Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00253)

March 15 2005


Some ANSWERS on OCCULTISM



PRACTISE OF OCCULTISM.

>From Adelphi - A most perplexed individual is writing to you. I
have been for three years endeavoring to study Theosophy. I have heard
lectures, have read an immense amount of literature devoted to that cult,
from the sages of old down to the Sinnetts, Olcotts, and Blavatskys of the
present day. I have conned the Yoga Philosophy and I read The Path. Light on
the Path aids me not, nor does Bhagavad Gita, and why? Because I am yet
without the first steps towards practice. (Surely Theosophy - like other
sciences - must have something practical about it?) Guide me with your
friendly hints. Imagine me alone in a room. How to commence? Show me the
first step upon the practical ladder! All I have heard and read seemeth to
me so elaborately unintelligible that I lay it aside and beg you to instruct
me in my Theosophical A B C, Astral Light! Is it a figurative light, i.e.
Revelation? or is it a light, as electricity - the Heavens - coal - gives
light? If abstract (into insensibility) is necessary, can you instruct me
upon Hypnotism (self mesmerism)? "A shining object" is advised to stare at!
A mirror is a shining object, for instance. But of what avail to stare at a
mirror and see reflected ugliness!


ANSWER - You say that for three years you have been endeavoring to study
Theosophy. Such being the case, you will meet with but little success.
Divine Wisdom can not be a subject for study, but it may be an object of
search.

With the love for this same wisdom uppermost in our hearts, we ask you if
it would not be wiser to lay aside the study of so called Theosophy and
study yourself. Knowing yourself you know all men, the worlds seen and
occult, and find Theo-Sophia. 

One cannot absorb Theosophy as a sponge does water, to be expelled at the
slightest touch. Our conception of Theosophy is apt to be based upon the
idea that it is an especial line of teaching - a larger, wider, and great
doctrine than others perhaps, but still a doctrine, and therefore limited. 

We must bear in mind that the true Theosophist belongs to no cult or sect,
yet belongs to each and all; that he can find the true object of his search
equally as well in the Hebrew bible as in the Yoga philosophy, in the New
Testament equally as well as in the Bhagavad-Gita.

You say you have "conned the Yoga philosophy." This is not enough; merely 
to "con" it is not to know it. It is in fact a most practical system (if you
refer to that of Patanjali), and one that will meet all requirements you
have in the way of difficulty; for it is one of the most difficult. It is
not possible for you to judge its merits without practice: and it gives full
directions. 

If for three years you study and practice it - aye for one year -- you will
find that you need no other. In these matters there is no child's play nor
the usual English and American method of mere book-learning, - we 
must absorb and work into the practice and the theory laid down, for 
they are not written merely for the intellect, but for the whole spiritual 
nature. 

There must be within the man something which he already knows, that 
leaps up and out when he scans the books of wisdom; a thing already 
existing, which only takes an added life or confirmation from books. 
True Theosophy has all that is practical, but many forget this; there is no 
greater system of practice than that required by it.

Desire wisdom; love all men; do your duty; forget yourself; let each 
thought and act of your life have for its aim the finding of divine wisdom; 
strive to apply that wisdom for he good of other men. If you search in every
direction, Light must come to you. Let the place in which you now are be 
the lonely room you speak of, and seek to find in everything the meaning. 

Strive to know what they are, and by what governed or caused. This the first
step. Live your life with this ever before you. Purify your thought as well
as your body. Reason all you can, feel all with your heart you may, and when
intellect and heart fail you, seek for something higher. This is the A.B.C.;
it is enough for the present.

It is not Theosophy that is a science, but its application. It is not a
"cult," for it covers and includes all.

The Astral Light is an actuality. It is not revelation, but a means through
which that which causes revelation acts. Electricity, the heavens, all lower
fires, are but the shadows of the Astral Light, just as the Astral Light is
but the darkness of the Ineffable Light.

