Theos-Talk Archives (June 2006 Message tt00402)

Agreed, a very interesting and informative interchange.

On 28 Jun 2006 at 17:28, W.Dallas TenBroeck wrote:

> 6/28/2006 3:56 PM
> 
> This exchange deserves careful attention in my esteem.
> 
> Best wishes.
> 
> Dallas
> 
> =================================
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mlr  per:  
>  From: Elaine Bitterman 
> 
> Sent: Monday, June 26, 2006 7:00 PM
> To: 
> Subject	RE: Origin of Evil
> 
>  MLR writes and quotes:
> 
> Let us look at the views expressed from another angle, from a
> theosophical perspective--inserted in the text of the post.
> 
>  ================================================
> 
>  Elaine wrote:
>  
> I did not mean to imply that it is Only the fundamental Muslim
> community that takes their holy book as literal, and seems to
> determine their current morality, or lack thereof.  Of course the same
> literalism exists within the Christian population (and other orthodox
> religions,)  That said however, you do not currently find suicide
> bombers willing to die to kill infidels within the fundamental
> Christian, Jewish communities - where parents are congratulated for
> the death of their child serving God, nor do you find an acceptance of
> honor killings for the rape of girls, women who have shamed their
> families in the same - even though shame might be felt. This is done
> in the name of God in Muslim countries.  
> 
> =================================
> 
> What crimes have not been committed in all lands in the name of 'God?'
> 
> 
> Have not hundreds of thousands of men and women, helpless poor mediums
> and the "heretics" been burnt at the stake during
> murderous  Inquisition in Europe during the middle ages ? Is it any
> less heinous, or more honourable, than the crimes Islamists are
> accused of committing ?
> 
> Slave trade [sanctioned in European kingdoms of the middle ages] let
> loose a swarm of curses upon the earth.
> 
> In the name of the 'Holy Trinity' the Spanish government, under the
> aeiges of the 'Holy Church' concluded 10 treaties authorizing the sale
> of 500,000 human beings in 'barbarous' Ivory Coast, Africa. 
> 
> For 400 years men, women and children were torn from all they knew and
> loved, and were sold on the coast of Africa to European Christian
> Traders. They were chained to the deck--dead often with the
> living--during the passage across the seas. Bancroft, an impartial
> historian, said that 250,000 out of three and quarter millions were
> thrown into the sea and remainder consigned to nameless misery in the
> mines, under the lash, in the cane and rice fields. 
> 
> Sir John Hawkins ferried slaves from Africa to the West Indies in a
> ship which bore the name of JESUS, and Elizabeth, the Protestant queen
> of Portugal, rewarded him for his successful mission in human
> trafficking and presented him an insignia, in honour of his
> ignominious mission, depicting a manacled negro slave. In what way are
> these black deeds less heinous than those Islamists are accused of
> [today] ?
> 
> This is religious fundamentalism. 
> 
> What about 'secular fundamentalism,' if we may call scientific
> materialism so,  in the form of fierce national selfishness, greed and
> inhumanity -- poorer nations colonized, plundered and economically,
> culturally emaciated by the conquering West, and continue the same to
> this day indirectly through globalized market economy; invading and
> waging war against other weaker countries, killing millions by weapons
> of mass destruction, diabolical inventions of modern science and
> technology, leaving a trail of untold misery--is this all more
> honourable than Islamic fundamentalism ?
> 
>  Could not have Islamic fundamentalism we so much dread today been
> fuelled by the aggressive, greedy, self-aggrandizing international
> politics of Western nations ? An impartial inquiry into the current
> events show this to be true, quite plainly.
> 
> It is a mistake to point the finger of accusation against any
> individual or religion or group. As surely as three fingers point back
> at ourselves when we point our accusing finger at others, we will, on
> honest self-examination, find that we share in no small measure some
> of those very evils/vices we see in others. Let us rather try to
> remove the beam in our own eyes before taking critical look at the
> speck in another's, as admonished by the Master [Jesus].
> 
> The idea is not to blame anyone but to underscore the fact that as
> long as mankind labours under false ideas concerning life and nature,
> ignorant of the true nature of self, of the universe, of the law of
> our being, such monstrosities will continue, and much worse things
> will follow--to the point of self-annihilation.
> 
> [DTB--	THEOSOPHY teaches that the "Self" resides as a 'ray' of the
> UNIVERSAL DEITY in every human as also in every other form or element.
>  One the three definitions of GOD, we must remember is OMNIPRESENCE. 
> It is spiritual Self -- a RAY -- that is impartially and universally
> present in the WHOLE OF NATURE.  
