Họp Thông Thiên Học chiều 28 tháng 5 năm 2011
[5/28/2011 6:02:21 PM] *** Conference call ***
[5/28/2011 6:03:37 PM] Thuan Thi Do: Anh Hai co nghe khỏng
[5/28/2011 6:03:43 PM] Van Atman: Hello, anh Hai dang o dau ?
[5/28/2011 6:15:27 PM] Thuan Thi Do: 1. GLBT:
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd2-1-16.htm
[5/28/2011 6:20:00 PM] *** Van Atman added deborahking9427 ***
[5/28/2011 6:26:54 PM] Van Atman: §§ (43) The Lemuro-Atlanteans build cities and
spread civilization. The incipient stage of anthropomorphism. (44) Their
statues, witnesses to the size of the Lemuro-Atlanteans. (45) Lemuria destroyed
by fire, Atlantis by water. The Flood. (46) The destruction of the fourth race
and of the last antediluvian monster-animals.
———————
43. They (the Lemurians) built huge cities. Of rare earths and metals they
built. Out of the fires (lava) vomited. Out of the white stone of the mountains
(marble) and the black stone (of the subterranean fires) they cut their own
images, in their size and likeness, and worshipped them (a).
(a) As the History of the first two human races — the last of the Lemurians and
the first of the future Atlanteans — proceeds, we have at this point to blend
the two, and speak of them for a time collectively.
Here reference is also made to the divine Dynasties, such as were claimed by the
Egyptians, Chaldeans, Greeks, etc., to have preceded their human kings; they are
still believed in by the modern Hindus, and are enumerated in their sacred
books. But of these we shall treat in their proper place. What remains to be
shown is, that our modern geologists are now being driven into admitting the
evident existence of submerged continents. But to confess their presence is not
to accept that there were men on them during the early geological periods;* —
Footnote(s) ———————————————
* This is the reason why, perhaps, even Easter Island with its wondrous gigantic
statues — a speaking witness to a submerged continent with a civilized mankind
on it — is hardly mentioned anywhere in the modern Encyclopaedias. Its mention
is carefully avoided except in some books of Travels; modem science has an
undeniable predilection for forcing upon the cultured public hypotheses, built
on personal hobbies, as well-established evidence, for offering it guesses
instead of Knowledge, and calling them “scientific conclusions.” Its specialists
will evolve a thousand and one contradictory speculations rather than confess an
awkward self-evident fact — pre-eminent among such specialists being Haeckel and
his English admirers and co-thinkers. Yet “they are authorities” — we are
sternly reminded. What of that? The Pope of Rome is also an authority and an
infallible one — for his followers; whereas the remarkable fallibility of
Scientific speculations is being proven periodically with every change of the
moon.
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Vol. 2, Page 317 PRESENTMENTS OF TRUTHS.
ay, men and civilized nations, not Palaeolithic savages only; who, under the
guidance of their divine Rulers, built large cities, cultivated arts and
sciences, and knew astronomy, architecture and mathematics to perfection. This
primeval civilization did not, as one may think, immediately follow their
physiological transformation. Between the final evolution and the first city
built, many hundred thousands of years had passed. Yet, we find the Lemurians in
their sixth sub-race building their first rock-cities out of stone and lava.*
One of such great cities of primitive structure was built entirely of lava, some
thirty miles west from where Easter Island now stretches its narrow piece of
sterile ground, and was entirely destroyed by a series of volcanic eruptions.
The oldest remains of Cyclopean buildings were all the handiwork of the
Lemurians of the last sub-races; and an occultist shows, therefore, no wonder on
learning that the stone relics found on the small piece of land called Easter
Island by Captain Cook, are “very much like the walls of the Temple of
Pachacamac or the Ruins of Tia-Huanuco in Peru,” (“The Countries of the World,”
by Robert Brown, Vol. 4, p. 43); and that they are in the Cyclopean style. The
first large cities, however, appeared on that region of the continent which is
now known as the island of Madagascar. There were civilized people and savages
in
Footnote(s) ———————————————
* Our best modern novelists, who are neither Theosophists nor Spiritualists,
begin to have, nevertheless, very psychological and suggestively Occult dreams:
witness Mr. Louis Stephenson and his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, than which no
grander psychological essay on Occult lines exists. Has the rising novelist, Mr.
