Theos-Talk Archives (June 2003 Message tt00253)

Thursday, June 26, 2003

Dear M:

Excuse the delay in responding. Overloaded here

See notes below please

Dal

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M Y

-----Original Message-----
From: M
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 6:50 AM
To:
Subject: questions about life and nature?

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


Dear Dallas, All

I guess the article "Theosophy Generally Stated" by W.Q.Judge is
good for
setting the aspect on overall range for answering questions.

It is claimed that what we live today is based and originated
from past for both knowledge
and human life.

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DTB That is our Karma made in the past impacted in the Monads
we used and are now reusing. They bring it forward as our tools.
If we have abused them in the past they return with the damage
impacted in them. We now have to repair and readjust them. This
is an interchange, and a continuous debt we owe to the Monads (of
lesser experience) that we use as our lower "vehicles."

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

M Y

"THE claim is made that an impartial study of history, religion
and
literature will show the existence from ancient times of a great
body of
philosophical, scientific and ethical doctrine forming the basis
and origin
of all similar thought in modern systems."

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

DTB Study the books ISIS UNVEILED and The SECRET DOCTRINE and
you will get the evidence.

"Yet if the students of the dead languages know anything, they
ought to know that the method of extreme necessitarianism was
practiced in ancient as well as in modern philosophy; that from
the first ages of man, the fundamental truths of all that we are
permitted to know on earth were in the safe keeping of the Adepts
of the sanctuary; that the difference in creeds and religious
practice was only external; and that those guardians of the
primitive divine revelation, who had solved every problem that is
within the grasp of human intellect, were bound together by a
universal freemasonry of science and philosophy, which formed one
unbroken chain around the globe.

It is for philology and the Orientalists to endeavour to find the
end of the thread. But if they will persist in seeking it in one
direction only, and that the wrong one, truth and fact will never
be discovered.

It thus remains the duty of psychology and Theosophy to help the
world to arrive at them. Study the Eastern religions by the light
of Eastern--not Western--philosophy, and if you happen to relax
correctly one single loop of the old religious systems, the chain
of mystery may be disentangled. But to achieve this, one must not
agree with those who teach that it is unphilosophical to enquire
into first causes, and that all that we can do is to consider
their physical effects. The field of scientific investigation is
bounded by physical nature on every side; hence, once the limits
of matter are reached, enquiry must stop and work be
re-commenced.

As the Theosophist has no desire to play at being a squirrel upon
its revolving wheel, he must refuse to follow the lead of the
materialists. He, at any rate, knows that the revolutions of the
physical world are, according to the ancient doctrine, attended
by like revolutions in the world of intellect, for the spiritual
evolution in the universe proceeds in cycles, like the physical
one.

Do we not see in history a regular alternation of ebb and flow in
the tide of human progress? Do we not see in history, and even
find this within our own experience, that the great kingdoms of
the world, after reaching the culmination of their greatness,
descend again, in accordance with the same law by which they
ascended? till, having reached the lowest point, humanity
reasserts itself and mounts up once more, the height of its
attainment being, by this law of ascending progression by cycles,
somewhat higher than the point from which it had before
descended. Kingdoms and empires are under the same cyclic laws as
plants, races and everything else in Kosmos."
-- H P B Articles II P. 218-9

"An age of great inspiration and unconscious productiveness is
invariably followed by an age of criticism and consciousness. The
one affords material for the analyzing and critical intellect of
the other. "The moment is more opportune than ever for the review
of old philosophies.

Archæologists, philologists, astronomers, chemists and physicists
are getting nearer and nearer to the point where they will be
forced to consider them. Physical science has already reached its
limits of exploration; dogmatic theology sees the springs of its
inspiration dry. The day is approaching when the world will
receive the proofs that only ancient religions were in harmony
with nature, and ancient science embraced all that can be known."

