Theos-Talk Archives (November 1995 Message tl00551)

Liesel:

> [writing to Bee]

>I think tunnel vision is never very conducive to understanding
>others. I deplore it especially in Theosophists who believe that
>there are as many Paths as there are people.

The approach that one takes I'd say depends upon one's
phase of life. If one is looking for a spiritual practice
one needs to look here and there in every nook and cranny
of the world for it. One is a prospector looking for a
vein of gold to mine.

While prospecting we try a little of this a little of
that and are akin to a young person actively dating many
people.

At some point though we can move on to the next step
akin to a young person "going steady". We enter into the
mining stage where we're at work on a specific practice.
At this stage we're in an experience that Lama Lodo
describes as:

LL> His Holiness Kaarmapa and other great masters attained
LL> enlightenment through devoting all his energies to the
LL> practice of the teachings of one lineage -- not thorough
LL> diluting his efforts by practicing a little here and a
LL> little there. These teachers were like the mountain climber
LL> who sees many paths to the top of the mountain but gets
LL> to the top by one path.

In the Preface to "The Gem Ornament of Manifold Oral
Instructions" by Kalu Rinpoche

>Also as I've said before both the shamans who taught me
>something believe that you should use your "smarts" to look
>at as many avenues to a certain problem as you can especially
>if something you're doing doesn't work. There's always
>something new to learn.

You're right that we need to keep looking until we've found
a practice that works or if we don't have a practice to
keep trying different things to keep our spiritual life going.
And we'd all agree that there is something new to learn.

I'd be careful though with the term "tunnel vision". Someone
may be successfully climbing a particular path up the mountainside.
It would not be tunnel vision for that person to say "this path
is the path it works for me" and not consider the path that you
might find good. A willingness to consider other paths may be
healthy in the prospecting phase but not in the mining phase
not in the phase where something real has been found and it is
becoming a living force in someone's life.

I'd say that there is a deep vein of gold to be found behind
those "dusty old books" and it's something worthy of being
promoted even though it is admittedly but one of many paths
that people may undertake.

-- Eldon