Theos-Talk Archives (February 2005 Message tt00006)

Jan 31 2005

Dear John:

A "Sepulcher" is a tomb and in the East they are usually white-washed
regularly and especially if it is the burial place of a "holy" man.

I agree with points you make -- the mental sepulchre of the Lower Mind
(Kama-Manas -- the "brain-mind" we are burdened with, and its memories)
often entombs the inherent wisdom of the Higher-Mind (or BUDDHI-MANAS --
the Reincarnating, immortal EGO).  

THEOSOPHY points to this, but not all students have reasoned out the
accuracy of those statements of the Wisdom Religion.

Second re Akasa

"AKASÂ (Sk.)	The subtle, supersensuous spiritual essence which pervades
all space; the primordial substance erroneously identified with Ether. But
it is to Ether what Spirit is to Matter, or Atmâ to Kâma-Rűpa. It is...the
Universal Space in which lies inherent the eternal Ideation of the Universe
in its ever-changing aspects on the planes of matter and objectivity, and
from which radiates the First Logos, or expressed thought.

This is why it is stated in the Puranas that Akasa has but one attribute,
namely sound, for sound is but the translated symbol of Logos
[word-vibration]--"Speech" in its mystic sense...

Akasa--in another aspect, Kundalini--occult electricity, the alkahest of the
alchemists in one sense, or the universal solvent, the same anima mundi on
the higher plane as the astral light is on the lower."	Glos 13


[AKASA]	",...the invisible sky...the source of life, the reservoir of all
energy, and the propeller of every change of matter. In its latent state it
tallies exactly with our idea of the universal ether; in its active state
it became the Akasa, the all-directing and omnipotent god...occult
electricity; the alkahest of the alchemists in one sense, or the universal
solvent, the same anima mundi as the astral light..."	ISIS I xxvii


"...the existence of an imponderable, tenuous medium which interpenetrates
the entire globe, and in which all the acts and thoughts of every man are
felt and impressed...an enormous hypnotizing machine is
about..."Akasa"...the "Astral Light"--is entirely beyond our control, we are
at the mercy of the pictures made in it and reflected on us...we are moved,
without our knowledge, by the impressions made in the Astral Light...as the
evil thoughts and deeds are the more material and therefore more firmly
impacted into the Astral Light, while the good, being spiritual, easily fade
out, we are in effect at the mercy of the evil done." Echoes, PP.
5-6


COSMIC BUDDHI, the emanation of the Spiritual Soul Alaya, is the vehicle of
Mahat only when that Buddhi corresponds to Prakriti. Then it is called
Maha-Buddhi. This Buddhi differentiates through 7 planes, whereas the
Buddhi in man is the vehicle of Atman, which vehicle is of the essence of
the highest plane of AKASA and therefore does not differentiate. The
difference between Manas and Buddhi in man is the same as the difference
between the Manasaputra and the Ah-hi in Kosmos."	Glos. 199



IMPERISHABLE RECORD OF THOUGHT AND MOTIVE


"In the imperishable Record of the Masters you have written them all. There
are registered your every deed and thought; for, though not a chela, as you
say to my Brother Morya, nor even a "protegé"--as you understand the
term--still, you have stepped within the circle of our work, you have
crossed the mystic line which separates your world from ours, and now
whether you persevere of not; whether we become later on, in your sight,
still more living real entities or vanish out of your mind like so many
dream fictions...you are virtually ours. Your hidden Self has mirrored
itself in our Akasa; your nature is--yours, your essence is--ours. The
flame is distinct from the log of wood which serves it temporarily as fuel;
at the end of your apparitional birth--and whether we two, meet face to face
in our grosser rupas--you cannot avoid meeting us in Real Existence. Yea,
verily good friend your Karma is ours, for you imprinted it daily and hourly
upon the pages of that book where the minutest particulars of the individual
stepping inside our circle--are preserved; and that your Karma is your only
personality to be when you step beyond.

