Theos-Talk Archives (July 2004 Message tt00250)

July 20 2004

Dear Gerry:

In my very humble opinion, one can argue endlessly over translations. So I try to get at the idea and the logic behind any statement.

Perhaps this says it as well as I can express it: It sounds like I am repeating myself with a few variants added.


SPACE what is it?  
  
And if that SPACE totally immaterial, and is only a CONCEPT, as, whether full or empty of matter, forms, substance, and even of forces, emotions and ideas that have been shaped by mind, it is immaterial. 

Whether it is occupied by manifestation or devoid of anything limited as inPralaya, (I mean: objects or "subjects," forms or ideas, is also immaterial).  

SPACE (to me) per se is unaffected and is a constant -- perhaps as a representative idea of the ETERNAL BACK GROUND: the inexplicable and undemonstrable ABSOLUTENESS that is a philosophical necessity to understanding, a CAUSELESS CAUSE, which propels all -- and I mean -- all aspects of differentiation. This ultimate and final UNITY has to be there -- and our minds (with their present limitations) are not able to frame the necessary words (perhaps even tenuous or concrete ideas) to express this kind of certainty.

Our continuing problem is to determine how is it possible to pass from NO THING to SOME THINGS. 

As I see it, only THOUGHT can do this, and so MANAS bridges the gap betweenATMA and BUDDHI (when Buddhis is viewed as MAHA PRAKRITI, or primordial substance). This is why, as understand it, we have the GREAT THINKERS, as actual INDIVIDUALITIES, who consciously embody all three aspects of the ONE: ATMA -- BUDDHI [- MANAS.

Our (my) present mind (the embodied lower mind -- Kama-Manas) now considering this seeming paradox, comprehends this idea with difficulty because we (I am) are so deeply immersed in "things" and "substances." We have to appeal to Buddhi -- to the INTUITION, to free ourselves of these bonds and limits.

It is equally difficult for us (me) to visualize the ONE SPIRIT as innumerable
MONADS when Manifestation ( Manvantara) occurs -- filling ALL SPACE.  
[ S D I 289 -- "There is not a finger's breadth...of void Space in the
whole Boundless (Universe)..." ]
 
As I see it, when Manvantara winds down, it having achieved a number of "graduating successes," the next state, cycle, time called Pralaya (a state ofnirguna) sets in, (under the cyclic effect of eternal KARMA) all forms of whatever complexity (the 7 prakritis, or "principles," and all 'unfinished business') are brought into a state and condition of stasis, and for a vasttime, they seem, or are actually, resolved into a conceptualized residuum (?) of forces and energises that are (of necessity) imperishable. [Are these symbolized by the "Open eye of the Dangma?" [ S D I 27, 45] 
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"The idea of Eternal Non-Being, which is the One Being, will appear a paradox to anyone who does not remember that we limit our ideas of being to our present consciousness of existence; making it a specific, instead of a generic term. An unborn infant, could it think in our acceptation of that term,would necessarily limit its conception of being, in a similar manner, to the intrauterine life which alone it knows; and were it to endeavour to express to its consciousness the idea of life after birth (death to it), it would, in the absence of data to go upon, and of faculties to comprehend such data, probably express that life as "Non-Being which is Real Being." 

In our case the One Being is the noumenon of all the noumena which we know must underlie phenomena, and give them whatever shadow of reality they possess, but which we have not the senses or the intellect to cognize at present. The impalpable atoms of gold scattered through the substance of a ton ofauriferous quartz may be imperceptible to the naked eye of the miner, yet he knows that they are not only present there but that they alone give his quartz any appreciable value; and this relation of the gold to the quartz may faintly shadow forth that of the noumenon to the phenomenon. But the miner knows what the gold will look like when extracted from the quartz, whereas the common mortal can form no conception of the reality of things separated from the Maya which veils them, and in which they are hidden. 

