Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00195)

May 6 2005

Here are some more ideas to consider: concerning the chain of consciousness:

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Principles 1 to 7 -- CONSCIOUS COMMUNICATION
[from BCW IV, 101-102]
 
 
[The author of the article "MEDIUMS AND YOGIS", identified only by three
stars, in the course of his explanation of the difference between yogis and
mediums, says:  "As the magnetic power is directed to any particular
faculty, so that faculty at once forms a direct line of communication with
the spirit, which, receiving the impressions, conveys them back to the
physical body."  

To this HPB remarks:]

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SIXTH PRINCIPLE---SPIRITUAL SOUL.

 
In the normal or natural state, the sensations are transmitted from the
lowest physical to the highest spiritual body, i.e., from the first to the
6th principle (the 7th being no organized or conditioned body, but an
infinite, hence unconditioned principle or state), the faculties of each
body having to awaken the faculties of the next higher one, to transmit the
message in succession, until they reach the last, when, having received the
impression, the latter (the spiritual soul) sends it back in an inverse
order to the body.  

Hence, the faculties of some of the "bodies" (we use this word for want of a
better term) being less developed, they fail to transmit the message
correctly to the highest principle, and thus also fail to produce the right
impression upon the physical senses, as a telegram may have started for the
place of its destination faultless, and have been bungled up and
misinterpreted by the telegraph operator at some intermediate station.  

This is why some people, otherwise endowed with great intellectual powers
and perceptive faculties, are often utterly unable to appreciate---say, the
beauties of nature, or some particular moral quality; as, however perfect
their physical intellect---unless the original material or rough physical
impression conveyed has passed in a circuit through the sieve of every
"principle"---(from 1,2,3,4,5,6 up to 7, and down again from 7,6,5,4,3,2, to
No. 1)---and that every "sieve" is in good order---the spiritual perception
will always be imperfect.  

The Yogi, who, by a constant training and incessant watchfulness, keeps his
septenary instrument in good tune and whose spirit has obtained a perfect
control over all, can, at will, and by paralysing the functions of the four
intermediate principles, communicate from body to spirit and vice
versa---direct.
 
[The author says:  "The Yogi forms a direct connection between his spiritual
soul and any faculty, and, by the power of his trained will, that is by
magnetic influence, concentrates all his powers in the soul, which enables
him to grasp the subject of his enquiry and convey it back to the physical
organs, through the various channels of communication."  

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HPB ADDS:]
 
Or---direct, which is oftener the case, we believe.

 
[The author also says:  "If he desires to traverse space in spirit, this is
easily done by him by transferring the faculty of will. . . ."  

HPB adds:]
 
>From the physical to the Spiritual body and concentrating it there, as we
understand it.
[from BCW IV, 101-102]


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

Comment: JW

The health of the transmission lines, even for a beginner might center
around the general attitude they maintain as live flows on, far more than
any specific event.  

HPB indicates something like this in her Dialogue Between The Two Editors,
and also infers it in Psychic and Noetic Action like this: 

[HPB Articles II, p. 22] 
 
" …each cell bears a long record of impressions connected with its parent
organ, and each cell has a memory and a consciousness of its kind, or call
it instinct if you will. These impressions are, according to the nature of
the organ, physical, psychic, or mental, as they relate to this or another
plane. 

They may be called “states of consciousness” only for the want of a better
expression—as there are states of instinctual, mental, and purely abstract,
or spiritual consciousness. 

If we trace all such “psychic” actions to brain work, it is only because in
that mansion called the human body the brain is the front door, and the only
one which opens out into Space. 

All the others are inner doors, openings in the private building, through
which travel incessantly the transmitting agents of memory and sensation. 

The clearness, the vividness, and intensity of these depend on the state of
health and the organic soundness of the transmitters. But their reality, in
the sense of trueness or correctness, is due to the “principle” they
originate from, and the preponderance in the Lower Manas of the noëtic orof
the phrenic (“Kamic,” terrestrial) element."	[HPB Articles II, pp. 22-3]

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


JW
>From this quote we see that the "vividness," "clearness" and "intensity"
depend upon the state of health of the transmitters, while the "trueness" or
"correctness" depends upon the principle they originate from.
 