Rider Haggard, also had a prophetic or rather a retrospective clairvoyant dream
before he wrote “She”? His imperial Kor, the great city of the dead, whose
surviving living men sailed northwards after the plague had killed almost a
whole nation, seems to step out in its general outlines from the imperishable
pages of the old archaic records. Ayesha suggests “that those men who sailed
north may have been the fathers of the first Egyptians”; and then seems to
attempt a synopsis of certain letters of a Master quoted in “Esoteric Buddhism.”
For, she says, “Time after time have nations, ay, and rich and strong nations,
learned in the arts, been, and passed away, and been forgotten, so that no
memory of them remains. This (the nation of Kor) is but one of several; for time
eats up the work of man unless, indeed, he digs in caves like the people of Kor,
and then mayhap the sea swallows them, or the earthquake shakes them in. . . . .
Yet were not these people utterly destroyed, as I think. Some few remained in
the other cities, for their cities were many. But the barbarians. . . came down
upon them, and took their women to wife, and the race of the Amahagger that is
now is a bastard brood of the mighty sons of Kor, and behold it dwelleth in the
tombs with its fathers’ bones. . .” (pp. 180, 181.)
Here the clever novelist seems to repeat the history of all the now degraded and
down-fallen races of humanity. The Geologists and Anthropologists would place at
the head of humanity as descendants of Homo primigenius, the ape-man, of which
“no fossil remains are as yet known to us,” but (which) “were probably akin to
the gorilla and orang of the present day” (Haeckel). In answer to whose
“probably,” occultists point to another and a greater probability — the one
given in our text. (See above.)
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Vol. 2, Page 318 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
those days as there are now. Evolution achieved its work of perfection with the
former, and Karma — its work of destruction on the latter. The Australians and
their like are the descendants of those, who, instead of vivifying the spark
dropped into them by the “Flames,” extinguished it by long generations of
bestiality.* The Aryan nations could trace their descent through the Atlanteans
from the more spiritual races of the Lemurians, in whom the “Sons of Wisdom” had
personally incarnated.†
It is with the advent of the divine Dynasties that the first civilizations were
started. And while, in some regions of the Earth, a portion of mankind preferred
leading a nomadic and patriarchal life, and in others savage man was hardly
learning to build a fire and to protect himself against the Elements, his
brothers — more favoured than he by their Karma, and helped by the divine
intelligence which informed them — built cities, and cultivated arts and
sciences. Nevertheless, and civilization notwithstand-
Footnote(s) ———————————————
* See Stanza II, ante. This would account for the great difference and variation
between the intellectual capacities of races, nations, and individual men. While
incarnating, and in other cases only informing the human vehicles evolved by the
first brainless (manasless) race, the incarnating Powers and Principles had to
make their choice between, and take into account, the past Karmas of the Monads,
between which and their bodies they had to become the connecting link. Besides
which, as correctly stated in “Esoteric Buddhism” (p. 30), “the fifth principle,
or human (intellectual) soul, in the majority of mankind is not even yet fully
developed.”
† It is said by Krishna, the Logos incarnate, in the Bhagavat-gita, “The seven
great Rishis, the four preceding Manus, partaking of my nature, were born from
my mind: from them sprang (emanated or was born) the human race and the world,”
(Chap. X. Verse 6.)
Here, by the seven great Rishis, the seven great rupa hierarchies or classes of
Dhyan Chohans, are meant. Let us bear in mind that the Saptarshi (the seven
Rishis) are the regents of the seven stars of the Great Bear, therefore, of the
same nature as the angels of the planets, or the seven great Planetary Spirits.
They were all reborn, all men on earth in various Kalpas and races. Moreover,
“the four preceding Manus” are the four classes of the originally arupa gods —
the Kumaras, the Rudras, the Asuras, etc.: who are also said to have incarnated.
They are not the Prajapatis, as the first are, but their informing principles —
some of which have incarnated in men, while others have made other men simply
the vehicles of their reflections. As Krishna truly says —the same words being
repeated later by another vehicle of the logos — “I am the same to all beings. .
