Theos-Talk Archives (May 2012 Message tt00153)

Dear friends

My views are:

I sometimes wonder what the actual Vision for this forum is --- if it has one at all?
The front page says something...but that is only the half of it all....behind the curtain.... lurks it seems...certain unwritten bye-laws.
Why not post them - or give them in the Files section of this forum...that is in the name of altruism?

Leadership - administrative or perhaps otherwise - without a vision - is not very helpful to the promulgation of altruism....
And if the vision is not clearly altruistic - and as a consequence thereof - absolutely non-sectarian (while explaining that term), where will it then lead others?

__________________________


Now here are some views...which I find can be helpful to some of the readers on this forum.
They are given to digest calmly, carefully and peacefully...Comments are of course welcomed. And a study group might be created as a result of it...


BASIC CONSIDERATIONS
A remarkably small number of suppositions about higher, inner, deeper, knowledge of man (and about the people engaged in transmitting it) underlie the errors into which most would-be students, disciples, followers and seekers are inevitably led. 

The result of accepting these suppositions is always the same: the production of obsessed ('conditioned') people - sometimes called 'believers' - and the production of a restless state in people when things do not seem to measure up to their expectations.

A close study of these pitfalls is eesential to anyone who wants real knowledge, let alone real fulfillment, tranquillity, real attainment.

NUMBER 1
Inner Knowledge cannot always be approached as an answer to ones psychologica problems. It may be approached in this way by certain people, or by people at different stages in their lives. But it is not to be thus treated for all the people all of the time. To think that it can, creates more problems than it solves.

NUMBER 2
To believe that one can get everything from books is as good - and as bad - as believing that one can get nothing from books. Here again, the individual must abide by the instructions of his/her Teacher (especially ones own conscience and common sense), as to what books to read, when to read them, when not to read them, how to read.

NUMBER 3
Reliance upon a prestige-figure, a great teacher, a body of litterature (perhaps selected by a priestly elite - sometimes called - the Administration), practices or an appeal to tradition alone is a chimera. People must learn how to extract the nutrition from all these things, and from many others. They cannot 'go it alone' in this search.

NUMBER 4
The confusion of emotionality or sentimentality with spirituality is one of the major basic mistakes of would-be mystics, of false occultists and dishonest religionists alike. Emotion is a powerful consideration in human life. It must be understood. Understanding it can only be accomplished under competent direction - or - experience.

NUMBER 5
Competent direction is defined as direction by a competent teacher. Such a person, rare in the extreme, is not one who has called forth an emotional reaction because something which he says is acceptable to the hearer at the specific time when he hears it. Neither is he someone who relies (overtly or otherwise)  upon strange or authoritative dogma. He is a teacher.

Experience - is what is taking place in daily life. And such might through the years yield the same results as a teacher. because in life every experience can be called a teacher. But not all yield the same quality of learning.

NUMBER 6
The belief that one is a teacher, or a seeker, or anything else, does not make one into that thing. People can - and do - believe anything and everything. Their beliefs are less important than their real state. The individual nis generally unaware of that inner state. It takes a teacher to asses it and to presciebe for it.

NUMBER 7
Just as the outward form of teachings changes with times, 
peoples and cultures, so does the outward form of one and the
same teaching appear to change. People who cannot adopt a
" new " phase of traditional teaching have shown themselves
incapable of the necessary adaption, and problably nothing can
be done for them.

NUMBER 8
People who cannot tel the difference between a real feeling and
one which has been trained into them are not, really, capable of learning
on their own. Their course of study must, in a sense, be prescribed for them
until they can discriminate. Only after that can they begin a
real 'search.'

NUMBER 9 
People who mistake giood fellowship, relaxation of tensions,
or a mere sense of well-being for progress on a road to higher
things have to back-track to earlier lessons.
Otherwise they are merely candidates for encapsulated "Wisdom"
and superficial systems.

NUMBER 10
People who think that spiritual, esoteric, higher movements
spring suddenly into being have to learn that nothing could be further
from the truth. Immensly intricate planning and preparation must 
precede any real teaching.

NUMBER 11
Learners cannot except to stipulate which parts of a teaching
specially appeals to them, on which they will concentrate. They
have to learn the whole background of certain things before
the inner content can have effect upon them in an effective sense.

NUMBER 12
A patient seldom knows his own ailments. The physician does.
So how do we learn how to learn?
Is it by saying to ourselves arrogatingly that we ourselves know what is the right thing to study?
Especially when we do not?
When we actually know, it is a different thing. But do we actually know...?

NUMBER 13
Almost all people interested in metaphysics have at some time
been studied for responsiveness to teaching by those who can
teach them. Frequently, such would-be students are unaware that such
a study has been made. They continue to seek higher
knowledge through attempts to contact crude forms of what
they imagine to be real teachings.

NUMBER 14
Chronological repetition, meetings and studies, activities and
exercises, which are carried out by means iof a fixed schedule
are almost always a sign of a deteriorated tradition. A real School
varies its operations and movements in accordance with a special pattern.
This pattern is non-repetitious. At least most often.

NUMBER 15
Experiences of an unusual kind are often given to people in order
to test as to whether they will react correctly to them. Most
people fail in this test. The commonest example is with people
who are made to feel somthing of true reality, and who immediately
imagine that they should teach it.

NUMBER 16
Perceptions of another kind of being, whenn not accompanied
by correct preparation, can be more harmful than a lifetime
without any such perception. This is because unprepared people
misinterpret their experiences and cash them in at a low level.
An example is people who become superstitious because they
have sensed something at work which they are too lazy to try to
understand. Another example is when people imagine that 
some true but minor "Sign" gives them importance or a divine 
character. Such people are already almost lost
"even if their repute raise ot the heavens."


To consider for the interested readers:

Was it useful to you? Why?
Did you actually understand the above?
And what did you not understand?
And what you understood, was that only understood on...a lower level?

All the above are of course just my views. I present them from my heart seeking to promote altruism.
I will gladly change them if someone are able to prove them wrong or irrelevant.



M. Sufilight




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