Theos-Talk Archives (December 2005 Message tt00281)

Dear Cindy

RE: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT & DRUG INDUCED DEATH

Good questions.  

Theosophically what happens after DEATH -- in terms of the permanence of the
SOUL-EGO is important.  

Means of death has to do with individual and personal Karma.

If we can entertain the logic of our (as spiritual mind-souls) being
IMMORTALS, then we need not ask how we "go to sleep," but rather: what
happens when we change our plane of consciousness. Where do WE GO ? What
do WE DO there ? 


Apparently there is always the IMMORTAL and the many vehicles in which the
IMMORTAL may live and function ( see S D I 157-8 ) .

I have no particulars on this MATTER OF DRUG INFLUENCE but will look and if
I find any, and will forward.


Sorry but --- also Thanks

Dallas

P S :	see this written by a friend:

Personal and SPIRITUAL SELF

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 had
no 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
which only 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 JG 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 be
conceived 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 and knows, the superior nature.  

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 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."
(jw)

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

2


WHAT REINCARNATES By Robert Crosbie


"What reincarnates is a mystery to many minds because they find a difficulty
in understanding such a permanency as must stand behind repeated
incarnations. They know that the body is born and dies and is dissolved, but
their minds are so identified with the body in its relations and
surroundings that they are unable to dissociate themselves from it. They
think of themselves as persons, as bodies of a physical nature, and hence
can not see where in them may reside that power of incarnating from life to
life. 

Theosophy presents a larger view in showing that man is not his body,
because the body is continually changing; that man is not his mind, because
he is constantly changing his mind; that there is in man a permanency which
is the identity throughout all kinds of embodiments. There has been no
change in our identity from childhood up to the present day. The body has
changed; the surroundings have changed; but the identity remains the same
and will not change from now on through all changes of body or mind or
circumstance. That in us which is itself unchanging is the only real.
Nothing is real that changes. It is only the real that perceives change.
Change can not see change. Only that which is constant perceives change;
only the permanent can perceive impermanence. However dimly we may perceive
it, there is that in us which is eternal and changeless. 

This unchanging, constant, and immortal something in us is not absent from
any particle or any being whatever. There is only one Life in the world to
which we, as well as all other beings, pertain. We all proceeded from the
same one Source - not many - and we are proceeding on the same path to the
same great goal. The ancients said that the Divine Self is in all beings,
but in all it does not shine forth. The real is within, and may be realized
by any human being in himself. Everyone needs that realization that he may
shine forth and express the God within, which all beings but partially
express. 

If then the Source is the same - the One Spirit - in all beings, why so many
forms, so many personalities, so many individualizations? All, again
Theosophy shows, are developments. In that great Ocean of Life, which is at
the same time Consciousness and Spirit, we move and live and have our being.
That ocean is separable into its constituent drops and the separation is
effected through the great course of evolution. Even in the kingdoms below
us, which are from the same Source, the tendency to separate into drops of
individualized consciousness goes on in ever-increasing degree. In the
animal kingdom, those species that are nearest to us make an approach to
self-consciousness; but we as human beings have arrived at that stage where
each is a constituent drop of the great ocean of Consciousness. As with an
ocean of water, each drop of it contains all the elements of the great body,
so each constituent drop of humanity - a human being - contains within its
range every element of the great universe. 

The same power exists in all of us, yet where we stand on the ladder of
being we see many below us and others greater than we above us. Humanity now
is building the bridge of thought, the bridge of ideas that connects the
lower with the higher. The whole purpose of incarnation, or our descent into
matter, was not only to gain further knowledge of matter, but to impel the
lower kingdoms to come up to where we are. We stand as gods to the lower
kingdoms. It is our impulsion that brings them weal or woe. It is our
misconception of the aim of life that makes Nature so hard; that causes all
the distress and disasters which afflict us in cyclones, tornadoes,
diseases, pestilences of every kind. All are our own doing; and why? Because
there is a sublimation of mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms in our
bodies, which are lives in themselves. Every cell in our bodies has its
birth, youth, manhood, decay and death, and its reincarnation. We are
impelling each one of those lives according to whatever thought, will, or
feeling we may have, whether for help or injury to others. These lives go
out from us for good or evil, back into their kingdoms with good or evil. So
by our lack of understanding of our own true natures, without a
comprehension of universal brotherhood, we are imperfectly performing our
duties on this plane and are imperfectly helping the evolution of the lower
kingdoms. We shall realize our responsibility to them only as we see that
every being is on his way upward; that all above man have been men at one
time; that all below man will some time reach man's estate, when we have
gone on further; that all forms, all beings, all individualizations are but
aspects of the One Spirit. 

