Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00468)

Dec 14 2002

Dear Friends:

As we approach the solstice, some of these thoughts might have special
meaning for us

Best wishes for the New Year

DTB

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





HIDDEN HINTS IN THE SECRET DOCTRINE VOL. 1

_________________


PURPOSE OF THE BOOK: THE SECRET DOCTRINE


"The synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy"
SD I Title Page


"There is no Religion Higher than Truth."
SD I Title Page


"This Work I dedicate to all True Theosophists, In every
Country, and of every Race, for They called it forth, and for Them it
was Recorded."
SD I Dedication


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


"These truths are in no sense put forward as	a revelation ...what is
contained [here] is to be found scattered throughout thousands
of...scriptures of the great Asiatic and early European
religions...What is now attempted is to gather the oldest tenets
together and to make of them one harmonious whole...The Secret
Doctrine is the essence of all these...its logical coherence and
consistency entitles this new Genesis to rank...on a level with the
"working hypotheses" so freely accepted by modern science...because it
closely adheres to Nature, and follows the laws of uniformity and
analogy." SD I Preface vii-viii



"THE AIM OF THIS WORK [IS]...

[ 1.] to show that nature is not "a fortuitous
concurrence of atoms," and
[ 2.] to assign to man his rightful place in the scheme
of the Universe;
[ 3.] to rescue from degradation the archaic truths
which are the basis of all religions; and
[ 4.] to uncover...the fundamental unity from which
they spring; finally,
[ 5.] to show that the occult side of nature has never
been approached by the Science of modern
civilization."	SD I Preface viii



"The Secret Doctrine, in the Stanzas given here, occupies itself
chiefly, if not entirely, with our Solar system, and especially with
our planetary chain."	SD I 60


"The Wisdom-Religion is the inheritance of all the nations, the world
over..."	SD I xviii


"...no theosophical book acquires the least additional value from
pretended authority."
SD I xix



THE ESOTERIC PHILOSOPHY: OCCULTISM


"Esoteric Philosophy is alone calculated to withstand...the repeated
attacks on all and everything that man holds most dear and sacred, in
his inner spiritual life...[it] reconciles all religions...It proves
the necessity of an absolute Divine Principle in nature [and]...denies
Deity no more than it does the Sun...the records we mean to place
before the reader embrace the esoteric tenets of the whole world since
the beginning of our humanity..."	SD I xx


"...the Secret Doctrine of the Archaic ages is now permitted to see
the light, after long millenniums of the most profound silence and
secrecy..."	SD I xxii



ARCHAIC ESOTERIC SCHOOLS


"The members of several esoteric schools...claim to have in their
possession the sum total of sacred and philosophical works in MSS, and
type...once found, save three copies left and stored carefully away,
such works were all destroyed and hidden during the reign of the
Emperor Akbar [1562-1603]."	SD I xxiii


"There was a "primeval revelation" [ granted to the fathers of the
human race ] and it still exists; nor will it ever be lost to the
world, but will reappear..."	SD I xxx


"The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused religion of the
ancient and prehistoric world."
SD I xxxiv


"[ The Secret Doctrine]...is not a religion, nor is its philosophy
new...it is as old as thinking man. Its tenets have been cautiously
given out to, and taught by, more than one European Initiate...[such
as] Ragon"	SD I xxxvi



THE SECRET DOCTRINE IN THIS CENTURY



"...in the 20th century...scholars will begin to recognize that the
Secret Doctrine has...[been] simply outlined...[it] contains all that
can be given out to the world in this century"
SD I xxxvii-viii


"...it will take centuries before much more is given from it...once
the door permitted to be kept a little ajar, it will be opened wider
with every new century."	SD I xxxviii & Fn



"[ A new 5,000 year cycle is dawning--1897/98 ]...Fragments have
survived geological and political cataclysms...{and} show that the now
Secret Wisdom was once the one fountain head, the ever-flowing
perennial source...unobscured by the hand of bigotry and fanaticism."
SD I xliv-xlv



"In the present work, detailed Cosmogony and the evolution of the four
races that preceded our Fifth race Humanity are given work from which
the many volumes of the Kiu-ti...Siphra Dzeniouta...Sepher
Jezirah...Shu-king [and] the sacred volumes of the Egyptian
Thoth-Hermes, the Puranas in India, and the Chaldean Book of Numbers
and the Pentateuch itself [were derived]...taken down in Senzar, the
secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of the Divine Beings, who
dictated it to the Sons of Light, in Central Asia, at the very
beginning of our (5th) race..."	SD I xliii



