Họp Thông Thiên Học ngày 2 tháng 10 năm 2010
[10/2/2010 5:01:15 PM] *** Conference call ***
[10/2/2010 5:06:02 PM] Van Atman: 10. When they (the Rupas) were destroyed,
Mother-earth remained bare,* she asked to be dried (a).†
(a) The time for its incrustation had arrived. The waters had separated and the
process was started. It was the beginning of a new life. This is what one key
divulges to us. Another key teaches the origin of Water, its admixture with Fire
(liquid fire it calls it),‡ and enters upon an alchemical description of the
progeny of the two — solid matter such as minerals and earths. From the “Waters
of Space,” the progeny of the male Spirit-Fire and the female (gaseous) Water
has become the Oceanic expanse on Earth. Varuna is dragged down from the
infinite Space, to reign as Neptune over the finite Seas. As always, the popular
fancy is found to be based on a strictly scientific foundation.
Water is the symbol of the female element everywhere; mater, from which the
letter M, is derived pictorially from a water hieroglyph. It is the universal
matrix or the “Great Deep.” Venus, the great Mother-Virgin, issues forth from
the Sea-wave, and Cupid or Eros is her son. But Venus is the later mythological
variant of Gaia (or Gaea), the Earth, which, in its higher aspect is Nature
(Prakriti), and metaphysically Aditi, and even Mulaprakriti, the root of
Prakriti or its noumenon.
Hence Cupid or Love in his primitive sense is Eros, the Divine Will, or Desire
of manifesting itself through visible creation. Thence Fohat, the prototype of
Eros, becomes on Earth the great power “Life-electricity,” or the Spirit of
“Life-giving.” Let us remember the Greek Theogony and enter into the spirit of
its philosophy. We are taught by the Greeks (See “Iliad” IV., 201, 246) that all
things, gods included, owe their being to the Ocean and his wife Tethys, the
latter being Gaea, the Earth or Nature. But who is Ocean? Ocean is the
immeasurable space (Spirit in Chaos), which is the Deity (see Book I.); and
Tethys is not the Earth, but primordial matter in the process of formation. In
our case it is no longer Aditi-Gaea who begets Ouranos or Varuna, the chief
Aditya among the seven planetary gods, but Prakriti, materialised and localised.
The Moon, masculine in its theogonic character, is,
Footnote(s) ———————————————
* The goddess who gave birth to these primordial monsters, in the account of
Berosus, was Thallath, in Greek Thalassa, “the Sea.”
† See, for comparison, the account of creation by Berosus (Alexander Polyhistor)
and the hideous beings born from the two-fold principle (Earth and Water) in the
Abyss of primordial creation: Neras (Centaurs, men with the limbs of horses and
human bodies), and Kimnaras (men with the heads of horses) created by Brahma in
the commencement of the Kalpa.
‡ See Commentary following Sloka 18.
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Vol. 2, Page 66 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
in its cosmic aspect only, the female generative principle, as the Sun is the
male emblem thereof. Water is the progeny of the Moon, an androgyne deity with
every nation.
Evolution proceeds on the laws of analogy in Kosmos as in the formation of the
smallest globe. Thus the above, applying to the modus operandi at the time when
the Universe was appearing, applies also in the case of our Earth’s formation.
This Stanza opens by speaking of thirty crores, 30,000,000, of years. We may be
asked — What could the ancients know of the duration of geological periods, when
no modern scientist or mathematician is able to calculate their duration with
anything like approximate accuracy? Whether they had or had not better means
(and it is maintained that they had them in their Zodiacs), still the chronology
of the ancient Brahmins shall now be given as faithfully as possible.
———————
The Chronology of the Brahmins.
No greater riddle exists in science, no problem is more hopelessly insoluble,
than the question: How old — even approximately — are the Sun and Moon, the
Earth and Man? What does modern science know of the duration of the ages of the
World, or even of the length of geological periods?
Nothing; absolutely nothing.
If one turns to science for chronological information, one is told by those who
are straightforward and truthful, as for instance Mr. Pengelly, the eminent
geologist, “We do not know.”* One will learn that, so far, no trustworthy
numerical estimate of the ages of the world and man could be made, and that both
geology and anthropology are at sea. Yet when a student of esoteric philosophy
presumes to bring forward the teachings of Occult Science, he is at once sat
upon. Why should this be so, since, when reduced to their own physical methods,
the greatest scientists have failed to arrive even at an approximate agreement?
It is true that science can hardly be blamed for it. Indeed, in the Cimmerian
darkness of the prehistoric ages, the explorers are lost in a labyrinth, whose
great corridors are doorless, allowing no visible exit into the Archaic past.
