Theos-Talk Archives (March 2004 Message tt00756)

Hallo all,

My views are:

My comments are given in the below using *******.

from
M. Sufilight with peace and love...

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Daniel H. Caldwell" <danielhcaldwell@yahoo.com>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 1:45 AM
Subject: Theos-World Reply to Morten's latest Email on the "audience, time
and world" argument


> Morten,
>
> Thank you for your latest email.
>
> Many of your questions are so open-ended that
> I would hesitate to try to answer them because
> I am unsure exactly what you are asking and also
> it would take far too long to answer many of your
> questions properly. Sorry I do not have that kind of time.
*******
Sorry Daniel, but that is a rather weak statement.
And then you expect me to answer you ?
Try to ponder on this special attitude of yours for a while.

I have said, that unless you answer my question on the quote in my email,
you
are blocking any possibility for further progress in this exchange of
emails.

And I say, that you do not understand the importance of this.
Why do you NOT want to express your stance on this quote ???
I just don't understand you.

Let us have the quote again (changed a bit) while we refer to Blavatsky's
writings and her
written material:

"So very important: The use of ideas, FOR INSTANCE BOOKS and WRITTEN
MATERIAL of ALL sorts is to shape a man or woman, not to support a system -
which is
viewed in a limited manner. This is one way in which the Wisdom Tradition is
'living',
and not just the perpetuations of ideas and movements - LIKE FOR INSTANCE
THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
This seems important to understand and know about."
http://theos-talk.com/archives/200210/tt00046.html (On what happened to
The Theosophical Society when Blavatsky died.)


What are your views on this quote Daniel ?


*******
>
> Nevertheless, I will try to comment on some of your
> statements. I give three different statements from
> your last email that are related to the original
> quote from HPB.
>
> Your three statements are as follows:
>
> STATEMENT 1
>
> "The meaning has changed because. What Blavatsky and
> K. H. said at that time was said with relation to the
> audience, time and world in which, their views was
> presented back then. Today we have a different audience
> which will interpret the words differently if someone
> would put them forward today without telling about the
> past. It is the quoted words in your email we talk about:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/15668";
>
> STATEMENT 2
>
> "Well I did ponder, and reached the conclusion that
> these words by Blavatsky and K. H. you quote in your
> email was created with a SHORTer timeframe in mind
> and NOT a longer timeframe, so that they just could
> be used today as a valid presentation. And I disagree
> upon that they could be interpreted as saying:
> Everything else than what Blavatsky or the Mahatma's
> have written are NOT valid theosophical teaching,
> unless THEY have said different."
>
> "Let us at least admit, that there was reason to
> reach the conclusion, that such was the motive with
> your email, that you expected the longer timeframe
> to be allright. I just disagree with you. And I have
> tried to explain why.
> http://home19.inet.tele.dk/global-theosophy/char_lit.htm";
>
> STATEMENT 3
>
> We have to distinguish between the adoption of "the
> false ideas of a personal God and a personal, carnalized
> Saviour, as the groundwork of their teaching" in
> Blavatsky's time of living and Bailey's acitivities in
> her time, where she in fact counteracted TS in developing
> into something quite false and misleading. Namely a popery
> or a Maitreya cult. The fact that Bailey herself - later -
> wrote a great deal on the Reappaerence of the Christ in
> "the flesh", do not make her teaching more valid - unless
> we understand it as a teaching created as a DESIGN - to
> attract - newcomers of a certain kind (ie. those with a Christian
> cultural background or brokenhearted Krishnamurti followers)."
>
> Before I comment on the 3 statements above, I want to requote
> HPB's comment that you are responding to.
>
> The quote is as follows:
>
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> ". . . A new and rapidly growing danger. . . is
> threatening . . . the spread of the pure Esoteric
> Philosophy and knowledge. . . . I allude to
> those charlatanesque imitations of Occultism and
> Theosophy. . . . By pandering to the prejudices
> of people, and especially by adopting the false
> ideas of a personal God and a personal, carnalized
> Saviour, as the groundwork of their teaching, the
> leaders of this 'swindle' (for such it is) are
> endeavoring to draw men to them and in particular
> to turn Theosophists from the true path."
>
> ". . . A close examination will assuredly reveal. . .
> materials largely stolen . . . from Theosophical
> writings. . . [and] distorted and falsified so as
> to be palmed off on the unwary as revelations of
> new and undreamed of truths. But many will neither
> have the time nor the opportunity for such a thorough
> investigation; and before they become aware of the
> imposture they may be led far from the Truth. . . .
> Nothing is more dangerous to Esoteric Truth than the
> garbled and distorted versions disfigured to suit
> the prejudices and tastes of men in general."
>
> H. P. Blavatsky in "E.S. Instruction No. I.", 1889.
> Quoted from: http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/ests1p2.htm
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> Now my comments.
>
> First of all, you have NOT really shown why HPB's above
> words are no longer relevant. Maybe I am missing
> out on something???
*******
Yes you are.
Read my previous email again.
And you will see, that I didn't say, that it wasn't valid.
I said somthing like that it was not valid in the manner you presented it in
in your
email in question.

