Theos-Talk Archives (May 1998 Message tt00518)

May 29th 1998

Dear Bjorn:

No matter how one defines it, if one is sincere in the study of
Theosophy one gets an education that is not available anywhere
else.  It is mind-stretch.

I think that the reason you find redundancy in HPB's writing is

First:  different people understand things written one way and
others understand them written in another.  Sometimes a different
cultural and traditional upbringing requires a different
presentation to "right home."  HPB offered Theosophy to the
"world" and not to Americans only !  She wrote in English, not
French (though French then occupied the position that English now
occupies in her time) because the Masters of Wisdom knew in
advance that English would become the world-wide medium of
communication.

Second:  WE are a people in a hurry.  Few of us give ourselves
the time to really assimilate what has been said.  Our attention
and memory span, on the average, is brief.  So, I think that she
repeats herself (without making it an exact copy) so as to
refocus our attention on important information.  When we string a
series of relevant quotes together a more detailed "picture"
emerges, and incidentally, we also learn how one aspect fits in
with others that are relevant in different contexts.  (The
surface changes into a "volume." -- sphericity.)

Thirdly.  HPB writes for people living all over the world, in her
era, as well as in ours.  She indicates in the S D, that not much
more will be "given out" from the Adept records, until what has
been offered is assimilated and employed.  Is this not
reasonable -- that data cannot be safely distributed if what is
first offered is not yet seen to be made to work in the areas of
information that we already have secured concerning the working
of Nature ?

A series of question arises in my mind:

How few of us are there who are able to penetrate into the
meaning of the more abstruse and recondite Sciences ?  And then,
what do we really know about the studies of Adepts in the past?
What has happened to the vast stores of literature that have
disappeared, or been destroyed ?  Why did that have to happen ?
Why is there such a tendency to vandalism ?  Who among us are
there who know what Paracelsus (para-Celsus) and Van Helmont --
or Mesmer -- wrote and taught ?  Who today studies the
Alchemists, or the Hermetists, or the Theurgists?  Plato is
revered to the extent that some modern philosophers say that all
our psychology and philosophy are but footnotes to his writings.
Speak of redundancy and obscurity and read Plato !

Gnosticism has been rescued after some 1700 years from obscurity
imposed on it by the early Church Fathers some of which who made
it their task to destroy its records.  What has happened to the
writings of Simon Magus ?  Why is Pythagoras still revered,
though he wrote nothing himself and spoke to a "petroma" (an
interpreter) from the obscurity of his "cave?"  And this is only
speaking of the "Western traditions."

What about the Eastern traditions:  Indian, Tibetan, Chinese,
etc...  And what of the many records of the Mayas, the tOLTECS,
the Incas, the Aztecs, and Olmecs, etc... which were
systematically destroyed by the invading Spaniards and the
all-destroying Inquisition ?  Do you think that the destructive
powers are gone ?  I would say, from reviewing history, that they
are temporarily dormant.  One has only to visit some of the
Cyclopean ruins, the Pyramids and Temples of Egypt and of Central
and South America, the hundreds of mysterious interconnected
Caves excavated in ancient India, and China, or visit Angkor Wat
and Bayon in Cambodia, or Mandalay in Burma, Borobudur in Java,
Stonehenge, Carnac in Britany, Bamian in the Hindu Kush
mountains, Palenque, Uxmal, Chichenitza and Tiahuanaco in Central
and South America, to realize how little has been left to us of
the past.  If the astronomical layout of the ancient monuments
remained concealed until enterprising and intuitive
archaeologists discovered those facts, are we to blame or respect
those who designed the buildings -- the ancient fraternity of
Builders and Masons ?  Are we going to blame them for not making
to us the keys to mathematics, geometry, trigonometry, algebra,
and astronomy clear, or do we realize that there are cycles of
de-civilization that inevitably follow the growth and rediscovery
of knowledge which then flowers into a civilization such as we
have today -- a curious mixture of great intellectual achievement
side by side with "gangs," and "street warfare," and violence
being taught to kids who have yet to learn discrimination ?
What a set of paradoxes.

Why do we revere and respect a Gandhi, a Mother Theresa, a Father
Damian, or an HPB ?

We suffer from those who dismiss the past with a negligent flip
of the mind:  It is irrelevant.  We see there but the babblings
of infant humanity.  It is obscure, too difficult, etc., etc.,
We live in the present, and for the day of our pleasure.  Look
around, we live, most of us, currently in luxury, which the serfs
and peasants of the past only saw when they visited the castles
of the nobility or the local "lord" -- and envied.   We are those
same serfs and peasant reincarnated, and our envy has provided us
with the pleasures of the wealthy and the powerful of those
ancient days.  But, what are we doing with our opportunity ?  Has
a change in physical environment provided us with a change in
character ? Each should answer this for themselves.  I ask it
constantly of myself.

There is a mixture of baffled impatience in this kind of
expression which it is difficult to deal with.  Really it is a
matter for each to decide on himself, but in my esteem, it need
not serve to deter others from adventure and experience into the
marvelous past.  Or, of learning to master any science or body of
information.  Then, we are faced with the problem:  how do we
pass it on ?

