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different answers to "What is Theosophy?"

Aug 22, 2004 10:38 AM
by Eldon B Tucker


Perry:

You don't necessarily have to quit the Adyar Theosophical Society.
Regardless of the official view of Theosophy held by its current
leadership, there are others at the national and local level with other
views. Some lodges may make you feel at home. In any group you may visit,
even if you don't get invited to lecture, you may make friends and give
people receptive to your ideas.

The key problem that the groups and many individuals face is how to define
Theosophy. If you puzzle over the question, "What is Theosophy," and come
up with a few answers, you may be inclined to consider the matter closed
and start actively promoting your answers to others, battling to see that
your definition wins out. This is what many do and is how the groups become
entrenched in a particular outlook, to the exclusion of other ideas and
approaches.

If, though, you let yourself become less attached to your current answer to
the question, and look upon the search for its answer as a Zen Koan which
each theosophical student has to approach and find individual answers to,
you become less concerned if this or that person agrees with you. Instead,
the concern is that they and you keep open the questioning, continuing the
quest into discovering what life is about.

To the extent that Theosophy involves a dynamic quest for understanding
life, the puzzling over its doctrines is only one aspect of the process.
From this standpoint, the books offer materials that keep us wondering
about life without getting fixed into a rigid framework of dogmatic
beliefs. Every time we think we're grasped some key doctrine, something
comes along to throw our thinking into disarray, like a Zen Master hitting
us with a stick and telling us that we're a total fool. Then we go back to
the books and find some brilliant new insight that opens a new perspective
on things.

This emphasis on an iterative approach to study, where things are
repeatedly approached from different angles, each time going a little
deeper, each time making us rethink things in a slightly different way, is
a special method of teaching the Esoteric Philosophy. I've found it
particularly well done by G. de Purucker in his FUNDAMENTALS OF THE
ESOTERIC PHILOSOPHY, which is based upon a class he held in THE SECRET
DOCTRINE at Point Loma in the 1920's. This style of teaching runs contrary
to our normal, western manner of education, where we want things in strict
outline, everything to be covered in its own chapter, presented in logical,
hierarchical order. It's something I realize I'll have to eventually learn,
if I want to become more effective in my own writings.

A second important point that needs to be recognized and accepted for
theosophical students to peacefully coexist is that there are distinct
variants of the doctrines. There is the Besant/Leadbeater, Purucker,
ULT/Blavatsky, Independent Blavatsky, and others. Each has distinctive
ideas and manner of presentation. In the Besant/Leadbeater scheme, for
instance, things are more like Spiritualism, with invisible worlds in
regular interaction with the physical and where the seven principles are
literalized as "bodies on different planes." The Point Loma approach more
closely parallels THE MAHATMA LETTERS, and has spheres of causes and
spheres of effects, with the fully conscious entity during life separating
into its composite parts at death, and we are the human Ego part, asleep in
Devachan (after a brief kamalokic purgatory) during those states. An
introductory theosophical book would have to be very simple in nature for
all the groups to agree on its content.

More complex aspects of answering, "What is Theosophy," involve who was
Blavatsky and her Teachers, what is their role in life, how does this fit
in with the metaphysics of the nature and structure of the world and how it
may be overseen and directed by higher intelligences. It's possible to
conceive of different explanations of the writings by HPB and in THE
MAHATMA LETTERS. Each theosophical group tends to have a leadership that
has come to some collective answer. (If there were two equally-balanced
competing answers and an inflexible approach to the doctrines, the group
would be rent with political civil war and one faction would be forced out,
perhaps causing a split of the organization in two.)

But why does there need to be such battling? It only arises if people
insist that their definition of "What is Theosophy" is true and must win
out over that of everyone else. One implicitly then supports one variant of
theosophical doctrines and does battle to see that the other variants are
abandoned. But why cannot one simply teach what one thinks the highest
truths, leaving others to believe as they choose? It is bad when people get
too dogmatic about their own ideas, ending up saying, "This is MY
theosophical society and YOUR ideas ARE NOT THEOSOPHY, so you HAVE TO GO."

