Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00708)

From: W.Dallas TenBroeck 
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 

Subject: RE: Is the universe friendly?

Mar 29 05

	
Dear Friend:

You ask: Is the universe friendly?

I think I can say: This is asked in terms of sentiment and emotion -- as a
"feeling" and, as I understand it, it relates to how we "feel" about things,
and how we desire them to be -- so that pain and suffering are no longer
factors. Is that
right ?

Only the Lower Mind (Kama Manas - brain-mind) [which is always active in
every one of us when we are AWAKE] would propound such a question -- I think
out of ignorance, doubt, or lack of acuity in observation, and the ability
to synthesize all evidence at hand.  

It is to be answered (in one way), I think, as follows:

It is evident that if we exist and can ask such a question, that there is an
alternative; and if there is an alternative, there is a superior detached
and impersonal PRESENCE (a third element) that is not involved in such
questions. -- It IS. -- 

Also, there is evidence of a condition in which animosity, and not
"friendliness" is operative.  

And another, when through uncertainty and chaos, one never knows what to
expect from incoming situations of possibly pleasure or pain. This second
is more easily answered by the facts of: (1) our existence, and (2) the
situation where our existence is made possible by a most extensive and
responsive "life-support" system -- I mean one that Nature (and her Laws)
has arranged for every living entity.

The Laws detected by "Science" are generally known and accessible as
"effects." But their secret and hidden, interior CAUSES are not fully known
yet.  

In man, where psychology operates (and "thought" and "feelings" are muddled)
the Laws of Nature concerning MORALITY and ETHICAL behaviour (usually called
the VIRTUES) are sadly distorted, or disfigured, if known, to suit the fancy
of the individual who may seek to find and apply them selfishly.  

As I see it the secret in such cases is to apply universality and
impersonality as principles, always remembering that the Universe (and
humanity) are all immortal, imperishable MONADS and every one of them is in
themselves the uncountable "students of life;" and, the "pursuit of wisdom"
is their objective through the process of reincarnation. 

If the debaters are Kama-Manas and Buddhi-Manas, then ATMA-BUDDHI (the
interior immortal Monad) is that Spiritual detached PRESENCE -- and above
that is the ultimate, the ATMA, or, the portion ("spark" or "ray" of the
universal ONE ABSOLUTE that includes us, as well as everything else on an
equal and fair basis. Nature forgets nothing and plays no favorites. 

It is the physical limits of our selfish and seemingly isolated situation
that confuses, I think.

Our existence (as an independent thinking entity) is a proof (to me) of the
friendly cooperative, generous and compassionate nature of the UNIVERSE. We
are its representatives in a local situation and our presence as an
INTELLIGENCE and a MEMORY is (to me) evidence of a program in which the
wiser are engaged in educating the late comers and those who are more
ignorant (retarded in applying the rigors of strict observation of their
surroundings, and logic in their own thought processes -- i.e.: study and
meditation ). 

The fact that LAW and LAWS are universal and reliable ought to settle the
question. If, of course, you should challenge the reign and operation of
exact LAW in everything, then there can be no answer to your question -- but
then, WE WOULD NOT BE HERE TO EVEN ASK IT . 

Well I guess that is how I see it. There may be other ways, surely.

Best wishes, 

Dallas

"Man has never been without a friend." He has always had his
friends and instructors: The Elder Brothers.
	

THEOSOPHY Its Ancient Source

	
(1.) The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its
cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system: e.g., even in
the exotericism of the Puranas. 

But such is the mysterious power of Occult symbolism, that the facts which
have actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers and prophets
to marshal, to set down and explain, in the bewildering series of
evolutionary progress, are all recorded on a few pages of geometrical signs
and glyphs. 

The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of
matter, and recorded the soul of things there, where an ordinary profane,
however learned, would have perceived but the external work of form. But
modern science believes not in the "soul of things," and hence will reject
the whole system of ancient cosmogony. It is useless to say that the system
in question is no fancy of one or several isolated individuals. 

That it is the uninterrupted record covering thousands of generations of
Seers whose respective experiences were made to test and to verify
traditions passed orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of
higher and exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity. 

That for long ages, the "Wise Men" of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and
rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their
lives in learning, not teaching. 

