Theos-Talk Archives (July 1996 Message tt00037)

Bee:

> > When Rodolfo speaks of a place to communicate, a common language,
> > a common goal, and uses the word "lodge", I think of a place for
> > theosophical workers, not exactly a Mystery School, but something
> > more than a book-study club. This makes me think of one type of
> > work that I think could arise out of the Theosophical Movement in
> > the West. The founding of junior or quasi Mystery Schools, of
> > genuine centers or groups for the spiritual that are rooted in the
> > theosophical tradition. I'm not sure if this would be possible or
> > how advanced such groups could get, but I think that it is a
> > worthy goal, *in addition to the public work*, in addition to the
> > work of disseminating the basic, bread-and-butter teachings into
> > western thought.

> Some good thoughts but who would run these 'Mystery Schools'?

I'd expect them to gradually grow or evolve over time, sort of an
evolutionary thing, where various experiments to get lodges and
groups to operate more spiritually are tried and things that are
tried and work are kept.

> TS over here is just small groups who would get into hot water if
> one of their number began teaching esoteric stuff.

It would if one of the members set themselves up as an esoteric
teacher and started telling people that their ideas superceeded
those of HPB and her Teachers. It wouldn't be if the members
started getting serious about the spiritual, as long as anything
that they tried was optional and not required to be practiced by
all lodge members. It would also be important that anything tried
was not in direct violation of certain basic ethics and moral
principles, giving a bad reputation to the T.S.

> There is only 2 in our branch that I know of who have read SD and
> one of them is me and I don't think I would like to take on the
> karma of teaching something I don't quite understand myself.

But you can teach what you do understand, with the disclaimer that
you're just a student too, and whatever you say is subject to
correction.

> A study group is about what we can manage and then if it is too
> deep, they all drift off.

That's as deep as you can go with regard to the book studies. How
about other efforts? Regarding aspects of a spiritual self-help
group, or regarding an exploration of making the Path something
real in the members' lives, and the practice of compassion in the
world -- these can be practiced, even if there's no Guru present
telling everyone what to do.

> Things may be different in USA but it doesn't seem that different
> judging by the post I have been reading over the last year.  I
> agree that the members set the tone so how to change that can
> also be a problem.  I have ideas but then I would need to impose
> them on the members which I don't fancy doing.  I try to change
> some things little by little and that is the best I can do.

Yes, there needs to be a general agreement within a group as to
the direction that it takes. But the direction is not something
that is simply announced, but is something that comes as sort of
an inspiration that sweeps up everyone. It may not be possible in
the current group if it has too many people only interested in it
being a book club and social function. Then again, it's possible
for a group to change with new people joining because of its new
nature, and other people leaving it.

> We need more than books.  We have a great little library of
> around 1200 books but it just doesn't seem to be enough.

Agreed. But I'd stress the "more than", which is different than
saying "something instead of".

> Life is not lonely as you point out but the pilgrim is still out
> on a limb because of the way he/she lives the teachings and
> understands many more things.

I suspect that the more that we learn, the less frankly we can
talk about our ideas. We have to take greater care in fashioning
our words to be appropriate to the person that we're talking to.
But it's also important that we are not self-conscious about being
different than other people. Any feeling that we're doing anything
because we're somehow better than someone else is not only wrong,
but a bigger barrier to spiritual progress than our original state
of ignorance.

> I would share every little bit of understanding I have but there
> isn't really many that want it.

And if we look at the examples of various theosophical teachers,
we see how they have become highly skillful in gradually
presenting the doctrines, not simply blurting out everything that
they can think of on a subject. Perhaps, in addition to learning
the Teachings, we can learn something of effective ways to teach from
them?