Theos-Talk Archives (November 2004 Message tt00319)

Nov 25 2004

Dear Jerry:

I think its again the words that hide meanings.

See below, please

Dal

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

Dallas
 
===============================


-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald 
Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2004 6:20 AM
To: Theosophy Study List
Subject: RE: "The Seven Beings in the Sun ..."

DTB
<< Dear M, and friends:

Somewhere along our search we come across some facts that all will agree
to. Can we locate some for ourselves?  
Try these few:>>


J
Please let me provide my own quick responses here.

<< 1	I exist as a thinker and an experiencer.>>


J
Do not agree. There is no "I" as such. Our sense of being a separte self is
due to atma and is mayavic.

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

DTB	ATMA (seems to be "spirit" for some, and "soul" for others.
In any case it indicates a supremacy of being or of achievement. Something
each may aspire to even if it cannot be precised in normal terms.

Maya or illusion, seems to imply instability and shortness of life in the
areas of time, notion, causality and space.  

It is indefinite unless precised for either an individual or a group of
individuals. 

Our problem seems to revolve around this "lack of meaning" and "lack of
precision."

An analogy occurs to me:

Just as a cloud consists of many droplets of water held in suspense
in the air, and related to temperature, pressure, motion (of wind), location
(space coordinates) above or within geographical and atmospheric features,
and (a limited or extensive 'reality') an existence, that can be measured
(from a beginning to an end), by something (or many observers who compare
observations), that have/has longer durability.  

Even with all these indefinites, it was possible to send space vehicles on
various missions (and retrieve them, usually) during the past several
decades. So it appears within the limits of our sensorium to exist a
"reality" to which we can all agree. 

In this consideration, the motive (why?) for such examination is not
included. But it can be: Curiosity? Confirmation of (or deviation from)
presumed universal physical, chemical and biological Laws? Ability to
preserve "life" in various forms, providing a life-supporting atmosphere is
also made present, etc.... Continuity of memory. Objectivity of phenomena
as recorded in photographs, light, vibratory wave lengths of various
dimensions, electrical and magnetic forces and powers , etc...

We then have space and location, durability of event, person or person
involved in observing and a meaning for the observation.

All this is common throughout the daily experience of everyone, and within
many areas of living.  

Is it "maya?" If so, in what sense. Then is there also "no-maya" as a
possibility? Can we say that the enlightened and universal vision of a
BUDDHA encompasses what to us is "maya?" Is it on such "visions" that the
antique philosophy rests and has always rested?

There remains to add to this a general motive for such an aggregation and
agglomeration of cause/effect/causes. If it is posited as meaningless and
conclusion-less, this type of thinking to me, has no meaning and no
finality, then one might legitimately say the whole of our lives and science
is useless. It produces nothing and we had better find something else to
do.

If so, what would that be?

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


J
<< 2.	I am surrounded and embedded in a Universe of sentient and
responsive beings (atoms, molecules, cells, mineral, vegetable, animal and
human beings, etc...). >>


J
Do not agree. Your I is surrounded and embedded by your own Not-I. Your
"I" and the universe in which it finds itself are both illusions caused by
Maya.

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

DTB	Perhaps if the "Not-I" can be made clear this will resolve itself? 

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


<< 3.	There is a continual inter-relationship, a cooperation and a give
and take going on a.. the time. This is regulated by Laws. Nature (our
Universe) appears to full of laws. These produce a balance and a harmony
Of dissimilars. 

J
Somewhat agreed. This inter-relationhsip is conditionality where existence
depends on causes and conditions. Nature per se is a projection of the I
onto the Not-I.. The "harmony of dissimilars" is countered by a
corresponding chaos of dissimilars. Every chaos has the seeds of order
within it just as every ordered pattern has the seeds of chaos within it.

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

DTB	What is the "Not-I" ? "An-Atma: -- Any kind of "Matter" (or
substance) as opposed to "spirit?" I find that a careful reading of the
SECRET DOCTRINE Vol. I pp 48-60 seems to answer a number of questions on
this matter.


S D I 48 - 60

...Alaya is literally the "Soul of the World" or Anima Mundi, the
"Over-Soul" of Emerson, and according to esoteric teaching it changes
periodically its nature. 

Alaya, though eternal and changeless in its inner essence on the planes
which are unreachable by either men or Cosmic Gods (Dhyani Buddhas), alters
during the active life-period with respect to the lower planes, ours
included. 

