Religion-Important-Principles-of-the-Esoteric-Philosophy-Class-7
welcome friends to at home with you Sophie this is our last class for this series we have been studying this boat deity Cosmo Sandman by Jeffrey farthing and we have selected a few chapters from this book and some I am presenting some excerpts from from each of these chapters for us to to discuss today we are going to talk about religion how religions are seen from the point of view of the esoteric philosophy and what's the relationship to what we called theosophy how did the religions of the world come about the esoteric philosophy asserts the existence of an original source behind and beyond the various religions both Isis unveiled and the secret doctrine are characterized by an enormous number of quotations from respected philosophical religious and historical sources that support this contention when Madame Blavatsky started writing and producing works she said that the all religions were coming from a common source although this idea can be traced to different authors and sages throughout history at the time it was always a theory that was not widely accepted or not even widely known at the time when Navasky claimed this it was an idea that that was even difficult to accept as a possibility the Western view was that the past was a time of under development that everything we have now is so far so much more advanced than things were in the past and basically the idea was of course in the West that the True Religions came from the judeo-christian tradition and all all other approaches to religions were superstitions and was the result of savages so Lubezki says that all religions have a single common source this idea was not only revolutionary at the time but even today although there is far more interfaith dialogue most people from religions wouldn't accept this because there is still the need to maintain a certain certain exclusivity and exclusivity you know if if all religions come from the same source then why would what would you prefer one why would you prefer one religion over the other so this is a quite revolutionary idea and we are going to see how the Theosophical tradition presents it the divine instructors in her writings Madame Blavatsky wrote about a handful of primitive men in whom the spark of divine wisdom burned bright remains the elect custodians of the mysteries revealed to mankind by the divine teachers and tradition whispers what the secret teachings affirm namely that these elect were the germ of a hierarchy which never died since that period if you look in different traditions there is special in ancient traditions there is this idea of the Golden Age the Golden Age where gods walked among the among men and these God's thought humanity then there is the tradition that the pharaohs and the Druids and you know the all the shamans of the different traditions wear descendants of these gods they were representatives of these gods because all this ancient tradition had the the in the memory of the of their tradition had this concept that there were some people who were far wiser than the rest of the community and these people knew they knew not only medicine and religion but also they knew of agriculture or police the political science that was you know able to be developed in the community that they had fired if I were far wider knowledge so the the secret doctrine says that this tradition or this memory that was kept in the different traditions is a reality and there were always since the beginning of humanity some enlightened beings that had knowledge and that well the ones had guided the nascent the new humanity the founders of religions were the authors of new forms and interpretations while the truths upon which the latter were based were as old as mankind selecting one or more of those grand verities actualities visible only to the eye of the real sage and fear they revealed these truths to the master masses thus every nation received in its term some of the said truths under the veil of its own local and special symbolism which as time went on developed into a more or less philosophical cultists so the idea here is that there is a common truth that the founders of religions were not people that invented these doctrines and that explains why in many different traditions even if they never knew each other there are things that are common there are many things that are common even though they many other things of course always vary but there are symbols and there are general concepts and even there is some architecture that is shared by by different traditions so the idea is that these people they they knew the truth if we want to put it that way they were wise people and then they selected what kind of religious teaching they could give to their population to the population in which they developed so when selecting what aspects of truth was given that selection of course was conditioned at least to some extent by the prevailing conditions of that culture maybe by the superstitions that that culture had and the teacher wanted to correct maybe by the challenges that that tradition had by the past by many things and also by the idiosyncrasies of the different cultures some cultures were more bent in to intellectuality or to devotion to practical aspects so the teachers would shape the teachings so that they can help that particular community if you see all religions in the past they were all created within a particular community in an important article under the title what is truth Madame Blavatsky confronts the question of absolute and relative truth the former being in community in communicable to the limited consciousness of ordinary mortals the latter being such Rays of the Sun of truth which that consciousness can assimilate one of the quote one of the quotations with which the article is introduced makes just this point that the greatest addict living can reveal of the universal truth only so much as the mind he is impressing upon can assimilate and no more so this is an essential concept that is very important to keep in mind the absolute truth is beyond words is beyond thinking is beyond the limitation of any description that can be given and so the absolute truth cannot be really communicated by any form it is only a question of personal experience let's say now when we try to communicate that absolute truth in a into a particular person then we have to adapt it first the very fact of communicating it we are communicating a symbol not not the fact and then as we said you have to adapt it to the ability of the people to understand if you are going to teach even science to