Theosophy

[onawah]

Agreed, but I really don't think there is any way to "avoid another folding of tectonic plates, just like Atlantis".
Consciousness is powerful, but I don't think humanity as a whole is currently nearly advanced enough to change cosmic cycles.
Or many (if any) ET races with that capability, for that matter.
Though there are surely some who can avoid incarnating here when there is another catastrophe taking place
And some who will intentionally remain and survive, in order to ensure that humanity doesn't have to start all over again from scratch.

Posted by wavydome (here)
Thanks shaberon, your explanations fit with my preferred readings about Theosophy, except for one thing, that is, to underline its underlying purpose. According to my moderated understanding, it was meant to connect eastern and western life understandings, and one difficult part of which, was ripe for that time period, that is, to introduce the basic idea of harmonizing western sciences with eastern consciousness practices.

In short, Blavatsky had a task to perform, and it was successful in tearing down many barriers which had formerly blocked the way. Succeeding generations could then bypass world-view blockages, regardless of how expedient Theosophy appeared.

The stalemated life-after-life, the savoring of diverse cultures and oppositions, repeating eon-after-eon, has needed abrupt breakthroughs. Otherwise, we’d be living the instigator and victim forever. Mankind trips out in the deep.

Theosophy could fill one gap. Whereas direct interference with free will of mankind would violate the laws of life. Expediency by colorful individuals appears to lawfully gain some ground, and avoids another folding of tectonic plates, just like Atlantis. What is our choice? Live with it.

[shaberon]

Posted by wavydome (here)
it was meant to connect eastern and western life understandings, and one difficult part of which, was ripe for that time period, that is, to introduce the basic idea of harmonizing western sciences with eastern consciousness practices.

In short, Blavatsky had a task to perform, and it was successful in tearing down many barriers which had formerly blocked the way. Succeeding generations could then bypass world-view blockages, regardless of how expedient Theosophy appeared.

Well, yes, actually that is quite accurate.

Understatement.

Theosophy is a weapon. It is training in how to combat Dogmatic Religion and also Materialism of the Dead Souls variety. One could perhaps call those Jesuitry and Aristotle. It is pretty specific about this.

Rather than a method of tearing down civilization, the net result is much as you say, something more of a hybrid of those two extremes which is more like a blend of material and consciousness. In fact in this sense it is said Matter alone is reality. There is an example where Koothoomi praises a book by Baron D'Holbach, who was a minor Materialist Philosopher around or shortly after Voltaire. D'Holbach however had essentially written that consciousness is inseparable from or is an aspect of matter. If you follow the progress of, that, intellectual scene, one will find this idea gained little traction.

HPB said that her precursor was Franz Mesmer.

The Mahatmas were very enthusiastic about Crookes and the discovery of Plasma. They said if he tried again, he might have gotten the fifth. If he had gotten the sixth, they would have "taken him and bound him to secrecy". I do not think the direction of investigation is what science calls the Fifth State of matter these days. It is probably more related to the operation of plasma in the nebulae as the nurseries of stars.

I do not really know how science would measure it with a device. I understand the doctrines, themselves, to which I am not sure there is any device other than the human organism.

How exactly this "goes against religion" is a matter of degree. The most dangerous beliefs are things like Millenialism and Armageddonism, but those people would not be likely to read Theosophy and reconsider. But yes it is fishing for some way for indisputable facts to dispel crusader-like enforcement of religious dogma. The general idea is that most real religions have a mystical side which actually is beneficial, but this is not usually the one that is taught.

Unfortunately most of us are heavily in the grip of Materialism unfolding itself in some rather difficult ways these days. It seems likely in this case that another Russian is going to give it a rebuke.

[shaberon]

Posted by onawah (here)
Agreed, but I really don't think there is any way to "avoid another folding of tectonic plates, just like Atlantis".

No, probably not.

But, probably, almost the same war was fought in Atlantis that we are fighting today.

The amount of mostly self-inflicted damage to be experienced could be staggering. If we look at how bad human beings have been treated by other humans, on purpose, it is like an appeal to the Angel of Mercy for extinction. We say that no type of moral crime has any escape from its eventual consequences.

Is the consciousness principle of David Rockefeller:


sitting in his office on his seventh heart?

packed in the Ice Hells of the Comet Field for a Long Time?

both?

all of the above?


There are probably a lot of followers to be added on to his resume'. Meanwhile people everywhere are anything from swindled to killed by ongoing moral crimes. This amounts to telling us that our work has barely begun.

[onawah]

The kind of human behavior that characterized Atlantis and the present is assuredly influenced by cosmic cycles.
Just as a full moon affects human behavior, only more so.

Posted by shaberon (here)

Posted by onawah (here)
Agreed, but I really don't think there is any way to "avoid another folding of tectonic plates, just like Atlantis".

No, probably not.

But, probably, almost the same war was fought in Atlantis that we are fighting today.

The amount of mostly self-inflicted damage to be experienced could be staggering. If we look at how bad human beings have been treated by other humans, on purpose, it is like an appeal to the Angel of Mercy for extinction. We say that no type of moral crime has any escape from its eventual consequences.

Is the consciousness principle of David Rockefeller:


sitting in his office on his seventh heart?

packed in the Ice Hells of the Comet Field for a Long Time?

both?

all of the above?


There are probably a lot of followers to be added on to his resume'. Meanwhile people everywhere are anything from swindled to killed by ongoing moral crimes. This amounts to telling us that our work has barely begun.

[Bo Atkinson]

Posted by onawah (here)
Agreed, but I really don't think there is any way to "avoid another folding of tectonic plates, just like Atlantis".
Consciousness is powerful, but I don't think humanity as a whole is currently nearly advanced enough to change cosmic cycles.
Or many (if any) ET races with that capability, for that matter.
Though there are surely some who can avoid incarnating here when there is another catastrophe taking place
And some who will intentionally remain and survive, in order to ensure that humanity doesn't have to start all over again from scratch.

onawah, if I may add...

In Isis Unveiled, (Blavatsky) the words "Atlantis" and "annihilation" appear many times, but are not predictive for our time specifically. Cosmic laws are worth study, but I find them indicative of some possibilities for brotherhood or androgynously we could just say "unity".

I feel that whistleblowers are successfully shaping a bit of the narrative and keeping up with most of the shifty shenanigans. We even have a synergetic design science to inspire new structures for better living.

Mankind still bears large numbers at the barbaric stage (of psychological development), to keep the autocrats somewhat aware that they risk unforeseen reactions and losses, when stupid games are played. They avoid an assured mutual destruction.

Through cross-incarnations, (which are not personally chosen), the public unconscious state is at least dimly conducive to the best presentations which call for peace on earth, and a fair share for what was truly earned.

[Bo Atkinson]

Posted by shaberon (here)



[...]

HPB said that her precursor was Franz Mesmer.

The Mahatmas were very enthusiastic about Crookes and the discovery of Plasma. They said if he tried again, he might have gotten the fifth. If he had gotten the sixth, they would have "taken him and bound him to secrecy". I do not think the direction of investigation is what science calls the Fifth State of matter these days. It is probably more related to the operation of plasma in the nebulae as the nurseries of stars.

I do not really know how science would measure it with a device. I understand the doctrines, themselves, to which I am not sure there is any device other than the human organism.

