Lucifer7, January 2006


Contents

Short Quotes
Editorial
Online - found through Stumbleupon
Obituary - Donald Watson
The One is the Two, Cecil Williams
H.P. Blavatsky on Mediumship and Communion with the Dead
Jiddu Krishnamurti on religion
Globalization -This is clever


Short Quotes

Letters from the Masters of Wisdom, first series, p. 127, letter 60

In our [the Mahatmas] sight there is no crime worse than ingratitude and injustice; and to see one who suffers them without protest is equal to seeing in him a passive confederate to them.

K.H.,  The Mahatma Letters

Evil has no existence per se and is but the absence of good and exists but for him who is made its victim. It proceeds from two causes, and no more than good is it an independent cause in nature. Nature is destitute of goodness or malice; she follows only immutable laws when when she either gives life and joy, or sends suffering (and) death, and destroys what she has created. Nature has an antidote for every poison and her laws a reward for every suffering. The butterfly devoured by a bird becomes that bird, and the little bird killed by an animal goes into a higher form. It is the blind law of necessity and the eternal fitness of things, and hence cannot be called Evil in Nature. The real evil proceeds from human intelligence and its origin rests entirely with reasoning man who dissociates himself from Nature. Humanity then, alone is the true source of Evil.

H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled I, 170.

Pure primeval magic does not consist in superstitious practices and vain ceremonies, but in the imperial will of man.

Paul Brunton, The Inner Reality, Chapter VIII

Peace is not the same as truth.


Editorial

As a reminder of the policy of this e-zine I would like to quote the editors of the Canadian Theosophist Volume 10, #5:
A lively discussion on the policy of the Magazine turns largely on what are sometimes described as personalities. The Constitution (*) requires that every member shall have the right to believe or disbelieve any teaching or doctrine and the right to express that belief or disbelief. Correspondents and contributors should observe good taste and good sense in exercising these privileges. But it is not the business of an editor to falsify his contributors' sentiments. The proper practice which we believe has always been observed editorially is to deal with the opinions and doctrines only of those under debate. Those who cannot bear to hear the opinions of their friends or themselves discussed pro and con are still in an elementary stage of thought.

In this new year I'm starting a series of longer quotes from H.P. Blavatsky on death and what is beyond. The first two are from the book The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky, Volume 1, 1861-1879.

The latest issue of The Theosophist (December 2005) is very good. Radha Burnier echoes some of the sentiments of my last editorial and adds some thoughts on vegetarianism versus veganism - in response to the news that scientists are developing artificial meat (i.e. meat grown in the lab, though from original meatcells). Mrs. Burnier notes that though this kind of meat is still animal in nature, like eggs and milk, its production does involve less suffering than ordinary meat. A vegan herself, ordinary (western) lacto-vegetarians don't seem like real vegetarians to her. Coincidence or synergy - I don't know, but this issue of Lucifer7 has some info on veganism as well.

Wisdom and happiness to all in 2006.

(*) The Constitution of the Theosophical Society with headquarters in Adyar, India, are referred to.


Online - found through Stumbleupon


Obituary - Donald Watson

Donald Watson, founder of the Vegan Society and originator of the word ‘vegan’, has died at his home in Keswick at the age of 95. More on Donald Watson on the website of the Vegan Society.


The One is the Two

Cecil Williams, Hamilton, Canadian Theosophist, July 15th, 1929

    B. - The other day you made use of an illustration of Aristotle's which struck me as paradoxical.  He referred to a point which was one and yet two.  To me a point is obviously one, and I fail to see how you can make two out of it.
    A. - The idea of duality in unity is an old one, and appears to me to be quite Theosophical.  In Theosophical thinking you cannot avoid it.  Perhaps I may be allowed to illustrate its frequency in Theosophical teaching?
    B. - Certainly.
    A. - We have been speaking rather loosely about the soul, which we have agreed is consciousness or mind.  The Theosophical definition of consciousness is more exact,
but our definition has so far served our purpose.  According to Theosophy man has seven principles.  Without now examining this teaching, let us assume for the purpose of my illustration, that the principles are demonstrated.
    B. - All right.  I know their Sanskrit names:  Atma, Buddhi, Manas, Kama-rupa, Linga Sharira, and Rupa.
    A. - Fine.  Now observe this curious thing about them.  Atma and Buddhi are two and yet one - the Monad.  Buddhi and Manas are two and yet one - the Divine Ego.  Manas is dual and yet one.  Manas and Kama-rupa are two and yet one - Kama-Manas.
    B. - That is striking.  It occurs to me that spirit and matter are two and yet develop from a common root which is one.
    A. - Yes, but that introduces the idea of a trinity - spirit, matter and the common root.  But the idea of the duad is there also.  Spirit and matter are two and yet one.
    B. - Spirit and matter one!
    A. - Surprising though that statement may seem at first sight, it can be demonstrated.  But do so now would take us away from our present purpose.  You say the mathematical point is one, but - it is also two.
    B. - I fail to see it.
    A. - Let us concentrate for a while upon the idea of the point.  I make a dot with my pencil upon this paper.  Would you say that was a point?
    B. - No, for the dot has some extension;  it has length, depth and breadth.
    A. - Let us abstract extension from it, and let us do so by stages.  We take from the idea of the dot, length.
    B. - Yes.
    A. - Then breadth.
    B. - Yes.
    A. - Then depth.
    B. - Yes.
    A. - What is then left?
    B. - Nothing physically.
    A. - Look at the idea attentively.  There is something - the idea of the point - there, how would yon describe it other than negatively?  What, in other words, do you perceive?
    B. - It appears to me as a dot, which when I have abstracted extension from it, and concentrate upon the idea of the point, reappears as a smaller dot, and this process continues.  I cannot see any end to it.  I seem to be looking into infinity.
    A. - In other words you cannot think of this ever but never vanishing point except as appearing and disappearing?
    B. - Yes.
    A. - It seems to me that you are defining the point as dual.
    B. - So I am.  The point is certainly one thing, but when I look at it, it cycles from the image of a physical atom (let me say) to the image of nothingness.  It is one and yet it is two.  How curious!  But stop a minute.  I can think of the point as position, and having one position only.  There is unity there.
    A. - But position relative to what?
    B. - There we have duality again.
    A. - There is another way in which duality supervenes.  For in the consideration of the point you have forgotten - yourself.
    B. - You mean that I am one and the point another one?
    A. - Yes.
    B. - But I am not the point?
    A. - Then what are you?
    B. - I am the observer.
    A. - You would say that when you think about the point, or any other idea, that you are not that point or idea.  Would you not say that in thinking you are mind or consciousness?
    B. - I am exercising my mind or consciousness.
    A. - Who is this "I" that is exercising the mind or consciousness you say you possess?
    B. - I don't know.  It is difficult not to speak of consciousness in the possessive case.  Perhaps it is higher Manas exercising lower Manas.
    A. - Do not let us dodge a difficulty by the use of words whose meaning we have not clearly defined and comprehended.  There is a danger of concealing from ourselves our ignorance by the glib use of Theosophical terms.
    B. - That is so.  But I am rather baffled by the thought that I am mind or consciousness and yet mind or consciousness is something which I exercise.  Can I truly exercise myself, or am I exercising something I possess?  If the latter then I cannot be mind or consciousness.
    A. - Perhaps we can resolve the problem if we endeavour to define and comprehend self-consciousness.

