The Buddha Consciousness: A Triumph of the Human Spirit

Laughing Child

FACED with misery and death, journalist-editor Norman Cousins famously laughed his way out of the hospital, and healed himself of a life-threatening illness.

His groundbreaking book Anatomy of an Illness, about the healing effects of laughter using humor and positive emotions to boost the bodies’ capacity for healing, jump-started an era of mind-body medicine that continues today.

That was more than 30 years ago. But Gautama Buddha had preached the same power of healing and happiness through positive thinking over 2,500 years earlier.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, Buddha is quoted as teaching, but the flame will not be diminished. The world’s greatest spiritual coach enthusiastically assured his followers:

Happiness never decreases
by being shared.

Western cognitive sciences are only just beginning to understand the subtle yet overarching power of the psycho-physiological power of thought, of intention and feeling, the importance of it being understood and taught by all ancient sages down the ages.

One Candle Lighting Another

“Respect life as those do who desire it,” declares the ancient spiritual psychology of Light on the Path, challenging the student to remain unselfish, and to

…be happy as those are
who live for happiness.

♥

Kwan-Yin, the Compassionate Rebel

Kwan Yin, Artist Vitthal Das Rathore

“IT is unfortunate that Buddhism’s most enduring (and universal) contribution to the world has been insufficiently translated as compassion. The original Sanskrit word is ‘karuna,’ which holds within itself traces of the fragment ‘ru,’ meaning to weep. While the Oxford dictionary describes compassion as pity bordering on the merciful, karuna is actually our ability to relate to another in so intense a measure that the plight of the other affects us as much as if it had been our own.

“Over centuries, Kuan Yin’s visual depictions have highlighted her lithe, flowing form, much like the willow tree itself, which has the ability to bend during the most ferocious winds and then spring back into shape again. Indeed, who wants to stand rigid like the tall oak that cracks and collapses in a storm? Instead, one needs to be flexible like the willow, which survives the tempest.”

(Kuan Yin, The Compassionate Rebel)

H. P. Blavatsky’s definition of Compassion, in The Voice of the Silence, remains the favorite of Theosophists:

Yet, one word. Canst thou destroy divine compassion? Compassion is no attribute. It is the LAW of laws — eternal Harmony, Alaya’s SELF; a shoreless universal essence, the light of everlasting Right, and fitness of all things, 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 Ârya Path, Path of the Buddhas of perfection.

“Never will I seek nor receive private, individual salvation; never will I enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will I live and strive for the redemption of every creature throughout the world.”

• The  Pledge of Kwan-Yin

Buddha Fields

(The Mandala Offering)

“First, we need to understand what a Buddha-field or pure land is. It is a place where everything is conducive for being able to study and practice the Dharma twenty-four hours a day.”

The Child State

“You don’t have to work; you don’t have to eat; you don’t have to sleep; you don’t have to pay rent; you don’t have to go to the toilet – you don’t have to do anything except study and practice all the time. It’s not a place that you go, hang around the swimming pool, and play cards all day long.

“Buddha-fields are filled with Arya Bodhisattva, those Bodhisattva who have had nonconceptual cognition of voidness, and there they are taught by Sambhogakaya forms of Buddhas, physical forms that Buddhas manifest in that make full use of the Mahayana teachings. That’s what happens in pure land Buddha-fields.”

Sambhogakaya

The Three Buddhic Bodies:

1. Nirmanakaya.
2. Sambhogakaya.
3. Dharmakaya.

“The first is that ethereal form which one would assume when leaving his physical he would appear in his astral body — having in addition all the knowledge of an Adept. The Bodhisattva develops it in himself as he proceeds on the Path. Having reached the goal and refused its fruition, he remains on Earth, as an Adept; and when he dies, instead of going into Nirvâna, he remains in that glorious body he has woven for himself, invisible to uninitiated mankind, to watch over and protect it.

“Sambhogakâya is the same, but with the additional lustre of ‘three perfections,’ one of which is entire obliteration of all earthly concerns.

Manushi Buddha

“The Dharmakâya body is that of a complete Buddha, i.e., no body at all, but an ideal breath: Consciousness merged in the Universal Consciousness, or Soul devoid of every attribute. Once a Dharmakâya, an Adept or Buddha leaves behind every possible relation with, or thought for this earth. Thus, to be enabled to help humanity, an Adept who has won the right to Nirvâna, “renounces the Dharmakâya body” in mystic parlance; keeps, of the Sambhogakâya, only the great and complete knowledge, and remains in his Nirmânakâya body. The esoteric school teaches that Gautama Buddha with several of his Arhats is such a Nirmânakâya, higher than whom, on account of the great renunciation and sacrifice to mankind there is none known.”

