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Feb 19, 2005 05:24 PM
by W.Dallas TenBroeck
Feb 19 2005 Dear Cass: Some of these statements might prove interesting to your research ----------------------------------------------- Principles 1 to 7 -- CONSCIOUS COMMUNICATION [from BCW IV, 101-102] [The author of the article "MEDIUMS AND YOGIS", identified only by three stars, in the course of his explanation of the difference between yogis and mediums, says: "As the magnetic power is directed to any particular faculty, so that faculty at once forms a direct line of communication with the spirit, which, receiving the impressions, conveys them back to the physical body." To this HPB remarks:] -------------------------------------------------------------------- SIXTH PRINCIPLE---SPIRITUAL SOUL. In the normal or natural state, the sensations are transmitted from the lowest physical to the highest spiritual body, i.e., from the first to the 6th principle (the 7th being no organized or conditioned body, but an infinite, hence unconditioned principle or state), the faculties of each body having to awaken the faculties of the next higher one, to transmit the message in succession, until they reach the last, when, having received the impression, the latter (the spiritual soul) sends it back in an inverse order to the body. Hence, the faculties of some of the "bodies" (we use this word for want of a better term) being less developed, they fail to transmit the message correctly to the highest principle, and thus also fail to produce the right impression upon the physical senses, as a telegram may have started for the place of its destination faultless, and have been bungled up and misinterpreted by the telegraph operator at some intermediate station. This is why some people, otherwise endowed with great intellectual powers and perceptive faculties, are often utterly unable to appreciate---say, the beauties of nature, or some particular moral quality; as, however perfect their physical intellect---unless the original material or rough physical impression conveyed has passed in a circuit through the sieve of every "principle"---(from 1,2,3,4,5,6 up to 7, and down again from 7,6,5,4,3,2, to No. 1)---and that every "sieve" is in good order---the spiritual perception will always be imperfect. The Yogi, who, by a constant training and incessant watchfulness, keeps his septenary instrument in good tune and whose spirit has obtained a perfect control over all, can, at will, and by paralysing the functions of the four intermediate principles, communicate from body to spirit and vice versa---direct. [The author says: "The Yogi forms a direct connection between his spiritual soul and any faculty, and, by the power of his trained will, that is by magnetic influence, concentrates all his powers in the soul, which enables him to grasp the subject of his enquiry and convey it back to the physical organs, through the various channels of communication." ------------------------------------------ HPB ADDS:] Or---direct, which is oftener the case, we believe. [The author also says: "If he desires to traverse space in spirit, this is easily done by him by transferring the faculty of will. . . ." HPB adds:] >From the physical to the Spiritual body and concentrating it there, as we understand it. [from BCW IV, 101-102] ============================ Comment: JW The health of the transmission lines, even for a beginner might center around the general attitude they maintain as live flows on, far more than any specific event. HPB indicates something like this in her Dialogue Between The Two Editors, and also infers it in Psychic and Noetic Action like this: [HPB Articles II, p. 22] " …each cell bears a long record of impressions connected with its parent organ, and each cell has a memory and a consciousness of its kind, or call it instinct if you will. These impressions are, according to the nature of the organ, physical, psychic, or mental, as they relate to this or another plane. They may be called “states of consciousness” only for the want of a better expression—as there are states of instinctual, mental, and purely abstract, or spiritual consciousness. If we trace all such “psychic” actions to brain work, it is only because in that mansion called the human body the brain is the front door, and the only one which opens out into Space. All the others are inner doors, openings in the private building, through which travel incessantly the transmitting agents of memory and sensation. The clearness, the vividness, and intensity of these depend on the state of health and the organic soundness of the transmitters. But their reality, in the sense of trueness or correctness, is due to the “principle” they originate from, and the preponderance in the Lower Manas of the noëtic orof the