Theos-Talk Archives (August 2005 Message tt00064)

	Aug 11 2005


Dear Marie and Friends:

Re: Cloning and a “soul”

One question propels most inquiries into THEOSOPHY : Does it provide a law and reasonable explanation of all events and phenomena, or are miracles possible?

Is "cloning" possible or is it the breaking of a Law ?

HPB throughout ISIS UNVEILED dispels all concepts of miracle" or the breaking or bending of Universal Laws. [ See for instance ISIS UNVEILED II pp. 596-603 on an actual documented performance of "Tulku." ]  

She explains how genius is a normal development of study and self-effort along specific lines, carried on persistently for several life-times, and that universal genius, as in philosophy, ethics, mathematics, logic, etc... includes several fields of correlated and integrated aspects of wisdom and study.

In the SECRET DOCTRINE, HPB offers a cohesive and coherent view of the processes of evolution including the three lines of development that coincide in Mankind. [These quotations offer an explanation of the situation.]

"Everything in the Universe follows analogy. "As above, so below"; Man is the microcosm of the Universe. That which takes place on the spiritual planerepeats itself on the Cosmic plane. Concretion follows the lines of abstraction; corresponding to the highest must be the lowest; the material to thespiritual."
S D I 177


Here it is important to offer what the S D says about the fact of "Monadic evolution."


"Physically or constitutionally the mineral monad differs, of course, from the human monad, which is neither physical nor can its constitution be rendered by chemical symbols and elements." 

In short, as the spiritual Monad is One, Universal, Boundless and Impartite, whose rays, nevertheless, form what we, in our ignorance, call the "Individual Monads" of men, so the Mineral Monad—being at the opposite point of the circle—is also One—and from it proceed the countless physical atoms, which Science is beginning to regard as individualized. 

Otherwise how could one account for and explain mathematically the evolutionary and spiral progress of the Four Kingdoms? 

The "Monad" is the combination of the last two "principles" in man, the 6th[BUDDHI] and the 7th [ATMA], and, properly speaking, the term "human monad" applies only to the dual soul (Atma-Buddhi), not to its highest spiritualvivifying Principle, Atma, alone. But since the Spiritual Soul, if divorced from the latter (Atma) could have no existence, no being, it has thus been called . . . . 

Now the Monadic, or rather Cosmic, Essence (if such a term be permitted) inthe mineral, vegetable, and animal, though the same throughout the series of cycles from the lowest elemental up to the Deva Kingdom, yet differs in the scale of progression. 

It would be very misleading to imagine a Monad as a separate Entity trailing its slow way in a distinct path through the lower Kingdoms, and after an incalculable series of transformations flowering into a human being; in short, that the Monad of a Humboldt dates back to the Monad of an atom of hornblende. Instead of saying a "Mineral Monad," the more correct phraseology in physical Science, which differentiates every atom, would of course have been to call it "the Monad manifesting in that form of Prakriti called the Mineral Kingdom." 

The atom, as represented in the ordinary scientific hypothesis, is not a particle of something, animated by a psychic something, destined after aeons to blossom as a man. But it is a concrete manifestation of the Universal Energy which itself has not yet become individualized; a sequential manifestation of the one Universal Monas. 

The ocean (of matter) does not divide into its potential and constituent drops until the sweep of the life-impulse reaches the evolutionary stage of man-birth. The tendency towards segregation into individual Monads is gradual, and in the higher animals comes almost to the point. 

The Peripatetics applied the word Monas to the whole Kosmos, in the pantheistic sense; and the Occultists, while accepting this thought for convenience sake, distinguish the progressive stages of the evolution of the concretefrom the abstract by terms of which the "Mineral, Vegetable, Animal, (etc.), Monad" are examples. 

The term merely means that the tidal wave of spiritual evolution is passingthrough that arc of its circuit. The "Monadic Essence" begins to imperceptibly differentiate towards individual consciousness in the Vegetable Kingdom. As the Monads are uncompounded things, as correctly defined by Leibnitz,it is the spiritual essence which vivifies them in their degrees of differentiation, which properly constitutes the Monad—not the atomic aggregation, which is only the vehicle and the substance through which thrill the lower and the higher degrees of intelligence. 

