Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00329)

March 10 2004

 

Re: LOVE 

 

Dear Friends:

 

 

Perhaps this might be of use?  

 

 

SEE AT BOTTOM ]

 

 

Best wishes,

 

Dallas

 

 

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-----Original Message-----
From: Teos9
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 3:25 PM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Re: Love

 

In a message dated 4/8/2004 2:31:40 PM Eastern Standard Time,
ekcvv@juno.com writes:

What does SD say specifically about 'Love'? 
I can not find any direct references!

Gopi

Interesting question Gopi. In the Theosophical Glossary,when we look up
"Love," we are invited to see EROS, in the secret doctrine. There, HPB
associates the God Eros with all of the lower human sexual urges. There
is also a reference to KAMA, as in Desires. 

 

My interpretation is that, HPB had a rather jaundiced view of human
"Love," probably based on what she observed and experienced throughout
her own life and those around her. It is not a far stretch to say that
not much has changed today. Much of the use of the word love, is simply
code, or misdirection for a persons darker urges and intent. 

 

We are a society at war with itself, over the "proper" use of many
words. Is it any wonder that there is such confusion, when it comes to
describing acts of Love Spiritual, or Lust Animal, especially when they
are both found in the same personality.

 

Best,

 

Louis

 

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

 

 

 

LOVE, EROS, COOPERATION,
COMPASSION, MERCY  

 

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

 

 

KAMADEVA and the MONAD

 

 

Man is the miniature of the universe. As above, so below.

 

Ancient teachings on “creation” or rather the reincarnation of the
Universe feature the “sundering of the ONE.”

 

Thereafter LIFE, MOTION, ENERGY, PURPOSE, and THE POWER OF INDEPENDENT
SELF-CHOICE, being universally diffused ( no limits) the ‘PLENUM” was
filled with the returning to life of the armies (?) of immortal MONADS,
each under KARMA-UNIVERSAL resuming its position and work from the place
and area where Pralaya had overcome it. 

 

Kamadeva (to me) signifies an emblem that illustrates HARMONY and
COOPERATION hence compassion and care for one’s brother MONADS, wherever
they may be and in whatever avenue of serve they (and we) may be.

 

It is to be understood that KARMA causes the reincarnation of universes,
it is an indissoluble aspect of the ABSOLUTE..  

 

What we think of as SPIRIT and MATTER are aspects of Karma and since
they neutralize each other they may be considered “married” or eternally
united. (Not sexually, but electro-magnetically -- if that may be used
as an illustration). 

 

[Alchemically the union of the “Red Virgin” and the “Philosopher’s
Stone.” -- If one can accept the idea that the “Red Virgin” symbolizes
KAMA, (or selfish desire being in fact the densest “MATTER”) and the
“PHILOSOPHER’S STONE” (that dissolves any and all “containers” isa
symbol for the ONE SPIRIT which is universal).  

 

This leads me to the concept of the (our) MONAD (whether 1) universal
as an infinitude of infinitesimal living vibrant points of intelligent
life (string theory?) -- or 2) Personal: the limits of personalized
and selfish “desire” are to be continually contrasted with the
universality and impersonality of the ONE SPIRIT (a “ray” of which is
said to inhere in each human). For the purpose of our understanding
ourselves as intelligent and free MONADS in evolution, we use the words
“Matter” and ”Spirit” – and those need further definition. One of these
will be found in S D I 167 (on the 2 EGOS in Man – there are many
references on this in the SECRET DOCTRINE …see INDEX )

 

One of the strange things in considering the evolution of Humanity is
the fact that apparently some of the Divine MONADS ( Kumaras ?) who
first delayed, but later agreed to “create,” actually took up residence
(as a kind of overseeing but non-meddling TUTOR in each human lower Mind
that was approaching individualization and the trials and tasks relative
to such a condition (ours at present).

