Theos-Talk Archives (May 2000 Message tt00048)

May 4th 2000


Dear Friend:


To start one would recommend a reading of Mme. Blavatsky's THE
KEY TO THEOSOPHY.

There are also some other good expositions of THEOSOPHY as in Mr.
Judge's THE OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY.

To give you a survey of Theosophical propositions and
doctrines -- This might also serve as a start:


The claim is made that an impartial study of history, religion
and literature will show the existence from ancient times of a
great body of philosophical, scientific and ethical doctrine
forming the basis and origin of all similar thought in modern
systems. It is at once religious and scientific, asserting that
religion and science should never be separated.  It puts forward
sublime religious and ideal teachings, but at the same time shows
that all of it can be demonstrated to reason, and that authority
other than that has no place, thus preventing the hypocrisy which
arises from asserting dogmas on authority which no one can show
as resting on reason.

This ancient body of doctrine is known as the "Wisdom Religion"
and was always taught by adepts or initiates therein who preserve
it through all time.  Hence, and from other doctrines
demonstrated, it is shown that man, being spirit and immortal, is
able to perpetuate his real life and consciousness, and has done
so during all time in the persons of those higher flowers of the
human race who are members of an ancient and high  brotherhood
who concern themselves with the soul development of man, held by
them to include every process of evolution on all planes.

The initiates, being bound by the law of evolution, must work
with humanity as its development permits. Therefore from time to
time they give out again and again the same doctrine which from
time to time grows obscured in various nations and places.  This
is the wisdom religion, and they are the keepers of it.  At times
they come to nations as great teachers and "saviours," who only
re-promulgate the old truths and system of ethics.  This
therefore holds that humanity is capable of infinite perfection
both in time and quality, the saviours and adepts being held up
as examples of that possibility.

>From this living and presently acting body of perfected men H. P.
Blavatsky declared she received the impulse to once more bring
forward the old ideas, and from them also received several keys
to ancient and modern doctrines that had been lost during modern
struggles toward civilization, and also that she was furnished by
them with some doctrines really ancient but entirely new to the
present day in any exoteric shape.  These she wrote among the
other keys furnished by her to her fellow members and the world
at large.  Added, then, to the testimony through all time found
in records of all nations we have this modern explicit assertion
that the ancient learned and humanitarian body of adepts still
exists on this earth and takes an interest in the development of
the race.

Theosophy postulates an eternal principle called the unknown,
which can never be cognized except through its manifestations.
This eternal principle is in and is every thing and being;  t
periodically and eternally manifests itself and recedes again
from manifestation. In this ebb and flow evolution proceeds and
itself is the progress of the manifestation.  The perceived
universe is the manifestation of this unknown, including spirit
and matter,  for Theosophy holds that those are but the two
opposite poles of the one unknown principle.  They coexist, are
not separate nor separable from each other, or, as the Hindu
scriptures say, there is no particle of matter without spirit,
and no particle of spirit without matter.

In manifesting itself the spirit-matter differentiates on seven
planes, each more dense on the way down to the plane of our
senses than its predecessors the substance in all being the same,
only differing in degree.  Therefore from this view  the whole
universe is alive, not one atom of it being in any sense dead.
It is also conscious and intelligent, its consciousness and
intelligence being  resent on all planes though obscured on this
one.  On this plane of ours the spirit focalizes itself in all
human beings who choose to permit it to do so, and the refusal to
permit it is the cause of ignorance, of sin. of all sorrow and
suffering.

In all ages some have come to this high state, have grown to be
as gods, are partakers actively in the work of nature, and go on
from century to century widening their consciousness and
increasing the scope of their government in nature.  This is the
destiny of all beings, and hence at the outset Theosophy
postulates this perfectibility of the race, removes the idea of
innate un-regenerable wickedness, and offers a purpose and an aim
for life which is consonant with the longings of the soul and
with its real nature, tending at the same time to destroy
pessimism with its companion, despair.

