Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00368)

Eldon quotes G de P:
<"So it is with spiritual clairvoyance. What the physical eye sees,
you must be perfectly assurred is something quite other than spiritual
clairvoyance. Spiritual clairvoyance is the faculty of vision, of
seeing, with the inner eye; and it is not so much a seeing of forms
and of things, as a getting of knowledge, and because this getting
of knowledge comes in a way whhich has a close parallel to seeing
with the physical eye, it is called spiritual 'clairvoyance'
--direct vision. (The Esoteric or Oriental School: Steps in the
Initiatory Cycle, 77)<

Eldon, I have no problem at all with G de P. He is talking here about
"direct vision" or Gnosis. This is NOT done with the human mind or manas but
with atma-buddhi.

Eldon:<Purucker uses "psychic" differently than "mental", and I think
that HPB did too. We cannot always consult our dictionaries for the
proper theosophical usage of a term, if we want to understand
what we're reading in our theosophical books.>
 This seems to be another area of conflict brought about by the problem
of termonologies. I was using psychic and mental as synonyms in the Jungian
sense. When I think of "psychism" I think of any expriences or data coming
through the mental senses or human mind or manas (high or low). Rich is
trying to clear this up by introducing the term Noetic for the higher. All
in all, this kind of stuff demonstrates the termonology problem that
theosophy is burdned with today.

Eldon:<We can understand atomic physics through reason, experimentation, and
flashes of intuition. This did not require any psychical senses or "occult
chemistry".>
 Technically you are right. However, one man's intuition is another
man's psychism. If I told you that some of the material that I used in my
magic books was from my intuition, you may not agree, and might say that I
channeled it via psychism. How can I prove it, one way or the other? Also,
intuition is no more "real" or accurate than anything else. We all sometimes
have intuitive flashes that are plain wrong.

Eldon:<Most of the books that I've read do not promote astral travel as a
goal. >
 Agreed. It is a technique, a means to a goal.

Eldon:< I don't think we try to take our consciousness out of the
human mind. The goal is to shift the awareness away from the mind,
to go higher within, and become aware of other manners of
consciousness. The mind continues, the stream of thoughts continue.>
 I think that you are playing word games with me here. I don't see
much difference between "take" and "shift."

Eldon:< The mind continues, the stream of thoughts continue.>
 They may at a lower samadhi, but the higher (nirvkalpa, I think)
samadhi is one in which the human mind stops thinking - its stream of
thoughts does come to a stop. I still say that every Path needs a goal or
purpose or destination. The goal of yoga is to shift consciousness out of
the human mind and bring that mind to a halt. Most people (including Jung)
think that this equates to death, but the yogi knows that it is existence
itself, pure consciousness itself. Now this goal may or may not be the goal
of a theosophist. It really depends on his or her "mission" or task in any
one life. It is one of my goals, but perhaps not yours. Thats OK.

Eldon:<The goal is not to escape our physical world, and merely be an
embodied being on some other plane, it is, I'd say, to awaken yet
higher parts of our nature, which to this point are dormant in
our physical lifes.>
 Agreed as long as the knowledge gained is used to help others in some
way.

Eldon:< I'd say that on any plane that we may come into existence, we take on
all seven principles, which represent the complete ingredients of
consciousness.>
 I think that you are a bit confused here. We don't come into existence
on any one plane - we do so on all of them. We are not just on the physical
plane right now. Parts of each of us are on all seven cosmic planes right
now this instant. We don't "go" to another plane, we merely shift
consciousness to that part of ourselves that is already there.

Eldon:<This includes both an other form, senses, feelings, thought, etc. But
our evolution *is here*. We are working on bringing our higher principles
into consciousness in and through our human personalities.>
 Your confusion continues. We don't "bring our higher principles
into consciousness" in the physical body which "*is here*."
Your seem to be confounding the physical and mental. When you say "our
evolution is here," I will agree only if your "here" refers to this planetary
chain of 12 Globes. If you are referring to Globe D, then I strongly
disagree. Globe D is only for evolving our physical bodies. I think that
this goes back to earlier discussions on this subject, in which we are using
totally different models of the planetary chain. I take the model given by
HPB in the SD as appended by G de P, which is a slight variant of the
Qabalistic Tree of Life. I am not sure where your model comes from.

Eldon:<When we take a theosophical group as a seekers' club, ..>
 You seem to have entirely missed my point. I said that we should do
our seeking outside of any TS. How does this make the TS a "seeker's club?"
 In your response, you seem to totally disregard the third objective of the
TS. Would you care to write an article on just how we should accomplish the
third objective?

Eldon:<A study combined with the attempt to live a spiritual life is
practical, not theoretical. It is a tried-and-proven approach.>
 I think I follow your point here, but my argument is that it all depends
on how you define "spiritual life."

Eldon:<It could be argued that the intellectual-spiritual approach is
the direct one, and an emphasis on the psychic abilities leads
people to avoid it, rejecting it as theoretical because it may
seem less tangible than an experience of the senses. >
 Perhaps. But I don't know of anyone who would fit this description at
all. Most people avoid the intellectual-spiritual approach and seek psychism
because it is the easier road. People in general are lazy and don't want to
be told that the Great Work is one of many lifetimes. Many magicians accept
HPB's work as a treasure of theory and study it, rather than rejecting it.
 However, they follow a different "path" in that they prefer a faster (and
more dangerous) route to the slow (but safe) route described in theosophy.
Personally, I have nothing at all against such a personal choice, as long as
this choice is taken at step 3 - after ethics and compassion are firmed
developed.

Eldon:<It seems to work that way. But we have much more to offer than
training in psychic abilities.>
 Agreed. I am, after all, still a theosophist.

 Jerry S.