why is it so difficult to change?

I have been intrigued with the deep seated taint or "dramatic flaw" that is carried within humans, it is like a blind spot infection running through an individual's life.  There is no human exception to this kind of taint.  It is an inevitable, psychological seed patiently waiting for the right evolutionary, environmental moment in which to bloom.  For example, a "48 Hours" story, on CBS, presented a classic presentation of the taint's arrival upon a decorated and esteemed fighter pilot.  After his successful career ended he gave in to a progressive sexual deviancy: from steeling women's panties to murdering women. Some people try to explain this taint in terms of genetics; in that the human genes encodes a map that predisposes the particular taint to manifest.  The trouble with that explanation is it places the primary cause for the taint on genetics.  The body, from my experience and insight, is what the genetic code primarily affects, character and behavior are not, however, fixed by a genetic code-and thank goodness for that; if it were the case, our life on this earth would be totally hopeless. The most precious asset a human has, is the ability to change himself.`  As a verification of that capacity we have only to scrutinize the changes in behavior and character occurring within our immediate circle of relatives and friends.  This desire to change ourselves reaches back to our earliest history, and has vigorously survived to this day.  To those thinkers among you who are asking themselves, "If the desire to change is equivalent to an innate, human, universal urge, then why is it so damn difficult to change?  What is resisting the desired change?"

If we were to ask psychologists, psychiatrists, brain-scientists, to explain our questions, their answers would be all over the map, with differing names for the same type of mental effects or syndromes or behaviors.  We would become greatly confused, and our understanding would reverberate in every possible relevant and irrelevant direction.  Believe it or not, a much clearer and adequate explanation of these questions were provided some 5000 years or more ago, in what might be called an ancient confluence of spiritual hymns, rituals, and worships, wrapped around profound commentaries.  The historical source for this spiritual wisdom came from the fusion of two cultures, the Aryan and the Indus Valley, Indian civilizations.   As time pasted, the mixing of these two civilizations produced commentaries called the Veda that was said to have been created by, Vyasa.  The part of the Veda called the Upanishads is were we will place our attention for finding the clarity involved in the process of changing our self.  The meaning of the Sanskrit word Upanishads is, "sitting down near" or at the feet of an illuminated teacher possessed with the wisdom of life and death, and the nature of the Godhead.  Another point of attention, will be placed on the great epic of India called the Mahabharata, particularly an episode called the Bhagavad-Gita, which means, "the song of god himself" or "the song celestial." Our last point of attention will be focused on the Dhammapada, a collection of practical verses gathered by the direct disciples of Gautama the Buddha, their intention being, to preserve the Buddha's teachings. 

Why is it so difficult to change?  St. Augustine asks the same question, only in a personal way, ..."I can tell my hand what to do, and it obeys; why can't I do the same with my mind?"  Let us start to answer our question by stating a universal truth spoken by the greatest spiritual psychologists that ever walked the earth, Gautama the Buddha, he said, "All that we are is the result of what we have thought;" and lets not stop with the present tense, we will add, 'All that we shall become is the result of what our thoughts are now." This universal truth, the  Compassionate One has given us, is the bedrock upon which, if applied with a laser focused mind,  would reveal the key to the understanding of our essential Self.  A subtle, implied distinction the Buddha makes is in his use of the word "thought."  He  thus establishes that  the faculty which is the primary cause of creating our destiny is not the workings of the brain, but the more comprehensive and superior faculty of the mind.  As we advance our discussion, it is important to keep in "mind" that the mind is not an objective entity, it is a conceptualization, and that all the different qualities that make up the mind are unified, interdependent, interconnected, and operate under the highest quality of mind, namely consciousness.  The lower qualities of mind are concerned with the many sundry, sensations that strike us daily, also with classifying these sensations and distinguishing them as sensations of like or dislike or pleasure or pain or neutral.  The Buddha reiterates, ..."most of us live at the mercy of circumstances, going where ever life takes us."  As babies, our entire conscious spectrum is primarily based on attention to sensations: hunger, sounds, tastes, smells, touch, etc., and whether they are agreeable or disagreeable or neutral; and as we mature our relation to the perceived sensations expand and become reinforced.    The Buddha has broken down the cognition of sensations into three elements: the eyes, the object, and the act of attention.  When all three elements unite there is sensation.

