Theos-Talk Archives (June 2005 Message tt00385)

June 15 2005

Dear Pedro:

I believe we agree that a "Theosophist" is one who lives and practises
THEOSOPHY without necessarily being a "member" of any organization that
calls itself "Theosophical." In my case, 60 years + of studying HPB's
"original" THEOSOPHY, has continually reinforced this universal and
non-sectarian view.  

I consider the power inherent in THEOSOPHY to be a constant radiation from
the original writings of the Mahatmas and of HPB, and of all who have drawn
their spiritual inspiration from the ethics, logic, exposition of history
and science, and the prevision of an eventual condition where all
evolutionary units (monads) in Nature (the UNIVERSE and our WORLD) attain a
simultaneous and brotherly level of wisdom and virtue. Obviously, what we
name THEOSOPHY in the present has had other names in past years. All
"religions" show at their roots the imprint of the same grand system of
Life.

Instead of reposing on the beneficence of nature, the true Theosophist
becomes (by self-effort and devotion) an active cooperator in the constant
flow of life between all beings. He (she) perceives this as a privilege and
a duty, not as the imposition of any tyrannical Law. 

To achieve proficiency in this, it is requisite that each Monad (having
attained the equipoise of mind in a "human" form) voluntarily work
intelligently and whole-heartedly for all the rest in whatever capacity
Karma may allot to him in his present embodiment, and for whatever task lies
at hand to be done without any strain or hope for personal reward or
recognition.

Let me subjoin an interesting essay:  
(I am not sure if you are already familiar with it, if so, excuse me)

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

OUR GOD AND OTHER GODS


As a people we speak of "our God," imagining that we all have the same idea,
that we all mean the same thing by the term. Peoples of the past had their
meaning of "our God," and peoples of the present time also say "our God and
other Gods," imagining that their conception is the only true one-all
others, untrue, false. Several Great Wars have now been fought among
so-called Christian peoples, who, so far as a consideration of Christianity
is concerned, ought to have been worshipping the same God, and guiding
thought and action by the precepts ascribed to that God. 

But is it not true that our theologians and the theologians of those people
at war with us addressed petitions to the same "Our God," in order to bring
success to their efforts as against other peoples worshipping the same God? 

There would then appear to be a multiplicity of Gods, or else something
wrong in the conceptions of all of us. If we ask ourselves individually,
"What do I mean by the term God?" perhaps we would all say: "The highest
there is." But do we mean the highest there is? 


POWER SUPPORTING ALL WITH LIFE

Do we mean that great power which sustains all beings, all forms, that which
by its very nature and by our contemplation of it must appear as in finite,
as eternal, as changeless? If we do mean that, then we shall have to amend a
great many other ideas which generally connote with the term God. For
instance, we shall have to leave the idea of a being entirely outside of our
calculations. We have thought that the source and sustainer of all things,
all beings, from all time and in all time, is a being; that the something in
us which reaches up beyond everything physical, beyond every thing
thinkable, is outside ourselves. How could that possibly be? 

How could we possibly prove that this God is a being existing in some
far-off heaven unknown to us and separate from us? How can we imagine a
being as omnipresent, and at the same time separate from us or from
anything? 


INFINITE AND OMNIPRESENT

If Deity is infinite and omnipresent, there is not a grain of sand nor a
point of vacant space anywhere where Deity is not. And how again can we give
to the idea of Deity, attributes-such as being angry or pleased, rewarding
or punishing, since every attribute that we give is a limitation and
precludes the idea of omnipresence? No being could be the origin, the
sustainer, the source of all that was, is or ever shall be. Any being,
however great, is contained and limited in space; no being can be
omnipresent.

There is that which is beyond speech, beyond description, and beyond
conception-the highest there is in the universe. But are we to look outside
in the heavens, in the sea, in the secret places of the earth, in any place
whatever; or are we to find it in a much nearer place, that is, within
ourselves? For all that anyone can know of God, or the Highest, is what he
knows in himself, through himself and by himself. There is no other place of
knowledge for us. 

Yet at the same time we have to perceive that God, or Deity, is not absent
from anything, is immanent in the whole, is omnipresent, is at the root and
is the seed of every being of every kind anywhere; that there is no thing,
not even a grain of sand nor a speck of dust, no point in space, absent from
that Source which sustains the whole manifested universe. We can imagine,
then, that God, as the ancients put it, "seated in the hearts of all
beings;" for there is something in the heart of man whence proceeds all
feeling, all true life, all true conception. The heart is not the same as
the head-a man's heart may be right and sound and his head wrong. The
feeling of the true in the heart is not deceived by this thought or that
thought or the other thought; it can only be experienced by each one for
himself within himself. God is not an outside God, but is to be sought in
the very innermost recesses of our own nature- in the silent chamber, the
temple, within us-and nowhere else.


MANY CIVILIZATIONS IN THE PAST

We think that our present civilization far transcends any past civilizations
that ever have been; yet there are many records and relics of arts,
sciences, of knowledge, of religion, of philosophy such as we have not yet
mastered. We are but a young people, as a matter of fact. It is not so many
centuries ago since the Founder of the Christian Religion lived upon the
earth, and there were many thousands of centuries before that. The people
who lived down the course of those centuries knew far more than we. 


