Theos-Talk Archives (June 1996 Message tl00782)

On Mon, 24 Jun 1996, Bee Brown wrote:

> Yesterday I watched a video by Joy Mills,
	<snip>
> In it she brought up the concept that the world can be divided into two
> sorts, the Tourists and the Pilgrims.
	<snip>

Actually, there *are* two sorts of people in the world: Those who think
there are two sorts of people, and those who know what a ludicrous and
arbitrary thought that is.

Joy Mills and the "Tourist/Pilgrim" differentiation stikes me as being
almost a perfect articulation of precisely what is wrong with modern
organized Theosophy. What utter arrogance. As though *everyone* incarnate
is not a "Pilgrim". Is theosophy *actually* going to hold that that
miniscule percentage of the population that happens to want to study a
particular and obscure set of books are "pilgrims", and that theosophy
needs to *protect* itself from that huge majority that (gasp) may
actually believe *other* books - or for that matter, may not read at all
- but still be following the *path* every bit as fully as the studious
elite? Just who the hell is *anyone* to judge the path of another? If one
believes in re-incarnation ... is it not fully possible that (as one of a
million for instances) a person's full immersion in
child-raising, or business, or farming, may be *fully* in line with the
lessons encoded in them for that incarnation, while another who has spent
their life studying "occult" philosophy is actually well *off* their path
- is actually hiding in it as one hides in a cave ... and hence
*avoiding* "the path"? Is not someone who sits back ... not engaging life
but drifting off into states of imagined "wisdom" - from whence they look
*down* upon the vast majority of the human kingdom - is not such a person
*more* of a "tourist" than one who engages in the full measure of life -
experiences fully whatever ranges of experience is appropriate for where
they are on their road ... even if they never speak a word of
"spirituality"?
	Tell me ... how does the notion of "pilgrim/tourist" fit into the
*intent of the First Object*? I would just love to hear Joy Mills
discourse on what precisely she believes the word "Universal" actually means.
							Regards, -JRC