Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00272)

Jerry: "More recently I have been studying Buddhism, and have come to
discover that a lot of Evans-Wentz is just Evans-Wentz. Anyway, John
Reynolds has a long historical discussion of Evans-Wentz in an 
appendix to his Self-Liberation Through Seeing with Naked Awareness 
(Snow Lion) which is his own translation of The Great Liberation of 
Hearing that Evans-Wentz published. Renolds strongly objects, not to 
Kandup's translation so much as to Evanz-Wentz's interpretation in 
his commentary and footnotes"

Brigitte: Yes, and it wasn't really Evanz-Wentz's fault, because as
Blavastky was a child of here time, the 19th century ( unfortunately 
some ignorant people will trow the wildest accusations at others and 
rather believe Hitler is still flying around in a UFO ready to land 
for a cosmic D Day, then they would believe Blavatsky did indeed work 
from 19th century and not only ancient atlantean sources as 
Reitemeyer and Alan Williams want others to believe. And make those 
who only want to find the real Blavatsky look
like Blavatsky bashers ) the same is with Wentz, he was a child of his
time, but in fact attempted to make a bridge from his initial 
Theosophical approach to, authentic Buddhist teachings, be it that he
ended up projecting theosophical theories into his findings.

And there is noting wrong with that, just (if you'd ask me why I am
studying what I am studying, personally) I like to discover what is 
really going on with all of this both from a personal development 
point of view,and a historical, wich for me go hand in hand. In fact 
once it occurred to me that in case of say ingenieurs who develop 
airplanes will also each time not start with inventing the weel or 
build test planes like those of the Wright brothers again, they 
recognize what has been developed so far and that way can move beyond 
that. And maybe we cannot make the compairance to extreme as we deal 
also deal with certain skills that need to be developed.
But people that have an interest in the esoteric often indeed make the
same mistakes or on a practical level waist their time on things that
people like Olcott and Blavatky (plus many others of course) already 
went through (to give extreme examples say smoking hashish or get 
drunk, as I once saw Hinayana Buddhists let lay people do, to "see" 
something), and so for me studying the history of esoteric taught and 
the actions of these people even going as far back as van Helmont or 
Mesmer teaches me about the esoteric and the spiritual now.
There are also sociological aspects to be learned from looking back in
order to be able to move better forwards, as an example the 
representation of the "other" in Edward Said's work "Orientalism" 
1978,
which addresses the fundamental way in which European culture has 
treated and represented the Orient during the post-Enlightenment 
period. Because Tibet lay just above British India, it was 
inescapable that Tibet would also loom large in political and 
cultural imagination not the least due to Blavatsky's legends about 
the Mahatmas.

Early translators such as Evens-Wentz and Herbert Guenther, have 
added to the popularity of Buddhism and with John Blofeld
soon leaving for China and writing his first popular book, also 
Taoism next.

Jerry: "Now, if Blavatsky's source was Tibetan, then she was 
apparently unaware of Tzongkhapa's teachings, and also apparently 
unaware of the time monads (partless increments of time). So, it 
seems reasonable to conclude that her sources for monads were 
elsewhere."

Also the theory of the 5 and 8 skandhas, as taught in Buddhism,
didn't show up in Blavatsky's writings (as far I have seen) until 
after,she had lived in India, next Germany and Oostende, and finally 
had moved to London.
In late Blavatskyan Theosophy the Skandas are variously called
"life-atoms" , "impulse-seeds" , "fateful germs of karmic consequence
","little-lives", "seeds of the actions performed". Blavatsky did 
later attempt to project the skandas into her overral tree of life 
schema , but that was not yet what she was doing in Isis Unveiled it 
seems.
Brigitte
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/4431

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/4716

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/4427

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/4718

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/4439

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/4410

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/4427

--- In theos-talk@y..., "Gerald Schueler" <gschueler@e...> wrote:
> Brigitte, thanks for the info on Tibet even if it means the 
unlikelihood of any initiation there.
> 
> <<<From an e-mail of Paul Johnson: "In fact, I have no particular 
reason to prefer one explanation to another concerning how 
Blavatsky's writings became so much better informed about Tibetan 
matters in the last ten years of her life but it makes more sense
> to look at events during those years for an explanation; if she had 
acquired such information years before why are her early writings so 
ill-informed about Tibetan Buddhism?>>>
> 
> Agreed. Some of her mahayana material is accurate, but much is 
nonsense and even more Hinduism than Buddhism. Obviously her sources 
were erroneous. It was not until A. David-Neel that more accurate 
info concerning Tibet was made public. David-Neel, who was a 
Theosophist for a time, discovered many of Blavatsky's errors by 
talking to Tibetans.
> 
> 
> <<<Also in 1875 and 1876 there was not an elaborate and well-
publicized body of claims about Mahatmas to be justified and 
defended, as there was after 1881.>>>
> 
> She needed the publicity to get the TS started. Her whole Mahatma 
business is esoterically true, but not literally true, and while she 
clearly understood the difference, I doubt that others would have, so 
she remained silent.
> 
> 
> <<<My version of Theosophical reality is open-ended and ever-
changing.>>>
> 
> Mine too.
> 
> 
> 
> <<I consider the passages from HPB and K.H. about the visit to 
Sikkim to be disinformation, and various claims about M. and K.H. 
living in Tibet appear to belong to the same category, 
> Was the home of K.H. in Ladakh, Kashmir, or Shigatse? HPB tells 
Hollis-Billings Ladakh, but tells Sinnett and Hartmann Shigatse. 
Damodar tells Judge it is in Kashmir. Was the headquarters of
> the Masters in Ladakh or Tibet? Damodar tells Judge one thing in 
1884, but Mohini writes another in *The Theosophist* the very same 
year. Such discrepancies suggest that whatever the truth of the 
matter, Theosophical claims about Tibet are riddled with 
disinformation.">>>
> 
> Agreed. This is, I think, Paul's conclusion as well. 
> The biggest fault that I can find with Blavatsky's Buddhism is her 
continuous reification, which no Buddhist would ever do. This has led 
to a great deal of misunderstanding in her students over the last one 
hundred years, and is causing a great deal of bad feeling today with 
Buddhists. But, its probably too late now to do much about it. To 
Blavatsky, Theosophy was a living spirit that seeked to find and 
discuss truth. To her, Theosophists were anyone who had this spirit 
in their heart. Today it is a religion with sacred teachings, 
rituals, the elect, and so on. On the other hand, this is pretty much 
the way that human nature works. Kinda depressing.
> 
> Jerry S.
> --