phrenic (“Kamic,” terrestrial) element." [HPB Articles II, pp. 22-3] ======================== JW >From this quote we see that the "vividness," "clearness" and "intensity" depend upon the state of health of the transmitters, while the "trueness" or "correctness" depends upon the principle they originate from. One is constantly impressed with the wisdom-equation that person's life is a combination of their karma and their will. The less Will we bring to the table the more we are creatures of FATE and statistics on some behaviourist's chart. jerome ----------------------------------------------------- PLANES OF CONSCIOUSNESS ------------------------------------------ In SECRET DOCTRINE 181-2, 3 Lines of Evolution: Spiritual, Intellectual, Physical, 200-2, Evolutionary progress: 7 Rounds, 7 Globes, 7 “Races”, 7 “Sub-races” 240-6; Principles of Theosophy and of Kabala compared, "The "Absolute Consciousness,"..."behind" phenomena...is only termed unconsciousness in the absence of any element of personality...transcends human conception...Only the liberated Spirit is able to faintly realize the nature of the source whence it sprung and whither it must eventually return...we can but bow in ignorance before the awful mystery of Absolute Being...the Finite cannot conceive the Infinite..." S D I 51 "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 on as the "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 or soul on this plane of existence, and soul is the vehicle on a higher plane for the manifestation of spirit, and those three are a trinity synthesized by Life, which pervades them all." SD I 49 "Every atom is endowed with and moved by intelligence, and is conscious in its own degree, on its own plane of development. This is a glimpse of the One Life...selfishness is the curse of selfishness..." WQJ ART I 29 "...Time...[is] the panoramic succession of our states of consciousness..." S D I 44 "Free-will can only exist in a man who has both mind and consciousness, which act and make him perceive things both within and without himself." "Consciousness is a condition of the monad as a result of embodiment in matter and the dwelling in a physical form." WQJ ART I 29 "the one free force acts, helped in this by that portion of its essence which we call imprisoned force, or material molecules. The worker within, the inherent force, ever tends to unite with its parent essence without; and thus, the Mother acting within, causes the Web to contract; and the Father acting without, to expand. Science calls this gravitation; Occultists, the work of the universal Life-Force, which radiates from that Absolute and Unknowable FORCE which is outside of all Space and Time. This is the work of eternal Evolution and involution, or expansion and contraction. [ Web cooling ]...it begins when the imprisoned force and intelligence inherent in every atom of differentiated as well as of homogeneous matter arrives at a point when both become the slaves of a higher intelligent Force whose mission is to guide and shape it. It is the Force which we call the divine Free-Will, represented by the Dhyani-Buddhas. When the centrepetal and centrifugal forces of life and being are subjected by the one nameless Force which brings order in disorder, and establishes harmony in Chaos--then it begins cooling...Every form, we are told, is built in accordance with the model traced for it in the Eternity and reflected in the DIVINE MIND. There are hierarchies of "Builders of form," and series of forms and degrees, from the highest to the lowest. While the former are shaped under the guidance of the "Builders," the gods, "Cosmocratores;" the latter are fashioned by the Elementals or Nature Spirits." TRANS 128-9 "Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of Consciousness grouped under Thought, Will, and Feeling. During deep sleep, ideation ceases of the physical plane, and memory is in abeyance; thus for the time-being "Mind is not," because the organ through which the Ego manifests ideation and memory on the material plane has temporarily ceased to function. A noumenon can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle...The Ah-hi (Dhyan-Chohans) are the collective hosts of spiritual beings--the Angelic Hosts of Christianity...