Theos-Talk Archives (January 2008 Message tt00227)

Hi Nigel C,
I think this is a very important point you make here: 
"The use of "personal" experience as our ultimate 
determinant for that which is "right" or "wrong" can be 
a highly flawed process."

Cass and I have mentioned in recent postings 
experiencing an instant affinity with particular 
teachings/philosophies, which may be a reconnecting 
with the Ancient Wisdom - or, indeed, may be 
something else.  It is always worth examining the nature 
of these experiences, especially if there is an emotional 
aspect attached to the experience.  Our personality loves 
to feel 'nice' and of course 'right' about these matters.
Socrates was spot on when he talked about the futility 
of the unexamined life.

Thank you Nigel for your insightful postings recently, 
they keep one on one's toes!

Kind regards,

Nigel H


--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "nhcareyta" <nhcareyta@...> wrote:
>
> The use of  "personal" experience as our ultimate determinant for 
> that which is "right" or "wrong" can be a highly flawed process.
> 
> After all, how much and which part of our self makes these 
> determinations? More often than not, isn't it our heavily programmed, 
> habit conditioned personality, founded in its inherited and acquired 
> fears, preferences, attachments and identifications? 
> To continually insist on ourselves and our experience to be our final 
> arbiter, can in itself be just another strong dogma, one perhaps 
> lacking humility and potentially possessing not an inconsiderable 
> amount of fear-based pride.
> 
> How are we to approach the works of Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr or 
> Pauli, each giants in their field? Yes, they made mistakes, but are 
> we to diminish or even devalue the profundity of their pronouncements 
> simply because we have not experienced or perhaps even understood for 
> ourselves their mental discoveries? Are we even to consider ourselves 
> on an equal footing, insisting that we will accept nothing they have 
> written and proven until we "discover" or "experience" it for 
> ourselves?
> 
> Of course we need guard against blindly following another's 
> pronouncements and we need keep open our mind for new discoveries and 
> new ways of looking at things. In potential we are told we each have 
> unlimited capacities. But let us not presume from our programmed, 
> possibly arrogant, mundane mind that we are all equal in mental and 
> spiritual functioning at this point in time.
> 
> Madame Blavatsky and her teachers maintained an age-old tradition, 
> that of endeavouring to bring the inexpressible truths of life into 
> the vernacular and mental culture of the day. We are told 
> the "unthinkable and unspeakable" cannot be written or spoken, 
> therefore a structure is erected by mental, and in this case, 
> spiritual giants in an attempt to ferry us to the "other shore." It 
> is available for us to accept or reject; it is for us to choose our 
> direction and method; it is for us to do the paddling; it is even for 
> us to build the boat. What they have done is provide what some 
> empiricists might consider a less than perfectly described schematic, 
> which however, with deep study and continued application might become 
> apparent to us, and which may indeed assist us in our attempts to 
> uncover the actual process and purpose of life in this dimension of 
> existence.
> 
> If we cannot, or do not wish to recognise that Madame Blavatsky and 
> her teachers possessed extraordinary and demonstrable fore-knowledge, 
> knowledge and occult abilities, then that is our choice. If we choose 
> to focus on what we believe or perceive to be shortcomings, that too 
> we are free to do. Were they absolutely accurate and correct in all 
> they said and did? Are there other traditions which may work for the 
> same "type" of western-minded person? Perhaps or perhaps not, the 
> empirical western mind's clamouring for dotted i's and crossed t's 
> possibly blinding us from that which truly is. But to consider some 
> of those who followed in their name to have equal credibility in this 
> field of expertise is a matter for considerable debate. To consider 
> ourselves as having equal credibility, from our personal experience, 
> is perhaps just a little presumptuous?
> 
> Nigel C
>