Pentateuch Wisdom

[AndrewX]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

i notice neither of our theosophists have seen fit to respond to my challenge to justify their assertions about the hebrew bible. well? can we have some substantive response, or are these copious fountains of pink, fluffy verbiage merely a more intellectual version of the sort of new age bunkum peddled by the likes of llewellyn publishing?

b'shalom

bananabrain

Bananabrain,

Nick may have his own reply ... I would only say this: This is not the proper thread to take up such a study. If you want to know why the Hebrew Old Testament is not the "unadulterated, perfectly preserved, untainted and utterly precise Word of God," then we will need to do more than trot out two or three little examples of alterations in the script. Give me a freakin break already, will ya?

Argue from an Orthodox Jewish position, and watch how fast I can vacate the proverbial room and leave a vacuum, happily filled by whatever fluffy pink verbiage you wish to attribute to it ... since I KNOW how far the discussion would go if I stayed.

I would say this, however. If you seriously want to know a bit about even the first book of the Torah, as far as what Theosophy has to say about it, then either order, or borrow, any of a set of several books by Geoffrey Hodson entitled, `The Hidden Wisdom in the Holy Bible.' There are at least three volumes of which I am aware, and since I do have the first two, I would be glad to open either one, and offer what Hodson has contributed to this subject.

But Nick could probably direct you to any number of other resources ...

We really are a bit off of the thread topic, however. Please open a new thread, if we're going to take this up.

Originally Posted by AndrewX
(Previously, an entire forest might be ensouled by a monad, or a flock of birds will be spoken of as the incarnation of the `group soul.' Humanity is where there is finally a one-to-one relationship between the form we see in the mirror, and the Parent Monad in Highest Heaven. In between, in worlds that are still transcendent of our everyday consciousness, the Soul mediates, serving as the bridge between our outward, consciousness-in-form, and the innermost, trancendent Beingness of pure Spirit.)

Originally Posted by bananabrain

what on earth does all of this mean in english? deary me.

In English, it means that our Souls are all Individual Beings, each with its own history, spiritual evolution and destiny - apart from our own in the sense that the Soul is one full turn ahead on the evolutionary spiral. In a former cycle, they were as we are, and they too, had to overcome the tests and trials of life incarnate in form (the same types of form as we are experiencing).

Looking back even farther, our Souls once indwelled the Animal Kingdom, in some far-distant evolution (time-wise, who's to say where) ... yet for us, this is not so very long ago ... such that many human beings were - literally - animals, in the pre-Atlantis, or Lemurian period (Root Race) on planet Earth. This concerns a time in human history before God divided the sexes, and if you don't like the fact that we can speak frankly of Jehovah as Jod-Hevah, male-female, then again, I suggest we take that up elsewhere, as it would only serve to derail this thread.

If that's not plain enough English, then I would only add, that I believe every single atom of substance is ensouled ... such that EVERYTHING has a Soul ... and this means that the Christian notion of an eternal Hell is incorrect metaphyically from the outset (or nearly incorrect, at any rate). The part of us that suffers, both in this life and the next, is the emotional and psychological principle - not the Immortal Soul, which itself inhabits a world beyond what we think of as suffering.

Would I argue all of this against some kind of orthodox Jewish interpretation of Scripture? No. What's the point?

But bananabrain, when it comes to New Age things, you of all people should know and appreciate where terms like this come from. What did the people do, while Moses was upon Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments? What was the nature of their reversion, and why? WHAT was it they crafted, in gold, to worship and adore?

And WHAT does a CALF - Heavens me - have to do with astrology? Ah, YOU TELL ME. What does a promised lamb, or ram, have to do with it either? Or fishes, or a water-bearer?

No ... we've just been spending too much time with those llewelyn books. That must be it ...

~andrew

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by AndrewX

Agreed ... that it's off topic. But let's make it a new thread, and not lump it in with yet another thread where it doesn't belong!

Could a mod please place it somewhere - as a new thread topic? Maybe under alternative/esoteric?

Much appreciated,

~andrew

I can do this for you Andrew...can you suggest a Title and Forum?

[AndrewX]

Originally Posted by lunamoth

I can do this for you Andrew...can you suggest a Title and Forum?

Thank you, luna ... somethiing like Old Testament Wisdom, under Alt/Esoteric might be good. Nick might have another opinion, so maybe we can wait to see what he has to offer.

Apologies for the hijack - if only 20/20 worked as well with foresight!

(takes practice)

Namaskar,

andrew

[lunamoth]

This thread was split off from another as the above posts show this topic warranted its own thread. I chose Pentateuch Wisdom rather than Old Testament Wisdom, my attempt at a more neutral title (hope that's OK with everyone).

lunamoth

[Thomas]

"Later Greek philosophers regarded Plato as influenced by Mosaic teaching. 'Plato derived his idea of God from the Pentateuch. Plato is Moses translated into the language of the Athenians,' wrote Numenius and was quoted by Eusebius.

