Theos-Talk Archives (November 2008 Message tt00312)

Anand,

You write:
---------------------------------------------------------------- 
"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. "
Let us see meaning of this statement in PL 10 (Pseudo-Letter 10)
Dictionary meaning of 'keep to" is "to adhere without deviation'
and meaning of misnomer is 'calling something by wrong name'.
If we paraphrase above statement, it becomes
"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
adhere to one more wrong name. "
It means according to PL 10 "accepting idea of One Life as God" is
wrong. Therefore, according to this PL 10, one should not call God as
One Life.
This contradicts with many spiritual classics which tell God as Life
or source of Life.
---------------------------------------------------------------

But Anand look at your KH quote.  There is a signifcant sentence JUST 
BEFORE the sentence you quote and IMMEDIATE FOLLOWING your quoted 
sentence there is another significant statement.

So I give THE MORE COMPLETE quote:

-----------------------------------------------------------
. . . 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 . . . and thus become Pantheists . . . .
-----------------------------------------------------------

So the Mahatma is saying MORE than what you are giving.

He even says:  PANTHEISTIC we may be called.

So what is Pantheism, Anand?   And are you a pantheist?

Here is a relevant statement from the Encyclopædia Britannica:

-------------------------------------------------------------
ACOSMISM [is] in philosophy, the view that God is the sole and
ultimate reality and that finite objects and events have no
INDEPENDENT existence. Acosmism has been equated with pantheism, the
belief that everything is God. G.W.F. Hegel coined the word to defend
Benedict de Spinoza, who was accused of atheism for rejecting the
traditional view of a created world EXISTING OUTSIDE GOD. Hegel
argued that Spinoza could not be an atheist because pantheists hold
that EVERYTHING is God, whereas atheists exclude God altogether and
make a godless world the sole reality. 
------------------------------------------------------------

Notice this idea:  "everything is God"....

The Masters teach of the ONE LIFE.  Nothing is outside the ONE LIFE.  
You, me, all creatures great and small, the physical universe and all 
the superphysical planes are part and parcel of the ONE LIFE.  In 
other words, the ONE LIFE is everything.  

If you want to call the Master's ONE LIFE by the word "God", then do 
not be mislead by certain "theistic" concepts of God.

And then the Master KH at a later point in the same letter goes on to 
say:

-----------------------------------------------------------
. . . 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 trained 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. . . .
------------------------------------------
caps added

Again notice KH's use of the term ONE LIFE.  The ONE LIFE is the 
UNIVERSAL LIFE AND SOUL.

Notice KH's mentioning of the Adwaitees.  This is referring to 
ADVAITA VEDANTA (Sanskrit: "Nondualism," or "Monism").

Again here is another relevant statement from the Encyclopædia 
Britannica:

------------------------------------------------------------------
Sankara, an outstanding nondualistic Vedantist and advocate of a
spiritual view of life, began with the Neoplatonic alternative but
added a qualification that turned his view into what was later called
acosmic pantheism....for Sankara, the world and individuality thus 
DISAPPEAR upon enlightenment into the unmanifest Brahman, and in 
reality ONLY THE ABSOLUTE without distinctions exists....
-----------------------------------------------------------------

More from the same Encyclopedia on ADVAITA:

------------------------------------------------------------------
...THERE IS ULTIMATELY NO INDIVIDUAL SELF OR SOUL (jiva),
ONLY THE ATMAN (all-soul), in which individuals may be temporarily
delineated just as the space in a jar delineates a part of main
space: when the jar is broken, the individual space becomes once more
part of the main space.... Fundamental for Sankara is the tenet that
the Brahman is real and the world is unreal. Any change, duality, or
plurality is an illusion. The self is NOTHING BUT Brahman. Insight
into this identity results in spiritual release. Brahman is outside
time, space, and causality, which are simply forms of empirical
experience. NO DISTINCTION in Brahman or from Brahman is possible.
------------------------------------------------------------------

So Anand, the ONE LIFE of the Masters is THE UNIVERSAL LIFE AND SOUL 
which can be equated with the Advaita Vedanta's Brahman, Atman ---  
the ALL-SOUL.

If you want to use also the term "God" as a equivalent term for those 
other terms just used, then it is best to remember that the 
term "God" should be viewed as in the PANTHEISM of Spinoza.

Students of Mahatma Letter #10 should note that KH is very conversant 
with not only Spinoza EVEN QUOTING from Spinoza but also referring to 
the related idea in Advaita Vedanta.   KH quotes other relevant terms 
and persons including Baron de Holbach, Samuel Clarke and others.

So Anand you can take one isolated sentence here or there from the KH 
letter and quibble about the meaning of this or that word while all 
the time ignoring the major idea or ideas that the Mahatma is trying 
to convey.  In others words, you can't see the forest for the trees.

KH says:  "Pantheistic we may be called"

SO ANAND ARE YOU AN PANTHEIST?  ARE YOU AN ADHERENT OF PANTHEISM? Or 
do you reject PANTHEISM???

And if you say you believe in "God", then Anand I suggest that you 
tell us what you mean by "God", give us YOUR definition and 
description of God.  

Daniel
http://hpb.cc