PL (non-Jewish): (Quoting) "The Jewish problem will not be solved by taking possession of Palestine, by plaint and demand and by financial manipulations. That would be but the prolongation of ancient wrong and material possessiveness. The problem will be solved by the willingness of the Jew to conform to the civilisation, the cultural background and the standards of living of the nation to which—by the fact of birth and education—he is related and with which he should assimilate. It will come by the relinquishment of pride of race and of the concept of selectivity; it will come by renouncing dogmas and customs which are intrinsically obsolete and which create points of constant irritation to the matrix within which the Jew finds himself; it will come when selfishness in business relations and the pronounced manipulative tendencies of the Hebrew people are exchanged for more selfless and honest forms of activity." (EH263-9)

AD (Jewish): You are of course right and the taking of land will not resolve the problem. We need, if we are going to approach this problem realistically, to understand the idea behind the jewish aspiration for their own homeland, in any case, we can only start with what we have at the moment.

Jews have conformed to the surrounding civilisations probably more than most people and the result was always prosecutions and alienation by their host.

That has been going on for millennia and started with the Greek civilisation of Alexander the Great, the Romans, The Islamic spread of the seventh century, the Spanish inquisition and all intermediary civilisations and cultures to the present day.

The pride of race although is a part of Jewish culture they only wanted to be left to follow their own way, and have never imposed those ideas on others.

Throughout history they have been prevented from merging with their hosts by the host himself. A classic example is demonstrated in Hitler's Germany where many Jews have truly merged with the German population, Hitler have uncovered them and reminded them of that fact. He used that anti Jewish idea like many before him, for making the population forget their trouble and blame them upon the Jews. The Russians used to have what they called pogroms, That is an uprising of the population specifically to rob pillage rape and kill Jews on many occasions.

That is well demonstrated in the Play/Film "idler on the Roof" that was written and probably is a dramatisation of an occurrence in the 1850s

That might be so, but if we are going to engage the cooperation of Jewish people in that resolution, we will need to approach that problem from the Jewish angle and attempt a solution of those problems from the inner side of Judaism.

PL: How do you think that would happen? What would you call 'the inner side of Judaism'?

AD: We need to do that by first trying to understand the situation that the Jew has found himself during those periods mentioned earlier.

"Gradually the descendants of two of these three disciples have accepted the legends which were promulgated in Atlantean times, and have ranged themselves on the side of those who are antagonistic to the Jew, as he is today; they have lost all sense of their common origin." (EPI-393)

PL: What do you think are the 'erroneous ideas' that have caused anti-Semiticism? One quote here relates to this:

"Yet—God has made all men equal; the Jew is a man and a brother, and every right that the Gentile owns is his also, inalienably and intrinsically his. This the Gentile has forgotten and great is his responsibility for wrong doing and cruel action."

AD: The ideas enlarged upon a little earlier in this email. We have an ironic situation at the moment in the world, the idea that even the Arabs who are themselves Semitic people, are using anti-Semitic ideas to resolve their land problems, or so they perceive it.

PL: As mentioned above, the Arabs are the major part of the third subrace (5.3) and have been 'legitimate' victims of anti-Semiticism - its not just a Jewish problem, they are a microcosm of the third subrace (a branchrace). Hence anti-Jewish may be a more appropriate specific terminology to use?

AD: They are indeed, and if we truly analyse the situation in the present Palestine/Israel we will find that most Palestinians are the Jews who have remained in that Land after the destruction of the second temple and the birth of Christianity. The Babylonians, and the Romans have only exiled the influencial part of the population, as it is well documented.

PL: I have asked two questions in my email and will appreciate a reply. Is the group (TMP) trying merely to combat Anti-Semitism, by subjective work or, is it a group attempting to eliminate the separativeness inbred into the "Chosen people concept".

PL: I think these two themes come under the umbrella of many other themes which this group has the capacity to deal with - it is a huge subject.

AD: I have so far grasped the angle of pondering on the problem and meditating thus infusing the sides concerned with the positive energies required.

That however, is only one side of the coin, we will need furthermore, to make those energies objective and endeavour to make them usable in the three worlds for laying the foundation needed for the difficult solution of that problem.

I will study the material further and will ponder the possible great number of angles which might be available to us in that endeavour.

PL: Thankyou for all your perspectives, we look forward to hearing more,

AD: Thanks for those comments I have tried to put the Jewish problem as seen from the Jewish perspective. I could enlarge on that, but we will learn much more through these exchanges.

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Dialogue II (UG/JD)

UG: Also, to assemble contributions from today's esoteric thinkers on the subject seems to me of great value. I think it IS important to formulate an organized and balanced platform of "pro"; however, the healing will not come from it. As long as we stay in the pro-contra ping-pong, the traumatized voices will win the day. More than that is required. An effort of the heart is required as well.

