Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00007)

Hallo Daniel and all,

My views are:

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 ?
A simple YES or NO would be allright.
But that would maybe be too time consuming for you ?


A have given a few comments 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 5:13 AM
Subject: Theos-World Morten's 3 Comments on Blavatsky's Quote


> Morten,
>
> In your latest email, you respond [in different extracts
> below] to the Blavatsky quote found at:
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/15668
>
> Your various comments I now give:
>
> COMMENT 1
>
> "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...."
>
> COMMENT 2
>
> "I say, it is not relevant today - just like that -
> in a dead-letter sense."
>
> COMMENT 3
>
> "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."
>
> Morten, you have NOT actually
> told us HOW we should relate such a quote to our
> present situation. No details are given.
*******
Yes I have. Read the previous email.

It is not always possible to describe abstract issues in full detail.
But it is often possible to tell people of their existence.
And I have done that.

*******
>
> You have NOT described HOW it would
> be relevant today in some NON dead-letter sense.
> No details given.
*******
I have talked about DESIGNs, the human reaction to written material and
compared it to dead-letter reading with the head under the arm.
Dead-letter reading to not relate the reading to the timespan between the
time the material was written and the present day of reading it.
I talked about the impact the written has upon the reader at a given time in
history. And why the impact problably would be different today.
The human reaction to a given DESIGN is often giving it a long-term or
short-term impact.
It also has a certain itensity and importance to the person. It is also a
fact, that Sometimes this intensity or importance level has to do with when
the material was written. Sometimes the authors original intentions with the
written were not relating to a much later time period, where a new audience
would read it.

The fact that someone later twist the intentions with the written material
so to make these intentions appear different, doesn't make such a view more
true, does it ?
And didn't you, Daniel, do that with both Blavatsky's and K.H.'s intentions
in your presentation of the quotes in your email ?
This was what originally started my answering emails.

*******
>
> You have NOT given the manner
> in which the quote would be valid. No details given.
*******
You must understand, that It is not always possible to describe abstract
issues in full detail.
*******
>
> I give the quote again from Blavatsky's pen:
>
> ". . . 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."

*******
She talked about issues belonging to her time of living.
And yet she teaches, that dead-letter reading and writing is not really what
we support.
When she wrote the above she was NOT talking about those more than 300
theosophical sects, one less distorted than the other, which we today have
floating around us, and which she feared would come into existence.
She talked about issues belonging to her time. She was problably also
referring to some of those Occult groups, which in fact existed just about
at her time of writing. Certain Freemasons was floating around at that
time, problably with ties to some politicians. This seems to one of the more
obvious groups to refer to.

She do not, in this quote, relate to my above quote on what have happened
since Blavatsky died.
And yet, she admit in her writings, that new teachings has araisen - suited
theosophically to the public - during the past centuries.
And that this will happen in the future as well I see no reason not to
accept this view as a fact. I think think Blavatsky would agree upon this.
I think that some of her statements (also the quote in mention) was done to
secure the Theosophical Society and nurture it, so that the plan intentioned
with it could sprout as much as possible.
Because, at her time of writing TS was still very small - and new.
She also said, that many theosophists were not members of the Theosophical
Society.
Today - with more than 300 sects, - the question will always be, which
teaching is theosophical ?


*******
>
> ". . . 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
>
> I will now tell you my understanding of what Blavatsky wrote.
>
> I take it that Blavatsky when she refers to "a personal,
> carnalized Saviour" is referring to certain teachings
> concerning the Christ.
>
> And I believe that one can see what Blavatsky is actually getting out
> by comparing the above quote with the following two extracts
> from Blavatsky:
>
> ". . . 'the coming of Christ,' means the presence of CHRISTOS in a
> regenerated world, and not at all the actual coming in body
> of 'Christ' Jesus; . . . for Christ--the true esoteric SAVIOUR--
> is no man, but the DIVINE PRINCIPLE in every human being."
>
> "Whether it be Krishna, Buddha, Sosiosh, Horus or Christos, it is a
> universal PRINCIPLE....the Christians, by localizing and isolating
> this great Principle, and denying it to any other man except Jesus of
> Nazareth (or the Nazar), CARNALIZE the Christos of the Gnostics; that
> alone prevents them having any point in common with the disciples of
> the Archaic Wisdom. . . true Theosophists will never accept ...a
> Christ made Flesh. . . ."
>
> Therefore I suggest that Theosophical writers who write as Bailey did
> the following extracts are giving out (as HPB phrased it) "false
> ideas".

