Theos-Talk Archives (November 2010 Message tt00065)

In the January 17, 1889 meeting in London, HPB was discussing Maya. Here is
an excerpt which is very interesting for theosophists as it shows the
relative importance of you and me in the grand scheme of things.

âMaya is an illusion. You think yourself a very grand fellow, that you can
go and compete with any Ah-his... But you make a fool of yourself and then
comes Nirvana and shows it to you. It is just then, I think, that man cannot
take into his own head that he is not separate from the one and he goes and
thinks himself a very great man in his own individuality, and he is nothing
at all. He is still one in reality. It is nothing but Maya, an illusion; but
taking this Maya, it is illusion or ignorance that brings us to commit all
the acts which awaken Nidanas, which produce the first cause of Nidana; this
cause having been produced, the effects follow and there is Karma. Of course
Nidanas and the production of bad Karmic effects and Maya are the root cause
of every evil. If we knew what we are we would not do such things. Everyone
of us thinks he or she is a unit and something very grand in the eyes of all
the authorities upstairs that you may think of; we are simply a drop of
water in the ocean, not to be distinguished from another drop in the ocean,
that is all we are. This sense of separateness is at the root of all evil.
You know, there is no correspondence, no analogy, except the one I gave just
now.â

Many times, well learned and scholarly and committed theosophists,
especially some of the leaders, want to continuously emphasize the prefixed
and suffixes they add to their names which has nothing to do with theosophy.
The hope is that these prefixes and suffixes will impress theosophists and
others who are likely to be theosophists in the future. This is in spite of
a years of study of and lecturing about theosophical classics. I suppose the
simple statement quoted above should make us humble and recognize the
reality.


MKR


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