Lost in the maze of their own conflicting speculations, rejecting, as they have
always done, the evidence of Eastern tradition, without any clue, or one single
certain milestone to guide them, what can geologists or anthropologists do but
pick up the slender
Footnote(s) ———————————————
* For a similar admission see Prof. Lefevre’s Philosophy, p. 481.
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Vol. 2, Page 67 THE RACE THAT NEVER DIES.
thread of Ariadne where they first perceive it, and then proceed at perfect
random? Therefore we are first told that the farthest date to which documentary
record extends is now generally regarded by Anthropology as but “the earliest
distinctly visible point of the pre-historic period.” (Encyclopaedia
Britannica.)
At the same time it is confessed that “beyond that period stretches back a vast
indefinite series of prehistoric ages.” (Ibid.)
It is with those specified “Ages” that we shall begin. They are “prehistoric” to
the naked eye of matter only. To the spiritual eagle eye of the seer and the
prophet of every race, Ariadne’s thread stretches beyond that “historic period”
without break or flaw, surely and steadily, into the very night of time; and the
hand which holds it is too mighty to drop it, or even let it break. Records
exist, although they may be rejected as fanciful by the profane; though many of
them are tacitly accepted by philosophers and men of great learning, and meet
with an unvarying refusal only from the official and collective body of orthodox
science. And since the latter refuses to give us even an approximate idea of the
duration of the geological ages — save in a few conflicting and contradictory
hypotheses — let us see what Aryan philosophy can teach us.
Such computations as are given in Manu and the Puranas — save trifling and most
evidently intentional exaggerations — are, as already stated, almost identical
with those taught in esoteric philosophy. This may be seen by comparing the two
in any Hindu calendar of recognised orthodoxy.
The best and most complete of all such calendars, at present, as vouched for by
the learned Brahmins of Southern India, is the already mentioned Tamil calendar
called the “Tirukkanda Panchanga,” compiled, as we are told, from, and in full
accordance with, secret fragments of Asuramaya’s data. As Asuramaya is said to
have been the greatest astronomer, so he is whispered to have also been the most
powerful “Sorcerer” of the “White Island, which had become Black with sin,”
i.e., of the islands of Atlantis.
The “White Island” is a symbolical name. Asuramaya is said to have lived (see
the tradition of Jhana-bhaskara) in Romaka-pura in the West: because the name is
an allusion to the land and cradle of the “Sweat-born” of the Third Race. That
land or continent had disappeared ages before Asuramaya lived, since he was an
Atlantean; but he was a direct descendant of the Wise Race, the Race that never
dies. Many are the legends concerning this hero, the pupil of Surya (the
Sun-God) himself, as the Indian accounts allege. It matters little whether he
lived on one or another island, but the question is to prove that he was no
myth, as Dr. Weber and others would make him. The
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Vol. 2, Page 68 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
fact of “Romaka-pura in the West” being named as the birth-place of this hero of
the archaic ages, is the more interesting because it is so very suggestive of
the esoteric teaching about the “Sweat-born” Races, the men born from the pores
of their parents. “Romakupas” means “hair-pores” in Sanskrit. In Mahabharata
XII. 10,308, a people named Raumyas are said to have been created from the pores
of Virabhadara, the terrible giant, who destroyed Daksha’s sacrifice. Other
tribes and people are also represented as born in this way. All these are
references to the later Second and the earlier Third Root Races.
The following figures are from the calendar just referred to; a footnote marks
the points of disagreement with the figures of the Arya Samaj school: —
I. From the beginning of cosmic evolution,* up
to the Hindu year Tarana (or 1887) .................... 1,955,884,687 years.
II. The (astral) mineral, vegetable and animal
kingdoms up to Man, have taken to evolve† ........ 300,000,000 years.
III. Time, from the first appearance of
“Humanity” (on planetary chain)........................... 1,664,500,987 years.‡
Footnote(s) ———————————————
* The esoteric doctrine says that this “cosmic evolution” refers only to our
solar system; while exoteric Hinduism makes the figures refer, if we do not
mistake, to the whole Universal System.
