Lucifer7, august 2003
Contents
Short quote
Editorial
New on Katinkahesselink.net
To the readers of 'Lucifer', by
H.P. Blavatsky
Krishnamurti on the observer and the observed
A few quotes on sex
Sufi Story (Nasrudin)
Letters
from friends
-------
Say not, "I have found the
path of the soul"
Say rather, "I have met the soul walking
upon my path."
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
( For more of such, see: http://www.katinkahesselink.net/squote/
)
-------
Editorial
When
starting this newsletter I had only one doubt: I thought the numerical
worth of the date was not auspicious. (though 31/7/2003 does add up to
seven in the end: 3+1+7+2+3=16 1+6=7). Still, I did not like the six
appearing. But a correspondent noted (see below) july 31st is actually
Blavatsky's birthday,
so the omen does seem good. Especially as I will try to emulate
Blavatsky's
attitude to editing (see her article further on.)
Lucifer7 is started as both a means of keeping people updated on the
changes on my web site (www.katinkahesselink.net) as well as a medium
for discussing things independently from other theosophical journals.
There will be some overlap between the newsletter and the web site. The
newsletter will certainly be as varied in content as the web site. I
hope to publish light things: quotes, jokes and stories, as well as
heavier material: articles by Blavatsky, Krishnamurti quotes, material
from Buddhist literature, Sufi literature (and whatever traditions I am
forgetting) as well as contemporary material from whatever spiritual
tradition. The sifting will mainly be in the question: is this
interesting, does this add something? The sifting will not be (as it
isn't on my web site either): do I personally agree with this? Do I
personally think this is likely? We can learn as much from those things
we don't agree with as we can from those we do. The material does have
to appear to be honest and fair.
As I said when inviting
people to subscribe to this newsletter: contributions are invited!
These will be edited where I see fit. If they are too long, I will
consider publishing them online and putting an abstract in this
newsletter.
As soon as there are letters from
readers, these will get their own section in this newsletter. The
editor retains the right to shorten these as she sees fit. Lucifer7
will probably appear irregularly for the present. I think it will
appear at most once a month.
Katinka Hesselink
-------
New on Katinkahesselink.net
Christian Jokes:
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/jokes_c.html
Theosophical Jokes:
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/jokes_t.html
Lectures by professor P. Krishna (from the Krishnamurti Foundation
India and the Theosophical Society - Adyar)
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/pkrishna1.html
N. Sri Ram on ambition
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/SriRam_ambition.html
The sutra of Hui Neng (6th patriarch of Zen Buddhism)
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/hui_neng1.html
A quote from Manual of Zen Buddhism D.T. Suzuki
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/tao_buddha.html
A famous Sutra by de Buddha (Kalama Sutra), where he explains when to
trust an 'authority' and thinking for yourself.
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/kalama.html
In Dutch:
Lodge Groningen has put its program for
the new season online:
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/theosofie_nl/gr/
Four quotes by the 6th patriarch have been added to 'Een Boeddha Hoekje'
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/boeddha/
-------
"TO THE READERS OF 'LUCIFER"'
Article by H. P.
Blavatsky
OUR magazine is only four numbers old, and already
its young life is full of cares and trouble. This is all as it should
be; i.e., like every other publication, it must fail to satisfy all its
readers, and this is only in the nature of things and the destiny of
every printed organ. But what seems a little strange in a country of
culture and free thought is that Lucifer should receive such a number
of anonymous, spiteful, and
often abusive letters. This, of course, is but a casual remark, the
waste-basket in the office being the only addressee and sufferer in
this case; yet it suggests strange truths with regard to human nature.
(1)
Sincerity is true wisdom, it appears, only
to the mind of the moral philosopher. It is rudeness and insult to him
who regards dissimulation and deceit as culture and politeness, and
holds that the shortest, easiest, and safest way to success is to let
sleeping dogs and old customs alone. But, if the dogs are obstructing
the highway to progress and truth, and Society will, as a rule, reject
the wise words of (St.) Augustine, who recommends that "no man should
prefer custom before reason and truth," is it a sufficient cause for
the philanthropist to walk out of, or even deviate from, the
track of truth, because the selfish egoist chooses to do so? Very true,
as remarked somewhere by Sir Thomas Browne, that not every man is a
proper
champion for the truth, nor fit to take up the gauntlet in its cause.
