Hi everybody!

As it just so happens, Nicholas, Jon, and I are attending an advanced class at Krotona on The Secret Doctrine vol. 2. The class is being given by Joy Mills, one of the world's foremost authorities on The Secret Doctrine. I thought it would be good to give some of the insights I have acquired as a result of attending the class.

As it just so happens, I would like to share something not from class, but from a casette tape I received. (Nicholas gave me a bunch of casette tapes while I was visiting him at his house.) Here is one quote I pulled out about karma, a quote that struck a chord with me:

"Let us be able to withstand any little shock that happens to us today, take it bravely, accept it as our karmic pattern, because nothing can happen to us that is not in our karmic pattern. And, what did we do, to bring it about? Handle it at a very high level, with intelligence and reason, and you will be fulfilling a very noble part of your own better self, in the way you live."

(Vonda Urban, "H.P. Blavatsky, Mesanic Messenger (tape), 1991

Vonda would say that we need to learn to "walk above our karma as if on stilts".

Here is another quote from Vonda's tape:

"We can't change people by coerciveness, by hitting them over the head with these teachings. But we will change people's hearts by the examples that we show ourselves to be, among the people that fill our world, in the daily experiences that our karma necessitates."

(Vonda Urban, "H.P. Blavatsky, Mesanic Messenger (tape), 1991

Nick the Pilot,

Nice quotations. I wonder if we can find anywhere theosophical quotation of wisdom such as these for our daily living or enlightenment?

Thanks

Yesspiritual,

There are a lot of quotes here and there, but I have not seen any organized complilation of them. Perhaps we could start a "great Theosphical quote of the day" thread?

What great Theosophial quotes have you seen recently?

Nick the Pilot,

I support that, create a board or thread here specially for people to post theosophical quotations that they like, and see how it goes after some time.

Thanks

There already is a theosophical quote thread:

http://theosophy-forum.com/index.php?showtopic=6&hl=

Hi everybody!

Here are some quotes from the first day of class:

"...the first thing which the members learn there is a true conception of the relation of the body, or physical sheath, to the inner, the true man. The relation and mutual interaction between these two aspects of human nature are explained and demonstrated to them, so that they soon become imbued with the supreme importance of the inner man over the outer case or body." — Key to Theosophy

--> As Joy remarked, this is certainly not the first thing most new members learn!

"Every form on earth, and every speck (atom) in Space strives in its efforts towards self-formation to follow the model placed for it in the ' HEAVENLY MAN.' . . . Its (the atom's) involution and evolution, its external and internal growth and development, have all one and the same object — man; man, as the highest physical and ultimate form on this earth; the MONAD, in its absolute totality and awakened condition — as the culmination of the divine incarnations on Earth." (Sd vol 1 p 183)

--> It is as Joy said: Everything in the universe is striving to know itself.

Near the end of the class Joy referred to a text called the Original Programme of the Theosophical Society. She considered it essential reading. Within that long article is part of a letter from one of the Adepts. This letter was slightly revised by HPB and published as Some Words on Daily Life.

Here it is: http://theosophy-forum.com/index.php?showtopic=76&hl=

Here are links to the whole book:

The Original Programme of The Theosophical Society

(online)
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/theos/th-origp.htm

(hardcopy)
http://www.questbooks.net/title.cfm?bookid=519

Hi everybody!

I wanted to review the idea that all beings in the universe have already, or will in the future have to pass through the human stage.


