Theos-Talk Archives (March 1999 Message tt00317)

>>I notice you keep repeating the words DARE and TRY but you say nothing
about the first instruction  - "KNOW".   Doesn't 'Right knowledge' come
before 'right action'?  The last instruction is to KEEP SILENT, which
you inform us you have not.<<

I think that the TSs are doing a good job with the KNOW part.
The real reason that they refrain from the TRY and DARE
is that they all follow HPB's warnings and cautions, and I
am sympathethic to this. I was just pointing out that they
don't go into TRY and DARE, not that they should. In
fact, it is left to individual members to TRY and DARE on 
their own. The keep SILENT part has several facets, one
of which is that esoteric experience cannot be put into
words properly anyway and sometimes silence is the best
answer to a question (as Buddhist Masters do all the time).
Another is that any mention automatically tends to inflate
the ego because it always tends to carry an "I am better
than you" flavor with it. 

<<You refer to Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism for
support of your 'single-lifetime liberation' view. >>

Its not "my" view, but a well established teaching coming
from the very religions that HPB wanted us to study and
compare via the 2nd Objective. I could just as well have
said "thus have I heard."  Its message is, I think,
simply one of hope. The flood of Tibetan Buddhist books
currently on the market almost all mention this possiblility
remote as it may be. Why? Because it inspires hope. It
provides us with a goal to shoot for. Shooting for a better
life next time around just doesn't inspire me very much,
but if it happens I certainly won't complain. 

Jerry S.

PS, Many Theosophists use HPB's denouncement
of psychism as an excuse to avoid any occult practices
at all. Whenever it is suggested that the Globes can
be visited here and now, for example, a great wailing
cry of the dangers of psychism goes up. Psychism
only concerns lower psychic vision and has nothing
at all to do with intuition or higher scrying, or even
with meditation leading to mystical or other higher
altered states. It is fear and fear alone that does this.
Psychism, while dangerous and to be avoided, is often
an excuse for doing nothing at all. I refrain from
psychism as HPB defines it, myself, and always have.
Not out of any fear, but simply because the results
are so unreliable.

                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                         

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