kids in kindergarten or or to a person in the university you will explain the same facts in completely different ways to the kids you will explain it in a far more storytelling kind of way and to people in the university you can explain it in a more technical sense although it is always to some extent storytelling a symbol for for the fact that we gave for or we try to teach so the this this is important to keep in mind because many of the differences between the different religions are not because or at least in the Theosophical view are not because the source is different or because the truth that they are explained in art are they are different but it is because of this necessarily conditioned expression of truth and the adaptation to each of the different cultures now could you use an example of like cooking and food you know there's basic ingredients of different cultures all over the world but the and spices or you know the things that are available there to cook the food are all different mm-hmm yes so you have to adapt the process of cooking to whatever is available to that place and time and it is something that is very if you think about it it's very obvious it even happens in your you know in your family if you have to explain something to different people you explain it according to the background of that person to the ability of that person so this is one of the main reasons why different traditions seem to be so different also there are some other factors that we are going to to explore also but it is important to to determine whether the differences come from the origin or it comes from the expression right because in our family there's always that person that you explained something and everyone gets a bitter that or a piece of it and that one person completely gets the opposite of what you're trying to say mm-hmm yeah all those things happen yes go ahead I know there's a another problem about it and you know interpreting what what is being said whether to interpret something literally or metaphorically that seems to be also a difficulty that that modern people seem to have that doesn't seem to be a bigger problem in previous generations yes there is a tendency to interpret things literally and as a stay the quote says here that the any teacher can reveal as much as they mind that he is trying to impress can assimilate so when those when the minds of the people they are is either not very developed or too materialistic or you know it's not a philosophical mind then the the more materialistic demanded the more symbolically you have to to speak because you cannot really go into very abstract concepts so you have to make them concrete you have to make them more like a story and it is that kind of mind the one that will be more likely to take those things literally you know in the even in the Bible we have an or in the Gospels we have an example of that when Jesus would talk about in parables and then the disciples would ask him why do you talk to the people in parables well this question first reveals that Jesus was talking to them in a different way and then of course Jesus says well I talked to them in the language that they can understand unto you I gave you the mysteries of Heaven or the kingdom of heaven so you see how the the moral limited your understanding the more symbolical it has to be but then these people tend to everything literally so these are intrinsic problems in the transmission of truth which inevitably produces different religions so what you're saying was that the disciples were spoken about you know the deeper aspects of the religion and when Jesus spoke to the masses he spoke in parables or symbols and what we've done now is taking those taken those symbols and and use them little yeah probably they did the same thing at the beginning of Christianity except for the group of people that were always in every religion that could take all these more esoteric Valley passages such as these emphasized the distinction that must always be made between ultimate or absolute truth and the dogmas and scriptural presentations of relative truth that characterized the world's religions the light of the true teaching has persisted throughout the ages but in historical times except for some few alone illumined men it has shown only from behind the screen of superstition and ignorance in the forms of exoteric religions in some of these the light is so obscured as to be hardly perceptible in some others the veil is thinner allowing beams of the pure light to penetrate it so this is what what happens with most religions the original teachings for all these these facts that that we have been discussing and also because of of other conditions if they become like a veil the way that may lead more or less light of truth come through but it's a very nevertheless even the philosophical teachings are a kind of day because any expression of truth is available upon the truth now the hopefully the way that teaches re-expressed are as good as possible for us to perceive certain truths and that is what what the different teachers aim at but of course as we said how how skillfully they can present this we depend on the people that are listening evolution of religion historical evidence shows that every man every human grouping has had as part of its culture of form of religion with an identifiable belief system and its relative related practices a cult tradition however goes further back taking us to the very early races of humanity the mysteries of heaven and earth will reveal to the third root race the first truly human race by their celestial teachers in the days of their purity in the Theosophical view there are seven cycles of evolution for Humanity on this planet that are called root races and it is in the third cycle in the third book race that humanity awakens the mind and from from that early time religion was taught in some way or the other as we are going to see formal religion to timing in developing but all races from the very beginning had some kind of religion this is also something that surprises anthropologists because they see that even in very primitive cultures there is some kind of for example right for those who are who die there is some kind of offering for those who die there are graves with flowers you know inside or with with whatever elements were around and there are signs of a religious approach even in the earliest human civilizations so many anthropologists were wonder how how this developed what what is that religious spirit that seems to be with humanity from its very beginning now in the Theosophical view the these early civilizations