Theos-Talk Archives (February 2005 Message tt00714)

Feb 23 2005

Re Communicating Theosophy

Dear Friends:

All I wished to point to is that THEOSOPHY has valuable definitions and it
is so easy for all of us to diverge into our own opinions.

I for myself, I try to avoid this by using QUOTES from the writings of the
original "teachings." There has been so much added after those were
recorded that many are unsure as to what THEOSOPHY really says. [I used the
word 'scholarship' only to indicate the need to back up anything one said
about THEOSOPHY with a respected or primary source ALL COULD REFER TO.]

Using the quotes is a way of redirecting us all to those foci. 

It also urges us to study them for their inherent accuracy and expression
concerning facts in Nature.  

This does not curtail our individual speculations or thought, but gives us a
pivot around which to cause them to revolve.  

It is probably for this reason that HPB says that all her writing urge us
towards the TRUTH but that it can not be expressed in any form, it has to
spring up from within each of us as our understanding. [Perhaps this is
what the discussion chairperson tried to instill in the group -- the making
sure of one's basis. But even this can be driven into the ground. I also
believe we all have to try and learn how to think -- and that is another
difficult point, as our individual paths may follow different priorities.
In the end, they have to converge. [ "The 6 'darshanas,' or view-points, are
equidistant from the 7th the "synthesizer" in the center."]

But even then it cannot be materialized, as additional thinking, and free
exchanges between co-students, always urges to further extend our purview,
and refine our grasp of the fundamentals. We cannot afford to "take a rest"
once we have begun this study and self-refinement. [This is how I understand
the "Learning how to Learn."] 

I hope this makes clearer what I wished to say.

Best wishes,

Dallas

==========================
 

-----Original Message-----
From: M. S
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 2:32 PM
To: 
Subject: Re: Communicating Theosophy


Hallo Jerry and all,

My views are:

Well thanks, I guess.

My answers are inserted in the below using ***.

From

M. Sufilight


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jerry H E
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 
Subject: Communicating Theosophy



Thank you Dallas and Sufilight for finally addressing the important
question of communicating Theosophy. You are both right. Accuracy is
important. So is meaningful discussion.

Allright. But maybe we are also both of us wrong?
Or maybe it is the emails and the impact of their design upon readers like 
you, which are important?



To post citations to Theosophical texts germane to every topic that
comes up may be useful to those who have not already read the material,
or don't know how to look up the material for themselves. However this,
it itself, is not scholarship. While scholarship implies one's ability
to research a subject--to use indexes, bibliographies etc., it also
implies skills in interpreting and discussing this material.

Well, I think, that depends upon how we define the word scholarship.

If a person request me to use scholarship and when the very use of 
Scholarship hampers my possibilities to email and address certain persons; -
This person is in fact requiring, that I follow his or her rules upon how to

Email or at least a certain approach on how to email.

We could question whether such a request always is spiritually genuine.

Sometimes it is.

But, any theosophical activity aught to be an issue of relating your 
activity to time, place and people.

And this is Learning how to Learning.

And Learning how to Learn is not merely linear Scholarship.

This is the difference when I view the exchange between me and Dallas.
This is theosophy.

CUT