Theos-Talk Archives (May 1995 Message tl00066)

+Hi, JRC,

I think the key to your puzzle would be if you could accept that
all beliefs, & universal truths are relative....  related to what
you can perceive though your subjective senses.  When you think
you're being objective, you're trying, but what you perceive is
still & always partly dependent on what's inside you.  You might
be myopic, you might get a coloration because you relate what you
perceive to certain past experiences, there's always Maya, in
some form.  The outcome of a scientific experiment is partly
dependent on the observer ..  scientifically proven by the
particle physicists.  I'm talking as if I were propounding God's
Truth, when in reality what I'm telling you is a conglomeration
of what I've heard, seen & read, & put together in my own little
head.  I've accepted it, it's my belief system, my "universal
truth" because it works for me.  & may I never get so old &
brittle that when something new & useful comes along I can't
adopt it & use it.

You say something to the effect that the Law of Karma is just
accepted by many Theosophists without being first "subjected to
rigorous examination before it is accepted...  especially as a
guide for behavior." and you say that "the rigorous examination
approach is very rare in the TS".  I haven't been at Conventions
for years, nor do I often get to seeing Theosophists, your
picture is completely strange to me.  The Theosophy I learned &
have long practiced is exactly one of never accepting anything at
all, unless I've first thoroughly tested it out to my own
satsfaction, in whatever way I felt like testing it out.

With the above argument falls into place that what is claimed as
universal law is indeed dependent upon personal experience.  How
else can you perceive it? And to repeat myself, as long as you
mention gravity as being universal, remember the astronauts shown
on TV, or on video tape if you're to young to have seen the moon
landings as they happened, bouncing around on the surface of the
moon.  Moon gravity needs to be responded to in quite a different
way than earth gravity.  So what's universal? Well, there seems
to be gravity all over the universe, but it seems not always to
manifest the same way.  I accept that on faith, because our
scientists tell us so ...  until they discover something else &
change their minds again.  To me, you can't know universal law.
You can only guess at it from what you perceive.  To repeat that
lovely quote from a Broadway play "Reality is a creative hunch."
Anyway, that's my belief system, & I like it because for me it
answers more questions to my satisfaction than your beliefs
answered for me, when I held them.  You say "I want something
more powerful than 'I feel intuitively'..", the answer to that
wish of yours is that whatever proof is most powerful to you is
what you should accept.  & if no such powerful proof exists, then
you're dealing with a belief you shouldn't accept.  To be a
Theosophist, all you need to accept is the relatedness of
humankind.  (Brotherhood etc.) "We're putting everything else on
the table," say the Republicans.

I wonder whether that helps you sort out.

Namaste

Liesel