Theos-Talk Archives (November 2001 Message tt00374)

Monday, November 19, 2001

Re: Who makes the Laws ? Who assembles the Atoms? What are
Facts ?
Who or How is the Universe and our World run?

Dear Alan:


I just looked back at what I was writing, and perhaps this is
long-winded, but, if you have time, I'd like you to look it over
and see if it is of help.

>From what I read neither H P B nor the "Masters" desired to be
taken as "authorities."

They did expose to our minds portions of the history and the
doctrines of Theosophy -- which concern the formation of the
Universe, our Earth, and the evolution of Intelligence in Man as
in all the rest of Nature. Some of it is at variance with the
theories our Science has evolved. They, of necessity, base their
conclusions and elaborations on the material evidence available
to them. However, below that, is the evidence that Nature, as an
active agent, works in many ways to support the physical base we
are so familiar with

As I see it, we are all obsessed by the need for an "authority."
Perhaps we want someone to take the need for our thinking, and
verifying that which is offered to us, as a responsibility, off
our shoulders. But that won't work, since the burden of choosing
an "authority" cannot be haphazard. Unless we are highly tutored
in thinking we will not have a very good base for making a
selection of "authorities." Are we, then, to rely on their
claims and advertisements? Is this not a kind of "blind chance
pickums?"

What then is the alternative ?

The important thing, I believe, is to study any writings (or any
system) for their thought-content, cohesiveness, their logic and
reasonableness. We have to employ "common sense." We cannot
escape this final need and deed. We have to ask ourselves if
this expression we now are considering, of some slice of the
universe is well and truly expressed. When we choose we are
always "on our own."

What does the THINKING, as expressed in someone's words or
writings, say ? In fact what is the nature and process of
"abstract thought" -- thought and thinking as a process,
something we use all the time? Where shall we start ?

What sets limits to relationships? Position, Perception?
Function? Interaction? Cause for the existence of a Perceiver, a
Subject, and the Laws relating to their interaction? Is
everything on the same plane? Apparently there are many planes
of perception (as in dreams, or the mental pictures we paint for
ourselves in fancy -- for instance) and also many planes of
substance.

We cannot, for instance directly perceive electricity or
magnetism without apparatus. Yet, we (the Perceiver) using our
physical organs perceive SIGHT, SOUND, SMELL, TASTE and all these
we are told, are specializations of FEELING -- the sensing of
vibration and their changes.

But it is the (difficult to define) PERCEIVER within that
organizes present impulses, remembers past impressions, compares
them, and then generates a response. This response (shall we say
it is mental as well as emotional ?) results in the choice of
some action. This is then communicated to various muscles so
that the entity may respond as it chooses. Theosophy holds
that the interior Perceiver in each of us is a "ray" from the ONE
SPIRIT, it is "surrounded" by memories of actual past
experiences, and 3rd. it employs the mind to compare those
memories with incoming sensations and devises a response.

Whether one takes up for consideration something from H P B, or
from "Masters," or from "Joe Doe, " or from yourself, or from me,
if it is true, it is TRUE. It is an expression of fact. And I
believe no one may determine without deliberation and prior
experience what is fact or knowledge of the True, or WISDOM until
one has spent a lot of time determining how this process works.
And even then, each will have to do this determining on his/her
own. No one can force their conclusions on others, although they
may advertise and certify them. H P B tried several times, in
articles and letters, and to various persons to make this quite
clear.

We usually try to place emphasis on "authority." We have all been
taught to do this in our Schools. We are given text books and
our teachers assign the various laws of the disciplines they
teach to individuals who were its pioneers and discoverers. But,
and here is a big BUT. Very few teachers ever say that those
discoveries and that lab work was done on the basis of what
NATURE PROVIDED, and still provides.

The Facts and Laws concerning objects and their
inter-relationships are inherent in Nature. Since ancient times
these have been called Karma or Dharma.

NATURE already contains everything and established its laws of
support and relationship long before the rather recent times when
the surge of Science began to seek their disclosure. Mathematics
is universal. The configuration of the various elementary atoms
is universal. The reactions of molecules to proximity,
electro-magnetic stimulus, temperature, pressure, etc... produce
consistent results. These are expressed in terms of
characteristics, properties, qualities, laws, attraction,
interaction, and repulsion, etc... The student learns a large
assemblage of co-related facts. And still we are dealing only
with physical nature.