"The cycle of man is not complete so long as he has not passed through terrestrial life. Not one stage of trial or experience can be skipped; he must have been a man before he reaches the state of pure Spirit." -- FRAGMENTS FROM MADAME BLAVATSKY
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/bcw/b78-4.htm


"The Doctrine teaches that, in order to become a divine, fully conscious god, -- aye, even the highest -- the Spiritual primeval INTELLIGENCES must pass through the human stage. And when we say human, this does not apply merely to our terrestrial humanity, but to the mortals that inhabit any world, i.e., to those Intelligences that have reached the appropriate equilibrium between matter and spirit, as we have now, since the middle point of the Fourth Root Race of the Fourth Round was passed." (SD vol 1 p 106)

Next to The Secret Doctrine Joy Mills made much use of Geoffrey Barborka's writings. In particular his books on Anthropogenesis: The Peopling of the Earth and The Story of Human Evolution. The latter title is in print but not the former.

http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/barborkabib.htm

Friends,

You can find the following theosophical quotes online:

Gems from the East by H. P. Blavatsky

The Way of Service by G. S. Arundale

Short Wisdom Quotes on Katinka's web site

Best regards,
Anton

rman,

Thanks for sharing those links. Feel free to pick out one or two quotes that you like, and post them in our Theosophical Quotes thread:

http://theosophy-forum.com/index.php?showtopic=6&st=15&#last

Hi everybody!

I thought it would be good to revisit the three propositions Joy gave us on the first day of class:

1. Everything in the universe is engaged in a search for knowledge of its own nature.

2. Everything is propelled towards making progress by a universal energy called Daiviprakriti.

3. It cannot be finished until our nature becomes objective to our subjective experiences.

The following quote is pertinent to the discussion:

“To know itself or oneself, necessitates consciousness and perception (both limited faculties in relation to any subject except Parabrahm), to be cognized. Hence the ‘Eternal Breath which knows itself not.’ Infinity cannot comprehend Finiteness. The Boundless can have no relation to the bounded and the conditioned. In the occult teachings, the Unknown and the Unknowable MOVER, or the Self-Existing, is the absolute divine Essence.” (SD vol 1 p 56)

Therefore, we now have a new way to understand the following Shloka:

“Where was Silence? Where the ears to sense it? No, there was neither Silence nor Sound; naught save ceaseless Eternal Breath (motion) , which knows itself not.” (Shloka i-2-2)

During the universal Pralaya that Shloka i-2-2 is referring to, our search for self-knowledge had yet to begin.

(Yes, I use the spelling Shloka, not Sloka...)

Photos of the Class!

http://users.ez2.net/nick29/theosophy/theos-class/index.htm

Hi everybody!

I posted this post elsewhere, but since it came from this class, and it is an important topic for all of us, I am re-posting it here.

As we all know, Theosophy gives us a third choice to the Creationism-Darwinism debate. I have always called our third choice Emanationism. In her recent class, Joy Mills gave us a new term to call the Theosophical third choice: Panentheism.

Here are the terms that were covered:

Agnostic = doubting
Atheistic = no Deity
Pantheism = seeing God in everything
Panentheism (This is the Theosophical position.) = The essence of matter is the spiritual. Spirit and Matter are the same, they are one. Parabrahm (Adi-Buddhi) is not God but law (Chronological Mahatma Letters, p. 181). Divinity (Avalokiteshvara) is a periodically appearing Deity. Parabrahm is the One Essence from which appears a center of energy (Logos, Ishvar).

ChristianMyst,

Where did you find it? From Google? I looked into the Theosophical Encyclopedia and found only a two sentence explanation of this term!

Thanks

Yess,

Here is a better online glossary:

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/etgloss/daa-der.htm

Christian,

I would say Fohat is energy. It is the interaction of the three — Spirit, Matter, and Fohat (energy) — that caused the universe to appear.

Yesspiritual,

Regarding Daiviprakriti, I though I would give the definition that was given in class. There is a force which propels everything in the universe to evolve spiritually. Elementals are evolving, on their way to becoming material entities. Plants are evolving, on their way to becoming animals. Even Guardian-Spirits of Stars are still spiritually evolving. Everything in the universe is evolving spiritually, and there is a force that urges us along in that spiritual evolution.

That force is Daiviprakriti.

Nick the Pilot and all,

Thanks. So the evolvement which all of us go through is one thread of evolvement.