"...knowledge of the Occult and the powers it confers on man, are not
altogether fictions, but that they are as old as the world itself."
SD I xlv



H P B'S "POSITION"


"I have here made only a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought
nothing of my own but the string that ties them."	SD I xlvi


"Every reader will inevitably judge the statements made from the
stand-point of his own knowledge, experience and consciousness, based
on what he has already learnt."	SD I xlvi



STATEMENTS FROM THE SECRET DOCTRINE


A Universal Basis


"The first and Fundamental dogma of Occultism is Universal Unity (or
Homogeneity) under three aspects."	SD I 58


"...Universe, the All...the abstract, ever incognizable Presence, and
its plane the Universal Soul..."	SD I p. 1


"The One Life, eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without beginning
or end, yet periodical in its regular manifestations ...eternal
ceaseless Motion...the "Great Breath"...in limitless, ever-present
Space..."	SD I p. 2


"Occultism sums up the "one Existence" thus: "Deity is an arcane,
living (or moving) Fire, and the eternal witness to this unseen
Presence are Light, Heat, Moisture..."	SD I 2


"...there is but One Universal Element, which is infinite, unborn, and
undying, and that all the rest...are but so many various
differentiated aspects and transformations (correlations)...of that
One...then the first and chief difficulty will disappear and Occult
Cosmology may be mastered."	SD I 75


"The esoteric doctrine teaches...like even the Kabala, that the one
infinite and unknown Essence exists from all eternity, and in regular
and harmonious successions is either passive or active."	[ Isis II
264 ]	SD I 3


FOHAT



"...Fohat...is the "bridge" by which the "Ideas" existing in the
"Divine Thought" are impressed on Cosmic substance as the "laws of
nature." Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic Ideation; or,
regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the
guiding power of all manifestation, made manifest through the Dhyan
Chohans, the Architects of the visible World...Fohat in its various
manifestations is the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the
animating principle electrifying every atom into life."	SD I 16


"...the "Son," cosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. "Fohat
hardens and scatters the seven brothers."...the primordial Electric
Entity...electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or
pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and
consciousness."	SD I 76



THREE FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS


[ Three Fundamentals - no apology is required for asking the reader to
make himself familiar with them first...these basic ideas are few in
number, and on their clear apprehension depends the understanding of
all that follows...]	SD I 14 - 19


1.	FIRST FUNDAMENTAL: "Be-ness"


1.	the Absolute...both Absolute Being and Non-Being.

2.	First manifestation...unmanifested Logos, the precursor of the
"manifested"...the "First Cause"...the "Unconscious"

3.	Spirit-matter, Life; the "Spirit of the Universe,"
Purusha and Prakriti, or the second Logos.

4.	Cosmic Ideation, Mahat or Intelligence, the Universal World-soul;
the Cosmic Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations
in and of Nature, also called Maha-Buddhi.

THE ONE REALITY; its dual aspects in the conditioned Universe."
SD I 16



2.	SECOND FUNDAMENTAL:	"Becoming"


"The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane;
periodically, "the playground of numberless Universes incessantly
manifesting and disappearing," called the "manifesting stars," and the
"sparks of Eternity."...The absolute universality of that law of
periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow...an alternation...so
perfectly universal and without exception, that it is easy to
comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of
the universe."	SD I 16-17



3.	THIRD FUNDAMENTAL:	"Being"


"The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over Soul,
the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown root; and the
obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul--a spark of the former--through
the Cycle of Incarnation (or "Necessity")...The pivotal doctrine of
the Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special gifts in man,
save those won by his own Ego through personal effort and merit
throughout a long series of metempsychoses and reincarnations."	SD I
17



SPACE -- THE ONE INFINITE WE SHARE ALL AROUND US.


