Theos-Talk Archives (May 2008 Message tt00868)

Perhaps she meant that we were better of if we got rid of Christianity.


M. Sufilight


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jokela Petri 
  To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008 12:03 AM
  Subject: Re: Theos-World Blavatsky, Theosophy and God


  She said: "We act, instead of talking." Maye she meant that
  she pray, not talk and pray. :-)
  From one point of view praying and meditating
  are pretty much same, if praying is not just talking.
  I wonder what is the origin of word pray.

  Morten Nymann Olesen kirjoitti:
  >
  > My views are:
  >
  > I think H. P. Blavatsky most clearly spoke out on the issue of God.
  > So I see no reason to pray in any Church what so ever.
  >
  > "The Key to Theosophy by H. P. Blavatsky
  > Section 5
  > THE FUNDAMENTAL TEACHINGS OF THEOSOPHY
  >
  > ----------------------------------------------------------
  >
  > ON GOD AND PRAYER
  > ENQUIRER. Do you believe in God?
  >
  > THEOSOPHIST. That depends what you mean by the term.
  >
  > ENQUIRER. I mean the God of the Christians, the Father of Jesus, and 
  > the Creator: the Biblical God of Moses, in short.
  >
  > THEOSOPHIST. In such a God we do not believe. We reject the idea of a 
  > personal, or an extra-cosmic and anthropomorphic God, who is but the 
  > gigantic shadow of man, and not of man at his best, either. The God of 
  > theology, we say -- and prove it -- is a bundle of contradictions and 
  > a logical impossibility. Therefore, we will have nothing to do with him.
  >
  > ENQUIRER. State your reasons, if you please.
  >
  > THEOSOPHIST. They are many, and cannot all receive attention. But here 
  > are a few. This God is called by his devotees infinite and absolute, 
  > is he not?
  >
  > ENQUIRER. I believe he is.
  >
  > THEOSOPHIST. Then, if infinite -- i. e., limitless -- and especially 
  > if absolute, how can he have a form, and be a creator of anything? 
  > Form implies limitation, and a beginning as well as an end; and, in 
  > order to create, a Being must think and plan. How can the ABSOLUTE be 
  > supposed to think -- i. e., to have any relation whatever to that 
  > which is limited, finite, and conditioned? This is a philosophical, 
  > and a logical absurdity. Even the Hebrew Kabala rejects such an idea, 
  > and therefore, makes of the one and the Absolute Deific Principle an 
  > infinite Unity called Ain-Soph. (1) In order to create, the Creator 
  > has to become active; and as this is impossible for ABSOLUTENESS, the 
  > infinite principle had to be shown becoming the cause of evolution 
  > (not creation) in an indirect way -- i.e., through the emanation from 
  > itself (another absurdity, due this time to the translators of the 
  > Kabala) (2) of the Sephiroth. "
  > http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/key/key-5.htm 
  > <http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/key/key-5.htm>
  >
  > "IS IT NECESSARY TO PRAY?
  >
  > ENQUIRER. Do you believe in prayer, and do you ever pray?
  >
  > THEOSOPHIST. We do not. We act, instead of talking.
  >
  > ENQUIRER. You do not offer prayers even to the Absolute Principle?
  >
  > THEOSOPHIST. Why should we? Being well-occupied people, we can hardly 
  > afford to lose time in addressing verbal prayers to a pure 
  > abstraction. The Unknowable is capable of relations only in its parts 
  > to each other, but is non-existent as regards any finite relations. 
  > The visible universe depends for its existence and phenomena on its 
  > mutually acting forms and their laws, not on prayer or prayers.
  >
  > ENQUIRER. Do you not believe at all in the efficacy of prayer?
  >
  > THEOSOPHIST. Not in prayer taught in so many words and repeated 
  > externally, if by prayer you mean the outward petition to an unknown 
  > God as the addressee, which was inaugurated by the Jews and 
  > popularised by the Pharisees.
  >
  > ENQUIRER. Is there any other kind of prayer?
  >
  > THEOSOPHIST. Most decidedly; we call it WILL-PRAYER, and it is rather 
  > an internal command than a petition.
  >
  > ENQUIRER. To whom, then, do you pray when you do so?
  >
  > THEOSOPHIST. To "our Father in heaven" -- in its esoteric meaning.
  >
  > ENQUIRER. Is that different from the one given to it in theology?
  >
  > THEOSOPHIST. Entirely so. An Occultist or a Theosophist addresses his 
  > prayer to his Father which is in secret (read, and try to understand, 
  > ch. vi. v. 6, Matthew), not to an extra-cosmic and therefore finite 
  > God; and that "Father" is in man himself.
  >
  > ENQUIRER. Then you make of man a God?
  >
  > THEOSOPHIST. Please say "God" and not a God. In our sense, the inner 
  > man is the only God we can have cognizance of. And how can this be 
  > otherwise? Grant us our postulate that God is a universally diffused, 
  > infinite principle, and how can man alone escape from being soaked 
  > through by, and in, the Deity? We call our "Father in heaven" that 
  > deific essence of which we are cognizant within us, in our heart and 
  > spiritual consciousness, and which has nothing to do with the 
  > anthropomorphic conception we may form of it in our physical brain or 
  > its fancy: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the 
  > spirit of (the absolute) God dwelleth in you?" (3) Yet, let no man 
  > anthropomorphise that essence in us. Let no Theosophist, if he would 
  > hold to divine, not human truth, say that this "God in secret" listens 
  > to, or is distinct from, either finite man or the infinite essence -- 
  > for all are one. Nor, as just remarked, that a prayer is a petit ion. 
  > It is a mystery rather; an occult process by which finite and 
  > conditioned thoughts and desires, unable to be assimilated by the 
  > absolute spirit which is unconditioned, are translated into spiritual 
  > wills and the will; such process being called "spiritual 
  > transmutation." The intensity of our ardent aspirations changes prayer 
  > into the "philosopher's stone," or that which transmutes lead into 
  > pure gold. The only homogeneous essence, our "will-prayer" becomes the 
  > active or creative force, producing effects according to our desire.
  >
  > ENQUIRER. Do you mean to say that prayer is an occult process bringing 
  > about physical results?
  >
  > THEOSOPHIST. I do. Will-Power becomes a living power. But woe unto 
  > those Occultists and Theosophists, who, instead of crushing out the 
  > desires of the lower personal ego or physical man, and saying, 
  > addressing their Higher Spiritual EGO immersed in Atma-Buddhic light, 
  > "Thy will be done, not mine," etc., send up waves of will-power for 
  > selfish or unholy purposes! For this is black magic, abomination, and 
  > spiritual sorcery. Unfortunately, all this is the favourite occupation 
  > of our Christian statesmen and generals, especially when the latter 
  > are sending two armies to murder each other. Both indulge before 
  > action in a bit of such sorcery, by offering respectively prayers to 
  > the same God of Hosts, each entreating his help to cut its enemies' 
  > throats. "
  > http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/key/key-5.htm 
  > <http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/key/key-5.htm>
  >
  > M. Sufilight
  >
  > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
  >
  > 



   

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