"Water of Life Am I Poured Forth for Thirsty Men"
Thomas said:
I must say it's with some trepidation that I open this dialogue, but with that in mind, I have taken the trouble to highlight the main points of my argument. Might I ask that we address ourselves to them without the asides, abuses, sentimental evocations and other impassioned outbursts that normally render reasonable dialogue impossible?
In short — can you stick to the point under discussion and respond with equal reason and rectitude??
Well, that sounds reasonable. I will tell you what I believe on the 2nd Coming and Resurrection as Rebirth relates, how about that? Where I can, or where asked, I will tell you something about my reasoning. Where I can't, I'll tell you that too. There's no use butting heads; you are correct about that!
Thomas said:
I offer only one qualification:
Point: The Higher is not determined in any way by the lower.
The Spirit of God, being God, is the 'Principle without principle' (arche anarchos of the Greeks and the Fathers), The Boundless (Apeiron) according to Anaximander.
Yes, but already we're on a different footing. Believing that Christ was the authority here - relative to those he was teaching - I think he would say we need to just stop with `Boundless, Absolute and
UNKNOWABLE.' If we try to say more than this,
we say less. Do you see why this is the case? {
UN-knowable}
Thomas said:
it is Itself the Principle of Enlightenment. It is the light of men, and without it, man can do nothing.
This we call Manas in the individual, or MAHAT as Universal [Cosmic] Principle ... it corresponds to the Holy Spirit, was called Ma'at by the Ancient Egyptians, yet we cannot say much else about its relationship to the Absolute, for that gets back to the point I just made. We DON'T KNOW.
The Bible may speak of the various
influences of the Stars, with references to Luminaries and Constellations. At best, we may read something of centres of Manasic significance ... but again, we're just speaking of the Phenomenal, the quasi-Noumenal, and really saying NOTHING about the `Eternal Tao.'
Back to the your points:
Thomas said:
"The Spirit breatheth where he will; and thou hearest his voice, but thou knowest not whence he cometh, and whither he goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8)
All man can do is cleanse the temple ... and live in hope and faith.
Here John is at least making mention of the subtler worlds. I can gather that much. Perhaps that is your point?
I do not agree that we may only
cleanse the temple, however, because - insofar as it goes, that is a good metaphor. The body is the temple, whether individual or collective. We may always seek to refine these, at least in their current expressions. However, the very WORK for which we are all currently incarnated involves the building of a
New Temple.
I accept as a GIVEN,
though it is an expression of Highest Grace, that Christ is at the Head [and Heart, curiously enough] of this effort. But Humanity are the
labouring hands and feet, even in the many millions (or more) Who must ALSO WORK and Sacrifice if we are to bring the new Temple into proper expression. In this Work there is solidarity and greatest honor, for this is the work of Salvation - and in it, ALL Kingdoms of Life are involved and important. In it we
do share and partake of something Greater ... so actually yes, I must disagree with your first Point:
The lesser does indicate the very Purpose OF AND FOR the Greater, as best we may understand it ... WHEN the lesser is in accord with the Greater. This is true in the individual, BECAUSE it is true in the Whole.
For this reason, and because (or if) we wish to
speed things, we may and should Pray and Hope. A strong Faith means Good WORK!
Thomas said:
Point: Universals are only realised in particulars
The Perennial Tradition, the principle of and by which all tradition is realised, is itself, as you say, ageless ... it is also formless and, in that sense, content-less. It is One, Simple, Uncompound, it transcends all systems and all designations, determinations and realisations ... it reveals Itself within the realised Traditions, as, in like manner, human nature reveals itself in humans, but is itself unrealised, being prior to any and all forms or formless manifestation.
There is an error in your logic here, although I don't think you are aware of it. What you have done is to subtly suggest that the
Ageless Wisdom is itself somehow allied with
the Absolute ... and though I well understand the point that
God's Wisdom is Infinite, the Truth being no less of what it
IS, simply because we do or do not recognize it, it does not follow that we can
never know what is in the Mind [
or HEART] of God, simply because we are as yet imperfect [or UN-perfectED].
Remembering that God's revelation to Moses yielded a phrase that is more accurately translated `
I am Becoming ... only in jest might we dare to suggest that what the old devil was intimating was comeliness. Rather, it is a growing
relief that comes to one, as we begin to see how long but how
sweet our Journey shall be; and we ought know by now that we are
all *God's CHILDREN*, of which Realization
no man can divest you, once that
Spirit hath descended into thy {Heart+Mind
oftheSoulinquestion}.
Problems with inquests, my Friend of Old, is that ever they get around to
Realizations, if we continue with them ... and occasionally, a white elephant named
Ganesh somehow ends up in the room, as if Hanuman had
nothing to do with the matter, nor Krishna, nor Arjuna ...
nor DevaMatri. Homework is easy, if we already know the subject!
He sits in the
Cave of the Heart, I seem to recall, about the
size of a thumb, and there - yes THERE, Thomas - is your CHRIST ... so enough with the insistence of `our resting within the Lord,' which is well taken and understood - but not at all the point which
I often try to make, being that Christ
IS WITHIN YOU,
end of story. You see, it's a tongue twangler and tryst of a triumph, I'll have you know - because: The mistake the average christian
has made, is this very statement ...
"I've found Christ/Jesus; now I am SAVED" [END of story!]. For the occultist, even the mystic, the path has just begun. For if Christ is not an OPEN Doorway, He is nothing.
In the form worlds - physical, astral and lower mental - there are great veils drawn over our accurate perception of even the
objective world, as we call it. In truth, this is the most subjective, and could you see as the seers do, you would certainly recognize the SON in the SUN, equally as
vice versa. But maya, glamour and illusion condition the physical, astral and mental worlds, respectively, and so it becomes possible to grossly misinterpret the nature of the world, of the human heart or psychology, much less the true relationships between more evolved beings, spiritually, and their younger brothers, struggling Humanity.
