Theos-Talk Archives (August 2005 Message tt00046)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Eldon B Tucker" <eldon@t...> 
wrote:

> The theosophical idea is that we are eternal, timeless, perfect, 
but needing
> to go through an evolutionary journey through matter in order to 
awaken
> ourselves to self-conscious perfection. Some may take the Buddhist 
slant on
> this and say there's no eternal aspect to us, that we're an ever-
changing
> stream of consciousness. That sounds like a contradiction, but it's 
really
> but a seeming paradox. Both viewpoints -- the eternal Self known as 
the
> Monad and the ever-changing stream of consciousness typified by the 
Void or
> Emptiness -- are complimentary, co-exist, and cannot be separated.


A bold statement indeed but not supported by existing doctrinal 
evidences. Evolution demands a basis, an "upadhi", which needs to 
exist within time-space. If we assume the Monad as Sunyata 
(Emptiness) the concept of evolution becomes meaningless as Sunyata 
is devoid of becoming. 


> Every being that exists is the expression of a consciousness at a 
certain
> stage of development, the outward expression of some Monad. That 
being is
> not created when its body is born. Rather, the birth of the body 
could only
> happen if there was the organizing effect of a being seeking birth.
> Otherwise, the body would not be born; it would have no life.
> 
> Creating a new human body the ordinary way, through sex and natural
> childbirth, the parents provide an opportunity for some being to 
exist. That
> being gives the life to the body, and when that being departs, the 
body
> dies.
> 
> Creating a clone is a different way to produce a body. The rule 
still holds.
> It is a living body with a human consciousness behind it if there 
is some
> human Monad that attaches to it and gives it life. Otherwise, the 
clone is
> not viable.
> 
> A human form is created with a clone, but for it to live, a human 
Monad
> would have to animate it. Life is not created, merely another type 
of
> opportunity for someone to be born into the world.
> 
> The answer to the original question, I'd say, is that a clone has a 
soul
> (meaning it has a human Monad behind it), if the clone takes on 
life as a
> human being. 
> 
> If the clone's body has genetic problems and is seriously 
defective, no
> human may incarnate into it, just as defective embryos may end up 
stillborn,
> with no one willing to live in them. If the body has good genes and 
would
> provide an attractive host, odds are, someone would be drawn to 
birth in it.


The mere existence of a human does not imply that a Soul animates it. 
If my memory serves me well, there is at least one testimony by HPB 
(The Key?) about soul-less people she saw in London in her time. 

Because a clone is not produced the way Nature generates human 
bodies, it is a really moot point if the consciousness inhabiting it 
will be human. In the natural process of incarnation the physical 
body and other vehicles of consciousness are formed after the 
patterns existing in that particular Soul's *skandhas* or aggregates 
from its long evolutionary past, and regulated by Karmic law. 
Therefore, a Soul, strictly speaking, forms its own bodies. A body 
that is engineered by the mind and knowledge of someone else can have 
life and consciousness but not necessarily a human one. There may be 
other things out there that can "ensoul" an available form as Edgar 
Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" seems to suggest. 

pedro