Theos-Talk Archives (September 2004 Message tt00765)

Sept 26 2004

Dear Friend:

"Atma-Vidya" translated means : the wisdom of the UNIVERSAL SPIRIT / SOUL

These quotations will give a survey of what THEOSOPHY has to say on the
subject of the ATMA. -- And particularly, a knowledge of its existence,
powers and work.

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A T M A 

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"...you are not body, brain, or astral man, but that you are THAT, and
"THAT" is the Supreme Soul." WQJ LETTERS 116


"Atma, the "Higher Self," is neither your Spirit nor mine, but like sunlight
shines on all. It is the universally diffused "divine principle," and is
inseparable from its one and absolute Meta-Spirit, as the sunbeam is
inseparable from sunlight.	Key 135


"Buddhi (the spiritual soul) is only its vehicle. Neither each separately,
nor the two collectively, are of any more use to the body of man, than
sunlight and its beams are for a mass of granite buried in the earth, unless
the divine Duad is assimilated by, and reflected in, some consciousness.
Neither Atma nor Buddhi are ever reached by Karma, because the former is the
highest aspect of Karma, its working agent of ITSELF in one aspect, and the
other is unconscious on this plane."	Key 135


"...Atman is no individual property of any man, but is the Divine essence
which has no body, no form, which is imponderable, invisible, and
indivisible, that which does not exist, and yet is...It only overshadows the
mortal; that which enters into him and pervades the whole body being only
its omnipresent rays, or light, radiated through Buddhi, its vehicle and
direct emanation. This is the secret meaning of the assertions of almost
all the ancient philosophers, when they said that "the rational part of
man's soul" never entered wholly into the man, but only overshadowed him
more or less through the irrational spiritual Soul or Buddhi...the
difference between that which is negatively, or passively, "irrational,"
because undifferentiated, and that which is irrational because too active
and positive. Man is a correlation of spiritual powers, as well as a
correlation of chemical and physical forces, brought into function by what
we call "principles." ...the spirit (Atma) never descends hypostatically
into the living man, but only showers more or less its radiance on the inner
man (the psychic and spiritual compound of the astral principles)..."	Key
101-2 


"ISWARA" (Sk.)	The "Lord" or the personal god--divine Spirit in man. Lit.,
sovereign (independent) existence. A title given to Siva and other gods in
India. Siva is also called Iswaradeva."	Glos 158


"ADI-BHUTA " (Sk.)	The first Being; also primordial element Adbhuta is
a title of Vishnu, the "first Element" containing all elements, "the
unfathomable deity." 
Glos p. 6


"ADI-BUDHI" (Sk.)	Primeval Intelligence or Wisdom; the eternal Budhi
or Universal Mind. Used of Divine Ideation, "Mahabuddhi" being synonymous
with Mahat."	Glos. P. 6


"VIGNANAMAYA KOSHA" (Sk.)	"The third is the true Ego,
called..."causal body"...which in the trans-Himalayan schools is always
called the "Karmic body,"...For Karma or action is the cause which produces
incessant rebirths or "reincarnations." It is not the Monad, nor is it
Manas proper; but is, in a way, indissolubly connected with, and a compound
of the Monad and Manas in Devachan." 
HPB- "Dialogues Between the Two Editors. -- HPB Articles II p. 39


"Bodha means the innate possession of divine intellect or "understanding;"
"Buddha," the acquirement of it by personal efforts and merit; while Buddhi
is the faculty of cognizing the channel through which divine knowledge
reaches the "Ego," the discernment of good and evil, "divine conscience"
also; and "Spiritual Soul," which is the vehicle of Atma. "When Buddhi
absorbs our EGO-tism (destroys it) with all its Vikara, Avalokiteshwara
becomes manifested to us, and Nirvana, or Mukti, is reached," "Mukti" being
the same as Nirvana, i.e., freedom from the trammels of "Maya" or illusion.

