STUDY THE WISDOM LESSONS (Seekers’ Lesson 3)

STUDY THE WISDOM LESSONS (Seekers’ Lesson 3)

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Greetings in the Almighty God’s I Am Presence, Noble Seekers!

For this moment’s reflection, I’d stress on the need to read and study the wisdom lessons or ‘the Teaching’. The essential attitudes to observe regarding the Teaching goes by the social marketing line: Read Everything, Question Everything, Doubt Nothing. Let’s go over these attitudes one after the other.

Read Everything!

Read and study everything that would come into mind as contributing to building a reflective, contemplative, wise self. This is a very important aspect of your own ‘capacity building’ efforts.

It’s up to you to define where to begin. Fact is, you may have already begun. In my case, I began with the Holy Bible: page after page of it, hungry with knowledge and wisdom, I quaffed every wisdom note that I could procure from both the Old and New Testaments. It’s the King James version, coming from the Vatican, brought to my ancestral home by my gifted, genius grandfather. I was 15 years old when I first went through it…. So, you can begin with scriptural materials.

There are many of you there who may find scriptural materials as quite nauseating. “Geek! What Stone Age kind of things! What Greek stuff!” (pardon me, dear Greeks!) Alright, if you’re this type, then maybe you can begin with controversial materials. I was 17 when I read the first controversial, mystical material, The Spear of Destiny by Trevor Ravenscroft, a British white magician. The book came from my own biological mom’s collection (we all have a Divine Mom, remember!). I almost went ecstatically orgasmic while reading the stuff! More such materials came later. You can do the same.

Maybe you can begin with the conspiracy materials. Those among you who are fond of detective novels can perhaps be titillated with conspiracy stuff. There’s The Hiram Key by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, Their Kingdom Come/Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei by Robert Hutchison, and more reads. There are so many reads on this stuff on internet by the way, and most likely so many of you Seekers have already done research on them.

 

Perhaps the esoteric philosophy materials could be your entry point. These texts go by their wisdom traditions: Theosophy, Kabbalah, Essene, Gnosis, Druid, Eleusinian, Sufi, Esoteric Buddhism, Esoteric Christianity, Freemasonry, Anthroposophy, Mayan, Native American, Babaylan (Malayo-Philippine), Veda, Vedanta, Tantra, Tao, and related items. You may focus on just one tradition, but I’d highly recommend that you also do research on the others across time. I began with theosophy, circa 1980, I guess because these lessons were largely those synthesized by my guru El Morya and his team, which he then passed on (channeled) to HP Blavatsky and her team.

Transdisciplinal materials could suit you as entry point. They combine philosophy and sciences’ discourses into an exquisitely woven singular material. Tao of Physics by Deepak Chopra is an excellent example of the transdisciplinal type. Zecharia Sitchin also writes using transdisciplinal methodology, which you will observe in such books of his as The Wars of Gods and Men and Divine Encounters.

You may be drawn the strongest to psychism and magic. Edgar Cayce’s psychic readings would be fitting start ups. Ravenscroft is also into this genre. U.S. Andersen’s Secret Powers of Pyramids is another example. Wicca could also be worth reviewing for you. Materials on evocative magic may also attract you. There’s also sex magic, such as the Toaist Secrets of Love by Mantak Chia. Materials on prophecy and futuristics made by mystics and psychics are related ones. Go ahead, please read them.

So, Noble Seekers, there is no fixed formula as to which reading to start. Feel it from your heart, take away those barriers of mind that could deter you along the path. But never forget: read all of those generic materials as much as possible. They are all important. Stay away from thoughts that “these are more important than those ones,” “scriptures are Stone Age and irrelevant,” “My God! Scary New Age stuff! That’s Lucifer’s footnotes!” If you think this way, thou art no seeker at all.

Question Everything!

“Oh My God! That’s wonderful!”…”My God, those texts are exceedingly wise! I’d follow them all!” “Look at Deepak Chopra! He’s great and superman! I’ll read only him from now on!”

 

Hello! Aren’t you Seekers? Only the cult devotees romanticize certain teachings and texts and tend to look down on others as filthy and small-time. Read everything, but also add the element of a critical mind while you reflect and contemplate on the texts. Never worship the texts or its writers.

I am a Filipino, and I was reared to a great extent in Anglo-Saxon philosophy that was brought to the islands by the Americans and the post-colonial scholars. I was also schooled at the University of the Philippines (main campus), where the critical tradition is dominant and sacrosanct till these days. The Germanic-continental tradition is an addition in my alma mater, the sociology department. The critical tradition has been with me since, and I find the critical mind very helpful for reflection purposes.

