Theos-Talk Archives (November 2001 Message tt00547)

Tuesday, November 27, 2001

Dear J---e:

Since the start of the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY this question has
been asked.

Yes there are two (if not more) ways to answer.

The First and most obvious is all the literature that H P B wrote
for us to read , think over, assimilate, tear apart, reconstruct
and make our own of what she transmitted from the Masters of
Wisdom. [ Some do not like to think that she was Their agent.
Some do not like to think that there are WISE MEN. some prefer
the concept that Wisdom comes as a "revelation" from "ON HIGH."
Some prefer to think that "God" made everything as is therefore
to be blamed for all accidents, sorrows, imperfections, etc... I
could go on, but this does not seem to be a useful exercise. ]
Since this is to be read and debated, it was called the "Eye" or
"Head" Doctrine.

The Second is to study what Theosophy offers, then without trying
to verify accept it as "true." Perhaps this is an instant
recognition from the Past -- of efforts started and continued
through many lives. But it is not necessarily reliable, as in
this incarnation it remains to be checked out with our minds and
our understanding. This is a cautionary approach recommended.
This is what many have called "devotion" or the "Heart Doctrine."
It is a generous response to all other beings assuming them to be
as of our own dearest family. It is distinguished by a lack of
suspicion or of doubt as to others' motives. It relies on the
inherent "goodness" and the "spirituality" resident at the heart
of the Universe as of every other.

In other words, if we recognize the existence and reality of
these two opposite approaches, then the need for an
intermediate -- an attentive, and conciliatory view is
imperative -- thus forming a triangle of methods. The Mind
(directed by the Inner Person) gives this, and enables us to
balance both Head and Heart doctrines and reactions -- which
ought to be carefully compared. These will be found after
sufficient examination of the religions and philosophies of the
world (2nd Object of the T S ) to be universal concepts, and can
be traced to the root teachings of any of the great
World-Religions or World-Philosophies. They all teach the same
basic ethics, and describe in more or less the same terms (using
the imagery of their times) the same process of evolution and the
great Goal -- of Perfection -- which each can aspire to and work
towards achieving.

I was reading H P B's article: WHAT IS THEOSOPHY. I think some
of the points made there are valuable for all of su, as a
historical review, to know what ancient and immemorial Theosophy
teaches and today, still offers -- if only we will use it. We
can't possibly assimilate all of it, but bit by bit, if we read,
think and study daily, its value increases. I know for myself
that it is valuable in daily life, and in the world of learning,
I have acquired from it that which no modern University could
ever begin to teach. One prominent thing: It teaches us how to
THINK.

Let me offer you some words that seem to me to have deep meaning,
as they drive to the root of all that students seem to sense
though the "heart" :

This Theosophy we study comes from (H P B says) a Great and
Ancient Lodge. [ S D I 272 - 3; ISIS UNVEILED II pp. 98 -
103 ] It is not to be taken up in the pincers of criticism and
analyzed. Yet it is to be recognized. It is at once everywhere
and nowhere. It contains within its boundaries all real Masters,
students, guides, and Gurus, of whatever race or creed or, of no
creed. Of it has been said:

"Beyond the Hall of Learning is the Lodge. It is the whole body
of Sages in all the world. So therefore at any time any one of
its real teachers or disciples will gladly help any other teacher
or disciple."

Each one who determines in himself that he will enter the Path,
has a "teacher," -- a "Guru." In the case of students of
Theosophy, it is H P B. Just as the merest private in the army
has a general who guides the whole but whom he cannot reach
except through the others who are officers, so in this order we
find divisions of Gurus as well as divisions of disciples. There
is the Great Guru, who is such to many who never know Him or see
Him. Then there are others who know Him, and who are Gurus to a
number of chelas, and so on.

Recognition of any Guru is by recognition of the truths that are
freely imparted. Those "truths" resonate in our soul. They
invoke in us a reasoned response. They encourage our deeper
thinking and search for causes, rather than any acceptance of
"effects."

H P B wrote (I am abstracting parts of her exposition) : "This
question has been so often asked, and misconception so widely
prevails, that the editor...would be remiss...without coming to a
full understanding... But [we are confronted with] two further
queries: What is the Theosophical Society; and what are the
Theosophists?