"...the One All is like Space...Space is neither a "limitless void,"
nor a "conditioned fullness"...	SD I 8


"Space is called in the esoteric symbolism "the Seven-Skinned Eternal
Mother-Father."	SD I 9


"...there can neither be two Infinities nor two Absolutes in a
Universe supposed to be Boundless..."	SD I 7


"...not even the highest Dhyani-Chohans have ever penetrated the
mysteries beyond the boundaries that separate the milliards of Solar
systems from the "Central Sun," as it is called."
[ see SD I 142 ]	SD I 13


"The One Eternal Element...is Space, dimensionless in every sense;
co-existent with which are--endless duration, primordial (hence
indestructible) Matter, and motion--absolute "perpetual motion" which
is the "breath" of the "One" Element."	SD I 55



MOTION: LIFE - LAW - PROGRESS [NO "CHANCE" IN NATURE]


"...universal motion, the thrill of the creative Breath in Nature."
SD I 2


"Intra-Cosmic motion is eternal and ceaseless; cosmic motion (the
visible, or that which is subject to perception) is finite and
periodical. As an eternal abstraction it is the
ever-present...Kosmos--the Noumenon--has nought to do with the causal
relations of the phenomenal World."	SD I 3


"This process has been going on from all eternity, and our present
universe is but one of an infinite series, which had no beginning and
will have no end."	[ Isis II 265 ]	SD I 4


"...atoms actuated by a ceaseless motion...the idea of affinity--an
occult teaching."	SD I 2


"The ray of the "Ever Darkness" becomes, as it is emitted, a ray of
effulgent light or life, and flashes into the "Germ"--the point in the
Mundane Egg...matter in its abstract sense...a germ exists in the
center of every atom, and these collectively form "the Germ"...the
collectivity of these forms the noumenon of eternal and indestructible
matter."	SD I 57



UNIVERSAL MIND: INTELLIGENCE -- MANKIND -- PROGRESS


"...the universal mystery, the doctrine of the identity of man's
essence with god-essence..."	SD I 78


"...the term "Divine Thought," like that of "Universal Mind,"...would
mean absolute Wisdom..."	SD I 1fn


"...entities called Primordial Man, Dhyani-Buddhas, or Dhyan-Chohans,
the "Rishi-Prajapati" of the Hindus, the Elohim...the Planetary
Spirits of all nations..."	SD I 10


"The "Builders," the "Sons of Manvantaric Dawn," are the real creators
of the Universe...they are the architects [of our Planetary System,
and ]...are also called the "Watchers" of the Seven Spheres, which
exoterically are the seven earths or spheres (planets) of our
chain..."
SD I 53


"...Absolute Consciousness".. .behind phenomena...is only termed
unconsciousness in the absence of any element of personality...Only
the liberated Spirit is able to faintly realize the nature of the
source whence it sprung and wither it must eventually return...as the
highest Dhyan-Chohan...can but bow in ignorance before the awful
mystery of Absolute Being...the Finite cannot conceive the Infinite,
nor can it apply to it its own standards of mental experiences...the
Occultist would say that it applies perfectly to the awakened Mahat,
the Universal Mind already projected into the phenomenal world as the
first aspect of the changeless Absolute..."Spirit and Matter...are but
the two primeval aspects of the One and Secondless..."	SD I 51


"The idea that things can cease to exist and still be, is a
fundamental one in Eastern psychology."	SD I 54


"...the "Son," cosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. "Fohat
hardens and scatters the seven brothers."...the primordial Electric
Entity...electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or
pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and
consciousness."	SD I 76


"The "Divine Thought" does not imply the idea of a Divine thinker.
The Universe, not only past, present, and future--which is a human and
finite idea expressed by finite thought--but in its totality, the
Sat...the absolute being, with the Past and Future crystallized in an
eternal Present, is that Thought itself reflected in a secondary or
manifest cause."	SD I 61



MIND - INTELLIGENCE - CONSCIOUSNESS


"Esoteric philosophy teaches that everything lives and is
conscious..."	SD I 49


"Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of Consciousness
grouped under thought, Will, and Feeling..."Universal Mind" remains as
a permanent possibility of mental action..."
SD I 38


"Dreamless sleep is one of the seven states of consciousness..."
SD I 47


"...Mundane Intelligence...Nous, the principle that...is absolutely
separated and was free from matter and acts on design, was called
Motion, the One Life, or Jivatma..."	SD I 50


"To know itself or oneself, necessitates consciousness and perception
(both limited faculties in relation to any subject except Parabrahm
[the Absolute], to be cognized...The Boundless can have no relation to
the bounded and conditioned...Concrete consciousness cannot be
predicated of abstract Consciousness...Consciousness implies
limitations and qualifications; something to be conscious of, and
someone to be conscious of it. But Absolute Consciousness contains
the cognizer, the thing cognized and the cognition, all three in
itself and all three one."
S D I 56