Granted, then, that this one unchanging Spirit is in all - the cause of all
evolutionary development, the cause of all incarnations - where, we may ask,
do we carry the power to see and know from life to life? How is continuity
of knowledge, gained by observation and experience, preserved? How is the
individual maintained as such? 

We should remember that we were self-conscious beings when this planet
began; some even were self-conscious when this solar system began; for there
is a difference in degree of development among human beings. If the planet
or solar system began in a state of primordial substance, or nebulous
matter, as Science calls it, then we must have had bodies of that state of
substance. In that finest substance are all the possibilities of every grade
of matter, and hence it is that within the true body of primordial matter
all the changes of courser and courser substance have been brought about;
and within that body is all experience. Our birth is within that body.
Everything that occurs to us is within that body - a body of a nature which
does not change throughout the whole Manvantara. Each one has such a body of
finest substance, of the inner nature, which is the real container for the
individual. In it he lives and moves and has his being, and yet even the
great glory and fineness of that body is not the man; it is merely the
highest vesture of the Soul. The Real Man we are is the Man that was, that
is, and that ever shall be, for whom the hour will never strike - Man, the
thinker; Man, the perceiver - always thinking, continually acting. 

Life is one. Spirit is one. Consciousness is one. These three are one - a
trinity - and we are that trinity. All the changes of substance and form are
brought about by Spirit and Consciousness and expressed in various forms of
life. We are that One Spirit, each standing in a vast assemblage of beings
in this great universe, seeing and knowing what he can through the
instruments he has. We are the Trinity - the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost; or, in theosophical parlance, we are Atma, Buddhi, and Manas. Atma is
the One Spirit, not belonging to any one, but to all. Buddhi is the
sublimated experience of all the past. Manas is the thinking power, the
thinker, the man, the immortal man. There is no man without the Spirit, and
no man without that experience of the past; but the mind is the realm of
creation, of ideas; and the Spirit itself, with all its power, acts
according to the ideas that are in the mind. 

The Voice of the Silence says, "Mind is like a mirror. It gathers dust while
it reflects." It needs soul-wisdom to brush away the dust. This mind of
ours, or that which we call the mind, is merely the reflector, which
presents as we train it, different pictures. The Spirit acts in accord with
the ideas seen, for good or for evil. Is there evil in the world? It is the
power of Spirit that caused it. Is there good in the world? It is the power
of Spirit that caused it. For there is only one power. The misdirection of
that power brings evil; its right direction brings good. 

We must give up the idea that we are poor, weak, miserable creatures who can
never do anything for ourselves; for as long as we hold that idea, so long
will we never do anything. We must get the other idea - that we are Spirit,
that we are immortal - and when we come to realize what that means, the
power of it will flow directly in and through us, unrestricted in any
direction, save by the instruments which we ourselves caused to be
imperfect. So let us get away from the idea that we are this poor,
miserable, defective physical body over which we have so little control. We
can not stop a heart beat; we can not stop the breath without destroying the
body; we can not stop the constant dissociation of matter that goes on in
it, nor prevent its final dissolution. Some people talk of "demonstrating"
against death, but we might as well try to demonstrate against the trees
shedding their leaves when the winter blasts come. 

Death will always be, and there is a great advantage in it. If we could not
change our bodies, how would there be any chance for advancement? Are we so
well pleased with the bodies now ours that we would desire no change?
Certainly not. There is only one thing in this life that can be retained
permanently, and that is the spiritual nature, and the great divine
compassion which we may translate by the word "love." 

We are the reincarnating Egos who will continue to incarnate until the great
task which we undertook is completed. That task is the raising up of the
whole of humanity to the highest possible stage of perfection on an earth of
this kind. We incarnate from age to age for the preservation of the just,
the destruction of wickedness, and the establishment of righteousness. 

