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Aug 27, 1999 02:25 AM
by W. Dallas TenBroeck
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Aug 26th
1999
Dear
Aidan:
Just started reading
your answer (below).
No, I do not believe
in any way that there is a "dumbing down" level of sameness. That ought to
be most strongly discouraged in all possible ways. Rather, because of the
concept of unlimited perfectibility in the future, realizable by the
Reincarnating Soul/Mind, there ought to be always a leveling up to the highest
level of thought and action we can aspire to in our present situation. And
of course that requires some precision rather than the presentation of some
other cloud of rosy color and unrealizable hopes.
I am not convinced
that political or social views of today are the answer to improvement.
They seek, as I read, to achieve general definitions almost on a statistical
basis, of the mass movements that can be employed to "motivate" people, or in
some cases, to enslave them. Simply because people, regardless of what
they espouse verbally (or even conceptually in a superficial manner for the
moment), will chose to act exactly as they want when the time comes for making
decisions. The freedom of the individual can be restricted or minimized,
or impaired, but freedom as FREEDOM cannot be entirely eradicated.
Eventually there will be a reformation or a revolution against over "control"
(whether this be subtle, political or blatant and
dictatorial).
We who may consider
and look at "mass actions" may, for our convenience, ascribe to that mass
movement (and its many eddies) descriptive adjectives which satisfy us, and
enable us to exchange views using the shortened of social and psychological
science.
But the importance
of the individual, and his progress and power of decision and power of
independent thinking ought not to be disregarded or in any way diminished.
The individual will still be the individual and will make his decisions, using,
in general, and at his own level of development the same kind of faculties that
we share in general.
In fact the "mass"
is made up of the sum of all those individuals. In fact much of the
"control" that governments exert on their populace by means of internal spying,
secret police-work etc.. is the attempt to identify and isolate or neutralize
that should have the capacity to be fiercely independent and through that
capacity, motivates others to commence thinking about the causes of their
restrictions and limitations.
I do not know if you
are familiar with Thomas Paine and his writings which motivated and sustained
two revolutions -- the American and the French. But he has always appeared
to me as one of the key figures of those events and that age. Of course
there were others, and many different causes have also been identified that
served to accentuate the unrest of the "rabble." Gandhi is another example
that jumps to my mind as I write this.
What a study of
Theosophical principles does (as I see it) is to focus on such things as those
that any individual can do for his environment, his friends, his nation,
and for himself. The self-generated abilities and improvements over his
situation and origins, need to be considered in terms of their general
benevolence or malevolence, (moral terms again - judgmental - but judgmental in
the broadest and most "universal" sense) and not solely in terms of the
disruption to the even flow of governmental control.
Do people need a
government? Only the unruly do. The majority who are very inert on
the whole, are content to be left alone. They grumble about paying taxes
and supporting a beaurocrasy, but they do not crate a revolution. It is
those who ask if it is necessary to do this, that make all the trouble.
And so society establishes a control system which becoming in due time morally
corrupt is toppled, usually with much shedding of blood.
In my esteem there
is a severe lack of being able to estimate the general and broad purpose of
life (both individually and as a mass), and the situation in the Universe that
confronts us all. We are not, in my view, "just social animals," but we
are burgeoning "gods." Anything that lifts us (as mind endowed humans) out
of the jog-trot of the ordinary, to consider ideals and general principles, is
valuable.
I would say that
this Universe and world that we live in, is a "moral universe." Using the
word moral to mean universal and incontrovertible ethics -- the
"virtues," as applied in a true brotherhood. All communities of whatever
size represent some kind of brotherhood, be the rules and laws recorded or
not.
All jurists,
legislators, voters, non-voters, recognize (as does everyone else) that there
are certain degrees of fairness which everyone is supposed to observe in
dealings with others. If one's "secret thoughts and feelings" were not
secret, but made public the moment they were formulated, how many of us would
pass the test of altruism and friendliness?
do we always put
forth our true thoughts and feelings concerning others and situations in the
world? Or do we hide them? If so, why? What impels us to
conceal instead of reveal?
Look at the
wonderful sayings of Jesus embodied for all to read in the "Sermon on the
Mount." Many call themselves "Christians." do they use and apply
those statements of divine ethics to the letter ? How can they expect
Jesus to "save" them if they do not honor him? It is the same with every
theology. Take also Government, regardless of the country, how many of its
"servants" obey to the letter the laws of their Nation? Do "Government
servants" serve the people or themselves whenever it is convenient? Some
do, and many fail.
The refuge of
"evil," conscious or unconscious, is darkness, concealment, deviousness and
secrecy. Those who have evil motives seek to disguise them using the
appearance of benevolence. Thus the highest tribute is constantly paid to
that which is just, true, fair and honorable by those who are dishonest.
Hypocrisy and concealment causes 9/10ths (my guesstimate) of the problems of our
Earth, its governments, and personal relationships.
