Theos-Talk Archives (September 2005 Message tt00188)

9/13/2005 3:00 AM



Dear Friends:





Jerry writes:



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



GS

What is reality? This question has been asked throughout history and

throughout the world. As Theosophists we need to concentrate on a

Theosophical definition of reality, and this would almost certainty entail

a look at what is called the monad.



Essentially we can define a monad as anything that is totally unitary or

indivisible, and this means having no parts or sides, no mass, and no

spatial extension. Such a thing must necessarily be outside of space and

time altogether because it has to be eternal and infinite. Everything that

we can conceive of in time and space will have parts of some kind. 



Tibetan Buddhism symbolizes such a monad with the vajra, basically a sphere
with

two lightening bolts extending from it, one on each side. The vajra

symbolizes the Two emanating from the One, duality from nonduality, and

presents us with two types of monads, one being indivisible or non-dual and

the other being a duality. Blavatsky borrows these two views of the monad

in her Doctrine of Monads.



Just as reality appears to be split into nonduality and duality, into

absolute and relative, into unmanifested Beness and the seven-plane solar

system of Manvantaric manifestation, so we have a nondual monad and a dual

monad, the latter sometimes being referred to as a "monad of lesser

experience." The nondual monad is unmanifested and is in Beness, while the

dual monad is in manifestation in what is called conditional reality.



Beness or Thatness or Suchness is sometimes called the absolute or ultimate

reality. By contrast, manifestation is called conditional reality because

everything within it exists only by causes and conditions and when those

conditions no longer exist, we have death and decay and what appears to be

nonexistence. 



Conditional reality is called karma, where karma is the law

or principle of causation, a beginningless and endless chain of what

Mahayana Buddhism calls dependent origination because the creation or

origination of everything depends on other things. 



In terms of living beings, this chain is called the Wheel of Life and rolls
on through

eternity by means of another chain, one of 12 dependent causations which

includes ignorance, birth and death among other things. According to

Blavatsky, conditional reality is one vast network of living aggregates,

the dualistic monads of greater or lesser experience depending on where

there stand in the evolutionary network of globes that form a circular

planetary chain. She describes a conditional relative universe where

everything is alive, and where all living beings are essentially identical

in what she calls their monadic essence or essentially indivisible natures.



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



DTB see NIDANA (12 linked causal chain) explained in detail, in Theos.
Glos. p. 229.



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



GS

We see the idea of chains, wheels, and living dependent networks, with

conscious living beings undergoing cyclic evolutionary development
everywhere

in conditional reality, and this leads us to conclude that there must be a

law of cycles within the evolutionary processes of conditional reality.

This gives us three primary laws: (1) the law of karma, (2) the law of

cycles, and (3) the law of identity. 



Blavatsky details the evolutionary scheme of these dualistic monads of

greater or lesser experience, but neglects to tell us the ultimate goal of

evolutionary development. It appears that the dual monads in conditional

reality are slowly evolving toward becoming nondual monads in Beness or

ultimate reality, and they do so by a process of continuous reincarnation

according to the three basic laws of conditional reality. 



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



DTB The "Pledge of Kwan Yin" indicates a goal:



"Never shall I seek nor receive private individual salvation; 

never will I enter into final peace alone;

but forever and everywhere shall I live and strive

for the redemption of every creature throughout the world."



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



GS

Now, it behooves us as Theosophists to question where our realty is in all

of this. The questions of how and why the nondual monad originally

bifurcated into the dual monad, if it actually did so, has never been

satisfactorily answered. Linear evolution has been shown to have

unanswerable logic problems, and the question of where something came from

always ends in an infinite regression, so we can surmise that Blavatsky's

evolutionary scheme is not a linear one. This is even suggested by her use

of a circular model of globes where living beings evolve through circles

rather than straight lines, and also by the law of cycles which guides all

evolutionary processes.



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



DTB see SECRET DOCTRINE, Vol. I, p. 200



Both infinite regression and infinite progression indicate a shared (or an 

analogous, comparative past and future), but no loss of individual identity 

for any MONAD is suggested. 



Another paradox has puzzled me for long: 



In an infinite, timeless and immeasurable UNIVERSE how can there ever 

be TOTAL NON-MANIFESTATION? Or, TOTAL MANIFESTATION ? 



It seems to me, to be logical, these two processes are simultaneous, or 

neither of them occurs without the other being simultaneously present.



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



GS

If we can think of the dual monad as being such because of a fundamental

subject-object dichotomy, then evolution may consist of lengthy and

convoluted processes that ultimately lead to a union of this split.



