Theos-Talk Archives (August 2004 Message tt00637)

Aug 29 2004

Dear Perry

Have a look at this idea and association, ORGANIZATION as an ideal for the
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY :  

It is "back to Blavatsky" that is needed. 

HPB had it down clearly

---------------------------------
THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY: ITS MISSION AND ITS FUTURE

Article by H. P. Blavatsky

[AS EXPLAINED BY M. EMILE BURNOUF, THE FRENCH ORIENTALIST]

By H. P. BLAVATSKY 

It is another's fault if he be ungrateful; but it is mine if I do not give.
To find one thankful man I will oblige many who are not. -SENECA. 

. . . . The veil is rent
Which blinded me! I am as all these men
Who cry upon their gods and are not heard,
Or are not heeded--yet there must be aid!
For them and me and all there must be
help!
Perchance the gods have need of help
themselves,
Being so feeble that when sad lips cry
They cannot save! I would not let one cry
Whom I could save! . . . .
THE LIGHT OF ASIA.


IT has seldom been the good fortune of the Theosophical Society to meet with
such courteous and even sympathetic treatment as it has received at the
hands of M. Emile Burnouf, the well-known Sanskritist, in an article in the
Revue des Deux Mondes (July 15, 1888)--"Le Bouddhisme en Occident." 

Such an article proves that the Society has at last taken its rightful place
in the thought-life of the XIXth century. It marks the dawn of a new era in
its history, and, as such, deserves the most careful consideration of all
those who are devoting their energies to its work. M. Burnouf's position in
the world of Eastern scholarship entitles his opinions to respect; while his
name, that of one of the first and most justly honoured of Sanskrit scholars
(the late M. Eugene Burnouf), renders it more than probable that a man
bearing such a name will make no hasty statements and draw no premature
conclusions, but that his deductions will be founded on careful and accurate
study. 

His article is devoted to a triple subject: the origins of three religions
or associations, whose fundamental doctrines M. Burnouf regards as
identical, whose aim is the same, and which are derived from a common
source. These are Buddhism, Christianity, and-- the Theosophical Society. 

As he writes, page 341: 

This source which is oriental, was hitherto contested; today it has been
fully brought to light by scientific research, notably by the English
scientists and the publication of original texts. Amongst these sagacious
scrutinizers it is sufficient to name Sayce, Pool, seal, Rhys-David,
Spencer-Hardy, Bunsen. . . . It is a long time, indeed, since they were
struck with resemblances, let us say, rather, identical elements, offered by
the Christian religions and that of Buddha. . . . During the last century
these analogies were explained by a pretended Nestorian influence; hut since
then the Oriental chronology has been established, and it was shown that
Buddha was anterior by several centuries to Nestorius, and even to Jesus
Christ. . . . The problem remained an open one down to the recent day when
the paths followed by Buddhism were recognized, and the stages traced on its
way to finally reach Jerusalem. . . . And now we see born under our eyes a
new association, created for the propagation in the world of the Buddhistic
dogmas. It is of this triple subject that we shall treat. 
It is on this, to a degree erroneous, conception of the aims and object of
the Theosophical Society that M. Burnouf's article, and the remarks and
opinions that ensue therefrom, are based. He strikes a false note from the
beginning, and proceeds on this line. The T.S. was not created to propagate
any dogma of any exoteric, ritualistic church, whether Buddhist,
Brahmanical, or Christian. This idea is a wide-spread and general mistake;
and that of the eminent Sanskritist is due to a self-evident source which
misled him. M. Burnouf has read in the Lotus, the journal of the
Theosophical Society of Paris, a polemical correspondence between one of the
Editors of LUCIFER and the Abbé Roca. The latter persisting--very
unwisely--in connecting theosophy with Papism and the Roman Catholic
Church--which, of all the dogmatic world religions, is the one his
correspondent loathes the most--the philosophy and ethics of Gautama Buddha,
not his later church, whether northern or southern, were therein prominently
brought forward. The said Editor is undeniably a Buddhist--i.e., a follower
of the esoteric school of the great "Light of Asia," and so is the President
of the Theosophical Society, Colonel H. S. Olcott. But this does not pin the
theosophical body as a whole to ecclesiastical Buddhism. The Society was
founded to become the Brotherhood of Humanity--a centre, philosophical and
religious, common to all--not as a propaganda for Buddhism merely. Its first
steps were directed toward the same great aim that M. Burnouf ascribes to
Buddha Sakyamuni, who "opened his church to all men, without distinction of
origin, caste, nation, colour, or sex" (Vide Art. I. in the Rules of the
T.S.), adding "My law is a law of Grace for all." In the same way the
Theosophical Society is open to all, without distinction of "origin, caste,
nation, colour, or sex," and what is more--of creed. . . . 

