http://www.katinkahesselink.net/kr/jokes.html

The CLUES:

The Brit lives in the Red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane Drinks tea.
The Green House is on the left of the White House.
The Green House’s owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man in the center house drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats
The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the Blue House.
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.
The QUESTION:

Who owns the fish?

There is no fundamental difference between the teachings of K and Theosophy (meaning the essence of Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian teachings). The evil of authority, and employing it to perpetuate the evils of dependency and fear in people’s hearts and minds have been emphasized by K. They prevent any possibility of perception of truth.

For both K and Theosophy, Truth was supreme. Whether it is stated as “there is no religion higher than Truth”, or as “so long as you follow someone, you cease to follow Truth”, they are in harmony.

Vish

I did read many of the original documents that relate to some of the plans that were in the making in connection with the World Teacher Project and most of them were eminently sane, Theosophical and visionary. One of those projects still has some traction and that is the World University Project that still lives on in rudimentary form in the Dutch Stichting Proklus(Proclus Foundation), which sponsors a philosophy chair in the spirit of Theosophy at the University of Leyden. This foundation just celebrated its 50th anniversary with many professors and also Rupert Sheldrake presenting papers.

Many of the scuttled projects came into the physical realm again by an through the activity of neo-theosophical Ascended Master groups. The intriguing congruency between the structure of the larger World Teacher Project around 1925 and the later (around 1975; hint, hint) developed, or, more accurately, re-activated components around the Summit Lighthouse is one of the pillars in my case contra-K and pro-Prophet.

I tend to agree with your assessment. Looking at the context, the larger story of the unfolding of consciousness and the different structures offered to humanity, K. was a perfect corrective. Much of the activity of the T.S. at the time was patently absurd.

Our question now, and one many of the writers here are bringing to new levels of sophistication, is how to balance out the best of both, while staying true to each, and incorporate them into our own spiritual development.

My own $0.02. Please don’t get agitated. You have neither understood Theosophy nor Krishnamurti. I am not sure you are even going about the study the right way. You dismiss context altogether. Doing so would mean that Sri Krishna was blood thirsty to wage war. On the other hand, context shows that He was asking Arjuna to act based on the depth of his understanding.

The coming of Krishnamurti was absolutely necessary to cleanse all belief systems including Theosophy that had degenerated to the extreme due to several factors – mainly authority, hero worship, blind following, ceremonial rituals, and above all the utter lack of sensitivity to man and nature.

Vish

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/44627

Is that Krishnamurti’s description about the TS members conception of theosophical teachings, or he is referring to something in general? Do you have the whole talk?
Now, if he is describing the theosophical conception those members held at that time, then he is quite right, because real Theosophy has nothing to do with that.
In fact, if you read the early talks by Krishnamurti, where some TS members asked him about (what they considered to be) the theosophical teachings, you can appreciate how imperfectly was Theosophy understood at that time, at least by those who asked the questions. Many times, reading those questions, I felt like answering in stronger terms that Krishnamurti did. Seriously.
I had to deal with that kind of approach from some older TS members in my country, and it is sad to see how distorted (from my point of view) was their understanding of the teachings.
In my country, the integration of Krishnamurti’s approach to the theosophical teachings gave fresh air to the TS. And in my particular case, if I may say this, it produced a deepening in my understanding of Theosophy, and others also seem to appreciate the distinct quality that approach has.

(Ommen 29 Jul 1931) Krishnamurti said
“Let us find out what you believe. I am afraid this will not be so pleasant + What I say is
diametrically opposite to your beliefs + You [believe] that Truth lies outside all this chaos. I say
Truth is found through all this alone + You [believe in] a series of incarnations [to acquire] more
and more virtues + You set up an authority + You have created worship, sects and creeds + Your
whole system is based on a desire to preserve your ego … This is what you believe in all its
forms, crude or subtle + You have metaphysics, philosophies, ideals + Your beliefs, your craving
for continuance, your ideas of evolution, progress, paths, karma — all these are diametrically
opposed to what I say. Please see the gravity of this. Do not try to compromise these beliefs with
what I say. ”
———————–
Anand Gholap

For user name and password e-mail me at schuller@alpheus.org

Govert

Chris: Thanks much, although I’m likely just overstepping my bounds, insofar as I’m not currently a member of your organization. My continued presence in such a context would be little different than entering a staff meeting for a corporation with which I’m not employed. I’ll reserve myself to reading at most.

PS. I had sent you a PM perhaps a week ago, but can certainly understand if you might prefer to prioritize your time/energies elsewhere. Best wishes and take care.

There is clearly enough to be said to continue both threads. I thank everyone for their comments on this post, yet I still feel like we haven’t really gotten to the substance of the issue.

Vince: though I appreciate your well-thought out rubric of responses to organizational leadership changes, on this forum I’m less interested in institutional issues and more focused on the teachings (though I would encourage you, if you have time away from your writings, to peruse the contributions at http://theosophicalsociety.wordpress.com).

Let’s pick a single point of purported difference and unpack it. In my experience, concentration upon a single detail is the best way to approach larger issues (with thanks to Blake and his grain of sand).

I’ll propose one, but if someone has a better suggestion, feel free to state it. As we’ve elsewhere been talking about the sevenfold constitution, and to me it is an immensely useful model, what about the line in Govert’s chart that says:

Higher and lower selves:

Blavatsky: 3-fold nature of Self

K.: “an idea, not a fact”

I’m going to be shifting my priorities away from posting in forums for awhile (maybe the next two years or so), so I can begin writing my book that I’m starting this week. Best wishes to each of you.

Blessings,
-Vince