Hello, I'm new. Have been looking for those two names on the forum and did not find them. Strange.
Readings: Hawkins: Power vs Force, etc...
Raghavan Iyer: all on that site (which I neither found mentioned on the forum):
http://www.theosophytrust.org/rni_articles.php

Nobody here knows one of those two?????

Hi, Stella, and welcome to the Forum.

I assume you are referring to Steven Hawkins, the physicist?

I have seen Raghavan Iyer's website before, but that is all I know about him.

When you get a chance, please tell us a little about yourself. Are you a Theosophist? Which part of the world are you in? Which ideas in Theosophy agree with you (and which do not)?

The late Ragavan Iyer was very involved with the ULT lodge in Santa Barbara, CA. His widow Nandini is still very active there. This lodge is closely associated with Concord Grove Press (a Theosophical publishing house and the publisher of Vidya magazine) and The Institute of World Culture, founded by the Iyers and also in Santa Barbara.

No, not Steven, but David R. Hawkins.
Here are some excerpts of the book "power vs force".
http://www.veritaspub.com/product_info.php...products_id=148

Well, I get tired of copying:-), it is about levels of consciousness, it explains the different planes of awareness in beings. And it encompasses all common religions of the world, it's rather spiritual than religious.

The other books: (the links provide a little description)
"The Eye of the I":
http://www.veritaspub.com/product_info.php...products_id=150
"I: Reality & Subjectivity"
http://www.veritaspub.com/product_info.php...products_id=152
"Truth vs. Falsehood: How to Tell the Difference"
http://www.veritaspub.com/product_info.php...products_id=154
"Transcending the Levels of Consciousness"
http://www.veritaspub.com/product_info.php...products_id=156
"Discovery of the Presence of God: Devotional Nonduality"
http://www.veritaspub.com/product_info.php...products_id=158
"Reality, Spirituality and Modern Man" (only recently published)
http://www.veritaspub.com/product_info.php...products_id=970
here is the description of this latest book:

Well I hope this is not too long-winded.

I don't know much (to nothing) about today's theosophy. I've discovered Raghavan Iyer on another site, from his commentaries on the Yoga Sutras. And also I really loved how he explained the Hindu philosophy in an overview. I like his writings very much.
I also discovered that Maria Montessori had once been member of a theosophy-organization.

I am nothing else than a human being. I am nothing but on my way back to "union" - with the Supreme Spirit, or how shall I put it.

Stella,

I am glad to hear of your interest in Theosophy. I am also happy to see that you recognize certain famous people as having been Theosophists. (Did you know that Abner Doubleday, the man who invented baseball, was a Theosophist?)

Theosophy is a set of teachings and philosophical ideas. I hope you take the times to take a look at Theosophy, and see which Theosophical ideas do and do not fit into your own personal belief system.

You said you are on your "way back to "union" — with the Supreme Spirit." Accelerating our way along the path to such a union is the goal of every Theosophist. I am curious to see if you think Theosophy's way of accelerating progress along this path will work for you.

I want to thank you for posting those links, but I do not think many of us have the time to go through and read the webpages that you linked to. I suppose the best way to begin a discussion is to take metaphysical ideas, one at a time, see if they fit into Theosophy, and see if they also fit into your own personal belief system. For example, reincarnation. Do you believe in reincarnation?

I did this some time ago, don't remember what did not fit. I also think that each human being has his own ideas, even among theosophists, for example. So, that doesn't make a difference. I only remember that quite a few ideas did well fit in my view of things.
I am not familiar with particular "movements" and don't wish to discuss any.

I don't think that there's a particular way (Theosophist or another) that accelerates, it is our alignment and intention that does it, or, better, the spirit within us.

I won't begin with reincarnation, because I presume (don't know) that there are already enough threads on that. I did begin the thread with excerpts of the first books of this series by Dr David R. Hawkins. Wouldn't this be enough?

I'll just put some excerpts of the description of this book on the veritas-publishing-site (the link I posted):

I hope this is enough of quotes. I would add in my limited words, the book or all these seven books of Dr D.R. Hawkins are simply speaking in a today's language of man's yearning for God (Divinity), and man's (and at the same time, all "creatures' " - that is, just all which "is") path to God; or, path back to full consciousness.

