Theos-Talk Archives (February 1999 Message tt00042)

Hi all,

Can we please stop referring to the Bardo Thodrol as the Tibetan book of
the Dead - This is not it's name merely a Western interpretation - it's
actual translation would be closer to 'liberation through understanding in
the between'.

Here is what i determine to be the prime difference between Theosophy and
Buddhism - Our aim and the after-death state.

I can't reconcile Devachan with the Bardo states unless HPB meant that all
Bardo states were collectively called Devachan. Now, unlike Devachan, we
can access these Bardo States right now to prove for ourselves whether the
Bardo Thodrol's outline of the after death states is correct.

Consider this table:

Truth Body		Beatific Body		Emanation Body

Death			Between 		Life
Sleep-state		Dream-state		Waking-state
Waking Trance		Waking Magic Body	Waking Gross Body

And then this :

The Six Betweens		Experienced Between

life				birth and death
dream				sleep and waking
trance				dualistic consciousness and enlightened awareness
death point			life and reality
reality			death point and existence
existence			reality and birth

By conscious examination of these transitions and their realtion to three
bodies we can see for ourselves whether the Bardo Thodrols picture of death
and the ability to attain liberation is true. If it holds true, what then
for HPB's devachan? It sounds like a christian subjective heaven to me
personally - but the Bardo Thodrol would consider it just ONE portion of
the after death state - that of the 'hallucinatory theatre'.

