Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt00459)

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TESTS, PROBATION AND ACTUAL LEARNING

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Dear Friends,

To an ordinary observer, present controversies at “Theos-talk” might look 
like a chaos. To the student of Esoteric Philosophy, there is a higher or 
inner order in this apparent  dis-order.

Actually, there is nothing wrong in the fact that difficulties and 
contradictions  emerge.

Some people see the spiritual path as a way of obtaining peace and comfort 
at the personal level. In their deeds, if not in words, they try to reject 
all “probations” and tests. They fear pain. They attach themselves to 
pleasure.

When these people learn about H.P.B.’s struggle against theological 
dogmatism and other forms of collective ignorance and hypocrisy,  they feel 
that the main teacher of the esoteric philosophy was  excessively polemist. 
They think that H.P.B. had a temper and  that she was less peaceful than she 
should have been.

Thinking like this may help us disguise our own tamasic love for routine and 
ommision. Those who challenge collective ignorance are fiercely attacked in 
various ways – so it is convenient for us to have some handy explanations 
and excuses as to why we do not try to follow the example and the vibration 
pattern of Initiates.

Ill-informed people believe that HPB challenged the dogmas of her time 
because she was anxious, neurotic – or perhaps because she had ‘a missing 
principle’ in  her inner consciousness. The matter of the fact is that she 
was setting an example for future generations of truth-seekers to follow.

She couldn’t avoid challenging  the dogmas of her time  because she was a  
great soul. The same happened to many Messengers, great and small, since 
Pythagoras, Buddha and  Lao-tzu.  Messengers don’t care about established 
dogmas or personal well-being. Seen as an example of an vibration pattern, 
H.P.B.’s life and suffering contain an inspiring example for us in the 21st 
century.

She was a willing instrument to open a new road and to establish a better 
pattern.  More than one century after she left her body in 1891,  her life 
is still a living metaphor illustrating the path which  we might take 
courage to tread  one of these days. The  inner aspect of the progress along 
this  road is radiant with eternal bliss  – while, at the outer level, the 
learner’s personality undergoes a painful psychological and alchemical 
transformation.

One Mahatma described this process in a letter to a lay chela:

“You were told (...) that the path to Occult Sciences has to be trodden 
laboriously and crossed at the danger of life; that every new step  in it 
leading to the final goal, is surrounded by pit-falls and cruel thorns; that 
the pilgrim who ventures upon it is made first to confront and conquer the 
thousand and one furies (1) who keep watch over its adamantine (2)  gates 
and entrance – furies called Doubt, Skepticism, Scorn, Ridicule,  Envy and 
finally Temptation – especially the latter; and that he, who would see 
beyond had to first destroy this living wall; that he must be possessed of a 
heart and soul clad in steel, and of an iron, never failing determination 
and yet  be meek  and gentle, humble and have shut out from his heart every 
human passion, that leads to evil.”(3)

What about “Theos-talk” as a probationary field of search for truth?

Contradictions here are evidences  that it is alive.

Right now,  an apparent  “fever” of messages and controversy precipitates 
some materials and destroys others, in several levels of consciousness,  and 
with several kinds of magnetism.

New learning opportunities may be emerging from under the surface of such 
outward misunderstandings.

“Opportunities are everywhere”, indeed.


Peace to all beings, and best  regards,   Carlos Cardoso Aveline.


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NOTES:

(1) Furies: in  classical Mythology, feminine deities who punished crimes, 
prompted by the victims, and  who took revenge on behalf  of the gods.

(2) Adamantine: like a  diamond; impenetrably hard; utterly and unyieldingly 
firm.

(3) “The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett”, Theosophical University Press, 
Pasadena, California, 1992, Letter LXII, pp. 351-352.

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