Theos-Talk Archives (July 1997 Message tl00002)

>I guess I am a failed idealist, a cynic or something, but I wonder 
>like Rodney King why we can't all get along.

We have two approaches to supporting what we find to be good. One is
the "double negative" approach, fighting "evil", attacking people and
things we find evil in some way (or *think* they're evil based upon our
political/religious/metaphysical ideology). This approach can get
nasty, especially when it's not clear that the other people are actually
as black-hearted as we think, and when they take the same approach and
identify us as the evil ones.

The other approach is simpler, more direct, and usually more effective:
the "single positive". We share the good that we've come to appreciate
and leave others to clean up their own acts.

>I have been around a while and it seems that the theosophical movement has 
>become hopelessly (I hope not) mired in petty fighting and useless friction.

The biggest source of conflict may be in the multitude of conflicting
definitions of Theosophy and the battling over what it really is. Finding
flaws in historic figures is something of a side issue, and may at times
be used to discredit what they wrote and therefore their variant of
Theosophy, or used to discredit some claimed lineage of sponsorship by
the Mahatmas. The petty fighting and useless friction is a negative byproduct,
caused by human failings, like the smoke that surrounds the fire. There's
sill something real and valuable going on, but it's not always apparent
at first glance.

>Maybe the only thing that would bring it back into public consciousness would 
>be someone like Krishnamurti (but then he got out).

I don't think he ever really got out. His writings sound like the mirror
opposite to the version of Theosophy that Leadbeater espoused. K. was
anti-hierarchy, anti-teacher, reductionist, etc. The philosophy was something
like a Jungian shadow of Leadbeater's approach. That's why there may be
such an appeal to his writings in the Adyar T.S., where Leadbeater's books
are published. I don't want to go into a review of Krishnamurti at this
point. He's not someone, though, that would help out the work of the Masters
in introducing some of their philosophy in Western thought -- at least as
I see it.

>If ever we needed a precipitation of a letter from the Masters, it is now.  
>Maybe if we all look under our beds.....    :)

You never know where that letter might have come from! Phenomena may
impress people and sway beliefs, but the goal is not to gather believers
nor to tell people what to do. There will always be people, though, eager
to tell you to believe in them and to do what they tell you to do. Where,
then, do we look? That's hard to write about in a few words and not be
misleading. The simplest saying is "look within," but it's not a simple
introverted self-reflection apart from activity in the world. And it's
not simple karma yoga of good deeds in the world. In a way it's like
finding a sense of color in life when everything's been color-blind
before. It's an individual search, though, and just as hard in finding
as it is in finding one's unique way of sharing it in the world.

>Namasate
>Keith Price

-- Eldon