And if we turn to family and communal living we discover that the
laws of relationships operate. Theosophy says that those are
Uniformly provided by Nature. They are called "Universal
Brotherhood."

We are given certain principles in Theosophy of a universal and
fundamental character -- not to stimulate our personal sense of
understanding, but rather, to try and get us to understand the
logic of our Universe, our Earth, and the many beings that
combine in millions of sensitive way, to make the whole construct
work. Uncertainty exists in regard to human affairs. The
question of ethics and morality loom when people interact.
Virtue is always regarded to be superior to vice, and generally,
vicious actions conceal themselves hypocritically as virtues.

No Power, no Force, unified, or diversified into cooperating
parts, gives any basis for the vast cooperative whole (and its
functioning) unless there is basically a PLAN drawn from an
incredible past -- a record of attempts to formulate, adopt and
then hone and refine it.

So we are forced to think of an original "planner." But this
"Planner" has to be coming from elsewhere -- assuming that
immortality and eternity are the actual parameters of ITS
existence.

In fact the further back we go, the more we are convinced we are
part of a continuous process -- a "ring" which has for object the
improvement of the lowest kind of intelligence into the highest
through self-effort. An old wise friend of mine once said:

How man has come to be the complex being that he is and why, are
questions that neither Science nor Religion makes conclusive
answer to. This immortal thinker having such vast powers and
possibilities, all his because of his intimate connection with
every secret part of Nature from which he has been built up,
stands at the top of an immense and silent evolution.
He asks why Nature exists, what the drama of life has for its
aim, how that aim may be attained. But Science and Religion both
fail to give a reasonable reply. Science does not pretend to be
able to give the solution, saying that the examination of things
as they are is enough of a task; religion offers an explanation
both illogical and unmeaning and acceptable but to the bigot, as
it requires us to consider the whole of Nature as a mystery and
to seek for the meaning and purpose of life with all its sorrow
in the pleasure of a God who cannot be found out. The educated
and enquiring mind knows that dogmatic religion can only give an
answer invented by man while it pretends to be from God.
What then is the universe for, and for what final purpose is man
the immortal thinker here in evolution? It is all for the
experience and emancipation of the soul, for the purpose of
raising the entire mass of manifested matter up to the stature,
nature, and dignity of conscious god-hood.
The great aim is to reach self-consciousness; not through a race
or a tribe or some favored nation, but by and through the
perfecting, after transformation, of the whole mass of matter as
well as what we now call soul. Nothing is or is to be left out.
The aim for present man is his initiation into complete
knowledge, and for the other kingdoms below him that they may be
raised up gradually from stage to stage to be in time initiated
also.
This is evolution carried to its highest power; it is a
magnificent prospect; it makes of man a god, and gives to every
part of nature the possibility of being one day the same; there
is strength and nobility in it, for by this no man is dwarfed and
belittled, for no one is so originally sinful that he cannot rise
above all sin.
Treated from the materialistic position of Science, evolution
takes in but half of life; while the religious conception of it
is a mixture of nonsense and fear. Present religions keep the
element of fear, and at the same time imagine that an Almighty
being can think of no other earth but this and has to govern this
one very imperfectly.
But the old theosophical view makes the universe a vast,
complete, and perfect whole.
Now the moment we postulate a double evolution, physical and
spiritual, we have at the same time to admit that it can only be
carried on by reincarnation.
This is, in fact, demonstrated by science. It is shown that the
matter of the earth and of all things physical upon it was at one
time either gaseous or molten; that it cooled; that it altered;
that from its alterations and evolutions at last were produced
all the great variety of things and beings. This, on the physical
plane, is transformation or change from one form to another.
The total mass of matter is about the same as in the beginning of
this globe, with a very minute allowance for some star dust.
Hence it must have been changed over and over again, and thus
been physically reformed and re-embodied. Of course, to be
strictly accurate, we cannot use the word reincarnation, because
"incarnate" refers to flesh.
Let us say "re-embodied," and then we see that both for matter
and for man there has been a constant change of form and this is,
broadly speaking, "reincarnation." As to the whole mass of
matter, the doctrine is that it will all be raised to man's
estate when man has gone further on himself. There is no residuum
left after man's final salvation which in a mysterious way is to
be disposed of or done away with in some remote dust-heap of
nature.
The true doctrine allows for nothing like that, and at the same
time is not afraid to give the true disposition of what would
seem to be a residuum.
It is all worked up into other states, for as the philosophy
declares there is no inorganic matter whatever but that every
atom is alive and has the germ of self-consciousness, it must
follow that one day it will all have been changed. Thus what is
now called human flesh is so much matter that one day was wholly
mineral, later on vegetable, and now refined into human atoms. At
a point of time very far from now the present vegetable matter
will have been raised to the animal stage and what we now use as
our organic or fleshy matter will have changed by transformation
through evolution into self-conscious thinkers, and so on up the
whole scale until the time shall come when what is now known as
mineral matter will have passed on to the human stage and out
into that of thinker.
Then at the coming on of another great period of evolution the
mineral matter of that time will be some which is now passing
through its lower transformations on other planets and in other
systems of worlds. This is perhaps a "fanciful" scheme for the
men of the present day, who are so accustomed to being called
bad, sinful, weak, and utterly foolish from their birth that they
fear to believe the truth about themselves, but for the disciples
of the ancient theosophists it is not impossible or fanciful, but
is logical and vast... Therefore as to reincarnation and
metempsychosis we say that they are first to be applied to the
whole cosmos and not alone to man. But as man is the most
interesting object to himself, we will consider in detail its
application to him.
This is the most ancient of doctrines and is believed in now by
more human minds than the number of those who do not hold it

