Theos-Talk Archives (February 2000 Message tt00025)

Feb 12TH

AS I SEE IT THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEOSOPHY AND CHURCH
APPLICATION OF JESUS' TEACHINGS IS:  In theosophy one is asked to
think for themselves.  In the Churches one's thinking is molded.
If you want to adopt another's' errors without testing, choose.
At least in Theosophy you are given an option to study, learn and
if you desire make your own mistakes while all the time testing
to see if the description given there of the processes in nature
are valid.

If "Christians" actually respected, honored and practiced the
teachings of JESUS, then we would have a far better world than
the hypocritical present and the selfish, sorrowful mess we are
all in -- and it is we who agree to compound the situation by
doing very little about rectifying it.  If Christianity a la
Jesus were truly adopted our present methods would be stopped and
bent into the amelioration of the world as a whole and of the
many millions whose gentle passivity is daily and hourly imposed
on.

Best wishes,

Dal


dalval@nwc.net

===========================

-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald Schueler [mailto:gschueler@earthlink.net]
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2000 9:07 AM
To: Theosophy Study List
Subject: Re: Some Responses to Dallas


> DTB THE TRUTH ALWAYS CONTAINS THE POTENTIAL OF THE >FALSE.
that
> does not mean or imply that the false is to be encouraged or
> promoted for whatever reason.

On the other hand, it does mean that the false is as real as
the true and just as immortal. The primary reason that I left
Christian Science is that they all wanted to hang onto the true
and throw away the false, and when I realized that this is
an impossible task, I left.


> DTB As I read the SD the sky is the limit.  Regardless of
> whatever present step the average mankind may be on, there are
> infinite. possibilities.

Agreed. We can persue manas development as 5th Rounders
are doing right now, or we can transcend manas altogether and
become 6th Rounders, or transcend buddhi-manas and
become 7th Rounders. The choice is ours.


> DTB IN A MORE RECENT POST I GAVE A LIST OF THE RELEVANT PAGES
IN
> SD TO THE MATTER OF HISTORY.  Teh whole of the Sd is a history
> text-book.

If all Theosophists beleived this, the SD would soon become a
Bible
and the whole movement would cease. I see the SD in the same
terms
as the Bible - hints and allagories.


DTB	Only if one does not get at the basic sense of THEOSOPHY.  It
is not a belief system and requires no "true believers."  It
enfranchises the mind and demands honesty, diligence and great
attention if one is to master the laws and truths already present
in Nature.  It deals wit the history of the discoveries of
Nature's treasures and rules.  It places Man (mind) of the
pinnacle of unselfish discovery and selfless application -- this
is a MORAL UNIVERSE and karma is the rule of cooperation.  For
our minds we start with BROTHERHOOD.  One this is grasped,
everything else follows.  We have to learn to be totally
independent.

WE can use the evidence of others' progress and advance ourselves
but we cannot accept anything blindly or we may make grave errors
that will cost many years of effort to rectify.
---------------------------


>> The doctrine of monads is probably the most confusing and
>> most misleading in all of the topics in Theosophical
literature.
>
> DTB Well we must disagree as I think that it explains Karma and
> our individual progress very well indeed.  Without that the
> Universe would be quite difficult to understand.

We may, in fact, disagree here, but I notice that you sometimes
call atma-buddhi a ray and sometime equate it with the monad
as though you weren't sure which it is. In your post of 2/12/00
you wrote "Thus the Monad is, in manifestation, Atma-Buddhi --
a "duad."  " which is exactly right - the atma-buddi is a
manifestation of the monad, not the monad itself.

DTB	HPB in the SD calls it both things as there she tries to get
us to do our own thinking.  It is a "ray" of the ATMA which uses
Buddhi to contact the "material" universe.  Buddhi is the highest
aspect of Matter - MULAPRAKRITI and MAHABUDDHI are one.  Atma
requires the assistance of Buddhi.  Buddhi is primordial matter.

