Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00435)

Sunday, March 24, 2002

Dear Doss:

May I break in and offer these thoughts?


The truth of things is not popular. Theosophy is a statement of
facts in nature.

When people think they have a right to be amused all the time,
then the needs for discipline, purpose, and self-regulation are
not welcome in such characters.

Nature and karma work hand in hand to make it apparent what the
real nature of life and our purpose as human beings is. How are
we to define that? Can we put into clear words any expression
that will serve to unite Ideals, with the practical every-day
life we live in so many personal ways ?

The statutes and laws of all countries recognize, without being
able to write them well, the inner laws of harmony in diversity,
of fairness, honesty, justice and respect for the rights and
privileges of the poorest and meanest of humans as well as of
others who are "rich and powerful" as well as of all kinds of
diverse creatures, which together make up the whole of the nature
around us This ought to indicate to us what the meaning of,
tolerance, consideration for others, and forbearance is. This
the Heart Doctrine as opposed to the Eye Doctrine in which "might
is right" as the criterion observed and practiced in darkness and
secrecy.

Theosophy DOES NOT seek or expect to establish a "religion" in
which some new set of dogmas define the rules of "belonging."
While it certainly advances pithy sayings concerning motive and
"living the spiritual life," it does suggest that any of those be
adopted without deep thought as to their actual meaning and
worth.

The power to think makes a man distinct from the animals. But
this power needs to be analyzed and understood if "man" is to
progress and truly use it in a fair and reasonable manner.
Everyone knows this. It is redundant to repeat many of these
things. But it is not redundant to encourage their practice.

It proclaims the RELIGION OF THE UNIVERSE and of our Earth: It
is BROTHERHOOD. This brotherhood is inherent in all. It comes
from the fact that all are derived from the omnipresent, and
all-pervasive SPIRITUAL source.

An objection is raised: "If we are spiritual in essence, if we
'bathe' in the "God-essence" then why are we not "perfect ?"
Theosophy states that man is the result of a three-fold
evolutionary program: 1. The Spiritual essence as a uniform
base pervades all and is the ever-present potential that inspires
life and intelligence in all beings at whatever personal level
they may be. Basically, it is this primordial and never-changing
SPIRIT that divides itself into the countless all-pervading
Monads that are the living building blocks of nature. Nature,
taken as a whole is GOD. GOD is NATURE. The old "Pantheists"
were right. There is no such thing logically possible as a
"Personal GOD."

2. The Intelligence generated by passing through all kinds of
experiences marks the progress of consciousness as it becomes
progressively individualized, as it approaches the most difficult
middle passage: the fact and the challenge of being able to
focus a knowledge of all nature and all laws in the Mind -- the
atom is produced as one of the stages of the Monad on its
ascending progress, and the human being encased in a physical
form is another, when the need for an independent and free mind
is the part of the program that has to be gone through (we are in
that stage, here and now, as developing Monads); In fact we can
say that we are the means whereby the mater of the universe and
our world becomes humanized, and capable of that sensitivity that
is able to reason out the necessity of the Spiritual source and
the return thereto.

3. the material aspect of things represents the grossest
concretion of the substance needed as a base on which to erect
the various "scholarly" levels of individual experience. The
interesting aspect of this is that it provides this substance
with the opportunity of participating in every aspect of
evolution at the essential stage where a temporary stability is
needed for the Mind and the Spiritual nature to work and to
transform the diversity back into a primal experienced UNITY.

Let us look at our civilization, and at our present general
condition in this incarnation where we are a part of a great
change in knowledge and outlook -- beginning about 3 to 400 years
ago. The Protestant movement against ignorance producing church
dogmas in the West, caused the evolution of independent Science
outside the "clerical" circles of that church. Lay people
gradually became able to work and think and essay to learn for
themselves -- the history of the development of science in its
various departments shows this. Side by side political
enfranchisement and freedom was taking place. Under what
encouragement this did this happen? Was it the Great Adepts, the
Mahatmas who stimulated this, quietly encouraging from "behind
the scenes" some to come forward, who were able to provoke
thinking men to action?

Our own education as a matter f experience years back, and the
current trends in teaching, is still based on the materialism of
science, and the dogmatism into which all religions have
descended, has not taught us how to THINK.

We do not know precisely where to start.

Materialism describes the current situation, and looks for some
explanation, or a hypothesis, or theory that will explain it. As
it can only find fossils and relicts in earth strata from the
past it tries to use those as evidence of development in
antiquity. It posits a uniform progress from primal "savagery"
and ignorance to our present times, where "knowledge: is deemed
to be at its most advanced stages. any evidence that does not
agree with this idea is suppressed as fearless and independent
evidence exposed by research shows. We have records of this.