Leibnitz conceived of the Monads as elementary and indestructible units endowed with the power of giving and receiving with respect to other units, and thus of determining all spiritual and physical phenomena. It is he who invented the term apperception, which together with nerve-- (not perception, but rather) — sensation, expresses the state of the Monadic consciousness through all the Kingdoms up to Man. 

Thus it may be wrong on strictly metaphysical lines to call Atma-Buddhi a MONAD, since in the materialistic view it is dual and therefore compound. But as Matter is Spirit, and vice versa; and since the Universe and the Deitywhich informs it are unthinkable apart from each other; so in the case of Atma-Buddhi. The latter being the vehicle of the former, Buddhi stands in the same relation to Atma, as Adam-Kadmon, the Kabalistic Logos, does to En-Soph, or Mulaprakriti to Parabrahm." S D I 177-9


"The "Lunar Monads" or Pitris, the ancestors of man, become in reality man himself. They are the "Monads" who enter on the cycle of evolution on GlobeA, and who, passing round the chain of [GLOBES] planets, evolve the human form as has just been shown. At the beginning of the human stage of the Fourth Round on this Globe, they "ooze out" their astral doubles from the "ape-like" forms which they had evolved in Round III. And it is this subtle, finer form, which serves as the model round which Nature builds physical man. 

These "Monads" or "divine sparks" are thus the "Lunar" ancestors, the Pitris themselves. For these "Lunar Spirits" have to become "Men" in order that their "Monads" may reach a higher plane of activity and self-consciousness,i.e., the plane of the Manasa-Putras, those who endow the "senseless" shells, created and informed by the Pitris, with "mind" in the latter part of the Third Root-Race. "
......  

It now becomes plain that there exists in Nature a triple evolutionary scheme, for the formation of the three periodical Upadhis; or rather three separate schemes of evolution, which in our system are inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point. 

These are the Monadic (or spiritual), the intellectual, and the physical evolutions. These three are the finite aspects or the reflections on the field of Cosmic Illusion of ATMA, the seventh, the ONE REALITY. 

1. The Monadic is, as the name implies, concerned with the growth and development into still higher phases of activity of the Monad in conjunction with:—

2. The Intellectual, represented by the Manasa-Dhyanis (the Solar Devas, orthe Agnishwatta Pitris) the "givers of intelligence and consciousness" * to man and:—

3. The Physical, represented by the Chhayas of the lunar Pitris, round which Nature has concreted the present physical body. This body serves as the vehicle for the "growth" (to use a misleading word) and the transformations through Manas and—owing to the accumulation of experiences—of the finite into the INFINITE, of the transient into the Eternal and Absolute. 

Each of these three systems has its own laws, and is ruled and guided by different sets of the highest Dhyanis or "Logoi." Each is represented in the constitution of man, the Microcosm of the great Macrocosm; and it is the union of these three streams in him which makes him the complex being he now is. 

"Nature," the physical evolutionary Power, could never evolve intelligence unaided—she can only create "senseless forms," as will be seen in our "ANTHROPOGENESIS." The "Lunar Monads" cannot progress, for they have notyet had sufficient touch with the forms created by "Nature" to allow of their accumulating experiences through its means. 

It is the Manasa-Dhyanis who fill up the gap, and they represent the evolutionary power of Intelligence and Mind, the link between "Spirit" and "Matter"—in this Round. 

Also it must be borne in mind that the Monads which enter upon the evolutionary cycle upon Globe A, in the first Round, are in very different stages of development. Hence the matter becomes somewhat complicated. . . . Let us recapitulate. 

The most developed Monads (the lunar) reach the human germ-stage in the first Round; become terrestrial, though very ethereal human beings towards theend of the Third Round, remaining on it (the globe) through the "obscuration" period as the seed for future mankind in the Fourth Round, and thus become the pioneers of Humanity at the beginning of this, the Fourth Round. Others reach the Human stage only during later Rounds, i.e., in the second, third, or first half of the Fourth Round. And finally the most retarded of all, i.e., those still occupying animal forms after the middle turning-pointof the Fourth Round—will not become men at all during this Manwantara. They will reach to the verge of humanity only at the close of the seventh Round to be, in their turn, ushered into a new chain after pralaya—by older pioneers, the progenitors of humanity, or the Seed-Humanity (Sishta), viz., the men who will be at the head of all at the end of these Rounds. "	S D I 180 - 2


Let us look at the basics that THEOSOPHY offers us all:

Can there be a form or body without some central intelligence that coordinates it and provides for its ex-istence?

