Theos-Talk Archives (January 2001 Message tt00152)

January 28, 2001	Part 2

Dear Gene:
Some notes below ?

As this is long, and the facility demands brevity I will divide
this into two parts
This is part TWO

Dal

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



-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald Schueler [mailto:gschueler@earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 6:14 PM
Subject: Response to Dallas

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

PART 2 (answers by Dallas starting at 5 below)
==========================

>> DTB I saw that but then Matter never manifests without
SPIRIT --so the
proposition does not ring correct to me. The third factors,
which I think
are always implicit as basic factors are the ABSOLUTENESS, KARMA
and MIND.<<

Agree with your first sentence, but the second one
is far out (way too far for me). I believe that karma
and mind (capital letters or not) are conventional
things, universal only for our solar system. I also
think that "cosmic mind" or Mahat is an illusion,
a human projection much like the anthropomorphism
of God in Christianity. The Buddhist Middle Way
teaches that both absolutism and nihilism are false
views, and I have come to agree with that view.

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

5 DTB Are you trying to limit the "limitless
and the eternal" to just one -- our SOLAR SYSTEM ? One may do
so, but then there remains the rest of the Universe -- with which
we may not feel very concerned, but since it is there, it must
have some part to play with ours?

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


<< DTB If PURUSHA (Soul) is the antithesis of PRAKRITI (Matter
in all its
several degrees, planes, appearances, and qualities) then we have
STABILITY
surrounded by the whirl of phenomena. But if the phenomena we
sense is also
made up of MONADS Purusha/Prakriti UNITS ) then their reality
and the laws
of interaction have to be taken into account.<<

Not "antithesis" so much as dualistic opposite. Your
mention of MONADS as "Purusha/Prakriti UNITS" is one
I have never encountered before. If you mean this in
the same sense as my I-Not-I Monads, then I, of course,
will agree 100%.

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

6. DTB On the MONADS (or polarized entities that
include INDIVIDUALITY and PERSONALITY -- as Intelligence, H.P.B.
has used them throughout the S.D. as a basis to consider the
evolution of immortal entities (which they are) in the systematic
educative process represented by our UNIVERSE. I am sure you
have the S.D., and the separate INDEX prepared for that, so you
might look up those pages where MONADS are deemed to be essential
to evolution.

I am of the opinion that Nature wastes nothing, hence the
evolution of the Monads in terms of universal sensitivity and
consciousness would be a most valuable concept.

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


<< DTB The many possible LAYERS of SELF do not trouble me, since
in my
conception the HIGHEST is still "ME" or "I". <<

I suspect that you have not looked "high" enough.
If you go all the up to your prakriti-purusha units
the I will completely disappear (as does the Not-I).

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

7. DTB If what you posit is true, then might I
not say that your concept of their vanishing into the
ABSOLUTENESS (in Maha-Pralaya, etc.) might be only true from our
present level of perception? If one were able to penetrate (or
link up with) the HIGHER SELF ATMA ) might we not perceive a
greater WHOLE and POTENTIAL in terms of possible increase in
WISDOM ? After all Buddhism des recognize the Guruparampara
chain which is the chain of links of embodied wisdom extending
from the wretch to the |Dhyan Chohan ?

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


<< DTB I am afraid that anyone who offers to interpret
another is doing them
an injustice unless they have the same or greater abilities and
it is their
duty to make such alterations. After reading some of GdeP's
writings I
would not trust him to be entirely correct. So when I can go
direct to the
source of Theosophy why would I take a filtered version? How can
I trust
the "filter?"
You can't have "relativity" unless you have something far more
solid and
valid to compare those with.>>

God, you have much more faith in HPB's words than
I could ever could. Except for a very few things, I
find Purucker and Blavatsky to be saying the same
things. The only real "filter" of any consequence
is one's own mind.

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

8. DTB And so I think it is -- I mean our own
MIND.. But would it not be possible to consider as I said before
that in the MONAD the median line is that of the MIND because it
is able to penetrate with its CONSCIOUSNESS all planes of
experience? If this is true then the MIND has a direct link and
is emanated directly from the ABSOLUTE. Every mind might be
considered one of the sensitive out-posts of the ABSOLUTE --
which by definition is the eternal background from which and in
which all differentiations dwell. Then in seems tome that is the
repository of both TRUTH and ILLUSION ? And, it is able to
distinguish between the two with the touch-stone of the TRUE ?

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

<< DTB How can an "attitude" not be "action"<<

I was using conventional meanings here. Attitudes are
how we think about things, while actions are
behaviors, things we do. They take place on different
planes. If you want to think of thinking itself as
a mental action, OK, but any action is a time-dependent
process, while having an attitude is not. Maybe I
am just nit-picking?

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

9. DTB I cannot think in your sincere questions
and observations you (or I ) am "nit-picking." Do you not rely
as I do on the fact that NATURE (all around us -- whether we call
it Matter, Spirit, Mind, Absolute) -- each being different
qualitative functions, -- is honest and true with us? Would
then that which we call the Law of KARMA -- the reaction of
Nature to our choices -- not be true and honest to our actions
and motives? I think this is important don't you? Science and
philosophy rely on it, but fancy, imagination, illusion, maya,
etc... are the impossible and illogical creations of a mind
captured by DESIRE (Lower Manas) and bent on doing personal and
selfish things -- yet, still hoping to be excused, or pardoned ?
By Whom? Or By what ?

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


<< DTB I would rather say that one of the aspects of
CONSCIOUSNESS becomes
attached to the lower aggregates, skandhas. But CONSCIOUSNESS as
the
impartial and ever-present link between the Mind of man (in
whatever plane
or place) to the ABSOLUTENESS -- even if it only an immature
concept -- is
a far different thing and certainly not one of the 5 "Skandhas."
<<

I think a better translation for the 5th skandha would be
"human consciousness."

10 DTB Perhaps, but how is it possible to
disconnect "human consciousness" from CONSCIOUSNESS,
INTELLIGENCE, AWARENESS, etc...? Everything has a
consciousness and a level of INTELLIGENCE wherever they may be
and whatever their function may be. This is one of the qualities
of the MONAD.
I see the word "Skandha" in T. GLOSSARY, p. 301-2 includes
SANJANA or "consciousness" These SEVEN FIVE unite at birth to
constitute man's personality. Esoterically there are 7.

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

DTB << Who wants to be
sitting doing nothing while the years and centuries roll by? <<

This is a joke, right?

DTB RIGHT I certainly would not look forward
to the "reward?" of a pratyekha Buddha. What a waste of time
when so many interesting things are going on, and one can be
useful to others ?
Best wishes,

Dal

----------------------------------

Jerry S.





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