that anthropology knows about our own or even the the first civilizations that develop or through which humanity humanity developed there were even earlier ones is the third world race and many others in the fourth evolutionary cycle that we know nothing about at the moment even the earliest Lunarians had a religion and a most beautiful one from the very beginning of their intellectual life no sooner had the mental eye of man been open to understanding than the third race felt itself one of the ever-present one with one with the one with the ever-present as the ever to be unknown and invisible all the one universal deity endowed with divine powers and feeling in himself his inner God each felt he was a man God in his nature though an animal in his physical self we are going to see the Theosophical that scheme of evolution the third good ways as we said is the first one that I woke to to the to demand to an intellectual understanding of human beings this work called the Lemurians by Lebowski and she says that even with the lemagas with the first really human civilization there was a beautiful religion it was not a religion that was taught was a religion that was the natural result of their perception of being one with the whole the idea in philosophical view is that everything develops from from a state of spirituality where there is pure and innocence then it becomes more and more material and then there is a turning point with a return to a spiritual state but that innocence and that ignorant innocence or lack of self-awareness that was at the beginning now he's turned into a self self-conscious wisdom so the third word ways was very spiritual as plasti says they all felt that they were one with the invisible all with the universal deity and even though they perceived they are individual form they knew that this was only their physical self and they were really one with with God so that that that was more or less than the religious feeling in the third world race following this one came the fourth good race that is the the one that gravity calls the Atlantean the ones that lived in this continent that is called Atlantis or that was called by my plate of Atlantis although for Deborah has a question as beginning souls or sparks were we I there yes the Lemurians were were us in a previous you know evolutionary cycle no that is partially truth let us say that's the general truth there are some souls that were more advanced than the what elements were at the time that they didn't need that very early experience so some souls incarnate later when when humanity evolves up to the state of evolution that the souls already had from a previous cycle of evolution in another planetary chain let's say but generally speaking the laborious and the Atlanteans these were all past incarnations of the current humanity although formalized religion is not present among the Atlanteans they had religion from the race before them defined as the binding together of the masses in one form of reverence paid to those we feel higher than our selves of piety as a feeling expressed by the child toward a loved parent the rays of light from the third race became necessarily weakened as they were diffused and shed upon an uncongenial and uncongenial because to material soil the generation of the pure religious impulse began with the Atlanteans so by the time that humanity developed in this moment material grace material from a physical more material from a physical point of view from the from a spiritual point of view this this natural spiritual perception that the third world race had began to be lost and the more physical perception that we have now began to be stronger and stronger but they were still in in the aspect of religion they were still like children in the sense that it was the time of worship and adoration to their leaders to as I say to the Pharaohs and to the to the Pharaohs and to the Druids and to the leaders of the earth their communities they were regarded as gods or demigods and they were followed and they were worshiped and just like it happens with children but with it as time passed and each civilization lasts for a few million years according to the Theosophical view as time passed and the children in quotation marks at the level of the soul became teenagers and they became that the Atlantean race began to develop their own mind and began to think that they knew better then these these enlightened beings stopped incarnated and levena among the living simply because it was a time where civilization stopped looking at today machine as the guides of the parents this was the time for humanity to begin to learn by himself like when the teenager leaves the house and has to learn to be an adult by by himself and as this process went on then religion became less and less spiritual and more and more materialistic coming down now to historical times we cannot help but recognize the materialization of even the God idea the one the absolute existence unknown and unknowable to the conditioned human mind becomes in the course of time an anthropomorphic sized deity with personal attributes the rejection of these gods created by man in his own image and likeness a blasphemous and sorry caricature of the on every unknowable may lead the superficial reader to the erroneous conclusion that the occult philosophy is atheistic sorry atheism atheistic and at best agnostic so right now we are in the fifth book race the the civilization that followed the Atlantean and we we also have a materialistic approach to religion materialistic in the sense that we think of God as a basically as if it were a person up there with personal feelings of hate and personal love and revenge and we word we pray to God to get material benefits to you know for to get what the money that I want or my team to win or my country to defeat some other in in battle or you know all things I have to do with with the Material Plane so in us blow us kisses in that in that quote I think she said God created or maybe was somebody else but she quoted it God created man in his own image and since then men have been paying their favor back and creating God in his own image so this is what lavas kisses here we create God as a projection of what we are however this is you know if you see in theosophy many times you will have this you will find a strong criticism to this approach to religion and to the idea of God as we normally understand it but that doesn't mean that the occult philosophy is agnostic or atheist theistic you know that saying that there are there is nothing divine the first stage of the human pilgrimage variously described as