Theos-Talk Archives (February 2009 Message tt00267)

Dear John and all (except Chuck, you're warned!),

Thank you so much for your little discourse on the conditioned mind. I'd fully agree if I were still fully convinced of the correctness of the underlying Advaitic paradigm. But I don't anymore, or at least not in the way that I used to do, which has quite some overlap with your understanding and that of other Theosophists. 

The problem is that I got irreversibly infected by the existential and hermeneutic insights developed within the phenomenological movement, which to me are quite revolutionary, though it is still part of a longer transcendental tradition within western philosophy. Basically phenomenology investigates the essential, transcendental possibility conditions of any experience whatsoever, be they mundane, spiritual, scientific or mystical. It's all about the structures and dynamics of consciousness as far as they are accesible to phenomenological reflection and constitute their essential form. These 'enabling structures' have to be seen as different from descriptive and explanatory constructs used in science, theology and esotericism. It's the transcendental philosophical revolution of Immanuel Kant taken a few steps further, first by Husserl then by Heidegger.  

(BTW, I looked into HPB's use of Kant's concepts of 'Pure Reason' and the phenomenon-noumenon dichotomy and so far it looks like she did not understand these concepts as used by Kant. At the same time she did use them in an effective way to explain some of her own thoughts, though Kant would have strongly disagreed. I hope to more fully report on this.) 

On top of that, I started to get a sense of the difference within Advaita of an esoteric/occult version and an exoteric/non-occult version, which difference I found in HPB's writings and found very applicable to the difference between K's exoteric, logo-centric Advaita and HPB's esoteric, Mahatma-centric Advaita. The exoteric version is based on a all-or-nothing, non-gradual 'logical' understanding of the difference between non-dual enlightenment and dual non-enlightenment, whereas the esoteric variant sees a step-wise and guru-dependent (at least during some crucial stages in the process) transition from the unreal to the real. 

Meanwhile I also started studying the work of a group of phenomenologists that were developing a 'phenomenology of the experience of skill acquisition,' which has some very promising applications in the fields of teaching and nursing (and also challenging the feasability of the artificial intelligence program). The relevance is that this investigation clarified the role of analytic thought and self-representation through reflection (ego-genesis) within the process of skill acquisition at the advanced levels and the role of intuitive perception and action (and loss of ego) at the expert level. As this investigation is about the general possibility conditions of any skill acquisition in general it is quite applicable to doing yoga, learning Theosophy, moral behaviour, becoming an Adept, meditation, and--ironic surprise--the stages one has to go through in the appropriation of, thinking through, experimenting with and, in the end, succesful transcendance of (if possible) K's teachings.  

Now, by blending all the above-mentioned differentiations and insights, and by summing it up in a relativley condensed way, I'd venture to state:

Phenomenology, as the present-day avant-garde philosophical school in psychology and consciousness studies, can and will elucidate the transcendental possibility conditions of Theosophy (here construed as the Path of spiritual skill acquisition) and can and will help to clear up the limits and errors of exoteric and/or explanatory constructs be they coming from religious studies (with notable exceptions), quantitive psychology, trans-personal theorists (Wilber), exoteric Advaitism (Nisargadatta) or Krishnamurti. At the same time it will also enable a wholly new and sometimes unexpected re-appreciation of the positive contributions these thinkers have made. 

It's not a matter of just refuting them and leaving them in the dust behind. It's more of a Hegelian movement of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, something I also see happening with the Theosophy (thesis), Krishnamurti (antithesis) and Krishnamurtian-Theosophical synthesis (Sanat, Sender, Oliveira) debate/move(ment).

As a last contribution here I submit a quadrant that I sometimes use for educational purposes, elucidating (or at least try) the difference between apriori phenomenology and a posteriori science and the difference between esoteric and exoteric modes of access. Of course the quadrant has its limitations, especially if one starts to make finer differentiations. One observation though: as HPB and K are in diagonally opposite quadrants, mediation between the two can come from either Wilber and his empirical, exoteric 'spectrum of consciousness' model or through the philosophical, esoteric work of Poortman and possibly Huston Smith. Most efforts by Krishnamurtian Theosophists I have to classify together with Wilber as exoteric and empirical, with only Sanat having a foot in the esoteric and dipping his toes in existential phenomenology.

Let me know if you got till here and got something out of this  8^)

Peace 

Govert

http://alpheus.org/tsclass/EsotericExoteric.pdf


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Augoeides-222@comcast.net 
  To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 7:32 PM
  Subject: Re: Theos-World Blavatsky & Krishnamurti (3)


  Govert, 
  Well, I reasoned that a Scholar may not have read it, so I asked. When I first studied or read the works of Blavatsky she practically raved about it and strongly pointed her public to take up it's study( The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali ) in order to begin to apprehend the conditioned mind that is the agency that is active in waking consciousness and the primary source of our reasoning, considerations, agreements, fancies, and stable datums that we all use as operative basis daily and which almost all people have no awareness of and that it is not their "I-ness". It is also strongly indicated by Buddhist School as the object OF mindful awareness. It is also what blockades understanding Non-dual Teachings viz the Dualism Teachings. 
  In my view about 98 % of the contestations and disagreements on anything posted here are only originations of the conditioned minds automaticies that it presents interiorly and which we all commonly possess as the universal solitary agency that makes possible the ignorance you cited and why we are not enlightended sudden or gradual. I give some credence to the idea that for all praciticle purposes we all suffer from a case of mistaken identity----our own --- we mistake our conditioned mind as our native persona when it is largely pavlovian automaticies responding to input and perceptive flows of the space that is about us. So when we apprehend ourselves as embodied incarnate conditioned and captured where can truth be found? What business should we all be about instead of critiqueing what the conditioned mind declares as the real? It has one single objective --- persistant survival as the dominent agency of mankinds thoughts and deliberations. To the conditioned mind the Non-dual = non-existance = oblivion = death so it will invent and produce endless rationales on the screen of our mind to convince us otherwise. 