"To forget is synonymous with not to remember...We call absolute
consciousness "unconsciousness," because it seems to us that it must
necessarily be so, just as we call the Absolute, "Darkness," because
to our finite understanding it appears quite impenetrable, yet we
recognize that our perception...does not do them justice..."	SD I 56


"The Mahat (Understanding, Universal Mind, Thought, etc...) before it
manifests as Brahmaa or Siva, appears as Vishnu [Krishna]...Mahat has
several aspects...[and] is called the Lord, in the Primary Creation,
and is, in this sense, Universal Cognition or Thought Divine;
but...when Mahat develops into the feeling of
Self-Consciousness--I--then it assumes the name of
Ego-ism...translated into our esoteric phraseology, means when Mahat
is transferred into the human Manas...and becomes Aham-ship" S D I
75

[ I am that I am -- explained	numerically	SD I 78 ]


MANIFESTATION AS A PERIODICAL PROCESS



"The idea of Eternal Non-Being, which is the One Being...is the
noumenon of all the noumena which we know must underlie phenomena, and
give them whatever shadow of reality they possess, but which we have
hot the senses or the intellect to cognize at present."	SD I 45


"Spirit is the first differentiation from That, the causeless cause of
both Spirit and Matter."	SD I 35


"...Akasa, Father-Mother, the Spirit and soul of Ether, or the plane
on the surface of the circle."	SD I 18


"In the Kabala it is...Father-Mother-Son..."Atma-Buddhi-Manas"
(Spirit, Soul, Intelligence), the triad branching off and dividing
into seven cosmical and seven human principles..."	SD I 18


"The Secret Doctrine...postulates a "One Form of Existence" as the
basis and source of all things...the place whence emerges the
origination, and into which is the resolution of all things."	SD I 46



EVOLUTION - PROGRESS OF INDIVIDUALIZED IMMORTALS

[ From the "life-atom" to the "Galaxy" ]


"The Secret Doctrine teaches the progressive development of
everything, worlds as well as atoms; and this stupendous development
has neither conceivable beginning nor imaginable end. Our "Universe"
is only one of an infinite number of Universes, all of them "Sons of
Necessity," because links in the great Cosmic chain..."	SD I 43


"...the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive
awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last,
we have reached "reality;" but only when we shall have reached the
absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free
from the delusions produced by Maya [illusion]."	SD I 40



A SEVENFOLD UNIVERSE


"...any septenary division at once gives a clue to tremendous occult
powers, the abuse of which would cause incalculable evil to humanity."
SD I xxxv


"[ "keys"]...The said key must be turned seven times before the whole
system is divulged...Happy he, who understands the whole!"	SD I
xxxviii


"Wise is he who holds to the golden mid-point, who believes in the
eternal justice of things."	SD I xli


"...Occult Science recognizes Seven Cosmical Elements--four entirely
physical, and the fifth (Ether) semi-material, as it will become
visible in the air towards the end of our Fourth Round..."	SD I 12


"The 7 Stanzas given...represent the 7 terms of this abstract formula
[which can be applied...to all evolution...]	SD I 21


"...the septenary hierarchy of conscious Divine Powers, who are the
active manifestations of the One Supreme Energy.	SD I 22



RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES BETWEEN PLANETS AND MANKIND


"...one has first of all to admit the postulate of a universally
diffused, omnipresent, eternal Deity in Nature; secondly, to have
fathomed the mystery of electricity in its true essence; and thirdly,
to credit man with being a septenary symbol, on the terrestrial plane,
of the One Great Unit (the Logos), which is Itself the Seven-vowelled
sign, the Breath crystallized into the Word. He who believes in this,
has also to believe in the multiple combination of the seven planets
of Occultism and of the Kabala, with the twelve zodiacal signs; to
attribute...to each planet and to each constellation an influence
which..."is proper to it, beneficent or maleficent, and this, after
the planetary Spirit which rules it, who, in his turn is capable of
influencing men and things which are found in harmony with him and
with which he has any affinity."	S D I 79



