Whatever treasures of meritorious deeds there may be
fundamental (for the
kammic [=karmic] future), altogether they are worth not even one
sixteenth of loving-kindness (which is) emancipation of thought.
Loving-kindness transcends them; it shines and glows and radiates ...
...
If with a well-disposed mind somebody shows loving-kindness towards one single being, he obtains happiness. He who with compassionate mind (shows loving-kindness) towards all beings, this noble person creates (for himself)abundant merit.
(Itiv
27 pp. 19+21, quoted in Hans Wolfgang Schumann, Buddhism, an
Outline
of its Teachings and Schools p. 76)
(See
also the Metta Sutra)
129 All
beings tremble before danger, all fear death. When a man considers
this, he does not kill or cause to kill.
131 He who for the
sake of happiness hurths others who also want happiness, shall not
hereafter find happiness.
Because it is immensely
easier to find reasons for our feelings than feelings for our reasons
and because the search for personal satisfaction is immensely more
attractive than the search for impersonal intellectual truths,
mysticism has always received more adherents than metaphysics.
Two themes this month: enlightenment and death. With thanks to
Jake Jaqua for the Richard Rose quote. The editorial notes in that
article are his. He is also responsible for giving me access to Victor
Endersby's work and that of George Cardinal LeGros. The work Jake Jaqua
has done will have a considerable impact on Lucifer7 for years to come.
In most cases I won't be able to acknowledge this.
The invitation to contribute material to this e-zine still stands, by
the way. Readers that want to contribute may want to write about their
thoughts on why religious rituals are useful, or not.
Search
option. With the help of google you can search my website for
any subject.
what better cause for
reward, what better discipline, than the daily and hourly performance
of duty? Believe me my “pupil,” the man or woman who is placed by Karma
in the midst of small plain duties and sacrifices and loving-kindness,
will through these faithfully fulfilled rise to the larger measure of
Duty, Sacrifice and Charity to all Humanity — what better path towards
the enlightenment you are striving after than the daily conquest of
Self, the perseverance in spite of want of visible psychic progress,
the bearing of ill-fortune with that serene fortitude which turns it to
spiritual advantage — since good and evil are not to be measured by
events on the
lower or physical plane. — Be not discouraged that your practice falls
below your aspirations, yet be not content with admitting this, since
you
clearly recognise that your tendency is too often towards mental and
moral
indolence, rather inclining to drift with the currents of life, than to
steer a direct course of your own. Your spiritual progress is far
greater than you know or can realize, and you do well to believe that
such development is in itself more important than its realization by
your physical plane consciousness.
Why should one meditate and
what is meditation? You know, if you looked out of your window in the
morning and saw the extraordinary beauty of the morning light, distant
mountains, and the light on the water, and if you observed without the
word, without saying to yourself, "how beautiful that is," if you
observed completely and were totally attentive in that observation,
your mind must have been completely quiet. Otherwise you cannot
observe, otherwise you cannot listen. So meditation is the quality of
mind that is completely attentive and silent. It is only then that you
can see the flower, the beauty of it, the color of it, the shape of it,
and it is only then
that the distance between you and the flower ceases. Not that you
identify
yourself with the flower, but the time element that exists between you
and
that, the distance, disappears. And you can only observe very clearly
when
there is nonverbal, nonpersonal but attentive observation in which
there
is no center as the "me." That is meditation.
....never get the idea
that a spiritual experience of this sort is pleasant or blissful. Now
that doesn't mean that all spiritual experiences are not blissful.
People often think that all spiritual experiences are the same - this
isn't true.
Ramana Maharshi was a teacher who
Paul Brunton supposedly discovered in India some years ago. And his
book The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharshi [Title?? - ed.] was the
first one that I saw that describes the differences in what are called
spiritual exaltations.
He describes the
differences between what we call cosmic consciousness (Kevala
Nirvikalpa Samadhi) and enlightenment (Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi.)** He
describes them very accurately in plain and simple terms.
He said that Kevala Samadhi is a situation in which the mind is like a
bucket attached to the end of a rope and lying in the bottom of a well.
The mind is dropped down in meditation but at any time it can pull
itself back out. It is no great travail to go down into the bottom of
the well, rest awhile, and it's no great travail to come back up. This
is the cosmic consciousness experience.