† Another point of disagreement. Occultism says: “The astral prototypes of the
mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms up to man have taken that time (300
million years) to evolve, re-forming out of the cast-off materials of the
preceding Round, which, though very dense and physical in their own cycle, are
relatively ethereal as compared with the materiality of our present middle
Round. At the expiration of these 300 million years, Nature, on the way to the
physical and material, down the arc of descent, begins with mankind and works
downwards, hardening or materialising forms as it proceeds. Thus the fossils
found in strata, to which an antiquity, not of eighteen, but of many hundreds of
millions of years, must be ascribed, belong in reality to forms of the preceding
Round, which, while living, were far more ethereal than physical, as we know the
physical. That we perceive and disinter them as tangible forms, is due to the
process of materialization or crystallization referred to, which took place
subsequently, at the beginning of the Fourth Round, and reached its maximum
after the appearance of man, proceeding parallel with his physical evolution.
This alone illustrates the fact that the degree of materiality of the Earth
changes pari passu with that of its inhabitants. And thus man now finds, as
tangible fossils, what were once the (to his present senses) ethereal forms of
the lower kingdoms. The above Brahmanical figures refer to evolution beginning
on Globe A, and in the First Round. In this Volume we speak only of this, the
Fourth Round.”
‡ This difference and the change of cyphers in the last three triplets of
figures, the writer cannot undertake to account for. According to every
calculation, once the three hundred millions are subtracted, the figures ought
to stand, 1,655,884,687. But they are given as stated in the Tamil calendar
above-named and as they were translated. The school of the late Pandit Dayanand
Saraswati, founder of the Arya Samaj, gives a date of 1,960,852,987. See the
“Arya Magazine” of Lahore, the cover of which bears the words: “Aryan era
1,960,852,987.”
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Vol. 2, Page 69 THE VARIOUS PRALAYAS.
IV. The number that elapsed since the “Vaivasvata Manvantara”* — or the human
period —
up to the year 1887, is just .......................... 18,618,728 years.
V. The full period of one Manvantara is ..... 308,448,000 years.
VI. 14 “Manvantaras” plus the period of one Satya Yuga make one day of Brahma,
or
complete Manvantara and make .................. 4,320,000,000 years.
Therefore a Maha-Yuga consists of ............. 4,320,000 years.†
The year 1887 is from the commencement of
Kali-Yuga ..................................................... 4,989 years.
To make this still clearer in its details, the following computations by Rao
Bahadur P. Sreenivas Row, are given from the “Theosophist” of November, 1885.
Mortal years.
360 days of mortals make a year .............................................. 1
Krita Yuga contains ...................................................
1,728,000
Treta Yuga contains .................................................. 1,296,000
Dwapara Yuga contains ............................................... 864,000
Kali Yuga contains .......................................................
432,000
The total of the said four Yugas constitute a
Maha Yuga ...............................................................
4,320,000
Seventy-one of such Maha-Yugas form the
period of the reign of one Manu ............................... 306,720,000
The reign of 14 Manus embraces the duration
of 994 Maha-Yugas, which is equal to ....................... 4,294,080,000
Footnote(s) ———————————————
* Vaivasvata Manu is the one human being — some versions add to him the seven
Rishis — who in the Matsya Avatar allegory is saved from the Deluge in a boat,
like Noah in the Ark. Therefore, this Vaivasvata Manvantara would be the
“post-Diluvian” period. This, however, does not refer to the later “Atlantean”
or Noah’s deluge, nor to the Cosmic Deluge or Pralaya of obscuration, which
preceded our Round, but to the appearance of mankind in the latter Round. There
is a great difference made, however, between the “Naimitika,” occasional or
incidental, “Prakritika,” elemental, “Atyantika,” the absolute, and “Nitya,” the
perpetual Pralaya; the latter being described as “Brahma’s contingent
recoalescence of the Universe at the end of Brahma’s Day.” The question was
raised by a learned Brahmin Theosophist: “Whether there is such a thing as
Cosmic Pralaya; because, otherwise, the Logos (Krishna) would have to be reborn,
and he is Aja (unborn).” We cannot see why. The Logos is said to be born only
metaphorically, as the Sun is born daily, or rather a beam of that Sun is born
in the morning and is said to die when it disappears, whereas it is simply
reabsorbed into the parent essence. Cosmic Pralaya is for things visible, not
for the Arupa, formless, world. The Cosmic or Universal Pralaya comes only at
the end of one hundred years of Brahma; when the Universal dissolution is said
to take place. Then the Avyaya, say the exoteric scriptures, the eternal life
symbolized by Vishnu, assuming the character of Rudra, the Destroyer, enters
into the Seven Rays of the Sun and drinks up all the waters of the Universe.
“Thus fed, the seven solar Rays dilate to seven suns and set fire to the whole
Cosmos. . . . . .”
† Since a Maha-Yuga is the 1,000th part of a day of Brahma.
