Theos-Talk Archives (January 2003 Message tt00588)

Jan 24 2003

Re: The source and definition of Monads

Dear Jerry:

I agree with you on this. No sense splitting invisible hairs.

Probably the "Monad," eternal or temporal, is a focus or center of
energy on a plane utterly different from our known material one.

If so, then, I can see where the problem of presenting a coherency in
logic or definitions to us might easily arise.

Dal

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-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 8:15 AM
To:
Subject: - Monads

DTB
<<<Agreed that the skandhas are Monads which have been impressed --for
a while with characteristics of thought and feeling, but, as monads
they are eternal. Or so I understand.>>>

GS
Dallas, Blavatsky carefully defines "monad" as an indivisible unit in
accordance with Liebnitz. Manas, our human mind, cannot conceptualize
an indivisible unit. An indivisible unit is ineffable and
non-conceptual. It has no sides, no inner, no outer, no right, no
left, and so on. In short, it has no image. As soon as we make any
kind of a concept or mental image of it, that concept will always have
parts, and not really be a monad at all.

Blavatsky knew this very well, and she deliberately used the term
"monads" for mental concepts of monads. A human monad, a vegetable
monad, and so on, are not monads at all because they are divisible.
The atma-buddhi monad is not a true monad either because it is
divisible. But it is relatively monadic from our human viewpoint, and
so she used the name. This kind of thing is called a blind in occult
terminology. Those who don't know better, who are not initiated, will
take her "monads" as if they were eternal things or objects existing
in time and space. Those who know better, who have been initiated,
will see through these blinds and realize that these "monads" are not
true monads, and are in fact divisible and thus cannot be eternal
except relatively.

The following is something that I learned in my travels. It is a key
to use when reading Blavatsky: A MONAD THAT IS INDIVISIBLE IS ETERNAL
AND HAS ULTIMATE REALITY WHILE A MONAD THAT IS DIVISIBLE IS TEMPORAL
AND HAS CONDITIONAL REALITY.

Jerry S.