Theos-Talk Archives (April 2001 Message tt00130)

Wednesday, April 25, 2001

 

                        Re: INDIVIDUALITY and PERSONALITY

                                    SPIRITUALIZING ONES’ SELF

 

DearEdward, and Jerome,

 

May I butt in for a moment.  This is a very valuable and interesting topic I believe, and one on which H.P.B. gives great attention in THE KEY TO Theosophy.  This is one of the key books we all ought to be quite familiar with as it shows the practical nature of Theosophy .

 

If you have an opportunity to read it again, you will find that she, in first teaching Theosophy to us,  (remember that she was the one designated by the Masters of Wisdom to do this) used the designation PERSONALITY to represent the Lower Mind involved in Kama (passions and desires).  Its characteristic nature is created by our desires, so that it focuses on SELFISHNESS and the ISOLATION of the lower self.  

 

Theosophy asks us to consider the Unity of all Life and Brotherhood.  How is this possible?

 

At death it (the PERSONALITY -- physical and astral body, vitality and Kama-desire) is dispersed into the lower kingdoms and only the altruistic and most noble aspirations and memories of the life last lived are taken by the REINCARNATING EGO (Higher Manas -- Buddhi-Manas) into Devachan to be mediated on and built into the permanent character of the INDIVIDUALITY.  These become the immortal part of our REAL and TRUE Selves.

 

Of course if we as PERSONALITIES live blameless, virtuous and brotherly lives, then the whole of our life’s memories will become the subject for Devachanic meditation.  In fact the assimilation of the continuous practice of virtue, is what Theosophy recommends us to do.  [ But we ought to discover what “virtues” are in the Universe and in our lives. ] Then, the process of incorporating the memories of the harmless and charitable life of an embodied SPIRITUAL BEING makes the process of Devachanic mediation one that is simultaneous with living -- and the living personality SPIRITUALIZES itself.

 

However, Nature is not focused on any one self but on all selves.  It holds that every being, from the “life-atom” on up to the Highest Buddha is an immortal SPIRIT/SOUL (a MONAD), and that we are all brothers to every other living thing, whether near or far, whether in our family or on the other side of the country, or the Earth -- or at the furtherest reach of the Galaxy.

 

The SPIRIT/SOUL is called her the INDIVIDUALITY.  It is technically ATMA (Spirit) + BUDDHI (Wisdom)  + MANAS (Mind).  This is the REINCARNATING Individual.  It is also the repository of all our Karma, good and bad.

 

Nothing is ever lost or destroyed in nature and our progress as immortal beings is a grand view of the  progress of all beings as well as ourselves.

 

The only point in “getting rid of the personality” is really a change of view-point.  We assume the position of an eternal pilgrim that uses many “personalities” as it progresses and reincarnates life after life.  As you rightly say, we do not destroy the “personality” we change and make it better.

For this we need a wide understanding of all our own motives and how they affect all around us.

 

Our choices will either hinder or assist Nature in her work of spiritualizing everything.

 

Best wishes,

 

Dallas

 

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

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: E A

Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 6:40 PM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Re: on being awake....

 

hi Jerome,

 

i dont understand the point about getting rid of personality ... surely the idea would be to maintain the personality, but to amend it in a fashion which is suitable for the surrounding universe...

 

eduard

 

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

 

----- Original Message -----

From: NDisc

 

To: study@blavatsky.net

Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 9:52 AM

Subject: [bn-study] on being awake....

 

From: Jerome Wheeler

 

Date:Wed, 18 Apr 2001 12:48:49 -0700
X-Message-Number: 1

If the daily activities have an intensely selfish attitude propelling
them, then I would agree that they are useless. 

However, the thing to escape from is the narrowness of our ATTITUDE
toward LIFE.
When the word self-fulfillment gets used quite often, I am tempted to
wonder what self is being discussed.  The personality that I, or you, or
Christina have is hardly a blip on the TV screen of 8 billion humans ---
and this without proceeding to Mars!  So if, it's personality
self-fulfillment that one is seeking, we are "barking up the wrong tree"!
One can ask at some point, "Why am I endowed with a Personality if I am
not supposed to FULFILL it???"   From an occult perspective this would be
mistaking the "hammer" for the carpenter; or as Tolstoy remarked on our
DUALITY:

"One "I" says, 'I alone am living as one should live, all the rest only
seems to live.  Therefore, the whole raison d'etre for the universe isin
that I may be made comfortable.'

The other "I" replies, "The universe is not for thee at all,but for its
own aims and purposes, and it cares little to know whether thou art happy
or unhappy."

Life becomes a dreadful thing after this!

One "I" says, "I only want the gratification of all my wantsand desires,
and that is why I need the universe."

The other "I" replies, "All animal life lives only for the gratification
of its wants and desires.  It is the wants and desires of animals alone
that are gratified at the expense and detriment of other animals; hence
the ceaseless struggle between the animal species.  Thou art an animal,
and therefore thou hast to struggle.  Yet, however successful in thy
struggle, the rest of the struggling creatures must sooner or later crush
thee."

Still worse!  life becomes still more dreadful . . . .
But the most terrible of all, that which includes in itself the whole of
the foregoing, is that---
One "I" says, "I want to live, to live for ever."
And that the other "I" replies, "Thou shalt surely, perhaps in a few
minutes, die; as also shall die all those thou lovest, for thou and they
are destroying with every motion your lives, and thus approaching ever
nearer suffering, death, all that which thou so hatest, and which thou
fearest ahbove anything else.
.....
No sooner has man commenced a conscious life than that consciousness
repeats to him incessantly without respite, over and over the same thing
again.  "To live such life as you feel and see in your past, the life
lived by animals and many men too, lived in THAT way, which made you
become what you are now---is no longer possible....

As the intellectual condition of man increases, he comes to the idea that
no happiness connected with his personality is an achievement, but only a
necessity.  Personality is only that incipient state from which begins
life, and the ultimate limit of life.....

The other limit is a complete renunciation of that personality, the
greatest concern with the life of the infinite Universe, in full accord
with it, the transfer of all our desires and good will from one's self,
to that infinfite Universe and all the creatures outside of us.

What is that conscious or mind, "the exegencies of which exclude
personality and transfer the energy of man outside of him and into that
state which is conceived by us as the blissful state of love?"

Well, I see I have lost my audience, they are all sound asleep!! and
simply to polite to snore!
jerome