Theos-Talk Archives (June 2002 Message tt00128)

June 23 2002

Dear Carl:


Every religion starts as a philosophy.


Every Religion starts as a description of the way in which the Earth
and the Universe works.

Each Religion then tries to tell humans who study it, how to live
their lives and recommends certain rules, and practices that assist
them. The religions that forbid questioning or study are the ones
that are usually the most vicious and careless of their flock's, real
welfare.

Now if we look on all beings and humans as embodying a deathless
SPIRITUAL SPARK which is questing for illumination and wisdom, we have
a far different picture to work on. We have Man as a mind and a
developing God in the making and not some poor miserable sinner
burdened with the undisclosed and improbably sins of a past for which
he is irresponsible. When logic is hidden or destroyed we have the
imposition of false authority and torture and violence are the
inevitable results. Look at our world and the sad results of
religions as they are. But, yes, we have adopted a new one:
hedonism. The abandonment of self-discipline for unregulated pleasure
that excesses do not even satisfy. This brings on the torture of
others.

Looking back over all religions what do we see?


After the prophet has come and gone the priests take over.

Their motive is no longer to teach and to reform, but it changes
either soon or late to the preserving of a basis for authority.

Instead of assisting humans to become wise and independent, they try t
take away the power of thinking independently, t make men subservient
to their presumed authority, and thus t create a mass of ignorant,
thoughtless followers who will support them because they alone claim
and to some extent can demonstrate their superior knowledge

The result is the commonly seen: Leader and his "flock."

They take advantage of the inertia and the lack of interest people
have in thinking. They pander to pleasure, excitement, and
curiosity -- without limits or any real goal or achievements. What
survives death? Where did we as thinkers come from? Where do we go
when this body dies ? What is the Soul? where is SPIRIT? Is God
alive or dead ? Are there any universal rules and laws we can
discover and depend on ?

If this is grasped we can pass to the study of the common source of
religions.

The details of the religious systems are many and different, usually
thanks to the distortions one finds were introduced by the priests
down the years.

Therefore the best way to compare religions is to go back to the
earliest documents and records and compare them there. Forget about
the changes of rites, rituals, ceremonies, feasts, invocations,
prayers, penitances, etc.. made up by the priests to inspire awe or to
keep people ignorant. Those are unimportant and do not lead to the
'ETERNAL LIFE."

What is the ETERNAL LIFE ?

It is the universal DEIFIC PRINCIPLE that supports and enlivens it.

It is the universal educative method of inducing men to THINK.

It is not based on fear and ignorance, it is based on a knowledge and
a wisdom that is common to all.

The institution of priesthood (any kind, anywhere) is to be abolished
everywhere. The institution of a true system of education and of
teachers thereof is to be hailed and installed.

The rules are universality impartiality, verity, virtue, and a wisdom
concerning all things. Next the perception that Law is universal and
no one has the power to change or divert it.

Next is the perception that the Deific Power being everywhere, man has
his known "spark: thereof. Further every being has a similar spark,
and the are immortals, and their being implies that they are learning
and growing wiser with experience as time passes.

The next idea is that this is a vast cooperative brotherhood and that
all benefit or are degraded depending on the nature of the motive
employed by any self-choosing individual. We all share in each other
regardless of the "labels" that society and custom burden us with.

The moral and ethical injunctions of every prophet are similar. They
all belong to a common Body: the LODGE OF WISDOM which NEVER DIES.
Hence the prophets and sages have not "borrowed" from each other,
rather, they have learned in a common school.

That School is not separate from nature, but is the same as we are all
in right now.

And that is the sum and substance of comparative religions.

all the rest is priestly additions and details meant to submerge and
degrade the intelligence and the independence of mankind and to make
it dependent through fear and ignorance of the sly cunning of the
priest craft. Eliminate "authority" and the evils will all go.

Teach the brotherhood of man and the equal opportunities that the ONE
DEITY offers to all. And good, and truth will rule over all in an
impartial manner. It is not a rule imposed on him from "outside" or
by "authority," but an inner rule, and each one right now, has the
same, identical knowledge, and knows this in full, if he will only
seek into his own conscience for it.

best wishes,

Dallas

-----Original Message-----
From: Tort3
Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2002 7:42 PM
To:
Cc:
Subject: Re: Adam and Eve: The Temptation

Thanks for this response to my post. My understanding as I listen to
many Theosophists these days is that they believe that all religions
arise from an essential paradigm common to all of them. The
differences
are only accidental to culture and history.

