Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00729)

May 28 2005

Dear M S :  

Re: error and misunderstanding -- tolerance ?


In regard to good and evil, we might think and see if this helps at all:


The Universe is not one of competition, but rather, a comprehension of a
universal fact. All participate in this. Now how can we test this? Can we
divest it of any emotional or personal, selfish attitudes? Can pure thought
be attained?

As I see it, comprehension is a Mind faculty and all have it developed in
various stages. We need to exercise our minds to seek to know anything. It
includes selection, comparison, analysis, re-formation, and above all an
openness to the thoughts and ideas of others - so as to extract all that is
of the ideal and the universal from them. 

But over anything else, we (as personal minds) have to assure ourselves that
what we learn is valid and universal - of course the ultimate truth is (as I
see it) a profound intuition (a universal certainty, Buddhi perhaps) -- also
called Apara Vidya -- a "knowledge of things in themselves" - as causes.

If so, then, those CAUSES are eternal and ineffaceable energies and powers
which are an integral part of the ONE SUPREME SPIRIT. 

In the effort to grasp these concepts, it is our present personal
consciousness that is transformed, made ineffable (spiritual ?) which in its
purity (free from emotion and Kama), alone, is able to make this transition
- in the words of the Gayatri verse, it becomes that "vase" that surrounds
the absolute SUN of the one SPIRIT - the universal (and the individual)
ATMA. I would say this is the Buddhi, and is made of that spiritualized and
individualized substance (a specialized grouping of 'monads,' called "Suddha
Sattva." ( Glos p. 11) 

And, it is for this reason that our personal and individual "perfection,"
when attained, is an integration of our individual and personal selves. The
temporary "personal" mask-like self of this, and every "incarnation" --
become one with its master "Thread" - the ONE ATMIC SELF -- or, the HIGHER
SELF within each of us.  

Looking at it from the point of view of the Universe - all the billions of
scattered "rays" of that one Divine, reunite (eventually) and CONSCIOUSLY
into ONE. None is "wiped out" or "erased" by Devachan, Sleep or Nirvana.
Together they form that "bundle of sticks" that are the Unity of the Ancient
Spiritual Lodge of the Wise -of the Avatars, the Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas,
the Rishis, the Adepts and the "Elder Brothers" -- the Mahatmas of the Race
and Family of MAN - of the eternal (not the personal) Man. 

To work with (as a brother Immortal) and manifest along side of all other
"points of Spirit involved in Matter," each Spiritual morsel (Ray)
self-consciously adopts a "rising self"-- a unit of "personal
consciousness," which, as a MONAD, is now trying to become fully
SELF-CONSCIOUS. [see S D II 167]

All the rest is a passing show - illusion and maya -- but always recorded
imperishably by the universal scribes the Lipika in the imperishable fabric
/ substance named the Akasa. (yet in its own way and at its own place it
has validity as "Para Vidya.")

We are either "beneath" nor "above," nor "besides" anyone or anything. This
is not pride or selfishness, but a statement of impersonality and
universalism - a fact that only a pure, impersonal SPIRIT can make.  

And, it has to be done only by the "impersonalized and universalized
PERSONAL CONSCIOUSNESS." It is the final sacrifice (a sacred deed) offered
by every "personal Self" to the ONE PURE SPIRIT of which it recognizes a
Ray in itself as an embodiment - an "Elder Brother." It is ever in our
Higher Nature as the Monad -- ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS.

"Evil" by definition becomes a denial of this condition and power in us --
is it not a vast error? It opens the "door" to acts,. thoughts, and feelings
that tend to destroy the harmony of universal virtue and law. And of course
every part of universal NATURE rejects and fights such a violation. So we
have the "eternal war" between the Higher SELF, and the "lower selfish, evil
self." [depicted in the BHAGAVAD GITA]

I ask: Isn't the cure today's work -- brotherhood and compassion -- the
giving of ourselves to others and trying to assist wherever we are allowed?

There is nothing we do not do which is not a "service" to another - in some
way. If this is the key to active brotherhood, how do we search and find it?
That is our task and pilgrimage. 