. . those who worship me (the 6th principle or the intellectual divine Soul,
Buddhi, made conscious by its union with the higher faculties of Manas) are in
me, and I am in them.” (Ibid, 29.) The Logos, being no personality but the
universal principle, is represented by all the divine Powers born of its mind —
the pure Flames, or, as they are called in Occultism, the “Intellectual Breaths”
— those angels who are said to have made themselves independent, i.e., passed
from the passive and quiescent, into the active state of Self-Consciousness.
When this is recognised, the true meaning of Krishna becomes comprehensible. But
see Mr. Subba Row’s excellent lecture on the Bhagavatgita, (“Theosophist,” April
1887, p. 444.)
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Vol. 2, Page 319 DEGENERATION OF MANKIND.
ing, while their pastoral brethren enjoyed wondrous powers as their birthright,
they, the builders, could now obtain theirs only gradually; even these being
generally used for power over physical nature and selfish and unholy purposes.
Civilization has ever developed the physical and the intellectual at the cost of
the psychic and spiritual. The command and the guidance over his own psychic
nature, which foolish men now associate with the supernatural, were with early
Humanity innate and congenital, and came to man as naturally as walking and
thinking. “There is no such thing as magic” philosophises “She,” the author
forgetting that “magic” in her early day still meant the great science of
wisdom, and that Ayesha could not possibly know anything of the modern
perversion of thought — “though there is such a thing as knowledge of the
Secrets of Nature.” (p. 152). But they have become “Secrets” only in our race,
and were public property with the Third.
Gradually, mankind went down in stature, for, even before the real advent of the
Fourth or Atlantean race, the majority of mankind had fallen into iniquity and
sin, save the hierarchy of the “Elect,” the followers and disciples of the “Sons
of Will and Yoga” — called later the “Sons of the Fire Mist.”
Then came the Atlanteans; the giants whose physical beauty and strength reached
their climax, in accordance with evolutionary law, toward the middle period of
their fourth sub-race. But, as said in the Commentary: —
The last survivors of the fair child of the White Island (the primitive
Sveta-dwipa) had perished ages before. Their (Lemuria’s) elect, had taken
shelter on the sacred Island (now the “fabled” Shamballah, in the Gobi Desert),
while some of their accursed races, separating from the main stock, now lived in
the jungles and underground (“cave-men”), when the golden yellow race (the
Fourth) became in its turn “black with sin.” From pole to pole the Earth had
changed her face for the third time, and was no longer inhabited by the Sons of
Sveta-dwipa, the blessed, and Adbhitanya, east and west, the first, the one and
the pure, had become corrupted. . . . The demi-gods of the Third had made room
for the semi-demons of the Fourth Race. Sveta-dwipa, whose northern parts of the
Toyambudhi the seven Kumaras (Sanaka, Sananda, Sanatana, Sanatkumara, Jata,
Vodhu, and Panchasikha) had visited, agreeably with exoteric tradition (See the
Uttara Khanda of the Padma Purana; Asiat. Researches also, Vol. XI., pp. 99,
100); the White Island had veiled her face. Her children now lived on the Black
land, wherein, later on, Daityas from the seventh Dwipa (Pushkara) and Rakshasas
from the seventh
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Vol. 2, Page 320 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
climate replaced the Saddhus and the ascetics of the Third age, who “had
descended to them from other and higher regions.” . . . .
It is evident that, taken in their dead letter, the Puranas read as an absurd
tissue of fairy tales and no better. But if one reads chapters I., II. and III.
from Book II. (Vol. II.) of Vishnu Purana and accepts verbatim its geography,
geodesy, and ethnology, in the matter of Priyavrata’s seven sons, among whom the
father divides the seven Dwipas (Continental Islands); and then proceeds to
study how the eldest son, the King of Jambu-dwipa, Agnidhra, apportioned
Jambu-dwipa among his nine sons; and then how Nabhi his son, who had a hundred
sons and apportioned all these in his turn — then the reader is likely to throw
the book away and pronounce it a farrago of nonsense. But the esoteric student
will understand that, in the days when the Puranas were written, the true
meaning was clear only to the Initiated Brahmins, who wrote those works
allegorically and would not give the whole truth to the masses. And he will
explain to the Orientalists who, beginning with Colonel Wilford and ending with
Professor Weber, made and still are making such a mess of it, that the first
three chapters (See Wilson’s trans. of Vishnu Purana Book II. et seq.) purposely
confuse the following subjects and events: —
I. The series of Kalpas or Ages (also of Races) are never taken into account;
e.g., events which have happened in one being allowed to stand along with those
which took place in another. The chronological order is entirely ignored. This
is shown by several of the Sanskrit commentators, who explain the
incompatibility of events and calculations in saying — “Whenever any
contradictions in different Puranas are observed, they are ascribed . . . to
differences of Kalpas and the like” (Vishnu and Bhagavata Puranas).
