Theos-Talk Archives (September 2004 Message tt00371)

Hello Everyone,
My experience with the different groups and religions that I've had 
come into contact with in my life has shown that no matter what 
tradition you look at with the view of finding human foible's its in 
all of them.
Many of the traditions when you look closely into them have common 
themes or ideas at there core.
So you can look at the personalities involved in the formation of 
these different traditions and / or the ideas presented in those 
traditions.
In the case of the Jehovah's Witnesses teachings while having major 
issues with the organization and blind belief /authoritarian mindset 
it develops I have on the other hand found in my personal studying of 
esoteric philosophy that I can draw quite interesting similarities in 
some of the concepts of the JWs and the Bible although from a more 
symbolic and metaphysical perspective, that of course would never be 
accepted by a JW as being valid but none the less the correlations 
are there.

With CLW while I happen to think much of what he wrote was invented 
or imaginary some of his writings on the spiritual path are quite 
insightful in some areas and the same can be said of Annie Besant.
(Talks on the path of Occultism have some very good information in 
them on the spiritual path)

Personalities muck up lets face it, we are in the depths of the Kali 
Yuga or so were told so we are really up against it.
We have natures that are still very attached to the `animal 
propensities' so perhaps compassion is needed as well as an honest 
facing up to facts as they come to light.

These spiritual ideas seems to repeat themselves and come out in 
spite of the `flawed' human elements involved.
These core ideas I think are what are important and perhaps keep 
repeating themselves because in spite of our weaknesses we have a 
deep inner spiritual awareness that is struggling to make itself 
heard.

For me its more of a stretch of faith to say that the spiritual 
element does not exist than that it doesn't exist for the simple 
reason that it has been such a common experience in all cultures and 
times.
Maybe that's naïve but some inner voice seems to tell me that, 
rightly or wrongly.
The human being has a creative and exploring nature that won't be 
denied and no matter how strong the downward pull of elementary 
survival/desire nature, its still there all be it perhaps misguided 
and `missing the mark' in many respects.

This to me is why I think we need to remember that we all struggle 
and fall, we all succumb the various things that human beings can get 
attached to.
This I feel in CWLs case was a common trait in Victorian English 
society of wanting to be part of the elite ("a would be if he could 
be") and be accepted as such.
Having a sense of inadequacy because of his social background he 
invented a false one to compensate or strong desire to be "special" 
or to have power and "respect".
These are all common traits we all can fall prey to in different 
forms, so as I think compassion and understanding need to always come 
into the equation even though we don't need to condone the behavior, 
but always have compassion and understanding for the person .

Perry