In Theosophy the world is held to be the product of the evolution
of the principle spoken of from the very lowest first forms of
life guided as it proceeded by intelligent perfected beings from
other and older evolutions, and compounded also of the egos or
individual spirits for and by whom it emanates.  Hence man as we
know him is held to be a conscious spirit, the flower of
evolution, with other and lower classes of egos below him in the
lower kingdoms, all however coming up and destined one day to be
on the same human stage as we now are, we then being higher
still.

Man's consciousness being thus more perfect is able to pass from
one to another of the planes of differentiation mentioned.  If he
mistakes any one of them for the reality that he is in his
essence, he is deluded;  the object of evolution then is to give
him complete self-consciousness so that he may go on to higher
stages in the progress of the universe.  His evolution after
coming on the human stage is for the getting of experience, and
in order to so raise up and purify the various planes of matter
with which he has to do, that the voice of the spirit may be
fully heard and comprehended.

He is a religious being because he is a spirit encased in matter,
which is in turn itself spiritual in essence.  Being a spirit he
requires vehicles with which to come in touch with all the planes
of nature included in evolution, and it is these vehicles that
make of him an intricate, composite being, liable to error, but
at the same time able to rise above all delusions and  conquer
the highest place. He is in miniature the universe, for he is as
spirit, manifesting himself to himself by means of seven
differentiations. Therefore is he known in Theosophy as a
sevenfold being.

The Christian division of body, soul, and spirit is  accurate so
far as it goes, but will not answer to the problems of life and
nature, unless, as is not the case, those three divisions are
each held to be composed of others, which would raise the
possible total to seven.  The spirit stands alone at the top,
next comes the spiritual soul or Buddhi as it is called in
Sanskrit. This partakes more of the spirit than any below it, and
is connected with Manas or mind, these three being the real
trinity of  man, the imperishable part, the real thinking entity
living on the earth in the other and denser vehicles by its
evolution.

Below in order of quality is the plane of the desires and
passions shared with the animal kingdom,  unintelligent, and the
producer of ignorance flowing from delusion.  It is distinct from
the will and judgment, and must therefore be given its own place.
On this plane is gross life, manifesting, not as spirit from
which it  derives its essence, but as energy and motion on this
plane.  It being common to the whole objective plane and being
everywhere, is also to be classed by itself, the portion used by
man being given up at the death of the body.  Then last, before
the objective body, is the model or double of the outer physical
case.

This double is the astral body belonging to the astral plane of
matter, not so dense as physical molecules, but more tenuous and
much  stronger, as well as lasting.  It is the original of the
body permitting the physical molecules to arrange and show
themselves  thereon, allowing them to go and come from day to day
as they are known to do, yet ever retaining the fixed shape and
contour given by the astral double within.  These lower four
principles or sheaths are the transitory perishable part of man,
not himself, but in every sense the instrument he uses, given up
at the hour of death like an old garment, and rebuilt out of the
general reservoir at every new birth.  The trinity is the real
man, the  thinker, the individuality that passes from house to
house, gaining experience at each rebirth, while it suffers and
enjoys according to its deeds--it is the one central man, the
living spirit-soul.

Now this spiritual man, having always existed, being intimately
concerned in evolution, dominated by the law of cause and effect,
because in himself he is that very law, showing moreover  on this
plane varieties of force of character, capacity, and opportunity,
his very presence must be explained, while the differences noted
have to be accounted for.

The doctrine of reincarnation  does all this.  It means that man
as a thinker, composed of soul, mind and spirit, occupies body
after body in life after life on the earth which is the scene of
his evolution, and where he must, under the very laws of his
being, complete that evolution, once it has been begun.  In any
one life he is known to others as a personality, but in the whole
stretch of eternity he is one individual, feeling in himself an
identity not dependent on name, form, or recollection.

This doctrine is the very base of Theosophy, for it explains life
and nature.  It is one aspect of evolution, for as it is
reembodiment in meaning, and as evolution could not go on without
reembodiment, it is evolution itself, as applied to the human
soul.  But it is also a doctrine believed in at the time given to
Jesus and taught in the early ages of Christianity, being now as
much necessary to that religion as it is to any other to explain
texts, to reconcile the justice of God with the rough and
merciless aspect of nature and life to most mortals, and to throw
a light perceptible by reason on all the problems that vex us in
our journey through this world.

