Theos-Talk Archives (July 2005 Message tt00203)

July 29 2005

Dear Jerry:

Of conundrums I have known many.

Your proposal that a Maya may correspond, or correlate to another is
difficult to grasp. Sounds like a jelly-fish discussing the currents of the
ocean with another such jelly fish. What is achieved?  

Is not thought of another level -- towards stability? What is memory?

Why bother about thinking be it linear, circular, spiral or endless. It
works and establishes the REALITY of a thinking entity (perhaps arupa -
formless). 

Yet all entities are units within the ONE WHOLE.  

It is the ONE WHOLE that periodically manifests and periodically reposes in
no-manifestation.

As I see it if there is a veil (maya) behind that veil-maya is as you say an
"ultimate reality."

So let's get out of the rut of "maya" .... ad infinitum... See:

TRIVIDYÂ (Sk.). Lit., “the three knowledges” or sciences”. These are
the three fundamental axioms in mysticism 

(a) the impermanency of all existence, or Anitya; 

(b) suffering and misery of all that lives and is, or Dukha; and 

(c) all physical, objective existence as evanescent and unreal as a
water-bubble in a dream, or Anâtmâ.”	Glos 344


The ONE REALITY, I sense, is our presence here and now, and though the
moment be fleeting and the forms be evanescent, and it is that REALITY that
uses the forms and bodies. In such a case, each Unit is an indissoluble part
of the ONE. All of its potentials are present in each such Unit. 

"Self-consciousness" draws the Unit to perceive this vista, and it can be
gradually opened until "Universal self-consciousness" provides a
demonstration of the anterior REALITY. UNIT and WHOLE merge and are ONE,
but the Unit never looses its awareness of Self." Is this not Sam-buddha ?


See, I use this as a basis:

"Esoteric philosophy, however, teaches that one third* of the Dhyanis —
i.e., the three classes of the Arupa Pitris, endowed with intelligence,
"which is a formless breath, composed of intellectual not elementary
substances" (see Harivamsa, 932) — was simply doomed by the law of Karma and
evolution to be reborn (or incarnated) on Earth. 

Some of these were Nirmanakayas from other Manvantaras. Hence we see them,
in all the Puranas, reappearing on this globe, in the third Manvantara, as
Kings, Rishis and heroes (read Third Root-Race). ..

The supposed "rebels," then, were simply those who, compelled by Karmic law
to drink the cup of gall to its last bitter drop, had to incarnate anew, and
thus make responsible thinking entities of the astral statues projected by
their inferior brethren. Some are said to have refused, because they had not
in them the requisite materials — i.e., an astral body — since they were
arupa. 

The refusal of others had reference to their having been Adepts and Yogis of
long past preceding Manvantaras; another mystery. But, later on, as
Nirmanakayas, they sacrificed themselves for the good and salvation of the
Monads which were waiting for their turn, and which otherwise would have had
to linger for countless ages in irresponsible, animal-like, though in
appearance human, forms. It may be a parable and an allegory within an
allegory. Its solution is left to the intuition of the student, if he only
reads that which follows with his spiritual eye. 

As to their fashioners or "Ancestors" — those Angels who, in the exoteric
legends, obeyed the law — they must be identical with the Barhishad Pitris,
or the Pitar-Devata, i.e., those possessed of the physical creative fire.
They could only create, or rather clothe, the human Monads with their own
astral Selves, but they could not make man in their image and likeness. "Man
must not be like one of us," say the creative gods, entrusted with the
fabrication of the lower animal but higher; (see Gen. and Plato's Timaeus).
Their creating the semblance of men out of their own divine Essence means,
esoterically, that it is they who became the first Race, and thus shared its
destiny and further evolution. 

They would not, simply because they could not, give to man that sacred spark
which burns and expands into the flower of human reason and
self-consciousness, for they had it not to give. 

This was left to that class of Devas who became symbolised in Greece under
the name of Prometheus, to those who had nought to do with the physical
body, yet everything with the purely spiritual man. (See Part II of this
volume, "The Fallen Angels"; also "The Gods of Light proceed from the Gods
of Darkness.") 

Each class of Creators endows man with what it has to give: the one builds
his external form; the other gives him its essence, which later on becomes
the Human Higher Self owing to the personal exertion of the individual; but
they could not make men as they were themselves — perfect, because sinless;
sinless, because having only the first, pale shadowy outlines of attributes,
and these all perfect — from the human standpoint — white, pure and cold as
the virgin snow. 

