Theos-Talk Archives (August 2004 Message tt00469)

Aug 24 2004

Dear John:

No question there are innumerable stages between the "chela" and the
"Adept." And presumably each has a "title"

The names and titles do not importantly concern us at present, as I feel in
the matter, as, to us, they are only empty titles ---.

I sent you the definitions in the THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY of some of those
titles because they outline the functions and duties assumed by those Great
Men who have achieved levels of spiritual capacity we are still developing.


Even the Mahatmas say that there are fresh duties and altitudes for Them to
acquire and ascend to. In the meantime, they help us and we in turn, can
help others.

For a careful explanation concerning the 3 stages you refer to go to The
VOICE OF THE SILENCE and the THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY under Trikaya.

Dallas

PS

Thanks for the links.

I strongly feel that the varus levels of achievement will sort themselves
out as we advance and "need to know."

In the meantime some of the links I think will help are those given
concerning consciousness in S D I 157-8 and S D I 181-2, 200-2.

In the SECRET DOCTRINE You will find that HPB details the number of
"beings" as well as "states of consciosuenss" that are known and classified:
S D I pp. 213... II 309, 591, 593, 596,   

I would add that the "States of Consciousness" are also important as they
relate to the faculties and powers that the purification of our "principles"
provide. 

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

Voice, pp. 76-8

(2) This same popular reverence calls "Buddhas of Compassion" those
Bodhisattvas who, having reached the rank of an Arhat (i.e., having
completed the fourth or seventh Path), refuse to pass into the Nirvanic
state or "don the Dharmakaya robe and cross to the other shore," as it would
then become beyond their power to assist men even so little as Karma
permits. They prefer to remain invisibly (in Spirit, so to speak) in the
world, and contribute toward man's salvation by influencing them to follow
the Good Law, i.e., lead them on the Path of Righteousness. It is part of
the exoteric Northern Buddhism to honour all such great characters as
Saints, and to offer even prayers to them, as the Greeks and Catholics do to
their Saints and Patrons; on the other hand, the esoteric teachings
countenance no such thing. There is a great difference between the two
teachings. The exoteric layman hardly knows the real meaning of the word
Nirmanakaya—hence the confusion and inadequate explanations of the
Orientalists. For example Schlagintweit believes that Nirmanakaya-body,
means the physical form assumed by the Buddhas when they incarnate on
earth—"the least sublime of their earthly encumbrances" (vide Buddhism in
Tibet)—and he proceeds to give an entirely false view on the subject. The
real teaching is, however, this:

The three Buddhic bodies or forms are styled

1. Nirmanakaya.

2. Sambhogakaya.

3. Dharmakaya.

The first is that ethereal form which one would assume when leaving his
physical he would appear in his astral body—having in addition all the
knowledge of an Adept. The Bodhisattva develops it in himself as he proceeds
on the Path. Having reached the goal and refused its fruition, he remains on
Earth, as an Adept; and when he dies, instead of going into Nirvana, he
remains in that glorious body he has woven for himself, invisible to
uninitiated mankind, to watch over and protect it.

Sambhogakaya is the same, but with the additional lustre of "three
perfections," one of which is entire obliteration of all earthly concerns.

The Dharmakaya body is that of a complete Buddha, i.e., no body at all, but
an ideal breath: Consciousness merged in the Universal Consciousness, or
Soul devoid of every attribute. Once a Dharmakaya, an Adept or Buddha leaves
behind every possible relation with, or thought for this earth. Thus, to be
enabled to help humanity, an Adept who has won the right to Nirvana,
"renounces the Dharmakaya body" in mystic parlance; keeps, of the
Sambhogakaya, only the great and complete knowledge, and remains in his
Nirmanakaya body. The Esoteric School teaches that Gautama Buddha with
several of his Arhats is such a Nirmanakaya, higher than whom, on account of
the great renunciation and sacrifice to mankind there is none known.

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

Gossary, pp 338...