the path about going or the path of descent is one of increasing materiality in the case of our humanity the lowest point of the descending arc was reached in the fourth root race we are now at the beginning of the ascending arc the emergence out of materiality into one of increasing spirituality so here we take a chart know that well this is the other way around when I uploaded this the software switch this okay I'm sorry so now use your imagination and see this the other way around and so you have the first route race that comes down here yeah the first route race comes down and then it goes up the we have the first and second route places they were not really physical nor even physical this world process of materialization of of humanity then the third would race is telemovie on and that we talked about the fourth good race is at the bottom of the the U shape diagram this is the most material expression of humanity and the fifth group race is just coming out of the the bottom of the the diagram then there are two more the six and the seventh so the third Lebowski called Amorian she gave the name of Atlantean to the fourth would raise the fifth root race you will see in the Theosophical literature that is called the Aryan race and that's actually the technical term that anthropologists were using at the time at the end of the 19th century they took the word Aria means noble the noble ones and these comes from the Sanskrit the the sons Sanskrit calls like the the sages the the ideas you know the noble ones and that's how anthropologist I really don't know why you chose to refer to the fifth good race probably as part of you know that that pretty you know that pride we are the the highest race now after Hitler used this this word you know in the way that he did anthropologists today they use indo-european race they use the word indo-european because they refer with these two other races that came from from India and developed into the European races and then into America so that's how the evolution of the race is going on then there will be a six and seventh group races that we are going to be more spiritual than these esoteric philosophy and religion it is sometimes mistakenly thought that the occult doctrine stands in opposition to religion this is clearly not so the preface to the secret doctrine for example states that among the aims of the work are two of particular revela ladybugs relevant to our study namely to rescue the degradation of the archaic truths which are the basis of all religions and to uncover to some extent the fundamental unity from which we are from which they all spring so as I mentioned lavas key is many times critical about organized religion you you know you you can see that she criticizes a lot Christianity and then Christians thinks that she is you know a Gentile Christianity she criticizes also Judaism and then some people say she was anti-semitic then she criticizes the the Swami's and then it was you know in the east they say that Blavatsky was Boris and even though she she said that they in her view the religion that was closer to the original teachings was Buddhism however she also criticizes Buddhism if you see there so much so that most bodies doughnut said bloodbath Kia's as any you know exponent of Buddhism because again she criticizes how regular Buddhism interprets many of the teachings you know new vinyl this or that don't we or reincarnation she says that her her teachers were Tibetan Buddhists but she says that the the current philosophy of most of the schools in Tibetan Buddhism the present iike philosophy she says that's only exoteric for the masses the the really esoteric Buddhism is not present in there in the schools of Tibetan Buddhism so you know in other word lavas key criticized most of the the the exoteric expressions of religions but her aim was not just to destroy religion as sometimes we have political leaders or you know communists or or others that they they simply try to destroy religion she was doing this for these two purposes to rescue from degradation the arcade truths that are contained in religions but then they are distorted by superstition and misunderstanding and to start to show at least to some extent that there is a fundamental unity behind all religions this is a reason why her one of the reasons why her writings are so difficult to read because she's constantly pulling up different traditions and she goes off the tangent to show how these religions says the same and this other religion so to understand Blastoise writings you have to know about habala hinduism buddhism Greek philosophy Chinese you know because she's constantly bringing all those things but her aim was very clear she wanted to show that there was a universal truth and that is the constructive aspect of her view about religion there is a destructive one the one where she's trying to get rid of the Super's or at least what she perceived as superstitions and and dog wrong dogmas but there was the the constructive one that was trying to rescue the truth they are and to show their unity when I was in India in November we went and visited on the campus at Adyar they have all the temples from all the different religions so we walked around and got to see them and then I started realizing that the early the early Theosophical leaders each had in their their overall duty to to help bring back these truths in each of the religion so you see where Annie Besant kind of took on Christianity in that sense and Christianity Olcott worked on Buddhism Krishnamurti worked on Hinduism ya Krishnamurti designed a bar at Tama that is the the the ritual in the for the Hindu temples he designed one that was more you know pure at least that's what he said and Mason also worked quite a bit with Hinduism and then like Peter worked at the with the liberal Catholic Church so he kind of took the Christianity and made it more of what it was in the beginning and then Olcott world the Buddhist catechism yeah so that that was always part of the and today as I said although there is far more the first organization in beginning the interfaith dialogue was thirty years at the time there was nothing like this it was something that people rejected openly the tears was attacked because it was promoting interfaith dialogue and even if today there is far more and that's great and this is an advance for our civilization normally the comparative study of religions for example among the the scholars focus more on the different system of the on the similarities and even the religious people because they don't want to lose their identity they still try to cling to the differences