When in engineering, we can duplicate the buildings of the
ancient Egyptians or the Indians, and Chinese, or reproduce
Cyclopean monuments that will withstand the millennia, then we
can boast of our civilization.  How long do you think our dams,
bridges, concrete cities, iron ships, automobiles, pipes for
running water, electric transmission lines and generating
stations, and the highways we have made will last (are they built
even as strongly as the "Roman roads" that traversed Europe and
which are still in use ?  In 500 years what will remain of the
"Chunnel ?"   When we can build astronomical observatories that
last for 10,000 years we can speak of leaving a valuable record.
The faces of 4 Presidents are carved in Mt. Rushmore, but what
permanent record is left "  What did they do or teach ?  What
lasting record for posterity is left of that value which inspired
us to erect monuments to them ?  What do their faces alone
inspire ?   Will those who follow us 5,000 years from now believe
that they were the faces of "gods" we dreaded ?  Why are the
"limits" of our accepted History only about 5 - 7,000 years ?
Why are we cut off from the
past ?

Here we are using Internet and filling the world with the
electronic circuits of words and thought.  How long will our
tapes and discs, and "Hard Drives" last ? 1,000 years from now,
what will tradition record as a memory of this age ?  What myths
will emerge ?  Why don't we believe the myth of Atlantis, or
Lemuria, and dwarf the sinking of Atlantis in the explosion of
Thera (Santorini) ?
Are we afraid of our Ancestors that we make them into shambling
savages that emerged from stand-up apes ?  Does intellectual
evolution depend entirely on physical posture ?  And in bulk,
just how many fossils have been employed to erect the hypothesis
of "evolution" from ?  Another myth current is that it is the
"brain" which evolves thought -- and where and what is it that
uses the brain and directs thought ?  "Dumbing us down" is the
world-wide passion of academia.  Why ?  Why take away the
inspiration of the past ?  Why prevent our intuitions and our
genius, collectively, from soaring ?  Why are our wings clipped
and poets derided ?  Why is the noise and cacophony of the
present called music ?  The two tendencies, one to growth and the
other to ignorance, meet at every point of our lives, and the
growth factor has a hard time of it.  Talking of fossils, are
those bones selected the best that can be had of those ancient
times ?  Or are they happenstance ?

What I am trying to say is that if Nature (the Universe, our
World, etc.) are seven-fold, then each aspect fits into each
other, and in fact we are dealing with a mosaic of at least 7 x 7
= 49 different relationships (and this on a planar surface).
The hint of wisdom and knowledge will persist, and perhaps our
successors will build on our shoulders, as we build on the
shoulders of our ancestors -- who are ourselves -- in earlier
incarnations.  Why is there such a hurry to obliterate our debt
to them ?

If we were to extend this 49 by another dimension (into volume)
the total would go to 343, add another " 7 x " and it is 2,401,
and so on -- and if we add time, and states of consciousness, the
number becomes almost infinite in complexity.

So any concentration (for the purpose of understanding) is only a
partial rendering of actuality, and much is left to the intuition
of the student to erect for himself from the basic information
secured.  For most of us the " 7 x "  is quite difficult to
understand, (it takes us out of linearity, and gives us a
surface) and if we add the real stumbling block for most of us
psychologically, the ethical/moral factor, we have a great deal
to work on -- then we enter "sphericity" or co-time.  And this
concept of "co-time" is actually connected with the Astral Light
for there is the record of all the past, and the lines of Karma
that link us to others and to future events that are to be seen.

In other postings, recently, the question of "Initiation" arose,
and to consider that, it was suggested that the study of
Theosophy leads anyone who pursues that avenue, closer to that
which is both IMPORTANT and interesting, as it opens to our
retrospective gaze a review of our own natures, and our motives.
And that is the dynamic aspect of present meditation, and that
alone will lead us into our own self-devised future.  We always
"make" ourselves.

I hope this is of some help.            Dallas.

> Date: Thursday, May 28, 1998 9:25 PM
> From: "Bjorn Roxendal" <roxendal@usa.net>
> Subject: Re: Second death

>W. Dallas TenBroeck wrote:
>>
>> If you think HPB is difficult and out-of-date, try tackling an
in
>> depth study of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks,
>
>No thanks.

WHY NOT ?  IT IS FOR ME VERY INTERESTING.  EACH TO HIS OWN CUP OF
TEA.  SOME LIKE SUGAR AND CREAM, AND OTHERS DONT.

>
>>  Have you tried to
>> disentangle the meaning of the Zohar, or of the Bhagavad Gita
?
>
>Only Bhagavad Gita. Seems more straightforward than HPB does to
me.


i WON'T ARGUE  THAT -- BUT KRISHNA REPEATS HIS MAIN THEMES.

>
> > I can think of dozens of writings that are far more difficult
>> than she is.
>
>It isn't only difficulty I am talking about. I am able to read
some pretty
>difficult stuff, but I DO find HPB somewhat obscure in
comparison. I am tempted to offer a suggestion for explanation of
this obscurity. Its like she is
>"overdoing" it, mentally speaking. But I'll refrain from
attempted explanations,
>since I really don't want to appear to be "critical", that's not
my point.
>

PERHAPS REPETITION IMPRINTS THE MEMORY OF ESSENTIALS


>> I don't think
>> the KEY is all that difficult.
>
>No it isn't. There is a big differences in style between the KEY
and the SD.
>
>Bjorn