Lucifer7, October 2003
Contents
Short Quotes
Editorial
New on Katinka Hesselink Net
The Vegetarian and Vegan Way of Life, Idarmis Rodriguez
Meat
eating and spirituality, William Q. Judge
Karma and the
Holocoast, Katinka Hesselink
Meditation, Jiddu Krishnamurti
Going Somewhere, Ken Wilber quote
Papyrus, The Gem, Rameses
Short Quotes
Theosophy has to fight intolerance, prejudice,
ignorance and selfishness, hidden under the mantle of hypocrisy. It has
to throw all the light it can from the torch of Truth, with which its
servants are entrusted. It must do this without fear or hesitation,
dreading
neither reproof nor condemnation. Theosophy, through its mouthpiece,
the Society, has to tell the TRUTH to the very face of LIE; to beard
the tiger in its den, without thought or fear of evil consequences.
“ORIGINAL PROGRAMME” MANUSCRIPT
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/origin.htm
Then the Buddha denounces ritualism as a
vain waste of time bound to lead to disappointment"
(Silabbata - paramasa)
Editorial
This
newsletter is turning into a monthly. I have issues planned until april
2004. Next month will see the beginning of a series on enlightenment.
Anyone who wants to contribute is once again invited to submit their
papers on this or other subjects. The title of the series will be:
There's Enlightenment, and then there's Enlightenment.
Looking at enlightenment from various perspectives, I think the series
will be very interesting.
Keeping my
intent of discussing the controversial in this newsletter, this time
two opinions on the place of vegetarianism come to the fore. W.Q. Judge
defends eating meat and Idarmis Rodriguez explains the reason for
vegetarianism. Personally I am a vegetarian, but I am often appalled at
the way in which some vegetarians and vegans seem to think no meat
eater could be seriously on the spiritual path. Idarmis Rodriguez
quotes H.P. Blavatsky and in all fairness it should be noted that the
latter was not a vegetarian. As for the article by W.Q.
Judge, it should be noted that the book quoted contains articles
written
between 1889 and 1896. Therefore the opinions of doctors as given
there,
is no longer up to date.
Katinka Hesselink
New
on Katinka Hesselink Net
English
Pathways of Buddhist Thought, Good and Bad
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/pathways2.html
Even Balancing of Five Faculties
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/pathways1.html
Dutch
Theosofische en spirituele moppen en grappen
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/theosofie_nl/moppen.html
Het Tibetaans Boek van Leven en Sterven
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/boeddha/dodenboek.html
Annie Besant, een Strijder
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/theosofie_nl/besant.html
Annie Besant, J. Kruisheer
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/theosofie_nl/besant2.html
Annie Besant, een leerzame ervaring
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/theosofie_nl/besant3.html
Mediums en Channeling, vragen en antwoorden
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/faq/VVV_Channel.html
The
Vegetarian and Vegan Way of Life
Idarmis
Rodriguez, quote from introduction to a booklet with this name
published by The Theosophical Society in Europe, p. 1-2
A
vegetarian does not eat meat, poultry or fish. This statement might be
obvious to some. However, many vegetarians, while ordering a vegetarian
meal in a restaurant, will have endured the question "but you eat
fish?" People adopt this way of life for various reasons, of which the
main ones are usually compassionate, ecological and/or health. Some
will avoid not only eating meat, but any product obtained by exploiting
animals. Vegans extend this to include all dairy products and eggs,
however humanly produced, and may also avoid honey. Concern for ecology
leads many to prefer plant protein, which is far more economical to
produce than animal protein (and far healthier too).
In The
Key to Theosophy, H.P. Blavatsky [HPB]
was asked about Theosophy "Is it obligatory for members of the
Theosophical Society to adhere to vegetarianism"? Her response was:
"The truth is that our rules require nothing of the kind, however,
earnest students and active workers in The Theosophical Society, wish
to do more than study theoretically. The wish to know the
truth
by their own direct personal experience. The first thing
which the
members learn is a true conception of the relation of the body, or
physical sheaths, to the inner, the true man. The relation and mutual
interaction between these two aspects of human nature are explained and
demonstrated to them." HPB goes on to say: "One of the great German
scientists has shown that every kind of animal tissue, however you may
cook it, still retains certain marked characteristics of the animal
which
it belonged to, which characteristics can be recognised. And apart from
that, everyone knows from the taste what meat he is eating. We go a
step
further, and prove that when the flesh of animals is assimilated by man
as food, it imparts to him, physiologically, some of the
characteristics of the animal it came from. Moreover, occult science
teaches and proves
this to its students by ocular demonstration, showing also that this
'coarsening' or 'animalising' effect on man is greatest from the flesh
of larger animals, less from birds, still less from fish and other
cold-blooded animals,
and least of all when he eats vegetables only. As the matter stands, he
(man) must eat to live, and so we advise really earnest students to eat
such food as will least clog and weigh their brains and bodies, and
will
have the smallest effect in hampering and retarding the development of
their intuition, their inner faculties and powers."
