Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl00941)

Richard:

There are quit a few of us here who are *young* souls and who do not feel
BIG and do feel SMALL and who are waiting here to pick up the crumbs of
wisdom that may be dropped occassionally. So the *old* souls and who may
feel BIG should have mercy on these less fortunate ones!!!

	...doss




On Mon, 22 Apr 1996 RIhle@aol.com wrote:

> Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996 23:12:37 -0400
> From: RIhle@aol.com
> To: Multiple recipients of list <theos-l@vnet.net>
> Subject: Re: Rigidity/Flexibility
>
> In a message dated 96-04-22 09:40:47 EDT, Paul writes>
>
> >The bottom line is-- regardless of where they stand
> >on the liberal-conservative spectrum, Theosophists tend to be
> >inflexible.  How often does anyone post here along the lines of
> >"here's a new thought I never had before, a new book containing
> >information I never knew before, an emotional response I never
> >felt before"?  Mostly, people tend to just repeat their strong
> >allegiance to their own point of view, rather than yielding,
> >modifying, growing.  At least this is so in comparison to
> >Medit-l, which is full of people more interested in daily
> >practice than abstract theorizing, more concerned with
> >understanding others of different viewpoints than with
> >triumphing over them.  That keeps the list fresh and alive, at
> >least for now.  I wish theos-l would have more of that spirit.
>
> Richard Ihle writes>
> Hi, Paul.  I recently subscribed to Medit-l so I have an idea of what you are
> talking about--some very good people seem to be there.
>
> However, are the meditators more to be admired because of their
> "flexibility," "attempts to understand rather than triumph," etc. than the
> "ask-no-quarter-nor-give-any" man-o'-wars who often show up in the
> Theosophical (TS) context?
>
> Not necessarily, in my opinion.
>
> My reason for saying this is purely theosophical.  In other words, it belongs
> to that category of knowledge which has no real empirical or logical basis:
>  I simply have the same *growing certainty* about it as I do about the more
> standard theosophical ideas--karma, reincarnation, etc.
>
> I have "sensed" for many years that there is something very preternatural
> about the Theosophical Society.  Perhaps saving most readers a lot of
> horizontal-head-shaking time, let me just short-cut and say that I am now
> more persuaded than not that the TS has served in the past--and still serves,
> albeit in perhaps a dangerously diminishing degree, in the present--as an
> "Esoteric Attraction Point" for a certain "subset" of  "higher-degree souls."
>
> I honestly suspect that there is a possibility that the individuals who are
> drawn and continue to subject themselves to the sometimes hellish
> interactions of something like Theos-l may be actually more advanced in
> Self-awareness than those who may gather in more "benignant" and ostensively
> "spiritual" ambiences.
>
> How do I know this?  Well, I don't know it; as I have said, I just have a
> growing theosophical certitude about it--the slowly creeping "peace which
> passeth understanding," perhaps.
>
> Here is at least one thought:
>
> The *age* question.  My guess is that a sizeable percentage of those on
> Medit-l are in their twenties or thirties.  If this is so, my prediction is
> that when they are in their fifties, only about 5% will still be meditating
> each day.  This means nothing in itself, of course, but I have known more
> than a few seeming archangels of young adulthood whose completely pedestrian
> mode of travel in later adulthood showed that their previous wings had merely
> been those supplied by "the Sweet Bird of Youth."  Let's not make too much of
> beatific smiles until they are put to the test by a little arthritis and
> geriatric ass-dragging.
>
> And according to "Psychogenesis," of course, the first five cycles in the
> progressive unfoldment of potential egoic delusion are not even completed
> until age thirty-five--and this assumes that the individual has a high enough
> Degree of Self-awareness that he or she will regularly be proded up to the
> Fifth Level to indulge the multiplicity of desire-free "semi-Selves" which
> potentially might form there.  Thus, what we might be seeing on Medit-l may
> be many individuals who can overcome the delusion that they really ARE their
