Theos-Talk Archives (October 2004 Message tt00330)

Morten, you and other readers may find this excerpt beneficial from THE NATURE OF PHILOSPHY, 1961, Samuel M. Thompson, pp108-109. I think it speaks to your concerns about learning and non-learning from a different perspective.

<quote> Man's mind has always sought intelligibility, but the beginning of philosophy brought a distinction between two entirely different ways of trying to discover how existence makes sense. One approach, the only one available before the advent of philosophy, is to construct a scheme of ideas and supposed events that seems intelligible and which, if true, would satisfy the need to understand; and then to interpret the facts to fit that scheme. Mythologies and cosmogonies are products of this approach. The other method, the method of abstraction, is to go to existence itself to try to discover in the facts some intelligible pattern in terms of which those facts may be truly understood. The one approach is to devise a pattern of interpretation which seems to make sense and then to impose this upon existence. The other way is to seek for intelligibility in existence itself.
So far as the truth we seek is truth about things, then even as rational truth it must in some sense be found in things themselves; it cannot be found if it is merely imposed upon things by the mind that seeks it. Thus in the search for rational truth about existence the method of abstraction would seem to be the proper method to follow. To construct a pattern for existence rather than to find that pattern in existence makes our knowledge of that pattern a knowledge of our own creation. Some philosophers have been led in this direction, and in so far as they use a method of construction rather than abstraction they may be said to be using the methods of myth, even though their "myths" are myths of reason rather than imagination.
This is not intended to suggest that myth is simply false. The method of construction and creation may be the appropriate one for some kinds of knowledge or understanding, and myth may express important and profound truths. The stories that serve to communicate religious truth and to pass on from one generation to another the wisdom of our ancestors may give us something of great importance concerning the meaning of life and existence. They may even contain, as the higher religions insist, revelations of truth inaccessible to rational inquiry alone. But they do not constitute rational or demonstrable knowledge, and to confuse the two leads only to the distortion of both. <end quote>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Morten N. Olesen" <global-theosophy@adslhome.dk>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 7:26 PM
Subject: Theos-World Selective reading and seeking out experiences


> 
> Hallo all,
> 
> My views are:
> 
> The following might be helpful to some readers:
> 
> Learning and Non-learning
> 
> Q: Why is it that so many people read so much and yet are not
> changed by it? Can people not absorb theosophical information through
> the written word?
> 
> A: To learn something, you may have often to be exposed to it
> many times, perhaps from different perspectives; and you also
> have to give it the kind of attention which will enable you to learn.
> In our experience, people fail to learn from theosophical materials for
> the same reason that they do not learn other things - they read
> selectively.
> The things that touch them emotionally, or which they like or
> are thrilled by, they will remember or seek in greater quantity
> and depth.
> Since they are often the last materials which they will problably 
> need, and since such an unbalanced attitude towards anything
> makes the person in need of balance in his approach, we have the
> situation to which you refer.
> We may at once admit that cultures or groups which seek to highlight
> crudities, things which immediately appeal, and to project them in
> attractive forms and endorse and sustain them are unlikely to
> produce, on the whole, people with appetites for other than more
> of the same thing. But this behaviour will merely perpetuate the
> same kind of personality and attitude which created it in the first 
> place.
> If you have a chocolate cake decorated with say sixteen cherries, and
> you gobble up the cherries because you like them, and then want to
> know why you have not eaten the cake - what does that make
> you? And if I tell you, would you like me?
> This is the barrier to surmount. It is crossed by observing it in
> action, deciding to surmount it, and taking action to study 
> comprehensively and not to pretend to be a student and then wonder
> why one has not learned.
> 
> 
> from
> M. Sufilight with peace and love...
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>


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