Abstraction into insensibility is not intended. If it had been so intended
it would be unnecessary for us to be in these bodies. If you can forget
yourself sufficiently - forget that you exist as a human body, you will not
need to stare at a mirror; but so long as you realize, when staring into a
glass, whether you be pretty or ugly, you can not reach Celestial
sensibility or terrestrial insensibility.

Hypnotism is the controlling of other personalities. Under this you would be
but a puppet for the thought of another. Your outer self had better become a
puppet for you own thought.

We seek to make the body alive, not to kill it.


IMAGINATION


>From C S	First of all lets define IMAGINATION. 

ANSWER  

“Imagination. In Occultism this is not to be confused with fancy, as it is
one of the plastic powers of the higher Soul, and is the memory of the
preceding incarnations, which, however disfigured by the lower Manas, yet
rests always on a ground of truth.” T. Glos 152


TWO PATHS ? -- WHY ?


>From J. V. -	"There are two ways to ascend and descend, the direct and
indirect." Tea Table, Oct. Path. (I) What are these ways?

Answer -	The thistle down is blown hither and thither with every
breath of wind: The arrow speeds straight to the mark from the powerful bow.

The indirect way is that of the thistle down; the Astral going out when the
body is asleep, does so in a diffused condition - a passive state - with no
adequate force to control it or master unseen forces. It floats at the mercy
of every current in the Astral, gleaning here and there as a butterfly but
taking the good and bad indiscriminately. It may reach high spheres, but is
more likely to remain in those nearest to the physical. This way is
travelled by all when asleep, and there dreams are made. It is the passive
state where desire is the ruler, and sometimes travelled in the waking
conscious state, but is uncontrollable and unreliable.

The direct way is that of the arrow from the bow. The Astral speeds directly
to the sphere which holds the knowledge it is to receive. It does so in
obedience to an irresistible force - the Will: 

Will in accordance with divine law. It is concrete going and returning in 
obedience to this force, bringing little with it from intermediate spheres
other 
than that for which it is seeking. 

This occurs in dreamless slumber and the knowledge acquired
is not communicated in a dream. This way is travelled in the conscious state
for it is the way of the student of the Occult. Unless the man's thought and
motive are pure, he is incapable of using the true will, and his Astral goes
where other wills or forces drive it. It pauses when other forces interfere
- learns from the place it happens to be in, and brings back a horrible
jumble sometimes.


Where do these ways lead?


ANSWER	One way leads to Theosophia - Illumination - when traveled 
awake or asleep.

The other to consideration of self - ordinary living with its erroneous
conceptions - as an Occult way, to love of phenomena and spiritism.

They lead to spheres within the astral, for the astral body passes not
beyond astral limits. 

Only when the soul is freed from the astral and
material bodies does it pass to higher spheres. These ways also lead to
planets, stars, and other worlds, for all these may be within the astral of
this globe.


VISIONS


>From M. J. G. - Whence come the visions seen just before dropping to sleep? 

They are uncontrollable - sometimes unpleasant, and have increased
since childhood, and since beginning the study of Occultism.


Answer - When we enter that condition called sleep, we open wide the doors
and windows of the body or this house we live in, and the soul goes forth as
a bird freed from its cage. 

In partial unconsciousness or falling into sleep, the body has, to a great
extent, 
ceased to act, but the brain is still sensitive or receptive to the pictures
or 
impressions of the Astral.

Of the lower principles the Astral is the last to cease action either in
sleep or 
death. The brain is its instrument. 

In the partial somnolent condition, the pictures of the Astral are conveyed
to the 
brain; through that the outer man realizes and beholds the visions. 

If he were fully asleep these visions would be dreams. Precisely, as 
dreams, they may be either pleasant or the reverse. 

Like dreams they are uncontrollable by the ordinary every day mortal. 

The Occultist being master of himself beholds only that which he desires, 
either in vision, or dream, or neither. As one makes himself more sensitive 
to impressions from the Astral when and after he begins the study of 
Occultism, visions and dreams will increase in frequency for a time.


