Theos-Talk Archives (September 2004 Message tt00441)

Sept 15 2004

Dear jerry:

Please.


Let me offer some thoughts inserted in your text for consideration

Dal

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Dallas
 
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-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald 
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 4:18 PM
To: 
Subject: An Esoteric Flavoring

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GS	In the following, I am attempting to add an esoteric flavor to Dal's
summary.

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DTB	<<In summary: From the "Absolute," manifestations emanate
periodically. >>

GS	Belief in an "Absolute" is an extreme position called absolutism.
The absolutist thinks "that exists" or "this exists." 

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

DTB	How does the "unit," called "an absolutist" arise or exist?

What does it consist of?

When did it begin?

What is its objective?

What final cause or purpose made it appear?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


GS	When we observe our universe, we see that it is relative and
changing and conditional. Nothing exists inherently or permanently. Manas
finds no permanence in our manifested universe and so posits that it must
exist elsewhere and conceptualizes an Absolute. 

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


DTB	Agreed	THIS IS OUR PRESENT Universe. One of many, and also one
that reposes on the eternal BACKGROUND that ever remains undefinable.

As said before if change be observed then the point from which that
observation is made may be at least, for the moment, be considered static,
(or superior to) and a ratio of movement or of being can be observed and
drawn.

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


GS	Blavatsky's Absolute is Beness, but Beness is not the cause or
origin of manifestation and when we posit that it is, we end up with a
"causeless cause" because creation and cause-effect processes are
time-dependent and without time cannot occur. There is no time in
Beness. Beness is timeless (t=0). 

So logically the Monad in Beness cannot "do" anything because there is no
time for processes to take place. 

When Blavatsky says that the Monad puts forth a ray, a time-dependent
process that produces the so-called monadic ray, she is talking poetically
or mythically, and not literally.


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

DTB	See the actual reference. HPB there does not speak of the Monad
that is Human but of the UNIVERSAL MONAD -- an this includes ALL.

If so then what is that CAUSE ?

I would say KARMA as an ever-present motive -- Is it another name for
"KAMADEVA ?" 

Further HPB avers that all the "Monads" are "eternal." If so TIME is NOT
involved.  

TIME is marked from the point at which any period of manifestation
re-begins.

And that point however remote is only suggested t us and remains undefined. 


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DTB	<<There is a continuous unceasing and universal "motion." >>
 
GS	Motion and Space serve as the ultimate duality and fundamental
continuum
within our 7-plane universe. Everything in conditional reality moves
through Space, and it does so in cycles. Every monad in manifested
expression cycles, moving through the planes as well as on them.

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

DTB	And that began ? What force propels it? What CAUSE ?

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


DTB	<<Duality in manifestation is the universal contrast of Spirit /
Matter.>>

 
GS	We live in a universe of duality. Beness or ultimate reality is
nondual.
Conditional reality is dualistic, and one of its basic dualisms is matter
and spirit. According to the Heart Sutra, form is emptiness and emptiness
is form. This is similar to saying that matter is spirit and spirit is
matter. It is because matter is spirit that material forms change and
things can grow and evolve over time. 

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

DTB	I don't get the logic of that last sentence.

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

GS	We often tend to think of spirit as being permanent but the very
opposite is true. Spirit, the emptiness of Tibetan Buddhism, is the lack of
permanence. Matter seems permanent to our senses but because it is spirit it
lacks permanence. Matter and spirit, two
sides of the same substance, are temporary and conditional.

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

DTB	That is why duality never exists wholly by itself. It has neither
past nor future nor any kind of being. There is always the trinity of 

1	THE BACKGROUND incognizable BENESS

2	SPIRIT / MATTER as a duality the supervenes from the outset of
manifestation, and 

3	MIND -- as MAHAT or the UNIVERSAL MIND-PRINCIPLE -- [Desire first
arose in IT that was the primal germ of mind..."] 

"Emptiness" to our present set of sense perceptions but obviously not so to
our MIND and Thought. To those it is not "empty." And I have already
explained that. (again)

HPB wrote in ISIS UNVEILED and THE VISHISHTADWAITA


"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 HPB Articles III 265-6

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DTB	<<These, Spirit and matter are co-equal and co-eternal. 'Spirit is
called the ultimate sublimation of matter, and matter the crystallization of
spirit.' >>

GS	Spirit and matter exist conditionally as the substance of our
7-plane universe. They exist for the duration of our manvantara. At pralaya
they become the virtual particles of science, the partless particles of
Tibetan Buddhism, in a giant-size quantum foam which forms the basic
building materials for the next manvantara. Spirit is the substance of the
first
plane and matter the substance of the seventh. The planes in between are
composed of appropriate proportions so that matter and spirit form a
substance spectrum for our manvantaric 7-plane universe. 
 

