CONSCIOUSNESS is at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives.
Knowing very little of its spiritual essence, we define consciousness by names we give to its various ‘states’ — waking, sleeping, intuitive, meditating, angry, depressed, happy or sad.
We experience perhaps hundreds of such random mental and emotional states every day, no wiser in understanding the hidden matrix, or field of consciousness in which they are embedded.
Material Science approaches nature only “through her appearance,” H. P. Blavatsky writes in The Secret Doctrine (1:610), and “that appearance is always deceitful on the physical plane,” adding that Science:
“…refuses to blend physics with metaphysics, the body with its informing soul and spirit, which they prefer ignoring.”
Ω
Nevertheless, physics and metaphysics were once deeply entwined, resulting in the natural philosophy of the Greeks, but is given the cold shoulder now by a science that prefers computer simulations, and huge particle collider machines to the natural world.
Searching for the God Particle
Occult Science, on the other hand, rejecting the Cartesian system, describes the body-mind consciousness as the lower end of a universal, spiritual substrate referred to as “BE-NESS” in The Secret Doctrine—symbolized by two pre-manifested aspects cited as “abstract space” (bare subjectivity), and “abstract motion” (representing unconditioned consciousness.)
“Consciousness has long been one of the great mysteries of life, the universe and everything,” writes Linda Geddes in the 29 November 2011 NewScientist.
Ω
Lucid dreaming, being conscious of dreaming while dreaming, best exemplifies this multi-layered conscious now-presence. Perhaps H. P. Blavatsky expressed it best with a word she coined to describe absolute consciousness —”BE-NESS”— “the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical One Absolute.” (Vol. 1:14)
Among all earthly creatures, who might most exemplify this enigmatic quality, if not our feline friends?
Ψ
Be-ness
One of Rupert Sheldrake’s experiments on the unexplained powers of animals is dramatized by the case of David Waithe’s cat Godzilla!
Biologist author of more than 80 scientific papers and ten books, Sheldrake is a former Research Fellow of the Royal Society. In this clip Sheldrake discusses Godzilla, a cat that knows when his owner is calling. 🙂
MORE than five-thousand years ago, ancient healers described hundreds of invisible energy meridians throughout the human body. When these pathways were unblocked and revitalized, people quickly healed.
This ancient system of healing we today describe in various ways. Emotional Freedom Techniques is a form of counseling intervention that draws on various theories of alternative medicine – including acupuncture, neuro-linguistic programming, energy medicine, and Thought Field Therapy.
Acupuncture often uses special sterilized needles. But many healers are literally tapping into this natural energy system of the body, without needles, using only their bare hands and fingers.
Using this new system ordinary people are learning how to master all the “mental changes” in themselves, as taught by The Voice of the Silence, and report healing almost instantly.
They learn how to “harmless make” the stubborn thought and emotional issues that have plagued them, often embedded in early childhood, causing numerous physical, emotional and psychological illnesses as adults. The success resulting from a healing memory recall is an object lesson of what Einstein famously wrote:
We can’t solve problems, by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Instead, the old thought forms blocking the flow of natural energies in our system have to be cleared away. As we free ourselves from old habits of thinking, we come to recognize our role as a causitive agent in the problems they caused.
Einstein
In psychological terms it means assuming personal karmic responsibility, and there’s nothing in the universe, even atomic energy, more powerful than the powers of gratitude and acceptance.
Getting Unstuck
It’s probably an understatement to say it’s difficult for most people to get to the root cause of difficult issues, especially if the causes were set up in a past life, a life they cannot consciously now recall.
It is the forgotten events, limiting beliefs, and fixed emotional patterns that glue us to our fate as flypaper does a fly.
SYNESIUS of Cyrene was a Greek bishop of Ptolemais in ancient Libya. What could that Sage have to do with modern America one might ask?
While still a youth he went with his brother Euoptius to Alexandria, where he became an enthusiastic Neoplatonist and disciple of Hypatia. (Wikipedia)
He once wrote: “you must not think that the gods are without employment.”
This idea was further developed by the Theosophical Society Co-Founder William Q. Judge in his Article “Cycles,” concerning the voluntary duty of the ancient gods to watch over humanity.
“Men’s minds are only preparing for an alteration into that state which will permit the human race to advance to the point suitable for the Elder Brothers to introduce their actual presence to our sight. They may be truly called the bearers of the torch of truth across the ages.”
“For this providence is divine and most ample, which frequently through one man pays attention to and affects countless multitudes of men. But this happens when they harmonize a kingdom and send to this earth for that purpose souls who are allied to themselves.
“For they descend according to orderly periods of time:
for the purpose of imparting a beneficent impulse in the republics of mankind.
Describing these descending Gods, Synesius continued: “For there is indeed in the terrestrial abode the sacred tribe of heroes who pay attention to mankind, and who are able to give them assistance even in the smallest concerns.”
Olympia Flame
“This heroic tribe is, as it were, a colony from the gods established here in order that this terrene abode may not be left destitute of a better nature.”
But when the harmony adapted in the beginning by the gods to all terrene things becomes old, they descend again to earth
“that they may call the harmony forth, energize and resuscitate it when it is expiring. . . . When, however, the whole order of mundane things, greatest and least, is corrupted, then it is necessary that the gods should descend for the purpose of imparting another orderly distribution of things.”
“Your great country which I love for its noble freedom . . . and of which country I myself am proud of being a citizen.”
This loving understanding of the American culture and temperament in the light of the marvelous knowledge which was hers, has graciously provided for the students of Theosophy everywhere in the world.
But more especially in America, hints, warnings, suggestions and, above all, inspiration for their labor on behalf of the Sacred Cause.
To the students of Theosophy in America, these Letters are of special value and significance at the present time.
In conducting their own lives and tasks as well as in helping their fellow men in all fields of activity, they will receive from these thoughtful and stirring words real help themselves, and that of an unique character.
A Prayer Labyrinth
In these days of constant struggles of many and diverse kinds, when a myriad remedies are suggested and advocated for our ills physical and psychical, moral and mental . . . puzzled by the strange working of Mother Nature . . .
These wonderful Messages of one whose wisdom and compassion stirred her to point the finger of warning and at the same time to stretch out the hand of fellowship and sure guidance, ought to be read, studied; nay, meditated upon.
THE Theosophical Society was founded to destroy dogmatism. This is one of the meanings of its first object – Universal Brotherhood. And Col. H. S. Olcott in his inaugural address in 1875, at Mott Memorial Hall, New York, said that such was the object in view, citing the bad effect that intolerance had had in the past. That address was read by Mme. H. P. Blavatsky before its delivery, or its contents were communicated to her, so that it had her assent, for she was present when it was delivered.
