Theos-Talk Archives (July 2006 Message tt00479)

7/23/2006 12:45 

Dear Laura:

I believe the answer is in these verses from The VOICE OF THE SILENCE (pp.
41- 2)


Tell him, O Aspirant, that true devotion may bring him back the knowledge,
that knowledge which was his in former births. The deva-sight and
deva-hearing are not obtained in one short birth. 

Be humble, if thou would'st attain to Wisdom.

Be humbler still, when Wisdom thou hast mastered.

Be like the Ocean which receives all streams and rivers. The Ocean's mighty
calm remains unmoved; it feels them not.

Restrain by thy Divine thy lower Self.

Restrain by the Eternal the Divine.

Aye, great is he, who is the slayer of desire.

Still greater he, in whom the Self Divine has slain the very knowledge of
desire.”


Now I will add a few words that seem to clear these verses for me.



“Tell him, O Aspirant, that true devotion [which needs to apply
discriminative wisdom from BUDDHI-MANAS] may bring him  {the embodied
brain-mind} back the knowledge, that knowledge which was his in former
births. The deva-sight and deva-hearing are not obtained in one short birth.


Be humble, if thou would'st attain to Wisdom. [BUDDHI]

Be humbler still, when Wisdom thou hast mastered.  [ Buddhi is the wisdom of
the UNIVERSE]  – of all.   [It is not our property so we are obliged
(dharma) to pass it along to others.]

Be like the Ocean which receives all streams and rivers. The Ocean's mighty
calm remains unmoved; it feels them not.  [ The “ocean” is SPACE -  the ALL,
the whole UNIVERSE, or NATURE in its ultimate PURITY]

Restrain by thy Divine [Buddhi-Manas] thy lower Self. [Kama-Manas]

Restrain by the Eternal [ATMA] the Divine. [ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS]

Aye, great is he, who is the slayer of desire. [the lower selfish KAMA ]

Still greater he, in whom the Self Divine [ATMA-BUDDHI] has slain the very
knowledge of [impure, lower, selfishness]  desire.



Guard thou the Lower {Mind – Kama-Manas}  lest it soil the Higher
[Buddhi-Manas].

The way to final freedom is within thy SELF [BUDDHI-MANAS] .

That way begins and ends outside of Self. [Lower Self – Kama-Manas] 

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


"IT is the Spiritual evolution of the inner, immortal man that forms the
fundamental tenet in the Occult Sciences. To realize even distantly such a
process, the student has to believe 

(a) in the ONE Universal Life, independent of matter (or what Science
regards as matter); and 

(b) in the individual intelligences that animate the various manifestations
of this Principle." 
	S D  I 634


I send this for you to think about. It may not be absolutely true, as I try
to learn from the tables of the 7 principles what the power of our SPIRITUAL
CONSCIOUSNESS is [ as one of the immortal MONADS ].  

This is why we refer to the “inner God” [ATMA],  to the HIGHER SELF as
ATMA-BUDDHI], and,

 to the Higher MIND or EGO [ BUDDHI-MANAS ]

It is the Lower MANAS {Kama-Manas] -- that mind which we could call the
Brain-Mind, that has to be cured of its wandering tendencies, and purified
of selfish careless for the rest of others in Nature.  [Patanjali gives
directions. We should study it carefully.  It offers a survey of true
ancient "esoteric" psychology. ]

Imagine what happens when we chose to do something “wrong.”  First we KNOW
in our brain-mind, we are going to choose that.  We know it is on the
“left-path” of selfishness.  Those who are wiser are aware that every Monad
or “life-atom” used and associated with our Individuality (these are "Monads
of lesser experience, attracted to us and trusting our guidance: -- Lower
Mind, Kama, Prana, Astral and physical) will be imprinted with this "evil,
selfish, choice" -- and thus "tainted" until in the future we will have to
heal and rectify the fault and the tendency in our lower selves.
(personality) to repeat such errors.  But you know this.

