Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt01221)

Dallas-

Thank you for this beautiful list of quotes.  So much of my own 
thinking is consistent with them, although this is the first time 
that I have read them.  I am impressed to probe even deeper.

Vince

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "W.Dallas TenBroeck" 
<dalval14@...> wrote:
>
>             THEOSOPHY , RELIGION & THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>                  [  Notes From HPB  --  from "THE THEOSOPHIST"  ]
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>             "For the present we merely throw out hints and 
endeavour 
> 
>             to provoke thought and enquiry."   --   HPB
> 
>  
> 
> [During the years when H.P.B. was editor of the Theosophist, she 
often
> appended notes of comment, criticism, and elaboration to 
statements made by
> other writers.
> 
>  The frequency of these notes makes it possible to select and 
arrange many
> of them in sequence, as collations on various subjects, thus 
making their
> valuable content available to students.-          D.]
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>                                     THEOSOPHY AND RELIGION 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> "When challenged to give out our views, we do so, adding every 
time that
> they are our own personal views: and as such-since we do not 
believe
> ourselves infallible-are not to be taken as final truths. 
> 
>  
> 
> Instead of preaching our own religion, we implore every one to 
first study
> his own and remain in it, whatever it is. 
> 
>  
> 
> Besides which, theosophy is compatible with every religion, the 
world over. 
> 
>  
> 
> There were thaumaturgists in every creed, and mysticism has as 
much room in
> idolatrous as in monotheistic systems. 
> 
>  
> 
> Theosophy is the culmination and the practical demonstration of 
the truths
> underlying every creed. It requires but sincerity and a firm will 
in the
> application to the Essentials of any of them-whether they be 
Theism or
> Adwaitism or even Atheism. 
> 
>  
> 
> Theosophy is simply the informing life of creed and of every 
religion and
> goes to prove their raison d'etre, instead of their 
negation."      [ TH'ST,
> IV  274 fn.]
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> "We hold no views at all on anything "beyond mortal ken." 
> 
>  
> 
> "Claiming the possession of our full senses, we can neither prove 
nor
> disprove that which is beyond the knowledge of mortal man, leaving 
all
> speculations and theories thereon to emotional enthusiasts endowed 
with
> blind faith that creates self-delusion and hallucinations. "
> 
>             [TH'ST  IV, 186 fn.]
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> "In our humble opinion, since there cannot be but one and only 
Truth, the
> thousand and one interpretations by different sectarians of the 
same and one
> thing are simply the outward and evanescent appearances or aspects 
of that
> which is too dazzling (or perchance too dark and too profound) for 
mortal
> eye to correctly distinguish and describe. 
> 
>  
> 
> As already remarked by us in ISIS UNVEILED the multitudinous 
creeds and
> faiths have all been derived from one primitive source. 
> 
>  
> 
> TRUTH standing as the one white ray of light, it is decomposed by 
the prism
> into various and eye-deceiving colours of the solar spectrum. 
> 
>  
> 
> Combined, the aggregate of all those endless human interpretations-
shoots
> and offshoots-represent one eternal truth; separate, they are but 
shades of
> human error and the signs of human blindness and imperfection. 
> 
>  
> 
> However, all such publications are useful, since they fill the 
arena of
> discussion with new combatants and that truth can be reached at 
but after
> the explosion of innumerable errors."            
> 
>             [ TH'ST,  IV, 197.]
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> "Few have identical beliefs, and every religionist of whatever 
faith is
> firmly impressed with the truth and superiority of his own creed, 
with no
> regard whatever for the truths possibly contained in that of his 
brother-
> the result is, that sectarianism is kept ever alive, with no 
chance in it
> for mutual toleration- least of all, feelings of 
Brotherhood.            [
> TH'ST,  IV, 274 fn.] 
> 
>  
> 
> Each of them [Theosophist] believes in whatever he likes, and 
there is no
> one to interfere with his private beliefs. The Theosophical 
Society is no
> school of sectarianism and holds to no special dogmas. . . ."     
[ TH'ST,
> V, 29 fn.]
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ".though the one conceives of the First Cause, or Deity, quite 
differently
> from the other, whose ancestors from time immemorial have 
worshipped the Sun
> as a visible type of Hormazd, yet a common religious feeling moves 
the heart
> of each, and a common instinct makes him see the way upward 
towards the
> truth brighter and clearer by the light of Theosophy. 
