Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00392)

Liesel:

>Dear Rich,
>
>In your mish-mash note you say
>
>"It is a living tradition among the Adepts..."
> A little above you say "The Masters preserve & practice that
>esoteric parent source which has existed *unchanged* through
>the millenia - or so Theosophy teaches"
>
>I wonder where theosophy teaches this. Couldn't be in the
>"Mahatma Letters", because the Masters were Buddhists and the
>Buddha is the one from which I learned that the one thing in
>life that is certain, is that things will change. If it's a
>*living* tradition, it will change. Those 2 go hand in glove.

Your disagreement with Rich may be with the words "unchanged". It can
be used in more than one sense. The Masters have a living tradition,
a body of knowledge that they hold, preserve, and pass down from one
generation to the next. I suspect that this knowledge is a combination
of an oral tradition and spiritual training. Whatever it is, it is
preserved and passed down in a pure form. But it's also true, as you
change, that life is always subject to change. What they know and
pass down is also subject to change, to adjustment as life itself
progresses.

Getting a bit closer to home, we can talk about ourselves and what
we know. Do we pass on what we have learned from the Teachings in
an unchanged form, or do we embellish and change it? Our personal
insights and experiences are useful to others, but we do have a
responsibility to pass on in a pure form whatever fragments of
Mystery Teachings that we have been fortunate enought to have seen
in our lifetime.

-- Eldon