Where there is no struggle, there is no merit. Humanity, "of the Earth
earthy," was not destined to be created by the angels of the first divine
Breath: therefore they are said to have refused to do so, and man had to be
formed by more material creators, who, in their turn, could give only what
they had in their own natures, and no more. Subservient to eternal law, the
pure gods could only project out of themselves shadowy men, a little less
ethereal and spiritual, less divine and perfect than themselves — shadows
still. 

The first humanity, therefore, was a pale copy of its progenitors; too
material, even in its ethereality, to be a hierarchy of gods; too spiritual
and pure to be MEN, endowed as it is with every negative (Nirguna)
perfection. 

[PERFECTION]

Perfection, to be fully such, must be born out of imperfection, the
incorruptible must grow out of the corruptible, having the latter as its
vehicle and basis and contrast. Absolute light is absolute darkness, and
vice versa. In fact, there is neither light nor darkness in the realms of
truth. 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. 

Nevertheless, as the illusionary distinction exists, it requires a lower
order of creative angels to "create" inhabited globes — especially ours — or
to deal with matter on this earthly plane. The philosophical Gnostics were
the first to think so, in the historical period, and to invent various
systems upon this theory. Therefore in their schemes of creation, one always
finds their Creators occupying a place at the very foot of the ladder of
spiritual Being. With them, those who created our earth and its mortals were
placed on the very limit of mayavic matter, and their followers were taught
to think — to the great disgust of the Church Fathers — that for the
creation of those wretched races, in a spiritual and moral sense, which
grace our globe, no high divinity could be made responsible, but only angels
of a low hierarchy, to which class they relegated the Jewish God, Jehovah. “
S D II 93-96

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

Best wishes,

Dallas


====================================
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald 
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 12:37 PM
To: 
Subject: RE: Maya

DTB
So having said all is "maya" I ask: WHO SAYS THAT ? 

GS
Well, Blavatsky for one. Mahayana Buddhism for another. And me for another.
Hey, Dal, no one said "all" is maya. What is being said is that all seven
planes of conditional reality is maya. Ultimate reality or Beness is not
dualistic and therefore not maya.

DTB
Can we assume that a unit of UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS (?) embodied in the
vestures of "maya" is enabled to say that ? 

GS
That would be a false assumption. When you are in a dream at night, and the
thought comes to you "I must be dreaming" who is it that has this thought?
Who is the "I" in the dream, and who the dreamer? Are not both maya?


DTB	Let me quote:

"It is by means of the outward senses and their inner counterparts that a
great turmoil is set up in the whole system, which spreads to the heart and
from there to the mind, and, as it is elsewhere said: "The restless heart
then snatches away the mind from its steady place."

GS
OK, I have no problem with your quote.

  
DTB	We thus have to carry on the cultivation of the soul by regular
stages,
never neglecting one part at the expense of another. Krishna advises his
friend to restrain the senses, and then to "strengthen himself by
himself."  

GS
Such a "cultivation of the soul by regular stages" is a linear approach of
the gradual school. This gradual Path assumes a self in need of
enlightenment, in need of liberation. It is like being in a dream,
realizing that it is all a dream, and then being in need of waking up.


DTB	The meaning here is that he is to rely upon the One Consciousness
which, as differentiated in a man, is his higher self. By means of this
higher self
He is to strengthen the lower, or that which he is accustomed to call
"myself." 

GS
I personally do not subsribe to a "One Consciousness" and I find the term
poetical or metaphorical. It sounds very much like some deity. I would
prefer to rely on my own inner naked awareness. 


DTB	It will not be amiss here to quote from some notes of conversation
with a
friend of mine. "Our consciousness is one and not many, nor different from
other consciousnesses. It is not waking consciousness or sleeping
consciousness, or any other but consciousness itself. 


GS
OK, and this type of consciousness is cit (or chit), pure consciousness
which today is translated as pristine awareness. Think about this: If it is
not different from other consciousnesses, then how can we possibly know if
it is one or many? As I have said before, Mahayana says that there are many
identical minds while the Hinayana says that there is only one mind.
Blavatsky was a Mahayanist. Today translators recognize that there is a
difference between nondual consciousness and dualistic consciousness. The
former is called awareness or pristine awareness and the latter
consciousness. Waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep states are all
dualisitc consciousnesses as are all sensory consciousnesses.

DTB
"Now that which I have called consciousness is Being. The ancient
division was:  
Sat, or Being; 
Chit, or Consciousness, Mind; } These together are called
Sat-chit-ananda.
Ananda, or Bliss. 

