Theos-Talk Archives (October 2002 Message tt00189)

Oct 22 2002

Dear Mun...:

Yes, I think that Theosophy would say you are correct, each of the 7
Principles is sevenfold as it interconnects with the others. This
forms a plane surface of 49, or 7 x 7. Furthermore, as we live the
"plane surface" deepens and we may see at any time that it forms a
solid of 7 x 7 x 7 = 343 -- and on this solid we can trace the
paths of karma at any stage of our living, past, present, and so on
into the future. It is the basis for true "astrology."

The patterns of any Individual, and their personal incarnation this
time around, are peculiar to themselves, but they also correlate with
the times and patterns of the clock of the "Stars" (the Zodiac to
us) -- thus KARMA is given its widest and most realistic sweep and
scope -- Man is seen to fit mathematically and actually into the
universal patterns. ( S D I 668; II 622, ).

So it would seem that "Socrates," as Plato depicted, represents the
continually questing searching and testing "embodied mind" -- in its
highest aspect, as it seeks to relate everyday occurrences and
problems to the spiritual and virtuous patterns of the Universe and
"the Music of the Spheres." (S D I 643, II 601,

But it has always puzzled me. Now that I know this, how is this 7 x 7
pattern to be used? Theory is OK, but what is the practical use to be
made? Can we look at some probables?

Let's take ATMA -- the universal SPIRIT . It is unitary, and in
effect it antecedes and succeeds any and all temporary manifestations
or "manvantaras." It also exists as an ETERNAL BACKGROUND when
Pralaya sets in. It is indescribable and yet it has t be because it is
a "logical necessity." Everything has a "cause," and a "source." The
ABSOLUTE has been termed the "causeless cause of all being." Something
to think about. Also, the "rootless root."

In effect it interpenetrates all the 7 principles equally, and to it
there are no barriers; and therefore, maybe it can be called the ONE
PRINCIPLE, and every one of the rest is an ASPECT of it. This is
saying that each principle has an aspect that is spiritual and in
effect one never can "escape" the purview of SPIRIT. But then the
next step is to think of the tremendously long period over which every
spiritual being (call it a Monad) has had experience. Buddhi is said
to be the repository of that memory, and no experience, whether it is
a feeling, a thought, a word or a deed is ever "lost."

Also one might hold that this alone (the ONE SPIRIT) is the reason why
in Theosophy BROTHERHOOD is held to be the one unifying bond between
all manifested "beings." This is metaphysical philosophy of course.
But it is well to always hold it in mind. It (ATMAN) therefore, in
manifestation, is the primary component of the MONAD (ATMA-BUDDHI)
( S D I 178, 644, )

If we look closely we can see that the UNIVERSAL PRIMORDIAL MONAD is
ONE. In manifestation it disperses itself throughout the entire
limitless, boundless Kosmos -- everywhere, ATMAN underlies BUDDHI.
And yet, paradoxically during that period it is also the total partner
of Buddhi.

Or better still, one can legitimately say that in manifestation,
BUDDHI is the MONAD (or SPIRIT manifesting in the highest aspect of
MATTER. -- "Matter" is also immortal, as is Spirit.) ATMA then, being
universal, co-exists with Buddhi at all times, yet is also, in a
transcendental manner to be understood as a "background" and
universally distributed. All is included within it. There is no
"separation" because intelligence is now using a particular "form."

BUDDHI is given in theosophical philosophy a number of synonyms:
MULA-PRAKRITI -- or "Root" Matter; Primordial Matter; Suddha-Sattva;
"WISDOM of ACCUMULATED EXPERIENCE." One might then infer that the
Buddhas, Rishis, Dhyanis are all of the category of "successful men"
who now have a universal vision and can use it for the general benefit
when Karma allows it.

H P B in The SECRET DOCTRINE gives us a clue to the immortality and
ubiquity (universal character) if Buddhi. The whole Universe in
manifestation is made up of uncountable Monads, EACH THE MIRROR OF THE
OTHERS. (S D I 632) In other words inter-communication is
instantaneous. ( Reminds us of "String theory.") ( S D I 632 )

Since it (Buddhi) co-emanates from the ABSOLUTE, and forms with SPIRIT
the first aspect of SPIRITUAL POTENCY, it is as "old" as "SPIRIT."
These two are deemed to be eternal and indestructible. They are
totally and inextricably interlaced. It is said that they are made
conscious by Manas the Universal Mind - which establishes and assists
the flow of conscious Intelligence between them. These three are the
essential SPIRITUAL NATURE and are also present in each human as his
SPIRITUAL INDIVIDUALITY. The Mind is able to perceive both of these.
It serves as a link. (S D II 81, 275fn, 318fn, ) and also their
"vehicle," (S D I 242-5, 334, II 596)

