Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00187)

Friday, January 11, 2002

Re ATMA - ATMAN -- ABSOLUTE -- PARABRAHM


Dear Friends:

A request to review what was written earlier on ATMA arrives.
Earlier it was written:




For CONSCIOUSNESS to exist where all is ONE, there has to be
some aspect that represents the undifferentiated potency of MIND.
It
may be totally abstract as MAHAT, or personal as Kama-Manas.

In the T. Glossary, p. 249 we are given an explanation for the
word PARAMAPADATMAVA. -- "Beyond the condition of Spirit
"supremer" than Spirit, bordering or the ABSOLUTE." [ S D I
429 ]

Incidentally at the foot of that page the reference to Mahabuddhi
and to Mahat appear to me have something to do with the primal
potency of the MIND as a necessary component (?) of the
ABSOLUTENESS -- even if that is wrong in logic at such an
elevated level.

Concerning the ABSOLUTE perhaps the following references could
help us all?

Key 61-2, 84, TRANSACTIONS OF THE BLAVATSKY LODGE pp. 16-19;
Theosophist, Vol. III, 105fn; FIVE YEARS OF THEOSOPHY (2nd Edn.)
p. 116.

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


The following contribution of H P B's statements on ATMA was
received from
Mr. D. Caldwell: [These can be accessed at:
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/key/key-7.htm ]

----------------------------


We say that the Spirit (the "Father in secret" of Jesus), or
Atman,
is no individual property of any man, but is the Divine essence
which
has no body, no form, which is imponderable, invisible and
indivisible, that which does not exist and yet is, as the
Buddhists
say of Nirvana. It only overshadows the mortal; that which enters
into him and pervades the whole body being only its omnipresent
rays,
or light, radiated through Buddhi, its vehicle and direct
emanation.

Add to this Atma, the impersonal divine principle or the immortal
element in Man, undistinguished from the Universal Spirit, and
you
have the same seven again.


First of all, Spirit (in the sense of the Absolute, and
therefore,
indivisible ALL), or Atma. As this can neither be located nor
limited
in philosophy, being simply that which is in Eternity, and which
cannot be absent from even the tiniest geometrical or
mathematical
point of the universe of matter or substance, it ought not to be
called, in truth, a "human" principle at all. Rather, and at
best, it
is in Metaphysics, that point in space which the human Monad and
its
vehicle man occupy for the period of every life. Now that point
is as
imaginary as man himself, and in reality is an illusion, a maya;
but
then for ourselves, as for other personal Egos, we are a reality
during that fit of illusion called life, and we have to take
ourselves into account, in our own fancy at any rate, if no one
else
does. To make it more conceivable to the human intellect, when
first
attempting the study of Occultism, and to solve the A B C of the
mystery of man, Occultism calls this seventh principle the
synthesis
of the sixth, and gives it for vehicle the Spiritual Soul,
Buddhi.
Now the latter conceals a mystery, which is never given to any
one,
with the exception of irrevocably pledged chelas, or those, at
any
rate, who can be safely trusted. Of course, there would be less
confusion, could it only be told; but, as this is directly
concerned
with the power of projecting one's double consciously and at
will,
and as this gift, like the "ring of Gyges," would prove very
fatal to
man at large and to the possessor of that faculty in particular,
it
is carefully guarded. But let us proceed with the "principles."
This
divine soul, or Buddhi, then, is the vehicle of the Spirit. In
conjunction, these two are one, impersonal and without any
attributes
(on this plane, of course), and make two spiritual "principles



Atma // Spirit // One with the Absolute, as its radiation


We include Atma among the human "principles" in order not to
create
additional confusion. In reality it is no "human" but the
universal
absolute principle of which Buddhi, the Soul-Spirit, is the
carrier.



