Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00028)

March 4, 2003

Re: War and “selective morality”


Dallas offers to be considered:


Quoth the Great Buddha:

"Hear the Five Rules aright: --

Kill not --- for pity's sake --- and lest ye slay 
The meanest thing upon its upward way.

Give freely and receive, but take from none
By greed, or force, or fraud, what is his own.

Bear not false witness, slander nought, nor lie;
Truth is the speech of inward purity.

Shun drugs and drinks which work the wit abuse;
Clear minds, clean bodies, need no Soma juice.  

Touch not thy neighbour's wife, neither commit 
Sins of the flesh unlawful and unfit.
LIGHT ON THE PATH OF ASIA, p. 153-4.


What is "morality?" Selective or otherwise, for if there is
"selective morality" then there is also a universal morality. And
that is a treasure we have to find. But we already know this and sense
the answer from within ourselves where our "Inner God" the ATMA -- the
HIGHER SELF always is.

This Inner SELF is one with all other spiritual selves everywhere.
Hence brotherhood. Who rejects this? Why ?

What are the rules, or words that frame the laws of the Earth, of
mankind, and of all being?


We have a single simple one, every philosophy or religion states
basically:  

"Do unto others that which we would have them do unto us." 


Reciprocity, tolerance, brotherhood, fair exchange, generosity, all
emerge from this simple straightforward statement.
Who rejects it? who finds fault with it? What possible circumstances
permit any one to set it aside, twist, bend or reject it ?


What else does Theosophy offer?

1.	The unity of the ONE DIVINE SPIRITUAL -- UNITY -- the same
everywhere as a basis for individual life. Some give it other
designations: "God," BENESS, ABSOLUTENESS, Space unlimited,
universal, impersonal; Truth, honesty, virtue -- all synonyms and
imply a uniformity of law, action, and goal as a common objective for
all beings including men.
The following summary will afford a clearer idea to the reader. 
(1.) The ABSOLUTE; the Parabrahm of the Vedantins or the one Reality,
SAT, which is, as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and Non-Being. 
(2.) The first manifestation, the impersonal, and, in philosophy,
unmanifested Logos, the precursor of the "manifested." This is the
"First Cause," the "Unconscious" of European Pantheists. 
(3.) Spirit-matter, LIFE; the "Spirit of the Universe," the Purusha
and Prakriti, or the second Logos. 
(4.) Cosmic Ideation, MAHAT or Intelligence, the Universal World-Soul;
the Cosmic Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations
in and of Nature, also called MAHA-BUDDHI. 
The ONE REALITY; its dual aspects in the conditioned Universe. 
SECRET DOCTRINE I, p. 16



2	Universal LAW, sensitive and ever active. The basis for
feeling, desire as well as of wisdom and the will. The Laws of
mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, engineering,
government, economics are seen to be impersonal and uniformly active.
Hence they are trustworthy, and honest. and on them we can rely.

(b.) The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane;
periodically "the playground of numberless Universes incessantly
manifesting and disappearing," called "the manifesting stars," and the
"sparks of Eternity." "The Eternity of the Pilgrim"** is like a wink
of the Eye of Self-Existence (Book of Dzyan.) "The appearance and
disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb of flux and
reflux." 
This second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is the absolute
universality of that law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and
flow, which physical science has observed and recorded in all
departments of nature. An alternation such as that of Day and Night,
Life and Death, Sleeping and Waking, is a fact so common, so perfectly
universal and without exception, that it is easy to comprehend that in
it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of the universe.
SECRET DOCTRINE I pp 16-17


3.	EVER GROWING INTELLIGENCE and learning, wisdom. Cooperation,
brotherhood, generosity are represented in the evolutionary scheme
that Theosophy has always taught since the first beginnings.


"What is it that ever is?" "Space, the eternal Anupadaka." "What is it
that ever was?" "The Germ in the Root." "What is it that is ever
coming and going?" "The Great Breath." "Then, there are three
Eternals?" "No, the three are one. That which ever is, is one, that
which ever was, is one, that which is ever being and becoming, is also
one: and this is Space." 
"Explain, oh Lanoo (disciple)." -- "The One is an unbroken Circle
(ring) with no circumference, for it is nowhere and everywhere; the
One is the boundless plane of the Circle, manifesting a diameter only
during the manvantaric periods; the One is the indivisible point found
nowhere, perceived everywhere during those periods; it is the Vertical
and the Horizontal, the Father and the Mother, the summit and base of
the Father, the two extremities of the Mother, reaching in reality
nowhere, for the One is the Ring as also the rings that are within
that Ring. Light in darkness and darkness in light: the 'Breath which
is eternal.' It proceeds from without inwardly, when it is everywhere,
and from within outwardly, when it is nowhere -- (i.e., maya, one of
the centres). It expands and contracts (exhalation and inhalation).
When it expands the mother diffuses and scatters; when it contracts,
the mother draws back and ingathers. This produces the periods of
Evolution and Dissolution, Manwantara and Pralaya. The Germ is
invisible and fiery; the Root (the plane of the circle) is cool; but
during Evolution and Manwantara her garment is cold and radiant. Hot
Breath is the Father who devours the progeny of the many-faced Element
(heterogeneous); and leaves the single-faced ones (homogeneous). Cool
Breath is the Mother, who conceives, forms, brings forth, and receives
them back into her bosom, to reform them at the Dawn (of the Day of
Brahma, or Manvantara). . . . ." The SECRET DOCTRINE I, pp. 11-12


(c) THE FUNDAMENTAL IDENTITY OF ALL SOULS WITH THE UNIVERSAL
OVER-SOUL, THE LATTER BEING ITSELF AN ASPECT OF THE UNKNOWN ROOT; and
the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul -- a spark of the former --
through the Cycle of Incarnation (or "Necessity") in accordance with
Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole term. In other words, no
purely spiritual Buddhi (divine Soul) can have an independent
(conscious) existence before the spark which issued from the pure
Essence of the Universal Sixth principle, -- or the OVER-SOUL, -- has
(a) passed through every elemental form of the phenomenal world of
that Manvantara, and (b) acquired individuality, first by natural
impulse, and then by self-induced and self-devised efforts (checked by
its Karma), thus ascending through all the degrees of intelligence,
from the lowest to the highest Manas, from mineral and plant, up to
the holiest archangel (Dhyani-Buddha). The pivotal doctrine of the
Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special gifts in man, save
those won by his own Ego through personal effort and merit throughout
a long series of metempsychoses and reincarnations."	
The SECRET DOCTRINE I p. 17


After that where is there room for the justification of War any time
any where ?


Best wishes,

Dallas

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



-----Original Message-----
From: christinaka 
Sent:	Monday, March 03, 2003 4:28 PM
To:	study@blavatsky.net
Subject:	[bn-study] RE: bn-study digest: March 02, 2003

Wouldn't it be selective morality to answer this question in favour of
one side or the other?  

What is the "right " thing to do?

Best to do the most selfless thing. Section 12 of the KEY is a good
review of some examples of what one should be using as a tool for
discriminating.  

This discussion has prompted me to re-read the KEY. So, talk to you
later!

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

Subject: conflicting moral imperatives
From: Reed Carson <reed3@tellworld.com>
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2003 18:49:17 -0500
X-Message-Number: 5

So I would put to this list a first question. Note that it is a very 
general and abstract question. That question is: Is it ever possible
-
under any imaginable circumstances - for there to be conflicting moral

imperatives? Is it possible for it to occur?

Reed  









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