After a few days in Australia, and a month each in Manila, Hong Kong and Viet Nam, we reached New Delhi. Up to that time all lectures had to be translated sentence by sentence. This precludes a free flow of thought and speech, but it does give one time to think over one’s next statement and prepare the words in which it will be clothed.

Two experiences amongst many others in Manila may be of interest. In one of the old churches in Manila there is a ‘bamboo organ’, all the pipes of which are made of bamboo stalks, hollowed out, of course, and carefully tuned. A nun received, explained and played for us and then allowed Sandra to play. It was lovely to hear ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Kyrie Eleison’ played on that fine old organ.

An Honour for the T.S.

One of the members of the Philippine Section is Dr Benito Reyes, who at the time of our visit, with the Mayor of Manila and others, was planning a People’s University for Manila of which Dr Reyes was to be appointed Dean, which is an honour for our Society.

A tornado struck Hong Kong whilst we were there bringing both good and bad fortune. The heavy rain refilled the reservoirs but an excess of rain washed out the huts of the thousands of squatters, the refugees from Communist China who live in mere shacks. Efforts are being made to rehabilitate them and housing accommodation is going up in many parts of the island.

The President of the T.S. lodge there, Mr K. S. Fung, is a very distinguished citizen of Hong Kong. He is the President of the Buddhist Society there which is part of the reform movement established in many parts of the Buddhist world, Hong Kong, Viet Nam, Malaya, Burma and elsewhere, formed with the idea of removing the accretions of superstition from the popular Buddhist practice and restoring the original ideals and teachings of the Lord Buddha. One of the activities in which he and his colleagues are specially engaged is to provide more and more Buddhist schools, and I was interested to find that he is introducing yoga as part of the classwork of these schools. This consists partly, of course, of hatha yoga as physical culture, but leading in through the classes to a form of meditation in which, if they wished, the boys and girls could engage.

We Meet A Living Buddha

In the large hall of one of these schools where the lectures were held, we attended a ceremony performed by one of those strange human beings called a Living Buddha. This man had come from Mongolia, largely, I understood, to receive and ordain those people who wished to adopt the disciplines of the life of the Buddhist. The tests for acceptance and ordination as a Living Buddha, designed to demonstrate that he is a reincarnation of a great Lama, are quite severe, we found. When he is being selected, his family generally having been intimated previously, he must remember and describe the family of the preceding life, Buddhist doctrine and pick out a number of his former priestly possessions from other similar objects put before him. If he succeeds, he is acknowledged as a Living Buddha.

We also met a Taoist yogi who has apparently developed considerable yogic powers. Raja yoga, with modifications, was practiced, with emphasis on the raising of kundalini and the ability to direct it via the chakras into the head, and in his case through the hands for healing purposes. He is ready to teach the method, regarding success as a valuable contribution to human welfare, bestowing good health and longevity and spiritual awareness, the true goal of Yoga.

Arousing Kundalini

Children, he said, are more responsive than adults, and I found that the children of the families of our Theosophists, and others, were being taught the practice. Some of them claimed that they distinctly felt the flow of kundalini up their spines, and two families brought their children to see whether this was really desirable. Three Chinese girls, eight, nine or ten years old came, sat down before us, and immediately sank into meditation. Two of them were able to indicate successively the bodily positions which the vibrating energy had reached on its journey into the head. It is not really the full kundalini fire which they raise and feel, but perhaps an astro-etheric sheath or aspect of kundalini which they thus stimulate into activity. If later on in life, however, they wish to take up yoga in earnest, they will have received helpful preparation.

The ‘I Ching’ Philosophy

We met Mr Wei Tat, a member of our Society and a quite famous exponent of the ancient Chinese philosophy called ⁴I Ching’ or ‘Book of Changes’, referring partly to the fact that all things in cosmos, planet and man are undergoing changes, both in themselves and the relationship of the forces playing within and without them, and the laws under which these transformations may be brought about to the empowerment and exaltation of consciousness. The origin of ‘I Ching’ goes back to mythical antiquity, and has occupied the attention of the most eminent scholars. I found as I listened to Mr Wei Tat, that it includes the Law of Correspondences under which the whole cosmos is represented in terms of areas of mutual resonance in the seven bodies of man, in parts of each of them, the physical body being a synthesis of the whole. One part of the yoga of ‘I Ching’ is, I gather, to bring these correspondences harmoniously into mutual interaction within one’s consciousness. All of the great philosophers of old in China Lao Tzu, Confucius, Mencius and others, are said to have studied this philosophy and to use it in the expression of their ideas.

Masters in the Hills

Taoists, as of course Buddhists, firmly believe in the existence of the Masters and the Hierarchy, one exalted Adept being regarded as the Regent of China and guardian of the Mongolian people. They refer to them as ‘Masters in the Hills’. When you go into certain Pagodas, you see a small shrine carved in likeness of a mountain, and in it caves in which are seated Chinese figures representing ‘the Masters in the Hills’. They also believe in the Dark Forces, and that there are dark sorcerers and continual warfare between the forces of darkness and light.

Burning of Vietnamese Monks Painless

In Viet Nam, one subject which interested us, was the recent self-immolation by burning of five Buddhist monks and one young nun. And so I took opportunity to ask about these martyrdoms from the heads of various Pagodas, including both the Vice-President of the Buddhist Society and the Spiritual Head of the Buddhist Association of Viet Nam. Since no other means had brought what they considered to be just treatment of the Buddhists during the Roman Catholic Diem regime, these six decided to bum themselves to death in public and did so. The question, amongst many others, which I asked all these leaders was that of pain, normally experienced whilst burning to death, dying whilst fully conscious amid the flames. I invariably received the same answer to my question ‘Did the martyrs suffer during this process?’ Without hesitation, all replied: ‘No, not at all’. This is supported apparently by photographs taken during the burning, in one or two of which the flames have blown aside and you can see the bodily posture and the faces. The bodies retained throughout the lotus posture, and upon the faces, there shows the serenity of meditation and not of pain. The explanations offered are that for two weeks or more previously, they had been engaged in a special practice of deep dhyana, which I found is taught secretly and only to monks and nuns. Indeed, they live their lives in contemplation of the Divine, and reach a stage where they can sink into that state so deeply, that they become totally unaware of their body. Thus, even during the burning to death, the lotus posture is retained until the body is dead, when it falls over, still partly holding the lotus posture.

A Miracle

An apparent miracle occurred in connection with the body of the first of these martyrs. After self-immolation, his body was cremated, being subjected for some eight hours to the extremely high temperature. Normally nothing but small fine ash would remain, but in this case, when they collected the ashes, they found that the heart still retained its form, though calcined and black. I saw this relic, for which a Shrine is to be erected in Saigon.

Buddhist Doctrine Discussed

The Head of the Buddhist Institute for Higher Learning, who has a doctorate in Philosophy, and takes the monks and others into the depths of Buddhism, was very kind to discuss Buddhist doctrine with me — actually Theosophical teaching, of course. I asked him and others about the Anatta Sutra, in which the Lord Buddha in one of his sermons is reported to have said there was no enduring spirit or principle in the nature of man or ‘no Atman '. This Doctor answered that the physical body is more especially referred to and clearly, this vehicle does not have any spiritual ruler, being subject to pains and sorrows and sufferings of every other body, and therefore it is true to say that there is no enduring atma or spiritual principle in the physical body.

Spiritual Head Grants Audience

We were granted an audience with the Spiritual Head of Buddhism and the Buddhist Association in Viet Nam, in his beautiful old Pagoda in Hue, the ancient capital of Viet Nam. He gave me the same answers concerning the martyrs, assuring me that they would suffer no pain, all of them being taught to enter into deep contemplation to the exclusion of physical sensation. He is elderly now, calm and serene with a penetrating mind. I noticed as I talked to him, that there were contusions over his face, particularly under his right eye. I learned that with many other Buddhists he was arrested by the police, cast into prison and beaten brutally about the head. There was no resultant bitterness, but only a complete calm and ease.

In Viet Nam I witnessed a manifestation of the beauty of Nature. It was autumn, and the leaves of many trees had become luminously gold and yellow. One group of such trees stood against a background of dark pines. As we watched, a light wind arose, blowing large numbers of the golden leaves from their branches. The sunlight fell upon them as they slowly fell, and against the dark background of the pines, a ‘rain’ of fluttering golden leaves of entrancing beauty fell slowly to the ground.

One of the Vietnamese Theosophists, Dr Ba, holds the chair of Professor of ‘I Ching’ philosophy at the Saigon University. Evidently there is a revival of this ancient system of philosophy, and students can study it at college should they wish. I was fortunate to receive instruction from Dr Ba three or four times a week during our visit.

The Golden Buddha

After a month in Viet Nam, we went to Bangkok, where one experience, amongst many others, stands out in our memory. Some years, ago, there was discovered a great statue in cement of the Lord Buddha, and whilst it was being transported to the city, parts of the cement broke away to reveal that it was a golden statue of the Lord Buddha. When all the concrete had been taken away, a more than life size statue of the Lord Buddha was found, covered with fine gold leaf, and this we visited.

Visit to the President of India

In New Delhi, the outstanding experience was the unexpected privilege of an invitation to visit Dr Radhakrishnan at his Palace there. He received us graciously and joined us in afternoon tea, talking the while of our Society, Headquarters and our President, Brother Sri Ram, Rukmini Devi and others. Afterwards we were allowed to walk about the gardens and grounds of the Palace.

Also in New Delhi we met Mr Krishna Prasada, who is the retired Director of the Post and Telegraph service of the Government, and he is Adviser to the Government Planning Commission, the members of which invited me to address them, 300 or 400 being present, with himself in the chair. I found that he and one or two other Government officials are forming an Institute for Research into Psychological and Spiritual Phenomena, and they did me the honour to invite my collaboration.

Man’s Highest Calling

In conclusion, I would like to express a personal belief. Rightly or wrongly, I believe that the activity of travelling about the world, teaching the Ageless Wisdom, is one of the highest callings and greatest privileges open to a human being. Whilst all the aspects of Theosophical administration are important, essential indeed and those who thus contribute are in their turn performing deeply significant services, perhaps the expounding of Theosophy and its application to the manifold problems of human life, bringing one into intimate touch with humanity, is the highest calling of all.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1965, p. 15

2
A Strange Story

Do many of your charges recover their sanity?’ asked the visitor of the attendant, who was conducting him round the asylum wards.

‘Up till quite recently only a few’, was the reply. ‘Has there been a change then?’

‘Yes, quite a sudden change. From the beginning of May as many as ten patients a week have been discharged as cured. In the third week no less than twenty-eight recovered quite suddenly, and that in spite of the full moon’.

‘How wonderful! Has that state of things continued?’ ‘To some extent, yes; the numbers were less in June, but they increased again in July and August’.

They entered a private ward, in which was one bed, and some simple furniture. A patient lay fast asleep in the bed.

‘He does not seem to be giving you much trouble’, said the visitor.

‘Never has’, was the reply. ‘Just sleeps and sleeps’.

‘How comes he to be here?’

‘He was found wandering about outside asking for admission’.

‘Not often that happens, I should say’, said the visitor, hardly restraining a shudder at the sights, sounds and atmosphere of depression and fear of such a place.

‘He was well dressed, seems well educated, and had plenty of money in his pockets; but as he was evidently mad they took him in’.

‘What form do his delusions take?’

‘He thinks be is the Savior of the world; won’t give any name or address, seems to have no relatives or friends, and as I said lies there sleeping most of the time; loss of memory, I suppose, and hallucinations’.

The visitor had been gazing intently at the pale face on the pillow. ‘When did he come in?’ he asked.

‘End of April, or early in May, I think it was’, came the reply, ‘but what are you looking at him like that for? Think you know him?’

‘I believe I do’, came the answer almost in a whisper. ‘What’s his name then?’

At that moment the patient opened his eyes and smiled at the visitor, who stood as though transfixed.

‘Nirvana — and the Law’, he said haltingly, his soul in his eyes.

‘Nevada Andrew Law’, said the attendant. ‘An American, 1 suppose?’

‘No, not American; he belongs to the race of the Tathagatas’.

‘Oh, Indian you mean?’

‘Yes, Indian — for the most part, perhaps — but not all’.

‘Here, you had better come out of this place. You’ve had about as much as you can stand’.

‘Yes, I think — I have’, was the reply.

The great eyes were closed again. The patient slept.

As he went away, the visitor saw a group of people greeting a discharged patient with joy and thanksgiving. He passed on his way with wonder in his eyes.

‘The full moon of May’, he said to himself as he walked along the road.

The Theosophist, Vol. 50, July 1929, p. 359

3
About Flying Objects

The long continued affirmations from so very many sources of citings of strange objects in our skies obliges us, surely, to give considerable credence to the fact of their existence.

In addition, pronouncements have frequently been made by various groups of people here and elsewhere that Cosmic, Solar, and other Space-Intelligences, named and unnamed, are communicating with mankind. Despite the choice of channels and the nature of the communications themselves, resultant proclamations have received considerable acceptance.

Amongst supposed communications from lofty intelligences are the following statements:

‘By the joint efforts of Cosmic Hosts and planetary Hierarchies, the lower astral kingdoms on Earth have now been cleared of those souls who rebelled against divine order. All earth-bound discarnates have been removed from the astral plane which is now closed to humanity. Those who die will henceforth be transported to their assigned planets. The Supreme Commander of the Universe supported by Overlords of the System now awaits the approaching day for His arrival and external manifestation to all mankind on earth. Using entranced mediums, the Solar Logos, with Solar Lords of inconceivably lofty stature, including the Archangel Michael, are regularly communicating with groups of people in different parts of the world. A leader of one recipient group has been specially chosen to fulfil the exalted office of mouthpiece on Earth for an interplanetary parliament. Flying saucers are interplanetary space crafts used by the Cosmic Masters, and the Star of Bethlehem was a magnificent spacecraft from the planet Saturn. Saturnian Masters, Space-Intelligences, Venusian, Martian, and Jupiterian Sages, the great Lord of the World, Tibetan Adepts and Masters of the Wisdom’.

Caution

Students of occult science are in general advised to exercise the same extreme caution concerning such ideas as invariably characterizes the approach of the student of physical sciences. I therefore wish to utter a grave warning against the danger of undue credulity concerning flying saucers, Adepts as their crews, and communications from outer space from whomsoever they may be said to emanate and by whatever means they are received. An open mind can be valuable in the pursuit of truth, I submit, only if it is also a lucid mind, a logical mind, which judges the credibility of all statements by their reasonableness and general conformity with the discoveries of philosophy and science; for these are the products of rechecked observations and experiments objectively recorded with absolute honesty and without fear or favour.

The term ‘Unidentified Flying Objects’ would seem still to be a correct description. Official investigation is now proceeding and may eventually provide acceptable evidence. Until that time, I suggest, a reservation of judgment is eminently desirable.

(Guest Editorial in The American Theosophist.)

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 39, No. 3, 1978, p. 61

4
Adverse Effects of Television

Recently, in a conversation with a little girl of about eight years, she said to me ‘I love war’. My expostulations were without effect upon her. Indeed, they only evoked a further statement ‘I love watching war on television’.

A report released in Canberra on 26/8/75 said that regular television viewing can cause a condition resembling severe brain damage. The report was commissioned by the National Telecommunications Planners of the Australian Post Office. The 213 page study is the work of a team headed by Dr F. Emery, a senior research fellow in the department of sociology of the Australian National University.

The study found that:

Television is habit forming and can cause a condition resembling the destruction of important brain structures.

Viewers use television to escape from their psychological problems.

Television isolates the viewer from the real world.

Viewers are sometimes out of touch with the real world long after television is switched off.

Regular viewers become more aggressive and compulsive.

Television deprives viewers of the ability to dream — a vital biological need. This has profound psychological effects, including lowered self-esteem, a confused sense of identity, narcissism and momentary forgetfulness.

The study said television must not become a major educational tool because it cannot instructor enlighten. Summing up the study, Dr Emery said:

Tor a very large part of the next 30 years we will have to cope with the dragon’s teeth already sown. Our concern will not be with what new technologies might do, but with what they have already done. In a situation like this no person or corporate body, public or private, should bring yet another technical medium into existence, nor improve any existing medium on the grounds that it would be more of the same, only cheaper and better’. — [From the New Zealand Herald, 27/8/75]

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 37, No. 4, 1976, p. 88

5
An Appeal for Compassion

By neglecting the principle of compassion especially where animals and children are concerned, we human beings generate continuous adversity and develop in ourselves as part of our character, the element of callousness and cruelty.

Like smog on the physical plane, cruelty is becoming increasingly established in the superphysical worlds of thought and feeling, and as areas in the auras of people, like those who go to enjoy bull fights and rodeos, for example, and are willing to gain pleasure and adornment from the fur trade.

On behalf of all human beings who suffer from cruelty at the hands of their fellow men, and all sentient, sub-human creatures regularly subjected to cruelty at the hands of man, let us as workers for human and animal welfare, appeal to all our fellow men and women at this time to collaborate for an immediate reduction and ultimate cessation of ALL INFLICTION’S OF CRUELTY, and pray that divine Love and Compassion may fill the hearts of all the peoples on our Earth, and that all mankind may increasingly become illumined by the interior LIGHT.

Can there become established on the mental plane of the Planet a sun-like centre of highly concentrated compassionate love-thought which perpetually radiates those qualities, just as the physical sun radiates energy? It is not necessary to think of a sun because world-thought currents on the subject will coalesce into a central thought-form over which angels could preside for its conservation.

One suitable and effective form of daily meditation would be:

“O hidden Life, vibrant in every atom,

O hidden Light, shining in every creature,

O hidden Love, embracing all in oneness,

May each who feels himself as one with Thee,

Know that he is, therefore, one with every other”.

We suggest also the Invocation that follows for daily use:

‘I (or we) invoke the spiritual benediction and healing grace of the Adepts of this Planet and the Orders of the Angelic Hosts upon the whole of mankind, that human hearts may be filled with universal, brotherly love, and that world peace may be attained; that healing grace may descend upon (names to be mentioned); that all cruelty and tendencies towards cruelty may be banished from the bodily life, hearts and minds of the whole of humanity and replaced by compassion towards all human beings and animals that hitherto have suffered at the hands of man.

‘And may all mankind become increasingly illumined by the Interior Light’.

The Theosophist, Vol. 93, August 1972, p. 315

6
Awakening

I heard the soft singing of the school boy choir;
Looked down upon the shape beneath the pall;
Saw that same shape slide slowly to the fire,
Amidst a field of flowers I saw it all.

Among my mourners shone the blessed few who cared,
I knew who loved me, was no more deceived,
I wept with them and intimately shared
The anguish of the human heart bereaved.

T’was finished, they to their homes, I to mine,
The wide heavens and the open sea.
I paused, looked forth and saw the one Light shine
In all places, in all things and in me.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 6 December 1937, p. 19

7
Blue Gums

There is no breath of wind
In the Garden
The tall blue gums
In peerless grace stand still.

Anon a light breeze
Stirs their leaves.
Lightly sway and swing
Their tops.

As if they danced
A stately measure
To an old, old tune
Stilted and slow.

To and fro
Sway the graceful heads
And shoulders to the waist,
As of fair ladies.

The wind dies.
The music ends.
Dancers move no more.
Leafy garments are still

As tall goddesses
The gums display their grace
In design
And pattern decorative
And lovely curves
And cloudlike shapes.

Of leafed branch and twig
And underneath
The long and slender stems
Yielding yet strong,

Seem to shoot upwards
From the ground
As rockets soar
And breaking into lovely leaf.

Display all colourful
Their inward fire
As sunshine on green leaf
And whitened stem.

The light breeze returns
The tall trees bow each unto each
And dance again.
Leaves sing,

Branches sway,
Patterns grow more intricate,
Branches cross,
Making and unmaking new designs.

‘Tis Nature, lovely Goddess
Who dances thus and sings
Robed in green beauty
In garments woven by the wind.

Of swaying trees
And waving fronds
Designed in infinite variety
Ever changing, ever new.

Thus the world over
Morning, noon and night
Dances the green-robed Goddess
To beautify the earth.

In rustling leaf and stem
She sings Her song.
Not Hers in truth
But His, Creator of All Worlds,

Parent of all beings,
The Master Artist
By Whose dance and voice
All things live and move and have their being.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 1 February 1938, p. 13

8
An Astrological Interpretation of the Poem ‘IF’ by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;

If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If as you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-tossed

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minutes

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son.

—Rudyard Kipling

Aries. Kipling takes the Sign Aries first — the key-note of this Sign is I AM and it rules the head.

“If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;”

This is a Fire Sign ruled by Mars, and the great test for people born under it is the control of the fiery emotions, especially anger.

Libra. The next Sign — Libra — the key-note I BALANCE.

“If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;”

In other words the weighing up of all evidence, and seeking to walk between the pairs of opposites.

Taurus. The key-note is I HAVE.

“If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about don’t deal in lies”,

These people like to have and to hold, but their lesson is to learn to be able to wait for that which, under the Law, is to come to them.

Capricorn. The key-note is I USE.

“Or being hated don’t give way to hating

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise”.

This very truly portrays Capricorn people. The key-note is I USE, and they often create ill-feeling by using other people to gain their own ends. In the more evolved types however, they use their powers in the service of humanity.

Pisces. I UNDERSTAND; the key-note.

“If you can dream and not make dreams your master”,

These are the dreamers, perhaps of great things for mankind, but they have to learn to bring their dreams down to a practical basis — become realists.

Gemini. Key-note is I THINK.

“If you can think and not make thoughts your aim’,

That is self-explanatory.

Leo. Key-note is I WILL.

“If you can meet with triumph and disaster,

And treat those two impostors just the same’.

Leos like to achieve and shine in all they do — ruler the sun — and here Kipling urges that they must be indifferent to success or failure.

Virgo. Key-note is I ANALYSE.

Ruling the mind. ‘If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools’.

These people analyse very keenly, and do not like to see what they consider to be the truth ‘twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.

Cancer. Key-note — I FEEL.

‘Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools’

These people feel things very deeply, so to have ‘the things you gave your life to broken’ could be a great blow — but they have to learn to get over it and start again.

Sagittarius. Key-note is I SEE. Ruled by Jupiter the planet of benevolence. They love financial ventures — especially perhaps where there is a risk at stake. They have to learn to lose and yet go on; that is one of the lessons of the planet of benevolence.

“If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;”

Scorpio. Key-note — I DESIRE. — Ruled by Mars, the God of War. They hold on under great difficulties. Hitler chose his shock troops from Arians and Scorpios.

“If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve you long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the will which says to them “Hold on!”

Aquarius. Key-note — I KNOW.

“If you can walk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you but none too much”

They have to learn to be all things to all men. Then finally the last four lines refer to any Sign.

“If you can fill the unforgiving minute,

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it,

And what is more you’ll be a man, my son!”

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 42, No. 4, 1981, p. 80

9
Earthquake in California

I am writing during the earthquake period which, though it has brought us no harm, has been unpleasant. The shocks began about 5.45 p.m. After dinner, during which many shocks were felt, we had to leave for Hollywood to lecture and it was here that the more unpleasant side of it all was experienced.

I was speaking to a study class of some fifty people in a house in Hollywood, which is a Theosophical lodge, when a major quake occurred. The house creaked and swayed, pictures swung and the peculiar rumbling sound of earthquakes was heard. This 8.30 p.m. shock on the first day was a very strong one and lasted a long time. News of the effect of the preceding quakes in the Long Beach district, only a few miles away, had come through on the radio — greatly exaggerated — and so people were very nervous. Many rose and a peculiar panic atmosphere was produced. I begged them to sit still and after the first quake they asked me to continue with my subject. I did, making strong efforts to hold their attention as fully as possible. This was difficult as several less severe quakes followed, and it was a relief when the questions were answered — and there were quite a number — and we were back in the car heading for home.

That night was unpleasant. Radio news was serious and strong waves of fear could be felt distinctly at each shock. These continued through the night and during Saturday and Sunday, there being some thirty-eight which were noticeable. They diminished in intensity during Sunday and seismologists assured the public that, judging from previous earthquakes, no more major shocks would come. They were wrong, however, for Sunday night in Los Angeles, much nearer to the centre of disturbance, in the middle of my lecture a major shock occurred. There were some four hundred people in the auditorium and for just a moment emotional panic gripped them. Remember, everyone was very strained and nervous by this time, indeed, we did not expect people to come into the city, the large audience being a surprise. The stewards had left wide aisles in case of a shake. Fortunately, the audience responded to an appeal to remain and the danger of a rush passed. But the fear power which swept throughout the city was a tangible force, a kind of concentrated panic and shock combined, and not easy to withstand. No more quakes followed and all were sufficiently controlled to close the meeting with a few minutes’ quiet thought directed towards the stricken areas. On getting to bed that night I found that this experience had been a great strain.

On Monday two major shocks occurred and just as I write this, Tuesday morning (March 14), a less severe tremor shakes the house. These repeated shocks no longer affect us here where we are beyond the danger line (we hope), but they are very disturbing to the people in the devastated regions. They are severely shaken, their morale is low; many of them have undamaged homes, but they dare not return to them, and remain in parks and vacant lots camping out and being cared for by the many relief organizations which are doing such splendid work.

Radio announcements consist of continual appeals for supplies of all kinds, especially of food, bedding and medical necessities. Each fresh major shock, and they now occur about twice in twenty-four hours, further upsets the morale of the sufferers.

We feel thankful that we were not in the centre of it all, as we might have been, having visited it several times recently to see boats in the Los Angeles harbour, which is there. It was most fortunate that the Navy was present at the time and that a complete plan of action had already been prepared against such a crisis three years ago by the Admiral in charge. Almost before the first tremor had ceased, orders were given and the plans were put into operation.

Remarkable, too, is the fact that a man here prophesied this and other events, which have occurred, a week previously in a letter to the

Los Angeles Times. Apparently the worst is over and with characteristic American speed, rebuilding on shock proof lines is already going on.

It is satisfactory to observe here that, despite both the moratorium and earthquake, both the numbers and the interest of the audiences in Los Angeles, Hollywood and Glendale have been sustained though financial returns are affected.

The Theosophist, Vol. 54, July 1933, p. 483

10
Commentaries on European Travels

Naples

Our arrival at Rome Airport coincided with a strike of the ground staff. This necessitated, fortunately for us, an eighty-mile drive through the Italian countryside to Naples. On the way we passed Monte Cassino, on the summit of which we saw the rebuilt, historical Monastery. At Naples our hotel window and balcony looked out upon the beautiful Bay, with Mount Vesuvius in the distance and the Isle of Capri visible far out to sea. In order to ascend to the summit of Vesuvius one drives up the side of the volcano as far as possible and then is whisked — a word which justly describes the sudden launching high into the air — by chair-lift to the very rim of the great crater. From there we could look far down into its depths, from which fatal eruptions have arisen and from whence sulphurous fumes were coming up. This was a deeply impressive experience.

Pompeii

Our visit to Pompeii, and some hours spent in wandering throughout the ruined town, were full of interest. Some of the people of ancient times, as they were running to escape, were overwhelmed by the falling volcanic ash. In consequence their bodies formed moulds and into these plaster of Paris has been skilfully poured. One is therefore able to see from these ‘statues’ what the people looked like and the postures of terror in which they were trapped. In one case, a mother is seen clasping her child protectively in her arms, whilst dogs also were similarly caught and moulded. The ruts of the wheels of chariots and delivery carts, worn by long use, are clearly visible in the ancient roadways, and some of the shops and Inns can be seen much as they were when in use at the time of the sudden disaster. Naturally the so-called ⁴ Villa of the Mysteries’ interested us very much, particularly as some Masonic symbolism is discernible, and scenes supposedly from the ancient Rites, their colours still fresh, are painted upon the walls of one large hall.

Capri

A day’s drive took us to Amalfi and Sorrento, the outward journey being inland and the return one along the beautiful sea coast road, with its many ancient castles, villages and towns, and the Island of Capri visible across the blue water. This famous place of retreat, visited by the Roman Emperors, and by numerous holidaymakers ever since, fully lives up to its reputation for beauty and still available seclusion. We explored the lovely villa and gardens of the late Dr Axel Munthe, author of The Bridge of San Michele. We also sailed in a small boat through a cave in the rocks into the famous ‘Blue Grotto’, and saw from above the holiday resort established by Gracie Fields.

Rome

A member of the South African Section, a very old friend, gave us hospitality at her beautiful apartment in Rome. A student and lover of both ancient and modem Rome, she drove us day by day to visit most of the more notable remains of ‘the grandeur that was Rome’. These included, of course, the ancient Forum where, meditating quietly, the Akasha seemed to me still to give forth scenes from ancient days, and we rested there whilst I described what I could see. We also visited many Roman Temples, Arches of the Emperors and the Colosseum. Here, too, the Akasha seems still to be charged with the records of both the pageantry and the terrible cruelties perpetrated there before the Roman crowds. Indeed, the atmosphere was found to be so repellent to us both that our second visit was a rather short one, even though the great building itself and its historical association are naturally full of interest. Most of a day was spent amid the ruins at Hadrian’s wonderful villa near Tivoli, and in the beautiful Garden of Fountains of the Villa d’Este there. Lunch was taken on that day in the garden of a charming

Inn, long ago established close to the remains of an old, circular Roman Temple of the Vestal Virgins in the ancient in of Tivoli itself.

Much time was also spent in the Parks and Churches of Rome — especially, of course, at St Peter’s — and in the Vatican Library and Art Gallery, so rich with statuary, paintings and memorials of ancient and mediaeval Rome.

Members of the Rome lodges invited us to lecture, answer questions, and afterwards to dine with them. Almost all of them were either Co-Masons or Masculine Masons, and it became apparent that they considered Theosophy and Masonry as being intimately related.

Florence

We left our plane from Rome at Pisa, many miles from Florence, in order to see the leaning tower, the beautiful Churches nearby and the ruins of the Castle. The tower does indeed look as if it might fall over in the future. Thereafter we drove the remainder the journey to Florence, famous as one of great centres of the flowerings of the arts, science and culture known as the Renaissance. Many pleasurable and informative hours were spent there day by day in visits to the famous Churches, Galleries and Museums, including, of course, the famous and beautiful Ponte Vecchio, with its many shops of goldsmiths and silversmiths on either side of the road.

The central square known as the Piazza della Signoria, with its fountain, statues — including copies of Michaelangelo’s David and Perseus — the Medici Castle and the Uffici Galerie, was an irresistible attraction for us day by day. Here, also, one could not wholly escape from the sense of horror at some of cruelties perpetrated in olden days. For example, one may stand upon the memorial stone set in the pavement of this Piazzo recording the precise place and story of the martyrdom by burning of Savonarola, regarded as a heretic by the Inquisitors of the Middle Ages. The Pitti Palace with its wonderful Bobboli gardens, and the nearby ancient village of Fiesole, are places of great historical interest and scenic charm, and many hours were spent there under the guidance a learned member, Dr Schaffner.

Drives were also taken to San Geminiano and Sienna, during which we were captivated by the peculiar charm of the more northern Italian countryside with its farms, vineyards — where Chianti wine is made — and cypress trees pointing to the heavens, so characteristic of the regions of Tuscany and Lombardy.

In Florence, as in Rome, meetings with members were held, and a pleasant tea party was enjoyed at the house of the General Secretary of the Italian Section, Mr Hast. One must not omit reference to the wonderful paintings from the Rennaissance period by which Italy itself, and especially Florence and nearby cities, are immeasurably enriched. The old Masters, as they are called, chose both mythological and historical episodes and incidents from the Old and New Testaments as the subjects of their great genius in so many branches of the arts — especially their paintings.

The visit to Florence was also made memorable by my being called into consultation, after one of my talks to members, by the family of a remarkable Italian girl. Her profound occult experiences include a clear and living memory of an Initiation into the Egyptian Mysteries. She believes that a fellow and senior Initiate of those days guides and teaches her today in full waking consciousness. He told her some time before of my coming to her town, and advised her to consult me. When a little girl, she fell into a deep river. Her invisible teacher then instructed her how to walk on the bottom of the riverbed. This she did until she reached the bank and safety. Afterwards, she told her naturally shaken parents that she was at no time in danger, since her teacher told her exactly what to do and how to do it. She is able to see auras and other occult phenomena, and is continually conscious of the guidance and help of her former Egyptian Initiate and teacher. She accepted with expressed relief and gratitude the theosophical explanation of her experiences which I gave her, feeling that her pathway and purpose in life are now quite clear to her.

Venice

This island city, with its waterways instead of highways, more than lives up to its reputation for beauty and well preserved examples of the genius of the artists, architects and leaders of mediaeval times. These are so well known that space need hardly be taken to describe them. We went for frequent Gondola rides along the narrow waterways and out on to the broad Grand Canal. All travel is by water, and in these comfortable boats we visited beautiful Churches where again ceilings and walls are enriched by lovely mosaics, murals, altars, pictures and statues.

Quite frequently whilst we were visiting them, the Holy Eucharist was being Celebrated in Churches in Italy, sometimes at the High Altar and sometimes at side Chapels dedicated to Our Lady or one of the Saints. We were thus able to attend these ceremonies and receive the benediction for which we believe them to be vehicles. At one large Church in Venice a quite elaborate Venetian wedding was being celebrated and we watched this, eventually seeing the bride and bridegroom with their bridesmaids, all beautifully dressed, carried off in a special gondola with its gaily clad gondolieri and gilded appointments.

Fortunately a bi-annual Memorial Festival was performed during our visit and we were able to watch the procession of nobles, soldiers, Doges and fine ladies, mounted and on foot as it passed from St Mark’s Square down to the Grand Canal and into the wonderful Palace of the Doges. All this colourful pageantry, and the regatta that followed were watched from our own moored, and sometimes cruising, gondola. Crews from four Italian cities competed in boat races and the victory of the Venetian crew was loudly and joyously acclaimed by gondolieri and their passengers aboard, and by citizens ashore. Evening then fell and we were rowed slowly back to our hotel, the Cavalletto. This is an ancient Inn and has been used as an hotel for the last five hundred years. Its old steps lead direct from the lobby to the water and so on to the waiting gondolas themselves. St Mark’s Square is the great attraction and many hours were spent there wandering about, taking coffee, feeding the pigeons from one’s hands, and visiting the famous Cathedral — one of the wonders of the world, indeed — and the Doge’s Palace. One may cross the dread Bridge of Sighs — so well named — into the terrible prison and dungeons to which it leads. Here again the atmosphere of misery, prolonged suffering and terrible cruelty still remains, so that one is relieved to depart from the dark building. Compassion for the prisoners, and repulsion towards those who were responsible for their agonies, still remain in one’s mind.

Milan, Gressoney and Monte Rosa

Milan kept us for only three days, during which the famous Cathedral was visited, as also — and quite unforgettably — was the old Church on the inside wall of which Leonardo da Vinci painted his famous picture, The Last Supper’. Although the ravages of time are visible, the picture still arrests and holds one by its great beauty and by the artist’s use of perspective and vivid reproduction of the incident portrayed.

We had earlier accepted an invitation to spend five days in the alpine resort of Gressoney. There, amidst alpine scenery of the greatest beauty, we stayed in a large, old and typical mountain chalet or farmhouse belonging to a T.S. member and old friend of mine. On our last day in the valley we were driven to the ski-lift at Gressoney la Trinite, which took us 7,000 feet up towards the foot of the Mount Rosa Group, snow clad and gleaming under sunshine and blue sky — a scene of unforgettable Splendour. There we followed the mountain path, enjoyed a picnic lunch and took some photographs. In most of these Italian cities invitations to address members were accepted, pleasant times being spent with them socially, in conducted sightseeing and in study. Throughout it was noticeable that questions asked and subjects chosen concerned occult science, and particularly the natures and functions of the Angelic Hosts. Misconceptions were found to exist, and it became necessary to draw attention to the distinctions between the differing activities of the various Orders of the Angels. Landscape Angels, for example, including those associated with mountain ranges and peaks, were, I found, sometimes confused with the Orders of Healing and Guardian Angels. The former are not normally associated with man, but rather with the hidden, evolving life within the areas of the landscapes, including the great mountain masses themselves. The Archangels and Angels in charge of these activities function largely from the arupa (formless) planes, and not in the realm of conceptual thinking and individual, human embodiments of the One Life. The consciousness of Healing and Guardian Angels may also be established in the Causal and Buddhic worlds. I have come to think, however, that they can and do minister chiefly from and through the Lower Mental Plane.

Geneva

This account is being written from Geneva, which was reached by a memorable drive of two hundred miles from Gressoney, through Aosta and under the Alps by the great St Bernhard Tunnel. We travelled past snow covered alpine ranges, winter resorts and beautiful green valleys dotted with farm-houses and villages, after which we arrived at Montreux and the famous Castle of Chillon on the shores of Lake Leman (Geneva).

Here, as everywhere, the members are showing us great kindness, extending hospitality and taking us for drives through the countryside and Geneva itself. There are three active lodges and a combined Meeting has been held at which numerous questions — nearly all concerning occultism — were asked and answers offered. The Palais des Nations, now Headquarters for the Economic Commission for Europe of the United Nations Organization, was visited and we had lunch on the balcony on the roof, from which one can enjoy superb views of the Lake and mountains beyond. Walks were taken through the beautiful gardens with their lake, fountain and many Cedars of Lebanon, which grow well in Switzerland. Shortly we leave for Salzburg and the International Congress, at which we are both called upon to speak.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 28, No. 1, 1967, p. 10

11
Last Night, Freed from My Body

Last night, freed from my body
I sped northwards towards the Himalayan heights.
There sustained on high by some inward power
I hovered, poised, at peace.

Mind-freed, ecstatic,
I entered the state
Of Tranquil Rest
And there abode throughout the night
Thought-less, free.

Far below, Himalayan and the trans-Himalayan heights
Flowed upwards, peak by peak
Like petals of a lotus flower.

And I above was still and calm as they
As if upon a lotus throne
Built of flowing power.

The long night through
I dwelt in peace unshakeable
Stability immovable.

Then, as the timeless “hours’ sped past
My bliss increasing into ecstasy
I knew another Self Surrounding and pervading me.

A universal Omnipresence,
all-sustaining power,
A mind ecstatic as I,
A Being, Buddha-like,
Poised also on a lotus throne,
Planet petalled
With sun as heart.

This Self was me in full self-consciousness.
I was that Self, but partially aware.

The night moved on
And sense of unity increased
Into identity.

Self was completely lost,
The Self alone remained.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 2, June 1941, p. 83

12
Commentaries: More Travels

After leaving New Delhi we spent a delightful week in Kashmir, living on a large houseboat on Dal Lake during that time. These boats are built with drawing room, dining room and three bedrooms, two of which have their own bathroom. The servants’ quarters and kitchen are in another boat moored astern of the one we lived in.

Many days were spent in most enjoyable ‘shikari’ rides in one of the comfortable little roofed-in boats paddled by the shikari who guides his craft quietly over the waters of the lake and along many of the waterways past temples, houses, small shops and the people themselves travelling by water to and from their homes. Indeed this region of this part of Srinagar has aptly been called the Venice of Kashmir.

In addition, we visited the famous gardens of former Emperors, including Shalimar itself. Here we were fortunate in seeing all the fountains and cascades in full operation because Shaik Abdullah was at the same time addressing a large group under a huge marquee in the garden. In consequence, we also saw many Kashmiris in their bright costumes, including lots of little children who posed happily for photographs.

We also visited the Theosophical Girls’ High School and Lodge in Srinagar, addressing large audiences at both of them. A really admirable work is being done by the Theosophists in Srinagar providing first class education for girls who otherwise would receive very little.

After Kashmir we spent three days in Karachi, gave some lectures, visited many friends and watched for a time the highly skilled performance of a team of Bavarian acrobats. Then at night we took off over the Arabian Sea for Beirut, stopping for an hour during the night at Teheran where there are many fine shops in the airport itself.

Historical Lebanon Visited

In Lebanon we visited almost all the historical places including Byblos, Sidon, Tyre and, of course, the famous Cedars of Lebanon high up in the mountains. This was an unforgettable experience, for the drive, taking different routes each way, took us through most beautiful scenery with deep valleys with rivers running through them, high mountains towering above and townships perched upon craggy hillsides with terraces being farmed wherever possible. The ancient Cedars themselves are now reduced to less than 300 in number, there once having been a great forest at the time, for example, when King Hiram of Tyre obtained a number for the building of King Solomon’s Temple.

Here we were privileged to meet at his village home high in the Lebanese hills, the religious Head of the Druse sect of Islam in Lebanon. We found him working in his garden from which he handed us some of his beautiful fruit. Quickly he changed from his working clothes, however, received us in his new home which is but partly built, regaled us with coffee and sweets, and talked for an hour or more about the history and beliefs of the Druses. These include the evolution of the human soul to the stature of perfected manhood by means of successive lives on earth under a compensatory Law of Cause and Effect. The founder of the Druse sect is referred to as an Adept who emerged as a Son of Light from Egypt some centuries ago and founded the Druse sect in Lebanon. There is a tradition that he still lives somewhere in secret in the mountains and bears the name of Hamsa, as we had learned from our studies.

Egypt

From Beirut we flew direct to Cairo where again we were met by members of the Theosophical Society, conducted to our hotel and later driven to all the places of historical interest. These included of course the Pyramids at Gizeh and Sakara, the Sphinx, Heliopolis, the Moquattam hills and the famous Mosque of a Thousands Lights at the Citadel towering above Cairo. We also saw much of the modem city, and took coffee in one or other of the famous restaurants at different times. Our hotel window and balcony looked directly over the Nile to other parts of the city, some of which were floodlit every evening, making a beautiful spectacle.

The Egyptian Government has arranged really magnificent entertainment at the Pyramids and the Citadel. These are called ‘Son et Lumiere’ (Sound and Light) and consist of floodlighting all the monuments in different colours whilst loud speakers tell the history of Egypt from the earliest days, English actors narrating the historical events.

After eight days we flew 400 miles southwards to Luxor where again our hotel window and balcony looked out over the Nile towards the distant cliffs of Thebes. Here again we visited temples and tombs, notably those of Kamak, Luxor, Essna, Edfu and those over on the west bank of the Nile, including Valley of the Kings and several tombs there into which we descended. Our evenings were made very pleasant by quiet sails up and down the Nile in feluccas with their triangular sails.

Greece

Then followed a week or so in Athens, with many visits to the Acropolis and Agora and special trips full of deep interest to Thebes, Delphi, Corinth, ancient and modem, and other sites of the Pelopennesus of early Greek history and culture. We spent some hours amidst the ruins at Eleusis, noting with special interest the Sacred Way from the Acropolis which the Initiates and populace of old used to tread at the annual celebrations.

Our next week was spent on board M.V. ‘Rhodos’, a large and comfortable ship which took us on an Aegean cruise of many of the Greek isles. These included Rhodes, Crete, Patmos, Delos and Mykonos. At this last we fed and played with famous Peter the Pelican who was discovered by a fisherman in one of the bays when quite a young bird, brought to Mykonos harbour where the people have adopted him and is a great tourist attraction, being a very quaint creature indeed.

We also landed at Budrun and visited the ruins of ancient Halicarnassus. At Patmos we visited the ancient monastery and grotto where St John is said to have written the Book of Revelation.

The Holy Land

At last we were obliged, not without much regret, to take leave of Greece and the Aegean Isles to spend some eight days in both the Jordan and Israel parts of the Holy Land. Here we visited as many as possible of the ancient Biblical sites referred to in both the Old and the New Testaments. We drove down to Kirbet Qmram and wandered amidst the ruins of the ancient Essene monastery where the Dead Sea scrolls were written. We also saw some of the caves in which they were hidden and recently discovered. At the Hebrew University in Israel we also saw many of the scrolls themselves at the ‘Shrine of the Scrolls’ in the Library of the University. Some time was spent with a Rabbi Kabbalist with whom it was most interesting to talk about this system of the Theosophy of the Hebrews, as it is called.

At last our visit to the Middle East drew to a close, and with goodbye to our many Theosophical and other friends there, we flew eastward, spending a long weekend in Bornbay to participate in the Annual Conference of the Bornbay Theosophical Federation of Lodges.

This account is being written in the upper floor of Olcott Bungalow, Adyar, in which I lived and conducted the School of the Wisdom on former visits. When this reaches you, we will have at last drawn our long, and wonderful tour to a close, and be gratefully home again in Auckland, New Zealand.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 26, No. 2, 1965, p. 34

13
Mystery Structures Point to Atlantis

Evidence has been advanced recently by oceanographers which supports the possible existence beneath the Atlantic Ocean of the ancient island of Atlantis. Jacques Cousteau also refers to discoveries on the floor of the Atlantic of evidences of the use of architecture in the construction of edifices.

Soviet oceanographers say they have discovered the lost continent of Atlantis on the seabed hundreds of kilometres west of Portugal.

The director of research on board the Soviet vessel Academician Kurchatov, Dr Andrei Monin, said scientists based their theory on mysterious structures seen in 460 photographs taken of sunken Ampere mountain, 720 kilometres west of the Straits of Gibraltar.

‘In a number of pictures of the north-eastern part of the summit, researchers discerned rectangular structures. On one of the photos, we can see rectangular plates almost one metre wide rising from the bottom’, the Tass News Agency quoted Dr Monin as writing in the Soviet magazine Earth and Universe.

‘The position of plates, individual blocks, as well as the regular shape of the plates photographed . . . may testify to their artificial origin’, he said.

Describing the stonework, he said its surface was divided with equal seams. The photographs revealed a stone wall 45.72 centimetres wide, made out of blocks.

‘On other photos, one can see a plate having a regular form and joining rectangular blocks. All the plates and walls can be clearly seen on the photos’, Dr Monin said.

Two years ago, Soviet scientists said a diving bell lowered from the Academician Kurchatov took eight photographs of Ampere, which showed vestiges of walls and stair ways similar to those described by Dr Monin.

The Soviet researchers cautiously theorized then that the ruins might be of Atlantis, the sunken continent referred to by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Plato’s works described; a highly developed civilization.

Dr Monin said his research ship made its most recent voyage to follow up similar evidence of Atlantis discovered in 1976 by the Soviet vessel Moscow University.

There are dozens of theories on the possible location of Atlantis and societies seeking to find it have formed in numerous countries and undertaken searches.

—[From the Auckland Star 4/4/81 ].

A study of this subject reveals that at least nineteen pieces of evidence exist which also support the existence of Atlantis. They are:

1. Dry Land Fossils have been brought up from the bed of the Atlantic.

2. The Dolphin Ridge, a plateau 9,000 feet above the ocean bed, extends from near the coast of Ireland to the coast line of South America near French Guiana.

3. Lava from this Plateau brought up by cable-laying vessels is demonstrably dry land lava erupted less than 15,000 years ago.

4. Mayan Literature contains flood and Genesis stories closely resembling those of Genesis, Egypt, India, Babylon and Chaldea.

5. Plato in The Timaeus tells that his great grandfather heard the description of Atlantis he gives from Solon, one of the wisest of the Ancient Greeks, who had it from an Egyptian Priest.

6. Egyptian Manuscripts, discovered by Dr Henry Schemann, discoverer of Troy, have convinced him that Atlantis existed. An expedition sent by a Pharoah was sent about 7,650 B.C. to seek traces of Motherland from whence Egyptians first came, but found no traces (Flood 10,000 B.C.).

7. A Papyrus found by Dr Schliemann, written by the priest-historian Manetho, gives reference to a period 13,900 years ago as the date of the Kings of Atlantis in Egypt.

8. Egyptian Civilisation has no root and no primitive period.

9. At Troy, Schliemann found an ‘owl vase’ bearing Phoenician hieroglyphics reading: ‘From King Chronos of Atlantis’. This peculiar owl vase was duplicated in a collection of objects from Tiahuanaco, South America.

10. Artifacts have been found in Honduras quite unlike any of Mayan or Inca origin. These are painted vases, figurines and flute-like musical instruments. Not a single object has its counterpart among Maya, Aztec or Toltec remains.

11. Pyramids, Monoliths and Semi-circles of stones like the Druid formations in England were found on the Island of Bonaco off South America.

The step pyramids of Egypt are duplicated in America.

12. In American Indian Languages there are over one hundred words that are similar to words of the same meaning in the Arabic and Greek languages.

The myths of Greece are repeated in Indian and Mayan tradition, e.g. that of Atlas.

13. The Close Correspondence between the flora of the Southern U.S.A. and that of Europe.

14. Lemmings Suicidally Migrate westwards, presumably in response to inherited instinct, to seek an ancient continent once existing but now submerged.

15. The Monk Seal does not frequent the open ocean. It is to be found in the Mediterranean and the West Indies.

16. Certain Ants are found in the Azores and U.S.A.

17. Moths & Butterflies of the Canary Islands are identical with those of America. None of these could cross the Atlantic.

18. Basque (Spain) Language has no affinity with other European languages but resembles aboriginal tongues of America in grammatical structure.

19. Cro-Magnon Skulls found in France resemble those found in Logoa Santa in Brazil.

These cannot all be coincidences.

There must have been a land connection.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 42, No. 3, 1981, p. 59

14
Reincarnation and Genius

(A broadcast interview between Grisha Goluboff, the famous boy violinist, and Geoffrey Hodson — Station 2GB, Sydney, Australia.)

G.H.: At what age did you know that music was your vocation?

G.G.: I cannot actually say. But it is interesting that my father, also a violinist, even before his marriage conceived of having a son who would be free of his keenly felt limitations as a musician, would succeed as a great violinist and so fulfil his musical ideal. Later he married, I was born, and at two years old was found making different notes from various household utensils by filling them with water to different levels.

At the age of three my father found me handling his violin, and this reminded him of his prayer.

Unable to find a small enough instrument for me at that age, he had to wait until I was five years old, when he gave me my first violin and began to teach me.

Six months afterwards I made my first public appearance and at the age of six I appeared professionally as a guest artist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Then I knew that music was my life’s mission.

G.H.: Since the average boy at that age is thinking largely of objective life, games, home, parents, friends, and perhaps adventure stories, how do you account for this difference between your self and them?

G.G.: I must be honest and say that at that early age and up to today I have always wanted all the fun that other boys enjoyed. But my father encouraged me to work hard at the violin and as a result I discovered what music really means to me and to the world. Looking back I now see that a deep love of music was inborn in me.

G.H.: And when did you become interested in mysticism and philosophy?

G.G.: When I was about eight years old. I met a friend who was a Theosophist and through him my interest developed. Very soon I intuitively knew that oriental philosophy was in no way strange to me; its basic ideas rang true to me and in some way seemed quite familiar.

G.H.: Which aspects of philosophy attract you most: Do you like the intellectual solution of life’s problems; or do you feel the fascination of the occult, or both?

G.G.: I like both. The philosophical explanation of life as a great school with experience as the teacher of the soul interests me greatly, and I am attracted equally towards occult science. But may I ask you a question, Mr Hodson?

G.H.: Certainly. What is it?

G.G.: What would your explanation be of this keen interest of mine when young in music and in philosophy? Whence came my natural facility for the violin? I wonder if you think as I do about this!

G.H.: I have been able to find only one rational explanation — only one that completely solves the problem. It is that of reincarnation — that in your preceding lives, you have concentrated upon the art of music. In consequence you reached a high degree of skill in your chosen art.

Now such faculties once developed are never lost to the soul, and though they may not show themselves in every succeeding life, they are within one as innate powers.

In you, as in all people born with natural gifts, all men and women of genius, these developed powers show themselves both as a profound interest in the chosen subject and as special gifts in its pursuit. Actually the word ‘gift’ is philosophically unsound. All so called gifts, all natural capacities, are powers developed by the individual himself in preceding incarnations.

Do you believe that?

G.G.: I certainly do. For me it is the only logical explanation of special faculty. Heredity alone is for me not sufficient. Parents may provide the body with musical possibilities, but their development and full manifestation is only possible to those in whom the spirit of beauty is awake and who have gained the power to give it free expression.

That power, especially when manifest in young and untrained people, must have been developed in a preceding life.

G.H.: That is what I also have come to think.

Do you find that the occult plays any part in your art? Are you conscious of being uplifted to high levels of creative consciousness during a performance of great works?

G.G.: Definitely yes. My body is to my spirit what my violin is to me — an instrument for self-expression.

I know that the best performance is the impersonal performance. For then I pose no barriers of self to the pure expression of the spirit of beauty. I also know that under such conditions its power will reach my audience, and awaken in them the spirit of beauty which is in all of us.

Money, fame, power, these have no interest for me. I know that if I fall under their spell, such powers as I may have will fail of their highest expression and purpose.

G.H.: What is your purpose? What is your ideal of life, if that question is not too personal?

G.G.: My purpose is best expressed in this letter which I received from a young boy in Melbourne. (Here Mr Goluboff read part of a letter from a boy greatly inspired by his playing.)

If I can thus inspire one soul in each city which I visit, my mission will be fulfilled.

Through music I want to bring beauty to the world. I want to uplift my audiences to realization of the divine within themselves and all things — which for me is expressed as music.

If people can be awakened to this presence of God within us all, they will not be so much absorbed in purely material interests. They will then become conscious of their own divine nature. Then war would be impossible. Peace, harmony, love would prevail throughout the world.

G.H.: Thank you Mr Goluboff. You have indeed shown us a most noble ideal of life. You have already won success in Australia. May success continue to attend you everywhere. Good evening.

G.G.: Good evening, Mr Hodson.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, June 1939

The Theosophist, Vol. 61, September 1940, p. 457

15
The Triple Self

The Self as Will is stable, strong and true
As tempered steel is flawless through and through.
To high emprise, to deeds and word inspired;
Lifts those who in its flame are fired.

The Self as Love is radiant like the sun
Shining on all alike, excluding none.
Not by destruction does it gain its ends;
Enemies, by love, are turned to friends.

The Self as Mind is brilliant, corruscates,
Speaks with tongues, to genius elevates.
The intellect, receptive to its light,
And thus illumines the darkness of earth’s night.

Find thou the Self as pilot of thy bark,
That fire and love and genius may mark
Thy passage o’er life’s dark and stormy sea;
Know that thou art the Self, the Self is thee.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 2 April 1937, p. 4

16
The Black Magician and the Master

An Allegory

A black magician formed himself into a mighty bow, of which his spine and its super-physical extension above his head was the ‘string’. The anterior surface of his aura, temporarily hardened, was the bow. He did not draw back the ‘string’ to shoot, but pushed forward the bow.

His aura was almost filled with arrows pointed outward all around him. The black points were sharp, the red shafts barbed. He looked very evil as from time to time he paused in his shooting, mentally to constrict new arrows and to blacken their points with pitchlike substance from a portion of his aura.

His method of shooting was very strange. He fitted the arrows to the string where it passed through the middle of his head, so that the shafts protruded between his eyes. He fixed his thought upon the target a look of concentrated cruelty and evil appeared upon his face, and then the arrow sped.

His targets were human hearts and minds. Now some quite humble man, temporarily proud or bitter, received an arrow into his head, whereupon his pride or bitterness increased a hundredfold. Now one in deep grief received a shaft, whereupon his grief turned to rebellion and he cursed his God. A statesman, wrestling with great problems, received a wound, and as he sought solution, selfishness and greed, pride of place, desire for power marred the clarity of his vision. A dictator became the target for the poisoned missile, and he too sought self-aggrandizement, felt the temptation of power, forgot his country’s welfare in his own ambition.

A scientist, truly hit, felt exulting pride and self-gratulation in his discoveries, blinding himself to the light of intuition. A man dwelling in thought on sensual experience was struck; his craving was intensified, and aflame with passion, he succumbed. A woman, faced with poverty and conscious of great desire for luxury and pleasure next was wounded. Though loving virtue, she was temporarily blinded to it and sold herself for gold. A thief on the threshold of reform, struck by the devil’s arrow, turned once more to crime.

Thus the black magician laboured with fiendish joy, rejoicing at every hit and every fall, jeering mentally at the weakness in his victims, in each of whom existed the possibility of the error into which they fell.

The sight became unbearable, yet the monster was so strong in wickedness that I saw no way of either hindering or persuading him to cease. I thought of the Masters of the White Power and Their arrows of blessing and of love.

A Master of Light appeared before the dark bowman. I did not hear the Master’s words, but I saw Him very stem, yet not unkind.

Gradually the black magician was changed. His zest for evil disappeared. He looked down at his arrows, examined them and said: ‘I can shoot no more, my arrows have lost their point’.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 3 June 1938, p. 27

17
‘Th’ Eternal Fountaine’

The beautiful words of my title are taken from the English poet, Spenser, who coined the phrase. In old English script and spelling, his words are carved round the dome of the central hall at the Royal Academy at Burlington House, London. The full quotation as it is carved is

“The hearts of men, which fondly here admyre

Fair seeming selves,

May lift themselves up hyer

And learn to love, with zealous humble dewty,

Th’ Eternal Fountaine of the heavenly Beauty”.

Very appropriate are these beautiful words, especially for those who, visiting the Academy, seek to penetrate beyond the various works of art there displayed to that indefinable quality to which we give the name of Beauty.

How elusive beauty is! Bacon truly said: ‘The best part of beauty is what a picture cannot express’ and Shakespeare: ‘Beauty itself doth persuade the eyes of men with out an orator’. Th’ Eternal Fountaine is Beauty itself, and he who drinks thereat is the lover of beauty, he who has learnt to love and reverence ‘the principle of beauty in all things’ (Keats). From this Fountaine and from its life giving and ever-rising stream, the modem world has strayed into the wild desert of ugliness and crudity.

All-important to the progress of the race is a return to the love and pursuit of the beautiful by modem man. Deep though the descent into ugliness, crudity, sensuality and the frank commercialization of art, a return to true beauty and the accentuation of all that is refined in the arts is still far from being impossible. This is demonstrated by the fact that the great artist in any branch of the arts is generally assured of large audiences.

I wonder if any of my readers have ever had the experience of changing from non-appreciation of an art form to his deep enjoyment, from repugnance, produced by the grotesque and the strange, to appreciation? I have had that experience and would like to describe it to you.

On a visit to India I once encountered a very strange figure of a man, a young Indian, probably about eighteen years old, who was travelling alone about India as Holy Men do. But he was no orthodox sannyasi. He was a public dancer, and he told me that his self-chosen mission was to revive the ancient classical Dravidian dance of India.

The personality of this man was somewhat repellent to me. He seemed effeminate, with a rather sensual face. His dancer’s dress was ugly to western eyes. For the dance, his face was heavily ‘made-up’. He had painted finger nails, and toe nails, wore many rings, armlets, bangles, necklaces, anklets, hair ornaments, and a leopard’s skin. His hair was long and dressed like a woman’s. He was a weird figure indeed. Although physically I felt averse to him, I was drawn by his sense of a mission and by his dedication to that mission, He had been invited to dance for us, and I took him to my room and asked if I might watch his preparations. He put on his ornaments and his ‘make-up’, until he resembled an animated statue from some old jungle-hidden temple.

Then he danced. Indian dancing consists far more of posture than of free movement in space. Yet the whole body seems to participate. Every finger, each toe, arms, legs, and the head upon the neck, all these move strangely, often grotesquely to occidental eyes, in the Indian dance, and especially in its Dravidian form.

As part of his performance, this man assumed a series of very difficult postures calling for wonderful balance and co-ordination of mind and muscle, the whole being extraordinarily fluidic. As I watched both posture and dance, I was at first repelled. Then, quite suddenly for me the whole performance changed, and came to life. I began to realize the purpose and meaning of this strange and ancient art. I saw that the dancer was portraying a great fundamental process, the process of the creation, involution, evolution, perfection and final disappearance of the universe.

The dance began in an ecstasy which seemed almost overcome the dancer; for he represented Brahma, the Creative Lord of All, in the beginning when ‘The Word was with God and the Word was God’, when all was heavenly bliss and peace. Then was portrayed the uttering of the Creative Word, the sending out of Creative Power and the great outpouring of the Divine Life and Consciousness into matter. Gradually the movements became more subdued, more difficult. The figure slowly sank to his knees and at last lay prone, as if almost lifeless, on the stage. Faintly the theme movements continued, until at last there followed a period of complete quiescence representing the deepest entombment of spirit in matter, the temporary mastery by form of consciousness and life. The dancer then began to stir. As if with great effort, he rose from his knees, gradually his facial expression, which had been severe, changed to a smile. His movements became freer. The dance grew more and more vivacious until it culminated in a returned to the laughing ecstasy of the beginning. This was the divine victory and coronation, the great cycle’s close.

I have seen many works of art, have been uplifted by many art forms in different parts of the world, but that dance by a Dravidian dancer gave me an ecstasy of a kind that I had not hitherto enjoyed, I realized his limitations, but I also realized for the first time what was behind all sacred dancing. The personality of the performer disappeared. Cosmic Truth and Beauty were revealed.

Back in my room to change, the dancer asked: ‘How did you like it?’ I told him what I had seen and known. He said ‘You are right. You see why seven bangles are on my wrists and ankles, why seven of these ornaments are in my hair; for seven is the ruling number. Every part of the dress, like every movement of the body, is symbolical’. Probably it was very poor art, and he but a third rate artist. Perhaps he was an unworthy individual. I did not presume to judge, for I saw that this man had dedicated his life to a great ideal, to the task of revealing a spiritual message through the medium of an ancient art. He said he was touring

India earning his living and his travelling expenses by this dance. He was visiting ancient shrines, studying ancient sculptures, and discovering from them the correct classical postures. And this was his religion, this his life. Later I watched him depart and join the motley multitude upon the Indian road. Eventually the distance and the throng absorbed him. Veritably he followed his light and pursued his quest, and I was profoundly grateful to him both for his art and for my enlightenment. I saw how utterly blind had been my first judgement, how actually every part of the dance conveyed a spiritual truth, every ornament held a symbolical meaning — all arranged in sevens as they were.

Shortly afterwards I had the great privilege of seeing, also for the first time, another Indian dance performed by a perfect artist, one whose thought and will extended into the actual levels of consciousness involved. This dancer undoubtedly had power, beauty, genius. In a perfect performance of the classical temple dance of India, I saw all and far more than the male dancer was trying to perform in the Dravidian tradition. This dance was performed, and is still being performed by Rukmini Devi, who has dedicated her talents to the preservation of the classical art known as the Nataraj, the kingly dance of the Kingly Dancer, who is the Supreme Lord of All, and to its restoration as one of the sacred art forms which preserves and reveals the Divine Wisdom to India and to the world.

As one watches this utterly dedicated Indian dancing, which originally was only performed in temples and with a sacred purpose by consecrated dancers, one realizes how close to each other are heaven and earth. One appreciates the Truth of the old philosophical doctrine, one of the oldest in the world, of the Macrocosm and the microcosm, the great world and the little world. The universe with its indwelling Divine Life is the Macrocosm. The human body with the Divine Life also within it is the microcosm, and these are not two Divinities, but one. The whole human body has therefore a deep symbolical significance, and its several parts represent and are in resonance with great spiritual powers and truths.

The process of the creation of a universe is seen as a dance. The human figure in the sacred Indian dance represents the Creator, reproduces by its movements, by the motions of the fingers, hands and arms, the head and the whole form, the birth and evolution of both

Macrocosm and microcosm. All these complex movements can and do portray spiritual truths and release mighty powers, and this, I believe, is part of the spiritual aspect of all Indian art, and especially of the sacred dance.

To us in the West it is rather a strange idea that God is a Divine Dancer and that all this visible universe, in perpetual motion from the smallest atom to the largest Solar System is really part of the movement of the One Great Dancer. The drift of universes through space, the spinning of planets on their orbits round the sun, the drifting clouds the waving trees, pulsing hearts, all in breathing and out breathing and the motion of all beings, are all part of the, rhythmic movement of the One Being, part of one great cosmic creative dance through which immortal beauty is ever revealed,

Most men have fleeting glimpses of that heaven with which earth is ‘crammed’. Great artists know it well. Beethoven wrote: ‘In the country it is as if every tree said to me “Holy, Holy”.’ Browning said ‘Earth’s crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God, but only he who sees takes off his shoes’. Listen also to Francis Thompson:

Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven,
So ready is Heaven to stoop to him.

The angels keep their ancient places.
Turn hut a stone and start a wing.
T’is ye! T’is, your estranged faces
That miss the many-splendoured thing.

And Rousseau: ‘I have always believed that God is only beauty put into action’.

When once the vision dawns, all that was beautiful before seems more divinely beautiful than one had ever dreamed. Once the divine vision has been enjoyed, the physical senses are quickened. Music is more beautiful, colour is more vivid. All the world is more wonderful. Tennyson revealed this quickening power of the inward vision in these words:

Let no one ask me how it came to pass.

It seems that I am happy, that to me

A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass,

A purer sapphire melts into the sea.

In these days when we are forced to dwell in a world in which spiritual beauty and demoniacal ugliness dwell side by side, we cannot but ask ourselves — what can lovers of God, lovers of beauty, lovers of their fellow-men, do to help the great cause of the beautiful? How can the vision splendid be brought to man, and so save him from that devil whose name is ugliness?

Can this great ministry be performed through the medium of the arts? Yes, indeed, if that is one’s way, but also, and more surely, through the art of life itself. How, then, must we proceed? What is behind and within the achievement of every great artist? One word alone seems to answer that question. It is experience, for without interior experience of God as Beauty, lacking that vision within the soul, none can succeed greatly in bringing beauty to the world. First, then, we ourselves must find and drink at Th’ Eternal Fountaine. Then can we quench the thirst of others, then lead them to beauty’s source that they may drink thereat.

What, then, is beauty? We do not know. Where is it? Everywhere, one says, but that does not always help in its discovery. ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, it is also said suggesting that, beauty is of the Inner Self and its perception an interior experience. Beauty is indeed an aspect the Divine, which is thus revealed not only as a Trinity but as a Quaternary — God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, and God the Beautiful. It would seem that He who is above every name, beyond and yet within all form, must indeed be fourfold, shining as Divine Will, Divine Wisdom, Divine Intelligence, and Divine Beauty. The true artist, then, is he who having discovered within himself the Divine Power, as Love, as Fire, and as Beauty, with the eyes of the God-Self sees the four-fold God in every form. Once having seen, he needs must portray his vision through thought, through word, and through deed. Life then becomes the practice of an art.

The Theosophist, Vol. 69, November 1947, p. 123

18
Spiritualism

The chief purpose for which the modem spiritualist movement was brought into existence by the Masters was to challenge the scientific materialism of the nineteenth century. The phenomena of spiritualism constitute primarily a subject to be investigated scientifically, and secondarily a gateway from materialism to philosophy. For very few people, however, does the movement serve in this dual capacity. Millions of spiritualists refuse to use it either as a subject for research or as a way to comprehension of the profound truths of esoteric philosophy and religion. Apparently they prefer to remain in the gateway, interested only in the recurrent phenomena which may be thought of as the gateposts and the gate.

It would also appear that a great evil has crept in. I refer to commercialization, because of which the whole science has so deteriorated as to become in the main intellectually negligible. Two particular dangers beset every professional medium. One is the appeal to vanity — the desire to be looked up to and the other is desire for financial gain. Either of these is sufficient to reduce greatly the quality, the accuracy and the range of spiritual perception. To the great quest of spiritual vision, wisdom and power, the Spiritualist Movement and all spiritualists by their very name originally were called. Many splendid workers have loyally abided by the original ideals. The great majority, one fears, have not entirely succeeded in doing so.

What of those who approach mediums and attend spiritualistic seances and services? For the most part their motives are perfectly natural and good — the desire for knowledge of the hereafter and for contact with their beloved dead. A great service is being rendered to tens of thousands of people in the gratification of these two desires, and for this the world owes a debt of gratitude to the Spiritualist Movement. Its wonderful message of the immortality of the soul of man has the power to render the greatest possible service to the whole of Western humanity. But certain basic changes in spiritualist practice would seem to be necessary before this can be achieved.

Man needs to be taught how to control the powers of his own mind, emotion and body, not how to submit them to the control of another. He needs to be shown the way to his own interior light, to discover the Divine Truth which lies within the inner heart of every human being; he should not be encouraged constantly to depend upon others, even though invisible, for the guidance he needs. The Spiritualist Movement needs greatly to be spiritualised; and its leaders and workers throughout the world need to catch a glimpse both of the supreme spiritual value of the truth they have discovered and the responsibility laid upon them for its delivery to the world unsoiled by commercialization and untainted by unhealthy and not to say dangerous psychic practices.

The Theosophist, Vol. 59, September 1938, p. 516

19
Through the Passage: A Dream

This story has no special message to deliver, nor does it point to any moral. It is simply a record of a vivid experience of self-consciousness out of the body.

I dreamt that after putting my car in a garage, I saw a mechanic at a bench and a narrow passage in one comer with a stout chain across. I asked the mechanic whether it were possible to pass through. He said that it was, but it was very difficult, that it was not always easy to return, and that some who passed failed to do so. I pushed hard against the chain which slowly passed through me, and squeezing through the passage which was narrow and dark, I suddenly found myself in a large, light, airy room resembling an artist’s studio and conveying a suggestion of restful beauty.

On low seats a group of men and women occupied the centre of the room. Their grouping, distinctly sculptural, the colours of their clothes, and a certain poised immobility, though all quite natural, somehow suggested living statuary.

I joined them and immediately experienced a close and happy intimacy of thought and feeling with them all. Gradually I fell into a state of profound calm, still peace, perfect equipoise, which pervaded the whole subsequent experience and remains as a lasting impression.

Our auras were visible and tangible, much as are clothes on the physical plane. They consisted of steady, rhythmically flowing streams of force, all in colour, emanating from our bodies, the different colours being determined by and expressive of, primarily, our inner nature, our real character, and secondarily, of our interchanged thoughts and feelings. These last, though transient, were deep, calm and clear.

Auric blending occurred continually, producing the sense of intimate friendship, perfect understanding, close inner harmony.

For a time no one moved, no one spoke, yet the companionship was rich, full and completely satisfying. Different though we all were, we were perfectly blended, completely at one.

On my right was a lady of great beauty of character, of face and of aura. We had ‘conversed’ for a time when I observed a change in her; the facial expression became vacant, the form began to fade. My attention, thus drawn more definitely to her brought us into closer rapport and I heard the ringing of a bell. Through unity with her consciousness I saw a room on the physical plane as if far away below us. Her body was in bed and an alarm clock was ringing. Mentally I said to her: ‘It is eight o’clock and you will have to go back’. Almost as I spoke she disappeared.

Then it was that I realized that I was out of the body in full consciousness as were the rest of the group.

Some interchange of thought on the subject occurred, cantering chiefly round the possibility of using the passage at will.

I then moved over to the window and looked out. The studio proved to be on the first floor of an extension into a garden of the house which was one of a row. The others, which had no such extensions, were pretty houses each with its own flower filled garden, and I could see the brass number plate on each door; the next door was number 9 and presumably the studio was part of number 10.

At this point I was awakened by a noise in my bedroom and remembered the whole of the above distinctly, being especially interested in my self-conscious absence from the body. I passed the dream in review, could still feel the deep peace and poise, and then decided to find my way through the passage again. I visualized the garage, saw mentally the walls and the chain, pressed on and instantly I was asleep. This time I ‘awoke’ in the garden of the same house, fully conscious of the whole previous experience as of the physical interlude.

The garden, as were all the others, was full of flowers, all very beautiful and glowing slightly. I do not remember any fragrance, nor could I recognize varieties. White seemed to predominate and the general effect was of well-planned profusion.

Looking across the nine other gardens — I do not remember the opposite direction — I saw an open village green, with lovely old fashioned but new-looking houses on the far side. These were mostly of half-timbered Elizabethan architecture, though some were in the medieval German style. I remember noting the different kinds of architecture with interest and admiring the general effect.

The whole district was brightly and clearly lighted as if by the sun, and everything looked fresh and new. A sense of perfection, wonderfully satisfying; was conveyed, and this referred not only to the houses and gardens but to the life as well.

Then I saw people in the nearby gardens. One, a middle-aged man with white hair and drooping white moustache, was reading a book.

When I spoke he bent closer over his book as if to concentrate against my thought. I asked him mentally how he came there, if he used the passage and could come and go at will. He bent lower still over his book as if slightly embarrassed, and then I realized that he was deceased and could go back no more.

After this I remember little more, nor has the experience re-occurred, though an attempt to re-enter the passage has more than once sent me to sleep.

The Theosophist, Vol. 60, May 1939, p. 159

20
Commentaries: Touring Australia and the Middle East

Australia

As is presumably well known, our tour began with visits to the five main cities of Australia, and culminated there with attendance at the Annual Convention held at Perth. The wise and gracious leadership of the new General Secretary, Miss Ruth Beringer, the enthusiasm of all present, and the attendance and vital interest of many Young Theosophists contributed to a very happy and inspiring Convention. Valued opportunities to record a number of broadcasts became available in Sydney and Melbourne, whilst in addition almost all talks were tape-recorded, copies being generously made available to the New Zealand Section. Active Youth Groups were addressed by us both and the importance of this activity was found to be clearly recognized in Australia, as it is in New Zealand.

Our visit to Adelaide coincided with the city’s Festival of the Arts, in which Rukmini Devi Arundale and a number of dancers from Kalakshetra had been invited to participate. We were able to attend one of their performances, given before a large and most appreciative audience. Later we met the whole party at an al fresco luncheon in the garden of an Adelaide member. We were also able to witness the first performance of the beautiful new ballet, Raimonda, presented by the Australian Ballet Company.

India

At Adyar we became members of a large New Zealand group, being especially happy to meet again and find most helpfully busy, Miss Clarice Gregory, Mr and Mrs Stuart Nicholls and Miss Daphne Darroch. Lectures were delivered in Adyar, richly beautiful with flowering trees and plants and as always seeming to be charged with spiritual power. At Bornbay, our next port of call after Adyar, two Public Lectures were delivered and a visit made to the Theosophical seaside colony at Juhu. Gracious hospitality was there received and a rehearsal witnessed of a dramatization of incidents in the life of the Lord Buddha, written and presented by Miss Jer Nussawallah, artist, playwright and Round Table Leader.

In both Australia and India, particularly at Convention and two Indian Federation gatherings, we were privileged to convey, as requested, the greetings of the New Zealand Section and to hear and deeply feel the happy response from everyone present. This is a continual experience wherever we go, proving that indeed we members of the Theosophical Society are as one large family.

Israel

Our plane carried us through the night from Bornbay to Israel, where we landed before dawn. A little later, standing on the balcony of our hotel room in Jerusalem, we watched the rising of the sun over the Mount of Olives and the gradual emergence from the shadows of the old City with its cupolas, towers and ancient walls. The tragic dividedness of the States of Jordan and Israel was dramatically illustrated by a visit to the bornb scarred area of the no-man’s-land between the two countries.

In addition to lectures and many fruitful discussions with both old and young members, visits were made to Biblical sites, one being to Ein Kerim, traditional birthplace of John the Baptist, where the Mother of Jesus presented her Child to the parents of John. This old village, like many others, seemed still to be pervaded with the influence of the events of those days of long ago.

The splendid new Hebrew University, the remarkable Museum with the special display of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the building known as the Shrine of the Book and the large (unfortunately) new hospital outside Jerusalem were also visited, whilst throughout our tour the successful irrigation, cultivation and afforestation of the hitherto arid land demonstrated the devotion, skill and enterprise of the immigrants. At long last many of them have found a homeland of their own, after some two thousand tragic years of suffering in exile.

A drive of two days included examination of the excavations at the ancient city of Meggido (Armageddon), scene of so much fighting throughout the centuries preceding the Christian era. Thereafter we drove on to the village of Cana where Jesus turned water into wine. We strolled through the streets of the old town mentally envisaging the miracle at the Wedding Feast of Cana. Thence we journeyed to Tiberias, where a night was spent, the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum, the Mount of the Beatitudes and Nazareth. These are blessed regions of the Earth, one feels, part of a truly Holy Land, consecrated long ago by the presence and wondrous works of the Teacher of Angels and of Men. The Gospel story comes to life as one slowly and quietly wanders through the countryside so little changed since those ancient days.

As students of Kabbalism, we were much interested to visit the tomb of Rabbi Simeon Ben Yochai, reputed author of Zohar, ‘The Book of Splendour’ and also the great cave in which he traditionally dictated to his son, Eliazar, that famous kabbalistic treatise. Nearby is the City of Safed, and other caves. To this City a number of European Kabbalists withdrew in the Middle Ages and there formed a centre for the study and practice of this deeply esoteric wisdom, sometimes called the Theosophy of the Hebrews.

Our drive then took us to the sea coast cities. First came Acre, headquarters of the Crusaders, where descent into a recently excavated very large hall or crypt beneath the old castle vividly brought to mind the presence and life of those who attempted to rescue the Holy City from the Saracens. Our car then took us on to Caesaraea Phillipi, Mount Carmel, and further south to Tel Aviv and our airport Hotel in Lidda or Lud, where some occult traditions state that Jesus was born.

A World Academy of Art and Science

An account of our visit to the Holy Land would be incomplete without a reference to our meeting with the founder of the World Academy of Art and Science, Dr Hugo N. Boyko, present President and Honorary Secretary-General of the Academy. This remarkable movement became formulated after a Press conference in Jerusalem on the 24th of December, 1960. Forty Charter Members, all scientists well known the world over and living in many countries, presented a Declaration that the World Academy of Art and Science had been created to serve as a forum for distinguished scholars and artists. A stated objective is to discuss the vital problems of mankind, independent of political boundaries or limits, whether spiritual or physical. Already this promise is being fulfilled by the establishment of close scientific co-operation, not bound by geographical limitations of any kind. Thus a world wide network of co-operative Universities, becoming increasingly close-knit, is in process of formation. Dr Boyko kindly received us in his beautiful home in Rehovot, Israel and talked to us of the inception, formation, development and future activities of the great movement, for the existence of which he himself has been largely responsible. In making possible this visit to Dr Boyko, as on so many other occasions in Israel, the Presidential Agent, Mr Hans Zeuger, was the ever kind and helpful guide and friend.

Greece

Athens, Delphi, Eleusis, Corinth and Cape Sounion were all pleasurably and instructively revisited. An account of these historic places and of our earlier travels in this beautiful and historic land of Hellas has already appeared in this magazine. One new experience included a drive into a beautiful valley leading deeply into a ravine on the slopes of Mount Hymettus, traditional home of the gods of Ancient Greece. Here we found the well-preserved remains of a monastery which had long ago been built upon an ancient Greek temple, parts of which are visible today under the cypress and other trees, and amidst many beautiful and fragrant flowers. The place is now called Kaiseriana, and is still a place of peace and beauty to which those who know of it can retreat for a time from the noise and bustle of the modem world.

In Greece, also, the past still seems to live, especially where the ancient shrines and temples existed, notably Delphi, the Acropolis and of course, Eleusis, centre of the famous Mysteries — the Eleusinia. As ever, the Parthenon constantly drew us and much time was spent wandering and meditating amidst the noble remains of the splendid temples which were the scene of so much that has been called ‘the glory that was Greece’.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 27, No. 3, 1966, p. 82

21
Travel Notes

EGYPT

I will share with the readers of The Theosophist some of the experiences that I have passed through. At this moment I confess that a big part of me is in Egypt, where I was a few weeks ago. It was full moon. I had arrived at Luxor and in the evening was walking along the banks of the sacred River Nile and close to the great columns of the Temple at Luxor. It was a wonderful experience — the bright, full moon, the pillars reflected in the waters of the Nile, the stillness, one or two feluccas with their white, triangular sails lit up by the brilliant moonlight, and the strange and wondrous past all about me. I seemed to slip back into those days and Egypt was now a familiar land.

For four days I visited Luxor and Kamak, crossed the Nile into ancient Thebes, passed along the Valley of the Kings where no less than 65 tombs of the ancient Pharaohs of Egypt had been opened and explored. Archaeological work is going on quite vigorously in Egypt. Archaeologists are not only seeking for new discoveries, but by collecting parts of the ruins and piecing them together again, they are reconstructing as much as possible of the Temples, tombs and Pyramids. The great Mortuary Temple at Thebes of Queen Hatshepsut, the Elizabeth I of Egypt, is being rebuilt and comparing it as I saw it then with early photographs which I have studied, I was astonished to see how successfully it was being restored.

It was wonderful to walk amongst these ruins and see the paintings, the colouring of which is as brilliant in many places as on the day on which it was done. This is especially true of the deep tombs where no light and very little air have penetrated. I visited the tombs of Seti I, Rameses VI, and Tutankhamen, and entered the galleries and the chambers built for the funerary articles, the foods and the treasures, as also for the great sarcophagi wherein the Kings’ mummies have lain. The hundreds of yards of walls and ceilings are all beautifully decorated in low or high relief, and some of them covered with wonderful paintings.

While the glory has obviously departed and it is a dead world, from some 3,000 to 6,000 years old, nevertheless in certain places — particularly the ‘Holy of Holies’ as they are called in the guide-books—I was struck by a sense of power, and even of Presences, where an altar still stood and ceremonials had been performed. These sacred rites are depicted on the walls and ceilings of the Temples, and the old vibrant hierophantic power seemed to be established for all time in the very rock itself. So, while in the main, ancient Egypt has gone, some of the power of the Egyptian Mysteries can, I think, still be felt.

At Kamak where, as you doubtless know, there is the finest ancient Temple, perhaps in the world, certainly in Egypt, the ruins are reflected in the Sacred Lake. I was fortunate to be there in the morning when the sun was behind me, there was no wind, and the great ruins, the fluted columns and ruined gateways, the pylons and the obelisks, were beautifully reflected in the waters of the lake. I observed, whilst studying the ancient monuments and arts of Egypt, that not anywhere throughout the whole vast region of temples and tombs and statuary and pyramids — not in any single place amongst them — does the name of the artist appear. No artist signed his name in Egypt. Only the name of the King is there. I took the lesson to heart and will try to remember that all our Theosophical work should bear, not the impress of the worker, but the sign and the power of the King.

‘Life Does Not Make Sense’

Throughout all my travels, one conviction has become deeper and deeper. It is that the whole world of mankind, whether consciously or unconsciously, is hungering for Theosophy and its power to bring logic into human life. How often, when talking to people, did I hear the cry; ‘Life does not make sense! ’ ‘There is no sense in life’, people say, and no wonder, for humanity is continually, decimated by floods, famines, pestilence, diseases and wars, whilst in addition a third world war is hanging over our heads like a sword of Damocles. Everywhere I encountered confusion of mind and doubt deepening to cynicism. When, however, Theosophy is discovered and accepted, people are able to say ‘At last life makes sense for me’ — and indeed, it is so.

The work of the Theosophical Society seems, therefore, to be abundantly clear. It is to make Theosophy available in as practical and acceptable a form as possible to the vast millions of mankind. I have come home more than ever convinced that our most useful contribution to world progress and human happiness consists of the plain, lucid, undiluted presentation of fundamental Theosophical teachings, without which life does not make sense, and their practical and flexible application to the problems of human life.

Adyar, the Masters’ Home

Of Adyar what shall I say, as it is so well known to Theosophists? Olcott Bungalow, in which I live and where, the School of the Wisdom meets, is a lovely two-storeyed house near to the sea. One gets any breeze there may be and the temperature there is generally five degrees lower than in other parts of the compound. Practically all the year round, Adyar is a blaze of colour. The flowering trees, shrubs and plants are in full bloom, adding their glory and beauty to the inner power and the Presences which undoubtedly are here. On the roof at Headquarters there is a framed card on which is written; ‘Work for Adyar; the Masters’ Home’; and I often find myself wondering what exactly is meant by the second phrase. Of course, Adyar is not the Masters’ home in the accepted sense of the word. They do not live here physically, but one does not have to be here very long before one discovers that there are two Adyars, the outer, physical Adyar, and its extensions — the fourth-dimensional Adyar, if you like — and the latter is the Masters’ home. Their Power and Their Blessing are noticeably both present and radiating upon the world. Our Movement is, I personally believe, Adept founded, Adept inspired, Adept vivified, but not Adept directed. The direction is human. Human, therefore are the errors and the limitations of the Movement. The inspiration and the wisdom, I feel, come from on high. We know that a number of the Great Ones assisted at the founding of the Theosophical

Society and visited Adyar in both Their physical and superphysical bodies. The original portraits painted by Schmiechen are here as channels for Their power and Their magnetism.

The Heart of India

As one lives in India, tries to touch her Soul and to absorb her wisdom, one finds, I think, a central thought, which is what might be called the doctrine of the Self, of the Spiritual Soul of the Universe and of Man. This, I believe, is the heart of Indian thought, that at the centre of all life and in the heart of all beings there is One Alone, One Spirit, One Presence, One Power, ‘The Inner Ruler Immortal, seated in the heart of all beings’. This is the Atman, the Innermost, the Highest Spiritual Self of the universe and man, and the supreme human objective is to discover first the Atma within oneself and then its unity and identity with the Atman in all. Thus the Yogi affirms; ‘The Self in me is one with the Self in all. I am that Self. That Self am I. The Atma and the Paramatman are one. I am That, That am I’. That seems to me to be the tremendous, dynamism and power at the heart of India and so it is said of the Yogi; ‘He peels the sheaths from the Atma, one by one’. The idea, is to disassociate consciousness from body, emotions and mind, from all that is unreal and temporary, and then find that which is eternal. This is the reality. All else is illusion, maya. Everything which is not eternal is illusion — and the great search is for the Real, for that which is universal, omnipresent, for ever free, the eternal Self. Indian philosophy approaches all problems from the centre within the universe and man. Everything is looked at from within, from the point of view of the Divine Centre, whilst we of the West rather tend to make observations from without and deductions from what we see. Our Theosophical Society is valuable because its teachings blend these two approaches.

Developments in Modern Thought

Whilst in Europe, I availed myself of opportunities to contact directly those who are carrying out investigations into the finer forces of Nature and the hidden powers in man.

There are three developments in modem thought which can be used to great advantage in the promulgation of Theosophy. They are first, the affirmation of belief by certain scientists in a Universal,

Directive Intelligence in Nature, of an inherent Life-Force which is imbued with purpose, aim, plan, according to which evolution proceeds. The second development concerns psychology, dianetics and psychoanalysis. Medical scientists now proclaim the Theosophical ideas that man is a very complex being, and that states of mind and emotion can influence the condition and the functions of the physical body. The third development, arises out of the researches of psychologists into the possession by man of super-sensory powers. Extra-sensory perception is now established as being ‘not only not rare, but quite common,’ as an investigator in this field, Dr J. B. Rhine, has recently written.

In a well-equipped laboratory in the city of Oxford, I was shown something of the experiments which are being carried out in the diagnosis of disease from the blood or portions of the tissue of sufferers. By means of delicate electrical measuring apparatus, and a certain sensitivity resembling radiesthesia or dowsing, possessed by some ‘operators’, as they are called, invisible radiations can be detected and measured. Amazing possibilities are being considered. These include diagnosis of the nature and bodily location of disease, the most suitable remedies, and the continuing results of their application; for, strangely, it is stated that the original blood spot itself changes with the changes in the body — no matter how far away it may be in space — produced by the remedies.

The broadcasting of radio treatment waves on the corrective frequencies revealed by these tests is also being carried out by practical men and women under scientific conditions. Their experiments have shown that the actual organs affected can appear on a photographic plate exposed to the radiations from the blood. The plate must, however, be developed by an ‘operator’ possessing the necessary mysterious characteristics. Time — past, present and future is also being especially investigated and I was shown actual photographs taken by such means of the wedding ceremony in 1930 of the principal investigators. These people, I repeat, are no mere visionaries, but practical scientists exploring and seeking to measure, treat, and even photograph, that which is normally invisible. ‘The theory’, the chief investigator told me, ‘we work on is that everything happens, whether it is a thought or an event, gives off a definite radiation or wave-length, that goes on all the time. Our equipment can be set to take in both the time and the place of that thought or event, and we get the radiation of it as clearly as a wireless set tuned in to Australia, say, picks up a Test Match broadcast. Then we photograph the radiation we pick up. It affects the emulsion of the photographic plate, and we get a picture in pretty much the ordinary way’.

In Amsterdam I met Professor Tenhaeff of the Psychology Department of the University of Utrecht. He told me the remarkable powers of one of his, subjects, a Mr Croiset. This man regularly aids the police in the discovery by means of extra-sensory perception of the bodies of drowned children. If he is given the number, row and place of a seat in a theatre and the name and the date of a performance to occur in a few days time, he can describe with 90 per cent accuracy the physical and psychological characteristics of the person who will occupy that seat, if it has been sold. If not sold, he will then say that he sees no one there.

Complex problems of the psychic powers of man, of free-will and determinism, inevitably present themselves and are being studied by workers in these fields, Professor Bender of the University of Freiburg in Germany, Dr J. Soal of the University of London, and Dr S. A. Thouless of the University of Cambridge, are also investigating these powers and finding proof of their existence. Those of us who write and speak on Theosophy will be well advised, I suggest, to keep ourselves informed about these developments, and to use such of the findings as are well-established — not otherwise — in the presentation of Theosophical ideas.

In London I also visited the British Museum, where I handled and read many of the originals of the Mahatma Letters, still vibrant with the power and magnetism of the Adepts, so it seemed to me. Fortunately These Letters have been most carefully bound, in four large beautiful volumes, and will thus be preserved, and are available to all who wish to see them. I also took out a volume of original Letters written by Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam and Viscount St Alban (1561-1626). They are beautifully written in his own handwriting and one of them is addressed to Queen Elizabeth 1. This experience, also, was of great interest, since Lord Bacon is regarded by some Theosophists as a former incarnation of the Adept Regent of Europe, the Master the Prince Rakoczi.

The Theosophist, Vol. 76, November 1954, p. 111

22
Mediums and UFO's: A Guest Editorial

The National President has honoured me with the opportunity of taking her place in this number of The American Theosophist. I accept with pleasure and begin by expressing gratitude from Sandra and myself for the opportunity to carry out this tour of the American Section and for the great kindness with which we are being everywhere received. I am writing from Cincinnati, where devoted members have thoughtfully and efficiently planned our activities.

Whilst this is Sandra’s first visit to the United States, I have been privileged to tour the Section many times before. On this occasion, however, a noteworthy development has become apparent. To a greater extent than on previous visits, pronouncements are being made by various groups of people here and elsewhere that, through entranced mediums, Cosmic, Solar, and other Space-Intelligences, named and unnamed, are communicating with mankind. Despite the choice of channels and the nature of the communications themselves, resultant proclamations are receiving considerable acceptance.

The cautious and reasoned approach to the comprehension of the laws of being characteristic of students of Theosophy has not prevented some members of our Society — all being free — from associating themselves with groups formed to publicize these alleged interplanetary communications. Time will doubtless reveal where the truth lies, but since the welfare of the Society is thus involved, especially its public image before the world, it may prove both interesting and helpful to examine the phenomenon and to look for its possible causes. The stresses which humanity is experiencing at this time may lead people to accept the comforting thought that help is coming from extraterrestrial sources. Want, homelessness, and hunger amounting to famine can give rise to a continual pressure to take, possess, secure, and expand. Fear arising from the needs of neighbouring nations and the actions they inspire, and from the facts of history, also contribute to the present disturbed state of humanity. It is not perhaps surprising that promises of assistance from outer space should win acceptance. The weakening of faith in dogmatic religion, world unrest, military and industrial warfare, the existence and growing economic, military, and nuclear power of nations which appear to threaten human freedom may also be contributing to the acceptance of similar unverifiable statements from invisible sources.

Addressing the annual meeting of the Academy of Religion and Mental Health in Manhattan in 1966, Dr Viktor Frankl said in effect that psychoanalysts are more and more frequently encountering a new neurosis characterized by loss of interest and lack of initiative, against which conventional psychoanalysis is ineffective. Time and again, the psychiatrist is consulted by patients who doubt that life has any meaning, and this condition, said Dr Frankl, ‘I have called “an existential vacuum”’. For most members of our Society surely, Theosophy proves to be both preventive against and effective treatment for such a condition.

As one such member, I confess to a difficulty in preserving an open mind concerning communications supposedly received through entranced mediums. Such investigation of this process as I have been able to make has convinced me of the unreliability of this method, if only because the communicator is invisible and so beyond the reach of the scrutiny normally applied to those who propose to instruct. In addition, the statements themselves prove to be unacceptable. Since my arrival in this country, letters, books and leaflets proclaiming as profound truth the following items are now reaching me in some quantity: Tremendous messages’ are at this time regularly being received through mediums from lofty Intelligences residing on Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus. During a battle fought at some unspecified time and locality, the whole of Earth’s civilization was almost destroyed. By the joint efforts of Cosmic Hosts and planetary Hierarchies, the lower astral kingdoms on Earth have now been cleared of those souls who rebelled against divine order. All earth-bound discamates have been removed from the Astral Plane which is now closed to humanity. Those who die will henceforth be transported to their assigned planets. The Supreme Commander of the Universe supported by Overlords of the System now awaits the approaching day for His arrival and external manifestation to all mankind on earth.

Using entranced mediums, the Solar Logos, with Solar Lords of inconceivably lofty stature, including the Archangel Michael, are regularly communicating with groups of people in different parts of the world. A leader of one recipient group has been specially chosen to fulfil the exalted office of ‘mouthpiece on Earth for an interplanetary parliament’. Flying saucers are interplanetary space crafts used by the Cosmic Masters, and the Star of Bethlehem was a magnificent spacecraft from the planet Saturn. Satumian Masters, Space-Intelligences, Venusian, Martian, and Jupiterian Sages, the great Lord of the World, Tibetan Adepts and those Masters of the Wisdom, including the Master Jesus, who have permitted their names to be known are now regularly communicating; tape recordings of teachings from the Master Jesus and other great Cosmic Masters speaking through an entranced medium have been made. A world wide, metaphysical society has been organized at the command of these Cosmic Masters working in conjunction with the Great White Brotherhood on Earth. Lecture material, and titles and subject matter for radio and television transmissions now being sent over various stations are now provided by ‘the people of Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn’.^{^[1]} Whilst these statements are dismissed as being completely absurd by some of our members, others either claim to preserve an open mind or feel moved to accept them.

Students of occult science are in general advised to exercise the same extreme caution concerning ideas as invariably characterizes the approach of the student of physical sciences. I therefore wish to utter a grave warning against the danger of undue credulity concerning flying saucers, Adepts as their crews, and communications from outer space from whomsoever they may be said to emanate and by whatever means they are received. An open mind can be valuable in the pursuit of truth, I submit, only if it is also a lucid mind, a logical mind, which judges the credibility of all statements by their reasonableness and general conformity with the discoveries of philosophy and science; for these are the products of rechecked observations and experiments objectively recorded with absolute honesty and without fear or favour.

Personal experience will, however, always be the acid test. This can be achieved only after due obedience to the rules governing inquiry in any field. Self-training and the practice of research according to the laws of evidence also — and, more especially, I suggest — apply where superphysical phenomena are concerned. No generally available physical evidence exists for the presence of human beings in flying saucers or for messages from so-called Cosmic Masters. The only recourse open to the would-be investigator — by obedience to the laws and procedures which govern such development—is to arouse into activity and apply the appropriate occult instruments of research, always, of course, in a state of full waking consciousness.

Guidance from those said to have done this is, however, available and such information as has been granted to us concerning the powers (siddhis) of Adepts indicates that mediums are neither necessary to, nor customarily used by, them as channels of communication, whether to individuals or to humanity at large. The transmission of thought by perfected telepathy, of written documents by occult means, and self-manifestations at any desired part of the Earth are all possible to the Adept whether of this or any other planet in our Solar System. It would thus appear that the potentially uncertain process of speaking through an entranced medium would be neither necessary nor reliable as a means of communication. Exceptions may, however, exist, and such messages must therefore be carefully examined as to reasonableness and harmony with existing knowledge.

One example may suffice. In the year 1952, Cosmic and Solar beings are reported to have initiated specially effective action on behalf of humanity. In spite of the passage of some fifteen years, one fails to observe any marked effects of such ministrations said to be promised by relatively omnipotent and omniscient Intelligences. The world of men remains much the same today as it was at that time, the war in Viet Nam having become even more sanguinary and apparently more inconclusive. Crime and cruelty are on the increase in some countries, and the population explosion still threatens the food supply of mankind. Room for grave doubt, at least, of the authenticity of the fifteen year old proclamation of immediate Adept action thus exists, and harm could be done, I suggest, to our Society by its acceptance by known Theosophists. This damage would be increased and extended by affirmation in conversations, from our platforms, and in our magazines that such communications from outer space are indeed matters of fact.

In conclusion, whilst not forgetting for a moment the freedom of thought granted to all members of The Theosophical Society, I venture to utter a warning to all serious students of Theosophy against undue credulity concerning flying saucers and their supposed passengers.

The term ‘Unidentified Flying Objects’ would seem still to describe them correctly. Official investigation is now proceeding and may provide acceptable evidence. Until that time, I suggest, a reservation of judgment is eminently desirable.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 55, Issue 6, June 1967, p. 133

‘Flying Saucers’; Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 29, No. 4, 1967, p. 78.

SECTION 9
Further Theosophical Teachings

23
What is Theosophy?

LEADING THEOSOPHISTS ANSWER

1. H. P. BLAVATSKY:

Theosophia (Greek) — Wisdom religion, or Divine Wisdom. The substratum and basis of all the world religions and philosophies, taught and practised by a few elect ever since man became a thinking being. In its practical bearing, Theosophy is purely Divine Ethics.

2. H. P. BLAVATSKY, in The Secret Doctrine, sets forth three terms involved in the universal process, namely, Theos, chaos and cosmos. In this classification Theos, which is part of a compound word, ‘Theosophy’, is in a category all its own, different from anything else in the cosmos, but present in every particle of it from its beginning to the end. Theos is essentially one with the God of the Koran, who is spoken of as incomparable, there being no substance, entity or force like Him; but it is not God as a person, as we are persons; it is to be regarded rather as a Principle, Presence or Truth. In this sense Theosophy has to be translated as divine or spiritual knowledge, or, more correctly, a Wisdom associated with such knowledge, rather than knowledge of the ordinary sort which can be used for good or ill, according to the will and disposition of the person who uses it.

3. ANNIE BESANT:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (‘An Epitome of Theosophy’)

The direct knowledge of God by man is Theosophy. The realisation of man’s identity of nature with God, as a fact in consciousness, and the subsequent realisation of his identity of nature with all around him, by a blending of his self with their self, a conscious dwelling in their forms as his own — these sum up Theosophy in its fullest and deepest sense.

4. ANNIE BESANT:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (Popular Lectures on Theosophy).

Theosophy gives great principles of conduct, principles capable of application to human life; it holds up great ideals which appeal to human thought and feeling, which will gradually raise humanity out of misery and sorrow — it makes all life intelligible, it explains the differences in men and society, it shows a way of collecting fresh facts from the illimitable storehouse of nature.

5. GEORGE S. ARUNDALE:

‘What Theosophy?’ (Theosophy as Beauty 208)

Theosophy is the great science of understanding, for it is all inclusive, demonstrates truth to be everywhere, and absent nowhere.

6. C. W. LEADBEATER:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (Advantages of Theosophy)

Theosophy puts before us, so far as we can know them, the facts about God and man and the relations between them; and then it instructs us to take these facts into account, and to act in relation to them with ordinary reason and common sense.

7. C. JINARAJADASA:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (The Theosophist, August, 1949)

Theosophy, the Divine Wisdom resides in all aspects of creation; what ancient and modem science has discovered, and has yet to discover of matter . . . contains a revelation of Truth. The Truth exists in all the religions and mysticisms throughout the ages. Every Holy One who has founded a religion with a gospel of Salvation throws one beam of light to chase away Life’s darknesses. The old philosophers of India were wise men when they proclaimed that the six systems of philosophy are all of them orthodox and within the pale of Hinduism. There is an ‘inmost, the One’, that holds throughout the ages the final secret for each and every one . . . Since the universe is changing from moment to moment, and is growing from more to most, the truths as to the universe must also grow.

8. JINARAJADASA:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (The Theosophist, January, 1957)

Within Theosophy are to be found the explanations of all possible mysteries concerning the nature and ways of God; (2) the structure of the universe and the processes of evolution in it; (3) and the complex constitution of man as body, soul and Spirit. . . . Theosophy, the ‘Wisdom of God’, is a declaration of the laws of nature and the universe. Mankind has not discovered everything about the universe. The universe is still developing, and with its future transformations new truths will come into being. Some of these new truths may modify our old knowledge.

9. C. JINARAJADASA:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (The Theosophist, February, 1947)

Since the Adept Teachers who have given us the intellectual framework of modern Theosophy state that it is a Science based on facts, and not the result of philosophical speculations, it is obvious there can be no fundamental changes in what may be declared to be the ‘principles of Theosophy’.

10. J. EMILE MARCAULT:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (The Psychology of Intuition)

Theosophy is the philosophy of the new consciousness because it is the synthesis of all particular intuitions, the intuition of the total self.

11. L. W. ROGERS:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (What Theosophy Is)

While it is true that fully to understand Theosophy would be to comprehend the infinite, its great principles are applicable to every thought and act of every human being

12. ERNEST WOOD:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (Ancient Wisdom, December, 1947)

Theosophy is a voyage of discovery for each one of us. We are destined through experience to attain the realisation of Pure life... that untrammeled life, or God, or Theos. . . . God knowers in some degree . . . Theosophy is applied to a set of beliefs regarding the conditions under which this journey is made.

13. E. L. GARDNER:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (Discovery, September, 1953)

Theosophy gives to humanity a rational philosophy of the universe; a living science, a psychology that includes the past, present and the future of mankind; and a living ideal. Since all are part of one great fabric, it is only as each unit acknowledges its debt to the whole, and meets it by mutual service and understanding, that the great pattern can perfect itself.

14. JOSEPHINE RANSOM:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (Theosophical Fundamentals)

Knowledge of the great Laws or T ruths of Creation and Evolution are called Theosophy, the Wisdom of God — That fullness of Consciousness which must be supremely aware of everything — of the immeasurable regions of Time and Space which constitute one or many universes; One who knows or IS the profound mystery of Spirit-Matter.

15. THEODORE BESTERMAN:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (A Dictionary of Theosophy)

Divine wisdom, mysticism, but principally, the essential truth underlying all religious, ethical, philosophical and other teaching.

16. EUROPEAN FEDERATION COMMITTEE ON FUNDAMENTALS:

(September, 1947)

Theosophy describes the evolution of the system to which we belong.

17. N. SRI RAM:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (The Theosophist, May, 1962)

If Theosophy is a statement of Truth in its fundamental aspects, and therefore ageless, there can be no question of modem or ancient with regard to it. Matter and Spirit are fundamental, and Theosophy must also be fundamental, being the truth of the whole universal process which is a play between these two poles of existence, a play we may perceive in ourselves as the movements of life and consciousness. The understanding of these movements is the same, whether in the modem or in the ancient world. Theosophy in this sense can never be outdated; it must be as new and fresh and up-to-date as life itself.

18. N. SRI RAM:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (The Theosophist, May, 1962)

Theosophy is knowledge of the self in all its aspects, as well as an understanding of the'world, the universe around us, not only of its physical rind or skin} .but of the whole, including the hidden factors.

19. N. SRI RAM:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (The Theosophist, July, 1963)

. . . Embracing the various levels of the cosmos, Theosophy may be regarded as the entirety of truth with regard to the whole process of the cosmos, comprehending every level of existence, and the significance of every phenomenon at each of these levels. It must include the phenomena of consciousness, every movement, nuance and subtlety of it, in addition to what is observable in the field of matter and the processes of life . . .

20. N. SRI RAM:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (The Theosophist, July, 1963)

If Theosophy is to be thought of as a comprehensive truth, it must include meanings which are purely spiritual, which transcend any formulation based upon our knowledge at lesser levels, although it may also include knowledge of laws, facts and hypotheses which come within the categories of our experience.

21. N. SRI RAM:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (The Theosophist, July, 1963)

Theosophy has never, at any time in the course of the history of the Society, been officially defined or crystallised. On the contrary, the General Council of the Society adopted in December 1950 ... a resolution explicitly calling it a ‘Wisdom undefined and unlimited’, and affirmed the freedom of each and every member to come to his own understanding of it. . . . The Wisdom has to remain undefined, partly because it is unlimited, and partly for the reason that it contains aspects and elements which are beyond the scope of words and our limited thinking.

22. JAMES S. PERKINS:

‘What is Theosophy?’ (Krotona School, September, 1969)

Theosophy is a synthesis of timeless knowledge that through its unique arrangement illumines the universal order and makes possible a grasp of wholeness or totality.

23. JAMES S. PERKINS:

(The Theosophist, March, 1968)

Theosophy is of the nature of long perspectives, and we must employ the right time in measuring our efforts.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 37, No. 3, 1976, p. 55

24
The Message of Theosophy to Mankind

In three articles, published in The Theosophist during 1945, certain ideas were advanced concerning the work of Theosophical literature and lectures as means of popularising a knowledge of Theosophy. In this second series, the application of Theosophy to aspects of human life is considered. Clearly, it is of the utmost importance that the message of Theosophy to all the diverse types and classes of men in various walks of life be formulated and delivered. For Theosophy has a message of direction, counsel and inspiration to every man whatever his walk and way of life. The work of the Theosophical Society is to bring Theosophy in comprehensible and acceptable form to every human being on earth.

Many great Theosophists of our time have conceived and presented in lectures and literature their concepts of that message. From these and other sources I venture tentatively to suggest, not dogmatically to assert, in outline, the central part of the message of Theosophy to royalty, statesmen, economists, religious leaders, educators, scientists, artists, legislators and lawyers, reformers in every field, and especially humanitarians.

One central message Theosophy delivers to all men. It is that the place in which each finds himself is the right place for him. All are where they are because there, and only there, can the experience be gained from which alone the needed faculties can be developed. For, says Theosophy to mankind, the purpose of human effort and experience is the development of faculty and nothing else. Faculty constitutes the treasure in heaven. The attainment of faculty is therefore the supreme individual preoccupation of the wise man. Whether king or commoner, statesman or scholar, businessman or recluse, each is in the one position in life in which needed faculty can be developed.

This, however, is an anticipation. Before an unbiased examination of the message of Theosophy can be expected from the thoughtful, a clear and readily comprehensible definition of Theosophy itself must be advanced. H. P. Blavatsky has given the following:

‘Wisdom-Religion, or Divine Wisdom’. ‘The substratum and basis of all the world religions and philosophies, taught and practised by a few elect ever since man became a thinking being. In its practical bearing, Theosophy is purely ‘DIVINE ETHICS . . .’ ‘The one religion which underlies all the now existing creeds. That “faith” which, being primordial, and revealed directly to humankind by their progenitors and informing egos . . . required no “grace” nor blind faith to believe, for it was KNOWLEDGE. ... It is on this Wisdom-Religion that Theosophy is based’. ‘As within the word Sophia is implied Creative Art both in form and in life, which is the Supreme Wisdom, so Theosophy might be defined as the Art of God-Craft, that Ancient Wisdom which through every Mystery School of old taught its Initiates the Art of Arts — the release of the Shining Self. ‘Theosophia, or Divine Wisdom, Power and Knowledge’.

‘Theosophy, in its abstract meaning, is Divine Wisdom or the aggregate of the knowledge and wisdom that underlie the Universe, the homogeneity of eternal Good; and in its concrete sense it is the sum total of the same as allotted to man by Nature, on this earth and no more . . .’ ‘Theosophy is Divine Nature, visible and invisible . . .’ ‘Theosophy is the fixed eternal sun.’... ‘It [Theosophy] is the essence of all religion and of absolute truth, a drop of which only underlies every creed’.[2]

Component Theosophical ideas concerning man would appear to be:

The essential human unit of existence, the innermost human Spirit, the Monad, manifests as an Immortal Self or Ego and an outer mortal bodily man or Personality. The Inner Self manifests in and gains experience and knowledge through the outer man. Partly by that means and partly by interior unfoldment it unceasingly evolves, being immune from death. The outer physical man develops up to full bodily maturity and then declines, dies, disintegrates and disappears forever. The faculties and capacities of the outer self are received by and perpetually preserved in the Inner Self, there being but one consciousness and life, that of the Innermost Self, in both. The immediate objective of the Inner Self is development of faculty. The long term objective is all round genius or the development to the highest degree by the Inner Self of all possible human faculty. This attainment is termed Adeptship and is the goal of human existence.

The human Spirit, the Innermost Self, the Monad, is a fragment of Divinity, a concentration of Universal Spirit, with which in origin, nature, substance and potentiality it is identical. It is as a spark in a flame, a drop in an ocean, a microcosm within the Macrocosm. This is the highest truth concerning man. Its full realisation in consciousness is man’s greatest illumination.

At Adeptship, the identity of the Innermost Self of man with the Innermost Self of the Universe, the Atma with the Paramatma, is fully realized. Pseudo-Individuality has been dissolved. The Adept abides in perpetual experience of identity with Universal Spirit. This is Perfection, Nirvana, or Salvation from the illusion of separated Individuality. This is the highest human attainment, the spiritual ‘purpose’ of man’s existence.

The means of attainment consist of interior unfoldment and external experience. Interior unfoldment is continuous, and physical rebirth, or reincarnation, provides the necessary time, opportunity and external experience. A Cosmic law of compensation, partly operating upon man as cause and effect, ensures for him absolute justice. The places and condition in which individuals and races are born, as well as later entered, are exactly the ‘right’ places and conditions, for only in them can justice be done and the experience necessary for the attainment of Adeptship be received.

Men and women have already attained the state of Adeptship. Some of Them remain on earth as Members of a highly organized Fraternity of Agents of the purposes and laws of Life and as Directors of planetary evolution. Certain of These great Sages accept individual men and women for training in the mode of life and thought which increases the rate of evolutionary progress; this is called ‘the Path’, or the Path of Holiness.

The Adepts who teach and train pupils are known as Masters. They can be successfully approached by those who fulfil the necessary conditions and apply for admission to Their Presence in the appointed way. These conditions and the method of application are fully described in ancient, mediaeval and modem Theosophical literature.

Such is the essential Theosophia concerning man. Three laws and an ethical ideal remain to be stated.

They are: Increase follows renunciation of personal acquisition. Decrease follows the adoption and pursuit of the motive of personal acquisition alone. Enduring happiness is attainable only by merging the highest individual interests and aspirations in those of another individual, group, nation, race, Creation as a whole. Wisely directed service alone ensures lasting happiness.

The highest ethical ideal and greatest assurance of rapid progress on the Path of Holiness is fulfilment of duty.

The final test of the verity of all Theosophical ideas consists of their direct superphysical investigation and their experimental application to physical life. The student of Geography first takes information from teachers, books, maps and photographs, still and moving, but must visit the place studied for full knowledge. So also the student of Theosophy, after contacting, comprehending and applying to life its teachings must directly perceive and experience them, in order to become a knower.

The student thus passes through successive phases of discovery, examination, test by reason, application to life, and investigation by direct observation into full experience. This last phase is the most prized, and students of Theosophy, whether in Mystery Schools and occult communities or in the outer world are ever advised to seek that inner perception that individual experience and comprehension by which alone Truth may be known.

Theosophical exegesis, ancient and modem, is replete with guidance in successful passage through the early phases and in the development of the requisite powers and faculties for direct investigation of metaphysical and spiritual ideas. Theosophy is therefore a complete science and a complete philosophy. It also provides a satisfying religious ideal, doctrine and practice.

The Theosophist, Vol. 69, January 1948, p. 278

25
The Message of Theosophy to Man

In essence, the message of Theosophy to all mankind is a revelation of the true meaning and purpose of life which is self-fulfilment.

Each individual, says Theosophy, is potentially a genius, an Adept, and a Director of the evolutionary process in worlds and spheres of increasing number, magnitude and complexity. Every man is destined to become an agent of that inherent will to fuller, freer and ever more beautiful self-expression which is the driving force behind all Creation. Theosophy thus gives to each individual, if he will receive it, a vision of himself, his powers and his destiny, and reveals them as being entirely without limit.

Throughout the unending series of successive Creations by, or external manifestations of, the One Life, man continues individually to unfold in parallel with the Universe of which he is a part. The attainment of awareness, self-manifestation, self-rule and evolutionary directorship in ever-widening fields is the motif of the symphony of human existence. The inherent potentiality is infinite. Infinite in consequence, also, is the degree of unfoldment.

This knowledge is the greatest of all gifts, for it not only gives to the recipient a clear plan of his own life and that of all Nature around him; it also bestows upon him the sense of dignity appropriate to one born spiritually to become a King, with Kingship as the basic attribute of his nature.

‘Become that which you are’ has ever been the message, the, counsel and the guidance given by Sages to their fellow men. Once a man accepts this counsel, directs his thinking and his life thereby, both his character and the conduct of his life become ennobled. Nobility, then, is the ideal of character and conduct presented by Theosophy to man. Theosophy ennobles as well as informs, inspires, and directs.

Theosophy further asserts that the several parts of which the whole Creation is apparently composed are interdependent. The fulfilment of the life of any one part depends upon that of every other. From this unity in multiplicity and its implications there is no escape. It is one of the fundamental facts of existence. Its recognition is, therefore, of the greatest importance. That which obtains throughout all Nature must be recognised by man and applied to every phase of human life.

The key, therefore, to happiness and to harmonious human relationships in terms of intellect, consists of recognition of this fact of unity amid multiplicity. If only for selfish motives, undesirable though they are, it pays every individual to assist the unfoldment of every other individual whom he can reach; for the giving of such aid increases and extends his own evolutionary development.

Yet the sense of separated selfhood is an illusion. A purely selfish motive for any action can only arise from sheer blindness, to, and ignorance of, two facts. The first is, that all units in the scheme of Nature are mutually interdependent for evolutionary progress, happiness and well being. The second fact is that the life, intelligence and inherent will to unfoldment is identical in all.

Once these two facts are realized, the greatest single cause of human suffering, unhappiness and seeming failure is removed. That cause is the delusion of Self-Individuality as a unit separated from every other, with a different life and a different objective from the rest.

Through successive ages the Sages have delivered to humanity this happiness-giving and health-giving truth, have taught that a recognition of the indivisible unity of all beings and the application of this truth to thought, motive and conduct are the only assurances of happiness and health. On the other hand, failure to recognise that unity, expressed as individualistic, separative thought, motive and conduct, brings unhappiness as inevitably as night follows day. This part of the message of Theosophy to mankind has been inescapably demonstrated by the course of events in the history of international relationships.

From this statement of basic component ideas of Theosophy the value of the message is immediately apparent: The individual who perceives their truth, and applies them to the conduct of life, will with absolute certainty enjoy ever increasing health, happiness and fulfilment. He will experience a growing sense of interior development of increasing spiritual and intellectual power, and will advance with relative swiftness to the human goal of Adeptship in which alone is perfect happiness and perfect peace.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1949, p. 34

26
‘The Burning Oneness Binding Everything’^{^[3]}

The speed of air travel can sharpen the contrasts with which the traveler is confronted as he moves from one country to another, or even from one part to another of the same country. Last year, in East, Central and South Africa, I found directly opposite approaches to the problem of colour. The right of Africans to Africa and the responsibility of non-Africans to educate and train Africans for the eventual administration in freedom of their own country are recognized in certain regions. Yet the determined perpetuation of white supremacy is the implemented political doctrine of the reigning government in another — a contrast indeed. In New Zealand, where one arrives after a relatively brief flight, the problem of colour does not exist. All citizens are New Zealanders, enjoying completely equal rights in any field which ability enables them to enter. Racial tension, bitterness, hate and fear between people of different complexions, amidst which one was living in one part of Africa, simply do not exist in New Zealand.

The fact of human brotherhood, although not its modes of expression, does not need, happily, to be argued in these pages which I am privileged to write. Those who read them recognize brotherhood as a ruling principle of life, effective not only in every country and among all peoples on this planet, but everywhere throughout creation. Unity and inter-harmonization are theosophical fundamentals. Indeed, the brotherhood of life is seen by many Theosophists as a cosmic fact. Man and universe are regarded as one. Man is in constant inward relationship with Cosmos, and realization of oneness with fellowmen, all Nature, all Creation, is found to transform human life, to pervade mind and heart with a deep, quiet, intuitive composure, even amidst the pressing problems confronting the individual and the race. This realization is attained by the regular practice of Raja Yoga, which can lead to the continuous experience of the close interrelation of Cosmos and man. When this oneness is recognized as ‘a basic feature of creation’ (Goethe), distinctions of ‘race, creed, sex, caste or colour’ lose their power either to perplex or to divide. This will surely prove to be the ultimate solution of all problems of human relationship-direct, continuing experience of the interior unity behind the external differences of races, nations, classes and individuals; for realization of oneness is the ultimate solution of two of modem man’s besetting problems — colour and war.

H. P. Blavatsky taught both the unity of all life and those interharmonisation’s between man and Cosmos called ‘Correspondences’. In The Secret Doctrine,[4] she gives key charts showing some of these mutual resonances. Studying these charts, one finds, for example, that a particular type of tissue of man’s physical body, an organ therein, a chakra, a super-physical body, and its functions as a vehicle of consciousness are all in mutual resonance with a plane and a kingdom of Nature, a planet and a sign of the Zodiac. All of these, within and without man, are intimately unified, both by the presence within all of them of the same Aspect of Deity and the same Divine Life and by constant functional interaction between these parts of man and corresponding parts of Creation. Similarly, man’s pituitary gland and frontal brain tissue and functions, his brow chakra and his Causal Body vibrate on the same frequencies of oscillation as the Higher Mental Plane of the Earth, the planet Venus and its Star Angel, the Zodiacal Signs Taurus and Libra and their Archangelic Regents.

A Greek philosopher, as also Goethe, wrote in effect that man can only perceive the sun by virtue of the presence of the sun’s fire within his eyes. There is nothing without man, which is not at the same time within him, in terms both of unity of essence and power and of power to vibrate on the same frequencies. Each note of the musical scale, each colour, number, metal, jewel and occult, subtle element on earth is in mutual resonance with a corresponding part of man’s make-up and function, as also with a planet, a Sign and an Aspect of the Supreme Deity.

Theosophy also includes the idea that these inward relations of the universe and man can in fact be directly perceived and known by man, can, and ultimately will, become for all men direct experiences in consciousness. When this is achieved, when it is realized that man and universe are aspects of one and the same cosmic phenomenon, then the pressing problems of race, nation and complexion now besetting humanity, and even seeming to threaten continuing human physical existence, will not only be solved; they will disappear as problems, as the African racial problem is at this present time non-existent in New Zealand.

Slowly, all too slowly, the human Mind is awakening to this realization and we may, I think, justly consider that The Theosophical Society has played and will continue to play its enlightening and educative part in this development. By popularizing the principle and exemplifying the practice expressed in its First Object, The Theosophical Society has made and is making an important contribution to the problems of colour and war. Intellectual recognition of this master key to the universe, with its two wards of unity and interharmonization, must, however, eventually deepen into direct experience. This is occurring at this time and the establishment of the United Nations and the many co-operative movements for brotherhood, national and international, are evidences of the fact.

This relatively gradual development has, however, not proved sufficient to prevent two world, and various minor, wars in this century. At the present time, the problem of war is most urgent. The very survival of civilization, if not of the human race, on earth is in question. Man’s discovery of methods of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion and the fact that humanity is still divided into two powerfully armed groups, able at any moment to strike without warning and produce almost total destruction, constitute an acute and dangerous crisis in human life on this planet. While this is true, the very power of almost total annihilation is being regarded by many thinkers as a possible and even compulsive deterrent to any nation contemplating aggression.

The existence and the work of The Theosophical Society at this time are, therefore, of very great importance, as Those Who initiated them in the last century doubtless foresaw. Each of the Three Objects is of profound significance and must be promulgated. At this critical time, however, the First Object concerns continued human survival on this planet and so would appear to assume paramount importance. The oneness of Life, the brotherhood of man, and Einstein’s dictum, ‘Each man exists for the sake of other men’, are clearly truths which greatly need to be implanted, embedded as seed thoughts, in the mind of modem man. Humanity must be helped to realize that in truth there is ‘a burning oneness binding everything’. Then the two problems of colour and war will cease to exist because solved within the human mind.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 44, Issue 5, May 1956, p. 90

27
Study Corner [6]

THE ARCHETYPE

The word of my title is from the Greek language and literally means ‘first-molded or stamped’. The ideal, abstract or essential ‘idea’.A copy or image of a perfect original in the supra-sensual world. The Divine conceiving from which arises the divine ‘idea’ of the whole universe in time and space and the governing power in creation.

The same concept is to be found in Kabbalism where we read: ‘Indeed the whole creation is but a transcript, and God when He made the world, did but write it out of that copy which He had of it in His divine understanding from all eternity. The lesser worlds (mikrokosmos) or men, are but transcripts of the greater (the makrokosmos), as children and books are the copies of themselves’ (Isaac Myer, Qabbalah. Quoted from The Secret Wisdom of the Qabbalah, p. 39 J. F. C. Fuller).

