Theos-Talk Archives (October 2002 Message tt00196)

That both Mormonism and Theosophy suggest that a black skin is a 
curse for having sinned in the pre-existence is an interesting corollary 
which requires further research. It might be noted that on 9 June, 1978, 
the Mormon hierarchy announced that black-skinned persons would 
thereafter enjoy Ôall of the privileges and blessings which the gospel 
affords. 
http://mailbox.univie.ac.at/~muehleb9/index.ht=
ml
--- In theos-talk@y..., <dalval14@e...> wrote:
> Oct 25 2002
> 
> As I read and study in Theosophy, it teaches that each spirit/soul is
> an immortal and reincarnates.
> 
> There is no teaching, or ethical possibility, or logic behind the
> concepts of: "Master Race" or "Slave Race.".
> 
> Every individual generates their own Karma and is thereafter subject
> to it.
> 
> From life to life, incarnation is not regulated by the political or
> geographical boundaries we know of today.
> 
> Let me offer the following for consideration:
> 
> The mystery about reincarnation -- as to whether it is a fact or not,
> revolves around our understanding of the nature and the powers of the
> Mind (Manas).
> 
> Ordinarily the Mind is thought to be immaterial, or to be merely the
> name for brain-action, in evolving thought. Thinking is still a
> process wholly unknown other than by inference. Yet it is also held
> that if there is no brain, there can be no mind. A good deal of
> attention has been paid to cataloging some mental functions and
> attributes, but the terms in our language are absent to describe
> metaphysical and spiritual facts about man.
> 
> THE HIGHER MAN
> 
> Theosophy states the fifth principle is Manas, translated Mind. Other
> names may have been given to it, but it is the Knower, The Perceiver,
> The Thinker. The sixth principle is Buddhi, or spiritual discernment;
> the seventh is Atma, or Spirit -- the ray from the Absolute Being.
> English as a language, may suffice to describe in part what Manas is,
> but not Buddhi, or Atma, and will leave many things relating to Manas
> undescribed.
> 
> 
> THE LOWER MAN
> 
> The course of evolution developed the four lower principles (Desire,
> Life-energy, Astral and Physical bodies) and produced at last, the
> form of man with a brain of better and deeper capacity than that of
> any other animal.
> 
> This man in form was not man in mind, and needed the fifth principle,
> the thinking, perceiving one, to differentiate him from the animal
> kingdom and to confer the power of becoming Self-Conscious. The 
Monad
> (Atma-Buddhi) was imprisoned in these forms, for without the 
presence
> of the Monad evolution could not go forward.
> 
> 
> THE LIGHTING-UP OF THE MIND
> 
> Going back for a moment to the time when mankind was devoid of 
mind,
> the question arises, "who gave the mind, where did it come from, and
> what is it?" It is the link between the Spirit of God above and the
> personal below. It was given to the mindless Monads by others who 
had
> gone through this process ages upon ages before in other worlds, and
> it therefore came from older evolutionary periods which had been
> carried out and completed long before the solar system began. This is
> the strange theory which must be stated if we are to tell the truth
> about Theosophy; and this is only handing on what others have said
> before.
> 
> The manner in which this Light Of Mind was given to the Mindless Men
> can be understood from the illustration of one candle lighting many.
> Given one lighted candle and numerous unlighted ones, it follows that
> from one light the others may also be set aflame. So in the case of
> Manas. It is the candle of flame. The mindless men having four
> elementary principles of Body, Astral Body, Life and Desire, are the
> unlighted candles that cannot light themselves.
> 
> 
> MIND IS A GIFT FROM OUR ELDER BROTHERS -- THE WISE
> 
> The "Sons of Wisdom," who are the Elder Brothers of the family of 
men
> on any globe, have the Mind-light. It was derived by them from
> others -- their "Elders," who reach back, and yet farther back, in
> endless procession with no beginning or end. They set fire to the
> combined lower principles and the Monad, thus lighting up Manas in 
the
> new men. And from there began the preparing of another great race 
for
> final initiation.
> 
> This lighting up of the fire of Manas is symbolized in all great
> religions and Freemasonry. In the East a priest appears holding a
> candle lighted at the altar, and thousands of others come to him in a
> procession, to light their candles from this one.
> 
> Manas, or the Thinker, is the reincarnating being. It is the immortal
> who carries the results and values of all the different lives lived on
> earth or elsewhere.
> 
> 
> MIND BECOMES DUAL IN THE PHYSICAL MAN
> 
> Its nature becomes dual as soon as it is attached to a body. For the
> human Brain is a superior organism, and Manas uses it to reason from
> premises to conclusions. This also differentiates man from animal, for
> the animal acts from automatic, the so-called instinctual impulses.
> Whereas the man, can use Reason. This is the lower aspect of the
> Thinker or Manas, and not, as some have supposed, the highest and 
best
> gift belonging to man.
