Theos-Talk Archives (October 1993 Message tl00010)

When reading Theosophy, it is easy to wonder why Theosophy isn't just
put in plain language. Why is the material scattered in bits and pieces?
Why are the same terms used with differing meanings? Why are things
presented such that as soon as you think that you've got an idea, the
next thing you read completely unsettles it and requires you to have to
go back and rethink it over again?

The same terms are used to describe different ideas in order to give
written expression to esoteric truths, making them available in print
yet hiding their real meanings behind other, more obivous, apparent
meanings.

The manner of expression, where grand ideas and talked around rather
than plainly stated, where apparent paradox is used in order to keep
the thinking process fluid, where a subject is returned to again and
again, with a little more revealed at each step--all this is the
tried-and-proven method of teaching the Esoteric Philosophy.

Truly grand ideas must be self-born within the student's mind, not
adopted from another. The right receptivity must be first created in
the learner's mind before the idea can be born. The focus must shift
from the brain-mind, kama-manas, to a higher form of knowing,
buddhi-manas, and this is not easy to do.

The nature of the lower mind is to crystalize, to formulate and
structure, and it requires a considerable effort to keep it fluidic,
to keep breaking apart the molds of mind as they form, to keep from
becoming locked into a simple formulation in words of grand thoughts.

Theosophical books do not come out and plainly state things. The study
of them is difficult, but that difficulty, that troubled feeling
endgendered in the mind of the reader, is the "growth pains" of the
lower mind. There is no way to "easily" tell the grand philosophy
because it is not simply contained in mere verbal descriptions, it is
not a simple set of words.

This is not to say that the Theosophy simply consists of a meditative
process and personal experience of the spiritual. It is a definite body
of knowledge and wisdom. But it is of a type that goes far beyond what
is knowable in the personality, and it is not readily communicatable
in this age (the fourth round).

"Philosophy" means the love of wisdom, and theosophists are true
philosophers. And there is a Wisdom that goes beyond what is knowable
in the personality, knowable in the everyday experiences that we have
in being who we are and interacting with the people around us in life.
Special means are required to bring us to acquire this Wisdom, and
they do not necessarily parallel the methods used in our modern,
western educational system.

Because this Wisdom cannot be simply written down, in whatever glyph
or words, it is preserved as a living tradition among the Mahatmans,
a knowledge that is learned and known and taught and passed down from
generation to generation (as they are reembodied). It is something
very definite and real, but of what most of it consists, we haven't a
clue. The hints that are given can allow us to approach it and
contemplate what has been released into the exoteric literature of the
world. But there is so much to it! There is an incredible goldmine of
learning to be found in the theosophical books, when the reader is
ready, and they are approached and used in the right manner.

Every idea that you read in the literature has level after level of
deeper meaning and understandings to it. Take the idea of the unity or
oneness of life, the universality of being, Atman. To say that all life
is one or that we share the same life that every other being has is as
true as far as it goes. But what is the correct understanding of what
happens when we step from the unmanifest planes through Atman into
manifest being? What is the correct understanding of the loss of the
sense of self in nirvana? What is the higher sense of self and
universality in the unmanifest planes? How does the composite nature of
man (consisting of many Monads) relate to the sense of self or
selflessness? There are many deeper understandings that take one far
beyond any single, simple, word-idea like "the oneness of life".

If the material seems dry, uninspired, arbirtrary, lifeless, a jumble
of strange terms and phrases, it shows that the reader is not in
touch with the thought current behind the words, the reader is not
perhaps ready for what is there, and this can come and go in phases in
one's life. I went through about a 14-year period of not being
receptive to a deep study of the philosophy from about 1975 to 1989.
During this time I worked on volunteer projects from time to time, but
did not really break open the books and dive in!

I think that one is protected from seeing anything in the theosophical
writings, from sensing their true value and worth, until and unless one
has a phase of life where a certain type of spiritual training is
appropriate. One remains blind in life to experiences that are not
appropriate, and this includes the experience of diving into the
Wisdom Tradition and awakening the light of higher mind, buddhi-manas.

There is no need to sell people on the value of Theosophy for those
who have reached the necessary state of readiness. You know what you
see and you want it and you treasure it. And it is fine that other
people read and study what they like, because what you get does not
need the agreement of others, it does not depend upon the authority of
public opinion. You know what you've found and it's simply wonderful!

                                 Eldon Tucker
                                 eldon@netcom.com