Theos-Talk Archives (May 2004 Message tt00092)

--- In theosophy_talks_truth@yahoogroups.com, "netemara888" 
<netemara888@y...> wrote:
--- In radhasoamistudies@yahoogroups.com, netemara888 
<no_reply@y...> 
wrote:
May 8 -- In honor of White Lotus Day


PHILOSOPHERS AND PHILOSOPHICULES

Article by H. P. Blavatsky

We shall in vain interpret their words by the notions of our 
philosophy and the doctrines in our schools. --LOCKE 

Could Locke have been talking about future thinkers and their works?



Knowledge of the lowest kind is un-unified knowledge; Science is 
partially unified knowledge; Philosophy is completely unified 
knowledge. --HERBERT SPENCER

Here is a quote she chose from Herbert Spencer which in fact has 
proven prophetic in the world of physics. They are currently 
seeking 
the Grand Unified Theory AKA the GUT, which they believe MAY occur 
with the finding and mapping of the Higgs particle. Something which 
of course was unheard of in the late 1800's. And what is more 
surreal 
is that Spencer is linking philosophy and physics. In that sense 
creating the bridge between the future marriage of science as 
physics 
(theoretical and cosmological) with that of philosophy. Einstein is 
said to have kept a copy of the Secret Doctrines on his desk. 


***********
Blavatsky:
"Our age is regarded as being pre-eminently critical: an age which 
analyses closely, and whose public refuses to accept anything 
offered 
for its consideration before it has fully scrutinized the subject. 
Such is the boast of our century; but such is not quite the opinion 
of the impartial observer."
Net:
How clever, how insightful, how creative, how true that: nothing 
changes. In the late 1800's we have a world observer and purveyor 
of 
all the disciplines noting that it was common for the thinking man 
to 
believe he was the skeptic. That he was critical in his thinking, 
and 
therefore refused to accept warmed-over doctrines which were not at 
first scrutinized, such as religions and cults. However, she 
disagrees by calling herself the impartial observer. That `modern' 
man is not the critical thinker and analyzer he thinks he is. You 
might say this observation was not scientific but anecdotal. One 
might also ask is this representative of the thinking man today AKA 
as an atheist, or antichrist by Christians? I would bet that one 
could come up with some anecdotal things which are as true as 
gospel. 
Then submit them to scientific study and voila, you have spent lots 
of money in research only to reach the same conclusions. It has a 
name, it's called government. You could establish these `facts' 
especially if you have lived as an American all your life. For 
example, Americans love their cars, but hate to drive and especially 
to get stuck in traffic. Or, Americans think they are spiritual and 
good people and do not go to church in the large numbers they once 
did, but still think of themselves as religious and/or spiritual. 
This is antithetical to those who do practice a faith or follow a 
spiritual discipline. But it also seems to be in vogue to assign a 
category for all those who simple possess the normal faculties and 
are literate or educated (Wilber is not alone in this toying). What 
is that class; enlightenment of course. 
Blavatsky:
"At all events it is an opinion highly exaggerated since this 
boasted analytical scrutiny is applied only to that which interferes 
in no way with national, social, or personal prejudices. On the 
other 
hand everything that is malevolent, destructive to reputation, 
wicked 
and slanderous, is received with open embrace, accepted joyfully, 
and 
made the subject of everlasting public gossip, without any scrutiny 
or the slightest hesitation, but verily on a blind faith of the most 
elastic kind."
Net:
I especially appreciate her winning terminology :'blind faith of the 
most elastic kind.' She directly contradicts what humanity of the 
day 
held: that they were enlightened. She points out that in point of 
fact they were not. She says they are simply vicious gossips who do 
not know what the hairy heck they are talking about. They are basing 
conclusions on unsubstantiated and uneducated opinions. In other 
words it was common practice for the public tar-and-feather 
maligning 
to occur with any public figure. And I am saying that this was in 
reality the forerunner to the rags of journalism which has become 
the 
bane of movie stars, royalty and celebrities in general. And in 
this 
day and age it has become the bane of the guru, the good guy, the 
god, and the grumpy old jivas who just want to have fun. It is also 
the forerunner to the loss of psychic innocence of man. Oh, much 
has 
been made of man's loss of sexual innocence, but I propose that it 
was really the other way around. First the loss of psychic 
innocence, in other words everyone knows what everyone else is 
doing, 
saying and thinking, and this openness led to the sexual open nature 
of the 1960's and continues today. 