--who are the vehicle for the manifestation of the divine or universal though and will. They are the Intelligent Forces that give to and enact in Nature her "laws," while themselves acting according to laws imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers...This hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the Universal Mind comes into action, is like an army--a "Host." SD I 38 "..."Mind" is manas, or rather its lower reflection, which whenever it disconnects itself, for the time being, with kama, becomes the guide of the highest mental faculties, and is the organ of the free-will in physical man...." HPB Art., Vol. II, p. 13 [ In The Key to Theosophy Mme. Blavatsky gives the same general facts relating to Kama-loca and to Devachan, and traces the progress of the principles of man after the death of the body. Skandhas are considered by her as the "carriers" of man's karma. She proceeds in the next chapters (x, xi) to explain the nature of the Mind - "Thinking Principle" - and Reincarnation as a universal process of progression. KEY pp. 143 - 226 ] Correspondence of the 7 Cosmic and 7 Human "principles." ====================================================== Human aspects or Cosmic aspects or Principles Principles ==================================================== TRIPLE ASPECT OF THE DEITY 1. Universal Spirit (Atma) The Unmanifested Logos 2. Spiritual Soul (Buddhi) Universal (latent) Ideation (see F, note p. 597) 3. Human Soul, Mind (Manas) Universal (or Cosmic) active Intelligence SPIRIT OF THE EARTH 4. Animal Soul (Kama-Rupa) Cosmic Chaotic energy 5. Astral Body (Linga-Sarira) Astral Ideation, reflecting terrestrial things. 6. Life Essence (Prana) Life Essence or Energy 7. Body (Sthula Sarira) The Earth. [ from: SD II 596] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- Table From: Secret Doctrine I p. 157 Seven-fold Man and His Vehicles in States of Consciousness ============================================================= Classification in Vedantic Classification in "Esoteric Buddhism" Classification Taraka Raja Yoga ================================================================ 1 Sthula Sarira . . Annamaya Kosa + [Food made ¦ | body] ¦ Sthulopadhi | [ Jagrat ] 2 Prana (Life) . + | [ awake in the | Pranamaya Kosa ¦ body ] | [Sutratma] + 3 Vehicle of Prana | Linga Sarira or ¦ Astral body 4 Kama Rupa . Volitions and + Manomaya Kosa | Sukshmopadhi Feelings [Mind Sheath] | [ Swapna] | the dream state | 5 Mind ¦ | Vignanam Vignanamaya Kosa + [Knowledge] 6 Spiritual Soul . Anandamaya Kosa Karanopadhi (Buddhi) [Contemplative, [ Sushupti] [blissful state] [ deep sleep ] 7 Atma . . . Atma . . Atma [ Turiya ] [ Upeksha] [ From: SD I p 157] ================================================================= DURING LIFE SWAPNA -- Psychic Dreaming "In the dream state we lose all knowledge of the objects which while awake we thought real and proceed to suffer and enjoy in that new state. [ see SD I 47 ] In this we find the consciousness applying itself to objects partaking of course of the nature of experiences of the waking condition, but at the same time producing the sensations of pleasure and pain while they last. [ see SD I 56 ] Let us imagine a person's body plunged in a lethargy extending over twenty years and the mind undergoing a pleasant or unpleasant dream, and we have a life just of that sort, altogether different from the life of one awake. For the consciousness of this dreamer the reality of objects known during the waking state is destroyed. But as material existence is a necessary evil and the one is which alone emancipation or salvation can be obtained, it is of the greatest importance and hence Karma which governs it...must be well understood and then be accepted and obeyed." Echoes. pp. 41-42 "Dreams are sometimes the result of brain action automatically proceeding, and are also produced by the transmission into the brain by the real inner person of those senses or ideas high or low which the real person has seen while the body slept. They are then strained into the brain as if floating on the soul as it sinks into the body. These dreams may be of great use, but generally the resumption of bodily activity destroys the meaning, perverts the image, and reduces all to confusion. But the great fact of all dreaming is that some one perceives and feels therein and this is one of the arguments for the inner person's existence. In sleep the inner man communes with higher intelligences, and sometimes succeeds in impressing the brain with what is gained, either a high idea or a prophetic vision, or else fails in consequence of the resistance of the brain fiber. The karma of the person also determines the meaning of a dream, for a kind may dream that which relates to his kingdom, which the same thing dreamed by a citizen relates to nothing of temporal consequence. But, as said by Job: "In dreams and visions of the night man is instructed." Ocean, p. 143-4 "When one says "I dreamed," he is in the waking state and is surrounded by the external conditions that go to make up that state of consciousness; he is therefore comparing the state in which he finds himself with another state whose surroundings are not then present or evident...in the dreaming state, all that made up his waking state is absent from his perceptions and he is surrounded by a world of his own creation, which