Theos-Talk Archives (May 1998 Message tt00071)

<< [Jerry Schueler] There is only one path that we can take today. Basically
it is
 Jnana Yoga or reading and studying until the ego breaks down
 and consciousness can transcend it. Most Theosophists think
 that this kind of yoga is just reading and studying. But this is
 only the first half. The second half is leaping or jumping over
 the human mind altogether. >>

As usual I can agree with everything you say--to me, even your rare-if-any
"mistakes" seem to have more truth in them than the iron-clad accuracies of
many others.

"Reading and studying until the ego breaks down" is an interesting thing to
think about isn't it?  (At least until this particular thought-ego--semi-
Self--"breaks down" and one is forced to "up-level" to the next layer of
"contaminated Consciousness" and start fighting a whole new family of
potential semi-Selves.)

I don't know . . . it may be that you are giving an over-generous compliment
to some all-too-rock-solid Fifth-Degree individuals here.  (I am using
"Degree" in the sense of Degree of Self-Awareness--i.e. the ability to stay at
least partially Self-Aware, in this case, when egoic delusions form at the
Fourth [kama-manas] Level  of consciousness.

It seems to me that it is one thing for incipient Sixth-Degree people to
sooner or later realize the limitations of reading/studying as "raw material"
for the formation of dispassionate (manas, Fifth-Level) semi-Selves ("I AM my
desire-free thoughts and mental operations") and thereby move toward more
mystical/intuitive/transcendental ("theosophical," Sixth-Level) ways of
knowing; however, it seems quite a bit lesser thing for a Fifth-Degree person
to simply realize that his or her reading/studying has hitherto been merely of
the "pick-and-choose" variety used in the service of desire-tainted mentation
(kama-manas semi-Self formation, Fourth-Level) and thereby move one step
upward toward a more "prejudice-free" inner environment.

In short, it is not clear to me that "Jnana Yoga" is the best path for
everyone or whether, indeed, it might not be more suited to those who have
already "psychomatured" to the point where they can regularly catch themselves
"sinning" in the old kama-manas manner--i.e., are already quite a ways down
the road of dispassionate truth-seeking (i.e., creating/indulging more pure
mental semi-Selves).

It's such a messy subject.  At this point, my understanding is that one cannot
do ANYTHING without having a ego-formation in operation.  Even when one is
experiencing something as lowly as a backache, there is a sense in which one
actually IS, albeit partially, the backache.  Most people have a high enough
Degree of Self-awareness not to allow themselves to be TOTALLY transmogrified
into the "backache semi-Self," of course, but as one moves up through the
various Levels of consciousness, it becomes every for difficult for Self-
awareness to hold its own vis-a-vis the evermore subtle types of egoic
delusion.  Show me a person who can rattle off what he or she dispassionately
knows (utilize a semi-Self formed at the manas Level) and still hold on to a
"remainder" of Self-awareness, and I'll show you an individual of at least the
beginning of the Sixth-degree.  Show me a person a person who can convey his
or her highest theosophical insights (utilize a semi-Self formed at the
Buddhi-manas Level) and still remain a little Self-aware (keep a modicum of
the Once-Removed-Vantage) in the process--well, its doubtful that I would be
able to really "See" such a development in a person anyway.

No, the only psychomaturational developments one can hope to See in others are
probably those one has first seen in oneself.  Ditto for psychomaturational
"sins."  Furthermore, the thing which really makes me uncomfortable--and which
I am still struggling with--is the realization that at no matter what Level I
allow semi-Selves to form at, IT SEEMS TO BE FOR THE EGOIC PURPOSE OF MAKING
MYSELF "HIGHER" THAN SOMEONE ELSE.  This is a horrible confession, I admit
(and even now as I write I am occasionally catching a glimpse of my "semi-Self
of the moment" trying to assert that it is higher than those with whom I am
trying to share my "understanding" of this subject).

Achh!  Apart from shutting up entirely--which I think is the direction I may
be going--there seems to be no escape from this psychomaturational "Catch 23."
I don't know . . . perhaps my view is all screwed-up, and the real "occult"
activity on this list is not to primarily establish whose at-least-partially-
deluded-ego-of-the-moment is higher than whose.  Is anyone free of Catch 23?
(I don't know . . . even the laudable Dallas is in one breath telling us that
"None of us are ever any superior to any one else" and in the next telling us
that his ideas are to be taken as a "touchstone"--a standard by which to judge
other ideas.)

(Achh!  In the immediately preceding I see that some semi-Self of mine was
even trying to get higher than the semi-Self Dallas may or may not have been
utilizing.  Achh!  Now some Semi-Self of mine is trying to get higher yet by
means of some stupid, saintly, owning-up-to-one's-own-sins strategy).

Achh! and

Godspeed,

Richard Ihle