  Best regards, 
  John 

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: "Govert Schuller" <schuller@alpheus.org> 
  To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 9:54:33 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific 
  Subject: Re: Theos-World Blavatsky & Krishnamurti (3) 

  Yes, partially and long time ago. How so? 

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Augoeides-222@comcast.net 
  To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 1:28 PM 
  Subject: Re: Theos-World Blavatsky & Krishnamurti (3) 

  Govert, 
  Just curious, have you read the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali? 

  Regards, 
  John 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: "Govert Schuller" < schuller@alpheus.org > 
  To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 7:39:54 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific 
  Subject: Theos-World Blavatsky & Krishnamurti (3) 

  Dear Pedro and all, 

  Find below the third installment with my comments on your article on Krishnamurti and Theosophy: 

  Self-knowledge 

  [HPB] "The first necessity for obtaining self-knowledge is to become profoundly conscious of ignorance; to feel with every fibre of the heart that one is ceaselessly self-deceived."(2) 

  [K] "To know oneself as one is requires an extraordinary alertness of mind, because what is is constantly undergoing transformation, change, and to follow it the mind must not be tethered to any particular dogma or belief, to any particular pattern of action."(3) 

  [PO] The present age has been hailed as the `information age' and never than before human beings have a colossal amount of information and knowledge at their fingertips. Yet, and not surprisingly, self-knowledge remains elusive and very rare. Both HPB and K suggested that without alertness and awareness one cannot see through the deceptions that mental activity creates. Several traditions have insisted that in order to know oneself there must be impersonal attention to what happens both within and without. Such attention not only sees through the machinations and illusions to which we have become accustomed to call `me' but also brings them to an end. Self-knowledge is the beginning of transformation. 

  [GS] Self-knowledge is not only a matter of self-observation and self-transcendence, but also self-interpretation and self-evaluation. The idea that one can be objectively or impersonally observing oneself is a myth. I thought I was observing myself objectively when I was seriously engaged in experimenting with K's teachings, only to find out later I was interpreting myself according to his teachings. I'm not saying here that it was false what I found, but that it was meaningful relative to his paradigmatic framework and that other frameworks (Theosophy, Zen, psycho-analysis or psycho-synthesis) also generate meaningful insights and changes. The problem with K is that he claims an exclusivity and objectivity that is not warranted.] 

  The Learning Mind 

  [HPB] "He must endeavor as much as possible to free his mind, while studying or trying to carry out that which is given him, from all the ideas which he may have derived by heredity, from education, from surroundings, or from other teachers. His mind should be made perfectly free from all other thoughts, so that the inner meaning of the instructions may be impressed upon him apart from the words in which they are clothed."(4) 

  [K] "Reality is not as thing which is knowable by the mind, because the mind is the result of the known, of the past; therefore the mind must understand itself and its functioning, its truth, and only then is it possible for the unknown to be."(5) 

  [PO] In order to learn the mind needs to educate itself. The word education comes from the Latin educere, `lead out'. Fresh understanding and insight are not possible if the mind is constantly `crowded' with opinions, second hand knowledge and reactions. They have to emerge from a deeper source within. The mind that truly learns is the one that pays attention to what is before it - the `book of life' - and has an understanding which is both sensitive and compassionate, which are qualities that can only unfold in the present moment. 

  [GS] Granted: 'alien', unprocessed, unchecked thoughts and conclusions are obstacles to investigating a matter at hand. In the quotes used there is a difference though between what both aim at after having shed old opinions and thoughts. HPB wants you to be unencumbered to be able to understand some inner meaning of a worded instruction and K wants you to be open to a non-verbal 'unknown.' Quite a difference. The difference becomes even more pronounced if the context of HPB's quote is taken into account, for it is lifted from a letter to new members of the then just established Esoteric Section, of which one of its aims was "the salvation of the whole Society." One of its instructions, of which "the inner meaning . may be impressed upon him apart from the words in which they are clothed" was as follows: "It is, however, right that each member, once he believes in the existence of such Masters, should try to understand what their nature and powers are, to reverence Them in his heart, to draw near to Them, as much as in him lies, and to open up for himself conscious communication with the guru to whose bidding he has devoted his life." This raises of course numerous interesting questions regarding the role of the ES towards the TS and what role, if any, K's teachings have to play in that, all of which I propose to address later. The important point is that when the context of the HPB quote is pulled into the alleged similarity one bumps smack into some fundamental differences regarding the value of spiritual organizations and Masters.] 

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