Theos-Talk Archives (November 2001 Message tt00250)

|-----Original Message-----
|From: dalval14@earthlink.net [mailto:dalval14@earthlink.net] 
|Sent: Friday, 16 November 2001 12:21 AM
|To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
|Subject: RE: Theos-World On the Atman - to Peter
|
|
|Wednesday, November 14, 2001
|
|Dear Friend Nos:
|
|Forgive me for butting in on your exchange with Peter. The 
|subject has always interested me, so may I offer some comments ?
|
|When as you suggest we try to reduce our material orientation 
|and instrumentation to a focus aimed at identifying the 
|possible "building-blocks" in Nature of the extremely SMALL, 
|we ought to consider equally the EXTREMELY LARGE. In his 
|Unified Field Theory, Einstein, I believe tried to do this so 
|the unity between the two extremes would be bridged in a 
|logical manner.
|
|Man's capacity for perception is actually unlimited when 
|reinforced and amplified in both directions, and the PERCEIVER 
|in MAN (perhaps it is the MIND) is exactly mid-way between the two.
|
|>From the MATERIALISTIC point of view one may theoretically
|descend in size to the level of the final physical vibration 
|as you did. The last "wave-form."
|
|But you did not eliminate the OBSERVER, the final VIBRATION, 
|the MEDIUM in which vibration takes place and the VIBRATING 
|OBJECT. This makes 4 things essential -- and I do not see how 
|any of those can be eliminated. Can you? I admit Mind and 
|THOUGHT are non-material and "subjective." But then anything 
|that we place into our Mind, automatically becomes 
|non-material and "subjective." "Subjectivity" is the 
|reflection of the OBJECTIVE on some different kind of 
|substance with different qualities, rules and presence in that 
|medium -- or am I wrong ?
|
|Wave-forms may also be considered as fields of force, but as 
|long as they are "fields" they have a CENTER. Our Minds make 
|of the "waves" FORMS. How and Why? Is that because this is 
|the only way in which we can understand them with our 
|material-brain-limited thought ?
|
|Returning to the analysis of the "very small:"
|
|This center is a point of Force or of directed Power. The 
|object CENTER is surrounded by some kind of FIELD or a MEDIUM 
|. The POWER is projected spherically and uniformly -- its 
|ultimate cessation cannot be registered - once transmitted it 
|becomes a part of the UNIVERSAL.
|
|Theosophy views Matter as a condensation of the intangible and 
|invisible (to our material senses) ASTRAL SUBSTANCE.
|
|Astral Substance in its turn may be considered as the 
|substantial product of the universal LIFE CURRENTS that 
|pervade all SPACE (perhaps we might think of them as the 
|countless attractive and repelling Forces that exist in the 
|realm of the atom and the molecule as well as in universal 
|astronomical SPACE -- also unlimited. [Is this not the 
|problem that troubled Einstein in his search for a "universal 
|CONSTANT which would serve to unite all and thus provide for 
|the Unified Field Theory ? ]
|
|Theosophy is not limited in its concepts by materiality, which 
|it perceives as the dregs of the whole seven-fold Universe. 
|Th sequence seems to run as follows:
|
|1 SPIRIT -- A universal receptacle of all Laws, rules,
|truths, events, timeless and eternal all Laws, rules, truths, 
|model for Penetrates all space. Perceiver alive in some form 
|-- as in a
|2 WISDOM acquired from universal and timeless experience --
|recorded in imperishable characters of eternal energy/force
|3 MIND / THOUGHT the capacity to examine change and record
|it. A capacity which is both mutable and stable and perceives 
|change, while in one aspect it is changeless.
|4. Needs, Wants, Desires, Rejections, (all that involves the
|isolation of the individual Perceiver alive in some form -- as 
|in a physical body)
|5. Attractive and Repelling currents of influence and
|magnetism. Penetrates all space.
|6 Electro-magnetic subtle substance which serves as the
|model for
|7 Physical substance whether sub-atomic or supra galactic
|
|So, in order to perceive illusion (Maya) one has to be in a 
|position that is NOT MOVED or AFFECTED by ILLUSION. If not, 
|then the Maya concept cannot exist -- and yet, it does. So if 
|it is to be thought of its CONTRAST is necessarily present 
|along with some perceptive ability of faculty that can SEE BOTH.
|
|I wonder if this makes sense to you?
|
|Dallas
|
|====================================

Does it makes sense to me? Does this make sense to you?
