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[6:05:40 PM] *** Group call ***
[6:08:14 PM] Thuan Thi Do:
Life teaches us in two ways, by tuition that the world gives us, and by intuition the working of the inner self. As men develop, their intuition increases, and they do not depend so much as before on the instruction that the world gives. That is another way of saying that the man who uses his inner powers can learn much more from a little experience than other men can from a great deal. Because of the activity of his innate intelligence, the developed man is able to see the great significance of even small things; but the undeveloped mind is full of curiosity. It is eager for novelty, because, not being good at thinking, it soon exhausts the obvious significance of commonplace things. This mind is the one that craves miracles in connection with its religious experience, as it is blind to the countless miracles that surround it all the time.

What we call the dictates of conscience come from above, and represent usually the knowledge of the ego on the subject. But here a word of caution is necessary. The ego himself is as yet but partially developed. His knowledge on any given subject may be quite small, or even inaccurate, and he can reason only from the information before him.

Because of this, a man's conscience often misleads him, for an ego who is young, and knows but little, may yet be able to impress his will upon the personality. But as a general rule the undeveloped ego is also undeveloped in his power of impressing himself ( Page 219 ) upon his lower vehicles; and perhaps this is just as well.

Sometimes however, as said, an ego, who lacks development in tolerance and wide knowledge, may yet have a will sufficiently strong to impress upon his physical brain orders which show that he is a very young ego, and does not understand.

Hence, when conscience seems to dictate something which is clearly against the great laws of mercy and truth and justice [as, possibly, was the case with some of the inquisitors], the man should think carefully whether the universal rule is not a greater thing than the particular application which seems to conflict with it. The intellect should always be used in such a way that it will be an instrument of the ego, not an obstacle in the path of his development.

A curious example of the way in which an ego may manifest himself to the personality is that described in The Mental Body, p.280. A certain orator whilst speaking one sentence of a lecture, habitually sees the next sentence actually materialise in the air before her, in three different forms, from which she consciously selects that one which she thinks the best. This is evidently the work of the ego, though it is a little difficult to see why he takes that method of communication, instead of himself selecting the form he thinks best, and impressing that form alone on the personal consciousness.

That which is known to mystics as the "Voice of the Silence" differs for people at different stages. The voice of the silence for any one is that which comes from the part of him which is higher than his consciousness can reach, and, naturally that changes as his evolution progresses.

For those now working with the personality, the voice of the ego is the voice of the silence, but when one has dominated the personality entirely, and has made it one with the ego, so that the ego maywork perfectly through it, it is the voice of Âtma. - the triple spirit on the nirvanic plane. When this is ( Page 220 ) reached, there will still be a voice of the silence—that of the Monad. When the man identifies the ego and the Monad, and attains Adeptship, he will still find a voice of the silence coming down to him from above, but then it will be the voice, perhaps, of one of the Ministers of the Deity, one of the Planetary Logoi. Perhaps for Him in turn it will be the voice of the Solar Logos Himself. The "Voice of the Silence", therefore, from whatever level it may come, is always essentially divine.

The ego works in the physical body through the two great divisions of the nervous system - the sympathetic and the cerebrospinal. The sympathetic system is connected mostly with the astral body, the cerebrospinal system with the mental body, this system coming more and more under the influence of the ego as he advances in intellectual power.

As the cerebrospinal system developed, the ego passed on to the sympathetic system more and more of the parts of his consciousness, definitely established, towards which he no longer needed to turn his attention, in order to keep them in working order. It is possible, by the methods of Hatha Yoga, for example for the ego to re-establish direct control over portions of the sympathetic system: to do so, however, is obviously not a step forward, but a step backward, in evolution.

The student should recollect that the ego is always striving upwards, trying to get rid of the lower planes, endeavouring to throw off the burdens which prevent his climbing. He does not want to be troubled, for example, with looking after the vital functions of the body, and gives his attention to the machinery only when anything goes wrong. As previously said, all such workings are recoverable, but it is not worth while to do so. On the contrary, the more we can hand over to that automatism, the better; for the less we have to utilise the waking consciousness, for the things that are constantly recurring, the more shall we have to work for the things that really need attention, ( Page 221 ) and that are probably vastly more important, at any rate from the point of view of the ego.

Occasionally a man may become dominated by a "fixed idea", this resulting in some cases in madness, in other cases, in the unshakable devotion or determination of the saint or the martyr. These two classes of cases have diverse psychological origins, which we may now study.

