Theos-Talk Archives (January 1995 Message tl00251)

Experience and the Inner Teacher -- Eldon Tucker

One area of discussion that appears in many recent
postings regards the nature of experience and how it
relates to what is truly real.

Consider some recent comments:

    Alan: intellectual theosophy is a mind game whereas
experience is real

    Arthur Patterson: individual experience is a form of
authority

    John Mead: personal experience is the only
trustworthy guide

    Theodora: only a woman knows what a woman
experiences

These comments were taken from recent postings. They are
not intended to portray the viewpoints of the posters.
I'm including these comments as a starting point for
discussion.

Regarding these views, I'd say that I both agree and
disagree. Consider first the comment regarding
intellectual Theosophy being a mind game, as contrasted
with experience. We must ask: What is experience? And
what experience comes from the deep study of the
Teachings?

My experience of the Besant/Leadbeater writings was that
they lacked in depth, except for the more philosophical
tone of the books written on their behalf by Ernest
Wood, CLW's personal secretary, like "Talks on the Path
of Occultism," written from various lecture notes and
papers. I'd read books like "Invisible Helpers" and come
to think that acquiring psychical powers like Leadbeater
depicted was the way to go. I did not know that there
was another, deeper side to the philosophy, until years
later.

Reading Purucker, and then returning to reread Blavatsky
in a new light, I've come to find new, previously
unknown depths to the Philosophy. I now see in both a
different manner of presentation, an approach that leads
me to look upon them as Teachers, something entirely
different that I find in other writers. Reading them,
I'm lead to find in Theosophy a source of Wisdom, a
series of studies with unfatomable depths. If I had not
been introduced to Purucker, I can see how I would have
reached the point where I would have become tired of the
books, and been lead astray in a search for phenomena
and wonders.

What is there to Theosophy, to certain of its writings,
that provide these depths? The answer ties in with a
remark of Keith's, saying that the Neo-Platonists
realize the One during this life. This is the closest to
an open expression of the Theosophical model of human
evolution: the Human Lifewave is on this earth, Globe D,
and here is where we learn and grow. The answer is that
a study of the Teachings can awaken inner faculties of
consciousness, that enable us, while alive and embodied
on this earth, to partake of the Ageless Wisdom.

Coming back to the nature of experience, we can say that
experience is based upon what actually happens to us,
and not conferred as some right based upon our belonging
to a class. We cannot say that we have special knowledge
or have suffered or enjoyed certain experiences simply
because of being a man or woman, white or black,
resident or immigrant, etc. A black person cannot, for
example, rightfully say that because he had a slave for
an ancestor, say five generations back, that he
therefore has a special understanding of slavery not had
by a white man.

We are, though, inseparably rooted in the Highest, and
that connection cannot help but qualify our experience
of life. There is much that happens *inside us*, that
constitutes real experiences, without unique outward
events in life to distinguish it. One such type of
experience and growth comes from a deep study of the
Philosophy. We do have experiences, in a certain sense,
inwardly, in our studies. These experiences aren't "out
of the body experiences" or visits to other planes, but
rather the budding of new faculties of consciousness
opening us up to a wider appreciation of life on
whatever plane we may be on.

The lack of apparent depth to theosophical books that
some students experience is not that there is nothing
there. There are real and quite deep experiences to be
had by a study of the Esoteric Philosophy. But with the
"wrong" books or authors, the depths won't be
experienced, because those authors were lacking in
either their own wisdom or in ability to communicate the
deeper truths. The other reason for an apparent lack of
depth to the literature is that a student may not have
established the necessary conditions and inner readiness
to engage the process.

What is this process? In a sense, it is opening the
inner ability to Know, to perceive things by a different
kind of experience. We can know something by direct
experience. When we know something this way, we are
using the mind in a type of knowing that corresponds to
the sense of touch. But there is also a sense of knowing
that corresponds to a sense of sight, where we
experience and know of something "from afar" or by
direct perception. A poetic way of describing this type
of knowing, this type of experience is to establish a
relationship with one's inner teacher.

The second type of knowing is useful for relating to
things that cannot be readily put into words, and for
experience of life events our world is not prepared to
support in the Fourth Round. Consider the Masters. They
are Fifth Rounders, but when embodied here, on Globe D,
they are externally subject to the same environment, the
same rules of existence that we are. How did they get
the way they are? By learning and experiences on other
planes, on the other Globes of our Planetary Chain, of
course. But also by this second, this special kind of
knowing, that allows for experiences otherwise
impossible in our rigid, material world.

Is this second, higher activity of the mind something
very rare, very special? It is rare because it is not
frequently engaged by people, but it is not special, not
reserved for the few, for the elite of humanity. It is
not a vastly superior thing for the very few; we only
need to ready ourselves, to ripen a bit inwardly, and we
can open up to it. We can find an inner fount of knowing
that goes beyond the books that we read. What we learn
remains consistent with the Teachings, but goes much
further than we see on the printed page. We do not
become omniscient, and infallible in what we know; any
faculty of consciousness is subject to error, to
mistakes. We all have our Inner Teachers, awaiting us.
Such a Teacher is not really someone else, but rather a
new way of knowing and experience and perception of
life. Let us end our inactivity, and open up to a new
form of inner adventure that awaits us.