TRIKÂYA (Sk) Lit., three bodies, or forms. This is a most abstruse
teaching which, however, once understood, explains the mystery of every
triad or trinity, and is a true key to every three-fold metaphysical symbol.
In its most simple and comprehensive form it is found in the human Entity in
its triple division into spirit, soul, and body, and in the universe,
regarded pantheistically, as a unity composed of a Deific, purely spiritual
Principle, Supernal Beings—its direct rays — and Humanity. The origin of
this is found in the teachings of the pre historic Wisdom Religion, or
Esoteric Philosophy. The grand Pantheistic ideal, of the unknown and
unknowable Essence being transformed first into subjective, and then into
objective matter, is at the root of all these triads and triplets. Thus we
find in philosophical Northern Buddhism 

(1) Âdi-Buddha (or Primordial Universal Wisdom) ; 

( 2) the Dhyâni-Buddhas (or Bodhisattvas); 

(3) the Mânushi (Human) Buddhas. 

In European conceptions we find the same: God, Angels and Humanity
symbolized theologically by the God-Man. The Brahmanical Triműrti and also
the three-fold body of Shiva, in Shaivism, have both been conceived on the
same basis, if not altogether running on the lines of Esoteric teachings. 

Hence, no wonder if one finds this conception of the triple body—or the
vestures of Nirmânakâya, Sambhogakâya and Dharmakâya, the grandest of the
doctrines of Esoteric Philosophy— accepted in a more or less disfigured form
by every religious sect, and explained quite incorrectly by the
Orientalists. 

Thus, in its general application, the three-fold body symbolizes Buddha’s
statue, his teachings and his stűpas ; in the priestly conceptions it
applies to the Buddhist profession of faith called the Triratna, which is
the formula of taking “refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.” Popular fancy
makes Buddha ubiquitous, placing him thereby on a par with an
anthropomorphic god, and lowering him to the level of a tribal deity; and,
as a result, it falls into flat contradictions, as in Tibet and China. Thus
the exoteric doctrine seems to teach that while in his Nirmâ kâya body
(which passed through 100,000 kotis of transformations on earth), he,
Buddha, is at the same time a LOCHANA (a heavenly DHYÂNI-BODHISATTVA), in
his Sambhogakâya “robe of absolute completeness”, and in Dhyâna, ora state
which must cut him off from the world and all its connections; and finally
and lastly he is, besides being a Nirmânakâya and a Sambhogakâya, also a
Dharmakâya “of absolute purity”, a VAIROTCHANA or Dhyâni-Buddha in full
Nirvâna! (See Eitel’s Sanskrit-Chinese Dictionary.) This is the jumble of
contradictions, impossible to reconcile, which is given out by missionaries
and certain Orientalists as the philosophical dogmas of Northern Buddhism. 

If not an intentional confusion of a philosophy dreaded by the upholders of
a religion based on inextricable contradictions and guarded “mysteries”,
then it is the product of ignorance. As the Trailokya, the Trikâya, and the
Triratna are the three aspects of the same conceptions, and have to be, so
to say, blended in one, the subject is further explained under each of these
terms. (See also in this relation the term “ Trisharana”.)

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

Glos, pp. 341....