Additionally, he has elaborated further the kinesiologic tests of J. Diamond and has made up, as mentioned above, a "Map of Consciousness" with all possible level of consciousness here on earth. All creature, all thing, object can be tested and associated to a certain Level of Consciousness (LoC). Writings as such can be tested because often, they are "true" viewed from a certain LoC, but incomplete from a LoC than that of the writing itself. Others are just "false", that would mean they calibrate below 200. 200 is the threshold of falsehood to truth, from non-integrity to integrity. The enlightened states are as such of different levels, too. In the book "Transcending the levels of consciousness", there is written:

Well, what should I add more! I am not there but I would say that Dr D.R. Hawkins has all teachings and movements encompassed in his books and "teachings". The links I provided are just the short descriptions of the books.
Is that enough for you to begin?
Btw, Hawkins does speak about reincarnation, much in the same way as do the Hindu philosophies.
Sorry about the length........ I tried to include the essential about Dr D.R. Hawkins.

Steven Hawkings appears very interesting to me. I will probably get his book the "Universe." Our science has become pretty advanced, so I bet there are very interesting facts.

I've looked at the perspective Theosophy offers on our descent from Divinity, into the spiritual, ethereal, astral and finally physical. I'm always concise to a fault. I never let that stop me from typing. I will speak of forms as the numerous and varied objective expressions of what we would call the physical. The content is what I would say the organic would be, and also the intellect, or simply say consciousness, life, force, thought.

Something I have found eventually to be acceptable to me, is our highest aspect donning bodies or souls, vessels with the appropriate senses and forms for each plane it descends through, and within this descent, humanity has more access to their own star, and as humanity becomes ever more deeper into substance which we are perfecting, this connection becomes very tenuous. Its easier to reach the spiritual soul and practically impossible or at least extremely difficult to attain coadination with our own Star.

My point being that this a reason Theosophy goes as far back as possible into the archaic. An explanation of content, mind; soul; spirit; Divinity and their workings within the Universe as a duality of spirit and substance. Among these achaic, ancient peoples, great Seers have seen these workings and a layout exists.

Science all by itself, is something that relies on proof. Actually, I really should not say this as physicists are being metaphysical when they learn postulations, theories and speculations, with their integral mathematic equations and laws. When something is written in mathematical formula, it only illustrates the postulation, does not prove it when compared to Reality.

Theosophy supplies the template for describing the hierarchies spirit and substance. Theosophy accepts science, religion and philosophy. It simply does not do it blindly. Theosophy uses the the oldest in the archaic as it has found much of current material appearing to have a foundation of truth, but much damage done to it through interpolation and omission. I've seen examples of scientists relying solely on material data, but find mystery, wonder, at what they find. They then proceed to come up with their own interpretations to explain the spirituality they begin to intuit within the Universe.

August Comte, a mathematician and philosopher of the Nineteenth century, did this very thing as he attempted to reform beliefs in regard to the spiritual. This already exists as it is an Esoteric Tradition as eternal as man himself. There are simply periods within our history where we see its doors closed to the public when rulers manifest selfishness. We see all our technological wonders and believe that a lack of understanding on our part, of a thing, must certainly not be found in the ancient or archaic. They didn't possess our cool gadgets and space shuttles. How could they possibly know something we don't know? In fact, an ancient Seer would look at our modern technological culture, and what we think a marvelous accomplishment of wise humanity, and be disgusted at what these gadgets and excesses have made of us. Distracted and made selfish and ignorant to what is really important. We've made everything fast. We constantly focus our consciousness to many different things everyday. No slow states of mind.

I wasn't concise. I just kept on typing. Didn't really intend to do that. I don't know the view presented in Hawkings writings, so I'm only speaking my mind concerning Theosophy.

I read the site of the Theosophist on this thread rarely, it seems nice, but I have not read it all: I mostly read the main 3 TS' sites, Collected Writings, maybe a couple others.

Is this a Hawkins' quote? I think he has good intentions, but I cannot tell how much knowledge and wisdom he has. I think applied kinesiology is no better than any other divination (even intuition and inspiration themselves; the best if practiced and used in dialectic.)

The chart this refers to does not seem particularly well-written semantically. That is for reasons including the 'levels' seem to make no logical-mathematical sense whatsoever: one column called a logarithm apparently lists the value that the logarithm is taken of, unless the column is logarithms of numbers so large no one even records for usage because they exceed the observable ('light cone') universe's measurements. The column could be shown increasing by 1 like ph or tone logarithms, which he could compare to if he thought it is really important for consciousness. A friend sent me the chart years ago and let me peruse most of Hawkins' books, but my friend told me there is no explanation of the numbers on the chart and I did not have the time to look for one. The numbers have no apparent correlation to all the descriptions of the consciousness levels, which are not actually definitions of the levels such as in theosophy. So, what are the numbers for? Do they measure how many individual Platonic ideal forms or perhaps ones in ideal systems of forms one will 'gnothi' at each level, or how many endless blind passions one has uprooted and Dharma gates one has penetrated almost beyond measure, or what, and what are they? I tried to see if it related to those or [neo-]Theosophical initiations including minor and the most and all I remember it did not correspond to classical ideas except roughly the 10 initiations by 100s, the higher of which mostly neo-Theosophists think they can describe, and if they are at all reasonable, they describe simply.

