Theos-Talk Archives (April 2003 Message tt00047)

Friday, April 11, 2003

WHITE--LOTUS DAY 2003

Dear Friends:

In less than a month [May 8th] we will be remembering H P B's great
work. We owe our knowledge of Theosophy to her. We are all her
"pupils."

The SECRET DOCTRINE (1888) is a curious book. Like ISIS UNVEILED
(1877), eleven years before, it starts with a review of the history of
wisdom.

Wisdom? What could that be ? Is it rigid, flexible, arguable,
authoritarian? Does it discuss the flow of events or does it solely
relate to their causes?

Is it a Science, a Religion or a Philosophy? Can all three be
blended? Is it a statement concerning the origin, the nature of, the
operation of the world and the Universe? How does it relate to
Religious creeds and statements ? How is Humanity affected? Will a
reading, a study of Theosophy, change our outlook, alter our lives?

WISDOM : Discerning, discovering, cognizant, aware, informed, versed
in arts or sciences, skilful, having knowledge of, judging soundly
concerning what is true or false, proper or improper, its opposite is
"foolish." These are all culled from several dictionary meanings.
Do they help us? Most describe attitudes towards wisdom, but do not
say what it is.

Regardless of opinions held by authorities or academicians, H P B has
appealed to the evidence of discovery, archaeology, paleontology,
geology, orientalism, philosophy, and a whole host of areas of
knowledge which our academies look on as evidence of past efforts
toward civilization, and past achievements, or their failures.

The opening pages of both books narrate and disclose the sources of
the most ancient system of all -- the "Oriental Kabala" -- or the
secret wisdom which lies at the root base of the ancient religious
philosophy of , as an example: the Hindus, Chinese, Zoroastrians,
Tibetans, Egyptians, Scandinavians, Greeks, Druids, Assyrians,
Chaldees, Jews, Mayas, Incas, and other ancient records.

She has shown that all these clues can be assembled into a coherent
whole. And this gives substance to a continued, and unified,
world-wide growth of knowledge and ethics that bind us all into the
Family of Man -- Brotherhood, being its very real and common bond.

The word: Theosophy is of Greek origin and was used in Greece as far
back as Pythagoras, and Apollonius of Tyana over 2,500, and 2,000
years ago. In more ancient countries, the records of which we have
only in fragments, similar terms were used, as for instance in India:
the SANATANA DHARMA -- the "Eternal Doctrine."

H P B passed out of her latest body on May 8th 1891. That is 112 years
ago. We can be sure that she continues her work and may be
participating, unknown to us, assisting us, as, today, we do the
studying, and, by talking about Theosophy and its views, we carry on
her world reform movement. It is the spread of Wisdom and
free-thinking. These bring about reform in due course.

One of her close associates and pupils, Commander R. Bowen, offered a
record of the way in which she recommended that the study of The
SECRET DOCTRINE be carried out -- in a short essay, portions of which
are given here, below:

Brest wishes,

Dallas

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



"THE SECRET DOCTRINE -- And Its Study" - by P. G. Bowen
Published in Theosophical Forum, August, 1932.


These statements have been taken from an article based on notes left
by his father [Robert Bowen, Commander, R N], who was a direct pupil
of H P B.
__________________________


"The SECRET DOCTRINE is only quite a small fragment of Esoteric
Doctrine known to the higher members of the Occult Brotherhoods. It
contains, she says, just as much as can be received by the "world"
during this coming century. "The World" (she explained) means Man
living in the Personal Nature.

An author's work, no matter how obscure, contains the concealed image
of the author's knowledge. . .the S.D. must contain all that H.P.B.
knows herself, and a great deal more than that, seeing that much of it
comes from men whose knowledge is immensely wider than hers...she
implies unmistakably that another may well find knowledge in it which
she does not possess herself.

She is telling us...not to anchor ourselves to her as the final
authority, nor to anyone else, but to depend altogether upon our own
widening perceptions.


"The first thing to do...is to get some grasp of the
"THREE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES" given in the Proem. [S D I pp.
14 - 19]

Then, to study of the Recapitulation--the numbered items in the
SUMMING UP to Volume 1, Part I, [S D I pp. 269 -- 300].

