Theos-Talk Archives (November 1995 Message tl00525)

Eldon Thank you for your patient and as usual thoughtful response. You
are far more willing to give the benefit of the doubt and see gray in those
words which would imply black and white. I in all honesty don't believe
the quotes I pulled from various posts were out of context. They fairly
straightforwardly stated the beliefs of the participants i.e. 1Theosophy
offers no practices to follow 02 Theosophy offers little that is
spiritually nourishing and 03 self-sacrifice duty and good works will not
lead to knowledge and power.

Regarding 01 spiritual practices: I completely understand what you say
about practices and ritual being available in other "religions". But let's
consider our Theosophy for a moment. We all agree it was given out Adepts
Masters etc. those people who have learned and mastered the forces of
nature know the how and why of the universe. To these we attibute
knowledge power and universally beneficial motives. If this is the case
they either:

a gave the practices and the Path to follow which some are ingnoring OR
b deliberately did not give out the practices for good reason and
examining why will lead to a certain enlightenment.

I believe both are true. So to those who say there are no practices to
follow I am saying "You are not seeing or chosing to ignore what was given
to you" and to the second possibility "There is a reason why those others
were withheld from us and we can learn a great deal by striving to
understand why." Therefore when there are lamentations complaints and
protests about no practices to follow people are not thinking. And are we
sure we know the forces aroused by practice and ritual? Our survival is at
stake because those forces will surely crush us or worse someone else if
undertaken without knowledge and the purest of motives. HPB said we must be
the thorough master of the blunt instrument before we wield the sharper lest
we cause nothing but harm.

Regarding 02 Spiritual nourishment: Perhaps we need to spend some time
trying to discover what this means. Personally I find Theosophy highly
spiritually nourishing but what is it that others are seeking and not
finding? We are told we are immortal in essence that this is a Universe of
Law that we have made ourselves and have the power to continue to make and
change ourselves that there is justice in the world that no one will punish
us save ourselves that there is no hell except that which we create here
and that love and harmony are the true ways of nature. It seems to me that
these briefly stated items are what people are really looking for in life
and in understanding and internalizing these based on the boundless evidence
provided in Theosophy is the ultimate spiritual nourishment. What am I
missing?

Regarding 03 Self-sacrifice and the performance of Duty: These have been
rejected by some as the path for us to follow that closely tied to #2 we
need practices and gurus to gain knowledge and power. Here we first have to
revert to the fact that this is a Universe of Law one of which is the law of
attraction and repulsion. From this we can safely say that a true guru
Master etc. works with the laws of nature. Are we not told that when we are
ready the master will appear being attracted by the force we are eminating?
If there is one of us ready for our "Teacher" to appear would they hesitate
for a moment to do so? By Law they could not. So what we need to do is
ready ourselves putting ourselves in rapport with nature and with them. If
we can not so much as give of ourselves without hesitation put ourselves
last for the benefit of others and in so doing sense the UNITY which exists
in life there is no possibility for them to appear.

HPB and the ML's speak of the terrible trials to be endured by the Chela
chief of which is putting the sense of self me I absolutely last
willingly enduring all that may come without the personality raising its ugly
head. Every chink in our nature is drawn out in the probationary period. We
should daily watch for the smallest appearance of our personality because
when it appears it is usually due to selfishness and dwelling on the impact
some action has on US. So our Duty is to help any and all in what ever way
we can putting ourselves last for surely this will be required of us at
some point. And not just to have pleasant surroundings in a future life.
But that in so doing we come to realize the meaning of service ever
watching the results so that we may learn the laws of life and nature.
Through service and duty come power and knowledge.

Thank you

P.S. There really is nothing wrong with what you call "cite-ism" when we use
those words of others to provide the basis of our thinking and when those
words make points so powerfully and succinctly. Many are those who don't
even know what HPB says so this is also a good way to provide that service.