We can pick out the following in th SECRET DOCTRINE -- to show how some
analogies
work:

		PROTOTYPE IN KOSMOS

“To become complete and comprehensible, a cosmogonical theory has to start
with a primordial Substance diffused throughout boundless Space, of an
intellectual and divine Nature. That substance must be the Soul and Spirit,
the Synthesis and Seventh Principle of the manifested Kosmos, and, to serve
as a spiritual Upadhi to this, there must be the sixth, its
vehicle—primordial physical matter, so to speak, though its nature must
escape for ever our limited normal senses.”	S D   I  594  	[ or ATMA
and  BUDDHI ]


“The "world stuff," now nebulae, was known from the highest antiquity.
Anaxagoras taught that, having differentiated, the subsequent commixture of
heterogeneous substances remained motionless and unorganized, until finally
"the Mind"—the collective body of Dhyan Chohans, we say—began to work upon
and communicated to it motion and order (Aristotle's "Physica," viii, 1.)
S D   I  595


“Thus the Occultists are not alone in their beliefs. Nor are they so
foolish, after all, in rejecting even the "gravity" of modern Science along
with other physical laws, and in accepting instead attraction and repulsion.


They see, moreover, in these two opposite Forces only the two aspects of the
universal unit, called "MANIFESTING MIND"; in which aspects, Occultism,
through its great Seers, perceives an innumerable Host of operative Beings:
Cosmic Dhyan-Chohans, Entities, whose essence, in its dual nature, is the
Cause of all terrestrial phenomena. For that essence is consubstantial with
the universal Electric Ocean, which is LIFE; and being dual, as
said—positive and negative—it is the emanations of that duality that act now
on earth under the name of "modes of motion"; even Force having now become
objectionable as a word, for fear it should lead someone, even in thought,
to separate it from matter! It is, as Occultism says, the dual effects of
that dual essence, which have now been called centripetal and centrifugal
forces, negative and positive poles, or polarity, heat and cold, light and
darkness, etc., etc. “	S D   I  604


“Some years ago we remarked* that "the Esoteric Doctrine may well be called
the 'thread-doctrine,' since, like Sutratman, in the Vedanta philosophy, †
it passes through and strings together all the ancient philosophical
religious systems, and reconciles and explains them all." We say now it does
more. It not only reconciles the various and apparently conflicting systems,
but it checks the discoveries of modern exact science, and shows some of
them to be necessarily correct, since they are found corroborated in the
ancient records.”  S D  I  610


"Science is, undeniably, ultra-materialistic in our days; but it finds, in
one sense, its justification. Nature behaving in actu ever esoterically, and
being, as the Kabalists say, in abscondito, can only be judged by the
profane through her appearance, and that appearance is always deceitful on
the physical plane. "  	S D  I  610


"The Scintillas are the "Souls," and these Souls appear in the three-fold
form of Monads (units), atoms and gods—according to our teaching. "Every
atom becomes a visible complex unit (a molecule), and once attracted into
the sphere of terrestrial activity, the Monadic Essence, passing through the
mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, becomes man." (Esot. Catechism.)
Again, "God, Monad, and Atom are the correspondences of Spirit, Mind, and
Body (Atma, Manas and Sthula Sarira) in man." In their septenary aggregation
they are the "Heavenly Man" (see Kabala for the latter term); thus,
terrestrial man is the provisional reflection of the Heavenly. . . . . "The
Monads (Jivas) are the Souls of the Atoms, both are the fabric in which the
Chohans (Dhyanis, gods) cloth themselves when a form is needed." (Esot.
Cat.) "		S D   I  619


"This relates to Cosmic and sub-planetary Monads, not to the Super-Cosmic
Monas (the Pythagorean Monad) as called, in its synthetic character, by the
Pantheistical Peripatetics. The Monads of the present dissertation are
treated from the standpoint of their individuality, as atomic Souls, before
these atoms descend into pure terrestrial form. For this descent into
concrete matter marks the medial point of their own individual pilgrimage. "
S  D  I  619


"This evolution—viewed from its several standpoints—i.e., as the universal
and the individualized Monad; and the chief aspects of the Evolving Energy,
after differentiation—the purely Spiritual, the Intellectual, the Psychic
and the Physical—may be thus formulated as an invariable law; a descent of
Spirit into Matter, equivalent to an ascent in physical evolution; a
re-ascent from the depths of materiality towards its status quo ante, with a
corresponding dissipation of concrete form and substance up to the LAYA
state, or what Science calls "the zero-point," and beyond. "	S D   I  620


