Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00014)

    Although this extract by HPB was a response to those who found THE
    SECRET DOCTRINE to difficult, chaotic etc. to study with ease; her
    advice also applies not just to book study, but our whole approach
    to Theosophy.
    #####################

         There are several ways of acquiring knowledge: (a) by
    accepting blindly the dicta of the church or modern science; (b) by
    rejecting both and starting to find the truth for oneself.  The
    first method is easy and leads to social respectability and the
    praise of men; the other is difficult and requires more than
    ordinary devotion to truth, a disregard for direct personal
    benefits and an unwavering perseverance.  Thus it was in the days
    of old and so it is now, except perhaps, that such devotion to
    truth has been more rare in our own day than it was of yore. 
    Indeed, the modern Eastern student's unwillingness to think for
    himself is now as great as Western exactions and criticism of other
    people's thoughts.
         He demands and expects that his "Path" shall be engineered
    with all the selfish craft of modern comfort, macadamized, laid out
    with swift railways and telegraphs, and even telescopes, through
    which he may, while sitting at his ease, survey the works of other
    people; and while criticizing them, look out for the easiest, in
    order to play at the Occultist and Amateur Student of Theosophy. 
    The real "Path" to esoteric knowledge is very different.  Its
    entrance is overgrown with the brambles of neglect, the travesties
    of truth during long ages block the way, and it is obscured by the
    proud contempt of self-sufficiency and with every verity distorted
    out of all focus.  To push over the threshold alone, demands an
    incessant, often unrequited labor of years, and once on the other
    side of the entrance, the weary pilgrim has to toil up on foot, for
    the narrow way leads to forbidding mountain heights, unmeasured and
    unknown, save to those who have reached the cloud-capped summit
    before.  Thus must he mount, step by step, having to conquer every
    inch of ground before him by his own exertions; moving onward,
    guided by strange landmarks the nature of which he can ascertain
    only by deciphering the weather-beaten, half-defaced inscriptions
    as he treads along, for woe to him, if, instead of studying them,
    he sits by coolly pronouncing them "indecipherable."  The "Doctrine
    of the Eye" is *maya*; that of the "Heart" alone, can make of him
    an elect.
         Is it to be wondered that so few reach the goal, that so many
    are called, but so few are chosen?  Is not the reason for this
    explained in three lines on page 27 of THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE? 
    These say that while "The first repeat in pride: `Behold, I
    *know,*' the last, they who in humbleness have garnered, low
    confess, `thus have I heard'"; and hence, become the only "chosen."

    [From BCW 12, 236-37; part of HPB's article "Mistaken Notions on
    THE SECRET DOCTRINE."

--
Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles <> The wisdom of Buddha is in
the minds of all beings; enshrouded with false thoughts, they are not
aware of it. The great compassion of all Buddhas induces them to renounce
false thoughts, so that wisdom can manifest and benefit all beings.