How exactly this "goes against religion" is a matter of degree. The most dangerous beliefs are things like Millenialism and Armageddonism, but those people would not be likely to read Theosophy and reconsider. But yes it is fishing for some way for indisputable facts to dispel crusader-like enforcement of religious dogma. The general idea is that most real religions have a mystical side which actually is beneficial, but this is not usually the one that is taught.

Unfortunately most of us are heavily in the grip of Materialism unfolding itself in some rather difficult ways these days. It seems likely in this case that another Russian is going to give it a rebuke.

Blavatsky uses the word mesmerize a lot, with lower case 'm', and it looks to me she has implied the will power in a positive person, along with freedom from emotionality, and furthermore, along with some explanations of reality extended into the field of magic. I simply study books like hers by use of word searches in free PDFs, which is an easy way for anyone to study, (and Iconsider other external sources as well).

Crookes was an associate of Tesla, back in those days, and the word ether was commonly used in physics, and discussed in a variety of ways. Ether was supposedly disproven in Einstein's day, but it is again resurfacing, as many questions and observations have not been adequately resolved.

In any event, the expressions of HPB resonate a bit with excerpts of contemporary research into the nature of reality and whether we can further extend our perceptions with an etheric science, by uses of ever advancing electronics, or devices of some kind. I see many avenues are searched by individuals showing promising results, too varied to summarize quickly.

Yes, there is some over indulged materialism, with the followup profiteering on anything that sells and enriches. Futurist humor can smile on the half cocked sense perception which is blind to the etheric spectrum, which has been missed nearly completely, outside rare instances. HPB touches on some of this from her perspective of the then breaking news of photography as follows, with more developments as yet to come even today:

From page 1405
If the sensitized plate can so accurately seize upon the shadow of our faces, then this shadow or reflection, although we are unable to perceive it, must be something substantial. And, if we can, with the help of optical instruments, project our semblances upon a white wall, at several hundred feet distance, sometimes, then there is no reason why the adepts, the alchemists, the savants of the secret art, should not have already found out that which scientists deny to-day, but may discover true tomorrow, i.e., how to project electrically their astral bodies, in an instant, through thousands of miles of space, leaving their material shells with a certain amount of animal vital principle to keep the physical life going, and acting within their spiritual, ethereal bodies as safely and intelligently as when clothed with the covering of flesh? There is a higher form of electricity than the physical one known to experimenters; a thousand correlations of the latter are as yet veiled to the eye of the modern physicist, and none can tell where end its possibilities.
ISIS UNVEILED BY H. P. BLAVATSKY VOLUMES I AND II 1877

[onawah]

Cayce saw the future clearly, as his predictions demonstrate by continuing to mainifest in reality.
What he foresaw in terms of catastrophic earth changes, along with what genuine (not "paid for") science reveals cannot be discounted in regard to understanding and predicting cosmic cycles.
See:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ihwoIlxHI3Q

That doesn't mean that humanity's future will not be brighter, but the transition period into the new paradigm is not likely to be easy.
Much will depend on who survives and on what they manage to preserve.
It's all happened before, many times, and apparently we all signed up for it, whether we are aware of it or not...

Posted by wavydome (here)

Posted by onawah (here)
Agreed, but I really don't think there is any way to "avoid another folding of tectonic plates, just like Atlantis".
Consciousness is powerful, but I don't think humanity as a whole is currently nearly advanced enough to change cosmic cycles.
Or many (if any) ET races with that capability, for that matter.
Though there are surely some who can avoid incarnating here when there is another catastrophe taking place
And some who will intentionally remain and survive, in order to ensure that humanity doesn't have to start all over again from scratch.

onawah, if I may add...

In Isis Unveiled, (Blavatsky) the words "Atlantis" and "annihilation" appear many times, but are not predictive for our time specifically. Cosmic laws are worth study, but I find them indicative of some possibilities for brotherhood or androgynously we could just say "unity".

I feel that whistleblowers are successfully shaping a bit of the narrative and keeping up with most of the shifty shenanigans. We even have a synergetic design science to inspire new structures for better living.

Mankind still bears large numbers at the barbaric stage (of psychological development), to keep the autocrats somewhat aware that they risk unforeseen reactions and losses, when stupid games are played. They avoid an assured mutual destruction.

Through cross-incarnations, (which are not personally chosen), the public unconscious state is at least dimly conducive to the best presentations which call for peace on earth, and a fair share for what was truly earned.

[Delight]

What do you suppose about how there is something we wishfully think concerning some realm that is not in heaven but we imagine is utopia where there is brotherhood and connection to EVERYTHING and bliss. Why do I feel we do not need suffering to progress as wise beings BUT we do crave to make "progress". Theosophists in order to know God, have faith in God. The seeker has moved beyond "is there a God?", and ACCEPT that there is spiritual dimension that is real. However, the mind is limited and projects its content onto an unknown.

I was raised in a family where my great grandmother and my grandmother studied Theosophy. My experience of these people is that there was no visceral connection to God, just mental speculation. God is held far away and the wise ones must translate our understanding. Visceral connection to God has a belly laugh and a simpiciity.

IMO the HUGE original machination expressed in EVERY style of investigation of GOD and our relationship to the spiritual is making us DOUBT our own inner contact wth the mystery, the mystical. MENTAL astral projections of thought forms have become insufferably convoluted and fixed. The INVERSION of any sense is only possible when people are without SOURCE.

As they say: "Those who can't teach..."

I think we are now pretty much living in the astral plane and are choked by the thought forms we created. We just cannot seem to let go into the SILENCE and void of "no Thing" and insist on thinking and thinking more and more thoughts. WE seem to agree on some archetypes like a natural hierarchy which is Divine and reflected on earth.

For instance... there is a fixed idea in mankind of the stratification of value. We will Humans BELIEVE in a royal "divine right to rule" and BELIEVE in AUTHORITY being almost God Given. We exist in the atmosphere I call essential feudalism. People are not equal. Might makes right. One wants to be free but ingrained is the idea that some will be victimized Serfs and some harsh Lords which we hate but cannot forget. We accept there is INJUSTICE and wrongs to be righted and we are in need. Saviors are needed. So we have the KING and Christians have projected Christ as a King.

IMO the astral realm is where we meet the archetypes and the content of all that could be THOUGHT. Thought makes things on the material. Therefore IMO the astral is part of the material realm and one can be lost in matters of the mind. IMO we cannot ever think well enough to clear up our mess WITHOUT a compass which passeth all understanding.

IMO all these "nonphysical" beings are just a different style of matter and created by MIND (as we are... the humanoid form). Apparently there are SO many worlds and Buddhists in other places?

One cannot read enough or think enough or follow enough form of ritual to KNOW God. One can believe in God and never know and just think about it all. IMO all these doctrines ae futile if they are needed. Its only when we do not need them that they be of value as corroboratoion (OR NOT) of a body of Mystical knowing. I believe our task here is to KNOW God. The only way to know God is beyond the astral realm Beyond "the conceived" is beyond the material.
REAL INSIGHT from Intelligent Infinity will bring back information which if we succeed To USE IT will be valuable in our created 3D/4D world. If we try to organize it as words, we use the astral languages.