In thought and deed, by day, in soul-struggles by nights. you have been
writing the story of your desires and spiritual development. This, every
one does who approaches us with any earnestness of desire to become our
co-worker, he himself "precipitates" the written entries by the identical
process used by us when we write inside your closed letters and uncut pages
of books and pamphlets in transit...

During the past few months, especially, when your weary brain was plunged in
the torpor of sleep, your eager soul has often been searching after me, and
the current of your thought been beating against my protective barriers of
Akas as the lapping wavelets against a rocky shore. What that "inner Self,"
impatient, anxious--has longed to bind itself to, the carnal man, the
worldlings' master has not ratified: the ties of life are still as strong
as the chains of steel. Sacred indeed some of them are, and no one would
ask you to rupture them. There below, lies your long-cherished field of
enterprise and usefulness. Ours can never be more that a bright
phantom-world to the man of thorough "practical sense;" and if your case be
in some degree exceptional, it is because your nature has deeper
inspirations that those of others, who are still more "businesslike" and the
fountain-head of whose eloquence is in the brain not in the heart not in the
heart, which never was in contact with the mysteriously effulgent, and pure
heart of Tathagata.

If you hear seldom from me, never feel disappointed, my Brother, but
say--"It is my fault." Nature has linked all parts of her Empire together
by subtle threads of magnetic sympathy, and, there is a mutual correlation
even between a star and a man; thought runs swifter than the electric
fluid, and your thought will find me if projected by a pure impulse, as mine
will find, has found, and often impressed your mind. We may move in cycles
of activity divided--not entirely separated from each other.

Like the light in the sombre valley seen by the mountaineer from his peaks,
every bright though in your mind, my Brother, will sparkle and attract the
attention of your distant friend and correspondent. If thus we discover our
natural Allies in the Shadow-world--your world and ours outside the
precincts--and it is our law to approach every such an one if even there be
but the feeblest glimmer of the true "Tathagata" light within him--then how
far easier for you to attract us...Indulge not in apprehensions of what evil
might happen if things should not go as your worldly wisdom thinks they
ought; doubt not, for this complexion of doubt unnerves and pushes back
one's progress. To have cheerful confidence and hope is quite another thing
from giving way to the fool's blind optimism: the wise man never fights
misfortune in advance..."	M L pp, 266-8


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


"...an entity, that is passing through the occult training in its successive
births, gradually has less and less (in each incarnation) of that lower
Manas until there arrives a time when its whole Manas, being of an entirely
elevated character, is centered in the higher individuality, when such a
person may be said to have become a Mahatma...

The real Mahatma is then not his physical body but that higher Manas which
is inseparably linked to the Atma and its vehicle (the 6th principle)--a
union effected by him in a comparatively very short period by passing
through the process of self-evolution as laid down by the Occult
Philosophy....whoever therefore wants to see the real Mahatma, must use his
intellectual sight. He must so elevate his Manas that its perception 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 7th principles, which are ubiquitous and
omnipresent, the Mahatmas may be said to be everywhere...although the whole
of humanity is within the mental vision of the Mahatmas, they cannot be
expected to take special note of every human being, unless that being by his
special acts draws their particular attention to himself.  

The highest interest of humanity, as a whole, is their special concern, for
they have identified themselves with the Universal Soul which runs through
Humanity, and he, who would draw their attention, must do so through that
Soul which pervades everywhere. This perception of the Manas may be called
"faith" which should not be confounded with blind belief...This belief
should at the same time be accompanied by knowledge, i.e., experience, for
"true knowledge brings with it faith." Faith is the perception of the Manas
(the 5th principle), while knowledge, in the true sense of the term, is the
capacity of the Intellect, i.e.., it is spiritual perception...divine things
can be sensed only by divine faculties..." --HPB "Mahatmas and
Chelas" HPB Articles. I 293-4 


"The first steps in true occultism are Self discipline, self knowledge and
devotion to the interests of others--i.e., unselfishness.

One cannot hope to be a chela until the elementary stages are gone through.
Your own heart will tell you how much you are prepared for chelaship.
Secondly, the adepts when they do take a chela nearly always stop psychic
powers for a while, until the disciple has got to know himself, his faults,
his follies, his vices and his thoughts as well as his virtues."

