Theos-Talk Archives (June 2003 Message tt00094)

Thursday, June 12, 2003

Dear friend:

Here are some definitions that Theosophy offers on the subject of
animals and their developing consciousness:

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

PETS and ANIMALS


Students of Theosophy have noticed the matter and the
intelligence of a pet animal are influenced and augmented to some
extent by the nearness and care of the human mind and its
embodied FEELINGS.
But Theosophy says that this is for the animals an unnatural
state, and that their own evolution of their peculiar
intelligence, ought to be allowed to proceed under the laws
Nature (the UNIVERSE) has established for animal evolution.

There is a rule in Occultism and that is that no chela or devotee
should own a "pet." [H.P.Blavatsky Articles II p. 95 top] As I
understand it, the forces that brought the Monads together,
formed an aggregate, and this is the conjunction of a body and
the intelligence that can use it. Thus there is some
interference in the development of that intelligence when an
animal is made into the pet of a human being.

The animal intelligence, of course develops in a natural way when
left in the wild under the Laws of Nature in regard to that
evolution. When the animal dies, those "lives," or what we might
call their "skandhas" (so to say) -- all are monads -- are
dispersed as living and immortal forces. These are then said to
be attracted to other animals of the same, or some superior level
of intelligence -- they are attracted, each in its own way to
some corresponding animal center where evolution needs their
presence. As "little lives" we must always remember, they are
Monads and never "die."


A N I M A L S and M E N

___________________


SPIRIT - SOUL - BODY-FORM


"...the "Spirit," or the divine portion of the soul is
pre-existent as a distinct being from all eternity."...(106) Both
the human Spirit (or the Individuality), the re-incarnating
Spiritual Ego, and Buddhi, the Spiritual Soul, are pre-existent.

But, while the former exists as a distinct entity, an
individualization, the soul exists as pre-existing breath, an
unscient portion of an intelligent whole. Both were originally
formed from the Eternal Ocean of light, but as the
Fire-Philosophers... expressed it, there is a visible as well as
invisible spirit in fire."	Key 105-6



NEPHESH - SENTIENT LIFE - ANIMAL "SOUL"


"...(animals)...These are no less than man, informed with the
same principle of sentient life, the nephesh of the 2nd chapter
of Genesis. The Soul is by no means the Mind, nor can an idiot,
bereft of the latter, be called a "soul-less" being..."	HPB
Articles II 18


"...(the) animal soul (Nephesh of the Hebrew Kabalist)...the ray
which emanates from the Higher Manas or permanent EGO, and is
that "principle" which forms the human mind--in animals
instinct."	Transactions. 59


"...man has one "principle" more than the tiniest insect, but
because man is a perfected animal, the vehicle of a fully
developed monad, self-conscious and deliberately following its
own line of progress, whereas in the insect, and even the higher
animal, the higher triad of principles is absolutely dormant."
Trans. 14-15


"A dog that has to exercise its own sagacity to find food, will
sooner develop psychical powers in that direction, than one that
does nothing but eat and sleep, and the individual or
differentiated monad of the former will sooner reach the
condition necessary to enter the human kingdom. The rudiments of
hope, patience, faith, fidelity, confidence, etc., are found in
the animal kingdom."	-- HPB Theosophist 5- p. 223


"The difference between animals and men is this: the former are
ensouled by the "principles" potentially, the latter actually."
Key 104



ANIMALS REINCARNATE


[ Animals ] "...they do reincarnate, but that which from them
goes forth to reincarnation is not similar to the reincarnating
principle of the human being. Were we to suppose that the monads
now going through the present animal life were reincarnating in a
haphazard way, then surely law disappears our philosophy tumbles
to the ground, and a reign of terror in the scheme of evolution
ensues." WQJ Art II 486


"In calling the animal "Soulless," it is not depriving the beast,
from the humblest to the highest species, of a "soul." but only
of a conscious surviving Ego-soul, i.e., that principle which
survives after a man, and reincarnates like a man. The animal
has an astral body, that survives the physical body for a short
period; but its (animal) Monad does not reincarnate in the same,
but in a higher species, and has no "Devachan" of course. It has
the seeds of all the human principles in itself, but they are
latent."	S D II 196fn



KARMA OF ANIMALS


"Animals have Karma, or consequence of act, but they have not
man's responsibility. While they seem to suffer and enjoy, it is
all without any self-consciousness, and hence is less in itself
and less lasting in effect. Their karma is bound up with man;
and he is the responsible one and will have to bear the
responsibility, although they feel the burden directly."	WQJ Art
II 566