Then take the PRELIMINARY NOTES [S D II pp. 1 -- 12]
and the CONCLUSION [S D II pp. 778 -- 798]


"There is neither COMING nor PASSING, but eternal BECOMING," said H P
B

"The Fourth Root-Race is still alive. So are the Third and Second and
First-that is, their manifestations on our present plane of substance
are present. So likewise the Sixth Sub-Race is here, and the Sixth
Root-Race, and the Seventh, and even people of the coming Rounds.
After all, that's understandable. Disciples and Brothers and Adepts
can't be people of the everyday Fifth Sub-Race, for the "race" is a
state of evolution.

"As far as humanity at large goes, we are hundreds of years (in time
and space) from even the Sixth Sub-Race. H.P.B. showed a peculiar
anxiety in her insistence on this point. She hinted at "dangers and
delusions" coming through ideas that the New Race had dawned
definitely on the World. According to her, the duration of a Sub-Race
[see S.D. II, p. 435] for humanity at large, coincides with that of
the Sidereal Year (the circle of the earth's axis-about 25,000 years).
That puts the new race a long way off. [about 16,000 years -- see S
D II 331, top]

"If one imagines that one is going to get a satisfactory picture of
the constitution of the Universe from the S.D. one will get only
confusion from its study. It is not meant to give any such final
verdict on existence, but to lead towards the truth."

She said: "It is worse than useless going to "advanced students" and
asking them to give us an "interpretation" of the S.D. They cannot do
it. If they try, all they give are cut and dried exoteric renderings
which do not remotely resemble the Truth. To accept such
interpretation means anchoring ourselves to fixed ideas, whereas Truth
lies beyond any ideas we can formulate or express.

"Come to the S.D. (she says) without any hope of getting the final
Truth of existence from it, or with any idea other than seeing how far
it may lead towards the Truth.

"See in [its] study a means of exercising and developing the mind
never touched by other studies.

"Observe the following rules: No matter what one may study in the
S.D. let the mind hold fast, as the basis of its ideation to the
following ideas:

a) "The FUNDAMENTAL UNITY OF ALL EXISTENCE. This unity is a thing
altogether different from the common notion of unity - It is that
existence is one thing, not any collection of things linked together.

Fundamentally, there is ONE BEING. This has two aspects, positive
and negative. The positive is Spirit, or consciousness. The negative
is substance, the subject of consciousness.

This Being is the ABSOLUTE in its primary manifestation.

Being absolute there is nothing outside it. it is ALL BEING. It is
indivisible, else it would not be ABSOLUTE.

If a portion could be separated, that remaining could not be absolute,
because there would at once arise the question of comparison between
it and the separated part. Comparison is incompatible with any idea of
absoluteness. Therefore this fundamental One Existence, or Absolute
Being, must be the Reality in every form there is.

"Theosophy," she said, "is for those who can think, or for those who
can drive themselves to think, not mental sluggards."

"The Atom, the Man, the God (H P B says) are each separately, as well
as all collectively, ABSOLUTE BEING in their last analysis, that is
their real individuality. It is this idea which must be held always in
the background of the mind to form the basis for every conception that
arises from study of the SD. The moment one lets it go, the idea of
separation supervenes, and the study loses its value.

b) "Second idea is that THERE IS NO DEAD MATTER. Every last atom
is alive, since every atom is itself , fundamentally, Absolute Being.
Therefore there is no such thing as "spaces of ether," or Akasha. The
true idea shows every atom of substance, no matter of what plane, to
be in itself a life.

c) "Third basic idea is that MAN IS THE MICROCOSM. As he is so,
then all the Hierarchies of the Heavens exist within him. But in truth
there is neither Macrocosm nor Microcosm but ONE EXISTENCE. Great
and small are such only as viewed by a limited consciousness.

d) "Fourth basic idea is that expressed in the Great Hermetic Axiom.
It really sums up and synthesizes all the others: "As is the inner, so
is the outer; as is the great, so is the small; as it is above, so it
is below; there is but One Life and Law: and he that worketh it is
ONE. Nothing is inner, nothing is outer; nothing is great, nothing is
small; nothing is high, nothing is low, in the Divine Economy."

H.P.B.: "One must not be a fool (she said) and drive oneself into the
madhouse by attempting too much at first. The brain is the instrument
of waking consciousness, and every conscious mental picture formed
means change and destruction of the atoms of the brain. Ordinary
intellectual activity moves on well-beaten paths in the brain, and
does not compel sudden adjustments and destructions in its substance.
But this new kind of mental effort calls for something very
different-the carving out of new "brain paths," the ranking in
different order of the little brain lives. If forced injudiciously it
may do serious physical harm to the brain.