I said also, that we aught to relate OLD written theosophical material to
the time we live in.
You did not do that as far as I understand you, this was my original
reaction to your email.

You Daniel are one of those which Blavatsky talked about in the article.
You are a member of your own theosophical sect so to speak among many
others - and all theosophists are. And now with no leader with clear contact
to the Mahatmas, what do we then have? The blind lead the blinder as I said
in my email at: http://theos-talk.com/archives/200210/tt00046.html
(Read it Daniel - and read the part about the Blind leading the Blind --- 
and what has happened since Blavatsky died.)

--- PSEUDO-THEOSOPHY ---
"If the "false prophets of Theosophy" are to be left untouched, the true
prophets will be very soon--as they have already been--confused with the
false. It is nigh time to winnow our corn and cast away the chaff. The T.S.
is becoming enormous in its numbers, and if the false prophets, the
pretenders (e.g., the "H.B. of L.," exposed in Yorkshire by Theosophists two
years ago, and the "G.N.K.R." just exposed in America), or even the
weak-minded dupes, are left alone, then the Society threatens to become very
soon a fanatical body split into three hundred sects--like
Protestantism--each hating the other, and all bent on destroying the truth
by monstrous exaggerations and idiotic schemes and shams. We do not believe
in allowing the presence of sham elements in Theosophy, because of the fear,
forsooth, that if even "a false element in the faith" is ridiculed, the
latter "is apt to shake the confidence" in the whole. "
http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/OnPseudoTheosophy.htm

Can you not see it now?
I do not say that your intentions are wrong.
I do not say that the quote by Blavatsky and K.H. are wrong.
I just say, that one aught to relate such a quote to our present
situation --- with about 300 sects of theosophists all claiming that they
know it all,
and you being one of them, although one of them with some quality to it, if
I may put my own view.
I might be wrong without knowing it, but so far I cannot understand, that we
all should not relate the OLD written theosophical material to our present
time in a porper and intelligent manner.

*******
>
> The teaching about "a personal, carnalized Saviour"
> goes back almost twenty centuries. Why her comments
> on this teaching are not relevant now or during Bailey's
> time is a mystery to me.
>
> You write:
>
> "What Blavatsky and K. H. said at that time was said
> with relation to the audience, time and world in which,
> their views was presented back then. Today we have
> a different audience which will interpret the words
> differently . . . . "
>
> But this kind of argument could be applied to EVERYTHING
> Blavatsky and K.H. wrote.
*******
Yes. Try the problem called 300 theosophical sects.

That is why I try to tell you, that it is much better that Theosophical
teaching operates by DESIGNS and non dead-letter teaching.
Then it is the spiritual experience by reading and living, which gets
importance and not who wrote what - and what Bibles to study
and deem infalliable !

Just an example on this:
http://home19.inet.tele.dk/global-theosophy/char_lit.htm
Do you find this link to be false
in its content ?

*******
>
> In fact this type of argument could be applied
> to everything ever written!

*******
Not true ?

*******
>
> One could start quibbling over each and every
> word and the end result would be deadlock.
*******
Bingo, - and that is where the theosophical 300 sects are now, - your very
own being one of them.
Among them though the real ones, which operates using DESIGNS or a higher
kind of teaching than the Bible dead-letter one.
(An extreme example, which not everyone will accept is this one. Let us for
instance take the one which cannot accept The modern syncretic Adwaita
Vedantins as a valid theosophical Path, just because they use a different
kind of vocabulary.)

*******
>
> Much more could be said on this part of your argument.
*******
Sure !?
I was almost scratching my head reading this. (Smile...)
*******
>
> Having been a student of Blavatsky's writings
> for several decades, I find that most all of what
> she wrote is understandable if one takes the time
> and effort to read and study her material.
*******
Yes to some persons that is true.
But not to all newcomers and all kinds of prejudices.
Let us face this fact.

