You know, a thought occurs to me (as i catch a snippet of `Monk' walking through the other room). Having not read a single word of your posts in the last hour, AdvaitaZen, I want to share something with you. Something about why I'm here, after ten years ... posting at this forum. Or having any of the conversations I occasionally do, after 20-some years of embracing things like Rebirth, the Theosophical Teachings, the existence of Arhats & Adepts, an afterlife, an astral plane ~ and a whole bunch more beyond. I want to say a word or two about what movitates me.
First of all, in my experience, I've met many, many people who seem to just need a little help, a little coaching. Perhaps you can relate, as I am somehow sure you are about this same effort too.
The effort is to help people to understand:
No, this is not `all by accident' or at random, or by coincidence {or Serendipity} ~ no matter how much things may seem this way at times. And thus, there is no need to apologize for God's Creation, or Emanation, or whatever folks wish to call it. Yet where there is lack of clarity regarding our Identity, there arises much confusion, and so the need is great to help each other along the way.
Some realizations are quite personal, concerning largely the Interior Life, and whether you are a Teresa of Avila or a Mahatma Gandhi, a Sri Aurobindo or a Vivekananda, we cannot easily communicate the revelations and contemplations of the Mystic ~ even if we are one, or have been, even many times. Thus the task of these and others has been difficult, but it is a Noble one, and worth all that they have done along just such lines.
Without a Rumi, I could not be who I am. Without a Helen Keller, you could not be who you are. Do you follow? If so, good, that's the first half of the equation, sometimes put this way: "Things are JUST SO." Another word to describe this is INTERCONNECTEDNESS. And even modern science has shown that IT IS SO.
What's the other half?
Well, I've already told you. The Path of the Occultist is one that requires us to be rigorous, scientific, disciplined, determined and certainly Patient. Yet it differs from that of the Mystic because we take for granted that certain things can very much be taught, or communicated. In that, it is not that I would insist that YOU, or anyone else, look the other way ... instead of speaking about the Transcendent Realms, about Consciousness which goes beyond LITTLE EGO, reaching out of the Bhūr Bhuvaḥ Svaḥ and into SAT-CHIT-ANANDA.
My posts are often lengthy, and this time, I really did think it was a good one. Yet the 2nd half of it is now mostly committed to the dustbin. What some would call an accidental, random keystroke, I prefer to call - not Fate, nor even Destiny, but in this case, Serendipity. Brevity becomes me, besides.
I basically encouraged you to KEEP TO YOUR PATH ... but to let others keep to their own. Your Path is not mine, any more than I would feel comfortable asking you to come live MY life, assume MY responsibilities and pretty much live in MY HOME. Would YOU trade all of this, with ME, with any delusions about me suddenly `becoming you' simply for the experiment?
Our other selves (remember, A-Z, I have not read a word you posted, yet) ~ might benefit, verily, but I think you'll agree, at the end of the day, that there are REASONS we say "now this is your ego" (or life, house, family, etc.) and "this/these are MINE." Karma simply means that unless you are a vintner, you grew and pressed the grapes, now it must be YOU that sips the wine.
Make sure it's a Good Harvest. That's the 2nd half of the equation.
No one else is Responsible for it, thus we would do well to refuse to own another person's Karma - even when it seems `kind' or helpful [since often it has the exact opposite, reverse outcome than we had HOPED] ~ and we would also do well to strive for WISE Inclusivity, which means the kind of Agape Love which A) FORGIVES, B) IDENTIFIES {with} [the `other'] and thus C) in FULL realization and acceptance of the implications of ego-delusion, ACTS without fail.
"Inaction in a deed of Mercy, becomes ACTION in a deadly Sin."
For those who are approaching the Mystic Path, it would be better to stick to the philosophies, and to *those aspects of* religion which complement it most appropriately ... while for the Occultist, none of these ceases to have relevance, yet like the astronomer who can fathom both the very large and the very small, certainly there is a different appreciation for the SCALE of things ~ and I mean Spiritually, from atom to Cosmos to God to Man, and very much `there and back again,' if we're speaking of Re/Incarnations, instead of Hobbits.
Most of those who KNOW, learn a little along the way about WHEN and WHY to keep their mouth shut. Then there's dumb ol' Taijasi. I have managed to put my foot in it quite often ... yet somehow, despite all the rending, I keep coming back from more punishment. Nevermind that I have been Jewish in two past lives and also most of this one, I also died one of those two a Vaishnava, even if shooting Asian people really wasn't what I had in mind when I was chanting GOVINDA JAYA JAYA.
