Theos-Talk Archives (November 2002 Message tt00862)

Nov. 26 2002

Dear Friends:

I find this most interesting, May I observe?


If there are mental images, then there has to be a thinker who evolves
them.

The thinker employs some force to design, frame and animate them, what
would that be, and how would it be used ?


are the Thinker and his thoughts, and the surroundings, are all part
of a single CONSCIOUSNESS ?

There have to be memories as well. And the power to recollect or
evoke them ?

There has thus, to be also the power of anticipation. How Would That
be Based ?

Also there has to be some kind of substance (s) on which they are
imprinted.

The thinker has also the power to alter them.

At present, it would seem that most thinkers we are aware of, reside
in bodies of various kinds: matter, electro-magnetic patterns, life
currents, desires, thoughts, and finally, of universal and impersonal
facts that are seemingly invariable.

We might call these last, the basis of WISDOM and of UNIVERSAL MEMORY
/ MIND. [Perhaps these are the "seeds. ? and, or "reality ?"]

It is not unreasonable to assume that our mental perception, arising
in the material plane, is self-limited.

However if that mind (or myself in the here and now) can envisage
residence and activity in other levels of substance, and, if those are
in correlation with each other and the physical, then each thinker may
be an individualized CONSCIOUSNESS with faculties that are drawn from
the whole of the Universe ( Nature ). Is this a commonly experienced
"reality ?"

Are not noumena ( causes ) connected with "phenomena" (effects) on
various planes, as the effects which choice and change bring about ?
Are not certain correlated "planes" also affected ?

What would be so extraordinary as to find that individual Thinkers are
inevitably all linked ?

Finally what kind of force (s) or objective (s) cause (s) the UNIVERSE
( NATURE ) to be ?

Is that connected with my and your "existence ?"

Dallas

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


-----Original Message-----
From: gschueler
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 7:52 PM
To: Theosophy Study List
Subject: Re to Steve - Phenomena & Noumena

Hi Steve. Having read your ideas on Kant before, I was pretty sure
that you
were Mauri's mystery person.

<<<Very close. The way Kant, who coined the word, defined it,
noumenon refers
to something which can be thought but not experienced directly through
the
senses. Phenomena refers to representations in consciousness of
objective
reality (again in Kant's usage.) We can only experience our conscious
representations of physical reality and not the reality itself (the
thing-in-itself or ding-an-such). >>>

We can think of a rabbit with horns, etc, things that have no "real"
existence
except as mental images. Are these also noumena? I would think so.

The Mind Only school of Tibetan Buddhism also teaches that external
objects
are all conscious respresentations, projections from the alayavijnana.
They
say that all possible experience is due to the seeds stored in the
alayavijnana. And all schools of Mahayana Buddhism agree that there is
no
thing-in-itself to experience. It is very unfortunate that Blavatsky
was so
vague on this.

<<<We can, however, if we are objective idealists, infer the existence
of the
ding-an-sich at thesame time that we cannot directly experience it.
It
therefore becomes a type of noumenon. I found Kant so hard to
understand that I had to refer to Dewey's explanations to get this.>>>

OK, but I think that I am more of a subjective idealist, and I do not
believe
that phenomena or noumena can exist independently of the mind that
conceives/perceives them. One reason I say this is because in
meditation we
can transcend phenomena and noumena. If they are "real" it is hard for
me to
see how such a trancendence would be possible. The mind can be raised
to
spiritual formless states suggesting that mind has a "real" existence
while
phenomena/noumena do not.


<<<This split between representations in consciousness (phenomena) and
the
objective reality being represented in consciousness (noumena) is what
the
Hindus call maya. Every Theosophist with whom I have communicated
denies that
the split exists.>>>

Interesting. These "representations in consciousness" sound like the
"aspects"
taught by the early Mind-Only folks like Dharmakirti. He taught that
"aspects"
of consciousness were the bridge between external but non-material
monads and
conscious experience. Intriguing line of thought there...

Most Theosophists are of the opinion that maya is simply sensory
illusion as
taught in modern science classes. I have been trying to show that is
it much
more than this, but only a few seem to understand. According to many
Tibetan
Buddhists, the very experience of an external reality that seems to be
independent or different from the mind experiencing it is maya. And
this is
true no matter what plane we are on. Dream contents always seem to
exist
independent of our mind, and even in lucid dreaming we can control
them but
cannot unite with them owing to our countless past lives of mayavic
experiencing. But after we wake from a dream, we realize that they had
to be
mental projections. Buddhists claim that after enlightenment, which is
a
waking up to mayavic illusion, we will realize that this is true on
all
planes. Something to think on, anyway.


<<<So suppose there are such things as elemental spirits and they are
somehow
connected with forces. We can think the but not perceive them. Thus
they are
a type of noumenon, since that is how the word is defined. If we
develop the
ability clairvoyantly to perceive them then the elementals cease to be
purely
noumenal and become phenomenal - thus the idea of "planes" of
consciousness.>>>

This is certainly one valid way to look at it. The beauty of "reality"
is that
it can be modeled in so many ways. When we transcend phonomena on one
plane,
the noumena of the next plane becomes our phenomena and so on up the
planes.
There is no valid reason to reify the planes and posit some kind of
independent objective reality to them as Blavastky did in the SD. I
can see
where our experiences can be modeled either way.