Theos-Talk Archives (March 1995 Message tl00072)

In message <v01510100ab8246679d8b@[198.163.154.88]
> theos-l@vnet.net writes:

> I just finished reading the Mahatma letter and I am not awfully
> impressed,

It may seem anachronist because of the distance in time from
which we perceive it.  Whoever wrote the letter {supposedly to
Sinnett} wrote, it seems to me, in terms suitable to the
understanding of its receiver, who was a 19th century enquirer
steeped in the values of _his_ age, not ours.  No point in
writing to an uneducated Chinese in Turkish.

Putting the letter in its time-context helps to make more sense
of it.  I would consider it as a very _theosophical_ letter :-).
It enquires after truth, of which we say there is no religion
higher than [syntax?].

> The anthropomorphism of the Scriptures needs to be considered
> symbolically or metaphorically.

Good point - in fact it is difficult, in the light of the
scholarship of the past 100 years or so, to argue anything else.
It may be, however, that we underestimate the true perceptions of
the writers of Scripture(s).  There is "milk for babes" in them
as well as more substantial "food" for those "with ears to hear."
> I think that since their is a teleological purposefulness in the
> universe a personal metaphor for the Process might not be totally
> naive as Sinnet suggests.

There is an assumption here that a teleological purposefuless in
the universe is a given fact.  Evidence please? :-).

BTW, folks, _I had to look it up too_.  "Teleology" is defined in
the Concise Oxford Dictionary as "Doctrine of final causes, view
that developments are due to the purpose or design that is served
by them."

> Must be Getting Better,
>
> Art

Nice to hear it!
Alan.