The Theosophical Society was founded in
New York on November 17, 1875.
The
San Francisco Lodge was founded on August 10, 1901.
From time to time, in this space, we will post podcasts of Friday night
talks, poems, essays, video performances, minutes of selected Friday night
talks (both from the current era and from a hundred years ago), and other
content from SFTS members and friends.
For
information on the Theosophical Society in America, visit
www.theosociety.org, and for information on the Theosophical Society
throughout the world, visit www.ts-adyar.org/.
Audio/Video Journal Entries for Download
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SFTS Written Journal
A beautiful exploration of the immediate, practical, and uncomplicated
nature of mystical truth
Ramsey Tietjen, SFTS, September 2006
Wonderful, uplifting experiences have a way of turning into ideas and becoming dead. The stuff in your head is all yesterday
and tomorrow, all dead stuff. If you read and study mystical things, you may find yourself thinking about the path to liberation,
realization, illumination, enlightenment: things that somebody experienced yesterday and you hope to reach tomorrow.
A real teacher, a guy like Joe Miller, is always trying to bring you relief, NOW! After all, if something uplifting is going
to happen, it will have to occur now, to the first person in the present tense. When else can it happen, and to whom?
Many spiritual teachings tell us that we are not the physical body; yet the body is your present tense. You don’t have
to be an acrobat, Olympic weightlifter, or master of the martial arts to live in it. The thoughtless present tense of the body,
out of the vortex of mental babble, is waiting for us when we remember to drop into it. It is a simple remedy for an overheated,
uneasy state of mind. There are no special qualifications, no ideas like enlightenment or self-realization, required to find
relief there.
The following excerpt from Balanced Man by Fritz Peters (http://www.eurekaeditions.com/peters.html) struck me as a beautiful exploration of this immediate, practical, and uncomplicated nature of mystical truth:
What I think most of us came to understand (and I am not speaking primarily of the children at the Prieuré) is that life is an incredible adventure and that death—whatever else it may be—is also at least a potential miracle. Man’s impulse to fly into outer space, climb Mount Everest, hunt man-eating sharks, go around the world in a sailboat alone, dive to the bottom of the sea, etc. seems to me to be only the physical counterpart of the search for and development of a higher self. So I find the daily risks of life anywhere (why freeze to death in the Alps, when you are just as likely to drop dead if you fall off a ladder in the bathroom?) as exciting as any other hazardous occupation; and it’s a lot less expensive. I do not know—how could I—if there is an afterlife but I am certainly going to find out whether I want to or not—because the only way I can find out is by dying. Also, if there is an after-life, it has at least a fifty-percent chance of being a miracle. If it is simply going to be the end of everything, then at least I won’t have to go through the process of earning a living at some dreary job and paying for the antics of the federal government every year. Also, given the possibility that death is just the end, then my only alternative is to “get as much” as I can out of this life while I am living—to enjoy it fully, in the philosophical sense: “To be immediately aware of?... not as an object of thought, but as a phase or ingredient of one’s own conscious state or activity.” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary)
In other words, an acceptance of the fact of one’s own death, is a potentially winning ticket; that it may be, at least fifty-percent, a losing ticket, is also true. Perhaps this is simply the difference between optimism and pessimism. Whichever view one takes—and it is difficult to believe that anyone interested in philosophies which may lead to greater development of one’s potential ability to achieve an harmonious state of consciousness (which is surely the main aim of Gurdjieff’s teaching) is a pessimist by nature—the view of the possible afterlife or afterdeath is something that can be self-instilled. It is not an automatic result of one’s heredity or conditioning. And the recognition—the awareness of death—is one of the first necessary steps in what Gurdjieff tried to convey to his students. Admittedly, it is easier to convey a concept or an idea to children than it is to adults; children are not only more receptive, but they do not have all those associative, habitual reactions to new ideas. They are curious, usually eager to learn and they have not surrounded themselves with the emotional, mental and physical attitudes that make it difficult or even impossible to reach their essences. For all these reasons, I feel that it was the children at the Prieuré who were the most fortunate. I, for one, was not yet numb with despair, or embarked on that perilous road to wisdom or development through the mind which so many people of all ages seem to be taking today. Wisdom, if that is the correct word, is of different kinds: physical wisdom is transmitted physically, emotional wisdom emotionally, and intellectual