Theos-Talk Archives (January 2005 Message tt00319)

Jan 12 2005

RE: A Question for the New Year --  

What are Theosophical Ethics?



Dear Cass and friends:


Thanks for the comments and parallels,

No sweeping of dust into concealment (or apologizing) was ever my intention.


I though I was clear: I find the matter totally disgusting. On the other
hand, those who wish to find out what actually happened can refer to a
history text based on actual documents:

The THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT (1875 -1925) and 

The THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT (1875-1950)

both are available on line [ www.phx-ult-lodge.org/ ]


While this and other events will be seen to tarnish the historical record of
the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, I find it (this matter particularly) repulsive to
everything related to the SANATANA DHARMA -- the age-old WISDOM-RELIGION,
the philosophy of THEOSOPHY.

Of course, now-a-days each one defines THEOSOPHY to suit themselves, but the
noble and altruistic views of SPIRITUAL life and the potential eminence of
BUDDHAHOOD, seem, as valid IDEALS, to have little to do with the abasement
demanded (and discussed) of innocent, trusting and ignorant children. Is
this evidence of the operation I our times and recent past of the conditions
of Kali, or Satya Yuga?   

I realize we are "beating a dead horse" in this review of opinions
concerning individuals in early Theosophical Society history, but really,
and for all of us now, is not the study and search for THEOSOPHY a more
useful, a nobler usage, a more practical employment of our minds and time? 

But, thinking again, let me posit a purely hypothetical question to all of
us:


Knowing what is alleged concerning CWL, [the debates, court decisions,
etc...] and his treatment of youngsters, would you have placed or
recommended your own son, or any close relative to be placed in his care?


If you want to know what THEOSOPHY teaches, would you go to the writings of
the MASTERS and of HPB, or to CWL, and others ? If the writings of HPB have
been neglected I often wonder why? Are we, devotees and seekers of Truth
being deflected? Confused? And if so, why? I ask you: Why trust that
which I write? I may be quite wrong, but I say: prove it. Prove it for
yourself. No "short-cuts," no blind belief, no "authority." Find out. 


How many of us have recently read through HPB's original unedited text of
1889 of The KEY TO THEOSOPHY ?  

[I make it a point to observe that some of the T S publishing houses have
reprinted her text, but have also edited it without calling attention to the
changes made. Trusting students may be unaware of this.]

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

Here, as an example, are some extracts from a recent general comment:


I find in the Los Angeles TIMES, [ www.losangelstimes.com ] for Wednesday,
Jan. 12, 2005, on Page B 11, under "COMMENTARY"


An article by Dr. Stephen Prothero of BOSTON UNIVERSITY titled:

A NATION OF FAITH AND RELIGIOUS ILLITERATES.

Dr Prothero "paints a picture of a nation that believes God speaks in
Scripture, but that can't be bothered to read what he has to say." ...

He quotes Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark: "It might well be said that one's
education is not complete without a study of comparative religion...and its
relationship to the advance of civilization." ...

"Since 9/11, Pres. Bush has been telling us that "Islam is a religion of
peace: while evangelist Franklin Graham (Billy's son) has insisted
otherwise. Who is right? Americans have no way to tell because they know
virtually nothing abut Islam. Such ignorance imperils our public life,
putting us in the thrall of talking heads." ...

"What is un-American is to give those debates over to televangelists of
either the secular or the religious variety, [and] to absent ourselves from
the discussion by ignorance." ....

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

I would say:

Calling ourselves "Theosophists" is easy to do, but do we (as individuals)
study comparative religions? Have we actually gone to translations of the
texts of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Egyptian (Book of the
Dead), Chinese philosophy (Lao Tse and Confucius), Greek philosophy (Plato,
Pythagoras, etc.) the Popol Vuh (in fragments) etc....  

Have we scanned both ISIS UNVEILED and the SECRET DOCTRINE (I mean recently)
so as to know what HPB and the Masters wrote and explained there? 

Do we know well what are the basic tenets and doctrines of THEOSOPHY ?  


HPB in the "Key" says:

"ENQUIRER. How, then, should Theosophical principles be applied so that
social co-operation may be promoted and true efforts for social amelioration
be carried on? 
 
THEOSOPHIST. Let me briefly remind you what these principles are
(1) universal Unity and Causation; 

(2)	Human Solidarity; 

(3)	the Law of Karma; 

(4)	Re-incarnation. 

These are the FOUR LINKS OF THE GOLDEN CHAIN which should bind humanity into
one family, one UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD. ” 
[Key, p. 233]


"ENQUIRER. What are the OBJECTS OF THE "THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY"? 

 
THEOSOPHIST. They are three, and have been so from the beginning.