It takes constant contact and IMO lots and lots of people forsake the source of Inspiration when trying to "codify" a value discovered. Take love for instance and truth as values which can be distorted by the mind. INVERTED.

IF we have the contact, we will have a sort of filter that will FIND truth in any place it is to be found. We will be be a lover. IMO what happens is that one has Principles which cut through all presentation and one is freed of interference by astral smog. Love God and be loved up. When one is contact with Divine, one sees clearly what is valuable and one has light to share.


IMO there are natural "laws"... principals that I seek to understand. I am open to being taught by God ONLY. I am a seeker.

EVENTUALLY, I seriously expect that we no longer focus attention on the astral and bring in a power greater than "our selves" to sort out the mess of all this thinking. IMO mystics are HERE and MOST not writing or reading or seeking a following, they are INTO seeking God. They are changing the world! They are bringing light by not adding so much "mental chatter" pollution. Meditation is meant to be the constant IMO in the utopia I imagine. I am really tired of projecting complexity and INVERSION.

[shaberon]

Posted by wavydome (here)
Blavatsky uses the word mesmerize a lot, with lower case 'm', and it looks to me she has implied the will power in a positive person, along with freedom from emotionality, and furthermore, along with some explanations of reality extended into the field of magic. I simply study books like hers by use of word searches in free PDFs, which is an easy way for anyone to study, (and Iconsider other external sources as well).

Crookes was an associate of Tesla, back in those days, and the word ether was commonly used in physics, and discussed in a variety of ways. Ether was supposedly disproven in Einstein's day, but it is again resurfacing, as many questions and observations have not been adequately resolved.

Yes those are good insights. The PDF thing reflects the fact that generally on the internet, a lot of the points we are trying to make are *not* pre-loaded on a linked website. Some are, but yes, there is a lot more to be "indirectly" found this way.

Mesmerism in this sense was kind of the opposite of "hypnosis", the word used to describe that how for example the governments of Europe were ruled by autocracy. Mesmer, himself, was slandered a few times, but, if we think of this household as being where the composers Haydn and Mozart were raised, it may seem less obscure.

Again, yes, I do not think the "ether of science" was asking the right questions compared to the "actual ether". So this has drifted off-subject like calling a Bose-Einstein Condensate the Fifth State of matter. These are, whatever they are, but do not quite seem to be the original intention of those points.

"A higher form of electricity" which is not exactly physical, can hardly be measured by any known instruments, is exactly what is being considered important here.

[shaberon]

Posted by Delight (here)
I was raised in a family where my great grandmother and my grandmother studied Theosophy. My experience of these people is that there was no visceral connection to God, just mental speculation. God is held far away and the wise ones must translate our understanding. Visceral connection to God has a belly laugh and a simpiciity.

Seems likely. Original Theosophy does not itself convey any spiritual practices. And so only having this information is not all that progressive. Annie Besant was never considered a disciple of the Mahatmas because:


too intellectual.


My position is that of someone who understands Yoga from the inside, and then being able to look at "approaches" to it. And well it evidently appears next to impossible for the Victorian and Edwardian drawing-room gentlefolk. A few years down the road, when enough had transpired to clarify that the ULT position was something very different from other things that had happened, B. P. Wadia went to England as a sort of last chance at maybe establishing this clarity. He approached Dion Fortune. She was interested but decided it was "far too eastern" and abandoned it and worked her way in to Alpha Omega splinter of the Golden Dawn. And so it is hard to find anyone among them who "got it".

Here is one of the main things that Morya said they wanted to give us:


no new orders of priestcraft.


Did he say that the existing ones were to be destroyed, or that you were ostracized for being born in this or that ecclesiatical system? No.

In that sense of the word, Theosophy is indirectly recommending several spiritual practices. HPB offers personal testimony about most of them from five continents. Can Dion Fortune say she was accidentally exposed to Buryat Buddhists at a young age, no, probably not. For several years, HPB was a sort of experiential anthropologist in a way that few others could claim.

And so if we look at the way this stuff is evaluated, it is good to get the reassurance that to some extent, there are "friends everywhere", but then you might notice that you are not going to be able to just place yourself amongst the Sikhs or the Druze. There isn't a Restoration of the Mysteries. Realistically then, the number of spiritual practices that possibly could be implied by Theosophy are fewer in number.


By following such clues, we will find them in the career of W. Y. Evans-Wentz:


Though initially a Baptist, Walter's father had turned to spiritualism and Theosophy. As a teenager, Walter read Madame Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine in his father's library, and became interested in the teachings of Theosophy and the occult.


At the time he was about forty:


Next in 1918, he travelled across India, covering important religious sites, "seeking wise men of the east". He met spiritual figures like Yogananda, J. Krishnamurti, Paul Brunton, Ramana Maharishi, Sri Krishna Prem and Shunyata. He also visited the Theosophical Society Adyar, where he met Annie Besant and Swami Shyamananda Giri (1911-1971).

Finally he reached Darjeeling in 1919; there he encountered Tibetan religious texts firsthand, when he acquired a Tibetan manuscript of Karma Lingpa's Liberation through Hearing during the Intermediate State (or Bardo Thodol) from Major Campbell, a British officer who had just returned from Tibet. He next met Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup (1868–1922), an English teacher and headmaster at Maharaja's Boys School, in Gangtok, Sikkim. Samdup had been with 13th Dalai Lama during the latter's exile years in India in 1910; more importantly for Evans-Wentz, he had already worked as a translator with Alexandra David-Néel, the Belgian-French explorer, travel writer, and Buddhist convert, and Sir John Woodroffe, noted British Orientalist.


Woodroffe is more commonly known as Arthur Avalon and is still considered enough of an English authority on the Hindu tantras that he is still being taught at New Nalanda University. As we can see, this group is friendly to Mme. David-Neel. The aforementioned men are actually not bad for a relatively respectful study of eastern scriptures. However Alexandra is like HPB if the combativeness and multi-faceted aspect were truncated into something like the following, which distinguishes her from the gentle dale folk and their halls and balls:


In 1871, appalled by the execution of the last Communards in front of the Communards' Wall at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, Louis David took his daughter of two years, Eugénie, future Alexandra, there to see and never forget, by this early encounter with the face of death, the ferocity of humans.



She had an opportunity to explore many facets:

At the age of 18, David-Néel had already visited England, Switzerland and Spain on her own, and she was studying in Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society. "She joined various secret societies – she would reach the thirtieth degree in the mixed Scottish Rite of Freemasonry – while feminist and anarchist groups greeted her with enthusiasm...



But:


According to Jean Chalon, her vocation to be an orientalist and Buddhist originated at the Guimet Museum.


Yes, that is so, the Guimet had Buddhist art as well as scripture, and so she was looking at medieval artifacts that were comprehended by no one around her. Well, such a curiosity grew to this point by the time she is nearly fifty:


"In 1916 she again went into Tibet, this time at the invitation of the Panchen Lama [...]. He gave her access to Tashilhunpo's immense libraries of Buddhists scriptures and made every corner of the various temples accessible to her. She was lavishly entertained by both the Panchen Lama and his mother, with whom she remained a longtime friend. 'The special psychic atmosphere of the place enchanted me,' she later wrote. 'I have seldom enjoyed such blissful hours.'