or mental wisdom is transmitted through the mind, and through the transmission of ideas from one person to another. But when all learning is confined to thinking, it only makes the process difficult. It is comparatively easy for one to learn how to plant a rosebush by watching the gardener. It is a great deal more difficult to plant that same rosebush if one has to first learn mentally what a spade is, how to use it, etc. If one has never seen a spade, it is really hard work to translate the mental concept of a spade into an actual spade so that the body will know what it is and how to use it. My body understood, without words or explanations, how to work at all kinds of things at the Prieuré simply by the process of physically watching other people do those things. Watching someone fry an egg for the first time makes frying eggs easy. On the other hand, if you have never seen an egg or a frying pan, and your only weapon is a cookbook, it is much harder to learn how to do it. Gurdjieff taught us by example always, which was invaluable training. To have to approach the problem of creating new physical habits by reading a book about how to do it, is much more difficult. And I often think that is the crux of the problem that faces sincere seekers today. Since there is no “place” (like the Prieuré) for them to, go to, they go to group meetings and read books, which forces all the discipline to come through their intellect, rather than through their bodies The same is true of emotional training. You can learn in an instant the reason for human conflicts and emotional misunderstandings if you are in a position to see people going through them—and Gurdjieff created “friction” at the Prieuré in order to produce just such conflicts. Yes, we were fortunate?... I might even admit to the word lucky. Finally, I think there is an emotional attitude that seems to me healthier as well as proper to mankind—certainly preferable to continually bemoaning one’s fate in this “vale of tears”. It is a vale of tears only if we decide—emotionally—to think of it as such. I learned to like life when I was a child, often simply because Gurdjieff managed to make it seem ridiculous and therefore amusing. The conscious use of humour--at which he was an expert—reduces the greatest human drama to something absurd. Great human drama does not lose its dignity in the process, but it is put into perspective: it is still tragic, perhaps, but tragedy is only the other side of the coin, comedy. Life, to me, is a gift and a privilege, and perhaps the most important thing I learned from Gurdjieff was that there is nothing wrong with “having a good time” by, first of all, just living to the hilt. Since life itself is a potential daily miracle, what reason is there to be solemn about what may happen when it comes to an end? (Fritz Peters, Balanced Man)
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Judgments, Comparisons, & Opinions...OR...Standing on The Edge of a Cliff
Part I: Judgments, Comparison and Opinions
Jan Black, SFTS Lodge May 2006
A large part of my identity has always been left-brain. I’m a great sorter, logical thinker, and linear kind of gal. Compare and contrast? Let me at ‘em! So when I first heard people talk about letting go of judgments, comparisons, and opinions…. Impossible! I thought. No one can function this way. Isn’t every decision made up of comparisons and opinions (with a judgment generally thrown in there somewhere)? How could you ever decide what to have for
breakfast even? You’d become immobilized at the first step down this path and be forever standing there like a duck on one leg with his head tucked under his wing. I dropped the whole idea like a hot tamale and moved on to much more comfortable notions such as “we’re all one” and “love one another”.
It was years and years before the mist began to drift away from this concept enough for me to consider looking at it again. Maybe it isn’t really about HAVING the judgments, comparisons, and opinions because they’re ain’t no stoppin’ ‘em. It’s about the energy that burns and churns with them. Oh, the righteousness of it all. How many times have I been able to let someone express a differing opinion without “enlightening” them on the better, higher view that I have. If they would only see the light….Heck, I can’t even let my friend wash lettuce without telling her a better way to do it, which is of course, MY WAY. OK, yes, I have control issues but let’s not get distracted here.
The energy around JOCs (short for Judgments, Opinions, Comparisons) comes from being attached to them. Why am I attached to them? Which ones really turn up the heat? Why do I really care if someone thinks so-and-so is a great political leader? It’s just a point of view. Perhaps if I had lived their life, had their experiences, I would feel the same way. Am I really convinced they don’t have a heart or a brain to think with? Do I need to “save” them from their erroneous point of view? Do I need to “save” the country from the consequences of their erroneous point of view? If that person then proceeds to call me an idiot and a traitor for not supporting that particular political leader,. how will I feel? Can I quietly let that go and move on or do I feel required to “enlighten” them as to the correct view of the universe - aka - MY VIEW.
