Theos-Talk Archives (October 2001 Message tt00308)

Friday, October 19, 2001

Dear Friends:

In connection with this subject, I attach some quotations taken
from original Theosophical sources that related to the psychic
nature and plane.

because of its length it is divided into 2 parts



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PART 1 HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY


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HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY



"[Bhagavad Gita] embodies "the psychological system of
the Hindus--which really underlies every word of this poem..."
GN 2



MORAL STATES CLASSIFIED


"The following classification and discussion of the three
qualities ( B. Gita, Ch. 14) illustrates the vital difference
between the ancient, true psychology of the East, and what is
termed Western psychology. Both abound in classifications;
those of the East are much more numerous...and cover a wider
field; Western psychology in its classifications refers solely
to mental states. The psychology of the Gita and the ancient
sages classify the moral states, treating the mental states as
mere effects produced by moral conditions. Herein lies the
secret of the hold the Gita has had all down the ages, and
continues to have increasingly. It lays bare the unsuspected
bases of error; it discloses the most subtle forms of
self-delusion; it marks out the true course so painstakingly
that the dullest mind cannot fail to grasp a clear perception of
the path to true knowledge."
G. N. p. 197


"...the word Kama...means "desire,"...the 4th principle
was the "body or mass of desires and passions." [GITA NOTES
197: -- "Western psychology in classifications refers solely to
mental states...[Eastern} and the ancient sages classifies the
moral states, treating the mental states as mere effects produced
by moral conditions...It lays bare unsuspected bases of error;
it discloses the most subtle forms of self-delusion; it marks
out the true course so painstakingly that the dullest mind cannot
fail to grasp a clear perception of the path to true
knowledge."]...The West divides man into intellect, will and
feeling, but it is not understood whether the passions and
desires constitute a principle in themselves or are due entirely
to the body..."desires of the flesh,...fleshly appetites." OCEAN
45



WESTERN SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY STYMIED


"The lack of an adequate system of Psychology is a
natural consequence of the materialistic bias of Science and the
paralyzing influence of dogmatic religion; the one ridiculing
effort and blocking the way, the other forbidding
investigation...Real psychology is an Oriental product
today...the system was known in the West when a very ancient
civilization flourished in America, and in certain parts of
Europe anterior to the Christian era, but for the present day,
psychology in its true sense belongs to the Orient...

"In man are the same powers and forces which are to be
found anywhere in Nature. He is held by the Masters of Wisdom to
be the highest product of the whole system of evolution, and
mirrors in himself every power, however wonderful or terrible, of
Nature; by the very fact of being such a mirror he is man."
OCEAN 135-6


"Some day proofs as conclusive [as that of the theory of
Evolution in the Rig Veda or the Books of Hermes] will be
discovered of the reliability of the ancient writers as their
evidence on psychological matters...There can be no real
enfranchisement of human thought nor expansion of scientific
discovery until the existence of spirit is recognized."
- H.P.Blavatsky Modern Panarion, p. 93



PASSIONS AND DESIRES


"The passions and desires are not produced by the
body...on the contrary, the body is caused by the former. it is
desire and passion which caused us to be born, and will bring us
to birth again and again in some body on this earth...[it] is the
balance principle of the whole 7. It stands in the middle, and
from it the ways go up or down. It is the basis of action, and
the mover of the will..."Behind will stands desire."
OCEAN 46


"[Low desires] the constant placing of the consciousness
entirely below in the body or astral body... [High desires] the
influence of and aspiration to the trinity above, of Mind, Buddhi
and Spirit...

[During life] the emplacement of the desires and
passions is...throughout the entire lower man...it may be added
to or diminished, made weak or increased in strength, debased or
purified.

[After death] it (Kama) informs the astral body, which
then becomes a mere shell; for when a man dies his astral body
and principle of passion and desire leave the physical in company
and coalesce, It is then that the term Kamarupa may be applied,
as Kamarupa is really made of astral body and Kama in
conjunction, and this joining of the two makes a shape or form
which though ordinarily invisible is material and may be brought
into visibility.

