Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00906)

Tom:
>If I jump off the Grand Canyon, I do not decide that I will fall.  The
>law of gravity exists independently of anything I can do and
>regardless of whether or not I am aware of it.  

Not altogether true, Tom.  The so-called "law of gravity" is but one
of many social agreements that we monads made when we came 
here.  Not our human personalities, but our spiritual Selves.  These
"laws" exist independently of personalities and physical bodies,
but are very dependent on our Egoes (cap E) or Selves (cap S)
or higher self (or whatever you want to call your spiritual counterpart
or core).  

>The perception of them is real.  They are not.
	Anything unreal cannot be perceived.  Things are
perceived because they are real.  You might even say that
perception is a test for reality.

>If an hallucination is real, the term "mistaken perception" has no
>meaning.  
	It could mean that our perception has changed.  It could
also mean that our perception is not in agreement with society.
"Hallucination" means that we experience something that no one
else experiences.  What is seen is nonetheless real.


>If I thought that there was no such thing as the
>Theosophical Society, I would be just as truthful as someone else who
>thought there was.  The word "truth" would be meaningless.
	"Truth" means different things to differnt people.  It usually
means whatever we experience.  The human mind always tries to
fit our experience into some kind of model or mental system--today
called a worldview.  When our worldview matches our experience,
we call this truth or reality.  However, our experiences always keep
changing, and so our worldview must change, and with it our sense
of reality or truth changes as well.

>It exists as a perception, but not necessarily as reality.
	Here is apparently where we have our real disagreement.  I
can't imagine how anyone can perceive something that doesn't
exist.  It has to exist in order to be perceived.  Perception is
reality.  As our perception changes (hopefully toward the spiritual)
so our reality changes as well.  Thoughts and ideas are real
things on the inner planes, even those that have no physical
manifestation or counterpart.

>I find the idea that the law of karma changes as my perception of it
>changes to be very far-fetched.  That would mean that there is no
>objective law of karma.  
	What do you mean by objective?  If you mean governed
by God, or ruled by deities or angels, then I would say no, there
is no such law of karma.  And if God does not rule such a "law"
then who does?  We do.  We make our own karma, and let ourselves
be affected by it for good or ill.  No one else does it for us.  However,
it certainly seems objective to us as we go through life, doesn't it.
The general agreements that the monads make between each other
during each life-wave, for each Globe, establishes the laws, rules,
and policies of that life-wave and Globe.  This then becomes the
collective karma for that life-wave.  This is all done telepathically
by monads or spiritual beings--which we humans are but the
temporary human expression.  Thus our collective karma is that
which we all have agreed to before we begin incarnations on any
Globe.  Its kind of like the rules of a game.   Once the rules are
established, the game must be played within them, else one is a
bad sport.  Adepts are bad sports, sometimes, because they are
able to break the rules with impunity (ie., they can act karmaless).
However, like all bad sports, they are usually shunned by the
other players, and they do have a price to pay for their boldness.

>If the law of karma is different for you than it is for me, then it is
>a non-existent figment of our imagination.  Why wouldn't the law of
>gravity work the same way?  Maybe if I do not believe in it, it does
>not exist.
	I think I already covered this one.  Karma and gravity are
two of the rules of the game of life that we are currently playing on
Globe D of the Earth planetary chain of 12 Globes.  By the way,
there is no such thing as "figment of the imagination" in the way
it is commonly used.  Imagination is a divine characteristic that
allows us to go beyond our human condition.  You degrade that
divine attribute by such a phrase.  Everything that we can imagine
has a reality somewhere on the inner planes, else we wouldn't
be able to imagine it.


>I infer that you mean that we can escape the consequences of our
>actions simply by choosing to do so.  I disagree.
	You are becoming tangled in pronouns.  The I that can
indeed escape karma is not the personality or everyday human I.
Even the physical body can escape its normal karmic destiny.
Jesus did it, and others in the East are said to have had their
physical bodies disappear after death (Milarepa and many others).


>Do they mean to neither plan for the future nor learn from the past?
	No, they mean that we should consider the lilies, how they grow 
and toil not, etc.


>Does this have something to do with recognizing the connection, if not
>the identity, between subject and object?
	Right.  Below the Abyss it is a connection.  Above the Abyss
it is an identity.


Jerry S.
Member, TI