[ Key to
Theosophy ]
Meat
eating and spirituality
William Q. Judge, "Forum"
answers, p. 129-30, The Theosophy Co. 1982
What
is the opinion of the leaders of the T.S. in
regard to vegetarianism?
W.Q.J. - Physicians and
those who have tried vegetarianism are those who should speak on this.
The opinions of "leaders," as such, are of no consequence. I tried it
for nine years, and found it injurious. This is because the western man
has no heredity of vegetarianism behind him, and also because his
dishes as a vegetarian are poor. They should be confined to rice,
barley, wheat, oats, some nuts and a little fruit; but westerners don't
like such a meager variety. The stomach does not digest vegetables, it
is for meat; the teeth are for tearing and
grinding meat. Most of those vegetarians I know eat a whole lot of
things
injurious to them and are not benefitted. Had we an ancestry going back
thousands of years, vegetarians always, the case might be different. I
know that most of the experienced physicians we have in the Society
- and I know a great many - agree with my view, and some of them insist
that vegetarianism is wrong under any conditions. With the latter view
I do not agree. There ought to come a time in our evolution when new
methods
of food production will be known, and when the necessity for killing
any highly organized creature will have disappeared.
The
other branch of the subject is that regarding spiritual development and
vegetarianism. It has been so often dealt with it is sufficient to say
that such development has nothing to do with either meat-eating or the
diet of vegetables. He who gives up meat-eating
but does not alter his nature and thoughts, thinking to gain in
spirituality, may flatter himself and perhaps make a fetish of his
denial, but
will certainly thereby make no spiritual progress.
Karma and the Holocoast
Katinka
Hesselink 2003
The question is often asked what bad karma
the Jews had
built up to deserve what happened to them in world war II. My answer
is very simple: none. Nothing they did as a people or individually
deserved for them to be massacred the way they were. To say they did
do something is to say that massacre can be tolerated in certain
circumstances.
Well, it may be true that in a war a people has a right to defend
itself,
though I am very glad I don't have to make that kind of decision. But
the fact is, the Jews were not at war with the rest of Europe.
Unfortunately
Europe at that time had a culture in which it was normal to be
antisemitic.
The Theosophical Society's first object (1) was designed to counteract
that kind of thinking. Unfortunately those words weren't enough to
counteract
the antisemitic currents in Europe. Words seldom are. It takes actual
practice.
Hitler may have been a criminal, but
he was supported by a high percentage of Germans. And the thoughtsystem
his actions were based on were shared by most of Europe at that time.
This means that even
those who did not themselves put people into the concentration-camps,
or put gass into their chambers to kill them, were still co-responsible
for what happened. I think karmically speaking only those who actively
helped Jews and others from escaping death and did not have a shread of
antisemitism in their consciousness could be called guiltless.
When discussing karma, the holocoast often comes up, still
it is a question from the past and in that respect irrelevant to our
present lives. The above is also a clear warning for the present. Are
we cleaning our consciousness enough to be able to say: in those
circumstances I would not be part of the culture of destruction? Do we
reach out with hands, words and minds to those of different class,
race, colour, sex,
ethnic background, culture, sexual preference, eating habits etc., or
are we just as intolerant as those who did not realize the damage their
prejudiced thoughts, jokes, feelings and actions were doing in creating
the kind of culture in which the holocoast was possible?
Footnotes:
(1) The first object of the Theosophical Society
(Adyar) is: To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity,
without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour.
Meditation
Jiddu Krishnamurti to himself, his last journal, p. 18
You should really forget the word meditation. That word has been
corrupted. The ordinary meaning of that word - to ponder over, to
consider, to think about - is rather trivial and ordinary. If you want
to understand the nature of meditation you should really forget the
word because you cannot possibly measure with words that which is not
measurable, that which is beyond all measure. No words can convey it,
nor any systems, modes of thought, practice or discipline. Meditation -
or rather if we could find another word which has not
been so mutilated, made so ordinary, corrupt, which has become the
means
of earning a great deal of money - if you can put aside the word, then
you begin quietly end gently to feel a movement that is not of time.
Again, the word movement implies time - what is meant is a movement
that has no beginning or end. A movement in the sense of a wave: wave
upon
wave, starting from nowhere and with no beach to crash upon. It is an
endless wave.
Time, however slow it is, is rather tiresome.
Time means growth, evolution, to become, to achieve, to learn, to
change. And time is not the way of that which lies far beyond the word
meditation. Time has nothing to do with it. Time is the action of will,
of desire, and desire cannot in any way [word or words inaudible here]
- it lies far beyond the word meditation.
Going somewhere
Ken Wilber (p. 83, Sex, Ecology and Spirituality)
An old
joke from Vermont: A city fellow, driving through the Vermont
countryside, sees a man in a truck on the side of the road. The truck
is axle-deep in the mud, and the wheels are spinning. "Are you stuck?"
asks the city fellow. "I would be, if'n
I was goin' somewhere."