Darren





 At 11:00 PM 1/28/99 EST, you wrote:
>
>In a message dated 1/24/99 5:54:55 PM, gschueler@netgsi.com writes:
>
>>But Dallas, HPB not only uses the term wrongly, but even if
>>you look at exactly how she defines it, there is no such an
>>after-death state anywhere mentioned in the Tibetan Book
>>of the Dead. This goes, I think, beyond lingusitics.
>
>How far beyond?  What has the Tibetan Book of the Dead have to do with
>theosophy?  What makes you so sure HPB wrote that definition?  It could have
>been anyone (since, as we all know, she hadn't even finished 1/3 of the
>Glossary before she died.  
>
>As far as "beyond linguistics" goes... It actually goes just far enough
>beyonder into the lowest realm of using it to nit pick theosophy that it
>should be totally ignored by serious students.
>>
>>The term Devachan (spelled bDe ba can) is given an
>>honorable mention in MYRIAD WORLDS where it is said
>>to be the Tibetan for Sukhavati "Blissful Realm." (p. 247).
>>It is not even considered important enough to describe,
>>but in fairness to HBP it is at least mentioned as a "place"
>>somewhere on the inner planes.
>
>Actually, comparing, in a theosophical context, the Tibetan word "bDe ba can"
>and the word "Devachan" as used by HPB to describe a specific after death
>state, is ridiculous... Since, these words would have two different, possibly
>unrelated connotations, and could have no relation to each other.  Therefore,
>any discussion of it being relevant to HPB's teachings of the science,
>philosophy, and ethic of theosophy, is a pointless waste of time.  Either
>HPB's teaching of the final after death state is right or wrong, but whatever
>word is used to identify it has no relevance.  Consequently one must accept
>HPB's description, or not, and either study theosophy, or not, based on that
>decision.  The truths of theosophy can only be intuited, and no objective
>words or concepts can describe its subjective realities.  Labels, are just
>that--and can never represent a thing or idea as they are.
>
>>The question now becomes, Where did HPB get the idea
>>for her definition of Devachan as an after-death state for the
>>ego or jiva?  This could only have come from the bardo of
>>Tibet if you tweak some more definitions.  G de P does
>>try to do this, and his explanation is probably the best that
>>I have ever heard. However, and I think that this is important,
>>he carefully says that Devachan as used in Theosophy as
>>a state of mind and not a place per se.  He points out that
>>the deceased in Devachan could be located anywhere at all. 
>
>G de P is all wet if he said that... Since Devachan is neither a place nor a
>state of mind--but simply a state of higher "consciousness" far above the
>level of "mind."  That's the problem with self-elected theosophical
"teachers"
>or critics, and other academic philologists and linguists who try to edit the
>Secret Doctrine, and in the course of doing so, show how they have
>misinterpreted its basic teachings--and thereby, mangle and distort it.  HPB
>talked about the realm she labeled "Devachan" so many times in all her
>writings, that there cannot be any doubt about what state she meant, or what
>its nature and functions are. 
>
>Incidentally, FYI, the word "jiva", used in context of the BOTD, refers to
the
>lower ego or personality, going through the astral on it's way to Kama Loka,
>not to the higher Ego afterward on its way to Devachan.  Thus, the BOTD,
which
>is concerned, exoterically, only with these astral realms, has no
authority in
>confirming or denying the Devachanic or any other esoteric teachings of
>theosophy. 
>
>>Clearly Blavatsky was not trying to use all of the Tibetan
>>ideas--she plainly refuted the idea of transmigration into
>>animals, which HH the Dali Lama still believes possible.
>>She also refuted the idea of 49 days and instead gives
>>the after death thousands of years--an idea that is a
>>possibility but not typical in Tibetan Buddhism. She also
>>eliminated the six realms of the Tibetan after death state.
>
>True, and rightly so.  As a whole, theosophy has nothing to do with Tibetan
>"ideas" since it goes back long before Tibet even existed.  Most Tibetan
ideas
>are nothing more that a mixture of Indian Buddhist and native shamanistic
>religious and magic teachings that had lost sight of their "root" theosophy
>long ago.  All the TBOD is concerned with is the Astral realms and has no
>connection with the higher mental-spiritual realms such as Devachan (where
the
>"monad" finally ends up beyond the reach of the "elemental" kingdom).  
>
>If the Tibetans speak of six realms of after death states (and if they know
>what they are talking about--should you not be talking about the adept
>"Tibetans" (really Indians) who taught HPB :-) then such realms would
>certainly include the final Devachan--which is actually in three states since
>it concerns the higher manas, buddhi,and atma spiritual realms or fields--the
>nature of which the BOTD doesn't talk about...  While, the lower three are in
>the elemental or astral (lower manas-kama-prana fields or states) which the
>BOTD DOES talk about.  
>
>But all that proves, is that whatever the Tibetans teach, beyond the basic
>Buddhist ethics, four noble truths, and eight fold path--has no relationship
>to theosophy as a "pure" "SYNTHESIS of science, philosophy and
religion"--(but
>not those of any particular discipline, cult or sect).  And, naturally, the
>study of language, or the usage of words is not any part of that teaching.
>(And neither is the study of any part of Tibetan Buddhism or
Shamanism--except
>as weak and twisted reflections of theosophical science and
philosophy--which,
>incidentally, in its modern form, includes all the findings of Western
Science
>that no Tibetan teaching or any Eastern philosophy or religion comes even
>close to understanding.  (Maybe Kipling (a Mason by the way) was right
when he
>said, "East is east and West is west, and never the twain shall meet.":-)
>
>Incidentally, for the real theosophists in this forum who may be interested;
>All fields are triune in nature since they have one pole fed by the negative
>material or physical energies and the other by the positive spiritual or
>consciousness energies... And, the "Tai-Chi" field "loop" that these energies
>take, is in the form of a 3-cycle closed spiral that, in its first harmonic,
>forms two mirrored (zero-point) energy foci in addition to the root-field
>focus.  
>
>(for a symbolic visualization of this, study the diagram and description
at:  
><A
>HREF="http://members.aol.com/uniwldarts/uniworld.artisans.guild/chakrafield
.ht
>ml">http://members.aol.com/uniwldarts/uniworld.artisans.guild/chakrafield.h
tml
></A>  )
>
>As theosophy teaches, the entire Cosmos is but one Energy eternally
>spinning--close in to finite space and infinite mass when asleep and expanded
>wide into infinite space and finite mass when awake--in its three and seven
>robes, fields or aspects that are, forever, "in coadunition but not in
>consustantiality"...  (And, obey all the laws of photo-electricity,
>relativity, quantum, and sub-quantum physics--as taught and presaged by
HPB in
>the SD--when manifest on our plane of material existence.) 
>
>Understanding the nature and origin of these coadunite fields and their
>relationship to the three fundamentals, as well as the linkages between
>consciousness, mind and body, can serve as a definitive subjective "proof" of
>any theosophical doctrine or derivative application--as well as a means to
>directly approach "self realization".  
>
>Once that triple "point" is seen, the inner teacher in all of us needs no
>further help,  guidance nor proofs--through words or concepts (that can only
>represent, but never capture pure "ideas")--to confirm what it already
knew.  
>
>So much for philology, and linguistics as useless tools in teaching or
>learning fundamental Theosophy--which is represented and taught in the Secret
>Doctrine (as) "The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy"--that
>doesn't depend, in any aspect, upon the language it's written in.
>
>LHM 
>
>
>-- THEOSOPHY WORLD -- Theosophical Talk -- theos-talk@theosophy.com
>
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