for the time being is objective and real to him; his perceptions are "awake" to the dream and immersed in it, so he has nothing before him to compare the states of waking and dreaming with. Should he be able to make comparisons , the dream state would cease and he would be awake." Answers to Questions, p. 94-5 ======================================================== SUSHUPTI -- Deep Sleep (Spiritual Dreaming ) "Dreamless sleep is one of the seven states of consciousness known in Oriental esotericism. In each of these states a different portion of the mind comes into action; or as a Vedantin would express it, the individual is conscious in a different plane of his being. The term "dreamless sleep," in this case is applied allegorically to the Universe to express a condition somewhat analogous to that state of consciousness in man, which, not being remembered is a waking state, seems a blank, just as the sleep of the mesmerized subject seems to him an unconscious blank when he returns to his normal condition, although he has been talking and acting as a conscious individual would." SD I 47 "...dreamless sleep--one that leaves no impression on the physical memory and brain, because the sleeper's Higher Self is in its original state of absolute unconsciousness during those hours...re-absorption is by no means such a "dreamless sleep," but, on the contrary, absolute existence, an unconditioned unity, or a state, to describe which human language is absolutely hopelessly inadequate...it can be attempted solely in the panoramic visions of the soul, through spiritual ideations of the divine monad." [ see also SD I 429 top ] SD I 266 "Buddhi the Spiritual soul...because it is the direct cause of Sushupti [deep sleep]...leading to Turiya...the highest state of Samadhi [ Meditation ]...Buddhi becomes a "causal body" in conjunction with Manas the incarnation of the Entity or Ego..." Glossary, p. 74 "There is a sort of conscious telegraphic communication going on incessantly, day and night, between the physical brain and the inner man...the consciousness of the sleeper is not active but passive. The inner man, however, the real Ego, acts independently during the sleep of the body...Read "Karmic Visions" [ HPB ART I, 382 ]...and note the description of the real Ego, sitting as a spectator of the life of the hero..." TRANS 64-5 "There are many kinds of "dreams"...the highest of them being recollections of the activity and real awakens of the Inner Man, but these are not ordinarily translatable into terms of bodily consciousness." Ans. to Quest. p. 95 "As a rule, all that we experience of a dream from the inner man is a feeling, for the dream being strained through the brain is all broken and confused. A dream that makes a profound impression...cannot be a mere surface dream." Ans. to Quest. 220 "In every night he enters that spiritual state, his own true nature. Connection between the Lower and the Higher Manas must be made during life in a body; it cannot be made at any other time." Ans to Quest. 175 "Good resolutions are mind-painted pictures of good deeds, fancies, day-dreams, whisperings of the Buddhi to the Manas..." Letters from the Masters of Wisdom (I) p 60-1 ========================================================== IMAGINATION "...the plastic power of the imagination is much stronger in some persons than in others. The mind is dual in its potentiality; It is physical and metaphysical. The higher part of the mind is connected with the spiritual soul or Buddhi, the lower with the animal soul, the Kama principle. There are persons who never think with the higher faculties of their mind at all; those who do so are the minority and are thus, in a way, beyond, if not above, the average of human kind. The idiosyncrasy of the person determines in which "principle" of the mind the thinking is done, as also the faculties of a preceding life, and sometimes the heredity of the physical. This is why it is so very difficult for a materialist--the metaphysical portion of whose brain is almost atrophied--to raise himself, or for one who is naturally spiritually minded, to descend to the level of the matter-of-fact vulgar thought...