How did they do so? It is answered: by checking, testing, and verifying in
every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions
of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their physical,
mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations to the utmost possible degree.
No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the
visions-so obtained as to stand as independent evidence-of other adepts, and
by centuries of experiences. 
SECRET DOCTRINE 1-272

================================
[ Also Mahatma K. H. wrote to Mr. A. P. Sinnett:

". . . You have heard of and read about a good many Seers, in the 
past and present centuries, such as Swedenborg, Boehme, and others. 
Not one among the number but thoroughly honest, sincere, and as 
intelligent, as well educated; aye, even learned. 

Each of them in addition to these qualities, has or had . . . a 'Guardian'
and a 
Revelator -- under whatever 'mystery' and 'mystic name' -- whose mission it
is -- or has been to spin out to his spiritual ward -- a new system
embracing all the details of the world of Spirit. 

Tell me, my friend, do you know of two that agree? And why, since truth is
one, and that putting entirely the question of discrepancies in details
aside -- we do not find them agreeing even upon the most vital problems --
those that have either 'to be, or not to be' -- and of which there can be no
two solutions?"  
K H -- The Mahatma Letters, 2nd ed., Letter 48

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


LAW

(2.) The fundamental Law in that system, the central point from which all
emerged, around and toward which all gravitates, and upon which is hung the
philosophy of the rest, is the One homogeneous divine SUBSTANCE-PRINCIPLE,
the one radical cause. 

. . . "Some few, whose lamps shone brighter, have been led 
>From cause to cause to nature's secret head,
And found that one first Principle must be. . . ." 

It is called "Substance-Principle," for it becomes "substance" on the plane
of the manifested Universe, an illusion, while it remains a "principle" in
the beginningless and endless abstract, visible and invisible SPACE. It is
the omnipresent Reality: impersonal, because it contains all and everything.
Its impersonality is the fundamental conception of the System. It is latent
in every atom in the Universe, and is the Universe itself. (See in chapters
on Symbolism, "Primordial Substance, and Divine Thought." SECRET DOCTRINE )




CYCLIC MANIFESTATION


(3.) The Universe is the periodical manifestation of this unknown Absolute
Essence. To call it "essence," however, is to sin against the very spirit of
the philosophy. For though the noun may be derived in this case from the
verb esse, "to be," yet IT cannot be identified with a being of any kind,
that can be conceived by human intellect. IT is best described as neither
Spirit nor matter, but both. "Parabrahmam and Mulaprakriti" are One, in
reality, yet two in the Universal conception of the manifested, even in the
conception of the One Logos, its first manifestation, to which, as the able
lecturer in the "Notes on the Bhagavad Gita" shows, IT appears from the
objective standpoint of the One Logos as Mulaprakriti and not as
Parabrahmam; as its veil and not the one REALITY hidden behind, which is
unconditioned and absolute. 



TEMPORARY - ILLUSION -- MAYA


(4.) The Universe is called, with everything in it, MAYA, because all is
temporary therein, from the ephemeral life of a fire-fly to that of the Sun.
Compared to the eternal immutability of the ONE, and the changelessness of
that Principle, the Universe, with its evanescent ever-changing forms, must
be necessarily, in the mind of a philosopher, no better than a
will-o'-the-wisp. Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings
in it, which are as unreal as it is itself. 


CONSCIOUSNESS -- INTELLIGENCE IS UNIVERSAL


(5.) Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is CONSCIOUS:
i.e., endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of
perception. We men must remember that because we do not perceive any
signs-which we can recognise-of consciousness, say, in stones, we have no
right to say that no consciousness exists there. There is no such thing as
either "dead" or "blind" matter, as there is no "Blind" or "Unconscious"
Law. These find no place among the conceptions of Occult philosophy. The
latter never stops at surface appearances, and for it the noumenal essences
have more reality than their objective counterparts; it resembles therein
the mediaeval Nominalists, for whom it was the Universals that were the
realities and the particulars which existed only in name and human fancy. 



INNER "SPIRIT" IS ALWAYS ACTIVE


(6.) The Universe is worked and guided from within outwards. As above so it
is below, as in heaven so on earth; and man-the microcosm and miniature copy
of the macrocosm-is the living witness to this Universal Law, and to the
mode of its action. We see that every external motion, act, gesture, whether
voluntary or mechanical, organic or mental, is produced and preceded by
internal feeling or emotion, will or volition, and thought or mind. As no
outward motion or change, when normal, in man's external body can take place
unless provoked by an inward impulse, given through one of the three
functions named, so with the external or manifested Universe. 


