Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl00077)

Dear Jerry&Jerry,

excuse me for budding in on your discussion, but I have some comments to
the remarks made about planes a few days ago. Jerry HE seems to hold the
opinion that the Besant-Leadbeater-Bailey enumeration of planes is some
sort of novel idea and misunderstand of a teaching by HPB. To the best
of my knowledge it is the other way round. And I will proceed to explain.
The HPB source material for
this is on pages 605-615 of CW vol. XII and at the end of SD 3rd-5th
editions.

In the semi-esoteric Samkhya system we find 25 tattvas or planes and the
reason for this becomes apparent when reading HPB?s notes. Two tattvas were
considered esoteric and instead of giving away the whole system thr
ancients made up their systems of 5 or 6 principles. The names of these 25
tattvas
are partly blinds. The solution to the riddle is that it is a system of 5
major planes with 5 sub-planes each. Esoterically we then get a system of 7
major planes with 7 sub-planes each.

The problems arises with the 5 lower planes. HPB and the samkhyas gives
these the names of the corresponding 5 elements: akasha, vayu, taijasa,
apas and prithivi. The other philosophers give them the names of
principles: atma, buddhi, manas, astral, physical.

The question is: can a case be made for this enumeration? (else Jerry S.
will be in trouble. He will be functioning as a nightly magician in the
element of water instead of the astral plane :-)  . Not only can there, but
in my opinion the second enumeration is the ancient esoteric. I have had no
time to make a detailed exposition of the case - but I have made a search
of the sanskrit texts on my harddrive. These include writings by Shankara
and Vyasa and are generally regarded higher than Samkhya philosophy. Here
are my findings:

None of the hundreds of hits in 74 volumes on the word tattva connected the
term with elements in the sense of the Samkhyas.

Dozens of hits each connected words like atma and buddhi with the word t
attva. In the Vivekachudamani by Shankara alone he uses the terms atma and
tattva together about 10 times.

Here are a few examples, mainly from the Mahabharata and Vivekachudamani:

budhaastattvaartha  (meaning of the term buddhic plane)
paraM tattva bhuutena (beyond the planes of the elements)
tattva buddhyaa  (plane of buddhi)
tattva buddhiH (buddhic plane)
siddhaa rajjutattva (siddhas, paranormal faculties of the plane of desire)
tattvamaatmanaH (the atmic plane)
 ---- the list is really long

I think it speaks for itself. I rest my case (how about that Liesel).

In friendship,

Kim