Theos-Talk Archives (July 2002 Message tt00156)

Hi all of you,

Here is part 3 in the "Ancient Wisdom connections" series...

I hope it will be of some help in understanding real Spiritual teachers and organizations and their mode of operating - as well as the functions of the more ordinary ones.


"Q: What form does the teaching take?

A: It may take many forms. The first step is to attain a stabilisation of mentation which will enable the student to learn. We do not start with an unwarranted assupmtion that the individual is capeable of learning. He may have to learn how to learn.
Because of veneration of tradition and lack of understanding of essentials, deteriorated systems concentrate upon the repetition of certain mental and/or physical techniques which provide only a partially balanced individual. The real teaching covers a very wide range. These include 'undertakings' (tasks) given in order to awaken certain functions which are needed to cennect with certain other ones. They may be mental and physical movements, music and special exercises.

Q: Are there any social factors which we in the West do not understand, which might be said to play an important part in the real teachings?

A: There are many. Here is one. You are accustomed to assuming that you canbe taught something provided that you have the capacity and the conditions. This can be nonsense. People are trying to learn things without realisingthe simple little fact that certain things can be studied only at certain times. These times are not measured by clock-time. They are known to the teacher through inner cognition, and unless he teaches at those times, all the books or exercises in the world will have next to no effect.

Q: I notice that you are not using technical terms very much. Why is this?

A: Because you are accustomed to the use of technical terms associated withfragmentary tradition. If I use a term you recognise, you will immediatelyassociate it with past experience and incomplete formulation. It will be handled by your intellect and not correctly used. Further, the terms which are used in one phase of the work are not necessarily those which apply to another. Remember always that if you are using twothousand year old terms you may be trying to 'work' in a role suited to the people of 2,000 years ago. This is where 'tradition' becomes a trap.

Q: But surely there is a system?

A: You do not know what a 'system' is. The work is really systematised at alevel much higher than intellect as you know it. Any apparent systematisation is merely a working frame, concocted for the purpose of bringing the teaching a little nearer to you. It does not have universal validity. The system is known by the teacher and equally developed people, just as you know something so well that you act in accordance with it inevitably. This work is natural, organic and changes form, not content, in accordance with the needs of the people, the work and the teacher. What serves as a system in one phase of the work is not a system in another.

Q: You mentioned exercises and music. Can you tell me something about musicand dancing?

A: Very little you will understand. However, what you call 'dance' is sometimes a develomental exercise, sometimes for communication of various kinds,sometimes for accumulating something and holding it, sometimes symbolic. Based on principles which have to be known in an inner sense, the dance is one of the most vital things, but it has deteriorated in cultural and even religious use, into mere repetition.
Music has many functions, all dependant upon the environment, the participants, the instruments used, the stage which work has reached in a certain community, and so on.

Q: And prayer?

A: Prayer depends upon knowing how to pray and what it is for. The usual idea of prayer is merely emotional, and performs a conditioning function.

Q: So contemporary religious beliefs and action are not real?

A: They are composite. There are some fossilised remnants of real things; some functions for the ordínary man, so that he may continue to behave in a certain way, some elements of misunderstanding, some built-in personal quirks of individuals who have sought to organise without understanding.

Q: Can a person who has not got a comprehensive view of these factors teachanything in your way?

A: Very little. He can be given a task, but this he will have to fulfil forhinself. He will bring his own distortions to others if he tries to teach.He may be allowed to try to teach, or organise, but unless his own teacheris available to correct his excesses he will do more harm than good.

Q: What is the position of a repetitious organisation, carrying on in the belief or hope that they will achieve something?

A: This will depend upon the organisation. In general it may be said that such an entity is merely a self-perpetuating entity, not a teaching one. Themore it tries to teach, the more the defects which will be transmitted. The blind cannot lead the blind. Generally such an organisation become soakedin self-esteem and lose humility.' Few Christian leaders today would accept Jesus, for instance, if they met him. Instead of really knowing anything,thye feed upon self-esteem, which develops into what call the 'Commanding Self'. It is very terrible, because this is diametrically opposed to their real possible destiny.

Q: Do you test people who are interested in what you are doing?

A: We, do, indeed. All too often they do not know that they are being tested. they expect some crude, obvious test that they are willing to go through. They have little idea of the subtlety of the means available to us. What do you do in the case of people who have a great deal of self-pride and notenough conscience?
We do not deal in theoretical instances quite in the terms of this question. But it may be said that we make available to them, in a manner which they do not intellectually grasp, a communication or spark of truth, to enabletheir inner reality, their Dhat (essential factor) to receive our signals.This operates, when the 'mirror is not too rusty' by letting them really feel something of the danger they are in, so that their conscience is stirred.

Q: Does this sometimes lead to paradoxical behaviour on the part of the teacher?

A: Certainly. Nothing is more revealing than to meet someone who thinks that he or she has some degree of perception, and yet who cannot pick up one's'signals' when transmitted on a non-verbal or non-intellectual level."

Here ends the series from the book "The Commadning Self" by Idries Shah (d.1996). ('Idries' translates as you know to 'Edris', 'Enoch' or 'Thoth' - the Master).

You can draw your own conclusions on the above.

If I should add something - I would put my attention on how to make PR for such views as the above. 

Because, some people in certain circles - here including a greater number of so-called theosophists seems to me, NOT to understand these issues mentioned by Idries Shah.
The teacher are definitely important, as has been shown in part 2 and also part 3 of this series. So without the proper teaching - there is a tendencyto decay or merely repetition in the teaching.
To think new thoughts, and even thoughts which are following an inner 'time-pattern' seems to be the idea of spiritual development. The REAL Spiritualcontent is always the same, but the forms changes. Some forms are lifting humanity and some are not, and yet some are repetituos in a no-good sense. Some forms are better than others at a certain moment in time - to a certain group of poeple, but not to others.

Where are Theosophy today ?
What shape or form - or especially what Public Relation can lead humanity into the teachings on Ancient Wisdom ?
What kind of words or terminology is needed if any?
What has - Senzar and the 7 keys mentioned by for instance H. P. Blavatsky - to do with all this in an information society like the present one?

The answer are blowing in the wind. 
When will the change come ? When needed ?


Feel free to comment and do your best.

from
M. Sufilight with love and peace... a coming webmaster...




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