Theosophy

[Skull]

An interesting study of the Esoteric Section teachings of Blavatsky:

http://www.philaletheians.co.uk/majo...urs-of-man.pdf

[Skull]

The power to know does not come from book-study nor from mere philosophy, but mostly from the actual practice of altruism in deed, word, and thought; for that practice purifies the covers of the soul and permits that light to shine down into the brain-mind. As the brain-mind is the receiver in the waking state, it has to be purified from sense-perception, and the truest way to do this is by combining philosophy with the highest outward and inward virtue.

HP Blavatsky in her Collected Writings, vol. 9:400G

[Skull]

HE who clings to self is his own enemy, and is surrounded by enemies. He who relinquishes self is his own saviour, and is surrounded by friends like a protecting belt. Before the divine radiance of a pure heart all darkness vanishes and all clouds melt away, and he who has conquered self has conquered the universe. Come, then, out of your poverty; come out of your pain; come out of your troubles, and sighings, and complainings, and heartaches, and loneliness by coming out of yourself. Let the old tattered garment of your petty selfishness fall from you, and put on the new garment of universal Love. You will then realise the inward heaven, and it will be reflected in all your outward life.

Our True Self is revealed as we live from within its nature, which is Universal Love. But dropping our petty lower self is needed first.

[Skull]

The ethics of life propounded by Jesus are not different from those found in theosophy, but the latter holds in its doctrines a compelling power which is absent from Christianity and from those systems which require a man to be good for virtue's sake alone. It is not easy to practice virtue for the simple reason that we ought to do so, since the desire for reward is inherent in humanity, and is a reflection of the evolutionary law which draws the universe ever upward to higher points of development. A man reads the command of Jesus to turn the other cheek to the smiter, to resist not evil, to forgive without stint, and to take no thought for the morrow, and then - pauses. His next thought is that such a canon is wholly utopian, and would if followed subvert society. In this he is sustained by eminent authority as well as by example, for a great Bishop has declared that no state can exist under such a system.

Theosophic doctrine, however, on either the selfish or spiritual line of life, convinces that the moral law must be obeyed. If we regard only the selfish side, we find when people are convinced that evil done in this life will be met with sure punishment in another reincarnation, they hesitate to continue the old careless life when they lived for themselves alone.

Hence practical theosophy must enter into every detail of life in our dealings with others and our discipline of ourselves. It reminds us that we should be more critical of ourselves than of others, that we must help all men if we are to be helped ourselves. And herein the theosophist may escape the accusation of selfishness, for if in desiring to lay up for a future incarnation a store of help from others by giving assistance now himself, he does so in order that he may then be in a still better position to help humanity, there is no selfishness. It is the same as if a man were to desire to acquire this world's goods in order to help those dependent on him, and surely this is not selfish.

The practical theosophist adds to his charitable deeds upon the material plane the still greater charity of giving to his fellow men a system of thought and life which explains their doubts while it furnishes a logical reason for the practice of virtue. He extinguishes a hell that never could burn, and the terrors of which soon faded from the mind of the sinners; but he lights the lamp of truth and throws its beams upon the mortal's path so that not only the real danger, the real punishment, can be seen, but also the reward and compensation.

The civilized man cannot be guided by fear or superstition, but reason may take hold of him. Theosophy being not only practicable but also reasonable as well as just, its doctrines are destined to be those of the civilized man. They will gradually drive out the time-worn shibboleths of the theologian and the scientist, giving the people of coming centuries a wisdom-religion deeply-based and all-embracing.

Were theosophical practice universal, we should not see the unjust Judge plotting beforehand with the officials of a railroad company about the decision he should render, nor the venal public officer engaged with the Judge and the officials in arranging the virtuous protest to be offered in court against the foreordained decree, for both would fear to rouse a cause which in their next life might issue in unjust accusation and punishment. Nor would men save their lives, as now they often do, at another's expense, since in succeeding incarnations that person might be the means of depriving them of life twice over. The rich man who now hoards his wealth or spends it on himself alone would not be thus guilty, seeing that, as compensation in another life, his friends would forsake him and nature seem to withdraw subsistence.

The practical theosophist will do well if he follows the advice of the Masters now many years in print, to spread, explain, and illustrate the laws of Karma and Reincarnation so that they may enter into the lives of the people. Technical occultism and all the allurements of the Astral Light may be left for other times. Men's thoughts must be affected, and this can only be done now by giving them these two great laws. They not only explain many things, but they have also an inherent power due to their truth and their intimate connection with man, to compel attention.

