Theos-Talk Archives (October 1996 Message tl00121)

In message <Pine.OSF.3.90.961007223942.4013A-
100000@library.berkeley.edu>, Maxim Osinovsky <mosinovs@library.berkeley
.edu> writes
>Alan,
>
>This is not about jokes, this is about spiritual discrimination. Also, I
>am not a native speaker of English, so my English at times is very poor
>and may be difficult to understand. Sorry about it. Just ignore what I
>said about jokes.

I shall try to remember this, and I thank you for your clarification.
>
>Re: my SD quote. It was intended to support my previous statements, so it
>seems to be relevant.
>
>What I intended to communicate is that theosophy cannot be all things for
>all people. It does NOT embrace teachings of people like A.Cr. It includes a
>very clear, distinct perspective on white vs. black magic, evil, and so
>forth, and it is provable.

Do you mean that it is provable that the teachings of theosophy have
this clear distinction?  If so, then of course *this* can be proved.
What cannot be "proved" is that these theosophical teachings are totally
correct.
>
>My message re: spiritual discrimination was written in the "IF ... THEN
>.." format, i.e. IF one adopts the Ageless Wisdom as a guiding light
>THEN indiscriminate search for knowledge is not good, certain
>restrictions apply.

This I like.  All of the teachings of the various schools begin with
"If."
>
>The Ageless Wisdom is the light of your, my, and everybody else's higher
>self, that's why it is so uniform from man to man and throughout the ages.
>Being awakened, it creates a sense of DIRECTION urging everybody to move
>in the SAME direction--from darkness to light.

This is *your* opinion about an Ageless Wisdom understood from *your*
perspective.  I too believe that there is an Ageless Wisdom, but I doubt
the exactitude of its application as you appear to describe it.

To follow (I hope) your approach:

IF the Ageless Wisdom is 100% available and 100% able to be understood
by incarnate human beings, THEN we need to watch out!

IF the percentage of availability is less than 100%, and incarnate human
ability to understand it is also less than 100% - THEN we still need to
watch out!

Part of your point (I think) is that such people as Crowley
misinterpreted and/or misunderstood the Wisdom, creating confusion and
distress for many students.

However, it may also be true (another implicit "if") that the
transmitters of the Wisdom may also have misinterpreted and/or
misunderstood the Wisdom in varying degrees.  This latter scenario seems
to fit the evidence available.  A good example from theosophical history
is Leadbeater's description of life on Mars (CWLMARS.TXT) in the HISTORY
directory in my homepage "Directory of Goodies" structure.

Alan
---------
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