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Vol. 2, Page 70 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Add Sandhis, i.e., intervals between the reign of each Manu, which amount to six
Maha-Yugas, equal to ..... 25,920,000
The total of these reigns and interregnums of 14 Manus, is 1,000 Maha-Yugas,
which constitute a Kalpa, i.e., one day of Brahma ..... 4,320,000,000
As Brahma’s Night is of equal duration, one Day and Night of Brahma would
contain .... 8,640,000,000
360 of such days and nights make one year of Brahma make ..... 3,110,400,000,000
100 such years constitute the whole period of Brahma’s age, i.e., Maha-Kalpa
..... 311,040,000,000,000
These are the exoteric figures accepted throughout India, and they dovetail
pretty nearly with those of the Secret works. The latter, moreover, amplify them
by a division into a number of esoteric cycles, never mentioned in Brahmanical
popular writings — one of which, the division of the Yugas into racial cycles,
is given elsewhere as an instance. The rest, in their details, have of course
never been made public. They are, nevertheless, known to every “Twice-born”
(Dwija, or Initiated) Brahmin, and the Puranas contain references to some of
them in veiled terms, which no matter-of-fact Orientalist has yet endeavoured to
make out, nor could he if he would.
These sacred astronomical cycles are of immense antiquity, and most of them
pertain, as stated, to the calculations of Narada and Asuramaya. The latter has
the reputation of a giant and a sorcerer. But the antediluvian giants (the
Gibborim of the Bible) were not all bad or Sorcerers, as Christian Theology,
which sees in every Occultist a servant of the Evil one, would have it; nor were
they worse than many of “the faithful sons of the Church.” A Torquemada and a
Catherine de Medicis certainly did more harm in their day and in the name of
their Master than any Atlantean giant or demigod of antiquity ever did; whether
his name was Cyclops, or Medusa, or yet the Orphic Titan, the anguipedal monster
known as Ephialtes. There were good “giants” in days of old just as there are
bad “pigmies” now; and the Rakshasas and Yakshas of Lanka are no worse than our
modern dynamiters, and certain Christian and civilised generals during modern
wars. Nor are they myths. “He who would laugh at Briareus and Orion ought to
abstain from going to, or even talking of, Karnac or Stonehenge,” remarks
somewhere a modern writer.
As the Brahmanical figures given above are approximately the basic calculations
of our esoteric system, the reader is requested to carefully keep them in mind.
In the “Encyclopaedia Britannica” one finds, as the last word of science, that
the antiquity of man is allowed to stretch only over “tens of thou-
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Vol. 2, Page 71 SCIENTIFIC SELF-COMPLACENCE.
sands of years.”* It becomes evident that as these figures may be made to
fluctuate between 10,000 and 100,000, therefore they mean very little if
anything, and only render still denser the darkness surrounding the question.
Moreover, what matters it that science places the birth of man in the “pre- or
post-glacial drift,” if we are told at the same time that the so-called “ice
age” is simply a long succession of ages which “shaded without abrupt change of
any kind into what is termed the human or Recent period . . . the overlapping of
geological periods having been the rule from the beginning of time.” The latter
“rule” only results in the still more puzzling, even if strictly scientific and
correct, information, that “even to-day man is contemporary with the ice-age in
the Alpine valleys and in the Finmark.Ӡ
Thus, had it not been for the lessons taught by the Secret Doctrine, and even by
exoteric Hinduism and its traditions, we should be left to this day to float in
perplexed uncertainty between the indefinite ages of one school of science, the
“tens of thousands” of years of the other, and the 6,000 years of the Bible
interpreters. This is one of the several reasons why, with all the respect due
to the conclusions of the men of learning of our modern day, we are forced to
ignore them in all such questions of pre-historic antiquity.
Modern Geology and Anthropology must, of course, disagree with our views. But
Occultism will find as many weapons against these two sciences as it has against
astronomical and physical theories, in spite of Mr. Laing’s assurances that‡ “in
(chronological) calculations of this sort, concerning older and later
formations, there is no theory, and they are based on positive facts, limited
only by a certain possible (?) amount of error either way,” occultism will
prove, scientific confessions in hand, that geology is very much in error, and
very often even more so than Astronomy. In this very passage by Mr. Laing, which
gives to Geology pre-eminence for correctness over Astronomy, we find a passage
in flagrant contradiction to the admissions of the best Geologists themselves.
Says the author —
“In short, the conclusions of Geology, at any rate up to the Silurian period,§
when the present order of things was fairly inaugurated, are approximate (truly
so) facts and not theories, while the astronomical conclusions are theories
based on data so uncertain, that while in some
Footnote(s) ———————————————
* See article “Geology,” in “Encyclopaedia Britannica.”
