Theos-Talk Archives (April 1999 Message tt00128)

In a message dated 4/12/99 4:32:25 PM, schuelergerald@optec-hq.optec.army.mil 
writes:

>Imagination alone won't take anyone as far as altruism.
>I agree with that, Leon.  All I am saying is that both are
>beginnings.  Imagination leads to direct experience,
>just like altruism leads to bodhisattvahood.  If you
>want to wait until the end of this kalpa, then you are
>certainly free to do so. My point is that we probably
>don't need to wait so long.

But before, you insisted that Imagination was the ONLY way to enlightenment.  
What has direct experience got to do with attaining enlightenment?  Wait for 
what?  And how does altruism lead to bodhisattvahood?  I thought it was just 
the reverse.  To choose altruism as a path is already to have chosen the 
Bodhisattva way.   One can be enlightened long before one reaches Nirvana.  
In fact the truly enlightened Buddha is a Bodhisattva who continually returns 
from Devachan to a new life whenever needed.  Also, we have to get our 
definitions straight.  Devachan is NOT the same as Nirvana--that the Pratyeka 
Buddha (also, supposedly, an enlightened one) accepts.  Enlightenment is 
"realization of the Self" and the end of "separation" and its concurrent 
suffering--while in the body.  Devachan is an essential resting place between 
lives.  Nirvana is a more or less permanent "escape" from "lives."  There's 
no honor in that...  Nor, is there really an escape.  In the next Kalpa, the 
poor soul who chooses that path might have to repeat the whole thing all over 
again--since he missed so much in his evolutionary passage by "dropping out" 
early in the game.  You have the right to choose that path, if it pleases 
you.  But, if you do, I wouldn't call yourself any sort of theosophist.   

So, let's not be comparing apples to oranges, and get back to realities.  My 
choice (or any theosophist's choice) to wait for the end of the Kalpa to 
enter Nirvana does NOT mean that we have NOT already been enlightened.  In 
fact, I'm sure that many of us theosophists (and even other "true servers of 
humanity" who don't even know they are "theosophists") have already been 
enlightened in previous lives... And, are just refreshing our memories in 
this life while we practice altruism and form "a nucleus of universal 
brotherhood"--which is what theosophy is all about, Isn't it?  Remember, like 
all subjectively descriptive words, "enlightenment" itself can have many 
degrees of meaning.  We can feel more or less "enlightened" by just having a 
heavy debt or other burden of suffering lifted off our shoulders.  

So what do YOU mean by "enlightenment"?  

LHM  


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