Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00473)

--- In theos-talk@y..., Steve Stubbs <stevestubbs@y...> wrote:

among other things:

> 
> Ultimately, being a True Believer would appear to be
> an ego trip instead of a quest for truth,

But the True Believer gets to have his/her cake and eat it too. That 
is, to be on the ultimate ego trip and yet to profess total humility 
and to have his/her fellow True Believers actually *perceive* 
arrogance as humility. The explicit message is "I am naught but a 
lowly student of the teachings, putting forth nothing of my own 
interpretation but simply passing along the truth as it comes from 
the source." The implicit message is "I've got THE source, you 
don't; I'm on track, you're lost; I'm good, you're bad; the only way 
for you to get on track and be good is to accept THE source exactly 
in the way I do." While this faux-humility trip is not unknown among 
Theosophists, it's Baha'is who have really perfected it in my 
observation, as they use it to bash anyone who actually expresses an 
independent thought about the religion.

whereas
> being a philosopher is like a traveller trying to get
> to the horizon. He has some interesting adventures on
> the way, but the horizon keeps receding into the
> distance. Does the fact that the journey in search of
> truth never ends mean it is not worth taking?
> 
> Without being dogmatic about it I would say no.
> 
And you would be in good company; HPB addresses this eloquently in 
the SD, which I don't have at hand right now.

You led into a subject that I've been thinking about; the way some 
folks can imprint on a particular body of sacred literature as a 
lifelong path. Rather like a baby bird who will follow forever the 
first thing it sees after hatching. Or someone who falls in love 
with their first high school sweetheart and stays faithful to them 
for life. Gee, there's something enviable about that at first glance.
Although I've imprinted strongly on several bodies of literature, 
e.g. Baha'i, Theosophy, Fourth Way, Cayce, early Christianity, the 
fascination always wanes eventually and it's time to plunge into a 
whole new Weltanschauung. The confidence and comfort emanating from 
lifelong-imprinters in any of these traditions *seems* enviable; they 
never have to pass through the dark nights of the soul in between 
dharmas. But it's not really enviable, because they thereby avoid 
the luminous dawns of new awareness that occur when one plunges into 
a new body of sacred literature. When one's entire sense of the 
universe is turned inside out. I guess that seems fearsome to them; 
but it's what makes life worthwhile for those of us who are incurable 
seekers.

Cheers,

Paul