Now there is the strange common ground of a second European female, doing exactly what HPB was doing about thirty years previously, except this is more stable and her story is less secretive even though they actually "let her in". This journey lasted several years, and, what is more, she did another one when she was about sixty.

Even then, the Tibetan Lamas knew there was going to be a problem from the Chinese government. And so there were drastic internal reasons to shift away from Theosophical interests to that of self-preservation. It soon became that an HPB or David-Neel was no longer possible. There are diminishing returns when increased travel access to something that is no longer pristine cannot evoke similar results as during previous cycles.


Following the words of the Mahatmas, there would not be any addition to the ULT view until possibly around 1975. Well, it is around this time that we could say that David Reigle was probably the first person to put to task Theosophy compared to what had become known of actual scriptures and actual communication with those of the east. His conclusion was that this "message" consisted of the Tibetan diaspora into India. I would say, rather, that he was among the few who instead of attacking HPB's hodgepodge of mysticism, he took it seriously as to how it might have actually worked. His extensive research towards the Book of Dzyan is Prajnaquest in France.


Yes, cumulatively, these people are a guide from Theosophy into an actual spiritual practice that a person could join.

Because this is what I do to begin with, then, I would say okay, I accept the ULT as a kind of English introduction and a way of saying, yes, of course this still tolerates those who are committed to other spiritual practices. In fact, if I follow my own teaching, it is going to tell me to:


Take anything from Hinduism that is beneficial.

Experience the spiritual practices of any culture you meet. To be a Mahayana Buddhist means that you take your Refuge Vow seriously, and that Buddha Dharma is your reliable guide in that as long as you put twice as much into Mahayana as you do into other systems, you are still doing it.

That is about as agreeable as anything can be while retaining its own identity.


Our system does not reveal anything it calls god, but, instead, Prajnaparamita, which could perhaps be described as the most refined intelligence and wisdom. This, of course, reflects to the fact that it is also some form of electricity which is a type of matter which is not visible from within the ordinary physical plane.


Following a form of respect and open-mindedness, I looked into what an Orthodox priest was trying to tell me the difference between Christianity and Buddhism. The fact that he does not really understand Buddhism is irrelevant. I want him to tell me what he is trying to do, and he says the goal is:

A state of grace and a type of everlasting life without sorrow.


Offhand I don't think he is making a terrible mistake, and, superficially at least, we are really doing the same thing. I disagree with his theology. I will say that if I am allowed to experience the service as a visitor, then I do find it extraordinarily beneficial. The atmosphere of a regular Orthodox service to me is similar to what Mme. David-Neel said about the Panchen Lama. It obviously should not be a problem to share a planet.

On the other hand, I am particularly averse to many other kinds of services that I have experienced. I have tried. I am no HPB but in my time I would say that I found value in Orthodox Christianity and some things in Hinduism. At the end of the day, I have most in common with those Theosophists who became Buddhists because I am also a convert, by way of not having been born in it. I just don't think I could specifically say I "was a Theosophist" beforehand. I could not say I was a Baptist or anything else. If anything, I was raised in a form of agnosticism with an edge of what you could perhaps call Confucian morality. That is all. I am not a Mason but if a heritage was forcefed to me, it would be that of Lodge Zero Mother Kilwinning. And so I just want you to understand that it is similar to ULT. It does not matter what anyone wants to say, most Lodges and Rites are derivative products that are not in our control. If you ever want to try to disentangle the so-called web of good and evil in Masonry, you have to break it down almost on the level of individual people.

Yes, of course, there have been evil individuals who worked through Masonry, but here we are going to make the same point that is made in Theosophy. Almost all of the literature and knowledge in the anti-Masonic database is the same as a Jesuit strategy that became a political party in 1801. And so right off the bat let us just repeat a disinformation maxim:


You mix 85% facts with whatever you want.

Roughly, that is what you get here, and it is of course exactly this that evolves into a Fascist honeypot which is historically traceable through the Great Wars.


And so if we have this actual political heritage, then, in essence, Theosophy is a later movement that has done us a tremendous favor by explaining the threats of Jesuitry. At this point by "we" physically I mean myself and anyone else with awareness of their heritage that revolted against British rule and proceeded fervently anti-federal and anti-bank and probably went out with President Jackson. After that, "we" were still perfectly aware that there were important issues still being played out in the public arena well into the early 1900s. As this systemic shift and replacement took place, we then see that the issues have mostly been generationally forgotten. It sounds like a military application of miscegenation, which, as far as I know, is exactly part of it.


In my country, I am not sure if I can meet anyone who knows much about this type of knowledge of "successful colonial revolt". They know "surrender and forget". The fate of the pseudo-system which was repeatedly warned to us throughout the nineteenth century is now being dealt a hammering blow that we all can witness in various ways.

[Bo Atkinson]

Thanks onawah for this topic and everyone here, as it is timely for me to discuss the content.

It was not asceticism but hard physical labor that earned my necessary living, (for decades), and this became really great once MP3s and free PDF libraries became available… The real seeker in me could now pick and choose on the spur, far from congested materialism. I never liked reading as a nature boy in youth, by my need to know annoyingly grew, more and more and more and more.

I count it good fortune of hard edges and pivotal failures. This helped me weed out a quest for knowledge, collected on a harmonious palette. The only big job I ever got was building this 60 ft turtle, for city kids, (as a concrete contractor, where the towns people designed it). Most of my paying jobs were moderate to insignificant.

Again here is an excerpt from ISIS UNVEILED BY H. P. BLAVATSKY 1877

“ …Buddha taught it in his doctrine of poverty, restriction of the senses, perfect indifference to the objects of this earthly vale of tears, freedom from passion, and frequent intercommunication with the Atma- -soul-contemplation. The cause of reincarnation is ignorance of our senses, and the idea that there is any reality in the world, anything except abstract existence…

The people of India could more readily hear of that approach, while European people strike me as more adventurous, (to discuss this politely). A kick and jumpstart with trials and errors was inevitable. Theosophy is thought a footnote, but its essential mission has echoed near and far.

The Atma-soul-contemplation has evolved other, diverse attempts at parallels in the west and beyond. Cross-incarnations may transfer our existences east and west, north and south, so that living experience adorns the unconscious, to poke at us from the wings, (of life’s stage).

So I want to recognize that I’m kinda like “a self” with four robots attached for life, (one life at a time, life after life)…. I’m wearing four robots and should avoid over indulging inside them. I never liked reading the manual, but now I gotta try and try.

The best I learned of this defines four bodies, the meat body and the etheric body, (still mostly missed by the west), which are actually one body when we discover how these two should function as one. The other bodies are the emotional body in itself, and last, the mental body, in itself. Here in the west these latter two are very tangled up and must be deliberately untangled… (Hmmm~ Hard Labor)

Helena Blavatsky and deeper esoterics actually refers to these robots as “envelopes”. Huh? Whose envelopes? The Monad’s Envelopes. (Self = Monad). Unfortunately Annie Besant may well have slightly confused the term “monad”, which may go to show that from the beginning, Theosophy was a breakthrough-in-progress, which has interruptions, and has some delays, while its subject matter is still unraveling, for those who work at it, and for those who find better parallels yet.