II. The several meanings of the words “Manvantara” and “Kalpa” or age, are
withheld, and the general one only given.
III. In the genealogy and geography of the Kings and their Varshas (countries)
and Dwipas, they are all allowed to be regarded as terrestrial regions.
Now, the truth is that, without entering into too minute details, it is easy and
permissible to show that: —
(a) The Seven Dwipas apportioned to Priyavrata’s septenary progeny refer to
several localities: first of all to our planetary chain. Jambu-dwipa alone
representing our globe, the six others are the (to us) invisible companion
globes of this earth. This is shown by the very nature of the allegorical and
symbolic descriptions. Jambu (dwipa) “is in the centre of all these (the
so-called insular continents) and is surrounded” by a sea of salt water
(lavana), whereas Plaksha, Salmalia,
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Vol. 2, Page 321 THE HINDU SYMBOLIZATION.
Kusa, Krauncha, Saka and Pushkara, are “surrounded severally — by great seas of
sugar-cane juice, of wine, of clarified butter, of curds, of milk,” etc., etc.,
and such like metaphorical names. (Chap. II., Book II.) This is shown
furthermore by —
(b) Bhaskara Acharya, who uses expressions from the Secret Doctrine and its
books, in his description of the sidereal position of all these dwipas: — “the
sea of milk and the sea of curds” etc., meaning the Milky Way, and the various
congeries of nebulae; the more so, since he names “the country to the south of
the equator Bhur-loka, that to the north Bhuva-loka, Swar, Mahar, Jana, Tapo and
Satya lokas”; and says: “Those lokas are gradually attained by increasing
religious merits,” i.e., they are various paradises. (See Bibliotheca Indica.
Trans. of the Goladhyaya of the Siddhanta-siromani III., 21-44).
(c) That this geographical division of seven allegorical continents, islands,
mountains, seas and countries, does not belong only to our Round nor even to our
races (the name of Bharata Varsha (India) notwithstanding), is explained in the
texts themselves by the narrator of Vishnu Purana. For he closes the first
chapter by saying: “Bharata (the son of Nabhi, who gave his name to
Bharata-Varsha or India) consigned the Kingdom to his son Sumati . . . . and
abandoned his life at Salagrama. He was afterwards born again as a religious
Brahman, in a distinguished family of ascetics . . . . under these princes
(Bharata’s descendants) Bharata Varsha was divided into nine portions, and their
descendants held successively possession of the country for seventy-one periods
of the aggregate of the four ages,” or the reign of a Manu, representing a
Mahayuga of 4,320,000 years.
But having said so much, Parasara suddenly explains that “this was the creation
of Swayambhuva Manu, by which the earth was peopled when he presided over the
first Manvantara, in the Kalpa of Varaha,” i.e., the boar incarnation, or
Avatar. Now every Brahmin knows that it is only with Vaivasvata Manu that our
Humanity began on this Earth (or Round). And if the Western reader turns to the
sub-section on “The Primeval Manus of Humanity,” he will see that Vaivasvata is
the seventh of the fourteen Manus who preside over our planetary chain during
its life cycle: i.e., that representing or standing in every Round for two Manus
of the same name (a Root and a Seed Manu), he is the Root Manu of the Fourth
Round, hence the seventh. Wilson finds in this only “an incongruity” (see his
Vishnu Purana, vol. II., p. 108, footnote), and speculates that “the
patriarchial genealogies are older than the chronological system of Manvantaras
and Kalpas,” and thus “have been rather clumsily distributed amongst the
different periods.” It is nothing of the kind.
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Vol. 2, Page 322 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
But as Orientalists know nothing of the secret teaching, they will take
everything literally, and then turn round and abuse the writers of that which
they do not comprehend!