Once more the prophecy already made in Isis Unveiled twenty-two
years ago is reiterated. "Secrets long kept may be revealed;
books long forgotten and arts long time lost may be brought out
to light again; papyri and parchments of inestimable importance
will turn up in the hands of men who pretend to have unrolled
them from mummies, or stumbled upon them in buried crypts;
tablets and pillars, whose sculptured revelations will stagger
theologians and confound scientists, may yet be excavated and
interpreted. Who knows the possibilities of the future? An era of
disenchantment and rebuilding will soon begin--nay, has already
begun. The cycle has almost run its course; a new one is about to
begin, and the future pages of history may contain full evidence,
and convey full proof of the above."

Since the day that this was written much of it has come to pass,
the discovery of the Assyrian clay tiles and their records alone
having forced the interpreters of the cuneiform
inscriptions--both Christians and Freethinkers--to alter the very
age of the world.

The chronology of the Hindu Purânas, reproduced in The Secret
Doctrine, is now derided, but the time may come when it will be
universally accepted. This may be regarded as simply an
assumption, but it will be so only for the present. It is in
truth but a question of time. The whole issue of the quarrel
between the defenders of ancient wisdom and its detractors--lay
and clerical--rests (a) on the incorrect comprehension of the old
philosophies, for the lack of the keys the Assyriologists boast
of having discovered; and (b) on the materialistic and
anthropomorphic tendencies of the age. This in no wise prevents
the Darwinists and materialistic philosophers from digging into
the intellectual mines of the ancients and helping themselves to
the wealth of ideas they find in them; nor the divines from
discovering Christian dogmas in Plato's philosophy and calling
them "presentiments," as in Dr. Lundy's Monumental Christianity,
and other like modern works.

Of such "presentiments" the whole literature--or what remains of
this sacerdotal literature--of India, Egypt, Chaldæa, Persia,
Greece and even of Guatemala (Popul Vuh), is full.

Based on the same foundation-stone--the ancient Mysteries--the
primitive religions, all without one exception, reflect the most
important of the once universal beliefs, such, for instance, as
an impersonal and universal divine Principle, absolute in its
nature, and unknowable to the "brain" intellect, or the
conditioned and limited cognition of man.

To imagine any witness to it in the manifested universe, other
than as Universal Mind, the Soul of the universe is impossible.
That which alone stands as an undying and ceaseless evidence and
proof of the existence of that One Principle, is the presence of
an undeniable design in kosmic mechanism, the birth, growth,
death and transformation of everything in the universe, from the
silent and unreachable stars down to the humble lichen, from man
to the invisible lives now called microbes.

Hence the universal acceptation of "Thought Divine," the Anima
Mundi of all antiquity. This idea of Mahat (the great) Akâshâ or
Brahma's aura of transformation with the Hindus, of Alaya, "the
divine Soul of thought and compassion" of the trans-Himâlayan
mystics; of Plato's "perpetually reasoning Divinity," is the
oldest of all the doctrines now known to, and believed in, by
man.

Therefore they cannot be said to have originated with Plato, nor
with Pythagoras, nor with any of the philosophers within the
historical period.

Say the Chaldæan Oracles: "The works of nature co-exist with the
intellectual [NOETIC] spiritual Light of the Father. For it is
the Soul [PHREN] which adorned the great heaven, and which adorns
it after the Father."

"The incorporeal world then was already completed, having its
seat in the Divine Reason," says Philo, who is erroneously
accused of deriving his philosophy from Plato.

In the Theogony of Mochus, we find Æther first, and then the air;
the two principles from which Ulom, the intelligible God (the
visible universe of matter) is born.

In the Orphic hymns, the Eros-Phanes evolves from the Spiritual
Egg, which the æthereal winds impregnate, wind being "the Spirit
of God," who is said to move in æther, "brooding over the
Chaos"--the Divine "Idea."

In the Hindu Kathopanishad, Purusha, the Divine Spirit, stands
before the original Matter; from their union springs the great
Soul of the World, "Mahâ-Âtmâ, Brahm, the Spirit of Life;" these
latter appellations are identical with the Universal Soul, or
Anima Mundi, and the Astral Light of the Theurgists and
Kabalists.

