Theos-Talk Archives (November 2004 Message tt00035)

Nov 4 2004

Healing and the Principles of Man.

Dear Friend: 

Thank you.  

I believe these are interesting ways of describing the action and power of
the "individuality," working through the active principle of Manas -- the
mind.

Manas, as I see it is of necessity triune. That is because it has to deal
(1) -- as "Higher Manas" -- with "Spirit" (or ATMA-BUDDHI) on one side, and
(2) -- as "Lower Manas" -- with "Matter" (or Kama and the Astral life-form)
on the other.  

It works (3) as a unitary principle, with the whole range of basic powers
(ATMA -- truth and purity) and (BUDDHI -- wisdom and discrimination) and
their innumerable effects in and on the world of forms and substances.
These two are counterbalanced by the material powers of KAMA -- (desire,
emotion, pleasure and pain, excitement, selfishness and passion) and the
(ASTRAL SOUL -- Life-currents, Model underlying all forms). MANAS stands
midway between these. 

This work, we might say is, of the nature of brotherhood and education as it
implies a sustained effort by the entire spiritual Universe (Nature) to
endeavour to raise the entire mass of "matter" up to the nature and stature
of "conscious "God-hood." It is for this work that "Manas" is the active
transmitting and interpreting agent in all. 

But the basis for each individual human consciousness, and the providing of
degrees of intelligence to the forms that are used -- as in the case of our
present physical nature (the assembled and aggregated life-atoms and
monads) -- are two different functions.

It is presented in this way to us, I believe, so we may grasp the concept of
the way in which the One Spirit, operating through any one (and all) of its
"rays" (or "sparks") impresses on "matter" an intelligence derived from all
experience that is common. 

This intelligence (of a three-fold nature: spiritual-wisdom,
independent-will-directed-thought, and physical-embodiment, then forms a
part of the ever growing "memory" (instinct ?) that each "Monad" acquires
life after life, until it reaches the human level and condition. 

When the human stage is reached the responsibility for self-education
begins. All humans have potentially and actually the power to perceive the
continual action of cause/effect as they live their lives, and store the
memory of all their experiences. 

This ability is largely modified by the inclinations and life-interests of
every individual. For example (1) some are inclined to serious reflection
and philosophy and (2) others might spend their time in amusements and
recreation. Or. put it in another way, there are two broad groups: the (1)
doers (who use their will-thought) and the (2) watchers (who are usually
passive recipients of others thoughts). The third group -- most of us --
are a mixture of these two extremes. We need to decide, for ourselves, which
line of life is going to be the best for us and our environment. 

In your example you see the difference between those who are ill and those
who can heal. Those arts are to be learned by all eventually. There are many
factors to consider.

If we take THEOSOPHY seriously and study what is given concerning the
principles and the astral self (or personal soul) we will be quickly (in my
esteem) able to determine how we are progressing, and learn to improve our
own performance.  

It is all (as I see it) a question of "will" -- of what we desire to do.  

The next question arises: How does our own personal will and desire agree
with that of the Spiritual Universe? 

The direction of our will can be either spiritual universal in scope,
impersonal and brotherly, or, it can be selfish and tend to isolation and a
continuous enjoyment of personal satisfaction, which are self-devised and,
usually, are not helpful or valuable to others. This is one way of
discriminating between (1) virtue and (2) vice. 

Here are some clues I found to be useful:

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>From NOTES ON THE BHAGAVAD GITA (pp. 97-100)


"These three great divisions -- or as it is in the Sanskrit, gunas --
comprehend all the combinations of what we call "qualities," whether they be
moral, mental, or physical. 

This passion, or desire, spoken of in the chapter is composed of the two
last qualities, rajas and tamas. As Krishna says, it is intractable. It is
not possible, as some teach, to bring desire of this sort into our service.
It must be slain. It is useless to try to use it as a helper, because its
tendency is more towards tamas, that is, downward, than towards the other. 

It is shown to surround even knowledge. It is present, to a greater or
lesser degree, in every action. Hence the difficulty encountered by all men
who set out to cultivate the highest that is in them. 

