Theos-Talk Archives (January 1994 Message tl00051)

Jerry H-E,

In your latest message, you wrote:

>Yes I am interested in seeing the dialogue between you and
>Nicholas, providing it is alright with both of you.  Since
>Nicholas is very familiar with AAB's and HPB's writings, I will
>probably take a very quiet front row seat.

I think you will (and I will too) be active participants in
this discussion, not only silent observers.  This plus the
following items are what I propose as the next items on the
'agenda':

(a)Discussion of daily spiritual practice as advocated in AAB
books (I will comment on what I do based on almost exclusive
AAB teaching so you can comment on what if anything is wrong
with it, or what you will do differently if you only believed
in HPB writing and not AAB writings).

(b)Examination of the Cleather pamphlet.  I do not know whether
anyone has discussed it before, but there are important points
that may come out of our discussion on it.

Perhaps we should begin with 'A Treatise on Cosmic Fire', which I
have not read but am very anxious to read; I had earlier
suggested that we each read a certain portion of it and compare
notes on a weekly basis... or something like that.  Will that be
acceptable to you.  And you had earlier stated that you will write
about why Theosophists do not like AAB writing (before you left
for vacation).  Can you address that now?

You also wrote:

> the neo-
>theosophical meaning of the term "astral body" is a vehicle for
>the emotions.  In Blavatsky's terminology, the "astral body" has
>nothing to do with emotions, but is the model from which the
>physical body molds itself.

Bailey says that everything goes from the mental body to the
'astral body' to the etheric to the dense physical, so in a sense
the astral body is the model from which the physical body molds
itself.  I think this stuff is 'semantics'  or terminology more
than anything else.  Also I do not think that we can condemn
everything that A.Besant or Leadbeater wrote as necessarily
opposite to what HPB said.  I'll say more on this later...

BTW, I got the package of books yesterday; thanks a bunch. I have
more books that I need and I'll write about them in a bit.

Fraternally,

Arvind