GS
I find it of great psychological interest that Theosophists fully accept
cit and sat, but ignore ananda. Why is that Dal? Why do my fellow
Theosophists knot up inside when I talk about bliss?

NEW

[	DTB	Probably uncertainty, based on physical experience and
limited to those concepts that the Lower Mind can embrace in terms of
emotion. However, if one attains a level where KARMA is like an "open book"
then the realization that NATURE takes care of all problems gives a release
from anxiety. ? May be I am wrong here. ? ]



DTB
"But Sat¯ or Being¯ the first of the three, is itself both Chit and
Ananda. The appearing together in full harmony of Being and Consciousness
is Bliss or Ananda. Hence that harmony is called Sat-chit-ananda. 

GS
Dal, I do hate to break your bubble, so to speak, but ananda is more than
"harmony." It is bliss, or what the old Christian mystics called ecstasy.
In mediation, ananda feels like an all-over-the-body orgasm. Imagine an
orgasm that is not localized in the genital region, but is spread out over
the entire body so that the entire physical body spasms in delight. Now
remove the physical body, the astral body, the mental body, and the causal
body, and what is left is ananda. When meditating, the bliss or ecstasy
felt in the lower bodies is just a pale expression of this ananda. This is
a rather crude definition, but the best I can come up with.


DTB "But the one consciousness of each person is the Witness or Spectator
of
The actions and experiences of every state we are in or pass through. It
therefore follows that the waking condition of the mind is not separate
consciousness. 

GS
The phrase "the one consciousness of each person" sounds a lot like what I
call the naked mind. In exactly the same way that a dreamer is the Witness
of a dream, or a desert wanderer is the Spectator of a mirage, so our mind
appears to be witnessing all events on the lower planes and recording those
events on the causal plane. But all such events are mayavic illusions and
all such recordings are highly subjective. 

Modern psychology has found through many very scientific studies that past
events can effect us in the present and they can do so whether those event
actually took place or only were imagined. The bottom line to this is: Our
brains, our memories, our human minds, cannot tell the difference between
actual events and imagined ones. I suspect that this is because there
really is no difference. What do you suppose this does to our perceptions
of karma? Well, for one thing, it allows us to pass from an exoteric view
of karma to a more esoteric view.


DTB "The one consciousness pierces up and down through all the states or
Planes of Being, and serves to uphold the memory¯ whether complete or
incomplete of each state's experiences. 

GS
I would say that the assumption of a "one consciousness" is a false
assumption. The fact of the matter is that everything in conditional
reality is an aggregate and there simply is no such thing as a "one"
anything. The idea of a one or of a unitary "thing" or unitary "entity" is
an imputation, and has only imputational reality. So, the "one
consciousness" is an imputation. 

There are actually many, many consciousnesses, no two mental states being
exactly the same. Now, on the one hand we can think of one consciousness
with many mental states, or on the other hand we can think of the skandhas
having multilpe mental states.


Personally I view the former as an inputational view of the latter. Another
way to look at it is to view the Monad as the naked mind, and every mental
state as an adnornment of that naked mind. So, there are several ways that
we can look at things, several ways to interpret our experiences, and I
would call each of them a working model, and I find that some of them work
better than others, at least for me.

DTB
"Thus in waking life, Sat experiences fully and knows.>>

GS
Sat translates as existence. What is it that existence knows in the waking
state?


DTB	In dream state, Sat again knows and sees what goes on there, while
there may not be in the brain a complete memory of the waking state just
quitted.


What is it that existence knows and sees in the dream state? In lucid
dreams, the person who is sleeping is aware of being in a dream and can
consciously change the dream content. This "person" is the ego-self or
lower self, and itself as mayavic as the dream. 


In Sushupti¯ beyond dream and yet on indefinitely, Sat still knows all
that is done or heard or seen. 


When someone says that existence sees something or knows something, I can
only assume that one is personifying existence, or otherwise speaking
poetically.


"The way to salvation must be entered. To take the first step raises the
possibility of success. 


GS
This is one way of looking at it, Dal. Another way is that we are already
saved, and the assumption that our goal lies in the future guarantees that
we will never ever attain it in the present.

---clip----


My problem is with expressions of doctrine, Buddhist, Advaita,
Theosophical 

GS
Most of us have problems with these expressions, because expressions and
interpretations are inherently limited. Expressions are usually directed to
a certain audience

DTB
Since we use translations, something of the force and meaning of the
original expressions may be lost. 

