Theos-Talk Archives (December 2001 Message tt00345)

DTB offers:


S D OR ESOTERIC PHILOSOPHY TEACHES

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"...this work is written for the instruction of students of
Occultism."	SD I 23


"To the mentally lazy or obtuse, Theosophy must remain a riddle;
for in the world mental as in the world spiritual each man must
progress by his own efforts. The writer cannot do the reader's
thinking for him, nor would the latter be any the better off if
such vicarious thought were possible." Key to Thy., Preface.


SOME CONSIDERATIONS:


In musing over the early pages in The Secret Doctrine, one may
feel this discloses one of the important aspects of HPB's mission
and work:

A gap of about 1,000 years had been created in Europe, beginning
around the 3rd Century, between the wisdom of antiquity, and the
increment in knowledge that has been studied ever more freely and
recorded in the West, following the Renaissance in the 13-14th
Century, when a concerted effort was made to effect the overthrow
of the bonds of creedalism and dogmatism placed by the Church on
the European nations and their successors.

HPB shows that our modern knowledge suffers from this
information gap, and in Isis and the S D as well as in her many
articles, she shows that its preservation is in actual "root"
records and these have been kept secure in the Orient.

To create this 1,000 year gap, between the 3rd to the 14th
Centuries, fanatics of Christianity and Islam, securing
"political sanction" for the destruction of the records of
ancient science and philosophy, systematically sought for and
destroyed any records they could find relating to the ancient
wisdom. Europe, and America her child, lost the benefit of the
transmission of this traditional, ancestral lore.

Platonism, alone, served as a beacon guide in the "West," and as
a counter-balance to blind dogmatism and materialism.
Periodically we can trace its cyclic return starting with the
Neo-Platonists, then, the Florentine Renaissance, the Cambridge
Platonists and the Transcendentalists of New England, and finally
the Theosophists of this century.

A knowledge of the moral factor, based on the Perennial
Philosophy had to be restored to psychology. This, when
understood, serves as a basis for the freedom of the mind of
every individual. And this led to a search for and a
consideration of the Fundamental Truths: Universal Unity, and
Universal Causation;
persistence of individual Egoic consciousness--the immortality
intuition; universal equity, law and justice; in brief:
Fundamental Unity of all in ALL, Karma, Reincarnation and
Universal Brotherhood.

HPB's mission is the restoration of this link, the establishing
of a bridge of understanding between modern thought based on
observation of our physical, psychic and spiritual environment,
and the ancient source--record of scientific thought, study and
work preserved in the World, particularly in the "East" with
respect to Europe, where the fresh wave of civilization rises.

For this reason, HPB starts the SD with an exposition of the
Fundamentals and the sequence of development starting on
metaphysical planes at the onset of evolution. One may surmise
that those fundamentals are analogous to processes proceeding
first, in the great and universal, invisible Kosmos, and these
are found mirrored in every Solar System or Cosmos, then in every
man-bearing World, in every independent human Mind (Manas), and
finally in the living, intelligent "building blocks" of all
Nature: the Monad, or "life-atom" entity.

She declares that the source of the information offered is the
archaic heritage of all mankind and of every human being.




UNITY OF ALL BEINGS - FUNDAMENTAL SHARING


"From Gods to man, from Worlds to atoms, from a star to a rush
light, from the Sun or the vital heat of the meanest organic
being--the world of Form and Existence is an immense chain, whose
links are all connected. The law of Analogy is the first key to
the world-problem, and those links have to be studied
coordinately in their occult relations to each other."	SD I 604



SECRET DOCTRINE -- ACCUMULATED WISDOM


"The Secret Doctrine merely asserts that a system known as the
Wisdom Religion, the work of generations of adepts and seers, the
sacred heirloom of pre-historic times--actually exists, though
hitherto preserved in the greatest secrecy by the present
Initiates; and it points to various corroborations of its
existence to this very day, to be found in ancient and modern
works. Giving a few fragments only, it there shows how these
explain the religious dogmas of the present day, and how they
might serve Western religions, philosophies and science, as
sign-posts along the untrodden paths of discovery. The work is
essentially fragmentary, giving statements of sundry facts taught
in the esoteric schools--kept, so far, secret--by which the
ancient symbolism of various nations is interpreted. it does not
even give the keys to it, but merely opens a few of the hitherto
secret drawers.

No new philosophy is set up in the Secret Doctrine, only the
hidden meaning of some of the religious allegories of antiquity
is given, light being thrown on these by the esoteric sciences,
and the common source is pointed out, whence all the
world-religions and philosophies have sprung.

Its chief attempt is to show, that however divergent the
respective doctrines and systems of old may seem on their
external or objective side, the agreement between all becomes
perfect, so soon as the esoteric or inner side of these beliefs
and their symbology is examined and a careful comparison is made.

It is also maintained that its doctrines and sciences, which
form an integral cycle of universal cosmic facts and metaphysical
axioms and truths, represent a complete and unbroken system; and
that he who is brave and persevering enough, ready to crush the
animal in himself, and forgetting the human self, sacrifices it
to his Higher Ego, can always find his way to become initiated
into these mysteries.

This is all the Secret Doctrine claims.