When the disciples are ready the teachers will appear. By doing just what
it can in studying theosophical doctrines, and with their minds the members
of a Branch will grow and teach each other, for as yet it is not teachers
that are wanted, but the preparation found in study, work and
self-discipline. The branch should also try to spread before the
people--without proselyting --the doctrines of Theosophy such as
Brotherhood, Karma and Reincarnation, and meanwhile should exemplify
Brotherhood, and act with energy as well as discrimination."
WQJ	--Practical Occultism, p. 148


"It is wise to remember that "Ishwara" the Spirit that is common to all
dwells inside of us and if that be so, our sincere belief in and reliance
upon it will gradually awaken us to the consciousness that we are that
spirit itself and not the miserable creatures which walk on this earth
bearing our names. Hence I would ever reflect on the spiritual unity of all
beings, continually saying to myself that I am actually that spirit. Our
difficulties are always due to the personality which is unwilling to give
itself up to the great idea that it has no real existence except in the one
Spirit."	WQJ -- Practical Occultism, p. 221

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

Here are some quotes concerning Libraries :


"One of the greatest, and, withal, the most serious objection to the
correctness and reliability of the whole work [the Secret Doctrine] will be
the preliminary STANZAS ... [being] not in the possession of European
Libraries. This is a great drawback to those who follow the methods of
research prescribed by official Science; but to the students of Occultism,
and to every genuine Occultist, this will be of little moment."   
Secret Doctrine, Vol I, intro., pages xxii - xxiii.


"It has been claimed in all ages that ever since the destruction of the
Alexandrian Library (see Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., p. 27), every work of a
character that might have led the profane to the ultimate discovery and
comprehension of some of the mysteries of the Secret Science, was, owing to
the combined efforts of the members of the Brotherhoods, diligently searched
for. It is added, moreover, by those who know that once found, save three
copies left and stored safely away, such works were all destroyed. In India,
the last of the precious manuscripts were secured and hidden during the
reign of the Emperor Akbar."	Secret Doctrine, Vol I., intro.,
page xxiii.


"Moreover in all the large and wealthy lamaseries, there are subterranean
crypts and cave-libraries, cut in the rock, whenever the gonpa and the
lhakhang are situated in the mountains. Beyond the Western Tsaydam, in the
solitary passes of Kuen-lun there are several such hiding-places. Along the
ridge of Altyn-Toga, whose soil no European foot has ever trodden so far,
there exists a certain hamlet, lost in a deep gorge. It is a small cluster
of houses, a hamlet rather than a monastery, with a poor-looking temple in
it, with one old lama, a hermit, living near by to watch it. Pilgrims say
that the subterranean galleries and halls under it contain a collection of
books, the number of which, according to the accounts given, is too large to
find room even in the British Museum."	Secret Doctrine, Vol I, intro., page
xxiv. 


"An immense, incalculable number of MSS, and even printed works known to
have existed, are now to be found no more. They have disappeared without
leaving the slightest trace behind them. Were they works of no importance
they might, in the natural course of time, have been left to perish, and
their very names would have been obliterated from human memory. But it is
not so; for as now ascertained, most of them contained the true keys to
works still extant, and entirely comprehensible, for the greater portion of
their readers, without those additional volumes of commentaries and
explanations. Such are, for instance, the works of Lao-tse, the predecessor
of Confucius."	
Secret Doctrine, Vol I., intro., page xxv


To recapitulate. The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused religion
of the ancient and prehistoric world. Proofs of its diffusion, authentic
records of its history, a complete chain of documents, showing its character
and presence in every land with the teaching of all its great adepts, exist
to this day in the secret crypts of libraries belonging to the Occult
Fraternity."	Secret Doctrine, Vol I, intro., page xxxiv. 


