Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00188)

Apl 6 2005

RE: Tzongkhapa , permanence, temporariness

Thanks Gerry:

Our usual disagreements and some confusion over terms and usages, but by and
large agreement -- better still "conditional agreement." 


SPIRIT -- to "flip-side" MATTER has an intermediary MIND, or the
capacity of freedom of choice. Wit the proviso that the choice always will
lie between an action that is in harmony with Natures' KARMIC LAWS or is
against them and distorts them.

It is this permanent, immortal and eternal MIND (that Theosophy calls the
three-fold MONAD in evolution) that serves as the on-going and ever-living
center around which experience, knowledge and all decision/action takes
place. 

It is said to be dual, as it is a "bridge" between the SIMPLICITY and
ONENESS of PURE SPIRIT, and all the complexity and many kinds and types of
isolation associated with the "forms" of MATTER.

As I understand it the duty of all Mind-Beings is to work in and through
Matter and thus purifying it return it CONSCIOUSLY AND INTELLIGENTLY to
the pristine unity and clarity it once has with SPIRIT. I admit this is a
paradox. I did not propound it, but have worked with it and tried to
"destroy" it as a logical, workable concept for many years. I am always
questing on that. One of the best explanations I found reads: (this is
from a commentary on the BHAGAVAD GITA, p. 132 - 39)

"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

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. 

One great god is that of social advancement, the most foolish, hollow and
unsatisfactory of all; and with it in America is yoked the god of money, for
without wealth there is no social preeminence possible except in those cases
where official position confers a temporary glory. The mother often spends
sleepless nights inventing means for pushing her daughter into social
success; the father lies wakefully calculating new problems for the
production of money. The inheritors of riches bask in the radiance coming
from their own gold, while they strive for new ways to make, if possible,
another upward step on that road, founded on ashes and ending at the grave,
which is called social greatness. And out of all this striving many and
various desires spring up so that their multiplicity and diversity
completely hide and obstruct all spiritual development and discernment. 
But many who are not so carried away by these follies attend to some
religion which they have adopted or been educated into. 

In very few cases, however, is the religion adopted: it is born with the
child; it is found with the family and is regularly fastened on as a
garment. If in this religion, or cult, there is faith, then the Supreme
Self, impartial and charitable, makes the faith strong and constant so that
thereby objects are attained. In whatever way the devotee chooses to worship
with faith it is the Supreme which, though ignored, brings about the results
of faith. 

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

A bit long and also similar to some of the Sutras discussions and teachings
of the Buddha.

Best wishes as always, 

Dallas

[ surviving slowly with effort ]

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald Schueler 
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 2:46 AM
To: 
Subject: RE: Tzongkhapa , permanence, temporariness

<< To be able to make it, some one or a group of persons, are NOT subject to
variation. They have achieved stability. [If not on our plane of
variableness, then on some other, possibly designated SPIRITUAL (as in ATMA
or PARAMATMA) in the ideal sense ? ]
 
Hi Dal. Hope you are well. The spiritual is nothing more than the flip side
of the material. You can't have a coin with one side temporary and the
other side permanent. Both sides of the substance-coin are temporary, both
matter and spirit change over time. All seven principles together with
paramatman are temporary and conditional. They have to be because they
evolve over time. But the essential nature of each one of us is the nondual
Monad, outside of time and unaffected by it. But this is not a subjective
"person" nor is it an objective "thing."
 
 
<< It is possible that in and on this plane of materiality there is
continual
atomic and subatomic, molecular and other "motions" -- making for changes.
And then on planes still more subtle (some of which are beginning to be
observable) there are causal and stable bases ? >>
 
The relatively "stable bases" also change and grow over time. Else why
manifest or express? The Reincarnating Ego evolves over time by sending
forth a series of ego-incarnations, and paramatman evolves by sending forth
atma which together send forth buddhi, and so on. If Blavatsky had said
that our continuum was Space and Time, this would not be so obvious. But
she didn't. Instead she said Space and Motion so that would be very clear
to students that everything within the continuum of space is in motion and
motion connotes change and change connotes impermanence and conditionality.
 
 
<< But behind or within those that are so mutable, there has to be something
that directs, channels and conditions all such measurable effects -- or we
are faced with a chaotic randomness -- but then law and rhythm and cycles
would contradict that. >>
 
There is "something that directs" but that something is also in Motion, and
what is behind that is also in Motion and so on until we are left with
everything being in Motion. Nonduality, or Beness, the Dharmadhatu, is
called the Basis or Ground in Dzogchen because it is the unmoving stable
foundation for our entire moving matter-spirit universe.
 
 
<< Logical a CAUSE is screamed for.
Any ideas?
Dallas >>
 
If we assume that our conditional universe exists as such, then we
logically look for a cause in what is unconditioned. However, the
unconditioned is outside of time and not effected by time nor can it effect
time, and so logically it cannot cause or "do" anything. That which is in
motion can do things but is temporary. That which is unmoving and permanent
can do nothing. And this leaves us with a "causeless cause" and we have
already kicked that one around the block once or twice.

Have a nice day,
 
Jerry S.
 


---
You are currently subscribed to theos-l as: dalval14@earthlink.net
List URL - http://list.vnet.net/?enter=theos-l
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-theos-l-56348C@list.vnet.net