But even simpler each is but a #VALUE= in the MATRIX. Whether it be
that at location
(123,6743,-5673,9035,87654,.06534272826,13th,dec,2002,mv7,..) it be
something that is measured by something to have a value from the
analogue point next door so to speak.. Fractal intimations of cosmic
inclination, heisenberg is killing me it;'s matter of divinity....let's
not talk theory ...lets just do it...


|
|-----Original Message-----
|From: nos
|Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 4:59 PM
|To:
|Subject: On the Atman
|
|My interpretation of Maya :
|
|If you can change your POV and go down down dwon to the 
|microscopic level and then slow down - you could observe that 
|the particle sthat make up the physical plane are in fact not 
|particles at all but waveforms then slow down those waveforms 
|even more until they stop - and hence there is nothing there - 
|without the vibration caused by differentiation (mental 
|between opposites etc) the physical plane simply does not 
|exist. Whether it still exists like quantum potential is of 
|course open for debate but pointless as you can only 
|experience the POV you are in - it's like talking about 
|non-connected dimensions if they have no relationship or 
|interaction with this plane then they simply do not exist 
|(whether they do or not). Lol
|
|Nos
|
|My other interpretation : My beautiful 4 year old daughter....
|
|
|
|
||-----Original Message-----
||From: Gerald Schueler [mailto:gschueler@earthlink.net]
||Sent: Wednesday, 14 November 2001 11:19 AM
||To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
||Cc: theos-l@list.vnet.net
||Subject: Theos-World On the Atman - to Peter
||
||
||<<<Not cruel, a fair observation. Why should I scoff? What 
|place does 
||that have in these discussions if we are both serious students? You 
||criticised Dallas for quoting HPB out of context and yet when 
|asked to 
||supply the context you quote a two sentences from the entire Secret 
||Doctrine and Collected Writings. I think "context" requires more. I 
||can't speak for
||Dallas, but yes I was aware of those two sentences. The
||difference between us is that you seem to be taking them 
|literally and 
||at face value. I would prefer to look a little deeper, along with 
||understanding the context in which those statements were made.>>>
||
||Peter, we all quote her out of context, and my one and only point was 
||that we can pretty much quote her to suit ourselves. If the quote, to 
||the effect that matter and spirit are both maya, was meant to be 
||literal, then Blavatsky was aware of, and she accepted, one of the 
||"secret" Dzogchen teachings. If the quote was not literal and meant 
||something else, then she was not aware of Dzogchen and does not 
||subscribe to its teachings. I think that this is pretty much what it 
||all comes down to. In spite of your arguments, I prefer to think that
||she was initiated, and that she gave that tidbit out
|deliberately.
||
||
||<<<<You are certainly welcome to that view and I have no desire to 
||change it. But we are trying to establish what HPB is saying. 
| Her view 
||is that ATMA is not a maya and that it is
||one with Parabrahm. Thus over and over again we find her
||saying similar things as:>>>
||
||Peter, If Atma is not maya, then a few logic problems will surface. 
||Does Atma change over time? If so, then it can't be permanent and it 
||must be maya because everything effected by space or time is mayavic 
||(or do you have another definition of maya, as well?). If not, then 
||Atma must be above maya and must not be subject to time or space. If 
||this is so, then I can't see what the "radiation" and "ray" and 
||"emanation" business is all about. What is the purpose of evolution, 
||and what is evolving in space-time? I think that how we answer this
||question will define Atma for us. My interpretation of
||Blavatsky is that there is a non-dual non-divisible Monad
||outside of space-time and completely changeless/permanent. It
||sends out a "ray" into space-time(how it does this is pretty
||much a faith-based "initial assumption") which is, or at some
||point becomes, Atma.
||
||I guess my real problem is that I am sick to death of the 
|illogic I see 
||from many Theosophists, and from much of the Theosophical literature, 
||who seem like that say stuff without logically thinking about 
|it. Now, 
||I realize that all of this stuff is manas exorcizes, but I think the 
||very least we can all do is to try to come up with a logical system 
||(and there will ALWAYS be initial assumptions that we will have to 
||make, but I mean logical within those assumptions). For just one
||example, is a "monad" indivisible or not?