"...the effect of Karma upon the animals...(15) the whole of
creation waits upon man and groans that he keeps back the
enlightenment of all. What happens when...you crush out the life
of a common croton bug ? Well, it is destroyed and you forget
it. But you brought it to an untimely end, short though its life
would have been. Imagine this being done at hundreds and
thousands of places...Each of these little creatures had life,
and energy; each some degree of intelligence, The sum total of
effects of all these deaths of small things must be appreciable.
If not, then our doctrines are wrong and there is no wrong in
putting our the life of a human being ... [animals] killed for
sport..."
WQJ Art I 14-5


"The brutes unconsciously are aware of the general human
opposition, which in each human being they see focalized."	WQJ
Letters 87



ANIMAL MONADS -- THEIR EVOLUTION AND PROGRESS


"While it is stated that no more animal monads can enter on the
man-stage, it is not said nor inferred that the incoming supply
of monads for the animal kingdom has stopped. They may still be
coming in from other "worlds" for evolution among the animals of
this globe...It is quite possible also that the animal monads may
be carried on to other members of the earth-chain in advance of
man for the purpose of necessary development, and this would
lessen the number of their appearances here...the animals,
however, being devoid of developed Manas, have no Devachan and
must be forced onwards to the next planet in the chain...as it
gives them a chance for development in readiness for the time
when the monads of that kingdom shall begin to rise to a new
human kingdom. They have lost nothing, but, on the contrary,
will be the gainers."	WQJ Art I 103



MAN'S FORM IS AN ANIMAL


"Man...in his outward form, simply an animal, hardly more perfect
than his pithecoid-like ancestor of the 3rd Round. He is a
living body, not a living being, since the realization of
existence, the "Ego-Sum," necessitates self-consciousness, and an
animal can only have direct consciousness, or instinct. The
soul, whose body vehicle is the Astral, ethereo-substantial
envelope, could die, and man be still living on earth--i.e., the
soul could free itself from and quit the tabernacle for various
reasons--such as insanity, spiritual and physical depravity, etc.
Therefore that which living men (Initiates) can do, the Dhyanis,
who have no physical body to hamper them, can do still better."
SD I 134-5


"...man is a perfected animal, the vehicle of a fully developed
monad, self-conscious and deliberately following its own line of
progress, whereas in the insect, and even the higher animal, the
higher triad of principles is absolutely dormant."	Trans. 14-15


"Between man and animal--whose Monads (or Jivas) are
fundamentally identical--there is the impassable abyss of
Mentality and Self-consciousness. What is human mind in it
higher aspect, whence comes it, if it is not a portion of the
essence--and, in some rare cases of incarnation, the very
essence--of a higher Being: one from a higher and divine Plane?
Can man--a god in the animal form--be the product of Material
Nature by evolution alone. even as is the animal, which differs
from man in external shape, but by no means in the materials of
its physical fabric, and is informed by the same, though
undeveloped, Monad--seeing that the intellectual potentialities
of the two differ as the Sun does from the Glow-worm ? And what
is it that creates such a difference, unless man is an animal
plus a living god within his physical shell ?"	S D II 81


"The physical man is as little responsible as a dog or a mouse.
For the bodily form all is over with the death of the body. But
for the real SELF, that which emanated its own shadow, or the
lower thinking personality, that enacted and pulled the wires
during the life of the physical automaton, will have to suffer
conjointly with its factotum and alter ego in the next
incarnation."	Trans. 67



LIGHTING UP OF THE MANAS (MIND)


"Having passed through all the kingdoms of nature in the previous
three Rounds, his physical frame--one adapted to the thermal
conditions of those early periods--was ready to receive the
divine Pilgrim at the first dawn of human life, i.e., 18,000,000
years ago. It is only at the (255) mid-point of the 3rd
Root-Race that man was endowed with Manas. Once united the two
and then the three made one; for though the lower animals, from
the amoeba to man, received their monads, in which all the higher
qualities are potential, all have to remain dormant till each
reaches its human form, before which stage manas (mind) has no
development in them. In the animals every principle is
paralyzed, and in a fetus-like state, save the 2nd (vital) and
the 3rd (the astral), and the rudiments of the 4th (Kama, which
is desire, instinct) whose intensity and development varies and
changes with the species."
S D II 254-5