Now I first discovered the writings of HPB in 1968, and I have studied
them ever since, and although I am far from the best student, I
believe
I understand the basics. HPB writes of an Ancient Wisdom prior to the
coming of all the various and sundry religions that now exist. If
these
limited expression found acceptance in the world, it was because they
adopted at least some of the Principles of that Ancient Wisdom, some
outer forms of religion being more pure than others, but none to be
compared with the Wisdom Teaching itself.

While I was still a student in a Christian seminary, I read Isis
Unveiled, and I learned that all religions were departures from the
truth that HPB was offering, and not expressions of it. Religions
were
the corrupt form of real spirituality, and Theosophy, as expressed
clearly in Isis Unveiled, was suggesting that we return to the Ancient
Wisdom, not that we create a synthesis of all the religious forms and
ideologies left in the modern world. In fact, Isis Unveiled presents
the Ancient Wisdom as being iconoclast.

Realizing this fact, and being in total agreement with HPB, I left
seminary and the corrupt religious form that it incorporated.
However,
I already knew from my studies there that various world religions were
expressions of conflicting philosophical positions, and they certainly
did not arise from any common metaphysical platform. It never
occurred
me that anyone reading Blavatsky would understand her words in that
way.
In Isis Unveiled, HPB had dealt with many of the Western philosophies
and the philosophers that belong to the various schools. Her purpose
was to illustrate how religious dogmas and creeds had arisen out of
varied philosophical schools. Isis Unveiled was written for the
express
purpose of exposing these fraudulent teachings, not to incorporate
them
into some metaphysical stew.

You certainly do not see HPB advocating any of these philosophies or
religions. Instead she shows how each one had been influenced in some
way by the Ancient Wisdom, and it was that Ancient Wisdom that she
considered the Pearl of Great Price and the Treasure in the Field.
All
other forms and creeds simply missed that high mark.

This point was missed by those who claimed to carry on the work of
HPB.
Instead of returning to the Ancient Wisdom, they attempted to form new
groups, a theosophical Catholicism, a theosophical masonry, etc., and
to
suggest that HPB had been the impetus for such activities. This is
not
the "eclectic" model that HPB had suggested on the cover page of SD,
and
reading her words even casually, one should know that.

Now, I do appreciate the words of Dallas, and I think it proper to
compare him with any great soul or expert on Theosophy. He has shared
some really good posts over the years on this list. I would say that
the passages in Isis Unveiled about Krishna, Christ, and Buddha are
written in a context though. They are really not parallels about the
essence of these religions. Rather they show that writers were
borrowing from each other, and that the Jesus story was suspect as
history due to the fact that the story had been told in prior myths
throughout the then-known world. HPB makes the point over and over
that
the personification of the solar myth should not be confused with
history. She also makes the point that the Ancient Wisdom should not
be
confused with the solar myth in any form, for it preceded the solar
myth
and was separate from it.

It should thus be clear that she was not advocating an Esoteric
Christianity or even a return to some form of Freemasonry, both of
which
schools are late expressions of the solar myth. Her message was
clearly
set forth in the Stanzas of Dzyan, and cannot be understood as mere
astral religious forms, but rather their antithesis.

The New Age Movement has clearly taken this ecumenical view of all
religion, and the synthesis being produced may be a new religion all
together, but it will not be the Ancient Wisdom, but rather a
hodge-podge of all the corrupt religious creeds of the world, the very
thing that HPB surely unveiled. It will also be as internally
contradictory as Christianity has been, for it is based on conflicting
religious and philosophical positions, while claiming that everyone is
saying the same thing in essence. alas.

So, I agree that Theosophy (HPB) teaches a fundamental and primordial
philosophy or Ancient Wisdom that has only reached the modern world
mixed with many conflicting fables, essentially opposed to one another
in their fundamental expressions, but containing traces of a
primordial
spirituality that preceded all the religious forms and is represented
by
none of them.

Carl