Theos-Talk Archives (June 1996 Message tt00017)

Richtay@aol.com wrote:
>
> Ann --
>
> You mentioned that your favorite article was the one from John
> Paul Polston, "Looking to the Future." I have heard through the
> grapevine that this article is causing a bit of a stir in ULT
> circles -- especially "updating" the language of the teachings
> for newcomers.
>
> What did you particularly enjoy about the article? It would be
> great to have a chat about this article or any others from the
> latest issue of THEOSOPHY WORLD.
>
> Rich

I have given a lot of thought to the language aspect of Theosophy
as it has been talked about a lot lately. I have reservations
about it for a number of reasons.

The main one is that the actual writings of the founders, and I,
in particular am familiar with GdeP who I hold in great esteem,
are the repositories of a greater esoteric content if one can
read them in such a manner as to gain access to it. Please
excuse me for using myself as an example but I only know how I
experience this reading but I am surely not unique in reading
this way.

I have had such fun with GdeP over the last year as I read all
books 'between the lines' or I suppose intuitively. I have done
so for the last 20 years and get better at it all the time. By
reading this way I use the words chosen by the writer to carry
his inner knowledge and vision, as doorways to that inner world.
If those words are changed or modernised they will no longer be
doorways to that world and it will be like taking the handles off
so that I can no longer open the door. The sanskrit terms I have
to learn the meaning off and when that becomes part of my ideas
plane then they stand for a whole meaning of their own that
cannot be reposited into a modern word that already has it's own
connotations.It is the same in the various disciplines at
Universities. Anthropology, e.g, has it's own specific language
and one has to learn that language to understand the concepts
embedded in that language. As a first years student I once
listened to some 3rd years discuss a paper they were studying and
I actually understood very little of what they were saying and
when they were asked to repeat it in English, they were unable to
express the concepts with any accuracy.

I finally got to grips with the meanings and ideas of the words
obscuration and sishta as used by GdeP and their symbolic
relationship to the story of Adam & Eve and the Garden and also
the idea in our psyche of a Golden Age either been or to come. I
was on a high for a couple of days because the vision it opened
in my mental world was so grand and vast that I realised that I
was a tiny speck in it all but a very necessary one and that the
future spread before me way down the ages to come, so far that
there was no end. This sort of meaning is not apparent in the
words themselves. Most writers have not this depth of wisdom and
experience but reading between the lines gives access to the
thoughts they may have been unable to find words to express.
Some writers are what I call word-smiths and arrange their words
to speak for themselves and there is not much more to be gotten from
them. But a good word-smith is a joy to read just for the
way the words have been skilfully arranged.

I would rather try to educate people to appreciate what an
original writer has written than take responsibility of rewriting
it to suit lazy minds. So much is lost in doing so unless it is
specified loudly that it is a rewritten account and the original
should be consulted when the rewrite has been read. Image
reading Dickens rewritten in modern English!!!!!!! or the
American Classics. They would lose their flavour and their
representation of the times in which they were written. I guess
that is why we call the Classics.

Bee Brown