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[6:10:47 PM] Thuan Thi Do: CHAPTER XVII

CAUSAL THOUGHT

The mental plane, as we know, is the sphere of action of what we call mind or manas, in man. As we have already seen, the plane is divided into two parts, the higher, consisting of three upper sub-planes, and the lower, consisting , of the four lower sub-planes. The two divisions are known as arupa, or formless, and rupa, having form.

In man, Intellect has, as its vehicle, the causal body, with abstract thought as its function, whilst Mind has, as its vehicle the mental body, with the function of concrete thinking.

The Mind acquires knowledge by utilising the senses for observations: it works on its percepts, and builds them into concepts. Its powers are attention, memory, reasoning by induction and deduction, imagination, and the like.

The names arupa and rupa are given in order to indicate a certain quality of the matter of the mental plane. In the lower part of it, the matter is very readily moulded by the action of human thought into definite forms; in the higher division, this does not occur, the more abstract thought of that level expressing itself to the eye of the clairvoyant in flashes or streams.

On the arupa levels, the difference in the effect of thought is very marked, especially as regards the elemental essence. The disturbance set up in the mere matter of the plane is similar, though greatly intensified in this much more refined form of matter. But in the elemental essence, no form at all is now created, and the method of action is entirely changed.

On the lower sub-planes, an elemental or thought form , which is there created, hovers about the person thought of , and awaits a favourable opportunity of expending its energy either, upon his mental body, his astral body, or even his physical body. But on the three higher sub-planes, the result is a kind of lightening flash of the essence from the causal body of the thinker, direct to the causal body of the object of his thought.

So that, while on the lower sub-planes the thought is always directed to the mere personality, on the higher sub-planes we influence the reincarnating ego, the real man himself. If the message has any reference to the personality, it will reach that personality only from above, through the instrumentality of the causal body.

It is said to be a striking sight to observe the change from an abstract or arupa idea to a concrete or rupa thought, as the idea clothes itself in the matter of the four lower sub-planes.

The standard and sample example is that of a triangle. Difficult as it is to describe in words, which belong to the planes of form, the abstract idea of a triangle is a reality on the arupa levels. It means a non-figure, which is yet a figure. The figure—which is yet no particular figure, is circumscribed by three lines, yet not by any particular lines: its three angles possess the property of making collectively two right angles; yet they are not particular angles.

On the arupa levels, this abstract idea of a triangle has real existence. With the sense of the causal body, it is seen, or apprehended. It is a fact of consciousness, external to the observer, even though it is not what we usually mean by form.

If such an abstract triangle is thrown into contact with the matter of the rupa sub-planes, instantly it becomes an indefinite number of triangles, each of which has a definite form. There will be triangles of every known shape- equilateral , isosceles, scalene, right-angled, acute-angled, obtuse –angled—all coming into visible existence.

If the abstract idea is brought down within the causal body, the observer becomes a fountain of triangles, which go off in all directions, much as a jet of water spurts up as a more or less coherent mass, comes down as a fountain, separating into innumerable drops of spray. That is perhaps the best physical analogy of the process that can be given.

As was fully explained in the Mental Body, concrete thought naturally takes the shape of the objects which we thought about: abstract ideas when thrown down into the rupa levels, usually represent themselves by all kinds of perfect and most beautiful geometrical figures. It should however, be remembered that many thoughts which come down here are little more than mere abstractions, become on the mental plane concrete facts.

Causal consciousness thus deals with the essence of a thing, whilst the lower mind studies its details. With the mind, we talk round a subject, or endeavour to explain it: with the causal consciousness, we take up the essence of the idea of the subject, and move it as a whole, as one moves a piece when playing chess. The causal plane is a world of realities: we no longer deal with emotions, ideas or conceptions, but with the thing in itself.

It may be well to describe rather more in detail the process of arriving at causal thought. Whilst the lower mind dwells entirely on mental images, obtained from sensations, reasons on purely concrete objects, and is concerned with the attributes which differentiate one object from another, the ego, using the causal consciousness, having learned to discriminate clearly between objects, by dwelling upon their – unlikenesses —now begins to group them together by some attribute which appears in a number of objects, otherwise dissimilar, and makes a link between them.

He draws out, abstracts, this common attribute, and sets all objects that possess it apart from the rest that are without it. In this way, he evolves the power of recognising identity amid diversity, a step towards the much later recognition of the One underlying the many.

He thus classifies all that is around him, developing the synthetic faculty, and learning to construct as well as to analyse.

Presently, he takes another step, and conceives of the common property as an idea, apart from all the objects in which it appears, and thus constructs a kind of mental higher image higher than the image of of a concrete object--- the image of an idea that has no phenomenal existence in the world of form, but which exists on the higher levels of the mental plane, and affords material on which the ego, the Thinker himself, can work.

The lower mind reaches the abstract idea by reason, and, in so doing, accomplishes its loftiest flight, touching the threshold of the formless world, and dimly seeing that which lies beyond.

