Adelaise,
I also don't have any desire to argue with you. Blavatsky's blasphemy
against Christianity, Hinduism and Islam is making Theosophical
Society look ridiculous.
--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:theos-talk%40yahoogroups.com>, adelasie <adelasie@...> wrote:
>
> Anand,
>
> While I have no desire to argue with you about this or anything, and
> while I know that you are impervious to any opinion but your own, I
must
> make a few statements, for the sake of others who may be new to
> Theosophy and/or to this list, and who may wonder what you could be
> talking about.
>
> Theosophists know there is no bearded man sitting on a throne in the
sky
> separate from humanity passing judgement on our personal lives and
> listening to our petty woes. Theosophists know that this concept
> belittles the vast power of the Infinite from whence all emanates and
> whence all eventually returns. Theosophists know that this unknowable,
> inconceivable, eternally unmanifest Absolute expresses itself in
form in
> cyclic rounds throughout infinity and that every unit of that
expression
> contains a spark of the eternal Source. Theosophists know that in that
> sense, God, meaning the absolute, is in everything in manifestation, is
> as intimately connected with mankind as is every atom of his body,
every
> thought of his mind.
>
> Madame Blavatsky had the job of trying to explain this to a humanity
> which had lost its way and was in danger of losing everything due to
> wrong headed and wrong hearted practices for a long age. Theosophists
> are grateful to her for bringing these teachings to light so they might
> begin to understand what has gone wrong and how it might be addressed.
>
> It is extremely offensive to read post after post criticizing HPB and
> promoting misunderstanding after misunderstanding. It also indicates
> that the poster might actually have some interest in these teachings.
> Why else post on a theosophical network?
>
> To all students if theosophy I suggest that when someone protests too
> much, they have some hidden agenda, and they are to be avoided at all
> costs. There is way too much at stake to allow ourselves to be
> distracted from our work by doubt and confusion.
>
> Adelasie
>
> Anand wrote:
> >
> > I can see incredible confusion caused by Blavatsky and Mahatma
Letters
> > which were probably materialized by herself and so could not stop
from
> > including her thoughts in Mahatma Letters.
> > There is certain sense in which Personal God of Christians does exist
> > and Gita supports the same idea of personal God of Christians. I
don't
> > think Christians and Hindus were wrong and Blavatsky was right.
> >
> > Anand Gholap
> >
> > --- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:theos-talk%40yahoogroups.com>
> > <mailto:theos-talk%40yahoogroups.com>, "robert_b_macd"
> > <robert.b.macdonald@> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Hi All,
> > >
> > > I wonder if Anand understands what a personal god is. What exactly
> > is theosophy denying when it argues that there can exist no personal
> > god. The idea of a personal god is at the heart of the Christian
> > religions. The Maha Chohan writes the following on this idea of the
> > personal god: "The world in general and Christendom especially, left
> > for two thousand years to the regime of a personal God as well as its
> > political and social systems based on that idea, has now proved a
> > failure." (Maha Chohan, Masters of the Wisdom) This particular
idea of
> > a personal god working through the popes, priests, etc of the
world is
> > a bankrupt idea. The violence perpetrated by the Church has proven it
> > beyond a doubt.
> > >
> > > A personal god takes notice of human affairs, gets angry when Man
> > misbehaves, and generally shows the emotional scale of a less
advanced
> > member of the human race. This is what Christians and others who
> > follow a personal god worship, an emotionally crippled entity not
wise
> > enough to deal with the growing pains of an adolescent humanity. The
> > Mahatma Letters refer to a different origin for humanity. There we
> > read: "The cycle of intelligent existences commences at the highest
> > worlds or planets — the term "highest" meaning here the most
> > spiritually perfect. Evolving from cosmic matter — which is akasa,
the
> > primeval not the secondary plastic medium, or Ether of Science
> > instinctively suspected, unproven as the rest — man first evolutes
> > from this matter in its most sublimated state, appearing at the
> > threshold of Eternity as a perfectly Etherial — not Spiritual Entity,
> > say — a Planetary Spirit. He is but one remove from the universal and
> > Spiritual World Essence — the Anima Mundi of the Greeks, or that
which
> > humanity in its spiritual decadence has degraded into a mythical
> > personal God. Hence, at that stage, the Spirit-man is at best an
> > active Power, an immutable, therefore an unthinking Principle (the
> > term "immutable" being again used here but to denote that state for
> > the time being, the immutability applying here but to the inner
> > principle which will vanish and disappear as soon as the spark of the
> > material in him will start on its cyclic work of Evolution and
> > transformation). In his subsequent descent, and in proportion to the
> > increase of matter he will assert more and more his activity." (ML 18)
> > >
> > > The Anima Mundi is not a personal God. It is an impersonal spirit
> > unable to receive the prayers of Mankind and hence personal in no
> > sense. Blavatsky explains as early as Isis:
> > >
> > > The existence of spirit in the common mediator, the ether, is
denied
> > by materialism; while theology makes of it a personal god, the
> > kabalist holds that both are wrong, saying that in ether, the
elements
> > represent but matter — the blind cosmic forces of nature; and Spirit,
> > the intelligence which directs them. The Hermetic, Orphic, and
> > Pythagorean cosmogonical doctrines, as well as those of Sanchoniathon
> > and Berosus, are all based upon one irrefutable formula, viz.: that
> > the ether and chaos, or, in the Platonic language, mind and matter,
> > were the two primeval and eternal principles of the universe, utterly
> > independent of anything else. The former was the all-vivifying
> > intellectual principle; the chaos, a shapeless, liquid principle,
> > without "form or sense," from the union of which two, sprung into
> > existence the universe, or rather, the universal world, the first
> > androgynous deity — the chaotic matter becoming its body, and ether
> > the soul. According to the phraseology of a Fragment of Hermias,
> > "chaos, from this union with spirit, obtaining sense, shone with
> > pleasure, and thus was produced the Protogonos (the first-born)
> > light."* This is the universal trinity, based on the metaphysical
> > conceptions of the ancients, who, reasoning by analogy, made of man,
> > who is a compound of intellect and matter, the microcosm of the
> > macrocosm, or great universe. (IU I, 341)
> > >
> > > Very clearly we read above that Blavatsky does not accept that
> > Spirit as described by the ancients is or could ever be a personal
> > god. It is a principle, not an existing entity. Combined with Matter
> > it produces the primordial light of the World.