(1.) To form the nucleus of a UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD of Humanity without
distinction of race, colour, or creed. 

(2.) To PROMOTE THE STUDY OF ARYAN AND OTHER SCRIPTURES, OF THE WORLD'S
RELIGIONS AND SCIENCES, and to vindicate the importance of old Asiatic
literature, namely, of the Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian
philosophies. 

(3.) To INVESTIGATE THE HIDDEN MYSTERIES OF NATURE under every aspect
possible, and the PSYCHIC AND SPIRITUAL POWERS LATENT IN MAN especially. 

These are, broadly stated, the three chief objects of the Theosophical
Society." 
Key, p. 39

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

These are some suggestive ideas to consider from HPB

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


INCOMING EGOS -- FUTURE HUMANS


These principles may be applied in this particular case. The "privation" of
the child which is to be, we locate in the invisible mind of the Universal
Soul, in which all types and forms exist from eternity--privation not being
considered in the Aristotelic philosophy as a principle in the composition
of bodies, but as an external property in their production; for the
production is a change by which the matter passes from the shape it has not
to that which it assumes. 

Though the privation of the unborn child's form, as well as of the future
form of the unmade watch, is that which is neither substance nor extension
nor quality as yet, nor any kind of existence, it is still something which
is, though its outlines, in order to be, must acquire an objective form--the
abstract must become concrete, in short. Thus, as soon as this privation of
matter is transmitted by energy to universal Æther, it becomes a material
form, however sublimated. 

If modern Science teaches that human thought "affects the matter of another
universe simultaneously with this," how can he who believes in a Universal
Mind deny that the divine thought is equally transmitted, by the same law of
energy, to our common mediator, the universal Æther--the lower World-Soul?
Very true, Occult Philosophy denies it intelligence and consciousness in
relation to the finite and conditioned manifestations of this phenomenal
world of matter. But the Vedântin and Buddhist Philosophies alike, speaking
of it as of Absolute Consciousness, show thereby that the form and progress
of every atom of the conditioned universe must have existed in it throughout
the infinite cycles of Eternity. And, if so, then it must follow that once
there, the Divine Thought manifests itself objectively, energy faithfully
reproducing the outlines of that whose "privation" is already in the divine
mind. 

Only it must not be understood that this Thought creates matter, or even the
privations. No; it develops from its latent outline but the design for the
future form; the matter which serves to make this design having always been
in existence, and having been prepared to form a human body, through a
series of progressive transformations, as the result of evolution. 



MAN-SPIRIT

The Secret Doctrine teaches that man, if he wins immortality, will remain
for ever the septenary trinity that he is in life, and will continue so
throughout all the spheres. The astral body, which in this life is covered
by a gross physical envelope, becomes--when relieved of that covering by the
process of corporeal death--in its turn the shell of another and more
ethereal body. 

This begins developing from the moment of death, and becomes perfected when
the astral body of the earthly form finally separates from it. This process,
they say, is repeated at every new transition from sphere to sphere of life.
But the immortal soul, the "silvery spark," observed by Dr. Fenwick in
Margrave's brain (in Bulwer Lytton's Strange Story), and not found by him in
the animals, never changes, but remains indestructible "by aught that
shatters its tabernacle." 




PSYCHIC EMBRYOS

Forms pass; ideas that created them and the material which gave them
objectiveness, remain. These models, as yet devoid of immortal spirits, are
"Elementals"--better yet, psychic embryos--which, when their time arrives,
die out of the invisible world, and are born into this visible one as human
infants, receiving in transitu that Divine Breath called Spirit which
completes the perfect man. This class cannot communicate, either
subjectively or objectively, with men. 

The essential difference between the body of such an embryo and an Elemental
proper is that the embryo--the future man--contains in himself a portion of
each of the four great kingdoms, to wit: fire, air, earth and water; while
the Elemental has but a portion of one of such kingdoms. As for instance,
the salamander, or the fire Elemental, which has but a portion of the
primordial fire and none other. Man, being higher than they, the law of
evolution finds its illustration of all four in him. It results therefore,
that the Elementals of the fire are not found in water, nor those of air in
the fire kingdom. And yet, inasmuch as a portion of water is found not only
in man but also in other bodies, Elementals exist really in and among each
other in every substance just as the spiritual world exists and is in the
material. But the last are the Elementals in their most primordial and
latent state. 