Although it is empty of mind and conscience, it has
powers of its own that can be exercised whenever the conditions
permit. These conditions are furnished by the medium of the
spiritualists, and in every seance room the astral shells of
deceased persons are always present to delude the sitters... For
the astral spook--or Kamarupa--is but the mass of the desires and
passions abandoned by the real person who has fled to "heaven and
has no concern with the people left behind, least of all with
seances and mediums.

Hence, being devoid of the nobler soul, these desires and
passions work only on the very lowest part of the medium's nature
and stir up no good elements, but always the lower leanings of
the being...

The Kamarupa spook is the enemy of our civilization,
which permits us to execute men for crimes committed and thus
throws out into the ether the mass of passion and desire free
from the weight of the body and liable at any moment to be
attracted to any sensitive person. Being thus attracted, the
deplorable images of crimes committed and also the picture of the
execution and all the accompanying curses and wishes for revenge
are implanted in living persons, who, not seeing the evil, are
unable to throw it off. Thus crimes and new ideas of crimes are
willfully propagated every day by those countries where capital
punishment prevails." OCEAN 47-48



DANGER OF EXERCISING PSYCHIC POWERS


"To attempt to acquire the use of the psychic powers for
mere curiosity or for selfish ends is also dangerous for the same
reasons as in the case of mediumship. As the...present day is
selfish to the last degree and built on the personal element, the
rules for these powers in the right way have not been given out,
but the Masters of Wisdom have said that philosophy and ethics
must first be learned and practiced before any development of the
other department [psychism] is indulged in...

Equally improper is the manner of the scientific schools
which...indulge in experiments in hypnotism in which the subjects
are injured for life...

"The Lodge of the Masters does not care for Science
unless it aims to better man's state morally as well as
physically, and no aid will be given to Science until she looks
at man and life from the moral and spiritual side. For this
reason, those who know all about the psychical world, its
denizens and laws, are proceeding with a reform in morals and
philosophy before any great attention will be accorded to the
strange and seductive phenomena possible for the inner powers of
man." OCEAN 152


WHAT ARE THE "MORAL STATES ?"

Some Notes derived from studying H.P.Blavatsky -- DTB



Metaphysics is the "mother-plant" of psychology. It is a
science of first principles.

The Esoteric Philosophy recognizes in the ultimate
analysis that there is only One Reality. This lies behind the
illusions (Maya) of our Universe of forms. It is called
variously Sat or Para-Brahm, the "Great Unknown."

There is a continual circuit of manifestation followed by
rest (pralaya, or non-manifestation - a supra-physical,
"spiritual" state). This compares with our cycle of sleeping and
waking.


The duality, in manifestation of Spirit and Matter is a
fact.
These emerge from the One Reality, and are found in ancient
philosophy designated as the Word (Logos)--Spirit; and, Matter
(Mula-prakriti) --Root Matter. They equilibrate each other
constantly.

The great Law of cause and effect, measured, regular,
constant and consistent, ever merciful and totally just runs
continuously through all periods. It has been called variously:
the One Life, Karma, the "Great Breath." It works in and on
everyone impartially.

One of the chief differences between antique
psychological philosophical systems and the modern is that in
antiquity, the moral states were classified. States of
Consciousness and Perception were held to be the result of those
moral conditions.

Morality is defined as those acts, thoughts and feeling
which harmonize with the Great Law of the Evolutionary progress
of the Universe. Of necessity this is universal in scope,
considers the value and necessity of every creature, every
particle of substance. Nothing is excluded or held to be
unrelated to its all-encompassing purview.

Immorality is held to be anything adverse, by definition
it is limited, selfish, acquisitive defensive of territory and
possessions.