• H. P. Blavatsky, (The Voice of the Silence 77-78 fn)

“Although ‘Nirmanakaya’ is technically the name for the body or ethereal vesture of a Bodhisattva – being described on p. 45 of The Voice of the Silence as the ‘Bodhisattvic Body’ – it’s also often used simply as a synonym for the Bodhisattva himself or herself.

“This is the acquirement or attainment of a permanent astral, closely linked with the attainment of unbroken continuity of consciousness. According to Theosophy, this is the true immortality.”

(Blavatsky Theosophy Group UK, “The Permanent Astral”)

Offering the Mandala

Here is the great Earth,
Filled with the smell of incense,
Covered with a blanket of flowers,
The Great Mountain,
The Four Continents,
Wearing a jewel
Of the Sun, and Moon.
In my mind I make them
The Paradise of a Buddha,
And offer it all to You.
By this deed
May every living being
Experience
The Pure World.

Idam guru ratna mandalakam niryatayami.

Lynne McTaggart

Lynne McTaggart, author of The Field, explains what she learned from her  intention experiments. These involved hundreds of participants focusing healing intentions towards otherwise complete strangers — and how the healings reportedly healed the healers themselves.

The Intention Experiment: How Healing Healed the Healers:

After participating, an overwhelming majority of our participants not only felt better about themselves and the world; they also tended to get along better with the people with whom they came into contact, most especially perfect strangers.Many made profound changes in their lives and directions, and even sought to radically change direction or careers .Others found it easier to cope with setbacks and downturns in their lives, including their  current financial difficulties. Most of all, they found it easier to accept people or ideas that clash with their own.These preliminary results suggests that using this kind of altruistic intention not only may help to grow your own sense of compassion and tolerance, but also may help you to heal your own life.It accords with much of the research I have studied on intention. Altruistic intention heals the healer as much as the healee.

♦

Thoughts are Things

By Lynne McTaggart

Next are excepts from instructions inspired by the greatest of all spiritual teachers and healers, The Buddha.

Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life

Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life: How to enjoy a life of great meaning and altruism

Course VII: The Vows of the Bodhisattva

Even just wishing you could stop
A headache another person has
Can bring you merit without measure
Because of the helpful intent you feel.
What need then to mention the wish
That you could stop the immeasurable pain
Of every being, and put every one
In a state of measureless happiness?

There are many methods for achieving the “Great Compassion.” Each person strives in his/her own way, but there are useful contemplative truths. In The Voice of the Silence, one finds an important teaching about compassion. It is not an individual “virtue,” but rather a universal law of life.

♥

The Law of Life

The Asian Classics Institute
Middle Way Philosophy (Madhyamika), Level Two
Course VII: The Vows of the Bodhisattva

Reading One: Bodhichitta, the Wish for Enlightenment Tsongkapa

The following selection is taken from the Commentary on the Three Principal Paths, an explanation by Pabongka Rinpoche (1878-1941) of the famous root text by Je Tsongkapa (1357-1419).

The Vows of the Bodhisattva:

To actually gain the wish for enlightenment he must first contemplate it. To contemplate it, he must first learn about it from another. “Loving-kindness” is an almost obsessive desire that each and every living being find happiness. “Compassion” is an almost obsessive desire that they be free of any pain.

Think of how a mother feels when her one and only and most beloved son is in the throes of a serious illness. Wherever she goes, whatever she does, she is always thinking how wonderful it would be if she could find some way of freeing him quickly from his sickness.

Mother Theresa

These thoughts come to her mind in a steady stream, without a break, and all of their own, automatically. They become an obsession with her. When we feel this way towards every living being, and only then, we can say we have gained what they call “great compassion.”

Once you develop great compassion, then you can develop the extraordinary form of personal responsibility, where you take upon yourself the load of working for others’ benefit. And the wish to achieve enlightenment for every living being comes from this.

H. P. Blavatsky 1877

 

We close with H. P. Blavatsky’s inspired reminder to all aspiring student-disciples from her The Key to Theosophy, on how to help others:

The Theosophical ideas of charity mean personal exertion for others; personal mercy and kindness; personal interest in the welfare of those who suffer; personal sympathy, forethought and assistance in their troubles or needs.

We Theosophists do not believe in giving money (N. B., if we had it) through other people’s hands or organizations. We believe in giving to the money a thousandfold greater power and effectiveness by our personal contact and sympathy with those who need it.

