Theos-Talk Archives (August 1996 Message tl00499)

Come to think of it, on the other hand, we're taught that we incarnate to
learn. If we kill out all desires & experiences, then we'll make the same
mistakes over again next time. That makes me even more in favor of talking
to it & about it, & changing how you think about it rather than killing it
out. If you change it, then you remember approximately what it was like
before you changed it, & why you were motivated to change it.

Liesel
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>In message <960826060822_74024.3352_BHT82-2@CompuServe.COM>, Keith Price
><74024.3352@compuserve.com> writes
>>"Kill thy desires ... strangle thy sins ... kill in thyself all memory of past
>>experiences." - HPB
>>
>>Isn't this a little violent?  This self-abuse and flagellation of the products
>>of consciousness can be seen in poetic or allegorcial, yet it still seems a
>>little morbid to the modern mind.
>
>I think I'll buy Ann's interpretation on all this, in a general sense.
>This "kill and control" mentality is typical of asceticism generally.
>If we are to kill all memory of past experiences, then what is the point
>of going deeply into the question of reincarnation, for example?
>
>"Strangle thy sins" - this seems to give "sins" a kind of objective
>existence of their own.  But the word(s) from scripture which have been
>rendered "sin" and then redefined by dogmatic theology mean nothing more
>than "missing the target" or "getting it wrong."  You can break the
>arrow, and you can destroy the target, but you can't strangle the aim -
>you can only try to correct it.  So let's mend, not strangle.
>
>"Kill thy desires" - makes no sense at all,  for if you want to do this,
>you must set up a desire to kill your desires, which is absurd!
>
>Alan
>---------
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