Theos-Talk Archives (July 2008 Message tt00386)

Dear Anand,

Thank you for your prompt reply!!  And you are halfway around the 
globe right now I assume in India.

I do hope that you will try to answer some of the questions I listed.

But what you bring up is interesting in itself and is related to some 
of the core subjects which we have only began to discuss.

You write:
 
> Have you read
> Jnaneshari (also spelled as Dyaneshawri) ? 
> St. Jnaneshwar writes in it that it is sin to consider ourselves
> separate from God. He wrote that God is the only one who exists, all
> forms which we see with senses are maya or illusion.
> If Blavatsky rejected existence of God, was she under mayavic
> influences when she called Jnaneshwari king of mystic works ?

Yes, I have read JANESHARI some years ago.  But that doesn't mean I 
know much about it!!

So I will assume that for the purposes of this posting that your 
description of what you say Jnaneshwar taught is an accurate 
description.

If so, I would suggest that maybe HPB would not deny the "existence" 
of such a "God".  

But I get the impression from what I have read in your few emails on 
this subject that maybe you have not read and certainly have not 
studied what HPB actually wrote and taught about "God."  Now my 
impression may be wrong and you may indeed have done that reading and 
study.  But you will have to tell me if I am wrong.

I would suggest that you cannot read HPB like you might some 
newspaper in the morning.

That if you want to understand her view, her teaching, her exposition 
on "God" you need to actually read what she says, for example, in THE 
SECRET DOCTRINE and in THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY and actually take the 
time to correlate and collate her various statements, etc. 
about "God" from these two sources.  Actually you should probably do 
more than simply read these two books by her.  But I will limit the 
example to those two.

You might also just ponder on what she is writing.  Try to go beyond 
the words to the "ideas" behind her words.

So when she rejects "God"?  What is she rejecting?

What is your definition of "God"?  This in my opinion is one of the 
vaguest words in the English language.  You say "God" and different 
people view it differently.  Plus people in America may understand 
the word in ways that may be different than people in other 
countries, for example people in India.  And I would think that not 
everyone in India holds the same view of "God".

So unless we take the time to define (if that can even be done) what 
we mean by "God", then we may be first of all not even talking about 
the same subject!

When I tell you about my cat, you probably have at least some idea of 
what a cat is.  Of course, unless I'm actually talking about my cat 
which is a  lion!  Maybe you visualize my cat as yellow while he is 
actually black.  But if I take the time to describe in enough detail 
my cat, you should end up with a pretty concrete picture in your mind 
of my cat although you are in India.  And if I send you a picture of 
my cat, then that is even better.  And a video even better!

But when you talk about "God", what do you mean by that word?!!

I'm not so sure I know.

You wrote in a previous posting:

"As I have considerable contact with Christians, I asked some of the
Christian teachers and pastors about what idea of God is according to
Christianity. They said God is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient
creator of the universe."

Yes some of my Christian friends and acquaintances have also said 
similar things.

But I doubt that many of them would agree with 
Jnaneshwar as you describe his teaching:

> St. Jnaneshwar writes in it that it is sin to consider ourselves
> separate from God. He wrote that God is the only one who exists, all
> forms which we see with senses are maya or illusion.

Most of the Christians I've had contact with would reject the view
that only God exists and all else is maya.

These Christians might agree God is omnipresent, omnipotent and
omniscient and the creator of the universe.  But 
they would consider what you say is Jnaneshwar's teaching as
wrong, as some form of pantheism!!

I will not hazard to generalize what the majority of the Christians 
in the world
believe.

But my impression is they would NOT agree with Janeshwar's view.

At least the majority of Christians I've talked too.

They would say:  Yes God can be everywhere, know all things, and "he" 
is the creator of the Universe.  But he is NOT his creation.  Just as 
you can create or make a watch, God created the universe and all 
souls.  But just as you are not the watch, God is not the universe 
but the creator of the world and all creatures including human beings.

Most of the Christians I know even believe that
you live just one life and then either go for eternity to hell or to 
heaven.

I do know a few Christians more contemplative and mystical that might 
have views bordering those of Janeshwar.  

But I will not trying to generalize to all Christians.

How many billion are there in the world today?

Maybe there are surveys of Christians that give us some insight into 
what the majority believe about God????

I'm just speaking of those I've talked to or many of the books 
written by certain Christians.  Of course there are many churches and 
not all believe exactly the same thing.