One is constantly impressed with the wisdom-equation that person's life is a
combination of their karma and their will.  The less Will we bring to the
table the more we are creatures of FATE and statistics on some
behaviourist's chart.
jerome
 

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INTUITION


"...a projection of our perceptive consciousness, a projection which acts
from the subjective to the objective...awakens in us spiritual senses and
the power to act; these senses assimilate to themselves the essence of the
object or of the action under examination, and represent it to us as it
really is, not as it appears to our physical senses and to our cold
reason...omniscience." HPB Articles I 428


"...the "Ego" in man is a monad that has gathered to itself innumerable
experiences through aeons of time, slowly unfolding its latent potencies
through plane after plane of matter. It is hence called the "eternal
pilgrim."

The Manasic, or mind principle, is cosmic and universal. It is the creator
of all forms, and the basis of all law in nature. Not so with
consciousness. Consciousness is a condition of the monad as a result of
embodiment in matter and the dwelling in a physical form.
Self-consciousness, which from the animal plane looking upward is the
beginning of perfection, from the divine plane looking downwards is the
perfection of selfishness and the curse of separateness. it is the "world
of illusion" that man has created for himself. "Maya is the perceptive
faculty of every Ego which considers itself a Unit, separate from and
independent of the One Infinite and Eternal Sat or 'be-ness'," (SD I 329)
The "eternal pilgrim" must therefore mount higher, and flee from the plane
of self-consciousness it has struggled so hard to reach."
WQJ ART I 29


"The "Absolute Consciousness,"..."behind" phenomena...is only termed
unconsciousness in the absence of any element of personality...transcends
human conception...Only the liberated Spirit is able to faintly realize the
nature of the source whence it sprung and whither it must eventually
return...we can but bow in ignorance before the awful mystery of Absolute
Being...the Finite cannot conceive the Infinite..."	S D I 51


"the one free force acts, helped in this by that portion of its essence
which we call imprisoned force, or material molecules. The worker within,
the inherent force, ever tends to unite with its parent essence without;
and thus, the Mother acting within, causes the Web to contract; and the
Father acting without, to expand. Science calls this gravitation;
Occultists, the work of the universal Life-Force, which radiates from that
Absolute and Unknowable FORCE which is outside of all Space and Time. This
is the work of eternal Evolution and involution, or expansion and
contraction. [ Web cooling ]...it begins when the imprisoned force and
intelligence inherent in every atom of differentiated as well as of
homogeneous matter arrives at a point when both become the slaves of a
higher intelligent Force whose mission is to guide and shape it.

It is the Force which we call the divine Free-Will, represented by the
Dhyani-Buddhas. When the centrepetal and centrifugal forces of life and
being are subjected by the one nameless Force which brings order in
disorder, and establishes harmony in Chaos--then it begins cooling...Every
form, we are told, is built in accordance with the model traced for it in
the Eternity and reflected in the DIVINE MIND. There are hierarchies of
"Builders of form," and series of forms and degrees, from the highest to the
lowest. While the former are shaped under the guidance of the "Builders,"
the gods, "Cosmocratores;" the latter are fashioned by the Elementals or
Nature Spirits."	Trans 128-9


"The universal force cannot be regarded as a conscious force as we
understand the word consciousness, because it would immediately become a
personal god. It is only that which is enclosed in a form, a limitation of
matter, which is conscious of itself on this plane. This Free Force or
Will, which is limitless and absolute, cannot be said to act
understandingly, but it is the one and sole immutable Law of Life and Being.
Fohat, therefore, is spoken of as the synthetic motor power of all
imprisoned life-forces and the medium between the absolute and conditioned
Force. It is a link, just as Manas is the connecting link between the gross
matter of the physical body and the divine Monad which animates it, but is
powerless to act upon the former directly."	Trans 134

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PLANES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

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In SECRET DOCTRINE 

I 157, 7 Principles, 4 Koshas (sheaths), 4 States of ‘consciousness,

181-2, 3 Lines of Evolution: Spiritual, Intellectual, Physical,

200-2, Evolutionary progress: 7 Rounds, 7 Globes, 7 “Races”, 
7 “Sub-races” 

Compared with Kabala,

240-6; Principles of Theosophy and of Kabala compared,

II 596	Principles of the Universe (Kosmos) and of Man compared


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

"The "Absolute Consciousness,"..."behind" phenomena...is only termed
unconsciousness in the absence of any element of personality...transcends
human conception...Only the liberated Spirit is able to faintly realize the
nature of the source whence it sprung and whither it must eventually
return...we can but bow in ignorance before the awful mystery of Absolute
Being...the Finite cannot conceive the Infinite..."	S D I 51


"Esoteric philosophy teaches that everything lives and is conscious, but not
that all life and consciousness are similar to those of human or even animal
beings. Life we look on as the "the one form of existence," manifesting in
what is called matter; or, as in man, what, incorrectly separating them we
name Spirit, Soul and Matter. Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation
or soul on this plane of existence, and soul is the vehicle on a higher
plane for the manifestation of spirit, and those three are a trinity
synthesized by Life, which pervades them all."	SD I 49


"Every atom is endowed with and moved by intelligence, and is conscious in
its own degree, on its own plane of development. This is a glimpse of the
One Life...selfishness is the curse of selfishness..."	WQJ ART I 29


"...Time...[is] the panoramic succession of our states of consciousness..."
S D I 44


"Free-will can only exist in a man who has both mind and consciousness,
which act and make him perceive things both within and without himself."

