Theos-Talk Archives (February 2011 Message tt00042)

Dear Tom and friends

My views are:

The following quotes on Blavatsky presented as hypothesises might be helpful to consider.


Karma and The Law of Compensation by H. P. Blavatsky:
"Yes; "our destiny is written in the stars!" Only, the closer the union between the mortal reflection MAN and his celestial PROTOTYPE, the less dangerous the external conditions and subsequent reincarnationsâwhich neither Buddhas nor Christs can escape. This is not superstition, least of all is it Fatalism. The latter implies a blind course of some still blinder power, and man is a free agent during his stay on earth. He cannot escape his ruling Destiny, but he has the choice of two paths that lead him in that direction, and he can reach the goal of miseryâif such is decreed to him, either in the snowy white robes of the Martyr, or in the soiled garments of a volunteer in the iniquitous course; for, there are external and internal conditions which affect the determination of our will upon our actions, and it is in our power to follow either of the two. Those who believe in Karma have to believe in destiny, which, from birth to death, every man is weaving thread by thread around himself, as a spider does his cobweb; and this destiny is guided either by the heavenly voice of the invisible prototype outside of us, or by our more intimate astral, or inner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the embodied entity called man. Both these lead on the outward man, but one of them must prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible affray the stern and implacable law of compensation steps in and takes its course, faithfully following the fluctuations. When the last strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrapped in the net-work of his own doing, then he finds himself completely under the empire of this self-made destiny. It then either fixes him like the inert shell against the immovable rock, or carries him away like a feather in a whirlwind raised by his own actions, and this isâKARMA."
(The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 639)
http://www.phx-ult-lodge.org/SDVolume_I.htm


Time as a Karmic illusion by H. P. Blavatsky:
"Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced; but "lies asleep." The present is only a mathematical line which divides that part of eternal duration which we call the future, from that part which we call the past. Nothing on earth has real duration, for nothing remains without change â or the same â for the billionth part of a second; and the sensation we have of the actuality of the division of "time" known as the present, comes from the blurring of that momentary glimpse, or succession of glimpses, of things that our senses give us, as those things pass from the region of ideals which we call the future, to the region of memories that we name the past. In the same way we experience a sensation of duration in the case of the instantaneous electric spark, by reason of the blurred and continuing impression on the retina. The real person or thing does not consist solely of what is seen at any particular moment, but is composed of the sum of all its various and changing conditions from its appearance in the material form to its disappearance from the earth. It is these "sum-totals" that exist from eternity in the "future," and pass by degrees through matter, to exist for eternity in the "past." No one could say that a bar of metal dropped into the sea came into existence as it left the air, and ceased to exist as it entered the water, and that the bar itself consisted only of that cross-section thereof which at any given moment coincided with the mathematical plane that separates, and, at the same time, joins, the atmosphere and the ocean. Even so of persons and things, which, dropping out of the to-be into the has-been, out of the future into the past â present momentarily to our senses a cross-section, as it were, of their total selves, as they pass through time and space (as matter) on their way from one eternity to another: and these two constitute that "duration" in which alone anything has true existence, were our senses but able to cognize it there."
.......
"The three periods â the Present, the Past, and the Future â are in the esoteric philosophy a compound time; for the three are a composite number only in relation to the phenomenal plane, but in the realm of noumena have no abstract validity. As said in the Scriptures: "The Past time is the Present time, as also the Future, which, though it has not come into existence, still is"; according to a precept in the Prasanga Madhyamika teaching, whose dogmas have been known ever since it broke away from the purely esoteric schools.*"
.......
"What is Time, for instance, but the panoramic succession of our states of consciousness? In the words of a Master, "I feel irritated at having to use these three clumsy words â Past, Present, and Future â miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective whole, they are about as ill-adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine carving." One has to acquire ParamÃrtha lest one should become too easy a prey to Samvritiâis a philosophical axiom.*"..."* In clearer words: "One has to acquire true Self-Consciousness in order to understand Samvriti, or the 'origin of delusion.'" ParamÃrtha is the synonym of the Sanskrit term Svasam-vedana, or "the reflection which analyses itself." There is a difference in the interpretation of the meaning of "ParamÃrtha" between the YogÃchÃryas and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom, however, explain the real and true esoteric sense of the expression. See further, sloka No. 9."
.......
" The "Divine Thought" does not imply the idea of a Divine thinker. The Universe, not only past, present, and future â which is a human and finite idea expressed by finite thought â but in its totality, the Sat (an untranslateable term), the absolute being, with the Past and Future crystallized in an eternal Present, is that Thought itself reflected in a secondary or manifest cause. Brahma (neuter) as the Mysterium Magnum of Paracelsus is an absolute mystery to the human mind."
.......
"Connected as the Lipika are with the destiny of every man and the birth of every child, whose life is already traced in the Astral Light not fatalistically, but only because the future, like the PAST, is ever alive in the PRESENT â they may also be said to exercise an influence on the Science of Horoscopy. We must admit the truth of the latter whether we will or not. For, as observed by one of the modern adepts of Astrology, "Now that photography has revealed to us the chemical influence of the Sidereal system, by fixing on the sensitized plate of the apparatus milliards of stars and planets that had hitherto baffled the efforts of the most powerful telescopes to discover them, it becomes easier to understand how our solar system can, at the birth of a child, influence his brain â virgin of any impression â in a definite manner and according to the presence on the zenith of such or another zodiacal constellation."â"
.......
"Here one finds a repetition of the early allegorical, dual systems, as the Zoroastrian, and detects a germ of the dogmatic and dualistic religions of the future, a germ which has grown into such a luxuriant tree in ecclesiastical Christianity. It is already the outline of the two "Supremes"âGod and Satan. But in the Stanzas no such idea exists."
......
"The Arhan, though he can see the Past, the Present, and the Future, is not yet the highest Initiate; for the Adept himself, the initiated candidate, becomes chela (pupil) to a higher Initiate. Three further higher grades have to be conquered by the Arhan who would reach the apex of the ladder of Arhatship. There are those who have reached it even in this fifth race of ours, but the faculties necessary for the attainment of these higher grades will be fully developed in the average ascetic only at the end of this Root-Race, and in the Sixth and Seventh. Thus there will always be Initiates and the Profane till the end of this minor Manvantara, the present life-cycle. "
.......
"The day when "the spark will re-become the Flame (man will merge into his Dhyan Chohan) myself and others, thyself and me," as the Stanza has itâmeans this: In Paranirvanaâwhen Pralaya will have reduced not only material and psychical bodies, but even the spiritual Ego(s) to their original principleâthe Past, Present, and even Future Humanities, like all things, will be one and the same. Everything will have re-entered the Great Breath. In other words, everything will be "merged in Brahma" or the divine unity.
    Is this annihilation, as some think? Or Atheism, as other criticsâthe worshippers of a personal deity and believers in an unphilosophical paradiseâare inclined to suppose? Neither. It is worse than useless to return to the question of implied atheism in that which is spirituality of a most refined character."
......
"The SEVEN KEYS open the mysteries, past and future, of the seven great Root Races, as of the seven Kalpas. Though the genesis of man, and even the esoteric geology, will surely be rejected by Science just as much as the Satanic and pre-Adamic races, yet if having no other way out of their difficulties the Scientists have to choose between the two, we feel certain that, Scripture notwithstanding, once the mystery language is approximately mastered, it is the archaic teaching that will be accepted."