H.P. Blavatsky on Mediumship and Communion with the Dead

The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky, Volume 1, p. 55, 56

The more I see of mediums - for the United States are a true nursery, the most prolific hot-bed for mediums and sensitives of all kinds, genuine and artificial - the more I see the danger humanity is surrounded with. Poets speak of the thin partition between this world and the other. They are blind: there is no partition at all, except the difference of states in which the dead and the living exist and the grossness of the physical senses of the majority of mankind. Yet - these senses are our salvation. They were given to us by a wise and sagacious mother and nurse - Nature; for otherwise individuality and even personality would have become impossible: the dead would be ever merging into the living and the latter assimilating the former. Were there around us but one variety of 'spirits' - as well call the dregs of wise, spirits - the reliquiae of those mortals who are dead and gone, one could reconcile oneself with it. We cannot avoid in some way or the other to assimilate our dead, and little by little and unconsciously to ourselves we become they - even physically, especially in the unwise West where cremation is unknown. We breathe and eat, and devour the dead - men and animals - with every breath we draw in; as every human breathe that goes out makes up the bodies and feeds the formless creatures in the air that will be men some day. So much for the physical process; for the mental and the intellectual and also the spiritual it is just the same: we interchange gradually our brain-molecules, our intellectual and even spiritual auras, hence - our thoughts, desires, and aspirations with those who preceded us. This process - rather novel in its ultimate views to physiology and biology - is one for humanity in general. It is a natural one and one in the economy and laws of nature, owing to which one's son may become gradually his own grandfather and one's aunt to boot, imbibing their combined atoms and thus accounting for the possible resemblance (atavism?!) - but also one in which the latter could never become their grandson or nephew. But there is another law, an exceptional one and which manifests itself among mankind sporadically and periodically: the law of forced post-mortem assimilation; during the prevalence of which epidemic, the dead invade from their respective spheres the domain of the living - only within the limits of the regions they lived, very luckily, and in which they are buried. In such cases the duration and intensity of this epidemic depends upon the welcome they receive, upon whether they find the doors opening widely to receive them or not, and whether the necromantic plaque will be increased by magnetic attraction, the desire of the mediums, sensitives, and the curious themselves, or whether again, the danger being signalled, the epidemic will be wisely repressed.


Jiddu Krishnamurti on religion

From The Theosophist, December 2005

An organized religion can produce mere social reform and superficial changes. A Church exists only within the framework of a Society. And I am talking of a religious revolution which will take us beyond the psychological structure of society, of any society. A truly religious man is free of all fear, for he is free of the patterns created by the many civilizations over thousands of years. He is also free from the past, personal and collective, and his future is not distorted by the pressure of his own actions. He is free, vital and totally silent. Silence is important, which is a measureless state, knowable as beyond experience, beyond words, beyond thought, an uncreated energy. Without this creative silence there can be no brotherhood and peace and no true religion ...

Freedom is the very heart of true religion. Religious organizations deny man this essential freedom, in spite of their assertions to the contrary. Self-knowledge is not prayer, it is the door to meditation. Freedom is not based on a set of psychological theories nor is it a state of surrender in the expectation of grace. It destroys the constraints imposed by religion or society. It is a state of total attention, and not of concentration on the particular.


Globalization -This is clever

Question: What is the truest definition of Globalization?

Answer: Princess Diana's death.

Question: How come?

Answer: An English princess

with an Egyptian boyfriend

crashes in a French tunnel,

driving a German car

with a Dutch engine,

driven by a Belgian who was drunk

on Scottish whiskey, (check the bottle before you change the spelling)

followed closely by Italian Paparazzi,

on Japanese motorcycles;

treated by an American doctor,

using Brazilian medicines.

This is sent to you by a Dutch woman,

who got it from an Australian,

using Bill Gates's technology,

and you're probably reading this on your computer,

that use Taiwanese chips,

and a Korean monitor,

assembled by Bangladeshi workers

in a Singapore plant,

transported by Indian lorry-drivers,

hijacked by Indonesians,

unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen,

and trucked to you by Mexican illegals.....

That, my friends, is Globalization
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