In the Key to Theosophy, in the “Conclusion,” H.P.B. again refers to this subject and expresses the hope that the Society might not, after her death, become dogmatic or crystallize on some phase of thought or philosophy, but that it might remain free and open, with its members wise and unselfish. And in all her writings and remarks, privately or publicly, she constantly reiterated this idea. Of this the writer has direct evidence as to her statements in private.
If our effort is to succeed, we must avoid dogmatism in theosophy as much as in anything else, for the moment we dogmatize and insist on our construction of theosophy, that moment we lose sight of Universal Brotherhood and sow the seeds of future trouble.
There is a great likelihood that members of the Society will insist on a certain orthodoxy in our ranks. They are already doing it here and there, and this is a note of warning to draw their attention to the danger. There is no orthodoxy in our Society.
Even though nine-tenths of the members believe in Reincarnation, Karma, the sevenfold constitution, and all the rest, and even though its prominent ones are engaged in promulgating these doctrines as well as others, the ranks of the Society must always be kept open, and no one should be told that he is not orthodox or not a good Theosophist because he does not believe in these doctrines.
All that anyone is asked to subscribe to is Universal Brotherhood, and its practice in the search for truth. For the efforts of those who are thus promulgating specific ideas are made under the sanction of the second object of the Society, which any one is free to follow or to refuse to follow as he sees fit.
One may deny – undogmatically – reincarnation and other doctrines, or may assert belief in a personal or impersonal God, and still be a good member of the Society, provided Universal Brotherhood is subscribed to and put into practice.
If a member says he must formulate a God, or cannot believe in Reincarnation, none other should condemn or draw comparisons, or point to the writings of H.P.B. or any one else to show that such a member is untheosophical. The greatest minds on earth are puzzled by great ideas such as these, and yet, holding them, can still search for truth with others in a perfect spirit of toleration.
But at the same time it is obvious that to enter the Society and then, under our plea of tolerance, assert that theosophy shall not be studied, that the great body of thought and philosophy offered in our literature shall not be investigated, is untheosophical, unpractical, and absurd, for it were to nullify the very object of our organization; it is a dogmatism that flows from negation and indifference.
We must study the philosophy and the doctrines offered to us before we are in a position to pass judgment and say that they are not true or that they shall be rejected. To judge or reject before examination is the province of little minds or prejudiced dogmatists.
And as the great body of philosophy, science, and ethics offered by H. P. Blavatsky and her teachers has upon it the seal of research, of reasonableness, of antiquity, and of wisdom, it demands our first and best consideration in order that we may with fitness conclude upon its acceptation or rejection.
So, then, a member of the Society, no matter how high or how low his or her position in its ranks, has the right to promulgate all the philosophical and ethical ideas found in our literature to the best ability possessed.
No one else has the right to object, provided such promulgation is accompanied by a clear statement that it is not authorized or made orthodox by any declaration from the body corporate of the T.S. Our Society must be kept free and open, no matter if, because we refuse to formulate beliefs as a Society, we remain small in number, for we can always be strong in influence.
COHERENT consciousness creates order in the world, and subtle interactions link us with each other and the Earth.
According to H. P. Blavatsky, “the ‘separateness’ which we feel between ourselves and the world of living beings around us is an illusion, not a reality.”
“We intend to prove,” she wrote in her article Kosmic Mind, “that modern science … is itself on the eve of discovering that consciousness is universal.”
To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature under every aspect possible, and the psychic and spiritual powers latent in man especially.
Intended, among other reasons, to establish, according to H. P. Blavatsky and her Adept Teachers, that “the ‘separateness’ which we feel between ourselves and the world of living beings around us is an illusion, not a reality.”
The mechanism of this underlying universal reality, W. Q. Judge wrote in The Ocean of Theosophy (Ch. 16), is the handiwork of a sensitive psychic matrix, called “the astral light,” which can transmit “pictures of events to come” — but only if the creations “are sufficiently well marked and made.”
Events for several years to come, “the producing and efficient causes,” Judge wrote, “are always laid down with enough definiteness to permit the seer to see them in advance, as if they were present.” Clairvoyance, Judge wrote:
It is a faculty common to all men, though in the majority but slightly developed.
“Occultism asserts,” he continued, “that were it not for the germ of this power slightly active in every one, no man could convey to another any idea whatsoever.”
On the “astral” substance H. P. Blavatsky proclaimed in The Secret Doctrine (2:149): “The whole issue of the quarrel between the profane and the esoteric sciences, depends upon the belief in, and demonstration of, the existence of an astral body within the physical, the former independent of the latter.”
pass before the inner vision and are reflected into the physical eye from within. They then appear objectively to the seer.
It was the “flashing gaze” of “countless generations” of initiated seers and prophets, H. P. Blavatsky explained in The Secret Doctrine (1:272), that penetrated “into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there.” Those facts, established using the same method of modern science, were to become the perennial teachings furthered by modern Theosophy.
Seership
Those early wise men, she insisted, “had passed their lives in learning, not teaching. How did they do so? It is answered: by checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations to the utmost possible degree.
“No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions — so obtained as to stand as independent evidence — of other adepts, and by centuries of experiences.” This checking, testing, verifying and confirming is the method supposed to be used by modern Science. Seeking the facts wherever they may be found. Continue reading →
LOVE in its most unselfish form was described by H. P. Blavatsky as the “absence of every ill-feeling , selfishness, charity, goodwill to all beings.”
The alchemy of such enlightened ethics unleashes the power of an stoppable universal force.
“The powers and forces of spirit,” Blavatsky declared in her article Practical Occultism, “lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart — and this is DIVINE MAGIC.”
‘Kamadeva’, a Sanskrit word, is defined in The Theosophical Glossary as “the first conscious, all-embracing desire for universal good, love, and the first feeling of infinite compassion and mercy for all that lives and feels, needs help and kindness. Only later did kama become the power that gratifies desire on the animal plane.”
“Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind,” (Secret Doctrine 2:176) — “and which sages, searching with their intellect, discovered to be the bond which connects Entity with Non-Entity.”
Mother and Child, Tibet
That power arose,” Blavatsky said, “in the consciousness of the creative One Force, as soon as it came into life and being as a ray from the Absolute.” It was she also who, in the article Love with an Object, fervently declared:
“Love can exist without form, but no form can exist without Love.”
Devotion arose out of a feeling she explained, “and became the first and foremost motor in our nature — for it is the only one which is natural in our heart, which is innate in us.”
Home From The War
The Heart Doctrine
In her first Letter to a Theosophical Convention in 1888, Blavatsky wrote: “He who teaches Theosophy preaches the gospel of goodwill, and the converse of this is true also — he who preaches the gospel of goodwill, teaches Theosophy.”
Compassion is no mere attribute of thinking or emotion, says the Book of the Golden Precepts. Like love, its companion force, compassion is “the Law of Laws” declares The Voice of the Silence (III). Genuine harmony of feeling and deed naturally resonate as the “fitness of all things.”
