Theos-Talk Archives (November 1993 Message tl00055)

The theosophical teachings do not fit in with the common idea of God
and universe, what is found in the modern exoteric religions and
philosophies of the world. There are certain doctrines that are kept
secret, hid, unspoken because they would be subject to misunderstand
and misuse, where they plainly taught, as they were in ancient days,
before the Mysteries were founded.

A number of the doctrines are mentioned in the theosophical literature,
and more are hinted at. The materials are not contrived, made-up, one
of many arbitrary philosophies, an empty content to be used as a form
of practice, with the emphasis entirely on *process*. No. The doctrines
are high truths formulated in early races by the elect of mankind,
a living expression given to the supernal knowledge given humanity by
the Dhyani-Chohans upon awakening the fire of mind in men.

We should first consider the concept of creation. When we say that
something is created, we mean that it is fashioned from already-existing
materials. When we say that we "create something out of nothing", it is
a blind, and does not mean what it might seem to say. A creation is
when an informing life brings a higher sense of organization to other
existing things, other creations. The "something" is the life that
gives a higher form of order to things that were there before. And
the "out of nothing" is the unmanifest state that the life, the Monad,
has come out of, when coming into manifestation.

The other aspect of creation is a "transformation", where the
expression or form of an already existing life has been changed. That
life now gives expression to something of ours. We have manifested
an influence that has affected it. A new karmic link has been forged.

As a creator, we are a channel for other, smaller, lives to come into
being. We are not their owner, but are like a parent, giving birth to
and helping raise them.

The metaphor of a parent, though, is not good to apply to the universe.
A parent is a being of the same scale of existence, of the same class,
kingdom, that provides for the continuation of life, that provides for
the entry into life of a fellow being. The higher kingdoms and the
governing of our universe is not, though, along those lines.

The metaphor to use is that of adults or grownups, as opposed to
children. We are looking at entire classes of beings who have reached
a greater development, unfoldment, spiritual and material maturity
than we have. As a class, they run the world, know what there is to
know, and see that we are taken care of. These are the Dhyani-Chohans.

The spiritual Law ruling the world is not the directed will of a single
being. It is the action of a higher class of spiritual beings--or rather
classes of spiritual beings. The world is not a game, a puppet show,
an experiment, of a single, all-powerful being, for whatever purpose,
be it amusement, or something practical like testing the creations
molded out of animated clay to see which have good qualities and are
worth keepint and which are not and need to be discarded. And the world
is not an attempt by some being, otherwise unable to express itself or
to attain consciousness, other than in and through all of us as its
multitude of eyes.

In order to acquire the keys to the wisdom teachings, to penetrate to
the hidden doctrines, to approach the esoteric thoughts regarding the
matters, we have to discard the heavy burden of mental baggage that
we carry with us from our upbringing in the western world. We have to
leave behind both deism, the idea of a personal deity, as well as
materialism, and all the companion ideas. We have to see things freshly,
openly, without preconception. Because of this, it is often easier for
an innocent, simple youth to approach the Teachings than an educated
adult, because of the *barriers to thought* created by false, but
sincere beliefs.

Every Monad is eternal, timeless, and has an equal right and basis for
existence. Where and how it exists depends upon what is already there.
It must have an existing universe, world, sphere of causes, present,
that can *host* it. A stage must be sought for its drama of life.
It does not get created out of nothing and is not owned by the world it
uses to come into being.

We all exist in a world of a certain *scale of being*. All Monads are
at a certain scale of being and this is, for them, eternal, unchanging.
It is something rooted in their timeless nature, their highest
principle, and places them in the scheme of things. We all progress,
develope, evolve at different speeds, and it is possible for our
fellow humans to fall behind us, or to outpace us, so that in distant
ages in the future, they will be in a lower or higher kingdom than we
are. But always, we are at the same scale.

The creatures about us, planes, animals, humans, are all on one scale.
The scale includes the Dhyani-Chohans, and future evolutions beyond
our globe chain as well. But we do not become planets, suns, nor
find entire universes to be our forms, our bodies, until *all of life*
has expanded to that point.

