Theos-Talk Archives (January 2003 Message tt00480)

From: "Zack Lansdowne" <zackl@sprynet.com>

> In every moment of our lives, I think that we have a basic choice: whether
> to focus on issues that separate us from other people, or whether to focus
> on issues that unite us with other people. In other words, our basic choice
> is between love and fear. By choosing love, we can grow spiritually, bring
> harmony to this forum, and help bring harmony to our world. Both HPB and
> Bailey encouraged us to choose love rather than fear. Here are some quotes:
>
> Blavatsky (Collected Writings, vol. 9) speaks of the aspirant's effort:
> "His thoughts must be predominately fixed upon the heart, chasing therefrom
> every hostile thought to any living being. It (the heart) must be full of
> the feeling of its non-separateness from the rest of beings as from all in
> Nature; otherwise no success can follow."

Can one think, discern, discriminate and still love only? Of course!
Speaking only for myself, (which is more accurate than having others skrying
my words on a screen, listening for a "tone") my motive is plain. I am trying
to share my insights, experience and thoughts about a teaching (AAB's) that
says it is an extension of HPB's. That is not so; it is a perversion of HPB's
teachings. I do this in order to reduce the suffering & confusion of those
who may wish to pick AAB or HPB. Only secondarily do hope to help those who
are deeply sunk into the mire of the Baileywick. I know it took me many
years, so I know how difficult it is.

As Shantideva, a Bodhisattva of some note, once put it: It is better to wear
shoes than try to carpet the stoney ground around you. In other words, being
loving towards "them" is only half the equation; one must also be "patient
sweet which naught can ruffle" with the irritants (people, ideas or the
weather) in one's life. Even the Xtian bible has something about love being
"long suffering" .

This emphasis in our society on fixing the outside, the environment, whether
is the verbal, psychic or sensory; trying to smooth the rocky ground of life;
trying to adjust unpleasing conditions -- all the while ignoring the inside,
our own reactive tendencies; everything that we actually have some control
over -- is stupid & has not, nor will it produce a reduction in suffering.

Finally, and most importantly, this is Theos Sophia, Divine Wisdom. Wisdom
requires separating wheat from chaff, discrimination & thinking. In Tibet and
other parts of the Buddhist world, it is considered a sign of contempt or
indifference to the Dharma if one does not debate, defend or argue about the
"right view". Right view or understanding is very important.