Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00700)

Dec 27 2002



The following, written 114 years ago, contains one of the most
important hints that can be used in personal development:

“The earth passes through its definite phases and man with it;
and as a day can be coloured so can a year. The astral life of
the earth is young and strong between Christmas and Easter. Those
who form their wishes now will have added strength to fulfill
them consistently. “ -- H P B.


Incidentally, Venus is our MORNING STAR these days. Beautiful
and Brilliant. The Higher Mind that cuts through the mire of the
selfish and the personal to the Supernal TRUTH…. “Beyond which
lie the shoreless waters of Akshara the inexhaustible fount of
omniscience.”
(Voice)

D T B

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


1888





by H. P. Blavatsky







PEOPLE usually wish that their friends shall have a happy new
year, and sometimes "prosperous" is added to "happy."

It is not likely that much happiness or prosperity can come to
those who are living for the truth under such a dark number as
1888; but still the year is heralded by the glorious star
Venus-Lucifer, shining so resplendently that it has been mistaken
for that still rarer visitor, the star of Bethlehem. This too, is
at hand; and surely something of the Christos spirit must be born
upon earth under such conditions. Even if happiness and
prosperity are absent, it is possible to find something greater
than either in this coming year.

Venus-Lucifer is the sponsor of our magazine, and as we chose to
come to light under its auspices so do we desire to touch on its
nobility. This is possible for us all personally, and instead of
wishing our readers a happy or prosperous New Year, we feel more
in the vein to pray them to make it one worthy of its brilliant
herald. This can be effected by those who are courageous and
resolute.

Thoreau pointed out that there are artists in life, persons who
can change the colour of a day and make it beautiful to those
with whom they come in contact. We claim that there are adepts,
masters in life who make it divine, as in all other arts.

Is it not the greatest art of all, this which affects the very
atmosphere in which we live? That it is the most important is
seen at once, when we remember that every person who draws the
breath of life affects the mental and moral atmosphere of the
world, and helps to colour the day for those about him.

Those who do not help to elevate the thoughts and lives of others
must of necessity either paralyse them by indifference, or
actively drag them down. When this point is reached, then the art
of life is converted into the science of death; we see the black
magician at work. And no one can be quite inactive. Although many
bad books and pictures are produced, still not everyone who is
incapable of writing or painting well insists on doing so badly.
Imagine the result if they were to! Yet so it is in life.

Everyone lives, and thinks, and speaks. If all our readers who
have any sympathy with LUCIFER endeavoured to learn the art of
making life not only beautiful but divine, and vowed no longer to
be hampered by disbelief in the possibility of this miracle, but
to commence the Herculean task at once, then 1888, however
unlucky a year, would have been fitly ushered in by the gleaming
star.

Neither happiness nor prosperity are always the best of
bedfellows for such undeveloped mortals as most of us are; they
seldom bring with them peace, which is the only permanent joy.
The idea of peace is usually connected with the close of life and
a religious state of mind. That kind of peace will however
generally be found to contain the element of expectation. The
pleasures of this world have been surrendered, and the soul waits
contentedly in expectation of the pleasures of the next.

The peace of the philosophic mind is very different from this and
can be attained to early in life when pleasure has scarcely been
tasted, as well as when it has been fully drunk of.

The American Transcendentalists discovered that life could be
made a sublime thing without any assistance from circumstances or
outside sources of pleasure and prosperity. Of course this had
been discovered many times before, and Emerson only took up again
the cry raised by Epictetus. But every man has to discover this
fact freshly for himself, and when once he realised it he knows
that he would be a wretch if he did not endeavour to make the
possibility a reality in his own life.

The stoic became sublime because he recognised his own absolute
responsibility and did not try to evade it; the Transcendentalist
was even more, because he had faith in the unknown and untried
possibilities which lay within himself.

The occultist fully recognises the responsibility and claims his
title by having both tried and acquired knowledge of his own
possibilities.

The Theosophist who is at all in earnest, sees his responsibility
and endeavours to find knowledge, living, in the meantime, up to
the highest standard of which he is aware…. Man's life is in his
own hands, his fate is ordered by himself. Why then should not
1888 be a year of greater spiritual development than any we have
lived through? It depends on ourselves to make it so. This is an
actual fact, not a religious sentiment. In a garden of sunflowers
every flower turns towards the light. Why not so with us?

And let no one imagine that it is a mere fancy, the attaching of
importance to the birth of the year. The earth passes through its
definite phases and man with it; and as a day can be coloured so
can a year. The astral life of the earth is young and strong
between Christmas and Easter. Those who form their wishes now
will have added strength to fulfill them consistently.

--H. P. BLAVATSKY

Lucifer, January, 1888










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