Too
many of such defenders are apt, from inconsideration and too much zeal,
to charge the troops of error so rashly that they "remain themselves as
trophies
to the enemies of truth." Nor ought all of us (members of the
Theosophical
Society) to do so personally, but rather leave it only to those among
our
members who have voluntarily and beforehand sacrificed their
personalities
for the cause of Truth. Thus teaches us one of the Masters of Wisdom in
some
fragments of advice which are published further on for the benefit of
the
Theosophists (see the article that follows this(2)). While enforcing
upon
such public characters in our ranks as editors, and lecturers, etc.,
the
duty of telling fearlessly "the Truth to the face of LIE," he yet
condemns
the habit of private judgment and criticism in every individual
Theosophist.
Unfortunately, these are not the ways of the
public and readers.
Since our journal is entirely unsectarian, since it is neither theistic
nor atheistic, Pagan nor Christian, orthodox nor heterodox, therefore,
its editors discover eternal verities in the most opposite religious
systems
and modes of thought. Thus Lucifer fails to give full satisfaction to
either infidel or Christian. In sight of the former whether he be an
Agnostic,
a Secularist, or an Idealist-to find divine or occult lore underlying
"the rubbish" in the Jewish Bible and Christian Gospels is sickening;
in
the opinion of the latter, to recognise the same truth as in the
Judeo-Christian
Scriptures in the Hindu, Parsi, Buddhist, or Egyptian religious
literature,
is vexation of spirit and blasphemy. Hence, fierce criticism from both
sides, sneers and abuse. Each party would have us on its own sectarian
side, recognising as truth, only that which its particular ism does.
But this cannot nor shall it be. Our motto was from the
first, and ever shall be: "THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN--TRUTH."
Truth we -search for, and, once found, we bring it forward before the
world, whencesoever it comes. A large majority of our readers is fully
satisfied with this
our policy, and that is plainly sufficient for our purposes.
It is evident that when toleration is not the outcome of
indifference it must arise from wide-spreading charity and large-minded
sympathy. Intolerance is pre-eminently the consequence of ignorance and
jealousy. He who fondly believes that he has got the great ocean in his
family water-jug is naturally intolerant of his neighbour, who also is
pleased to imagine that he has poured the broad expanse of the sea of
truth into his own particular pitcher. But anyone who, like the
Theosophist, knows how infinite is that ocean
of eternal wisdom, to be fathomed by no one man, class, or party, and
realizes how little the largest vessel made by man contains in
comparison to what lies dormant and still unperceived in its dark,
bottomless depths, cannot help but be tolerant. For he sees that others
have filled their little
water-jugs at the same great reservoir in which he has dipped his own,
and if the water in the various pitchers seems different to the eye, it
can only be because it is discoloured by impurities that were in the
vessel
before the pure crystalline element--a portion of the one eternal and
immutable
truth--entered into it.
There is, and can be,
but one absolute truth in Kosmos. And little as we, with our present
limitations, can understand it in its essence,
we still know that if it is absolute it must also be omnipresent and
universal; and that in such case, it must be underlying every
world-religion--the product of the thought and knowledge of numberless
generations of thinking men.
Therefore, that a portion of truth, great or small, is found in every
religious
and philosophical system, and that if we would find it, we have to
search
for it at the origin and source of every such system, at its roots and
first growth, not in its later overgrowth of sects and dogmatism. Our
object is not to destroy any religion but rather to help to filter
each, thus ridding them of their respective impurities. In this we are
opposed by all those
who maintain, against evidence, that their particular pitcher alone
contains
the whole ocean. How is our great work to be done if we are to be
impeded
and harassed on every side by partisans and zealots? It would be
already
half accomplished were the intelligent men, at least, of every sect and
system, to feel and to confess that the little wee bit of truth they
themselves
own must necessarily be mingled with error, and that their neighbours'
mistakes are, Eke their own, mixed with truth.