> 
>  
> 
> Ours is not an atheistical society, though it does contain 
atheists; nor is
> it a Christian one . Our Fellows are of the most varied opinions; 
and each
> has a right to claim respect for his ideas as he is bound to 
respect those
> of his brothers. 
> 
>  
> 
> We have presidents who are severally Christian, Deist, Buddhist, 
Hindu and
> Atheist; none dogmatizers, none claiming to be wiser or more 
infallible than
> the other, yet each taking the other by the hand, calling him 
brother, and
> helping him and being helped in the divine quest after knowledge. 
> 
>  
> 
> Nor are all, or even a large minority, students of occult 
sciences, for
> rarely is the true mystic born. Few, alas! have they ever been, 
who so
> yearned after the discovery of Nature's secrets as to be willing 
to pursue
> that hard and unselfish course of study: and our own century can 
show fewer
> than any of its predecessors. 
> 
>  
> 
> As to the secrets of the Theosophical Society . The Parent Society 
is, in
> one word, a Republic of Conscience, a brotherhood of men in search 
of the
> Absolute Truth. 
> 
>  
> 
> As was sufficiently explained in our opening October number, every 
one of us
> professes to be ready to help the other, whatever the branch of 
science or
> religion to which his personal predilections may lead 
him."           [
> TH'ST,  I,  298.]
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> The Theosophical Society requires no oaths, as it deems no pledge 
more
> binding than the word of honour. [I, 35 fn.]
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>                         Eastern OCCULTISM AND SCIENCE
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> "The comprehension of what occult science really is, has spread in 
Europe so
> very imperfectly as yet, that we must not be impatient. . . 
> 
>  
> 
> European mystics, when further advanced in the tedious study of
> unintelligible books, will often be hardest to persuade that they 
must go
> back some distance on the paths they have travelled, before they 
can strike
> into those which lead to the fully illuminated regions of Eastern 
knowledge.
> .
> 
>  
> 
> The Eastern occult philosophy is the great block of solid truth 
from which
> the quaint, exoteric mysticism of the outer world has been 
casually thrown
> off from time to time, in veiled and symbolical shapes. These 
hints and
> suggestions of mystic philosophy may be likened to the grains of 
gold in
> rivers, which early explorers used to think betokened somewhere in 
the
> mountains from which the rivers sprang, vast beds of the precious 
metal. 
> 
>  
> 
> The occult philosophy with which some people in India are 
privileged to be
> in contact, may be likened to the parent deposits. 
> 
>  
> 
> Students will be altogether on a wrong track as long as they check 
the
> statements of Eastern philosophy by reference to the teachings and
> conceptions of any other systems. In saying this we are not 
imitating the
> various religionists who claim that salvation can only be had 
within the
> pale of their own small church. We are not saying that Eastern 
philosophy is
> right and everybody else is wrong, but that Eastern philosophy is 
the main
> stream of knowledge concerning things spiritual and eternal, which 
has come
> down in an unbroken flood through all the life of the world. 
> 
>  
> 
> That is the demonstrable position which we, occultists of the 
Theosophical
> Society, have firmly taken up, and all archaeological and literary 
research
> in matters connected with the earliest religions and philosophies 
of
> historical ages helps to fortify it. The casual growths of mystic 
knowledge
> in this or that country and period, may or may not be faithful 
reflections
> of the actual, central doctrines; but, whenever they seem to bear 
some
> resemblance to these, it may be safely conjectured that at least 
they are
> reflections, which owe what merit they possess to the original 
light from
> which they derive their own."   [ TH'ST,  III, 81.]
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> "Since beginning our Indian work, we have never publicly preached 
our
> private religious views. It would be well, if this fact were never 
lost
> sight of. Colonel Olcott, in addressing audiences of various 
religious
> faiths, .  from the deep conviction, shared by us both, that there 
is truth
> in every religion, and that every sincere devotee of any faith 
should be
> respected in that devotion, and helped to see whatever of good his 
faith
> contains."           [TH'ST,  III, 237.] 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> The Rules of our Society strictly forbid its Founders and the 
Presidents of
> its many Branches to advocate either in our journal, or at mixed 
and general
> meetings, any one religion in preference to any other. 
> 
>  
> 
> We are all upon neutral ground, and even our own personal 
religious leanings
> or preferences have nothing to do and must not interfere with the 
general
> work. 