We believe in relieving the starvation of the soul, as much if not more than the emptiness of the stomach; for gratitude does more good to the man who feels it, than to him for whom it is felt.

H. P. Blavatsky, The Key toTheosophy

“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 Voice of the Silence, Fragment II, “The Two Paths”

The Karma of Intention, a Force in Nature

THE act of true intending is widely misunderstood, because there are hidden aspects of so-called intent consisting solely of desire for personal fulfillment.

Seducing the public to desire beauty, riches and power is the undisguised theme of thousands of self-help books written by so-called gurus seeking money and fame.

But there is a higher, purer and more unselfish level of intention in true occultism. It is the unseen power to bring to pass desired results without selfish, personal motives.

Success at this higher level requires a knowledge far beyond any kind of falsehood, and the evocation of a dynamic spiritual force inherent in man and universal nature. Those who practiced the art it in ancient times were the initiates, the wise ones called “Magi” — the source of the word “magic.”

The author of The Intention Experiment, Lynn McTaggart, is described in Dan Brown’s Book, The Lost Symbol, through the character of Katherine Solomon:  

… human consciousness, as Noetic author Lynne McTaggart described it, was a substance outside the confines of the body. A highly ordered energy capable of changing the physical world.

Katherine (Solomon) had been fascinated by McTaggart’s book ‘The Intention Experiment’, and her global, Web-based study – theintentionexperiment.com— aimed at discovering how human intention could affect the world.

— Dan Brown, “The Lost Symbol” (Random House, 2009)

A Force in Nature

It is relatively easy to learn tricks and spells, Mme. Blavatsky writes in her article Practical Occultism, “and the methods of using the subtler, but still material, forces of physical nature.”

But the force of selfish human desire only awakens darker powers, Theosophy says. Unless the motive is pure, and the intention unalloyed, destructive passions are often aroused, and even unconsciously will do harm to others and to nature.

In her article Practical Occultism, H. P. Blavatsky cautioned her readers about this development: “it is the motive alone which makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic, and unless the intention is entirely unalloyed…

the spiritual will transform itself into the psychic, act on the astral plane, and dire results may be produced by it.

“It is impossible to employ spiritual forces, she maintained, “if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness [or separateness] remaining in the operator.”

Zen Samurai

“Sow a Thought, Reap an Act;
Sow an Act, Reap a Habit;
Sow a Habit, Reap a Character;
Sow a Character, Reap a Destiny.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

ξ

Spiritual Knowledge

“Cut asunder with the sword of spiritual knowledge,
this doubt which existeth in thy heart.”

 – Krishna, (Bhagavad-Gita, Ch. IV)

♥

Karma and Intent

Excerpts from Occultism
by H. P. Blavatsky

“The powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving.

“The powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart, and this is DIVINE MAGIC.”

“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.”

“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.”

“True occultism or theosophy is the ‘great renunciation of SELF,’ unconditionally and absolutely, in thought as in action.”

“And, although it is the intention that decides primarily whether white or black magic is exercised, yet the results even of involuntary, unconscious sorcery cannot fail to be productive of bad karma.”

“It is altruism, not egoism even in its most legal and noble conception, that can lead the unit to merge its little self in the universal selves.

“It is to these needs and to this work that the true disciple of true occultism has to devote himself, if he would obtain theo-sophy, divine wisdom and knowledge.”

Mind Control

As with any spiritual work, controlling the thought-producing mind is the first step. The necessity of discerning reality from illusion, is taught in the Voice of the Silence.

And recognizing the false superiority of matter and form, sensing instead the energy and reality of consciousness.

“Having become indifferent to objects of perception,

the pupil must seek out the rajah of the senses, the Thought-Producer, he who awakes illusion.”

∂

“The Mind is the great Slayer of the Real,” repeats the Voice: “Let the Disciple slay the Slayer”— because it is our minds that create our illusions.

Awakenings

Gradual awakenings are a hallmark of H. P. Blavatsky’s teachings in The Secret Doctrine. “As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed,” she writes, “we mistook shadows for realities.”

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“… 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.'”

“But only when we shall have reached the Absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by illusion.”

Healing Intention

Centers of Attraction

But what practical measures can we take to achieve freedom from delusion? An example of the popular idiom “be careful what you ask for” is the law of attraction, described first in the article Karma, by William Q. Judge:

Directing our mind to the physical world and desires, he warns, “a ‘fire’ or centre of attraction, is set up there, in order to feed and fatten it.”

“The energies of the whole upper plane [intentions] are drawn down and exhausted in supplying the need of energy which exists below due to the indulgence of sense gratification.”