Once heard they are seldom forgotten, and even if rebelled against they have a mysterious power of keeping in the man's mind, until at last, even against his first determination, he is forced to accept them. The appreciation of justice is common to all, and the exact justice of Karma appeals even to the person who is unfortunate enough to be undergoing heavy punishment: even if, ignoring justice, he does good in order to make good Karma, it is well, for he will be reborn under conditions that may favor the coming out of unselfish motive.

"Teach, preach, and practice this good law for the benefit of the world, even as all the Buddhas do."

[Skull]

IT takes some courage, I mean the true courage of the Seer, whom naught can daunt and none may stay, to oppose a world's thought-currents, and for this sublime work are called forth the truest heroism, the sublimest intellectual vision, and the deepest spiritual insight. These last prevail always. Sometimes he who runs counter to the world's thought-currents loses what the world esteems highest: reputation, fortune, even perhaps life. But his work - that is never lost!
That is what H.P. Blavatsky did. And that is what the Theosophical Society has been doing ever since her time, in certain ways opposing a world's lower thought-currents and prevailing in the end. It is a strange paradox of our life on this earth that the noblest things call for sacrifice, and yet it is one of the most beautiful; so that the Theosophist may say with the proud boast of the Christian Church - and I deem it true, and even truer than in their case - that the blood of its martyrs is the seed of its success, and of its victory. The world is ruled by ideas, and an inescapable truth it is also that the world's lower thought-currents must be opposed by ideas higher than they. It is only a greater idea which will capture and lead captive the less idea, the smaller. Graecia capta Romam victricem captam subducit. "Captured Greece leads conquering Rome captive."
What is this Theosophical Movement which was so magnificently voiced in some of its teachings by H.P. Blavatsky, but a series, an aggregate, of grand ideas? Not hers, not collected by her from the different great thinkers of the world; but the god-wisdom of the world; and she brought together the world's human wisdom in order to bulwark, for the weaker minds who needed such bulwarking, the grand verities shining with their stellar light, and bearing the imprint of divinity upon them. Some men cannot see the imprints of divinity. Forsooth, they say, it is to be proved! They must put the finger into the nail-mark, into the hole. Millions are like that, they have not learned to think yet.
So the only way to conquer ideas is to lead them captive by grander ones; and that is what Theosophy does: it is a body of divine ideas - not H.P. Blavatsky's, who was but the mouthpiece in this day of them, but the ancient god-wisdom of our earth, belonging to all men, all nations, all peoples, all times; and given to protoplastic mankind in the very dawn of this earth's evolution by beings from higher spheres who had learned it themselves from beings higher still - a primeval revelation from divinities. The echo of this revelation you will find in every land, among every people, in every religion and philosophy that has ever gained adherents.
When H.P. Blavatsky brought our modern Theosophy to this world in our age, she did not bring something new, she brought the cosmic Wisdom, the god-wisdom studied by the Seers, as understood on this earth, which had been stated in all other ages preceding that in which she came. She merely repeated what she had been taught; the same starry Wisdom, divine in origin: Science because voicing nature's facts; Religion because raising man to divinity; Philosophy because explanatory of all the problems that have vexed human intelligence. No vain boast this - aye, no empty words; no vain boast I repeat, but truths which are provable by any thinking man or woman who will study our blessed god-wisdom faithfully and honestly.
It was an amazing world to which H.P. Blavatsky came, a world held by - the Western world I am now speaking of - held by one slender, yet in a way faithful, link to Spirit, to wit the teachings of the Avatara Jesus called the Christ, nevertheless held to by faith alone and by the efforts of a relative few in the Churches. On the other hand, millions, the major part of the men and women of the west, absolutely psychologized - by what? Facts? No! By theories, postulates, ideas, which had gained currency because they were put forth aggressively and with some few natural facts contained in them. Why, all the science of those days practically now is in the discard, and the scientists themselves have been the discarders, the later generations of scientists have themselves overthrown the overthrower of man's hope in those days.
It was in such a time that H.P. Blavatsky came, and almost single-handed in an era when even in the home-life, in society so-called, it was considered exceedingly bad form even to speak of the "soul" in a drawing-room; it was considered a mark of an inferior intelligence. Alone, she wrote her books, challenging the entire thought-current of the western world, backed as it was by authority, backed by so-called psychology, backed by everything that then was leading men astray. And today we Theosophists happen to know that her books are being read, mostly in secret, by some of the most eminent ultra-modern scientific thinkers of our time. What did she do? Mainly she based her attack on that world-psychology on two things: that the facts of nature are the facts of nature and are divine; but that the theories of pretentious thinkers about them are not facts of nature, but are human theorizings, and should be challenged, and if good accepted pro tempore, and if bad, cast aside. She set the example; and other minds who had the wit to catch, to see, to understand, to perceive what she was after, gathered around her. Some of the men eminent in science in her time belonged to the Theosophical Society, although they rarely worked for it. They lent their names to it occasionally. But she captured them by the ideas she enunciated, and these men did their work in their own fields. That indeed already was much.
Consider her titanic task: that of changing the shifting and varying ideas of a body of earnest scientific researchers after nature's facts: replacing these shifting ideas, then called science - which had for nearly two hundred years been casting out all that innumerable centuries of human experience had shown to be good and trustworthy - replacing these, I say, with thoughts that men could live by and become better by following, thoughts that men could die by with hope and in peace; and bringing these back into human consciousness by the power of her own intellect voicing the immemorial traditions of the god-wisdom which she brought to us!