Free discussion, temperate, candid, undefiled by personalities and
animosity, is, we think, the most efficacious means of getting rid of
error and bringing out the underlying truth; and this applies to
publications as well as to persons. It is open to a magazine to be
tolerant or intolerant; it is open to it to err in almost every way in
which an individual can
err; and since every publication of the kind has a responsibility such
as falls to the lot of few individuals, it behooves it to be ever on
its
guard, so that it may advance without fear and without reproach. All
this
is true in a special degree in the case of a theosophical publication,
and
Lucifer feels that it would be unworthy of that designation were it not
true
to the profession of the broadest tolerance and catholicity, even while
pointing out to its brothers and neighbours the errors which they
indulge
in and follow. While thus keeping strictly, in its editorials, and in
articles
by its individual editors, to the spirit and teachings of pure
theosophy,
it nevertheless frequently gives room to articles and letters which
diverge widely from the esoteric teachings accepted by the editors, as
also by
the majority of theosophists. Readers, therefore, who are accustomed to
find in magazines and party publications only such opinions and
arguments
as the editor believes to be unmistakably orthodox--from his peculiar
standpoint-must not condemn any article in Lucifer with which they are
not entirely in accord, or in which expressions are used that may be
offensive
from a sectarian or a prudish point of view, on the ground that such
are
unfitted for a theosophical magazine. They should remember that
precisely
because Lucifer is a theosophical magazine, it opens its columns to
writers
whose views of life and things may not only slightly differ from its
own, but even be diametrically opposed to the opinion of the editors.
The object of the latter is to elicit truth, not to advance the
interest of any particular ism, or to pander to any hobbies, likes or
dislikes,
of any class of readers. It is only snobs and prigs who, disregarding
the
truth or error of the idea, cavil and strain merely over the
expressions and words it is couched in.
Theosophy, if meaning anything, means truth; and truth has to deal
indiscriminately and in the same spirit of impartiality with vessels
of honour and of dishonour alike. No theosophical publication would
ever
dream of adopting the coarse--or shall we say terribly sincere-language
of a Hosea or a Jeremiah; yet so long as those holy prophets are found
in the Christian Bible, and the
Bible is in
every respectable, pious family, whether aristocratic or plebeian; and
so long as the Bible is read with bowed head and in all reverence by
young, innocent maidens and school-boys, why should our Christian
critics fall foul of any phrase which may have to be used-if truth be
spoken at all-in an occasional article upon a scientific subject? It is
to be feared that the same sentences now found objectionable, because
referring
to Biblical subjects, would be loudly praised and applauded had they
been
directed against any gentile system of faith (Vide certain missionary
organs).
A little charity, gentle readers-charity, and above all--fairness and
JUSTICE.
Justice demands that when the reader
comes across an article in this magazine which does not immediately
approve itself to his mind by chiming in with his own peculiar ideas,
he should regard it as a problem to solve rather than as a mere subject
of criticism. Let him endeavour to learn
the lesson which only opinions differing from his own can teach him.
Let
him be tolerant, if not actually charitable, and postpone his judgment
till
he extracts from the article the truth it must contain, adding this new
acquisition to his store. One ever learns more from one's enemies than
from
one's friends; and it is only when the reader has credited this hidden
truth to Lucifer, that he can fairly presume to put what he believes to
be the efforts of the article he does not like to the debit account.
--H. P. BLAVATSKY
Lucifer, January, 1888
Footnotes
1 "VERBUM SAP." It is not Our intention to notice anonymous
communications, even though they should emanate in a round-about way
from Lambeth Palace. The matter "Verbum Sap" refers to is not one of
taste; the facts must
be held responsible for the offence; and, as the Scripture hath it,
"Woe
to them by whom the offence cometh!"
2 "Some
Words on Daily Life".--Eds. http://www.katinkahesselink.net/daily.htm
----------
Krishnamurti on
the observer and the observed
Now can the mind stop running
away, and not give it a name, not give it a significance of a word such
as empty, about which we have memories
of pleasure and pain? Can we look at it, can the mind be aware of that
emptiness without naming it, without running away from it, without
judging it, but just be with it? Because, then that is the mind. Then
there is not an observer looking at it; there is no censor who condemns
it; there is only that state of emptiness - with which we are all
really quite familiar, but which we are all avoiding, trying to fill in
with activity, with worship with prayer, with knowledge, with every
form of illusion and excitement.
But when all the
excitement, illusion, fear, running away stops, and you are no longer
giving it a name and thereby condemning it, is the observer different
then from the thing which is observed? Surely by giving it a
name, by condemning it, the mind has created a censor, an observer,
outside
of itself. But when the mind does not give it a term, a name, condemn
it,
judge it, then there is no observer, only a state of that thing which
we
have called emptiness.
