Theos-Talk Archives (October 2001 Message tt00375)

At 07:56 PM 10/23/01 -0400, you wrote:
> Katinka Hesselink wrote:
> > Well, I suppose because they share a religion. The mahatmas
> > (Or HPB) said that religion is the cause of a great
> > percentage (forget which) of the wars in this world. Seems
> > to me they are right. But other causes help to contribute.
>
> And that is my point. They hate anybody who is not a member of their
> religion, and they hate those (like the United States and Israel) that
> preach brotherhood between the religions. Period. All else is window
> dressing.
>
> Bart Lidofsky
This is the point where we can turn the discussion back
in a direction that is most relevant to us as Theosophists.

When do people hate others that are different? Where does
this intolerance and fanaticism come from? It's fundamentalism
mixed with a religious zeal to convert the world to one's
true belief.

We need to understand the psychology of how this works.
Then we can identify it starting to happen in ourselves
and others, and take steps to thwart it before it becomes
overpowering.

One way it happens is when our anger grows into hardened
positions leading to our condemning others. We go from a
peaceful exchange into a fighting mode, as we demonize others,
unjustly picturing them as acting from sinister motives, if not
agents of some dark power. It's ridiculous! These may be
people that were perfectly fine just minutes, hours, or
days before.

(This is not to lose the distinction between otherwise nice
people that we somehow cannot accept anymore and the few
truly monstrous ones, that may be actually out to hurt us
and others.)

We can also see this happening in our organizations, as
the leadership or the collective opinion starts seeing
itself separate, special, better than others, and
having a special role to combat the evil darkness to be
found elsewhere.

Problems start with the idea that "our group is the only
true one." They get worse when "the rest of the world must
be saved." The final step into fanatical fundamentalism
is with "the ends justify the means, it's ok to do terrible
things in the name of the greater good we'd accomplish."

Let's try to understand fundamentalism and how it applies
to our theosophical groups, and may bias them and us.
We want to identify it when it happens, so that we can
work to eliminate it. It's one of many impediments holding
us back from our spiritual progress and from our ability
to do good in the world.

-- Eldon