Theos-Talk Archives (July 2004 Message tt00127)

--- "Daniel H. Caldwell" <danielhcaldwell@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> The following words of HPB (I think) are very
> relevant to what Bart alludes to when he writes:
> 
> ===================================================
> The problem is that, if you base your belief in the 
> concepts that have been promulgated in Blavatsky's
> works 
> and the Mahatma letters on the genuity of the
> phenomena, 
> then any fakery in the latter implies falsehood of
> the 
> former. Except that gets one into a conundrum, as
> the
> former emphasize that acceptance of the concepts 
> should NOT be based on the authority of the writers,
> but 
> on their own merits.
> 
>
============================================================
> 
> But as I have pointed out before, many of the
> concepts
> in Blavatsky's works and the Mahatma Letters deal
> with
> the occult/inner rationale of the phenomena. If
> phenomena
> were faked, does that also indicate that the
> teaching or
> concept about the phenomena and related concepts
> were also faked or 
> madeup or simply borrowed?


The Mahatmas also wrote about the "daily conquest of
self", as illustrated in this passage from KH to
Sinnett: "But what is Self? Only a passing guest,
whose concern are all like a mirage of the great
desert. ..."

Psychic phenomena, by their very nature, can never be
fundamentally real as the word phenomenon (from the
Greek, phainomenon: "what appears") indicates. Their
study may be interesting but is relatively unimportant
in the perspective of the transformation of the human
consciousness.

It may also be important to note that the emphasis on
the "daily conquest of the self" is at the core of the
great spiritual traditions of the world, way before
1888. If it is true that Theosophy itself is at the
heart of those traditions, renunciation of the
personal self (and its attachments, opinions,
self-importance) may as well be one of its fundamental
teachings. In this context, the words of the Buddha in
the Majjima-nikaya are quite pertinent: "The Tathagata
has no views." How can there be universal brotherhood
if MY opinion is more important than someone else's
opinion?


Pedro 






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