Theos-Talk Archives (December 1993 Message tl00011)

Above and beyond Atman, beyond the seven manifest principles of
consciousness, we are told of three more, of three unmanifest
principles. Since they do not *exist,* they are more difficult to
think about and understand.

Principle number eight, the one immediately above, and brooding over
Atman, is the Auric Egg. It contains the karmic seeds or the residual
of experience. It carries over experiences from the distant, unknowable
past, streatching back even into previous mahamanvantaras.

The Auric Egg is the sum total of our personal evolution. It is very
time-oriented, changing at every split instance of time. It is that
part of us which does not exist, but overshadows existence, that
records, that responds to, that takes in every event of our lives.

The Auric Egg holds the repository of our experience. It is not a
manifest principle, it does not partake of the nature of the world.
It is untouched by the outer events, except for their essence, the
lessons that have been learned in them, the highest parts of the
experiences that have been *raised up* into and made a part of it.

Brilliant, luminous, but not visible, it does not occupy space or
position, but still broods over that area in space where we live and
have our existence. It is everywhere, but still somehow more
concentrated about our bodies and the areas where we live our daily
lives.

The experiences that are incorporated into it are the effects of our
current karma, effects destined for expression in future lifetimes.
It contains the totality of us, as we have made ourselves, at this
very moment in time. It is the storehouse of the essence of self-
consciousness.

The Auric Egg is also the experience of pure nirvana, untouched by even
the flavor of existence in any world. It is above the sense of
individual self (Manas), the co-creation of existence (Buddhi), and
of pure being (Atman). It is not *being*, because it is unmanifest,
in it we do not exist; it is a state of *non-being*, for there is
nothing to *be*, noone to experience being anything.

It could be described as absolute silence, blackness, but at the same
time be called utter fulfillment too, and perfect bliss. It is the
"other shore," the other side of the Great Divide, the ultimate
reward for being or existing in life.

It is what is left of us, what we are, at this moment, when we are
*nothing at all.* It is, in one sense, sunyata, the void, the emptiness
behind life. It is also an assemblage of dynamic potential, awaiting
an opportunity at actualization.

We have a sense of duration, because of the affect of the other Monads
in our constitution, above and below the Human Monad, and because of
the seven lowest sub-principles of the Auric Egg. The sub-principles
reflect the sense of manifest existence, but are only a thin film, a
veil, a taste of such, and not the real, actual experience.

The self of the manifest world, for the moment, has been annihilated.
It is gone. No more do we say "I am this," or say "I am," or even say
"I," but we can only say "this," and even that word is not right,
because we are and we have no thing, no object to call by that word.
There is just a pure sense of "now," a sense that things go on, that
live lives and moves, but no active participation in it.

In one sense, this plane or principle is the consciousness of time,
the principle of pure duration. The Human Monad returns to this state,
in the bosum of the Spiritual Monad--itself still manifest--in the
after-death state of devachan.

But the experience of the unmanifest is not just an after-death
experience. It is also a principle of consciousness and an integral
part of the experience of life. We may be unaware of it, but it is here,
at this time, a part of ourselves, and is never gone. We have only
forgotten it, or turned our backs on it.

The experience of consciousness in the Auric Egg is the great reward
that we may someday hope to step into. It is a real part of us, an
element of our totality of consciousness, and not an aspect of the
Unknowable itself.

It is not touched by existance, but is above, behind it. It is
everywhere but nowhere, the pure essence of self, the monadic essence,
and stands apart from any coming of us into being, into manifestation.

This principle is like a personal god, in one sense, overshadowing us,
our creator, our ultimate source of union. It sees us everywhere,
and knows all about us, because all we do and become enters into it.

In its physical form, something like the human aura could stand as
a symbol. There are no colors to it, though, nothing at all about it
that has to do with manifestation. Consider it as a fullness of space,
with various, ever-changing contents, but not like a sharply defined
egg of light. Perhaps a better symbol would be a radiant orb with
light that dims with distance but without end to its reach.

To us, the Human Monads, it is our Inner God. Our Divine Monad has
its seat therein. It is the very highest, best, most spiritual that
we have become and is itself only rooted in the timeless, our
eternal, unchanging root nature.

Picture it as the darkness of chaos, brooding over the waters of
cosmos. Out of it arise the manifest order of cosmos, our manifest
existences.

When we look upwards towards the divine, the truly transcendent, and
feel touched by it, it is this part of us that we've experienced. In
it is contained the sweetest sense of perfection, of completion, of
union with the beloved, that we could ever experience.

It is not pure *being,* but beyond that. It is pure essence, the
monadic essence. It contains the experience of the absolute silence
of extinction, but also of utter fullness. We could call it nirvana.
It is higher than personal bliss, though, which comes from the
freedom from the burden of the sense of having a personal self, freedom
from Manas or Kama-Manas.

It contains an end to being, to existence, but not to consciousness.
We still have self-consciousness, strange as it may sound, but not of
a form that we'd know as such, because it would be so high, so holy,
of so divine a nature.

We can and should strive to make this consciousness a part of our
lives. It can uplift and infill us. It can root us in the purpose and
meaning of life. And it can one day become such a part of the very
fabric of our being that we too will have become gods ourselves, that
we too will be not just workers in the Plan, but divinities ourselves!

                              Eldon Tucker (eldon@netcom.com)