more thoughts on FEW was Re: BHA: FEW

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

"For lo, we know all things, all the travail that in wide Troy-land the
Argives and Trojans bare by the god's designs, yea, and we know all that
shall hereafter be upon the fruitful earth"


At 07:02  4/11/00 +0000, you wrote:
> Hi Gary,
>
> Good to see you back on deck, and still hankering after those Sirens.
> Am I wrong in hoping the review might be for Alethia?


Hi Merv,

The first draft of my post had "with the exception of Merv".  The
'possible' was a nervous reflex.  This god territory we (I?) are venturing
into is replete with 'cliffs of falls frightful, sheer no man fathomed.' So
I am desperately trying not to tramp on too many sensibilities. But I do
welcome an interest in the Lives which somehow leaps over the fact of their
miscegenation, if I may use that expression.


I would certainly love to submit the review to Alethia, if I can get the
thing done.

Now re Tobin's point about the Easternness or otherwise of FEW.  I think
actually in many ways FEW represents a return to Balvatsky, Besant, &
Leadbetter and the Theosophical movement.  I would very much like to know
more here about Bhaskar's parents involvement with this movement. The
reference on p148 of FEW is very brief indeed.  Andrew Collier too has a
theosophical background I believe.

Tobin's other point about seemed to equate monotheism with western thought
and polytheism with the East needs careful thought as always.  I am
inclined to think that the footnotes (especially 37) on page 46 and 47
suggest some kind of absolute which is beyond the personal god of the Torah
or the Bible.  Certainly as I have said before I am much more tolerant of
the 'god is within and everywhere' line than the God who will sit in
judgement on the Day of Wrath.  Though when I look around the world I think
a good dose of fire and brimstone would do wonders for the American ruling
class.

Let me though try and prove that I have not totally slipped the ropes and
gone off to cavort with the sirens.  On page 136 of FEW we read

"He is convinced of the essential unity of mankind, and indeed all
religions and faiths. (So much so that he does not hold back from
identifying the Christ as a purer or higher form of manifestation or energy
of God than the denizens of the Hindu corpus)."


There are some problems I think here.  If religions are essentially one
then how can one explain phenomena such as the Spanish Inquisition when the
Dominicans tortured and butchered all manner of devoutly religious people?
Or how could someone like the Prophet Mohammed, who actively sought a
tolerant relationship with Christianity and Judaism, be so intolerant of
paganism?

The irrefutable truth is it seems to me that without the enlightenment of
modernity all religions would actively seek to narrow the possible range of
religious experience and someone like Bhaskar would be routinely murdered
in the name of the very Christ or Khrishna or Buddha he clearly admires.

So what am I saying here?  Well I think we have a paradox. Just as we can
only be truly revolutionary when there are no revolutionary parties, so we
can only be truly religious where there are no religions.

regards

Gary



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