Theos-Talk Archives (December 2001 Message tt00046)

<<<<Gerald: "If you really want to accept my challenge or
disprove my premise, then you have to do better than
simply throw out yet more quotes.

That depends on what the goal is. >>>

Steve, the "goal" had nothing to do with truth or falsehood, or right or wrong, or who interprets Blavatsky the best. It had, simply to do with forming a logical argument as to what she "may" have intended to mean. My so-called "challenge" has to do with my thesis that defining atma as permanent is illogical in relation to her overall thesis on evolution via a "pilgrim" through a planetary chain of globes and planes. I simply challenged anyone at all to submit a logical argument of her thesis that would include a permanent and unchanging atma (which is likely to be an essential part of the "pilgrim"). However, this whole thing has gotten all blown out of proportion. On the other hand, so far no one has been able to do it, so I am left thinking that I was right all along, everyone's complaining and whining notwithstanding.


<<<We have to define and agree on the goal of the discussion.>>>

Its simple: Given HPB's thesis of an evolutionary pilgrimage through the Earth Planetary Chain of 12 Globes and 7 Planes, is atma permanent or does it change? I have shown that logically it, as part of the whole evolutionary package, must change along with everything else. (Now, again, I am not claiming to be "right" only that I am logically consistent with my initial assumptions). I have not been able to formulate a logical thesis in which atma is permanent. So, I have asked those who believe atma is permanent to do so for me. So far, they have not been able to do so either, but go right on illogically claiming permanence. I think that this sums up the situation with atma, and I am pretty much ready to drop the whole thing.


<<<I have no interest in challenging or disproving anyone, but I think you have misunderstood some of these ideas. Since they are presented by Blavatsky with such luminous clarity I cannot understand why.>>>

But Steve, I have no interest in such a thing either. My entire premise is that one cannot PROVE anything. Daniel has said that he doesn't want to prove anything either, just to show everyone HPB's words. That's fine (although I would think that most folks would know how to use an index if they want to). But it still begs the whole question of logic, and saying that atma is permanent is simply illogical IMO, and so far no one has tried to show otherwise.



<<<Not to be argumentative, I don't think that is what Blavatsky said.>>>

Not in so many words, I agree. I am reading between her lines. Also, as Sufilight likes to point out to me, her words can have multiple meanings. Now while I may be wrong in my interpretation, I am at least logically consistent, which is more than I can say for many others. Its like this, Steve, I have read a lot of illogical statements and interpretations of what goes under the name of Theosophy. This has bothered me for some years. So, I have tried hard to come up with an argument that incorporates her overall scheme in a logical and coherent manner. I may be right. I may be wrong. But it at least I am logically consistent.


<< "Buddhi" is supposed to be the limit of reason, and apparently something which mortals can study intellectually, but not perceive with the senses.>>>

Yeah, and this is Blavatsky's own personal interpretation of the Sanskrit word, which usually simply means "intellect." She often uses the word to mean the intuition (which itself is a multi-meaning word).
But other times she uses it as an upadhi or "vehicle" for atma. And then again at times she combines it with manas, to mean "higher mind."


<<< It is therefore not an object of consciousness to the senses or to manas, but it must exist ex hypothesis since for every phenomenon
there must be an accompanying noumenon.>>>

I have answered this by placing buddhi on the causal plane, above manas which is on the mental plane. It is supposed to be above manas. On the other hand, she clearly says that after pralaya, only atma remains, so therefore buddhi has to be below atma. By placing it on the causal plane, it fits perfectly with everything she has to say about it - except that putting it there means that it must be an evolving aggregate, like everything else on the four lower planes. Now, whether buddhi is, in fact, on the causal plane or not is not my worry or concern. It fits there nicely and is logically consistent with all of the things that she says about it, and so I will leave it there for now.


<<<This trend can be seen in more primitive form in Eduard von Hartmann's PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS.>>>

I only read one book by Hartmann, and was not impressed.


<<<So if the "monad" is "buddhi" as it is defined to be,>>

No, only in the sense that there is a human monad and an animal monad and a mineral monad and so on. It is not a monad in the sense of being indivisible. And neither is atma. Blavatsky uses "monad" as an occult blind, throwing it around all over the place even where she damn well knows it doesn't belong (she probably got a lot of laughs over that). How can one "thing" be a principle and a monad at the same time? They are, in fact, two very different "things." This is exactly the kind of illogical stuff that will kill the TM, and why Theosophy has never caught on with the public. 


<<<then its existence presupposes the existence of its noumenon, which we call "atma." This is not an aggregate, since "atma" merely means reality whereas "buddhi" means the phenomenal representation of
reality. They are both the same thing.>>>

Whoa! I can't follow you here at all. You lost me totally. Now atma "merely means reality." ??? This conjures up a thousand questions, and I guess the first would be - Why does Buddhism say it has no inherent existence at all? Apparently Buddhism dropped the ball on this one? And if atma is reality, what would you call paramatman - beyond reality???


<<<Consider that "reason" is said to be seated in the fifth principle, "buddhi", which is the limit of reason, is defined as the sixth principle, and the seventh then is defined as being beyond the limit of
reason.>>>

Actually Steve, I agree with you here. In fact, I would even put buddhi beyond reason, because I see logic and reason as a manas function. Logic and reason do not apply to atma-buddhi. Agreed. However, in my arguments about using logic, and my logical placement of atma and buddhi on the cosmic planes, I am using manas.



<<<Since the word "plane" refers to consciousness and "atma" is inaccessible to consciousness, it makes no sense to say that "atma [is[ on the three upper planes." >>>

Here we simply have a disagreement over what a plane is, and possibly what consciousness is. I experience "planes" as entire worlds filled with all sorts of things. Each plane contains hosts of inhabitants, and governing beings, and so on and on. The lower three planes are all experienced in a space-time subject-object mode. This clearcut mode fuzzes up as we go higher, but we still deal with whole worlds. Consciousness, in terms of a subject observing an object holds all through the lower six planes, although the 2nd and 3rd are a bit confusing because in those two planes the distinction between subject and object are merged or blended together. On each plane, we are consciously aware, but on the upper three planes this awareness is called samahdi, and is a special type of consciousness.

Of course, you don't have to take my word for this. Blavatsky herself clearly says that each principle exists on a plane. And it really does.
Our physical body only exists on the physical plane. Our thinking, and logic and reasoning only exists on the mental plane. Our emotions only exist on the astral plane. These things are bound to the planes by Rings-Pass-Not. You cannot think thoughts on the causal plane, for example.



<<<If atma is by definition never phenomena, then by definition it cannot be "maya" >>>

But it is phenomena, relatively speaking. We can observe it in meditation, for example. In the same way that we can observe our thoughts and so observe manas, so we can observe all our principles.
One can, and should make observations all the way up to the Monad - this is as far as we can go, any direct observation of divinity itself is something I am not going to get into.

Enough for now. I am done with atma and planes for awhile.


Jerry S.

--