"Draw a deep line in your thought between that ever-incognizable essence,
and the, as invisible, yet comprehensible Presence (Mulaprakriti), or
Schekinah, from beyond and through which vibrates the Sound of the Verbum,
and from which evolve the numberless hierarchies of intelligent Egos, of
conscious as of semi-conscious, perceptive and apperceptive Beings, whose
essence is spiritual Force, whose Substance is the Elements and whose Bodies
(when needed) are the atoms—and our doctrine is there."	S D   I  629


"Every monad reflects every other. Every monad is a living mirror of the
Universe within its own sphere. And mark this, for upon it depends the power
possessed by these monads, and upon this depends the work they can do for
us; in mirroring the world, the monads are not mere passive reflective
agents, but spontaneously self-active; they produce the images
spontaneously, as the soul does a dream. "	S D  I 631


"Esoteric philosophy, teaching an objective Idealism—though it regards the
objective Universe and all in it as Maya, temporary illusion—draws a
practical distinction between collective illusion, Mahamaya, from the purely
metaphysical stand-point, and the objective relations in it between various
conscious Egos so long as this illusion lasts. The adept, therefore, may
read the future in an Elemental Monad, but he has to draw for this object a
great number of them, as each monad represents only a portion of the Kingdom
it belongs to. "		S D  I 631


"Monads, associated or dissociated, simple or complex, are, from the moment
of the first differentiation, but the principles, corporeal, psychic and
Spiritual, of the "Gods,"—themselves the Radiations of primordial nature.
Thus, to the eye of the Seer, the higher Planetary Powers appear under two
aspects: the subjective—as influences, and the objective—as mystic FORMS,
which, under Karmic law, become a Presence, Spirit and Matter being One, as
repeatedly stated. Spirit is matter on the seventh plane; matter is
Spirit—on the lowest point of its cyclic activity; and both—are MAYA. 

Atoms are called "Vibrations" in Occultism; also "Sound"—collectively. This
does not interfere with Mr. Tyndall's scientific discovery. He traced, on
the lower rung of the ladder of monadic being, the whole course of the
atmospheric vibrations—and this constitutes the objective part of the
process in nature. "	S D   I  633


"But why should not a psychic see it, a spiritual seer, whose inner Eye is
opened, and who can see through the veil of matter? The waves and
undulations of Science are all produced by atoms propelling their molecules
into activity from within. Atoms fill the immensity of Space, and by their
continuous vibration are that MOTION which keeps the wheels of Life
perpetually going. It is that inner work that produces the natural phenomena
called the correlation of Forces. Only, at the origin of every such "force,"
there stands the conscious guiding noumenon thereof—Angel or God, Spirit or
Demon—ruling powers, yet the same."		S D  I  633


"The ONE LIFE is closely related to the one law which governs the World of
Being—KARMA. Exoterically, this is simply and literally "action," or rather
an "effect-producing cause." 

Esoterically it is quite a different thing in its far-fetching moral
effects. It is the unerring LAW OF RETRIBUTION. To say to those ignorant of
the real significance, characteristics and awful importance of this eternal
immutable law, that no theological definition of a personal deity can give
an idea of this impersonal, yet ever present and active Principle, is to
speak in vain. Nor can it be called Providence."
	S D   I  634


"Throughout the first two Parts, it was shown that, at the first flutter of
renascent life, SVABHAVAT, "the mutable radiance of the Immutable Darkness
unconscious in Eternity," passes, at every new rebirth of Kosmos, from an
inactive state into one of intense activity; that it differentiates, and
then begins its work through that differentiation. This work is KARMA. 

The Cycles are also subservient to the effects produced by this activity.
"The one Cosmic atom becomes seven atoms on the plane of matter, and each is
transformed into a centre of energy; that same atom becomes seven rays on
the plane of spirit, and the seven creative forces of nature, radiating from
the root-essence . . . . follow, one the right, the other the left path,
separate till the end of the Kalpa, and yet are in close embrace. What
unites them? KARMA." 

The atoms emanated from the Central Point emanate in their turn new centres
of energy, which, under the potential breath of Fohat, begin their work from
within without, and multiply other minor centres. 

These, in the course of evolution and involution, form in their turn the
roots or developing causes of new effects, from worlds and "man-bearing"
globes, down to the genera, species, and classes of all the seven kingdoms *
(of which we know only four). For "the blessed workers have received the
Thyan-kam, in the eternity" (Book of "The Aphorisms of Tson-ka-pa"). 

