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Subject: HPB's cosmology: Sikh?
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000
I have been one of the ones on this list that has argued that
HPB's cosmology might be, structurally, a form of Bon Dzog chen (Bon
have a monadic "I am" - "aham" - instead of an atman or a clear anatman
doctrine) mixed with a rather confused Sufi theosophy about
astro-historical cycles.
But given the close association of her with Sikhs, I wonder if
this needs modification since the Sikh cosmology is developed out of
Vaisnava, Sufi, and Tantric Buddhism (nyingmapa). The second Sikh Guru,
after Guru Nanak, Guru Angad, claimed that he was teaching the true
Wisdom Bodhism (also, Bhaism or Bhai Sensar) from the esoteric root
tradition of Vaisnava Hinduism, Islam, and Tantric Buddhism.
Consider:
1. According to the scholars Owen Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi, there is
a Sikh and western Tantric Buddhist connection. Otherwise, Sikh
cosmology is the northern Srivaisnava cosmology with Sufi elements
added. The two main Sufi elements are (1) an astro-historical
apocalyptic scheme that structures a legendary history of the planet's
evolution of races and religions based on the number seven, and (2),
the addition to the Srivaisnava cosmology of an intermediate plane
above the etheric (pranic, akasic) and below the mental plane which
also involved the addition of a subtle body above the pranamayakosa
(the vital etheric sheath of the physical body or stula sarira, which
has, besides the pranic sheath the lower gross chemical-food sheath or
annamayakosa) but below the two sheaths (manomayakosa and
vijnanamayakosa or buddhomayakosa) of the subtle body or suksma sarira.
This new intermediate realm and body between the etheric and mental
that the Sikhs introduced into the Srivaisnava cosmology comes from the
Sufi jasad i hurqalyavi or hurqalyi jism. This is the realm of desires,
dreams, and imaginations between the physical and intellectual worlds
that the Latin alchemists, when translating these Sufi texts, called
the celestial or astral body. It is historically conclusive that
neither Buddhist nor Hindu cosmologies had an astral body. Their
schemes went from the two sheaths (i.e., annamayakosa and
pranamayakosa) of the physical body (stula sarira) to the mental
(manomayakosa) and buddhic (vijnanamayakosa or buddhomayakosa) sheaths
of the subtle body (suksma sarira - then beyond, the final sheath was
the anandamayakosa of the causal body or karana sarira). It is the
Sikh's who, borrowing from the Sufi's, first introduce an astral body
and plane within this Indian scheme long before HPB. And it was they
and only they that had the scheme. To this day, neither Buddhists nor
Hindus have added an astral body to their scheme.
2. According to early Russian writers and observers of HPB's
theosophy, as noted also by P.D.Ouspensky, her cosmology is essentially
the northern Srivaisnava cosmology with TWO modifications: the theistic
Purushottamo Isvara was eliminated in favor of a more Buddhist kind of
absolute and the introduction within the srivaisnava scheme of an
astral body. The Russia writers made no connection of this introduction
of an astral body in HPB's scheme with the Sikh's. They thought it was
a "spiritualist accretion" modifying and/or distorting Buddhist and
Hindu teaching.
3. K.Paul Johnson has shown just how intimate and enduring
HPB's connection with the Sikhs was.
Grigor
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