Theos-Talk Archives (October 2004 Message tt00277)

Here is my recently published article. It might help others.

Anand Gholap

(Comments, opinions, suggestions may be sent to my
<mailto:AnandGholap@A...> e-mail )

What Theosophy Is, Present State of the Theosophical Society and Future

Today's scientists and psychologists are aware of most of the human needs.
But they are not aware fully and acknowledge yet that human beings at
certain stage of their evolution have spiritual need. What is this spiritual
need? It is this spontaneous desire to know who we are, why we are born,
what is right to do, what is wrong and how to decide that, what happens
after death, what is nature of God. When person starts feeling this need
from within he becomes restless, he starts search for getting answers to
these questions. With the hope to get answers to his questions he reads
books on spirituality, religions, philosophies, meets yogis, visits ashrams,
spiritual organizations and explores various way to get answers to these
questions.

Like all needs this spiritual need of man should also be satisfied if he is
to live happy life, healthy life and make progress. Man is evolving being
and in every life he evolves emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. So
we see progress in so many fields. But human stage is not the last stage in
this evolutionary process. As he evolves there are stages which may be
called super-human stages in which man gets answers to all the above
questions, and knows who he is, he knows by direct experience that he is one
with omnipresent God. Before that he was thinking he was separate from other
people, animals, plants, minerals. But now when he knows Reality or Truth he
knows by direct experience that he is part of God and so one with all, he
loves all without distinctions. 

There is a process in between two stages- a stage in which he wants to know
who he is and starts to find it and ultimately realizes his unity with
everything. To help his spiritual progress, to solve his problems, to enable
men to make wise decisions considering laws of karma or laws of Nature so
that he can avoid mistakes and live life in such a way that he will become
beneficent force in the world, he in his turn would help progress of other
people and world, Theosophy was given. Theosophy literally means Divine
Wisdom. 

Theosophy includes everything. So although Theosophical literature is more
focused on spiritual aspect of life, it considers development of sciences,
philosophies, arts and material well being as important. So it considers all
aspects of life and tries to help progress of humanity. For that purpose
Theosophical Society was founded. Knowledge of Theosophy, laws of Nature is
given by various occultists who by their own occult investigations under the
guidance of the Masters of Wisdom found laws of Nature and created a
comprehensive body of knowledge which can help people if they study it, live
right life, facilitate evolution of themselves and that of others. Other
aspirants also can know by direct experience who they are i.e. they are part
of one all-pervading life which we call God. 

After founding of the Theosophical Society, in last around 129 years,
because of clairvoyant investigations and process of occultism through which
some of the members have gone through and who wrote about it, there is now
available considerable knowledge of laws of nature, evolution, laws of
karma, laws of reincarnation and path of occultism. It appears that progress
of the Theosophical Society in having sound philosophy is satisfactory,
although more knowledge will be added from time to time as needed and as
what is already given is digested by people. 

What seems to be lacking is that knowledge is not available easily to most
people. Theosophy is a vast subject. Nobody should expect to understand it
by reading 7-8 books, whoever may be their authors. This world is extremely
complex machinery governed by infinite laws. And so subject of Theosophy
which aims at knowing these laws is also vast. Many deep students of
Theosophy have studied hundreds of books, they are satisfied with what
knowledge they got from it but they also realized that this knowledge was
only a small part of Theosophy. What we need now it to make available all
the writing done so far on Theosophy to students in cheapest and easiest
way. Best way to provide this knowledge is to give text of all books and
articles on Theosophy on CDs. It will need around two CDs to provide all
writing to people. Also it should be made available on the internet so that
it can be accessed from any country and as computer and internet is fast
spreading in all countries, taking theosophical writing to people will be
easy provided digitization of all books, articles and speeches written by
occultists is done. 

Root cause of all problems has been most of the times ignorance about laws
of Nature or laws of Karma. And if we give knowledge of laws of Nature i.e.
Theosophy, to all people we will have eradicated that root cause- ignorance,
to much extent. On this front i.e. making available writing to people,
making them know about Theosophy, it appears that Theosophical Society has
not performed to the level it should. Very few people know about Theosophy
and among those who know, few have read right books and understood it.
Better guidance is required as regards what books to read and how Theosophy
can be applied in daily life. 

Causes of becoming Theosophical movement less effective are many. One major
cause is idea among some section of members that they can understand this
vast subject of Theosophy by studying 7-8 books. Because of this idea they
don't increase their knowledge by studying more books. Second cause is there
is no much publicity given to Theosophy and the Theosophical Society. So
many people don't hear about TS. Third cause is many people can not afford
to buy large number of books and as they stay far away from TS Lodges, they
can't access Lodge library. But internet and distribution of writing on CDs
will solve this problem. Fourth cause is members don't know which books on
Theosophy to read as there are thousands of books on spirituality and yoga
in market. Many of these are written by merely intellectual interpreters who
read some books, draw some conclusions which are many time wrong and make
people believe in those. So out of hundred books only one is written by true
disciple who has first-hand experience and who is evolved spiritually. And
aspirant does not know which book among hundred books to read. So I would
advise students to read only those books which are written by disciples.
Here are some of the authors who I believe had gone through initiations and
their writing is extremely good for understanding Theosophy and can guide
aspirant in life and on the path of occultism - Annie Besant, C.W.
Leadbeater, C. Jinarajadasa, Geoffrey Hodson, I.K. Taimni, G.S. Arundale, N.
Sri Ram. H.P. Blavatsky was also a disciple and has written much on
Theosophy but many students find her language difficult to understand. Still
those who can understand, may read it. Here readers might ask how I can say
somebody was disciple. These things can not be proved with physical
instruments and there is no way I can prove it to others. But if reader is
sufficiently evolved he will understand from quality of the writing, by
using reader's intellect and intuition, that these were indeed very evolved
and experienced initiates. 

Another important point is Theosophy, though it existed for ages, was always
given in veiled language to keep secretes away from people whose moral,
intellectual and spiritual development was not sufficient and so they might
have misused this knowledge. Only few people who had required inner
qualities were able to understand and were helped to understand true
meaning. Understanding of Theosophy depends on person's own spiritual,
moral, intellectual development and good karma done by him unselfishly to
help others in previous lives and in this life. As these factors vary from
person to person, even if he reads right books on Theosophy, his
understanding will depend on these factors.

There is much scope for improvement and making TS more useful to the world.
When considerable number of members study right books, understand Theosophy,
live right life, supplement study with actual acts of selfless service of
others done with only motive to help others, it will be able to draw life
from Occult Hierarchy, which will make Theosophical Society more alive, more
active and achieve it's goal of raising humanity. 

Anand Gholap









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