Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Duane Carpenter on June 19, 2009 at 6:04am

Because the United Nations is not a perfect organization we should disband attempts at world peace because you do not see its long term vision? Because you prefer to sit in the comfortable corner of your ashram and hurl insults at those who are out there walking there talk and attempting to make change in the world for the better and yes even politically. The world is perhaps in crises right now because there are few too many so called spiritual people doing nothing to make things better. Lots of philosophers and spiritual pundits who think it is beneath them to roll up their sleeves and just get involved with improving the world .The Arcane School teaches people to be responsible and to change world conditions for the better. It does not promote in spite of your attempts to sway your readers thinking support any one particular political agenda.

The Alice Bailey teachings tell students to be responsible and to do whatever they can to change public opinion to positive and creative values of goodwill and right human relationships. Why would anyone want to argue against that? You give in your many arguments against Alice Bailey great quotes form HPB but they are predominately out of the original contexts in which they were spoken. Since you do not understand the Bailey material and have never studied it seriously why do you continuously attempt to distort what she has said? Who is going to argue against HPB who you cleverly hide behind in your attempts to demean the Alice Bailey teachings?
You claim Alice Bailey gave no credibility to Islamic culture and yet clearly in the quote below we can see that she speaking for the Tibetan Master DK put Mohammad into a place of great reverence.
D Carpenter



"Some of the great names... Mohammed, Jesus of Nazareth.
(Initiation Human and Solar p- 38.")

Permalink Reply by M. Sufilight on June 19, 2009 at 2:46pm

Dear Duane and friends

My views are:

I am not quite sure if your words are referring to my previous views on the United Nations.
Yet, I am not agreeing with you on some issues. And you seem not be able to respond by quoting me, and instead end up in fact distorting what I wrote and throw undocumented accusations against me. Here I am a friendly fellow merely seeking to be of help.


Duane wrote:
"Because the United Nations is not a perfect organization we should disband attempts at world peace because you do not see its long term vision?"

M. Sufilight says:
Please Duane, I did not say that the United Nations was all bad did I?

I was referring to that Alice A. Bailey claimed that Master D. K. had the view that the United Nations (not its formation) was directed by disciples operating on a Buddhic level. - I simply will have to disagree.
One reasion being the United Nations Security Counsils construction. Remember that the primary reason for forming the United Nations and the first articles of the United Nations founding papers had as its primary aim to seek to keep the peace in the world.

Secondly. The United Nations seeks to do this through Conventions and other more or less binding HUMAN laws.
H. P. Blavatsky clearly spoke out against non-theosophical human law-making in her book The Key to Theosophy, p. 54-55.
And this fact you are not adressing. And various Alice A. Bailey groups keep promoting the view, that democracy with Prison Laws is the hallmark of human progress. And it is a fact, that it is not. (Take for instance the UN - War Crime Tribunal.)


Duane wrote:
"Because you prefer to sit in the comfortable corner of your ashram and hurl insults at those who are out there walking there talk and attempting to make change in the world for the better and yes even politically."

M. Sufilight says:
I do not believe, that I have hurled any insults at anybody. I am in fact seeking to help us all. It is not merely you who perceives it to be so. And who are "they" you talk about?

I am only seeking to make the facts clear, that Alice A. Bailey and her Master D.K. went wrong several times when writing those Alice A. Bailey books. Look at the impact these books have had so far. The greatest number of followers is in USA - a Christian Country, sorry if I sound too harsh, one of the most bigotted and atlantis-emotional of its kind on this planet. This aught to tell you something?

And self-criticism has have never been the hallmark of the USA population. Let us not forget that.



Duane wrote:
"The world is perhaps in crises right now because there are few too many so called spiritual people doing nothing to make things better."


M. Sufilight says:
The world was also at a crisis when Alice A. Bailey began to write her books.
The world has in fact been in a crisis for centuries, and at least that is what some persons would like us to believe. But, this is not true. The Law of Karma is never failing, and because of that I say, that what people perceive as a crisis is not really so. It is only a crisis to themselves and their egos.

The Bhagavad Gita and theosophical teaching states the following.