"Consciousness is a condition of the monad as a result of embodiment in
matter and the dwelling in a physical form."	WQJ ART I 29


"the one free force acts, helped in this by that portion of its essence
which we call imprisoned force, or material molecules. The worker within,
the inherent force, ever tends to unite with its parent essence without;
and thus, the Mother acting within, causes the Web to contract; and the
Father acting without, to expand. Science calls this gravitation;
Occultists, the work of the universal Life-Force, which radiates from that
Absolute and Unknowable FORCE which is outside of all Space and Time. This
is the work of eternal Evolution and involution, or expansion and
contraction. [ Web cooling ]...it begins when the imprisoned force and
intelligence inherent in every atom of differentiated as well as of
homogeneous matter arrives at a point when both become the slaves of a
higher intelligent Force whose mission is to guide and shape it.

It is the Force which we call the divine Free-Will, represented by the
Dhyani-Buddhas. When the centrepetal and centrifugal forces of life and
being are subjected by the one nameless Force which brings order in
disorder, and establishes harmony in Chaos--then it begins cooling...Every
form, we are told, is built in accordance with the model traced for it in
the Eternity and reflected in the DIVINE MIND. There are hierarchies of
"Builders of form," and series of forms and degrees, from the highest to the
lowest. While the former are shaped under the guidance of the "Builders,"
the gods, "Cosmocratores;" the latter are fashioned by the Elementals or
Nature Spirits."	TRANS 128-9



"Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of Consciousness grouped
under Thought, Will, and Feeling. During deep sleep, ideation ceases of the
physical plane, and memory is in abeyance; thus for the time-being "Mind is
not," because the organ through which the Ego manifests ideation and memory
on the material plane has temporarily ceased to function. A noumenon can
become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that
plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle...The Ah-hi (Dhyan-Chohans)
are the collective hosts of spiritual beings--the Angelic Hosts of
Christianity...--who are the vehicle for the manifestation of the divine or
universal though and will. They are the Intelligent Forces that give to and
enact in Nature her "laws," while themselves acting according to laws
imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers...This
hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the Universal Mind comes into
action, is like an army--a "Host."
SD I 38  


"..."Mind" is manas, or rather its lower reflection, which whenever it
disconnects itself, for the time being, with kama, becomes the guide of the
highest mental faculties, and is the organ of the free-will in physical
man...." HPB Art., Vol. II, p. 13




SAMADHI


"...the highest state permitted to it (personal or animal soul) on earth
being samadhi. It is only its essence that has followed the monad into
Devachan, to serve it there as its ground-tone, or as the background against
which its future dream-life and development will move...That which is in
Devachan is...the smell of the flower...its aroma will never die, and may be
recalled and resurrected ages thence..."	T. A. & N., p 24




TURIYA


"Turiya (Sk.) A state of the deepest trance--the 4th state of the Taraka
Raja Yoga, on the corresponds with Atma, and on this earth within dreamless
sleep--a causal condition...almost a Nirvanic state if Samadhi, which is
itself a beatific state of the contemplative Yoga beyond this plane. A
condition of the higher Triad, quite distinct (though still inseparable)
from the conditions of Jagrat (waking), Swapna (dreaming), and Sushupti
[dreamless] (sleeping)"
Glos. 345-6




SWAPNA -- Psychic Dreaming



"In the dream state we lose all knowledge of the objects which while awake
we thought real and proceed to suffer and enjoy in that new state. [ see SD
I 47 ] In this we find the consciousness applying itself to objects
partaking of course of the nature of experiences of the waking condition,
but at the same time producing the sensations of pleasure and pain while
they last. [ see SD I 56 ] Let us imagine a person's body plunged in a
lethargy extending over twenty years and the mind undergoing a pleasant or
unpleasant dream, and we have a life just of that sort, altogether different
from the life of one awake. For the consciousness of this dreamer the
reality of objects known during the waking state is destroyed. But as
material existence is a necessary evil and the one is which alone
emancipation or salvation can be obtained, it is of the greatest importance
and hence Karma which governs it...must be well understood and then be
accepted and obeyed."	Echoes. pp. 41-42


"Dreams are sometimes the result of brain action automatically proceeding,
and are also produced by the transmission into the brain by the real inner
person of those senses or ideas high or low which the real person has seen
while the body slept. They are then strained into the brain as if floating
on the soul as it sinks into the body. These dreams may be of great use,
but generally the resumption of bodily activity destroys the meaning,
perverts the image, and reduces all to confusion. 

