Theos-Talk Archives (March 2006 Message tt01551)

THEOSOPHY AS A GUIDE IN LIFE .DOC

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THEOSOPHY AS A GUIDE IN LIFE                     [Tract, 1889]

            By William Q. Judge

 

This is a practical age, and every system or theory is challenged to give
proofs of what it may accomplish in action. How very little is gained by
mere belief is the standing reproach to Churches. Their diversified Creeds
have been steadily evolving through the centuries as new problems in
theology or science arose, and today the separated sects have an outfit of
every possible belief on every possible theme. No small proportion of these
themes are in regions remote from practical life, as also from any means of
proof. 

 

They concern such questions as the number and nature of Divine Beings, the
character and bearing of the Divine Will, the fixedness of the future life,
the best form of ecclesiastical sacraments, etc. -- all of them with little
facility of demonstration and with no utility when demonstrated. 

 

Moreover, it is quite evident that, whether there be One God or Three,
whether He predestinates or not, whether evil-doers are damned eternally or
temporarily, whether Baptism is efficacious towards pardon, the various
sects have not made this earth more worthy of the Divine care or diminished
the evils which religion should cure. 

 

As conservators of morals, abaters of sin, regenerators of society, Churches
are assuredly a lamentable failure. It is not merely that society remains
unregenerated, but that nobody now expects them to regenerate it. A copious
provision of minute creeds has clearly done nothing to extirpate evil. 

 

This being so, it is just as certain that the addition of another creed will
not do so. The two classes interested in human progress are the
philanthropic and the devout, and both, when any unfamiliar scheme for such
progress is submitted to them, are sure to point out that mere beliefs have
wholly failed. They say, with entire correctness, that not a new platform or
Church is needed, but something with an object and an impulsion hitherto
untried. 

 

If Theosophy has no better aim than have the sects, if it imparts no motive
stronger than do they, if it can show no results more distinct and valuable,
it may as well be rejected now as after a futile trial. But, on the other
hand, if it holds out a better prospect and a finer spur, if it can prove
that these have actually operated where conventional ones have failed, it is
entitled to a hearing. The doctrinal question is subordinate, though, of
course, an ethical system is more hopeful if upon a rational basis.

 

Let us see if the unfamiliar system known as "Theosophy," and which has
lately received so much attention from the thinking world, possesses any
qualities warranting its substitution for the religions around it. 

 

They have not reformed mankind; can It? 

 

 

Now 1st. -- Theosophy abolishes the cause of all of the sin, and most of the
misery, of life. 

 

That cause is selfishness. 

 

Every form of dishonesty, violence, outrage, fraud, even discourtesy, comes
from the desire to promote one's own ends, even if the rights of others have
to be sacrificed thereby. All aggression upon fellow-men, all attempts to
appropriate their comfort, possessions, or plans, all efforts to belittle,
outshine, or humiliate them, express the feeling that self-gratification is
to be sought before all else. 

 

This is equally true of personal vices, as well as of that personal contempt
for Divine authority which we may call "impiety." Hence the root of all evil
conduct towards God, towards other men, or towards one-self is self-love,
self-love so strong as to sacrifice everything rather than its own
indulgence. 

 

>From this indulgence follow two things. 

 

First, the pains of envy, disappointment, jealousy, and all the mean and
biting passions which attend the ever-present thought of self, and the utter
loss of all those finer, gentler joys which are the fruit of beneficence and
altruism. 

 

Second, the restraining measures which society, for its own protection, is
obliged to put upon aggression in its coarser forms, -- the workhouses,
jails, and gibbets from which no land of civilization and churches is free. 

 

And if we wish to realize what would be the effect of a universal reign of
unselfishness among men, we may picture a land without courts, prisons, and
policemen, a society without peculation, chicanery, or deceit, a community
whereof every heart was as vacant of envy and guile as it certainly would be
of unhappiness and pain. The root of universal sorrow would be eradicated,
the stream dried at its source. 

 

Now this is what Theosophy enjoins. Its cardinal doctrine is the absolute
equality of human rights and the universal obligation to respect them. If my
neighbor's possessions -- of feeling, property, happiness, what not -- are
as much to be regarded as are mine, and if I feel that, I shall not invade
them. Still more. If I perceive the true fraternity of man, if I am in
accord with the law of sympathy it evokes, if I realize that the richest
pleasure comes from giving rather than receiving good, I shall not be
passively unaggressive, I shall be actively beneficent. In other words, I
shall be a true philanthropist. And in being this I shall have gained the
highest reach of happiness to self, for "he that loseth his life, the same
shall save it." You say that this is a Christian text? Very well; it is also
the epitome of Theosophy. 

 

 

Then 2nd. -- Theosophy sounds ceaselessly the truth that every act of right
or wrong shall receive its due reward. 