MATTER AND SUBSTANCE -- MANIFESTATION



"...while Mulaprakriti [root substance] the noumenon, is self-existing
and without any origin--is...parentless (Anupadaka)--Prakriti, its
phenomenon [tangible matter], is periodical and no better than a
phantasm of the former, so Mahat [Universal Mind], with the
Occultists, the first-born of Gnana (or gnosis) knowledge, wisdom or
the Logos--is a phantasm reflected from the Absolute [quality-less]
Parabrahm..."	S D I 62


"...the "last vibration of the Seventh Eternity"...without reference
to size or limitation or area means the development of limitless
subjectivity into as limitless objectivity...a change of
condition...the temporary reflection, the shadow of the eternal ideal
prototype in Divine thought...(as the Hermetic "Pymander")..."	S D I
63


"...the "Son," cosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. "Fohat
hardens and scatters the seven brothers."...the primordial Electric
Entity...electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or
pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and
consciousness."	SD I 76



SYMBOLOGY -- NUMBERS -- UNIVERSAL GEOMETRY


[ Universal Symbology is introduced as a development of primordial
ideas: Circle, Line, Triangle, Cross"	SD I pp. 4-5


"...Quaternary (Father, Mother, Son, as a Unity, and...as a living
manifestation)...is purely astronomical, mathematical, and
pre-eminently metaphysical...Horus, Or Osiris, etc...is born through,
not from an immaculate source, personified by the "Mother"...the
abstract Deity being sexless, and not even a Being but Be-ness, or
Life itself..."	SD I 59


"...Jehovah, or Jod-he-vau-he is androgyne, or both male and female.
Above, the Son is the whole Kosmos; below, he is Mankind."	SD I 60


"The "Mundane Egg" is...one of the most universally adopted symbols,
highly suggestive as it is, equally in the spiritual physiological,
and cosmological sense. Therefore, it is found in every
world-theogony...associated with the serpent symbol...an emblem of
eternity, infinitude, regeneration, and rejuvenation, as well as of
wisdom..."	SD I 65


"In the "Book of Dzyan," as in the Kabala, there are two kinds of
numerals to be studied--the figures, often simple blinds, and the
Sacred Numbers, the values of which are known to the Occultists
through Initiation. The former is but a conventional glyph, the
latter is the basic symbol of all...one is purely physical, the other
purely metaphysical, the two standing in relation to each other as
matter stands to spirit--the extreme poles of the One Substance."
SD I 66

*	=	1
* *	=	2
* * *	=	3
* * * *	=	4	Sum Total = 10



LIGHT AND DARKNESS


"The "Light" is the same Omnipresent Spiritual Ray, which has entered
and now fecundated the divine Egg, and calls cosmic matter to begin
its long series of differentiations. The curds are the first...and
probably refer to that cosmic matter which is supposed to be the
origin of the "Milky Way"--the matter we know."	SD I 69


"Darkness adopted illumination in order to make itself visible...[in]
Eastern Occultism, Darkness is the one true actuality, the basis and
root of light, without which the latter could never manifest itself,
nor even exist. Light is matter, and Darkness pure Spirit. Darkness
in its radical, metaphysical basis, is subjective and absolute
light..."	SD I 70



THE WORD -- SACRED SOUND


"Oeaohoo is rendered "Father-Mother of the Gods"...or the six in one,
or the septenary root from which all proceeds. All depends upon the
accent given to these seven vowels, which may be pronounced as one,
three, or even seven syllables...without a thorough mastery of its
triple pronunciation it remains for ever ineffectual."	SD I 68


"...Oeaohoo the younger, (the new life"), to become, to the end of the
life-cycle, the germ of all things. He is "the Incorporeal man who
contains in himself the divine Idea."	SD I 71


"He who bathes in the light of Oeaohoo will never be deceived by the
veil of Maya."	SD I 72



TIME AND DURATION


"Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of
consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not
exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be
produced, but "lies asleep."	SD I 37


"The Past time is the Present time, as also the Future, which, though
it has not come into existence, still is"...Time...but the panoramic
succession of our states of consciousness..."	SD I 43-44



REALITY - PERMANENCY


"Nothing is permanent except the one hidden absolute existence which
contains in itself the noumena of all realities...but all things are
relatively real, for the cognizer is also a reflection, and the things
cognized are therefore as real to him as himself."	SD I 39



DEATH AND REGENERATION


"[Brahmins]...no philosopher among them will view "death" in any other
sense than as a temporary disappearance from the manifested plane of
existence, or as a periodical rest."
S D I 8



TOTAL EVOLUTION : -- SPIRITUAL TRAINING


"The process of evolution up to reunion with the Divine is and
includes successive elevation from rank to rank of power and
usefulness. The most exalted beings still in the flesh are known as
Sages, Rishis, Brothers, Masters. Their great functions being the
preservation at all times, and when cyclic laws permit, the extension
of spiritual knowledge and influence.