[ Thinking to be developed in the higher mind ? ]...Certainly it can be developed, but only with great difficulty, a firm determination, and through much self-sacrifice...This difference depends simply on the innate power of the mind to think on the higher or on the lower plane, with the astral...or with the physical brain. Great intellectual powers are often no proof of, but are the impediments to spiritual and right conceptions...The person who is endowed with this faculty of thinking about even the most trifling things from the higher plane of thought has, by virtue of that gift which he possesses, a plastic power of formation, so to say, in his very imagination...his thought will be so far more intense that the thought of an ordinary person, that by his very intensity it obtains the power of creation...thought is an energy. This energy in its action disturbs the atoms of the astral atmosphere around us...the rays of thought have the same potentiality for producing forms in the astral atmosphere as the sun rays have with regard to a lens. Every thought so evolved with energy from the brain, creates nolens volens a shape." HPB-- Dialogues -- HPB Art. II 42-3 "...the human brain is simply the canal between two planes--the psycho-spiritual and the material--through which every abstract and metaphysical idea filters from the Manasic down to the lower human consciousness. Therefore the ideas about the infinite and the absolute are not, nor can they be, within our brain capacities. They can be faithfully mirrored only by our Spiritual consciousness, thence to be more of less faintly projected on to the tables of our perceptions on this plane. Thus while the records of even important events are often obliterated from our memory, not the most trifling action of our lives can disappear from the "Soul's" memory, because it is no memory for it, but an ever-present reality on the plane which lies outside our conceptions of space and time. "Man is the measure of all things," said Aristotle; and surely he did not mean by man, the form of flesh, bones and muscles ? ... As our world is mostly formed of imperceptible beings which are the real constructors of its continents, so likewise is man." HPB--Memory in the Dying -- HPB Art. II 378-9 ====================================================== MEMORY "Our "memory" is but a general agent, and its "tablets," with their indelible impressions, but a figure of speech; the "brain-tablets" serve only as a upadhi or a vahan (basis or vehicle) for reflecting at a given moment the memory of one or another thing. The records of past events, of every minutest action, and of passing thoughts, in fact, are realty impressed on the imperishable waves of the Astral Light, around us and everywhere, not in the brain alone; and these mental pictures, images, and sounds, pass from these waves via the consciousness of the personal Ego or Mind (the lower Manas) whose grosser essence is astral, into the "cerebral reflectors," so to say, of our brain, whence they are delivered by the psychic to the sensuous consciousness. This at every moment of the day, and even during sleep." Theos. Art. & Notes, p. 209 "...Genius--an abnormal aptitude of mind--that develops and grows, or the physical brain, is vehicle, which becomes...fitter to receive and manifest from within outwardly the innate and divine nature of man's over-soul." HPB-- "Genius" -- HPB Art. II 119 ===================================================== The MONAD "Every atom is endowed with and moved by intelligence, and is conscious in its own degree, on its own plane of development. This is a glimpse of the One Life... selfishness is the curse of separateness..." WQJ ART I 29 "Every man has a god within, a direct ray from the Absolute, the celestial ray from the One..." TRANS 53 "Monad (Gr.) The Unity, the one; but in Occultism it often means the unified triad, Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or the duad, Atma-Buddhi, that immortal part of man which reincarnates in the lower kingdoms, and gradually progresses through them to Man and then to the final goal--Nirvana.” T. Glossary, p. 216 [see SD I pp. 173-4 footnotes] "...the whole secret of Life is in the unbroken series of its manifestations: whether in, or apart from, the physical body...yet it is itself part and parcel of that Eternity; for life alone can understand life... It is Jiva, the Monad in conjunction with Manas, or rather its aroma--that which remains from each personality, when worthy, and hangs from Atma-Buddhi, the Flame, by the thread of life." SD I 238 =================================================== INTUITION "...a projection of our perceptive consciousness, a projection which acts from the subjective to the objective...awakens in us spiritual senses and the power to act; these senses assimilate to themselves the essence of the object or of the action under examination, and represent it to us as it really is, not as it appears to our physical senses and to our cold reason...omniscience." HPB Articles I 428 "...the "Ego" in man is a monad that has gathered to itself innumerable experiences through aeons of time, slowly unfolding its latent potencies through plane after plane of matter. It is hence called the "eternal pilgrim." The Manasic, or mind principle, is cosmic and universal. It is the creator of all forms, and the basis of all law in nature. Not so with consciousness. Consciousness is a condition of the monad as a