ASTROLOGICAL INFLUENCES

These beings are known by the adepts to be attracted toward certain quarters
of the heavens by something of the same mysterious property which makes the
magnetic needle turn toward the north, and certain plants to obey the same
attraction If we will only bear in mind the fact that the rushing of planets
through space must create as absolute a disturbance in the plastic and
attenuated medium of the ether, as the passage of a cannon shot does in the
air, or that of a steamer in the water, and on a cosmic scale, we can
understand that certain planetary aspects, admitting our premises to be
true, may produce much more violent agitation and cause much stronger
currents to flow in a given direction than others. 

We can also see why, by such various aspects of the stars, shoals of
friendly or hostile Elementals might be poured in upon our atmosphere, or
some particular portion of it, and make the fact appreciable by the effects
which ensue. If our royal astronomers are able, at times, to predict
cataclysms, such as earthquakes and inundations, the Indian astrologers and
mathematicians can do so, and have so done, with far more precision and
correctness, though they act on lines which to the modern sceptic appear
ridiculously absurd. 



ELEMENTALS AND HUMAN TEMPERAMENT

The various races of spirits are also believed to have a special sympathy
with certain human temperaments, and to more readily exert power over such
than others. Thus, a bilious, lymphatic, nervous, or sanguine person would
be affected favourably or otherwise by conditions of the astral light,
resulting from the different aspects of the planetary bodies. Having reached
this general principle, after recorded observations extending over an
indefinite series of years, or ages, the adept astrologer would require only
to know what the planetary aspects were at a given anterior date, and to
apply his knowledge of the succeeding changes in the heavenly bodies, to be
able to trace, with approximate accuracy, the varying fortunes of the
personage whose horoscope was required, and even to predict the future. The
accuracy of the horoscope would depend, of course, no less upon the
astrologer's astronomical erudition than upon his knowledge of the occult
forces and races of nature. 



UNIVERSAL FORCES AND LAWS

Pythagoras taught that the entire universe is one vast series of
mathematically correct combinations. Plato shows the Deity geometrizing. The
world is sustained by the same law of equilibrium and harmony upon which it
was built. The centripetal force could not manifest itself without the
centrifugal in the harmonious revolutions of the spheres; all forms are the
product of this dual force in nature. Thus, to illustrate our case, we may
designate the spirit as the centrifugal, and the soul as the centripetal,
spiritual energies. When in perfect harmony, both forces produce one result;
break or damage the centripetal motion of the earthly soul tending toward
the center which attracts it; arrest its progress by clogging it with a
heavier weight of matter than it can bear, and the harmony of the whole,
which was its life, is destroyed. Individual life can only be continued if
sustained by this two-fold force. The least deviation from harmony damages
it; when it is destroyed beyond redemption, the forces separate and the form
is gradually annihilated. 



SPHERES OF LIFE

Every organized thing in this world, visible as well as invisible, has an
element appropriate to itself. The fish lives and breathes in the water; the
plant consumes carbonic acid, which for animals and men produces death; some
beings are fitted for rarefied strata of air, others exist only in the
densest. Life to some is dependent on sunlight, to others, upon darkness;
and so the wise economy of nature adapts to each existing condition some
living form. These analogies warrant the conclusion that, not only is there
no unoccupied portion of universal nature, but also that for each thing that
has life, special conditions are furnished, and, being furnished, they are
necessary. 

Now, assuming that there is an invisible side to the universe, the fixed
habit of nature warrants the conclusion that this half is occupied, like the
other half; and that each group of its occupants is supplied with the
indispensable conditions of existence. It is as illogical to imagine that
identical conditions are furnished to all, as it would be to maintain such a
theory respecting the inhabitants of the domain of visible nature. 

That there are "spirits" implies that there is a diversity of "spirits"; for
men differ, and human "spirits" are but disembodied men. 

To say that all "spirits" are alike, or fitted to the same atmosphere, or
possessed of like powers, or governed by the same attractions--electric,
magnetic, odic, astral, it matters not which--is as absurd as though one
should say that all planets have the same nature, or that all animals are
amphibious, or that all men can be nourished on the same food. 

To begin with, neither the elementals, nor the elementaries themselves, can
be called "spirits" at all. It accords with reason to suppose that the
grossest natures among them will sink to the lowest depths of the spiritual
atmosphere--in other words, be found nearest to the earth. Inversely, the
purest will be farthest away. In what, were we to coin a word, we should
call the "psychomatics" of Occultism, it is as unwarrantable to assume that
either of these grades of ethereal beings can occupy the place, or subsist
in the conditions, of the other, as it would be in hydraulics to expect that
two liquids of different densities could exchange their markings on the
scale of Beaume's hydrometer. 

Extracts from ---- H P B unpublished incomplete MSS ----------

LUCIFER, August, 1893 (Published posthumously) Title: ELEMENTALS

---------------------------------------
also:

SEXUAL FORCE AND PHENOMENA


“Student. - What is the relation between sexual force and phenomena? 