[Delight]

IMO God is my beloved being and I being beloved. Knowing is about the QUALITIES of God being invited. It is so UNWORDY. Words are all about the definitions past. I want to shout at everyone that all the systems of which we were educated are in process of dissolution. I AM the WORD of my experience and the less words the better to move onto my preferred relationship with God. I am living in God's world and WE are experiencing all things new.

OF ALL that I observe that has truth, the Guides are speaking MOST (along with Neville Goddard form the 20th century) to what I would like to see as my experience.

Transposition of the "notes" of the song we have sung to create our transpersonal reality.

Reconciliation

Humanity is saying yes to the requirement of peace for the species to express in an ongoing way

Being lifted to the Upper room, a new octave.
AND the good news that I KNOW is our faith will lead us across a bridge. YES, we look down and see the chasm. BUT we see this as our opportunity to keep walking to an UNKNOWN. The bridge is being laid and as we step forth towards what we KNOW we love and feel the JOY that God supports this and is enabling us and we just may choose to walk step by step in the moment.

HUMANITY is worth saving inclusive of those we cannot stand. We are all manifestations of a PERFECT Source who is taking us as expression of our own true nature (and a hint: Christ is us and miracles come because we know God and stand in God's light fully).

This is awesome AND i AM IN SUCH HAPPINESS CONTEMPLATING THE QUALITIES of the new SONG WHICH IS UNKNOWN. I love this talk:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vP7J3VAxA5s

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9qZxB1ZW8cM

[shaberon]

Posted by wavydome (here)
The best I learned of this defines four bodies, the meat body and the etheric body, (still mostly missed by the west), which are actually one body when we discover how these two should function as one. The other bodies are the emotional body in itself, and last, the mental body, in itself. Here in the west these latter two are very tangled up and must be deliberately untangled… (Hmmm~ Hard Labor)

Helena Blavatsky and deeper esoterics actually refers to these robots as “envelopes”. Huh? Whose envelopes? The Monad’s Envelopes. (Self = Monad). Unfortunately Annie Besant may well have slightly confused the term “monad”, which may go to show that from the beginning, Theosophy was a breakthrough-in-progress, which has interruptions, and has some delays, while its subject matter is still unraveling, for those who work at it, and for those who find better parallels yet.

I suppose in the general concept of Reincarnation, it is described one way or another as things coming together and falling apart, although it sounds to me that HPB had anglicized the Chains of Dependent Origination. From terms she used, The "envelopes" or "sheaths" are called Koshas, which HPB re-iterated straight from the Hindu Puranas. Nothing changed. Again almost everything she said was based on some kind of source.



"Etheric Body" is a Besant-ism which has no historical correspondence.



"Monad" is from Greek philosophy, "irreducible unit" or "atom". English Theosophy kept the terms "Monad " and "Personality", although HPB was taught to use the Sanskrit terms Amrita and Pratyeka. She never did, but, those would be significant in mostly a Buddhist sense.

HPB was quite fond of matching up Greek Systems to Hebrew and Indian and so forth, and, to a major extent, this is accurate, but she would have been unable to attach Buddhism in the same convenient way because it works differently. Most of those systems attempt to describe a scale from the form perspective, such as physical, ethereal, and so on, but you do not quite get this in Buddhism, because it is a Noumenal system.

Well, there is also a Hindu Noumenal system in Raja Yoga. So once that Dayanand Sarasvati had "defected", then his "native presence" in the TS was replaced by Subba Row, an Adwaitee. For a year or two, he argued against HPB, based from the fairly simple assertion that many of us have heard, about the Fourth State:


Waking

Dreaming

Deep Sleep

Fourth State


HPB's argument was that a seven-fold scale explains more, i. e., such as ghosts.

However instead of simply discarding the thing above as inadequate, I would still take it as crucial, as the basis of Fourfold Om. One cannot do any Yoga without this. Either the Hindu or Buddhist kind is inert without mantras. Buddhism is going to take it exactly the same way as in Chandogya or Mukunda Upanishad, and, in a sense, fractalize it. So if you want to listen to Shiva on this it's ok.



The way Buddhism becomes more advanced, is, so to speak, by sub-dividing the Fourth State. Into what? Buddhism says that these are states of consciousness:

Moment of Death

After Death

Seeking Rebirth


And so the meditation moves in a direction so that one experiences these planes of consciousness without actually dying. Subjectively these are less like scales or degrees of matter but they are like a sequence of events.

The next thing about the Besant-alike classifications is that they distinguish a separate thing called Emotional Body. This does not match any kind of Raja Yoga. Alice Bailey says you are supposed to isolate and anesthetize this so that you no longer have emotional responses. That is a contradiction to the teaching. The teaching says you are going to overcome disturbing emotions. In fact I should be more clear on this because if you are going to do it at all you have got to get the Fourfold Om and combine it with what we call the Four Roaming Virtues:


Metta--Love, Mudita--Joy, Karuna--Compassion, Upekka--Resolve.


What that means is that these qualities have their moment of focus in a meditation session, but, you are supposed to carry them everywhere with you at all times. That is how you are packing the world into a grain of sand. If someone is not doing these, they do not have the Buddhist ABCs. It does not say anything like this is a note you observe and move on. It is to sink it in to the core of your being and then you are flung to the wolves of karma.






In original Theosophy, the Fifth Plane is Akasha and it is the domain of Manas, which is the seat of mind and emotions.

The closest way that I could describe Buddhism is that *all* of its meditations run so that Manas will "marry" the Sixth Plane of Buddhi.


Therefor, spiritual practices basically all operate in Manas.


Well, because I am comfortable with Indian Buddhism, then yes I have to say it is Vedic and Puranic, quite a bit like HPB was describing. In Buddhism you constantly refer to Traidhatu or Trailokya, the Three Worlds, called Form, Desire, and Formless. And so to make this array work, then, the idea is that Form and Formless are going to be sub-divided.


In ancient times, they only said Three Worlds, Om Bhu Bhuvar Svar. But it is already in Hindu sources that they are expanded to Seven. At that point, they represent the Seven Sages, Seven Planets, and so forth, with these worlds or planes manifested as Vyahriti or Words:



The vyahritis were made at the beginning of creation and represent the seven planetary systems including Bhur, Bhuvah, Svah, Mahah, Janah, Tapah, and Satyalokas. Besides denoting the seven worlds, the vyahritis denote the seven planes of consciousness. The mantras are prayers directed to the elemental forces on the seven planes. These elemental forces are manifestations of the Parabrahman itself.


In the Puranas, and already in the Atharvaveda, there are fourteen worlds, seven higher ones (vyahrtis) and seven lower ones (patalas), viz.

bhu,
bhuvas,
svar,
mahas,
janas,
tapas, and
satya
above and

atala,
vitala,
sutala,
rasaataala,
talatala,
mahaatala,
patala and
naraka



Allright. That is also in the advanced part of HPB's practical yoga introduction. And for example, in Tara's Song, there is the appearance of both Trailokya, and Sapta Loka Patala. She doesn't spit out the details, she just assumes you know what it is about. The Eighth Hell Naraka is given there but let's not go there yet. Seven Worlds and Underworlds is not obscure, is standard for any Sanskrit cosmology.

