Theos-Talk Archives (February 2000 Message tt00036)

Here's something I wrote on another list. Perhaps there
might also be some interest in discussing the topic on
theos-talk?

-- Eldon

----

Chuck:

[commenting on Nirvana]

>And to take another point of view, why would one not want to come back????
>
>Suppose for a moment someone gets Nirvanaized in 1870, look at all the fun 
>that person missed, never to see television, never to fly, never to play with 
>a computer, all the friends he never got a chance to make, all the parties he 
>never got to attend. 
>
>With all the interesting things and pleasure the physical life has to offer, 
>I can't imagine not wanting to get back to it as soon as possible.

You're commenting on the incomplete nature of the exoteric
idea of Nirvana. 

It's true that we come back to life, time after time, because
of the sheer creative joy of existing, and of doing things in
this world. This world is our home, and we have strong bonds
with it. We have long-standing relationships with many others
who live here. We've developed, over many lifetimes, considerable
skills to exist, to be aware, to do things, and be self-expressive
on our physical-plane earth. It's this desire to exist, "tanha,"
that we feel towards the end of our after-death state, that
draws us back into rebirth each time.

Over time, though, we learn to do things that are extremely
frustrated by the limitations of physical-plane existence, and
there grows a strong attraction to find rebirth into higher
worlds. In the Blavatsky/Mahatma Letters model, we'd say that
life on earth is an existence in a "sphere of causes," and our
after-death states, in working out the unspent life energies,
are had in the following "sphere of effects." When those
energies have exhausted themselves, we're attracted into rebirth
on "this or the next sphere of causes." That is, we either
return to earthlife, or find rebirth on the next place of
objective existence of our earth's, on the next higher plane,
otherwise called "Globe E."

The after-death states, as a time of peace and temporary
liberation from the limitations of physical earthlife, is
a small-scale representation of what we find in bigger
scale: our vast time of evolution in the human kingdom,
followed by a complete release of bondage from the limits
of human egoship, or Nirvana.

Nirvana is both a place, a locality, a realm, in its own
sense, as well as being a mode of consciousness, a way to
perceive and experience life. As a mode of consciousness,
it is the dharmakaya, the state wherein a transcendental
universality of consciousness is achieved. We may exist,
have a distinct, colorful personality, and be acting in
the world, looking the same to someone's camera, as we
did a moment before entering this state. Yet upon entering
it, the world has stopped, all awareness of our being 
particular person doing a particular thing in a particular
place and time is totally obliterated. There's a sense
of universal grandness. Our experience of life, for the
moment, has no observer, only an awareness of the "flavor"
of life in this world, even though there's yet thought,
feeling, and action, as "we" do things, minus any awareness
of there being an "us" in the equation.

A third aspect of Nirvana relates to the composite nature
of our being. Each part of our constitution has a life 
of its own, and is built, contributed by, or overshadowed
by some class of beings, called by various names like the
Lunar and Solar Pitris. When we reach a certain stage
of perfection, attaining Buddhahood, Sixth Rounder status,
the higher part of our nature enters Nirvana. That part
is our Manasaputra, a higher being, a Dhyani Chohan, who
has been acting in the role of "higher self" to us. It
leaves us behind as nearly-perfect humans, Bodhisattvas,
with sufficient development of our own innate manasaputric
consciousness to be able to function without that
overshadowing influence. To us, from our standpoint,
it seems as though our Higher Selves have departed to
Nirvana, but from their standpoint, they've entered into
a higher state of experience where they can be more
truly themselves, not having us to weigh them down
anymore.

There are many other angles on Nirvana, meanings of
the term in Theosophy, ideas that could be explored ...
just not many minutes left tonight to write more ...

-- Eldon


















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