- Theosophical Forum, Dec., 1938 - by G. de Purucker

[Skull]

“Nine-tenths of the people will reject the most overwhelming evidence, even if it be brought to them without any trouble to themselves, only because it happens to clash with their personal interests or prejudices; especially if it comes from unpopular quarters.”

Excerpt From: H.P. Blavatsky. CW - VOLUME XIII.

[Skull]

By Boris de Zirkoff [Theosophia 1949]

It should be constantly borne in mind, when discussing ideas and events pertaining to the Theosophical Movement, that Theosophy is primarily and essentially a way of life.

It is not merely a system of technical teachings or a body of doctrines intended for the intellectual gratification of voracious minds who delight in filling the spiritually barren chambers of their intellect with high-sounding terms.

It can never be too often repeated that Theosophy is above everything else an ethical doctrine, a pattern of ethical behavior, and a manner of ethical conduct. These Ethics are based on sublime teachings embodying the facts of Nature's structure and operation. But these teachings alone, unrelated to the way of life, and considered as a mere intellectual system of thought, are not only sterile, but positively mischievous and productive of a subtle brand of selfishness and moral stagnation.

Therein lies the danger of an intellectual approach to the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom. This danger can be avoided only by a sincere and constant effort on the part of the student to put into practice the precepts he has intellectually learned, and to apply in daily life those basic thoughts which he has understood to be the foundation-stones of spiritual life.

In this way he will avoid the danger of severing his mind and heart from the collective mind and heart of mankind, or the community of which he is an integral part. There are students who have achieved a very profound understanding of the purely intellectual aspect of the theosophical teachings, but who remain nevertheless ethically sterile members of their community. They are aloof in their attitude to life, and bear no vital relation to the human sorrows and problems surrounding them. They live in self-made ivory towers, unconcerned in what is going on around them, usually unperceived by others, and probably largely undisturbed.

There are others who may or may not have achieved a thorough grasp of the intellectual intricacies of the Ancient Wisdom, but whose minds and hearts are attuned to the wide-spread suffering of men and women, in their blind search for release. They keep their contact with mankind, they share the collective sorrow and joy which are part of the web of life, and they carry their growing understanding of Nature's truths into the midst of the teeming millions, where the need for Light is the greatest.

It is essential for the student of the age-old wisdom to keep at all times his link with mankind alive and strong. It is his only way of ultimately understanding the cause of human misery and pain, as well as of human pleasure and joy - and this not by immersing himself in them, but by attuning his heart and mind to their vibratory rate and gathering intuitively, intellectually, and psychically, an awareness of the states of consciousness which these various conditions offer for the growth of the soul.

It is of great importance that the student of Theosophy become a constructive part of the community in which he lives, a center of light and knowledge, emanating warmth of soul and strength of character, for others to observe and partake. He should be - in some unobtrusive manner - a source of information regarding the laws of life and of new courage and hope to those who are in trouble; and he should in due course of time become recognized as a fountain-head of ideas and plans which, if listened to and carried out, would improve the ethical climate of the community and raise its moral and intellectual standard above the average. Such things have taken place more than once, and they can be repeated in a thousand other instances, if only the majority of students were to "descend" from their lofty tower of mere intellectual thinking, and forge the necessary links of human compassion and interest which are so essential to this purpose.

It is supposed by some people, that our individual efforts can at best be but very small and their influence negligible. This is the type of shallow thinking which does not take into consideration some of the main factors contained in this equation. It should be distinctly remembered that spiritual thought is a great deal more powerful than mere mentation, and the latter more powerful than mere wishful thinking. The range of creative spiritual thought has not yet been determined, and the manner in which it brings about its effects is largely unknown, except to trained and advanced occultists who deal with these matters experimentally.