If one considers Plato’s monotheism, his concept of an invisible and supreme spiritual Being, so different from the prevalent polytheism of other Greek philosophers and so remote from the pantheon of Homer and its scandalous Olympians with their permanent strife and marital and extra-marital affairs with mortal women, one is inclined to think that Plato, at the time of his travel to Egypt thirty years old, happened to sit at the feet of Ezra.

A late Greek tradition has it that Aristotle on his travel to the lands of the eastern Mediterranean met a very wise Jew from whom he learned much wisdom. However, it is not known whether Aristotle ever went to Palestine and Egypt. Besides, in Aristotle, a pupil of Plato, one feels a return to a polytheistic astral religion. Could it be that the indebtedness of Greek thought in the days of Plato to the Semitic idea of one and single invisible Creator stemmed from Ezra? We also don’t know of any “wise and knowledgeable man” approximating Ezra’s stature in the next few generations. All this belongs to the realm of the possible but unproven, and the probable presence of Ezra in Jerusalem after -398 (in the days of Artaxerxes II) is of interest for this intriguing problem.
Plato

and ... from a blog:

Re: Plato and Mosaic law. This is the territory of the prisca theologia, right? The idea of a primitive theology, derived actually from Egypt, which informs certain early forms of mystical thought (including, supposedly, the various mystery cults in Greece), and was thought to approximate (in a certain way) the truths of Christianity. We're talking chiefly about Hermeticism here, about Hermes Trismegistus, but this was linked to Plato and also to Moses: the prisca theologia came to Moses himself (supposedly) by way of Egyptian learning: somewhere in Acts -- I can't remember the place -- we're told that Moses had mastered all Egyptian learning, a passage that I think draws on the scene in Exodus where Moses engages in that battle of sorcery with the Egyptian wizards. So that one could claim -- as I think some humanists did -- that in some ways, Plato and Moses were drawing from the same source -- though Moses then of course also has direct access to God, to the corrected script of true theology, rather than the natural approximations of the first theology. I may be garbling this, but I think that's how it goes."
Blogging the Renaissance

Thomas

[Thomas]

Extract from Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2002.05.21) of Alain Lernould, Physique et Théologie. Lecture du Timée de Plato par Proclus. Villeneuve d'Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2001. Pp. 405. ISBN 2-85939-644-6. EUR 28.97.

"Among the Renaissance pavement illustrations in the 14th century Cathedral at Siena is the famous portrait of Hermes Trismegestus with the caption, contemporaneus Mosei, ("Contemporary of Moses"). The circle of Cosimo de Medici believed that Moses and Plato learned cosmology from the same source, in Egypt, instructed by none other than Hermes.
(the dying Cosimo commissioned Ficino to translate the Corpus Hermeticum prior to the Enneads of Plotinus because he considered the former as a more ancient and therefore more 'primordial' source)

How else could one explain the similarities in Plato's account of the world's creation through the will of the Demiurge, and the biblical account of Genesis? Plato's Timaeus is one of the West's most influential texts, sparking centuries of conversations across cultural and temporal divides. And yet cosmology for the Greeks themselves as for us today was not only an objective science but was fraught with ideological and religious contention, even in polytheistic circles.

It may be helpful to remind the reader about the import of these lines. After a prayer that seeks divine guidance for the ensuing cosmology, Timaeus asks the central cosmological question, one, it seems, that we are still compelled to ask: has the world "always been in existence, having no principle of coming to be, or did it arise, taking its origin from some beginning?" (28b5-7). Timaeus answers his own question in the next line: It came into existence, he says, gegonen (b7). But this use of the word gegonen at 28b7 is actually problematic for the Platonists, since the orthodox Neoplatonist position held that the world did not originate temporally. How does Proclus get around this difficulty?

According to L. Proclus reads the Timaeus in terms of a systematic history of physical investigation, somewhat akin to Aristotle or perhaps even Hegel: history begins with a materialist analysis (the Presocratics) but then progresses to the formal cause (Aristotelian science), and culminates in dialectic, which embraces the Platonic/Pythagorean study of true causes -- efficient, final, and exemplary (L. p. 105). The Timaeus for Proclus is grounded in intellectual intuitions or non-discursive truths, but is expressed as a scientific discourse. Nevertheless, the goal of the text is not pedagogy but anagogy (to transliterate one of Proclus' favorite ideas). Plato, again according to Proclus, wants to lead the soul back to the first principles of reality through giving the soul an understanding of the nature of the universe.