||
||
||
||<<<There isn't anything esoteric about saying Atma is a Maya. 
|Nor does 
||HPB say it is a Maya, as far as I can determine.>>
||
||Well, she does give us hints. And there is a danger. It is one that 
||Buddhists are all too familiar with - the (false) claim that they are 
||nihilists, that they ultimately believe in
|nothingness.
||
||
||<<<I think you have missed the point. HPB is quoting Wilson because 
||what he says is in agreement with the view she is putting in 
|the Secret 
||Doctrine, i.e. beyond ISWARA (spirit, Cosmic Ideation, the collective 
||Dhyanis) is ATMA around whose pavilions is MAYA. That's why 
|she draws 
||on Hindu and Vedanta when she wants to consolidate the view she is 
||presenting.>>>
||
||So Atma surrounds itself in mayavic "pavilions" but somehow
||is itself not mayavic? It seems very illogical to me to say that Atma 
||is "real" while it is located on a cosmic plane of illusion. 
|If Atma is 
||so real and permanent, then what is a "monadic ray?"
||
||
||<<A raindrop is not 'equal' to the ocean but it is identical 
|in nature. 
||>>
||
||Not a good analogy. Not the same in nature at all, just the same in 
||material composition. The nature of a raindrop is separation and 
||indivuation.
||
||
||<<Using analogy, we might call it an emanation of the ocean. 
|It is not 
||the essence of the drop that is identical in nature to the 
|ocean, it is 
||the drop itself which is identical in nature to the ocean. 
|There is no 
||need to add an extra layer of essence between the nature of the drop 
||and the Ocean, which is what you do. Atman and Parabrahmam, 
|Atman and 
||Brahm, Tathagata and Buddha Nature are said to be one. The Maya is
||that they are two different things when all the time they are
||of the same nature.>>>
||
||OK, Peter, lets go with this. I would define "maya" a bit differently 
||than you have above, and maybe that is part of our 
|differences here. I 
||would define the raindrop itself as maya, and I would say that this 
||raindrop had no "self" at all, no reality except in the sense of a 
||conventional one. The idea that the raindrop is different from the 
||ocean is not maya, but is ignorance - the arigpa that I mentioned in 
||another post. Why? Because they are on different planes of 
|existence - 
||the ocean exists in a different place.
||
||Lets say that the raindrop exists in the air falling down 
|from a cloud 
||and is falling toward the ocean, its ultimate destiny. Both 
|are made of 
||water, but we experience them, at least during the fall, as two 
||separate things. We think that the raindrop actually exists, and that 
||it actually falls down, and that one day in the far future, it will 
||merge with the ocean below. My take on such an analogy is this: the 
||raindrop is maya and the fall is maya, and our experience of these as 
||two separate and distinct things in space-time is our inherent
|ignorance.
||
||
||
||<<<Maybe we could extend the analogy (but not too far!) and 
|say a large 
||'drop' (Paramatman, or later a Dhyani Buddha) first emanates from the 
||Ocean, and this drop disperses into smaller drops & so on. Still the 
||essential nature of all the drops are the same.>>>
||
||OK, fair analogy here. I would say that from the very first emanation 
||of the drop, the drop itself is maya and the idea that such a 
|drop can 
||ever come about is ignorance.
||
||
||<<<Perhaps the drop (Atman) can never equal the Ocean
||(Parabrahm) even when it merges once again with its source 
|and 'knows' 
||it is ONE. But all the time it has always been the same nature.>>>
||
||OK, but why? It has been one and the same nature all the time because 
||of our initial assumption of an emanation - that something could 
||emanate or express itself in the first place. The whole 
|idea/definition 
||of "expression" and of "emanation" is all about like producing like, 
||which BTW is a process called svabhava.
||
||
||
||<<<I'll let HPB have the last word.
||"I make no difference between my Seventh Principle and the Universal 
||Spirit or Parabrahm; nor do I believe in an individual, segregated 
||spirit in me, as something apart from the whole." (CW V 52) ...Peter
||
||OK, and I agree - because if there were to be any "difference" then 
||liberation/enlightenment would be impossible. I do, however, have a 
||problem with Theosophists throwing around terms like Higher Self and 
||Individuality, and even Atman, as if these were indeed 
|"something apart 
||from the whole."
||
||Jerry S.
||--
||
||
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