Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00498)

Jerry S:

>The Esoteric Wisdom Tradition, I
>believe, teaches that all manifestation is a huge
>circle. Within this circle are a great many
>spirals.

I've heard it sometimes called a "circle", but with
something more added each time around. What is added?
The part of us that is subject to change, and able
to come into relationship with the manifest, is affected
by the experience. With each circle, it is like starting
off with a blank sheet of paper to write an article.
There is nothing *on the paper* that carries over from
the previous article. It is only *in the writer himself*
that the previous experiences add to his ability at
self-expression and make him a better writer than before.
What is the "writer" in us? That part of us that stands
above manifest existence, but is still subject to time,
because of being in relationship to the existing, because
of its "gazing downward".

>HPB says it best when she says "The first lesson
>taught in Esoteric philosophy is, that the
>incognizable Cause does not put forth evolution,
>whether consciously or unconsciously, but only
>exhibits periodically different aspects of
>itself' to the perception of finite' Minds" (SD
>Vol II, p 487).

True. There is a ultimate since of perfection that does
not need existence. It is the highest part in all of us.
It is higher than that part that "gazes down" upon
existence. That Unknowable is perfect, beyond manifestation
in any form, and completely unchanging in any way, including
changes that result from an interaction with or relationship
with that part of us that comes into existence.

>She also show a picture of our
>previous manvantara or planetary chain, the
>Moon, compared with our present, the Earth, on
>page 172 of Vol I. This picture shows a direct
>horizontal crossover. She says, and show, that
>the Moon and the Earth are on the same plane.
>They would seem to be cycles.

The same plane, but perhaps a higher cosmic subplane.

>To me, this
>implies that THE DIVINE MONAD DOES NOT EVOLVE.
>Why? Because it is outside of time, and evolution
>and growth are time-dependent concepts.

I would say the Divine Monad evolves at its own level
and in its own scale of being, much as the Human Monad
does on its scale, the globes of a planetary chain.
Technically, of course, a Monad does not evolve, but
sends forth a ray of conscousness into existence which
evolves. But the Monad is still in relationship with
the existing; the relationship arises because of its
participation through the sending forth of that ray.

Higher than any Monad within is our rootedness in
Mystery, the Unknowable. This is not a Monad or is
there any sense of personal identity or even of things
that participate in existence. It is simply too perfect,
too pure, too absolute. These words, though, are not
really attributes of it, for it is without attribute
as we know it.

>There
>is, of course, relative evolution in the sense of
>growth along the upward Arc of Ascent. Evolution
>and involution are spirals within the Great
>Breath, which is a very large circle.

There are two models of "evolution" and they both work
in different ways. One is like that of the tides. There
is an outbreathing and an inbreathing, a going out of
the tide and a coming in of the tide. In this sense, we
have evolution followed by involution, following the
tide into then out of matter. There is also the idea of
a continual unfolding unto completion, when nothing more
simply can be done, and we need to wipe the external slate
clean and start over. This is like putting a julia set
through a series of iterations, until it "blows up" or
dissapears into a cantor dust (falls away from our sight
or our ability to manifest it in the media of a particular
world). From this standpoint, I would think the external
forms, as vessels for our consciousness, continue unfolding
through all the Seven Rounds, even though our cousciousness
reaches a most material point, and beings its ascent on the
second half of the Rounds.

>However,
>this evolution and involution has to do with the
>temporary expressions of the divine monad, such
>as the human monad. Not the divine monad itself.

The two manners of evolution, I'd say, have to do with
the process of existing, the process of the manifestion
of consciousness through a cycle of existence.

>But then G de P comes along
>and says: "This is the destiny of all evolving
>lives, man included: endless growth, endless
>duration in which to learn ... throughout future
>time... etc" (The Esoteric Tradition, p 198).

When we consider that we are rooted in the Divine, we
will always be around to continue our evolution or
existences on one world, then another, with no final
experience as the absolute end to our experience of life.

>And then a few pages later goes even further and
>says: "When one speaks of the relative perfection
>that may be and certainly will be in due course
>of the revolving ages attained by the evolving
>Monads, this term perfection' must not be
>misunderstood to imply either static immobility
>after its attainment,

The part of us that is subject to existence is by definition
non-static, forever subject to growth and change. That part
does not become the Timeless, it is ever striving towards it,
but is simple a different part of our constitution.

> or, on the other hand,
>the reaching of an absoluteness in evolutionary
>unfoldment beyond which further evolution is
>impossible.

Our evolution does not take us from participation in time,
from being manifest beings, and from that somehow become
the absolute, the timeless, the ever-perfect. That part by
definition is already within us, perfected, and ever-present.
The goal of evolution is not to try to somehow convert the
mortal part into the immortal, it is to "dance the dance of
life". That is, when we come out into existence and seek
evolution, we are taking on that experience *in addition to*
our never-ending experience of Mystery.

>Such attaining of a purely
>hypothetical absolute' ultimate is impossible
>.. How can an evolving Monad reach an end,
>whence there is nothing further in the way of
>growth or farther progress?" (p 213).

Technically, the Monad is not evolving, it is its ray that
evolves. And yes, we never reach an end to participating in
manifest existence, because of having somehow externally
become too perfect to continue.

>On the surface, these views seem to conflict.
>Not only does G de P's view conflict with HPB's
>view, but it also conflicts with mysticism
>and esoteric occultism - both of which he was
>very familiar.

It's not really a conflict since we are really talking
about conflicting natures of *two different parts of
ourselves.*

>I think that these views can be reconciled by
>suggesting that HPB is viewing manvantaric
>manifestation from the viewpoint of the divine
>monad, which is to say from spirit looking
>downward into matter. From this viewpoint, there
>is no real evolution, and the divine monad simply
>self-expresses in a large circle through the
>cosmic planes of manifestation, with lots of
>spirals in between.

Agreed, but I would put the Unknowable as qualitatively
different than any Monad, however high.

>G de P, on the other hand,
>is viewing manvantaric expression from the
>viewpoint of the human monad, which is to say
>from matter upward into spirit.

Not just matter evolving upward to spirit, but including
the learning, growth, and inner treasury gathered through
experience over one manvanatara after another. This
karmic treasure cannot completely come out in any one
manvantara, much less any one lifetime, but it is still
a living part of us. This is why I would say that the
first "layer" of the unmanifest is that karmic treasury,
our storehouse of experience, something that is a living
part of us even though only partially able to come into
existence at any time. In this sense, it comprises the
essential nature of the Monad itself, as a changable being
subject to time, in its role in looking down upon the
manifest planes of existence. But that part of us is
lower, of course, than the timeless nature, our essential
Self or Ideal which is distinctly *us* but does not participate
in time.

>From this
>viewpoint, the human monad evolves without
>seeming end, while growing forever. If we
>remember that HPB defines eternity as the length
>of a manvantara, then there is no real conflict
>between these two views.

It quickly gets hard to talk about these things. Especially
when we need to make distinctions and talk about different
layers or levels to the unmanifest or non-existing, and talk
about how those parts of us relate to the part that is in
existence and subject to evolution and the tides of life.

-- Eldon