Maybe verbosity about the levels rather than paths/titles has its advantage, but it is lost without naming the levels. That is the other reason the chart is not semantically great: it overdoes subjective description of undefined levels to the point it is unclear what each 'level' is. For example each has 'God-view,' 'life-view, 'level, 'emotion,' 'process,' but Theosophy considers God spirit, emotion in between, life matter, and who knows what 'process' means... nothing alchemical on the chart. Actually I just looked at the chart but my example was 1 row below 1 containing 'evil' (IIRC 'good' is not on the chart) as a 'life-view,' but the low row seems all less/better than evil and lists few/no classical causes such as the '3 mayas,' desire, etc.. The chart has a large focus on secondary negative emotions and their synonyms but seems to presuppose you can transcend several per step without any returning and without reaching any of the next step. The main thing to focus on with virtue ideas and thought & emotion ideas is that divine love/charity virtue is reflected in mental-emotional love. There are 5 mental states of tone, besides Patanjali's which are not tone, from deep sleep to meditation, and the emotional body is a part of the mind enclosed in its aura, and there are classically 4 or usually also 5 emotions, which were historically partly negative but can be described in a less biased manner and also are logarithmic tone frequencies. Since they can still be felt or expressed negatively, one could even use Okham's razor to define 2 emotions that (unless one is over-reductionist) the logarithms correspond to even in negative logarithm tone inverses, but why dwell on pessimism? Dharma may only say 1 negative emotion is in maya, and often that it is suffering; IIRC desire is not even on Hawkins' chart, though several unremarkable words are. 'Level' (whatever it is besides 'row') and 'process' mix up Christian, perhaps Yoga, but mostly psychology terms in ways widely considered incorrect, or in the case of Ch'an/Zen probably to react more strongly to if at all except where 'level' is an emotion (in the same row as the emotion column element) or [consciousness?] 'process' is a 'God-view' involved in kensho/satori.

My friend who showed me the chart accepts nonduality, rarely/never monism/[w]holism, and thinks one leaves behind each good level of the chart, though some selfless ones transcend (subjectively to me) some he rates higher with self, and he also says 'illumination' precedes 'enlightenment,' whatever that means, though people may say the latter more often and call it wisdom, which in this case includes selfless action. Except maybe [unconsciously] as enlightenment focusing on self rather than selflessness, it does not sound like Hawkins means virtue is left behind, but does not
emphasize that or much that is clear. Here is one (short) of several/random/arbitrary orders describing consciousness development, distinguishing and substituting Hawkins terms (starting with 5 columns like his, but non-matrix; much overlaps :)

exoteric: evil (if one was recently, then starts to decreasingly purposely) -> withdrawl -> willingness -> desire [for enlightenment] -> next or 3rd line
mystic: amusement -> like -> happiness -> peace -> [devoted] love -> next or 4th line
[m]esoteric mystic: reason -> abstraction/withdrawl -> gnosis -> wisdom -> love [of wisdom...] ->
esoteric [mystic:] love -> reason -> various ->
[deep] esoteric mystic: loving -> enlightenment -> various ->
deep[er] esoteric mystic: transfiguration -> will[ingness] -> various ->
deep[er|est] esoteric mystic: your personal experiences of eventually selfless living revelation causing acceptance and blame/aggression to you, which at later points increase and may be somewhat returned (even meaningful/merciful blame/aggression,) increase and result in tragic abdication/destruction/liberation/independence, enabling/inspiring.

That (with the [m]esoteric psychology above) makes more sense to me at this instant than Hawkins' chart because I can relate it more to Dharma so to Quabalah. (Mesoteric is a term by Gurdjieff (who I may not like) that means gnostic but not fully wise or liberated; esoteric is from enough to live right or to wise liberation.)

Self and selflessness are technically one subject-object topic, and it is said one could be in states for years that Hawkins rates highest, and not necessarily greatly express selfless ones often, but they are equally, not just subjectively, inherently enlightenment (because so are the consciousness principles in man, as polytopes, when selfless/virtuous.)

