Theos-Talk Archives (June 1997 Message tl00669)

Thanks in advance for listening and to those in the Toronto Theosophical
Society who may get this, please pass this on to your Treasurer and
anyone else who may require payment for books, mailings, courses, trips,
healthfoods, and any other thing:  I, Annette Rivington, who has been
paying Peter Rivington's debts and managing all but his spiritual life
for the past 16 years, do hereby notify anyone who may become
financially involved with him, that I take absolutely no responsibility
for any of his actions, debts or liabilities from today, June 29, 1997.

On this path, if not followed in truth, everything goes to waste and the
vulture lawyers, accountants, legislators, takers, fake philosophers and
healers, and gossipers gain energy and ground.

What is in the mind IS WHAT IS MANIFEST ( or done).

Some of us weep already as we watch you watch with glee as the order of
life, both good and bad, appears to disintegrate.

Those of you who don't read on, know now that you have closed your mind
and life to the wider issues.  Goodbye and good luck on your detour
path.
For the stalwart and kind:
I have read some of your correspondence with much interest and have, for
the past two years, lived with the results of your influence.  My
(reluctant) comment to everyone is that there will be no positive change
and you will not see control based organizational structures collapse in
your lifetime, unless by massive natural disaster.  This is because the
probability that there will ever be a critical mass of people who are
enlightened enough to live and love in the truth, both with themselves
and with others, is much lower than any of you can imagine (including
you who watch with glee), hence no positive, ordered change is likely to
occur, and because most of those organizations that you think are so
unstable have expensive and immediately available disaster programs in
place ( and believe me, they don't include you).   The people in general
still need leadership and this leadership can only be based on truth and
love, because, in all our past and present lifetimes, we have all been
there and done that, and those of us who "know" do not usually join
groups and live secret lives and fear censorship.  Let us take the
example of my so-called husband, Peter Rivington, who, since joining the
Toronto Theosophical Society, has lied to his friends and family about
where he is and what he is doing, has stopped taking responsibility for
his relationships with others "outside" the group, has gone into debt
and used the money of family members to support what started out as a
possible philosopy of life or religion and has now become a crutch or
excuse for the attainment of pleasure of the self.  He calls himself a
student and tells those of us who are left with the responsibility for
all that he now chooses to avoid, that whatever he does is either "meant
to be" or our needs and desires are "not important" in the grand scheme
of things (presumably that he is involved in and we are not).  It does
not take "a rocket scientist" to see that my husband is "sick", that a
great number of the world's population is sick, that sick people join
groups to support their sickness and their so-called therapy and that
groups like your own, started by perhaps a brilliant, insightful and
enlightened person and continued by a few of the same, in the same
manner as corporations and governments, attract many people who choose
(for all of life is a choice) not to struggle with the toughest, and
what I consider to be the basis, of this physical life - individual
truth, integrity, consistency, communication, responsibility, love.  My
so-called husband, a representative of your philosopy ( currently I
defend it from the title of "sect" and other derogatory terms, but I
suspect not for much longer), informs me that the individual comes
first, that the individual's choice of path is the only important thing,
and that others must ( and I emphasize MUST ) accept this or look to
themselves for their inadequacies in understanding. (In other words,
"I'm right, you're lost; whatever I do is right and you don't matter a
hoot).

I understand that some of you believe that "the current order" will end
because it has been recorded in prophesy (ancient, old, recent and
current). I have read these prophesies.   I understand also that others
of you believe that it will end because it is control based and hence
wrong.  I understand very well about that, having studied history and
comparative religion.  After about 10,000 years of domination, under a
myriad of philosopies and religions, for these are the basis of your
so-called control organizations - a person's or group of people's
"perception" of this life and how it should be for all of us and many
others "buying in" to the concept and "trusting" that the motivation is
"good and right", many people are facing the devastating realization
that, as a race, we have severely messed up everything we touched to the
extent that it may be unrecoverable.  Some of us have quietly maintained
a loving, responsible, hopeful life all along.  We have cared for and
nurtured the material and spiritual for both ourselves and others,
forgiving the transgressions of others, working hard on our own
enlightenment in the knowlege that we cannot hope to be an example to
others if we are not seeking perfection ourselves, often facing much
more than our own responsibilities and fears alone, such as I am doing
today.  What I understand is that what you people are saying, once
again, is that "yours is the way and the light" and the rest of us are
"outsiders, unitinitiated, underdeveloped, unknowing, unseeing".  What a
shame.  To repeat the same old same old, I mean.