That is what we are here for, whether we know it or not, and we must come to
a recognition of the immortality of our own natures before we shall ever
relieve ourselves from the distresses that afflict humanity everywhere. We
have to bring ourselves in touch and tune with the whole great purpose of
Nature which is the evolution of Soul, and for which alone all the universe
exists."

Robert Crosbie 

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

3

 

SPIRIT MATTER MIND

I think I am misunderstood.  

I did not mean to imply that "evil" was "divine." That would be saying
"black" is "white," etc... and contrast of any kind is invalid.


No. But what I do mean is based on the following observation, admittedly
metaphysical:


1.	A common SOURCE from which the contrasts of "spirit" and "matter"
emerge during "manifestations." It is also that same SOURCE which, at the
end of any manifestation serves as the "resting place" between that ending
and the fresh beginning (under Karma -- like waking up in the morning).  

2.	[ Analogous to sleeping and waking activities in daily life;
sleeping, allowing the body to refresh its vigor through rest.]

SOURCE

IT (the SOURCE -- some call it the ABSOLUTE) is always there as a
"background," regardless of "beginning," or antiquity; extent (in present,
or past, or future "space"); or any forward, or conceivable "end."  

Illimitable and undeniable would be terms applied to IT. It is not "a God,"
but the term "Deity," might tentatively be applied towards it without
allowing the idea to limit IT. [ I think the best definition is early on in
the SECRET DOCTRINE, where Mme. Blavatsky defines the " Three Fundamentals,'
Vol. 1, pp. 14 - 18. ] The term "NATURE" would then be applied to any given
period of manifestation, or the interaction of the 3 aspects of this ONE
SOURCE: Spirit, Matter, and Mind. "Unity is the fundamental "dogma" of
Occultism "[ SD, I -- p. 58 ]

Having spoken of this we have to pass into periods of limited life and
activity, which as a "catch-all" one can term "Manifestation," or
"Evolutionary periods," or Manvantaras.  

Theosophy envisages a vast host of diverse beings making up the Unity of
such periods, and furnishing each to the other the necessary field for
individual evolution -- a concept that accounts for the desire to grow, to
learn, to improve over what one has already learned or experienced. [
Reverse this, and you have immobility, inertia, "death," decay, sickness,
error, and utter selfishness or isolation. ] 


SPIRIT


2.	"SPIRIT" ought, by agreement, to include all information, knowledge,
data concerning intelligence, consciousness, memory of experience, laws of
relationship, -- in short the whole of the "facts of existence" and all
"life," without any limitation in terms of time or space. 

Eternity and immortality would have to be "givens." Just as the atom of
Science is considered to be a perpetual motion machine, the beginnings and
endings of which are conjectural and indefinable. We perceive only the
middle stage of its "being here."  


LAWS

All the laws of relationship appear to be based on the relationships of
these smallest of the "substances of nature." [ Of course there is evidence
for the 'sub-atomic" so what we have called atoms for the past 100 years in
Science are themselves divisible. The SD says ( I - p. 520) that
the whole of occultism is based on the infinite divisibility of the atom. ]


MORALS -- ETHICS

In terms of "morals" or "ethics," real understanding would be based on those
universal, impersonal and totally just LAWS that govern all relationships
with equality in any Universe. This particular area is generally covered
under the terms of psychology and philosophy. And then there is the chaotic
area where the facts and causes of human action and motivation draw widely
interpretative theories in abundance.  


AUTHORITIES and THEOSOPHY

A study of Theosophical ideas does help in getting these sorted out, so that
the conflicting concepts of say "Krishnamurti, Hegel or Jung," etc...can be
reconciled with great ease. I am trying to put forward the simple concepts
which lead to this reconciliation here. To me it is unimportant as to "who"
has said what -- as their logic and reasoning has to be grasped before they
are employed as 'authorities. and, of course the same criterion has to be
equally applied to what Mme. Blavatsky, or Buddha, or Krishna say in their
statements concerning Nature and the beings living in it. Theosophy is to
be as severely cross-examined as any other set of concepts.


MIND(S)

To perceive these requires MINDS. Or those aspects of evolutionary
"success" (or level of perfection) which form the corps of "graduates" from
the educational scheme that the Universe in manifestation represents as a
whole. From this concept arises the idea of Sages, Masters of Wisdom, Magi,
and other terms ( corresponding to the idea of the Professors in a vast
University that embraces the Cosmos ), and denoting achievement in the many
realms of learning.  


