Theos-Talk Archives (July 2006 Message tt00588)

Friday, July 28, 2006

		RE:  Questions and  the promulgation of theosophy

Dear Friend:  

Please allow me to say as below:

Best wishes,

Dallas

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-----Original Message-----
From: Janet Sumner/Dayowl 
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2006 
To: 
	Subject: Questions and  the promulgation of theosophy

Good Afternoon
 
as way of introducing myself my name is Janet and I am  here to rediscover and bring to my consciousness the things my Grandmother (who left this incarnation in 1959)studied and believed, and to re-inforce what I have believed and studied for some time.  

Recently my Sister and Cousin and I have connected in this quest and I have asked them to join me in this study.  

Amazingly they had no idea this was part of her being but we have all found ourselves following this path separately.  I have two questions for the discussion here and comments on the church issue,  I hope you do not find me too forward.   I will sit and listen quietly perhaps as they are answered, in order that I can digest the information completely.
 
1.  So then there is there no Deity apart from the Universe? Within and a part of; are they the same?

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DTB	YES   The “TWO” are ONE and inseparable.  Consider this please:

	“COSMOS SUPPORTED BY A SINGLE  PRESIDING SPIRIT

As stated in the last paper, the substratum, or support, for the whole cosmos, is the presiding spirit, and all the various changes in life, whether of a material nature or solely in mental states, are cognizable because the presiding spirit within is not modifiable. Were it otherwise, then we would have no memory, for with each passing event, we, becoming merged in it, could not remember anything, that is, we would see no changes. 

There must therefore be something eternally persisting, which is the witness and perceiver of every passing change, itself unchangeable. All objects, and all states of what Western philosophers call mind, are modifications, for in order to be seen or known by us, there must be some change, either partial or total, from a precedent state. The perceiver of these changes is the inner man― Arjuna-- Krishna. 

	EMANATION OF THE UNIVERSE

This leads us to the conviction that there must be a universal presiding spirit, the producer as well as the spectator, of all this collection of animate and inanimate things. The philosophy taught by Krishna holds that at first this spirit ―so called, however, by me only for the purpose of the discussion ―remained in [24 ] a state of quiet with no objects, because as yet there was no modification. 

But, resolving to create, or rather to emanate the universe, IT formed a picture of what should be, [ It is also, of course, inherent in all nature. ―W.B.]  and this at once was a modification willingly brought about in the hitherto wholly unmodified spirit; thereupon the divine Idea was gradually expanded, coming forth into objectivity; while the essence of the presiding spirit remained unmodified, and became the perceiver of its own expanded idea. Its modifications are visible (and invisible) nature. 

Its essence then differentiates itself continually in various directions, becoming the immortal part of each man ―the Krishna who talks to Arjuna. Coming like a spark from the central fire, it partakes of that nature, that is, the quality of being unmodifiable, and assumes to itself ―as a cover, so to speak ―the human body and thus, being in essence unmodified, it has the capacity to perceive all the changes going on around the body. 

	INNER SELF

This Self must be recognized as being within, pondered over, and as much as possible understood, if we are to gain any true knowledge. 

We have thus quickly, and perhaps in an  [25] inadequate way, come down to a consideration of Arjuna as composed of all these generals and heroes enumerated in this chapter, and who are, as we said, the various powers, passions and qualities included in the Western terms “brain and mind.” 

Modern physical, mental and psychological sciences have as yet but scratched the surface of that which they are engaged in examining. 

Physical science confessedly is empiric, knowing but the very outposts of the laws of nature; and our psychology is in a worse state. The latter has less chance for arriving at the truth than physical science, because scientists are proceeding to a gradual demonstration of natural laws by careful examination of facts easily observable, but psychology is a something which demands the pursuit of another method than that of science, or those now observed. 

	SHEATHS ---  PRINCIPLES

It would avail nothing at present to specify the Aryan nomenclature for all the sheaths ―as they call them ―that envelope the soul, because we as yet have not acquired the necessary ideas. Of what use is it to say that certain impressions reside in the Anandamaya sheath. But there is such an one, whether we call it by that name or by any other. We  [26] can, however, believe that the soul, in order to at last reach the objective plane where its experience is gained, places upon itself, one after the other, various sheaths, each having its peculiar property and function. 

The mere physical brain is thus seen to be only the material organ first used by the real percipient in receiving or conveying ideas and perceptions; and so with all the other organs, they are only the special seats for centralizing the power of the real man in order to experience the modifications of nature at that particular spot. 
 
Who is the sufferer from this despondency?