Were it not for the former, which esotericists know occultly as `Christ and His Church,' we might never find our way out of the apparent maze. Yet the Lord Buddha brought the Light of Wisdom, which Christians call the Holy Spirt, and He did this in several incarnations prior to His coming as Shakyamuni Buddha, Whom Theosophists, Hindus and Buddhists alike recognize as a
Mahatma ... and Saviour. Some Christians, too, are aware of the cooperation and partnership between the Buddha and the Christ, involving as it does the assistance of two beings of immense spiritual stature.
One, we should recognize right away
intuitively, since it is called the Spirit of Peace ... and Christ, we may remember, is given the title:
PRINCE of Peace. The second being is a Cosmic Avatar, comes from Sirius,
the Cosmic Christ; this being is called the Avatar of Synthesis. Expressing along the
1st Ray Line and embodying the WILL OF GOD, the Avatar of Synthesis does not descend onto the physical plane, but rather
overshadows the Work of the Christ and Hierarchy at this time. Thus a great TRIANGLE of energies is active:
the Buddha, the Spirit of Peace and the Avatar of Synthesis, with Christ as the focal point in the center of this Triad.
You see, Thomas, I accept the Doctrine of Avatars as a
given, though also a clear indication, a literal
PROOF of what you call the Grace of God. Were it not for such beings, Humanity would never have gotten out of the stone age. Were it not for such beings, Humanity could not possibly have learned to use fire and to begin to master the other elements. And were it not for the
Teaching branch of the Hierarchy [for not all Masters are as intimately involved with Humanity as the ones we've learned about, and not all take on disciples at all] ... were it not for the Christ and Buddha, and all the other Great Ones down through the ages, we
would not have an Ageless Wisdom, because Humanity's MIND, or mental faculty would not even been the least bit fit to RECEIVE such Teachings.
The Christ and the Great Ones guarantee our progress, or at least, they safeguard the
Doorway of Initiation, our
opportunity to move forward. Looking a bit further, we will be reminded that it was 18 million years ago when the Hiearchy was founded upon our planet ... owing to the arrival of a Kingdom so altogther ahead of us, relative to our stage of planetary evolution, that simply for Them to come ... meant the literal incarnation of
Deity upon planet Earth. The Mormons receive their Teachings from a man inspired by an ANGEL, and a day will come when it is very crucial for us to realize that the Lord of the World [Melchizedek, we may say] is the same being as Jehovah, or Yahwah, as Lord Siva ... the expression of one of the Elohim, or Spirits before the Throne of God.
Will you say that when Moses beheld the Lord God on Mt. Sinai, it was something other than TRUTH which he received, simply because it is impossible to encapsulate or limit the `Eternal Tao?' Of course not, or at least, I should hope not. A day will also come when the student acknowledges ... that the various volumes of Wisdom Teachings which he may have been so fortunate as to have laid his eyes upon, perhaps studied for many a year,
ARE THE LIVING WORD OF GOD - aye, even MORE so in many respects than the Gospels of several centuries AD ... preserving, as ALL of these examples do,
THEOS-SOPHIA, the Wisdom of God.
This Wisdom, let us remember, is rightly regarded as something we DO share with the Divine. Anthropomorphism, I have found, can be such a useful knife-edge, yet when we fail to apply certain basic understandings [either because we lack them, or because we are more comfortable with some other point of view] ... there is no wonder our conclusions come out in error, or slightly off. When we understand that God is a being, like us, yet existing on a much larger SCALE OF LIFE [part of a Great Chain of Being, neither the beginning nor end of which we can as yet faintly fathom] ... it is not unrealistic to state that we are something like the brain cells, within the Mind of God.
Our heart, as yet, we cannot claim to have
merged within the pure and perfect Lighted Love of Deity's ... for to have done such on the individual scale is to have faced the long dark night of the soul, and
for the SOUL to have prevailed, to have come out the Victor. It's an ongoing WORK; otherwise we'd all be running around enlightened by now. That ain't happened yet. The Great Ones are pretty Adept at helping make sure it happens, however, and they are now able to train us according to rules for GROUP Discipleship ... and not simply one by one. This should tell us something, and if it doesn't, we have food for thought. I am patronizing no one, as I direct my words at myself, as much as (or more than) you, Thomas, or ANY.
Our Souls, collectively, correspond to the Heart centre within the Planetary Entity ... yet when we have a reversed, `upside down' grasp of our own nature and signficance, in incarnation, relative to that of the Soul, is it any wonder we tend to consistently get the cart before the horse? As so many millions of human beings have realized, we are not
material beings fundamentally, WITH souls [these latter floating around with us like some kind of mostly inanimate balloons] ... but SOULS, incarnating regularly
as human individuals. This is a teaching SO central and basic to the right understanding of any of the world's religions, that we see Christ instructing Nicodemus to prove this very point - that the fundamentals
must be grasped, if we are going to probe the deeper mysteries and solve the problems of life.
Christ said,
"Water of Life am I, poured forth for thirsty men." It has also been said,
You can lead a horse to water ...
Naturally, when a person can *remember* prior incarnations, and when objective, physical plane correlations are shown, all doubt slips away. It may thus take personal experience for many people to finally realize that in the case of Human beings, nature did not make exceptions to Her rule. And as Nature is the instrument, or
garment of Deity, an insightful student will apply the maxim: `As Above, So Below,' realizing that the basic idea is true for all Kingdoms. But that gets us back to the matter at hand. In short,
how's all this work?
I made this post too damn long; the tail end follows ...
