Theos-Talk Archives (May 1998 Message tt00276)

Last night before bed I was contemplating the discussion here
yesterday and decided The Key to Theosophy was the most likely
place to find succinct passages from HPB that relate to the
subjects at hand.  I opened it and went to the section on "The
Abstract and the Concrete" and found these words:

(re: Wes and the ancient wisdom)
Theosophy, in its abstract meaning, is Divine Wisdom, or the
aggregate of the knowledge and wisdom which underlie the
Universe-- the homogeneity of eternal GOOD; and in its concrete
sense it is the sum total of the same as allotted to man by
nature, on this earth, and no more...The Society can be regarded
as the embodiment of Theosophy only in its abstract motives; it
can never presume to call itself its concrete vehicle so long as
human imperfections and weaknesses are represented in its body;
otherwise the Society would be only repeating the great error and
the outflowing sacrileges of the so-called Churches of Christ.  I
Eastern comparisons may be permitted, Theosophy is the shoreless
ocean of universal truth, love, and wisdom, reflecting its
radiance on the earth, while the Theosophical Society is only a
visible bubble on that reflection.  Theosophy is divine nature,
visible and invisible, and its Society human nature trying to
ascent to its divine parent.  Theosophy, finally, is the fixed
eternal sun, and its Society the evanescent comet trying to
settle in an orbit to become a planet, every revolving within the
attraction of the sun of truth.  It was formed to assist in
showing to men that such a thing as Theosophy exists, and to help
them ascend towards it by studying and assimilating its eternal
verities.(pp. 56-57)

PJ-- I might suggest here that for "Theosophical Society" one now
read "all Theosophical organizations, all the books they publish,
all the doctrines they teach" and I think you will get to the
heart of what I was trying to convey yesterday about questioning
HPB being entirely kosher and indeed what she would have us do.

Right after that is this answer to Bart:

ENQ.  I thought you said you had no tenets or doctrines of your
own?
THEO.  No more we have.  The Society has no wisdom of its own to
support or teach.  It is simply the storehouse of all the truths
uttered by the great seers, initiates, and prophets of historic
and even pre-historic ages; at least, as many as it can get.
Therefore, it is merely the channel through which more or less of
truth, found in the accumulated utterances of humanity's great
teachers, is poured out into the world.

Last night I had a dream related to these passages which I will
report separately.

Cheers,

Paul