Theos-Talk Archives (August 1998 Message tt00136)

Aug 12th 1998

Dear Tony:

I will try to interject comments in the text of your observations below.

IMO no symbol can be pushed literally into a corner.  It exists to evoke the
intuition of the viewer, and encourages the thinking of the devotee who
seeks to grasp the intent of the designer of the symbol and its value as
representing a certain truth, or a series of truths.

Sorry if this sounds awfully slippery -- but it is difficult to pin down a
definite interpretation -- we each one of us, evolve our own.

Please see the notes I add below.

Dal

> Date: Tuesday, August 11, 1998 4:29 PM
> From: "Alpha (Tony)" <alpha@dircon.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: - What does Theosophy deal with ?

>Paul wrote:
>>Dallas wrote:
>>
>>> 1.    The manifested Universe we sense in various ways emanates from the
>>> ABSOLUTE indescribable "background" which forms the timeless and
>>> dimensionless basis for all our limitations in time and space.
>>
>>"Background" is an interesting term.
>>
>>On the first (un-numbered) page of PROEM ("The Secret Doctrine", 1888) we
>>find:
>>
>>"On the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull black
ground."
>
>THEN:
>"On the following page, the same disk, but with a central point."
>
>Is the following page "on" the same leaf, hence literally the same disk,
>within the leaf (the dull black ground)?  But with a central point.

=====================================================
DAL:

I have no idea what the physical "leaf" or "leaves" look like and must
depend on HPB's description.

There is a change from a white disc to a white disc with a point as I see
it.  The "germ" in the "egg" is introduced there.  It is Kosmic as well as
human -- since man is the microcosm of the Macrocosm.

=============================================
>
>The text commences, "AN Archaic Manuscript - a collection of palm leaves. .
>. ."  Here it seems as if only one palm leaf is referred to - what about
the
>other leaves.  Do they relate to other Kosmos?  Or to other
>Manvantaras/Pralayas....? like leaves on a "tree?"


===================================================
DALLAS:

Again, I would say that that is not important, as each manifestations of
Kosms is a reproduction of the continuing effects of the one primary and
indefinable Causeless Cause.

It is our embodied minds that demand definition and precision in
limitations, while to my understanding, these symbols are reflective of the
general rules of "Analogy and Correspondence" which HPB says obtain
throughout the whole system.

The symbols may indeed represent many Kosmoses simultaneously, or the One
Grand KOSMOS -- or, also Mankind as a developing UNIT and each individual
HUMAN SOUL as an individual development that mirrors the vast whole.

==========================================

>>
>>Further down it states:
>>
>>"Only the face of the Disk being white and the ground all around black,
>>shows clearly that its plane is the only knowledge, dim and hazy though it
>>still is, that is attainable by man."
>
>This seems to be a long way from "an immaculate white disk,"and man can
only
>reach the FACE of the Disk, and yet it is still the same disk.
>an immaculate white disk within
>a central point, is this only on the face of the disk, does it spring out
of
>the disk? Does it relate to the dull black ground?

======================================================

Dallas:

I am not able to grasp what you seem to observe here.  We have dull
background, or DARKNESS;  Circumference;  White Disc,  Central Dot.

These are plane surface renderings of that which is a volume a Sphere.  We
have to visualize more than just a surface.

There is a paradox: " the Center which is everwhere and the Circumference
which is no-where."  This expresses to me the idea of the illimitable and
incommensurate quantities we are dealing with on the plane of archetypes --
a time and period prior to actual concretizaton in such matter as we can
grasp.

=======================================
>
>Tony
>
>
>>
>>What is "immaculate white disk"? Space?  It (only) *represents* "Kosmos in
>>Eternity".  It is "within" a "dull black ground".  Why dull?  It seems a
>>curious term. Is dull black ground symbol of Be-ness
===================================================
DAL:

Be-ness -- Absoluteness -- the indefinable -- ever BEING,  etc....

=================================================

>
>>What of "disk" and "Disk" (spot the difference)?  It is not circle or
sphere
>>or ring, for example.  What of the "face" of the "Disk"?  Is it literally:
>>"being", "white" (as distinct from Be-ness, black)?
>>
>>Before PROEM (un-numbered page) is a 'blank' page.  No words/text are on
it;
>>no-thing. But what's "within"?
>>
>>Comments/clarifications most welcome.
>>
>>Kindest regards,
>>Paul (Bazzer)
>>
>
>
>
>