> desire-mental ideas, but who can not yet fight the good fight against the
> egoic mistake that they really ARE their dispassionate mentation. This is not
> a flaw or anything; it is simply the result of their possibly not yet being
> chronologically old enough to have "psychomatured" into the Fifth-Cycle
> Ego-Arena.
>
> Furthermore, there is typically a lot of "posturing" associated with the
> Desire-Mental (kama-manas) Cycle.  Much of the "yielding, modifying,
> growing," etc. may indeed be the actual result of meditative practice
> temporarily elevating the individuals toward "less-differentiated" states of
> consciousness (toward the "Spiritual"); however, much of the "good behavior"
> could also simply be a result of making themselves behave according to the
> "idea of the Spiritual person"--the mental idea which attracted them in the
> first place.
>
> In both instances, "advancement" may be chimerical.  In the first place,
> consciousness is an up-and-down situation, changing from day to day,
> sometimes moment to moment--especially if one stops meditating regularly.
>  Incremental improvement in Degree of Self-awareness, on the other hand, is
> of much greater duration.  It is impossible to tell whether one is a high
> degree soul merely on the basis of whether one is crabby and depressed or
> blissed-out and effervescent.  All one can really guess at from these things
> is whether an individual has been indulging levels of consciousness which are
> "too far away" or close to the Degree of Self-awareness he or she has.
>
> By contrast, the majority of those on Theos-l appear to be a much older
> group; most seem to have long experience working at the first five levels (a
> younger person can *utilize* desire-free mentation, for example, but not *BE*
> the desire-free mentation in an egoic sense until he or she enters the
> appropriate age-related psychomaturational cycle).  There is some
> desire-mentalism in evidence on Theos-l, of course (psychomaturing through
> all the levels merely means you are free to egoically delude yourself in any
> of them, any time you want), but there seems to be much material posted which
> has the character of "pure, dispassionate explication" (manas level).
>
> . . .Anyway, even I bore myself with explaining Psychogenesis nowdays;
> therefore suffice it to say that I have never personally experienced such a
> more suspiciously heavy-duty aggregation of possible higher types than I have
> run across on Theos-l.  The ~I AM~ quality is not always pretty and pleasant
> when it sometimes "contaminates" itself at this level of consciousness or
> that; however, many of these people seem BIG . . . VERY BIG  . . . to me.
>
> But then . . . why don't these big, "older souls" just get busy and meditate
> themselves into *nirvilkalpa samadhi*, thereby checking out of the
> Reincarnating Stream and not bothering other people with their arguments any
> longer?  Well, that leads me to another one of my theosophical growing
> certitudes:  I am actually starting to be persuaded that a certain small
> percentage of "Monads," for one reason or another, are drawn back into
> incarnation for "one extra Lap" (I believe *five* is it for the general
> mass).  These oldest of souls, I am starting to be persuaded, will appear
> (and perhaps some *are* already appearing) in the Sixth Degree of
> Self-Awareness, and their remaining earthly task will be to make themselves
> Adepts by means of the discrimination this development provides.
>
> Who knows?  Perhaps it is the theosophical enterprise itself--the *desire* to
> know that which can only be known by means of transcendental, mystical,
> intuitive, or higher perceptual insight--which is the "mechanism" which keeps
> calling them back into life again and again. . . .
>
> Indeed, who knows?  There also might be a pack of future Adepts posting on
> Medit-l right now. (And if for some illogical and inexplicable reason they
> all start joining the Theosophical Society, I'll really start to wonder. . .
> .)  For now, however, I am not willing to say that "flexibility" tells me
> very much.  For now, at least, my Self-awareness money remains on the old
> Theos-l crowd (which includes you)--despite the fact that about two dozen of
> the "no-other-*I-AM*'s-higher-than-I-AM" types are just about getting ready
> to call me on the carpet for trying to patronize them. . . .
>
> Godspeed,
>
> Richard Ihle
>
>
>