Theos-Talk Archives (April 1994 Message tl00039)

I posted this last night, and it still has not come back.
A message from someone else came out this morning, leading
me to think that my posting has been lost. Could you repost
it for me if it is not already on, or let me know if it
posted but for some reason my copy did not get back to me?

Thanks.

       Eldon

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(subject: Life is Our Media)

This one is by Eldon Tucker.

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     After we have studied Theosophy a bit, and come to appreciate
the wealth of wisdom that it contains, we wonder how we can share
the treasures that we find with others. The world is hungry for
what we have found, there is something quite special to behold in
the Teachings. We cannot help wanting to share them with others,
for the beauty of what we've found burns the most brightly in our
minds and hearts as we share and pass on the Teachings.
     There are two parts to the Teachings that can be shared. There
is the part that leads to the door to the Mysteries. This is a path
for the few, something special that is not meant for public
dissemination. These are reserved for the few, although we have the
potential of joining their ranks.
     The second part is the keynote ideas and ethics needed to
raise the spiritual consciousness of our age. This part concerns
keeping the spiritual alive in western thought, and the
transformations needed as one subrace changes to the next, for
popular thought is always changing and transforming itself.
     Considering this part, we find the task a difficult task
before us. We must work the basic ideas of philosophy into our
media, and into popular thought. This goes from the schoolyard
games to the themes of popular paperback fiction, movies, and
television. Everywhere we look about us in life, there are stories
being told, and people living them out in their lives.
     The way the stories go, and how they end, reveal the bias and
the thought atmosphere of a society. There are certain morals,
certain endings to stories that we see, with an implied "this is
how things are." We can trace and observe the basic themes in our
media, but we do not have to accept any ending.
     There is, for instance, certain formulas for writing fiction
that sells well. Another example is found in family movies. If the
good guy kills someone, he is tainted, and will die before the end
of the movie. Often, his death will be in some action that redeems
himself, but he has already done something that is so terrible that
his ultimate fate is sealed. Or consider a bad guy in a movie, whom
needs to be killed off before the ending. The good guy cannot kill
him, so the bad guy has to die through his own accident or evil
deed, like a wicked witch slipping and falling to her death as she
tries to kill the hero.
     The morals behind the stories that we are emersed in are not
always straight forward, not always spelled out to us, but they are
there. We have our own Aesop's Fables, but the morals are not
always stated straightforwardly.
     In the 1960's, psychic powers were portrayed on tv as unreal,
delusional, with disclaimers. Everyone knew they could not be true,
and it was considered wrong to show them as possible, real, or of
any good. Astrology is still presented at times as just "for
entertainment value."
     There are themes in our stories that need to be changed, for
they are wrong, and although we may know better, the public may not
know better.
     It is important to better the stories of our society, because
the stories that we hear and think of set the context for how we
live our lives. The stories provide the themes for our personal
existence. We live by the stories we think and use to pattern our
lives.
     Our day-to-day activities are seen while playing various
roles, drams, games in life. One person may say: "I am a postman,
delivering letters." Another may be a policeman, "only doing my
job." A third may be a mother of four driving her station wagon to
school to take her children home in the late afternoon. These are
all stories that we have learned and are following in our lives.
     Let's consider one theme that is still pervasive, an attitude
that could lead to accepting evil in one's life. There is a theme
that something is ok to do if someone can get away with if. It is
ok to do if there is no accountability. Soldiers in Bosnia rape and
kill the civilian population with little or no individual
accountability. We even find this attitude in people portrayed in
the media using paranormal powers. We may watch on tv as a man uses
his mental powers to throw someone across the room, perhaps
injuring or killing that person. It is often presented as though he
may do so because he is a superior being, because of his powers. If
someone else, without paranormal powers, did the same thing using
a gun, we'd think "what a terrible man!" But when paranormal powers
are involved, the moral accountability is somehow missing.
     If you read someone's mind and know how they feel about you,
without asking them, are you in the wrong? Is this any different
from snooping in a woman's purse or a man's briefcase, or stealing
a look at someone's journal? What if you influence someone, and
change them, getting them to be or do things that you want? If you
used mental affirmations or thought control from a distance, are
you any less guilty of manipulation and coercion than that done by
J.R. Ewing on "Dallas" in a more obvious and straightforward
manner?
     Looking about us, we are surrounded by media of all forms. We
are faced with the need to help the theosophical philosophy pervade
modern thought, to help clean up, raise, and ennoble modern
thought. We have a hard job ahead of us, but we are not alone. We
are sharing in the work of the Masters when we act to help keep
struggling humanity moving along, toward its ambitious evolutionary
goals, which ultimately lead to nirvana and liberation. And the
biggest media that we can work with is all about is, so obvious
that we do not often notice it and give it a thought: it is the
current, actual, living karmic circumstances of life right now.
This is an excellent starting point for this work!