"This statement is rendered more credible by a consideration of the
following facts: the tradition of the thousands of ancient parchments saved
when the Alexandrian library was destroyed; the thousands of Sanskrit works
which disappeared in India in the reign of Akbar; the universal tradition in
China and Japan that the true old texts with the commentaries, which alone
make them comprehensible - amounting to many thousands of volumes - have
long passed out of the reach of profane hands; the disappearance of the vast
sacred and occult literature of Babylon; the loss of those keys which alone
could solve the thousand riddles of the Egyptian hieroglyphic records; the
tradition in India that the real secret commentaries which alone make the
Veda intelligible, though no longer visible to profane eyes, still remain
for the initiate, hidden in secret caves and crypts; and an identical belief
among the Buddhists, with regard to their secret books. The Occultists
assert that all these exist, safe from Western spoliating hands, to
re-appear in some more enlightened age."   
Secret Doctrine, Vol I, intro., page xxxiv.


"For it is not the fault of the initiates that these documents are now
"lost" to the profane; nor was their policy dictated by selfishness, or any
desire to monopolise the life-giving sacred lore. There were portions of the
Secret Science that for incalculable ages had to remain concealed from the
profane gaze. But this was because to impart to the unprepared multitude
secrets of such tremendous importance, was equivalent to giving a child a
lighted candle in a powder magazine [armory]."	Secret Doctrine, Vol I,
intro., pages xxxiv to xxxv.


"The documents were concealed, it is true, but the knowledge itself and its
actual existence had never been made a secret of by the Hierophants of the
Temple, wherein MYSTERIES have ever been made a discipline and stimulus to
virtue. This is very old news, and was repeatedly made known by the great
adepts, from Pythagoras and Plato down to the Neoplatonists. It was the new
religion of the Nazarenes that wrought a change for the worse - in the
policy of centuries."
Secret Doctrine, Vol I, intro., page xxxv.


“These truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation; nor does the
author claim the position of a revealer of mystic lore, now made public for
the first time in the world's history. For what is contained in this work
is to be found scattered through thousands of volumes embodying the
scriptures of th great Asiatic and early European religions, hidden under
glyph and symbol, and hitherto left unnoticed because of this veil.”	.
Secret Doctrine, Vol. I,. preface, page ,vii


"Thus every nation received in its turn some of the said truths, under the
veil of its own local and special symbolism; which, as time went on,
developed into a more or less philosophical cultus, a Pantheon in mythical
disguise. Therefore is Confucius, a very ancient legislator in historical
chronology, though a very modern Sage in the World's History, show by Dr.
Legge - who calls him "emphatically a transmitter, not a maker "- as saying:
"I only hand on: I cannot create new things. I believe in the ancients and
therefore I love them." Secret Doctrine, Vol I, intro.,
pages xxxvi to xxxvii.


"Have not the latter [the Vedas] been derided, rejected, and called "a
modern forgery" even so recently as fifty years ago? [1838] Was not Sanskrit
proclaimed at one time the progeny of, and a dialect derived from, the
Greek, according to Lempriere and other scholars? About 1820, Prof. Max
Muller tells us, the sacred books of the Brahmans, of the Magians, and of
the Buddhists, "were all but unknown, their very existence was doubted, and
there was not a single scholar who could have translated a line of the Veda
... of the Zend Avesta, or ... of the Buddhist Tripitaka, and now the Vedas
are proved to be the work of the highest antiquity whose preservation
amounts almost to a marvel. (Lecture on the Vedas)."
Secret Doctrine, Vol I, intro., pages xxxvii to xxxviii.


"The same will be said [is a forgery, etc.] of the Secret Archaic Doctrine,
when proofs are given of its undeniable existence and records. But it will
take centuries before much more is given from it. ... In Century the
Twentieth some disciple more informed, and far better fitted, may be sent by
the Masters of Wisdom to give final and irrefutable proofs that there exists
a Science called Gupta-Vidya [secret, esoteric knowledge]; and that like the
once-mysterious sources of the Nile, the source of all religions and
philosophies now known to the world has been for many ages forgotten and
lost to men, but is at last found."
Secret Doctrine, Vol I, intro., page xxxviii.


