Theos-Talk Archives (May 2004 Message tt00208)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@s...> wrote:


> And isn't the "essential oneness of all existence" a belief, 
and 
> possibly even a dogma? I suspect that you are describing A 
theosophy, as 
> opposed to theosophy in general. Here's a description of 
theosophy 
> that works well with Westerners:
> 
> In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth. What 
was he 
> thinking? Theosophy is the attempt to find out.


The late Ianthe Hoskins, a well-known lecturer for the English 
Section of the (Adyar) TS, once mentioned that "belief is the tomb of 
truth". Theosophy, as a teaching, can be reduced to a set of beliefs, 
generate hard and fast dogmas, divide people and groups, and make the 
human mind quite small.

I was not referring to "a theosophy" but to Theosophy itself. I think 
Origen's metaphor about the scriptures also applies to Theosophy. He 
wrote that like the human being, scriptures have a body, a soul and a 
spirit - the body is their literal meaning, the soul the metaphoric 
or parabolic one, but the spirit can only be known by those "who have 
the mind of Christ".

Similarly, perhaps the body of Theosophy is the universal and 
immemorial teachings of the Wisdom Tradition, its soul is Altruism 
and its spirit an experience of things as they are in themselves
(epopteia).

BTW, I don't think the Judeo-Christian God is a "He". I think They 
are Host (Elohim) and the universe is an experience in Their minds.

Pedro