Theos-Talk Archives (August 1996 Message tl00221)

>	I would plead for a discrimination between blind belief and
>a reasoned belief. The latter is based on hypotheses, which can be tested
>in one's life experience and may lead to rejecting or reformulating
>of one or more of these hypotheses .

I wouldn't call it "faith"anymore. It would stretch the concept of fhe word
too far.
	
>Michael>An enquiring mind should be prepared to lay all is pet-theories on
>the
>block, including the concepts of soul, monad, atman, budhi, manas etc. All
>of this is pure speculation, and leads one away from the real contact with
>the spiritual.
>
>Martin:<These concepts are just pointers to deeper layers within the human
>being. That's all.

Unfortunately these layers do not carry labels.
>
>Michael> Philosophizing with the intellect on matters spiritual may
>become an escape. I am quite sure that if we see in the end backwards we
>shall perceive that we missed the point completely.
>
>	This is a well-known (?) trap. It can be fruitful to one's
>understanding to study T/theosophy, but it is not a substitute
>for experience. Jerry Schueler quoted Jung saying: Theosophy is lazy
>thinking. Well, it needn't be so, of course, but it sometimes or maybe
>more often turns out that way. It is very convenient to think that
>one knows all when one has only *read about* things.
>
Last century's Theosophy  presented itself like a scientific system. It
contended that science was wrong on various  subjects. Most Theosophical
concepts cannot be tested with human experience: root-race, rounds, globes,
etc etc. It is to be accepted a priori.


>Martin:	I see these concepts as hypotheses which can be tested
>in one's life, like I said before. Theosophy is a spiritual philosophy
>of life for me and each of its contentions can be tested, not by scientific
>methods (such as these are now) but in and by one's own consciousness
>and that is one aspect of 'treading the Path', which one can see as
>process-theosophy.
>When we blindly belief the tenets, then it has become a religion for us.
>
>Martin
>
I wonder whether it is a spiritual philosophy? It is a
philosophy/speculation on spiritual concepts.
>
Well, I am glad that we could find each other on many other issues.

MICHAEL ROGGE