Compassion is also described in Theosophy as a “shoreless universal essence,” and “the light of everlasting Right.” Simply put, this ancient teaching asserts this power is nothing short of “the law of love eternal.”
The Law of Love Eternal
The more thou dost become at one with it, thy being melted in its BEING, the more thy Soul unites with that which IS, the more thou wilt become COMPASSION ABSOLUTE. Such is the Arya Path, Path of the Buddhas of perfection.
Of the heart’s Blavatsky wrote in Isis Unveiled (Preface 1:v): “we believe in no Magic which transcends the scope and capacity of the human mind, nor in ‘miracle,’ whether divine or diabolical, if such imply a transgression of the laws of nature instituted from all eternity.”
Nevertheless, we accept…that the human heart has not yet fully uttered itself, and that we have never attained or even understood the extent of its powers.
The Heart Rules
“All the organs in our body generate their own specific fields. One organ in particular seems to generate significant fields which affect the entire body. The heart is the Emperor in the system. The liver and all the organs have other tasks. But the heart is overruling all.”
The Solar Heart
The Sun rhythmically expands and contracts like the human heart it is taught, and “there is a regular circulation of the vital fluid throughout our system,
of which the Sun is the heart — the same as the circulation of the blood in the human body.
The Sun Heart
Mme. Blavatsky devoted an entire section in The Secret Doctrine to the teaching (“The Solar Theory“), comparing the Sun to a heart, calling it “the heart of the solar system.”
“Only, instead of performing the round in a second or so, it takes the solar blood ten of its years, and a whole year to pass through its auricles and ventricles before it washes the lungs and passes thence to the great veins and arteries of the system.”
The Electric Sun
“Foremost of all, they [the astronomers] would have to repudiate the ideas on the Sun’s solidity and incandescence; the Sun is ‘glowing’ most undeniably, but not burning . . .”
“If the sun is connected to the rest of the galaxy in an electrical sense, it doesn’t require to burn itself at all. The energy that we receive is actually received from the galaxy [central sun?], and the sun is acting as a focus for that energy. . . . its puzzling characteristics with respect to conventional interpretations are most likely demonstrating the fluctuations in current arriving from the Milky Way’s electric generator.”
“The Sun is neither a solid nor a liquid, nor yet a gaseous glow; but a gigantic ball of electro-magnetic Forces, the store-house of universal life and motion, from which the latter pulsate in all directions . . . when your astronomers speaking of sun-matter, term those lights and flames as ‘clouds of vapour’ and ‘gases unknown to science’ . . . we know it to be simply magnetic matter in its usual state of activity —”
“This, Science will not deny, since Astronomy knows of the fixed cycle of eleven years when the number of solar spots increases, which is due to the contraction of the Solar heart,” Blavatsky insisted.
Solar Heart
“The universe (our world in this case) breathes, just as man and every living creature, plant, and even mineral does upon the earth — and as our globe itself breathes every twenty-four hours.”
New Solar Images
Many Mysteries
“Could the human heart be made luminous, and the living and throbbing organ be made visible, so as to have it reflected upon a screen — then every one would see the Sun-spot phenomenon repeated every second — due to its contraction and the rushing of the blood.”
On the mystery of consciousness, Blavatsky wrote in Psychic and Noetic Action, that “no physiologist, not even the cleverest, will ever be able to solve the mystery of the human mind, in its highest spiritual manifestation.”
Nor will they be able to understand the meaning of “the psychic and the noetic — or even to comprehend the intricacies of the former on the purely material plane.”
Organized Religion
Healing Humanity
by H. P. Blavatsky
“On the day when Theosophy will have accomplished its most holy and most important mission — namely, to unite firmly a body of men of all nations in brotherly love and bent on a pure altruistic work, not on a labor with selfish motives —
“…on that day only will Theosophy become higher than any nominal brotherhood of man.
“This will be a wonder and a miracle truly, for the realization of which Humanity is vainly waiting for the last 18 centuries, and which every association has hitherto failed to accomplish.”
WHEN acting through our physical human brain and body, the mind displays a complex duality — a pivotal tenet of Theosophical psychology.
The reason for the contrast is simple: the entire manifested universe is pervaded by duality. Wherever we look we see that we are copies of universal paradigms. “As above, so below,” is the old Hermetic axiom.
“Each of us has a magnificent hive of billions of neurons in our head, joined to each other by trillions of connections. The human brain is arguably the most complex organ in the natural world,” writes Carl Zimmer in his Discover article titled: Stop Paying Attention: Zoning Out is a Crucial Mental State.
As H. P. Blavatsky wrote: “Everything in the Universe follows analogy. ‘As above, so below’; Man is the microcosm of the Universe. That which takes place on the spiritual plane repeats itself on the Cosmic plane. Concretion follows the lines of abstraction; corresponding to the highest must be the lowest; the material to the spiritual.” (The Secret Doctrine I:177)
“Parabrahm (the One Reality, the Absolute) is the field of Absolute Consciousness,” but when manifested as a material universe “duality supervenes in the contrast of Spirit (or consciousness) and Matter, Subject and Object.”
“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.”
Not being separate from the universe, we experience the manifested physical (to us) universe as ruled by the contrasts of day and night, sleeping and waking, hot and cold, evil and good. This construct, says Theffffff Secret Doctrine 1:15, is “necessary to focus a ray of the Universal Mind at a certain stage of complexity.”
Sun Rays
“’Universal Mind,’ must not be regarded as even vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that exhibited by man. The ‘Unconscious,’ according to von Hartmann, arrived at the vast creative, or rather Evolutionary Plan, ‘by a clairvoyant wisdom superior to all consciousness,’ which in the Vedantic language would mean absolute Wisdom.
Only those who realise how far Intuition soars above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought can form the faintest conception of that absolute Wisdom which transcends the ideas of Time and Space.
“Apart from Cosmic Substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest as individual consciousness, since it is only through a vehicle of matter that consciousness wells up as ‘I am I,’ a physical basis being necessary to focus a ray of the Universal Mind at a certain stage of complexity.
“Again, apart from Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty abstraction, and no emergence of consciousness could ensue — and “the manifested universe is pervaded by duality, which is, as it were, the very essence of itsex-istence as ‘manifestation.'”
The every intense struggle between the dual channels of our mind is a challenge that few of us are able to successfully navigate and reconcile in one short lifetime.
But help is on the way. The solution has been taught by advanced masters of life such as Lao-tse, Patanjali, Krishna and Buddha. Each assured us that self-awakening is entirely possible — but a daily meditation, raja yoga practice, and above all else, altruistic service to family and humanity is required.