result of embodiment in matter and the dwelling in a physical form. Self-consciousness, which from the animal plane looking upward is the beginning of perfection, from the divine plane looking downwards is the perfection of selfishness and the curse of separateness. it is the "world of illusion" that man has created for himself. "Maya is the perceptive faculty of every Ego which considers itself a Unit, separate from and independent of the One Infinite and Eternal Sat or 'be-ness'," (SD I 329) The "eternal pilgrim" must therefore mount higher, and flee from the plane of self-consciousness it has struggled so hard to reach." WQJ ART I 29 "the one free force acts, helped in this by that portion of its essence which we call imprisoned force, or material molecules. The worker within, the inherent force, ever tends to unite with its parent essence without; and thus, the Mother acting within, causes the Web to contract; and the Father acting without, to expand. Science calls this gravitation; Occultists, the work of the universal Life-Force, which radiates from that Absolute and Unknowable FORCE which is outside of all Space and Time. This is the work of eternal Evolution and involution, or expansion and contraction. [ Web cooling ]...it begins when the imprisoned force and intelligence inherent in every atom of differentiated as well as of homogeneous matter arrives at a point when both become the slaves of a higher intelligent Force whose mission is to guide and shape it. It is the Force which we call the divine Free-Will, represented by the Dhyani-Buddhas. When the centrepetal and centrifugal forces of life and being are subjected by the one nameless Force which brings order in disorder, and establishes harmony in Chaos--then it begins cooling...Every form, we are told, is built in accordance with the model traced for it in the Eternity and reflected in the DIVINE MIND. There are hierarchies of "Builders of form," and series of forms and degrees, from the highest to the lowest. While the former are shaped under the guidance of the "Builders," the gods, "Cosmocratores;" the latter are fashioned by the Elementals or Nature Spirits." Trans 128-9 "The universal force cannot be regarded as a conscious force as we understand the word consciousness, because it would immediately become a personal god. It is only that which is enclosed in a form, a limitation of matter, which is conscious of itself on this plane. This Free Force or Will, which is limitless and absolute, cannot be said to act understandingly, but it is the one and sole immutable Law of Life and Being. Fohat, therefore, is spoken of as the synthetic motor power of all imprisoned life-forces and the medium between the absolute and conditioned Force. It is a link, just as Manas is the connecting link between the gross matter of the physical body and the divine Monad which animates it, but is powerless to act upon the former directly." Trans 134 ======================================================= SAMADHI "...the highest state permitted to it (personal or animal soul) on earth being samadhi. It is only its essence that has followed the monad into Devachan, to serve it there as its ground-tone, or as the background against which its future dream-life and development will move...That which is in Devachan is...the smell of the flower...its aroma will never die, and may be recalled and resurrected ages thence..." T. A. & N., p 24 ================================================ TURIYA "Turiya (Sk.) A state of the deepest trance--the 4th state of the Taraka Raja Yoga, on the corresponds with Atma, and on this earth within dreamless sleep--a causal condition...almost a Nirvanic state if Samadhi, which is itself a beatific state of the contemplative Yoga beyond this plane. A condition of the higher Triad, quite distinct (though still inseparable) from the conditions of Jagrat (waking), Swapna (dreaming), and Sushupti [dreamless] (sleeping)" Glos. 345-6 ================================ Best wishes, Dallas ================================ -----Original Message----- From: Cass Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 7:41 PM To: Subject: Re: OVERSHADOWING I have been reading 7 scales of consciousness and thought this particular paragraph relevent to the topic. "The final stage from our perspective has to do with advanced evolution beyond our experience. For us the moments of merger with the Great Singularity are a flash. We grasp only a small portion of its intensity before our systems overload. We quickly explode into the Big Bang. Our small conscious being can only handle a glimpse of infinity. Larger and more complex systems are required to process the greater amounts of energy involved. This is the business of the macrocosmos. It has to do with conscious entities much more evolved than Man.