Theos-Talk Archives (July 1998 Message tt00194)

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> From: "Christine Hanson" <cybercmh@aol.com>
> Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 17:41:34 EDT
> Subject: Re: Re: theos-talk-digest V1 #322
>
> Thanks to Allan for that poetic material.  It was inspiring.  I think some of
> people's confusion may lie in what is meant by "person."  Some people think of
> God as an old guy with a long white beard; rejecting that "person," they can't
> conceive of any other qualities that might fall under a concept of Personhood
> that isn't so anthropomorphic.
> Christine Hanson

Thank you Christine.


Allan.

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> From: "Jake Jaqua" <barkus23@aol.com>
> Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 20:19:55 -0400
> Subject: Brahmasutra
>
>     Thanks to Paul for the very interesting SD quote, and
> thanks to Dan C. for the synopsis of "Avaisnava
> Interpretation of the Brahmasutra."  I plead gross
> ignorance. I didn't know that some of Allan's viewpoints
> are held by traditional Indian Schools of thougt.  But, one
> more thing I thought was worth commenting on:
>
> Allan quotes and writes in  #334:
>
> >> ____________________________
>
>       My interpretation of "heirarchies ad infinitum" is that in
> the True Sense - There Is No Absolute.  There is only
> "absolutes" for particular hierarchies.  Parabrahman is
> Infinity.
>       Also,  G. de Purucker  is one of the chief
> Theosophical authors (not acknowledged as a
> Theosophical Teacher by some, which is neither here nor
> there...)  Some of his writings are probably online, but his
> books are sold by: Theosophical University Press,  POB C,
> Pasadena, CA 91109; and Point Loma Publications, POB
> 6507, San Diego, CA 92106.
>     So that is who Purucker is.

Thank you for telling me who he is.  Do you see how the human mind struggles to
comprehend anything outside of a hierarchy?This entire alternate universe is
constructed of hierarchies and most "spiritual" doctrines or works go into details
of this hierarchy and talk of development through them.  Funny that isn't it?
Do you see how difficult it is for people to conceive of the Parabrahman has
having a ever existing self image/images and thereby allowing the possibility of
and ever existing person of God, not having arisen from the Parabrahman but being
an Eternal Integral "part" of it?   I use the word part but there is no REAL
difference between any of the eternal self referrals and the  Parabrahman.
Experience of the Parabrahman as all expansive divine energy is the least of the 3
major spiritual realizations.  At this stage you are only just touching the edge
of reality.  Try throwing away your time conditioning for a few minutes and then
try throwing away "this gives rise to that" etc.  It you manage this you might
find you come to a timeless non begot state.  In this state you may if you try
long enough and hard enough, experience the Parabrahman directly.  If you do,
centre yourself in the experiencer of the state (your I) and if you are
successful, you will feel that you and the Parabrahman are made of the same stuff
that qualitfely you and "it" is the same.  However though you have an sense of
eternal expansion, slowly you will be aware of other "I" in this state and you
will begin to notice that the Parabrahman is like a great ocean that you are
swimming in, and it is moving through you.  Fix the consciousness in the "I" and
realizing this the true identity of your self/soul/spirit  will be clear to you.
At this stage of inquiry into the self the "Super soul" or manifestation of the
divine as "Para Atma" will appear.  Now you will see the connecting web of your
"I" with the Divine "I" of parabrahman that exists within each living being.  With
this knowledge you can then inquire of the highest state from the Para Atma.   You
will then go beyond the veil of the  Parabrahman into the Eternal Ever Existing
Spiritual Sky and Worlds.  There you will find all the self referring
personalities and forms of the Parabrahman or Absolute, that have NO BEGINNING.
At that juncture you will KNOW without doubt that at the last you are HOME, and
that the value of anything else you have thought or done is only of value by
bringing you to this ultimate point.

Allan.

> __________________
> From: "Marshall Hemingway III" <sutratman@aol.com>
> Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 20:14:15 EDT
> Subject: Re: Re: theos-talk-digest V1 #322
>
> Sat-Chit-Ananda is used extensively in Hinduism to describe the Cosmic
> Logos. Existence-Consciousness-Bliss are qualities, both personal and
> abstract, and modes of perfection in Divine Being.
>
> In a tract entitled PERSONAL AND IMPERSONAL GOD by C. Jinarajadasa, it
> says that when the Hindus "postulate Brahman as the Absolute they posit
> certain attributes in the Absolute; one is Chit or energizing Consciousness,
> not a mere abstract intelligence but a dynamic energizing Consciousness; a
> second charcateristic is Ananda, Bliss. The third quality is Sat or Being or
> Be-ness. But what is meant by "being"? Though the word "being" connotes
> a kind of negative quiescent Reality, I think it may be described as having
> some kind of a directing personality in it. What do I mean by that? Is not
> that
> a sort of Personal God in the Absolute?"

Yes it is.  BEING is self referral. Without self referral, the ability to know one
exists, you have nothing.  The act of self referral requires the quality of SELF.
It is impossible to have SELF with no attributes because then you are going back
to a noumenal state.   Take one more step and realize that this is not something
that arose out of something else, it is ever existing and complete.  It is like a
coin. It has two sides.   You can not say one side arose out of the other.  The
coin is the coin as is.  One the one side we have the ever expansive divine energy
on the other we have the Eternal Universe.  You might say from the point of view
of Govinda that the energy arose from the Form and Person.  That may even be how
it seems.  It is the opposite view of the impersonal doctrine.  I don't see it
either way.  They are both co-existing states of absolute being.

>
>
> I have never accepted the impersonalist notion of the Absolute which HPB
> carried over from Buddhism and which she incorporated in her writings. This,
> of course, makes me a heretic and perhaps not a theosophist at all in light of
> the fundamentalist presentation of the philosophy.

Am I mistaken but is what I have written at last being thought about?
>From what I have read so far, Sutraman is closest to what I have been saying and
he certainly appears to me to understand that the ABSOLUTE can not be devoid of
person.  Person is SELF, Person is SELF referral.  Person is BEING.  If you tie
all sorts of human crap to the word that is problem for your comprehension.

Person is Being, is Form.  When Jesus said "I go to sit at the right hand of my
Father", do the readers of this think he was lying?

This  very statement refutes absolutely the "All" as impersonal AND the "Absolute"
as a formless state.


> Thankyou Namaste.

And keep going to the Bhajans.

> Allan
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>