The term "theosophia" is composed of two Greek words--"theos",
"god," and "sophos", "wise." ... Thomas Vaughan offered: "A
Theosophist," he says -- "is one who gives you a theory of God
or the works of God, which has not revelation, but an inspiration
of his own for its basis." ...

In this view every great thinker and philosopher, especially
every founder of a new religion, school of philosophy, or sect,
is necessarily a Theosophist. Hence, Theosophy and Theosophists
have existed ever since the first glimmering of nascent thought
made man seek instinctively for the means of expressing his own
independent opinions.

There were Theosophists before the Christian era....Ammonius
Saccas, the founder of the Neo-Platonic School...called
themselves "Philalethians"-- lovers of the truth; while others
termed them the "Analogists," on account of their method of
interpreting all sacred legends, symbolical myths and mysteries,
by a rule of analogy or correspondence, so that events which had
occurred in the external world were regarded as expressing
operations and experiences of the human soul.

It was the aim and purpose of Ammonius to reconcile all sects,
peoples and nations under one common faith -- a belief in one
Supreme Eternal, Unknown, and Unnamed Power, governing the
Universe by immutable and eternal laws.

His object was to prove a primitive system of Theosophy, which at
the beginning was essentially alike in all countries; to induce
all men to lay aside their strifes and quarrels, and unite in
purpose and thought as the children of one common mother; to
purify the ancient religions, by degrees corrupted and obscured,
from all dross of human element, by uniting and expounding them
upon pure philosophical principles.

Hence, the Buddhistic, Vedantic and Magian, or Zoroastrian,
systems were taught in the Eclectic Theosophical School along
with all the philosophies of Greece. Hence also, the
preeminently Buddhistic and Indian feature among the ancient
Theosophists...of reverence due for parents and aged persons; a
fraternal affection for the whole human race; and a compassionate
feeling for even...animals.

While seeking to establish a system of moral discipline which
enforced upon people the duty to live according to the laws of
their respective countries; to exalt their minds by the research
and contemplation of the one Absolute Truth; his chief object in
order...to achieve all others, was to extract from the various
religious teachings, as from a many-chorded instrument, one full
and harmonious melody, which would find response in every
truth-loving heart.

Theosophy is, then, the archaic Wisdom-Religion, the esoteric
doctrine once known in every ancient country having claims to
civilization. This "Wisdom" all the old writings show us as an
emanation of the divine Principle...The central idea of the
Eclectic Theosophy was that of a simple Supreme Essence, Unknown
and Unknowable...

As regards the Divine essence and the nature of the soul and
spirit, modern Theosophy believes now as ancient Theosophy did.
The popular Diu of the Aryan nations was identical with the Iao
of the Chaldeans, and even with the Jupiter of the less learned
and philosophical among the Romans; and it was just as identical
with the Jahve of the Samaritans, the Tiu or "Tiusco" of the
Northmen, the Duw of the Britains, and the Zeus of the Thracians.

As to the Absolute Essence, the One and all -- whether we accept
the Greek Pythagorean, the Chaldean Kabalistic, or the Aryan
philosophy in regard to it, it will lead to one and the same
result.

The Primeval Monad of the Pythagorean system, which retires into
darkness and is itself Darkness (for human intellect) was made
the basis of all things; and we can find the idea in all its
integrity in the philosophical systems of Leibnitz and Spinoza.

Therefore, whether a Theosophist agrees with the Kabala which,
speaking of En-Soph propounds the query: "Who, then, can
comprehend It since It is formless, and Non-existent?"--or,
remembering that magnificent hymn from the Rig-Veda (Hymn 129th,
Book 10th)--enquires:

"Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
Whether his will created or was mute.
He knows it--or perchance even He knows not;" [ see S D I p.
26 ]

...or again, accepts the Vedantic conception of Brahma, who in
the Upanishads is represented as "without life, without mind,
pure," unconscious, for--Brahma is "Absolute Consciousness"; or,
even finally, siding with the Svabhâvikas of Nepal, maintains
that nothing exists but "Svabhâvât" (substance or nature) which
exists by itself without any creator; any one of the above
conceptions can lead but to pure and absolute Theosophy...and
speculate upon the One Substance--the Deity, the Divine All
proceeding from the Divine Wisdom -- incomprehensible, unknown
and unnamed--by any ancient or modern religious philosophy...