Her observations and my own are true. But can they be classified as 
philosophy or science? Philosophy being the systematic study of 
knowledge, and science being the body of knowledge whose results can 
be reproduced by others. So I am asking now that we have admitted 
to 
a loss of psychic innocence can we now learn it and transmit it to 
others? Can it become a replacement, in part, of the current day 
educational system.

Of course, one need not make multitudinous arguments that direct 
observation leads to knowledge, it is after all the basis of 
science. But can one judge and understand and transmit something 
which has been acquired by personal, inner experience judged from 
the 
standpoint of philosophy, logic and/or the hard sciences? In other 
words, can that which has been acquired by direct perception (not 
solely the 5 senses) and experience be transmitted by words, 
parables, metaphors, and writings? Or must it, to be fully 
understood be transmitted primarily in the same manner it was 
received? 


The answer to that question may lie in the belief that future 
generations will be more psychic in their approach to learning and 
to 
education in general. They will be educated through a process 
of `osmosis' if you will. Why do I say this? Because as an 
objective 
observer, practitioner, and scholar of education and its systems I 
see the same thing that other professors and scholars see: a steady 
decline in the educational and thinking process of those who are 
coming along now. What will be the future remedy? I propose that 
it might be a kind of "psychic osmosis." It reminds me of another 
word: psychosis. But then those who have seen this new science have 
been called delusional have they not?


Blavatsky:
"We challenge contradiction on this point. Neither unpopular 
characters nor their work are judged in our day on their intrinsic 
value, but merely on their author's personality and the prejudiced 
opinion thereon of the masses."


Net:
Here is the sine qua non of what the cult busting and exposing the 
psychic is about. It is based on the personality. The presence of a 
strong personality is essential. So, if one substituted the word 
author for guru it would read: their work [is not] judged in our day 
on intrinsic value, but merely on the guru's personality and the 
prejudiced opinion thereon of the masses. I am not saying this is a 
bad thing, au contraire, I am saying it is a turning point in the 
evolution of the man who takes away the candy. The baby is now 
crying. And so it must somehow be replaced it with something 
healthier, say cooked or raw carrots, but is it more palatable, more 
digestible to the baby ?


Conclusion: In my humble opinion I believe that Blavatsky was wrong 
but for the right reasons. She concluded that man was not becoming 
critical and skeptical in his thinking partly based on the extreme 
criticism she endured by person and persons who were not 
as `enlightened' as she in her discipline. She begins, but I 
conclude: that the beginning of the new age saw its birth at the end 
of the 19th century when people began scrutinizing and publishing 
the 
fruit of that scrutiny in articles, books and through the airwaves 
(talking to each other). This trend continued into the 19th century 
when that century saw an explosion of books, articles, newspapers 
and 
fortunes lost and made on the written word. Never before, nor since 
in the history of man has man been able to turn simple paper with 
black words on it into gold bullion. That could be the modern 
philosopher's stone. So with the written word firmly entrenched in 
the minds of man, he proceeded to move ahead with what has become 
the 
second coming of education. Why? Because now education could be 
made 
widely available to everyone. Not just to the white man, the rich 
man, or the brilliant man, but available to the poor of all colors, 
both genders regardless of their SES. 


However, their is a declining significance of education in our 
present day. Why? Because the veil of secrecy has been lifted. 
There is an information explosion not only with the mundane and the 
critical and the scandal but a bundle of info that consists of more 
knowledge than one person could possibly digest in a lifetime. But 
the reader is aware of this. But is the reader aware that the 
centuries old attacks on personalities and the obsession with 
royalty 
and celebrities, and the loss of seclusion of the private 
individual 
would bring us all to the internet?
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