*******
>
> And how many years need to go by before
> your "audience, time and world" argument applies?
>
> 5 years, 10 years, or ????
>
> In other words, HPB wrote the above words in 1889.
> So in 1894 were they still valid? Or what about
> in 1899?
*******
One will have to be knowledgefull to know about such an issue, do you not
agree ?
I think, that To know this you would have to know at least the Mental
characteristics of the audiences in question.

The Masters operates by a carefully worked out plan.
They are used to be thinking about long time-periods and having a good
overview of what will happen
allthough the might have to revise their main plan - of the many they have
at hand - just in case one of them fails or
higher spiritual forces interfers.

*******
>
> You apparently say that in the 1920s and 1930s
> the meaning of her words had changed or that there
> was a different audience that would understand her
> words differently.
>
> But you do not give any specifics that would validate
> this statement of yours.
*******
In what manner validate ?
I will let the student think and find out. The Experience of new spiritual
truths is quite a revelation it is said.
You seem to agree on that my statement is somehow true, so why not ponder on
it for a while.

*******
>
> You write that HPB's words were "created with
> a SHORTer timeframe in mind." But how do
> you know that? Maybe it is true, BUT you
> do not tell us how that can be objectively
> determined. How do you know HPB "created" those
> words "with a shorter timeframe in mind"??
********
Yes, and your view is the opposite ?
I have tried to explain it all to you several times now.
Try to understand that we now have more than 300 of Theosophical sects. At
Blavatsky's time there was only one single sect -
namely the TS -claiming that they had contact with Himalayan wisdom
Masters. Today there are more than 300 - and many of them disagree with each
other.

If you start claiming the same while 'being Blavatsky' and while having 300
theosophical sects around you, it might have been allright. Because SHE and
others was at THAT TIME in continous contact with the Masters - in a quite
extraordinary ESP manner, which was PUBLICLY KNOWN - by the interested
parties !
(But even she, HPB, feared, that this situation should come about. - Just
read her article "PSEUDO-THEOSOPHY".)
Today, there are many today who claim to be in contact with the Masters. Now
they even are claimed to live in New York. (B. Creme is an example.)

Do you see the difference in impact (spiritual DESIGNs or teachings have an
impact) upon the audience when such a view are being put forward today,
compared to back then in the good old HPB days ?

And yet, you claim that your own Sect (your own view) is the right one ?
Are your 'sect' in contact with the Masters ?
Do you see the problem ?
Can the blind lead the blind ?
Just because someone has a certain authorithy among friends - perhaps - due
to being an author or a learned theosophist, it does not at the same time
imply,
that the person are in contact with the Masters and know how to teach
theosophy on any high level. Do you not agree ?



********
>
> All I can say is that I find her above words
> understandable in 2004 and see no good reason
> to think otherwise.

*******
I also do so.
The problem was how you presented the quotes in your email.

You wrote:
"I would suggest that the following extract from
> H.P. Blavatsky is as relevant today as it was
> when first written. In fact, every sentence of
> this extract is full of meaning and students
> would do well to ponder on the implications found
> in H.P.B.'s words."

I say, it is not relevant today - just like that - in a dead-letter sense.

Try to read this link about What has happened to the Theosophical Society
since Blavatsky died.
http://theos-talk.com/archives/200210/tt00046.html

Even Blavatsky talked about the comming of the Maitreya - the Kalki Avatar
in her own book The Secret Doctrine.
Look up the word "Kalki Avatar" or "Fifth Buddha" in this book.
So let us please distinguish between a Personal Saviour and an Esoterical
Savior !

Let me ponder at little freely on that matter:
And I agree Blavatsky says, that this Avatar would come at the end of the
Kali Yuga.
Appearntly Besant and CWL thought, that this was already happening.
And Bailey also seem to think so, maybe with a certain motive in mind.
Is it true. No, not unless Blavatsky is agree would some say.
Alllright, but then Blavatskys numbers about the length of the Kali Yuga
432.000 years has to by esoterical years
and not dead-letter ones. Else the view is not quite valid, because the Kali
Yuga started when the Avatar Krishna
died year 3102 bc. according to Blavatsky.
So where are we ?
The Bhagavad Gita claims, that the Avatar always incarnates when
rightousness disappears.
So, - Are we there now ?
Well today we have enough bombs and ugliness on this planet to blow up the
planet, so at least a - maybe - would be a fair answer, don't you agree ?

Can the Blind lead the Blind ?

We can now put our exchange to rest for a while if you like.
And then we can ponder on the views exchanged.

If any one else wants to continue the thread or give a few hints, then by
all means...I am all ears...


Did it help or did I miss something ?

from
M. Sufilight with peace and love...

*******

>
> Daniel
> http://hpb.cc
>
>
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>