Lucifer7, September 2008
Contents
New online
Short Quotes
Editorial
Mediumship a Physiological Phenomenon, H.P. Blavatsky
Dana Paramita - The Perfection Beyond Giving, Muriel Daw
To Know Theosophy
Inner Strength
Correspondence on Love
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All Considering. Posts in August:
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Short Quotes
Talbot Mundy, Queen Cleopatra
"This little life we lead on earth is but a school for
courage. If we learn
more courage when the game is losing, or is lost, should we then envy
the
apparent winner?"
The Sikh Japji
"Men do not become saints and sinner by merely calling
themselves so.
The recording angels take with them a record of man's acts.
It is he himself soweth, and he himself eateth."
Buddha, Dhammapada, Translation Juan Mascaro
334 If a man watches not for NIRVANA, his cravings grow like a creeper
and he jumps from death to death like a monkey in the forest from one
tree without fruit to another.
Children should above all be taught self-reliance, love for all men,
altruism, mutual charity, and, more than anything else, to think and
reason for themselves. We would reduce the purely mechanical
work of the memory to an absolute
minimum, and devote the time to the development and training of the
inner
senses, faculties and latent capacities . . . . We should aim at
creating
free men and women, free intellectually, free morally, unprejudiced in
all
respects, and, above all things, unselfish.
Mediumship a Physiological Phenomenon
The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky, Volume 1, p. 306-7
Mediumism is by no means an indication of a man's holiness. It is
merely
a physiological phenomenon. Usually, the better the medium, the more
delicate
he is; yet it is not disease that comes as a result of mediumism, but
the
latter as a result of bodily weakness, of shattered nerves. The walls
of
the prison being down, the soul will find it easier to tear itself away
and
go forth into free space. A man may be a blackguard, like H---, and be
the
greatest of mediums, but in this case his soul will be obsessed by
other
souls, more or less sinful, in accord with the quality of his own; as
is
the pastor, so is the parish. But there are thousands of shades of
mediumism,
and they cannot all be enumerated in a letter. All the ancient
philosophers
knew this, and shunned mediumism to such an extent that it was strictly
forbidden
to admit mediums to the Eleusinian and other Mysteries: those who had a
"familiar
spirit." Socrates was higher and purer than Plato; yet the latter was
initiated
into the Mysteries, while Socrates was rejected, and in the course of
time
he was even doomed to die, because, though not initiated into the
Mysteries,
he revealed a part of them to the world through the agency of his daimonion,
of which he himself was not consciously aware.
Dana Paramita - The Perfection Beyond Giving
Muriel Daw, Paramitas Of Perfection, Blavatsky Lecture 1987,
TPH-London, p. 7
[The Paramitas are 10 virtues as enumerated in Buddhist
literature.
H.P. Blavatsky, one of the founders of the Theosophical Society, uses
six of these (adding a seventh that is not usually in the list of
paramitas) in her classic 'The Voice of the Silence'. Muriel Daw,
comments on the ten Buddhist virtues using references from Blavatsky.
The Dana Paramita is the paramita of giving, or generosity.]
Traditionally there are four kinds of Giving: the ordinary giving of
material goods; the special gift of teaching; the great gift of
fearlessness; and the secret gift of giving away oneself. If we can
only give away all sense of separate self, then nothing remains but
sheer joy.
As far as the gift of Material things is concerned, Madame Blavatsky
told us in The Key to Theosophy: When you give, give with your own
hands, not through someone else. (*) Such advice is all part of the
training. These ideas were not set down in all the great religions as
any kind of pious sentimentalism. They exist for good hard practical
reasons.
The special symbol for Dana, the Perfection of Giving, is Liquorice
Root. A sweet is always a pleasant thing to offer, but this is also
medicine. In this way we learn that only if we give what is both wanted
and needed will it be helpful. Examples are only too common of things
being given that are wanted but not needed, and the other way around.
Even right at the beginning, we can all try to make one voluntary gift
- attentiveness, with no thought of oneself at all. To listen fully and
attentively is a sharing, and is of far more value than a mental
consideration of the problem, and then advice 'If I were you ...'. In
this separate sense I am not you, and never will be. No one can solve
another's problems. Attentive listening is a gift which strenghtens the
troubled one, and offers a mirror to help him solve his own problems.