JD: Yes, it seems that the "heart" healing will not come from "pro" and "con" of the mind. Perhaps for truly mentally polarized types, there could be a mental plane "as a man thinketh" contribution from the mind side. But the heart is above duality and duality does not appeal to it.

I recall DK's passage about not being "pro" or "con." A helpful thought that suggests going beyond and above all dualities. At the same time, discrimination is advised, and we find that DK's statements about many things as "pro" this and "con" that. He often comes down quite clearly on this or that side of an issue. Perhaps the advice about being above dualities arises from the heart, and the examples about discrimination relate to grappling with the "real" (actually unreal) world in time and space, with all its complexities and relativity.

UG: A while ago I was accused of converting Jews to "esoteric Christianity". I properly defended myself as propagating universal spirituality and not Christianity. After this person has stopped talking to me, I have allowed myself to look at the Bailey material through his eyes which brought me to the painful realization that AAB's books are written in Christian-compatible language, by a Christian transmitter and mainly for Christians. (It is amazing how obvious this fact is now and how hidden it was for so long from my awareness.) So, being in Israel, I need to come to terms with the fact that what I teach comes from a Christian background. That's not an easy thing to get straight and stand behind here in Jerusalem.

JD: I had a somewhat different but related experience. I was always keenly aware of the use of Christian symbolism, and in fact, was never very uncomfortable with it. I read DK for the essence and mostly ignored the Christianized form of it. Much of the DK/AAB is Christian in its form. The word "form" is key, because the ageless wisdom is, in essence, neither Christian nor non-Christian. I was raised partly in the Christian tradition, but never really identified with it, and in reading DK, I just tolerated the form in order to get at the underling message.

UG:This I can only harmlessly do when I am ready to also see and say that AAB is not the all-inclusive, all-comprehensive, universal- spiritual teaching which I had thought it to be. I and for our purpose we all have to see and say clearly that every dispensation of the Ageless Wisdom is colored by the time and place of its emergence, AAB being no exception.

JD: Exactly right. DK is a second ray Master, and religions are part of the second ray stream of energy. DK used AAB, who had a Christian background, and he addressed himself to the West where the Christian thought forms and emotions are dominant. I think, that to a considerable extent, all of this is an illusion and an adaptation (3rd ray term) suggesting the form of the Teaching rather than its esoteric soul. DK gave his latest version of the Wisdom a Christian and Western face, just as HPB's version had a more Buddhist and Eastern face. But both of these are faces or "personas" and not the reality. Each teaching is, from a higher standpoint, an illusion, born in time and space and intended to serve for limited time or cycle.

You are exactly correct that the Wisdom, and even DK's version of it is "universal spirituality and not Christianity." He shaped its Christian appearance, the form of it has that coloring, but if you put the pieces together and attend carefully to certain hints, you realize that its not what it appears to be. The language used creates the illusion.

An example of the kind of "hint," I mean occurs in Esoteric Astrology, p. 87, where with regard to the so-called "return of the "Christ," he drops, like an quiet atom bomb, the short startling statement that the new "Christ" might be "no particular faith at all." The context is:

"He may appear as an Englishman, a Russian, a Negro, a Latin, a Turk, a Hindu, or any other nationality. Who can say which? He may be a Christian or a Hindu by faith, a Buddhist or of no particular faith at all; [underscore mine] He will not come as the restorer of any of the ancient religions, including Christianity, but He will come to restore man's faith in the Father's love, in the fact of the livingness of the Christ and in the close, subjective and unbreakable relationship of all men everywhere."

He goes on to add:

"Then there will be neither Christian nor heathen, neither Jew nor Gentile, but simply one great body of believers, gathered out of all the current religions. They will accept the same truths, not as theological concepts but as essential to spiritual living; they will stand together on the same platform of brotherhood and of human relations..." (Bailey, p. 140)

JD: So you see, brothers and friends, I believe that it is clear that DK is not saying that Christianity will replace Judaism and other religions of the world. He is saying that something else entirely is coming and that it will replace all religions, including and especially what people think of as "Christianity" or Churchanity. Christianity must go and Judaism must go and Buddhism and all the rest must go. When the time is right, the will of God sweeps away all human constructions. These temporary structures serve purpose in time and space and for the current waves of humanity on our little planet as it floats in the in cosmos.

No religious or spiritual form should be identified with on a permanent basis, for that would be true "death" and freeze one in place. God speaks and they are gone, and only the soul of them remains and it is formless. That formless soul can assume the next better form at will. Truth is formless and essentially wordless. The words are illusions that we tolerate as we try to use them as a stairway toward the Absolute.

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Dialogue III (UG/JD)

UG: Then we would need an agreed-upon definition of Anti-Semitism or if not possible, then two or several versions, which can be compared and to which can be referred.
...
We can perhaps succeed in doing this if we are ready to keep the question open of whether these writings [AAB] may be, at least partially, anti-semitic.