This "Higher Self" is ATMA, and of course it is
"non-materializable,"
as Mr. Sinnett says. Even more, it can never be "objective" under
any
circumstances, even to the highest spiritual perception. For
Atman or
the "Higher Self" is really Brahma, the ABSOLUTE, and
indistinguishable from it. In hours of Samadhi, the higher
spiritual
consciousness of the Initiate is entirely absorbed in the ONE
essence, which is Atman, and therefore, being one with the whole,
there can be nothing objective for it.



THE HIGHER SELF is Atma the inseparable ray of the Universal and
ONE
SELF. It is the God above, more than within, us. Happy the man
who
succeeds in saturating his inner Ego with it!



Atma, the "Higher Self," is neither your Spirit nor mine, but
like
sunlight shines on all. It is the universally diffused "divine
principle," and is inseparable from its one and absolute
Meta-Spirit,
as the sunbeam is inseparable from sunlight.
Buddhi (the spiritual soul) is only its vehicle. Neither each
separately, nor the two collectively, are of any more use to the
body
of man, than sunlight and its beams are for a mass of granite
buried
in the earth, unless the divine Duad is assimilated by, and
reflected
in, some consciousness. Neither Atma nor Buddhi are ever reached
by
Karma, because the former is the highest aspect of Karma, its
working
agent of ITSELF in one aspect, and the other is unconscious on
this
plane.



The student must not confuse this Spiritual Ego with the "HIGHER
SELF" which is Atma, the God within us, and inseparable from the
Universal Spirit.



Atman, or Atma (Sans.) The Universal Spirit, the divine monad,
"the
seventh Principle," so called, in the exoteric "septenary"
classification of man. The Supreme Soul.
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/key/key-glos.htm

Atma neither progresses, forgets, nor remembers. It does not
belong
to this plane: it is but the ray of light eternal which shines
upon
and through the darkness of matter -- when the latter is willing.



Its Primary, the Spirit (Atman) is one, of course, with Paramatma
(the one Universal Spirit), but the vehicle (Vahan) it is
enshrined
in, the Buddhi, is part and parcel of that Dhyan-Chohanic
Essence;



The monad -- a truly "indivisible thing," as defined by Good, who
did
not give it the sense we now do -- is here rendered as the Atma
in
conjunction with Buddhi and the higher Manas. This trinity is one
and
eternal, the latter being absorbed in the former at the
termination
of all conditioned and illusive life.



Atma alone is the one real and eternal substratum of all -- the
essence and absolute knowledge -- the Kshetragna.** It is called
in
the Esoteric philosophy "the One Witness,"



Atma (our seventh principle) being identical with the universal
Spirit, and man being one with it in his essence, what is then
the
Monad proper? It is that homogeneous spark which radiates in
millions
of rays from the primeval "Seven;" -- of which seven further on.
It
is the EMANATING spark from the UNCREATED Ray -- a mystery. In
the
esoteric, and even exoteric Buddhism of the North, Adi Buddha
(Chogi
dangpoi sangye), the One unknown, without beginning or end,
identical
with Parabrahm and Ain-Soph, emits a bright ray from its
darkness.



"Oh, wise man, remove the conception that not-Spirit is Spirit,"
says
Sankaracharya. Atma is not-Spirit in its final Parabrahmic state,
Iswara or Logos is Spirit; or, as Occultism explains, it is a
compound unity of manifested living Spirits, the parent-source
and
nursery of all the mundane and terrestrial monads, plus their
divine
reflection, which emanate from, and return into, the Logos, each
in
the culmination of its time. There are seven chief groups of such
Dhyan Chohans, which groups will be found and recognised in every
religion, for they are the primeval SEVEN Rays. Humanity,
occultism
teaches us, is divided into seven distinct groups and their sub-
divisions, mental, spiritual, and physical.* The monad, then,
viewed
as ONE, is above the seventh principle (in Kosmos and man), and
as a
triad, it is the direct radiant progeny of the said compound
UNIT,
not the breath (and special creation out of nihil) of "God," as
that
unit is called; for such an idea is quite unphilosophical, and
degrades Deity, dragging it down to a finite, attributive
condition.
As well expressed by the translator of the "Crest-Jewel of
Wisdom" --
though Iswara is "God" "unchanged in the profoundest depths of
pralayas and in the intensest activity of the manvantaras" . . .,
still "beyond (him) is 'ATMA,' round whose pavilion is the
darkness
of eternal MAYA."