It is our false personality as distinguished from Krishna ―the Higher Self  (Buddhi-Manas) ―which is oppressed by the immediate resistance offered by all the lower part (PERSONALITY) of our nature, and by those persons with whom we are most closely connected, as soon as we begin to draw them away from all old habits, and to present a new style of thinking for their consideration. 

For Arjuna, sinking down upon the seat of that chariot which is his body, fell back upon his own nature and found therein the elements of search and courage, as well as those previous ones of gloom which arise first, being nearer [27] the natural man. 

Reliance and pressure upon our own inner nature, in moments of darkness, are sure to be answered by the voice of Krishna, the inner guide. 

The first consequences of the despondency 

Are to make us feel that the battle we have invited ought not to be carried on, and we then are almost overwhelmed with the desire to give it up. Some do give it up, to begin it again, in a succeeding life, while others like Arjuna listen to the voice of Krishna, and bravely fight it out to the end.”	 
	 GITA NOTES  pp. 23 -27 

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2.  Please explain there is only 'one law' in context of theosophy.  

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DTB	Again, using the BHAGAVAD GITA one may read and think about:

"In the BHAGAVAD GITA Sri Krishna speaks as a personification of the SUPREME SPIRIT (The UNIVERSE --  The INDIVISIBLE UNIT) from which all emanates into the maya (illusion) of manifestation. 
 
HE says:
   
"I established this whole Universe with a single portion of myself, and remain separate." 
	- Tenth Chapter.   p. 76 

  
"There are two kinds of beings in the world, the one divisible, the other indivisible; the divisible is all things and the creatures, the indivisible is called Kutastha, or he who standeth on high unaffected. 
 
But there is another spirit designated as the Supreme Spirit― Paramatma― which permeates and sustains the three worlds. As I am above the divisible and also superior to the indivisible, therefore both in the world and in the Vedas am I known as the Supreme Spirit. 
 
He who being not deluded knoweth me thus as the Supreme Spirit, knoweth all things and worships me under every form and condition.”             p. 108
 
 
The BHAGAVAD GITA makes this clear:   “HE”  The SUPREME SPIRIT  is not involved in Karma. 

HE is NOT a “person.”  He is the ONE UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE.  The Causeless Cause of All things and forms.

“Those who are wise in spiritual things grieve neither for the dead nor for the living. I myself never was not, nor thou, nor all the princes of the earth; nor shall we ever hereafter cease to be.” 
	    G.   P. 11

 
"There is nothing, O son of Pritha, in the three regions of the universe which it is necessary for me to perform, nor anything possible to obtain which I have not obtained; and YET I AM CONSTANTLY IN ACTION. 
 
If I were not indefatigable in action, all men would presently follow my example, O son of Pritha. 

If I did not perform actions these creatures would perish; I should be the cause of confusion of castes, and should have slain all these creatures. 

O son of Bharata, as the ignorant perform the duties of life from the hope of reward, so the wise man, from the wish to bring the world to duty and benefit mankind, should perform his actions without motives of interest. He should not create confusion in the understandings of the ignorant, who are inclined to outward works, but by being himself engaged in action should cause them to act also. All actions are effected by the qualities of nature. 

The man deluded by ignorance thinks, 'I am the actor.' But he, O strong-armed one! who is acquainted with the nature of the two distinctions of cause and effect, knowing that the qualities act only in the qualities, and that the Self is distinct from them, is not attached in action. 

"Those who have not this knowledge are interested in the actions thus brought about by the qualities; and he who is perfectly enlightened should not unsettle those whose discrimination is weak and knowledge incomplete, nor cause them to relax from their duty. 

"Throwing every deed on me, and with thy meditation fixed upon the Higher Self, resolve to fight, without expectation, devoid of egotism and free from anguish. 

"Those men who constantly follow this my doctrine without reviling it, and with a firm faith, shall be emancipated even by actions; but they who revile it and do not follow it are bewildered in regard to all knowledge, and perish, being devoid of discrimination. 

"But the wise man also seeketh for that which is homogeneous with his own nature. 
All creatures act according to their natures; what, then, will restraint effect? In every purpose of the senses are fixed affection and dislike. 

A wise man should not fall in the power of these two passions, for they are the enemies of man. It is better to do one's own duty, even though it be devoid of excellence, than to perform another's duty well. It is better to perish in the performance of one's own duty; the duty of another is full of danger." 
	G.  Pp. 25-27
  
 
"All this universe is pervaded by me in my invisible form; all things exist in me, but I do not exist in them. Nor are all things in me; 

Behold this my divine mystery: myself causing things to exist and supporting them all but dwelling not in them. 

