Theos-Talk Archives (August 2003 Message tt00004)

Friday, August 01, 2003
 
            Re 3 GUNAS; 1. SPIRIT  -  2. MATTER  --  3. MIND/DESIRE    or
 
            1.         PERFECT UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS
            2.         PURIFIED SUBSTANCE/MATTER
            3.         FREEDOM OF CHOICE = ACTION & PROGRESS
 
Dear Friends:
 
This is a philosophical concept underlying the reality of manifestation andall evolving Spiritual Beings.
 
Briefly: the choices we made in past lives, and in the past of this life,  have produced our present circumstances.  Our present choices, when combined with those will produce our future.  This causes the differences as individuals and as persons that identify us all.
 
The basic concept is the universal urge to perfection.  The Immortality of the entity.  The cooperative brotherhood of the entire Universe.  Are the root concepts to be ever kept in mind.
 
Considering the BHAGAVAD GITA :
 
Krishna is a spiritual teacher. He has been through the “man-stage.”  He is an AVATAR or a high spiritual Being who periodically returns to strike a “key-note” for the benefit of all humanprogress.
 
Arjuna is an aspiring Mind -- a personal “Lower Mind” (kama-manas) in its higher aspect, such as we all are.  He is in the Mind-stage where he desires to understand, and then use “Spiritual Knowledge, and make Karma now, that will help (not obstruct); him in the future.
 
The Kurus, headed by the evil cousin Duryodhana, and thee 100 sons of Dhritarashtra (the Blind king)  represent our “skandhas” (or those Monads of lesser experience, coming to us from past choices). They now seek to obstruct -- like an army -- and obscure truth by directing us to short-termed “pleasure.” The wisdom-aspiring pupil learns about them and how to subdue them in himself. 
 
Psychologically expressed: 
 
All beings are immortal spiritual entities.  Monads. 
 
There are many levels and kinds of descriptions given of the Monads (which is faulty, says The SECRET DOCTRINE, because the Monad as such, has no qualities other than SPIRITUAL EXCELLENCE (S D  I  174-5fn,  II 185-6).  
 
However for brevity and ease they are spoken of as uncountable UNITS (S D  I  289), all in contact on various planes with each other, and they form the UNIVERSE IN MANIFESTATION and EVOLUTION.  Two broad divisions are given:  1. Monads as SPIRITUAL ENTITIES. And, 2. Monads as Centers of collective but Individualized evolutionary efforts, characterisedas stages of consciousness under the incremental stages of: mineral, vegetable, animal, human and perfected human.  
 
Each is at its stage and state of advance towards perfect WISDOM.  They are attracted to us by affinity (Karma) and because we used them as our tools in the past. (S D  I 611-12, 614-5, 619, 623, 627, 631-2)
 
This is a vast subject and requires much mediation upon it.
 
Best wishes,
 
Dallas
 
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-----Original Message-----
From:  N
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 10:33 AM
To: Blavatsky-Study
Subject: Re: Question on 3 gunas
 

Dear Dallas, All

In one of the posts Dallas mentioned as:

“In the BHAGAVAD GITA Krishna speaks in several places of the "gunas"
[-- the 3 great qualities of nature -- our Universe and ourselves --]
They are 1. SATTVA ( Spirit), 2. TAMAS (Matter), and, 3. RAJAS
(Activity, characterized by desire and will, the latter being the
potency of Law universal. Any two "Gunas" in combination, is balanced
by the contrast of the third. Krishna says they are Purity and
Universality (SATTVA), Forms and Selfish limitations (TAMAS) and Mind, discrimination and ignorance (RAJAS). As an example, in our own psychological nature we can see ( because of the impartiality of the universal Spiritual Consciousness), that "Mind" is dual, depending on
which of the counterbalancing two (SATTVA and TAMAS) it is confronted by.[Chapters XIV and XVII]”

The combination of these gunas differ from person to person, subject to subject, place to place. Is it?

 


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