Every Theosophist, then, holding to a theory of the Deity "which
has not revelation, but an inspiration of his own for its basis,"
may accept any of the above definitions or belong to any of these
religions, and yet remain strictly within the boundaries of
Theosophy. For the latter is belief in the Deity as the ALL, the
source of all existence, the infinite that cannot be either
comprehended or known, the universe alone revealing It...

True, Theosophy shrinks from brutal materialization; it prefers
believing that, from eternity retired within itself, the Spirit
of the Deity neither wills nor creates; but that, from the
infinite effulgency everywhere going forth from the Great Centre,
that which produces all visible and invisible things, is but a
Ray containing in itself the generative and conceptive power,
which, in its turn, produces that which the Greeks called
Macrocosm, the Kabalists Tikkun or Adam Kadmon -- the "Archetypal
Man," and the Aryans: Purusha, the manifested Brahm, or the
Divine Male.

Theosophy believes also in the Anastasis or continued existence
[by reincarnation], and in transmigration (evolution) or a series
of changes in the soul which can be defended and explained on
strict philosophical principles; and only by making a distinction
between Paramâtma (transcendental, supreme soul) and Jivâtmâ
(animal, or conscious soul) of the Vedantins.

To fully define Theosophy, we must consider it under all its
aspects.

The interior world has not been hidden from all by impenetrable
darkness. By that higher intuition acquired by Theosophia--or
God-knowledge, which carried the mind from the world of form into
that of formless spirit, man has been sometimes enabled in every
age and every country to perceive things in the interior or
invisible world.

Hence, the "Samadhi," or Dyan Yoga Samadhi, of the Hindu
ascetics; the "Daimonion-photi," or spiritual illumination of the
Neo-Platonists; the "sidereal confabulation of soul," of the
Rosicrucians or Fire-philosophers; and, even the ecstatic trance
of mystics and of the modern mesmerists and spiritualists, are
identical in nature, though various as to manifestation.

The search after man's diviner "self," so often and so
erroneously interpreted as individual communion with a personal
God, was the object of every mystic, and belief in its
possibility seems to have been coeval with the genesis of
humanity, each people giving it another name.

Thus Plato and Plotinus call "Noëtic work" that which the Yogi
and the Shrotriya term Vidya. "By reflection, self-knowledge and
intellectual discipline, the soul can be raised to the vision of
eternal truth, goodness, and beauty -- that is, to the Vision of
God -- this is the epopteia," said the Greeks.

"To unite one's soul to the Universal Soul," says Porphyry,
"requires but a perfectly pure mind. Through self-contemplation,
perfect chastity, and purity of body, we may approach nearer to
It, and receive, in that state, true knowledge and wonderful
insight." ...

We can now see how, after thousands of years have intervened
between the age of Gymnosophists and our own highly civilized
era...millions of people today believe, under a different form,
in those same spiritual powers that were believed in by the Yogis
and the Pythagoreans, nearly 3,000 years ago.

Thus, while the Aryan mystic claimed for himself the power of
solving all the problems of life and death, when he had once
obtained the power of acting independently of his body, through
the Atmân -- "Self," or "Soul"; and the old Greeks went in search
of Atmu -- the Hidden one, or the God-Soul of man, with the
symbolical mirror of the Thesmophorian mysteries...

And all these, Aryan Yogis, Greek philosophers, and modern
spiritualists, affirm that possibility on the ground that the
embodied soul and its never embodied spirit -- the real self, are
not separated from either the Universal Soul or other spirits by
space, but merely by the differentiation of their qualities; as
in the boundless expanse of the universe there can be no
limitation. And that when this difference is once removed --
according to the Greeks and Aryans by abstract contemplation,
producing the temporary liberation of the imprisoned Soul...--
such an union between embodied and disembodied spirits becomes
possible...

Thus was it that Patanjali's Yogis and, following in their steps,
Plotinus, Porphyry and other Neo-Platonists, maintained that in
their hours of ecstasy, they had been united to, or rather become
as one with God, several times during the course of their lives.
This idea, erroneous as it may seem in its application to the
Universal Spirit, was, and is, claimed by too many great
philosophers to be put aside as entirely chimerical.

The Alexandrian Theosophists were divided into neophytes,
initiates, and masters, or hierophants; and their rules were
copied from the ancient Mysteries of Orpheus, who, according to
Herodotus, brought them from India.