NO CREATION, BUT ETERNAL EVOLUTION

They knew, as we may know, that there is no such thing as creation. No being
ever created the earth, or its conditions. This planet, or any other planet,
was never created by any being. This solar system and other solar systems
were not created by any being. Something produced them. Yes, and it is
possible to understand how that production was brought about! By
evolution-always an unfolding from within outward-from the very root of
every being, from the Deity, the Soul of all, the Spirit of all. Spirit is
the root, the sustainer, the energy producing force for all the evolution
that has gone on. 

Every being in the universe is a product of evolution-all from the same
identical root of being, all drawing their powers of expression from the one
Source. All are rays from and one with that Absolute Principle, which is our
very Self-the Self of all creatures. What of all those beings who were the
Self in process of evolution, who reached a realization of this truth ages
and ages before the present civilization? What became of them? Have all
their hopes and fears been lost? What is the meaning of those races, those
civilizations-was it death for them when their civilization passed out as
ours must, since just so surely as it had a beginning so it will have an
ending? 

Just so surely as there are those rises and falls in civilizations, so is
there a cycle of time through which the conscious man goes, and a cycle of
form which the conscious man animates, uses, and leaves-to take another-from
civilization to civilization. 


LAW RULES ALL

When, then, we look about us for the results of the civilizations that have
been, and try to understand the conditions of the present civilization, we
have to see that the people of the world to-day are the very ones who passed
through those ancient civilizations, left them, and carried forward whatever
of knowledge or of ignorance, of truth or of error, they had gained during
those vast periods of time. For LAW rules in every thing and every
circumstance, every where. There is a law of birth-of successive lives on
earth, each life the successor and result of the life or lives which
preceded. That which sustains man, garners all experience, retains it,
carries it forward, and propels evolution, is the One changeless, eternal,
immortal Self-the real perceiver, the real knower, the real experiencer in
every body, in every form.


THE SPIRITUAL SELF IN US


The Self is its own law. Each one is the Self, and each-as Self-has produced
the conditions under which he finds him self. When the Self acts, it
receives the re-action. If it acts not at all, then there is no re-action.
Every action brings its re-action from those who are affected by it for good
or for evil. For good and evil do not exist of themselves nor in ourselves;
they are but effects we feel and classify as good or bad according to our
attitude toward them; that which seems 'good to one is "evil" to another.
When we have rid ourselves of the idea that there is a God who produced and
sustains good, and a devil who produced and sustains evil, we have come to
the fact of true perception from within outwards.

Every civilization that has been, and the one in which we now are living, is
due to a true or false perception of what our real nature is. If we would
ever know and understand our natures, we must first understand that there is
in us That which never changes at all, whatever changes are brought about by
it. We never are the things we see, or feel, or hear, or know, or
experience. No matter how many the experiences may be, we are still
unchanged with the possibility of infinite other experiences. 


OUR INNER SELF IS CHANGELESS AND ETERNAL

That the Self in us is changeless may seem difficult for the Western mind to
grasp, thinking that without change there is no progress; but it may be
perceived by the fact of our identity remaining ever the same in a child's
body and through all the changes of body that have occurred since childhood.
If the identity ever changed, it could never observe change. 

Only that which is permanent and stable can see change, can know it, can
make it. And-what theology, modern philosophy, modern science have never
taught us-there is this fact: as we are immortal spirit at the very root of
our being, we have made for ourselves many mansions all down through the
process of nature's changes. The gradual condensation which goes on with
every planet and in every solar system goes on with every body; every form
has its initial existence as form in the finest state of matter, from which
it is condensed and hardened to the present physical state of matter. But
the illimitable experiences of higher planes, back through all those
changes, are now resident within ourselves- present with us wherever we are
or may be-except as we have shut the doors on them. Why? 

Because this brain of ours, the most responsive organ in the body, since it
is used in our modifications of thought, is concerned with things of the
earth, in relation to the body. A brain trained and sustained by this kind
of thinking can not register from the higher nature-from the finer sheaths
of the soul. But once we begin to think and act from the basis of these
verities, the brain-which is the most rapidly changing organ in the
body-becomes porous to the impressions of our inner life. 


INCREASING WISDOM AS WE AGE

Dimly at first, and more strongly as time goes on, we begin to realize the
fact of this inner experience, and-what is more to us than all else-the
continuity of our consciousness; the fact that consciousness never ceases,
no matter on what plane we may be acting. Therefore, we may have in our own
bodies and during our lifetime-not a promise-but a sense, a realization, a
knowledge of immortality here and now!

We have been taught to believe. But, belief is not knowledge. We have been
taught to believe in a formula, but a formula is not knowledge. So we have
gone astray in every direction and made of this life a terror to ourselves.
We are afraid of death, of disaster; we are always buttressing ourselves
with some sort of guard in this or that direction. 


SPIRITUAL POWERS UNIVERSAL AND TRUSTWORTHY

We are afraid to trust the very God we say we believe in. We will not trust
Christ. We will use all the means we can think of to look out for ourselves.
Each one of us is Spirit and each one of us is using spiritual powers to
induce what we call good and what we call evil; but the misapplication of
the spiritual powers, in default of real knowledge, must lead us to misery. 

