Theos-Talk Archives (May 2001 Message tt00056)

Wednesday, May 09, 2001


Here are some metaphysical ifs, maybes and realities
considered by ancient Sages, and expressed in various forms,
poetic and prosaic


INFINITUDES -- BEGINNINGS -- PURPOSES



The Buddha offers:


OM, Amitaya ! Measure not with words
Th' Immeasurable; nor sink the string of thought
Into the Fathomless. Who asks does err,
Who answers, errs. Say nought.

The Books teach Darkness was, at first of all,
And Brahm sole meditating in that Night;
Look not for Brahm and the Beginning there !
Nor him, nor any light.

Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes,
Or any searcher know by mortal mind;
Veil after veil will lift--but there must be
Veil upon veil behind.

Stars sweep and question not. This is enough
That life and death and joy and woe abide;
And cause and sequence, and the course of time,
And being's ceaseless tide. ...

This is enough to know, the phantasms are;
The Heavens, Earths, Worlds, and changes changing them,
A mighty whirling wheel of strife and stress
Which none can stay or stem.

Pray not ! the Darkness will not brighten ! Ask
Nought from the Silence, for it cannot speak !
Vex not your mournful minds with pious pains !
Ah ! Brothers, sisters ! seek

Nought from the helpless Gods by gift and hymn,
... Within yourselves deliverance must be sought;
Each man his prison makes.

....

Only, while turns this wheel invisible,
No pause, no peace, no staying-place can be;
Who mounts may fall, who falls will mount; the spokes
Go round unceasingly !

LIGHT OF ASIA Book 8th ( pp 137-9)

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


The Rishis, authors of the Primitive wisdom named the
Rig-Veda offer:


Nor Aught nor Nought existed; yon bright sky
Was not, nor heaven's broad roof outstretched above.
What covered all? What sheltered ? What concealed ?
Was it the water's fathomless abyss?

There was not death--and there was nought immortal,
Here was no confine betwixt day and night;
The only One breathed breathless by itself,
Other than It there nothing since has been.

Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled
In gloom profound--an ocean without light--
The germ that still lay covered in the husk
Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.

Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind;
And which Sages, searching with their intellect,
Have discovered in their heart to be the bond
Which connects Entity with Non-Entity.

Who knows the secret ? who proclaimed it here ?
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang ?
The Gods themselves came later into being--
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang ?

That, whence all this great creation came,
Whether Its will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it--or perchance even He knows not.


Gazing into eternity . . .
Ere the foundations of the earth were laid,
. . . . . . .
Thou wert. And when the subterranean flame

Shall burst its prison and devour the frame . . .
Thou shalt be still as Thou wert before
And Knew no change, when time shall be no more.
Oh ! endless thought, divine Eternity.

Nasadiya Hymn Rig-Veda X v, 129
( see S.D. I, pp. 26, II, 176; T. Glos. p. 171 )

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



THE SEPTENARY CREATION

Some ideas and concepts:


The symbol of the lotus -- signifies "the emanation of the
objective from the subjective, divine Ideation passing from the
abstract into the concrete or visible form. For , as soon as
DARKNESS--or rather that which is "darkness" for ignorance--has
disappeared in its own realm of eternal Light, leaving behind
itself only its divine manifested Ideation, the creative Logoi
have their understanding opened, and they see in the ideal world
(hitherto concealed in the divine thought) the archetypal forms
of all, and proceed to copy and build or fashion upon these
models forms evanescent and transcient." S.D. I 380

"The number 7 ... was typical of theogonic evolution, of cycles,
cosmic planes, and the Seven Forces and Occult Powers in Kosmos,
as a boundless whole, whose first upper triangle [S.D. I 200] was
unreachable to the finite intellect of man..." [ S.D. I 392 ]

"The ancients taught the, so to speak, auto-generation of the
Gods; the one divine essence, unmanifested, perpetually
begetting a second-self, manifested which second-self,
androgynous in its nature, gives birth in an immaculate way to
everything macro- and micro-cosmical in this universe."
[ S.D. I 398]

"UNIVERSAL SOUL is not the inert Cause of Creation or (Para)
Brahma, but simply that which we call the sixth principle of
intellectual Kosmos, on the manifested plane of being. It is
Mahat, or Mahabuddhi, the great Soul, the vehicle of Spirit, the
first primeval reflection of the formless CAUSE, and that which
is even beyond SPIRIT." S.D. I 420

"...in the Rig Veda wherein Brahmaa is not even named, Cosmogony
is preluded with the Hiranya-gharba , "the Golden Egg," and
Prajapati (Brahmaa later on), from whom emanate all the
hierarchies of the "Creators." The Monad, or point, is the
original and is the unit from which follows the entire numerical
system. This Point is the First Cause, but THAT from which it
emanates, or of which, rather, it is the expression, the Logos,
is passed over in silence. In its turn the universal symbol, the
point within the circle, was not yet the Architect, but the cause
of that Architect; and the latter stood to it in precisely the
same relation as the point itself stood to the circumference of
the Circle, which cannot be defined...With Pythagoras, the MONAD
returns into silence and Darkness as soon as it has evolved the
triad, from which emanate the remaining seven numbers of the 10
(ten) numbers which are at the base of the manifested universe.."
(S.D. I 426-7)

"This great circle (which Eastern Esotericism reduces to the
point within the Boundless Circle) is the Avalokiteswara, the
Logos or Verbum...But this circle or manifested God is unknown to
us, except through its manifested universe, as the ONE , though
easier, or rather more possible to our highest conceptions, This
Logos...which cannot cognize Parabrahmam [the ABSOLUTE]
otherwise than as Mulaprakriti [ Root-Matter] -- the latter
being a cosmic veil which is "the mighty expanse of cosmic
matter"-- is thus only an organ in cosmic creation, through which
radiates the energy and wisdom of Parabrahmam, unknown to the
Logos, as it is to ourselves." (S.D. I 429)