During that time not only the Dhyani-Buddhas are one with Alaya in Soul and
Essence, but even the man strong in the Yoga (mystic meditation) "is able to
merge his soul with it" (Aryasanga, the Bumapa school). This is not Nirvana,
but a condition next to it. Hence the disagreement. Thus, while the
Yogâchâryas (of the Mahâyânâ school) say that Alaya is the personification
of the Voidness, and yet Alaya (Nyingpo and Tsang in Tibetan) is the basis
of every visible and invisible thing, and that, though it is eternal and
immutable in its essence, it reflects itself in every object of the Universe
"like the moon in clear tranquil water;" other schools dispute the
statement. 

The same for Paramârtha: the Yogâchâryas interpret the term as that which is
also dependent upon other things (paratantra); and the Madhyamikas say that
Paramârtha is limited to Paranishpanna or absolute perfection; i.e., in the
exposition of these "two truths" (out of four), the former believe and
maintain that (on this plane, at any rate) there exists only Samvritisatya
or relative truth; and the latter teach the existence of Paramârthasatya,
the "absolute truth." * [*"Paramârtha" is self-consciousness in Sanskrit,
Svasamvedana, or the "self-analysing reflection" — from two words, parama
(above everything) and artha (comprehension), Satya meaning absolute true
being, or Esse. In Tibetan Paramârthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite
of this absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya — the relative
truth only — "Samvriti" meaning "false conception" and being the origin of
illusion, Maya; in Tibetan Kundzabchi-denpa, "illusion-creating appearance."
]

"No Arhat, oh mendicants, can reach absolute knowledge before he becomes one
with Paranirvana. Parikalpita and Paratantra are his two great enemies"
(Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas). 

Parikalpita (in Tibetan Kun-ttag) is error, made by those unable to realize
the emptiness and illusionary nature of all; who believe something to exist
which does not — e.g., the Non-Ego. And [50] Paratantra is that, whateverit
is, which exists only through a dependent or causal connexion, and which has
to disappear as soon as the cause from which it proceeds is removed — e.g.,
the light of a wick. Destroy or extinguish it, and light disappears. 

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 fact that things
that have life are living things, whether they be atoms or planets. ...

What are the doctrines taught ...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 [ 50 ] is explained in Vishnu
Purâna as: "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.... was called Motion,
the ONE LIFE, or Jivatma ... Only the Aryan philosophers never endowed the
principle, which with them is infinite, with the finite "attribute" of
"thinking." ... [51]
 
...Only the liberated Spirit is able to faintly realise the nature of the
source whence it sprung and whither it must eventually return. . . . 

As the highest Dhyan Chohan, however, can but bow in ignorance before the
awful mystery of Absolute Being; and since, even in that culmination of
conscious existence — "the merging of the individual in the universal
consciousness" ... the Finite cannot conceive the Infinite, nor can it apply
to it its own standard of mental experiences, ... 

...The Occultist would say that it applies perfectly to the awakened MAHAT,
the Universal Mind already projected into the phenomenal world as the first
aspect of the changeless ABSOLUTE, but never to the latter. "Spirit and
Matter, or Purusha and Prakriti are but the two primeval aspects of the One
and Secondless," we are taught. 

The matter-moving Nous, the animating Soul, immanent in every atom,
manifested in man, latent in the stone, has different degrees of power; and
this pantheistic idea of a general Spirit-Soul pervading all Nature is the
oldest of all the philosophical notions. ... [52] ...

(b) The term Anupadaka, "parentless," or without progenitors, is a mystical
designation having several meanings in the philosophy. 

By this name celestial beings, the Dhyan-Chohans or Dhyani-Buddhas, are
generally meant. But as these correspond mystically to the human Buddhas and
Bodhisattwas, known as the "Mânushi (or human) Buddhas," the latter are also
designated "Anupadaka," once that their whole personality is merged in their
compound sixth and seventh principles — or Atma-Buddhi, and that they have
become the "diamond-souled" (Vajra-sattvas),* the full Mahatmas.
[ * Vajra — ...In Tibetan: Dorjesempa; sempa meaning the soul, its
adamantine quality referring to its indestructibility in the hereafter. The
explanation with regard to the "Anupadaka" given in the Kala Chakra, the
first in the Gyu(t) division of the Kanjur, is half esoteric....]

The "Concealed Lord" (Sangbai Dag-po), "the one merged with the absolute,"
can have no parents since he is Self-existent, and one with the Universal
Spirit (Svayambhu), ... the Svâbhâvat in the highest aspect. 

The mystery in the hierarchy of the Anupadaka is great, its apex being the
universal Spirit-Soul, and the lower rung the Mânushi-Buddha; and even every
Soul-endowed man is an Anupadaka in a latent state. Hence, when speaking of
the Universe in its formless, eternal, or absolute condition, before it was
fashioned by the "Builders" — the expression, "the Universe was Anupadaka."
...' 