These genealogies embrace a period of three and a half Rounds; they speak of
pre-human periods, and explain the descent into generation of every Manu — the
first manifested sparks of the One Unity — and show, furthermore, each of these
human sparks dividing into, and multiplying by, first, the Pitars, the human
ancestors, then by human Races. No being can become God, or Deva, unless he
passes through the human cycles. Therefore the Sloka says, “Happy are those who
are born, even from the (latent) condition of gods, as men, in Bharata-varsha;
as that is the way to . . . final liberation.” In Jambu-dwipa, Bharata is
considered the best of its divisions, because it is the land of works. In it
alone “it is that the succession of four Yugas (ages), the Krita, the Treta, the
Dwapara, and Kali take place”; when, therefore, Parasara, asked by Maitreya “to
give him the descriptions of the Earth,” returns again to the enumeration of the
same Dwipas with the same seas, etc., as those he had described in the
Swayambhuva Manvantara — it is simply a blind, yet, to him who reads between the
lines, the Four great Races and the Fifth are there, ay, with their
sub-divisions, islands, and continents, some of which were called by the names
of celestial lokas, and by those of other globes. Hence the confusion.
All these are called by the Orientalists “mythical” and “fabulous” islands and
lands.* Very true, some are not of this earth, but they still exist. The “White
Island” and Atala, at all events, are no myths, since the latter was the name
contemptuously applied by the earliest pioneers of the Fifth Race to the land of
Sin — Atlantis, in general, not to Plato’s island alone; and since the former
was (a) the Sveta-dwipa of theogony, and (b) Saka-dwipa, or Atlantis (its
earliest portions) in its beginnings. This was when it yet had its “seven holy
rivers that washed away all sin,” and its “seven districts, wherein there was no
dereliction of virtue, no contention, no deviation from virtue,” as it was then
inhabited by the caste of the Magas — that caste which even the Brahmins
acknowledged as not inferior to their own — and which was
Footnote(s) ———————————————
* In a lecture, Professor Pengelly, F.R.S., quoting Professor Oliver, makes him
say “that the present Atlantic islands’ Flora affords no substantial evidence of
a former direct communication with the mainland of the New World,” but himself
adds that, at the same time, “at some period of the Tertiary epoch, N.E. Asia
was united to N.W. America, perhaps by the line where the Aleutian chain of
islands now extends.” Thus Occult Science alone can reconcile the contradictions
and hesitations of modern Science. Moreover, surely the argument for the
existence of Atlantis does not rest on Botany alone.
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Vol. 2, Page 323 THE MAGIS IN THE DAYS OF KRISHNA.
the nursery of the first Zaratushta. The Brahmins are shown consulting with
Gauramukha, on Narada’s advice, who told them to invite the Magas as priests of
the Sun in the temple built by Samba (the reputed) son of Krishna, who in
reality had none. In this the Puranas are historical — allegory notwithstanding
— and Occultism is stating facts.
The whole story is told in Bhavishya Purana. It is stated that, having been
cured by Surya (the Sun) of leprosy, Samba, having built a temple dedicated to
the Sun, was looking for pious Brahmins to perform the appointed rites in it,
and receive donations made to the God. But Narada (this virgin ascetic whom one
finds in every age in the Puranas) advised him not to do so, as Manu forbade the
Brahmins to receive emoluments for the performance of religious rites. He
therefore referred Samba to Gauramukha (white face), the Purohita or family
priest of Hgrasena, King of Mathura, who would tell him whom he could best
employ. The priest directed Samba to invite the Magas, the worshippers of Surya,
to discharge the duty. Ignorant of the place they lived in, it is Surya, the Sun
himself, who directs Samba to Sakadwipa beyond the salt water. Then Samba
performs the journey, using Garuda (Vishnu’s and Krishna’s vehicle, the great
Bird) who lands him among the Magas, etc.
