Theos-Talk Archives (November 2001 Message tt00465)

Sunday, November 25, 2001


Dear Friend:

Let me put some notes in the text of what you sent.

Hopefully these may provide some answers.

Dallas

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



-----Original Message-----
From: Nisk98114
Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2001 8:13 AM
To:
Subject: RE: FUNDAMENTALS...


I am reminded from Dallas's offering of some of the fundamentals
of
Theosophic teachings, of a place in Arizona where there are
petrified trees
(considered sacred by Native Americans) where "trees" are as
stone,
apparently a "drift" backwards in Nature, showing that the Law as
stated by
Hermes is just a natural progression and we also have the
proposition if a
human was "left" long enough by itself in early stages of
development might
it not revert, as it were , back to the animal stage.

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

DTB	The site of the PETRIFIED FOREST (wood turned into stone) is
well known, and the theory is that those trees were plunged by an
ancient cataclysm into a condition where the mineral in solution
replaced the physical wood and followed the wood patterns.
Pretty much as stalagmites and stalactites are built in limestone
caves over centuries of exposure to the lime in solution. At
least that is what Geology theorizes.

Theosophy would not consider this a regression into the mineral
condition, as I understand it.

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

There was an apparent case of something like that in England ,
where, if i remember it right, a child was tied and left in a
basement and only fed scraps, a horrific case of abuse as it was
, after that soul was found, he was apparently more animal
than human.

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

DTB	There have also, historically been cases of small children
nurtured and brought up by animals. In India wolves were know to
occasionally do this. The account of those children was that
they had not developed any characteristics of human mentality on
their own. The condition was apparently irreversible. The
conclusion was that arrived at is that a HUMAN MIND is needed to
help develop in each infant the qualities of human ratiocination,
thought, and evolution.

What these children (as human bodies), brought up by animals
developed, was a limited animal instinct and consciousness
comparable with that of the animals they lived with. It is also
reported that when such children were recovered and brought into
a cultured society, they did not live very long. [The story of
Mowgli, in the JUNGLE BOOKS by Rudyard Kipling is fiction.]


Such "drifts" on earth remind one greatly of the axiom as stated
above. No doubt there are countless other examples if one looks
carefully about in the environment.

What is it that "Lights" up the animal mind?

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

DTB	Apparently it is the companionship of other Minds.

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

If I repeat out loud one and two as child and I am left at that,
has it not
been proven , unless I am taught to say three i will remain in
the stage of
repeating out loud only one and two and believe that's all there
is?

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

DTB	That experiment I have never heard of.

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

Something "other" is always aiding us in development and when
that is
neglected or is used in some other way does not development
retard as it were?

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

DTB	Theosophy speaks of the "LIGHTING UP OF THE MIND" as a
process applied at a time when the Karma of the race had evolved
in the human animal form a sensitivity in neurological material
and the brain, which enabled the "fire" of the Mind to descend
and illuminate -- this is said in The SECRET DOCTRINE to have
occurred roughly about 18 million years ago. [ S D I 150
footnote ] Other references in the S D on this may be found in

S D I 303, 233-4, 247, 609

S D II 69, 92, 150, 254-5, 272, 660.

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

Just some thoughts on development.

Is that not our animal mind?

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

DTB had offered:

SELF-AWARENESS or CONSCIOUSNESS notes all the many degrees of
interaction between Spirit and Matter, but is it not also
independent ?

Beings, becoming self-conscious, develop their own record of
experience (or may we call it a "degree" of evolution ?). They
aggregate with others (the whole under Karma) which are also
developing. Thus there are "advanced" Monads and "Monads of
lesser experience." (SECRET DOCTRINE I 619, 632-34.) All
emanate originally from the "Monadic Essence."

Can we say: An aggregation of forms (Monads) of lesser
experience become the vehicle, or dwelling place for a more
advanced Intelligence who has assumed (under karma) the
responsibility in assisting the development of each unit ?

Harmony and cooperation permit disparate beings to join together
for the benefit of the Whole. Can we say then, that the Universe
is a harmony of many different, even discordant, Units ?

Each such aggregation becomes as a group a UNITY on one or more
of the planes of learning experience. Thus Man's "body" is
formed over aeons by hosts of cooperating and interacting
intelligences (of a lower degree of experience) : sub-atoms,
atoms, molecules, cells, structures and organs, nerve material,
etc... and the whole is coordinated by an invisible internal
Intelligence that exhibits externally a variety of vital and
motivational aspects ?

CUT