The introductory paragraphs of this article show how truly the author has
grasped, with this exception, within the compass of a few lines, the idea
that all religions have a common basis and spring from a single root. After
devoting a few pages to Buddhism, the religion and the association of men
founded by the Prince of Kapilavastu; to Manicheism, miscalled a "heresy,"
and its relation to both Buddhism and Christianity, he winds up his article
with--the Theosophical Society. He leads up to the latter by tracing (a) the
life of Buddha, too well known to an English speaking public through Sir
Edwin Arnold's magnificent poem to need recapitulation; (b) by showing in a
few brief words that Nirvâna is not annihilation;l and (c) that the Greeks,
Romans and even the Brahmans regarded the priest as the intermediary between
men and God, an idea which involves the conception of a personal God,
distributing his favours according to his own good pleasure--a sovereign of
the universe, in short. 

The few lines about Nirvâna must find place here before the last proposition
is discussed. Says the author: 

It is not my task here to discuss the nature of Nirvâna. I will only say
that the idea of annihilation is absolutely foreign to India, that the
Buddha's object was to deliver humanity from the miseries of earth life and
its successive reincarnations; that, finally, he passed his long existence
in battling against Mara and his angels, whom he himself called Death and
the army of death. The word Nirvâna means, it is true, extinction, for
instance, that of a lamp blown out but it means also the absence of wind. I
think, therefore, that Nirvâna is nothing else but that requires ćterna,
that lux perpetua which Christians also desire for their dead. 

With regard to the conception of the priestly office the author shows it
entirely absent from Buddhism. Buddha is no God, but a man who has reached
the supreme degree of wisdom and virtue. "Therefore Buddhist metaphysics
conceives the absolute Principle of all things which other religions call
God, in a totally different manner and does not make of it a being separate
from the universe." 

The writer then points out that the equality of all men among themselves is
one of the fundamental conceptions of Buddhism. 

He adds moreover and demonstrates that it was from Buddhism that the Jews
derived their doctrine of a Messiah. 

The Essenes, the Therapeuts and the Gnostics are identified as a result of
this fusion of Indian and Semitic thought, and it is shown that, on
comparing the lives of Jesus and Buddha, both biographies fall into two
parts: the ideal legend and the real facts. Of these the legendary part is
identical in both; as indeed must be the case from the theosophical
standpoint, since both are based on the Initiatory cycle. Finally this
"legendary" part is contrasted with the corresponding features in other
religions, notably with the Vedic story of Visvakarman. 2 According to his
view, it was only at the council of Nicea that Christianity broke officially
with the ecclesiastical Buddhism, though he regards the Nicene Creed as
simply the development of the formula: "the Buddha, the Law, the Church"
(Buddha, Dharma, Sangha). 

The Manicheans were originally Samans or Sramanas, Buddhist ascetics whose
presence at Rome in the third century is recorded by St. Hippolytus. M.
Burnouf explains their dualism as referring to the double nature of
man--good and evil--the evil principle being the Mara of Buddhist legend. He
shows that the Manicheans derived their doctrines more immediately from
Buddhism than did Christianity and consequently a life and death struggle
arose between the two, when the Christian Church became a body which claimed
to be the sole and exclusive possessor of Truth. This idea is in direct
contradiction to the most fundamental conceptions of Buddhism and therefore
its professors could not but be bitterly opposed to the Manicheans. It was
thus the Jewish spirit of exclusiveness which armed against the Manicheans
the secular arm of the Christian states. 

Having thus traced the evolution of Buddhist thought from India to Palestine
and Europe, M. Burnouf points out that the Albigenses on the one hand, and
the Pauline school (whose influence is traceable in Protestantism) on the
other, are the two latest survivals of this influence. He then continues-- 

Analysis shows us in contemporary society two essential elements: the idea
of a personal God among believers and, among the philosophers, the almost
complete disappearance of charity. The Jewish element has regained the upper
hand, and the Buddhistic element in Christianity has been obscured. 
Thus one of the most interesting, if not the most unexpected, phenomena of
our day is the attempt which is now being made to revive and create in the
world a new society, resting on the same foundations as Buddhism. Although
only in its beginnings, its growth is so rapid that our readers will be glad
to have their attention called to this subject. This society is still in
some measure in the condition of a mission, and its spread is accomplished
noiselessly and without violence. It has not even a definite name; its
members grouping themselves under eastern names, placed as titles to their
publications: Isis, Lotus, Sphinx, LUCIFER. The name common to all which
predominates among them for the moment is that of Theosophical Society. 