I could criticize Hawkins' chart much more, but without reading much of his books there is little point. He interests me no more than hundreds/thousands of Western philosophical & scientific authors, although the 'calibrations' in his books may be interesting. They include philosophy (& theosophy) except HPB and many sacred texts--it is not at all exhaustive calibration, and calibration of other topics/issues may generalize. More interesting modern Western philosophers & social scientists are tens of Theosophists (incl. J Krishnamurti,) Max Theon, Golden Dawn, Yogananda's school, CG Jung, Gurdjieff & Ouspensky, Santiago Bovisio, Beinsa Dueno & Peter Duenov, Joseph Campbell, TH Saraydarian and perhaps JJ Dewey (if you accept Arcane School, or also Agni Yoga in Saraydarian's case,) Rudolf Steiner, and perhaps Christopher Hills (also hard scientist.) Even some of them are not on my 6-page list of philosophers & related scientists & artists--1 or more per line--relating to a 300 - 400 book reading list (1 or 2 of these authors are on the list, though I only have not read Theon.) HPB is top along with major [neo-]Platonists and other initiates, maybe Christian Rosenkreuz (if he was initiated) and definitely Isaac Newton and maybe 1 or 2 others of their time, and according to people here, G Purucker, none of whom I have even got to much because HPB may/would recommend harder reading--Purucker is. Hawkins may have written as much as HPB except for her articles, but excluding purely practical crafts writers, later science ones (except psychology,) and maybe 1 or 2 sacred texts of choice, she is who I recommend read all 1st (not necessarily all her articles except like an encyclopedia.)

Would you say *only* theosophy goes so far? I think we do not need any denomination, to go on our way to "know" something. Physical science knows much "about", religion also often only knows "about". We may go and seek to know. Without the name of anything. I spoke about (David R.) Hawkins (I do not know Steven) because he does not use any denomination or philosophy, he includes all, speaking about all.

First of all: I won't contradict you, my intent is not to say, this is "better" than that, I just talked about D. R. Hawkins because I thought that some here might find it interesting.
DavidC wrote:

Don't know if the following would answer the question. "Power vs Force", p. 51:

In "Power vs Force" and in "transcending the levels of consciousness", there are descriptions of each level with various namings, many aspects etc; also there are those namings of emotions, various states, etc. But, I must state that for me personally, for instance Sri Aurobindo is much more detailed about descriptions of states. It depends on what one is seeking for.

No, reading the book one would understand that this is not the case.

I may say that he explains in some other vocabulary things that were described by ancient sages, as I may put it. But for me, his writings were important to give to others perhaps a certain inter-relationship.

I don't know that Theosophy is a denomination. I know it is not a religion. So I settled the first point. I didn't really criticize the the book. In fact, I suggested it would be an interesting read. I suppose, when I mention how August Comte proposed Positivism to destroy Theology, Metaphysics, Spiritualism, Atheism, Materialism, Pantheism, and Science, ... "order will begin to reign in the human mind only on the day when psychology will become a sort of crebral physics, and history a kind of social physics." It may've 'appeared' I criticized Hawkings.

Positivists expressed their impartiality... as follows: "... how much rationality is there in the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception, the Trinity and Transubstantiation, if submitted to the tests of physiology, mathematics, and chemistry?" Yet, they submit the notion of "artificial fecundation." Denying all thought on primal and final causes, and apply their theory to the construction of an impossible woman for the worship of future generations; this is the Indian female fetish of the Obeah. The idol stuffed with serpent eggs to be hatched by the heat of the sun.

It is simply a principle, that if something is deemed inadequate, and torn down, the ones doing this submit whatever it is they deem Real.

Humanity is not always dense material substance, for that matter, the entire existence of humanity as seperate male and female individuals is only a periodical manifestation. With this in mind, Theosophy intuits that very ancient humanity had a closer accord with the workings of the hierarchies of the Universe. There are countless human feats that cannot be explained or the how and why of what was done proven with explanation. I've spent a couple years with a Teacher and only completed one of a two volume book which deals with empirical inductive and deductive, and seemingly endless analogy between what is known to show comparison to that which is not known. I'm beginning the next volume still lacking greatly in wisdom, but feel that Now includes past and future. Knowing the inner is knowing the outer. Knowing the microcosm is knowing the macrocosm. I may not complete within this life, understanding of Reality, but what is worth saving will be saved for the next. I'll delete the following if it is inappropriate for me to have pasted it. I'm not sure.