If 0ur energy is centered instead in our highest intentions, “then all the needed energy goes there,” he says, “to result in increase of spirituality.”

“It must be remembered that Nature is all bountiful and withholds not her hand. The demand is made, and the supply will come.”

“Resolve to be tender with the young,
compassionate with the aged,
sympathetic with the striving
and tolerant with the weak and wrong.
Sometime in your life,
you will have been all of these.”

~ Gautama Buddha

The Magical Sword of Spiritual Knowledge

WHAT is real magic is not widely understood, and what usually goes by that description is nearly always rife with deception and trickery.

Show business or stage magic, though entertaining for many, is performed using slight of hand, and relies solely on fooling the audience.

But there is a kind of practical divine magic which not based on slight of hand, or hypnotic illusions, but is the result of an ability, natural or learned, to bring to about certain desired results, seemingly magical.

“I know that MAGIC does exist,” H. P. Blavatsky declared in her article The Science of Magic, “and 10,000 editors of Spiritual papers cannot change my belief in what I know.”

“There is a white and a black magic — and no one who has ever traveled in the East, can doubt it…”

“My faith being firm I am, therefore, ever ready to support and protect any honest medium — aye, and even occasionally one who appears dishonest — for I know but too well what helpless tools and victims such mediums are in the hands of unprogressed, invisible beings.”

The successful use of real magic, it appears, requires a knowledge far beyond any kind of trickery, spells or mediumship, and is based on an innate psycho-spiritual force hidden in nature, and in man himself.

Those who practiced it in ancient times were the initiates, the wise, called “Magi” — source of the word magic.

It is relatively easy to learn tricks and spells, Mme. Blavatsky says in Practical Occultism, “and the methods of using the subtler, but still material, forces of physical nature.”

But this kind of force, often rooted in selfish human desire, awakens darker powers, she warns. Unless the motive is pure, destructive passions are often aroused, and even unconsciously will do harm to others.

In her article Practical Occultism, H. P. Blavatsky warns us about this kind of activity: “it is the motive alone which makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic, and unless the intention is entirely unalloyed …

the spiritual will transform itself into the psychic, act on the astral plane, and dire results may be produced by it.”

“It is impossible to employ spiritual forces, she maintained, “if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness [or separateness] remaining in the operator.”

Self-Healing, How and Why it Happens

REPORTS  of mystical or psychic experiences, of communion with realities that transcend the mundane, cannot all be mistaken.

Even every organ and cell in the body demonstrates its own energetic (psyschic) biofield, Theosophy teaches, and if so must use that matrix to network continuously and wirelessly with all other cells and organs.

Verifying the teaching, modern science has recently shown that the heart and the gut talk back and forth continually to the brain, whose neurons also converse with each other, day and night. How do they do this except through that invisible energy matrix?

Researchers have recently discovered that both the heart and the gut each have substantial neuronal regions, showing they both have “brains and hearts” of their own. The gut can even act independently, when we report having a “gut feeling” for example.

Indeed. “Occultism tells us that every atom, like the monad of Leibnitz, is a little universe in itself,” Blavatsky wrote in Kosmic Mind, “that every organ and cell in the human body is endowed with a brain of its own, with memory, therefore, experience and discriminative powers.”

The holographic network of the heart links, organizes and entrains, say the researchers at the Institute of Heartmath, the totality of signals from all the noetic webs, of all the cells and neurons of the body.

“These biosignals pass information over to the body’s chief superintendent, the brain.”

ξ

This complex unifying biofield may well be the underlying mechanism of healing, of thought transference, and gene behavior, experimental evidence confirms. It is also the pathway by which the environment influences us. “Consciousness is in every universal atom,” Blavatsky insists maintaining “the possibility of a complete control over the cells and atoms of his body by man.” (Kosmic Mind)

The power of this invisible field is undoubtedly the unseen agent driving what many modern self-help gurus refer to as the ‘secret’ of intention, and thought, in Theosophy this matrix field is designated “the power of Akasa — Literally the word means in Sanscrit sky, but in its mystic sense it signifies the invisible sky, the god Akasa, or god Sky.” (Before The Veil, Vol. 1, xxvii)

“The language of the Vedas shows that the Hindus of fifty centuries ago regarded it as the source of life, the reservoir of all energy, and the propeller of every change of matter. In its latent state it tallies exactly with our idea of the universal ether; in its active state it became the Akasa, the all-directing and omnipotent god.”