So if you are saying Christians would agree with  Janeshwar, well 
maybe some would, but how many would?  I doubt that the majority 
would.  

Now take another example even in Hinduism.

In the entry on Madhva (the Hindu philosopher and exponent of Dvaita)
in THE OXFORD COMPANION TO PHILOSOPHY, one finds the following
remarks:

---------------------------------------------------------
...Warning that you cannot adore God if you think that you are
identical with him, he [Madhva] also celebrates all five differences
denied by the idealist monists, namely,

God...[is distinct from] the world,

God...[is distinct from you or I am distinct from God],

I... [am distinct from] you,

I...[am distinct from] the table,

the table...[is distinct from] the chair....

Liberation, attainable only through devoted worship of the personal
God, brings blissful proximity to, but never equality with, God,
though some sinners (non-dualists?) remain eternally damned!
---------------------------------------------------------

Now if this is an accurate description of Madhva's views, then
it would appear that this is contrary to what you say is  
Jnaneshwar's view.

Maybe you have a different take on this so you tell me.

One more point and I will close for now.

You wrote:

> St. Jnaneshwar writes in it that it is sin to consider ourselves
> separate from God. He wrote that God is the only one who exists, all
> forms which we see with senses are maya or illusion.

Well tell me is Master Koot Hoomi saying the same thing
or something similar when he writes:

I quote from what is called Mahatma Letter No. 10 online:

"Neither our philosophy nor ourselves believe in a God, least of all 
in one whose pronoun necessitates a capital H. Our philosophy falls 
under the definition of Hobbes. ?.. Our doctrine knows no 
compromises. It either affirms or denies, for it never teaches but 
that which it knows to be the truth. Therefore, we deny God both as 
philosophers and as Buddhists. We know there are planetary and other 
spiritual lives, and we know there is in our system no such thing as 
God, either personal or impersonal. Parabrahm is not a God, but 
absolute immutable law, and Iswar is the effect of Avidya and Maya, 
ignorance based upon the great delusion?."

[Then in the next paragraph the Master writes:]

"?.Pantheistic we may be called -- agnostic NEVER. If people are 
willing to accept and to regard as God our ONE LIFE immutable and 
unconscious in its eternity they may do so and thus keep to one more 
gigantic misnomer. But then they will have to say with Spinoza that 
there is not and that we cannot conceive any other substance than 
God; or as that famous and unfortunate philosopher says in his 
fourteenth proposition, "praeter Deum nulla dari neque concepi potest 
substantia" -- and thus become Pantheists . . . . who but a 
Theologian nursed on mystery and the most absurd super-naturalism can 
imagine a self existent being of necessity infinite and omnipresent 
outside the manifested boundless universe. The word infinite is but a 
negative which excludes the idea of bounds. It is evident that a 
being independent and omnipresent cannot be limited by anything which 
is outside of himself; that there can be nothing exterior to himself -
- not even vacuum, then where is there room for matter? for that 
manifested universe even though the latter limited. If we ask the 
theist is your God vacuum, space or matter, they will reply no. And 
yet they hold that their God penetrates matter though he is not 
himself matter. When we speak of our One Life we also say that it 
penetrates, nay is the essence of every atom of matter; and that 
therefore it not only has correspondence with matter but has all its 
properties likewise, etc. -- hence is material, is matter itself?."

[And in the next paragraph notice what the Master writes:]

". . We are not Adwaitees, but our teaching respecting the one life 
is identical with that of the Adwaitee with regard to Parabrahm. And 
no true philosophically brained Adwaitee will ever call himself an 
agnostic, for he knows that he is Parabrahm and identical in every 
respect with the universal life and soul -- the macrocosm is the 
microcosm and he knows that there is no God apart from himself, no 
creator as no being. Having found Gnosis we cannot turn our backs on 
it and become agnostics."

So is there an identity of thought between what Jnaneshwar teaches 
and Koot Hoomi?

And does maybe Blavatsky in THE SECRET DOCTRINE teach something  
similar if not identical?

I should say that a number of Theosophical students are literally 
appalled by what the Master KH writes above.  This has even been 
expressed to me in letters and emails.

But is what KH so different from what you say Jnaneshwar taught?

I hope you will think about this, ponder on it and share your 
thoughts with readers of Theos-Talk. 

Daniel
http://hpb.cc