JD: Setting aside for the moment the non-dualistic way of affirmation, and looking at things from an evolutionary and occult perspective:

I think there is a sense in which DK writings can be seen as anti-Jewish, viewing the Jewish culture as a "form." And in the same sense he is also anti-church, and anti-Christian, and anti-Piscean, anti-homosexual, anti-sex, and anti-nationalism, etc. In fact, Spirit itself, and the process of spiritualization, is in a sense always opposing itself to form. Esoterically speaking, all forms are the "anti-matter" of spirit and form and spirit are forever in conflict. Underlying all of this is one fundamental thing that he repeats over and over: separation. If we are for unity, then we are against separation, we are anti-separation.

At the same time, DK is tolerant and affirms the complete Unity of everything and of all souls, groups, and nations. And he saying, that compared to the great underlying Unity, all our temporal identifications with body, family, group, nations, all it is an illusion, or a best temporarily real. In so far as there is light shinning through the form, then it takes on some reality from above. But none of the forms that we humans want to make absolutely real, are so. Every last one of them is, "in the last analysis," something to, when the right time comes, let go of.

"Realizing himself as a soul and not as the form. This involves a process of what is called "divine reflection", which works out in two ways. The soul now begins definitely to reject the form, and the man, through whom the soul is experiencing and expressing itself, is himself rejected by the world in which he lives." Esoteric Psychology II, 332

It seems DK's criticism of the Jews is part of his larger criticism of all types of separate forms that we humans identify with. It seems clear to me that he was more severe in his criticism of the Jews than most any other of "our forms." I think the implication is that the Jewish religion and nationalism has much in it that is wrong from a spiritual standpoint.

Anyone deeply submerged in any of the forms that DK criticised is not going to be happy about it, and will consider it an unjustified attack. Consider the following:

"It is this truth, misinterpreted and shockingly travestied, which lies behind the teaching anent the so-called Ascended Masters, put out by the leaders of the "I AM" movement, thus prostituting and bringing down almost into the realm of cheap comedy one of the most notable happenings which has ever taken place upon our planet." The Rays and the Initiation, p. 16

If you are of the "I AM movement" then DK is "Anti-I AM." Though the reference is brief, it is even more radical then his statements about the Jews, and unlike the Jewish ones, he makes no counterbalance of positive statement at all. Probably most of us are not personally offended by it, simply because we are not identified with that particular form. That is key: our form identifications.

Related passages:

"What is the condition surrounding the aspirants of the world today? We have a world full of unrest, a world full of pain, sorrow and strife, a world in which the emotional bodies of humanity are in a condition of tremendous disturbance, a world in which animals, men, women and children suffer, agonize and die; a world in which hunger, sin, sickness, famine, rapine, and murder stalk unarrested; a world in which the forms of religion exist but the life has gone...." The Externalization of the Hierarchy, 515

"The world situation today demonstrates this. For though material benefit and physical prosperity might eventually emerge from certain countries where great experiments are being undertaken, they will only exemplify the triumph of the form and will finally come to naught. Just as every human being struggles through in some one life to personality achievement so it is among the nations. Yet at the heart of every nation lies latent the mystical soul and eventually - after dire struggle and distress - all will be well. Tendencies towards materialism and towards personality achievement must, under the larger plan and the will-to-good, be offset by a counter move of spiritual living and this must be the objective of all working disciples." Discipleship in the New Age I, p. 30

"We need to bear in mind also that the forces of destruction or death are two-fold: first, the rapidly emerging and developing life with its demand for more room for expression and fuller experience, and its spiritual aspiration for change and progress; and secondly, the reactionary forces and the conservative attitudes which adhere to the well-known and the familiar, and which hate the new, the untried and the unknown. Both of these produce the great and divine transition from the past into the future, and from the old into the new, from experience into fruition and then into experience again. The realities are eternal and undying; the forms are ephemeral and temporary; the soul is persistent and deathless; the form is changing and doomed to die. The processes of evolution have in the past and will in the future prove successful in bringing forms to birth, to maturity and to death." The Externalization of the Hierarchy, p.116.

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Dialogue IV (UG/AD)

[Editor's note: Both of these students are Jewish and have lived in Israel, UG still residing there. AD resides in the USA and has since withdrawn from the group due to irreconcilable differerences.]

AD: You are of course right and delving into the past could be unproductive, but accurate knowledge of that past can be an instrument for resolving the present and building a better future.

True, energy follow thoughts, but how many of us could be said to have control of our own thoughts?

