Theos-Talk Archives (February 2004 Message tt00060)

Dear Peter:

I got your query. It is an old dilemma to me.


To be -- or -- NOT TO BE. Or is there an "in-between?" 


I sense in all ways that I can, that I AM. I have "continued."

I now place myself in a position where mentally I AM NOT [my concept of
a universal PRALAYA]. So I have no senses, no contrast. But am I
obliterated? For what reason? Are there an "causes of existence" that
might compel return to an existence of contrast? -- of limitation?

I "awake" -- a baby, a new-born -- all now becomes learning experience
and adapting to a fresh environment.

Yet here I am with very sketchy memories of any details, abilities,
likes and dislikes, talents and ignorance or (strangely) a lack of
interest. All these are qualities, modifications of the "I AM."

I now emerge from it (Pralaya) - no concept of time passed. Did it
vanish ? Why do I remember anything concerning the persona: "Dallas
TenBroeck?" -- and all his relations, speculations and doings as
memories of this life? Does it make any difference to the present if I
should know who or what I did in a past life?

Am I to assume I did not pass through PRALAYA (or devachan) ? Is it
also illusionary?

I ask what is important? What actually MATTERS ? Finally: WHO AM I ?
And why am "I" compelled to experience anything?

Are these (to me) three important ideas valid ? :--

1	Who and what am "I?"

2	What and why are there these many forms in a surrounding
Universe?

3	How is the harmony of supportive LIFE to be explained?

Tentative answers appear reasonable:

1	One among many.

2	Mirrors in whole or part of each-other and the Universe -- with
common faculties and qualities, not identical but similar.

3	Time, motion and location provide a stability of presence.  

"Past" is an unprovable memory for all.  

Similarity of comparative experience tends to demonstrate a brotherhood
-- a host -- living beings,  

And, hope for the future and a continuity in living, seems to emerge as
a common need to satisfy the reasonable experience of existence up to
this moment. 

If the present apparent stasis is in fact a dynamic activity of all the
beings and forces concentrated in providing me (the I AM ) with a living
frame, a past, and a present, then the future may reasonably be
anticipated -- more of same? Not reasonable in an atmosphere of
continual improvement and acquirement of useful knowledge.  

Is knowledge alone wisdom? Wisdom would appear to be superior, because
it demands discrimination -- the best use of knowledge (by free choice)
for assisting in the brotherhood of all concerned beings.  

This implies that those who are wise serve those who are at the earliest
as well as the most intermediate steps of learning. Here compassion,
laws and ethics meld into a sturdy morality that treats the neighborhood
as an essential to be protected and nurtured. No distinctions are
entertained. All are to be understood and assisted.

But this does not answer an innate desire for improvement, for a reason
for the facts and conditions of individual existence. There has to be
more to man and beings than a form and an intelligence. How are these
to be discovered?

If part of the individual (and of all individuals), then where in the
environment can they be found? 

On deep consideration one is forced to conclude that the smallest and
the largest of forms are inextricably linked by a single INTELLIGENCE --
Is this not only an awareness of each other, as "forms of substance,"
but also as volitional beings?

Such being the case I would say that there is logic for the 7-fold
nature of Man and Universe, for universal Karma, for cycles of
incarnation, rest, and many various opportunities to experience, and to
learn. Patanjali puts it simply: "The Universe, ... exists for the
soul's [man-mind's] experience and emancipation."
Pat. P. 23, 24

"The soul is the Perceiver, is assuredly vision itself pure and simple,
unmodified; and looks directly upon ideas." Pat. P. 24


I hope this is of help

Best wishes,


Dallas

-----Original Message-----
From: peter.m [mailto:snowlion@btopenworld.com] 
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2004 11:27 AM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Re: Blurry photographs and all that stuff!

Dear Dal,

Thanks for the passage from HPB and your own valuable thoughts. What I
am
still not sure about is what you draw upon, in those musings, to support
the
notion that there is never a time when EVERYTHING goes into Pralaya.
Have I
missed something?

best,
Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: Dallas TenBroeck [mailto:dalval14@earthlink.net] 
Sent: 14 February 2004 01:28
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Re: Blurry photographs and all that stuff!

Feb 13 2004

Re: Blurry photographs and all that stuff!

Dear Peter and friends:


As I visualize this inquiry we are working at, I would say that it is
similar to trying to define the eternal MONAD as an ever combined and
recombining SPIRIT / MATTER duality. Duality runs parallel in pairs, and
never crosses or meets.