> 
> Thus we may say logically that the 2nd deific quality or, GOD'S
> OMNISCIENCE, is both ETERNAL [as "He" is] and UNIVERSAL  
> 
> From this concept is also to be considered the 3rd deific quality of
> OMNIPOTENCE -- that which requires equal and honest dealing at all
> times. ( Visualize our life to be in a fish-bowl -- under constant
> scrutiny as to the motive of our choices.)   These LAWS govern with
> equal JUSTICE and RIGOR the behaviour of ourselves as of all living
> things.	KARMA. 
> 
> If we say UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD all this is implied.	-- DTB
> 
> =========================================
> 
> I do question why there seems to be no sense of inherent morality in a
> culture such as that. 
> 
> ====================================
> 
> This is a serious charge made having chosen to be wholly blind to 
> 
> (1) the higher, nobler, true Islam, full of knowledge and wisdom, the
> catalytic role it played in liberating the Western mind from centuries
> of religious obscurantism and helping its renaissance; great souls in
> that tradition--the Sufis, especially--who have and continue to be a
> power for good in the world; and 
> 
> (2) ugly features of one's own house, one's own tainted and stained
> past. 
> 
> ====================================== 
> 
>  As someone with a deep seated sense of right vs. wrong - feeling it
> Has been hardwired in human beings - I'm left to ponder..... 
> 
> Are these people simply misguided by blind faith?  
> 
> Are they truly evil?  
> 
> Or are they meant to provide us with the challenge to find ways to
> bridge the great divide, that grows wider every day (and, [seemingly]
> for the first time in history offers the opportunity for major
> devastation if not destruction of a large part of the earth's
> population.)  [ In the history of our past,  SECRET DOCTRINE  Mme.
> Blavatsky states the Atlanteans -- 4th Race -- developed a highly
> intellectualized civilization [ S D   I  189-92;  II 222, 273, 760, ].
>  This degenerated into sorcery of the most dangerous type [ S D   I 
> 397,  419;  II 93-4, 222-3, 272, 286, 350, 491, 495, 503, 636, 772,
> 786 ]  
> 
> Finally a great war ensued [ S D   II  222-3 ]  Quote:
> 
> "Only, as they were rupa or material Spirits, these Dhyanis were not
> always good. Their King Thevetata was one of the latter, and it is
> under the evil influence of this King-Demon that . . . the
> Atlantis-race became a nation of wicked magicians. 
> 
> "In consequence of this, war was declared, the story of which would be
> too long to narrate; its substance may be found in the disfigured
> allegories of the race of Cain, the giants, and that of Noah and his
> righteous family. The conflict came to an end by the submersion of the
> Atlantis, which finds its imitation in the stories of the Babylonian
> and Mosaic flood. The giants and magicians '. . . and all flesh died .
> . . and every man.' All except Xisuthrus and Noah, who are
> substantially identical with the great Father of the Thhnkithians in
> the Popol-Vuh, or the sacred book of the Guatemaleans, which also
> tells of his escaping in a large boat like the Hindu Noah ?
> Vaivasvata.
> 
> "If we believe the tradition at all, we have to credit the further
> story that, from the intermarrying of the progeny of the hierophants
> of the island and the descendants of the Atlantean Noah, sprang up a
> mixed race of righteous and wicked. On the one side the world had its
> Enochs, Moseses, various Buddhas, its numerous 'Saviours,' and great
> hierophants; on the other hand, its 'natural magicians' who, through
> lack of the restraining power of proper spiritual enlightenment, . . .
> perverted their gifts to evil purposes. . ." 
> 
> We may supplement this by the testimony of some records and
> traditions. In the "Histoire des Vierges: Les Peuples et les
> Continents Disparus," the author says: ? 
> 
> "One of the most ancient legends of India, preserved in the temples by
> oral and written tradition, relates that several hundred thousand
> years ago there existed in the Pacific Ocean an immense continent
> which was destroyed by geological upheaval, and the fragments of which
> must be sought in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and the
> principal isles of Polynesia." 
> 
> "The high plateaux of Hindustan and Asia, according to this
> hypothesis, would only have been represented in those distant epochs
> by great islands contiguous to the central continent . . . According
> to the Brahmans, this country had attained a high civilization, and
> the peninsula of Hindustan, enlarged by the displacement of the
> waters, at the time of the grand cataclysm, has but continued the
> chain of the primitive traditions born in this place. 
> 
> These traditions give the name of Rutas to the peoples which inhabited
> this immense equinoctial continent, and from their speech was derived
> the Sanscrit. . . .And the Indo-Hellenic tradition, preserved by the
> most intelligent population which emigrated from the plains of India,
> equally relates the existence of a continent and a people to which it
> gives the name of Atlantis and Atlantides, and which it locates in the
> Atlantic in the northern portion of the Tropics." 
