Theos-Talk Archives (May 2000 Message tt00315)

May 26th, 2000

Dallas offers:

Everyone who is a student of Theosophy wonders if the study and
time devoted to finding out what Theosophy is and deals with has
a practical applications which can be used personally.

Such a question HPB received many years ago and dealt with as
follows:



PERFECTION through the Unity of Humanity


          By H. P. Blavatsky


Answer by HPB to a question:  From one of her letters:


"Now it is a fundamental doctrine of Theosophy that the
"separateness" which we feel between ourselves and the world of
living beings around us is an illusion, not a reality. In very
deed and truth, all men are one, not in a feeling of sentimental
gush and hysterical enthusiasm, but in sober earnest.

As all Eastern philosophy teaches, there is but ONE SELF in all
the infinite Universe, and what we men call "self" is but the
illusionary reflection of the ONE SELF in the heaving waters of
earth.

True Occultism is the destruction of the false idea of Self, and
therefore true spiritual perfection and knowledge are nothing
else but the complete identification of our finite "selves" with
the Great All. It follows, therefore, that no spiritual progress
at all is possible except by and through the bulk of Humanity.

It is only when the whole of Humanity has attained happiness that
the individual can hope to become permanently happy -- for the
individual is an inseparable part of the Whole.

Hence there is no contradiction whatever between the altruistic
maxims
of Theosophy and its injunction to kill out all desire for
material
things, to strive after spiritual perfection. For spiritual
perfection
and spiritual knowledge can only be reached on the spiritual
plane; when
all selfishness, all feeling of personal interest and desire, has
been
merged in the wider consciousness of the unity of Mankind.

This shows also that no blind submission to the commands of
another can be demanded, or would be of any use. Each individual
must learn for himself, through trial and suffering, to
discriminate what is beneficial to Humanity; and in proportion as
he develops spiritually, i.e., conquers all selfishness, his mind
will open to receive the guidance of the Divine Monad within him,
his Higher Self, for which there is neither Past nor Future, but
only an eternal NOW.

Again, were there no "poor," far from the "benefits of
civilization being lost," a state of the highest culture and
civilization would be attained, of which we cannot now form the
faintest conception.

Similarly, from a conviction of the impermanence of material
happiness would result a striving after that joy which is
eternal, and in which all men can share. Throughout the whole
letter of our esteemed correspondent there runs the tacit
assumption that happiness in material, physical life is
all-important; which is untrue.

So far from being the most important, happiness in this life of
matter is of as little importance in relation to the bliss of
true spiritual life as are the few years of each human cycle on
earth in proportion to the millions and millions of years which
each human being spends in the subjective spheres, during the
course of every great cycle of the activity of our globe. [In the
Deep-Sleep-State night after night, or in the After-Death-States,
such as Devachan.  DTB]

With regard to faculties and talents, the answer is simple. They
should be developed and cultivated for the service of Humanity,
of which we are all parts, and to which we owe our full and
ungrudging service."  --  HPB

(From Blavatsky: COLLECTED WRITINGS, Vol. 11, pp. 104-6)

THEOSOPHICAL QUERIES: ANSWER TO A LETTER -- HPB

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



SELF--KNOWLEDGE



 [ HPB - Lucifer, vol. I, p. 89 - 1887 ]


"The first necessity for obtaining self-knowledge is to become
profoundly conscious of ignorance;  to feel with every fibre of
the heart that one is ceaselessly self-deceived.

The second requisite is the still deeper conviction that such
knowledge--such intuitive and certain knowledge--can be obtained
by effort.

The third and most important is an indomitable determination to
obtain and face the knowledge.

Self-knowledge of this kind is unattainable by what men usually
call "self-analysis."  It is not reached by reasoning or any
brain process;  for it is the awakening to consciousness of the
Divine nature of man.

To obtain this knowledge is a greater achievement that to command
the elements or to know the future."

-- HPB

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


DESIRE MADE PURE


HPB  [ Lucifer,  Vol. I.,  p. 133,   1887 ]



"When the desire is for the purely abstract--when it has lost all
trace or tinge of "self"--then it has become pure.

The first step towards this purity is to kill out the desire for
the things of matter, since these can only be enjoyed by the
separated personality.

The second is to cease from desiring for oneself even such
abstractions as power, knowledge, love, happiness, or fame;  for
they are but selfishness after all.

Life itself teaches these lessons; for all such objects of desire
are found Dead Sea fruit in the moment of attainment.  This much
we learn from experience.  Intuitive perception seizes on the
positive truth that satisfaction is attainable only in the
infinite;  the will makes that conviction an actual fact of
consciousness, till at last all desire is centred on the
Eternal."

-- HPB   [ Lucifer,  vol. I, p. 133,  1887 ]


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


WILL and DESIRE


--  HPB	   [Lucifer, Vol. I, p. 96,  1887]


"Will is the exclusive possession of man on this plane of
consciousness.  It divides him from the brute in whom instinctive
desire only is active.

DESIRE,  in its widest application, is the one creative force in
the Universe.  In this sense it is indistinguishable from Will;
but we men never know desire under this form while we remain only
men.  Therefore Will and Desire are here considered as opposed.

Thus Will is the offspring of the Divine, the God in man;  Desire
the motive force of the animal life.

Most men live in and by desire, mistaking it for will.  But he
who would achieve must separate will from desire, and make his
will the ruler;  for desire is unstable, and ever changing, while
will is steady and constant.

Both will and desire are absolute creators, forming the man
himself and his surroundings.  But will creates
intelligently--desire blindly and unconsciously.  The man,
therefore, makes himself in the image of the Divine, through his
will, the child of the light.

His task is twofold:  to awaken the will, to strengthen it by use
and conquest, to make it absolute ruler within his body;  and,
parallel with this, to purify desire.

Knowledge and will are the tools for the accomplishment of this
purification.

-- HPB  [Lucifer, Vol. I, p. 96,  1887 ]

( see also:  HPB -- PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION  -- the organ of
the free-will in man is the Higher Manas  -- also:  SD II 176 576
"Desire first arose in It..."   T. Glossary,  p. 171 )


D. T. B.



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