Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt01452)

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THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT AND ITS

LITERATURE   -- A SEED FOR THE FUTURE


by Carlos Cardoso Aveline


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Dear Friends,


Is there any  real, living  connection between  classical books like “The 
Secret Doctrine”, “Isis Unveiled”,  or  “The Voice of the Silence” and the 
theosophical movement?

Or are these and other books just fine pieces of literature, which for some 
strange reason happen to sell far more now –  and in more countries and 
languages –  than in  the first half-century after  their publication?

An ordinary amount of common sense can entitle us to answer those questions 
and to understand the importance of  actual cooperation and collective work, 
in order to test in our lives what we learn in theosophical books,   and to 
attain inner peace and true  happiness.

H.P. Blavatsky saw the theosophical movement as a ‘republic of conscience’ 
(1).  Its  first object –  propagating  Universal Brotherhood ‘on practical 
instead of theoretical lines’ (2) –   is far from being a short term goal,  
and it obviously could NOT be reached,  if it were short term. HPB knew very 
well that the effort she was inaugurating  would take at least several 
centuries to produce visible and consistent results.  It was a seed for the 
future.  Such an enduring collective task was to be part and parcel of the 
preparation for the sixth sub-race of the fifth race –  to use  “The Secret 
Doctrine” terms.

H. P. B. wrote in the opening pages of  her  great work, “The Secret 
Doctrine”:

“This Work I  dedicate to all True Theosophists, in every Country, and in 
every Race, for they called it forth, and for them it was recorded.”

The  words “in every  race” do not refer only  to all races which live now.  
They also  refer to all future races.

This long term view of  things leads us to another important fact.

The theosophical movement is not meant to be a body of  Sophists just 
talking about things for the pleasure of talking, and constantly readapting 
their representations of facts and truth to their own personal short term 
interests.  Such a  sobering fact  may sound as surprising for many today –  
but it can be understood, perhaps,  when we consider the long  subtitle  of  
HPB’s book “The Key to Theosophy”:

“Being a clear exposition, in the form of  question and answer,  of the 
Ethics, Science and Philosophy, for the study of which the Theosophical  
Society was founded.”

The obvious things sometimes are the most difficult to see, and the projects 
and purposes of books often appear in their opening pages. Here was H.P.B.,  
in 1889,  fully commited to the Theosophical Movement and establishing  the 
central link  between Ethics and Theosophy.

That the Movement  exists  beyond words and appearances;  that it has a 
heart, of which can take part those who would like to start living its 
teachings in their daily lives,  is also made clear in one of the subtitles 
of   “The Voice of the Silence”, a book translated and annotated  by H.P.B.

It  says:

“For daily use of lanoos (disciples).”

Who are ‘lanoos’?  The word “disciple” is not a “status symbol”. It means 
simply a student, a learner, a person who tries to live according to the 
teachings.  For  these persons, forerunners of future civilizations, the 
theosophhical philosophy is meant.

But – was this living connection between the movement and the ideas clearly 
stated from the very beginning?

Yes, it  was.  Let’s take a look  at  H.P.B.’s first great work, “Isis 
Unveiled”.  In its opening pages, she wrote:

“The author dedicates these volumes to the Theosophical Society, which was 
founded at New York, A.D. 1875, to study the subjects of which they treat.”

Here, again, we see the “organic” element in HPB’s books.

She was giving humanity food for thought. The theosophical movement was –  
as it  is and will be – the organic place, the living room, the magnetic 
field, the ‘republic of conscience’ where one can best investigate and study 
universal truths and laws.

“Separation is the great heresy” as Buddhism teaches. Yet perception of 
separation is not a heresy in the sense of something  “forbidden by an 
authority”.

It is a heresy in the sense of being an illusion.  Recent Physics has 
already discovered this and  has created its own rationale to explain the 
unity of all things.   So have the ecological sciences.  The same principle 
was stated in  the 19th century  in the three fundamental propositions of  
“The Secret Doctrine”.

There is no real separation, therefore, between the Adyar Theosophical 
Society, the Pasadena Theosophical Society, the Edmonton T.S., the United 
Lodge of Theosophists and many independent, individual  truth-seekers which 
form the theosophical movement created by H. P. Blavatsky, William Q. Judge, 
Henry  S. Olcott and a few other persons in 1875.  Robert Crosbie saw and 
wrote about this essential identity  of the movement.

Such an  unity  in diversity is not mechanical.  It is not nominal. It is 
not bureaucratic, it accepts contrast and paradox,  it is magnetic, karmic, 
inner  –  and it can find  true harmony only in the respect for, and 
perception of,   TRUTH.

The whole of the movement is a seed for  the future.  Perhaps a seedling 
already.


Best regards,  Carlos


NOTES:

(1) “The Key to Theosophy”, The Theosophy Company (India), 1987, p. 19.

(2) See “The Collected Writings of H. P. Blavatsky”,  TPH, India/USA/UK, 
Volume II, page 104. The  text from which comes this expression is entitled 
“What Are the Theosophists?” .


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