Being generated, it turns out, is a complex affair. In fact Neoplatonists kept lists of exegetical solutions to the contradictions of Plato's text, which on the face of it suggested that the world did begin from a certain point in time. An earlier, more strictly Platonic explanation of the text assumes that by generated Plato must mean composite. Or again, the world could be generated in the sense that it was dependent on a higher, external cause. Or, once more, one could distinguish between eternity and sempeternity (or indefinite duration as opposed to unchanging existence).

The upshot is confusing: the reading of Proclus must be understood in light of Neoplatonist metaphysics. In the first "demonstration" Proclus confronts his predecessors in order to put his own thesis into relief and establishes just such a list of possible meanings for the word genêtos (IT I.279-280:
1) That which has a beginning in time;
2) That which proceeds from another which is its cause;
3) That which is inherently composite;
4) That whose nature is generated, though it is itself not actually generated.

We don't have space to elaborate the entire doxography and assign each interpretation a source here. Rather, we turn to interpretation number 4, that of Proclus. What Proclus says is that the essence of the world is generated, and yet the world is not actually generated in time, since it undergoes "coming to be in the whole of time." Are you getting confused yet?

[Proclus says] "the world is, like the soul, intermediary between the beings that become and eternal beings." Thus the cosmos is to aei gignomenon, that whose being consists in always coming to be. So far, so good. In Proclus' world of hierarchical entities, beings are strictly ranked in the categories of eternal, temporal, and something in between. And yet what exactly is this in between? Here Proclus suggests that the activity of an entity can be temporal while its substance is eternal. So, soul is eternal, but its activities are expressed in time. And the world, too, is something like soul.

Of course the world is not exactly like soul since the latter is incorporeal. As Proclus goes on to tell us, the world is "in virtue of its body, wholly becoming, and yet Plato bestows on it another aspect, its quality of being not originated, since the world is also a god" (quoting Proclus, IT I 276). This conclusion appears to disrupt the logic of Proclus' analogy with the soul. How can the universe be an intermediary between being and becoming like the soul, when the soul is an incorporeal reality, not subject to birth or death?

Proclus' solution lies, perhaps surprisingly, in his appropriation of Aristotelian metaphysical explanations. Aristotelians are wont to attack Plato's account of the creation in the Timaeus precisely because it apparently suggests that the world enjoys a beginning in time. We have seen that Platonists regularly dismiss these criticisms on the grounds that this implies a literal reading of Plato's text. On the other hand, Proclus does criticize Aristotle's metaphysical explanation for God, or the prime mover, as purely the final cause of all substance. For Proclus the Demiurge is the efficient cause of the world. Nevertheless, Proclus employs the Aristotelian category of final cause in connection with his IT.

In fact the archê geneseôs that Plato's text is in search of is the final cause, the telos of becoming. In other words, the archê - the beginning or initiation of the world's becoming - is identical with its telos. Thus at every moment, or throughout time as a whole, the world is complete. As Proclus tells us, the universe "owing to its generation in the whole of time is always in the process of becoming, always beginning to be, and always in possession of its perfection" (IT 281.27-282.4). To put the matter perhaps more simply, the world's perfection consists in its imperfection, its constantly changing nature.
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2002.05.21

Enjoy,

Thomas

[AndrewX]

This is very interesting reading, on its own, Thomas ... and so, thanks for posting it. I'm not quite sure how it shows that "nothing has been changed in the Hebrew Scriptures (or Pentateuch), however, and this was Bananabrain's original challenge (to Nick and myself) - to show that there have been alterations (I think this was it, anyway ... was that right, bananabrain?).


Still, I would share this quotation from the 2nd volume of Isis Unveiled, p. 587, wherein ten `Fundamental Principles of Eastern Philosophy' are provided. Number 2 reads:

II. "Nature is triune; there is a visible, objective nature; an invisible, in-dwelling and energizing nature, the exact model of the other and its vital principle, and above these two, Spirit, source of all forces, alone, eternal, and indestructible. The lower two constantly change; the higher third does not.

This brings us to a specific consideration of the evolution of the Soul, via its vehicle - the form, and we have the Kabbalistic (and ancient) idea that:

"The Breath becomes a stone; the stone, a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god."

Nick shared this same quote recently, and it is relevant here, as this is a universal teaching, save where it has been excised from the Scripture, or amended, or concealed.


How do the articles and blog provided ... show that our Soul does not evolve via the Pythagorean and Platonic metempsychosis? Since we're looking at the Greeks, I'll quote from the link I just provided, at Wikipedia:

The Orphic religion ... first appeared in Thrace upon the semi-barbarous north-eastern frontier. Orpheus, its legendary founder, is said to have taught that soul and body are united by a compact unequally binding on either; the soul is divine, immortal and aspires to freedom, while the body holds it in fetters as a prisoner. Death dissolves this compact, but only to re-imprison the liberated soul after a short time: for the wheel of birth revolves inexorably. Thus the soul continues its journey, alternating between a separate unrestrained existence and fresh reincarnation, round the wide circle of necessity, as the companion of many bodies of men and animals.

