Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00654)

Mar 28 2005

Dear E and Friends:

Please see notes below (in your text)

Thanks

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Etzion Becker 
Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2005 8:42 PM
To: 

Subject: [bn-study] RE: Love/emotion

Hence MIND / THOUGHT / LOGIC / DEDUCTION / ANALYSIS / are all subordinate
faculties or LIMITED aspects of the ONE ALL.

====================================EB
Dear Dallas, 

just look at what you have posted above: 

The mind is a limited faculty of the One. 

How can then a limited faculty fathom the Unlimited? 

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

DTB	How does a "son" know he has a "Father"? 

In this case the "Mind" (as a son) is directed (by its "Father") or placed
on a subject which is chosen for it to work on.  

It then thinks about it. You have now directed your mind to think about
what I am writing --yes ? Now you can switch it off, and direct to
something else.

I think we may be giving different interpretations to the word "mind." 

As far as I can determine there are three aspects of the "Mind."


1 neutral: to intellectualise, to reason, to think, to remember, to
analyse, to synthesize. The learning and use of mathematics is perhaps a
good example of this. 

2	Higher Mind (Buddhi-Manas): when the mind is thinking about
spiritual and high moral matters like the virtues, charity, compassion,
right action, helping and teaching truths to others, intuition, etc...for
actions to be done according to the great impersonal Laws of the World and
our Universe. This would include study, learning, understanding,
re-teaching, conference and respect for the wise and true teachings of
Prophets and Wise Men whatever source they may come from. [This may be
called Heart Wisdom.]

3	Lower Mind (Kama-Manas): or the brain-mind -- which we use all the
time when we are awake in our bodies. The subjects thus considered are
usually personal and selfish, seeking to take advantage of others for
personal reasons, and would include the various vices and wicked thoughts,
feelings and actions.
[This has been called Head Learning."]

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

EB
The human mind has to do work on the physical plane, and this faculty can 
bring us to the threshold of the Path, through intelectual study, but of its

own, it cannot cross it. 

Otherwise, we would give humanity a book to read, all would study, and they
would know the Truth. But it doesn't work, it never did, because the Truth
can never be contained in physical words, it is fluid and moving. 

The mental faculty can bring us to the heart realm, can help removing
hatreds and ill feelings, and only then the spiritual world can be reached
and experienced.

The mind is a by-product of spirit, how it can ever understand spirit?
Anyway, I actually quoted one of the Masters, more or less. 

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

DTB

Everything is contained in the Spirit

Have a look at this:

Gita Notes p.132	

SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT

This chapter is devoted to the question of that spiritual discernment by
means of which the Supreme Spirit can be discerned in all things, and the
absence of which causes a delusion constantly recurring, the producer of
sorrow. Krishna says that this sort of knowledge leaves nothing else to be
known, but that to attain it the heart— that is, every part of the nature—
must be fixed on the Spirit, meditation has to be constant, and the Spirit
made the refuge or abiding-place. 
He then goes on to show that to have attained to such a height is to be a
mahatma.
 
"Among thousands of mortals a single one perhaps strives for perfection, and
among those so striving perhaps a single one knows me as I am." G. p. 53 

This points out the difficulty to be met in any one life, but is not cause
for discouragement. It simply makes clear the fact, and thus also punctures
the boastful claims of those who would pretend to have reached perfection
but do not show it in their acts. 

He then gives an eightfold division of his inferior nature, or that part of
the Universal One which can be known. 

This is not the nature of man, and does not oppose the theosophical
sevenfold system of human principles. No particular theosophical
classification for the divisions of nature has been given out. It would, on
the one hand, not be understood, and on the other, disputes leading to no
good end would follow. He might as well have stated the twenty-fivefold
division held by some other school.


INFERIOR NATURE

This "inferior nature" is only so relatively. It is the phenomenal and
transient which disappears into the superior at the end of a kalpa. [End of
an evolutionary period.]  

It is that part of God, or of the Self, which chose to assume the phenomenal
and transient position, but is, in essence, as great as the superior nature.

The inferiority is only relative. As soon as objective material, and
subjective spiritual, worlds appear, the first-named has to be denominated
inferior to the other, because the spiritual, being the permanent base, is
in that sense superior; but as an absolute whole all is equal. 

Included in the inferior nature are all the visible, tangible, invisible and
intangible worlds; it is what we call nature. The invisible and intangible
are nonetheless actual; we know that poisonous gas, though invisible and
intangible, is fatally actual and potential. 

Experiment and induction will confer a great deal of knowledge about the
inferior nature of God and along that path the science of the modern West is
treading, but before knowing the occult, hidden, intangible realms and
forces— often called spiritual, but not so in fact— the inner astral senses
and powers have to be developed and used. 

This development is not to be forced, as one would construct a machine for
performing some operation, but will come in its own time as all our senses
and powers have come. It is true that a good many are trying to force the
process, but at last they will discover that human evolution is universal
and not particular; one man cannot go very far beyond his race before the
time. 


Superior SPIRIT and inferior MATTER

Krishna points out to Arjuna a gulf between the inferior and the superior.
This latter is the Knower and that which sustains the whole universe, and
from it the inferior nature springs. So the materialistic and scientific
investigator, the mere alchemist, the man who dives into the occult moved by
the desire for gain to himself, will none of them be able to cross the gulf
at all, because they do not admit the indwelling Spirit, the Knower.


THE INDWELLING SPIRIT IS THE KNOWER. 