(The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 37, 43-44, 105, 196, 206, 266, 325)
http://www.phx-ult-lodge.org/SDVolume_I.htm


So randomness or not, I find that Blavatsky is saying that each humans "destiny is written in the stars!".
And: "The Arhan, though he can see the Past, the Present, and the Future, is not yet the highest Initiate; for the Adept himself, the initiated candidate, becomes chela (pupil) to a higher Initiate. Three further higher grades have to be conquered by the Arhan who would reach the apex of the ladder of Arhatship."  And both views I will endorse as far as my own experiences tell me about it. Yet each human will have to decide for themselves, whether these views are true or not, at least until they are able to verify their validity, and not through either mere rejection or mere belief in them. 

Einstein said: "God do not play dice".... ie. with the Universe.
And I agree, when we call God by the name Parabrahm and say of it: Parabraham is not this or that, it is not even consciousness, as it cannot be related to matter or anything conditioned. It is not Ego nor is it Non-ego, not even Atma, but verily the one source of all manifestations and modes of existence..

And that Divine is within each human being, within the Self or self.
Because that is what we really are or rather "are".


All the above are of course just my views.



M. Sufilight


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tom Robertson 
  To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, February 11, 2011 3:18 PM
  Subject: Re: theos-talk Re: Free will and karma


    
  >--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Spirituality" <mail@...> wrote:
  >>
  >> I'm preparing a lecture for our local lodge on the topic of karma and
  >free will. I have my own thoughts of course, but am wondering what you
  >all think. Do free will and karma conflict? How does the neurological
  >evidence fit in? What really IS freedom in the first place?
  >>
  >> Katinka
  >> http://www.katinkahesselink.net/

  I believe a correct view of karma must incorporate the idea of
  randomness. I believe the correlation between acts and consequences
  approaches 0 in the short run and 1 in the long run. When people say
  that life isn't fair, they're expressing the truth of the lack of such
  correlation in the short run. Wisdom is essentially keeping one's
  eyes on the long run.


  

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