> 
> Its other, and in Theosophy higher, aspect, is the intuitional, which
> knows, and does not depend on reason. It is Manas allied to Buddhi --
> spiritual discrimination and Wisdom. The lower, and purely
> intellectual, is nearest to the principle of Desire, and is thus
> distinguished from its other side which has affinity for the spiritual
> principles (Buddhi and Atma,) above. If the Thinker, becomes wholly
> intellectual, the entire nature begins to trend downward; for
> intellect alone is cold, heartless, selfish, because it is not lighted
> up by the two other principles of universality and immortality:
> Buddhi and Atma.
> 
> It is Manas which sees the objects presented to it by the bodily
> organs and the actual organs (which are seated in the Astral body)
> within. When the open eye receives a picture on the retina, the whole
> scene is turned into vibrations in the optic nerves which disappear
> into the brain, and there Manas is enabled to perceive them as idea.
> And so with every other organ or sense. If the connection between
> Manas and the brain be broken, intelligence will not be manifested
> unless Manas has by training found out how to project the astral body
> out and away from the physical, and thereby keep up communication 
with
> fellow men.
> 
> 
> OUR ORGANS OF PERCEPTION ARE TOOLS FOR THE MIND
> 
> That the organs and senses do not cognize objects, hypnotism,
> mesmerism, and spiritualism have now proved. For, as we see in
> mesmeric and hypnotic experiments, the object seen or felt, and from
> which, all the effects of solid objects may be sensed, is often only
> an idea existing in the operator's brain. In hypnotism there are many
> experiments, all of which go to show that so called matter is not per
> se solid or dense; that sight does not always depend on the eye and
> rays of light proceeding from an object; that the intangible for one
> normal brain and organs, may be perfectly tangible for another; and
> that physical effects in the body may be produced solely from an idea.
> 
> The well-known experiments of producing a blister by a simple piece 
of
> paper, or preventing a real blistering plaster from making a blister,
> by force of the idea conveyed to a subject, either that there was to
> be or not to be a blister, conclusively prove the power of effecting
> an impulse on matter by the use of that which is called Mind (Manas).
> But all these phenomena are the exhibition of the powers of Lower
> Manas acting in the astral Body and the fourth principle -- Desire,
> using the physical body as the field for the exhibition of the forces.
> 
> LOWER MANAS AND ITS POWERS
> 
> It is this Lower Manas which retains all the impressions of a
> life-time and sometimes strangely exhibits them in trances or dreams,
> delirium, induced states, here and there in normal conditions, and
> very often at the time of physical death. But it is so occupied with
> the brain, with memory and with sensation, that it usually presents
> but few recollections out of the mass of events that years have
> brought before it.
> 
> It interferes with the action of Higher Manas because just at the
> present point of evolution, Desire and all corresponding powers,
> faculties, and senses are the most highly developed, thus obscuring,
> as it were, the white light of the spiritual side of Manas. It (Lower
> Manas) is tinted by each object presented to it, whether it be a
> thought-object or a material one. That is to say, Lower Manas
> operating through the brain is at once altered into the shape and
> other characteristics of any object, mental or otherwise. This causes
> it to have four peculiarities.
> 
> * First, to naturally fly off and away from a selected point, object,
> or subject;
> *
> * Second, to fly to some pleasant idea;
> *
> * Third, to fly to an unpleasant idea;
> *
> * Fourth, to remain passive and considering nothing.
> *
> The first is due to memory and the natural motion of Manas; the 
second
> and third are due to memory alone; the fourth signifies sleep when not
> abnormal. And when abnormal is trending toward insanity.
> 
> 
> HIGHER MANAS AND ITS WORK
> 
> These mental characteristics all belonging to Lower Manas. It is
> these which the Higher Manas, aided by Buddhi and Atma, has to fight
> and conquer. Higher Manas, if able to act, becomes what we 
sometimes
> call Genius. If completely master, then one may become a god. But
> memory continually presents pictures to Lower Manas, and the result 
is
> that the Higher is obscured. Sometimes, however, along the pathway 
of
> life we do see here and there men who are geniuses or great seers 
and
> prophets. In these the Higher powers of Manas are active, and the
> person is illuminated. Such were the great Sages of the past, men like
> Buddha, Jesus, Confucius, Zoroaster, and others. Poets, too, such as
> Tennyson, Longfellow, and others, are men in whom Higher Manas 
now and
> then sheds a bright ray on the man below, to be soon obscured,
> however, by the effect of dogmatic religious education which has given
> memory certain pictures that always prevent Manas from gaining full
> activity.
> 
> In this higher Trinity, we have the God above each one; this is Atma,
> (the 7th principle) and may be called the Higher Self. Next, (the
> sixth) is the spiritual part of the soul called Buddhi; when
> thoroughly united with Manas (the fifth) this may be called the Divine
> Ego, or the Spiritual Soul.
> 
> 
> THE REINCARNATING SELF IS AN IMMORTAL
> 
> The inner Ego (Manas), who reincarnates, taking on body after body,
> storing up the impressions of life after life, gaining experience and
> adding it to the Divine Ego, suffering and enjoying through an immense
> period of years, is the fifth principle -- Manas -- not united to
> Buddhi.
