Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00418)

May 15 2005

Dear Friend: Zakk

Here is something that relates to your theme on thought transference:

You observe:

"I recently read that "Telepathy obliterates language and forces a 
species to be honest with itself. Without honest self knowledge; 
there can be no telepathic transfers of information. ...

Interested in some feedback."

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

This is covered under a consideration of the powers and capacities of The
astral body -- I give some notes below on this to explain.


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.

It was asked: if an Adept has the power to read others' thoughts in
strictly authorized cases. Now, what determines such authorization?
 
Ans.-Well, we might think behind the meaning of Chelaship, and perhaps that
will open our eyes to some things. Here we have, as a body, some kind of a
relation with the Masters of Wisdom, haven't we? We are interested in the
same Cause that They labour for in full, continuous consciousness. We are
struggling to travel in the same direction; that is, we are trying to study
and to apply the same teaching that guides Their lives. 

So, we have a relation with Them as a mass, as a body, having a common aim
and a common purpose and a common teaching. However remote that relation is,
it is a contact. 

Suppose a man, an individual here and there, realizes that? Just as the
sense of touch, when more concentrated, becomes the sense of hearing without
the sense of touch being lost, and the sense of hearing, when more
concentrated, becomes the sense of sight without either hearing or touch
being lost-if there are Masters of Wisdom, if there are such Beings and They
do labour for all men, They must take a special interest in those men and
women who are striving to fit themselves in every way open to them to become
the better able to help and teach others. Any one individual can take to
heart H.P.B.'s statement in the Fourth Message to the American Theosophists:

"After all, every wish and thought I can utter are summed up in this one
sentence, the never-dormant wish of my heart, "Be Theosophists, work for
Theosophy!"

Suppose, as the result of a year or seven years or a lifetime or seven
lifetimes of soul growth-because that kind of growth, being spiritual, is
never lost-someone comes back into incarnation, and comes into contact with
Theosophy. It touches his heart before it touches his head-he only knows
that it is so. He hasn't studied it, hasn't read it, hasn't listened to the
arguments for and against Karma, Reincarnation, the seven planetary states
and all the rest of it-he just knows that it is so. "How do you know it is
so?" he is asked. "I feel it," he replies.

This is another kind of touch isn't it? With this feeling in his heart,
he goes to work to inform his head, educate his head. Actually, he begins to
make his brain capable of taking pictures; he begins to make a film out of
his brain that will take pictures on the other side. Then what? As he gets
head and heart to work together, something else must happen. 

How far off are the Masters from us, in terms of space? 'Why, They are out
of sight that's all. How far are They from us in terms of intelligence? They
are out of sound that's all. How far off are They from us in matter-not
necessarily this kind of matter? Why, They are beyond our touch.

But, suppose we cultivated our touch, our hearing, our sight in the same
direction in which They are looking and listening. They are open to the
least vibration of a searching soul-wouldn't it follow that our inner senses
would begin to wake up? What is it that develops the inner senses? Well,
what has made our outer senses possible? Do we ever think of that? When we
descended into incarnation, we had no physical senses-we had only spiritual
and psychic senses. We had no physical senses at all; that is why we had to
incarnate, to work here.

Who is the parent of the physical senses? The principle of desire. Who is
the parent of the inner senses? Thought, will and feeling. As we turned
outward and downward, thought, will and feeling became a simple film for
sense pictures, because, turned toward desire, the film will take
impressions only from below; but suppose we turned our thought, will and
feeling in the other direction? 

Our physical senses would still be here to report. It's just like a
telephone bell ringing, or a news paper dropped at the door; we don't have
to answer the telephone be- cause it rings, or to read the scandal sheets
merely because we take the newspaper. 

Suppose, then, we turned our thought, will and feeling in the direction of
the spiritual and intellectual world where the Masters live and work-a world
which has no limits, so far as our understanding of space is concerned.
Wouldn't all the rest follow, until finally we could come into something
more than mere heart feeling or head feeling?
 
Q.-This communication of thought without a word, does it produce sound?

Ans.-Sound is a vibration in the air here. You cannot make a motion of
consciousness of any kind without producing a vibration in what ever state
of life you are acting in. So, on the plane of Manas, if we think of each
other-to use an expression-we are setting up a vibration, aren't we? That
would correspond on that plane to sound on this plane. ...So, Thought
communication produces a series of vibrations, on various planes, and these
are translated by the mind according to the plane on which the consciousness
is awake.

