Theos-Talk Archives (July 1996 Message tl00815)

Jerry Schueler writes>
>	But, if we are in the 4th Round (kama) and 5th Root Race
>(manas), then it would seem like kama-manas approaches are in order
>for the 20th and 21st centuries.  Whats your alternative?  Intuition?
>We all know how flakey the intuition is.  The "still small voice" within
>is almost always right, if we hear it.  But when it conflicts with logic and

>reason, we generally dismiss it (and get into trouble). 
>

Richard Ihle writes>
Yes, I agree.

But you may also be able to appreciate the fact that from my perspective
there is a seemingly inescapable irony when one tries to follow the reputedly
"seamless garment" from Anthropogenesis into Psychogenesis as in the
foregoing  (e.g., juxtaposing the terms ~Rounds~ and ~kama~).

You see, I remain quite convinced that both the elaborate systems of
Cosmogenesis and Anthropogenesis were the direct, analogical, creative
products of perhaps a long line of advanced individuals who were
first-and-foremost expert witnesses of their own states of consciousness.
 They were adept at following the career of the ~I am~, so to speak, not only
by making use of the parallel with the famous
Breath/stone/plant/animal/man/angel/god sequence which can be noticed in both
in "monitored sleep" and meditation, but also by being adept seers of the
"psychomaturational" seven-year pattern of unfolding "egoic opportunities" as
it progresses in children, young adults etc. 

(The key to the latter is to take note of HPB's clue about ~midpoints~; also,
if you get a chance to look at my WISDOM TEACHING someday, it will be easier
to conceive--if you don't already--of just how the developmental cycles I
primitively scratched out there could indeed grow into such big, detailed
analogical blossoms when nurtured by ~Really Extraordinary~ individuals.)

Yes, I remain convinced that the first two components of the Principal
Theosophical Philosophy (PTP) are ~myths~--but only in the holiest of senses.
 "They are," like the approximation of what some old Roman once said,
"stories which never were but contain things which always ~are~."

Nonetheless, I am already on record as saying that I believe that some
knowledge included in the PTP may also be actual, literal knowledge as well
as metaphorical truth or mere "analogical pointer."  This is especially the
case for subjects like karma and reincarnation.  I take seriously not only
~as above, so below~ but also "~as below, so possibly above~."  You mentioned
the ~4th Round and 5th Root Race~.  I take these terms seriously--not only
because they have valuable, ~observable~ parallels in one's own psychogentic
development, but also because they may be valid, face-value "facts" in and of
themselves.

But how can one actually know anything at all about the Fourth Round and
Fifth Root Race?  Reading about them and not seeing logical contradictions
etc.?  No.  After all the study and ratiocinating, this still remains a job
only ~personal theosophy~ can do:  there ~must~ be some individual
development which allows one to approach the subjects with a degree of
"transcendental, mystical, or intuitive insight or higher perception."

~A growing certainty~ about things otherwise unknowable is, in my opinion,
what you should get by being a theosophist.  It is not, perhaps, a  dramatic-
and apodictic-enough certainty to make you into a Moses followed by
multitudes . . . but it is ~enough~, I think--at least in the sense that it
is, after all, some sort of ~certainty~ . . . and not merely a wish or a hope
or a sentiment. . . .

So anyway . . . this has seemed to have turned into a long and laborious way
just to remark en passant that while I agree with what you had to say about
intuition being "flaky" at times, it is ironical to remember that to have
~personal authority~ when talking about Rounds and Root Races, a person must
at least in part be relying on intuition or a similar type of Buddhi-manas
Gate-Crasher. . . .

. . .And I don't doubt for an instant that you get ~In~ from time to time,
Jerry. . . .

Godspeed,

Richard Ihle