Theos-Talk Archives (September 1998 Message tt00105)

>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.
>

As far as I know, this has already taken place.


>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.
>

The ideas of progression,  evolution, and the oneness of life are indeed
universal.


>As Patanjali once said (approx.):  "What is to be avoided is the
>identification of the Seer with the seen."

The mystic realizes this identification while most of us don't. If this is
what Patanjali actually said, then we are all doing this just fine.


>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 think the problem lies in the aftermath of meditation when we have to
interpret our experiences and put them into thoughts and words. The
experiences themselves are likely similar if not identical. The
interpretations
tend to be personal or at least cultural.



> 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).

According to Jung, it all begins and ends with imagery. But according to
Tibetan Masters, hearing is above seeing as you say. It is my experience
that imagery itself is above words, which seem to persist only on the
mental plane. When my consciousness returns to the mental plane after
meditation, I tend to seek words in order to "explain" and assimilate my
experiences. Sometimes I have to re-adjust my world view accordingly
in order to "fit" the experiences into a healthy mental framework. In this
way I grow.


> 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.
>

Yes, it still holds. I suspect that you are right here, and I wouldn't get
angry in any case as you well know. We are using different words to
say pretty much the same thing, I think. The question is whether the
meditation experiences are themselves different or whether the
after-meditation interpretations are different. I suspect the latter.

Jerry S.