We have now established the groundwork upon which we can begin to answer our question.  Let us begin to pursue the answer to our question by defining the meaning of two Sanskrit words: "asava" and "samsara."   The mind attends to a sensation, and than relies on its subaltern components to classify and emotionally mark it as to like or dislike or neutral.  For a simple example, you eat a piece of chocolate, you classify it under something sweet, and stamp it with "like."  If this were a part of an early experience of eating chocolate you might have stamped it with "neutral," meaning you could, at this threshold take it or leave it.  So we build a experiential, sensation's grid of likes, dislikes or neutral.  These grids are not grooved in bone because they can change places,  For instance, something that is liked can be moved into the dislike grid or something that is disliked can be moved into the liked grid.  In the Bhagavad-Gita, chapter three, Krishna instructs his disciple Arjuna, in the workings of Universal Nature, ..."All creatures act according to their natures; what then will restraint effect?  In every purpose of the senses are fixed affections and dislikes  they are the enemies of man."...

When sensations are first encountered, there is little or no emotive force.  But, lets reboot our chocolate example, when you start thinking about the feeling of pleasure of eating chocolate, over and over, a craving begins and so does the process called asava.  The meaning of the word "asava" is an intoxicant, like whiskey or wine, out of fermenting fruit.   The more chocolate we eat, the greater the asvavic fermentation; the greater the fermentation, the greater our  intoxication.  This cycle will progress until the craving has lodged, and at this point we cannot talk about our chocolate eating as a sensation.  It has transformed into a fully bloomed obsession, and  now we cannot help thinking about eating chocolate, and it cannot help thinking about itself.  This "thinking about itself" is an intimation of the power of obsession.  Think about the wide spread, human obsession of drugs and alcohol, and if that is not enough lets add jealousy, rage, lust, greed, fear, anxiety: you think of some.  If that doesn't seem powerful enough for you, lets add that obsessions have the capacity to engage our heart, mind, and soul; not enough power, here's more, if you believe in reincarnation as I do, think of the many, many life times we have spent thinking and building upon our obsessions.  Here is another point of the power of obsession, and here also is were we enter the realm of the esoteric.  Most of us have little understanding of the comprehensive power of our mind, believing  that it is naturally given to flitter here and there, and that it cannot be mastered; taking our darting conscious mind and use it to clarify and understand our unconscious mind-seems impossible.  It isn't impossible, but very difficult, and those who have worked to master the mind tell us, 'It is like lassoing the wind.'   Mind is conceptual, but like all manifestation, conceptual or objective, it possess energy/force; and behind mind are the directing forces of desire and will. (note the first position of desire, think about it)  The strength and power of our conscious desire manifests the desire into a living astral form-our thought has become manifest, and that is why it is "thinking about itself."  In the parlance of the esoteric realm, the concentration, over time of the force of our thought, has created an astral, one tracked,  being, called an "elemental."  To those of you who may be familiar with the contemporary mystic, Eckhart Tolle, he uses the same idea as the elemental when he explains the "pain body."  You may find this last expression of mental power difficult to take seriously, it may smack of science fiction, (there is an old 1960ish film called "Forbidden Planet" whose theme you may find, as Spock might say, is "fascinating"), yet it represents a philosophy of life way beyond life's objective field. 

Asava is then, the process of bringing a sensation, through the power and force of desire and self-will, into obsession, and finally into an astral, elemental form.  Samsara is an umbrella term for a fully processed asava, from a sensation to a full blown obsession/elemental.  To quote from the Mundaka Upanishad: ..."Such rituals, (primarily religious rituals intended for self reward) are unsafe rafts for crossing the sea of samasara, of birth and death.  Doomed to shipwreck are those who try to cross the sea of samasara on these poor rafts.  Ignorant of their ignorance, yet wise in their own esteem, these deluded men proud of their vain learning go round and round like the blind led by the blind."...

