Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00004)

April 1 2005

Dear Friend:

How does anything get impressed or transmitted?

Here are some important teachings of THEOSOPHY:


ASTRAL WORLD and ASTRAL & PHYSICAL BODIES  



The body, as a mass of flesh, bones, muscles, nerves, brain matter, bile,
mucous, blood, and skin is an object of exclusive care for too many people,
who make it their god because they have come to identify themselves with it,
meaning it only when they say "I." 

Left to itself it is devoid of sense, and acts in such a case solely by
reflex and automatic action. This we see in sleep, for then the body assumes
attitudes and makes motions which the waking man does not permit. It is like
mother earth in that it is made up of an infinitesimal number of "lives." 


"LITTLE LIVES" (Monads in physical evolution,)

Each of these lives is a sensitive point. Not only are there microbes,
bacilli, and bacteria, but these are composed of others, and those others of
still more minute lives. These lives are not the cells of the body, but make
up the cells, keeping ever within the limits assigned by evolution to the
cell. They are forever whirling and moving together throughout the whole
body, being in certain apparently void spaces as well as where flesh,
membrane, bones, and blood are seen. They extend, too, beyond the actual
outer limits of the body to a measurable distance. 

One of the mysteries of physical life is hidden among these "lives." Their
action, forced forward by the Life energy -- called Prana or Jiva -- will
explain active existence and physical death. They are divided into two
classes, one the destroyers, the other the preservers, and these two war
upon each other from birth until the destroyers win. In this struggle the
Life Energy itself ends the contest because it is life that kills. This may
seem heterodox, but in Theosophical philosophy it is held to be the fact.
For, it is said, the infant lives because the combination of healthy organs
is able to absorb the life all around it in space, and is put to sleep each
day by the overpowering strength of the stream of life, since the preservers
among the cells of the youthful body are not yet mastered by the other
class. 

For example:


SLEEP RESTORES THE BALANCE OF LIFE FORCES


These processes of going to sleep and waking again are simply and solely the
restoring of the equilibrium in sleep and the action produced by disturbing
it when awake. It may be compared with the arc-electric light wherein the
brilliant arc of light at the point of resistance is the symbol of the
waking active man. So in sleep we are again absorbing and not resisting the
Life Energy; when we wake we are throwing it off. But as it exists around us
like an ocean in which we swim, our power to throw it off is necessarily
limited. Just when we wake we are in equilibrium as to our organs and life;
when we fall asleep we are yet more full of life than in the morning; it has
exhausted us; it finally kills the body. Such a contest could not be waged
forever, since the whole solar system's weight of life is pitted against the
power to resist focused in one small human frame. 


OUR PHYSICAL BODY IS IN CONSTANT CHANGE.

The body is considered by the Masters of Wisdom to be the most transitory,
impermanent, and illusionary of the whole series of constituents in man. Not
for a moment is it the same. Ever changing, in motion in every part, it is
in fact never complete or finished though tangible. The ancients clearly
perceived this, for they elaborated a doctrine called Naimittika [the
correct Sanskrit term is Nitya] Pralaya, or the continual change in material
things, the continual destruction. This is known now to science in the
doctrine that the body undergoes a complete alteration and renovation every
seven years. At the end of the first seven years it is not the same body it
was in the beginning. At the end of our days it has changed seven times,
perhaps more. And yet it presents the same general appearance from maturity
until death; and it is a human form from birth to maturity. This is a
mystery science explains not; it is a question pertaining to the cell and to
the means whereby the general human shape is preserved. 


THE "CELL" AND ITS MOLECULAR COMPONENTS
.
The "cell" is an illusion. It is merely a word. It has no existence as a
material thing, for any cell is composed of other cells. What, then, is a
cell? It is the ideal form within which the actual physical atoms -- made up
of the "lives" -- arrange themselves. As it is admitted that the physical
molecules are forever rushing away from the body, they must be leaving the
cells each moment. Hence there is no physical cell, but the privative limits
of one, the ideal walls and general shape. 