[ see TRANSACTIONS, p 62 to 67] 

 

 

 

KAMADEVA [GOD OF LOVE / COMPASSION ]

 

 

KAMADEVA (Sk.). In the popular notions the god of love, a Visva-deva, in
the Hindu Pantheon. As the Eros of Hesiod, degraded into Cupid by
exoteric law, and still more degraded by a later popular sense
attributed to the term, so is Kama a most mysterious and metaphysical
subject. 

 

The earlier Vedic description of Kama alone gives the key-note to what
he emblematizes. Kama is the first conscious, all embracing desire for
universal good, love, and for all that lives and feels, needs help and
kindness, the first feeling of infinite tender compassion and mercy that
arose in the consciousness of the creative ONE Force, as soon as it came
into life and being as a ray from the ABSOLUTE. Says the Rig Veda, 

 

“Desire first arose in IT, which was the primal germ of mind, and which
Sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered in their heart to
be the bond which connects Entity with non-Entity”, or Manas with pure
Atma-Buddhi.” THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY 170-1

 

(DTB see S D I 44-6, 570; II 65, 79, 176, 578-9, J.

Letters 60; G N p. 227; Glos 121, 217) Remarkable and needs careful
analyzing with relation to our inner self.)

 

[DTB This is to be thought over metaphysically and universally and
then we can see it in our own septenary constitution (meditation?).]

 

There is no idea of sexual love in the conception. Kama is pre-eminently
the divine desire of creating happiness and love; and it is only ages
later, as mankind began to materialize by anthropomorphization its
grandest ideals into cut and dried dogmas, that Kama became the power
that gratifies desire on the animal plane. 

 

This is shown by what every Veda and some Brahmanas say. In the Atharva
Veda, Kama is represented as the Supreme Deity and Creator. In the
Taitarîya Brahmana, he is the child of Dharma, the god of Law and
Justice, of Sraddha and faith. In another account he springs from the
heart of Brahmâ. Others show him born from water, i.e., from primordial
chaos, or the “Deep”. Hence one of his many names, Irâ-ja, “the
water-born”; and Aja, “unborn” ; and Atmabhu or “Self-existent”. Because
of the sign of Makara (Capricornus) on his banner, he is also called “
Makara Ketu”.

 

The allegory about Siva, the “Great Yogin”, reducing Kama to ashes by
the fire from his central (or third) Eye, for inspiring the Mahadeva
with thoughts of his wife, while he was at his devotions—is very
suggestive, as it is said that he thereby reduced Kama to his primeval
spiritual form. (Glos 170-1)

 

 

Eyes (divine). The “eyes” the Lord Buddha developed in him at the
twentieth hour of his vigil when sitting under the BO-tree, when he was
attaining Buddhaship. They are the eyes of the glorified Spirit, to
which matter is no longer a physical impediment, and which have the
power of seeing all things within the space of the limitless Universe.
0n the following morning of that night, at the close of the third watch,
the “ Merciful One” attained the Supreme Knowledge.” -- T.
Glos 117

 

 

 

DIVINE WILL BECOMES EROS.

 

 

“Water is the symbol of the female element everywhere; mater, from which
the letter M, is derived pictorially from [[diagram]] a water
hieroglyph. It is the universal matrix or the "Great Deep." Venus, the
great Mother-Virgin, issues forth from the Sea-wave, and Cupid or Eros
is her son. But Venus is the later mythological variant of Gaia (or
Gaea), the Earth, which, in its higher aspect is Nature (Prakriti), and
metaphysically Aditi, and even Mulaprakriti, the root of Prakriti or its
noumenon. 

 

Hence Cupid or LOVE in his primitive sense IS EROS, the Divine Will, or
Desire of manifesting itself through visible creation. Thence Fohat, the
prototype of Eros, becomes on Earth the great power "Life-electricity,"
or the Spirit of "Life-giving." S D, 2, Page 65

 

 

 

“THE EVOLUTION OF THE PRINCIPLES of Thought) REFLECTS ITSELF IN
CHHAYALOKA (the shadowy world of primal form, or the intellectual) THE
FIRST GARMENT OF (the) ANUPADAKA (c). 