After giving a very accurate account of the formation and history of the
Society--even to the number of its working branches in India, namely,
135--he then continues: 

The society is very young, nevertheless it has already its history. . . . It
has neither money nor patrons; it acts solely with its own eventual
resources. It contains no worldly element. It flatters no private or public
interest. It has set itself a moral ideal of great elevation, it combats
vice and egoism. It tends toward the unification of religions, which it
considers as identical in their philosophical origin; but it recognizes the
supremacy of truth only. . . . 
With these principles, and in the time in which we live, the society could
hardly impose on itself more trying conditions of existence. Still it has
grown with astonishing rapidity. . . . 

Having summarized the history of the development of the T.S. and the growth
of its organization, the writer asks: "What is the spirit which animates
it?" To this he replies by quoting the three objects of the Society,
remarking in reference to the second and third of these (the study of
literatures, religions and sciences of the Aryan nations and the
investigation of latent psychic faculties, &c), that, although these might
seem to give the Society a sort of academic colouring, remote from the
affairs of actual life, yet in reality this is not the case; and he quotes
the following passage from the close of the Editorial in LUCIFER for
November, 1887: 

He who does not practice altruism; he who is not prepared to share his last
morsel with a weaker or a poorer than himself; he who neglects to help his
brother man, of whatever race, nation, or creed, whenever and wherever he
meets suffering, and who turns a deaf ear to the cry of human misery; he who
hears an innocent person slandered, whether a brother Theosophist or not,
and does not undertake his defense as he would undertake his own--is no
Theosophist.--(LUCIFER No. 3.) 

This declaration [continues M. Burnouf] is not Christian because it takes no
account of belief, because it does not proselytise for any communion, and
because, in fact, the Christians have usually made use of calumny against
their adversaries, for example, the Manicheans, Protestants and Jews. 3 It
is even less Mussulman or Brahminical. It is purely Buddhistic: the
practical publications of the Society are either translations of Buddhist
books, or original works inspired by the teaching of Buddha. Therefore the
Society has a Buddhist character. 

Against this it protests a little, fearing to take on an exclusive and
sectarian character. It is mistaken: the true and original Buddhism is not a
sect, it is hardly a religion. It is rather a moral and intellectual reform,
which excludes no belief, but adopts none. This is what is done by the
Theosophical Society. 
We have given our reasons for protesting. We are pinned to no faith. 

In stating that the T.S. is "Buddhist," M. Burnouf is quite right, however,
from one point of view. It has a Buddhist colouring simply because that
religion, or rather philosophy, approaches more nearly to the TRUTH (the
secret wisdom) than does any other exoteric form of belief. Hence the close
connexion between the two. But on the other hand the T.S. is perfectly right
in protesting against being mistaken for a merely Buddhist propaganda, for
the reasons given by us at the beginning of the present article, and by our
critic himself. For although in complete agreement with him as to the true
nature and character of primitive Buddhism, yet the Buddhism of today is
none the less a rather dogmatic religion, split into many and heterogeneous
sects. We follow the Buddha alone. Therefore, once it becomes necessary to
go behind the actually existing form, and who will deny this necessity in
respect to Buddhism?--once this is done, is it not infinitely better to go
back to the pure and unadulterated source of Buddhism itself, rather than
halt at an intermediate stage? Such a half and half reform was tried when
Protestantism broke away from the elder Church, and are the results
satisfactory? 

