Theos-Talk Archives (August 2005 Message tt00048)

Pedro:

> > 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.

This is a complex area of discussion that has been the basis of many major
disagreements in world religions. I've seen arguments for both points of
view -- that of the Eternal Self and that of what might be called the Ever
Changing. I tend to find both equally true, as being different modes of
experiencing life or viewing reality, with one view becoming real and the
other seeming illusory as someone adopts the first view, then the other view
becoming real and the first illusory as someone changes to the other view of
things.

> 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.

The most frequent reference to soulless people is that their spiritual
nature is totally silent within them. Lines of communication are closed
down. They are uninspired from within. Even so, they still contain a link to
that higher nature within. It's just that the link is dormant. Were the link
to be severed, they'd then be called "lost souls". Of these, the first kind
is someone having temporarily severed a connection with the Higher Self for
this particular lifetime. For them, the current page in the "book of life"
is torn out; there is nothing of lasting value. Of the second kind, the like
is permanently severed, resulting in their leaving their evolutionary place
in the human kingdom and entering what is called Avichi Nirvana.

A body could be alive and breathing, and the person elsewhere, leaving the
body entranced. The body could be in a coma with the person unable to return
and animate it. Or the body could have its connection with the inner man
broken. When that "silver cord" is severed, the body dies, although it could
be kept alive artificially on life-support equipment in a hospital.

> 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.

One's life and energies are not created out of nothing, but rather are drawn
together from each respective realm. The incarnating person provides this
subtle essence of life that is the organizing principle that creates the
living form. When that essence of life is withdrawn at death, the living
form falls apart, returning to the elements.

A human forms his or her bodies from their own life and energies. Various
life-atoms are drawn back to build their constitution. This does not happen
from scratch, according to whatever one wants, but rather happens through
some existing mechanism of birth into one's kingdom. Whatever mechanism that
is in place for the particular race, root race, and globe is utilized in the
process of coming into birth.

A fertile human Egg cell with human DNA in it and implanted in a human womb
qualifies as a potential human birth. It may not have come about in the
usual way, but if the DNA is acceptable, a suitable person will incarnate
into and animate it. If the DNA were damaged or altered too much, it may not
longer be suitable to house a human consciousness, in which case it would be
either unviable or perhaps host some other kind of entity.

> 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.

There are lots of things we can to do manipulate the DNA of a future body,
including selective breeding (which we've done successfully with flowers,
dogs, crops, etc.). Although what we do has an outcome on the type of body
produced, it does not create life. It only provides the physical mechanism
by which a being may incarnate into. Without the incarnating being, the
physical form dies.

It might be possible to produce a human body that was sufficiently different
that no human would incarnate into it, but at the same time was close enough
to the needs of some other being that the being would possess it. Although
possible, I think it's unlikely, and don't look forward to the day when
someone proves it possible.

Eldon