so the the approach of the tears is not very popular among religious people or among the scholars because the tears is trying to point out to the unity and nobody wants that really so if we as a humanity could trust and understand more than all these religions no religion would be lost because each religion speaks a different language or to a different culture or you know it has different rituals that will appease a certain different part of humanity mm-hmm her support for the religious principle as distinct from the exoteric religious beliefs and practices is made abundantly clear in the same introductory section of the secret doctrine the esoteric philosophy is alone calculated to withstand in this age of crass and illogical materialism the repeated attacks on all and everything man holds dear and sacred in his inner spiritual life moreover esoteric philosophy reconciles all religions strips every one of its were human garments and shows the root of each to be identical with that of every other great religion so the first part of this quote you can where she says the esoteric philosophy only can withstand the attacks of materialism at the time that you had in the West the the dogmatic religion that could not accept any even even the the the advancing knowledge that was going on at the time and then you have intelligent people intellectual people that we began to to see that science was unveiling what they thought was a different universe and most of the intellectual people and intelligent people in humanity were turning materialistic an atheist because they they began to see how the the the way religion had explained which was symbolically but nobody regarded it in that way so the way religion explained the world was no longer working there is scientists that wrote an important treaties and then the I think it was Napoleon that read it and asked him why didn't you mention God once you know the idea the idea of God and the church and religion up to that point had always been prevalent everywhere in anything you would mention God or religion and then the scientist said I didn't because that is a hypothesis that I don't need to explain the universe and that was truly the the spirit of the age the the universe was just a clock a mechanical clock there were mechanical laws as Galileo and Newton and many others were discovering and you can explain the whole universe without having to introduce any God or spirituality or soul everything was a machine so Blavatsky tried to to philosophy that was rational that was scientific in the sense of you know based on logic based on certain facts based on research but that was not materialistic that that's why the the philosophical teachings were presented in that way and again the the TS was the first organization in bringing science and spirituality together in beginning to write about the connection between science and spirituality the second part of the quote reconciling all religions we we already talked about now it's important to understand that Blavatsky doesn't say all the Theosophical teachings are not saying that all religions teach the same that is not true there are obvious differences in religions what they are saying is that all religions come from the same source you can see many things that are common you can see also many differences some of these differences were because they were trying to express different aspects of truth or they were trying to correct misunderstandings in the previous culture or or because they the followers of the sages did not really understand what they said and then you know religion has to go on with with whatever people understood so common origin but of course in all religions there are differences it proves the necessity of an absolute divine principle in nature it denies deity no more than it does the Sun esoteric philosophy has never rejected God in nature nor deity as the absolute and abstract means ends yeah then yeah it's like the reality it only refuses to accept any of the gods of the so-called monotheistic religions God's created by man his own image and likeness a blasphemous and sorry caricature of the ever unknowable so that this is the position of the esoteric philosophy there is no negation of of the deity nature and behind the cosmos you know there is one harm a leader that is quite famous a Mahatma leader were master KH one of Lebowski's teachers denies the existence of God and if you'll read that later it looks like his making the case for for a you know atheistic philosophy but what what they are when you see his argument what they always are denying is that anthropomorphic God that we believe in a see culture you know it says he thinks ends means being being yeah you can say it's like that you can translate it as being or the essence or it follows that the responsibility of those who have access to the teachings is twofold a to study further the doctrines of esoteric science then as far as they can to live accordingly and be to make those teachings more widely available Madame Blavatsky wrote our duty is to keep alive in man his spiritual intuitions to oppose and counteract after due investigation and proof of its irrational nature bigotry in every form religious scientific or social and can't above all whether as religious sectarianism sectarianism or as belief in miracles or anything supernatural Blavatsky was and the tears at the beginning was quite confrontational in a certain sense the tears and its members really believed that there was a mission that that they had which is what blood kisses here to oppose but then she says after the investigation and find improve of their aggression and nature to a post bigotry or in whatever form scientific religion religious social of course it's every person that opposes some other belief or tradition they think that they have the truth and then they go and criticize others and and they may be holding superstition as much as the other person so Blavatsky says you know after do investigation and prove us as much as you can so this has to be a rational process but once you perceive that something is untruth that is a superstition that is is not good for humanity when one way or the other our duties to talk about these two you know let people know about it not try to convince them no no not try to convert them to our own view but to expose these things for those who who want to listen for those who may not know because they never heard about other other option and and the the reason for this criticism is to keep alive the spiritual intuitions of people now we have a tendency to become more politically correct to become more complacent