Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00056)

April 2 2004

Dear Peter and friends:

Re: Karma, Skandhas, Monads,

The interlacing of concepts here is important but also a vast one.  

As I see it, we can start with a basic given: the MONAD and the MONADS
-- an incalculable vast host of most diversified beings, each one
engaged on a self-induced and self-regulated pilgrimage towards an
indefinable goal which some have named: "Perfection." [To try to
describe that "perfection" would be difficult as it implies a universal
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. That would take a very long time. But, being
immortals, there is "time" in which this can be achieved.].  

All MONADS (ATMA-BUDDHI or: SPIRIT, and Spiritually refined MATTER)
are "immortals." They are defined as ever self-perfecting points of
LIFE, and each is based on the all pervasive "rays" of the universal ONE
ATMAN -- and, further, the whole evolutionary progress anywhere, in
and on any "word," epitomizes the cooperative aspect of such hosts
working individually and collectively together.  

The MONADS survive any Pralaya great or small and always return to the
point where rest and sleep intervened, interrupting their pilgrimage.
{We humans are said to have been evolving our own individual
intelligence out of the stage of "Kama-desire and emotion" on the
"Moon-chain," as preliminary to our present work -- evolving on this
'earth' the free Higher Mind intelligence or that which is described as
Buddhi-Manas. [The WISE MIND].

Reincarnation of the " undying MONAD" is also a given. But where and
into what does it incarnate? Matter? And what is matter? What does a
form (together with its innate intelligence) imply?  

As I see it, there are a host of Monads of a lesser level of experience
that taken together at various stages and levels, provide that "matter."
We are to them superior MONADS -- superior in terms of experience and in
the general program of evolutionary development -- as "mind" is superior
to unregulated emotion and desire.

As each "earth" provides a limited capacity or field for evolution,
there is a stage where it can accept no more MONADS in its "school".
Similarly, towards the end of an evolutionary period there is a kind of
examination to see which of the many MONADS has reached a level of
self-guidance where it can only do cooperative and benevolent
"brotherly" work.

I wonder if this is of help.

Best wishes,



Dallas

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

-----Original Message-----
From: peter.m
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 10:52 AM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Re: Karma & recapitulation etc

Jerome,

Thanks for your reply - mine is quite a bit delayed so I hope you
remember
the original question. It began with your comment:

>>>> Sure, we all remember our past incarnations ---- all we need to do
is
look at our childhood!! --- especially between puberty and 28+ or - .
At
35, or thereabouts the balance is struck and no more new monads (i.e.,
karma) can enter ---(exceptiing initiation) and we are in the web we've
woven for ourselves.<<<<

I imagine, then, that by "no more new monads (ie karma) can enter" you
are
referring to the skandhas (karmically formed, so to speak)? You are not
referring to Karmic effects in general which will enter a person's life
through people, events and circumstances from birth to death. Have I
understood you properly?

I like your proposal (outlined more fully below) linking the central
turning
point of the 4th round, 4th globe with the mid point of a person's life.
It
is such an elegant proposal that I feel it ought to be true. I found
myself
wondering if it is, in practice. In my work and in the course of
running
workshops I find myself coming across people who are already beyond the
mid
point of their lives and discovering new talents, new horizons,
unexpected
dimensions of their own 'being', the emergence of spirituality (which
like
the growth of nature has a funny way of pushing up through the cracks in
our
rather 'too concrete' materialistic structures and outlooks.

I found myself thinking of cycles of growth, eg 'the seven ages of man',
wondering about the different stages of growth we pass through from womb
to
death. Such stages being physical, psychic, mental, spiritual - at
least
all are there in potential. Prompted by your own analogy I rembered the
other map of the globes where we HPB offers a visual representation of
how
the life wave on the moon chain transfers to the earth chain. The
diagram
for this is in SD I 172. The interested reader who does not have the
Secret
Doctrine will find it on line at:

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd1-1-09.htm

It may be that each minor cycle, or life stage, organises itself around
a
laya centre through which Karma operates from within outwards, so to
speak,
(at least as far as the skandhas, material and spiritual are concerned)
and
is thus a possible receptacle for the work/effects from similar stages
in
previous lives. If we haven't done that work previously, it may be a
bit of
a vacuum this time round...

The reader won't really understand what I am saying above without
looking at
the diagram mentioned.

Anyway, just some thoughts prompted by you interesting ideas.

What do you think?

Thanks,

Peter





-----Original Message-----
From: Jerome Wheeler [mailto:ultinla@juno.com] 
Sent: 29 March 2004 02:48
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Re: Karma & recapitulation etc

Peter,
I have a copy of your email of 26th but can't locate it in the computer.
 
I will answer as if you have a copy in front of you, and would comment
in
particular on this sentence.
 
===============
"Were you linking your phrase "no more new monads" to the notion that no
further karma from the past entered this life beyond a certain point in
the
cycle? ...which seems a little questionable as a proposition."
=========================
Yes, I was thinking along the line you point out.  Analogy and
correspondence seems to point in that direction in such quotes as this:
 
 
>From the preceding diagrams, which are applicable, mutatis mutandis,
to
Rounds, Globes or Races, it will be seen that the fourth member of a
series
occupies a unique position. Unlike the others, the Fourth has no
“sister”
Globe on the same plane as itself, and it thus forms the fulcrum of the
“balance” represented by the whole chain. It is the sphere of final
evolutionary adjustments, the world of Karmic scales, the Hall of
Justice,
where the balance is struck which determines the future course of the
Monad
during the remainder of its incarnations in the cycle. And therefore it
is,
that, after this central turning-point has been passed in the Great
Cycle,—i.e., after the middle point of the Fourth Race in the Fourth
Round
on our Globe—no more Monads can enter the human kingdom. The door is
closed
for this Cycle and the balance struck. (SD I, 182)
 
I think we probably mirror the great cycle in a very "murky" way or
"caenogetically," still there seems to be a karmic balance struck for
the
incoming personality --- partly by the Ego, partly by the Mother &
Father
chosen by the Ego as portals into this plane. As a body of flesh I
probably represent the 8th sphere of a group ---- SEVENTH if one counts
from
the syzygies, but 8th if we count from the upper SYNTHESIS above the
syzygies. The personal man has no free will unless he can activate a
beam
of light from the Ego---one plane above, which Ego is the transmitter of
the
Atma-Buddhic influence ---- just as a plant has no freewill except
through
the Dhyan Chohan of the type to which it belongs.
best regards,
jerome
 



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