Alone the Initiate, rich with the lore acquired by numberless generations of his predecessors, directs the "Eye of Dangma" toward the essence of things in which no Maya can have any influence. It is here that the teachings ofesoteric philosophy in relation to the Nidanas and the Four Truths become of the greatest importance; but they are secret."	S D I 45

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To resume:

They are a part of the imperishable and eternal AKASA, (perhaps they relateto the "aggregates" of the skandhas, which are themselves called "monads" or "Atma-Buddhis"). And, under eternal KARMA, and, they return when a new Manvantara recommences as the process of a rebirth of the older evolution, which is reanimated. No entity is "erased." It is like reincarnation or theunits of consciousness (minds either potential or actual) waking up from deep sleep and REMEMBERING things past, thanks to the "aggregates" -- skandhas -- which bear those "memories of experience and advancement" -- and, even now ever surround us (as planets etc., surround a "sun" -- and are imperishable in themselves.) Now if this is denied, as not being a Buddhist tenet -- or taught by the Buddha (of which no record remains) then this presentation is useless.

Why should I study it "from the Buddhist point of view" and, are any othersof equal validity ? I believe all translations are defective. Also I am of the opinion that all statements have to be taken with a broad, liberal ear and mind. -- why should you trust my "words." I try to convey ideas. And they might be very faulty.

As I see it, on close examination, Theosophy embraces Buddhism and Buddhismwas the local timely expression of the same eternal teachings at that time2,500 years ago. The Buddha Used Pali or Prakrit --the language of the average man of his time -- just as we use English now, and the Masters, in writing to Sinnett for instance, used it and said it was the best medium of and for this time in which to expound the Philosophy. (In this regard I held many a talk with members of the Maha Bodhi Society when in India in my youth and later.) 

The MAHATMA LETTERS on p. 45 states that the Buddha is one of the living Adepts they revere and treat as their "Patron" -- one of their most revered superiors .

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Some references: ( I may have already sent these ?)


SUNYATA or VOID or EMPTINESS  


SUNYATA


SUNYATÂ (Sk.). Void, space, nothingness. The name of our objective universe in the sense of its unreality and illusiveness. Theosophical Glossary, p. 313


MAHÂ SÛNYATA (Sk.). Space, or eternal law; the great void or chaos.”
Theosophical Glossary, p. 200  


“….it was precisely the doctrine that had been secretly taught by Sakyamuni Himself, is an allegory, and is based upon the reconciliation between the old Brāhmanical secret Schools in the Himālayas and Gautama’s Esoteric teachings, both parties having at first objected to the rival schools of the other. The former, the parent of all others, had been established beyond the Himālayas for ages before the appearance of Sākyamuni. Gautama was a pupil of this; and it was with them, those Indian Sages, that He had learned the truths of the Sunyata, the emptiness and impermanence of every terrestrial, evanescent thing, and the mysteries of Prajña-Pāramitā, or “knowledge across the River,” which finally lands the “Perfect One” in theregions of the One Reality.		

…There, and there alone, reigns Parinishpanna (Yong-Grüb), theabsolutely perfect comprehension of Being and Non-Being, the changeless true Existence in Spirit, even while the latter is seemingly still in the body, every inhabitant thereof being a Non-Ego because he has become the Perfect Ego. Their voidness is “self-existent and perfect”—if there were profane eyes to sense and perceive it—because it has become absolute; the unreal being transformed into conditionless Reality, and the realities of this, our world, having vanished in their own natureinto thin (non-existing) air. The “Absolute Truth” (Don-dampa’i-den pa; Sanskrit: Paramārthasatya), having conquered “relative truth” (Kun zab chi-den pa; Sanskrit: Samvritasatya), the inhabitants of the mysterious region are thus supposed to have reached the state called in mystic phraseology Svasamvedanā (“self-analyzing reflection”) and Paramārtha, or that absolute consciousness of the personal merged into the impersonal Ego, which is above all, hence above illusion in every sense”. BCW Vol. 14, p.435


“Space is neither a “limitless void,” nor a “conditioned fulness,” but both: being, on the plane of absoluteabstraction, the ever-incognisable Deity, which is void only to finite minds, and on that of mayavic perception, the Plenum, the absolute Container of all that is, whether manifested or unmanifested: it is, therefore, that ABSOLUTE ALL.” SD I, 8


“The “Parent Space” is the eternal, ever present cause of all—the incomprehensible DEITY, whose “invisible robes” are the mystic root of all matter, and of the Universe. Space is the one eternal thing that we can most easily imagine, immovable in its abstraction and uninfluenced by either the presence or absence in it of an objective Universe. It is without dimension, in every sense, and self-existent. Spirit is the first differentiation from THAT, the causeless cause of both Spirit and Matter. It is, as taught in the esoteric catechism, neither limitless void, nor conditioned fulness, but both. It was and ever will be.” [SD I, 36]