The Avatar Krishna said:
The worlds, Arjuna!- even Brahma's world-
Roll back again from Death to Life's unrest;
But they, O Kunti's Son! that reach to Me,
Taste birth no more. If ye know Brahma's Day
Which is a thousand Yugas; if ye know
The thousand Yugas making Brahma's Night,
Then know ye Day and Night as He doth know!
When that vast Dawn doth break, th' Invisible
Is brought anew into the Visible;
When that deep Night doth darken, all which is
Fades back again to Him Who sent it forth;
Yea! this vast company of living things-
Again and yet again produced- expires
At Brahma's Nightfall; and, at Brahma's Dawn,
Riseth, without its will, to life new-born.
But- higher, deeper, innermost- abides
Another Life, not like the life of sense,
Escaping sight, unchanging. This endures
When all created things have passed away;
This is that Life named the Unmanifest,
The Infinite! the All! the Uttermost.
Thither arriving none return. That Life
Is Mine, and I am there!


There is no crisis. There is only spiritual development. Worlds come and go.



Duane wrote:
"Lots of philosophers and spiritual pundits who think it is beneath them to roll up their sleeves and just get involved with improving the world .The Arcane School teaches people to be responsible and to change world conditions for the better. It does not promote in spite of your attempts to sway your readers thinking support any one particular political agenda."


M. Sufilight says:
Real pundits ACT, they ever pray to the DIVINE within themselves. They do not sit down in groups shouting out with Lip-Prayers The Great Invocation to make a dualistic perceived God (they often anhtropomorphize into a "HE" and a gigantic male) to arrive in the Flesh as a Male Christ and god walking on Earth. - If you calls such an activity responsible, it is your choice.

Even so I will agree, that most of the Alice A. Bailey followers are wellmeaning human beings. It is just so sad to experience how much they are being bogged down in narrowminded Christian terminology and teachings - and a view that Western Supremacy in Occultism is what it is all about. I tell you, that the real chelas and Masters are operating using methods, which near no Alice A. Bailey follower for centuries have hatched in their minds.

A Chela once said:
What some Seekers may take to be attractive, or even spread out by us
to be attractive to them, may well not be intended in this manner at
all. That which attracts them, or others, about us may be that
which is laid down by us as a tool which enables us to regard
them (or others) as unsuitable.

What AAB beginner Seekers craves to read or craves to lecture others about is maybe not what they really honestly and spiritually NEED. Why not throw a few compartive study-classes with Alice A. Bailey's books on the on side and for instance Idries Shah's Sufi corpus on the other and see what happens. :-)



Duane wrote:
"The Alice Bailey teachings tell students to be responsible and to do whatever they can to change public opinion to positive and creative values of goodwill and right human relationships. Why would anyone want to argue against that? "


M. Sufilight says:
Nothing what so ever provided, that they do not seek to make us believe in that it is important to Shout out dualistic Lip-Prayer Invocations so to make a dualistic male Messiah and his Master materialise in the physical, where we all can see the Messiah walk among men as a male Christ and a God walking on earth.

Theosophical teachings firmly says that the Divine is within you. Something Alice A. Bailey did a very bad job on telling people.


Idries Shah said:
"People are always looking for leaders; that does not mean that this is the time for a leader. The problems that a leader would be able to resolve have not been identified. Nor does the clamor mean that those who cry out are suitable followers. Most of the people who demand a leader seem to have some baby's idea of what a leader should do. The idea that a leader will walk in and we will all recognize him and follow him and everybody will be happy strikes me as a strangely immature atavism. Most of these people, I believe, want not a leader but excitement. I doubt that those who cry the loudest would obey a leader if there was one."

What are your views about the above quote on "atavism", Duane?

I am not about to promote a sect, who induces excitement into people instead of cultivating their intuition and their spiritual hearts. H. P. Blavatsky said, that parables and allegories are more fitted to develop them, than ordinary writing. And Idries Shah and others have said the same. Alice A. Bailey seem to have claimed in A Treatise of Cosmic Fire and elsewhere that forwarding a systematic teaching was better.


Duane wrote:
"You give in your many arguments against Alice Bailey great quotes form HPB but they are predominately out of the original contexts in which they were spoken."

M. Sufilight says:
I say, that is false accusation.
I would like you to prove this. Are you able to do that?


Duane wrote:
"Since you do not understand the Bailey material and have never studied it seriously why do you continuously attempt to distort what she has said?"