[53] .....(a) The "Builders," the "Sons of Manvantaric Dawn," are the
real creators of the Universe; and in this doctrine, which deals only with
our Planetary System, they, as the architects of the latter, are also called
the "Watchers" of the Seven Spheres, which exoterically are the Seven
planets, and esoterically the seven earths or spheres (planets) of our chain
also. The opening sentence of Stanza I., when mentioning "Seven Eternities,"
is made to apply both to the Maha-Kalpa or "the (great) Age of Brahmâ," as
well as to the Solar pralaya and subsequent resurrection of our Planetary
System on a higher plane.... 

(b) Paranishpanna, remember, is the summum bonum, the Absolute, hence the
same as Paranirvana. Besides being the final state it is that condition of
subjectivity which has no relation to anything but the one absolute truth
(Para-mârtha-satya) on its plane. 

It is that state which leads one to appreciate correctly the full meaning of
Non-Being, which, as explained, is absolute Being. 

Sooner or later, all that now seemingly exists, will be in reality and
actually in the state of Paranishpanna. But there is a great difference
between conscious and unconscious "being." The condition of Paranishpanna,
without Paramârtha, the Self-analysing [55] consciousness (Svasamvedana),is
no bliss, but simply extinction (for Seven Eternities)....

It is only "with a mind clear and undarkened by personality, and an
assimilation of the merit of manifold existences devoted to being in its
collectivity (the whole living and sentient Universe)," that one gets rid of
personal existence, merging into, becoming one with, the Absolute,* and
continuing in full possession of Paramârtha. [* Hence Non-being is
"ABSOLUTE Being," in esoteric philosophy. In the tenets of the latter even
Adi-Budha (first or primeval wisdom) is, while manifested, in one sense an
illusion, Maya... the abstraction called Parabrahm alone ...being "the One
Absolute" Reality. The One secondless Existence is ADWAITA, "Without a
Second," and all the rest is Maya...]	[54]

(a) The idea that things can cease to exist and still BE, is a fundamental
one in Eastern psychology. Under this apparent contradiction in terms, there
rests a fact of Nature to realise which in the mind, rather than to argue
about words, is the important thing. 

A familiar instance of a similar paradox is afforded by chemical
combination. The question whether Hydrogen and Oxygen cease to
exist...others contending that...they actually turn into something totally
different...but... the real condition of a thing, which has become something
else and yet has not ceased to be itself. Existence as water may be said to
be, for Oxygen and Hydrogen, a state of Non-being which is "more real being"
than their existence as gases; and it may faintly symbolise the [55]
condition of the Universe when it goes to sleep, or ceases to be, during the
"Nights of Brahmâ" — to awaken or reappear again, when the dawn of the new
Manvantara recalls it to what we call existence. 

(b) The "Breath" of the One Existence is used in its application only to the
spiritual aspect of Cosmogony by Archaic esotericism; otherwise, it is
replaced by its equivalent in the material plane — Motion. 

The One Eternal Element, or element-containing Vehicle, is Space,
dimensionless in every sense; co-existent with which are — endless duration,
primordial (hence indestructible) matter, and motion — absolute "perpetual
motion" which is the "breath" of the "One" Element. This breath, as seen,
can never cease, not even during the Pralayic eternities....
 
But the "Breath of the One Existence" does not, all the same, apply to the
One Causeless Cause or the "All Be-ness" (in contradistinction to All-Being,
which is Brahma, or the Universe). ...

...the Esoteric philosophy, which reconciles all these systems, and the
nearest exponent of which is ...expounded by the Advaita Vedantists, none
but the upadána can be speculated upon; that which is in the minds of the
Vaishnavas (the Vasishta-dvaita) as the ideal in contradistinction to the
real — or Parabrahm and Isvara — can find no room in published speculations,
since 
[56] that ideal even is a misnomer, when applied to that of which no human
reason, even that of an adept, can conceive. 

To know itself or oneself, necessitates consciousness and perception (both
limited faculties in relation to any subject except Parabrahm), to be
cognized. Hence the "Eternal Breath which knows itself not." 

Infinity cannot comprehend Finiteness. The Boundless can have no relation to
the bounded and the conditioned. 

In the occult teachings, the Unknown and the Unknowable MOVER, or the
Self-Existing, is the absolute divine Essence. And thus being Absolute
Consciousness, and Absolute Motion — to the limited senses of those who
describe this indescribable — it is unconsciousness and immoveableness....

Consciousness implies limitations and qualifications; something to be
conscious of, and someone to be conscious of it. 

But Absolute Consciousness contains the cognizer, the thing cognized and the
cognition, all three in itself and all three one. 

