An Oasis

2002-1-11 00:03:00

I commend you for plowing through Isis Unveiled, Rick. Actually The Secret Doctrine is H. P. Blavatsky's most quoted book and the one with the most significant input from the Masters.

I personally find Blavatsky harder to read than Djwahl Khul. For anyone new into Theosophy and interested in easier reading to get some foundation teachings, a good starting book is: Fountain Source of Occultism By G. dePurucker free at

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/fso/fso-hp.htm

Overall, the Theosophical writings are a good guide to knowledge, even though a number of their misconceptions have been corrected by Djwahl Khul.

There are many good Theosophical writings available online free, even so, I would still recommend reading the Bailey books first, but with the help of a glossary. On the other hand, for some like Rick, reading HPB first may help fill in the blanks before proceeding. Every person is different.

One thing on which I must commend the Theosophical Society on is that they have come up with a vast assortment of writings which help to clarify the works of their founder and offer additional speculation. Lucis Trust, the Publisher of the Bailey material, has printed or endorsed virtually nothing except compilations of Bailey writings.

One of the problems is that there are few people who understand the Bailey writings enough to write or expand upon them. You'll find almost all the writings available about the Bailey material are tabulations or compilations of some type.

I must commend Mindy for finding several good sites of tabulations for us. They are about as good as can be found on the web or anywhere else presenting Bailey material. They are very useful for the student. But as far as expanding thought and principles beyond what was given by Djwahl Khul I have seen virtually nothing available.

Djwahl Khul placed emphasis on not following him as a cut and dried authority, yet almost everyone who quotes him are diligent in not injecting any intuitive thoughts of their own.

This we seek to change here. We will do a minimum of tabulation for those types of things are available elsewhere. Instead we seek to lay a foundation for learning and then look at some of the teachings and take them a step further.

For instance, one current class goal is to get students to contemplate the three sub aspects of the Rays, something I have not seen done before.

When we come across an interesting quote, instead of just saying "run this by your soul and see what happens." we have you go a step further. We say "run it by your soul and find more than is written there and share."

If Djwahl Khul mentions "a point of tension" we ask what is a point of tension, what is the principle behind it and how can we apply it in our lives?

It is only recently that we have been putting emphasis on the Bailey writings. Overall if you read the archives, you'll find I have probably quote the Bible more than any other book and much of the material is not presented clearly in any other book.

With your help and sharing of thoughts I hope to see the Keys as a unique place for accessing creative and original thought, an oasis in the midst of blandness.