Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00444)

Rich:<"When the substratum consciousness ceases there
>remains, shining in its own purity, a ninth consciousness,
>the "immaculate consciousness" (AMALAVIJNANA). This
>consciousness is the PERMANENT, ultimate, true reality."
>
>Sounds like "monad" to me, but I could be wrong ...
>
>Buddhist texts which teach this idea of a permanent
>conscious essence in all beings include:
>
>Samdhinirmocana sutra
>Aksayamatinirdesha sutra
>The Abhhisamayalamkara
>The Madhyantavibhaga
>The Dharmadharmatavibhaga
>etc.>

Thanks for all the nice quotes, Rich. I did, after all,
ask for a quote. However, I rather was more interested in
a quote having to do with your notion of evolution. Perhaps,
you forgot what your argument was all about? Perhaps you
forgot what we were talking about? I don't know. I am
happy to hear that you have a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies.
But you still haven't answered by point. All of
your quotes tell us that Buddhism teaches that consciousness
can rise above the cosmic planes of manifestation into
timelessness and spacelessness. I think that this is a true
teaching. But what on Earth does this have to do with the
idea of evolution? Lets go back to your original post to
which I made my request for a quote:

Rich wrote:<Well, H.P.B. is not alone in her "error," all the
Tibetan Buddhists and Hindus believe that each evolution
gains greater and greater awareness, in the same way each
reincarnation is said to evolve the inner person.>

Granted each reincarnation "evolves the inner person" at
least during the upward Arc of Ascent. But your posting, as
I understand it, says that at the end of each manvantara
(which I think was the title of your post) we end up higher
than before. This is the "error" that we were talking
about, anyway. I was asking for you to give me a quote that
says manvantaras are spirals rather than circles. None of
your quotes do this. There is also your suggestion that
pure consciousness is monadic. Basically, I support this
idea and would agree. Where Buddhism and theosophy part
company is the theosophical teaching about all of the other
monads - the human monad, the animal monad, and so on. This
is pure theosophy, and is not found anywhere in Buddhism.
Eldon gets around this saying it is a matter of viewpoint,
and I think that this is a good way of reconciling the whole
issue. But again, this is not my original point - which
had to do with beginning a new manvantara on a "higher" plane
than the previous one. You asserted that "Tibetan Buddhists
and Hindus" believe this, and I simply asked for a quote -
but your quotes were all directed at another teaching, one
that I do agree with. In fact, it is the teaching expressed
in your quotes - that pure consciousness leaves behind all
manifestation and thus all time and space - that leads me to
conclude the idea of "higher" manvantaras to be in "error."
Because in that divine region, higher and lower no longer
exist, so how can we logically say we begin on a higher
subplane?

 Jerry S.