Theos-Talk Archives (May 2003 Message tt00154)

Bart wrote: << If I had, it would have been sort of like 
taking drugs to find enlightenment. I might get away 
with it once or twice, but I was looking for a permanent 
solution, and if I used that route regularly, I would 
have almost certainly eventually got busted, and, if I 
continued, would lose my license, and, if I still 
continued, gone to jail.>>

Considerations re approaches toward enlightenment in 
terms of occasional, creative short cuts when traveling 
by car are, IMHSO, two different-enough and logically 
non-related things, so while a "straight"/logical analogy 
between "esoteric" (standing for a form of "creative 
chort cut" in my post, in a kind of tongue-in-cheek 
sense) and "exoteric" (standing for conventionality) 
may not be easy to guess at by "reading between the 
lines," I was trying to see if anybody could, with help 
from that confusing/misleading analogy (if it could be 
called that, or worse?), get a sense of how people, in 
general, might (or do?) tend to go with the flow of 
"ordinary reality" without questioning/speculating 
much about it. 

In other words, seems to me that most people are 
railroaded or driven (as per the "planners" in your post, 
in a sense) by karma (exoterics/planning) to the extent 
that "reality" to them seems so solid and unquestioned, 
in their "basic terms," that, for the most part, they seem 
to live their entire lives in the grip of maya, karma, 
"accepted reality," or, as in your case re the "planners" 
re my confusing/misleading "analogy" (he he), there 
seems to be a general tendency among humans to 
follow "established trends" as if they were written in 
stone, or something. Not that I'm any different, for the 
most part.

And not that there's anything "wrong" with various 
established trends, models, Theosophies, etc, but I 
think that as in the case of Zen, for example, there are 
those who try to transcend various forms of karma and 
"ordinary reality." But seeing as I've been trying to 
refer to something that can't really be exoterized too 
well, in general, apparently, chances are, might be that 
... whatever ... 

<< I have heard black magic defined as "magic 
designed to protect you from your own karma", and, if 
you do this long enough, karma hits you hard enough to 
destroy you. Sort of like climbing a mountain; you can 
take a short-cut straight up the side, but run a high risk 
of falling down to the bottom again.>>

I tend to suspect (as per my "karma," apparently, as 
compared to "suspecting straight out"... ^:-) that "black 
magic" might (in some cases?) refer to some of what 
might be called "somewhat-troubled choices" (?) arising 
from feelings of having been cornered or short-changed 
in some or various real/"real" or imagined ways. 

Speculatively,
Mauri