Now there
are other "exaltations," and this is where the confusion comes in - the
confusion is in Zen as well. Every word that describes spiritual
experience is not synonymous with the others that describe spiritual
experiences. We have words like nirvana, moksha, samadhi, and satori,
which are not
all the same, if you go by the descriptions of the experience in the
different accounts.
Satori is an experience
anterior to, prior to cosmic consciousness, not beyond it or superior
to it. Because it is described as a relative
experience. Cosmic consciousness is a relative experience -
enlightenment
is an absolute experience.
There is a book Cosmic
Consciousness by Richard Bucke which gives
several accounts: Christ, St. Paul, Buddha, St. John of the Cross,
Pascal,
Mohammed. They all have a common denominator in that the person
experienced
ecstasy, witnessed colour, light, beauty, and found peace within his
heart.
This is a relative experience.
The enlightenment
experience is the experience of nothingness and
everythingness, - and it is said this way because neither of them is
the
experience. It is paradoxical or untrue to call it just nothingness,
because
it's not oblivion. But it is the knowledge, or rather the being or
entry
into nothingness and every-thingness. And that is the total experience.
Now we go back and we hear a person talking about salvation.
He says, "I have reached the paramount experience. I'm saved," And I
realized a
long time ago that the person describing this experience did not have
the
same thing as cosmic consciousness.
Or you pick
up a book on Zen and you read about satori, which is the "wow"
experience. A fellow says, "I went to such-and-such ashram, I stayed
there so many months or years, and one day - Wow, I knew it! And I had
a beer with the head master and we went away laughing together - we got
it!"
This is not enlightenment, because if this man had enlightenment they
would
have carried him out on a stretcher - it's that drastic. You don't die
and
then laugh and say "Wow." Death is more final than that.
[questioner] I would like to have a dialogue with you, if I
may, about what is the meaning of it all - this whole business of
living and dying. Is it all utterly meaningless, vague, without any
depth, without any significance whatsoever? Millions have died and
millions will be born and continue and die. I am one of those. I always
ask myself: what is the meaning of living and dying? The earth is
beautiful, I have travelled a great deal, talked to many people who are
supposed to be wise and learned, but they too die.
...
[J.K.] Doubt is a precious thing. It
cleanses, purifies the mind.
The very questioning, the very fact that the seed of doubt is in one,
helps to clarify our investigation. Not only doubting what all the
others
have said, including the whole concept of regeneration, and the
Christian
belief and dogma of resurrection, but also the Asiatic world's
acceptance
that there is continuity. In doubting, questioning all that, there is a
certain freedom which is necessary for our enquiry. If one can put all
that aside, actually, not merely verbally but negate all that deep
within
oneself, then one has no illusion. And it is necessary to be totally
free
from any kind of illusion - the illusions that are imposed upon us and
the illusions that we create for ourselves. All illusions are the
things
taht we play with, and if one is serious then they have no place
whatsoever,
nor does faith come into all this.
So having set
aside all that, not for the moment but seeing the falseness of all
that, the mind is not caught in the falsehood that man has invented
about death, about god, about all the rituals that thought has created.
There must be freedom of opinion and judgement, for then only can one
deliberateley, actually, hesitantly explore into the meaning of daily
living and dying - existence and the end of existence. If one is
prepared for this, or if one is willing, or even better if one is
actually, deeply concerned to find out the truth of the matter (living
and dying is a very complex problem, an issue that requires a very
careful examination) where should we begin? With life or with death?
With living or with the ending of that which we call living?
...
[Q] on the death of my wife and children, I
began this enquiry. As happens to all human beings, it was a shock, a
pain - the loss of the three,
the memories associated with them. And when the shock of it was over I
began to enquire, to read, to ask, to travel in different parts of the
world,
talking the matter over with some of the socalled spiritual leaders,
the
gurus. I read a great deal but I was never satisfied. So I think we
ought
to begin, if I may suggest, with the actual living - the daily building
up of my cultivated, circumscribed mind. And I am that. You see, my
life
has been that. My life is nothing exceptional. Probably I would be
considered
upper middle class, and for a time it was pleasurable, exciting, and at
other times dull, weary, and monotonous. But the death of my wife and
children
somehow pulled me out of that. I haven't become morbid but I want to
know
the truth of it all, if there is such a thing as truth about living and
dying.