"He [the reader] is asked to give all his attention to that millennium which
divided the pre-Christian and the post-Christian periods, by the year ONE of
the Nativity. This event -- whether historically correct or not -- has
nevertheless been made to serve as a first signal for the erection of
manifold bulwarks against any possible return of, or even a glimpse into,
the hated religions of the Past; hated and dreaded - because throwing such a
vivid light on the new and intentionally veiled interpretation of what is
now known as the "New dispensation." Secret Doctrine, Vol I, intro., page
xl.


“Over the portals of our own [era, millennium ?], the future seer may
discern other words, that will point to the Karma for cunningly made-up
HISTORY, for events purposely perverted, and for great characters slandered
by posterity, mangled out of recognition, between the two cars of Jagannatha
-- Bigotry and Materialism; one accepting too much, the other denying all.”
Secret Doctrine, Vol I, intro., page xli


“[Philosophy] repudiates in its name of Philo-Theo-Sophia the grotesque idea
that Infinite, Absolute Deity should, or rather could, have any, whether
direct or indirect, relation to finite illusive evolutions of matter, and
therefore cannot imagine a universe outside that Deity, or the latter absent
from the smallest speck of animate or inanimate substance.”	Secret
Doctrine, Vol I, page 533


“Pantheism may be "physically rediscovered." It was known, seen, and feltby
the whole of antiquity. Pantheism manifests itself in the vast expanse of
the starry heavens, in the breathing of the seas and oceans and the quiver
of life of the smallest blade of grass. Philosophy rejects one finite and
imperfect God in the universe, as the anthropomorphic deity of the
monotheist is represented by his followers.”	Secret Doctrine, Vol I,
page 533


“It is the Sun-fluids or Emanations that impart all motion and awaken all
into life, in the solar system. It is attraction and repulsion, but not as
understood by modern physics and according to the law of gravity; but in
harmony with the laws of Manvantaric motion designed from the early Sandhya
the Dawn of the rebuilding and higher reformation of the System. These laws
are immutable; but the motion of all the bodies, which motion is diverse and
alters with every minor Kalpa - is regulated by the Movers, the
Intelligences within the Cosmic soul.”	Secret Doctrine, Vol I. pages
529-5308.


“If ever this theory of the Sun-Force being the primal cause of all life on
earth and motion in heaven is accepted, and if that other far bolder one of
Herschell -- about certain organisms in the Sun-is accepted even as a
provisional hypothesis, then will our teachings be vindicated, and esoteric
allegory shown to have anticipated Modern Science by millions of years,
probably, for these are the Archaic teachings.”	Secret Doctrine, Vol I,
page 529


“Occultism has named it for ages, and so have all the ancient philosophers;
but then all such beliefs are now proclaimed exploded superstitions. The
"extra cosmic" God has killed every possibility of belief in intra-cosmic
intelligent Forces, yet who, or what is the original pusher in that motion?
"When we have learned the cause, unique et speciale, that pushes, we will be
ready to combine it with the one which attracts," says Francoeur
("Astronomie," p. 342). And again - "Attraction between the celestial bodies
is only repulsion: it is the Sun that drives them incessantly onward; for
otherwise, their motion would stop." 
Secret Doctrine, Vol I, page 529


“Atoms, Ether, or both, modern speculation cannot get out of the circle of
ancient thought; and the latter was soaked through with archaic occultism.”
Secret Doctrine, Vol I, page 528.


“Every fire has a distinct function and meaning in the worlds of the
physical and the spiritual. It has, moreover, in its essential nature a
corresponding relation to one of the human psychic faculties, besides its
well determined chemical and physical potencies when coming in contact with
the terrestrially differential matter. Science has no speculations to offer
upon fire per se; Occultism and ancient religious science have. This is
shown even in the meagre and purposely veiled phraseology of the Puranas,
where (as in the Vayu Purana) many of the qualities of the personified fires
are explained.”	Secret Doctrine, Vol I, page 521.