Hopefully, you now have a grasp of the power of our thoughts, and their deep effect on our behavior to direct our current and future destiny.  These deep behavioral mind groves are the resistance behind our ability to change ourselves.  Our experience with life should have shown us that there are degrees of depth of mind groves, from Lilliputian sized mind groves to the giant, obsessive/elemental sized mind groves.

I will not leave you with the absoluteness of your predetermined destiny.  In my next blog, using the wisdom of the same 5000 year old resources, I will help show you how to use your innate capacity to change yourself. 

lack of religous faith

Several weeks ago, I read a "Viewpoint" article with the heading, "When spirituality means 'dopey,' it masks lack of faith."  The author's premise, from what I could gather, was that religion's original doctrines should always remain as the essential basis for religious faith.  Strict adherence to these traditional doctrines is what makes the Lutheran Church Lutheran, the Catholic Church Catholic, etc.  The  article goes on the say, that the "profusion of spirituality" in our day is a direct result of the nonconformity to these original doctrines of faith.

The above premise, although seemingly grounded in empirical fact is only a simple expression of what is the most obvious opinion.  However, that which is most obvious is not always the most revealing point of view.  Given our technical capacity for instant data access and communication, any event or inquiry can be immediately saturated by streams of information, every bit of which, in a greater or lesser degree, is relative.  In such prevalent conditions of data overkill, stating what is most obvious seems to us to be most important.  Yet, apart from the report of what seems obvious of the conditions of an event, without a comprehensive commingling of related conditions, the obvious, brings little more than a point from which to begin.  A more comprehensive view concerning the "profusion of spirituality" in our day. will bring about a greater degree of understanding then the author's dogmatic view.

Spirituality is an aspect of the total make-up of human beings.  The source of human being's spiritual aspect is divine.  In the earliest evolutionary development of 'mankind,' components of the Divine were installed as the core principles around which 'mankind' was fashioned.  In popular, religious scriptural terms, 'mankind' was fashioned from a direct reflection of God's image, God's Spirit.  Human beings are therefore, essentially spiritual beings.  Religion, is the expression, by human beings of their spiritual core.  Human beings aware of their God-Spark within, manifest that awareness through doctrines, rituals, and worships that in turn educate, recognize, and celebrate  that awareness through their communities. 

In their response to the impulse of their spiritual centers, human beings are continuously working toward clarification; bringing it from within outward to ever increasing levels of expression.  Since the spiritual center of human  beings has not as yet been perfectly transmuted, its religious manifestation is also imperfect and in a state of continuous refinement.

When a religion is born out of a human being's spiritual core it vibrates it turn with that spiritual impulse which inspired its birth.  It however, looses its initial radiance over time, and gradually tunes to more mundane vibrations, while spiritually tiring its rituals and worships.  At this point in the evolutionary cycle of religions, human beings are again urged by their spiritual core, to search within out ward for a new religious renewal or birth.  The search begins uninterrupted from the ashes of the old; following the life cycle groves of Universal Nature.

Thus the "profusion of spiritually" in our day is not an anxious  reaction to a lack of religious faith, nor some fashionable behavior born out of the minds of a handful of individuals, but a natural human response to spiritually defunct religious doctrines, rituals, and worships. 

Human beings are currently involved in transmuting tired, traditional doctrines, rituals, and worships into spiritual expressions of a higher, more universal quality.  What appears to be spiritual chaos is actually the workings of the collective human mind, exploring itself in an effort to transmute worn out religious forms into renewed religions forms.