Now Krishna, who lived 5,000 years ago, and Narada, who is found reborn in every
cycle (or race), besides Garuda — the symbol esoterically of the great cycle —
show the allegory; yet the Magas are the Magi of Chaldea, and their class and
worship were born on the earlier Atlantis, in Saka-dwipa, the Sinless. All the
Orientalists are agreed that the Magas of Saka-dwipa are the forefathers of the
fire-worshipping Parsis. Our quarrel with them rests, as usual, on their
dwarfing hundreds of thousands to a few centuries this time: they carry the
event — Narada and Samba notwithstanding — to the days of the flight of the
Parsis to Gujerat, which is simply absurd, as that was in the VIIIth cent. of
our era. Though the Magas in the Bhavishya Purana are credited with still living
in Saka-dwipa in the day of Krishna’s Son, yet the last of it — Plato’s
“Atlantis” — had perished 6000 years before. They were Mag “late of” Saka-Dwipa,
and lived in those days in Chaldea. This is an intentional confusion, again.
The earliest pioneers of the Fourth Race were not Atlanteans, nor yet the human
Asuras and the Rakshasas which they became later. In those days large portions
of the future continent of Atlantis were yet part and parcel of the Ocean
floors. “Lemuria,” as we have called the continent of the Third Race, was then a
gigantic land.* It covered
Footnote(s) ———————————————
* As shown in the Introduction, it stands to reason that neither the name of
Lemuria nor even Atlantis are the real archaic names of the lost continents, but
have been adopted by us for the sake of clearness. Atlantis was the name given
to those [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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Vol. 2, Page 324 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the whole area of space from the foot of the Himalayas, which separated it from
the inland sea rolling its waves over what is now Tibet, Mongolia, and the great
desert of Schamo (Gobi); from Chittagong, westward to Hardwar, and eastward to
Assam. From thence, it stretched South across what is known to us as Southern
India, Ceylon, and Sumatra; then embracing on its way, as we go South,
Madagascar on its right hand and Australia and Tasmania on its left, it ran down
to within a few degrees of the Antarctic Circle; when, from Australia, an inland
region on the Mother Continent in those ages, it extended far into the Pacific
Ocean, not only beyond Rapa-nui (Teapy, or Easter Island) which now lies in
latitude 26 S., and longitude 110 W. (See Addenda to this Book II., Section,
“Proofs of the Submerged Continents.”) This statement seems corroborated by
Science, — even if only partially; as, when discussing continental trends, and
showing the infra-Arctic masses trending generally with the Meridian, several
ancient continents are generally mentioned, though inferentially. Among such the
“Mascarene continent,” which included Madagascar, stretching north and south, is
spoken of, and the existence of another ancient continent running “from
Spitzbergen to the Straits of Dover, while most of the other parts of Europe
were sea bottom,” is taught.* The latter corroborates, then, the Occult teaching
which shows the (now) polar regions as the earliest of the seven cradles of
Humanity, and as the tomb of the bulk of the mankind of that region during the
Third Race, when the gigantic continent of Lemuria began separating into smaller
continents. This is due, according to the explanation in the Commentary, to a
decrease of velocity in the earth’s rotation: —
“When the Wheel runs at the usual rate, its extremities (the poles) agree with
its middle circle (equator), when it runs slower and tilts in every direction,
there is a great disturbance on the face of the Earth. The waters flow toward
Footnote(s) ———————————————
[[Footnote continued from previous page]] portions of the submerged Fourth-Race
continent which were “beyond the pillars of Hercules,” and which happened to
keep above water after the general cataclysm. The last remnant of these —
Plato’s Atlantis, or the “Poseidon” (another substitute or rather a translation
of the real name) — was the last of it some 11,000 years ago. Most of the
correct names of the countries and islands of both continents are given in the
Puranas; but to mention them specially, as found in other more ancient works,
such as the Surya Siddhanta, would necessitate too lengthy explanations. If, in
earlier writings, the two seem to have been too faintly disconnected, this must
be due to careless reading and want of reflection. If ages hence, Europeans are
referred to as Aryans, and a reader confuses them with the Hindus and the latter
with the Fourth Race, as they live (some of them) in ancient Lanka — the blame
will not fall on the writer.
* See Professor Dana’s article, “American Journal of Science,” III, v. 442-3;
Prof. Winchell’s “World Life”; and other geological works.
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Vol. 2, Page 325 ATLANTIS — OCEAN FLOOR.
the two ends, and new lands arise in the middle belt (equatorial lands), while
those at the ends are subject to pralayas by submersion. . . .”