The Zohar records that: ‘Simon ben Yohai [reputed author of the Zohar] stretched out his hands and cried:

‘Now ponder well upon all that I have this day revealed unto you! And know that none of these celestial palaces are light, nor are they spirits, nor are they souls, nor are they any form that may be seized hold of by any of the senses. Know that the Palaces are Thoughts — seen — through — curtains. Take away the thought, and the Palace becomes nothing that the mind can grasp nor the imagination picture! And know, finally, that all the mysteries of the Faith lie in this doctrine: that all that exists in the Upper World is the Light of Thought—the Infinite. Lift the curtain, and all matter appears immaterial! Lift another curtain, and the immaterial becomes even more spiritual and sublime! As each succeeding curtain is lifted we are transported to ever-higher planes of sublimity until the Highest is reached!’ (The Zohar, Bension, pp. 210-211.)

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 28, No. 1, 1967, p. 17

28
The Monadic Purpose

There are said to be seven races of Monads. Every human being belongs to one or other of them, though the attributes and powers of all Rays and of all other Monads exist potentially in every individual.

There is an unique Divine plan, Divine purpose, and Divine place or ‘mansion’ for every single Monad. Within each there is a special combination of powers, a particular genius, a highly individual potentiality nowhere repeated or reproduced anywhere in the whole Universe.

So each human individual is indeed an unique creation and if in our personal consciousness we can but discover our special Monadic genius, recognise its gradual self-revelation in and to the Ego and Personality, then by collaboration, we can both achieve our maximum progress and make our greatest contribution to our time.

The more we make manifest the Monad, the more of the Monad will there be to become manifest. As this ideal is lived, in the very highest — the Monadic sense — we shall see that ‘happy is the man who has found his work’. Recognition of ourselves as Monads, even if only in creative imagination at first, and realisation of the Monad’s supreme potential and purpose, bestow mental perspective. Purposeful and continuing activity is then more easily sustained through periods of karmic adversity, fatigue and aridity.

Discovery of one’s particular Monadic Ray and subrays — recognition of one’s evolutionary line as it were — provides an unfailing guidance in work, in self-training, choice of yoga and general strategic plan of action.

Human life may be likened to the voyage of a ship. The owners are represented by the Monad who knows and instructs the Captain Ego, (Atma-Buddhi-Manas) concerning both the whole voyage and the successive ports to be used and the most desirable routes thereto (incarnations).

The Captain of the ship human life (Ego) is on duty in the chart room (Causal Body) where the world’s oceans, shipping routes, landmarks, lighthouses and buoys are all charted from preceding experience (fruits of past lives). The ship itself is the physical body with brain-mind for quartermaster (steersman) and basic characteristics and developed capacities as crew. As on shipboard, acceptance of orders and complete co-ordination of effort by all concerned are essential to a successful voyage, so in life, co-ordinated action in recognition of Monadic purpose and Egoic direction are essential to maximum achievement.

Knowledge that there is a plan for every Monad, discovery of one’s own Monadic purpose and goal and a genuine attempt to follow and fulfil the true Monadic law, constitute the one assurance of happiness and success.

Even if through ignorance or wilfulness or under great stress we do go wrong, the Monad and life experience together are sure to bring us to the right road again. Even more good use can be made of the error, and its results prove to be educative.

The corrective process increases both vision and capacity.

A Persian aphorism says:

‘God writes straight on crooked lines’.

Many other writers have stated these truths, largely regarding the Monadic purpose as a pursuit of happiness.

Here are useful quotations:

Plotinus: Once a man is a sage, the means of happiness are within.

Thompson: Real glory springs from the quiet conquest of ourselves. And without that the conqueror is naught but the first slave.

Plato: He who is to be wise and to possess happiness draws his good from the Supreme, fixing his gaze on That, becoming like That, living by That.

Plotinus: To put happiness in actions is to put it in things that are outside virtue and outside the Soul. For the Soul’s expression is not in action but in Wisdom, in a contemplative operation within itself; and this, this alone, is happiness.

Horace Bushwell: Every human soul has a complete and perfect plan cherished for it in the heart of God — a Divine biography marked out which it enters into life to live. This life, rightly unfolded, will be a complete and beautiful whole, an experience led on by God and unfolded by His secret nurture of the world. We live in the Divine thought. We fill a place in the everlasting plan of God’s Intelligence. We never sink below His care — never drop out of His council.

The Monad is the seat of the will. From the Monad comes both the power to make and keep the irrevocable resolve to attain swiftly and the impulse to make that vow — the veritable Father in Heaven. To seek the Monadic Self, to surrender thereto and to ratify that surrender in thought, word, and deed, is to find happiness and fulfilment. The Monad is the true teacher, inspirer and redeemer. To embody and make manifest in daily life the irresistible Monadic will is to be enfired with one dominating purpose, which is Adeptship.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 44, No. 3, 1983, p. 57

29
The Law of Correspondences in Kabbalism

A STUDY NOTE

Kabbalism includes the idea of the unity and interaction of the Macrocosm, or universe, and its transcendent and immanent Deity with the microcosm of man, material and spiritual, and the close similarity between the processes by which the powers within both become manifest and evolve. Eliphas Levi said: ‘The mystery of the earthly and mortal man is after the mystery of the supernal and immortal One’.

H. P. Blavatsky, referring in The Secret Doctrine to this identity between man and God, wrote: ‘To the learner who would study the Esoteric Sciences with their double object: (a) of proving Man to be identical in spiritual and physical essence with both the Absolute Principle and with God in Nature; and (b) of demonstrating the presence in him of the same potential powers as exist in the creative forces in Nature’.

According to this teaching, the whole universe with all its parts, from the highest plane of Adi to physical nature, is interlocked, interwoven, to make a single whole, one body, one organism, one life, one consciousness, cyclically evolving under one law.

All the ‘organs’ or parts of this Macrocosm, although apparently separated in space and by planes of manifestation, are in fact harmoniously interrelated and interacting. The whole Syrian Cosmos, which may include the Zodiac, many Solar Systems, planets, kingdoms of nature, planes of nature, elements, orders of beings, colours, rays, etc., is a co-ordinated whole, because all these parts of the Cosmos, and also their constituent parts, are in ‘correspondence’ or harmonious interaction or mutual resonance with each other. The basis for this grouping is numerical.

Certain ‘organs’ or parts are more intimately grouped together than others. They resonate harmoniously with each other like the notes of a chord, sharing a common, basic frequency of oscillation. In Occultism they are said to ‘correspond’, e.g., a zodiacal sign, a planet, an element, a colour, a principle of man, a chakra, a type of tissue, and a part of the physical body of man, will all be vibrating on a common frequency.

Knowledge of these correspondences provides a key to the understanding of the universe, or man’s place therein and relationship therewith, and of human development, and is therefore the key to the solution of human problems, such as health and disease, for example. It is the basic science behind all life and the key to all magic, revealing the rationale of both astrology and karma.

Kabbalism also enunciates the doctrine in its own somewhat peculiar language; for the Zohar (1 fol. 156 b. Soncino Ed. Vol. II) states that 'All that which is found [or exists] upon the Earth has its spiritual counterpart also to be found on High, and there does not exist the smallest thing in the world which is not itself attached to something on High, and is not found in dependence upon it. When the inferior part is influenced, and that which is set over it in the Superior world is equally [influenced], all are perfectly united together’.

Again and again is this idea repeated in different words, and from it is derived the Talmudic maxim, ‘If thou wilt know the invisible, have an open eye for the visible’, which means that this world is the true Bible which can lead us back to God or reality: ‘for all which is contained in the Lower World is also found in the Upper [in prototype]. The Lower and Upper reciprocally act upon each other’. Or, as it is written in the Sepher Shephathal:

‘All that which is on the earth is also found above [in perfect prototype], and there is not anything so insignificant in the world that does not depend upon another above: in such a manner, that if the lower moves itself the higher corresponding to it moves towards it. As to the number, therefore, of the different species of creatures, which are enumerated below, the same number is to be found in the upper roots’.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 55, Issue 10, October 1967, p. 242

30
The World of the Occult [7]

DIVINE OR ADEPT INTERVENTION IN THE WORKING OUT OF KARMA

Motive is said to be a decisive factor in the effect produced by any action. This would seem to apply at the very highest levels of conduct. A person might endeavour to live a good life, wholly with a view to the attainment of everlasting bliss and the avoidance of future suffering. Such an aspirant might even think that some personal consideration would be given on account of the goodness in the mode of living, that some special personal credit might be given by someone of high authority. In Theosophy, as far as I understand it, the concept of a personal Deity who parcels out favours according to His own idea of things is not, I understand, very acceptable to the mind of the philosopher, who seems to prefer the concept of a strictly impersonal law. God, for the spiritual philosopher, is primarily law, so that it is not a question of credit being meted out or withheld — it is purely a matter of cause and effect. A ball thrown against a wall will bounce back, and the distance to which it will bounce, as also the direction and everything else that happens to it, is governed by certain laws of dynamics, which are strictly impersonal. So, also, as far as my understanding of it goes, is Karma or the law of action and reaction. To follow up the questioner’s thought, motive, it is truly said, does play a decisive part so far as effects of actions are concerned. Indeed, motive can be more decisive than the action itself.

Let us take for example, the case of Jack the Ripper, a criminal who many years ago went about certain districts in London at night attacking lonely wayfarers. With his knife he ripped the abdomens of a great number of people in a whole series of murders. Now, a surgeon performs that very action continually for most of his life, but how different the motive. The surgeon seeks to heal and to help, and it is that inner motive which is decisive in determining the karmic effect.

As to the process of doing good wholly with a view to personal spiritual reward, that selfish motive would reduce the beneficent effects of the good life and the good deeds. By example and precept, our Lord Christ called upon us to display the utter-most unselfishness, serving always without thought of reward. According to his teaching, if a person seeks to borrow something, give him twice what he asks; if he asks you to walk a mile with him, go two; if he wants your coat give him your cloak also, and selflessly, as a ministration of love. In this statement of the ideal, unselfishness is carried much further. Not only is there to be no motive of gain, but more than that, generous self-giving, even if it involves personal loss, is inculcated. So also, counselled the Lord Buddha. He taught that the first steps towards Buddhahood consisted of the birth within the mind of the thought of attaining enlightenment for the sake of others. Until that thought dawned in the mind, He taught, the possibility of reaching Nirvana did not actively exist, thought ever inherent within the Monad, the Divine Spark, the Dweller in the Innermost. All through both Buddhism and Hinduism one finds the teaching that one should never seek Nirvana— eternal blessedness — for personal benefit; for that very motive would bar the way to conscious absorption in the Spiritual Soul of the universe, the highest state of spiritual bliss in absolute immortality. Thus it would seem that the motive for action which brings the greatest credit, as you put it (I would rather say the most beneficent, long-term effects), is that of spontaneously doing good for good’s sake, for love’s sake, and without thought of return.

Great Masters of the Wisdom are said to inspire rather than direct. They are not rulers of fate in the sense of being almighty. They shed a Spiritualizing influence abroad and They direct only in the sense of offering inspiration. Even so, as in the Biblical story the rich young ruler was left free, so are all nations and all men. Furthermore, the Masters cannot violate karmic law. Even the Lord ‘could do no mighty work in certain cities because of their unbelief (Mark 6:5-6). If then, nations are helped by the Masters of the Wisdom, it is because their karma permits it. Profound and complex issues are however involved in the operation of karmic law. The receipt of proffered help, as also the capacity to respond, are two of them, but I cannot on this occasion go more fully into these aspects of the subject.

Presumably it is less a question of what an Adept could do than of the wisest course to follow and of the working out of the Law of Cause and Effect. These are amongst the decisive factors. Even in intervention in the affairs of the world, They the Mighty Ones cannot on behalf of others contravene the operation of the inviolable Law of Cause and Effect. If a third World War be within the karma of humanity, though every effort be made, it cannot by phenomenal means and force, as far as I understand it, be stayed. The great movement to produce a United Nations of the world is surely inspired by Them that is one of Their ways of trying to prevent a third world war. They inspire humanity to recognize Brotherhood and to unite for world peace. They flood the world-mind with a vision of light and life and beauty and unity. By such means, rather than by some occult phenomena, the Lord of the World and His Hierarchy of Adepts seek to save us from ourselves and it would appear, despite ourselves.

As far as man is concerned, this ministration by the Elder Brethren of Humanity thus takes many forms. Mankind is helped in every department of life individual, national, and international. Man’s deepest and most sacred aspirations are inspired and fostered by Them. The flash of inspiration which comes to the great scientist after years of patient experimenting, revealing to him the theory or the law he tried to find out; the illumination and experience of a great truth coming to the philosopher in the silence of his contemplation; the vision of beauty seen by the artist and embodied in his work; the purity of the saint and the power of the magician or priest, as also the fiery enthusiasm of the reformer all these receive stimulus and inspiration from appropriate Adept Officials. Superhuman Beings also influence world affairs in general by a ceaseless intellectual pressure towards idealism; the direct radiation of seed-thoughts, principles, ideas; perpetually shedding intellectual light, product of Their own illumination, into the thought world; strengthening, even stiffening, the morale of every good man and woman, and especially idealists and leaders of beneficent national and world movements; direct intervention whenever the evolutionary movement and the well-being of nations and individuals render it

desirable and possible; taking and training Disciples into Initiates, and Initiates into Adepts; by founding such movements as the Theosophical Society, designed to shed the light of knowledge into the mind of man.

The Fraternity is relatively small in number. Each Initiate and Adept is as a catalytic agent on the planes of pure will, wisdom, intuition and intellect. Moreover, when an Adept arises from the ranks of the Initiates of this planet, human evolution is quickened, the whole of humanity being then lifted nearer its goal. Indeed, the whole of manifested Life in the four Kingdoms of Nature receives an evolutionary quickening. The innumerable individual activities of Adepts designed to these ends differ according to the necessities of the times, the special tasks entrusted to the Elder Brothers of the race, and to the Office held in the Hierarchy of Initiates and Adepts.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1960, p. 46

31
Man’s Mastery of the Power Within the Atom

A carefully guarded scientific achievement of the greatest significance was made public on August 7th, 1945. It consisted of the discovery and practical application of means of liberating on a large scale the energy within the atom. The first use to which the knowledge was put took the form of a bornb of destructive power far surpassing that of the largest hitherto used.

In this article I do not propose to discuss the morality of the atomic bornb. To fully appreciate and share the feelings of those who fear its future military use and shrink from its recent release upon Japan. I can also follow the reasoning of those who decided to save lives by procuring a rapid victory. The perspective of time and the record of history will either justify or condemn those allied leaders who had to make the dread decision. The scope of this article is deliberately limited to an examination of the discovery of atomic energy and to suggestions concerning some of its possible implications.

A famous New Zealander contributed greatly to this great scientific advance. He was Baron Rutherford of Nelson, and his first discovery was that radioactivity, already discovered and demonstrated by Crookes, was due to the actual but natural disintegration of the atoms of radioactive substances such as uranium, and that as a result, transmutation of one element into another continually occur. Rutherford thus discovered in Nature the Master-Alchemist. Next he announced that the atom was in reality a miniature Solar System, that the infinitely small followed the same laws as the infinitely great. He showed that the central nucleus of an atom held satellites at proportional distances to those at which the Sun held its planets. Rutherford’s third great discovery was that the atom could be artificially disintegrated by a concentrated bornbardment of special rays. Such, in part, was the contribution to the advancement of human knowledge made by the great Baron Rutherford of Nelson.

The Atom of Science

From the continuance of these researches, successful bornbardment has so disturbed the equilibrium and altered the matter-energy relationship of the atom that a tremendous release or dispersion of atomic power has occurred. Yet to the scientist, the atom is far more a symbol than a comprehensible body with a tangible existence. A complex formula is required to represent the vortex of waves or the combined concept of a particle and waves of electrical energy which apparently constitutes the scientific concept.

Laymen may, however, think of the particle as a minute spherical hole in the ether, in the centre of which hole a central proton or concentration of atomic mass charged with positive electricity is established. This corpuscle of positive energy is surrounded by a throbbing mist of rapidly moving bodies. On investigation, these latter are found to the electrons or concentrations of negative electricity each having two motions. Each is revolving on its own axis and at the same time travelling with extreme rapidity on its orbit around the proton. At once the image of the Solar system forms in the mind. This comparison is justifiable, for, as Rutherford pointed out, the structure of the Solar System with its central Sun and surrounding planets is in fact reproduced throughout Nature.

Occult Physics

Comprehension of the nature of the ‘force’ within the atom which makes and maintains ‘the hole in the ether’ can only he gained by a study of the teachings of Occult Science, founded as they are upon research as accurate, but far more penetrating and continued for far longer periods, than those of modem physical science. Through millennia of centuries, men and women have submitted themselves to the necessary self-discipline and self-training needed to awaken those interior powers of perception by the aid of which the normally invisible forces and states of matter of the Universe may be penetrated and explored.

Under the guidance of their evolutionary Elders, Who are the living Adepts of this planet, such occult students have continuously pursued their researches. As a result, a vast body of knowledge has been built up concerning the Universe, its Deific Intelligences, Man and the relation between these three. Most of this knowledge has been carefully, nay sedulously, preserved against misuse. Only men and women who take irrevocable vows of self-sacrifice and of service to the Divine Will have been permitted gradually to acquire this secret knowledge.

In the light of this unchanging rule that knowledge of the secret powers of Nature is granted to the worthy alone, it seems to me to be of immense significance that the modem scientist has been permitted to receive, or as he has the right to think, discover, a fraction of this knowledge and so gain access to a measure of the mighty power which knowledge bestows. This permission seems to be a clear indication of the evolutionary position of modem man. The fact of the discovery appears to demonstrate that mankind is now ready for a certain measure of knowledge and of power which hitherto has been withheld or enveiled in the greatest secrecy. Despite the danger, not wholly avoided, that man might turn the knowledge to destructive purposes, the Masters began long ago to turn the minds of certain scientists, especially Crookes, towards the possibility of etheric and super-etheric states of matter. They must have foreseen the possibility of misuse, but would seem to have judged that the ultimate benefits outweighed the disadvantages. Both the cyclotron and the atomic bornb were possibilities inherent in the original discovery. Whilst the Masters could not have aided the invention of the bornb, They do appear to have granted the premier discovery to the ‘safer’ nations and withheld it from those certain to turn it to destructive purposes.

The Adept Keepers of the Sacred Light throughout the ages have been criticized for Their protective secrecy and for the establishment of Mystery Schools open only to the elect. The revelation of the destructive power within the atom now, unhappily, unleashed for destructive purposes, answers finally all such criticism. I suggest that the fact that the discovery has now been permitted may be interpreted as a sign that humanity has been adjudged by its true Guardians and Teachers as ready to be safely entrusted with one of Nature’s mightiest powers. This is indeed a most heartening fact, a most encouraging conclusion to be drawn from current events.

The Power Within

The occult teaching concerning the force within the atom is that the root substance of space, or prakriti, from which Cosmoi are built, functions as a receptacle and vehicle for creative energy. The energizing and fructifying power is that of Spirit, or Purusha, from which emanates continuously an immeasurable volume of inconceivably potent electrical creative power or Fohat.

This force is drawn from an infinite Source or Parabrahman. During creative night, that Source is relatively quiescent. The Cosmic generators do not revolve. At creative dawn, the vast Cosmic powerhouse leaps into activity. The newly emanated First Logos, like a Cosmic Engineer, symbolically, turns the switch. Thereafter, hitherto quiescent virginal, but now energized, space begins to become Mother Nature in all Her fruitfulness. Her first fruits are primordial atoms, which constitute the root substance, the protyle, of a Solar System of Adi-Tattva. These first atoms become the parents of all successive atoms, the ‘mentally’ conceived Universe being densified plane by plane until the physical or densest state is reached.

We now come to the heart of the subject of atomic power. At each successive densification, the constriction and compression of the mighty original power increase. In consequence, in the physical atom, Cosmic Electricity exists at its greatest degree of concentration and compression. It is then held in that state by resistless Will, all-knowing Mind, and impersonal Law.

Under certain conditions, now discovered, the containing walls of the physical atom can be broken from without. The highly concentrated and compressed power within is then released. Greatly simplified, this is what the physical scientist has now done.

C. W. Leadbeater describing the ultimate physical atom says: ‘An atom is roughly heart-shaped and looks as though it were constructed of wires like a birdcage. Each wire is a spiral, made in turn of still finer spirals, which we call spirillae. The atom is in reality a vortex, formed by the flow of the divine life force. If that force were for a moment withdrawn, the atom would instantly disappear — would cease to be, just as a little column of dust and leaves whirling at a street comer falls to pieces when the wind drops’.

The Source of Power

What is the nature of that Divine Source, Being, or Principle, from which so great a power emanates? Inconceivably mighty must that Conscious agent be Which brought into existence and continually maintains and sustains Universes and Cosmoi. For Cosmic Electricity is not only all atom forming power. It is also the power which is focussed as an electro-magnetic ball at the physical centre of our Universe and is known to us as the Sun. It is also that limitless, and ever-renewed energy which ceaselessly is being discharged into our System by and from the Sun, an energy by which the planets and their inhabitants are enabled to live. How mighty, then, must he that Divine Intelligence by which in one of His many Aspects, God begins now to he realized! As Master Engineer as well as Master Designer, of this powerhouse which is our Solar System must ‘God’ be conceived.

No human concept of that God-like Being, that immutable Law and vast Intelligence Which must be presumed to be at the heart of all creation can ever be adequate. We see now why the Sages and Teachers of Old, and the occult scientists throughout the ages, ever warn against limiting this Deific Principle to a man-made image of God, a personal Deity in human guise. Such personification must inevitably desecrate and belittle that Power Which is above every name and every human concept and is: ‘everywhere, in every atom of the visible as of the invisible Cosmos; in, over, and around every invisible atom and visible molecule; for it is the mysterious power of evolution and involution, the omnipresent, omnipotent and even omniscient creative potentiality — it is the one Law, giving the impulse to manifested, eternal, and immutable Laws’.

The Future

In what way then shall we puny yet potentially mighty men use this newly discovered power which seems destined to transform both our civilization and our lives. In Man: Whence How and Whither, published as long ago as 1913, before modem man had publicly begun to conceive of harnessing atomic power, C. W. Leadbeater, describing a centre of advanced civilization destined to come into existence some 700 years hence, wrote: ‘One feature which makes an enormous difference is the way in which power is supplied. There are no longer any fires anywhere, and therefore no heat, no grime, no smoke, and hardly any dust. The whole world has evolved by this time beyond the use of steam, or any other form of power which needs heat to generate it. There seems to have been an intermediate period when some method was discovered of transferring electrical power without loss for enormous distances, and at that time all the available water-power of the earth was collected and syndicated. . . Tremendous as was the power available in that way, it has now been altogether transcended, and all that elaborate arrangement has been rendered useless by the discovery of the best method to utilize the force concealed in every atom of physical matter’.

How great was the vision which as long ago as 1895 published the results of researches in occult chemistry and in 1913 foresaw and described man’s discovery and use of atomic energy.

Adept Direction

Man’s present and future responsibilities must now be considered. Here a knowledge of Theosophy proves of the greatest value. For the well-instructed Theosophist will find no difficulty in believing that the original discovery in the last century of atomic energy was foreseen and even assisted by the Elder Brethren of humanity. For They are the Adept Directors of evolution upon our planet. They were the source of the guidance to the receipt of which so many world leaders have borne testimony and of which Mr Churchill more than once affirmed his realization. So also it must have been They Who prevented the German scientists from achieving atomic disintegration and Who at least permitted Allied scientists to do so.

If this really was the case, then the decision thus to intervene can only have been made after most careful consideration by the greatest of the Adepts. What, may we assume was the factor which proved decisive? Envisage with me, for a moment, the presumed position of the Adept Guardians of knowledge of Nature’s secrets when once the second World War broke out. It was most necessary to ensure that the Powers of Darkness should be decisively defeated in this second great conflict. The granting of permission for the discovery of the way to release atomic energy by the Allies, and its withholding from the Axis powers can, I think, be seen as an occult contribution to the great victory which has been won.

Despite the individualism characteristic of the age, mankind must have proved its right in the eyes of the Masters to this assistance and to this knowledge. What was the nature of that proof? It was, I submit, one great modem and recent achievement. This was the power and willingness of some forty nations on earth sacrificially to unite against aggression. The fact behind the phrase ‘The United Nations’ constituted the demonstration. Even though he did twice use it destmctively, man, having achieved a large measure of unity in the international field and definitely planning its postwar continuance, could safely be entrusted with atomic power.

Furthermore, the atomic bornb, decisive in both winning and shortening the war, is of immeasurable value as a deterrent to aggressors. Even the wickedest warmonger would fear now to go to war. For these considerations, it seems reasonable to assume, the trend of scientific research could safely be directed towards the discovery of the power within the atom.

Not for one moment do I wish to suggest that the Adepts directly inspired the atomic bornb with its appalling destructiveness. That is man’s application of the discovery. The cyclotron, or atom-splitting machine, may, however, have been within the range of legitimate research. The Adepts would never even remotely inspire the destmctive use of any of Nature’s energies. They inspire in general, open human minds to principles, offer perfect ethical counsel, but leave man to direct the energies he discovers. Never could an Adept be conceived of either as using such destruction as that of the atomic bornb for beneficent purposes, or as ever aiding man to do so.

A Portent and An Advent

After much thought, I venture to advance a further suggestion, however strange it may at first appear. Remembering the Divine

Source of the power, its inconceivable potency and the decisive influence that it has had in world affairs, one might almost conceive that a veritable, if impersonal, manifestation of the Divine had occurred. The mighty power hidden in the atom from the beginning of Creation and the dazzling light and fire in and by which it is now reveals might almost be described as a Divine descent amongst men, a Self-revelation of an Aspect of the Deity. Not by overshadowing a single human agent but by the gradual, illumination of scientific minds does this latest Avatara seem to have come about. Not as a Superhuman Being of divine wisdom and love, but as an impersonal manifestation of infinite power, not in its Second but in its First Aspect, the Threefold Deity might almost be said in these days to have manifested Itself to mankind. As irresistible fiery power, the modem Messiah may be thought of as appearing on earth to bring aid to Aryan man engaged in the development of his own fiery principle, the power of the mind. Almost it would seem that, like Zarathustra of old, the Lord cometh robed in flame!

In whatever guise the dynamic event be seen, it is clear that the Nations now have the grave responsibility of justifying the tmst and the power which have been bestowed upon them. Capacity for self-sacrifice and unity were displayed by the Allied peoples to whom the power itself and the victory it brought were vouchsafed. Sacrifice and unity, therefore, remain the essential qualities by which humanity can preserve itself from self-destruction and move forward into a new level of consciousness and a new order and mode of human life on earth.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 6, No. 4, 1945, p. 103

32
The Solar System

STUDY NOTE

Now that space exploration by man has ceased to be theoretical, the theosophical teaching concerning the components of the Solar System may prove to be of interest to some students.

At once the terms Planetary Scheme, Chain, Round, Globe and Root Race are met with and need to be defined.

The Secret Doctrine^{^[5]} tells of. . . the seven Globes of our Chain and that in the middle of the Fourth Revolution, which is our present Round, ‘evolution has reached its acme of physical development, crowned its work with the perfect physical man, and, from this point, begins its work spirit-ward’. The quotation is from Esoteric Buddhism founded, in its turn, upon teaching received from the Mahatmas by Mr A. P. Sinnett.^{^[6]}

According to this and some later expositions, a Solar System is said to consist of ten Planetary Schemes. One Scheme, generally named according to its physically visible representative, consists of seven Chains of Globes. In terms of time a Chain consists of the passage of the Life-wave seven times around its seven Globes. Each such passage is called a Round, the completion of the seventh ending the life of the Chain. The Globes of a Round are both superphysical and physical and are arranged in a cyclic pattern, three being on a descending arc, three on an ascending arc and the middle, the fourth Globe, being the densest of all and the turning point.

The active period of each of these units, from Solar System to Globe, called Manvantara, is succeeded by a passive period of equal duration, called Pralaya. The completion of the activity of the seventh Globe of the seventh Round of the seventh Chain brings to an end the activity of a Planetary Scheme. Our Earth’s Scheme is now in its fourth Round of its fourth Chain, and the Life-Wave is halfway through its period of activity on the fourth Globe, the physical Earth.

Thus, the densest possible field of activity is now occupied by Spirit, and so by the Monads or Spirits of men. The resistance of matter is at its greatest in this epoch, and this is the explanation of the difficulties of human life at this period. The occupation of a physical planet by man consists of seven racial epochs, and phases of evolutionary development. Throughout this work these are referred to as Root Races.

According to that portion of occult philosophy which is concerned with the evolution of both the Immortal Soul and the mortal Personality of man, an orderly progression is revealed. The basic rule is stated to be that the indwelling, conscious life in the mineral, plant, animal and human kingdoms of Nature advances to the kingdom above during a period of one Chain. Since each Chain is composed of seven Rounds, each Round is expected to be characterised by progress through subsidiary stages of the ultimate attainment for the Chain as a whole. Applied to man, the Monad has evolved Chain by Chain through mineral (First Chain), plant (Second Chain), and animal (Third Chain) into the individualised, self-conscious state characteristic of a human being of the Fourth Chain. This is man’s present position, and by the end of each of the remaining Rounds of this Fourth Chain a certain degree of development will be attained. These stages chiefly concern the further unfoldment of capacity for awareness and effective action — spiritual, intellectual, cultural and physical. Thus occult anthropology presents an orderly and systematic scheme of development for the life in all kingdoms of Nature.

At the end of the Seventh Root Race of this Fourth Round on Earth, the mass of humanity will have achieved the level now known as Initiateship or spiritual regeneration, characterised by Christ-consciousness which includes realisation of the unity of life and the resultant compassion for all living beings. At the end of the Seventh Round the human race now evolving on Earth is expected to achieve the stature of Adeptship or perfected manhood, ‘the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 26, No. 2, 1965, p. 40

33
The Original Impulse

Whilst taking advantage of a brief period of respite from the conditions of city life in the quiet peace of the Ojai valley in California, I have been re-reading the Masters’ letters to A. P. Sinnett¹ and others. So much (doubtless all) in these letters is of importance to us all, and those who follow us, and has its practical application today and tomorrow. The very fact of reading the letters can lead to great enlightenment; and since the spirit of the Authors shines through the words, and Their consciousness is behind the advice and teachings given, as one reads one draws very near to Them, seeming to touch Their consciousness, to hear Their voices and almost to see Their forms.

Important though the philosophical and occult teachings undoubtedly are — must be indeed — the priceless jewels for me are to be found in the letters on discipleship. Therein is a wealth of guidance for all who would find and tread ‘the razor edged Path’. Of these the following is, perhaps, most noteworthy:

‘Does it seem to you a small thing that the past year has been spent only in your “family duties”? Nay, but what better cause for reward, what better discipline, than the daily and hourly performance of duty? Believe me, my “pupil”, the man or woman who is placed by Karma in the midst of small plain duties and sacrifices and loving-kindness, will through these faithfully fulfilled rise to the larger measure of Duty, Sacrifice, and Charity to all Humanity — what better paths towards enlightenment you are striving after than the daily conquest of Self, the perseverance in spite of want of visible psychic progress, the bearing of ill-fortune with that serene fortitude which turns it to spiritual advantage — since good and evil are not measured by events on the lower, or physical, plane. Be not discouraged that your practice falls below your aspirations, yet be not content with admitting this, since you clearly recognize that your tendency is too often towards mental and moral indolence, rather inclining to drift with the currents of life, than to steer a direct course of your own. Your spiritual progress is far greater than you know or can realize, and you do well to believe that such development is in itself more important than its realization by your physical plane consciousness’.[7]

Again, those true values upon which alone the occult life can be successfully founded, are beautifully stated by the Master K.H. [Kuthumi] as follows:

‘. . . they [the founders] have that in them (pardon the eternal repetition, but it is being as constantly overlooked), which we have but too rarely found elsewhere — UNSELFISHNESS, and an eager readiness for self-sacrifice for the good of others; what a “multitude of sins” does not this cover! It is but a truism, yet I say it, that in adversity alone can we discover the real man. It is true manhood when one boldly accepts one’s share of the collective Karma of the group one works with, and does not permit oneself to be embittered, and to see others in blacker colours than reality, or to throw all blame upon some one “black sheep”, a victim, specially selected. Such a true man as that we will ever protect, and despite his short comings, assist to develop the good he has in him. Such an one is sublimely unselfish; he sinks his personality in his cause, and takes no heed of discomforts or personal obloquy unjustly fastened upon him’.[8]

What deep insight are we not given into the inner aspects of the occult life, the ‘tests’ and trials evoked by the adoption of a life of spiritual idealism, the innate resistance of the world, even of matter itself, to the fulfilment of the aspirations of the neophyte. The Master K.H. answers Mr Sinnett’s question: ‘Why is it that doubts and foul suspicions seem to beset every aspirant for chelaship?’

‘My friend, in the Masonic Lodges of old times the neophyte was subjected to a series of frightful tests of his constancy, courage and presence of mind. By psychological impressions supplemented by machinery and chemicals, he was made to believe himself falling down precipices, crushed by rocks, walking spider web bridges in midair, passing through fire, drowned in water and attacked by wild beasts. This was a reminiscence of and a program borrowed from the Egyptian Mysteries. The West, having lost the secrets of the East had, as I say, to resort to artifice. But in these days the vulgarization of science has rendered such trifling tests obsolete. The aspirant is now assailed entirely on the psychological side of his nature. His course of testing — in Europe and India — is that of Raj-yog and its result is — as frequently explained — to develop every germ, good and bad, in him in his temperament. The rule is inflexible, and not one escapes,... as the water develops the heat of caustic lime so does the teaching bring into fierce action every unsuspected potentiality latent in him’.^{^[9]}

Profoundly moving revelations of the humanity of the Master K.H. are seen in page after page. He loved and admired Mr Sinnett, and seemed almost to suffer with him in his inability to understand the occult laws and rules binding even the Masters in Their relationship to the world. Yet in spite of His compassion and His personal wishes, duty comes first. How noble the lines explaining this, redolent of Pythagorean wisdom and spiritual idealism:

‘... my first duty is to my Master, and duty, let me tell you, is for us, stronger than any friendship or even love; as without this abiding principle, which is the indestructible cement that has held together for so many millenniums, the scattered custodians of nature’s grand secrets — our Brotherhood, nay, our doctrine itself — would have crumbled long ago into unrecognizable atoms’.^{^[10]}

What guidance also to all aspirants, especially those in Western bodies, born and bred in the modem manasic spirit:

. . however great your purely human intellect, your spiritual intuitions are dim and hazy, having been never developed. Hence, whenever you find yourself confronted by an apparent contradiction, by a difficulty, a kind of inconsistency of occult nature, one that is caused by our time honoured laws and regulations — (of which you know nothing, for your time has not yet come) — forthwith your doubts are aroused, your suspicions bud out — and one finds that they have made mock of your better nature, which is finally crushed down by all these deceptive appearances of outward things! You have not the faith required to allow your Will to arouse itself in defiance and contempt against your purely worldly intellect, and give you a better understanding of things hidden and laws unknown. You are unable, I see, to force your better aspirations — fed at the stream of a real devotion to the Maya you have made yourself of me — (a feeling in you, that has always profoundly touched me) — to lift up the head against cold, spiritually blind reason; to allow your heart to pronounce loudly and proclaim that, which it has hitherto only been allowed to whisper: “Patience, patience. A great design has never been snatched at once”. You were told, however, that the path to Occult Sciences has to be trodden labouriously and crossed at the danger of life; that every new step in it leading to the final goal, is surrounded by pitfalls and cruel thorns; that the pilgrim who ventures upon it is made first to confront and conquer the thousand and one furies who keep watch over its adamantine gates and entrance — furies called Doubt, Scepticism, Scorn, Ridicule, Envy and finally Temptation — especially the latter; and that he who would see beyond had to first destroy this living wall; that he must be possessed of a heart and soul clad in steel, and of an iron, never failing determination and yet be meek and gentle, humble, and have shut out from his heart every human passion that leads to evil’.[11]

The conditions of pupilhood are clearly set forth in the Master’s continuous attempt to help Mr Sinnett to perceive that intellect alone would not suffice:

‘... let him rid himself of the maya that any man living can set up “claims” upon Adepts. He may create irresistible attractions and compel their attention, but they will be spiritual, not mental or intellectual. And this bit of advice applies and is directed to several British theosophists, and it may be well for them to know it. Once separated from the common influences of Society nothing draws us to any outsider save his evolving spirituality’.[12]

And again:

‘It is he alone who has the love of humanity at heart, who is capable of grasping thoroughly the idea of a regenerating practical Brotherhood who is entitled to the possession of our secrets…Such a man will never misuse his powers, as there will be no fear that he should turn them to selfish ends. A man who places not the good of mankind above his own good is not worthy of becoming our chela — he is not worthy of becoming higher in knowledge than his neighbour. If he craves for phenomena let him be satisfied with the pranks of spiritualism’.[13]

How human, how humorous, and yet how revealing of deeper issues is the famous incident of the hungry and aged, goat of PariYong, destined through his hunger and his dilapidated teeth to literary immortality! Here is the story, inimitably told:

‘Your letter, enclosing that of C.C.M. was received by me on the morning following the date you had handed it over to the “little man”. I was then in the neighbourhood of PariYong, at the gun-pa of a friend, and was very busy with important affairs. When I received intimation of its arrival, I was just crossing the large inner courtyard of the monastery; bent upon listening to the voice of Lama Tondhub Gyatcho, I had no time to read the contents. So, after mechanically opening the thick packet, I merely glanced at it, and put it, as I thought, into the travelling bag I wear across the shoulder. In reality though, it had dropped on the ground; and since I had broken the envelope and emptied it of its contents, the latter were scattered in their fall. There was no one near me at the time, and my attention being wholly absorbed with the conversation, I had already reached the staircase leading to the library door, when I heard the voice of a young gyloong calling out from a window, and expostulating with someone at a distance. Turning round I understood the situation at a glance; otherwise your letter would never have been read by me for I saw a venerable old goat in the act of making a morning meal of it. The creature had already devoured part of C.C.M.’s letter, and was thoughtfully preparing to have a bite at yours, more delicate and easy for chewing with his old tooth than the tough envelope and paper of your correspondent’s epistle. To rescue what remained of it took but one short instant, disgust and opposition of the animal notwithstanding—but there remained mighty little of it! The envelope with your crest on had nearly disappeared, the contents of the letters made illegible — in short I was perplexed at the sight of the disaster. Now you know why I felt embarrassed: I had no right to restore, it, the letters coming from the “Eclectic” and connected directly with the hapless “Pelings” on all sides. What could I do, to restore the missing parts! I had already resolved to humbly crave permission from the Chohan to be allowed an exceptional privilege in this dire necessity, when I saw his holy face before me, with his eye twinkling in quite an unusual manner, and heard his voice: “Why break the rule? I will do it myself’. These simple words Kam me ts 'har — “I’ll do it”, contain a world of hope for me. He has restored the missing parts and done it quite neatly too; as you see, and even transformed a crumpled broken envelope, very much damaged into a new one — crest and all. Now I know what great power had to be used for such a restoration. All this leads me to hope for a relaxation of severity one of these days. Hence I thanked the goat heartily; and since he does not belong to the ostracized Peling race, to show my gratitude I strengthened what remained of teeth in his mouth, and set the dilapidated remains firmly in their sockets so that he may chew food harder than English letters for several years to come’.[14]

The difficulties under which the Masters worked, in those days of the ‘original impulse’ are revealed many times in the letters, e.g., one letter closes with these words:

‘My dear friend, you must not feel surprised if I tell you, that I really feel weary and disheartened at the prospect I have before me. I am afraid you never will have the patience to wait for the day when I am permitted to satisfy you. Ages ago our people began to make certain rules, according to which they intended to live. All these rules have now become Law. Our predecessors had to learn everything they know by themselves, only the foundation was laid for them. We offer to lay for you such a foundation, but you will accept nothing short of the complete edifice, ready for you to take possession of. Do not accuse me of indifference or neglect when not receiving for days any reply from me. Very often I have nothing to say, for you ask questions which I have no right to answer’.^{^[15]}

What would not any one of us give, to receive, and how would we not treasure the first letter of the Master K. H. on the completion of His ‘retreat’? To read it, is to be touched profoundly, to reach up within oneself to those Nirvanic heights from which He had just returned:

‘My Brother — I have been on a long journey after supreme knowledge, I took a long time to rest. Then, upon coming back, I had to give all my time to duty, and all my thoughts to the Great Problem. It is all over now: the New Year’s festivities are at an end and I am “Self’ once more. But what is Self! Only a passing guest, whose concerns are all like a mirage of the great desert’.^{^[16]}

Interesting is the comparison between the then Arhat (now Master) Djual Khool and H.P.B. [Helena P. Blavatsky] as regards their occult powers:

‘She can and did produce phenomena, owing to her natural powers, combined with several long years of regular training, and her phenomena are sometimes better, more wonderful and far more perfect than those of some high, initiated chelas, whom she surpasses in artistic taste and purely western appreciation of art — as for instance in the instantaneous production of pictures: witness — her portrait of the “fakir” Tiravalla mentioned in Hints, and compared with my portrait by Djual Khool. Notwithstanding all the superiority of his powers, as compared with hers; his youth as contrasted with her old age: and the undeniable and important advantages he possesses of having never brought his pure unalloyed magnetism in direct contact with the great impurity of your world and society — yet do what he may, he will never be able to produce such a picture, simply because he is unable to conceive it in his mind and Tibetan thought’.[17]

And yet, despite these powers, her continued humility; also her self-effacement and sacrifice described by the Master K.H. on the last line but one of the same page:

‘Thus, while fathering upon us all manner of foolish, often clumsy and suspected phenomena, she has most undeniably been helping us in many instances; saving us sometimes as much as two-thirds of the power used, and when remonstrated — for often we are unable to prevent her doing it on her end of the line — answering that she had no need of it, and that her only joy was to be of some use to us. And thus she kept on killing herself inch by inch ready to give for our benefit and glory, as she thought — her life blood drop by drop, and yet invariably denying before witnesses that she had anything to do with it’.[18]

In conclusion, I would say that here is the ‘original impulse’ in all its purity, not in the words alone, but in the spirit shining through. The laws still stand, the plan still stands and the intent is the same. Those who know intimately the developments which have occurred since those days must recognize a steady progress quite along the original lines. New methods may be used, new terms required, but the essentials remain unchanged; the laws are immutable, the truths eternal. This present is an age in which good men abound. Such men, becoming servants of their race, draw nearer to that race its Elder Brethren.

To all who seek the prize of Their companionship and of service to the world under Their inspired leadership, the Elder Brethren say in effect:

Arise! Awaken! and become the Gods which you are, Live as Gods, pure, selfless, and strong. Amidst the impurity of your world, be clean; amidst, the selfishness of your brethren, serve; and amidst the weakness of humanity, be strong.

Live so that all who see you long to be like you. Serve so that others seeing you must needs also serve. Be strong, that others arise from their surrender to their weaknesses and show forth their strength.

The Theosophist, Vol. 53, March 1932, p. 669

34
Thoughts on the One Life

A certain mystical experience is said to be entered into by every Initiate. This occurs not only in the Causal and Buddhic bodies, but also to Initiate-consciousness in the form worlds.

The three separate individuals in average man, mental, emotional and physical, are fused into one being in the Initiate. At Adeptship that unit of consciousness and action completes a process which began as an instinct during the pre-initiate stage and became self-conscious at the First Great Initiation.

This process consists of the gradual realisation of the intimate relationship of the essential life-principle in man, particularly at first in the individual concerned, and the life-principle in all Nature. The love of Nature, the response to its beauty, order, dawning sentience in the plant and intelligence in the animal all arise from realisation of kinship therewith. The same life-principle exists in every form, every kingdom, every individual.

The flashing many-coloured opal, the flower, shrub and tree, the gambolling lamb, or other playful young, the full grown product of each kingdom, the mountain, the varieties of trees and birds and beasts — all these delight because and when man sees in them something that is himself, a life that is his own.

Mystical experience, expansions of consciousness, which primarily occur in the higher vehicles, deepen the sense of unity with life instinctively felt in the lower and especially the physical. This growing knowledge of the oneness of life is one of the marks of evolutionary progress. It culminates in the Adept as full and continuous realisation of the unity of the life in every being in every kingdom of Nature.

This knowledge of oneness is then in no sense theoretical, nor is it founded only upon an intellectual recognition of a fact in Nature. The pulse of the One Life throughout all Creation is felt within and known by fully illumined man. Nature is a unit to him, and that in part is the secret of his power. All that appears phenomenally as outside of him is known in its noumena as part of himself and he a part of it. The life in him is not his life. It flows through him in its course, as it flows through all beings and all things, vivifying all as it vivifies him.

Although the One Life is so intimately a part of all living things it is nevertheless aloof, impersonal, free. It is the Omnipresent, One Alone. None can possess, retain or hoard it. It flows on its own courses on its own mission, doing its own work. It links all, yet binds none, and by none can it be bound. Eternally free, the One Life submits itself to the seeming limitation of temporary restriction as the life-principle of myriads of forms, none of which can exist or subsist without it. It is the substans of the Universe.

At Adeptship, that realisation of unity which gave to the purely human being his joy in Nature becomes conscious knowledge of identity with the ocean of the One Life and its Source which is Absolute Life or Life Transcendent.

At his First Initiation, the Initiate has begun to feel himself absorbed in the limitless ocean of life. The sense of I-am-ness begins to be outgrown. The real truth begins to dawn upon him, though only fully realized at Adeptship. Then, not only is he absorbed in the ocean of the One Life, but that boundless sea is absorbed in him. He himself is expanded to include the whole even though its limits are unknowable.

In the Supra-Euclidean, formless worlds consciousness, freed from limitation or become Adept, knows by experience that the seemingly lesser can contain the seemingly greater, that the apparent part can absorb the apparent whole. Indeed, lesser and greater, part and whole lose their significance as terms or reference at those levels and states of consciousness to which the liberated Adept ascends.

The ideas of centre, circumference and intervening area have also lost their significance. All is centre and centre is all. The liberated Individuality is the centre, therefore it is all. This is I-am-all-ness, Salvation, Moksha, Nirvana.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1947, p. 42

35
Study Corner [7]

AVATARA, DIVINE ‘DESCENT’

The word Avatara (Sanskrit) means a Divine Incarnation or The Descent of a God, or some exalted Being, who has progressed beyond the necessity of Rebirths, into the body of a simple mortal. Sri Krishna, for example, is regarded as an Avatar of Vishnu. In Hinduism one finds that there are two kinds of Avatars. Those who use bodies born from woman and the ‘parentless’. Truly, divine incarnation or the Avatara doctrines constitute the Grandest Mystery of every old religious system. Those of Vishnu are recorded in the Hindu scriptures as: ‘boar Incarnation’; as the tortoise; the fish which brought Manu safely to land in the ship in which he had embarked during the flood; Nara-sinha, the man-lion in which form Vishnu delivered the world from the tyranny of a demon; and Vamana, ‘the dwarf.

These first five incarnations are recorded as purely mythological though deeply occult in reality. One interpretation is that they reveal the possession of knowledge by the early Hindu Sages of the evolution of life through the sub-human kingdoms. The sixth Avatara was Parasu-Rama — Rama with the axe. The body used by the Lord Vishnu was of the Brahmin caste and his story is told in the Mahabharata and the Puranas. He also appears in the Ramayana but chiefly as an opponent — doubtless mystically only — of the seventh Avatara, Rama-Chandra. His mother belonged to the royal race of the Kusikas who is stated by T. Subba Row now to have become a female Adept. Rama-Chandra is the hero of the wonderful allegorical epic, the Ramayana.

The Lord Shri Krishna was the eighth Avatara and the most popular and notable of all the incarnations, Krishna being regarded as a perfect manifestation of Vishnu. Some difference of opinion exists concerning the admission of the Lord Buddha to the list as the ninth Avatar, but the tenth is Kalki, ‘the white horse’. This incarnation of Vishnu is to appear at the end of the Kali Yuga or Iron Age. He will appear seated on a white horse with a drawn sword blazing like a comet for the final destruction of the wicked, the renovation of creation and the restoration of purity.

Orthodox Hinduism also believes that the incarnations of Vishnu are innumerable, like the rivulets flowing from an inexhaustible lake. All Rishis are thought of as portions of Him.

‘LIFE IS FULFILLED BY RENUNCIATION’

The passage of an advanced human being through psycho-spiritual regeneration and successive Initiations demands transcendence of the sense of self-separateness from the rest of humanity and the quality of possessiveness in human relationships. These are two of the most natural of human attributes, and therefore very difficult to eliminate. Nevertheless, the time does inevitably come when all the powers wrested with such difficulty from the experiences of life and developed or ‘born’ within the Soul must be renounced as individual possessions; for on the Path of Swift Unfoldment these must be outgrown and relinquished. Even the faintest trace of egoism can so greatly limit the manifestation of the faculties of abstract thought, intuition and spiritual will as almost to nullify them. No illusion of self-centred Individuality must remain and, above all, no personal pride of power and attainment must sully the perfect purity of mind and heart.

This necessity is made clear by such instances in the life of Jesus as His submissions to the divine Will in Gethsemane, the fact that He did not call upon either His own theurgic powers of the legions of angels which He stated were available to Him, and symbolically by the piercing of His skin by whips, nails and thorns. Only under such conditions of absolute surrender of individual selfhood and possessiveness can principles be perfectly perceived, knowledge of them conveyed to the mind and the aspirant, being ‘pure in heart’, see God.

A third and still greater renunciation is made, when even the Monadic centre of awareness disappears flame-like within the Great Flame. Then, and then only, may the One Will, the One Life and the One Law completely occupy the field of awareness, the illusion of Individuality having been finally dispelled. The fullness of unity is then known and this is the crown, the summit, the goal, of human evolution. No one need be deterred, however, from the great spiritual adventure. The achievement is said to be less difficult than it might seem, however, for as spiritual awareness with its deepening realization of unity with the life in all beings increases, so personal self-separateness naturally decreases.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 28, No. 3, 1967, p. 64

36
Theosophy and the Seven Rays

The great practical value of Theosophy consists in its revelation of the meaning and purpose of human existence, which without it is a hopeless puzzle defying solution. A puzzle may be solved by two methods. One is that of trial and error, of experimenting with various pieces in the hope that ultimately they will fit together. This is a slow and unsatisfactory method, particularly in the attempt to solve the problems of life. The other method, far more satisfactory, is based on pre-knowledge of the position of the various pieces in the complete design. Theosophy provides that knowledge, reveals the due place in an evolutionary plan of every individual and every event.

Life resembles somewhat a piece of tapestry. On the underside one sees little save incomprehensible tangles, knots, badly blended colours and a general confusion. Examination of the upper side, however, reveals the whole pattern, shows that the confusion is only apparent, since every juxtaposition is essential to the completion of the design. So, also, the apparent confusion in the lives of individuals and of nations. Theosophy reveals the plan of life, thereby bestowing mental serenity upon those who study it and making intelligent and purposeful living possible for them.

The Seven Rays

Theosophy ‘teaches’ that all manifested divine Power, Life and Consciousness, and so all human Monads or Spirits, radiate into manifested existence from the One Source and through the Three and the Seven Emanations of the Logos. In their passage through the Three and the Seven, Monadic Rays are impressed with the special quality of that One of the Three ‘Persons’ and of the seven Sephiroth through which they pass, are attuned to their vibratory frequency or chord and are ‘stained’ with their particular colour. The colour of the spectrum and divine attribute which each of these Sephiroths represents is accentuated in each projected Monadic Ray and thereafter preponderate over the other six.

These seven classifications are called the Seven Rays, or, in Hinduism, the Seven Roads to Bliss. For man, this means that whilst all of the seven deific powers and characteristics exist in all men, one of the seven aspects or qualities of life is accentuated, in every being, the other six being present but less pronounced. This accentuation shows itself in man as predominant character and capacity. One of the seven deific powers of the human Spirit predominates in every human being, and this preponderance influences both character and conduct. All powers are present in each and every man. There is nothing that one man has done that every man cannot do. In the end seven powers, qualities and faculties will be fully developed, but even then the basic quality or Ray will still predominate.

Ideals of the Rays

1st Ray: To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield. There is no religion higher than power, no achievement greater than victory.

2nd Ray: ‘Those who walk in light may wander far, but God will bring them where the blessed are’.

There is no religion higher than love, no achievement greater than effective service.

3rd Ray: ‘Give me understanding and I shall keep thy law, yea I shall observe it with my whole heart’ (Psalms 119:34).

There is no religion higher than truth and no attainment greater than comprehension of truth.

4th Ray: There is no religion higher than beauty and no attainment greater than its perception and portrayal in life and art.

5th Ray: The greatest thing in science is the scientific method, rechecking observances and experiments objectively, and recorded with absolute honesty and without fear or favour. There is no religion higher than knowledge, truth and fact; their attainment constitutes the supreme objective.

6th Ray: There is no religion higher than a living service to a cause.

7th Ray: The production of order from chaos is the ideal. There is no religion higher than ordered activity.

Knowledge of the 7 Rays is helpful in the comprehension of others, especially of those whose approach to life, methods of obtaining desired ends and ultimate destiny differ from one’s own. Such knowledge can bestow upon those who possess it one of the highest virtues. This is a wide tolerance, born of deep understanding, concerning the ideals and actions of other nations and of other individuals. This virtue is beautifully expressed in the words of the Lord Shri Krishna, who was speaking as an incarnation of Vishnu, the Second Aspect of the Blessed Trinity:

‘However men approach Me, even so do I welcome them, for the paths men take from every side are Mine’.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 31, No. 2, 1970, p. 41

37
Study Corner [8]

COSMOS FROM CHAOS

Emanation, Not Creation

The word ‘create’ has for the student of Theosophy its own particular significance. The production of something previously non-existent in any state is not understood or implied in this word. To emanate means to make manifest and this more truly describes the Cosmic creative process; for Cosmos is inherent in Chaos, the difference being not of substance but of condition. Formlessness and darkness describe Chaos which connotes not utter confusion, but the ‘Abyss’, the ‘Great Deep’, the primordial, pre-atomic condition in which matter existed before the first atoms and planes of Nature were ‘created’; primordial space; an infinite, formless void; the root of matter in its first remove from the unknown Absolute; the impenetrable veil between what can be seen by the cognizable eye and the invisible actuality of the first active Logos; the primeval ‘waters’ of life; the Virgin Mother of Cosmos. It is the divine substance which alone exists throughout all eternity, boundless and absolute.

Form and light describe Cosmos. Both conditions are inherent in pre-cosmic substance. The verses therefore should be translated as follows: ‘At the dawn of the return of Manvantara, the group of creative Intelligences[19] resumed activity, with the result that the term of Cosmos inherent in Chaos commenced to unfold according to natural law’. This process is continuous throughout the period of manifestation, for the Universe is a perpetual becoming, not a static condition of being. This applies equally to the primordial ‘elements’, to the substances derived from them, to the forms of Nature and their ensouling life. All grows or expands from less to more from the dawn of the first ‘day’ of emanation to the evening of the last or seventh ‘day’.

The Angel with the Flaming Sword

The so called ‘Fall’ of Adam and Eve was followed by their expulsion from the Garden of Eden and this may be, in its turn, interpreted as an allegory describing the growing up process, or the passage of the child from the state of innocence, through adolescence into adult life. No sin is involved since the procedure is perfectly natural whether for the individual or the race.

The allegory refers to the change which occurred in the first human bodies during evolution from the androgynous to the single sexed state, with the consequent experience of sex desire and the present method of procreation. ‘Eden’ is then out-grown, childhood having been naturally followed by adolescence. Allegorically, Adam and Eve were ‘expelled’ from Eden, not directly by the decree of the Divine Principle and Emanator (Genesis 3:23-24), but by the action of the emitted irresistible, propellant power of which evolution is the result.

Adam alone thus aptly represents the human race at the first period of the encasement of the Monad in an androgynous, mentally torpid, human form. Newly enclosed in physical matter, first man was of the earth, earthy. His task was to accustom himself to imprisonment within relatively inert physical substance and gradually to overcome its resistance. At first he was androgynous and self-productive, but gradually one sex attribute predominated to produce the present single sexed human being and method of procreation. Thus the doctrine of original sin would appear to be completely erroneous.

Noah as Manu

All Monads, with their potentialities and developed powers and faculties, are preserved in a sublimated state during Pralaya. In this period all forms disintegrate and their substance, losing its individualized vibratory frequences, returns to the quiescent, pre-creative state symbolized in the Bible by the waters of the Flood. When Pralaya ends, the Seed Manu delivers his charges over to the corresponding Official of the new cycle. Then the great pilgrimage of involution and evolution (from unity through diversity and back to unity again) is repeated on a higher round of the spiral and so on and on throughout all eternity; for the Ageless Wisdom teaches that this cycle of evolutionary progression has neither conceivable beginning nor imaginable end.[20]

The term Manu is a generic word applied to Creators, Preservers and Fashioners. Manvantara means, literally, the period presided over by a Manu. According to their function and Office They are called Race Manus, Round Manus and Chain Manus and so on up to the Solar Logos Himself. Pralaya, on the other hand, is a period of obscuration or repose, whether planetary or universal the opposite of Manvantara and is symbolized in Genesis and all flood legends by their deluges.

The rainbow as a covenant with the Lord[21] may symbolize the function of the seed Manu in bridging the two epochs or cycles of manifestation, whilst the return from simplicity to multiplicity, from the white light to the spectrum, from the one to the many, is also implied by the rainbow symbol.

In the Planetary interpretation Noah represents the Manu of a single Root Race, an Official in the Hierarchy of the Adepts, who is responsible for the evolution of a complete Race with its seven sub-races. At a certain phase in its evolution this Official receives from his predecessor of the preceding Race such of its more advanced and successful members as are to be employed as physical progenitors.

Does Satan Exist?

My studies suggest a negative answer to my title: for I find that Satan, by whose machinations Eve and then Adam partook of the fruits of the tree in the midst of the garden, in one interpretation may permissibly be regarded as a personification of an Order of the Elohim, the so called Inverse Sephiras of Kabbalism. He also personifies differentiated matter; the separative tendencies of the human mind; the drive towards self-indulgences resulting from the activity of the inherent creative life force; and the influences of all of these upon the human Personality.

Natural procedures in Cosmogenesis would seem to be allegorically described. At the dawn of a creative epoch, for example, when hitherto unified Spirit-matter becomes oppositely polarized and these two interact to produce a Universe of finite forms, awareness by Spirit of juxtaposition with matter awakens into activity the creative fire hitherto asleep within them both. In this awakening matter leads, and so may be said to ‘lure’ Spirit into material self-expression. Thus Eve, symbol of universal substance, answers to the play of the creative life force (the Devil) within her and tempts and seduces Adam (Spirit). Hence, doubtless, the occult axiom, Demon Deus Inversus Est.

If the beginning of human existence be considered, then a not dissimilar process occurs when man the microcosm emerges from the divine Consciousness and embarks upon the involutionary arc of his cyclic pilgrimage which is followed by evolution to ‘perfection’. These terms ‘involution’ and ‘evolution’ are here used to apply to the cyclic movement of Spirit-life after its emanation from the Absolute. This movement may be briefly described as a ‘descent’ (‘Fall’) or forthgoing into deeper and deeper manifestation in matter involution which is followed by an ‘ascent’ (Redemption) or return to the purely spiritual state from which the cyclic journey begins evolution. Occult philosophy suggests that the pure spiritual Essence of the human Monad, in order to develop innate powers, must be ‘lured’ or tempted into intimate association with the matter of the worlds of mind, emotion and physical substance. This ‘descent’ or misnamed ‘Fall’ is, as I have said, assisted by the Order of Intelligences referred to in esoteric Kabbalism as the Inverse Sephiras (Satan).

The strange, scriptural figure of the Devil is thus seen as a composite symbol of matter and its resistance to Spirit, of an Order of Intelligences, of natural processes and impulses, and of certain other forces and experiences acting upon and within mankind. Since the separative and prideful tendencies of the human mind and their deliberate expression, the surges of strong desire and the despiritualising effects of sexual excesses are all temporarily harmful to man, Satan has come to be regarded as being an evil Being, an enemy of mankind. He has also been described as ‘the shadow of himself which a man sees when he turns his back to the light’.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 27, No. 2, 1966, p. 55

38
The Divine Powers in Man [1]

‘PROGRESSIVE PERFECTION’

A great Teacher has enunciated three Truths:

‘The soul of man is immortal and its future is the future of a thing whose growth and splendour have no limit.

‘The principle which gives life dwells in us, and without us, is undying and eternally beneficent, is not heard or seen, or smelt but is perceived by the man who desires perception.

‘Each man is his own absolute lawgiver, the dispenser, of glory or gloom to himself: the decreer of his life, his reward, his punishment.

These truths, which are as great as is life itself are as simple as the simplest mind of man. Feed the hungry with them — The Idyll of the White Lotus.

Many volumes have been written in exposition of these Truths which form the heart of the great world Faiths, and particularly of the spiritual philosophies of Hinduism and Buddhism. In this article I concentrate upon the first of the three Truths, which states that the future growth and splendour of the Immortal Soul of man are without limit.

Similar utterances are to be found in the Christian Scriptures. St Paul defines the destiny of man in these words: ‘Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ (Ephesians 4:13). Our Lord affirmed a still greater consummation of human life in His words: ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect’ (Matthew 5:48). In the Revised Version of the Bible, which is said to be a more accurate translation from the original Greek, the assurance of this lofty attainment is given in the words: ‘Ye shall be perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect’.

Theosophy teaches that perfection is only attained, in a relative sense, for any such development must give room for still further attainment, according to a yet higher standard of excellence, in the following period of activity. In the same way a perfect flower must cease to be a perfect flower, and die, but out of it grows a perfect fruit, if one may use such an analogy. ‘The Secret Doctrine teaches the progressive development of everything, worlds as well as atoms; and this stupendous development has neither conceivable beginning nor imaginable end. Our “Universe” is only one of an infinite number of Universes, all of them ... links in the great cosmic chain of Universes, each one standing in the relation of an effect as regards its predecessor, and of a cause as regards its successor’ (The Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky, Adyar Edition, Vol. I, p. 115 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, p. 43]).

A limitless progression of the human Soul, or Monad-Ego, is thus implied. Every human being will eventually become a leader of men, a saint, a seer, an occultist. Discipleship of a great Adept will one day be achieved by all. Stages of unfoldment which correspond to those of the Initiate, the Arhat and the Adept await every man. Higher degrees of Adepthood to the level of a Bodhisattva, of a Buddha, and of the inconceivably mighty Being who holds the Office of Lord of the World, will inevitably follow. Extra-planetary evolution then continues, bringing the Monad to the degree of unfoldment of a Seed-Logos or Manu, and thereafter to that of the Logos of a Round and of a Chain. Seven Rounds, during which the life wave travels seven times round seven Globes, complete a Chain, over which a Chain Logos presides. Seven such Chains complete a Planetary Scheme, which is under the direction of one of the seven Sephiroth, the Seven Mighty Spirits Before the Throne, the Seven Archangels of the Face. Although the immense stature of such Intelligences is beyond human conceiving, it could be said that They are the Power, the Life and the Consciousness of a Planetary Scheme from its beginning to its end, which includes the life and the form of everything which exists on each Globe in each Round and Chain. Every human Monad will one day pass through all of these stages of unfoldment.

The ladder of Life ascends still higher. The Planetary Schemes of a Solar System, and the Directing Lords thereof, are all synthesised in one Mighty Being known as the Solar Logos, the Supreme Splendour, the Eternal Sacrifice, the All-Wise Creator and King of Kings, Our Lord the Sun. To that degree of development every man will also attain.

Stupendous though this conception is, the ladder of human evolution reaches still higher. Solar Systems are grouped together round a central sun. A still mightier Being presides over this co-ordination of Solar Systems, the one to which we belong being named the Syrian Cosmos. According to the doctrine of limitless progression, every human Soul will one day achieve to the immensity of power, wisdom, knowledge and glory of the Presiding Deity of the Syrian Cosmos.

These groups in their turn must be presumed to be blended with others to form still greater groups, with an even mightier presiding Lord. Eventually, the stature will be attained of a Being who presides as Emanator, Architect and Director of the evolution of life and form of the totality of created worlds, beings and forms. What lies beyond is inconceivable, but we are assured that this orderly progression through alternations of Manvantara and Pralaya is eternal, having ‘neither conceivable beginning nor imaginable end’. Thus, the future growth and splendour of the Monad of man are entirely without limit. The in-breathing and the out-breathing of the Great Breath is eternal and ceaseless. Evolution to higher and higher states is therefore inevitable for all that exists.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1955, p. 3

39
The Divine Powers in Man [2]

‘THE IMMORTAL GERM’

If a purpose may be imputed to Universal Mind, Universal Motion and Universal Law, as a result of whose combined activity involutionary and evolutionary cycles are initiated and completed, then that purpose could be defined as the development of germinal powers from the latent to ever increasingly active and potent states. Evolution from less to more is, at any rate, the result of the eternal progression through the ceaseless alternation of periods of quiescence and activity, or Pralaya and Manvantara.

Serenity and Happiness

The thought may here be interposed that, once the nature of this universal impulse to expand, to develop and to express with increasing effectiveness and beauty man’s inherent powers is realized, the intelligent individual co-operates to the best of his ability. Collaboration with the Cosmic Will, whole-hearted self-identification with the Life-force and the adoption, as if it were his own, of the vast programme of Nature these are the secret of happiness, health and well-being; for by this means the individual person becomes more and more closely attuned to the One Life and the One Energy, and reduces to a minimum the friction normally set up by self-centred thoughts, motives and actions. Two further results follow. One consists of a deepening serenity of heart and mind, and the other of the arising of circumstances which are most conducive to personal happiness, progress and the fulfilment of life. Adverse karma from the past must still be met, but opportunities for helping, when accepted, make it possible to endure adversity with growing equanimity.

Divine Potentiality

Tranquility of mind amidst difficult circumstances and intensity of effort are also made possible by the knowledge that not one of the future stages of development, each with its appropriate powers and capacities, has to be created by man. The potentiality of the infinite development has always resided within the Monad, which thus resembles a seed. Just as the acorn, under proper conditions, will produce out of itself a complete reproduction of its parent tree, which itself can produce hundreds of thousands of further acorns, each similarly endowed, so the Monad of man contains within itself in a latent or seed-like state the full potentiality of its Divine Source.

Deific Powers

A gardener or farmer plants his seeds underground and in due course the new plants appear and complete their cycle of growth, which is generally consummated in the production of more seeds. The One Life, the One Law and the One Energy, to which the name ‘God’ has been given, would seem similarly to provide for the Monads the conditions necessary for the germination of their seed-like, deific powers. These conditions have some analogy with those provided for the seed when it is planted in the soil; for the Monad projects a ray of its power, life and consciousness deeper and deeper into the material worlds, which constitute its evolutionary field. This has been previously prepared for it by the atom forming, and plane and sub-plane producing, activity of the Third Logos.

Spiritual Will

The deepest ‘planting’ in the Earth Planetary Scheme consists of incarnation in physical bodies on the fourth Globe of the Fourth Round of the Fourth Scheme. In this phase or arc of the great cycle, through which our humanity happens to be passing at this time — hence its difficulties — the deepest point of descent into matter is reached.

Thereafter the upturn begins, and since the Fifth Root Race has produced its Fifth sub-Race, and the sixth sub-Race is beginning to appear, the turning point has clearly been passed. From now on the spiritual will increasingly dominate the material, and humanity may be expected to move rapidly on to the greatest height of achievement of which the Fifth Root Race man is capable.

Whilst passage through the deeper and darker phases is inevitably accompanied by strain, stress and conflict, as stated above, the man or woman who has intelligently grasped the meaning, purpose and plan of human evolution, and has become a wholehearted collaborator in the fulfilment of that purpose, will have found the way to interior equipoise and serenity of mind and heart.

The Logos-To-Be

The Monads of men have been described as Sparks of the One Eternal Flame, Breaths of the Great Breath, Scintillae of the Spiritual Sun, Seeds of the Solar Tree of Life and Immortal Germs. All capacities are inherent within them and the effect, if not the purpose, of manifested existence is the germination of seed powers and their sprouting and development throughout unending ages to the highest degree possible in each given cycle of manifestation. The Logos-to-be is already present embryonically within every human being and it is this God within, this deific potency, which was presumably referred to by St Paul in his words:…Christ in you, the hope of glory’ (Collosians 1:27) and…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you . . .’ (Philippians 2:12-13).

Progression through cycles of forth going and return is taught by allegory and parable in the Christian Scriptures. The so called fall and redemption of man; the descent of the Israelites into Egypt, the bondage there and the exodus to the Promised Land; the lowering of Joseph into the pit, his rescue and rise to fame and power; the capture of Samson and his imprisonment and enforced labour, and the ultimate destruction of the temple and its inhabitants; the parable of the Prodigal Son; the death and burial of the Christ in a rock tomb and His Resurrection and Ascension — these, as well as all other inspired stories of similar experiences of heroes and Saviours in the world’s Scriptures and myths, reveal under the veil of symbolism this master truth.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 15, No. 4, 1955 p. 4

40
The Divine Powers in Man [3]

‘THE LAW OF CORRESPONDENCES’

Man, during physical incarnation, is theosophically defined as 'that being in the universe... in whom highest Spirit and lowest Matter are joined together by Intelligence’ . . . Since highest Spirit, which implies the Monad and its projected Ray, contains potentially the full powers of the Solar Logos, including those which are as yet still only potential in that Supreme Splendour, and since that Ray is the core of man’s intellectual, emotional and physical existence, all powers are therefore locked up within him. For this reason man is described as a microcosm or little world, a reproduction in miniature of the Macrocosm or greater world, meaning the Universe and its indwelling Deity. As the Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, said: ‘The Universe is a man on a large scale’.

Theosophy teaches that all stellar, zodiacal, solar and planetary powers are present in every man, and adds that they are established there in an orderly and systematic manner. Indeed, as Eliphas Levi said: ‘The mystery of the earthly and mortal man is after the mystery of the supernal and immortal One’ (Clef des Mysteres). Similarly, the Bible affirms that at man’s creation the divine design was that man should be made in his Creator’s image. If the words: ‘And God said, Let us make man in our image’ (Genesis 1:26) are true, then indeed man is a mystery, since he contains within himself all his Creator’s manifested attributes and powers, and in addition those which will continue to become manifest.

The Esoteric Sciences

H. P. Blavatsky thus refers to the orderly arrangement of the deific powers locked up in man: ‘To the learner who would study the Esoteric Sciences with their double object: (a) of proving Man to be identical in spiritual and physical essence with both the Absolute Principle and with God in Nature; and (b) of demonstrating the presence in him of the same potential powers as exist in the creative forces in Nature — to such a one a perfect knowledge of the correspondences between colours, Sounds, and Numbers is the first requisite... It is on the thorough knowledge and comprehension of the meaning and potency of these numbers, in their various and multiform combinations, and in their mutual correspondence with sounds or words, and colours or rates of motion (represented in physical science by vibrations), that the progress of a student in Occultism depends.

‘These seven senses of ours correspond with every other septenate in nature and in ourselves. Physically, though invisibly, the human Auric Envelope (the amnion of the physical man in every age of life) has seven layers, just as Cosmic Space and our physical epidermis have. It is this Aura which, according to our mental and physical state of purity or impurity, either opens for us vistas into other worlds, or shuts us out altogether from anything but this three-dimensional world of Matter.

‘Each of our seven physical senses (two of which are still unknown to profane science), and also of our seven states of consciousness — viz.: (1) waking; (2) waking-dreaming; (3) natural sleeping; (4) induced or trance-sleep; (5) psychic; (6) super-psychic; (7) and purely spiritual — corresponds with one of the seven Cosmic Planes, develops and uses one of the seven super-senses, and is connected directly, in its use on the terrestro-spiritual plane, with the cosmic and divine centre of force that gave it birth, and which is its direct creator. Each is also connected with, and under the direct influence of, one of the seven sacred Planets’ (The Secret Doctrine, Adyar Edition, Vol. V, p. 429 [Collected Writings, Vol. 12, p. 532]).

Cosmic Powers in Man

Four basic Theosophical ideas concerning the orderly presence of

Cosmic powers within man are presented to the student:

(1) The whole Universe with all its parts, from Adi to the physical, is interlocked, interwoven, to make a single whole, one body, one organism, one power, one life, one consciousness, ‘one stupendous whole’.

(2) All the component parts and ‘organs’ of this Macrocosm, though apparently separated in space and plane of manifestation, are in fact harmoniously inter-related and inter-acting.

For example, the whole Syrian Cosmos which includes Zodiac, Systems, Planets, Monads, Kingdoms of Nature, Planes of Nature, Elements, colours, Rays, Principles of man, chakras in the etheric and superphysical body, and organs and tissues in the physical body, is a co-ordinated whole, because all these parts are in ‘correspondence’ or harmonious interaction with each other. The basis for this grouping is numerical. God geometrizes. The governing number is seven.

(3) Certain parts and ‘organs’ in the Universe and in man are more intimately inter-related or grouped together than others. These resonate harmoniously with each other like the notes of a chord, share a common basic frequency of oscillation. In occultism they are said ‘to correspond’. For example, a Sign of the Zodiac, a Planet, an element, a colour, a Principle of man, a chakra, a type of physical tissue and an organ and function of the physical body may all be vibrating on a common frequency. In consequence they react upon each other continuously, changes in one affecting all the others.

(4) Knowledge of these correspondences provides a key to the understanding of man and of the Universe, and man’s place therein. Man. is indeed made in the image of his Creator, is a synthesis of the Universe.

Key to Science and Magic

Occultism is thus the basic science behind all life and the key to all magic. It explains the rationale of Astrology and Karma, of the cause of disease and the healing of the sick, of the making of talismans and of the ultimate mastery, through knowledge, of human life and destiny.

H. P. Blavatsky calls this mutual resonance between certain parts of the physical body, chakras in the super-physical bodies, planes, forces, Intelligences, Planets, Stars and Zodiacal Signs — ‘correspondences’. In the fifth Volume of the Adyar Edition of The Secret Doctrine, a number of such charts is given. From these it is possible to compile a major chart containing all of them. Such a list of correspondences is an alphabet of occult science and also a guide to life; for from such knowledge health and happiness may be maintained and intelligent service rendered to mankind. The student who grasps even the beginning of this science is sooner or later led to co-operate with the sublime purpose for which the Universe exists. That purpose is evolutionary ascent. As previously stated, in this co-operation resides the key to happiness, fulfilment, attainment.

A ‘correspondence’, in the occult sense, is a characteristic found repeating itself at another level, something on one plane which tallies with something on another plane, a power within man which also exists in the Universe. Between these two — the interior and the external — a dynamic relationship exists, so that by awakening and using interior powers, the corresponding forces and Intelligences of the world outside are called into activity.

Truth About Man

The evolution of man may, in fact, be described as the gradual awakening from latency to activity of these inherent powers, organs and chakras, and their use as channels of communication and means of obtaining conscious collaboration with forces and Intelligences with which they are in mutual resonance.

Theosophy thus presents a profound fundamental truth concerning man: that in his spiritual, intellectual, psychical and physical nature he is indeed a miniature replica of the whole Order of created beings and things. Man is a model of the totality of Nature. Man contains within himself the collective aggregate of all that ever has existed, does at any time exist, and will ever exist throughout the eternity of eternities.

Man is as the waist of an hourglass, through which passes the sand (creative power) from the upper receptacle, or the past, into the lower, which represents the future. All must pass through man. All exists within him, whatever may be the degrees of latency.

However germinal the possibility of the creation of future Universes and Cosmoi may be in the present humanity, that possibility definitely exists within the nature of man as a latent vibratory power. Man is a microcosm, a miniature reproduction of the Macrocosm, and therefore is rightly said to be made in the image of his Creator. The words of Lao Tzu — ‘The Universe is a man on a large scale’ — may permissibly be reversed; for it is also true that man is a Universe on a small scale.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1955, p. 11

41
Adeptic Warning Against Mediumship

Adeptic communications make quite clear that under no circumstances does an Adept ever use spiritualistic mediums as channels of communication. All suggestions to the contrary are false, as every true occultist is fully aware.

Their words to this effect are: —

‘Mediumship, as practice in our days, is a more undesirable gift than the robe of Nessus’.

H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled. Vol. 1, p. 488

(The blood of the centaur, Nessus, soaked into the shirt of Herakles, producing an agony, as though he were in a burning fire, and ultimately brought about his death. Greek Mythology.)

‘Imperator cannot preach the occult sciences and then defend mediumship... ’ — The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter IX.

The medium and the chela are diametrically dissimilar and the latter acts consciously . . .’ — The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter XCIII.

‘You may understand why we oppose so strongly spiritualism and mediumship . . The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter XVI.

In consequence, literature containing communications claimed to have been receive by entranced mediums from those Adepts who participated in the founding of the Theosophical Society, must therefore be recognized a spurious.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 37, No. 2, 1976, p. 40

The American Theosophist, Vol. 64, Issue 3, March 1976, p. 55

42
Freedom, Fulfilment, and Illumination

Freedom

In addition to the seven principles of man there would appear to be an aspect of human nature, a quality of human character, the source and nature of which is ever invisible, undiscoverable. The presence of this quality introduces an indeterminate factor into all human thinking, feeling, and acting. No one, apparently not even an Adept, can foretell with absolute certainty the reactions of any individual to any set of circumstances. Because of this characteristic, man is at any time capable of every possible phase of conduct from the wildest eccentricity to the highest genius. Such conduct may appear sometimes to be utterly irrational, though on occasion it eventually proves to have been wise and prescient beyond all normal intellectual processes.

The presence of this strange and incalculable quality of character in man bestows upon him a most remarkable freedom, in that no one can either completely order his life or foretell exactly what he will do in any given circumstances. Apparently deep within the most stable character there is a quality of instability, within the most reasonable individual a quality utterly irrational, and within the most brilliant mind a possibility of dullness, staggering in its opacity.

This quality of indeterminism as regards the conduct of any individual unit, though not of a group, similarly exists throughout all

Nature. It would appear to be inherent in all things from the beginning, to be present in all Monads as they emerge or project their rays from the Divine Consciousness. Perchance this universal indeterminism is a manifestation of the divine principle of freedom innate in all creation, inherent in all beings, the Creator’s greatest gift to His creation. Though Himself apparently bound by the three^{^[22]} laws of motion, of cycles and of cause and effect, He[23] is none the less free by virtue of the presence within Him and all that He creates of the quality of indeterminism. Although both the Logos and His universe are the product of previous universes, it is probably always within His power to produce new combinations, to bring into existence that which might not logically follow from the past.

Fulfilment

Perhaps this possibility of complete newness in the creative process makes possible that mode of manifestation or expression of the Self to which in man we give the name spontaneity. If this is true, then spontaneity should be man’s most highly prized power, and all human actions should be judged by the degree in which they spring, natural, free, unpremeditated and spontaneous from the Self within.

Such thought-free self-expression is probably the ideal of all human conduct. It can only find perfect expression when the physical, emotional, and mental nature has been so sublimated that all acts, feelings, and thoughts are naturally true to the Inner Self. When that state is reached, and only then, can the very lofty quality of spontaneity be given free rein.

This phenomenon is seen to some extent both in the animal and the child. One of the greatest charms of childhood surely is its spontaneity. In this case the physical body, the emotions, and the mind are not sufficiently developed to mar the thought-free expression of the Self. Only, we may now presume, when the individual returns to the child state may he also return to spontaneity. Perchance this is part of the significance of the mysterious words of the Christ: ‘Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child he shall not enter therein’.^{^[24]}

The strange fact is that spontaneity cannot be developed. It must appear naturally. The moment the mind is turned upon it, it disappears into some undiscoverable hiding place of its own. Elusive, it ever evades pursuit. Springing from the very principle of Freedom innate in all creation, it can never be caught in the mesh of the mind. It is perchance the most wonderful thing about man. Indeed, if these thoughts are at all true, one might say that the acid test of individual conduct is spontaneity.

Here one might ask, ‘Wherein comes forethought, careful planning, and active use of the mind?’ The answer in the light of the above is ‘Nowhere! ’ That which we plan we generally spoil; when we apply the mind we mar the conduct of our lives.

Let us examine this strange concept. If it be true, then every individual can trust life completely. Life itself will provide all the openings and opportunities necessary for its own fulfilment in the individual. All that he has to do is to watch circumstances, learn to interpret them correctly, and in addition equip himself with the faculties necessary to take advantage of the opportunities which life provides.

Do we then sit still, thoughtless, actionless? Yes and no. Thoughtless and actionless as far as the process of forcing external circumstances are concerned; full of thought and constantly in action in all that concerns interior development. The wise, and therefore the happy man, is he who is without plans, without ambition, without desire. Quiet, serene, yet keenly alive, he knows that every step that he must take in life’s journey will be clearly indicated to him, that his way will open naturally before him. His one concern is that he shall be well prepared to take that step, to follow the lead which life itself will always give him. Such a man, and only such a man, may be said to be truly happy and truly free. Perchance this is the meaning of the words of the Christ: ‘Take no thought for the morrow’^{^[25]}; and ‘Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin, yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these’.^{^[26]}

Whence comes failure in the conduct of life, whence all the human misery? In the light of the foregoing the answer must be: ‘from personal ambition, personal desire, which interfere with the plan of life, destroy the naturalness with which life, if left alone, will fulfil itself in every individual’. The mind is the root of all evil, the great ‘slayer of the real’^{^[27]} for it is the mind which produces the excessive sense of separated Individuality, possessiveness, worldly ambition, and desire, which are at the root of all human sorrow.

Illumination

Man suffers, during a certain period of his evolution, because, as his name indicates, he is a thinker. If he will be still mentally, will let desire fall away, surrender his Individuality to life itself, become an impersonal embodiment of that life, then it will flower in him as beautifully and as surely as in the sub-human and in the superhuman kingdoms of Nature.

The cure for all human ills at once emerges. It is cessation from individualistic thought, self-liberation from the illusion of separated Individuality. ‘The dewdrop’ of individual awareness must ‘slip into the shining sea’ of the Consciousness of the whole.

Does all this imply mental stagnation? Most assuredly not, for when the mind is still it is constantly in receipt of new ideas which arise from within, as if from some interior source. The trained mind can then seize upon, analyse, and extract the intellectual nutriment from them. Thus, constantly fed, the mind as constantly expands, grows continually, not perhaps in an accumulated memory of facts or of the stored ideas of other people, but in its own wisdom and its own understanding of life. Browning expresses this beautifully as follows: ‘To know rather consists in opening out a way whence the imprisoned Splendor may escape, than in effecting an entry for a light supposed to be without’.

The study of other people’s ideas is valuable only up to a certain point. It definitely becomes harmful when, as in so many people today, it constitutes the whole mental activity. For the mind is then never receptive to its own interior light. This surely is the great fault of modem education, which consists of cramming in and not of drawing out. Study should be carefully regulated to leave room for periods of prolonged quiet, for brooding upon and working out the synthetic and basic ideas which present themselves to the quiet mind.

This process culminates in realization of the fact that mental Individuality is an illusion, that there is but one Major Mind of which all personal mentalities are but localized and temporarily insulated manifestations. When the mind is illumined from within these insulations are seen for what they are — barriers to the true knowledge which comes alone from conscious unity with the Major Mind and a consequent participation in Its omniscience.

‘Be still and know that I am God’^{^[28]} is less of an injunction than a statement of that law by which alone illumination becomes possible. Only in the silence can the Voice of the Silence be heard.

In considering and applying these ideas to external worldly life it is important to remember the two processes of involution and evolution. On the onward journey the concrete mind must be used and developed to the full. On the pathway of return spiritual ideals begin to rule. The disciple must ‘slay the slayer’.^{^[29]} Excalibur (symbol of the mind) must be cast away and man must ‘grow unconsciously as the flower grows’.[30]

The American Theosophist, Vol. 26, Issue 10, October 1938, p. 223

43
The Divine Emanator of Universes

A STUDY NOTE

The question is sometimes asked, even by children: ‘If God made all things, who made God?’ Occult philosophy answers ‘No one’; for the creative Deity or active Logos is itself an emanation from the Immutable Infinite, the Boundless, the Absolute, which, it is to be presumed, cannot will, think, or act until it has ‘become’ at least partially manifest as finite.

Kabbalism expresses this as follows: ‘There was a time when Heaven and Earth did not exist, but only an unlimited Space in which reigned absolute immobility. All the visible things and all that which possesses existence were born in that Space from a powerful principle which existed by Itself, and from Itself developed Itself, and which made the heavens revolve and preserved the universal life; a principle as to which philosophy declares we know not the name

The idea and name ‘God’ imply at least all of the following concepts: the totality of existence including physical nature; the power of self-production, self-reproduction, and the capacity to express these by the agency of the creative Intelligences — the Elohim — which direct the manifestations and the operations of that power; the divine thought or ideation of the whole Cosmos from its beginning to its end; and the sound of the creative ‘Voice’ (Logos) by which that ideation is impressed upon pre-cosmic substance.

These, together with all seeds, beings, forces, and laws — including expansion, alternation, cyclic progression, and harmonious equipoise — constitute that totality of existence which alone may be given with any measure of fitness the majestic and awe-inspiring title ‘God’. If so vast a synthesis may be designated a Being, then that Being is so complex, so all-inclusive, as to be beyond the comprehension of the human mind and the possibility of restriction to any single form, particularly as the idea of God also includes everlasting Law, everlasting Will, everlasting Life, and everlasting Mind.

In non-manifestation ‘God’ is quiescent. In manifestation ‘God’ is objectively active, and behind both quiescence and activity exist THAT which is eternal and unchanging, the Absolute, Self-Existent ALL. The creative Agent or Godhead referred to by various names in the world’s cosmogonies is the active expression of that eternal, incomprehensible One Alone.

The Elohim

If applied to the active Logos, the name ‘God’ is not singular but plural in its implications. Although the original directive Intelligence—the precursor and source of Universal Mind — arose in a unitary state from its root in precosmic space, the instant that agency became outward turned, the rule of number obtained. One alone cannot manifest; three are essential to the production of any result.

This is as true of cosmic manifestation as of microcosmic, or human creation whether intellectual or physical; for no germ is a unit, each at its simplest being a triplicity of potentials, namely the positive, the negative, and their productive interaction. So also, one may presume from analogy, the germ of Cosmos which, though a unit in Pralaya, displays a number at the outset of Manvantara.

The term ‘God’, therefore, as used in the Book of Genesis, is to be understood, as in Kabbalism, to refer to the group of intelligent, productive agencies inherent in and emanated from precosmic space. These are the Elohim, ‘a sevenfold power of Godhead’, the male-female hierarchies of creative Intelligences or potencies through which the Divine produces the manifested Universe or the unity of powers, the attributes and the creative activities of the Supreme Being.

In Hinduism, these beings are referred to as Dhyan-Chohans. The word ‘Dhyanf is the Sanskrit for ‘an expert in yoga’, but it is also a generic name for spiritual beings, Planetary Logoi, and hierarchies of archangels and angels. The terms ‘Dhyana’ signifies a state of profound contemplation during which the Dhyanin becomes united with the highest parts of his own constitution and communes therewith. Dhyan-Chohans, ‘Lords of Contemplation’, are members of the Host of Spiritual Beings who live in this exalted state and supervise the cyclic evolution of life and form in a Solar System. Monadically, man is an embryo Dhyan-Chohan, and at the close of the planetary age will himself have become a fully developed ‘Lord of Contemplation’.

The Deity and the Emanation of Universes

In occult philosophy, as we have seen, the term ‘God’ in its highest meaning refers to a supreme, eternal, and indefinable Reality. The Absolute is inconceivable, ineffable, and unknowable. Its revealed existence is postulated in three terms: an absolute Existence, an absolute Consciousness, and an absolute Bliss. Infinite Consciousness is regarded as inherent in the Supreme Being as a dynamic force that manifests the potentialities held in its own infinitude, and calls into being forms out of its own formless depths.

The emergence and subsequent development of a universe and its contents is regarded as being less the result of a single act of creation, followed by natural evolution, than a process of emanation guided by intelligent forces under immutable law. The creation of universes from nothing is not an acceptable concept, all being regarded as emanating from an all-containing, sourceless Source, the Absolute.

Let There Be Light

The illumined sages of old thus taught, concerning the emergence of Universes, that the Eternal One, which is potentially two-fold (Spirit-Matter), is subject to cyclic, rhythmic motion — a primordial Third which is also eternal. Attempting to express supra-mental principles in mental fashion, one may repeat that under certain conditions the relationship of the conjoined Spirit-Matter changes from passive unity into active duality — distinct positive and negative potencies. Thus, when ‘interior’ motion causes hitherto unified, quiescent Spirit-Matter to become oppositely polarised or creatively active, then there is activity, light, ‘Day’; for these two (Universal Spirit and Universal Matter) produce a third, a ‘Son’ which becomes the presiding Deity, the Logos, the Architect, of the resultant Universe.

A finite principle has now emerged from the Infinite. Universal Spirit-Matter-Motion has become focussed into a ‘Being’ who is beyond normal human comprehension. This is the One Alone, the ‘Only-begotten Son’ (when correctly translated, ‘Alone-begotten’ or ‘emanated from a unified, single Source), being of‘one substance with the Father’, which in this case is the Absolute, the Uncreated. By this ‘Son’, the Cosmic Christ, all the worlds are fashioned, ‘He’ being the Emanator, Architect, Sustainer, and Regenerator of Universes and all that they will ever contain.

This Supreme Deity, the formative Logos, H. P. Blavatsky writes in effect, is thus the first objective emanation of the Absolute, the principle of Divine Thought, now to be made manifest in an individual sense, first as the Logos of the whole Cosmos, second as the Solar Deity of a single Solar System, and third as the Logos of the Soul of every human being — the Dweller in the Innermost. These three are one, indivisible, identical, an integral part of each other, a whole. In the beginning, when newly formed, the First, the One Alone, is purely spiritual and intellectual. Ultimately, as we have seen, it becomes manifested as both Emanator (not Creator) of all that objectively exists and the indwelling and transforming divine life in all Nature, all beings, and all things.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 54, Issue 9, September 1966, p. 214

44
Creative Processes

During our Workers Conference and the Convention itself, our thoughts were led by the lectures and by the discussions which followed them, to the problems in the world around us and the application of Theosophy to their solution.

In the Summer School, particularly in my own contribution, we shall withdraw our thoughts temporarily from the outer world and, guided by theosophical teachings, turn them to the emanation and the formation of universes. Our thoughts will go back to that pre-cosmic condition in which, as is said, in the Book of Genesis^{^[31]} ‘Darkness was upon the face of the deep’. Then when the Cosmic Hour had struck, Divine creative energy was liberated and there was initiated the whole cosmic process of the emanation, formation and perfecting in orderly progression of universes and all that they contain. We shall turn our thoughts to that first dawn when ‘the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,[32] the Morning Stars sang together and the Sons of God shouted for joy. In our study together we shall have a threefold objective. We shall first seek some partial comprehension of the creative Deity Itself; second, some understanding of the processes of the emanation of universes; and third, knowledge of man’s relationship to God and of his place in the Great Work, as it has been called.

This, surely, is an extremely interesting and important subject, for we shall seek knowledge of our spiritual source, our spiritual parentage, of the fountain and origin of our existence and our lives. We shall also be seeking knowledge of the purpose of our lives and of the laws governing the fulfilment of that purpose. We shall also seek the way of power, of full attainment for ourselves, and the way of happiness and peace for all mankind. At the very beginning, we shall reach up and outwards together in the realm of eternal and infinite thought. This in itself is valuable, no process being more important to man than contemplation of the Divine, no quest so essential to human happiness. For without a knowledge of our source, of our nature and our goal we cannot live intelligently, and unless we live intelligently, we cannot either obtain for ourselves or give to others enduring happiness.

So we are going to study together cosmic, creative processes. It is a difficult subject, yet man has always sought to understand it. The thought of man has always reached out towards his Divine Source and perhaps the most magnificent of all literature has been evoked by the contemplation of the Divine and the attempts of the authors, philosophers and poets to put into words the sublimate of that from which we all come forth. Yes, even children will ask us questions about God and who made God. The mother of two children of seven and five once told me that their thoughts were often turned toward the subject of God. On one occasion the younger child said, ‘Mother, did God make everything?’ ‘Yes, dear, of course He made everything’. ‘Well, then, Mother, who made God?’ came the natural question. Whereupon the elder child immediately said, ‘Mother, don’t answer him. He’ll only want to know who made who made who!’

We, in our turn in the days to follow, will try to understand who made who made who and by what means. The answer is strange, difficult to understand, metaphysical, abstract. St John in the first five verses of his Gospel leads into it in the most wonderful way, saying that ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not’. The first five verses of the Book of Genesis state: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light’: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day’. Evidently, then, at first there existed a duality, the Word which was God’s masculine creative spirit and the face of the deep, space, pre-cosmic matter, the feminine creative principle. At first and throughout creative night, Pralaya, there was darkness upon the face of the deep, the vast ocean of space, the Great Abyss.

Then the cosmic hour struck. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters. The Great Breath was breathed upon the Great Deep. God spoke, saying ‘Let there be light’, and light shone forth. In this, all cosmogonies seem to agree, saying that sound, the Word of God, best describes the nature of the creative agency. Evidently, it is of the order, quality and form-producing potency of sound; so that by sound all things were said to be made. This, in part, is the Logos Doctrine which we will study together. We shall find many strange utterances, descriptive of creation, or rather emanation and formation, by the power of Divine Will—Thought—Sound. ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth’, sang the Psalmist. In Egypt the Creative Deity says, ‘I am the Great God Nu, who gave birth unto himself, and who made his name to become the company of the gods’. Again the Egyptians taught that Tehuti, as the Divine Intelligence, at the creation of the universe uttered the word, which resulted in the formation of the world. Tehuti was self-produced, was Lord of earth and air and sea and sky. Amen, the later active Deity, is called the hidden one of the mouth and it was the silence of his mouth whose uttered word is mystery, even the mouth of the ruler of the aeons which grasps the eternity of being which brought forth worlds. Similarly, Brahma, the Creative Deity in Hinduism, brings forth the universe as a result of marriage with His Consort, Vach, which means voice, sound, the active creative potency. There is a delightful story told of the childhood of the Lord Sri Krishna, who was an Avatara or ‘descent’ of Vishnu, the creative Deity. He was born of Devapi, his mother, in prison, and when she was freed and they were home, whilst in many ways he showed his strange divinity, his deific powers, in others he was a playful, even a naughty, little child. On one occasion, when he had been mischievous and she sought to reprove him, taking him upon her knee, he opened his mouth, and she saw the whole universe in the mouth of the child Sri Krishna. For a moment, she was lost therein, and thereafter she kneeled to this child who had been born of her, the Lord Himself, Creative Deity Who brings forth all things metaphorically from within His mouth or by the power of His voice.

Another wonderful description of creation is found in Egyptian cosmogony. The Egyptians believed at one time that the articulate word of the Voice of God, as of man, is amongst the most potent of creative forces and that the Voice of God did not remain immaterial on issuing from his lips. The Divine Voice condensed into tangible substance, into bodies, into gods and goddesses, who created in their turn. There is one striking description, in which the Deity, at the dawn of creation, stands as it were above the vast ocean of space and utters the creative cry, which was, ‘Come unto me’, whereupon the sun rose from the vast depths of space above a fully-opened lotus flower. God had opened His lips, and the voice which proceeded therefrom had become a universe. Sound had produced form.

These will be some of the ideas, which we shall think over quietly together on the four mornings when we study Creative Processes. As we do so, I hope we will remember that, ultimately, all theosophical doctrines must, and will, be translated into consciousness. Doctrines must eventually for us become living knowledge. Teachings must become gateways to direct experience. In order to achieve that, we begin with study, bringing the doctrines into clear focus in the mind and holding them there, living with them, meditating upon them, until, gradually, the doctrine begins to become assimilated knowledge, understood truth. The student then knows the doctrine, it belongs to him; it is part of him, his own. This full assimilation of fundamental ideas, it seems to me, is the goal. So, as we here study together, morning after morning, I shall enunciate the doctrines very slowly, sometimes repeating them and pausing between each repetition. We shall find, I hope, that in many cases, the sheer beauty of the language of the quotations will delight and uplift our minds as they move towards the ideas and finally comprehend them.

At the end of such study, we will turn to man, the microcosm, creator in the becoming, one day to bring forth universes, even larger than those that now exist; for, remember, that is our destiny. We are Creative Voices to be, Logoi in the becoming. One day it will be our task, or at least our stature, to bring forth universes in our turn. The power to do so is in us now. Within the Monad of each one of us resides the whole potency of the Cosmic Godhead. We do not have to create that power, we only liberate and exercise it. That is why the Monad in each one of us is called the ‘Immortal Germ’. Each one of us is at some stage in this becoming, some phase of our pilgrimage, the goal of which is described by our Lord, ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect’.

This is difficult to contemplate, as we think of ourselves as we are down here, mere mortal men and women, conscious of our limitations; but, if for a moment we contemplate and perhaps touch the Divinity within us, then the possibility of such attainment begins to be realized. ‘Become that which you are’, we are taught, indicating our destiny which is to bring to full manifestation that which from the beginning has been latent within us.

Man is described as a microcosm, a little world, a reproduction of the Macrocosm, the greater world. In terms of vibratory possibilities, all that is in this universe is present in man. The whole universe, with all its parts, from the plane of Adi, the first plane, down to the physical, is interlocked, interwoven to make a single whole, one body, one organism, one life, one consciousness.

All the organs of this Macrocosm, the universe, though apparently separated in space, and plane of manifestation, are, in fact, harmoniously interrelated and interacting. The whole Syrian Cosmos, for example, which includes the twelve signs of the zodiac, and all its component Solar Systems with their suns and their planets, and all their kingdoms and planes of nature, their elements, colours, Rays, notes, beings and Orders of Intelligences, all this is one co-ordinated whole. This is because all the parts are in correspondence or harmonious resonance and mutual interaction with each other.

Certain parts or organs of the universal body, certain signs, planets, planes, kingdoms, colours, metals, jewels, parts of man, physical and superphysical, are more intimately grouped together than others, and these parts resonate harmoniously with each other, like the notes of a chord. Various parts of the universe and of man share a common basic frequency of oscillation. In occultism, they are said to correspond. For example, one sign of the zodiac, its ruling planet, one of the elements, one of the colours in the spectrum, one of the principles or bodies of man, one of the chakras in the superphysical bodies, one of the glandular centres in the physical body, these are all co-ordinated and vibrating in mutual resonance.

Knowledge of these correspondences, as they are theosophically called, provides the key to the understanding of the universe, and of man’s place therein. This knowledge provides the key to the solution of many human problems; it is also the basic science behind all life and the key to magic. Magic has been described as the power to address the gods in their own tongue, meaning that human consciousness must be able to vibrate on the frequency of the hierarchical Orders of Gods whose collaboration is sought. Symbolically one must know their ‘names’ and since every ‘name’ of every being is within man, he can evoke it, especially if he knows various frequencies and correspondences. All, says Theosophy, which is outside of us is also within us, not only in general but like a perfectly adjusted piece of clockwork, every part of man is synchronized or geared to every corresponding part of the universe, the whole being one great and perfect mechanism turning together, as cycle follows cycle in that orderly progression which, as The Secret Doctrine says, is without conceivable beginning or imaginable end. These ideas of Theosophy we will think over together and, particularly, that man is made in the image of God, or as it is said, ‘Thou hast created man to be immortal and made him to be an image of Thine own eternity’. Old Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher, said: ‘The universe is a man on a large scale’. I presume we might permissibly reverse the dictum and say that man is a universe on a small scale. Thus indeed as Pope said, ‘The proper study of mankind is man’, and, rightly, over the doorway of the Temple at Delphi in ancient Greece the words were inscribed, ‘Man know thyself.

So, as I said at the beginning of these introductory remarks, and now repeat at the end, during these few happy days together, in the beautiful surroundings and the seclusion of Olcott, and away from the noise and the roar of the traffic of the world amidst which so many of us have to live, we will give up our thoughts to the contemplation of the Divine. From our morning meditation at 7:30, and on throughout our studies and thoughts together, we will seek what Ruysbroeck describes as ‘the immediate contact with the Divine’.

(Introductory Remarks at the Opening of Summer School, 1953)

The American Theosophist, Vol. 44, Issue 5, May 1956, p. 90

45
Some Thoughts on Spiritualism

The chief purpose for which the modem spiritualist movement was brought into existence by the Masters was to challenge the scientific materialism of the Nineteenth Century. The phenomena of spiritualism constitute primarily a subject to be investigated scientifically and secondarily a gateway from materialism to philosophy. For very few people, the author fears, does it serve in this dual capacity. Millions of spiritualists throughout the world refuse to use it either as a subject for research or as a gateway leading to comprehension of the profound Truths of esoteric philosophy and religion. Apparently they prefer to remain in the gateway itself interested only in the recurrent phenomena which may be thought of as the gateposts and the gate.

Unfortunately it would also appear that a great evil has crept in and marred the whole movement. I refer to commercialization as a result of which the whole science has deteriorated to become in the main intellectually negligible. It is an axiom that money cannot be associated with occultism. The superphysical worlds can only be safely and fruitfully entered by those whose hearts are free from all thought of personal gain. The moment monetary considerations enter into psychic and occult processes, purity of perception is dulled and purity of motive endangered.

Two particular dangers beset every professional medium. One consists of the appeal to vanity — the desire to be looked up to — and the other consists of desire for financial gain. Either of these are sufficient greatly to reduce the quality, the accuracy and the range of spiritual perception.

Success in the quest of spiritual vision, wisdom and power, depends almost entirely upon purity of heart. For purity of heart implies also singleness of mind, one-pointedness and freedom from every thought of self.

Purity of heart implies transcendence of all worldly desires. Only he who cares no longer for the wealth and glitter of the world of men can enter the world of the Supermen. Only he who is free of even the slightest thought of reward, material or spiritual, in return for his labours can ever tread the steep and narrow way which leads to eternal life and to power to help and heal the world.

Blessed indeed are the pure in heart, for not only shall they see and know that God which is their highest Self, but they shall bestow their powers of vision upon their fellow men.

To this great spiritual work the Spiritualist Movement and all spiritualists by their very name originally were called. Many splendid workers loyally abided by the original ideals. The great majority, one fears, have not entirely succeeded in doing so.

What of those who approach mediums and attend spiritualistic seances and services? For the most part their motives are perfectly natural and good. These are, in the main, the desire for knowledge of the hereafter and for contact with their beloved dead. A great service has been, and still is being rendered to tens of thousands of people in the gratifications of these two desires and for this the world owes a debt of gratitude to the Spiritualist Movement.

Unfortunately it so often happens that few are content with their first successful experiment. Having obtained the desired knowledge and enjoyed as they believe, contact with their loved ones — and therefore having completed their quest — instead of resting content, they continue the association.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 4 August 1938, p. 13

46
Spiritual Dynasties

In Dr G. S. Arundale, a great representative and member of a spiritual dynasty has passed from human ken. His passing evokes reflections concerning two lines of dynastic succession which have always been carefully preserved. They are the spiritual and the temporal, the occult and the physical. Evidently, a fundamental principle is involved under which spiritual power and spiritual powers are handed on from the Logos of one Universe to the Logos of its successor and the Manus of Planetary Chains hand on Their power and Their office and the fruits of Their cycle to Their immediate Successors. The Manus of Rounds, the Lords of Worlds and the Manus of Races all similarly bestow upon Their Successors the power and the potentiality delivered to Them when They assumed Their office. Thus the dynastic line is preserved from Manvantara to Manvantara. Thus the seeds of life and the creative powers by which they are again fructified are preserved and passed on to the Lord of the next cycle.

The Hierophants of the Mystery Schools of old also obeyed this unchanging rule, and just as all Manus and all Logoi derive Their power from the central Source whether Solar or Cosmic Logos, so all Hierophants derive their official power and the initiatory creative fire which has been delivered to them by their Predecessors, from the One Hierophant of a planet. Thus, within the Mysteries, greater and lesser, the line of descent is preserved.

Traces of this everlasting rite of the transmission of creative fire have come down in Masonic rituals and in the choice and the ceremonial coronations of the successive Monarchs of Nations. In ancient Egypt, in the initiated Pharoahs, these two dynasties were frequently conjoined. The greatest of the Pharoahs were also the Hierophants of the Mysteries of their particular Temple, having derived their power from the supreme and reigning Hierophant of Egypt of that time. The coronation itself was a dual rite. A religious ceremony was performed in the sight of all the people and when the Pharoah was of the required occult stature, in a Lodge of the Greater Mysteries.

The preservation of this descent is markedly indicated in the deeply occult stories of the successions of the Jewish Patriarchs in the Old Testament. Each receives a blessing from his father and frequently some token as a covenant between the two. Rods, pillars, the root of the mysterious mandragora plant, and images of the Gods, the teraphim, are used as symbols of the transmitted energy and faculty. A birthright meaning transmitted creative faculty, tracts of land, flocks of sheep and herds of cattle are use as symbols of the Monads or spiritual ‘seeds’ which pass from one generation to the next. For thus the power of both the Jewish Mysteries and the Jewish race was handed down from father to son, from a Patriarch to his successor. From the chariot of fire in which he ascended the mantle of Elijah falls on to Elisha his successor.

The disciple John was made the adopted son of the Mother of Jesus by the ‘dying’ and passing Christos of one dispensation that the line might continue after His coronation and ascension to occupy a throne from which wider realms would be ruled. The Apostolic power, similarly was handed on and still is transmitted from bishop to priest down the centuries. Thus the special pentecostal fire is preserved and transmitted for the service of men; for hierophants, initiates, patriarchs, bishops and priests are all symbols of the Logoi of Solar System and their components, each of whom receives and in his turn transmits the solar creative fire appropriate to his office. Yet far more than mere symbols are they for, when the rites of the Greater and Lesser Mysteries are performed in a properly constituted manner, that creative fire descends and is handed on. Temporal monarchs, too, receive this privilege and at their coronations they are granted by the Supreme Hierophant of the Planet, its spiritual King, that due measure of the kingly power appropriate to their office and apportioned to their dynastic line.

The Theosophist, Vol. 67, November 1945, p. 66

47
Human Origins on Earth

This subject has been frequently presented during recent years, particularly by Dr Louis S. B. Leakey, the famous British Palaeontologist, whose discoveries of fossils in East Africa have provided interesting scientific information. Dr Leakey’s mother, Dr Mary Leakey, in her turn, found the skull of an extinct ape which thrived in tropical African forests up to twenty million years ago.

Special interest has recently been aroused by discovery of a set of footprints left by two man-like creatures more than three and a half million years ago in Northern Tanzania. These creatures walked upright, like modem human beings, and were judged to have been about four feet tall. A new species in man’s genesis has also been discovered in the region of Ethiopia; considered to be three and a half million years old and completely bipedal.

Occult Science in its turn gives the age of the earth in round figures to be about two thousand million years.^{^[33]} The first ‘Dawn Men’ (First Root Race) then occupied a tropical continent at the North Pole. The Third Root Race, however, was in existence twenty-five million years ago and developed skin, flesh and bony structure and an upright stance. During this period men and apes developed from a common ancestor.

The Fourth Root Race was in existence twelve million years ago and was said partly to have inhabited the continent of Atlantis. The Fifth Root Race existed from one million years ago and constitutes the Aryan Race to which the Western and Indo-Aryan peoples belong. To a considerable extent, modern discoveries would thus appear to support the teachings of Theosophy; for the fossilized skull of an ape woman believed to be about two and a half million years old was found in a cave thirty miles west of Johannesburg.

One part of the great value of Theosophy is that it provides such basic philosophic ideas, or keys to the understanding of life, as:

(a) The Law of Periodicity, including evolutionary progression through successive cycles of involution and evolution.

(b) The existence of an indelible Akashic Record^{^[34]} of every event from the beginning of manifestation.

(c) The existence of a clairvoyant faculty by which the Akashic Records may be read. Occult investigation permits a detailed study of every event which has occurred since the dawn of the life of our Solar System, and makes possible complete astronomical, ethnological and archeological sciences. This is due to the fact that every event is imprinted indelibly upon a principle in Nature named in Sanskrit the akash.

Recent fossil discoveries have thus produced a dramatic re-evaluation of one of science’s oldest questions: the origin of man.^{^[35]}

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 43, No. 1, 1982, p. 14

48
The Supreme Deity in Universe and Man [2]

INTRODUCTION

In approaching the subject of the possible existence of a Divine Being of Whom the Cosmos is an expression, the student of The Archaic Doctrine discovers that the idea of a wholly personal Deity must be relinquished. Indeed, the ultimate foundation, source and energizing and conserving Principle is far removed from the idea of a personal Godhead. Rather is it presented as a complete abstraction, a vast emptiness or void which contradictorily is described as also a plenum of fullness — at least so far as normal intelligence may comprehend the presented idea.

Evidently, the aspirant to understanding and illumination must transcend those limitations of the human mind and even of the abstract intellect which retain ideas of particular principles, laws, periodical procedures and all that could follow from them.

This uttermost, ultimate abstraction would seem, however — if my limited understanding is at all acceptable — to be either subject to, or inherently to express, a Principle. This might be regarded as that of alternation, under which the Cosmos and its components continuously emerge and withdraw.

To the human mind seeking to understand divine procedures under the guidance of the Dhyan-Chohans or Lords of Contemplation and the exalted Mahatmas from Whom knowledge is said to become available, the emergences or emanations from the Absolute in their turn appear to be under the dominion — if the term may be used — of two further precise principles.

One of these is that of the unfoldment of innate, germinal powers by means of the involvement of the Cosmic Life Principle in matter of deepening density, until a maximum is attained. Thereafter, a withdrawal of the unfolding Life commences and is continued until all is once more re-absorbed into its Source.

Developments have occurred during these procedures; for a second Principle becomes evident. This might be briefly defined as the operation of an irresistible Law which ordains that everything which objectively exists must evolve from less to more.

A Third Law apparently comes into operation as the finite emanates from the Infinite. This might perhaps be briefly described like this: throughout all regions of Cosmos, harmony must prevail. In The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p. 368 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, p. 643], H.P.B. [Helena P. Blavatsky] writes:... ‘For the only decree of Karma — an eternal and immutable decree — is absolute Harmony in the world of Matter as it is in the world of Spirit’.

Such, briefly, and with recognition of grave limitation of understanding, are deductions to be made from a study of The Secret Doctrine.

The incompleteness of my exposition of Cosmology is forced upon me by the limitations of both time at my disposal and my understanding of so vast a subject.

Cosmogenesis

AIN

The whole system of occult philosophy is based upon the most fundamental doctrine which asserts unequivocally that the manifested universe is derived from and is the expression of an Ultimate Reality, referred to as the Absolute Parabrahman.

This Reality in its highest aspect is a harmonized, balanced, integrated Whole, without beginning or end, beyond all opposites and differentiated states and therefore both a Void and a Plenum.

‘Sat is the immutable, the ever-present, changeless, and eternal Root, from and through which all proceeds. But it is far more than the potential force in the seed, which propels onward the process of development, or what is now called evolution. It is the ever becoming, though the never manifesting’.^{^[36]}

H.P.B. in The Secret Doctrine writes: ‘Parabrahman is not this or that, it is not even consciousness, as it cannot be related to matter or anything conditioned. It is not Ego nor is it Non-Ego, nor even Atma, but verily the one source of all manifestations and modes of existence’.^{^[37]}

‘Parabrahman ... is the one essence from which starts into existence a centre of energy, which I shall for the present call the Logos. ... It is called the Verbum ... by the Christians, and it is the divine Christos who is eternal in the bosom of his Father. It is called Avalokiteshvara by the Buddhists. ... In almost every doctrine, they have formulated the existence of a centre of spiritual energy which is unborn and eternal, and which exists in the bosom of Parabrahman at the time of Pralaya, and starts as a centre of conscious energy at the time of cosmic activity’.^{^[38]}

The Deity may also be regarded, one learns, as the presiding Intelligence of a Solar System, a Solar Logos. Here, also, we must divest our minds of the idea of a personal God in human form and go back in thought to the First Cause, the Sourceless Source. Three Divine Existences are conceived:

1. A Causeless Cause, which is the Absolute, Eternal Existence, from which all things come forth and to which all return.

2. An emanation from that Causeless Cause of a manifested Cosmic, Deific Principle, Architect and Life-giver to all Creation, a Cosmic Logos. This being is a creative unit, is a source and synthesis of all powers, and yet is one. It is sometimes referred to as ‘The One Alone’.

3. A Solar Deity, a Spiritual Being of inconceivable power, wisdom, intelligence and glory, Who presides over one Solar System in that Cosmos. This Being is an active Logos and as such is a Trinity—Creator (or Emanator), Preserver and Transformer, or Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Thus, behind and beyond and within all is the Eternal and Infinite Parent from within which the temporary and the finite emerge, or are born. That Boundless Self-Existence is variously referred to as the Absolute, the Changeless, the Eternal All, the Causeless Cause, the Rootless Root. This is Non-Being, Negative Existence, No-Thing, Ain (as the Kabbalist says), an impersonal Unity without attributes conceivable by man.

In occult philosophy the term ‘God’ in its highest meaning thus refers to a Supreme, Eternal and Indefinable Reality. This Absolute is inconceivable, ineffable and unknowable. Its revealed existence is postulated in three terms: namely an absolute Existence, an absolute Consciousness and an absolute Bliss. Infinite Consciousness is regarded as inherent in the Supreme Being as a dynamic Force that manifests the potentialities held in its own infinitude, and calls into being forms out of its own formless depths. From THAT, the Absolute, emerged an active, creative Power and Intelligence to become formative Deity, the Demiurgos, of the Universe-to-be. The illumined Sages thus taught that the Eternal One, which is potentially twofold (Spirit-matter), is subject to cyclic, rhythmic Motion, a primordial Third, which is also eternal. Under certain conditions the relationship of the conjoined Spirit-matter changes from passive unity into active duality — distinct positive and negative potencies.

The Secret Doctrine admits a Logos, or a Collective ‘Creator’ of the Universe; a Demi-urgos, (Demiurge), in the sense implied when one speaks of an ‘Architect’, as the ‘Creator’ of an edifice, whereas that Architect has never touched one stone of it, but, furnishing the plan, has left all the manual labour to the masons — the Hierarchies of Creative Intelligences; in our case, the plan was furnished by the Ideation of the Universe, and the constructive labour was left to the Hosts of intelligent Powers and Forces. But that Demiurge is no personal Deity — i.e., an imperfect extra-cosmic God, but only the aggregate of the Dhyan-Chohans and the other Forces.

The Logos, Transcendent and Immanent

The Solar Logos is regarded as the mighty Being in Whom all Monads and all beings are synthesized to constitute one great Intelligence, ‘Our Lord the Sun’. He^{^[39]} is in a somewhat similar relation to His Solar System as the Monad of man is to the seven vehicles, and the Ego is to the Personality — a source of Life, Light, Consciousness, Law and Beauty.

Just as the physical body has its organs which are components of the body as a whole, so the physical Solar System is as a physical body to the Solar Logos. The Sun is the physical heart, whilst the planets may provide an analogy for the organs, limbs and other members. All appear as a unit, one body, to the Solar Logos, just as man’s body is a unit to him: The trillions of bodily cells correspond to the millions of Monads.

Thus, behind and within Creation exists its Source, its Architect, ‘Ancient Progenitor before all things’. This, for our Solar System, is the Solar Logos, Transcendent and Immanent, Unmanifest and Manifest, the Infinite Glory beyond and within all Creation. The formative Logos is the first objective Emanation of the Absolute. It is the Principle of Divine Thought, to be made manifest in an individual sense, firstly as the Logos of the whole Cosmos and all that it contains, secondly as the Solar Deity of a single Solar System, and thirdly, as the Logos of the Soul of man, the Inner Ruler Immortal (The Secret Doctrine). These Three are one, indivisible, identical, an integral part of each other, a Whole.

Man is God. The next step in thought is that spiritually, man and God are one and identical. The Macrocosm and the microcosm are one. Man is an epitome in miniature of the whole Universe. The Solar System, physical, superphysical and spiritual, is all represented within man’s nature. The sun, planets, satellites, powers, kingdoms and intelligences of Nature are all potentially present within every man. If it were not so we could not respond to their influences, could not receive and relay their life, power and consciousness. This is the true secret of man’s power. He is perpetually preserved, empowered and sustained by virtue of the presence in him of all life and all being.

The Law of Correspondences — Kabbalism

‘In the chain of being everything is magically contained in everything else. Where you stand, there stand all the worlds’. Kabbalism adds to the Hermetic axiom — ‘What is below is above’, the statement that ‘what is inside is outside’ and that everything ‘acts upon everything else’. Man is portrayed ‘as a symbolic transparency through which the secret of the Cosmos could be discerned’. Kabbalists stress the interrelation of all worlds and levels of being, affirming that everything is connected with and interpenetrates everything else, ‘according to exact though unfathomable laws. Everything possesses its infinite depths which from every point may be contemplated’. This refers to the most profound fact about man — ourselves. Locked up, inherent, inborn within each one of us, however embryonic, is the whole potency of the Universe, its Supreme Deity and the Intelligences through which He is made manifest.

The Divine in Man

‘The ever unknowable and incognizable Karana alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes, should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart — invisible, intangible, unmentioned, save through the ‘still small voice’ of our spiritual consciousness. Those who worship before it, ought to do so in the silence and the sanctified solitude of their Souls; making their Spirit the sole mediator between them and the Universal Spirit, their good actions the only priests, and their sinful intentions the only visible and objective sacrificial victims to the Presence’.^{^[40]}

As at the beginning of my address, I referred to fundamental Principles underlying the manifestation of the Nameless, Eternal and Ever-Present Deity, so now at the close, I suggest one other.

This is, that man is possessed, whether embryonically or in various stages of developed activity and use, of the power in increasing measure to know, to commune with and ultimately to be absorbed in the One Eternal Essence from which all is said to have come forth. This is because he himself in his spiritual nature is a microcosm of that Macrocosm with its inherent Deific Life-Principle.

This Experience has been passed through by Seers and Mystics on Earth who have handed on descriptions of their intellectual and spiritual illumination. Here are some examples:

‘Beyond contemplation, mode of the mind; beyond ecstasy, mode of the enraptured feelings; beyond even intuition’s power to pierce to Reality, there is the Supreme Life whereinto the Spirit is led — a boundless, “unwalled world”, “the hill of the Lord. . . . His holy place’”.^{^[41]}

‘This fruition of God is a still and glorious and essential Oneness beyond the differentiation of the Persons, where there “is neither an outpouring nor an indrawing” of God, but the Persons are still and one in fruitful love, in calm and glorious unity. . . . There is God our fruition and His own, in an eternal and fathomless bliss’.[42]

Thus, the aspirant may know, with increasing fullness and depth and height, something of the mystery of the Supreme Deity and its Universe of Matter, of which every man is a manifestation and a part.

‘For I am the Eternal foundation, the inexhaustible bliss, the everlasting righteousness, supremest happiness’.^{^[43]}

God Consciousness

Up and down, and through and in and out of all this wanders Life— God — as Spirit. Not God Himself but His expanding Life as mind, passing into, and exploring, all the ramifications of His body. In the littlest, densest, most inert fragments of His garments, His consciousness is the steadfast guarantee of an eternal link. So it is said of Him: ‘God goes to school’.

An Eastern scripture says: — ‘The Supreme Brahman is the one Reality, without a second, it is pure wisdom, the stainless one, absolute peace without beginning and without end, void of action, and the essence of ceaseless bliss’.

‘The self, harmonized by Yoga, seeth the Self abiding in all beings, all beings in the Self; everywhere he seeth the same’.

‘He who seeth Me everywhere, and seeth everything in Me, of him will I never lose hold, and he will never lose hold of me’.

‘He Who, established in unity, worshippeth Me, abiding in all beings, that Yogi cometh to Me, whatever his mode of existence’.

‘The same am I to all beings; there is none hateful to Me nor dear. They verily who worship Me with devotion, they are in Me, and I also in them’.^{^[44]}

The Lord Christ said similarly:— ‘I am in my Father and He in Me and I in you’.^{^[45]}

Shri Krishna further said: ‘I, O Gudakesha, am the Self seated in the heart of all beings: I am the beginning, the middle, and also the end of all beings’.

‘And whatsoever is the seed of all beings, that am I, Arjuna; nor is there aught, moving or unmoving, that may exist bereft of Me’.

‘Whatsoever is glorious, good, beautiful and mighty, understand thou that to go forth from a fragment of My splendour’.^{^[46]}

This Presence of the God in man is beautifully described in another Hindu scripture:

‘Unseen He sees, unheard He hears, unthought of He thinks, unknown He knows. None other than He is the Seer, none other than He is the Hearer, none other than He is the Thinker, none other than He is the Knower. He is the Self, the Inner Ruler Immortal. That which is other perishes’.[47]

How this mystery of the Divine in man is accomplished is thus described:

‘A portion of Mine own Self, transformed in the world of life into an immortal Spirit, draweth round itself the senses of which the mind is the sixth, veiled in matter’.[48]

Rabindranath Tagore told of the indwelling God in Nature and in man in a beautiful poem, in which a dewdrop and the sun converse.

