Theos-Talk Archives (November 1998 Message tt00238)

Jerry S wrote:
>To answer any such questions, I can only speak for myself and base
>my responses on my experience rather than on all the conflicting
>information that I have read and digested mentally. With that in
>mind:

>>1 - Why should I (we) accept that 'as above, so below' is an axiom?
>
>I accept this because my experiences demonstrate it.

I probably didn't phrase this question correctly. My definition of an axiom
is a self-evident truth and as such I am asking why is 'as above, so below'
self evident? Your answer is perfectly acceptable for you because your
experience has demonstrated it.....But for others who have not experienced
it........


>>2 - What is the final goal? Non-existence?
>

>Non-existence is no better or worse than existence since
>both are polar opposites and neither have meaning without
>the other. No, the ultimate "goal" is transcendence over
>all dualities.

I suppose what I mean is what state of consciousness is the preferred state
in that I was assuming for non-existence the absence of all forms of
consciousness. Thus there would be no knowledge of suffering or desire let
alone anything.


>>3 - Why do anything at all, especially incarnate?
>

>There is one and only one answer: because I wanted to.
>My own personal desire, for whatever reason, is the
>compelling force. I think for me, the reason is just to
>have a neat adventure.

Sorry once again I haven't phrased myself well. I wish I was more f**king
eloquent : ) . I meant for any being at all to incarnate..to commence
existence, not on a personal basis, as I too would entirely agree with your
response.


>>4 - Where is Guatama Buddha right now? He knows that we are all just
>>figments of his imagination - so why help illusory beings?

I really want to know where the defintion of Maya draws the line. If all
existence is illusory, then are not the beings of this existence illusory
as well. I get a scary feeling in some of HPB's writings that has to do
with 'inventing oneself out of the illusory' although once agin my
phraseology is poor.

>Buddha, according to Buddhism, went into nirvana. The teaching
>that we are just figments of imagination and not in need of help is
>taught by the Hinayana or Theravadin School.  This school contains
>the so-called pretyekabuddhas. The Mahayana and Vajrayana teach
>differently.

>>5- Is loneliness the driving force of the absolute?
>
>Absolutely not. In fact, it is loneliness, the sense of isolation
>and separation, that is the Great Heresy and chief attribute
>of maya. We are alone below the Abyss. We are collectively
>together above the Abyss.
>

Yes sorry again. I know the absolute as a concept can have no attributes
but at the apex of the spiritual hierarchy, that consciousness, must know
that all beings proceeding from it are of it's own ideation and hence have
no intrinsic reality - it must know it is truly alon in the universe - This
is typical psychosis and ends in universal schizophrenia of which we all
play a part.

>>6- Does every individual sperm have a unique 'entity' ?

>Every single atom of matter does.

>From experience I can agree with this because the only time I've been able
to regress to a previous existence is as a mineral form. But how do I know
that I was that mineral form in it's not just hereditary memory passed by DNA.

>>7- Is onanism murder of sperm?
>
>Yes, and we murder countless insects every time we step
>across the grass, and animals and vegetables in order to eat.
>Life and death are a timeless dance, and we cannot have
>life without death, and vice versa. For me to live, something
>else has to die. Annie Besant discusses this in what she
>calls the need for sacrifice; probably the best thing she ever
>wrote.

This was just the answer I was looking for.....Where does Karma draw the
line on actions - motivation or effect? If I eat a cow is that the same as
swatting a fly or letting all the poor little sperm drown in a semen grave.


>>8- What happens to the sperm that don't make it - try and try again?
>

>Exactly the same thing that happens to anything that dies. You
>can't be born unless you're dead first, and you can only die if
>you first accept birth.

What I meant was does the entity occupying the sperm return to a devachanic
existence or immediately return to another sperm body (or even egg). It
seems to me the length of devachan at any given moment in history would
depend on how many vehicles are being produced (through sex), so if many
'insert appropriate word here' are waiting to incarnate but there are few
vehicles then devachan must obviously be lengthened (however the Time in
devachan must be subjective as well)

>>9- Does the egg have all 7 principles before fertilization?
>
>Every single atom, every material particle, has its principles.
>HPB says somewhere that "not a plane or subplane can be
>skipped" or words to the effect that in order for a material
>particle to exist, it has to come through the causal,
>mental, and astral cosmic planes first.

So fertilization is just a purely alchemical process and the skandhas of
the incarnating entity determine the ego and not the attributes of the
parents?


>>10 - Can more than one entity occupy a physical body at the same time?

>Yes. It not only can, but does all the time. The idea of multiple selves
>is an old one. Please see David-Neel on Tibetan Buddhism which
>also teaches this. It is only when an entity (read in Jungian terms as
>a "complex") takes over control that we have true possession.

Is the voice in my head a seperate entity or a function of my chemical
brain. When I do mantra meditation, forcing the voice to repeat the mantra,
say OM MANA PADME HUNG, I find that a second voice has the ability to cause
thought simultaneously above or behind the mantra. It is a different
process to plain old thinking verbally in that I do not direct the thoughts
at all.


Getting crazier....

Darren