"In every religion we find the concealed deity forming the ground
work; then the ray there from, that falls into primordial cosmic
matter (first manifestation); then the androgyne result, the
dual Male and Female abstract Force, personified (second stage) ;
this separates itself finally, in the third, into seven [7]
Forces, called the creative Powers by all the ancient
Religions..." (S.D. I 437)
"Esoterically...all the ...Creations stand for the (7) periods of
Evolution, whether after an "Age" or a "Day" of Brahmaa. This is
the teaching par excellence of Occult Philosophy, which however
never uses the term "creation," nor even that of evolution, "with
regard to primary 'Creation;' " but calls all such forces "the
aspects of the Causeless Force."...In the Saptaparna Brahmana
"Brahma" (neuter), the absolute Cause of all Causes, radiates the
gods. Having radiated the gods (through its inherent nature) the
work is interrupted. ... "At the expiration of every night
(pralaya) Brahmaa, having been asleep, awakes, and, through the
sole energy of the motion, CAUSES to emanate from itself the
spirit, which in its essence is, and yet is not." (S.D. I
446-7)

"...in one of the Puranas..."The great Architect of the World
gives the first impulse to rotatory motion of our planetary
system...It is this action :that causes each sphere to turn
around itself, and all around the Sun." After which action, "it
is the Brahmandica, the Solar and Lunar Pitris (the Dhyani
Chohans) " who take charge of their respective spheres (earths
and planets), to the end of the Kalpa." The Creators are the
Rishis...They are sometimes seven, sometimes ten, when they
become prajapati, the "Lord of Beings;" then they rebecome the
seven and the fourteen Manus, as the representatives of the seven
and fourteen cycles of Existence (:Days of Brahma")... at the end
of the first stage of Evolution they are transformed into the
seven stellar Rishis, the Saptarishis; while their human doubles
appear as heroes, Kings, and Sages on this earth." (S.D. I 442)

"Esoteric philosophy shows only physical man as created in the
image of the Deity; but the latter is but "the minor gods." It
is the HIGHER-SELF, the real EGO, who alone is divine and GOD."
(S.D. I 445)
1. "Mahat-tattwa creation...was the primordial self-evolution of
that which had to become Mahat-- the divine MIND, conscious and
intelligent;" esoterically, "the spirit of the Universal
soul....THAT then precedes the manifestation. ... Mahat, active
intelligence or the operating will of the Supreme...the operating
LAW. ... the Infinite having n o connection with the finite--can
neither will nor create; that, therefore Brahmaa, Mahat, Iswara,
or whatever name the creative power may be known by, creative
gods and all, are simply an illusive aspect of Parabrahmam in the
conception of the conceivers." (S.D. I 450-1)
"esoteric doctrine teaches that the Dhyan Chohans are the
collective aggregate of divine Intelligences or primordial mind,
and that the first Manus--the seven "mind-born" Spiritual
Intelligences--are identical with the former. " (S.D. I 452)

"The Kumaras," ... are the Dhyanis, derived immediately from the
supreme principle...(fn) "...it is they who, by incarnating
themselves within the senseless human shells of the two first
Root-races and a good portion of the Third Root-race--created, so
to speak, a new race: that of thinking, self-conscious and divine
men." ... they are the progenitors of the true spiritual SELF in
the physical man--the higher Prajapati, while the Pitris or lower
Prajapati, are no more than the fathers of the model, or type of
his physical form, made "in their image." ( S.D. I 456-7 &
fn)

"The Monad--a truly "indivisible think,"...is here rendered as
the Atma in conjunction with the Buddhi and the higher Manas.
This trinity is one and eternal. Atma alone is the one real and
eternal substratum of all--the essence and absolute knowledge--
the Kshetragna." It is called in the Esoteric Philosophy "the
One Witness," and while it rests in Devachan, is referred to as
"the Three Witnesses to Karma." (S.D. I 570-1)

"Atma (our seventh principle) being identical with the universal
Spirit, and man being one with it in his essence, what is then
the Monad proper? It is that homogeneous spark which radiates in
millions of rays from the primeval "Seven;" ... It is the
EMANATING spark from the uncreated ray--A MYSTERY. In the
esoteric... Buddhism of the North., Adi Buddha...the One unknown,
without beginning or end, identical with Parabrahm and Ain-Soph,
emits a bright ray from its darkness. This is the Logos (the
first), or Vajradhara, the Supreme Buddha... As the Lord of all
Mysteries he cannot manifest but sends into the world of
manifestation, his heart--the "diamond heart," Vajrasattva. This
is the second logos of creation, from whom emanate the
seven...Dhyani Buddhas, called the Anupadaka, "the parentless."
These Buddhas are the primeval monads from the world of
incorporeal being, the Arupa world, wherein the Intelligences (on
that plane only) have neither shape.. but have their distinct
seven names in esoteric philosophy. These Dhyani Buddhas
emanate, or create from themselves, by virtue of Dhyana,
celestial Selves-- the super-human Bodhisattvas. These
incarnating at the beginning of every human cycle on earth as
mortal men, become occasionally...Bodhisattvas among the sons of
Humanity ...the creators of the world are born here, on earth
again and again" -- truly." (SD I 571-2)

I hope these may be of some value in our considerations. There
is far more detail given in the Secret Doctrine.

Best wishes,

DTB

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


-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Kusek
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 1:08 AM
To: Theosophy Study List
Subject: Re: theos-l digest: May 05, 2001


Jerry and Dallas
Jerry and Dallas
Neither real
Buddha laughing
One banging on the coconut
One clinging to the husk
neither real
seeing/not seeing
bright smile
clear sky