Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00139)

Tom Robertson writes:
>On Wed, 8 Jan 97, John Straughn <JTarn@envirolink.org> wrote:
>
>>Reality is what can not be changed by will.  However, reality does evolve, 
>>does it not?  Therefore, does it not change?
>
>Forms constantly change, but are illusory.  The laws governing evolution
>are real, in that they do not change, but what evolves is not real.  It
>depends on how "reality" is defined.  Forms are commonly called "reality,"
>but, since they constantly change, their identity having no duration, I
>would not include them in my definition of "reality." 

Ah.  Well, if you're speaking of reality in that sense, then it is my 
understanding that the laws themselves are illusory as well.  For the laws are 
not actually laws, but monadic force.  Man has simply named them "laws" 
because he can not understand the monadic principles of reality.  I suppose 
that as long as you are defining "law" as a force which cannot be changed or 
redefined except by a force higher or "stronger" than itself, then it could 
probably be generally excepted.  For instance, if you believe in the 
manvantara/pralaya system, then the "wonderous being" actually does have the 
power, but perhaps not the will, to release a specific monad from its duties 
and/or annihilate it.  So I suppose that one could say that we, as average, 
everyday human beings, cannot change the "laws" of reality simply by the will 
to do so.  However...

You say that free will has nothing to do with evolution.  You say that the 
monadic forces of "reality" (or laws of reality, for I don't  know if you 
accept monadic doctrine or not) are the only forces which govern it.  But 
don't we, as individual monads ourselves, have the power to control our own 
evolution?  For instance, if by using my free will to tell you and convince 
you that the only way you could evolve to a "higher sphere" was to get in 
touch with your higher self and forget the personal, selfish ego (the lower 
manasic principles and beast principles), and you accomplished doing so, and 
evolved, wouldn't that be me and you together controlling our own evolutions? 

Of course, I can agree with you that we do not govern the principles which 
"allow" us to evolve, however we do govern the choice to actually eveolve.  
That is what free will is all about.  I have the free will to throw a ball 
through a window, but I do not govern the forces that make the window break or 
make the ball fly through the air.  If you want to look at it on a massive 
scale, taking my previous example (I say massive scale on the basis of 
evolution being defined as a race or family of beings who have changed through 
a series of adaptations, which is a bad definition of "evolution" considering 
I am focusing more on spiritual and psychological evolution than physical 
evolution) If, while showing you the "spiritual path to enlightenment", I also 
told and convinced twenty other people of the same, and those twenty convinced 
twenty others and so on, eventually A LOT of people would be on a similar path 
of evolution.  And this evolution was *chosen* by them.

I'll stop for now, for I think I may have already gotten off of the beaten 
path.  Toodles.
---
The Triaist