To get back to the big “why” am I attached question, I think that bag of judgments, comparisons, and opinions feels like a very large part of that all absorbing “ME”. Without them - “WHO AM I?” My sense of self is completely tied up with them and if I think about letting go – releasing them into the vapors, the ground starts to shift under my feet and things get very wobbly. What would give my life meaning? Where would the passion come from? What would I have to talk about for heaven’s sake? Who would I be?
Another piece may be about needing to be right which is such a validating thing. So, in that sense maybe I use them to create my place in the world. You’re over there with your opinions (mainly wrong) so that means I’m here with mine (all right). I empower my JOCs, and they empower me. Very nice.
Having the great luck and the incredible luxury of not working the past five years has allowed me to have plenty of time with myself and this question of why am I so attached. I can recognize that my view is just one point of view and we just spent six weeks reading the phrase “as a thing is viewed so shall it appear”. My interpretation of that is that ALL views simply are and one is not more or less correct from the other. If my heart is truly open to all my brothers and sisters then somehow there must be room for all their different views. This is my intellectual conclusion. Reality is slightly different.
So far, in looking at this question of attachment I’ve realized one thing for sure. I’m mightily entertained by my judgments, comparisons and opinions. Whether I’m all riled up tilting swords in a disagreement or completely jazzed comparing the same notes with a compadre, I seem to thrive on the emotional intensity and would compare it to seeing an action/thriller movie – only much better of course. What is it feeding me? Probably nothing. There’s very little new that ever comes from these exchanges. I think I’m just surfing on the energy. I love that emotional high or at least I used to. It’s starting to feel empty.
If I take away the energy, then the attachment lightens and it becomes easier to think about letting go of my judgments, comparison, and opinions. It still feels as though I’m standing at the edge of a cliff with nothing above, nothing on either side, and nothing below (to borrow from John Tarrant) in other words – damn uncomfortable – but who knows? Maybe I’ll get used to it.
One teacher has offered a few thoughts about judgments, comparisons, and opinions:
1. If you feel strongly about something, try taking the other side for a day. Think of all the reasons that could breathe life into that view.
2. When someone criticizes you, excuse me, “shows you the way”, simply say “thank you” with an open heart.
3. Let your JOCs be fluid. If they’re fixed, it’s easy to get stuck.
4. No one opinion is correct. As Mary said last week, “We don’t really KNOW anything.”
The past couple of Friday nights have to be at the top of the list for the most interesting duo of talks I’ve heard. First, one speaker criticizes us for not being loving enough and more or less suggests that he can “show us the light”. Then the next week, another speaker disses us not only for being party animals but also for not putting enough thought and energy into our branch. She didn’t have suggestions; she had a complete plan of action. I’m not sure “lively discussion” quite covers it.
Although I didn’t speak out myself at either of these talks, my inner voice was shouting and that familiar visceral response kicked into high gear. Judgments, comparisons and opinions were firing around my brain like little go carts banging into corners as they went. In other words, plenty of energy all revved up and raring to go. Why in the world did I care what either of these people, whom I had never seen before, thought about MY lodge?
The ability to make judgments is a survival skill that enables us to anticipate, to learn and predict outcomes, and to protect ourselves. It’s a great tool but a lousy master. How to tame the beast is the question.
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July 28, 2006
Selected Poems of Peggy Tahir
SFTS Secretary’s Note: The life of the SFTS Lodge has been enriched by many musicians and poets. Here is a sampling from the work of one of our poets, Peggy Tahir. In upcoming SFTS Journal entries, we'll post some more of Peggy's poems, as well as selections from some other Lodge poets. We will also be posting, as time goes on, selected minutes of Lodge meetings both recent and from the distant past.
EASTER SUNDAY LEMON CURD
I bring the bag of meyer lemons home.
Nearing Easter, nearing revelations
I decided on angel food.
The stones
In the yard gleamed.
A quiet summation
Of ingredients: check cupboards and fridge.
A robin sings on the back fence.
I leave
To buy eggs and pastry flour.