 



 

perfection

How many of you know someone who is perfect?  Dismiss those people who claim they are perfect, and Olympians and "dancing with the stars" performers who receive tens for their routines.  The closest person to perfection I know of, is Mary Poppins, and her claim is to be "almost nearly perfect."   Perfection as a manifested quality in human nature is no where to be found.  What is commonly found in human nature, however,  is widespread imperfection.  Although each individual, human being, while having a general uniformity of physical structure and mental capacities, has a multiplicity of unique adaptions to those general natural outlines.  So too with all things manifested in our world.  For instance, take snowflakes, each one has six general peeks, but within the interior of those peeks lays an entirely unique pattern; each pattern different form all other snowflakes.  Let us take a look at all plants and animal spices, although similar in general form and function they are specifically unique as to individual expression of these general conditions of Nature.  Even Mother Nature, does not operate from the quality of perfection.  We can easily confirm that statement by arguing thus:  if Mother Nature worked in an absolutely perfect manner, then all areas of her manifestation would be flawless.  All spices would conform atom for atom, molecule for molecule, with no variation and no unique adaptions.  This empirically, is not Nature's way.  Nature, as we know her, operates imperfectly, yet with an ultimate aim towards perfection, thus allowing for trail and error.  Universal Nature has not as yet perfected the Kosmos.

Nature in her operations is flexible and adaptive, allowing for misdirection and failure, but able to turn her failures into gradual successes.  Nature is a genius leaner, and ever so meticulously,  and with  enormous patience moves progressively forward, towards full expression of her ultimate aim.  Nature is like "good", as in ideal parents, who allow their children plenty of space in which to discover, to learn, and to develop, but always under their watchful and guiding eyes and always with the aim of "good" development.  The good development of Nature's aim is in the light of expressing the highest principles that lie within each being and entity.

These highest principles which Universal Nature express are the central, creative fires, which permeate, shape, and motivate our lives, and the lives of all beings, entities, and things.  St. Paul says that these highest principles are the essential elements,   ..."in which we live, move, and have our being"...  These principles are the essential core of all life, and at their highest, are divine and represent perfection.  As living, conscious representatives of these principles, our ultimate aim is to attune, express, and live in accordance with them.  This kind of attuned action is a true definition of virtue in its purest sense.

Even though very few of us are, in this period of evolution, capable of full expression of our highest principles, we can still aspire towards their fulfillment.  If we accept Universal Nature's way, and step in time with Her, we will ever so patiently move, hand and hand with Her towards divine fulfillment.     

"the real world"

The phrase, "the real world" is usually heard when a parent or some adult is speaking to a teenager;  "You have your way now, but soon you will be moving into the real world, where your irresponsible ways will not be tolerated, and where there will be strict consequences."  Of course the teenager only hears "blah, blah, blah," and goes off on his merry way.  What is the meaning of, "the real world?"

For the most part, the accepted meaning focuses on the economic responsibility incurred when joining the "work force."  This is, paying and reporting your federal, state, and local taxes, paying all contractual agreements, and paying living expenses and all sundry expenses connected.  The consequences for not living up to these responsibilities can be great, possibly even an economic disaster.  After the person "making a living" in the real world pays his monthly obligations, what is left over from his check is called discretionary income.  This money can be used in any manner the citizen in the real world desires.  As free as this money may feel to the real world citizen, there are subtle catches.  Think about how the "free market" capitalists connive to wrestle, not only discretionary income, but also money the citizen does not have, in the form of credit, from his hands.  (for a more detailed explanation of this kind of condition go the archives and read my early blog called, "Donkey Economics")  Apart from the economic meaning of "the real world" there is a
deeper, more virtuous meaning, especially when concerned with the family.

When it comes to the leaders of the family, the parents, the economic meaning of "the real world" expands to encompass sacrifice.  This sacrifice ranges, from giving the last piece of desert to your children to giving up your life to protect them.  Thus the meaning of "the real world" for parents and for any one in a close relationship includes sacrifice.  This sacrifice has a moral quality about it,  but its action is not motivated by morality, rather by an interior value that it is the right thing to do.  Usually too, it is practiced unconsciously or refining that idea, like an involuntary, knee-jerk response. 