What I believe is that, it is an undeniable fact that we spiritual
beings are in physical bodies in a physical environment and, until this
stasis changes it is through this medium that we express ourselves.  If
I was alone here, my actions, words and energy transmissions would be
important only to the extent that they affected my environment, and I
would be really stupid to do, say or think anything that destroyed my
environment, unless I also wished to destroy myself.  I would have that
choice.  I would chose, as I do now, not to make it one of destruction.
( My big fear currently is that I shall be forced to defend it, despite
the fact that I abhor violence in any form, hence being forced by you
lot to do that which I am trying to teach myself and others by my
example not to do.  Quite a paradox, eh!)

I am not alone and nor are any of you.  What you do, say and think
affects me and my environment.  Hence the perceived need of others for
this censorship that is becoming an issue for you.  What you do, say and
think affects people like my husband (who often finds it difficult to
think for himself and I have tried my hardest not to react to this, for
taking responsibility for one's own thoughts and actions is the toughest
thing to learn in this body, but today I fail in this by communicating
to you and not keeping my peace and I forgive myself totally ), and as
he parrots your philosophy and it affects me and our children and my
work, the balance and peace of many is pushed into chaos, and in that
chaos the very people you hope to enlighten and hence change their ways
become even stronger in their drive to maintain the status quo.  The old
stone in the pond ripple effect.  What your representative, my husband,
says to this is that, once again, if we are so concerned and affected by
what you have to say and do, then we must be weak, unenlightened,
obviously on the wrong path and to look to ourselves for our
inadequacies and to leave you people alone to follow the "true light".
You've got to be kidding!  Can you be so narrow minded as to think that
the rest of us are all some kind of dumb neanderthal-type creatures
unconnected to this path and light you keep talking about incessantly?
(Is it because you like the sound or text of your own voices and
thoughts, or do you need to keep talking about it to convince yourselves
of its truth?)  Do you really think that we are going to leave you alone
to continue to destroy our marriages, sadden our children, throw our
grandchildren into confusion before they even get started on their paths
which may be totally different from yours that is so obviously tied up
in the ancient, so obviously disconnected from everyday reality, and is
so narrow that is does not address the issues of human psychological
development, interpersonal relations, current scientific knowledge,
commerce and law? (Man cannot live by spirituality alone, UNTIL THE TIME
WHEN MAN CAN LIVE BY SPIRITUALITY ALONE, and all of us are a long way
from that yet!)

In answer to your expected cry that either my husband is doing it wrong,
or that I am mentally ill (and I've been called that many times before -
brilliant, insightful, truthful, consistent, loving people who stand
firm in the truth always are called mentally ill by those who cannot
lie, cheat, steal and avoid them in the search to satisfy their
self-centered desires), or that this is simply a marriage gone wrong and
has nothing to do with the "greater path", I say to you:  Question him.
Bring him to task on the issue.  Ask him where in all these books and
lectures (he keeps buying instead of paying his share of the mortgage)
it tells him to lie, cheat and steal the balance, peace, energy, time
and money of any loving soul who is available. Ask him to show you where
he finds in Theosophy the philosophy of the one that precludes the path
of the others.  Instruct him to explain to me (one of these so-called
people you expect to be dying of a heart attack) why I should even
consider a philosophy of life that encourages its followers to break all
promises whenever it suits them, use up any unrenewable resource
whenever they chose and expect someone or something else, that they
ridicule in private and use to their benefit in public, to continue to
provide, and that, even though so obviously no closer to the ultimate
truth than the rest of us, tries to convince me that I am so totally
screwed up that I should be regarded as not worth the time or effort of
being treated with the love, respect and integrity that I deserve as a
fellow travellor.