we don't we want people to like us so if you want people to like you then you are not going to criticize or you are not going to say something that they don't want to hear so there is a fine violin balance between being having this attitude of trying to to get people to like us and therefore becoming a mediocre and kind of useless organization and the other extreme is to be too confrontational and to think that we know better than everybody you know between those two extremes I think lies the right attitude in a theosophist if your surface may you know humbly and kindly and not trying to hurt people but we should try to point out to the the what we think are mistakes in humanity in the way we approach things and be ready to recognize them also in our own tradition in our own approach if we do that then the Theosophical society can be a force in evolution if we become complacent then we will be pushed to the periphery of of the evolution of humanity and being available for it what we have to do is to seek to obtain knowledge of all the laws of nature and to diffuse it to encourage the study of those laws least understood by modern people the so called occult Sciences based on the true knowledge of nature instead of as at present on superstitious belief based on blind faith and authority the key to theosophy so in in the in the view of the founders of the TAS and the the early tiers to know about all these was a form of service it was a form of trying to help humanity that's why Jeffrey farting at the beginning he says that there are there are responsibilities for us one to study these these teachings and to try to live according to them that is part of it and then to make those teachings more more known not again not because we want to convince people because we want to draw people to to the tears or because we want to show that the Theosophical teachings are better than the rest it's only that if we believe that there are certain views that are that are true then our duty is to communicate them for those who may be benefited by them and of course in order to communicate we have to know them so the study of theosophy and the the propagation of the teachings should be taking us a way of service again with humility not believing that theosophy is the last word of the truth knowing that any presentation is limited but if this threw light on in our life then we can try to share that and see if that can help others an answer to Deborah's comments the teachings are beautiful but what if we I make mistakes in what my understanding of the teachings are in in understanding the teachings I think the propagation of theosophy or of any teachings is really a hard place to come from either even when I'm talking to my family I have a hard time saying the right thing so I'm not gonna offend somebody or saying something that doesn't make it sound like a cult that I belong to and things like that so it's it's taken me a long time and with a lot of studying and I think before we can get to the step of teaching other teaching the teachings to other people if we just if we just study them and learn to live them and remember that our main duty is service and and you know kindness to humanity then you know we can point out things that are true for us and and that way instead of trying to correct someone else's view on things yeah we can always say this is how I see this you know and you would say you you don't have to wait and see and be an enlightened person to be able to say something you as long as you don't try to push your views to other people you can offer them and you don't need to claim I I you know I have the ultimate truth because we don't it is obvious that we don't understand the teachings in in its totality otherwise we would be enlightened but you you can offer and you say this is how I see this and this is how this helped me so with humility honesty you can offer whatever you you have I know what go ahead yeah I think we can all teach by example in other words if these teachings are true at all they change our behavior to be more compassionate and more other oriented and our behavior changes and I think people see that yes yes and okay ads I think if you approach the topic as one of a personal philosophy it rarely offends people in in her experience and yeah that's true I know for me though it seems like at the beginning every time I open my mouth I felt like it sounded like I was attacking the other person or what they were doing so so there there's that that lag time between learning the teachings living the teachings and then be able to to teach the teachings or or share them so that that's it's not you know one write one on top of the other it's a process yes they you know the everything in life needs experience and with experience you you begin to see what things work what things don't work you know nobody likes for you to tell them that they are wrong nobody likes for you to say something that makes you appear better than them when people feel in that way then they tend to react and we should not be talking from that point of view I remember for example when I was in the laboratory where I worked I we all together in the lab during the lunch break and I always had something vegetarian people first you know would ask me why I was vegetarian and I I would never say well because being vegetarian is better and it's better you don't kill animals and you dodo then they react to that but I said it's just a question of personal experience I have found out that if I don't need mint I feel better I found that if I if I don't eat meat you know I'm preserving the environment or I feel that I'm contributing to that so it is my choice so if you put in that way they don't feel threatened for example by by your life and normally you know at the beginning they try to challenge you and if you don't attack then at the end they start saying they struck start being interested in your your point of view so all this is is part of the experience unlearning and always coming from not trying to convince the other but saying if it helps you this is how I see it and sometimes even if it doesn't seem like it helps them or there's a little you know friction doesn't mean that your point of view didn't get across so we have to kind of make some space there between making people happy and you know speaking what's true for us mm-hmm a communication from one of the end up teachers to a piece in it shows the importance those teachers attached to a truthful theology remember the sum of human misery will never be diminished unto that day when the better portion of humanity destroys in the name of truth