But I read that devas (perhaps Guardian-spirits of stars included) follow another thread of evolvement, how is that so? Also, are the devas the same beings in the 'gods realm' of the Samsara in Buddhism?

Regards

Yesspiritual,

This is an ongoing disagreement between Nicholas and I on the one side, and Christian on the other side. Nicholas and I contend that all beings in the universe are, were, or will be human.

"The Doctrine teaches that, in order to become a divine, fully conscious god, -- aye, even the highest -- the Spiritual primeval INTELLIGENCES must pass through the human stage.... The Mind-born Sons, the Rishis, the Builders, etc., were all men -- of whatever forms and shapes -- in other worlds and the preceding Manvantaras." (Sd vol 1 p 107)

--> It is important to note that we do not mean everyone must incarnate as a human on this Earth. Any planet in the universe, past or future, will work just as well.

I am not familiar with the realtionship of Devas to Buddhist Samsara. Perhaps someone else has such information.

On the first day of class, Joy remarked that Spirit and Matter are the same thing, just looked at from different points of view. I thought it would be good to look at some quotes on the subject.

"...spirit and matter are one, being but a differentiation of states not essences...."
(Letter No. 11, Barker, The Mahatma Letters)

"The Monism of Theosophy is truly philosophical. We conceive of the universe as one in essence and origin. And though we speak of Spirit and Matter as its two poles, yet we state emphatically that they can only be considered as distinct from the standpoint of human, mayavic (i.e., illusionary) consciousness. We therefore conceive of spirit and matter as one in essence and not as separate and distinct antitheses." (CW 11:336)

"All beings are waves of consolidated light. In one of The Mahatma Letters we note: 'Spirit is called the ultimate sublimation of matter, and matter the crystallization of spirit' (Letter 22)."
(Dara Eklund, Worlds within Worlds)
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/hierarch/hi-dara.htm

"Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as independent realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm), which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective." (Sd vol 1 p 15)

Yes, the devas of Buddhism, Hinduism etc. are the same as the Theosophical devas.


For more on Daiviprakriti, read Subba Row:

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/gita-sr/nbg-hp.htm#intro

It was interesting to me that Joy implied that when the manasaputras "descended" to awaken manas in nacent humanity, they had not yet been "human".

Perhaps divine gods (or at least higher beings), but not "fully conscious god(s)"?

We tend to think that every creature follows the same path as we have been following. I suspect that there may be many paths of evolvement or evolution.

Jon,

The question of the state of consciousness of the Solar Pitris ("Manasaputras") as they walked the Earth is one of the deepest mysteries of Theosophy. As we know, the Solar Pitris first helped humanity gain its Manas-intelligence during the Third Race.

[The Solar Pitris] "... were able to awaken the dormant faculty of Manas during the Third Race, so that man was able to function intellectually in his turn. These lofty Beings are therefore termed the Lords of the Flame, or Sons of Mind — Manasaputras — or again Solar Gods.” (Divine Plan, p. 133)

“The Endowers of man with his conscious, immortal EGO, are the ‘Solar Angels’ — whether so regarded metaphorically or literally.” (SD vol 2 p 88)

The Solar Pitris first incarnated into human bodies during the Third Race.

“ ‘In these we shall dwell,’ said the Lords of the Flame.” (Shloka ii-7-24)

“All these are the Manasam and Rajasas: the Kumaras, Asuras, and other rulers and Pitris, who incarnated in the Third Race, and in this and various other ways endowed mankind with Mind.” (SD vol 2 p 89)

At first, the Solar Pitris refused to incarnate into human bodies.

“The ‘Sons of Wisdom’ ... spurned the early Third Race....” (SD vol 2 p 185)

“How did the Manasa, the Sons of Wisdom, act? They rejected the self-born. They are not ready. They spurned the sweat-born. They are not quite ready. They would not enter the first egg-born.” (Shloka ii-7-25)

This caused them to accumulate bad karma.