TRIRATNA, or RATNATRAYA (Sk) The Three Jewels, the technical term for the
well-known formula “Buddha, Dharma and Sangha” (or Samgha), the two latter
terms meaning, in modern interpretation, “religious law” (Dharma), and the
“priesthood” (Sangha). Esoteric Philosophy, however, would regard this as a
very loose rendering. The words “Buddha, Dharma and Sangha”, ought to be
pronounced as in the days of Gautama, the Lord Buddha, namely “Bodhi, Dharma
and Sangha and interpreted to mean “Wisdom, its laws and priests ”, the
latter in the sense of “ spiritual exponents ”, or adepts. Buddha, however,
being regarded as personified “ Bodhi” on earth, a true avatar of
Âdi-Buddha, Dharma gradually came to be regarded as his own particular law,
and Sangha as his own special priesthood. Nevertheless, it is the profane of
the later (now modern) teachings who have shown a greater degree of natural
intuition than the actual interpreters of Dharma, the Buddhist priests. The
people see the Triratna in the three statues of Amitâbha, Avalokiteshvara
and Maitreya Buddha; i.e., in Boundless Light” or Universal Wisdom, an
impersonal principle which is the correct meaning of Âdi-Buddha; in the
“Supreme Lord” of the Bodhisattvas, or Avalokiteshvara; and in Maitreya
Buddha, the symbol of the terrestrial and human Buddha, the “Mânushi Buddha
”. Thus, even though the uninitiated do call these three statues “the
Buddhas of the Past, the Present and the Future ”, still every follower of
true philosophical Buddhism—called “atheistical” by Mr. Eitel— would explain
the term Triratna correctly. The philosopher of the Yogachârya School would
say—as well he could—“Dharma is not a person but an unconditioned and
underived entity, combining in itself the spiritual and material principles
of the universe, whilst from Dharma proceeded, by emanation, Buddha [ Bodhi
rather], as the creative energy which produced, in conjunction with Dharma,
the third factor in the trinity, viz., ‘Samgha’, which is the comprehensive
sum total of all real life.” Samgha, then, is not and cannot be that which
it is now understood to be, namely, the actual “ priesthood”; for the latter
is not the sum total of all real life, but only of religious life. The real
primitive significance of the word Samgha or “Sangha” applies to the Arhats
or Bhikshus, or the “initiates”, alone, that is to say to the real exponents
of Dharma—the divine law and wisdom, coming to them as a reflex light from
the one “boundless light ”. Such is its philosophical meaning. And yet,far
from satisfying the scholars of the Western races, this seems only to
irritate them; for E. J. Eitel, of Hongkong, remarks, as to the above : “
Thus the dogma of a Triratna, originating from three primitive articles of
faith, and at one time culminating in the conception of three persons, a
trinity in unity, has degenerated into a metaphysical theory of the
evolution of three abstract principles ”! And if one of the ablest European
scholars will sacrifice every philosophical ideal to gross anthropomorphism,
then what can Buddhism with its subtle metaphysics expect at the hands of
ignorant missionaries?
 

TRISHARANA (Sk.). The same as” Triratna ”and accepted by both the Northern
and Southern Churches of Buddhism. After the death of the Buddha it was
adopted by the councils as a mere kind of formula fidei, enjoining “to take
refuge in Buddha ”, “to take refuge in Dharma ”, and “to take refuge in
Sangha ”, or his Church, in the sense in which it is now interpreted; butit
is not in this sense that the “Light of Asia” would have taught the formula.


Of Trikâya, Mr. E. J. Eitel, of Hongkong, tells us in his Handbook of
Chinese Buddhism that this “tricho-tomism was taught with regard to the
nature of all Buddhas. Bodhi being the characteristic of a Buddha” —a
distinction was made between “essential Bodhi” as the attribute of the
Dharmakâya, i.e., “essential body”; “reflected Bodhi” as the attribute of
Sambhogakâya; and “practical Bodhi” as the attribute of Nirmânakâya. Buddha
combining in himself these three conditions of existence, was said to be
living at the same time in three different spheres. 

Now, this shows how greatly misunderstood is the purely pantheistical and
philosophical teaching. Without stopping to enquire how even a Dharmakâya
vesture can have any “attribute” in Nirvâna, which state is shown, in
philosophical Brahmanism as much as in Buddhism, to be absolutely devoid of
any attribute as conceived by human finite thought—it will be sufficient to
point to the following —

(1) the NIRMÂNAKÂYA VESTURE IS PREFERRED BY THE “BUDDHAS OF COMPASSION” to
that of the Dharmakâya state, precisely because the latter precludes him who
attains it from any communication or relation with the finite, i.e., with
humanity; 

(2) it is not Buddha (Gautama, the mortal man, or any other personal Buddha)
who lives ubiquitously in “three different spheres, at the same time”, but
BODHI, the universal and abstract principle of divine wisdom, symbolised in
philosophy by ÂDI-BUDDHA. 