No man is conscious of more than that portion of his knowledge that happens
to have been recalled to his mind at any particular time, yet such is the
poverty of language that we have no term to distinguish the knowledge not
actively thought of, from knowledge we are unable to recall to memory. 

To forget is synonymous with not to remember...we give names to things
according to the appearances they assume for ourselves. 

We call absolute consciousness "unconsciousness," because it seems to us
that it must necessarily be so, just as we call the Absolute, "Darkness,"
because to our finite understanding it appears quite impenetrable, yet we
recognize fully that our perception of such things does not do them justice.

We involuntarily distinguish in our minds, for instance, between unconscious
absolute consciousness, and unconsciousness, by secretly endowing the former
with some indefinite quality that corresponds, on a higher plane than our
thoughts can reach, with what we know as consciousness in ourselves. But
this is not any kind of consciousness that we can manage to distinguish from
what appears to us as unconsciousness. [57] ...
 
The ray of the "Ever Darkness" becomes, as it is emitted, a ray of effulgent
light or life, and flashes into the "Germ" — the point in the Mundane Egg,
represented by matter in its abstract sense. But the term "Point" must not
be understood as applying to any particular point in Space, for a germ
exists in the centre of every atom, and these collectively form "the Germ;"
or rather, as no atom can be made visible to our physical eye, the
collectivity of these (if the term can be applied to something which is
boundless and infinite) forms the noumenon of eternal and indestructible
matter. ...

One of the symbolical figures for the Dual creative power in Nature (matter
and force on the material plane) is Padma, the water-lily of India. The
Lotus is the product of heat (fire) and water (vapour or Ether); fire
standing in every philosophical and religious system as a representation of
the Spirit of Deity, the active, male, generative principle; and Ether, or
the Soul of matter, the light of the fire, for the passive female principle
from which everything in this Universe emanated. 

Hence, Ether or Water is the Mother, and Fire is the Father....

The Lotus, or Padma, is, moreover, a very ancient and favourite [58] simile
for the Kosmos itself, and also for man... the Lotus-seed contains within
itself a perfect miniature of the future plant, which typifies the fact that
the spiritual prototypes of all things exist in the immaterial world before
those things become materialised on Earth. 

Secondly, the fact that the Lotus plant grows up through the water, having
its root in the Ilus, or mud, and spreading its flower in the air above. 

The Lotus thus typifies the life of man and also that of the Kosmos; for the
Secret Doctrine teaches that the elements of both are the same, and that
both are developing in the same direction. The root of the Lotus sunk in the
mud represents material life, the stalk passing up through the water
typifies existence in the astral world, and the flower floating on the water
and opening to the sky is emblematical of spiritual being.

(a) The Primordial Substance had not yet passed out of its precosmic latency
into differentiated objectivity, or even become the (to man, so far,)
invisible Protyle of Science. But, as the hour strikes and it becomes
receptive of the Fohatic impress of the Divine Thought (the Logos, or the
male aspect of the Anima Mundi, Alaya) — its heart opens. 

It differentiates, and the THREE (Father, Mother, Son) are transformed into
four. Herein lies the origin of the double mystery of the Trinity and the
immaculate Conception. 

The first and Fundamental dogma of Occultism is Universal Unity (or
Homogeneity) under three aspects. 

This led to a possible conception of Deity, which as an absolute unity must
remain forever incomprehensible to finite intellects. "If thou wouldest
believe in the Power which acts within the root of a plant, or imagine the
root concealed under the soil, thou hast to think of its stalk or trunk and
of its leaves and flowers. Thou canst not imagine that Power independently
of these objects. Life can be known only by the Tree of Life. . . ."
(Precepts for Yoga).

The idea of Absolute Unity [59] would be broken entirely in our conception,
had we not something concrete before our eyes to contain that Unity. 

And the deity being absolute, must be omnipresent, hence not an atom but
contains IT within itself. 

The roots, the trunk and its many branches are three distinct objects, yet
they are one tree. .... This manifestation is triple in its aspects, for it
requires, as Aristotle has it, three principles for every natural body to
become objective: privation, form, and matter.... Privation meant... that
which the Occultists call the prototypes impressed in the Astral Light — the
lowest plane and world of Anima Mundi. 