Neither is cognizant of the other unless a bridge is present -- the
MIND. In turn the Mind is split of necessity into countless fractions
-- the "sons of Mind" or "Manasaputras."   

In "manifestation" the MONAD is triune (ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS). We are
presently in manifestation and ideating therein. All of us.

Out of manifestation (if that ever happens, which I doubt), it seems to
me to be disencumbered of "substance" however defined, and the symbol of
the "open EYE of the DANGMA (wise)" applies to disembodied
CONSCIOUSNESSES. Can we apply here what HPB says in her article ISIS
UNVEILED AND THE VISHISTADWAITA ? [ HPB Articles - U L T - III, p. 

"A sceptic in my early life, I had sought and obtained through the
Masters the full assurance of the existence of a principle (not Personal
God)--"a boundless and fathomless ocean" of which my "soul" was a drop. 

Like the Adwaitis, I made no difference between my Seventh Principle and
the Universal Spirit, or Parabrahm; nor did, or do I believe in an
individual, segregated spirit in me, as a something apart from the
whole. And see, for proof, my remark about the "omnipotence of man's
immortal spirit"--which would be a logical absurdity upon any theory of
egoistic separation. 

My mistake was that throughout the whole work I indifferently employed
the words Parabrahm and God to express the same idea: a venial sin
surely, when one knows that the English language is so poor that even at
this moment I am using the Sanskrit word to express one idea and the
English one for the other!
 
Whether it be orthodox Adwaita or not, I maintain as an occultist, on
the authority of the Secret Doctrine, that though merged entirely into
Parabrahm, man's spirit while not individual per se, yet preserves its
distinct individuality in Paranirvana, owing to the accumulation in it
of the aggregates, or skandhas that have survived after each death, from
the highest faculties of the Manas.

The most spiritual--i.e., the highest and divinest aspirations of every
personality follow Buddhi and the Seventh Principle into Devachan
(Swarga) after the death of each personality along the line of rebirths,
and become part and parcel of the Monad. The personality fades out,
disappearing before the occurrence of the evolution of the new
personality (rebirth) out of Devachan: but the individuality of the
spirit-soul [dear, dear, what can be made out of this English!] is
preserved to the end of the great cycle (Maha-Manwantara) when each Ego
enters Paranirvana, or is merged in Parabrahm. 

To our talpatic, or mole-like, comprehension the human spirit is then
lost in the One Spirit, as the drop of water thrown into the sea can no
longer be traced out and recovered. But de facto it is not so in the
world of immaterial thought. 

This latter stands in relation to the human dynamic thought, as, say,
the visual power through the strongest conceivable microscope would to
the sight of a half-blind man: and yet even this is a most insufficient
simile--the difference is "inexpressible in terms of foot-pounds." 

That such Parabrahmic and Paranirvanic "spirits," or units, have and
must preserve their divine (not human) individualities, is shown in the
fact that, however long the "night of Brahma" or even the Universal
Pralaya (not the local Pralaya affecting some one group of worlds) yet,
when it ends, the same individual Divine Monad resumes its majestic path
of evolution, though on a higher, hundredfold perfected and more pure
chain of earths than before, and brings with it all the essence of
compound spiritualities from its previous countless rebirths. 

Spiral evolution, it must be remembered, is dual, and the path of
spirituality turns, corkscrew-like, within and around physical,
semi-physical, and supra-physical evolution. But I am being tempted into
details which had best be left for the full consideration which their
importance merits to my forthcoming work, the Secret Doctrine. 
       
H. P. BLAVATSKY
Theosophist, January, 1886

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

When dealing with infinities no limits can be admitted. Time as
fractions of DURATION is no longer a measure. However KARMA is such a
measure as an energy dependent on the free choice made by mind-beings (
Manasaputras) during some event of "manifestation." 

To seek to define or discover a limit to the "first manifestation." Or
the ending of "endless DURATION" sounds impossible to me. There is no
basis for any "time-measurement" to be defined. Our limited "personal
brain-minds" cut of or cut out at a certain remote level of counting. 

I am reminded of that passage in THE LIGHT OF ASIA (Sir Edwin Arnold)
about the education of Prince Siddartha: [ see Book 1 pp 7-8 in mine ].
There Buddha shows his mastery over numeration at an early age.

And here is a thought: "When did NOTHING begin?"

Best wishes,

Dallas




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