The bridge
Across the river is raised; small boats weave
Through the channel toward the turning basin.
I break eggs using the three-bowl method.
After the whipping and folding, no sins
Emerge. The yolks, the grated zest, the melted
Butter. I stir as the finch sings, and brings
To the maple its twigs and fluff and string.
2002
TILOPA REVISITED
Thought is not a knot.
Imagine nothing if you dare.
Analysis is limited.
Forget the meditative state.
Reflection is an empty mirror.
It's natural to be.
Don't abandon, don't adopt.
2002
BUTOH
What would happen
if you stepped on a snake?
Everything could start at that moment.
Move slowly like ghosts in a dream.
Climb in and out of your skin.
In the background:
flute and chimes
Irregular as sky.
That snake
might have been a stick,
or a shadow.
The dancers move through
atomic mists, each gesture
precise and uncalculated.
What is that load you carry?
Hauling from place to place
ashes of the dead.
Faces white, bodies streaked with soot
Travel blind
become the serpent
the stick or shadow,
Chained to invisible burdens.
The dancers lurch forward
to the front of the stage in a rush—
Their faces the burned flesh of ancestors.
2000
THANKSGIVING 1999
My mind is full of menus.
I read your poems, longing for the un-exotic.
The soup Babette prepared was clear,
A consomme to begin, nothing to clutter the palate.
Birds light on the clothes line.
Wind chimes of shell clatter in the afternoon.
I eat corn chips and think of spicy pumpkin soup.
In the next poem, a radio is playing.
There are at least nine versions of spring.
I could make the lime crème fraiche ahead.
Pepitas are easy enough to find.
A bird eats a snail on the walk.
I'll soak wood-chips in wine to flavor the turkey,
Smoke it slowly on the barbeque.
Next a series of dreams:
Drunken dreams, driving dreams,
Running-to-the-sea-shirtless dreams.
A maple glaze for the ham.
There are many birds being named.
Detailed flight patterns.
Numerous clouds.
I'm hoping it won't rain, not that it matters.
The fire is in the kettle.
Carmelized onion tart a sweet side dish.
You turn toward the ocean, looking for insight
On the low road. Maybe kindness.
And for dessert, clafouti.
1999
From ROSEPETALS FROM MURSHID’S GRAVE
15.
Put stinging nettles in your tea.
This is how the world feels.
Drink and drink
until you are thin and green
and people cannot tell
whether you are human, beast, or wrathful deity.
If you are happy they will wonder
what kind of drug you took.
Offer them some of this tea.
1983
Trust is a very important concept to grasp. When there is chaos and
confusion in our life and minds and we are having difficulty, whether
it’s being frustrated or upset about missing a bus, missing a deadline, flipped off by another driver, rudely spoken to by another, feeling helpless about the state of our world affairs, not having enough money to eat a good meal or to have a comfortable life style. The list goes on and on - there is in most cases a knee jerk reaction that can stimulate within us a very dark energy that can overtake us both mentally and emotionally if not recognized, harnessed and dealt with properly. As we all may know from personal experience, unleashed anger, fear and other negative energy can consume us in a matter of seconds, take our lives over, ruin our lives and cause havoc in all those lives around us. A perpetuated, totally self-destructive energy results and devastation can happen, totally draining us and wiping us out. Any hope of goodness, love and kindness, faith and trust, peacefulness and balance maybe temporarily or permanently lost and regaining balance may become difficult when we lose touch. We may lose friends when we are in this state. The body fills itself with toxic poisons immediately, which ultimately result in sickness and disease.
On the other hand, opportunities for a better outcome are possible. We are tested time and time again until we get it, and learn how to deal with our own realities and states of consciousness. We need to remember how forgiving our world can be when we make mistakes and make efforts to correct them. Every second of the day and each day we arise, this world of ours gives us new opportunities to make different choices to change our perceptions and attitudes and behaviors. This world is an opportunity to learn and grow and know how different choices can and do effect us. All of us need to learn lessons on knowing what works and what doesn’t work. What brings us love, joy and happiness? Most people, whether in their right minds or in their lowest moments of despair and confusion, really are wanting love, joy, happiness and non-violence.
