Theos-Talk Archives (November 2005 Message tt00223)

Hi Paul,

Good to "hear" from you. Hoping all is well in your part of the 
world.

You always put a sharp finger on the point in question, and I 
appreciate that. "Come to a conclusion" is a fairly sweeping way of 
saying something more like "sort it out a bit." If the study of 
occultism has brought me anything, it is an awareness that I really 
don't know much about anything. Someone famous once said it. The more 
I know the more I know I don't know. But there are guidelines. I find 
myself putting the indigestible bits in a mental storage file, to be 
chewed over later and possibly digested. Or not. But I also have 
learned not to reject anything out of hand. What can it hurt? If it 
is a matter of a tiger leaping at me in the jungle, a quick judgement 
is desireable, assuming it would be possible to be quick enough. 
Perhaps a last Zen chuckle would be all that was required. But at 
least the awareness of danger would be appropriate. But some kid 
sitting under a tree all day on the other side of the world? 
Meditating? Right there I am in awe, I who can barely sit still for 
ten minutes, much less meditate in any way I understand to relate to 
the meaning of the word. He may be the worst kind of charlatan, 
or...? My own personal mental jury is still out. But of course that 
doesn't say anything about anyone else's. Some of the comments are a 
riot, I must say, particularly the one about the hole in the head. I 
see what I fully consciously call "new-age types" all the time and 
sometimes can barely contain my desire to set them right. I do 
sympathize. Usually it seems to me that they are not pernicious, just 
a bit misguided. But again, that's what I think. And you know, from 
the perspective of a few years, tidily tucked under my belt, I have 
to say that every once in awhile, one of the indigestible bits that I 
stashed in my mental files a long time ago will have a way of 
suddenly and unexpectedly slipping into the vast mosaic of my 
perceived reality and fitting perfectly in a place I had almost given 
up on ever figuring out. Usually with the result that the enigma 
simply progresses to yet another level of complexity, but it's just a 
process. There are really only a few things to remember, IMHO. Unity 
of all Life, Cyclic nature of life, Botherhood, Sisterhood. 
Compassion. That's a start. Measure anything against one of those 
basics and it begins to delineate nicely. For the moment, anyway. 

Keep on keeping us honest!
All the bast,
Adelasie

On 29 Nov 2005 at 16:08, kpauljohnson wrote:

> Dear Adelasie,
> 
My response to this is that "come to any conclusion" can mean 
> different things, and it's not easily avoidable given the way our
> brains are wired. Conclusions can be tentative, and in any case are
> mostly unconscious. We do tend to sort new information as more or
> less plausible based on past experience, whether or not we are
> conscious of doing so. On the face of it, "survives for months
> without eating" is implausible and one can be very open-minded and
> still say so. Impossible is a strong word, and even with something
> that far-fetched I'd be reluctant to use it. 
> 
> Hugh seems to suggest that the injunction by Jesus not to judge means
> that we should refrain from *making* negative judgments based on
> partial information. I don't think that is possible, as we are wired
> to do just that, to recognize danger from small signals. On the other
> hand, to *state* our subjective negative judgments as objective facts
> about someone else-- that's where the bad karma Jesus warns against
> kicks in. Telling people they are unfit to be Theosophists strikes me
> as problematic in that way. So is making sweeping negative judgments
> of the spiritual status of an entire class of people labeled
> "skeptics" and "debunkers."
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Paul