At the end of the Maha-Manvantara (Life of Brahma -- 311 trillion and
40 billion of years (S D II 69-70 ) these two merge back into the
unmanifest ABSOLUTENESS. H P B does state the important fact
concerning the immortality of the Individuality
(Atma-Buddhi-Manas): -- that the experience acquired by every Monad
in the intervening period is not lost or dissolved, but forever
remains as the basis for the next Maha-Manvantara. ("ISIS UNVEILED and
the Visishtadvaita," H P B Articles: Vol. III, 264-6; S D I
266, ). She also states that the Monad aggregates by attraction
uncounted Monads of lesser experience, and for them is a
Brother-Teacher, and, as an advanced or "progressed" ENTITY, it is
responsible for their well-being. Sri Krishna in the BHAGAVAD GITA
states this to Arjuna.

Next let's look at BUDDHI -- it is said to be eternal and a perfect
record of all individual experience for every MONAD in manifestation.
Akasa is said to be this attribute -- a record and another aspect
named "Lipika" (scribes) makes this record. This is the basis for
KARMA -- universal galactic, solar, planetary and finally human down
to the smallest sub-atomic particle we can think of -- far subtler
than the particles our Science has detected. It communications with
the embodied mind is said to be through the medium of the Intuition
and the "Voice of Conscience."

[ H P B writes : Every one of us possesses the faculty, the interior
sense, that is known by the name of intuition, but how rare are those
who know how to develop it! It is, however, only by the aid of this
faculty that men can ever see things in their true colours. It is an
instinct of the soul, which grows in us in proportion to the
employment we give it, and which helps us to perceive and understand
the realities of things with far more certainty than can the simple
use of our senses and exercise of our reason.

The instinct of which I speak, being a projection of our perceptive
consciousness, a projection which acts from the subjective to the
objective, and not vice versa, awakens in us spiritual senses and
power to act; these senses assimilate to themselves the essence of the
object or of the action under examination, and represent it to us as
it really is, not as it appears to our physical senses and to our cold
reason. "We begin with instinct, we end with omniscience" says
Professor A. Wilder. ]
] H P B Articles I 428-9 LE PHARE DE L'INCONNU ]


KARMA: It is a part of Buddhi. It is in fact the highest aspect of
"Matter." It responds in vibratory harmony with all movements in
Nature. Since man in is free, as a chooser and a willer -- its
reactions are relentlessly just, fair, merciful, and always tends to
harmonize and restore disturbed equilibrium. It works in response to
feelings and emotions (Kama), in response to personal thoughts (Lower
manas) and also to words and acts (Physical plane body). It works on
the plane --usually invisible to us, of causes and of motive. It
detects immediately any breach of the universal law and begins, then,
its task of restoring harmony. In this process the element of
disturbance is reeducated, as it is made to feel and receive the
effect of its choices, good or bad. The law cannot be transgressed.

To BUDDHI, the Interior "Tutor," (or Atma-Buddhi" the Higher Self) we
are referred in TRANSACTIONS OF THE BLAVATSKY LODGE ( pp. 66 - 77)
There it is showed that the "Lower Mans" -- the embodied mind when the
body is quiescent and asleep "confabulates" with this Divine Self.
When the ultimate level of human perfection is reached, a new
Bodhisattva is born. (see VOICE OF THE SILENCE, pp. 72 to p 79 --
end of Fragment III.)

If we then pass to Mind -- MANAS,

Theosophy states the fifth principle is Manas, translated Mind. Other
names may have been given to it, but it is the Knower, The Perceiver,
The Thinker. The sixth principle is Buddhi, or spiritual discernment;
the seventh is Atma, or Spirit -- the ray from the Absolute Being.
English as a language, may suffice to describe in part what Manas is,
but not Buddhi, or Atma, and will leave many things relating to Manas
undescribed.

THE LOWER MAN

The course of evolution developed the four lower principles (Desire,
Life-energy, Astral and Physical bodies) and produced at last, the
form of man with a brain of better and deeper capacity than that of
any other animal.

This man in form was not man in mind, and needed the fifth principle,
the thinking, perceiving one, to differentiate him from the animal
kingdom and to confer the power of becoming Self-Conscious. The Monad
(Atma-Buddhi) was imprisoned in these forms, for without the presence
of the Monad evolution could not go forward.

