From: pyramid.pyramid.com.pyramid.com!portal!cup.portal.com!Tagi@pyramid.pyramid.com.pyramid.com
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Theosophy and Scholarly Hinduism
Date: 19 Aug 92 22:02:44 GMT
Article-I.D.: qiclab.1992Aug20.183244.20930
Organization: ----

9208.19 e.v.


Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
The word of Sin is Restriction.



I (Tagi, not 'Portal') was asked about the distinction between
the Theosophic and the Scholarly interpretation of Hinduism.  I
balked because of the seemingly monumental task, yet if you will
forgive an off-hand reference (not having read about Theosophy
beyond a brief glance and only seeing horrid reviews of it by
'scholars'), then I'll attempt a few comments.  I hope that any
who read this will forebear my incomplete understanding and see
fit to comment in correction and/or support.


There are three areas where I THINK that Theosophy missed the mark.
These are:

1) Karma, 2) Atman and 3) Avatars.

I'll give a brief comment as to what I THINK Theosophy ORIGINALLY
explained about these, and then what I understand SOME scholarly sources
to claim LATELY.


1) Karma

Originally it seems to have been characterized as a strict system of
moral cause and effect, which allowed God to be substituted by some
Cosmic Balancing Sword with a Conscience.  This idea has seeped rather
deeply into New Age ideologies.  Certainly SOME Hindus think about it
this way, but not all of them, and the esoteric understanding is very
complex.

My FAVORITE esoteric understanding of this word is its literal translation
applied to psychological transformation.  Karma means 'action' and
as soon as we posit some 'actor' which is the source of this action
we begin to create a 'false self' (NOT the Atman).  To be liberated
(moksha) we must begin to see PAST the action of Maya and into the
pure universal Dance (lila) or Play which is Brahman/Atman.


2) Atman

I have seen too many references to this in Theosophical and New
Age literature which identified this with the 'soul'.  My understanding
is that Plato originated the term 'soul' and meant by it something
other than what Christians commonly do today.  I also understand that
Blavatsky et al took the COMMON ideas about the soul (i.e. that
it is not identical to the Godhead, for example) and muddied up the
VERY complex ideas surrounding the Atman.  I'm quite possibly mistaken.  

As far as I know, there are MANY interpretations of all three of
these terms, but one which I have seen more seldom by scholarly
writers of value is that the Atman is 'born' and 'passes through'
the material world.  This is what I got the impression that 
Theosophy proposed about its 'soul/atman'.  

My favorite expression about the Atman is that it is the True Self,
the Divine Self.  It is not as though we have a part of us which IS
divine and another part which is NOT.  It is that we often fail to
comprehend, to experience, the divinity that IS US.  We see only a
very small portion of the Play and think that it is all there is.
The Atman is that part of the Play with which we are ALWAYS connected.
It is all that is REAL about us.  There is no 'nondivine part of us'.

To us the Brahman (Divine Other) seems far and away, and it may be more
difficult to understand that this Other and the Self are ONE.  The
greatest saints have realized the divinity not only of themselves, but
of ALL ELSE, and further, that ALL IS ONE.  To this extent, speculation
that the Atman is a sort of 'soul' which passes through a 'divine test'
on its way to a place called 'moksha' is overly simplistic.  As I said,
I'm not saying that SOME Hindus don't see it this way.  I'm saying that
my understanding is that Theosophical speculation initially erred by
its incomplete understanding of the complexity that is Hinduism.


3) Avatars

What I'd thought Theosophy had taken an avatar to be was a supra-mundane
'soul' who had 'come down' into the 'world of matter' to guide 
humans toward divinity.  I'm not sure about it, and would like to be
corrected about it if so, but I think that this 'angel-being' is simply
an advanced soul, NOT GOD.

My understanding about such avatars as Krishna and Rama is that they
ARE VISHNU, GOD.  This is, after all, the theoretics of the Vaishnavas.
Once every so often, when it becomes necessary or at the whim of Vishnu,
S/He manifests in human form.  Note that the Cosmology of these sects
supposes that the world is already subsumed as PART OF VISHNU.  Vishnu
'gives birth' to a lotus with a Brahma (Creator-god), who creates many
many universes.  WE ARE ALREADY VISHNU.

When Vishnu manifests, S/He doesn't need to 'come down'.  I.e.  S/He
is always around, and decides to manifest in human form.  The avatar
is not thus part of some cosmic process of soul-evolution, which I've
come to associate with esoteric Christianity.  This is a special event,
on par with Christ's manifestation in Christianity.

It is true that some Hindus and non-Hindus see this concept as some sort
of commonly occurring process or partially-pantheistic condition (i.e.
that we are ALL partially realized avatars), but this is an incomplete
representation of what the term, in its pure origins, represents, I think.


Commentary and review welcomed from both ends of the spectrum, if there
really is one. ;>


Invoke me under my stars.   Love is the law, love under will.


I am I!


Frater I Nigris (666)