Theos-Talk Archives (October 2000 Message tt00222)

Dear Shampan

I think you can see from the various positions on the material of 
Bailey vrs. Blavatsky vrs. others that that there is only partial 
truths revealed and as you wisely commented "... Emphasis so 
much on the Theosophical "terms", or
> "personalities"(who tried to explain the root concept in their
> own view, not saying they are wrong, but only ONE view of a 
much
> larger concept) seems just as much a .. mistake. "

So we cannot be dogmatic about these personalities and what 
they wrote, otherwise we are no improvement over the 
dogmatists in the traditional religious establishments.

We can study them and appreciate them but at best they give 
only a facet of the wider truth, but I will grant that even that in
this 
plane of existence is to be appreciated. A lot of this material can 
be useful to us personally but it also is I think counter productive 
and misleading to proclaim a particular occult truth or view as 
the
most accurate and complete manifestation of reality when it is 
only a facet.

Students who are just beginning to study theosophy need a 
broad introduction rather than a sectarian one! It is really 
misleading and can be harmful to try to instill in seekers the 
need for conformity of thought and dogmatism whether it be in 
religion or philosophy.

I had a nascent theosophic study circle that met for eight months 
a year or so ago. A certain office which I will not mention 
indicated that all theosophic groups must proceed along a 
"locked step" approach to the ancient wisdom tradition to be 
considered a "group" ...in time, we were told we could have 
some benefits of calling ourselves a theosphic group only if 
certain guidelines were followed. Well, my friend, most of those 
who were studying in the group had been theosophists 
individually for many, many years and decided against a formal 
group status so we could proceed to study what we wanted to 
instead of what anational office decided for us to study, and that 
is what transpired. The peopel who were new to theosophy 
were really put off by the locked step approach as well and as 
adults also decided to join our "rump" group. 

We studied David Fiedeler's "Jesus Christ Sun of God." We 
met weekly for eight months reading Fideler's book and studying 
and enjoying it thouroughly. We met in a bookstore for free and 
got free publicity for our meetings through the store bulletin. We 
had some delightful dinners together and all in all experienced 
something akin perhaps to those wonderful philosophic 
occasions written of when sincere souls and lovers of wisdom 
congregate!

- Art



--- In theos-talk@egroups.com, Shampan-e-Shindh 
<shampan@z...> wrote:
> Mr Gregory wrote:
> "What I am trying to articulate is that during the early
> theosophy
> movement there was the beginning of exposure to early
> translations of
> Buddhist, Hindu scriptures and philosophy and people in the 
West
> began
> to color these philosophys with their earlier exposure to 
western
> 
> esoteric traditions as well as spiritualism and such."
> 
> Mr Gregory.. you have really done it. This is a thread I wish to
> get up on. With due respect to all religions, most are practised
> with the superficial guidelines and regulations and the most
> insignificant issues of them. Rather than what was the
> core-material or objective...My view of course.
> 
> Emphasis so much on the Theosophical "terms", or
> "personalities"(who tried to explain the root concept in their
> own view, not saying they are wrong, but only ONE view of a 
much
> larger concept) seems just as much a .. mistake. The concept 
of
> spiritualism, Theosophy, Philosophy.. is not so complicated.
> While their motives might be good, they try to explain in various
> words, making it more "off-track" from the main concept.. most
> likely not intentionally.


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