Theos-Talk Archives (October 2005 Message tt00149)

10/29/2005 5:22 AM

Dear Zakk:


HPB offers this explanation I the light of THEOSOPHY 


ANIMAL & APE CONSCIOUSNESS


"	Western science, of course, as a rule, holds that animals have no
conscious ego, but this we know to be erroneous; they possess no spiritual,
but they do possess an animal consciousness. 

APE & ANIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Could men communicate with them they would discover not only this, but also
that many of the anthropoid apes possess an intelligence, consciousness,
etc., little inferior to that of lunatics, madmen, and some desperately
wicked and depraved men who have, in fact, become animals, through the loss,
temporary or permanent, of their sixth and seventh principles, even while
the combination of the other five principles is still intact, i.e., even
during life. 
FRAGMENTS OF OCCULT TRUTH. MOD. PAN. p. 440 fn. 


Mr. Judge in an answer says:

Q.:	What would be the correct name for that "thing" which can be
conscious of the physical body, feeling hunger, thirst, the pain of a cut or
blow, then go to the state of Kama and feel passion and emotion, or enter
into a state of mentality and act on the plane of thought?

A	W.Q.J.-Read the chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita which treats of Kshetra
and Kshetrajna, or the Knower and the Known, as also those which describe
the three qualities, their action and function. 

Your question deals with consciousness, and no one has yet been able to
finish its definition. 

The Self, who is made up of Manas-Buddhi-Atman, three in one, is the knower
and the perceiver. If there were no Self present, all that you have
described would be [63] merely motions in Prana or the movement of the three
qualities, for it is the Self who enables us to give names, derived from
sensation, to these effects. 

And any name given to the Self, in any language, will be but the attempt of
the man to name that which is nameless. In your own remarks under the
question you have skipped from one subject to another, for you began with
what relates to the perception of the knower while dwelling in the body, and
ended with the essential nature of the monad, an entirely different matter.
This confusion of topics will only create confusion in your own mind. 

There is no benefit from increasing words on the self-perceptive cognition,
for all that you can say of it is that you possess the I am I consciousness.


Hence all that you have said can be resolved by the statement that the
consciousness functions in many different planes of experience, and in each
one uses the means or instruments appropriate thereto. 


IN ANIMALS

And in order to pass from one plane to another, holding intelligence in
each, the presence of Manas is necessary as one of the integral parts or
powers of the Self, for without Manas we are only of the brute or lower
kingdoms. For one moment consider the brutes who, moving and dwelling in the
mental plane with man, know nothing of our manasic sensations. It is because
Manas is dormant in them; but in you it has begun to awake, thus enabling
you as man to note the effects upon yourself of the motions of the qualities
of nature.
FORUM ANSWERS p. 62-3


and again:


Q.:	I think questions of this nature arise unconsciously from a sort of
dissatisfaction with present environment in the world, and evolution [105]
from a desire of personal satisfaction and betterment according to a
standard made up from and in a civilization that is based on a fundamental
idea of separateness. For if we think we are separate from God and his
universe then alterations of state and condition will be naturally thought
of as needful, and the question will arise, "Why did we fall if we were once
divine?" I do not admit that "we were once divine and have fallen"; but say
that we are divine and always were, and that the falling is but apparent and
due to the personal consciousness which calls that soul which is not and
that not which is. We are God, and working out in various personalities and
environments the great plan in view, and that plan is well known to the
dweller in the body who calmly waits for all the material elements to come
to realization of their oneness with God.

I should like light on some contradicting points in the fifteenth chapter in
the Ocean of Theosophy.

(1) Man did not come from any tribe or family of monkey.

(2) No more Egos from the lower kingdoms will come into the human kingdom
until the next Manvantara.

(3) The Egos in the lower kingdoms could not finish their evolution in the
preceding globe-chain before its dissolution, and coming to this they go
forward age after age, gradually approaching nearer the man stage. One day
they too will become men and act as the advance-guard and guide for other
kingdoms of this and other globes.
To my understanding this is two different teachings.

A	W.Q.J.-Beyond question the Ocean of Theosophy must have faults.

But I cannot see a contradiction between No. 1 and any of the other
paragraphs in the question. The statement that "man did not come from
monkeys" is one that relates wholly to his physical evolution. It does not
relate to the Ego. The inrush of new Egos ceased at a period long passed. 

What can be drawn from this is that the Egos and Monads now involved in the
earth's evolution are restricted from this on to the end of this Manvantara
from coming into the human stage of evolution, with the exception of those
confined in the true anthropoid ape family. What this has to do with
contradictions I fail to perceive. The statement in No. [106] 

3, if correctly quoted (and no page is given), is general and not specific. 

The Egos in lower kingdoms will become men- but not in this Manvantara- and
then will have to begin the next Manvantara to help those below them. No
assertion being made that the Egos thus lower now will be men in this
Manvantara, there is no contradiction. 

