Theos-Talk Archives (January 1995 Message tl00211)

In message <199501240406.AA07775@lafn.org> theos-l@vnet.net
writes:

> Appropos paraphrasing, modernizing & condensing theosophical
> texts, HPB writes:
>
> He [the Western student] demands and expects that his "Path"
> shall be engineered with all the selfish craft of modern comfort,
> macadamized, laid out with swift railways and telegraphs, and
> even telescopes, through which he may, while sitting at his ease,
> survey the works of other people; and while criticising them,
> lookout for the easiest, in order to play at the Occultist and
> Amateur Student of Theosophy.  The real "Path" to esoteric
> knowledge is very different.  Its entrance is overgrown with the
> brambles of neglect, the travesties of truth during long ages
> block the way, and it is obscured by the proud contempt of
> self-sufficiency and with every verity distorted out of all
> focus.  To push over the threshold alone, demands an incessant,
> often unrequited labor of years, and once on the other side of
> the entrance, the weary pilgrim has to toil up on foot, for the
> narrow way leads to forbidding mountain heights, unmeasured and
> unknown, save to those who have reached the cloud-capped summit
> before.  Thus must he mount, step by step, having to conquer
> every inch of ground before him by his own exertions; moving
> onward, guided by strange landmarks the nature of which he can
> ascertain only by deciphering the weather-beaten, half-defaced
> inscriptions as he treads along, for woe to him, if, instead of
> studying them, he sits by coolly pronouncing them
> "indecipherable." The "Doctrine of the Eye" is *maya*; that of
> the "Heart" alone, can make of him an elect.  Is it to be
> wondered that so few reach the goal, that so many are called, but
> so few are chosen? Is not the reason for this explained in three
> lines on page 27 of ~The Voice of the Silence~? These say that
> while "The first repeat in pride: `Behold, *I know*', the last,
> they who in humbleness have garnered, low confess, `thus have I
> heard'"; and hence, become the only "chosen."
>
> Nicholas

Sorry folks if I repeat the entire quote again, but I think it's
worth it.  My own quest began nearly 40 years ago, and I can
vouch that it has been pretty much as described by HPB - and
remains so.  The above however is simply one quote out of many,
for we know from elsewhere that HPB want to bring theosophy *out
of the oblivion* in which it existed in her day.  And so do some
of us, well over 100 years later.

I would also observe in this [here and now] context than many
pilgrims are "She" see my posting, "I'm alright, Jill .....  ?"

AB -- Please send E-mail to: guru@nellie2.demon.co.uk