> 
> "Apart from this fact, the supposition of an ancient continent in
> those latitudes, the vestiges of which may be found in the volcanic
> islands and mountainous [223] surface of the Azores, the Canaries and
> Cape de Verdes, is not devoid of geographical probability. The Greeks,
> who, moreover, never dared to pass beyond the pillars of Hercules, on
> account of their dread of the mysterious ocean, appeared too late in
> antiquity for the stories preserved by Plato to be anything else than
> an echo of the Indian legend. Moreover, when we cast a look on a
> planisphere, at the sight of the islands and islets strewn from the
> Malayan Archipelago to Polynesia, from the straits of Sunda to Easter
> Island, it is impossible, upon the hypothesis of continents preceding
> those which we inhabit, not to place there the most important of all. 
> 
> "A religious belief, common to Malacca and Polynesia, that is to say,
> to the two opposite extremes of the Oceanic world, affirms 'that all
> these islands once formed two immense countries, inhabited by yellow
> men and black men, always at war; and that the gods, wearied with
> their quarrels, having charged Ocean to pacify them, the latter
> swallowed up the two continents, and, since, it has been impossible to
> make him give up his captives. Alone, the mountain-peaks and high
> plateaux escaped the flood, by the power of the gods, who perceived
> too late the mistake they had committed.'
> 
> "Whatever there may be in these traditions, and whatever may have been
> the place where a civilization more ancient than that of Rome, of
> Greece, of Egypt, and of India was developed, it is certain that this
> civilization did exist, and it is highly important to science to
> recover its traces, however feeble and fugitive they may be" (pp.
> 13-15). 
> 
> This last tradition corroborates the one given from the "Records of
> the Secret Doctrine." The war mentioned between the yellow and the
> black men, relates to a struggle between the "sons of God" and the
> "sons of giants," or the inhabitants and magicians of Atlantis. 
> 
> The final conclusion of the author [HPB], who personally visited all
> the islands of Polynesia, and devoted years to the study of the
> religion, language, and traditions of nearly all the peoples, is as
> follows: 
> 
> "As to the Polynesian continent which disappeared at the time of the
> final geological cataclysms, its existence rests on such proofs that
> to be logical we can doubt no longer. 
> 
> "The three summits of this continent, the Sandwich Islands, New
> Zealand, Easter Island, are distant from each other from fifteen to
> eighteen hundred leagues, and the groups of intermediate islands,
> Viti, Samoa, Tonga, Foutouna, Ouvea, the Marquesas, Tahiti, Poumoutou,
> the Gambiers, are themselves distant from these extreme points from
> seven or eight hundred to one thousand leagues. 
> 
> "All navigators agree in saying that the extreme and the central
> groups could never have communicated in view of their actual
> geographical position, and with the insufficient means they had at
> hand. It is physically impossible to cross such distances in a pirogue
> . . . without a compass, and travel months without provisions. 
> 
> "On the other hand, the aborigines of the Sandwich Islands, of Viti,
> of New Zealand, of the central groups, of Samoa, Tahiti, etc., had
> never known each other, had never heard of each other, before the
> arrival of the Europeans. And yet each of these people maintained that
> their island had at one time formed part of an [2240 immense stretch
> of land which extended towards the West on the side of Asia. 
> 
> And all, brought together, were found to speak the same language, to
> have the same usages, the same customs, the same religious belief. And
> all to the question, 'Where is the cradle of your race?' for sole
> response, extended their hand toward the setting sun" (Ibid., p. 308).
> 
> 
> Geographically, this description clashes slightly with the facts in
> the Secret Records; but it shows the existence of such traditions, and
> this is all one cares for. For, as there is no smoke without fire, so
> a tradition must be based on some approximate truth. 
> 
> In its proper place we will show modern Science fully corroborating
> the above and the traditions of the Secret Doctrine with regard to the
> two lost continents. 
> 
> The Easter Island relics are, for instance, the most astounding and
> eloquent memorials of the primeval giants. They are as grand as they
> are mysterious; and one has but to examine the heads of the colossal
> statues, that have remained unbroken on that island, to recognise in
> them at a glance the features of the type and character attributed to
> the Fourth Race giants. 
> 
> They seem of one cast though different in features ? that of a
> distinctly sensual type, such as the Atlanteans (the Daityas and
> "Atalantians") are represented to have in the esoteric Hindu books. 
> 
> Compare these with the faces of some other colossal statues in Central
> Asia ? those near Bamian for instance ? the portrait-statues,
> tradition tells us, of Buddhas belonging to previous Manvantaras; of
> those Buddhas and heroes who are mentioned in the Buddhist and Hindu
> works, as men of fabulous size,* the good and holy brothers of their
> wicked co-uterine brothers generally, as Ravana, the giant King of
> Lanka was the brother of Kumbhakarna; all descendants of the gods
> through the Rishis, and thus, like "Titan and his enormous brood," all
> "heaven's first born." 
