RE: Spiritual Inquiries: 1. Vibration
Feb 09, 2006 05:31 PM
by W.Dallas TenBroeck
Excellent advice
BASIC THEOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS .DOC
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SOME BASIC THEOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS
Theosophical doctrines draw our attention to some basic concepts:--
1. The Universe is All. IT has no limits, either in space or in time.
It is Immortal. It is Life. We are in IT.
2. The Universe operates under cyclic Law. Law cannot be
broken. It supports universal
progression. Morally
It can be said to provide justice and
compassion to
all beings. Universe = Nature in toto.
3. Each being is a unit of Life. In its essence it is a
ray of the Universal One. The unit is variously
called" Monad, or "Life-atom," etc... it is a
"perpetual motion machine" and is an immortal
entity,
it passes through all evolutionary
processes,
acquiring intelligence and experience.
It is analogous to a solar system, or to a galaxy.
4. Every being shares in the immortality of the One in its
essence. It therefore cannot be destroyed or
annihilated as a Unit of Life. Life or energy
is universal, and in its diversity it animates
every "unit of life."
5. In essence each "part" (Unit of Life), is united
through 'electro-magnetic' links with all others.
There is one whole; only the 'units' seem to be
separate, divided from one-another in terms of our
gross perceptions of "matter." Their unity is the
basis for cooperation expressed in brief as
Universal Brotherhood.
5. To make a physical form each 'unit' draws together
other units of lesser experience than itself on the
"Ladder of Being." In doing that it makes itself
responsible for their growth and well-being. Just
as a "teacher" makes himself responsible for the
progress of many pupils. It should be noted that
while the "Teacher" offers instruction based on
his experience, it is the responsibility of the
"pupils" to test and adopt it when they are
satisfied as to its accuracy. We call this, in
general terms : Evolution, when viewed as a whole.
6. Any "form," serves temporarily as a place for those
beings of lesser experience to acquire more ex-
perience and thus have opportunity to "advance."
Under the operation of LAW, Karma, they acquire,
each in its own way, a wider experience, a higher
degree of consciousness. All those who have not
yet reached the "human-mind" state, are called
non-self-conscious "life-atoms." They are
in-
cipient men-to-be. They inform for the moment,
the elemental, mineral, vegetable and animal
kingdoms, or divisions, of Nature.
7. When the level of self-consciousness (mind, manas, man,
soul) is achieved by any of the "lives," it
proceeds further, as a human being, through the
process of reincarnation, using many successive
physical bodies. All live in the same framework
of law, progression and mutual support. The
whole evolutionary scheme is a vast brotherhood.
In the man-mind condition/stage, progress is by
trial/error, and thus the awareness or attentive
faculty is developed as the individual studies
the operation of universal laws operating in and
around him.
8. Like the Universe, man is seven-fold in constitution:
1. Spirit - Atman, (a "Ray" of the Divine.
2. Discrimination-Intuition-Conscience
- Buddhi, ( memory of experiences)
3. Thinking, Intellection, Reason,
- Mind - Manas, (choice & free will
4. Emotion, Sensation, Selfishness -
- Kama, ( desire, passion )
5. Vitality, Life-energy, magnetism -
- Prana, Jiva (vitality, life-force)
6. Electro-magnetic model form -
- Astral body, (electro-magnetic form)
7. Physical Body. (Known to us.)
9. The Universe, Man, and all other beings go through an
evolutionary cycle which is seven-fold, covering an immense time, during
which each being passes through every one of the seven phases that this
seven-fold scheme provides, so that each may secure the highest degree of
perfection by its own experiences and voluntary decisions. All progress is
by self-effort. [ Very much as in our educational system.]
10. The self-conscious man, in which Manas (mind) or self-
consciousness is the active principle, makes decisions. Motive actuates
Karma. If the decisions are universally-based, 'good' and progress for the
unit, and the whole accrues rapidly. Should decisions be self-focused, as
opposed to the general good, 'evil' results. Karma thus actuated, teaches
the unit through disciplining circumstances what the ideal decisions ought
to be. Thus evolution proceeds. All karmic events are the direct result of
the choices that are individually made.
11. Graduates from this "School-of-Life" face the choice
or responsibility of becoming, in their turn, "teachers."
That is, of actively assisting in the process of diffusing
and explaining this universal process. They are superior
men. [ Similar to the Professors in our Universities.]
12. These are designated Sages, Wise Men, Adepts,
Masters-of-Wisdom, Arhats, Bodhisattvas, Buddhas, Dhyan
Chohans, Tathagatas, Prophets, etc... [ In history we may
name Jesus, Gautama the Buddha, Krishna, Pythagoras, Lao
Tse, Plato, Shankaracharya, Apollonius of Tyana, and many
others.] they all came as reformers, and if their original
teachings are compared it will be found that they all
taught the same metaphysical doctrines and practical
ethics.