[JK] How is the psyche, the ego, the self,
the I, the person, put
together? How has this thing come into being, from which arises the
concept
of the individual, the "me", separate from all others? How is this
momentum
set going - this momentum, this sense of the I, the self? We will use
the
word "self" to include the person, the name, the form, the
characteristics,
the ego. How is this self born? Does the self come into being with
certain
characteristics transmitted from the parents? Is the self merely a
series
of reactions? Is the self merely the continuity of centuries of
tradition?
Is the self put together by circumstances, through accidents,
happenings?
Is the self the result of evolution - evolution being the gradual
process
of time, emphasizing, giving importance to the self? Or, as some
maintain,
especially the religious world, does the outward shell of the self
really
contain within itself the soul and the ancient concept of the Hindus,
of
the Buddhists? Does the self come into being through the society which
man has created, which gives strength to the formula that you are
separate
from the rest of humanity? All these have certain truths in them,
certain
facts, and all these contain the self. And the self has been given
tremendous
importance in this world. The expression of the self in the democratic
world is called freedom, and in the totalitarian world, that freedom is
suppressed, denied and punished. So would you say that instinct begins
in
the child with the urge to possess? This also exists in the animals, so
perhaps we have derived from the animals this instinct to possess.
Where
there is any kind of possession there must be the beginning of the
self.
And from this instinct, this reaction, the self gradually increases in
strength, in vitality, and becomes well-established.
...
[Q] I see what you are driving at. I have an intuitive
comprehension, cognizance, that as long as I think that I am an
individual, my thinking is separate from the thinking of others - my
anxiety, my sorrow is separate from the rest of humanity. I have a
feeling - please correct me - that
I have reduced a vast complex living of the rest of mankind to a very
small, petty little affair. Are you saying in effect that I am not an
individual at all? My thinking is not mine? And my brain is not mine,
separate from
others? Is this what you are hinting at? Is this what you are
maintaining?
Is this your conclusion?
[J.K.] If one may point
out, the word "conclusion" isn't justified. To conclude means to shut
down, to end ... Such an assertion limits, brings narrowness into our
enquiry. But the fact, the observable rational fact, is that your
thinking and the thinking of another are similar. ... You may think my
sorrow is entirely different from another's, that my loneliness, my
desperation, are wholly opposite to another's. Our tradition is that,
our conditioning is that, we are educated to that - I am an Arab, you
are a Jew, and so on. And from this division there arises not only
individuality but the communal racial difference. The individual
identifying himself with a community, with a nation, with a race, with
a religion invariably brings conflict between human beings.
... [the conversation was ended here - then the man came back a few
days later, having understood the above. Coming back to the subject of
death and dying, the following was said.]
[J.K.]
This is utterly important to understand. It is so: the self is put
together by thought. Thought is not, as we have said, yours or mind;
thinking is not individual thinking. Thinking is shared by all human
beings. And when one has really deeply seen the significance of this,
then I think we can understand the nature of what it means to die.
As a boy you must have followed a small stream gurgling
along a narrow little valey, the waters running faster and faster, and
having thrown something, such as a piece of stick, into the stream and
followed it, down a slope, over a little mound, through a little
crevasse - followed it untill it
went over the waterfall and disappeared. This disappearance is our life.
What does death mean? What is the very word, the threatening
feeling about it? We never seem to accept it.
[I
have added [Q] for Questioner and [J.K.] for Jiddu Krishnamurti. This
does not occur in the text of the journal. I have also deleted part of
the text. This is signified by three dots: ... - KH]
Let us compare: in this ritual, as death approaches, the dying man is attended by a priest who talks to him constantly, from then until three days after death ... giving him directions, instructions, descriptions of the various beings, gods, apparitions, he is meeting in the astral world on his journey. These apparitions seem to have a stereotyped symbolism in Tibet, which is explained to the beneficiary - or victim, who is not left for one moment during the death transition without this dogma pounding into his ears.