THE LIGHTING-UP OF THE MIND

Going back for a moment to the time when mankind was devoid of mind,
the question arises, "who gave the mind, where did it come from, and
what is it?" It is the link between the Spirit of God above and the
personal below. It was given to the mindless Monads by others who had
gone through this process ages upon ages before in other worlds, and
it therefore came from older evolutionary periods which had been
carried out and completed long before the solar system began. This is
the strange theory which must be stated if we are to tell the truth
about Theosophy; and this is only handing on what others have said
before.

The manner in which this Light Of Mind was given to the Mindless Men
can be understood from the illustration of one candle lighting many.
Given one lighted candle and numerous unlighted ones, it follows that
from one light the others may also be set aflame. So in the case of
Manas. It is the candle of flame. The mindless men having four
elementary principles of Body, Astral Body, Life and Desire, are the
unlighted candles that cannot light themselves. (S D I 247, 233, 297,
II 69, 92, 54-5, 150, 272, 660,)

MIND IS A GIFT FROM OUR ELDER BROTHERS -- THE WISE

The "Sons of Wisdom," who are the Elder Brothers of the family of men
on any globe, have the Mind-light. It was derived by them from
others -- their "Elders," who reach back, and yet farther back, in
endless procession with no beginning or end. They set fire to the
combined lower principles and the Monad, thus lighting up Manas in the
new men. And from there began the preparing of another great race for
final initiation.

This lighting up of the fire of Manas is symbolized in all great
religions and Freemasonry. In the East a priest appears holding a
candle lighted at the altar, and thousands of others come to him in a
procession, to light their candles from this one.

Manas, or the Thinker, is the reincarnating being. It is the immortal
who carries the results and values of all the different lives lived on
earth or elsewhere.

MIND BECOMES DUAL IN THE PHYSICAL MAN

Its nature becomes dual as soon as it is attached to a body. For the
human Brain is a superior organism, and Manas uses it to reason from
premises to conclusions. This also differentiates man from animal, for
the animal acts from automatic, the so-called instinctual impulses.
Whereas the man, can use Reason. This is the lower aspect of the
Thinker or Manas, and not, as some have supposed, the highest and best
gift belonging to man.

Its other, and in Theosophy higher, aspect, is the intuitional, which
knows, and does not depend on reason. It is Manas allied to Buddhi --
spiritual discrimination and Wisdom. The lower, and purely
intellectual, is nearest to the principle of Desire, and is thus
distinguished from its other side which has affinity for the spiritual
principles (Buddhi and Atma, above. If the Thinker, becomes wholly
intellectual, the entire nature begins to trend downward; for
intellect alone is cold, heartless, selfish, because it is not lighted
up by the two other principles of universality and immortality:
Buddhi and Atma.

MANAS-MIND STORES ALL THOUGHTS

In Manas the thoughts of all lives are stored. That is to say: in any
one life, the sum total of thoughts underlying all the acts of the
life-time will be of one character in general, but may be placed in
one or more classes. That is, the business man of today is a single
type; his entire life thoughts represent but one single thread of
thought. The artist is another. The man who has engaged in business,
but also thought much upon fame and power which he never attained, is
still another.

The great mass of self-sacrificing, courageous, and strong, poor
people who have but little time to think, constitute another distinct
class. In all these, the total quantity of life thoughts makes up the
stream or thread of a "life's meditation" -- "that upon which the
heart was set" -- and those are stored in immortal Manas. All those
will be brought out again at any time in whatever life the brain and
bodily environments are similar to those used in engendering that
class of thoughts.

PERCEPTION BY THE MIND

It is Manas which sees the objects presented to it by the bodily
organs and the actual organs (which are seated in the Astral body)
within. When the open eye receives a picture on the retina, the whole
scene is turned into vibrations in the optic nerves which disappear
into the brain, and there Manas is enabled to perceive them as idea.
And so with every other organ or sense. If the connection between
Manas and the brain be broken, intelligence will not be manifested
unless Manas has by training found out how to project the astral body
out and away from the physical, and thereby keep up communication with
fellow men.

OUR ORGANS OF PERCEPTION ARE TOOLS FOR THE MIND

That the organs and senses do not cognize objects, hypnotism,
mesmerism, and spiritualism have now proved. For, as we see in
mesmeric and hypnotic experiments, the object seen or felt, and from
which, all the effects of solid objects may be sensed, is often only
an idea existing in the operator's brain. In hypnotism there are many
experiments, all of which go to show that so called matter is not per
se solid or dense; that sight does not always depend on the eye and
rays of light proceeding from an object; that the intangible for one
normal brain and organs, may be perfectly tangible for another; and
that physical effects in the body may be produced solely from an idea.