OUR "IDEAL" SHAPE IS SET BY OUR ASTRAL BODY

The molecules assume position within the ideal shape according to the laws
of nature, and leave it again almost at once to give place to other atoms.
And as it is thus with the body, so is it with the earth and with the solar
system. Thus also is it, though in slower measure, with all material
objects. They are all in constant motion and change. This is modern and also
ancient wisdom. This is the physical explanation of clairvoyance,
clairaudience, telepathy, and mind-reading. It helps to show us what a
deluding and unsatisfactory thing our body is. 



THE "LIFE-FORCE" -- PRANA (BREATH).


Although, strictly speaking, the second constituent of man is the Astral
Body -- called in Sanskrit Linga Sarira -- we will consider Life Energy --
or Prana and Jiva in Sanskrit -- together, because to our observation the
phenomenon of life is more plainly exhibited in connection with the body. 

Life is not the result of the operation of the organs, nor is it gone when
the body dissolves. It is a universally pervasive principle. It is the ocean
in which the earth floats; it permeates the globe and every being and object
on it. It works unceasingly on and around us, pulsating against and through
us forever. 

When we occupy a body we merely use a more specialized instrument than any
other for dealing with both Prana and Jiva. Strictly speaking, Prana is
breath; and as breath is necessary for continuance of life in the human
machine, that is the better word. Jiva means "life," and also is applied to
the living soul, for the life in general is derived from the Supreme Life
itself. Jiva is therefore capable of general application, whereas Prana is
more particular. 

It cannot be said that one has a definite amount of this Life Energy which
will fly back to its source should the body be burned, but rather that it
works with whatever be the mass of matter in it. We, as it were, secrete or
use it as we live. For whether we are alive or dead, life-energy is still
there; in life among our organs sustaining them, in death among the
innumerable creatures that arise from our destruction. 

We can no more do away with this life than we can erase the air in which the
bird floats, and like the air it fills all the spaces on the planet, so that
nowhere can we lose the benefit of it nor escape its final crushing power.
But in working upon the physical body this life -- Prana -- needs a vehicle,
means, or guide, and this vehicle is the astral body. 



THE "ASTRAL BODY" HAS MANY NAMES: "Linga Sarira" the "Design Body,"
"Model Body."


There are many names for the Astral Body. Here are a few: Linga Sarira,
Sanskrit, meaning design body, and the best one of all; ethereal double;
phantom; wraith; apparition; doppelganger; personal man; perisprit;
irrational soul; animal soul; Bhuta; elementary; spook; devil; demon. Some
of these apply only to the astral body when devoid of the corpus after
death. Bhuta, devil, and elementary are nearly synonymous; the first
Sanskrit, the other English. With the Hindus the Bhuta is the Astral Body
when it is by death released from the body and the mind; and being thus
separated from conscience, is a devil in their estimation. They are not far
wrong, if we abolish the old notion that a devil is an angel fallen from
heaven, for this bodily devil is something which rises from the earth. 

It may be objected that the term Astral Body is not the right one for this
purpose. The objection is one which arises from the nature and genesis of
the English language, for as that has grown up in a struggle with nature and
among a commercial people it has not as yet coined the words needed for
designating the great range of faculties and organs of the unseen man. And
as its philosophers have not admitted the existence of these inner organs,
the right terms do not exist in the language. 

So in looking for words to describe the inner body the only ones found in
English were the "astral body." This term comes near to the real fact, since
the substance of this form is derived from cosmic matter or star matter,
roughly speaking. But the old Sanskrit word describes it exactly -- Linga
Sarira, the design body -- because it is the design or model for the
physical body. This is better than "ethereal body," as the latter might be
said to be subsequent to the physical, whereas in fact the astral body
precedes the material one. 



ASTRAL SUBSTANCE IS A FINER MATERIAL AND VERY STRONG


The astral body is made of matter of very fine texture as compared with the
visible body, and has a great tensile strength, so that it changes but
little during a lifetime, while the physical alters every moment. And not
only has it this immense strength, but at the same time possesses an
elasticity permitting its extension to a considerable distance. It is
flexible, plastic, extensible, and strong. 

