Theos-Talk Archives (December 2006 Message tt00128)

Gregory Tillett, Friends,

This is but a broad and general perspective about the esoteric tradition;  yet it contains a couple of  ideas about  its relationship to public opinion.  
 
Respected researchers  can get  anxious because the esoteric tradition does not open all of its texts, archives  and information to them and to the public.     
 
I would say, though, that there are legitimate reasons why esoteric  tradition can't always submit itself to public opinion. Such a tradition has acess the access keys to subtle energies which need care and wisdom to be dealt with, just as, to take a mundane example,  atomic energy also needs.  HPB made that same analogy using examples relative to the military technology available at her time. She wrote that just as in common science not everything can be published, so in esoteric science.  

I can bring the bibliographical references for that tomorrow.     

On the other hand,  it is important to say that  the creation of the esoteric tradition  cannot be safely ascribed to Helena Blavatsky.   What are my sources, as I say  that?  Let’s take a look at some of them.    
 
Jesus says in the New Testament, not refferring to honest and serious historians and researchers, but referring to that which  is often called "public opinion": 
 
“Do not give what is holy to dogs – they will only turn  and attack you.   Do not throw  your  pearls in front of pigs  – they will only trample  them underfoot.”   (NT,  Matthew, 
7: 6.) 
 
Strong words indeed.  
 
Yet before our critics blame  the NT Jesus for the creation of the esoteric tradition,  I must say in His defence that he was just repeating a much older practice and wisdom.  Some five centuries before  Christian Era,  Confucius   taught in ancient China, as the "Analects" tell us: 
 
“The Master said: ‘I expound nothing to him who is not earnest, nor help out any one not anxious to express himself.  When I have demonstrated one angle and he cannot bring me back the other three, then I do not repeat my lesson’.”  (1) 
 
What does the Zen tradition say? 
 
In  “The Iron Flute”, a collection of 100 zen  koans, one sees reference  to “an ancient oriental proverb”: 
 
“It is useless to show the gold piece to a cat”. (2) 
 
Useless indeed.  But –  does that mean that all of us, poor mortals, can’t have any access to the real, nearly eternal esoteric tradition? Not quite.  We can. The dividing  line between having or not access to wisdom (‘esoteric’ or otherwise)  seems to be given by  one’s  own intention and motives.  And it depends on each of us.
 
The NT Jesus teaches: 
 
“Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks will receive, and anyone who seeks will find, and the door will be opened to him who knocks.”   ( Matthew, 7: 7-8 ) 
 
Of course, you will receive according to the level of consciousness and intention with which you seek, as  Jesus goes on to  explain in the few lines after the above quotation. 
 
The New Testament Jesus turns it clear that Inner Schools or esoteric circles are necessary for those students who are seriously committed to the search for wisdom.  He teaches: 
 
“You have been given the secret of the Kingdom of God.  But the others, who are on the outside, hear all things by means of parables, so that, ‘they may look and look, yet not see; they may listen and listen, yet not understand’. ”   (Mark, 4: 10-12) 
 
Why is it?  The explanation is that  Jesus told people in the public “as much as they could understand” (Mark, 4: 33), and nothing more than that.   Of course the verb “to understand” here means the ‘heart understanding’, not the merely ‘mind reasoning’.  Jesus  was talking about the “Heart Doctrine” as opposed to the “Eye Doctrine”, which is  mentioned by HPB in “The Voice of the Silence”. 
 
Each student  can harvest that which he has planted, either recently or in a more remote past.  But above all, each can seek and look for, according to what he finds to be the best in his own heart. 
 
The real esoteric tradition is not physical,  and it is as old as our humanity –  nay, older than it.  
 
Two things I can still add:  
 
1) This inner tradition has nothing  to do with mere ritualistic or bureaucratic organizations;   and, 
 
2)  It respects the inner autonomy of the learner (if it does not, it is not authentic).   
 
More about this can be seen in  the books “The Key to Theosophy”, “Isis Unveiled”  and “The Voice of the Silence”, by H.P. Blavatsky –  among others.  

If researchers will accept reality has more subtle levels of consciousness than just the three-dimensional world, they will problably get a broader and more complex perspective from which to look at the esoteric tradition. 
 
 
Best regards,    Carlos. 
 
 
ooooooooooo  
  
NOTES: 
 
(1)  “The Analects”, Confucius,  Dover Thrift Editions, Dover Publications,  Inc., New York, copyright 1995, 128 pp., see p. 34, Book  VII, paragraph VIII. 
 
(2) “The Iron Flute, 100 Koan”, Translated and edited by Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless, published by Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont, and Tokyo, Japan, second printing, 1985, 175 pp., see p. 23. 
 
 
 


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]