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


Here are some intertwining quotes that THEOSOPHY offers:

"Good and Evil are twins, the progeny of Space and Time, under the sway of
Maya. Separate them, by cutting off one from the other, and they will both
die. Neither exists per se, since each has to be generated and created out
of the other, in order to come into being; both must be known and
appreciated before becoming objects of perception, hence, in mortal mind,
they must be divided."	S D II p. 96


"Passion and desire together with the astral model-body are common to men
and animals, as also to the vegetable kingdom, though in the last but
faintly developed...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 it is called rajas or the active 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
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,

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."	0cean 49-50


"...that which is desire, instinctive impulse in the lower, becomes thought
in the Higher. The former finds expression in acts, the latter in words.
Esoterically, thought is more responsible and punishable than act. But
exoterically it is the reverse. Therefore, in ordinary human law, an
assault is more severely punished than the thought or intention, i.e., the
threat, whereas Karmically it is the contrary."	Trans. 142
(see also Key 116, HPB Art II 91)


"Individual spirit or Purusha is said to be the cause of experiencing pain
and pleasure [through the connection with nature found in the instrument];
for spirit, when invested with matter or prakriti experienceth the qualities
that proceed from prakriti; its connection with these qualities [and
self-identification with them] is the cause of its rebirth in good and evil
wombs." Gita p. 96


"Perfection, to be fully such, must be born out of imperfection, the
incorruptible must grow out of corruptible, having the latter as its vehicle
and basis and contrast." S D II p. 95


EVIL


"EVIL"	"Ancient wisdom alone solves the presence of the universal fiend in
a satisfactory way. It attributes the birth of Kosmos and the evolution of
life to the breaking asunder of primordial, manifested Unity, into
plurality, or the great illusion of form.  

Homogeneity, having transformed itself into Heterogeneity, contrasts have
naturally been created; hence sprang what we call Evil, which thence
forward reigned supreme in this "Vale of Tears."...

The Eastern pantheist, whose philosophy teaches him to discriminate between
Being or Esse and conditioned existence...knows he can put an end to form
alone, not to being--and that only on this plane of terrestrial
illusion...he knows that by killing out in himself Tanha (the unsatisfied
desire for existence, or the "will to live")--he will thus gradually escape
the curse of rebirth and conditioned existence...as a personality...
believing but in One Reality, which is eternal Be-ness, the "causeless
Cause" from which he has exiled himself into a world of forms, he regards
the temporary and progressing manifestations of it in the state of Maya
(change or illusion), as the greatest evil...but at the same time as a
process in nature, as unavoidable as are the pangs of birth.  

It is the only means by which he can pass from the limited and conditioned
lives of sorrow into eternal life, or into that absolute "Be-ness," which is
so graphically expressed in the Sanskrit work sat. [Glos. p.292] ... The
idea that matter and its Protean manifestations are the source and origin of
universal evil is a very old one...Gautama Buddha...the great Indian
Reformer...who sacrificed himself for Humanity by living for it, in order to
save it, by teaching men to see in the sensuous existence of matter misery
alone, ... his efforts were to release mankind from too strong an attachment
to life, which is the chief cause of Selfishness--hence the creator of
mutual pain and suffering... 

Even in India, the primitive thought underlying the formula already cited,
had been disfigured by Sectarianism, and has led to the ritualistic, purely
dogmatic observances of the Hatha Yogis, in contradistinction to the
philosophical Vedantic Raja Yoga."
-- HPB The Origin of Evil HPB Art I 124	



"Can a man go against the general will of nature and escape destruction, and
also be able to desire wickedly with knowledge, and accomplish, through
will, what he wishes?

Such a man can do all these--except to escape destruction. That is sure to
come, no matter at how remote a period.