I think you may agree that this view of our condition and of
universal evolution under Karma the eternal law that makes
Harmony out of discord.

Best wishes, as always,

Dallas
=====================


-----Original Message-----
From: Alan W------s
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 6:15 AM
To: dalval14@earthlink.net
Subject: Re: Vision, Thought and Intuition

Hi dalval14,

Monday, 19 November, 2001, you wrote:

> Reading the many original exchanges of letters and other
> documents in the course of the modern THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT one
> becomes more sure that there is a "master-influence" over the
> whole. May we not call it a sense of TRUTH and of occult as
well
> as of Universal FACT ? The sense that says: "That is TRUE."
> And then sets to work with the MIND to prove or disprove it.

To question the "masters" is to question HPB's Theosophy - and a
great
deal of questioning is apparent on this list.

It is a bit like HPBs criticisms of historians who said Julius
Caesar
could be trusted on his reporting of wars and conquests but
should be
distrusted on all other reports of phenomena which conflicted
with the
historians world view.

It is clear to me that IU and SD present a unified explanation of
existence and that such an explanation is absolutely necessary if
we
should not be like the rationalist and materialist she castigates
in
IU who as

"Atheist; presenting before his fevered vision, a hideous,
ceaseless
procession of sparks of cosmic matter created by no one;
self-appearing, self-existent, and self-developing; this Self no
Self,
for it is nothing and nobody; floating onward from nowhence, it
is
propelled by no Cause, for there is none, and it rushes
nowhither..."

I for one dont think its possible to accept parts of the broad
encompassing explanation and reject others on rationalist
grounds.

DTB	THE PHILOSOPHY IS EITHER COHERENT OR IT IS NOT.


Either HPB had access to protected knowledge and knew the
protectors
or she, as many insinuate, "made it up" via a very erudite
synthesis
of all existing western knowledge.

DTB	TURN TO The SECRET DOCTRINE Vol. I p. 272-3 if you desire
to see how the teachings were checked, tested and verified. To
me "protected knowledge" is that which at th present time would
be too dangerous for an immoral and selfish man/woman to have and
use. As I understand it, only those who have passed the most
rigorous ethico-moral tests successfully are entrusted with more
complete knowledge.


In the same breath she is a "genius" for that synthesis and a
hoaxer
because the masters, and other elements are denied on one or
other
ground.

DTB	If you want to know a good deal more about H P B then secure
and read Sylvia Cranston's documentary and definitive biography:
H. P.B. THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF HELENA BLAVATSKY. ( Tarcher).


However, naive as I might be, I too believe that when the truth
hits
you, you feel it. So those who would can continue questioning as
much
as they like. I shall concentrate on trying to better understand
it.


DTB	AGREED, I THINK YOU ARE RIGHT. But I recall a cautioning
sentence concerning Intuition. It has to be checked with the
full light of the illuminated MIND. One should be beware of
folly and misunderstanding.

Best regards,
Alan

mailto:alwilli@iafrica.com




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