13. The process of securing experience by mankind is
called reincarnation. The "Life-atom" that is self-
conscious, or the Real Man, uses a physical body which is
assembled, as above described for it to live in. In this
life process it not only advances (or recedes) depending on
its choices, but at the same time serves to assist and
elevate by its example the whole mass of "life-atoms" for
which it has specific karmic responsibilities.
At death the man-consciousness passes first into a
state called Kama-Loka, where a separation between the
moral, and the immoral occurs. A 2nd "death" occurs in a
short while and the immoral side of one's nature is allowed
to disintegrate gradually in the astral plane of Kama-Loka.
14. The higher, immortal Ego, the moral side of our being,
passes into a state called Devachan, which has three stages
1st the rupa-loka, where the consciousness of the Ego is
occupied with the aspirational and noble feelings, thoughts
and actions of the last personal life. This process of
assimilation being over, the MIND-EGO enters a spiritual
plane where, united with the "Ray" of the Universal Spirit,
it is quasi-omniscient. This 2nd stage is called the
arupa-loka [formless stage]. In that condition it is able
to review the life last lived within the perspective of all
previous lives, and thus trace the line of its Karma. The
3rd stage is one of preparation for a new incarnation, and
it begins to draw to itself those personal elements
(skandhas) which will be used to make up its new
personality.
15. Nature of Consciousness--Monad--Man's Evolutionary
Rounds
"...Man (physically) is a compound of all the kingdoms, and
spiritually--his individuality is no worse for being shut up within the
casing of an ant than it is for being inside a king. It is not the outward
or physical shape that dishonors and pollutes the five principles--but the
mental perversity.
Then it is but at his fourth round when arrived at the full possession of
his Kama-energy and is completely matured, that man becomes fully
responsible, as at the sixth he may become a Buddha and at the seventh
before the Pralaya--a "Dhyan Chohan."...
He starts downward as a simply spiritual entity--an unconscious seventh
principle (a Parabrahm in contradistinction to Para-parabrahm)--with the
germs of the other six principles lying latent and dormant in him...(76) [
follows a description of stages of differentiation, round by round, a kind
of 'gestation' process ]...
Volition and consciousness are at the same time self-determining and
determined by causes, and the volitions of man, his intelligence and
consciousness will awake but when his (77) fourth principle Kama is matured
and completed by its (seriatim) contact with the Kamas or energizing forces
of all the forms man has passed through in his previous three rounds.
The present mankind is at its fourth round (...as a genus...)...so the
individual entities in them are unconsciously to themselves performing their
local earthly sevenfold cycles--hence the vast difference in the degrees of
their intelligence, energy and so on.
Now every individuality will be followed on its ascending arc by the Law of
retribution--Karma and death accordingly.
The perfect man or the entity which reaches full perfection, (each of his
seven principles being matured) will not be reborn here. His local
terrestrial cycle is completed...(The incomplete entities have to be reborn
or reincarnated)...
On their fifth round after a partial Nirvana when the zenith of the grand
cycle is reached, they will be held responsible henceforth in their descents
from sphere to sphere, as they will have to appear on this earth as a still
more perfect and intellectual race.
This downward course has not begun but will soon...The above is the rule.
The Buddhas and Avatars form the exception as verily we have yet some
Avatars left to us on earth." M L (Barker) p. 75-77
DEVACHAN
A brief, concise and helpful description of Devachan is found reprinted
on p. 258-9 of PRACTICAL OCCULTISM
by W. Q. Judge:
"...Devachan is a state where the Ego enjoys and does not suffer, suffering
being reserved for the earth life. It is not a question of memory strictly
speaking, but is a state where the causes generated on this earth which can
exhaust in no other state, do so exhaust themselves, leaving the causes
relating to this plane of earth life to be afterwards exhausted here, and as
it is, like this life, a state of illusion, the Ego naturally enlarges all
its conceptions of what it thought best and highest when it was alive, for
such are the causes that relate to that state." WQJ--Pract. Occ. p. 258-9
He published in the Path for May-June 1890: "Notes on Devachan" [
reprinted p. 242, Theosophical Articles and Notes.] Here, the whole scheme
as it operates in Nature is outlined.
Two other articles will be found in the same book: "The Worship of the
Dead," p. 236, Path Aug. 1889), and "Kama-Loka -- Suicides--Accidental
Deaths," p. 239, Path Nov. 1889). Devachan is incidentally mentioned or
implied therein.
Earlier in that book are three articles written and published under
HPB's editorship in The Theosophist, Aug. 1883, p.17: "The Real and the
Unreal;" p. 23:- "Dream Life;" p. 29: and "The Various States of
Devachan."