The vast, and under any other doctrine unjust, difference between
the savage and the civilized man as to both capacity, character,
and opportunity can be understood only through this doctrine, and
coming to our own stratum the  differences of the same kind may
only thus be explained.  It vindicates Nature and God, and
removes from religion the blot thrown by men who have postulated
creeds which paint the creator as a demon.

Each man's life and character are the outcome of his previous
lives and thoughts. Each is his own judge, his own  executioner,
for it is his own hand that forges the weapon which works for his
punishment, and each by his own life reaches reward, rises to
heights of knowledge and power for the good of all who may be
left behind him.  Nothing is left to chance, favour, or
partiality, but all is under the governance of law.  Man is a
thinker, and by his thoughts he makes the causes for woe or
bliss;  for his thoughts produce his acts.  He is the centre for
any disturbance of the universal harmony, and to him as the
centre, the disturbance must return so as to bring about
equilibrium;  for nature always works towards harmony.

Man is always carrying on a series of thoughts, which extend back
to the remote past, continually making action and reaction.  He
is thus responsible for all his thoughts and acts, and in that
his complete responsibility is established;  his own spirit is
the essence of this law and provides for ever compensation for
every disturbance and adjustment for all effects.

This is the law of Karma or justice, sometimes called the ethical
law of causation.  It is not foreign to the Christian scriptures,
for both Jesus and St. Paul clearly enunciated it.  Jesus said we
should be judged as we gave judgment and should receive the
measure meted to others.  St. Paul said:  "Brethren, be not
deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that
also shall he reap."  And that sowing and reaping can only be
possible under the doctrines of Karma and reincarnation.

But what of death and after?  Is heaven a place or is it not?
Theosophy teaches, as may be found in all sacred books, that
after death the soul reaps a rest.  This is from its own nature.
It is a thinker, and cannot during life fulfill and carry out all
nor even a small part of the myriads of thoughts entertained.
Hence when at death it casts off the body and the astral body,
and is released from the passions and desires, its natural forces
have immediate sway and it thinks its thoughts out on the soul
plane, clothed in a finer body suitable to that existence.  This
is called Devachan.  It is the very state that has brought about
the descriptions of heaven common to all religions, but this
doctrine is very clearly put in the Buddhist and Hindu religions.
It is a time of rest, because the physical body being absent the
consciousness is not in the completer touch with visible nature
which is possible on the material plane. But it is a real
existence, and no more illusionary than earth life;  it is where
the essence of the thoughts of life that were as high as
character permitted, expands and is garnered by the soul and
mind.

When the force of these thoughts is fully exhausted the soul is
drawn back once more to earth, to that environment which is
sufficiently like unto itself to give it the proper further
evolution. This alternation from state to state goes on until the
being rises from repeated experiences above ignorance, and
realizes in itself the actual unity of all spiritual beings. Then
it passes on to higher and greater steps on the evolutionary
road.

No new ethics are presented by Theosophy, as it is held that
right ethics are for ever the same.  But in the doctrines of
Theosophy are to be found the philosophical and reasonable basis
for ethics and the natural enforcement of them in practice.
Universal brotherhood is that which will result in doing unto
others as you would have them do unto you, and in your
loving your neighbour as yourself--declared as right by all
teachers in the great religions of the world.

[ Culled from statements made by Mr. W. Q. Judge ]

I hope that this will be of some help.  If there are more
questions, please do not hesitate to ask.


Best wishes,

Dallas


========================


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-theos-talk@theosophy.com
[mailto:owner-theos-talk@theosophy.com]On Behalf Of DAVID & sUZ
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2000 2:44 AM
To: theos-talk@theosophy.com
Subject: Theos-World Re: theos-talk-digest V1 #1093


Dear friends,

I have recently happended on the theosopy philosophy/doctrines
and thus far
have found it appealing yet somewhat difficult to know where to
start.
Please excuse my ignorance but can anyone suggest what books/web
sites to
tackle first?? Thanks.

Suz


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