Eastern Psychology recognizes in Man's conscious
constitution several distinct and active principles:

1. The Emotions: feelings, desires, needs and wants,
all centered around the personality the "I"-self in waking
consciousness. It is very "territorial." These are seen to come
and go and change constantly. It rarely considers consequences,
is rash and wayward.

2. The Mind: thoughts, imagination, fancy, ability
to study and analyze, memory, extrapolation, etc... This is
called the True Self and the Individual. This sense of
Individuality persists throughout the life in spite of many
changes. It is "superior" to the "emotional, the selfish self,
as it can control and direct it. It tends to be deliberate and
considers results that may accrue to actions.

3. In waking consciousness these two are combined to
form two operative points of dialog: There is an alliance
between one aspect of the mind and the emotions. This makes up
the "Lower Mind" - selfish, territorial, vicious, amatory, etc...
The second unit is that aspect of the mind which coalesces with
experience, with the memory of results and considers those which
are beneficial to itself or dangerous in potential. It has been
called "The Higher Mind." One of its faculties is to access to
the common and universal plane of Mentality in the Universe where
results of all past events and actions are recorded. ["Actions"
include: desires, thoughts, and physical acts.]

4. Mind (Soul) is that which persists. In Eastern
psychology it is held that it constitutes an unbreakable thread
of consciousness between the life experiences of this personality
and that of previous personalities ensouled by it through the
process of reincarnation.

5. Mind is allied, in it higher, nobler aspect, to a
principle of Universal Wisdom--the source of Law, Karma, Justice
and Progress. It has been named Wisdom, Buddhi. This the Higher
Mind is called Buddhi-Manas to use terms that philosophers employ
in Sanskrit. The "Lower Mind" is denoted Kama-Manas, or the
desire-mind. This last informs the personality and gives it its
awareness. It transfers constantly its impressions to the Higher
Mind, and at the death of the body it makes a final transfer to
the Higher Mind. This becomes the conveyor of the life of the
Entity through a review and resting period to its eventual return
on Earth in a new body.

6. Intuition and the "Voice of Conscience" are
evidence of the communications between the Higher and the Lower
Minds during life. The Higher, having access to past experience
in full, warns the lower, when necessary at the time when it
makes decisions or choices. These may or may not be heeded by
the embodied Lower Mind. Consequences ensue and this is called
"Karma," the ledger balance of all our activities, visible and
invisible, physical or immaterial.

7. We are part of a vast host of intelligences.
Men-minds like ourselves, and levels of consciousness represented
by the animals, plants, minerals and other elements of the
Universe. It is also reasonable to consider that there are our
predecessors on the Ladder of Evolution. Those once men like
ourselves who have progressed to a wiser and wider view of
things. Like our teachers, instructors and professors they
remain as assistants, whose advise is available to those of us
who care to seek for and ask for it.

8. The subject of the "will." or the executive power
which transfers an "idea" into an action is also to be
considered. It is volitional, directive, serves as a bridge
between the mind and the hands that work in the world of physical
matter. It is "colorless." It can be employed by either the
Lower or the Higher Mind.

9. The Buddha was the greatest of psychologists. He
showed the inquirer how to understand Suffering as part of a
pair. Happiness was the alternative. There is something in Man
which sees both sides. This sensitivity evokes compassion. To
refrain from hurting others while gently but firmly insisting on
equity is the study of the ages. The personal application leads
to Adeptship through true non-violence.

10. The Higher Self is common to all it being Atma,
and universal. As a drop resides in the Ocean, so the Higher
Self of each individual resides in the Universal Spirit. It is
at once a part of THAT, and yet is individualized. We therefore
share in all the sufferings and the pleasures of others. We are
their brothers and sisters in Spirit.

11. Each individual has to come to the realization
that he alone will save or damn himself.

12. Each one is morally obliged to assist all others
when able to do so. The motive for such assistance has to be
disinterested, to be true.