‘The dewdrop speaks:

“What is there but the sky, O sun, which beholds thine image? I dream of thee but to serve thee I never can hope”.

‘The Dewdrop wept and said:

I am too small to take thee unto me, great Lord,

And thus my life is all tears’.

‘Then the sun answers:

‘I illumine the limitless sky,

Yet I can yield myself up to a tiny drop of dew’.

‘Thus said the sun and smiled:

“I will be a speck of sparkle and fill you,

And your tiny life will be a smiling orb”.

(‘The Dewdrop’)

William Wordsworth told of:

... “Something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean, and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

A motion and a Spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

and rolls through all things”.

William Blake wrote, ‘. . . To mount to God is to enter into one’s self. For he who inwardly entereth and intimately penetrateth into himself gets above and beyond himself and truly mounts up to God’.

Eternity and Time

Schelling said:

‘In all of us there dwells a secret marvellous power of freeing ourselves from the changes of Time, of withdrawing our secret selves away from external things, and of discovering to ourselves the Eternal in us, in the form of unchangeability. This presentation of ourselves to ourselves is the most truly personal experience upon which depends everything that we know of the supersensual world. At that moment we annihilate Time and duration of Time: we are no longer in TIME, BUT TIME OR RATHER ETERNITY ITSELF, THE TIMELESS, IS IN US’.

Tennyson wrote: ‘. . . of waking trance, I have frequently had when I have been all alone. This has often come upon me through repeating my own name to myself silently till, all at once ... out of the intensity of the consciousness of Individuality the Individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being; and this is not a confused state, but the clearest of the clearest, the surest of the surest, the weirdest of the weirdest, utterly beyond words’ (‘Vision’)

Thus, in small part, have thought, spoken and written poets and mystics concerning the Divine Presence within all Nature and all mankind.

The Secret Doctrine also affirms that he or she who would make their maximum contribution to the welfare of their fellow men and fellow sentient creatures on Earth, will be enabled to do so by two means. One is that of serving to the full extent of their ability and freedom, and the other consists of regular, wisely-planned contemplation of the Divine, realizing Oneness therewith and in consequence drawing upon power, wisdom, intelligence and capacities far beyond those which they themselves may have as yet developed.

Such, I gather, is the immemorial Wisdom concerning our subject and such the age-old and unchanging pathway which, faithfully followed, will bring the human being to the very summit or maximum of human attainment and effectiveness in the service of his fellow men.

(A lecture given at the 97th International

Convention at Adyar, 1972.)

The Theosophist, Vol. 94, February 1973, p. 289

49
The Reincarnating Self of Man: A Study in Causal Consciousness

As I understand there may be some members of the public present this evening, and perhaps some new members of our Theosophical Society not fully aware of our teachings of the nature of man, I will begin by briefly advancing the view that man is at least seven-fold in his nature. These seven parts all occupy the same location in space; they are here and now from highest Spirit to the densest matter. The seven vestures are the physical body, the vital body, container and conserver of vitality, and the emotional and mental bodies. These four vehicles are sometimes called the Personality of man. This is mortal; it comes into existence as a vehicle of the indwelling Self during prenatal life. After the allotted span these four bodies at death gradually disintegrate, the real reincarnating Self having withdrawn from them. This Inner Self is three-fold, being a reflection of the three aspects of the Creative Logos, spiritual intelligence, intuitive wisdom and within these the Spirit-Essence, the Atma within, the real Self of man, the core of his existences. This, in its turn, is forever inseparably united with the one Spirit-Essence of all, the Paramatma.

I am now going to share with you some fruits of study and research into the condition of consciousness of that reincarnating Self, the unfolding spiritual unit, the Ego in the Causal Body. This research is possible because we do not need to remain imprisoned in the physical body whilst awake. By focusing attention in superphysical vehicles, we can learn to become aware in them and explore them.

What, then, is the life of the human Ego? I offer, quite undogmatically, some answers born of my studies of the subject, limiting myself to pure Causal consciousness, the spirit Self of a reasonably developed Ego in its Causal Body. Conditions will vary according to development and temperament, but, I think there will be certain common characteristics. At once I am faced with difficulties because words can and do falsify abstract ideals, and experiences in arupa worlds cannot be fully translated into terms of concrete thought and physical speech. Certain arupa [abstract] conditions contradict rupa [concrete] experience. For example, in Causal consciousness there are no negatives; only positives exist. There are no contrasts. All is light all the time and physically we can hardly imagine light without darkness in contrast.

Complete freedom of existence is another characteristic. There is no necessity to make any effort about anything. Entry into Causal consciousness brings at once complete ease as if all resistance, all restrictions, had vanished, leaving only pure being, the essential existence of the divine principle in man, his true integral Self, in a serene happiness in which doubt, worry and all other stresses cannot exist. The Ego dwells in smiling and unbroken ease and serenity.

No effort is ever needed and so no planning. Indeed no thought of a plan is possible, for to Causal consciousness, all exists and is perpetually available in its fullness. Any change is but a steady, unrecognized increase in the fullness of being. No action and therefore no fatigue, no exhaustion, no boredom can be experienced, no action being called for. There is only an increasing interior fullness and deepening of existence naturally occurring. The unfolding human Ego in its own world amongst its peers is simply pure being, without plan, spontaneous, thought-free, motiveless, complete.

Mystics and occultists have also borne testimony to the causal experience of entering into supernal, infinite light, of being light itself, a centre of light in an ocean of light, the ‘true light that never was on sea or land’ and ‘lighteth every man that cometh into the world’. The Causal Body is self-radiant, an outraying of light from its centre.

Another contrast with physical life is that there is no skin, no edge to this radiance of what has been called ‘The Robe of Glory’^{^[49]}. Causal consciousness is virtually universal and the sense of division, of being separated from anyone or anything does not, cannot, exist in this state. One is light in a world of universal light. When once this state has been entered and particularly when dwelt in until it becomes part of consciousness, that same light can be seen in all beings and all things. The lower worlds are ‘seen’ to be bathed in and permeated by the vast ocean of spiritual light.

Another strange experience on entering this plane of existence is that the time sense is greatly changed, almost lost, as if the Inner Self were independent of time. Time is not a factor in existence and awareness. The Ego abides in duration or time without limits. Here we live amidst past, present and future. Of these it is said only the future is actually real, the past having gone and the present vanishing whilst we think of it. The future approaches all the time. Causally this is not so. All is in complete existence all the time. The Ego does not actually dwell in eternity, in the eternal now. That appertains to a far deeper state within universe and man, at the level of the Spirit-Essence, the Atma, within us. When we touch that deeper layer, our Monadic self, then perhaps we may know eternity and that all exists in uttermost fullness all the ‘time’. Processes of beginning, developing, evolving, achieving, have there little or no meaning; for all exists all at once. Physically, this is negated, is just not so. Egoic consciousness is somewhere between the two relatively independent of time, dwelling in time without limits.

Awareness there can bring strange phenomena into one’s experience; for example, physically, a swiftly moving body, a bullet fired through the air or, far more swiftly, a sub-atomic particle, an electron, perhaps, shot with great velocity passes invisibly. When one tries to examine with heightened vision these swiftly moving sub-atomic particles and perhaps the root particle, the anu,[50] these are causally and even in some strange way, clairvoyantly, observed to be motionless — a contradiction of physical experience, and there are many others, all of which can nevertheless be living and repeatable experiences whilst in the physical body. A physically moving object, then, can be observed as if there were no such phenomenon as motion, there being nowhere to go, to come from, to reach, as if everything exists now, here and all at once.

What, then, is causal knowledge? Here, as we grow up, are educated and educate ourselves, we have the experience of receiving information, of considering it, meditatively, contemplatively in some cases, as if something external to ourselves had come to us. Physically, then, a process occurs of gaining knowledge from without. That is negated in causal consciousness. The principles of existence, of emanation, unfoldment in successive degrees, of an underlying harmony of the whole universe, and all other basic equations and formulae of life, Egoically are not received ideas. We grow up with them as part of the very nature of our existence. They are built increasingly as it were into the construction of consciousness in the higher worlds, after a certain level of development has been reached. Even those words are contradictions because suggesting time. Egoically, the processes of Nature operate all around and within and upon one. They are observed and known intuitively as beyond question or necessity of thought. All natural principles and processes are, in fact, continually lived and in no sense observed as if external. They are ‘parts’ of the unified fabric of being. Now those words have falsified what I want to say, and I find it extremely hard to bring these causal, arupa, concepts in their vital significance into terms of the concrete mind. The brain is especially limiting and still more so words.

Let me, then, deliberately provide some concrete ideas. We, Theosophists, are taught, we believe, and some of us know, that this Inner Self of universe and man gradually unfolds its inherent powers, reaches one standard of development after another by virtue of successive lives on earth, the whole process operating under a flexible Law of Cause and Effect. So in our thought, we say we have had past lives. We lived on earth in another body, for example, two, three, four, or five hundred years or so ago. That life came to an end. It finished. It is now a past life. Behind that again hundreds of other existences as personalities, lived their little day and, with the civilizations with which they were a part, have all gone into the past. Now, imagine a state of consciousness in duration or time without limit in which this simply is not so, those former existences still continuing here and now. If we were in Egypt once or twice in those lives, then they are still going on. A past life is, causally, not finished and done with. The whole procedure occurs here and now, very much as we attending this gathering have been all together a few minutes before it started when we found our seats and we waited for what had to be done and is now being done. Whilst physically all events were in succession, they are still present in our consciousness, still going on. We are here together in a continuing, non-temporal, process. Something like that, but far more subtle and extensive, obtains in causal consciousness. Thus the Ego dwells in timelessness.

A peculiarity of physical embodiment is that consciousness is continually snapped off, broken, lost. Every time we go to sleep, briefly, or for the night, consciousness is lost, put out like a candle that is extinguished. For us physically all then vanishes including ourselves. We, Theosophists, may believe that consciousness continues and there is activity in an inner world but, physically at any rate, consciousness is intermittent, being continually broken. This is not at all the case for the Ego in the Causal Body. There — a falsifying word — consciousness is unbroken, continuous as if the Ego dwells in continuity with everything going on all the time, without any break in awareness or any change. If there is any change, it is as of a perpetually unfolding sphere, which from within is ever unfolding; from a centre or germ within one there is welling up all the time more and more spirit-essence; more power, life, love, vital energies and awareness and understanding are perpetually increasing, like a sphere of light with continually increasing range.

Thus in causal consciousness there cannot ever be any sense of lack, of want, anything to be striven for. All is fully available all the time, and Egoic existence consists of a perpetual expansion due to the continuous up-welling from an infinite source of light, life and energizing, dynamic power. All that ever can be is already present in this sense of growing fullness in timeless experience. As I said in the beginning, the experience of causal consciousness in whatever degree is thus one of rest, peace, great and smiling ease.

Another contrast with physical awareness, a contradiction in fact of our three dimensional consciousness is that of infinite withinness. Physically, we know that all objects can be expanded limitlessly in size. Apart from obstructions on the physical plane, space is limitless, and so we are able to conceive of limitless outward expansion. Movement outward is for us without restriction, but when we try to penetrate limitlessly into the interior of things we come to the impassible centre. Now imagine a state where that impassibility does not exist, where there is also infinite withinness. This is applicable to both universe and man and if he so focuses his attention, he can indeed penetrate in consciousness deeper and deeper towards his inner nature without ever coming to a stop, a barrier, an absolutely resistant centre.

This is a very strange experience and again in examining sub-atomic particles, for example, one finds that deep within the minutest of them there is another kind of existence, penetrating into which one comes to another world from which the force that makes the object appear in the physical world is coming. This can be pursued into successive interior states until presumably you come to that centre which H.P.B. [Helena P. Blavatsky] says is everywhere with circumference nowhere — inconceivable physically. The brain cannot conceive it though it is good to meditate upon. Egoically it is a natural characteristic of consciousness in the causal world.

Then, again, the integrity of the Ego is unstained and unstainable—a wonderful state! Wholeness, actuality, of that which you are is a causal attribute. You are what you are. How difficult to attain down here, where we are continually shaped, moulded and conditioned by all sorts of external influences and uttermost trueness, integrity is almost impossible. But, causally, there are no external influences. All is within and part of the fabric of one’s being. There is nothing to attain, nothing to manoeuvre for, plot for, plan for, deceive for. The jewel of sincerity shines in the crown of the Inner

Self of Man

Imagine also a condition of consciousness in which not only time is not a factor in existence, but space also. To the Ego, space and distance hardly exist. The Ego of man is independent of location. There is no geography in the causal world. It does not matter where one is, existence not being in any way affected by position in space.

There is no going away because there is nowhere to go. There is no losing someone or something, because all is always here, all ever available. The only necessity for communion is attunement. If one can attune with any other being in the causal world or with great ideas and principles of existence then they are present in fullness. Death of course cannot exist, for the Inner Self is immune from death. Only the body dies. Having been born, it must die, but the shining Self of Light is virtually immortal. Egoically, for us all there is no death, no separation, no bereavements. Perhaps the analogy of radio might help us in this. It does not help to have the receiver close to the transmitting station. Receivers are generally fairly independent of location. If you can tune in adequately, all things being equal, you can pick up a chosen station. Carry that up into terms of pure consciousness and realize that distance, separation, other locations are not part of the content of such consciousness.

If that consciousness is blessed by knowledge of a Master, if there is a sense of having dedicated oneself and one’s life and being to a great Adept, then He is ever present and can never be lost as long as the power to attune with Him remains. So in this sense, the Guru, the Adept, the Master, is not away in an ashrama. He is here, an ever-present living Light and Presence and Power within one’s Inner Self. The Himalayan Ranges cannot separate the disciple from his Guru, for He is here and now and within one all the time — a blessed thought for the devotee! Even more blessed when it is a fully conscious experience as we are promised it can be.

I expect some of you are mentally asking: ‘How can we know some of this wondrous life, this serene content, this poised harmony, and tranquillity of soul and mind?’ Indeed this is the great question: How to know? Most of you know full well and will answer, by the practice of Yoga. May I simplify that and say, ‘by strong focusing of attention’. Awareness can be established at that point where your thought is focused. So we should focus our attention out of the unreal into the real, out of this relative darkness into the light and out of this death into immortality. By following the habit of living there in thought, of being often focused there, the doors, the double doorway, opens and we can pass in to the holy of holies of our inner nature where is enshrined the Atma, the immortal Spirit-Essence of our real selves. Simply put, it is done by thinking. Think constantly on the eternal and the eternal will become ours. I have written an affirmation with which I will close. Lifting consciousness above the physical, astral and mental levels, we may frequently affirm: ‘I am a divine and immortal being. I live for ever in radiance, in eternal youth, and in oneness with God’.

A Convention Lecture delivered at Adyar on 26 December 1950

50
The Royal Secret

What is the supreme Theosophical revelation? What is the highest Truth, the ultimate fact, the ‘Royal Secret’? What can we, Theosophists, say to a world of men perplexed, confused., frightened, disillusioned, cynical, trusting, if in anything, in physical science alone? The answer can be given in one three-lettered Sanskrit word, which must of course be translated into the language of the people addressed. This, I conceive, is our task to translate that one essential word, and to convey convincingly that translation to humanity.

What is that short word which reveals all, solves all, satisfies all? It is the name of God given to the Aryan Race by the Rishis of old! It is spelt AUM and pronounced OM. One translation into English of this three-lettered word which is pronounced in one syllable is ‘The Divine Source is threefold in manifestation and one in essence’. This divine essence constitutes the essential Self in every human being. There are not two essences, but one. Such is the one truth, the Atma Vidya, the Supreme Wisdom.

Why is this apparently simple and not unfamiliar idea so important and so potent? Because it solves man’s two greatest problems — those of religion and human relationships. Applied to a religion, AUM directs man’s thoughts to his Divine Source, and links him therewith when meditated upon and correctly chanted as a Mantram. AUM leads, therefore, to the vital religious experience of conscious union in ecstasy with the Source of all Life. After that experience, or even the foreshadowing of it in the mind, neither temples nor priests are needed any more for that particular person.

The worshipper thus illumined has found that the Light of the World is within himself, as also in everyone and there alone may it be found. ‘I and my Father are One’, the Christ translated the AUM, thereby summing up all religion and describing the highest religious life.

AUM solves problems of human relationships, by affirming the truth about every man. The same Divine Essence constitutes the reality of every human being. All belong spiritually to one race, which is without divisions of any kind. So the beginning and the end of every reform and of every benefit and every human relationship consists of the single truth— ⁴We are one’. When any human problem is faced by all parties with that fact uppermost in the mind, and in the forefront of all discussions, then the solution is found. It is ‘Do that which is best for the greatest number, for we are all one’.

Those who drew up the Objects of the Theosophical Society knew this truth of oneness, and they produced the First Object as their translation and application of AUM. As soon as AUM is realized, even intellectually, philosophy, occult science and religion assume their natural places in human life. Statecraft, education, science and the closer human relationships become illumined and beautified, when firmly based upon AUM and its significance to man. Spiritually realized, AUM becomes TAD BRAHMAN. TAD ASM1, ‘The Atma and the Paramatma are one’, ‘I am That. That am I’.

This is the Royal Secret, the one panacea. Its correct applications to human problems constitutes the greatest spiritual and intellectual gift which any society or any individual can give to another. AUM was the word which shone above the cradle of the infant Aryan Race revealing the highest truth and pointing to the dharma and destiny of that Race. Proclamation of the divinity and the unity of all men is the Aryan dharma, as their realisation in consciousness is its destiny.

In this Fifth Cycle of development, when Mind is accentuated, the word with its significance to man is almost lost. Our work as Theosophists, as I conceive it, is, with the aid of the Rishis, to restore to mankind the lost word, to reveal in acceptable, logical terms, the fact of unity and its applications to every phase of human life.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 38, No. 2, 1977, p. 27

51
Cosmogenesis

Fellow members: I am very happy to be granted this opportunity to study some of the deeper teachings of Theosophy with you, and I have chosen as my subject the ever-interesting topic of the emanation from the Absolute of a universe, and all that it contains. As this includes the human race, you and I as human beings will be included in our study. Guided by theosophical teachings, but in no sense expressing an orthodoxy, we will carry out a leisurely study of the emanation and formation of our own universe, the Solar System. You will note that at the very beginning I do not use the word ‘creation’ but rather ‘emanation’ of a universe.

Our thoughts will lead back to that pre-cosmic condition in which, as is said in the Book of Genesis, Chapter I, Verse 1, ‘Darkness was upon the face of the deep’. Then, when the cosmic hour had struck, divine creative energy was liberated and there was initiated the whole cosmic process of the emanation, formation and perfecting in orderly progression of universes and all that they were to contain.

As you will already see, we will be called upon, particularly in this first part of our studies, very usefully to exercise the higher mind, the abstract intellect, which is capable of what is called objectless thought, can conceive of principles, formulae and archetypal ideas. What, for example, could be more formless, more abstract, than that first verse of the Gospel of St John, which begins, you will remember, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’. Then in Genesis we read: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters’.

The Hindu scriptures state[51]:

‘There was neither existence, nor non-existence,

The kingdom of air, nor the sky beyond.

What was there to contain, to cover in —

Was it but vast, unfathomed depths of water?

There was no death there, nor Immortality.

No sun was there, dividing day from night.

Then was there only that, resting within itself.

Apart from it, there was not anything.

At first within the darkness veiled in darkness,

Chaos unknowable, the All lay hid.

Till straightway from the formless void made manifest

By the great power of heat was born that germ’.

Wonderful words, are they not, and doubtless far more wonderful in the original Sanskrit.

The First Dawn

Aided by such references we are going to turn our thoughts to that first dawn when the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy, as Job puts it.

In this study of cosmogenesis we will have a three-fold objective; we first will seek comprehension, however partial, of the creative Deity itself, the one Source of all; then understanding of the process of the emanation of universes will be sought. As I have said, the true philosopher does not generally use the word ‘creation’ in this context, FOR THAT WOULD SUGGEST THE APPEARANCE OR MAKING OF SOMETHING OUT OF nothing, which is not acceptable. Out of the Absolute, universes cyclically emanate, The Secret Doctrine teaches. Finally, man’s relationship to God and of his place in the Great Work, as it has been called, will be considered.

The first five verses of the first Chapter of the Gospel according to St John, full of cosmic symbolism as it is, associates and even identifies the Lord Christ with the Supreme Deity, the great creative power, the Logos or Word. Rather like a great composer, St John enunciates his theme at the beginning of his Gospel, saying:

1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2. The same was in the beginning with God.

3. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

4. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

I have already quoted in part, but may here repeat the first five verses of the Book of Genesis, which in very allegorical and symbolic form presents a Hebraic cosmogony:

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

We are thus taught that there was first a duality in unity, the Word which was the Spirit of God, the masculine creative Spirit on the one hand, and on the other the face of the Deep, the feminine creative principle — pre-cosmic Matter or space — thus positive and negative existed, the eternal poles, the dual principles — Spirit-Matter conjoined as one.

Upon the vast ocean of space, the Great Abyss, as it is sometimes called, during non-creative ‘night’, there was darkness which brooded upon the face of the Deep. All slept. The whole of boundless space was quiescent to any finite intelligence. As we learn in our theosophical studies, this is Maha-Pralaya, ‘the great rest’.

Then, strangely, within the darkness and the quiescence a change occurred. The Spirit of God emerged from absolute or negative existence and moved upon the waters of Space. Metaphorically, the Great Breath breathed upon the Great Deep. In Biblical terms, God spake, saying, ‘Let there be light! ’ And there was light. Maha-Pralaya, rest, gave way to Maha-Manvantara, cosmic activity.

The Nameless Source

Let us at this point think of that nameless attributeless Source from which all emerged. Actually words entirely fail; for this is a subject for profound contemplation in silence. Words and the thoughts they express may, however, help us at least to approach the boundary of the Infinite. Apparently, then, behind and beyond and within all which exists, is that eternal and infinite Parent from within which the temporary and finite emerge, are ‘born’, emanate. That boundless Self-Existence, forever unknowable and unknown, is called the Absolute, the changeless, the infinite, eternal All, the self-existent, causeless Cause, the rootless Root. This refers to the eternally Unmanifest, to non-being or negative existence, No-thing, as the Kabbalist says, an impersonal Unity without attributes conceivable by man.

From within the Absolute, when the cosmic hour strikes, creative power and intelligence emerge to become the formative Deity, or as the Freemasons say, the Great Architect of the universe to be.

Perhaps at this point you may find yourselves asking the question: since up to that time no one was in existence, how can this Procedure be known? It is a natural question. The answer given in The Secret Doctrine is that certain very high Adept Intelligences, Dhyan-Chohans, Lords of Contemplation, have been able to push their consciousness back towards the very threshold of the Absolute. From that lofty level, or state of being and consciousness, these Great Beings have been able to view retrospectively, look back towards, very early procedures in cosmogenesis. They have been able to view retrospectively the process of the emanation from the Absolute of finite universes. They have been able to go back in consciousness to the dawn of life, to the very threshold of the Absolute and observe the emanation of the finite from the infinite. From the teachings of these great Ones, the world’s cosmogonies have been given to man, and from them these teachings have been received. If you will read the cosmogonies of the various religious Scriptures of the world, you will notice a certain uniformity, a certain sameness, even though the actual language and symbology may differ.

In plain English, so to say, the Dhyan-Chohans, the highest spiritual Beings in touch with our Earth, who have approached this condition existing on the threshold of the Absolute and primeval being, all tell of the eternal existence, the duality in unity, of universal Spirit and universal Matter. These are called the Great Breath and the Great Deep, the primordial Father-Mother of all creation. We must be careful, however, not to give them any form, because we are in the presence only of archetypal principles, the formulae of cosmogenesis, so to say.

Primordial Trinity

Let us now move on in thought, however gradually. This primeval duality in unity possesses the property or power of self-generation. When in obedience to a mysterious cyclic law this power becomes active, something happens which without changing the Absolute, causes the finite to emerge. This eternal One which is potentially two is evidently subject to cyclic, rhythmic motion — a cosmic third — which is also eternal, and which — under certain conditions — changes the relationship of these two from passive unity into active duality, distinct and separative positive and negative polarities. Thus we perceive the very first, the primordial Trinity, a triple Principle of which all other trinities are reflections at later phases of the emanative procedure. That first Trinity is, as we have seen, Spirit-Matter-Motion.

The ancient teaching tells in effect that when interior motion causes hitherto unified, quiescent Spirit-Matter to awaken and become oppositely polarized or creatively active, then there is activity or cosmic ‘Light’ which is called ‘Day’. Otherwise static, these two — universal Spirit and universal Matter — now active produce a third, a ‘Son’ if you like, which becomes the presiding Deity, the Logos or Architect of the resultant universe. We have now proceeded in thought towards something finite, for a finite Principle, a presumably objective Being, has emerged from the infinite. Universal Spirit-Matter-Motion have become focused into a Being, an emanated creative Agency, but one which is nevertheless beyond our normal human comprehension.

How wonderful must be the vision perceived by the lofty Dhyan-Chohans as, exalted to the threshold of the Absolute, They watch the change from boundless night to cosmic dawn, from absoluteness to finiteness, and then the emanation, appearance perhaps, of that first Deific Power and Presence, by which all things were made.

One part of the value of such studies as this is that they are really meditations, enlarging one’s consciousness, helping one to use both abstract intellect and intuition, and so to develop them.

Can we positively imagine what the vision would be if we were watching the darkness and the quiescence of pre-cosmic night? We would see the wonder of cosmic dawn, movement stirring within the boundless ocean of space. Light would begin to shine and a ripple to flow, or perhaps — as some cosmogonies say — a vortex or a whirlpool begins to form within that which was hitherto dark and still. Then there would emerge universal Mind, the Logos to be.

The Egyptians pictured this first divine creative Intelligence as the sun-disk — I describe from memory only — snake-crowned, hovering above an opening lotus which in its turn is floating on the boundless waters of space. This sometimes is personified as the Sky Horns, a youth seated, or rather floating, above an opening lotus and pointing to his mouth with his forefinger. This Son of Heaven is the Cosmic Christ, by Whom all things are made, all universes fashioned. In our prayer books we read: ‘Yea, all things both in heaven and in earth. With Him as the Indwelling Life do all things exist, and in Him as the Transcendent Glory all things live and move and have their being’.

This then is the Emanator — we should not say Creator, though we are very tempted to do so — the Fashioner, Architect, Sustainer and Regenerator of universes and all that they contain. In Sanskrit this is Mahat, the major Universal Mind, the directive Intelligence in Nature, an existence which is suspected by some scientists. From Hindu writings we read: ‘God is in and above all, the Soul and Source and Goal of all, who creates all as a play with the aid of His own power. Formless, He is yet seen through form. He has all the qualities of infinite perfection. He manifests as Deity, as descended Incarnation, as Divine Image, and the Inner Ruler, Immortal, seated in the heart of all things’.

This, our first study, must now draw to a close. We may well contemplate those words which describe Deity as both the one Creator of all and the Inner Ruler, Immortal, seated in the hearts of all beings. In the heart of each and every one of us, we are thus taught, the One Alone, the Creative Logos, the nameless One has His sanctuary and shrine. The Deity is not separate from but verily part of us, and we are part of Him, sharing in the vast creative processes, however far down in the evolutionary scale we may be.

Many beautiful terms have been applied for this mysterious Power and Presence, and with some of them I will close. He is called, for example, the Unconquered Sun of Heavenly Light, medial between earth and heaven, friendly to Souls. He is also named the Eternal, Omnipresent Being of Law, the Ineffable Source and Goal, Who spontaneously works for universal good.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 5 October 1963, p. 4

52
The Law of Correspondences

Two profound ideas among many others are contained within the teachings of Theosophy. The first of these affirms the oneness of the universe and its transcendent and immanent Deity with man, divine and human; the second states that there is a close similarity between the processes by which the powers within both universe and man evolve and become manifest.

Man, in very truth, was created in the image of God. Madame H. P. Blavatsky writes in Isis Unveiled: ‘Man is a little world — a microcosm inside the great universe. Like a foetus, he is suspended, by all his three spirits, in the matrix of the macrocosmos; and while his terrestrial body is in constant sympathy with its parent earth, his astral soul lives in unison with the sidereal anima mundi. He is in it, as it is in him, for the world-pervading element fills all space, and is space itself, only shoreless and infinite’.^{^[52]} Eliphas Levi wrote that ‘The mystery of the earthly and mortal man is after the mystery of the supernal and immortal One’, while the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu taught that ‘The Universe is a man on a large scale’. The German philosopher, Goethe, echoed this idea: ‘The eye could not see the sun if it did not contain the sun within itself and how would Divine things enrapture us if we did not carry the power of God within us?’ In the Book of The

Proverbs we read: ‘The Spirit of man is the candle of the Lord’, while The Bhagavad Gita teaches that ‘the Light of all lights is said to be beyond darkness. Wisdom, the object of Wisdom, by Wisdom to be reached, is seated in the hearts of all’.[53] The Secret Doctrine, referring to this identity between man and God, tells us that ‘The evolution of man, the microcosm, is analogous to that of the universe, the macrocosm’.^{^[54]}

In philosophy, this teaching, referred to as the Law of Correspondences, shows that man is identical in his spiritual and physical essence with both the Absolute Principle — Deity Itself — and with God in Nature. This subject is of great importance, particularly to those who seek to expand and transform received ideas into experienced knowledge; for the Law of Correspondences also refers to the harmonious co-ordination or mutual resonance between the many apparently separate parts of the Universe and corresponding parts of the constitution of man. Occult philosophy affirms that all the components of both macrocosm and microcosm are interwoven and interactive according to a universal system of vibrational interchange. One learns that in their spiritual, intellectual, psychical and physical make-up, human beings are miniature replicas or epitomes of the whole order of creation — models of the totality of Nature. Furthermore, they are said to contain within themselves the aggregate of all that has ever existed, exists now, and will ever exist throughout the eternity of eternities.

This knowledge is universal and has existed from the earliest times. Sir Thomas Browne affirmed that ‘Life is a pure flame and we are lit by an invisible sun within us’. The Philosopher Ruysbroeck expressed the same idea in the following words: ‘Up and down and through and in and out of all this, wanders Life God as Spirit. Not God Himself, but His expanding life as mind, passing into, and exploring, all the ramifications of His body. In the littlest, densest, most inert fragments of His garment, His consciousness is the steadfast guarantee of an eternal link.... The experience of the manifold are His and ours. So all things are living, are intelligent with one primal urge — to know, and in knowing to be free, free to know God.... These, so simply put, are the fundamentals of a universe that runs its vast, slow, sure course. God withdraws and His myriad-hued garment fades away into Himself.

In his book Supernature Lyall Watson writes: ‘An intricate web of inter-action connects all life into one vast self-maintaining system. Each part is related to every other part and we are all parts of the whole. . . . Life on earth is united into what amounts to a single super organism, and this in turn is only part of the cosmic community’.

Theosophy advances at least four basic ideas upon which the concept of Correspondences is established:

1. The whole universe with all its parts from Adi (the subtlest and highest) to the physical (the lowest) is interlocked and interwoven to make a single whole — one body, one organism, one life, one consciousness.

2. All the ‘organs’ of the macrocosm or universe, though apparently separated in space and planes of manifestation are, in fact, harmoniously inter-related. For example, the cosmos, which includes the zodiac, Solar Systems, planets, kingdoms and planes of nature, the elements and colours, is one co-ordinated whole. This is because all these parts are in ‘correspondence’ or harmonious interaction with each other, the basis for this grouping being numerical.

3. Certain ‘organs’ are more intimately grouped together than others. These vibrate in resonance with each other like the notes of a chord and share a common basic frequency of oscillation. In occultism they are said to ‘correspond’. Thus, a sign, a planet, an element, a colour, a principle of man or a part of the physical body all vibrate on a common frequency.

4. A knowledge of these correspondences provides a key to the understanding of the universe and of man’s place therein. In The Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky further states: ‘From Gods to men, from Worlds to atoms, from a Star to a rush-light, from the Sun to the vital heat of the meanest organic being — the world of Form and Existence is an immense chain, the links of which are all connected’.^{^[55]}

In these days, certain parts only of the ‘Grand System of Correspondences’ have been given to mankind by the Adept Teachers of the Race; for knowledge is power and only the more innocuous aspects of the Science can safely be put before humanity at this stage of its evolution. While this reservation would appear to be a limitation, it is, in fact, a challenge to the intellect and intuition of those students in whom the determination to know has awakened; for to those organs of consciousness all knowledge lies open, and in seeking to fill in the gaps in the present revelation the student exercises, and so develops, his powers of intellection and perception.

The Lord Buddha is reported to have said: ‘In this very body, six feet in length, with its sense impressions and its thoughts and ideas, is the world, and the origin of the world, and the ceasing of the world, and likewise the Way that leadeth to the ceasing thereof.^{^[56]}

Thus, because of the underlying unity of this tremendous pattern of unfoldment, man contains in himself every element that is found in the universe. In the chain of being, everything is magically contained in everything else. Where you stand, there stand all the worlds. Kabbalism — the Theosophy of the Hebrews — adds to the Hermetic axiom — ‘what is below is above’ — the statement that what is inside is outside, and also acts upon everything else. Man himself is portrayed as a symbolic transparency through which the secret of the Cosmos may be discerned. Kabbalists stress the interrelation of all worlds and levels of being, affirming that everything is connected with and interpenetrates everything else according to exact though unfathomable laws. Everything possesses its infinite depths which from every point may be contemplated.

The Theosophist, Vol. 103, November 1981, p. 46

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Theosophy as Interior Experience [1]

WHAT IS THEOSOPHY?

We, theosophists, have discovered within ourselves a wellspring of life, of happiness, of inspiration. Theosophy has led us to this discovery. If we choose to become active theosophists — and happily we are quite free in this choice — our task is to lead humanity to its own truth as we have been led. Our work is to re-establish the Wisdom-Religion on earth.

Before we can effectively fulfil this function, we must answer to our own satisfaction the question: ‘What is Theosophy?’ The usual answer is based upon the Greek words from which the name is derived — Theo-Sophia, meaning divine wisdom. Madame Blavatsky’s definition is: ‘Theosophy in its abstract meaning is Divine Wisdom, or the aggregate of the knowledge and wisdom that underlie the Universe — the homogeneity of eternal good; and in its concrete sense it is the sum total of the same as allotted to man by Nature, on this earth and no more’.

I wish to draw attention to one phrase in this definition: ‘Theosophy’, says Madame Blavatsky, ‘is the aggregate of the knowledge and the wisdom that underlie the Universe ... it is the sum total of the same as allotted to man by Nature, on this earth, and no more’. What may we assume is meant here by the phrase ‘as allotted to man by Nature?’ In what sense may Nature be said to have allotted Theosophy to man?

In seeking an answer, we at once perceive that according to this definition Theosophy is not a wisdom, a knowledge, a power separate from or outside of man. It is something allotted to man by Nature. It is therefore part of man. Being divine, it is therefore eternal. In consequence, Theosophy must be regarded not only as a science of life studied and partly comprehended by the lower quaternary, the mortal man. Theosophy must also be regarded as an attribute of the higher Triad, the immortal Self. Thus Theosophy is not only a divine wisdom which by study and practice becomes incorporated into man as an enrichment of his mind, an enlargement of his concrete knowledge. Theosophy, being eternal, appertains to the eternal Self of man.

Since that Self is triple in Its nature, we have a threefold definition of Theosophy. In its wisdom aspect, Theosophy is an attribute or manifestation of the Buddhic Self of man. In its intellectual aspect, it is an attribute or manifestation of the higher Manasic Self of man. In its power aspect Theosophy is an attribute and manifestation of the Atmic Self of man. In a phrase: Theosophy is the innate wisdom, knowledge and power of the inner Self of man, latent or active in varying degrees.

Before proceeding to examine this concept and its implications, let us consider a question which arises out of it. If Theosophy is within you what is the place, value, of the externally propounded doctrines through which most of us first learn of the existence of Theosophy? What is the relation between the Theosophy of the inner Self and the Ancient Wisdom in its concrete form delivered to humanity age by age by the Adept Teachers of the race?

The value of doctrinal Theosophy is, I think, abundantly clear. Apart from its great practical usefulness as a guide to intelligent living and therefore to happiness, it constitutes a pathway or gateway leading from concrete to abstract levels of consciousness, from an externally perceived scientific philosophy to an interior illumination, from time-conditioned exposition to eternal truth.

Theosophy as it exists in our books and is taught in our lodges is therefore in no sense an end in itself. As must ever be remembered, external Theosophy can never possess the attribute of finality. However brilliantly grasped and expounded it will ever remain unfinished and its concepts of truth entirely relative. The marvellous collection of doctrine, of knowledge of ideas — Theosophy-of-the-books — whilst of the greatest value as a practical philosophy of life, is of infinitely greater value as a bridge leading ‘from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality’. Recognition of this fact in no way decreases one’s appreciation of the doctrines-in-time. Indeed, if anything their value is enhanced; for is it not far more valuable to exist and function as a gateway leading to wider fields than to be the end of a road?

Returning to the main theme, we may ask: Of what practical value is this concept of ‘Theosophy as interior wisdom, knowledge and power?’ What are the implications for Fellows of The Theosophical Society? This concept can be of the greatest help to all of us and especially to the teacher of Theosophy. Throughout his expositions he is, or should be, continually aware that whilst he is imparting to his hearers doctrines as guides to life down here, he is also pointing out to them a road leading from external Theosophy to the wisdom, the knowledge and the power which are the very essence of the interior Self.

The function of the theosophical teacher is now seen to be at least dual. Whilst he expounds doctrines pointing out their intellectual and their practical implications, he also leads his students to the discovery of their own truth. Here at once we are face to face with one of the great difficulties of our work. It is the relative scarcity of teachers who are able to fill this dual role. This difficulty exists partly because we are a society of men and women who are active out in the world. Nearly all of us have worldly duties which prevent us from giving ourselves wholly to the study and exposition of Theosophy. Very few of us are in circumstances which permit either prolonged study or the regular practice of yoga.

Even to those free of temporal activities and obligations, fulfilment of the dual role of teacher and spiritual leader demands the highest qualifications. Expositions of doctrinal Theosophy may not be difficult for those who have the interest, the education, the leisure and the intellectual capacity required. For them success depends upon self-application, upon effort. Successfully to impart the main theosophical teachings and in addition to elevate the consciousness, truly to illumine the minds and hearts of listeners and students inspiring them to set forth on the great quest of their own inner Light — such a task is indeed difficult of fulfilment.

Why is this so? Is it not due to the operation of a natural law? According to this law only the self-illumined can illumine another. Spiritually, no man can give to another that which he does not possess himself. He who has not found his own inner Light cannot be a light in another’s darkness.

Thus we are led to one conclusion. Since Theosophy is within each one of us and our task is to lead our fellow men to their own Theosophy, practical, intellectual and spiritual, we must each one of us, first discover our own Theosophy. We must find that Theosophy which is the knowledge and the power of the inner Ruler Immortal.

SELF-ILLUMINATION

How shall this discovery be made?

First: I submit, by a recognition of its necessity, hence this address of mine. Second: by an application both to our daily lives and to our intellectual and spiritual evolution of the theosophical teachings concerning the way of self-illumination.

With regard to necessity, in my Convention address of last year I stated that Discipleship whether of a great Being or of a great Ideal was the hope of the world. I repeat that affirmation now. For the events of the past, twelve months have abundantly demonstrated the failure of a statesmanship, the principles of which emanate from the concrete analytical mind. The crying need is still more painfully evident now for a statesmanship in the conduct of life individual, national and international, the principles of which emanate from minds illumined by the light of wisdom and established upon the limitless power of the spiritual Self.

Theosophy completely meets this need. As I have already stated, it is the bridge between the lower and the higher, the mortal and the immortal, the time-imprisoned and the eternal Self of man.

Mere contemplation of a bridge, however intelligent and complete, will not carry the traveller across the stream. The study alone of a gate and a gateway, however comprehensive and exact, will not lead the student to the fields beyond. The bridge must be crossed.

The gate must be opened and the traveller must move forward. So with ourselves, if we would become teachers of the Wisdom, we must pass from the intellectual grasp of doctrinal Theosophy into living experience of Theosophy itself, the interior light, life and power of our inner Selves.

What shall we find when the bridge is crossed?

What is the Theosophy of the Ego?

My own interior experience is admittedly limited, but in answer to those questions I propose to share a part of it with you. Ideally I ought first to say something concerning the means whereby the bridge may be crossed, the gate opened and passed through. An interesting subject, attempted exposition of which I must however reserve for a future occasion.

Meantime many books on yoga exist, some of them valuable as guides on the pathway of self-illumination.

Come with me, if only in imagination, through the twin portals of feeling and thought into that temple of light which is theosophically termed the Causal Body of man. Let us perform together an act of yoga. Physically relaxed, affirm with me: —

“I am not the physical body. I am the spiritual Self within.

(Pause).

I am not the emotional body. I am the spiritual Self within.

(Pause).

I am not the mental body. I am the spiritual Self within. (Pause).

I am the divine Self.... Eternal .... Immortal .... Indestructible.

(Pause).

Radiant with divine Light, shining throughout the universe.

(Pause).

I am that Light,

That Light am I”.

Thought ceases. The mind is still, the centre of awareness having been transferred from it into the Self within. Consciousness now consists no more of effort, of speculation, of analysis. These are displaced by effortless, thought-free certitude and by a vivid awareness of freedom. No longer now do we think of the Causal Body, the shining Augoiedes, as a kind of captive balloon floating somewhere above and partly within the physical, astral and mental bodies, connected thereto by a silver cord. We know it now as the ‘home’ of the Self, the centre of our existence, the bodies its appendages.

Consciousness is focussed now in the heart of our existence. We abide in, are surrounded by a great radiance, a robe of light richly hued. Each brilliant colour is also delicate, the whole aureole of light irradiating the personal vehicles and shining forth on every side. Looking outwards at the other Selves, within this radiance perchance a form is visible, a face perhaps, a highly spiritualised representation of the physical face, the eyes alight with spiritual power, expressing ecstasy, bliss, yet strong with the assurance of immortality and indestructibility.

CAUSAL CONSCIOUSNESS

In what state or condition of consciousness do we find the inner Self? Upon what activity, if any, is it engaged?

The first impression which one generally receives on entering Egoic consciousness as I have said is that of light, of being at the centre of a great radiance, indeed of being light itself. One discovers one's Light-Self and perceives something of the glory of that everlasting Light in which all Egos are bathed. Later, through meditation upon the Light aspect of the Self, the inner or ‘true’ Light of the Solar System, begins to be more fully perceived. This light pervades all substance which is transparent to it. In it there is no differentiation and no form. There is only a shining sea of light with gradually-realized light-centres of varying degrees of brightness within it, representing the Egos of other beings. Sometimes the experience is less of light alone than of fire. The universe appears as flame-like, as if one were at the heart of the sun as fire and conscious in every electron of its flame. The student himself is that light. No sense of duality is present, the universe being penetrated everywhere with the one everlasting light.

Sudden entry into this state can at first produce a certain shock which flings one back into brain consciousness. By practice however the condition can be sustained. One becomes steadier and can to some extent investigate the experience and explore the field of his inner consciousness. Whilst at first too high in frequency safely to be sustained in brain consciousness for long periods it is quite normal at the causal level where there is no slightest sense of strain. Actually, in order to bring the impressions into the brain the frequency must be greatly slowed down, a process which is constantly occurring in ordinary awareness. The experience of genius is a direct manifestation in the brain of this play or movement of consciousness at super-mental frequencies, of the temporary descent from the Ego unimpeded and at its own intensity into the brain of the divine fire of the Self. For the Ego is found to exist in a state of white-hot genius, of overmastering inspiration, of capacity raised to the nth degree.

Next is the experience of intensity of existence, of life at an enormously increased voltage. If one imagines the condition at the centre of a terrific explosion at the moment of its occurrence and conceives of that condition being normal and continuous, then one may realize somewhat the exaltation and vividness of Egoic life. One must however remember that this analogy but partly applies. In Egoic consciousness there is no resistance, though the intensity of life resembles that of sudden release of highly compressed energy. Actually a further experience is that of the complete absence of all resistance, indeed of that duality of power and mechanism, consciousness and vehicle, will and resistant matter ever present in personal life. The ascent into Egoic consciousness might perhaps be compared to the sudden releasing of a balloon which for long has been straining at its moorings in a high wind.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 3 June 1939, p. 3

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Theosophy as Interior Experience [2]

This is not infrequently accompanied by an indescribable inner happiness, mounting even to ecstasy, not unlike but almost infinitely greater than that produced by the realization of reciprocated love. This sense of joy also resembles that experienced at the sudden grasp of a new aspect of truth, the discovery of a philosophic principle or on being greatly inspired in the execution of some piece of creative work. Afterwards a divine bliss and gentleness may pervade the whole nature. All past suffering seems wiped away. The soul is healed and abides in a state of absolute harmony.

At other times the predominating sense is of immense power, of being a veritable giant of spiritual strength, omnipotent within the field of one’s own manifestation.

At all times the immortality of the Self is known. The fear of death, though not necessarily of dying, vanishes forever after the first experience of Egoic consciousness.

There is also a sense of standing alone — not in loneliness but alone-ness. One enjoys an entrancing solitude in which all fullness is impersonally present. One is not swallowed up in light or life. One begins to realize that one IS the Boundless All, always has been and always will be. There is no sense for example of an external watching Deity. But the interior existence of a divine principle throughout all Nature comes to be realized and brings with it a sense of the sacredness of all things.

Amidst all this there is a region of Egoic consciousness which is in silence. When you enter there you find yourself dark. Yet the darkness seems pregnant with light, the utter stillness charged with the potentiality of all sound. For this inner centre of stillness is not empty. Paradoxically, it is rich and full as if within one there were an abyss of truth.

Emerging, the mind is filled with a sense of freshness, newness, of perpetual spring, of harmony, of light, of power.

Strangely, physical sensory power is sometimes enhanced. Nature appears to be more beautiful, radiant, alive. Tennyson’s words are fully appreciated:

“Let no one ask me how it came to pass

1 only know it happened, that to me

A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass

A purer sapphire melts into the sea”.

There speaks one who had known the exaltation of the higher consciousness experienced the enhancement of sensory powers which results.

THE EGO AND REINCARNATION

From this elementary study of the nature and the interior life of the immortal Self of man as it is lived in formless worlds, let us now turn to the ‘external’ experiences, of the Ego. For we know that one aspect of the Ego is concerned with, temporarily limited by and sharply focussed in, the process of evolution through reincarnation, contact with and experience of the worlds of form. Let us try to look, for example, at reincarnation, karma and astrological influences as the Ego experiences them.

When a new incarnation begins the Ego as it were throws itself open to experience in the three lower worlds, the mental, astral and the physical. In the period between incarnations, save for the temporarily dormant thread of life and three permanent atoms, the Causal Body is self-contained or closed as far as the lower worlds are concerned.

Forces are constantly welling up within it or, diagrammatically, are descending into it from still higher worlds. In inter-incarnation periods these flow through and beyond the Causal Body in all directions but only on the Higher Mental Plane.

When incarnation is to begin the Ego may be thought of as opening a funnel leading from the centre or heart of the Causal Body into the Lower Mental world. This creative act permits a certain measure of the forces from the planes of Atma, Buddhi, Manas to flow as a threefold ‘ray’ through and from the Ego into the form worlds.

This funnel, which closes again or is withdrawn after devachan, has its point or apex in the very centre of the Causal Body at the point at which the inner forces continually arrive. Some of these continue to empower, vivify and irradiate the whole Causal Body thereby maintaining individualized causal life or Ego-hood. Some of them however flow down the funnel as the creative forces, which pass through the resistant barrier of the fourth sub-plane of the mental plane and in the course of time bring the new set of vehicles into existence.

The width of this funnel is of great significance. In a savage it is very narrow; in civilized man it is wider; in the man on the Path it is wider still. In the active and conscious Initiate it consists of at least half of the Causal Body and in the Adept there is no funnel because the whole Causal Body is itself a funnel leading from still higher worlds. Naturally — karma apart — the degree of Egoic manifestation in the Personality depends upon evolutionary stature which decides the amount of higher forces available. Only in the Adept can the maximum possible degree of Egoic-Monadic manifestation in the body occur.

What does the Ego experience when incarnation opens and the funnel is formed? An added fullness of life, a sense of heightened expectancy and of vernal joy at the opening of a new cycle of activity. The inner powers are felt to be pouring rhythmically through the Causal Body. Their compression in the funnel causes their presence and rhythmic flow to become far more apparent than when flowing free throughout the Causal Body. For when between incarnations the forces flow undirected and uninterrupted throughout the whole Causal Body their presence and rhythm are scarcely observable.

This sense of added life, of joy, together with the experience of expansion, growth, enrichment resulting from life’s experiences continues throughout the whole five-fold life cycle of incarnation. By contrast a distinct feeling of quiescence, of reduced vitality is experienced when at the end of the life cycle the funnel is closed again and the directed rhythmic flow of power, life and consciousness into the lower worlds comes to an end.

As far as external awareness on its own plane at this time is concerned, the Ego is in causal communication with the many other Egos with whom it has links from the past — links which will draw the new personalities together. Thus there is an inter-communion between such Egos, some of whom may have already incarnated as the parents, elder relations and friends. Others will incarnate at about the same time and others later on perchance as offspring or younger friends. Between such groups of Egos there is an intense harmony, a very close mutual comradeship which brings joy to them all.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 4 August 1939, p. 12

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Theosophy as Interior Experience [3]

THE EGO AS ALCHEMIST

The Ego may also be thought of as constantly engaged in a process of distillation of power, wisdom and knowledge from life’s experiences. Thus the Ego resembles somewhat a great chemist, or rather alchemist, who experiments perpetually with life’s experience, blending similar varieties of experiences and their fruits and where possible fusing them in the fire of the higher mind. As a result, certain experiences and the powers resulting from them are accentuated, enlarged and established as permanent qualities where desirable.

As the stock of the chemist consists of chemicals appropriately preserved each in its chosen place upon its proper shelf, so in the Causal Body there is carefully preserved as capacity to vibrate again at the same rates the distilled essence, the sweet attars, of every experience, the fruits of every experiment.

These varied powers as I have said are visible as streams or rays of colour playing in and through the Causal Body. The effects of the impact of adverse astrological influences would seem to be to accentuate, to diminish the temporary manifestation or to damp out or neutralize for a time certain of these powers. Astrological influences may produce a fusion of several of them, inducing in the Ego tendencies to manifest for a term strongly and even exclusively along certain lines both in its own Egoic life and through the Personality.

In the average man this whole process of distillation, blending, sublimation, storing the harvest of life’s experiences and of response to astrological and other influences is relatively unconscious and automatic. In consequence, for most people the power of resistance to astrological influences is not very great. Indeed, one sign of Egoic development consists of the ability both self-consciously to carry out these processes and to make use of zodiacal, stellar, solar and planetary influences and past experiences for purposes of self-enrichment, of karmic adjustment and of self-education. Such an Ego will, for example, go back into a past mistake of the Personality — a fall, a crime or an error of judgement — and relive the whole experience seeking in the process to discover and bring about the ideal judgement and conduct. For in Egoic consciousness the past is far less final, fixed and separated from the actor than is the case in brain consciousness. The advanced Ego seems to have the power to undo its own misdeeds as far as their effects both upon itself and upon others are concerned. In the akashic records however one imagines them to be ineffaceable.

Such an Ego also experiments with the development of faculty, of qualities and capacities which as yet exist only in small measure. These by concentrated attention can be expanded and to some extent increased, particularly as regards the area occupied in the Causal Body by the coloured light force by which they are represented therein. Such expansion however inevitably dilutes the colour; but as a result of it the Ego’s ability to develop that quality is increased.

This development, it would seem, can be achieved by at least four means. One is by Egoic meditation on the quality. A second consists of personal experience deliberately chosen and entered into when in incarnation. A third is close observation of the experiences of others and the fourth is employed vicariously, by means of intimate self-unification with others who are passing through the needed experiences.

When karma and other factors permit, the Personality is directed into an environment, human association and opportunities which draw out and permit the expression of the desired quality and therefore its further actual development. To digress for a moment, it follows from this that without knowledge of the Egoic intention, indeed of the future and the mission of the individual, it is hardly possible either fully to understand or accurately to judge the character and conduct of another human being. Men and women are so often moved by motives beyond the ken of another person. They may be active in reparation for some act in a past life or in preparation for powers and activities of future incarnations.

ALL IS WITHIN

Returning to our consideration of Egoic life and consciousness an advanced Ego experiments not only with the development of powers but also with karma and with astrological agencies. In this connection it is interesting to observe that neither of these is thought of or felt by the Ego as arising from an external source. This is because an advanced Ego includes within the range of its consciousness first as an intellectual concept, later as a living experience, the fact of the oneness of all life and of all beings. To the Ego the great zodiacal stellar and planetary Angels from whom astrological influences emanate are not purely external Beings. An advanced Ego knows that its ‘own’ power, life and consciousness are universal, feels at one with all manifestations and expressions of that primordial and universal triplicity however far away in physical space.

The star-angel of Mars for example is not only an Elder Brother stationed on another planet. It is recognized as another cell within the one great egg which is the Solar System. The divine threefold protoplasm is the same in all cells, is as it were a fluid which flows constantly through and about them all, gathering and conveying influences as it flows. Thus the sense of separateness is reduced to a minimum in causal consciousness. All influences which appear to the Personality to have an external source, tend egoically to be experienced as interior movement and change in the condition of the Self. Nothing can come or happen to consciousness which is not already present germinally within that consciousness. An advanced Ego occupies itself with these seeds of universal power, life and light within itself. It invokes, which means attunes itself to or causes itself to vibrate at the wave lengths of those solar and planetary forces which will hasten the germination and subsequent development of the seeds into active powers.

One effect of entry upon the Path of Discipleship, for example, consists of the hastened germination and development of such seeds or roots of future powers. The Adept-Master is as the sun to His disciple. He constantly directs streams of vivifying energy upon these seeds of Egoic power and faculty in the Causal Body of the disciple. At acceptance and sonship where the unity between Master and disciple becomes exceedingly intimate, the quickening effect of the play of the Master’s fully manifested powers can be enormous.

Naturally Egos vary in their powers of response to these influences as also in the aspects of their nature, seedlike or active, through which they are able to respond. It may be that changes of relationship in which a disciple is lent or handed for a time to a Master other than his own or works along rays and lines of activity other than those of his basic ray and faculties, are valuable on this account. Entry into the Great White Brotherhood (which means a merging of the consciousness of the Initiate with the vast sea of the consciousness of the whole Hierarchy of Initiates and Adepts) for those who can respond must, one assumes, bring about a remarkable quickening of evolutionary progress.

Thus we have a concept of the Ego as a centre of awareness, actively, and in advanced man self-consciously, engaged in the process of self-unfoldment as if the seed of a plant could be aware of all the mysterious powers and potentialities locked up within it, knew of every type of tissue, form, texture, colour and fragrance and was consciously engaged in their development and external manifestation — a thrilling existence indeed.

THE EGO AS THEOSOPHY INCARNATE

Thus Egoic existence may be thought of as Theosophy in perpetual action, in continual experience, in ever increasing fullness of expression.

The Ego is self-consciously concerned not only with substance but with force, not only with form but with life and rhythm, not only with vehicles but with consciousness. Remembering this, it should be possible to extend these elementary studies of mine and look at all theosophical teachings from the Egoic point of view. Theosophy would then no longer be regarded as a collection of interesting ideas, intellectual concepts and philosophic theories. It would become known both as power and as living experience. For to Egoic consciousness, its philosophic concepts are known as facts in Nature as familiar noumena, the realities upon which its existence is founded.

In conclusion may I suggest that there is a great value in this somewhat abstract or meditational approach to Theosophy. For by such methods of study, theory is displaced by living experience, doctrines become translucent to the light of the eternal verities of which they are intellectual concepts. Furthermore the whole mighty philosophic system which we know as Theosophy is seen increasingly, as a unity. Its several aspects perceived as composing the one great Wisdom inherent in the whole process of the creation, evolution and perfection of the universe. The student is drawn near to the centre and the source of creation. He begins to see life as it were from its own heart and from within. Instead of wandering somewhat aimlessly and often disconsolate about the circumference, conscious of the futility of his wanderings and yet unable intelligently to direct them, he knows and learns to live from the centre of his being.

Theosophy tells us that it is possible to advance from the circumference to the centre, from the form to the life, from the external material epidermis of the universe to the universal and solar power which is its heart.

Brethren, we, theosophists, throughout the world are all drawn together by our common love of truth, by our united aspiration for understanding, by an intuitive recognition of certain great basic truths particularly that of the Oneness of all life.

Many of us, though now separated, physically, throughout the world, are bound to each other by a deep-seated love of the Ancient Wisdom, by service in many lives to the great Sages Who Themselves have found the centre and live therein for evermore.

Strong are these links which bind us, especially as Egos, in the pursuit of truth and in the service of the Elder Brethren. As Egos we know and acknowledge this. Down here in our personal consciousness and activity shall we not try always to acknowledge and reflect increasingly in action our Egoic unity? For we can best march from the circumference to the centre together; and as we go we shall take with us our human brethren throughout the world.

I have come to regard the completion of this mental journey from the circumference to the centre, from Personality to Ego, as the only hope for the survival of modem civilization and the solution of the present acute problems of national and international life. Aggressive war is unthinkable, impossible when once the Egoic point of view has been attained. The unity of life, the brotherhood of man are living facts to the Egos of humanity.

This I conceive to be an essential part of our message to a world constantly threatened by war.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 5 October 1939, p. 8

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New Zealand: Home of A New Race

The Master Plan

The second World War is now behind us. Reconstruction, the building of a New World Order, fills our thoughts. In this process the possession of a guiding principle is all-important, especially for those who aspire individually to play an effective part. Theosophy provides that knowledge, for a study of Theosophy mentally lifts one to great heights from which a panoramic view of human life on earth is possible. Theosophy reveals the master plan.

When, in the light of Theosophy, we study the evolution of nations, four great thoughts, like mental mountain peaks, present themselves to our vision. The first of these is that the purpose of life in our Solar System, and so on our planet, is evolution. Our Solar System is an evolving organism. Second, Theosophy teaches that human evolution is ordered according to a Divine Plan, which is numerical. Seven is the governing number. Humanity advances through seven races and sub-races in ordered, harmonious progression. This evolution according to numerical law is dual, consisting of the enfoldment of consciousness and the development of vehicles as instruments of consciousness. So the second thought is that of numerically ordered, harmonious progression of both consciousness and form.

The third peak of knowledge concerns the seven Races of men.

Five Races have already appeared. Two lie in the future. Five sub-races of the fifth, the Aryan Race, have also come and a sixth is now on the horizon. From this third Theosophical teaching we learn that we are more than halfway through our planet’s life, are in the fifth of its seven races.

The fourth mountain of thought is double peaked. Racial evolution is guided by the Inner Government of the World, with the Lord Christ as Teacher and the Lord Manu as Leader of the Races, whilst, furthermore, man is called to collaborate in this mighty scheme of evolution but is perfectly free to decline to do so. The secret of happiness, we are told, consists of willing collaboration with the Divine Plan and Those Great Ones by Whom its fulfilment is directed.

Such are four basic Theosophical teachings concerning racial evolution. What, then, is the place of New Zealand in this great design, and what is the destiny of its peoples? Simply put, the answer is that the Mother Race is at this time producing a sixth sub-race, and New Zealand is one of the places of its birth and development. The sixth sub-race, type of man is to be produced by emigrations to new racial homes, chiefly from Britain. Four of such homes are now producing four variants of the new type. They are America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The two great Wars have been both death throes of an old dispensation and birth pangs of a new.

As it is but forty years since the title ‘Dominion of New Zealand’ was conferred upon the Colony and one hundred and eight years since the British Government decided to extend British sovereignty to New Zealand, the progress made in political, cultural and social development is truly remarkable. Although distinct ethnological and psychological characteristics can hardly be expected to have appeared as yet, nevertheless a New Zealand way of life, and even type of human being, are beginning to be recognisable.

New Zealand progresses wonderfully in the fulfilment of her part of the great design. Settled only one hundred years or so, she has enacted social legislation especially designed to provide security for all citizens. New Zealand has already produced a number of famous reformers, statesmen, scientists and artists. Her soldiers have earned undying glory and the graphic designations, ‘ball of fire’ and ‘finest shock troops in the world’. From these splendid beginnings further characteristic advances are assured. Although but one hundred years old as a people, already New Zealand is producing her own distinctive type of social structure and of human being.

New Sub-Race Type

What, may we assume, will the men and women of the new Race type look like when still further developed? From a study of the views of Theosophical leaders, ethnologists, psychologists and teachers, combined with a close Theosophical observation of the finest types of young people in the United States, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, a composite image of the type to which the sixth sub-race appears to be developing can already be made.

Here is the young man. He is essentially virile and independent, both mentally and physically, yet he is neither coarse nor rough. He is sensitive and refined. He is responsive to beauty, humane, and possessed of both independence and breadth of outlook. The desire for and the readiness to give complete personal freedom is most marked. Yet as soon as that freedom is accorded, no type of human being proves so willing and able to co-operate. Physically, in Australia, he is tall, wiry and somewhat slender of form.

In New Zealand, the build has perhaps been somewhat shorter, though here, too, increase in height is occurring. The facial features are everywhere much the same. They are finely modelled and straight. The nose tends to be long and, in one variant, the chin is pointed and the forehead broad, making the face somewhat triangular. A certain eagerness, a vivid alertness, is stamped upon the whole face. The New Age man will clearly be very vital, handsome, chivalrous, strong, courageous, yet kindly.

The women will especially display the quality of grace. They, too, will be slender and athletic, and the ideal of physical beauty and perfection will make great appeal to them. They will take extreme care of their persons, their appearance, their dress. Again the face will be triangular, the head pear-shaped, the features becoming clear cut, regular and more and more refined as the racial type is established. The texture of the skin is notably fine. Hands and feet are already beautifully formed and they move with a grace and dignity all their own. There will be a certain aura of vitality shining about them. Lovers of beauty and of all the Arts, and successful artists in many cases, dancing will probably be one of their favourite and most successful modes of expression.

Even now you may see these young people of the New Age, if you know what to look for. Their photographs are in the papers and you see them on the sports grounds and beaches, in the shops and in the streets, for in very truth the four new racial homes are already producing each its own particular and splendid variant of the new racial type. The faces of some contestants, for the title of ‘Miss New Zealand’ show the characteristics of pointed chin and broad, high forehead.

The psychological characteristics may also be discerned by a study of advanced people throughout the world: for this new race is not to be born in a single place, not to belong to a single nation. It is the type of the new humanity which will seek unity and co-operation between free individuals and nations. The very essence of all action in the sixth sub-race will he the one of many to achieve a single object, and not the dominance of one who compels others to his will. To advance together in freedom, to a goal that all realise as desirable of attainment will ultimately become the method.

Despite grave difficulties at present appearing, signs are not wanting that this development is actually occurring. There is distinctly discernible, amid the welter of conflicting peoples, national aims and ideologies, a subtle yet powerful change in the outlook of mankind upon the planet, the growth of one dominating idea with tremendous possibilities for the future. This change has been described as ‘a hunger for wholeness’, and it is indeed revolutionary. It is almost comparable with a geological cataclysm, like the tilting of the earth’s axis or a descent of an ice cap. It must culminate I suggest, in an irresistible will to world unity. This recognition of and determination to achieve unity will be not only physical and racial, but mental and spiritual as well. It will also not only he local, but world-wide. It is discernible now in the world and constitutes a definite sign of the emergence of the sixth sub-race.

If one is looking for a sign that an individual is beginning to show the marks of that sixth sub-race today, in addition to the physical marks, it may be found in capacity to lead by love, sympathy and comprehension, and not by the dominance of an imperious will. To advanced humanity, dominance is anathema; freedom is a veritable religion. What however, is the test of greatness in an individual or a race? It is, I submit, realisation and ready acceptance of the individual’s own tremendous responsibility in the great evolutionary process. Such realisation, and of course action thereon, is the mark of a highly evolved individual and nation.

The destiny of mankind is incomparably great. The fulfilment of that destiny depends upon the will of the individual to collaborate in the transcendental task. Each individual can, if he will, both hasten his own evolution and come closer to the Creative Deity by showing readiness, nay eagerness, to work with Nature and for Nature in the fulfilment of the ‘one far-off divine event, to which the whole creation moves’, the evolution of ever higher types of beings. This knowledge can be used by those who desire to take part in the building of the new civilisation. They should deliberately develop the power to work with others rather than against them, to set others free rather than bend them to their will, and so, by a continual common effort, to replace with unity the all too prevalent spirit of antagonism and competition.

A synthesising spirit will be found in the forerunners of the sixth sub-race. They will be able to encourage and also unite diversity of opinion and of character; to gather round them the most unlike elements and blend them, whilst still free, into a common whole. Those show forth already the desired characteristics who have the capacity for taking into themselves diversities and sending them out again as unities, and for utilising the most different individualities, finding for each its place in freedom, and welding all together into a strong whole. That is one of the characteristics which mark the type of being out of whom this sixth sub-race will gradually develop. The ideal is not a universalised set of conditions and a uniformity of human Personality but full individual development with readiness to combine.

Such, physically and mentally, is the apparent trend of human evolution, such the new type which is appearing and such the model for all who would collaborate.

The Race says Madame Montessori marches forward on the feet of little children. The youth of today is the citizen of tomorrow, and for these reasons education is the life-blood of a nation. The present generation of fathers, mothers and teachers have, amongst many others, one special task before them in this connection. This task is to inspire the children of the nation with the highest ideals of nationhood. Character building and nation building begin at home and continue at school. Parents and teachers, especially of the four sixth sub-race countries, have a great responsibility and a unique opportunity. Ruskin truly said of parents everywhere: ‘A child’s father should be his spiritual strength, his mother his sanctification, and both his tower and refuge in all the danger and amazement of his young life’.

A Nation in the Becoming

The New Zealand nation of the future will arise from the New Zealand homes and schools of today. As parents recognise increasingly their responsibility, and teachers their opportunity, the new Race will more swiftly arise and the evolutionary wave be carried to its crest. New Zealanders, a great new nation in the becoming, with so many signs of greatness now apparent, will make their unique contribution to the progress of mankind.

The considerable measure of social security which New Zealand was first amongst the Dominions to grant to her citizens has been widely acclaimed. It may well prove to be a splendid first step to provision for every worthy member of the nation of a fully satisfactory share of the available goods and services. An economic system freed from subservience to individual profit, which does not divide but unites the human family, which does not degrade but elevates the race, does not encourage hate, bitterness and conflict but brings about co-operation and mutual sharing — that is the system under which individual and racial progress can best be made. Under such conditions of freedom from fear, the physical, cultural, intellectual and spiritual development and unfoldment of the individual can receive the full attention which national and racial progress demand.

Fervently is it to be hoped that all the peoples of New Zealand, and especially the young people, will become powerfully imbued with this great vision of themselves as nation builders. Then, joining with other nations, they will play their part in building the new world order that is to be.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1948, p. 12

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Kalahamsa

(Mrs Valerie Gould, of the Christchurch Lodge, has most generously and effectively lent her considerable talent for the production of picture-diagrams representing different phases of the process of Creation. In this picture of Kalahamsa Mrs Gould has produced for us, not only an accurate portrayal of her subject, but also a work of art, mentally stimulating and strangely beautiful.)

In its Cosmic significance the swan has ever been regarded in Esoteric philosophy as the symbol of the Unknowable Deity, ‘the Swan in Darkness’. The two wings represent the two Aspects of the One Eternal Source of All, Parabrahman. These two Aspects are Primordial Spirit and Primordial Matter, the Great Breath and the Great Deep, the Father-Mother from ‘Whom’, all things come forth, to ‘Whom’ all things return.

The first emergence of a Universe-to-be is sometimes described as the Great Whirlwind in Space, a sphere of circumgyrating, fructified root-substance, the ‘seething clay’. In Hinduism this potential Universe is described as a Brahmanda or egg of Brahma, or again as Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Egg. Over this egg as it rests upon the waters of the Great Deep, broods the Dark Swan in Time and Space. Within it, the three-fold Cosmic Kundalini stirs and flows creatively.

‘The nest of the Eternal Bird, the flutter of whose wings produces Life, is boundless Space’ (The Secret Doctrine 3:294 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 2, p. 293]). This Space is always defined as Watery, and this explains the choice of aquatic birds such as the swan and the pelican as symbols of the Primordial Source or Parent of the manifested Cosmos.

In The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, page 145 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, pp. 79-80], we read: ‘the symbol of Hansa (whether I, He, Goose or Swan) is an important symbol, representing, for instance, Divine Wisdom, Wisdom in Darkness beyond the reach of men. For all exoteric purposes, Hansa, as every Hindu knows, is a fabulous bird which, when (in the allegory) given milk mixed with water for its food, separated the two, drinking the milk and leaving the water; thus showing inherent wisdom — milk standing symbolically for spirit and water for matter.

‘That this allegory is very ancient and dates from the very earliest archaic period is shown by the mention, in the Bhagavata Purana, of a certain caste named Hamsa or Hansa, which was the “one caste” par excellence, when far back in the mists of a forgotten past there was among the Hindus only “One Veda, One Deity, One Caste.” There is also a range in the Himalayas, described in the old books as being situated north of Mount Meru, called Hamsa, and connected with episodes pertaining to the history of religious mysteries and Initiations…Esoterically and logically, if Brahman, the infinite, is all that is described by the Orientalists, and, agreeably with the Vedantic texts, is an abstract deity, in no way characterized by the ascription of any human attributes, and at the same time it is maintained that he or it is called Kalahansa — then how can it ever become the Vahan of Brahma, the manifested finite god? It is quite the reverse. The “Swan or Goose” (Hansa) is the symbol of the male or temporary deity; Brahma, the emanation of the primordial Ray, which is made to serve as a Vahan or Vehicle for the Divine Ray, which otherwise could not manifest itself in the Universe, being, antiphrastically, itself an emanation of Darkness….

‘As to the strange symbol thus chosen, it is equally suggestive; the true mystic significance being the idea of a Universal Matrix, figured by the Primordial Waters of the Deep, or the opening for the reception, and subsequently for the issuing, of that One Ray (the Logos) which contains in itself the other Seven Procreative Rays or Powers (the Logoi or Builders). Hence the choice by the Rosecroix of the aquatic fowl — whether swan or pelican (whether the genus of the bird be cygnus, anser, or Pelicanus, it is no matter, as it is an aquatic bird floating or moving on the face of the waters like the Spirit, and then issuing from those waters to give birth to other beings. The true significance of the symbol of the Eighteenth Degree of the Rosecroix is precisely this, though it was later on poetised into the motherly feeling of the pelican rending her bosom to feed its seven little Ones with its blood) with seven young ones, for a symbol, modified and adapted to the religion of every country’.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1943, p. 8

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Some Theosophical Ideas Concerning God, Religion and Ethics

The Deific Power of the universe is not a personal God. Although imbued with intelligence, It is not an Intellect. Although using the One Life as vehicle, It is not Itself a Life. Deity is an inherent Principle in Nature, having Its extensions beyond the realm of manifested forms, however tenuous.

The Immanence of God is not personal, neither is the Transcendence. Each is an expression in time, space and motion of an impersonal Principle, which of Itself is eternal, omnipresent and at rest.

Finiteness is essential to the manifestation of That which is Infinite. Ideas, rhythms and forms are essential for the expression of That which is Absolute. God, then, may best be defined as Infinity and Absoluteness made manifest through finite forms. Such manifestation can never be singular or even dual alone; it must always be primarily threefold and secondarily sevenfold. Point, circumference and radii: power, receiver and conveyer: knower, known and knowledge: these must ever constitute the basic triplicity without which Absoluteness can never produce finiteness, at however lofty a level.

Creation, therefore, involves a change from a unity to a triplicity. In order to become the many, the one must first become the three. The possible combinations of three are seven. Continuance of advance from unity to diversity inevitably involves passage through seven modes of the manifestation and expression of that which essentially is one. Thus divisions arise in the One Alone. Thus beings arise within the One Life and intelligences appear within Universal Mind, all inherent within the Whole.

Of the Trinity, the point is the highest because the Source. Of the Seven, the Trinity is the highest because the parent. Thus hierarchy exists when manifestation occurs. Parent hierarchies give birth to offspring in a descending scale of nearness to the original Source. Emanated beings in hierarchical order inevitably come into existence when movement first occurs in That which of Itself is still.

Absolute stillness implies absolute motion, the two terms being synonymous. The Absolute, therefore, can be both still and in motion whilst retaining absoluteness. The finite is therefore contained within the Absolute, which in its turn enfolds and permeates the finite. Because of this, finite beings have regarded the Absolute as divine and have named it God.

The worship of the all-enfolding and all-permeating Source of all is true religion. To reverence the omnipresent Source and to conform to its laws of manifestation is true religious practice. To conceive the Source of all as a person, however exalted, and to give it human attributes, is not true religion. To reverence that false conception and live in fear of its vengeance is not true religious practice.

Absolute existence and absolute law — these are the highest existences and therefore are worthy of man’s study, and reverence. Finite existence and finite law are not the highest existences and therefore are not worthy of the title ‘God’. They are offspring and not parent, secondary and not primary, and their elevation to primary rank can only lead to confusion and dismay.

Modem man needs to emancipate himself from the delusion and worship of a personal, and therefore finite, God, and to substitute therefore an impersonal and infinite Deific Power and Law, with Deific Life as the essential Third.

Deific Life is the vehicle of Deific Power, and Deific Law rules their combined expression. By the instrumentation of Life, therefore, all things truly were made. Life is the Creator, Sustainer and Transformer of the cosmos. Life should be reverenced in all its manifestations and such reverence of omnipresent, ever-active Life is true religion.

What, then, is Life to the human intellect? How, may Deific Life be conceived, perceived and worshipped — that is the supreme problem. Life may be conceived as the soul of form, its relationship to which is comparable to that of the sun to the Solar System. The difference between the two relationships is that Life is omnipresent and the sun has a fixed location, even though its rays pervade the universe. Life does not send forth rays; for as the interior source of existence, Life is all-pervading and all-penetrating.

Life is beneficent in that by it all things are sustained. Without it, nothing can exist that does exist. It is the Thought-Soul, the Spirit-Intelligence, of all Creation. Vehicle for Power imbued with ideative thought, Life is the one essential to existence, to evolution and to transfiguration. Life, then, is God and God is Life. All concepts concerning Deity below that level of truth are false concepts, and their adoption as final can be productive only of confusion.

If witness be needed of this fact, the modern world in dire confusion, and modem religion largely impotent in the face of world evils, suffice. If witness be needed and symbol desired of the sole Deific Principle worthy of man’s highest reverence, then the physical sun is adequate; for the sun displays to the material universe all the attributes which Life displays to the whole universe, spiritual and material, superphysical and physical. If religious practice and rule are needed, then obedience to and conformity with the laws of Life will be all sufficing. Just as the sun’s rays rightly and intelligently received and employed by man are life-giving, and wrongfully employed are death dealing, so the laws by which Life is manifest in form constitute an unfailing guide to human conduct, and obedience to them a perfect religious life. To enunciate those laws is to describe Life and its attributes. Life is a unit without divisions, an all-embracing, all-pervading, all-sustaining, homogeneous ocean of thought-imbued, vital power.

The first article of faith in the religion of Life is recognition of unity. Unifying thoughts and acts are religious, virtuous. Dis-unifying thoughts and acts are irreligious, sinful.

The second article of faith is that Life exists and manifests according to immutable laws. Obedience to those laws brings harmony, happiness and health. Disobedience brings their opposites.

The third article of faith is that man, being endowed with intelligence and will, is free either to obey or disobey. No law binds him, save that reaction inevitably follows action. This is the only external compulsion to which man is ever subjected.

The fourth article of faith is that, being free, man can either co-operate with or resist the fulfilment of the thought-impulse or creative ideation with which Life is imbued. That impulse is to the greater fullness, beauty and perfection of Life’s expression in form; it is the source of the evolutionary urge throughout all creation.

If man co-operates, he ensures for himself a harmonious relationship with Life. Then he is happy and he prospers spiritually, in that as an individual he travels more swiftly to his goal. If he resists, he creates for himself a discordant relationship with Life. He is therefore unhappy and cannot prosper spiritually, in that as an individual he travels more slowly to his goal. Thus, harmony with Life and intelligent participation in its inherent purpose is the surest way to happiness, to mental peace and so to serenity.

Life and law, these are the two omnipotences whose rule the wise man obeys. Life creates and sustains. Law disciplines and directs. Life and law are as the right and the left hand of existence and for man their message is love and purity. To live as a lover of Life is to live as a lover of God and of all created beings. To dwell in purity and self-control is to live in reverence of God and of all created beings. This is true religion, the heart and core of all World Faiths.

Stripped of excrescence’s and embellishments, the religions of the world, as first delivered to man by their superhuman Founders, were religions of love and of purity, and the highest principles to which men’s minds were turned were Life and law. Modem man, therefore, needs greatly to return to the basic simplicities of religion, which are reverence for divine Life and obedience to spiritual law.

The Theosophist, Vol. 76, October 1954, p. 13

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The Supreme Deity in Universe and Man [3]

CONVENTION ADDRESS

Perhaps my title could be linked with the Convention theme by changing it to ‘The Unfolding Spirit in Universe and Man’ and as we shall see as I go on these are not two spirits but one. However, I am going ahead of my subject which is an important one today when the loss of faith is a modem characteristic. You are doubtless aware of the existence of the philosophy of despair which is Existentialism. Jean Paul Sartre writes as follows: ‘Man can count on no one but himself: He is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth’. And he has in another place gone further and said ‘God is now dead’.

My task is to try and present to you the theosophical contribution to this great subject. Whilst our opinion and opinions are entirely free here and we can come to our own conclusions, reading Theosophical literature one seems to be advised against the idea of a personal, masculine, human-form, capricious, extra-cosmic ruler of the Universe, to be placated, petitioned, adored through fear, potent to destroy. That, I suppose, is the one most of us have been brought up with. Theosophy doesn’t seem to support it though we are all free to choose our own concept of Deity.

Let me tell you a little story which dates back to the days of the suffragette activities. It appears that amongst the ardent feminists of those days arrested during the suffragette movement in England there was an elderly crusader, often in jail for the cause, and with her was a young thing sentenced for the first time and taking it very hard. They were assigned to adjoining cells and ever and anon the elder woman heard the younger one sobbing her heart out. So she rapped energetically on the dividing wall and she called: There, there, dear, don’t cry! Put your trust in God — She will protect you!’

Well, what does Theosophy say? It is abstruse and I must prepare you for that, I cannot avoid something of the kind. Theosophy contains the idea that behind and within Creation there exists its Source, its Architect, ‘Supreme and Ancient Progenitor before all things’. And this Nameless One is Transcendent and Immanent, Unmanifest and Manifest, the Infinite Glory, the Supreme Splendour, beyond and within all Creation.

Presiding Deity

In our universe we may suppose this is the presiding Deity Whom we generally call the Solar Logos, Who is referred to as an Emanation from the Unmanifest, and the mighty Being in whom all Monads are synthesised, and this vast synthesis constitutes an Intelligence which has been beautifully named, ‘Our Lord the Sun’. Perhaps our understanding may be helped if we think of the Solar Logos as being in a somewhat similar relationship to his Solar System as is the Monad of man to its seven vehicles, and also somewhat as the Ego is to its four personal vehicles — as the source of power, of life, of light, and of consciousness.

As Deity is to His universe, so is Monad to Man. Perhaps we might follow this analogy a little further to help our halting minds. Just as the physical body has its organs which are components of his body as a whole, so the Solar System is somewhat as a physical body to the Solar Logos. And accepting this analogy the sun would be God’s physical heart, whilst the planets might be thought of as the organs, the limbs and the other members of this vast solar organism.

Furthermore, to the Solar Logos, one may presume, all these separate parts appear as a unit, one body, just as man’s body is similarly a unit for him. And the trillions of cells of the body may perhaps correspond to the millions of Monads within the universe. So ever as we study we always have our thoughts lifted into unity — from diversity into unity, from the unreal to the changeless reality, from time into eternity.

Admittedly this is a somewhat formless, abstract and so difficult idea of God, but the less we tend to think of Him in easily comprehensible forms to our minds, the nearer to the truth we shall be.

Though a mighty individual, the Solar Logos is also a Trinity in Unity — a Trinity only in so far as referring to functions, one in essence, threefold in action, we may presume. In His first aspect He is the Architect-Emanator. Do you notice that word — Emanator? In occult philosophy the words Creator and Creation are not used, everything is regarded as an emanation out of an infinite source, and so the three aspects are Architect-Emanator, Preserver-Sustainer and Destroyer-Regenerator. Three in one. As the Spiritual Parent of all beings the Logos is regarded as the apotheosis and the summation into Unity of the Unfolding Spiritual Selves in all beings, including humanity, super-humanity, all the Angelic Hosts, and the Hosts of the Logos as they are called, the Creative Logoi, the Dhyan-Chohans. The Monads of all of them are synthesised in and form as it were the body at the highest level of the Solar Deity.

Concept of Deity

Thus Theosophy presents a concept of Deity which includes all Nature at all levels, includes also the evolutionary impulse imparted to Nature, and the irresistible Creative Force operative throughout all Nature at all levels, which bestows the attributes of self-reproduction and evolution upon all that exists and gives the capacity to express them. All this wonder beyond our conceiving emanates from a single Source, outwards through three activities to provide Nature and all things with a faculty of self-reproduction, unfoldment or evolution and the capacity to express them. One and yet a multitude.

This concept of the Deity thus includes the Creative Intelligences by whom the universe is fashioned. It is conceived that the first thing that happens, when a Solar Logos re-emanates at the dawn of a Manvantara as the Deity of the Universe-to-be, is that there leap full-formed from Him the Dhyan-Chohans, the mighty creative beings, who as it were take up their stations in the great lodge of the Solar System and perform His work in the building of all nature. In the Bible, in the Hebrew original, and in Hebraism these are called the ‘Elohim’, Who direct the manifestations and the operations of this Creative Force.

Now, it might be helpful here to look at this Hebrew word ‘Elohim’, because it will help us to an understanding of that Nameless One of which they are expressions. Actually, you know, the fourth word in the first sentence of the Bible, of the Book of Genesis, is mistranslated for us. We have it ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ...’ but the original Hebrew is ‘Elohim’, a plural word meaning the totality of the Spiritual Intelligences by whose agency all worlds and all beings are conceived in the Major Mind and objectively made manifest. These are the fashioners of the universe, the objective activities and potencies of the Logos.

This Hebrew word, ‘Elohim’, denotes several principles — the male-female Hierarchies of creative Intelligence to which I have just referred; the Potencies through which the Divine produces the manifested universe; also the unity of the Divine powers and the attributes and the creative activities of the Supreme Being. ‘Elohim’ includes all that; it is a plural name. The singular is ‘Eloha’, which means ‘a god’. ‘Elohim’, as a plural name, literally means ‘gods’, or personifications of Divine attributes and forces at work in nature. These are the real fashioners of the objective universe, according to the archetype in the Divine Mind.

The ‘Elohim’ are also conceived in Hebraism as a unity in the sense that they all work together as one, expressing one Will, one Purpose, one Harmony. Thus their activities may be regarded as the manifestation of the Eternal One, the Absolute. They are ‘the unity of gods’, the ‘Activities of the Eternal One’, namely God omnipresent and revealing Himself outwardly in creative activity.

Inevitably we have thought our way onwards to the Eternal One, and I presume that no attempted exposition of the Supreme Deity could omit some reference to this. What is the Eternal One in occult philosophy? We know it in English as the Absolute. The supreme, eternal and indefinable Reality. It is inconceivable, ineffable and unknowable. But it has to be postulated. Its revealed existence is postulated in three terms: an absolute Existence, an absolute Consciousness, and absolute Bliss. Infinite Consciousness is regarded as inherent in the Supreme Being, in the Solar Logos for example. There it exists and manifests itself as a dynamic power, with all the potentialities held in its own infinitude, and it calls forth forms out of its own formless depths.

Spiritually man and Solar Logos are one and identical. The Macrocosm or Great World and the microcosm or little world, man, are one. Each man is an epitome in miniature of the whole universe.

Law of Correspondences

The Solar System, physical, superphysical and spiritual, is all represented within man’s nature. The sun, planets, satellites, powers, kingdoms and intelligences in nature are all potentially present within every man. They are there as potential powers to vibrate similarly. It must be so otherwise we could not respond to their influences, could not receive and relay their life, their power and consciousness if we were not the same. Thus man is perpetually preserved, empowered and sustained by virtue of the presence within him of all life and all being. This, according to H. P. Blavatsky, whom I am largely quoting, is the law of correspondences. Eliphas Levi puts it like this, ‘The mystery of the earthly and mortal man is after the mystery of the supernal and immortal One’. I often think the finest literature, the finest sentences we have in the whole world of the treasure of literature belonging to man, arises from man’s attempt to penetrate into the impenetrable and to state the results.

The occult philosophy teaches that the whole universe with all its parts, from the highest plane to physical nature, is regarded as being interlocked, interwoven, to make a single whole — one body, one organism, one power, one life, one consciousness, all cyclically evolving under one law. The ‘organs’ or parts of the Macrocosm, the universe, though apparently separated in space and plane of manifestation, are in fact harmoniously interrelated, intercommunicative, and continually interactive. They are continually radiating, all the planets and the Zodiac, to separate parts of our nature.

While in so far as those parts are becoming spiritually alive and active we return the compliment, so that man standing here is in continual interactive relationship with the universe as a whole.

In Kabbalism, the philosophy of the Hebrews, they say these wonderful words: ‘In the chain of being everything is magically contained within everything else. Where one stands, there stand all the worlds, what is below is above, what is inside is outside, and, in addition, ceaselessly interacts upon all that exists’. Kabbalism, the Theosophy of the Hebrews, thus stresses the interrelation of all worlds and levels of being, according to exact though unfathomable laws. Here is another wonderful Kabbalistic sentence, ‘All things possess their infinite depths which from every point may be contemplated’. Simply put, all that is without us is also within us.

‘BE STILL...’

How may we begin to know as a direct experience in consciousness this sublime truth that man’s spirit and God’s spirit are in fact one Spirit? The answer is always the same, in Silence. ‘Be still and know that I am God’. Here we are above words, we are above thoughts, especially above forms, in a realm of complete mental tranquillity and stillness. It is the contemplative silence of the mind. After studying the Triune Deity with the highest powers of our mind, which is incurably objective, it is then necessary to allow the mind to become still, to allow the mind to fall still, whilst the inner consciousness rises to higher and more divine aspects of human nature. Then, and then alone, the mystics tell us, may the profound mystery of both Deity and the Unfolding Spirit of man begin to be understood. The old Persian poet, Kabir, thus speaks of God, ‘How difficult it is to know, how easy to love thee. We debate and argue and the vision passes us by. We try to prove, and kill it in the laboratory of our minds, when on the altar of our souls it will dwell for ever’. Saint Augustine wrote: ‘Too late have I loved Thee, O Beauty, ever ancient yet ever new! And Behold, Thou wert within me and I abroad and there I searched for Thee, and, deformed as I was, I pursued the beauties that Thou hast made. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee. Those things kept me far from Thee, which, unless they were in Thee, could have had no being’.

I am really going to leave the subject there for your own consideration, but just to sum up a little: In manifestation the Supreme Deity thus conceived is objectively active. In non-manifestation, the Supreme Deity is quiescent. And behind both activity and quietude is THAT which is Eternal and unchanging, the Absolute, Self-Existent Self. I close with a few lines from that great cosmic consciousness poet, Walt Whitman, from his Leaves of Grass, and from that part called ‘Passage to India’: he is addressing the Solar Logos, I imagine:

O Thou transcendent,

Nameless, the fibre and the breath,

Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them,

Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving,

Thou moral, spiritual fountain — affection’s source — thou reservoir. . .

Thou pulse — thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,

That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 3 June 1966, p. 5

60
The Revelation of Theosophy

The Heritage of Man

In this study we are concerned neither with the group of doctrines by which Theosophy is represented in the world at any particular epoch, nor with the presentations made at different times by various individuals and groups. We are concerned with the Eternal Wisdom, with abstract Truth, with pure theosophia. We are concerned with that Ancient Wisdom which Madame Blavatsky defines as follows:

Theosophy in its abstract meaning is Divine Wisdom or the aggregate of the knowledge and wisdom that underlie the universe — the homogeneity of eternal good; in its concrete sense it is the sum total and the same as allotted to man by Nature on this earth and no more. From this definition and from a study of the history of man’s mental development we realize that Theosophy as ‘the aggregate of the knowledge and wisdom that underlie the Universe’ is first received by humanity as revelation from evolutionary Elders. These Teachers in Their turn first received and later Themselves discovered Divine Wisdom within the Divine Mind in Nature, with which They became consciously self-unified. After its revelation to man by superman, Theosophy gradually begins to be perceived direct by advanced human minds, and in due course by the majority of human beings. Finally, though still more gradually and much later, it is fully acknowledged and applied to every phase of human life, and the establishment of a golden age of brotherhood and peace is the natural result. Thereafter, deeper and deeper layers of truth are discovered, and the humanity of a planet moves on to the attainment of super-humanity.

Such, it may be assumed, are the stages in the process by which the Wisdom Religion takes its full and rightful place upon a planet. It first comes as revelation, is later self-discovered and fully acknowledged. Eventually it takes its natural place as the dominant factor in the life of illumined humanity. For our planet, the last and culminating phase is still far off. As yet we are in a stage of revelation, though perhaps beginning to emerge therefrom. Intuitive perception is bringing a very small minority of the humanity of our globe to recognition and acknowledgement of the main teachings. The days of direct discovery and application by the race as a whole are not yet.

The Mission of Theosophists

Our part as Theosophists today is in consequence quite clear. It is essentially that of pioneers, and our task, in our turn, is to offer Theosophy in its most acceptable and practical forms to our contemporaries. By so doing we are privileged to share in the work of the Elder Brethren, and we help to bring nearer the day of general acknowledgement by mankind of the Ancient Wisdom, and so hasten both the coming of the golden age of world unity and the attainment of perfection by man. For this, it would seem, is the general purpose of the Adept Teachers of the race, and therefore of all our work in Their name as Fellows of The Theosophical Society. Every truly Theosophical thought, conversation, study class and lecture, every Theosophical letter, article and book, every act of Theosophical service brings nearer humanity’s third and self-attained golden age,[57] hastens humanity’s attainment of the Christ Consciousness and later of Adeptship or Christhood. This, for humanity as a whole, is our supreme objective. This is the sublime purpose for everything we, Theosophists, are trying to do. This is our planetary and racial mission.

Three Factors

Since we, Theosophists, today are thus called to participate in the age long and continuing labours of our Elder Brethren, it will repay us to analyse, still further our great task, to examine the various factors involved. Let us therefore try to understand the process by which the humanity of a planet in its Fourth Chain and Fourth Round gradually becomes illumined with the light of Divine Wisdom, imbued with the Spirit of Theosophy.

At least three factors are involved in the process of the projection of Theosophy from the Divine Mind into the human mind and by man to its full physical manifestation.

The first factor is Theosophy itself as abstract Truth ever available to all minds as they are able to receive, perceive and eventually assimilate and apply it to life.

The second factor consists of the great Revealers, who, early in a world period, bring Truth to the young humanity of a man-bearing globe. In the case of our planet, these Revealers were, and still are in great part, the ever-to-be-revered and glorious Beings, who, some six and a half million years ago, brought Theosophy to earth from the planet Venus.

The third factor consists of the recipients of this ministration. In our case, this is earth’s humanity, at first in Adamic sleep and Eden innocence, but gradually awakening, and, being free, knowing and practising both good and evil.

The Great Revealers

Madame Blavatsky has defined for us the first of these three factors, which is Theosophy, abstract and concrete. Concerning the second, the great Revealers, we are informed that the Lords of the Flame, as They have been called, brought with Them from Venus certain precious gifts. Greatest amongst these is Their own living Presence upon our earth; for by Their exalted nature They are great leavening and awakening Centres of spiritual power and life. As long as They remain, They perpetually quicken from within it the world soul and the world mind.

With Them, physically, They are said to have brought science, the arts, certain cereals, notably wheat, and certain insects, including the ants and the bees. Culturally They brought the power to awaken and develop in man the capacity to express himself through the medium of the arts and sciences. Mentally They brought the fire of Their own awakened and highly developed Intellects. That is partly why They Are known as the ‘Lords of the Flame’. Directing the fire of mind into the embryo mental bodies of Third and Fourth Race man, as well as by a process of induction, the Lords of the Flame awakened man’s sleeping powers of thought. Intellectually and spiritually They brought and taught Their knowledge of the Wisdom Religion, Theosophia, and the wondrous power of Their own fully awakened intuitional and spiritual faculties. Thus equipped, thus empowered, these Mighty Ones Arrived on our planet, and throughout long ages of unbroken ministration They have transmitted Their various gifts to mankind.

We are informed that most of these Divine Visitants have departed, though at least Four are said to remain. These are known and revered as the Four Kumaras. Theosophically They are regarded as the most divine and sacred Beings on our planet, the supreme Rulers and Directors of the evolution of life and form upon our globe. Of these Four, One is said to be greatest. His title is Sanat Kumara, and He is referred to, ever with the utmost reverence, as the Lord of the World, and sometimes as The King.

Such in part are the first great Revealers of the Wisdom Religion to man. The Lords of the Flame from Venus also performed another known service to mankind. Throughout successive ages, under Their guidance and inspiration, a considerable number of disciples, Initiates and Adepts have arisen from earth’s humanity. For They also opened for man on this earth the Way of Holiness, the Path of Discipleship. The Greater and Lesser Mysteries were instituted, transmitting the esoteric wisdom and bestowing the great Initiations upon those men and women who from that day to this prove worthy to pass through them. Certain of these advanced members of earth’s humanity later attained Adeptship, and some, though not all, of these Adepts have elected to remain upon the planet, and some of these to retain physical bodies. Throughout long ages, They have been the direct spiritual Teachers of mankind. It is these Great Ones and Their Initiated Disciples who now form the Inner Government of our world, the Occult Hierarchy, the Great White Brotherhood which exists from eternity to eternity.

The Great Conflict

Humanity owes a debt of undying and eternal gratitude to these its Elder Brethren. For all the real advances which it has made in every department of life mankind owes to Them. The present war has brought to light other immeasurable benefits bestowed upon humanity by the August Company of the Adepts. Evil, bestial and unashamed, has found unbridled expression throughout the present war. Man has shown and man has seen the depths to which man can descend under influences which evoke the sleeping animal and awake to vivid life the relatively dormant devil within him.

These evils have long existed upon earth. On certain occasions, as in Atlantis, they are said to have found modes of expression even more dreadful and degenerate than those of today. Ceaselessly and with varying success demoniacal evil has tended to rise to the surface of human life. Ceaselessly the spiritual will in man, the Divine A tma, has opposed its arising.

In this great conflict, this perpetual Armageddon, the Initiates and Adepts of the planet have ever fought against the primordial evil inherent as a possibility in matter and in man. Not for one moment or one hour have They, the Guardians of Humanity, rested from Their labours. Without intermission through innumerable ages, unthanked, unknown save by a few, They, from whom all evil has been extirpated and in whom all weakness has been overcome, have faced, fought and held at bay the evil forces and evil beings which sought the downfall and decay of the human race. Continuously through vast periods of time, They, the Self-perfected Ones, have evoked and quickened all that is highest in mankind. But for this ministration, but for this unbroken sacrificial service to the soul of man, far more sombre would have been the lives of all men. The periods of darkness, dark as they have been and are, would have been black as night, with no light to relieve the awful gloom. The periods of relative light would have been much less illumined and far shorter in duration, had it not been for Their Presence on earth, Their regular visitations to successive Races, and the steady and ever growing pressure upwards to the Light, which in every possible way the Members of the Inner Government of the world have not ceased to exert.

Under this inspiration, guidance and protection of its Elder Brethren, humanity has gradually developed during the past six and a half million years from primitive and almost senseless Lemurian giants, as partly represented by the statues on Easter Island, to its present state. Since the beginning of the Atlantean Race, through cycles of darkness and of light, no less than twelve sub-races have been evolved, twelve types of human beings, at least twelve major civilisations, and innumerable nations have by Their aid been developed on our earth.

Continents have sunk beneath the waters and are rising again, mighty mountain ranges have been upthrust towards the sky, vast seas have been drained dry and replaced by desert sands, thrice at least the ice-caps have advanced from the Poles towards the equator and receded, the axis of the earth has tilted, virile savage races have overrun more civilised nations and wiped out their effete populations; yet the ceaseless forward pressure of the spirit of man has continued to produce nations and individuals of higher and higher types. Demoniacally evil men have arisen as scourges of their contemporaries. Great sages, pure saints and fiery prophets by example and precept have brought the light of Truth and Beauty to the world, and behind this orderly progression has been the directing and inspiring influence of the Occult Hierarchy founded and directed upon earth by the great Venusian Adepts. Their presence and Their influence are with us now in this great day of scourging, purifying and nation building. As far as human blindness, selfishness and waywardness permit, They still direct the processes of human development including especially those of racial evolution.

Four Departments

In recent years we have been permitted and privileged to know something of the work of the Inner Government of the world and how it is carried out. Students of Theosophy now know that Their activity is at least four-fold. One great department is concerned with the development of ethnological types through racial blendings and racial emigrations. These vast planetary operations, carried out unceasingly and with unbroken continuity for millions of years, are all directed by a great Official known as the Lord Manu. National building occurs under His direction and all nation builders serve under Him.

The second department of Adept activity is concerned with the unfoldment of the life and consciousness with the gradually improving forms. This process is presided over and assisted by the great World Teachers, who, in close collaboration with the Racial Manus, both deliver to man age by age an aspect of Theosophy in the form of a great spiritual message and strike an ethical keynote for the guidance of the humanity of Their age. As a result world religions arise, each with its mystery or esoteric teachings for the guidance of the few.

The third great Official in the Inner Government of the world is known by His title of Maha-Chohan (great Lord). Under Him all cultural, political and scientific progress is said to be directed and inspired.

Through and within the influence of the great Heads of these three departments in the Inner Government of the world and of Their Adept and Initiate collaborators, is the influence of the Feminine Aspect of the Deity. This mighty conserving, protective and awakening Power is said to have Its Representation on earth in and through a great Personage who is generally an Archangel Adept in feminine form. This wondrous Being is known as the World Mother, and, amongst many other activities, solar and planetary, She is said to preside over the processes of both national and individual gestation and birth.

Such are Those who constitute the second factor in the arrival and acceptance of Theosophy upon a planet, the great Revealers. Such are four of the modes of ministration included in the vast operations of the Inner Government of the world. Such, briefly, and very partially, is the organized assistance given to earth’s humanity by the Great White Brotherhood of Adepts.

In the great creative and dynamic periods of planetary life such as is the present, when nation-building is the order of the day, like the fingers of one hand, these four great Officials and Their Adept Lieutenants direct Their power and Their inspiration upon all the members of the nation-to-be.

The Recipients

This brings us to the third factor in the process of the illumination of the human mind with the light of Theosophy. This factor consists of the recipient who is man himself. As we have seen, one important and essential aspect of the ministration of the Adept is that of awakening the human mind to the Wisdom Religion. This gives us the key to the general significance in the world of The Theosophical Society and its members; for, despite our limitations, we Fellows of The Theosophical Society are offered the opportunity, the inexpressible privilege of collaboration with the Masters of Wisdom in these Their labours.

If we study, by means of such historical information, physical and occult, as is available to us, the birth and rise of nations and civilisations, we perceive that, by the World Teacher in person, to each there has been delivered certain aspects of the Wisdom Religion. Although this teaching ultimately becomes crystallised into a set of dogmas and tends to degenerate into priestcraft and superstition, nevertheless, at the heart of every successive World Faith, there is to be found the true Theosophia delivered to the civilisation by the World Teacher and His inspired successors.

Thus it is clearly part of the Plan that humanity in both its racial and its individual evolution, and especially in its work of nation building, should unfailingly have placed at its disposal the light of the Ancient Wisdom.

(A Convention Lecture, delivered in New Zealand.)

The Theosophist, Vol. 65, November 1943, p. 89

61
Studies in Occultism. [5]

SOME THOUGHTS ON ADEPTS FROM VENUS

The degree of diligence and zeal with which the hidden meaning is sought by the student, is generally the test — how far he is entitled to the possession of the so buried treasure’. — K.H. [Mahatma Kuthumi, see The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, India]

Theosophical literature teaches that before the humanity of this earth had produced its own Adepts, a number of such highly evolved Beings came to earth from the planet Venus, which is more advanced than our own. At least four of these great Adepts have stayed on the earth, as also have some of the human Beings who accompanied them. When the Earth humanity began to produce its own Initiates and Adepts, as it did in the Fourth Root Race, the work performed by the August Visitors was handed over to them. Some of those Beings from another planet then gradually withdrew, possibly to undertake similar work on other planets. So we learn that from that first group of Adepts Who came here from Venus over six million years ago, there has gradually developed the present Occult Hierarchy of Adepts and Initiates Who constitute the Inner or Spiritual Government of the World.

So far as Their physical bodies are concerned, as I have just said, the Adepts of our Earth live in retreat either in the fastnesses of mountain chains or with Their residences protected from a humanity which, through lack of understanding, might render more difficult Their ministrations to mankind. Their consciousness is completely free of Their physical bodies, which They can leave and re-enter at will. It does not matter, therefore, where the body is, for the Adept Who uses it can be aware, active and, if desirable, physically visible at any place on the planet as becomes necessary for the fulfilment of His task.

In Space Ships or Spirit?

‘Did they come to the Earth from home, the planet Venus, in spirit only or physical space ships?’, is a question that is often asked. They are said to have come in Their superphysical bodies and the greatest of Them formed perfect physical bodies using Their power of will and thought, whilst others took incarnation amongst the humanity, of that time, which greatly helped the evolution of the Race. I am aware this must sound strange to those for whom it is new, but please remember that Theosophical teaching is only offered to us for consideration, as food for thought.

The very highest of the Venusian Adepts Who were able to create bodies by the action of Their will and Their thought, YOGA, in fact, are, in consequence sometimes referred to in occult books, notably The Secret Doctrine, by H. P. Blavatsky, as ‘The Sons of Will and Yoga’. Their bodies never change, are not subject to birth and death, always retaining Their original youthful appearance. Such hidden powers of the mind, and the capacity of the mind to influence physical matter, are now being investigated. Some scientists are examining extra-sensory perception — chiefly telepathy, clairvoyance and clairaudience — while others are studying what is called telekinesis, or the power of the mind to influence physical matter. One of tests which has given evidence of the existence of this power in man concerned the capacity to influence the fall of dice by concentrated thought.

Telekinesis

A power can and will be developed by later Races which will enable man to move and shape primeval matter by the action of his thought alone. Even today, some people can make suspended needles swing by the power of their thought, and there is mention of such powers in the great Scriptures of the world. Elisha, for example, made an axe-head float. Christ walked on the water and stilled a storm by the sheer power of His conjoined will and thought and voice. Thus, it is not altogether incredible that the extremely highly evolved Beings of Whom we have been thinking could materialize bodies by the power of Will-Thought, or kriyashakti, as it is called in Sanskrit by Hindu occultists.

They came, as I have been saying, from the planet Venus, whose Planetary Scheme is almost one and a half Chains in advance of the one to which we belong, namely, the Earth Planetary Scheme. The average humanity of Venus must therefore be presumed to be at least at the level of our Initiates, and the more advanced at the level of Earth’s Adepts. To those who wish to study this subject in detail, I would recommend the books, Man: Whence, How and Whither by Dr [Annie] Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, and The Solar System by A. E. Powell. There you will find much information about evolution on other planets, the arrival on Earth many ages ago of the Lords of the Flame from Venus and the different Races of men on this, our Globe.

Ourselves in Former Lives

When considering racial evolution upon Earth it should be remembered that the same spiritual individuals, the same human Egos, incarnate in successive Races. The Atlanteans, Egyptians and other ancient peoples were none other than ourselves in our former lives. Similarly, the Sixth sub-Race of our Aryan, Fifth Root Race and the Sixth and Seventh Root Races will only be new reincarnations of the same family of Egos, ourselves, for whom this Earth has been appointed as the evolutionary field.

The Passage of Life from Planet to Planet

Students may encounter some difficulty in understanding how the Monads and the Monad-life bearing wave are transferred from one planet in a Round and Chain to its successor. Theosophy teaches that the life on each planet is in charge of a very mighty Intelligence, an Adept Member of the Solar Hierarchy of both Superhuman and Archangelic and Angelic Officers and servants of the Supreme Will and Law. The life of a single Round, during which the Life wave travels round the seven globes of a Planetary Chain, is in charge of a very great Being called a Round Manu. He holds the Round within His consciousness and through His subordinates, directs the whole process of involution and evolution that occurs in His Round. It is He, this very high Official, Who absorbs into His aura all the seeds of Life and all the Monad-Egos of men at the end of a World Period, and conveys them through the superphysical worlds to the next Globe, Round or Chain at the end of an epoch.

The Solar Logos

All these great processes are under the direction of high Officials, and the Solar Logos is in charge of the evolution of Life and form throughout the whole Solar System. One of the Seven Mighty Spirits before the Throne, also referred to as the Archangels of the Face, is in charge of one of the seven Planetary Schemes. Within each Scheme, Lords of Chains and Rounds preserve and transfer Life and Consciousness from one Chain, Round or Globe to its successor.

Noah and His Ark

This is hinted at in the Bible, if under an allegorical veil. In one meaning, Noah and his Ark is a symbol or glyph of a great Being Who, at the end of a period — onset of the Flood — receives into His aura — His ‘ark’ — the seeds of Life and living beings. There He preserves them during a period of quiescence — the Flood — and then transfers them to the next and higher system of manifestation — Mount Ararat, the dry land after the flood had receded and the post-diluvian epoch.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 17, No. 1 & 2, 1956, p. 10

62
The Logos Doctrine and the Creative Hierarchies ^{^[58]}

A three-fold objective is before us. We shall first study some Theosophical ideas concerning the formative Agency whether called Brahma, the Great Breath, the Logos or Word, or the spirit of God which first broods upon the face of the deep and then moves upon the face of the waters. The emanation and formation of a universe and the functions of the Creative Intelligences in Nature will then be considered. I shall use the word Logos in both a cosmic sense to denote an active, formative Principle and Power, more locally as the Spiritual Presence and Power behind the sun, the Solar Logos, and also as the core of man’s nature, the God within him, the Logos of the Soul. The title, Logos, or Word, implies the emanation and formation of the universe by an energy of the order or quality of sound, a soniferous creative force; for one translation of Logos from the Greek is Word, referring to the process by which the universe is fashioned through the agency of the Voice or Word of a Creative Deity. This procedure is not conceived as being either external or enforced. Rather is it an emergence from within a creative centre by a natural process like that of the germination and development of a seed or an egg, an expansion from within outwards, an unfoldment or growth of that which is inherent in the very nature of things.

Creative is really a misnomer, the word emanation being more acceptable to describe the process of the emergence, unfoldment and perfecting from within of universes and all they contain, an emergence from a cosmic seed, germ, metaphorically, from the egg of Brahma. The Hierarchies of Intelligences associated with this process are the Devarajas and the Devas, the Archangels and the angelic hosts, the armies of the Logos. They are the Sephiras of Hebraism, the Prajapatis of Hinduism, the Gods of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and the Mighty Spirits before the Throne of Christianity.

The Scriptures of the world contain cosmogonies, heavily veiled beneath allegory and symbol, which suggest that sound was the formative power. In the Book of Genesis (1:1-5), we read:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

This description implies that at the dawn of a near Manvantara, there first emanates from the Absolute a duality in Unity, the Spirit of God, the Word which was God, the masculine creative potency, the Great Breath, Purusha, and the face of the deep, the feminine creative potency, the Great Deep, pre-cosmic matter, the vast ocean of virgin space, the Great Abyss, Prakriti. Before this emergence, darkness brooded upon the face of the deep. Then the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters; the laws of number, alternation and cycles come into operation, and the processes of the emanation and formation of a universe are again initiated.

In the New Testament, St John also indicates the soniferous nature of that Power which ushers in the new day, writing in his first chapter:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with

God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness.

Theosophical cosmogony unveils the symbolism, stating that behind and beyond and within all existence is that Eternal, and Infinite Parent from which the temporary and the finite are born. This is Boundless Self-existence, ever unknowable and unknown, This is the Absolute. It is the changeless, Infinite, Eternal All, the self-existent Causeless Cause, the Rootless Root, the Unmanifest. This is an impersonal Unity, with no attributes conceivable by man. In Kabbalism it is referred to as negative existence, Ain or Nothing. During Maha-Pralaya, Ain is all, yet nothing. It is darkness, boundless night in relation to finite consciousness. Periodically, Creative Energy imbued with Divine Thought, Adam Kadmon of the Kabbalists, is emanated from the Absolute to become the active, formative, Deific Principle of the universe-to-be. Thus, out of the Infinite, if such an expression may be permitted, a finite formative Power, however vast, and lofty, emerges as the Cosmic Creative Logos. This is the ‘only Begotten Son’ of Christianity, who is really the ‘alone Begotten’ and is described as being of ‘one substance with the Father’, which is the absolute uncreated All. This first Emanation in its objective aspect, is called the Cosmic Christos and Christians are taught that by Him are all things made; ‘yea, all things both in heaven and earth; with Him as the indwelling Life, do all things exist and in Him as the transcendent Glory all beings live and move and have their being’. Such is the active, manifested Creative Deity, the Logos or Word of St John. This is the emanated Architect, Sustainer and Transformer of the universe which is about to be ‘born’.

The Secret Doctrine affirms the eternity of the universe in toto as a boundless plane, periodically the playground of numberless universes incessantly manifested and disappearing called the manifesting stars and the sparks of Eternity. This appearance and disappearance of worlds is like a regular tidal flow. The law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow, which physical science has observed and recorded in all departments of Nature is universal. An alternation such as that of Day and Night, Life and Death, Sleeping and Waking, is a fact so perfectly universal and without exception that it is easy to comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of the universe. This alternation is stated to be eternal, without conceivable beginning and without imaginable end.

The Logos Doctrine appears in the Scriptures of many World Faiths.

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth (Psalms, 33:6).

I am the great God Nu, who gave birth unto himself, and who made his name to become the company of the Gods (Book of the Dead, Budge, Ch. XVII).

Thoth, (as) the divine intelligence which at the Creation uttered the words which resulted in the formation of the world. He was self-produced and was Lord of earth, air, sea and sky (Book of the Dead).

I-AM is the Hidden One of the mouth; it is the silence of his mouth whose uttered word is mystery, even the mouth of the Ruler of the Aeon, which grasps the eternity of ‘being in Peace’ (Book of the Dead).

In Hinduism, Devaki sees the whole universe in the mouth of the child Sri Krishna. The Creative Power or Voice is personified as a woman named Vach, meaning speech or the sound of the voice. She is the female Logos, being one with Brahma, who created her out of one-half of His body. She is the female Creator and associated with Brahma in the work of creation. This is an allegory of the union of power, Brahma, and intelligence, Vach, to operate the work of creation by sound. Vach is really the intelligent Creative force which, emanating from the Creative Deity, becomes manifested as the metaphysical Word or Logos. Thus the Great Breath sets up vibrations in primordial substance which becomes soniferous or capable of emitting audible energies. These form shapes according to the divine thought which is expressed by the motif and variations of the great Symphony of Creation. The emitted, creative agency is the outbreathed Breath of the Logos and is of the order of sound. It is the creative power of Vach, the active, manifested Logos or Word. It is God at Work and behind God at Work is God the conceiving Power.

The concept is thus presented of the Logos as Musician, and the process of creation as the composition and performance of a symphony. A Divine Voice enunciates the motif of the new universe. This is heard or responded to, by pre-cosmic Matter, and the planes of Nature with their forms and inhabitants gradually appear. Into these the Logos pours forth perpetually His Life that they may live, this being His continuous sacrifice, His everlasting oblation. Metaphorically, He is voluntarily self-crucified upon the Cross of the material universe with its four directions of space, four streams of creative energy, four subtle elements and four Hierarchies of Creative Intelligences. Such in part are the Crucified Logos, the four-headed Brahma, and every other four-headed, four-armed Deity.

The Universal Word when uttered becomes manifest as myriads of chords, each a coherent, self-existent sound with its force and light manifestations. Each chord appears in the higher, causal worlds of planets as a relatively changeless abstract form, an Archetype or divine idea, the pattern on the Mount of the Old Testament. These Archetypes in their turn sound their words relaying (in radio terms) into the lower worlds, the primal Word-force. Magnetic fields are set up therein, matter is drawn into them and, with the aid of the Creative Hierarchies, is moulded into evolving forms. These forms, vivified by Divine Life, become the abode of intelligences, the Monads, in the mineral, plant, animal, human and superhuman phases of development. As a result of experience in the forms, these intelligences, assisted by the Angelic Hosts, gradually unfold their innate faculties and powers until the degree of development set both for them and for the forms has been attained. Ultimately, at the eve of creative Day, all is withdrawn back into its source. Cosmic Night then falls, Darkness broods once more upon the face of the Deep. As Omar Khayyam says, ‘Lo! the phantom caravan reaches that no thing which it set out from’.

The Gods or Creative Hierarchies are thus conceived to be builders of form and I now offer purely personal views concerning them and their functions. In doing so, I recognise that when an abstract idea, a continuing process and an ever-flowing force, are defined in term of time and form, limitation and even error are almost inevitable. The creative energies of which all forms are the product are first emitted as sound by the utterance of the Word and may be thought of as arising from a central, spiritual source. These primal, formative energies of the Word have tremendous potency and, from one point of view, the whole race of the Gods, from the universal Solar Creative

Hierarchies to the relatively local planetary archangels and their hosts, collectively known as the Elohim in Kabbalism, serve somewhat as electrical transformers. They receive into themselves the primordial, creative power and, as if by resistance to its flow, reduce its voltage, as it were. From them it passes through their lesser brethren, rank upon rank, until it reaches the physical worlds. There, with the assistance of the nature spirits it draws and moulds matter into the geometrical shapes conceived by the Creative Mind.

The members of the higher ranks in the Order of the Builders — one race of which would seem to correspond to the Devas known to Hinduism as the Gandharvas or Gods of Music, again the suggestion of sound — are aware of the creative intent, perceive and know the Archetypes or divine ideas. Within the Order of the Builders are Hierarchies which are themselves as a whole, and as individuals, Deva manifestations of those chords in the creative Word of which the Archetypes and Nature’s forms are objective expressions. By self-unification with the ‘descending’ Word-force, particularly with Branch streams as are vibrating at frequencies which are identical with those of their own nature, they amplify them and this augments their form-producing power.

Mutual resonance or affinity of vibration draw the particular Hierarchy of Devas into its appropriate field of work as form-builders in the four kingdoms of Nature. There is a hierarchy of Devas the chord of whose nature is identical with that of gold, for example. They might be described as ‘Deva-gold’ or the divine idea and spirit essence of gold manifest as an Order of living beings. Members of this Hierarchy are drawn by vibratory affinity into the streams of Gold force which are constantly descending — in a diagrammatic sense only, all occurs from within outwards — from the creative source into the physical world. The presence of the Gods of gold amplifies the creative energy, intensifies the component frequencies, and thereby augments the form-producing capacity of the thought-imbued Word-force. This, as far as my limited understanding goes, is part of the function of the Gods of gold as also of all Gods of the Order of the Builders. By self-unification with the formative force, they assist in the process of the production physical substances and forms by emitted Divine will-thought-sound or word.

The ultimate fashioners of physical forms are the nature spirits mainly of the element of earth assisted by those of air. Earth nature spirits are associated with mineral forms, air elementals with plant forms. Unconsciously they aid the designer, Universal Thought, by playing in the geometrically flowing fields of force set up by the impact of creative energy as sound upon responsive, fructified matter, chiefly at the etheric level. This form producing sound establishes fields of force of varied geometrical designs, not at first in dense solid substance, but in the ether, which is both mould and matrix of all forms, Mother Nature’s womb.

If we enter the magical and beautiful world of the nature-spirit builders of etheric and physical forms, and watch their lives, we see that pleasure is gained by them in moving, dancing and flying along the lines of force of which the forms first consist. This repeated fairy movement accentuates these lines in the ether, as does a pencil line drawn again and again on paper. Nature spirits thus assume considerable significance in Nature’s processes. Through play and movement along the lines of force, elementals of earth and air unconsciously play their part in the production of forms in etheric and solid matter and in all the processes of generation and regeneration in the organic kingdoms. The little workmen are everywhere present and ceaselessly at work. No smallest form of any kind appears unassociated with a builder of form, in none of whom can the thought of self arise; for Individuality is not born in them. Inwardly moved by the action within them of Universal Thought, which is their Mother Source, and of their Devic senior and overseer, the life of nature-spirits is one of thought-free, spontaneous play within the currents of creative energy which set up lines of force in the ether and also flow through them and their subtle element.

Thus, the creative idea is first conceived within Universal Thought and then expressed as form-producing energy of the quality or order of sound. Geometrical designs and patterns based on the platonic solids are formed in the super-physical worlds and the physical ether. Creative Hierarchies of Devas amplify the Word-force and nature spirits play along the lines of force or dance to the divine symphony of creation, and thus assist in the building of Nature’s physical forms according to the Word.

One of the most profound of all the profound truths contained within the esoteric teachings are those of the unity of the Macrocosm or great world with the microcosm or individual man and of the close similarity between the processes by which both become manifest and evolve. Man, in very truth, was created in the image of God. The mystery of the earthly and mortal man is after the mystery of the supernal and immortal one. The universe is the manifestation of a Supreme, Deific Power, a ray of which is present in every man. Realisation of this presence as the true human Individuality, the real Self, behind the bodily veil leads to the further realisation that the Dweller in the innermost is itself forever at one with the Supreme Lord, is inseparably united with the eternal Source of light and life and power.

The Theosophist, Vol. 75, January 1954, p. 249

63
The Lords of the Flame

You will remember how, in the days of the first World War, Dr Besant frequently used such words as these: ‘Let us remember that over our darkness there ever shines the Star of the King, the Oriflamme of Victory’. Following that inspiring thought and those words of hers, I have chosen for our thought together those four inconceivably Mighty Beings on our earth Who are called the Lords of the Flame. One of these, as we know, is named the King and it is to His Star, the Star of the Spiritual Ruler of our Earth and the Director of its evolution, that Dr Besant was referring.

From our theosophical studies we learn that there are now four Kumar as on earth, and that They came from the planet Venus during the Third Root Race, after the separation of the sexes, which occurred some eighteen million years ago. The Secret Doctrine says: ‘Out of the seven Virgin-men [Kumara] four sacrificed themselves for the sins of the world and the instruction of the ignorant.[59] At once we are in the presence of an occult principle, which is that of the ministration of the elder to the younger, which evidently obtains throughout the whole Solar System. Everyone who, in however small a way, ministers to someone weaker or less informed than himself, becomes part of a universal principle of loving, compassionate service to others which is finding expression through them.

This expression of love is indeed universal, for it obtains from star to star and planet to planet. The Secret Doctrine also says: ⁶Every world has its parent Star and sister Planet. Thus Earth is the adopted child and younger brother of Venus.[60]

Since Venus is in its Seventh Round and Fifth Chain,^{^[61]} its Planetary Scheme is far in advance of ours and its humanity, even its ordinary humanity, is far more developed than are we of the Earth Planetary Scheme in its Fourth Chain and Fourth Round.

When this principle came into operation on behalf of the young humanity of our, Earth, that mighty descent occurred which Dr Besant describes so graphically in one of her writings: ‘Then, with the mighty roar of swift descent from incalculable heights, surrounded by blazing masses of fire which filled the sky with shooting tongues of flame, flashed through the aerial spaces the chariot of the Sons of the Fire, the Lords of the Flame from Venus; it halted, hovering over the ‘White Island’, which lay smiling in the bosom of the Gobi Sea; green was it, and radiant with masses of fragrant many coloured blossoms, Earth offering her best and fairest to welcome her coming King’.^{^[62]}

It was evidently springtime and the White Island was then an island in the Gobi Sea, now an oasis hidden from the eyes of mortal men in the Gobi Desert, though there are legends about travelers who have had strange visions and experiences there.