Pythagoras brought his doctrines from the eastern sanctuaries,
and Plato compiled them into a form more intelligible than the
mysterious numerals of the Sage--whose doctrines he had fully
embraced--to the uninitiated mind.

Thus, the Kosmos is "the Son" with Plato, having for his father
and mother the Divine Thought and Matter.

The "Primal Being" (Beings, with the Theosophists, as they are
the collective aggregation of the divine Rays), is an emanation
of the Demiurgic or Universal Mind which contains from eternity
the idea of the "to be created world" within itself, which idea
the unmanifested LOGOS produces of Itself.

The first Idea "born in darkness before the creation of the
world" remains in the unmanifested Mind; the second is this Idea
going out as a reflection from the Mind (now the manifested
LOGOS), becoming clothed with matter, and assuming an objective
existence."

Lucifer, September, 1896 -- THE MIND IN NATURE [Lucifer Sept.
1896 -
U L T H P B Articles II 219-22]
-----------------------

M Y

"Each man's life and character are the outcome of his previous
lives and
thoughts. Each is his own judge, his own executioner, for it is
his own hand
that forges the weapon which works for his punishment, and each
by his own
life reaches reward, rises to heights of knowledge and power for
the good of
all who may be left behind him..."

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DTB This is the way in which all evolution proceeds. See
OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY by Judge, Chapter. VIII, pp. 60 - 63 please

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

M Y


I'll try to trace first "connection of mind and matter" as part
of human
knowledge described here:

"They speak of the origin of the Universe, the nature of Deity,
and of
Spirit and Soul, as also of the metaphysical connection of mind
and matter.
In a few words: They CONTAIN the beginning and the end of all
human
knowledge, but they have now ceased to REVEAL it, since the day
of Buddha"
S.D. I pg 270

When "connection of mind and matter" is concerned , there has to
be
mentioned about consciousness :

"Man's consciousness being thus more perfect is able to pass from
one to
another of the planes of differentiation mentioned. If he
mistakes any one
of them for the reality that he is in his essence, he is deluded;
the object
of evolution then is to give him complete self-consciousness so
that he may
go on to higher stages in the progress of the universe. His
evolution after
coming on the human stage is for the getting of experience, and
in order to
so raise up and purify the various planes of matter with which he
has to do,
that the voice of the spirit may be fully heard and
comprehended."
Theosophy Generally Stated, WILLIAM Q JUDGE

While consciousness is able to pass from one to another of the
planes, mind
bears different characteristics:

"Spiritual mind (the upper portion or aspect of the impersonal
Manas) takes
no cognizance of the senses in physical man."
[ see KEY 106, 136, 138 ] SD I 96 --- quote from study on
CONSCIOUSNESS AND
THE POWERS OF THE MIND

"...[.when the internal organ, the [lower] mind is through the
senses
affected or modified by the form of some object, the soul [higher
aspect of
the lower manas] also--viewing the object through its organ, the
[lower]
mind--is, as it were, altered into that form..."
PATANJALI, 3


The modifications of the [lower] mind are of five kinds, and they
are either
painful or not painful; they are, Correct Cognition,
Misconception, Fancy,
Sleep, and Memory." PATANJALI, 4


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

DTB Have a look at this, please


This passion, or desire, spoken of in the BHAGAVAD GITA chapter
(XIV) is composed of the two last qualities, rajas (activity) and
tamas (inertia).

As Krishna says, it is intractable. It is not possible, as some
teach, to bring desire of this sort into our service. It must be
slain. It is useless to try to use it as a helper, because its
tendency is more towards tamas, that is, downward, than towards
the other.
It is shown to surround even knowledge. It is present, to a
greater or lesser degree, in every action. Hence the difficulty
encountered by all men who set out to cultivate the highest that
is in them.

