Theos-Talk Archives (December 2000 Message tt00049)

You can ask me Daniel, but i think this article reflects the views 
of many serious students of Buddhism today. We should be 
cognizant of this and as i've urged in the past, review the work 
that's going on today... new translations and many of the works 
in English published by Tibetans themselves. The material that 
can't be supported by careful scholarship needs to be scuttled if 
we're to have a meaningful dialogue with serious students and 
seekers.

I sense that there was considerable naivete on the part of the 
founders of our movement over a hundred years ago. Recall the 
attempted marriage of the TS with the Swami Dayananda's Arya 
Samaj. I still think a valuable service was provided India by the 
TS but it was not without it's difficulties.

Very few early Theosophists practised Hatha Yoga and I still 
read the old arguments against Hatha Yoga for instance that 
were written say sixty years ago and yet Hatha Yoga has become 
a very strong movement in the USA with people ready to explore 
the ancient wisdom tradition, but many of us are so behind in the 
times, we do not respond to this need or interest.

Instead of living in the past and delving in who saw a "Mahatma" 
and who did not, we need to move on... consign these things that 
have no real utility to "of historical interest only" and move into the 
twenty first century with our basic theosophic principles.

- Arthur Gregory



--- In theos-talk@egroups.com, "Blavatsky Archives" <info@b...> 
wrote:
> 
> I ask Art and others: how many mistakes can
> you find in this extract BELOW from "Ficitious Tibet"?
> 
> For example, it would appear that the writer of this
> article believes that one of the
> Masters was known by a "semi-fictitious name":
> 
> "H Master K" 
> 
> Who has ever seen this name in theosophical
> literature? Why does he put it in italics?
> 
> Does he mean Master KH? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Daniel
> 
> "One of the most annoying 
> features in the "M Letters" (M for Master) is her use of 
> semi-fictitious names, like "H Master K" (Koot Humi). There is, 
of 
> course, no such name in an Indian language or in Tibetan. But 
in 
> the Upanishads, there is a minor rishi mentioned by the 
> obviously non-Indo-European name Kuthumi. Just where she 
> picked it up I don't know but I suspect she might have seen 
R.E. 
> Hume's Twelve Principal Upanishads which was first 
published 
> by Oxford University Press in the late '80s of the 19th century. 
The 
> silly spelling "Koot Hoomi" was probably due to the occidental 
> mystery peddlers' desire to make words sound more 
interesting 
> by splitting them into a quasi-Chinesse series of letters. The 
> Master Letters signed "K" are quite clearly Blavatsky's own 
> invention; no Indian or Tibetan recluse talks or writes like the 
> European feuilleton writer of the early 20th century. In a 
passage, 
> "K" (for Koot Hoomi) criticizes a writer for saying that "the 
sacred 
> man wants the gods to be properly worshipped, a healthy life 
> lived, and women loved." "K" comments "the sacred man 
wants 
> no such thing, unless he is a Frenchman." The inane stupidity 
> that must have gone into the early converts actually believing 
that 
> an Indian or Tibetan guru would use these European 
> stereogibes is puzzling. Yet again mundus vult decipi, and if 
the 
> average Western alien feels she or he can get to the esoteric 
> goods, she or he tends to lower the level of skepticism to a 
> virtual zero."
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------
> Daniel H. Caldwell
> info@b...
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