There will come a point where we all are parent stars, and our
life atoms, trailing behind us, are the beings that populate our
kingdoms. That time will come, when *all of life* itself has progressed
to that point.

The next idea to consider is the being/universe duality. There are
two sides, two views, two ways of experience the embodiment of a life.
Taking the standpoint of the being embodied, there is a form that
functions according to laid out laws, that functions automatically, that
is alive and has a limited awareness of its own.

The other standpoint, the dual side of it, is from that of the many,
the countless multitudes of beings, lifeatoms, Monads, who have come
together to make up that body, form, universe. These beings are coming
into manvantaric existence in their world, now that it has left
pralaya and is in active existence again.

Taking their standpoint, there is no single, paternal being that sees
all, knows all, that understands every feeling, action, thought of
each individual being. We do not, for instance, watch over every
individual cell in our physical bodies.

The paternal compassion that is felt in life is from a ruling class
of beings, rather a hierarchy of many classes of beings, one above
the other, all of which order and control the workings of the
universe. They architect and build the world. They carry out the
laws of life. As the creator of our earth, the biblical Elohim, they--
note the plural term--are the Dhyani-Chohans.

Compassion is the law, and there is unity at the highest of the
world. But there is no all-seeing being, no individual person, in
direct charge.

The mystery of manifestation and how life can exist is revealed in the
duality of the embodied being as the informing life and the created
universe as an organized realm of many classes of beings. This duality
contains an esoteric truth that holds the key to magic. We do not
control nature by saying our world is like a man so we put ourselves in
his place. We control it by understanding how the "underside" of a
life, the as-a-universe side, works, and relates to the indwelling life.

This dual nature to things is different from the macrocosm/microcosm
duality, for that duality talks about the fact that there is the same
pattern of life to all scales of being. We are all of the same pattern,
regardless of scale, all essentially embodied Monads. Our universe is
the embodiment of a Monad and we follow the same pattern. This pattern
is the same throught existence, with but minor variations due to
individual temperament. To understand ourselves, then, is to understand
our deity as well.

The macrocosm/microcosm teaching, though, misleads us when we seek to
use it to understand the inner workings of our universe. Those inner
workings, the higher nature of our world, refer to the uppermost realms
of the microcosm, its topmost levels, and not to the individual whose
existence is the macrocosm.

The very highest classes of beings approach the threshhold of nonbeing
and when they pass on, in their evolution, they enter classes in a
higher world. They have not changed scale. They have not become
worlds as we know them. They have moved on to other theaters, other
stages to play out the drama of life.

The highest classes of beings do not necessarily decrease in numbers,
shrinking down to one being, who becomes the one whose form makes up
the universe. This is wrong, a blind. When we read of single beings
ruling our world, like the Dhyani-Buddhas, they are *not* individuals,
they are classes of beings too.

Reaching up to the highest classes, there is no change of scale. The
beings of one scale do not become those of another scale, as they
become more and more advanced. They pass on to other worlds of the
same scale of existence. The scale is eternally fixed.

The unity of life at the highest of our world is not from all lives
eventually becoming a single being, but from the functioning of a
shared background to consciousness. In Atman, we share the same
consciousness, that of our *host*, our *creator*, and we are but one
level removed from dissolution of the manifest, of nirvana. But we
are still ourselves, though unaware of it at this level of being.
The unity of life is not due to a divine being *who is us* and who
we become if we go deep enough within. The unity is from a shared
life of the being of our world, and takes on the nature of that
being's attributes of consciousness, which become the type of
experience that we are able to have on its plane, in its sphere of
causes.

What we find about us in life is a *radiant tree of life*, coming
into being in an infinite chain of manifest worlds within worlds,
collectively called the Boundless All. We are one such branch on
that tree, in life, and share the responsibility of passing on the
life and light that flows within us. We have a responsibility to
all that trail behind, all our companions in life and all the
lifeatoms that call us home, that find us their universe. We are in
one big web of life which is based upon the principle of sharing,
giving, compassion, selflessness, and play our part in the great
drama of life.

                           Eldon Tucker (eldon@netcom.com)