We are at first inclined to suppose that the field of action of this quality
is the senses alone; but Krishna teaches that its empire reaches beyond
those and includes the heart and the intellect also. The incarnated soul
desiring knowledge and freedom finds itself snared continually by tamas,
which, ruling also in the heart and mind, is able to taint knowledge and
thus bewilder the struggler. 
Among the senses particularly, this force has sway. And the senses include
all the psychical powers so much desired by those who study occultism. 

It does not at all follow that a man is spiritual or knows truth because he
is able to see through vast distances, to perceive the denizens of the
astral world, or to hear with the inner car. In this part of the human
economy the dark quality is peculiarly powerful. 

Error is more likely to be present there than elsewhere, and unless the seer
is self governed he gets no valuable knowledge, but is quite likely to fall
at last, not only into far more grievous error, but into great wickedness. 

We must therefore begin, as advised by Krishna, with that which is nearest
to us, that is, with our senses. We cannot slay the foe there at first,
because it is resident also in the heart and mind. By proceeding from the
near to the more remote, we go forward with regularity and with certainty of
conquest at last. 

Therefore he said, "In the first place, restrain thy senses." If we neglect
those and devote ourselves wholly to the mind and heart, we really gain
nothing, for the foe still remains undisturbed in the senses. By means of
those, when we have devoted much time and care to the heart and mind, it may
throw such obscurations and difficulties in the way that all the work done
with the heart and mind is rendered useless. 

It is by means of the outward senses and their inner counterparts that a
great turmoil is set up in the whole system, which spreads to the heart and
from there to the mind, and, as it is elsewhere said: "The restless heart
then snatches away the mind from its steady place." 

We thus have to carry on the cultivation of the soul by regular stages,
never neglecting one part at the expense of another. Krishna advises his
friend to restrain the senses, and then to "strengthen himself by himself." 

The meaning here is that he is to rely upon the One Consciousness which, as
differentiated in a man, is his Higher Self. By means of this Higher Self he
is to strengthen the lower, or that which he is accustomed to call "myself."

It will not be amiss here to quote from some notes of conversation with a
friend of mine. 

"Our consciousness is one and not many, nor different from other
consciousnesses. It is not waking consciousness or sleeping consciousness,
or any other but consciousness itself. 

"Now that which I have called consciousness is Being. The ancient division
was: 

1	Sat, or Being; [SPIRIT]

2	Chit, or Consciousness, Mind; } These together are called
Sat-chit-ananda.
 
3	Ananda, or Bliss. 
 
"But Sat— or Being— the first of the three, is itself both Chit and Ananda.
The appearing together in full harmony of Being and Consciousness is Bliss
or Ananda. 

Hence that harmony is called Sat-chit-ananda.
 
"But the one consciousness of each person is the Witness or Spectator of the
actions and experiences of every state we are in or pass through. It
therefore follows that the waking condition of the mind is not separate
consciousness. 

"The one consciousness pierces up and down through all the states or planes
of Being, and serves to uphold the memory— whether complete or incomplete—
of each state's experiences. 

"Thus in waking life, Sat experiences fully and knows. In dream state, Sat
again knows and sees what goes on there, while there may not be in the brain
a complete memory of the waking state just quitted. 

In Sushupti [deep dreamless sleep] — beyond dream and yet on indefinitely,
Sat still knows all that is done or heard or seen. 

"The way to salvation must be entered. To take the first step raises the
possibility of success. Hence it is said, 'When the first attainment has
been won, Moksha (salvation) has been won.' 

"The first step is giving up bad associations and getting a longing for
knowledge of [SPIRIT] "God;" the second is joining good company, listening
to their teachings and practicing them; the third is strengthening the first
two attainments, having faith and continuing in it. Whoever dies thus, lays
the sure foundation for ascent to adeptship, or salvation."  
G N ( pp. 97 -100)

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I hope you will find this useful.

Best wishes, 

Dallas

PS Please see some notes I made below in your text.
 
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-----Original Message-----
From: cassilva48
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 11:29 PM
To: 
Subject: [bn-study] Re: Theosophy and Schitzophrenia


I found this article in Purucker's Fountain Source of Occultism and it
also asks the reader to refer to Purucker's Tertium Organum (or something
like that).

In regard to normal vision, W.Q.Judge in his Preface to Patanjali's Yoga
Aphorisms speaks of the mind issuing through the eye and adopting the form
and qualities of the object seen. On its return it reflects the information
acquired to the soul.