To these unfortunate prisoners Orpheus proclaims the message of liberation, that they stand in need of the grace of redeeming gods and of Dionysus in particular, and calls them to turn to God by ascetic piety of life and self-purification: the purer their lives the higher will be their next reincarnation, until the soul has completed the spiral ascent of destiny to live for ever as God from whom it comes. Such was the teaching of Orphism which appeared in Greece about the 6th century BC, organized itself into private and public mysteries at Eleusis and elsewhere, and produced a copious literature.

... The real weight and importance of metempsychosis in Western tradition is due to its adoption by Plato. Had he not embodied it in some of his greatest works it would be merely a matter of curious investigation for the Western anthropologist and student of folk-lore.

... In Plato's view the number of souls was fixed; birth therefore is never the creation of a soul, but only a transmigration from one body to another. Plato's acceptance of the doctrine is characteristic of his sympathy with popular beliefs and desire to incorporate them in a purified form into his system. Aristotle, a far less emotional and sympathetic mind, has a doctrine of immortality totally inconsistent with it.

While Aristotle was certainly a brilliant philosopher and a great mind, I'll stick to the tradition of Plato, Pythagoras, and the NeoPlatonists ... regarding metaphysical doctrines, and for theosophical teachings I'm quite content with Origen, Ammonius Saccas ... even Goethe, Schelling, Jung!

~andrew

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by AndrewX

This is very interesting reading, on its own, Thomas ... and so, thanks for posting it. I'm not quite sure how it shows that "nothing has been changed in the Hebrew Scriptures (or Pentateuch), however, and this was Bananabrain's original challenge (to Nick and myself) - to show that there have been alterations (I think this was it, anyway ... was that right, bananabrain?).

I didn't know this thread was about implied changes, specifically. I posted the above as an interesting piece of esoterica only. Besides, I'm of the camp that nothing has been changed. That the Wisdom of the Pentateuch is different from other wisdom traditions does not provve either that the Pentateuch has been changed, or that it is in any way deficient. I rather consider it superlative.

Originally Posted by AndrewX

... This brings us to a specific consideration of the evolution of the Soul, via its vehicle - the form, and we have the Kabbalistic (and ancient) idea that:

"The Breath becomes a stone; the stone, a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god."

Nick shared this same quote recently, and it is relevant here, as this is a universal teaching, save where it has been excised from the Scripture, or amended, or concealed.

Again, unless you have material evidence, that could be considered something of an assumption to assume anything has been excised or amended, or concealed.
It might be that it was never there, or that you can't see it. Certainly Origen never believed it: "Nicolas Berdyaev (1874-1948) whose insistence on the absolute autonomy and nobility of the person in the face of all objectifying reality is an echo across the ages of the humanism of Origen." (from Stanford, see link below).

Originally Posted by AndrewX

... The real weight and importance of metempsychosis in Western tradition is due to its adoption by Plato. Had he not embodied it in some of his greatest works it would be merely a matter of curious investigation for the Western anthropologist and student of folk-lore.

[indent]... In Plato's view the number of souls was fixed; birth therefore is never the creation of a soul, but only a transmigration from one body to another. Plato's acceptance of the doctrine is characteristic of his sympathy with popular beliefs and desire to incorporate them in a purified form into his system...

And the acceptance of Platonism in Christianity continued that trend of accepting the truth and purifying it in the light of Revelation ... many of the Fathers were Platonists, and Augustine, a Platonist, is referenced more times than Aristotle by Aquinas (whom he referred to as 'The Master' in respect of his exemplary philosophical rigour), and more times in the Catechism that any other non-scriptural source.

St Maximus the Confessor's correction of the errors of Platonism, in both Origen and the Philosopher himself, is a shining example of a system purified by a profound philosophical rigour and metaphysical insight.

Originally Posted by AndrewX

... regarding metaphysical doctrines, and for theosophical teachings I'm quite content with Origen, Ammonius Saccas ... even Goethe, Schelling, Jung!

That's fine, but don't assume that because they all use the same terms, they all mean the same thing.

Origen of Alexandria [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
[Origen] ... developed his doctrine of multiple ages, in which souls would be re-born, to experience the educative powers of God once again, with a view to ultimate salvation. This doctrine, of course, implies some form of transmigration of souls or metempsychosis. Yet Origen's version of metempsychosis was not the same as that of the Pythagoreans, for example, who taught that the basest of souls will eventually become incarnated as animals. For Origen, some sort of continuity between the present body, and the body in the age to come, was maintained (Jerome, Epistle to Avitus 7, quoting Origen; see also Commentary on Matthew 11.17).[/b]

Metempsychosis, for Origen, was from age to age, from Cosmos to Cosmos, not the more common idea of souls having a number of bites of the cherry before a final judgement or apokatastasis. He put this forward as a work of reason, not Revelation, and in the light of subsequent insights, it was abandoned.

