is the school of philosophy a cult?

Discussion of the SES, particularly in the UK.
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bonsai
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Location: London

Re: is the school of philosophy a cult?

Postby bonsai » Wed Aug 12, 2009 12:25 pm

Tootsie wrote:Listening to a dialogue that Krishnamurti recorded, he stated that "Truth is a pathless land. You can't approach it by any religion or sect. You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what your spiritual state is—how childish. Who but yourself can tell whether you are beautiful or ugly within?"


An interesting tid bit. From what I remember the SES claimed that it was on the path of devotion and that my devoting oneself entirely to School that this was a path that leads to full realisation. Personally I think this is simply just another attempt to undermine an individual's resistance to what the organisation is and may ask of them.

The school's path seems to be to try and break down the habits, ideas, ties and attachments that supposedly get in the way of recognising the underlying truth. It seems to me however that it replaces all this with habits and attachments to the school. From my experience of people in the SES they do not strike me as particularly spiritually advanced, just they have now got a misplaced sense that they are on a path to nirvana (or in their language - full realisation)

Some may argue that the SES replaces worse habits, attachments and personal failings with some less worse. This is highly subjective. After all as Hamlet says, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so".

I think however as many of the accounts in the Secret Cult, the St James Inquiry and stories on this forum testify, there are plenty who follow the path of the SES and have done and do some extraordinarily bad things. I know that some people do bad things and regardless of their background and affiliations, but what is not OK is when people do bad things in the name of an organisation. This is the problem with the SES and St James. The people who doing bad things are doing so, either believing they are doing right because they believe in SES or hiding behind the instructions and guidance given to them from the SES. Neither the individuals or the organisation take responsibility for these wrongs.

I find the huge judgements made about people and behaviour by those in the SES mixed with the self righteousness and arrogance of their beliefs of right and wrong to be contradictory to the concepts of advaita they claim to believe and promote.

Bonsai

PS I'm not sure I can bring myself to read MacLaren's biography yet.

Abel Holzing
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Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2004 9:51 pm

Re: is the school of philosophy a cult?

Postby Abel Holzing » Wed Aug 12, 2009 12:37 pm

Tootsie wrote:
Listening to a dialogue that Krishnamurti recorded, he stated that "Truth is a pathless land. You can't approach it by any religion or sect. You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what your spiritual state is—how childish ..."
I would suggest you read The Power Within by Dorine Tolley, which is a memoir of Leon MacLarens life and work and then form your own opinion about the school of philosophy, keeping in mind what Krishnamurti said about truth

I think your point is a valid one, Tootsie.

Although the philosophy on which the School's teaching is based is very similar to Krishnamurti's, the School's interpretation of it is subtly yet fundamentally different (along the lines you have suggested, and in other ways).

In other words, you can have a perfectly valid philosophy and still get it all wrong, by superimposing your own interpretation on it.

The notion that Truth is something that can be approached progressively through spiritual practice (i.e. the more one practices the closer one gets to Truth), and the notion that spiritual states are an indication of how close one is to the realisation of Truth, are deeply embedded in the collective understanding of the School (although widely discredited nowadays as 'childish', if you like, in more enlightened circles), and this has a big influence on how the School presents sprituality in the SES and in the day schools (with its emphasis on spiritual practices designed to create higher spiritual states).

[ BTW, this very question was discussed by a few SES students in the 'Letter from the Leader' thread on the old Kaiwalya blog a couple of years ago (see here: http://kaiwalya.blogspot.com/2007/04/letter-from-leader.html) ].


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