Theos-Talk Archives (October 1998 Message tt00018)

>>>I believe that "crossing the Abyss" has a special meaning for
>>>some students.  But I have not met it as an expression in the
>>>writings of HPB.  The abyss needs definition.
>>>
>>
>>She calls it a Ring-Pass-Not, Dallas.
>>
>Is this similar then to the usage of it in THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
>by the Egyptians, as after death the states of consciousness
>available to the Monadic Ego change - body being eliminated there
>is 1st. Kamaloca, and
>2nd. Devachan.  [   SD I 90 129-135 ]
>

Yes, although we really don't know exactly what the ancient
Egyptians taught--I did my own translation, but quite a few
other possibilites exist. The physical body is confined to the
physical plane, and so the astral (or etheric, if you prefer)
is its Ring-Pass-Not, and so on. The Abyss that I keep
referring to, is the Ring-Pass-Not for the human mind; it is
the end-point of all human conception. There have been all
manner of speculation about this Abyss (Kenneth Grant,
the leader of Europe's OTO has written several books on
it, and of which I have reservations) but I just see it as the
end-point of the human mind which has to be crossed over
by consciousness in order to directly perceive spirituality.
The crossing itself is similar, IMHO, to the Zen idea of
satori.



>The Abyss separates the upper three planes/principles from
>the lower four.
>
>
>That I grasp as the thread of the Antaskarana between the Higher
>and the Lower Manas unites them and bridges that gap  [ Key to
>Theosophy explains, I think ]
>
>Thanks Dal
>


Agreed. The Antaskarana is the "bridge" that we use to cross
over our inner Abyss (the external cosmic Abyss is usually called
the Great Outer Abyss to distinguish it from the inner Abyss
within each of us--our microcosmic Abyss, if you will).

Jerry S.