Understand that all things are in me even as the mighty air which passes everywhere is in space. O son of Kuntî, at the end of a kalpa all things return unto my nature, and then again at the beginning of another kalpa I cause them to evolve again. 

Taking control of my own nature I emanate again and again this whole assemblage of beings, without their will, by the power of the material essence.  

These acts do not bind me, O conqueror of wealth, because I am as one who sitteth indifferent, uninterested in those works. By reason of my supervision nature produceth the animate and inanimate universe; it is through this cause, O son of Kuntî, that the universe revolveth.   Pp   64-5
 
           		 [Therefore HE [the SPIRIT] is not involved in Karma. ]
 
 
"Others with the sacrifice of knowledge in other ways worship me as indivisible, as separable, as the Spirit of the universe. 

I am the sacrifice and sacrificial rite; I am the libation offered to ancestors, and the spices; I am the sacred formula and the fire; I am the food and the sacrificial butter; I am the father and the mother of this universe, the grandsire and the preserver; I am the Holy One, the object of knowledge, the mystic purifying syllable OM, the Rik, the Saman, the Yajur, and all the Vedas. 

I am the goal, the Comforter, the Lord, the Witness, the resting-place, the asylum and the Friend; I am the origin and the dissolution, the receptacle, the storehouse, and the eternal seed. 

I cause light and heat and rain; I now draw in and now let forth; I am death and immortality; I am the cause unseen and the visible effect." 	G.    p. 66
 
  
“Those who are free from pride of self and whose discrimination is perfected, who have prevailed over the fault of attachment to action, who are constantly employed in devotion to meditation upon the Supreme Spirit, who have renounced desire and are free from the influence of the opposites known as pleasure and pain, are undeluded, and proceed to that place which endureth forever. Neither the sun nor the moon nor the fire enlighteneth that place; from it there is no return; it is my supreme abode. 
 
"It is even a portion of myself which, having assumed life in this world of conditioned existence, draweth together the five senses and the mind in order that it may obtain a body and may leave it again. 

And those are carried by the Sovereign Lord to and from whatever body he enters or quits, even as the breeze bears the fragrance from the flower. Presiding over the eye, the ear, the touch, the taste, and the power of smelling, and also over the mind, he experienceth the objects of sense. 
 
The deluded do not see the spirit when it quitteth or remains in the body, nor when, moved by the qualities, it has experience in the world. But those who have the eye of wisdom perceive it, and devotees who industriously strive to do so see it dwelling in their own hearts; whilst those who have not overcome themselves, who are devoid of discrimination, see it not even though they strive, thereafter. 
 
Know that the brilliance of the sun which illuminateth the whole world, and the light which is in the moon and in the fire, are the splendor of myself. I enter the earth supporting all living things by my power, and I am that property of sap which is taste, nourishing all the herbs and plants of the field. 
 
Becoming the internal fire of the living, I associate with the upward and downward breathing, and cause the four kinds of food to digest. 
 
I am in the hearts of all men, and from me come memory, knowledge, and also the loss of both. I am to be known by all the Vedas; I am he who is the author of the Vedanta, and I alone am the interpreter of the Vedas.       G. Pp. 106-8
 
 
“There is no existence for that which does not exist, nor is there any non-existence for what exists. By those who see the truth and look into the principles of things, the ultimate characteristic of these both is seen. Learn that He by whom all things were formed is incorruptible, and that no one is able to effect the destruction of IT which is inexhaustible. 

These finite bodies, which envelope the souls inhabiting them, are said to belong to Him, the eternal, the indestructible, unprovable Spirit, who is in the body: wherefore, O Arjuna, resolve to fight. 

The man who believeth that it is this Spirit which killeth, and he who thinketh that it may be destroyed, are both alike deceived; for it neither killeth nor is it killed. “       G.    p. 12

  
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Thank you for your time and energy in this.
 
Janet

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DTB	In a Master's letter we find:

			MASTER ON RELIGION

“I will point out the greatest, the chief cause of nearly two thirds of the evils that pursue humanity ever since that cause became a power. It is religion under whatever form and in whatsoever nation. It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and the churches; it is in those illusions that man looks upon as sacred, that he has to search out the source of that multitude of evils which is the great curse of humanity and that almost overwhelms mankind. Ignorance created Gods and cunning took advantage of the opportunity. 