DTB	<<Mind is the proof of the One Consciousness which remains
unaffected
through all experiences and states. >>

There is no "proof" of anything at all. 

The "One Consciousness" is a reification of paramatman. However, mind, our
naked mind, is indeed unaffected through all experiences and states and so
we have a luminous awareness 
24-7. 

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

DTB	Paramatma if checked out will be found to be identical with the
BENESS: --

" Paramatman (Sk.). The Supreme Soul of the Universe." THEOSOPHICAL
GLOSSARY

"PARAMATMA alone is self-existing, single, eternal, immutable, and common to
all creatures, high and low alike; hence it never was and never will be
created; that the soul of man evolves, is consciousness itself, and is not
specially created for each man born on the earth, but assumes through
countless incarnations different bodies at different times. Underlying this
must be the proposition that, for each Manvantara or period of
manifestation, there is a definite number of souls or egos who project
themselves into the current of evolution which is to prevail for that period
or manvantara. Of course this subject is limitless, and the consideration of
the vast number of systems and worlds where the same process is going on
with a definite number of egos in each, staggers the minds of most of those
who take the subject up. And of course I do not mean to be understood as
saying that there is a definite number of egos in the whole collection of
systems in which we may imagine evolution as proceeding, for there could be
no such definiteness considered in the mass, as that would be the same as
taking the measure of the Absolute. 

But in viewing any part of the manifestation of the Absolute, it is
allowable for us to say that there are to be found such a definite number of
egos in that particular system under consideration; this is one of the
necessities of our finite consciousness. 

Following out the line of our own argument we reach the conclusion that,
included within the great wave of evolution which relates to the system of
which this earth is a part, there are just so many egos either fully
developed or in a latent state. These have gone round and round the wheel of
rebirth, and will continue to do so until the wave shall meet and be
transformed into another. Therefore there could be no such thing as a
special creation of souls for the different human beings born on this earth,
and for the additional reason that, if there were, then spirit would be made
subservient to illusion, to mere human bodies. " W Q J Art I 202


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

GS	Most people are unaware of this because it usually works in the
background. Meditation allows us to become consciously aware of the naked
mind which is like a clear sky with clarity.

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

DTB	Not being aware with our Lower brain-mind (Kama-Manas) does not mean
the Higher mind BUDDHI-MANAS does not exist. 
 

<<Man is a unit of Mind. All beings are intelligent. They are all
potential men, from the "life-atom" up. >>
 
Intelligence is like a large cloud obscuring the clear sky behind it.


DTB	<<Evolution of forms, and increment in Intelligence is universal. >>

First we assume that we have a "self" and then we assume that this self
grows and evolves over time. Based on these assumptions, we incanrate in
order to "do" something that will perpetuate the self and its evolution. 
Evolution and involution are a duality. Forms evolve during the Arc of
Descent and involve during the Arc of Ascent. 

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

DTB	if you and are not "selves" that, what are we ?

On what basis do we discuss?

What are we seeking?

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

DTB	<<Reincarnation is a fact in Nature. No being ever "dies." >>

GS	No being ever dies because none existed as such in the first place.
One
time a Zen student asked his Master, "Master, where do I go when I die?"
And the Master replied, "Where does your fist go when you open your hand?"

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DTB	Look at that closely.

When a "fist" was made it was in SPACE. When the fist was unmade SPACE
remained unaffected.

But the Being (self) who willed the change -- 

Where and Who is that ? 

It is also in SPACE, but 

What are its qualities and potentials?



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

DTB	<<Every MONAD is an Eternal Pilgrim.>>
 
GS	Theosophical literature throws the word "monad" around a lot. In
Blavatsky's Theosophy there are two kinds of monads. There is a nondual
Monad (for which I use a cap M) located in Beness and there is a dualistic
monad (for which I use a small m) located in the conditional reality of our
7-plane universe. The nondual Monad is an indivisible unit or partless
particle. This Monad is immaterial, immortal, and ineffable. 

The monad in manifestation is divisible, but is like or similar to the Monad
so that we
can think of it as a Monadic expression or ray. The nondual Monad is
outside of time and so the expression "eternal pilgrim" is applicable only
to the monad in manifestation. 

Specifically it refers to the atma-buddhi monad as it undergoes manvantaric
expression, or as it moves through space in conditional reality.

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DTB	I agree with that. As will be seen above

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Jerry S.