Theos-Talk Archives (September 1998 Message tt00096)

Richard Ihle>
<< >First, let me put everyone on notice that I come to you as a Theosophist;
 that
 >is, someone who speaks in some degree from his or her own authority as a
 >result of at least some personal experience with the "less differentiated"
 >("divine") states of consciousness.

Jerry Schueler>
 That goes for me too.  Isn't everyone on this list?

R.I.>
Perhaps so, Jerry, but we could probably use a few more like you who are
willing to assert their personal authority even when it seems to contradict
Authority (HPB).

G.S.>
What should the TS be accomplishing?  At least one purpose is to maintain
 the original literature (i.e., form a library), which they do rather well.

R.I.>
Agreed.  Let them throw away the Third Object and all become librarians.

R.I.>
 >So anyway, we have these true Theosophists watching more or less the same
 >inner sequence for perhaps thousands and thousands of years.  Is it too
 far-
 >fetched to imagine that the thought came to many of them, "If that is what
 my
 >own inner life is like, perhaps that is how things are macrocosmically as
 >well"?  No, not far-fetched to me, at least.

G.S.>
 The only problem here is that few, if any, observed exactly the same things.
 The subjective nature of the inner (or higher) planes eventually led to the
 formation of many different schools and Teachers.  A similar thread runs
 through them all, but it is esoteric and not put into words.

R.I.>
I bet you think my pusillanimous four or five planets plus ascendant in Libra
is incapable of giving anybody a flat, unembellished ~no~ when the situation
seems to call for it, don't you?

No.

(Damn, that was not easy.)

No, I am convinced that the ~inner sequence~ of Breath, stone, plant, animal,
man, angel, God/god (animating, physical, desire-feeling, desire-mental,
mental, Spirit-mental, "Atma-Buddhi") is the one thing which doesn't change.
I am completely serious when I assert that its unfailing appearance to
meditative observers is the reason that I believe all of the esoteric writings
could disappear today and yet reappear thousands of years later with most of
the same exact structural components.

As Patanjali once said (approx.):  "What is to be avoided is the
identification of the Seer with the seen."  From the "analytic-meditative"
point of view I am talking about, what is important is to successively observe
WHAT IS TO BE AVOIDED (i.e., what threatens to take one's
attention--differentiate/transmogrify the Undifferentiated I AM--completely)
at each stage.  I am sure you know what I am talking about in a general sense.
Where I tend to confuse people, I think, is when I designate something like
the merging with a passing thought, feeling, or the pain of a toothache as an
"ego-formation" (semi-Self).  Well, do we want to have an articulated
~psychological~ "working hypothesis" or don't we?  Myriads of potential semi-
Selves with six levels of consciousness out of which/at which they can form at
does the descriptional job for me at least.

Now, I think the reason we seem to disagree on this is that you may have much
more of an "image orientation" than I do when it comes to meditation.  I, like
Eldon, if I remember correctly in the infamous "psychism" debate you had with
him a long time ago, tend to regard internal imagery as something which
naturally passes away and is replaced by a more inner-verbal experience (which
in turn dissolves into a strange sort of "knowing-without-specific-words" type
of consciousness).  After pondering what at first seemed a paradox (the
paradox is that I respect no one on this list more than you), I came to the
conclusion that perhaps the way of your type of Magic must be to purposefully
cultivate these images and then "work with them" in either manas ("talk-
thought") or even Buddhi-manas ("Spirit-talk/non-talk") consciousness.  If
this is the case (and don't get too pissed off if it is not the case), the
inner sequence of consciousness we have been talking about would still hold
up, it seems to me.

Well, I had better leave off here for tonight.  Thank you and

Godspeed,

Richard Ihle