Trinities

I’ll start off the debate on trinities in various religions with a very simple (sceptical) observation:
I very much doubt it makes sense to pretend the various trinities in various religions can be equated. Father-Son-Holy Spirit is the Christian trinity and it says something about the relationship between the divine and each individual, as well as [...]

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sort of perplexing

The following passage seems to go against basic Buddhist thought- at least what i have heard- that there is no “self ” outside of the 5 skandhas, and what we experience as “self”  is nothing other than a coalescence of the stuff’s of the five skandhas, perhaps mixed with a bit of avidya. but here is [...]

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To Be or Not to Be

Katinka, Chris and I have been discussing in the last few posts about the value of our personality, our psychological self, and so on. I need to use the theosophical terminology in order to express more or less accurately my understanding of this topic.
I’d say that kama-manas (the personal mind, identified with this particular body [...]

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Radical Uniqueness

Two recent posts by Pablo and Katinka have addressed a similar idea.
I’d like to talk more about the idea of crucifying our material selves. Generally, I’m curious about the range of attitudes towards not only the physical body, but the embodied self, the personality, the ego (which also relates Katinka’s distinction between self-confidence and [...]

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Self Confidence or Letting go of Self?

Psychologists, especially amateur psychologists, emphasize self confidence as a major predictor of success and happiness. On the other hand, spiritual traditions like Theosophy, Buddhism and Sufism stress the fact that our personalities are a major source of trouble and we should let them go.
Can those two views be connected? Sure they can. They target very [...]

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A Good Day to Die.

The underlying theme of Easter is death and resurrection. And today, “Good Friday” Christians commemorate the crucifixion and death of Jesus at Calvary . That name, “Good Friday” is a very interesting and philosophical one, quite far in spirit from the current message [...]

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Practical versus Theoretical spirituality (or theosophy if you will)

The spiritual path: only practice or only reading?

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Everyday Ecstasy

I live in Chicago where we have endured a particularly lengthy and brutal winter. Weeks and weeks of bitter cold and grey, unremitting winds that freeze the tears on your face. Today was the first real break. It would still feel cool to my southern family, maybe even to me in in [...]

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Forgiveness

There is a discussion group that meets every Sunday night at Olcott, the National Headquarters of the Theosophical Society in America.

During a discussion last week, someone brought up forgiveness. This is one of those words we use frequently, but whose meaning is rarely explored. It occurred to me then that I didn’t really [...]

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Religion versus Spirituality part 2: How to reconcile commitment and scepticism…

I’m getting into the sociology of modernity, for my bachelors paper. Anthony Giddens is one of the primary sociologists in that field. He wrote:
The problem for us - those who wish to see a cosmopolitan world prosper - is to reconcile commitment and skepticism.
(From Conversations with Anthony Giddens: Making Sense of Modernity, p. 132)
This is [...]

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