† This allows a chance even to the Biblical “Adam Chronology” of 6,000 years.
(Ibid.)
‡ See his “Modern Science and Modern Thought.”
§ To the Silurian period as regards Molluscs and Animal life — granted; but what
do they know of man?
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Vol. 2, Page 72 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
cases they give results incredibly short . . . in others they give results
almost incredibly long.”
After which, the reader is advised that the safest course “seems to be to assume
that Geology really proves the duration of the present order of things to have
been somewhere over 100 millions of years,” as “Astronomy gives an enormous
though unknown time in the past, and to come in the future, for the birth,
growth, maturity, decline, and death of the Solar System, of which our Earth is
a small planet now passing through the habitable phase.” (p. 49.)
Judging from past experience, we do not entertain the slightest doubt that, once
called upon to answer “the absurd unscientific and preposterous claims of
exoteric (and esoteric) Aryan chronology,” the scientist of “the results
incredibly short,” i.e., only 15,000,000 years, and the scientist, who “would
require 600,000,000 years,” together with those who accept Mr. Huxley’s figures
of 1,000,000,000 “since sedimentation began in Europe” (World Life), would all
be as dogmatic one as the other. Nor would they fail to remind the Occultist and
the Brahmin, that it is the modern men of science alone who represent exact
science, whose duty it is to fight inaccuracy and superstition.
The earth is passing through the “habitable phase” only for the present order of
things, and as far as our present mankind is concerned with its actual “coats of
skin” and phosphorus for bones and brain.
We are ready to concede the 100 millions of years offered by Geology, since we
are taught that our present physical mankind — or the Vaivasvata humanity —
began only 18 millions of years ago. But Geology has no facts to give us for the
duration of geological periods, as we have shown, no more indeed than has
Astronomy. The authentic letter from Mr. W. Pengelly, F.R.S., quoted elsewhere,
says that: “It is at present, and perhaps always will be, IMPOSSIBLE to reduce,
even approximately, geological time into years or even into millenniums.” And
having never, hitherto, excavated a fossil man of any other than the present
form — what does Geology know of him? It has traced zones or strata and, with
these, primordial zoological life, down to the Silurian. When it has, in the
same way, traced man down to his primordial protoplasmic form, then we will
admit that it may know something of primordial man. If it is not very material
“to the bearings of modern scientific discovery on modern thought,” whether “man
has existed in state of constant though slow progression for the last 50,000
years of period of 15 millions, or for the last 500,000 years of a period of 150
millions” (“Modern Science, etc.” p. 49), as Mr. S. Laing tells his readers, it
is very much so for the claims of the Occultists. Unless the latter show that it
is a possibility, if not a perfect certainty, that man
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Vol. 2, Page 73 COSMOGONY, AN INTELLIGENT PLAN.
lived 18 millions of years ago, the Secret Doctrine might as well have remained
unwritten. An attempt must, therefore, be made in this direction, and it is our
modern geologists and men of science generally who will be brought to testify to
this fact in the third part of this volume. Meanwhile, and notwithstanding the
fact that Hindu Chronology is constantly represented by the Orientalists as a
fiction based on no “actual computation,”* but simply a “childish boasting,” it
is nevertheless often twisted out of recognition to make it yield to, and fit in
with, Western theories. No figures have ever been more meddled with and tortured
than the famous 4, 3, 2, followed by cyphers of the Yugas and Maha-Yugas.
As the whole cycle of prehistoric events, such as the evolution and
transformation of Races and the extreme antiquity of man, hangs upon the said
Chronology, it becomes extremely important to check it by other existing
calculations. If the Eastern Chronology is rejected, we shall at least have the
consolation of proving that no other — whether the figures of Science or of the
Churches — is one whit more reliable. As Professor Max Muller expresses it, it
is often as useful to prove what a thing is not as to show what it may be. And
once we succeed in pointing out the fallacies of both Christian and scientific
computations — by allowing them a fair chance of comparison with our Chronology
— neither of the two will have a reasonable ground to stand upon, in pronouncing
the esoteric figures less reliable than its own.
We may here refer the reader to our earlier work “Isis Unveiled,” Vol. I., p.
32, for some remarks concerning the figures which were cited a few pages back.