“It is impossible to conceive anything without a cause; the attemptto do so makes the mind a blank. This is virtually the condition to which the mind must come at last when we try to trace back the chain of causes and effects, but both science and religion jump to this condition of blankness much more quickly than is necessary; for they ignore the metaphysical abstractions which are the only conceivable cause of physical concretions. These abstractions become more and more concrete as they approach our plane of existence, until finally they phenomenalise in the form of the material Universe, by a process of conversion of metaphysics into physics, analogous to that by which steam can be condensed into water, and the water frozen into ice. “	[SD I, 44-5]


“There is but one indivisible and absolute Omniscience and Intelligence in the Universe, and this thrills throughout every atom and infinitesimal point of the whole finite Kosmos which hath no bounds, and which peoplecall SPACE, considered independently of anything contained in it. “	[SD I, 277]


“There is not one finger’s breath (ANGULA) of void Space inthe whole Boundless (Universe). . . . [SD I, 289]


“But not till the Unit is merged in the ALL, whether on this or anyother plane, and Subject and Object alike vanish in the absolute negation of the Nirvanic State (negation, again, only from our plane), is scaled that peak of Omniscience—the Knowledge of things-in-themselves; and the solution of the yet more awful riddle approached, before which even the highest Dhyan Chohan must bow in silence and ignorance—the unspeakable mystery of that which is called by the Vedantins, the PARABRAHMAM.	“	[SD I, 330]



“The true Buddhist, recognising no “personal god,” nor any “Father” and “Creator of Heaven and Earth,” still believes in an absolute consciousness, “Adi-Buddhi”; and the Buddhist philosopher knows that there are Planetary Spirits, the “Dhyan Chohans.” But though he admits of “spiritual lives,” yet, as they are temporary in eternity, even they, according to his philosophy, are “the maya of the day,” the illusion of a “day of Brahmâ,” a short manvantara of 4,320,000,000 years. The “Yin-Sin” is not for the speculations of men, for the Lord Buddha has strongly prohibited all such inquiry.… Thus regarding a personal God “as only a gigantic shadowthrown upon the void of space by the imagination of ignorant men,”they teach that only “two things are (objectively) eternal, namelyAkâsa and Nirvana”; and that these are ONE in reality, and but a maya when divided.”	[SD I, 635]

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-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald 
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:48 AM
To: 
Subject: RE: Emptiness - maya - SUNYATA


<<KY: Sunnyata means void. To deny that means to deny the whole doctrine.
How to understand it is another issue, but it is not useful to say
sunnyata isn't void. That is meaningless.>>

<<Dal: SUNYATA or VOID or EMPTINESS -- are to me all the same thing namelySPACE.  

The Sanskrit word sunyata used to be translated as "void." Today it is
translated as "emptiness" due largely to the influence of Tibetan Buddhists
who consider the translation of void as being too negative and too
nihilistic. There are two main inpterpretations of emptiness in Tibetan
Buddhism, the shentong and the rangtong (I hope I am spelling them
correctly). These two teachings divide emptiness into an "aspected
emptiness" and an "unaspected emptiness."

The great Tzongkhapa taught unaspected emptiness. He says throughout his
writings that emptiness refers to the fact that phenomena are empty of
inherent existence. Anything that is an aggregate or compound and anything
that exists in dependence on causes and conditions is empty of inherent
existence and so has only a conditional existence. To avoid sounding too
nihilistic, he defines conditional existence as a positive reality that
changes over time and is not permanent but rather is conditionally real. He
denounces aspected emptiness as being too absolutist.

Aspected emptiness was taught in what was called the Great Middle Way
school but is still found in various places including Dzogchen (Tzongkhapa
did not like Dzogchen or the Great Middle Way). Essentially aspected
emptiness equates to what HPB calls the Absolute and Dzogchen calls the
Ground or the Basis because it is the ground of both samsara and nirvana.

No Tibetan school would equate emptiness with space, they being two
different things. Emptiness does NOT mean empty space. In Dzogchen
manifestation has a continuum of Space and Motion, and so space is one of
the dimensional aspects of our conditional existence. I interpret Blavatsky
as saying the same thing.

Jerry S.