M. Sufilight says:
Another accusation and a personal one too. Have our dear Seeker become clairvoyant and psychic now?
I have studied these texts for years and even decades. One of your most ardent AAB followers will be able to tell you that. And moreso, I am not the one who finds the number of years of study important, it is you. And you aught to consider tha. Is it no true, that it is the level of knowledge and compassion, which is important, and not how slow one reads? :-)

What have I distorted? I was quoting AAB were I not?

Duane wrote:
"Who is going to argue against HPB who you cleverly hide behind in your attempts to demean the Alice Bailey teachings?"



M. Sufilight says:
I thought, that theosophical and even esoterical teachings had a discipline which was and is called comparative studying. I have the wish, that you will stop merely hurling accusations against me almost, like a barking dog, if you do not mind be saying. Try to show me, why I aught to believe in what you say by using comparative studies and examples. That would be much better for you and all of us. Do you not think so?


Duane wrote:
"You claim Alice Bailey gave no credibility to Islamic culture and yet clearly in the quote below we can see that she speaking for the Tibetan Master DK put Mohammad into a place of great reverence."

M. Sufilight says:
No I did not. Please read again.

What I said was that throughout the writings of Alice A. Bailey she clearly serves the reader a deep-freeze attitude towards the Middle East. Islam and the Sufis is near to never mentioned. Her target group are obviously the Christian nations. In stead we are given a book "From Bethlehem to Calvary" where AAB clearly waters down HPB's warnings against the Jesuits and false Christians in and outside the Vatican. And inside theosophical groups. And no book from AAB like "From Mohhamad to Mecca".
(Try Esoteric Psychology, vol 1. p. 167 - I believe I have given you this quote more than one time on other forums. Why is Christianity not only a Hybrid ofshoot of Judaism with a heavy tinge of Jesuitism. Are you saying that Black Magic have disappeard from the Vatican?).

Alice A. Bailey are almost never mentioning Islam and the Sufis compared with her heavy emphasis on the Christian religion. (I wonder what her agenda really was?) And she does it by an extremely heavy use of Christian words and terminology. Near to no words from the Middle East is used. And even Buddhism and Hinduism are thrown into the background, so that the Christian religion and terminology can (appearntly to AAB) have its very important say.



M. Sufilight

Permalink Reply by Charles Cosimano on June 17, 2009 at 10:51pm

I think that when we get annoyed with Alice Bailey for her obviously uncritical views of the United Nations, we have to remember that she was writing shortly after the Second World War and the United Nations was actually thought to have a significant future role in preventing wars rather than just being a debating society for countries that did not really matter (the countries that MATTERED were the permanent members of the Security Council, everyone else was just--there, but that was something a bit too arcane for the Arcane School to figure out.) Her views were actually pretty common at the time and while time has proven them rather foolish, they did not seem so then.

Permalink Reply by M. Sufilight on June 18, 2009 at 11:31am

Dear Charles and friends

My views are:

I take it, Charles, that you might refer to the quote I gave in the above from Alice A. Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age (Lucis Press, 1955), Vol.II, p.220.

My problem is, that as far as my memory tells me, this quote was given in 1947, when the United Nations Security Counsil with its Permanent members was already created. So "Buddhic" knowledge from a Master?
Oh dear, oh dear...I choose to clearly disagree, because I find the Security Counsil non-buddhic in nature.


Alice A. Bailey or her D. K. wrote:
"The Western races must move forward into spiritual supremacy, without obliterating the Eastern contribution, and the functioning of the Law of Rebirth holds the clue to this and demonstrates this necessity. The [180] tide of life moves from East to West as moves the sun, and those who in past centuries struck the note of Eastern mysticism must strike and are now striking the note of Western occultism."
(Alice A. Bailey, Glamour a World Problem (Lucis Press, 1950), p.179-180.)