Well, if we deal with the Lokas or Worlds, does it closely correspond to Theosophy, sure. Bhu = Earth = Physical plane. The next ones would be Astral, Prana, and Kama Loka. Okay, Kama Loka is the Desire Realm. Above, this corresponds to the Great or Mahar Loka, and this is directly represented in the title of the Indian National epic, Maha Bharata. It is nothing other than an occult tale of Yuddisthira ascending through Kama Loka. So Mahar and Kama Loka are the same thing and are the environment of heavens and hells. Well, just a few sentences ago, we said we were going to open some kind of After Death vision. So this Fourth Plane is much more of an experience than it is a theory or abstract classification.

The Fifth Plane in that list is Jana or Birth, corresponding to the Theosophical Manas and Akasha.

These two planes constitute the whole meditative career of a human being, so, although one can classify higher states, for most practical purposes, they are of no use or non-existent.

Our school roughly says that if you seek them, you are following a lower order of Liberation, which is a relief to oneself only, by breaking you out of reincarnation into a passive state. And so Buddhist Yoga operates entirely different from Hindu. It is built of largely similar components, but, at an intermediate level of training then it makes its own course.


There is only one thing in Buddhism that deals with Buddhi, and, most people do not explain it. It is more or less a Moon Mirror with Manas on one side and Buddhi on the other. Otherwise, it is not mentioned directly, but only indirectly. In the Puranas, the Sixth Plane belongs to Varuna. The symbol of Varuna is a Makara, which is a sea creature having a face like a mix of an elephant and a crocodile, thought to be the original of the Sea Goat Capricorn. If you look at this glyph you will see that Capricorn is not in series with the eleven others, which are entirely made of pieces of circles and crosses; so even here, Capricorn is a mystery.


The Makara is rarely seen or discussed in our pantheon. But it is there. The following specimen is Chinese. The main figure is Sri Devi Lakshmi. I am not sure about the usual English expression, she "is the goddess of Kama Loka", because the preposition doesn't really tell me anything. Our deities are experiential, and it would probably be more accurate to say "she is the Kama Loka". On rare representations we will find her horse's bridle being led by Makara Devi:







So our meditational system does not really go all the way through the Seven Planes or Worlds, because that would be wrong, as a human can scarcely open the Fifth. This is the plane of Manas, and then, Buddhism adopts a Seven-fold Manas. It does not use an adjective such as "higher mind", which gives the impression of something on another plane. It says "subtle mind", implying a higher quality.

Interestingly, it copies the blueprint of Kama Loka from Hinduism, which has six planes or heavens. Here, Buddhism adds a Seventh Heaven.

At that point, all of the outer Yoga I could talk about or suggest anyone do, is really an effort to place you in the Seventh Heaven where one attempts to clear a Seven-fold Manas. That is considered what it takes to move us into the position where we can even begin to perceive Buddha's Wisdom.

Theosophy (meaning the Mahatmas) and Buddhism recognize two "bodies", physical and mental. So whatever may be above Manas is *not* a body, is formless.

Planes "under" Kama Loka are directly attached to the material cosmos. That ends in the second plane of Kama Loka, which is the residence of Indra and the Thirty-three Gods. So Form, as a whole, is Indra and everything under it.


And so what one is doing by seemingly participating as Manas which might seem to be an apparent contradiction to the fact it can be transcended...in practice it is much as if saying the Deity has Atma, I don't. And then by practice, we weed out whatever the Manas was doing, and replace it by the Deity. It is our Deity which is secretly nested in those "higher planes". Point being it can only be found through what is usually considered a rather strenuous effort.

I would say that Alexandra David-Neel actually did this, actually obtained noticeable results, and understood it well enough to minorly describe it.

On the other hand I have seen persons of a scholarly nature spend fifteen years working on a translation and admit they don't know how it actually works.

What we are trying to call Yoga is a perceptible force that has to be discovered. I do not understand how he spends all those years with the teachings which will surely reveal he is not following them, only copying the words. I could understand if your only source was intellectual Theosophy without any mantras. Alice Bailey fills this gap. She gives a lot of things that could be called prayers and meditation instructions. They are not Buddhist. It may be part of the Fundamentalism she started in.


From what I have been able to determine, systems that have Etheric Body, Emotional Body, Monadic Body, Logoic Body, etc., do so in order to make room for their authors' own doctrinal assertions. At that time it starts sounding to me like "a new order of priestcraft". Pretty soon it seems to me that we are not doing the same thing.

The actual operational Buddhist principles are the Skandhas.


A similar area where I believe HPB has made a limited mistake is in the telling of Three Formless and Four Form Worlds. Allright. This is actually the same as what we were just talking about, because since Kama Loka is attached to Form, it can simply be counted as Form like this. Same worlds. And her point follows that the Lunar Pitris are Form.

As far as I know, every other theosophical system has copied this and done something with it.

Well, again, she was trying to write in English, her fifth language, on subjects that had perhaps only just appeared in English for the first time. She was not considered fluent in Pali or Sanskrit. And so I think she over-used Horace Williams's 1840 translation of Vishnu Purana. In his own footnotes almost from the beginning, Williams tells us that this Purana seems insufficient in a number of areas.

I did not know he said that until I had already found more chapters in the Vayu and Skanda Puranas.

It may sound like some kind of technical term to us, but, here, we are stirring the entire Indian culture like a hornet's nest.


The Theosophical symbolic version is almost misleading.

The Indian version is misleading.

At a superficial level, Pitr which is of course "Father" is exoterically interpreted as "ancestors", and you keep a silver chalice to make a regular offering called Sraddha. That is part of orthodox Hinduism and has been a cultural norm for centuries.

The view of Buddhism would call something like that an "optional, outer" practice. And what you get if you pursue these more extensive Puranas--which are part of the same Indian culture but not the dominant part--is that these deities are Time.

This subject then latches itself to an utterly different Shiva than the one that is taught. It is Red and Blue Shiva also thought to be mentioned in the Atharva Veda.

Hardly anyone in the world understands this and it is thought to have been suppressed.

What happens with Atharva Veda is that it teaches how to take all the fixed furnishings of a temple, convert them into symbolic form, and then go wandering and do your rites mentally without any equipment. Red and Blue Shiva sounds a little threatening to authorities which might want to keep people subserviently packed in temples. This develops a practice called Inner Homa which is what Buddha says to do. The system that I follow directly imports this Hindu Homa system on inner and outer levels.


So if you are orthodox Hindu, you could keep your Sraddha in the way you are used to, but since most of us are not, it is not really asking you to start that kind. However, Pitrs are not Elements as seem to have implied usually in English, because they are Time, and, well, Father Time, is almost exactly what it is saying.


All I am doing is trying to explain what certain Puranas say on their own internal evidence. But there definitely is this very occult Shiva which is plain to find, although it is a bit complicated. It means Pitrs are Time, which Indians are not going to tell you.



HPB said something that most people probably took as philosophy but almost is close to a spiritual practice.

She said it was important to learn Viraj as Divine Androgyne.

That is in the Puranas, and of course the idea is that Brahma the creator then splits into male and female halves who produce the many things of the cosmos.

Female Viraj at Jaipur is possibly the oldest deity with a service.

The title Viraja is used in a limited way with only a few Buddhist goddesses.

It is also part of our Divine Androgyne, Khasama Viraja is part of Caryamelakapradipa, i. e. Generation Stage instructions for the Five Stages of Guhyasamaja.


