Theos-Talk Archives (November 1993 Message tl00044)

I mentioned "stepping through atman into the manifest worlds" in an
earlier note, and Jerry H-E asked what I meant. Here's a brief note
on Atman, which explains my meaning.

----

When we speak of the process of coming into manifestation, of first
moving out of the unmanifest planes into outer existence, it might be
said that we *step through atman* on our way out.

In the world of matter, the highest, the seven aspect of matter is
single, unified, a dissolving point, a laya center into which matter
passes from one plane to the next.

In a similar fashion, Atman is a laya center for our manifest
existence.  It is a dissolving point, a element of consciousness that
is single, unified, the manifest consciousness of total union, of
a manifest sense of nirvana, but one step removed from the actual
experience.

Atman is universal, an aspect of conscious where there is total unity
with all of live.  It is the point of view where one realizes that all
life is one, because it is the shared consciousness among all beings,
a consciousness that is completely above and beyond any sense of
separateness, or even of relatedness to others.  We are, at this
level, everyone else, all at once.

Atman is the dissolving point where all sense of separate being has
departed, and we are removed from being unmanifest by the thinnest
veil of awareness.  We are reduced--or raised to, depending on one's
point of view--a simple awareness of being, an awareness of being
alive and participating in it, but not of being separated out in any
particular relationship to others.  It is, in other words, the
dharmakaya vesture, the highest form we can manifest ourselves in,
when in a particular world.

When this thin veil is removed, there is nothing left, we are
completely unmanifest.  Even Atman, though, has a "personality" to it.
It is the root consciousness of the world, the globe, the universe
into which we assert *I exist* and choose manifestation in.  Each
globe, each planet, each universe, each realm of manifestation has its
own unique Atman, and this is the derived consciousness that we obtain
by association with the greater being, whose existence, whose outer
form, we use as the world we will exist in.

Apart from existence, without our seven manifest principles, we dwell
in the highest triad, the three unmanifest principles, number eight,
the Auric Egg, nine, Swabhava, and ten, Paramatman.

The Auric Egg has the seeds, the storehouse of karma, and in a sense
it could be considered the seventh principle, since Atman is not
really a principle of *our* consciousness, it does not personally
belong to us.

Coming into manifestation, we first take on Atman, but the first sign
of us as apart from the whole, as distinct in life, is in Buddhi,
where we come into relationship with the other beings in the world and
participate in co-creating it.  And then with Manas there comes the
distinct self, as apart from relationships from others, the sense of
Ego.  From the lowest unmanifest plane, the home of the Auric Egg, our
storehouse of being, we take on Atman as we enter the world, but the
experience is one of *stepping through Atman*, directly taking on
Buddhi as well.  We don't acquire the atmic consciousness, then dwell
in it for a while, before taking on Buddhi.  At least, there is no
awareness of such.

Atman is stepped through, much like a laya center is passed through,
in passing from the higher to the lower.  There is no
self-consciousness in passing through it, because there is no
possibility of any sense of self in it.  *I* pass through it unaware,
I first find *myself* in Buddhi.  Atman is passed through, rather than
being a place to exist in itself.

This is not to say that there is no consciousness, per se, in Atman,
and that it does not represent an active element of our constitution.
The reverse is true.  It is the most basic, the most elemental, the
most profound part of what makes us up.  Learning what it means and
dwelling it leads to Atma-Vidya, self-knowledge of the highest kind,
and leads to our ultimate perfection.  It is our living nature, as
rooted in universal life, our conscious oneness with all, the mystery
behind our personal existence.

Atman is not a place, it is the very highest expression of who and
what we are.  It is the summit of all that we have actualized in life.
It is the highest that we can experience of life before passing
beyond.  Atman is the finest granularity of consciousness that can
every possibly exit in the world, its Ring Pass Not, beyond which we
can no nothing more but more on to other worlds, other stages of
manifestation, other spheres of causes.

As with all of the seven principles of consciousness, it is an active
element of our consciousness.  We experience it at every moment of our
lives.  It is never absent.  What is absent is our attention that we
fail to pay to it, our granting of awareness to the experience that it
represents, an experience that we always have.  What is missing, in
our lack of awareness, is a sense of self-consciousness, and this is
the Treasure of existence that we come into life to awaken the spark
of, to fan into a fire, and to raise within, one principle after the
next, until we take it to Atman then bring take it further, taking it
*home* deep within.

                                  Eldon Tucker (eldon@netcom.com)