"Atma-Buddhi [ Monad ] is dual and Manas is triple; inasmuch as
the former has two aspects, and the latter three, i.e., as a
principle per se, which gravitates, in its higher aspect, to
Atma-Buddhi, and follows, in its lower nature, Kama, the seat of
terrestrial divisions awakening to intelligence; and the third
and last decidedly animal: i.e., Manas succumbs to the
temptations of Kama." Men are made complete only during their
third, toward the fourth cycle (race). They are made "gods" for
good or evil, and responsible only when the two arcs meet (after
3 1/2 Rounds towards the fifth Race). They are made so by the
Nirmanakaya (spiritual or astral remains) of the Rudra-Kumaras,
"cursed to be reborn on earth again; meaning doomed in their
natural turn to reincarnation in the higher ascending arc of the
terrestrial cycle."	SD II 254-5fn


"...the Manasa Devas who endowed man with the consciousness of
his immortal soul: that consciousness which hinders man "from
foreseeing death," and makes him know he is immortal. ( Fn.: --
The monad of the animal is as immortal as that of man, yet the
brute knows nothing of this; it lives an animal life of
sensation just as the first human would have lived, when
attaining physical development in the Third Race, had it not been
for the Agnishwatta, and the Manasa Pitris.") [Myth of
Prometheus, further explained.]	S D II 525




KAMA (Desire, Emotion) - CENTER OF THE ANIMAL MAN


"...(d) Kama rupa -- The seat of animal desires and
assions. -- This is the center of the animal man, where lies
the line of demarcation which separates the mortal man from the
immortal entity."	Key 91



HIGHER AND LOWER MIND DEFINED


" [ Plato teaches ] ... "when the Soul, psuche, "allies herself
to the Nous (divine spirit or substance), she does everything
aright and felicitously;" but the case is otherwise when she
attaches herself to Anoia, (folly, or the irrational animal
Soul). Here, then, we have Manas (or the Soul in general) in its
two aspects: when attaching itself to Anoia (our Kama rupa, or
the "Animal Soul" in "Esoteric Buddhism," runs towards entire
annihilation, as far as the personal Ego is concerned; when
allying itself to the Nous (Atma-Buddhi) it merges into the
immortal, imperishable Ego, and then its spiritual consciousness
of the personal that was, becomes immortal."	Key 93



LATENT AND ACTIVE "FIRES" OF THE MIND


"The doctrine teaches that the only difference between animals
and inanimate objects on earth, between an animal and a human
frame, is that in some the various "fires" are latent, and in
others they are active. The vital fires are in all things and
not an atom is devoid of them. But no animal has the three
higher principles awakened in him; the are simply potential,
latent, and thus non-existing. And so would the animal frames of
men be to this day, had they been left as then came out from the
bodies of their Progenitors, whose shadows they were, to grow,
unfold only by the powers and forces immanent in matter." S D II
267



SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE ABYSS
BETWEEN THE PSYCHIC AND THE NOETIC


"...Self-consciousness belongs alone to man and proceeds from the
SELF, the higher Manas. Only, whereas the psychic element (or
Kama-manas) is common to both the animal and the human being--the
far higher degree of its development in the latter resting merely
on the greater perfection and sensitiveness of his cerebral
cells--no physiologist...will ever be able to solve the mystery
of the human mind, in its highest spiritual manifestation, or in
its dual aspect of the psychic and the noetic (or the
manasic)...he would have to admit a lower (animal), and a higher
(or divine) mind in man, or what is known in Occultism as the
"personal" and the "impersonal" (10) Egos. For, between the
psychic and the noetic, between the personality and the
individuality, there exists the same abyss as between a "Jack the
Ripper," and a holy Buddha."	HPB Art II 9-10



HUMAN 'MAGNETISM' -- PET ANIMALS


"...A Lanoo (disciple) has to dread external living influence
alone (magnetic emanations from living creatures). For this
reason while at one with all, in his inner nature, he must take
care to separate his outer (external) body from every foreign
influence; none must drink out of, or eat in his cup but
himself. He must avoid bodily contact (i.e., being touched or
touch) with human, as with animal being. [No pet animals are
permitted and it is forbidden even to touch certain trees and
plants. A disciple has to live, so to say, in his own atmosphere
in order to individualize it for occult purposes.]" ...Occultism
is concerned with the inner man who must be strengthened and
freed from the dominion of the physical body and its
surroundings, which must become his servants. Hence the first
and chief necessity of Chelaship is a spirit of absolute
unselfishness and devotion to Truth; then must follow
self-knowledge and self-mastery. These are all important; while
outward observance of fixed rules of life is a matter of
secondary moment."
HPB Art II 94-6

[ Article on "house-pets" and magnetic retardation.]
Theosophy Mag. Vol. 22, p. 402