The superior nature can be known because it is in fact the Knower who
resides in every human being who has not degraded himself utterly. But this
must be admitted before any approach to the light can be made. And but few
are really willing, and many are unable, to admit the universal character of
the Self. They sometimes think they do so by admitting the Self as present,
as contiguous, as perhaps part tenant. This is not the admission, it leaves
them still separate from the Self. All the phenomenal appearances, all the
different names, and lives, and innumerable beings, are hung suspended, so
to say, on the Self. Thus:

" And all things hang on me as precious gems upon a string. "

A number of pre-eminently great and precious things and powers are here
enumerated and declared to be the Self; while next the very delusions and
imperfections of life and man are included. Nothing is left out. 

This is certainly better than an illogical religion which separates God from
the delusions and cruelties of nature, and then invents a third thing, in
the person of a "Devil", who is the source of human wickedness. All this
further accentuates the difficulties in the way. Krishna says the illusion
is difficult to surmount, but that success can be attained by taking refuge
in the Self —for he is the Self. 
The entire congregation of worshipers who are righteous find favor with the
Self, but those who are spiritually wise are on the path that leads to the
highest, which is the Self. 


WISDOM REINCARNATES ALSO WITH THE EGO

This means, as Krishna says, that those who with the eye of spiritual wisdom
see that the Self is all, begin to reincarnate with that belief ingrained in
them.
Hitherto they had come back to earth without that single idea, but
possessed of many desires and of ideas which separated them from the Self.
Now they begin to return fully at rest in the Self and working out their
long-accumulated karma. And at last they become what was mentioned in the
opening verses, a mahatma or great soul. 

There is, however, a large number of persons who are in the class which has
been deprived of spiritual discernment "through diversity of desires" or who
have not yet had discernment for the same reason. The verse reads as
follows: 

"Those who through diversity of desires are deprived of spiritual wisdom
adopt particular rites subordinated to their own natures, and worship other
Gods".
 
Although these words, like the rest of the colloquy, were spoken in India
and to a Hindu, they are thoroughly applicable in the West. 

Every mode of thought and of living may be called a rite gone over by each
one as his conscious or unconscious religion. 

A man adopts that which is conformable, or subordinate, to his own nature,
and being full of desires he worships or follows other gods than the Supreme
Self. 
In India the words would more particularly mean the worship, which is quite
common, of idols among those who are not educated out of idolatry; but they
would also mean what is said above. 

In the West these "other gods" are the various pleasures, objects, aims and
modes of life and thought, be they religious or not, which the people adopt.
They have not the many thousands of gods of the Hindu pantheon, each one for
some particular purpose, but it comes to the same thing. The idol-worshiper
bows to the god visible so that he may attain the object of his heart which
that god is supposed to control. 

The Western man worships his object and strives after it with all his heart
and mind and thus worships something else than the Supreme Imperishable One.
The god of one is political advancement, of another— and generally of most—
the possession of great wealth. " G Notes pp. 132 - 140

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

Best wishes, Etzion

==============================
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "W.Dallas TenBroeck" <dalval14@earthlink.net>
To: <study@blavatsky.net>
Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2005 10:08 PM
Subject: RE: Love/emotion


Mar 26 2005

RE: Love/emotion


Dear E:

You write: "There are deep mysteries in the universe that the human mind can
never fathom. ..."

I think according to THEOSOPHY you are making an error.

Consider:

The UNIVERSE / SPACE / DEITY / GOD are synonyms for the UNITY and, the
brotherhood of all beings and things in THAT / ONE / UNITY / ALL /
ABSOLUTENESS / the ONE UNIVERSAL SELF .

Hence MIND / THOUGHT / LOGIC / DEDUCTION / ANALYSIS / are all subordinate
faculties or LIMITED aspects of the ONE ALL.

Each human being thus shares in the ONE. THEOSOPHY calls it the ATMA and
this is also the highest faculty of any and all human beings.

"GOD" is said to be OMNIPRESENT -- present everywhere -- without any
exceptions. Hence every human has, as an immortal, spiritual, deific basis,
a "ray" or a "spark" of the Divine ONE BEING -- the UNIVERSAL SELF.

This is a quality that all living things enjoy. The great unity of all
beings is the UNIVERSE - and the qualities of the UNIVERSE are all
focussed in every minutest atom of SPACE.

There is no special location for GOD, nor for a "devil" outside the
UNIVERSE. There are no exceptions to ALL.

Why therefore is there any diversity and any evil? Why do we think of
ourselves as "separate" from each other and from "GOD?"

It is the limited and always changing material form we use that distracts.
But "we" (the Real Human Being) are also the masters of our Mind and its
thinking. So "we" can control it, and direct it, and place it on any
subject we choose or desire.

What is "love?" Is it not attraction -- and that is only half of a law, as
repulsion
is the counter-balancing other half. So we, as an independent chooser, are
always in the middle. We may say we are influenced, but in the last
analysis, the final decision is always free, and is OURS.

The great UNIVERSE is run under LAW and also, in every near or distant
place, it reflects the one great LAW by (what appears to us to be) many
"laws."

But these are all impersonal and universal, and in our "heart" we know
these.

Before making a bad choice our "Voice of Conscience" [the voice of Buddhi -
wisdom] speaks, and warns us all -- of the danger of bad choices that bring
pain and suffering to us, as they did before. It is the "Voice of Wisdom
and Experience." It is always true, and acts to promote and protect
universal brotherhood. It so, it also tries to protect us from repeating
errors of judgment.

See if this is correct,

Best wishes,

Dallas