Theos-Talk Archives (November 1998 Message tt00513)

>Jerry, you seem quite opinionated with some of your "Phooey"
>and "Baloney" comments.  Many of your statements are vague,
>general, undocumented and many times
>simplistic if not downright erroneous.
>

You may be quite right. I cannot argue that in my opinion
a jivamukta is a living being and that HPB calls it a nirvanee
and one who "is separated from matter" which seems to
be baloney. But perhaps the implication of a discarnate
being is taken out of context? If you are saying that she
uses the term as a living karmaless being, then she is
right, but this is not the impression that Dallas gave me,
and rather than check her for myself, I assumed that
Dallas was correct.


>Yet the very last sentence that Dallas quoted above from HPB's
>Thesophical Glossary reads:
>
>"Virtually one who has reached Nirvana during life."
>

You can't have it both ways. Either one is incarnated or
in nirvana, which as I understand it is a discarnate state
of very high spirituality or is she saying that nirvana is a
mental state that we can enter while alive? If so, what is
the difference between that and samadhi? This is not
the way it is intended in most schools of Buddhism.
In most schools one becomes a jivamukta while alive
and then enters nirvana at death. We may be quibbling
over semantics here. The point I was trying to make
is that one can be a living human being and function
without creating any new karma, which according to
Dallas's interpretation of karma is impossible.



>I quote but two sources that will show others (*if not you*) that
>you are overgeneralizing and oversimplifying.
>
>George Feuerstein in YOGA:  THE TECHNOLOGY OF ECSTASY (p. 198) writes:
>
>"At the peak of this ecstatic unification, the yogin reaches the point
>of no return.  He becomes liberated.  According to the dualistic model
>of Classical Yoga, this implies the dropping of the finite body-mind.
>...Some schools of Vedanta, which hold that the ultimate Reality is
>nondual, argue that liberation does not have to coincide with the
>death of the physical body.  This is the ideal of liberation in life
>(jivan-mukti).  Patanjali, however, does not appear to to have
>subscribed
>to it. . . . This is also the ideal of Classical Samkhya. . . ."
>

I have no problem at all with this quote. How does this quote
help your position? It seems to be saying exactly what I said.
The Vedantin teaching is that the body is maintained by
past karma for awhile but produces no new karma (i.e.,
the cause-effect chain is broken, which you and Dallas
say is impossible).


>Bruce M. Sullivan in his HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF HINDUISM writes (p.
>106):
>
>"JIVAN-MUKTI. . . . Most Hindu religious and philosophical traditions
>accept the possibility of one attaining liberation while living, so
>that one continues to live thereafter without generating any
>Karma. . . . [but] the Nyaya philosophical tradition. . . does not admit
>the possibility of liberation until death."
>

Your quote here simply demonstrates exactly what I have been
saying about the various occult schools teaching very different
things. Some schools say yes, and others no. But none of your
quotes indicate to me that the jivamukti (a Hindu term) is in nirvana
(a Buddhist term) which is HPB's line.


>These are two quotes of several that I could give that show that to
>state that "Hinduism" teaches this that or the other is overgeneralizing
>and oversimplifying the issue under discussion.
>

Oh? If this is your problem, then I have to agree. Sorry, but I
have been saying that various schools teach different things
for a long time. Theosophists tend to think that HPB's Masters
were the only such school, or maybe at least the best and
biggest (?).  Whenever anyone, myself included, says that
Buddhism says, or that Hinduism says, or that Chrisitanity
says, it rather goes as understood that we are talking about
most schools/sects/denominations/etc and that exceptions
can always be found. Technically I should have said Vedanta
rather than Hinduism. If this somehow makes you feel better,
then consider it amended. It changes nothing about what I
said about karma though, and it is the original point on karma
that we were discussing--all this quoting is a lot of peripheral
noise to take everyone's mind off my original point, which so
far has not been addressed.


>  I wish I had more time to point out your errors
>by quoting chapter and verse.  Hopefully interested readers will
>consult other sources (Buddhist and Hindu, for example) before
>they naively accept many of your characterizations.
>

God, Dan. I could say exactly the same for you. But the difference
between us is that I am only trying to show an alternative viewpoint,
while you are trying to "prove" something that is unprovable. My
giving you a zillion quotes will change nothing in your mind at all,
you know it and I know it, and I don't have the time.

Jerry S.