“When one sees mortal man displaying tremendous capabilities, controlling the forces of nature and opening up to view the world of spirit,” she writes, “the reflective mind is overwhelmed.”

Shift Happens: The Invisible Healing Field

GROWING numbers of new thought leaders, and frontier scientists are ushering in a welcome upgrade to our materialistic western scientific and religious thought.

In addition to those we’ve featured here such as Bruce Lipton, Dean Radin, Acharya Sanning, and Rupert Sheldrake, there are hundreds of other thinkers and researchers of magnitude.

We are, it would appear, immersed in a revolutionary sea change of worldview. “Modern science,” H. P. Blavatsky wrote, “believes not in the ‘soul of things'” (SD 1:272) — but as we will see, this is rapidly changing.

The winds of this change blowing against reductionist thought, evident throughout the 20th and now the 21st Century, were initiated in the 19th. The culprits of these radical views are the eternal ideas of the Theosophical Movement, re-presented by their new age mother, H. P. Blavatsky.

“The battle will be fierce between brutal materialism and blind fanaticism on one hand,” she wrote in The New Cycle, “and philosophy and mysticism on the other.”

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Winds of Change

“It is not materialism that will have the upper hand,” she asserts. Everyone clinging to material ideas, Blavatsky writes, “will find himself

“…separated like a rotten plank
from the new ark called Humanity.”

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Progress on these New Frontiers is quickly generating momentum. We are discovering compelling new reasons for shifting away from our former morally purposeless, and materialist-based worldview — in nearly every area of life and society.

The Freedom and Happiness of Buddha Consciousness

FACED with misery and death, journalist-editor Norman Cousins famously laughed his way out of the hospital, and healed himself of a life-threatening illness.

His groundbreaking book Anatomy of an Illness, about the the healing effects of laughter and positive emotions, jump-started an era of mind-body medicine that continues today.

That was more than 30 years ago. But Gautama Buddha had preached the same power of healing and happiness through positive thinking over 2,500 years earlier.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, Buddha is quoted as teaching, but the flame will not be diminished. The world’s greatest spiritual coach enthusiastically assured his followers:

“Happiness never decreases
by being shared.”

Western cognitive sciences are only just beginning to understand the subtle yet overarching power of the psycho-physiological power of thought, of intention and feeling, the importance of it being understood and taught by all ancient sages down the ages.

“Respect life as those do who desire it,” declares the ancient spiritual psychology of Light on the Path, challenging the student to remain unselfish, and yet to

“…be happy as those are
who live for happiness.”

♥

Proof of the Soul thru Dreams

WRESTING consciousness from the lords of scientific reductionism, where its mysteries have languished for decades, takes imaginative and fearless warriors.

Not surprisingly, the acclaimed Father of Modern Philosophy, René Descartes, cannot be authenticated as a combatant truth seeker.

Descartes held that non-human creatures must be reductively assumed to be nothing but mere automatons, signaling a tired materialism, not frontier science.

The Cartesian assumptions do not sit well with animal welfare advocates, environmentalists, especially not Theosophists who insist that consciousness is endemic to all kingdoms of nature, not just the human.

Possessors of sentient consciousness include, Theosophy says, such unlikely candidates as bacteria, minerals — and yes, even atoms!

Descartes held rigidly to the premise “I think therefore I am”— without ever explaining what a thought is, or explaining the ever-elusive, dogged persistence of consciousness. Whether awake or asleep, comatose or vegetative, its presence is in-dismissible.

One wonders if it doesn’t seem far more reasonable to assume in fact that the opposite is true, i.e. —“I AM, therefore I think?”

Adherents biassedly line up on one or the other side of the issue. (Actually, Theosophy could argue both sides are accounted for by its teaching of the mind’s dual nature.)

In fact, the elusive, omnipersistent ‘mind’, is not a production of the brain at all, but an aspect of universal mind.

Over one hundred years ago, unraveling the mystery of the existence of the ‘soul’ was attempted by physical science, employing of course the expected material, reductionist methods — using a mechanical device to weigh it!

The Unconditional Renunciation of our Personal Self

THE word magic is largely misunderstood, because there are various kinds of so-called magic, much of which is deception and trickery.

But there is a magic which might be called the unseen and hidden power to bring to pass certain desired results, without revealing its methods. It is called intention.

Its successful use requires a knowledge far beyond any kind of trickery, and is based on an innate spiritual force in man and nature.

Those who practiced it in ancient times were the initiates, the wise, called Magi — the source of the word magic.

≈

It is relatively easy to learn tricks and spells, Mme. Blavatsky writes, “and the methods of using the subtler, but still material, forces of physical nature.”