He acquires extraordinary knowledge, enabling him to use powers for selfish
purposes during immense periods of time, but at last the insidious effect of
the opposition to the general [38] true will make itself felt and he is
destroyed forever. [the "personality"]

.wickedly desiring people, having great knowledge, increase to an enormous
extent and threaten the stability of the world. Then the adherents of the
good law can no longer quietly work on humanity, but come out in force, and
a fight ensues in which the black magicians are always destroyed, because
the good Adepts possess not only equal knowledge with the bad ones, but have
in addition the great assistance of the general will of nature which is not
in control of the others, and so it is inevitable that the good should
triumph always. This assistance is also the heritage of every true student,
and may be invoked by the real disciple when he has arrived at and passed
the first abyss."  
WQJ G. Notes p. 37-8



"On the ruins of the altar has arisen the temple of the lower self, the
shrine of the personal idea...in America, being totally unrestrained and
forming in fact the basis of independence here, it has culminated...Its bad
effects [are as yet, vaguely shadowed]...after sweeping away the fetters
forged by priestly dogma and kingly rule, we find springing up a
superstition for worse than that [88] which we have been used to call by the
name. It is the superstition of materialism that bows down to a science
which leads only to a negation...[92] [Krishna] makes it very clear that he
refers to the principle of reciprocity or Brotherhood. And this he declares
must be kept revolving; that is, each human being must live according to
that rule, or else he lives a life of sin to no purpose...that which moves
the people...on the contrary, [they are] spurred by the personal selfish
idea of each one becoming better, greater, higher than his neighbor. If
continued unchecked it would make this nation one entirely of Black
Magicians. And it was to counter act this that the T S was founded, with
the object of inducing men to one more revolve this wheel of Brotherly Love,
first set in motion by the "Creator when of old he had created mortals."
G. Notes, pp. 87-8 91-2


"Personality is always an illusion (a rock upon which many persons fall to
pieces), a false picture hiding the reality inside.	G. Notes 109


"When a man uses the powers of nature indiscriminately with partiality and
no regard to justice, it is Black Magic...Magic is power over the forces of
nature...the first exercise of Black Magic is to psychologize people."  
Letters, 161


"The Astral Light...becomes in, and for, man--if at all psychic--and who is
not?--a tempting Demon, his "evil angel." and the inspirer of all our worst
deeds. It acts on the will of even the sleeping man, through visions
impressed upon his slumbering brain (not to be confused with dreams)...The
will of the outer man, our volition, is of course dormant and inactive
during dreams; but a certain bent can be given to the slumbering will
during its inactivity(*)...but this is one of the dodges of "black magic,"
and when used for good purposes belongs to the training of an Occultist.
One must be far advanced on the "path" to have a will which can act
consciously during his physical sleep, or act on the will of another person
during the sleep of th latter, e.g., to control his dreams, and thus control
his actions when awake. [ (*) and certain after-results developed by the
mutual inter-action--produced almost mechanically--through union between two
or more "principles" into one, so that they will act in perfect harmony,
without any friction or a single false note, when awake,]	Trans. p. 66



CRITERIA OF PROGRESS


"Desire wisdom; love all men; do your duty; forget yourself; let each
thought and act of your life have for its aim the finding of divine wisdom;
strive to apply that wisdom for the good of other men. If you search in
every direction, Light must come to you. Let the place in which you are be
the lonely room you speak of, and seek to find in everything the meaning.
Strive to know what they are, and by what governed or caused. This is the
first step. Life your life with this ever before you. Purify your thought
as well as your body. Reason all you can, feel all with your heart you may,
and when intellect and heart fail you, seek for something higher. This is
the A.B.C...."	WQJ Art II 462


"He who does not practice altruism; he who is not prepared to share his
last morsel with a weaker of poorer than himself; he who neglects to help
his brother man, of whatever race, nation, or creed, whenever and wherever
he meets suffering, and who turns a deaf ear to the cry of human misery; he
who hears an innocent person slandered, whether a brother theosophist or
not, and does not undertake his defense as he would undertake his own--is no
theosophist."

"For practical purposes: if we are developing the child-heart; if we are
learning to love things beautiful; if we are becoming more honest and plain
and simple; if we are beginning to sense the sweet side of life; if we are
getting to like our friends better and extending the circle; if we feel
ourselves expanding in sympathy; if we love to work for Theosophy and do
not ask position as a reward; if we are not bothering too much about
whether we are personal or impersonal--this is traveling on the path of
impersonality." F.P. 127-8


"Perfection, to be fully such, must be born out of imperfection, the
incorruptible must grow out of corruptible, having the latter as its vehicle
and basis and contrast." S D II p. 95




USING CYCLES -- EACH HAS TO WILL AND DO IT FOR HIMSELF.