Ammonius obligated his disciples by oath not to divulge his
higher doctrines, except to those who were proved thoroughly
worthy and initiated, and who had learned to regard the gods, the
angels, and the demons of other peoples, according to the
esoteric hyponia, or "under-meaning." "The gods exist, but they
are not what the hoi polloi, the uneducated multitude, suppose
them to be," says Epicurus. "He is not an atheist who denies the
existence of the gods whom the multitude worship, but he is such
who fastens on these gods the opinions of the multitude."

In his turn, Aristotle declares that of the "Divine Essence
pervading the whole world of nature, what are styled the gods are
simply the first principles."

Plotinus...tells us that the secret gnosis or the knowledge of
Theosophy, has three degrees--opinion, science, and illumination.
"The means or instrument of the first is sense, or perception; of
the second, dialectics; of the third, intuition. To the last,
reason is subordinate; it is absolute knowledge, founded on the
identification of the mind with the object known."

Theosophy is the exact science of psychology...It develops in man
a direct beholding; that which Schelling denominates "a
realization of the identity of subject and object in the
individual"; so that under the influence and knowledge of hyponia
man thinks divine thoughts, views all things as they really are,
and, finally, "becomes recipient of the Soul of the World," to
use one of the finest expressions of Emerson. "I, the imperfect,
adore my own perfect"--he says in his superb Essay on the
Oversoul.

Besides this psychological, or soul-state, Theosophy cultivated
every branch of sciences and arts.
...When ignorant of the true meaning of the esoteric divine
symbols of nature, man is apt to miscalculate the powers of his
soul, and, instead of communing spiritually and mentally with the
higher, celestial beings, the good spirits...he will
unconsciously call forth the evil, dark powers which lurk around
humanity--the undying, grim creations of human crimes and
vices--and thus fall from theurgia (white magic) into göetia (or
black magic, sorcery)...Purity of deed and thought can alone
raise us to an intercourse "with the gods" and attain for us the
goal we desire. Alchemy, believed by so many to have been a
spiritual philosophy as well as physical science, belonged to the
teachings of the theosophical school.

It is a noticeable fact that neither Zoroaster, Buddha, Orpheus,
Pythagoras, Confucius, Socrates, nor Ammonius Saccas, committed
anything to writing.

The reason for it is obvious. Theosophy is a double-edged weapon
and unfit for the ignorant or the selfish. Like every ancient
philosophy it has its votaries among the moderns; but, until
late in our own days, its disciples were few in numbers, and of
the most various sects and opinions. "Entirely speculative, and
founding no school, they have still exercised a silent influence
upon philosophy; and no doubt, when the time arrives, many ideas
thus silently propounded may yet give new directions to human
thought" -- remarks Mr. Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, IXo ... Since
the days of the fire-philosophers, they had never formed
themselves into societies, for, tracked like wild beasts by the
Christian clergy, to be known as a Theosophist often amounted,
hardly a century ago (1700s), to a death-warrant...

It was but late in the present century--in 1875--that some
progressed mystics and spiritualists, unsatisfied with the
theories and explanations of Spiritualism, started by its
votaries, and finding that they were far from covering the whole
ground of the wide range of phenomena, formed at New York,
America, an association which is now widely known as the
Theosophical Society. And now, having explained what is
Theosophy, we will, in a separate article, explain what is the
nature of our Society, which is also called the "Universal
Brotherhood of Humanity."

------------------------------------------

So wrote H P B in 1879 in the first issue of the THEOSOPHIST,
published from Bombay.
I must apologise to her for making arbitrary selections -- the
original ought to be read, and re-read.

I do hope this (and H P B) answers some of your points.

Best wishes,

Dallas



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

-----Original Message-----
From: Jelle B---a
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 10:11 AM
To:
Subject: [Re: WHAT IS THEOSOPHY --Studying The SECRET DOCTRINE,
Part 2

Dear Dallas,

Thank you for your explanation "What is Theosophy?" and pondering
over it came in my mind that Theosophy is in its manifestation
dual as every manifestation.

The ancient wisdom as we have to learn every thing in the first
three degrees of esoteric teaching, from the globe and planetary
chain its creation and all the races and on the other hand the
Universal Brotherhood, Compassion and Altruism.


Since it is a manifestation then for me it is the Ancient Wisdom
is the vehicle for the Universal Brotherhood ,altruism and
compassion

Warm Regards

Jelle

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