If you have heard of the term Vimala--Stainless, Viraj is beyond that. She is simultaneously perhaps the first Hindu Shakti tantra goddess, and, a very advanced condition in Buddhism. In terms of spiritual practices, then, we would say, Viraja must be exceptionally meaningful. Related to the foregoing, this ancient Viraja is combined with Homa:



Every fire ritual/oblation into the fire (Yagya/Havan/Homam) that we perform in the external world is simultaneously being performed within our spiritual body.

Generally, Homams are performed to bring materialistic benefits to oneself by pleasing the different Hindu deities. But there is a fire ritual that can take us away from seeking materialistic pleasures. This fire ritual or Homam is known as the ‘Viraja Homam’.

Viraja Homam is also known as the ‘ultimate’ or the ‘final’ fire oblation.

It is also known as the ‘death rite’ because upon performing it, the spiritual aspirant is considered dead with regards to his previous life/lives and with regards to all his accumulated karmas. Once he is purified by means of this Homam, he is fit to offer himself as a sacrifice to his Supreme Self.


This Homam is not only meant for spiritual aspirants or monks who wish to renounce everything and take up Sanyasa. It can be performed by everyone. However, we need to be aware that it strengthens our Viveka (ability to discriminate between right and wrong) and Vairagya (ability to remove our senses from pleasures) and it produces Virakti (disinterest in temporary pleasures of this world). It is a sincere request to our Supreme Self to help us purify our body, mind and soul.


So, you see.

There are perhaps volumes more about this but in this case we can simply give her character. In yoga you have to imagine she is really there.

In her standard appearance, Viraja is a Sulini which is a Spear Holder. This term has been overlooked on other deities where artists typically place a Trident (Trisula). This is an important Point.


Overall, Viraja is not very complicated except:


Her crown is complex with a crescent moon, a Shiva linga, Ganapati, and a snake, on her main form.

The most important iconography of Biraja Devi is in her crown. The crown has miniature Murtis of Ganesha, Vasuki – the king of Nagas, Shivalinga in a Yoni & moon. This crown brings together all the different paths that Hinduism has. Scholars interpret as all the paths eventually lead you to the Adya or Para Shakti that Biraja Devi is.








In this case, she has a Purifying mantra for the Homa. It is from among the oldest documented material like this, ca. 300 B. C. It contains several lines that are very standard and basic in Sanskrit. The last one of these tells us the Five Koshas but it has its own style:

Annamaya--Food/physical, Prana, Mano, Vijnana, Ananda.


Uma Mohan sings this in a way that is not exactly the page right out of the book. I chased down what seems to be the right rendition. The first line in this song invokes the Five Winds of Ayurveda. It has the Elements and Senses. So it is pouring out yoga doctrines.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6Bvb9l348Xc

The refrain of the song says something along the lines of:

May I become the radiant, free of dust and evil! svaha!

or:

May I of the nature of self-luminous knowledge be divested of Rajoguna (ego) and tamoguna (ignorance) and become sinless—Swaaha!


pranapanavyanodanasamana me shudhyantam

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 1||

vanmanashcakshuhshrotrajihvaghranaretobuddhyakutihsankalpa

me shudhyantam

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 2||

tvakcarmamamsarudhiramedomajjasnayavo'sthini me shudhyantam

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 3||

shirahpanipadaparshvaprishthorudharajanghashishnopasthapayav

o me shudhyantam

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 4||

uttishtha purusha harita pingala lohitakshi dehi dehi

dadapayita me shudhyantam

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 5||


prithivyaptejovayurakasha me shudhyantam

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 1||

shabdasparsharuparasagandha me shudhyantam

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 2||

manovakkayakarmani me shudhyantam

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 3||

avyaktabhavairahankarair-

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 4||

atma me shudhyantam

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 5||

antaratma me shudhyantam

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 6||

paramatma me shudhyantam

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 7||

kshudhe svaha | kshutpipasaya svaha | vivityai svaha |

rigvidhanaya svaha | kashotkaya svaha | [om svaha || 8||

kshutpipasamalam jyeshthamalalakshmirnashayamyaham |

abhutimasamriddhim ca sarvannirnuda me papmanam svaha]--not used

|| 9||

annamayapranamayamanomayavijnanamayamanandamayamatma me

shudhyantam

jyotiraham viraja vipapma bhuyasagam svaha || 10||




That summarizes and demonstrates a system, which, Buddhism is more of an extension than a rejection of it. The song is mostly just asking to purify various parts of the aura. Yoga does not tire of purification.

[Bo Atkinson]

Theosophy catalyzed east-west cross fertalization.
Sanskrit literacy is not the vital offspring.
The intent and content lay there, behind.
English words expanded do just as well.
Expediency works too, through other modes.
If we only see, but what we already know,
Let us see what we are doing, to get free.

I love the harmonious ideal,
to replace the over-focused self,
to bypass traditional claims
about wordy mind-tangles
with quizzes A-to-Z,
be ready tomorrow.

[shaberon]

Posted by wavydome (here)
English words expanded do just as well.

As a way of communication, perhaps.

But there is no such thing as English spiritual practices.

I am not sure if it is not actually dangerous to leave an open door to what Delight posted about "speculative" spirituality. But this is next to impossible to overcome without being accused of pushing this or that religion. Allright. I have a contrived polyglot language from ca. 1600s, and, if we roll back a very violent history, then, my...and probably very many people's...distant heritage would most likely have been with Cernunnos such as on the Gundestrup Cauldron:






This fearsome creature was popularized by Eliphas Levi and is a popular Theosophical topic.

Koothoomi said he was making an extensive commentary to Levi, but, Hume, of course, soured the relationship and this material never came forward.

Whatever was going on with Cernunnos was buried and forgotten by ca. year 500.


Perhaps he is approximately similar to Shiva Pashupati from Mohenjo Daro:






which is an old artifact from Pakistan, but that is the national deity of Nepal.

Unlike in the west, the Mughals only compressed Indian Hindus in the south, and chased the Buddhists out of the country. The western crusades were utter decimation and what did you get in exchange? A single book that could only be read by a few people. And then our English language slowly starts to coalesce.

I, personally, would advise "a spiritual lineage" to anyone. I would even say you could convert to Judaism, except I understand it has the consequence that you will not be considered equal. Theosophy really says that it is Groundwork for Raja Yoga. However the Mahachohan says that *anything* is better than *nothing*.


So far I have been unable to find enough feedback from mystical Jews or Christians or Pagans for that matter to have any insight on how those might succeed or be intended to succeed as spiritual paths or practices. We have been told they don't as the state of Grace is presumed to turn on like a switch and that's it. I don't want to seem myopic but I honestly don't know about them. Expressed in their own words in the forum. I've tried asking a few times.


As the combination, Theos Sophia, and we read this Sophia was once a spiritual practice, I don't know what happened to that, but it translates to Prajna in our system, and that is what we practice. If this gains me some understanding by mystical others, I shall try to remember that. It seems there should be a window since:


...in mystical interpretations forwarded in Russian Orthodoxy, known as Sophiology, Holy Wisdom as a feminine principle came to be identified with the Theotokos (Mother of God) rather than with Christ himself.