Atma is the One Monad and is for us a "ray" of the ATMAN.
The Monad in manifestation is DUAL as it cannot act or perceive
in matter without the necessary link of Buddhi.
Atma-Buddhi cannot act and influence matter (made up of
inexperienced Monads -- skandhas, elementals, "little lives,"
etc...) unless MANAS (mind) is employed as a link from Buddhi to
Kama.
Hence the MONAD becomes TRIPLE when the human mind is "lit" up
(18 million years ago -- SD) in the assembled elements of the
"personality"  -- this personality being headed by another
"monad" that is now ready to have the mental faculty awakened in
it.  As I read it, that in summary, is what the SD teaches.
-------------------



> DTB THE MONAD is an immortal Unit of ATMA-BUDDHI.

Here you equate the monad with atma-buddhi. Atma-Buddhi
is a duality. The Monad is non-dualistic. They are not the same.


DT	REFER TO DERIVATION ABOVE.


> It draws to
> itself the experiences that allow its intelligence and
> consciousness to grow, and in so doing if also draws to itself
> other Monads of lesser experience.

Here is a good example of exactly what I mean when I say
that the teaching of the monad is confusing and misleading.
The Monad is defined by HPB as a non-dualistic consciousness
center and a spark of divinity. How can such a thing possibly
need to "grow" and how can such a thing have "lesser
experience?"  Your statement above is illogical and misleads
the reader.  It is only the manifestations on the lower planes
that need growth and can be ranked as higher or lesser.

DTB	HPB SAYS THAT IN ENGLISH THE EXACT WORDS NEEDED TO EXPRESS
YOUR QUESTIONS AND ANSWER THEM DO NOT EXISTS.  OF COURSE AS IN SD
I 174-5 fn, the Monad is not affected by what occurs around it,
and yet paradoxically it serves as a center of attraction within
its field all the progress of manifestation and development of
various kinds and levels of consciousness occur -- leading
eventually to the differentiation of a "son" or a Lower Manasic
being which can be "lit up" at the right time by the indwelling
MONAD -- acting as the HIGHER SELF.  This is what I am able to
secure from the study of the SD.  Then, as expressed above, the
Monad (singular) operates through its "descending" powers and
faculties (Monad as dual, and then triple) to animate and
perceive the working of "us" (intelligence, consciousness, mind)
at the level and plane of the physical world we live in -- which
is "kama-manas or the personal embodied mind.  But the Minds are
not separate.  There is One Thread that unites them all.
---------------------


> The Dhyani Buddha of
> today was the lowly monad elemental or mineral of the distant
> past,

Here is another example of a misleading and confusing
statement.  This kind of statement is illogical and false.
Rather, the Monad that is expressing itself as a Dhyani
Buddha today expressed itself as a mineral in the distant
past. The mineral does not become the animal except in
a poetic sense. You consistantly confuse manifestations
with monads - which is exactly what HPB and all the other
Theosophcal writers do as well, and it is terribly misleading
and confusing.

DTB	OF COURSE I SEE WHY IT IS SO TO YOU, BUT DIFFERENTLY FOR ME.
I try to place value on concepts and not on descriptive words,
and vary them as needed -- and that is what HPB does, as I
understand it.  It really is not confusing if one assembles all
the various definitions and the situations in which they are
described, because then they can be seen as a whole.  If we have
7 principles and that basic seven are reflected in each of the
rest , we are at least dealing with 49 variants.  I say this not
to cloud the issue, but merely because they exist.  Each of us
uses a particular aspect of themselves to approach the SD and we
need to be able to adopt any one of the 7 points of view to get
at the whole picture offered.

this is rally not meant to be additionally confusing, but only to
state the mind of obstacles that I have had to overcome.
--------------------------


> DTB INFINITESIMAL, because it is dimensionless and as you say
it
> is an influence rather that a something.  and yet it is spirit
> and Primordial matte conjoined.  a paradox no doubt.
>
 Yes, a paradox.

Jerry S.

Best wishes again,  Dal
=========================================

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