Such then is the simple and very natural reason why the T.S. does not raise
the standard of exoteric Buddhism and proclaim itself a follower of the
Church of the Lord Buddha. It desires too sincerely to remain with that
unadulterated "light" to allow itself to be absorbed by its distorted
shadow. This is well understood by M. Burnouf, since he expresses as much in
the following passage: 

>From the doctrinal point of creed, Buddhism has no mysteries; Buddha
preached in parables; but a parable is a developed simile, and has nothing
symbolical in it. The Theosophists have seen very clearly that, in
religions, there have always been two teachings; the one very simple in
appearance and full of images or fables which are put forward as realities;
this is the public teaching, called exoteric. The other, esoteric or inner,
reserved for the more educated and discreet adepts, the initiates of the
second degree. There is, finally, a sort of science, which may formerly have
been cultivated in the secrecy of the sanctuaries, a science called
hermetism, which gives the final explanation of the symbols. When this
science is applied to various religions, we see that their symbolisms,
though in appearance different, yet rest upon the same rock of ideas, and
are traceable to one single manner of interpreting nature. 

The characteristic feature of Buddhism is precisely the absence of this
hermetism, the exiguity of its symbolism, and the fact that it presents to
men, in their ordinary language, the truth without a veil. This it is which
the Theosophical Society is repeating. . . . 

And no better model could the Society follow: but this is not all. It is
true that no mysteries or esotericism exists in the two chief Buddhist
Churches, the Southern and the Northern. Buddhists may well be content with
the dead letter of Siddartha Buddha's teachings, as fortunately no higher or
nobler ones in their effects upon the ethics of the masses exist, to this
day. But herein lies the great mistake of all the Orientalists. 

There is an esoteric doctrine, a soul-ennobling philosophy, behind the
outward body of ecclesiastical Buddhism. The latter, pure, chaste and
immaculate as the virgin snow on the ice-capped crests of the Himalayan
ranges, is, however, as cold and desolate as they with regard to the
post-mortem condition of man. This secret system was taught to the Arhats
alone, generally in the Saptaparna (Mahavansa's Sattapani) cave, known to
Ta-hian as the Chetu cave near the Mount Baibhar (in Pali Webhara), in
Rajagriha, the ancient capital of Maghada, by the Lord Buddha himself,
between the hours of Dhyana (or mystic contemplation). 

It is from this cave--called in the days of Sakyamuni, Saraswati or
"Bamboo-cave"--that the Arhats initiated into the Secret Wisdom carried away
their learning and knowledge beyond the Himalayan range, wherein the Secret
Doctrine is taught to this day. Had not the South Indian invaders of Ceylon
"heaped into piles as high as the top of the cocoanut trees" the ollas of
the Buddhists, and burnt them, as the Christian conquerors burnt all the
secret records of the Gnostics and the Initiates, Orientalists would have
the proof of it, and there would have been no need of asserting now this
well-known fact. 

Having fallen into the common error, M. Burnouf continues: 

Many will say: It is a chimerical enterprise; it has no more a future before
it than has the New Jerusalem of the Rue Thouin, and no more raison d'etre
than the Salvation Army. This may be so; it is to be observed, however, that
these two groups of people are Biblical Societies, retaining all the
paraphernalia of the expiring religions. 

The Theosophical Society is the direct opposite; it does away with figures,
it neglects or relegates them to the background, putting in the foreground
Science, as we understand it today, and the moral reformation, of which our
old world stands in such need. What, then, are today the social elements
which may be for or against it? I shall state them in all frankness. 

In brief, M. Burnouf sees in the public indifference the first obstacle in
the Society's way. "Indifference born from weariness; weariness of the
inability of religions to improve social life, and the ceaseless spectacle
of rites and ceremonies which the priest never explains." Men demand today
"scientific formulae stating laws of nature, whether physical or moral. . .
." And this indifference the Society must encounter; "its name, also, adding
to its difficulties: for the word Theosophy has no meaning for the people,
and, at best, a very vague one for the learned." "It seems to imply a
personal god," M. Burnouf thinks, adding: "Whoever says personal god, says
creation and miracle," and he concludes that "the Society would do better to
become frankly Buddhist or to cease to exist." 

With this advice of our friendly critic it is rather difficult to agree. He
has evidently grasped the lofty ideal of primitive Buddhism, and rightly
sees that this ideal is identical with that of the T.S. But he has not yet
learned the lesson of its history, nor perceived that to graft a young and
healthy shoot on to a branch which has lost--less than any other, yet much
of--its inner vitality, could not but be fatal to the new growth. 

The very essence of the position taken up by the T.S. is that it asserts and
maintains the truth common to all religions; the truth which is true and
undefiled by the concretions of ages of human passions and needs. 