Look at India and look at Christendom and Islam, at Judaism and Fetichism. It is priestly imposture that rendered these Gods so terrible to man; it is religion that makes of him the selfish bigot, the fanatic that hates all mankind out of his own sect without rendering him any better or more moral for it. 

It is belief in God and Gods that makes two-thirds of humanity the slaves of a handful of those who deceive them under the false pretence of saving them. It is not man ever ready to commit any kind of evil if told that his God or Gods demand the crime — voluntary victim of an illusionary God, the abject slave of his crafty ministers? 

The Irish, Italian and Slavonian peasant will starve himself and see his family starving and naked to feed and clothe his padre and pope. For two thousand years India groaned under the weight of caste, 

Brahmins alone feeding on the fat of the land, and to-day the followers of Christ and those of Mahomet are cutting each other’s throats in the names of and for the greater glory of their respective myths. 

Remember the sum of human misery will never be diminished unto that day when the better portion of humanity destroys in the name of Truth, morality, and universal charity, the altars of their false gods.”	M L  (Barker Edn:  p. 57-8  Letter X)

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    Please do not respond by trying to tell me that theosophy is not a religion since actually it claims to be the "Parent of all religions" and the "Ancient Religion", and the "Wisdom Religion", and the "Divine Wisdom", and that on the terrestrial plane of consciousness that truth is "one" and not "multiple".  

Let us not go into other planes of consciousness to address my question because then we would be getting into the areas of "relative truth" and the known axiom that "truth is relative to ones state or plane of consciousness" which is the case, but not the question to which I would like to see addressed. 

Also, please do not tell me there is no "hierarchy" in theosophy, as there is one and that is evident in the "masters" and their Chohan, and even Judge points out the Hierarchy in his letters in the book "Letters That Helped Me". There also is "authority" within theosophy, but one is never to act outside of compassion and their own conscience or sense of right and wrong. Authorities do give orders, and this is apparent in HPB's writing and in The Mahatma Letters.
 
I look forward to hearing your responses. Thanks

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DTB  	THEOSOPHY offers:

		SOURCE OF RELIGIONS

“What was the religion of the Third and Fourth Races? In the common acceptation of the term, neither the Lemurians, nor yet their progeny, the Lemuro-Atlanteans, had any, as they knew no dogma, nor had they to believe on faith. 

No sooner had the mental eye of man been opened to understanding, than the Third Race felt itself one with the ever-present as the ever to be unknown and invisible ALL, the One Universal Deity. Endowed with divine powers, and feeling in himself his inner God, each felt he was a Man-God in his nature, though an animal in his physical Self. 

The struggle between the two began from the very day they tasted of the fruit of the Tree of Wisdom; a struggle for life between the spiritual and the psychic, the psychic and the physical. Those who conquered the lower principles by obtaining mastery over the body, joined the "Sons of Light." Those who fell victims to their lower natures, became the slaves of Matter. 

>From "Sons of Light and Wisdom" they ended by becoming the "Sons of Darkness." They had fallen in the battle of mortal life with Life immortal, and all those so fallen became the seed of the future generations of Atlanteans.* 

At the dawn of his consciousness, the man of the Third Root Race had thus no beliefs that could be called religion. That is to say, he was equally as ignorant of "gay religions, full of pomp and gold" as of any system of faith or outward worship. 


	REVERENCE AND WORSHIP

But if the term is to be defined as the binding together of the masses in one form of reverence paid to those we feel higher than ourselves, of piety — as a feeling expressed by a child toward a loved parent — then even the earliest Lemurians had a religion — and a most beautiful one — from the very beginning of their intellectual life. Had they not their bright gods of the elements around 

 

* The name is used here in the sense of, and as a synonym of "sorcerers." The Atlantean races were many, and lasted in their evolution for millions of years: all were not bad. They became so toward their end, as we (the fifth) are fast becoming now. 

---------------  Footnote  --------------------------------

them, and even within themselves? * 


Was not their childhood passed with, nursed and tendered by those who had given them life and called them forth to intelligent, conscious life? We are assured it was so, and we believe it. For the evolution of Spirit into matter could never have been achieved; nor would it have received its first impulse, had not the bright Spirits sacrificed their own respective super-ethereal essences to animate the man of clay, by endowing each of his inner principles with a portion, or rather, a reflection of that essence. 

The Dhyanis of the Seven Heavens (the seven planes of Being) are the NOUMENOI of the actual and the future Elements, just as the Angels of the Seven Powers of nature - the grosser effects of which are perceived by us in what Science is pleased to call the "modes of motion" — the imponderable forces and what not — are the still higher noumenoi of still higher Hierarchies. 