H P B : "This mode of thinking...[is] called Jnana Yoga. As one
progresses...one finds conceptions arising which...as time goes
on...will form into mental pictures. This is a time to be on guard and
refuse to be deluded with the idea that the new found and wonderful
picture must represent reality. It does not.

"As one works on, one finds the once admired picture growing dull and
unsatisfying and finally fading out or being thrown away. This is
another danger point, because for the moment one is left in a void
without any conception to support one, and one may be tempted to
revive the cast-off picture for want of a better to cling to.

"The true student will, however, work on unconcerned, and presently
further formless gleams come, which again in time give rise to a
larger and more beautiful picture than the last.

"But the learner will now know that no picture will ever represent the
truth. This last splendid picture will grow dull and fade like the
others.

"And so the process goes on, until at last the mind and its pictures
are transcended and the learner enters and dwells in the world of
NO-FORM, but of which all forms are narrowed reflections.

"The true student of The Secret Doctrine is a Jnana Yogi, and this
Path of Yoga is the True Path for the Western student. It is to
provide him with sign-posts on that Path that The Secret Doctrine has
been written.

-Robert Bowen
(Comdr.) RN.	19th April, 1891

From: [The Theosophical Forum, August, 1932]
Source: [P. 270, Theos. Art. & Notes, Theosophy Company, Los Angeles ]

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

A few further considerations:


THE ANCIENT SOURCE


"Let us recapitulate and show, by the vastness of the subjects
expounded, how difficult, if not impossible, it is to do them full
justice.

(1.) The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and
its cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system: e.g.,
even in the exotericism of the Puranas. But such is the mysterious
power of Occult symbolism, that the facts which have actually occupied
countless generations of initiated seers and prophets to marshal, to
set down and explain, in the bewildering series of evolutionary
progress, are all recorded on a few pages of geometrical signs and
glyphs.

The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel
of matter, and recorded the soul of things there, where an ordinary
profane, however learned, would have perceived but the external work
of form.

But modern science believes not in the "soul of things," and hence
will reject the whole system of ancient cosmogony.

It is useless to say that the system in question is no fancy of one or
several isolated individuals. That it is the uninterrupted record
covering thousands of generations of Seers whose respective
experiences were made to test and to verify traditions passed orally
by one early race to another, of the teachings of higher and exalted
beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity. That for long
ages, the "Wise Men" of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and rescued
from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their
lives in learning, not teaching.

How did they do so? It is answered: by checking, testing, and
verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the
independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and
perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations
to the utmost possible degree. No vision of one adept was accepted
till it was checked and confirmed by the visions-so obtained as to
stand as independent evidence-of other adepts, and by centuries of
experiences."	S D I 272-3



"One of the greatest, and, withal, the most serious objection to the
correctness and reliability of the whole work [the Secret Doctrine]
will be the preliminary STANZAS ... [being] not in the possession of
European Libraries. This is a great drawback to those who follow the
methods of research prescribed by official Science; but to the
students of Occultism, and to every genuine Occultist, this will be of
little moment." Secret Doctrine, Vol I, intro., pages xxii -
xxiii.


"It has been claimed in all ages that ever since the destruction of
the Alexandrian Library (see Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., p. 27), every
work of a character that might have led the profane to the ultimate
discovery and comprehension of some of the mysteries of the Secret
Science, was, owing to the combined efforts of the members of the
Brotherhoods, diligently searched for. It is added, moreover, by those
who know that once found, save three copies left and stored safely
away, such works were all destroyed. In India, the last of the
precious manuscripts were secured and hidden during the reign of the
Emperor Akbar."
Secret Doctrine, Vol I., intro., page xxiii.


"Moreover in all the large and wealthy lamaseries, there are
subterranean crypts and cave-libraries, cut in the rock, whenever the
gonpa and the lhakhang are situated in the mountains. Beyond the
Western Tsaydam, in the solitary passes of Kuen-lun there are several
such hiding-places. Along the ridge of Altyn-Toga, whose soil no
European foot has ever trodden so far, there exists a certain hamlet,
lost in a deep gorge. It is a small cluster of houses, a hamlet rather
than a monastery, with a poor-looking temple in it, with one old lama,
a hermit, living near by to watch it. Pilgrims say that the
subterranean galleries and halls under it contain a collection of
books, the number of which, according to the accounts given, is too
large to find room even in the British Museum."
Secret Doctrine, Vol I, intro., page xxiv.


.

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

DTB