SO listen up. You'll hear a lot of bullshit in the rest of your life. But there's one thing I'll always give you ... that not a whole lot of other people can promise, much less live up to. And that's the STRAIGHT DOPE.
If I don't know, I'll tell you so. I DAMN SURE won't pretend.
Thus, what distinguishes me from a lot of other folks? Not the Principle, but rather, it's practice. I am not a role-model. At times I am even the poster child for "don't do this." And that's nothing to brag about.
But if you ask me for advice, or for some help, I won't feed your head full of a lot of garbage and baloney about some mythical, magical, mysterious deity or pie-in-the-sky crapola which otherwise means squat to me ... except to ease my conscience once or twice a week when I'm not otherwise doing whatever the hell I please.
No, I DO choose what I please ... a bit too often. And thus, to return to a thought for Etu, since I keep seeing reference to the LHP:
Do you really have ANY idea what you are talking about?
If you want to know about it, from someone who at times, finds himself ON it, then ask away. For otherwise, it's a little like playing my Ozzy records backwards, rolling my eyeballs into the back of my head, lighting some black candles and growing my fingernails long. I mean, no, I don't snort coke or crack or whatever the hell it is people do with that fingernail. And I really don't think it's very amusing, except that I was a kid once, so I was into dark stuff too ...
~ but 99.9% of the folks who play and dabble and pretend to be interested in `darkness' and evil and Lucifer and all that rigamarole, really have no earthly idea what they're [even POTENTIALLY] into. Most of them, quite fortunately, are offered all the assistance that's needed, one way or the other, and manage to `clean up their act,' even if the work is largely done from the standpoint of the overshadowing Soul/Ego/Manasaputra ... and only involves our cooperation while out of the body, or via the sub-conscious.
It's fine, yet for a Theosophist, if you say you are "on the left-hand path," it's a little bit like saying, "I'm really a schmuck, a selfish, egotistical BASTARD and I care about NOBODY but myself ... and quite literally, admit it or not, I will do anything on this planet to exploit you, and pretty much force you to your knees, if it please [me] ~ since you are just a means to MY ends, recognize it or not."
I mean, you can be a rapist, a murderer or pretty much the scum of the Earth, and you are LIGHT YEARS more promising, or better off, spiritually speaking than one who has set even ONE FOOT consciously and intentionally upon the true left-hand path. That path leads to nothing but personal annihilation, and the untold suffering that occurs as we suffer through the Lifeless, Waveless period of Avichi ... is very much unspeakable. Not even the Christian, with his imaginary hells and cocked-up devils of fear & hatred, has a clue what Jesus of Nazareth went about, and what he went THROUGH, as he descended into this state in order to Minister to those who are otherwise condemned to the SADDEST of all possible fates ~ for the human.
Thus I would, and will, continue to CRINGE when I hear or see mention of the left-hand path. And while I quite realize that I will likely never meet anyone who is truly, genuinely dedicated to the path of which I speak ... I also know that even to make the association, is a deadly experiment, if not quite the same as tempting Fate. Go stand in rush-hour traffic, for the latter, and you will fare FAR, FAR, even INFINITELY better ~ than a Judas, who in modern times appears again - appropriately enough, as an Adolf Hitler.
If slow, painful, agonizing and inescapable disintegration, of all that you have understood as mind, body and even spirit ... is what you're after, that that's your path, that's your ticket. You will meet with no Holy Father, or Christ the Son, once you have recognized that within the ANTITHESIS of Her Spiritual Being, the Mother of ALL can be a Demon of WRATH. Verily, Christ would - and did - bleed for such as these, who would forsake their very Soul, each other, or even all the world ... simply because some REFUSE to be told {either what to do, or sometimes, THAT they can do}.
So much for brevity. If there's too much drama, then eschew that too. I'm leaning upon my proverbial staff here for a second ... because I would GLADLY share `what's true,' when it comes to this stuff. But yeah, I know, living in the world {and striving not to be OF it} can at times be rather rough.
I quite like AdvaitaZen's positive attitude, and effort to direct our attention to the Path OUT of Sangsara ... even if I'm pretty sure we're all working on:
WHO IS Ava-LokitA ~ Ishvara