Trust is not a blind experience. Trust is lifting our hearts and minds to a heavenly reality and believing there is such a place to live and think and have our wholeness. We have all had glimpses of this reality. We have all had moments when things seem to just click in. Is it because we are operating in an automatic pilot of knowing that everything is working for us or are we consciously making an effort to be in a different groove in our minds?
Sometimes during the day we can easily fall out of this grace of divine knowing. Some thought, event, or words from someone can trigger a moment where we lose sight of our vision of happiness and knowing that we can live in a positive world. We can totally be thrown off our trolley so to speak. Transmuting energy is not denying our thoughts. It’s acknowledging their existence without giving them power over our lives and without judgment. We are the world and the world is we. Freud said psychoanalysis forces us to look at things we don’t want to look at, and by seeing them they disappear. His job was to constantly tell his patients just what they didn’t want to hear.
Disease is disharmony - Dancing with the shadows is something we do, and learn from. Trust is a state of mind or being. Trust is an idea that there will be another day, another night, another opportunity, another thought or idea, another way of doing things, another chance no matter how large or small. Life offers both feast or famine, emergencies or calmness, war or peace, rain or sunshine, employment or unemployment, wakefulness and sleep. These polarity opposites are states we all know exist. The problem happens when we don’t feel, know and have harmony, abundance and peacefulness in our lives. We don’t like disruptions from our flow of life. Life gives us the bitter and the sweet. Trust comes into play when we need to remember there have been and there could come better days ahead. We have all had glimpses of better days and better opportunities, so why couldn’t these good times happen again? Believing we can have goodness in our lives sometimes takes a huge leap of faith. We may fall four times and get up five times.
How do we learn to trust mindfully? There are many methods and ways to learn trust. Life experience is one way, meditation and prayer are other ways. When we raise our consciousness, we are able to focus on a power greater than we realize, also called the God or Goddess, or the Christ, or the Buddha within. Through meditation, realities beyond this everyday dimension open up to our awareness. This is only the beginning. Meditation is the most practical tool to access our divine awareness. Prayer is of course helpful too, the difference being prayer is a way of petitioning God, and meditation is a way of accessing and receiving the divine flow of God.
If we are in a state of mind that makes meditation difficult, usually because of too much chaos going on in our inner or outer world, calm and flowing music can help relax the mind. Stilling the mind is the most important part to begin a meditation. Mind chatter is like monkeys in the brain, thoughts can keep on coming up and calling our attention away from peacefulness. The whole idea is to be able to still our mind so we can receive the higher power and light of the divine flow.
Sometimes repeating pleasant words over and over again that come to mind is an excellent way to bring the mind into focus. A word for this is called mantra. Mantras have been used since time immemorial to help still the mind and transcend the thoughts of this world. The whole idea of using mantras is to create a peaceful space inside our mind. Even repeating over and over again simple words such as peace, love, goodness, health, trust, hope, beauty, grace, relaxation, good feelings, health, trust, hope, beauty, prosperity, abundance, good thoughts could help create a good atmosphere when we feel we can’t do anything but dwell on the negative. Repeating positive words and affirmations helps to slow down the thinking mind to eliminate racing thoughts and to get ourselves back into balance. The repetition of positive words would definitely raise our consciousness over time and help us to begin a good and effective meditation. Ultimately, meditation will promote a sense of peace, a sense of trust and hope of a better state of mind.
Another good way to still the mind to help begin the meditation process if we are a visual person is to visualize a place we have gone before that is filled with happy memories and reconnect ourselves with the good feelings and thoughts we have experienced in these moments.
All these techniques help us to receive the divine flow that is ever waiting for us from the universal source of supply when we do meditate.
Maybe angels are in your life so that you can learn to listen and hear the voice of God say come up a little higher where you can think clearly and know there’s a divine universe working in your life and the world and that someday you can be happy. Developing our spirituality in this modern world is a necessity.
One thing in common with all these ways to a happier present is the conscious effort to effect a change. Without the conscious awareness that a better present is possible and without your decision to act for a better present, a mechanical perpetuation of the status quo is pretty much a good bet. Same action, same disappointments, same thoughts, same experience over and over again with the same quality as the present experience is inevitable. So, to effect a change requires hope and faith and an ability to act, however small the act seems to be.
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