Clairvoyance
The struggle for control in meditation is caused by our split dual consciousness. The mind’s higher spiritual aspect gravitates toward altruism, says Theosophy, while the tides of its companion personal side is attached to outer forms, desires, survival and other material concerns.
The result is that all human minds are often blown by the winds of sense into the low lying eddies and currents of material thought. Like a balloon losing helium, we drift down from the god within us, and away from our kinship with the soul of things. Broadly considered, what is called higher mind is really a feature of our god-soul, our intuitional base: the manifestation all-knowingness in human beings.
Hamlet’s Soliloquy
Our all-seeing self and personal self are caught in a Hamlet-like to-be-or-not-to-be, we are alternately pitted by the gut and brain consciousness, against the knowing heart consciousness. This sets up an confusing conflict between the true god and the demigod in us. Yet, “peace is just a thought away” according to brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor.
“The closer the approach to one’s Prototype, ‘in Heaven,’ the better for the mortal whose personality was chosen, by his own personal deity (the seventh principle), as its terrestrial abode.”
For, with every effort of will toward purification and unity with that ‘Self-god,’ one of the lower rays breaks and the spiritual entity of man is drawn higher and ever higher to the ray that supersedes the first.
This struggle of selves is dramatized by neuroanatomist Bolte-Taylor in her New York Times bestseller “My Stroke of Insight.” As a brain researcher, Dr. Taylor’s professional focus is both anatomical and intuitional, the relationship between the brain’s left and right hemispheres. (See Video below)
SOUL memory according to Theosophy is referred to as ‘reminiscence,’ and it is this kind memory that assures every human being, whether they know it or not, of their having lived before, and having to live again.
To fully grasp the idea, we first have to study the complex relationship between the human and transcendental aspects of mind (represented physiologically by the brain’s left and right hemispheres.)
Knowledge gained or not by soul-sourced transmission is described by W. Q. Judge in his Ocean of Theosophy, Ch.9:
“By living according to the dictates of the soul the brain may at last be made porous to the soul’s recollections; if the contrary sort of a life is led, then more and more will clouds obscure that reminiscence.”
The differences were experienced directly by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor PhD, described in her book “My Stroke of Insight.” In a memorable TED Talk, she describes her experience in dramatic detail:
“Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one. An astonishing story.”
“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. . . . Just as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual consciousness, so pre-Cosmic Substance is the substratum of matter in the various grades of its differentiation.”
This fundamental double consciousness, Blavatsky explained, is termed first “the spiritual, or those which belong to the imperishable Ego,” (The Key to Theosophy, Section 8, On Individuality and Personality). Second, she describes the intellectual/rational, personal physical brain states:
which inhabit the ever-changing bodies, or the series of personalities of that Ego.
Notwithstanding, our higher mind knows and remembers all its lives, she insisted, “as well as you remember what you have done yesterday.The real Ego has not forgotten them, and the personal never experienced them. Shall the new boots on the feet of a boy who is flogged for stealing apples, be punished for that which they know nothing?” HPB asked.
“Duality Supervenes”
That which is called “the divine man,” is the “real Individuality,” who like the elegant elephant, never forgets. But its vehicle the personality has no access to that history as it corresponds to “a new suit of clothes.” There are, however, importantly:
modes of communication between the Spiritual and human consciousness or memory.
Evidence for such modes of communication lies in our powers of intuition, conscience, premonitions etc. and, most powerfully, from investigations into the so-called NDE or Near Death Experience. But such states as this “have never been recognised by your scientific modern psychologists,” Blavatsky said of such communications.
“THERE is not a mental or physical suffering in the life of a mortal which is not the direct fruit and consequence of some sin in a preceding existence.”
“On the other hand, since he does not preserve the slightest recollection of it in his actual life, and feels himself not deserving of such punishment, and therefore thinks he suffers for no guilt of his own, this alone is sufficient to entitle the human soul to the fullest consolation, rest, and bliss in his post-mortem existence.
Death comes to our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and friend.
In her influential work The Key to Theosophy, H. P. Blavatsky presented the following clarifying principles on this critical subject:
“HPB. According to our teaching all these great social evils, the distinction of classes in Society, and of the sexes in the affairs of life, the unequal distribution of capital and of labour—all are due to what we tersely but truly denominate KARMA.
“ENQUIRER. But, surely, all these evils which seem to fall upon the masses somewhat indiscriminately are not actual merited and INDIVIDUAL Karma?
“HPB. No, they cannot be so strictly defined in their effects as to show that each individual environment, and the particular conditions of life in which each person finds himself, are nothing more than the retributive Karma which the individual generated in a previous life.
We must not lose sight of the fact that every atom is subject to the general law governing the whole body to which it belongs, and here we come upon the wider track of the Karmic law.
The Web of Life
“Do you not perceive that the aggregate of individual Karma becomes that of the nation to which those individuals belong, and further, that the sum total of National Karma is that of the World?
“The evils that you speak of are not peculiar to the individual or even to the Nation, they are more or less universal; and it is upon this broad line of Human interdependence that the law of Karma finds its legitimate and equable issue.”
“ENQUIRER. Do I, then, understand that the law of Karma is not necessarily an individual law?
“HPB. That is just what I mean. It is impossible that Karma could readjust the balance of power in the world’s life and progress, unless it had a broad and general line of action.
It is held as a truth among Theosophists that the interdependence of Humanity is the cause of what is called Distributive Karma, and it is this law which affords the solution to the great question of collective suffering and its relief.
“It is an occult law, moreover, that no man can rise superior to his individual failings, without lifting, be it ever so little, the whole body of which he is an integral part. In the same way, no one can sin, nor suffer the effects of sin, alone. In reality, there is no such thing as ‘Separateness’; and the nearest approach to that selfish state, which the laws of life permit, is in the intent or motive.”
Near-death experiences have been hypothesized in various medical journals in the past, as having the characteristics of hallucinations, but Dr Ackermann and his team, on the contrary, consider them as evidence for the existence of the afterlife and of a form of dualism between mind and body.
What Really Happens When You Die
by Peter Fenwick
Peter Fenwick (born 25 May 1935) is a neuropsychiatrist and neurophysiologist who is known for his pioneering studies of end-of-life phenomena. In this interview he talks about near-death-experiences (NDE), death-bed-visitors and how we can achieve a good death. NDE research is at the cutting edge of consciousness research and offers a convincing model for the understanding of what happens when we die.
Peter Fenwick describes the different transitional phases of the dying process and highlights the importance of letting go at the end of ones life. He offers fascinating insights into common phenomena at the end of life, such as premonitions, seeing a light, death-bed-visions and coincidences. In his opinion everybody should know about death and the dying process, because it is a normal part of living.
The doctrine we promulgate being the only true one, must, supported by such evidence as we are preparing to give become ultimately triumphant as every other truth. Yet it is absolutely necessary to inculcate it gradually enforcing its theories, unimpeachable facts for those who know, with direct inferences deducted from and corroborated by the evidence furnished by modern exact science.
