Theos-Talk Archives (February 2005 Message tt00493)

Hallo all,

My views are:

The following excerpts might be worth while adding these ongoing talks about 
the theosophical teachings.
One could with some advantage exchange the words Sufi and Sufism with the 
words "Theosophy" and "Theosophical".
Just try it. It worked very well for me.
It is taken from an interview with Idries Shah by Elizabeth Hall in 
Psychology Today 1975:

1.
"EH: Gurus keep proliferating in the United States, always with massive 
followings. A 15-year-old Perfect Master can fill the Astrodome.
IS: Getting the masses is the easy part. A guru can attract a crowd of a 
million in India, but few in a crowd take him seriously. You see, India has 
had gurus for thousands of years, so they are generally sophisticated about 
them; they take in the attitude with their mothers' milk. This culture just 
hasn't been inoculated against the guru. Let's turn it around. If I were 
fresh off a plane from India and told you that I was going to Detroit to 
become a wonderful automobile millionaire, you would smile at me. You know 
perfectly well the obstacles, the taxes, the ulcers that I face. Well, the 
Indian is in the same position with the automobile industry as the American 
with the guru. I'm not impressed by naive American reactions to gurus; if 
you can show me a guru who can pull off that racket in the East, then I will 
be surprised."

2.
"EH: One can't help getting the feeling that not all gurus are trying to 
serve their fellowman.
IS: Some are frankly phonies, and they don't try to hide it from me. They 
think that I am one, too, so when we meet they begin the most disturbing 
conversations. They want to know how I get money, how I control people, and 
so on.
EH: They want to swap secrets.
IS: That's going a little too far. But they feel safety in numbers. They 
actually feel there is something wrong with what they are doing, and they 
feel better if they talk to somebody else who is doing it. I always tell 
them that I think it would be much better if they gave up the guru role in 
their own minds and realize that they are providing a perfectly good social 
service.
EH: How do they take to that advice?
IS: Sometimes they laugh and sometimes they cry. The general impression is 
that one of us is wrong. Because I don't make the same kind of noises that 
they do, they seem to believe that either I am a lunatic or that I am 
starting some new kind of con. Perhaps I have found a new racket."


3.
"Hall: Let's get back to your main work. What is the best way of introducing 
the Sufi way of thinking to the West?


Shah: I am sure that the best way is not to start a cult, but to introduce a 
body of literary material that should interest people enough to establish 
the Sufi phenomenon as viable. We don't plan to form an organization with 
somebody at the top and others at the bottom collecting money or wearing 
funny clothes or converting people to Sufism. We view Sufism not as an 
ideology that molds people to the right way of belief or action, but as an 
art or science that can exert a beneficial influence on individuals or 
societies, in accordance with the needs of those individuals and societies."
(Taken from an interview with Idries Shah by Elizabeth Hall in Psychology 
Today 1975)
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/sufi/sufi-shah.html


Thanks to Katinka and others for providing this material online.
*******

So maybe we could call Theosophical Society's next stage a 
non-organisational one (i.e. a non-cult one).

from
M. Sufilight with peace and love...and wearing...aeehm some quite funny 
clothes... >:-)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Perry Coles" <perrycoles@yahoo.com>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 8:35 AM
Subject: Theos-World Re: ACCURACY OR ERROR ? hate Leadbeater? mind realms 
arrogance




Hi Pablo,
My experience has also been a great deal of liberality among the
individual members of the society and there is a lot of selfless good
work the society does do.

Local in-house publications within branches can also be quite open
and liberal.
The problem is the official journals and publications of the society.
This is one of the real acid tests for genuine openness and freedom
of thought for an organization I think.

Jerry gave a very good description of some of the political
undercurrents and how they affect what is and isn't discussed openly
by the society but none the less still exist as part of the political
culture.

An important part of "self transformation and regeneration" and
living a "theosophical way" is being honest and truthful this applies
on an organizational level as much as an individual level.

Denial and censorship slow down or even may stop the process for any
of the above processes to happen for the organization.
Individuals evolve according to there own efforts and insights
accordingly.

So I am not suggesting that individuals within the society do not do
worthwhile and good work and are not open minded as individuals.

I would not mind working within the society again if I could see that
the leadership was willing to start to deal with all the issues that
we've been discussing here on this forum.
Denial is repression not transformation.
Thus far I have not seen any willingness (by the leadership) to even
acknowledge a problem let alone work towards regeneration and
transformation as an organization by dealing with these issues.

Honest and open willingness to address past history are basic
prerequisites for any psychological development and transformation to
begin to occur.

Being told there is no problem and everything is ok to me means
ignoring certain fundamental hypocrisies and I can't just ignore them.
While the individual "member has freedom to make whatever studies he
wants" this freedom is not extended to official publications.
If articles addressing the CWL / Neo theosophy issues are not allowed
to be addressed in official publications doesn't this strike at the
very core of free and open examination of ideas and teachings?

I ask do you, IN PRINCIPLE believe such articles should be allowed to
be published in official society publications?

I think many members and students would be interested to read these
opinions and investigate for themselves.

Cheers

Perry


--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Pablo Sender <pasender@y...> wrote:
> Hi Perry
>
>
>
> I think (it is my personal viewpoint) that Adyar TS is not very
much interested in that kind of work for the moment. Adyar TS is now
prompting members to work in the (self)transformation (human
regeneration) in order to live in a theosophical way.
> But every member has freedom to make whatever studies he wants. For
example, in my City, there are four lodges working in the same
building. One of them (the bigger one) is "Blavatskyan" and most of
its members disagree with Leadbeater teachings. Another Lodge works
exclusively with Krishnamurti teachings. The other two make a
comparative study and haven't a fixed position.
> These Lodges works together in a good harmony (with some conflicts
here and there, of course) and make publics lectures and workshops in
a coordinate way. Every member offers his point of view and usually
don't try to attack or to argue the other viewpoints.
> I think this is healthy, don't you?
>
> But, if you're interested in that kind of investigations (and I'm
too), just do it! Nobody will reject it. Especially if investigation
has an honest spirit, as I said. What's the problem you find?
> Best
>
> Pablo
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> 250MB gratis, Antivirus y Antispam
> Correo Yahoo!, el mejor correo web del mundo
> Abrí tu cuenta aquí
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





Yahoo! Groups Links