Amsterdam 23 May 1955
http://www.geocities.com/brianperkins77/184krishnamurti2.htm
-----
A few
quotes on sex and relationships
It is only for the very,
very few who love that the married relationship has
significance, and then it is unbreakable, then it is not mere
habit or convenience, nor is it based on biological, sexual
need. In that love which is unconditional the identities are
fused, and in such a relationship there is a remedy, there is
hope. But for most of you, the married relationship is not
fused. To fuse
the separate identities, you have to know yourself, and she
has to
know herself. That means to love. But there is no
love - which is am obvious fact. Love is fresh,
new, not mere gratification, not mere
habit. It is unconditional. You don't treat your
husband or wife that way, do you? You live in your
isolation, and she lives in her isolation, and you have
established your habits of assured sexual pleasure.
Jiddu Krishnamurti (extracted from: http://www.katinkahesselink.net/kr/k_psy3.html
)
From “below” and at the ordinary
human level, the same principle is asserted, particularly in Jungian
psychology. Each of us, in effect, carries, within and unconsciously,
the other sex opposite to our
overt physical sex. Each male has his “anima”, each female her
“animus”. In truly creative living, these two, the conscious and the
unconscious, can combine to give rise to something quite new.
Most people, however, fail to establish an adequate
fulfilling relationship with their inner and unconscious other sex.
That other sex then
emerges in uncontrolled ways, producing the unreceptive but sentimental
and self-pitying male or the too strident female. Often we are
attracted to people of the opposite sex because they can give
expression to
something that we have not succeed in expressing for ourselves.
Hugh Shearman ( extracted from: http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/shearman7.html
)
-----
Sufi Story
(Nasrudin)
WHY ARE YOU HERE?
One day Nasrudin was walking along a deserted
road. Night was falling as he spied a troop of horsemen
coming toward him. His imagination began to work, and he
feared that they might rob him, or impress him into the army.
So strong did this fear become that he leaped
over a wall and found himself in a graveyard. The other
travelers,
innocent of any such motive as had been assumed by Nasrudin, became
curious
and pursued him.
When they came upon
him lying motionless, one said, "Can we help you? And, why
are you here in this position?"
Nasrudin, realizing his mistake said, "It is more complicated than you
assume. You see, I am here because of you; and you, you are
here because of me."
[author unknown to me] for
more, see: http://www.katinkahesselink.net/sufi/stories2.html
-----
Letters from Friends
Katinka,
This is to wish you success in this your
new undertaking, started on
HPB's birthday. May your newsletter help interested people to share
their
interest in the Perennial Wisdom with others in a spirit of mutual
understanding.
HPB wrote that the essence of
Theosophy is altruism. One of the Mahatmas declared that an important
task before students of the occult science is "the daily conquest of
the self". Krishnamurti insisted on the need for
choiceless awareness. Can the meaning (or meanings) of these core
issues
be explored afresh?
I noticed that you welcome
controversial statements, and it is true that HPB did include a lot of
controversial stuff in "Lucifer". But it is very hard to find in her
editorials, articles and essays any shadow of character assassination,
defamation, vilification and slander. Was she, in doing
so, honouring her vows as a real occultist?
Also,
in the "Original Programme of the Theosophical Society" [ http://www.katinkahesselink.net/origin.htm
], she wrote: "The Founders had to exercise all their influence to
oppose selfishness of any kind, by insisting upon sincere, fraternal
feelings
among the Members..." "They had to oppose in the strongest manner
possible
anything approaching dogmatic faith and fanaticism - belief in the
infallibility
of the Masters, or even in the very existence of our invisible
Teachers,
having to be checked from the first. On the other hand, as a great
respect
for the private views and creeds of every member was demanded, any
Fellow
criticising the faith or belief of another Fellow, hurting his
feelings,
or showing a reprehensible self-assertion, unasked (mutual friendly
advices were a duty unless declined) - such a member incurred
expulsion. The greatest spirit of free research untrammeled by anyone
or anything, had to be encouraged".
I am aware
the above is a very tough ideal to live by, but I think the Founders
tried to do it, to the best of their capacities. One of the questions
today seems to be: can we explore any issue arising our discussions in
the light of such important principles, without getting at each other
throats (or egos)?
May lucifer7 bring light to
the perilous crossing of the ocean of samsara. And some jokes too.
Pedro Oliveira
Response from the
editor
There is a middle way between being partial to
certain views or totally boring (and therefore non-controversial) and
being polemical or even quarelsome. I hope to find and maintain that
middle ground.
Katinka Hesselink
Previous issues of Lucifer7