MORE than five-thousand years ago, ancient healers described hundreds of invisible energy meridians throughout the human body. When these pathways were unblocked and revitalized, people quickly healed.
This ancient system of healing we today describe in various ways. Emotional Freedom Techniques is a form of counseling intervention that draws on various theories of alternative medicine – including acupuncture, neuro-linguistic programming, energy medicine, and Thought Field Therapy.
Acupuncture often uses special sterilized needles. But many healers are literally tapping into this natural energy system of the body, without needles, using only their bare hands and fingers.
Using this new system ordinary people are learning how to master all the “mental changes” in themselves, as taught by The Voice of the Silence, and report healing almost instantly.
They learn how to “harmless make” the stubborn thought and emotional issues that have plagued them, often embedded in early childhood, causing numerous physical, emotional and psychological illnesses as adults. The success resulting from a healing memory recall is an object lesson of what Einstein famously wrote:
We can’t solve problems, by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Instead, the old thought forms blocking the flow of natural energies in our system have to be cleared away. As we free ourselves from old habits of thinking, we come to recognize our role as a causitive agent in the problems they caused.
Einstein
In psychological terms it means assuming personal karmic responsibility, and there’s nothing in the universe, even atomic energy, more powerful than the powers of gratitude and acceptance.
Getting Unstuck
It’s probably an understatement to say it’s difficult for most people to get to the root cause of difficult issues, especially if the causes were set up in a past life, a life they cannot consciously now recall.
It is the forgotten events, limiting beliefs, and fixed emotional patterns that glue us to our fate as flypaper does a fly.
“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.”
Merlin Sheldrake talks about his new book The Entangled Life, mushrooms, ecology, consciousness and Our Relationship With Nature.
“Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster. By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms – and our relationships with them – are changing our understanding of how life works.” –
You can order or pre-order Merlins transformative new book via http://www.merlinsheldrake.com Merlin is interviewed by EcoResolution co-founder Christabel Reed.
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and a writer with a background in plant sciences, microbiology, ecology, and the history and philosophy of science. He received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
Merlin’s research ranges from fungal biology, to the history of Amazonian ethnobotany, to the relationship between sound and form in resonant systems. A keen brewer and fermenter, he is fascinated by the relationships that arise between humans and more-than-human organisms. He is a musician and performs on the piano and accordion. Entangled Life is his first book.
EcoResolution was created by Cara Delevingne and Advaya in 2019 with a mission to empower people around the world to take action, to step up rather than shut down in the face of our climate and ecological crisis! Come on a journey of climate action and stay connected via instagram: @MyEcoResolution • Visit us at http://www.EcoResolution.earth • Follow us on instagram at @MyEcoResolution • Sign up to our newsletter • Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more expert interviews
“WE assume our senses see reality as it is – but that could be just an evolved illusion,” the July 31, 2019 issue of NewScientist insisted.
“What is the relationship between the world out there and my internal experience of it – between objective and subjective reality?
“If I’m sober, and don’t suspect a prank, I’m inclined to believe that when I see a cherry, there is a real cherry whose shape and color match my experience, and which continues to exist when I look away.
“This assumption is central to how we think about ourselves and the world. But is it valid? Experiments my collaborators and I have performed to test the form of sensory perception that evolution has given us suggest a startling conclusion: it isn’t.”
The author of The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes, the pioneering cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman, believes that evolution designed our perceptions “to keep us alive.” Our perceptions, he says, are “interfaces constructed by natural selection,” in a word randomly.
Real Cherries?
There are no completely random forces in Theosophy. The reality illusion is wholly subjective and beholden to our faculties of perception, and states of consciousness unique to our complex sevenfold human construction, according to Theosophy. But agreeably with Professor Hoffman, the world is nothing like what we see through our eyes. But for much different reasons than the conjectures of modern science.
“Every one of us possesses the faculty, the interior sense, that is known by the name of intuition,” H. P. Blavatsky wrote in her article The Beacon-Light of the Unknown, “but how rare are those who know how to develop it!
It is, however, only by the aid of this faculty that men can ever see things in their true colors.
“It is an instinct of the soul, which grows in us in proportion to the employment we give it, and which helps us to perceive and understand the realities of things with far more certainty than can the simple use of our senses and exercise of our reason.”
Alice Through the Looking Glass
“What are called good sense and logic enable us to see only the appearances of things, that which is evident to every one. The instinct of which I speak, being a projection of our perceptive consciousness,
a projection which acts from the subjective to the objective, and not vice versa, awakens in us spiritual senses and power to act.
These senses assimilate to themselves the essence of the object or of the action under examination, and represent it to us as it really is, not as it appears to our physical senses and to our cold reason.”
The Hindu poem, adialogue between Master Krishna and his disciple Arjuna, in the Bhagavad-Gita, is set metaphorically on a ‘battlefield.’ This chosen venue symbolizes “the war within,” which each of us continually faces, and must eventually wage. (BlavatskyTheosophy.com)
In Chapter 11, Krishna challenges Arjuna to exercise his spiritual sight in a specially induced vision of “the Divine Form as including all forms.” To enforce the lesson, and in answer to Arjuna’s request, Krishna temporarily awakens his “Divine Eye.” The rest is occult history!
“Gautama, the Buddha, only remained in solitude long enough to enable him to arrive at the truth, which he devoted himself from that time on to promulgate, begging his bread, and living for humanity.”
If, in the words of the dying Buddha, ‘all compounds are perishable,’ then all collections of atoms must be considered but temporary ‘illusions.’
They are such, according to The Secret Doctrine (1:329), because they are the very personal creations “of the perceiving Ego.” But this must not be considered a solipsistic argument. If we only knew how to get past our five senses we might very well contact the underlying ‘reality’ of physical things.
My Universe
The term “Ego” here must ultimately refer to a personal state, and as such must always relate to specific ‘states’ of consciousness. But this is only from our plane of perception. According to The Secret Doctrine (1:330), once we have gotten past that plane, and scaled the “peak of Omniscience,” the “knowledge of things-in-themselves” is immediately available to us.
Real motion or the illusion of motion?
One of the best ways to describe what Theosophy is, arts reporter Ali Snow remarked on a Utah Public Radio show, “is to think of it as a kind of fusion of religion and science.”
A desire to prove or to explore some of the mystical forces that made religion work and make the spiritual world work.
“Is it possible to see music? Or hear a painting? The art exhibition “Enchanted Modernities: Mysticism, Landscape and the American West” answers these questions and more by exploring the impact of Theosophy, an esoteric-philosophical revolution, on visual artists, writers, and composers in the American West.”
A striking example of this kind of fusion is H. P. Blavatsky’s description of how
the sense of sound is the first thing that manifests itself in the universe … in correspondence with colors or sight.
