Theos-Talk Archives (April 1994 Message tl00006)

This one is by Eldon Tucker.

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     In a study of the Esoteric Philosophy, as we consider any of
our vast doctrines, we may find ourselves limited in how far we can
go. We may find that we are held back by some of the ideas that we
learned as we grow up, or that we are exposed to in our day-to-day
life. We need to free ourselves of much mental baggage that we
carry with us, baggage that puts us at a disadvantage to someone
growing up in another culture.
     One idea that shows up in many forms is that the Infinite is
the biggest finite thing, and that if one kept getting bigger and
bigger, one would eventually come to it, the biggest, the highest,
the most powerful thing in all of existence.
     A variation on the idea is that there is an ultimate
perfection, but it is something that one can reach, if he kept
evolving and evolving, that it is an attainable goal.
     A third twist on this idea is that the infinite is unknowable
and beyond our experience, since it is so high, so far off, so
transcendent, so perfect.
     A paradox may be posed to us: What happens when an immovable
object is met by an irresistible force? This is only a so-called
paradox. It assumes that there is such a thing as an immovable
object and such a thing as an irresistible force. An immovable
object cannot exist, there will always be a force strong enough to
overcome its inertia. And the same for an irresistible force.
     The paradox attempts to endow something that is manifest,
finite in nature, with an infinite attribute or power. This is not
possible. Nothing *can exist* with infinite attributes.
     The infinite aspects of consciousness are very real, and we
have them as a part of our experience. But they are just as we have
said: in-finite, not-finite, beyond the conditioned existence of
finite, manifested existence.
     Another word that might be used for *infinite* would be
*unmanifest,* because that is what it is. Those attributes of life,
those aspects of consciousness that deal with unconditioned
existence, with the state of *non-being,* as opposed to the our
finite state of *being,* are as important to our experience of life
as the parts of ourselves that we are more immediately familiar
with.
     Until we acquire a philosophical basis for considering the
unconditioned states of consciousness in our thought, they will
appear to us as mystical experiences, because we have not acquired
the ability to articulate them. But they are not mystical, and are
as real and as substantial a part of life as any other experience
of live, be it eating food, talking to a friend, or reading a book.
     Our experience of life in the manifest world, in conditioned
existence, is in and through the seven principles of consciousness,
from Atman through the physical body. Our experience of life as is
transcends the manifest world, in unconditioned existence, is in
and through the three higher principles, numbers eight, nine, and
ten, the higher triad that overshadows our existence.
     Consider the law of cycles. If you take a cycle and give it
infinite duration, you would be making the same mistake as the
people whom would say that the Infinite is the biggest thing in all
existence. The mistake would be to give an infinite attribute to
something that exists in the manifest or conditioned world.
     No cycle can *exist* that is of infinite duration, that will
repeat itself forever and forever, without ever ceasing. A cycle is
not a mechanical process, a mechanism that exists in the universe
that persists independent of what happens. A cycle is the effect of
a living being in a universe, the result of some life, and its
effects are felt only as long as that being continues to exist. And
that being, of however grand a stature, will cease to exist, if not
sooner, then at the pralaya or dissolution of the universe in which
it finds its home.
     Every universe, however grand, has its beginning and its end,
its birth, lifetime, and death. And there is no such thing as The
Universe, when speaking of the totality of all, everywhere, both in
and out of existence at this moment. The name for that totality is
the Boundless All, and can be considered as a Grand Fullness
(*Idam* or This) or a Grand Void (*Tat* or That).
     There is an infinite, a perfect, a unconditioned side to the
experience of life. And it is there for everything that exists.
Every being comes into manifestation out of that perfection.
     This perfection, though, although it includes everything, all
possibilities, all capabilities, all aspects of life, is still not
*perfect* perfection. For us, it represents our personal experience
of the nirvanic consciousness, of utter completion because of not
being limited to having to make choices and take on a particular
nature.
     But even in our unconditioned selves, we are not truly
perfect. There is much more for us to learn. As our consciousness
embraces the all, it is still dim, weak, and uncertain, and there
is a definite extent to our effective *reach* even when in nirvana.
     There is a duality in us: the unconditioned, unmanifest,
perfect, universal experience of non-being, on the one hand, and
the conditioned, manifest, imperfect, limited experience of being,
on the other. Being arises out of non-being, as a ray or projection
of consciousness. We are both parts, and they are inseparable, and
we have not lost our root consciousness, our basic experience of
void as we take on outer life as a living human being.
     This duality exists in the various aspects of our world as
well. With time, there is absolute time, unconditioned time, the
perfect side to duration, and relative time, conditioned time, the
imperfect experience of time in a particular world.
     Our experience of cycles is of this second type of type, the
broken time *(Khandakala),* the sense of time that only exists when
there are objects in activity with which to measure it by.
     Consider the cycle of a day. This may appear to be a fairly
stable cycle. It is the cycle of a being, the earth, doing one spin
on its axis. For the beings on the earth, it demarks a cycle of
activity, with many active at daytime and sleeping at night.