The condemnation by the Fifth Council was not of Origen, but of Origenism, an excess of ill-ordered speculation that was rife in certain monasteries in the East, and which scholarship has shown to be a misrepresentation of his teachings (Origen against Plato, for example).

To continue:
Origen did not, like many of his contemporaries, degrade the body to the status of an unwanted encrustation imprisoning the soul; for him, the body is a necessary principle of limitation, providing each soul with a unique identity. This is an important point for an understanding of Origen's epistemology, which is based upon the idea that God educates each soul according to its inherent abilities, and that the abilities of each soul will determine the manner of its knowledge. We may say, then, that the uniqueness of the soul's body is an image of its uniqueness of mind. This is the first inkling of the development of the concept of the person and personality in the history of Western thought."

I highlighted that last sentence, because the concept of the individual person, and of the person as a Divinely ordained 'good', is fundamental and foundational to Hebrew scripture, establishing the context of humanity's creation prior to the fall, (hence the Hebrew idea of Sheol, and never one of reincarnation in any mode as understood outside of Hebraic doctrine, metempsychosis etc.) and this is why, unless you can provide evidence to the contrary, that I would say that it was never in scripture to be excised, because it conflicts with a profound metaphysic of the hypostatic nature and essence of the person as such.

So we're back to where we were ... once again you claim that material has been 'excised from the Scripture, or amended, or concealed.' Simply because they do not agree with your favoured texts.

And once again, you offer no evidence to support your claim other than your own conclusion.

So Bananabrain's challenge still stands.

Thomas

[AndrewX]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Certainly Origen never believed it [reincarnation, metempsychosis, or transmigration of the soul]

Lol, Thomas, this one really does give me a good belly laugh!

Originally Posted by Thomas

And the acceptance of Platonism in Christianity continued that trend of accepting the truth and purifying it in the light of Revelation ... many of the Fathers were Platonists, and Augustine, a Platonist, is referenced more times than Aristotle by Aquinas (whom he referred to as 'The Master' in respect of his exemplary philosophical rigour), and more times in the Catechism that any other non-scriptural source.

'Tis good, 'tis good, the Esoteric Tradition maintains that Plato was an Initiate. That his wisdom, and contributions, so greatly influenced the later custodians of the Wisdom, is a good thing - and not surpising at all.

Originally Posted by Thomas

St Maximus the Confessor's correction of the errors of Platonism, in both Origen and the Philosopher himself, is a shining example of a system purified by a profound philosophical rigour and metaphysical insight.

A system passed on to us by an Initiate, will not need correction by the hands of a lesser authority, unless that authority can clearly see how the errors have crept in (as we can see with Church Dogma) ... or where, indeed, inconvenient aspects of the doctrine have met with the excising knife.

You show me how these errors arose, and THEN we will be in a position to examine how St. Maximus may have been able to purify or correct them!

Originally Posted by Thomas

That's fine, but don't assume that because they all use the same terms, they all mean the same thing.

I assume nothing, but if, as I read, the Light of Wisdom (or Inspiration, the Holy Ghost, as a Catholic would refer to it) makes something plain ... then although I will question, I will not press the point once the connections have been made. This is simply the modus operandi of any good esotericist. Please do not assume, or insinuate, that I would do otherwise.

Originally Posted by Thomas

I highlighted that last sentence, because the concept of the individual person, and of the person as a Divinely ordained 'good', is fundamental and foundational to Hebrew scripture, establishing the context of humanity's creation prior to the fall, (hence the Hebrew idea of Sheol, and never one of reincarnation in any mode as understood outside of Hebraic doctrine, metempsychosis etc.) and this is why, unless you can provide evidence to the contrary, that I would say that it was never in scripture to be excised, because it conflicts with a profound metaphysic of the hypostatic nature and essence of the person as such.

So we're back to where we were ... once again you claim that material has been 'excised from the Scripture, or amended, or concealed.' Simply because they do not agree with your favoured texts.

And once again, you offer no evidence to support your claim other than your own conclusion.

No, Thomas, the favored texts are largely those which have met with the Roman Catholic Church's golden seal, or stamp, of approval. There are Apocryphal sources, and these are part of what was excised. In Christ's OWN DAY, we saw the excising knife. And thus we have the Dead Sea Scrolls. From WHOM, or WHAT, were these texts hidden?