H. P. Blavatsky wrote:
"Will you revile and scoff at the "Sermon on the Mount" because your social, political and even religious laws have, so far, not only failed to carry out its precepts in their spirit, but even in their dead letter? Abolish the oath in Courts, Parliament, Army and everywhere, and do as the Quakers do, if you will call yourselves Christians. Abolish the Courts themselves, for if you would follow the Commandments of Christ, you have to give away your coat to him who deprives you of your cloak, and turn your left cheek to the bully who smites you on the right. "Resist not evil, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you," for "whosoever shall break one of the least of these Commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven," and "whosoever shall say 'Thou fool' shall be in danger of hell fire." And why should you judge, if you would not be judged in your turn? Insist that between Theosophy and the Theosophical Society there is no difference, and forthwith you lay the system of Christianity and its very essence open to the same charges, only in a more serious form. " (The Key to Theosophy, 2. ed., p. 55)

. . . . . . .

Alice A. Bailey and her D.K. wrote:
"The training given to this group [a special group of fifty] was not a part of Mrs. Bailey's system of training in the Arcane School. The Arcane School is not a training school for initiation and the goal is not to help the student to get into an ashram or to contact a Master. The purpose of the Arcane School is, and always has been, to help the student to move forward more quickly on the Path of Discipleship. It does not deal either with the problems incident to the Probationary Path nor of the Path of Initiation. The Master Djwhal Khul has stated that in the new age the field of training for the disciple is in the New Group of World Servers."
. . .
"This second volume brings additional teaching both in the general text and in the remaining personal instructions which are amazingly frank and direct. A few personally assigned meditations are included to show the technique of the training in individual cases, but the individual training was always incidental to a planned special group achievement.

It should be remembered that these meditations are dangerous to use except as prescribed by a Master and used under his watchful eye"
Alice A. Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age (Lucis Press, 1955), Vol.II, p.XII.



So moving forward on the Path of Discipleship has nothing to do with being Initiated?




M. Sufilight

Permalink Reply by Duane Carpenter on June 19, 2009 at 7:28am

Sufilight asks in her latest posting.
"So moving forward on the Path of Discipleship has nothing to do with being initiated?"

The path of discipleship is preparation to initiation. These statements that you quote from DK via AAB are said in an attempt to keep students from getting overly englamored with the idea that they are special and are going to be initiated if they follow DK's instructions or do this group work. The reason for DK’statement is that most Theosophist are so selfishly concerned with their own special developement that they lose sight of the fact that initiation is in reality a group experience. Not group like mass consciousness. But group soul where everybody moves forward on the Spiritual Path in their own unique way. Miss Sufilight, you look for contradictions in the Bailey work where none exists except what you choose to create out of your hostility for what may be different then what you have been taught to understand. You need to lighten up a bit and stop bashing Christianity as well. “All” exoteric and conventional religions are bogged down in what you may see as empty and meaningless rituals. Every religion has its esoteric side and its mundane side. You keep referring to AAB’s work as the grand Christian Phallic male dominated group. This is entirely incorrect. AAB teaching was designed to awaken the intuition and spiritual Love. Since most of humanity are polarized in their emotions it was felt it was necessary to give out these teachings in an intellectually clear format. It might be of value for you to compare what AAB says throughout her works about the difference between the Occult path and the Mystic Path for it will reveal much of the confusion you find around her teachings.
D. Carpenter

Permalink Reply by M. Sufilight on June 19, 2009 at 11:26am

Dear Duane and friends

My views are:

I know, that we both are agreeing on that the Law of Karma is a reality as well as Reincarnation, and spiritual development. And please understand that I am happy about this. Yet, when the theosophical teachings are perceived by me, (something I have documented, and which none have refuted so far), being turned into something non-theosophical by Alice A. Bailey, I will have to keep my distance and even protest. And that is merely what I am seeking to do.



1.
Duane wrote:
"The path of discipleship is preparation to initiation."

M. Sufilight says:
According to H. P. Blavatsky and others we find that Chelaship, which Bailey several times coincides with Discipleship runs past at least 4 initiations of development. So I find your words a bit confusing.
If you would clairify your views, it could be helpfful.


2.
Duane wrote:
"These statements that you quote from DK via AAB are said in an attempt to keep students from getting overly englamored with the idea that they are special and are going to be initiated if they follow DK's instructions or do this group work. The reason for DK’statement is that most Theosophist are so selfishly concerned with their own special developement that they lose sight of the fact that initiation is in reality a group experience."