http://blavatskytradition.net/

COLORS WAVE-LENGTHS IN MICRONS (ì) NUMBER OF VIBRATIONS IN TRILLIONS
Violet extreme----------------- 400 ----------------- 759
Violet---------------------------- 423 ----------------- 709
Violet-Indigo------------------- 439 ----------------- 683
Indigo--------------------------- 449 ----------------- 668
Indigo-Blue--------------------- 459 ----------------- 654
Blue------------------------------ 479 ----------------- 631
Blue-Green--------------------- 492 ----------------- 610
Green---------------------------- 512 ----------------- 586
Green-Yellow------------------ 532 ----------------- 564
Yellow-------------------------- 551 ----------------- 544
Yellow-Orange----------------- 571 ----------------- 525
Orange-------------------------- 583 ----------------- 514
Orange-Red--------------------- 596 ----------------- 503
Red------------------------------ 620 ----------------- 484
Red extreme-------------------- 645 ----------------- 465

THE ROOTS OF COLOR AND SOUND

PLATE III

Further, each of the Primordial Seven, the first Seven Rays forming the Manifested Logos, is again sevenfold. Thus, as the seven colors of the solar spectrum correspond to the seven Rays, or Hierarchies, so each of these latter has again its seven divisions corresponding to the same series of colors. But in this case one color, viz: that which characterizes the particular Hierarchy as a whole, is predominant and more intense than the others.
These Hierarchies can only be symbolized as concentric circles of prismatic colors; each Hierarchy being represented by a series of seven concentric circles, each circle representing one of the prismatic colors in their natural order. But in each of these “wheels” one circle will be brighter and more vivid in color than the rest and the wheel will have a surrounding Aura (a fringe, as the physicists call it) of that color. This color will be the characteristic color of that Hierarchy as a whole. Each of these Hierarchies furnishes the essence (the soul) and is the “Builder” of one of the seven kingdoms of Nature, which are the three elemental kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, and the kingdom of spiritual man.* Moreover, each Hierarchy furnishes the Aura of one of the seven principles in man with its specific color. Further, as each of these Hierarchies is the Ruler of one of the Sacred Planets, it will easily be understood how Astrology came into existence, and that real Astrology has a strictly scientific basis.

THE ROOTS OF COLOR AND SOUND

PLATE III

Further, each of the Primordial Seven, the first Seven Rays forming the Manifested Logos, is again sevenfold. Thus, as the seven colors of the solar spectrum correspond to the seven Rays, or Hierarchies, so each of these latter has again its seven divisions corresponding to the same series of colors. But in this case one color, viz: that which characterizes the particular Hierarchy as a whole, is predominant and more intense than the others.
These Hierarchies can only be symbolized as concentric circles of prismatic colors; each Hierarchy being represented by a series of seven concentric circles, each circle representing one of the prismatic colors in their natural order. But in each of these “wheels” one circle will be brighter and more vivid in color than the rest and the wheel will have a surrounding Aura (a fringe, as the physicists call it) of that color. This color will be the characteristic color of that Hierarchy as a whole. Each of these Hierarchies furnishes the essence (the soul) and is the “Builder” of one of the seven kingdoms of Nature, which are the three elemental kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, and the kingdom of spiritual man.* Moreover, each Hierarchy furnishes the Aura of one of the seven principles in man with its specific color. Further, as each of these Hierarchies is the Ruler of one of the Sacred Planets, it will easily be understood how Astrology came into existence, and that real Astrology has a strictly scientific basis.

Contradicting in dialectic is okay. Either my friend has not read Hawkins in-depth or could not explain all... they seem slightly more intriguing now.

DavidC wrote:

Stella wrote:

Okay, and I agree consciousness is infinite, but 10^600 approaches and probably far exceeds measurements of the observable universe ('light cone') so, if IIRC, those are too far-fetched for any usable measurement system; even for sages working in the area of Earth or likely if they are 1000+ and can go faster than light (if it even happens in human initiations) the observable universe.

Stella wrote:

I see, but emotions (except thier synonyms) are kama-manas/-rupa, and the chart names no such levels of spirit-consciousness-intelligence, maybe synonyms for be-ness, directly with those synonyms' specific planes or creatures/auras/bodies, which it may imply but ascribe emotions to other than kama-manas/-rupa. I will read Aurobindo 1st and many others that [eventually] practiced ethics required by mystic/esoteric schools... then also Jung 1st.

Stella wrote:

I did not express that as completely as elsewhere... but I will leave others to what they think and may eventually read the books.

I notice that in your 1st quote of him I replied to in this post... if I knew his power units of measurement, which seem too large for Watts/Joules or Imperial equivalents, I would be curious what what people think his writings inter-relate... such as if he uses only quantum mechanics or also m-theory.

From what I've read of his articles, I'm very glad that stella appeared on this forum. I didn't know of him and his article on Elementals was fascinating and added greatly to what I know.