To-day a few more facts may be added to the information there given, which is
already known to every Orientalist. The sacredness of the cycle of 4320, with
additional cyphers, lies in the fact that the figures which compose it, taken
separately or joined in various combinations, are each and all symbolical of the
greatest mysteries in Nature. Indeed, whether one takes the 4 separately, or the
3 by itself, or the two together making 7, or again the three added together and
yielding 9, all these numbers have their application in the most sacred and
occult things, and record the workings of Nature in her eternally periodical
phenomena. They are never erring, perpetually recurring numbers, unveiling, to
him who studies the secrets of Nature, a truly divine System, an intelligent
plan in Cosmogony, which results in natural cosmic divisions of times, seasons,
invisible influences, astronomical phenomena, with their action and reaction on
terrestrial and even moral nature; on
Footnote(s) ———————————————
* Wilson’s “Translation of Vishnu Purana,” Vol. I., pp. 50, 51.
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Vol. 2, Page 74 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
birth, death, and growth, on health and disease. All these natural events are
based and depend upon cyclical processes in the Kosmos itself, producing
periodic agencies which, acting from without, affect the Earth and all that
lives and breathes on it, from one end to the other of any Manvantara. Causes
and effects are esoteric, exoteric, and endexoteric, so to say.
In Isis Unveiled we wrote that which we now repeat: — “We are at the bottom of a
cycle and evidently in a transitory state. Plato divides the intellectual
progress of the universe during every cycle into fertile and barren periods. In
the sublunary regions, the spheres of the various elements remain eternally in
perfect harmony with the divine nature, he says; ‘but their parts,’ owing to a
too close proximity to earth, and their commingling with the earthly (which is
matter, and therefore the realm of evil), ‘are sometimes according, and
sometimes contrary to (divine) nature.’ When those circulations — which Eliphas
Levi calls ‘currents of the astral light’ — in the universal ether which
contains in itself every element, take place in harmony with the divine spirit,
our earth and everything pertaining to it enjoys a fertile period. The occult
powers of plants, animals, and minerals magically sympathize with the ‘ superior
natures,’ and the divine soul of man is in perfect intelligence with these
‘inferior’ ones. But during the barren periods, the latter lose their magic
sympathy, and the spiritual sight of the majority of mankind is so blinded as to
lose every notion of the superior powers of its own divine spirit. We are in a
barren period: the eighteenth century, during which the malignant fever of
scepticism broke out so irrepressibly, has entailed unbelief as an hereditary
disease upon the nineteenth. The divine intellect is veiled in man; his animal
brain alone philosophizes.” And philosophizing alone, how can it understand the
“Soul Doctrine”?
In order not to break the thread of the narrative we shall give some striking
proofs of these cyclic laws in Part II., proceeding meanwhile with our
explanations of geological and racial cycles.
[10/2/2010 5:08:30 PM] TrúcLâm: Xin cám ơn chị Thuấn nhiều lắm, về tư liệu mà
chị đă gởi
[10/2/2010 5:09:12 PM] TrúcLâm: Nhưng, xin chị chuyển qua Tiếng Việt th́ sẽ tốt
hơn chị ạ
[10/2/2010 5:09:29 PM] TrúcLâm: cả 24 bài
[10/2/2010 5:20:44 PM] Van Atman: 198. Con lựa con Đường nào, hỡi con người có
hùng tâm đại chí ? Bốn bực Thiền Định của Nhăn Pháp (Samtan) (4) ? Hay là con
đường Ba la mật đa (5) có sáu hạnh, sáu cửa đức hạnh đó dắt đến Bồ Đề và đến
Prajna, nấc thứ bảy của Minh Triết ?
199. Con đường gay go của bốn bực thiền định quanh co khúc khuỷu và dốc đứng. Kẻ
leo lên được đến đỉnh chí cao của con đường này quả thật là vị Đại Sĩ.
200. Muốn đến đỉnh các Ba la mật đa con phải trải qua một con đường gay go hơn
nữa. Con phải mở một con đường xuyên qua bảy cửa có những Hung Thần đa mưu, túc
trí, hiện thân của dục vọng đóng giữ.
[10/2/2010 5:47:42 PM] Thuan Thi Do: anh VAn add dum Bao Khanh nhe
[10/2/2010 5:48:07 PM] Thuan Thi Do: anh Van add dum Diana Nguyen
[10/2/2010 5:49:20 PM] *** Thuan Thi Do added Diana Nguyen ***
[10/2/2010 6:10:42 PM] Van Atman: 11. The Lord of the Lords came. From her body
he separated the waters, and that was heaven above, the first heaven (the
atmosphere, or the air, the firmament) (a).