The matter of which it is composed is electrical and magnetic in its
essence, and is just what the whole world was composed of in the dim past
when the processes of evolution had not yet arrived at the point of
producing the material body for man. But it is not raw or crude matter.
Having been through a vast period of evolution and undergone purifying
processes of an incalculable number, its nature has been refined to a degree
far beyond the gross physical elements we see and touch with the physical
eye and hand. 



THE ASTRAL MODEL IS THE PROTOTYPE OF THE PHYSICAL
.

The astral body is the guiding model for the physical one, and all the other
kingdoms have the same astral model. Vegetables, minerals, and animals have
the ethereal double, and this theory is the only one which will answer the
question how it is that the seed produces its own kind and all sentient
beings bring forth their like. Biologists can only say that the facts are as
we know them, but can give no reason why the acorn will never grow anything
but an oak except that no man ever knew it to be otherwise. But in the old
schools of the past the true doctrine was known, and it has been once again
brought out in the West through the efforts of H. P. Blavatsky and those who
have found inspiration in her works. 



ASTRAL SUBSTANCE AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE EARTH


This doctrine is, that in early times of the evolution of this globe the
various kingdoms of nature are outlined in plan or ideal form first, and
then the astral matter begins to work on this plan with the aid of the Life
principle, until after long ages the astral human form is evolved and
perfected. This is, then, the first form that the human race had, and
corresponds in a way with the allegory of man's state in the garden of Eden.


After another long period, during which the cycle of further descent into
matter is rolling forward, the astral form at last clothes itself with a
"coat of skin," and the present physical form is on the scene. This is the
explanation of the verse of the book of Genesis which describes the giving
of coats of skin to Adam and Eve. It is the final fall into matter, for from
that point on the man within strives to raise the whole mass of physical
substance up to a higher level, and to inform it all with a larger measure
of spiritual influence, so that it may be ready to go still further on
during the next great period of evolution after the present one is ended. 



"MODEL OF THE CHILD" IS FIRST IN ASTRAL SUBSTANCE
.

So at the present time the model for the growing child in the womb is the
astral body already perfect in shape before the child is born. It is on this
the molecules arrange themselves until the child is complete, and the
presence of the ethereal design-body will explain how the form grows into
shape, how the eyes push themselves out from within to the surface of the
face, and many other mysterious matters in embryology which are passed over
by medical men with a description but with no explanation. This will also
explain, as nothing else can, the cases of marking of the child in the womb
sometimes denied by physicians but well-known by those who care to watch, to
be a fact of frequent occurrence. 



THE ASTRAL BODY SETS THE LIMITS OF GROWTH FOR THE PHYSICAL


The growing physical form is subject to the astral model; it is connected
with the imagination of the mother by physical and psychical organs; the
mother makes a strong picture from horror, fear, or otherwise, and the
astral model is then similarly affected. In the case of marking by being
born legless, the ideas and strong imagination of the mother act so as to
cut off or shrivel up the astral leg, and the result is that the molecules,
having no model of leg to work on, make no physical leg whatever; and
similarly in all such cases. But where we find a man who still feels the leg
which the surgeon has cut off, or perceives the fingers that were amputated,
then the astral member has not been interfered with, and hence the man feels
as if it were still on his person. For knife or acid will not injure the
astral model, but in the first stages of its growth ideas and imagination
have the power of acid and sharpened steel. 



CAN THE "ASTRAL BODY" MOVE OUT OF THE "PHYSICAL BODY ?"


In the ordinary man who has not been trained in practical occultism or who
has not the faculty by birth, the astral body cannot go more than a few feet
from the physical one. It is a part of that physical, it sustains it and is
incorporated in it just as the fibers of the mango are all through that
fruit. But there are those who, by reason of practices pursued in former
lives on the earth, have a power born with them of unconsciously sending out
the astral body. These are mediums, some seers, and many hysterical,
cataleptic, and scrofulous people. 