Then, with her matchless gift of words, Dr Besant continues: ‘There He stood, “the Youth of sixteen summers”, Sanat Kumara, the “Eternal Virgin-Youth”, the new Ruler of Earth, come to His kingdom, His Pupils, the three Kumaras, with Him, His Helpers around Him; thirty mighty Beings were there, great beyond Earth’s reckoning, though in graded order, clothed in the glorious bodies They had created by Kriyashakti, the first Occult Hierarchy, branches of the one spreading Banyan Tree, the nursery of future Adepts, the centre of all occult life. Their dwelling place was and is the Imperishable Sacred Land, on which ever shines down the Blazing Star, the symbol of Earth’s Monarch, the changeless Pole around which the life of our Earth is ever spinning’.^{^[63]}

Our literature tells us in considerable detail about this descent and this arrival of the four Kumaras. We are told that there came the Lord of the World Himself, the three Lieutenants Who are the other three Lords of the Flame now remaining, twenty-five Adepts as assistants, and then about one hundred ordinary human beings especially linked with these Great Ones.

Since the Venusian Planetary Scheme is in the Seventh Round of its Fifth Chain of Manasic and Buddhic development, the intellectual capacity of its humanity will have reached a very high degree of development. Fire is one symbol of the mind and its occult power, therefore the Venusian Adepts are called the Lords of the Flame. One part of Their mission was to project the spark of mind in the infant humanity, to awaken its nascent mental faculty. The germinal power of the intellect was there, of course, but asleep. The Mental Body and the primitive brain were like a musical instrument, the strings of which were silent. By direct action, doubtless, and probably by a process of induction resulting from Their very presence, the Sons of Mind, as They are also called, awoke the inherent but as yet unawakened mental power and thereby started humanity on its great evolutionary journey, which involved the development of the seven human principles, and particularly that of the mind.

None of the Lords of the Flame incarnated. They made bodies by Their occult power, which (translating the Sanskrit word) is called Will-thought, Kriyashakti. This is the same power, by the way, by which H.P.B. [H. P. Blavatsky] brought about the phenomenal appearance of some objects and changes in others, as told in Old Diary Leaves. It is said that these bodies of the Lords of the Flame resemble the highest ideal of human form in appearance, and that they do not undergo any change, being indestructible. The Great Lords therefore look now just as They did several million years ago, when their forms were first made. As great Monads in Causal Bodies — one hardly dares to say Egos, because They have long transcended the faintest possible limitation of Ahamkara, being completely universalised — Their great Causal Auras, particularly that of the King, are said to be so vast as to enfold the whole of our planet. Literally, therefore, ‘In Him we live and move and have our being’; and ‘He is closer to us than breathing and nearer than hands and feet’. We do well to think of Him, to try to conceive of Him, as a tremendous reality, as the incarnation of the Divine Atma of our planet, the focus of the First Aspect of the Blessed Trinity, the Solar Logos, and as the direct Representative on earth of the Sephirothal, Planetary Logos of our Earth Scheme, one of the Archangels of the Face, a Mighty Spirit before the Throne.

‘Seven originally’, says H.P.B., and then quotes a catechism in which a Master addresses a Disciple or Lanoo, saying: ‘Out of the seven Virgin-men [Kumara] four sacrificed themselves for the sins of the world and the instruction of the ignorant, to remain till the end of the present Manvantara’.^{^[64]}

She then names them wonderfully: ‘These are the Head, the Heart, the Soul, and the Seed of undying Knowledge [Jnana]. Thou shalt never speak, O Lanoo, of these great ones [Maha . . .] before a multitude, mentioning them by their names. The wise alone will understand’.

And there is added these words: ‘Higher than the “Four” is only ONE on Earth as in Heavens — that still more mysterious and solitary Being described in Volume 1 ’. Thus H.P.B., and the Masters Whose amanuensis she was, lift our thoughts to lofty spiritual levels and ideas.

We are also taught that He, the Great Lord of the World, established the Occult Hierarchy upon our planet. Thus was initiated on Earth the process of drawing ardent Aspirants from amongst the human family nearer to Themselves, giving them special counsel, special training, special guidance, until there came into existence what might be called the Mystery System whereby those who are pressing forward ahead of the Race may be drawn into an Occult School. . .

In olden days the preliminary Grades were open to the public. Then, as the higher Grades of the Lesser Mysteries were passed through, the First Great Initiation became a possibility. In consequence, a continual stream of human beings of our Earth started to flow towards the occult and spiritual heights on which the great Adepts are now standing. One result of this has been that our planet now has provided its own Occult Hierarchy from its own humanity. The Sacred Four and the Silent Watcher still remain, however, an assurance of safety and of the continuity of the development and unfoldment of form and life, however dark the successive dark ages, however deep and terrible the dangers. We in our lifetime have seen some of those dangers. They still exist potentially, and if they ever become realities it would seem possible that the evolution of the Race might be held up, delayed, as humanity came under the enslavement of a dictatorial regime. We have been tried twice in our lifetime by the terrible enemies of These Lords of Light, Who are called, in contradistinction, the Lords of the Dark Face Humanity will not be wiped out, however, no matter how dreadful the weapons which might be used against us. ‘Over our Earth shines the Star of the King, the Oriflamme of Victory’. Thus, like an undercurrent beneath this outer life, with its recurrent cycles of darkness and light on the surface of our globe, there exists the occult life of our planet which is unchanged and largely unaffected by outer changes and circumstances. This is the ‘Stream’, the river of the occult life of our globe, which unfailingly throughout all ages ever continues to flow. Men and women have continually experienced spiritual and intellectual awakenings and have set out determinedly upon that search which will bring them to direct, interior illumination, to their own knowledge, and to the solution of the problems and the mysteries of life.

The Lords of the Flame still guard all life on earth, and especially the Aspirants, and that is why They are called ‘the one spreading Banyan-Tree’ from Whose ‘branches’ air roots descend, as it were, and when they touch the earth, take root, so that the Banyan may go on growing and spreading.

Three Mighty Lords in turn rule throughout a World Period. The present Holder of that office is said to be the Third. The tremendous task of the Third Lord of the World is to round off satisfactorily that period of evolution and to deliver over the countless millions of evolving creatures into the hands of the Seed Manu. Having fulfilled that duty, the Third Lord of the World takes another Initiation entirely outside of our world and its Hierarchy and attains the level of the Silent Watcher.

The Silent Watcher remains on guard for the whole period of the Round and it is only when the Life Wave has again occupied our planet and is again ready to leave it that He, the Silent Watcher, abandons His strange, self-imposed task and hands it over to His successor. Little is taught us of that office, but it is supposed that the Silent Watcher is the Direct Agent for the power of the Solar Logos. Should the Lord of the World and His Hierarchy of Adepts of any planet find a situation developing which might possibly be beyond His and Their power to control (inconceivable though that might be), then through the Silent Watcher additional Solar Force may be added to the planetary reservoir of power and the situation restored. I do not know whether the conditions in Atlantis at the time of its darkest and deepest cycle was such an occasion but I would hardly think so. The amount of occult power required to cause a tidal wave to overwhelm a continent in a night must have been tremendous.

The Sanskrit word Kumar a means Virgin Youth and the Lords of the Flame appear as four Youths, being also referred to as the Chaste Ascetics. Actually there were seven Kumaras and there are various lists of them in Hinduism and in The Secret Doctrine. There were many Kapilas, which is generic title for the great Sages who appeared in India, though there was One Who was the Lord of the Flame. He is identified with the Second Aspect of the Blessed Trinity, with Vishnu. And seventh, there was one Kumar a known as PANCHASHIKHA.

One of these Great Ones incarnated as Shri Shankaracharya in the year 510 B.C., 51 years and 2 months after the date of the Lord Buddha’s Nirvana (Vide, Five Years of Theosophy). There is a mystery about Him. It was mistakenly thought that He was a reincarnation of the Lord Buddha, but the occult explanation given is that He used certain of the Lord Buddha’s superphysical bodies, the physical being naturally born in Southern India. He, this Great Lord of the Flame, appeared as Shri Shankaracharya to correct certain erroneous conceptions and He taught the Vedanta Philosophy. One of His great literary works is very important in the occult life. It is called Viveka Chudamani. Viveka means discrimination by wisdom, Chudamani means crest jewel; THE CREST JEWEL OF WISDOM. One of the early Theosophists, Mohini Chatterji translated it very beautifully. Those of you who have not read it might find it very helpful — a second Bhagavad Gita.

All the Kumaras have left save the Sacred Four and Their home is Shamballa, from a Sanskrit root sham, meaning Quiet, Tranquility, and so Shamballa means the place of tranquility. H.P.B. says ⁶ Out of the seven Virgin-men [Kumara]four sacrificed themselves for the sins of the world and the instruction of the ignorant, to remain till the end of the present Manvantara’.[65] . . . Tt is the spirit of Divine Wisdom and chaste Asceticism itself which incarnates in these Elect’ [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 2, p. 282]. ‘This “Root-Base”,’ she goes on, ‘has a name which can only be translated into English by several compound words — the “Ever-Living-Human-Banyan”.’[66]

Finally, what were and are the motives of a Great One? Here is the answer ‘Because the lonely, sore-footed Pilgrims, on their journey back to their home, are never sure, to the last moment, of not losing their way in this limitless desert of Illusion and Matter called Earth-Life. Because he would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from which he is a voluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion. Because, in short, he has sacrificed himself for the sake of Mankind, though but a few elect may profit by the GREAT SACRIFICE’.[67]

The last thought, my Brothers. Theosophy teaches us that the same power of attainment resides within each one of us and that the seeds of Christhood, Buddhahood, Lordship and Kingship are inherent within us as part of our very nature.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1954, p. 6

64
Creation and the Gods

A STUDY IN CREATIVE PROCESSES

(From the cosmic dawn, ‘when the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy’, Mr Hodson traces the evolution of a Solar System, and then, having built up a mental conception of it, describes how the full possibilities of macrocosmic self-expression are contained in microcosmic man, who is the Universe in epitome.^{^[68]})

No one who has had even the slightest glimpse of the great processes of creation, has peered however blindly into the great Laboratory of the Master Chemist, heard only too dimly the ever-uttered World of the Master Musician, could but be humble, realizing the profundity of his ignorance in the presence of the mightiest of all creative works, that which brings into being, sustains and ultimately perfects a Universe and all that it contains.

Yet because man is a microcosmic God, a Logos-in-the-becoming, he dares to look, he presumes to try and comprehend, infinitesimally perhaps, some of the laws and processes governing the divine creative art. So it is as Gods-in-the-becoming, one day to be Gods-who-have-become, uttering Our Word, and bringing Our Solar Systems into being, that we study the Science of Creation.

Rising above the phenomenal to the noumenal, we are lifted, as we study, nearer to the realm of the Real, we breathe under new heavens and we return enlightened and inspired, more nobly and effectively to play our essential part in the great drama of creation.

Christian Cosmogenesis states that ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’. Later we are told that God spake saying: ‘Let there be light’, and there was Light. Our starting point therefore is the Word.

Solar Systems Rise and Wane

Actually the word ‘creation’ is a misnomer, for the present Solar System is a cyclic reappearance of that which preceded it, the new ‘body’ in which the Solar Logos reincarnates. In the pre-Solar System, archetypes, modeled on the fruits of its predecessor, were projected perfectly at the close of its seventh cycle and sub-cycles. During the creative ‘night’ which followed, seeds of further developments and relatively new concepts must be presumed to have germinated in the, consciousness of the Solar Logos. Thus an archetypal concept, divine ‘idea’, gradually develops, and occupies divine consciousness at the dawn of a new creative ‘day’. The Solar System which is the manifestation of that ‘idea’ is not new. It is the reappearance at a higher level of that which preceded it.

In this we observe the operation of the universal law known to physical science as the Law of Periodicity. This Law is found to operate throughout both the physical universe and its superphysical extension. Under the operation of this law, Solar Systems, their physical suns and planets, and their psychical, intellectual and spiritual content, cyclically emerge into material manifestation, exist objectively for a time, and then, passing into obscuration, return to the subjective state.

This Law of Periodicity may be likened to a force which maintains the ceaseless swing of a pendulum. It continues to operate on the Solar System and all that it contains, at every point of the swing, even though the system be reduced to its finest essence in the subjective unmanifest condition, which is the opposite extreme of full objective manifestation. According to occult science, the Solar System has thus its major night and day, its subjective and objective states, between which it oscillates continuously.

When, therefore, Cosmogenesis says Tn the beginning’, the statement must be taken to mean, ‘the beginning of a period of objective manifestation’, or ‘At the dawn of a new creative day’.

To this concept of perpetual oscillation must be added one further and exceedingly important principle. Unlike that of the pendulum, the universal swing is not back and forth along the same path. It is both ellipsoid and spiral. Any particular manifestation is not an exact duplicate of its predecessor; on the contrary, while the substance and content are similar, the condition is different. There is an ascent, or, in a word, there is growth. The Solar System, being alive, grows.

The Logos Utters the Word

The divine ‘idea’ of the Solar System is in this sense new; it probably includes one major creative concept as the central theme, as also every possible variation, digression and development.

We must now go back to the ‘beginning’, to that ‘dawn when the morning stars sang together and the Sons of God shouted for joy’. The divine ‘hour’ strikes. The cosmic ‘moment’ arrives at which the silence of creative ‘night’ is broken by the utterance of the Word. The Logos begins to chant the mighty mantram of His being. Creative energy pours forth. The One becomes the Three, and then the Seven appear, the Sephiroth, the first fruits of the preceding Solar System. Creative energy is released, passing from the one Source, the Point, into and through the Three, the Triangle, and the Seven, the Sphere. Thence it impinges or is ‘breathed’ upon the ‘waters’ of primordial space.

Space consists of matter unpolarised. It is called chaotic, formless, void and virginal, because within it order, form, fullness and fertility are subjective. Under the influence of the creative ‘breath’ or

Word, these become objective, whereupon from chaos, cosmos is born, Time and the Cycles immediately reign. According to Egyptian cosmogony the seven planes of Nature are gradually formed by the seven peals of laughter by which Thoth created the Universe.

Chaos is perceived as the great opponent of Order, and there is ceaseless conflict between them during manifestation. They are negative and positive poles, and yet in the One Root the Two are one. Actually, manifestation is a ceaseless war between these two great antagonists.

At the dawn of creation Chaos reigns, master of the fields of space. At high noon the conflict is at its height, for then the opposing forces are equal in their power. Then follows the gradual defeat of chaos, which at solar nightfall is complete. Then Order reigns, and into it Chaos — in no sense destroyed — has been absorbed, its forces united and harmoniously working with those of Law.

War in Heaven

The war in Heaven is an everlasting war, waged continuously by the Great Opponents, Chaos and Order, Spirit and Matter, Life and Form, Universality and Individuality, Consciousness and Vehicle. Matter and Spirit share the victory equally, for Matter may be said to conquer in the sense that no permanent impress of the Spirit may be made upon it; though captured for a time, eventually it escapes. Spirit appears to conquer in that, in gradually increasing degree, matter becomes its servant; yet Spirit loses continually in that no final victory is ever attained. Only THAT, the One Alone, wins permanent victory and receives the victor’s crown. THAT which is beyond the conflict, yet is the conflict’s cause: THAT which is neither spirit nor matter yet is the essence of both: THAT from which both life and form emerge: THAT to which both return — THAT achieves completely its predetermined goal.

In Christian symbology the Virgin Mare or sea of space divinely conceives, becomes pregnant with the Solar System which She continuously brings forth, Herself ever remaining immaculate. The creative energy is the Word which was ‘in the beginning’ and which ‘God spake’.

The Word must be regarded as an energy-on-frequencies expression of the divine ‘idea’. It is therefore a chord, the keynote of which is part of a chord completed by the keynotes of the other Solar Systems in its group. The Word of that group, itself a chord, is in its turn a note in the chord which is the penultimate or cosmic Word, of which the whole sidereal system is a partial manifestation.

Archetypal Forces

The Solar Word-Force, relayed from cosmic servers, causes the matter of space to assume or produce at the causal level a ‘form’ which is the primordial archetype, probably a combined series of seven magnetic centres or points with radiating lines as fields. At each of these seven centres Divine Thought is focused or incarnate; from within each it governs the direction and range of the radiations and through them all subsequent development of form. For all ultimate expansion and development in the form worlds is expressive of the divine ‘idea’ centred in each of the seven centres of the archetype. Each of the seven centres or vortices is a manifestation of the creative power of the Logos, modified by transmission through one of the Sephiroth. These seven streams of power produce the vortices in the solar archetype and later the chakras — solar, scheme, chain, planetary, human and sub-human. Accordingly all chakras of the same type are linked, each being a manifestation at its own level of the same stream of creative energy, ray or note in the Word. The heart chakram of man, for example, is one with, even part of, the heart chakras of the planetary, chain, scheme and Solar Logoi.

The seven vortices in the archetype are the basic ‘forms’ in the formless worlds, form-producing agencies, essences or formulae of form in the form-worlds they are represented by the Platonic Solids.

Chakras differ in colour and number of petals, and the Platonic Solids differ in number of points and lines, because each is a product of one of the seven different groups of frequencies, types or Rays into which the one creative energy is divided by passage through the Three and Seven.

Universe Based on Number

Thus Creation is based on numerical principles; thus God geometrizes.

Systemic archetypes are in no sense separate from their Creator; they are objective manifestations of His consciousness, incarnations of His Creative intent. Nor are they separate from their material expressions, the evolving forms. They are the links between the consciousness of the Great Designer and its objective expression as Nature’s varied forms; syntheses of the essence of both; modified manifestations of creative intent as expressed in the intermediate realm of abstract thought.

As transmitters of the Word-Force, the archetypes serve as relay stations between the Source and the physical plane; or as storage batteries continually discharging into the form-worlds and as constantly recharged from the formless.

The archetype therefore is far more than a passive model copied by the Deva builders. It is also a positive form-producing agency. Creative energy, on the group of frequencies expressive of the divine ‘idea’ is focused in it on its way outwards or downwards to the form worlds. Its impact, first upon the fourth sub-plane of the mental plane, sets up a magnetic field therein, with radiating lines of force, the arrangement, direction of flow, and shape of which is governed by the frequencies on which the force is flowing, namely those of the archetype.

This field, with its magnetic centre and radiating lines, is the basic form throughout Nature. Surrounded by an astro-mental envelope in the form-worlds it constitutes the first form: i.e. the ‘line’ and ‘pudding bag’ body of early cycles, the animalculae of later.

Matter of the plane in which the magnetic field is set up is drawn into the field and gradually a dense body is built. Thus, plane by plane, the Word-Force eventually reaches the physical world. Being related to sound and therefore form-producing, there it also causes etheric and later dense matter to assume shapes expressive of the archetype and divine ‘idea’.

The Deva Builders

In this process of the production of concrete evolving forms by the utterance of the Word, the Great Designer and Creator is assisted by those orders of beings among the Devic Hosts known as the

Builders. The members of the higher ranks in this order are aware of the creative intent, perceive and know the archetype, and by self-unification with the descending Word-Force, particularly with those groups of frequencies which are identical with those of their own nature, thereby augment its form-producing power. Representing as they do the feminine Aspect of the Logos, their presence within the magnetic fields accentuates Its influence. They unify themselves with the descending Creative Word-Force, the masculine Aspect, and blend themselves with its various rays; intensifies the component frequencies of those Rays and, as above stated, augments their power to produce form.

Within the order of Deva Builders are Hierarchies which are themselves as a whole and as individuals, manifestations of those chords in the Word of which the archetypes and concrete forms are an expression. This affinity of vibration brings the particular hierarchy into the appropriate field of work as form builders in the four kingdoms of Nature.

Gold for example may be regarded as the physical manifestation or end-product of the gold frequencies in the archetype, the ‘gold’ notes in the Word, and of the gold aspect of the Logos. Creative energy on gold wavelengths entering the form-worlds, by processes already described, causes matter to assume the particular molecular arrangement, crystalline form, and colour of gold.

Gold nature spirits at the etheric and astral levels and Devas above, in an ascending hierarchy right up to the Source, respond, when the Word is uttered to the gold ‘call’, because it is that of their own inherent nature; for they are themselves devic gold, manifestations in their kingdom of the gold aspect of the Supreme.

In addition to their assistance from within the stream of force and the magnetic fields, the play of their consciousness and auric energies from without, all on gold wave lengths, increases the tendency of matter to respond to the Word and under its influence more readily to assume the gold atomic construction, gold molecular and crystalline arrangement, gold colour and consistency.

The nature spirits perform their astro-etheric part of this work instinctively, the Devas consciously, and from within the Force aspect of Nature. This fact gives significance to the statement in Hindu philosophy that all natural scenery is the materialized aura of the Gods; for all the varied forms of Nature owe their existence and appearance to these creative processes and to the constant labours of the Gods. When we look upon Nature in Her varied aspects, Her metals and jewels, Her great landscapes, Her waterfalls, and Her rivers, when we gaze in awe upon Her great mountain ranges — God’s most glorious gesture, as they have been called, we are gazing indeed not only upon the Gods, but upon God himself.

For Nature is but God revealed, God’s dream made manifest with the assistance of the Gods.

The Symphony of Creation

Before moving on to the end portion of this address, which is concerned with the creative processes as manifest by man the microcosm, let us briefly recapitulate. A concept has been presented of the Logos as Musician, of the act of creation as the performance of a composition which He conceived and developed in earlier creative ‘days’ and perchance perfected in the silence and darkness of intervening creative ‘nights’. When once more there is to be Light, He utters the Word, and that Word brings all things into being. This first sounding forth of the ‘motif of the new Universe is ‘heard’ by virgin matter, which under certain laws responds. Gradually, as a result, the archetypes and the planes of Nature with their forms appear.

This universal motif becomes manifest as myriads of chords, each a coherent self-existent sound with its force and light manifestation. Each chord appears as a relatively changeless abstract form, or archetype, in the Higher Mental world of a particular globe. These archetypes in their turn sound their ‘words’, relaying into the form worlds the primal Word-Force; magnetic fields are thereby set up, matter is drawn into and round them, and evolving forms appear. These forms become the abode of intelligences at varying stages of evolution, which, through experience in them, gradually unfold their innate faculties and powers and cause the forms to develop until the standard of development set for consciousness and forms has been attained. Thus ‘the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us’.

When under the Law of Cycles the time limit of objective manifestation has been reached the whole Solar System is withdrawn into the subjective state in which it remains until, under the same law, it is to reappear and continue the process of development or ascent from the point reached at the close of the preceding ‘days’.

We may now proceed to study these processes as they occur in microcosmic creation by man.

Perhaps the most profound of all the profound truths contained within the arcane teachings is that of the unity and identity of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, and of the similarity between the processes by which both become manifest and evolved.

Man the Microcosm

The Logos and man are one; all that is in the Logos, which includes the Solar System, is innate in man. Their constitution is precisely similar, that is to say sevenfold. Each, as Ego, is both immanent within and transcendent beyond their respective fields of manifestation.

The creative processes by which a Solar System comes into being and is sustained also govern procreation by man and his descent into material vehicles. True, therefore, is the statement that ‘the proper study of mankind is man’. Wise the injunction of the mystery schools of old: ‘Man, know thyself, for when man truly knows himself, he knows all.

As in the study of macrocosmic creative processes the starting place was the Word, so consideration must be given here to the opening of a new human incarnation and the microcosmic utterance of his ‘Word’ by the incarnating Ego.

At conception, the Ego about to incarnate is attached by a Deva through his physical permanent atom to the twin cell then formed. Down the thread of life connecting the Causal Body with the mental, astral and physical permanent atoms, descends the microcosmic Word-force, or Egoic power, life and consciousness. This triple stream of creative energy — the Neptunian trident — vibrates on frequencies expressive of the Egoic ray, evolutionary standing, qualities of character and consciousness already developed, karma, both happy and unhappy in its outworking, and such future powers as are already being foreshadowed in the time-synthesising Causal Body. This Egoic

Word is the spiritual name. All these are expressed as notes in the chord of the Egoic Word, and modify greatly the parental characteristics originally transmitted by ovum and spermatozoon. In normal humanity the Chord is incomplete, because certain qualities are still but germinal, consequently, in each of us there is the latent unstruck music of the soul, the notes not yet sounding forth. In the Adept the full chord is heard in all its beauty and its power.

The Monadic Word

This creative power of the Ego originates in the Monad, by which the Word is primarily uttered. This Monadic word is a chord in the macrocosmic Verbum. This is in its turn a note in the chord of a larger unit, that also being a note in the cosmic Word of the whole sidereal system. Between that highest and this lowest in man there is a direct link; both are part of one great creative process.

The Causal Body in this case may be thought of as the microcosmic archetype, the vehicle for and expression of Monadic creative power, which it relays into the form worlds to initiate a new descent into incarnation. The permanent atom on each plane would seem to correspond fairly closely to chaos or virgin space, for the permanent atom is the storehouse of the skandhas, and in inter-incarnation periods is in a relatively static subjective state — it is awakened by the descending Word-force from the relatively subjective, original condition of inter-incamation periods, to become the focus for and transmitter of the relayed creative energy. Magnetic fields are then set up, and matter capable of response to the emitted wavelengths is drawn into that field. The type of matter attracted, especially as to the preponderance of one or other of the three Gunas, is that which corresponds to the primary rays on Monad and Ego. Thus in the very matter of which man’s bodies are built, as also in every other particular, perfect justice is automatically meted out to him regarding the equipment with which life’s journey is begun.

This stage immediately following conception may perhaps be compared to that in macrocosmic processes at which the Word has produced the archetype, and through that the magnetic centres with their lines of force and fields, which constitute skeletal adumbrations of forms at the mental, astral and physical levels. The next step, therefore, is to trace the process of the gradual materialization of these forms at each level into the present human bodies. The foetus is known to pass through stages repetitive of mammalian, reptilian, invertebrate and simple-celled stages, each corresponding to stages in racial form-evolution, through the Rounds and Chains, with numerical relationship between them and the months of gestation.

Germination

The presence of the permanent atom attached to the newly formed twin-cell by the Deva at the moment of germination, vivified as it is by the descending Egoic creative energy, bestows upon the twin-celled organism its ordered biological impetus; causes it, in fact, to grow ‘according to the word’.

The creative energy now emitted into and through the permanent atom and twin-cell at the physical level and its counterparts above into the surrounding ether, is found to produce (as far as my own studies have shown me) at least four results.

First, the establishment of a field or sphere of influence within which the building is to occur. This corresponds to the Ring-pass-not of the Solar System in macrocosmic creation, represents the range of the emitted rays, and serves to insulate an area against foreign vibrations and substances.

Second, the magnetization or attunement of the matter within this field. The play of creative energy brings surrounding matter more closely into vibrational harmony with the individual about to reincarnate.

Third, the production of a form. This form, which might be regarded as the etheric mould into which the physical body will be built, must at this point be described in some detail, though delaying reference to the fourth effect of the emitted Word-force. Clairvoyantly examined, the etheric mould resembles a baby body built of etheric matter, somewhat self-luminous, vibrating slightly, a living being, the etheric projection of the archetype.

Looking inside this etheric mould, there is seen in terms of flowing energy or lines of force, each on its specific wave-length, a sketch plan of the whole body. Each type of tissue is represented there, different from other types because the energy of which it is an end-product is itself on a different frequency. Thus the bony structure, muscular and vascular tissues, the nerves, the cortex of the brain and the rest, are all represented in the mould in terms of energy by their own specific frequencies.

The play of the emitted vibrations on the free surrounding matter may possibly be the factor which causes atoms to enter into differing molecular combinations to produce different types of tissues. These molecules are attracted towards the lines of force and ‘settle’ into their appropriate place by sympathetic vibration or mutual resonance. Thus again every part of the physical body in substance and in form exactly fits the incarnating Ego. Karmic deficiencies, which are to work out in terms of malformation, weakness and disease, are represented in the mould by dissonances or even breaks in the particular lines of force of the tissues concerned.

Building the Bodies

Fourth of the effects of germination is the evocation of the devic builders of form. The class or order of these which is evoked is also determined by resonance. Thus nature spirits which are in vibrational attunement with the individual and therefore with the emitted rays which constitute the call, alone respond. Arriving on the scene they enter the sphere of influence and find themselves in an atmosphere utterly congenial to them because ruled by their own inherent chord. They then proceed instinctually to absorb into themselves, and thereby further to specialize, the free matter, after which they assist in its vibrationally governed deposition into its appropriate place in the growing structure of the body.

The devas concerned at the astral and mental levels, in addition to the supervision of these processes through the instinctual response of the nature spirits to their consciousness, concern themselves also with the construction and extremely delicate adjustment of the mechanism of consciousness. This consists physically of the body itself with the seven nerve and glandular centres, situated at the sacrum, spleen, solar plexus, heart, throat, the pituitary and pineal glands; at the etheric level, of the etheric counterparts of these centres and glands, and in addition the etheric chakras, which must be perfectly attuned to each other and adjusted to the physical organs, whose health and efficiency they govern. Similarly in the astral and mental bodies, the seven chakras in their turn must be perfectly attuned to each other and perfectly adjusted to the etheric and physical parts of the mechanism. In this way is provided for the Ego by the chakras and physical centres a sevenfold mode of manifestation in his body, seven channels through which he can gain experience in the body. These human chakras are projections of the seven vortices in the archetype and are produced by the play of Word-force from them through the Causal Body into the growing bodies of man.

Egoic Word-force is continuously emitted through the permanent atoms until the bodies are fully formed, when delivery occurs. Thereafter, up to the moment of the death of the physical and withdrawal into the superphysical, the Ego continually utters the Word. The disordered cell and bacterial activity known as decay is due to the absence of the controlling influence of the word.

Logoi-in-the-Becoming

As the astral and mental bodies are in their turn laid aside, the Word becomes silent and the Ego is withdrawn into the subjective condition of Egoic creative night. From this in due course it awakens again, utters the Word, and a new incarnation begins.

Since man is an epitome of the Solar System, a microcosmic manifestation of the Macrocosm, we find in him close parallels to the creative processes of the Cosmos. In man the microcosm and the Macrocosm meet. In man the full possibilities of macrocosmic self-expression are contained. The purpose of his existence is his unfoldment from within of his latent macrocosmic powers that he may in his turn become the Logos of a Solar System, ‘perfect as His Father in Heaven is perfect’. He will become manifest on the higher planes, by the same principles which govern his incarnation in a human Personality. One might almost assume that since the same principles govern macrocosmic and microcosmic creative processes, repeated incarnation provides the training and practice necessary for the later macrocosmic manifestation of creative power.

Man is indeed a Logos-in-the-becoming, a pilgrim God, destined one day to become the Creator, Preserver and Transformer of a Solar System of his own, he reigning as the Sun, physical and spiritual, he immanent throughout the whole of the solar fields, he also transcendent as the Logos which, having pervaded his universe with a fragment of himself, also remains.

The Theosophist, Vol. 57, Pt. 2, 1936, p. 185

65
The Psychedelic and the Yogic Pathways to Reality [1]

A psychedelic experience has been described as a journey to new realms of consciousness, some characteristic features of which are transcendence of verbal concepts, of space-time dimensions, and of the Ego, or limiting self-identity. Students of Theosophy in the widest meaning of the word know that such experiences of expanded consciousness can occur in a variety of other ways, among them yoga exercises, disciplined meditation, and religious, or aesthetic ecstasy. Such experiences may also come spontaneously, often quite unsought and quite unexpected. Recently, through the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline, they have become available to anyone at any time and without effort. Psychologists assert, however, that the hallucinogens do not themselves produce the experience of transcendence but merely act as chemical keys opening the mind and freeing the nervous system from its ordinary patterns and structures.

Motives

Here we may ask the question: ‘Deep down in the minds of drug-takers, what motive could there possibly be for seeking the psychedelic pathway to reality, or even reality itself?’ An answer may perhaps be found in the recognition of the fact that all human beings belong to one or another of two main categories. What are these? In the book, At the Feet of the Master,^{^[69]} it is stated that there are two kinds of people, those who know and those who do not know. Another possible classification might be the awakened and the unawakened, or the seekers and the non-seekers.[70] What, then, are the seekers looking for, and what is the difference between the awakened and the unawakened mind? It may be that the seekers, the awakened people, are looking for reason, sense, in man’s existence and experiences. Non-seekers, on the other hand, do not experience a pressing need for these. It does not seem to bother the majority of humanity that life does not appear to make sense at all, whereas for others this is an urgent question which must be answered; and so they seek.

A further reason for the search is to gain understanding of man’s possible place in the scheme of things, on earth and amid the cosmos and the stars. Again, the non-seekers are not at all interested in this kind of knowledge, but the really awakened person feels an imperative urge to know, and the more he is awakened, the deeper his need to discover the causes of things and to find safety or a means of survival, not only here on earth but also after death, and in any future that there may be still further beyond. Another need is to find a pathway through life upon which to walk with a measure of security and stability, knowing where one is going and why one is travelling that path at all. This applies also to human relationships and the need for someone or something to take the place of the sure guide once possessed but now lost — to so many — the God of the Old Testament, to be adored through fear, potent to destroy.

Awakened persons also seek mastery of self and of environment, so that they need no longer be at the mercy of every wind of destiny that blows. In other words, seekers are searching for self-knowledge, self-understanding, and for hope, beauty, mortal and immortal love. In general, I think it might be true to say that spiritually and intellectually awakening and awakened people experience that divine discontent which has been described as an inexpressible longing of the inner man for the Infinite. Non-seekers, on the other hand, feel no pressing need for any of these. Awakened people not only search for and find what is truth for them, but they can never be content with partial, surface knowledge alone. Like Oliver Twist, they always ask for more. They continue to probe ever deeper into the depths of reality, of truth, of wisdom. They cannot vegetate; they must know more and more fully in order to understand more and more completely. They aspire and they work hard, seeking for the highest attainment before their present life closes, and for still greater achievements in the ages which lie ahead. The unawakened, on the other hand, do not wonder or care about these things at all. If they have a philosophy of life it is: ‘Live today and let tomorrow take care of itself.’

All that I have just said is by way of introduction to our subject, here advanced because whatever one may think of LSD takers, their varied motives and their methods, one must in fairness recognise that in certain cases — but definitely not in all — they may be awakening, aware of a feeling of discontent, and that, however gravely mistaken in their choice of method, they have undertaken a genuine search for reality. They are hopeful that the psychedelic drugs will solve their personal problems, provide them with deep religious insight, and break down the barriers of communication between individuals, thus providing them with a deeper love for mankind. According to published accounts, some of them do attain to this, if only temporarily, while with others the reverse is true.

Who Are the Drug Takers?

What kind of people are those who resort to hallucinatory drugs? According to an article in The Stanford Observer, California, March 1967, many of them are the children of soldiers who came back from World War II. They were born in the midst of a boom, at a time of affluence, and did not have to worry about where the next dollar would come from. There was no war in progress and they went to new and more permissive types of schools where they were told that the function of education is to think critically, to question, and to ask for proof. So they think, they look, and they see poverty, discrimination, war, and misery. They feel that the loss of Individuality brought on by automation and the computer age is almost unbearable. What is more they have never had to work for a living and do not acknowledge any need to do so. For the most part they show little or no willingness to contribute constructively to the welfare and progress of the people of their neighbourhood, of their country, of the world.

Then LSD came on the scene, along with its handmaiden marijuana. There is little doubt that these drugs alter one’s perception of the world. People who are unable to make good in a world which seems to have no room for them can suddenly ‘take a trip’ which answers for them the questions ‘Who am I?’ ‘Where am I?’ ‘Why am I here?’

One sociologist calls these young people ‘the Freudian proletariat’. Another observer sees them as ‘expatriates living on our shores but beyond our society’. Historian Arnold Toynbee describes them as ‘a red warning light for the American way of life’. And ‘to their deeply worried parents throughout the country they seem more like dangerously deluded drop-outs, candidates for a very sound spanking and a cram course in civics — if only they would return home to receive either’.[71]

Statistics

How many psychedelics are there in the United States? Their own estimate of their nation wide number runs to some 300,000. Disinterested officials generally reduce that figure, but even the most sceptical admit that there are countless thousands of part-time, or ‘plastic’ hippies, who may ‘drop out’ only for a night or two each week. By all estimates the cult is a growing phenomenon that has not yet reached its peak and may not do so for years to come.

San Francisco’s public health director, Dr Ellis D. Sox has said that the 10,000 hard-core hippies already in San Francisco are costing the city $35,000 a month for treatment of drug abuse. He warned that with a summer influx there was serious danger of epidemics in infectious hepatitis (from needles exchanged in shooting amphetamines), venereal disease (already up six times from the city’s 1964 rate), and other illnesses ranging from typhus to malnutrition.^{^[72]}

Writing in the Daily News,[73] David Brestid stated:‘A Federal drug official testified... that the Mafia is moving in for a cut in “staggering” profits in the LSD trade’.

The following extract is taken from the book LSD:[74]

One of the all too few hopeful signs in the present LSD mess is that a handful of heavy users are beginning to say that LSD cannot do it all. They have either discontinued its use or have spaced the intervals between their LSD days to a half year or so.

It must be recalled that spontaneous self-transcendence may not have taken place without internal chemical changes. Nevertheless, the element of proper life preparation is more likely to be present. The person is more apt to be ready for it. He is more likely to come back humbled from the awesome event rather than over inflated. The LSD shortcut has its pitfalls for the unprepared. The shortcut may get you to the same summit. The view may be the same, but what a difference between the one who sweated and struggled to get there, and the one who rode to the top on the back of a chemical carrier. So if it’s self-transcendence you are after, consider the hard way, the non-chemical route. Furthermore, no one will ever be able to take that freedom away. In the catalogue of LSD ‘trips’ there appears to be mainly an infinity of alternatives. One taker reports: ‘The greatest experience of my creative life’. Others have said: ‘A living hell I’ll never forget’; ‘restoring my vision of the infinite’; and ‘a shattering nightmare’. Dr Timothy Leary maintains — and many other psychologists agree — that the quality of the LSD experience is largely conditioned by the expectations of the person who takes it and the setting in which the drug is taken.

The LSD Experience

Let us now take a ‘trip’ vicariously, and only so, happily for our health’s sake. I have selected a few from the hundreds of available descriptions of what drug-takers go through. These also are taken from the book LSD.[75]

‘Acid can be a beautiful nuclear reaction lighting up cities or it can be Hiroshima, an event that you must live with forever…‘It is like being in a snake pit . . .’; ‘My God, my body is disappearing!’; ‘Under LSD one has the overwhelming feeling that it is the real reality. . ‘Under LSD the world looks as it did on the morning of Creation. Every paradox is resolved and each opposite is so neatly reconciled. Every moment is expanded to infinity. One enlarges to encompass the All or contracts into nothingness. . . ‘In large amounts, the discriminating, critical capacity is lost. The ability to observe oneself, to evaluate the validity of one’s ideas and swift flowering fantasies, is lost... profound feelings of interpersonal communion and unity, which endow every action with beauty and significance . . .’; ‘It was so packed with intensity of feeling, ecstasy, light, colour, movement, laughter, tears and visions that I cannot describe it or remember much more than the overwhelming effect it had on me. It was indescribable, glorious, ineffable. . . .’; ‘As your body lies there in its sleeping bag, your soul is free, loses all sense of time, alert as it never was before, living an eternity in a night, seeing infinity in a grain of sand. What you have seen and heard is cut as with a burin in your memory, never to be effaced. At last you know what the ineffable is, and what ecstasy means. Ecstasy! The mind harks back to the origin of that word. For the Greeks ekstasis meant the flight of the soul from the body. Can you find a better word than that to describe the bemushroomed state?’

Here, however, are some very adverse experiences drawn from The LSD Story by John Cashman:[76]

‘I began to turn in on myself, to loop through my own flesh. I swirled and involuted and squirmed and tried to keep from screaming at the glory and the terror of it all. Then the eye appeared, a great shining eye suspended in space. The eye pulsated and shot rays of burning, sweet-sounding light through my body. But it wasn’t my body. Suddenly I was the great eye and I was everything there is to see. It was ecstasy and it was horrible and I saw it all and understood it all. . . g

A man sits stunned for six hours and then says: T saw God. I don’t wish to talk about it! ’ A college girl is brought writhing and screaming into a California hospital convinced that she is shedding her skin like a snake. A psychiatrist shakes his head and explains why he will never take LSD again: ‘I saw things no man should ever see’. An alcoholic quits drinking cold one day, saying: ‘I saw myself and all the worms and I died and I knew everything was different’. A young man is pulled from under a train and claims he was pushed there ‘by my other, evil self. A woman with terminal cancer smiles and says: ‘My extinction is not of great consequence at this moment, not even for me. ... I could die nicely now’. A man in New York City stabbed his mother-in-law to death, claiming he was high on LSD for three days. Two children, one in New York, the other in Chicago, accidentally swallowed LSD and were rushed to hospitals in what was called ‘critical’ condition. Both recovered quickly. A young high school co-ed in Sherman Oaks, California, was found unconscious on a street. Police said she had taken LSD. And there have been other reports, some documented, some not. There was a Harvard student who was left helpless for four days, convinced he was only six inches tall. There was a Long Island couple, hospitalised for psychiatric treatment because the husband thought he was Christ and the wife believed him. And there was the woman in Los Angeles who ripped off her clothes and ran naked through the streets looking for absolution.

The following report is taken from the Los Angeles Times of February 1, 1967:

LSD victim felt he was Devil stealing soulsl An 18-year-old musician who apparently shot himself to death after suffering LSD hallucinations believed ‘he was the devil stealing souls’, according to his roommate. ... He thought ‘whenever he talked with anyone he’d steal his soul and any time he ate he devoured someone’s soul’. (His roommate said) he had been ‘confused about everything’ since taking LSD last summer. . . . [His older brother commented] ‘My brother was on a terrible trip’, and explained that the youth had been hysterical for several days after taking the drug. ‘He spent four days in the General Hospital psychiatric ward and showed great improvement’, the brother said. ‘But he never got back to normal’, he added. ‘He was in mental anguish. He felt as if he were of no use in the world. His ego was gone and he had confidence in nothing. . . .’ A family friend said that after taking the drug the youth ‘saw his head part from his body in a mirror.

He saw milk pouring from his eyes. He felt he could float out of himself and look back at himself. John’s principal emotion was self-hatred. He thought the only answer to his snatching of souls was to destroy himself.

The next case was published in The Stanford Observer in April 1967:

Dr Allan Cohen, a former researcher with Timothy Leary and now a staff psychologist at the University of Califomia-Berkeley, said he stopped taking LSD a year and a half ago when he realized it was ⁴ a fake’. While LSD is ‘powerful and dramatic’ in its effects, Dr Cohen said, ‘it did not develop me spiritually one bit and had no application to everyday life’.

‘In actuality’, he said, ‘LSD leads to spiritual egotism, not listening to others. Users think they’re transcending egos, when they’re actually extending them’. Dr Cohen added, ‘They’re very rarely willing to accept any master’.

Dr William McGlothlin (Ph.D.) who also serves as a research associate at the University of Southern California, disclosed that young LSD users . . . often fail to realize the satisfaction of achievement. ‘If you don’t have a discipline, a way to be creative, you won’t get it through the drug experience’, he declared. Dr McGlothlin also criticised ‘the very unrealistic attitude toward economic responsibility’ of young LSD users. ‘Neither the individual nor society can prove viable unless everyone pulls his own weight.

Los Angeles Times (May 2, 1967) published the following report:

Four LSD Users Suffer Serious Eye Damage — Santa Barbara.

Four college students have suffered permanent impairment of vision as a result of staring at the sun while under the influence of LSD, according to a spokesman for the Santa Barbara Ophthalmological Society. One of the youths told his doctor he was ‘holding a religious conversation with the sun’. Another said he had gazed at the sun ‘to produce unusual visual displays’. The students, all males, suffered damage to the retina, the sensory membrane which receives the image formed by the lens. As a result, the victims have lost their reading vision completely and forever, the ophthalmological spokesman said. The four had no awareness of pain or discomfort while the sun was burning through the eye tissue, the spokesman said. The damage is permanent, because tissue so damaged does not regenerate itself.

The following extracts are taken from an article by Warren R. Young,[77] published in The Readers Digest for September 1966:

THE TRUTH ABOUT LSD: LSD has its users and its fans on campuses and city streets all across the country who promise a new world of flashing lights, colourful patterns, memories out of a past, sharpened insights into the nature of humanity. A ‘trip’ to this fabulous land can be taken simply by chewing an inexpensive ($1 to $10) cube of sugar impregnated with a speck of the mysterious brain-affecting chemical.. . . Some of the less well known facts about LSD are simply horrifying. . . . The fact that LSD does not cause lethal poisoning itself made little difference to one student in Los Angeles, who ‘turned on’ with it two years ago to expand his outlook on life. As often happens, the drug gave him an overpowering sense of omnipotence. He strode directly in front of a fast-approaching car on Wilshire Boulevard and raised his hands in the obvious belief that he could ‘will’ the speeding vehicle to an instantaneous halt. He was wrong, and died — an ‘indirect’ casualty. At Bellevue, in fact, as at many other hospitals, a steady procession of persons in an intolerable state of panic appear for admission, after deliberately taking LSD and then finding themselves on a ‘bad trip’.

The excerpts below are from The Telegram, Toronto, June 3, 1967:

‘It’s a bad risk’, says Dr Heinz Lehmann, an internationally known authority on psycho-pharmacology who is director of research at Douglas Memorial Hospital in Verdun, a Montreal suburb. ‘About one per cent of all persons who take it have lasting bad effects that may never subside. Or else they might remain disturbed and require treatment for months. Some take it and beat people up. Others take it and commit suicide. Another 20 per cent have had bad trips that can require treatment and others have relapses several days after taking it. To take it is to deliberately unstructure your mind (italics mine G.H.), not a very good thing when you consider our minds are our proudest possessions’, he says. To take the drug without having a qualified psychiatrist present — and that is the way it is being used in most cases today — is unthinkable, according to Dr Lehmann. ‘It is difficult enough to control in a laboratory environment with experts present’, he says, ‘let alone in somebody’s apartment where your guide is a young inexperienced college student.

‘Some take it and become so anxious and terrified they cannot stay alone for a second. They are like infants. Their minds are in pieces. If that happens in a hospital we know what to do. We can give them something to counteract the LSD. But what happens when it occurs with college students? What happens if the guide panics and leaves the person alone? Suicide can and has been the result of these cases’.

Dr Lehmann admits the drug can increase awareness, but is quick to add the gains are not worth the risk. Furthermore, he believes that LSD can’t do anything for you that you can’t get through other and safer ways (Yoga — G.H.).

‘The misuse of LSD today reflects the way we live’, he says. ‘We want awareness but it has to be an instant do-it-yourself kind of awareness. You don’t need LSD to appreciate the beauty of flowers. Just take time out to enjoy them. If you want to improve your mind, study. Work, hard work; that’s the answer. Not LSD (Yoga — G.H.). People who use it are guilty of unclear thinking, if not downright ignorance. They want their awareness on a silver platter’. Dr Lehmann says it is difficult to convince young persons of the dangers because ‘the drug will not make you less intelligent. You don’t become a slob and you may well become a nicer person by being less aggressive’. But he says it may turn you into ‘an utter parasite’.

The book LSD on Campus^{^[78]} contains the following statement:

By the late summer of 1963 the American Medical Association requested an editorial on LSD from Harvard’s campus physician, Dr Dana L. Farnsworth. In it he recounted some of the lamentable LSD experiences taken by Harvard students and said, in effect, that legal restrictions should be imposed. Dr Farnsworth warned: ‘Our accumulating day-to-day experience with patients suffering the consequences of the hallucinogens demonstrates beyond question that these drugs have the power to damage the individual psyche, indeed to cripple it for life’.

Such testimony evokes in one’s mind the question: How many of these drug-takers will be wasted by the time they find themselves?

The American Theosophist, Vol. 56, Issue 3, March 1968, p. 53

66
The Psychedelic and the Yogic Pathways to Reality [2]

(The next report is from The Province Vancouver, B.C.):^{^[79]}

LSD Writing A Tale of Horror

Los Angeles — ‘We just don’t know how to cope with it. .. .’ The speaker was a leading psychiatrist who has been battling with

North America’s dangerous new phenomenon: hallucinatory drug LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide). His admission of helplessness is seconded by an array of other medical men and law enforcement officers who have watched aghast as the use and depredations of the drug have spread.

The chief hope they have at this point is spreading the word about how tricky and dangerous the seemingly innocuous white powder can be. A few months back any LSD victim in Los Angeles, gripped by the horrible psychoses the drug may induce, knew he could stagger to the neuro-psychiatric institute at the University of California, where there is 24-hour emergency service for the mentally disturbed.

‘But we had to shut the door on them’, says Dr J. Thomas Ungerleider, one of the foremost LSD researchers in the U. S. ‘It just became too much. We’re basically a teaching institution, and we didn’t have enough beds for all these people. Now we just tell them to go to the county hospital. Heaven knows we’ve enough cases to study', the white jacketed psychiatrist said grimly. ‘We’ve got an out-patient, huddled in his room near here, who thinks he’s an orange, and that if anybody touches him, he’ll squirt juice’. He continued, ‘We’re got a mother of 23 and her baby. She was giving the baby LSD as a tranquilliser. The baby seems alright, but the mother is psychotically confused’.

Science Digest, January 1967, reported:

LSD, the most potent psychedelic chemical, is now 28 years old and has been used in experiments for 23 years. The use of other mind-altering drugs may be older than civilisation. If the mind-altering properties are a potential force for ‘good’ — bringing liberation, religious ecstasy, therapy, creative insights — why were we not designed by nature to go through life in a perpetual psychedelic state? Why are we not born with ‘widened’ minds? Guthrie’s character speaks again: ‘Why didn’t God make a man so he’d feel all the time like he does on a pleasant LSD trip? Ultimate Truth (whatever it is and assuming it exists at all) may be extra-logical, and during feelings of strong conviction, drug-induced or otherwise, we may transcend logic (as well as Individuality and time and space). But in the world we live in, our continuance is best furthered by a mind not so much widened as shaped to function along logical guidelines, shutting out or inhibiting certain data, allowing attention and concentration to be directed through responsibility to personal and social needs’.

On March 13,1967, the Vancouver, B.C. School Board published in The Province an ‘Open Letter to All Young People & Parents’:

DANGERS OF LSD (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)

As the Vancouver City Medical Health Officer, I wish to make it very clear to all citizens that LSD is an extremely dangerous drug.

I make this statement knowing that LSD is administered by some medical specialists for particular mental illnesses.

The dangers from LSD are so great that no one should allow it in his or her body. The only exception would be under the highly skilled

The Psychedelic and the Yogic Pathways to Reality [2] 309 control of a medical specialist.

The following are five major dangers associated with LSD. The statements are based on scientific information obtained from the Narcotic Foundation of B.C. and from other reliable sources.

I urge you to read these most carefully.

First, the Individual

Persons who use LSD are often young. They cannot cope with the overpowering effects of the drug.

Second, Psychological and Physical Reactions

LSD can result in bodily harm to the users and to others. It can create a panic state of mind. It can cause distortions of shape, size, colours, distances, sounds and time. A second may seem an hour; an hour, a second. A person on the fourth story of a building may believe he is two feet from the ground and jump to his death.

Contrary to what some users say, LSD is not a psychedelic drug. It produces hallucinations. LSD does not expand the mind; the drug shrinks it.

The effects are not temporary. Repeat of these hallucinations can occur later at the most unexpected times with great danger to everyone around. Therefore, the brain damage may be permanent even after one single experience with LSD.

Third, Impurities and Unknown Dosage

The impurities and the impossibility of controlling the dosage in the commonly obtained form of LSD add to the dangers of this drug. The regular medical dosage is so small that one ounce of LSD would be sufficient to treat 300,000 patients.

Fourth, the Legal Consequences

The sale of LSD in Canada is prohibited. It is even illegal to give or transfer LSD to any person. The only exception is for use at approved research centres, on the approval of the Minister of National Health and Welfare.

The penalty for any violation can be up to $500 fine and/or six month’s imprisonment if the conviction is by summary court procedure. The penalty on conviction by indictment procedure can be up to $5000 fine and/ or three years’ imprisonment.

If the prosecution proceeds by indictment and there is conviction, the offender then has a criminal record across Canada. This record will prevent him from emigrating in the future to a number of countries in the world. It will also prevent him from holding public office and other important positions in industry, business and the professions.

Fifth, the Social Consequences

The possible social consequences are serious. Case histories show a slipping in achievement in every phase of life. Secrecy that surrounds the use of LSD and all illicit drugs tends to drive young people into groups separated from the rest of society.

The overwhelming evidence shows LSD to be an extremely dangerous drug. No one should allow it to enter his or her body. The only exception would be under the highly skilled control of a medical specialist at an approved research centre.

J. L. GAYTON, M.D., D.P.H. Medical Health Officer, City of Vancouver, B.C.

March 10, 1967.

LSD and the Chromosomes

Genetic dangers which may result from the taking of psychedelic drugs are warned against in the following statements, the first of which is from an article by Harry Nelson as reported in the New York Post:[80]

Further evidence that LSD may damage chromosomes, the tiny structures in cells which carry genetic information, has been reported by two Oregon researchers. If further investigation confirms their preliminary findings, it could mean that users run a greater risk of having cancer and possibly of having defective children. ‘The damage seems to be related to the amount of LSD used’, Dr. Jose Egozcue said. He is a geneticist at the Oregon Regional Primate Centre in Portland. Dr. Egozcue and Dr. Samuel Irwin, a psycho-pharmacologist at the University of Oregon Medical School, found chromosomal abnormalities in six of the eight LSD users in their study.

The next extract is from an article in Time, August 11, 1967, entitled ‘Drugs’.

LSD and the Unborn

‘Researchers studying the multifarious effects of LSD had new and disturbing reports last week. Not only does LSD expose unstable trippers to the risk of a psychotic break. Not only does it break down the chromosomes in some blood cells. The latest evidence is that it causes cell changes suspiciously like those seen in one form of leukemia. Given to a rat early in pregnancy, it usually results in stillborn or malformed young. Worse, LSD may have similar effects on the human fetus. And those chromosome breaks have been found in the babies of LSD users ... at least four babies of LSD-tripping mothers, now being studied in Buffalo, have broken chromosomes.

Since this address was delivered, this possible effect of drugs has been further confirmed. An item in the Los Angeles Times of November 24, 1967 reports that University of Iowa paediatricians say they have encountered ‘the first documented case of a baby born with birth defects [a severely deformed right leg) because her mother had taken the hallucinatory drug LSD during pregnancy’. Laboratory tests revealed breaks in the chromosomes of both the mother and the father. ‘Medical literature’, says the report, ‘recently has contained several reports by investigators who found chromosome breaks among LSD users and said evidence indicated that the defects could be transmitted to offspring. . .’

Apparently, however, there is a use for the drug in cancer cases. The following statements appeared in Science Digest for March 1967:

Patients dying of cancer were given the hallucination-provoking drug LSD to see if they could relate better to their environment and communicate with their families in the last months or weeks of their lives.

The drug was injected with full knowledge and consent to 80 patients by Dr Eric C. Kast of the Chicago Medical School. He found it caused them to ‘view events in and around them with greater clarity and with three dimensions. Through this insight communication was greatly facilitated. It eliminated their depressed state for as long as two weeks. Some had discovered a depth of feeling and perception they had not thought themselves capable of.

Although the experience was short-lived and transient, it was a welcome change in their monotonous and isolated lives, Dr Kast said.

The Yogic Pathway to Reality

From now on let us look at this subject from the point of view of the yogi, who claims to be able to achieve these ecstasies, these exaltations, and this liberation from the limitations of self-inhibiting mentality and circumstances by the practice of regular and disciplined contemplation of the Divine. Supposing we were watching with the seeing eye of a yogi deep in meditation who, by his own efforts and at any chosen time, is successfully achieving the higher consciousness. What would we see? Changes would be occurring, I suggest, in the physical body, and especially in the cerebrospinal system. We would note, for example, that the cells of the brain were being submitted to considerable strain, and so to some stimulation. This is caused primarily by their being forced to respond to thought upon abstract subjects, such as the oneness of life, universality, and absorption in God — God-consciousness.

Then, in certain forms of yoga, particularly Laya Yoga,[81] and in deep meditation, the Serpent Fire or Kundalini,^{^[82]} normally asleep at the base of the spine, is aroused into abnormal activity and is drawn up into the head. At this point, however, I wish it to be clear that I warn, very seriously and strongly, against any attempts to arouse kundalini without the guidance and physical presence of a senior in occult science — a qualified teacher or guru.

What happens to the body and especially to the brain, biochemically as it were, when kundalini is aroused? The Serpent Fire is described as the creative life force in nature and in man, in whom it is sheathed with care within the spinal cord. There it is said to ‘sleep’ at the base of the spine in the region of the sacrum. When aroused by concentration, the action of a guru or a rite of initiation,[83] it divides into three currents: positive, negative, and neutral, called Pingala, Ida, and Sushumna respectively. These three currents then ascend, either swiftly and with heat or gradually and without heat, along three canals or nadis in the Etheric Double of the spinal cord. When this force reaches the head, the pituitary gland receives a continuous inflow of the positive current of Kundalini-Pingala; the pineal gland receives the negative current — Ida\ and the central neutral current — Sushumna — ascends into the middle of the head, the third ventricle, and rises through the anterior fontanelle and the etheric, astral, and mental brahmarandra chakras[84] By this time the individual has already begun to experience bliss-bestowing transcendence of bodily life and entry into a realm of light and freedom, later to deepen into realized identity with the life in all. Such, briefly described, is one yogic pathway to reality — that of Lay a Yoga.

Of some interest in this connection is the fact that quite recently certain doctors have found that the pineal gland manufactures a secretion which can possibly be associated with both schizophrenia and the psychedelic experience. Here is a brief report of their findings:

In 1958 a Yale Medical School Professor of Dermatology named Aaron B. Lemer published a paper on the pineal gland . . . which placed this elusive substance in some vague kind of historical perspective and provided for it a real functional role in the brains of mammals.... After an incredible four-year project, during which time he dissected over 250,000 cattle pineal glands supplied to him by the Armour Company, he finally isolated the substance responsible, calling it melatonin, since it caused the contraction of melanin-producing cells.

He proved that melatonin was a hormone, that it was produced specifically by the pineal organ, and that therefore this organ was a true, functioning gland, not merely a vestigial sight organ, a relic from our reptilian past. He discovered, moreover, how melatonin was manufactured by the pineal — by the action of certain enzymes on a precursor chemical which must pre-exist in the pineal in order for it to be transformed into melatonin. This precursor chemical turned out to be serotonin....

It has now been established that this organ produced a chemical which had, indirectly at least, been associated with psychedelic states.[85]

If this proves to be the case, then modem medical research appears to be linking up with certain teachings of occult science, and particularly with that aspect of it which is concerned with yoga and the higher consciousness. A stimulation similar to that produced by LSD could be brought about by the ascent of kundalini, the creative life force; for if this power touched with its fiery finger the pineal and the pituitary glands, it would expand the mind-brain awareness by exciting the glands to produce substances which render the brain sensitive to the Ego, and so to extended awareness. Transcendent mystical experience such as both mystics and drug takers describe could then follow. In successful meditation the whole brain is brought into this supersensitive state, partly induced by the ascent of kundalini.

The brain thus stimulated would then itself provide an open ‘gateway’ to the inner spiritual Self, the Ego[86] in the Causal Body.[87] Brain specialists and psychiatrists are reported to have discovered that body consciousness is expanded and increased in intensity and sensitivity by the production of serotonin. Thus the yogi in meditation produces, without the dangers and always at will and with the possibility of repetition, mental conditions similar to those which are effected by hallucination-producing chemicals.

Let us compare the effects produced by yoga and by the hallucinogens. Self-elevation produced by yoga enables the yogi to enter into causal, buddhic^{^[88]} and even atmic[89] consciousness, and thus to become aware at supersensory and spiritual levels. This is achieved, and repeatably, by the regular practice of yoga as a part of life. Drug-induced religious experience, on the other hand, is a chemical escape from physical actuality into a hallucinated state which without a mind-expanding chemical cannot be repeated at will. The psychedelist is wholly dependent upon a drug, and generally must use an ever larger dose to obtain results.

The regular practice of yoga, I repeat, produces a self-stimulation into mystical experience, brought about by the extension of one’s own superphysical and physical awareness. Successful yoga leads to psychological self-freeing from sensory bondage, while drug-induced psychic stimulation is only the result of repeated recourse to hallucinogens. Yoga increases one’s self-reliance, whereas the use of a drug increases one’s dependence upon outside aids — and very dangerous ones at that.

The successful practice of yoga endows one with ever greater clarity of mind and thought, but the hallucinatory drugs tend to produce ever deeper confusion. For the yogi there is spirituality, morality, an increasing beauty of life and thought, intuitiveness, implicit insight and sensitivity toward — and consideration for — others born of realisation of unity with them. The drug-user, as abundant evidence demonstrates, descends into increasing degeneration, accompanied by a decreasing sense of moral obligation to contribute toward the welfare of the community at large. The yogi opens up for himself or herself a channel for the discovery of, and entry into, the realm of the Real, the unchanging and eternal reality which is behind the evanescent phenomena and events of the physical world. For the drug-taker there is only ultimate unreason, unreality, and delusion.

This leads to further consideration of the after-effects of illumination attained by yoga and by drugs. The successful yogi becomes charged with bodily vitality or prana, the whole body at times overflowing with pranic energy and, to clairvoyant vision, shining with golden light. The habitual indulger in drugs, on the other hand, becomes devitalised and, moreover, descends into depressive mental states, frequently accompanied by tendencies to dangerously abnormal conduct, sometimes born of delusions of grandeur, as numerous accounts demonstrate.

Thus viewed, one hardly needs to ask the question as to which is preferable, the psychedelic or the yogic pathway to reality. In conclusion, may I warn most seriously against all use by young or old of any psychedelic drug, except for therapeutic purposes and under medical supervision.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 56, Issue 4, April 1968, p. 71

SECTION 10
The Theosophical Society and Some Leaders

67
An Appreciation of C.W. Leadbeater

The reliability of the seership of C. W. Leadbeater has been challenged by E. L. Gardner, who has described the former’s occult experiences as being mere unconscious ‘thought-creations’. Since some members of the Theosophical Society have become very disturbed by this charge, I have decided, in response to many requests, to relate certain personal experiences which demonstrate to me that E. L. Gardner is in error.

One of the accusations made by Mr Gardner is that C. W. Leadbeater’s supposed contacts with the Masters of the Wisdom were largely imaginary, being the result of the unconscious projections of his own thoughts. It should be remembered, however, that C. W. Leadbeater received two letters from one of the Masters, both being in solid, objective form and transmitted occultly from beyond the Himalayas. This being the case, neither Mr Gardner nor anyone else can truthfully say that C. W. Leadbeater’s first contacts with the Masters were imaginary. The two letters were, and still are, physical objects now preserved in the archives of the Theosophical Society.[90]

Although a very great deal of what C. W. Leadbeater said and described is beyond my own limited experience, I am able to offer the testimony that I have independently become assured of the truth of certain of his teachings. The existence of the human aura, for example, and of the changes and conditions produced in it by both temporary and habitual feelings and thoughts, are undeniable facts for me. It fell to my lot for some six years to make a special study of this subject, having been drawn into collaboration with certain medical men and used as an investigator and diagnostician in London from 1923 to 1929. Again and again in the course of my investigations I received evidence of the close relationship existing between the physical body and clairvoyantly observable psychological and mental conditions.

As I thus studied the subject I found that much which is written in Man Visible and Invisible and Thought-Forms concerning the aura, and the astral and mental bodies of man, is strictly in accordance with my own observations. I am therefore able to say that I know that the human aura exists, and that it is correctly portrayed in many of the descriptions and illustrations contained in these two books by C. W. Leadbeater.

The health aura^{^[91]}, to which C. W. Leadbeater also draws attention, was the first etheric phenomenon which I observed and later charted, noting the outflowing from the body of both unused and used prana and of certain electro-magnetic forces. I further remember sending a copy of my chart to E. L. Gardner and a group of students then gathered around him. I confirm, in addition, the existence and visibility of the vitalizing, life-energy from the sun, known in Sanskrit as prana, its absorption by the body, and its later distribution to different organs according to a very precise system of reception, individualization and circulation of that life-energy.

I am also able to support, from independent observations made throughout a great many years, C. W. Leadbeater’s teachings concerning the existence of the Serpent Fire or kundalini.[92] I have made a special study of this force in varying degrees of its activity, including its effects upon advanced occultists in whom it is fully aroused. The resultant increased functions of the seven force-centres or chakras in the Etheric, Astral and Mental Bodies of man have also long been a subject of study.

I pause at this point to assure my readers that the above and following observations concerning C. W. Leadbeater’s seership are offered in response to special requests. It was thought that, as one who has carried out researches in the same field of study, I might be regarded as an acceptable witness.

Continuing, I am also able to confirm that one can be conscious and active in one’s superphysical bodies whilst the physical body is asleep. In consequence, I have found that it is possible to serve effectively in this manner as helper, healer and protector of one’s fellowmen.^{^[93]}

The existence of nature spirits and of the Angelic Hosts has become a reality to me and here again C. W. Leadbeater’s vision, far outranging my own, is to me a correct source of information concerning members of this other kingdom of Nature. He also wrote Occult Chemistry, a work admittedly not yet found to be in conformity with modern physics. The book consists both of co-ordinated and illustrated descriptions of presumed etheric counterparts of the atoms of the then known chemical elements, and of other expositions of occult physics. I was at one time invited to collaborate with a scientist who, without informing me of the statements contained in Occult Chemistry, requested that I should attempt clairvoyant investigation of certain elements. The existence of etheric structures similar to the geometrical figures which C. W. Leadbeater described were on numerous occasions also seen by myself.^{^[94]}

C. W. Leadbeater’s teachings that the akashic records — or memory of Nature — exist, as also does man’s power to read them, are demonstrably true for me. I have, for example, under the direction of a scientist, clairvoyantly examined fossil bones of ape-men and men-apes, and was later taken into the cave where these relics were found. The palaeontologist concerned confirmed in a written statement the correctness of most, but not all, of that which I had described. Interestingly enough, he tested the possibility of mind reading by verbally giving me faulty information, and at the same time projecting into my mind a wrong thought-form concerning a specimen. I was not, however, aware of either of these actions and, as he later testified, saw and described the correct owner of the fossil — in this case an ape. Thus the two ideas advanced by C. W. Leadbeater — the existence of the akashic records and of the faculty of reading them — are, I repeat, in this instance demonstrable facts to me.

The discovery of Krishnamurti, and the prophecy that he had been selected to be a vehicle for a great Teacher, have an important place in E. L. Gardner’s book. He assumes that since the manifestation did not occur in the manner expected, the prophecy was in error. Whilst this subject is referred to in another part of this booklet, I here describe certain experiences of my own in relation to the prophecy.

As I have elsewhere written, I attended several of the Star Camps in Holland and was present when there was evidence of remarkable, if brief, supernormal manifestations. On more than one occasion some two thousand people from many parts of the world were gathered at Ommen to hear Krishnamurti. Each evening, all were seated in concentric circles round a large camp fire. Krishnamurti would arrive, take his place for a time, and then rise and apply a torch to the camp fire. As the flames arose against the evening sky he would chant a mantram to the god Agni, and return to his seat. Thereafter he would begin to speak, and on more than one occasion a noticeable change took place in him. His voice altered and his hitherto rather iconoclastic utterances gave way to a wonderful tenderness of expression and thought which induced in those present an elevation of consciousness. The Talks were followed by prolonged meditative silences. Many of those present, myself among them, bore testimony to the sense of divine peace which had descended, to a realization of the Presence of the Lord, and to an assurance that the prophecy had begun to be fulfilled.

These phenomena occurred during some few successive years, the events being so marked that Krishnamurti himself thereafter changed the Objects of the Order of the Star in the East from, in effect, ‘To prepare for the coming of the Lord’ to ‘To serve the World Teacher now that He is in our midst’. I, myself, more than once heard Krishnamurti affirm that the great Teacher was now here and that the ‘Coming’ had actually occurred. Even now when he is speaking, with others I discern a spiritual influence emanating from him, as if a great

Being were still using him as a vehicle. This, however, does not constitute a complete fulfilment of the original prophecy.

The foregoing and many other experiences prevent me from allowing to pass unchallenged an attack upon the seership of C. W. Leadbeater. I am convinced that his occult experiences were no mere projections of his own thought-creations, and it should ever be remembered that he himself never assumed total accuracy; neither did he ever ask his readers to believe his observations merely because they were made by him. He wished them to be judged on their merits alone, after application of the tests of reason and intuition. Indeed, recalling C. W. Leadbeater’s presence, the clarity of his mind and the stamp of authority and greatness in him, I deny that he was a self-deceived, deluded man. E. L. Gardner himself recognizes this in the remarkable perception and pre-vision exhibited by C. W. Leadbeater in his discovery that an apparently normal Indian boy was, in fact, the reincarnation of an advanced human being, as has since been proved to be the case; for Krishnamurti is today recognized throughout the world as a great teacher and helper of mankind, large numbers of people flocking to hear him wherever he goes.

Finally, I think it would be a great tragedy if, because of E. L. Gardner’s attack upon C. W. Leadbeater, less notice were taken of the latter’s valuable writings, especially those which expound basic Theosophy, for he always wrote with rare lucidity. His unique contributions to the literature upon the spiritual life, the Path of Discipleship, the Masters of the Wisdom and the Great White Brotherhood of Adepts upon Earth, are not likely to be equalled in their power to transform people’s lives in this period of world history. With so many other revealers of spiritual and occult wisdom to mankind, he has been — and by E. L. Gardner is now — decried and assailed. For me, however, C. W. Leadbeater was a giant amongst men, a great teacher and light-bringer to mankind, and I am indeed grateful for this opportunity of adding my testimony to that of others who knew him far more intimately than ever was my own privilege.

[Compilers Note: For scientific vindication of Occult Chemistry, see the book Extrasensory Perception of Quarks by Dr Phillips who is a particle physicist. For a simplified version of that book read, Occult Chemistry Re-Evaluated by Dr Lester Smith a noted biochemist and Fellow of the Royal Society who has worked closely with Dr Phillips.]

68
Dr Besant

All biographies, however authentic and complete, inevitably fail to record the whole life of their subject. Whilst the events of the outer life may be accurately stated, the far more important, vital and essential inner life can never be fully revealed. This is especially the case when the life stories of the world’s occultists come to be told. True, therefore, it is of the great Initiate whom the world knew as Annie Besant. Dramatic, tragic, marked by grandeur, shot through with compassionate love for the world, as the events of her life undoubtedly were, far more dramatic and exalted, filled with a deeper compassion and love, was the inner life which she lived as a disciple of one of earth’s great Adepts.

The two founders of The Theosophical Society would appear to have recognized at their first meeting with Annie Besant both her greatness and the contribution which she was destined to make to the progress of the Society. H. P. Blavatsky received her into membership and began immediately to train her. Colonel Olcott had been forewarned by his own Master of her advent. Here is the story as he records it in Old Diary Leaves (Chapter VIII, Page 93): ⁶ Just before daybreak on the 10th of February, 1892, I received clairaudiently a very important message from my Guru telling me, among other things, that a messenger from him would be coming and I must hold myself in readiness to go and meet him. Nothing more than this was said, neither the name of the person nor the time of his or her arrival being indicated.

In the absence of exact information, I jumped to the conclusion that the most likely person to be sent would be Damodar, who, after a residence of seven years in Tibet would, presumably, and judging from his state of psychical development when he left us, be ready to carry out the Master’s orders in co-operation with myself.

‘So things remained until the early morning after our [Colonel Olcott and Annie Besant] arrival at our third Indian station, viz., Trichinopoly, when the familiar voice again spoke as I lay in that state, between sleeping and waking, and said: “This is the messenger whom I told you to be ready to go and meet; now do your duty”. The surprise and delight were such as to drag me at once into the state of waking physical consciousness, and I rejoiced to think that I had once more received proof of the possibility of getting trustworthy communications from my Teacher at times when I could not suspect them of being the result of auto-suggestion. The development of Mrs Besant’s relations with our work in India have been, moreover, what, to me, is the best possible evidence that she is, indeed, the agent selected to fructify the seeds which have been planted by H.P.B. and myself during the previous fifteen years’.

Such, in brief, was the entry of the President-Mother, as she later came to be called, upon the Theosophical stage. The same great Teacher who was the Guru of the two Founders later on accepted her as a disciple, trained her for her great mission, and aided in her rapid progress along the razor edged Path into the ranks of that great Adept-Fratemity which lives and labours from eternity to eternity.

As a result of this training, and of her own endeavours and progress in this and preceding lives, and possibly because of her Celtic lineage, her latent seership began rapidly to develop. Swiftly she moved through the normal Theosophical phases of discovery, study and contemplation of the teachings of Theosophy as propounded by others, to the first hand realization of their truth. The bodily encasement ceased to imprison her ardent and profound intelligence. The inner eye was opened, the sixth and seventh senses developed and used. The power was attained to leave the body in full consciousness, explore the invisible worlds, meet the great Teachers face to face and grasp the basic principles upon which the emanation, involution and evolution of a universe are founded. Annie Besant thus became an inspired seeress under the direct guidance of her great Guru.

A matchless intellect and an unrivalled mastery of the art of oratory enabled her to give to the world in a most lucid, convincing and beautiful form the fruits of her studies and investigations. She traveled the world addressing great multitudes of people in country after country and drawing into membership of the Theosophical Society many hundreds of seekers for the truth. To the inner life also she attracted large numbers, thereby enriching both the lives of those who followed and were taught by her and that of the Society in which so many of them became prominent and valuable workers.

Perhaps it was in India that she rose to her greatest heights. When first she landed on those sacred shores, she found a great Nation virtually asleep and many of the followers of a great Religion largely insensitive to and unaware of its greatness. In consequence they were steeped in degrading superstition and assenting to the materialism of the West. The vision of India’s greatness through thousands of years of the past, and into the future when she should be free, then awoke in Dr Besant the determination to try and arouse the millions of the people of ancient Aryavarta to a realization of their own inherent greatness as a nation. She thereupon began to write and speak of the necessity for India’s freedom and of the magnitude of the part which, if they would, the Indian peoples in partnership with the Western Powers were destined to play in the progress of the human race.

The Hindu Religion appealed to her profoundly philosophic mind. The all-embracing nature of the various schools of Hindu religious thought, the sacred writings, the Sanskrit mantras, the inner meaning of Hindu allegories and symbols, the immediate practical application of such pronouncements as the Laws of Manu — all these were revealed to her. Upon this revelation followed one of her greatest achievements. Traveling throughout the length and breadth of the Indian Motherland, she aroused not only the political, but the religious life and conscience of the people, inspired them to study anew their own Faith and restored to them their confidence and pride in the great spiritual, philosophical and cultural heritage which was theirs.

The response was dramatic in the extreme. Hope sprang anew in the breasts of tens of thousands of the Indian peoples. A new life began to flow throughout the nation. From north to south, from east west, like a second Shri Shankaracharya, she traveled not once but repeatedly, founded centres of spiritual activity, Theosophical lodges and that wonderful School in Benares, the Central Hindu College, which afterwards became the Hindu University.

By these and other means, including such newspapers as New India and The Commonwealth, she reached and called to freedom and greatness vast numbers of Indians, teaching and attracting both young and old to the service of the Motherland. Many leaders and workers does India owe to Annie Besant.

As these words are being written, India’s freedom is close at hand. By the time they appear in print it may already have been attained. Probably to Annie Besant, more than to any other single individual, is India indebted for this greatest of all gifts. Indian leaders themselves do not fail to recognize the greatness of her contribution to the life of the nation.

If a personal note be permitted, the author himself owes to Annie Besant his decision to become a member of the Theosophical Society. In 1912 he heard her speak in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, upon the Inner Government of the World and work of the Bodhisattva. In however slight a degree, inner vision then awoke. Her great and shining aura was seen filling the large Hall and extending far beyond. In addition those remarkable searchlight rays depicted in the illustration of the Causal Body of an Arhat, shone out on either side of her head far into the upper air. The revelation, spiritual, intellectual and psychical was overwhelming. As, has been the case with so many thousands of others in similar circumstances, there and then came the decision to join the Society and the resolve to seek, and, if it might be to find, the Great Teachers of the Race. Such was power to inspire, to elevate and to draw the very highest in those who were privileged to come under her influence.

Other unforgettable memories include attendance at the series of lectures which, year by year, she gave in the Queen’s Hall, London. One such scene arises before me as I write. It is that of the celebration of her Golden Jubilee of Public Life. The great Hall was packed with those who had come to pay her reverence, to do her homage and participate in the great occasion. Leaders from many of the noblest fields of human endeavour in the West, and splendid representatives of the East, including Indian Princes, were present. As was ever the custom, all rose as she came on to the platform. For over two hours she listened to a paean of praise from men and women of every rank and walk of life, from British factory workers to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer of England, from altruists and humanitarians of the West to great statesmen, patriots and potentates of the East.

At last came her turn to reply. In one of the greatest and most inspiring examples of her oratorical power, after giving thanks, she lifted all that praise from herself as a Personality and laid it at the feet of Him who is the only worker, the only sacrifice. Here are her closing words: ‘The God who unfolds within us pushes us onwards, even when our eyes are blinded to His Glory, and it is He who is the only worker, He who is the only sacrifice, He who living in our hearts is the only inspiration to Service. And just as we come to know that this is true, then it is that we know that nothing that our bodies and our brains and our hearts can do is our work at all, for all work is His alone and there is none other. And we realize that we work in His power, and He is never weak; in His strength, and He is never feeble; in His youth, the strong immortal Youth who never grows old. And I would say to every one of you that that Power dwells within you, and that strength is the strength of the Divine Spirit and the body is only the Temple of the Living God; and then you will realize that it is not you that works, but it is He. It is not you who plan, but He who plans, and that all you have to do is to make yourselves a channel for that mighty life in which the Universe is living. And who shall dare to say that anyone in whom that life abide’s — and He abides in every one of you — that you cannot make a new Heaven and a new Earth by the Christ and the God within you, for whom alone you can ever be strong, by whom alone you can ever conquer the obstacles in the way’.

Such, in part, was the outer life lived before all men of the great teacher, scholar, statesman, leader and servant of humanity who was Annie Besant. On all sides she was recognized as the greatest orator in the world and by many as the greatest woman of her time.

Of her inner life, sacred and secret as almost all of it must be, it may be said that through her own interior unfoldment, her spiritual vision and the prodigal bounty with which she shared all her gifts with her fellow men, thousands have been drawn to the Way of Holiness. Many are those who have followed her along that Path which leads steeply upwards to the summit of the evolutionary mount and through that gate which opens only inwards, passing through which there can be no return.

Homage, obeisance and gratitude are owing to the great soul who sacrificed life itself for truth as Hypatia and Giordano Bruno and who, as Annie Besant, exalted both womanhood and the whole human race. Thousands throughout the world still miss and still mourn her. Let none be dismayed. She lives, and will come again when the Teachers whose selfless servant she was and is decide once more to send her forth.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 8, No. 4, 1947, p. 89

69
A Talk on Brother Raja

(Given during an Hour of Remembrance on Sunday, June 21)

Although our revered elder brother, Brother Raja, has left us physically, we, Theosophists, know that he remains with us spiritually. We are also inspired by the knowledge that he will remain with us to the end of this World Period, to the end of our Earth’s present life, and will accompany us as spiritual leader, teacher and friend on to our next planetary home. In the meantime, however, the beloved form and figure are no longer with us. The well-known voice is still.

A great deal will doubtless be written about him in the days that follow his departure. Later on we may hope that a really worthwhile biography of so great a life will be written. This afternoon let us recall some of those parts of the story of Brother Raja which most of us know so well. What do we know about him? We know that as an Ego he was a quick reincarnation from an English life. He was the younger brother of C. W. Leadbeater and these two with their father were in South America on construction work. Away from civilization, they were attacked by Indians and the younger brother who is now Raja was killed. Brother Leadbeater was nearly killed, but from the other side of death, the younger brother performed a kind of ‘miracle’ to save Brother Leadbeater’s life.^{^[95]} This means that a young Western

Personality reincarnated in an Eastern body. Brother Raja had, indeed, many of the attributes of a Western mind and received a Western education. This combination would seem to have given him a unique capacity to understand both the East and the West and to grasp and teach the wisdom of both. True, he had an earlier incarnation in Greece at Agade 1500 B.C.^{^[96]} as he has recounted in one of those beautiful, small books of his which are read by so many Theosophists and others throughout the world. He was an author and a poet in the English language and also a Sanskrit scholar. He was a qualified exponent of both Western science and Eastern yoga, the science of the soul. He was deeply versed in the Christian scriptures and at the same time, in both esoteric doctrine and life, a follower of the Lord Buddha. He compiled a wonderful ritual, called the Ritual of the Mystic Star, dramatizing the unity of all world faiths and sounding out the keynote of each one of them. Western mysticism and poetry were as thoroughly understood and appreciated by him as were Hindu philosophy, metaphysics and religion. Both were combined in him in fullness and it was partly that synthesis which gave him his remarkable capacity and great versatility and his outstanding characteristic of direct knowledge of all aspects of religion.

This consideration brings us to the title which I presume he would have valued most of all. He was a Theosophist. For what is Theosophy but a synthesis of the wisdom of the whole world, East and West, ancient and modem? So our great Brother Raja was a Theosophist in the full meaning of that very wonderful word. There are other terms for the same group of ideas: the Gupta Vidya, a Sanskrit name for the Secret Wisdom; Brahma Vidya, also Sanskrit, the Wisdom of Brahma Theosophia, in Greek, the Divine Wisdom; and the Gnosis, or Wisdom itself directly perceived. Under whatever title and aspect, Theosophy was summed up wonderfully in Brother Raja; for he was an occultist, gnostic, scientist, author, poet, artist and great lover of his fellowmen, especially little children who also loved him. Thus he took all knowledge for his field.

We, here, and Theosophists throughout the world, who will so greatly miss him perhaps know Brother Raja best as teacher and friend and also as great President of our Society, for which he travelled, wrote and lectured for over fifty years. We love his books; we have them by our bedsides and find inspiration, consolation and comfort from them as tens of thousands of people have found and will continue to find; for he was inspirer as well as author and poet. As if all of this were not enough, do we not owe him so much for his compilations of the Masters’ letters? He did not only publish the letters themselves. He wrote illuminating commentaries, filling in so much of the meaning for us, relating and linking up some of the theosophical history of the times in which they were written and of the people to whom the letters refer. In consequence we can comprehend as we read. His last published book in this field was The K. H. Letters to C. W. Leadbeater, telling of those two wonderful letters that came to C. W. Leadbeater in his early days of Theosophy, the days when he received his call and answered it so magnificently. But in addition to those two letters themselves the book is a marvellous exposition of the Path, the Way of Holiness. It tells of the qualities needed for success, the tests applied, and the ordeals inseparable from the great venture. Furthermore, how many of us, when we want to know something factual about Theosophy, want to have our doctrines right and our facts right, and also link up our teachings with science, ancient and modem, where do we go? We go, at least I do, to First Principles of Theosophy by C. Jinarajadasa. This work constitutes a splendid contribution not only to us and our Society, but the thought of the modem world.

Brother Raja was very interested to keep alive the early history of the Theosophical Society, so that newer members should not lose touch with those wonderful days, could learn about the manifestations of the Masters, of Their original ideas and plans, of the magical powers of H.P.B. [Helena P. Blavatsky], of the devotion and matchless intellect and oratory of Dr Besant and the scientific clairvoyance of C. W. Leadbeater. All this has been kept alive for us, not only by means of articles in The Theosophist and other writings on the subject, but also by lectures and lantern slides. This is of great importance; for Brother Raja lived through that time which is passing away and could tend to be forgotten. That would be a great pity, for there, in the Masters’ letters, H.P.B.’s books and the work of her pupils, is the inspiration, there is the original impulse and Brother Raja kept it alive for us. For this alone we owe him a great debt of gratitude. Indeed for all he did and for more which is unseen we owe him a debt of undying gratitude.

Innumerable hearts have been healed and consoled by him; many minds have been enlightened by his writings and his spoken words. Such writings and such spoken words change lives and, since they tell of Theosophy, change them for the better, ennoble them.

We, at Olcott, have all been immensely privileged, I feel, to have been here through these his last days on the physical plane in this life. We now have another memory in our lives, another link with that past, with him, as also with the future; for he left his physical body whilst living here and we have been blessed by an experience which can hardly be put into words, which can never be forgotten and which our National President has just described to us so graphically. Living here, observing it for myself, I have been deeply touched by the love for him, the devotion and tenderness which every single person extended so humbly and reverently towards him.

As our National President has also told us, Brother Raja bore great suffering with complete understanding without complaint and without regret, saying, in effect, Tor the sake of my next life and the future, my adverse, limiting karma must be wiped out in this life, must be neutralized. I accept without complaint all that I must pay and all the pain which now must come’. That has been another object lesson for all of us. That was Theosophy in action and under very great trial. That, if I may presume to say so, was living one’s Theosophy, namely the acceptance of acute suffering with intelligence, with understanding, without complaint and in calm resignation and endurance. Then, when it was over, the appointed time having come, he was free.

Olcott must now, one imagines, be more than ever a centre of the light of Theosophy and of the power of its Inner Founders, with whom Brother Raja was so intimately linked. Olcott has gained an added sanctification during these last two weeks and these last few days. From now on it will always be a centre for Brother Raja’s great power and blessing; for he evidently took measures to insure that his influence remained. It has really been a revelation to be here just now and to feel the atmosphere in the house. There has been none of the grief of bereavement, none whatever, none of the sorrow or mourning which is usually associated with death and loss of a loved one. There has been complete recognition that only his body has died, that only the body which has done its work has been laid aside. He himself still lives on, brooding over this Headquarters — as also the whole world, no doubt — ever since, and especially in these first days. There has been a great and wonderful calmness, an amazing peace, as if that eternal peace which now he knows were being shared with us.

And now the last of the thoughts which we will think over together this afternoon. We are led to them from those words of his which our National President repeated, T must go through this alone. Even the Master cannot help me’. There you have a reference to his inner life, a revelation from the sanctuary of Brother Raja’s heart; for he is a disciple of one of the Adepts of our planet, one of the two revered Rishis who assisted in the founding of The Theosophical Society. Our leader is also a great Initiate, a great Arhat indeed, meaning one who has taken the fourth of the great Initiations. Humanity has lost physically far more than a fellow human being. It has lost one of those rare individuals, an Initiate of the fourth degree.

The word Arhat literally translated means ‘one worthy of divine honors’. Theosophically and occultly it means one who, having taken the fourth of the great Initiations, approaches the threshold of Adeptship, passing over which he becomes a superhuman being, a perfect man. Having long ago ‘entered the stream’, he now draws near to ‘the further shore’. Thus, though it is no dogma of our Society, I believe it be true that a great Arhat has passed away physically from this world. Brother Raja was one of those who endured successfully the experiment of permitting human beings while still living in the outer world to take the highest Initiations open to man on this planet. This entails a terrible strain, a great price to be paid and one part of the price is loneliness. Dr Besant, when interpreting the Christian description of this experience as the story of the Crucifixion of Christ, which symbolically portrays this great expansion of consciousness, referred to that loneliness in words something like this, ‘He knows that the deeper [than that of Gethsemane] darkness of an hour when a gulf seems to open up between life infinite and life embodied, between the Father and the Son. It is the bitterest of all ordeals. The hour of hoped for triumph becomes one of deepest ignominy. He is deserted by his friends. He sees his enemies exultant around him and he drinks the bitter draught of solitude, isolation, defamation and betrayal. The Father who was yet realized in Gethsemane is veiled in the Passion of the Cross, naught bridging the gulf in which hangs his helpless soul. Then it is that from the heart which feels itself to be deserted there rings out the cry: “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken me”.’ Dr Besant then goes on to ask, if I can remember some of her words correctly, ‘Why this last dread ordeal? It is necessary because only when all external aid has been withdrawn can man realize that he is the Eternal and the Eternal is himself, only then can he know forevermore his unity with God and can say with our Lord, “I and my Father, are One”,’^{^[97]} Through this and far more than anyone can know our great Brother would seem to have passed triumphantly and to have now gone, we may respectfully presume, to his great reward.

Where is he now? we may ask. Theosophy can answer us in part. When that level of the fourth Initiation has been attained, whilst the person is awake in the physical body, he has full access to the Buddhic plane and the Christ consciousness. When out of the body he can reach to the Atmic world and the preliminary experiences of Nirvana. Whatever Brother Raja may now choose to be doing, Nirvanic consciousness is continually open to him. We gather from his writings, and particularly from that story written for his friend whom he calls ‘Little Flower’ to which we have just now listened, that he himself has made the great renunciation of Nirvana in emulation of his Lord, the Lord Buddha, who renounced it until all of us, His younger brothers could also enter in. The Lord Buddha and His great Brother, the Lord Maitreya, long ago together made the great resolve swiftly to attain to Buddha-hood, and for the sake of humanity, to renounce that Nirvana. Standing on the threshold of bliss ineffable and peace eternal, these Great Ones turn back and say, ‘Not until all my brothers can follow me onwards will I accept this bliss’. We may presume from certain of his spoken words, that he who has now left us physically, has also made that irrevocable resolve and that supreme renunciation, promising to stay with us as our great teacher and leader to the end of this world period and on to the world to which humanity will go when it leaves this Earth for a time.

How may we best commemorate his life? The best memorial surely is to resolve to live somewhat as he lived, and, however far behind and weakly, to serve as he has so wonderfully served. Our real commemoration will then occur within our hearts. If so moved, there in what the Master Kuthoomi [Kuthumi] has described as ‘the sanctified solitude of his own heart’, we also will more deeply dedicate ourselves to the continuance of the work which Brother Raja loved and served so wisely, so strongly and effectively, and for so long a time. ‘Carry on’, is his message, as it was of his elder brother, C. W. Leadbeater. We may, if we so wish, each in our own way, also aspire more ardently to tread the Path which his attainment has made easier for all mankind to discover and to ascend to humanity’s glorious goal of Adeptship. This surely is the inspiration for the whole endeavour; for as the Lord Christ said, T, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me’. And so Brother Raja draws and leads all of us onwards and upwards with him; for us, he is not dead. He lives. He lives. He lives.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 41, Issue 8, August 1953, p. 147

[See ‘Homage to C. Jinarajadasa Chapter 72]

70
A Victory Meditation

(Meditation used during Convention during the height of World War II)

In a short meditation the thoughts of all present are first unified and are then directed towards the One Source of all Power.

This period being completed, the thought is then turned to the British Isles and their peoples in an endeavour to become one with them in consciousness. When the unification is complete the audience visualizes a mighty descent of spiritual power upon the peoples of the Empire while the following Invocation is spoken —

‘We pray Thee, O Lord, to stretch forth the right hand of Thy Power upon the peoples of the British Isles and of the Empire; upon the King Emperor and His Queen — and His Ministers: upon the army and its leaders, that Victory for the Forces of Light may be attained’.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 2, February 1941, p. 41

71
A Victory Convention

World Mission of The Theosophical Society

Throughout the history of The Theosophical Society, the annual Conventions of the various Sections have proved to be of inestimable value to the Society as a whole, to the Sections concerned and to the members who attend.

As the days of harmonious Conventions pass, the sense of unity, of family relationship, intellectual and spiritual, between the members grows and deepens. The greatest object of the Society finds living expression in and through the assembled brethren, and this manifestation of a spiritual truth produces expansions of consciousness in all who can respond. Experience as living truths of many other Theosophical doctrines is born. During and after Conventions perception of the great and far reaching purposes for which the Society was brought into existence, enthusiasm for them and a growing determination that they shall be fulfilled may be felt and known.

An opportunity is offered to every member present of increasing his knowledge of Theosophical teachings and of deepening his realization of the world-mission of The Theosophical Society.

The apparently mundane business transacted at Convention takes on a special significance when it is recognized as the business of Those.

Who brought the Society into existence. For Theosophical business is an extension of the activity of the Elder Brethren of humanity in which Fellows of The Theosophical Society are privileged to share.

The Spirit of Brotherhood

Conventions may also have a world wide influence.

At this great time of Armageddon, humanity is physically split asunder into opposing camps of armed men. The planet is the scene of a fratricidal war of unprecedented dimensions. In consequence, an assembly of men and women who accept the Brotherhood of Man as a fact in Nature and who endeavour to express that Brotherhood in action, can become an event of planetary significance. For whether down here in the three form worlds there is peace or war, whether at a given time the divine in man is manifest as construction or destruction, in its spiritual nature, the humanity of our globe constitutes a totality, a unit, a single living organism. Conditions in any one part of the globe must therefore affect all human life. Brotherhood accepted and expressed by a large group in New Zealand or elsewhere augments the spirit of Brotherhood wherever manifest on earth.

The supremely sensitive Web of Life conveys the ever outpoured life force of the Universe into and through the souls and bodies of all men, linking them indissolubly to each other. This omnipresent Web of Life has been likened to a harp or lyre perpetually played. Hatred and war are discords which conveyed throughout the Web mar the whole music of life. War, mental, emotional or physical in any one part of the globe adversely affects all men. Similarly brotherliness and peace, as affirmations of spiritual realities represent harmony and when made manifest by an individual or a group favourably affect the condition of the whole human race.

Centre of Power

From the point of view of the One Life, New Zealand is not far away from the European War. New Zealand is in direct contact with that war. It follows that the construction and operation of a great centre of power such as a Theosophical Convention in New Zealand, or in any part of the world, is of the greatest moment to a world at war.

The Theosophical Society was brought into existence partly to establish on earth such centres or nuclei of brotherhood and peace, and partly to restore the Ancient Wisdom to a humanity in danger of forgetfulness. We are informed that the true Founders, Themselves organized into a perfect Fraternity, draw near to and find in harmonious Theosophical gatherings centres through which Their mighty forces of construction, illumination and benediction can he radiated throughout the world. A Convention, when harmonious and wisely led, of itself generates considerable occult power. To this is added the mighty power of the Masters which descends upon the brethren assembled and through them reaches the world at large.

From this point of view also, when a world war is in progress, a Theosophical Convention is an important event, can make a definite contribution to the victory of the side of right. Signs are not wanting that the tide of success is beginning to turn from the Axis to the Allied Powers. The road to victory is beginning to be discerned. The forthcoming New Zealand gathering might even he named the Victory Convention. Definite attempts might be made each day to generate, invoke and release power in aid of the Allied Cause.

To help in this, let all who can possibly do so come to the 1940-41 Convention.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 1, December 1940, p. 15

72
Homage to C. Jinarajadasa

The greatly respected theosophical leader, author, teacher and organizer, C. Jinarajadasa, known to so many as ‘Brother Raja’ and hereafter so named, was born of Buddhist parents in the Sinhalese division of Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon. When thirteen years of age he met C. W. Leadbeater [C.W.L.], in 1889 accompanied him to London, joined the Theosophical Society in 1893, and took Degrees in Sanskrit and Philology at St John’s College, Cambridge.

Egoically he was, according to C.W.L., a reincarnation of his younger brother. The family lived for a time in South America with their father, who was engaged on construction work. They were attacked by Indians and the younger brother was killed. C. W. Leadbeater almost lost his life but, from the other side of death, his brother is said to have performed a miracle saving his life.^{^[98]} The English Personality Gerald Leadbeater was then said to have reincarnated in an eastern body. Indeed, Brother Raja appeared quite naturally to possess many of the attributes of a western mind, doubtless strengthened by a western education. This combination would seem to explain his unique capacity to understand both the east and the west, and to grasp and teach the Wisdom that is available from both sources. He, himself, told of a much earlier incarnation at Agade in Greece (500 B.C.), as may be read about in one of those beautiful small books of his^{^[99]} that are so greatly valued by theosophists and other readers throughout the world.

Brother Raja proved to be an author and a poet in the English language, a Sanskrit scholar, and a qualified exponent of both western science and eastern yoga. Deeply versed in the Christian Scriptures, exoteric and esoteric, he yet remained a dedicated follower of the Lord Buddha. Western mysticism and poetry were as thoroughly understood and appreciated by him as were Hindu philosophy, metaphysics and religion. These were combined in him in fullness, and it was partly this blending which gave him his great versatility and direct knowledge of all aspects of world religions. The Ritual of the Mystic Star is an example of his possession of this profound understanding, for therein the essential unity of all faiths is made clear and the keynote of each one of them sounded forth.

Doubtless the description of himself that Brother Raja would have valued most of all would have been as ‘a theosophist’; for indeed he was a great protagonist of that synthesis of the totality of wisdom (Theosophia) — ancient and modem, eastern and western — allotted to mankind on this earth, he himself being a theosophist in the full meaning of that title. Furthermore, he was an occultist or follower of the secret wisdom, a gnostic, a scientist, an artist, and above all a lover of his fellow Men, especially little children, who greatly loved him in return. Thus he also could have written as did Sir Francis Bacon, ^{^[100]}I have taken all knowledge for my province’, for he included members of the animal and plant kingdoms of Nature in his studies and ministrations.

Theosophists throughout the world who knew him personally will perhaps best remember Brother Raja as teacher and friend and as a great President of our Society for which he worked, traveled, wrote and lectured for over fifty years. His books are in libraries, bookshelves and by bedsides — inspiration, knowledge, consolation and comfort being richly available from all of them, as large numbers of people have found and will continue to find.

A great debt is also owed to him for his two volumes of Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom;^{^[101]} for he not only published the Letters themselves, but also wrote illuminating commentaries upon them, revealing the significance of certain passages and linking up the remarks of the Masters with the theosophical history of the times in which they were written. Interestingly — and not wholly accidentally — these publications preceded the appearance of The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett,^{^[102]} thereby preparing the minds of readers — especially theosophists — for the contents of that book, parts of which might otherwise not have been easily understood.

Brother Raja was very interested to keep alive the early history of the Theosophical Society, so that newer members should not lose touch with those earlier days and could learn about the manifestations of the Masters, of their original ideas and plans, of the occult powers of H. P. Blavatsky and of the devotion and matchless intellect and oratory of Dr Besant. Indeed, for all he is known to have done and for much that remains unseen, we owe him a debt of undying gratitude; for hearts have been healed and consoled by him and minds have been enlightened by his writings and his spoken words.

Throughout many years of my theosophical life I was associated with Brother Raja and felt privileged to have been present at the Headquarters of the American Section during his last days on the physical plane; for he left his physical body on June the 18th, 1953, whilst we were both living at Olcott. His final illness brought him great suffering, borne with complete understanding, without complaint and without regret, he having been heard to say in effect: Tor the sake of my next life and the future, my adverse, limiting karma must be wiped out in this life, must be neutralized. I accept without complaint all that I must pay and all the pain which now must come’. This mental attitude proved to be an object lesson for all of us; for we learned at first hand of Theosophy being put into practice personally under very great trial, and of the acceptance of acute suffering with intelligence, without complaint and with calm endurance and resignation.

Whilst his departure was deeply regretted, there was, I recall, no grief, no sense of bereavement at Headquarters, none of the sorrow or mourning which are usually associated with the death and loss of one who was greatly loved. In response to his personal request, made as the end drew near, there were no obsequies, only a recognition that at last his body had been laid aside. Indeed, throughout the American Headquarters during those days there was an inner calm, a quiet peace, as if a measure of that eternal peace into which he had entered was being shared with us all. I attended his cremation, and in the company of Mr & Mrs James Perkins and also the greatly lamented Miss Helen Zahara participated in scattering the remains into a nearby flowing river, according to his expressed wishes.

How may we best pay homage to and commemorate so great a life? The finest memorial surely would be to resolve to live somewhat as he lived and, however less effectively, to serve as he so wonderfully served. If thus moved, our real commemoration would occur within our hearts. Following Brother Raja’s example, we in our turn would more deeply dedicate ourselves to the continuance of the work which he loved and served so wisely, strongly and effectively, and for so long a time.

‘Carry on’ is his message, as it was of his elder brother, C. W. Leadbeater. This we may do and each in his own way, if so moved, may also aspire more ardently to tread the Path which his attainment has made easier for all mankind to discover and to ascend towards humanity’s goal of Adeptship. Such surely is the inspiration for the whole endeavour; for the Lord Christ said: 'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me’.[103] Thus also Brother Raja draws and leads his fellow men onwards and upwards with him. For us he is not dead. ‘He lives. He lives. He lives’.

The Theosophist, Vol. 97, December 1975, p. 145 [See ‘A Talk on Brother Raja Chapter 69]

73
Blessed Are We!

In future times when the impartial historian shall write an account of the progress of religious ideas in the present century, the formation of this Theosophical Society, whose first meeting under its formal declaration of principles we are now attending, will not pass unnoticed. This much is certain’.

From the Inaugural Address by Colonel H. Steel Olcott, President of the Theosophical Society. Delivered at Mott Memorial Hall in the City of New York at the first regular meeting of the Society, November 17, 1875.

In consequence, we here, 99 years later are the privileged members of this our T.S.

It has lived and grown and spread throughout the world and bestowed the Divine and Immortal Wisdom upon hundreds of thousands of people. This, with the help of its present and future members-ourselves here in New Zealand — it will continue to do.

Such is our privilege, if so moved, to live for this Movement, to give to it all that we reasonably may and to serve it in our different capacities, as long as we live.

How blessed are we!

In doing so according to our abilities and opportunities, we may be sure that the blessing of the Great Masters will rest upon us and upon Their Society, for as one of Them has said:

‘Be brave for Truth and Brotherhood and we shall be with you throughout the Ages’.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 36, No. 2, 1975, p. 38

74
Duty of Members to the Society

Dr Johnson used to say in effect, ‘Gentlemen, define your terms. It makes for clarity and saves time’. I have been to Webster for a definition of duty and find it there defined as: That which is required by one’s station or occupation; any assigned service or business; as, the duties of a soldier; or: That which a person is bound by moral obligation to do or not to do; also, the moral obligation itself. In ordinary usage, duty and obligation differ chiefly in that obligation commonly implies a more immediate constraint or a more specific reference than duty; as, a sense of duty (regarding what one in general ought to do); and a sense of obligation (regarding what one feels bound or constrained to do for some particular reason or in some particular case). But these two are both implicit in the word duty — obligation, constraint.

In that sense, I doubt whether the word duty in our title is really acceptable to us at all. It certainly is not acceptable to me. I do not believe in it for any Theosophist. In fact I am definitely against it. I recall the words of a young Theosophist who came to me some years ago and said, ‘There are two phrases which older Theosophists so constantly use, which irritate me and others as well beyond endurance’. ‘What are they?’ I asked. ‘The two sentences are: “I think” we ought’ and ‘I feel we must’. I sympathized at once and resolved not to use those terms.

If, however, the word duty is taken in its more philosophic implication as dharma, then some Theosophists might find the title of this symposium to be more acceptable. For dharma or duty can also mean righteousness, right relationship, right fulfilment of life, and in no sense a duty or obligation imposed from outside, as Webster defines duty. Rather is dharma a sense of integrity, rightness in motive, in actions, in relationship to God and to nature and to fellowmen. Such dharma can, of course, differ for each person, according to his karma, his ray and his mission, immediate and in the future. In this sense, everyone, Theosophist or not, has a duty, a dharma, an interior command, concerning the right fulfilment of his life, and, if that inner dharma is neglected, unfulfilled, then one’s life pattern is betrayed and confusion and frustration will be the inevitable result. That is what humanity is doing in so many ways. If, however, one’s dharma becomes the ruling factor in motive and action, then there is a harmonious fulfilment of life and a continual opening up of opportunity after opportunity.

Of these two, then, duty as an obligation imposed and a pressure felt from without on the one hand, and dharma responded to from within and fulfilled to the best of one’s ability on the other, the former, duty as an obligation, is likely to be unacceptable, and the latter, duty as an inner dharma, acceptable, to the Theosophist.

Now, let me briefly put before you the unacceptable point of view as I see it, that any Theosophist, young or old, new or ancient, has any duty whatsoever to The Theosophical Society. Many of us joined the Society after belonging to a church, a denomination, as part of orthodox religion. Then our intellect awoke; reason and logic became necessary as part of religion. Justice in human life, fair play for men, were sought. They were not found. Explanations and answers to life’s problems were demanded. They were not received, and there was even a suggestion of ungodliness in making the inquiry, of being in spiritual danger because of doubt, questioning. ‘Conform to orthodoxy or become a lost soul’ was the answer some of us received to our questionings. We revolted against those limitations. We demanded justice, logic, reason, in the divine management of the affairs of the world and of man’s existence. We demanded freedom of thought. We have been fortunate to find both logic and freedom here in The Theosophical Society. I know very well that, for me, though I treasure every word of the wondrous wisdom which we have, this freedom constitutes a large part of the appeal and value to me of membership in The Theosophical Society. I am very happy to see that the General Council has formulated an affirmation of this freedom, which you and I enjoy, and this affirmation is published monthly in The Theosophist. Thus the word in our title of this morning, ‘duty’ of members, could appear to some members to be unfortunate, being out of harmony with the spirit of our movement and taking away one great part of the appeal of our Society, the freedom it bestows upon us all who are its members.

I am, therefore, going to say this: There are for us no imposed duties, no obligations and no permissible suggestions concerning the conduct of life, none whatever. They are anathema. You do not, for example, have to be a vegetarian to be a good Theosophist. This fact is sometimes forgotten. People tell me that they have felt driven away from the Society because of either the implicit or the overt suggestion, ‘You must become a vegetarian. You must give up smoking and wearing furs if you want to come amongst people like us’. Others say to new members, I am told, ‘You never come to meetings, you ought to be here, it’s your duty to attend you know. I haven’t seen you doing any work in the Lodge lately’. Now that is indeed anathema; that harms, and is today harming our work.

I suggest, therefore, that in all matters theosophical all members should be left totally free, and appreciated as they are and where they are.

Could it, however, still be said that we do have a duty? Yes, I have just enunciated one, in a sense, concerning myself. I do believe that we have a duty to preserve this precious freedom of the T.S. member, remembering always that freedom must never be taken in such a way as to limit the freedom of another. I think we do have a duty to preserve this very freedom, both within our lodges and in the Society as a whole. We should be on guard against encroachment upon it. If older members or office-holders and office-clingers try to exert pressure to have their own wills and decisions rule the lodge, then we should tactfully, wisely, but very firmly and consistently resist. The danger exists of assuming both office and personal prestige. Presidents and older members should be especially on guard and try not to exert pressure upon members and committees. True, the generally established ways and ideals of lodge life and work must be preserved and watched over. Quite right. Lodge life, lodge energy and lodge finances especially must be conserved and wisely used. Granted. But
anything resembling dictatorship and domination in a democracy like ours is most undesirable, is, I say again, anathema.

If, then, there is a duty incumbent upon us, then is it not both to refrain from and to resist tyranny in a lodge, a Section and in the Society? To put this idea into more positive terms, have we not a duty to watch over, to guard jealously, to try never to infringe the freedom within our Movement and the freedom of each and every one of its members? At the same time, even in these important matters, we should ideally be inwardly moved, most of us are so moved from within. This Society of ours lives within our hearts and anything we do for it is out of love and gratitude and not because we feel any external pressure. We have learned, have we not, that we must not put people in cages, even if their bars are golden bars of love. Ah, how many people live in such cages? Loving daughters are caged by their mothers, sons by their fathers and mothers, husbands by their wives and wives by their husbands. As soon as they can get free, they break out of those bars and away they go and are lost. So we shall lose them if we try to cage our fellow members. We shall have them if we leave them free.

If, then, we love this Theosophical Society, it is not from a sense of obligation; it is because of what it has brought us and means to us and can mean to all mankind. For many of us, the Theosophical Society offers us the very highest and ‘we needs must love the highest when we see it’. If, therefore, we serve the Theosophical Society, it is not because we feel forced to do so, but because it is our home, our centre and our source of light and understanding, of consolation and security, and all its members are our family. If we serve the Theosophical Society, it is not only from a sense of obligation to repay a little of what we have received, as some of us feel; it is also because such service as we can render to this Movement comes spontaneously out of our hearts and in gratitude for what it has meant to us and to all the world.

Here in this great land, too, if we love this American Section and serve it, we do not do so under pressure; it is because it is our home and family and we must help to preserve its freedom and its unity. If we love this beautiful Olcott, it is because it is ours, our Headquarters and we want to do what we can to increase its effectiveness and its beauty.

Finally, now carrying the whole idea to its highest, we know if we reverence the Great Masters, it is because the thought of Them and of Their love for humanity draws out spontaneously from the very highest within us the aspiration to be like Them and to serve as They perpetually serve. All that we do is our offering upon the altar of Theosophy, of The Theosophical Society, and before the shrine wherein for so many of us the Great Masters abide. Our theosophical work is voluntarily done, not from obligations forced upon us from outside, but out of love and a sense of dharma; it has become for us the natural, spontaneous, beautiful and free way of the fulfilment of our lives.

[Contribution to a Panel — Convention 1953]

The American Theosophist, Vol. 41, Issue 10, October 1953, p. 189

75
Ever the Twain Shall Meet [104]

After being held with distinction by three leaders from the West, the office of President of the Theosophical Society has now passed to an Eastern leader and sage. Whilst for the first seventy years of its life, Western attributes have predominated in its leadership, the global Movement is now led by a man from the East. The international character of The Theosophical Society is clearly indicated by this development and an active blending, of East and West continues to be its outstanding characteristic.

This evidently was part of the original purpose; for although the Movement was conceived and initiated by two great Eastern Adepts, the Indian Mahatmas, M. [Morya] and K.H. [Kuthumi], Those Great Ones chose as Their first agents, a man and a woman from the West. The preliminary blending of East and West had occurred.

From the beginning, European and Egypto-Greek Adepts lent their aid to Their Eastern Brothers. An English Platonist, a Hungarian Philosopher, a Greek Master and certain Adept Members of the Brotherhood of Luxor, joined the two Indian Mahatmas and Their Eastern Associates in writing Isis Unveiled and directing the activities of The Theosophical Society in its early years. The West and the Ever the Twain Shall MeetMiddle East thus played a prominent part in the early development of the Society.

In the fourth year of its existence, the founders of the Theosophical Society moved to, and soon after established the Headquarters in India, the true home and source of the Movement. Modem Western founders of an occult Society found support and a stable centre for their work in the immemorial East.

H. P. Blavatsky [H.P.B.] and H. S. Olcott, whilst in Western bodies, constantly indicated their affinity with the East and both were disciples of Mahatma M. This affinity was deep-rooted in the past. In a former life, H.P.B. had been Shivaji, the great Mahratta Warrior, who, born 627 A.D., ‘summed up in himself all that was most fervent in Hindu religion and most fiery and heroic in Indian Nationality’. She was also Abdul Fazl, Prime Minister at the Court of Akbar the Great, who reigned from 1556 to 1605 and with his Prime Minister’s aid formulated a universal faith. Colonel Olcott was no less a King reincarnated than the second Asoka, the great Buddhist Monarch who reigned from 234 to 198 B.C. These two highly evolved Egos, who had achieved greatly in and had received the imprint of the East, took Western bodies for their work in the modem world. Both deeply loved and greatly served India as their Motherland and both adopted the Buddhist Faith. Thus in the persons of the founders of The Theosophical Society, East and West were united with East as luminous soul, West as body and India as best-loved physical home. In these several ways, Orient and Occident were intimately blended in the early years of the Society’s existence.

Then in Celtic body, as Annie Besant, came Hypatia from the Middle East, uniting the fiery power and mysticism of the Irish people with the profound wisdom of the virgin philosopher of Alexandria. Eastern in philosophy and religion, disciple of Mahatma M., Middle Eastern as Hypatia, European as Giordano Bruno and Irish in body as Annie Besant, the second President continued the blending of East and West. India she deeply loved. Hinduism she adopted as her faith. Adyar she took as her home. To unite East and West in an Indo-British Commonwealth of Nations became part of her world work.

Dr G. S. Arundale, markedly Indian in soul, yet Western in body, was elected as her successor. In him, dynamic power was directed by Eastern wisdom. He married a great Indian lady Shrimati Rukmini Devi. He was inspired with a devotion to India which mounted to a controlled passion. West and East were veritably fused in the flame of that spiritual fire which was G. S. Arundale. An Indian funeral pyre has recently received and transmuted the body of this third great Western servant of the Masters of the Wisdom, as it also received that of the first and second Presidents.

A most interesting change has now occurred. The fourth President of The Theosophical Society, Mr C. Jinarajadasa, was born in Ceylon. An Eastern people has provided the body for a soul which, though deeply impressed with the wisdom and power of the East, long ago, as again in this life, drank deeply at that fountain of philosophy and beauty which was Ancient Greece. This great Ego had but recently left an English body, that of Gerald, the younger brother of Mr C. W. Leadbeater. Yet the inmost heart is surely that of Chatta, the great soul who whilst still a boy found the presence and the favour of the supremely Enlightened One, Gautama, the Buddha of the Fifth Root Race (See the Lives of Alcyone and The Perfume of Egypt by C. W. Leadbeater and Christ and Buddha by C. Jinarajadasa).

A Western education has made its imprint upon Mr Jinarajadasa, who so notably unites in his person the highest qualities and graces of both East and West. World wide experience, Western scholarship, mastery of occidental languages, science and philosophy, combined with profound wisdom, mysticism and poesy, make of the fourth President of The Theosophical Society a unique individual and one in whom East and West are again combined.

Of great interest is the change of Ray in the Leadership of our Movement. The first Three Presidents, though possessed of a variety of talents, exhibited to a marked degree the power of the First Ray, the Ray of Will. In the wisdom with which he unfailingly directs affairs, and as unfailingly reveals in his writings and addresses, Mr Jinarajadasa, a man of immovable will though he is, displays especially the genius of the Second Ray. A sage, rather than a dynamic general, now leads The Theosophical Society; one who has revealed that to become a Buddha is his dharma and ideal as they are those also, it is said, of his great Guru, the Mahatma K.H. Fortunate indeed is the Society that in its ranks at this time was one so trusted and so revered to Ever the Twain Shall Meet whom its Fellows could turn for the leadership of its world wide activities.

These several unification’s of East and West within The Theosophical Society are surely far from being accidental. Behind them must be a far reaching purpose, some part of which can perhaps be discerned. Adept-conceived and executed, that purpose would appear to be to bring together in harmonious co-operation the profound wisdom of the Ancient East and the dynamic activity of the youthful West. Our Society, in both its mission and its Presidents, is an example and a model to the world of that much to be desired co-operation.

East and West have always been intimately and successfully blended at Adyar. Indians and members of other Nations have from the beginning worked harmoniously together there. At the time when India, whilst being offered her independence, is invited to become a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, it may be significant that a President with a Sinhalese body should be at the head of the Society with its predominantly Western membership. The election by members throughout the world of an Indian President constitutes at this time an example to all peoples of brotherhood without distinction of Race. Furthermore, the position of our Society in an India from which Britain may soon withdraw could well be rendered more favourable by the Presidentship of Mr C. Jinarajadasa.

* * *

Justifiable though these several observations may be, the student of Theosophy does not forget that the division of the earth into so-called East and West is artificial and illusory. There is in fact but one world with one family of some sixty thousand million Monads incarnating thereon. Bodies may he chosen from one or other hemisphere or continent, but Monads are Cosmic Beings. They abide in unity in that pure realm where the Sun is always at its meridian.

The Theosophical Society, also, is a world organization. Its Presidents are world figures. ‘All one’, is its message to mankind. Mr C.Jinarajadasa clearly transcends hemispherical and national limitations. He is nothing if not universal in his genius, his capacities and his vision and cosmopolitan in his personality. Yet I have little doubt that, in his purely human consciousness, he himself would affirm that for him — Ex oriente lux.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 7, No. 3, 1946, p. 78

76
Impressions of the New Zealand Convention

To an Englishman who can never wholly withdraw his mind from an England at war, England attacked, England wounded and bleeding and in grievous pain, this Convention has been one of sharply defined contrasts between two worlds — the world of war and the world of peace.

Raiders’ victims released and saved; the gallant Greek army slowly advancing through snow and blizzard in Albania; Britain ceaselessly assailed; London twice heavily assaulted from the air with incendiaries and high explosives with special intent to set the city ablaze; knowledge of the existence and readiness to strike of a mighty army, built up, trained and led by brilliant, ruthless men; Britain at bay: the Empire fighting and growing in fighting power; the United States planning extended aid but avowing that it will not fight; War, red war rampant on earth — such was the world-setting for the most peace-giving and harmonious New Zealand Convention of 1940-41. Such too was the setting for its complimentary Indian Convention — these two Conventions in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres being obviously closely linked.

The first impression, therefore, was of contrast, contrast between destructive war and constructive peace, co-existent on earth.

The most outstanding impression of the Convention itself was of freely outpoured power and blessing from on high and of the presence of many truly dedicated human channels.

Unity and harmony between the brethren, kindness, happiness, a spirit of devotion, love for the Ancient Wisdom, aspiration to grow in knowledge and so more effectively to serve — these were marked characteristics of this most harmonious and fruitful gathering. It was a Convention richly blessed.

The three Movements — The Theosophical Society, the Liberal Catholic Church and Co-Masonry — working together though separately; each contributed its own great stream of wisdom, power and benediction to enrich the common work. This too was a heartening experience, heartening because so truly tolerant and therefore so truly Theosophical.

Business amicably discussed and efficiently conducted; plans made for the future sensed as full of high promise; lectures, public and private, delivered to keenly interested audiences one by a Young Theosophist being quite outstanding; beautiful and stately ceremonial perfectly performed; happy, jolly social gatherings, a picnic in Christchurch’s most beautiful gardens, and some mutual study under, and very much with, our friends the trees; hovering Presences as the Gods drew near; constant recollection of and reference to our high calling, our great world mission and awareness of contact direct and vital, with Adyar, Benares and Those Who dwell ‘beyond the Great Range’, the Inner Founders and Their mighty Brethren — all this rich experience combined to make of this a most memorable Convention.

My own outstanding personal impression is of a welcome of great cordiality and of feeling at once at home. From the moment of landing at Wellington to the closing of Convention with a magnificent and inspiring speech by the General Secretary, Miss Hunt, I have been made to feel perfectly at home and at one with my newly met New Zealand brethren.

For this I give my heartfelt thanks and deep appreciation. As a result of it, the best that is in me — such as it is — was drawn out and the year’s work is now envisaged with the happiest anticipation. From this encouraging beginning and the assurance which I have of full Impressions of the New Zealand Convention co-operation from all, there is hope of a successful lecture tour of New Zealand.

Thus, in the midst of, though at times strangely remote from, a world tom and ravaged by war, there has reigned here in Christchurch peace founded upon sincere goodwill, dedicated co-operation in a sacred Cause and deep and virile brotherly love.

Two final and strong impressions which present themselves as I think back over our eleven days together: the will to victory for the forces of light daily affirmed and concentrated upon Britain and the Empire, and optimism for the future of the work of The Theosophical Society both in the world and in New Zealand.

As I write many brethren have left and others are leaving for their homes and lodges. Assuredly all will take with them both renewed enthusiasm for the great work to which we are called and deepened gratitude to Those Great Ones, Keepers of the Light throughout the ages who in this our day have given Theosophy to the world.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 2, February 1941, p. 32

77
In Memoriam to Our Dearly Loved President, N. Sri Ram

Sri Ram passed away 6:45 p.m. 8 April heart attack. Jean Raymond’. So read the cable which reached Sandra and myself shortly after arrival in Perth, Western Australia. At once, profound regret, a sense of bereavement: both personal and on behalf of the Theosophical Society, and many happy memories filled our minds. Only a few days earlier, Sandra and I were sitting beside Sri Ram at a recent gathering under the Banyan Tree, arranged by the Madras Federation. A few days later we had been within the Blavatsky Bungalow during the recent closing of the 1972-3 Session of the School of the Wisdom at which Sri Ram addressed heads of Departments and students. Since we were leaving for Viet Nam and Australia on the following day, we then said goodbye to the President and he honoured me by inviting me to accept the office of Director of the School of the Wisdom for sessions of this present year and its successor. Thus, as the cable was being read, in our thoughts we were temporarily back in blessed Adyar and in the presence of our late revered and greatly lamented President, N. Sri Ram.

Others throughout the Theosophical world will have responded to the saddening news each in their own way, remembering the late President in one or more of his many remarkable capacities. As teacher, for example, might he not justly be described as a penetrating and most lucid exponent of abstract ideations and ideas? In this he was a realist, one who had become fully aware of truth itself, of the significance of the ancient doctrines as also of the words used in the presentation of Theosophia. I use that Greek word for the Divine Wisdom, because our late Brother so often lifted one above the limitations — and even errors — of one’s own accustomed approaches to an understanding of Theosophy. As one listened whilst he spoke, one seemed to be shown with great clarity just how the human mind ideally should function and how so often it may fail to do so. In consequence, one emerged with one’s ideas and views deepened and clarified to a remarkable degree.

His life as President — and indeed long before his acceptance of that highly privileged Office — was an example of complete self-effacement in the fulfilment of his duties. With uttermost selflessness, year by year he traveled throughout the world and when in Adyar, even to his last days, he attended to the duties of his Office. As his ‘Watch-Tower’ contributions to The Theosophist clearly demonstrate, he was ever closely in touch with developments and events which were occurring in the world. Upon these he did not fail to comment with both acute awareness and philosophical insight.