But the great fact of all dreaming is that some one perceives and feels
therein and this is one of the arguments for the inner person's existence.

In sleep the inner man communes with higher intelligences, and sometimes
succeeds in impressing the brain with what is gained, either a high idea or
a prophetic vision, or else fails in consequence of the resistance of the
brain fiber. The karma of the person also determines the meaning of a
dream, for a kind may dream that which relates to his kingdom, which the
same thing dreamed by a citizen relates to nothing of temporal consequence.
But, as said by Job: "In dreams and visions of the night man is
instructed."	Ocean, p. 143-4


"When one says "I dreamed," he is in the waking state and is surrounded by
the external conditions that go to make up that state of consciousness; he
is therefore comparing the state in which he finds himself with another
state whose surroundings are not then present or evident...in the dreaming
state, all that made up his waking state is absent from his perceptions and
he is surrounded by a world of his own creation, which for the time being is
objective and real to him; his perceptions are "awake" to the dream and
immersed in it, so he has nothing before him to compare the states of waking
and dreaming with. Should he be able to make comparisons , the dream state
would cease and he would be awake."
Answers to Questions, p. 94-5



SUSHUPTI -- Deep Sleep

	
"Dreamless sleep is one of the seven states of consciousness known in
Oriental esotericism. In each of these states a different portion of the
mind comes into action; or as a Vedantin would express it, the individual
is conscious in a different plane of his being. The term "dreamless sleep,"
in this case is applied allegorically to the Universe to express a condition
somewhat analogous to that state of consciousness in man, which, not being
remembered is a waking state, seems a blank, just as the sleep of the
mesmerized subject seems to him an unconscious blank when he returns to his
normal condition, although he has been talking and acting as a conscious
individual would."	SD I 47


"...dreamless sleep--one that leaves no impression on the physical memory
and brain, because the sleeper's Higher Self is in its original state of
absolute unconsciousness during those hours...re-absorption is by no means
such a "dreamless sleep," but, on the contrary, absolute existence, an
unconditioned unity, or a state, to describe which human language is
absolutely hopelessly inadequate...it can be attempted solely in the
panoramic visions of the soul, through spiritual ideations of the divine
monad."	[ see also SD I 429 top ]	SD I 266


"Buddhi the Spiritual soul...because it is the direct cause of Sushupti
[deep sleep]...leading to Turiya...the highest state of Samadhi [ Meditation
]...Buddhi becomes a "causal body" in conjunction with Manas the incarnation
of the Entity or Ego..." Glossary, p. 74


"There is a sort of conscious telegraphic communication going on
incessantly, day and night, between the physical brain and the inner
man...the consciousness of the sleeper is not active but passive. The
inner man, however, the real Ego, acts independently during the sleep of the
body...Read "Karmic Visions" [ HPB ART I, 382 ]...and note the description
of the real Ego, sitting as a spectator of the life of the hero..."
TRANS 64-5	


"There are many kinds of "dreams"...the highest of them being recollections
of the activity and real awakens of the Inner Man, but these are not
ordinarily translatable into terms of bodily consciousness."
Ans. to Quest. p. 95


"As a rule, all that we experience of a dream from the inner man is a
feeling, for the dream being strained through the brain is all broken and
confused. A dream that makes a profound impression...cannot be a mere
surface dream."	Ans. to Quest. 220


"In every night he enters that spiritual state, his own true nature.
Connection between the Lower and the Higher Manas must be made during life
in a body; it cannot be made at any other time."
Ans to Quest. 175


"Good resolutions are mind-painted pictures of good deeds, fancies,
day-dreams, whisperings of the Buddhi to the Manas..."	Letters from the
Masters of Wisdom (I) p 60-1