"Bodhi" is likewise the name of a particular state of trance condition,
called Samadhi, during which the subject reaches the culmination of
spiritual knowledge."	SD I xix



MANVANTARIC BODY used by the Adepts
"Kumaras" -- 
The Custodians of the Mysteries -- 
The Undying Race


"Alone a handful of primitive men -- in whom the spark of divine Wisdom
burnt bright, and only strengthened in its intensity as it got dimmer and
dimmer with every age in those who turned it to bad purposes--remained the
elect custodians of the Mysteries revealed to mankind by the divine
Teachers. There were those among them, who remained in their Kumaric
condition from the beginning; and tradition whispers, what the secret
teachings affirm, namely, that these Elect were the germs of a Hierarchy
which never died since that period:--
 
"The inner man of the first * * * only changes his body from time to time;
he is ever the same, knowing neither rest nor Nirvana, spurning Devachan and
remaining constantly on Earth for the salvation of mankind ..." "Out of the
seven virgin-men (Kumara) four sacrificed themselves for the sins of the
world and the instruction of (282) the ignorant, to remain till the end of
the present Manvantara. Though unseen, they are ever present. When people
say of one of them, "He is dead;" behold, he is alive and under another
form. These are the Head, the Heart, the Soul, and the Seed of undying
knowledge (Gnyana). Thou shalt never speak, O Lanoo, of these great ones
(Maha...) before a multitude, mentioning them by their names. The wise
alone will understand."	(Catechism of the Inner Schools.)	SD II 281-2


"...the early sub-races had evolved an intermediate race in which...the
higher Dhyan Chohans had incarnated. ( fn.) This is the "undying race" as
it is called in Esotericism, and exoterically the fruitless generation of
the first progeny of Daksha, who curses Narada, the divine Rishi ... by
saying "Be born in the womb; there shall not be a resting place for thee in
all these regions;" after this Narada, the representative of that race of
fruitless ascetics, is said, as soon as he dies in one body, to be reborn in
another."	SD II 275 - fn


"Happily for the human race the "Elect Race" had already become the vehicle
of incarnation for the (intellectually and spiritually) highest Dhyanis
before Humanity had become quite material. When the last sub-races...of the
3rd Race had perished with the great Lemurian Continent, "the seeds of the
Trinity of Wisdom" had already acquired the secret of immortality on Earth,
that gift which allows the same great personality to step ad libitum from
one worn-out body into another."	SD II 276


"...there exists a power which can create human forms--ready-made sheaths
for the "conscious monads" or Nirmanakayas of past Manvantaras to incarnate
within ... (653) a living Entity consolidating the astral body with
surrounding materials..." SD II 652-3



NIRMANAKAYAS AND MAHATMAS -- 
Living, Invisible, Spirits of the Sages


"...those Egos of great Adepts who have passed away, and are also known as
Nirmanakayas;...for whom--since they are beyond illusion--there is no
Devachan, and who, having either voluntarily renounced it for the good of
mankind, or not yet reached Nirvana, remain invisible on earth...they are
re-born over and over again...Who they are, "on earth"--every student of
Occult science knows..."	SD II 615


"The real Mahatma is then not his physical body but that higher Manas which
is inseparably linked to the Atma and its vehicle (6th principle) -- a union
effected by him in a comparatively very short period by passing through the
self-evolution laid down by the Occult Philosophy." HPB ART I 293


"Whoever...wants to see the real Mahatma, must use his intellectual sight.
He must so elevate his Manas that its perceptions will be clear and all
mists created by Maya must be dispelled. His vision will then be bright and
he will see the MAHATMAS wherever he may be, for, being merged into the 6th
and the 7th principles, which are ubiquitous and omnipresent, the MAHATMAS
may be said to be everywhere." HPB ART I 294