But though Theosophy means Divine Wisdom, it implies nothing resembling
belief in a personal god. It is not "the wisdom of God," but divine wisdom.
The Theosophists of the Alexandrian Neo-Platonic school believed in "gods"
and "demons" and in one impersonal ABSOLUTE DEITY. 

To continue: 

Our contemporary habits of life [says M. Burnouf] are not severe; they tend
year by year to grow more gentle, but also more boneless. The moral stamina
of the men of today is very feeble; the ideas of good and evil are not,
perhaps, obscured, but the will to act rightly lacks energy. What men seek
above all is pleasure and that somnolent state of existence called comfort. 

Try to preach the sacrifice of one's possessions and of oneself to men who
have entered on this path of selfishness! You will not convert many. 

Do we not see the doctrine of the "struggle for life" applied to every
function of human life? This formula has become for our contemporaries a
sort of revelation, whose pontiffs they blindly follow and glorify. 

One may say to them, but in vain, that one must share one's last morsel of
bread with the hungry; they will smile and reply by the formula: "the
struggle for life." They will go further: they will say that in advancing a
contrary theory, you are yourself struggling for your existence and are not
disinterested. How can one escape from this sophism, of which all men are
full today? . . . 

This doctrine is certainly the worst adversary of Theosophy, for it is the
most perfect formula of egoism. It seems to be based on scientific
observation, and it sums up the moral tendencies of our day. . . . Those who
accept it and invoke justice are in contradiction with themselves, those who
practice it and who put God on their side are blasphemers. But those who
disregard it and preach charity are considered wanting in intelligence,
their kindness of heart leading them into folly. If the T.S. succeeds in
refuting this pretended law of the "struggle for life" and in extirpating it
from men's minds, it will have done in our day a miracle greater than those
of Sakyamuni and of Jesus. 

And this miracle the Theosophical Society will perform. It will do this, not
by disproving the relative existence of the law in question, but by
assigning to it its due place in the harmonious order of the universe; by
unveiling its true meaning and nature and by showing that this pseudo law is
a "pretended" law indeed, as far as the human family is concerned, and a
fiction of the most dangerous kind. 

"Self-preservation," on these lines, is indeed and in truth a sure, if a
slow, suicide, for it is a policy of mutual homicide, because men by
descending to its practical application among themselves, merge more and
more by a retrograde reinvolution into the animal kingdom. 

This is what the "struggle of life" is in reality, even on the purely
materialistic lines of political economy. Once that this axiomatic truth is
proved to all men; the same instinct of self-preservation only directed into
its true channel will make them turn to altruism--as their surest policy of
salvation. 

It is just because the real founders of the Society have ever recognized the
wisdom of truth embodied in one of the concluding paragraphs of M. Burnouf's
excellent article, that they have provided against that terrible emergency
in their fundamental teachings. 

The "struggle for existence" applies only to the physical, never to the
moral plane of being. Therefore when the author warns us in these awfully
truthful words: "Universal charity will appear out of date; the rich will
keep their wealth and will go on accumulating more; the poor will become
impoverished in proportion, until the day when, propelled by hunger, they
will demand bread, not of theosophy but of revolution. Theosophy shall be
swept away by the hurricane. . . ." 

The Theosophical Society replies: 

"It surely will, were we to follow out his well-meaning advice, yet one
which is concerned but with the lower plane." 

It is not the policy of self-preservation, not the welfare of one or another
personality in its finite and physical form that will or can ever secure the
desired object and screen the Society from the effects of the social
"hurricane" to come; but only the weakening of the feeling of separateness
in the units which compose its chief element. 

And such a weakening can only be achieved by a process of inner
enlightenment. It is not violence that can ever insure bread and comfort for
all; nor is the kingdom of peace and love, of mutual help and charity and
"food for all," to be conquered by a cold, reasoning, diplomatic policy. 

It is only by the close brotherly union of men's inner SELVES, of
soul-solidarity, of the growth and development of that feeling which makes
one suffer when one thinks of the suffering of others, that the reign of
Justice and equality for all can ever be inaugurated. This is the first of
the three fundamental objects for which the Theosophical Society was
established, and called the "Universal Brotherhood of Man," without
distinction of race, colour or creed. 

When men will begin to realize that it is precisely that ferocious personal
selfishness, the chief motor in the "struggle for life," that lies at the
very bottom and is the one sole cause of human starvation; that it is that
other--national egoism and vanity which stirs up the States and rich
individuals to bury enormous capitals in the unproductive erecting of
gorgeous churches and temples and the support of a swarm of social drones
called Cardinals and Bishops, the true parasites on the bodies of their
subordinates and their flocks--that they will try to remedy this universal
evil by a healthy change of policy. And this salutary revolution can be
peacefully accomplished only by the Theosophical Society and its teachings. 