So we have to know what we are, and to think and live in the light of our
own real natures. Then we shall know the truth within ourselves. We shall
understand ourselves and we shall understand our fellow-men, and we shall
never again say, "Our God and other Gods," but the SELF OF ALL CREATURES. 

We shall see the Self as all and in all; we will act for and as the Self,
because the Self acts only through the creatures; and we shall see every
being-man, below man, or above man-as an aspect of ourselves; as
individualized beings we will try more and more to exercise the spiritual
knowledge that is our own heritage. 

Like the prodigal son who ate the husks with the swine and then suddenly
remembered his Father's house, we will say: "I will arise and go to my
Father." For there is no one so wicked, so ignorant, so poorly endowed that
he may not make good progress in the right direction; on whom the light may
not dawn and a feeling of power and strength and purpose arise that will do
away with fear and make him a strong helpful being in the world of men. Far
from taking us away from our families, our duties, our business, or our
citizenship, this knowledge will make us better citizens, better husbands,
better fathers, better patriots, if you will, than ever we were
before-patriots of not just one country, but of all.

[From: R C: The "Friendly Philosopher" ]
==============================================

Best wishes as always,


Dallas

==================================
 
-----Original Message-----
From: prmoliveira
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 4:28 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: a simple question

"W.Dallas TenBroeck" <dalval14@e...> wrote:


I believe the statement exists: "Theosophist is who THEOSOPHY does."
 
People may call (or be designated by others) themselves members of any
sect,
creed, religion, society, association, country, race, nation, what-not ---
they still at heart remain what they truly ARE. I mean, the universally
diffused Higher Self linked to the Higher Mind ( Buddhi-Manas).
 
The external veneer or layer, if not penetrated, serves as a barrier to
true
understanding. Each one of us, (as I see it) knows who and what we are
morally worth, and this is a secret no one else save the Master knows. 
 
As you observe, if this Letter 10 has, by internal evidence, the quality of
the Master's mind and hand, then the purely physical means of its
conveyance
are secondary matters and if these are considered of significance, they may
divert (in the case of some people) attention from the inner TRUTH.
 
Each such "meeting," in my view, is one of the tests of the "chela's"
progress, I believe. May we all succeed and benefit humanity.

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

Dear Dallas:

Thank you very much once again for your thoughtful reply. If a 
Theosophist, as you mentioned, quoting HPB, is one who DOES 
Theosophy, then he or she may be virtually anywhere and be a member 
of any community, religious or otherwise. Would you agree? I really 
appreciate your emphasis on embodying - living - the teaching. That, 
seems to me, was the essential message HPB was trying to put forth 
towards the end of her life as her messages to the American 
Conventions so clearly show.

Many years ago, when I struggled with Letter 10 - probably because of 
my Christian background - I found a great deal of comfort in the Maha-
Chohan's words. Both M. and K.H., in the MAHATMA LETTERS, acknowledge 
him as their Teacher. This is the passage that seems to complement 
the radical (and inspiring) views expressed in Letter 10:


"For as everyone knows, total emancipation from authority of the one 
all pervading power or law called God by the Theists -- Buddha, 
Divine Wisdom and Enlightenment or Theosophy by the philosophers of 
all ages -- means also the emancipation from that of human law. Once 
unfettered [and] delivered from their dead weight of dogmatic 
interpretations, personal names, anthropomorphic conceptions and 
salaried priests, the fundamental doctrines of all religions will be 
proved identical in their esoteric meaning. Osiris, Chrishna, Buddha, 
Christ, will be shown as different means for one and [the] same royal 
highway to final bliss Nirvana. Mystical christianity, that is to say 
that christianity which teaches self redemption through one's own 
seventh principle -- the liberated Para-atma (Augoeides) called by 
the one Christ, by others Buddha, and equivalent to regeneration or 
rebirth in spirit -- will be found just the same truth as the Nirvana 
of mystical Buddhism. All of us have to get rid of our own Ego, the 
illusory apparent self, to recognise our true self in a 
transcendental divine life." [Maha Chohan's LETTER

[This article was printed in Lucifer [1896, August)] without signature as
"An Important Letter," prefaced by the statement that it "was circulated by
H.P.B. among many of her pupils, and some quotations from it have been
published from time to time." The Letter belongs to the early days of the
Theosophical Society in India [1881] and was part of the correspondence
received (through H.P.B.) by A. P. Sinnett and A. O. Hume from the
Theosophical Adepts. His Adept-teacher introduced the letter to Mr. Sinnett
as "an abridged version of the view of the Chohan on the T.S. from his own
words as given last night"--in reply to objections about the conduct of the
Society and especially to the "Brotherhood plank."
     
Although the text of the complete letter was not published until after
H.P. Blavatsky and Wm. Q. Judge had left the scene, both provided a setting
for the statements made, and both quoted in their magazines some passages
for particular attention.--Ed.]



Paraphrasing your last sentence, may we all succeed in living 
Theosophy and benefit humanity. CUT