“As to those ‘Sons of Wisdom’ who had ‘deferred’ their incarnation till the Fourth Race, which was already tainted (physiologically) with sin and impurity, they produced a terrible cause, the Karmic result of which weighs on them to this day.” (SD vol 2 p 228)

Were the Solar Pitris forced to go through mineral, plant, and animal incarnations, as a punishment, even though they had reached Nirvana in a previous Round?

“The Sons of Wisdom, or the spiritual Dhyanis, had become ‘intellectual’ through their contact with matter, because they had already reached, during previous cycles of incarnation, that degree of intellect which enabled them to become independent and self-conscious entities, on this plane of matter.” (SD vol 2 p 167)

I have seen one quote that describes the conditions the Solar Pitris incarnated into, but I cannot find it. The quote I am looking for describes early humanity as having one big sex orgy, while the Pitris incarnated among them. The Pitris maintained a Chela-like lifestyle while all the "humans" around them did not. Does anyone have that quote?

Hi everybody!

I am finally getting back to a SD quote on Daviprakriti, the force that urges everything in the universe to evolve.

"The whole order of nature evinces a progressive march towards a higher life. There is design in the action of the seemingly blindest forces. The whole process of evolution with its endless adaptations is a proof of this. The immutable laws that weed out the weak and feeble species, to make room for the strong, and which ensure the 'survival of the fittest,' though so cruel in their immediate action — all are working toward the grand end." (SD vol 1 p 277

Hi everybody!

On the second day of class, Joy Mills told us of the first astral-to-physical connection, a connection which was the beginning of our physical human race. Here is the quote she used at that time:

No. II. [a chart not included here] represents the domain of the purely astral prototypes previous to their descent into (gross) matter. Astral matter, it must be noted, is fourth state matter, having, like our gross matter, its own "protyle." There are several "protyles" in Nature, corresponding to the various planes of matter. The two sub-physical elemental kingdoms, the plane of mind (manas, the fifth state matter), as also that of Buddhi (sixth state matter), are each and all evolved from one of the six "protyles" which constitute the basis of the Object-Universe. The three "states," so-called of our terrestrial matter, known as the "solid," "liquid," and "gaseous," are only, in strict accuracy, SUB-states. As to the former reality of the descent into the physical, which culminated in physiological man and animal, we have a palpable testimony in the fact of the so-called spiritualistic "materializations."

In all these instances a complete temporary mergence of the astral into the physical takes place....

(SD vol 2 p 737)

HPB goes on to compare human ensouling to what happens in seances.

Hi everybody!

On the second day of class, Joy told us how the third race was woven out of astral matter. I thought it would be good to look at the quotes she cited.

"The "midway point of evolution" is that stage where the astral prototypes definitely begin to pass into the physical, and thus become subject to the differentiating agencies now operative around us." (SD vol 2 p 735)

Joy told us the first Chhaya were astrals within etherials.

"It is from the material Worlds that descend they, who fashion physical man at the new Manvantaras. They are inferior Lha (Spirits), possessed of a dual body (an astral within an ethereal form). They are the fashioners and creators of our body of illusion." (quoted in SD vol 2 p 57)

Joy said the physical was "concreted" around the astral. The physical body was modeled after the astral body.

Hi everybody!

On the second day of class, Joy said man was created in the image of God(s), but Adam was not. The seven lunar Sephiroth created physical man.

I find that very profound.

Here is another great Joy Mills quote from the second day of class:

"There is only one Atman, yet it has thousands of reflections, each activated or illuminated by their contact with Buddhi."

On the second day of class, Joy told us how Man preceeded every mammal, etc., from "cast-off" tissue which was etheric not physical. She then referred to Genesis and said it possibly referred to man preceeding the animals.

As a matter of fact, this gets into one of the contradictions of the Bible. The animals were created before man in Genesis Chapter one, yet man was created before the animals in Genesis Chapter two. (This is explained in Theosophical literature: The animals in Genesis chaprter one are the Zodiacal animals, not physical animals.)