 

Most religious systems say otherwise. Usually they provide a "vicarious"
plan by which punishment is to be dodged and unearned bliss secured. But if
awards may be transferred, so may duties, and thus chaos is introduced into
the moral order of the universe. 

 

Moreover, the palpable injustices of human life, those injustices which
grieve the loving heart and sting the bitter one, are unaccounted for. All
the inequalities and paradoxes and uncertainties so thick around us are
insoluble. Why evil flourishes and good withers may not be known. Night
settles down on the most important of human questions. 

 

Theosophy illuminates it at once. It insists that moral causes are no less
effective than are physical, and that its due effect, in harm or benefit, is
infallibly attached to every moral act. There is no escape, no loss, no
uncertainty; the law is absolutely unflinching and irresistible. 

 

Every penny of debt must be paid, by or to the individual himself. Not by
any means necessarily in one life, but somewhere and somehow along the great
chain is rigorous justice done; for the effect of causes generated on the
moral plane may have to exhaust themselves in physical circumstances. 

 

If unselfishness constitutes the method towards social regeneration, Karma
-- for such is the name of this doctrine of justice -- must constitute its
stimulus. Nothing fails; -- no good, no evil, can die without its fruit. The
result of a deed is as certain as the deed. How can a system be unpractical
when it abolishes every bar to the law of causation, and makes practice the
key to its whole operation? 

 

 

Then 3rd. -- Theosophy holds that every man is the framer of his own
destiny. [Karma]

 

All the theological apparatus of "elections" and "predestinations" and
"foreordinations" it breaks indignantly to bits. The semi-material theories
of "luck," and "fate," and "chance" fare no better. Every other theory which
shifts responsibility or paralyzes effort is swept away. Theosophy will have
none of them. 

 

It insists that we can be only that which we have willed to be, that no
power above or below will thwart or divert us, that our destiny is in our
hands. We may perceive the beauty of that conception of the future which
embodies it in a restoration to the Divine fullness through continuous
purgation of all that is sensuous and selfish and belittling, and, so
perceiving, may struggle on towards that distant goal; or self-besotted,
eager only for the transient and the material, we may hug closely our
present joys, heedless alike of others and of Karmic law; but, whatever be
the ideal, whatever the effort, whatever the result, it is ours alone. 

 

No Divinity will greet the conqueror as a favorite of Heaven; no Demon will
seize the lost in a predestined clutch. What we are we have made ourselves;
what we shall be is ours to make. 

 

Here comes in the fact of Reincarnation. 

 

No one life is adequate to a man's development. Again and again must he come
to earth, to taste its quality, to lay up its experience and its discipline,
each career on earth determining the nature of its successor. 

 

Two things follow: 

 

1st, our present state discloses what we have accomplished in past lives; 

 

2nd, our present habits decide what the next life shall be. 

 

The formative power is lodged in us; our aspiration prompting, our will
effecting, the aim desired. Surely it is the perfection of fairness that
every man shall be what he wishes to be! 

 

Of all the many schemes for human melioration which history has recorded and
humanity tried, is there one so rational, so just, so impartial, so
elevating, so motived, as that presented by Theosophy? 

 

Artificial distinctions and conceptions are wholly expunged. 

 

Fanciful ambitions have absolutely no place. 

 

Mechanical devices are completely absent. 

 

The root of all separations and enmities -- selfishness -- is exposed and
denounced. 

 

The inflexibility of moral law is vigorously declaimed. 

 

The realization of individual aim is made entirely individual. Thus sweeping
away every artifice and annulling every check devised by theologians,
opening the path to the highest ideal of religious fervor, insuring that not
an item is lost in the long account each man runs up in his many lives,
handing over to each the determination and the acquirement of his chosen
aim, Theosophy does what no rival system has done or can do, -- affirms the
moral consciousness, vindicates the moral sense, spurs the moral motive. And
thus it is both practical and practicable. 

 

Thus, too, it becomes a guide in life. Once given the aim before a man and
the certainty that every act affects that aim, the question of the
expediency of any act is at once determined. Is an act selfish, unfraternal,
aggressive? It is then untheosophical. Is it conducive to unselfishness,
spirituality, progress? Then Theosophy affirms it. 

 

The test is simple and uncomplicated, and, because so, feasible. 

 

He who would be guided through the intricacies of life need seek no priest
or intercessor, but, illuminated with the Divine Spirit ever present in his
inner man, stimulated by the vision of ultimate reunion with the Supreme,
assured that each effort has its inseparately-joined result, conscious that
in himself is the responsibility for its adoption, may go on in harmony,
hope, and happiness, free from misgivings as to justice or success, and
strong in the faith that he who has conformed to Nature and her laws shall
be conformed to the destiny which she predicts for Man. 

 

            TRACT  1889, See PATH 4, p. 154  (mentioned)

 

 

 

 

Dallas

 



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