Theos-Talk Archives (November 2005 Message tt00058)

In a message dated 10/20/2005 8:27:08 PM Central Standard Time, 
materia@pacbell.net writes:

That's one version of what the traditional Christians might say. It's not
what we'd teach people wanting to learn Theosophy.

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.

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.

Eldon



Dear Eldon, thank you so much for your considerable explanation on this 
topic. At last I have grasped the theosophic concept completely.

Marie



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