"See Genesis ch. ii., v. 19. Adam is formed in verse 7, and in verse 19 it is said: "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them." Thus man was created before the animals; for the animals mentioned in chapter i. are the signs of the Zodiac, while the man, "male and female," is not man, but the Host of the Sephiroth; FORCES, or Angels, "made in his (God's) image and after his likeness." "

http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/secret_...inary_notes.htm

Here is the SD quotation Joy cited on the second day of class, telling how plants and animals (not minerals) were astrally constructed from Man's cast-off astral particles.

As regards that other question, of the priority of man to the animals in the order of evolution, the answer is as promptly given. If man is really the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, then the teaching has nothing so very impossible in it, and is but logical. For, man becomes that Macrocosm for the three lower kingdoms under him. Arguing from a physical standpoint, all the lower kingdoms, save the mineral — which is light itself, crystallised and immetallised — from plants to the creatures which preceded the first mammalians, all have been consolidated in their physical structures by means of the "cast-off dust" of those minerals, and the refuse of the human matter, whether from living or dead bodies, on which they fed and which gave them their outer bodies. In his turn, man grew more physical, by re-absorbing into his system that which he had given out, and which became transformed in the living animal crucibles through which it had passed, owing to Nature's alchemical transmutations.

(SD vol 2 pp 169-170)

Hi everybody!

Regarding the use of cast-off astral particles to create subsequent plant and animal astral bodies, Joy directed us to an article for more information. Here is the article she referred to:

TRANSMIGRATION OF THE LIFE-ATOMS

[The Theosophist, Vol. IV, No. 11(47), August, 1883, pp. 286-288.]

In your learned note on Mr. Oxley’s article, “Hierosophy and Theosophy”* you say that “for 3,000 years at least the ‘mummy’ notwithstanding all the chemical preparations goes on throwing off to the last invisible atoms, which from the hour of death re-entering the various vortices of being go indeed ‘through every variety of organized life forms.’ But it is not the soul, the 5th, least of all the 6th, principle, but the life atoms of the jiva, the 2nd principle. At the end of the 3,000 years, sometimes more, and sometimes less, after endless transmigrations all these atoms are once more drawn together, and are made to form the new outer clothing or the body of the same monad (the real soul) which had already been clothed with [them] two or three thousands of years before. Even in the worst case that of the annihilation of the conscious personal principle the monad or individual soul is ever the same as are the atoms of the lower principles which regenerated and renewed in this ever-flowing river of being are magnetically drawn together owing to their affinity, and are once more re-incarnated together.”

This little passage is a new instalment of occult teaching given to the public, and opens up a vast field for thought. It suggests in the first instance that the exoteric doctrine of the transmigration of the soul through lower forms of existence,—so generally believed in by the Hindus—though incorrect as regards the soul (5th principle), has some basis of truth when referred to the lower principles.

You say in one place that the mummy goes on throwing off invisible atoms which go through every variety of organized life forms, and further on you state that it is the life-atoms of the Jiva, the 2nd principle, that go through these transmigrations.

According to the 1st “Occult Fragment,” the Jiva is “a form of force, indestructible and when disconnected with one set of atoms, becoming attracted immediately by others.”

What then is meant by the life-atoms, and their going through endless transmigrations.

The invisible atoms of the mummy would mean the imperceptibly decaying atoms of the physical body, and the life-atoms of the Jiva would be quite distinct from the atoms of the mummy. Do your words import that both the invisible atoms of the physical body as well as the atoms of the Jiva after going through various life-forms return again to re-form the physical body, and the Jiva of the entity that has reached the end of its Devachanic state and is ready to be reincarnated again?

––––––––––

* The Theosophist, Vol. IV, page 2* (July No.).

http://tonh.net/theosofie/hpb_cw_online/ar...5/y1883_112.htm

On the second day of class, Joy said that everything is alive. Life is present in every atom. Not a single atom is lost.