Here's what I say:  We are not living two thousand years ago, or in the
middle ages and we have come along way baby, some of us understanding
and withstanding that particular zealous brand of behaviour currently
exhibited by my husband fueled by your organization, and, to interpret
what a great guy with a great idea, one of the many, would and will
probably say, when the time comes to lead the masses again
" what the bejesus good is it if a man gains what he THINKS is his
everlasting soul and destroys everything else in the process".  Just
what ARE you people and my husband going to do when the end comes and
the few of you stand on that hilltop overlooking the death and
destruction of all that went before?  Hey.  The indigenous peoples and
Jews ( to name a few) have already been there, seen that.  Anything you
may say or do at that time will surely mean nothing, will be the basis
for nothing different.  The only solution, salvation (call it what you
will) is resolution without destruction.  Anything else IS failure.  Of
course a few "failed" lives, relationships, religions, philosophies,
economies can be perceived, conveniently, as not wasted effort or part
of the learning curve, in that way we all avoid the guilt, pain and loss
of confidence that may push us into inaction.  As an observor of life (
and I am not a young chick) and a trained teacher, I have observed that,
unless the guilt, pain and loss is great, the lesson remains unlearned
and the way inevitably becomes a detour until life, if given another
chance, brings one right back to the same lesson again.  Like it or not,
a lesson unlearned is a failure and resources consumed in repeating past
mistakes knowingly, is a waste of time.  Unless of course, you believe
that nothing is real, nothing is a failure, nothing is a waste of time,
there is no such thing as time, nothing you do is matters because the
great all knowing "God" is the only thing that can be real, perfect and
truthful, and consequently everything you do is fine as long as you say
you do it in the name of this perfect state that does not expect you to
be perfect in a thousand lifetimes.  And why would you think that the
rest of us will let some of you destroy what a great many of us have
quietly spent our lives building in truth and love?  Come out of the
secret societies (aka organized religions), get your noses out of those
musty tomes hidden away in closed libraries (aka organized
education/indoctrination), take a break from those comforting weekend
seminars in exotic locations (no different than the corporate ones I
attend), get off the Internet for a few weeks (aka the need to belong),
and take a walk on the wild side - alone - like some of us who get back
out there in the corporate and interpersonal world holding up our end
everyday, doing both - taking care of business and walking the path and
walking the path and taking care of business.  I dare you.

Anyone can meditate, pray and spout the words.  I often do it myself,
meditate and pray that is.  I reluctantly spout words as I prefer to
communicate by sense and reading one's energy.  Ponder a word of advice
from one who is in training to "see" however much it hurts:  Some
philosophies, conversations and groups are like that next drink to an
alcoholic.  How can you hope to heal when you continue to feed the
disease?  When do you "see" that you are contributing the the very
problem that you say the rest of us are causing?  Get a life, for
goodness sake, it's the only one you have this time around, and
according to some of you, this particular physical existance will not be
here for anyone's next life.  Oh, and finally, I do not intend to die of
a heart attack or any other nasty disease, and I have managed to
manifest what I chose so far in this life, and I believe as strongly as
you that I am on the right path too, so see you on that hilltop and for
eternity, asking only that you love me, think about me, debate with me,
question with me, and take responsibility for your own thoughts, words
and deeds, as I do for you, until one day you too understand that every
thought, word and deed you make is felt, usually in pain, by some of us
who feel and see..

Annette Rivington  (No Organized Religion, person, wife, mother,
accountant, B. Sc., B. Ed., M.B.A.)