A fixed idea that is madness is an idea which the ego has handed over to the sympathetic system, so that it has become part of the "subconscious". It may be a past mood or notion, that the ego has outgrown; or a forgotten fact, suddenly reasserting itself, unaccompanied by its proper surroundings; or the connection of two incongruous ideas; and so on.

There are countless such ideas, with which the ego has had to do in the past, and which he has not entirely thrown out of the mechanism of consciousness so that they have lingered there, though the ego himself has outgrown them. So long as any part of the mechanism of consciousness can respond to them, for so long those ideas may emerge above the horizon, or "threshold" of consciousness.

When such an idea comes up, as it does, without reason, without rationality, with the rush and surge and passionate strength of the past, it overbears the subtler mechanism that the ego has evolved for his higher purposes. For ideas,such as those we are considering, are stronger on the physical plane than those we call the ordinary mental ideas, because, their vibrations being slower and coarser, they produce more result in the denser matter. It is far easier to affect the physical body, for example, by the surge of a barbaric emotion, than by the subtle reasoning of a philosopher.

We may state, then, that the fixed idea of the madman is usually an idea which has left its trace on the sympathetic system, and which, during some disturbance or weakening of the cerebrospinal system, is able to assert itself in consciousness. It arises from below. ( Page 222 )

The fixed idea of the saint or martyr, on the other hand, is a very different thing. This comes down from the ego himself, who is striving to impress upon the physical brain his own loftier emotion, his own wider knowledge. The ego, who can see further on the higher planes than he can in the physical encasement, tries to impress upon that physical encasement his own will, his own desire for the higher and nobler. It comes with all-dominating..
[6:24:40 PM] Thuan Thi Do: The fixed idea of the saint or martyr, on the other hand, is a very different thing. This comes down from the ego himself, who is striving to impress upon the physical brain his own loftier emotion, his own wider knowledge. The ego, who can see further on the higher planes than he can in the physical encasement, tries to impress upon that physical encasement his own will, his own desire for the higher and nobler. It comes with all-dominating power; it cannot approve itself to the reason, for the brain is not yet ready to reason on those lines of higher knowledge and of deeper vision and intuition; but it comes down, with the force of the ego on a body prepared for it, and thus asserts itself as the dominant power, guiding the man to heroic action, to martyrdom, to saintship. Such fixed ideas come, not, as in the previous class, from below, but from above; not from the subconscious but from the super-conscious.
[6:46:34 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_nervous_system
[6:49:13 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_nervous_system
[6:49:25 PM] Thuan Thi Do: As was said in The Mental Body, p. 279, we need not shrink from the fact that there is frequently a psychological instability associated with genius, as expressed in the saying that genius is akin to madness, and in the statement of Lombroso and others that many of the saints were neuropaths. The more delicate the machinery, the more easily may it be overstrained, or thrown out of gear; hence it is sometimes true that the very instability of the genius or the saint is the very condition of inspiration, the normal brain being not yet sufficiently developed, nor delicate enough, to answer to the subtle waves coming from the higher consciousness.

Thus those impulses, which we call the promptings of genius, come down from the super-conscious, from the realm of the ego himself. Not only do these inspirations from the higher consciousness sometimes cause brain instability, but, as is well known, they are frequently accompanied by great irregularity of moral conduct. The reason for this is interesting and important.

When any force comes down, from a higher to a lower plane, ( Page 223 ) it is subject to transmutation in the vehicle into which it comes. According to the nature of the vehicle will be the transmutation of the force,a portion of the force being changed by the vehicle, into which it plays,

into the form of energy to which that vehicle lends itself most readily.