Colors and Sound
About this sensory synesthetic power Blavatsky wrote:
If you could only see clairvoyantly a person playing a piano, you would see the sound as plainly as you hear it.
“You can even put cotton in your ears—you will see the sound and every little note and modulation that you could not do otherwise.”
Synesthesia
Making reference to this sensory merging (known today as “synesthesia”) she explained: “One would merge into the other. You can taste sound, if you like, too. There sounds which are exceedingly acid, and there are sounds which are exceedingly sweet, and bitter, and all the scale of taste, in fact.”
There is no nonsense, I say it seriously, and you will find it so if you want to know about the super-physical senses.
Alexander Scriabin, a Russian pianist and composer who was deeply influenced by Theosophy, visualized a grand magnum opus which he titled Mysterium.
Click the link here or the link below to listen to Nora Eccles, Harrison Museum of Art as three curators describe the exhibit, Painting Music: Enchanted Modernities, and who give us a personalized tour of the Theosophy promoted powers (click below the photo):
Synesthete Elisabeth Sulser
Click to start below:
This interesting phenomenon is demonstrated practically by the multiple senses of a unique synesthete from Zurich, Switzerland named Elizabeth Sulser. A psi investigator writes:
Her particular combination of senses is so unique that she is the only person in the world documented to have it.
“THERE is not a mental or physical suffering in the life of a mortal which is not the direct fruit and consequence of some sin in a preceding existence.”
“On the other hand, since he does not preserve the slightest recollection of it in his actual life, and feels himself not deserving of such punishment, and therefore thinks he suffers for no guilt of his own, this alone is sufficient to entitle the human soul to the fullest consolation, rest, and bliss in his post-mortem existence.
Death comes to our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and friend.
In her influential work The Key to Theosophy, H. P. Blavatsky presented the following clarifying principles on this critical subject:
“HPB. According to our teaching all these great social evils, the distinction of classes in Society, and of the sexes in the affairs of life, the unequal distribution of capital and of labour—all are due to what we tersely but truly denominate KARMA.
“ENQUIRER. But, surely, all these evils which seem to fall upon the masses somewhat indiscriminately are not actual merited and INDIVIDUAL Karma?
“HPB. No, they cannot be so strictly defined in their effects as to show that each individual environment, and the particular conditions of life in which each person finds himself, are nothing more than the retributive Karma which the individual generated in a previous life.
We must not lose sight of the fact that every atom is subject to the general law governing the whole body to which it belongs, and here we come upon the wider track of the Karmic law.
The Web of Life
“Do you not perceive that the aggregate of individual Karma becomes that of the nation to which those individuals belong, and further, that the sum total of National Karma is that of the World?
“The evils that you speak of are not peculiar to the individual or even to the Nation, they are more or less universal; and it is upon this broad line of Human interdependence that the law of Karma finds its legitimate and equable issue.”
“ENQUIRER. Do I, then, understand that the law of Karma is not necessarily an individual law?
“HPB. That is just what I mean. It is impossible that Karma could readjust the balance of power in the world’s life and progress, unless it had a broad and general line of action.
It is held as a truth among Theosophists that the interdependence of Humanity is the cause of what is called Distributive Karma, and it is this law which affords the solution to the great question of collective suffering and its relief.
“It is an occult law, moreover, that no man can rise superior to his individual failings, without lifting, be it ever so little, the whole body of which he is an integral part. In the same way, no one can sin, nor suffer the effects of sin, alone. In reality, there is no such thing as ‘Separateness’; and the nearest approach to that selfish state, which the laws of life permit, is in the intent or motive.”
Near-death experiences have been hypothesized in various medical journals in the past, as having the characteristics of hallucinations, but Dr Ackermann and his team, on the contrary, consider them as evidence for the existence of the afterlife and of a form of dualism between mind and body.
What Really Happens When You Die
by Peter Fenwick
Peter Fenwick (born 25 May 1935) is a neuropsychiatrist and neurophysiologist who is known for his pioneering studies of end-of-life phenomena. In this interview he talks about near-death-experiences (NDE), death-bed-visitors and how we can achieve a good death. NDE research is at the cutting edge of consciousness research and offers a convincing model for the understanding of what happens when we die.
Peter Fenwick describes the different transitional phases of the dying process and highlights the importance of letting go at the end of ones life. He offers fascinating insights into common phenomena at the end of life, such as premonitions, seeing a light, death-bed-visions and coincidences. In his opinion everybody should know about death and the dying process, because it is a normal part of living.
The doctrine we promulgate being the only true one, must, supported by such evidence as we are preparing to give become ultimately triumphant as every other truth. Yet it is absolutely necessary to inculcate it gradually enforcing its theories, unimpeachable facts for those who know, with direct inferences deducted from and corroborated by the evidence furnished by modern exact science.
COHERENT consciousness creates order in the world, and subtle interactions link us with each other and the Earth.
According to H. P. Blavatsky, “the ‘separateness’ which we feel between ourselves and the world of living beings around us is an illusion, not a reality.”
“We intend to prove,” she wrote in her article Kosmic Mind, “that modern science … is itself on the eve of discovering that consciousness is universal.”
To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature under every aspect possible, and the psychic and spiritual powers latent in man especially.
Intended, among other reasons, to establish, according to H. P. Blavatsky and her Adept Teachers, that “the ‘separateness’ which we feel between ourselves and the world of living beings around us is an illusion, not a reality.”
The mechanism of this underlying universal reality, W. Q. Judge wrote in The Ocean of Theosophy (Ch. 16), is the handiwork of a sensitive psychic matrix, called “the astral light,” which can transmit “pictures of events to come” — but only if the creations “are sufficiently well marked and made.”
Events for several years to come, “the producing and efficient causes,” Judge wrote, “are always laid down with enough definiteness to permit the seer to see them in advance, as if they were present.” Clairvoyance, Judge wrote:
It is a faculty common to all men, though in the majority but slightly developed.
“Occultism asserts,” he continued, “that were it not for the germ of this power slightly active in every one, no man could convey to another any idea whatsoever.”
On the “astral” substance H. P. Blavatsky proclaimed in The Secret Doctrine (2:149): “The whole issue of the quarrel between the profane and the esoteric sciences, depends upon the belief in, and demonstration of, the existence of an astral body within the physical, the former independent of the latter.”
pass before the inner vision and are reflected into the physical eye from within. They then appear objectively to the seer.
It was the “flashing gaze” of “countless generations” of initiated seers and prophets, H. P. Blavatsky explained in The Secret Doctrine (1:272), that penetrated “into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there.” Those facts, established using the same method of modern science, were to become the perennial teachings furthered by modern Theosophy.
Seership
Those early wise men, she insisted, “had passed their lives in learning, not teaching. How did they do so? It is answered: by checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations to the utmost possible degree.