 

(a) This tracing of "Spiral lines" refers to the evolution of man's as
well as Nature's principles; an evolution which takes place gradually
(as will be seen in Book II., on "The origin of the Human Races"), as
does everything else in nature. The Sixth principle in Man (Buddhi, the
Divine Soul) though a mere breath, in our conceptions, is still
something material when compared with divine "Spirit" (Atma) of which it
is the carrier or vehicle. Fohat, in his capacity of DIVINE LOVE (Eros),
the electric Power of affinity and sympathy, is shown allegorically as
trying to bring the pure Spirit, the Ray inseparable from the ONE
absolute, into union with the Soul, the two constituting in Man the
MONAD, and in Nature the first link between the ever unconditioned and
the manifested. "The first is now the second" (world) -- of the Lipikas
-- has reference to the same.” S D 1, P.
119

 

.

 

“Number 5 was composed of a binary and a ternary, which binary threw
everything in the perfect form into disorder and confusion. The perfect
man, they said, was a quaternary and a ternary, or four material and
three immaterial elements; which three spirits or elements we likewise
find in 5, when it represents the microcosm. The latter is a compound of
a binary directly relating to gross matter, and of three Spirits: 

 

"Since 5 is the ingenious union of two Greek accents placed over vowels
which have or have not to be aspirated. The first sign is called
'Strong Spirit' or superior Spirit, the spirit of God aspired (spiritus)
and breathed by man. The second sign the lower, is the SPIRIT OF LOVE,
representing the secondary Spirit; the third embraces the whole man. It
is the universal Quintessence, the vital fluid or Life." (Ragon.) “ S D
2, P. 576 

 

 

 

“EROS: LOVE, desire. The Greek philosophers said there are two gods of
that name: a terrestrial Eros, who is the god of sexual attraction and
the life energy, and a celestial Eros, who is the god of divine love,
which brings the universe into being.” S D 2, P.
576 

 

 

 

“Venus Aphrodite is the personified Sea, and the mother of the god of
LOVE, the generator of all the gods as much as the Christian Virgin Mary
is Mare (the sea), the mother of the Western God of LOVE, Mercy and
Charity. If the student of Esoteric philosophy thinks deeply over the
subject he is sure to find out all the suggestiveness of the term
Ambhamsi, in its manifold relations to the Virgin in Heaven, to the
Celestial Virgin of the Alchemists, and even to the "Waters of Grace" of
the modern Baptist.” S D 1, p. 458fn  

 

 

 

“EROS, not the later god of material, physiological LOVE, but to the
DIVINE DESIRE IN THE GODS, as well as in all nature, to create and give
life to Beings. This, the Rays of the one "dark," because invisible and
incomprehensible, FLAME could achieve only by themselves descending into
matter” S D 2, P. 234 

.

 

 

“Tradition shows the celestial Yogis offering themselves as voluntary
victims in order to redeem Humanity -- created god-like and perfect at
first -- and to endow him with human affections and aspirations. To do
this they had to give up their natural status and, descending on our
globe, take up their abode on it for the whole cycle of the Mahayuga,
thus exchanging their impersonal individualities for individual
personalities -- the bliss of sidereal existence for the curse of
terrestrial life. 

 

This voluntary sacrifice of the Fiery Angels, whose nature was Knowledge
and LOVE, was construed by the exoteric theologies into a statement that
shows "the rebel angels hurled down from heaven into the darkness of
Hell" -- our Earth. Hindu philosophy hints at the truth by teaching that
the Asuras hurled down by Siva, are only in an intermediate state in
which they prepare for higher degrees of purification and redemption
from their wretched condition; but Christian theology, claiming to be
based on the rock of divine love, charity, and justice of him it appeals
to as its Saviour -- has invented, to enforce that claim paradoxically,
the dreary dogma of hell, that Archimedean lever of Roman Catholic
philosophy.” S D 2, P. 246 