And when these hypotheses of Science fail, it concocts a fresh
one, or a series of new ones, using partial facts and the
disjointed observations of the past -- of this there has been
ample evidence over the past 150 years, and there is no solution
yet found that is entirely stable and explains all conditions and
matters.

But as materials are constantly changing at the atomic,
molecular, and cellular levels (under what laws, they have yet to
find out), and, as those minute components rearrange themselves
in the outlines of existing patterns (Why?) the teachings about
Karma and reembodiment, stand as god a chance as any other for
reasonableness, accuracy and therefore of consideration.

One of the problems is that the "astral plane" is still
unrecognized, although increasingly felt -- the electro-magnetic
fields in various bodies and situations are more and more
recognized, but their interaction and universal prevalence are
still not clear.

In psychology, the psychic, emotional, thought and spiritual
planes remain to be identified. Ancient theosophy wise in such
things, and with thousands and millions of years of past
experience, declares they are realities, and that the evidence
lies at hand for us to recognize, re-prove and use.

Science being unable to trace moral and ethical laws does not
seriously consider Karma or the fact that there may be, in
Nature, some actual forces that compel fairness, honesty,
sincerity and virtue among human beings and the materials they
use.

The gap between physical nature, as described in substances --
such as the materials of chemistry, physics, geology,
engineering, astronomy, mathematics, biology and the intelligence
that empowers living and purposiveness in the Human individual is
yet to be bridged.

Theosophy offers a view that bridges that gap. It is synthetic
in the sense that it unites all aspects of investigation as well
as living together into an integrated and inter-active whole. It
takes the analysis and then compares the bases for diversity with
the harmony of cooperative life.

It speaks (as in The SECRET DOCTRINE ) to the evolution of the
Universe and then on Earth to the evolution of the form of man in
which an individual SPIRITUAL-SOUL can reside feel and act.

How can any one make a dogmatic religion of that ?

The teachings demand a openness of sympathy, and a clarity of
intellectual capacity that is potential in all of us, but needs
to be individually and personally adopted as a goal and then
fostered and learned.

But as a barrier to that, as a confusing set of concepts, the
ideas of being "born in sin," or "of being incapable of
understanding that which is difficult," is raised to divert those
who are incapable of maintaining the fervor of individual search
and the demand for an accurate knowledge of the truth about every
aspect of Nature. A great part of that proof is available if one
takes the trouble of devoting a little time to the actual study
of THEOSOPHY. But most people who secure a degree plunge into
the matter of making money and supporting a family, and
interspersing pleasure after work, and give little time to
finding out the whys and the wherefores of their own lives.

So THEOSOPHY will not be popular as a philosophy unless it is
among those who feel the urge to KNOW THEMSELVES and to KNOW THE
MEANING OF THINGS As THEY ARE IN NATURE.

It cannot deteriorate into a "religion" (such as we see around
us) unless much of the edge of truth is rubbed off and the
surfaces rounded to agree with most current pet prejudices --
which are not expressions of accurate facts in nature or of
inherent TRUTHS.

But all this has been said a thousand times before H P B, by Her,
and since then by many writers on Theosophy.

So we do not rate Theosophical success by numbers or lists of
members, but by the influence that its ideas spread out of the
world of thought and which stir active minds to find out things
for themselves and use them for the general benefit.

Theosophy is in the knowledge and the service business and does
not rate its work by using statistics. If anything it rates its
work by the change in the heart and the good-will of mankind and
above all by the change in the "Manas (Mind) and the Buddhi
(Spiritual discrimination) of the Race." -- This phrase used by
H P B is one that say humanity is now given a flip in the
direction of self-induced thought and self-induced action, in an
atmosphere where a fair amount of political freedom ensures that
dark forces of prejudice and creedal oppression are relatively
held at bay.

Let take advantage of those opportunities.

Best wishes,



Dallas




-----Original Message-----
From: ramadoss@gbronline.com [mailto:ramadoss@gbronline.com]
Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2002 6:43 AM
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: Theos-World Hi TLO and PR...

At 06:20 AM 3/24/02 -0800, dalval14@earthlink.net wrote:
>"So to put it another way, a personage like Krishnaji will
always
>tell us to do our own work and not to rely on others no matter
>how highly we esteem them, those teachings are to make us do the
>work we all have to do on our own characters and natures sooner
>than most. Our attention is awakened, and our will is energized
>to some extent."

This is a very difficult thing to do. Most, find it easy to
follow orders
(sometimes blindly). Once we start doing our own work, we may
feel "alone"
not isolated.

One of the reasons that Theosophy has not had mass appeal, in my
opinion,
is that it does not offer an easy solution or solve one's
immediate problems.

Of course, a person who is really independent may be viewed
either as a nut
or viewed with hostility. That is a price, I think, one does pay.

mkr






Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/