UG: If we accept this premise of energy follows thought, we also accept the fact that we are co-creating our own reality, even if it may be unconsciously or unintentionally. For me, this is the dividing line between people who are willing to take responsibility for their output and therefore for their reality, and those who still don't see their creative power and therefore put the responsibility outside themselves. These latter then are trapped in reactive patterns of victimhood and victimization. Until we free ourselves in any one setup, we re-act rather than act. For this group of people, especially when badly traumatized, in my opinion, no amount of reasoning will help, but only LOVE.

With those who are able to shoulder their responsibility, other methods become possible and the way is much quicker.

AD: The answer to your second question is probably more complex than we can imagine; It is probably a mixture of jealousies and an inbuilt barrier created by the people themselves over many, many years. It is also the distinct customs, diet and the Jews refusal to intermarry. Another factor could be the great difficulty for conversion to Judaism by those souls attracted by the religion. Another factor could, or it probably is, the usual human reaction to anything we do not understand and which is unfamiliar to us. I agree again, and right and wrong distinctions exists only in the lower mind; at the soul level, we are all following our destiny and attempting, be it subconsciously to resolve our Karmic liabilities.

UG: In my work here [Jerusalem] I am trying to find ways to go beyond the psychological and physical symptoms of the separative tendency. Of course we need work on all levels. Much work is done in Israel and probably all over the world, on these levels by many organizations – the physical, psychological and philosophical-scholarly level. Because there are so many layers of misunderstandings and traumas on all sides, my experience is to really leave behind the past, at least in my own work and in my own way to cope with the injustice and suffering I see daily.

I put more faith in the effort to somehow raise people's consciousness to a level beyond separation – that of course means the soul-level – and then we can look at the miasma from above and see the wider picture and, especially become aware that we have all probably played all roles – Jew, Gentile, victim, persecutor, etc. At this recognition we can let go of keeping track of this grievance or that. (Of course the inner wounds will have to be tended, but we are free from feeling victims and blame others, and by that free from producing more of the same.)

I know that this cannot be done, unfortunately, with everyone. It is only when people start to become aware of their creative power that this becomes a worthwhile avenue. In my understanding, it is for the people of goodwill to do the work on the denser planes, and it is for the disciples to bring in the soul consciousness for those who are ready. We are working along this line in our Centre for Universal Spirituality, building the needed atmosphere and structure for people to learn alignment and consequently get an experience of Soul. This changes their way of seeing things. Then one can start talking about the big problems without being drawn into the trauma-vortex.

And from that level of soul we have a chance to glimpse an archetypal truth, beyond the manasic maze of facts down the endless chain of cause and effect.

Once we will, hopefully in this Metushelach group endeavor, be able to grasp enough of a glimpse of the archetypal intent of the Jewish Group, then our task will be to formulate this buddhic understanding into thoughtforms appealing to the intelligent masses. This is my hope for this group. Insh'allah!

AD: You are reawakening ancient memories, for me when many years ago I served in the Israeli army. I remember an incident just before that time when I was still at school and had to serve as a guard one evening, when this man who has just recently been liberated from a concentration camp, Looked at me with eyes full of longing and said inst it wonderful to see a Jewish boy carrying a gun. The guns he had seen being carried hitherto, were in the hands of German soldiers forcing him and his family into death camps and into ovens.

UG: And so it goes, the pendulum swings, until we will be loved enough and mature enough to step out of the trauma vortex.

AD: Yes the Israeli problem will only be resolved by the cooperation of the people concerned, The Palestinian people, if we truly reason the problem out, are probably the Jews that were left behind after the exile, they were probably forcibly converted to Islam, and are now fighting their own people for the same piece of land.

UG: Yes, this is the kind of bigger picture which we need to foster. However, this demands a soul vision, or at least the acceptance of the hypothesis of reincarnation. Once a person can move beyond the materialistic world view, then we can help them into this larger picture.

AD: I am glad to see that you are spreading the ancient wisdom in Israel. Have you thought about discovering the links between Jewish teachings and the ancient wisdom. There are many more than we realise if we ponder this out. If you did it could make your task a lot easier.

UG: Yes, much of the esoteric wisdom can be found in the Jewish teachings. One has to dig, though, dig through centuries of interpretations by smaller yet very actively intelligent minds… :-) I become heavy just imagining I have to wade through tons of books to get an overview of the similarities between the two teachings. In a very rough way I have it, but to withstand a manasic religious dispute, I would have to study many years, and, given the urgency of the times, this seems not a wise investment. We have found a solution to this needed bridge building by co-teaching: I bring the universal spirituality and my very appreciated coworker Efrat Tennenbaum, who is a senior teacher of Jewish thought, is bringing the parallels in the Jewish tradition. This course we call " Bridge of Compassion ". It is an exploration into Jewishness, through Jewish and esoteric texts and through meditation. It is a transformative experience for the participants.

AD: I hope your son will return home safely; my prayers are that by the time he complete his three years service, Isaiah's prophecy would have been realised.