Theos-Talk Archives (February 2009 Message tt00261)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Govert Schuller" <schuller@...> wrote:

> Dear Pedro,
> 
> Thanks for taking some time while facing deadlines.
> 
> Before responding I like to reconstruct your argument, just to be
sure I understand it.Your argument seems to go as follows:
> 
> The original writings of Marx were distorted by the emerging
ideology and political activism of Marxism. Marx had to be saved from
Marxism.
> 
> Parallel to this:
> 
> The spirit of HPB's original thought has to be saved from the
Theosophical Movement as the latter became fundamentalist
Blavatsky-ism. HPB has to be saved from Theosophy.
> 
> To retrieve the spirit one can do so through the analogous idea that
any set of writings has a body, soul and spirit and that by careful
differentiation between the three the spirit can be discerned and
assimilated. 
> 
> Applied to HPB: the body of her writing is the whole of the
Perennial Wisdom, its soul is Selflessness, and its spirit is Freedom,
especially the freedom from the illusion of separateness, as the
concept of the Tao and HPB's TRUTH indicate.  
> 
> Different authors of the Perennial Wisdom have given different
emphases on the different parts, but all have indicated the need to
transcend the mind, and this has to be done by oneself.
> 
> Therefore (and this seems to be the underlying conclusion and aim of
your argument):
> 
> Krishnamurti--being a thinker within the Perennial Wisdom Tradition
emphasizing liberation from mentation, images, outer authority and
other separateness inducing activities--is closer to the spirit of
HPB's teachings than any fundamentalist Blavatskyite or
neo-Theosophist might be aware of (even to the point that it is
Krishnamurti par excellence who can lead the Theosophical Movement
back to its original spirit and therefore may occupy now a
preferential position). 
> 
> Fair reconstruction?


Not really, Govert. As I wrote in plain English I don't see a need to
apply a hermeneutic approach to what I said. Having said that, you are
nonetheless free to do so as long as it is clear that the above is
your reading of what I wrote.

Your last paragraph is a case in point. While saying that Krishnamurti
shares some similar emphasis with other teachers in the Perennial
Wisdom I did not say, nor do I believe, that Krishnamurti should "lead
the Theosophical Movement back to its original spirit and therefore
may occupy now a preferential position." 

I see Theosophy, the Perennial Wisdom, as essentially a stream of
inquiry into the deeper aspects of life. This Wisdom-Teaching is an
inquiry-based teaching, not a belief-based one. If what HPB wrote in
The Secret Doctrine (vol. 1, Summing Up) is correct, this
Wisdom-Tradition has come to us from the hoary past through "countless
generations of initiated Seers" who fathomed the "soul of things".
Every successive generation of Seers, Madame Blavatsky added, would
not just accept what the previous generation had discovered, but would
themselves check and verify it for themselves.

Therefore I would say, tentatively again, that what can "lead"
Theosophical work in the world, in whatever organisation, is not a
particular teacher or teachers, but this spirit of free inquiry into
life's mysteries. For example, this is what Madame Blavatsky wrote
when asked about the future of the TS:

"Its future will depend almost entirely upon the degree of
selflessness, earnestness, devotion, and last, but not least, on the
amount of knowledge and wisdom possessed by those members, on whom it
will fall to carry on the work, and to direct the Society after the
death of the Founders." (The Key to Theosophy)

Another way of saying the same thing would be, perhaps, to suggest
that what can truly lead one into this work is the light of Buddhi,
intuitional wisdom. The following passage from The Mahatma Letters
presents the case quite eloquently:

"Once separated from the common influences of Society, nothing draws
us to any outsider save his evolving spirituality. He may be a Bacon
or an Aristotle in knowledge, and still not even make his current felt
a feather's weight by us, if his power is confined to the Manas. The
supreme energy resides in the Buddhi; latent ? when wedded to Atman
alone, active and irresistible when galvanized by the essence of
"Manas" and when none of the dross of the latter commingles with that
pure essence to weigh it down by its finite nature. Manas, pure and
simple, is of a lower degree, and of the earth earthly: and so your
greatest men count but as nonentities in the arena where greatness is
measured by the standard of spiritual development." (Letter 111,
chronological ed.)

Finally, I remembered what the late Ianthe H. Hoskins told me at Adyar
in 1994, during her last visit: "Belief is the tomb of Truth."

Pedro