As to the process of spiritual development, Theosophy teaches:

1.	That the essence of the process lies in the securing of supremacy
to the highest, the spiritual, element of man's nature.

2.	That this is attained along 4 lines, among others, --

A.	The entire eradication of selfishness in all forms, and the
cultivation of broad, generous sympathy in, and effort for the good of
others.

B.	The absolute cultivation of the inner, spiritual man by
meditation, by reaching to and communion with the Divine [within], and
by exercise of the kind described by Patanjali, i.e., incessant
striving to an ideal end.

C.	The control of fleshly appetites and desires, all lower, material
interests being deliberately subordinated to the behests of the
spirit.

D.	The careful performance of every duty belonging to one's station
in life, without desire for reward, leaving results for Divine law.

3.	That while the above is incumbent on and practicable by all
religiously disposed men, a yet higher plane of spiritual attainment
is conditioned upon a specific course of training, physical,
intellectual and spiritual, by which the internal faculties are first
aroused and then developed.

4.	That an extension of this process is reached in Arhatship,
Mahatmaship, or the states of Rishis, Sages and Dhyan Chohans,
which are all exalted stages, attained by laborious self-discipline
and hardship protracted through possibly many incarnations, and with
many degrees of initiation and preferment, beyond which are yet other
stages ever approaching the Divine.

As to the rationale of spiritual development it asserts:

1.	That the process takes place entirely within the individual
himself, the motive, the effort, and the result proceeding from his
own inner nature, along the lines of self-evolution.

2.	That still more is gained by a career of duty, piety and
beneficence.

3.	That a still greater advance is attained by the attentive and
devoted use of the means to spiritual culture heretofore stated.

4.	That every race and individual of it reaches in evolution a period
known as "the moment of choice," when they decided for themselves
their future by a deliberate and conscious choice between eternal life
and death, and that this right of choice is the peculiar appanage of
the free soul. It cannot be exercised until the man has realized the
soul within him, and until that soul has attained some measure of
self-consciousness in the body. The moment of choice is not a fixed
period of time; it is made up of all moments. It cannot come unless
all previous lives have led up to it. For the race as a whole it has
not yet come. Any individual can hasten the advent of this period
for himself under the previously stated law of the ripening of Karma.
Should he then fail to choose right he is not wholly condemned, for
the economy of nature provides that he shall again and again have the
opportunity of choice when the moment arrives for the whole race..."
WQJ -- An Epitome of Theosophy, p. 25-27


HOW TO "PERFECT" OURSELVES


"There is no difference between the teachings of Jesus and the
teachings of the Buddha, although those teachings are recorded in
different languages and an interval of six hundred years separated the
two great Teachers. What is true of these two is likewise true of all
the other many Saviors of different times and peoples--they all taught
the same fundamental ideas.

This fact suggests that there is a body of Men, of perfected men,
product of past civilizations and evolution, our Elder Brothers, in
fact, who have acquired and are Custodians of the knowledge and
experience gained through aeons of time. Their knowledge is actually
the Science of Life, for it enters into every department of existence,
of nature...We have each of us the same power to know that is Theirs.
But they have ex-tended (270) the faculties of the instruments which
they possess. They have improved what they have. They have better
brains. They have better bodies. How did they acquire them? By
fulfilling every duty which faced them, regardless of what came to
themselves. They thought nothing of acquiring power and knowledge for
themselves; they thought only of gaining power that they might expend
it for the benefit of every living creature. in so doing they opened
the doors to the full play of the power of the Spirit within...

The great work of evolution proceeds from within outwards. The Soul
is the Perceiver; it looks directly on ideas. The action of the will
is through ideas. The ideas give the direction. Small ideas, small
force; large ideas, large force; the Force itself is illimitable,
for it is the force of Spirit, infinite and exhaustless. What we lack
are universal ideas..."
R C -- Friendly Philosopher, p. 269-270



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Best wishes for 2003

Dallas