It was the "Golden Age" in those days of old, the age when the "gods walked the earth, and mixed freely with the mortals." Since then, the gods departed (i.e., became invisible), and later generations ended by worshipping their kingdoms — the Elements. 


	DEGENERATED TO WORSHIP OF FORMS OF MATTER


It was the Atlanteans, the first progeny of semi-divine man after his separation into sexes — hence the first-begotten and humanly-born mortals — who became the first "Sacrificers" to the god of matter. 

They stand in the far-away dim past, in ages more than prehistoric, as the prototype on which the great symbol of Cain was built, † as the first anthropomorphists who worshipped form and matter. 

That worship degenerated very soon into self-worship, thence led to phallicism, or that which reigns supreme to this day in the symbolisms of every exoteric religion of ritual, dogma, and form. Adam and Eve became matter, or furnished the soil, Cain and Abel — the latter the life-bearing soil, the former "the tiller of that ground or field." 

Thus the first Atlantean races, born on the Lemurian Continent, separated from their earliest tribes into the righteous and the unrighteous; into those who worshipped the one unseen Spirit of Nature, the ray of which man feels within himself — or the Pantheists, and those who offered fanatical worship to the Spirits of the Earth, the dark Cosmic, anthropomorphic Powers, with whom they made alliance. These were the earliest Gibborim, "the mighty men of renown in those 
 
* The "Gods of the Elements" are by no means the Elementals. The latter are at best used by them as vehicles and materials in which to clothe themselves. . .

† Cain was the sacrificers, as shown at first in chap. iv. of Genesis, of "the fruit of the ground," of which he was first tiller, while Abel "brought of the firstlings of his flock" to the Lord. Cain is the symbol of the first male, Abel of the first female humanity, Adam and Eve being the types of the third race. (See "The Mystery of Cain and Abel.") The "murdering" is blood-shedding, but not taking life. 

----------------------  Footnote  -------------------------------

days" (Gen. vi.); who become with the Fifth Race the Kabirim: Kabiri with the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, Titans with the Greeks, and Rakshasas and Daityas with the Indian races. 

Such was the secret and mysterious origin of all the subsequent and modern religions, especially of the worship of the later Hebrews for their tribal god. 


	TRIBAL GOD and SEXUAL RELIGIONS

At the same time this sexual religion was closely allied to, based upon and blended, so to say, with astronomical phenomena. The Lemurians gravitated toward the North Pole, or the Heaven of their Progenitors (the Hyperborean Continent); the Atlanteans, toward the Southern Pole, the pit, cosmically and terrestrially — whence breathe the hot passions blown into hurricanes by the cosmic Elementals, whose abode it is. The two poles were denominated, by the ancients, Dragons and Serpents — hence good and bad Dragons and Serpents, and also the names given to the "Sons of God" (Sons of Spirit and Matter): the good and bad Magicians. This is the origin of this dual and triple nature in man. The legend of the "Fallen Angels" in its esoteric signification, contains the key to the manifold contradictions of human character; it points to the secret of man's self-consciousness; it is the angle-iron on which hinges his entire life-cycle; — the history of his evolution and growth. 

On a firm grasp of this doctrine depends the correct understanding of esoteric anthropogenesis. It gives a clue to the vexed question of the Origin of Evil; and shows how man himself is the separator of the ONE into various contrasted aspects. 

The reader, therefore, will not be surprised if so considerable space is devoted in each case to an attempt to elucidate this difficult and obscure subject. A good deal must necessarily be said on its symbological aspect; because, by so doing, hints are given to the thoughtful student for his own investigations, and more light can thus be suggested than it is possible to convey in the technical phrases of a more formal, philosophical exposition. 


	FALLEN ANGELS are HUMANITY

The "Fallen Angels," so-called, are Humanity itself. 

The Demon of Pride, Lust, Rebellion, and Hatred, has never had any being before the appearance of physical conscious man. It is man who has begotten, nurtured, and allowed the fiend to develop in his heart; he, again, who has contaminated the indwelling god in himself, by linking the pure spirit with the impure demon of matter. And, if the Kabalistic saying, "Demon est Deus inversus" finds its metaphysical and theoretical corroboration in dual manifested nature, its practical application is found in Mankind alone. “	S D   II  272-4

				
"Angiras" was one of the names of the Dhyanis, or Devas instructors ("guru-deva"), of the late Third, the Fourth, and even of the Fifth Race Initiates.”  S D   II  605 fn

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Best wishes in your studies,

Dallas

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