DEGREES OF INTELLIGENCE AND POWER


The whole Kosmos is guided, controlled, and animated by almost endless
series of Hierarchies of sentient Beings, each having a mission to perform,
and who-whether we give to them one name or another, and call them
Dhyan-Chohans or Angels-are "messengers" in the sense only that they are the
agents of Karmic and Cosmic Laws. 

They vary infinitely in their respective degrees of consciousness and
intelligence; and to call them all pure Spirits without any of the earthly
alloy "which time is wont to prey upon" is only to indulge in poetical
fancy. For each of these Beings either was, or prepares to become, a man, if
not in the present, then in a past or a coming cycle (Manvantara). 

They are perfected, when not incipient, men; and differ morally from the
terrestrial human beings on their higher (less material) spheres, only in
that they are devoid of the feeling of personality and of the human
emotional nature-two purely earthly characteristics. 

The former, or the "perfected," have become free from those feelings,
because (a) they have no longer fleshly bodies-an ever-numbing weight on the
Soul; and (b) the pure spiritual element being left untrammelled and more
free, they are less influenced by maya than man can ever be, unless he is an
adept who keeps his two personalities-the spiritual and the
physical-entirely separated. 

The incipient monads, having never had terrestrial bodies yet, can have no
sense of personality or EGO-ism. That which is meant by "personality," being
a limitation and a relation, or, as defined by Coleridge, "individuality
existing in itself but with a nature as a ground," the term cannot of course
be applied to non-human entities; but, as a fact insisted upon by
generations of Seers, none of these Beings, high or low, have either
individuality or personality as separate Entities, i.e., they have no
individuality in the sense in which a man says, "I am myself and no one
else;" in other words, they are conscious of no such distinct separateness
as men and things have on earth. 

Individuality is the characteristic of their respective hierarchies, not of
their units; and these characteristics vary only with the degree of the
plane to which those hierarchies belong: the nearer to the region of
Homogeneity and the One Divine, the purer and the less accentuated that
individuality in the Hierarchy. 

They are finite, in all respects, with the exception of their higher
principles-the immortal sparks reflecting the universal divine
flame-individualized and separated only on the spheres of Illusion by a
differentiation as illusive as the rest. 

They are "Living Ones," because they are the streams projected on the Kosmic
screen of illusion from the ABSOLUTE LIFE; beings in whom life cannot become
extinct, before the fire of ignorance is extinct in those who sense these
"Lives." 

Having sprung into being under the quickening influence of the uncreated
beam, the reflection of the great Central Sun that radiates on the shores of
the river of Life, it is the inner principle in them which belongs to the
waters of immortality, while its differentiated clothing is as perishable as
man's body. Therefore Young was right in saying that 

"Angels are men of a superior kind" 

and no more. They are neither "ministering" nor "protecting" angels; nor are
they "Harbingers of the Most High" still less the "Messengers of wrath" of
any God such as man's fancy has created. 

To appeal to their protection is as foolish as to believe that their
sympathy may be secured by any kind of propitiation; for they are, as much
as man himself is, the slaves and creatures of immutable Karmic and Kosmic
law. The reason for it is evident.

Having no elements of personality in their essence they can have no
personal qualities, such as attributed by men, in their exoteric religions,
to their anthropomorphic God-a jealous and exclusive God who rejoices and
feels wrathful, is pleased with sacrifice, and is more despotic in his
vanity than any finite foolish man. 


MAN - HIS COMPOSITION AND POTENCY


Man, as shown in Book II., being a compound of the essences of all those
celestial Hierarchies may succeed in making himself, as such, superior, in
one sense, to any hierarchy or class, or even combination of them. "Man can
neither propitiate nor command the Devas," it is said. 


MAN'S PROGRESS


But, by paralyzing his lower personality, and arriving thereby at the full
knowledge of the non-separateness of his higher SELF from the One absolute
SELF, man can, even during his terrestrial life, become as "One of Us." Thus
it is, by eating of the fruit of knowledge which dispels ignorance, that man
becomes like one of the Elohim or the Dhyanis; and once on their plane the
Spirit of Solidarity and perfect Harmony, which reigns in every Hierarchy,
must extend over him and protect him in every particular. 