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DTB	Is that not one way of interpreting "memory?" I would say the
"mind" uses eye vision for this and more.

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This visual ray being a projection of the consciousness or the mind; that
the ray or force darts and returns accompanied with light, and when this
combination re-enters the eyeball, the message that it carries is
transmitted to the brain (PERHAPS, THROUGH A PROCESS OF CHEMICAL AND
ELECTRICAL TRANSFORMATIONS - YOUR THEORY!) and into the receiving mind or
consciousness.  

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DTB	Can we say that this illustration ought not to too be taken too
literally? I mean that the picking up of impressions by the "eye" may also
include those of other senses -- as vibrations of various kinds -- and these
will include emotional and mental impressions and images as well ?

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When a study of a distant object such as a star or planet, this visual ray,
which is akasic in essence, leaves the eye and darts with the speed of
thought to the object and all its conditions of travel and return, of
impressions and of reception, are governed by the known laws of optics as
well as by other laws at present unknown.  

It is not the mind which projects a tentacle of itself, it is precisely this
visual ray
leaving the eye- which ray in normal function is of electromagnetic
character - that also carries with it the man's magnetic atmosphere when
the will is behind and propelling the personal auric magnetism." 
END OF QUOTE


The images I create in my waking consciousness and in dream consciousness
are three dimensional, but I believe the astral is four dimensional and
those people with four-dimensional sight (astral) are able to see all
dimensions of an image, and on the physical I imagine would be able to see
inside the body to the etheric double and see the organ that is
diseased,(a holographic vision) and through their (the healer's) positive
magnetism can change the magnetic balance from negative to positive and
providing the patient works on the reason for the malignancy -e.g. a
diseased liver, could be a bitterness that the personality is holding on
to, a cure will be effective.

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DTB	I think you are probably right. I think "four-dimensional" is a
guess ?

The subject of "mental healing" ought to be investigated. It has its own
laws and these can react on practitioners benevolently and the reverse.

Look at this, please:


THE CURE OF DISEASES

MORTAL ills and the needs of the stomach rank next after the instinct of
self-preservation among all the subjects which engage the attention of the
race. If we do not go on living we cannot do the work we think there is to
do; if we remain hungry we will lose the power to work properly or to enjoy,
and at last come to the door of death. From bad or scanty food follows a
train of physical ills called generally disease. 

Disease reaches us also through too much food. So in every direction these
ills attack us; even when our feeding is correct and sufficient it is found
that we fall a prey because our Karma, settled by ourselves is some previous
life, ordains that we enter on this one handicapped by the hereditary taint
due to the wickedness or or the errors of our fathers and mothers. And the
records of science show that the taint in the blood or the lymph may jump
over many lives, attacking with virulence some generation distant very far
from the source. 

What wonder, then that the cure of disease is an all-absorbing subject with
every one! The Christian knows that it is decreed by Almighty God that He
will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children even to the third and
fourth generation, and the non-believer sees that by some power in nature
the penalty is felt even so far.

All of this has given to the schools of mental and so-called "metaphysical"
healing a strong pull on the fears, the feelings, the wishes, and the bodies
of those to whom they address themselves, and especially in the United
States. That there is more attention given to the subject in America seems
true to those who have been on the other side of the Atlantic and noticed
how small is the proportion of people there who know anything about the
subject. But in the United States in every town many can be found who know
about these schools and practice after their methods. Why it has more hold
here can be left to conjecture, as the point under consideration is why it
has any hold at all. It is something like patent medicine. 

Offer a cure to people for their many ills, and they will take it up; offer
it cheap, and they will use it; offer it as an easy method, and they will
rush for it under certain conditions. Metaphysical healing is easy for some
because it declares, first, that no money need be paid to doctors for
medicine; second, that medical fluids and drugs may be dispensed with; and
third that it is easily learned and practiced. 