"Thyan-kam" is the power or knowledge of guiding the impulses of cosmic
energy in the right direction. 

The true Buddhist, recognising no "personal god," nor any "Father" and
"Creator of Heaven and Earth," still believes in an absolute consciousness,
"Adi-Buddhi"; and the Buddhist philosopher knows that there are Planetary
Spirits, the "Dhyan Chohans." But though he admits of "spiritual lives,"
yet, as they are temporary in eternity, even they, according to his
philosophy, are "the maya of the day," the illusion of a "day of Brahma," a
short manvantara of 4,320,000,000 years. 

The "Yin-Sin" is not for the speculations of men, for the Lord Buddha has
strongly prohibited all such inquiry. If the Dhyan Chohans and all the
invisible Beings—the Seven Centres and their direct Emanations, the minor
centres of Energy—are the direct reflex of the ONE Light, yet men are far
removed from these, since the whole of the visible Kosmos consists of
"self-produced beings, the creatures of Karma." 

Thus regarding a personal God "as only a gigantic shadow thrown upon the
void of space by the imagination of ignorant men," † they teach that only
"two things are (objectively) eternal, namely Akasa and Nirvana"; and that
these are ONE in reality, and but a maya when divided. "Buddhists deny
creation and cannot conceive of a Creator." "Everything has come out of
Akasa (or Svabhavat "
	S D  I 635


" But it is not physical Science that we can ever ask to read man for us, as
the riddle of the Past, or that of the Future; since no philosopher is able
to tell us even what man is, as he is known both to physiology and
psychology. In doubt whether man was "a god or beast," he is now connected
with the latter and derived from an animal...  But man's inner, spiritual,
psychic, or even moral, nature cannot be left to the tender mercies of an
ingrained materialism; for not even the higher psychological philosophy of
the West is able, in its present incompleteness and tendency towards a
decided agnosticism, to do justice to the inner; especially to his higher
capacities and perceptions, and those states of consciousness, across the
road to which such authorities as Mill draw a strong line, saying "So far,
and no farther shalt thou go." 	S D   I  636


"To make the working of Karma, in the periodical renovations of the
Universe, more evident and intelligible to the student when he arrives at
the origin and evolution of man, he has now to examine with us the esoteric
bearing of the Karmic Cycles upon Universal Ethics."	S D  I 67


”According to the teachings, Maya, or the illusive appearance of the
marshalling of events and actions on this earth, changes, varying with
nations and places. But the chief features of one's life are always in
accordance with the "Constellation" one is born under, or, we should say,
with the characteristics of its animating principle or the deity that
presides over it, whether we call it a Dhyan Chohan, as in Asia, or an
Archangel, as with the Greek and Latin churches. 

In ancient Symbolism it was always the SUN (though the Spiritual, not the
visible, Sun was meant), that was supposed to send forth the chief Saviours
and Avatars. Hence the connecting link between the Buddhas, the Avatars, and
so many other incarnations of the highest SEVEN.

The closer the approach to one's Prototype, "in Heaven," the better for the
mortal whose personality was chosen, by his own personal deity (the seventh
principle), as its terrestrial abode. For, with every effort of will toward
purification and with that "Self-god," one of the lower rays breaks and the
spiritual entity of man is drawn higher and ever higher to the ray that
supersedes the first, until, from ray to ray, the inner man is drawn into
the one and highest beam of the Parent-SUN. 

Thus, "the events of humanity do run coordinately with the number forms,"
since the single units of that humanity proceed one and all from the same
source—the central and its shadow, the visible SUN. For the equinoxes and
solstices, the periods and various phases of the Solar course,
astronomically and numerically expressed, are only the concrete symbols of
the eternally living verity, though they do seem abstract ideas to
uninitiated mortals. And this explains the extraordinary numerical
coincidences with geometrical relations, as shown by several authors. 

Yes; "our destiny is written in the stars!" Only, the closer the union
between the mortal reflection MAN and his celestial PROTOTYPE, the less
dangerous the external conditions and subsequent reincarnations—which
neither Buddhas nor Christs can escape. This is not superstition, least of
all is it Fatalism. The latter implies a blind course of some still blinder
power, and man is a free agent during his stay on earth. 