Hence, for example, if an organism have a tendency to sexual excitement, the down flow of the force of genius will immensely increase the force of sexuality, by that part of which is transmitted into vitality. We may note here, as an example of the working of this principle, that in the Third Race, the down flow of the spiritual life, into the channels of the animal man, so enormously increased his animal powers, that it was necessary that the Sons of Mind should come to his assistance, or humanity would have plunged down into the vilest of animal excesses, the very force of the spiritual life increasing the depth of the plunge into degradation. The lesson to be learnt here is clearly, that before we invite the inflow of the higher forces, it is all-important first to purify the lower nature. As the Buddha taught, the first rule is: "Cease to do evil".
[7:10:39 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://thongthienhoc.net/sach/GLBT-NTH/GiaoLyBiTruyen-NTH_Page_231.jpg
[7:11:05 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://thongthienhoc.net/sach/GLBT-NTH/GiaoLyBiTruyen-NTH_Page_232.jpg
[7:11:30 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://thongthienhoc.net/sach/GLBT-NTH/GiaoLyBiTruyen-NTH_Page_233.jpg
[7:27:36 PM] *** Missed group call. ***
The esoteric school teaches that Gautama Buddha with several of his Arhats is such a Nirmanakaya
[7:34:47 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Je_Tsongkhapa
[7:35:24 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%B4ng-kh%C3%A1ch-ba
[7:44:04 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com/en/index.php?title=Manushibuddhas
[7:50:53 PM] *** Group call ***
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/creationmyths/a/102609Cosmogonies.htm
[8:15:20 PM] Thuan Thi Do: the Thought is the rider (i.e., he is under the influence of their guiding thought). He passes like lightning through the fiery clouds (cosmic mists) (beer); takes three, and five, and seven strides through the seven regions above and the seven below (the world to be). He lifts his voice, and calls the innumerable sparks (atoms) and joins them together (coffee).

(angel) This shows the “Primordial Seven” using for their Vahan (vehicle, or the manifested subject which becomes the symbol of the Power directing it), Fohat, called in consequence, the “Messenger of their will” — the fiery whirlwind.

“Dzyu becomes Fohat” — the expression itself shows it. Dzyu is the one real (magical) knowledge, or Occult Wisdom; which, dealing with eternal truths and primal causes, becomes almost omnipotence when applied in the right direction. Its antithesis is Dzyu-mi, that which deals with illusions and false appearances only, as in our exoteric modern sciences. In this case, Dzyu is the expression of the collective Wisdom of the Dhyani-Buddhas.

(beer) As the reader is supposed not to be acquainted with the Dhyani-Buddhas, it is as well to say at once that, according to the Orientalists, there are five Dhyanis who are the “celestial” Buddhas, of whom the human Buddhas are the manifestations in the world of form and matter. Esoterically, however, the Dhyani-Buddhas are seven, of whom five only have hitherto manifested,* and two are to come in the sixth and seventh Root-races. They are, so to speak, the eternal prototypes of the Buddhas who appear on this earth, each of whom has his particular divine prototype. So, for instance, Amitabha is the Dhyani-Buddha of Gautama Sakyamuni, manifesting through him whenever this great Soul incarnates on earth as He did in Tzon-kha-pa.† As the synthesis of the seven Dhyani-Buddhas, Avalokiteswara was the first Buddha (the Logos), so Amitabha is the inner “God” of Gautama, who, in China, is called Amita(-Buddha). They are, as Mr. Rhys Davids

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* See A. P. Sinnett’s “Esoteric Buddhism,” 5th annotated edition, pp. 171-173.

† The first and greatest Reformer who founded the “Yellow-Caps,” Gyalugpas. He was born in the year 1355 a.d. in Amdo, and was the Avatar of Amitabha, the celestial name of Gautama Buddha.

Vol. 1, Page 109 THEOGONY OF THE CREATORS.
correctly states, “the glorious counterparts in the mystic world, free from the debasing conditions of this material life” of every earthly mortal Buddha — the liberated Manushi-Buddhas appointed to govern the Earth in this Round. They are the “Buddhas of Contemplation,” and are all Anupadaka (parentless), i.e., self-born of divine essence. The exoteric teaching which says that every Dhyani-Buddha has the faculty of creating from himself, an equally celestial son — a Dhyani-Bodhisattva — who, after the decease of the Manushi (human) Buddha, has to carry out the work of the latter, rests on the fact that owing to the highest initiation performed by one overshadowed by the “Spirit of Buddha” — (who is credited by the Orientalists with having created the five Dhyani-Buddhas!), — a candidate becomes virtually a Bodhisattva, created such by the High Initiator.