Have there been “clones” made of other beings than “men?” [ see Paracelsus and HOMUNCULI, for example].

The interconnecting of the three aspects of intelligence/consciousness spoken of above may be accelerated in some rare cases to produce a physical form in which a specialized intelligence is temporarily or permanently installed by a Sage. [ See for instance ISIS UNVEILED II, pp. 596-603 on an actual documented performance of "Tulku." ]  


A wise friend [JW] made this contribution some time back:

“Once you get rid of separateness then you also get rid of location as well --and past and future too! but you don't get rid of the PRESENT,or the mystery of self-direction ---whether it be a cell or a buddha ----so whatever we have as self we get it from the ONE SELF, and the type or span of our perception is regulated by the vehicle.  

It is our "achieved spot of competence in the river of evolution" which hadno beginning and will have no end.  

"Spirit has to pass through the ordeal of incarnation and life, and be baptized with matter before it can reach experience and knowledge. After whichonly it receives the baptism of soul, or self-consciousness" or CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE ONE SELF.

When that stage is reached the choice between the two polarities, spirit-and-matter cannot be escaped and is summed up in the phrase "bliss immediate (form, matter, vehicle) or bliss deferred (consciousness in widening circles, or spirit)."
 
Or as J--- G--------- would say:

“If there were actual separateness, a man could think of Self as identified with nothing and with no one. He can’t do that.  

Unless he thinks of the Self of all, he is bound to think of the separate Self. Who is in those forms? When we say “ourselves,” we are identifying ourselves with what we see, or with what we hear, or taste, or touch, or smell; so, the answer is there. “


Another way of looking at it is this:  

If we take the highest possible conception of Self, it is of Self as the seer, as the perceiver.  

The moment we take the conception of Self, “I am that which sees,” then, what is it that I see? That is Self in the opposite hypostasis.  

That is why The Secret Doctrine says that Spirit and Matter ought not to beconceived as separate realities; they are but the opposed phases or aspects of one and the same reality.  

The moment we postulate a seer, then we postulate the seen.  

Spirit is a collective term to designate the perceiver, the seer.

Matter is a collective term to designate that which is seen.

What is it that sees? It is Self, which we name Spirit. What is it that is seen? Self, which we name Matter; and the Seventh Chapter of the Gita calls the Self which is seen the inferior nature; and the Self which sees andknows, the superior nature.  

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


BHAGAVAD GITA -- CHAPTER VII 

DEVOTION BY MEANS OF SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT
______ 


KRISHNA:	


Hear, O son of Pritha, how with heart fixed on me, practicing meditation and taking me as thy refuge, thou shalt know me completely. I will instruct thee fully in this knowledge and in its realization, which, having learned, there remains nothing else to be known. 

"Among thousands of mortals a single one perhaps strives for perfection, and among those so striving perhaps a single one knows me as I am. Earth, water, fire, air, and akasa, Manas, Buddhi, and Ahankara is the eightfold division of my nature. It is inferior; 

know that my superior nature is different and is the knower; by it the universe is sustained; learn that the whole of creation springs from this too as from a womb; I am the cause, I am the production and the dissolution of the whole universe. 

There is none superior to me, O conqueror of wealth, and all things hang onme as precious gems upon a string. I am the taste in water, O son of Kuntî, the light in the sun and moon, the mystic syllable OM in all the Vedas, sound in space, the masculine essence in men, the sweet smell in the earth, and the brightness in the fire. In all creatures I am the life, and the power of concentration in those whose minds are on the spirit. Know me, O son of Pritha, as the eternal seed of all creatures. 

I am the wisdom * of the wise and the strength of the strong. And I am the power of the strong who in action are free from desire and longing; in all creatures I am desire regulated by moral fitness. Know also that the dispositions arising from the three qualities, sattva, rajas, and tamas, are fromme; they are in me, but I am not in them. 