It is the latter that is ubiquitous because it is the universal essence or
principle. It is BODHI, OR THE SPIRIT OF BUDDHASHIP, which, having resolved
itself into its primordial homogeneous essence and merged into it, as Brahmâ
(the universe) merges into Parabrahm, the ABSOLUTENESS—that is meant under
the name of “essential Bodhi ”. 

For the NIRVÂNEE, OR DHYÂNI BUDDHA, must be supposed—by living in
ARŰPADHÂTU, the formless state, and in DHARMAKÂYA—to be that “ essential
Bodhi” itself. 

It is the DHYÂNI BODHISATTVAS, the primordial rays of the universal Bodhi,
who live in “reflected Bodhi” in RÂPADHÂTU, or the world of subjective
“forms” ; and it is the 

NIRMÂNAKÂYAS (plural) who upon ceasing their lives of “ practical Bodhi”, in
the “enlightened” or Buddha forms, remain voluntarily in the Kâmadhâtu (the
world of desire), whether in objective forms on earth or in subjective
states in its sphere (the second Buddhakshetra). This they do in order to
watch over, protect and help mankind. 

Thus, it is neither one Buddha who is meant, nor any particular avatar of
the collective Dhyâni Buddhas, but verily Âdi-Bodhi—the first Logos, whose
primordial ray is Mahâbuddhi, the Universal Soul, ALAYA, whose flame is
ubiquitous, and whose influence has a different sphere in each of the three
forms of existence, because, once again, it is Universal Being itself or the
reflex of the Absolute. 

Hence, if it is philosophical to speak of Bodhi, which “as Dhyâni Buddha
rules in the domain of the spiritual” (fourth Buddhakshetra or region of
Buddha); and of the Dhyâni Bodhisattvas “ruling in the third Buddhakshetra
”or the domain of ideation; and even of the Mânushi Buddhas, who are inthe
second Buddhakshetra as Nirmanakâyas—to apply the “idea of a unity in
trinity” to three personalities—is highly unphilosophical.

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

See also in the SECRET DOCTRINE, Vol II, the STANZAS of DZYAN -- there are
more details there. DTB

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


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

-----Original Message-----

From: samblo
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 2:12 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: Leadbeater & Besant about Each Other


Dallas,

Thanks for your reply and comments. I enjoyed reading the scan you 
provided on Nirmanikaya. 

But I think what differs is you view in a specific aspect i.e.; the
Completed Process, such as Mahatma, whereas I occasion a view that there are
intermediate stages which are proceeded through before the Ultimate Stage. 

In reading the Nirmanakaya excerpts you provide although I have zero
argument with any of it in principle as I also view H.P.B. when Theosophy is
concerned the way you do. 

But I am regularly bopped in the forehead for some strange reason regarding
that it seems to intimate that the Stage is completed in a single leap, not
in three strides vis Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Dharmakaya. I in my own
way of thinking of this view Nirmanakaya as one of the three stages of that
ultimate Unity, 

I can envision a Nirmanakaya that although Nirmanakaya, has not yet entered
into the Bodhisattva Stage of Sambhogakaya or yet that of Dharmakaya. 

In Buddhism there are 10 Stages of Mind of the Bodhisattva of the Arhants,
they are not achieved all at the same time so there can be
differentiation's. I am aware of the Bodhisattva Vow of Eternal Sacrifice to
help others cross to the other shore and it is a common (these days) vow
even for Lay people that is taken following the Tradition, even Scientology
has used it.

I also tend to agree with your view as to the difference between H.P.B and 
later viewpoints that were promulgated. There is a difference of emphasis, I

have made my own comments in past posts in various ways.

CUT