Theos-Talk Archives (November 2003 Message tt00019)

Hallo everyone,

The following could be reflected and contemplated on.
It in fact among other issues deals with the coming together here at our forum.


Meetings or Coming together

A question was posed: What is the harmonisation of a community or a group through what is
called the 'Coming-Together' method ?

The may very well be different answer to scuh a question. The following is a short version of
what the answer could be.

The Kernel of the visible aspect called 'Theosophy' is the basic
human unit: the members meet together and carry on the studies
prescribed for them by a contemporary Teacher.

This is necessary to the realisation which comes from being a
Theosophist. It may be called community, communion, meeting. It is
unimportant what it is called, what is important is to see how
every form of human search which later becomes a system, a
'religion', or an enterprise of any kind, originally depends upon
this coming-together. It is often called JAM - coming together:
pronounced as if to rhyme with 'hum'.

Meeting for worship, teamwork of all kinds, learning in groups,
all are derivations and usally diluted ones, of this basic factor.
It is the Theosophists, the real Theosophists, who preserve the original
means of operating in this JAM. As time passes, in ordinary communities
without special safeguards, the working of this coming-together
becomes less and less effective, more and more formalised or
generalised, until the JAM no longer exists. What takes its place
is social 'togetherness', or emotional enthusiasm, intellectual stimulations
or conditioned response to being in a collection of people.

No higher attainment is possible to man unless the circumstances
of the coming-together are correct; unless it is a communion
including the right people, at the right time, in the right place.
Impatience, ignorance, sentimentality, intellectualism tend to cause
people to convert the true 'JAM' situation until it becomes something
else.

This essential knowledge has always existed amongst humanity,
and continous to exist. But superficial and in general popularised
thinking have obscured the real working of this coming-together,
until people can only see innumerable forms of deteriorated
'JAM' - which they accept or reject according to whether they seem
attractive, plausible or 'true'.

It may often be impossible to re-form a degenerated coming-togehter
community. It will then be possible to regenerate it only by
breaking old habit-patterns and regrouping poeple who can really
be harmonised. This may cause a very different - and perhaps
unacceptable - appearance of the whole effort to those who
have become accustomed to a false situation. The selection of
participants on the basis of their capacity and not their assumed
importance always causes discontent in those who have lost the
power to adapt. This kind of lack of flexibility is, in turn, an
inevitable characteristic of people and groups which have been
running on automatistic patterns and which need revivifying.

It is an evident fact that true communities and organisations
'run down' and develop peculiarites other than were present in
their origins. They may do this because of the ascendancy of
undesirable characteristics in the participants, or because there is
a widespread tendency for people and groups to attempt to stabilise
themselves by using the nearest availbale organisation, irrespective
of whether this kind of stabilisation loses more than it gains.

This is the major perennial reason for the cyclic emergence of
living teachers. It is the alone who can restore harmony and 
balance in circles and individuals which have sacrificed these things
in the search for continuity and reassurance in the hope of stabilisation.

Were it possible to attain the object in a systematised way, the
means to do so would have been enunciated and recorded many
thousand years ago: just as the laws of ordinary material
stability and performance are recorded and employed in physics or
in applied arts.
The reactions of an audience to the efforts of a real teacher to
redress the balance of an organisation are always predictable. They
will include despair, confusion, desire for stimulus, fear that something
might be taken away, rejection, and a desire to accept in
order to profit by the ' new pahse'.

There are today two main kinds of communities: one, the community
produced and maintained by what is today called indoctrination;
the other, the one accumulated and harmonised by starting with the
right materials and the right knowledge.
The situation with regard to the understanding of the subtler
potential of the group and its finer tuning has its anlogy in
the following:

Some are but children on the Path, they drink of the milk of
what they call their Holy Book, in its literal sense. And those who have
reached maturity have a seperate perception and another understanding,
that of the inward significance of the so-called Holy Book.


We aught as Seekers after Truth and wisdom always be concerned with the 
issue of time, place and people. Being at the right place, at the right time 
together with the right people is of importance.
Yet, this is the problem of the beginner Seekers after Wisdom and Truth. 
They often do not know where to look when they are seeking enlightenment.
As a result, it is hardly surprising that they may attach themselves
to any cult, immerse themselves in all manner of theories, really believeing
that they have the capacity to distinguish the true from the false.
And often they also refuse to face the fact, that this is what they are doing.
As if this could elevate their situation

Nasrudin the notorious trickster - taught - this in several ways. On one ocassion
a neighbor found him down on his knees looking for something.
"What er you looking for, Nasrudin?"
"My key," said Nasrudin.
After a few minutes of searching, the other man said, "Where did
you drop it?".
"At home."
"Then why, for heaven's sake, are you looking here?"
"There is more light here."

This is one of the most famous of all Nasrudin tales, used by many
Theosophists, commenting upon people who seek exotic sources
for enlightenment.
The mechanism of rationalization is one which effectively bars
the deepening of perception. The Theosophical impact may
often be wasted because the individual will not properly absorb it.


In the development of the human mind, there is a constant change 
and linit to the usefulness of any particular technique. This 
characteristic of Theosophical practise is ignored in prepetitious
systems, which condition the mind and create an atmosphere of
attainment or nearness to attainment, without actually producing it.


Feel free to agree or disagree...we can only do our best.





from
M: Sufilight with peace and love...



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