> 
> These "Buddhas," though often spoilt by the symbolical representation
> of the great pendent ears, show a suggestive difference, perceived at
> a glance, between the expression of their faces and that of the Easter
> Isle statues. They may be of one race ? but the former are "Sons of
> Gods"; the latter the brood of mighty sorcerers. All these are
> re-incarnations, however, and apart from unavoidable exaggerations in
> popular fancy and tradition, they are historical characters.?  When
> did they live? How long ago lived the 
> 
> FN   * An approach to the statues at Bamian ? also a Buddha 200 feet
> high ? is found near a Jain settlement in Southern India, and appears
> to be the only one that remains at present. 
> 
> ? Even Wilson admits that Rama and Ravana were personages founded on
> historical facts: ?"The traditions of Southern India uniformly
> ascribing its civilization and the settlement of civilized Hindus (the
> Fifth Race) to the conquest of Lanka by Rama" (Vishnu Purâna, iii., p.
> 318) ? the victory of the "Sons of God" over the Atlantean sorcerers,
> says the true tradition. [225]  ...
> 
> two races, the Third and Fourth, and how long after did the various
> tribes of the Fifth begin their strife, the wars between Good and
> Evil? We are assured by the Orientalists that chronology is both
> hopelessly mixed and absurdly exaggerated in the Puranas and other
> Hindu Scriptures. We feel quite prepared to agree with the accusation.
> Yet, if Aryan writers did allow their chronological pendulum to swing
> too far one way occasionally, beyond the legitimate limit of fact;
> nevertheless, when the distance of that deviation is compared with the
> distance of the Orientalists' deviation in the opposite direction,
> moderation will be found on the Brahminical side. It is the Pundit who
> will in the long run be found more truthful and nearer to fact than
> the Sanskritist. Surely, it is not because the curtailing of the
> latter ? even when proven to have been resorted to in order to fit a
> personal hobby ? is regarded by Western public opinion as "a cautious
> acceptance of facts," whereas the Pundit is brutally treated in print
> as a liar, that everyone has to see this in the same light. An
> impartial observer may judge it otherwise. He may either proclaim both
> unscrupulous historians, or justify both, each on his respective
> ground, and say: Hindu Aryans wrote for their Initiates, who read
> truth between the lines, not for the masses. If they did mix up events
> and confuse Ages intentionally, it was not in view of deceiving any
> one, but to preserve their knowledge from the prying eye of the
> foreigner. Otherwise, to him who can count the generations from the
> Manus, and the series of incarnations specified in the cases of some
> heroes,* the meaning and chronological order are very clear in the
> Puranas. As for the Western Orientalist, he must be excused, on
> account of his undeniable ignorance of the methods used by archaic
> Esotericism. "    S D II  222-4
> 
> We, who lived in the bodies of the Races of those times, brought on
> the destruction of the Race and the lands that supported them. [ S D  
> II 222-3, 313-16, 757, 762-3, 786 ]  Deluges & floods:  [ S D   II 
> 124, 140-1, 256, 266, 310-14, 352, 395, 433, 693, 751, 778, 786, ]
>  DTB
> =====================================================================
> 
> 
> How do we challenge mainstream religion which many revert back to in
> times of fear and become rigid and fixed in their belief out of that
> fear?  How do we help sprirituality evolve to full consciousness of
> there being only One?  We talk the talk, do we walk the walk? 
> Conversations need to be able to take place - where people who, though
> coming from different places at least share ideas in reasonable ways. 
> This has to take place first within our Own communities where we can
> begin tearing down the walls of religiosity that divide us and the
> labels the define us and begin to really see/know our unique whole. 
> Elaine
> 
> ==============================
> 
> If we approach the problem with the current ideas based on religions
> as practiced and science as known to day, we will only end up
> confused, angry and frustrated, none the wiser for all that. What is
> required in the world to day is the right knowledge of man's true self
> and nature, his inherent divinity, 
> 
> indissoluble fundamental unity that binds all mankind, nay all beings,
> in one Universal Brotherhood, that none can escape the consequences of
> one's thoughts and actions, that the hurt one cause to others is hurt
> done to oneself, and that we come again and again to reap the effects
> of our own actions, "to rejoice and weep from life to life chained to
> thy previous actions," till we learn the lessons of life and become
> wise. 
> 
> "If the action of the one reacts on the lives of all, and this is the
> true scientific idea, then it is only by all men becoming brothers and
> women sisters, and by all practicing in their daily lives true
> brotherhood and sisterhood, that the real human solidarity, which lies
> at the root of the elevation of the race, can ever be attained. It is
> this action and interaction, the true brotherhood and sisterhood, in
> which each shall live for all and all for each, which is one of the
> fundamental Theosophical principles that every Theosophist should be
> bound not only to teach, but to carry it out in his or her individual
> life." 
>  (Key to Theosophy, p. 232, Indian Ed.)
> 
> =========================================
> 
> 
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