———————
(a) Here tradition falls again into the Universal. As in the earliest version,
repeated in the Puranas, so in the latest, the Mosaic account. In the first it
is said: “He the Lord” (the god who has the form of Brahma) “when the world had
become one ocean (Harivamsa I. 36) concluding that within the waters lay the
earth, and desirous to raise it up,” to separate it, “created himself in another
form. As in the preceding Kalpa (Manvantara) he had assumed the shape of a
tortoise, so in this one he took the shape of a boar, etc. etc.” In the
Elohistic “creation” (Genesis, verses 6, 7, 8, and 9) “God” creates a firmament
in the midst of the waters . . . . . and says “let dry land appear.” And now
comes the traditional peg whereunto is hung the esoteric portion of the
Kabalistic interpretation.
[10/2/2010 6:11:34 PM] Van Atman: 198. Con lựa con Đường nào, hỡi con người có
hùng tâm đại chí ? Bốn bực Thiền Định của Nhăn Pháp (Samtan) (4) ? Hay là con
đường Ba la mật đa (5) có sáu hạnh, sáu cửa đức hạnh đó dắt đến Bồ Đề và đến
Prajna, nấc thứ bảy của Minh Triết ?
199. Con đường gay go của bốn bực thiền định quanh co khúc khuỷu và dốc đứng. Kẻ
leo lên được đến đỉnh chí cao của con đường này quả thật là vị Đại Sĩ.
200. Muốn đến đỉnh các Ba la mật đa con phải trải qua một con đường gay go hơn
nữa. Con phải mở một con đường xuyên qua bảy cửa có những Hung Thần đa mưu, túc
trí, hiện thân của dục vọng đóng giữ.
[10/2/2010 6:15:04 PM] Van Atman: Phần nầy ít đề cập đến tứ thiền mà nói đến các
Ba la mật đa nhiều hơn. Sự tham thiền hay dhyana luôn luôn có ba bậc, như chúng
ta đă thấy khi nghiên cứu phần thứ nhứt và ba bậc này gọi chung lại là sannyama.
Ba bậc đó là sự định trí, tham thiền và nhập định, nhưng trước ba giai đoạn nầy
phải tập giai đoạn sơ khởi là pratyahara thành bốn giai đoạn tất cả. Chúng ta
cũng đă nghiên cứu các Ba la mật đa ở phần thứ hai. Ở đây con đường dắt đến sự
hoạch đắc các đức hạnh đó được cho biết xuyên qua bảy cửa và tại mỗi cửa thí
sinh phải chiến đấu và tiêu diệt một lỗi hay một tội lớn lao.
Chúng ta có thể cảm thấy hơi bối rối khi gặp phải sự tương phản giữa một đàng là
sự tham thiền và đàng khác là sự phát triển các đức hạnh ấy, v́ cả hai đều cần
thiết. Một người không thể tham thiền được mà không có các đức tánh đó, và một
người không thể phát triển hoàn toàn các đức tánh đó mà không cần tham thiền. Có
thể trong thời kỳ ấy Đức Aryasanga muốn cho thấy sự tương phản giữa hai con
đường sống ẩn dật của người lẫn tránh sự phiền toái và những thú vui của thế
gian để tham thiền trong chốn cô tịch và con đường của những người theo đuổi đời
sống tinh thần, mà vẫn vừa làm mọi việc trong cuộc sống hằng ngày và vừa thực
hành những lư tưởng cao siêu. Trong trường hợp nầy, Đức Aryasanga nói về con
đường thứ nhứt như một con đường cao cả, nhưng con đường thứ hai lại c̣n cao
thượng khó khăn hơn. Kinh sách Ấn Độ vẫn thường nhắc đến những người đă đạt đến
chỗ trọn lành, dù họ vẫn dấn thân trong công việc thường ngày. Các vị Đại Sư của
Mahabharata vẫn tích cực trong pḥng hội đồng cũng như trên băi chiến trường;
trong số các Ngài người ta c̣n thấy một kẻ buôn bán, trong con người của
Tuladhara. Kinh Bhagavad Gita dạy con đường của bổn phận và hành động, và Đức
Krishna nói với đệ tử của Ngài là Arjuna rằng Janaka và những người khác đă đạt
được sự trọn lành nhờ hành động và chính con cũng phải theo gương họ bằng cách
hành động vô cầu đối với kết quả mà chỉ v́ t́nh thương nhân loại [50].