Brother Sri Ram would appear also to have brought a certain added stability to the work of the Society, should this have been necessary, especially amidst changes which were occurring both within it and out in the world. Each of his four predecessors, notably Dr A. Besant, Dr G. S. Arundale and Mr C. Jinarajadasa, included in their greatly valued contributions references to occult science, the occult life in general and more especially the Path of Discipleship as an immediate possibility. Whilst preserving an interest in and study of these subjects, Brother Sri Ram also presented and encouraged a more impersonal approach to the understanding and enunciation of Theosophical ideas and especially perhaps of a Theosophical way of life. Traveling throughout parts of the Theosophical world during his administration I have found this characteristic to have been much appreciated. In consequence I here make reference to it.

Of himself, Brother Sri Ram rarely if ever spoke or wrote, being an outstanding example of that complete impersonality which we are taught, is essential to right understanding. In consequence of these and so many other qualities he richly adorned the office of President of the

In Memoriam to Our Dearly Loved President, N. Sri Ram 365

Theosophical Society and his physical passing leaves therein a gap which it will be exceedingly difficult to fill.

For all this and far more of which other contributors will write, the Society as a whole and all its members, owe to our revered Brother Sri Ram a debt of deepest gratitude, both for the manner in which his administration was carried out and his personal contribution to the work of the Society; for he greatly enriched the lives of so many of those who revered and loved and served under him.

Since, as is now known, his health was failing, it may perhaps be presumed that in the larger sense, freedom from his body may have brought to him a measure of relief. He was, however, as much an example of detachment in thought, motive and conduct that this freedom will itself be accepted by him with that customary philosophic calm of which he would seem to have been a veritable incarnation.

May I in closing say ‘Farewell, Brother Sri Ram. My gratitude for the opportunities which you made available to me, including the office of Director of the School of the Wisdom at Adyar on four occasions. It was a very great privilege to be associated with you both officially as President and personally, as a reader of your books and articles and as one privileged to listen to so many of your ever lucid expositions of Theosophy’.

In all this, Sandra wholeheartedly joins me and together we say with gratitude and affection ‘Farewell! farewell! farewell!’ and ‘he lives! he lives! he lives!’

The Theosophist, Vol. 94, June 1973, p. 162

78
Is the Society All Sufficient?

There has come very much to the fore, of late, the question of the care of new members, and their guidance in the earlier years of their membership of the Society, and in their theosophic life.

Care and guidance of the new member is of course essential, but as to the form which such care should take, views seem to differ. It would seem, however, that the responsibility for retaining and helping new members is one which lies largely with the lodge, its President, its officers, and the other members. These should consistently convey to every new member a sense of welcome, of brotherliness, and of genuine interest. All too often, I fear, the opposite impression is given.

Would it not be a good idea to have in every lodge a carefully chosen host or hostess, with a small social committee under them? These people should be made responsible for the creation and maintenance of a harmonious and warm atmosphere. They would be especially responsible for the extension of hospitality and help to all visitors, whether to library or lectures, and of course to new members at their first members’ meetings after joining.

In addition I think there should always be a regular enquirer’s study class for new members and newly interested people. Ideally, this should be run by a competent student capable both of maintaining general theosophic interest and of guiding those who seek the Inner Life to the right books until they reach the E.S. [Esoteric School] stage.

I may be wrong, and I may later change my views, but at present, where all this is done, I see no necessity for the carrying out of a suggestion which has lately been made — that an open Esoteric group for new members be established. When I first joined the Society, I found all the necessary guidance in self-training I needed in the many splendid books on the subject, with which our literature is replete.

I well remember my first reading of An Introduction to Yoga, In the Outer Court, The Path of Discipleship, and Initiation — all by Dr Besant. I supplemented these books with Light on the Path, The Voice of the Silence, and the Bhagavad Gita. These, with a few other books, including H.P.B.’s [Helena P. Blavatsky’s] ⁶Hints to Students of Occultism’, gave me far more occult and spiritual light and guidance than, after nearly thirty years, I have been able to fully assimilate and apply to life. I am in fact still studying certain of these books, and still continue to profit from that study. I see no reason whatever why, with a certain amount of intelligent guidance, every new member could not do as I have done. I have come to be a confirmed and profoundly grateful member of the Theosophical Society [T.S.] and the Esoteric Section. This is because I have found in them an abundance of spiritual food. Any success to which I may have attained as a student and a teacher I attribute to the guidance so fully given in Theosophical literature and in the E.S. To me there seems no need for any Theosophist to look further. I regard the E.S. as the logical pathway for the Fellow of the Theosophical Society who seeks the Inner Light and the Master’s feet.

The Weakening Through Separation

The claim has been made that much practical help and guidance is given by bodies outside the Parent Society, and that in the case of one of these bodies at least, nothing is given that is not strictly in conformity with theosophical teaching. For me, the basic ideal of theosophical work is brotherliness and co-operation in spreading the great light throughout the world. I therefore regard as definitely out of conformity with theosophical principles those T.S. members who, after absorbing the teachings of the Theosophical Society, and sometimes of the E.S., leave those bodies and set up separate and even competitive organizations of which they are the self-appointed leaders.

These ex-members weaken our movement, when they could strengthen it by a continuance of loyal and impersonal membership. The founders of, and workers in, these organizations use, and in my opinion abuse, our platform and hospitality for purposes of personal proselytism, further reducing the effectiveness of the Theosophical Society. They have in fact taken away many members from our movement. For me, this is a direct and flagrant denial of the principles of Theosophy.

Whenever one discusses this question with these people, they invariably bring up the appeal of brotherhood and brotherliness, terms which by their very actions they do not appear to comprehend. When, for example, their personal propaganda amongst our members comes to light, as it has so often done in different parts of the world, and they are asked to abstain, they reply ‘Do you consider this to be compatible with the theosophical idea of brotherhood’. This to me is a specious argument indeed. Furthermore, when private and sometimes public propaganda of these groups is found to consist in part of statements that the Masters are no longer behind the Theosophical Society, of slander against T.S. workers, and of the vilest calumny against our leaders, then personally, whether I offend the ideal of brotherhood or not, I cannot work with such people. I certainly do not consider them to be in conformity with theosophical principles.

This may all seem to be very narrow and unbrotherly, and I may seem to be making a great fuss over a small matter. I can only say that I have been forced to these conclusions by somewhat bitter experience extended over a considerable number of years. Without wishing to go into heroics, I believe that there can be no divided loyalties in matters theosophical. I am proud to belong exclusively to the Adyar Theosophical Society, and in this matter take my stand with Myers, who, in his poem ‘St Paul’, says: —

Whoso has felt the spirit of the highest,

‘Cannot confound, nor doubt him, nor deny.

‘Yea with one voice, O World, though thou deniest,

‘STAND THOU ON THA T SIDE, FOR ON THIS AM I ’.

I fear that I cannot agree with a view which has been expressed — that the Theosophical Society does not provide adequate definite and personal teaching for the beginner. Surely we must know of the great wealth of occult and mystical teachings with which our literature is replete. Surely also we must know that the teachings of the later schools, since they came later, must be largely drawn from our books, even though the courtesy of acknowledgment is withheld. I do not see how anyone can possibly say with truth that there is, or has been for the last quarter of a century, any lack of available spiritual guidance from open theosophical literature, for books containing such teachings are to be found in abundance on the shelves of every well stocked T.S. library. Instructions concerning mind training and spiritual development is detailed and complete in book after book.

A Serious Trend

But another suggestion has lately been made which to me indicates a still more serious trend. It is that the opportunity of systematic inner training be given without vows or obligations. If by ‘inner’, esoteric and occult training be meant, such a course is an utter and absolute impossibility. As well ask a surgeon to successfully perform operations without studying and complying with the rules of hygiene, or a would-be aviator to safely fly without a study of, and strict obedience to, the laws governing aeronautics. The flight of the soul is governed by laws as strict and as certain in their action as those with which the successful natural scientist must comply.

I am aware that schools of occultism exist which affirm that the Path of Self-Illumination may be trodden, and the flight of the soul be made without self discipline. That the pleasure of the flesh can still be indulged without detriment to occult development and progress. My personal opinion of this doctrine is that it is pernicious, false and dangerous in the extreme. I do not believe that any teacher of occultism of the right-hand path would either promulgate it, or form and lead an esoteric group founded on such principles. There is far too much of this kind of thing — pseudo-occultism — in the world today.

Occult vows are taken to one’s own Higher Self and to none other. If a teacher, out of compassion for humanity, volunteers to give occult instruction to men and women of the world, he is, for his own safeguarding as well as for their’s, obliged to obtain promises from his students that they will abide by the age old inviolable and impersonal laws which govern spiritual development. The teacher himself does not invent the laws. They are eternal, natural laws, which he himself obeys, and to which he draws his students’ attention for their sakes as well as for his own. For the teacher of occultism is karmically responsible for the safety and welfare of the group under his care.

Thus, no individual applies these laws to another, or insists upon obedience to them. They are applied and insisted upon by Nature Herself, for they are natural laws, impersonal and eternal. To resent them, or seek to evade them with schoolboy reluctance, is to display a complete unreadiness for the great experience of soul flight, and that most magnificent of all adventures — the quest of liberation.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 5 October 1938, p. 11

79
It is Time that Theosophy Should Enter the Arena

The words of my title are taken from a letter from the Maha-Chohan. Although not binding upon any member of the Theosophical Society, they may be taken as an indication of both the purpose of the Adepts in forming our Society and the chief task of its organizers, lecturers and authors. This view is supported by the further words of the same great Being Who also wrote, ⁶ We have to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’.

What is implied by Theosophy and a knowledge of Theosophy? The Secret Doctrine replies: ‘The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages ... an uninterrupted record, covering thousands of generations of Seers, whose respective experiences were made to test and verify the traditions, passed on orally by one early race to another, of the teaching of higher and exalted Beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity . . . No vision of one Adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions — so obtained as to stand as independent evidence — of other Adepts, and by centuries of experience’.

Theosophy, then, is ageless, is beyond the limitation of time and of man’s mental outlook at any period. Theosophy is unaffected by the particular discoveries, beliefs and attitudes of merely human beings, important though these may be as milestones on the pathway to absolute knowledge and the attainment of that implicit insight into every first truth which is accorded to the Adept. So also the work of the Theosophical Society; for whilst methods of presentation must be adapted to the phases of intellectual development and cultural outlook of the day, the subject matter of theosophical literature and lectures remain the same, namely that fragment of Theosophy delivered to mankind in this age and its application to each problem of life as world peace, freedom, justice, happiness, health, disease, death and the life after death, and the meaning and purpose of life, cosmic and microcosmic.

This view of the work of the Theosophical Society is apparently supported by a letter written by a great Adept to A. P. Sinnett in 1883, in which he says: ‘One or two of us hoped that the world had so far advanced intellectually, if not intuitionally, that the occult doctrine might gain an intellectual acceptance, and the impulse be given for a new cycle of occult research. . . ’ {Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, 263). The closing phrase removes all suggestions of a fixed dogma and indicates a desired development of the occult knowledge imparted to mankind by the Adepts at the inception of the Theosophical Movement. The extension of existing information is evidently not to be based upon speculative opinions, but upon occult study and research.

The immeasurable importance and potential benefit to the human race of the promulgation of the accumulated wisdom of the ages is indicated in another letter from an Adept who wrote: ‘The members of the London Lodge have such an opportunity as seldom comes to men. A movement calculated to benefit the English speaking world is in their custody. If they do their whole duty, the progress of materialism, the increase of dangerous self-indulgence and the tendency towards spiritual suicide can be checked ... The pendulum has swung from the extreme of blind faith towards the extreme of materialistic scepticism and nothing can stop it save Theosophy (Letters from the Master of the Wisdom, 1881-1888 T.P.H., Adyar).

In order to bring Theosophy within reach of mankind, great Adepts sacrificed a measure of Their silence and solitude, gave up part of the freedom which, with inconceivable effort and suffering, They had attained. Throughout the seventy-eight years which have followed the founding down to the present day, the efforts, the devotion and the joyful sacrifice of the thousands of members have spread Theosophy and expanded the work of the Theosophical Society throughout the world. The movement has survived two World Wars and the intervening depression. Theosophy has begun ‘to enter the arena’ and efforts have been made ‘To Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’.

Evidently this is only a beginning, for Theosophy cannot be said either to have fully entered the arena of human thought, motive and conduct, or to have become popular. Who amongst war-ridden, crime-ridden, disease-ridden Western nations believes whole heartedly in karma and the immortality of the human soul alone among theosophical teachings? Very few, and hence the continued prevalence of selfishness, worldliness, cruelty, expatiation and the excessive funerealism which are prominent characteristics of modem civilization. Avidya still reigns. Suffering is, therefore, the lot of modem man.

The work ahead of us is, I suggest, quite clear. It is today what it was seventy-eight brief years ago, namely, to continue occult study and research, to enable Theosophy to ‘enter the arena’ and ‘to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’. In a phrase, our work still is to teach fundamental Theosophy, thereby banishing the ignorance, the suffering and the fear by which humanity is still beset. Whilst the machinery must continually be modernized and new and up-to-date methods of presentation must be constantly devised and used, the selfsame, ageless truths and their application to life constitute our message, our gift to the modern world, and its deliverance, our raison d’etre as a Society.

The presentation of many theosophical teachings is now greatly facilitated by certain changes in human thought and, I submit, the fullest advantage should be taken of this fact. Parapsychology, psychosomatic medicine and belief in the existence in nature of intelligence embued with aim or purpose, support theosophical teachings. Theosophy can now both be presented in terms of modem thought and shown to have been far in advance of it. Next steps in world-thought and action, such as the development and conscious use of the abstract mind and the intuition, and of their organs, the pituitary and the pineal glands, can also be suggested. Theosophical fundamentals should, however, form the heart and foundation of every exposition. The application of these fundamental teachings to the solution of both existing and new human problems, to the illumination of human minds — this, the practical value of Theosophy to man at this time — needs also to be thought out and offered to the world as part of the great gift of the Elder Brethren to the humanity of our present day.

Since the Theosophical Society was founded to teach fundamental Theosophy, it will be a great tragedy if over-familiarity with some of the apparently simpler teachings of Theosophy ever reduces our appreciation of their immense significance. Although the fundamentals of Theosophy may become familiar to theosophical students themselves, and may even come to be regarded by some as rather ‘stale news’, it should never be forgotten that such teachings as spiritual, intellectual, cultural and physical evolution, reincarnation and karma, the life after death, the super-physical planes of nature, their forces, phenomena, and inhabitants, and the existence, nature, powers and activities of Earth’s Adepts, are still strange and unacceptable ideas to the majority of Western mankind. Yet acceptance of them would radically change human outlook and mode of life. Full recognition, acknowledgment and ratification in conduct of the concept of karma alone, would transform human life on earth. So, also, for the more general public teachings, which it is of the utmost importance that the mind of modem humanity recognize, and apply to life. Acceptance by a sufficient number of people of the central theosophical doctrine of the unity of all life could, and one day will, utterly change international and individual relationships. Straight Theosophy is thus of supreme importance to the race; especially at this time of world crisis.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 41, Issue 7, July 1953, p. 129

80
Message to Convention

UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD

Dear Fellow-Members,

Although Sandra and I cannot be with you for Convention, we know that we are all united in the acceptance of a single ideal — namely the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity. We are also united, are we not, in membership of a Movement designed to bring about the practical acceptance by humanity of this great Ideal here on this Earth.

As I write to you from our home, I am deeply aware that humanity is threatened by military plans based upon a concept which is the very opposite to the relationship of brotherhood. This threat includes the possible attack upon, and the elimination of, millions of human beings by means of a recent scientific discovery — life-destructive nuclear energy employed in nuclear weapons.

How very great, therefore, is the necessity for the practical acceptance of our great Theosophical ideal — The Universal Brotherhood of Man? Indeed, it was this ideal and this salvation of man which seem to have led the Elder Brethren of humanity to launch this One World Movement some one hundred and seven years ago. Their objective in so doing they expressed as: ‘We have to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’, thereby affirming as a fact in Nature the Universal Brotherhood of Man.

In the fulfilment of this great ideal, the world wide acceptance of Theosophy, we have been and still are most happily inspired, assisted and led by our past and present membership — our ‘family’.

During the days which follow, we know that plans will be considered whereby the great Ideal of the Masters may be fulfilled: ‘To Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’.

We, Sandra and Geoffrey, send to you all our affectionate greetings and very best wishes for a successful, practical and inspiring Convention.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 43, No. 2, 1982, p. 43

81
One Hundred Years of Age

THE PAST, THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE

November 17th of the present year will be a most important date for some thirty-three thousand members of the Theosophical Society in at least fifty-three countries in the world. On that day one hundred years ago the Parent Theosophical Society [T.S.] was founded in New York City and this event will be remembered and celebrated in Headquarters, Lodges and Centres of the century-old Society. What has mankind achieved during this period and what more needs to be done?

The Past

On the one hand, the dawning of the Planet’s Golden Age (Satya Yuga) has begun to be discernible. The Parent Theosophical Society was founded and has steadily maintained its world wide activities in order ‘to ameliorate the condition of man’.^{^[105]} Also established have been the League of Nations and its successor UNO, with its numerous beneficent subsidiary agencies including UNESCO and WHO, CORSO, Amnesty International and many other organizations dedicated to the welfare of both animals and men. The existence of Gurus, yogis and interest in yoga have become apparent in the West. Psychokinesis, ESP, telepathy have been tested and proven. Religion is becoming decreasingly orthodox, whilst compassion-moved active, selfless service groups are growing in number. In these and fortunately in many other ways, it is evident that a consciousness of world unity is now being ‘born’ — if by no means without the pangs of birth.

The Present

On the other hand, the world’s passage through the Dark Age (Kali Yuga) of the Fifth Root Race is at the same time most tragically apparent.

Preparations for wars of aggression and defence have become increasingly unimaginably costly. Sales of weapons of destruction have now increased 6000 per cent since 1952, the world’s fastest-growing business being the arms trade. Arms supplies are swelling even more, as thousands of tanks and aircraft become surplus when Nato and the Warsaw Pact introduce a new generation of armaments for their forces. Sales of arms to the Third World have also grown, simply because there are more customers than ever before.

In each of the 60 military conflicts since the end of the Second World War, imported weapons were used almost exclusively. According to Arms expert Anne Hessing Cahn, former research associate at M.I.T.’s Centre for International Studies, ‘those arms have brought not only violence and destruction but death to more than 10 million people’. A new giant missile described as ‘horrendous’ is now existent and the ability of one of these to carry either a huge 24 megaton, single thermonuclear warhead or a multitude of smaller nuclear bornbs is preventing ‘detente’ at the latest Geneva Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT).

Within the next thirty-five years, the world population will have virtually doubled to nearly eight thousand million. This will seriously increase both the: present world food shortage and the proportion of human beings living in absolute poverty.

Poisonous waste products and the resultant air, water, earth and, as also noise, pollutions are causing most serious deterioration of the environment.

Cruelty, rapacity, violence and crime are steadily mounting

One Hundred Years of Age throughout the world; the torture of prisoners now being accepted in certain countries as permitted judicial procedure. The incredibly brutal worldwide infliction of suffering upon animals for human pleasure and profit is annually increasing.

Unfortunately, these defects in human character and conduct are being transmitted to succeeding generations. Children’s minds are being polluted and corrupted by the public presentation of this ‘NEWS’, the message of TV entertainment (!) in one country being that ‘violence is the way to get what you want’.

From all this, as students of Theosophy will know, exactly appropriate continuing and unnecessary future suffering is assured, as reactions under inevadible karmic law are precipitated upon the human race.

‘It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail’ (Luke 16:17).

‘... and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again’ (Matthew 7:2).

‘Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets’ (Matthew 7:12).

Eighty-six years ago H. P. Blavatsky evidently foresaw the possibility of these disasters; for in her magazine, Lucifer, May 1889, the wrote: ‘If it (Theosophy) does not prevail... civilization will sink into such a sea of horror that its parallel in history has never been recorded’.[106]

One hundred years ago, the profoundly wise and compassionate Masters of the Wisdom inspired the founding of the Theosophical Society in order to transmit to the human mind the sole possible prevention of mankind’s sinking into this ‘sea of horror’. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that from remote ages, and especially since the founding of the Theosophical Society, an increased number of people — but only a small proportion of humanity — have studied, accepted and put into practice the teachings of Theosophy, the human situation on our Globe has most seriously deteriorated.

The Future

What then must be achieved in order to bring about the acceptance and practice of Theosophy by human beings in numbers that would be sufficient to bring to a halt this headlong plunge into further disaster? This momentous question now confronting the Theosophical Society as a whole must, I suggest, be successfully answered in its second century; for all the causes of the present situation not only continue to exist, but in the foreseeable future will increase.

In reply, I venture to advance the following ideas, hoping as I do so that they will evoke many other solutions to this major problem — how to gain increasing acceptance of Theosophy — now before the members of the Society as it enters and passes through its second century.

Naturally, of course, all the effective work now being performed by Headquarters, Sections, Lodges and members must continue and increase. To this may well be added the formulation of wisely planned, practical activities designed effectively to reach human minds and hearts with Theosophia in its spiritual, philosophical, cultural and physical implications. Success in this clearly depends upon concerted action by every member thus moved to impress upon the minds of men, women and young people knowledge of the following central teachings of Theosophy: —

The identity in each human being of the one indwelling Spirit and the shared existence of the precisely same purpose for living (evolution) — a ‘family’ relationship thus uniting all as ‘parts of one stupendous whole’[107]

In consequence, the conduct of one person inevitably affects every one else.

The real individual in man is ‘the God within’, the unfolding spiritual Self. Mind, emotion and body are its valuable, temporary instruments and no more.

Under an inevadable Law of Cause and Effect, the sole cause of suffering is cruelty, and of happiness, kindness.

Constructively helpful action towards all others is the one theosophical virtue, whilst deliberately hurtful conduct for personal gain betrays that ideal.

The acid test of the worth whileness of any individual and of any Nation is the absence or presence of unnecessary and harmful self-interest and of the over-accentuated motive of self-gain even at another’s loss.

Undesirable qualities may be eliminated from one’s character by persistently dwelling upon in thought, and putting into practice, the opposing virtue.

Superhuman beings — Adepts — who have reached the goal of human evolution exist upon Earth. They unfailingly respond to impersonal appeals for aid on behalf of others and to selfless, nobly-motived aspirations to be channels for their benediction to mankind.

The privilege of entirely secret Discipleship of an Adept Teacher has ever been, now is, and will continue to be fully available, complete selflessness, and the sole motive of improving the condition of other men being essentials to admission.

Organized methods whereby these teachings may be presented and other beneficent purposes may be fulfilled are three in number. They consist of inspiring, educative and practically applicable literature and lectures on Theosophy, and theosophically lived lives. Books are more enduring than talks, but the invention and use of tape recordings and films now bestow a greatly increased effectiveness upon hitherto time-limited lectures.

To speak and write effectively, one must study Theosophy, I suggest, as if for an exam, submit to and apply training in both writing and public speaking, and perform both functions with strict impersonality, the sole motive being to serve one’s fellow men.

The danger exists that too many members of the T.S. could permit themselves to be diverted from the direct carrying out of this program into the pursuit of interests — psychic and otherwise — which would cause them to be less one-pointed collaborators in bringing about a Theosophy-living humanity — the supreme objective, I conceive.

Whilst all are free, the present world situation is so serious that unity, one-pointed acceptance of the broad plan of operations and ever-ready impersonal co-operation in its fulfilment throughout every aspect of human life on this Planet are of first importance.

Appointed officials, editors, authors and lecturers may very usefully maintain close contact with International and National events — the developments in the field of the Third Object, for example — now quite notable — and be prepared to contribute applicable theosophical teaching upon these subjects.

As an increasing percentage of the 33,000 or more members of the Adept-inspired — today as yesterday — Parent Theosophical Society undertake these three means of fulfilling the purpose of the Masters^{^[108]}, the Society, during its second century, will expand and reach an ever-increasing number of people. This is of supreme importance because Theosophy understood, taught and applied to life is both the sole effective remedy for the world’s most serious ills, and the assurance of enduring health and happiness for all mankind.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 36, No. 4, 1975, p. 86

82
Our Increasing Purpose

A Master has expressed one part of the objective of the Inner Founders of the Parent Theosophical society as: ‘To Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’: The fulfilment of that purpose depends very largely upon the work of Fellows of The Theosophical Society.

Theosophy is a great science. Its teachings reflect that order and system upon which the Universe is founded. Effective deliverance of those teachings to mankind depends upon an orderly and systematic endeavour. Those of us who feel called to the task of teaching Theosophy must therefore proceed with order and system. Study must be methodical, exposition scientific in method, accurate in material, convincing in manner and persuasive in effect. Would-be teachers of Theosophy must study not only to the end of personal interest, but to the end of both mastery of the doctrines and their lucid exposition. He who would bring the light of Theosophy to mankind must study to expound. This implies a personal restatement of every acceptable idea, a recasting of doctrine after doctrine into one’s own words, an examination of all objections and of the logical answer to each and every one of them. Then, and then alone, does the Theosophical lecturer begin to be equipped for his high calling.

Mankind has always needed and always received the Ancient Wisdom, but at this present time the need of mankind for Theosophy is both immense, and intense. We shall not prevent a third world war of unparalleled destructiveness, we shall not build a New World Order, we shall not ensure the Four Freedoms or implement the Atlantic Charter, unless the basic truths of Theosophy form the foundation, walls and superstructure of the post-war world.

The opportunity and the responsibility of The Theosophical Society and of every Theosophist, I almost venture to say — are at this moment incalculable. The welfare of the world, the progress of humanity upon this planet, human life for the next thousand years, depend upon the decisions which will be made and implemented in the next few years. The message of the Brotherhood of Man, of the unity of every Faith that loves God and serves man, the paramount necessity of co-operation between man and man and Faith and Faith, in reverence for and service to the one divine life and the one divine truth; this is the message which with life and voice and pen Theosophists the world over have the opportunity of delivering to a war-shattered world standing on the threshold of the New Age.

That message cannot be delivered by men and women who do not know thoroughly and cannot expound lucidly the basic teachings of the Ancient Wisdom. Study, study, study, seems to me to be the call to each and every one of us; think, live, teach that which you study.

A world crisis marks outstandingly these our twentieth century lives. We have the power to make a potent contribution to the solution of the world problem. On the one hand is Theosophy, on the other hand is the world wounded almost unto death. We stand between. Great world physicians we can be, for in our pharmacopoeia is the only universal panacea which exists, the wisdom religion of all ages.

As ever, it is the individual who counts most. To each and every individual Theosophist, so it seems to me, now comes the great call to become a student, a knower and a teacher of Theosophy.

Effective Communication: The Challenge of the New Age, p. 5 by John Sell

83
Our Opportunity

Reading the early history of our Society, particularly the earlier volumes of The Theosophist, I have been greatly struck by the stress which was laid upon the relationship between the Masters and the members. It is clearly stated in an article on chelaship, inspired, if not written by a Master, that membership in the Society, if sincere, constitutes lay-pupilhood. That everybody who joins it passes into the consciousness of the Masters. This means that you, and I, and all of us in this great outer brotherhood of the Theosophical Society have actually been observed by Them, have stepped into the beam of the searchlight of Their consciousness and that They know us. The rest depends upon ourselves. The link which is then formed can lie dormant, as it does in the great majority, or it can steadily increase in size and luminosity, until it draws the worker into the holy presence of His Master.

To me there is no greater privilege, nor any deeper inspiration than that hope, that certainty, that you and I can find our way through this outer world, in which we live and work, into the very heart of the inner world and to the Master’s feet. Many have proven the truth of that statement made in the earlier years and have stood face to face with the Great Ones. You and I, if we work hard, can, do the same. It is an inexpressible privilege to stand face to face with one of the Elder Brethren; to look direct and in full consciousness into His eyes so full of power and yet compassion, to see His person so majestic and yet His bearing so kind, and with His permission to dedicate one’s whole life and all one’s future lives to serving the world under Him.

Such an experience changes the whole life; it changes, I believe, the whole evolution of the Ego, quickening it enormously. That Egoic quickening begins when we first join; and, as we work for the cause, and steadily purify our nature, eliminating its coarse, selfish, impure and personal attributes, become pure and impersonal in gradually increasing degree, so do we become worthy to enter into a close and intimate relationship with the Master, and therefore to be a channel for His power, to hallow, bless, inspire and uplift the world.

To me this is the only life worth living. All other kinds of life appear almost as death, for without the light of the Master’s countenance there is no light and the world is spiritually dark.

Fortunately for us, all the Masters are near. They are looking out into the world today, in the hour of the world’s need for those men and women whom They can call to co-operate with Them in helping the world and this is our opportunity.

We are in a crisis, are we not? The moment is fraught with great danger as you must see each day as you open your morning papers; and one can readily imagine the Great White Brotherhood, not only throwing the whole of its weight into an effort to save the world from a great disaster and to bring order out of the present chaos, but also looking out in the world and especially into our Society for co-workers. We are all appraised, and we are all used to the very limits of our capacity to help the world in our comer of it; and this is our great opportunity.

This present life may be for each one of us great or mediocre. If we can grasp the Theosophical opportunity it will most certainly be great, for in serving the Great Ones we assume automatically a measure of Their greatness. Many have asked how the way to Their feet may be found. The answer is invariably ‘Find us through work in the Theosophical Society’. That man and that woman whose soul is awakened spiritually and who is able to look upon the sorrows of the world and feel them in their own hearts, can make both an immense contribution to the world’s need at this time, and extremely rapid individual progress in this incarnation.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 30, No. 4, November 1932, p. 83

84
Our Second Century

THE OPPORTUNITY BEFORE US

Of course, every aspect of the work of the Theosophical Society [T.S.] needs a special emphasis, and if one word might be used to designate one opportunity, might it not be the word teach? We must continue with increasing effectiveness to teach pure Theosophy and its applications to the problems of human life. Our Lord the Maha-Chohan wrote (in Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series by Brother Raja, Letter 1) ‘We have to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’.

And why? ‘For the amelioration of the condition of man’ wrote the revered Master Koot Humi in The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter LXXXV.

What a great CALL is ours! By means of ever more effective and attractive literature, lectures and group and personal talks founded upon serious study of H.P.B.’s [Helena P. Blavatsky’s] The Secret Doctrine and her other great works, and above all by theosophical lives — to win mankind’s acceptance of Theosophy.

The method by which theosophical teachings may be changed from intellectual concepts alone into intuitionally realized truths consists of wisely practice meditation, self-purification and the deliverance of the mind from the illusion of self-separateness.

How I wish I were younger, to be side by side with all those who will teach with maximum effectiveness the great and transforming truths included in the Brahma Vidya, Gupta Vidya, Theosophy!

The invention and use of tape-recordings and films now bestow a greatly increased audience and period of existence upon an inevitably time-limited lecture. They render the spoken word almost as enduring as literature. Group gatherings for the consideration of these procedures and the formulation of well-designed plans for their increasing inclusion within the activities of the T.S. will always be valuable.

Lectures are, I believe, the most directly effective; for they bring exponents into direct personal relationship with audiences.

Books based upon a thorough grasp of Theosophy and clarity of writing and including practical ways for the application of Theosophy to life possess the advantage of relative timelessness. Nevertheless do you not think that lives nobly lived might be regarded as the best propaganda of all?

Whatever one’s chosen method, to speak and write effectively, one must study Theosophy, I suggest, as if for an exam. One needs to submit to and apply training in both writing and public speaking, and then to perform both functions with strict impersonality, the sole motive being to serve one’s fellow men.

As an increasing percentage of the 33,000 or more members of the Adept-inspired Parent Theosophical Society undertake these means of fulfilling the purpose of the Masters, the Society, during its second century, will expand and reach an ever increasing number of people. This is of supreme importance, because Theosophy understood, taught and applied to life is both the sole effective remedy for the world’s most serious ills, and the assurance of enduring health and happiness for mankind.

Some Dangers

The danger exists that too many members could permit themselves to be diverted from the direct carrying out of this program into the undue pursuit of personal interests — psychic and otherwise — which would cause them to be less one-pointed collaborators in bringing about a Theosophy-living humanity — the supreme objective, I conceive. Whilst all are free, the present world situation is so serious that unity, one-pointed acceptance of the broad plan of operations and ever-ready impersonal co-operation in its fulfilment through-out every aspect of human life on this planet are of first importance.

I am now going to advance an idea that has long been gaining a predominant place in my mind, as doubtless also in yours — an idea that I believe to be urgently necessary to present to the world of today. I am convinced that an appeal must be made to humanity to reduce and eventually discontinue — to outlaw if it could be possible — the increasing practice of cruelty on Earth.

Humaneness is one of the greatest ideals to be presented to the hearts and minds of modem humanity. Increasingly cruel practices and customs that have for so long shadowed world history are now casting a deepening gloom upon the world. Unhappily, too, they are generating a misery that cannot fail to afflict mankind more and more painfully under the operation of karmic law.

Man must become merciful, must become humane in motives, thoughts, words and deeds. More and ever more compassionate hearts are so very greatly needed at this time. Impersonal but nevertheless deeply felt love and concern for the happiness of all sentient beings on Earth must find an ever-increasing place in the conduct of all nations, groups and individuals. This is not only for love’s sake — the primal purpose — but also to prevent what could be a catastrophic descent already becoming apparent — of the karmic re-actions brought about by man’s continually increasing infliction of suffering upon fellow human beings and on subhuman sentient creatures.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 37, No. 2, 1976, p. 46

85
Our Seventieth Year

(The following remarks were made by Mr Hodson at the opening of the 70th Annual Convention at Olcott, on July 7, 1956, and their timeliness in pointing up the significance of this year in the history of the American Section should make them of special interest to all the members. — Editor)

On October 30 of this year, 1956, The Theosophical Society in America will complete two cycles of years in its history. One of these is sevenfold and other ten fold, and these two closures of cycles will coincide. Such cyclic convergences are generally regarded as especially significant, according to the numbers and the cycles involved. In this case, the numbers are one, seven and ten.

Let us first glance back at the founding of the American Section. In The Golden Book of The Theosophical Society by C. Jinarajadasa, we read that a Branch was formed in Rochester in 1882 and a second one in St Louis in 1883. On May 13,1884, the General Council of The Theosophical Society sent, from India, instructions to form a Board of Control composed of members from Rochester, New York, St Louis, Osceola and Cincinnati. That Board elected E. B. Page as its President.

Then, on June 6, 1886, the General Council sent instructions to organize the American Branches into a Section of the Society. A Convention was called at Cincinnati on October 30, 1886, and formally constituted itself as the ‘American Section of the General Council of The Theosophical Society’. Later this phrase was curtailed to ‘The American Section of The Theosophical Society’. W. Q. Judge was elected as General Secretary and Treasurer. Thirty-seven members were recorded as organizers at that Convention.

That was seventy years ago on October 30 and so on that date this year, so far as one day is concerned, new cycles will commence. Rightly understood, numbers applied to human life can interpret, forecast and forewarn. What, then, are the numbers one, ten and seven supposed to signify?

The meaning attributed by some numerologists to the numbers involved in the life of The Theosophical Society is of assistance in the attempt to interpret the succession of past events, to forecast the possible future and obtain some guidance in planning both present and future work.

The number one is said to be that of initiatory and creative activity. In occult science, one is described as the positive generator or masculine potency in creation, such as God the Father from Whom the first impulse to create a new universe emanates, the First Aspect of the Christian Trinity. In esoteric Hebraism, one represents the male primary power of the Sephiroth, the Yod of the Tetragrammaton, meaning the first letter of the sacred Name of God, Jehovah. One thus represents the initiatory power, beginning, newness, all things new.

The number ten is both the all inclusive number of completion, culmination and perfection, and the number leading into the second repetitive phase of one. It marks the culmination and close of a first major cycle and the opening of a second which will both repeat the characteristics of the first and add, or rather bring forth, new ones.

The number seven acts as one had previously acted, namely as generator. Seven is, in addition, somewhat like ten, the element of the completion of one septenary or sevenfold component cycle and of transition into a second. It is also the number of equilibrium between spirit and matter, ideal and action, purpose and result. Seven also represents the passage from one completed cycle to an immediate successor. Eliphas Levi makes seven also the symbol ‘of all religion, magical power, and of the mind reinforced by elementary potencies and the soul served by nature’.

Thus, one represents first beginnings, ten the total completion and culmination of a cycle, and seven an intermediary fulfilment and balance.

If, then, the Law of Cycles thus operates upon societies, and the meanings attributed to numbers are correct, the numerical significance of the seventieth birthday of the American Section, in which ten septenaries and seven decades are completed, is that it constitutes, doubly, the culmination of a creative cycle — actually of two creative cycles at the same time — and so the approach of a ‘Judgment Day’ and a transition into a new, but somewhat repetitive, epoch. The fundamental bases are both continued and re-expressed in new ways.

The cycle now opening may therefore be characterized by a summing up of the past and the use of new and more advanced methods of popularizing a knowledge of Theosophy. This will probably become apparent throughout the whole Section, from the administration here at Olcott, out to visiting lecturers, spotlight workers and federation and lodge activities. Indeed, cyclic ideas apart, these signs of a new approach and the use of new methods are already visible.

The present wonderful means of communication, through recordings and films, on radio and television, will clearly be more freely used in the new cycle now opening. Equipment will doubtless become smaller, lighter, simpler and so more easily movable, more usable and, we hope, cheaper, as the invention and use of the transistor already indicates.

In terms of mind, E.S.P. will probably be further investigated. The presence throughout nature of the invisible Life Principle and its orderly manifestations will be more generally recognized and demonstrated. These will also greatly help the presentation of theosophical ideas.

Conceptions of Theosophy, itself, and of its applications to life, will doubtless expand, particularly as the present noticeable movement of modem philosophic and religious thought in theosophical directions brings further support for theosophical ideas. Of course, all this can well be foreseen without the aid of numbers, but they do support and reinforce such concepts.

We are presumably upon the threshold of a new era in the life of The Theosophical Society in America, and therefore in that of The Theosophical Society itself. We do not close the door behind us as we step forward into the next seven and tenfold cycles. We take with us all that we have garnered, remembering that vision is indispensable to progress.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 44, Issue 10, October 1956, p. 198

86
Our Work [11]

SOME PERSONAL VIEWS THE SOCIETY AND THE WORLD

As I travel throughout the different countries and work in different lodges, I am impressed with the necessity for a recognition by us all of the fact that Theosophical work is world-work, and that every lodge should extend its activities increasingly outwards into civic, national and international life. A great many of the lodges are not in close contact with their City sufficiently, and have not become valued by civic institutions as they should. The Theosophical Society [T.S.] is too much isolated from the world. We members have not yet become conscious of our civic and national missions, of the necessity for keeping our eyes constantly upon our City, its activities, its news and its people, in order that we may contribute our Theosophical share to its welfare and progress.

Our various Sections I feel, in these days of radio and air mail, are unnecessarily isolated one from another and from the parent body. I see the Society developing more and more into a movement for world unification, a living League of Nations. I feel that Sections should be drawn nearer to each other, and a regular system of direct interchange of news and co-operative action between individuals, lodges and Sections should be initiated and developed. General Secretaries and lodge officials in different countries might well correspond regularly, I think, sharing experiences, accounts of problems, and such solutions as have been found. Perhaps some day an official correspondence bureau will come into existence to encourage this and weld the Society more closely into a unit mentally, and physically. One or two lodge evenings each session could be interestingly spent on such correspondence. Many delightful pen-friendships have already been formed through the medium of the International Correspondence League, the influence and activities of which the author would like to see greatly extended throughout our movement. The English Secretary is Miss Emily Massingham, Sunny-court, Gurnard, Cowes, I. O. Wight.

I feel also that the teaching department of the Sections and lodges requires to be drastically overhauled. From what I hear too high a percentage of lectures and lecturers definitely harm the movement, repelling people instead of drawing them to Theosophy. Perhaps a combination of study class and public speakers’ class in lodges might meet this difficulty. Such a class, guided by the best students and speakers in the lodge, assisted at intervals by well chosen professional teachers of public speaking, could take one basic doctrine at a time and study it in all its aspects, the spiritual, theosophical, scientific, historic and practical aspects being thoroughly investigated, and lucid presentations of each being prepared by chosen students. Such an approach would not only be immediately useful as study, practice and propaganda, but would provide the text-books of Theosophy in line with modem thought for which there is a great need.

Thinking of the T.S. in relation to the World, it appears to me that it has a great regenerative function to perform. Ideally its members are ‘the little leaven which leaventh the whole’. Those members who have themselves become leavened by Theosophy, whose thoughts and words and deeds automatically mirror the spirit of the Ancient Wisdom effectively perform this function.

The world still lives competitively. The Theosophist knowing the unity of Life becomes the servant of that Life in every form.

The world is still intensely individualistic. The Theosophist, imbued with the spirit of brotherhood, is naturally co-operative.

The nations of the world remain nationalistic. The Theosophist, over-passing the barriers of race, becomes a citizen of the world.

In religion man is egotistical and parochial. The Theosophist, knowing that all religions spring from one source, and are founded by one Official, sees the light of truth in all.

As each member makes clear to himself his own attitude on these questions, and then gives expression to it in thought and life, the Theosophical outlook will be quickly adopted by the world.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 4 August 1937, p. 5

87
Our Work [2]

SOME PERSONAL VIEWS

The library: The platform and the library of a lodge constitute its two most important activities. They are, as it were, two oppositely polarized centres of power in the lodge. The platform is the more dynamic of the two but it’s activity is irregular, consisting of brief periods of concentrated effort and longer periods of quiescence. The library, on the other hand, whilst more static than the platform, more continuously exerts its power.

Of this influence of a theosophical library there can be no doubt. Every book is in part a physical body for the Ego of its author, as also for the ideas contained within it, themselves expressions of power. A book therefore, is a living entity, it has an Etheric, Astral and Mental Body, all ensouled by the Ego of the author. It consequently exercises an influence upon the world. This influence affects most strongly those who read the book, for they contact directly not only the power of the book and its ideas, but also its author, between whom and the reader a link is formed and an interchange occurs.

The book itself, even if unread, radiates a certain measure of these forces. A library of theosophical books, certain of them inspired by the Masters of the Wisdom, and many of them written by advanced theosophists, is therefore a great centre of power.

I like to think of every theosophical library as an extension in the outer world of the Himalayan library and museum of the great White Brotherhood of which One of the Inner Founders of the Society is the Curator. If this is a true conception, then the importance of Headquarters and lodge libraries can hardly be over estimated.

Next to the President, the Librarian can be the most important official of the lodge. He or she has a unique opportunity to serve, and one might add, a unique responsibility. Nearly every visitor to the Library is inquiring about Theosophy, about life, or and very often, about their own personal life and problems. Such enquirers are often of distinct and separate types each requiring different treatment and specially chosen reading matter.

How often are enquirers turned away from Theosophy by a book, splendid in itself but utterly unsuitable to their type or stage of study. I myself know of such cases, particularly of one intellectual type of man who was started off with Man, Whence, How and Whither. Certain Theosophical fundamentals had already been accepted, but he was quite unable to swallow the statements concerning life on the Moon and Mars, in Atlantis and especially the blanc-mange like food of the Californian Colony! This was too much of a mouthful and his interest in Theosophy (mistakenly it is true) waned from then onwards.

The ideal librarian is one who intuitively recognizes the need of each enquirer and knows the most suitable book for him. Also the ideal Librarian requires the gift, and should be provided with the means, of making the library a place of beauty and of peace. Beauty, quietness, efficiency, order and great care of the books themselves should be the keynote of every theosophical library, however small.

The negatives of a good library, are, I think obvious. Shabby bindings, dusty and untidy shelves, the absence of system in storing and lending hooks, untidy notice boards and unsympathetic library attendants. All these are the antithesis of the ideal and their existence is unthinkable when the more occult aspects of a theosophical library are realized.

A reading room with a harmonious social atmosphere is a most valuable asset in lodge life and work. Afternoon tea may well be served there to visitors. Visiting lecturers and students may usefully attend on certain afternoons to answer more intimately and informally than is possible from the platform questions arising from public lectures.

Good relations should be established with principal local libraries and librarians. As many theosophical books and magazines as possible should be placed in them and the public encouraged to enquire for them there. Thus public libraries may also serve as extensions of the Himalayan library, the Theosophical library serving as a link between the two.

Ideal and difficult to acquire though such conditions may be, I believe them to be within the reach of most lodges. Indeed I know of many lodges which already possess them and many others which closely approach the ideal. A library dedicated to the service of the teaching department of the Occult Hierarchy, recognized as a centre of spiritual power and light, and presided over by well read theosophists who are lovers of both books and of men, can do magnificent work for the cause of Theosophy.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 6 December 1937, p. 17

88
The Significance of Numbers in the Life of the Theosophical Society

(This is the first of four articles on cyclic law in the life of The Theosophical Society)

In 1882, seven years after the founding of The Theosophical Society, the Master Koot Hoomi wrote to Mr A. O. Hume: ‘November is fast approaching and by that time everything has to be settled’.^{^[109]}

In the same year, the Master Morya wrote to Mr A. P. Sinnett:

‘On the 17th November next, 1882, the Septenary term of trial given the Society at its foundation in which to discreetly “preach us” will expire. One or two of us hoped that the world has so far advanced intellectually, that the Occult doctrine might gain an intellectual acceptance, and the impulse given for a new cycle of occult research. . . . For six and a half years they [Colonel Olcott and H. P. Blavatsky] have been struggling against such odds as would have driven off any one who was not working with the desperation of one who stakes a life and all he prized on some desperate supreme effort. Their success has not equalled the hopes of their original backers, phenomenal as it has been in certain directions. In a few more months the term of probation will end. ... In such case effort would be suspended until the beginning of another Septenary Cycle, when, if circumstances should again be more auspicious, another attempt might be made under the same or another direction…’[110]

From these significant words and from other indications, it is clear that The Theosophical Society is subject to the Law of Cycles and that the objective of the Adept Founders was ‘that the Occult doctrine might gain an intellectual acceptance and the impulse be given for a new cycle of occult research’. This knowledge of the operation of the Law of Cycles and of part of the Master’s real purpose can serve as a guide to both the present and future work of the Society. It can also indicate both auspicious times and lines of least resistance when selecting, initiating and supporting Theosophical activities.[111]

The meaning attributed by some numerologists[112] to the numbers involved in the life of The Theosophical Society is of assistance in the attempt to interpret the succession of events and to forecast the possible future. The number one is said to be that of initiatory and creative activity, the positive generator or masculine potency of the Sephiroth, the Yod of the Tetragrammaton. The number ten is both the all-inclusive number of completion, culmination and perfection, and that of the second repetitive phase or one. It marks the close of a first major cycle and the opening of a second.

The number seven is best understood by remembering that in the succession of ternaries, one is the apex and head of the first triangle and represents the primary, active, creative power. By natural progression, four occupies the same position and represents the same function for the second ternary, while seven is similarly the head of the third. The seven therefore acts, as both one and four had previously acted, as generator. Seven is, in addition, the element of the completion of one septenary or component cycle and of transition into a second.

It is the number of equilibrium and of the passage from one completed cycle to an immediate successor. Levi makes seven the symbol ‘of all religion, magical power, the mind reinforced by elementary potencies and the soul served by nature’.^{^[113]}

The number eight under which in its decades the Society passes between 1945 and 1955, is that of balance, justice, karma. The number eleven under which in its septenaries the Society passes is that of ‘increase, generation, multiplication, because with the possession of two units we arrive at the multiplication of things.... the Astral Light and the number of force, contest, martyrdom’.^{^[114]}

If then the Law of Cycles thus operates upon societies and the meanings attributed to numbers are correct, the numerical significance of the seventieth birthday of The Theosophical Society, in which ten septenaries and seven decades came to an end, is that it constitutes doubly the culmination of a creative cycle, the approach of a ‘Judgment Day’ and a transition into a new but repetitive epoch. From now onwards The Theosophical Society will most probably display in cyclic order some of the characteristics of the first seventy years, the successive septenates and decades showing correspondences with their predecessors.

The outstanding characteristic of the first ten years was the initiation and close, personal, even physical direction of the Society by its two Adept Founders and other Mahatmas. Since its subsequent record of work done for the welfare of humanity is a fine record, and since Theosophy has increasingly permeated human thought, a further and even a new occult impetus may reasonably be expected to be added to that which for seventy years has not failed to be given to the Society by its true Founders and Their Mighty Brethren, including Those of the Egyptian Section of the Great White Lodge.

At the beginning of the Society’s life, the activities of the Second Object were prominent. They will probably again be accentuated. The religions of the past as well as of the present will be more deeply investigated, and their chief doctrines, allegories, symbols and mysteries interpreted. Doctrinal parallelisms will be shown. The existence of the One Wisdom Religion behind and within them all will be pointed out, and demonstrated to be none other than the Theosophy of today. As in Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, so in new works, the occult concepts and philosophic doctrines of the ancients will doubtless be indicated and compared, so that humanity may be uplifted above its present religious exotericism, intolerance and disunity. An added impetus to the movement towards denominational and religious unity may well be expected.

Thus already from this study of cycles in the life of the Society, a most useful indication is received. Accentuation of the work of the Second Object is now probable and would succeed if embarked upon. Cyclic law apart, a further unveiling of the mystery teaching in world scriptures and co-operation between world faiths would confer immense benefits upon mankind, is indeed an urgent necessity if world unity is to be achieved and a third world war avoided.

As again today, mediumistic activity was very great at the time of its founding. The Masters attempted to turn spiritualistic thought away from phenomena to the philosophy behind and to the study of Occult Science. A repetition of Theosophical intervention in this field is therefore to be expected in the near future. Members of The Theosophical Society are therefore well advised to study and contribute to the direction of human thought and the advance of human knowledge concerning mediumship, psychism and parapsychology. Some support for this view is provided by the remarkable work of Dr J. B. Rhine of Duke University and of other investigators, and the appearance of two valuable books: Paranormal Cognition by Dr L. J. Bendit and The Psychic Sense by Phoebe Payne, both members of the Society. Thus to some extent already the first septenary and decade are being repeated.

Theurgy, magic, practical occultism were markedly characteristics of the first ten years of the life of The Theosophical Society. Doubtless there will again be magic, though of an special order, designed and selected for the work to be done. For despite the shocks of war and its concomitants, the world-mind still needs to be startled, arrested and, if possible, directed towards the study of occult, philosophical and spiritual truths.

The Founders were disciples of the Masters, as were some of their co-workers. Many members of The Theosophical Society sought and found their Master’s feet. The ideal of the Path is therefore almost certain to be publicly advanced and accepted by increasing numbers in the new cycle. The appeal, as ever, will be not only ethical and of the heart, but equally intellectual and of insight and power of service to be gained. The worthy among the numerous occult societies and orders now active in the world might possibly receive some form of both unification and stimulation. A great cleansing of Western civilization from false, commercialized occultism with its incitements to grey and black magic is undoubtedly greatly needed and may also be undertaken in the near future. Here, too, great work awaits present-day members of The Theosophical Society. For the Path promises to be the true religion of the new world order and occult science its esoteric heart.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 36, Issue 6, June 1948, p. 121

89
Seven and Ten Year Cycles in The Society's Life

(This is the second of four articles on the cyclic law in the life of The Theosophical Society)

The operation upon The Theosophical Society [T.S.] of the Law of Cycles was frequently referred to by the Masters in Their letters to A. P. Sinnett. While this has been productive of occult and psychological effects, objective physical results are also discernible. There is historical evidence of the functioning upon and within The Theosophical Society of cyclic law. While some important events, like the deaths of the Founders [H. P. Blavatsky and H. S. Olcott], Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater did not occur at such times, many other events of great significance including the death of Dr Arundale did so occur.

Here is a list of some of the events which occurred at successive seventh years:

1875. The Theosophical Society is founded and its first rules drawn up. Remarkable mediumistic phenomena in U.S.A. Individual Adepts appear astrally and physically to the Founders. Members of the Brotherhood of Luxor assist. H.P.B. [H. P. Blavatsky] begins writing Isis Unveiled in the summer under Adept inspiration. Also ordered to explain that mediumistic phenomena were produced by elementaries and not by human spirits, i.e. the monad-Egos of deceased people.

1882. Apostasy of and attack upon the Founders and T. S. by Swami Dayanand. Founders meet Subba Row; see and purchase Adyar. H. S. Olcott [H.S.O.] performs much healing. H.P.B. healed by the Masters in Sikkim. A. P. Sinnett receiving letters from the Masters and begins writing The Occult World and its successors. The Phoenix venture to free India followed.

1889. H.S.O. tours Japan. H.P.B. publishes The Key to Theosophy and develops The Theosophical Society in England and France. The Secret Doctrine published. Annie Besant [A.B.] joins The Theosophical Society and lives with H.P.B. in London. C. W. Leadbeater [C.W.L.] and C. Jinarajadasa leave Ceylon for London.

1891. Intermediate date: Death of H.P.B.

1896. Revision of Rules. Olcott Panchama Free School established and visited by Governor of Madras. Judge accusations and claims culminate in secession of American lodges.

1903. G. S. Arundale and Miss Francesca Arundale arrive in Banaras. Work of Madame A. Kamensky established in Russia. World travels of H.S.O. Great progress of T.S. in America, Europe and India.

1907. Intermediate date: Death of H. S. Olcott. Election of Annie Besant as president.

1910. New cycle of occult research. Ideas concerning sixth sub race and Root Race promulgated, chiefly by A.B. and C.W.L. Extension of Adyar Estate and building of Leadbeater Chambers. Idea advanced of the coming of a world teacher. At the Feet of the Master published. Annie Besant at work in India in educational, Boy Scout, Home Rule and other movements.

1917. Annie Besant elected President of Indian National Congress.

(a) Celebration in the Queen’s Hall, London of Annie Besant’s fifty years of public activity.

1931. H.P.B. Centenary celebrated. International Convention dedicated to the Founders.

1938. G. S. Arundale founds and edits Conscience, appeals for Indian unity and freedoms; writes The Lotus Fire. First volume of Where Theosophy and Science Meet under editorship of D. D.Kanga published.

1945. Death of G. S. Arundale. Election of C. Jinarajadasa as president. Events which have occurred at tenth years in the life of the Society are:

1875. The founding of the Society and writing of Isis Unveiled.

1885. The Coulomb Conspiracy reaches its culmination. Hodgson publishes adverse reports on H.P.B. Establishment of Adyar Library first suggested. H.P.B. leaves for Europe and begins to write The Secret Doctrine.

1895. Secession of American Section.

1905. The Theosophical Society registered as an incorporated body. Headquarters buildings at Adyar and The Theosophist transferred to the Society. Olcott Panchama Schools incorporated. A.B. lectures throughout India.

1915. Madras Parliament formed by A.B. Madanapalle College opened. C.W.L. in Australia and New Zealand.

(a) Golden Jubilee Convention at Adyar. Message from an Elder Brother given. A.B. urges support for the Commonwealth of India Bill. The Masters and the Path published.

1933/4. Intermediate dates: Death of Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater.

1935. G. S. Arundale, as president, issues and works for Seven Year Plan and the development of Adyar. Mr Jinarajadasa travels extensively in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South America. Diamond Jubilee Convention at Adyar. Srimati Rukmini Devi begins cultural activities.

1945. Death of G. S. Arundale. Election of Mr C. Jinarajadasa as president.

The character of these past events, occurring at seventh and tenth years, varied considerably. Some were favourable to the movement and some unfavourable. From their occurrence and the repetition of activities at seventh and tenth years it may, I think, fairly be deduced that a cyclic law has been, is now and therefore will continue to be at work in the outer life of The Theosophical Society. Since, in addition, the Masters affirmed the fact for the early years, the law may safely be used as a guide in the present and in the future, and as an aid to the comprehension of the Masters’ plan and desired activities.

What then of the present and of the future?

November 17, 1945 was a doubly significant date. The closing dates of ten-year and seven-year cycles in the life of The Theosophical Society for the first time coincided. Two closed and two new cycles opened of seven and ten years duration. At the same time the first major cycle of ten sevens and seven tens of years closed and the second opened. November 17, 1945 will, therefore, have brought transition into both minor and major dispensations. The wheel has come full circle. Interesting and even dramatic events may conceivably occur.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 36, Issue 7, July 1948, p. 153

90
The Approaching Last Quarter of the Century

(This is the third of four articles on the cyclic law in the life of The Theosophical Society)

The last quarter of centuries is stated to be a period in which a special effort to assist humanity is made by the Great White Brotherhood. Although these efforts cannot easily be traced further back than the fourteenth century, evidence of them in succeeding centuries is readily discernible.

In 1375 Christian Rosenkreuz appeared in Europe and, accentuating the influence of the Third and Seventh Rays, is said to have founded the original Rosicrucian Society, though no knowledge of the event reached the world for two hundred years after the supposed death of the founder. In 1475 the Italian Renaissance was initiated, bringing to Europe the special influence of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Rays. A Platonic Academy was founded at Florence in 1480 by Marsilius Feccinus. A mystic order, Frates Lucis, was also established in Florence in 1498. Leonardo da Vinci and Paul Veronese, amongst other great men of the time, were evidently very advanced souls.

In 1575, Francis Bacon accentuated the influence of the Third, Fifth and Seventh Rays. He reconstituted the English language by editing and assisting in the translation of the Bible, and by inspiring much of the splendid Elizabethan literature. He also laid the foundations of modem science, and of the Royal Society which was formed in 1662. His New Atlantis is said to have exercised a great influence upon the Freemasonry of the time. It also affected the institution of the Society of Astrologers of which Elias Ashmole, founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford and a Freemason, was a leading member. In 1775 the Comte de St Germain appearing amongst men did great Seventh Ray work through continental Masonry and other secret societies but was frustrated in his apparent national purpose of preventing the French Revolution.

Academic Secrets, a society for the advancement of the natural sciences and their application to occult philosophy, was instituted in Warsaw in 1767 by M. Thoux de Salverte. An Academy of Sages existed in Sweden in 1770, its doctrines based on The New Atlantis by Bacon. The Academy of the Sublime Masters of the Luminous Ring was founded in France in 1780 by Baron Blaerfmdy. It was dedicated to the philosophy of Pythagoras. The Academy of True Masons was founded at Montpelier in 1778 and was occupied with instructions on Hermetic Science.^{^[115]}

In 1875 came H.P.B. [H. P. Blavatsky] to whom certain Adepts temporarily materialized. As in the preceding century, it would seem that one apparent part of the purpose of the effort of the last quarter of the nineteenth century was not fulfilled; for although the notes of the Unity of Life and the Brotherhood of Man were powerfully sounded forth by The Theosophical Society, and the debacle of the two World Wars foreseen and foretold in The Secret Doctrine, (Vol. II, page 371, Adyar Edition), the pre servation of world peace did not prove possible.

The attributes of the First, Second and Third Rays were, however, successfully employed to found and sustain The Theosophical Society and to deliver a fragment of occult philosophy to the world.

The last quarter of the twentieth century is less than thirty years away. The year 1975 will be especially significant, for it will be both the centenary of The Theosophical Society and the period at which the Great Brotherhood makes its particular effort to aid humanity. Furthermore, the Dark Powers will have had time to find and try to inflame new national agents through whom to plunge the world into a third world war. The World Charter of 1945 will either have been successfully implemented or successfully betrayed. For both The Theosophical Society and the world, therefore, this promises to be a critical and remarkable epoch. A messenger or messengers from the Great White Brotherhood are almost certain again to appear amongst men and with him, her or them will also come many great souls, some of them perhaps reincarnations of famous historical figures. At that time, both Theosophy and The Theosophical Society may be expected to assume great added significance in the eyes of the world. If the present efforts to produce and fully implement a charter of rights for all mankind have by that time reached a great fulfilment, then under Adept guidance, secret or overt, a permanent world federation, a functional unity of all world states, may become firmly established.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 36, Issue 8, August 1948, p. 178

91
The Call to Unity

(This is the fourth of four articles on the cyclic law in the life of The Theosophical Society)

Primarily an occult organization, founded by occultists for occult purposes, The Theosophical Society is very susceptible both to cyclic mutations, repetitions, progressions, and to organized attacks. As a very powerful agency for the Great White Brotherhood, and as a light bringer to man, it inevitably draws upon itself the continuous enmity of the Dark Powers. As the dates of the various attacks upon and shakings from within The Theosophical Society indicate, these are cyclic, following a distinct pattern and will doubtless continue to do so. Temporarily and partially defeated in the international field, the Dark Powers will indubitably seek further success with nations, movements, groups and individuals.

Unity within the theosophical movement is the best defence against the forces of disunity attacking from without and within. In such circumstances, to close the ranks is the essential procedure. The Society began as a unit seven tens of years ago. At the opening of the new cycle to this unity it could now most profitably return. An appeal, therefore, to all Sections and to all members of The Theosophical Society to draw still more closely together in unity and harmony of purpose and effort is implicit in both the present world situation and its own newly opened life cycle.

The individual members of The Theosophical Society, the group or Section which deliberately fosters disunity at this critical period in Theosophical and world history is an enemy both of the Theosophical Cause and of humanity. The ranks need to be closed and the world wide activities co-ordinated. Then the whole brotherhood of members of The Theosophical Society can move forward together to play its theosophical part in shaping the New World Order. Woe be to him or her who at this most critical time in world history deserts the sacred cause of human unity, attacks vindictively brother Theosophists, seeks to establish personal prestige and position at the expense of the unity of the Movement.

Actions in the earlier cycles deprived the Society of almost entire Sections. History does repeat itself and the danger that serious disunity could cause further Theosophical dismemberment cannot be wholly discounted. This must not happen. Unity of action and expansion of activity must be the essential keynotes of the opening and development of the second era of seventy years in the life of The Theosophical Society as they were of the opening of the first. The last remaining thirty years of the first hundred years of the life of the Society must above all be marked by harmonious co-operation throughout the whole movement. We, Theosophists, all have ears. Let us hear the message of history; let us be guided by the Law of Cycles.

An immense and immediate need, nay an imperative demand, exists for such work as we, Theosophists, and our Society can perform. Expansion of activity in every direction, outer and inner, must mark the new phase. The application of Theosophy to every aspect of human life must be the special characteristic of the next seventy years. A dynamic presentation of Theosophy and its practical application to the solution of world, national, and individual problems must continue to be made, as it has already been so magnificently made by many great Theosophists. Self-disciplined, self-trained and self-illumined men and women will be needed for this great task. Unequalled is the opportunity of the present for both occult development and outer activity under the direction of the Masters. We enter upon a new and great age, and one, moreover, in which Theosophy and The Theosophical Society must come to the forefront of human life.

The pioneers have prepared the ground and sown the seeds. The time both of harvesting and of replanting is upon the Society; for, with the threat of war receding, men can march forward together to greater attainment than ever before in both material and spiritual directions. The call of the future is already sounding forth now that The Theosophical Society has stepped across the threshold between its first and its second seventy years. It is the call to unity of action as Theosophists and to expansion as a Society, until, as in olden days, the One Wisdom Religion is once more acknowledged over all the earth.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 36, Issue 9, September 1948, p. 200

92
Seventy Years Young [1]

The history and development of The Theosophical Society is, and for active FT.S. [Fellows of the Theosophical Society] will continue to be, an interesting and illuminating study. The Society is now completing the seventieth year of its existence. It appears to have passed through at least two chief phases and its members to have used three distinct approaches to the study, acceptance, and presentation of Theosophy.

The two chief phases which I think are discernible in the life of The Society up to the present are, first, the unveiling of a fragment of the Wisdom Religion, chiefly but not entirely during the lifetime of Madame Blavatsky, and, second, the expansion and the practical application of that fragment to international and national affairs, to world religion, education, and social reform.

The three chief approaches which have been made by F.T.S. to Theosophy up to the present might be named, first, the strictly scientific or ‘doctrineless’, in which no idea, even though of Mahatmic origin, is to be regarded as established fact until its truth has been objectively demonstrated; second, the ‘scriptural’ in which Mahatmic teachings, whether by letter or through H.P.B. [Helena P. Blavatsky], are accorded biblical authority and finality; and third, the ‘doctrinal’, which is marked by both intellectual assent and intuitive, interior experience of Theosophical doctrines. In addition, direct occult research has been carried out by a small number of those who employ this third approach.

First, The Unveiling

Of the two phases, the first was publicly opened by the writing and publication of Isis Unveiled. Concerning the process of the production of this work, Colonel Olcott, chief historian of this phase, writes as follows:

Then, whence did H.P.B. draw the materials which compose Isis, and which cannot be traced to accessible literary sources of quotation? From the Astral Light, and, by her soul senses, from her Teachers — the “Brothers”, “Adepts”, “Sages”, “Masters”, as they have been variously called. How do I know it? By working two years with her on Isis and many more years on other literary work’ (Old Diary Leaves, First Series, 208).

‘Most perfect of all were the manuscripts that were written for her while she was sleeping. The beginning of the chapter on the civilization of Ancient Egypt (vol. I, chap. xiv) is an illustration. We had stopped work the evening before at about 2 a.m. as usual, both too tired to stop for our usual smoke and chat before parting; she almost fell asleep in her chair while I was bidding her good-night, so I hurried off to my bedroom. The next morning, when I came down after my breakfast, she showed me a pile of at least thirty or forty pages of beautifully written H.P.B. manuscript, which, she said, she had had written for her by — well, a Master, whose name has never yet been degraded like some others. It was perfect in every respect, and went to the printers without revision.

‘Now it was a curious fact that each change in the H.P.B. manuscript would be preceded, either by her leaving the room for a moment or two, or by her going off into the trance or abstracted state, when her lifeless eyes would be looking beyond me into space, as it were, and returning to the normal waking state almost immediately. And there would also be a distinct change of personality; or rather personal peculiarities, in gait, vocal expression, vivacity of manner, and, above all, in temper’ (Op. cit., 211-212).

‘She has herself described in a family letter . . . her psychical experience while writing her book: “When I wrote Isis I wrote it so easily, that it was certainly no labour, but a real pleasure. Why should I be praised for it? Whenever I am told to write, I sit down and obey, and then I can write easily upon almost anything, metaphysics, psychology, philosophy, ancient religions, zoology, natural sciences, or what not. I never put myself the question: ‘Can I write on this subject’... or, ‘am I equal to the task?’ but I simply sit down and write. Why? Because somebody who knows all dictates to me. My Master, and occasionally others whom I knew on my travels years ago. ... I have hinted to you before now about them . . . and I tell you candidly, whenever I write upon a subject I know little or nothing of, I address myself to them, and one of them inspires me, i.e., he allows me to simply copy what I write from manuscripts, and even printed matter that pass before my eyes, in the air, during which process I have never been unconscious one single instant”.’ (Op. cit., 213-214).

This process of unveiling the Gnosis to modem man continued throughout the lifetime of H.P.B. and culminated in her day in the writing and publication of that monumental work The Secret Doctrine.

Despite the disclaimer in the Preface to the First Edition, The Secret Doctrine consists of verses from an entirely Occult Book, presumably available in its entirety only to the Mahatmas, and of commentaries thereon which only a very highly instructed occultist could have written.

A study of the life of H.P.B. reveals that while she possessed powers of direct investigation, her greater works were largely written under the inspiration of the Adepts; for, in addition to the above quotation, in The Mahatma Letters we find H.P.B. writing to Mr Sinnett: ‘I am at 47th Street, New York, writing Isis, and His voice dictating to me’ (Letter CXL).

Immeasurably great though the Mahatmic unveiling through letters and through H.P.B. proves to be, it is nevertheless described as fragmentary. Only a comer of the curtain which conceals the occult wisdom from the world is said to have been raised. Mr A. P. Sinnett made a unique contribution to this early phase. His fine mind and trained literary faculty enabled him to cast into a form comprehensible to western intelligence the teachings he received in letters, written mostly, it has been said, by pupils of the Adepts at Their direction.

During this first phase the essential duality of the life of The

Theosophical Society began to be apparent. The relatively exoteric work of revealing and promulgating philosophic doctrines, formulating terms, and establishing organizations was accompanied and largely inspired by esoteric activity. This concerned the occult life of certain individual F.T.S. who were admitted to the privilege of personal relationship with the Masters whether as pupils on probation, accepted disciples, or Initiates of the Greater Mysteries. Apparently no secret was made of the fact that both of the Founders enjoyed this privilege. Certain Hindu members, including T. Subba Row, Mohini Chatterji, and Ramaswamy Aiyer, whose vivid account of a physical meeting with the Master M, has been published, were acknowledged disciples of the Masters. Some members of the Inner Group, founded from London and the original nucleus from which the E.S. [Esoteric School] developed, were also admitted to the privilege of discipleship during the lifetime of H.P.B. Dr Besant and C. W. Leadbeater participated in this esoteric life of The Society, the Master K.H. [Kuthumi] informing Mr Leadbeater of his pupilhood by means of a letter which is extant. This occult activity, initiated by the Masters and H.P.B., has continued to the present day, though general references to individual attainment are less in evidence today than was apparently the practice in H.P.B.’s day.

Second, The Application

The second phase in the life of The Society of expansion and application to life of the first teachings overlapped considerably and ran concurrently with the first. In those days, it was contributed to chiefly by H.P.B. herself, also by Colonel Olcott, A. P. Sinnett, Mohini Chatterji, T. Subba Row, and Dr Anna Kingsford. In addition to a knowledge of Hindu, Buddhist and Hermetic philosophy, these F.T.S. were themselves possessed of powers of seership. In Subba Row’s case both knowledge and faculty were said by Colonel Olcott to be regained from a former life. In ‘A Sketch of the Life of the late T. Subba Row’ by Colonel Olcott, appearing in A Collection of Esoteric Writings, we read: ‘It was as though a storehouse of occult experience long forgotten had been suddenly opened up to him: recollection of his last preceding birth came in upon him: he recognized his Guru, and thenceforward held intercourse with him and other Mahatmas;... His stored-up knowledge of Sanskrit literature came back to him, and his brother-in-law told me that if you would recite any verse of Gita,

Brahma-Sutras or Upanishads, he could at once tell you whence it was taken and in what connection employed’.

When C. W. Leadbeater entered The Society the Master D. K. (stated to be at that time an Arhat), H.P.B., and Subba Row instructed him in occult science and practice. Under their direction and doubtless that of his own great Master, he in his turn gradually both recovered knowledge of his past incarnations and developed the power of occult research. In this experience he was later joined by Dr Besant, and, these two continued and extended the second phase. They contributed a wealth of new Theosophical literature founded both on instructions from the Masters and their own direct investigations. After deep study of the original teachings and of the philosophies of Hinduism and Buddhism as well as of those of Egypt and Greece, these two great pioneers made a long series of investigations into Cosmogony, the superphysical worlds and human vehicles and states of consciousness therein. The Theosophical Manuals, Occult Chemistry, Man Visible and Invisible, Thought-Forms, A Study in Consciousness, proved to be forerunners of a series of most valuable books expanding the original teachings. Dr Besant and C. W. Leadbeater also initiated and led many experiments in the application of Theosophy to world problems and activities.

An interesting record of the early stages of this phase occurs in G. R. S. Mead’s Did Jesus Live 100 B.C. ? In his scholarly investigations into Christian origins, Mead sought the aid of occult students of his acquaintance, amongst whom was C. W. Leadbeater. Of these researches Mead writes:

‘It has been my good fortune — for so I regard it — to know a number of people who have their subtler senses, to a greater or less degree, more fully developed than is normally the case, and also to be intimate with a few whose power of response to extra-normal ranges of impression, vibration, or stimulation . . . , is highly developed. These latter are my personal friends, whom I have known for many years, and with whom I have been most closely associated. From long knowledge of their characters, often under very trying circumstances, I have no reason to believe they are trying to deceive me, and every reason to believe in their good faith. . .

‘But such explanation [of thought-reading and imaginative dramatization as accounting for clairvoyance] seems somewhat feeble to one who, like myself, has taken down laboriously dictated passages from MSS., described, for instance as written in archaic Greek uncials—MSS. the contents of which, as far as I am aware, are not known to exist — passages laboriously dictated letter by letter, by a friend whose knowledge of the language extended hardly beyond the alphabet. Occasionally gaps had to be left for certain forms of letters, with which not only my colleague, but also myself, were previously entirely unacquainted; these gaps had to be filled up afterwards, when, the matter was transcribed and broken up into words and sentences, which turned out to be in good construable Greek, the original or copy of which, I am as sure as I can be of anything, neither my colleague nor myself had ever seen physically. Moreover, I have had dates and information given by these methods which I could only verify afterwards by long and patient research, and which, I am convinced; no one but a widely read scholar of classical antiquity could have come across’ (Op. cit., pp. 18-19, 22-23).

Fruits of Occult Research

The fact is noteworthy that when Dr Besant and C. W. Leadbeater published under their own names the fruits of their occult researches, they were very careful to distinguish between their proffered ideas and the teachings of the Adepts. They unfailingly insisted that their work was experimental, human, limited, and in no sense of Mahatmic authority. C. W. Leadbeater defines this attitude to his own investigations and ideas in his book applying Theosophical teachings to Christian doctrines and practice, The Science of the Sacraments:

‘Humbly following in the footsteps of the mighty Indian teacher of2,500 years ago, the Lord Buddha, we would say to you what he said to the people of the village of Kalama when they came and asked him what, amid all the varied doctrines of the world, they ought to believe:

‘Do not believe in a thing merely because it is said; nor in traditions because they have been handed down from antiquity; nor in rumors, as such; nor in writings by sages, merely because sages wrote them; nor in fancies that you may suspect to have been inspired in you by an Angel (that is, in presumed spiritual inspiration); nor in inferences drawn from some haphazard assumption you may have made; nor because of what seems an analogical necessity; nor on the mere authority of your own teachers or Masters. But we are to believe when the writing, doctrine or saying is corroborated by our own reason and consciousness. For this I have taught you, not to believe merely because you have heard; but when you believe of your own consciousness, then to act accordingly and abundantly’ (Kalama Sutta of the Anguttara Nikaya).

‘That is a fine attitude of the teacher of any religion to take, and that is precisely the attitude we wish to take. We are not seeking for converts in the ordinary sense of that word. ... We have found this philosophy useful to us; we have found it helps us in difficulties, that it makes life easier to bear, and death easier to face, and so we wish to share our gospel with you. We ask no blind faith from you; we simply put this philosophy before you and ask you to study it, and we believe that if you do so you will find what we have found — rest and peace and help, and the power to be of use in the world’ (op. cit., 2nd Edition, pp. 663, 664, 665).

‘The present and third President, Dr G. S. Arundale, has continued this phase of direct research. Amongst his numerous works, The Lotus Fire, founded upon the Secret Doctrine, but otherwise the product of his own direct illumination, takes its place as one of the immortal classics of Theosophical literature.

The awakening and use as a means of occult research of the powers of the higher consciousness and of trained clairvoyance is so unique and so significant a characteristic of the contribution to world-thought made by The Theosophical Society that it justifies a brief digression from the direct path of history. The exercise of clairvoyance as an instrument of research and the publication of the results would appear to have its advantages and disadvantages, both of which have already been apparent in the history of The Society. The advantages are primarily the maintenance of a fluidic and expanding view of Theosophy, so that the original teachings tend less to be crystallized into fixed dogmas. A second advantage has been the encouragement of members to seek their own direct realization. In fact, large numbers of F.T.S. have been inspired by the lives and teachings of the great occult investigators in The Theosophical Society to seek the way of knowledge by an ascetic mode of life, high aspiration and constant service similar to their own.

Liberty of Thought

One result of this advantage has been to produce in The Society not only a number of self-illumined and unshakeably loyal men and women, but also a number for whom certain of the basic teachings of Theosophy and the existence of the Masters of the Wisdom are experienced facts. This inner certitude is well expressed in a recent letter to the members of the New Zealand Section from its General Secretary, Miss E. Hunt: ‘We have reason to believe intensely in the guidance of the Elder Brethren who founded this Society that it might be a channel for potent forces needed in this century’.

This attainment of direct realization and intuitive perception by a large number of its members has enabled The Society to withstand every one of its severe shakings from within and the many attacks made from within and without, both of which apparently are essential factors in its development into an ever more perfect instrument. As long as this mystical life of interior realization, so marked at the present time, continues to be a characteristic of The Society it will live. If it dies out, which is unthinkable, then The Society could die. For there would be nought left but the activity of the analytical, critical mind, which, left to itself, inevitably places the intuition in eclipse. Under such a condition, discordant wrangling concerning both personalities and doctrines, attack and abuse of those holding different views, would tend to arise, destroying the dignity and the co-ordination of effort essential to the success of any great work.

The chief disadvantage of the publication of the fruits of occult research is that a tradition might be formed, an orthodoxy develop, which, because of its purely human origin, could limit the field of Theosophical inquiry. Furthermore, where later teachings seem to disagree with earlier, and still later statements differ from either or both, conflict could arise between the protagonists of the various views. This disadvantage is obviously foreseen by the present General Council, which with every issue of the international magazine, the theosophist, does its best to minimize the possibility. Their statement reads;

‘Their [F.T.S.] bond of union is a common search and aspiration for Truth. They hold that Truth should be sought by study, by reflection, by service, by purity of life, and by devotion to high ideals. They hold that Truth should be striven for, not imposed by authority as a dogma... it is thought desirable to emphasize the fact that there is no doctrine, no opinion, by whomsoever taught or held, that is in any way binding on any member of The Society, none which any member is not free to accept or reject.... No teacher or writer, from H. P. Blavatsky downwards, has any authority to impose his teachings or opinions on members. Every member has an equal right to attach himself to any teacher or to any school of thought which he may choose, but has no right to force his choice on another. . . . The Members of the General Council earnestly request every member of The Theosophical Society to maintain, defend and act upon these fundamental principles of The Society, and also fearlessly to exercise his own right of liberty of thought and of expression thereof, within the limits of courtesy and consideration of others’.

‘Forward with Blavatsky’

Despite this appeal by the General Council and this attitude and practice by the majority of F.T.S. — and here a return is made to the path of history with which actually the digression is intimately associated — the disadvantage referred to has not been entirely avoided, as stated above. There has long been a group of F.T.S., following what I have ventured to name the scriptural approach, who do not favour the later teachings. They prefer to study and teach almost exclusively the writings of Madame Blavatsky and the doctrines propounded, largely, it is said, by pupils of the Masters, in The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett.

Those who favour this view — and fortunately every F.T.S. at present enjoys doctrinal freedom — gave to The Society the term ‘Back to Blavatsky’. This accentuation of the importance of original teachings can be of considerable service to the general Theosophical Movement which now exists and is active both within and without the Parent Society. If the term is a reminder of the necessity of making constant reference, as to a touchstone, to H.P.B.’s writings, it is a useful term. If, however, it implies a scriptural authority for those writings it would seem to be contrary to the Theosophical spirit of free inquiry. If it further implies either going backwards, or limiting Theosophical study and research to those writings, then one conceives that the term could be harmful to the growth of The Theosophical Society; for, in common with all living creations, if it is to endure, The Society must above all things be an intensely dynamic and constantly expanding organization. The individual student’s conception of Theosophy itself must in its turn ever become wider and deeper as his studies progress.

Perhaps the term referred to might be modified to ‘Forward with Blavatsky’, as the present President has suggested. A reminder both of the necessity for constant reference to H.P.B. and of the importance of a flexible outlook is given in this modified term. Amongst his many other and varied gifts, The Society is indebted to its present President for a succession of dynamic ideas and terse utterances. Amongst these is the phrase: ‘Forward with Blavatsky’.

As far as the present writer can discover, and in the period between the two world wars, he has visited most of the Sections and lodges of The Theosophical Society throughout the world, the present membership in its entirety reveres Madame Blavatsky as the inspired channel through which the first revelations of Theosophy in modem times were made. They are, however, for the most part, also ready to study and, when convinced, adopt the teachings of her pupils and successors. Where reason and intuition dictate, many have come to regard them and the movements arising from them as valuable developments and expansions of the original revelation.

Such, briefly, would appear to be the second and present phase of the life of the T.S. It is marked by direct research and interior realization on the part of members and by the application of Theosophy to politics, education, world religions and social reform. The nature of a possible third and of succeeding phases is an interesting subject for speculation. Doubtless a third will develop as naturally out of the second phase as that has done from the first.

The Theosophist, Vol. 66, May 1945, p. 58

93
Seventy Years Young [2]

First Approach-Impersonal

Consideration of the three approaches to Theosophy evident in The Society today also proves interesting and instructive. At the beginning of the article these were referred to for convenience as the ‘doctrineless’, the ‘scriptural’ and the ‘doctrinal’.

The first of these presents the extreme of fluidity and assumes towards Theosophical doctrines the detached, experimental attitude of the scientist. Apparently, though not denied, the Mahatmic origin of the early teachings is regarded as unproven. Objective demonstration of any affirmation is held to be essential to acceptance. One of the protagonists of this approach writes as follows:

‘. . . in going carefully through Doctor Arundale’s Appeal, [for ideas concerning the Theosophical contribution to the postwar world] I am impressed with two things. First, his predilection for the kind of Theosophy which he himself thinks should be applied, and second, his expressed willingness as President, possibly out of respect to the constitution of The Society, to consider at the International Convention at Adyar, views and suggestions that may differ entirely from his own...

‘Take ... the way he [Dr Arundale] recommends a study of the Theosophical classics, especially the works of H.P.B. [Helena P.

Blavatsky] as fountainheads of Theosophy. But what is to happen to those members who do not so regard them? Are they to resign or what? And then as regards the chief classic of The Society, The Secret Doctrine, it is well known that many portions of this were communicated to H.P.B. by those whom she thought of as Masters. Doesn’t this rather go to show that Madame Blavatsky was more a very remarkable medium than an original thinker? . . . Have we any proof, for instance, that those whom H.P.B. regarded as Masters ... have we any clear proof that these Personages had reached the stage in their evolution which entitled them to be called “Perfected Beings”? There must be myriads of such Beings in disembodied states. How do we know, for instance, that some of the “messages” and living thoughts to which H.P.B. gave expression, did not emanate from some of these Beings, and not from embodied personalities? ... I am suggesting . .. that the first thing The Society should do ... in order to play a worthy role in the post war world, is that of making a serious attempt to arrive at a general agreement as to the meaning of the term “Theosophy”, an agreement, I mean, that would rest not on any belief of doctrine, or anything written in a Theosophical classic but upon something that is demonstrable and universal. ... To be logical and consistent it (The Society) must not only profess an open and doctrineless platform; it must also take pains to invite and encourage the expression of views amongst its members that are known to be at variance with those held by some of the Leaders, always provided, of course, there is courtesy of expression and evidence of a genuine search for that which is real and abiding’. (Ernest Kirk, in The Theosophist, November 1943).

This ‘doctrineless’ view is attractive in that it insists upon the total absence of dogma and dogmatism in The Theosophical Society, thereby underlining the previously quoted statements of C. W. Leadbeater and the General Council. This freedom is all-important in the development of the still young Movement. For the study of past efforts to bring the Gnosis to man reveals the early establishment of both dogma and dogmatism, greatly to the detriment of those endeavours.

The ‘doctrineless’ approach, if followed to its logical limits, would seem, however, to raise the question of whether, outside of the secret occult schools, the scientific method of objective demonstration is applicable to metaphysics. One would be inclined to doubt whether philosophic and occult doctrines are susceptible of scientific demonstration out in the world. They may be interiorly experienced and so proven as facts to individual gnostics, but to those alone. Even then, such experience is said to remain both incommunicable and undemonstrable.

If, in the promulgation of Theosophy, exponents are to be limited to the scientific method when presenting philosophic doctrines, it seems questionable whether any public work could ever be done, any consolation and guidance to mankind be given. Yet the Mahatmas have defined as Their purpose in founding The Society ‘to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’. I write under correction, but to me it appears that the general adoption of the ‘doctrineless’ approach would seriously hinder the fulfilment of that purpose. However, should it ever gain general acceptance, time will demonstrate the practicability or otherwise of this view.

Authority of the Word

The ‘scriptural’ approach is the direct antithesis of the doctrineless. It would appear to appeal to those who so greatly revere the Adept Teachers and so deeply respect Their amanuenses, H.P.B. and other pupils, as almost to regard their revelations as final, unquestionable, axiomatic, ‘established standards of fact and truth, like the multiplication table, the dictionary, or Euclid’s elements’. For them, the Blavatsky writings and The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett apparently constitute the ‘faith once delivered to the fathers’. With the welfare of The Society sincerely at heart and in the interests of truth, all deviations from, or extensions of, the original teachings and attempts to apply and express them through the forms of the world religions, would seem to be regarded by them with grave misgivings.

Whilst the followers of both the ‘doctrineless’ and the ‘doctrinal’ approach — to be described directly — doubtless agree that all Mahatmic teachings should be received with profound respect, they would probably regard them less as final statements, as fixed limits deliberately imposed upon the members of The Theosophical Society, than as seed ideas offered to modern man as food for thought and especially as material for free inquiry and research. They would probably urge that the early teachings were not intended to represent either the whole or the final truth concerning the subjects with which they deal. They would presumably add that, in any case, these revelations passed in transit through human minds, that they must be transformed into human experience and therefore must ever be subjected to free examination. Support for this view is given in The Key to Theosophy, page 173, where we read:

^‘At present, the main fundamental object of The Society is to sow germs in the hearts of men. . .’

That this view reflects the outlook and purpose of the Masters Themselves is suggested by a perusal of The Mahatma Letters (page 339) where we read;

^'. . . The Theosophist’s duty is like that of the husbandman’s; to turn his furrows and sow his grains as best he can ’.

The Missionary Spirit

Those who favour a ‘doctrinal’ approach form the great majority of the present members of the Parent Society. This approach finds its leading representatives in the three successive International Presidents, and their co-workers, the present General Council, and those Section officers and members who are able harmoniously to accept their election by democratic means as representing the true spirit of The Theosophical Society. These members accept as foundations for study, experiment, and teaching all the originally unveiled doctrines. By annual celebrations they demonstrate that they deeply revere the distinguished services of the human founders and their immediate colleagues, whom they unfailingly associate with those Elder Brethren by whom they are believed to have been inspired.

These members would seem, however, to regard The Theosophical Society somewhat as a growing tree. They have welcomed and participated in the putting forth of successive branches, each carrying the Theosophical life and teaching in a particular direction. They would probably point to the healing work of Colonel Olcott, the adoption of the Buddhist faith by Madame Blavatsky and himself, and the official participation in the life and development of the Buddhist religion in Ceylon, Burma and Japan by Colonel Olcott as exemplifying and giving support for this view.

The application of Theosophy to religion has, in fact, taken impressive forms. Amongst them are the beautiful Hindu, Parsee,

Buddhist and Christian shrines of Adyar and their use by followers of those and other faiths. Colonel Olcott first placed figures and symbols representing world religions on the walls of the Headquarters Hall, exemplifying his view of The Society’s harmonious relation to and recognition of all Faiths. Liberal versions of established forms of worship have been compiled and followed, and during Conventions all delegates participate in the prayers of all religions. Religious tolerance can hardly find more splendid expression than in these examples which, in the author’s experience, were crowned on many occasions by the act of a Christian Bishop (C. W. Leadbeater) leading the recitation of the Buddhist Pancha Sila in splendidly sonorous Pali. No slightest sense of incongruity was felt at this remarkable demonstration of Theosophical leadership of the world towards a unity of world faiths.

Tree and Branches

Many members have in more recent times encouraged and assisted the budding and development of such branch activities as the New Education Fellowship and the various Theosophical schools, Co-Freemasonry, the Theosophical Order of Service, Brahma-vidyashrama, the Order of the Round Table, Kalakshetra, Liberal Catholicism, the New India, Advance Australia and Conscience activities, the Buddhist Lodge, the Jewish Lodge, the Christian Lodge and that special branch for the budding of which Madame Blavatsky under the direction of her Teacher was responsible, the Esoteric School. The Esoteric School is very highly treasured by its large number of members who find in it the requisite guidance for the fulfilment of their aspirations to become pupils of the Masters and Theosophical gnostics.

It is an historical fact that this practice of putting forth branches has been regarded by some members as an heretical divergence from an original program. The majority of members, however, regard the practice as welcome evidence of great vitality within the Parent Society and a very natural, not to say inevitable, development of its original activity. The existence of these two opposing views is an interesting phenomenon, and doubtless time will demonstrate their relative verity. Fortunately the freedom assured to every F.T.S. [Fellows of the Theosophical Society] permits both views to be held, promulgated within the limits of courtesy and put into practice. The respect which a true Theosophist naturally accords to philosophic views differing from his own is well expressed in these lines: ‘When a man does not keep step with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him keep step to the music he hears, however measured, or far away’.

Whilst ‘doctrineless’ Theosophy might possibly appear to some minds so fluidic as to be ineffective both in world affairs and in the promulgation of specific doctrines, and ‘scriptural’ Theosophy by comparison to appear somewhat static and likely to stultify the growth of The Society, those who might be termed ‘doctrinal’ Theosophists probably make effective missionaries. Indeed when one has the honour to meet them in Theosophical lodges throughout the world, one finds a great devotion, a splendid enthusiasm and much sacrificial service in the fulfilment of their self-appointed task of delivering Theosophy to modem man.

Where this devotion is matched, as it frequently is, by well directed intellectual activity, great Theosophists are produced and magnificent work is done. Mr E. L. Gardner of England is a splendid pattern and example of such a combination. His well-ordered, acute and philosophical mind and his years of deep study and exposition of The Secret Doctrine make of him a magnificent exponent of Theosophy. His two great books, The Web of the Universe and The Play of Consciousness, for which he was awarded the Subba Row medal, demonstrate this fact. But such members are somewhat rare, and there seems little doubt that the progress of The Society would be greatly hastened by the appearance in it of an increasing number of such deep students and exponents of the Sacred Science.

Cyclic Progress

In such matters, cyclic changes in the life of The Society are observable. During certain periods, study preponderates over activity and devotion, whilst at other times one of these is more in evidence. At present there would seem to be a movement towards a well-balanced expression of all three, although there is perhaps still room for a greater manifestation of the study aspect of Theosophical activity. Doubtless this will occur in its proper place in the ordered cyclic progress of The Theosophical Society.

Similarly, a harmonious blending of the three approaches to Theosophy, each contributing its special note to the common chord would seem to be the ideal. This typically Theosophical characteristic of unity in diversity has in its turn been graphically expressed by the present President in another of his fine phrases: ‘Together, differently’.

The importance of this call from the President may readily be seen. The second World War, now in its fifth year, may reasonably be expected to end within two years. From now onwards a very great opportunity presents itself to The Theosophical Society. This opportunity is to make a vital contribution to the planning of world peace and reconstruction. It is therefore of supreme importance that a measure of unity of action be achieved throughout The Theosophical Society. Whether doctrineless, scriptural, or doctrinal, in their approach, it surely behoves all F.T.S. to unite in the utmost endeavour to bring Theosophical guidance to a war stricken world. The President’s splendid ideal is doubtless prophetic, and the great strength of the Parent Society is that these three views, divergent as they are in some matters, can exist side by side without either the slightest contravention of principle or susceptibility to a charge of uncertainty of objective and absence of policy.

The ideal, so carefully and consistently sustained by the General Council, of freedom for all within the limits of courtesy one to another, of mutual tolerance and brotherhood, will surely go down in history as a magnificent example to the whole world. To hold and to promulgate divergent views is no offence in this unique brotherhood which is The Theosophical Society. To claim exclusive rightness and to display intolerance of the views of others and discourtesy in the expression of that intolerance would, however, be a breach of Theosophical principle. Since the present Society is composed of human beings, such breaches have occurred in the past, and it is of interest to note that the General Council has remained silent in their presence and that throughout his period of office the present President has consistently honoured the independence of outlook and honesty of purpose of all F.T.S. whatever their approach to Theosophy.

Under these present conditions of mutual tolerance, if for no other reason, The Theosophical Society is impregnable and indestructible. The British Commonwealth of Nations is a comparable but not an equal Institution. In the British Commonwealth of Nations, membership is still limited to certain peoples. The membership of The Theosophical Society is drawn from nearly every nation and is in no way restricted to those with particular racial affiliations.

Essentially The Theosophical Society is a world brotherhood, a living, working League of Nations. Its example to the world is at least equal in importance to it’s message. Example and message combined make of The Society a unique and powerfully formative institution in the modem world.

A New Cycle Opening

Thus in the seventieth year of its existence, the Adept-founded Theosophical Society is firmly and widely established on this planet. Seven decades or ten septenates have passed since its inception. It has come through many tests, has had many trials, but has emerged victorious. Clearly, it will continue as representative of the Adept Brotherhood and of the spirit of truth and selflessness in an unbrotherly, untruthful and selfish world.

A new cycle is about to open. It will coincide with the establishment of world peace. The Theosophical Society will enter upon a new phase which doubtless will have its correspondences with, and similarities to, the opening decade of seventy years ago. Both Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine constitute studies in comparative religion. It would therefore seem to be appropriate and important to accentuate the Second Object in the oncoming period and so fulfil one part of the very obvious purpose for which in its corresponding predecessor those two books were written and The Theosophical Society was founded. Lodges and members throughout The Society might well make collections and compilations of parallel passages, doctrines, symbols and allegories in each of the world faiths. From these the two most important facts of the essential unity of all world faiths and the continuous existence of the one Wisdom Religion on earth could be demonstrated and one of the great barriers to the fulfilment of the equally important First Object be removed, which is religious intolerance and divisions.

The Third Object must also receive due consideration and the recent advances in physics, psychical research, psychology and parapsychology provide unique opportunities for making the Theosophical contribution to those branches of science. Since, however, comparative religion was given so important a place in the first seven and first ten years of the life of The Society, it would seem appropriate that study and exposition of this subject should be especially accentuated in the forthcoming ‘rebirth’ of those two cycles of years.

Krishnamurti

Even a magazine article on the history of The Theosophical Society which made no reference to Krishnamurti would indeed be incomplete. Such reference could also be useful in correcting two widely publicized misconceptions. These are that Krishnamurti was ever authoritatively said in his own person to be the Messiah of modem times, and that the hopes expressed concerning him were not fulfilled.

The facts are that he was brought before the world as one to be overshadowed and inspired by the World Teacher, and that on many occasions he was so overshadowed and inspired. On at least two public occasions in the author’s own experience, in the presence of some three thousand people, Krishnamurti’s personality, voice and utterance underwent a remarkable sudden change, whilst at the same time an outpouring of spiritual power and blessing undeniably occurred. These unforgettable events happened in the years 1926 and 1927 at Ommen. Other similar overshadowings have also been recorded. On a great many more private occasions, such as talks with small groups and individuals, and even during ordinary social intercourse with friends, this remarkable overshadowing and illumination was wont to occur. On one occasion, a German child heard and repeated the substance of an address by Krishnamurti in English as if it had been given in his own tongue. On other occasions, members of the public in various Countries have affirmed their realization of the overshadowing presence of the Christ.

Thus the evidence accumulated that in very truth Krishnamurti was a being set apart for a great mission.

Krishnamurti himself and all intimately associated with him clearly knew this as a fact. For during these events, he himself changed the object of the Order of the Star in the East: ‘To prepare for the Great One whom the age awaits’ so as to read; ‘To draw together all those who believe in the presence of the World Teacher in the World’.

Thus from the writer’s own experience as a participant, from the testimony of very large numbers within and without The Theosophical Society, and from Krishnamurti himself and his many intimate colleagues it may be categorically stated that the remarkable prescience of those who foresaw the greatness of Krishnamurti whilst he was yet a child, who foresaw his mighty mission as a vehicle for the Embodiment of Wisdom and Love, was not at fault. The truth of their vision was demonstrated by many remarkable events.

Then the strange phenomenon of a change of mind occurred, for the understanding of which one would presumably need to look deep into the psychology of human nature. One does not, however, presume to pry into the inner recesses of the soul of so great a being as Krishnamurti; for that is hallowed and sacred ground. In his change of objective none has the right to pass judgement upon him. His life is his own and it is a cardinal Theosophical principle that in such a matter every man is free.

Before the change, Krishnamurti shed great light upon the mind of modem man. He is still relatively young. He has the ear of a world which, faced with the task of reconstruction, will greatly need the guidance which such a man as he still could give.

Here this review must end. As it is written, humanity stands upon the threshold of an age which will offer unique opportunities for the fulfilment of the sublime purpose of the Elder Brethren in founding The Theosophical Society: ‘To Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’.

The Theosophist, Vol. 66, June, 1945, p.

94
The Masters, The Theosophical Society and The World [1]

If we look out upon the world today, we see conditions which appear to be a direct antithesis of those which obtain within that august body known as the Great White Brotherhood. We are divided and at cross purposes; the Inner Government is one in action. We are self-seeking; They seek only to serve. We are in an apparent state of chaos. They dwell and work in perfect order.

Our place as individual Theosophists and as a Society may well be conceived of as midway between those two conditions; our task to display as much as possible of the harmonious inter-relationship, unity of action, self-giving and order, characteristic of the Great White Brotherhood, and as little as possible of the negation of those qualities, apparent in the outer world in which it is our Dharma to live. In the measure in which we can so stand between and link together these two antithetical orders of existence shall we be able to help the world in its present difficulties.

If one studies and meditates upon the Inner Government of the World one is struck by the order, the certainty, and the unity of action which characterize that great Inner Council. Order is perhaps the outstanding characteristic of such of Their activities as are normally observable. There is a plan for this planet, and They, perfectly comprehending it, work steadily through the centuries for its fulfilment. In this knowledge of, and guidance by a plan must lie in great measure the secret of Their power and of Their purposeful activities. Unity in action They also achieve, for however diverse Their temperament, however much They differ in Their point of view — and we are informed that They do differ — in action They are one.[116]

When therefore we turn from the contemplation of Their mighty Order to a consideration of conditions in our world and find, as I have said, the absence of a plan, the appearance of chaos and disunity, our place and our work become clear; our Dharma surely is to stand between as Their messengers, co-workers and representatives in the outer world, Herein I suggest lies the work of each one of us, the very humblest, newest and youngest Theosophist as much as our great President herself, whose life of magnificent service is such an example of the Dharma of the Theosophist rightly fulfilled.

The Great Plan, as far as my understanding goes, can only be worked out with the consent of man. Omnipotent as the Great Architect and Designer of the Plan is, potent as the Brotherhood is, humanity, whether as individuals or nations, cannot be driven to co-operate either with each other or with the higher Authorities. Humanity, it would appear, is never forced, however much it may be inspired. One of the objections brought to the idea of the existence of the Inner Government is ‘Why then do the Masters allow us to suffer, to make such mistakes, to be beset by pestilence and to drift into war? If They are guiding evolution from behind and within, why then the chaos of today?’ And the answer is that our achievement must always be our own.

It would not really help the schoolboy to pass his tests, if his teacher gave him direct the answer to every question. Humanity must grow steadily and gradually from chaos to order and freedom as the result of its own effort and experience. If the Great Ones were to come amongst us and, as They doubtless could, establish for us in some country or continent a model government and a perfect civilization, what would happen? The moment They withdrew Their guidance, the structure would collapse, as it did collapse in Atlantis, when from necessity They performed that very feat and afterwards permitted humanity to try to walk alone.

The Elder Brethren inspire the consciousness of man, stimulate his intuition, and even instruct him physically, but They leave him entirely free so far as conduct is concerned. So only can the germs of omnipotence develop into the complete manifestation of that attribute. And so humanity is free, and so also we are free in this, Their Society, to co-operate with Them, to work eagerly, to put vigour and enthusiasm into our Theosophical work or not, according to our choice. They know that it is for us as individuals to be moved from within to serve Them, not to be forced from without, and so it is, then, that both the Theosophical plan and the Great Plan depend very much upon voluntary human co-operation. The Masters do not drive us into a state of inter-relationship with Themselves or attempt to bring about phenomenally a particular kind of government and administration.

Although we are wisely left to grow, according to the inspiration of the life within us, the Masters do seek our co-operation, and wherever They get it in however small a degree, They use it in all its fullness. It has been said that for every step we take towards the Master, He takes two towards us, and so for every step that a member, Lodge, Federation or a National Society takes towards the members of the Great White Brotherhood, They take two towards him. As individuals and groups, our work, if we can but realize it, is to continue to take such steps, thereby drawing Them nearer to the world. Yet we are left free, there is no pressure. It is really a question of our intuition, how much awake we are spiritually to the significance of the time, how much alive we are to the remarkable opportunity of this incarnation.

If we try to look at it from the point of view of the Masters, try to envisage the difficulty They must have in touching the consciousness of man, we shall see the importance of our special relationship to the Elder Brethren. For the most part humanity is still engrossed in self, in separateness, in selfish pursuits. I am not discounting the magnificent people in the world, the splendid altruism, the noble philanthropy to be observed in every city and in every land; but on the whole, I fear, it must be admitted that we are still in the realm of selfishness, in-turned upon ourselves, and therefore practically unresponsive to Their Presence, Their inner appeal, and Their power playing about us. This automatically shuts Them out from our personal consciousness, because the Great Plan for this earth is the apotheosis of unselfishness; it is planetary, international in its motive and scope. It has little interest in the individual. The plan for this planet, as far as man is concerned, is an international plan. The Masters have said that it is the masses, the great ‘orphan humanity’ with which They are chiefly concerned.

People and nations who are still strongly individual offer an almost impassable barrier to the inflow of Their power, the shining through of Their light. And individuals and nations are only important to the Masters as They can help the Plan, and that it seems to me is our opportunity as Theosophists. Knowing Them and the Plan, and living in the world, we can serve as liaison officers, as connecting links between the Inner Government and the outer world. There are at least three essentials to our successful tenure of the office of connecting links between the world and the Great White Brotherhood.

They are, first: an awakened intuition to perceive the Masters’ wishes; secondly: a clear, impersonal and relatively trained mind to interpret our intuitions and Their wishes; and thirdly: a life of service based upon that interpretation.

The direction in which our thoughts and minds are habitually turned therefore becomes a matter of great importance. Where are our minds habitually turned? Can we respond to any impulse emanating from the Great White Brotherhood? They are broadcasting all the time up there; we ought to be the receivers with our bodies as loudspeakers in terms of action down here. We must tune in more and more to Their wavelength and try to live nearer to Their consciousness. In this connection I would suggest that we live nearer to the consciousness of the Brotherhood as a whole rather than to any individual Master. We must be strictly impersonal, and if we reach up and into the great ocean of the life and consciousness of the Inner Government of the World, we can hardly be personal and are therefore more likely to intuit correctly.

The world’s need today is very, very great. It is obviously a most critical, delicate situation in which we find ourselves. India and England, two great key nations, who, according to the Plan, should be living in amity, working in unity to give to the world the combination of ancient spirituality and culture and western modem practical virility and efficiency, are straining apart just now. There is danger to the world in that situation, although we are assured by our President, that, in spite of the danger, the Star of the KING shines over the situation, ‘the oriflamme of victory’. In the far East too there is danger, and on the continent of Europe the financial condition is steadily getting worse. There is so much talk of reparations and of getting, and so little of mutual aid in reconstruction and of world service; so much claiming of rights, so little readiness to fulfil duties, and nobody able to say with certainty what is going to happen next. Our opportunity as a Society at this moment seems to me to be extraordinarily great. We, with our rallying cry of the Universal Brotherhood of man, can render a service of almost incalculable value at this time, if we are alive to and take our opportunities. We ought to be able to influence the nations in the direction of brotherhood, unity and peace.

Because of this situation one feels that the Masters are seeking everywhere throughout the Society and the world for possible assistants. Our opportunity as individuals and as an organization is very great. Yet, we are left free — free in our intuition, free in our interpretation, free in action, and of course we shall always be left free. The moment any member begins to feel from his fellow members the slightest unwelcome pressure on his intuition, his thought, or his conduct, then the Society is not living up to its ideals. It is freedom that brought you and me into this Movement, and in it we are beginning to learn, very slowly, perhaps, the meaning of that mystic phrase: Tn His service is perfect freedom’, the full truth of which we shall ultimately discover. As our membership becomes more living, we shall learn that in Their service through this body there is a perfect freedom: freedom to perceive the work to be done, freedom to interpret that vision, freedom in our mode of conduct. We are only asked to be brotherly, to work in a family spirit as far as we can, and part of our work as members is steadily to improve our technique along the three directions of intuition, interpretation and service. In this way our Society may be placed in the forefront of human thought and action where it rightly belongs, since it is Divinely led.

The Theosophist, Vol. 53, May 1932, p. 153

95
The Masters, The Theosophical Society and the World [2]

As thus we live, a certain important principle in the spiritual life will begin to manifest itself through us, the principle of ‘attunement’. As the years of our active membership pass, we are gradually becoming attuned in every part of our nature to the vibration of Theosophy and of the Great White Brotherhood. Discovery of the Masters, which for many is the goal of membership, is entirely a matter of attunement. The individual who passes from this World into Theirs is not received there for any personal reason, but simply because the keynote of his nature is in such close harmony with Their keynote that the two are bound by mutual attraction to come together. One of the Masters has said ‘There is no impossibility to him who wills’; and again ‘First deserve, then desire intimacy with the Mahatmas’; and also, ‘Force a Master to take you as a disciple’. This is done by making one’s nature very much like His. Then the two keynotes or frequencies are so near together that, by the law of synchronous vibration or resonance the two combine. Steps in the Occult life are not personal matters so much as the result of the action of the law that like attracts like.

Here we see the importance of meditation and of prayer, of continually turning our thoughts towards the Great ones, and to the welfare of the world for which They live. The more our thoughts and feelings are purified, cleansed of personality and grossness, the more our lives are given in the service of the world, the more we shall become like Them. When we have become sufficiently like the Master in Egoic, mental, emotional and physical vibration to be able to stand in His presence and look into His eyes, the Master begins to help in the process of attunement. He directs the forces of His consciousness upon His new pupil, thereby strengthening those things in him which are like Himself and helping him to eradicate those which are unlike. A Master once defined discipleship as a psychic resolvent, which eats away all dross and leaves only the pure gold behind. The Master does not impose His rhythm upon His pupils at all; He merely stimulates in them the desirable qualities. Very often no words are used in such a mode of training. The Master causes to shine out in Himself a particular quality until He becomes for a moment, shall we say, the apotheosis of love, and because of the process of attunement and the law of resonance, universal love shines out as far as it possibly can in the pupil. For the time being, he is perfect in universal love, and afterwards he is never quite the same. And so with all the qualities of his nature until all are perfected.

Thus the Master fructifies the germs of all spiritual qualities in the pupil and launches him upon the ‘Path of Swift Unfoldment’. The whole process of finding the Master and sharing in His work is very much like that of a broadcasting and relay or ‘hook-up’ system. The Master is a mighty broadcasting station, sending out great symphonies, mighty epic poems into the Atmic, Buddhic, and Causal worlds, reflections of which by correspondences or harmonics reach the lower worlds of thought, feeling and action. He broadcasts continually resistless power, all-embracing love, and all-inclusive knowledge. His own triple perfected nature broadcasts on those three main wave-lengths throughout the centuries. As a Monad He broadcasts automatically by virtue of His Monadic life which is power made manifest. As an individual He improvises on those three themes, pouring out inspiration and illumination into the lower worlds.

Thus all over the world, from India, England, Central and Eastern Europe, Egypt, America, and from Tibet stations are ceaselessly at work broadcasting direct and through numerous relay stations. Every human Ego is to some extent a relay station in this world wide system, as well as a broadcasting station on its own account. The Theosophical Society is a whole system in itself, whilst dedicated servants and pupils of the Masters are especially useful parts of the organization. We know too that at certain great festivals, the Members of the Great White Brotherhood meet to broadcast as a whole, pouring out upon the whole planet and even to other worlds magnificent and potent broadcasts of quickening power, healing wisdom and illuminating truth. Sometimes august Visitants from other Globes share in this work and doubtless relay the results to Their own worlds. And throngs of mighty angels take up the messages, chant in unison with the Brotherhood till all worlds are filled with power, love and knowledge, and all men receive the stimulus towards goodness, beauty and truth.

Here and there the personalities of artists and philanthropists, preachers and statesmen begin to pick up echoes of these Monadic and Egoic broadcasts, and to relay them through their thoughts and dreams and work to their own World. And as they thus relay they grow, their capacity increases; their attunement becomes more perfect, so that more power, more love and more knowledge flow through to the World.

These personal broadcasts are always imperfect, always tuned by mind, emotion, body and brain away from the original, and are sometimes so distorted as to be almost unrecognizable. Here again an analogy from broadcasting may help us to understand and, therefore, to correct this error in our own efforts to relay the Masters’ broadcast to the world.

In order to render wireless messages unintelligible they are submitted to a process in transit, which is known technically as ‘scrambling’. This process was used recently in sending a message from London to New York. The message was ‘scrambled’ en route, mixed or broken up so as to be unintelligible to any ship for example which might pick it up out on the Atlantic Ocean. On arrival at New York, the scrambling process was reversed, the message ‘unscrambled’, so to say, received there in its original form, with the secrecy or privacy of the communication perfectly preserved.

Applying this to the transmission of messages from the Ego to the brain, one sees how in their passage through mind and emotion they may, and indeed all too often do, become ‘scrambled’, but in this case not purposely but accidentally. Sometimes a clear and well trained brain can ‘unscramble’ the messages, at least partially, if not perfectly.

Self-training and especially Occult training consists chiefly in the reduction of the ‘scrambling’ process to a minimum. Perhaps these analogies help us better to comprehend our great Elder Brethren, We see each of Them as mighty centres of will, wisdom and intelligence, radiating impersonal power, love and knowledge upon all life, all form. Perchance if we could question Them, They would probably say, though here we must be very careful: We in our turn are but relay stations, for there is but one Source, one broadcasting station in the universe, from which proceed eternally universal power, universal love universal light.

And That in Its turn, what is it? May it not be a receiving and relay station for cosmic power, love and intelligence, so that from the greatest possible heights, cosmic, universal, solar, Monadic, and Egoic, broadcasting on the three great wave-lengths creates, sustains, and transforms all worlds and all things living therein. The Elder Brethren have perfected the technique of reception and relaying. We who know of Them are beginning in our turn to broadcast with varying degrees of imperfection to the world; and the world, which is the audience, is listening in, we hope. I am afraid that is the trouble with the world, and very often with ourselves. They and we are not listening in. Almost wholly self-centred and material, as I said at the beginning, we do not listen in. The world is still so concerned with the opposites of spiritual will, love and intelligence that it is deaf to those eternal verities; so much concerned with the small self, that they do not hear or answer the universal Self as It speaks to them.

There is our work. We have to draw the attention of the world away from the material and the transient to the spiritual and the everlasting; to show mankind something far grander than the temporal possessions of the material world — those ‘treasures in heaven’ which are eternal, which none can hold for themselves, but can only share with all. We, Theosophists, through our Society, and through our lives, must help the ‘great orphan’ Humanity to turn the tuning dial of its mind away from the wave-lengths of selfishness, separateness and materialism, and teach it to ‘pick up’ the wave-lengths of love, unity and spirituality.

We can only do that as we are so tuned in. We must therefore direct our attention to reach out with the antennae of our souls towards the Elder Brethren. We must think of Them more, enshrine Them in our hearts and give our lives to Them. We must both offer and seek; and if the offering be sincere, the search will succeed. We must listen and attune until our Society becomes a perfect expression in the world of the will of the Great White Brotherhood. One day we shall succeed, for this Society will most certainly live and progress. It may have a different name, a different form, but you and I who helped in its foundation and early existence, we shall still be there, we hope and aspire, teaching and living always in advance of the general thought of the time, and far more perfectly attuned than we are at present to the Elder Brethren.

Thus to me this principle of attunement and at-one-ment is very important and fundamental, and I hand it to you for your own meditation. It can be indefinitely applied. For example, after standing in the presence of the Master as His pupil and successfully passing through the years of probation, ever drawing nearer to Him, it becomes possible for the neophyte to be drawn nearer still, for that which has been a separate instrument of His to become part of Himself. And then, as you know, if you have read the books, He opens His heart and His Adept nature, and draws the pupil right into His interior life. The pupil comes forth from that at-one-ment shining with a measure of the Master’s glory. Everything noble in him is stimulated; His whole being is set vibrating at a new swifter rate, much more closely in tune with that of the Master.

Thereafter this intimate relation exists between Them. The pupil may be of the outer world; but the Master is always close at hand, in the pupil’s heart, within reach of His consciousness, as long as he can keep in tune, can maintain the tone. That is the great problem in the Occult life, the problem of maintaining the tone. The distractions of the world constitute a continual test and trial. So much in modem civilization seems to have the effect of lowering one’s moral tone of degrading one’s mentality, emotions and body of drawing one’s attention towards grossness. It is very, very difficult indeed to keep thought, feeling and body perfectly pure: to remain clean, to live happily, spontaneously, unselfishly and humbly, so that the Master’s light may shine through translucent vehicles.

Yet this is our task, this the work of every one of us who aspires to reach Their feet, to make our personalities translucent to Their light. This mode of life is open to us all. The ancient path begins here at our feet and leads to Theirs. The Masters have trodden it to the goal, and They stand looking back longingly, and with outstretched hands, especially into this Their Theosophical Society. Perfect in Their compassion and perfect in Their understanding, especially of our weaknesses, for They once were men, They invite us into Their world, stating that to be accepted we must leave ours. They know how steep the road is; They know the difficulties of holding to spiritual ideals, whilst living in the outer world. They know the obligations which we have assumed and the duties of family and business life.

All these things They know, although They have grown out of them. When, therefore, They watch our struggles, observe our weaknesses and failures, They understand perfectly. What They hope for us is that always after our falling we shall pick ourselves up bravely, go on in spite of the pain and discouragement. Indeed these are valuable parts of our training, for if rightly received, they serve to make us more responsive. Pleasure and pain eventually lead us to centre our consciousness upon the ideal and the eternal. Such is the life which is open to us all. The Masters require us to become more and more conscious of Them and Their plan, to serve as more and more conscious links between Them and the world.

The Theosophist, Vol. 53, June 1932, p. 257

96
Some Thoughts on the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary

On 7th September, 1875, at Madame Blavatsky’s rooms, 46 Irving Place, New York, after a private lecture on The Lost Canon of Proportion of the Egyptians, delivered by Mr J. H. Felt, Colonel Olcott, as he relates in Old Diary Leaves, ‘wrote on a scrap of paper the following: ‘ Would it not be a good thing to form a Society for this kind of study?’ — and gave it to Mr Judge, at the moment standing between me and H.P.B. [Helena P. Blavatsky], sitting opposite, to pass over to her. She read it and nodded assent’ (Old Diary Leaves, Vol. I, pp. 117-118). From these two apparently simple actions on the outer plane, the Theosophical Society [T.S.] came into existence, and Colonel Olcott is said to have exclaimed later, ‘The child is born! Hosannah!’

Action had, however, been decided upon some time before that date. One of the Masters wrote to Mr A. P. Sinnett that ‘One or two of us hoped that the world had so far advanced intellectually, if not intuitionally, that the Occult doctrine might gain an intellectual acceptance, and the impulse given for a new cycle of occult research…So casting about, we found in America the man to stand as leader — a man of great moral courage, unselfish, and having other good qualities. He was far from being the best, but... he was the best one available. With him we associated a woman of most exceptional and wonderful endowments. Combined with them she had strong personal defects, but just as she was, there was no second to her living fit for this work. We sent her to America, brought them together — and the trial began’ (The Mahatma Letters, p. 263).

The two hoped-for results referred to in this letter throw open a wide field of speculation concerning other considerations, immediate and long term, which may have influenced the Great Brotherhood in its decision to found the Society. Some of them have been stated in other letters of the Masters. One most arresting statement indicates the profound significance of the Theosophical Society in the Masters’ eyes and is made clear in another letter to Mr A. P. Sinnett during a critical period in the Society’s life: ‘The present crisis that is shaking the T.S. to its foundations is a question of perdition or salvation to thousands; . . .’ (The Mahatma Letters, p. 365.)

Other statements of the purpose of the Masters in founding the Society are: ‘The Chiefs want a ‘Brotherhood of Humanity’, a real Universal Fraternity started; an institution which would make itself known throughout the world and arrest the attention of the highest minds’ (The Mahatma Letters, p. 24).

‘Our chief aim is to deliver humanity of this nightmare, to teach man virtue for its own sake, and to walk in life relying on himself instead of leaning on a theological crutch, that for countless ages was the direct cause of nearly all human misery’ (The Mahatma Letters, p. 53).

‘. . . we seek to bring men to sacrifice their Personality — a passing flash — for the welfare of the whole humanity, hence for their own immortal Egos, a part of the latter, as humanity is a fraction of the integral whole that it will one day become’ (The Mahatma Letters, p. 231).

There is some evidence in other writings of Mahatmic origin that foreknowledge of the two World Wars and such horrors as the Nazi concentration camps and the two atomic bornbs, induced Them to sound forth the note of the universal brotherhood of man, possibly in an endeavour to prevent or minimize the suffering to come. In The Secret Doctrine one reads: ‘It is simply knowledge, and mathematically correct computations, which enable the WISE MEN OF THE EAST to foretell, for instance, that England is on the eve of such or another catastrophe; that France is nearing such a point of her Cycle;

and that Europe in general is threatened with, or rather is on the eve of, a cataclysm, to which her own Cycle of racial Karma has led her’ (The Secret Doctrine, Adyar Edition, Vol. II, p. 371 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, p. 646]). ‘Every nation and tribe of the Western Aryans, like their Eastern brethren of the Fifth Race, has had its Golden and its Iron Age, its period of comparative irresponsibility, or its Satya Age of purity, and now, several of them have reached their Iron Age, the KALI YUGA, an age Black with horrors' (The Secret Doctrine, Adyar Edition, Vol. II, p. 369 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, pp. 644-45]).

One must assume that the almost inevitable concomitants of the development of the ahamkaric and analytical aspects of the human mind were also fully known to the Masters. Self-separateness, egoism, individualism and nationalism, materialism, pride, acquisitiveness, aggressiveness, lust of power, craving for possessions and capacity to become obsessed by an overweening desire to dominate these and other undesirable attributes of the concrete mind were almost certain to assume the monstrous proportions exhibited since the founding of the Theosophical Society and to lead to the horrors so clearly foreseen.

The wonderful letter from the Maha-Chohan, written in 1881, would seem to support this assumption. This very great Adept, ‘to whose insight the future lies like an open page’, wrote: ‘The intellectual portions of mankind seem to be fast dividing into two classes, the one unconsciously preparing for itself long periods of temporary annihilation or states of non-consciousness, owing to the deliberate surrender of their intellect, its imprisonment in the narrow grooves of bigotry and superstition — a process which cannot fail to lead to the utter deformation of the intellectual principal; the other unrestrainedly indulging its animal propensities with the deliberate intention of submitting to annihilation pure and simple in cases of failure, to millenniums of degradation after physical dissolution.

‘Those “intellectual classes”, reacting upon the ignorant masses which they attract and which look up to them as noble and fit examples to follow, degrade and morally ruin those they ought to protect and guide. Between degrading superstition, and still more degrading brutal materialism, the white dove of truth has hardly room where to rest her weary unwelcome foot.

‘It is time that Theosophy should enter the arena. ... In view of the ever-increasing triumph and at the same time misuse of free-thought and liberty (the universal reign of Satan, Eliphas Levi would have called it), how is the combative natural instinct of man to be restrained from inflicting hitherto unheard-of cruelty and enormities, tyranny, injustice, etc., if not through the soothing influence of a brotherhood, and of the practical application of Buddha’s esoteric doctrines?’ (The Maha-Chohan’s Letter, 1831, T.P.H., 1948.)

This very remarkable letter strongly suggests that the decision to draw the attention of humanity to Theosophy, and to promulgate the ideal of a universal brotherhood, well before the foreseen disasters fell upon the race, was also made in an attempt, if not to prevent, then to minimize, the growing evils and the oncoming racial adversities.

Again, the fact that numbers of Egos with Theosophical knowledge were to come into incarnation in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries may possibly have influenced the Elder Brethren in Their decision to found a Society in which, in their new personalities, Their former disciples, students and co-workers could find both Theosophy and a way to renewed service under Them. In founding the Theosophical Society, and especially the Esoteric School within it, the Masters rendered two services to such Egos. They made the Path relatively easy to find and provided a Movement in which they could serve humanity along Theosophical lines. This is an inestimable boon both for Theosophists, themselves and for the Race.

The publication in The Theosophist for July, 1883, of the article, Chelas and Lay Chelas, and the later establishment of the Esoteric School, suggest that the recruitment of disciples and Initiates of the Great Brotherhood had its place amongst other objectives of the Masters. This must surely be accounted amongst Their very far-reaching purposes; for every human being who enters the Path — and still more each one who treads it to its end in Adeptship — renders aid of incalculable value to the whole of humanity. This aid is not necessarily limited to those evolving upon this planet for the brotherhood of man bridges inter-planetary and superphysical space and binds together in indissoluble unity the humanity of all Planetary Schemes of this Solar System. Doubtless one should not stop there but reach out in thought to include humanities of all universes. One must not presume to put a boundary upon the range and extent of the oneness of all life and all beings. Indeed, all men, past, present and to come in all Cosmoi ‘are parts of one stupendous whole’. Progress made by one man must therefore uplift all others.