The force of selfish human desire awakens darker powers, Theosophy says. Unless the motive is pure, destructive passions are often aroused, and even unconsciously will do harm to others and to nature.

In the article Practical Occultism, H. P. Blavatsky warns of this: “it is the motive alone which makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic,” she writes, “and unless the intention is entirely unalloyed…

“the spiritual will transform itself into the psychic, act on the astral plane, and dire results may be produced by it.”

‡

“It is impossible to employ spiritual forces, she maintains, “if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness [or separateness] remaining in the operator.”

Intention, a Force in Nature

THE act of true intending is widely misunderstood, because there are hidden aspects of so-called intent consisting solely of desire for personal fulfillment.

Seducing the public to desire beauty, riches and power is the undisguised theme of thousands of self-help books written by money seeking modern gurus.

But there is a higher, purer and more unselfish level of intention in true occultism. It is the unseen power to bring to pass desired results without personal motives.

Success at this level requires a knowledge far beyond any kind of falsehood, and is based on knowledge of an innate spiritual force in man and nature. Those who practiced it in ancient times were the initiates, the wise ones called “Magi” — the source of the word “magic.”

Lynne McTaggart, author of The Intention Experiment, featured in Dan Brown’s Book – The Lost Symbol: “…human consciousness, as Noetic author Lynne McTaggart described it, was a substance outside the confines of the body. A highly ordered energy capable of changing the physical world.”

“Katherine (Solomon) had been fascinated by McTaggart’s book ‘The Intention Experiment’, and her global, Web-based study – theintentionexperiment.com— aimed at discovering how human intention could affect the world.”

— Dan Brown, “The Lost Symbol” (Random House, 2009)

Soul and the Juggernaut of Science

OUR modern objective science “is the hallmark of society today, and “it has an unrivaled power base.”

“Its description of reality has molded the modern world,” write Deepak Chopra, MD and Jim Walsh in their July 1, 2013 article in Huffington Post.

And, “its worldview holds sway over universities, governments and the public at large.”

“Everyone who participates in the consensus view of reality has been touched by it. But the role of the observer has puzzled and intrigued physics since the quantum revolution a century ago.,” say the Authors of the article The Consciousness Project – Hopeful Solutions for Epic Problems.

“We feel that this issue offers a crucial opening for expanding the role of science.”

“As a counterpoint to the science juggernaut, there is another view of reality supported by loosely aligned groups in religion, philosophy, and a minority in science,” they write. “Their worldview is consciousness-based. Whatever their differences, supporters of consciousness place mind first in Nature and matter second.”

“Flying” – Lois Greenfield

“Such a worldview has no significant financial backing comparable to mainstream science,” writes Dr. Chopra. “It has been excluded from experimentation in major universities and all but banished from respectability, depending on the rich heritage, East and West, of saints, sages, and seers who fall outside the scientific method.”

Wresting the domain of consciousness from the lords of scientific  reductionism, where it has been abused and minimized for decades, takes imaginative and fearless investigators.

Such would not have been included the proclaimed “Father of Modern Philosophy” René Descartes, who held that non-human animals could be reductively explained as mere automatons.

This is not a concept that sits well with consciousness-based views of reality, nor with animal advocates, environmentalists, including most Theosophists — who recognize that consciousness is inherent in all kingdoms of nature, not just the human. In their view, possessors of sentient consciousness include such unlikely candidates as bacteria, minerals — and atoms!

Decartes held famously to the premise “I think therefore I am”— without ever explaining what a thought is, or explaining the persistence and presence of the ever-elusive nature of consciousness. One wonders if it doesn’t seem far more reasonable to assume in fact that the opposite is true, i.e. —“I AM, therefore I think?”

Adherents biassedly line up on one or the other side of the issue. (Actually, Theosophy would argue both sides are accounted for by the ancient teaching of the mind’s dual nature.)

In fact, the elusive, omnipersistent ‘mind’, is not a production of the brain at all, but an aspect of universal mind.

Over one hundred years ago, unraveling the mystery of the existence of the ‘soul’ was attempted by physical science, employing of course the expected material, reductionist methods — using a mechanical device to weigh it!

The Rise of Modern Mysticism

THEOSOPHY was not brought back to the world solely for the advancement of an elite few. The ancient wisdom aims to help re-catalyze the spiritual progress of the whole of humanity.

The Theosophical Society’s most important mission according to the American Section founder William Q. Judge (Letters, p. 71), was to uplift the hearts and minds of all, free from dogma.