KAMA-LOKA AND ASTRAL FORMS OF ANIMALS


"Still it [ Kama-loca on the astral plane ] exists, and it is
there that the astral eidolons of all beings that have lived,
animals included, await their second death. For the animals it
comes with the disintegration and the entire fading out of their
astral particles to the last."	Key 143


"Seers of modern times have declared that such eidolons or spooks
assume the appearance of beasts or reptiles according to their
dominant forms, having a natural affinity for the lower types,
such as the animal kingdom, gravitated gradually in that
direction and were at last absorbed on the astral plane of
animals, for which they furnished the sidereal particles needed
by them as well as by men. But this is no sense meant that the
man himself went into an animal, for before this result had
eventuated, the ego might have already re-entered life with a new
physical and astral body...it must be true that each man [is]
responsible and accountable for the fate of his astral body left
behind at death, since that fate results directly from the man's
own acts and life."	WQJ Art I 105



RESPECT FOR LIFE IN ANIMALS


"...the root philosophy of both the Adwaita and Buddhist scholars
is identical, and both have the same respect for animal life, for
both believe that every creature on earth, however small and
humble, "is an immortal portion of the immortal matter"...and
that every creature is subject to Karma."	S D I 636


MANAS - MIND SETS THE HUMAN APART FROM THE ANIMAL


"...you possess the "I am I " consciousness. Hence...the
consciousness functions in many different planes of experience,
and in each one uses the means or instruments appropriate
thereto. And in order to pass from one plane to another, holding
intelligence in each, the presence of Manas is necessary as one
of the integral parts or powers of the Self, for without Manas we
are only of the brute or lower kingdoms. For one moment consider
the brutes who, moving and dwelling in the mental plane with man,
know nothing of our manasic sensations. It is because Manas is
dormant in them; but in you it has begun to awake, thus enabling
you as man to note the effects upon yourself of the motions of
the qualities of nature."	WQJ Forum Answers, .p. 63



MAN'S THOUGHTS IN THE ASTRAL LIGHT AFFECT ANIMALS


"The animal kingdom is affected by us through the astral light.
We have impressed the latter with pictures of cruelty,
oppression, dominion, and slaughter. [In Christian countries
theological permission is given to kill and dominate animals.
Hunting, wanton killings become a habit.]...if these people could
catch elementals as easily as then can animals, they would kill
them for amusement when they did not want them for use; and, if
the elementals refused to obey, then their death would follow as
a punishment. All this is perceived by the elemental world,
without conscience of course; but, under the laws of action and
reaction, we receive back from it exactly that which we give."
WQJ ART. I 411


PROTECTION AND KINDNESS TO ANIMALS


"...the purest as the noblest of all existing systems of ethics,
Buddhism - -inculcates kindness and protection to every living
creature, from animal and bird down to the creeping thing and
even the reptile. Alone, our Western religion stands in its
isolation, as a monument to the most gigantic human selfishness
ever evolved by human brain, without one word in favor of, or for
the protection of the poor animal."	HPB Art II 328



MAN: FOCAL POINT OF NATURE'S LABORATORY


"Those atoms [ Skandhas ] fly from all of us at every instant.
They seek their appropriate center; that which is similar to the
character of him who evolves them. We absorb from our fellows
whatever is like unto us. it is thus that man reincarnates if
the lower kingdoms. He is lord of nature, the key, the focus,
the highest concentrator of Nature's laboratory. And the atom he
condemns to fall thus to beasts will return to him in some future
life for his detriment or his sorrow. But he, as immortal man,
cannot fall. That which falls is the lower, the personal, the
atomic. He is the brother and teacher of all below him. See
that you do not hinder and delay all nature by your failure in
virtue."	WQJ Art I 111



THE HUMAN MONAD


But looking at our own (the Individual, Human) imperishable
Monad -- we have been through that condition and "animal"
experience -- perhaps on the "moon" chain, (this is hinted at in
S D I ) and with the "lighting up of Manas" ( a little over 18
million years ago (S D I 150, footnote) our Monads became
independent and self-conscious HUMAN MONADS.

Look carefully at what H P B says in SECRET DOCTRINE I 632.
There she tells us what the subdivisions of the evolving points
of conscience (Monads) are from stage to stage, as Intelligence
become first personalized, and then INDIVIDUALIZED, and then,
finally it becomes UNIVERSALIZED -- and we have a Mahatma, a
Buddha, a Christ, a Krishna. In us the Monad is the HIGHER SELF
Atma, a "drop" or "ray" of the UNIVERSAL ONE SPIRIT.

