Theos-Talk Archives (December 1993 Message tl00054)

When we consider the globes and planes, it is easy to fall back to the
commonly-held belief that the planes are places that we go to. But our
functioning on higher planes is not thorough evolved bodies, there are
not worlds *on the different planes* waiting for us to explore them.

The higher planes are not places to visit. It is the *higher globes*
that are the places, the worlds, the earths that we will one day have
embodied existence on, e.g. fully developed consciousness in and through
a physical body.

There are a number of levels of meaning to the nature of other worlds.
As we progress in our understanding, as we contemplate the deep truths,
we come to realization after realization. We move forward and find that
we have come see further truths. We find that our old understandings
are not wrong, just incomplete, just misunderstood because of missing
something.

We start off with the idea that nothing is real, not even what we see
before us. We have progressed beyond this level of appreciation of
life, and may only experience it if our higher natures are paralyzed,
like in severe depression or drunkeness.

The next stage would consider what we see about us as real, but only
what we see. This is like animals generally experience things. There is
no memory or appreciation of other events in life that qualify our
experience of the moment. We are driven by external stimuli and are
not self-directed in thought.

The third stage admits a tangible, objective physical world, but would
say that it is all that there is. There are events apart from ourselves,
and they are physical. Everything is due to known physical processes.
This is the level that many people still experience life at.

A fourth stage would have extensions of the physical world, to allow
for paranormal phenomena, but seeks to still explain it according to
physical laws, as extensions of the laws of physics, quantum mechanics,
nonlinear dynamics, and does not admit to other aspects of existence.

Then comes a stage where other worlds are admitted, worlds that coexist
with our earth, but are entirely non-physical. These worlds
interpenetrate our earth, and have their own populations, including
humans, animals, planets, and so forth. These worlds have their own
laws, and nature is a bit different in each one of them. We can visit
them in dreams, in illness, and go to them to live when we die.

This fifth stage is still a form of materialism, but now we have
more than one physical world, but everything is still due to the action
of bodies on their appropriate planes of existence.

In the sixth stage, we learn to disassociate the idea of the seven
principles of consciousness from the planes. The principles are not
bodies on different planes. We learn about monads, egos, and souls,
and how they are different from the principles and elements of
consciousness. We have full existence, as a seven-principled being,
on each plane.

Going deeper, we then learn that the planes are not places, not an
infinitude of levels or layers of physical existence, like a fourth
dimension to physical existence with each level along the fourth
dimension being another plane. We go deeper and learn that the globes
are the places on the different planes that we visit, that there are
discrete places to exist, and when we exist on any such globe, we
have our full seven-principled self.

And the eighth level would be where we learn of the tree of life,
and how we come into manifestation through the *self* of a universe,
where the universe lends us its Atman and qualifies our existence.
We learn the nature of the Boundless and how the unmanifest relates
to it. We learn about the highest triad, the three upper-most
principles of consciousness.

There are level after level to what we may learn about the theosophical
teachings! It is an endless voyage of discovery, full of wonder and
magic. We can spend a lifetime in exploration and never reach the end,
for we are tapping into the Wisdom of the Masters, and through them
into that of the Dhyani Chohans themselves!

                           Eldon Tucker (eldon@netcom.com)