For certain, there was no Mother Church to persecute the earliest Christians ... and Reincarnation, for the teaching of which Origen was excommunicated, was not deemed heresy for several centuries. Christ's doctrine was opposed, on numerous grounds, while the man still walked the hills of Palestine and the shores of Galilee.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now on this question of the idea that we are "hypostatically and metaphysically greater" than you seem to think a belief in reincarnation entails, or implies ... I will dispute you because you clearly demonstrate a weak understanding of what Theosophists, or esotericists, believe - and what the Perennial Wisdom teaches.

I have provided the symbolism several times, yet I enjoy the imagery, and I delight in sharing something very dear to me ... even if, as usual, I am turned upon, and rended, for so doing.

I have said that our existence, much akin to the Monads of Liebniz, is as sparks - Individual UNITS, of Fire ... SPARKS - in the Flame Eternal.

We know, from Scriptural references in every tradition, as well as from the Zoroastrian or Mazdean religions specifically, though also from far more ancient sources ... that the Mighty God is like a Living FIRE. And Moses, too, in his day and at the appointed hour of HIS OWN Revelation, came to know and understand this TRUTH.

So of a dozen, a hundred, a thousand or million possible metaphors, I prefer that of Sparks to the One Parent FLAME ... and for obvious reasons, I should hope, since in my own better moments I would aspire to be an Agni Yogin (perhaps in some future lifetime).


If you have observed sparks, dancing within the fire, then you will recall that they seem to wink in, and back out of existence, "in the twinkling of an eye," although this winking define's the entire term of the MONAD's existence - far, far beyond (or Transcendent of) time and space, even beyond all conceptuality (for this is but a METAPHOR).

DURING (key word - open your SECRET DOCTRINE, and look up DURATION) the Monad's "wink-of-an-eye" existence, the entire TREK, what Theosophists call its evolutionary pilgrimage, is undergone. Christ spoke of this as the going forth of the PRODIGAL SON, and the language of metaphor, as I have said, portrays it in a thousand different ways.

Christ referred DIRECTLY to the Monad of ALL MEN, for there is but ONE Heavenly Father, even if we may speak of Seven Ray Logoi, or yet also say that each Monad is an Eternal `Son of the ONE Father' ... when He said, "I and the Father are One."

But the Monad, which is PURE Spirit, relative to our earthly understanding, cannot involve itself directly with the least three worlds of matter (physical, astral, lower mental) - being as how it resides in the second highest sphere of existence, truly the microcosm to the macrocosm of the Logos ... yet also ONE with the Logos in Essence.

Even though we measure time relatively, and Einstein, who studied the Secret Doctrine, taught us much ... even so, the ancient Hindu references clearly provide a time, or DURATION, for the existence of Cosmos. A Mahamanvatara is given as something like 3.11 trillion years ... and during this time, a Solar System evolves NUMEROUS Humanities, usually ONE PER Planetary Scheme of Evolution - of which we find TEN, or even TWELVE, in this, our own, Solar System.

We are even told that Humanity numbers some 60 billion UNITS - or MONADS - during this particular Mahamanvantara ... such that 9/10ths of Humanity, obviously, is "out of" incarnation, or in-between, in what has been called `Devachan,' or `The Pure Land,' or even `Heaven,' since most Christian descriptions (excepting some, by certain Saints or Mystics) will resolve the same way.


Anyway, I contest the notion that the Hebrew presentation is any more, or less profound, than the same esoteric underpinning which we will find sustaining and supporting the exoteric presentation of ANY tradition ... forming as it does, the heart and soul of the scripture, so long as the dead weight of flesh heaped upon, and formed around this soul does not choke the Revelation off - completely.

