Theos-Talk Archives (November 1997 Message tt00180)

bhive888 wrote:
>
> Quoted from: The O.E. Library Critic
> (Oct. 1937): -
>
> "BRYAN'S BULL'S-EYE SHOTS AT THE BALLARDS"
> Besides being a transparent fraud, the teachings of the Ballards are
> calculated to make their victims' brains ooze out at their toes. You have
> but to attend a meeting or two to see signs of incipent madness. Dr Gerald
> B. Bryan has shown them up in five excellent brochures ...
>
> Jan 1937
>
> BRYAN BURSTS THE BALLARD BUBBLE
>
> ...Dr Bryan has rendered a great service to the cause of truth and sanity
> by exposing what is perhaps the most "catching" superstition of the present
> day. He shows that the Ballard writings and teachings are mostly pure
> fiction filled with glaring contradictions and distorted presentations of a
> few truths, filched from standard sources and diluted with the most
> ridiculous occult rubbish ever put before a credulous public, and
> spiritually and mentally destructive ...
>
> Dear Mark, I hope you are not a devoted follower and therefore offended by
> this - my apologies if you are.
> I have a good deal more, but this is enough?

I'm neither a card-carrying member nor offended, but this is just
self-congratulatory vitriol. What did Bryan really have to say?

> > you wrote:
> >
> > Maybe the Masters felt that they overshot their expectation of peoples
> > ability to understand the deeper stuff and wanted to try speaking to
> > humanity on a simpler level?
>
> Perhaps.
> But I do not feel that they work that way. They wish to talk us up, and
> give us a challenge.

Maybe it's just not for you. 'Milk and Meat' as Jesus said.

> > After all, it was broad effective change they were after, not the
> > creation of a relatively small group of occult PhDs.
>
> The Masters do not teach knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

You are not quite understanding me. I can't say why "the Masters" do
what they do, but I've known theosophists who were really good at
spouting dusty book knowledge and not much else.

> Jesus did the same thing when he taught parables to the multitudes.
>
> Yes, with a great depth behind them.

I see it like this. Take the word "love." We all encounter it
at some point in our lives and with it comes a certain appreciation
of its meaning. As we grow and experience more of life, we find
ourselves in
profound moments when the bottom seems to fall out of that word. We are
in over our heads, having to struggle to understand what the word we
thought
we knew now means to us.

> > I agree that the I AM movement is simpler and generally more devotional,
> > like a group for bhakti yogis, but I don't see that as a particularly
> > bad thing, do you?.
>
> There are some positives. But do the Masters really want just that kind of
> adulation? Doesn't it get in the way of their real work? That is why their
> real names are secret. And they do not make themselves public.
> Their charisma is overwhelmingly potent and therefore harmful to a free
> development of the pupil.

There are many types of Yoga. Devotion to the image of the Guru is a
time-honored one. Eventually the practice reveals that the distinction
you think you see is not real. Then, either you or the Guru, or both
of you can fade away.

When spoken to, "Love loves."
One preserves it.

> > "Scuze me, true masters? Have you heard of maybe, ... Krishna, Moses,
> > Jesus, Buddha?
>
> Jesus and Buddha (and can we say Krishna) did not write a word, and did not
> found a religion - their followers did. Moses recorded his own death, and
> what religion did he found?

Do you really think their followers could have done what they did
without them?

Mark
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