Theos-Talk Archives (October 2001 Message tt00193)

Sunday, October 14, 2001

in many cases some of our education or cultural norms seem to make Man the
“possessor” of an undefined something named a Soul.

Theosophy (I would refer any student to H P B’s definitions in the KEY TO
THEOSOPHY (HPB) where the subject of Soul and Mind are detailed) states that
the “soul” is a universal faculty, which links the PURE SPIRITUAL SELF OF
ALL to the material vehicles in which this SPIRIT is represented as
fragmenting itself and recognizable in every being as a “Spark” or a “Ray”
of the ABSOLUTE unnamed DEITY (not a Personal God).

Theosophy states MAN is a SOUL. The word SOUL includes all the faculties of
the MIND.

We need to detail these for ourselves.

If Mind thinks, Who or What in Man directs those thoughts and chooses them?

The Real Man is then not the Mind, but the Director of the Mind -- which is
a “tool” for it to use. Is this correct?

We “feel” things, we “desire” things, we have “ambitions” concerning
positions and powers we desire to use for ourselves, in some cases we are
passionate, angry, sly, or open, honest and sincere about our feelings.

But we are able to control and change them. We are not at their mercy,
although they can affect all of us very strongly. Do we not use our WILL to
identify and control them?

Look at the human secular law-books and the regulations of society that are
tried in courts every day -- are they not based on brotherhood and honesty?

We recognize two broad types of feelings

1. those that are generous, charitable, virtuous, universal and brotherly.
and,

2. those that are mean, selfish, vicious sometimes, and tend to isolate us
from others.

If we can recognize these differences, then WE ARE NOT THE FEELINGS, but we
(the REAL “WE”) are detached and can watch how they sweep over us at times
and seem to take our independence and will away.

We are a great psychological puzzle to ourselves; and because we have not
yet fully determined what the REAL MAN (or WOMAN) is, and how it interacts
with the Mind and the “Feeling/desire” nature we are uncertain as to what
the “Psychic Nature is.

This philosophy is neither Eastern nor Western, but it is Universal -- Man
does not change from life to life just because of where he is born. North
and South are far more easily determined than East and West on our climactic
world.

The interesting thing is that we all, almost uniformly and without any
education, know what is the difference between evil and good. It is simply
the breaking or the assisting of the general and common laws of Nature.

We might say for brevity that Nature’s law is BROTHERHOOD and it is extended
to all creatures,. from the “lowly atom” to the Wisest of SAGES. This one
Law pervades our earth and the Universe and its quality is that no one may
escape retribution if they take an unfair advantage of any other living
thing, including our brother and sister humans.

The old Hindus called this KARMA. In Europe it is called the LAW of God
Omnipresent and Omniscient. God’s Omnipotence consists in seeing that the
perpetrator of good or evil deeds reap their due consequences in a measure
exactly balanced to the effort spent in generating them. In this process
the whole of nature is involved. There is no “dead” or “insensitive” matter
anywhere.

Theosophy in a way may be called “common sense.” It is a rigorous logic and
is fair and just to all.

That is what I have gleaned from studying Theosophy. Go the KEY TO
THEOSOPHY (HPB) if further details are wanted.


Best wishes,

Dallas

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





-----Original Message-----
From: Jacqui Callis [mailto:jacquicallis@blueyonder.co.uk]
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2001 4:57 AM
To: basic@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-basic] Re: "Man is the Soul "- reply to Jim

Hi,
Just some thoughts.

Jim writes "what is compatible to the needs of the soul can bring harmony.
What is not can bring disharmony." I agree to the sentiments expressed here
and the needs of the soul to me are the nourishment of Truth and finding the
truth in a situation must bring harmony and the opposite also would hold.

I find it hard to reconcile my Western life directly with the needs of my
soul. I can only move things slowly in a more soulful direction. The
revolution of everyday life.

I am not sure that most of us feel there is something we must do in this
life - unless the most referred to are already theosophists. Money is the
God and driving force for a lot of people. But I do feel that any discourse
around or searching into the soul is very important - whether understood or
misunderstood - and it is like watering a plant. I have just read by H.P.
Blavatsky:

"The world of today, in its mad career towards the unknown - which it is is
too ready to confound with the unknowable, whenever the problem eludes the
grasp of the physicist - is rapidly progressing on the reverse, material
plane of spirituality It has now become a vast arena - a true vally of
discord and of eternal strife - a necropolis, wherein lie buried the highest
and the most holy apirations of our Spirit-Soul. That soul becomes with
every new generation more paralysed and atrophied." The Secret Doctrine
xxii

One thing that the Western world of communication has brought us - through
it's news, history programmes etc. is a knowledge that things have always
been the same - humans of all races, creeds are the same, suffer the same,
have similar needs no matter what their background. I was taught that it
was alright for people to starve, say in India - it was part of their
religion - almost like they enjoyed it or welcomed it! But also the feeling
that other races weren't like those of the white Western civilised world -
had different emotions, weren't human really. I think one outcome of our
current world situation is that people are acknowledging that we all suffer
the same. That is the positive side of course!

Thank you Norman for welcoming me to the discussion.
Jacqui







----- Original Message -----
From: JIM2SAL@aol.com <mailto:JIM2SAL@aol.com>
To: basic@blavatsky.net <mailto:basic@blavatsky.net>
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 6:38 AM
Subject: [bn-basic] Re: Syllabus

Wesley

"Man is the Soul" has some very direct practical implications. The soul is
the driving force of our existence. What is compatible to the needs of the
soul can bring harmoney. What is not can bring disharmony. The haunting
question, is my life, my career, relationships, enviornment, what I do with
my time, consonant with the needs of the soul? Most of us feel, at some
deep level, there is something we must do in this life, complete in this
life or experience. Not meeting this means we are nothing or empty. It is
the same that drives the young to go on missions that may in some way change
the world. The great conflict we are now in may have to do with a driving
force to somehow express the soul whether understood or misunderstood.
Jim Colbert ---
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