Dear Loveday,



     I found your commentary on the Tao very, very interesting. It reminded me

that there is not only one interpretation to these classic spiritual writings

(and also that there are more than one translation available).



    "The Chinese Gnosis" has been perhaps my favorite of JVR's books... more open

and free flowing compared to his other books.I think; but am not sure, that "The

Ghinese Gnosis" is one of his later works.Your commentary opens it up to an even

freer flowing.The Tao, like the Gnosis, cannot be a closed, exclusive system. 

It seems that JVR's son, who broke away from the Lectorium, has created a much

more open space in his books in which to follow the Path than his father and the

organization after his father's death created; for example, that no Temple

attendance is required.  I notice that the organization itself seems to "allow"

more freedom than when the School was first formed.. more freedom yet freedom

within certain structures.





Loveday: I think the best thing one can do is to compare and contrast writers. I

have been very fortunate to have discovered writers and texts which have helped

me immensely.I hope with all my heart that all seekers after Pistis

Sophia(faith, wisdom) will find the words which resonate most truly for them and

which do not create confusion and ongoing perplexity. There are great classic

textsand wonderful modern writers and translators. There are all manner

ofextraordinary people from whom you can learn a great deal without a word being

spoken.





Cathy: While I realize books cannot take us on the Path. We choose to take the

Path, I have found books to be great "pointers" to Truth (so long as the books

are based in Truth). I also feel a kind of transmission when I read great

spiritual classics. Whitman has said, "Who touches this book, touches a man."

And I feel when I touch a book perhaps written by Meister Eckhart I am touching

Truth. Could you list the books which have been most valuable to you and which

have had the most impact on our spiritual journey?



Loveday: The Gnosis is not a sect or an exclusive club or one set of words. It

is not an unattainable golden carrot dangled forever out of the reach of a

wretched obtuse sinner.It is our wisdom which arises in all cultures in all

sorts of ways.When we know it, it is there.



Cathy: Thank for that! It resonates with me.



Loveday:

Those whom we never suspected tell it to us and we may listen with wonder.



Cathy:

That reminds me of the Gospel of Thomas about asking a little child.



I'll close with my favaorite Walt Whitman quote  which I take as our True,

Original  Self speaking to us:

"You may not know who I am or what I mean,

But I will be good health to you nevertheless

And filter and fiber your bones.

Failing to fetch me at first,

Keep encouraged.

Missing me one place, search another.

I stop somewhere waiting for you."

--- In summa-scientia@..., "Cathy" <SnowyHome@...> wrote:

>

> Dear Loveday,

>

>     I found your commentary on the Tao very, very interesting. It reminded me

that there is not only one interpretation to these classic spiritual writings

(and also that there are more than one translation available).

>

>    "The Chinese Gnosis" has been perhaps my favorite of JVR's books... more

open and free flowing compared to his other books.I think; but am not sure, that

"The Ghinese Gnosis" is one of his later works.Your commentary opens it up to an

even freer flowing.The Tao, like the Gnosis, cannot be a closed, exclusive

system.  It seems that JVR's son, who broke away from the Lectorium, has created

a much more open space in his books in which to follow the Path than his father

and the organization after his father's death created; for example, that no

Temple attendance is required.  I notice that the organization itself seems to

"allow" more freedom than when the School was first formed.. more freedom yet

freedom within certain structures



Loveday: This interesting historical event was no doubt rather unfortunate

because insofar as groups split naturally into conservative and radical poles,

to loose the radical liberal arm leaves a group prey to the anal, fixed,

controlling and even paranoid condition of the extreme conservative type. While

the radical liberal tendency may slide towards formlessness and deconstruction,

the conservative element, solid, institutionalized, unmoving,may turn into a

solid block of titanium. Both parts are necessary and together these opposites

transmute. Radicals need reigning in but Conservatives need a hard kick up the

fundament if progress is to be made.If communication fails everything must start

again but of course if all the swaying haruspices and psychopomps in Wizard

Bloodnock's castle are unable to communicate there is not much hope for anything

scuffling about in the hinterland.

There is an easy answer to much of this and future Gnostically working groups

will be provided with a simple and obvious way to open the floodgates of

communication. They will also gradually leave much of the old language,symbols

and myths of the Western Mysteries behind as these are now blown all over the

world,re-packaged,waved aloft and sold off at every street corner which means

they have gone past their use by date quite apart from the fact that most of the

tradition belongs not to the "Magian" world view but to the "Faustian"

weltanschauung of striving ever onwards to heights, out of reach, unattainable

with yearning(didn't that word come out of the German enlightenment?)striving,

questing, and conquering.The new liberal economic order was a last gasp revamp

out of the rag bag of masonic and chivalric left overs and now that that has

fallen splat on its face we can throw the Faustian world view into the museum.

It has finished.

For details on Magian and Faustian world views see Oswald Spengler "The Decline

of the West"

>

>



>

> Cathy: While I realize books cannot take us on the Path. We choose to take the

Path, I have found books to be great "pointers" to Truth (so long as the books

are based in Truth). I also feel a kind of transmission when I read great

spiritual classics. Whitman has said,

>

> I'll close with my favaorite Walt Whitman quote  which I take as our True,

Original  Self speaking to us:

> "You may not know who I am or what I mean,

> But I will be good health to you nevertheless

> And filter and fiber your bones.