morality and universal charity the altars of their false gods so they again the what he is saying here Jeffrey farting is saying here is that the adepts are interested in in truth morality universal charity if they are denouncing certain beliefs is because at least in their views these beliefs go against truth morality and charity and in the Mohammed letters they they say they give some arguments I don't also blob ascii and many others as to why these beliefs our causes for suffering in their view this does not mean that theosophy is either atheistic or pantheistic in her writings Madame Blavatsky de mrs. dismisses this contention and then ends our deity is neither in a paradise nor in a particular tree building or mountain it is everywhere in every atom of the visible as of the invisible cosmos in over and around every indivisible atom and divisible molecule for it is the mysterious power of evolution and involution the omnipresent omnipotent and ever omniscient creative potentiality Paquita theosophy so there are these two two possibilities here that when people especially at the beginning when the odds of you would say all these in a culture that was not used to considering religion in any other way that the judeo-christian tradition they interpreted theosophy as atheistic or pantheistic no pantheism means the teaching that the divine is is in nature and its nature that there is no nothing else than nature and nature is divine so the pantheistic view was it is normally interpreted doesn't accept that there can be something beyond nature actually pam means nature so theosophy is not pantheistic in that sense as provost he says the the deity is part of the visible cosmos what we can call nature and also the invisible cosmos beyond what we call nature or as she says in over and around everything so the later in the 20th century there was a word invented or created by philosophers to talk it to the nominate this of you they call it an invasion so the panelists view is the Theosophical view is the view that the deity is not out there separated for from humanity or from the cosmos and the deity is not only in nature that the deity has two aspects the eminent interpenetrating everything in nature and the transcendent being in beyond nature so that is the pantheistic view I that's I think how you spell it is man meant to be deprived of comfort and strength in his hour of trial no indeed for Madame Blavatsky reminds her readers more than once of the words of Paul whom she acknowledged to be an initiate in his letter to the Corinthians no II not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God of God dwelleth in you the problem with the pantheistic view on the Theosophical view in general is that for most people is too abstract because we are used to relating to the idea of God as a person like a big father outside of ourselves that will come and help a son and you know rescue us or or or prevent us from suffering so when you talk about a deity a concept of the deity that is far more subtle and abstract then many people feel that that is not appealing because they need to believe in in a in a heavenly Father taking care of them now as Jeffery farthing says here in that doesn't mean that the divine is not the power that can help a st. Paul said we are temples of the divine the divine is expressing to us the divine is always available actually the divine is our true essence no your father it is our true essence so since we are the temples of the divine the divine is always available but not as a personal there is available as as the power behind what we really are as the wisdom and they love behind of what we are again in the secret doctrine there is the significant passage alone the ever unknowable and in cognizable causeless cause should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart invisible intangible unmentioned Sado safe through the still small voice of our spiritual consciousness those who worshipped before ought to do so in the silence and sanctified solitude of their souls making their spirit the sole method mediator between them and the universal spirit so you see this is how HPB would consider or regard this this deity the costless cause of everything that is invisible intangible unspeakable except through the still small voice this is from pressure from the Christian tradition and that to worship it you don't need to go to a temple this is by the way the same that Jesus said you know when they face see were we're praying in the middle of town allowed so that everybody would say see how pious he was and Jesus said you should pray to the Father you know in your room in solitude in silence well this is basically the same that Lebowski's is saying here the this worship should be done in the silence of the solitude of the soul is the silent prayer prayer that the Christian mystics would talk about a prayer in which there is no separation of a person asking or even pressing or be giving thanks to to another entity but the prayer that comes in the silence of these this deep state of consciousness where one becomes one with the deity so this is what we call meditation today but that is it that is basically the same that or very similar to what Jesus said for this reason she went on to say the world needs no sectarian Church whether a Buddha Jesus Muhammad Swedenborg Calvin or any other there being but one truth man requires but one church the temple of God within us Walden by matter but kind of penetrable by anyone who can find the way the pure and heart sees God see God so this is the the end of the class for today with this presenting how Navasky conceived the divine and what kind of relationship with we have to with the divine what about bake sales what's a bake sale yeah sorry ed there's something that Pablo doesn't get he doesn't know a bake sale in churches they have bake sales to bring in fundraisers ok yeah yes and it's not that that you know she says we don't we need no sectarian churches I mean she would not have a problem if you want to to learn about the teachings of Buddha or Jesus or Mohammed or whoever else she will have no problem in having places where you can go and learn about these teachings on and learn from each other the what she's talking against is the sectarianism that is associated normally with with churches you can say unchristian because the way that truth is presented through the the words of Jesus resonate with me and help me so they even if we say that all religions are sacred that already just come from the same source you can still prefer one presentation to the other the this doesn't avoid religions of their purpose it does