     The length of a day may change over many billions of years,
and as it does, the beings living on earth will adjust their lives
to accord with it.
     We would not say that a day is a cycle that controls our
activities. Rather, the day is a cycle of the world in which we
live, and we synchronize our own activities, our own cycles of
living to harmonize with it. When it changes, we change or we
experience discord and find it harder to live.
     But a day is not a cycle that externally controls us; it is
something in a world in which we exist that we come into
cooperation and accord with. We have a relationship between us and
the cycle of a greater being. It is not a situation of us being
externally controlled or predestined or locked into the cycles of
life on earth like two interlocking gears in a machine!
     A day as we know it will have its end. At some point in the
distance future, our sun will have burned out and our earth will
have gone away. They will have entered pralaya, dissolution, and
will cease to exist. No longer existing, our particular experience
of "day" will be gone as well.
     Other cycles will exist, and appear to be eternal, but only
exist for the duration of their world or universe. They too will
have their time when they come to an end. Like the beating of a
heart, a cycle may continue, faithfully, for the entire duration of
the life of its originator, then cease when that originator dies.
     Cycles, though, do not have to be synchronous, to continue at
regular intervals for the entire duration of their existence. They
can also be asynchronous, to happen at apparently random intervals.
But regardless of their timing, they follow a universal pattern.
     There is a beginning, where the seeds of previous cycles
sprout forth into a period of growth, activity, completeness, then
withdrawal, dissolution, and death, as the cycle ends. When a cycle
repeats, it is done slightly better than before, because of the
previous experience brought to bear on it.
     And cycles can happen with different intents or purposes. The
same activity is done, but under a different influence. We could be
writing an article on economics for a school purpose. (The cycle is
the experience of writing the article.) Then we repeat the cycle of
writing an article, but this time on Theosophy, and although the
steps that we go through and the writing skills that we apply may
be the same, the experience that we have is entirely different.
     The same could be said, on a bigger scale, of the different
evolutionary periods, under the rulership of different hosts of
beings, collectively known as the Dhyani-Bodhisattvas and Dhyani-
Buddhas. There may be different intents or purposes behind our
periods of existence, and these influences greatly qualify our
experience of life as members of the human lifewave.
     The important thing to do when considering cycles is to give
up the mechanistic view, to give up picturing cycles as interlocked
gears in some cosmic machine, to give up the thought that cycles
are universal, absolute realities that apply everywhere, throughout
all universes both big and small, and apply forever, throughout all
time and times.
     Cycles as we know them are an aspect of conditioned existence.
We should not look to them for a sense of the permanent, for a
sense of order and rule to life, for a sense of peace and
perfection. The permanent, the ruling order, the absolute peace and
perfection can be found elsewhere, in the void, in the unmanifest,
in our highest nature, the highest triad, above and beyond our
conditioned selves and their experience of manifested time.
     We have as an integral part of our consciousness the
unconditioned, the experience of abstract space and abstract time.
This is not far off, imaginary, a other-worldly vision, nor is it
in any way vague, tenuous, or make-believe. This part of us is as
much a part of our being as our mind or any other part of our
natures, and is very real and substantial in its own way.
     How do we understand this part of ourselves? By experiencing
it. Not by trying to understand it, by trying to picture it in some
other part of ourselves. We understand it by direct experience and
not by indirection or analogy.
     Consider the feeling of being in love. Words can qualify the
experience--much like the sense of smell can enhance the taste of
food that is eaten--but the feeling of love is a different faculty
of consciousness than the mind, than the words and ideas that we
describe things with. We do not experience love just by using the
words in the mind. We must evoke the feeling nature.
     The same is true with the higher experiences of life. We
understand the experience of the void by evoking the part of our
nature that has that consciousness. Thinking about it can enhance
the experience, and bring a clarity of consciousness to it. But the
experience is not to be had simply by playing with words in the
mind. This is something where we must "do it to know it."
     Our highest nature must be experienced to be made real, and
that experience is by the bringing of self-consciousness to what we
already have as part of our conscious natures: our Highest Triad,
the Auric Egg, Swabhava, and Paramatman.
     We experience both unconditioned time and conditioned time,
both pure time and the cycles of manifest existence. We experience
both finite, conditioned space and eternal, abstract space. We
experience both sides of every quality to life. And we are not
fully functional until we bring a balanced awareness of both sides
of the Great Divide, of the Abyss, to our everyday experience.
     In our spiritual training, we can learn to become more aware
of our inner nature. And with a solid philosophical and
metaphysical basis for our experiences, one that we acquire with a
study and deep contemplation of the Teachings, we can come to bring
many treasures into our lives. We can enhance our living of life by
the deeper, richer, more whole and complete perspective that this
brings to our lives. There can be a lot more to even simple things,
like drinking a glass of water or making a phone call, than we may
realize!