Theos-Talk Archives (July 2000 Message tt00001)

Dear Peter,

Your point is well taken. I agree with most of what your wrote and would 
like to further clarify some issues.

> For if we read a few pages further on in THE VOICE the disciple is 
> >told,outright, what it is that must be slain.
> "Before the "mystic Power" can make of thee a god, Lanoo, thou must >have 
> gained the faculty to slay thy lunar form at will.  The Self of >matter and 
> the SELF of Spirit can never meet. One of the twain must >disappear; there 
> is no place for both." (p12)
> That which is to be slain is not 'the Mind', as such, but the LUNAR >FORM, 
> the "Self of Matter", that personal conciousness built up around >the 
> materialistic desire nature and the delusion of separatness - kama->manas, 
> or at least its dregs.
This lunar form is kama rupa and could be permanently destroyed while the 
mind (lower Manas) has to be paralyzed. The two processes are different 
though not entirely independent. "Killing out desire" is one of the features 
that make Theosophy different from many systems that do not emphasize this 
renouncing nor teach a practical contempt for the earthly life but deal 
directly with the mind.

> Perhaps we can understand this a little better if we keep look for some
> correlations between the process described in the above passage and the
> process that occurs when the Ego goes into devachan, after death.  Each
> involves a withdrawal of the lower Manas into the Higher Triad.  The 
> >highest Samadhi is carried out 'consciously' by the few who are able >to 
> do so.  The after death process and union of the lower with the >Higher 
> takes place automatically for the vast majority of us. The >former leads to 
> 'dreamless sleep', the Turya state. The latter leads >to a 'spiritual dream 
> like state'(devachan).
> In either process the Mind, as such, is not destroyed but withdrawn and
> MERGED into the higher.
There are many similarities between Turya and Devachanic state as also a 
major different one. In Turya, Attavada and Sakkayaditthi are completely 
inhibited while in Devachan they still function. Devachan, though more real 
than our waking state, is still a state of illusion and occultists try to 
shorten this period. A master wrote that "The participation of the manas in 
the Devachanic bliss, does not add to, but on the contrary takes away from, 
the reality that would fall to the lot of the monad were it altogether free 
from its presence." (CW V,78) Turya is not 'dreamless sleep' (Sushupti) 
which is the third state. In the former the mind merges in Consciousness, as 
in the latter it does in unconsciousness.

The lower Manas, being withdrawn in Turya, ceases to be itself. "When the 
Green passes upward it becomes a mirror for the Higher, it is then no more 
Green, having passed from its associations." (IG 193). Its only residual 
function is to register events in that higher plane. There seems to be no 
inaccuracy in describing the lower Manas in that state as being slain, 
inhibited, paralyzed or temporarily destroyed.

Paul Brunton, under the guidance of Ramana Maharishee, has a glimpse of the 
higher state and described it in A Search in Secret India.

"Finally it happens. Thought is extinguished like a snuffed candle. The 
intellect withdraws into its real ground, that is, consciousness working 
unhindered by thoughts. I perceive, what I have suspected for some time and 
what the Maharishee has confidently affirmed, that the mind takes its rise 
in a transcendental source. The brain has passed into a state of complete 
suspension, as it does in deep sleep, yet there is not the slightest loss of 
consciousness.

I touch, as in a flash, the meaning of this mysterious universal drama which 
is being enacted in space, and then return to the primal point of my being. 
I the new I, rest in the lap of holy bliss. I have drunk the Platonic Cup of 
Lethe, so that yesterday's bitter memories and tomorrow's anxious cares have 
disappeared completely.

How shall I record these experiences through which I next pass, when they 
are too delicate for the touch of my pen?"

He did record the experiences contrary to Wittgenstein's advice "What we 
cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." Verbal communication is 
the function of lower Manas. The Truth can not be satisfactorily 
communicated on our physical plane with the language of earth. However, the 
effort should not be a vain one, or else the Masters would not promulgate 
the doctrine through the TS.

-Andrew

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