Theos-Talk Archives (March 1995 Message tl00075)

To whom it may concern, especially to Art,

I was debating with myself whether to put this on -l or on -buds,
but I think it's of interest to everyone, not just those
interested in the ML, so I'm putting it on -l..

It seems that human beings need some sort of a belief framework
in which to operate.  You can go inside or outside your framework
with your ideas, as the occasion warrants, you can change around
your framework when you come across an idea somewhere that suits
you better.  Christianity is such a framework, as are all
religions.  Sciences are such frameworks.  Nowadays religious
frameworks have had to adapt to Relativity Theory, chaos theory,
Heisenberg Principle, particle physics, and the scientific
beliefs seem to be reaching some sort of a rapprochement with the
religious ones, "The Tao of Physics" must be about 20 years old
by now, & has been followed by a number of other books.
Yesterday, I was listening to a section of a talk by Emily
Sellon, (who was a member of the New York Lodge, & a fantastic
lecturer/thinker) in which she says that she thinks particles
disappearing & reappearing is part of the laws of reincarnation.
A particle, she thinks, has a short life span, so it dies
(disappears) and reappears (is reborn) incessantly in a matter of
seconds.  Well, that links up well with my belief in
reincarnation, & with what I've read about the actions of
particles, so I've made Emily's idea part of my belief system.

Different people have different needs as to what belief system
suits them best.  It depends on the culture you've come out of,
and also on you as a person.  This goes for different
Theosophists as well, as DePurucker will tell Geoffrey Hodson.
My own belief system is eclectic.  I started out adopting many
Buddhist views, (mostly Christmas Humphreys', & lateron Lama
Govinda's) but over the years, these views have become modified
by beliefs I've picked up here & there as they made sense to me.
I look for a system that is useful for me to live by, & since
things have a habit of changing a lot (an idea I got from the
Buddhists) I try to make my belief system versatile & flexible
(an idea I got from Harry VG, a Dutch -Indonesian Theosophist,
reinforced by Serge King, a Hawaiian Kahuna).  These 2 have also
taught me something about forgiveness, about which I didn't learn
anything as I was growing up, that concept being reinforced by
"Hate the deed, but love the doer" of Martin Luther King Jr.  As
I said, my own belief system is eclectic.

Something I need to remind myself of from time to time, just
recently when some of us were discussing Kabbalah with Alan Bain,
is that no one has a corner of the Truth.  Whatever the Absolute
perceives,( & I myself believe that there is some sort of an
intelligence that plays around with natural forc es until there
are leaves & trees, DNA & blood circulation, lumbering turtles &
cute little fuzzy pussy cats.  It's a belief I've adapted from
certain Theosophists) whatever Absolute perception is, in
manifestation, on the level where we're at, I think it's more
like the Indian story of the blind men who were touching
different parts of an elephant.  One thought an elephant looked
like a trunk, & another thought it looked like a little curly
tail etc.  What I'm coming to is that I think we should read the
ML in just that spirit.  Take out of it whatever wisdom appeals
to us, & leave the rest.  I didn't answer Arthur Paul yesterday,
because I thought Murray did very adequately.  This AM ( always
after I've slept on it), I want to tell Art that I perceive
letter #10 as being very slanted towards Buddhism.  Doesn't
bother me, because I tend to go that way anyhow.  But I can see
how what KH says would bother an ex Menonite Christian Minister.
Paul, I know, by now, something about your Christian beliefs, and
I think they're just as beautiful & useful & valid as my
Buddhist/Kahuna/Jewish/Christian etc etc ones.  Matter of fact,
they often coincide, expressed, perhaps, in different terms.  I
would ask you to take out of these letters what you can use, &
leave the rest.  That's what HPB meant for us to do, & that's
what Theosophy is all about.  We have our doctrine, but aside
from a belief in Brother/Sisterhood, the indvidual is free to
choose.  It's 1 reason why we have so many factions.  I began my
day today by reading part of ML #XXII, which Daniel Caldwell said
was related to #10.  It talks of God from a different angle.  It
starts out with the voluntary & the involuntary parts of our
brain/nervous system, & expounds on "as below, so above".  If
we're made that way, so is the universe made that way.  I think
Daniel was right, those 3 letter belong together.  I've got other
things on my schedule for today, but, unless someone volunteers
to do the chore, I'll try to put on ML#22 next week-end.

Namaste


Liesel

PS Come to think of it, John Algeo comes into this elclectic mix.
It was while I was going over Basic Theosophy by correspondence
with him, that I first learned about that we all function within
our own belief framework/system.