Those who have trained themselves by a long course of excessively hard
discipline which reaches to the moral and mental nature and quite beyond the
power of the average man of the day, can use the astral form at will, for
they have gotten completely over the delusion that the physical body is a
permanent part of them, and, besides, they have learned the chemical and
electrical laws governing in this matter. In their case they act with
knowledge and consciously; in the other cases the act is done without power
to prevent it, or to bring it about at will, or to avoid the risks attendant
on such use of potencies in nature of a high character. 



THE ASTRAL BODY CONTAINS THE REAL SENSES OF PERCEPTION


The astral body has in it the real organs of the outer sense organs. In it
are the sight, hearing, power to smell, and the sense of touch. It has a
complete system of nerves and arteries of its own for the conveyance of the
astral fluid which is to that body as our blood is to the physical. It is
the real personal man. There are located the subconscious perception and the
latent memory, which the hypnotizers of the day are dealing with and being
baffled by. 



"ASTRAL FORM" IS RELEASED AT DEATH FROM THE "PHYSICAL"


So when the body dies the astral man is released, and as at death the
immortal man -- the Triad -- flies away to another state, the astral becomes
a shell of the once living man and requires time to dissipate. It retains
all the memories of the life lived by the man, and thus reflexly and
automatically can repeat what the dead man knew, said, thought, and saw. It
remains near the deserted physical body nearly all the time until that is
completely dissipated, for it has to go through its own process of dying. 

It may become visible under certain conditions. It is the spook of the
spiritualistic seance-rooms, and is there made to masquerade as the real
spirit of this or that individual. Attracted by the thoughts of the medium
and the sitters, it vaguely flutters where they are, and then is galvanized
into a factitious life by a whole host of elemental forces and by the active
astral body of the medium who is holding the seance or of any other medium
in the audience. From it (as from a photograph) are then reflected into the
medium's brain all the boasted evidences which spiritualists claim go to
prove identity of deceased friend or relative. These evidences are accepted
as proof that the spirit of the deceased is present, because neither mediums
nor sitters are acquainted with the laws governing their own nature, nor
with the constitution, power, and function of astral matter and astral man. 

The Theosophical philosophy does not deny the facts proven in spiritualistic
seances, but it gives an explanation of them wholly opposed to that of the
spiritualists. And surely the utter absence of any logical scientific
explanation by these so-called spirits of the phenomena they are said to
produce supports the contention that they have no knowledge to impart. They
can merely cause certain phenomena; the examination of those and deductions
therefrom can only be properly carried on by a trained brain guided by a
living trinity of spirit, soul, and mind. And here another class of
spiritualistic phenomena requires brief notice. That is the appearance of
what is called a "materialized spirit." 



THE "ASTRAL" FORMS THE "SPOOK" AFTER DEATH
.

Three explanations are offered: 

First, that the astral body of the living medium detaches itself from its
corpus and assumes the appearance of the so-called spirit; for one of the
properties of the astral matter is capacity to reflect an image existing
unseen in ether. 

Second, the actual astral shell of the deceased -- wholly devoid of his or
her spirit and conscience -- becomes visible and tangible when the condition
of air and ether is such as to so alter the vibration of the molecules of
the astral shell that it may become visible. The phenomena of density and
apparent weight are explained by other laws. 

Third, an unseen mass of electrical and magnetic matter is collected, and
upon it is reflected out of the astral light a picture of any desired person
either dead or living. This is taken to be the "spirit" of such persons, but
it is not, and has been justly called by H. P. Blavatsky a "psychological
fraud," because it pretends to be what it is not. And, strange to say, this
very explanation of materializations has been given by a "spirit" at a
regular seance, but has never been accepted by the spiritualists just
because it upsets their notion of the return of the spirits of deceased
persons. 


		
PHOTOGRAPHIC PROJECTION OF MEMORIES OF LAST LIFE


>From it (as from a photograph) are then reflected into the medium's brain
all the boasted evidences which spiritualists claim go to prove identity of
deceased friend or relative. These evidences are accepted as proof that the
spirit of the deceased is present, because neither mediums nor sitters are
acquainted with the laws governing their own nature, nor with the
constitution, power, and function of astral matter and astral man. 

