Theos-Talk Archives (October 2005 Message tt00017)

Hallo all,


Blavatsky said the following about the Sufis in her appearently very important work
named The Secret Doctrine:

"
As already explained, the whole of antiquity believed, with good reason, that humanity and its races are all intimately connected with the planets, and these with Zodiacal signs. The whole world's History is recorded in the latter. In the ancient temples of Egypt this was proved by the Dendera Zodiac; but except in an Arabic work, the property of a Sufi, the writer has never met with a correct copy of these marvellous records of the past, as also of the future, history of our globe. Yet the original records exist, most undeniably."

The Secret Doctrine by H.P. Blavatsky, Vol. 2, Page 431 MISTAKES OF THE EGYPTOLOGISTS.





Let us in the following remember, that Theosophy and Sufism are closely related.

Now we have the following from one Doris Lessing who had Idries Shah as a friend/mentor when he was alive.

I have rewritten her words slightly:







"

There has always been travellers to the

mystic East. 

'Tell me, Master, what is the Secret?' 

'Oh you want a Secret, dear child, is that it? Well, stand on your head for 

a week, and chant this mantra...' 



But those of us who tries to approach

Sufism through what is offered to us in the West seem nearly always to

have gone through something like that, and had to outgrow it: it is

how we have been conditioned to think. What we find in the East is

not glamorous and the mystic, but an approach to humanity, both

as individuals and as an organic unity, that goes far beyond our own

sciences, in conception and achievement - in sophistication.



How has this come about?



For one thing, perhaps the culture we inhabit is not the advanced,

open-minded culture we believe it is. Outsiders, who have always been

valuable in providing insights into sciences, although they are always

resisted at first, judge us differently.



We are judged as being fettered, and in many ways. We easily talk

now of Western arrogance; we begin to know we are insular. But it is

a slow business, for we have to contend, in the case of the Middle East

and Central Asia, with the implanted results of hundreds of years of

suspicion of the dreaded Saracen. This has had, still has, stultifying

effects on our culture, from ignorance and bigotry about Islam, to

something like this: that the symbols for the planets in astrology -

Mars, Venus, Mercury and the rest - are no more than Arabic letters,

easily recognisable as such to those who know Arabic. Yet we ascribe

to them amazing origins. A tiny example, even an absurd one, of an

enormous unmapped area. But why is it not being researched?



We may go on murmuring about Western complacency, but it is

another thing actually to face it. Idries Shah instances our belief that we in

the West pioneered certain psychological ideas. But the 'discoveries' of

Freud and Jung are to be found in Al Ghazzali and Ibn El Arabi, who

died in the twelfth century, and in other great thinkers of the time.
(Jung acknowledged his debt to the East. Is it not remarkable that his
disciples are not curious about what else there might be?) Al Ghazzali
wrote extensively about conditioning: then, as now, Sufi teachers were

concerned about freeing people from social and religious indoctrinations.

What happened to all that expertise? It was used. it become the property

of doctors of the mind, of the soul, of the body; it has been
built on, developed...But we, in the West, have been cut off from it - are

still cut off from it, and will be until we are prepared to think

hard about our own mental sets.



Another instance: we tell ourselves about our inifinitely various and
rich language. But the fact is that English is impoverished; it lacks
words and concepts we need. Any writer who has tried to describe
certain processes and experiences has come up against it: the absence

of words. There are ways around it - analogy is one - but the problem
remains. A handful of pitful and worn terms - unconscious, soul,
spirit, collective unconscious, super-mind, ego, super-ego, id, paranormal,
ESP, super-nature - and suddenly, very soon, you've run into the sand.
You cannot use these words for fresh experiences, new ideas,
because each is loaded with unwanted associations. But other
languages are not so barren; their words are not so overloaded. No,
this is not an essay in disparaement of English, or in admiration of
other tongues, for the sake of it, but a plea for recognition: if there is
a desperate and urgent need for something, that need may be met. I

hope so. Meanwhile, it is hard going. I am not a linguist, to put is
mildly, but my tiniest aquaintance with Persian, for example, shows
our own dreadful deprovation. But that is the language of a culture
where certain kinds of spiurituality were in active operation for
hundreds of years....
... Friends who study 'primitive' cultures and know the language of 
American Indians, or certain African societies,
say that these, too, are well supplied with concepts that we lack

(in the english language). Our english language is problably the best
of tools for technical processes, as long as technical processes are
still conceived of as being restricted to the mechanical, but when they 
impinge on the frontiers of the mind...

And there is another, Himalayan block, which we scarely consider.
It is that for 2.000 years the West has been under a most terrible
tyranny, the Christian religion. (I am aware that at this point, readers 
are sighing, thinking vaguely, 'How very nineteenth century.') But it
was, historically speaking, an extremely short time ago. I have met 
people who came into conflict with the churches, when all they wanted
was to opt out of certainties and dogma into agnosticism. Wives and
husbands left them, they lost jobs, were socially ostracised, were cast
off from families - and went to the colonies. There I met them as a 
child. Now the churches has a benevolent, harmless aspect, half
social agency, half genial bully; they cajole people into thinking that
they really have to be born again, or BELONG to something or other. But
for 2.000 years we were kept in a mental straitjacket, and even the
most limited rebellion was horribly punished. Luther's was limited.

He said, I insist on the right to talk with God directly, wiothout the
mediation of the church. He did not say, For many thousands of years

there have been people in this world who have had techniques, the
information, to enable those with sufficient preparation to make use of
these tools, to acheive states of mind, or of spirit, that the churches
know nothing about. (But at this point I have to make clear that
Sufism respects all religions, saying that the Truth is at the core of 
each. It is the tyrant, benevolent or wicked, who has to be exposed.)
What I would like to know is this: how is it that, understanding that
our culture has had two millennia of certain kind of indoctrination,
we, our scienctist, are not researching the effects on our mental
processes? For these effects are there; once you begin thikning on
these lines, they are very evident."





Perhaps more later.


I seems clear at least to me, Master or no Master behind the
Sectret Doctrine of Blavatsky, that this very important work was marked by
the above mentioned Christian and Saracen circumstances.

Today the physical planet is different.
And we aught to remember that!


I simply just think, that there are too many would-be 
Theosophists or Esotericals who have a agressive
view upon the Middle East.

Let us give the Seekers a global perspective while seeking to adapt
our outlet to the present day circumstances.
The Masters have always related their teachings to time, place and people,
and the needs of the Seekers.



from
M. Sufilight with peace and love...





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