorry mess in a
moment.  Yet this is not happening.  You cannot claim that any of us has any personal
responsibity if all we are is a illusory projection.  Brenda this impersonal nonsense is not
only obvious rubbish it is very dangerous rubbish at that!

Under such notions you can forget all about love, compassion, or anything else like it.  The
absolute becomes a self gratifying machine, enjoying all the suffering going on.  It is isn't,
why doesn't it end this.  We are not individuals in reality in the view of this writer, so what
purpose is there to let us keep suffering or being in this universe.  Anything that arises is
not eternal by definition.



>
>
> What results when the egoic outpouring ends is the lesser lives try to
> accomplish what the ego was doing ("impressing" was your choice of words).
> If they are good at this (after a few repetitions, I suppose), then the
> bodies are able to accomplish an egoicly initiated action AUTOMATICALLY,
> while the ego is freed to concentrate its energies upon higher functioning.
> The book uses as an example breathing, digestion, etc. - those things that
> have become automatic to us.

To what purpose and why, why, why?  No individuals, just one neverending power engaged in  what?

>
>
> If the ego did not withdraw its energies periodically, there would never be
> the accomplishment of having our activity occur harmoniously and smoothly
> without undue attention. This is karma. Also, The harmony we are looking
> for is threefold: 1) outgoing Ego contacts body and outer world - this
> repetition of contact causes automatic activity, 2) the adjustment by the
> logoic lifewaves to keep harmony as both the Ego's bodies and the lesser
> lives around the Ego (plants, animals, minerals) go without Egoic contact,
> and 3) the automatic Ego impress flooding the body and keeping it
> controlled and working efficiently.
>
> Now the Ego can "view" its Self in its sheaths and can experience "being"
> this way, but the Ego cannot do so (with all of its new unfolding powers)
> independently of the form and this is a goal, because while the Egos use
> form to experience and learn, they're aim is to retain this coloring
> independently of reincarnation in form. The way to learn this is for the
> egoic energy to withdraw back into the ego, an act associated with pain.
> Yogis are especially attentive to whether their ego is energizing the form
> or withdrawing from the form. Their concept of non-attachment is practiced
> so that they can experience existing beyond form. As long as these energies
> occur in cycles, we are providing Ishvara with time with her children and
> providing the children time to exist without egoic control. This is the
> highest harmony, but sometimes people don't recognize that Ishvara is at
> work nor that matter can act in a limited sense without constant egoic
> supervision.
>
> So now we find ourselves faced with a problem. Cosmic intelligence is at
> work in matter and form, sometimes these are referred to as angels or
> devas. As we appreciate the Ego's influx into matter, we try to preserve
> this condition and we desire it because it is pleasureful. Through this
> desire we stifle the true awareness of the lower lives (which should also
> interact with the macrocosm) by trying to hold them to us, the Ego.

If we are all this other thing entirely, non of these errors can happen, they would have to be
deliberate machinations, can't you see this?  If the above was true, one of us returning to the
mix, would return us all, simply because we are all one. The alternative is that "it" wants to
be fragmented and think these things.  If that was true then NO ONE can return on his own,
because whether you do or don't is dependent on the desire of IT.  Therefore there is nothing at
all you or anyone else can do.

The above destroys ALL esoteric practice because it is pointless, you are just a tempory
fragment designed for the self gratification of the monster IT, and you will get out when the
monster IT, tires of the play or adventure.

I am absolutely astounded to near fainting that anyone can give this utter nonsense the time of
day.  I can't see how it has any place in real philosophical matters.

It is easy to write clever speculations like the above but under scrutiny they simply cannot be
true.  The implications pose impossibities or horrors that I am barely able to contemplate.

I am sorry but it fills me dread when I see that such type of stuff even engages the serious
mind.  I feel that YOU know it is rubbish.

Angels are real, they are individuals, beings with pure bodies able to manifest great power of
the soul.

There are two types of EGO pertaining to the marginal or conditional being.  1. False Ego,  that
is the ego  covering our real natures and this developes according to our experience in this
alternate universe.

The second type of ego is the true ego, or divine ego.  It is ultimate and pure self referal
without the coverings of the material universe.    Without Ego or self referal you have
NOTHING.  This is so obvious that I wonder why I am writing it.  If you try to say there is only
ONE ultimate self that is all, then you are back to the problems and outline above and million
more besides.


I find it difficult to believe Brenda that you give any real credence to what you have outlined
above.  It certainly has nothing to do with the Gita.

Allan




> We
> think we are holding our vehicles in harmony, but the cosmic forces are
> giving us pain and misery because we are ignoring them. As long as we
> refuse to recognize the angels and their role, the Ego provides the sole
> means of control over our vehicles, so we think, but this type of body
> cannot vibrate in unison with the cosmic intelligences and so karma is
> created. A body like this can not help much in evolving latent powers of
> the soul because it isn't skilled at freeing itself from the trammels of
> the form because it is inert, frozen, a slave and pain and misery are
> inevitable.
>
> Thank you for your comments and I hope you can continue to enjoy this book
> with me as I make notes on the rest of it.
>
> Brenda
>
>
>
> From: "Bazzer (Paul)" <bazzer@co.uk>
> Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 17:05:39 +0100
> Subject: Re: Value in suffering?
>
> >SD I, 643:
>
> "It is not, therefore, Karma that rewards or punishes, but it is we, who
> reward or punish ourselves according to whether we work with, through and
> along with nature, abiding by the laws on which that Harmony depends, or -
> break them."
>
> SD I, 643/644:
>

Thank you and Yes, it is not Karma alone.   (Allan)

> " But verily there is not an accident in our lives, not a misshapen day, or
> a misfortune, that could not be traced back to our own doing in this or in
> another life."

No, this universe has randomness built in.  It is a chaotic structure in order to allow
competition.  Things do just happen.

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