IMAGINATION


"...the plastic power of the imagination is much stronger in some persons
than in others. The mind is dual in its potentiality; It is physical and
metaphysical. The higher part of the mind is connected with the spiritual
soul or Buddhi, the lower with the animal soul, the Kama principle. There
are persons who never think with the higher faculties of their mind at all;
those who do so are the minority and are thus, in a way, beyond, if not
above, the average of human kind. The idiosyncrasy of the person determines
in which "principle" of the mind the thinking is done, as also the faculties
of a preceding life, and sometimes the heredity of the physical. This is
why it is so very difficult for a materialist--the metaphysical portion of
whose brain is almost atrophied--to raise himself, or for one who is
naturally spiritually minded, to descend to the level of the matter-of-fact
vulgar thought...[ Thinking to be developed in the higher mind ?
]...Certainly it can be developed, but only with great difficulty, a firm
determination, and through much self-sacrifice...This difference depends
simply on the innate power of the mind to think on the higher or on the
lower plane, with the astral...or with the physical brain. Great
intellectual powers are often no proof of, but are the impediments to
spiritual and right conceptions...The person who is endowed with this
faculty of thinking about even the most trifling things from the higher
plane of thought has, by virtue of that gift which he possesses, a plastic
power of formation, so to say, in his very imagination...his thought will be
so far more intense that the thought of an ordinary person, that by his very
intensity it obtains the power of creation...thought is an energy. This
energy in its action disturbs the atoms of the astral atmosphere around
us...the rays of thought have the same potentiality for producing forms in
the astral atmosphere as the sun rays have with regard to a lens. Every
thought so evolved with energy from the brain, creates nolens volens a
shape."	HPB-- Dialogues --	HPB Art. II 42-3


"...the human brain is simply the canal between two planes--the
psycho-spiritual and the material--through which every abstract and
metaphysical idea filters from the Manasic down to the lower human
consciousness. Therefore the ideas about the infinite and the absolute are
not, nor can they be, within our brain capacities. They can be faithfully
mirrored only by our Spiritual consciousness, thence to be more of less
faintly projected on to the tables of our perceptions on this plane. Thus
while the records of even important events are often obliterated from our
memory, not the most trifling action of our lives can disappear from the
"Soul's" memory, because it is no memory for it, but an ever-present reality
on the plane which lies outside our conceptions of space and time. "Man is
the measure of all things," said Aristotle; and surely he did not mean by
man, the form of flesh, bones and muscles ? ... As our world is mostly
formed of imperceptible beings which are the real constructors of its
continents, so likewise is man."
HPB--Memory in the Dying -- HPB Art. II 378-9


MEMORY


"Our "memory" is but a general agent, and its "tablets," with their
indelible impressions, but a figure of speech; the "brain-tablets" serve
only as a upadhi or a vahan (basis or vehicle) for reflecting at a given
moment the memory of one or another thing. The records of past events, of
every minutest action, and of passing thoughts, in fact, are realty
impressed on the imperishable waves of the Astral Light, around us and
everywhere, not in the brain alone; and these mental pictures, images, and
sounds, pass from these waves via the consciousness of the personal Ego or
Mind (the lower Manas) whose grosser essence is astral, into the "cerebral
reflectors," so to say, of our brain, whence they are delivered by the
psychic to the sensuous consciousness. This at every moment of the day, and
even during sleep."	Theos. Art. & Notes, p. 209


"...Genius--an abnormal aptitude of mind--that develops and grows, or the
physical brain, is vehicle, which becomes...fitter to receive and manifest
from within outwardly the innate and divine nature of man's over-soul."
HPB-- "Genius"	-- HPB Art. II 119


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Best wishes,

Dallas

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-----Original Message-----
From: L.R. A
Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 10:19 AM
To: 
Subject: [bn-study] Seven planes

Dear Friends,
 
Dallas mentioned the seven "planes" of existence in which we can function:
work, think, dream, etc., and that dreaming and waking is good proof that
these planes of consciousness indeed exist. We have in recent weeks touched
on Carlos Castaneda's "Don Juan: a Yaqui Way to Knowledge" in which Don
Juan, the sorcerer/shaman, uses various techniques to teach his apprentice
some of what he can do. Namely, to control his dreams, and eventually to
"see" what is hidden from ordinary view.


This was discussed under "Lucid Dreaming." 


My question would be, should one strive to be AWARE that one is functioning,
working, etc., in the other six "planes" of consciousness? 


Dallas often has mentioned that motive is very important in what we do. So
therefore perhaps mere curiosity about the other planes is not a good reason
to strive for such awareness. But, under the tutelage of the right teacher,
"living" or not, such a pursuit might be a good thing. Your comments are
welcomed! .
 
All the best,
 
L.R.