"Good resolutions are mind-painted pictures of good deeds: fancies,
day-dreams, whisperings of the Buddhi to the Manas. If we encourage them
they will not fade away like the dissolving mirage in the Shamo desert, but
grow stronger and stronger until one's whole life becomes the expression and
outward proof of the divine motive within...In the eyes of the "Masters" no
one is ever "utterly condemned." As the lost jewel may be recovered from
the very depths of the tank's mud, so can the abandoned snatch himself from
the mire of sin, if only the precious Gem of Gems, the sparkling germ of the
Atma, is developed. Each of us must do that for himself, each can if he but
will and persevere...Your acts in the past...cannot be obliterated, for they
are indelibly stamped upon the record of Karma, and neither tears nor
repentance can blot the page. But you have the power to more than redeem
and balance them by future acts. Around you are acquaintances, friends, and
associates...who have committed the same and even more grievous faults,
thro' the same ignorance...Show them the dreadful consequences of it, point
them to the Light, lead them to the Path, teach them, be a missionary of
love and charity, thus in helping others win your own salvation. There are
innumerable pages of your life record still to be written up, fair and blank
they are as yet...seize the diamond pen and inscribe them with the history
of noble deeds, days well-spent, years of holy striving, So will you win
your way ever upward to the higher planes of spiritual consciousness. Fear
not, faint not, be faithful to the ideal you can now dimly see...Learn to
look at men below the surface, and to neither condemn nor trust on
appearances." --K.H.
Letters from the Masters of Wisdom, p. 60-2


		

SELFISHNESS, AND THE STUDY OF OCCULTISM: DANGER


"The student of occultism is rushing on his destiny...up to a certain point
that destiny is in his own hands, though he is constantly shaping its course
[either] freeing his soul from the trammels of sense and self, or [second]
becoming entangled in the web...which will presently clothe him as with a
garment without seam...

,,,let him remember that at every step [his chains] grow more tyrannical,
and often before the goal is reached where the ways divide, the battle is
lost or won...that decision once made is irrevocable...Man lives at once in
two worlds: the natural and the spiritual, and...he influences his
associates, and is in turn influenced by them, so let him not imagine that
in the spiritual plane he is alone.

This will be a fatal mistake for the dabbler in magic, or the student in
occultism. Throughout this vast universe, the good will seek the good, and
the evil the evil, each will be unconsciously drawn to its own kind.

But when man faces his destiny in full consciousness of the issues
involved...he will be no longer unconscious of these influences, but will
recognize his companions: companions, alas! no longer.

[ If the path of selfishness was chosen, he now sees ] Masters now,
inhuman, pitiless; and the same law of attraction which has led him along
the tortuous path, unveils its face, and by affinity of evil, the slave
stands in the presence of his master, and the fiends that have all along
incited him to laugh at the miseries of his fellow men, and trample under
his feet every kindly impulse, every tender sympathy, now make the
measureless hells within his own soul resound with their laughter at him,
the poor deluded fool whose selfish pride and ambition have stifled and at
last obliterated his humanity.

Blind indeed is he who cannot see why those who are in possession of arcane
wisdom, hesitate in giving it out to the world, and when in the cycles of
time, its day has come, they put forth the only doctrine which has power to
save and bless, Universal Brotherhood, with all that the term implies...

The purpose of Theosophy is to eradicate these evil tendencies [
selfishness, pride, lust for power ] of man, so that whether on the ordinary
planes of daily life, or in the higher occult realms, the Christ shall be
lifted up, and draw all men unto him..."	WQJ Articles, I pp. 338-339


Best wishes, 


Dallas
 
===============================================================

-----Original Message-----
From: M. Sufilight
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2005 1:08 PM
To: Subject: Re: error and misunderstanding -- tolerance ?



A few views.

Perhaps...

But the beginner Seekers often confuse
intuition with what in REALITY is emotional reactions !

The cycle of the soul will for sure learn anyone
to appreciate "contrast" or compassion.
Especially when one will have to unlearn the buddhic activities.

Contrast learn the Seeker to distinguish between good and evil -
compassion and its opposite.


from
M. Sufilight