M. Sufilight asks:
Did Alice A. Bailey (or D.K.) write anything about this?
Is it not true, that you merely are assuming that it is so?


3.
Duane wrote:
"Miss Sufilight"

M. Sufilight asks:
Phallicism or not.
Not to confuse the readers, you aught to call me "Mr. Sufilight" or better just M. Sufilight.
I am not living as a Miss although you would like it to be so. :-)
Let us not tell the readers any lies.


4.
Duane wrote:
"Sufilight, you look for contradictions in the Bailey work where none exists except what you choose to create out of your hostility for what may be different then what you have been taught to understand. You need to lighten up a bit and stop bashing Christianity as well."

M. Sufilight asks:
You accuse me of several things instead of showing, what I am doing wrong or where I am wrong.
Here you actually seem to be going after the man and not the issue being discussed.
a)
Why should you words be found to be in accordance with the truth?
Why are there not any contradictions? Can you by comparative postings show me and others why I am wrong?

I am not hostile, although you perceive me to be so. I am writing my words out of compassion and simply seeking the truth of the matter as I have learned it. And I am clearly open to any other views provided they can show me, that I am wrong. I se no reason to think something else.


b)
Am I dark or negative, since you want to lighten me up?

c)
You accuse me of bashing Christinaity. What is your proof on that I am bashing Christianity?


4.
Duane wrote:
"“All” exoteric and conventional religions are bogged down in what you may see as empty and meaningless rituals."

M. Sufilight asks:
We can agree on that.
And I claim that Lucis Trust and the Alice A. Bailey books are promoting at least one "empty and meaningless ritual", namely the Great Invocation, which is being chanted out-loud as Lip-Prayer to a dualistic perceived God to invoke a male Christ to arrive and walk among men in the physical as the word made flesh. (At least that is the impression a great number of readers get, when reading Alice A. Bailey's books). And that without any understanding of Atma-Vidya or Atma=Brahman.


5.
Duane wrote:
"You keep referring to AAB’s work as the grand Christian Phallic male dominated group."

M. Sufilight says:
You must have misunderstood, some of what I have been writing.
I am instead saying that the Alice A. Bailey books are promoting a phallic view upon theosophical teachings. And various Alice A. Bailey groups are today hampered by this.
Yet it seem that some persons needs whole incarnations where they are bogged down in a Christianized terminology, a phallic view upon Christ, God, and the Avatar to come. This is my view. And not that the various branches of Alice A. Bailey groups groups are filled with males, although most lecturers and leaders today are clearly male-dominated as far as I know.


6.
Duane wrote:
"AAB teaching was designed to awaken the intuition and spiritual Love. Since most of humanity are polarized in their emotions it was felt it was necessary to give out these teachings in an intellectually clear format."

M. Sufilight says:
And why was that necessary? And why is Western Supremacy in Occultism necessary? (Glamour A World Problem, p. 179-180).

Why not do like H. P. Blavatsky did give out the teachings using parables and allegories, because such teachings are much easier able to awaken the intuition and the compassionate heart - instead of the intellectual pharisee? (HPB even said that parables and allegories are much better fitted to awaken the intuition and the heart in the human).


7.
Duane wrote:
"It might be of value for you to compare what AAB says throughout her works about the difference between the Occult path and the Mystic Path for it will reveal much of the confusion you find around her teachings."

M. Sufilight says:
Are there a particular place or two in any of the Alice A. Bailey books you have in mind?


I am merely seeking to get to the bottom of the issue. Nothing else.



M. Sufilight

Permalink Reply by Mary Magdalene on June 19, 2009 at 5:58pm

One knows not of these identities of human personage. How to tell the forest from the trees?..

One feels it more relevant to discuss that which in embedded within the name Maitreya.

Maitr.eya speaks to one's mind as saying, "Mother~Father"

This being is not outside, nor elsewhere, but in all things manifest and un-manifest. Maitreya is not a being to come in the future, but a being in the here and now (as in ALL being).. Latent within everyone is the propensity to become that which is deemed "Master". Should any chose to know the great being of which each is an intrinsic part (microcosm of the macrocosm), will begin to see beyond any separation. Human forms who choose to serve for the greatest good in any and all ways become greater emanations of the great one light. Teachers are expressions thereof of the great one teacher.