The chief difficulty which prevents men of science from believing in divine
as well as in nature Spirits is their materialism. The main impediment
before the Spiritualist which hinders him from believing in the same, while
preserving a blind belief in the "Spirits" of the Departed, is the general
ignorance of all, except some Occultists and Kabalists, about the true
essence and nature of matter. It is on the acceptance or rejection of the
theory of the Unity of all in Nature, in its ultimate Essence, that mainly
rests the belief or unbelief in the existence around us of other conscious
beings besides the Spirits of the Dead. 


EVOLUTION IS UNIVERSAL


It is on the right comprehension of the primeval Evolution of Spirit-Matter
and its real essence that the student has to depend for the further
elucidation in his mind of the Occult Cosmogony, and for the only sure clue
which can guide his subsequent studies. 

In sober truth, as just shown, every "Spirit" so-called is either a
disembodied or a future man. As from the highest Archangel (Dhyan Chohan)
down to the last conscious "Builder" (the inferior class of Spiritual
Entities), all such are men, having lived aeons ago, in other Manvantaras,
on this or other Spheres; so the inferior, semi-intelligent and
non-intelligent Elementals-are all future men. That fact alone-that a Spirit
is endowed with intelligence-is a proof to the Occultist that that Being
must have been a man, and acquired his knowledge and intelligence throughout
the human cycle. 


UNITY - ONENESS


There is but one indivisible and absolute Omniscience and Intelligence in
the Universe, and this thrills throughout every atom and infinitesimal point
of the whole finite Kosmos which hath no bounds, and which people call
SPACE, considered independently of anything contained in it. But the first
differentiation of its reflection in the manifested World is purely
Spiritual, and the Beings generated in it are not endowed with a
consciousness that has any relation to the one we conceive of. They can have
no human consciousness or Intelligence before they have acquired such,
personally and individually. This may be a mystery, yet it is a fact, in
Esoteric philosophy, and a very apparent one too. 


PROGRESS IS UNIVERSAL IN NATURE


The whole order of nature evinces a progressive march towards a higher life.
There is design in the action of the seemingly blindest forces. The whole
process of evolution with its endless adaptations is a proof of this. The
immutable laws that weed out the weak and feeble species, to make room for
the strong, and which ensure the "survival of the fittest," though so cruel
in their immediate action-all are working toward the grand end. The very
fact that adaptations do occur, that the fittest do survive in the struggle
for existence, shows that what is called "unconscious Nature"* is in reality
an aggregate of forces manipulated 
 
* Nature taken in its abstract sense, cannot be "unconscious," as it is the
emanation from, and thus an aspect (on the manifested plane) of the ABSOLUTE
consciousness. Where is that daring man who would presume to deny to
vegetation and even to minerals a consciousness of their own. All he can say
is, that this consciousness is beyond his comprehension. 
-----------------------------------------------------------

by semi-intelligent beings (Elementals) guided by High Planetary Spirits,
(Dhyan Chohans), whose collective aggregate forms the manifested verbum of
the unmanifested LOGOS, and constitutes at one and the same time the MIND of
the Universe and its immutable LAW. 


PAST -- PRESENT -- FUTURE


Three distinct representations of the Universe in its three distinct aspects
are impressed upon our thought by the esoteric philosophy: the PRE-EXISTING
(evolved from) the EVER-EXISTING; and the PHENOMENAL-the world of illusion,
the reflection, and shadow thereof. During the great mystery and drama of
life known as the Manvantara, real Kosmos is like the object placed behind
the white screen upon which are thrown the Chinese shadows, called forth by
the magic lantern. The actual figures and things remain invisible, while the
wires of evolution are pulled by the unseen hands; and men and things are
thus but the reflections, on the white field, of the realities behind the
snares of Mahamaya, or the great Illusion. This was taught in every
philosophy, in every religion, ante as well as post diluvian, in India and
Chaldea, by the Chinese as by the Grecian Sages. In the former countries
these three Universes were allegorized, in exoteric teachings, by the three
trinities emanating from the Central eternal germ and forming with it a
Supreme Unity: the initial, the manifested, and the Creative Triad, or the
three in One. The last is but the symbol, in its concrete expression, of the
first ideal two. Hence Esoteric philosophy passes over the necessarianism of
this purely metaphysical conception, and calls the first one, only, the Ever
Existing. This is the view of every one of the six great schools of Indian
philosophy-the six principles of that unit body of WISDOM of which the
"gnosis," the hidden knowledge, is the seventh. 
S D I 272-278


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