So the picture coming into focus here is that the phrase "the real world" does not have a strict meaning, but a relative meaning, derive from the intent of the person using the phrase.  There is no absolute meaning of the phrase.  Words and attached words  are essentially metaphors that represent a specific thing, idea, or concept of which their accepted meanings are fluid not concrete.  A word is essentially a  human voice vibration expressed to name or identify something.  The same thing can be identified in a different language only in a different human voice vibration; for instance, the English word "boy," the Italian word, "ragazzo," both identify the same thing.  The point here is, that the meaning of the phrase "the real world" has to do with a human beings' intent, experiences, and cultural background.  I believe Einstein's Theory of Relativity, postulated a fourth dimension: length, breath, width, and the fourth dimension, the taking into account the action and perception of a human being.

The phrase "the real world" appears to be magnetized to its objective, literal meaning, even though what it is trying to express is conceptual, not an objective thing.  The conceptual lives in the human mind and when there is an attempt to express it in objective words, there is some essential part of the concept which is lost in objectification;  an analogy of an onion may be helpful.  Here is an onion, pick your color, our observation tells us its an onion. To know how this onion came to be called, "onion" we would have to make a etymological search.  Let us begin to peal the outer most layer.  Does the onion now become less of an onion?  Yes, in a literal, quantitative sense, but not in an onioness sense.  Lets continue to peal the onion until we reach its core.  With each peal, the onion loses its quantity, but maintains its onioness.   Now at the onion's core we don't see the quantitative onion, but the onion's quality and potential growth.  This is a different dimension of onioness, we might call it the soul of the onion.  Potentially, along with the action of the growth elements and time, we will witness a fully grown onion.  Now lets cut the onion's core.  What would we see?  You will probably say "nothing at all."  That which you do not see is the hidden essence and  from which comes all manifestation.  The Bible, Genesis, says that God brooded over the waters and the word was made flesh.  Here the "waters" symbolically represents space, God brooding over space means he was  protecting space, then "the word was made flesh."  The vibrational, eternal word was sounded and that particular vibration evolved the world.  In Hindu scripture the divine,vibrational sound is AUM.

What started out to be an explanation of the phrase "the real world" turned out to be an exercise in finding its ultimate meaning.   We moved from its accepted cultural meaning, its human intentional meaning, its moral and ethical meaning, and finally its metaphysical meaning. This depth of inquiry brings a fully comprehensive field in which to find truth.  For the most part, when a human searches for truth the spiritual part of the inquiry is usually deleted.  The result of this deficiency allows the truth of the inquiry to be stuck in the mire of duality and paradox.  The reliance of the material or phenomenal as a foundation of truth can bring useful knowledge; the reliance on the spiritual as the foundation of truth brings spiritual principles leading to wisdom.                            

sayings and cmments 5

      SAYINGS: 

         "The spider dances her web without knowing there are flies that will get caught in it.  The fly, dancing nonchalantly on a sunbeam, gets caught without knowing what lies in store.  But through both of them "It" dances, and inside and outside are united in this dance.  So, too, the archer hits the target without having aimed-more I cannot say."  (Eugen Herrigel, German Philosopher)



     COMMENT:

           Any one who is familiar with Zen teachings can tell that this saying is dipped in  Zen batter.  As a matter of fact, Mr. Herrigel was a student and practitioner of Zen Buddhism.

The meaning of the "saying" can be unraveled be explaining the meaning of "It."  "It" is that unmodified, continuous consciousness which abides within all manifest things and beings.  This One Consciousness is the Witness or Spectator of all the actions and experiences of every state we are in or pass through.  The One Consciousness  pierces through all the states or planes of Being, and serves to uphold the memory-whether complete or incomplete-of each state's experiences.  Because it is unmodified, it is the foundation of unity and unification of all things and beings, bringing it an attribute of omniscience.  This One Consciousness is termed the Higher Self or in Sanskrit, Atman or in our Western Civilization, some kind of ramification of God. 