Every thought directed towards true spirituality - which is invariably one with selflessness, impersonality and sympathy for others - has an enormous range, potency, momentum and intensity, as compared with mere intellectual thinking or perchance mere mental and emotional "wishing." It strikes like lightning upon responsive minds and hearts, and contains within itself alchemical powers of self-perpetuation and re-creation unknown on any of the lower planes of human action. It is also in league with the rest of the spiritual agencies at work continuously in the world. The result is that a definite spiritual effort on the part of one student, in a given direction, may very well give rise to a chain-reaction of effects the range of which would seem to be quite inexplicable on purely mechanistic grounds. Spiritual thought has its own repercussions on other planes. The laws of "thought-resonance" and of "thought-overtones and -undertones" are practically unknown to modern science, and constitute a higher type of science which is known in its fullness but to high initiates, though each one of us can learn at least its ABC.

The carrying out of true, social reforms directed to the amelioration of the conditions under which most of humanity lives today, is not a matter of money, political power, personal fame, or worldly influence. It is primarily a matter of spiritual creative thinking, mostly on the part of a few. One thought given birth to at the cyclically right time, and directed into the first open channel that may present itself, can impregnate a large number of human minds and hearts, each one of which becomes a center of outgoing spiritual force directed towards the same objective. The cumulative result of this chain-reaction has at times produced some very startling results, responsible for some of the most important events in social reform and the development of modern scientific thought. Among these results could be mentioned such widely separate movements and events as the Keltic Literary Revival, the National Independence of India, the Abolition of Slavery in the U.S.A., the Discovery of the Electron, the Therapeutic Usage of Music, the abrogation of a number of restrictive covenants based on racial discrimination, and a number of other marked changes which have taken place in recent times upon the stage of human history, both in the Orient and the Occident.

Lest we be misunderstood, it should be stated here unequivocally that the Theosophical Movement is strictly and traditionally non-political and un-sectarian, paying no attention to, and engaging in none of the political controversies of the day, which are here today and gone tomorrow, to be probably superseded by other controversies and arguments. But while it is non-political as a Movement, it not only recognizes the right of every student of Theosophy to take part, if he pleases, in whatever may be constructive and useful in the political set up of his respective land, but actually urges him to partake, as an individual, as a citizen or subject, and as a professed humanitarian, in the process of just, enlightened and progressive social reforms whose aim is, as expressed by one of the Masters, "the amelioration of the condition of the poor." And not only is he urged to participate in this process, but expected to take individual initiative to originate new movements and moves aimed at the eradication of corruption and evil in the social structure of the day, by means of humanitarian, social measures and reforms, free of party politics and devoted to the welfare of all mankind, irrespective of race, creed, color, political affiliations or religious background.

Universality is the key-note of a true Theosophist. Wherever sectarianism and parochialism show their ugly faces, Theosophy can exist only in name. When manifesting in universality of views and the highest embodiment of Ethics, it becomes a living power in the hearts of men.

[Reprinted in The Theosophist March 2016]

[Skull]

There are three truths which are absolute, and which cannot be lost, but yet may remain silent for lack of speech.

The soul of man is immortal, and its future is the future of a thing whose growth and splendor has no limit.

The principle which gives life dwells in us, and without us, is undying and eternally beneficent, is not heard or seen or smelt, but is perceived by the man who desires perception.

Each man is his own absolute lawgiver, the dispenser of glory or gloom to himself; the decreer of his life, his reward, his punishment.

These truths, which are as great as is life itself, are as simple as the simplest mind of man. Feed the hungry with them.

From The Idyll of the White Lotus

[Skull]

The law of laws of the universe is self-forgetfulness, not concentration of attention upon one’s personal freedom, not even upon your individuality. The primal law of the universe is living unto all things, not the doctrine that each must live for himself in order to develop for himself the spiritual powers within. The latter is true enough as a bald and imperfect statement; but it is also misleading, dangerous, unwise, and therefore unholy as a statement of esoteric training, unless properly qualified — always qualified with the accompanying doctrine: Give up thy life if thou wouldst find it. Live to benefit mankind, for this is the first step. If you will have the sun, then leave the earth and its clouds.

Purucker, Golden Precepts

[Skull]

When a man acts harmoniously, he acts in accordance with the universal scheme and law; and harmony in consciousness and thought and therefore in action is what men understand by the term ethics. Ethics are not a convention; morals are not a convention; they are rooted in the harmony, in the central laws, of being; they are based on the very structural harmony of the universe.

This instinct of ethics thus springs from within your inner constitution. It comes forth from your spiritual being recognizing harmony, order, the stateliness and majesty of beauty — beauty in thought, beauty in aspiration and feeling, beauty in action.

Purucker, Golden Precepts