Theos-Talk Archives (June 2003 Message tt00261)

Hi all of you,


Here is a little something...
The person involved in this one - is not really me...

The Shade Without the Tree...

'There is a learning which is not in books. There are
experiences which cannot be described in words. There is a
direct perception of Reality which I believe humanity was 
intended for: that is what I seek.'


This yearning, yet confident, series of statements is repeated 
again and again in letters which I receive and in the mouths
of those who come to see me.
For twenty years I have answered it with a series of questions,
designed to elict whatever real conception there may be about
Reality, behind these words.
The question have usually been in this vein, naturally following
the classical esoteric model:-

'Do you know how to regocnize this non-verbal learning?'
'Do you know that the "learning is not in books" may
be elicited by books, in their instrumental function:
making books necessary?'
'Have you not thought that when your perceptions have
developed, you will then have the means to understand
some books: so that the prior need for them in providing
frameworks for thought is recognized?'
'Have you thought of, or heard of, or even suspected, the
functional role books and words, which lies behind their
intellectual, factual or emotionally stimulative use?

Nothing tells us so much about someone, in a book-oriented
society, in respect to his or her potential and actual progress, as
the attitude towards litterature.
The fact is that less than one person in fifty has had any 
conception of the 'real use' of the word. In the olden days it
was said to be one in a thousand. But the crude attitude 
towards the word which is the result of superficiality 
of current society's beliefs about it will undoubtedly be seen in
the future as comically barbaric.
Remember, virtually all great classical Sufis worked with
words. Ask yourself: why was that?
You may be looking for shade and dislike the sun which
creates it. Very well. But you need the sun, and also the tree to
provide the shade.


from
M. Sufilight with a funny summer-hat...



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]