He cannot escape his ruling Destiny, but he has the choice of two paths that
lead him in that direction, and he can reach the goal of misery—if such is
decreed to him, either in the snowy white robes of the Martyr, or in the
soiled garments of a volunteer in the iniquitous course; for, there are
external and internal conditions which affect the determination of our will
upon our actions, and it is in our power to follow either of the two. 

Those who believe in Karma have to believe in destiny, which, from birth to
death, every man is weaving thread by thread around himself, as a spider
does his cobweb; and this destiny is guided either by the heavenly voice of
the invisible prototype outside of us, or by our more intimate astral, or
inner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the embodied entity
called man. Both these lead on the outward man, but one of them must
prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible affray the stern and
implacable law of compensation steps in and takes its course, faithfully
following the fluctuations. When the last strand is woven, and man is
seemingly enwrapped in the net-work of his own doing, then he finds himself
completely under the empire of this self-made destiny. It then either fixes
him like the inert shell against the immovable rock, or carries him away
like a feather in a whirlwind raised by his own actions, and this is—KARMA. 

A materialist, treating upon the periodical creations of our globe, has
expressed it in one sentence. "The whole past of the Earth is nothing but an
unfolded present." This was Buchner, who little suspected that he was
repeating an axiom of the Occultists. It is quite true also, as Burmeister
(quoted in "Force and matter") remarks, that "the historical investigation
of the development of the Earth has proved that now and then rest upon the
same base; that the past has been developed in the same manner as the
present rolls on; and that the Forces which were in action ever remained the
same." 	
	S D  I 638-40


"An Occultist or a philosopher will not speak of the goodness or cruelty of
Providence; but, identifying it with Karma-Nemesis, he will teach that
nevertheless it guards the good and watches over them in this, as in future
lives; and that it punishes the evil-doer—aye, even to his seventh rebirth. 

So long, in short, as the effect of his having thrown into perturbation even
the smallest atom in the Infinite World of harmony, has not been finally
readjusted. For the only decree of Karma—an eternal and immutable decree—is
absolute Harmony in the world of matter as it is in the world of Spirit. It
is not, therefore, Karma that rewards or punishes, but it is we, who reward
or punish ourselves according to whether we work with, through and along
with nature, abiding by the laws on which that Harmony depends, or—break
them. 

Nor would the ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work in union and
harmony, instead of disunion and strife. For our ignorance of those
ways—which one portion of mankind calls the ways of Providence, dark and
intricate; while another sees in them the action of blind Fatalism; and a
third, simple chance, with neither gods nor devils to guide them—would
surely disappear, if we would but attribute all these to their correct
cause. With right knowledge, or at any rate with a confident conviction that
our neighbours will no more work to hurt us than we would think of harming
them, the two-thirds of the World's evil would vanish into thin air. Were no
man to hurt his brother, Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to work for,
nor weapons to act through. 

It is the constant presence in our midst of every element of strife and
opposition, and the division of races, nations, tribes, societies and
individuals into Cains and Abels, wolves and lambs, that is the chief cause
of the "ways of Providence." 

We cut these numerous windings in our destinies daily with our own hands,
while we imagine that we are pursuing a track on the royal high road of
respectability and duty, and then complain of those ways being so intricate
and so dark. We stand bewildered before the mystery of our own making, and
the riddles of life that we will not solve, and then accuse the great Sphinx
of devouring us. But verily there is not an accident in our lives,"	S D
I  643

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


Dallas

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

-----Original Message-----
From: On Behalf Of 	teos9@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2006 
To: 
Subject: Re: Motive

In a message dated 7/23/2006 1:55:17 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
classiccontours@sympatico.ca writes:

So how does one become aware of their motive?  Sometimes we think it is of
the highest but with what gauge do we check it?

Laura

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

	Answer by Louis at  teos9@aol.com

With the Voice of the silence, of course. Everyone has an intuitive
appreciation of a virtuous state. We KNOW what Spiritually appropriate
behavior is. The fact that we spend our lifetimes outward turned, creates
the distance between Upper and Lower triad, higher and lower SELF. Voice of
the silence is a non verbal experience that one obtains by being inward
turned. The practice of "tuning in" to transcendent states of awareness,
brings with it, the courage to recognize one's motives, honestly. Outward 
turned rationalizations, conscious or unconscious, have the effect of
distorting honest/true motivation to fit the perceptual needs of the
personality. 
 
Best regards,
 
Louis