> 
> This is the permanent individuality which gives to every man the
> feeling of being himself and not some other; that which through all
> the changes of the days and nights from youth to the end of life makes
> us feel one identity through all the period; it bridges the gap made
> by sleep; in like manner it bridges the gap made by the sleep of
> death. It is this, and not our brain, that lifts us above the animal.
> 
> The depth and variety of the brain convolutions in man are caused by
> the presence of Manas, and are not the cause of mind. And when we
> either wholly, or now and then, become consciously united with 
Buddhi,
> the Spiritual Soul, we "behold God," as it were. This is what the
> ancients all desired to see, but what the moderns do not believe in,
> the latter preferring rather to throw away their own right to be great
> in nature, and to worship an imaginary god, made up solely of their
> own fancies, and not very different from weak human nature.
> 
> 
> DUTY AND WORK OF THE REINCARNATING MIND-MANAS
> 
> This permanent individuality in our present race has therefore been
> through every sort of experience, for Theosophy insists on its
> permanence and in the necessity for its continuing to take part in
> evolution. It has a duty to perform, consisting in raising up to a
> higher state all the matter concerned in the chain of globes to which
> the earth belongs.
> 
> We have all lived and taken part in civilization after civilization,
> race after race, on earth, and will so continue throughout all the
> Rounds and Races until the seventh is complete. At the same time it
> should be remembered that the matter of this globe, connected with it,
> has also been through every kind of form, with possibly some
> exceptions in very low planes of mineral formation.
> 
> But in general all the matter visible, or held in space still
> unprecipitated, has been molded at one time or another into forms of
> all varieties, many of these being such as we now have no idea of. The
> processes of evolution, therefore, in some departments, now go 
forward
> with greater rapidity than in former ages because both Manas and
> matter have acquired facility of action.
> 
> Especially is this so in regard to man, who is the farthest ahead of
> all things or beings in this evolution. He is now incarnated and
> projected into life more quickly than in earlier periods when it
> consumed many years to obtain a "coat of skin." This coming into life
> over and over again cannot be avoided by the ordinary man because
> Lower Manas is still bound by Desire, which is the preponderating
> principle at the present period. Being so very influenced by Desire,
> Manas is continually deluded while in the body, and being thus deluded
> is unable to prevent the action upon it of the forces set up in the
> life time.
> 
> These forces are generated by Manas, that is, by the thinking of a
> whole life time. Each thought makes a physical as well as mental link
> with the Desire in which it is rooted. All life is filled with such
> thoughts, and when the period of rest after death is ended, Manas is
> bound by innumerable electrical magnetic threads to earth by reason 
of
> the thoughts of the last life, and therefore by desire, for it was
> desire that caused so many thoughts and ignorance of the true nature
> of things. This is called by the Hindu philosophies "maya."
> (illusion).
> 
> An understanding of this doctrine of man being really a thinker and
> made of thought, will make clear all the rest in relation to
> incarnation and reincarnation.
> 
> The body of the inner man is made of thought, and this being so it
> must follow that if the thoughts have more affinity for earth-life
> than for life elsewhere a return to life here is inevitable.
> 
> At the present day Manas is not fully active in the race, as Desire
> still is uppermost. In the next cycle of the human period Manas will
> be fully active and developed in the entire race. Hence the people of
> the earth have not yet come to the point of making a conscious choice
> as to the path they will take; but when in the cycle referred to,
> Manas is active, all will then be compelled to consciously make the
> choice to right or left, the one leading to complete and conscious
> union with Atma, the other to the annihilation of those beings who
> prefer that path of an isolated selfishness.
> 
> 
> The COMPLEXITY OF NATURE IS FOCUSED IN MAN
> 
> How man has come to be the complex being that he is and why, are
> questions that neither Science nor Religion makes conclusive answer
> to.
> 
> This immortal thinker having such vast powers and possibilities, all
> his because of his intimate connection with every secret part of
> Nature from which he has been built up, stands at the top of an
> immense and silent evolution.
> 
> He asks why Nature exists, what the drama of life has for its aim, how
> that aim may be attained. But Science and Religion both fail to give a
> reasonable reply. Science does not pretend to be able to give the
> solution, saying that the examination of things as they are (as Nature
> has arranged them), is enough of a task. Religion offers an
> explanation both illogical and unmeaning and acceptable but to the
> bigot, as it requires us to consider the whole of Nature as a mystery
> and to seek for the meaning and purpose of life, with all its sorrow,
> in the whimsical and fanciful pleasure of a God who cannot be found
> out. The educated and enquiring mind knows that dogmatic religion 
can
> only give an answer invented by man while it pretends to be from God.
> 
> This gives an idea of the scope of Man's potential and work.
> 
> I hope this will prove to be of use.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Dallas
> 
> ========================
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bart L
> Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 6:26 PM
> To
> Subject: Theos-World Australia's karma