Thusly, to consider what it means to incarnate- all schools of thought can lead the student toward embodiment and unification with the ineffable. The convergence of matter soul and spirit manifested the form of human-ness. Striving ever toward the ideal of one's own nascent divinity, like the trees to the sun, many are called to explore their growth toward self realization.

Be they speakers/listeners, leaders/followers, teachers/students, producers/consumers, etc.. Be they Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Sufi, Christian, Theosophical, Buddhist, etc... matters not. The divisions and classifications and identifiers are sufficient insofar as there is a greater understanding to be attained of each respective flavor as it were... Less important is the dross of human imposed limitations of superficial rules and regulations. More important is adherence to the principle at the heart of each wisdom tradition. That is where the indelible truth remains.

Remain mindful of when one or another one is misleading self or "other" toward the illusion of separation. The Universal Brotherhood has its expression in each and every school, the understanding of the universal infinite intelligence is directly proportionate to the readiness of the spirit body complex identifying itself as the human being. Subjective and objective understandings aside- within the seeker is the sought after.

Permalink Reply by Duane Carpenter on June 19, 2009 at 6:46pm

Beautiful expressed.!!
Thank you for the art and poetry and philosophy of the spirit which sings of "Life" and "Love and our "Oneness" with "All that is". If everyone were as lit as you there would be nothing to debate about. Imagine that. A Theosophist with nothing to nit pick about!!!. We would all slumber in some kind of pralayic sleep that is yet total and complete wakefulness. I dedicate my next few divine feminine images that I will post here on Theosophical network to Mary Magdalene. May the great ones continue to hold you in the chalice of there divine hands. May you sweet child continue to hold "Yourself" in that crucible of fire that cannot be exstinguised nor ever burn out.
Blessings Duane

Permalink Reply by Ferran Sanz Orriols on March 27, 2012 at 10:06am

 Hi, friends!

 It seems that this thread is older than me... I've noticed it just now.

 First, I insist that Bailey, like Creme, said that they are not channelers but mental telepaths. Now, Joe, "fitting into the older" seems quite a conservative requirement to me.... makes me think on the old question of "where new wine is to be stored?".  Yes, it's a pity that there are much more Bailey followers than Bailey students. Bailey's books, Ben Creme's books, HPB books can be taken as a "doctrine", but why?  yes, it's easier but it's also really boring .

 The practice is really simple: to work with the Great Invocation paying attention to the point between the eyebrows with the focused intention of contributing to the common good with the time you spend in this practice. I'm doing it in grupal formation since 1998 and it's still new everyday.

Permalink Reply by Ferran Sanz Orriols on March 27, 2012 at 4:12pm

 Hi, friends!

 Well, James, we disagree on our appretiation of mr. Creme. He openly admits that he summarizes and simplifies many of the contents of AAB's books. I think that he has done a good work in this, in the spirit and the letter.

 I know something of going wild and I have met mr. Creme. He's not gone wild and done "his own thing".  

Obviously? ... what an interesting word... I will not write about what may seem to me a "classic case"... I'll not be able to keep politeness, sorry.

Permalink Reply by Duane Carpenter on March 27, 2012 at 9:13pm

                                                                        

To throw AAB works in with the teachings of Benjamin Crème, Charles Leadbeater and Annie Besant simply demonstrate that the student has not done the necessary research. Putting aside their many distortions and theosophical oversimplifications that Leadbeater and Besant perpetuated they are simply entry level teachings. AAB and HPB speaks to those who  are ready for true discipleship training, HPB created a broad  panorama of esoteric wisdom and AAB extended that work giving  techniques in individual and group meditation, visualization and alignment that will speed up and facilitate spiritual growth.

     I appreciate the sevice work that B Creme has done and have known many good people in his many organizations. Unfortunately he has thrown the idea of the Reapareance of the Christ into a place of oversimplification and outright mockery.

Best Duane

Permalink Reply by Ferran Sanz Orriols on March 28, 2012 at 8:58am

 Joe:

 Please keep in mind that people engage with this web for a variety of reasons. None of us can say what are others here for.

 I am sorry, I disagree with the six and three conditions so I cannot take them as a guidance.

  

 

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