Theos-Talk Archives (August 2005 Message tt00034)

Dear Everyone:

I wish to supplement what Anand Gholap has to say.

A PhD. thesis or research in science is by no means final. Many of the difficulties in religion arise from the fact that people come to a conclusion and stop inquiry. This leads to simplicity, and if accompanied by rigidity, it creates problems. This is far from enlightenment, human regeneration or search for truth. T.S. has the maxim "There is No Religion Higher than Truth".

It is for a good reason the the T.S. - at least the Adyar T.S. - has in its second objective the promotion of the comparative study of philosophy, science and religion. This is of great value.

It is interesting to quote Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner from California Institute of Technology. He says,"Science is a body of knowledge,some of which is nearly certain,a lot which is quite uncertain and NOTHING THAT IS COMPLETELY CERTAIN".

Also Freud says, "It is a mistake to believe that a science consists in nothing but conclusively proved propositions, and it is unjust to demand that it should. It is a demand only made by those who feel a craving for authority in some form and a need to replace the religious catechism by something else, even if it be a scientific one."

Therefore, whatever debate is there in this forum about Leadbeater, Blavatsky or others should be viewed accordingly. Even Krishnamurti has emphasised that the truth has to be perceived for oneself and not according to Freud, Shankara or some such authority. Krishnamurti once said to discard books, including his, in the search for truth.

Jayananda H. Hiranandani

Anand Gholap <AnandGholap@AnandGholap.org> wrote:
It is well known fact that students for PhD.D. do research and write 
thesis mostly to get PhD.D. degree and to prove their ability to do 
scholarly research. Gregory also did some research and wrote thesis. 
He earned doctorate because he did some research mostly related to 
rumors in Leadbeater's life. Till this point what Gregory did was 
logical and sensible from viewpoint of the candidate for PhD.D.

But Gregory made big mistake later. His research on rumors - which 
formed very small part of the life of Mr. Leadbeater - was published 
by Gregory as his full biography. In Adyar TS there are large number 
of members who have PhD.D. or master's degree. Most of these scholars 
rejected this biography considering it completely misleading as it 
focused on small part of his life and was published by Gregory as 
full biography of Mr. Leadbeater. These scholars in Adyar TS and 
many outside TS also considered this biography as most unscholarly 
biography. It formed opinion that Gregory does not have capacity to 
do any objective, scholarly research and his character is not pure 
enough to place before world accurate facts in balanced manner. 

So whatever credit Gregory had earned by getting PhD.D. was lost by 
printing thesis as biography. 

If he was wise enough, after taking PhD.D. he could have said " thesis 
is written to get PhD.D, I wrote it and earned doctoral degree. Matter 
is over, I don't want to discuss that subject" If he had said so, 
nobody would have ridiculed Gregory or questioned his capacity to do 
research. But after getting doctoral degree also he published that 
small part of Leadbeater's life as biography. Result was hundreds of 
scholars in Theosophical circles and outside ridiculed Gregory, 
considered his work as unscholarly and came to conclusion that 
Gregory lacks capacity to do research and he can't present correct 
picture. So what Gregory earned by getting PhD.D. was lost by 
publishing thesis as biography. 

Anand Gholap








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