Theos-Talk Archives (August 2003 Message tt00024)

Hi Katinka and all of you,

My views are:

Yes, agreed.
But, even if what the text has to offer appearntly was'nt the original idea
with TS - it is still Theosophical teaching right ?
It is, as you say, wise.
Maybe it is useful for a certain kind of Esoteric Section ?

My view is:
Idries Shah is criticizing a lot. This makes a lot of readers annoyed.
But he is in fact more than often close to the truth.
What makes the reader annoyed - is often their own egotism.

If you want to learn, you will also have to expect, that your faults will be
pointed out. Right ?
But people using the Lower Self react, and say:..."But I am not that bad. No
certainly not !"
The egoistic fragments of the Lower Part of the aura, just cannot cope !
Do you agree ?

If this is to much, then
try the book "The Dermis Probe" or the Mulla Nashreddin collection instead.
I think, that they are sweet.
>:-)


from
M. Sufilight with a smile and... 30 celcius in Denmark...



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Katinka Hesselink" <mail@katinkahesselink.net>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 1:25 PM
Subject: Theos-World Re: A Curriculum of a Theosophical School ? and !


> --- 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]
>
>
>
>
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