Theos-Talk Archives (May 2000 Message tt00332)

Query:If carnate today would HPB purchase a computer an be a member
of this inquisitive and good group?         friends,Scott

dalval2nwc.net wrote:
> 
> May 26th, 2000
> 
> Dallas offers:
> 
> Everyone who is a student of Theosophy wonders if the study and
> time devoted to finding out what Theosophy is and deals with has
> a practical applications which can be used personally.
> 
> Such a question HPB received many years ago and dealt with as
> follows:
> 
> PERFECTION through the Unity of Humanity
> 
>           By H. P. Blavatsky
> 
> Answer by HPB to a question:  From one of her letters:
> 
> "Now it is a fundamental doctrine of Theosophy that the
> "separateness" which we feel between ourselves and the world of
> living beings around us is an illusion, not a reality. In very
> deed and truth, all men are one, not in a feeling of sentimental
> gush and hysterical enthusiasm, but in sober earnest.
> 
> As all Eastern philosophy teaches, there is but ONE SELF in all
> the infinite Universe, and what we men call "self" is but the
> illusionary reflection of the ONE SELF in the heaving waters of
> earth.
> 
> True Occultism is the destruction of the false idea of Self, and
> therefore true spiritual perfection and knowledge are nothing
> else but the complete identification of our finite "selves" with
> the Great All. It follows, therefore, that no spiritual progress
> at all is possible except by and through the bulk of Humanity.
> 
> It is only when the whole of Humanity has attained happiness that
> the individual can hope to become permanently happy -- for the
> individual is an inseparable part of the Whole.
> 
> Hence there is no contradiction whatever between the altruistic
> maxims
> of Theosophy and its injunction to kill out all desire for
> material
> things, to strive after spiritual perfection. For spiritual
> perfection
> and spiritual knowledge can only be reached on the spiritual
> plane; when
> all selfishness, all feeling of personal interest and desire, has
> been
> merged in the wider consciousness of the unity of Mankind.
> 
> This shows also that no blind submission to the commands of
> another can be demanded, or would be of any use. Each individual
> must learn for himself, through trial and suffering, to
> discriminate what is beneficial to Humanity; and in proportion as
> he develops spiritually, i.e., conquers all selfishness, his mind
> will open to receive the guidance of the Divine Monad within him,
> his Higher Self, for which there is neither Past nor Future, but
> only an eternal NOW.
> 
> Again, were there no "poor," far from the "benefits of
> civilization being lost," a state of the highest culture and
> civilization would be attained, of which we cannot now form the
> faintest conception.
> 
> Similarly, from a conviction of the impermanence of material
> happiness would result a striving after that joy which is
> eternal, and in which all men can share. Throughout the whole
> letter of our esteemed correspondent there runs the tacit
> assumption that happiness in material, physical life is
> all-important; which is untrue.
> 
> So far from being the most important, happiness in this life of
> matter is of as little importance in relation to the bliss of
> true spiritual life as are the few years of each human cycle on
> earth in proportion to the millions and millions of years which
> each human being spends in the subjective spheres, during the
> course of every great cycle of the activity of our globe. [In the
> Deep-Sleep-State night after night, or in the After-Death-States,
> such as Devachan.  DTB]
> 
> With regard to faculties and talents, the answer is simple. They
> should be developed and cultivated for the service of Humanity,
> of which we are all parts, and to which we owe our full and
> ungrudging service."  --  HPB
> 
> (From Blavatsky: COLLECTED WRITINGS, Vol. 11, pp. 104-6)
> 
> THEOSOPHICAL QUERIES: ANSWER TO A LETTER -- HPB
> 
> ========================================
> 
> SELF--KNOWLEDGE
> 
>  [ HPB - Lucifer, vol. I, p. 89 - 1887 ]
> 
> "The first necessity for obtaining self-knowledge is to become
> profoundly conscious of ignorance;  to feel with every fibre of
> the heart that one is ceaselessly self-deceived.
> 
> The second requisite is the still deeper conviction that such
> knowledge--such intuitive and certain knowledge--can be obtained
> by effort.
> 
> The third and most important is an indomitable determination to
> obtain and face the knowledge.
> 
> Self-knowledge of this kind is unattainable by what men usually
> call "self-analysis."  It is not reached by reasoning or any
> brain process;  for it is the awakening to consciousness of the
> Divine nature of man.
> 
> To obtain this knowledge is a greater achievement that to command
> the elements or to know the future."
> 
> -- HPB
> 
> =========================================
> 
> DESIRE MADE PURE
> 
> HPB  [ Lucifer,  Vol. I.,  p. 133,   1887 ]
> 
> "When the desire is for the purely abstract--when it has lost all
> trace or tinge of "self"--then it has become pure.
> 
> The first step towards this purity is to kill out the desire for
> the things of matter, since these can only be enjoyed by the
> separated personality.
> 
> The second is to cease from desiring for oneself even such
> abstractions as power, knowledge, love, happiness, or fame;  for
> they are but selfishness after all.
> 
> Life itself teaches these lessons; for all such objects of desire
> are found Dead Sea fruit in the moment of attainment.  This much
> we learn from experience.  Intuitive perception seizes on the
> positive truth that satisfaction is attainable only in the
> infinite;  the will makes that conviction an actual fact of
> consciousness, till at last all desire is centred on the
> Eternal."
> 
> -- HPB   [ Lucifer,  vol. I, p. 133,  1887 ]
> 
> ====================================
> 
> WILL and DESIRE
> 
> --  HPB    [Lucifer, Vol. I, p. 96,  1887]
> 
> "Will is the exclusive possession of man on this plane of
> consciousness.  It divides him from the brute in whom instinctive
> desire only is active.
> 
> DESIRE,  in its widest application, is the one creative force in
> the Universe.  In this sense it is indistinguishable from Will;
> but we men never know desire under this form while we remain only
> men.  Therefore Will and Desire are here considered as opposed.
> 
> Thus Will is the offspring of the Divine, the God in man;  Desire
> the motive force of the animal life.
> 
> Most men live in and by desire, mistaking it for will.  But he
> who would achieve must separate will from desire, and make his
> will the ruler;  for desire is unstable, and ever changing, while
> will is steady and constant.
> 
> Both will and desire are absolute creators, forming the man
> himself and his surroundings.  But will creates
> intelligently--desire blindly and unconsciously.  The man,
> therefore, makes himself in the image of the Divine, through his
> will, the child of the light.
> 
> His task is twofold:  to awaken the will, to strengthen it by use
> and conquest, to make it absolute ruler within his body;  and,
> parallel with this, to purify desire.
> 
> Knowledge and will are the tools for the accomplishment of this
> purification.
> 
> -- HPB  [Lucifer, Vol. I, p. 96,  1887 ]
> 
> ( see also:  HPB -- PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION  -- the organ of
> the free-will in man is the Higher Manas  -- also:  SD II 176 576
> "Desire first arose in It..."   T. Glossary,  p. 171 )
> 
> D. T. B.
> 
> -- THEOSOPHY WORLD -- Theosophical Talk -- theos-talk@theosophy.com
> 
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