Khi quan sát sự tương phản trong các Ba la mật đa, người ta thấy bản chất của
những sức mạnh "tàn bạo và quỷ quyệt" mà chúng ta phải chiến thắng. Con người
chỉ quay vào với chính ḿnh, quên rằng y là một đơn vị trong toàn thể và theo
lời của Epictetus th́ nếu không có nhân loại chung quanh chúng ta, chúng ta
không phải là môït con người nữa. Ḷng từ thiện và sự mở mang đạo đức nói chung,
hay đạo đức theo ư nghĩa trọn vẹn của danh từ nầy sẽ chấm dứt thái độ tự kỷ
trung tâm ấy và mở rộng tâm hồn ra để nó nghĩ đến kẻ khác hơn chính ḿnh, trở
thành ân nhân của những sinh linh đau khổ, trở thành người bạn hữu ích của đồng
loại ḿnh và sau cùng trở nên đệ tử xứng đáng của Sư Phụ ḿnh.
Người thực hành hạnh nhẫn nhục thường bị sự bực tức quấy rầy; người ta cảm thấy
sự xúc phạm, bất măn; con người sẽ tự phiền trách ḿnh, nếu y không có thái độ
cởi mở. Dĩ nhiên người ta quên rằng dù có một luật công bằng luôn luôn bảo đảm
sự thanh toán nợ nần giữa người nầy với người kia, th́ vẫn có sự bất đồng bề
ngoài. Ban đầu lắm khi con người muốn thấy kết quả việc làm của ḿnh, v́ y nghĩ
đến chính ḿnh hơn là nghĩ đến công việc, y muốn khoe khoang hay ít ra là sự
khích lệ ḿnh v́ đă hoàn thành được công việc ấy. Kế đó, y buồn rầu v́ thấy sự
cố gắng trong chiều hướng tốt đẹp của y vẫn vô ích; tất cả điều nầy c̣n biểu lôï
một sự bất măn, một sự thiếu kiên nhẫn nào đó. Sau cùng, y mới thấy rằng, chỉ có
sự cố gắng mới là điều quan trọng chứ không phải kết quả. Giải trừ được những
cảm xúc ấy, y mới đạt được hạnh nhẫn nhục.
Hơn nữa, bản tánh con người vốn lười biếng. Họ thích tắm nắng ngoài trời và chỉ
hoạt động khi nào bụng kêu đói hoặc v́ hiếu danh muốn lột da đầu thiên hạ để
mang thêm vào dây lưng, họ mới chịu hành động trong khi đồng bọn hung bạo của họ
c̣n say ngủ. Làm việc không biết mệt và kiên cường không phải là một bản tánh tự
nhiên. Các bạn hăy xem Bà Hội Trưởng của chúng ta:bà tận dụng mọi khoảnh khắc
trong ngày, làm việc không ngừng và không để mất thời giờ. Bạn tưởng rằng xưa
kia bà cũng có bản tánh luôn luôn làm việc như thế sao ? Sở dĩ bà hoạt động v́
bà đă thấy được mục đích tốt đẹp, bà muốn trở thành một kẻ phụng sự nhân loại.
Sự tham thiền cũng thế, nó không phải là một bản tánh tự nhiên. Nó đ̣i hỏi phải
chịu nhiều khó nhọc, một sự cố gắng lớn lao về tinh thần và sự chế phục thể xác.
Muốn đạt được sự minh triết c̣n phải nghiền ngẫm và thực hành, đôi khi phải có
can đảm để đương đầu với những kinh nghiệm khó nhọc và ngay cả sự nguy hiểm nữa.
[10/2/2010 6:16:01 PM] Thuan Thi Do: 198. Con lựa con Đường nào, hỡi con người
có hùng tâm đại chí ? Bốn bực Thiền Định của Nhăn Pháp (Samtan) (4) ? Hay là con
đường Ba la mật đa (5) có sáu hạnh, sáu cửa đức hạnh đó dắt đến Bồ Đề và đến
Prajna, nấc thứ bảy của Minh Triết ?
[10/2/2010 6:56:21 PM] *** Van Atman added shore3_5_84 ***
[10/2/2010 7:05:04 PM] Van Atman: 201. Hăy can đảm lên, hỡi đệ tử, con hăy nhớ
lấy luật vàng. Một khi con đă vượt qua cửa Srotàpatti (6) “nhập lưu”, một khi
con đă bước vào ḷng sông dắt đến Niết Bàn trong kiếp này hay trong một kiếp
tới, con sẽ c̣n luân hồi bảy kiếp nữa thôi , hỡi con người có Ư Chí cứng rắn như
kim cương.
[10/2/2010 7:34:29 PM] CHU TAN: 4/5
[10/2/2010 7:34:54 PM] CHU TAN: CHU TAN NGHE 4/5
[10/2/2010 8:22:31 PM] *** Call ended, duration 3:21:13 ***