Now hear the authentic teaching of the real Mahatmas:
"We create ourselves our Devachan as our avitchi while yet on earth and mostly during the latter days and even moments of our intellectual, sentient lives. That feeling which is the strongest in us at that supreme hour; when, as in a dream, the events of a long life, to their minutest detail, are marshalled in the greatest order in a few seconds of our vision - that feeling will become the fashioner of our bliss or woe, the life principle of our future existence . . . " and "The dying brain dislodges memory with a strong supreme impulse . . . the man may often appear dead . . . yet from the last pulsation . . . the brain thinks and the Ego lives over in those few brief seconds his whole life again. Speak in whispers, ye who assist at a death bed and find yourselves in the solemn presence of Death. Especially have you to keep quiet just after Death has laid her clammy hand upon the body. Speak in whispers, I say, lest you disturb the quiet ripple of thought, and hinder the busy work of the Past casting its reflections upon the veil of the future." - Mahatma Letters.
Thus - the practice of the Bardo Thodol
is a device for aborting the whole fruition of a lifetime, confusing
the after-death states hopelessly, and throwing the victim into some
strange and abnormal limbo from which he will be reborn more tightly
than ever in the throes of the dogmas
of red lamaism. It is of course his karma, a part of which is
signified by finding himself in the hands of a Red Hat priest to start
with at
death. Heaven help us if that notion is ever introduced here
in
a practical way! Yet it has an appeal to the weak, the fearful of
death,
who are presented with an "infallible" guidance through the ordeal
of death as in life.
This has led to
a custom in Tibet of making sure that the body is not touched
or disturbed for three days after death. It is especially important in
the
case of a practitioner, who may have merged with the Ground Luminosity
and
be resting in that state of the nature of mind. I remember in Tibet how
everyone
took great care to maintain a silent and peaceful atmosphere around the
body,
particularly in the case of a great master or practitioner, to avoid
causing
the slightest disturbance.
We
are visited by may things as the years go by, and the final visitor is
Death. Turn where we may, we cannot escape him. Into life's happiest
hours his gray shadow falls, reminding us of his inevitable coming. All
men must bow before him and yield up their treasures - the emperor his
scepter and throne, the fool his cap and bells. In a world of vivid
Life, Death is King.
We have a choice: we can let
die now the insatiable thirsts and appetites of our personalities -
starve the false hungers out of them until they are translucent,
clean-washed, emptied of all poisonous debris, and thus fit to serve
the gods that we essentially are. We can do it, or let death do it for
us - perhaps thousands of deaths repeated through the ages.
Why does death hold such terror for man? Bercause he still idenitifies
himself with that part of his nature which death must strike down. To
fear death is to be submerged in the animal self that was born to die,
and should die because it represents nothing worthy of immortality.
Transcend the
beast and you will not fear death. You will stand free on the plateau
of
Eternity.
Learn to love the Divine Self in the
one YOU love, and help him or her to love the Divine Self in you. Then
death's cold shadow will never fall between you because you will live,
now and hereafter, in the world of the Undying. There is no separation
in the Eternal. We are One Life, One Radiance, One Glory! You are I, I
am You, and we are the ONE forever!
His expansion of the known corpus of Blavatsky Letters was his most significant contribution to the project...
After John Cooper's death, it became clear that, for several reasons, his work on the letters could not be used directly. One of those reasons was the discovery that the texts of many of the letters - both those de Zirkoff had collected but not fully edited and those Cooper had added to the known corpus - were not accurate. Consequently, when the Theosophical Society in America [of the Adyar-Theosophical Society -editor Lucifer7] resumed the task of preparing the letters for publication and appointed John Algeo as its new editor, assisted by the Editorial Committee for the Letters of H.P. Blavatsky, all of the texts had to be regathered to assure their accuracy and fidelity to the best original sources. That task was performed personally by John and Adele Algeo for most of the letters. [Letters, p. XV]
I've added this historical information because in theos-talk, an online e-mailgroup, even before the book was out, a threat was made by the lawyer of the heirs of John Coooper at John and Adele if the volume would be too much edited or resemble too closely the work of John Cooper. In the preface of the book this threat is kindly not mentioned. Still, I think it is one of the reasons why John Cooper's work could not be used directly. According to their lawyer the heirs wanted to be informed of all changes John Algeo made to the manuscript John Cooper had left. They were afraid that the Algeos would live up the reputation of the TS-adyar (*) of deleting that which wasn't pleasant to HPB's reputation or the reputation of the TS.
