Theos-Talk Archives (October 1995 Message tl00318)

Rich:<Say what? The Self is Maya? I thought that everything was "Maya"
(illusion)
EXCEPT the Self or Atman? That's what the Bhagavad-Gita seems to teach, and
the original Theosophical thinkers seem to follow that path.>

I think that you are right about the Gita. Whether the "original
Theosophical thinkers" thought so or not, I don't know or care. All
non-dualistic schools teach that there is no Self, no matter how much
we want to capitalize the word. This includes all of Mahayana
Buddhism (which you should know very well) and Vedanta. as well
as Taoism. The beginning of the Self or atma, is thew beginning of
duality. Self is one pole and World or Not-Self is another, and both
only exist in dualism. I am a non-dualist, and so I interpret the
theosophical writings that way. This leads to a lot oc conflicts with
you and Eldon and others who have no understanding of non-dualism.

Rich:<I agree with "Coherence" (who lately joined the list -- welcome!) that the
Atman is from our perspective "passive" and thus not self-conscious. Rather,
the teachings (which Coherence selects) seem to point to Manas as the seat of
self-consciousness, and Atma-Buddhi as substratum, support, backdrop of
evolution. Have I gotten it all messed up?>

Yes, I think you have it wrong by a mile (IMHO). None of our
principles are inherently self-conscious. None. Neither is any of our "bodies"
including the physical body, although medical science likes to think so. Only
one thing has consciousness - the Divine Monad, which as Purucker says,
is a mass-less, form-less, and space-less consciousness-center. The
Divine Monad sends out a ray of consciousness that extends downward
through all of the bodies (objectivity) and egos (subjectivity). When this
ray focuses in the physical body through the physical senses, we are in
what is called the waking state. When this consciousness shifts upward
to the astral body and focuses through the astral senses we are in what
is called the dream state. When this consciousness shifts upward some
more to the mental body and focuses through the mental senses we are
in what is called the sleep state. Same with the causal body, where it is
called the deep dreamless state or coma. We have only one consciousness,
and this is rather like a ray of light that focuses through sensory equipment
of our bodies in order to experiences the cosmic planes. Consciousness
shifts upward or downward through what HPB calls the sutratma, but
which in the West is called the Silver Cord. If you try to make manas
have an inherent self-consciousness, you are going to have logic problems
in other areas of your worldview. BTW, Rich, atma-buddhi is a fancy
technical Sanskrit word for causal body. And in a sense, the causal
body is the background or evolutionary support for our personality.

Jerry S.

Jerry S.