I have read several
of your todays' posts. You use of course the shorthand of politics:
liberalism, conservatism, communism, etc... in your discourses on history,
war, international conflicts of the past, and the present situation. In
my view these do not entirely reflect the nature of any individual, although
they may broadly describe some system of beliefs he (and a group) has/have
accepted, and, for his/their fancied convenience, has/have more or
less temporarily adopted.
What the true inner
man and what his convictions are, and upon what basis he guides his life and
makes continual choices, is known only to himself in the deepest, most secret
center of his consciousness. That is what I think ought to be investigated
by each individual for himself. Such investigation is not (it cannot) to
be conducted by outsiders, however skilled. A true interpretation of an
individual's motive can only be honestly revealed and
seen interiorly. No one ever speaks of himself except in terms that
he hopes will give the correspondent an idea of his virtues and successes.
As I look back over
the history of various theologies, (as well as political and national actions) I
witness the determined effort, in various ways, to secure a control over human
minds. The best way is to keep the "masses" ignorant, and therefore
fearful. The next best way is to instill a love for their country,
community, family, and develop a trust in the leadership and promulgated ideals
thereof. But nowhere (with very few exceptions) is the developing mind of
the young encouraged to active independence, nor do I find the science of
"thinking" taught with any continued enthusiasm as a sine qua non of true
improvement.
Our education
provides us with masses of details, but does not necessarily tell us what to do
with them, nor is there a basic science that demonstrates the fact that
1. Nature
contains all;
2, We are
investigating her laws and operations already in place;
3. Every
feeling, thought, word and act sends waves of change over not only ourselves but
out to affect others, We are responsible for those
changes.
4. Nature
being affected, responds by sending us the effects of our choices, sooner or
later.
5. We are
immortals (as mind and souls) living in mortal and very vulnerable bodies.
Additionally we are burdened with the feelings of a highly refined instinct,
which has (as an innate faculty resident in itself) no sense of the future
effects of its many desires and wants.
6. As minds we
are able to remember and anticipate. The active mind maintains the
knife-edge balance between these and deals, if it is wise, with the unbridled
emotions and feelings in its own nature. It exercises a wise self-control if once
it realizes that this emotional self is its greatest (yet resident)
enemy.
7. It is the
Mind of man, which trained and refined to include the widest possible areas of
actuality and causality, that is able to encompass the Universe, its many
potentials, and all Nature (as living independent/interdependent facts), and
anticipate an ultimate perfectibility for itself, if it is able to maintain its
integrity and purity of purpose in self-development.
If this sounds too
much like a kind of megalomania, then consider that for most theologies the
attributes of "God" are omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence.
Present everywhere
(so therefore Deity is present at the core of every human as of every other
being -- from Atom to Galaxy).
Omniscience -- so
Deity knowing everything and able therefore to handle the individual Karma of
every being without fault -- one might say perhaps the perfect computer that is
Itself the COMPUTER.
Omnipotence -- the
power and force to generate and regenerate itself, to fold and refold all
materials and compounds, to perceive the core nature of each being and to assign
it to its natural cooperative position with all the rest. [ Our physical
body is a good example of this, where all is arranged independently of our
attention for us. We are tenants in a most complex and wonderful dwelling
that is self-repairing and self-renewing, yet for all its innate intelligence,
it is is subject to either our whims or our wisdom. What are
"WE?"
Omnipresence -- is
this not the innate sense of cooperation and the desire to "serve" that one
finds resident in ourselves as well as observe present in other beings?
I mentioned
"perfection." Supposing that this might be the total comprehension of this
grand design innate to all things ? Does this not imply that the "mind" of
man if impersonalized, might eventually (after many incarnations) be able to
achieve this position, and therefore enter into a closer kind of assistant to
NATURE as the end all and be all ?
But who drives and
monitors the "mind?" I ask this because the mind is to it a tool.
There fore I think that the ancient Hermes had a point when he said, so
enigmatically: "Man, know thyself."
Now I know that this
is heterodox, and quite far from that which is taught in general in our
academies and schools. But then, in my esteem they are biased by having
been directed solely to the material side of Nature -- the effect side, from
which, without metaphysics to assist, the possibility of deriving causal and
therefore ethical conclusions is almost impossible.
To offset any kind
of pride, one must have the humility to realise that any expression is limited
and faulty -- limited by language, experience, aspiration, desire, memory, and a
million other factors -- yet, withal that, there is the Individual, the
"I-ness," which has to have some kind of logical reason and explanation.
And, add to that, the recognition that everything else in Nature either was, is
or will be eventually, a Mind-human.
I hope that this
makes some sense to you. I think I got carried away by some of the things
I have read -- and thought it a good opportunity to say something on behalf
of a Theosophical education.and what it can achieve, at least as an independent
perspective. I would say that all I writ on is derived in some way from
the study of Theosophy which I have prosecuted for over 50 years without any
flagging of interest.
Best
wishes to you in lovely Yorkshire -- of which I have read excellent
accounts -- so that I believe you do enjoy it -- and I certainly would like to
pay a visit -- but not at this stage of my life -- as physically I am now very
limited in mobility.
Dallas
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