I was also trained as a scientist—sociologist and political economist—and I always bear with me the thinking that every text that I read contains errors or gaps. No text whatsoever is so perfect that it would withstand the test of time and be all-relevant for all times. There also is no such thing as ‘Theory Of Everything’ or TOE, and I’m allergic to any contention about certain texts categorically declared as meta-narratives fit for all situations and explanatory of all phenomena. That’s pure dung!

Always allow some space for critical mental process, for some questionings. As in any scientific work, there always is a possibility of 10% error. As a scientist, I’m already very happy when critiques would say I’m hitting 90%. Upon releasing my book 13^th Gate Unveiled, a prophetic-futuristic book about the Philippines, ASEAN, and the Aquarian Age, I was gladdened by a note from a fellow mystic Rachel Somera when she claimed that I was hitting 90% accuracy. What a high mark for an amateur prophet!

In my own experience of readings on theosophy, I was almost completely mesmerized by the brilliant synthesis of HP Blavatsky. Her team mates—Hodson, Leadbeater, A. Bessant, Q. Judge—were all able mystics and thinkers, and met my expectations of what Teachers should be: as Thinkers first and foremost. But their treatment of the ‘Lucifer Question’ got me raising questions. This gap somehow led to the adoption of Theosophy as a foundational reading by secret societies of Fallen Ones such as Hitler’s Germanenorden. One gets the feeling that “Lucifer is Cool!” after going through the Lucifer aspect of their reflections. I don’t buy that part. And I was led into further research to get clarified about the ‘Lucifer Question’. I’m still researching on the Lucifer item till these days.

Not only that. The time-frames used by Blavatsky in her estimations of the evolution of human generic types—called ‘root races’—seem unbelievably and overwhelmingly long! Is this the only way of looking at time periods or timelines? It is more apparent to me that Blavatsky & team was largely seeing reality, including time period and the evolutionary pattern (cycical), from the focal lenses of a paradigm (to use Thomas Kuhn’s term). I was right in my questions as I stumbled upon texts, such as those written by the fellow mystic & teacher Sal Rachele, indicating the paradigm-fixation of many texts. Needless to say, our view of the time periods can also change, the timelines of ancient history can change, depending on the paradigm we employ in our analysis or exegesis of the templates of life.

I should like to share more questions here, but space doesn’t allow. To end this portion, Noble Seekers, go ahead and raise questions. Keep tab of them, jot them down if possible. These questions will lead you to do research all the more, and this is what ‘seeking’ as an attitude is all about: texts should be able to provoke you into raising questions, and into doing inquiries along the way.

Doubt Nothing!

When you are able to raise questions properly—meaning to say, the texts passed through your inquisitive eyes and critical mind—than you can move on to ascertain truths about realities. The truth criterion, in my mind, is still a very relevant criterion, and I do not go along with the contentions of the post-modernist about the matter who regard the truth criterion as hubris.

Anything that is absolutist is a questionable thing to me. Fixed Idea is dangerous and obnoxious. But it is equally dangerous and obnoxious to throw away the truth criterion. “Aha that’s passé! There’s nothing today but the all-luring power of Desire! The Primal! What truths are you talking about?” That’s the line of the followers of Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Baudrillard and the post-structuralists, and they are entitled to their opinions. But think many times before you regard the truth criterion as trash.

Nothing can stop you from perceiving facets of reality as paradigmatic: you can observe them from different angles, and your inferences or conclusions will depend largely on the vantage point from which you perceive them. For instance, in Theosophy, the ontological dimensions are thought of as comprising 7 dimensions of existence, with 7 corresponding bodies of man. There are some other texts that have a different view, as they employ the ‘density’ category rather than ‘dimension’ category. Accordingly, there are ’12 densities’, we are 3^rd density humans in the physical plane, that the planet will evolve shortly into a 4^th density planet, and so on.

There may be variances in inferences due to paradigm differences, as observed above. But one thing is certain at least: the physical plane, where we live, isn’t the only ontological dimension, and that, logically and empirically, there are dimensions higher than the 3^rd dimension or 3^rd density. And because of this certainty, I will never doubt the existence of beings in other dimensions, as they can be empirically observed and known. And I will never doubt the existence of the all-pervasive, all-guiding Almighty God, as both inductively and through yoga meditation I am certain of the existence of the Highest Cosmic Being and of ontological planes higher than the physical plane.

I’m not saying that doubting is a bad thing. What I’m saying is that in the end, you must establish certainties based on the truth criterion. That would be the start of increased wisdom.

So here we end, Noble Seekers. Prepare your own research agenda, trust your Inner Guide in the process, and you’re into this version of ‘magical mystery tour’. Good luck in your enquiries!

[Writ 04 October 2007, Quezon City, MetroManila]