GS
Yes, and when I look back over some older translations I find many examples
of this. For example, the word sunyata used to be translated as voidness,
and the upshot was that people thought Buddhism was a very negative
religion that taught nihilism. Today it is translated as emptiness with
Tzongkhapa's caveat that emptiness can refer to being empty of permanence. 
But there is a downside too. The word prana is now translated as wind, and
I suspect that this translation throws a lot of folks off. There are some
words that just shouldn't be translated like karma and prana.

DTB
How do we secure a logical meaning regardless of "doctrine ?" 

GS
Logic is a funny thing, Dal. Logic follows from initial assumptions, and so
logic often leads us to false conclusions.   


DTB	[ AGREED ]



I look at PATANJALI YOGA APHORISMS Book 4 pp. 70 - 72 so as to compare
statements:

"21. When the understanding and the soul are united, then self-knowledge
results. 

The uniting of understanding and the soul is a progressive work in place.
It is a continual on-going process. 


DTB	The self-knowledge spoken of here is that interior illumination
desired
by all mystics, and is not merely a knowledge of self in the ordinary
sense.


OK, we can call it experiential knowledge as opposed to intellectual
knowledge.


22. The mind, when united with the soul and fully conversant with
knowledge, embraces universally all objects. 

I see this embrace taking place to the extent that the mind's adornments
are removed.


23. The mind, though assuming various forms by reason of innumerable
mental deposits, exists for the purpose of the soul's emancipation and
operates in co-operation therewith. 

Our naked mind takes on adornments in order to have experiences. Each
manvantara has within it certain karmic experiences. Our manvantara has
what we call the kingdoms; mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and so on.
Our manvantara also has what Buddhism calls the six realms of living
beings; hell-beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, asauras, and devas.
But in time we tire of such adventures, and we feel like we have had
enough, and we desire to liberate ourselves. And then we slowly remove
those same adnornments and return our mind back to its original naked
condition.

---clip---

The mind is merely a tool, instrument, or means, by which the soul
Acquires experiences and knowledge.

This statement refers to what I call the adornments of the mind, and in
this case these consist of what I call the human mind.

DTB
In each incarnation the mind is, as it were, new. 

GS
The adornments of the mind are new and not new with each incarnation. Those
characteristics sloughed off in kama-loka await us when we return and form
what is called our genetic make up, our genetic predispositions.

---clip----

<< [ DTB -- "Ultimate divisions of time (?)" --  

GS
I don't know if you are aware of this, Dal, but the Buddhist schools that
teach monads, tiny divisions of substance, also teach that time itself is a
flow of tiny divisions of time. Each piece has four divisions, past,
present, fuuture, and no-time. The yogi learns fo focus on the no-time
sections of these time-monads.


DTB	Finite time is measured during Manvantaras. Infinite time
(duration), may be said to be immeasurable and infinite --- including both
Manvantaras and Pralayas without number.

Time is often viewed like the numbering system, as an infinte set of units.
But modern relativity theory says that time, space, and matter all come
into existence together and are inter-related.


Yet one may guess that KARMA, CAUSATION, UNIVERSAL MIND
(MAHAT) and CYCLES prevail as a portion ( DHARMA ?) of the changeless
ABSOLUTE.] 

GS
These things all spring up simultaneously out of the Absolute like waves
rising up effortlessly from the ocean.

---clip---

<< [ DTB Yet, they have renounced Nirvana to remain with struggling
mankind. ] >>

Those who do so are bodhisattvas. It is my understanding that arhats enter
nirvana. I am not that familiar with Hinduism or Vedanta but presumably
they have their own names for those who remain behind to help.

---clip---

DTB	Interesting concepts and paradoxes. Perhaps due to our own
continuing
matter-influenced "Lower Mind" currently functioning.. Yet, I sense behind
that, there is a "Superior Mind" that is steady and uninfluenced.
Any ideas ?

Best wishes.

Dallas 

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

Dal, When we view the nondual Monad as the naked mind, then isolation or
liberation is all about removing its clothing and returing the mind back to
its natural state. 

Your "Lower Mind" could refer to either the brain-mind
or to the human-mind where the latter usually includes the former as a
subset. 

These are the gross adornments of the mind. 

Your "Superior Mind" probably refers to our buddhi-manas mentation processes
that transcend thinking and are what Zakk calls knowings. 


These are the subtle adornments of the mind. Remove both gross adornments
and subtle adornments and the naked mind itself will be revealed.

Jerry S.

DTB	MANY THANKS