Since the One Consciousness, creates, sustains, and restructures, all aspects of life comes under Its preview; that means that the spider and the fly, even though their state of consciousness is low, the One Consciousness initiates the conditions in which they act and the appropriate results.  And since the human archer, is acting under a higher self-consciousness, with the meaning that he is to rely upon the One Consciousness, which is differentiated in man, as his higher self.  When the human archer picks up his bow with the idea of hitting the target, the arrow will hit the target without the archer aiming,  because the archer is relying on his Higher Self  and there is no difference in time between the arising of the idea of hitting the target and its expression in manifested objects.  To carry the logic a step further,  even before the arrow flies the target is hit.

here is a  BONUS SAYING:

           "I'm not young enough to know everything."
                      (J.M. Berrie)


COMMENT:

You must be over forty to understand this one.






















s

life is an initiation

As I reflect on the totality of my life up until this present time, I have become aware that it has been a continuous process of initiation.  At 11:23pm on, Sept. 24, 1943, after 9 months of preparation, I emerged into this world, on the Southside of Chicago.  This was my first initiation, unless you believe as I do in the continuous cycle of life and death, then this might have been my, for a lack of an accurate number, my millionth initiation.  Some where in my readings I recall that some one asked the Buddha about the number of rebirths he had had, his reply was, 'If you take the remains of all my incarnated bodies and piled them one on top of another, they would stack higher then the tallest mountain.'  This reply sounds apocryphal, but it gives a vivid vision of the eminence period of time that life revolved upon this earth, and its infinite continuity.

My earth initiation began as I was squeezed out and appeared as a new born baby. I had to then instantly relate to my Chicago environment: the hospital, doctors, nurses, lights, sights, sounds, smells, parents, relatives, etc. and Universal Nature, (to those of you who are thinkers and sensed a discontinuity here, I also had to relate to Universal Nature's process before my earth life appearance).  From my birth, baby Louis was being directed by spiritual and physical forces which did not emanate from my self consciousness.  I was matriculating by the universal life-force.  This life-force powered and directed my spiritual, psychic, astral, and physical growth and development.  

Universal Nature works out the pattern, using my individual karma as a reference, of how to grow and develop Louis.  There are plateaus Universal Nature is aiming at, and these goals determine what part of Louis should be developed first and at what approximate time.  Most human development follows multiples of seven.  Seven is a sacred number used through out religious and philosophical teachings of the ancient and modern world.  At seven years old the common knowledge is that a child has reach the plateau of reason; not just intellectual reasoning, but self-conscious reason; knows right from wrong-moral reasoning. At fourteen years old a human has been infused with the power of  self-determination.  At twenty-one, a human has infilled all his spiritual, intellectual, psychological, and physical capacities to make ready for his higher initiations.  At fourth-nine years old or as American Indians believe fifty years old is the mark, human beings have stored enough experiential resource to make them fully mature.  Keep in mind that the individual karma of each human can vary the time and infillment of their capacities, making the multiples of seven approximate, not strict, and that the multiple plateaus are not gained by giant steps, but Nature like, steady, determined, evolving, steps.

Universal Nature is the involuntary control agent, along with Louis's karma, both from previous lives and from this current live, aiding and infilling Louis primarily until approximately age twenty-one, where Louis's installed capacities are fully functioning.  At this point, Louis can begin to become his own authority; filtering all experiences and concepts through his developing truth system. How, you may ask, 'can all you have said be interpreted as an initiation?'

