Lucifer7, February 2010


Contents

New online
Short Quotes
Katinka Hesselink Net statistics
The World Hungers For Light, Jiddu Krishnamurti
Ten Rules of Right


New online

On Blogger (aka, not by me)

This is not exactly a new blog. It's just that I only became aware of it recently (thank you Michael Gomes). It's called 'Blavatsky News', but the subjects are far wider. It contains a lot of book reviews and (surprise) the authors seem to know what they are talking about.
New theosophical blog by me: Modern Theosophy. On this blog I share my posts about the future of the Theosophical Society, the issues it faces today and other such things. These are mostly posts I will also share elsewhere online. Where the main discussion is taking place elsewhere, I will link there. I just want to keep track of my own contribution to these things in one spot. Written new for this blog:
Note that while I WILL keep you all updated on new blogposts there in my spiritual newsletter Lucifer7, I will NOT be posting new blogposts about it on my All Considering blog. For those of you who are subscribed only to All Considering, if you want to stay informed about my specifically theosophical posts, do subscribe to this blog or my complete newsletter as well.

On Katinka Hesselink Net:
On All Considering
On Squidoo

Short Quotes

H.P. Blavatsky to a correspondent, C.W. Volume XII p. 32

[The experience must be gained, and the Soul must rise superior to them, by acquiring a love for higher things.]
“Experience must be gained” of every evil as good passion mentally, and overcome in thought, by reflection. Love and longing for higher things on a Spiritual plane will thus leave no room for the lower animal longings.

Bhagavad Gita 7:16-18, from The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran, copyright 1985. Nilgiri Press.

Good people come to worship me for different reasons. Some come to the spiritual life because of suffering, some in order to understand life; some come through a desire to achieve life's purpose, and some come who are men and women of wisdom. Unwavering in devotion, always united with me, the man or woman of wisdom surpasses all the others. To them I am the dearest beloved, and they are very dear to me. All those who follow the spiritual path are blessed. But the wise who are always established in union, for whom there is no higher goal than me, may be regarded as my very Self.

Paul Brunton, The Inner Reality, Chapter VIII

To find reality, that is, to find Truth, you will have to find it not only inside yourself, by unification with the inner Light, which is the first half of the battle, but also in the universe around you.

Thomas a Kempis

First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.


Katinka Hesselink Net statistics

It's unclear when I started Katinka Hesselink Net. There's good reason to suppose I started it in 1998 or 1999, as the oldest material is dated to those years. However, let's suppose for arguments sake that I started it in 2000 - that makes it a round 10 years that this site has been up. Which would set up a nice pattern of tens... as there were, over this weekend, on average 10,000 page views a day. The reason for this sudden bout of statistics reporting: I've just set up Google Analytics.

Those 10,000 pageviews were by about 3000 people. Of those people, 41% came from the USA, 17% from the Netherlands and the rest, in ever decreasing percentages from the UK, Belgium, India, Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. The rest of the visitors, about 0.02%, came from the other 123 countries my visitors came from (a total of 133 countries are represented in my visitors stats for this weekend).

On average my visitors look at more than three pages per visit. Most of them come in through search engines: 71%. 17% came in through links and the rest (~12%) are regular visitors who have bookmarked the site.

The most popular English pages were:
  1. Random Spiritual Quotations
  2. Short Wisdom quotes and Spiritual Aphorisms
  3. Quotes on perseverance and spiritual strength
  4. Jiddu Krishnamurti
  5. Buddha's World
  6. Quotes on love, relationships, attachment etc.
  7. Thich Nhat Hanh
  8. History of Buddhism
  9. Inspiring Christian Quotations
  10. Sufi Quotations - various sources
I knew I had roughly 10,000 visitors a day. I had no idea though about the way it breaks down to countries. A few years ago Dutch and English language visitors came in roughly equal numbers. And referrals, search engine traffic and return visitors each took up about 30%. I guess things have changed a LOT over the past year or so.

To my theosophical readers it's probably a comfort to note that my most popular 'strictly' theosophical page was no. 11: Pick a Blavatsky Quote.


The World Hungers For Light

"authentic notes" of Mr. Krishnamurti's the Sarobia Discourses, 1940

Canadian Theosophist, Volume 27, #3

What is the origin of our thinking? Seeing, contacting, sensing, reflecting. Like and dislike, pleasure and pain, the many pairs of opposites are the outcome of reflection;  the desire for the continuance of the one and the denial of the other is part of reflection. Sensation, craving, dominates most of our thinking. Our thought is influenced and limited by the past generations of people who in their suffering, in their joys, in their aspirations, in their escapes, in their fear of death, in their longing for continuity, created ideas, images, symbols, which gave them hope, assurance. These they have passed on to us. When we use the word soul, it is their word to convey that intense longing for continuity, for something permanent, enduring beyond the transiency of the physical, of the material. Because we also crave for certainty, security, continuity, we cling to that word and all that it represents. So our consciousness - both the conscious and the subconscious - is the repository of ideas, values, images, symbols of the race, of the past generations. Our daily thought and action are controlled by the past, by the concealed motives, memories, and hidden cravings. In all this there is no freedom but only continued imitation caused by fear.

Within consciousness, there are two opposing forces at work which create duality - want and non-want, pain and pleasure, outgoing desires and refraining desires.  Instincts, motives, values, prejudices, passions, control and direct the conscious.

Is there, in consciousness, any part that is not contaminated by the past? Is there anything original, uncorrupted, in our consciousness? Have we not to free thought from the past, from instincts, from symbols, images, in order to understand that which is incorruptible, untramelled?

The known cannot understand the unknown; death cannot understand life.  Light and darkness cannot exist together. God, reality, is not to be realized through the known. What we are is of the past in combination with the present action and reaction according to various forms of influence, which narrows down thought, and through this limitation we try to understand that which is beyond all transiency. Can thought free itself from the personal, from the I? Can thought make itself anew, original, capable of direct experience? If it can, then there is the realization of the eternal.


Ten Rules of Right

The Theosophist, Volume I, july, 1880, p. 254

I - Temperance in all things, whether physical, mental, affectional or religious.

II - Justice to all creatures that be - justice being the exercise of precisely the same rules of life, conduct, thought or speech that we would desire to receive from others.

III - Gentleness in speech and act - never needlessly wounding the feelings of others by harsh words or deeds; never hurting or destroying aught that breathes, save for the purposes of sustenance or self-defence.

IV - Truth in every word or thought, spoken or acted, but reservation of harsh or unpleasing truths where they would needlessly wound the feelings of others.

V - Charity - Charity in thought, striving to excuse the failings of others; charity in speech, veiling the failings of others; charity in deeds, wherever, whenever, and to whomsoever the opportunity offers.

VI - Alms-giving - visiting the sick and comforting the afflicted in every shape that our means admit of, and the necessities of our fellow-creatures demand.

VII - Self-sacrifice, wherever the interests of others are to be benefited by our endurance.

VIII - Temperate yet firm defence of our views of the right, and protest against wrong, whether in ourselves or others.

IX - Industry in following our calling we may be engaged in, or in devoting some portion of our time, when otherwise not obliged to do so, to the service and benefit of others.

X - Love - above and beyond all, seeking to cultivate in our own families, kindred, friends, and amongst all mankind generally the spirit of that true and tender love which can think, speak or act no wrong to any creature living; remembering always, that where love is, all the other principles of right are fulfilled beneath its influence and embodied in its monitions.


Previous issues of Lucifer7 can be found at the online index of Lucifer7

I want to thank all of you who support me, whether financially, by asking questions, 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 share it with friends and link to it.