Such possible cosmic implications and effects of the adoption of idealism, of entry upon the Path and the attainment of Adeptship by any one man or woman on any globe of any Solar System would seem to be hinted at in the closing verses addressed to the victorious one in The Voice of the Silence: (pp. 99, 100) ‘Behold, the mellow light that floods the eastern sky. In signs of praise both heaven and earth unite. And from the four-fold manifested powers a chant of love ariseth, both from the flaming fire and flowing water, and from sweet-smelling earth and rushing wind. Hark! ... from the deep unfathomable vortex of that golden light in which the Victor bathes, all nature’s wordless voice in a thousand tones ariseth to proclaim: JOY UNTO YOU, O MEN OF MYALBA. A PILGRIM HATH RETURNED BACK FROM THE OTHER SHORE. A NEW ARHAN IS BORN’. The Lord Christ said: ‘I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me’ (John 12:32).

What thought, then, dominates others when contemplating the action of the Masters in founding the Theosophical Society seventy-five years ago? Is it not gratitude, profound and inexpressible? Indeed, it must be, for that action was fraught with the possibility of incalculable benefits bestowed upon humanities, past, present and as yet unborn, and not only on this globe and in this universe, but upon those following their cyclic paths in the apparently infinite depths of space; for distance does not divide Life and, in truth, all men, where-so-ever ascending, are indissoluble ONE.

The keynotes of this, as of all other anniversaries of the founding of the Theosophical Society, must surely be gratitude and the determination, by selfless and wise collaboration, to be worthy of so great a gift.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1950, p. 61

97
Sri Ram: An Impression

Tall, slender, with graceful form and movement, our distinguished visitor is a man of great dignity and refinement. Kindness and gentleness of speech and demeanor are also his marked characteristics.

On the platform he displays considerable verbal fluency and a rich vocabulary, employed with much skill to express the profound ideas which he advances. A keen wit and a well developed sense of humour frequently light up both his personal and public speeches. His thought is remarkably clear and his power of self-expression in English exceeds that of many English speakers.

The appeal throughout his addresses is to the reason, and amongst the beautiful and at times dynamic phrases employed in his Public Lectures in Auckland were: ‘Brotherhood and Freedom are the twin pillars over which the arch of the future must be sprung’. ‘There are many more tangents to the circle of our existence now than in the past, and we need a centripetal force to balance the tangential impulse’. ‘Those who are one with the soul of the New Age can become its heralds and prophets’.

The Convention, over which he presided so very effectively, was completely free from controversy and therefore made no great demands upon his evident skill in the conduct of affairs. Indeed, his very presence appeared to induce calmness and harmony. To all problems he brought the precision and direction of the trained Indian mind.

Throughout the Convention he did not spare himself in the slightest. He attended almost every Meeting, including the Services of the Liberal Catholic Church. In spite of these heavy demands, he appeared always at ease and unfailingly evinced deep interest in all the activities of the Section, as also in the people who were present.

Mr Sri Ram gave to Convention a note of pure spirituality. He also conveyed throughout, if one might presume to say so, the calm and the equipoise of ancient Aryavarta; for underlying the outer life and ‘busy-ness’ of India is a great peace, as if her very soul were saturated with and exhaled the peace of the Eternal. More than this, he clearly came as a Messenger bringing to us the spirit of India and her Mighty Rishis, as also of Adyar, Sacred Centre and manifestation of that spirit.

Blest have we all been throughout this month which he has spent with us. Richly blest, also, has been this birthplace of a Nation which is New Zealand through his visit and his activities in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

‘Thank you, great brother’, we would say, ‘for coming so far to enlighten us, to represent our President and to preside over our Convention’.

To the President, Mr C. Jinarajadasa, a great debt of gratitude is also owing for sending so splendid a Representative and Ambassador.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1947, p. 14

98
The Adept-Inspired Theosophical Society

Once again the members of the Parent Theosophical Society have elected as their International President a woman, Mrs Radha Bumier. Doubtless, as formerly, this decision will have its particular influence upon both the general direction of our Movement and the more personal approaches and interests in the fulfilment of the single task for which our Society was founded. This was stated by a lofty Adept Official — Maha-Chohan — to be: ‘We have to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’.^{^[117]}

The revered Master Kuthumi also wrote: ‘You and Mrs K. — why forget the Theosophical Society? — “are all parts of a large plan for the manifestations of occult philosophy to the world”.[118] Indeed, throughout, these are the purposes for which Their contributions were made — and, I presume to add — are still being made.

The passage of time has, however, brought very strongly to bear upon both the outlook of the membership and the influence at work within our Movement, interests and activities which hardly existed to the same degree during the presidency of Dr Besant. One effect of this development seems to be a tendency to change from singleness of purpose — that is, to present to the World Mind Theosophia itself— to participation in Movements that are regarded, quite permissibly, of course, as associated with our Society.

World Depends Upon Brotherhood

Our newly elected President in this period of world history assumes her office associated with a great Brotherhood Movement at a time when the Fourth Globe of the Fourth Round of Earth’s Planetary Scheme is confronted with the grave danger of warfare. This danger includes laser, atomic, nuclear and other weapons of devastatingly destructive potency, which have become available to nations which may decide either to attain world domination or effectively defend and preserve the freedom of mankind.

Whilst pursuit of the Second and Third Objects of the Society preserves their significance, is it not clear that, at this present time and age, the world, and therefore all its inhabitants, urgently need — I am tempted to say, depend upon — the fulfilment of the First Object, namely ‘To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste and colour’.

In 1889, H. P. Blavatsky, with almost tragic prevision, wrote in the May number of her magazine Lucifer, these words: ‘But if not [i.e., if Theosophy does not prevail] then the storm will burst and our boasted Western civilization and enlightenment will sink into such a sea of horror that its parallel in history has never yet been recorded’.

As is almost inevitable, both expansion and a certain decentralization from the original tasks is occurring. Interest in various other activities, noticeable at this time, would seem to be reducing the one-pointed intensity by which the Parent Society may originally have been moved. One is reminded of the famous ‘bundle of sticks’ dictum: ‘Never has it been more necessary for the members of the Theosophical Society to lay to heart the old parable of ‘The Bundle of Sticks’ ... divided, they will inevitably be broken one by one; united, there is no force on earth able to destroy our Brotherhood’ (H. P. Blavatsky).

Singleness of Purpose

Naturally, therefore, older members will observe with special interest the general direction which may possibly be emphasized by the new President. Will she support and encourage widespread interest in a diversity of somewhat similar Societies, and even accentuate certain of them, or will she ‘call’ for a more focused interest and activity upon the fulfilment of the above mentioned purposes affirmed by the Maha-Chohan and the Master Kuthumi?

This direction, I find myself convinced, is of very great importance for both the future of the Parent Theosophical Society and for humanity itself. Will our work become extended to include and even propagate the teachings of Movements in which members have become interested — all being free — or will she both personally and in general lead the Society towards single concentration upon bringing to the World-Mind a clear understanding and application of the basic theosophical principles? In thus expressing myself, I am both deeply concerned and fully aware of the complete freedom of thought granted to every member and so to every Section and lodge of our great Society.

Nevertheless, the following questions remain strongly with me: Should a continuance of a growing interest in other organizations increasingly characterize our Society? Should Section and lodge activities include concern for the work of these Movements at the expense of the study and presentation of Theosophia itself? Or would such an extension weaken our Society and even lead to its gradual decline? On the other hand, is it advisable, even necessary, for the Theosophical Society to ‘open out’ and include the work of other Movements in its published literature and in the energy and time spent in consideration of their ideas?

Such are the thoughts that have for some time been developing in my mind. In expressing them, I do not for one moment forget, and I here repeat, the supreme importance of the freedom of thought and action granted to every member of our Theosophical Society.

Admittedly, breadth of view is an important ideal, as also is the application of increasing knowledge to one’s work and one’s life. Nevertheless, I find myself pondering whether a certain increase in singleness of purpose and unitedness of activity in popularizing Theosophy are not of first importance at this present time in the history of our immeasurably valued and valuable Society and, indeed, the world itself.

Scientific developments which are in harmony with Theosophical thought — however dangerous to human life they may be when misused — and a deepening participation in all thought and all activity for the betterment of both human and animal life on our planet — these surely, not only may, but, if I might say so, should be included in the popularization of Theosophy.

Fundamental Principles

The fundamental principles may presumably be stated somewhat as follows:

Man is that being in whom highest Spirit (Monad) and lowest matter (body) are united by intellect. Mankind’s spiritual Self perpetually unfolds potential capacities, this being the result of his existence. This process culminates in the attainment of perfected manhood and womanhood — Adeptship.

The method of human evolution is by means of successive lives of physical rebirth of the spiritual Self-reincarnation. Human conditions and experiences are the results of human conduct under the Law of Cause and Effect or karma. Kindness brings peace, happiness, and health. Cruelty brings war, disease and misery.

The processes of evolution can be delayed, can proceed naturally, and can be hastened. Delay is caused by ignorance of these truths and so by failure to conduct one’s life accordingly. Evolution may be hastened by the selfless and intelligent application to one’s life of the age-old and unchanging rules and laws of the Mystery Tradition.

The Kingdom of Heaven can be taken by storm. This calls for self-training, regular, wisely planned meditation and selfless service rendered without thought of reward.

Century by century, a perfect man and woman arises, the rare flowering of the human race. Perfected men and women, Adepts, actually exist upon Earth.

Under Their inspiration, the Theosophical Society was founded in 1875 to ‘Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’.

‘The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire’ (Marshal Ferdinand Foch).

Theosophia, (understood and lived), sets the soul of man on fire’ (Geoffrey Hodson).

The Theosophist, Vol. 102, October 1980, p. 14

99
The Adherence to Unchanging Theosophical Doctrines

WHILST EXERCISING FREEDOM OF OPINION, INTEREST AND ACTIVITIES

As I observe the present decline in morality among the people of many countries, I find myself becoming not only deeply distressed but, in some ways, doubtful of the assured continuance of our present civilization.

The Parent Theosophical Society was brought into existence with but one single objective in the minds of the Adept and human Founders—to bring to the notice of mankind knowledge of the spiritual, philosophic and practical doctrines of the age-old and unchanging Wisdom, Brahma Vidya or Theosophia.

But in spite of the teachings of the world religions, the Earth is being marred and despoiled by a number of the most grievous forms of evil conduct.

Although the ancient truths were ever available (and, during certain epochs they formed the governing spiritual philosophy) it was foreseen by the Elder Brethren that humanity, in this present age, would either ignore them or drift dangerously away from them. One grave consequence has been the increasing neglect and even denial of elementary moral precepts particularly of those guiding principles to which, for its very health and happiness, mankind must subscribe.

The most rigorous honesty of mind and speech is an absolute necessity; no individual, group or nation should ever, even to its own advantage, plot to deceive another, thereby causing them suffering and physical loss. No one should ever declare — whether personally, nationally or internationally — a policy or an intention that is not strictly true. Nowadays, this truth is deliberately set aside and the purpose and incentive for both word and action are as often as not, immoral in character. The result of such actions could, indeed, be catastrophic for when nations, as well as individuals, behave in this fashion, the whole human race is affected. Under karmic law, to live such a lie is an assurance of disaster, moral and physical, for both nations and individuals.

A further grievous error consists in the releasing by numbers of people of their mental, emotional and sensory natures from the restrictions that are essential to both human health and happiness as well as to aesthetic and spiritual progress. This transgression, into which so many seem to be descending ever more deeply, is leading to what, in colloquial terms, might be described as a ‘splurge’ of coarse self-expression, including pornography and degrading sensualism.

Appalling Excesses

Humanity, having become possessed, long before it may safely be trusted with them, of the powers of thought, emotion and the physical means of expressing them, is entirely free to embark upon appalling excesses, and to descend into increasing self-debasement. Neither Pope nor priest, however lofty in character and unremitting in spiritual zeal, has the authority to prevent such behaviour. True, ancient religious ideals and practices that appeal to the highest in human nature still exist but unfortunately, while leading some to honesty, refinement and decency, they are powerless to prevent large numbers of people of both sexes from wandering into the ‘wilderness’ of lies, emotional orgies, sensual excesses and shameful cruelties. The inner Self, or the spiritual aspect of the majority, is not yet sufficiently developed either to inspire to idealism or to exercise control.

The consequences in the field of international polices, exemplified in the increase in nuclear armaments and other deadly weapons, and in social life with its decline in standards of conduct, are very grave indeed; for they include ferocious cruelty to fellow human beings of both sexes and all ages and to members of the animal kingdom, particularly for sport and for financial gain, for example, in the areas of food, cosmetics and adornment. Clearly, in these fields alone, serious dangers confront mankind from the operation of the Karmic law both at the present time and in the near future.

This situation, it may be presumed, was foreseen by the great Adepts who, over a hundred years ago, stood behind the founding of the Parent Theosophical Society which, through its literature and Members was intended to present the Brahma Vidya to mankind. Hence the warning that if Theosophy is not accepted and applied ‘our boasted Western Civilization and enlightenment will sink into such a sea of horror that its parallel has never yet been recorded.^{^[119]} Has not this prophecy already begun to be fulfilled? What may be the role of our Movement in an increasingly grave world situation? The freedom of thought characteristic of the Parent Theosophical Society, while of great value to the unrestricted search for spiritual and philosophic ideas and ideals, is not, I submit, without its disadvantages. Among these is the danger that Members, without fully Realizing the possibly serious consequences — worldwide and personal — might use this freedom to wander too far towards and even become exclusively absorbed in a variety of side issues. Since too great an interest in some of these ideas tends to deflect the mind from that study of basic Theosophy[120] which is necessary both for its understanding and its greatly needed propagation, the freedom of thought that is so essential for releasing people from the imprisonment of narrow dogmas must not only be preserved but wisely used.

Dangers of Freedom of Thought

Evidence is not wanting that, at the present time, this unwise use of freedom is having at least two adverse effects, one interior and the other exterior.

The interior effect has already been mentioned; it is that interest in Theosophy itself tends to decline as the study and the exposition of ideas advanced in other movements — whether related intimately or only slightly to the Ancient Wisdom — distract the attention of individual members, lodges and even Sections of The Theosophical Society, thereby seriously reducing their effectiveness.

One external effect is that these movements occasionally seek to penetrate into the work of members, lodges and Sections, in order to make use of theosophical knowledge and existing organized activities for the furtherance of their own personal interests. This reduces the concentration of activity upon pure Theosophia, weakens its occult value and reduces its public dissemination which was the purpose of the founding of our Society.

Admittedly, there is no rule that binds a member of The Theosophical Society to acceptance of the basic teachings of Theosophy alone. This freedom is most beneficial to those students for whom Theosophy indicates answers to otherwise puzzling questions and brings before them a wide range of philosophical concepts. Such students recognize that in pure Theosophia alone resides the secret and the assurance of peace of heart and sure guidance in every human experience and every walk of life and they are not inclined, for long, to be deflected from the study of the Ancient Wisdom itself.

All members, however, are not of this calibre and there are others who see in every expression of ‘occult’ ideas, especially in the field of ESP, fascinating avenues down which to wander. These generally fail to grasp either fundamental theosophical principles or their practical application to life. For them, the benefits to be derived from the study and practice of Theosophy will be greatly reduced or even lost so far as this particular incarnation is concerned.

I must add an additional serious warning to those members of The Theosophical Society who thus ‘over-widen’ their interests into such psychic and pseudo-occult regions as spiritualism, the practice of trance-mediumship or close association with others who are following the same path.[121]

Theosophy Sufficient in Itself

The applied teachings of Theosophy, by themselves, are capable of forwarding Egoic unfoldment. When an interior awakening is accompanied by serious study, the application of ideals to one’s daily life and perhaps, the practice of meditation, a definite evolutionary ‘quickening’ can be brought about within the student. ‘When a man joins The Theosophical Society I look at him’, said the Master Morya. These inestimable influences can have remarkable effects upon the student, changing for the better his personality and his whole life, and ultimately leading him to enter upon the Path of hastened evolution.

My advice to my fellow students, then, is not to allow themselves to be deflected from the fundamental teachings of Theosophy lest the goal of their present incarnation fail to be attained in consequence of deviation into fascinating and often dangerous psychic fields of interest.

Both these pathways — direct or devious — are open to members of The Theosophical Society and may be followed freely by every interested individual. Nevertheless, it is only sound knowledge and understanding that will lead to that realm of consciousness in which are to be found direct realization and interior experience of the profound truths of which Theosophy is both a source and a vehicle. When, moreover, to concentrated examination and study of Theosophy is added direct knowledge of its teachings — gained for some by the regular practice of suitable forms of yoga — absolute conviction and maximum efficiency in exposition will most surely be attained.

Is it not, therefore, most essential that the Parent Theosophical Society, while leaving its members mentally free, should put before the world a series of clear and readily understandable presentations of fundamental Theosophy? May not the considerable genius, intellectual capacity and literary ability of the Society’s members be called upon, organized and put to a combined effort in the fulfilment of this urgent need?

It is true that presentations of Theosophy continue to be produced, including the magnificent earlier expositions. Human thought and human expression of thought, however, have developed new concepts and new ways of presenting ideas. In consequence, may not the members of the Parent Theosophical Society — and indeed all Theosophists of whatever body — concentrate upon the work of producing up-to-date books, pamphlets and articles that are faithful to fundamental Theosophy and made readily available to the general public?

Such a scheme would depend for its effectiveness — internationally, nationally and individually — upon the united action of a sufficient number of dedicated Theosophists who are free and willing to participate in the fulfilment of the project. A graded series of books and study-material would thus become available, providing guidance for spiritually awakening and sincere seekers in the discovery of Theosophy and its practical applications to human life. I suggest that since the task would not only be one of producing new literature, but also of making a careful selection from among existing writings, the material for such publications could be drawn from the works of H. P. Blavatsky, Colonel H. S. Olcott, Annie Besant, C. W. Leadbeater, C. Jinarajadasa, George S. Arundale and others. May I, with all my heart, recommend that this vitally needed project be embarked upon without undue delay.

The Theosophist, Vol. 101, October 1970, p. 80

100
The Call of the Present

In preceding articles the author has ventured to make certain suggestions concerning the future. He thinks he sees signs of great changes which are imminent, such as the emergence of a new sense—intuitive perception; the development of a new type of consciousness — the synthetic mind; and the birth of a new race — the sixth sub-race of the Aryan stock. These ideas are in no sense new, for they have been accepted theoretically by many who through Theosophical studies have become acquainted with the Great Plan.

We are, however, living in the present, and the immediate now is all important to each one of us. Wonderful though the future may prove to be, the present seems to the author to be more wonderful still. And this because to any who are at all alive and responsive to the forces of the present, there can be no rest, no standing still; the pressure of the present is too great, the need of the moment too urgent to permit of hopeful inactivity. Action is the call of the present: ‘Know the Truth for yourself, its insistent command.

Two apparently divergent aspects of Truth are being put before us today. Between them there is no easy way of compromise; their presentation forces us to think, to think hard, and to think for ourselves.

Theosophical occult truths have enriched us beyond all commensuration; and now, through the new teacher who has arisen, the greatly beloved and greatly questioned Krishnaji, new riches are offered us in the form of direct mystical illumination. Doubly rich are we, therefore, in the immediate present, for the profoundest occult truths and the highest spiritual illumination are both offered to us in unmeasured degree.

But spiritual riches must be individually assimilated before they can be ‘banked’; otherwise divergent presentations will neutralize each other and we shall be poorer than ever before. If we become spiritually impoverished, our Theosophical Society will suffer; and a suffering Theosophical Society can do but little to help the suffering world, whose pains it was founded to relieve.

Therefore, let us spiritually enrich ourselves, knowing that the spiritual enrichment of one enriches the whole. Let us awaken to a recognition of our present poverty, let us rise up from our apathy and spiritual sloth and find out the Truth for ourselves. Let us emancipate ourselves from spiritual servitude and know.

Let us use the spur of the present; let us press the rowels of doubt deeper and deeper into our sides, that we may leap forward to Truth.

Yet whither shall we leap?

The answer to that question is always and for ever the same. It is, ‘Within’. There all truth lies, there alone it is to be found, and this applies to occultist and mystic alike. Therefore, let us look within; establish a regime of search, a determined pursuit of illumination, a deliberate shattering of the veils of illusion, that we may see Truth naked — face to face.

This surely is the call of the present. How is it to be answered? According to the temperament of each one. The way matters but little, it is the consummation which counts.

The author chooses Raja Yoga as his way, to him the most profound of all sciences, the science of the soul. Already gleams of Truth are being discerned, giving promise of union with the Great Light. But if this promise is to be fulfilled, he must work and work unceasingly. One week of inertia will undo the labours of many months, will allow the newly opened channels to close up again. And above all things the would be Yogi must keep the channels open, so that life may flow through.

Raja Yoga discipline, Raja Yoga meditation — these are the two sides of the road which the Yogi seeks to tread. Success demands a third, and that third is work. Salvation of each one must be wrought out by work in this all-important present time. Yet so often, when doubt comes, are we prone to cease to work and then — alas! the light goes out of our soul. So let all who are troubled at this time work and work harder than ever before, for in work lies that self-forgetfulness which is the basis of all occultism.

Many naturally will ask — indeed are asking — ‘How shall we work? Where shall we work?’ Again the answer is, according to one’s temperament. The important matter surely is to avoid all sense of separateness in work, to see the value of all sincere and devoted service to the world, and to realize that, as our great Leaders have said, ‘There is but One Work’. This work has its different aspects and calls for different types of workers. We have been told that our President is the outer channel for the work of the Manu, Krishnaji for that of the Bodhisattva. As there still remains the ceremonial and cultural work of the Maha-Chohan, there should be no difficulty for each one of us in finding his temperamental line of work for the fulfilment of the Great Plan.

Self-discipline, meditation, work — these three will lead us to Truth; these three make up the Raja Yoga life; by these we can answer the challenge of the times; by these we can know for ourselves and knowing, we can be free. Free from personal anxiety, we can be used by Those Who live to serve and save the world. Being used by Them is the first step towards Them; and when the first step is taken, They take two towards ourselves.

Then soon will come the time when we shall see face to face One Who is the embodiment of Truth, shall hear that sweetest of all voices, the Master’s voice, and hear for ourselves His tender call: ‘Follow me and I will make you fishers of men’.

Thus, the author believes, may each one of us answer the call of the present time.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 28, November-December 1930, p. 173

101
The Future Needs of The T. S.

I have selected from amongst many needs of our Society two to present to you in the five minutes at my disposal. They are dependent upon each other. First, the need for students in our movement, and second for teachers. I think I perceive a dearth of deep students in the Society, and as a result, a great lack of teachers and lecturers.

Now, by Theosophical study I do not mean merely skimming the occult cream from the more interesting of our books; I mean real study, the patient investigation of the fundamental teachings of the best of our literature and the literature of the world, idea by idea, and truth by truth, the mastering of the basic doctrines upon which the great religions and philosophies of the world are founded. I would go further in my definition of study, and add the necessity of contemplation, of meditation, and of test by application to life. Thus the great truths may become embodied within the student and he become established in his own truth, knower of the truth for himself, unassailable, unshakeable and therefore capable of teaching from individual experience.

Furthermore, the student must keep himself abreast of modem thought in order to present to the world the ancient truths in terms of modem thought, so that cultured intellectual people can follow and accept them. This to me is an all important need in our Society.

Only as we know can we truly teach and only as we study can we know. We must study in order to teach; become imbued with the real spirit of the teacher.

I have five practical suggestions to put before you for the attainment of this ideal. First, the sounding of this note throughout the Theosophical Society. An impulse in this direction could be sent out from Adyar, inspiring the members with the spirit of learning, the desire for scholarship, knowledge, an impulse in the direction of study and teaching.

Second, the establishment of interesting study classes in every lodge in which the whole membership would take part. I do not mean the study so much of Astrology, Numerology, Psychology, and other Occult Arts with which lodges become concerned. I do not exclude these but refer primarily to study, according to my definition of the word, of the basic truths of the Divine Wisdom.

Third, speakers’ and teachers’ classes in our lodges, in which members will train themselves for this work. Thus they will become capable of holding an audience and of presenting in appropriate language the teachings of Theosophy.

Fourth, summer schools, on the lines of those held at Wheaton in the U.S.A. for the past four years. I know full well the influence these annual gatherings in virtual retreat have had upon the Section and upon the lives of the students. I advocate the spread throughout all Sections of this idea adapted to local conditions. Wherever members can come together for a week or two, withdraw from the world and concentrate upon the study of Theosophy, it should be made possible for them to do so.

Fifth and last, a dream of mine since the early days of my membership, the founding of a Theosophical University. By this I mean a College where men and women can come to study from all parts of the world. Such an institution would meet ordinary educational needs for young people, but also the particular need of which I speak, that is the special training of students of Theosophy sent by their Sections. These would be members of special promise, of talent, who could be sent back to their Sections as trained representatives and teachers of the Ancient Wisdom, givers of Theosophy to the world. Naturally Adyar is the ideal place for this institution which might well be part of the proposed memorial to our late revered President.

These are my five ideas, and I believe by their means the stream of Divine Wisdom may continue to flow through our movement. By these means I also believe we may awaken in ourselves the eager spirit of the student, whose goal is understanding, truth, and the joyous spirit of the teacher, whose happiness is to share.

The Theosophist, Vol. 55, March 1934, p. 708

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The Importance of A Sound Knowledge of Theosophy

We are indebted to Thomas Huxley, English Biologist (1825-95) for the following quotation, which seems sufficiently important to be given thoughtful attention. He compares man’s dangerous journey in this world to a game of chess as follows:

‘Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game at chess. Don’t you think that we should all consider it a primary duty to learn at least the names and moves of the pieces: to have a notion of gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you think that we should look, with a disapprobation amounting to scorn, upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight?

‘Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. . . ’

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 39, No. 1, 1978, p. 20

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The Life and Work of a Lodge

SOME REFLECTIONS BY A RETIRING PRESIDENT

Three Considerations

Three considerations present themselves to the President of a Theosophical Lodge when planning lodge work. The first of these is that Theosophists are students. A lodge is primarily a centre for the study and exposition of Theosophy. For that reason we join it and attend its meetings. At the lodge we rightly expect to learn more and more of Theosophy and to join with our fellow members in the experiment of its application to life.

Theosophical study and exposition, therefore, must be both progressive and concentrated upon Theosophy itself. Only so can the lodge fulfil its teaching function as source of Theosophical knowledge. Numerology, psychology and astrology, whilst valuable to individuals attracted to them, must not be allowed to usurp the place of Theosophy itself in lodge study.

There are those who would seem to consider that this intellectual activity constitutes the true and perhaps the sole work of the Theosophical Society. For them it is not an active reform movement, but rather exists to be a source of information for enquirers into Theosophy, a bureau of Theosophical information, a purely intellectual association.

Whilst respecting that view and recognizing the right of any member so to regard and use the lodge, I have not myself come to the same conclusion.

This brings me to my second consideration. It is that Theosophists are human beings and that the lodge should provide them with opportunities for as full an expression as possible of the many sides of their character and their varied interests and aspirations. We members are all conscious of our human ideals, human needs and human weaknesses. Greatest amongst our needs, perhaps, is that of fuller and freer expression for the idealistic side of our natures.

Man is a sevenfold being. As Egos we are charged to the full with Divine Will, Wisdom and Intelligence. In addition, we have been enriched by the fruits of hundreds of incarnations. We possess the memory, the capacities, the wisdom and the power of all our past lives. How much of all this finds expression in our daily lives? Perhaps one percent. Ninety-nine percent is latent, unexpressed, sub-conscious.

Membership in an active and harmonious Theosophical lodge, should, I submit, provide both opportunity for, and training in, fuller and freer self-expression. Finding its Personality active within the play of powerful occult forces and working in a philosophic and idealist movement, the Ego is encouraged to put forth its power in order to take advantage of the opportunity thus provided. Expansion of consciousness, of power and of knowledge; a fuller, deeper, and therefore a happier, life should be within the reach of the members of a vital Theosophical lodge.

The third consideration, again a personal one, is that active Theosophists are; above all things, servants. They serve the Divine Plan which their studies have in part revealed to them. Knowing the Plan, they needs must co-operate, for in such co-operation alone may Theosophy be truly lived. For me, this conception of the Divine Plan and of human co-operation in its fulfilment, is the very basis of the Theosophical life. The Society might, I think, be described as a human organization devoted to the fulfilment of the Divine Plan. The link between man and the Divine Mind consists of the Masters of the Wisdom, Who being in intimate association with both, called the Society into existence in order to draw them closer together.

The Central Problem

The greatest source of error and suffering in the world is conflict between the human mind and the Divine Mind. The greatest contribution to the relief of suffering is that which unifies the mind of humanity with the Divine Mind.

How may this contribution best be made? First and foremost, by teaching Theosophy to the world. This brings us to the central problem of the Theosophical Society in this period of its life. I refer to the need for public speakers on, and teachers of, Theosophy.

This need can only be met when individual members catch the vision splendid of Theosophical work and methodically train themselves as Theosophical workers. Success in the teaching department of our work demands both enthusiasm for Theosophy and ordered and progressive study to the end of mastery of its doctrines. At the same time, the art of public speaking must be studied and practice.

This may sound easy and even attractive. The books are on the library shelves. One has only to plan one’s Theosophical education intelligently and to carry it out thoroughly in order to acquire the necessary knowledge. Similarly, books upon and teachers of public speaking are available in abundance, and the necessary practice can always be obtained in the lodges and centres of the Theosophical Society.

Straightforward though this programme of self-preparation may seem, few members appear to be following it. And so the teaching department of the work languishes for lack of efficient teachers. Why is this?

First, I think, because most of us have to earn our living in the treadmill of professional, business or domestic duty. In our leisure hours, all too few, we feel the need of recreation, for both the body and the brain are fatigued.

Second, when at first reading, the tasty occult cream has been pleasurably skimmed from Theosophical literature, metaphysics, philosophy and their practical application alone remain. Only minds reasonably fresh and very eager for knowledge are willing to undertake the hard mental labour which a thorough grasp of

Theosophical doctrine demands.

Third, in the hard school of modem life, inspiration and enthusiasm tend to wilt and die under the strain and stress of the fight for existence. Economic conditions impose barriers upon the great majority of our members.

How may these difficulties be met?

Interior Awakening

I know of only one way. It is that of interior awakening. The effective servant of his fellow men must first become acutely aware of their need. He must feel deeply, and respond vividly to, the suffering, the sorrow, the ignorance and the poverty, characteristic of human life in this age. His own constant failure permanently to help those who come into his life in a state of the greatest and most urgent spiritual, intellectual or physical necessity, acts as a constant spur. He finds that of himself and by himself he cannot help them. He may, also, have an acute need of his own which he cannot meet, and it is this experience of relative impotence in the presence of a crying need, which awakens a man and sends him forth in the quest of knowledge and the power which knowledge bestows.

In the great crises in human life, the discovery of Theosophy can be of the greatest help, and for two reasons.

First, because Theosophy is the one universal, unfailing solution of all problems and the one healing agent in all pain. Possessed of and intelligently applying Theosophy, no one need fail either to relieve to some extent the sorrows of others, or to solve his own intellectual and spiritual problems.

Second, Theosophy is of value to the would be helper of the world because he discovers the fact of the existence of the Masters. He learns that They need agents and in this lies his great opportunity. If truly awakened, he leaps to grasp it, and thereafter no barrier can for long bar his way. Dedicated to service in Their name, his enthusiasm constantly renewed by the thought of Them, he overcomes the obstacles in his path, becomes increasingly efficient in Their work. The world then gains a valuable servant, Theosophy an efficient worker, and the Masters of the Wisdom a promising recruit to the ranks of those ready to lose themselves in the service of the Divine Will. Another soul has found the Ancient Way.

As member after member thus awakens spiritually and intellectually, perceives the world’s needs and trains himself to meet them, the lodge itself becomes more vital and the supply of lecturers, teachers and workers in other departments begins more nearly to fulfil the demand.

This awakening, catching fire at the flame of Theosophy, would seem to be the great way of overcoming the primary obstacles of self-training in the Theosophical work.

Outer circumstances, karma and dharma, have a way of changing, of adjusting themselves to the demands for freedom made by those awakened to the call of service and dedicated to a great cause. But first a beginning must be made, a sign must be given by the aspirant himself. The finest beginning and the unmistakable sign is to study and serve to the limit of those opportunities and capacities which already exist.

The Need of Fellowship

Amidst this preoccupation with the ideals of self-training and service to the world, the Fellows of the Society must not forget their responsibility to each other. Brotherhood begins at home. Intellectually and spiritually we are all of one family. Brotherliness should reign amongst us. We should be mutual friends, helpers of each other, and as far as lies in our power, guardians of each other’s happiness. Gossip, slander and malicious comment should be impossible to us. We leave these to the world outside and seek to experience a growing sense of unity with each other and with all that lives. All who enter a Theosophical lodge as new members should feel this brotherliness as a positive power pervading all its work.

A Theosophical lodge is a complete entity. The premises and equipment represent its physical body. Friendships between members, their united thought and combined acceptance of Theosophy, constitute the soul of the lodge. Within and above these, the continual play of the power of the Inner Founders of the Theosophical Society, the venerated Masters of the Wisdom, represents the spiritual power, the Atma, of the lodge.

Thus its President learns, if he did not know before, that an active lodge is far more than a physical meeting place. It has its own consciousness and soul. All members are constituent parts of a building not made with hands. Ideally, all should feel this, all should experience an expansion of consciousness on entering and working in the lodge. For we not only become part of the lodge consciousness, but of the great and living brotherhood of all our fellow members throughout the world.

When we further realize that the Masters Themselves are part of this brotherhood, form an inner section of the Theosophical Society, we see at once how great are both the privilege and the opportunity provided by membership in a Theosophical lodge. Partly for our sakes this Theosophical work was initiated by the Elder Brethren of humanity. It is Their work and potentially we are all Their servants, though left entirely free in an acceptance or rejection of such a position.

For some of us, Theosophical work is a sacred charge. Every smallest task is performed both for a great ideal and for Them. Whether we hold office, give lectures, lead an activity or perform humble tasks, such as providing suppers and washing up afterwards, all our work is dedicated work, done in the Masters’ name and for Them.

In Their service there is no question of greater or lesser work or workers. There is only one work: that of relieving the suffering of mankind by lifting the pall of ignorance from which that suffering springs. Every lodge member, by the very act of joining, has his own share in that work, and it is this realization which binds us together into the brotherhood of this great living League of Nations which is the International Theosophical Society.

That brotherhood must be represented at its finest and truest in our lodges, if we are to succeed in the great task to which we are called. We can do great harm to our cause by deifying the name of brotherhood from our platforms and denying it in our conduct. Our responsibility is heavy indeed, for we have publicly stated our ideal by the formulation and acceptance of the first object.

The Enquirer

There is evidence that many advanced Egos are taking incarnation at this period who need both knowledge of the purposes of the plan of life which Theosophy gives and the opportunity of finding and treading the Path of Discipleship. The provision of knowledge of the Great Plan and of guidance in the inner life is, therefore, work of first importance.

I have come to the conclusion that no one comes into contact with our work, and with ourselves, accidentally. I believe that every enquirer and every new member is of unique importance and has been guided to us for a contribution to their lives which we alone can make.

This is why I think it matters very much indeed when by lack of interest, brusqueness of manner, or untheosophical conduct, someone is turned away from Theosophy. Lecturers, I feel, have an special responsibility in this connection, one which is shared, at least equally, by library and bookstall attendants. Ideally, every single enquirer should be received with the utmost courtesy, sympathy and consideration. Great issues, affecting the whole subsequent conduct of the enquirer’s life, may hang upon attendance at a lecture, or enquiry at library or bookstall. Similarly, every member of a lodge, and the lodge as a whole, bears a great responsibility both as regards relations with each other and treatment of new members. For Theosophical influences penetrate very deeply into the lives of people and we Theosophical workers are as much concerned with the souls of men as are the Priests of a Church.

Creative World

In conclusion, I wish to refer to one heartening phenomenon appearing beside the disheartening fact that war has again come to the world.

What constructive developments are discernible at this time of unexampled destruction? A reconstructed League of Nations? The Federated States of Europe on the model of the United States of America? Apparently not. Nevertheless, something of the greatest interest is happening inside and around Britain today. For a creative, germinal world order appears to be in the process of establishment within the British Isles.

What is its outer form? It is unique in history. An international peace (not police) force is being established in Britain. Czech, Polish,

Norwegian, Belgian, Danish, Free French, American, New Zealand, Canadian, South African, Australian, and Indian, Scotch, Welsh, Irish and English soldiers and statesmen are gathered together there in a common cause. Men from all these countries are contributing to the building up of a great international administration and patrol, military, aerial and naval.

The avowed purpose of this gathering of the nations is to resist aggression, to free conquered countries, to secure world order and to protect and further the interests of the small nations and the common man. It is an inspiring development and may prove to be the germ from which a true world order may develop.

Seeing this extension of the ideal of the British Empire — evidently the model, the greatest immediate contribution we, Theosophists, as such, can make, is to exert our influence in the direction of international co-operation, to strengthen the idealism behind the present association of world powers and to guide its development so that it can continue and extend its function after the War.

At present European and World Federations remain as ideals. It rests with humanity to turn them into facts. We, as Theosophists, in our private lives and in our lodges, can play a most important part in strengthening these ideals in the human mind. We belong to one of the very few organizations in the world which stand for universal brotherhood without distinction of race. Throughout this present war, heartened by this sign of a future world order, we must valiantly and determinedly continue our work for the recognition by all men of the living fact of the brotherhood of man.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 2, April 1941, p. 55

104
The Manor Centre

For a great many years The Manor has been regarded with special interest throughout the whole theosophical world. It is known as the residence for a considerable period of his life of C. W. Leadbeater. In it he is said to have carried out many of his most remarkable occult investigations, to have written many of his most wonderful books and in addition, with the aid of certain colleagues, to have trained a large number of people, young and old in the spiritual life. It is but natural therefore, that a visitor like myself, after many years of theosophical world travel, should feel a great sense of privilege on coming to live here, if only for a short period of time.

C. W. Leadbeater has passed away from the physical side of life at The Manor. But one does not need to be very sensitive to know that spiritually his influence is permanently established here, whilst frequently his personal presence and his power are to be felt.

The key to the significance of The Manor in this present period of its life would seem to consist of the facts, first that the property is now vested in Mr Jinarajadasa; and second that the three trustees to whom the responsibility of the management and safeguarding of the Centre has been given have each of them been intimately associated with C. W. Leadbeater. Evidently The Manor belongs especially to the inner side of our work. From these facts part of the significance of The Manor is quite apparent.

Let me try and put it into words as I see it.

The Manor is a specially selected Centre of the power of the Masters of the Wisdom, unique in the outer world. There are in fact only two others at all like it. These are the international Headquarters of the Theosophical Society at Adyar and the great European Centre at Huizen in Holland.

The Great White Brotherhood of Adepts has established these three places as special Centres of Their power on our globe. The Manor has been especially linked with the great world Centre of power in Central Asia and is the representative of that Centre in the Southern Hemisphere.

Naturally there are other Centres of power and other important aspects of the Great Work. Every consecrated Church is a centre of power for example, but The Manor has its own unique place as a result of the direct links with the Elder Brethren and our leaders.

Now it must be clear to all who realize this, that such arrangements are made only for very definite and extremely important purposes. What may we presume is the specific work of The Manor as a Centre of the Masters’ power? Is it not to exist as a Centre through which spiritual powers and Spiritualizing influences can be directed upon the world? These powers influence more especially New South Wales, Australasia and the Southern Hemisphere and this is true not only in this present time but, if The Manor continues to withstand all attacks made upon it, also in the near and far distant future. For it is part of the plan of racial evolution that the population of the globe shall increasingly occupy the Southern Hemisphere. This is especially true of the Sixth Root Race, for which even now preparations are being made notably here in Australia where sixth sub-race types are appearing. I personally have no doubt whatever that the establishment of The Manor is part of those preparations.

This place is therefore a Centre of power of incalculable significance both in the present and in the future.

How do these spiritual powers reach the world?

By both superphysical and physical means in the inner worlds a descent and radiation of tremendously powerful forces is continually occurring at The Manor. We who live here are perpetually within the play of this power as doubtless every single one here is aware. In addition to the supervision of C. W. Leadbeater himself, this inner aspect of the work is in charge of a great Angel. Part of the work of this Angel is to preserve the Centre as an open channel ever at the disposal of the Masters of the Wisdom and part also to bring down and direct the forces which They concentrate here.

All residents of The Manor have the opportunity of sharing in this work. In addition to the regular services and ceremonials, all carried out with deliberate intent to assist in this inner side of the work, all can by their presence, their meditations, their work and daily lives both draw down and create individual channels for the flow of the Masters’ blessing upon this district and upon the world.

May I say here in passing that I think that children who live here, as also those who may be born here, are uniquely privileged, as also are their parents. Doubtless by noble deeds in past lives the Egos of such children have been placed within the play of these great inner forces, the possible effect of which upon the rest of their lives and upon their future lives it is impossible to calculate.

The most obvious outlet at the physical level is the local theosophical work especially that of the Blavatsky Lodge and the whole Australian Section. With this we as esotericists naturally include the work of Co-Masonry and the Liberal Catholic Church.

The Manor therefore is a specifically theosophical Centre, though quite unofficially, it is an integral and supremely important part of the world Theosophical movement, one part of its function being to energize and empower theosophical work.

The Manor is also a most delightful home. The house itself, the lovely gardens, the tennis-court and the glorious position overlooking Sydney Harbor with its wonderful panorama of bays and wooded headlands make it ideal even as an ordinary residence. The constant cavalcade of ships great and small, liners, tramps and white sailed yachts on the blue water is sheer delight to the eye. The appointments and the method of management enable us all to obtain the maximum of happiness from living here. On arrival one very quickly feels the sense of freedom from any hampering restrictions whatever which is quite remarkable when we consider the difficulties of running a community home. Naturally as esotericists and servants of the Masters we are expected to obey a few simple rules of the spiritual life such as refraining from meat, alcohol and tobacco. But I must say that after experience of life in other Centres I have found this freedom of The Manor to be quite remarkable. Apparently no demands are made upon us whatsoever to do more than just live here and enjoy the unusual amenities of the place. Appreciation of and participation in its real life would seem to be left to the intuition and inclination of residents.

We are all of course aware that The Manor is far more than a mere home. It is an ashrama in which at least three purposes are being fulfilled. Let us look at these for a moment.

First, those who reside here have a unique opportunity to live a truly theosophical life, harmless to the animal kingdom, brotherly and co-operative with each other, studious and above all useful to the world.

Second, it is far easier here than outside to find and tread the Path of Holiness which leads to the Masters’ feet. We are very near to the Masters here and They constantly are very near to us.

Everything externally essential to the life of discipleship is provided for us here at The Manor.

Third all residents have the immense privilege of co-operating with the Masters of the Wisdom in so living and so working here that Their mighty power and blessing is continually radiated upon the world.

If the view presented above be accepted, it at once becomes apparent that The Manor must be carefully guarded from all influences without and within which might in the slightest measure reduce its efficiency as a Centre of the Masters’ work.

Is it conceivably possible that the existence of The Manor as a Centre could be endangered? Are there forces which could destroy its life? I think The Manor has been and still is and most probably always will be threatened by disruptive forces from without and where one of us makes it possible, also from within. We must remember that the forces for good on this planet are constantly in conflict with forces for evil and that these two are fairly evenly matched.

Aggression, exploitation, sensuality, cruelty and ugliness continue to find their full expressions in the modem world. Hence the very great importance of the Theosophical Society with its note of Brotherhood and especially of the three great Theosophical Centres of Adyar, Huizen and The Manor. These are bulwarks against evil and as such are constantly threatened by the evil powers and beings of this world.

The Manor has just emerged from a very serious attack. Its whole existence was threatened by the subtle method by which, from a seemingly friendly motive, a loan was advanced and a promise of further loans, until The Manor was very nearly taken out of the Masters’ hands. Had it not been for a most valiant and unyielding defence, this Centre of the Masters’ power would have disappeared. We may also assure ourselves that if victory is to be sustained a united front within The Manor walls is absolutely necessary.

This brings me to the second danger to The Manor, which consists of disloyalty to our ideals and purposes within the house itself. We all realize full well that in this matter of loyalty to the Masters and to Their appointed servants there can be no half-way house. We also know full well the karma of disloyalty and of being in any way the agents through which disruptive forces can attack and mar the Masters’ work.

Everyone of us who is privileged to live here carries in his hands both the success of the work, and the honour of the great cause for which the Centre has been brought into existence.

Thus we may define The Manor as a Centre of the Spiritual life, a house of fulfilment, an ashrama sacred and dedicated to the highest spiritual ideals. The Manor is a home, but above all, it seems to me it is a place of self-illumination and of self-training in the Masters’ service.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 5 October 1938, p. 16

105
The Masters and the Theosophical Movement

The Masters are not waverers who would initiate a planetary Movement and then forsake it as it grows in activity. Let us therefore be firm in our faith and full of confidence in the Masters, our Movement and co-workers.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 45, No. 1, 1984, p. 5

106
The Masters’ Machine

The Theosophical Society resembles somewhat a piece of mechanism, perhaps a watch, constructed by the Masters of the

Wisdom. All members, Lodges, Headquarters and Centres are, as it were, part of the mechanism and might well impersonally be regarded as such, though each has its unique place and special importance.

The more prominent members, the officers and lecturers of our Society, like the hands of a watch, may appear to be its most important and most active parts; at any rate they are most frequently seen. But in reality, valuable as they are, like the hands of the watch, they are no more important than the unobtrusive, yet ever faithful workers; who correspond to the hidden motionless screws upon which the movement of the hands of a watch depends.

More beautiful and intrinsically more valuable than the hands of a watch are the jewels, which normally only the watchmaker sees. In the mechanism of the Theosophical Society these jewels are represented by the unfailing loyalty and deep devotion of the rank and file of the membership throughout the world.

We may be sure that the great Engineers Who brought Their Society into existence know full well these shining jewels and duly appreciate the quiet yet effective parts they play.

—From the bulletin of The Theosophical Society in South Africa.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1948, p. 64

107
The Masters’ Movement

The Masters of the Wisdom, the Adepts, who inspired the founders of the Theosophical Society, continue to do so, and still regard it in an ever increasing measure as the Masters’ Movement. They still are ready to accept as disciples those dedicated members of the Society, who are willing to follow the age long rules of treading the Path, which consists it transcending the illusion of self-centredness.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 37, No. 2, 1976, p. 36

108
The Passing of Brother Sri Ram

The Theosophical Society and those who loved, devotedly served, and studied under him have suffered an irreparable loss in the passing away from the physical world of Brother N. Sri Ram, the fifth President of the Society, now in its 97th year. With former Presidents, Brother Sri Ram found opportunity in the Watch Tower notes in The Theosophist to express more personal opinions upon both world affairs and theosophical ideas, procedures, and events. Studying these during his presidency one was granted some knowledge of his approaches to many questions. Some brief references are therefore included in this article.

Active wars, threats and rumors of wars, and efforts to prevent them, have been characteristic of this period of his presidency. Remarkable advances have been made, notably in scientific technology. The surface of the moon is no longer shrouded in the mystery and fantasy with which it has been regarded throughout human history. The planets Mars and Jupiter are now under increasing scrutiny, and plans are already advanced for the placing of a laboratory in space in which human beings may live and carry out experiments aimed at the advancement of knowledge, not only of our own and other planets, but of the Solar System as a whole.

Whilst the United States made significant contributions to these advances in the field of science, it has also become the centre of a remarkable development in the works of The Theosophical Society. I refer to the establishment of the Kern Foundation, grants from which have been so effectively administered by the American Section. One notable consequence has been the production of special editions — the Quest Books — with world sales already in excess of half a million, with annual increases in distribution being already provided for.

Amidst these and many other changes in human thought, advances in knowledge and resultant conduct, it surely is of the utmost importance that the fundamentals of the Ageless Wisdom remain unchanged and, in their purity, available to mankind. In this our revered late President has played a notable part. Through his Watch Tower notes, his other writings, his lectures, and more personal talks, he stressed the necessity for precise understanding of both Theosophy itself and the activities of human consciousness. In addition, he gave most valuable guidance in right thought about and right application of the ageless truths to the problems of human living. The ideal of ‘the Golden Stairs, up the steps of which the learner may climb to the temple of Divine Wisdom’^{^[122]} held its important place in his teachings concerning the inner life.

For this, and for so much more — which other writers will doubtless call to our attention — we do indeed owe our late President a debt of thankfulness, with which is blended our profound regret and sense of loss now that he is no longer physically with us. We shall long continue to miss that leadership which, with humility, and complete impersonality, he gave in close comradeship with us all, whether at his office desk in Adyar or during his numerous traveling throughout the theosophical world.

Although The Theosophical Society grants complete freedom of opinion to its members, Brother Sri Ram more than once expressed his regret at military activities and his opposition to cruelty to animals, including the practice of vivisection. Indeed, in all too many fields of human activity, the extent of cruelty is very greatly increasing for both the human and the animal kingdoms of nature. Up to now, more than 90,000,000 people have been killed in the wars of this century. Last year, the world spent $200 billion on armaments, presumably in attempts to buy security by raising the proportion of wealth spent on arms. During 1969-70, the money that human beings spent on the means of killing one another rose to an all-time high of $204 billion dollars. Dr Malcolm S. Adiseshiah, UNESCO’s Director General, wrote: ‘UNESCO cannot go on spending perhaps one million dollars a year on peace-building when $200,000,000 is being devoted every year to building an arsenal of absolute annihilation… When will we learn that life is all of a piece, a vast, mysterious entanglement of species, that the earth is the home of all and what endangers one must have its ultimate effect on all others?’

In England, in 1971, research experiments on living cats, dogs, and other animals reached a record of 5,607,435, according to the Home Office statistics published in a White Paper (16th August, 1971). About 86 percent of these experiments were carried out without anaesthetics. Apart from the immediate effects of major, minor, and personal conflicts and of cruelty to animals, the immediate and long term effects of the infliction of suffering by man upon fellow inhabitants of the planet cannot fail to produce both the continuance of both war and disease; for ‘each man’s life the outcome of his former living is’[123] and ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap’.[124] To these utterances may be added that attributed to the Lord Christ: ‘It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one jot or one tittle of the law to fail’.[125]

Since I accept these utterances as profoundly true and of the very first importance in human life, I confess to the hope that the successor to Brother N. Sri Ram will be one who believes in these truths, recognizes the importance of their world-wide promulgation, and exerts an effective influence upon The Theosophical Society as a whole, its Sections, Branches, and such members as feel so moved — all being completely free — to continually increase the activity within the Society of the wise popularization of these theosophical ideas which, I submit, are of the most critical importance to all mankind at this juncture in human history. As I write these words, I find myself adding both as an appeal and a personal hope, ‘Amen’.

If this hope is not fulfilled, if human cruelty — man to man and man to animals — is not reduced, then one can hardly escape the conclusion that both war and disease may not only continue but increase. Here, then, is a great challenge to The Theosophical Society—or should I say, more correctly, a great opportunity before the Society — to continue with increasing effectiveness to inform mankind on this earth with knowledge of his true nature, the purpose of his existence, the method by which that purpose is fulfilled, the very great importance of willing co-operation in this fulfilment, and the inescapable operation of the law of action and appropriate reaction, or cause and effect. I envisage a world campaign for the spreading by the most effective means and in the most attractive forms conceivable of these and the other profound teachings of Theosophy.

The late President — as also his predecessors in office — has himself contributed greatly, and in this both The Theosophical Society and the human race owe him a profound debt of gratitude. May his successor, as I am sure will be the case, continue in this incalculably important task.

Dear Brother Sri Ram, your fellow members of The Theosophical Society assure you of a continuance of our deep and lasting affection and esteem. The example of your life and the inspiration of your teachings will ever remain in our hearts. May we all hope to work again under your wise direction for the progress of our Society and the effective popularization of Theosophy.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 61, Issue 6, June 1973, p. 181

109
The Purposes of the Masters in Founding the Theosophical Society

In the year 1880, Messrs. A. P. Sinnett and A. O. Hume, then living in India, were permitted to correspond with the two Adept Founders, known by Their initials M. and K.H. Many of the letters from these Masters, were much later published as The Mahatma Letters. Extracts, here given, reveal certain of the Masters’ views and purposes when founding the Society and may serve both as guide in planning and executing the work of the Movement in these days and as touchstones wherewith to test the relative value of Theosophical objectives and methods of attaining them.

The mysteries never were; never can be, put within the reach of the general public, not, at least, until that longed for day when our religious philosophy becomes universal.

—K.H. Letter II, page 6.

The chief object of the T.S. [Theosophical Society] is not so much to gratify individual aspirations as to serve our fellow men.

—K.H. Letter II, pages 7 and 8.

The new society [Anglo-Indian Branch], if formed at all, must (though bearing a distinctive title of its own) be, in fact, a Branch of the

Parent Body as is the British Theosophical Society at London and contribute to its vitality and usefulness by promoting its leading idea of a Universal Brotherhood, and in other practicable ways.

—K.H. Letter II, page 9.

The term ‘Universal Brotherhood’ is no idle phrase. Humanity in the mass has a paramount claim upon us, as I tried to explain in my letter to Mr Hume, which you had better ask the loan of. It is the only secure foundation for universal morality. If it be a dream, it is at least a noble one for mankind and it is the aspiration of the true Adept.

—K.H. Letter IV, page 17.

The Chiefs want a ‘Brotherhood of Humanity’, a real Universal Fraternity started; an institution which would make itself known throughout the world and arrest the attention of the highest minds.

—K.H. Letter VI, page 24.

Until final emancipation reabsorbs the Ego it must be conscious of the purest sympathies called out by the aesthetic effects of high art, its tenderest cords to respond to the call of the holier and nobler human attachments. Of course, the greater the progress towards deliverance, the less this will be the case, until, to crown all, human and purely individual personal feelings — blood-ties and friendship, patriotism and race predilection— all give way, to become blended into one universal feeling, the only true and holy, the only unselfish and eternal one — Love, an immense Love for humanity — as a Wholel For it is ‘humanity’ which is the great Orphan, the only disinherited one upon this earth, my friend. And it is the duty of every man who is capable of an unselfish impulse to do something, however little, for its welfare. Poor, poor humanity! it reminds me of the old fable of the war between the Body and its members: here, too, each limb of this huge ‘orphan’—fatherless and motherless — selfishly cares but for itself. The body uncared for suffers internally, whether the limbs are at war or at rest. Its suffering and agony never ceases.... And who can blame it — as your materialistic philosophers do — if, in this everlasting isolation and neglect it has evolved gods, unto whom ‘it ever cries for help but is not heard!’ . . . Thus —‘Since there is no hope for man only in man I would not let one cry whom I could save!’

—K.H. Letter VIII, pages 32-33.

It has been constantly our wish to spread on the Western Continent among the foremost educated classes ‘Branches’ of the T.S. as the harbingers of a Universal Brotherhood.

—K.H. Letter XXVIII, page 209.

We want true and unselfish hearts; fearless and confiding souls.

—K.H. Letter XXVIII, page 214.

We have the weakness to believe in ever-recurrent cycles and hope to quicken the resurrection of what is past and gone. We could not impede it even if we would. The ‘new civilization’ will be but the child of the old one, and we have but to leave the eternal law to take its own course to have our dead ones come out of their graves; yet, we are certainly anxious to hasten the welcome event. Fear not; although we do ‘cling superstitiously to the relics of the Past’ our knowledge will not pass away from the sight of man. It is the ‘gift of the Gods’ and the most precious relic of all. The keepers of the sacred Light did not safely cross so many ages but to find themselves wrecked on the rocks of modem scepticism. Our pilots are too experienced sailors to allow us to fear any such disaster. We will always find volunteers to replace the tired sentries, and the world, bad as it is in its present state of transitory period, can yet furnish us with a few men now and then.

—K.H. Letter XXVIII, pages 214-215.

And I wish I could impress upon your minds the deep conviction that we do not wish Mr Hume or you to prove conclusively to, the public that we really exist. Please realize the fact that so long as men doubt there will be curiosity and enquiry; and that enquiry stimulates reflection which begets efforts; but let our secret be once thoroughly vulgarized and not only will sceptical society derive no great good, but our privacy would be constantly endangered and have to he continually guarded at an unreasonable cost of power.

—K.H. Letter XXIX, page 227

We cannot consent to over flood the world at the risk of drowning them, with a doctrine that has to be cautiously given out, and bit by bit like a too powerful tonic which can kill as well as cure.

—K.H. Letter XXXIV, page 245.

The Society will never perish as an institution, although branches and individuals in it may.

—K.H. Letter XXXIV, page 245.

It is not physical phenomena that will ever bring conviction to the hearts of the unbelievers in the ‘Brotherhood’ but rather phenomena of intellectuality philosophy and logic.

—K.H. Letter XXXV, page 246.

... he who joins the Society with the sole object of coming in contact with us and if not of acquiring at least of assuring himself of the reality of such powers and of our objective existence — was pursuing a mirage? I say again then. It is he alone who has the love of humanity at heart, who is capable of grasping thoroughly the idea of a regenerating practical Brotherhood, who is entitled to the possession of our secrets. He alone, such a man — will never misuse his powers, as there will be no fear that he should turn them to selfish ends. A man who places not the good of mankind above his own good is not worthy of becoming our chela — he is not worthy of becoming higher in knowledge than his neighbour. If he craves for phenomena let him be satisfied with the pranks of spiritualism. Such is the real state of things. There was a time when, from sea to sea, from the mountains and deserts of the north to the grand woods and downs of Ceylon, there was but one faith, one rallying cry — to save humanity from the miseries of ignorance in the name of Him who taught first the solidarity of all men. How is it now? Where is the grandeur of our people and of the one Truth? These, you may say, are beautiful visions which were once realities on earth, but had flitted away like the light of a summer’s evening. Yes; and now we are in the midst of a conflicting people, of an obstinate, ignorant people seeking to know the truth yet not able to find it, for each seeks it only for his own private benefit and gratification, without giving one thought to others. Will you, or rather they, never see the true meaning and explanation of that great wreck of desolation which has come to our land and threatens all lands — yours first of all? It is selfishness and exclusiveness that killed ours, and it is selfishness and exclusiveness that will kill yours — which has in addition some other defects which I will not name. The world has clouded the light of true knowledge, and selfishness will not allow its resurrection, for it excludes and will not recognize the whole fellowship of all those who were born under the same immutable natural law.

—M. Letter XXXVIII, page 252.

The sun of Theosophy must shine for all, not for a part. There is more of this movement than you have yet had an inkling of, and the work of the T.S. is linked in with similar work that is secretly going on in all parts of the world.

—M. Letter XLVII, page 271.

Those who have watched mankind through the centuries of this cycle have constantly seen the details of this death-struggle between Truth and Error repeating themselves. Some of you Theosophists are now only wounded in your ‘honor’ or your purses, but those who held the lamp in preceding generations paid the penalty of their lives for their knowledge.

Courage, then, you all who would be warriors of the one divine Verity; keep on boldly and confidently; husband your moral strength, not wasting it upon trifles but keeping it against great occasions.

—K.H. Letter LV, page 322.

The Theosophist’s duty is like that of the husbandman’s; to turn his furrows and sow his grains as best he can; the issue is with nature, and she, the slave of law.

—K.H. Letter LIX, page 339.

The only object to be striven for is the amelioration of the condition of man by the spread of truth suited to the various stages of his development and that of the country he inhabits and belongs to.

Truth has no earmark and does not suffer from the name under which it is promulgated — if the said object is attained.

—K.H. Letter LXXXV, page 399.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 9, July 1948, p. 59

110
The School of the Wisdom

Opening of 1953-54 Session, October 28, 1953

We have just heard Brother Sri Ram’s beautiful message to us all at the opening of the School, and at the very beginning of my address I will repeat two paragraphs which echo so very much my own thought:

Theosophy being a central Wisdom, nothing can be outside its purview. Though it is not possible for with our present resources, to attempt to encompass the magnificent aim of Lord Bacon who took all knowledge for his province, we might well take up the attitude that nothing in Nature or humanity is outside our interests. The outlook of a Theosophist is, above all, universal, as much in the province of his thought as in his sympathies.

The object of the School is however not primarily to imbue those who are its students with a lot of conventional learning, but to help them to be touched with the inward Spirit of the Wisdom. Delving under the surface of the phenomena which all may observe, it is their mission, if they are willing to undertake it, to discover the nature of the life and the law, of which those phenomena are expressions. Both Life and Law to the Theosophist have a profounder meaning, a more comprehensive significance, than they present from the purely scientific angle of observation.

These are most valuable words from our President, who is the Principal of the School of the Wisdom, under whom we shall be working.

Each Director of the School of the Wisdom brings to its work his own approach to the study of Theosophy and his own methods of teaching and direction. As the President says in his message, students are asked to adapt themselves to these methods as far as possible and to harmonize their minds with the minds of the various speakers who will be addressing them.

Theosophy in the widest meaning of the word is, for me, the one universal panacea for this world’s ills. After some years of study of Theosophy, work in the Theosophical Society, and observation of world problems, particularly through the period of the two World Wars, one feels more than ever convinced that comprehension of the Divine Wisdom and the successful application of its teachings to human life are urgent necessities in this period of crisis. As a consequence of that conviction, the activities of the Society and of its members assume world significance, and this conviction deepens in one’s mind as, year by year, one is privileged to participate in the Society’s Work.

The greatest contribution that any Theosophist can make to the solution of the present world problems is, I conclude, to live and to teach effectively standard, basic Theosophy. As I conceive of it, at present, my own task as the Director of Studies here also will be to contribute to the work of the School the fundamental Theosophical teachings as far as I am able to understand and expound them. I shall enunciate the several doctrines as clearly as I can, always remembering, and holding it as implicit in every word I utter, that there are no dogmas in the Society and that thought and opinion are free, even about Theosophy itself. Authority concerning doctrine and the fettering of the human mind in its search for truth are anathema.

The work of the School therefore has been planned so that the first session each day of the five days of the week will consist of an enunciation of the teachings of Theosophy on the main subjects mentioned in the Syllabus. Discussion and further expositions will follow throughout each day. It is hoped that students will, at the same time, continue their own personal studies, particularly in relation to the subject we are following. Our basic book of reference is The Secret Doctrine of H.P.B. [H. P. Blavatsky], but I personally advise all students also to study amongst many others the five books of A. E. Powell, The Etheric Double, The Astral Body, The Mental Body, The Causal Body, and The Solar System. These are invaluable compilations for which we owe the compiler a debt of gratitude. They are fully indexed and they give full references to the books and the teachings of our great Leaders up to a certain time in the history of the Society.

First of all we shall take Man himself, Monad, Ego and fourfold Personality, the phases of his evolution to Adeptship, and the application of this knowledge to his happinesses and unhappinesses here on earth. Next we shall take the Universe, its emanation, formation and perfection, with consideration of the nature, appearance and functions of the Creative Intelligences. The relationship between Macrocosm and Microcosm, universe and man, will then be considered and this will be approached from two points of view. If possible we shall study the law of correspondences, as enunciated chiefly by H. P. B., and we shall also try to realize in consciousness that which we are studying, beginning each morning session with meditation to the end of realization of the unity of Atman and Paramatman, ‘Man-spirit’ and ‘God-spirit’.

Lao Tzu said: ‘The universe is a man on a large scale’. We may permissibly reverse that dictum and assume that if the universe is a man on a large scale, then, also, man is a universe on a small scale. It is, however, one thing to repeat those words and quite another thing to realize in consciousness their full significance, and thereafter to begin to employ in the service of humanity the resultant powers. This realization of Theosophical teachings will be our ideal and our goal in the School this year. We shall hope to attain to what our President has so beautifully described in his message ‘the rich radiance of Wisdom’. Fortunately expert exponents are here available and will be helping us.

We will study together, we will meditate together and we will do that daily as a group. But we need to remember that we also need to think, to study and particularly to meditate, alone. There are some inner realizations which can only be attained by and for oneself and one must be alone to achieve them. Interior illumination demands aloneness, silence, privacy. In meditation and contemplation, we reach inwards towards the heart of our own life, which is also the heart of Life itself.

Thus, whilst mentally, in study, we seek to know and to understand Theosophy, in consciousness we seek to discover the real Self, the Inner Ruler Immortal, the Ray of the One Supreme Life and Light which we are, the real Individuality behind the bodily veil. This Self of man is eternally at one with the Self of the universe. The Lord Christ said: T and my Father are one’. We seek to realize that truth of truths and one day, however far off, to be able also to repeat them with knowledge and understanding. These, then, will be our goals in the study of Theosophy.

Our Society urgently needs writers and speakers. Almost everywhere nowadays, in nearly every lodge, every Federation and every Section, the International lecturer is told: ‘We lack a sufficient number of effective exponents of Theosophy. We have difficulty in maintaining our regular public work’. It is to be earnestly hoped that from the School of the Wisdom, not only this year but always, there will come effective exponents of standard Theosophy. The Society needs them. The world needs them and, I believe, at this present time as never before. Coming here, as I do, direct from the lecture-field in New Zealand, Australia, America and Canada, I can say that the world is hungry for the basic teachings of Theosophy. The Nature of Divinity, Meditation, Reincarnation, Karma individual and national, the Seven Rays, the Life after Death, the Superphysical Worlds and their inhabitants, the Seven Bodies of man, Health and Disease, Extra-Sensory Perception and the existence and possible influence of Superhuman Beings — these basic subjects draw interested audiences almost everywhere.

This is a School, and moreover a School of the Wisdom, which differentiates it from those other Schools where knowledge and capacity are the objectives and culture is the goal. The name of the School indicates its aim, which is to pursue knowledge to the end of wisdom, to gain ‘an implicit insight into every first truth’, to develop spiritual intuitiveness, to discover the inner, hidden light, to hear the ‘still, small voice’, the voice of the God within. All education and especially all such true learning and teaching are said to be under the direction and the benediction of the Great World Teacher. Our School is therefore His School, and is dedicated to Him in the hope that a ray of His perfect Wisdom may on occasion illuminate both teachers and students. Some Theosophists believe — all are free — that the Theosophical Society is under the benediction of its Adept Founders. If this also be true, then we gather here, we work, we seek, we aspire together, within the fields of activity of very great Beings.

With these aspirations and in the name of our revered President and Principal, I now declare this School of the Wisdom to be open and our work begun.

The Theosophist, Vol. 75, December 1953, p. 159

111
The Theosophical Society Today

A SURVEY

The Theosophical Society is alive because the Masters keep it alive, charge it continually with Their mighty power: also because the Ancient Wisdom itself is a mighty power, so that even our human limitation and errors as members cannot kill it. The Theosophical Society will never die, although we may presume that it will have periods of alternate relative quiescence and heightened activity.

What the Society needs above all things today is life, enthusiasm, devotion and self-sacrifice as for a glorious cause, in the majority of its members. Theosophy as a living power; Theosophy as a living light; Theosophy as divine love; Theosophy as an inexhaustible fount of spiritual inspiration; Theosophy within the individual, part of his inner constitution; Theosophy as a living experience; Theosophy as life itself. This is the vision that is needed.

Theosophy as a set of beliefs; Theosophy as a bundle of psychic experiences or half digested metaphysical ideas; Theosophy imprisoned in a lodge room — never taken out into life; Theosophy acclaimed from the platform and denied in thought and word and deed everywhere else — these are the antithesis of the ideal.

We, Theosophists, would do well to take the particular aspects or doctrines which appeal most to us, and by meditation and by their constant application to the problems of life turn them into living experiences, not psychically, but intellectually and spiritually. Failing this we tend to find the teachings so mentally satisfying and complete that we mistakenly think that we have made them our own. No one has made a truth his own until he has lived it, not momentarily, but consistently.

Then the organization of lodges in far too many cases is faulty in that it permits the lodge to be run by the few who by various means and generally with the highest motives get all the power into their hands. The whole lodge should discuss all lodge policy, vote upon all decisions, an executive body thrashing them out first and presenting the pros and cons to the lodge.

Next, it is of the first importance that by some means or other an increasing number of members should be encouraged to embark upon the quest for knowledge. The knowledge aspect of Theosophy is somewhat neglected today, tends to become subordinate to organization. With certain exceptions the membership seems either mentally tired by daily activities or else unwilling to make the mental effort necessary to acquire a real grasp of Theosophy. Organized study is one of the great needs of the hour. Members should become really thrilled with the wonderful teachings of Theosophy, inspired to dig into the books and into their own consciousness, and to turn their lodges into centres of knowledge as well of service and devotion.

Just now two special qualities, those of power and of devotion, are being accentuated. Knowledge is, however, the very soul of Theosophical power and Theosophical devotion. The Society suffers today from lack of knowledge and of the thirst for knowledge on the part of the members. The remedy would appear to consist of a general accentuation throughout the Movement of the knowledge aspect of Theosophy — stimulus to intellectual activity throughout the membership. For how can the lodge give Theosophy to the world unless the members are thoroughly imbued with it, both as a body of doctrines and as a life to be lived?

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 35, No. 1, February 1938, p. 6

112
The Theosophical Society Why it was Founded

The Adept Founders of the Theosophical Society [T.S.] may be thought of as having selected for Their purposes a certain, deliberately restricted portion of the almost infinite Wisdom of the Ages. Once the decision was taken, an organization was doubtless conceived as means whereby to offer this Theosophia to mankind. Whilst throughout the subsequent history of the Theosophical Society adaptations, applications to the changing problems of human living, and extensions of the ideas are continually advisable, such developments should not be allowed either to deflect the Society from its original purpose or to obscure the original message.

Therefore, the Society should surely base its chief activities and its teachings upon first truths, first purposes and the original plan, naturally taking great care never to limit the freedom of thought and self-expression of any Section, lodge or member. By this means the T.S. ‘ship’ may be kept evenly enough upon its keel, which is Theosophy. If it is buffeted by winds and waves, and if ocean currents ever tend to divert it* from its originally planned course as charted for it by the Adepts, then the strong hands of intuitively inspired, and philosophically and historically well-instructed Theosophists may be trusted always to bring it back to that course again.

The port of arrival, one assumes, is a humanity fully imbued with theosophical knowledge and theosophical idealism, especially of the Oneness of Life and its ordered expression in the conduct of nations and individuals according to the fundamental laws of being. Thus, amidst all changes and all necessary developments, the original doctrines — the basic Theosophia — constitute the touchstone by which all ideas may ultimately be tested, proven or disproven.

The Theosophical Society was also designed, it would appear, to assist in that unchanging, unceasing work of the Great White Brotherhood throughout the ages, which is to keep open the Pathway to the attainment of direct occult knowledge for every human being who may ever send up the cry for personally perceived Light. By this means the recruitment from amongst humanity becomes possible of occultists of the White Order, of investigators and inspired leaders of men, and also the enrolment of initiated members of the Great White Brotherhood itself.

The Decisive Test

A man’s or a woman’s inherent, developed and increasingly expressed purpose for living and their underlying motives in almost everything they do, constitute the decisive test for acceptance by an Adept Teacher and progress made towards deliverance or Adeptship. As the Inner Self increasingly inspire personal motives and conduct of life, concern for the well being of all men and all creatures gradually deepens. The sense of being separate from others decreases with spiritual unfoldment, and this culminates in an interior impulse towards selfless — not infrequently sacrificial — service to the world. This greatly to be desired, but entirely natural, development brings about so great a change of life that the individual becomes transformed into the embodiment of love-inspired, wisely directed ministration to mankind. Such is the Disciple, such is the Initiate and such, in absolute perfection, is the Adept.

Ever Seeking

The Great White Brotherhood continually seeks such men and such women and, when they are found, inspires, encourages and, on occasion, personally opens up opportunities, for the increasing expression of the will to serve — in ways both great and small.

These two activities — making Theosophy available to the world-mind and ensuring inspiration for every spiritually awakening human being — constitute two aspects of the Work of the Masters upon this planet as far as man is concerned.

Theosophy in New ZealandVol. 33, No. 4, 1972, p. 80

113
The Theosophical Society and The Esoteric Section

In the year 1888, at the request of a group of members of the Parent Theosophical Society [T.S.] gathered round H. P. Blavatsky in London, two of the great Masters consented to the formation of an Inner Group led by H. P. Blavatsky as sole head, and having no connection with the Society. Those who joined had to be prepared genuinely and faithfully to obey certain very strict occult Rules. They agreed and in consequence the Group was formed.

Since those early days, this occult Movement gradually found a place throughout the Parent T.S. and came to be generally referred to as the E.S. [Esoteric School]. In almost every lodge premises, the use of a room in which in privacy its meetings could be held was granted by the Executive Committee of the lodge, the same applying at National Headquarters and at certain Centres devoted to the fulfilment of E.S. ideals; for within the E.S. is to be found in directly applicable forms the inspiration, support, systematic guidance and training in the occult life to the end of entrance and progress upon the Path of swift unfoldment. Regular meetings are held and an increasingly effective service to the T. S. is also encouraged.

Spiritual Centres

As a result of long continued use for these purposes, E. S. ‘Shrine Rooms’ in every part of the world become spiritual Centres in a darkening age, as many members learn from direct experience that is repeated each time they enter. The Shrine Room at Adyar in particular has long been an immensely potent Centre of Adeptic power and benediction.

May it not be presumed that a considerable number of Egos — some of them doubtless reincarnated members of the Mystery Schools of old — are returning to the world and entering the T.S. at this dramatic period in world history? Certain of these might be less doctrinaire students and exponents of Theosophy than idealists and devotees seeking to ascend the mystic pathway. Indeed, thousands of people^{^[126]} have found within the E. S. the direct instruction so urgently needed by those who in the modem world and especially in the West are awakening to the ‘Call’ of spiritual and philosophic idealism. Many of these would naturally and doubtless do, find in the E. S. a Centre from which, under wise tuition, their spiritual aspirations may be fulfilled. Some T. S. members who join the E. S. are approaching — may have reached indeed — the evolutionary stage at which Adeptic response to their idealism is assured. Within the E. S. their prayers for guidance in the inner life to which they are drawn are fully answered, the hands of the founding Masters being outstretched towards them. The E. S. is thus of immense value to both humanity at large and especially to those who found and entered the Mysteries in former lives and may then have become pupils of the Masters.

Naturally and instinctively in this life they seek again to ‘enter the Stream’ and to ‘become fishers of men’.[127]

Are such aspirations likely to be fulfilled in modem times? I have definitely come to believe so; for the ‘Day’ of Discipleship is never over even if less publicized now than in earlier periods. Each such aspirant and of course each pupil is of great value to humanity, since spiritually and occultly the advance of a single human being helps onward the whole of MANKIND; for all are one. The E. S. may furthermore be regarded as of incalculable value as a vehicle for the Masters’ influence not only to its greatly privileged members but through them to the world. I also venture to submit that the Adept Teachers in Their turn may find within the E. S. both aspirants to Discipleship and opportunities for their guidance, This last however, could possibly be less physical and material than occult and mystical; for those who have in deep seriousness pledged themselves to obedience to the Rules of the E. S. life are more likely than others who have not done so, to respond to Adept inspiration whether received during waking consciousness or bodily sleep.

The majority of the most devoted, reliable and effective workers at Headquarters at Adyar, in Section Headquarters, in lodges and in their family and business lives, are members of the E. S. and for the most part, I am convinced will so remain until the end of their lives. Did not a Master write in an early letter: ‘When a person joins the Theosophical Society I look at them’. Are not these words of very great significance to every aspirant who wishes to live the spiritual life amidst various degrees of worldly conditions? So also are the words of Mahatma K. H. [Kuthumi] addressed to A. P. Sinnett as follows: ‘Like the light in the sombre valley seen by the mountaineer from his peaks, every bright thought in your mind, my Brother, will sparkle and attract the attention of your distant friend and correspondent. It is thus we discover our Allies in the Shadow-world, your world and ours outside the precincts — and it is our law to approach every such an one if even there be but the feeblest glimmer of the true “Tathagata” light within him — then how far easier for you to attract us’.

Admittedly, these inner contacts can be and doubtless are, made for those who are not members of either the T. S. or the E. S. I give assurance however, that the teachings and the meetings, especially of the last named are of very great significance and helpfulness when a human being responds to the ‘Call’ of their own Higher Self, of a Master or of both.

May I here be allowed further to consider this aspect of human nature — response to the attraction of the occult life? The concept of the Seven Rays indicates that not all seekers for Truth markedly respond to philosophy alone. For some temperaments — 3rd and 5th Rays, for example — Theosophia serves as a necessary firm foundation for the intellectual expression of devotion to a religious ideal, Being or Principle (The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter XLV). Others more definitely require a reliable philosophic direction for a life of service to their fellow men — 2nd and 6th Ray for example. Many aspirants seek more importantly the knowledge and guidance on the Pathway to interior self-command, illumination and the ultimate realization of oneness with the eternal, universal Life or perchance a divine Embodiment of that Life — 2nd Ray more especially, perhaps. Acceptance of election to Office and the ideal of orderly, precise regular ceremonial self-expression, service and search — 1st and 7th Rays — holds a marked place in the thoughts and ideals of those who also have awakened and answered to the spiritual ‘Call’.

Whilst the activities of the T. S. offer opportunities in all of these fields, particularly those of the discovery of Truth and the service of mankind, as an organization it does not provide the direct occult and spiritual training and self-expression for those of other temperaments—mystics, for example. The existence of an admission to the E. S. can—indeed has and still does — provide the more special teaching and direction for those, who by temperament and perhaps experiences of the same in former incarnations, seek to tread the spiritual and occult pathways.

Millions of people in former lives became associated in varying degrees with the Mystery Tradition and it is but natural for them again to seek the Portal of the Temple, approach and be admitted to the ‘anaktoron’[128] or Holy of Holies within. For all such, the E. S. makes available the very opportunities, the yogic, moral, ethical, humanitarian guidance and training needed successfully to tread the Pathway of Hastened Evolution. The E. S. provides for its members’ instruction in the way of life, of thought, self-discipline and meditation, aiding each one to proceed to the discovery of the Spiritual Self within, the Universal Self and the inseparable unity which ever exists between them.

Whilst in one sense the E.S. may not be described literally as a physical Ashram, monastery or convent — even though for many members of the E. S. their homes are as Ashrams — nevertheless it does definitely give such aid as those Institutions make available and—extremely important to the majority of members — permits the continuance of life out in the world.

Almost from the beginning, the E. S. has been described as the ‘heart’ of the T. S. and if the above descriptions are accepted it does indeed become for many of its members the very ‘heart’ of their lives in the truest sense. To divide these two — the T. S. and the E.S. — would, I submit, inevitably remove a great deal — if admittedly not all—of the mystical and the spiritual ‘heart’ from the Theosophical Movement in the world of today.

If only from one other point of view, the insistence upon a strict vegetarian diet, and abstinence from the wearing of furs — the adoption of the ideal of Ahimsa or non-hurting — for members of the E.S., does make a practical contribution — however slight — to the reduction of the inconceivable brutality and cruelty characteristic of the relationships between men and animals on this our Earth. Teetotalism is also of immense importance to the health and well-being of humanity itself. For these benefices alone I am personally convinced, the existence and the function of the E.S. constitutes a valuable contribution to the evolution of mankind upon our Globe.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 40, No. 3, 1979, p. 59

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The Third Object

For me, the third object of our Society is as important as the first and second. Recognition of brotherhood is the result of an interior awakening, whilst practical brotherhood depends far more upon inner realization than upon obedience to an ethical or social code. The highest religion, philosophy or science is that which is founded upon interior experience, direct knowledge of the hitherto ‘unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in man’.

The third object is, I submit, destined to become increasingly prominent and I here suggest means by which this aspect of our movement may best be developed.

Our work in this connection is, I think, to present to the world in terms of modem thought, theosophical teachings along four main lines.

First, exact knowledge concerning the constitution of man.

Sciences based upon a study of the psyche are increasing in number — psychology, psychiatry, and psycho-analysis, for example—and it is evident that man is becoming increasingly soul-conscious.

Second, exact knowledge of the superphysical worlds, forces and intelligences. Of these also man is now becoming increasingly aware.

Third, exact knowledge concerning the senses of man, their evolution, their future natural development, their forced evolution by means of Yoga.

The apparent sensory abnormalities characteristic of the present stage of transition between the fifth and sixth senses become comprehensible in the light of this knowledge.

Fourth, guidance to the increasing number of people in whom the sixth sense, as clairvoyance, clairaudience, intuition or acute mental sensitivity, is appearing.

Children especially are in need of this guidance, lacking which, the treatment meted out to those who are hypersensitive is often cruel and harmful in the extreme. Teachers and parents all need, and will increasingly need, the scientific knowledge of this subject which Theosophy supplies.

A series of books expounding this aspect of Theosophy in non-technical terms, especially addressed to parents and teachers, is urgently needed.

The development of the sixth sense and seventh sense is inevitable. Man cannot avoid increasing sensitivity to the invisible forces continually playing on and about him. He is subjected to a perpetual bornbardment of physical and superphysical energies. He lives on a mighty power house, the earth; his bodies are dynamos. Cosmic, solar and planetary forces beat upon him throughout his whole life. The development of appropriate sensory organs and powers will naturally result from response to these experiences. Everywhere are signs of this response, which is especially noticeable in present day science.

The relatively infant branch of psychology studies and classifies subjective experiences. New schools of medical practice have appeared showing an increasing recognition of the influence of physical states upon physical health, as also of the vibrational nature of the body and its organs. Instruments now exist by which the frequency of the force emanations from various tissues and organs in health and disease are measured.

In physics, a superphysical foundation or ultimate substance for the physical universe is suspected and even affirmed by certain thinkers.

Psychical research, scientific and unscientific, by spiritualistic methods is being pursued by an increasing number of people. Yet all these activities are but gropings as of blind men just beginning to see.

The Theosophical contribution surely is to show the ordered place in the universe and in man both of the invisible worlds, their forces and inhabitants, and of human experience of them.

The study of the invisible as a science, and not as a sensation, must be inculcated.

The science of Yoga, which provides the real light, needs a new presentation in terms of advanced western thought.

Lastly, I would urge upon the members of our Society the necessity for a strictly scientific presentation of third object material. Pronouncements by leading scientists now enable one to found statements concerning the invisible upon a scientific basis. Lecturers especially should take particular care to keep abreast of modem thought and to avoid loose thinking on the subject, and the public presentation of imperfectly grasped ideas. All members should refrain from the premature introduction into conversation with new acquaintances of psychical teachings, experiences and theories.

The extreme of sanity must mark every utterance of the Theosophist concerning psychic and occult matters. The inherent reasonableness of Theosophy, and not its more sensational aspects, should be stressed when ever the subject is discussed.

Thus I submit we can render great service to a world uniquely prepared for, greatly needing, the sublime occult teachings of which we are in part the stewards.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 2 April 1938, p. 7

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The Work of the Individual Member

What can individual members do to advance the work of their lodge and Section? They can, each one in their own way, work continuously, intelligently, devotedly to spread Theosophy abroad. They can become continual recruiters of new members and participators in a great national drive to bring Theosophy to the whole population of their city and country.

In what particular ways can each member aid the progress of Lodge, Section and International Society? Many possibilities exist. Here are some positive and some negative suggestions to members who desire to serve effectively.

Build up an individual record of useful work done to spread Theosophy. Keep on tirelessly, despite disappointments, ever reaching more and more people. Those members, especially ladies, who have the necessary leisure and room space, can hold informal gatherings of neighbours and friends in their houses. Leading theosophical teachers may be invited to address these gatherings and to meet the guests in a more social and informal atmosphere than is possible at public lectures.

Tactfully invite acquaintances to attend meetings both at home and, when lectures are suitable, at lodge. Help them with their studies, problems, inner life and if they respond seek gradually and wisely to recruit them to membership.

Have theosophical books available for borrowing at your home.

Enclose theosophical leaflets in personal correspondence with such friends and acquaintances as would be likely to benefit from them.

Theosophical Ideals, by C. Jinarajadasa, is excellent for this purpose.

Individually, or in groups, subscribe to theosophical magazines especially The Theosophist and place them in local Libraries. Ask for theosophical books there and encourage librarians to have them on their shelves. If possible, present them to libraries.

Help new members to feel welcome and happy in the lodge, to realize that they really have joined a great brotherhood.

Attend lodge meetings regularly and punctually. Mentally prepare to contribute to their success.

Pay dues regularly and in good time.

Remember continually the great office held by every member of channelship for power and blessing to the world. Try to shed the beneficent influence of Theosophy and of the Masters of the Wisdom on all people contacted. Hold in the heart continually the glorious fact of the existence of the Masters and of the direct link with Them, which is the privilege of every member of the Parent Theosophical Society. Read about Them, meditate upon Them, reach up to Them, work in Their Names, and so become channels for Their inspiration and blessing to men.

By regular daily meditation, as well as by service and study, build up an ever deepening inner life and so establish spirituality, poise, sanity and stability as recognizable attributes of a theosophical character.

Take a course of lessons in both public speaking and journalism from suitable professional teachers.

Though placed last, this is perhaps the most important of all these suggestions. The Society urgently needs speakers and writers of ability. One immediate practical step which any keen member, especially young members could best take, would be to train themselves to become effective public speakers. Speakers’ training classes and drama groups in lodges can be of inestimable value.

As individuals thus deepen and expand their theosophical life and activity, so will lodge life deepen and its activities develop.

There is one further suggestion for lodges as a whole and particularly for lodge Presidents. It is to keep the lodge closely in touch with the larger life of the city in which it exists and of The Theosophical Society, both as a Section and as an international organization. Encourage the lodge to contribute to that larger life, and so become a more active, vital part of it. The various festival days of the theosophical year should be regularly observed and collections taken for the representative causes. The Theosophist and the Section Magazine and those of other Sections used for purpose of lodge study, are valuable aids to this end.

In these various ways the individual member can vitally assist in the Society’s work.

Here, too, are some negatives:

Do not put personalities, especially one’s personal fulfilment and personal likes and dislikes, before the progress of the work and the growth of the lodge.

Be on guard against sameness, self-satisfaction, somnolence.

Do not become mentally rigid, or fixed in beliefs and ideas and dogmatic in their presentation. Throw open and keep open the mental windows and let in plenty of ‘fresh air’.

Do not fear and oppose reform and development lest they should upset a personal regime. Always welcome expansion when soundly planned.

Do not let a barrier to the progress of the work continue to exist year after year for fear of hurting someone’s feelings or of being hurt oneself. Whilst ever kind and considerate, put the work first and personalities — especially one’s own — second.

Do not allow new members to feel that they are either neglected or are under critical observation, particularly in their attendance or non-attendance at lodge. Freedom must ever be maintained as the predominating characteristic of lodge atmosphere.

Most new members are endeavouring to adjust their personal lives to their new position. This adjustment can be quite difficult for them. Family obligations still have to be met. They are often under close observation in their own family and social circle. Their careers must still be continued. It is, therefore, all-important that membership should prove to be a valuable aid, not a limitation, and should provide complete mental and physical freedom, in sharp contrast to the sectarian narrowness of many religious denominations.

Do not gossip and do not permit gossip in your presence. Do not either set up for another member a standard of conduct or criticize them when they appear to fall below that standard. Every member must feel completely free to attend or stay away from lodge and find themselves equally welcome in either case. At the same time, each new member should be encouraged to contribute to lodge life their special knowledge, outlook and faculty. By this means, lodge life becomes continually enriched by the inflow of new life-streams.

All this becomes possible when once it is realized that Theosophy is of supreme importance to humanity, is in fact the greatest thing in the world. Theosophy is that for which all the world is seeking. Theosophy is the wisdom of all ages. Behind The Theosophical Society and its workers are the mightiest Beings on this planet, the Members of the great Hierarchy of the Adepts. At the disposal of The Theosophical Society, its Sections, lodges and workers is the spiritual power behind human evolution on this globe. By a deepening realization of this, every member may effectively work for the Society, help to spread Theosophy, recruit members and live a truly theosophical life.

The Link, December, 1947

The American Theosophist, Vol. 36, Issue 2, February 1948, p. 34

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The Work of the Theosophical Society in New Zealand

Contribution to Nationhood

What may we assume to be the particular contribution of the New Zealand Section of The Theosophical Society to the progress of its country to developed nationhood?

First, of course, as throughout the world, with every means at its disposal to spread the basic teachings, the spirit and the influence of Theosophy. By life, by character, by service in and to the lodges, to the cities and so to the nation as a whole, by voice, by pen, with untiring devotion, our task in New Zealand surely is to bring the illumination of Theosophy to this wonderful young nation.

Second, whilst spreading all the basic doctrines, we must accentuate especially the ideal of the brotherhood of man. This we must ever present, not as a condition to be artificially produced, but as an existing fact in nature for man to acknowledge. This teaching is of supreme importance because brotherhood must be the guiding principle of all governments, the foundation of every law which is enacted and of every relationship which is established both within and without the nation. Human brotherhood is in fact the word shining in letters of light over the cradle of every new nation which in this age is born into the world.

The profound significance of the choice made by the Elder Brethren of the brotherhood of man as Their supreme message and first object when founding The Theosophical Society is in these days perfectly clear. As long ago as 1875, and doubtless far earlier, They foresaw the present world crisis. So They began nearly seventy years ago to sound forth the note of the New Age, the truth of the Universal Brotherhood of Man. We in our turn must relay that great message, broadcast this great truth of the unity and solidarity of the human race into the mind of modem man.

Third, we must seek increasingly to influence in the direction of Theosophy the thought, the public opinion, of New Zealand. The work of the Section is already achieving this and I hope that when the war is over the Section will form its own publishing committee and produce and distribute widely pamphlets and leaflets on Theosophy both as doctrine and as applied to national life and national problems. The more vital and more effective our public propaganda is, the greater its influence upon the national consciousness. The more we members have the time, opportunity and desire to associate ourselves with other national and civic organizations working for idealistic purposes and take Theosophical truths to them, the more quickly will Theosophy permeate the national thought.

Meditation classes might well be established for the deliberate purpose of radiating upon the nation both the power and blessing of the Elder Brethren and a carefully chosen succession of great spiritual truths. Such a group in each lodge, meeting regularly, could soon become a powerful mental broadcasting station.

This is above all a mental age. The powers of the mind are at last beginning to be recognized and investigated. We, Theosophists, are blessed with the knowledge of the nature of these powers and how they may be directed. This is one of the ways in which we could apply our knowledge. Thought power groups studying all our literature on the subject and deliberately broadcasting into the thought world carefully chosen and clearly formulated ideas could become a great power in each city. Such groups would also have the effect of vitalizing and empowering the lodge itself.

In Wellington, for example, the Legislature could be made the recipient of the invoked blessing and inspiration of the Elder Brethren.

The Work of the Theosophical Society in New Zealand 527

Each member could daily ask Their blessing upon the Prime Minister, his Cabinet and upon Parliament, and every time they pass the Houses of Parliament visualize the power of the Inner Government of the world as descending upon it and the Star of the King shining above the building.

National Ideals

In the course of my travels, I have come to feel the value to those countries which possess them of great national centralizing thoughts, ideals and personages. St George, for example, is undoubtedly such a centralizing influence for the British people not only at home, but the world over. His victory over the dragon has a deep spiritual and psychological significance both to the race as a whole and to nations and individuals. Would it not be a splendid thing if New Zealand could discover such a national ideal or become adopted by some such Being? Though not a New Zealander by birth, I have taken the liberty of trying to formulate such an ideal and even to give it a tentative form which could easily be visualized. This is purely experimental and illustrative and in no sense do I suggest it as the best possible choice. I have envisaged the spirit and purpose of the New Zealand nation as a tall and splendid human figure hovering with one foot over each island and towering high into the air above. In the left hand is a swinging censer from which smoke is arising. With its right hand it is pointing upwards and from it sounds forth the message of New Zealand to the world, the keynote and mantram of New Zealand. What that message may ultimately prove to be I do not presume to know, but I have tentatively conceived of it as: ‘Through beauty to the Stars’.

Then we members of the New Zealand Section can effectively aid this nation by making a survey of the evils by which the country is already most seriously assailed. When we have studied them we can begin to evolve and then present their solutions. The basic evil from which the whole world suffers is, of course, the evil of materialism with its attendant vices of greed, envy, hatred, cruelty, exploitation and immorality, from which inevitably spring a decline in the national health and morale, such as has in these days been evident throughout the world and I fear also in New Zealand.

Probably the most serious aspect of this evil is its expression in the young people. With notable splendid exceptions, whatever their inner feelings may be, numbers of them give the impression of being absorbed in the pursuit of the will-o’-the-wisp of material possessions and material pleasures. Since these belong to the temporal transient world, exclusive pursuit of them can bring naught but disillusion and the danger of demoralization.

Here the great message of Theosophy concerning the omnipresent spiritual Life, the spiritual nature of man, the importance of spiritual motives, spiritual purposes and spiritual objectives in life—that message is of incalculable importance, especially to the young people. Indeed the mantram or prayer of the soul of New Zealand as of the whole world could well be.

“From the unreal lead me to the Real,

From darkness lead me to light.

From death lead me to immortality”.

A great spiritual revival, a great religious awakening, a return to the basic simplicities and fundamental verities of life is urgently needed here as everywhere.

Consecration to Service

A nation in the building needs above all things men and women utterly dedicated to its service, living consecrated lives, selfless lives, disciplined lives. Already many such exist in New Zealand. Everywhere one is inspired to meet many idealists and many public-spirited people in this country. One also sees so many fine looking young people, boys and girls, as one tours the Dominion. Again and again the thought strikes one that these fine people, old and young, would at once respond to the ideal of the Path of the consecrated life, if it were acceptably presented to them. One becomes increasingly impressed with the necessity of reaching the young people of New Zealand.

A Living Christian Faith

Unfortunately, orthodox religion here as throughout Christendom is divided up into innumerable sects, some of them antagonistic to each other, few of them ready to co-operate fully with each other and as a result the work of spreading the Gospel of Christ and of sending out the call to the Christ life, that work is pitifully weakened. Religious

The Work of the Theosophical Society in New Zealand 529 practice by individuals tends to decline to the mere observance of church-going on Sundays. At church services, worship consists almost exclusively of saying ‘Amen’ in assent to other people’s prayers. True, there are many splendid exceptions, and the Sacraments bring Divine Grace to many, but formality in religion is, I fear, the rule.

Great spiritualizing changes in the individual outlook and a new and vital religious life are urgently needed. A living Christian faith must be brought to the hearts and minds of the people of the world, a great call to the consecrated, truly religious life made to one and all. If this is not achieved, there is a danger that the young nations will grow up, not into highly cultured and spiritually-minded examples of new race man, but rather into peoples predominantly commerce-minded and bowing to the great god ‘money’. If this occurs, and there is marked evidence that it is occurring to day — then the young nation’s rise to greatness will inevitably be delayed.

The Theosophical teachings concerning the Path of Discipleship and the Theosophical interpretations of the Scriptures and of Christian doctrines in general can be of great value at this time. Living, mystical Christianity, deeply experienced, intelligently expounded, is one of the great needs.

Modern Materialism

From the purely Theosophical point of view, modem materialism is most unfortunate. Unless it is checked it might even be disastrous to the post-war reconstruction. New Zealand is in a specially difficult position from this point of view. Although the nation is enriched by the lives of a great many fine, public-spirited Christian men and women in the country, we, Theosophists, have to face the fact that the national life, trade and prosperity depend very largely upon the exploitation of animals. Unbelievable and inhuman cruelty and the flowing of rivers of animal blood have for years deeply stained and still continue to stain the soul of New Zealand as of every other nation. Karmically there will inevitably be a reaction to the continuance of these violations of the laws of unity, of humaneness and purity. Already humanitarians and reformers are beginning to see a karmic connection between this long continued evil and the state of health of the peoples of New Zealand as also of other countries which fall into the same error. Garibaldi once said that ‘No nation can achieve greatness which does not adopt the members of the animal kingdom into equal rights of citizenship with human beings’. To a nation in the becoming, the Theosophical teaching of the unity, divinity, sacredness of all life is of supreme importance.

This teaching also we must therefore accentuate. On the other hand, the very great contribution of New Zealand and of the three other New Race nations to the prosecution of both the first and second world wars, especially the second, constitutes the generation of most favourable karma, which will offset the disadvantages accruing from the exploitation of animals. Great promise for the development of a magnificent New Zealand manhood is demonstrated by the fact that the Dominion’s soldiers have earned the proud title of‘the finest shock troops in the world’. The great sacrifices of the women of New Zealand and their magnificent qualities of character, and their contribution to all war services demonstrate also the development here of a race possessing the very finest moral as well as physical characteristics.

A Directing Intelligence

Theosophy tells us that nowhere in the Universe is there any chance. Everywhere there is order, everywhere law. Nowhere are there blind forces, blindly operating laws and processes. Everywhere Divine Intelligence directs all forces and processes, administers all natural law. This direction and this administration are assisted by Divine, superhuman Intelligences on this planet. They are the Adept Members of the Inner Government of the World.

These Great Ones it is Who sent here the Maoris and later ourselves the British people, that here a new nation might arise. We Fellows of The Theosophical Society alone voluntarily acknowledge these facts and alone work directly and consciously under Their direction, knowing that our Society was founded by Them. Great, therefore, is our opportunity in this supremely critical and dynamic period of human history,

Our predecessors have firmly and wisely established The Theosophical Society in New Zealand. A well organized Section with many lodges, some with their own fine premises and many splendid workers exist as an effective machinery. Ours to go forward into the

post-war age, now already upon us, as great servants of the Masters of the Wisdom, great builders of a New World Order and great workers in the process of nation building now occurring in this fair land of New Zealand. We ourselves have all been gathered together by our karma and by Those under Whom it is our inestimable privilege to study, to perfect our characters and to serve.

Forward, therefore, let us march under our great Generals. With even greater devotion than heretofore, let us give ourselves to the task of bringing the treasures of the Ancient Wisdom to this nation in the becoming.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 4, No. 3, 1943, p. 60

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Theosophy and the Modern World [1]

During this Easter weekend we have gathered together as theosophists to consider the Great Work for which at the inspiration of the Elder Brethren our Society was brought into existence.

We have been concentrating especially upon our Australian share of that work, reviewing the activities of the year that is past, and making our plans for the year and years that lie ahead of us.

My task is to address you chiefly concerning the larger world need and the consequent world theosophical opportunity. As our Society, though inherently a unit, is built up of its various Sections, I shall also offer some suggestions concerning our work in Australia.

No one who surveys the material, intellectual and spiritual conditions of life of the world today, can fail to perceive that the two great principles are being made the focus for a determined and world wide attack. I refer to the principles of justice and freedom. Already they have been virtually banished from the field of international relationship and actually banished from several European countries. This is true not only of political and social freedom, but unfortunately of spiritual and intellectual freedom as well.

This latter is to my mind more serious than the former, because it means that the search of the human soul for light, understanding, knowledge, is beset by obstacles and barriers which, save for the few, are practically impassable. We are witnessing in some countries the expulsion of all religion, and in many others throughout Christendom, the growth of an orthodox Christian dogma designed to strike terror in the hearts of believers. On pain of eternal damnation, one sect demands of its adherents implicit belief that there is only one way to God — their own — and only one hope of personal salvation — that offered through the mediation of their clergy. This to my mind constitutes one of the most serious menaces to individual and national progress and happiness which has ever existed in the world.

Together the two attacks upon the freedom of man constitute not only an exceedingly harmful state of affairs, but also a most serious obstacle to the progress of the work of our Theosophical Society.

For we are in the presence not only of political dictatorship but, far more serious, of an ever growing, ever spreading dictatorship over the very soul and spirit of man. As an example of this state of affairs, both Theosophy, and its great philosophic offspring Freemasonry, are now prohibited in Germany, and presumably Austria, Poland, Russia and Spain.

In Christianity, intellectual study of spiritual and philosophic ideas tends increasingly to be limited to one narrow, prejudiced school of thought. For millions of Christians the search for truth is forcibly confined not only to one of the world’s Scriptures, but infinitely worse, to one dead letter reading and one enforced interpretation of those Scriptures; and the force so effectively applied consists of fear, physically of failure in the present life and spiritually of everlasting damnation in the hereafter.

Seeing all this, the student of world affairs, and especially the student of Theosophy, cannot but be deeply concerned for the future of the race, cannot but ask himself, when and where will the principle of freedom, essential to the progress and well-being of man, be established on earth?

For is it not clear that unless this movement is checked the human being today will find himself in a condition in which he will not be able to call his soul his own?

How can it be checked? Only, I submit by the combined and effective action of men and women who prize freedom, justice and truth above all else in human life.

A great and world-wide crusade is needed today on behalf of these principles and for this purpose a great body of crusaders must go into action.

For me, the work of the Theosophical Society is such a crusade. For me, the Theosophical Society, the truths it teaches and the ideal of freedom on which it is based is the spiritual and intellectual hope of the world. For the Theosophical Society stands practically alone amongst great international movements in two respects. One is its establishment upon and promulgation of the great eternal verities, and the other is its affirmation of and insistence upon the principle of freedom, especially in all matters appertaining to the spiritual and intellectual life of man.

Silver Linings

Before we proceed to consider the treatment for these evils and later its modes of application, let us endeavour to assess the affect upon humanity of the present condition of world affairs.

What, may we presume, will be the outcome in terms of individual human life, of the present world situation?

First let us consider the effects upon the nations most directly involved. Here I wish to make it clear that when I describe and attack certain conditions and deplore certain tendencies in the world today, I am not blind to the fact that these evils may in the long run prove to have some usefulness. As this is not my subject I shall not enlarge very much upon the idea. I shall content myself by saying that the theosophical student develops the habit of looking below the surface of events. Above all he looks or tries to look at their ultimate outcome. Thus, whilst I deplore the intense and militaristic nationalism of the totalitarian states, I also conceive that there may be a purpose behind it. Certainly there is a working out of the educative Law of Cause and Effect. For we have only to look at the cruel and humiliating conditions imposed upon defeated countries at Versailles to see an immediate cause of their present intense nationalism and aggressive militarism.

Perhaps an awakened if narrow and aggressive German and Italian race-consciousness is needed for the evolution and enrichment of European humanity, as well as for the progress of those people themselves. Yet even if this proves to have been the case, I myself feel very sure that the methods and especially the accompanying atrocities and persecutions were never in the plan of racial development. They are human perversions, false reactions to whatever inspiration and guidance the Elder Brethren are offering to the national consciousness. Yet it may be that Germany needs to be freed of Jewish influence for some purpose which only the Lord Manu of the Race can comprehend. Perhaps the German Jews themselves need to be thrown out into the world both for their own benefit and for that of other nations.

The collective life — especially the cultural life — of the United States for example has recently been immeasurably enriched by the presence of a small number of extraordinary immigrants.

At the head of the list is Dr Albert Einstein, now of the Institute for Advanced Study, at Princeton University. Then come Ernst Toiler, brilliant playwright, Max Reinhardt, theatrical producer, George Grosz, artist; Vicki Baum, novelist; Elisabeth Bergner, actress; Dr Otto Klemperer, great conductor; Julius Ehrlich, composer; Bruno Eisner, pianist; Dr Wilhelm Frei, famous dermatologist; Dr Carl Lange, bacteriologist and Dr Siegfried Loewe, pharmacologist and biologist. In addition at least fifty other distinguished German Scholars are now resident in the U.S.A.

Thus it would appear that the countries to which the persecuted Jews emigrate need them or rather the Lord Manu needs them there. Perhaps China needs to be shocked, goaded, driven into an intellectual and spiritual awakening and Japan is but the instrument, her imperialistic aims and her national need both being utilized by the powers that be for that purpose.

Please do not misunderstand me. I do not for a moment suggest that the Masters deliberately initiate and foster aggression, militarism, atrocities, persecutions and bloody revolutions. We are told in fact that every permissible effort was made to prevent the French Revolution through the agency of the Master the Comte St Germain, now the Prince Rakoczi. But I do feel sure that in Their wisdom the Great Ones are able to produce ultimate good even out of these great evils. I am not blind to this possibility when I study world affairs today, but my thesis is that such activities and events are accompanied by a great deal that is gross, evil, deplorable and which therefore greatly needs to be combated. Even though good may come out of evil, I still hold that the evil must ever be fought and never condoned.

Theosophy, The Heart of the New Civilization

Now let us consider the possible effects of the present adverse world conditions upon those individuals who are most directly affected by them.

At this period of world crisis, of conflict between light and darkness, between might and right, many souls are being chastened, their evolution quickened and their intellects awakened to the search for ultimate truth. Out of the present welter of world-selfishness, world-ignorance and world-brutality, there are arising and will continue to arise, many thousands of men and women who will have awakened to their own spiritual light. These will be part of the harvest of the present age, the first fruits of the present world-testing in the fire of world-individualism and world fear.

For no one can doubt that there exists in the world today an individualism, a selfishness, a pride and an unashamed, cold, cynical barbarism which is positively satanic. As a result of this there exists in the hearts of millions of people a fear which is a veritable hell. Unless something is done the intellectual and spiritual growth of millions will be delayed. But those who pass through successfully, will emerge purified, enlightened and in some cases ready for the Path of Holiness. Reborn they will become the leaders who will establish on earth the foundations of the new age.

Let us for a moment glance forward to the coming age.

At the heart of every institution in the new age, it is reasonable to assume, Theosophy in appropriate forms will be found. Religion, education, politics, the arts and the sciences, will all be founded in the new age upon Theosophy, which is the greatest of all religions, education, politics, art and science; for what is Theosophy but the religion, art and science of life itself?

The reason for the continuous failure of past civilizations, has been the inability in the period of decline of the leaders and the majority of people to continue to perceive and receive that light which is to be found in the Wisdom Religion alone.

It is of interest to note that of the four great Aryan civilizations which preceded our own, one alone remains. This is the civilization of India, preserved through the ages by the presence at its heart of the Ancient Wisdom, and on its soil of the great Rishis and Mahatmas Who are its Guardians and its Hierophants. If our Western Civilization and in that I include the new race civilizations of Australia and South Africa is to endure, at its heart also must be established the Ancient Wisdom.

The day is coming, I feel assured, is indeed not far away when men and women will turn increasingly both to the Wisdom-Religion and to its Mighty Guardians for the aid which They alone can give.

The Theosophical Call

For Western humanity may be said to stand at the junction of four cross roads today. Behind, is the past, the way it has traveled. One of the side turnings leads to financial and political dictatorship. The other leads to the increased domination both temporal and religious of Western Civilization by a power in modem Christendom, which stands for spiritual dictatorship and rules almost entirely by fear. Straight ahead alone lies the way of safety from these two evils into that spiritual and intellectual freedom upon which alone a new and better civilization can be permanently established, and individual, cultural and spiritual progress most successfully be made.

Along this road we, theosophists, in every land are already traveling for we, apostles of freedom that we are, we have forsworn both of the side turnings. Having made our own choice, ours the opportunity by every means in our power to point out the way to our fellow men. There as I see it is our work in the immediate future. From the present world political situation and in the present religious situation comes the call to each and every one of us to play our individual and collective parts at this critical epoch in the history of the world.

The great theosophical call today seems to me to be for men and women who know something of the Plan of life, who recognize the existence of the Elder Brethren and of the Path which leads to increasingly conscious co-operation with Them; men and women who will at once apply themselves to the task of awakening and perfecting their own powers of body, mind, and will, so that they may become increasingly effective in the service of the world.

The greatest obstacle in the way of every reform is human apathy. For me Theosophy is the great awakener as well as the great illuminator and, despite the admitted obstacles, I look in this present world crisis to the rapid growth of our Theosophical Society, both in numbers and in influence — a growth produced both by that crisis and by this very arousing quality inherent in our philosophy.

There can be no doubt I think, that the present crisis does constitute a spiritual and intellectual call to every one of us to become spiritually awakened human beings, to ally ourselves actively with the forces working for human enlightenment, for human freedom and progress and against those working for human enslavement and evolutionary delay. I conceive that the living and active membership of our international Society could be and doubtless is one of the most powerful weapons in the hands of those Elder Brethren, Who called it into existence and Who are the Captains and Generals of the forces of freedom and light. The world will never be reformed by means of Parliaments, Leagues and pacts alone. The world can only be reformed as a result of the awakening of the collective conscience of humanity and the development of its spiritual perceptions.

It is Theosophy, and, I submit, Theosophy alone, which has power to produce these two results. Therefore all who live and teach Theosophy are true reformers. Again I affirm that Theosophy is the hope of the world.

So much for my prescription for the ills of a very sick world. As you see it is — Theosophy.

Inner and Outer Aspects of Theosophy

This brings us directly to our own movement and our own work.

How can the Theosophical Society best play its part in the great opportunity which is now before it? What are the special theosophical notes to be struck at this time?

First in order that we may be sure of our ground, let us glance back to the beginning of our movement. At once a peculiar phenomenon presents itself. This consists of the fact that in the beginning guarded and partial expositions were made of a certain set of teachings, some of which had not heretofore been given to any outside the circles of Initiation.

In the beginning of the theosophical movement the teachings given to Mr Sinnett were profoundly esoteric and a certain mystery surrounded such subjects as the constitution of man, the seven planes of nature, planetary Chains, Rounds and Races, the seven Rays and the nature of existence between incarnations^{^[129]}.

Gradually, however, we find these same teachings becoming generally known and consequently regarded as exoteric; for today they are publicly taught without the slightest suggestion of reserve or mystery and a new esotericism exists. This process is traceable throughout the history of our Society. The esotericism of one cycle becomes the exotericism of the next.

After the Founders and early workers passed away, a set of teachings were given, more or less privately, concerning the Adepts and the Path of Discipleship, the meaning and method of Initiation and the constitution of the Inner Government of the World.

In the cycle now opened teachings on all of those subjects have been presented quite openly^{^[130]}. Apart from their inherent esoteric nature these teachings have in their turn become exoteric.

Here it is interesting to observe that however exoteric a group of theosophical teachings may become, however freely they may be made public, their esoteric aspect nevertheless remains. Broadly speaking, exoteric teachings consist of occult and philosophic information extended to some extent into fully grasped knowledge. The esoteric aspect of the same teachings consists of the student’s direct experience of them as facts in Nature. Thus, however public occult information may be made, the living reality always remains as the prerogative of the few, and so it will always be.

Two purposes at least — one exoteric and one esoteric — for which occult teachings are given to the world now become apparent. One is to enlighten human minds concerning certain facts and laws of nature, and the other to increase the number of people for whom their truth becomes a matter of direct experience. When for example the teaching concerning the Adepts, discipleship and Initiation were first adumbrated in the early days of our Society, only a very few people had made of them matters of experience. Students were numerous, but chelas who taught both from interior knowledge and at the direction of their Masters were very few.

As a result however of the continued promulgation of these teachings the number of true esotericists has greatly increased. Today, one who travels throughout the international Society meets many theosophists who in varying degrees are directly aware of the facts concerning the Masters and the Path. As time goes on we may presume that their numbers will increase.

Thus by the study of occult science, of the hidden powers of man and of nature, and by deliberate self-training carried out by members, one of the purposes for which the Theosophical Society was brought into existence is being fulfilled. I refer to that described in the third object. As a result of the practical pursuit of the third object the first of the two purposes, that of spreading Theosophy in the world, is also more effectively fulfilled; for the world will always give a better hearing to those who speak from first-hand experience than to those who do not so speak.

The Society itself is therefore distinctly dual. It has its exoteric and its esoteric aspects and it is true to say that the deliverance to the world once more of certain portions of the Wisdom-Religion has had the effect of reopening the occult Path of discipleship for the Western World. True, the mystical Path has never been closed and however great the difficulties and dangers, the ancient Way could always be found by that seeker who was ready ‘to know, to dare, to will and to remain silent’.

Today, however, that Way is relatively easy to discover, for certain of the Elder Brethren have placed Themselves within measurable reach of every sincere aspirant.

There is not, therefore, and cannot be, anything untheosophical in the promulgation not only of information concerning the Masters and discipleship, but of the idea, nay the fact, that individuals can become disciples and know the Masters face to face. Indeed this is both the inevitable and, it would appear, the intended effect of the whole effort made in the last quarter of the last century when the Masters Morya and Koot Hoomi [Kuthumi], aided by certain of Their Adept and Initiate Brethren, began at that time to open up the western mind to the teachings of the Wisdom-Religion.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 3 June 1938, p. 2

118
Theosophy and the Modern World [2]

Adyar and the International Society

From this survey let us now look forward to our work in the immediate future. Especially let us try to discover those aspects of Theosophy which may reasonably be assumed respectively to constitute its exoteric and esoteric teachings and the means by which they may best be given to the world.

The hidden forces of Nature and of man, Kundalini, Fohat and Prana, scientific occultism, the discovery and realization of the hidden wisdom in world Scriptures, especially those of Christianity, as well as all the basic teachings — these will continue to be important as heretofore, and always. Methods of occult unfoldment, especially of the mastery and use of the powers of the mind will probably be among the special teachings to be accentuated and expanded as general information, thus meeting the world demand for such knowledge so apparent today. At the same time the personal application of all these teachings to the end of self-mastery and self-illumination will constitute the esotericism of the new cycle.

Obviously therefore we must continue with ever increasing zeal and efficiency our present work of spreading the basic teachings of Theosophy wherever we find or can make an opening for them — and openings exist every where today. That will always remain as our chief activity, our continuous public work. All great reforms begin in the mind and we must reach the public mind.

As a traveling theosophist it is but natural I suppose that the Theosophical Society should be seen by me as a great international unit, with its headquarters and power house at Adyar, and its President, Dr G. S. Arundale as its international leader.

Although this view is in no sense obligatory on any one of us, acceptance of it seems to me to be of very great importance. Each member I feel should at least recognize his unity with his brethren throughout the world. And every new member should read, and where possible subscribe to, The Theosophist for the first year of membership. As I work amongst you here I become increasingly impressed with the necessity of linking the consciousness of the Australian members with that of the rest of the Society, of stressing to you all the world view of our movement.

Rightly or wrongly I feel that, partly for geographical reasons and partly for others less easily defined, the Australian Section might in some measure become isolated from the rest of the Society. We need to guard against this lest we lose the power and inspiration which comes from Realizing oneself as part of a great world activity.

The Australian Section impresses me by its qualities of strength and stability. It is indeed well able to stand alone and carry on its fine work, relying on its own splendid resources.

But I feel, and hope I may be allowed to say, that it could in greater measure than at present both share its strength with the rest of the Society and gain inspiration itself by maintaining a closer link with the Society as a whole and especially with Adyar.

In this connection I have been happy to hear and vote for resolutions that a move be made in this direction. I am strongly conscious of Adyar myself, its beauty, its serenity and its power. I derive great inspiration both from Adyar and also from the friendship with both Dr and Mrs Arundale which Jane and I are privileged to enjoy. I greatly desire that as many as possible of my fellow members should share in that dual inspiration.

I am aware that the Australian Section has had its own peculiar differences and discords, certain of them perhaps not conducive to the development of a sense of unity. I hope that as soon as possible we shall be able to forget these difficulties and let bygones be bygones, so that the Theosophical army in Australia, as also throughout the world, shall march as one.

I believe that a great step forward could at this time be taken by the whole Australian Section, and that this opportunity constitutes a challenge to each and everyone of us to forget our difficulties and to unite in an endeavour to push forward our great work by every possible means within our power.

Our Immediate Work

In achieving this our individual self-help is important, our growth in theosophical knowledge and light. Personally, I believe greatly in a regular weekly members’ hour both for the study of straight Theosophy and for the renewal of inspiration and self-dedication to our great work and cause. We must all of us increasingly become knowers of Theosophy — true Gnostics. For how can we live and teach that which we do not know ourselves? Therefore regular lodge study of basic theosophical teachings is of the greatest importance.

In this connection — though many may not agree with me — I think that all new students should at first avoid the by-products of Theosophy, such as astrology, numerology, negative psychism and various methods of divination. These occult arts are very interesting and consequently can be distracting, drawing our attention away from the central theosophical teachings which the world so greatly needs. New students should not specialize too early in their studies. Later the occult arts can be useful in the presentation of certain aspects of Theosophy.

Then I would like to see the Australian section producing its own fine theosophical literature. We need a set of clearly written manuals of Theosophy published as is An Outline of Theosophy by C. W. Leadbeater, and sold for a similar small sum. In each manual should be given in correct order a list of good books for the progressive study of Theosophy by beginners. I regard the production and wide distribution of well-written low priced theosophical books as the surest means of spreading Theosophy.

Then — and here I may be too ambitious — whilst guarding the circulation of The Theosophist I should like to see say a quarterly magazine for the Australian public on Theosophy and allied subjects—something like World Theosophy so successfully produced in America by Mr and Mrs Hotchener. This would have a sale outside the country as well. Such rapid progress is being made in so many fields today, particularly in science, psychology and education that there is an abundance of material for such a journal and a unique opportunity for formative theosophical comment.

Then I would like to see Theosophy in Australia as a monthly and, good though it now is, brought back to its own splendid value and interest of the day when C. W. Leadbeater helped it so much.

I have not his profound and wide theosophical knowledge, and cannot write as he wrote, but if others will help, I for my part will gladly undertake to provide relatively new material for major articles for the next two years. I offer especially a set of articles embodying my studies of Theosophy and Christianity, another set, newly written, on the Seven Rays as well as many ‘shorts’ upon the more occult aspects of our work.

I consider the first named subject to be particularly important and wish to stimulate study along these lines, for I believe that Christianity needs greatly to be theosophised as the only solution to the condition in Christendom referred to in my opening remarks. I am inclined to go further and say also that for Western audiences — though of course not for Eastern — Theosophy needs to be Christianised that it may be more easily understood by them and more readily applied to life.

So much for our outer work. Of what will the esotericism of the next Cycle probably consist?

As I have already said, esotericism will I think continue to consist of direct experience of all that has been taught exoterically and in this sense no new esoteric note needs to be struck.

In other words, one task open to those theosophists who care to attempt it — and happily in such matters as always we are all perfectly free — is to turn their Theosophy into living experience. This means its practical application to the end of the awakening and development of the intuition, of increasing mastery of our own destiny, and of the hidden forces of body, emotion, mind and Ego — in short the deliberate self-direction and self-quickening of our evolution. This we may presume will be the special esotericism of the new Cycle.

The Adept Founders of the Society

Here I propose to make an apparent digression. I want to look with you at this piece of work which the Two Adept Founders undertook from the point of view of its possible effect upon Themselves. For by so doing we may perhaps gain a truer understanding of Their relation to Their Society, of the nature of the debt which each and every one of us who have joined it owe to Them and in consequence of the significance of our movement in Their eyes.

In founding the Theosophical Society, the two Masters in a certain sense threw Themselves and Their retreats open to the whole world. This is part of the great service, and indeed the great sacrifice, which They have rendered to humanity in this period of crisis in the history of our globe.

It is very evident now I think that They foresaw this crisis and for the helping of the world offered to Western humanity not only the Wisdom of which They are the Guardians, but in considerable measure They offered Themselves. For Them to emerge from the ‘silence of centuries’, to quote Their own words, to throw open the holy calm, the unbroken peace in which for centuries They had lived and to submit to the inflow of mental and psychic influences from a theosophically ignorant, unprepared humanity was a sacrifice indeed — one for which the whole race owes Them undying gratitude. For it may reasonably be assumed that in the voluntary demolition of certain of Their protections and in re-establishing direct relations between Themselves and the physical plane world of men They personally re-entered the arena of human life after having evolved out of it centuries ago. They Who are ‘karma-less’ have taken upon Themselves the weight of the karma of the Theosophical Society; for They cannot wholly remain aloof from the reactions produced by the mistakes which, being but human, its officials and prominent workers inevitably must make.

True Their interior peace can never be disturbed; but Their external peace can be, in some measure has been, and this must have been foreseen before ever the Society was founded. Doubtless it was agreed upon as a gesture of love which The Masters gladly made as Individuals on behalf of ourselves Their younger brethren.

Careful perusal of the Letters of the Masters Koot Hoomi and Morya throws a wonderful light upon the lives of These and Other great Adepts, shows that even They have some personal limitations and difficulties. On one occasion Master Koot Hoomi confesses that in the course of His duty He has been nine days in the saddle, apparently on a journey between Kashmir and His home.

In this same letter the Master Koot Hoomi refers to the effect of the impact upon His mind of an urgent call for help from the outer world, through H.P.B. [Helena P. Blavatsky] in this case, in the following words: — The affair (The T.S.) has taken an impulse, which if not well guided, might beget very evil issues. Recall to mind the avalanches of your admired Alps, that you have often thought about, and remember that at first their mass is small and their momentum little. A trite comparison you may say, but I cannot think of a better illustration, when viewing the gradual aggregation of trifling events, growing into a menacing destiny for the T.S. It came quite forcibly upon me the other day as I was coming down the defiles of Konenlun-Karakorum you call them — and saw an avalanche tumble. I had gone personally to our Chief to submit Mr Hume’s important offer, and was crossing over to Lhadak on my way home. What other speculations might have followed I cannot say. But just as I was taking advantage of the awful stillness which usually follows such cataclysms, to get a clearer view of the present situation and the disposition of the ‘mystics’ at Simla, I was rudely recalled to my senses. A familiar voice, as shrill as the one attributed to Saraswati’s peacock — which if we may credit tradition, frightened away the King of the Nagas — shouted along the currents: ‘Olcott has raised the very devil again! . . . the Englishmen are going crazy. Koot Hoomi, come quicker and help me!’ — and in her excitement forgot she was speaking English. I must say, that the ‘old lady’s telegrams do strike one like stones from a catapult!’