The whole world, being deluded by these dispositions which are born of the three qualities, knoweth not me distinct from them, supreme, imperishable. For this my divine illusive power, acting through the natural qualities, isdifficult to surmount, and those only can surmount it who have recourse tome alone. 

The wicked among men, the deluded and the low-minded, deprived of spiritualperception by this illusion, and inclining toward demoniacal dispositions,do not have recourse to me. 

"Four classes of men who work righteousness worship me, O Arjuna; those whoare afflicted, the searchers for truth, those who desire possessions, and the wise, O son of Bharata. 

Of these the best is the one possessed of spiritual knowledge, who is always devoted to me. I am extremely dear to the wise man, and he is dear unto me. Excellent indeed are all these, but the spiritually wise is verily myself, because with heart at peace he is upon the road that leadeth to the highest path, which is even myself. 

After many births the spiritually wise findeth me as the Vasudeva who is all this, for such an one of great soul [Mahatma] is difficult to meet. 

hose who through diversity of desires are deprived of spiritual wisdom adopt particular rites subordinated to their own natures, and worship other Gods. 

In whatever form a devotee desires with faith to worship, it is I alone whoinspire him with constancy therein, and depending on that faith he seeks the propitiation of that God, obtaining the object of his wishes as is ordained by me alone. But the reward of such short-sighted men is temporary. Those who worship the Gods go to the Gods, and those who worship me come unto me. 

The ignorant, being unacquainted with my supreme condition which is superior to all things and exempt from decay, believe me who am unmanifested to exist in a visible form. 

Enveloped by my magic illusion I am not visible to the world; therefore theworld doth not recognize me the unborn and exhaustless. I know, O Arjuna, all creatures that have been, that are present, as well as all that shall hereafter be, but no one knows me. 

At the time of birth, O son of Bharata, all beings fall into error by reason of the delusion of the opposites which springs from liking and disliking,O harasser of thy foes. 

But those men of righteous lives whose sins have ceased, being free from this delusion of the 'pairs of opposites,' firmly settled in faith, worship me. They who depend on me, and labor for deliverance from birth and death know Brahmâ, the whole Adhyâtma, and all Karma. Those who rest in me, knowing me to be the Adhibhûta, the Adhidaivata, and the Adhiyajna,know me also at the time of death." 

Thus in the Upanishads, called the holy Bhagavad-Gîtâ, in the science of the Supreme Spirit, in the book of devotion, in the colloquy between the Holy Krishna and Arjuna, stands the Seventh Chapter, by name―

DEVOTION BY MEANS OF SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT.


from Chapter VIII


"Brahman the Supreme is the exhaustless. 

Adhyâtma is the name of my being manifesting as the Individual Self. Karma is the emanation which causes the existence and reproduction of creatures [Karma here is, so to say, the action of the Supreme which is seen in manifestation throughout the evolution of the objective worlds.]  

Adhibhûta is the Supreme Spirit dwelling in all elemental nature through the mysterious power of nature's illusion. 

Adhidaivata is the Purusha, the Spiritual Person, and 

Adhiyajna is myself in this body, O best of embodied men. 

Whoever at the hour of death abandoneth the body, fixed in meditation upon me, without doubt goeth to me. Whoso in consequence of constant meditation on any particular form thinketh upon it when quitting his mortal shape, even to that doth he go, O son of Kuntî. 

Therefore at all times meditate only on me and fight. Thy mind and Buddhi being placed on me alone, thou shalt without doubt come to me. The man whoseheart abides in me alone, wandering to no other object, shall also by meditation on the Supreme Spirit go to it, O son of Pritha. 

Whosoever shall meditate upon the All-Wise which is without beginning, the Supreme Ruler, the smallest of the small, the Supporter of all, whose form is incomprehensible, bright as the sun beyond the darkness; with mind undeviating, united to devotion, and by the power of meditation concentrated at the hour of death, with his vital powers placed between the eyebrows, attains to that Supreme Divine Spirit. . . . . . . 

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


Why is that? Because the Self, the Knower never changes; but Self, the seen changes all the time as we change direction of our vision.  

That’s why the changing Self is inferior and the unchanging Self — the Perceiver — is superior.