WILL

>From J. C. V. - What is true Will? Is it a faculty of the soul? How
is it one 
with the Divine Will and how may we make our will at one with the Divine? 
Is it something which now we know not, or may we perceive its germ in our 
own Will, or is it an instinctive movement of the soul?


ANSWER -	(I) The will as known to man is that force which he exerts
for the accomplishment of his aims - he uses it blindly and ignorantly - and
self is always the one for which he uses it. It is used as a brute force. 

As ordinarily used it has little tendency to lift the personality farther
than
the attainment of material results. It has for its source, the lower
elements 
of the soul. 

The true will is a concentrated force working steadily yet gently,
dominating 
both soul and person, having its source in the spirit and highest elements
of 
the soul. 

It is never used for the gratification of self, is inspired by the highest
of motives, 
is never interposed to violate a law, but works in harmony with the unseen
as 
well as the seen. It is manifested through the human will for things
visible.

(2) It is more that a faculty of the soul, for it is the soul at work. The
spirit is 
unmanifest except through the soul. The soul manifesting the spirit is the
true 
will. The human will is the lowest form of this manifestation.

(3) As the true will is the manifestation of the spirit through the soul, it
must 
be at one with the divine, inasmuch as the spirit is the divine in man.

It is the God in man, a portion of the all-pervading. 

Asserting itself through the soul, the true will is brought forth and in
truth 
we say, "It is the will of God." 

We may make our finite wills at one with the divine by elevating our aim, 
using it for good or in the search for God, in striving to find how to use
it 
in harmony with the laws of God. By proper use in the right direction the 
human will becomes purified, elevated, and being exerted only in conformity 
with our highest ideal, eventually becomes at one with the highest in man.

In our ordinary material state we know only the human will. Through the
human will we reach the divine will. We become aware of the true will
through the ordinary will just as we become aware of the soul through the
body. It is not instinctive of the soul. The soul is father of the human
will - the spirit is father of the true will.


PURE MOTIVE AND THOUGHT

>From E. L. T. - "A great deal depends on purity of thought and
motive," 
Oct. Path, p. 220. Please explain what should be the actuating motive in
developing psychic capacities.


ANSWER - The desire to find God, the desire to know one's self, our
possibilities and capabilities, that we may be of true use to the world,
these are the motives. The thought should be unselfish, undisturbed by
material affairs - free from wonder-seeking curiosity, concentrated, and in
entire accord with the motive, the search for God.	


ASTRAL BODY CONTROL ?


>From M. E. C. - What steps must I take to open the heart so as to exercise
the Will for governing the Astral body?


ANSWER - There is but one way to open the heart. That is by living the life.
It is a simple matter to govern the will, but this is not the true will. The
governing of the Astral body is the smallest of the tasks of the true will.

The will should be used to obtain wisdom, and when so used it will control
the Astral body without effort. 

We should exert psychic powers only to benefit others, 
never to free ourselves from the disagreeable. Let you aim
be to find God; your motive, to know yourself for the sake of Theo-Sophia
and humanity: you desire, to help humanity, and the True Will, will be
developed, the heart opened and you will not only control the Astral body
but all in the Astral. 

You must seek beyond the Astral for powers, but it is not wise to desire the
acquisition of powers. Let your aim be beyond that, and the powers will grow
of themselves. If the strong-willed or sick depress you, seek to aid each in
some way, forget that you are depressed, forget your self, and they will not
affect you. 

The life of the Occult student is full of sorrow, anguish and depressing
influences. These go to make him a student in the Occult. 

A portion of his training is to become aware of these only in so far as they
affect others. As to their affecting his own personality, he does not know
they exist. If you desire to help humanity, then you possess the true
motive. If you use your will in this cause, wisdom, peace and all the powers
will be given.

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

KARMA: 

C Is Karma universal and mechanical ?

ANSWER: Karma is not a doctrine of an eye for an eye. It is a doctrine of
learning. If you think, act, or desire harm or happiness towards others, it
is 
returned to you. If you harm someone, then to understand the harm you
caused you need to experience it for yourself. In that way you, are 
knowledgeable, and if you are smart, and don’t want to feel that pain
again, you will learn from the experience.