The Theosophical philosophy does not deny the facts proven in spiritualistic
seances, but it gives an explanation of them wholly opposed to that of the
spiritualists. And surely the utter absence of any logical scientific
explanation by these so-called spirits of the phenomena they are said to
produce supports the contention that they have no knowledge to impart. They
can merely cause certain phenomena; the examination of those and deductions
therefrom can only be properly carried on by a trained brain guided by a
living trinity of spirit, soul, and mind. And here another class of
spiritualistic phenomena requires brief notice. That is the appearance of
what is called a "materialized spirit." 



THE "ASTRAL BODY" AND PSYCHIC PHENOMENA
.

Finally, the astral body will explain nearly all the strange psychical
things happening in daily life and in dealings with genuine mediums; it
shows what an apparition may be and the possibility of such being seen, and
thus prevents the scientific doubter from violating good sense by asserting
you did not see what you know you have seen; it removes superstition by
showing the real nature of these phenomena, and destroys the unreasonable
fear of the unknown which makes a man afraid to see a "ghost." 

By it also we can explain the apportation of objects without physical
contact, for the astral hand may be extruded and made to take hold of an
object, drawing it in toward the body. When this is shown to be possible,
then travelers will not be laughed at who tell of seeing the Hindu yogee
make coffee cups fly through the air and distant objects approach apparently
of their own accord untouched by him or anyone else. 

All the instances of clairvoyance and clairaudience are to be explained also
by the astral body and astral light. 

The astral -- which are the real -- organs do the seeing and the hearing,
and as all material objects are constantly in motion among their own atoms
the astral sight and hearing are not impeded, but work at a distance as
great as the extension of the astral light or matter around and about the
earth. Thus it was that the great seer Swedenborg saw houses burning in the
city of Stockholm when he was at another city many miles off, and by the
same means any clairvoyant of the day sees and hears at a distance.



POSSIBILITY OF ASTRAL TRAVEL


In the ordinary man who has not been trained in practical occultism or who
has not the faculty by birth, the astral body cannot go more than a few feet
from the physical one. It is a part of that physical, it sustains it and is
incorporated in it just as the fibers of the mango are all through that
fruit. 

But there are those who, by reason of practices pursued in former lives on
the earth, have a power born with them of unconsciously sending out the
astral body. These are mediums, some seers, and many hysterical, cataleptic,
and scrofulous people. Those who have trained themselves by a long course of
excessively hard discipline which reaches to the moral and mental nature and
quite beyond the power of the average man of the day, can use the astral
form at will, for they have gotten completely over the delusion that the
physical body is a permanent part of them, and, besides, they have learned
the chemical and electrical laws governing in this matter. In their case
they act with knowledge and consciously; in the other cases the act is done
without power to prevent it, or to bring it about at will, or to avoid the
risks attendant on such use of potencies in nature of a high character. 

	

CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE


All the instances of clairvoyance and clairaudience are to be explained also
by the astral body and astral light. The astral -- which are the real --
organs do the seeing and the hearing, and as all material objects are
constantly in motion among their own atoms the astral sight and hearing are
not impeded, but work at a distance as great as the extension of the astral
light or matter around and about the earth. Thus it was that the great seer
Swedenborg saw houses burning in the city of Stockholm when he was at
another city many miles off, and by the same means any clairvoyant of the
day sees and hears at a distance.



DESIRE-NATURE AFTER PHYSICAL DEATH - KAMARUPA


At death [Kama] informs the astral body, which then becomes a mere shell;
for when a man dies his astral body and principle of passion and desire
leave the physical in company and coalesce. It is then that the term
Kamarupa may be applied, as Kamarupa is really made of astral body [Rupa],
and Kama in conjunction. 

This joining of the two makes a shape or form which though ordinarily
invisible is material and may be brought into visibility. Although it is
empty of mind and conscience, it has powers of its own that can be exercised
whenever the conditions permit. These conditions are furnished by the medium
of the spiritualists, and in every seance room the astral shells of deceased
persons are always present to delude the sitters, whose powers of
discrimination have been destroyed by wonderment. 