The union of these three principles depends upon a fourth — the LIFE which
radiates from the summits of the Unreachable, to become an universally
diffused Essence on the manifested planes of Existence. And this QUATERNARY
(Father, Mother, Son, as a UNITY, and a quaternary, as a living
manifestation) 

For one has but to read the Kabala and study its numerical methods of
interpretation to find the origin of that dogma. It is purely astronomical,
mathematical, and pre-eminently metaphysical: the Male element in Nature
(personified by the male deities and Logoi — Viraj, or Brahma; Horus, or
Osiris, etc., etc.) is born through, not from, an immaculate source,
personified by the "Mother"; because that Male having a Mother cannot have a
"Father" — the abstract Deity being sexless, and not even a Being but
Be-ness, or Life itself. 

Let us render this in the mathematical language of the author of "The Source
of Measures." Speaking of the "Measure of a Man" and his numerical
(Kabalistic) value, he writes that in Genesis, ch. iv., v. 1, "It is called
the 'Man even Jehovah' [60] Measure, and this is obtained in this way, viz.:

113 x 5 = 565, and the value 565 can be placed under the form of expression
56.5 x 10 = 565. 

Here the Man-number 113 becomes a factor of 56.5 x 10, and the (Kabalistic)
reading of this last numbered expression is Jod, He, Vau, He, or Jehovah. .
. . The expansion of 565 into 56.5 x 10 is purposed to show the emanation of
the male (Jod) from the female (Eva) principle; or, so to speak, the birth
of a male element from an immaculate source, in other words, an immaculate
conception." 

Thus is repeated on Earth the mystery enacted, according to the Seers, on
the divine plane. The "Son" of the immaculate Celestial Virgin (or the
undifferentiated cosmic protyle, Matter in its infinitude) is born again on
Earth as the Son of the terrestrial Eve — our mother Earth, and becomes
Humanity as a total — past, present, and future — for Jehovah or
Jod-he-vau-he is androgyne, or both male and female. Above, the Son is the
whole KOSMOS; below, he is MANKIND. 

The triad or triangle becomes Tetraktis, the Sacred Pythagorean number, the
perfect Square, and a 6-faced cube on Earth. 

The Macroprosopus (the Great Face) is now Microprosopus (the lesser face);
or, as the Kabalists have it, the "Ancient of Days," descending on Adam
Kadmon whom he uses as his vehicle to manifest through, gets transformed
into Tetragrammaton. 

It is now in the "Lap of Maya," the Great Illusion, and between itself and
the Reality has the Astral Light, the great Deceiver of man's limited
senses, unless Knowledge through Paramarthasatya comes to the rescue. " 
S D I 48 - 60

—————

While the above is very metaphysical in expression it will if studied reveal
much concerning the symbology used to express the rebirth of Kosmos after a
Maha-Pralaya.


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

DTB
<< 4	There are many theories about these three facts, seeming their
purpose, origin and possible development. The future may propose the
reincarnation of a "spiritual" Intelligence as a solution for this vast
assemblage of independent / dependent entities. >>

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

j
Do not agree. All theories are our own interpretation/s. "Purpose" is a
human invention based on our mayavic sense of time.

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

DTB	How is that determined? (Please see above.)

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

<< 5	The practice of cooperation and brotherhood appears to be superior
to that of destruction. Tolerance outweighs the waste of purposelessness.
Are we all on a common pilgrimage? >>

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

J
Do not agree. Destruction goes with creation and is a part of our own
inherent creativity. Cooperation is "superior" in what way? 

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

DTB	Man has to do it voluntarily -- not under any compulsion.

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

J
All life is a vast cooperation. 

Purposelessness is not necessarily wasteful. There was a
huge old gnarled tree standing alone in a field. When asked why he was
still there, he replied that there used to be a large forest here, and one
day men came and cut down all the trees for lumber. No one wanted me
because my limbs are gnarled and useless. Because I am useless, I am still
alive. And so it goes...

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


<< The proces of analysis, while seemingly infinite, is always
counterbalanced by "synthesis" or the process of rebuilding from the "many"
to the ONE.>>

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

J
Do not agree. There is no "ONE" because everything in conditional reality
is an aggregate. The idea of a "one" is a superimposition.


DTB SEE ABOVE PLEASE


<< This shows that there is invariably a balance point in between. Again we
find there are a minimum of three points of view: the 2 extremes, and
that which bridges both and makes them reasonable. Is this not our mind
and its many faculties? >>


J
Do not agree. The idea of setting up another observer to observe the "two
extremes" is just creating yet another duality. It is a lot like a dog
chasing after its own tail. Duality exists when we have an observer and an
observed, and it exists even when the observed is itself a duality.


<< Would not the cultivation of the mind be important?

Do not agree. Cultivation of spiritual insight is much more important that
the intellect.

Well, one ot of eight ain't bad.

Jerry S.


Dear J  

I am not sure if the extensive quote from the SECRET DOCTRINE helps, but it
does help me.  

Are we still far apart?

Dal