The difficulties that arise out of the necessities of logic are not present
for those who never studied it, but are somewhat potent with those who
reason correctly; - but that is not usual for the general run of minds. They
see certain effects and accept the assumed cause as the right one. But many
persons will not even investigate the system, because they think it requires
them to postulate the non-existence of that which they see before their
eyes. The statements quoted from the monthly Christian Science in March PATH
are bars in the way of such minds. If they could be induced to just try the
method offered for cure, belief might result, for effects indeed often
follow. But the popular mind is not in favor of "mind cure," and more
prominence is given in the daily papers to cases of death under it than to
cures. And very full reports always appear of a case such as one in March,
where "faith curers," in order to restore life, went to praying over the
dead body of one of the members of a believing family.
During a recent tour over this country from the Atlantic to the Pacific and
back, I had the opportunity of meeting hundreds of disciples of these
schools, and found in nearly all cases that they were not addicted to logic
but calmly ignored very plain propositions, satisfied that if cures were
accomplished the cause claimed must be the right one, and almost without
exception they denied the existence of evil or pain or suffering. 

There was a concurrence of testimony from all to show that the dominant idea
in their minds was the cure of their bodily ills and the continuance of
health. The accent was not on the beauty of holiness or the value to them
and the community of a right moral system and right life, but on the cure of
their diseases. So the conclusion has been forced home that all these
schools exist because people desire to be well more than they desire to be
good, although they do not object to goodness if that shall bring wholeness.

And, indeed, one does not have to be good to gain the benefit of the
teachings. It is enough to have confidence, to assert boldly that this does
not exist and that that has no power to hurt one. I do not say the teachers
of the "science" agree with me herein, but only that whether you are good or
bad the results will follow the firm practice of the method enjoined,
irrespective of the ideas of the teachers.

For in pure mind-cure as compared with its congener "Christian Science," you
do not have to believe in Jesus and the gospels, yet the same results are
claimed, for Jesus taught that whatever you prayed for with faith, that you
should have.
Scientific research discloses that the bodies of our race are infected with
taints that cause nearly all of our diseases, and school after school of
medicine has tried and still tries to find the remedy that will dislodge the
foulness in the blood. This is scientific, since it seeks the real physical
cause; metaphysical healing says it cures, but cannot prove that the cause
is destroyed and not merely palliated. That there is some room for doubt
history shows us, for none will deny that many pure thinking and acting pair
have brought forth children who displayed some taint derived from a distant
ancestor. Evidently their pure individual thoughts had no power over the
great universal development of the matter used by those human bodies.

Turning now to medicine we find the Italian Count Mattei promulgating a
system of cure by the homeopathic use of subtle vegetable essences which may
well give pause to those who would make universal the curing by faith or
mind alone. Some of his liquids will instantly stop a violent pain, restore
sight, give back hearing, and dissipate abnormal growths. His globules will
make a drunken man sober, and, given to the nurse who suckles a babe, will
cure the child who takes the milk. The drunkard and the child do not think
about or have faith in the remedies, yet they cure. Is it not better to
restore health by physical means and leave the high teachings of the
healers, all taken from well know sources, for the benefit of our moral
nature? 

And if Christian healers read these lines, should they not remember that
when the prophet restored the widow's son he used physical means - his own
magnetism applied simultaneously to every member of the child's body, and
Jesus, when the woman who touched his garment was cured, lost a portion of
his vitality - not his thoughts - for he said "virtue" had gone out from
him? 

The Apostle also gave directions that if any were sick the others should
assemble about the bed and anoint with oil, laying on their hands meanwhile:
simply physical therapeutics following a long line of ancient precedent
dating back to Noah. Moses taught how to cure diseases and to disinfect
places where contagion lurked. It was not by using the high power of
thought, but by processes deemed by him to be effectual, such as sprinkling
blood of animals slaughtered in peculiar circumstances. Without declaring
for or against his methods, it is very certain that he supposed by these
means subtle forces of a physical nature would be liberated and brought to
bear on the case in hand.

The mass of testimony through the ages is against healing physical ills by
the use of the higher forces in nature, and the reason, once well known but
later on forgotten, is the one given in the article of January, 1892, - that
diseases are gross manifestations showing themselves on their way out of the
nature so that one may be purified. To arrest them though thought ignorantly
directed is to throw them back into their cause and replant them in their
mental plane.

This is the true ground of our objection to metaphysical healing practices,
which we distinguish from the assumptions and so-called philosophy on which
those methods are claimed to stand. For we distinctly urge that the effects
are not brought by any philosophical system whatever, but by the practical
though ignorant use of psycho-physiological processes.

William Q. Judge Path, September, 1892

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