> Failing to fetch me at first,

> Keep encouraged.

> Missing me one place, search another.

> I stop somewhere waiting for you."



Loveday: We go the path in spite of ourselves. For some, books and the discovery

of the origins of ideas are truly important. For others working in groups, the

arts, family or business life supply  over and over again experience and

knowledge that is invaluable.

Thanks for the Walt Whitman. In our Gnostic Union meetings we have read his

poetry but not this one yet. If you are interested I could send our current book

list and perhaps a service to show you how simple it is to put one together.



Loveday



>

--- In summa-scientia@..., "Loveday Kingsford" <loveday@...>

wrote:

>

The new liberal economic order was a last gasp revamp out of the rag bag of

masonic and chivalric left overs and now that that has fallen splat on its face

we can throw the Faustian world view into the museum. It has finished.

> For details on Magian and Faustian world views see Oswald Spengler "The

Decline of the West"



Loveday: "Nevertheless I am continually with thee: Thou has tholden me by my

right hand" Psalm73:23

> >

> >

> A good way to begin negotiations when a major split has occurred in an

organisation is to write a letter of apology for any previous unsatisfactory

breakdown in communication and to emphasise that the way is clear for open

negotiation and discussion towards a positive conclusion, consensus and way

forward.

While this may well cause an upsurge of trolls, vampires, reptiles, dinosaurs

and squint eyed gnomes lurking in the undergrowth, do not concern yourselves

with these as at the last trump and in the twinkling of an eye they will all be

heading for the nearest swamp as the pressure increases from the fire of Gnosis.



Loveday

> >



> >



>

> >

>

>

> --- In summa-scientia@..., "Loveday Kingsford" <loveday@> wrote:





> > A good way to begin negotiations when a major split has occurred in an

organisation is to write a letter of apology for any previous unsatisfactory

breakdown in communication and to emphasise that the way is clear for open

negotiation and discussion towards a positive conclusion, consensus and way

forward.

> While this may well cause an upsurge of trolls, vampires, reptiles, dinosaurs

and squint eyed gnomes lurking in the undergrowth, do not concern yourselves

with these as at the last trump and in the twinkling of an eye they will all be

heading for the nearest swamp as the pressure increases from the fire of Gnosis.

>

> Loveday



Joseph Campbell on page 158 of his book 'Creative Mythology'writes  about the

Greek word 'gnosis' and the Sanscrit word 'bodhi' and how these words have the

same meaning...knowledge.He goes on to say that this special sort of'ineffable'

knowledge-"transcends the terms and images by which it is metaphorically

suggested;-"

He explains that Gnostic-Buddhist schools make use of their

images,philosophies,rituals,myths and words as "convenient means or

approaches..... such means are not ends in themselves but ports of

departure,....for ships setting sail to the shore that is no shore; and (that) a

great number of such ports exist.In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition they are

known as Buddha Realms.To modern scholarship they are known as sects. And they

range from those appropriate for the simplest,least developed aspirants(ports

planned,so to say, to handle companies of tourists requiring guides,

pamphlets,tipping information,conversation dictionaries, and the rest) to those

equipped for the maintenance and refreshment of the masters of the sea. The

Perates seem to have been spiritual masters of this latter kind, like the

Mahayana Buddhist illuminati, by whom the dualistic notions of matter and

spirit,bondage and release, being and non-being have been left behind as

illusory. However, many other Gnostic sects- in contrast to the Perates- were of

the 'hither shore' variety, not only recognising a distinction between bondage

and freedom of the spirit, but also working diligently to bring about literally

the mythological end of days, when the last scintilla of enfolded light will

have been released from its material coil. And they attended to this incongruous

task in the two contrary yet affiliated ways already indicated; on the one hand,

extreme asceticism, and on the other, the orgiastic feast."

Carl Jung in his "Fifth Sermon to the Dead" translated by Stephen Hoeller in his

book "The Gnostic Jung" talks about these  extremes.



"When you cannot distinguish between yourselves on the one hand,and sexuality

ans spirituality on the other, and when you cannot regard these two as beings

above and beside yourselves, then you become victimized by them, i.e., by the

qualities of the Pleroma.

Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities, they are not things which you

can possess and comprehend;on the contrary, these are mighty demons,

manifestations of the gods, and therefore they tower above you and they exist in

themselves. One does not possess spirituality or sexuality for oneself; rather

one is subject to the laws of spirituality and sexuality.

Therefore no one escapes these two demons. You shall regard them as demons, as

common causes and grave dangers, quite like the gods, and above all like the

terrible Abraxas."



Finally a quote from 'The Bhagavad Gita' translated from the Sanscrit by Juan

Mascaro for Penguin Classics.



" The wise see knowledge and action as one:

   They see truly,

   Take either path

   And tread it to the end:

   The end is the same.

   There the followers of action

   meet the seekers after knowledge

   In equal freedom."





Loveday