Theos-Talk Archives (July 1999 Message tt00069)

clint mccray wrote:

> Blavatsky stated in the key that life on the whole, for most, is
> sorrow.  She also stated that to us this life, each individual
> incarnation seems an eternity.  And finally, that this is the
> punishment interval of the soul's cycle, devachan being the restful and
> good time.
>
> Are you telling me that the goal is to completely disassociate with
> pain, with select feelings?  To tell myself this is some grand
> illusion, and I need not be troubled by my neighbor's plight, nor my
> own?  When HPB herself said we are meant to suffer in this nighttime of
> the soul.  Do the greater mystics let go of feeling altogether?  How
> can there be compassion without involvement, empathy without pain?
Suffering inherent in the phenomenal world is a fact, cessation of this 
suffering is another fact. The first is transient and due to our ignorantly 
seeking security and happiness in the impermanent and acting as if we had 
already found it.

The goal is to realize the Truth for the benefit of humanity. When we 
succeed in identifying our consciousness with higher Self, permanent love 
consciousness and knowledge of things mundane and supra-mundane will be 
natural accompaniments.

The Adept is indeed dead to the world; he is oblivious of its pleasures, 
careless of its miseries, in so far as sentimentalism goes, for the stern 
sense of Duty never leaves him blind to its very existence. In words of one 
of HPB's teachers: "It is . . . the business of 'magic' to humanise our 
natures with compassion for the whole mankind as all living beings, instead 
of concentrating and limiting our affections to one predilected 
race.....human and purely individual personal feelings -- blood-ties and 
friendship, patriotism and race predilection -- all will give away, to 
become blended into one universal feeling, the only true and holy, the only 
unselfish and Eternal one -- Love, an Immense Love for humanity -- as a 
Whole"

> I am not complaining, just trying to make sense of it all, I know there
> is no one to blame, I just want some direction, I just want to know
> what the heck I'm supposed to do in this crazy world!
Your concern of what appears to you as unreasonable suffering of others is 
noble and there is nothing wrong with inquiring of its cause provided you do 
not allow it to corrupt you with negative emotion or cause you to be 
entrapped in discursive thought. Cheerfulness is one of the indispensable 
qualifications for those who desire to be able to help others. What is the 
use of a doctor if he fainted or wept at the sight of an accident?

Best wishes,

-Andrew


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