(*) See page 244 in the 1968 edition.
To Know Theosophy
The Path, February, 1888.
You say that for three years you have been endeavoring to study
Theosophy.
Such being the case, you will meet with but little
success. Divine
Wisdom can not be a subject for study, but it may be an object of
search.
With the love for this same wisdom uppermost in our hearts, we ask you
if
it would not be wiser to lay aside the study of so called Theosophy,
and
study youself. Knowing yourself you know all men, the worlds
seen and
occult, and find Theo-Sophia. One cannot absorb Theosophy as a sponge
does
water, to be expelled at the slightest touch. Our conception
of Theosophy
is apt to be based upon the idea that it is an especial line of
teaching
- a larger, wider, and greater doctrine than others perhaps, but still
a
doctrine, and therefore limited. We must bear in mind that the true
Theosophist
belongs to no cult or sect, yet belongs to each and all; that
he can
find the true object of his search equally well in the Hebrew bible and
in
the Yoga philosophy, in the New Testament as well as in the
Bhagavad-Gita.
Inner Strength
If
you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills,
If
you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If
you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If
you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If
you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time,
If
you can overlook when people take things out on you when,
through
no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If
you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If
you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If
you can conquer tension without medical help,
If
you can relax without liquor,
If
you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If
you can do all these things,
Then
you are probably the family dog.
Correspondence on Love
Michael
Evans
Just a note to say hello and thank you for all the effort you have put
into this site. real generosity, greatly appreciated. have you read
R.D. Liang's book The Politics of Experience? Could not a different
path of conditioning our children bring about a world attitude in time
that could be the very essence of what people like Krishnamurti comment
about. Knowing who we are, what we are doing and why we are doing it?
Is the quote below valid to you. Think Liang is correct here in what he
says:
"In order to rationalize our
industrial-military complex, we have to destroy our capacity to see
clearly any more what is in front of, and to imagine what is beyond,
our noses. Long before a thermonuclear war can come about, we have had
to lay waste to our own sanity. We begin with the children. It is
imperative to catch them in time. Without the most thorough and rapid
brainwashing their minds would see through our dirty tricks. Children
are not yet fools, but we shall turn them into imbeciles like
ourselves, with high I.Q.'s, if possible.
From the
moment of birth, when the Stone Age baby confronts the
twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to those forces of
violence, called love, as its mother and father, and their parents and
their parents before them, have been. These forces are mainly concerned
with destroying most of its potentialities, and on the whole this
enterprise is successful. By the time the new human being is fifteen or
so, we are left with a being like ourselves, a half-crazed creature
more or less adjusted to a mad world. This is normality in our present
age.
Love and violence, properly
speaking, are
polar opposites. Love lets the other be, but with affection and
concern. Violence attempts to constrain the other's freedom, to force
him to act in the way we desire, but with ultimate lack of concern,
with indifference to the other's own existence or destiny.
We are effectively destroying
ourselves by violence masquerading as love."
So much we do is done without any reflection at all. Reaction. So many
aspects of life are just overlooked. We use words to communicate, give
them meaning which, in many cases, is not accurate. So many examples.
Take the word Justice. In America with its Christian roots that word
means to be right, to be fair. That is how a dictionary would define
justice. So here in the USA, when the state executes a condemned man,
they say "Justice has been done." Where is the rightness and fairness
in killing a living being? How do those that loved the condemned man
get justice from his death? How do those that loved the victim realize
justice by the state killing someone? So, in the USA we use the word
justice when in fact we mean punishment, extracting a pound of flesh
for a perceived wrong, retribution, vengeance, etc. As H. I. Khan said
"justice is knowing when to say I must not do. this." Is that alone not
fair and right? If we are going to take the path of conditioning folks
let us at least do it so that at least some of the skills to live a
life full of love and understanding have been placed into our childrens
minds?
Thanks again for the lovely
site. me ke aloha pumehana, michael evans
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