Theos-Talk Archives (December 1997 Message tt00127)

Dear Annette

Ramadoss has not misunderstood me, as I know from an e-mail
received from him.

>Definitely I'm unhappy with this feeling of "doing one's duty and
getting on with the job" as it feels very much like a 19th Century
thing, an enslaving thing, and one of the things I personally emigrated
away from.  I can't see it as being a 21st Century thing that calls
people to dream and to practice.>

May I put it to you, it is not a "19th century thing,"  it far
anti-dates the 19th century.  It has been practiced by the ancient
Aryans, Zoroastrians, Chinese philosophers and others.  The Sermon on
the Mount, teaches this by implication.  To my mind theosophy has to do
with the revival of the great concepts of previous ages and people,
those that make for great civilizations.  "The Voice of the Sielnce"
says "If sun thou canst not be, then be the humble planet."  If the
great ideas seems far above and away, let us practice duty in the way we
see best, and as we do so our horizons will expand and grow.

Again to my mind, rather than being "enslaving" it is paradoxically
freeing.  If we are bound by our own good works, are as the Bhagavad
Gita says "looking for the fruit of our actions,"  we cannot move on.
When we do what we see is duty and needed without looking for the
results,  one has the time and opportunity of engaging in other good
works; leaving the results to the Good Law, that of Karma.  Karma binds
us by the bad we do, the good we do, and the things left undone, which
we ought to have done but failed to do.

DUTY to humanity was the quotation I used.  But this is still limited.
DUTY has even a wider scope, that which is DUE TO ALL LIVING THINGS—and
this in theosophy includes all of nature, as no molecule or atom of
nature is not a living being.  Every religion practiced in the world
today—with all their faults set aside—have a practice of saying
something akin to what is called GRACE in Christianity.  What did this
really means ?  When we buy the food from a supermarket and pay cash, we
may think that we have paid what it is worth.  What we have done is paid
for the work put in by the various long lines of people involved in the
production and supply of the food to the supermarket.  Have paid to the
soil, the water, the sunshine, the air and natures forces for their
contribution to the production of the food.  How can we do this is a
real problem, is it not.  So we stand in a strange sort of debt to
nature for the food we consume, and have at hand very little means of
paying this debt.  Especially these days when we are fast recognizing
the great disturbances humans are causing to nature's balance, and
directly or indirectly we are contributing to an accumulation of greater
debts.   How can we settle this?  We are not all farmers, tillers of the
soil, we live in great cities, and procure our food.  The idea of GRACE
before eating was that people should remember this chain of GIVING
FREELY  which has brought the food to our tables.  One should in ones
heart and mind, give THANKS to all the visible and invisible beings
which are the real participants in the food production cycle.  This
THANKS if given not as a matter of course, but with sincerity and  deep
sense of obligation and a realization that the energy and sustenance
thus received should be utilized for benefiting others.  Then in some
little way we would be contributing towards the payment of our DEBT.
Nature gives, and gives, and gives endlessly, supporting all living
beings on and in this earth.  The least it seems to me we can do is
learn from her tireless giving to give too, without expectation and
freely.   Economics, in its present all encompassing form was given
birth to in the 19th and 20th centuries, and possibly its doctrines of
buying goods and services, and paying for them with money,  has some
defects.

Nature's way, seems to be to give and give without expectation.

Just a few thoughts on the subject, hope they help clarify what I first
wrote in a summary form.