Theos-Talk Archives (October 2004 Message tt00362)

Oct 22 2004

Thanks Jerry:

I put some notes below in yours,

Dallas

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-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald 
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 1:33 PM
To: 
Subject: Re: Good and Evil


DTB
<<I send you HPB's article on the ORIGIN OF EVIL. Perhaps it has something
of value in it. I notice it considers some of the Buddha's teachings in
it.>>


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

GS
Thanks, Dal. 


And here are just a few of my comments on specific points within her
article:

"His doctrine shows evil immanent, not in matter, which is eternal, but in
the illusions created by it: through the changes and transformations of
matter
generating life--because these changes are conditioned and such life is
ephemeral."

GS
Comment: Evil derives from imputational existence, not from conditional
existence. Imputational existence is created by our own imputations of
thing-ness onto aggregates and does not exist even conditionally. The
belief that objective things exist creates both good and evil.

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

DTB	Does not "reality" exist in terms of the plane on which things are
compared, seen, witnessed, sensed? I am sure you have read these pages many
times:


Maya - Reality

S D I 39 -- "Maya or illusion is an element which enters into all finite
things, for everything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute,
reality, since the appearance which the hidden noumenon assumes for any
observer depends upon his power of cognition. To the untrained eye of the
savage, a painting is at first an unmeaning confusion of streaks and daubs
of color, while an educated eye sees instantly a face or a landscape. 

Nothing is permanent except the one hidden absolute existence which contains
in itself the noumena of all realities. 

The existences belonging to every plane of being, up to the highest
Dhyan-Chohans, are, in degree, of the nature of shadows cast by a magic
lantern on a colourless screen; but all things are relatively real, for the
cogniser is also a reflection, and the things cognised are therefore as real
to him as himself. 

Whatever reality things possess must be looked for in them before or after
they have passed like a flash through the material world; but we cannot
cognise any such existence directly, so long as we have sense-instruments
which bring only material existence into the field of our consciousness.
Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things
belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. 

As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages
through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the
upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each
advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached
"reality;" but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness,
and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by
Maya." S D I 39


S D I 49-50	"Esoteric philosophy teaches that everything lives and is
conscious, but not that all life and consciousness are similar to those of
human or even animal beings. 

Life we look upon as "the one form of existence," manifesting in what is
called matter; or, as in man, what, incorrectly separating them, we name
Spirit, Soul and Matter. 

Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation of soul on this plane of
existence, and soul is the vehicle on a higher plane for the manifestation
of spirit, and these three are a trinity synthesized by Life, which pervades
them all. 

The idea of universal life is one of those ancient conceptions which are
returning to the human mind in this century, as a consequence of its
liberation from anthropomorphic theology. 

Science, it is true, contents itself with tracing or postulating the signs
of universal life, and has not yet been bold enough even to whisper "Anima
Mundi!" The idea of "crystalline life," now familiar to science, would have
been scouted half a century ago. Botanists are now searching for the nerves
of plants; not that they suppose that plants can feel or think as animals
do, but because they believe that some structure, bearing the same relation
functionally to plant life that nerves bear to animal life, is necessary to
explain vegetable growth and nutrition. It hardly seems possible that
science can disguise from itself much longer, by the mere use of terms such
as "force" and "energy," the fact that things that have life are living
things, whether they be atoms or planets. 

But what is the belief of the inner esoteric Schools? the reader may ask.
What are the doctrines taught on this subject by the Esoteric "Buddhists"? 

With them "Alaya" has a double and even a triple meaning. In the Yogâchârya
system of the contemplative Mahâyânâ school, Alaya is both the Universal
Soul (Anima Mundi) and the Self of a progressed adept. 

"He who is strong in the Yoga can introduce at will his Alaya by means of
meditation into the true Nature of Existence." 

The "Alaya has an absolute eternal existence," says Aryâsanga — the rival of
Nagârjuna. 

In one sense it is Pradhâna; which is explained in Vishnu Purâna as: "that
which is the unevolved cause, is emphatically called by the most eminent
sages Pradhâna, original base, which is subtile Prakriti, viz., that which
is eternal, and which at once is (or comprehends) what is and what is not,
or is mere process." "Prakriti," however, is an incorrect word, and Alaya
would explain it better; for Prakriti is not the "uncognizable Brahma."  

It is a mistake of those who know nothing of the Universality of the Occult
doctrines from the very cradle of the human races, and especially so of
those scholars who reject the very idea of a "primordial revelation," to
teach that the Anima Mundi, the One Life or "Universal Soul," was made known
only by Anaxagoras, or during his age. 

This philosopher brought the teaching forward simply to oppose the too
materialistic conceptions on Cosmogony of Democritus, based on his exoteric
theory of blindly driven atoms. 

Anaxagoras of Clazomene was not its inventor but only its propagator, as
also was Plato. That which he called Mundane Intelligence, the nous ( nou's
), the principle that according to his views is absolutely separated and
free from matter and acts on design, was called Motion, the ONE LIFE, or
Jivatma, ages before the year 500 B.C. in India. Only the Aryan philosophers
never endowed the principle, which with them is infinite, with the finite
"attribute" of "thinking." S D I 49-50

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

DTB
"For if we would discern good from evil, light from darkness, and
appreciate the former, we can do so only through the contrasts between the
two. "

GS
Comment: We can only know one pole of a duality by comparing it with the
other pole. Evil can only be understood in its comparison to good and vice
versa.


DTB
"For the philosopher there is but one real life, Nirvanic bliss, which is a
state differing in kind, not in degree only, from that of any of the planes
of consciousness in the manifested universe."

GS
Comment: Nirvanic bliss is ananda, caused by our anandakosha or
body-of-bliss. Here she hints that nirvana is a plane within her globes and
models model. She is saying here that the upper three planes (ie, the
planes of nirvanic bliss) are "differing in kind" from the lower four. 


DTB
"Neither good nor evil would exist were it not for the light they mutually
throw on each other."

GS
Comment: Here is another law of dualisms -- the existence of one polarity
depends on the existence of the other.


DTB
"Being, under whatever form, having been observed from
the World's creation to offer these contrasts, and evil predominating in the
universe owing to Ego-ship or selfishness"

GS
Comment: Here she presents the Buddhist view of evil, that it derives from
our fundamental belief in (ie assumption of) ego or self.

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

DTB I certainly agree on all these points with you

Thanks

Dal

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Its a good article. Thanks Dal.

Jerry S.