It is at this point that the Cosmic Monad (Buddhi) will be wedded
to
and become the vehicle of the Atmic Ray, i.e., it (Buddhi) will
awaken to an apperception of it (Atman); and thus enter on the
first
step of a new septenary ladder of evolution, which will lead it
eventually to the tenth (counting from the lowest upwards) of the
Sephirothal tree, the Crown.



Thus it may be wrong on strictly metaphysical lines to call Atma-
Buddhi a MONAD, since in the materialistic view it is dual and
therefore compound. But as Matter is Spirit, and vice versa; and
since the Universe and the Deity which informs it are unthinkable
apart from each other; so in the case of Atma-Buddhi. The latter
being the vehicle of the former, Buddhi stands in the same
relation
to Atma, as Adam-Kadmon, the Kabalistic Logos, does to En-Soph,
or
Mulaprakriti to Parabrahm.



It now becomes plain that there exists in Nature a triple
evolutionary scheme, for the formation of the three periodical
Upadhis; or rather three separate schemes of evolution, which in
our
system are inextricably interwoven and interblended at every
point.
These are the Monadic (or spiritual), the intellectual, and the
physical evolutions. These three are the finite aspects or the
reflections on the field of Cosmic Illusion of ATMA, the seventh,
the
ONE REALITY.



The Sixth principle in Man (Buddhi, the Divine Soul) though a
mere
breath, in our conceptions, is still something material when
compared
with divine "Spirit" (Atma) of which it is the carrier or
vehicle.
Fohat, in his capacity of DIVINE LOVE (Eros), the electric Power
of
affinity and sympathy, is shown allegorically as trying to bring
the
pure Spirit, the Ray inseparable from the ONE absolute, into
union
with the Soul, the two constituting in Man the MONAD, and in
Nature
the first link between the ever unconditioned and the manifested.



Parabraham is not this or that, it is not even consciousness, as
it
cannot be related to matter or anything conditioned. It is not
Ego
nor is it Non-ego, not even Atma, but verily the one source of
all
manifestations and modes of existence.



On the psychic and spiritual plane, it is equally true that 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.



Spirit per se is an unconscious negative ABSTRACTION. Its purity
is
inherent, not acquired by merit; hence, as already shown, to
become
the highest Dhyan Chohan it is necessary for each Ego to attain
to
full self-consciousness as a human, i.e., conscious Being, which
is
synthesized for us in Man. The Jewish Kabalists arguing that no
Spirit could belong to the divine hierarchy unless Ruach (Spirit)
was
united to Nephesh (living Soul), only repeat the Eastern Esoteric
teaching. "A Dhyani has to be an Atma-Buddhi; once the
Buddhi-Manas
breaks loose from its immortal Atma of which it (Buddhi) is the
vehicle, Atman passes into NON-BEING, which is absolute Being."
This
means that the purely Nirvanic state is a passage of Spirit back
to
the ideal abstraction of Be-ness which has no relation to the
plane
on which our Universe is accomplishing its cycle.



One of your letters begins with a quotation from one of my
own . . . "Remember that there is within man no abiding
principle" --
which sentence I find followed by a remark of yours "How about
the
sixth and seventh principles?" To this I answer, neither Atma nor
Buddhi ever were within man, -- a little metaphysical axiom that
you
can study with advantage in Plutarch and Anaxagoras. The latter
made
his -- nous autochrates -- the spirit self-potent, the nous that
alone recognised noumena while the former taught on the authority
of
Plato and Pythagoras that the semomnius or this nous always
remained
without the body; that it floated and overshadowed so to say the
extreme part of the man's head, it is only the vulgar who think
it is
within them . . . Says Buddha "you have to get rid entirely of
all
the subjects of impermanence composing the body that your body
should
become permanent. The permanent never merges with the impermanent
although the two are one. But it is only when all outward
appearances
are gone that there is left that one principle of life which
exists
independently of all external phenomena. It is the fire that
burns in
the eternal light, when the fuel is expended and the flame is
extinguished; for that fire is neither in the flame nor in the
fuel,
nor yet inside either of the two but above beneath and
everywhere --