This is little understood by M. Burnouf, it seems, since while striking the
true key-note of the situation elsewhere he ends by saying: 

The Society will find allies, if it knows how to take its place in the
civilized world today. Since it will have against it all the positive cults,
with the exception perhaps of a few dissenters and bold priests, the only
other course open to it is to place itself in accord with the men of
science. If its dogma of charity is a complementary doctrine which it
furnishes to science, the society will be obliged to establish it on
scientific data, under pain of remaining in the regions of sentimentality. 

The oft-repeated formula of the struggle for life is true, but not
universal; it is true for the plants; it is less true for the animals in
proportion as we climb the steps of the ladder, for the law of sacrifice is
seen to appear and to grow in importance; in man, these two laws
counter-balance one another, and the law of sacrifice, which is that of
charity, tends to assume the upper hand, through the empire of the reason.
It is reason which, in our societies, is the source of right, of justice,
and of charity; through it we escape the inevitableness of the struggle for
life, moral slavery, egoism and barbarism, in one word, that we escape from
what Sakyamuni poetically called the power and the army of Mâra. 

And yet our critic does not seem satisfied with this state of things but
advises us by adding as follows: 

If the Theosophical Society [he says] enters into this order of ideas and
knows how to make them its fulcrum, it will quit the limbus of inchoate
thought and will find its place in the modern world; remaining none the less
faithful to its Indian origin and to its principles. 

It may find allies; for if men are weary of the symbolical cults,
unintelligible to their own teachers, yet men of heart (and they are many)
are weary also and terrified at the egoism and the corruption, which tend to
engulf our civilization and to replace it by a learned barbarism. Pure
Buddhism possesses all the breadth that can be claimed from a doctrine at
once religious and scientific. Its tolerance is the cause why it can excite
the jealousy of none. 

At bottom, it is but the proclamation of the supremacy of reason and of its
empire over the animal instincts, of which it is the regulator and the
restrainer. Finally it has itself summed up its character in two words which
admirably formulate the law of humanity, science and virtue. 

And this formula the society has expanded by adopting that still more
admirable axiom: "There is no religion higher than truth." 

At this juncture we shall take leave of our learned, and perhaps, too kind
critic, to address a few words to Theosophists in general. 
_______________

Has our Society, as a whole, deserved the flattering words and notice
bestowed upon it by M. Burnouf? How many of its individual members, how many
of its branches, have carried out the precepts contained in the noble words
of a MASTER OF WISDOM, as quoted by our author from No. 3 of LUCIFER? 

"He who does not practice" this and the other "is no Theosophist," says the
quotation. 

Nevertheless, those who have never shared even their superfluous-- let alone
their last morsel--with the poor; those who continue to make a difference in
their hearts between a coloured and a white brother; as all those to whom
malicious remarks against their neighbours, uncharitable gossip and even
slander under the slightest provocation, are like heavenly dew on their
parched lips--call and regard themselves as Theosophists! 

It is certainly not the fault of the minority of true Theosophists, who do
try to follow the path and who make desperate efforts to reach it, if the
majority of their fellow members do not. It is not to them therefore that
this is addressed, but to those who, in their fierce love of Self and their
vanity, instead of trying to carry out the original programme to the best of
their ability, sow broadcast among the members the seeds of dissension; to
those whose personal vanity, discontentment and love of power, often ending
in ostentation, give the lie to the original programme and to the Society's
motto. 

Indeed, these original aims of the FIRST SECTION of the Theosophical Society
under whose advice and guidance the second and third merged into one were
first founded, can never be too often recalled to the minds of our members.
4 

The Spirit of these aims is clearly embodied in a letter from one of the
Masters quoted in the "Occult World," on pages 71 and 73. Those Theosophists
then,--who in the course of time and events would, or have, departed from
those original aims, and instead of complying with them have suggested new
policies of administration from the depths of their inner consciousness, are
not true to their pledges. 

"But we have always worked on the lines originally traced to us"--some of
them proudly assert. 

"You have not" comes the reply from those who know more of the true Founders
of the T.S. behind the scenes than they do--or ever will if they go on
working in this mood of Self-illusion and self-sufficiency. 