‘What could I do but come? Argument through space with one who was in cold despair, and in a state of moral chaos was useless. So I determined to emerge from the seclusion of many years and spend some time with her to comfort her as well as I could. I had come for a few days, but now find that I myself cannot endure for any length of time the stifling magnetism even of my own countrymen. I have seen some of our proud old Sikhs drunk and staggering over the marble pavement of their sacred Temple. I have heard an English-speaking vakil declaim against Yog Vidya and Theosophy as a delusion and a lie, declaring that English Science had emancipated them from such “degrading superstitions”, and saying that it was an insult to India to maintain that the dirty ‘Yogees and Sunnyasis knew anything about the mysteries of nature; or that any living man can or ever could perform any phenomena! I turn my face homewards tomorrow’.^{^[131]}

In another place the same great Adept speaks of the weariness and disappointment caused him by the relative failure of His marvellously wise and patient efforts to convey even a vestige of the Wisdom-Religion to Mr Sinnett and Mr Hume. From these interesting revelations we are helped to appreciate to some extent both the hypersensitive condition of the mind and body of the Adept, the reason for Their mental and physical self-protection and retreat against the jarring conditions of the outer world. In addition we are able to realize to some extent the sacrifice which presumably the Masters have made in permitting Their Names and dwelling places to be known and in throwing themselves open at personal levels to the discordances of human life outside their sanctuaries.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 4 August, 1938, p. 7

119
Theosophy to New Zealand [1]

EDITORIAL

(An Editorial in the July-September 1949 issue of Theosophy in New Zealand)

Miss Hunt has done me the honour to entrust me, during her absence in Australia, with the duty of bringing out this number of Theosophy in New Zealand. She has also taken care to guide me in the fulfilment of an unaccustomed task. I have chosen as my theme THEOSOPHY TO NEW ZEALAND.

Throughout the fifty-one years of its life, members of the New Zealand Section have worked devotedly to bring Theosophy to their fellow citizens. To urge to even greater efforts does not in the least imply that all possible has not thus far been done. Rather has the theme been chosen in order to direct special attention to the external or forthgoing aspect of our work.

The inner life, both of lodges with their Study Classes and Fellowship Meetings and of individual members with their personal studies, meditations and self-training, rightly occupies a large place in the life and work of the Section. To help and to encourage all members and to convey to them increasingly a sense of close fraternal relationship in which everyone is free — these are most valuable achievements.

Many of us had lost faith, whether justly or unjustly, in existing religious beliefs and practices, yet had found naught with which to replace them. Some of us had become impressed with a sense of the shallowness and futility of the purely worldly aspects of our lives, yet had not found a means of deepening and more truly directing them to the end of real attainment. Some of us were lonely, both mentally and physically, through changes within, through bereavements and removals, yet had not found those kindred spirits by association with whom a growing need for companionship might be met. Then we found Theosophy and the Theosophical Society. For many of us, though unhappily not for all, a new life began. All needs were met, including especially those for spiritual instruction and for trusted friends with similar thoughts and ideals.

The value of this part of the work of the Theosophical Society can hardly be overestimated. Lodge Presidents and other Officers, especially the Librarian and Secretary, could not do better than adopt as objective for their year of office the fullest possible development of this human side of lodge life and work. From the strongly united and harmoniously co-operating group thus formed within the lodge, there can go out into the city and surrounding country an invisible but very potent Theosophical idealism.

Such a lodge will also be best fitted effectively to present Theosophical teachings by means of lectures, literature and Theosophical ideas and atmosphere. Surely this must be so; for when members find in their lodges the knowledge, the guidance and the fellowship which they need, lodges will then find the wise planning and harmonious co-operation essential to effective propaganda.

The Section will then exert a potent and beneficent influence upon the spiritual, educational, cultural, political and domestic life of the Nation. New Zealand, thus guided by the basic principles of the Wisdom Religion, will produce its own splendid variant of the New Age man. Underlying all our varied activities, therefore, is the single objective THEOSOPHY TO NEW ZEALAND.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 9, July 1948, p. 53

120
Theosophy to New Zealand [2]

No more powerful or more beneficent influence can ever be applied to the thought and life of a nation or an individual than that exerted by the fundamental teachings of Theosophy. Great is the need for such an influence. The old world has been shattered by war. The light of the new world is still below the horizon, upon which faint gleams begin to indicate the dawn. Whilst these are visible from elevated positions, darkness still broods over the plains. The gleams will grow brighter and eventually the whole world will be illumined by the light of the risen sun. During the interval, the design of the new age is being gradually revealed. Advanced minds are perceiving both the shape of things to come and the dangers which threaten either to mar, or completely to destroy, the projected design.

One power, and one power alone, can ensure safe passage from the old to the new age. That power is knowledge received, accepted and applied to the building of a new world and an ideal character. Theosophy, with its revelations of the essential unity of life, of the spiritual, intellectual and vital brotherhood of all men, of the onward march of the race through successive civilizations to an assured goal, of the rebirths of nations and individuals throughout that progress, of the inevadable and justice ensuring Law and of the plan of that progress, this is the knowledge, and therefore the power, by which harmonious entry into the new age may be ensured and the present dangers overcome.

The Theosophical Society was brought into existence some 73 years ago, by Those Whose wisdom is omniscient, in preparation for the present world crisis which was clearly foreseen. Since its founding, the Society has gradually been fashioned into an instrument possessing facilities for the delivery to mankind of those great truths stated above.

The general progress of humanity through the present Fifth Race period is marked at this particular time by the gradual emergence, psychologically and physically, of a new racial type. The sixth sub-race of the Fifth Root Race — that sub-race from which the Sixth Root Race is to be born — is now being adumbrated on earth. Although the emergence is fairly general, as representative Egos take birth in various nations, four countries are the scenes of a more concentrated and more obvious appearance of the types from which the sixth sub-race will develop. These countries are North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Theosophists of New Zealand have the opportunity, therefore, of responding to a twofold call, of taking a dual opportunity. By spreading Theosophy throughout the Dominion, they will at the same time be providing the world in general with the power that comes from knowledge; for spiritual and intellectually mankind is one. They will also be impregnating the New Zealand mind with Theosophical seed thoughts, just as the new sub-race types of individuals and of civilization are beginning to appear.

This epoch is most significant for Theosophists. This hour is most propitious both for individual members and for National Sections. Through its members, the Theosophical Society can play a vital role in both national and world affairs.

How may this best be done? What are the available means? They include a sound mental grasp of Theosophy — the result of patient study — an appreciation of both the urgency of the present time and the opportunity which it offers, a vision of New Zealand as a great Nation in the becoming, ardent aspiration to participate in its development and an enthusiasm for the cause human enlightenment. Granted these — and they are within the reach of most members — a determined effort could successfully be made by each to bring the sublime teachings of Theosophy to the great majority of New Zealanders.

Those Theosophists who catch this vision and whose karma, dharma and equipment permit them to respond, could by a planned drive plant in the minds of tens of thousands of New Zealanders the seed-ideas — Theosophical teachings — from which unfailingly would grow flourishing Theosophical ‘trees’, fruit and seed-bearing in their turn.

Literature, libraries, lectures and lives are the four physical means whereby the opportunity of the moment may best be grasped. The literature exists. It only needs to be widely disseminated. I specially recommend for study and wide distribution the newly reprinted Outline of Theosophy, by C. W. Leadbeater. The sale of books and pamphlets, and their placing in the libraries and reading rooms of the cities and townships of the country, could well be made the objective of a special campaign. Funds to purchase Theosophical literature and workers to place it wherever it is most likely to be read, are urgently needed.

Lodge libraries are, perhaps, potentially the most effective means for the spreading of Theosophy and the consoling, helping and instruction of individuals. Librarians have unique opportunities, for seekers continually come to them for aid. No enquirer should ever be sent away unsatisfied. No one should ever be given a book which, wrongly chosen, might repel them. Each should receive sympathetic counsel, friendly interest and, as far as possible, just the books which will both help them immediately and lead them to further study.

The influence of lectures is inevitably more transient than that of literature and libraries, since these have a permanent existence. The lecture therefore needs to be prepared and delivered with a view to making upon the audience the most lasting effect possible. Fundamentals of Theosophy should always form the heart of every lecture. Logic should characterize the presentation, whilst dignity, a warm humanity, a clearly audible diction and a pleasant manner and appearance should characterize the speaker.

Theosophical lives probably constitute the most potent means of spreading Theosophy, which exist. Not every member can write, serve in libraries or lecture. But almost everyone can endeavour to lead a Theosophical life. This is a life wherein service plays the major role, where human kindliness shines like a light in a world darkened by
selfishness and cruelty, where tolerance, the gift of freedom, ready counsel when sought and silence otherwise, the extreme of sanity and a measure of equipoise, reveal the possession of a priceless mental and spiritual treasure.

Such, the author believes, is the opportunity, and such the call, of the present time. Such also, he ventures to suggest, are some of the means whereby the opportunity may be grasped and the call be answered. In a phrase, we must each one of us work with the utmost of our power, our wisdom, our faculties and our opportunities to make the teachings of Theosophy available in their most acceptable and practical forms to the peoples of New Zealand.

As ever in times of crisis and at the founding of a new race, the call of the Manu is sounding out in the world of today. In former lives many modem Theosophists gave answer, followed and served under Him. Many have answered, many are answering today. The world need is urgent. The national opportunity to serve in this land specially chosen by Him is unique. Hence my theme — THEOSOPHY IN NEW ZEALAND.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1948, p. 54

121
Theosophy — Temple of the Divine Wisdom

The great International Movement, the Parent Theosophical Society, was ‘born’ in New York City on November 17th, 1875—one hundred and two years and four months ago as I write. During the present year, 1978, it will become one hundred and three years old and this period of growth — like any other — may evoke reflections concerning progress made, and so possibly lead to useful consideration concerning the present and the future. May I share some largely personal views?

Almost all buildings have their beginning in the minds of architects and directors, for example, who plan the structure for the fulfilment of its purposes. If the Theosophical Society be regarded as a monumental ‘building’, as indeed it has already proved to be — then the various portions or parts of the structure may usefully be examined. This would particularly apply to adherence to the original design[132] as conceived by the Adept Architects Themselves and later by the human Founders in New York City.

What then is likely to be found? Is the foundation secure? Is the flooring free from weaknesses? Are the walls stable and strong? In other words, is the Theosophical Society thus far faithful to the Original Plan and if not, what can now best be done to carry out any necessary restorations and to continue the development of the great ‘Structure’ itself?

The answer might be that the valuable and priceless ingredient of complete freedom of thought may possibly be causing — or even leading — those who could become builders of the growing structure (quite permissibly) to accentuate their own personal interests. In consequence, they could be infusing into theosophical literature and activities, material which might not be in accord with the chosen ‘substances’ to be incorporated into the erection — for example the advocation of trance-mediumship and movements founded thereon.[133] Whilst research into the subject might prove interesting, its use as a means of acquiring knowledge can be both misleading and even dangerous, I venture to warn.

Freedom of thought we have — yes — but surely such freedom should always be exercised in accordance with original design or single objective, namely, as I understand it, wisely, surely and safely to theosophise mankind.

Any necessary building and rebuilding during the present phase of the Society’s life must, I submit, largely be done by the publication of appropriate literature as additions to the foundation. The level flooring and the continuing ‘rise’ of the ‘walls’ thus far must occur at least according to the design of the Adept Architects. The worldwide spreading of Theosophy through such literature is the phase through which gradually the rebuilding now proceeds. Whilst excellent books have been contributed for these purposes and greatly appreciated, no literature is as yet comparable to the great Works of H. P. Blavatsky: Isis Unveiled, The Secret Doctrine and The Key to Theosophy, The Voice of the Silence and numerous magazine articles. This would seem justifiably to apply to what might be named ‘foundation structural literature’.

In their turn, of course, public lectures and students classes founded upon reasonable adherence to the same original Adeptic design, contribute most valuably, particularly in making that design increasingly well known and in enlisting more and more ‘builders’, especially those who have understood the great enterprise and become dedicated to its further fulfilment.

The upper ‘regions’ of the structure have also been indicated from the beginning. They refer to the spiritual and occult teachings and their special applications to two classes of people. Whom might these be? Genuine seekers for philosophic and religious truths upon which their ways of living can be founded and also special guidance and assurance of assistance on the Path of Hastened Evolution. These last, it is taught, would become available more especially to those who, totally ahamkaraless,[134] find themselves awakening to the Call of the Path life of Discipleship and Initiation. Many such members, it may be assumed, are reincarnated Initiates from the Ancient Mysteries — the Lesser Mysteries for the most part, I suggest — since the more advanced would by now have attained major Initiations and even Adeptship. Still using architectural language, this reference to the spiritual life leads towards what could be described as either the summit of the central tower, or more ecclesiastically, the heavenward-pointing steeple — symbol of man’s highest aspirations.

Returning as I close to the application of Theosophy to the more mundane but extremely necessary procedures of daily life, the most readily available method of propaganda surely consists of the demonstration by personal example, of the very great practical value of the teachings, especially in the attainment of happiness and so of peace of mind.

Here, then, is a ‘CALL’ UTTERED TO US ALL — WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST PRESSURE — TO WRITE AND TEACH THEOSOPHY IN ACCORDANCE WITH MODERN TERMS AND THOUGHT WHILST AT THE SAME TIME ever adhering to the Original Principles.

Thus, in a seriously divided, even war-threatened world, a truly theosophical — and therefore unifying — ‘Temple’ of the Divine Wisdom Brahma Vidya, Theosophia, will continue to increase in dimension and so in influence upon the troubled minds and hearts of Earth’s humanity.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 39, No. 2, 1978, p. 30

122
‘To Affirm the Continuance of The Mystery Tradition’

A FOURTH OBJECT OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY?

In February, 1882, the Master Morya wrote to Mr Sinnett concerning the founding of the Theosophical Society: ‘One or two of us hoped that the world had so far advanced intellectually, if not intuitionally, that the Occult doctrine might gain an intellectual acceptance, and the impulse be given for a new cycle of occult research.^{^[135]} This, however, was not the only intention in the minds of the Masters; for, in 1880, the Master K. H. [Kuthumi] wrote: “The Chiefs want a ‘Brotherhood of Humanity”, a real Universal Fraternity started; an institution which would make itself known throughout the world, and arrest the attention of the highest minds’.[136]

A dual purpose thus exists for the founding of the Theosophical Society — to give an impulse for a new cycle of occult research, and to form a Brotherhood of Humanity. In order that these two objectives might be attained, the Maha-Chohan wrote: ‘For our doctrines to practically react on the so-called moral code of the ideas of truthfulness, purity, self-denial, charity, etc., we have to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’.^{^[137]}

In the earlier years, and during the lifetimes of the Co-Founders of the Society and their fellow-members, the hopes expressed by the Master Morya were being fulfilled; for a number of their close associates and certain other members were accepted as Disciples by the Great Masters. This practice, being in accordance with the ancient Rules, would also have been followed in many parts of the world. Assurance was thus given that the Path of Discipleship may still be trodden at this present time by those who faithfully obey the age-old Rules. This was true not only during the earlier years of the Society’s existence, but ever has been and ever will continue to be true to the end of the present World Period; for the Path of Discipleship is never closed to humanity.

Since we have recently crossed the threshold leading into the second century of the Society’s existence, three questions naturally present themselves. (1) Has the impulse been given, and is it still active, for a new cycle of occult research? (2) Has a Brotherhood of Humanity been founded? (3) Has the condition of man on earth been to any degree ameliorated?

To the first of these questions we must reply that, whilst much most valuable occult research was carried out by Dr Annie Besant and Mr C. W. Leadbeater, this is not now being done to the same extent. To both the second and third questions, world news itself provides a largely if not entirely negative answer. True, remarkable humanitarian advances have been made — the founding of the League of Nations and of UNO, and also of many other movements for the protection of men, women, children and animals from cruelty, for example, and in addition the work of the Theosophical Society has steadily continued and expanded.

Nevertheless humanity has in our time lived through many years of the most diabolical evil the world has ever known, and this evil is now steadily mounting in horror and extent. Estimates are now available of the intensity of the sufferings of humanity during the years of the Second World War — as far as mere statistics go. The latest figures show that 42millions of people died prematurely in the ten years embracing the Second World War. Nearly 25 millions were civilian, and 17 millions were military deaths. These 42^lA millions were men, women and children who were starved, tortured, shot, blown to pieces, vivisected, frozen and gassed to death.

Since the end of the Second World War the nations have vainly sought for that international unity and solidarity for which the great majority are longing; for, like the sword of Damocles, atomic, bacteriological and nerve-gas warfare hang over every race, city and human being on earth. In a final statement, here are the latest figures. In the New Zealand Herald, 2-1 -76, it was stated by Dr Frank Bamaby: ‘If the United States and the Soviet Union continue the production of nuclear weapons, they will soon have enough arms to destroy each other 100 times’. The Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said on January 1st, that the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union are now thought to have similar strength in tactical nuclear arms, with each country possessing about 20,000 of these terrible weapons.

International conferences and agreements have tried to stem the spread of atomic missiles in vain, but the nightmare of potential nuclear holocaust persists. Recent events, in fact, suggest that the dangers from nuclear proliferation and the atomic arms race are probably greater now than at any time since the first ‘mushroom cloud’ arose on earth. Critical issues are also arising from the pressure of a world population of 4,000 million, which could become destructive long before the total of 12,000 million forecast for the year 2030 A.D. is reached.

Evidently this possibility was foreseen by the Adepts during the early years of the history of the Theosophical Society; for in the May, 1889, issue of her magazine, Lucifer, H. P. Blavatsky wrote these words: ‘But if not [if Theosophy does not prevail] then the storm will burst, and our boasted Western Civilization and enlightenment will sink into such a sea of horror that its parallel has never yet been recorded’. In those days such a pronouncement must have appeared as totally impossible of fulfilment, for then the world was reasonably at peace.

What, then, is to be done? The only possible prevention, I submit, consists of human lives full of kindliness, and the only permanent cure is Theosophy dedicatively applied by a sufficient number of people to every motive, thought, word and deed.

Quite evidently, even though tens of thousands of people have joined the Theosophical Society during its first century, the founding of the Movement is as yet very far from having produced a universal ‘Brotherhood of humanity’. In consequence, the dire prophecy of H. P. Blavatsky has been and still is being more and more amply fulfilled. Nevertheless, it must in justice, be recognized that the Theosophical Society has done an immense amount of good — immeasurable, in fact—particularly for those persons who were able to respond to and apply to their lives the teachings given. It failed, however, in its sublime purpose of the establishment of Universal Brotherhood on Earth, but it succeeded in bringing to the attention of very large numbers of people the knowledge of the existence of the Masters of the Wisdom, of the hastened evolutionary Pathway and the joining of the ranks of the Adept Hierarchy as the sublime goal of human development.

What further action, then, is needed? The existence of an increasing number of human beings who first of all are actually putting Theosophy into practice and secondly for the sake of humanity are themselves both entering upon the Path of hastened evolutionary unfoldment and proclaiming its existence to the modern world.

Thus, and perhaps only thus, may there appear in the world sufficient numbers of women and men who are prepared to give up as much of their lives as is permissible, in the light of existing obligations, to the selfless service of the human race, especially by spreading Theosophy. In addition, publicly to call as many as possible of our fellow men as would feel moved to participate in the activities of the ever-existent Mystery Tradition, meaning ordered, progressive occult training under an Adept Teacher.

One may thus permissibly find oneself wondering whether a greater, wider restoration of the Ancient Mysteries^{^[138]} in public form could at this most critical time usefully be made available to the modem world? These mysteries of old included grades of spiritual unfoldment, discipleship of an Adept Master, successive initiations, all leading to the hastened attainment of Adeptship. Might not such a restoration of these most beneficent institutions prove to be a possible means of setting forces in motion, and contributing ideas and ideals that would be remedial amidst the deepening and expanding tragedies of this our day? For humaneness, compassion and ever ready helpfulness to others in need have ever been qualities that are increasingly developed in the Ancient Mysteries and their modem representations. Is it not these very qualities in an ever growing number of people that can stem and then turn the tide against the cruelty which is the great evil in the world today?

The answer is in the affirmative, for the ancient occult rules are clearly stated for public guidance. Madame Blavatsky defined them in ‘The Golden Stairs’, namely:

A clean life, an open mind, a pure heart, an eager intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, a brotherliness for all, a readiness to give and receive advice and instruction, a courageous endurance of personal injustice, a brave declaration of principles, a valiant defense of those who are unjustly attacked, and a constant eye to the ideal of human progression and perfection which the sacred science depicts — these are the golden stairs up the steps of which the learner may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom.

Where and in what group are such greatly needed leaders to be found? Amongst reincarnated members of the Mysteries of old, Disciples of the great Teachers — the Lord Shri Krishna, the Lord Buddha, the Lord Jesus Christ and Mohammed. Would it not be these Egos who, in their present lives, quite naturally respond to the ideal of the Mystery Tradition? The great nations of old Egypt, Greece and Chaldea, for example, founded and preserved at their hearts progressive ceremonial Orders which assisted candidates in attaining to hastened evolutionary progress by meditation, by training in self-spiritualization, and by means of hierophantic Initiations. The mysteries were in every country a series of dramatic performances in which the occult procedures of Cosmogony and Nature were explained in their hidden meaning to the Candidates for Initiation, and incorporated in philosophical doctrines.

Why, then, one may ask, have these aspirants and Initiates of old not yet again publicly reappeared, and given to humanity the effective leadership it so greatly needs and so gravely lacks? Actually, one hundred years ago a certain number of them did appear at the founding of Our Society. One of these was H. P. Blavatsky herself, who was trained in Ashrams of the Great Masters in Tibet. She drew around her a group of co-workers, all of whom were deeply interested in the Mystery Tradition and its restoration in the modem World, as their lives and the literature of their time demonstrate.

There are two possible answers as to why a greater number of these reincarnated Initiates and leaders of old have not appeared in modem days amongst us. The first of these answers is founded upon the fact that the presence of great men and women capable of leading humanity towards spiritual, intellectual, cultural and material progress is a very great benefit to the human race — one, moreover, that has been earned under cause and effect by appropriate good conduct.

Unfortunately, cruelty to fellow men and to animals has for many generations had a horrendously mounting place in the life and behaviour of mankind. This is partly exemplified by the Inquisition, oppressive colonization, and the still continuing wars of aggression and cruel forms of imprisonment, including torture — and of tragic significance, the degradation of women and their consequent suffering. The continuing enactment of these extremely cruel, suffering-producing practices surely must under the Law of Cause and Effect — render humanity less receptive under that law to the beneficent karma of the appearance in their midst of great leaders, including especially spiritual leaders of men; for humanity as a whole, as also every nation, reaps exactly what it sows. Fortunately from this point of view numerous humanitarian movements have at the same time been founded, and are still active. Unhappily, however, these are neither sufficiently numerous nor effective enough to prevent the continual prevalence of inhumanity by man towards both animals and fellow human beings. May this not be the reason under karma for the absence during the immediately preceding centuries of really great and effective spiritual leaders of mankind.

A second answer to the question may well be the limited amount of authentic information about the Mystery Tradition available in the world today. This is a tragic deprivation, for in the Ancient Mysteries those privileged to be admitted were instructed and assisted to develop both a philanthropic and a scientific application of the ideal of Brotherhood. When applied, this makes virtually impossible pain-producing activities, and so leads to the prevention and relief of karma — produced human suffering — moral as well as physical. Hence the title of this article.

Thus thinking, I find myself asking whether or not it could be the work of the Theosophical Society during its second century publicly to inform humanity far more fully than heretofore of the continuing existence of the Mystery Tradition? Such ignorance of an organized, Adept-directed occult life that is designed to assist those who aspire to hasten their evolutionary progress, and so become more effective servants of their fellow men may well be described as a tragedy.

If regarded as advisable, or even necessary, might not a special effort be made within our Movement to awaken the minds and hearts of humanity to the existence of this invaluable knowledge? Would not such an activity accord with the Adept-affirmed objectives for the founding of the Theosophical Society, namely the attainment of Discipleship of an Adept, Initiation as a Member of the Great Brotherhood, and Adeptship far ahead of normal evolutionary time? Could there not possibly be added to the three objects of our Society a Fourth which would arise naturally out of the Third — to affirm the continuance of the Mystery Tradition?

In the early times of human history, during the great periods of the progress of preceding nations, the existence and continuing activity of the Mystery Tradition^{^[139]} was publicly well known, and carefully selected men and women were admitted to its ceremonial functions.

Since both the lesser and greater mysteries were thus practiced in a number of the cities and, centres of the earlier nations — Egypt, Greece, and Chaldea, for example — may there not be in incarnation at this time a large number of the Initiates of those earlier day si Egoically inspired, are they not most likely intuitively again to be seeking the Outer Courts, Sacred Panes and Holy of Holies wherein the light of Truth became revealed to them?

With the world as it is, is it not of first importance that at least knowledge of the existence of the Mystery Tradition should become more and more widely known? The ever openness of the path of Discipleship, and so the possibility of hastening one’s evolutionary progress to perfection, and the Unfailing Readiness of an appropriate teacher to appear as guide, Philosopher and friend of the genuine aspirant, must be presented to the world. I find myself becoming convinced that here is a vitally significant work to be done by those who feel themselves so moved. Where, better and more effectively, may this knowledge be made available than in the pages of The Theosophist, Section magazines, other theosophical literature, and possibly at meetings of lodge Study Groups? If this were agreed upon, then the three Theosophical Publishing Houses might perhaps combine to produce special literature dealing with the spiritual and occult life. Would not a wider knowledge of the continuance of these hitherto wisely private institutions be a major contributory factor to the reduction, and eventual cessation, of the evils of the modem world? For humaneness, compassion and ever ready helpfulness to others in need have ever been qualities that are increasingly developed in the Ancient Mysteries and their modem representations. Surely, it is just these very qualities in an ever growing number of people that can stem and then turn the tide against the cruelty which is the great and increasing evil in the world today.

The great, almost supreme importance of the acceptance of the ideal of Discipleship of a Master of the Wisdom is that regular contemplation both increases direction and control of the personal life by the Ego and — of supreme importance for humanity — brings about realization of the ONENESS of the Divine LIFE in all people, however different their nationalities, habits, appearances and personalities; for, despite these, in their essential natures all are one. Literally hundreds, if not thousands, of Egos may be assumed to be reincarnated now, to be on the threshold of the mystic life, and therefore to be seeking the Ancient Way which their footsteps followed so long ago. Must we not keep publicly open the ancient ‘doors’, which are in danger of closing, to direct spiritual and occult knowledge in this second century of the Society’s existence? Could we not more fully and publicly share than at present the wealth of spiritual and occult knowledge contained in theosophical literature?

A further — indeed a most urgent — reason for such actions consists of the wide appearance in the western world of today of movements and people falsely claiming Adept guidance, often through trance mediumship, and inviting with some success interested people to membership of their organisations. Where these claims are spurious, and where occult powers are promised and perhaps partially conferred, the very serious danger exists that well-meaning aspirants may be misled, gravely to their harm and even to a relative failure of their present incarnations.^{^[140]} How, then, is one to judge between the true and the false amongst, such Movements? The nature of the published material, and especially of the guidance given, provides one clue. Another most important one consists, as already stated, of the use of trance mediumship as a means of the receipt of supposed communications from Adepts. On this subject the Masters have written decisively; for Adeptic communications make quite clear that under no circumstances does, an Adept ever use spiritualistic mediums as channels of communication. All suggestions to the contrary are false, as every true occultist is fully aware. The Masters’ words to this effect are:

“Mediumship, as practiced in our days, is a more undesirable gift than the robe of Nessus”. —Isis Unveiled, H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, p. 488. (The blood of the centaur, Nessus, soaked into the shirt of Herakles, producing upon him an agony as though he were in a burning fire, and ultimately brought about his death.—Greek Mythology.)

“Imperator cannot preach the occult sciences and then defend mediumship...” — The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter IX.

“The medium and the chela are diametrically dissimilar, and the latter acts consciously. . .” The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter XCIII.

In consequence, literature containing communications claimed to have been received by entranced mediums from those Adepts Who participated in the founding of the Theosophical Society must therefore be recognized as spurious.

Admittedly books are read, and lectures and classes are attended from interest in philosophy and its practical applications alone, and only rarely to acquire spiritual knowledge and power. Granted, not all who read occult and philosophic literature find themselves personally drawn towards the inner life. Nevertheless, will there not always be the few whose minds are opening, who are searching for and intuitively interested in the attainment of direct knowledge of the Divine Wisdom? Is it not from these few that the responses sought will be received? Evidently H. P. Blavatsky thought so: for she dedicated her book, The Voice of the Silence, ‘to the few’.

Whenever such an awakening does occur, we are assured, assistance from a senior in evolution is always provided, and in forms wisely adapted to the temperament and the karmic position in life occupied by the individual to whom help is thus being directed. Naturally, allowances must be made for the fact that almost all human beings are limited in their freedom to respond to these ideals, if only because they must meet the demands of daily life. Time for study may be unavailable, as also time in which to apply the ideals. This is especially true when the success of the wage earner and the home manager depends upon their efficiency, in its turn depending so largely upon concentration, and so also upon available time.

A possible answer to this problem is to rise fifteen minutes earlier than usual, think of the Master, and practice both meditation and self-recollection at frequent moments throughout the day. A meditative self-offering would be valuable before going to sleep each evening, addressing the Master thus: ‘Revered Master, I offer myself this night, as always, for effective service to those in need, under Your direction’^{^[141]} Eventually, as I have said, a representative of the Master approaches all genuinely interested and sufficiently evolved persons. Gradually he makes himself known to the aspirants, and assures them that they have for some time been under the beneficent and watchful care of an Adept. In due course the instructions given in The Voice of the Silence are rightfully received and applied. Thereupon, at an appropriate time, whether in a clearly remembered dream by night or in waking consciousness, Master and potential disciple meet face to face.

The great message of Theosophy to mankind in this respect is, I submit, that it is possible for human beings to pass from the ever changing, external way of living to the interior, never-changing ordered activities of the inner life of mankind on the Planet Earth, for the occult life of our Globe ever continues, and no external cataclysm can ever prevent this beneficent procedure.

The Theosophist, Vol. 97, August 1976, p. 158

123
White Lotus Day

On this day, May 8 of every year, we, Theosophists, the world over celebrate White Lotus Day, thereby being linked closely together as we honour the memory of H. P. Blavatsky [H.P.B.]. The name given to this day is appropriate; for the lotus is a symbol of profound significance. In general, it represents cyclic emergence, forthcoming, germination, birth, growth and fulfilment. Theosophy is lotus-like because it consists of seed-thoughts and H.P.B. brought about both the re-emergence of Theosophy in this age and the founding and development of The Theosophical Society.

The lotus bloom typifies the emanation of universal order from primordial chaos, the finite from the Infinite, universes from the ‘waters’ of unconditioned space. The whole plant symbolizes fertility, fecundation, growth, while the lotus seed, which cut across shows the perfect flower, represents the Monad, the Immortal Germ. The lotus plant in full bloom portrays the Monad, whether of universe, angel or man, fully made manifest.

If this symbolism is applied to man, then the lotus seed may be likened to the human Monad. When ripe, the seed sinks into the muddy depths — the physical body — and the roots draw sustenance therefrom. The stalk reaches up through the water — the emotional nature — and the leaves both rest on the water and are sustained above it, aptly representing the dual mind. The beautiful bloom, with its pure white petals and golden heart, opened towards the sun, is an appropriate symbol of man’s powers of spiritual intuitiveness. The formation of new seeds which in their turn sink below the water into lake or river bed beneath, germinate and produce new plants, new flowers and still more seeds, portrays the unbroken succession of major and minor cycles, the deathless nature of the Spirit in man and its assured resurrection from both bodily death and the limitations of existence in the human kingdom of Nature. So, also, on White Lotus Day we commemorate both the re-emergence of the White Light of the Wisdom-Religion in our time and the return to the world of the Real of H. P. Blavatsky after her sojourn here on earth.

The aspect of H.P.B.’s life which is so intriguing and so interesting to many of us is her life in Tibet in that sacred valley near Shigatze, where certain of the great Adepts have Their homes. There she lived in the house of one of the great Masters, and there she was trained as a practical occultist, emerging with the knowledge and the power to perform wonderful occult phenomena.

We know something of the scenery of that valley from descriptions, from a picture made by One who is now an Adept, and, perchance, from our dreams. A river flows through a deep gorge. Pine-clad slopes rise up on either side and on one side is a house, apparently built into the rocks of the hill, the home of the Master Morya, H.P.B.’s Guru. Below the house are the caves of the great museum of the Occult Hierarchy of which the Master K.H. [Kuthumi] is the Adept Curator. A path leads thence to a bridge on or near which is built a Buddhist temple. On the other side of the river, across the bridge are the home and garden of the Master K.H. described in some detail in that great work The Masters and the Path.

Some hot springs in which H.P.B. used to bathe are nearby and a little house built by one of Master K.H.’s Tibetan pupils, then an Arhat and now an Adept, having reached ‘the further shore’. This is the Master Djwal Kul who precipitated the picture of the valley used as a frontispiece to The Masters and the Path. There H.P.B. lived a life concerning which we can only speculate. Thence, possessed of great powers, she came forth to serve the Occult Hierarchy in its special effort to help humanity made habitually during the last quarter of successive centuries. In the nineteenth century, that special effort took the form of founding The Theosophical Society, with the aid of H.P.B. as occult messenger and Colonel Olcott as co-disciple, teacher and organizer. As Col. Olcott wrote: ‘H.P.B. came at a time when Materialism was to meet its Waterloo and the new reign of spiritual high thinking was to be ushered in through the agency of our Society’. Success beyond the human founders’ dreams has attended their endeavours and happily they lived to witness that success. Both passed through great trials and much deep suffering. Both emerged victorious.

Looking back on her life and studying her work it would appear that H. P. Blavatsky performed at least two extremely important tasks. The first was to bring the Ancient Wisdom to Western humanity, and the second to re-open the Path of Discipleship. True, the Path had never been, can never be, completely closed. Century by century, ardent and determined men and women here and there throughout the world find and tread it to its end in Adeptship. Before the advent and the work of H.P.B., however, such a process presented the greatest difficulties, particularly to occidentals; for no public knowledge of the existence of the Masters was available. H.P.B. brought that necessary information, which was and is in four main parts: first, the whole, wonderful, planned process of spiritual evolution from mineral to man and from man to superman; second, the existence on earth, physically, of the Supermen in whom the plan has been fulfilled; third, the possibility of communion between man and Superman, and fourth, the ‘razor-edged’ Path and ‘the golden stairs, up which the learner may climb to the temple of divine wisdom’.

The successful delivery of this wonderful message from the Masters of the Wisdom to men was a task for which the whole of humanity owes H.P.B., and Those who sent her, a debt of undying gratitude; for, simple though the plain statement of the fourfold message may sound to us in these days of popularised Theosophy, the delivery of it to the materialistic humanity of the late nineteenth century made of H.P.B.’s later years an almost continuous martyrdom. Both her heart and her health were broken by the treatment meted out to her by the humanity to whom she came as light bringer and messenger. Not for her the relatively speedy if agonizing death in the torture chamber or at the stake. Because of her hypersensitive nature and warm humanity, she was placed and kept for years on the rack of deeply wounded sensibilities. She suffered betrayal and desertion by ‘friends’ and from the odium placed upon Theosophy, the Masters and herself by the public of her day.

We celebrate on May 8 the day on which her martyrdom ceased and she returned to Those whom she had so magnificently and so selflessly served.

H.P.B. still exists and must still be interested in The Theosophical Society. I have heard that shortly after her death she took the body of a Tibetan youth and is now grown to manhood. Indeed that body must now be getting on in years. From a study of her writings, I conceive that, amongst other wonderful things, her guidance to us who are her successors might possibly be something like this:

‘Do your best as a Theosophist to remove the ignorance of the world.

Do your best as a Theosophist to shed the light of Theosophy upon the world.

Do your best as a Theosophist to purify, refine and strengthen your own nature.

Conceive of yourself as always in training for far harder and greater tasks than those which you now perform, and live accordingly.

Meet your adverse karma valiantly and without a flinch.

Meet your favourable karma calmly and in self-control.

Do not be unduly moved by either. At the centre always be still.

Set the will to work on your personal failings and eliminate them.

Never be satisfied from day to day till they be gone.

Develop a valiant independence of all personal favours, yet be grateful for them when they come.

Inculcate in humanity a staunch adherence to the highest principles and ideas, for the moral standard is everywhere far too low.

Put the seal of perfection upon everything you do’.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 41, Issue 5, May 1953, p. 85

124
Whither Theosophy and Our Society

In the days of our orthodox religious life, we were under the necessity of believing a religious statement ‘because it was in the Bible’. There inevitably comes a time, however, when an awakened mind is unable to continue its subservience to such authority. The answer, ‘But it is in the Bible’, has forced many of us out of orthodox religion.

The discovery of Theosophy and the Theosophical Society comes as a great light. Here at last is a Society and a mode of study which is free from Bibles and all that Bibles are wrongly made to mean.

But the student receives something of a shock when he finds that within the Society exist a number of members — a small minority, it is true — who are still markedly ‘Bible-conscious’. The phrase, ‘But it says (or does not say) so in The Secret Doctrine (or The Mahatma Letters)’, is used, not legitimately as a reference to a possible source of information, but as a final and unfailing test of Truth.

A ‘Back to Bibles’ movement has appeared in recent years. This title may not be quite accurate, but it is back to something beginning with ‘B’ and would appear to mean much the same thing. Such a movement has a legitimate place in a freethinking Society so long as its members concede to those who do not join it the freedom of opinion which they claim for themselves. But when they are heard denouncing those who differ from them, and declaring unorthodox, and therefore untrue, newly polished facets of the diamond Truth uncovered since their Bibles were written, they become a danger to the health of the Movement.

Such an attitude is, to this writer at any rate, a contravention of the root principle upon which the Theosophical membership is based. Freedom of thought and belief, within the limits of courtesy and of brotherhood, constitute that basis. Again and again our leaders have stressed the necessity for its preservation amidst differences which should enrich our work and without which it would be impoverished. Is it not the duty of every member also to guard that freedom, and especially to guard his own thoughts and words lest he should fall into the untheosophical error of censuring and decrying those who differ from him in such matters as the interpretation of the Ancient Wisdom, and the choice of sources of information?

Mr Hamilton-Jones would appear to have fallen into that error in his article in the February The Theosophist. He tells us therein that the membership ‘will have to relearn what Theosophy is’. Apparently the test of ‘what Theosophy is’ is that it is Theosophy as originally revealed, all other and later interpretations being not Theosophy.

If Mr Hamilton-Jones will forgive me, we here have Bible-consciousness in excelsis. The suggestion is put forward that because of the departure from original revelation the Theosophical Society is to be regarded as ‘A stranded carcass on some sandbank of thought’, dead but not buried’. Further, that ‘probably the present value of the Theosophical Society is negligible’ and ‘It is a sad fact that we have departed from the straight and narrow path and have wandered into the highways and byways of intriguing side-issues’. As one who has visited and worked in Sections round the world, I affirm that the Theosophical Society the world over is very much alive and is exerting a profound influence upon the lives of thousands of its members and upon the thought of its time. The President’s Address reports progress in Section after Section — progress to which at first hand I can bear witness. True, it is not progress back to anything, but progress forward to ever newer and wider interpretations and expressions of Theosophy; it is an expansion, not a contraction, as a ‘Back to Bibles’ policy would be.

Complete freedom of thought and belief and method of research within the limits of courtesy is the basis of the life Theosophical. Indeed, it is only in and by virtue of such freedom that individual discovery and illumination can be attained. Again and again our leaders have stressed the necessity for complete freedom and tolerance between students. In the first year of his office, our new President has forcefully struck the keynote of tolerance and inclusiveness. Those who voted for him — and surely most of those who did not — must rejoice in his evident intention to continue in the tradition of his predecessors in office in this particular at least, and to preserve and protect, that freedom of thought and opinion for which the Theosophical Society so uniquely stands.

Despite the fact that Mr Hamilton-Jones is an older student and worker than myself, I would venture, in conclusion, to remind him of the following great passage from The Bhagavad Gita:

Mankind comes to Me along many roads, and along whatsoever road a man approacheth Me, on that road do I welcome him, for all roads are Mine.

The Theosophist, Vol. 56, June 1935, p. 255

125
An Invocation

On behalf of all members throughout the world, shall we make an offering of Gratitude and an Invocation of Benediction?’ (All present then rose and Mr Hodson continued):

‘We members of the Auckland Branch, here assembled, of the Theosophical Society in New Zealand, on this great occasion of a Centenary Celebration of the Founding of the Theosophical Society, do offer our deepest gratitude to the Masters and Their human representatives, especially H. P. Blavatsky and H. S. Olcott, for their action of great significance to all mankind on earth, of founding the Theosophical Society one hundred years ago.

We pledge ourselves to dedicated and selfless service to the Theosophical Society upon which we invoke the continuance of the Masters’ benediction and inspiration throughout the future existence and worldwide activity of the Theosophical Movement.

May the blessing of the revered Masters of the Wisdom descend upon all present here this evening’.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 37, No. 1, 1976, p. 4

126
Theosophy in New Zealand

EDITORIAL

Our Editor has most kindly offered me her own columns in this number of Theosophy in New Zealand in which to reappear amongst you all, if only verbally. Quite early in the New Year I have every hope of enjoying the happiness of being with many of you again visibly as well. In the meantime, further recuperative rest is necessary. Evidently, without fully realizing it, I have been seriously overworking my body for a considerable number of years. At last it has rebelled and forced me to take a complete rest and to learn in future to say ‘NO’ when invitations are too many!

I have been most deeply touched by the numerous letters sending sympathy and good wishes for a speedy recovery and for the most generous financial help towards the expenses of my illness received from my Theosophical brethren in New Zealand. I take this opportunity to say ‘thank you’ to all, both lodges and individuals, and that I feel, if possible, more closely bound in bonds of affection to my dear New Zealand brothers than ever before. I wish also to express my deep gratitude to our General Secretary, Miss Sandra Chase who at my wife’s request flew across to Sydney to take care of me as soon as the news of my illness reached them both. By night and by day throughout the succeeding months, Sandra Chase has helped to nurse and support me throughout my illness. I am also very grateful to the Section for sparing her to me in the emergency. The Christmas season is with us with its message of Universal Love and goodwill to all mankind. We, Theosophists, whilst enjoying to the full many of the more material happinesses associated with Christmas, also see in the account of the Nativity of Christ a description in allegory and symbol of the perpetually occurring rebirth into spiritual idealism of members of the humanity of our planet. In this interior sense it is always Christmas time; for the deep inner spiritual awakening and the outgrowing of material possessiveness are happening to people all the time. Thus, we recognize in the immortal story a description of the Christmas of the Soul of man. As increasing numbers of people also do this, so will the true spirit of Christmas influence the lives and conduct of nations and individuals, and the call of the wonderful song of the angels be answered on our planet, ‘peace on earth to men of goodwill’.

May divine peace and both spiritual and domestic happiness be with you all throughout this present Christmas, and may the New Year bring to you and yours increasing health and opportunities to serve which are within the range of your strength and freedom.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 18, July-December 1957, p. 1

127
Theosophical Society in New Zealand through the Eyes of A Visitor

Before giving some impressions of our Society in New Zealand I wish to offer my congratulations to the Section upon its fiftieth birthday. I also offer my best wishes for the continuance with ever increasing effectiveness of the life and work of the Section throughout the next fifty years and afterwards. The ultimate objective before The Theosophical Society being the acceptance of Theosophy by all mankind, my Jubilee good wishes are that New Zealand may be the first country nationally to attain that great goal.

In this Jubilee year thoughts naturally turn in appreciation to the first messengers of Theosophy to New Zealand and to those who have sustained the life of the Section. Amongst many great figures, John Ross Thomson seems to have made the deepest impression upon the minds and lives of his contemporaries. To them all, and especially to this great Theosophist and revered teacher, homage and gratitude are justly due.

Impressions of the work of the Section are largely coloured by the vision, continually held, of a Theosophically illumined New Zealand. In achieving this, the relative smallness of the country is a great advantage. The population is easily reached, attendance at Conventions is facilitated and all the main Centres can be visited by the General Secretary and lecturers. The value of the newspaper publicity readily available in many of the cities at once becomes apparent, for, by it Theosophical ideas can be continually presented to large numbers of people. By this means, as well as by the advertisements in every city Theosophy is brought within reach of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders. Interestingly, it is often in the Press of the smaller cities that the fullest accounts of Theosophical lectures are published; and this redounds to the credit of the local lodge. Further, the occasional participation in Press correspondence and the submission, by a Press Sub-committee, of readable articles might well be regarded by each lodge as an essential part of its work.

This leads naturally to another impression. The lodges in the smaller cities, maintained as they are by the selfless devotion of the few, clearly have an importance out of all proportion to their size, the work they apparently do and the visible response of the public. Each is a centre — on the physical plane for the propagation of Theosophy through lectures and the Press, and on the mental plane for the transmission of Theosophical truths into the surrounding thought atmosphere and for the concentration and distribution of the Master’s power and blessing. The devotion of those who maintain these smaller lodges in New Zealand makes a deep impression. One feels the desire to express appreciation by saying: ‘Magnificent! Keep on! Better times are coming! ’

Each of the lodges in the larger cities clearly has its keynote. That of Auckland has been described as spiritual and intentional. This lodge is at present the largest numerically and has the greatest number of active and experienced workers on its roll: and, as in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, the tributary movements add their rich life to supplement the work. Whilst every temperament is catered for, the ceremonialist is specially fortunate in Auckland, for the beautiful rituals of the Brotherhood of the Mystic Star, the Order of the Round Table, the Liberal Catholic Church and the ancient ceremonial presentation of Theosophia — Co-Freemasonry — are all regularly performed.

Many New Zealand Theosophists are, in fact, ceremonialists. They display a natural power, through ritual and life, to portray that harmonious co-ordination of many differing personalities and activities which is a special faculty of the Ritualist. This is extremely valuable, for the training in impersonal, co-ordinated effort received in the Ceremonial Orders increases the efficiency of workers in a Theosophical lodge. The New Zealand Section is, I think, outstanding in its achievement of harmonious co-ordination of all the tributary movements.

In Wellington the keynote is said to be that of Power; and here, too, the beauty and value of the ceremonial life and way of service are fully appreciated. The splendid ceremonies of the Liberal Catholic Church and of the Co-Masonic Order are always beautifully performed. For the time being, the Capital City is, however, less favoured than Auckland and Christchurch in both the location and the convenience of its premises. Doubtless this disability — if a visitor may venture to say so — will be over-come. An architecturally effective and Theosophically convenient lodge building in a good and easily accessible neighbourhood is a splendid asset. The present lodge Hall is, nevertheless, excellent for its acoustics.

One always receives the impression of Active Power in Wellington. The city is vital and, to the visitor, work with the members of The Theosophical Society and kindred movements under the long continued leadership of Mr R. J. Mathers is always a stimulating experience. Unlike those of Auckland, both morning and evening papers will regularly print reports of lectures. Hundreds of thousands of people can be reached as a result of this valuable part of the work of the lodge.

Of other North Island lodges, Wanganui is unique as far as I am concerned. Year after year, owing to the enterprise of the lodge, the pupils of at least five schools are addressed. Happy relations have been established with the Principals, who have very pleasantly come to speak of my school visits as annual occurrences. Morning teas and luncheons with staffs and sometimes with pupils add to the pleasure of these school visits in Wanganui. Similar opportunities have presented themselves in Invercargill, Dunedin, Christchurch, Palmerston North, Napier and Auckland, though not on the same scale as in Wanganui.

This aspect of a visiting lecturer’s work might well be given special attention and maximum development by lodges. The school children of New Zealand are evidently very responsive to calls to practical idealism. One form in which this responsiveness is displayed consists of the almost deafening cheers and applause through which these young people give expression, primarily, I suspect, to their natural exuberance, but secondarily, I hope, to their appreciation of a talk which has interested them. I shall carry away as one of my outstanding memories these really thunderous cheers from five or six hundred young New Zealand throats. Wanganui is also notable for the fullness and length of the reports of Theosophical, Rotary and other lectures which the Press regularly accepts for publication.

Across the Straits the visitor finds himself working in the beautifully designed and situated Christchurch Lodge, where the keynote is Devotion to the Cause. The winding River Avon, with its arched bridges and gently sloping grassy banks, its stately trees, and its population of seagulls, ducks and in due season, ducklings, gives to both City and lodge an abiding charm. Excellent organisation, the assurance of large and interested audiences to be addressed in the most beautiful and cultured surrounding and the provision of music before and after the lectures are pleasant characteristics of the work in the Christchurch Lodge.

At Oamaru one meets in special measure unshakeable loyalty, unfailing devotion and as everywhere in New Zealand, the warmest possible hospitality. As a result, despite the present unresponsiveness of fellow citizens, the little lodge continues to do the supremely valuable work of little lodges the world over.

In Dunedin the impression received is past glory, of present invincible determination to carry on during a cycle of relative quiescence, and of great future possibility as lodge life in the new premises develops and the cycle moves on to another crest. The present, powerfully established theological orthodoxy makes the propagation and recognition of Theosophy a difficult task in Dunedin. Studies in Comparative Religion may prove to be one of the means of success. The keynote here is said to be fine intellect, activity and culture, to which I would add my own vivid impression of the unyielding determination displayed by the members of the lodge to hold on and to achieve. The Dedication Ceremonies of the new premises 1945 and the vigil kept with the members the evening of November 17th of that year the seventieth birthday of the Society with all its numerical and cyclic significance, will remain as lasting memories of Theosophical life and work in Dunedin.

The poet, sage and erstwhile teacher of The Theosophical Society in New Zealand, Mr D. W. M. Bum, M.A., still happily lives though in relative retreat, on the south-heights overlooking the city of Dunedin. From Hillarion House he keeps a watchful, fatherly eye upon our Movement and our work, while from his splendid library his books are freely donated to travel as messengers of the Ancient Wisdom to favoured recipients. To this revered and much-loved brother gratitude and homage continually flow.

Still to be mentioned are our valued, active lodges at Invercargill, New Plymouth, Hastings, Napier, Hamilton and Whangarei, in each of which fine and devoted work is being done often in the face of much discouragement and public unresponsiveness. New Zealanders do not readily give in. Tenacity of purpose and immovable stability are amongst their many splendid qualities. These with a fine devotion are displayed in excelsis in all New Zealand lodges and especially in those of the smaller cities.

Readiness to experiment is another characteristic of the people of New Zealand. This, notable in the fields of social legislation and education, is displayed in the successful establishment of Oratories of the Liberal Catholic Church, Co-Masonic lodges, the Orders of the Round Table and the Golden Chain, the Theosophical Lecturers’ Association, the more recent Thought Projection groups, The Theosophical Women’s Association, the successful founding and development of the New Zealand Vegetarian Society (largely but not entirely by Fellows of The Theosophical Society) and the re-embarkation upon Animal Welfare work by the Theosophical Order of Service. All these unfailingly combine the characteristics of a happy family reunion, inspiring Theosophical study classes and well conducted business meetings. These annual gatherings are always memorable highlights of each Convention, looked forward to and thoroughly enjoyed by all who attend them.

The New Zealand Section is, I think, quite unique in having as an active and most helpful member a Minister of the Crown. The Hon. H. G. R. Mason has held the Offices of Attorney General, Minister of Education and Minister of Native Affairs for many years. The whole Section receives added prestige in consequence of his attainments as a servant of his Nation. He and his charming wife bring to our work unique qualities by which it is greatly enriched.

Residence near Vasanta Garden School in Auckland, observation of and occasional participation in its work, have shown me that through the Educational Trust Board the Section is performing a unique service to the Nation. Here one sees Theosophy lived and applied to life most effectively and with rare discrimination. Miss Bertha Darroch, Principal of Vasanta, and her sister and close colleague, Miss Daphne, openly pervade the studies and school life of some eighty fortunate children with the spirit and influence of Theosophy. Yet the susceptibilities of even the most orthodox parents could never be offended. Leader, loved counsellor, friend and in her inimitable way, also ‘equal’ of every child, Miss Darroch effectively applies Theosophy to education. Not only is the highest standard of scholarship maintained, but many a suffering ‘problem child’ is restored to normality and happiness at Vasanta.

This harmonious co-ordination of numerous activities, groups and individuals, with their succession of successful Conventions, the steady progress made even through the war years and the initiation of experiments in applied Theosophy would be impossible without a completely capable leader. Fortunate indeed is the New Zealand Section in its General Secretary, Miss E. Hunt. With unfailing skill, great dignity and warm friendliness, she directs the work of the Section. Throughout all my own tours of the country, there has never once been even the slightest miscalculation of the intricate factors involved. Never for one moment have I been allowed to feel other than a trusted brother and colleague.

The work of the Section is greatly helped and Miss Hunt is ably supported by her splendid colleagues in Auckland — Miss N. E. Ockenden, Mr and Mrs W. Crawford and Mr H. H. Banks. To these must be added Miss J. G. Montgomery, invaluable Assistant General Secretary and Section Treasurer, Mr Geoffrey Trevithick, the long-time President of H.P.B. Lodge, Auckland, and that uniquely indefatigable and valued Theosophist, Miss G. M. Hemus. With many contemporaries, their names will surely be recalled at the Centenary Celebrations. Throughout the Section, also, splendid leaders and workers ably and devotedly co-operate with their General Secretary.

One last and more personal impression. From the time of my first landing in New Zealand down to the present moment, I have been increasingly conscious of what I can only describe as adoption into a family. Without exception, leaders and member alike have extended to me and mine brotherly affection and unfailing support. For these rare gifts I wish to say to all my fellow members in New Zealand, ‘My heartfelt thanks’.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1946, p. 39

SECTION 11
The Gift of Theosophy to Youth

128
What is the Gift of Theosophy to Youth?

The discussion became extended to include the value of Theosophy to young people, the desirability of bringing the teachings of

Theosophy to them and guiding principles in doing so.

Members of the Group contributed in effect as follows:

The world conditions of today were largely created by the predecessors of modem youth, who, therefore, must so act as to minimize the evils of the present period and avoid creating similar conditions in the future:

Theosophy provides young people with knowledge of the meaning of human life, especially whence man has come, whither he is journeying, and the goal he will reach. It thus provides that philosophy of life which is necessary to helpful and intelligent being.

One valuable part of the gift of Theosophy to youth consists of freedom, particularly freedom of thought and opinion in the study and practice of religion and its application to human life. The insistence upon freedom of thought in the Theosophical Society makes a strong appeal to young people, as also does freedom of conduct in such matters as differences of religious belief, of colour and of caste.

The teaching of Universal Brotherhood gave direction to the expression of this freedom by inculcating mutual respect for all men, regardless of differences of age, colour, caste and religion, and nationality. Friendliness towards others, first towards those living in the same community and later to all mankind, was the result of the brotherhood.

The teachings of Theosophy had long existed in India, but did not win assent, because their presentation lacked clarity and a scientific approach. The youth of today seeks science, reason and logic rather than blind faith. The approach to youth should, therefore, always be made in terms of logic and reason. If older Theosophists wish to reach youth with their philosophy they should show deep interest in the problems which young people meet in life, and present Theosophy as providing practical answers to personal, religious and national questions.

Part of the value of Theosophy to every one is that it explains life in an understandable way, particularly the apparent injustices, the inequalities and the differences of birth, such as those of caste, condition of the body, parents, circumstances and human life in general. Theosophy also helps youth to overcome superstition and the divisions which it causes, particularly those of religion and caste.

This guidance appeals most to young people when it teaches them to meet all people as fellow human beings and to desire to learn something from them. The presentation should be made, however, according to the scientific approach. When fully grasped and accepted, the Theosophical solutions to such problems can transform one’s life, encouraging friendliness, sympathy and understanding in one’s relationship with others. The First Object thus appeals to young people more than the other two which must remain somewhat speculative, particularly the Third Object.

The example of older members of the Theosophical Society has a great influence upon young people. Some of those present stated that they had joined the Theosophical Society not so much because of the teachings of Theosophy, but out of admiration for the way older Theosophists lived their lives. Others said they joined because they were attracted to the leaders and older members whose character and mode of life they respected.

A further great advantage of Theosophy to youth is that it indicates the right direction for youthful vitality and energy, which are often very strong in young people. The presentation, it was generally agreed, must be broad and flexible. The narrowing of Theosophy to a certain set of fixed ideas which must be accepted should be strictly avoided. Expositions must be logical and clear and not unreasoned or vague. They should be based in general on original thinking and a scientific approach both to the search for truth and its application to life when found.

The Theosophist, Vol. 75, March 1954, p. 392

129
To the Parents of Christopher

Naturally I have been thinking rather deeply of the honour which you have done me in asking me to be his godfather, and of how I can best fulfil the responsibilities of that office. Two thoughts have occurred to me which I share with you for what they are worth, asking you to believe that there is no slightest compulsion behind them.

Your choice of his name suggests that you have hopes for a spiritual mission for Christopher; so I write from that point of view. First, then, have you considered the influence upon a person continually addressed of the sound vibrations and meaning of the name? If you have, I think you will realize the value of always using the full given name without the use of nicknames or diminutives. You have chosen a most beautiful name for your son. The word ‘Christopher’ has a pleasant sound. Its first syllable is the name of the Supreme Teacher of Angels and of Men. My first suggestion is that you keep to this name, addressing your son by it and recalling to Whom it refers when you use it. This may not be so very important at the moment except for its habit-forming influence. As soon, however, as the child begins to recognize his name, it would seem to be in accordance with the teachings of Theosophy that he should hear, be influenced psychically and, physically by the sound of, and learn to respond to, his full name. Thus every time he is addressed he is in a way brought under the influence of his two great namesakes, the Lord

Christ and St Christopher. I would recommend a study of the life of St Christopher, and of the beautiful deed by which he earned his Canonization particularly in its mystical significance. Also that as soon as he is old enough Christopher should know what his name implies, and very simply and naturally be encouraged and helped to live up to the Christopher ideal.

My second suggestion is, and this I put forward most earnestly, that the child should grow up in the care of you both without ever experiencing the emotion of fear. Always correct his inadvisable experiments (they are not really mistakes) by pointing to a better way. Do not repress or discourage such experimentation. Do not punish harshly in thought, word or deed this precious gift which has been given to you both, for by so doing you place a grave indignity upon the spiritual Being who inhabits the body and who hopes through it to find fuller self-expression, further development of its existent faculties, the awakening of new powers and the fulfilment of a mission to mankind. Remember that pain, fear, suffering, especially when inflicted by the parents, give the child a sense of insecurity and tend to drive the Ego back in humiliated retreat. They may even develop deceitfulness, brutality, sadism.

Bring up Christopher, please, by the way of love. Then, like his namesake, he will be a lover of and so a servant of, his fellow men. Be firm when firmness is necessary; have a due routine, an orderly management of his life, but let it not be so rigid that it limits and represses instead of directing the powers of the soul. So many children grow up under the tyranny of the adult. Father and mother do not however always ‘know best’! Let our Christopher then grow up in ordered freedom. So like his namesake he will grow strong and bear humanity over the ford.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 34, Issue 5, May 1946, p. 105

130
The Free and Valiant Heart of Youth

The Youth of a Nation

Disraeli truly said: ‘The youth of a Nation are the trustees of prosperity’. This is especially true of the young people of today who, strangely, are both the builders and the bricks of that vast edifice which is to be the New World Order. The mortar which is to serve as indestructible cement must be compounded of the wisdom, the integrity of character and the zeal of the builders. Modem youth, therefore, must receive the illumination of the Ancient Wisdom.

‘Theosophy to Youth’, [see Appendix] it would seem, is part of the call to The Theosophical Society at the approach and opening of its tenth cycle of seven years. It must plan to bring to the youth of the world, more effectively than heretofore, both the logical solution of life’s problems and the call and direction which will lead them to the Path of Discipleship. For the great need of the world of today and tomorrow is for enlightened men and women and for dedicated disciples, whether of a great ideal, a great Teacher, or of both.

At the Dunedin Convention, the General Secretary drew attention to this immensely important aspect of our work. She called to the Section to become youth conscious and to make a concerted effort to reach the youth of New Zealand with Theosophical teachings and ideals.

How may this best be done? There appear to be two chief means: literature and lectures. I do not propose to write about Theosophical literature for youth, but suggest that where suitable speakers are available, a series of special lectures to young people only should be delivered in those cities where our lodges exist. These should deal with the application of Theosophy to the problems of life and especially to those particular problems which confront young people.

All important are the attitude of mind and the manner in which youth talks are given. Rightly approached, youth will respond. More readily than their elders will young people recognize and accept the pure logic and the call to the higher life which Theosophy presents. For, as an Arabic proverb says, ‘Branches may be made straight but not an old trunk’. The right approach, however, is all important when presenting Theosophy to those still ‘in the mom and liquid dew of youth’.

Sincerity, deep personal interest and genuine affection are unfailing keys to the hearts of young people. Youth sees through pretence infallibly. Youth senses and responds in the most delightful way to interest and affection.

A Right Relationship Between Age and Youth

Those who would work with young people should never for a moment regard themselves, because older, as superior in any way or in anything. The contrary attitude is generally nearer the truth, is more becoming, and will certainly be found to be more acceptable to the young people themselves.

Spontaneity, naturalness and originality are ideal keynotes of all relationships between age and youth. Constantly to quote tradition and the sayings and doings of older people whom they have never known, is to bore them. Although capable of being lifted to great heights, or of being degraded to great depths, as Hitler has shown, by hero worship, ideally youth, at least from sixteen onwards, at best must be led less to personal allegiances than to the basic principles of Theosophy. Above all, those who would serve the youth of the world, must know and practice the art of making them happy, both by the sheer pleasure their presence brings and by the deep interest of what is being said and done on their behalf.

Every boy and girl is a potential Theosophist, and some modem young people are reincarnated Disciples and Initiates. To draw older souls in young bodies once more to the Ancient Wisdom, to remind them of the Masters and of that Golden Pathway which leads to Their Presence, this is the real service which older Fellows of The Theosophical Society can render to modem youth.

For those Egos in young bodies for whom the Great Work is entirely new, how wonderful a thing it is to bring them for the first time to the ‘quarries’. But, I repeat, whether to old souls or to young souls, all such guidance must be based on reason, not on dogma and tradition. As Stevenson said: ‘Youth is wholly experimental’, and in consequence the assent of the very thoughtful and enquiring mind of young people must be gained if their allegiance and co-operation are to be won. The realism and directness characteristic of mentally awakened young people must meet an equal realism and directness in those who would teach them. Theosophy enables one frankly to face and solve every conceivable problem and situation. This frankness is all-important, for through hypocrisy, evasion, sham and make-believe, youth so often sees at a single glance.

Rightly led, young people will always respond more favourably to reason than to dogmatism, to freedom than to implied restrictions, to redirection than to punishments and loss of prestige before their fellows. In general, very little direct stimulus, exhortation and moral adornment of tales is needed. Right direction and encouragement in idealism are the great needs for ‘the glittering dreams of youth’.

Young Theosophists’ Groups

Thus in part, I suggest, may youth be drawn into our work, receive the illumination of Theosophy and take it on into later life to be shared with others. Thus, also, we elders may enjoy the wonderful happiness produced by association with young people, and thus the succession of experienced workers in our movement may be maintained. The organization and development of active young Theosophists’ Groups in all the lodges throughout the Section, might well result from such activity. The Order of the Round Table is a splendid movement, well led and well conducted in New Zealand. It might be the nucleus round and from which such youth work could be organized and developed.

Younger members of The Theosophical Society enjoy and greatly benefit from special meditation, study and training classes. Readings, plays, literary competitions and provision for social life inside the lodge all help to make the Society more attractive to young people. In all this, continual encouragement of young people by their elders in the movement is all-important. The more gifted amongst them should be invited to address lodges, to combine in symposia on vital topics given both to the members and to the public and, both for practice sake and for their unique contribution, to preside at public meetings. Thus the younger members may both gain experience and feel that they are valued in the Movement.

Responsibility of Lodge Presidents

Much depends upon the attitude of lodge Presidents towards youth. Their relationship to young people should be far more than avuncular and tolerant. A vital and active interest is needed. Attendance at, and participation in their meetings and studies when invited, is important. A recognition of the fact that they must be trained and helped as soon as possible to work beside older members and so bring fresh life to the Movement, is necessary. Younger members should be invited to act as stewards, book sales agents and collectors at public meetings. Leading young Theosophists should be elected to lodge executive committees. There they see and take part in the management of the lodge and the ordering of the Society’s work. This draws them into intimate association with the life of the Movement and especially with those currents of spiritual power which flow from the Inner Founders throughout all our work.

By such means as these, perhaps, may Theosophy be brought in acceptable guise to modem youth. Thus, too, may the greatly needed new leaders, new teachers and new workers be gained for The Theosophical Society.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1945, p. 39

131
The Next Fifty Years

For the Theosophical Society in New Zealand, as for the whole world, an old era has closed and a new era begins. What of the Section and what of the world in the next fifty years?

No observer of human affairs can fail to be impressed with the urgency of the present period in world history, can fail to perceive humanity’s great need for knowledge of Theosophy and especially for the Theosophical teachings of the unity of life and the brotherhood of man.

There are those — and their name is legion — to whose interest it is that the war time co-operation between nations, political parties, classes and individuals should be destroyed as soon as the state of emergency has passed. Humanity and human progress have other enemies than the leaders and followers of the Axis powers. One of the most dangerous of these is human nature itself. This has been exemplified in the months since peace has returned. National, party, class and individual self-interest have again become prime motives for human activity. In consequence, world peace is not secure and the threat not only of atomic but — infinitely more dangerous — of biological warfare hangs over the human race.

An illustration of this tendency to individualism was provided after a remarkable communal spirit had been displayed during and immediately after a devastating earthquake in a certain town. Many citizens hoped that this classless civic unity evoked by great common need would continue as an established characteristic of their community. Quickly, however, they saw their hopes dashed to the ground. Tragically soon, so residents have stated, the city sank back into its old narrow ways. Class divisions and class exclusiveness returned and now are said to reign apparently impregnable. That city with its minority desiring unity and its majority maintaining disunity is an epitome of the world. Its people are representative of humanity.

Great therefore is the world’s need for the Theosophical vision of world unity and human brotherhood. Our Society is founded upon that vision. It is itself a successful world brotherhood, a living United Nations Organization. Humanity’s need is the Theosophical Society’s opportunity. We, Theosophists, must therefore work harder than ever to extend the spirit, the message and the influence of our Sections beyond the membership into the world outside.

The New Zealand Section must be even more dynamic, more devoted and more progressive in its second fifty years than in its first. We must not he content merely to hold on. We must deliberately and daily think of ourselves, our lodge and of the New Zealand Section as parts of a dynamic, ever-growing and creative organization. We must have no slightest doubt of the immense value of Theosophy to the world. We must take Theosophy beyond our lodges into our cities and continue actively to seek and heartily to receive new members, new ideas. In lodge management, we must welcome every change which can bring growth and expansion. We older members must be on guard against becoming static, against sameness, dullness, an established fixed order and method of work. We must be original and creative, constantly expanding our individual Theosophical horizons and thereby those of our lodge.

The public are our parishioners. Let us seek them out even more positively than heretofore, develop new means of reaching and of giving them our message. In our second fifty years, we must be increasingly Crusaders.

This would seem especially to apply to our work with and for young people; for they must be the builders of the new world and our successors in Theosophical work. Special youth meetings may well be organized in every lodge. Theosophy could be applied to the solution of the problems of youth and used to awaken them to the Quest of their own Holy Grail to the pursuit of which they can give their lives. For that is their way of happiness.

The Young Theosophists movement could be strengthened in New Zealand by the following means:

Regular, interesting public lectures to young people only, say under thirty-five.

Addresses by lecturers to Youth Movements.

Recruitment, organization and development of an active and autonomous Young Theosophists’ group within every lodge.

Special arrangements for meetings, meditation groups and study, speech training and writers’ classes for young members only.

Encouragement of young members to address the lodge, to preside at public meetings and later to address the public, first in symposia and thereafter singly.

Invitation to Young Theosophists to preside and to act as stewards, ushers and book salesmen at public meetings.

Election of leading Young Theosophists to the lodge Executive where they may both contribute their views and gain experience in the direction of lodge affairs.

Appointment of suitable young members as assistants and helpers to such Officials as the Secretary, Treasurer, Librarian and manager of Book Depots. Each Official should always be training a successor.

Organization and constant use of Drama Groups under experienced direction. There exists a vast and largely unused means of Theosophical propaganda by tableaux, playlets and plays. The shortage of lecturers can be offset by this means.

Four results would be gained by these means. First, young members would feel that they are appreciated and wanted in the work. Second, a succession of trained workers would be assured to lodges. Third, growing numbers of young people would receive the immeasurable benefits of Theosophy and of participation in Theosophical work. Fourth, much needed ‘bridges’ would be built between the Round Table Groups and the Theosophical Society.

These four results would be, and in part already are, of great value to our Cause. For young people, loyal to the Parent Theosophical Society and certain of their loyalty, bring to lodges and Sections a certain vivid life, a freshness and a brightness of atmosphere and of outlook most valuable in Theosophical work.

Already in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch such groups are valuably active. All possible support may well be given to them and similar groups be formed in other lodges.

The admission to membership, encouragement and training of future Theosophical workers are important factors in the progress of lodges and Sections as of the Society as a whole. Dynamic Theosophical propaganda, a friendly, welcoming attitude to all who attend lodge gatherings, individual recruiting by members and well-conducted youth groups are means of ensuring the succession of Theosophical leaders, teachers and workers. By these means the New Zealand Section will be enabled even more effectively than heretofore to deliver its message throughout its next fifty years.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1947, p. 14

132
The Theosophical Field — South Africa

[Extract from a letter from Mr & Mrs Hodson]

We are convinced that a great Theosophical work yet remains to be done here. The response to the lectures has been in every way as good as that in America, whilst opportunities of addressing outside bodies have exceeded those provided in the U. S. A. I think you would have been pleased at the special gatherings for young people called together from the public lectures in Pretoria and Johannesburg. In Pretoria 150 came to the first lecture on ‘The Contribution of Youth to the New Age’; and 192 to the second, last Sunday morning, on ‘Love, Marriage and Parenthood’, followed by a discussion on the possibilities of forming a Youth Movement for South Africa, several young people from Johannesburg coming over especially for this. Many of us lunched together afterwards on the lawn of the Society’s premises, and continued the discussion. At Johannesburg 60 young people (in all cases limited up to the age of 30) came to a special meeting for them, and in both cities Study Groups for Theosophy have been established under capable teachers. I regret that just at this juncture we must move on to the Southern Section, but we have done all we can to consolidate our work here, especially that with the young people, amongst whom are some really fine and promising young men and women.[142]

Quite an amusing correspondence has sprung up in the press, mostly from unknown contributors, suggesting that the Government engage me to tour the country in the cause of peace. This arose out of a talk on Goodwill Day here, at a celebration of the junior section of the League of Nations, the audience consisting mostly of boys and girls from 10 to 16. The Mayor and Mayoress were present, and the Administrator’s wife was also on the platform. If the response from the Southern Section is as promising as that of the Transvaal, then our visit here will have been well worth while, though we find ourselves strongly wishing that we were more adequate to take advantage of the opportunities here.

South Africa is a miniature ... America, the four European races which have been placed in the ‘melting pot’ being Dutch, French, German and British . . . here should be born a magnificent South African nation, a splendid contribution to the family of Peoples.

We are both keeping reasonably well, despite the most strenuous program we have ever fulfilled. We have averaged nine lectures a week during the whole of May, and six or seven during March and April. We are, just off for four days’ holiday in the Kruger Game Reserve, with Sir Robert Kotze and his daughter, and the President of the Pretoria Lodge and his wife.

The Theosophist, Vol. 56, October 1934, p. 92

133
The South African Youth Movement

(During the visit of Mr and Mrs Geoffrey Hodson to South Africa, a new chapter in the history of that country was begun by the founding of the South African Youth Movement.

Mr and Mrs Hodson conceived the idea of banding the young people of South Africa into a movement through which the energy, the enthusiasm and the ideals of youth could be definitely and usefully directed for the good of the new race which is slowly but surely being formed in South Africa.

They started by sending out a call to the young people who were attending their lectures to participate in an attempt to launch special meetings for young people. The immediate purpose of these meetings was to apply Theosophical solutions to the problems of youth, but actually the audiences became nuclei of local branches of the South African Youth Movement.

At all these meetings, in the various centres of the Union, large audiences attended and much interest and enthusiasm was displayed, resulting in the fact that at the first meetings numbers of young people immediately, and as one, emphatically agreed as to the necessity of such an organization in South Africa.

Branches were speedily formed in the cities of Pretoria, Johannesburg, Maritzburg, Durban and Capetown, and within the incredibly short time of four months some three hundred and fifty members had enrolled; these proved themselves to be quietly determined to carry out to the utmost of their ability the tasks, the possibilities of which Mr and Mrs Hodson had revealed to them.

Space does not allow one to include some of the magnificent and inspiring addresses which Mr Hodson delivered to the young people, but in the headquarters of the various Branches one can see on the walls framed copies of those addresses, a constant reminder to these young people of the way which they can tread to that great civilization of the future, the foundation stones of which it is their duty to lay.

It would be of interest to set down hereunder the purpose, the objects and the ideals of the South African Youth Movement which have been defined as follows:

Purpose: An association of both sexes of the Youth of South Africa without distinction of race, creed, party or class, banded in one great Brotherhood without ties to any sect, religious body or other institution, to offer practical assistance in the solution of civic, national and international problems.

Objects:

0. To formulate, voice, practically live and apply to the problems of life the highest ideals.

1. To promote world peace.

2. To render service to individuals, city, country and race.

3. To unite with the youth of other countries in the fulfilment of the ideals for which this Movement stands.

4. To encourage and assist Members to know themselves and to understand and control the inherent powers within themselves.

Ideals:

²Brotherhood and Service.

³To appreciate fully the responsibilities of citizenship.

⁴To supplant selfishness, malice and hatred with love.

⁵To be tolerant, self-controlled and steadfast of purpose.

⁶To eradicate cruelty and ugliness, and to install compassion and beauty in their place.

⁷To inculcate and obey the knightly code of chivalry.

Membership is open to any young man or woman of any race, creed, party or class between the ages of 16 and 35 years adhering to the above objects and ideals, upon being sponsored by any two members.

Again space will not allow one to set forth the method of organization, but this has been carried out by young people of experience; and an excellent system of officers and committees has been established, so that all opportunities of service will be effectively grasped.

In addition to these ideals and aims is the task which devolves upon us all of promoting unity and brotherliness between the two chief races, Dutch and British, of which our population consists.

Already much practical work has been done collectively and individually, and public attention has been decidedly drawn towards this steadily growing Movement. The newspapers of South Africa have given every possible assistance and have intimated that they wish, in the future, to take an active interest in the work of the Movement.

Other existing bodies such as the Rotary and the Gordon Boys’ Institute have shown great interest and enthusiasm at the formation and continuance of this unique organization.

It is indeed a very wonderful experience in these modern times to see so many young people keenly interested in the deep truths of life, in the fundamental laws of existence, not only interested, but actively attempting to live by them, powerfully determined to let nothing blind them to the wonderful illumination gained from a study of the teachings of Theosophy.

As Mr and Mrs Hodson left each city, large crowds of young people came to see them off, deluging them with flowers and beautiful gifts in token of their deep appreciation and gratefulness for the new vision of life which they now have. Sad they were, but nevertheless filled with an inner joy, for now they have a purpose in life.

This brief account may well be concluded with a quotation in full of the inspiring charge delivered to the young people of South Africa by Mr and Mrs Hodson on their departure.)

To The Youth of South Africa

‘Remember always that the welfare of your country is in your care. You have been born here partly for your own sakes, but also for the sake of South Africa. For, in your land a nation shall arise, young and vigorous to display to the rest of humanity an ideal of healthful and beautiful living. Its towns shall be models of well planned, orderly construction, providing the maximum of beauty, space and convenience for every citizen. Their outskirts will receive special care, being blended on every side with the natural beauty of the surrounding country. They will be beautiful in every external particular, and above all clean, severely so, in their recreational, cultural and political activities. In South Africa shall thus be built the perfect town, the perfect city; within these shall be lived physically perfect lives. Plan therefore according to this dream, no dream but certain vision of the perfect city and the perfect citizen.

Then turn outwards to perfect relationships with your fellow men of other nationalities. First, the native in your midst, your younger brother, your care. Your great responsibility is to serve and thus draw him near to you; yours to help him on his path of development from savage to civilized man. Second, other nations, some your equals, some your superiors perchance, but all members of the one great family of men. Brotherhood must be the keynote of this relationship, closest within the Commonwealth of which you form a part, but friendly to all. South Africa may well play a leading part in the restoration upon earth of human life as in a Garden of Eden, brotherhood reigning between man and man, love only between man and animal.

You will do well to make yourself acquainted with the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, for therein lies the key to the perfect life, the knowledge essential to perfect living, the wis134dom which alone will guide you amid the difficulties of your individual lives and in your work as builders of a nation’.

The Theosophist, February 1935, p. 454

SECTION 12
Presenting and Promoting the Wisdom Teachings

134
Revealers of the Secret Wisdom

Just as professors and other scholastics of high rank do not usually teach members of the earlier classes in schools, so Adepts who visit the world — professors indeed — come from their seclusion to the haunts of men very largely as Revealers of the Secret Wisdom. By a kind of catalysis they seek to awaken in such minds as can receive it, the power to perceive occult and spiritual truths by means of awakened, intuitive insight.

Whilst they do teach the multitude and refer to material matters, their real mission is carried out in the field of human consciousness and especially as awakeners and stimulators of mental development. They come not only to make people think but also to quicken mental evolution, so that abstract and spiritual ideas may be sought and when found fully comprehended.

The fully adeptic portions of Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine were written with this intent. The reasons might be stated somewhat like this:

To set men thinking about the noumena underlying all phenomena.

To inform concerning the inner life of nature and man.

To open up to the human intellect areas of knowledge as yet undiscovered, and set man exploring them. This was the main work of H. P. Blavatsky, namely to get men to think about the divine mind in nature, as revealed by occult science.

Humanity as a whole does not heed the guidance of its Teachers, the majority remaining heedless, self-enclosed in the prison of desire for pleasure and benefit on behalf of the present self of the present time. This renders people in the main — not unnaturally — to be disinterested in either the past or the future, being almost wholly absorbed in the immediate present. In consequence, the majority of the people of today remain unillumined, as throughout the past.

Happily, however, a minority is seeking Wisdom’s light, and it is these who will eventually lead mankind out of the ‘vale’ of sorrow up to the ‘hills’ of happiness. The pathway thereto consists of study and application of the Ageless Wisdom, in which the truth of law is taught and the practice of contemplation — as a result of which Wisdom’s light shines from within upon the human mind becomes a part of daily life. Contemplation, then, is of supreme importance as the only means at the disposal of man — of all times — whereby sorrow may cease. No other way exists, even though institutions for world unity and world collaboration may and do greatly help. By themselves they can never cure mankind of its ‘disease’ of cruel selfishness.

The real and permanently effective servant of humanity is one who leads his or her fellow men to the realization of this truth.

Naturally we grateful members of the Theosophical Society consider how best we may contribute to the fulfilment of the high purposes of the great Masters. Actually, the task before the movement itself and every member so moved (all being free), is indicated by the words of a Master: ‘We have to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’.[143]

Methods by which this may be brought about primarily include lectures, literature and theosophically lived lives.

Lectures are, I believe, the most directly effective, for they bring exponents into direct personal relationship with audiences. The invention and use of tape recordings and video now render spoken words almost as enduring as literature, thereby overcoming the limitations of brevity. Books clearly written, based on true knowledge and including practical ways of applying Theosophy to life possess the advantage of relative timelessness. To speak and write effectively, one must study Theosophy, I suggest, as deeply as one can, submit to and apply training in both writing and public speaking, and perform both functions with strict impersonality, the sole motive being to serve one’s fellow men.

Nevertheless, lives nobly lived might be regarded as the best propaganda of all, and, as more members of the Theosophical Society undertake these three means of fulfilling the purpose of the Masters, the Society, during its second century will expand and so reach an ever increasing number of people. This surely is of supreme importance; for Theosophy understood, taught and applied to life is both the sole effective remedy for the world’s most serious ills, and the assurance of enduring health and happiness for all mankind.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 43, No. 4, 1982, p. 75

135
What Should Be Taught?

What then may most usefully and effectively be taught as assured? Broadly speaking there are in the main three catalogues of human beings. First, those who think they have found the inward truth. These do not consciously need Theosophy and may even condemn it for others. Next come those who are seeking truth and are near to the discovery. These do need Theosophy. Then there are those who are either totally ignorant of, or deliberately flout, Theosophy. These need it urgently and they are in the majority and have produced the present world situation. Theosophy has a special message for those who feel dissatisfied with this life, if there is something in our ordinary way of living that deprives us of freedom in its most sanctified sense of finality and contentment. Theosophy can do this for us and assures us of the acquirement of a new point of view in which life assumes a fresher, deeper and more satisfying aspect. I assume, therefore, that the audiences at public lectures are in urgent need of the fundamental philosophy, concerning human life and the laws of happiness and health. The call is still that one given by a Master, ‘We have to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’. It is strange how sometimes a single word, a line of a poem, or a short sentence will awaken within one a dazzling illumination, an immediate and even at first unrationalised assent, as if an ultimate had been encountered. One says, ‘Yes, of course’. This happened to me when I read that letter, and is still alive and alight within me.

We are ‘To Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’. What then do ‘Popularise’ and ‘Theosophy’ mean in this context? The dictionary meaning of ‘Popularise’ is to make popular, easy to understand; adapted to the means of the common people; suitable to the public in general. It is not, to cheapen. I give out my own ideal; it should be lucidly expounded. Then, in the ‘Theosophical Glossary’ definition Theosophy is under THEOSOPHIA (Greek), Wisdom-religion, or Divine Wisdom the substratum and basis of all the world religions and philosophies, taught and practice by a few elect ever since man became a thinking being. In its practical bearing, Theosophy is purely divine ethics. Now we come to those doctrines that make sense of human life which without them is entirely senseless, as examples: the purpose, evolution; the goal, Adeptship; the means, interior and external; through time, rebirth; in justice, karma; and man as the monad and Ego, in or out of a body. So my concept of purpose is to bring these within the understanding and acceptance of mankind. Mankind consists of various groups. These we may classify for our purpose. There are the extremely rich who are hard to reach; the highly intellectual, whom it is important to reach on their own intellectual grounds — here Theosophy would be applied to science in all its branches, to religion, occult and mystical, or orthodox in every phase, or to the philosophies both of East and West. Then follow the well educated, where they are not at the same time very intellectual, then (especially), the mass of thoughtful people, and lastly the whole mass of mentally confused, mind-darkened, struggling humanity, ‘the poor orphan’ continually erring, and so generating adversity in ignorance of karma. All these have to be reached on their own grounds by three means, through our lives, and through literature and lectures. Our lives ought to show as kindly, helpful always, interested and outward turned. Our literature articles, plays, poetry, books — all these should be addressed to seeking humanity.

Lectures do not depend on words only, nor on ideas only, but are to show power and wisdom, to be consoling, heartening, and awakening influences and channelled blessings. They should be audible and understandable by all present, may I here venture to advise those embarking on this great work? Remember the importance of the approach and introduction, and act on the principle of‘we-ship’ to grip the interest and attention of the audience from the opening sentence, while stating the very interesting theme. When closing, act similarly, making a completed cycle. When the speaker has developed a subjective life and the ability to retire into an inner silence, the Ego can be reached and will reach the audience. Ideas also then can reach you, the lecturer. After each lecture it should be gone over by notes made and in memory, seeking improvements and ideas. Teachings will become experienced truth not only intellectually grasped ideas. People soon discover whether or not you know what you are talking about. Complete sincerity is always sensed and appreciated. Speak from deep within yourself, as well as from acquired knowledge — as an example, the great message of oneness as an experience producing kinship and so compassion, deeply felt and an irresistible driving force. The royal secret, of success in teaching Theosophy is to get down always to the heart of the subject. This depends upon an overall grasp of theosophical doctrines and their interrelationship, as, for instance, that Reincarnation and Karma are as twins philosophically. Similarly the teacher’s gift to the listener is a grasp of the principles, so that thereafter life makes sense a priceless gift.

The speaker’s responsibility is grave. Therefore watch very carefully never to mislead; and, at the same time, never to repel. This might occur if there were given at first technical occultism, as, speaking of Rounds and Chains; or, a virulent attack on orthodox Christianity or medicine, insistence on pacifism, teetotalism or vegetarianism. It can be very harmful if the wrong books are given to inquirers. The ideas presented are to be for consideration and never to be dogmatic. Consider the karma of a lecturer on Theosophy, who, with his own personality reduced to a minimum, tries to be a translucent channel. Let him teach the Ageless Wisdom with its practical applications, delivered to mankind by the Sages not his own gropings. Both the viewpoint and the needs of the audience are to be recognized and met. Feel deeply, and convey a sincere interest in the audience. Care for them very greatly, compassionately sufferers are there and have come for help. Be intimately one with the audience and its members, learning to think and say ⁴we’ rather than ‘you’. Watch other people and learn from them. Everyone has a message for you. Beware of both applause and praise, people want to be kind but can mislead. Be topical and in touch with events.

With complete sincerity and true sympathy with your fellow man, watch, note and connect current human experience. The Bridey Murphy affair offered opportunity for lectures both on reincarnation and hypnotism. Collect, file and use ideas, applications to life, as, selectivity in disasters, inequalities in birth, minor and major. Seize on such things as missiles to Venus, evidences of living matter discovered in meteorites, Bishop Dyke’s statement that the Bible contains much myth, natural cataclysms in the news, biological research into the mystery of gravitation and regeneration — or, the diversity of experiences as in so-called good and bad luck. Refer to all or any of them from the theosophical point of view. Collect also illustrations and phrases, missing none. Look at everything, especially news and new developments from the angle of its use in teaching Theosophy.

Finally, develop the capacity to think as you talk, pausing if you wish in order to do so. Reflective pauses both give the audience time to absorb, and you to receive and clarify thoughts. Remember how it was said, after Cicero, ‘What a fine speech’, but after Demosthenes, ‘let us march’.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1962, p. 35

136
Some Thoughts on Teaching Theosophy

Now, the subject which I offer to speak on, really is to share with you some of the thoughts which have arisen in my mind as I go about the world teaching Theosophy. I am very conscious of my own deficiencies in this matter and all the time I’m speaking of ideals I’m remembering them and speaking to myself. And I don’t want to state too high an ideal so that someone aspiring might be put off and say ‘Oh, I could never get as far as that’. Please don’t — I am deliberately stating the Ideal.

Very well then, let’s suppose that the opportunity of lecturing on Theosophy is coming our way. What’s going to happen inside us! To us, and to those who listen to us. Well, first of all, the realization (in my personal view, at any rate) that this is the most important office and task open to any human being in any nation in any part of the world. Oh, I know that’s a sweeping statement, but it is said deliberately. There is no higher calling, friends, than to spread abroad the Light of the Ageless Wisdom, with its wonderful teachings which tell us what we really are — Divine Spiritual Beings, here on Earth; why we are here — in order to evolve and bring the germinal Christ in us to full perfection ‘as the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’. And by the bye, learn the religion of the country. I just then quoted from the Christian Bible; but in other places like Buddhist countries or Hindu countries one naturally quotes the same thing from their scriptures and it is as well to read them up.

So, we are here to bring out the innate Divinity from its germinal to its full flowered condition. How is that to be brought about? By the experiences of life and our response to them; None being wasted — drive that home. Everything that happens to us, whether it seems successful or not, is playing its educative and enlightening part upon us all the time, drawing out our qualities. How is this experience gained? Well, by means of successive lives on Earth. If you say, ‘I cannot possibly reach the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’’ as I am already thirty (or forty or so) and before very long I shall already be gone — failed’. And the reply, of course, from Theosophy is. . . . ‘Of course, you won’t fail — you can’t fail, for it is God that worketh in you and Life gives you a succession of lives here on Earth. How wonderful for you! You’ve ample time, ample opportunity — no hurry’ and eventually you will arrive.

Yes, but what about all the injustices of life? There aren’t any! The whole procedure, teaches Theosophy, is carried on under the operation of the Law of Cause and Effect. How wonderful! Action and reaction; cause and effect; sowing and reaping quote from the scriptures of the world which have this doctrine in them. And so you open up to the seeking and open human mind a wonderful philosophy of life, which is unassailable in its logic and full of inspiration and help, and which drives away despair. Now, what a gift to give to the human race. And that’s why I say there is no higher calling — none. Either that or collaboration in bringing it about, through life, through literature and through lectures. Extremely important. Remember that every great spiritual teacher, every great disciple of such, and every great outstanding philosopher who has visited this world has done nothing else but go about teaching Theosophy. Obviously it's the highest calling there is.

Now, I mention this at the beginning because if you can get that realization into your heart and mind very well, then you’ve got the inner powers burning in you which will carry you over the many difficulties of preparing and delivering lectures effectively. So, also one needs, I think to have the conviction that Theosophy is true. Now, I find this a tremendous comfort. In one of the letters from the Masters of the Wisdom there is the sentence, ‘Our doctrines being true’. I rest on that: that is to say, we are teaching the Truth: we are safe, we are in an unassailable position because the Master said that what we have to teach is Truth. Now, if you get this into your blood and nerves and brain, then you’re not hesitant any longer. You’re not afraid, you’re not half-hearted, you’re not doubtful — here it is, and the Master says, it’s true. Now, that conviction of your own will convey itself to the audience and go a long way to supplement your words.

There’s another conviction that Theosophy is the only panacea for this world’s ills: there isn’t any other, no other, it’s the only one. Examine it, take it to pieces, see its application to life, look at others and compare them; and you will find that only when the others are teaching Theosophy and contain the Ageless Wisdom are they panaceas. So that in Theosophy you have the only true panaceas for this world’s ills; so badly needed today when humanity harbours a dangerous sickness. Its mind is in darkness; hence the mess and chaos in the world. Humanity is seeking Light but not finding it. There is no stable peace of mind for mankind, no harmony among the nations which is utterly secure and enduring, no unity of all humanity, but a series of nations led by individuals who express the determination to overcome, conquer and bury the rest of us and with the weapons to do it, born of nuclear fusion and nuclear fission, the hydrogen bornb, bacteriological warfare. These hang over the head of all peoples like the sword of Damocles. No, wonder people are frightened or cynical and say ‘Let's eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’. Religion doesn’t help them — not really, not the reasoning mind: it helps the heart wonderfully — but Theosophy meets both needs and therefore I think it is good to become convinced that humanity needs Theosophy very greatly indeed.

Next compassion is the ideal motive. As I speak to you about the condition the human race is in, one is moved deeply — isn’t one? We see the sorrows, the sickness, the accidents so-called and miscalled, the deaths, the larger and larger hospitals and asylums. We are moved deeply with compassion for humanity. Very well then, get out and get on and heal their wounds and show them the way to light. Out of this compassion, it seems to me, arises the great call ‘Teach Theosophy to mankind, or popularizing the knowledge of Theosophy’ as the Master also wrote. We have ‘To Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’. For me, ‘Popularise’ does not mean cheapen, but rather lucidly expound so that he who hears may read and understand.

Next thought, let us try to give not words only in our lectures. Not ideas only, but something more — an inward serenity, a peace, and on occasion, power, wisdom, and consoling, heartening influences, so that the audience is not only instructed but goes away with a new light and a new life and a new fire, perhaps. It can be done. However far behind, we can effectively follow the example of the great teachers of the world who did just this very thing.

Very well — those are introductory remarks. Now, we’re on the platform!

What next? Well I think the first words are very important, indicative of the approach to the audience and the relationship felt towards them.

I think for example, it’s very good to bring in the pronoun ‘we’, and the other word ‘our’. For instance, one can say — not ‘You have all come here this evening to listen to (this makes a division, the lecturer up on the platform and the people down there, separated): is it not nicer to say “Our subject for this evening can hardly fail to be of deep interest to every thoughtful person”. Now you’re with them and they’re with you. “All of us, (for example) have felt the need for some knowledge concerning shall we say, the condition of our loved ones after death. We would like to know also the conditions which await us when our time comes as most surely one day it must”. Now, what have you done? You’re off the platform, you’re down there amongst the audience; in with them, thinking with them, feeling with them, searching with them to find what Theosophy has to say’.

I’m not going to talk about the actual work of lecturing as you can get courses on public speaking quite readily and I am rather talking a little more personally about the world. I do recommend all who find this wonderful opportunity opening before them of teaching Theosophy — the greatest in the world, remember! — I do recommend them to go and take a course in public speaking from some accredited teacher, and, if you can afford it, personally, not in a class. Get diagnosed so that faults of pronunciation* of diction, of mannerisms, can be known from the beginning and are thereby not perpetuated into habits. Then hear yourself on tape or record — a very valuable experience, if sometimes rather disheartening, but so good: telling how the voice sounds to others, how clearly one can be heard, how good the pronunciation (of this glorious English language is) how our vowels are; and so on. So that, since we are doing a spiritual work for humanity, it is done in the best possible, most beautiful and perfect way; within our limitations, and will therefore produce a good effect upon the minds, ears and cultural standards of those who listen. Very important! It’s wrong, of course, but the Ageless Wisdom presented badly can be dismissed by someone needing it if the manner of speech, presentation, organization and Chairmanship are all below a reasonable standard. Take lessons, I would suggest.

Then, develop a subjective life and the ability to retire into an inner silence so that the Inner Self can reach you, inspire you, and drop ideas into your mind — sometimes even when you’re lecturing, during a pause, perhaps. It’s a good idea to develop pauses: it lets the audience think over what’s been said, and the Ego and your own mind may add to what has been said — a memory, or a new idea maybe. Ideas can then reach you, and after each lecture go over the notes and the memory of the address seeking improvements write them in to your notes. Imperfect as my notes were at the beginning, and still are — that’s how I build them; then, when there is enough writing, re-type them. When you do this, teachings gradually become experienced truths, In addition to this you are talking from within yourself about something you are convinced of, something you’ve experienced. People then know that you know what you’re talking about and, believe me, that’s a tremendous asset — to anyone who is teaching upon any subject whatever, be it scientific, philosophy, religion, or any other subject. If the person knows what they’re talking about it makes all the difference.

I have a favourite story about a class in public speaking being trained by a professor in a university. As an illustration of good speech he took the Shepherd’s Psalm and read it to them ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want’ and so on, in all its beauty. He read it perfectly — diction perfect; everything just right, but nobody was moved. They appreciated the language, I suppose, but it didn’t touch them. However, there happened to be a clergyman present so the professor, who realized that his reading had fallen rather flat, asked him to read it again. The clergyman consented, saying that he would recite it by heart rather than read it. When he finished there wasn’t a dry eye! They were all so deeply affected. So when the class was over one of the students approached the professor and said,^‘What happened then? Your reading was quite perfect but it somehow didn’t reach us, and yet this clergyman here moved us all. Why was this?’ the professor replied, ‘Well, I was reading the Shepherd’s Psalm and I do know about the Shepherd; but our friend here — he knows the Shepherd’. This makes all the difference in the world — interior experience. Or, to put it a little colloquially, to know what you’re talking about. Conviction is then conveyed to the audience, and complete sincerity is sensed and appreciated. This is a very important factor, I think, in successfully teaching anything, complete sincerity.

Then, also, we may do well to speak from deep within ourselves, as well as from acquired knowledge. Meditation, for example, on the idea of One-ness with God, and through him with all that lives. Coming to an experience of kinship with divine life in all nature and by meditation to have had a touch of it perhaps only once, but to have felt the mystic identity, as it’s called. Thereafter you can readily feel at one with others and they with you [they feel that, also]. This helps in exposition.

Know the subject well. Success in teaching Theosophy, I think, depends upon an overall grasp of the doctrines and their inter-relationships. So study, take the doctrine to pieces and put it, together in your own words. Very useful. I had to learn this lesson myself through the humiliation of my first public lecture when I was all unprepared, unready, untrained, not knowing one thing about all this. I was called upon to stand in for Miss Clara Codd when she went down with the ‘flu’: I thought this might be a call from the Master, to which I mustn’t fail to respond. But I was unprepared and merely went through the Theosophical books on the subject (which was Life after Death), took out paragraphs, arranged them in consecutive order and read them.

Don’t criticize other ‘isms’ at all — just teach the Ageless Wisdom and leave the people to apply it in their own way. Then you generate favourable karma for the T.S. [Theosophical Society], the lodge, and (if it matters) for yourself.

Next among these ideas — I could, of course, go on a long time, but I am going to stop very shortly — try to be a translucent channel for Theosophy, with your own personality reduced to a minimum. Teach the Ageless Wisdom, not your own gropings: there is more than you can grasp available, more than you can teach in half a dozen lives or more — all freely available; teach it, not your own meanderings of mind. Grope and meander, by all means, that is one way toward wisdom but, when you’re on the platform, be a translucent Ego-less (as far as possible) channel for Theosophy with your own personality reduced to a minimum and the first person pronoun, singular, T, not present or, at least only when really necessary.

Watch other people and learn from them. Everyone you meet has a message for you — watch their reactions and learn humbly from them.

Collect ideas — relevant news, for example: have files on theosophical subjects and watch the newspapers and have others do it for you. Your books — never read quite idly, don’t miss something which illustrates and perhaps strengthens a doctrine — put it in its appropriate file. Refer to it when building a lecture — this gives your lectures a topical tone.

Lastly, develop the capacity to think as you talk. Pause, if you like, in order to do so. Reflective pauses give the audience time to absorb and you to receive and clarify, added thoughts. Thus you really come into touch with the audience and help them. Remember what they used to say in Rome of old-when Cicero speaks what a splendid speech; but when Demosthenes speaks they say ‘Let us march’.

[From an article by Mr Geoffrey Hodson in the book: Effective Communication:

The Challenge of the New Age. p. 6 by John Sell]

137
Reflections on Teaching Theosophy

There are two Theosophies ... One of these consists of classical, doctrinal Theosophy, the teachings of the Masters, which for me, alone inspire to effort and makes sense of human existence. The other Theosophy consists of that almost incommunicable spiritual awareness out of which the first Theosophy emanates. Contemplation, I have found, is the link between these two, for by its means doctrines can become experienced knowledge which continually expands. It is an error, I believe, to conceive of Theosophy as a completed system which is to be accepted as such: for the fact is that anything organic and spiritual — and I consider Theosophy to be such — cannot have a fixed geometrical outline, the whole of which can be traced on paper by ruler and compass. Certain aspects of Theosophy such as the affirmation, and still more the experience, of Oneness and of the Eternal Self refuse to be objectively defined: for this would be setting a limit to both truth itself and to man’s capacity to discover it as interior experience. However, thus far, the primary offering is for me doctrinal Theosophy and its flexible applications to human living.

Humanity in general being in ignorance of Theosophy and in consequence suffering indescribably and living in fear of suffering, greatly needs doctrinal Theosophy I am convinced; for Theosophy does two things; it both makes life intelligible and points directly to the one and only sure way to happiness — obedience to the laws of being, co-operation with Nature’s evolutionary plan, refraining from cruelty—or the practice of Ahimsa as a way of life — and using the body and its powers correctly.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 31, No. 3, 1970, p. 55

Also in part in as ‘Two Theosophies’, Theosophy in New Zealand,

Vol. 27, No. 2, 1966, p. 51

[See 'Two Theosophies', Chapter 143]

138
The Ideal Lecture

A lecture should not be a display of knowledge but a gateway to knowledge; it should be simple, clear and eloquently delivered; it should elevate as well as inform and it should above all inspire to personal research.

A lecturer should be a pure, impersonal channel for occult truth to mankind. His personality and his manner should appeal only through the perfection of their channelship for wisdom and inspirational appeal. Simplicity and directness should be the keynote of both lecture and lecturer.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 39, No. 2, 1978, p. 31

139
‘Popularise A Knowledge of Theosophy’

In this talk I permit myself to be personal, as my title suggests. My approach to this subject is, I suppose, influenced by the fact that I myself had my Christian Biblical orthodoxy beaten out of me by two particular experiences: business with an asylum and living with an atheist I suffered until my search for an alternative produced Theosophy. Ever since I have regarded grasp of the essential theosophical ideas as the answer for others in the same predicament! Today their number is legion. In those days Theosophy made a great appeal because of three contributions. It gives freedom of thought and search, demanding no beliefs; a philosophy in the light of which life makes sense; assurance that each person can find out the truth for himself and clear directions to be followed in the quest of one’s own experience. These are very great, almost transcendent, boons.

When later I was invited to lecture, I took the Three Objects as my bases and framed my lectures, and later my writings as expressions of each of them, always accentuating the three above theosophical ideas. As you know, I still do this, accentuating the absence of dogmatism in the T.S. [Theosophical Society] which insists upon freedom of enquiry and thought. The problem of lunacy haunted me — still does — so I, therefore, selected it and other basic human problems and worked out a possible view of their theosophical solutions. These solutions of basic problems still form the subject of my lectures. I have also felt myself moved to three activities: to discover truth, to understand and remember it, and then to teach it. This is my recipe for happiness; to search, to co-ordinate results, file them and then to share them for what they may be worth. As we well know, Nature’s wonders are not spread out like an advertisement, but hidden as a treasure. The Book of Proverbs says: ‘It is the glory of nature to conceal things, and the glory of man to search things out’. I would like to add, and when found to share with others who may be interested.

Dr Annie Besant was recognized to be the world’s greatest orator. I remember hearing her say two things: ‘Public speaking is the most potent of the arts to influence public opinion, and I have been practising it for many lives and am still learning’. I find myself definitely still learning. It is inevitable I suppose that after some forty years of teaching Theosophy, using certain approaches and methods, reducing the use of some and increasing the use of others, one should make certain discoveries; for at a far earlier stage, like Dr Besant, I also am learning. These naturally concern two objectives at least. One is to hold the attention, reach the minds and thereby influence the conduct of as many people as possible, and the other to increase the influence in the world of the T.S. as a teaching organization. In this talk I am going to share some of the discoveries I am still making. In doing so I assume three of the more public purposes for the founding of the T.S. as stated by the Adept Founders: ‘Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’ (See Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom. Ed. C. Jinarajadasa). This is not mere blind credulity but because the statements are supported from various sources, ring true, and aid and inspire one with both gratitude and a sense of direction in a lifework.

For me, this our Society is the Masters’ Society, founded under Their inspiration, and part of Their world work. Though I may speak with a certain conviction at times I shall actually be offering for consideration only certain ideas forming in my mind as I travel the globe observing the conditions and work of lodges and Sections, trying to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy and watching the results of these upon world opinion and conduct. I shall be offering ideas for debate and not advancing final concepts. This is important because the work of popularizing a knowledge of Theosophy is necessarily both progressive and individual, each choosing the methods best suited to temperament and interests. My temperament leads me especially to reflect the teaching of the Sages concerning the way of sorrow’s ceasing, namely by the cessation of craving, self-indulgence and cruelty, and by service to mankind. These, we are taught, should ideally be the product of increasing spiritual awareness, especially of unity, from which arises from within, compassion for all who suffer, and service to prevent, and of the power to heal their woes.

My own sole interests are in winning as many as possible to this mode of life. I confess to some concern with the apparent failures since the freedom of man is successfully assailed, craving continues in the world, petty tyrants persist, cruelty is everywhere on the increase and the T.S. itself is not growing very fast. However, it is not possible to assess the invisible influence of Theosophy upon the lives of those who learn about it. As I have followed the idea certain convictions have developed and formed the basis of my approach to the task of teaching Theosophy. For example, Theosophy is true. ‘What we have to teach is truth’. My own deepening experience gradually confirms this. The teacher of Theosophy is thus in an unassailable position. Then, Theosophy is the only panacea for the world’s ills. Avidya, lack of knowledge, is the cause; Vidya, knowledge, is the cure. Humanity harbours a dangerous sickness. It now lives in a peace of mutual terror. Accepted and applied, Theosophy is the only solution. This conviction is invisibly conveyed to the audience. The need is very great indeed. Accounts appearing in the Press of prevailing corruption, vice, self-indulgence, shock one profoundly. These can dangerously corrode even the leading nations. One is continually reminded of the decline and fall of Rome.

Compassion for humanity is evoked and becomes the only motive. If one really and deeply cares for mankind, one must act. Teaching Theosophy is beyond doubt for me the most effective action open to one person and, I believe, is the highest calling open to man; it has been followed by all great workers for the T.S. What then should be taught? I believe it to be an error to conceive Theosophy as a completed system which is to be accepted as such. The fact is that anything organic and spiritual, and I consider Theosophy such, has no geometrical outline which can be traced on paper by ruler and compasses. Whilst certain philosophical fundamentals have been set before man by his predecessors, their inner essence should not be too objectively defined, lest this should set a limit to the growth of its spirit. The over-growth of formal superstructure must not end in a complete burial of the original spirit. Against this error one needs to be perpetually on guard. In another article we shall uncover some of what may be most usefully and effectively taught as assured.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1962, p. 8

140
The Urgent Call to Popularise A Knowledge of Theosophy [144]

The very striking events of the present era may possibly be having at least two detrimental effects upon the all-important procedure of gaining acceptance of Theosophy by an increasing number of the population of our world. One of these results could be to attract, force even, attention upon externals and so reduce the number of deeply interested students — researchers and investigative analysers — within the membership of the Theosophical Society. The other is to divert the attention of students away from the extremely important fundamental teachings of Theosophy. If this is really so, then the work of popularizing, by those who deeply understand a knowledge of Theosophy at a time when it is so greatly needed, may suffer a serious setback. Might not the extremely important principle of complete freedom of thought granted to members of the Theosophical Society and the natural tendency rather exclusively to pursue one’s own philosophic and literary interests, ESP [Extra-Sensory Perception] and associated topics, for example, in their turn also deflect the minds of members away from inquiry into the profound knowledge that the Society was ordained to give mankind?

How, then, may these possible disadvantages in the furtherance of the work of the Society be modified, and even overcome? By the establishment in Sections and lodges of continuing Study Groups conducted on behalf of those who may already be, and those who may become, interested. From these Classes could there not arise a steadily increasing number of members — who are both personally so moved and sufficiently well informed as to be qualified — who would undertake the immensely privileged tasks of producing literature directly informative about and applicable to world events, and who could both deliver public and students’ lectures? How valuable this would be.

The sole solution to every human problem, to every adversity and to every disaster — whether personal or international—is Theosophy, understood, accepted and applied to the total process of the life of mankind upon earth. No other solution exists, and unless this is applied, the dire prophecy[145] of H.P.B. [Helena P. Blavatsky] will continue to be fulfilled and even more tragically than up to now throughout this century. Trust in the goodness inherent in human existence will continue to be swallowed up in the increasing despair into which millions upon millions of human beings are now plunged and find forced upon them by the very conditions under which they live — oppressions and the resultant accentuation of racial divisions, wars of aggression, crimes, the torture of prisoners and other nameless cruelties to human and sub-human beings and their inevitable karma— to name but a few.

Since this moral decline would appear most seriously to threaten humanity at this time, is not the call of the second century of the Society’s existence to:

‘BRING TO THE NOTICE OF MEN AND WOMEN IN EVERY CLASS OF SOCIETY THE BASIC TEACHINGS OF THEOSOPHIA AND THEIR PROBLEM-PREVENTING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING SOLUTIONS OF EVERY DILEMMA WITH WHICH HUMAN BEINGS CAN EVER BE FACED’?

In practical terms how may those of us who choose — all being free — get to work in the fulfilment of the (only) opportunity which so clearly lies ahead of us? If the above-mentioned students’ activities are either not possible or not desired by certain lodges, could not — ought not, — the Headquarters of Sections and of such Centres as those established at Ojai in California, at St Michael’s International Theosophical Centre at Huizen, and at Mosman, Sydney, maintain reasonably continuous Study Classes of fundamental Theosophy — not the more abstruse teachings at first — and of its clearly stated, effective applications to human problems?

The Centre of Theosophical Studies at Adyar, the School of Theosophy at Krotona and the valuable Seminars and Workshops held in other places, may perhaps well serve as models for much more widely spread Schools of Instruction which teach the Ageless Wisdom and practically apply its teachings to human affairs. The Headquarters of the American[146] , British and other Sections have already made magnificent contributions in all of these fields, and surely similar activities might also most usefully become widely established in all Headquarters throughout our Society.

Would not Speakers’ Training Classes directed by completely competent exponents — with professional teachers of the art of Public Speaking occasionally included on the staff — be natural component parts of such activities? These would surely contribute very usefully to the provision of a knowledge of Theosophy, and, for those so moved, help in providing the greatly needed increasing number of Authors, Public Lecturers and Class Leaders within our movement.

Admittedly, under present world conditions in the field of finance, a great many of the members of the Society are necessarily involved in the task of earning livings for themselves and for their families. Being thus deeply concerned, they naturally find that their greatest needs on returning home include rest and recreation. Even so, there may still be those within whom there has become ‘awakened’, if the word may here be used, an interior aspiration and determination to serve humanity by responding to the ‘call’ of the Masters: ‘WE HAVE TO POPULARISE A KNOWLEDGE OF THEOSOPHY’.

Although now in my ninety-first year, I find myself increasingly urged to call to humanity:

‘LET US HEARKEN TO THE WISDOM OF THE AGES AND APPLY ITS TEACHINGS TO THE HARMONIOUS LIVING OUT OF OUR LIVES’.

The Theosophist, Vol. 98, November 1976, p. 64

141
We Have to Popularise A Knowledge of Theosophy [1]

In the Theosophical Society, opinion is free. There are no theosophical orthodoxies, and therefore no heretics. This freedom of thought is part of the uniqueness of the Society amongst the public institutions of the modern world. Certain general conclusions do, however, tend to be drawn as the years of membership pass by. One of these is that the Society came into existence seventy-six years ago as a result of decision and action by certain Members of the Adept Brotherhood on this planet. That idea at once opens up a vast field of thought and research chiefly concerning the existence and nature of such a Brotherhood. I do not propose to enter that field. I shall rather consider some practical implications of the idea that this Movement is not of human origin, but that it was initiated by Supermen, using human agents, for the purpose enunciated in the title of this article: ‘We have to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’ — a phrase which was used by the Maha-Chohan in his famous letter to A. P. Sinnett in 1881.

How may the implied intention of the Founders be fulfilled? Three factors are essential, I suggest. First, a clear knowledge of what Theosophy is. We must know the nature of that which we are to deliver to mankind.

Second, understanding of the Masters’ general idea in deciding to promulgate Theosophy.

Third, flexible but faithful adherence to fundamental principles in both doctrine expounded and methods employed.

First, then, what is the account which the Masters Themselves give of the nature and origin of Theosophy? Here is one of many statements:

‘The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate of all systems ... the facts which have actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers and prophets to marshal, set down and explain....

‘The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there, where an ordinary profane observer, however learned, would have perceived but the external work of form. . . .

‘[Theosophy] is an uninterrupted record, covering thousands of generations of Seers, whose respective experiences were made to test and verify the traditions, passed on orally by one early race to another, of the teaching of higher and exalted Beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity.

‘[They did this] by checking, testing and verifying, in every department of Nature, the traditions of old, by the independent visions of great Adepts; that is to say, men who have developed and perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organizations, to the utmost possible degree.

‘No vision of one Adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions — so obtained as to stand as independent evidence — of other Adepts, and by centuries of experience’ (Extract from The Secret Doctrine).

Such, in part, are the stated nature and the origin of Theosophy. In order to offer a fragment of this accumulated Wisdom of the ages to the world, the Masters founded the Theosophical Society seventy-six years ago.

What, may we presume, was the general idea in the Masters’ minds?

‘Think you the truth has been shown you for your sole advantage? That we have broken the silence of centuries for the profit of a handful of dreamers only?’ (Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 24).

‘We seek to bring men to sacrifice their personality — a passing flash — for the welfare of the whole humanity, hence for their own immortal Egos, a part of the latter, as human’ (Mahatma Letters, 231).

The wonderful letter from the Maha-Chohan, written in 1881, says: ‘It is time that Theosophy should enter the arena’. This very great Adept, ‘to whose insight the future lies like an open page’, wrote:

‘Those “intellectual classes”, reacting upon the ignorant masses which they attract, and which look up to them as noble and fit examples to follow, degrade and morally ruin those they ought to protect and guide. Between degrading superstition and still more degrading brutal materialism, the white dove of truth has hardly room where to rest her weary unwelcome foot.

‘It is time that Theosophy should enter the arena; . . .

‘In view of the ever-increasing triumph and at the same time misuse of free-thought and liberty (the universal reign of Satan, Eliphas Levi would have called it), how is the combative natural instinct of man to be restrained from inflicting hitherto unheard of cruelty and enormities, tyranny, injustice, etc., if not through the soothing influence of a brotherhood, and of the practical application of Buddha’s esoteric doctrines?’ (Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 5,6).

This, then, was the hope, the general idea, seventy-six years ago. For this, great Adepts sacrificed a measure of Their silence and solitude, gave up part of the freedom which with inconceivable effort and suffering They had attained.

I shall quote Their own words as revealed in letters written by Them or at Their direction. One of the Masters wrote to Mr A. P. Sinnett as follows: ‘One or two of us hoped that the world had so far advanced intellectually, if not intuitionally, that the occult doctrine might gain an intellectual acceptance, and the impulse be given for a new cycle of occult research’ (Mahatma Letters, 263).

‘The Chiefs want a “Brotherhood of Humanity”, a real Universal

Fraternity started; an institution which would make itself known throughout the world and arrest the attention of the highest minds’ (Mahatma Letters, 24).

‘Our chief aim is to deliver humanity of this nightmare [of intolerant and dogmatic orthodoxy], to teach men virtue for its own sake, and to walk in life relying on himself instead of leaning on a theological crutch, that for countless ages was the direct cause of nearly all human misery’ {Mahatma Letters, 53).

Here is an extract from a letter from the Master K. H. to Miss Francesca Arundale, received at Elberfeld, Germany, in 1884:

‘The members of the London Lodge have such an opportunity as seldom comes to men. A movement calculated to benefit the English-speaking world is in their custody. If they do their whole duty, the progress of materialism, the increase of dangerous self-indulgence and the tendency towards spiritual suicide can be checked . . . The pendulum has swung from the extreme of blind faith towards the extreme of materialistic scepticism and nothing can stop it save Theosophy. Is not this a thing worth working for, to save those nations from the doom their ignorance is preparing for them?’ — (Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 1881-1888, T.P.H., Adyar).

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 9 June 1951, p. 2

142
We Have to Popularise A Knowledge of Theosophy [2]

What has been said concerning the method of work? H. P. Blavatsky, writing to Mr A. P. Sinnett, said: ‘Our Society was established to bring together people as searchers after truth, independent thinkers, one having no right to force his opinion on the other’ {Letters ofH. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, 221).

The method, then, included the maintenance of freedom of thought. ‘No teacher or writer, from H. P. Blavatsky downwards, has any authority to impose his teachings or opinions on members. Every member has an equal right to attach himself to any teacher or to any school of thought which he may choose, but has no right to force his choice on any other. Neither a candidate for any office, nor any voter, can be rendered ineligible to stand or to vote, because of any opinion he may hold, or because of membership in any school of thought to which he may belong. Opinion or beliefs neither bestow privileges nor inflict penalties. The Members of the General Council earnestly request every member of the Theosophical Society to maintain, defend and act upon these fundamental principles of the Society, and also fearlessly to exercise his own right of liberty of thought and of expression thereof, within the limits of courtesy and consideration for others’. (Part of the Resolution passed by the General Council of the Theosophical Society on December 23, 1929.)

Likewise the freedom of the whole Society has been defined in a declaration passed by the General Council on December 26, 1950. The declaration affirms the independence of the Society from all other movements, such as Freemasonry, the Liberal Catholic Church, etc., in part as follows:

The Theosophical Society, while co-operating with all other bodies whose aims and activities make such co-operation possible, is and must remain an organization entirely independent of them, not committed to any objects, save its own, and intent on developing its own work on the broadest and most inclusive lines, so as to move towards its own goal as indicated in and by the pursuit of those objects and that Divine Wisdom which, in the abstract, is implicit in the title The Theosophical Society.

‘Since Universal Brotherhood and the Wisdom are undefined and unlimited, and since there is complete freedom for each and every member of the Society in thought and action, the Society seeks ever to maintain its own distinctive and unique character by remaining free of every attachment and affiliation to any other organization’.

Since the founding, throughout the seventy-six years which have followed right down to the present day, capacity, effort, devotion, and joyful sacrifice of members have established the Theosophical Society throughout the world and made it an instrument for the spreading of Theosophy in some fifty-six countries. It has survived many internal shakings and two World Wars. It is increasing in numbers and influence today. True, amongst the citizens of those fifty-six countries the numbers of Theosophists, and still more of active workers, are relatively small. Nevertheless, what might be termed a skeleton staff has come into being. In New Zealand, for example, there are about 900 members on the rolls to a population of 1,600,000. This represents the second highest percentage of Theosophists to population of the country, Iceland having the highest percentage of all. In Australia there are about 1,050 member on the rolls to a population of 8,500,000. The outer machinery of propaganda, especially literature and lecture programs, now exists, and these, as external aids are ready to our hands as we cross the threshold into the last quarter of the first century of the life of the Society.

The inner force which drives the machinery is abundantly available. It has three sources:

³Theosophy itself. Every true idea is a source of power. When the idea is enunciated, power is released.

⁴The inspiration, blessing and vitalizing power of the Masters of the Wisdom. In his Presidential Address at the International Convention of 1950 Mr Jinarajadasa said:

‘Here I must make a statement for which I cannot give the slightest proof to anybody. I make it, not as the President of the Society, but as an individual member of fifty-six years standing. It is that since 1900 to this year of 1950 the watchful guardianship of the Society by the Adept Teachers has never ceased. They do not give orders, because already so much has been said by Them concerning the work we are to do, and They give us freedom to develop that work to the best of our judgement, even at the cost of any mistakes which we may commit. I know there are hundreds, if not indeed thousands, who feel that the guardianship of the Society by the Adept Teachers continues; but it is a topic on which there can be no discussion, since no proof can be given’.

⁵The love for the Society of its thousands of members, the devotion, the years and years of service without thought of self, the patient endurance of personal suffering and the hours and hours of solid, hard, often unseen, work without thought of reward — these have generated and still generate a mighty force which empowers, sustains and vitalizes the Theosophical Society.

Thus the instrument for the fulfilment the Masters’ plan exists and a mighty power is already driving it. The work waiting to be done, I suggest, is to teach fundamental Theosophy to mankind. Whilst the machinery must continually be modernized and new and up-to-date methods of presentation must constantly be devised and used, I submit that the selfsame, age-old, ageless truths constitute our message to the modern world.

Close integration with advances in modem thought should, admittedly, be maintained, the presentation of many Theosophical teachings being greatly facilitated by these advances, such as parapsychology, psychosomatic medicine, and growing recognition of the existence of a vast evolutionary aim or purpose in Nature. All these discoveries support Theosophical teachings, which can be presented in terms of modem thought and can be shown to have long been far in advance of it.

The application of these fundamental teachings to the solution of human problems, to the illumination of human minds, to the consoling of human hearts and to the direction of human lives — this, the practical value of Theosophy, needs also to be thought out and presented to the world as the great gift of the Elder Brethren to the humanity of our day.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 10 August 1951, p. 7

143
Two Theosophies

There are two Theosophies, I have come to realize. One consists of the classical, doctrinal Theosophy of the Masters, which for me alone makes sense of human existence and experience. The other Theosophy consists of almost incommunicable spiritual awareness out of which the first Theosophy emanates.

Contemplation is the link between these two; for by its means doctrines can become an experienced knowledge and understanding which continually expand.

But it is an error, I believe, to conceive of Theosophy as a completed system which is to be accepted as such, while the fact is that anything organic and spiritual — and I consider Theosophy to be such — cannot have a fixed geometrical outline, the whole of which can be traced on paper by ruler and compass.

