Theos-Talk Archives (October 1996 Message tl00115)

On Tue, 8 Oct 1996, JRC wrote:

> 	This is *one perspective* of what Theosophy is. And before judging
> AC too harshly as "evil - you may wish to remember that for many outside
> TS circles, HPB was "evil" - She drank bottles of wine, ate legs of lamb,
> went into battle impersonating a man, and managed to pretty much
> enormously upset large numbers of people. There may be some "absolute"
> evil, but (IMO) the vast majority of the time what people call "evil" is
> simply that which does not conform to *their* standards of what is right
> and wrong. Remember, before you speak the words spoken above, that to (for
> instance) a Christian fundamentalist, your *entire paragraph* would apply
> directly to *you*. IMO, the First Object will be accomplished at whatever
> distant time *every* religious and spiritual tradition stops calling the
> members of the others "evil".

> 	Again, *one perspective*. Not the only one. We have had huge
> battles on this list in the past over the alledged "uniformity" of
> Theosophical activity. Maybe Alan or John Mead could assist you to glance
> at the archives ... most especially a discussion a few months ago between
> what could be called "process" theosophists and "body of doctrines"
> theosophists.

Dear JRC,

In some sense you are absolutely right. As you know no objective proof is
yet possible of spiritual realities. That's why views of theosophy based
on objective evidence like theosophical writings, incidents if the lives
of major figures of the theosophical movement, etc., may vary so widely from
declaring theosophy a fraud (please refer to a recent post of
KPJ re: Lobsang Rampa and HPB) to considering it the only outlet of the
Light.

In the framework of theosophy, the same attitude helps create a variety
of perspectives on theosophy.

We are like a society of blind people who do not see the sun directly,
but feel--at least some--that something like that exists out there, and we
try to compensate for the lack of direct knowledge by inventing competing
theories. Under such circumstances, the only reasonable strategy is to
practice tolerance and allow all views of the sun, even the view that it
does not exist, to be on equal footing, which is probably what you've said.

However, the sun is still there, regardless of what we may think about
it, and we are not bound to remain hopelessly
blind, thanks to people like HPB, the Buddha, the Christ, Ramakrishna,
Pythagoras, Plato, Dionysius Areopagite, Meister Eckhart, to name just a
few. I and you do not need to glance at any archives to make sure the sun
exists or to know its proper description--we may look at the sun instead.

The so called 'lower self' and its mind thirsty of objective proofs, are
not able to know 'the sun.' Only the higher self has the necessary organs
and faculties. Your higher self could assist you to see AC and the like
things in their true perspective.

Regards,
Max