Q.-Referring to "three modes of sight," why is it necessary to impress the
image, to see through the inner sense?
 
Ans.-Let us state it by analogy: When we talk over the telephone-speaking
strictly within the terms of our intellectual sight-what happens is that our
thought, will and feeling set our vocal organs to work, and then, under that
impulsion and control, we make sounds, which means only that we set the air
in vibration. The vibration of the air sets up a corresponding vibration in
the tympanum of the telephone, and that sets up a corresponding electrical
vibration, which to all intents and purposes is instantly transmitted to any
distance. At the other end of the line, the process by which we have talked
into the telephone is precisely reversed; the electrical vibration sets up a
vibration in the tympanum of the telephone; the tympanum of the telephone
sets up a vibration in the air; that sets up a vibration in our tympanum;
and that vibration is transmitted through its o channel our brain, where it
sets up a vibration with thought, will and feeling in us.

Take another illustration-a simple cinema. How was the film obtained, in
the first place? By the transmission of light images from without, through a
lens, on to a recording substance. When we see the cinema, what happens? The
recording substance with the images impressed on it is not seen by us, but
is thrown outward over the lens-projected, they call it-and we see the
projection. That's exactly what happens with us here. Certain vibrations
from outside enter us through five lenses and we call those vibrations our
sense-impressions; then they set up a vibration in another portion of our
nature, and these other vibrations, we call thought, will, feeling, memory
and imagination. They in turn arouse our will, our attitude and our action,
and then the process is reversed. This process goes on everywhere and all
the time.

Now, would it be possible on this theory for a man of his own knowledge,
of his own perception, of his own will, to create a given form in what some
call Spirit-Matter? If so, that form would be visible on the plane of
Thought-Matter-call it the psychic plane. Suppose one knew how to hold it
there or concentrate it there that is, instead of magnifying the strip, as
the cinema projector does, to reverse it, just as the photographic
instrument reduces a large thing to small dimensions. So the spirit-image
would be reduced to the compass of thought and fixed. Then, the thought
image would instantly be visible and audible in astral substance. Suppose it
were there held, and condensed still further? The astral image would then
become internally visible to the living man. How? By being. projected from
his brain through the optic nerve into his eye from within.

Anything that is done consciously and with knowledge can also happen
"accidentally"-that is, unconsciously-through a concatenation produced
internally by the various organs. Any number of people "see things."
Remember the 10th Proposition of ISIS UNVEILED [II p. 589-90] about the
movements of the wandering astral form? Neither time nor space offer any
obstacle to them. A thaumaturgist and practical occultist can cause his
astral body to assume protean appearances-that is, take on the shape of
anything in Nature, big or little, and in no matter what kingdom. He can not
only cause his astral body to assume protean appearances, but also can make
it visible or invisible to another by an act of his will. He can also
impress pictures formed in his own mind on the mind of another without the
latter's being aware of it.

Those who have seen such an imposed picture are ready to stake their
lives on the reality of what they have seen-when the whole thing was but an
illusion, a phantasmagoria produced by the irresistible will of the Adept.
Probably everyone has "seen things"; he saw them and, a moment after, looked
again and there was nothing there for him to see, physically. How did he
see? He saw astrally that is, externally and astrally; an astral image was
projected not from without inward, but from within outward.
 
Q.-Would that apply to sound also-to "hearing things"?

Ans.-Precisely, and also to smell and touch and taste. This is the power
that all the bright advertising men are using unconsciously, just as the
Christian Scientists are using another kind of power unconsciously. They
don't recognize it for What it is, and they give it false names, for in both
cases they aren't using it for the sake of the public-they are using it for
their own sake, or for the sake of their own interests.
 
Q.-Referring to the misuse of powers, Mr. Judge says that if a man persists
in such misuse, these powers are taken from him. If they can be taken away,
the implication is that they can be conferred Yet man, is held by the
Masters of Wisdom to be the highest product of the whole system of
evolution, as he mirrors in himself every power, however wonderful or
terrible, of Nature; by the very fact of being such a mirror he is man.
Isn't, then, that power inherent, rather than conferred? The two statements
seem to conflict.

