Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00714)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "prmoliveira" <prmoliveira@y...> 
wrote: (quoting HPB)
> 
> ENQUIRER. What do you consider, then, to be the chief of these 
> negative Theosophical duties? 
> 
> THEOSOPHIST. To be ever prepared to recognize and confess one's 
> faults. To rather sin through exaggerated praise than through too 
> little appreciation of one's neighbour's efforts. Never to backbite 
> or slander another person. Always to say openly and direct to his 
> face anything you have against him. Never to make yourself the echo 
> of anything you may hear against another, nor harbour revenge > 
against those who happen to injure you. 
> 
These are noble ideals and Theosophical history would have evolved 
very differently had they been adhered to instead of paid lip 
service. For example, consider the long list of prominent 
individuals who were at one time close allies of HPB and Olcott, but 
who ended up estranged and resentful. Elbridge Brown, Emma Hardinge 
Britten, C.C. Massey, Swami Dayananda, Mohini Chatterji, Babaji of 
the many aliases, Subba Row, Allan O. Hume, Mabel Collins, to name a 
few. If "Theosophist" above followed her own advice, she would 
recognize and confess her own role in alienating these individuals, 
would praise their efforts despite their fallings-out, would refrain 
from backbiting them, would say to their faces what she had against 
them rather than put it in the third person in a book that would be 
read for many decades, and would not wish to harbour revenge against 
these people.

BUT the above para was written from the POV of what Theosophists call 
buddhi-manas, but I will call the neocortex. Whereas what follows 
emanates from what Theosophists call kama-manas but I will call the 
lower mammalian and reptilian parts of the brain:

>
> THEOSOPHIST. Of such we have had many. No member, whether prominent 
> or insignificant, has ever left us without becoming our bitter 
enemy.
> 
> ENQUIRER. How do you account for it? 
>

Here's your chance to prove that you practice what you preach, HPB-- 
let's reprise:

To be ever prepared to recognize and confess one's 
> faults. To rather sin through exaggerated praise than through too 
> little appreciation of one's neighbour's efforts. Never to backbite 
> or slander another person. Always to say openly and direct to his 
> face anything you have against him. 

drum roll....

> THEOSOPHIST. It is simply this. Having been, in most cases, 
intensely devoted to the Society at first, and having lavished upon 
it the most exaggerated praises, the only possible excuse such a 
backslider can make for his subsequent behaviour and past short-
sightedness, is to pose as an innocent and deceived victim, thus 
casting the blame from his own shoulders on to those of the Society 
in general, 

Oh, so the "blame" for all these people who were estranged falls 
entirely on their shoulders, and neither the TS nor its founders 
bears any responsibility at all for the succession of feuds and sad 
departures over the previous 15 years. IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT. Well, 
OK.

and its 
> leaders especially. Such persons remind one of the old fable about 
> the man with a distorted face, who broke his looking-glass on the 
> ground that it reflected his countenance crookedly. 
> 
Hmmmmm

> ENQUIRER. But what makes these people turn against the Society? 
> 
> THEOSOPHIST. Wounded vanity in some form or other, almost in every 
> case.

Certainly NEVER any just grievances against She Who Never Makes a 
Mistake.

> Generally, because their dicta and advice are not taken as 
> final and authoritative; or else, because they are of those who > 
would rather reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

Certainly NEVER because of anything I did. 

I don't see HPB as any worse than almost any other spiritual movement 
founder or leader I know of. They never admit a mistake, and it's 
always the other guy's fault, and they will preach to others about 
highminded principles that they abandon in practice at a moment's 
notice.

One endearing thing about Edgar Cayce as a person with whom I spent 
years immersed in research is that he was a real exception to this 
pattern. Constantly doubting himself, blaming himself, feeling 
inadequate to the tasks before him, and never having a mean word to 
say about anyone, even those who sorely abused and mistreated him.

Paul