Theos-Talk Archives (August 2003 Message tt00023)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Morten Nymann Olesen" <global-
theosophy@a...> wrote:
> What do the Theosophical readers and teachers think about the 
below ???
> Is it Theosophy or not ?
I think it is wise. 
I think it isn't practiced in the TS (or is it, see below), for two 
reasons:

1) The conditions mentioned aren't there in the TS
2) The TS wasn't meant as a school of spirituality. It was meant to 
get people together to learn from each other, to learn tolerance, to 
learn what living truth is all about, from each other. There are 
enough salaried priests out there. The TS wasn't going to add to 
them. Idries Shah has some very negative things to say about the 
average guru as well. 
If enough people learn the basics of genuine spirituality, by reading 
Idries Shah, Blavatsky, Krishnamurti and many others, discussing 
these things amongst themselves, trying to live them etc. Then 
perhaps our culture will one day be able to sustain the kind of 
school mentioned below, without it turning into 

a) a sect
b) partial
c) superficial
d) partial

Then again, some of the below is practiced in the TS. I quote:

>> They formalize rituals, become obsessed by principles and slogans, 
assign disproportionate importance to the elements which are only 
tools, but which they regard as a more significant heritage.>>
{the above is meant to say: the TS does not get obsessed by these, 
though some people do.)

The TS is, I think, partially meant to do the following for a large 
amount of people:
>> All this means, of course, that we are postulating here the need 
for preparatory study before school work takes place.>>

Katinka
> 
> A Curriculum of a School
> 
> "Q: Could you give us a view of the curriculum of a School, 
from 'inside the School' so to speak?"
> 
> "A: In our teaching, we must group correctly these elements: the 
pupils, the teacher and the circumstances of study. Only at the right 
time and place, with the teacher suitable to these, and with the 
right body of students, can our studies be said to be capable of 
coherent development."
-
> "Yet this principle, so well established in conventional studies of 
all kinds, is largely passed over and has fallen into disuse, among 
esotericists. Why? Because they have a primitive and unenlightened 
attitude towards teaching. Like an oaf who has just heard of physics 
or only seen some of its manifestations, the would-be student wants 
it all *now*. He does
> not care about the necessary presence of other students. He wants 
to skip the curriculum and he sees no connection between the building 
and the subject of physics. So he does not want a laboratory."
> 
> "Just observe what happens when people try to carry on learning or 
teaching without the correct grouping of the three essentials:"
> 
> "Would-be students always try to operate their studies with only 
one, or at the most two, of the three factors. Teachers try to teach 
those who are unsuitable, because of the difficulties of finding 
enough people to form a class. Students who have no teacher try to 
teach themselves. Transpose this into a group of people trying to 
learn physics, and you will see some of their problems. Others group 
themselves around the literature and methodology of older schools, 
trying to make the scrap material of someone else's physics 
laboratory work. They formalize rituals, become obsessed by 
principles and slogans, assign disproportionate importance to the 
elements which are only tools, but which they regard as a more 
significant heritage."
> 
> "Anyone can think of several schools, cults, religions, systems of 
psychology or philosophy which fall into the above classifications."
> 
> "We must categorically affirm that it is impossible to increase 
human knowledge in the higher field by these methods. The statistical 
possibility of useful gains within a reasonable time is so remote as 
to be excluded from one's calculations."
> 
> "Why, then, do people insist on raking over the embers and looking 
for truth when they have little chance of finding it? Simply because 
they are using their conditioning propensity, not their capacity for 
higher perception, to try to follow the path. There is intellectual 
stimulus and emotional attraction in the mere effort to plumb the 
unknown. When the ordinary human mind encounters evidences of a 
higher state of being, of even when it conceives the possibility of 
them, it will invariably conclude that there is some possibility of 
progress for that mind without the application of the factors of 
teaching-teacher-students-time-and-place which are essentials."
> 
> "Man has few alternatives in his search for truth. He may rely upon 
his unaided intellect, and gamble that he is capable of perceiving 
truth or even the way to truth. This is a poor, but an attractive, 
gamble. Or he can gamble upon the claims of an individual or 
institution which claims to have such a way. This gamble, too, is a 
poor one. Aside from a very few, wo/men in general lack a 
sufficiently developed perception to tell them:"
> 
> 1.. Not to trust their own unaided mentation; 
> 2.. Who or what to trust. 
> "There are, in consequence, two main schools of thought in this 
matter. Some say 'Follow your own promptings'; the other says: 'Trust 
this or that intuition'. Each is really useless to the ordinary 
wo/man. Each will help him use up his time."
> 
> "The bitter truth is that before man can know his own inadequacy, 
or the competence of another man or institution, he must first learn 
something which will enable him to perceive both. Note well that his 
perception itself is a product of right study; not of instinct or 
emotional attraction to the individual, nor yet of desiring to 'go it 
alone'. This is 'Learning How To
> Learn."
> 
> "All this means, of course, that we are postulating here the need 
for preparatory study before school work takes place. We deny that a 
man can study and properly benefit from school work until he is 
equipped for it: any more than a person can study space-navigation 
unless he has a grasp of mathematics."
> 
> "This is not to say that a man (or a woman) cannot have a sensation 
of truth. But the unorganized and fragmented mind which is most 
people's heritage tends to distort the quality and quantity of this 
sensation, leading to almost completely false conclusions about what 
can or should be done."
> 
> "This is not to say, either, that man cannot take part in studies 
and activities which impinge upon that portion of him which is 
connected with a higher life and cognition. But the mere application 
of special techniques [often to everyone, regardless of their current 
state and requirements] will not transform that man's consciousness. 
It will only feed into, and disturb, more or less permanently, 
centers of thought and feeling where it does not belong. Thus it is 
that something which should be a blessing becomes a curse. Sugar, 
shall we say, for a normal person is nutritionally useful. To a 
diabetic, it can be poison."
> 
> "Therefore, before the techniques of study and development are made 
available to the student, he must be enabled to profit by them in the 
direction in which they are supposed to lead, not in short-term 
indulgence."
> 
> "Thus our curriculum takes two parts: the first is in the providing 
of materials of a preparatory nature, in order to equip the 
individual to become a student. The second is the development itself."
> 
> "If we, or anybody else, supply such study or preparatory material 
prematurely, it will only operate on a lower level than it could. The 
result will be harmless at best. At worst, it will condition, train, 
the mind of the individual to think and behave in patterns which are 
nothing less than automatic. In this latter way one can make what 
seem to be converts, unwittingly play upon emotions, on lesser 
desires and the conditioning propensity; train people to loyalty to 
individuals, found and maintain institutions which seem more or less 
serious or constructive. But no real progress towards knowledge of 
the human being and the other dimension in which he partly lives will 
in fact be made... ... ...." 
> 
> 
> 
> Is this what the different theosophical branches are doing ?
> If not, then why not ?
> 
> 
> from
> M. Sufilight with peace and love...
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]