And again: —
. . . “Thus the wheel (the Earth) is subject to, and regulated by, the Spirit of
the Moon, for the breath of its waters (tides). Toward the close of the age
(Kalpa) of a great (root) race, the regents of the moon (the Pitar fathers, or
Pitris) begin drawing harder, and thus flatten the wheel about its belt, when it
goes down in some places and swells in others, and the swelling running toward
the extremities (poles) new lands will arise and old ones be sucked in.”
We have but to read astronomical and geological works, to see the meaning of the
above very clearly. Scientists (modern Specialists) have ascertained the
influence of the tides on the geological distribution of land and water on the
planets, and the shifting of the oceans with a corresponding subsidence and rise
of continents and new lands. Science knows, or thinks it knows, that this occurs
periodically.* Professor Todd believes he can trace the series of oscillations
backward to the periods of the earth’s first incrustation. (See “American
Naturalist,” XVIII., 15 et seq..
[5/28/2011 6:27:54 PM] Thuan Thi Do:
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd2-1-19.htm
[5/28/2011 7:28:50 PM] Thuan Thi Do:
http://www.google.com/maps?q=easter%20island&lci=com.panoramio.all&iwloc=lyrftr:com.panoramio.all,pp:298350,-27.125567,-109.276510&ll=-27.125567,-109.276510&z=10&ei=Ha_hTeu2Iu_RiALJ3emVBg&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=photo-link&cd=1&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CDUQ8wEoADAA
[5/28/2011 8:02:28 PM] Thuan Thi Do: 2. TVT: câu 252:
252. Hăy đứng vững vàng! Bây giờ con đă đến gần cửa giữa, cửa của đau khổ với
muôn ngàn cạm bẫy.
253. Hăy làm chủ tư tưởng của con, hỡi kẻ phấn đấu để đạt sự toàn thiện, nếu con
muốn vượt qua cửa đó.
254. Hăy làm chủ Hồn con, hỡi kẻ đi t́m Chân Lư bất tử, nếu con muốn đạt đến mục
đích.
255. Hăy tập trung cái nh́n của Linh Hồn vào ánh sáng tinh khiết duy nhất, thứ
ánh sáng không ǵ kích thích được và hăy đem Ch́a Khoá Vàng của con ra mà sử
dụng.
Đức Aryasanga nói thật đúng về muôn ngàn cạm bẫy, v́ thường thí sinh tin rằng
ḿnh đă đạt được tính đoạn tuyệt hay từ bỏ, sẽ thấy nhiều cái bẫy giống y như
thế tái hiện một cách khó phân biệt và lúc nào cũng bám sát theo bước chân của
Y. Chính Linh Hồn hay Thượng Trí phải được Thể Bồ Đề chế ngự. Như chúng ta đă
thấy, đời sống tại Cơi Bồ Đề bắt đầu từ Cuộc Điểm Đạo lần thứ Nhứt, nếu không
được sớm hơn, và thí sinh vào Cơi Bồ Đề rồi sẽ tiến lên từ Cảnh nầy đến Cảnh
khác. Muốn cho sự thăng tiến nầy được hoàn toàn, chính Linh Hồn hay Thượng Trí
phải tham dự vào và trở thành kẻ phụng sự cho Nguyên Lư cao siêu đó. Công việc
nầy hoàn tất, thí sinh mới sẵn sàng đi vào Cơi kế đó; Y sẽ được Điểm Đạo lần thứ
Tư và sẽ vượt qua một ngưỡng cửa mới.
Ư nghĩa thật sự của Vairagya ở đây là Ánh Sáng không ǵ kích thích được, Ánh
Sáng không thể bị lu mờ.
[5/28/2011 8:02:34 PM] Van Atman: TVT
http://hoangvan.net/thongthienhoc/GiangLyTiengNoiVoThinh.htm
CHƯƠNG 5
CỬA THỨ NĂM VÀ THỨ SÁU
256. Công việc khó khăn đă hoàn tất, sự nhọc nhằn của con hầu như đă chấm dứt.
Cái hố rộng há miệng để nuốt gần như đă vượt qua khỏi.