> > >
> > > There is a sense of personal god that HPB sometimes uses. She
writes:
> > >
> > > "May we be allowed a comparison, the best we can find, between the
> > concrete and the abstract; between what our critic calls "the triple
> > hypostasis" and we "the tetraktys"? Let us compare this philosophic
> > quaternary, composed of the body, the périsprit, the soul and the
> > spirit—to the ether—so well foreseen by science, but never
defined—and
> > its subsequent correlations. The ether will represent the spirit for
> > us; the dead vapor that is formed therein—the soul; water—the
> > périsprit; ice—the body. The ice melts and for ever loses its shape,
> > water evaporates and is dispersed in space; the vapor is liberated
> > from its grosser particles and finally reaches that condition in
which
> > science cannot follow it. Purified from its last defilements, it is
> > entirely absorbed into its first cause, and becomes a cause in its
> > turn. With the exception of the immortal nous—the soul, the périsprit
> > and the body, all having been created and having had a beginning,
must
> > all have an end.
> > >
> > > "Does that mean that the individuality is lost in that absorption?
> > Not at all. But between the human Ego and the wholly divine Ego,
there
> > is an abyss that our critics fill in without knowing it. As to the
> > périsprit, it is no more the soul than the delicate skin that
> > surrounds the almond is the kernel itself or even its temporary husk.
> > The périsprit is but the simulacrum of the man.
> > >
> > > "It follows that Theosophists understand the hypostasis, according
> > to the old philosophers, in a very different way from the
> > Spiritualists. For us, the Spirit is the personal god of each mortal,
> > and his only divine element. The dual soul, on the contrary, is only
> > semidivine. Being a direct emanation from the nous, everything it has
> > of immortal essence, once its earthly cycle is accomplished, must
> > necessarily return to its mother-source, and as pure as when it was
> > detached; it is that purely spiritual essence which the primitive
> > church, as faithful as it was rebellious to the Neo-Platonic
> > traditions, thought it recognized in the good daïmon and made into a
> > guardian angel; at the same time justly blighting the "irrational"
and
> > fallible soul, the real human Ego (from which we get the word
Egoism),
> > she called it the angel of darkness, and afterwards made it into a
> > personal devil. The only error was in anthropomorphizing it and in
> > making it a monster with tail and horns. Otherwise, abstraction as it
> > may be, this devil is truly personal because it is identical with our
> > Ego. It is this, the elusive and inaccessible personality, that
> > ascetics of every country think they chastise by mortifying the
flesh.
> > The Ego then, to which we concede only a conditional immortality, is
> > the purely human individuality. Half vital energy, half an
aggregation
> > of personal qualities and attributes, necessary to the
constitution of
> > every human being as distinct from his neighbor, the Ego is only the
> > "breath of life" that Jehovah, one of the Elohim or creative gods,
> > breathed into the nostrils of Adam; and, as such, and apart from its
> > higher intelligence, it is but the element of individuality possessed
> > by man in common with every creature, from the gnat that dances in
the
> > rays of the sun to the elephant, the king of the forest. It is
only by
> > identifying itself with that divine intelligence that the Ego, soiled
> > with earthly impurities, can win its immortality.
> > >
> > > "In order to express our thought more clearly, we will proceed by a
> > question. Though matter may be quite indestructible in its primitive
> > atoms—indestructible, because, as we say, it is the eternal shadow of
> > the eternal Light and co-exists with it—can this matter remain
> > unchangeable in its temporary forms or correlations? Do we not see
it,
> > during its ceaseless modifications, destroy today what it created
> > yesterday? Every form, whether it belongs to the objective world
or to
> > that which our intelligence alone can perceive, having had a
> > beginning, must have an end. There was a time when it did not exist;
> > there will come a day when it will cease to be. Now, modern science
> > tells us that even our thought is material. However fleeting an idea
> > may be, its conception and its subsequent evolutions require a
certain
> > consumption of energy; let the least cerebral motion reverberate in
> > the ether of space and it will produce a disturbance reaching to
> > infinity. Hence, it is a material force, although invisible."
> > >
> > > Here HBP states very clearly what she call the personal god. It is
> > our Atma or Nous, personal in the sense that it is our individual
> > personal spark or connection with the impersonal Spiritual World
Essence.
> > >
> > > Do not put words into HPBs mouth. Understand what she writes before
> > you begin accusing her of anything. Chances are the confusion is not
> > in what she writes, but rather in your understanding of it. God and
> > Devil do not exist for theosophists except in this narrow sense of
> > Nous and Ego.
> > >
> > > This is how I read it,
> > >
> > > Robert Bruce
> > >
> >
> >
>
