"This little life we lead on earth is but a school for
courage. If we learn
more courage when the game is losing, or is lost, should we then envy
the
apparent winner?"
"Men do not become saints and sinner by merely calling
themselves so.
The recording angels take with them a record of man's acts.
It is he himself soweth, and he himself eateth."
334 If a man watches not for NIRVANA, his cravings grow like a creeper and he jumps from death to death like a monkey in the forest from one tree without fruit to another.
Children should above all be taught self-reliance, love for all men, altruism, mutual charity, and, more than anything else, to think and reason for themselves. We would reduce the purely mechanical work of the memory to an absolute minimum, and devote the time to the development and training of the inner senses, faculties and latent capacities . . . . We should aim at creating free men and women, free intellectually, free morally, unprejudiced in all respects, and, above all things, unselfish.
Mediumism is by no means an indication of a man's holiness. It is merely a physiological phenomenon. Usually, the better the medium, the more delicate he is; yet it is not disease that comes as a result of mediumism, but the latter as a result of bodily weakness, of shattered nerves. The walls of the prison being down, the soul will find it easier to tear itself away and go forth into free space. A man may be a blackguard, like H---, and be the greatest of mediums, but in this case his soul will be obsessed by other souls, more or less sinful, in accord with the quality of his own; as is the pastor, so is the parish. But there are thousands of shades of mediumism, and they cannot all be enumerated in a letter. All the ancient philosophers knew this, and shunned mediumism to such an extent that it was strictly forbidden to admit mediums to the Eleusinian and other Mysteries: those who had a "familiar spirit." Socrates was higher and purer than Plato; yet the latter was initiated into the Mysteries, while Socrates was rejected, and in the course of time he was even doomed to die, because, though not initiated into the Mysteries, he revealed a part of them to the world through the agency of his daimonion, of which he himself was not consciously aware.
[The Paramitas are 10 virtues as enumerated in Buddhist
literature.
H.P. Blavatsky, one of the founders of the Theosophical Society, uses
six of these (adding a seventh that is not usually in the list of
paramitas) in her classic 'The Voice of the Silence'. Muriel Daw,
comments on the ten Buddhist virtues using references from Blavatsky.
The Dana Paramita is the paramita of giving, or generosity.]
Traditionally there are four kinds of Giving: the ordinary giving of material goods; the special gift of teaching; the great gift of fearlessness; and the secret gift of giving away oneself. If we can only give away all sense of separate self, then nothing remains but sheer joy.You say that for three years you have been endeavoring to study Theosophy. Such being the case, you will meet with but little success. Divine Wisdom can not be a subject for study, but it may be an object of search. With the love for this same wisdom uppermost in our hearts, we ask you if it would not be wiser to lay aside the study of so called Theosophy, and study youself. Knowing yourself you know all men, the worlds seen and occult, and find Theo-Sophia. One cannot absorb Theosophy as a sponge does water, to be expelled at the slightest touch. Our conception of Theosophy is apt to be based upon the idea that it is an especial line of teaching - a larger, wider, and greater doctrine than others perhaps, but still a doctrine, and therefore limited. We must bear in mind that the true Theosophist belongs to no cult or sect, yet belongs to each and all; that he can find the true object of his search equally well in the Hebrew bible and in the Yoga philosophy, in the New Testament as well as in the Bhagavad-Gita.
If you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills,
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time,
If you can overlook when people take things out on you when,
through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can do all these things,
Then you are probably the family dog.
Michael
Evans
Just a note to say hello and thank you for all the effort you have put into this site. real generosity, greatly appreciated. have you read R.D. Liang's book The Politics of Experience? Could not a different path of conditioning our children bring about a world attitude in time that could be the very essence of what people like Krishnamurti comment about. Knowing who we are, what we are doing and why we are doing it? Is the quote below valid to you. Think Liang is correct here in what he says:
"In order to rationalize our industrial-military complex, we have to destroy our capacity to see clearly any more what is in front of, and to imagine what is beyond, our noses. Long before a thermonuclear war can come about, we have had to lay waste to our own sanity. We begin with the children. It is imperative to catch them in time. Without the most thorough and rapid brainwashing their minds would see through our dirty tricks. Children are not yet fools, but we shall turn them into imbeciles like ourselves, with high I.Q.'s, if possible.
From the moment of birth, when the Stone Age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to those forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father, and their parents and their parents before them, have been. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities, and on the whole this enterprise is successful. By the time the new human being is fifteen or so, we are left with a being like ourselves, a half-crazed creature more or less adjusted to a mad world. This is normality in our present age.
Love and violence, properly speaking, are polar opposites. Love lets the other be, but with affection and concern. Violence attempts to constrain the other's freedom, to force him to act in the way we desire, but with ultimate lack of concern, with indifference to the other's own existence or destiny.
We are effectively destroying ourselves by violence masquerading as love."
So much we do is done without any reflection at all. Reaction. So many aspects of life are just overlooked. We use words to communicate, give them meaning which, in many cases, is not accurate. So many examples. Take the word Justice. In America with its Christian roots that word means to be right, to be fair. That is how a dictionary would define justice. So here in the USA, when the state executes a condemned man, they say "Justice has been done." Where is the rightness and fairness in killing a living being? How do those that loved the condemned man get justice from his death? How do those that loved the victim realize justice by the state killing someone? So, in the USA we use the word justice when in fact we mean punishment, extracting a pound of flesh for a perceived wrong, retribution, vengeance, etc. As H. I. Khan said "justice is knowing when to say I must not do. this." Is that alone not fair and right? If we are going to take the path of conditioning folks let us at least do it so that at least some of the skills to live a life full of love and understanding have been placed into our childrens minds?
Thanks again for the lovely site. me ke aloha pumehana, michael evans
I want to thank all of you who support me, whether financially, by commenting or just be reading and enjoying what I put online. To those who wonder: no, I don't mind if people link to my website(s). In fact: it's appreciated. For instance: my blog will find new readers faster if people aren't afraid to share it with friends and link to it.