>From C :Please define Beness: Being or Beness is simply "existing" in my
understanding, and according to some philosophers is the same as living
meaninglessly.


Answer: KARMA IS UNIVERSAL LAW – it is Brotherhood in action 
everywhere. All beings are subject to Karma. It provides life and 
environment to all. It is universally sensitive and adjusts all wrongs.  


“KARMA (Sk.). Physically, action: metaphysically, the LAW OF 
RETRIBUTION, the Law of cause and effect or Ethical Causation. 
Nemesis, only in one sense, that of bad Karma. It is the eleventh Nidana 
in the concatenation of causes and effects in orthodox Buddhism ; yet it is 
the power that controls all things, the resultant of moral action, the 
metaphysical Samskâra, or the moral effect of an act committed for the 
attainment of something which gratifies a personal desire. 

There is the Karma of merit and the Karma of demerit. Karma neither 
Punishes nor rewards, it is simply the one Universal LAW which guides 
unerringly, and, so to say, blindly, all other laws productive of certain
effects 
along the grooves of their respective causations. 

When Buddhism teaches that “Karma is that moral kernel (of any being) 
which alone survives death and continues in transmigration ‘ or
reincarnation, 
it simply means that there remains nought after each Personality but the
causes 
produced by it ; causes which are undying, i.e., which cannot be eliminated 
from the Universe until replaced by their legitimate effects, and wiped out
by 
them, so to speak, and such causes—unless compensated during the life of the

person who produced them with adequate effects, will follow the reincarnated

Ego, and reach it in its subsequent reincarnation until a harmony between
effects 
and causes is fully reestablished. 

No “personality”—a mere bundle of material atoms and of instinctual and
mental characteristics—can of course continue, as such, in the world of pure
Spirit. 

Only that which is immortal in its very nature and divine in its essence,
namely, the Ego, can exist for ever. And as it is that Ego which chooses the
personality it will inform, after each Devachan, and which receives through
these personalities the effects of the Karmic causes produced, it is
therefore the Ego, that self which is the “moral kernel” referred to and
embodied karma, “which alone survives death.” T. GLOS. pp 173-4


BE-NESS ? The ABSOLUTE ?

BE-NESS is the absolute indescribable background to all life. It is a term
that indicates the continuity of all consciousness throughout the period of
rest called a Pralaya.


“BE-NESS. [Is] a term coined by Theosophists to render more accurately
the
essential meaning of the untranslatable word SAT. The latter word does not
mean “Being” for it presupposes a sentient feeling or some consciousness of
existence. But, as the term Sat is applied solely to the absolute Principle,
the universal, unknown, and ever unknowable Presence, which philosophical
Pantheism postulates in Kosmos, calling it the basic root of Kosmos. and
Kosmos itself— “Being” was no fit word to express it. Indeed, the latter is
not even, as translated by some Orientalists, “the incomprehensible Entity”;
for it is no more an Entity than a non-Entity, but both. It is, as said,
absolute Be-ness, not Being, the one secondless, undivided, and indivisible
All—the root of all Nature visible and invisible, objective and subjective,
to be sensed by the highest spiritual intuition, but’ never to be fully
comprehended.” Glos p 53


Q.:	I want to know why Animals suffer when there is obviously no Karma 
attached to their existence.

Answer: There are many reasons, as they are equally involved (as immortal 
monads) in evolution. Our own body is an "animal." It is informed by a
"god-like consciousness" in potential. We share our monads with the animals
and thus
our Karma affects them. The great gap between us is the nature of the MIND.
They are still to acquire it. 

