Theos-Talk Archives (June 2005 Message tt00528)

There was a library, which had, as an employee, a man of great faith. 
The library contained many rare and irreplaceable volumes. One day, a 
fire started. The man calmly walked out. One of the other employees 
asked, excitedly, “What about the rare books?”

“You shouldn't do anything.,” replied the man “They'll be taken care of.”

The other employees, risking injury, grabbed as many of the rare books 
as they could, as the man stood and watched. By the time the 
firefighters arrived, almost all the rare books had been removed from 
harm. They were stacked up on the streets, as the burned and 
soot-covered employees caught their breaths.

“You see? You did all that for nothing,” said the man. “They were taken 
care of.”

The Quest Magazine is the main voice of the Theosophical Society. Large 
amounts of information about the Theosophical Society are included, as 
well as a single paragraph, hidden near the bottom of the indicia, 
saying, “The Theosophical Society in America is not responsible for any 
statement in this magazine by whomever made, unless contained in an 
official document of the Society. The opinions of the writers are their 
own.”

While this may be true, the editorial policy is certainly that of the 
Theosophical Society, and what is put in the Quest is certainly 
presented as if it was the official opinion of the Theosophical Society.

And this is why I am extremely disappointed with the July-August, 2005 
issue of the Quest.

One of the principles that virtually all Theosophists agree upon is a 
basic unity behind the perceived universe. Everything is interconnected 
with everything else, even if it appears that they are separate. One 
would not know that this was the case, from the current issue of Quest 
Magazine. On the contrary, the articles are written from a point of view 
not unlike the man in the story above, who was incapable of connecting 
the idea of the books being safe from the work and sacrifice given to 
ensure their safety, even to the point of chiding those who risked 
themselves for their efforts.

The current issue of Quest has a theme of peace, with the authors 
criticizing those who go to war, without ever making the connection that 
a temporary war may be the only way to ensure the more lasting freedom, 
or even preserve life. In addition, the thinking of the authors 
disconnects actions from intent, when Theosophical authors have, 
previously, stressed the importance of treating both action and intent 
as a whole.

Lets start with the first article, “Thinking in Freedom.” It starts out 
with a quote by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, an author who would have been 
put to death in the gulags of the Soviet Union had it not been for the 
efforts of those who were willing to put their lives on the line for 
human freedom. The author, Sheldon Stoff, criticizes the desire to 
preserve freedom as growing out of ego, as if there was something wrong 
with preserving the freedom that allows him to write the articles that 
he does. He talks about answering hate with love, ignoring the fact that 
those for whom freedom means taking freedom away from others use love 
and trust to destroy those who believe in freedom. He ignores the fact 
that humanity has not completed its evolution, and that some people have 
refused to evolve, and, to them, self-determination means taking away 
the right of self-determination from others.

In the next article, “A Breath of Life for the Anonymous Dead”, the 
author, Edward Tick, clearly dissociates actions from intent by equating 
the Ann Frank House, the site of My Lai, and Hiroshima. The first was a 
victim of a policy of atrocities by a government. The second was 
individuals representing government acting in a manner that the 
government itself considered criminal, where the perpetrators were 
tried, found guilty, and imprisoned. As for the third, it represented 
the attempts to free people like Ann Frank from oppression; the 
oppression by the Japanese is even given in more detail by Tania Dyett 
in a later article, “A Lesson Learned.” Tick later equates the 
extermination of the Holocaust, where millions of innocent civilians 
were systematically and purposely slaughtered, with the deaths of Iraqi 
civilians killed during the current war in Iraq, ignoring the fact that 
many were killed by fellow Iraqis, that great efforts were made to 
minimize the deaths of Iraqi civilians, and that the rate of civilians 
being killed actually went considerably DOWN during and after the 
invasion; Saddam Hussein killed civilians at a far greater rate than the 
U.S. forces have. But once again, intent is ignored, the context is 
ignored, and only the action is considered.

In the next article, “The Miracle of Transformation”, Kay Mouradian 
seems to say that the adage, “those who forget history are doomed to 
repeat it” should be ignored, and it is better to forget about history, 
if it makes one happier. The message of the article appears to be, “Let 
those who commit evil get away with it, just forget about it, and it 
will be a much happier world.” It will be until others who wish to do 
evil are encouraged by the fact that their predecessors were spared the 
negative consequences of their actions.

In an article written over a decade ago, Tony Lysy describes a 
sweatshirt with a caption, “Were all on the same side.” In the universal 
sense, where time has no meaning, this may be true, but in the time 
space-continuum in which we are currently rooted, this is not true at 
all. He writes, “Can we as a people ever grasp that unity requires 
diversity and not uniformity?” ignoring the fact that there are people 
who are willing to kill to destroy diversity, and if they are not 
stopped, then the evolution of humanity will certainly be delayed.

Similarly, in his article, John Algeo speaks about the preference of 
archetypes of love rather than archetypes of murder. This is fine, in 
and of itself, when one is dealing with people who are willing to live 
and let live. But, once again, if one is dealing with people for whom 
the right of self-determination includes taking that right away from 
others, even to the point of death, then perhaps love should be extended 
to those who are being oppressed.

The issue is rounded out by Radha Burnier, who, in her article, “Mental 
Compartments”, equates the suicide bombers of Al Queda, pedantic 
teachers, and Siegfried and Roy, calling them all terrorists, and 
therefore reduces the significance and danger of the former, and 
belittles those who do make distinctions between them. First of all, 
there is a difference between making somebody feel bad about themselves, 
and maiming or even killing them. And animals do NOT have the same 
rights as people. And, finally, there is a difference between criminals 
taking hostages using weapons, and police using weapons to free the 
hostages, even if both are using weapons. Once again, intent is key.

On the back cover, there is a quote, which says, in part, “war is merely 
the effect, the symptom, of inner moral weakness.” Once again, it 
ignores the fact that inaction creates karma; if there is injustice that 
one can stop, and one fails to act to stop it, then one takes partial 
responsibility for that injustice. And, sometimes, war is the only way 
available to end the injustice, in which case war arises from moral 
conviction, not weakness.

While, several times in the issue, it is mentioned in passing that 
people were liberated from their oppressors, none of the authors seem to 
connect the liberation with the actions required in the process of the 
liberation, even to the extent of condemning those actions. The freedom 
that the authors have to write was paid for in war, whether they 
appreciate it or not. It would be as ironic as the man in the library, 
if the attitudes encouraged would only result in rare books being 
destroyed, and not people, or freedom itself.