STATEMENTS AND WARNINGS BY H.P.Blavatsky


"Psychism, with all its allurements and all its dangers,
is necessarily developing among you, and you might beware lest
the Psychic outruns the Manasic and Spiritual development.
Psychic capacities held perfectly under control, checked and
directed by the manasic principle, are valuable aids in
development. But these capacities running riot controlling
instead of controlled, using instead of being used, lead the
Student into the most
dangerous delusions and the certainty of moral destruction.
Watch therefore carefully this development, inevitable in your
race and evolution-period so that it may finally work for good
and not for evil..." HPB -- 5 Messages, p. 29


MAN - THE SOLE FREE AGENT


"...man is a free agent during his stay on earth. He
cannot escape his ruling Destiny, but he has the choice of two
paths that lead him in that direction, and he can reach the goal
of misery--if such is decreed to him, either in the snowy white
robes of the Martyr, or in the soiled garments of a volunteer in
the iniquitous course; for, there are external and internal
conditions which affect the determination of our will upon our
actions, and it is in our power to follow either of the
two...this destiny is guided either by the heavenly voice of the
invisible prototype outside of us, or by our more intimate
astral, or inner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the
embodied entity called man. Both these lead on the outward man,
but one of them must prevail; and from the very beginning of the
invisible affray the stern and implacable law of compensation
steps in and takes its course, faithfully following the
fluctuations...this self-made destiny..." SD I 639


"...Consciousness is not developed; Consciousness always
is. It is intelligence which is developed in different ways, in
different degrees of substance, on different planes of being.
The intelligence gained is an understanding of externalities in
their relation to Consciousness itself...This acquired
intelligence is the basis of the Archetypal World, in which types
are formulated...it is Consciousness first, last and all the time
at the root of all manifestation. Always the Perceiver is behind
every form. What is learned in regard to externalities or any
instrument is the amount of intelligence gained...as that
intelligence increases it becomes the basis on which better
instruments are formed." Q & A 203-4


PURPOSE - THE GOAL


"...the Universe, which manifests periodically, for the
purposes of the collective progress of the countless lives."
SD I 268 [ see PATANJALI, Yoga sutras, pp. 24-5]


"The soul emerges from the unknown, begins to work in and
with matter, is reborn again and again, makes karma, develops the
six vehicles for itself, meets retribution for sin and punishment
for mistake, grows stronger by suffering, succeeds in bursting
through the gloom, is enlightened by the true illumination,
grasps power, retains charity, expands with love for humanity,
and thenceforth helps all others who remain in darkness until all
may be raised up to the place with the "Father in Heaven" who is
the Higher Self."
"The Mahatmas as Ideals & Facts" WQJ ART II 39


"The course of Being is an ever-becoming. Ever-becoming
is endless, therefore beginningless. This solar system and its
planets of course had a beginning and will have an ending, but
every manifestation is but a further becoming of that which had
been. Periods of Manifestation and Non-Manifestation succeed
each other in Infinite Space, to which neither beginning nor
ending can be applied...The ancient way of stating any beginning
is, "the Desire first arose in It;" It referring to Spirit,
which is the cause and sustainer of all that was, is, or shall
be. There is a beginning to the first glimmerings of external
consciousness, which ever tends to widen its range of perception
and manifestation until it encompasses and becomes at one with
All; Potential Spirit having become Potent Intelligence. The
ending of the process results in a new beginning based upon the
totality of intelligence attained. Whatever begins in time ends
in time. Time is due to perceptions in Consciousness; as the
Secret Doctrine says...beginnings and endings pertain to that
"illusion," and not to the beginningless and endless Spirit which
is the Perceiver. As the Gita says: "The Spirit in the body, is
called Maheshwara, the great Lord, the Spectator, the admonisher,
the sustainer, the enjoyer, and also the Paramatma the highest
soul;" itself without beginning or ending, it makes beginnings
and endings in manifestations, which as manifestations are
beginningless and endless in their turn." Q & A 102-3



SPIRITUAL SOUL - HIGHER MIND - EGO - BUDDHI-MANAS


"...the higher Mind in Man, or his Ego (Manas) is, when
linked indivisibly with Buddhi, a spirit..." GLOS
306-7


