Theos-Talk Archives (December 1997 Message tt00030)

An old classic article from the Theosophy Northwest site:
http://www.halcyon.com/theosnw/
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  THE UPBUILDING OF REAL LIFE

      By Gertrude van Pelt


   Theosophy, however conceived, brings one face to face with the real
   issues of life. It may be constructive or (in a sense) destructive; it
   may be an intellectual guide or an inspirer of song, verse, or
   pictorial art; it may be an avenging judge, or the gentle companion
   and friend; but whatever it is, with unerring precision it leads to
   the eternal verities. It throws off the husks and reveals the kernel
   within. It uncovers the vampires of vice and corruption, eating at the
   heart of national and individual life, and tears to shreds their
   borrowed garments of purity. It opens up vistas of glory and beauty
   which awaken the sleeping faculties in the hearts of men. Those who
   shun the truth, dislike it, and attack it with virulence. Those who
   hunger and thirst after truth, embrace it, and find in its
   ever-expanding horizon, in its unfathomable depths, in its infinite
   heights, those forces which make for the upbuilding of a real life.

   Under its searching illumination, Nature throws off her mask, and
   shows that it is not in any of her outward manifestations that her
   secret heart lies hidden. All of these may vanish in a night, while
   that of which they are the flower remains untouched. And in its light,
   the accomplishments of man, however great, are lifted from their
   throne as objects themselves of final attainment and perceived as
   instruments through which the goal may be reached. "The universe
   exists for the experience of the soul."

   Nature is infinite in her resources in stimulating to effort. Man's
   struggles to produce glorious monuments of art and architecture, to
   invent new devices for comfort, to create inspiring works, thinking
   always to rest content if the ambition is realized, but Nature smiles
   behind her veil and whispers that in the struggle lay the purpose, in
   the effort these could induce and produce. For each one dies at his
   appointed time or, unhappily, before it, and what is it alone that he
   retains? Whole nations, even races, disappear off the face of the
   earth, and their achievements in matter, however sublime, are, like
   the crystal palace of ice, wiped away by time. Only enough records of
   their greatness are preserved by the guides of this planet to tell
   their story to future races and keep unbroken the history of man's
   pilgrimage.

   All the phenomenal universe comes and goes, yet man, the eternal,
   remains. Stripped of all his accessories, robbed of all his imagined
   supports, deprived of all his accustomed incentives to action, he
   stands, just what he has made himself, no more and no less. And when
   life blossoms again, and again he finds himself on the arena, his
   power to meet the events which confront him is just what he has made
   it. One thing alone, of all those which he fancies he ever has or ever
   can possess, is his -- that indefinable yet comprehensive thing, his
   character.

   Nature works upon the lower forms of life. A higher power than the
   stone has formed it; the trees, the flowers, even the insects and
   beasts are plastic materials in the hands of the great potter. Through
   It, in unthinkable time, the bodies are formed for man. He enters the
   Temple prepared for him, and Nature who has been supreme, now bows
   before the mystery. She sees before her not alone the world-stuff to
   be fashioned, but the very creative spark. No longer can she mold
   unaided. It becomes her office now to furnish the opportunities for
   the entering man, who has before him the herculean task of evolving
   the human mind. No outside force alone can make him. The creative seed
   is itself within him. Every event, every circumstance, is something to
   be met and acted upon by him, the creator of his own destiny. Whether
   ignorantly or consciously, he works in the illimitable and exhaustless
   laboratory of nature and therein slowly but surely fashions --
   character. Human laws may be framed and forgotten; temples may be
   reared and crumbled; whole races may pass through their allotment of
   sorrow, despair, and joy, and be no more; continents may rise and
   sink; but character, by means of which all these things are formed and
   colored, character -- as part of man, the immortal -- endures.

   The seriousness of this would be sufficient, were the results only
   good or negative; but when one reflects that they are potent for evil
   or for good, words fail to express its import. For the necessity of
   forming character is something which can be escaped by no one, not
   even for a moment. Every instant, whether apparently active or
   otherwise, each one is forming his character. It is one of the
   inevitable facts of nature. Every thought is leaving its imprint,
   every breath is carrying its influence, making the personality of
   today different from that of yesterday. In strenuous as in careless
   moments, whether apparently striving for self or another, the secret
   motives are at work behind, like tools of inevitable precision in the
   hands of their master, man, chiseling on the indestructible human mind
   -- clearing, purifying, and enriching it; or clouding, degrading, and
   contaminating it. These marks may appear to be ineffective; but under
   the sway of impulse, in moments of crisis, in the crucial periods of
   life, they all come forward to decide the issue. With resistless force
   they assert themselves, leaving the actor aghast and asking with
   horror, "Is it indeed I, who did this thing?" or, haply, standing in
   silent awe and gratitude, thanking the beneficent power which worked
   through him. Sooner or later it becomes evident that nothing can be
   hid.

   As our civilization is but the outcome of national character -- the
   aggregate of the character of the units -- all reforms of whatever
   kind, except the reformation of character, can have no lasting
   results. All this perhaps no one disputes. The trouble is that while
   none object to the reformation of others, but few are willing to
   reform themselves. And so the wheel of sorrow ceaselessly revolves.
   For whatever laws we make can be evaded. Whatever systems of
   adjustment we may devise can and will be undone by be very forces
   which called for their need. As long as unbrotherliness is in the
   heart, the strife between men must grow more intense. As long as our
   selfishness breeds criminals, no improvement in prison discipline can
   check their growth. As long as the desire for honesty is not stronger
   than the desire for gain, no supervision of business can keep it
   sweetly clean. Patent nostrums without end are offered, and we live in
   a Babel of ideas. We are lost in a multitude of issues, when in truth
   there is but one. Why reform forever on the surface? An ethical veneer
   may cover systems rotten to their core.

   It is this thorough, basic method that theosophy enforces. It touches
   the root of the disease. It holds the power to awaken the soul and
   purify the stream of life at its source.

   (From ~The Theosophical Path~ 3:160-62, September 1912)
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--
Nicholas <> am455@lafn.org <> Los Angeles
  With a disposition to forget our selfish selves, and to live for
  others,... to do our full duty to our mission in life, then we shall be
  living the occult life.   Katherine Tingley