“No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions — so obtained as to stand as independent evidence — of other adepts, and by centuries of experiences.” This checking, testing, verifying and confirming is the method supposed to be used by modern Science. Seeking the facts wherever they may be found. Continue reading →
SOUL memory according to Theosophy is referred to as ‘reminiscence,’ and it is this kind memory that assures every human being, whether they know it or not, of their having lived before, and having to live again.
To fully grasp the idea, we first have to study the complex relationship between the human and transcendental aspects of mind (represented physiologically by the brain’s left and right hemispheres.)
Knowledge gained or not by soul-sourced transmission is described by W. Q. Judge in his Ocean of Theosophy, Ch.9:
“By living according to the dictates of the soul the brain may at last be made porous to the soul’s recollections; if the contrary sort of a life is led, then more and more will clouds obscure that reminiscence.”
The differences were experienced directly by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor PhD, described in her book “My Stroke of Insight.” In a memorable TED Talk, she describes her experience in dramatic detail:
“Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one. An astonishing story.”
“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. . . . Just as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual consciousness, so pre-Cosmic Substance is the substratum of matter in the various grades of its differentiation.”
This fundamental double consciousness, Blavatsky explained, is termed first “the spiritual, or those which belong to the imperishable Ego,” (The Key to Theosophy, Section 8, On Individuality and Personality). Second, she describes the intellectual/rational, personal physical brain states:
which inhabit the ever-changing bodies, or the series of personalities of that Ego.
Notwithstanding, our higher mind knows and remembers all its lives, she insisted, “as well as you remember what you have done yesterday.The real Ego has not forgotten them, and the personal never experienced them. Shall the new boots on the feet of a boy who is flogged for stealing apples, be punished for that which they know nothing?” HPB asked.
“Duality Supervenes”
That which is called “the divine man,” is the “real Individuality,” who like the elegant elephant, never forgets. But its vehicle the personality has no access to that history as it corresponds to “a new suit of clothes.” There are, however, importantly:
modes of communication between the Spiritual and human consciousness or memory.
Evidence for such modes of communication lies in our powers of intuition, conscience, premonitions etc. and, most powerfully, from investigations into the so-called NDE or Near Death Experience. But such states as this “have never been recognised by your scientific modern psychologists,” Blavatsky said of such communications.
LATE in the 19th Century W.Q. Judge, co-founder of the Theosophical Society published a series of articles in The Path entitled “Hidden Hints in The Secret Doctrine.”
Judge quoted from near the end of the first volume of The Secret Doctrine, where H. P. Blavatsky made the following prophecy:
We are at the very close of the cycle of 5,000 years of the present Aryan Kaliyuga; and between this time and 1897 there will be a large rent made in the Veil of Nature, and materialistic science will receive a death-blow. —(SD 1:612)
The Kali-yuga is a cycle mentioned in Indian philosophical works. Its duration is 432,000 years. The present Kali-yuga began in 3102 B.C.
Just on schedule, several important scientific discoveries were made. These include the discovery of x-rays by Roentgen (1895), radioactivity by Becquerel (1896), and the electron by Thomson (1897).
Hypothetical Atom
Two other very important events occurred during the period specified in this prophecy that resulted in a complete disruption of centuries of scientific and philosophical thought. The first event was an experiment conducted in 1887 (around the time this prophecy was written) by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley, in the USA. It demonstrated that the speed of light was the same, regardless of whether the light traveled with, or at right angles to, the earth’s motion.
The second event occurred in 1897. The physicist Joseph J. Thomson demonstrated that the particles that flow through a vacuum tube can be deflected by electric charges. By this method, he determined that these particles were extremely light, having only about 1/2000 the mass of a hydrogen atom. They were later accepted as the ultimate particles of electricity, and called electrons. In 1906 Thomson was awarded a Nobel Prize for establishing the existence of electrons.
Butterfly Kids
“Reason and all the powers of intelligent waking man are used in dreams; and as emotion, reasoning, perception, and memory are all found to be even more active in dreams than in waking life, it must follow that the Hidden Self is the one who has and does all this.”
The word ‘Psyche’ is a Hellenistic personification of the soul as female, or sometimes as a butterfly. The allegory of Psyche’s love for Cupid is told in The Golden Ass by Apuleius.
Plato
The idea of the psyche is central to the philosophy of Plato.
In his Phaedo, Plato has Socrates give four arguments for the immortality of the soul and life after death following the separation of the soul from the body.[4]
“It was H.P. Blavatsky who … was the first to explain [to] the Spiritualist the difference there was between psyche and nous, nefesh and ruach — Soul and Spirit. She had to bring the whole arsenal of proofs with her, quotations from Paul and Plato, from Plutarch and James, etc. before the Spiritualists admitted that the Theosophists were right.” –Mahatma K.H.
Plato’s Socrates also states that after death, the Psyche is better able to achieve wisdom and experience the Platonic forms since it is unhindered by the body.[5 The Greek Philosopher Aristotle wrote an influential treatise on the psyche, called in Greek Περὶ Ψυχῆς (Peri Psyches), in LatinDe Anima and in English On the Soul.
Butterflies
Proof of Heaven
IN this intimate and powerful re-examination of his best-selling book “Proof of Heaven,” Dr. Alexander looks at the past two and a half years of his life spent in trying to reconcile his rich spiritual experience with contemporary physics and cosmology.
He is convinced that his remarkable near-death journey is totally consistent with the leading edges of scientific understanding today.
This presentation was part of the 128th Summer Convention of the Theosophical Society in America. The theme for the conference was “Science and the Experience of Consciousness,” which brought together such distinguished scientists as physicist Amit Goswami, a consciousness researcher, and psychologist, Dean Radin, physicist, and psychic researcher Russell Targ, neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, and more.
MOLECULAR biologist Bonnie Bassler discovered that bacteria “talk” to each other, and is studying how they communicate with one another. But there is nothing new in this “revelation” for Theosophy. (How bacteria “talk”)
H. P. Blavatsky, author of The Secret Doctrine, her masterwork, summarized the underlying principle: “foremost of all, [is] the postulate that there is no such thing in Nature as inorganic substances or bodies.”
“Stones, minerals, rocks, and even chemical ‘atoms’ are simply organic units in profound lethargy.” (SD 1:626fn)
In her Summing Up section (The Secret Doctrine 1:269) she also had this fundamental covered, insisting that: “everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is conscious,” and,”is endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception.”
“We men must remember,” she said plainly, challenging modern materialistic science, “that because we do not perceive any signs — which we can recognize of consciousness, say, in stones — we have no right to say that no consciousness exists there.” (See: The Third Fundamental of The Secret Doctrine).
