Key Concepts Study Group

“Perhaps each color and each note correspond to a hierarch(?)”

Hi Tom:

Can you elaborate on your thought above? What does each hierarch represent?

Perhaps each color and each note correspond to a hierarch(?)

“…looking into the question of the soul’s responsibility….we must assume that it has powers and functions.” We wonder if an important responsibility of the soul (dual natured mind?) isn’t ethics. Our ethic in any particular endeavor might be reflected by the quality of concomitant relationships. Whether bio-ethics, business ethics, or proper…[Read more]

ONE RAY — VARIOUS ASPECTS
Man is not a single, indivisible homogeneous unit, but is a composite entity made up of many different elements and principles, under normal conditions operating harmoniously together during Man’s life on Earth. Besides his visible, physical body, he is endowed with an inner, invisible, complex constitution, part of w…[Read more]

William Quan Judge on the Septenary Nature of Cosmos (from The Ocean of Theosophy)

The teachings of Theosophy deal for the present chiefly with our earth, although its purview extends to all the worlds, since no part of the manifested universe is outside the single body of laws which operate upon us. Our globe being one of the solar system is…[Read more]

Hi Barbara,

I don’t know if Ramprakash misread your comment by using Antahkarana instead of Ahamkara, and it would certainly be interesting to hear him explain the distinction between the two. Notwithstanding, his explanation of Antahkarana is very much to the point as it is one of the most crucial topics to pay attention to in the study of…[Read more]

Hi Barbara

A very important question.

Antahkarana (also pronounced as Antashkarana) literally means Internal organ.

It has one meaning in Vedanta, and quite another in Theosophy.

In Vedanta Antahkarana means mind (chitta), intellect, Buddhi

In Theosophy it means the higher aspect of Lower Manas.

Lower Manas has two aspects : One caught up…[Read more]

“What is called Ahankara is the “I” principle which emanate from one of the seven Rays of Mahat Tattva.
Such I – principles emanate like millions of sparks, as it were, from the Central Fire, or like millions of Rays of the Central Sun.
These l principles are called in Sankhya system as Aham-tattva, or as Ahankara.
In Theosophical paralance it is…[Read more]

As I remember :-

Third Logos is Mahat, the Cosmic Ego. It is the synthesis of primordial seven Rays or Hierarchies.

What is called Ahankara is the “I” principle which emanate from one of the seven Rays of Mahat Tattva.

Such I – principles emanate like millions of sparks, as it were, from the Central Fire, or like millions of Rays of the…[Read more]

Hi Peter and Pavel:

Thank you for your clarification. This is indeed very interesting.

If Ahamkara is followed by Manas, then what is the relationship between Buddhi and the former? Similarly, what is the relationship between one’s individuality (Ego) and Ahamkara? There are many writings about the sevenfold nature of man, but Ahamkara is n…[Read more]

Hello Barbara – just some thoughts on your fist question (#5975). It’s not unusual in Hindu philosophy to find that manas proceeds from ahamkara. In the Samkhya philosophical system, for example, they have the two fundamental principles of Spirit (Purusha) and Matter (Prakriti). From Prakriti evolve all the other principles, the first being M…[Read more]

1. Maybe you can find more by using the Index, but here is from Isis Unveiled (Before The Veil, p. xviii, 1877), quoting from Manava-Dharma-Sastra:

“He (the Supreme) drew from his own essence the immortal breath which perisheth not in the being, and to this soul of the being he gave the Ahankara (conscience of the ego) sovereign guide.” Then he…

[Read more]

1. Can someone expand on the meaning of this sentence from the Key of Theosophy, pg 196.

-Manas, the derivation or product in a reflected form of Ahamkara, “the conception of I,” or Ego-self.

This makes it sound like manas is a product of the ego; I thought it was the other way around.

2. Another interesting sentence from pg 109 is – The…[Read more]

Do the colors of the rainbow and the notes in a scale constitute a “hierarchy” or are they of equal value and standing?

Amen Shen!

Until a person is enlightened there is some illusion, some fantasy, they are harboring. Universal Brotherhood is a society of enlightened men and women from one point of view.

There may be truth to what you are saying here David but I wonder how much we really know about the groups you mention here. How much is merely guessing? And if we are guessing, why not err on the side of being hopeful. People are on this pilgrimage at different conditions of consciousness, evolving in different ways. It seems to me the ideas…[Read more]

I find this passage from the Secret Doctrine, quoted in the Key to Theosophy, peculiarly reminds me, among other things, of the structure of a DNA molecule, which, as you may know, always consists of two strands that “faithfully follow the fluctuations” of each other:

Those who believe in Karma have to believe in destiny, which, from birth to…

[Read more]

We realize a mood of intense desire or passion as something apart from our spiritual nature, and more akin to the physical; and we sometimes speak even of our “physical consciousness” as a thing that we do not therefore perceive with our senses. This is the lowest aspect of our consciousness, and is called in Sanskrit Kama-rupa, or “the body of de…[Read more]

Didn’t see this until now David.

Yes, it is by Mr. Judge, it’s also the first article in the Theosophy Company edition of the two volumes with articles by Mr. Judge.
William Q. Judge Theosophical Articles, Vol. I p. 1. It is indeed from the Official Report of the World’s Parliament of Religions that appeared in Lucifer for December 1893 as above…[Read more]