> 
>  
> 
> We preach and advocate an incessant and untiring search for TRUTH, 
and are
> ever ready to receive and accept it from whatever quarter. We are 
all
> enquirers and never offered ourselves as teachers, except in so 
far as to
> teach mutual tolerance, kindness and reciprocal enlightenment and 
a firm
> resistance to bigotry and arrogant conceit whether in RELIGION OR 
SCIENCE
> [ TH'ST,  III, Supplement, October, p. 4].
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>             EVOLUTION  --  A THEORY OF SPIRITUAL & PHYSICAL
> 
>  
> 
> Such broad conceptions as the theory of evolution, for example, 
have not
> only been long ago known to Eastern occultists, but as developed 
in Europe,
> are now recognized by them as the first faltering step of modern 
science in
> the direction of certain grand principles with which they have been
> familiar,-we will not venture to say since when. . . . 
> 
>  
> 
> If the European scientists whose fancy has for the first time been 
caught,
> within these last few years, by the crude outlines of an 
evolutionary
> theory, were less blankly ignorant of all that appertains to the 
mysteries
> of life, they would not be misled by some bits of knowledge 
concerning the
> evolution of the body, into entirely absurd conclusions concerning 
the other
> principles which enter into the constitution of Man.
> 
>  
> 
> But we are on the threshold of a far mightier subject than any 
reader in
> Europe who has not made considerable progress in real occult 
study, is
> likely to estimate in all its appalling magnitude.,, [to]  
> 
> make an effort to account, in his own mind, even in the most 
shadowy and
> indistinct way, for the history of the six higher principles in 
any human
> creature, during the time when his body was being gradually 
perfected, so to
> speak, in the matrix of evolution. 
> 
>             [see SECRET DOCTRINE, I, 157-8, 200, 242-6 ].
> 
>  
> 
> Where, and what were his higher spiritual principles when the body 
had
> worked into no more dignified shape than that of a baboon? Of 
course, the
> question is put with a full recognition of the collateral errors 
implied in
> the treatment of a single human being as the apex of a series of 
forms, but
> even supposing that physical evolution were as simple a matter as 
that how
> to account for the final presence in the perfected human body of a 
spiritual
> soul?-or to go a step back in the process, how to account for the 
presence
> of the animal soul in the first creature with independent volition 
that
> emerges from the half vegetable condition of the earlier forms? 
> 
>  
> 
> Is it not obvious, if the blind materialist is not to be accepted 
as a
> sufficient guide to the mysteries of the universe,-if there really 
are these
> higher principles in Man of which we speak, that there must be 
some vast
> process of spiritual evolution going on in the universe pari passu 
with the
> physical evolution?. . . "          [ TH'ST,  III, 81.]
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> "No more than any given material form is destined to infinite 
perpetuation
> can the finer organisms which constitute the higher principles of 
living
> creatures be doomed to unchangeability. 
> 
>  
> 
> What has become of the particles of matter which composed the 
physical
> bodies of "man's predecessors on the earth"? They have long ago 
been ground
> over in the laboratory of Nature, and have entered into the 
composition of
> other forms. And the idea or design of the earlier forms has risen 
into
> superior idea or design which has impressed itself on later forms. 
So also,
> though the analogy may give us no more than a cloudy conception of 
the
> course of events, it is manifest that the higher principles, once 
united
> with the earlier forms, must have developed in their turn also.
> 
>  
> 
> Along what infinite spirals of gradual ascent the spiritual 
evolution has
> been accomplished, we will not stop now to consider. Enough to 
point out the
> direction in which thought should proceed, and some few 
considerations which
> may operate to check European thinkers from too readily regarding 
the realms
> of spirit as a mere phantasmagorical cemetery, where shades of the 
Earth's
> buried inhabitants doze for ever in an aimless trance."      [ 
TH'ST,  III,
> 82.]
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> "For the present we merely throw out hints and endeavour to 
provoke thought
> and enquiry; to attempt in this casual manner, a complete 
exposition of the
> conclusions of Eastern philosophy. . . would be like starting on a 
journey
> to the South Pole apropos to a passing enquiry whether one thought 
there was
> land there or not."    [ TH'ST, III, 81-2.]
> 
>  
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>  
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
>  
> 
> Dallas
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>