The well-known experiments of producing a blister by a simple piece of
paper, or preventing a real blistering plaster from making a blister,
by force of the idea conveyed to a subject, either that there was to
be or not to be a blister, conclusively prove the power of effecting
an impulse on matter by the use of that which is called Mind (Manas).
But all these phenomena are the exhibition of the powers of Lower
Manas acting in the astral Body and the fourth principle -- Desire,
using the physical body as the field for the exhibition of the forces.

LOWER MANAS AND ITS POWERS

It is this Lower Manas which retains all the impressions of a
life-time and sometimes strangely exhibits them in trances or dreams,
delirium, induced states, here and there in normal conditions, and
very often at the time of physical death. But it is so occupied with
the brain, with memory and with sensation, that it usually presents
but few recollections out of the mass of events that years have
brought before it.

It interferes with the action of Higher Manas because just at the
present point of evolution, Desire and all corresponding powers,
faculties, and senses are the most highly developed, thus obscuring,
as it were, the white light of the spiritual side of Manas. It (Lower
Manas) is tinted by each object presented to it, whether it be a
thought-object or a material one. That is to say, Lower Manas
operating through the brain is at once altered into the shape and
other characteristics of any object, mental or otherwise. This causes
it to have four peculiarities.

* First, to naturally fly off and away from a selected point, object,
or subject;
*
* Second, to fly to some pleasant idea;
*
* Third, to fly to an unpleasant idea;
*
* Fourth, to remain passive and considering nothing.
*
The first is due to memory and the natural motion of Manas; the second
and third are due to memory alone; the fourth signifies sleep when not
abnormal. And when abnormal is trending toward insanity. [see
PATANJALI - YOGA-SUTRAS -- translated by Mr. W. Q. Judge]

HIGHER MANAS AND ITS WORK

These mental characteristics all belonging to Lower Manas. It is
these which the Higher Manas, aided by Buddhi and Atma, has to fight
and conquer. Higher Manas, if able to act, becomes what we sometimes
call Genius. If completely master, then one may become a god. But
memory continually presents pictures to Lower Manas, and the result is
that the Higher is obscured. Sometimes, however, along the pathway of
life we do see here and there men who are geniuses or great seers and
prophets. In these the Higher powers of Manas are active, and the
person is illuminated. Such were the great Sages of the past, men like
Buddha, Jesus, Confucius, Zoroaster, and others. Poets, too, such as
Tennyson, Longfellow, and others, are men in whom Higher Manas now and
then sheds a bright ray on the man below, to be soon obscured,
however, by the effect of dogmatic religious education which has given
memory certain pictures that always prevent Manas from gaining full
activity.

In this higher Trinity, we have the God above each one; this is Atma,
(the 7th principle) and may be called the Higher Self. Next, (the
sixth) is the spiritual part of the soul called Buddhi; when
thoroughly united with Manas (the fifth) this may be called the Divine
Ego, or the Spiritual Soul.

THE REINCARNATING SELF IS AN IMMORTAL

The inner Ego (Manas), who reincarnates, taking on body after body,
storing up the impressions of life after life, gaining experience and
adding it to the Divine Ego, suffering and enjoying through an immense
period of years, is the fifth principle -- Manas -- not united to
Buddhi.

This is the permanent individuality which gives to every man the
feeling of being himself and not some other; that which through all
the changes of the days and nights from youth to the end of life makes
us feel one identity through all the period; it bridges the gap made
by sleep; in like manner it bridges the gap made by the sleep of
death. It is this, and not our brain, that lifts us above the animal.

The depth and variety of the brain convolutions in man are caused by
the presence of Manas, and are not the cause of mind. And when we
either wholly, or now and then, become consciously united with Buddhi,
the Spiritual Soul, we "behold God," as it were. This is what the
ancients all desired to see, but what the moderns do not believe in,
the latter preferring rather to throw away their own right to be great
in nature, and to worship an imaginary god, made up solely of their
own fancies, and not very different from weak human nature.

DUTY AND WORK OF THE REINCARNATING MIND-MANAS

This permanent individuality in our present race has therefore been
through every sort of experience, for Theosophy insists on its
permanence and in the necessity for its continuing to take part in
evolution. It has a duty to perform, consisting in raising up to a
higher state all the matter concerned in the chain of globes to which
the earth belongs.