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


PROTECTION AND KINDNESS TO ANIMALS


"...the purest as the noblest of all existing systems of ethics, Buddhism -
-inculcates kindness and protection to every living creature, from animal
and bird down to the creeping thing and even the reptile. Alone, our
Western religion stands in its isolation, as a monument to the most gigantic
human selfishness ever evolved by human brain, without one word in favor of,
or for the protection of the poor animal."	HPB Art II 328


KARMA OF ANIMALS


"Animals have Karma, or consequence of act, but they have not man's
responsibility. While they seem to suffer and enjoy, it is all without any
self-consciousness, and hence is less in itself and less lasting in effect.
Their karma is bound up with man; and he is the responsible one and will
have to bear the responsibility, although they feel the burden directly."
WQJ Art II 566  


"...the effect of Karma upon the animals...(15) the whole of creation waits
upon man and groans that he keeps back the enlightenment of all. What
happens when...you crush out the life of a common croton bug ? Well, it is
destroyed and you forget it. But you brought it to an untimely end, short
though its life would have been. Imagine this being done at hundreds and
thousands of places...Each of these little creatures had life, and energy;
each some degree of intelligence, The sum total of effects of all these
deaths of small things must be appreciable. If not, then our doctrines are
wrong and there is no wrong in putting our the life of a human being ...
[animals] killed for sport..."	WQJ Art I 14-5
	

"The brutes unconsciously are aware of the general human opposition, which
in each human being they see focalized."	WQJ Letters 87



KAMA - CENTER OF THE ANIMAL MAN


"...(d) Kama rupa -- The seat of animal desires and passions. -- This is
the center of the animal man, where lies the line of demarcation which
separates the mortal man from the immortal entity."	Key 91

"The difference between animals and men is this: the former are ensouled by
the "principles" potentially, the latter actually."	Key 104

"...(the) animal soul (Nephesh of the Hebrew Kabalist)...the ray which
emanates from the Higher Manas or permanent EGO, and is that "principle"
which forms the human mind--in animals instinct."	Trans. 59


"...man has one "principle" more than the tiniest insect, but because man is
a perfected animal, the vehicle of a fully developed monad, self-conscious
and deliberately following its own line of progress, whereas in the insect,
and even the higher animal, the higher triad of principles is absolutely
dormant."	Trans. 14-15


"A dog that has to exercise its own sagacity to find food, will sooner
develop psychical powers in that direction, than one that does nothing but
eat and sleep, and the individual or differentiated monad of the former will
sooner reach the condition necessary to enter the human kingdom. The
rudiments of hope, patience, faith, fidelity, confidence, etc., are found in
the animal kingdom."	-- HPB Theosophist 5- p. 223 


MAN'S FORM IS AN ANIMAL


"Man...in his outward form, simply an animal, hardly more perfect than his
pithecoid-like ancestor of the 3rd Round. He is a living body, not a living
being, since the realization of existence, the "Ego-Sum," necessitates
self-consciousness, and an animal can only have direct consciousness, or
instinct. The soul, whose body vehicle is the Astral, ethereo-substantial
envelope, could die, and man be still living on earth--i.e., the soul could
free itself from and quit the tabernacle for various reasons--such as
insanity, spiritual and physical depravity, etc. Therefore that which
living men (Initiates) can do, the Dhyanis, who have no physical body to
hamper them, can do still better."	SD I 134-5



SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE ABYSS 
BETWEEN THE PSYCHIC AND THE NOETIC


"...Self-consciousness belongs alone to man and proceeds from the SELF, the
higher Manas. Only, whereas the psychic element (or Kama-manas) is common
to both the animal and the human being--the far higher degree of its
development in the latter resting merely on the greater perfection and
sensitiveness of his cerebral cells--no physiologist...will ever be able to
solve the mystery of the human mind, in its highest spiritual manifestation,
or in its dual aspect of the psychic and the noetic (or the manasic)...he
would have to admit a lower (animal), and a higher (or divine) mind in man,
or what is known in Occultism as the "personal" and the "impersonal" (10)
Egos. For, between the psychic and the noetic, between the personality and
the individuality, there exists the same abyss as between a "Jack the
Ripper," and a holy Buddha."	HPB Art II 9-10



