Theos-Talk Archives (September 1998 Message tt00073)

Dan

Thanks for your reply which will take some time to follow up.  Did read in
print your paper about the third volume some time back.  Is it added to or
different at the web address you give?  Will go and have a look.  There is a
certain amount of holding back from doing this, because of not wishing to
get into the "argument" about the 3rd volume again.  What HPB (& the
Mahatmas) have written can escape being studied, because of all the time
consuming side issues.

Do not have the 2nd edition of the INNER GROUP TEACHINGS, only the first.
Will try and get a copy...

Just to pick up a few points now:

>I certainly prefer to study a facsimile edition of the
>1888 Secret Doctrine, but that doesn't mean that the
>Boris de Zirkoff edition doesn't have its merits.

What is interesting is, that when studied alongside the original edition,
the changes Boris makes show up the deeper points often overlooked in the
originals.  Like the darkness showing up the light (in the sense that it is
here written.)

>The BdZ edition has an excellent index and a wonderful
>bibliography.

The index produced by Pasadena which refers to the originals and the
original (and "modern") spellings is an excellent index, and may have an
intuitional flavour to it.
But the original edition also has an interesting index.  Big isn't
necessarily best.
The student may be able to travel around the SD in other ways.  In not such
a crystallised way as when using the printed indexes?

The bibliography is interesting, but to what extent does it really help us
with the actual study of the SD?  Of what the Stanzas are realy about.  Why
did Boris have to alter the SD of HPB and the Mahatmas?  How could he
possibly have thought he was up to it?

  Also Boris has annotated the original text
>with references to original sources that HPB quoted from, etc.

And often "correcting" the rendering produced by HPB and the Mahatmas.  Why
did Boris do it?  What was the real motive behind it?  What was the CAUSE -
his being a relative of HPB, and.....?

>The Historical introduction is also very helpful although
>Bdz makes many erroneous statements in that Introduction.
>The BdZ edition also gives in an appendix the original
>version of the Stanzas of Dzyan as they are found in the
>abovementioned 1886 Wurzburg MSS of the SD. Very valuable.

The printed Stanzas as they are in the original edition seem to be the
significant rendering.  As you may have noticed, the stanzas as they appear
at the beginning of both volumes, differ at times to how they appear in the
Commentaries.  Why?

But straight away, Stanza I, sloka 1 (p.35), in the BdeZ SD the inverted
commas are left out.  Why?  It is the only sloka in inverted commas in the
SD.  Don't you think that is significant and worth noticing?  And so on, and
on, and on.

>Are you interested
>in finding the truth or simply believing what you
>want to believe?
It seems to be a matter of studying/meditating the SD.  That soon knocks out
ones beliefs.  It is an "ever-changing" panorama to the student, but remains
constant.

And I'm not trying to pick on
>you.
Never thought you were, or would.  Your mail is helpful.

 I've asked similar questions to Paul Johnson
>and others.  Challenge my assertions but please also
>challenge YOUR OWN.

It is difficult to be sure what you mean by challenge YOUR OWN assertions.

The point where this seems to have started, is the fact that the SD was
published in 2 volumes in 1888.
Are you actually challenging this?
A reasonable statement was made with regard to study: is there a connection
between the SD being in 2 volumes: Cosmogenesis/Anthropogenesis, and the
dual nature of manas.  A possible reason for it being in 2 volumes is
karmic, cyclic, etc?
As you haven't really addressed this it seems that you assert that there
isn't a connection?  That is fine, but some see that there is.  Some see the
inverted commas.  Others don't.....  Some see the disc,  see that the
original edition of the SD is significant,  see that the date 1888 is
significant,  see the fact that the page number from page 60 is missing,
...others don't.

Thanks to Pasadena and The Theosophy Company for doing such good facsimiles
of the SD (by HPB & the Mahatmas), so that students have the opportunity to
study them in their original form.

Tony