Ans.-Underscore the word "mirrors." We mirror in ourselves every power in
nature, but we are not able to exercise those powers because we haven't the
knowledge to make that reflection anything but an image. We haven't the
knowledge, and we haven't the will to make images objective. How easy it is
for us to agree with the Golden Rule, and how very difficult it is for us to
practise it Why? The Golden Rule is an astral or psychic or mental image.
Living it is fixing it, in terms of three dimensions. Do we find that easy?

 
Q.-In regard to the third mode of sight, is this power to project an image
from without within, or from within without, the secret of the fakirs who
make great numbers of people see what isn't there?

Ans.-Yes, surely; that's an occult power. Have you ever thought that there
must be certain terrible secrets working on us all the time, not on any one
of us picked out as a victim, but on all humanity? Look at the readiness
with which people can believe what isn't so, and give their lives for it.
They have accepted such-and-such ideas. Having accepted them, although those
ideas may be totally false, they appear to the believer as absolutely true,
and he is ready to be burned at the stake, and to burn others at the stake,
for the sake of those ideas.

What kind of occult, left-hand power is being exercised on human minds?
We know how very hard it is, even with the aid of Theosophy, to qualify our
perceptions, so that we are able to label the ideas we find in our own minds
as sound and true, or false. And even after having so labeled them, what
tremendous difficulty we have to disembarrass our-selves, to get free from
the force and influence, of what, for convenience sake, we may call bad
habits, bad memories, bad thoughts, bad inner pictures. Although we want to
be rid of them, we can't. What terrible influence is behind all that?

Reversing it, the opposite is just as true. What divine influence is
there somewhere in space, in time, in consciousness, which causes many men
to long for the good, the beautiful and the true, even in the midst of the
opposite in the world? Behind all human life is magic, white and black, and
human beings are subject to the influence of both.


THE DESIRE-NATURE AND THE ASTRAL BODY

During life the emplacement of the desires and passions [Kama] is, as
obtains with the astral body, throughout the entire lower man, and like that
ethereal counterpart of our physical person it may be added to or
diminished, made weak or increased in strength, debased or purified. 

Some explanations:


THE PHYSICAL BODY IS IN CONSTANT CHANGE

The physical 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 "CELL" is a MODEL and IDEAL SHAPE

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. 

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. 

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. 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. 


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. 


ASTRAL BODY AND THE REAL SENSES


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. 

	
KAMA -- PASSIONS 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, 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. 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. 


MANAS -- THE MIND


In our analysis of man's nature we have so far considered only the
perishable elements which make up the lower man, and have arrived at the
fourth principle or plane -- that of desire -- without having touched upon
the question of Mind. 
But even so far as we have gone it must be evident that there is a wide
difference between the ordinary ideas about Mind and those found in
Theosophy.

Ordinarily the Mind is thought to be immaterial, or to be merely the name
for the action of the brain in evolving thought, a process wholly unknown
other than by inference, or that if there be no brain there can be no mind. 

This confusion and poverty of words for these uses are due almost entirely,
first, to dogmatic religion, which has asserted and enforced for many
centuries dogmas and doctrines which reason could not accept, and secondly
to the natural war which grew up between science and religion just as soon
as the fetters placed by religion upon science were removed and the latter
was permitted to deal with facts in nature. 

The reaction against religion naturally prevented science from taking any
but a materialistic view of man and nature. So from neither of these two
have we yet gained the words needed for describing the fifth, sixth, and
seventh principles, those which make up the Trinity, the real man, the
immortal pilgrim. 

The fifth principle is MANAS, and is usually translated Mind. Other names
have been given to it, but it is the knower, the perceiver, the thinker. 

The sixth is BUDDHI, or spiritual discernment; the seventh is ATMA, or
Spirit, the ray from the Absolute Being. The English language will suffice
to describe in part what Manas is, but not Buddhi, or Atma, and will leave
many things relating to Manas undescribed. 

==================================
Best wishes, 

Dallas
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Zakk Duffany  
Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2005 3:51 PM
To: 
Subject: Re: "just being" and ...


----It is possible to know through the sharing of consciousness. It is a
relatively unknown process and seldom practiced, but it exists.----

> We can share consciousness up to a point, but how do we know with 
> certainty that our sharing is done correctly? <