Healing Stones
“There is no such thing as either ‘dead’ or ‘blind’ matter — these find no place among the conceptions of Occult philosophy,” she wrote. “The latter never stops at surface appearances, and for it the noumenal essences have more reality than their objective counterparts.”
“There exists a body of research poised to rend apart our modern paradigms — revealing consciousness in places we might not have expected it, and connections between life forms that seem startling and impossible.” So wrote Ben Bendig in an interview with Cleve Backster, of “The Secret Life of Plants” fame, (July 22, 2013 The Epoch Times), echoing H. P. Blavatsky’s Fundamental axiom of universal mind.
SINCE Darwin presented his theories modern evolutionists have maintained the most elaborate scientific fraud of all time, critics say.
The fraud consists in a conscious refusal to accept any kind of design or purpose in Nature.
The denial is a consensus of blind authority by modern science waged against irreducible complexity as proof of design.
Irreducible complexity is the compelling principle proposed by biologist Michael Behe as proof that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved by random chance. A primary example Behe uses is the bacterial flagellum which is driven by a rotary engine made up of protein. Some authors have argued that flagella cannot have gradually evolved. (Wikipedia)
Modern evolution calls upon “natural selection,” acting on a series of chance mutations from simpler, or “less complete” predecessors. “No more than Science, does esoteric philosophy admit design or ‘special creation,’ writes H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine (2:731).
It rejects every claim to the ‘miraculous,’ and accepts nothing outside the uniform and immutable laws of Nature.
“It is argued that the Universal Evolution … the gradual development of species in all the kingdoms of nature, works by uniform laws. The fact is, that only the partial truth of many of the secondary ‘laws’ of Darwinism is beyond question.”
“And the law is enforced far more strictly in Esoteric than in modern Science. But we are told also, that it is equally a law that ‘development works from the less to the more perfect, and from the simpler to the more complicated, by incessant changes, small in themselves, but constantly accumulating in the required direction.'” Theosophy agrees in this case:
It is from the infinitesimally small that the comparatively gigantic species are produced.
“Even though we are led to believe that during the Cretaceous the Earth used to be an exclusive home for fearsome giants, including carnivorous velociraptors and arthropods larger than a modern adult human, it turns out that there was still room for harmless minute invertebrates measuring only several millimeters.” (ScienceDaily)
An 8.2-millimeter fossil millipede in Burmese amber.
“Such is the case (above) of a tiny millipede of only 8.2 mm in length, recently found in 99-million-year-old amber in Myanmar. Using the latest research technologies, the scientists concluded that not only were they handling the first fossil millipede of the order (Callipodida) and also the smallest amongst its contemporary relatives, but that its morphology was so unusual that it drastically deviated from its contemporary relatives.” (ScienceDaily)
“… the unbroken line between the charismatic dinosaurs that dominated the planet for about 170 million years and modern birds, a link that is marked by shared features including feathers, wishbones, enlarged brains, and extremely efficient respiratory systems.”
American Museum of Natural History, New York City
“The fossil record of this story and the biological research it inspires—much of which is being done by scientists trained or working at the Museum—grows richer by the day. So rich, in fact, that the boundary between the animals we call birds and those we traditionally called dinosaurs is practically obsolete.”
BLIND chance could never on its own have produced a self aware and self-conscious thinking being. Certainly would never have evolved a world class athlete, prima ballerina, a Mozart or Shakespeare.
If there were only random forces ruling the world there would be no progress or evolution needed because life would be inherently purposeless and pointless.
Instead, Theosophy postulates that the process of evolution is inherently purposeful, guided by three different aspects, or “schemes — inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point. It now becomes plain that there exists in Nature a triple evolutionary scheme . . . or rather three separate schemes of evolution.”
These are the Monadic (or spiritual), the intellectual, and the physical evolutions. These three are the finite aspects or the reflections on the field of Cosmic Illusion of atma, the seventh, the one reality.
[The word Theosophy} “comes to us from the Alexandrian philosophers, called lovers of truth, Philaletheians, from phil ‘loving,’ and aletheia ‘truth.’ The name Theosophy dates from the third century of our era, and began with Ammonius Saccas and his disciples, who started the Eclectic Theosophical system.”
“We can show the line of descent of every Christian religion, as of every, even the smallest, sect. The latter are the minor twigs or shoots grown on the larger branches; but shoots and branches spring from the same trunk — the WISDOM-RELIGION.
“To prove this was the aim of Ammonius, who endeavoured to induce Gentiles and Christians, Jews and Idolaters, to lay aside their contentions and strifes, remembering only that they were all in possession of the same truth under various vestments, and were all the children of a common mother. This is the aim of Theosophy likewise.”
Thinking or purpose of any sort it is not needed by the random blind productions of a purposeless evolutionary. Put in reality: no intelligence required.
But even children understand that figuring anything out in life is a learning process seasoned by reason, healthy emotions, and aha moments.
A conscious, observant puzzle-solver undeniably exists in the background of thought. The numerous paradoxes inherent in human, and even animal intelligence, will remain ever an unsolvable puzzle to reductionist thinkers.
Not unlike the caterpillar’s irrepressible urge to grow wings and fly, truth finding and spiritual growth are guided by a built-in system H. P. Blavatsky calls in her Secret Doctrine ‘progressive awakenings’:
and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached ‘reality’—
In her article Spiritual Progress, H. P. Blavatsky made what seemed kind of obvious point (paraphrased):
The true Adept must become,
[she] cannot be made.
“The true Adept, the developed man,” Blavatsky wrote, “must, we are always told, become – he cannot be made. The process is therefore one of growth through evolution, and this must necessarily involve a certain amount of pain.
“Again, the idea of growth involves also the idea of disruption: the inner being must continually burst through its confining shell or encasement, and such a disruption must also be accompanied by pain, not physical but mental and intellectual.”
The growing recognition of the intelligence underlying all life, she wrote, is one of ” growth through evolution, and this must necessarily involve a certain amount of pain” — (at least by our human perception.)
Even progressed disciples, aspiring Adepts, may yet experience psychological pain as described in The Voice of the Silence III:
That Secret Path leads the Arhan to mental woe unspeakable; woe for the living Dead, and helpless pity for the men of karmic sorrow; the fruit of Karma Sages dare not still.
Compassion
We may experience stress in the moment, a research study suggests, “but experience greater happiness on a daily basis and longer term.”
“No pain, no gain is the rule when it comes to gaining happiness from increasing our competence at something,” said Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University. “People often give up their goals because they are stressful, but we found that there is benefit at the end of the day from learning to do something well. And what’s striking is that you don’t have to reach your goal to see the benefits to your happiness and well-being.”
Exploring the mysteries of consciousness, the Institute of Noetic Sciences researches mind-matter interactions, psychic experience, premonitions and more. You can help the research, and get a free copy of Entangled Minds.
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CONSCIOUSNESS is at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives.
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