The Thinker with his causal consciousness, sees these ideas, and lives among, them habitually. As he exercises and develops the power of abstract reasoning, he becomes effective in his own world, and begins his life of active functioning in his own sphere.

Such a man would care little for the life of the senses, or for external observation, or for mental application to images of external objects. His powers are indrawn, no longer rushing outwards in the search for satisfaction. He dwells calmly within himself, engrossed with the problems of Philosophy, with the deeper aspects of life and thought, seeking to understand causes, rather than troubling himself with effects, and approaching nearer and nearer to the recognition of the One that underlies all the diversities of external nature.

The method of passing from the lower mental to the causal consciousness, by means of an orderly process of concentration, meditation, and contemplation, is described in detail in The Mental Body, and so need not be repeated, here.

On the higher levels of the mental plane, thoughts act with much greater force, than on the lower levels: one reason for this is, that, as comparatively few are as yet able to think on these higher levels any thoughts, which are generated there, have the field practically to themselves: i.e., there are not many other thoughts in that realm, with which they have to contend.

Most thoughts of the ordinary man begin in the mental body, on the lower mental levels, and clothe themselves, as they descend, with the appropriate astral el...
[6:11:18 PM] Thuan Thi Do: Most thoughts of the ordinary man begin in the mental body, on the lower mental levels, and clothe themselves, as they descend, with the appropriate astral elemental essence. But, when a man is active on the causal levels, his thought commences there, and clothes itself first in the elemental essenceof the lower levels of the mental plane, and is consequently infinitely finer, more penetrating, and in every way more effective.

If the thought be directed exclusively to higher objects, its vibrations may be of too fine a character to find expression on the astral plane at all. But if they do affect such lower matter, they will do so with much more far-reaching effect than those which are generated so much nearer to the level of that lower matter.

Following this principle a stage further, it is clear that the thought of the Initiate, taking its rise upon the Buddhic Plane, above the mental world altogether, will clothe itself with the elemental essence of the causal sub-planes. Similarly, the thought of the Adept will pour down from the plane of Atma, wielding the tremendous and wholly incalculable powers of regions beyond the ken of the ordinary humanity.

Hence the truth of the saying that the work of one day, on levels such as these, may well surpass in efficiency the toil of a thousand years on the physical, plane.

Students who are not accustomed to causal thought, to thinking in principles should be careful that they do not, by their efforts to think abstractly, at first cause headaches, which mean, of course, in this instance, that the mechanism of the brain is being strained. Meditation, practised regularly for a number, of years, should establish a certain tendency of the causal consciousness to be affected by the consciousness in the mental body. When that has been established, abstract thought at the causal levels should be possible without the risk of straining the thinking mechanism.

When the effort to form an abstract conception, say of a triangle, has been successful, the student may at first feel a little dazed in the attempt to grasp the abstract idea : later the consciousness will suddenly change, and become clear. That means that the centre of consciousness has been transferred from the mental to the causal body, and the student becomes conscious, in his causal body, of a distinct existence outside himself.

That is the "intuition" of the causal body, which recognises the – outer -. The "intuition" of Buddhi, as we shall see in a later chapter, recognises the inner, enabling one to see things from the inside. With the intellectual intuition, one realises a thing which is outside oneself.

Again the student may be reminded that, in spite of external differences of functioning between the higher and lower mind, yet Manas, the Thinker, is one, the Self in the causal body. It is the source of innumerable energies of vibrations of innumerable kinds. These it sends out, raying outwards from itself. The subtlest and finest of these are expressed in the matter of the causal body, which alone is fine enough to respond to them. They form what is sometimes called the Pure Reason, whose thoughts are abstract, whose method of gaining knowledge is intuition. Its very "nature is knowledge", and it recognises truth at sight as congruous with itself.

The less subtle vibrations pass outward from the one Thinker, attracting the matter of the lower mental world, and becoming the activities of the lower mind, as has already been described.
[6:11:48 PM] Thuan Thi Do:
It is, perhaps, somewhat unfortunate that Buddhi is also sometimes spoken of as Pure Reason, and its faculty is described as that of intuition. As psychology progresses, no doubt appropriate terms will be selected, and applied, specifically and solely, to the distinct functions of the causal consciousness, and to the Buddhic faculties.

It was said above, of Manas, that its very " nature is Knowledge". That is so, because Manas is the reflection, in the atomic matter of the mental, plane, of the cognitional aspect of the Self ----of the Self as Knower. It is therefore possible to unfold a power of knowing truth at sight. This shows itself only when the lower mind, with its slow process of reasoning, is transcended. For whenever the "I "---the expression of the Self whose "nature is knowledge"----comes into contact with a truth, he finds its vibrations regular and therefore capable of producing a coherent image in himself : whereas the false causes a distorted image, out of proportion, by its very reflection announcing its nature.

As the lower mind assumes a more and more subordinate position, these powers of the ego assert their own predominance, and intuition - which is analogous to the direct vision of the physical plane - takes the place of reasoning, which may aptly be compared with the physical plane sense of touch.