MATTER


3. MATTER consists of all the myriad of "forms." of beings in
manifestation. Consider our surroundings: Earth, Water, Air and Fire the
old alchemists and Fire Philosophers, heirs of the Hermetists and the Rishis
of India would say. Any kind of substance has associated with it the
properties of some kind of power, or force which inheres in its "being."
Some of these are "visible" or tangible, and some are not, until special
conditions render them perceptible to us.

So we have as matter the various substances that Science examines. The
interaction of intelligence and consciousness which those who examine,
plants, animals, and humans examine and seek to develop explanations for
their "behavior."  

"Nature contains all." And Science examines it. It depends on Law for this
-- a consistency which some deny when confronted with human psychology. It
depends on continuity, and the expectation that the qualities and properties
of various aspects of matter, and the beings that use it remain consistent
over a sufficiently long period so that some conclusions can be reached that
are valid in TIME.



MIND	CRESCENDO of INTELLIGENCE

4.	MIND as said above ranges from the intelligence innate in the
Nature's smallest building blocks, call it the "life-atom," or MONAD and
ascribe to it the idea of its eternal existence. Also consider that it has
the power of recording all its experiences, and from those it gradually
acquires increasing individuality and the powers of sensitivity,
intelligence in an increasing scale.  

It may be easy then, to see that from the atom, to the intelligence that
organizes a crystal, or a plant or that drives animal instinct is a
crescendo of learning. From animal instinct to human ratiocination is a
large gap that is filled from time to time by the donation of the faculty of
the mind -- the daily process of a babe learning from its parents and
elders. The processes of school and college, are too well know to have to be
repeated. With the individualization of the mind it is assumed that the
moral concepts of individual rights (which are to be respected) and of
cooperation are also burned deep into the consciousness of the growing
intelligence. These are the presumptions of statutory as well as "common
law" law in all countries.

Your brief comment would seem to place the contrast of pride, selfishness,
disruption and exaggerated individualism as necessary. Are they ? Or are
they the result of an unbridled an ungoverned exuberation of the PASSIONATE,
the DESIRE NATURE which we inherit from our experience with the
consciousness of the instinctual animal ?


HUMAN MIND

One of the faculties, qualities and determinants of the right to be "human"
and to employ a quasi independent "mind," is to learn to control the desire
and instinctive nature, to regulate these in terms of the great harmony of
Nature that we perceive around us. If we examine this carefully we will
perceive that the necessity of cooperation alone furnishes the environment
for all to live in together. Ecology and Economics both teach this in their
area of consideration, and the concept of morals and ethics is derived from
that.


NATURE (the UNIVERSE)

One might observe that Nature contains everything and is a well regulated
plenum. From the sub-atomic "quark" to the fartherest reaches (by Hubble
telescope) of the Galaxy one discovers order and rhythm pervades the Vast
Kosmos. Size, age, distance, none of these distinctions that are limited by
our ideas of physical intelligence has anything to do with this tremendous
organizational faculty of NATURE (the UNIVERSE As A WHOLE, both visible and
invisible). It is in effect a finely sensitized Intelligence, operating at
all levels, and a vast CONSCIOUSNESS that has infinitely divided itself so
as to share in the Life of every one of its components.


SCIENCE and NATURE

We might also observe that our scientists, in all departments of learning
are endeavoring to discover that which NATURE has already established and
uses. They are rediscovering the vast organized complexity that IS ALREADY
IN PLACE.

DTB


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

-----Original Message-----
From: Cindy 
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 5:04 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Dear Dal,

Question: What effect if any do drugs have on our awareness during the
death process?

I ask this as we now execute people with fatal doses of "drugs". I have
also seen apparently otherwise healthy older adults go into the hospital for
minor surgery, where they are given drugs such as morphine, and then for no
reason at all, they pass away. I realize that some are sick and that is the
natural progression of things. But I have seen others all of a sudden
develope internal bleeding, cause of which they can not find, and suddenly
die.

What are the effects of such pharmaceuticals on our bodies? I am thinking
that they are not good. And I am most concerned about what happens to our
awareness during the death process if we are given such pharmaceuticals.

I am eagerly looking forward to your reply.

Cin