Blavatsky and her writings are sometimes used as a basis for understanding
between the different theosophical factions. The assumption is that
everyone agrees that she was a representative of the Mahatmas, and that
anything she said was true and that everything that later people wrote had
to be consistent with it to be true. Some go as far as to say that if she
didn't write something, it could not be considered theosophical, or that
one could not write about Theosophy unless one literally included
supporting Blavatsky quotes.

But people from other theosophical backgrounds might come to different
conclusions. One might say that their later writer was also genuine, so if
there is an apparent contradiction between that writer and HPB, one would
need to suspend judgement until one knew the philosophy better. Another
might say that the two were different, but the later person was obviously
more informed. Yet others would avoid the problem altogether, simply saying
that Blavatsky's writings are too hard to understand, and recommend to
people to simply not read what she said.

Taking the writings of Blavatsky and those in THE MAHATMA LETTERS as a
yardstick to measure Theosophy presumes one has already answered the "What
is Theosophy" question a particular way, which not all people will have done.

There are two key points. One is that each person should be free to ponder
the "What is Theosophy" like a Zen Koan, being allowed to come up with his
or her own answer without external coercion to fit into a particular
belief. We can share our ideas when invited to, but still let others learn
to find truth for themselves. Our goal in a theosophical group is to set
one genuinely searching, not simply to fill their heads with a particular
set of metaphysical doctrines. The second key point is to recognize that
there are distinct variants of Theosophy, and the waters are kept unmuddied
not by our trying to destroy all books and interest in alternate variants,
but simply to classify and keep distinct the different metaphysical frameworks.

In theosophical groups, we are tolerant of the beliefs of others -- be they
Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Agnostic. We should likewise be
tolerant of other the beliefs of other variants of Theosophy -- be they
Leadbeater, Krishnamurti, Judge, Purucker, or Hartmann. Being tolerant of
such beliefs, we yet make distinction, not taking this Muslim doctrine,
that Hindu belief, and that Agnostic scientific hypothesis and saying they
are particularly what Theosophy says. We distinguish the source of our
ideas, sharing our own ideas when appropriate, but respecting the rights of
others to struggle through their own search for understanding and truth.

-- Eldon

At 09:13 PM 8/20/2004, you wrote:
Hello Eldon,
I enjoyed your post it covers many of the points I've been tussling
with myself since my discovery of all these issues in the TS.
Do I stay or do I go was a big issue for me.
The initial emotion responce is you feel outraged and see an injustice
that you want to see it addressed.
After all "there's no Religion higher than Truth".

Then you realise how much history is involved and the massive amount
of careful overhauling the society would have to go though in order to
address these issues.
This would take the pro-active co-operation of the leadership.

We can't I feel ignore the influence of the LCC in this respect while
its influence is not really present prima facie in the Lodges I still
think quite a few people of influence within the TS are also involved
in the church even if on the periphery (anyone who knows differently
please correct me)
People involved in the LCC work very hard in the Church (I know I was
involved for a period myself) they are lovely people and very
committed, so if the info about CWL and AB was to come under serious
challenge in the TS by default this would inpact in the LCC and to a
lesser degree Co-Freemasonry, although there numbers are dwindling the
stalwarts may still have plenty of influence at higher levels in the
society.(interested to see what others think)

So all these considerations come in to play.
As Ive said before not an easy ask at all.

The so-called 'back to Blavatsky-ites' are seen as narrow minded
Blavatsky dogmatists which to me is a complete and utter red herring.

But back to what your post was saying is it 'better' for someone like
myself who has seen though the deception of CWL to defer and stand
aside and vote with my feet or do I take a pro-active stance within
the society?

For me its been a real dilemma, I feel a certain sense of duty to not
so much the society but to the teachings to make sure that members are
aware that CWLs and ABs theosophy is not only different but infact
contradicts those originally given out.

Not in any kind of paternalistic or dogmatic way at all but simply to
offer and show the original from the alternitive versions and leave it
up to members to decide.

My decission to resign was really after feeling that the task is to
great without the support of the Leadership who seem to be completely
disinterested in these issues and you are only met with either silence
or denial.
When I resigned knowone asked me why or showed any concern and I was a
very active member.

So maybe moving on is the only way?




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