“The dance between change and continuity has been at play throughout history,” notes the Journal of Consciousness Studies. “Today, we see a rapid rate of change that is calling on people to consider their worldview, and to develop different identities and ways of engaging with the world.”

“Among those skills most essential for success in this new era of global connectivity will be greater cognitive flexibility [….] and a capacity for discernment that relies equally on intellect and intuition.”

“These skills don’t spring as much from what we know, but instead from how we know it, and how we view the world.”

“It is clear that navigating life in the twenty-first century will require not simply the acquisition of new skills, but also the intentional cultivation of novel states of mind.”

“The pupil must regain the child-state he has lost.”

But there are powerful barriers to inner change, all of our own making. They are our physical senses, habits, emotions, thought sensations, embedded worldviews. They compete for our time and attention, keeping us glued to the outer surface of an ever-whirling wheel.

The Psychic You

EVERY organ and cell in the body has its own energetic biofield, and uses it to network wirelessly with all other organs and cells.

The heart and the gut talk back and forth continually to the brain, whose neurons also converse with each other, day and night.

Researchers have recently discovered that both the heart and the gut, have substantial neuronal regions, showing they both have brains of their own. The gut can even act independently when we have “gut feelings” for example.

The holographic network of the heart links, organizes and entrains, say the researchers at the Institute of Heartmath, the totality of signals from all the noetic webs, of all the cells and neurons of the body.

“These biosignals pass information over to the body’s chief superintendent, the brain.”

ξ

This complex unifying biofield may well be the underlying mechanism of healing, of thought transference, and gene behavior, experimental evidence confirms. It is also the pathway by which the environment influences us.

The power of this invisible field is undoubtedly the unseen agent driving what many modern self-help gurus refer to as the ‘secret’ of intention, and thought. In Isis Unveiled (1:xxvii) H. P. Blavatsky wrote:

“The Hindu Vedas fifty centuries ago, ascribed to it the same properties as do the Tibetan lamas of the present day.”

“When one sees mortal man displaying tremendous capabilities, controlling the forces of nature and opening up to view the world of spirit,” she writes, “the reflective mind is overwhelmed.”

Raise Me Up

BLIND chance could never on its own have produced a self-conscious thinking human being.

Nor would such a nonsensical system, even if it existed, have any reason for doing so.

Consciousness of any kind it is not required in the random blindness of neo-Darwinist evolutionary theory. Simply put: 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 indomitable urge to grow wings and fly, truth finding and spiritual growth are guided by a built-in system called progressive awakenings. In her article Spiritual Progress,  H. P. Blavatsky made what seemed a sort of ‘duh’ comment! (paraphrased)

“The true Adept must become,
she cannot be made.”

The growing recognition of the intelligence underlying all life, she writes, is one of ” growth through evolution, and this must necessarily involve a certain amount of pain” — (at least in our human perception.)

We may experience stress in the moment, a study suggests, “but experience greater happiness on a daily basis and longer term.”

The Temple of God

ABSOLUTE certainty about someone’s motive and intention requires that one be able to read that person’s mind and heart directly.

No one could be absolutely sure of Garry Kasparov’s next move, for example, or any chess player solely by studying the patterns of pieces on the chess board they create.

Decoding brain patterns is even more frustrating for neuroscientists who attempt to analyze and interpret them.

Like weather forecasting, the available data it is too often unreliable. For brain researchers the precise location of memory, it is shown, remains elusive. And for good reason—there are more addresses than all the world’s email.

Simple logic would tell us brain activity, like chess moves, cannot be the source of thought, but only thought’s result. Knowing what thoughts are by studying their patterns, has proven more difficult than discovering the perfect chess strategy.

This is because the real ‘thinker’ is positioned behind the curtain of observed consciousness, occultism explains.

Ω

The invisible conscious entity who delivers the energetic thought signals which light up the cells and neurons of the physical brain, must logically be the active agent of consciousness — not the responding cells and neurons.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us,” as Emerson wrote memorably, “are small matters compared to what lies within us.” 

Altered State

THEOSOPHY isn’t in the world solely for the spiritual benefit of its member groups. It aims to reach far more than helping a few individuals.

The Theosophical Society’s most important aim, William Q. Judge head of the American Section wrote (Letters, p. 71), is to “change the buddhi and manas [Sk.] of the human race,” – i.e, its heart and mind.

But there are powerful, unavoidable barriers to inner change, all of our own making. They are our physical senses, habits, emotions, thought sensations, embedded worldviews. They compete for our time and attention, keeping us glued to the outer surface of an ever-whirling wheel.