devoid them of their exclusivity of saying my religion is the highest is the only truth and that it does you know but and this is why most religions reject this view but if if they could understand better this and they could generate this sense of universal brotherhood they still could say to me the best path is the Buddhists or they you know the the mostly one with whichever path that that is not being denied by by this approach and then everybody could still follow their religion sees if they have any so is there any other comment or or question about the the view of religion and either their the the origin of the regular religions or the philosophical view on religion and the deity you can use your mic if you have one you can click on the little icon with a with a man raising his hand man yeah it doesn't have short hair it has to be that means Oh Deborah's gonna give it a try yes God hey Deborah yes is it working hi well it's just a little thing but tonight one of the reasons I was a wee bit late was that too young Mormons came to the door and they've only been here from Ohio for for a short for for a few weeks but they were just so tender and sweet and so they wanted to know my faith and so I told them I was Christian but that I think I'm a Heinz 57 of all faiths so we had just this very very nice little talk I guess my in my comment earlier it's not so much that I'm you know in in conflict with anyone I am certainly not these two two young young men but with my family or friends is that I'm worried about saying things wrong you know sometimes people want to understand that just simply because of the books I have and and so we'll get into these discussions but I do worry more of a about explaining it the wrong way I've told so many people about the Theosophical society I don't know if anybody ever goes but but someday someone might and so I think that's my bigger worry is is saying something that could be potentially wrong versus just being a little more silent about it also I guess some of my family have noticed that I'm more content in my life I don't have the sadnesses that that I used to have so those are my comments and I just really liked seeing this about other faiths my grandmother always said they're just another language talking to the wine god / yes they as it said the example is always there the base you know publicity that can be there and you know that phrase your actions are so loud that I cannot hear you what you say yeah but at the same time the the you don't have to cling too much to that because many times unconventional views we will make you do things that are unconventional and people make judge your philosophy has been wrong simply because you do things that they don't understand so you we shouldn't even get caught up in the in the idea that we should be an example you know that act as people would admire expect us to add all these things these considerations I think are wrong what we have to do at any moment is our best honestly and that's what we have to do if the result of that is misunderstanding it's not really our problem you you do your best there is always the possibility of life in any case that your action no matter how well-intentioned it is may result in something good or bad for the other person but then we cannot prevent that we cannot avoid that all we have to make sure is that you know whatever we do we do it to see if that can help and then how that results is a question of karma you know the your karma the other person's karma the collective karma around so we we don't have to worry about the results you just about the causes about your action and you know as you you may say something that is wrong and you know caused some misunderstanding or you may help a person so because of the fear of saying something wrong are you going to refrain yourself from offering something that may be good for the person that would be selfish so you just do your best yeah I as a former teacher and a parent and a wife so much of what we say is misunderstood or not her or you know taken and like Pablo said people take what they want from any conversation that we give so I think a lot of it has to do with what our intention is and you know where our heart is when when we're talking to other people and Edie said another good thing is to recommend a book or a YouTube video and there's a lot of pamphlets that the Ts has that I'm fairly new to theosophy I only started ten years ago and it really takes a lot in a long time to learn how to speak theosophy and I know there's so many things I used to give tours I was at the information department in Wheaton and I know I'd come back from a tour and say something to somebody said yeah I just said this and they kind of look at me cross and I was like oh that was wrong right and nobody ever came back you know or at anything you know like that so I think it bug would be came back and said you know I I want to renounce my membership because because I don't believe you yeah those things don't happen B we don't we don't have so much influence on people right you know so for good or for ill you know we don't have so I don't think we have to worry about that of course the as time we should try to understand all these as best as possible so that we can help as best as possible but then we we just have to give whatever leader we have at the moment and also see the I I never tried to give you know my opinion unless it is asked obviously a person for example the Mormons coming to talk to you it's not that they come and they say we want to inquire into the truth of this statement they are they are to promote their point of view so I would not try to argue and make them change their view you know that they are not there for the reason our family many times also are not they are to have a different point of view but whenever a purse as a problem but cannot see how to deal with it and ask you then you can give your point of view then you can offer this when the person is asking is trying to see when when they are not then is you know I personally don't offer a different point of view any other comment or question alright so thank you everybody for participating for me here every week we hope that this the this series is useful to you and Jamie is going to send a link for for this last recording in the fall and God willing or karma willing or the deity willing or randomness willing whatever it is we are planning on doing a class on the secret doctrine and this sets some foundations for certain concepts so stay tuned and you know we let you know about that class so thank you everybody have a good night and a great summer thank you