(Parinirvana Sutra XXXIX). KH in the Mahatma Letters

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


May I, then, offer the following for consideration :


1) the ABSOLUTE refers to an eternal background. It is
neither manifested nor non-manifested, but both simultaneously
and essentially BEHIND those, which being dual contrasts come and
go like the great periods of time called Maha-Kalpas
(S D II 68-70)


2) Emerging from the ABSOLUTE periodically are periods of
manifestation, followed by periods of equal length of
non-manifestation. The "gaps" are contiguous when considered by
the embodied mind which is limited by its environment. But the
"embodied mind" is usually unable to say anything about periods
of "non-manifestation" as it is "asleep."


3) Our physical brain is only (we assume this) the seat of
our intellect during the time we are alive in this present body.


4) Our mental condition during the after-death period has
been narrated (or described) by Men-minds that have been through
this condition without loosing consciousness ( I would agree that
failing any memory at present in this brain-mind of mine as a
"personal" experience, this is accepted by me on the basis of its
reasonableness. I apply to it what I can of logic and agree it
appears reasonable -- but yet to be actually experiences AND
REMEMBERED).


5) similarly for the periods of non-manifestation, and the
concept of the ABSOLUTE as a changeless background [like
SPACE--which is always there -- whether it is "filled" with
physically manifesting atoms, or crammed with non-physical
atoms -- like the hypothetical "black matter" of astro-physics ]


6) Both Science and Theosophy hold the concept that the atoms
are Forces or Fields of Force, and their existence is not to be
limited or determined by any instrumentation so far devised. So
atoms ( and atomic sub-components) are demonstrable as necessary
concepts --- and some leave trace evidence of their presence --
but are not provable by our so-far devised instrumentation.


7) Compounds of all kinds perish. And Buddhism is
apparently correct in calling all "manifested" things "maya" or
illusions. Yet the Power or the Force that underlies the "atom"
or its qualities and properties show there is something actual,
real and permanent there -- and further implies that the laws of
its Nature exist and are integral to the general laws of "life"
we know of during the present period of manifestation. One would
conclude there are permanent, and transitory realities, and those
are perceived by beings who have equivalent "senses," and are
able to perceive, or deduce, their actuality.


8) As to corroborating statements, thoughts, concepts --
since Theosophy is not at all interested in being either
"pioneer," or the "first" to lay out any concept, if accepts such
proofs and corroboration as arises. And it adds this to its ever
growing store of proofs, demonstrations and conceptual
constructs.


THEOSOPHY is a historical record of the oldest as well as the
current conditions in all departments of Nature. It describes
the past and also the present Laws that operate in Nature and
show it to be a sensitive cooperative, which cares and supports
all of its milliards of components.

I states that each is an "immortal entity" -- a Force of
individual power, with the right to work and live where nature
has placed it. Each then, as seen by Theosophy, has a duty to
perform in its place, and all, taken together, work towards the
goal of ultimate Spiritual Perfection.

This goal is not for any one, but is common. It is the one that
draws all the many components, eventually back into a unity,
where they continue to work and assist others of their "brothers"
who face the path of progress they have mastered.

Theosophy as a living historical and ever-growing record,
welcomes all contributions. It to add or adjust such evidence as
is continuously presented, use questions and criticism as fuel
that will improve the records of the past, and add to them
present experience. It seeks to provide a basis for all
considerations and ideas, and reflecting always the information
so far adduced, it seeks to provide accuracy in response to all.

That is as I understand Theosophy to be.


Dallas