Sage. - It is at the bottom. This force is vital, creative, and a sort of
reservoir. It may be lost by mental action as well as by physical. In fact
its finer part is dissipated by mental imaginings, while physical acts only
draw off the gross part, that which is the "carrier" (upadhi) for the finer.
“
Conversations on Occultism # 2 – Judge ELEMENTALS & ELEMENTARIES


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

Best wishes,

Dallas

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

-----Original Message-----

From: Cass 
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 4:29 PM
To: 
Subject: Re: A Question for the New Year -- 
What are Theosophical Ethics?


Dear Dallas

You asked

For example:  


"What has the personal performance of any one individual 

Have to do with THEOSOPHY ? I find it ludicrous to use space and


occupy the Lower Manas with opinions and discussions about CWL, etc...  

Just how long do you think such an individual would last before the 

Living breathing HPB? As I see it, looking back at what was written 

those days, students in the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY had not carefully

studied its doctrines and tenets and were unable to make the kind

of tolerant and cooperative, brotherly decisions that would have

maintained its solidarity. The parable of the "bundle of sticks" 

comes to mind. 


He certainly did not embellish the record of the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

And what he wrote can easily be shown to denigrate HPB's teachings.  


So what is gained?

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

A: Daniel, 


It is not HPB's teachings that are being questioned but CWL's, and what is
gained is a TS that is not built on sand.  

On this question I would stand nose to nose with HPB, although I imagine she
would be by my side as CWL is denigrating HPB's teachings, not mine, as she
said: [Relative to the Esoteric Section ] : --


"But if any member, his sacred pledges on his word of honour and 

Immortal Self notwithstanding, chooses to continue, after that 

"new birth," with the new man, the vices or defects of his old life,

and to indulge in them still in the Society, then, of course,

he is more than likely to be asked to resign and withdraw; or,

in case of his refusal, to be expelled. We have the strictest 

rules for such emergencies. " 

[Key, p. 49, [[Relative to the Esoteric Section ]]




THEOSOPHIST	"It is not by studying Occultism 

for selfish ends, for the gratification of one's personal ambition, 

pride, or vanity, that one can ever reach the true goal: that of helping 

suffering mankind. Nor is it by studying one single branch of the 

esoteric philosophy that a man becomes an Occultist, but by 

studying, if not mastering, them all." [ Key, p. 24]




"ENQUIRER. Do the members of your Society carry out these precepts? I 

have heard of great dissensions and quarrels among them. 


THEOSOPHIST. Very naturally, since although the reform (in its

present shape) may be called new, the men and women to be reformed are 

the same human, sinning natures as of old. As already said, the earnest 

working members are few; but many are the sincere and well-disposed 

persons, who try their best to live up to the Society's and their own
ideals. 


Our duty is to encourage and assist individual fellows in 

self-improvement, intellectual, moral, and spiritual; not to blame or
condemn 

those who fail. We have, strictly speaking, no right to refuse admission to 

anyone especially in the Esoteric Section of the Society, wherein "he who 

enters is as one newly born." ... [Key p. 49]

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

CASS: 


Dallas, Do we reject Jesus' teachings by rejecting Judas?

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

DTB	I see no parallel here. Judas faults (portrayed as a betrayer, and
a traitor) were his own and under karma he will have to meet the
consequences -- I don't envy him if the account is accurate.

On the other hand check carefully and you will find that the teachings of
HPB and the Masters are different from what CWL wrote and taught.

Now of the two sides, who would you trust? 

But first, would you not put anything offered through the mill of your own
mind and thinking?  

Would you not consult your own powers of Intuition and BUDDHI-MANAS ?  

[I have just re-read what HPB says on this subject in TRANSACTIONS OF THE
BLAVATSKY LODGE (UNITED LODGE OF THEOSOPHISTS publication) pp 62 - 69 -- On
the inter-relation at night between the brain-mind (Lower Manas) and the
HIGHER SELF (Atma-Buddhi) [Blavatsky: COLLECTED WORKS: Vol X, pp
248-255]

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

Dallas, Are you suggesting that we sweep the dirt under the carpet

so the house looks clean?

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

DTB	See above -- of course not. That would be hypocritical, no?  

If ever we are to be trusted we have to "point out the way" and let TRUTH
stand clear, and thus defend herself. 

It is the basic PRINCIPLES that count most. 

But I would issue a strong warning for the benefit of all those who trust
anything CWL ever wrote.  

Have you a copy of Margaret Thomas' THEOSOPHY or NEO-THEOSOPHY -- the
comparisons offered there, make these points obvious. (to me.) 

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


Cass

CUT