(coffee) Fohat, being one of the most, if not the most important character in esoteric Cosmogony, should be minutely described. As in the oldest Grecian Cosmogony, differing widely from the later mythology, Eros is the third person in the primeval trinity: Chaos, Gaea, Eros: answering to the Kabalistic En-Soph (for Chaos is Space, [[Chaino]], “void”) the Boundless All, Shekinah and the Ancient of Days, or the Holy Ghost; so Fohat is one thing in the yet unmanifested Universe and another in the phenomenal and Cosmic World. In the latter, he is that Occult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first impulse which becomes in time law. But in the unmanifested Universe, Fohat is no more this, than Eros is the later brilliant winged Cupid, or Love. Fohat has naught to do with Kosmos yet, since Kosmos is not born, and the gods still sleep in the bosom of “Father-Mother.” He is an abstract philosophical idea. He produces nothing yet by himself; he is simply that potential creative power in virtue of whose action the Noumenon of all future phenomena divides, so to speak, but to reunite in a mystic supersensuous act, and emit the creative ray. When the “Divine Son” breaks forth, then Fohat becomes the propelling force, the active Power which causes the One to become Two and Three — on the Cosmic plane of manifestation. The triple One differentiates into the many, and then Fohat is transformed into that force which brings together the elemental atoms and makes them aggregate and combine. We find an echo of this primeval teaching

Vol. 1, Page 110 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
in early Greek mythology. Erebos and Nux are born out of Chaos, and, under the action of Eros, give birth in their turn to AEther and Hemera, the light of the superior and the light of the inferior or terrestrial regions. Darkness generates light. See in the Puranas Brahma’s “Will” or desire to create; and in the Phœnician Cosmogony of Sanchoniathon the doctrine that Desire, [[pothos]], is the principle of creation.

Fohat is closely related to the “one life.” From the Unknown One, the Infinite totality, the manifested one, or the periodical, Manvantaric Deity, emanates; and this is the Universal Mind, which, separated from its Fountain-Source, is the Demiurgos or the creative Logos of the Western Kabalists, and the four-faced Brahma of the Hindu religion. In its totality, viewed from the standpoint of manifested Divine Thought in the esoteric doctrine, it represents the Hosts of the higher creative Dhyan Chohans. Simultaneously with the evolution of the Universal Mind, the concealed Wisdom of Adi-Buddha — the One Supreme and eternal — manifests itself as Avalokiteshwara (or manifested Iswara), which is the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Heavenly Man of the Hermetic philosopher, the Logos of the Platonists, and the Atman of the Vedantins.* By the action of the manifested Wisdom, or Mahat, represented by these innumerable centres of spiritual Energy in the Kosmos, the reflection of the Universal Mind, which is Cosmic Ideation and the intellectual Force accompanying such ideation, becomes objectively the Fohat of the Buddhist esoteric philosopher. Fohat, running along the seven principles of Akasa, acts upon manifested substance or the One Element, as declared above, and by differentiating it into various centres of Energy, sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to the Ideation of the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various states of being in the manifested Solar System.

The Solar System, brought into existence by these agencies, consists of Seven Principles, like everything else within these centres. Such is the teaching of the trans-Himalayan Esotericism. Every philosophy, however, has its own way of dividing these principles.

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* Mr. Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the Logos. (See his four lectures on the “Bhagavadgita” in the Theosophist.)

Vol. 1, Page 111 THE PROTEAN SPIRIT-SUBSTANCE.
Fohat, then, is the personified electric vital power, the transcendental binding Unity of all Cosmic Energies, on the unseen as on the manifested planes, the action of which resembles — on an immense scale — that of a living Force created by will, in those phenomena where the seemingly subjective acts on the seemingly objective and propels it to action. Fohat is not only the living..
[8:17:40 PM] Thuan Thi Do: Symbol and Container of that Force, but is looked upon by the Occultists as an Entity — the forces he acts upon being cosmic, human and terrestrial, and exercising their influence on all those planes respectively. On the earthly plane his influence is felt in the magnetic and active force generated by the strong desire of the magnetizer. On the Cosmic, it is present in the constructive power that carries out, in the formation of things — from the planetary system down to the glow-worm and simple daisy — the plan in the mind of nature, or in the Divine Thought, with regard to the development and growth of that special thing. He is, metaphysically, the objectivised thought of the gods; the “Word made flesh,” on a lower scale, and the messenger of Cosmic and human ideations: the active force in Universal Life. In his secondary aspect, Fohat is the Solar Energy, the electric vital fluid,* and the preserving fourth

