Theos-Talk Archives (June 1996 Message tl00448)

Martin:
>According to my understanding of Theosophy swabhava operates also
>above the Abyss, but I'm not sure whether it is actually stated so
>by GdP. He says that swabhava is behind karma, reincarnation and
>hierarchies. So, for him it is a very important concept.
	Actually, your understanding is correct.  Technically
there is swabhava above the abyss, all the way to the uppermost
plane.  We know this because we can raise our consciousness
there, and we are still individuals.  But the swabhava above
the Abyss, like the shistas, is very general, and not as specific
as we usually think of it.  The oneness of the higher planes
tends to concel out specifics.
	Karma and reincarnation are mainly characteristics
of the lower planes.  On the higher planes are only the "seeds"
that impel us downward into periodic manifestation.  Swabhava
is a good example of the difference between theory and practice
because theoretically yes there is swabhava above the Abyss
but for practical purposes there is not.  I suspect that this is
one reason why HPB deliberately refrained from discussing
the higher planes, and talked only about the lower four.


>So, it would not surprise me (according to this line of reasoning)
>if the Divine Self has or rather is its own Swabhava, being a spiritual
>ray from a star (in GdP's system).
	It does, theoretically.  But I would not want to even try to
define or discribe it in words.  As soon as we have divine sparks
or Spiritual Monads (my I-Not-I Monad) we have differentiation,
and thus swabhava, but it is pretty hard to define.

>JS>"Progressive evolution" is an illusion, a maya, just like
> swabhava.  Both are very real on the lower four planes, but do not
> exist on the higher planes.
>
>How can you be so sure about that?
	Well, I could say intuition, but actually this conclusion
is a logical one as well because we are talking about a
beginning and end point that is outside of time and space.
Measurements and comparisons can only be made inside
spacetime.  Hierarchies don't exist outside of spacetime (the
only difference between a worm and a human being is time).
	To say that the Divine Monad is more advanced
after a manvantra then it was before gets us into a can of worms
over origins because anything that progresses (and this concept
requires time) must have started from what?  Science has taken
the universe all the way back to a Big Bang, but can't figure out
where the original materials came from or how it exploded.
If you want to do the same with the Spiritual Monad, you will
arrive at some beginning point that logically makes no sense
(a spiritual big bang?  a creation of something out of nothing?).

>Make it an infinite, eternally moving circle and I'll go along
>with that.
	"Infinite" and "eternal" only exist outside of spacetime.
In fact, that is exactly how the terms are defined.  All manifestation
is within spacetime.  So, everything within spacetime must have
a beginning and an end, a birth and a death.  Our beginning is
when we entered spacetime, and our end will be when we leave.
Of course, we can enter and leave manifestation in spacetime
as many times as we like, so in a sense it can go on forever.

	Jerry S.
	Member, TI