Dear Friends
A correspondent recently wrote about the challenges so many around the globe are facing, one of which is the medical mystery of why the number of adults and children with mental illness has skyrocketed over the past fifty years:
“There are now more than four million people in the United States who receive a government disability check because of a mental illness, and the number continues to soar… What is going on?”
As students of philosophy and psychology – which in ancient times were one – we strive to fit ourselves to be able to read the hearts of man… and to be able to heal and help them. It is the road so many of the Great Sages have taken, to practice the healing arts in both physical medicine and also of the source of many of our physical and mental woes, which lie in the soul. They are healers of mind, soul and body.
Our correspondent suggests the reason for these mental troubles is answered in H.P.Blavatsky’s prediction that, with the end of the Age of Pisces in 1900 (one of the cycles that is “historic and not very long, but very occult, lasting about 2,155 solar years”), would come a period when:
“psychologists will have some extra work to do, and the psychic idiosyncrasies of humanity will enter on a great change.” (from The Esoteric Character of the Gospels by H.P.Blavatsky)
So as the dawn of the new sign of Aquarius leads us to ‘new places’ mentally and psychologically, the lead story in this edition looks at one of the perennial battles man must face, the compulsion and addiction of “the gambler”. In one sense gambling has been the trade mark of 20th c. consumer society, of hoping and pretending the future will never call upon us. Karma is either a compassionate healer (if we listen) or stern Nemesis to those who consistently refuse. Having resolved to ‘listen’ the question becomes “What we can do individually - and for our neighbours collectively - to give the 21st c. a new direction and a brighter aspect?” Perhaps the best way is by teaching the Law of Compassion, Karma, the “law of laws” – after all, isn’t that how we learnt to listen, cutting as short as we can ours and other’s further suffering?
And isn’t this the best reason for us to continue in the search for answers – until we have reached that state where we see the truth and are empowered by it to help others?
In connection with these ideas, we should also announce the commencement of the YahooGroup “E-THEOSOPHY” which was founded on 7th July 2010, one of its aims being to examine similar questions, such as:
“How to create better mechanisms for the transition towards a civilization actually based on the principle of universal brotherhood.”
To join it just email lutbr@terra.com.br - the details and aims are in last month’s AQ – link below:
http://aquariantheosophist.com/2010/05/17/may-2010-aq-new-e-group-for-study-and-research/
Bon courage. Read on, practice the way as best you can, abandoning all personal attachments to the results…
Living a Simple Life ……………………………………….2
‘Artificial life’ breakthrough …………………………….3
The Necessity to Form a United Consciousness …..5
ULT letter 2010 …………………………………………….6
Avaaz Victory saves Whales …………………………….6
Open Letter to Adyar on WQJ Case ……………………7
Your old laptop is needed! ……………………………….7
WQJ & The Adyar TS in London UK ……………………7
WISDOM IN ACTION ……………………………………….8
Druid reduces accidents from 6 to zero ………………8
The AQ Editors
Click to download PDF of magazine
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Rig-Veda On Gambling
The following excellent remarks are probably the oldest in the world upon the vice of gambling. They are found in Rig Veda, X 34. It is admitted that these Vedic hymns are anterior to the time of Homer and Hesiod.
The Hindus claim an antiquity for them which carries us back thousands upon thousands of years prior to the oldest date allowed by European Orientalists. Those who have a theosophical acquaintance with the Vedas will incline to the estimate of the Hindus, inasmuch as European opinion is constantly altering on the subject, and besides has not had quite a century of experience in which to form itself. Muir says these hymns were composed certainly 1,000 years before our era, but that is too ridiculously low an estimate and will have ere long to be revised upon further proofs and discoveries. The present hymn is given as showing what was then thought of gambling.
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“THE tumbling airborne products of the great Vibhidaka tree delight me as they continue to roll upon the diceboard. The exciting dice seem to me like a draught of the soma-plant growing on Mount Miyavat. My wife never quarrelled with me nor despised me; she was kind to me and to my friends. But I for the sake of the partial dice have spurned my devoted spouse. My mother-in-law detests me, my wife rejects me. In my need I find no comforter.
“I cannot discover what is the enjoyment of the gambler any more than I can perceive what is the happiness of a worn-out hack horse. Others pay court to the wife of the man whose wealth is coveted by the impetuous dice. His father, mother, brothers cry out: “We know nothing of him; take him away bound!”
“When I resolve not to be tormented by them because I am abandon
ed by my friends who withdraw from me, yet as soon as the brown dice, when they are thrown, make a rattling sound I hasten to their rendezvous like a woman to her paramour. The gamester comes to the assembly glowing in body, asking himself “Shall I win?”
A 4,500 year old die found in excavations at a Harappan period site (near the Indus Valley), perhaps similar to the ones made from the nut of the Vibhidaka tree?
“The dice inflame his desire by making over his winnings to his opponent. Hooking, piercing, deceitful, vexatious, delighting to torment, the dice dispense transient gifts and again ruin the winner; they appear to the gambler covered with honey. Their troop of fifty-three disports itself, itself disposing men’s destinies like the God Savatri whose ordinances never fail. They bow not before the wrath of the fiercest. The king himself makes obeisance to them. They roll downward, they bound upward. Having no hands they overcome him who has. These celestial coals when thrown on the dice-board scorch the heart though cold themselves.
“The destitute wife of the gamester is distressed, and so too is the mother of a son who goes she knows not whither. In debt and seeking after money the gambler approaches with trepidation the houses of other people at night. It vexes the gamester to see his own wife and then to observe the wives and happy homes of others.
“In the morning he yokes the brown horses – the dice; by the time when the fire goes out he has sunk into a degraded wretch. He who is the general of your board, the first king of your troop, to him I stretch forth my ten fingers to the east in reverence. I do not reject wealth, but I declare that which is right when I say:
“Never play with dice; practice husbandry; rejoice in thy prosperity,
esteeming it sufficient. Be satisfied with thy cattle and thy wife, the god advises.
“O dice, be friendly to us and no more bewitch us powerfully with your influence.
Let your wrath and hostility abate: let others than we be subject to the fetters
of the brown ones, the dice.””
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[Original article by W.Q.Judge, Path, July 1893]
Click to download PDF of magazine
http://aquariantheosophist.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/8-jun-2010-aquarian-theosophist-v1.pdf