We are at first inclined to suppose that the field of action of
this quality is the senses alone; but Krishna teaches that its
empire reaches beyond those and includes the heart and the
intellect also. The incarnated soul desiring knowledge and
freedom finds itself snared continually by tamas, which, ruling
also in the heart and mind, is able to taint knowledge and thus
bewilder the struggler.

Among the senses particularly, this force has sway. And the
senses include all the psychical powers so much desired by those
who study occultism. It does not at all follow that a man is
spiritual or knows truth because he is able to see through vast
distances, to perceive the denizens of the astral world, or to
hear with the inner car. In this part of the human economy the
dark quality is peculiarly powerful. Error is more likely to be
present there than elsewhere, and unless the seer is self
governed he gets no valuable knowledge, but is quite likely to
fall at last, not only into far more grievous error, but into
great wickedness.

We must therefore begin, as advised by Krishna, with that which
is nearest to us, that is, with our senses. We cannot slay the
foe there at first, because it is resident also in the heart and
mind. By proceeding from the near to the more remote, we go
forward with regularity and with certainty of conquest at last.

Therefore he said, "In the first place, restrain thy senses." If
we neglect those and devote ourselves wholly to the mind and
heart, we really gain nothing, for the foe still remains
undisturbed in the senses. By means of those, when we have
devoted much time and care to the heart and mind, it may throw
such obscurations and difficulties in the way that all the work
done with the heart and mind is rendered useless.

It is by means of the outward senses and their inner counterparts
that a great turmoil is set up in the whole system, which spreads
to the heart and from there to the mind, and, as it is elsewhere
said: "The restless heart then snatches away the mind from its
steady place."
We thus have to carry on the cultivation of the soul by regular
stages, never neglecting one part at the expense of another.
Krishna advises his friend to restrain the senses, and then to
"strengthen himself by himself."

The meaning here is: that he is to rely upon the One
Consciousness which, as differentiated in a man, is his HIGHER
SELF. By means of this HIGHER SELF he is to strengthen the lower,
or that which he is accustomed to call "myself." (Brain-mind)

It will not be amiss here to quote from some notes of
conversation with a friend of mine.

"Our consciousness is one and not many, nor different from other
consciousnesses. It is not waking consciousness or sleeping
consciousness, or any other but consciousness itself.
"Now that which I have called consciousness is Being. The ancient
division was:


Sat, or Being;
Chit, or Consciousness, Mind; } .
Ananda, or Bliss.

These together are called Sat-chit-ananda



"But Sat? or Being? the first of the three, is itself both Chit
[Abstract Consciousness] and Ananda [Bliss]. The appearing
together in full harmony of Being and Consciousness is Bliss or
Ananda. Hence that harmony is called Sat-chit-ananda.

"But the one consciousness of each person is the Witness or
Spectator of the actions and experiences of every state we are in
or pass through. It therefore follows that the waking condition
of the mind is not separate consciousness.

"The one consciousness pierces up and down through all the states
or planes of Being, and serves to uphold the memory? whether
complete or incomplete? of each state's experiences.
"Thus in waking life, Sat experiences fully and knows. In dream
state, Sat again knows and sees what goes on there, while there
may not be in the brain a complete memory of the waking state
just quitted. In Sushupti? beyond dream, [deep sleep] and yet on
indefinitely, Sat still knows all that is done or heard or seen.

"The way to salvation must be entered. To take the first step
raises the possibility of success. Hence it is said, 'When the
first attainment has been won, Moksha (salvation) has been won.'
"The first step is giving up bad associations and getting a
longing for knowledge of God; the second is joining good company,
listening to their teachings and practicing them; the third is
strengthening the first two attainments, having faith and
continuing in it. Whoever dies thus, lays the sure foundation for
ascent to adeptship, or salvation."

Notes on the BHAGAVAD GITA -- Judge, pp. 98-101


I hope this may be of help,

Best wishes,

Dal




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Any comments?

Munise