Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00168)

Yes... proofs for Blavatsky's predictions and theories are beginning 
to make headlines in science journals, and more are forthcoming.  A 
leading-edge study of the brain and mind with impressive scientific 
proofs are found in "The Mind & The Brain," by Jeffrey Schwartz, 
Ph.D., Research Psychiatrist at UCLA.  This book provides proofs for 
Blavatsky's claims for jnana yoga, of which "The Secret Doctrine" is 
a practice for westerners and "The Bowen Notes."

Schwartz uses Buddhist practices with his psychiatric patients at 
UCLA, primarily to deal with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).  
His research has also been applied with some success to dyslexia.  I 
became familiar with this book in a forum with the author that the 
International Society of Complexity and Intelligent Design offered 
several years ago.

The hard science that would support Blavatsky's instructions in "The 
Bowen Notes" was started in the 1960's for vastly different purposes 
than Blavatsky's.  Schwartz gives a fascinating overview of the 
gruesome research in the book.  I had recently participated in 
Schwartz's forum, which required reading the book, and had 
subsequently attended a lecture by him, when I began reading "The 
Secret Doctrine."  I was looking for information on the brain 
because of designs I had identified in the pyramids at Teotihuacan.  
The implications in the ancient pyramids are stunning in this 
regard.   

When Blavatsky spoke to Bowen shortly before her death in 1891, 
knowledge of the brain was cruelly materialistic and beyond 
primitive.  Since research done in the 1960's, the principles of 
Blavatsky's instructions to Bowen are commonly employed for stroke 
patients who lose brain function and, AMAZINGLY, in Dr. Schwartz's 
practice with obsessive-compulsive disorder administered with 
Buddhist techniques.  

Krsanna Duran

THE BOWEN NOTES

 "…One must not be a fool [Blavatsky said] and drive oneself into 
the madhouse by attempting too much at first. The brain is the 
instrument of waking consciousness, and every conscious mental 
picture formed means change and destruction of the atoms of the 
brain. Ordinary intellectual activity moves on well beaten paths in 
the brain, and does not compel sudden adjustments and destructions 
in its substance. But this new kind of mental effort calls for 
something very different-the carving out of new "brain paths," the 
ranking in different order of the little brain lives. If forced 
injudiciously it may do serious physical harm to the brain.

"This mode of thinking is what the Indians call Jnana Yoga. As one 
progresses in Jnana Yoga one finds conceptions arising which though 
one is conscious of them, one cannot express nor yet formulate into 
any sort of mental picture. As time goes on these conceptions will 
form into mental pictures. This is a time to be on guard and refuse 
to be deluded with the idea that the new found and wonderful picture 
must represent reality. It does not. As one works on one finds the 
once admired picture growing dull and unsatisfying, and finally 
fading out or being thrown away. This is another danger point, 
because for the moment one is left in a void without any conception 
to support one, and one may be tempted to revive the cast-off 
picture for want of a better to cling to. The true student will, 
however, work on unconcerned, and presently further formless gleams 
come, which again in time give rise to a larger and more beautiful 
picture than the last. But the learner will now know that no picture 
will ever represent the Truth. This last splendid picture will grow 
dull and fade like the others. And so the process goes on, until at 
last the mind and its pictures are transcended and the learner 
enters and dwells in the world of NO FORM, but of which all forms 
are narrowed reflections."

The True Student of The Secret Doctrine is a Jnana Yogi, and this 
Path of Yoga is the True Path for the Western student. It is to 
provide him with sign posts on that Path that the Secret Doctrine 
has been written.