Theos-Talk Archives (November 1996 Message tl00212)

Hi,

Thanks Liesel and MKR for your kind words of welcome.  By the way, Art
House actually means a house full of artists.  To confuse you even more,
maybe there will be more voices coming from Art House.  Thanks for being
tolerant of us newbees, we don't mean any trouble.  I just printed only
a few of the past theos-l and TI-L conversations.  The stack looks like
an encyclopaedia.  Having first come into the conversation when it's in
the middle of heated debates and demands for apologies, I came away
saying, *Those hoity toity educated philosophists.  Sometimes I prefer
Spam over Pate.  What is a true Theosophist, anyway?  How many
Theosophists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?*  However, after
scanning past conversations, the list as a whole is pretty
good-natured.  I agree, though, that there has to be times when everyone
should be able to have their doubts answered.  If one cannot even
tolerate dissenting thoughts within this list, how can one even deal
with the world?

I saw in the stack a list of the composition of the world's races,
education, etc., and just recently read the TI-L brainstorming from
Murray S. regarding welcoming newbees.   I myself came from a country
where most people do not have the luxury or the resources that enables
them to even study various philosophies.  People's knowledge of religion
or philosophy were mostly based on rituals performed by their elders,
either Christian, Buddhist or combination of the two.  Welcoming newbees
is only a tiny fraction of the problem of spreading theosophical ideas
and intentions.  As theosophists, how do you intend to spread the ideas
to those who cannot read (I myself have to read these books with
dictionary in one hand and book in the other), and the younger (and
older) generation whose main interests are trend of the moment?  Should
you form churchlike environments as the Christians have and aggressively
convert others (This has caused some resentment in me toward Christians'
history in my birth country.  This also may cause the general population
to worry about cults, although Christianity was once considered a
cult.)?  Is just meditating and spreading the white light good enough?
For all the study and references to theosophical writings and history, I
think the main object of theosophy is to spread compassion in the world,
everything else is a moot point.

TTT