Throughout conditional reality we have observers, countless forms of

subjective realities, who make observations of specific and generalized

objective realities. We have knowers and knowns, thinkers and thoughts,

doers and actions, subjects and objects, each with an inner and outer, and

so on all of which result in our dual monads. What then becomes of the

world in which we appear to live? If conditional reality is one and

experienced by countless subjective selves, as it appears to be, then how

is the monad divided? But if the monad is divided into self and world, then

what is the difference between "my world" and "your world?" 



Could they be shared? If so, then when we die, we would take our own 

world with us and reality is then reduced to our self and our world together

with anything at all that we experience within it. 



There is a very real possibility that the nondual monad and the dual monad

are essentially the same thing, but perceived differently. This could lead

us to conclude that matter and spirit are the same essential thing but

perceived differently, and the same with gender and race and so on. If so,

then reality can also be perceived as one unitary "thing" that is

experienced differently. And if so, then perhaps we can define maya,

illusion, as our different perceptions of this one and the same ineffable

reality.



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



DTB The substances of the manifesting period are not identical to those
present in non-manifestation. As an example: how can we set (using our
present embodied mind) physical dimensions to a thought or a wish ? They
are as wide or as small as tenuous or as dense as we created them.



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





Jerry S.



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



DTB



I find in all languages that there are two chief verbs:



TO BE, and TO HAVE.



I have been wondering and puzzling:



Is it possible that these express the basic concept of the 



MONAD: 1 TO BE = Self-Existence



2 TO HAVE = indicates a limited, or a substantial "form"
in which the

Self-Existence may reside (wholly or partially, for
a limited time

or permanently) ?





In ancient theogonies the personifications of the ABSOLUTE BEING is said:


TO BE. And the "male" gender seems affixed to this expression.



This persists whether there is manifestation or the "emptiness" of
non-manifestation.



TO HAVE existence in a form, seems as of old, to be an attribute of the
female 

aspect of Life. An attempt to keep a stable existence in spite of continual
change and 

additions or attritions to a resident "FORM." 



>From ZERO radiates the ONE, and from that ONE, appear the polarity of TWO 

[positive and negative, or male / female] neutralizing each other so that a
relative 

stability is achieved. 



The resulting THREE [Symbolized by a TRIANGLE] usually indicates the
"spiritual" aspect of the evolutionary surge. 



[In the BHAGAVAD GITA we find Krishna, as the personification of the ZERO /
ONE speaks of the 3 GUNAS (sattva, rajas, tamas or: purity, action,
repose) in equipoise, as forming the evolutionary mass, and providing a
"vehicle" (or sheath) for every fraction {MONAD} of the WHOLE,
IMMEASURABLE, TIMELESS UNIVERSE. He indicates that each Monad struggles
towards a perfect knowledge or WISDOM -- the final resolution of the course
of evolutionary experience. ]



With the ZERO, it [the TRIANGLE] forms the mystic 4 (the SPIRITUAL CUBE).



In evolution, 4 vehicles (principles) are developed forming the nether CUBE
.



In some way the diagram given on p. 200 Vol. I of the SECRET DOCTRINE
reflects this.





Are there others who have thought on this matter ? 



I would be glad to hear from them.





Dallas





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





-----Original Message-----

From: Gerald 

Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 5:43 PM

To: 

Subject: Re: Calm Abiding and Special insight According to Tsongkhapa





<< Those nine stages seem to me like so many distractions: i.e., I don't

think I

would want to concern myself with "stages" when I'm "just being." For me,

"just being" is about "just being," rather than about requirements, stages

and whatever. >>



Few people are able to just be. It begins with what is called one-pointed

concentration. The mind is placed on an object and then held there. When

one can sit quietly and remain undistracted for some time, and not lose

concentration on the object, then the object is removed and one can sit

quietly and just be. 





<< Sounds to me like he might be addressing somebody who's never heard of

"just

being," or somebody who can't imagine what those quotes might mean.>>



He is addressing someone who wants to do Just Being, but doesn't have a

clue how to go about it.





<< That kind of exercise seems to me like a distraction in itself. >>



For most people, the mind is distracted 24-7. What these meditative stages

do, is to allow one to slowly and gradually direct one's mindfulness to any

given area or subject matter and remain there. After some practice, this

allows manas to be transcended.





<< My approach to "just being" is in terms of "no effort." >>



Most people require an expenditure of effort to be effortless, at least at

first. It is only through practice that the stages are gone through quickly

and with no effort at all. The required effort is in breaking down the

habitual tendencies of one's mind and once the mind learns to behave, no

more effort is needed.



CUT







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