In such ideas as the nephesh, ruah, and so on, we see the true teaching preserved, although certain Western emphases, and interpretations, will try and make these concepts conform to what has been established as dogma and `Holy Word.'

~~~~~~~

I am happy to explore further the Theosophical, or other esoteric presentations of the Spiritual Pilgrimage of the Monad ... including how the Triad - Atma, Buddhi, Manas - relates to this, and how WE RELATE, to these Spiritual Principles, or Aspects of every Human being (in the Higher Worlds).

If you invite me to that discussion ... I would welcome it!

cheers,

~andrew

[Nick the Pilot]

Andrew,

I just wanted to run one number by you. Theosphy teaches that the total active life of our solar system (a “solar manvantara” or "maha-manvantara") will be 311 trillion (311,000,000,000,000) years not 3.11 trillion years. (The Secret Doctrine vol 2 p 70)
(The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, pt 1, stanza 2)

I know it is difficult to keep track of so many decimal points. But, hey, what's 307 trillion years between friends?

I have always found it amazing that the 311 trillion active period of our solar system is given in Theosophy, but the active period of the universe is not.

[AndrewX]

Originally Posted by Nick the Pilot

Andrew,

I just wanted to run one number by you. Theosphy teaches that the total active life of our solar system (a “solar manvantara” or "maha-manvantara") will be 311 trillion (311,000,000,000,000) years not 3.11 trillion years. (The Secret Doctrine vol 2 p 70)
(The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, pt 1, stanza 2)

I know it is difficult to keep track of so many decimal points. But, hey, what's 307 trillion years between friends?

I have always found it amazing that the 311 trillion active period of our solar system is given in Theosophy, but the active period of the universe is not.

lol, thanks for the correction, Nick. I think in my head I was thinking of the Day of Brahma (4.32 billion years), and confused this with the 100 Years of Brahma, so when I glanced quickly online for a reminder of the number - 311 trillion years - I got 'em confused!

Yeah, I figure if we're not all Buddhas by the end of a couple more manvantaras, we're gonna be quite a bit behind, eh?

[AndrewX]

Now, another word on what we do - and don't - find in the books of Hebrew Scripture (from pp. 19, 22 & 23 of The Secret Doctrine):

However great and zealous the fanatical efforts, during
those early centuries, to obliterate every trace of the mental
and intellectual labour of the Pagans, it was a failure; but the
same spirit of the dark demon of bigotry and intolerance has
perverted systematically and ever since, every bright page
written in the pre

‐Christian periods. Even in her uncertain
records, history has preserved enough of that which has
survived to throw an impartial light upon the whole. Let,
then, the reader tarry a little while with the writer, on the spot
of observation selected. He is asked to give all his attention to
that millennium which divided the pre‐Christian and the post‐

Christian periods, by the year ONE of the Nativity. This
event—whether historically correct or not—has nevertheless
been made to serve as a first signal for the erection of manifold
bulwarks against any possible return of, or even a glimpse
into, the hated religions of the Past; hated and dreaded—
because throwing such a vivid light on the new and
intentionally veiled interpretation of what is now known as
the “New Dispensation.”

However superhuman the efforts of the early Christian
fathers to obliterate the Secret Doctrine from the very memory
of man, they all failed. Truth can never be killed; hence the
failure to sweep away entirely from the face of the earth every
vestige of that ancient Wisdom, and to shackle and gag every
witness who testified to it. Let one only think of the
thousands, and perhaps millions, of MSS. burnt; of
monuments, with their too indiscreet inscriptions and pictorial
symbols, pulverised to dust; of the bands of early hermits and
ascetics roaming about among the ruined cities of Upper and
Lower Egypt, in desert and mountain, valleys and highlands,
seeking for and eager to destroy every obelisk and pillar, scroll
or parchment they could lay their hands on, if it only bore the
symbol of the tau, or any other sign borrowed and
appropriated by the new faith; and he will then see plainly
how it is that so little has remained of the records of the Past.
Verily, the fiendish spirits of fanaticism, of early and
mediæval Christianity and of Islam, have from the first loved
to dwell in darkness and ignorance; and both have made

———— “ the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom!”

Both creeds have won their proselytes at the point of the
sword; both have built their churches on heaven‐kissing
hecatombs of human victims.

...

One more important point must be noticed, one that stands
foremost in the series of proofs given of the existence of one
primeval, universal Wisdom—at any rate for the Christian
Kabalists and students. The teachings were, at least, partially
known to several of the Fathers of the Church. It is
maintained, on purely historical grounds, that Origen,
Synesius, and even Clemens Alexandrinus, had been
themselves initiated into the mysteries before adding to the
Neo

‐Platonism of the Alexandrian school, that of the Gnostics,
under the Christian veil. More than this, some of the doctrines
of the Secret schools—though by no means all—were
preserved in the Vatican, and have since become part and
parcel of the mysteries, in the shape of disfigured additions
made to the original Christian programme by the Latin
Church. Such is the now materialised dogma of the
Immaculate Conception. This accounts for the great
persecutions set on foot by the Roman Catholic Church
against Occultism, Masonry, and heterodox mysticism
generally.

The days of Constantine were the last turning‐point in
history, the period of the Supreme struggle that ended in the
Western world throttling the old religions in favour of the new