"Most of us believe in the survival of the Spiritual Ego, in Planetary
Spirits and Nirmanakayas, those great Adepts of the past ages, who,
renouncing their right to Nirvana, remain in our spheres of being, not as
"spirits" but as complete spiritual human Beings. Save their corporeal,
visible envelope, which they leave behind, they remain as they were, in
order to help poor humanity, as far as can be done without sinning against
Karmic law. This is the "Great Renunciation," indeed; an incessant,
conscious self-sacrifice throughout aeons and ages till that day when the
eyes of blind mankind will open and, instead of the few, all will see the
universal truth. These Beings may well be regarded as God and Gods--if they
would but allow the fire in our hearts, at the thought of that purest of all
sacrifices, to be fanned into the flame of adoration, or the smallest altar
in their honor. But they will not. Verily, "the secret heart is fair
Devotion's (only) temple," and any other in this case, would be no better
than profane ostentation."	HPB ARTICLES III 204


"Remember, thou that fightest for man's liberation,* each failure is success
and each sincere attempt wins its reward in time." * This is an allusion to
a well-known belief in the East...that every additional Buddha or Saint is a
new soldier in the army of those who work for the liberation, or salvation
of mankind. In Northern Buddhist countries, where the doctrine of the
Nirmanakayas--those Bodhisattvas who renounce well-earned Nirvana or the
Dharmakaya vesture (both of which shut them out forever from the world of
men) in order to invisibly assist mankind and lead it finally to
Paranirvana--is taught, every new Bodhisattva, or initiated great Adept, is
called the "liberator of mankind."	Voice of the Silence, p. 69


"A Bodhisattva is, in the hierarchy, less than a "perfect Buddha." In the
exoteric parlance these two are very much confused. Yet the innate and
right popular perception, owing to that self-sacrifice has placed a
Bodhisattva higher in its reverence than a Buddha.

This same popular reverence calls "Buddhas of Compassion" those Bodhisattvas
who, having reached the rank of an Arhat (i.e., have 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 towards
man's salvation by influencing them to follow the Good Law, i.e., lead them
on the Path of Righteousness..."
VOICE OF THE SILENCE, p. 77


"Nirmanakaya...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...Thus, to be
enabled to help humanity, an Arhat 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 for mankind, there is none known."
VOICE 77-8



INDIVIDUALITY PERSISTS Through any Pralaya 
to the Next Manvantara


"...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 the Monad...the individuality of the spirit-soul...is preserved to
the end of the great cycle (Maha-Manwantara) when each Ego enters
Paranirvana, or is merged in Parabrahm...however long the "night of Brahma"
or even the Universal Pralaya...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 (266) than before, and
brings with it all the essence of compound spiritualities from its previous
countless rebirths."	
HPB ARTICLES III 265-6



"We should remember that we were self-conscious beings when this planet
began; some even were self-conscious when this solar system began; for
there is a difference in degree of development among human beings. If the
planet or solar system began in a state of primordial substance or nebulous
matter ... then we must have had bodies of that state of substance, In that
finest substance there are all the possibilities of every grade of matter,
and hence it is that within the true body of primordial matter all the
changes of coarser and coarser substance have been brought about; and
within that body is all experience. Our birth is within that body--a body
of a nature which does not change throughout the whole Manvantara. Each one
has such a body of finest substance, of the inner nature, which is the real
container for the individual. In it he lives and moves and has his being,
and yet even the great glory and fineness of that body is not the man; it
is merely the highest vesture of the Soul. The Real Man we are is the Man
that was, that is, and that ever shall be, for whom the hour will never
strike--Man, the thinker; Man, the perceiver--always thinking, continually
acting...We are that One Spirit, each standing in a vast assemblage of
beings in this great universe, seeing and knowing what he can through the
instrument he has. We are the Trinity--the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost; or, in theosophical parlance, we are Atma, Buddhi, and Manas. Atma
is the One Spirit, not belonging to any one, but to all. Buddhi is the
sublimated experience of all the past. Manas is the thinking power, the
thinker, the man, the immortal man. There is no man without the Spirit..."
RC -- FP p. 237


SEPTENARY HOSTS OF DHYANIS


"There are 7 chief groups of such Dhyan Chohans...the primeval Seven Rays.
Humanity, occultism teaches, is divided into 7 distinct groups and their
sub-divisions, mental, spiritual, and physical (fn) ...(FN) Hence the 7
chief planets, the spheres of the indwelling 7 spirits, under each of which
is born one of the human groups which is guided and influenced thereby.
There are only 7 planets (specially connected with this earth), and 12
houses...countless...each of which varieties is born under one of the 7
planets and one of the said countless planetary combinations."	SD I
573 & fn


