Morten,
You copied a book. Would you write in short what it wants to convey.
Anand Gholap
--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "M. Sufilight" <global-
theosophy@s...> wrote:
Hallo Anand and all,
My views are:
The following might be helpful in understanding some of the
Blavatskians
better...
- - - A Curriculum of a School - - -
Here is an interesting piece of spiritual teaching taken from the
book
"Learning how to learn" by Idries Shah. The author Sylvia Cranston
who was
behind the biography "HPB" has called Idries Shah an overlooked
author.
What do the Theosophical readers and teachers think about the
below ? Is it
Theosophy or not ?
A CURRICULUM OF A SCHOOL
"Q: Could you give us a view of the curriculum of a School,
from 'inside the
School' so to speak?"
"A: In our teaching, we must group correctly these elements: the
pupils, the
teacher and the circumstances of study. Only at the right time and
place,
with the teacher suitable to these, and with the right body of
students, can
our studies be said to be capable of coherent development."
"Does this sound difficult or unreasonable? Let us compare these
requirements with an analogy of our needs: the ordinary educational
institution."
"If we are learning, say, physics, we must have a man skilled in
physics
[having successfully completed his own training; able also to
teach; and
with a mandate to teach]; students who want to learn and who have
capacity
and some background for the study; and adequate laboratories and
other
facilities for the studies to take place."
"A physics teacher could not make any real progress with a class of
idiots,
or people who primarily wanted power or fame or gain through
physics. These
factors would be getting in the way of the teaching. A class of
brilliant
students, faced with a man who knew no physics, or who only had a
smattering, would make little progress. A good teacher, with a
student body,
could do little unless the instruments and equipment, the building
and so
on, were available as and when needed."
"Yet this principle, so well established in conventional studies of
all
kinds, is largely passed over and has fallen into disuse, among
esotericists. Why? Because they have a primitive and unenlightened
attitude
towards teaching. Like an oaf who has just heard of physics or only
seen
some of its manifestations, the would-be student wants it all
*now*. He does
not care about the necessary presence of other students. He wants
to skip
the curriculum and he sees no connection between the building and
the
subject of physics. So he does not want a laboratory."
"Just observe what happens when people try to carry on learning or
teaching
without the correct grouping of the three essentials:"
"Would-be students always try to operate their studies with only
one, or at
the most two, of the three factors. Teachers try to teach those who
are
unsuitable, because of the difficulties of finding enough people to
form a
class. Students who have no teacher try to teach themselves.
Transpose this
into a group of people trying to learn physics, and you will see
some of
their problems. Others group themselves around the literature and
methodology of older schools, trying to make the scrap material of
someone
else's physics laboratory work. They formalize rituals, become
obsessed by
principles and slogans, assign disproportionate importance to the
elements
which are only tools, but which they regard as a more significant
heritage."
"Anyone can think of several schools, cults, religions, systems of
psychology or philosophy which fall into the above classifications."
"We must categorically affirm that it is impossible to increase
human
knowledge in the higher field by these methods. The statistical
possibility
of useful gains within a reasonable time is so remote as to be
excluded from
one's calculations."
"Why, then, do people insist on raking over the embers and looking
for truth
when they have little chance of finding it? Simply because they are
using
their conditioning propensity, not their capacity for higher
perception, to
try to follow the path. There is intellectual stimulus and
emotional
attraction in the mere effort to plumb the unknown. When the
ordinary human
mind encounters evidences of a higher state of being, of even when
it
conceives the possibility of them, it will invariably conclude that
there is
some possibility of progress for that mind without the application
of the
factors of teaching-teacher-students-time-and-place which are
essentials."
"Man has few alternatives in his search for truth. He may rely upon
his
unaided intellect, and gamble that he is capable of perceiving
truth or even
the way to truth. This is a poor, but an attractive, gamble. Or he
can
gamble upon the claims of an individual or institution which claims
to have
such a way. This gamble, too, is a poor one. Aside from a very few,
wo/men
in general lack a sufficiently developed perception to tell them:"
Not to trust their own unaided mentation; Who or what to
trust. "There are,
in consequence, two main schools of thought in this matter. Some
say 'Follow
your own promptings'; the other says: 'Trust this or that
intuition'. Each
is really useless to the ordinary wo/man. Each will help him use up
his
time."
"The bitter truth is that before man can know his own inadequacy,
or the
competence of another man or institution, he must first learn
something
which will enable him to perceive both. Note well that his
perception itself
is a product of right study; not of instinct or emotional
attraction to the
individual, nor yet of desiring to 'go it alone'. This is 'Learning
How To
Learn."
"All this means, of course, that we are postulating here the need
for
preparatory study before school work takes place. We deny that a
man can
study and properly benefit from school work until he is equipped
for it: any
more than a person can study space-navigation unless he has a grasp
of
mathematics."
"This is not to say that a man (or a woman) cannot have a sensation
of
truth. But the unorganized and fragmented mind which is most
people's
heritage tends to distort the quality and quantity of this
sensation,
leading to almost completely false conclusions about what can or
should be
done."
"This is not to say, either, that man cannot take part in studies
and
activities which impinge upon that portion of him which is
connected with a
higher life and cognition. But the mere application of special
techniques
[often to everyone, regardless of their current state and
requirements] will
not transform that man's consciousness. It will only feed into, and
disturb,
more or less permanently, centers of thought and feeling where it
does not
belong. Thus it is that something which should be a blessing
becomes a
curse. Sugar, shall we say, for a normal person is nutritionally
useful. To
a diabetic, it can be poison."
"Therefore, before the techniques of study and development are made
available to the student, he must be enabled to profit by them in
the
direction in which they are supposed to lead, not in short-term
indulgence."
"Thus our curriculum takes two parts: the first is in the providing
of
materials of a preparatory nature, in order to equip the individual
to
become a student. The second is the development itself."
"If we, or anybody else, supply such study or preparatory material
prematurely, it will only operate on a lower level than it could.
The result
will be harmless at best. At worst, it will condition, train, the
mind of
the individual to think and behave in patterns which are nothing
less than
automatic. In this latter way one can make what seem to be
converts,
unwittingly play upon emotions, on lesser desires and the
conditioning
propensity; train people to loyalty to individuals, found and
maintain
institutions which seem more or less serious or constructive. But
no real
progress towards knowledge of the human being and the other
dimension in
which he partly lives will in fact be made..."
Is this what the different theosophical branches are doing today ?
If not, then why not ?
It could be to your advantage to read the text more than one time.
*******
M. Sufilight
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anand Gholap" <AnandGholap@A...>
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 1:59 PM
Subject: Theos-World Hypocrisy of Blavatskians
> Blavatskians always refer Blavatsky's statements to know truth.
> According to Blavatsky religions are given by Great Teachers from
the
> Occult Hierarchy for guiding people.
> When anybody practices his religion e.g. Christianity,
Blavatskians
> criticize him. This is one example of hypocrisy of Blavatkians.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
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Yahoo! Groups Links
