Theos-Talk Archives (May 1995 Message tl00045)

A few meandering thoughts:

Lewis: <Can we act without generating karma? >

Every action produces a reaction, so I suspect that yes, every
action we make generates karma. But, we don't have to let past
karma effect us. In a sense, we can eliminate past personal
karma. In another sense, what we really do is not so much
eliminate it, but rather simply manage to be unaffected by it
(which for practical purposes is the same thing).

Keith: <I admit I know the concept more from Ilya rigogine's now
early "Order Out of Chaos" and not all the recent work.>

Check out his new one: Exploring Complexity (1989). A lot more
math, but definitely interesting.

Keith: < Karma focuses on the Past as cause and effect as a type
of memory - it is reactive>

Glad you mentioned this. I recently came across an interesting
finding. Some scientists have been studying the brain and memory
using chaos theory. They discovered that "experience changes
memory." Memory can be observed in terms of neurological
patterns, and these can be changed. I wonder how this affects
karma? Just how much a role does memory play in the law of karma
anyway?

Keith: <But the problem of the ego as a kind of vortex of
negativity and creativity stills haunts me.>

Why do you see the ego as negative? It is an expression of the
inner god or divine Self. It is a complex in the Jungian sense,
but only seems negative when given too much inflation with
itself. BTW, the gnostic demiurge, Yaldabaoth, is the cosmic
equivalent of the ego. His only real sin is ignorance of his
true nature.

Keith: <Some suggest the ego should be extinguished so the Self
can enter Nirvana - Buddhism.>

This is doubtless picky on my part, but Buddhism does not teach
the elimination or extinguishing of the ego, but rather that the
ego has no real existence to begin with. Nirvana appears to
result in the extinguishing of an ego, but the ego has no real
existence to be extinguished.

Keith: <I think Blavatsky said that theosophy was a type of Jyana
or intellectual yoga.>

God, I hope not! Can you give me a source on such a remark? As
far as I know, she said that her SD can be used as a type of
Jnana Yoga. HPB said several times that Raja Yoga was the best
one to practice for the serious student. Most folks haven't a
clue as to how to practice Jnana Yoga.

Keith: <The Bakti yoga or the cult of the guru has never appealed
to me - look at the Branch Davadians and that Japanes cult.
Karma yoga seems to be the way of the Puritan heritage - work out
your salvation with fear. >

Right. With Bakhti Yoga or Guru Yoga, you have got to have a
real Master or you will get into a lot of trouble. BTW, this is
the yoga that H.H. the Dali Lama seems to prefer and he has
co-written an excellent book on it. Karma Yoga is the one
preferred by the TSs (and by Liesel).

Keith: <Chaos seems to tip the applecart in unexpected
directions.>

It can. But after all, thats life - few things go exactly as
planned.

Keith: <Has anyone talked about the idea that Blavatsky seemed to
suggest that Lucifer (bringer of the light of consciousness) got
a bad name somewhere along the line?>

I don't think we discussed this. He got a bad name because he
was responsible for us being thrown out of Eden. BTW, you should
read the excellent article on the Garden of Eden in the latest
issue of Sunrise by Nancy Coker.

Keith: <That consciousness was a gift, but that it gave man, the
Promethean fire of the mind.>

I think you mean self-consciousness rather than just
consciousness - which is what we are and not an attribute or
characteristic. The formation of self-consciousness brought
about the original dualistic split between self and not-self or
subjectivity and objectivity; and the rest, as they say, is
history.

Suchness. The Buddhist concept of suchness implies authenticity
or something that is a thing-in-itself. It refers to anything
that has no parts. Buddha called things that are collections of
parts 'aggragates.' Scientists used to think that atoms were tiny
indivisible spheres. But now we know that atoms are aggragates
too. According to Buddhism, all aggragates are maya; their
reality is illusive. Our body is a collection of parts. Jung
showed that our minds too are a collection of parts. The
unconscious is also, and so is the cosmos. So when we look
outside ourself or inside, all we can see are mayavic aggragates.
I suspect that everyone here knows about the example of a car,
but I will briefly go through it. Take a car. Remove a door.
Is it still a car? Yes. Then remove the windshield wipers. Is
it still a car? Yes. Then remove the tires. Is it still a car?
Keep this up long enough, and sooner or later you will reach a
point where the name 'car' no longer applies. We give aggragates
like cars names and then think that they are real things, but
really all you have are parts put together in certain ways. And
the parts are also aggragates. According to theosophy, suchness
only applies to monads, which by definition are indivisible. A
monad has no organs, no cells, no parts. Therefore, a monad has
suchness. Monads only exist on the highest of the seven cosmic
planes. So, everything that exists on the six lower planes, the
so-called Planes of Manifestation, are aggragates. They are
maya. They have no suchness. On the highest plane, the divine
(or whatever name you want to call it) everything has suchness.
This is the home of monads. Each monad is in a condition of
nonduality; not split or separated in any way. The essence or
constitution of each monad is called monadic essence, which is as
good a term as any. There, countless hosts of monads exists
outside of space and time. Zillions of look-alike monads exists
together in the very same space and time so that you can't tell
if you see one or a billion (which accounts for the strong sense
of oneness experienced by the world's mystics). It is this
concept of monads that brings theosophy and Buddhism close
together, but only when we allow that monads exist only on the
first, or highest, cosmic plane (thus Buddhism insists that the
human monad, the animal moand, and so on as taught by the early
theosophists are as mayavic as anything else and not true
monads). Just a few thoughts.

Jerry S.