*******
The is a false suggestion. You will have to make a better argumentation.
Try reading the following page and the next few pages carefully:
"The Reappearance of Christ" by Alice A. Bailey (Chapter 1).
http://beaskund.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/reappearance/reap1001.html

And also "The Reappearance of Christ" by Alice A. Bailey, page 144-145:
"The Eastern faiths have ever emphasized God Immanent, deep within the human
heart, "nearer than hands and feet," the Self, the One, the Atma, smaller
than the small, yet all-comprehensive. The Western faiths have presented God
Transcendent, outside His universe, an Onlooker. God transcendent, first of
all, conditioned men's concept of Deity, for the action of this transcendent
God appeared in the processes of nature; later, in the Jewish [145]
dispensation, God appeared as the tribal Jehovah, as the soul (the rather
unpleasant soul) of a nation. Next, God was seen as a perfected man, and the
divine God-man walked the Earth in the Person of Christ. Today we have a
rapidly growing emphasis upon God immanent in every human being and in every
created form. Today, we should have the churches presenting a synthesis of
these two ideas which have been summed up for us in the statement of Shri
Krishna in The Bhagavad Gita: "Having pervaded this whole Universe with a
fragment of Myself, I remain." God, greater than the created whole, yet God
present also in the part; God Transcendent guarantees the plan for our world
and is the Purpose, conditioning all lives from the minutest atom, up
through all the kingdoms of nature, to man."
http://beaskund.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/reappearance/reap1042.html
(Many readers could with great advantage substitute the word Christ with the
words Avatar while reading the above book. Dead-letter reading is not so
good. And true, this is better: Do not just read Bailey's books and then
forget about the Secret Doctrine and the estern doctrine on Atma=Brahman or
the not-I-not teachings.)

--- The use of words in theosophical books are also related to the time of
writing, the circumstances, the audience and the purpose with the book. ---


Bhagavad Gita chapter IV, 7-9:
"When Righteousness
Declines, O Bharata! when Wickedness
Is strong, I rise, from age to age, and take
Visible shape, and move a man with men,
Succouring the good, thrusting the evil back,
And setting Virtue on her seat again.
Who knows the truth touching my births on earth
And my divine work, when he quits the flesh
Puts on its load no more, falls no more down
To earthly birth: to Me he comes, dear Prince!"
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/gita/bg04.htm (The Sir Edwin Arnold -
edition)

The Secret Doctrine vol. 2, page 44:
---
"With the Jews Adam Kadmon was the same as Athamaz, Tamaz, or the Adonis of
the Greeks -- "the One with, and of his father" -- the "Father" becoming
during the later Races Helios, the Sun, as Apollo Karneios,*"...
* Apollo Karneios is certainly a Greek transformation from the Hindu Krishna
Karna. "Karna" means radiant from "carne," "a ray," and Karneios, which was
a title of Apollo with the Celts as with the Greeks, meant "Sun born."

---


Bailey's problem is mainly today, apart from her phallic use of words about
Christ and God, that her books attracts only a certain audience with a
certain cultural background. Even Blavatsky's writings did that. But their
purpose and audience was different then and also today, because it was
a different time they were written in and with a different purpose in mind.
Try this one on "Characteristics of Theosophical Litterature":
http://home19.inet.tele.dk/global-theosophy/char_lit.htm
Do you find that link to be allright or do you disagree with it as well ?

Something new is needed from time to time.
(Also to open up the possibility, that more people would be interested in
HPB's activities.)

*******
>
> "They will prepare and work for conditions in the world in which
> Christ can move freely among men, in bodily Presence; He need not
> then remain in His present retreat in Central Asia."

*******
The word "Christ" used by Bailey should not be used in a dead-letter sense.
It has more than one meaning. Try reading the Bailey books more carefully.
She uses the word in a sense, so to make the newcomers learn, that their
more ordinary view of Christ is in fact not acceptable. The reappaerance
will be a reappearance of an Avatar - a true Krishna.
The sad fact, that some Bailey groups misuse her writings
cannot be said to be Bailey's fault.

(An inserted comment: We may wonder why Christ - the Avatar had to incarnate
in the area of Jerusalem and if this had anything to
do with the evils done by Hitler and his hand in the creation of the state
of Israel ? The problem is, as I see it, that almost anything Good has the
sideeffect, that someone misunderstands it and some evils happen because of
it.)

*******
>
> "His reappearance and His consequent work cannot be confined to one
> small locality or domain, unheard of by the great majority, as was
> the case when He was here before. The radio, the press, and the
> dissemination of news, will make His coming different to that of any
> previous Messenger; the swift modes of transportation will make Him
> available to countless millions, and by boat, rail and plane they can
> reach Him: through television, His face can be made familiar to all,
> and verily 'every eye shall see Him."
>
> Let each student decide for himself.
>
> And Morten, feel free to characterize my understanding as
> "dead letter" or whatever. But you should give in turn
> your detailed explanation of how we should REALLY understand
> what HPB wrote.

*******
Perhaps I should not.
This was not quite what I emailed you about.
I emailed about how - you - related OLD written material to our time
in a manner, which was taken out of context.

You have your view or your theosophical 'sect'.
And I have my view or 'sect' if you like.
And there we are again.
Can the blind lead the blind ?
Was Blavatsky not quite right when she in her article
"PSEUDO-THEOSOPHY" feared that more than 300 theosophical sects would be
created ?
And again you tell me yours is the right one, without answering my questions
in the previous email ?
I think, I know where you are now.



from
M. Sufilight with peace and love...

*******













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