It is the "devil" [Bhut] of the Hindus, and a worse enemy the poor medium
could not have. For the astral spook -- or Kamarupa -- is but the mass of
the desires and passions abandoned by the real person who has fled to
"heaven" [Devachan] and has no concern with the people left behind, least of
all with seances and mediums. Hence, being devoid of the nobler soul, these
desires and passions work only on the very lowest part of the medium's
nature and stir up.always the lower leanings of the being. Therefore it is
that even the spiritualists themselves admit that in the ranks of the
mediums there is much fraud, and mediums have often confessed, "the spirits
did tempt me and I committed fraud at their wish." 



DANGER OF EXECUTIONS AND SUICIDE


This Kamarupa spook is also the enemy of our civilization, which permits us
to execute men for crimes committed and thus throw out into the ether the
mass of passion and desire free from the weight of the body and liable at
any moment to be attracted to any sensitive person. Being thus attracted,
the deplorable images of crimes committed and also the picture of the
execution and all the accompanying curses and wishes for revenge are
implanted in living persons, who, not seeing the evil, are unable to throw
it off. Thus crimes and new ideas of crimes are wilfully propagated every
day by those countries where capital punishment prevails. 


	
KAMA -- PASSION AND DESIRE ARE NOT THE MIND


Passion and desire, together with astral model-body, are common to men and
animals, as also to the vegetable kingdom, though in the last but faintly
developed. And at one period in evolution no further material principles had
been developed, and all the three higher, of Mind, Soul, and Spirit, were
but latent. Up to this point man and animal were equal, for the brute in us
is made of the passions and the astral body. 

The development of the germs of Mind made man. because it constituted the
great differentiation. 

The God within begins with Manas or mind, and it is the struggle between
this God and the brute below which Theosophy speaks of and warns about. The
lower principle is called bad because by comparison with the higher it is
so, but still it is the basis of action. We cannot rise unless self first
asserts itself in the "desire to do better." 

In this aspect [in the philosophy of the "Bhagavad Gita"] it is called rajas
or the active and bad quality, as distinguished from tamas, or the quality
of darkness and indifference. Rising is not possible unless rajas is present
to give the impulse, and by the use of this principle of passion all the
higher qualities are brought to at last so refine and elevate our desires
that they may be continually placed upon truth and spirit [sattva]. 

By this Theosophy does not teach that the passions are to be pandered to or
satiated, for a more pernicious doctrine was never taught, but the
injunction is to make use of the activity given by the fourth principle so
as to ever rise and not to fall under the dominion of the dark quality that
ends with annihilation, after having begun in selfishness and indifference. 
But believing in his teacher, the theosophist sees all around him the
evidence that the race mind is changing by enlargement, that the old days of
dogmatism are gone and the "age of inquiry" has come, that the inquiries
will grow louder year by year, and the answers be required to satisfy the
mind as it grows more and more. Until at last, all dogmatism being ended,
the race will be ready to face all problems, each man for himself, all
working for the good of the whole, and that the end will be the perfecting
of those who struggle to overcome the brute. For these reasons the old
doctrines are given out again, and Theosophy asks every one to reflect
whether to give way to the animal below or look up to and be governed by the
God within. 

_______________________________

These statements are culled from The OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY - by W Q Judge


Note: In the OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY Mr. Judge reserves the last 2 chapters ( 16
and 17) to a discussion of what Theosophy has to offer on psychical
phenomena and the place that the astral plays in all extraordinary events. 
[Available as a book to be read "on-Line" at various Web-Sites.  

BLAVATSKY NET http://www.blavatsky.net   

makes this available to those interested.

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

Best wishes,

Dallas
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Cass Silva 
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 5:17 PM
To: 
Subject: Re: The Hierarchy of Evil ? AFTER-DEATH STATES CONSCIOUSNESS


Thanks Dallas.  
"and they draw those who are thoughtlessly willing to do evil to them"
 
Are you saying that "they" impress the astral and lower mental body "of
those who are thoughtlessly willing to do evil to them, through thought? So
that "they" send out or emit evil or selfish ideas, and if there is
something in the receiver that resonates with those ideas, "the
thoughtlessly willing" act upon it?