Thus intuition develops out of reasoning in the same unbroken manner, and without change of essential nature, as the eye develops out of touch. The change of "manner" should not blind us to the orderly and sequential evolution of the faculty.

The student will, of course be careful to distinguish genuine intuition from that pseudo-intuition of the unintelligent, which is merely impulse, born of desire, and is not higher, but lower than reasoning.

The act of thinking develops the spirillae in the physical atoms : hence those who are definitely and carefully thinking day by day are not only improving their own powers of thought, but also improving for others the amount of available material of a higher kind, thus facilitating high thinking.

In the etheric body of man, the brow chakram, or force centre, which utilises the dark blue prana,is associated with the principle of higher manas.
[7:31:26 PM] Thuan Thi Do: Elohim (Hebrew) ’Elohīm [from ’elōah goddess + īm masculine plural ending] The monotheistic proclivities, not only of the Jews but of Christian translators, have led to this word always being translated as God; yet the word itself is a plural form, nor is it in any sense necessarily a plural of majesty, as suggested by some monotheistic scholars. A correct rendering should denote both masculine and feminine characteristics, such as androgyne divinities.

In spite of the ideas imbodied in the word itself, the later development of Judaism caused ’elohim to be almost entirely translated in paraphrase as the “one true God”; but in earlier times ’elohim (or rather benei ’elohim or benei ’elim — sons of gods, members of the classes of divine beings) meant spiritual beings or cosmic spirits of differing hierarchical grades: a collective class of cosmic spirits among whom is found the familiar Jewish Yahweh or Jehovah. Thus, strictly speaking and as viewed in the original Qabbalah, the ’elohim meant the angelic hierarchies of many varying grades of spirituality or ethereality; and in cosmogonic or astrological matters, the ’elohim were often mentally aggregated under the generalized term tseba’oth [fem pl from the verbal root tsaba’ a host, an army] as in the expression “host of heaven.”

In the Jewish Qabbalah the ’elohim, however, are the sixth hierarchical group in derivation from the first or Crown, Kether: cosmogonically they represent the manifested formers or weavers of the cosmos. In this Qabbalistic system, Jehovah was the third angelic potency (counting from the first, Kether). Blavatsky calls all these hierarchicies symbols “emblematic, mutually and correlatively, of Spirit, Soul and Body (man); of the circle transformed into Spirit, the Soul of the World, and its body (or Earth). Stepping out of the Circle of Infinity, that no man comprehendeth, Ain-Soph (the Kabalistic synonym for Parabrahm, for the Zeroana Akerne, of the Mazdeans, or for any other ‘Unknowable’) becomes ‘One’ — the Echos, the Eka, the Ahu — then he (or it) is transformed by evolution into the One in many, the Dhyani-Buddhas or the Elohim, or again the Amshaspends, his third Step being taken into generation of the flesh, or ‘Man.’ And from man, or Jah-Hova, ‘male female,’ the inner divine entity becomes, on the metaphysical planes, once more the Elohim” (SD 1:113).

The opening words of the Bible refer directly to the activities of the ’elohim, for this is the sole divine name mentioned in Genesis 1:1-2. De Purucker translates these verses from the original Hebrew as: “In a host (or multitude), the gods (Elohim) formed themselves into the heavens and the earth. And the earth became ethereal. And darkness upon the face of the ethers. And the ruah (the spirit-soul) of the gods (of Elohim) fluttered or hovered, brooding” (cf Fund 99-100). He goes on to say that “we see that the Elohim evolved man, humanity, out of themselves, and told them to become, then to enter into and inform these other creatures. Indeed, these sons of the Elohim are, in our teachings, the children of light, the sons of light, which are we ourselves, and yet different from ourselves, because higher, yet they are our own very selves inwardly. In fact, the Elohim, became, evolved into, their own offspring, remaining in a sense still always the inspiring light within, or rather above . . . the Elohim projected themselves into the nascent forms of the then ‘humanity,’ which thenceforward were ‘men,’ however imperfect their development still was” (Fund 101-2).

The ’elohim, then, correspond to both classes of the pitris mentioned in theosophical literature: the higher or more spiritual-intellectual of the ’elohim are the agnishvatta-pitris, and the lower groups are the barhishad-pitris. As the agnishvatta-pitris are devoid of the astral-vital-physical productive fire because they are too high and distinctly intellectual, they leave the work of production to the lower ’elohim or barhishads, who “being the lunar spirits more closely connected with Earth, became the creative Elohim of form, or the Adam of dust” (SD 2:78)
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[8:28:03 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://www.lagunasunrise.theosophywales.org.uk/
[8:44:24 PM] TrúcLâm: Chào cả nhà, xin phép được dự thính.
[9:44:03 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://phapam.phapgioi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=419:hanh-trinh-ve-phuong-dong&catid=42:sach-noi-phat-giao&Itemid=28
[10:11:36 PM] *** Call ended, duration 4:07:14 ***