Theos-Talk Archives (October 1999 Message tl00067)

In a message dated 10/5/99 7:27:03 AM Central Daylight Time,
gschueler@iximd.com writes:

> This is a "must" book for anyone interested in Tibetan
>  Tantra.

Cozort's book includes practices common to sutra and tantra but only covers
the generation stage and completion stage yogas of the Kalachakra and
Guhyasamaja Highest Yoga Tantra.  Power's book, Introduction to Tibetan
Buddhism, is where theosophists should start.  Then they should study the
difference between lam rim and sudden paths.  Then, they will have the
information base to understand the difference between the Nyingmapa Highest
Yoga Tantra, Ati Yoga or Dzog chen, and the rest of the lam rim of graduated
path Highest Yoga Tantras.  HPB's Central Asian and western
Tibet/Bhutan/Kashmir contacts would have most likely have been Dzog chen.  As
I posted here over a year ago.  The Stanzas of Dyzan are identifiably a bad
paraphrase (from memory?) of the Central Asian Dzog chen root text that is
used by the Kalmucks (with whom HPB had early contact in the Caucasus) and
Mongols.  Also, that the Stanzas of Dyzan are of Dzog chen origin was stated
by the Dalai Lama in 1992.

Although, if Power's is correct that the Bon religion is not really the
indigenous pagan religion of Tibet but a reworking of it by an earlier
non-Buddhist form of Dzog chen (that also influenced alchemical Taoism), then
some things HPB says about the 8th or 9th(?) sphere may indicate she got the
pre-Buddhist/pre-Nyingmapa form of Dzog chen.  If so, one would naturally
find reincarnation into animal form absent as well as the Buddhist doctrines
of anatman/sunyata absent, which is what we do find in HPB.

Grigor V. Ananikian (one who spent last 30 years, off/on, in Afghan and
Tibetan monasteries of Kalugpa, Nyimapa, and Bon lineages as practitioner of
Mahamudra/Dzog chen).

P.S. Dzog chen also infiltrated Naqshibandi Sufism of Dagestan, Armenian
Zoroastrianism, Uigherian Manichaeaism, and Northern Complete Reality School
of Taoism through Liu I-ming.  As Chogyal Namkhai Norbu has recently
suggested, Dzog chen may reflect a very ancient spiritual path that pre-dates
Buddhism and is to be found under a variety of religious guises.

G.V.A