The last article has particular reference to the states called: Rupa
and Arupa in Devachan. [ p.32 in particular ]
"As physical existence has its cumulative intensity from infancy to
prime, and its diminishing energy thenceforward to dotage and death, so the
dream-life of devachan is lived correspondentially...[bottom] As in actual
earth-life, so there is for the Ego in devachan--the first flutter of
psychic life, the attainment of prime, the gradual exhaustion of force
passing into semi-unconsciousness, gradual oblivion and lethargy, total
oblivion and--not death but birth: birth into another personality, and the
resumption of action which daily begets new congeries of causes, that must
be worked out in another term of Devachan, and still another physical
rebirth as a (196) new personality..." M L p. 195
"Who in the West knows anything of true Sahalo-Kadhatu, the mysterious
Chiliocosm out of the many regions of which but three can be given out to
the outside world, the Tribhuvana (three worlds) namely: Kama, Rupa, and
Arupa-Lokas." M L p. 199
Lower in the same page we find:--
"...the sensations, perceptions and ideation of a devachanee in
Rupa-Loka, will of course, be of a less subjective nature than they would be
in Arupa-Loka, in both of which the devachanic experiences will vary in
their presentation to the subject-entity, not only as regards form, color,
and substance, but also in their formative potentialities. But not even the
most exalted experience of a monad in the highest devachanic state in
Arupa-Loka (the last of the seven states)--is comparable to that perfectly
subjective condition of pure spirituality from which the monad emerged to
"descend into matter," and to which at the completion of the grand cycle it
must return. [ on to p. 200]...The "reward provided by nature for men who
are benevolent in a large, systematic way" and who have not focused their
affections upon an individual or specialty, is that--if pure--they pass the
quicker for that through the Kama and Rupa Lokas into the higher sphere of
Tribhuvana, since it is one where the formulation of abstract ideas and the
consideration of general principles fill the thought of its occupants."
M L p. 199
Tribhuvana is in the T. Glossary, p. 338, but there is not much given.
Trikaya, and Trailokya ( p. 336 ) will be found to have some relevancy.
There we come across the equivalents: Rupadhatu, and Arupadhatu.
In her article The Mysteries of After Life, ( HPB Articles, Vol. II, 203 )
HPB writes:
"The spiritual Ego of man moves in Eternity like a pendulum
between the hours of life and death. But if these hours marking the periods
of terrestrial and spiritual life are limited in their duration, and if the
very number of such stages in Eternity between sleep and awakening, illusion
and reality, has its beginning and its end, on the other hand the spiritual
"Pilgrim" is eternal.
"Therefore are the hours of his post-mortem life--when,
disembodied he stands face to face with truth and not the mirages of his
transitory earthly existences during the period of that pilgrimage which we
call "the cycle of rebirths"--the only reality in our conception..."
HPB Art. II 203
"Every Spiritual Individuality has a gigantic evolutionary journey
to perform, a tremendous gyratory progress to accomplish...from first to
last of the man-bearing planets, as on each of them, the monad has to pass
through seven successive races of man...Each of the 7 races send 7 ramifying
branchlets from the Parent Branch: and through each of these in turn man
has to evolute before he passes on to the next higher race; and that seven
times...The branchlets typify varying specimens of humanity--physically and
spiritually--and no one of us can miss one single rung of the ladder...There
are other and innumerable manvantaric chains of globes bearing intelligent
beings--both in and out of our solar system--the crowns or apexes of
evolutionary being in their respective chains, some--physically and
intellectually--lower, others immeasurably higher than the man of our
chain." M L p. 119
In magazine Theosophy, for July 1932, there appeared a series of
articles on "Death and Rebirth." That which is most significant in this
study appears on p. 391-3 of Vol. 20 of this journal, and should be
carefully compared with those other references given here, and elsewhere, in
The Key to Theosophy, The Ocean of Theosophy, and a number of relevant
articles.
Best wishes,
Dallas
=====================
-----Original Message-----
From: M K Ramadoss [mailto:mkr777@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 8:33 AM
To:
Subject: Re: Spiritual Inquiries: 1. Vibration
If you have not had a chance to read Isis Unveiled, Key to Theosophy and
Secret Doctrine (2 volumes), when you have a chance, I recommend them.
Immense amount of information is there in these books and I can vouch about
them from personal experience.
mkr
On 2/8/06, Gurunathan Gurumoorthy <saidevo@yahoo.co.in> wrote:
I have started recently with Theosophy through the works of Annie Besant
and C.W. Leadbeater. I have still a long way to go. However, I would like
to share what I have learned by presenting a compilation on some of the
topics discussed in Theosophy. I don't profess to teach Theosphy, even to
beginners (since I am a beginner myself), so these articles might be
viewed as nothing more than my loud thinkings on the topics.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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