Theos-Talk Archives (June 2004 Message tt00036)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, leonmaurer@a... wrote:

> I hope you take all this non personally, and if you have any 
comments, or 
> wish to further discuss these ideas (coming from HPB, WQJ, myself, 
or others) -- 
> please refer to the points made, or the ideas themselves, and not 
to the one's 
> who present them.


Your posting places an importance on both knowledge and thought that 
does not seem to be present in HPB's writings, imo. I am including a 
few quotes from the Bowen Notes which are indicative that knowledge 
and thought are viewed by HPB as means to an end in the search for 
Truth. Theosophy, after all, did not begin in 1888 when "The Secret 
Doctrine" was published. As HPB suggested again and again throughout 
her writings, Theosophy is a timeless inquiry into Truth, which is 
both immemorial and universal, it is a living Wisdom. 

"She talked a good deal about the "Fundamental Principle." She says: 
If one imagines that one is going to get a satisfactory picture of 
the constitution of the Universe from the S.D. one will get only 
confusion from its study. It is not meant to give any such final 
verdict on existence, but to LEAD TOWARDS THE TRUTH. She repeated 
this latter expression many times. 

It is worse than useless going to those whom we imagine to be 
advanced students (she said) and asking them to give us 
an "interpretation" of the S.D. They cannot do it. If they try, all 
they give are cut and dried exoteric renderings which do not 
remotely resemble the Truth. To accept such interpretation means 
anchoring ourselves to fixed ideas, whereas Truth lies beyond any 
ideas we can formulate or express. Exoteric interpretations are all 
very well, and she does not condemn them so long as they are taken 
as pointers for beginners, and are not accepted by them as anything 
more. Many persons who are in, or who will in the future be in the 
T.S. are of course potentially incapable of any advance beyond the 
range of a common exoteric conception. But there are, and will be 
others, and for them she sets out the following and true way of 
approach to the S.D.

This mode of thinking (she says) is what the Indians call Jnana 
Yoga. As one progresses in Jnana Yoga one finds conceptions arising 
which though one is conscious of them, one cannot express nor yet 
formulate into any sort of mental picture. As time goes on these 
conceptions will form into mental pictures. This is a time to be on 
guard and refuse to be deluded with the idea that the new found and 
wonderful picture must represent reality. It does not. As one works 
on one finds the once admired picture growing dull and unsatisfying, 
and finally fading out or being thrown away. This is another danger 
point, because for the moment one is left in a void without any 
conception to support one, and one may be tempted to revive the cast-
off picture for want of a better to cling to. The true student will, 
however, work on unconcerned, and presently further formless gleams 
come, which again in time give rise to a larger and more beautiful 
picture than the last. But the learner will now know that no picture 
will ever represent the Truth. This last splendid picture will grow 
dull and fade like the others. And so the process goes on, until at 
last the mind and its pictures are transcended and the learner 
enters and dwells in the World of NO FORM, but of which all forms 
are narrowed reflections."

Let me repeat her statement: "But the learner will now know that no 
picture will ever represent the Truth." This seems to indicate the 
implicit insufficiency of the thought-centred mind as a real 
instrument of inquiry and insight. It reminds me of the passage 
in "The Voice of the Silence":

"Having become indifferent to objects of perception, the pupil must 
seek out the rajah of the senses, the Thought-Producer, he who 
awakes illusion. 

The Mind is the great Slayer of the Real. 
Let the Disciple slay the Slayer."

This does not mean that intellectual effort, reflection, hard study 
and pondering are necessarily useless. Perhaps real theosophical 
study generates a mind that is truly free from the tyranny of 
categories. Incidentally, the word 'category' seem to come from the 
Greek "categorem", 'accusation'. Both Aristotle and Kant taught, 
perhaps correctly, suggested that there is no logical thinking 
without the use of categories. They are no doubt necessary, but a 
mind that allows itself to be constantly bound by categories may be 
only superimposing its own contents on reality. It may never know 
that which is numinous, complete and free, i.e. Theosophy in its 
essential nature.


Pedro