Theos-Talk Archives (July 2004 Message tt00154)

July 7 2004

Dear Friend M and others:

Suppose one desired to acquire mastery of occult knowledge and power? Many
do. Perhaps they think that if some kind of magical power was offered them
they would be "happy for ever after."

There are many tales we heard of or read in our childhood of "wishes"
granted by powerful "Genies" to those who did them a service. And, fired
with hope we may have dreamed fancies on the live of "What ifs...?" 

We now hear, later on in life, of strange powers some persons seem to have.
Perhaps we read of them in the ARABIAN NIGHTS of SHEHEREZADE, or, in ISIS
UNVEILED or in the NIGHTMARE TALES ( H P Blavatsky) -- or ZANONI and A
STRANGE STORY (Bulwer-Lytton.. Or in SHE, or AESHYA (Rider Haggard). 

Or, we might hear of the strange phenomena of mesmerism, hypnotism,
apportation, levitation, materialization, mediumship, channeling, mental
telepathy, seeing at a distance, etc., etc.,  

All these are extraordinary and either make us curious or doubtful of any
such narratives or reports. Of course there are many who are not interested
at all and have no desire to investigate or hear of these strange events
because, perhaps they find the "Science" disproves and is skeptical of them.

What ever class we may belong to, the possibility of such events raise a
doubt as to whether all the laws, forces and powers of Nature are discovered
and explained. If any of these are true, then, how do they work?  

If they are all entirely false, then is fraud the basis for all such reports
down the ages, since they were first noticed?

What doe we want to know on this?

Dallas
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Mauri 
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 3:36 PM
To: 
Subject: re "exoteric/esoteric" and quotes and ...


G<<I really don't think that 
"compassion" is such a difficult word to 
understand. It has only one meaning that 
I know of.>>

I tend to agree that, as a word, in 
general terms, it's "not that difficult 
to understand," but seems to me that, in 
practice, one person's "compassion" 
could be another person's something else.

<<How about a sincere concern for the 
welfare of others? >>

I suspect that one person's "sincere 
concern for the welfare of others" could 
be another person's something else. So 
inasmuch as if we might all be seen to be 
"compassionate" in some sense ... ^:-/ 
... But surely there might be forms of 
compassion that might be seen to be more 
relevant than others in some sort of 
Theosophic context ... I suspect that, 
in a way, a "more relevant" form of 
"compassion" in a Theosophic context 
might involve (among other things ...) 
an innate form of compassion, one that 
one has from scratch, as if one were 
born with it. I suspect that, in 
general, one's culture, environment, 
upbringing would have influenced one's 
notions about compassion in addition to 
whatever more innate forms of compassion 
one might've started with "per 
skandhas," say. And I think most people 
realize that rich people, in general, 
can, in effect, "afford" to be more 
compassionate than people who are 
struggling to make ends meet. And no 
matter how "spiritual" or "monkish" one 
might imagine oneself to be, seems to me 
that there's always room for assessments 
of one's motives. Students of 
Theosophy, in particular, seems to me, 
might want to or might be prone to think 
about the nature of their "spirituality" 
and "just being" and such in relation to 
"compassion." Though one might think 
that there might be a kind of 
"compassionate behaviour" that's beyond 
all considerations about motives, I 
suspect that, in general, motives in 
connection with "compassion" might tend 
to surface one way or another for most 
people.

<<Hmmmmm. We are on a Theosophical list 
speaking to other Theosophists, so whats 
the problem?>>

CUT