Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl01440)

Hi Kim,

KP
>We should not confuse a religion with an esoteric treatise. It
>would be the same as confusing the average view of theosophists
>with the ideas contained in the Secret Doctrine. On the contrary
>in my opinion religionists generally distorts the texts in one
>or other direction - especially during translation. The bible is
>the wellknown example of this, but permit me, as an example, to
>quote from a private letter to Eldon written a few days ago

JHE
     Yes, I agree.  And your example illustrates the
vulnerability of texts to human error.  No matter how perfect or
inspired a text may be, it still must be interpreted.  Even on a
more realistic level, there is always the question of copying
errors and interpolations too.

JHE
>>Further, I would be inclined to think that the bringing in of
>>outside authorities would just complicate things and run the
>>discussion into tangents.

KP
>Hmm.. I had just started to examine the detailed exposition of
>Asanga (the founder of the Yogacharya School) on tattva,
>paramartha and the 7 skandhas in chapter 6 of the
>Mahayanasutralamkara (the "Tattva" chapter). This would
>solve several mysteries as to the relation between the 7
>principles and the 7 elements, which in the Chandogya Upanishad
>6.8.7 takes the form of an identification TAT TVAm asi, "That
>thou art", thus implying the term tattva. But I will refrain
>from following this line of investigation (a great pity!).

JHE
     Your investigation seems to have led you to a personal
insight into the (in our case) the source texts: i.e. HPB and
CWL.  I don't think we can avoid drawing from our insights.  It
is just getting off into tangents that concerns me.

KP
>Instead I am left with the works of HPB and a few diagrams in "A
>Treatise on Cosmic Fire" representing the view of CWL.

JHE
     A student borrowed my only copy of ~Cosmic Fire~ and I just
realized that he never returned it.  So I have to go by memory
concerning the charts in that book.  However, if my memory is
correct, the diagram concerning the principles is either copied
or adapted from Besant's ~Study in Consciousness,~ therefore is
more representative of Besant than CWL.  That you don't have
CWL's books puts you at a disadvantage.  I do have some very
inexpensive copies if you are interested.  But they are Quest
printings, and I don't know to what extent they have been
tampered with.

KP
>As the various the explanations of HPB are as apparently
>irreconcilable as the CWL-HPB differencies we will have to
>resort to our own "esoteric" valuation of her writings - since a
>dead-letter investigation will make them seem contradictory -
>instead of relying on historical "authorities" to solve the true
>meaning of the words.

JHE
     Perhaps we might start by looking at those various
"apparently irreconcilable" explanations of HPB.  Actually, my
experience has been that the apparent inconsistencies disappear
when they are put back into their historical context.  My
experience with HPB is that she was building upon her
explanations over time, as well as trying to answer the
objections and comments of various members--particularly A.P.
Sinnett and T. Subba Row--but others too.  I discovered this when
I started going through the early issues of ~The Theosophist~
page by page, where her early explanations are in their true
context.  This is all lost when HPB's writings are all lifted and
put into a collection.  Then the articles and letters that she
was responding too are lost.

KP
>But you are quite right that the scope of our discussion would
>be enormous. But as it is vital it can be as prolongued as you
>wish.

JHE
     Yes.  Once before, I took up a more informal exploratory
discussion with a person interested in Bailey.  He considered
himself an expert on Bailey (I am for from it), so through
questions and explorations, I wanted to compare her ideas to HPB
(more my home ground).  The conversation lasted for six months,
and I pumped out about two or three twelve page posting per week.
It was a tremendous amount of work, because I had to both look up
his references to HPB and follow up on his references to AAB.
But we seemed to have a terrible language barrier (he was Indian,
and his grammar suggested that he was still more in that culture
than in a European one).
     I bring this up, because my investment of time was enormous
and very little of value came out of it.  I already know that
your communication skills are far above my last correspondent.
But even with the most ideal communication, unless the discussion
remains carefully structured, it easily gets out of hand and
becomes counter productive.

KP
>If your view was correct we all aught to abandon all the works
>of not only CWL but also AB, AAB and many 20th century
>theosophical writers instantly! A few mistakes would be
>acceptable, but not a completely flawed understanding.
JHE
     I try not to take such a hard line view.  My basic concern
is not to assume that one writer says the same thing as another.
It could be so, but it is not necessarily so.  If HPB and CWL are
not compatible with each other, we still have two internally
consistent systems to study.  Some people might conclude that CWL
was right and HPB mistaken.  I don't of course, but I would not
argue with someone who might come to this conclusion.  In the
end, it all becomes a matter of faith.  Someone can say, well,
HPB just made all of this up.  Definitive proof otherwise does
not exist.  It reminds me of St Ireneas' argument that the fact
that Mythraism is so similar to Christianity is proof that
Mythraism is the false religion.  He reasoned that the Devil
anticipated God's plan to send Jesus to found Christianity, so
the Devil got in there first and created a false religion that
looks Christian so as to confuse everybody.  As HPB on wrote,
with this kind of logic, the only thing we can do is stand in
open mouth silence.

KP
>Now when we have set up a set of rules for this discussion in
>some length, I certainly hope you will make use of them and
>defend your views - or we will both seem rather silly! If you
>are busy, please reply at a later time.

JHE
     OK.  I will have to look for your earlier post.

Best,
Jerry

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   |Jerry Hejka-Ekins,                      |
      |Member TI, TSA, TSP, ULT                |
         |Please reply to: jhe@toto.csustan.edu   |
            |and CC to jhejkaekins@igc.apc.org       |
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