Theos-Talk Archives (July 1997 Message tl00078)

Tom Robertson wrote:
> 
> I have been reading Emily Sellon's "The Pilgrim and the Pilgrimage."  On
> page 85, she wrote:

	Actually, she didn't. This is not nitpicking, but a key to
understanding much of what is there. Emily Sellon, during her lifetime,
gave many talks, and did a lot of editing of the works of others, but
left virtually nothing behind in writing. Literally within a week or so
of her death, she gave a presentation at Pumpkin Hollow Farm that was
taped (I was not at Pumpkin Hollow, but I have listened to the tapes
many times). "The Pilgrim and the Pilgrimage" is a transcription of that
talk, which was a very fitting final talk, as it gave a summary of
Emily's views on Theosophy. My wife, by the way, is preparing a
secondary course on Theosophy (for people who have taken Ed Abdill's
FOUNDATIONS OF THE AGELESS WISDOM course, available on tape from the
Theosophical Publishing House or any Quest Bookshop) based on THE
PILGRIM AND THE PILGRIMAGE. It will be given at the New York Lodge
probably this coming winter.

> "The source and cause of all manifested being is one absolute unknown and
> unknowable reality: ultimate, ever-present, boundless, and eternal,
> beyond both being and non-being."
> 
> I don't understand this.  If nothing can be said about the Absolute, why
> even use the word?  Why say what she said about it?  Nothing could be
> more conducive to dogmatism and cultishness than such a doctrine which
> cannot be understood, but must be either believed in or not believed in.

	It is setting a limit. What Emily is saying (which is merely a
restating of the First Principle of the Secret Doctrine) is that, no
matter how close we get to the truth, there will be one basic part that
we cannot understand, and knowing this is a key to understanding the
rest. 

	One of the problems with thinking about the source is that, in trying
to understand it, one creates a duality, and once one thinks in terms of
duality, then one cannot understand the Unity. In order to understand
the Cause, one must become the Cause, and then one is no longer human,
apart from it, and therefore one no longer exists from our point of
view.

	Bart Lidofsky