As I've now seen the volume talked about and read the reasons the Algeos give of their actions, I feel that the Coopers need not worry. Every letter is accompanied by a careful explanation on how the text of the letter was found, what the source was, who translated what etc. etc. The scholarship apparent in this volume is tremendous. John Algeo lives up to the fullest extent to his reputation as a scholar and a writer. There are historical essays in this volume that explain many if not most of the historical background of the situations Blavatsky got into. The series (three more volumes are in progress) attempts to be a complete series. And it certainly doesn't look like anything has been deleted.If
meeting HPB wasn't enough reason to read this volume - her explanations
on mediumship are more fresh here than in her articles. Perhaps it
isn't surprising, as most of her articles at that time were written on
the defence. Her letters were written mostly to people who sympathised
with her. It is hard to know where to stop in praise of this book. The
index is fabulous, and is also an extensive glossary. The lettering is
beautiful, the cover is great and the notes are as thorough as anybody
could wish.
All in all the book gives the appearance of being the best mix between what a scholar needs in a book and what the general reader needs in a book. The scholar needs as many details as possible. The general reader needs a bit of historical background written in a style that is fluent and easily comprehensible. Both standards have been met in this book, I'd say. It isn't often that this can be said of a book. In short: if you're interested in theosophy, blavatsky or theosophical history: this book is a must-read.
(*) It is common knowledge among serious students of theosophy that in various modern reprints of books after the death of their author, changes have been made by the publisher [this can be said of every theosophical publishing company by the way - excepting perhaps Point Loma Publications - but in this note I refer only to changes as made by the publishing houses connected to the Theosophical Society with headquarters in Adyar, India]. This started with A Modern Panarion, a selection of articles by H.P. Blavatsky, edited by Annie Besant and G.R.S. Mead. It has continued up to the present time with for instance the volume 'A Study in Consciousness', by Annie Besant. Those who would accuse the TS-Adyar that this is a trend, and therefore her publications in general can't be trusted to be literal, forget one thing. As far as I'm aware, each and every one of these books has a comment in the preface explaining what changes have been made. Most of them have a similar (though obviously shorter) text on the cover of the book. Whether these descriptions of the changes that have been made are always accurate is another issue. But in each case the publishers have reported that changes had been made. The book under review here gives every sign one can think of that the editors have tried to be as literal as possible with the text as H.P. Blavatsky wrote it. Major differences with other versions of letters as published elsewhere are included in the notes. Variant or wrong spelling on H.P. Blavatsky's part is left standing - and often discussed in the notes as well. There are probably mistakes left, even in this book. But no book is without mistakes. There has been a
chair in Metaphysics in light of Theosophy in the Netherlands
(university Leiden) since 1958. The first professor on this chair was
Dr. J.J. Poortman, author of 'Vehicles of Consciousness' a four volume
classic. Professors that came after him were less prominent
internationally, though each in their own way prominent in the Dutch
theosophical scene. They were Dr. J.H. Dubbink and recently Dr. W.H.
van Vledder. Dr. W.H. van Vledder retired a few years ago. The
foundation Proklos, which is responsible for this chair, has found a
new candidate. His name is Prof. dr J.L.F.
Gerding and he has made name for himself in the field of
parapsychology.
He has written a book 'Het voertuig van de ziel' (the vehicle of the
soul)
with dr. H. van Dongen which includes chapters on NDE, alternative
health,
the Absolute, theosophy and extrasensorial observation. His first
lectures
will have the subject 'Synchronicity and Transcendence'.
As seems almost inevitable there has been a response to the
article in the Dutch magazine of the Leiden University 'Mare'. The
article in Mare focussed mainly on the parapsychological aspect of
Gerding's research. In response there was a letter which denied the
very existence of parapsychological phenomena.
Bijzonder Hoogleraar Metafysica in de geest van de Theosofie
A related university course that got a lot of press in the Theosophical History Conference in London last summer is the new 'Centre in Western Esotericism at the University of Wales Lampeter'. A full MA in Western Esotericism supported by four course tutors and other university staff will admit students in September 2004. Dr. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke has attained a Research Fellowship in Western Esotericism at the University of Wales Lampeter in 2002. Dr. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke did the opening and closing lectures of the Theosophical History Conference. He also introduced his MA course to the public.Centre in Western Esotericism at the University of Wales Lampeter