She gave us a refernece to SD vol 2 p 250, which addressed this idea. I checked, and I could not find such a reference on that page. I did, however, find this quote:

Occultism does not accept anything inorganic in the Kosmos. The expression employed by Science, "inorganic substance," means simply that the latent life slumbering in the molecules of so-called "inert matter" is incognizable. ALL IS LIFE, and every atom of even mineral dust is a LIFE, though beyond our comprehension and perception, because it is outside the range of the laws known to those who reject Occultism. "The very Atoms," says Tyndall, "seem instinct with a desire for life."

(SD vol 1 p 248-249)

Here is something Joy said on the second day of class, something worth repeating.

"All forms, galaxies to atoms, are linked in structure, and different grades of energies, around points of consciousness."

One the second day, we started looking at the individual shlokas. We first looked at Sholka ii-1-1.

ii-1-1. THE LHA WHICH TURNS THE FOURTH (Globe, or our Earth) IS SUBSERVIENT TO THE LHA(S) OF THE SEVEN (the planetary Spirits), THEY WHO REVOLVE, DRIVING THEIR CHARIOTS AROUND THEIR LORD, THE ONE EYE. HIS BREATH GAVE LIFE TO THE SEVEN (gives light to the planets); IT GAVE LIFE TO THE FIRST. “THEY ARE ALL DRAGONS OF WISDOM,” adds the Commentary.

Joy said this shloka details the pattern of the entire human plan. The underlying idea is that the outer is dependent on the inner, which is in turn dependent on the One Eye (within which is held the group of the whole). Universal consciousness is "single-eyed", i.e., it is one consciousness.

Joy had a few more comments on Shloka ii-1-1. She said:

1. The Lhas had re-awakened. (Even today, there are various levels of Lhas, and they are evolving just as we are.)

2. She repeated how "eternity" means a system without a conceivable beginning nor imagineable end.

3. "The Seven" are an intelligence overseeing the development of the entire Round.

4. She repeated the three types of Regents:

a. Regent of a Round: Dhyani-Buddha

b. Regent of a Globe: Dhyani-Bodhisattva

c. Regent of a Root-Race: Manu or Super-terrestrial Bodhisattva

"HIS BREATH GAVE LIFE TO THE SEVEN...."

--> Joy pointed out this statement can have seven different levels of meaning. It can refer to Round Regents, it can refer to Root-Race Regents, etc. Joy referred us to The Divine Plan by G. Barborka for more explanation. Page 229 of that book deals with Shloka ii-1-1-1. It basically only quotes The Secret Doctrine, and I am repeating that quote here.

This expression shows in plain language that the Spirit-Guardian of our globe, which is the fourth in the chain, is subordinate to the chief Spirit (or God) of the Seven Planetary Genii or Spirits. As already explained, the ancients had, in their Kyriel of gods, seven chief Mystery-gods, whose chief was, exoterically, the visible Sun, or the eighth, and, esoterically, the second Logos, the Demiurge. The seven (who have now become the "Seven Eyes of the Lord" in the Christian religion) were the regents of the seven chief planets; but these were not reckoned according to the enumeration devised later by people who had forgotten, or who had an inadequate notion of, the real Mysteries, and included neither the sun, the moon, nor the earth. The sun was the chief, exoterically, of the twelve great gods, or zodiacal constellations; and, esoterically, the Messiah, the Christos (the subject anointed by the Great BREATH, or the ONE) surrounded by his twelve subordinate powers, also subordinate, in turn, to each of the seven "Mystery-gods" of the planets.

"The seven higher make the Seven Lhas create the world," states a Commentary; which means that our Earth, leaving aside the rest, was created or fashioned by terrestrial spirits, the "Regents" being simply the supervisors. This is the first germ, the seed of that which grew later into the Tree of Astrology and Astrolatry. The Higher ones were the Kosmocratores, the fabricators of our solar system. (SD vol 2 pp 22-23)

It is important to note that the SD contains the word Kosmocratores, while Barboka spells it as Cosmocratores.