A Philosophical Attitude

This subject came during a recent time when I was very resentful of the cruelties I saw in the world: people attacking what is holy and good, the distortion of truth for selfish ends. It especially gets my goat when I see the many suffer because of the thoughtlessness of a few. Oftentimes evil men exploit the same freedoms we allow for the benefit of all. They represent the tares among the wheat. But there is a greater Justice that allows evil to temporarily exist in service to a greater cleansing to prepare for the good. Jesus explained this in His parable about the tares and the wheat,

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

My Scorpio rising at times wants to take justice into my own hands and “force” people to see the truth or do what is right, or at least to get a bit of unholy “that ought to teach them” revenge. Our Scorpio, Jonathan, struggled with this too. Ann Ree received these words from one of the White Brothers for Jonathan,

You are in need of a more philosophical attitude, which will give you acceptance of things as they are - and more flexibility. Inasmuch as you are going to open wider portals concerning religion, you must open the vein of philosophy, that you may have an overlook into the human affairs of men.

Ann Ree also had a time of where she needed to learn acceptance and look past some immediate circumstances toward understanding why things are the way they are. In Prophet for the Archangels, she wrote,

One day when I was depressed and despondent due to my dying to the old way, the Mother of Jesus appeared to me in a vision. She was surrounded by a blue medallion, and gave off an inner light similar to the angels. In her left arm she held her Babe, and raised her right hand in a blessing, saying to me, “Fret not thyself because of evildoers.” After this blessing from Mary, I experienced a renewal, a rejuvenation, and accepted the new way before me.

Philosophy, despite its somewhat dusty reputation, is actually essential to working with poise in this world of conflict, contradictions, and frustrations. On the outside wall at the Foundation, Ann Ree had these words placed: Philosophy, Science, Religion, and the Creative Arts. We could call these the Niscience quadrivium, or meeting of four roads, in answer to the Renaissance Quadrivium of Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music, which was the foundation of universities at the time.
Gene Cosgrove, who Ann Ree described as an advanced and selfless teacher, wrote in his book The Science of the Initiates

In our time, the student possesses four avenues to truth - Religion, Philosophy, Art and Science. In the days when the institution of “The Mysteries” was still before the eyes of men, these four ways converged at the center and constituted a wholeness of experimental values.

In general use, we find phrases about being philosophical about misfortune and loss, or being philosophical about the general ignorance in the world. Indeed in all disappointments and disillusionments, is a lesson in a greater plan operating behind our short-sighted desires, if only we could open our eyes to it.
Many of the great Masters had lives as philosophers in Greece. Their teachings, though far in advance of the general state of humanity, were yet part of a time when philosophy breathed with our breath and pulsed with our blood. People were more powerless then, especially regarding nature, and had to make sense of fate and the bewildering contradictions in nature. Through Nature they had an intuition of a higher Rationale behind apparent senselessness.
Today we have to deal less with the storms of the natural world, but like Peter, more with the storms of the astral sea acting on our own human nature. To walk upon these waters, Ann Ree counsels us in her excellent article, “A True Philosopher”,

To become a true philosopher one should live with men through the human side of wisdom; he should learn to blend with the human side of action. The philosopher comes to understand the thought process of the savage and the thought process of the Great in Heaven. The philosopher caters to babes and he caters to giants.
He who becomes a philosopher has reached the time in which he stands tall in spirit and in earth. He stands not above men as knowing more, but he stands with men as knowing their thoughts, their feelings, and the result of their feelings. He constructively builds within himself the realization that that which lives in the small or that which lives in the great has its interpretation through soul-value alone.

Value is closely related to feeling, preference, desire. It motivates thought. We are motivated to think about the things that are of interest or fascination to us. Ann Ree said that at the root of every thought is a feeling and somewhat humorously compared it to the Biblical story in Genesis: Eve eats the apple, then Adam follows.

If I may compare feeling to the motor of a car and thought to the steering wheel, I think you’ll get the idea. Without a steering wheel a car is as likely to take us into a ditch as it is to a garden. But without the engine it doesn’t matter how we turn the steering wheel, we get nowhere.
In my white paper material for this month Ann Ree wrote,

Thought is intricately interrelated to emotion. Emotion sustains all thinking. Were it not for emotion, thought would become fixed, static, and dead.

A philosopher seeks to understand the totality of how we learn and ascertain truth, which means the intelligent combined use of feeling and thought. Continuing my car analogy, the car needs a third thing: an intelligent driver who operates both the gas pedal and the steering wheel. This would be the Christ Mind. Philosophers have united in varying degrees with the Christ, but it wasn’t until Jesus that the Christ centered itself in the core of the earth and became accessible to whoever will enter into spiritual disciplines.
Ann Ree continues in her excellent article,

The philosopher commands his instinctual nature and learns to value the intuitive arts ... The intuitive mind is superior to the critical mind ... In the instinctual nature, man feels without thinking.

A philosopher must penetrate the intuition of others and concern himself less with battling the contrary thoughts in men’s minds. The Tibetan, through Alice Bailey, was expounding on the way mediation works and quoted these lines from a poet,

I and my kind do not convince by argument, we convince by our presence.

Poems, as do dreams and myths, draw upon images that directly touch deeper layers of the psyche. This is quite different from a seeking to battle the contrary views of an intellect. Continuing with another aspect of philosophy, Ann Ree wrote,

Men of true philosophy gather not to enter into controversies or dissensions. The true philosopher consorts not with those who argue.

Jesus spoke of the true war for truth when He said,

Resist not evil.

He did not mean to let evil have its way. He was speaking of how you can work not so much by angry contrariness, but by having an overarching view of the conscience of evil men and a cognizance of the Good Law of God and His Plan.
I had a dream where I saw a red river flowing under a bridge. The red, I thought in the dream, was due to blood from a war. In the middle of the river was a little rock which caused some of the water to flow in the opposite direction. Ann Ree interpreted the dream and explained that I lived during a time of war which caused rivers of blood. The little rock was showing me that even a little peace and good can change the currents of evil.

Saint Paul also writes about how to battle evil,

Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.