Theos-Talk Archives (September 2006 Message tt00007)

Dallas
 

-----Original Message-----
From: W.Dallas TenBroeck [mailto:dalval14@earthlink.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 8:31 AM
To: Theosophy Study List
Subject: RE: Difference between humans and animals?
Importance: High

8/16/2006 5:40 AM

Friends:

May I observe in regard to your discussion? 

As I see it:  I quote from what you write :

If the "the most important physical change that distinguishes Man from 
the animals was the development of the opposed thumb. " is chosen as a
physical criterion, then that unique power or intelligence, or consciousness
which controls and directs the "opposed thumb" ought to be identified and
investigated.  How and where does it arise.? Who guides it?  If "I" am the
perceiver and director -- then I am always responsible -- and I weave my
personal Karma from all the choices made in the past, and being made now by
an act of my will.  When was this change to conscious perception and the
potentiality for a responsive choice started for we -- who are the MANASIC
MONADS ?  THEOSOPHY calls it "The LIGHTING UP OF MANAS."   


[ Quotes:


"...the Manasa Devas who endowed man with the consciousness of his immortal
soul:  that consciousness which hinders man "from foreseeing death," and
makes him know he is immortal.
-----------------------------------------------------
 ( Fn.: --  The monad of the animal is as immortal as that of man, yet the
brute knows nothing of this;  it lives an animal life of sensation just as
the first human would have lived, when attaining physical development in the
Third Race, had it not been for the Agnishwatta, and the Manasa Pitris.")
[Myth of Prometheus, further explained.]		SD II 525


"Every form on earth and every speck (atom) in Space strives in its efforts
towards self-formation to follow the model placed for it in the "Heavenly
Man"...Its [atom's] involution and evolution, its external and internal
growth and development, have all one and the same object--man;  man is the
highest physical and ultimate form on this earth;  the MONAD in the absolute
totality and awakened condition--as the culmination of the divine
incarnations on Earth."		S D I 183


"...a law inexorable, by which man lifts himself by degrees from the state
of a beast to the glory of a God. The rapidity with which this is done is
different with every living soul;  and the wretches who hug the primitive
task master,  misery, choose to go slowly through the tread-mill course
which may give them innumerable lives of physical sensation-- whether
pleasant or painful, well-beloved because tangible to the very lowest
senses.  The Theosophist who desires to enter upon occultism takes some of
Nature's privileges into his own hands, by that very wish, and soon
discovers that experiences come to him with double quick rapidity.  His
business is then to recognize that he is under--to him--new and swifter law
of Development, and to snatch at the lessons that come to him...He sees that
it takes a very wise man to do good works without danger of doing
incalculable harm.  A highly developed
adept in life may grasp the nettle, and by his great intuitive powers, know
whom to relieve from pain and whom to leave in the mire that is their best
teacher...None of us know the darkness which lurks in the depths of our own
being until some strange and unfamiliar experience rouses the whole being
into action...The ignorant doing of good works may be vitally injurious...it
is not the spirit of self-sacrifice, or of devotion, or of desire to help
that is lacking, but the strength to acquire knowledge and power and
intuition, so that the deeds done shall really be worthy of the
"Buddha-Christ" spirit."  	HPB ART I, p.76-7


"The whole individuality is centred in the three middle Principles or third
(MANAS), and fifth (ASTRAL BODY) principles.  During earthly life it is all
in the fourth (KAMA-MANAS), the center of energy, volition--will...the
individuality survives...to run its seven-fold and upward course [ it ] has
to assimilate to itself the eternal-life power residing but in the seventh
(ATMA), and then blend the three (4th, 5th & 7th) into one--the 6th
(BUDDHI).  Those who succeed in doing so become Buddhas, Dhyan Chohans,
etc...  The chief object of our struggle and initiations is to achieve this
union while yet on this earth."	M L  (Barker), pp. 77-8


"...unless the higher Self or Ego gravitates towards its Sun--the Monad--the
lower Ego, or personal Self, will have the upper hand in every case.  For it
is this Ego, with its fierce selfishness and animal desire to live a
Senseless life (Tanha), which is the "maker of the tabernacle," as Buddha
calls it in Dhammapada..." 	SD II 110


"...[the Agnishwatta Pitris] were destined to incarnate as the Egos of the
forthcoming crop of Mankind.  The human Ego is neither Atman nor Buddhi, but
the higher Manas:  the intellectual fruition and the efflorescence of the
intellectual self-conscious Egotism--in the higher spiritual sense.  The
ancient works refer to it as Karana Sarira on the plane of the Sutratma,
which is the golden thread on which, like beads, the various personalities
of this higher Ego are strung...these beings were RETURNING NIRVANEES, from
preceding Maha-Manvantaras--ages of incalculable duration..."	
	S D II 79


"...the "Ego" in man is a monad that has gathered to itself innumerable
experiences through aeons of time, slowly unfolding its latent potencies
through plane after plane of matter.  It is hence called the "eternal
pilgrim."