one, built on their bodies. From thence the vista into the far
distant Past, beyond the “Deluge” and the Garden of Eden,
began to be forcibly and relentlessly closed by every fair and
unfair means against the indiscreet gaze of posterity. Every
issue was blocked up, every record that hands could be laid
upon, destroyed. Yet there remains enough, even among such
mutilated records, to warrant us in saying that there is in them
every possible evidence of the actual existence of a Parent
Doctrine. Fragments have survived geological and political
cataclysms to tell the story; and every survival shows evidence
that the now Secret Wisdom was once the one fountain head,
the ever‐flowing perennial source, at which were fed all its
streamlets—the later religions of all nations—from the first
down to the last. This period, beginning with Buddha and
Pythagoras at the one end and the Neo‐Platonists and
Gnostics at the other, is the only focus left in History wherein
converge for the last time the bright rays of light streaming
from the æons of time gone by, unobscured by the hand of
bigotry and fanaticism.

In closing ...

To my judges, past and future, therefore—whether they are
serious literary critics, or those howling dervishes in literature
who judge a book according to the popularity or unpopularity
of the author’s name, who, hardly glancing at its contents,
fasten like lethal bacilli on the weakest points of the body—I
have nothing to say. Nor shall I condescend to notice those
crack

‐brained slanderers—fortunately very few in number—
who, hoping to attract public attention by throwing discredit
on every writer whose name is better known than their own,
foam and bark at their very shadows. These, having first
maintained for years that the doctrines taught in the
Theosophist, and which culminated in “Esoteric Buddhism,”
had been all invented by the present writer, have finally
turned round, and denounced “Isis Unveiled” and the rest as
a plagiarism from Eliphas Lévi (!), Paracelsus (!!), and, mirabile
dictu, Buddhism and Brahmanism (!!!) As well charge Renan
with having stolen his Vie de Jésus from the Gospels, and Max
Müller his “Sacred Books of the East” or his “Chips” from the
philosophies of the Brahmins and Gautama, the Buddha. But
to the public in general and the readers of the “Secret
Doctrine” I may repeat what I have stated all along, and which
I now clothe in the words of Montaigne: Gentlemen, “I HAVE
HERE MADE ONLY A NOSEGAY OF CULLED FLOWERS,
AND HAVE BROUGHT NOTHING OF MY OWN BUT THE
STRING THAT TIES THEM.”

Pull the “string” to pieces and cut it up in shreds, if you
will. As for the nosegay of FACTS—you will never be able to
make away with these. You can only ignore them, and no
more.

You can lead a horse to water ... but it seems clear that that's about it.

[Nick the Pilot]

Andrew,

I believe Orphic literature has been mentioned. Here is an Orphic quote I ran across just today. This is an Orphic account of the manifestation of the Universal Mind.

'Both fourfold Matter (the Root of Matter or Mulaprakriti) being ensouled and the whole Infinitude being as though it were a Depth, flowing perpetually and indistinguishably moving (compare the gently flowing interchange or sadrisaparinama that takes place in the gunas in the pre-cosmic stage according to the Sankhya), and over and over again pouring forth countless imperfect mixtures (the infinite potentialities of the Mother), now of one kind and now of another, and thereby dissolving them again owing to its lack of order, and engulfmg so that it could not be bound together to serve for the generation of a living creature — it happened that the infinite Sea itself, being driven round by its own peculiar nature, flowed with a natural motion in an orderly fashion from out of itself into itsel£ as it were a vortex, and blended its essences, and thus involuntarily the most developed part of all of them, that which was most serviceable for the generation of a living creature, flowed, as it were in a funnel, down the middle of the universe, and was carried to the bottom by means of the vortex that swept up everything and drew after it the surrounding Spirit (the Light of the Father), and so gathering itself together as it were into the most productive form of all, it constituted a discrete state of things.

'For just as a bubble is made in water, so a sphere-like hollow form gathered itself together from all sides (compare the 'sphere' mentioned by Plotinus a few pages back).

'Thereupon, itself being impregnated in itself, carried up by the Divine Spirit that had taken it to itself as consort, it thrust forth its head into the Light (became conscious)— this, the greatest thing perchance that has ever been conceived (the Hindu Mahat, the Great One), as though it were out of the Infinite Deep's universe a work of art had been conceived and brought to birth, an ensouled work in form like unto the circumference of eggs (the Brahmic Egg), in speed like to the swiftness of a wing (compare with this the winged sphere of Egyptian symbolism and the 'winged wheels' of Stanza [of Dzyan] V. 5. Also compare Sopanishad, 4; 'Unmoving the One is swifter than the mind, the Gods (devas) reached not It, speeding on before.').'

(quoted in Man The Measure of All Things, Prem & Ashish, pp. 148-149)
Quest Books

[AndrewX]

Beautiful, Nick. I can see how Leadbeater echoes this almost precisely ... in his Textbook of Theosophy - not the most inspiring book I've ever read, but definitely a similar description of Cosmogenesis "for the layperson."

His chapter on The Formation of a Solar System discusses this in terms I still remember 17 years later (!) ...

... and Geoffrey Hodson's contributions from the Deva Kingdom, goes over this same Creative Process as the Angels themselves know it, and participate in it - or facilitate it!

I can just see the armchair philosopher shaking his finger at those lofty Archangels, telling them "it cannot be so" ... because nowhere between thus'n'such pages has he ever seen it written that this is how the Almighty "does things!"

Ah well, poo on the old archangels anyway, right? What do they know!