Theos-Talk Archives (December 1998 Message tt00012)

Jerry:

Regarding the idea of liberation in a single lifetime,
we have to consider a number of questions. Liberation
from what? For how long? And why?

The Hindu philosophy stresses the timeless nature of
life, considering vast time periods of billions of
years. They have metaphors like the time it would take
to wear down a mountain, were it brushed with a feather
once every century.

Buddhist philosophy emphasizes the immediacy of the
spiritual, the hear-and-now aspect of it, and seeks
immediate liberation, nirvana, either for the seeker
right away, or for everyone, as soon as the Bodhisattvas
can do their work and get us out of this hellish world.

But is the world hellish? Is it important to get out
of here as soon as possible? Are their qualities of
consciousness denied us because we are on this lowly
physical plane?

First, I'd say that I think that the kind of
liberation achieved in a single lifetime is short-lived.
It would be like leaving school early in the afternoon,
and taking a day or two off. It might result in a
few skipped lifetimes, but not true escape from the
wheel of birth and rebirth.

As to karma going on forever, it's like saying that
buddhi has to be one of our seven principles forever.
Karma is basically relationship, living bonds between
beings, a dynamic give-and-take that can contain, at
any point in time, unfinished business, things still
needing resolution. Anywhere, everywhere we come into
being, we interact with others, make karma, and become
at home. The karmic bonds are those of caring, of
shared living, of co-dependence, of mutual participation
in life. To become karma-less in a particular world
means to have worked out and left behind all ties
with beings on that world, while at the same time
forging bonds with fellow beings elsewhere.

I'm not sold on the importance of liberation. The
goal of becoming a non-being on this world, seeking
life elsewhere, begs the basic purpose of life, as
I understand it: expressiveness. One should seek, I
think, to become an outlet of greater and greater
light in the world, being more-and-more creative,
compassionate, wise, helpful. This is the opposite
of exiting the scene for greener pastures.

The highest liberation, as I see it, is from the
distorting aspect of the personality, of the pettiness
of the lower mind, of the selfish nature. Then one
can allow the higher, deeper aspects of life to
shine through one, untainted and unsullied by one's
lower nature.

I'd agree that Theosophy is not Buddhism, nor any
popular religion, even if there are close correspondences
at times. You may have been thinking of the Purucker
quote I posted once, when you mention that I proposed
"that Theosophy is simply not Buddhism."

As I see it, at a certain level, not quite the
highest, not quite the Unknowable, is a plane or
level of consciousness where we experience timelessness,
where we are distinctly ourselves, unique, unchanging,
beyond the manifest world in space/time. At this level,
we *are* immortal, distinct selves. A bit higher, deeper
within, at a deeper level of consciousness, that sense
of distinctness goes away, but that doesn't invalidate
the monadic level, it doesn't go away simply because
at a deeper, equally timeless level, that awareness
disappears.

-- Eldon