Lets brake down the elements of initiation.  First there is an initiator, the goal or aim of the initiation, the particular tests and trails, and finally the initiate, (the person or persons to be initiated).   For example, when I was in college I was initiated into an on campus club: the initiator was the club with its leader and initiated members, the goals were to create a brotherhood of loyal and true members, the trials were progressively more sever culminating in the severest test, called "hell night," and I and other men were the initiants.  There are many variations of the elements, think of an initiation of a Navy Seal, but all the elements are there.  In the case of baby Louis, Universal Nature, which is a comprehensive life-force, is the initiator.  It takes Louis's human composition, along with karma and causal and influential relations, ie parents, relatives, environment, culture, etc., as It matriculates Louis through his growth and development stages.  When Louis reaches his twenty first year or there about,  were all of his capacities are installed, Universal Nature begins to back off its involuntary control, allowing Louis's developing self-consciousness to hold the reins.  Universal Nature does not abandon Louis, but initiates certain spiritual urges, if Louis recognizes and follows, will lead and clarify his path.  Don't think that Louis has reached the end point with initiation, on the contrary, he has in front of him, higher, and higher, and higher, and higher... initiations, some wondrous beyond belief and some terrible, but all intended to expand his consciousness toward truth.        

 

the unified glory of the universe

Before I go to sleep each night, I walk out on my deck to view the night sky.   I thank the Father for the wonderful night, lean back my head and take in the grand, magical spectacle of night.  As I listen to the night songs of the crickets, I think that the crickets usher in the night as the birds usher in the dawn,  both acknowledging and singing praises to the change of light. The stars, moon, clouds, the lighting flash of a meteorite, the wind and the accompanying whispers of the leaves of the trees, the times of the scared appearance of the northern lights, the lighting bugs, all dance their special dance; yet all are moving with perfect harmony and unity under the influence of a higher principle. 

As each and every snowflake has its distinctive pattern, the corner stone of its particular pattern is its six points.  All snowflake modifications and permutations of patterns are brought into being by using the matrix of the six points.  We therefore see an operational unity instructing modifications.  This kind of directional unity is not uncommon in Nature, rather it is an universal imperative.  Spock from, "Star Trek" is heard instructing Caption, James T. Kerk, about the "One into the many."  I know that using a T.V. show as an authoritative testimony is weak, but perhaps its familiarity can bring insight.  If you are looking for grander authority read the philosophy of Pythagoras.  The point to remember however and to mentally distill, is that behind all manifestation there is an universal principle.

The ancient mystics, philosophers, and sages understood the truth of the primacy of universal principles.  Once they grasped the universal principle it was easy to fit the particular detail into the universal principle and have confidence of its true relationship.  The ancient's practice of reasoning from universals to particulars is the primary opposition relating to the difficulty of understanding their writings; and more often then not, misunderstanding them.  Our present reasoning process moves from particulars to universals; in direct opposition to the ancient's reasoning process.  The evolution of the change in reasoning can be attributed to the ideas of Aristotle, (384 B.C.), refined by Sir Francis Bacon, (1561), into the process of the scientific method, and further tweaked by Emmanuel Kant, (1724).  The technique the ancient's used to comprehend the universal principles was their mind's laser like ability to focus so comprehensively on whatever subject, as to gain an understand of the universal principle.  An analogy would be, fitting together a puzzle to fit the picture of what it was to look like.  Using the picture as an universal principle it is then possible to place an individual puzzle piece with its corresponding piece and be certain of its correct relationship.  On the other hand, following the reasoning of the scientific method, with out knowing the puzzle picture, the placing of a particular puzzle piece in the right relationship to another piece would be haphazard, a hit or miss try.  That is why the "missing link" is still missing, the particle that makes all manifestation still has not been found, and the real nature of the cosmos does not conform to any scientific theories.. 

John P. Van Mater, a Theosophist, brings clarity to the above universal principle matrix.

  "A study of the various religions and philosophies, past and present, reveals that they are for the most part based upon certain universal principles. There is an ancient wisdom running through them all like a golden thread.  This is more than mere assertion, as the increasing researches into comparative religion, mythology, and symbology amply testify..  It is logical that there should be this common body of thought behind the apparent diversity.  These expressions, after all, are attempts to describe how our universe, sun, and planet came into being - also what man's role is and has been in this genesis.  And since the cosmos has a structure, a history, and origin, and operates according to basic laws, sincere attempts to explain these mysteries will contain much fundamentally identic material.  To put it simply, all seek to describe the same panorama."