We have all lived and taken part in civilization after civilization,
race after race, on earth, and will so continue throughout all the
Rounds and Races until the seventh is complete. At the same time it
should be remembered that the matter of this globe, connected with it,
has also been through every kind of form, with possibly some
exceptions in very low planes of mineral formation.

But in general all the matter visible, or held in space still
unprecipitated, has been molded at one time or another into forms of
all varieties, many of these being such as we now have no idea of. The
processes of evolution, therefore, in some departments, now go forward
with greater rapidity than in former ages because both Manas and
matter have acquired facility of action.

Especially is this so in regard to man, who is the farthest ahead of
all things or beings in this evolution. He is now incarnated and
projected into life more quickly than in earlier periods when it
consumed many years to obtain a "coat of skin." This coming into life
over and over again cannot be avoided by the ordinary man because
Lower Manas is still bound by Desire, which is the preponderating
principle at the present period. Being so very influenced by Desire,
Manas is continually deluded while in the body, and being thus deluded
is unable to prevent the action upon it of the forces set up in the
life time.

These forces are generated by Manas, that is, by the thinking of a
whole life time. Each thought makes a physical as well as mental link
with the Desire in which it is rooted. All life is filled with such
thoughts, and when the period of rest after death is ended, Manas is
bound by innumerable electrical magnetic threads to earth by reason of
the thoughts of the last life, and therefore by desire, for it was
desire that caused so many thoughts and ignorance of the true nature
of things. This is called by the Hindu philosophies "maya."
(illusion).

An understanding of this doctrine of man being really a thinker and
made of thought, will make clear all the rest in relation to
incarnation and reincarnation.

Using this power of our mental perception it is now possible to see
how the powers of the lower "principles" are qualified.

The Principle of passions, desires and selfishness is next in it is
developed at the highest level instinct. If instinct were alone to
reign, the mind could not operate. True instinct is direct perception
of necessity and experience (memory) inherent in the physical vehicle
translates this into immediate action: to protect, to love, to help,
to succor, all the great virtues are invoked but they are not
"thought out" nor are the understood because the power to understand,
as stated above, is still latent. It needs to be evoked, just as that
power is evoked in the developing brain-mind of children..

Jiva is the universal LIFE ENERGY. In incarnation man draws t himself
as a form a limited quantity of this force. It is the called Prana
(breath or lie), or personal life-energy. It is a component of Karma,
and the personal Karma of an individual determines the length of
coherence for its forms as the immortal Ego incarnates life after
life.. It is the power of an advanced Monad to attract an aggregate
of "Monads of lesser experience," to forma body of the material needed
for experience, around it. Man therefore in such a relation has a
duty as a "teacher of duty, and of "righteousness," to those monads
entrusted to it by nature for their evolution.

The ASTRAL BODY is next and it serves as an electro-magnetic lattice
on which the physical molecules and cells arrange themselves. It is
intimately connected with Karma and the physical body we need for
experience here.

Finally there is the physical body. The embodied mind is intimately
linked to this and therefore often is deluded as to where its real
life is.

In every one of these "principles" the seven-fold relationship exists
and can be traced.

There is only one CONSCIOUSNESS in man and this stems from ATMA the
ONE SPIRIT. It pierces up and down the seven planes of being and
serves to unite the memory of experiences on every plane. This single
CONSCIOUSNESS is the ancient ineffable, the "aum" and as
differentiated in Man it is his HIGHER SELF. By means of this Higher
Self he is to strengthen the lower, and thus transform the ordinary
"personal self" into the UNIVERSAL SELF of the fully
Universally-Self-Conscious BUDDHA.

This ONE CONSCIOUSNESS is the witness and the spectator in men..

An ancient text states: 'The way to self-salvation must be entered.
To take the first step raises the possibility of success. The first
step is giving up bad associations and securing a desire and a longing
for understanding the nature of the ONE SELF within. The second is
joining good company -- that of aspirants for WISDOM. Then, listening
to their teachings, testing them through mental understanding, and
finally practicing them. The third step is to strengthen the first
two and to gain faith in one's own powers seeing that they relate to
UNIVERSAL FACTS and POWERS in the UNIVERSE.

I trust this may prove of use.

If more information is needed, then please ask.

Best wishes,

Dallas

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


-----Original Message-----
From: Mun....
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 7:01 AM
To:
Subject: Re: Manas and Buddhi

Dear All, Dallas

To my information each of the 7-fold layer of man has its own 7-fold
layer
also. I suppose change, progress , consciousness of an average student
for
example is related with Kama-Manas's sub 7-fold layer is it? So to
say not
having full consciousness. What can be said about Socrates's
consciousness?


Best Regards

Mun...

CUT