Theosophy teaches us is that the Higher Self the Atma is in us
already. It is that potential MAHATMA, that Buddha or Krishna.
It is the lower self at present (our selfish personality) which
impedes it from "shining forth." The "Lower self ( our selfish
personality) gives us problems and difficulties.



PRINCIPLES ACTIVE IN MAN

The 3 principles active in us can be seen to be: the forces of
Kama, Manas and Buddhi ( desire, thought and wisdom ). We as
MIND-BEINGS (as Mind-Monads) are independent and free choosers.
We have to elect what aspect of our own "principles" we will
emphasize and make into the living power that directs our lives
henceforth. We can only do that for ourselves. We cannot do it
for others, although we can, if they ask us, make
recommendations. The best of such advices are those that embody
the expression of Natural law. We must understand that in Nature
everything is already firmly established -- our Science, and our
work to discover are only the UNCOVERING of that which is innate,
and already functioning in existence, and operating there. We
become aware of it.



HOW DO WE INDIVIDUALIZE OURSELVES?

But getting back to the process outlined in The SECRET DOCTRINE :
Prior to the individualizing of the Monads, we are told there is
a chaotic mass "monadic essence" (S D I 619) -- in that the
"countless spiritual forces" pursue their lawful rounds
"Monadless" (632) for "they are pure incorporealities," yet
always, they are under LAW, and have a basic relation to the
Causeless Cause -- the WILL of the SUBJECTIVE UNIVERSE. That we
might translate as the ABSOLUTE -- essential as a base, but
totally incomprehensible and undefinable by beings whose
intelligence (yours and mine) is limited by some kind of form.
Thereafter we have the long process of experience leading
eventually back to SPIRITUAL UNIVERSALIZING -- we become a Force
powerful for GOOD alone, and assume some position in Nature for
which we are best fitted.

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



What is a "Monad" ?


"...a Monad [ Atma-Buddhi ] cannot either progress or develop, or
even be affected by the change of states it passes through. It
is not on this world or plane, and may be compared only to an
indestructible star of divine light and fire, thrown down on to
our (175fn) Earth as a plank of salvation for the personalities
in which it indwells. It is for the latter to cling to it; and
thus partaking of its divine nature, obtain immortality. Left to
itself the Monad will cling to no one; but, like the "plank," be
drifted away to another incarnation by the unresisting current of
evolution...the evolution of the external form or body round the
astral is produced by the terrestrial forces, just as in the case
of the lower kingdoms; but the evolution of the internal or real
MAN is purely spiritual. It is now no more a passage of the
impersonal Monad through many and various forms of
matter--endowed at best with instinct and consciousness on quite
a different plane--as in the case of external evolution, but a
journey of the "pilgrim-soul" through various states of not only
matter but self consciousness and self-perception, or perception
from apperception."	S D I 174-5fn


Monad -- A Concrete Manifestation of the Universal Energy
at a Particular Level of Evolution


"...the Monadic, or rather Cosmic, Essence...in the mineral,
vegetable and animal, though the same throughout the series of
cycles from the lowest elemental up to the Deva Kingdom, yet
differs in the scale of progression ...the more correct
phraseology...would have been to call it "the Monad manifesting
in that form of Prakriti called the Mineral Kingdom." The atom
as represented in the ordinary scientific hypothesis, is not a
particle of something, animated by a psychic something, destined
after aeons to blossom as a man. But it is a concrete
manifestation of the Universal Energy which itself has not yet
become individualized; a sequential manifestation of the one
Universal Monas. The ocean (of matter) the life-impulse reaches
the evolutionary stage of man-birth. The tendency towards
segregation into individual Monads is gradual, and is the higher
animals comes almost to the point."	S D I 178


"...it is our Dhyan-Chohanic essence--the causality of the primal
cause which creates physical man--which is the living, active and
potential matter, pregnant per se with that animal consciousness
of a superior kind, such as is found in the ant or the beaver,
which produces the long series of physiological
differentiations...every type in the visible has its prototype in
the invisible Universe..."	S D II 120


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


I hope that this proves helpful,

Best wishes,

Dallas

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

-----Original Message-----
From: bamb
Sent:	Thursday, June 12, 2003 2:12 PM
To:
Subject:	Divine Life in animal



Dear all,


I read in "Practical Theosophy " that animal has divine life too
?
does it mean that eventually all animal will become like us human
being ? how can animal improve their spiritual journey ? I am
puzzled, I need more info on this subject.



Regards,



Bam B