"...Occultism calls this the seventh principle [Atma],
the synthesis of the six, and gives it for vehicle the Spiritual
Soul, Buddhi...in conjunction these two are One, impersonal and
without any attributes (on this plane)..." KEY, 120


"The Spiritual divine EGO is the Spiritual Soul,
or Buddhi in close union with Manas, the mind-principle, without
which it is no EGO at all, but only the Atmic Vehicle."
KEY 176


"Buddhi becomes conscious by the accretions it gets from
Manas after every new incarnation..." SD I 244


"Plato defines Soul (Buddhi) as "the motion that is able
to move itself." "Soul"..."is the most ancient of all things,
and the commencement of motion," thus calling Atma-Buddhi
"Soul,"... which we do not." KEY 114


"It is by development that the soul becomes spirit, both
being at the lower and the higher rungs of one and the same
ladder whose basis is the Universal Soul or spirit." HPB II
306


"...there is no impossibility in supposing [ that the Ego
is a "god on a higher plane"] so surrounded by the clouds of
matter as to become latent or hidden until the time when the form
suitable for this plane is evolved...that Ego, who is the
Spectator of all things...[the Self] ..."
FORUM ANSWERS 108


"...Pythagoras...described the Soul as a self-moving Unit
Monad) composed of 3 elements, the Nous (Spirit), the phren
(mind), and the thumos (life, breath or the Nephesh of the
Kabalists), which 3 correspond to our "Atma-Buddhi," (higher
Spiritual-Soul), to Manas (the EGO), and to Kama Rupa in
conjunction with the lower reflection of Manas." KEY 94


"...[the Agnishwatta Pitris] were destined to incarnate
as the Egos of the forthcoming crop of Mankind. The human Ego is
neither Atman nor Buddhi, but the higher Manas: the intellectual
fruition and the efflorescence of the intellectual self-conscious
Egotism--in the higher spiritual sense. The ancient works refer
to it as Karana Sarira on the plane of the Sutratma, which is the
golden thread on which, like beads, the various personalities of
this higher Ego are strung...these beings were returning
Nirvanees, from preceding Maha-Manvantaras--ages of incalculable
duration..." S D II 79


"The Ego does not enter the body at any time...the
connection of the Ego with the body--by means of the principle
Manas--is made in general, at seven years of age, and from then
on the Ego is involved or entangled in body. But before such
material entanglement it was first caught and involved in the
passions and desires...kama--which is always the efficient or
producing cause for the embodiment of the Ego. This kama is
known to form a part of the skandhas or aggregates, of which the
material body is one." Forum Answers 47


"...man...Spiritual Fire is its instructor (Guru)...This
fire is the higher Self, the Spiritual Ego, or that which is
eternally reincarnating under the influence of its lower personal
Selves, changing with every re-birth, full or Tanha or desire to
live. It is a strange law of Nature, that on this plane, the
higher (Spiritual) Nature should be, so to say, in bondage to the
lower. Unless the Ego takes refuge in the Atman, the ALL-SPIRIT,
and merges entirely into the essence thereof, the personal Ego
may goad it to the bitter end...That which propels towards, and
forces evolution, i.e., compels the growth and development of Man
towards perfection, is (a) the MONAD, or that which acts in it
unconsciously through a force inherent in itself; and (b) the
lower astral body or the personal SELF...unless the higher Self
or EGO gravitates towards its Sun--the Monad--the lower Ego, or
personal Self, will have the upper hand in every case. For it is
this Ego, with its fierce Selfishness and animal desire to live a
Senseless life (Tanha), which is "the maker of the tabernacle" as
Buddha calls it...the Atman alone warms the inner man; i.e., it
enlightens it with the ray of divine life and alone is able to
impart to the inner man, or the reincarnating Ego, its
immortality." SD II 109-110


next, see Part 2 --
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