If there were actual separateness, a man could think of Self as identifiedwith nothing and with no one. He can’t do that. Unless he thinksof the Self of all, he is bound to think of the separate Self.

Who is in those forms? When we say “ourselves,” we are identifying ourselves with what we see, or with what we hear, or taste, or touch, or smell; so, the answer is there.”

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

As I understand it from studying Theosophy. The 3 lines of evolution that conjoin in Man are a natural process of
evolution. And it does not seem to be an unnatural process of experimentally producing from basic cells the growth of a
body, without mind or animating "soul."

In other words you have a FORM (which nature produces according to the lawsof growth innate in the physical cells -- GAMETES). But the missing factors are: 2. the Intellect (mind); and 1. the Immoral SPIRIT / SELF.

One has to realize that the body alone does not make or represent the SPIRIT IN MAN, nor even his MIND. The physical body is the lowest of the principles and is their vehicle.

As quoted above: In SECRET DOCTRINE I 181, H P B gives the 3 lines:

1. Spiritual

2. Intellectual

3. Physical.

Krishna, in the BHAGAVAD GITA, gives an overview of the entire universal scheme. On this, our individual moral and ethical choices ought to be based- and, it resolves itself into a single phrase: UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD IN ACTU.

HPB then gives details in the S D, showing how the physical body of man wasevolved by "natural impulse" 
[ S D I 224, II 1, 150, 157fn, 225, 254, 257, in the first half of the evolutionary cycle. Natural impulse [the physical] can only carry it so far, then the Mind and the Spirit have to become cooperative. We have now entered on the second evolutionary phase: the emergence by self-induced and self-devised methods of the Spiritual Man and, the self-creation of the Mahatma of the future. 

At the mid point, about 18,000,000 + years ago [S D I 150 fn, 157, 251], the Mind faculty in humanity was "lit up" 
[ S D I 233-4, 247, 609; II 69, 254-5, 272, 660] by Sage Men of great Wisdom, so that the human Mind would be fully united to its parent, the SPIRIT. These Great Souls ( Dhyan Chohans, Buddhas, Mahatmas and Adepts who had "awakened" and become Men of Wisdom in previous evolutionary Manvantaras. Those are referred to with great reverence as the "Fathers of the Race." [ see S D I 272-3 ] They are the "Theosophical Mahatmas."

We are, as individuals, as a part of humanity, in the position now of discovering the Powers of our Mind, and its Laws. We are also made aware of the delusion causing impact on our minds of the emotional nature, and its so limited and often foolish, desires and passions. This "desire and passion principle" is a separate principle from the Mind (Manas) and is called "Kama."

Mind (Manas) is the active link between the emotions (Kama) and the Wisdom of Buddhi. Wisdom is a perception of universal and immutable law: KARMA.

The physical clone would appear to be limited to the physical side (short-lived) of a physical body, and is unprepared by
natural evolution to entirely protect itself. It lives, if at all (as there are far more failures than successes in producing
these) a very short physical life.

Paracelsus (15th Century) is reputed to have made "homunculi." He used the mysterious alkahest, and caused an "elemental" to animate it.. [ S D I 345, II 27fn, 120-1, 349, 376 Isis I 465, 485, II 33-4; Glos. 204; HP B Articles, Vol. II, pp.
262, 337; ]

I hope this will explain the situation. But if there are further questions, please ask.

Best wishes,


Dallas

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

-----Original Message-----
From: MarieMAJ41@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2005 6:01 PM
To: Subject: Does a Clone have a Soul?

Dear Ones,
 
I have been lurking for some time now, reading and munching over all the  
excellent bits from this list. I have been asking myself this question since I  
saw it brought up on another list that I read.
 
The question is: Does a Clone Have A Soul? Of course, I am asking this  
question with the theosophical view in mind. I am also wondering about what  
theosophists think of the cloning question in general. I myself see that cloning  
would be a progressive thing, since it would be helpful to mankind generally,  
but, used by the wrong unscrupulous person/s, this could also be a great  
calamity. I believe that science in general will lead to mankind's progress, and 
through science, we could at last prove the age-old questions about the 
nature of reality, and the nature of God. What think you all?
 
Marie
 
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