It’s a puzzle for the brain mind, because like an iceberg, the bulk of our nature lies below the surface, and only the tip is visible — just as an actor’s outer image, her costume, makeup, tone of voice, etc., sets our opinion of her.

But, in spiritual terms, the merry-go-round of personality is a trap.

The word personality itself derives from “persona,” a Latin word meaning “mask,” the appearance we present to the world — a marketing device also used by artists and musicians. Persona is also a the Jungian psychological term. 

Kinship with God

EVERY organ and cell in the body has its own energetic biofield, and uses it to network wirelessly with all the other organs and cells.

The heart and the gut talk back and forth continually to the brain, whose neurons also converse with each other, day and night.

Researchers have recently discovered that both the heart and the gut, have substantial neuronal regions, showing they both have brains of their own. The gut can even act independently when we have “gut feelings” for example.

The holographic network of the heart links, organizes and entrains, say the researchers at the Institute of Heartmath, the totality of signals from all the noetic webs, of all the cells and neurons of the body.

“These biosignals pass information over to the body’s chief superintendent, the brain.”

ξ

This complex unifying biofield may well be the underlying mechanism of healing, of thought transference, and gene behavior, experimental evidence confirms. It is also the pathway by which the environment influences us.

The power of this invisible field is undoubtedly the unseen agent driving what many modern self-help gurus refer to as the ‘secret’ of intention, and thought. In Isis Unveiled (1:xxvii) H. P. Blavatsky wrote:

“The Hindu Vedas fifty centuries ago, ascribed to it the same properties as do the Tibetan lamas of the present day.”

“When one sees mortal man displaying tremendous capabilities, controlling the forces of nature and opening up to view the world of spirit,” she writes, “the reflective mind is overwhelmed.”

The Aeolian Harp

JANUARY the 4th is the day of Mercury, or Hermes-Buddha, the ancients taught. They also taught the birth of the year signals a unique energy upgrade.

“The astral life of the earth is young and strong between Christmas and Easter,” Blavatsky wrote, and “those who form their wishes now, will have added strength to fulfill them consistently.”

And Truth, like the Life Force, springs eternal. What was taught 2,500 years ago by Buddha is still studied today.

And what the Master Krishna taught his disciple Arjuna in The Bhagavad-Gita, 2,500 years earlier, is a cautionary teaching humanity needs most now.

“The Self is the friend of self,” Krishna tells Arjuna, and added paradoxically: “also its enemy.”

In an article with the same title, theosophical teacher W. Q. Judge explains: “this sentence in the Bhagavad- Gita has been often passed over as being either meaningless or mysterious.”

But it is this powerful human duality which helps explain why so many religious sects, while publicly espousing harmony and peace, are at the same time

…so ready and willing to denounce, maim and kill non-believers.

†

The Organizing Self

BLIND chance could never on its own have produced a self-conscious thinking human being, nor would it have any reason for doing so.

Because, for the random neo-Darwinist evolution machinery, an underlying intelligence is not required.

But intelligence, whatever one calls the force, undeniably exists. The paradoxes of self-consciousness evident in human nature are challenging to materialism—especially the concept of personal responsibility.

But just like every caterpillar’s solo struggle to grow wings and fly, with the progressive development of awareness of truth, and individual spiritual growth, H. P. Blavatsky wrote:

“the true Adept must become,
she cannot be made.”

∞

The growing recognition of the intelligence underlying all life, she writes, is one of ” growth through evolution, and this must necessarily involve a certain amount of pain” — (at least in our human perception.)

We may experience stress in the moment, a study suggests, “but experience greater happiness on a daily basis and longer term.”

Field of Mind

ABSOLUTE certainty requires you to read a person’s mind directly.

For example, no one can know for sure Garry Kasparov’s next move, solely by studying the patterns he sets up on the chess board.

Similarly, decoding brain patterns is frustrating the neuroscientists analyzing them.

Like weather forecasting, the available data it is too often unreliable. Locating memory in the brain, researchers admit, likewise remains elusive.

Simple logic says the brain’s activity itself cannot be the source of thought, but only thought’s result. Knowing what thoughts are by studying their patterns, has proven more difficult than knowing the perfect chess move.

Because the real ‘thinker’ is positioned behind the curtain of observed consciousness, Theosophy affirms.

Ω

The invisible conscious entity who delivers the energetic thought signals which light up the cells and neurons of the physical brain, must logically be the active agent of consciousness — not the responding cells and neurons.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us,” as Emerson wrote memorably, “are small matters compared to what lies within us.”