What are the lines traced by the "MASTERS"? Listen to the authentic words
written by one of them in 1880 to the author of the "Occult World": 

". . . To our minds these motives sincere and worthy of every serious
consideration from the worldly standpoint, appear selfish. . . . They are
selfish, because you must be aware that the chief object of the Theosophical
Society is not so much to gratify individual aspirations as to serve our
fellow men . . . and in our view the highest aspirations for the welfare of
humanity become tainted with selfishness, if, in the mind of the
philanthropist, there lurks the shadow of a desire for self-benefit, or a
tendency to do injustice even there where these exist unconsciously to
himself. Yet, you have ever discussed, but to put down, the idea of a
Universal Brotherhood, questioned its usefulness, and advised to remodel the
Theosophical Society on the principle of a college for the special study of
occultism. . . ."-- (Occult World, p. 72.) 

But another letter was written, also in 1880, which is not only a direct
reproof to the Theosophists who neglect the main idea of Brotherhood, but
also an anticipated answer to M. Emile Burnouf's chief argument. Here are a
few extracts from it. It was addressed again to those who sought to make
away with the "sentimental title," and make of the Society but an arena for
"cup-growing and astral bell-ringing": [ from MASTER]

". . . In view of the ever-increasing triumph and, at the same time, misuse
of free thought and liberty, how is the combative natural instinct of man to
be restrained from inflicting hitherto unheard-of cruelties, enormities,
tyranny, injustice, if not through the soothing influence of a Brotherhood,
and of the practical application of Buddha's esoteric doctrines? . . . 

Buddhism is the surest path to lead men towards the one esoteric truth. As
we find the world now, whether Christian, Mussulman, or Pagan, justice is
disregarded and honour and mercy both flung to the winds. In a word, how,
since that the main objects of the Theosophical Society are misinterpreted
by those who are most willing to serve us personally, are we to deal with
the rest of mankind, with that curse known as 'the struggle for life,' which
is the real and most prolific parent of most woes and sorrows, and all
crimes? 

Why has that struggle become the almost universal scheme of the universe? We
answer: because no religion, with the exception of Buddhism, has hitherto
taught a practical contempt for this earthly life, while each of them,
always with that one solitary exception, has through its hells and
damnations inculcated the greatest dread of death. Therefore do we find that
'struggle for life' raging most fiercely in Christian countries, most
prevalent in Europe and America. It weakens in pagan lands, and is nearly
unknown among Buddhist populations. . . . 

Teach the people to see that life on this earth, even the happiest, is but a
burden and an illusion, that it is but our own Karma, the cause producing
the effect, that is our own judge, our saviour in future lives--and the
great struggle for life will soon lose its intensity. . . . 

The world in general and Christendom especially left for two thousand years
to the regime of a personal God, as well as its political and social systems
based on that idea, has now proved a failure. If Theosophists say: 'We have
nothing to do with all this, the lower classes and inferior races [those of
India for instance, in the conception of the British] cannot concern us and
must manage as they can,' what becomes of our fine professions of
benevolence, reform, etc.? Are these professions a mockery? and, if a
mockery, can ours be the true path? . . . 

Should we devote ourselves to teaching a few Europeans, fed on the fat of
the land, many of them loaded with the gifts of blind fortune, the rationale
of bell-ringing, cup-growing, spiritual telephone, etc., etc., and leave the
teeming millions of the ignorant, of the poor and the despised, the lowly
and the oppressed, to take care of themselves, and of their hereafter, the
best they know how? Never! 

Perish rather the Theosophical Society . . . than that we should permit it
to become no better than an academy of magic and a hall of Occultism. That
we, the devoted followers of the spirit incarnate of absolute
self-sacrifice, of philanthropy and divine kindness as of all the highest
virtues attainable on this earth of sorrow, the man of men, Gautama Buddha,
should ever allow the Theosophical Society to represent the embodiment of
selfishness, to become the refuge of the few with no thought in them for the
many, is a strange idea. . . 

And it is we, the humble disciples of the perfect Lamas, who are expected to
permit the Theosophical Society to drop its noblest title, that of the
Brotherhood of Humanity, to become a simple school of Psychology. No! 

No! our brothers, you have been labouring under the mistake too long
already. Let us understand each other. He who does not feel competent enough
to grasp the noble idea sufficiently to work for it, need not undertake a
task too heavy for him. . . . 