In order to make a contradiction one has to import into the sentence that
which is not in it nor strictly inferable, and this is not an allowed rule
of construction. Especially so when the whole of the book is construed
together. There are, therefore, not two different sorts of systems or
evolutions present, but at most a slight want of clearness due to great
condensation of a good deal into a small book. A better writer than I am
would undoubtedly have prevented the slightest confusion in the reader. But
in reading a book the best rule of construction is that which harmonizes the
whole rather than one which finds errors by isolating sentences."
FORUM ANSWERS p. 105-6


In the SECRET DOCTRINE ( II p. 196fn) HPB says:

" * In calling the animal "Soulless," it is not depriving the beast, from
the humblest to the highest species, of a "soul," but only of a conscious
surviving Ego-soul, i.e., that principle which survives after a man, and
reincarnates in a like man. The animal has an astral body, that survives the
physical form for a short period; but its (animal) Monad does not
re-incarnate in the same, but in a higher species, and has no "Devachan" of
course. It has the seeds of all the human principles in itself, but they are
latent. "	SECRET DOCTRINE ( II, p. 196 fn)


" * The monad of the animal is as immortal as that of man, yet the brute
knows nothing of this; it lives an animal life of sensation just as the
first human would have lived, when attaining physical development in the
Third Race, had it not been for the Agnishwatta and the Manasa Pitris."
S D II 525 fn


In the S D we further find:


"Having been in all the so-called "Seven creations," allegorizing the seven
evolutionary changes, or the sub-races, we may call them, of the First
Root-race of Mankind - MAN was on earth in this Round from the beginning. 

Having passed through all the kingdoms of nature in the previous three
Rounds,* his physical frame - one adapted to the thermal conditions of those
early periods - was ready to receive the divine Pilgrim at the first dawn of
human life, i.e., 18,000,000 years ago. It is only at the mid-point of the
3rd Root Race that man was endowed with Manas. 

Once united, the two and then the three made one; for though the lower
animals, from the amoeba to man, received their monads, in which all the
higher qualities are potential, all have to remain dormant till each reaches
its human form, before which stage manas (mind) has no development in them.*


In the animals every principle is paralysed, and in a foetus-like state,
save the second (vital) and the third (the astral), and the rudiments of the
fourth (Kama, which is desire, instinct) whose intensity and development
varies and changes with the species. To the materialist wedded to the
Darwinian theory, this will read like a fairy-tale, a mystification; to the
believer in the inner, spiritual man, the statement will have nothing
unnatural in it. [S D II 254-5 ]

======================	FOOTNOTE========================

* "Follow the law of analogy" - the Masters teach. Atma-Buddhi is dual and
Manas is triple; inasmuch as the former has two aspects, and the latter
three, i.e., as a principle per se, which gravitates, in its higher aspect,
to Atma-Buddhi, and follows, in its lower nature, Kama, the seat of
terrestrial and animal desires and passions. Now compare the evolution of
the Races, the First and the Second of which are of the nature of
Atma-Buddhi, their passive Spiritual progeny, and the Third Root-Race shows
three distinct divisions or aspects physiologically and psychically; the
earliest, sinless; the middle portions awakening to intelligence; and the
third and last decidedly animal: i.e., Manas succumbs to the temptations of
Kama.
[S D II 254 FN] 

* "Men are made complete only during their third, toward the fourth cycle
(race). They are made 'gods' for good and evil, and responsible only when
the two arcs meet (after 31/2 rounds towards the fifth Race). They are made
so by the Nirmanakaya (spiritual or astral remains) of the Rudra-Kumaras,
'cursed to be reborn on earth again; meaning - doomed in their natural turn
to reincarnation in the higher ascending arc of the terrestrial cycle.'
(Commentary IX.)
[S D II 255 FN] 


Best wishes,

Dallas
 
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-----Original Message-----
From: Zakk 
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 8:51 PM
To: 
Subject: Re: Animals and Spiritual Consciousness


<<"Western Science, of course, as a rule, holds that
animals have no conscious Ego, but this we know to be
erroneous; they possess no spiritual, but they do
possess an animal, consciousness." (HPB) >>

A perspective:

An animal has a consciousness (awareness), but possess no spiritual
ego, is how the above is interpreted. All possess a consciousness,
or as it is seen to be more accurately stated, consciousness permeates
and is throughout the all. It matters not if it is mineral, plant, animal, 
or
human. In each of these scenerios, the capacity for expression differs.
A mineral does not have the capacity to express as fully as a plant,
and etc. The human state having the highest capacity for expression
in regards to the different scenerios. The human has the capacity to
express the spiritual ego, whereas the others do not. The vehicle
utilized by the spiritual ego for it's expression is seen in the human 
state.
An animal has not the self creative abilities as a human. Self creative
thought is an expression of the spiritual ego. No animal possesses this
ability. The abilities of the animal are limited to the capacity of
expression as it pertains to the lower planes. Animals have desires
and feelings as they are of these four lower planes. No self conscious
realizations of the higher planes are within the animals capacity.
This requires a spiritual ego. It is perceived that this is the gist of
what was stated above. 


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