“The necessity is easily explained. Just as in old alchemical works the real
meaning of the substances and elements meant are concealed under the most
ridiculous metaphors, so are the physical, psychic, and spiritual natures of
the Elements (say of fire) concealed in the Vedas, and especially in the
Puranas, under allegories comprehensible only to the Initiates. Had they no
meaning, then indeed all those long legends and allegories about the
sacredness of the three types of fire, and the forty-nine original fires-
personified by the Sons of Daksha's daughters and the Rishis, their
husbands, "who with the first son of Brahma and his three descendants
constitute the forty-nine fires" - would be idiotic verbiage and no more.
But it is not so.”
Secret Doctrine, Vol I, page 520


“But to do this requires a boundless love of truth and the surrender of that
prestige-however false-of infallibility, which the men of Science have
acquired among the ignorant and flippant, though cultured, masses of the
profane. To blend the two sciences, the archaic and the modern, requires
first of all the abandonment of the actual materialistic lines. It
necessitates a kind of religious mysticism and even the study of old magic,
which our Academicians will never take up.”	Secret Doctrine, Vol I, page
520


“Science has no right to deny to the Occultists their claim to a more
profound knowledge of the so-called Forces; which, they say, are only the
effects of causes generated by Powers, substantial, yet supersensuous, and
beyond any kind of matter with which they (the Scientists) have hitherto
become acquainted. The most science can do is to assume the attitude of
agnosticism and to maintain it. Then it can say: "Your case is no more
proven than is ours; but we confess to knowing nothing in reality either
about Force or matter, or that which lies at the bottom of the so-called
correlations of Forces. Therefore, time alone can prove who is right and
who is wrong. Let us wait patiently, and meanwhile show courtesy instead of
scoffing at each other."
Secret Doctrine, Vol I, page 520


“Accept the explanations and teachings of Occultism, and, the Blind inertia
of physical Science being replaced by the intelligent active Powers behind
the veil of matter, motion and inertia become subservient to those Powers.
It is on the doctrine of the illusive nature of matter, and the infinite
divisibility of the atom, that the whole science of Occultism is built. It
opens limitless horizons to substance informed by the divine breath of its
soul in every possible state of tenuity, states still undreamt of by the
most spiritually disposed chemists and physicists.”	Secret Doctrine,
Vol I, page, 520

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


Dallas



 

-----Original Message-----
From: samblo
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 12:01 PM
To: 
Subject: Re: "sepulchre" of the Lower Mind -- entombing the Higher Mind

Dallas,

Thanks for your comments, as always. One of your recent posts contained 
the term "sepelchre" whgich caught my attention. 


I remembered a verse "Ye are become like unto whitened sepelchre's" I read
many years ago in the western Bible, when I first read it it was not clear
to me the context of it's meaning, but some years later after an experience
I posited one interpretation from my personal acquired view. 


It is this, today I type this post and the background in the e-mail box is
white, as my activity of expression occurs in typing, the letters appear and
are enabled to be read, to me this is like Purush [SPIRIT] and Prakriti
[MATTER] as a simile. 


Our lower mind, the conditioned consciousness is in many ancient writings
likened to the "veiled' aspirant which being veiled as it is, yet having
it's very existance intrinsically within the limitless Purush. 


it is in it's own self made whitened sepelchre the walls being the lower
mind of 
conditioned consciousness of each of humankind, our actions are the letters
of 
our expression and if one is of the condition to be able to penetrate beyond
the 
self made walls of the tomb of lower consciousness one meets oneself
awaiting 
all about, limitless like the sky and space and Purush. 


It is very Zen like to me, there is no arriving as there never was an actual
departure, only the self created veil mediates context of perception,
regulates and governs aware reality. Since all that we are and all that is
about us, past,present, future has relative existence inseparable from the
Purush as the senior substrate 


I think akash is also dependent to it also and Akash may be stratified with
many 
planes and levels. 


I agree with your point about physical Libraries, though useful to our hands
it is only a subset that has meaning to the lower mind that requires objects
of tangible nature that reinforce the veil agreements that collectively
maintain the common context dear to the survival dynamics of the conditioned
lower mind and consciousness.

John