Theos-Talk Archives (May 2003 Message tt00203)

Thursday, May 22, 2003


Theosophy has a unique value: It accepts and encourages
investigation

Thanks Friends and Gareth:

The great safety in Theosophy is the open invitation to
investigate it thoroughly. There are no mysteries in a sensitive
and infinitely protective Universe of immortal intelligences all
wending their common way to greater wisdom and to voluntary
cooperation and concern for each other.

There is no "push" far "membership." We are already members of
the Earth and the Universe. But we do not yet know all that can
be operating within it. We see the surface, Theosophy invites us
to explore carefully and with slow and gentle persistence the
inner supporting structures that provide that "surface."

Let me offer this for you to review:


How man has come to be the complex being that he is and why, are
questions that neither Science nor Religion makes conclusive
answer to.

This immortal thinker having such vast powers and possibilities,
all his because of his intimate connection with every secret part
of Nature from which he has been built up, stands at the top of
an immense and silent evolution. He asks why Nature exists, what
the drama of life has for its aim, how that aim may be attained.
But Science and Religion both fail to give a reasonable reply.
Science does not pretend to be able to give the solution, saying
that the examination of things as they are is enough of a task;
religion offers an explanation both illogical and unmeaning and
acceptable but to the bigot, as it requires us to consider the
whole of Nature as a mystery and to seek for the meaning and
purpose of life with all its sorrow in the pleasure of a God who
cannot be found out. The educated and enquiring mind knows that
dogmatic religion can only give an answer invented by man while
it pretends to be from God.

What then is the universe for, and for what final purpose is man
the immortal thinker here in evolution? It is all for the
experience and emancipation of the soul, for the purpose of
raising the entire mass of manifested matter up to the stature,
nature, and dignity of conscious god-hood.

The great aim is to reach self-consciousness; not through a race
or a tribe or some favored nation, but by and through the
perfecting, after transformation, of the whole mass of matter as
well as what we now call soul. Nothing is or is to be left out.
The aim for present man is his initiation into complete
knowledge, and for the other kingdoms below him that they may be
raised up gradually from stage to stage to be in time initiated
also.

This is evolution carried to its highest power; it is a
magnificent prospect; it makes of man a god, and gives to every
part of nature the possibility of being one day the same; there
is strength and nobility in it, for by this no man is dwarfed and
belittled, for no one is so originally sinful that he cannot rise
above all sin.

Treated from the materialistic position of Science, evolution
takes in but half of life; while the religious conception of it
is a mixture of nonsense and fear. Present religions keep the
element of fear, and at the same time imagine that an Almighty
being can think of no other earth but this and has to govern this
one very imperfectly. But the old theosophical view makes the
universe a vast, complete, and perfect whole.

Now the moment we postulate a double evolution, physical and
spiritual, we have at the same time to admit that it can only be
carried on by reincarnation. This is, in fact, demonstrated by
science. It is shown that the matter of the earth and of all
things physical upon it was at one time either gaseous or molten;
that it cooled; that it altered; that from its alterations and
evolutions at last were produced all the great variety of things
and beings. This, on the physical plane, is transformation or
change from one form to another.

The total mass of matter is about the same as in the beginning of
this globe, with a very minute allowance for some star dust.
Hence it must have been changed over and over again, and thus
been physically reformed and re-embodied. Of course, to be
strictly accurate, we cannot use the word reincarnation, because
"incarnate" refers to flesh. Let us say "re-embodied," and then
we see that both for matter and for man there has been a constant
change of form and this is, broadly speaking, "reincarnation." As
to the whole mass of matter, the doctrine is that it will all be
raised to man's estate when man has gone further on himself.
There is no residuum left after man's final salvation which in a
mysterious way is to be disposed of or done away with in some
remote dust-heap of nature.

The true doctrine allows for nothing like that, and at the same
time is not afraid to give the true disposition of what would
seem to be a residuum. It is all worked up into other states, for
as the philosophy declares there is no inorganic matter whatever
but that every atom is alive and has the germ of
self-consciousness, it must follow that one day it will all have
been changed. Thus what is now called human flesh is so much
matter that one day was wholly mineral, later on vegetable, and
now refined into human atoms.

At a point of time very far from now the present vegetable matter
will have been raised to the animal stage and what we now use as
our organic or fleshy matter will have changed by transformation
through evolution into self-conscious thinkers, and so on up the
whole scale until the time shall come when what is now known as
mineral matter will have passed on to the human stage and out
into that of thinker.

Then at the coming on of another great period of evolution the
mineral matter of that time will be some which is now passing
through its lower transformations on other planets and in other
systems of worlds.

This is perhaps a "fanciful" scheme for the men of the present
day, who are so accustomed to being called bad, sinful, weak, and
utterly foolish from their birth that they fear to believe the
truth about themselves, but for the disciples of the ancient
theosophists it is not impossible or fanciful, but is logical and
vast. And no doubt it will one day be admitted by everyone when
the mind of the western race has broken away from Mosaic
chronology and Mosaic ideas of men and nature. Therefore as to
reincarnation and metempsychosis we say that they are first to be
applied to the whole cosmos and not alone to man. But as man is
the most interesting object to himself, we will consider in
detail its application to him.

This is the most ancient of doctrines and is believed in now by
more human minds than the number of those who do not hold it. The
millions in the East almost all accept it; it was taught by the
Greeks; a large number of the Chinese now believe it as their
forefathers did before them; the Jews thought it was true, and it
has not disappeared from their religion; and Jesus, who is called
the founder of Christianity, also believed and taught it. In the
early Christian church it was known and taught, and the very best
of the fathers of the church believed and promulgated it.

Let me know if you have further observations or questions. I
will be glad to respond.

Best wishes,

Dallas

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


-----Original Message-----
From: gmcism
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 2:58 PM
To:
Subject: Re: (BN-study) Authors that Introduce & Explain
Theosophy

Thank you, that was very helpful. I am hesitating to say this,
but I
feel that this is really right for me, having looked into
Christianity, Ritual Magic, Gnostism, Paganism, Golden Dawn, and
all
sorts of New age stuff. All of these just didn't address the
fundamental questions, they fell short of something at their
core.
They just seemed to be parts of a greater whole, a whole I have
searched for for the past four years. I believe this -
Theosophy - to
be that greater whole.

Gar