The Manasic, or mind principle, is cosmic and universal.  It is the creator
of all forms, and the basis of all law in nature.  Not so with
consciousness.  Consciousness is a condition of the monad as a result of
embodiment in matter and the dwelling in a physical form.
Self-consciousness, which from the animal plane looking upward is the
beginning of perfection, from the divine plane looking downwards is the
perfection of selfishness and the curse of separateness.  it is the "world
of illusion" that man has created for himself.  "Maya is the perceptive
faculty of every Ego which considers itself a Unit, separate from and
independent of the One Infinite and Eternal Sat or 'be-ness'," (SD I 329)
The "eternal pilgrim" must therefore mount higher, and flee from the plane
of self-consciousness it has struggled so hard to reach."
	WQJ  Art I p. 29


". man's spirit while not individual per se, yet preserves its distinct
individuality in Paranirvana, owing to the accumulation in it of the
aggregates, or skandhas that have survived after each death, from the
highest faculties of the Manas.  

The most spiritual--i.e., the highest and divinest aspirations of every
personality follow Buddhi and the Seventh Principle into Devachan (Swarga)
after the death of the Monad...the individuality of the spirit-soul...is
preserved to the end of the great cycle (Maha-Manwantara) when each Ego
enters Paranirvana, or is merged in Parabrahm...however long the "night of
Brahma" or even the Universal Pralaya...yet, when it ends, the same
individual Divine Monad resumes its majestic path of evolution, though on a
higher, hundredfold perfected and more pure chain of earths (266) than
before, and brings with it all the essence of compound spiritualities from
its previous countless rebirths."		HPB ARTICLES  III  265-6



"... SPIRITUAL SOUL OR BUDDHI, in close union with Manas, the
mind-principle, without which it is no Ego at all, but only the Atmic
Vehicle. (passive agent)..."Buddhi becomes conscious by the accretions it
gets from Manas after every new incarnation an death of man."	 (SD I 244)
[see HPB Art. III, 265; Key p. 176 ]


"BUDDHI...The faculty of cognizing the channel through which divine
knowledge reaches the Ego, the discernment of good and evil, "divine
consciousness,"  "Spiritual Soul,"  the vehicle of Atma."  SD I xix
[see also SD I 17 119, 244, 570, 453;  Key 175-6] 	


"OUR CONSCIOUSNESS IS ONE AND NOT MANY, nor different from other
consciousness.  It is not waking consciousness, sleeping consciousness, or
any other but consciousness itself... the consciousness of each person is
the Witness or Spectator of the actions and experiences of every state we
are in or pass through.  It therefore follows that the waking condition of
the mind is not separate consciousness.  

The one consciousness pierces up and down through all the states or planes
of Being, and serves to uphold the memory...of each state's experiences."
	Gita Notes, p. 98-9

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

The "opposed thumb" is a phenomenon of the mental idea of holding and
manipulating; and to this a "purpose" has to be identified at the root of
this or any action.  The quality of any "purpose" would depend on whether it
is "SELFISH" or "UNSELFISH."  

The MIND coupled with our Kamic (desires and passions) nature makes this
possible.  [The "animals" have the faculty, at their stage of progress /
evolution, of "instinct" but not of that continued identity we call mind (or
MANAS). [It is the MANAS that reincarnates.  -- see KEY TO THEOSOPHY (HPB),
some of the advanced individual animal MONADS, HPB states, had reached the
stage where MANAS could be lit up.  

The PURPOSE of such (or of any human action adds the MORAL FACTOR.  Mankind
as a whole is in the stage / plane of MIND DEVELOPMENT --  see PATANJALI'S
YOGA SUTRAS.  It is individualized.  See tables of "human principles" in KEY
TO THEOSOPHY (HPB) at pp. 91-2, 135-6, 195-6 and the Intervening
explanations of the entire process and purpose of  evolution -- where the
'"PHYSICAL" is shown  to be powered by the karmic motives and our present
choices / will.  These are resident and dominant in the principles of Kama
and Mind  (Kama and Manas).

The "moral factor is divisible into the "virtues"  which are dual: SELFISH
and UNSELFISH, and these distinguish BROTHERHOOD and care for others, or the
reverse. This in turn invokes not only the monadic, individual KARMA, but
affects the whole Universe  (composed of  innumerable sensitive "life-atoms"
or MONADS.  

We are never "alone."  [All our personal thoughts, feelings and acts are
indelibly recorded by the Lipika on the tablets of the Akasa.] But we are
surrounded with innumerable living MONADS -- each at their own stage of
self-development and progress, and all advance (each is affected by other
MONADS) individually towards the common central and ultimate Goal: Supreme
PERFECTION in Wisdom and "wise action." (see BHAGAVAD GITA  (Krishna)  for a
treatise on this.)

Best wishes

Dallas

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



-----Original Message-----
From: Scribe
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: Difference between humans and animals?

Leonardo,

Thanks so much, that was just great, just the kind of information I wanted.
And in addition you also hit the nail on the head with problems the ID ers
have with any sort of "proof" that would satisfy their critics.

Again, "right on"--

Best Regards,

Don Ridgway
"scribe"





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