Are not a few facts and self-evident truths, found in these
volumes--all the literary defects of the exposition
notwithstanding--truths already proved practically to some,
better than the most ingenious "working" hypotheses, liable to be
upset any day, than the unexplainable mysteries of religious
dogmas, or the most seemingly profound philosophical speculations
? Can the grandest among these speculations be really
profound...when they are limited and conditioned by their
author's brain-mind, hence dwarfed and crippled...cut down to fit
limited sensuous perceptions, which will not allow the intellect
to go beyond their enchanted circle?..." --HPB-The Babel of
Modern Thought - HPB Art III 44-5



THE BOOK : THE SECRET DOCTRINE


"The Secret Doctrine will explain many things, set to right more
than one perplexed student."
M L 289


"The Secret Doctrine is not a treatise, or a series of vague
theories, but contains all that can be given out to the world in
this century."	SD I xxxviii



" The latter," The Secret Doctrine "though giving out many
fundamental tenets from the Secret Doctrine of the East, raise
but a small corner of the dark veil. For no one, not even the
greatest living adept, would be permitted to, or could--even if
he would--give out promiscuously, to a mocking, unbelieving
world, that which has been so effectually concealed from it for
long aeons and ages."	SD I xvi


"For in the 20th century of our era scholars will begin to
recognize that the S D has neither been invented nor
exaggerated, but on the contrary, simply outlined; and finally,
that its teachings antedate the Vedas."	SD I xxxvii


"It is only in the XXth century that portions, if not the whole,
of the present work will be vindicated."	SD II 442


"We give facts, and show land-marks: let the wayfarer follow
them. What is given here is amply sufficient for this century."
SD II 742

"The Secret Doctrine [not the book] was the universally diffused
religion of the ancient and prehistoric world." SD I xxxvi


[ HPB claims incredible antiquity for SD sources. SD I 272-3,
II 438-9, 449, 200-201, ]



TRUTH AND "REVELATION"


"These truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation; nor
does the author claim the position of a revealer of mystic lore.
now made public for the first time in the world's history."	SD I
vii

"Is it a new religion, we are asked? By no means; it is not a
religion, nor is its philosophy new...it is as old as thinking
man. Its tenets are not now published for the first time, but
have been cautiously given out to, and taught by, more than one
European Initiate--especially by the late Ragon."	SD I xxxvi


"...it is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that the
teachings, however fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these
volumes, belong neither to the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the
Chaldean nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is
the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the
various religious schemes are not made to merge back into their
original element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown,
developed, and become materialized."	SD I viii


"If coming events are said to cast their shadows before, past
events cannot fail to leave their impress behind them. It is,
then by those shadows of the hoary Past and their fantastic
silhouettes on the external screen of religion and philosophy,
that we can, by checking them as we go along, and comparing them,
trace out finally the body that produced them. There must be
truth and fact in that which every people of antiquity accepted
and made the foundation of its religions and its faith."	SD II
794




AUTHORITY IN THEOSOPHY


"As all Theosophists have to be judged by their deeds and not by
what they may write or say, so all Theosophical books must be
accepted on their merits, and not according to any claim to
authority which they may put forward."	Key, p. 300


"It is above everything important to keep in mind that no
theosophical book acquires the least additional value from
pretended authority."	SD I xix



SYMBOLISM -- ANALOGY AND CORRESPONDENCE


"...there are proofs of a certain character which become
irrefutable and are undeniable in the long run, to every earnest
and unprejudiced mind...such were offered to her [HPB]...But,
this is the personal view of the writer; and her orthodoxy
cannot be expected to have any more weight than any other
"doxy."...

Therefore are we, Occultists, fully prepared for such questions
as these: "How does he know that the writer has not invented the
whole scheme? And supposing she has not, how can one tell that
the whole foregoing [scheme of evolution--Rounds, Globes, Races,
etc...], as given in the Stanzas, is not the product of the
imagination of the ancients? How could they have preserved the
records of such an immense, such an incredible antiquity? The
answer that the history of the world since its formation and to
its end "is written in the stars," i.e., is recorded in the
Zodiac and the Universal Symbolism whose keys are in the keeping
of the Initiates, will hardly satisfy the doubters...

So are our data based upon the same readings [of the Assyrian
tiles, cuneiform fragments, and Egyptian hieroglyphics], in
addition to the almost inexhaustible number of Secret works of
which Europe knows nothing--plus the perfect knowledge by the
initiates of the symbolism of every word so recorded..."
SD II 438-9


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AIDS AVAILABLE IN STUDYING THE SECRET DOCTRINE.


Index	a separate book

Isis Unveiled	should first be read as it gives a
survey of evidence which is
developed in the SD.

Index to Isis

Theosophical Glossary	Explains Words used in Theosophy
and ancient language terms


Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge	covers questions
asked of HPB by her students
for the first 200 pages

Studies in the SD	Series of articles first published
in Theosophy Vols. 11, 12, 13.
In Theosophical Movement V. 5, 6,
29, 30, 31 (now in a book)


ARTICLES ON THE STUDY OF THE SD


"Authorship of the SD"	HPB and 2 Mahatmas	WQJ Art II 57
[ Path, Vol. 8, p. 1 ]
"A Word on the SD"	WQJ Art II 60

"Esoteric Buddhism & the SD"	.	.	HPB Art III 18
"Mistaken Notions on the SD"	.	.	HPB Art I 485

"Hidden Hints in the SD"	articles by WQJ - end of Vol. 1 of
WQJ Articles. Covers points of special interest in first
220 pages of Vol. 1.

"Seeming Discrepancies"	.	.	.	HPB Art I 488
"The Babel of Modern Thought"	.	.	HPB Art III 35
"My Books".	.	.	.	.	HPB Art I 475

"Science and the SD"	Series in Theosophy Magazine

"Isis and the SD"	.	.	.	.	Thy 6, p. 179
HPB's Method in the SD	.	.	.	Thy 22, p. 217