"...'the Mind'...the collective body of Dhyan Chohans, we say--began to work
upon and communicated to it motion and order..."
SD I 595


"The hosts of these Sons of Light and "Mind-born Sons" of the first
manifested Ray of the Unknown All, are the very root of spiritual man."	SD
I 106
	

"...the 7 wise ones (rays of wisdom, Dhyanis) fashion 7 paths (or lines as
also Races in another sense)...they are primarily beams of light falling on
the paths leading to wisdom...the 7 Rays which fall free from the
macrocosmic centre, the 7 principles in the metaphysical, the 7 Races in the
physical sense."	SD II 191 fn


"It is then the "Seven Sons of Light"--called after their planets (by the
rabble) often identified with them--namely Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars,
Venus...the Sun and Moon, which are...our heavenly Parents, or "Father,"
synthetically...the 4 exoteric planets, and the 3 others...were the heavenly
bodies in direct astral and psychic communication with the Earth its Guides,
and Watchers--morally and physically...their "Regents" or Rectors with our
Monads and spiritual faculties."	
SD I 575


"The 7 Beings in the Sun are the 7 Holy Ones, Self-born from the inherent
power in the matrix of Mother substance. it is they who send the 7
Principal Forces, called rays, which at the beginning of Pralaya will center
into 7 new Suns for the next Manvantara. The energy from which they spring
into conscious existence in every Sun, is what some people call Vishnu (fn)
which is the Breath of Absoluteness. (Fn) In the same manner as a man
approaches a mirror placed upon a stand, beholds in it his own image, so the
energy or reflection of Vishnu (the Sun) is never disjointed but remains in
the Sun as in a mirror that is there stationed."(Vishnu Purana)
SD I 290


Star of the soul	SD I 570-3

Atmic Beings SD I 212



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ABSOLUTENESS     


"When predicated of the Universal Principle it denotes an abstract noun,
which is more correct and logical than to apply the adjective "absolute" to
that which has neither attributes nor limitations, nor can IT have any."
(See KEY p. 61-2)	GLOS. 4


"...Even for the Logos, Mulaprakriti is a veil, the Robes in which the
Absolute is enveloped. Even the Logos cannot perceive the Absolute, say the
Vedantins."	TRANS. 5


Alaya (Sk.)	The Universal Soul (SD I 47...). The name belongs to the
Tibetan system of the contemplative Mahayana School. Identical with Akasa
in its mystic sense, and with Mulaprakriti, in its essence, as it is the
basis or root of all things."	Theos. Glossary, p. 14


Mahat (Sk.)	"The first principle of Universal Intelligence and
Consciousness...producer of root-nature or Pradhana (...Mulaprakriti); the
producer of Manas the thinking principle and of Ahankara, egotism or the
feeling of "I am I" (in the lower Manas)."
Theos. Glossary, p. 201


Adi-Buddhi (Sk) "Primeval Intelligence or Wisdom; the eternal Budhi or
Universal Mind. Used of Divine Ideation, "Mahabuddhi" being synonymous with
MAHAT."	GLOS. 6


Aditi (Sk) "...Mulaprakriti...the abstract aspect of Parabrahman, though
both manifested and knowable...Aditi is the "Mother-God" dess, her
terrestrial symbol being infinite and shoreless space."
GLOS. 7


"...the ever-equilibrising mother-nature on the purely spiritual and
subjective plane. She is Sakti, the female power or potency of the
fecundating spirit; and it is for her to regulate the behaviour for the
sons born in her bosom." TRANS. 145



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Best wishes.

Dallas

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-----Original Message-----
From: Morten 
Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2004 11:02 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: I can understand why you are confused .


Thanks Daniel.

You express, what I am thinking in a very precise manner.

The question remains:

What is theosophy also known as AtmaVidya actually?


from
M. S