"To be true, religion and philosophy must offer the solution of every
problem. That the world is in such a bad condition morally is a conclusive
evidence that none of its religions and philosophies--those of the civilized
races less than any other--have ever possessed the TRUTH. The right and
logical explanations on the subject of the problems of the great dual
principles, right and wrong, good and evil, liberty and despotism, pain and
pleasure, egotism and altruism, are as impossible to them now as they were
1880 years ago. They are as far from the solution as they ever were, but. .
. . 

"To these there must be somewhere a consistent solution, and if our
doctrines will show their competence to offer it, then the world will be the
first one to confess, that ours must be the true philosophy, the true
religion, the true light, which gives truth and nothing but the TRUTH. . .
." 
[The "GREAT MASTER'S LETTER ]

And this TRUTH is not Buddhism, but esoteric BUDDHISM. 

"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. . . ."

Lucifer, August, 1888 

---FOOTNOTES----------------------
 
1 The fact that Nirvana does not mean annihilation was repeatedly asserted
in Isis Unveiled its author discussed its etymological meaning as given by
Max Müller and others and showed that the "blowing out of a lamp" does not
even imply the idea that Nirvâna is the "extinction of consciousness." (See
vol. i, p. 290 and vol. ii, pp. 117, 286, 320, 566, etc.) 

2 This identity between the Logoi of various religions and in particular the
identity between the legends of Buddha and Jesus Christ, was again proven
years ago in Isis Unveiled, and the legend of Visvakarman more recently in
the Lotus and other Theosophical publications. The whole story is analyzed
at length in the Secret Doctrine, in some chapters which were written more
than two years ago. 

3 And--the author forgets to add--"the Theosophists," No Society has ever
been more ferociously calumniated and persecuted by the odium theologicum
since the Christian Churches are reduced to use their tongues as their sole
weapon--than the Theosophical Association and its Founders.--[ED.] 

4 Vide Rules in the 1st vol. of the "Theosophist," pp. 179 and 180. 

 


 


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

Best wishes 

Dallas
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Perry Coles [
Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2004 11:05 PM
To: com
Subject: Working with controversy

Perhaps a way the TS can develop as an organisation is by the
implementation of some of the techniques used in `group dynamics' and
conflict resolution.

This would be a very powerful and pro-active way of negotiating these
areas.

However group co-operation is required and autocratic systems challenged.
Some very good information and techniques on the following link, it's
aimed at schools but still the principles apply to any group
interested in inclusion rather than exclusion.

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

Let me add:

There is an association today that works using the lines HPB and the early
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY followed:

It is called the UNITED LODGE OF THEOSOPHISTS .

Here is its declaration:


 

UNITED LODGE OF THEOSOPHISTS 

DECLARATION: 

The policy of this Lodge is independent devotion to the cause of Theosophy,
without professing attachment to any Theosophical organization. It is loyal
to the great Founders of the Theosophical Movement, but does not concern
itself with dissensions or differences of individual opinion. 

The work it has on hand and the end it keeps in view are too absorbing and
too lofty to leave it the time or inclination to take part in side issues.
That work and that end is the dissemination of the Fundamental Principles of
the Philosophy of Theosophy, and the exemplification in practice of those
principles, through a truer realization of the SELF; a profounder conviction
of Universal Brotherhood. 

It holds that the unassailable basis for union among Theosophists, wherever
and however situated, is "similarity of aim, purpose and teaching," and
therefore has neither Constitution, By-Laws nor Officers, the sole bond
between its Associates being that basis. And it aims to disseminate this
idea among Theosophists in the furtherance of Unity. 

It regards as Theosophists all who are engaged in the true service of
Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, condition or
organization, and 

It welcomes to its Association all those who are in accord with its declared
purposes and who desire to fit themselves, by study and otherwise, to be the
better able to help and teach others. 

"The true Theosophist belongs to no cult or sect, yet belongs to each and
all." 

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

The following is the form signed by Associates of the United Lodge of
Theosophists: 

Being in sympathy with the purposes of this Lodge, as set forth in its
"Declaration," I hereby record my desire to be enrolled as an Associate, it
being understood that such association calls for no obligation on my part,
other than that which 1, myself, determine. 

Address:

UNITED LODGE OF THEOSOPHISTS    

245 W 33rd St.,  
Los Angeles, CA,   
90007, USA 
-----------------------------------------------------