Well, the psyche, for better or
worse, is going somewhere, and that is why the
process can get stuck, why it is fraught with
frustration, arrest, fixation, stick points, logjams. If the mind
weren't going somewhere, it could never get stuck, never get "sick."
And these "sick points," these "stick points," can only be understood
in terms of the mind's omega points, of where it wants to go.
Papyrus, The Gem
Rameses, William Q. Judge, Theosophical Articles, Volume II,
Theosophy Company, Los Angeles, 1980, p. 403-405; Path,
March, 1887
The roads were thronged with the
people moving toward the great square, for it was a feast of the
Goddess. The temples were crowded, while long lines of men and maidens
in the robes of "The Sacred" wound in and out toward the
river. Music and song rose and fell upon the evening breeze,
like the pulse of a throbbing heart. Here and there could be seen the
Scribes, and seated in an open space, the Tale-tellers. One of these,
as I rested near hem, told the tale of
One who found the
Gem.
"In the land of the Wise-men, there dwelt a
young man. Many years had he
labored in a strange mine; the 'Mine of the Priceless Gems'; -
hopefully, bravely, but fruitlessly. He had long known that he who
should find the Master Stone, would be free, be full of peace and dig
no more, for nothing better could be found. He also knew that he who
found the stone should seek to share it with all men.
"Many
small stones had he found, but they were laid aside to be used when the
great stone was reached.
"Silently and steadily he
worked on, until one gloomy day when he had grown so weak that he could
make but one more effort, that effort was rewarded, and before him lay
the great gem. Weary, weak, but joyful, he gathered
it into his bosom, and went forth to share it with others; for he who
told not of his gem, or shared it not with all men, must lose the stone.
"Far he wandered, telling his wonderful story, the finding of
the Priceless Stone - the stone that made men greater,
wiser, more loving than all things living; the stone that no man could
keep unless
he gave it away.
"Far he wandered in his own
country, seeking to tell his story and give of the Stone to each one he
met. Silently they listened - gravely they meditated and gently they
said to him: 'This is Kali-yuga, the dark age. Come to us a hundred
thousand years from now. Until then - the stone is not for us. It is
Karma.'
"Far into another land he wandered, ever
trying for the same end. Gravely they listened, quietly they spoke:
'Peace be with you. When the Lotus ceases to bloom and our Sacred River
runs dry, come to us. Until then we need
not the stone.'
"Over the seas unto another land he
went, for fully he believed that there they would hear and share with
him. The many days of wandering and the long journey across the sea had
made him thin and ragged. He had not thought of this, but as he told
his story he was reminded of it and many other things, for here the
people answered in many ways, and not always gently.
"Some
listened, for his story was new to them, but the gem was uncut, and
they wished it polished.
"Others paused and desired
him to tell his story in their tents, for that
would make them exalted and famous, but they wanted not the gem. As he
did
not belong to their tribe, it would bring discredit upon them to
receive anything
from him.
"One paused to listen and desired some of the
stone, but he desired to use it to elevate his own position and assist
him in overreaching his fellows in bartering and bargaining. The
Wanderer was unable to give any of the stone to such as this one.
"Another listened, but inasmuch as the Wanderer refused to make the gem
float in the air, he would [have] none of it.
"Another
heard, but he already knew of a better stone, and was sure he would
find it, because he ate nothing but star-light and moon-beams.
"Another could not receive any of the stone or listen to the
story, for the Wanderer was poor and ragged. Unless he was dressed in
purple and fine linen and told his story in words of oil and honey, he
could not be the possessor of the gem.
"Still another heard,
but he knew it was not the gem. As the Wanderer had been unsuccessful
before, surely he could not have found the stone. Even had he found it,
he could not have the proper judgment to divide it. So he wanted none
of the stone.
"Near and far went the Wanderer.
Still ever the same. Some wanted it, but the stone was too hard, nor
bright enough. He was not of their people, or was ignorant. He was too
ragged and worn to suit their ideas, so they wanted none of the stone.
"Saddened, aged and heart-sore, he wandered back to the land of the
Wise men. To one of these he went, telling of his journeyings and that
no man would share with him the magnificent stone, and also of his
sorrow that he too must lose it.
" 'Be not
troubled, my son,' said the Wise One, 'the stone is for you, nor can
you lose it. He who makes the effort to help his fellow man is the
rightful owner and still possesses the entire stone, although he has
shared it with all the world. To each and every one to whom you have
spoken, although they knew it not, you have given one of the smaller
stones which you first found. It is enough. When the Master Stone is
cut and polished, then is the labor of the fortunate possessor ended.
The long journeying and weary wandering, the sorrowladen heart and
tear-dimmed eyes, have cut and polished your gem. Behold, it is a white
and a fair stone!'
"Drawing it from his bosom, the
Wanderer gazed into the wonderful light of the stone while an
expression of great peace stole over his face. Folding the gem close to
his bosom his eyelids closed, and he fell asleep, a wanderer no more."
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/gem.htm
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