 

 

 

“Fohat, being one of the most, if not the most important character in
esoteric Cosmogony, should be minutely described. As in the oldest
Grecian Cosmogony, differing widely from the later mythology, Eros is
the third person in the primeval trinity: Chaos, Gća, Eros: answering
to the Kabalistic En-Soph (for Chaos is SPACE, P"Â<@, “void”) the
Boundless ALL, Shekinah and the Ancient of Days, or the Holy Ghost; so
Fohat is one thing in the yet unmanifested Universe and another in the
phenomenal and Cosmic World. In the latter, he is that Occult,
electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos,
unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first impulse
which becomes in time law. But in the unmanifested Universe, Fohat is
no more this, than Eros is the later brilliant winged Cupid, or LOVE.
Fohat has naught to do with Kosmos yet, since Kosmos is not born, and
the gods still sleep in the bosom of “Father-Mother.” He is an abstract
philosophical idea. He produces nothing yet by himself; he is simply
that potential creative power in virtue of whose action the NOUMENON of
all future phenomena divides, so to speak, but to reunite in a mystic
supersensuous act, and emit the creative ray. When the “Divine Son”
breaks forth, then Fohat becomes the propelling force, the active Power
which causes the ONE to become Two and THREE—on the Cosmic plane of
manifestation. The triple One differentiates into the many, and then
Fohat is transformed into that force which brings together the elemental
atoms and makes them aggregate and combine.” SECRET DOCTRINE
I, 109

 

 

 

“M, is derived pictorially from “WW”, a water hieroglyph. It is the
universal matrix or the “Great Deep.” Venus, the great Mother-Virgin,
issues forth from the Sea-wave, and Cupid or Eros is her son. But Venus
is the later mythological variant of Gaia (or Gća), the Earth, which, in
its higher aspect is Nature (Prakriti), and metaphysically Aditi, and
even Mulaprakriti, the root of Prakriti or its noumenon.”
THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY p.

 

 

 

“Hence Cupid or Love in his primitive sense is Eros, the Divine Will, or
Desire of manifesting itself through visible creation. Thence Fohat,
the prototype of Eros, becomes on Earth the great power
“Life-electricity,” or the Spirit of “Life-giving.” Let us rememberthe
Greek Theogony and enter into the spirit of its philosophy. We are
taught by the Greeks (See “Iliad” IV., 201, 246) that all things, gods
included, owe their being to the Ocean and his wife Tethys, the latter
being Gća, the Earth or Nature. But who is Ocean? Ocean is the
immeasurable SPACE (Spirit in Chaos), which is the Deity (see Book I.);
and Tethys is not the Earth, but primordial matter in the process of
formation. In our case it is no longer Aditi-Gća who begets Ouranos or
Varuna, the chief Aditya among the seven planetary gods, but Prakriti,
materialised and localised.” SECRET DOCTRINE II, 65

 

 

“Will is septenary in its degrees of manifestation. Emanating from the
one, eternal, abstract and purely quiescent Will (Âtmâ in Layam), it
becomes Buddhi in its Alaya state, descends lower as Mahat (Manas), and
runs down the ladder of degrees until the divine Eros becomes, in its
lower, animal manifestation, erotic desire. Will as an eternal principle
is neither spirit nor substance but everlasting ideation” T.
Glossary, p. 370

 

 

 

Even the Glossary entry on Eros is not wholly negative ---especially in
its esoteric aspect:

 

“EROS (Gr.). Hesiod makes of the god Eros the third personage of the
Hellenic primordial Trinity composed of Ouranos, Gća and Eros. It is the
personified procreative Force in nature in its abstract sense, the
propeller to “creation” and procreation. Exoterically, mythology makes
of Eros the god of lustful, animal desire, whence the term erotic;
esoterically, it is different. (See “Kâma”.)”

THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY p. 115

 

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