As one example. For the most part I am just talking about mystical experiences that anyone can do at home. Or at the mountain or whatever. Theosophy started with "magic" and moved to what it called "yoga". As a weapon it was originally deployed to combat necromancy. Before electricity, starting sometime in the 1700s, various kinds of "magic" became regular entertainment in Europe. Then in the 1800s it was seances. And so it was meant to stop this kind of thing. Same as was being done simultaneously in Tibet.

[Delight]

Posted by shaberon (here)
I am not sure if it is not actually dangerous to leave an open door to what Delight posted about "speculative" spirituality.

Someone somewhere speculated about a mystical (and therefore "beyond" the "mundane") experience. This was EXTRA ORDINARY and IMO IF that experience in some way "shone" such that OTHERS wondered if this might be "real", COULD lead to a "cult" OR renaissance?

Somewhere someone innately connected with a TRUTH and BECAUSE it was true, then saw it in somewhere else in others speculation. There was an inner UNDERSTOOD agreement.

Somewhere sometime, SOMEONE did not use the truth for TRUTH but to codify a LIE which would THEN justify keeping OTHERS form actually connecting to THAT which IS beyond all speculation.

Sometime SOMEONE was in control of what it MEANS to have any unauthorized mystical contact and THEY called it "sin", called the people having it "heathens" and "witches" and projected THEIR evil on Those with the ability to literally SEE THROUGH the veils.

These inquisitions and crusades cannot MURDER THE TRUTH. Sophistry cannot hide the TRUTH. I cannot tell YOU the TRUTH. Each of us can discover the TRUTH. Somedays are better than others. We who came in at an auspicious moment of "time" found documents and had contact with many sources. That is so awesome and these days we had a really good chance of connecting what we innately KNOW with what others KNOW and DISCUSS OUR experiences... That is unless our minds were grabbed by cultish imprisonment?.

[Agape]

I think we are all more or less like theosophists once we start explaining Vedas and Puranas in English or other mundane language but wavydome is also right,
language can be adjusted and expanded.

Even Sanskrit based scholars obviously have to use other language than Sanskrit to teach, the tradition of gurukulas based purely in Sanskrit disappeared even from India,
I’ve still met some pandits in Southern India in 1993 who spoke only in Sanskrit but asked some upstart kids recently and heard anyone who would do that in today’s modern India would be considered “elitist”( chuckles).

This really really matters only in Hindu traditions at the point,
talking from years of teaching experience:

Europeans and modern Americans love to learn couple new words from any ancient language, perhaps a verse or two but:

you can’t expect from innocent people to emotionally embrace some kind of exotic deity with attributes and presume it will resonate with them.

Considering many sensitivities on both sides of the sea, I’ve never tried to teach anything beyond what could also be explained, and understood in people’s particular mother tongue and made to work for them immediately and in long run.

Also true about theosophy and anthroposophy ( Rudolf Steiner was related to the same circles as Blavatsky) that they were spiritually highly inspired but turned to cannons of conceptuality difficult to follow or expand on unless for the authors themselves.

J. Krishnamurti was chosen by theosophists as incarnation of Maitreya, future Buddha and meant to be the teacher of “Order of Blue Star” which he dissolved as soon as he was legally capable of doing so .
He did not need to follow any specific terms or vocabulary or to follow any of their thesis , also Vedas were originally taught through oral and “mind transmissions” of pure meaning rather than by reading and to this day,
most of the authentic spiritual traditions in India are still passed from generation to generation in similar way,
whether the student or a priest become scholar or divinely inspired fool does not matter.

Sanskrit as the only “pure language” aside of old Greek and Latin is very important part of our common linguistic heritage traceable in most Eurasian languages is very important to me, personally but like every other language can be only taught and understood in proper context.

In the meantime, beings of other worlds and dimensions communicate to people in all kinds of languages.

While I can’t prove it exactly but from my own experience, Sanskrit is native tongue of at least one ( maybe more) extraterrestrial groups/civilisations who made contact with us deep in our history as well.
I’ve heard some of it “from them” and was quite surprised by the original pronunciation being harder than its current human form,
quite technical, punctual and containing plenty of “high R”.

Sorry if that’s not too entertaining but Sanskrit scholars will definitely be in advantage once we make contact “with those people”.


🙏💫🙏

[onawah]

One thing that I have mulled over a bit, having studied all the major religions to some extent (and having practiced Zen for a while in my youth) is the gap between the Theravada attitude of Bodhisattvas, and that of Hinayana Arhats.
I'm not a scholar of religion, but here seems to have been an old, ongoing schism (though not only in Buddhism) between those more extroverted souls who feel that being actively engaged in the world in a compassionate mode is the proper path, and those introverted souls who feel that the way can only be found by inward communion and contemplation.
Theosophy seems at its heart to be so intellectual that the tradition I would compare it to is Jnana Yoga.
As defined here: "Jnana yoga is the path of wisdom and knowledge (Jnana), involving disciplined study of scriptures and constant inquiry into the nature of self. Often called the yoga of the mind, Jnana yoga is well suited for the more intellectually inclined."
source: https://www.doyou.com/the-6-branches-of-yoga/
I gained a lot of insights from Theosophy, but with so much of it geared toward the psychic arts rather than an actual practice, it seems to be in a category of its own, and designed to be more of a series of addendums to various existing philosphies, practices, faiths, etc.
So in a way, it lacks it's own original root, and doesn't really bind together all of the above, either, though it does provide a lot of food for thought and new perspectives from which to view all that.
It circles around, infiltrates, morphs, and sometimes undermines established beliefs. and brings about a level of questioning that feels new and sometimes precarious.
Steiner's contributions through Anthroposophy seemed more fresh and original.

This makes a lot of sense to me:

Posted by shaberon (here)
The next thing about the Besant-alike classifications is that they distinguish a separate thing called Emotional Body. This does not match any kind of Raja Yoga. Alice Bailey says you are supposed to isolate and anesthetize this so that you no longer have emotional responses. That is a contradiction to the teaching. The teaching says you are going to overcome disturbing emotions. In fact I should be more clear on this because if you are going to do it at all you have got to get the Fourfold Om and combine it with what we call the Four Roaming Virtues:

Metta--Love, Mudita--Joy, Karuna--Compassion, Upekka--Resolve.

What that means is that these qualities have their moment of focus in a meditation session, but, you are supposed to carry them everywhere with you at all times. That is how you are packing the world into a grain of sand. If someone is not doing these, they do not have the Buddhist ABCs. It does not say anything like this is a note you observe and move on. It is to sink it in to the core of your being and then you are flung to the wolves of karma.

Is that state akin to the state of full Attention that Zen aspires to?
Any why, once we allow it sink in, are we flung to the wolves of karma?

Regarding Delight's post here:https://projectavalon.net/forum4/sho...=1#post1489423

It seems the key would have to be to find balance.

[Rawhide68]

"Daniel Liszt paints a picture more like it's an eruption of 'intuitive' dabblers tapping into an ageless knowable body of worldly truth."

When ever you start to cave in to someone or what
please , don't.
There is Norman.

That description nails it. Thanks Norman, thanks

[Rawhide68]

Teering down my own fall due to inmaintance -
I found in my bookshelf 2 and 3 of the subject spocen