"Between man and animal--whose Monads (or Jivas) are fundamentally
identical--there is the impassable abyss of Mentality and
Self-consciousness. What is human mind in it higher aspect, whence comes
it, if it is not a portion of the essence--and, in some rare cases of
incarnation, the very essence--of a higher Being: one from a higher and
divine plane? Can man--a god in the animal form--be the product of Material
Nature by evolution alone. even as is the animal, which differs from man in
external shape, but by no means in the materials of its physical fabric, and
is informed by the same, though undeveloped, Monad--seeing that the
intellectual potentialities of the two differ as the Sun does from the
Glow-worm ? And what is it that creates such a difference, unless man is an
animal plus a living god within his physical shell ?"	S D II 81



MAN A PERFECTED ANIMAL -- VEHICLE OF A MONAD


"...man is a perfected animal, the vehicle of a fully developed monad,
self-conscious and deliberately following its own line of progress, whereas
in the insect, and even the higher animal, the higher triad of principles is
absolutely dormant." Trans. 14-15



LIGHTING UP OF THE MANAS (MIND)


"Having passed through all the kingdoms of nature in the previous three
Rounds, his physical frame--one adapted to the thermal conditions of those
early periods--was ready to receive the divine Pilgrim at the first dawn of
human life, i.e., 18,000,000 years ago. It is only at the (255) mid-point
of the 3rd Root-Race that man was endowed with Manas. Once united the two
and then the three made one; for though the lower animals, from the amoeba
to man, received their monads, in which all the higher qualities are
potential, all have to remain dormant till each reaches its human form,
before which stage manas (mind) has no development in them. In the animals
every principle is paralyzed, and in a fetus-like state, save the 2nd
(vital) and the 3rd (the astral), and the rudiments of the 4th (Kama, which
is desire, instinct) whose intensity and development varies and changes with
the species."	S D II 254-5


"Atma-Buddhi [ Monad ] is dual and Manas is triple; inasmuch as the former
has two aspects, and the latter three, i.e., as a principle per se, which
gravitates, in its higher aspect, to Atma-Buddhi, and follows, in its lower
nature, Kama, the seat of terrestrial divisions awakening to intelligence;
and the third and last decidedly animal: i.e., Manas succumbs to the
temptations of Kama." Men are made complete only during their third, toward
the fourth cycle (race). They are made "gods" for good or evil, and
responsible only when the two arcs meet (after 3 1/2 Rounds towards the
fifth Race). They are made so by the Nirmanakaya (spiritual or astral
remains) of the Rudra-Kumaras, "cursed to be reborn on earth again; meaning
doomed in their natural turn to reincarnation in the higher ascending arc of
the terrestrial cycle."	SD II 254-5fn


PHYSICAL MAN


"The physical man is as little responsible as a dog or a mouse. For the
bodily form all is over with the death of the body. But for the real SELF,
that which emanated its own shadow, or the lower thinking personality, that
enacted and pulled the wires during the life of the physical automaton, will
have to suffer conjointly with its factotum and alter ego in the next
incarnation."	Trans. 67




NON-ATTACHMENT or ISOLATION ?


>From C: I also want to know how we are meant to be non-attached. I am
referring to those that we love, how are we supposed to dis-attach ourselves
from them, as did Gautama. To me this non-attachment leads to isolation.


ANSWER: Motive is everything. Love is the one affection that binds all
life
together. It is all the virtues taken together in application. Vice or
selfishness is destructive and causes all "bad karma."

“Non-attachment” means fairness and equity in the treatment of others. We
should love all our fellows, neighbors and family equally.



>From W B. - (I) Is it well to cultivate the intellect at the
expense of the heart? Do we not pay too much attention to intellectual
progress, and in so doing allow the Heart-Mind to wander where it may?


ANSWER - It is not wise to cultivate either at the expense of the other.
Each alone will end at the same place - The Threshold. Both are excellent
means for the manifestation of that which is higher that either, when
cultivated to their highest in unison. Both are useless after a certain
point, except as tools for truth. Metaphysics, logic and emotion all end at
a dead wall.

{Answers from THE PATH}


Best wishes

Dallas