Duoi Chan Thay:
http://thongthienhoc.com/dc%20thay%20glnoidung.htm#chuong%209
C. W. L. Tóm lại, với sự luyện tập một ít lâu, không khó ǵ cho chúng ta đặng
biết rằng chúng ta không phải là Xác Thân, nó chỉ là cái áo mặc ngoài thôi. C̣n
Thể Vía - những cảm xúc và dục vọng của chúng ta - lại khó biết hơn v́ dường như
nó là thành phần của bản ngă sâu kín hơn hết của chúng ta. Mỗi ngày, ở đâu người
ta cũng gặp những người có cảm tưởng rằng họ là những t́nh cảm, dục vọng của họ.
Ở vài người bị t́nh cảm, dục vọng choán đầy cả tâm hồn họ cho đến đổi nếu cố
gắng dùng trí tưởng tượng tách biệt chúng riêng ra, th́ họ không c̣n cái chi cả:
trọn cả con người họ chỉ là dục vọng và cảm xúc thôi. Một người như thế thật khó
tách riêng y ra với Thể Vía của y; nhưng đó là điều phải thực hiện. Cái Vía luôn
luôn thay đổi tánh t́nh của nó và sự kiện này giúp con người hiểu rằng nó (Cái
Vía) không phải là Chơn Ngă, cái Bản Ngă thật. Chính là Linh hồn không hề thay
đổi; ước vọng của nó vốn bất di bất dịch - nó muốn tiến hóa để giúp đỡ Linh Hồn
khác theo đuổi con Đường Đạo do các Chơn Sư của chúng ta đă vạch ra. Vậy thật rơ
ràng và chắc chắn rằng Thể T́nh Cảm này không phải là Chơn Ngă.
[5/28/2011 8:05:09 PM] Van Atman: 256) Công việc khó khăn đă hoàn tất, sự nhọc
nhằn của con đă gần chấm dứt. Cái hố rộng há miệng để nuốt con hầu như đă vượt
qua khỏi.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
257) Bây giờ con đă qua khỏi hào thành bao quanh cửa nhân dục. Bây giờ con đă
thắng được Ma vương và lũ bộ hạ hung hăng của nó.
258)Con đă rửa tâm con sạch hết vết nhơ và con đă nặn ra hết máu của dục vọng ô
trược.
C. W. L. Công việc khó khăn gần như hoàn thành đối với thí sinh; chúng ta nên
hiểu cho thật đúng nghĩa câu ấy. Đấng Nirmanakaya ở trên địa vị vô cùng cao cả
vẫn c̣n làm việc, và người ta có thể nói chính Đức Thượng Đế cũng vẫn làm việc.
Nhưng có lẽ chúng ta phải phân biệt công việc khó nhọc để khai trừ những tật xấu
của phàm nhơn với công việc vinh quang được theo đuổi trên các cơi cao, khi phàm
nhơn đă được chế ngự.
Đối với những cố gắng, chúng ta cũng cần phân biệt như thế. Sự làm việc không
ngừng là một thử thách khó khăn đối với xác thân, nhưng trên cơi linh hồn sự làm
việc là một lạc thú hoàn toàn; ở đó không hề có sự khác biệt giữa việc làm và
tṛ chơi như chúng ta biết tại các cơi thấp. Khi một người thấy được sự hi sinh
vĩ đại của Đức Thượng Đế và cách mà các vị Chơn Sư tận tụy với công nghiệp của
các Ngài, y không thể không dấn thân vào công việc đó và hết ḷng trợ giúp theo
khả năng ḿnh.
Ở đây c̣n vấn đề một người chưa hoàn toàn trong sạch, v́ y c̣n mang nhiều dấu
vết ích kỷ. Một tư tưởng c̣n một chút dấu vết đó vẫn là chưa trong sạch, dù có
nhiều tính tốt khác. Đó có thể là một cảm thức kiêu căng nhỏ nhặt như : "Người
ta nghĩ tốt về ḿnh nhờ việc làm nầy". Trên con Đường Đạo dẫn đến các cơi cao
siêu, đó là điều mà người ta gọi là thiếu trong sạch. Chẳng những chúng ta phải
xa lánh nó, mà c̣n phải làm sao cho nó đừng bao giờ xâm phạm đến chúng ta nữa.
[5/28/2011 8:55:31 PM] TrúcLâm: Phần thảo luận tự do, xin kể chuyện về Khóa
Thiền Vipassana mà tôi được tham dự vừa rồi nghe các anh chị.