Footnote(s)
* In 1882 the President of the Theosophical Society, Col. Olcott, was taken to task for asserting in one of his lectures that Electricity is matter. Such, nevertheless, is the teaching of the Occult Doctrine. “Force,” “Energy,” may be a better name for it, so long as European Science knows so little about its true nature; yet matter it is, as much as Ether is matter, since it is as atomic, though several removes from the latter. It seems ridiculous to argue that because a thing is imponderable to Science, therefore it cannot be called matter. Electricity is “immaterial” in the sense that its molecules are not subject to perception and experiment; yet it may be — and Occultism says it is — atomic; therefore it is matter. But even supposing it were unscientific to speak of it in such terms, once Electricity is called in Science a source of Energy, Energy simply, and a Force — where is that Force or that Energy which can be thought of without thinking of matter? Maxwell, a mathematician and one of the greatest authorities upon Electricity and its phenomena, said, years ago, that Electricity was matter, not motion merely. “If we accept the hypothesis that the elementary substances are composed of atoms we cannot avoid concluding that electricity also, positive as well as negative, is divided into definite elementary portions, which behave like atoms of electricity.” (Helmholtz, Faraday Lecture, 1881). We will go further than that, and assert that Electricity is not only Substance but that it is an emanation from an Entity, which is neither God nor Devil, but one of the numberless Entities that rule and guide our world according to the eternal Law of Karma. (See the Addendum to this Book.)

Vol. 1, Page 112 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
principle, the animal Soul of Nature, so to say, or — Electricity. In India, Fohat is connected with Vishnu and Surya in the early character of the (first) God; for Vishnu is not a high god in the Rig Veda. The name Vishnu is from the root vish, “to pervade,” and Fohat is called the “Pervader” and the Manufacturer, because he shapes the atoms from crude material.* In the sacred texts of the Rig Veda, Vishnu, also, is “a manifestation of the Solar Energy,” and he is described as striding through the Seven regions of the Universe in three steps, the Vedic God having little in common with the Vishnu of later times. Therefore the two are identical in this particular feature, and one is the copy of the other.

The “three and seven” strides refer to the Seven spheres inhabited by man, of the esoteric Doctrine, as well as to the Seven regions of the Earth. Notwithstanding the frequent objections made by would-be Orientalists, the Seven Worlds or spheres of our planetary chain are distinctly referred to in the exoteric Hindu scriptures. But how strangely all these numbers are connected with like numbers in other Cosmogonies and with their symbols, can be seen from comparisons and parallelisms made by students of old religions. The “three strides of Vishnu” through the “seven regions of the Universe,” of the Rig Veda, have been variously explained by commentators as meaning “fire, lightning and the Sun” cosmically; and as having been taken in the Earth, the atmosphere, and the sky; also as the “three steps” of the dwarf (Vishnu’s incarnation), though more philosophically — and in the astronomical sense, very correctly — they are explained by Aurnavabha as being the various positions of the sun, rising, noon, and setting. Esoteric philosophy alone explains it clearly, and the Zohar laid it down very philosophically and comprehensively. It is said and plainly demonstrated therein that in the beginning the Elohim (Elhim) were called Echod, “one,” or the “Deity is one in many,” a very simple idea in a pantheistic conception (in its philosophical sense, of course). Then came the change, “Jehovah is Elohim,” thus unifying the multiplicity and taking the first step towards Monotheism. Now to the query, “How is Jehovah Elohim?” the answer is, “By three Steps” from below.

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in vibration assumes a series of regular curved figures of various descriptions. Can Science give a complete explanation of this fact?
[8:22:51 PM] Thuan Thi Do: Gæa (Gr.). Primordial Matter, in the Cosmogony of Hesiod; Earth, as some think; the wife of Ouranos, the sky or heavens. The female personage of the primeval Trinity, composed of Ouranos, Gæa and Eros.
[8:55:29 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://www.sanctusgermanus.net/ebooks/
[9:27:30 PM] Thuan Thi Do: Ray six. The sixth Ray became dominant in Europe after the spread of Christianity by missionaries like St. Paul in the first century after Christ, leading to its eventual establishment as the state religion of the later Roman empire. Christianity has continued as a central, if often controversial, influence in Western culture to the present day. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the three Abrahamic religions, and all three are strongly sixth Ray. That Ray is associated with devotion, often equated with quiet contemplation, but it also includes obedience in all forms. Abraham was obedient to God, even to a willingness to sacrifice his own son on being commanded to do so. Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion, “O my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26.36). And “Islam” means “submission.” Sixth Ray obedience includes also that of the military, so it is not surprising that Jewish scripture is full of battles, Christianity had its Crusades, and Islam was extended by military conquest.
[9:28:34 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://www.theosophyforward.com/theosophy/1320-western-history-in-the-light-of-the-seven-rays
[9:55:41 PM] *** Call ended, duration 3:49:54 ***