Certain aspects of Theosophy such as the affirmation, and still more the experience, of oneness and of the eternal self refuse to be objectively defined; for this would be setting a limit to both truth itself and to man’s capacity to discover it as interior experience. The primary offering is for me, however, always doctrinal Theosophy and its flexible applications to human living.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 27, No. 2, 1966, p. 51

[See ‘Reflections on Teaching Theosophy ’, Chapter 137]

144
The Mean is Best [147]

Brahma Vidya[148], Gupta Vidya[149]; or Theosophia is timeless, ever-enduring — the passage here upon earth of millennia of centuries changing it not one iota. Methods of its presentation have necessarily undergone modifications since its bestowal upon humanity by the great Lords of the Flame from Venus eighteen million years ago.[150] The transition of the Theosophical Society from the century of its birth to its immediate successor in no sense affects the changeless, fundamental truths themselves, however much they have necessarily become adapted to the needs of the time. Methods change — must inevitably do so — but never the doctrines themselves, which like the Goddess Isis, paradoxically, are both ‘secret’ and ‘unveiled’; for to the intellect their essence is ever ‘secret’, whilst to the intuition it is ‘unveiled’.

The questions quite naturally arise as to how much and in what directions the activities of the Theosophical Society should or should not change. To what extent could present methods usefully be further developed and others accentuated according to developments occurring in man himself and in human affairs? Complete freedom is, of course, assured to every individual member, lodge or section of the Society, and each of these will doubtless gradually apply additions, make reductions and accentuation’s of proffered ideas and the modes of their expression. A due proportion should be observed and maintained. We cannot ignore the present age whilst claiming to be entering its successor. Those who try to weaken or do away with the firm foundations upon which the Theosophical Society was established will themselves fail, not only materially but spiritually as well.

Due recognition must be accorded to the potentially valuable contribution that its younger members are able to make as the Theosophical Society moves into its second century. The increasing importance of the Society’s Third Object is indicated by the wide spread ‘psi research’ that is leading to discoveries concerning hitherto unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man. These demand attention and recognition from authors, lecturers and leaders of discussion groups on Theosophy.

They include amongst others parapsychology, recognition of the existence of super-gaseous forces and the possibility of their identification by means of super-sensory perception, a degree of sensitivity in plants to human emotion and thought, mental telepathy — even from positions in space to recipients on earth, psychokinesis or the power to move physical objects and change their shape without contact, photographic recording of the discharges of energy from the edges of leaves and the human body or paraphysics, the inexplicable recording on tape of voices in the tested and proven absence of all possible sources of sound^{^[151]}, and psychic healing including the performance of operations without instruments, loss of blood or pain.

Whilst responding to such Theosophy-oriented activities, understanding of fundamental theosophical doctrines and the devising and application of thoroughly sound methods for their presentation to the world — are of first importance. The demands of the ‘New Age’ must neither prevent nor cause deviations from the continuance of the world-wide presentation of theosophical teachings.

Throughout the first century of the Society’s existence, methods employed have included the production of literature, the delivery of lectures, open discussions and — very important — the ways in which theosophists live their lives before their fellow men. Of these, the superior value of books as a means of presenting Theosophy may be presumed from the fact that they endure. Lectures, on the other hand, whilst more direct and more personal — except when they produce lasting effects upon people’s lives and character — can be less enduring. They are delivered in time and time passes. Unless of an especially uplifting and instructive character, the influences conveyed by lectures can cease when the voice of the lecturer becomes silent^{^[152]}. Nevertheless, whilst countless numbers of people have heard lectures on Theosophy, a larger number will have read and been influenced by theosophical literature. Most enduring of all, might well be the influence upon people of knowledge, understanding and application to life of Theosophy itself, through whatever channels it may be received.

As our Society passes into its second century, these three methods of presenting Theosophy — always in accord with the spirit of the times — should not change. The production of more and better books — Adept-inspired writings to be regarded as above such assessment — on basic Theosophy and its practical applications to humanity as a whole and to the daily life of each human being, is of first importance. This would apply especially to literature that accentuates the idea of the mayavic nature of man’s sense of self-separateness, with its recorded and observed appalling effects upon life within the historical era: almost continuous wars and increasing cruelty including extreme torture inflicted — and still being inflicted — upon fellow-men and animals. At the time of writing, the news concerning the wars in Indo-China, and of the use of torture as a judicial procedure, reveals the depths to which man has sunk in the perpetration of suffering upon fellow men. In addition, the threat of war in the Middle East from which a world war might arise, is very grave indeed.

Unpreventable and incurable diseases and other sufferings are prevalent throughout the world. Suicides born of anguish and hopelessness are now growing in number as world statistics reveal. As one learns of these disasters to mankind, one cannot but hope that as the bridge into the second century of its life is crossed by the Theosophical Society, there will be no diminution whatever of the continuation of the above-mentioned methods of presenting Theosophy — literature, lectures and lives — indeed, a very great increase in each of them.

New ideas, new and ever more effective approaches and new methods must, of course, be devised and applied to the fulfilment of the Three Objects. Nonetheless, is it not of first importance that no single one of these be allowed to divert the thoughts, energies, finances and personal activities of responsible officers, sections, committees and individual theosophists away from these well-tried and very effective means hitherto employed? Innovations can be valuable, especially when they assist in the fulfilment of an ideal. They can, however, be dangerous when carried to extremes and into kinds of activity that could either misdirect the energies available or distract attention from the original program and the established means for its fulfilment.

Students at a university can only be correctly taught academic subjects by professors who have themselves mastered them, and after examination demonstrated their possession of exact knowledge.

So also, in the presentation to humanity of the doctrines included in Theosophy, effective exposition is dependent upon the possession of a thorough understanding of each of them — not as personal opinions, but as knowledge acquired from a sufficiency of study and direct experience of the great value of their application to life. Proficiency as an agency for the propagation of the several doctrines demands that they should have been carefully examined by each exponent, who, as a result, can be trusted accurately to teach the fundamental principles of the Ancient Wisdom to mankind.

What possible substitutes are there for the availability and use by sections and lodges of the Society of such qualified lecturers to both public and members. It is to be hoped that the new century will be especially characterized by the appearance amongst us of a growing number of such well-informed exponents — dedicated, thoroughly self-educated theosophically. Having developed within themselves the capacity to present convincingly the inspiring and illuminating eachings that are so urgently needed in the world of today and tomorrow, they will prove to be great servants of the Theosophical Society and of humanity; for the karma-produced agonies of the majority of the human race throughout the historical period are caused by Avidya or ignorance of the age-old and continuously taught truths of Theosophy.

All who feel called to this great undertaking open to mankind should, study deeply, analyse and synthesize, train in public speaking and offer themselves to the Theosophical Society. Admittedly, all members are free and each knows his or her own dharma. Nevertheless, the ‘call’ to the highest means of service available to any human being, now and in the coming century — can be of great importance, the very greatest importance in the life of any human being.

In conclusion, it is to be hoped that, whilst adaptability to the times will characterize the work of the Society in the new century, and the use of the latest methods made available by technological developments — tape-recording, films, radio, television and later inventions — a certain wise preservation of existing procedures will be maintained.

The more urgently needed doctrines are: Knowledge and its regular application to one’s life — of the complete nature of man and the purpose for his existence — evolution to Adeptship; the secret of happiness; the chief means of its attainment — reincarnation; the causes of human happiness and suffering — appropriate actions under karma: how sufferings can be avoided — ahimsa; the existence and of a pathway of hastened evolutionary attainment, treading which, Discipleship of an Adept Master, successive Initiations and the achievement of the stature of Super-humanity may be accomplished; the absolute truth that the Spirit in all beings is ONE SPIRIT.

This last truth and this alone, when accepted and applied to life, can save humanity from itself and the disastrous karmic effects of conduct founded upon the illusion of self-separateness. The practice arising from this error of obtaining self-gain and enjoying self-pleasure regardless of the cost to others is the basic cause of human sorrow. Daily contemplation upon the unity of all life throughout all nature to the end of realization of oneness therewith, and so with fellow human beings, is of supreme importance. This realization alone can put an end to the self-created sorrows of mankind. No self-separate individual exists in the entire universe; for the indwelling life in all that lives is One Life.

The Theosophist, Vol. 97, Oct-Nov 1975, p. 97

145
Theosophy to Mankind [1]

In almost every country and every lodge the remark is heard: ‘We have so few able to teach or lecture’. The consequence is that many lodges are not able either to present Theosophy to the public in a convincing and appropriate way or to meet the need of their members for interesting and informative lessons in Theosophy.

People are uniquely prepared for Theosophy by world events of the past twenty-five years, and especially by changes in world thought during the last decade. Men today are seeking an inspiring religious philosophy of life, consistent with science. The world is hungry indeed for the Ancient Wisdom, of which those words are a definition.

The Theosophical Society is the one Society in the world especially brought into being to meet this need; yet at this particular juncture it is unable adequately to fulfil its function for want of efficient speakers and teachers.

Furthermore, examination of the syllabuses of very many lodges shows that the dissemination of central Theosophical truths frequently has a subordinate place in lodge work. Astrology, numerology, psychology, the Pyramids, travel, various social and economic remedies, and the current interests and views of individual members — subjects which may rightly and usefully have an occasional place on the syllabus — tend to occupy the whole program.

How are these difficulties to be met? I answer, adapting a well-known phrase: ‘The Theosophical problem is the individual problem’. To every member who is willing to make the effort and is in some measure suitably equipped, I would make the following nine suggestions:

¹After having grasped to a considerable extent the broad fundamentals of Theosophy, avoiding side issues and the occult arts, take one subject at a time, Reincarnation for example, and master it. Read all you can find about it, for and against, tactfully discuss it with non-believers in order to discover their viewpoint, thereby becoming familiar with the arguments against it. Then work out the correct and decisive answers to all objections.

²Write an exposition of the doctrine its value and its applications, in the most acceptable and convincing and also the simplest form possible to you.

³Make lecture notes of the steps in logic by which your exposition is constructed.

⁴Take long walks or shut yourself in a room and deliver to a large mental audience, timed lectures from these notes.

⁵Go to a teacher of public speaking carefully chosen for your purpose, for lessons in the delivery of your message.

⁶When reasonably ready, offer your lecture to a lodge, asking your best friends to listen critically and advise you of possible improvements.

⁷If at all successful, deliver your lecture to other lodges, and outside bodies which will accept it. Thereafter take new subjects, steadily increasing your repertoire.

⁸Treat public speaking as a fine art. Work continually at improvement of technique. Dr Besant, regarded by many the world’s greatest orator, used to say in effect: T have spoken continually for many lives, but I am still practising’. She always said: ‘Of all the arts, public speaking is the most powerful means of influencing people’.

⁹Practice also writing; for writing obliges one to think clearly and to express oneself simply and accurately.

Any member at all gifted and who follow this plan, will find not only a great inspiration in life for himself, but a uniquely effective way of serving the Theosophical Society and the world. Furthermore, he will be helping a cause in which the Elder Brothers are specially interested; and if he remains humble, sincere and co-operative, They use him increasingly as Their agent in the world.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 7, No. 4, 1946, p. 100

[See ‘How to Present Theosophy to the Public Chapter 149]

146
Theosophy to Mankind [2]

THE TASK AND THE OBSTACLES

The President has encouraged us to consider the possible contribution of The Theosophical Society to world reconstruction. In response I venture to advance some ideas, not forgetting that he himself and his immediate advisers have already formulated wise and far reaching plans for The Society’s postwar activity. If I state chiefly the ideal and the somewhat obvious I ask to be excused. I do so deliberately.

After only seventy years of existence, marked by the deep devotion and sacrificial service of its members, The Theosophical Society naturally has not yet attained its main objective, which is to bring the majority of mankind to an acknowledgment of Theosophy. This has proved a serious disadvantage to the whole world, as the two world wars and the intervening depression have shown. Confronted now by the twin necessities of ensuring against a third world war and of rebuilding a war-shattered World, on secure foundations of brotherhood, justice and truth, it is especially unfortunate that humanity still does not give assent to the basic principles of the Ancient Wisdom.

The task immediately before The Society therefore is very clear. It is to bring, in the most acceptable form, a knowledge of Theosophy to all classes of men, women and children. The wealthy and the poor, the highly educated and the relatively ignorant, the employers and employees in professions, industry and trade, the manual workers skilled and unskilled throughout the world must all receive the inspiration, the hope and the guidance in life which Theosophy provides. To all mankind there must continue to be offered the precious truths of which The Theosophical Society is a privileged custodian and messenger.

The facts of the nature and states of consciousness of man, of his physical, cultural and spiritual evolution to perfection through reincarnation, of immutable causative law and the Path of Discipleship leading to Adeptship — these facts need to be brought home to humanity at this critical time. In all plans for the post-war period, the teaching aspect of Theosophical activity, I submit, needs to be accentuated. All available Theosophical and allied forces and agencies might well be co-ordinated and concentrated upon this single task of bringing Theosophy to mankind.

What are the means at the disposal of The Society? There are at least three, all of which have been continually operative since the founding. In the apparent order of their importance, they are Theosophical literature, Theosophical lives — a special subject with which I do not feel competent to deal and Theosophical lectures. Literature and lectures, these are the two branches of the one service into which F.T.S [Fellows of the Theosophical Society], with immense advantage to the Cause, may enrol themselves as campaigners.

Campaigns, to be effective, demand soldiers, Literature depends upon writers, lectures upon lecturers. The immediate problem before The Theosophical Society, is, therefore, one of adequate personnel, and adequacy in Theosophical campaigning depends upon the numerical strength and the skill of Theosophical workers. The immediate objective of such a campaign is to expand and strengthen existing Centres, Sections and Lodges throughout the world and to rehabilitate Sections in occupied countries when freed. The long term objective is to train and set to work, in the present and in future lives, men and women who will be effective Theosophical organizers, writers and speakers, each, ideally combining the three functions in one individual.

The obstacles are many. Outside The Society, they include a general worldly-mindedness leading to the pursuit of purely physical objectives, ignorance, selfishness, wickedness, may a fostered by the opponents, fear of public opinion, general western belief in one life only, in an external personal Deity, a Devil, a Redeemer and in vicarious atonement for the forgiveness of sins in abrogation of compensatory law. Within The Society, two major obstacles are the ‘adverse’ Karma of the Movement, and the relatively small numbers of Theosophists who are either naturally equipped for the work or are able, willing and free to acquire and use the necessary faculty.

None of these obstacles is insuperable. The world mind is gradually but perceptibly turning towards Theosophical ideas. Under the direction of truly great and inspired leaders, each in his or her sphere a world figure, a considerable number of members is now in action throughout the world. In themselves, in their unity and idealism, these active members constitute a very powerful force as the fine record of work accomplished demonstrates. Alone, however, in the face of the obstacles and compared with a planetary population of over two thousand million, they are so heavily outnumbered as almost to deserve the title of suicide squad and their self-appointed task that of forlorn hope. Happily they are not alone. Moreover such suicide is generally only social in these days. In a spiritual cause such self-immolation is the surest way to eternal life, whilst in all great causes a forlorn hope offers the greatest opportunities for heroism.

The obstacles do exist however, and, from the point of view of world acceptance, the Theosophical outlook would appear to be somewhat dark, were it not for the fact that the Adept Generals who initiated and still inspire the Movement are omniscient and inerrant. Ultimate success is certain both by virtue of perfect generalship and because Theosophy is truth and so must prevail. A measure of immediate success is however of great importance to a humanity on the threshold of a new age and confronted by the mighty task of building a new world order. Limitation of numbers, especially of writers and teachers, is in consequence a very real disability.

When a force is numerically insufficient for its task, the factor of individual effectiveness assumes major significance. Theosophical efficiency, then, is one of the great demands of the moment. Of what, may it be assumed, does Theosophical efficiency consist, particularly in the two fields of literature and lectures? The answer must of necessity be somewhat detailed. Further articles will best express my views.

The Theosophist, Vol. 66, October 1944, p. 16

147
Theosophy to Mankind [3]

THEOSOPHICAL LITERATURE

Theosophical literature, it would seem, is of at least eight classes, which are:

(A) Books on Occult Science

Appealing chiefly to students of science, philosophy and religion. Of these, Isis Unveiled, The Secret Doctrine, The Key to Theosophy, The Theosophical Glossary, by H.P.B. [Helena P. Blavatsky],^{^[153]} Occult Chemistry by A.B. [Annie Besant] and The Lotus Fire by Dr G. S. Arundale are perhaps the most fundamental and far reaching publications in existence. This class of Theosophical literature is already available in good supply and of the very highest quality and standard of publication. These great works must be brought far more effectively and widely than heretofore to the attention of scientists, philosophers, statesmen, educationalists and students throughout the world. The vast majority of mankind does not know of the existence and availability of these priceless treasures of wisdom. This obstacle to the spread of Theosophy urgently needs to be removed.

(B) Books on Theosophical Doctrine

Comprehensible by the average mind and appealing to all students and seekers. These also exist in good quantity and quality, the result chiefly, but not entirely, of the monumental output of H.P.B., A.B. and C.W.L. [Charles W. Leadbeater]. To their work has been added First Principles of Theosophy by C. Jinarajadasa, a valuable bridge between these first two classes of literature. Popular indexed editions of a carefully selected number of these at a low price would be valuable. Man Visible and Invisible and Thought-Forms, for example, might very well be thus made generally available. The importance of the five magnificent compilations by A. E. Powell can hardly be over-estimated. I consider that they should be widely publicized.

University editions of these two first classes of Theosophical books might serve to introduce the Sacred Science to those who would benefit so greatly from its revelations. One day there will doubtless be Chairs of Theosophy in every University; for no one’s education is complete without a sound knowledge of the Wisdom Religion.

(C) Books on the Spiritual Life and the Masters

The Theosophical Society has given a wealth of wisdom, beauty and truth to the world through numerous publications of this type.

H.P.B. contributed The Voice of the Silence, M.C. [Mabel Collins] Light on the Path, Krishnamurti At the Feet of the Master, and C. Jinarajadasa his beautiful ‘small books’. To these immortal works are added many other mystical and occult treatises and a great many people would doubtless regard a uniform and beautiful edition of the foremost books on the spiritual life as a most treasured possession. Many valuable larger works on the Way of Holiness and the Path of Discipleship are included in this third class of Theosophical literature.

(D) Books Applying Theosophical Doctrines to Problems of Life

These might be described as books of solution or as ‘Theosophy and . . .’ books. Many more of these are needed both as original writings and as compilations from existing works. A staff of writers, collectors and compilers could well be constantly employed in the preparation of special editions, all in similar attractive bindings, of books of applied Theosophy.

(E) Theosophy for the Uninstructed

A series of the smaller books for young and old expounding in simple terms and popular form the basic doctrines and their practical application, also in one edition at low prices, would be invaluable and would command a ready sale at lodge bookstalls and bookshops. Ideally, by the way, every lodge should possess a bookshop with well dressed window on to the street.

(F) Propaganda Pamphlets

Some years ago the English Section produced a fine set of these in different, brightly coloured paper covers for a few pence each. To these might well be added the more recent and splendid Adyar publications to make one, continually growing, progressively arranged and numbered series. The various sets written or inspired by the present President, such as the ‘There Is a Plan’ group, surely deserve preservation and inclusion in such a series.

(G) Free Leaflets

The number and range of these already available could with great advantage be continually increased. A generous endowment for this single purpose would be a splendid investment. Good quality, free leaflets, distributed with discrimination, constitute a very valuable means of propaganda.

(H) A Public Magazine

For the news stands of the world. A highly qualified editor and efficient staff would be required for such a major undertaking. The names of Mrs Hotchener, Mrs E. A. Gardner, Mr Fritz Kuntz and his staff, and Miss E. Hunt of New Zealand, amongst others, at once present themselves. Alas, these four are rare (in both meanings of the word) and busy individuals, but generally the demand produces the man.

So much for Theosophical literature as a means of bringing Theosophy to modem man. The subject of lectures is of dimensions which necessitate another article.

The Theosophist, Vol. 66, November, 1944, p. 31

148
Theosophy to Mankind [4]

THEOSOPHYCAL LECTURES

The efficacy of the publicly spoken word as an instrument for sowing the seeds of Theosophy may be considered under the two main headings of the Lecturer and the Lecture.

The Lecturer

As the following descriptions show, the ideal lecturer must be an Adept! The human lecturer, however, is an individual who accepts the ask of discovering, assimilating, arranging and spreading knowledge by means of the spoken word. The essentials of success, as ideals to which to aspire and work, might perhaps be described as at least seven in number. They are:

¹Sound knowledge. Effective grasp both of basic Theosophy and of current world-thought is essential to success as a lecturer. Theosophical knowledge, be it remembered, is both experiential and intellectual, is both intuitively perceived and mentally received. To be convincing as a speaker, both processes must be employed. ‘There are few voices but many echoes’. More students, deep students, intuitive students, determined students who will master the doctrines to the end of effective, accurate, impersonal exposition — this, I conceive, is the great need of The Theosophical Society at this important period in its history.

²Well ordered and precise arrangement of knowledge. Efficient mental filing and a logical, scientific habit of thought are essential for full success. Comprehensive charts are valuable as files of reference, as mnemonics and as aids to exposition. Students, and especially would be lecturers, are advised to construct their own Theosophical charts and to add to them as knowledge increases.

³A trained yet flexible mind, a trained natural speech, and a trained yet simple manner. These three important acquirements need to be effectively co-ordinated into a single trained instrument of exposition.

⁴Whole-hearted, intuitive conviction that Theosophy is the panacea for all human ills and a burning aspiration, amounting to a controlled passion, universally to apply this remedy. The true teacher is a dedicated, surrendered individual standing to attention in his or her place in the ranks of those who by proffered wisdom would save the world.

⁵Good health, good appearance, friendliness of manner. Good health suggests the successful application to life of sound principles. Good appearance is attractive, and the milk of human kindness often renders acceptable the stem decrees and demands of truth.

⁶Complete humility, impersonality and dispassion save for the Cause. The Achilles’ heel of self-centredness must be dipped by Thetis (the Ego) in the Styx (of selflessness) with the rest of the body (Personality). Freedom from the curse of egoism and the vice of pride is essential to the attainment of spiritual and therefore of lecturing heights. ‘That power which the disciple covets shall make him appear as nothing in the eyes of men’.

⁷Karmic freedom. The absence of this is perhaps the most general external barrier to Theosophical lecturership. The utmost use of existent freedom, however small the amount, will generally lead both to greater freedom and greater opportunity. Theosophy is a liberator of lives. Its practice and its promulgation transmute adversity into advancement, feebleness into faculty, and, frustration into freedom and fulfilment.

Such, it has seemed to me, are the seven essentials to success as a Theosophical lecturer. Such in part is the ideal which, although almost unattainable, is nevertheless valuable as a guide and goal.

The importance of the establishment of Theosophical training centres or of a system of training for leaders and lecturers is, I think, established, far off though the physical realization still may be.

The Lecture

We now pass from the lecturer to the lecture as a means of spreading Theosophy. The successful Theosophical lecture would seem to be subject to at least ten necessities which I will state without comment.

A lecture should be clearly audible in the back seats: informative and stimulating; irreproachably logical; accurate sane; convincing; founded upon a scientific basis; philosophic in its tenor; culminating in a lofty spiritual message, and last, and also first, a vehicle for power.

As far as externals are concerned, Theosophical lectures should be delivered in a hall of harmonious appointments, good acoustics and comfortable chairs. The meetings should be presided over by an effective, brief and impersonal chairman, supported by efficient stewards, bookstall and library attendants. Satisfying answers to written questions enhance the value of an exposition of Theosophy.

Advertisements for the lecture are almost as important as the lecture itself. Individual recruitment of audience by the lodge members, always carried out with extreme tact, is perhaps the most valuable method of ensuring an interested audience. Those recruited may sometimes be personally assisted in their studies and generally guided in their search for truth. This shepherding of students is a most valuable form of Theosophical service and is open moreover to those who do not as yet aspire to become lecturers.

A large boldly written poster exhibited at the entrance of the lecture hall with the title — always attractive and terse — of the lectures changed progressively, is an inexpensive and valuable form of advertisement.

Press notices of Theosophical lectures could well be headed with a small representation of the Theosophical seal. The public of a City become familiar with this guide to the position in the newspapers of Theosophical lectures. All other well-tried means of successful advertising should be studied and employed.

Such in part is the ideal for Theosophical lectures.

Much remains to be said concerning a world campaign to bring Theosophy to mankind and mankind to Theosophy. The Library, the Theosophical life and Theosophical conversations are important factors in success. Lodge life and the assistance, encouragement and instruction of new members and young members constitute problems not yet wholly solved. Articles and correspondence in newspapers; and magazines, radio talks and the production of Theosophical plays all offer opportunities still demanding further exploration. As supporting, activities to the production and dissemination of Theosophical literature and the delivery of Theosophical lectures, they all have their importance and value.

Happily the Parent Theosophical Society is in wise and strong hands. The President, as ever, calls to effective action. The Society’s resources are being marshalled and directed into the most constructive channels possible. As heretofore, we are assured, the Adept Founders and Their great Brethren inspire and bless the work done in Their Name. The hope, therefore, is not in the least forlorn. Quite the contrary, success is utterly sure. The Theosophical Society with ever growing effectiveness will continue to bring Theosophy to mankind.

The Theosophist, Vol. 66, December 1944, p. 61

149
How to Present Theosophy to the Public

(A tour of the world which the writer has just made reveals to him that the Theosophical Society is in urgent need of lecturers.)

In almost every country and every lodge the remark is heard: ‘We have so few (if any) able to teach or lecture’. The consequence is that many lodges are not able either to present Theosophy to the public in a convincing and appropriate way, or to meet the need of their members for interesting and informative lessons in Theosophy.

People are uniquely prepared for Theosophy by world events of the past twenty-five years, and especially by changes in world thought during the last decade. Men today are seeking a synthetic, religious philosophy of life, consistent with science. The world is hungry indeed for the Ancient Wisdom, of which those words (which I have italicized) are a true definition.

The Theosophical Society is the one Society in the world especially brought into being to meet this need; yet at this particular juncture it is unable to fulfil its function adequately for want of efficient speakers and teachers.

Furthermore, examination of the syllabuses of very many lodges shows that the dissemination of central Theosophical truths frequently has a subordinate place in lodge work. Astrology, numerology, the Pyramids, various social and economic remedies, and the particular interests of individual members, subjects which may rightly and usefully have a place on the syllabus, tend to occupy the whole program.

¹After having grasped to a considerable extent the broad fundamentals of Theosophy, avoiding side issues and the occult arts, take one subject, Reincarnation for example, and master it. Live with it for a time, reading all you can find about it, pro and con. Tactfully discuss it with non-believers in order to discover their viewpoint, thus originating arguments against it. Then work out the correct and decisive answers to all objections.

²Write an exposition of the doctrine, its value and its applications, in the most acceptable and convincing and also the simplest form possible to you.

³Make lecture notes of the steps in logic by which your exposition is constructed.

⁴Take long walks or shut yourself in a room and deliver to a large mental audience timed lectures from these notes.

⁵Go to a teacher of public speaking carefully chosen for your purpose, for lessons in the delivery of your message.

⁶When reasonably ready, offer your lecture to a lodge, asking your best friends to listen critically and advise you of possible improvements.

⁷If at all successful, deliver your lecture to other lodges, and outside bodies which will accept it. Thereafter take new subjects, steadily increasing your repertoire.

⁸Practice. Treat public speaking as a fine art. Work continually at improvement of technique. Dr Besant, regarded by many as the world’s greatest orator, used to say in effect: T have spoken continually for many lives, but I am still practising’; she also said: ‘Of all the arts, public speaking is the most powerful means of influencing people’.

⁹Practise also writing, for writing obliges one to think clearly and to express oneself simply and accurately.

Any member at all gifted and who follows this plan, will find not only a great inspiration in life for himself, but a uniquely effective way of serving the Theosophical Society and the world. Furthermore, he will be helping a cause in which the Elder Brethren are especially interested; and if he remains humble, sincere and co-operative. They will use him increasingly as Their agent in the world.

To the Theosophical Society, its Sections and lodges, I suggest the establishment of a Speaker’s Bureau, the chief work of which would be to help and to encourage class leadership and public speaking amongst our members. The following activities of such a bureau suggest themselves:

¹To collect and distribute subject matter for lectures, apposite quotations from authors and poets, ancient and modem, and especially up-to-date scientific and philosophic corroboration of Theosophical truths.

²To encourage and practically assist the formation and proper management of speakers’ classes in lodges.

³To collect, encourage the writing of, and distribute, Theosophical plays and playlets, expressing Theosophy in art forms such as:

¹A dialogue, bringing out their respective viewpoints and their relationships with each other, between the various bodies, or between the will and the body elemental, or between the Ego, and the Personality.

²A discussion between representatives of the seven rays dressed in their respective colours, jewels, planetary symbols, each displaying in thought and in method of self-expression the qualities of his ray.

³Dramatic incidents in which representatives of the Ego, Karma, the Masters, the Angels, the qualities of impersonality, dispassion, love, wisdom, etc. bring their contributions to the solution of individual, national, and international problems.

⁴Discussion between an incarnate (sleeping) visitor to the Astral Plane and a discamate (dead) inhabitant.

⁵An Ego descending into incarnation converses with the Egos of father and mother and perhaps the Presiding Angel.

All these and many other Theosophical subjects could be dramatically and beautifully presented both to members and the public. Certain plays of this type have already been produced by the Folkestone Lodge in England.

The Theosophist, Vol. 56, Pt. 2, 1953, p. 449

[See ‘Theosophy to Mankind [1] Chapter 145]

150
The Theosophical Platform

THEOSOPHY AND THE PUBLIC MIND

The great need of the world to day is for the basic teachings of Theosophy. As far as possible these should be so presented as to antagonize no one. Rather should the presentation be such as to attract the attention and win the assent of thoughtful people the world over. Practical value in the solution of life’s problems, logic, wisdom and deep spirituality these qualities inherent in Theosophy should be apparent in all its presentations.

The most effective presentation is the impersonal. The least effective is that which depends for its acceptance upon personal attachments and personal influence. Theosophy does not need these aids. The Ancient Wisdom carries its own conviction to those intellects which impartially examine it and to whom it is logically and clearly presented.

The most powerful appeal, even to the agnostic mind, will always remain the spiritual. Teachers of Theosophy should increasingly rely upon its inherent truth, wisdom and spirituality. Literature and lectures should increasingly be vehicles for these three qualities.

The success of the great artist is not personal. It is the result of the inherent beauty in his work. True, his power to portray it is important, but less important, far less, than the beauty itself. So also the teacher of Theosophy and is not this descriptive of every member? It is the inherent truth, wisdom and spirituality and therefore beauty of Theosophy which he should present. His own skill as a teacher, like that of any great artist, should be as unobtrusive as possible, should indeed be lost in the spiritual qualities of his subject.

Also, like the great artist, the Theosophical teacher should be a quiet-minded individual one whose consciousness is concerned with great issues, fundamental truths. True, at times his presentations both in his life and his work may become fortissimo. But the greatest appeal will always be that of the basic theme, grand harmonies, the skillful changes of key, the variations of the theme and especially the quieter passages, the sheer beauty of which exalt the listener into his own musical heaven. His own heaven! Important words. His own Theosophy, equally important words.

The function of the Theosophical teacher is not to force upon others his own Theosophy. It is to lead each listener and student to the discovery of his own Theosophy, to the gateway of his own Theosophical heaven.

Thus the world may be led — never driven — to that greatest of all heavens upon earth which is Theosophy perceived intuitionally, grasped intellectually and lived physically. This and this alone I submit is the panacea for this world’s ills.

Lodge Members and Public Lectures

Quite frequently whilst lecturing I become aware of the active co-operation of members seated amongst our audiences. I greatly appreciate their attendance, not only for the support which they give to me as the speaker, but because I know that many dedicated channels are present through which the Masters’ power and wisdom can reach those who come to us in search of light.

In these dark yet wonderful days, it is very significant that so many hundreds of people are coming to listen to Theosophy and show such keen interest in it by their regular attendance and their many questions. Some of these questions are perhaps elementary. Some, however, are deep and thoughtful and often draw out in response more of the Ancient Wisdom than was contained in the lecture.

Together we, Theosophists, are carrying out a most important piece of work, and though I happen to be the mouthpiece, I do not feel any more important than those members in the audience through whom the Masters’ light is shining and the Masters’ love is flowing. As a result of our co-operation, we may be assured that though all unknown to us many an aching heart and troubled soul is receiving such peace, such encouragement, such help as they are able to receive.

In my twelve years of Theosophical lecturing, I have had abundant evidence that great psychological changes can be wrought, are wrought, in certain members of the public at Theosophical gatherings. This occurs not necessarily or entirely as a result of the speaker’s words. Sometimes perhaps it occurs in spite of the speaker and what he says! Be that as it may, I do know that consolation and healing reach these strangers to us who find their way into our lecture halls.

So there is definitely an Inner, hidden side to our public work of deep psychological and spiritual significance. Especially do dedicated Theosophists sitting amongst the people serve as channels through which light shines into many a clouded life. And this is our high calling — to be light-bringers, in a temporarily darkened world.

The Inner Side of Theosophical Work

Theosophical work on its inner side is one of the most fascinating occupations. One is all the time dealing with the living, growing souls of men. The process is not unlike that of gardening, and gives the same delight. Success means, new ideas in the recipient’s brain, a certain trend of thought and action in the life, and in addition mental elasticity, responsiveness to new ideas.

In lectures it is well to think direct into the minds of the audience. People come in all kinds of moods and for various motives. They all have their blind spots, but they all have also certain areas, which, if touched, are sure to respond. Some of them have been influenced to attend the lectures by Invisible Helpers. The occasion of the attendance at a Theosophical lecture is of the greatest importance mentally and spiritually to every single member of the audience. Not one is there by chance; even those moved by curiosity have an inner need which Theosophy can meet. If one can discover and meet this need the result is often amazing. The aura swells out and shines as the Ego comes down and impresses the personal consciousness from within in response to help from without. Sometimes people’s whole lives are changed in a few minutes.

Grief produces many opportunities for this work. Human sorrow seems to touch the heart of the Masters as does nothing else. Though in bliss Themselves, They are sensitive to the sorrow of the world. Many and many a sorrowing heart must be healed by Them or Their agents. Power resembling sunlight is directed to their hearts, and later into the heads, and, finally, into the whole aura until the dull grey clouds are driven away. Very often the person falls asleep in his grief and the Invisible Helpers take charge of him.

If bereavement is the cause of the sorrow, they try to arrange a meeting with the departed and to impress the memory of it on the brain. Where modifications of karma are possible they try to arrange for them, but the chief effort is designed to produce a change of attitude in the sufferer.

If teachers but realized their high office as ministers of the Egos of their pupils, their work would be more intelligent and more effective. But they are obsessed with the idea of filling the brain with knowledge, blinded by the sight of the bodies before them, so that they fail to intuit the presence of the Ego within. Hence the deplorable state of education to day.

We, Theosophical lecturers, might well try more and more to be the mouthpiece of this teaching department of the Inner Government of the World, and less and less speakers on our own account. There is almost unlimited power and inspiration available to the world. It is a tragedy that such a small portion of it is realized and used by man. Time is the great consoling fact. One reminds oneself that the Masters have been ceaselessly at work along these and other lines for centuries and centuries. They never pause and, as far as one can judge, are never disappointed, whatever the results.

Theosophical Society in New Zealand, Vol. 3, No. 5, 1942, p. 112

American Theosophist, Vol. 30, Issue 12, December 1942, p. 277

151
The Furtherance of Our Work

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL MEMBER

What can members as individuals do to advance our work in New Zealand? I would make one general answer. We can each one of us, in his own way spread Theosophy abroad. We can become recruiters of Theosophists and participators in a great national drive to bring Theosophy to the whole of New Zealand.

Many possibilities exist for us. Every member can, I suggest, co-operate in one or more of the following ways:

¹Invite acquaintances to meetings on Theosophy both at home and, when lectures are suitable, at lodge. Help them with their studies and tactfully recruit them to Theosophy.

²Lend Theosophical books continually.

³Enclose Theosophical leaflets in personal correspondence with such friends and acquaintances as would be likely to benefit from them.

⁴Individually or in groups subscribe to Theosophical magazines for local libraries. Ask for Theosophical books there and encourage librarians to have them on their shelves. If possible, present them to libraries.

⁵Attend lodge meetings regularly and punctually. Mentally prepare to contribute to their success.

⁶Pay subscriptions regularly and in good time.

⁷Do not leave Theosophical work solely to the lodge. Build up an individual record of useful work done to spread Theosophy. Keep on tirelessly, despite disappointments, ever reaching more people. Those members, especially ladies, who have the necessary leisure and room space can hold informal gatherings of neighbours and friends in their houses. Leading Theosophical teachers may be invited to address these gatherings and afterwards to meet the guests in a more social and informal atmosphere than is possible at public lectures.

⁸Remember continually the great office held by every F.T.S. [Fellow of the Theosophical Society] of channelship for power and blessing to the world. Remember to try and shed the beneficent influence of Theosophy and of the Masters of the Wisdom on all people contacted. Hold in the heart continually the glorious fact of the existence of the Masters and our direct link with Them. Read all you can about Them, meditate upon Them, reach up to Them, work in Their Names and so become channels for Their inspiration and blessing to men.

⁹By regular daily meditation as well as by service and study, we can build up an ever deepening inner life and so establish spirituality, poise, sanity and stability as recognizable attributes of a Theosophical character.

(j) Take a course of lessons in public speaking from a suitable professional teacher.

Though placed last, this is perhaps the most important of all my suggestions. The Society urgently needs speakers of ability. Therefore the one immediate practical step which any keen member, especially young member, could best take is to train himself to become an effective public speaker.

As thus we as individuals deepen and expand our Theosophical life and activity, so will lodge life deepen and its activities develop. There is one further suggestion I would like to make to lodges, particularly to lodge Presidents. It is to keep the lodge closely in touch with the larger life of the Society, both as a Section and as an international organization. Encourage the lodge to contribute to that larger life and so become a more active, vital part of it. For example, some lodges have framed photographs of Vasanta School on their walls. This is a good idea, especially when the photographs constantly serve to remind members of the School and its work as an integral part of the Section. Some new and better photographs might well be taken I think, especially showing the children in the grounds.

The Section Magazine with its articles and lodge news might be used for purposes of lodge study.

Then the various festival days of the Theosophical year should be scrupulously observed and collections taken for the representative causes. The Theosophist and Section journals from other countries should be taken and also studied in lodge meetings.

The birthdays of our three great leaders might be ascertained and the lodge send greetings to them.

As soon as peace is established, the rehabilitation of stricken Sections will be undertaken. The lodge could materially assist in this work. For example, it could begin to collect magazines, books and leaflets, spare copies of standard works and so build up the nucleus of a library and a stock of propaganda literature to be sent to a central body or a particular Section.

In these various ways, we members can vitally assist in the great work to which we are called.

I venture to suggest, too, some negatives:

¹Do not let us put our personalities, our personal fulfilment and our personal likes and dislikes before the progress of the work and the growth of the lodge.

²Let us ever be on guard against sameness, self-satisfaction, somnolence.

³Do not let us get mentally stuffy, rigid, or fixed in our ideas and dogmatic in their presentation. Throw open and keep open the mental windows, both our own and those of the lodge and let in ‘fresh air’.

⁴Do not let us fear and oppose reform and development lest it should upset our personal regime. Rather let us welcome expansion when soundly planned.

⁵Do not let a barrier to the progress of the work continue to exist year after year for fear of hurting someone’s feelings or of being hurt ourselves. Whilst ever kind and considerate, let us try to put the work first and personalities — especially our own — second.

⁶Do not allow new members to feel that they are either neglected or are under critical observation, particularly in their attendance or non-attendance at lodge. Freedom must ever be maintained as the predominating characteristic of lodge membership.

Most new members are endeavouring to adjust their personal lives to their new position as F.T.S. This adjustment is often quite difficult for them. Family obligations still have to be met. They are often under critical observation in their own family and social circle. Careers must still be continued. It is therefore all-important that membership should prove to be a valuable aid, not a limitation and should provide complete mental and physical freedom in sharp contrast to the Sectarian narrowness of many religious denominations.

Each new member should be encouraged to contribute to lodge life his special knowledge, outlook and faculty. By this means lodge life becomes continually enriched by the inflow of new life-streams.

Lastly, with all the earnestness at my command, I affirm that Theosophy is of supreme importance to this country of New Zealand. Theosophy is the greatest thing in the world. Theosophy is that for which all the world is seeking. Theosophy is the wisdom of the ages. Behind The Theosophical Society and its workers are the mightiest Beings on this planet, the great Hierarchy of the Adepts. At its disposal is the spiritual power behind human evolution on this globe.

New Zealand is a country chosen by the Great Ones to be the potential home of a new race and the potential centre of a new civilization, perhaps a modem Greece. A single sovereign state, it is a land of most wonderful promise. In no spirit of pride, but in deep humility, acutely conscious of our limitations, we realize that Theosophists are the only conscious agents of the Masters in this land. We alone know of, believe in Their existence. We alone are aware of Their great Plan and of the possibility of direct human collaboration with Them in its fulfilment. Let us therefore collaborate to the full. Let us labour with even greater devotion, with ever mounting but ever sane enthusiasm, with heart and mind dedicated to the Elder Brethren, and lives consecrated to the service of the world. For this is the magnificent opportunity before each one of us in this our present incarnation.

The war period will end. The peace era will open. Let us gather now our maximum momentum and so be ready both as a Movement and as individuals to take our place in national and world reconstruction founded upon spiritual truths and spiritual values that the world may not sink back into that pre-war materialism from which the war arose. For that is the great danger now confronting mankind. Do let us work as never before to bring both the Theosophical vision of life and Theosophical teachings to the people of New Zealand especially to the young people ever responsive to high ideals raised up as landmarks of the future.

Despite war restrictions and war needs, let us be filled with added fire and go forward member by member, and lodge by lodge, to spread Theosophy throughout the length and breadth of New Zealand. For New Zealanders are chosen people, chosen nation-builders, chosen parents of a new race. Unexampled will be their achievement if, guided by Theosophy and catching the vision and spirit of their high calling, they live and labour for the larger purpose of their nationhood.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1944, p. 48

152
Observations on a U.S. Tour

(Mr Geoffrey Hodson writes of most interesting experiences in the USA on his lecture tour of the lodges from east to west.)

San Antonio (Texas), March I. — One drive which stands out in my memory took us over the wonderful Golden Gate Bridge — which I first saw from my plane window when far out at sea, all lighted up as was the rest of the City — and some thirty miles northward towards the coast to Redwood Grove. Here we took a long walk under the great sequoias and saw the monument to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as architect of the United Nations, which came into being at San Francisco.

At Ojai, in a beautiful valley, ringed around with mountains, I stayed on Krotona Hill, a well established theosophical centre. Its beautiful buildings include a fine library and large lecture hall. At every lodge meeting the lectures were recorded on both a tape recorder and on plastic discs, the latter by the Theosophical Braille League for the Blind. This League makes copies of the discs and sends them to large numbers of blind people throughout America and in other countries. I was deeply impressed by this beautiful piece of work carried out by a small group of Theosophists.

Radio Theosophy is another splendid institution formed and directed by a small group of Ojai enthusiasts. Tape recordings are made, transmitted from a station at Santa Barbara regularly every

Sunday, and then hired out to many lodges throughout America which buy time over commercial radio stations for their transmissions. In all, I recorded 13 broadcasts, each 13 minutes long for this purpose.

Here in San Antonio, Texas, I have appeared for the first time on television, answering questions spontaneously, and also for 15 minutes on the radio immediately afterwards. All my talks to the lodges and to the public are being tape recorded for lending to other lodges where lecturers are scarce, and also for my friend Mr J. P. Novy, Melbourne — he has caught on to the same idea, here so strongly held, to build up a library of tape recordings of theosophical lectures, to lend them to other lodges, to use them for broadcasting, and to establish a system of exchange with other Sections. This is an interesting development and may provide the answer to the present problem of the shortage of lecturers in some countries.

St Petersburg, Florida, May 18. — In the Florida Federation six appearances were arranged on television and five on radio. The television is interesting in that a screen is set up behind the camera so that the picture is visible to performers as well as viewers while the show is going on. One must resist the temptation to watch the performance!

Shortly I move on to Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri and thence to Wheaton, Illinois, to participate in Convention and Workers’ and Summer Sessions. Then to Adyar to attend the School of the Wisdom.

Amidst all this, my brothers and the work in New Zealand and Australia are by no means forgotten. My thoughts flow constantly back to all my friends there, and I am looking forward eagerly to my return and the time when I shall work for the New Zealand and Australian Sections once again.

Theosophy in Australia, Vol. 3, 4 August 1953, p. 16

153
Theosophy and the Public Mind

The great need of the world today is for the basic teachings of Theosophy. As far as possible these should be so presented as to antagonize no one. Rather should the presentation be such as to attract the attention and win the assent of thoughtful people the world over. Practical value in the solution of life’s problems, logic, wisdom and deep spirituality — these qualities inherent in Theosophy should be apparent in all its presentations.

The most effective presentation is the impersonal. The least effective is that which depends for its acceptance upon personal attachments and personal influence. Theosophy does not need these aids. The ancient Wisdom carries its own conviction to those intellects which impartially examine it and to whom it is logically and clearly presented.

The success of the great artist is not personal. It is the result of the inherent beauty in his work. True his power to portray it is important, but less important, far less, than the beauty itself. So also the teacher of Theosophy — and is not this descriptive of every member? It is the inherent truth, wisdom and spirituality — and therefore beauty — of Theosophy which he should present. His own skill as a teacher, like that of any great artist, should be as unobtrusive as possible, should indeed be lost in the spiritual qualities of his subject.

Also, like the great artist, the theosophical teacher should be a quiet-minded individual — one whose consciousness is concerned with great issues, fundamental truths. True, at times his presentations, both in his life and his work, may become fortissimo. But the greatest appeal will always be that of the basic theme, grand harmonies, the skillful changes of key, the variations of the theme and especially the quieter passages, the sheer beauty of which exalt the listener into his own musical heaven. HIS OWN HEAVEN! Important words. HIS OWN THEOSOPHY! equally important words.

The function of the theosophical teacher is not to force upon others his own Theosophy. It is to lead each listener and student to the discovery of his own Theosophy, to the gateway of his own theosophical heaven.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 4 August 1938, p. 15

SECTION 13
An Analysis of World Problems with Some Theosophical Solutions

154
The Burning Question

Concerning A New World...

One of the basic errors of modem man is his concept of the separated duality of the Universe, that the material is disconnected from the spiritual. For example, gravity is regarded as a material natural law having nothing to do with spirit, which presumably is unaffected by gravity. The truth is that attraction and repulsion rule throughout the Cosmos from highest spirit to lowest matter.

Mathematical laws and facts, Euclidean and geometrical principles are thought to apply to the material worlds only, God being extra-mathematical and supra-Euclidean, away, beyond. The truth is that the whole universe is built and sustained by the law of numbers, and God is above all a Grand Geometrician. The result of this error is that man deliberately, both wantonly and heedlessly, performs material acts which contravene spiritual law. He thinks the two separate, and that spirit is not involved in material matters. He seems to regard the material world as a cover, a cave, a God-raid shelter or hiding place within which God cannot either see him or get at him, and where what he does is either unknown to God or outside of God’s jurisdiction.

God, thinks modem man, comes in only in matters religious and spiritual. God’s power, God’s law and God’s Presence are recognized only in things connected with religion, with prayer. God is thought to be deeply concerned with man’s soul, but not his body.

The body of man, with all organic forms, is believed to be evolving towards a higher type and state. But the soul of man, we tend to think, if we think about it at all, was created once and for all at birth as it is and ever will be. Any soul improvement possible to man is the concern of the Church and its Spiritual Fathers, and above all of the Redeemer of Men. If salvation is gained, it can only be after bodily death.

This is indeed a great and tragic fallacy. The truth is that the soul of Nature and of man also evolves to a higher state. This evolution occurs in parallel with the evolution of the body, and the two are mutually interdependent. Therefore bodily conduct is of supreme importance to soul life and soul growth. The Redeemer of Men and His ordained Ministers mightily assist the unfoldment of the soul, but its coronation and salvation depend in essence upon man himself, who must ‘work out’ his ‘own salvation’. This working out is done in the workshop, studio and Temple, which is the material world.

Mutual Dependence

Spirit and matter, soul and body, cannot be separated. They are the front and the back of one existence. They are the inside and the outside of everything. They are mutually dependent. They interact continually, and are governed by precisely the same law.

What are the practical, day by day implications of this fact? In the simplest terms one can say that our week days are just as much God-days as are our Sundays, that in our conduct at home, at work and at play our soul welfare is equally involved with our bodily welfare — in fact more so. The two are as inseparable as are the inside and the surface of any object.

Everything in the management and conduct of life is of spiritual significance. The government of nations, of cities, of towns, and the management of businesses and homes are all spiritual activities, are of immediate divine significance and of soul concern. The building of a war-free world is a spiritual as well as a material undertaking.

Divine Activity

All individual activities from rising to retiring, all planning, all thought, feeling, speech and action, all these are of profound spiritual importance both to ourselves and to all our fellow men. Every human activity, collective and individual, is divine activity, is an expression of the divine life, and is under divine law. This is the great truth which humanity as a whole, which the nations through their governments, and we individuals in our hourly, daily lives, must acknowledge. This truth is inescapable, inexorable, basic. When we acknowledge that the material and the spiritual are one, and order our lives as if they were wholly spiritual undertakings, then and then alone will war, disease, and the selfishness, ugliness and cruelty which cause them be banished; then alone will peace, health, beauty and humaneness reign upon earth. This is the single principle upon which, without evasion or equivocation, the foundations of the future must be built.

What, it may be asked, are we going to build? Are we going to try and build a better shelter and hiding place from the Divine Presence, or are we going to build a Temple in which that Presence is recognised and revered? Are we going to build an armament factory, a police station and a bank vault, and in them worship force and gold, and call it the new world? Or are we going to build a veritable Temple of love, of reverence, of justice and of beauty in which Divinity is enshrined, Divine Law obeyed and the Divine Presence worshipped? Is the religion of the future going to be one of lip service and observances, or a religion of noble deeds, of devotion, of duty to our neighbour day by day and hour by hour?

This is the burning question of this critical hour. It must be answered by all who would be the builders, the law makers and the town planners of the New Age — in other words by everyone of us. Unless we give the right answer, the new laws will be as freely broken as the old, and the new towns will again be destroyed by war. For man can by no means whatever either hide away from God or evade the operation of Divine Law. In his Prelude Book VI., Wordsworth truly said:

“Our destiny, our being’s heart and home,

Is with infinitude and only there”.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 44, No. 1, 1983, p. 1

155
Service

Although Theosophy neither rules nor binds, it does offer an ideal to mankind. That ideal is Service, and its method of ratification by those of differing temperaments and vocations may perhaps be described as follows:

The king must evoke the kingliness inherent in man.

The sage must call forth the innate wisdom present in the soul of every man.

The teacher must evoke desire to know more.

The religious ministrant must evoke aspiration to know, comprehend and ultimately become one with God who is the Divine within all, encompassing and containing all and beyond all.

The philosopher must evoke determination to comprehend more deeply.

The artist, through man’s longing for loveliness, must elevate humanity into the presence of Beauty’s self which is God.

The scientist must not only reveal the fruits of his own researches, but lead men to that scientific direction of life by which each may become a knower for himself.

The devotee must serve and save by evoking from within man the self-same fire of sacrificial love which brings him to his goal of union.

The magician must awaken in man the will to mastery which is the self-same will by which the Universe is ruled by the Master Magician who is enthroned in majesty at its heart.

The Theosophist, Vol. 70, April 1949, p. 50

156
An Animals’ Bill of Rights

(Since ‘from the torture of animals it is but a short step to the torture of man’ and since ‘all cruelty is abhorrent to civilised man’, Mr Hodson has written this proposed Bill of Rights, published by The Council of Combined Animal Welfare Organisations of New Zealand. Ed.)

Whereas the animal kingdom in this age is continually forced by man to endure infinite pain…therefore be it enacted:

(a) THAT APPROPRIATE RIGHTS OF CITIZENSHIP BE GRANTED TO ALL ANIMALS.

Ideal: Animals to have all rights from which they can benefit.

Compromise: E.G.S. [Effective Government Supervision]*

(b) THAT STATE PROTECTION FROM CRUELTY BE AFFORDED TO EVERY ANIMAL.

Ideal: A Ministry and Minister of Animal Welfare in every State.

Compromise: E.G.S.*

(c) THAT COMPULSORY EDUCATION IN HUMANE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS BE MADE UNIVERSAL.

Ideal: The teaching of the principles and practice of humaneness to animals to be made compulsory as an active part of the daily curriculum of every school.

(d) THAT ALL UNNECESSARY KILLING BE PROHIBITED.

Ideal: World wide compassion for, and active protection of, animals by man.

Compromise: Pain-free slaughter for every animal put to death.

(e) THAT CRUELTY IN THE BREEDING, UPKEEP, TRANSPORT AND SLAUGHTER OF ALL FOOD ANIMALS, FISHES AND BIRDS BE PROHIBITED.

Ideal: Meat-free dietary for man.

Compromise: E.G.S.* of every stage from breeding on farms to killing in slaughterhouses.

(f) THAT THE USE OF ANAESTHETICS FOR ALL PAINFUL OPERATIONS ON ANIMALS, NCLUDING SUCH PRACTICES AS BRANDING, CASTRATING, DEHORNING, OCKING AND TATTOOING RACEHORSES’ LIPS BE MADE COMPULSORY.

Ideal: Abolition of all cruelty on farms, especially in connection with the training and care of sheepdogs.

Compromise: Instruction of farmers in human methods; and E.G.S.*

(g) THAT ALL CRUELTY IN SPORT BE PROHIBITED.

Ideal: Total abolition of all blood sports, including hunting, fishing, shooting, bull fighting, cock fighting and other animal fighting, also stag and fox hunting and live hare and rabbit coursing.

(h) THAT ANIMAL PERFORMANCES FOR PROFIT BE PROHIBITED.

Ideal: Total abolition of the practice.

Compromise: E.G.S.* Abolition of all cruelty in training and showing performing animals on stage or film and at rodeos and circuses.

(i) THAT ZOOS AND ALL OTHER FORMS OF UNNATURAL CONFINEMENT OF ANIMALS BE ABOLISHED.

Ideal: The establishment of animal sanctuaries for their protection, and the instruction of visitors who may see the animals under happy and natural conditions — as in the Kruger Game Reserve, South Africa, and the National Parks of America and other countries.

(j) THAT THE USE OF ANIMALS AND BIRDS FOR MEDICAL AND WAR RESEARCH BE PROHIBITED.

Ideal: Abolition of vivisection and all other research upon animals, involving physical, psychological and mental suffering and death.

(k) THAT ALL INDUSTRIAL EXPLOITATION OF ANIMALS FOR PROFIT BE PROHIBITED.

Ideal: Abolition of the fur, feather, serum and gland extract industries.

Compromise: Elimination from all such industries of all pain producing practices. E.G.S.^{^[154]}Under no conditions must the unborn young be taken from the mother, or explosive missiles be fired into the bodies of sentient creatures; this clause includes cruel trapping and killing of furred and feathered animals, and the use of pit ponies and other draught animals now employed under pain producing conditions.

(l) THAT PROTECTIVE FREEDOM BE AFFORDED TO EVERY BIRD.

Ideal: parallel of #9.

Compromise: E.G.S.* of all caging of birds, to ensure adequate space, shade, food, water, cleanliness and care.

(m) THAT MAN BE COMPELLED TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WELFARE, HAPPINESS AND DEVELOPMENT OF ALL MEMBERS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

Ideal: Worldwide humaneness.

Compromise: None.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 38, Issue 1, January 1950, p. 18

157
Atomic Energy and World Peace

Far from destroying humanity, the atom bornb may achieve what the United Nations has so far failed to achieve — the outlawing of war. Vast sums of money now spent on armaments could then be available for peaceful purposes and world tension would be relieved. How important these are! What an opportunity for human progress in every department of life would be provided by the abolition of war. This is not a mere idealistic dream. Any Nation which now embarks on war risks annihilation, and in the face of annihilation any Nation, or rather the leaders of any Nation, would pause. Thus we are on the threshold of a new era.

I say the leaders of the Nations, because the masses of humanity are longing for peace. They are experiencing what has been called a ‘hunger for wholeness’. Yet so far the terrible financial toll upon tax-payers for accelerated preparedness for war continues to be exacted. This has been admittedly forced upon mankind up to now. Adequate defences against threatened wanton aggression must be built up, as also effective resistance to it when it occurs. The certainty of disaster for both winners and losers in any future atomic war could however, through fear, bring about the abolition of war on Earth.

Thus the scientific discovery of the potentially annihilating atom, the hydrogen and the cobalt bornbs may prove to be greatest material blessing the world has known. Rightly used as deterrents, they may lead to the abolition of War on earth to an era of peace and prosperity, and to a world civilization founded upon recognition of the unity and solidarity of the human race, of the brotherhood of all men. This would also bring about the fulfilment of the First Object of the Theosophical Society which is: ‘To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour’. It would be tragic if this came about only through fear. Idealists have seen a better way — the unifying of humanity through love and understanding This is the dream of Theosophists, and would seem that, despite the grave danger of the misuse of atomic energy, the world is moving steadily towards the fulfilment of the First Object of the Theosophical Society.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 16, No. 3 & 4, 1956, p. 2

158
Modern Materialism

One of the most perplexing questions before mankind today is: Why is not mankind happy and prosperous on an earth that can supply prodigal abundance of everything he needs for a full life, and everything for recreational, cultural and mental happiness and expansion?

The answer apparently is: Because Science has advanced man’s power far in advance of his wisdom and moral development.

Twentieth century man, despite the efforts of numbers of idealists, reformers, crusaders, is held down, chained down, bogged down, by an enormous preponderance of material power, material things, material cravings, and imagined material needs. The vast material and financial body of modem civilisation lacks an adequate soul, a moral idealistic mind, and an active spirit. It is all ballast and no real cargo. It sails marvellously and swiftly under and on the sea and flies like a bird in the air above; but it has no enduring port, no harbour of beauty, spirituality and peace, to which it should be journeying. Therefore it arrives nowhere so far as tme cultural, intellectual and spiritual progress is concerned.

What is the great lack? The answer is so revolutionary, so diametrically opposed to the prevalent spirit of the time (with notable exceptions) that one almost hesitates to pronounce it. The great lack, the great absence, is of readiness to give freely of one’s best without counting the reward. This absence arises from failure by humanity to realize one basic spiritual law. Expressed in three words that law is: give, to live. Always using common sense to govern the degree or extent of self-giving, its direction and nature, anyone who freely gives of his best will win a reward far greater than any which the material world will provide. Self-giving alone brings happiness, inner contentment, free conscience, and the comradeship of all truly great men and women.

For kings, presidents, and prime ministers, throughout all government positions, through all professions and trades and other human activities, true success depends upon selfless giving of one’s best. This is the secret of happiness, which mankind will one day be obliged to learn and acknowledge.

Granted, this spiritual attitude is not easy to adopt and to maintain in the face of a grossly materialistic civilisation and a grossly greedy humanity; but it is the only way to peace. We must accept this truth sooner or later, and above all must we hand on to our children knowledge of this law.

Humanity needs to experience an overmastering inner pressure to serve, to assist in producing the physical and cultural well being and the intellectual and spiritual progress of all men. The supremely worthy objective for all human effort is world progress, world prosperity, world happiness. These blessings are attainable only by obedience to the law of ‘give, to live’.

How can the child perceive this shining peak of human attainment when from birth to death it is surrounded by commercialised adult humanity, absorbed with self-advertising, with gaining possessions and living self-centred lives? The child is brought up and trained amidst all this, receives an education which is eighty percent materialistic, in which true religion has only a minute part. The scholar is taught to memorise facts and ideas in order that, by repeating them correctly at examinations, he will win educational rewards, defeat his fellow pupils, shine over them, and then sell to the highest bidder the whole result of education in the market place.

All this, I submit, is a crime against the child; it is therefore a crime against adults, against humanity as a whole. This situation is, I am forced to conclude, the greatest single cause of the unhappiness of man amidst a plethora of this world’s goods. Modem youth cannot be blamed for such lack of responsibility and pleasure-seeking as it may display. For youth has little chance under present conditions. In adolescence, youth inevitably grows up like its surroundings and its fellowmen, is irresistibly moulded by them into a self-centred acquisitive animal, bereft of spirituality and culture.

If it here be asked why religion does not attract and save modem man from himself, one answer presents itself: because orthodox religion demands blind faith in the face of incredibility of dogma, and offers the stone of dogmatism and tradition to a world seeking the bread of spiritual truth and intellectually acceptable answers to the problems of life.

The tragedy is not physical. Physical ills are only symptoms of a grave disorder. The tragic cause is moral and spiritual. The treatment, therefore, is moral and spiritual education both in and after school. Thereby the youth of today can become the good citizens of tomorrow, and good citizenship is the secret of happiness.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 32, Issue 8, August 1944 pp. 171-179

159
Eight Reasons for Humaneness

The second World War has ended. Mankind stands at the threshold of a New Age. An ideal is needed as heart and core of the New

World Order which now must be built. No finer ideal could be chosen by individuals and nations than that of humaneness. There are at least eight reasons for this choice.

(a) To end War and ensure Peace. All life, all manifestation and all human experience are governed by immutable Law. Effect invariably follows cause. Appropriate reaction always follows every action. The existence and operation of this Law has been affirmed by every great Teacher of the race.

God said: ⁴ Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed’ (Genesis 9:6).

Christ said:

‘For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled’ (Matthew 5:18).

‘And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fail’ (Luke 16:17).

‘Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you again’ (Matthew 7:1-2).

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them: for this is the Law and the Prophets’ (Matthew 7:12).

St Paul said: 'God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap’.

Carlyle writes: ‘All work is as seed sown, it grows and spreads, and sows itself anew and so in endless palingenesis lives and works’.

Those are not threats but statements of Law under the operation of which those who inflict pain receive pain, those who live by cruelty receive the same. Wholesale exploitation, torture, and especially murder of animals by man helps to bring upon mankind the horrors of war. Only a truly humane humanity can hope for permanent peace on earth.

(b) To banish disease and ensure health. Disease arises from two main causes. The first is the infliction of pain upon sentient beings, whether animals or men. The second is the wrong conduct of life, which includes wrong care of the body and wrong use of its powers. Meat eating, for example, contributes to both of these causes. First, it depends upon the wanton infliction of pain, and secondly it intrudes into the body highly toxic, rapidly putrefying and pain-poisoned substances. The eater suffers both under the Law of Cause and Effect and from the poison introduced into the body.

All infliction of unnecessary suffering upon animals, as by trapping, vivisection and slaughter for sport, for food and for profit, contributes to the ill health of mankind.

Health depends on humaneness, without which it cannot be permanently enjoyed.

(c) To advance his spiritual evolution by cleansing the soul of man of cruelty and blood guilt. ‘The measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ was declared by St Paul to be the supreme human attainment, the objective of human evolution. To co-operate with the evolutionary purpose is to hasten its fulfilment in oneself and others. Attainment of Christhood depends upon living a Christ-like life, which means a life to love and of service and a life free from the indulgence of animal passions and blood guilt. Furthermore, to extirpate the characteristics of cruelty from human nature by ceasing to be cruel and by expressing and so developing compassion is one of the greatest services which man can render to God, to his fellow men, and to the Animal Kingdom of Nature.

Thus purified, thus co-operating with the spiritual purpose in Nature, and thus serving, man advances rapidly towards his goal of perfection or Christhood.

(d) To assist animal evolution by replacing fear producing cruelty by trust evoking humaneness. The Divine Life is also present and is also unfolding to a higher state in animals as it is in man. Cruelty retards, humaneness quickens the evolutionary progress of those animals that receive cruelty or humane treatment from man.

As an elder in evolution, it is man’s bounden duty to help forward by every means within his power the evolutionary advancement of his younger brethren of the Animal Kingdom. By this ministration he also hastens his own progress to perfected manhood.

(e) To banish ugliness from the face of the earth and to increase the beauty of civilisation. Beauty is the hallmark of a civilised and cultured individual or race. Cruelty is ugly. Humaneness is beautiful. A humanitarian life is a beautiful life.

An increase in the beauty of human surroundings and civilisation is an urgent necessity. The meat trade is one of the most prolific sources in the world of ugliness, coarseness, brutality. Vegetarianism promotes beauty, refinement, culture. Comparison of the ghastly sights, sounds and smells of an abattoir with the beauty and fragrance of an orchard, leaves no room for doubt upon this question. It reveals the contrast between utter ghoulishness and sheer beauty and delight. The clean simplicity and beauty of sun-ripened fruits, of oranges, grapes, nuts, com, honey is surely infinitely preferable to the horror and ugliness of the meat trade and of the meat market, which has been described as the ‘domain of the carcase and the blood-sustained porter’. For beauty’s sake mankind must become humane.

(f) To save animals, children, women, the aged, the weak and dependent from suffering and sorrow. Evolutionary purpose and religious idealism apart, pain is of immense direct significance in animal and human experience. Pain matters tremendously. It is a discord constantly marring the song of life. To cause unnecessary suffering is a crime against the Creator, against Creation, against Divine Love and against one’s fellow creatures.

Men and animals are dependent upon each other for their happiness and well being, Yet man’s inhumanity to man is proverbial and Man is by far the worst enemy the Animal Kingdom has to fear. The life in all creatures being One Life, when man unnecessarily injures a sentient being, he injures all life; for all beings are akin. He therefore injures himself as surely, if less immediately, as if he deliberately hurt his own body.

The abattoir represents the apex of savagery. Every moment of every day, in screaming agony and in shuddering fear, hundreds of thousands of helpless animals are dying unnecessarily. They are bred and killed for the two purposes of satisfying man’s appetite for flesh and blood and of swelling his bank balance. Every abattoir is as an animal Buchenwald. Every vivisector’s laboratory is as a Belsen or a Dachau, and they exist and are in continual operation in thousands throughout the world.

If man could but attune his inner ear to the song of life, he would find it marred by the cry of millions of tortured animals. This cry constantly arises as screams and moans of agony from the whole earth. Those who have once heard it can never forget the experience. Yet they must try and shut the memory of it out of their minds, as knowledge of the intensity of suffering which is its cause and the horror of the sound are unendurable.

The unnecessary suffering, mental, emotional, physical, inflicted by man upon fellow man is also world wide and continuous. Cries and moans of agony arise from human victims of human cruelty. Uniting with those evoked by the pain of cruel punishment, accidents, ill health and disease, they produce an appeal for aid which is irresistible to the heart at all sensitive to suffering. For such it is all important, nay, it is an impelling necessity, that this suffering should cease. Unnecessary suffering is an evil which must be banished from the earth. The New World Order must be characterised by immense diminution of the world’s pain and an immense increase in the world’s happiness and peace.

(g) To render mankind responsive to spiritual impulses and Divine assistance. By this means the evolution of the whole human race can be quickened. Spirit perpetually seeks to refine matter, to bring it to greater responsiveness. Life ever seeks to mould form to greater beauty. Consciousness ever seeks more effective and less resistant vehicles.

Cruelty and the pain and fear which it causes coarsen, deaden, make spiritually insensitive the body, emotions and mind of man. Cruelty therefore delays his evolution. Humaneness and the happiness, trust and freedom which it bestows refine and make spiritually responsive the nature of those by whom they are received. Humaneness therefore quickens evolution.

(h) Because the Divine quality of love is denied by cruelty and given expression by humaneness. Mankind now stands at the dawn of a New Age and at the threshold of a new level of consciousness. The New Age will be an age of unity, and the new level of consciousness will be that of the intuitive perception of the unity of the life of all beings. Cruelty, like a monstrous Devil, bars the way to both attainments. It is the great enemy of mankind. Cruelty must be banished and displaced by compassion.

The Divine in man shrinks back repelled from and by the cruelty of which the material in man causes him to be guilty. He who works for the cause of compassion labours for the cause of the progress of civilisation and the spiritual unfoldment of man.

Such are eight reasons for humaneness.

The Theosophist, Vol. 67, March 1946, p. 255

160
Theosophy for the Artist

The artist is a true saviour of the world. That is the keynote of his life, his power, and the guiding principle in the exercise of his divine faculties.

As beauty in the Universe and every loveliness in Nature represent the manifested Deity, so the beauty which makes manifest is an expression of the divine in him. Recognition of this truth brings to the artist and his art that reverence without which he cannot wholly achieve.

Reverence is the heart, soul and source of artistic genius. It is that quality of soul and attribute of character which lifts the human mind across the bridge leading from the outer to the inner worlds, from the concrete to the abstract. The true artist, therefore, needs the quality of reverence as does the percipient of his art. A work of art produced and performed in reverence is irradiated thereby breathes the subtle influence of those abstract worlds wherein Beauty dwells. Exhaling thus the power from on high, the true work of art exalts to those selfsame heights those by whom it is perceived and received.

This is the true function of the artist as of the work of art, to lift the human mind to Beauty’s abode. Thereto uplifted, not once but many many times, by works of art from all the branches of the arts, man is aided gradually to discover and so revere the Beauty, and therefore the Divinity, within himself. ‘Uplift the race, exalt the consciousness of man, awaken to reverence, train to revere’, This is the duty the vocation of the follower of the Arts.

Slowly and with immense toil, with suffering beyond all power to describe, mankind slowly travels the long winding road which spirally ascends the evolutionary mount. Each completed cycle leads through one plane of consciousness. The first great curve represents the condition of primeval man, Adam and Eve in One, learning to know the physical world and to use a physical form. He was a mentally somnolent soul in a huge, clumsy physical form. The sexes divided. Eve was born, symbolically from Adam’s side. Emotion sprang to life. Desire was born. The second circuit was entered and later travelled to its end.

The soul, having slowly awakened from its mental torpor, as symbolically Adam woke in Eden’s groves, was then self manifest and self-conscious in vestures both of physical substance, coats of skin and of desire. Memory, anticipation, the first dawnings of the power to plan that which was demanded by desire, marked the dawning of mental power. The mind awoke; the third circle was entered upon and is still being trodden by the majority of men. In its higher attributes that mind becomes strictly logical, a marvellous tool in the hand of the thinker within.

A new phase dawns. A fourth cycle now begins. When trodden to its end, it will have brought mankind to the full use of the higher intellect whereby abstractions are clearly grasped, principles perceived with ease, and the Divine as Beauty discovered and revealed.

The artist is he who has crossed whatever bridge separates the future from the present. His mission, therefore, is to reveal that which is the source of his power and faculty, the consciousness of a higher realm than that in which humanity normally abides. By this revealing, he elevates human consciousness, leads the mind across the bridge. That craving for loveliness and unity which leads undeveloped man into undesirable paths is the very activity within him which, rightly directed, leads him by desirable paths to pure Beauty and everlasting union therewith.

A true work of art evokes wonder, at both the artist’s skill and that fragment of ever-existent beauty which it reveals. Wonderment opens the doors of the mind, passing through which discoveries are made. Wonderment is of many kinds concerning many things. Each opens a door leading to a discovery appropriate to its nature. Wonderment at Beauty, and therefore Truth — those inseparable companions heavenly twins — opens doors passing through which the human discovers more glorious beauty and profounder truths. The artist and the work of art must therefore evoke wonder.

The soul of modem man is sunk deep in self-indulgence. The lower overshadows the higher in him so that he knows it not. The longing for beauty and the craving for union, innate in every human soul, are sources of debasement because wrongly directed. Rightly understood and rightly expressed, they would, and eventually will, inspire to the heights. Transmutation therefore is the pressing necessity for modem man. Sublimation of the creative instinct from the temporary to the eternal and from the momentary to the continuous expression, is the pressing need.

A philosopher’s stone must be provided for modem man. A well versed alchemist must train him in its use. The philosopher’s stone is Beauty, and the artist is the alchemist by whose aid the transmutation of desire to will, of selfishness to selflessness, of the impure to purity, may be achieved. Works of art which exalt, which instruct, inspire and render pure human consciousness are of incalculable value to the human race. Each, when at last produced, becomes and lives as a spiritualising power, a centre of spiritual radiance uplifting all who can respond,

How dark the picture produced by that debasement of the arts and of the artist’s power all too common in modem times. There is not one branch in which, side by side with worthy proficients, selfish men do not debase their power. Through this woeful debasement of the arts comes the debasement of mankind, for such art does not lead men across the bridge from lower to higher. Rather does it turn them backwards into the lower and leave them chained in the dark, dank dungeons of desire,

To cleanse the arts in modem days, a great crusade is needed. To rescue music, dancing, painting, drama, and all these in cinema and radio, from the gross and lurid depths to which they have been brought by selfish, money-getting men demands cmsaders of the highest types.

Urgent is the necessity in order that together with world statesmanship, religion, science and philosophy, the arts and the artists may help to save mankind from the destructiveness of war and the debasing power of sensuality. For these are the five fingers of that hand by which mankind may be raised through self-discipline to self-illumination and so to entry upon the fifth great cycle of its evolutionary ascent. Intuition then will reveal as from within that Beauty and Truth which are mother and father of that Goodness or right direction of life by which alone lasting human happiness may be attained. For the soul of man is pregnant with mighty powers, big with spiritual potentialities.

The hour of birth draws near. A racial Nativity is at hand. The new humanity, the men and women of the new cycle and new age will be men of direct spiritual perception, of penetrating vision, for whom Beauty will be another name for God and the pursuit and practice of the Beautiful will be their Religion. In that day the artist will be the true high priest, self-ordained.

May this vision inspire the artist of today!

The Theosophist, Vol. 68, January 1947, p. 251

161
Theosophy and the Modern World [3]

AN INTERVIEW

Question 1: Do you agree that nowadays man’s problems have to do mostly with matters of survival more than with the pursuit of happiness?

Answer: The answer depends entirely upon your definition of man. If he is only a material, physical being with a name, then I would say that survival probably does in many people’s minds indeed precede even the quest for happiness, very important though that is. But Theosophy regards man as essentially a spiritual being, incarnated in a physical body, the two being united by the functions of the intellect. Thus defined, man in his true nature is himself immortal, imperishable, eternal. St Paul: ‘Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?’ (Corinthians 3:16).

The problem of survival for the real man does not arise, since as St Paul also says: ‘Christ in you the hope of glory’ (Collosians 1:27). ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God which worketh in you’ (Philippians 2: 13).

Question 2: In the midst of such menaces, like overpopulation, low economic production, civil strife — would you say that there is a scientific way to end all these problems that man faces?

Answer: Yes, decidedly, but again the inner man, the true spiritual man, has to be considered. At this level, each man knows that he is a member of one spiritual Race which is without divisions of any kind. I suggest that is Self-realisation as a divine Being, one with all other men, that man must also plan all his problems, particularly that of strife. Our Lord Christ said ‘Whosoever would be greatest amongst you let him be as him that serveth’ (Matthew 20:26). Service, especially sacrificial service, comes from hearts and minds that feel and know the spiritual brotherhood of man, that ‘all are but parts of one stupendous whole’. ‘War’, says the Preamble to UNESCO, ‘begins in the mind’. Therein, also, in the intellectual and spiritual parts of man resides the true and ultimate solution of the problems which you mention.

Question 3: What do the Theosophists say of the new morality, the permissiveness in life that is evident in the generation’s books, art, movies and lifestyle? Do you think it is bad for humanity?

Answer: In Theosophy and so in the Theosophical Society, there are no dogmas and so no dogmatists. All students and all members are entirely free to apply the teachings according to their own judgement and not upon the word of others. The bond which unites Theosophists is not a common belief, but a common search for Truth. For myself, as an individual, I can answer however, and say: Yes. I think that, when carried too far, as in pornography for example, the so-called new morality and permissiveness are definitely harmful to the human Race. History tells us that the great civilisations of ancient days declined and fell because of these selfsame self-indulgences. We, Theosophists, are not puritanical in the narrow sense, but we do believe strongly in the value of a clean life, an open mind, a pure heart, an eager intellect and an unveiled spiritual perception as assurances of well-being throughout such periods in human life.

Question 4: Can Theosophy provide the answers to many of man’s basic problems?

Answer: Definitely yes. How? By supplying the answers to the five basic questions concerning man. What are they? Whence; what; why here; whither going; by what means?

Question 5: What can Theosophy suggest to man, so that he can attain peace and happiness?

Answer: First, may I offer an answer to the natural question — what is Theosophy?

It is the total spiritual and philosophic wisdom concerning the Deity, the Universe, man and the relationships between them. Brahma Vidya.

I suggest that peace on earth will only be established when a sufficient number of human beings discover by experience the fact which I advanced above, that each man is a member of one Spiritual whole.

This can be attained by means of purifying one’s life, regularly contemplating one’s own divine nature, or in St Paul’s words, knowing by experience of ‘the Christ in you, the hope of glory’, and Our Lord Christ’s words: ‘I am in my Father and ye in Me and I in you’ (John 14:20). This is a spiritual experience in which the unity of the life of God in every human being is known beyond dispute, beyond all doubt. Once this unity is experienced, then its expression in service, not in strife, and as recognition of the Brotherhood of man becomes perfectly natural, ‘There is no other way at all to go’.

The Theosophical Society was founded 100 years ago for this purpose: to form a nucleus of the Brotherhood of man without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour.

Since then it has spread throughout the entire Free World, and is a very active Organisation.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 39, No. 4, 1978, p. 74

162
Theosophy Applied

THE SOLE SALVATION FOR A CIVILISATION IN DANGER OF DECLINE

A Master of the Wisdom has stated that the fundamental mission of the Theosophical Society is to spread Theosophy throughout the world.[155] The fulfilment of this mission has now become an urgent necessity; for Theosophy applied to international, national and personal relationships is the sole solution of the problems that, for some time, have been and are mounting in intensity at a very disturbing rate. Whilst ever remembering the complete freedom of thought — and therefore of resultant action — that is granted to every member, the present world situation is so grave and so dangerous to human life and security, that very great — I am inclined to say extraordinary efforts are called for.

World leaders, national leaders and individuals would not be able deliberately to embark upon destructive modes of planning and action, if the following theosophical ideas and ideals were sufficiently well known and applied to the motives and the conduct of those who accepted them. These ideas and ideals could thus be stated:

¹The inherent life present in all nature, and so in all sentient beings, is one and the same life. In consequence, in degrees according to effects produced, actions which either help or injure one person inevitably influence everyone else. The word ‘family’ correctly describes the relationship between all people on earth, each single inhabitant being intimately allied to every other. The word ‘brotherhood’ well describes this inter-connection. Nevertheless, the idea and resultant responsibility of a human family may perhaps be more pertinent.

²The purpose for the existence of all members of the earth family is also one and the same. In a word it is ‘development’, meaning the steady and regular unfoldment to the highest possible degree of every innate, desirable quality and faculty. Just as plants grow quite naturally from seed to flower, and thence to fruit, so also every other living product of nature is undergoing from within itself precisely the same procedure. In the case of man this implies evolution from savagery to saviourship, from mastery over others to ministration towards them, from the motive of self gain to that of intelligently planned and compassionately inspired service. This is especially true with regard to those near or far who may be in need of help. This has been beautifully expressed by the Master Kuthumi Who wrote: ‘I would not let one cry whom I could save’.[156]

³The human mind, brain, heart should ideally ever extend their interests and pursuits of happiness beyond the goal of gain for oneself to wisely planned gain for all others. Nothing less than this will save mankind from its present headlong rush towards possible mutual bodily annihilation by means of weapons now available of almost unlimited destructiveness.

⁴Two immeasurably urgent reasons exist for this transformation of human nature. One, simply stated, is that since every single other person is a member of one’s own family, bodily differences in no way detract from the fact of the identity of both the life principle in all and the purpose for its varied manifestations. All members of the human race are as mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers to each other. In consequence, benefit or harm to one inevitably affects even if invisibly every other member of the ‘human family’.

The second reason is that human life on earth is lived under the absolute dominion of the natural procedure of action and appropriate re-action, cause and effect. This has been summed up in and expressed by one of the oldest words taken from one of the world’s oldest tongues, namely Sanskrit, Karma.

Whenever nations operate as a unit for the apparent benefit of their people, or individuals do the same, at the cost of the health, happiness and well being of others, an appropriate counter operation always takes place under this law. Pain giving produces pain, and happiness giving produces happiness, always in the degree in which the causative actions have been performed. Although these reactions may not be — very often are not — immediate, and, therefore, not known to be related to the causative activities in terms of time, place and Individuality, nevertheless, the law of action and appropriate reaction inevitably follows a course of related procedure.

Although this truth has been enunciated by great teachers and leaders from time immemorial, the ‘time-gap’, together with the attribute of self-guardianship, have contributed to its almost total neglect — hence the darkened and now more deeply darkening aspects of the history of the world.

How, then, does exactly appropriate effect actually reach the actor, particularly if he or she experiences bodily death before this occurs? The answer has also been enunciated throughout the ages by seers and prophets. It is that both the evolutionary procedure and the function of the law are brought about by means of the successive rebirths of the individualised life principle, or reincarnating soul. One may, therefore, sow the ‘seeds’ of sweet-scented, beautiful ‘flowers’, or those of ugliness in the form of pain and misery to one’s fellow men in one particular physical habitation of the earth. One inevitably reaps, however, the absolutely equivocal effects in a successive incarnation always modified by motives and actions that have intervened.

Thus the evolution of the spiritual soul of every human being to perfection — Mahatmaship, Buddhahood or Christhood, for example — is brought about by the operation upon man of nature’s universal law of cyclic manifestation, namely withdrawal and re-emergence. In man, this takes the form of successive bodily rebirths, the conditions of which are always governed by preceding conduct. Happiness giving action is always succeeded by happiness, whilst misery-producing conduct is ever followed by misery, whether immediately, later in the same life, or in a following incarnation. Thus, evolution to perfection is attained by man’s spiritual self by means of successive lives on earth under the educative dominion of karmic law. Death is never the end of anything but one’s physical body, and is not in the slightest degree the end of one’s true self which lives on and unfolds throughout eternity.

⁵Interrelationship is the key word concerning nations, persons, actions, reactions, and each of man’s successive lives or reincarnations; for all of these are bound together by the interior presence of one and the same life principle, by nature’s procedure of unfoldment and by the operation of the Law of Cause and Effect. Applied more especially to physically embodied humanity, differences of race, colour and sex in no slightest sense imply the existence of any difference whatever in the inherent nature of their immortal selves. This truth also has been continuously advanced by the teachers or the race, but unhappily — again largely because of objective circumstances — has, its turn, been continuously disregarded. Hence the parlous condition of the world today.

⁶Adepts, saints and seers have already appeared upon earth and still continue to do so. Having arrived at the goal of human evolution Adepts dedicate themselves to the task of bringing these truths age by age to the notice of mankind, knowing that only by the acknowledgement and application to life of such teachings can man’s self produced misery be replaced by selfproduced happiness.

The Theosophical Society is one example of this Adeptic ministration. Now in its second hundredth year, it once more enunciates these ‘keys’ whereby the door of the Temple of Truth may be opened, passed through and entrance to the bliss-producing Holy of Holies within be attained.

⁷Throughout the ages, and, therefore, still today, certain of these very great beings have established the spiritual and occult relationship of master and disciple between themselves and those who determinedly aspire to be worthy of that privilege. A disciple, male or female, is one who genuinely desires to save mankind from its present self-produced suffering, and to guide fellow human beings along the pathway of self-produced well being and happiness. Deeply touched in mind and heart by knowledge of, and often close contact with, the sufferings of men, women, children and animals disciples have already dedicated their lives to the redirection of the modes of human conduct from which pain arises and to the healing of those who have become self-afflicted.

Whether from actions in previous lives or the present incarnation, these are the men and women through and with whom the great Adepts can and do work more directly both for the welfare of the human race and for the freeing of the animal kingdom from the inhuman cruelties inflicted upon it by man. No single person who from the remotest times has been thus motivated has ever failed to win the support, direction and inspiration — even if unknown to them at first—of a Master of the Wisdom. Needless to say those who would become disciples, thereby co-operating consciously with the Brotherhood of the Adepts in world ministration, must have eliminated from their own lives — as far as their circumstances permit — the motives, thoughts, desires and activities that are so painfully harmful to others and therefore eventually to themselves. This reaction is brought about under the law that appropriate effect inevitably follows every causative deed, beneficent or pain producing.

The principle of unfailing response by the perfected ones to the completely self-free dedication by a human being to the welfare of the sentient population of the earth ensures today — as ever — that the helping hand of an Adept collaborator will always be stretched out towards the practising idealist. From the beginning of human life on earth no such aspirant has ever been overlooked, for the light that has begun to shine within the soul of such an one becomes instantly observed by those great ones who maintain a ceaseless, guarding watchfulness over the whole of humanity, and especially over the unfolding spiritual soul incarnate within the named bodily person. In consequence, throughout all time such ardent men and women have continuously come under the care and spiritual guidance of one who has advanced beyond the human phase of planetary evolution.

As the Adept-inspired literature upon this subject demonstrates namely truly elevating portions of world Scriptures and the writings of Adepts and their disciples — the necessities governing full and conscious acceptance as a disciple of an Adept Master are precise and yet inspiring. In consequence, it is still only the relatively few who find and tread the ancient ‘way of holiness’ described by Isaiah.[157]

The teaching received, however, refers not only to the causes, the means of avoidance of, and the remedies for, human suffering, but also the laws of nature upon which universes, planets and all that live thereon have been established. Deeply occult interrelationships between parts of human beings and of universes, ‘Correspondences’ as they have been named — are not only taught in themselves; for the disciple is also instructed in knowledge of such correspondences and of their application to the generation, formation and evolution of all worlds and of such beings as are dwelling upon them. The nature of man himself, and so correspondingly of universes and their directive Intelligences — superhuman Archangelic and Angelic — is gradually and ever more fully explained to the advanced student of the Occult Sciences. All such greatly favoured — blessed indeed ones thus become ever more deeply informed concerning their own natures and that of the universe in which they live and with which they are most intimately interrelated. They also learn to apply their knowledge to the fulfilment of the great ideal for which the Theosophical Society and kindred movements have been founded, namely ‘to ameliorate the condition of MAN’.[158] The relationship between disciple and Master is almost wholly a secret one, as recondite also are the guidance and the knowledge which the Master conveys. This was rightly named Theosophia. and he or she everyone being entirely free, of course who would make their lives conducive to the fulfilment of this objective may best do so by formulating and making available as widely as possible the basic principles of Theosophy.

The Theosophical Society greatly needs well-informed and effective exponents of the Ancient Wisdom, and especially of the practical application of its teachings to the end of saving mankind from the world wide evils by which today humanity is so sorely beset and from their increase — a condition towards which the world appears so dangerously to be heading. The need for such exponents is very great indeed, as great also are the privileges available to every single person who selflessly dedicates his or her life to the spreading of Theosophy. The writer finds himself earnestly hoping that an ever increasing number of members and of lodges will concentrate upon this task, and answer this call of those elder brethren of humanity under whose inspiration the Theosophical Society came into existence. In order to fulfil this ideal one must master the doctrines, write books and articles, if necessary undergo professional training in public speaking, and then write books and articles, occupy platforms and make television, radio and tape recordings. All of these opportunities for service are necessary in order that the Ageless Wisdom, so sorely wanted in the present Age, may become increasingly and ever more acceptably available to those urgently needing the knowledge termed Theosophia; for mankind in increasing number is searching for a spiritual philosophy of life that may be put into practice by old and young throughout the world.

This work constitutes ‘the call’ of the Second Century of the existence of the Theosophical Society.

The Theosophist, Vol. 98, December 1976, p. 93

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The Application of Yoga to Life

Are you afraid of death? If so say: I am a Divine and immortal being. Though my body die, I will live forever.

Are you afraid of disease? If so say: I am a Divine and immortal being. I am pure Spirit. Though my body may become ill, I abide forever in radiant health and power.

Are you afraid of age? If so say: I am a Divine and immortal being. Though my body will die, in my spiritual nature I will live forever. Though my body will become old, I possess eternal youth.

Are you afraid of loneliness? If so say: I am a Divine and immortal being. My body may be alone. I am forever one with God and through Him with all that lives.

Regular practices makes these truths Real.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 30, No. 4, 1968, p. 82

164
The Call to Humaneness

The need for compassion is most urgent at this present time in human history. A deep-seated disharmony exists in the world and, unfortunately, is being continually deepened. Discord reigns on earth. Countless millions of human beings and many more millions of animals have suffered, are now suffering, and inevitably will suffer and die unnecessarily and in the greatest pain at the hands of man.

Blood-guilt and so blood-stain must be eliminated from the conscience, soul, and life of mankind. For as long as cruelty persists, spiritual progress is retarded, spiritual activity hampered, and every reform is delayed by obstacles erected by man himself under the Law of Cause and Effect.

Non-injury is not merely non-killing, however. In its comprehensive meaning, non-injury means the entire abstinence from causing any pain or harm whatsoever to any living creature, either by thought, word, or deed. Non-injury demands a harmless mind, harmless words, and harmless hands. It is not a negative virtue, however: it is a positive expression of the spiritual love that arises from a mental attitude in which hatred has been entirely replaced by love.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 64, Issue 3, March 1976, p. 55

The Theosophist, Vol. 98, November 1976, p. 57

165
Theosophy and Statecraft

Equally with the religious leader and educator, the statesman and politician must be a dedicated human being. The welfare of constituency, nation, race is his first preoccupation as self-advancement for personal profit is his last. The elimination of self-interest is the discipline required of him, and self-examination and direction as to motive in every public and private act is its most efficient form. Only when self-interest is entirely eliminated can a public servant reach his greatest heights of both character development and service to his Cause. Group and class interest must follow self-interest until the intellect can never be influenced by a hair’s breadth for such considerations.

Universality of outlook, therefore, is the characteristic of the ideal statesman. He sees the world as a whole and all mankind as one. He accentuates unity and diminishes disunity wherever they exist. Party may be necessary to preserve balance and fair representation, but political allegiances must never over-ride public welfare. Small groups to advance aspects of the general cause may be useful, but political cliques, plotting the benefit of the few at the expense of the many, are anathema.

Knowledge is essential to successful statesmanship in the New Age, and man himself is the chief subject of which knowledge is required. The threefold nature of man — body, intellect and spirit — must be understood, and that understanding must be the foundation of all statesmanship. The body is the temporary vehicle, in the physical world, of the mento-spiritual Being who is the true man. Bodily welfare, health and security are therefore important. Intellect and Spirit conjoined constitute the true man for whose benefit evolutionary progress — physical conditions are planned.

This true Man, of whom the statesman is the servant, is an unfolding being. Age by age, race by race, and life by life, the Inner Self of man evolves nearer to the stature of the perfect man. In order that evolution may be hastened for humanity, physical existence and experience the major means of progress — must be made as educative to the Inner Self as possible. Inner unfoldment is marked by expansion of consciousness, widening of outlook, development of faculty, capacity, aptitude, by fine character, and in general an ever-increasing spiritual power, wisdom and intelligence.

One of the first major causes for which the modem statesman should labour is the reduction and final elimination, as a characteristic of human life, of cruelty and pain and fear of these. For pain and fear drive back the Inner Self from manifestation, through the body, constrict the psychical development, and coarsen the nervous constitution — all of which experiences are most undesirable. The statesman of the New Age is above all things a humanitarian, and the banishment of the fiend of cruelty and the spectre of fear is his major vocation.

Fear of economic as well as domestic insecurity, of adverse discrimination in law and the social structure, fear of disease major and minor, fear of personal failure — these fears psychically constrict the bodily man and therefore delay the inner unfoldment. They may be removed from human life by wise legislation to ensure security for all, as happily is becoming the trend, health for all, a suitable field of work for all, and a sound preparation for life for all.

Education therefore assumes almost supreme importance in modern planning for human welfare. Education is undoubtedly both foundation and keystone of any ideal state as of an ideal world. Ministers and Directors of Education, Principals, Professors, tutors and teachers are the builders of that ideal; human beings are the stones, and human character is the cement by which all is stably erected and held in place.

Education is of two orders, namely, that for the limited, temporary, bodily man, and that for the limitless, eternal Self within. The former accentuates acquisitiveness and a separative personal outlook. The latter accentuates contribution and the unifying impersonal attitude towards life. Education for the unfoldment of the Inner Self is the highest educational ideal, and the statesman’s task is to plan a system designed to that end whilst still fitting the scholar for successful living.

The relationship between capital and labour is still the subject of disagreement and conflict. The problem urgently needs to be solved. The two principles already enunciated provide the solution. The spiritual unity of all human beings, and spiritual unfoldment as the purpose of life — if kept to the forefront of all conferences and discussions by all parties — would unfailingly provide the correct and practical solution. The policy which conforms to unity, and the practice which provides conditions helpful to inner unfoldment, are always the right policy and practice. Mutual consideration and the general welfare should be the prime characteristic of all conditions of human labour and the use of the power of money; so also every other department of human activity and inter-relationship which is under the direction of National Law and the National Lawmakers.

The Theosophist, Vol. 71, April 1950, p. 48

166
‘Histories Make Men Wise’[159]

As standing on the threshold of the second century of the life of The Theosophical Society, one reviews the more occult events of the past hundred years, one impression among many others will surely be that of the remarkable prescience of its Adept inspirers. Evidently they possessed a foreknowledge of the invaluable contributions to be made by Helena Petrovna von Hahn Blavatsky, co-founder-to-be. From early childhood the clairvoyant child had seen the majestic figure of a Hindu in a white turban, always one and the same. She knew him as well as she knew her own relatives and called him her Protector, saying that it was he who saved her in times of danger.

One of those incidents happened when she was thirteen years of age. A horse she was riding became frightened and ran away. The child was unseated and, becoming entangled in the stirrup, hung on to it; instead of being killed, however, she felt strong arms around her body, which supported her until the horse was stopped. Another accident happened much earlier, when she was quite a baby. She wished very much to examine a picture hanging high up on a wall and covered by a white curtain. She asked someone to uncover the picture, but her wish was not gratified. Once, in the room alone, she pushed a table to the wall, put another small table on top of it, and a chair over this again, and succeeded in climbing to the picture, balancing with one hand on the dusty wall and the other reaching out to the curtain. She lost her balance and remembered nothing else. ‘Coming to, she found herself lying on the floor safe and sound, both tables and the chair standing in their usual places, the curtain drawn over the picture, and the only proof of all this having really happened was a little trace of the small hand, left on the dusty wall under the picture’.[160]

The possibility also exists that her life was miraculously saved after she was most seriously wounded when participating in a military action in October 1867 in the army of the Italian Liberator, Garibaldi. She nevertheless did recover!^{^[161]}

The next mysterious event in her life occurred on August 2, 1851, when, in London, she saw her Master in his physical body riding with members of the Nepalese Embassy who were going to present their respects to Queen Victoria.^{^[162]} On that same day, apparently, came that momentous physical meeting at which she was granted the opportunity to make practicable the plans which far earlier had been conceived by the Masters to win a favourable response from humanity to a further presentation of the age-old truths of Brahma Vidya. This incident again reveals, (does it not?) foreknowledge of the occult powers she was later to possess on receipt of training at the Master’s Ashram in Tibet.

At the time of her physical meeting with her Master (1851), however, no visibly organized effort had begun. No Society existed. Nevertheless, knowledge of the formation of The Theosophical Society far in the future must surely be deduced from these preparations so successfully made. Let us follow in thought certain events of vital importance to the founding of the Society twenty-four years later. Among these were the emergence of H. P. Blavatsky from her second visit to Tibet, endowed with very great occult powers, with knowledge of Theosophy and of the English language.^{^[163]} She received direction from the Masters to go to New York,^{^[164]} where she would meet the co-founder-to-be of The Theosophical Society, Col. H. S. Olcott. The founding of the Society on November 17, 1875 in New York then came about and from this meeting there followed the most remarkable events leading to the completion of the first century of the life of The Theosophical Society.

During the time following the founding of the Society, she was inspired to write her world-famous, immortal works and instructed and empowered in the repeated performance of remarkable occult phenomena. Her life was again saved by her Master after physicians had despaired of it. In 1888, her major work, The Secret Doctrine, appeared.

Col. Olcott also was the richly blessed recipient of Adeptic ministration, first in meeting with and becoming well acquainted with his co-founder, H.P.B. [Helena P. Blavatsky], and later in being personally visited by his Master in his room at 302 West 47th Street, in New York.^{^[165]} Informed then of the opportunity which was his, he accepted it and thereafter received chelaship and appointment to the office of President of The Theosophical Society. He held his office with distinction until his death.

Two — among others — of those who were to follow as leaders of the Society were similarly instructed and inspired by the Masters. Events of special significance in the life of Dr Annie Besant were her meeting in London with H. P. Blavatsky and her election in her turn as President of The Theosophical Society. She too, held this position for life. World travels, as a most effective exponent of Theosophy, the production of valuable theosophical literature, and her great services to the land of India contributed to the reawakening in countless numbers of minds of the lost or forgotten knowledge of Gupta Vidya and Brahma Vidya.

C. W. Leadbeater, in his turn, long before he began to make his contributions to the development of The Theosophical Society, received the privilege of discipleship^{^[166]} of another of the great Masters.

As a result of the dedicated selfless services of these great leaders and their many devoted colleagues and fellow members — certain of them also disciples of the Masters — the Society has grown to its present stature of forty-six organized Sections, plus groups of members in seven other countries, a world membership of 34,000, and three very progressive publishing houses. A Trust Fund established by the late Mr Herbert Kern in the United States Section, functioning as the Kern Foundation, is producing quite extraordinary and totally unforeseen developments. From this Fund, grants are made for approved programs for the promulgation of the theosophical philosophy. One of these programs has been the publication of Quest Books in reasonably priced paperback format, making theosophical literature available on an ever-widening scale throughout the English speaking world. Since the inception of this program in 1966, more than a million Quest books have been sold.

Is it not permissible — almost inevitable — to assume, at least in principle, as well as from many factual developments, that most, if not all, of these events — then in the future — were foreknown to those great Adepts who were responsible for the events which were to come? Their purposes have been well stated, two of them being clearly affirmed: ‘we have to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’,^{^[167]} and ‘The only object to be striven for is the amelioration of the condition of MAN by the spread of truth suited to the various stages of his development and that of countries he inhabits and belongs to’.^{^[168]}

I now proceed to consider what may presumably be regarded as an almost infinitely greater example of Adeptic foreknowledge of the future. In the May 1889 issue of her magazine, Lucifer, H. P. B. wrote these words:

‘But if not (if Theosophy does not prevail) then the storm will burst and our boasted Western Civilisation and enlightenment will sink into such a sea of horror that its parallel in history has never yet been recorded’.

In those days, such a pronouncement must have appeared as totally impossible of fulfilment, for the world was reasonably at peace, the more modem weapons had not been invented, and mankind’s capacity for cruelty, violence, and other forms of evil for personal gain could hardly have been envisaged. But, living as we do in this 20th century, it must be recognized that the utterance was a prodigious understatement, for events then in the future, now occurring and still being planned on an increasing scale demonstrate that. . . civilisation has sunk into a ‘sea of horror’ of unprecedented proportions.

‘What may be done?’ the student of recent history and lover of his or her fellowmen well may ask. May it not be believed, even affirmed, that the more immediate future of the human race depends upon the extent to which the teachings of Theosophy are so effectively and acceptably presented as to cause mankind to follow up the founding of The Theosophical Society, the International Red Cross, the League of Nations, United Nations, and all similar international organisations founded by governments and accepted by communities and individuals in accordance with the principles enumerated in the First Object of The Theosophical Society?

In spite of these the present world situation is indeed critical in the extreme. Violence and crime are greatly on the increase in many countries of the world. Cruelty and torture have become accepted judicial procedures. Prisoners, including a Catholic Bishop, a poet, and a theology professor, recently were freed from cold, dark cells, having obviously paid for their ‘reconciliation’ with severe mental and physical torture at the hands of a dreaded Intelligence Agency. Aside from beatings, water torture, and electric shock treatment, allegedly used to extract false confessions, agents reportedly kept prisoners awake for prolonged periods and then hung them from the ceilings and spun them around in a form of torture known as ‘air-warfare’.

Further demoniac malignancies include indescribably and incredibly brutal infliction upon animals of suffering, up to acutest agonies, for motives of financial gain and ‘benefits’ to humanity, while extremely harmful criminal conduct against fellowmen, motivated by self-gain at no matter what cost to others, is at this time tragically rampant upon earth. It would seem to be inescapable that these possibilities were clearly foreseen more than a century ago when the forecast was published. Indeed, the ‘storm’ has burst and the ‘sea of horror’ is claiming ‘civilisation and enlightenment’.

The two World Wars and their numerous successors during this century alone demonstrate the accuracy of the prophecy. In truth, humanity has sunk into such a ‘sea of horror’ that its parallel in history has never yet been recorded. To the armed conflicts must now be added the fact, inconceivable to any normal mind of the nineteenth century, that the world’s fastest growing business — arms sales — has now increased 6000 percent since 1952, from 300 million dollars to 18 billion per annum, for there are now more customers than ever before.

Arms expert Anne Hessing Cahn, former research associate at M.I.T’s Centre for International Studies, affirms that ‘those arms have brought not only violence and destruction but death to more than 10 million people’. The architects of electronic warfare face no greater challenge than to devise a defence against MIRV (for multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles) nuclear missiles, which scatter warheads toward several different targets after the rocket re-enters the atmosphere. As a result, the life span of each new kind of weaponry becomes shorter; even the ‘smartest’ electronic devices may be obsolescent soon after they reach the battlefield.

Such, in part — unfortunately in part only — are the conditions of life that we human beings have now created for ourselves in many countries. Efforts by world statesmen and world idealists to change conditions so that the earth may become a reasonably safe and happiness-giving planet upon which to live, tragically continue to prove almost totally ineffectual.

Children see and hear and learn a very large amount of violence from television and the World Press. It is estimated that the average child, in the ten years between ages five and fifteen, will witness the violent destruction of 13,400 human beings.

Content analyses of large numbers of programs broadcast during children’s viewing hours suggest that the major message taught in T. V. entertainment is that violence is the way to get what you want. The evidence is clear: a child’s mind can be polluted and corrupted just as easily as his body can be poisoned by contaminants in the environment. Children are essentially powerless to deal with such problems. This means that the responsibility for effecting change rests with every adult citizen. Meaning you. Meaning me. Meaning us.

These, I submit, are far from being all the ‘Seeds of Dividedness’ now increasingly being sown ‘upon’ the human mind. Unfortunately, they have taken deep root and continue day by day to grow extravagantly. One becomes deeply aware of the necessity — the immediate necessity — for their replacement by ‘seeds of synthesis’, the reaping from which will be that universal brotherhood of man accepted by The Theosophical Society as its First Object and objective.

H.P. Blavatsky describes both species of seeds in her words:

‘It is a fundamental doctrine of Theosophy that the “separateness” which we feel between ourselves and the world of living beings around us is an illusion, not a reality. In very deed and truth, all men are one, not in a feeling of sentimental gush and hysterical enthusiasm, but in sober earnest. As all Eastern philosophy teaches, there is but One Self in all the infinite universe, and what we men call “self’ is but the illusionary reflection of the One Self in the heaving waters of earth. True occultism is the destruction of the false idea of self, and therefore true spiritual perfection and knowledge are nothing else but the complete identification of our finite selves with the Great All’.^{^[169]}

I close with an appropriate story. Somewhat recently, a Scottish schoolmaster in a small town in Scotland found himself unable satisfactorily to answer the questions of his pupils about such subjects as are referred to in this article. Deeply concerned, he was encouraged when he learned from a friend that a new shop had been opened in High Street, with an angel behind the counter who was offering to each customer all he desired. The schoolmaster at once hopefully called at the shop. The angel asked him: ‘What may we provide for you?’

‘Health, happiness, and peace for every human being on earth’, instantly replied the schoolmaster.

‘I fear there has been a misunderstanding’, said the angel. ‘Here, we do not supply fruits — only seeds’.

The seeds, of course, are the fundamental doctrines of theosophia from which alone there can be a harvesting of health, happiness, and peace for all mankind. In very truth, throughout the second century in the life of The Theosophical Society, theosophists must continue to prepare the ground to sow these very seeds of synthesis.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 63, Issue 11, November 1975, p. 286

167
Putting Humaneness into Humanity

Compassion, kindness, humaneness, these are the hallmarks of the cultured individual, as also of a truly great civilisation. All important, therefore, is the humanitarian cause. Great and noble is this cause. And there are at least seven ways in which humanitarians may serve their fellow men and the members of the Animal Kingdom.

One is by adopting the ideal of harmlessness as a guiding principle in life, by being themselves truly humane in thought, feeling, word and deed. Speech is most important; for words are potent either to injure or to heal.

A second method of diminishing the amount of cruelty in the world is by ever watchful care never, unnecessarily to injure any living creature, and a steadfast refusal to eat flesh, fowl or fish, to wear furs or feathers, to participate in or pleasurably discuss any cruel or any blood sport, to be entertained by performing animals, leaving at once a theatre in which they appear, and to be doctored by any product of vivisection, especially sera and gland extracts or transplantations. Cruelty is inseparable from all of these.

A third way of helping consists of joining and working for and with truly humanitarian movements. Amongst the most effective of these are:

The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection.

Societies for the Protection of Women Children.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

All Vegetarian Societies.

All Animal Welfare Societies.

The League of Mothers.

The Howard League for Penal Reform.

The League of Nations Union (or its successor).

A fourth means of advancing the cause of humaneness is by advocating and working for the humane education of children. This means the unfailing extension to all children of the kindest possible treatment at home and at school and direct instruction in the humane care and treatment of all creatures. Corporal punishment is neither justifiable nor beneficial. It creates psychological difficulties and encourages the development of cruelty. Children need to be carefully instructed and watched in the care and handling of pets. If they are treated and taught with unfailing kindness, children will learn through all their lives to walk in the way of kindness and of love. Cruelty to children is the most heartrending of all forms of inhumanity. All who work for its abolition render service to the world of incalculable value.

A fifth method is ‘to become a voice’. Tactfully, wisely and in due season, knowing when to be silent and when to speak, advocate loving kindness to all that lives as the noblest mode of life and the highest ideal of human conduct.

The Church offers a field in which a sixth method could be used. Humanitarians should press for the continual furtherance of the cause of humaneness in their Church. In this our Lord Christ in His Divine Love for all who suffer, for the fallen and especially for little children, gave to all Christendom, nay to the whole world, a perfect example.

During World Week for Animals, and especially on St Francis’ Day, October 4, all clergymen should be asked to dedicate their services and preach upon the cause of compassion and kindness to all animals.

A seventh method of banishing cruelty from the earth and evoking the spirit of compassion is the use of prayer and mental affirmation. Here is a Prayer which all humanitarians might use:

O Holy Lord Christ

Lord of Compassion and of Love,

May the Power of Thine all embracing

Love descend into the hearts of men,

Awakening them to love and to compassion for all that lives.

— AMEN.

Affirmations of spiritual truth and law may be made mentally, verbally, or in both ways. They may be repeated three times each day, at early morning, at noon, and in the evening. Here are some suggestions:

The Life in all beings is One Life. Harm to one brings harm to all.

May all mankind realize the unity of Life.

May compassion, tenderness and pity fill the hearts of all men,

May cruelty disappear from the face of the earth.

May Divine and all-embracing Love fill every human heart.

— AMEN.

Each of the above thoughts, when being affirmed, should be deeply felt and clearly and strongly sent out into the mental world. For this purpose a pause of half a minute should be allowed between each affirmation.

A great Light Bringer and Servant of the Race has written:

"Let thy Soul lend its ear to every cry of pain like as the lotus bares its heart to drink the morning sun.

‘Let not the fierce sun dry one tear of pain before thyself hast wiped it from the sufferer’s eye.

‘But let each burning human tear drop on thy heart and there remain; nor ever brush off, until the pain that caused it is removed.

‘These tears, O thou of heart most merciful, these are the streams that irrigate the fields of charity immortal’ (The Voice of the Silence).

The Theosophist, Vol. 67, January 1946, p. 178

168
A Call to Save the Human Race

The first and most serious of all problems besetting mankind on Earth at this time — and I might add, up to this time — is the increase of separative nationalism instead of the development of unifying internationalism. In consequence, humanity is now — not unnaturally — self-divided into mentally disunified nations. The truth is, however, that spiritually all the peoples of the Earth emerge from and remain united within One Cosmic Identity, One Single Source, the Universal Divine Life-Principle. In themselves, all Monads^{^[170]} it is taught, are eternally and therefore unchangeably as one.

Mentally and physically, closely identified groups of individuals, may legitimately experience nationhood. This resultant growth has arisen from and long been maintained within certain differences, particularly concerning degrees of evolutionary progress and the consequent ways of life. When compared with the more advanced, the Aboriginals, for example, are amongst the less sophisticated of Earth’s population. Other Races are passing through more developed stages of personal, social, artistic and governmental ways of life. Variations of appearance — colours of skin and facial modelling — in their turn contribute to the gathering of peoples into social and national bodies founded upon such divisive factors, which include modes of life, styles of dress and personal names.

Opposing Political Views and Their Potential Dangers to Mankind

An extreme and most dangerous form of dividedness consists of the imposition upon nations of governmental autocracy on the one hand and the choice of democratic freedom on the other. Definite evidence exists at this time — would seem to be increasing — that these oppositions could lead to disastrous warfare and even to the reduction of the population of the Globe to a very small number of people — if any at all, might I say? Acute political differentiation must, and its effects therefore, be regarded as by far the most serious of all the many dangers now confronting the whole of humanity. This is clearly evinced by the tragically but all too truthfully named Arms Race, on which more than $400,000 million dollars a year are now being expended — twice what is spent on either health or education. No less than 53 million people are now serving in armed forces or related activities, whilst half a million scientists and engineers are working on the development of weapons[171] of ever greater destructiveness.

Pathways of Salvation

A possible solution for most if not all of these problems — the only one in some minds consists of the appearance on Earth — or reappearance, as may be thought — of a mighty Being, an Avatar,[172] or other lofty spiritual Intelligence, whose influence would be so overwhelming as to cause all who hear His voice to reunite in recognition of that Divine Wholeness which is at the root of the existence of every human being. Such an exalted Personage would lead mankind out of the illusion of Individuality and distinctive separateness, by awakening within the human mind a realisation of the two truths of interior oneness and the supreme importance of compassionate love.

This ministration by One Who had become completely emancipated from the delusions that separates humanity may well be regarded as a possible solution of the present pressing world problems. The conviction may, however, exist in other minds that the divisiveness that threatens the continued existence of all peoples is at the very present time far too serious for delay; for this grave dilemma demands the immediate application by man himself of remedies leading rapidly to total solution.

Such a realistic approach —justifiable, I submit — withdraws the responsibility from lofty Superhuman Beings, and places it distinctly, decisively and inevitably upon humanity itself. The provision and practical application of a remedy at this time depends entirely upon the mankind of today — the causative agents — and by them must effectively be applied. Indeed the danger is acute. Neutron bornbs, laser and other more horrifyingly destructive weapons now available could almost annihilate the human Race or leave behind but a small number to rebuild a world civilisation.

Should readers here find me to be dwelling unduly upon adverse world conditions, may I reply that I increasingly find myself unable to remain silent when such extremely grave disasters threaten and have become part of the life of certain — if not all — nations and individuals, the official practice of torture being one of them.

Potential Remedies Available to Mankind

How may such ‘prescriptions’ for the world’s present ‘ill-health’ — mental, emotional and physical — be described and administered? Of what ‘medicines’ may they consist? I presume to suggest: first and above all, the increasing intuitive acceptance and application by ever growing numbers, of the truth that despite physical and mental differences, in their spiritual nature every member of the human Race belongs to One Single Family.

Supposing this sublime verity were to be acknowledged and applied as the one essential ‘treatment’, then by what means and in what effective forms could it be administered? First of all, a transcendence by a sufficient number of people of the differences of formal Religions, and the founding and direction of a Movement such as The Theosophical Society with its First Object — free from all distinctions of Race, Creed, Sex, Caste or colour. The members of such an ideal Organisation must of necessity be dedicated to the all-important great work of the convincing — and so practically effective — enunciation of the One Great Truth concerning man himself, namely Oneness, Brotherhood and therefore Familyhood. The world most urgently — may I not say, most grievously — needs at the present time the ever deepening realisation of this fundamental fact; for the dividedness referred to at the opening of this Article is almost certain to increase to an extent at which the bridging of the continually widening chasm separating nations from nations, becomes quite impossible. Fortunately, this is beginning to be realized, although as yet by an all too small number of Organisations and individuals.

The dawning of spiritual understanding is therefore of supreme importance. The increase and co-ordination of the number of existing movements and groups already giving expression to this Principle of Oneness is the great essential; for only when a majority of Earth’s citizens lives according to this ideal, may both peace and the assured safety of mankind from the horrors now so dangerously threatening, become permanently established.

As I proceed, I recognise that — particularly within the Parent Theosophical Society and similar organisations — these principles are already accepted and by their Members put into practice. In the world at large, however, the difficulties remain critical; for they arise from marked political differences and methods of government and, unfortunately, are intensified by the existence of world-wide criminal and terrorist organisations. The murder of the Italian leader, Aldo Moro, that has recently shocked the world, has proved to be a warning against the danger not only of an exterminating World War but also of a wide-spreading international campaign of murder, kidnapping, bornbing and vandalism. As I thus think and share my thoughts, I become more and more convinced that the need is most urgent that domination must disappear and that freedom and humaneness must reign.

A Confraternity of Humanity-Loving Peoples of All Nations

The wonderfully idealistic and essentially valuable United Nations Organisation has proved up to this time to be not wholly capable of achieving World Peace and this for many reasons. Chief amongst these is that its Constitution is presumably founded upon the necessity for avoiding the withdrawal and non-compliance of nations who are in disagreement. Fortunately, other international movements such as The Red Cross, Amnesty, Corso, World Vision, Y.W.C.A., Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, are not under such restriction. Has not the time arrived, however, when the thousands of millions of people on Earth, themselves, perceiving these dangers, must combine in an international effort which might be named ‘A Call To Save The Human Race From Extinction?’ I am aware that this may sound extreme; for myself, however, the appeal is imperative for all who — moved by deep concern for the welfare of every individual — could and would respond and effectively collaborate. Within our International Organisation, the Theosophical Order of Service is one example of the fulfilment of this ideal, born as it has been from within the Parent Theosophical Society. I therefore find myself seriously questioning whether the Parent Theosophical Movement itself could be developed into a practically active international organisation, spreading and applying the concept of World Service Born of World Humaneness.

I recognise, of course, that The Theosophical Society is largely if not entirely a philosophic Organisation founded in order ⁶ To Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’. Is this definition of purpose beyond the possibility of modification and extension? At this highly critical time in planetary history, should the Theosophical Society itself— all members being free — conceivably become an increasingly active inspirer, co-ordinator and even leader of Movements designed to set in motion the reforms and ministrations now so urgently in demand? As the Society moves into its Second Century could a clause be added to The First Object, somewhat as follows? To encourage the practical application of the ideal of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity as a means of reducing World Dividedness, the threat of a Third World War and the ever mounting sufferings of fellow human beings?’

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 40, No. 1, 1979, p. 1

169
Theosophy and the World’s Economists

Money has been given an altogether false and unreal position by modern man. From being a mere means of interchange of goods it has become the master ruling the flow of the products of the earth and of man’s activity. This despotism must be destroyed as must that of the men by whom it is wielded.

Money tends to become to modem civilisation what the heart is to the body, the regulator of the flow of the means of life. Human need alone should decide that flow. Financial balances between the nations, rather than the needs of communities and individuals, have governed the transference and receipt of supplies. This situation must be reversed. Human needs, human capacity to absorb and to use the products of the earth and of the labours of man should alone decide and regulate world trade.

Under present conditions, human needs themselves become opportunities to be exploited both in the withholding and the supplying of goods for the benefit of the few. Thus modem civilisation is based upon a topsy-turvy economic system. Values have been reversed. Money, the means of interchange, has been made the master and the means of rule. Human necessities, human convenience, culture, ease, recreation and well being have all become the subjects and means of profit. Both labour and capital over-emphasise the factor of personal gain, under-emphasise that of the meeting of human needs and the spiritual, intellectual, cultural and material progress of the race.

The science of economics itself, the laws and practices of finance, are all operated for personal benefit instead of for racial happiness and progress. This is the basic error of modem economics. It is absurd that natural human necessities and desirable human opportunities should be made the means of profit for, and be controlled by, a financial oligarchy.

A vision is needed by world economists, financiers, manufacturers and traders, of the human race as one great family of peoples all advancing to one great goal. Of that advance, interdependence of units, groups, classes and nations is the dominating characteristic. Neither restriction to raise prices nor expansion with the inevitable pressure to buy is permissible in the light of the unity of the race. Both violate that unity. Both deny the principle of human Brotherhood.

The provision of supplies fully to meet the world’s needs that none may be denied the advantages and products of human progress, a return for effort commensurate with the value of that effort, the exercise of skill in planning, directing, organising, producing and distributing — these also should be recognized as the due rewards well worthy of every human endeavour. The development of power, the attainment of faculty, the acquirement of capacity and character, skill, efficiency — these are the true purposes for all human effort, and these are the real rewards received by those by whom effort is made. The visible reward, whilst necessary and worthy of pursuit, is nevertheless far inferior in importance to the invisible results of the labour of man.

The true riches of the human race are non-material. They are the power, the wisdom, the comprehension, the capacity and the character which result from human endeavour. They are the real objectives, and modem man has forgotten this truth. Whilst it is but just that the labourer should receive his hire in every field, it is most unwise to elevate the value of a temporary material gain to a position in which it is more highly prized than the everlasting riches which are the interior powers of man.

The feverish thirst for wealth and the surrender of man’s highest powers to wealth gaining purposes have led mankind into activities, practices and procedure which debase and betray the soul within him and therefore delay that soul’s progress to perfection. Where conscience and moneymaking are in conflict, all too often it is the latter which wins. Subtle and deeply penetrating are the power and lure of worldly possessions.

The craftsman no longer labours as an artist imbued with joy in the practice of his art; for that joy comes from his soul wherein it lives. The joy of making things which is part of the joy of Creative Life itself is submerged, lost and almost forgotten by modem manufacturer and mechanic unduly absorbed in perpetual concern, striving and strife, for greater material reward.

Not the welfare of the whole but the profit of the individual becomes the rule under these conditions. Not the development of intellectual and cultural powers and qualities but cupidity and a grim struggle between labour and capital, each seeking higher rewards even if at cost of the other, characterise modem business activity. Not the creation and shedding upon the world for the benefit of fellow men of objects of beauty and perfect craftsmanship, but the obtaining of the highest possible price for every product has become the driving power and motive for man’s creative activity. Yet a high degree of skill is employed in conceiving, planning the manufacture and carrying out the construction of the products of human creative ability which in themselves quite frequently are beautiful. The very perfection of the workmanship, the high degree of precision, even to a ten-thousandth part of an inch, the highly polished surface, the scientific choice of materials for each part according to the work to be done, the remarkable co-ordination of parts as for the multi-cylinder aero engine, all this is achievement of the very highest and most estimable character.

How tragic, therefore, that this should be besmirched by the all-prevailing motive of personal profit, monetary gain, acquisition, cupidity. Even if inventor, designer and craftsman do take high pride in their labour and its products, the economist will seek to turn the whole to the unworthy purpose of personal gain at the cost of the competitors and the consumers. The profit motive as the driving power for human activity must gradually, but as soon as possible, be reduced as the incentive to labour. Inevitable, perhaps even a necessity as spur to effort, in this cycle, the profit motive will gradually be outgrown.

A new cycle opens in which mutual co-operation, world service and a deepening recognition of true values will be developed. The economist, financier and trader, instead of slowing up, if not entirely blocking, this progress as at present, could lead the way by bending their efforts to a decentralisation of the world’s money power. When that is achieved, a new age will truly be born and world peace be assured, but not till then. Very great is the responsibility of those who hold and wield the power of the world’s wealth. For they can be either Satan or Saviour to mankind. To the newly born and gradually developing racial Christ consciousness, the economist can either be as a Herod and a Judas or a Joseph and a John, can either seek to destroy and betray, or wisely to guide, to love and to serve. History in the future will record which of the two parts our present time world economists chose to play in the great world drama.

The Theosophist, Vol. 70, November 1948, p. 105

170
World Enslavement or World Freedom?

(Broadcast Talk over 2GB, Sydney, June, 1951.)

The problem of my title is, I suggest, the most important single question before mankind today. Which is before us? World enslavement or world freedom? In answer, I am going to enunciate two fundamental ideas which I shall then develop.

These two ideas are, first, that world peace will eventually arrive as a result of the development in the human mind of the power to perceive unity amidst diversity. When a sufficient number of people are able to recognise in the human race a shared life and a common goal of spiritual excellence, then lasting world peace will have become a possibility.

The second idea is that the part which the individual person can and does play is of the greatest importance.

Concerning the first of these two ideas, the necessity for the intellectual perception of the shared life in all human beings, there are indications that intense, competitive individualism is, very slowly, giving place to a recognition of the mutual interdependence of man upon man and of nation upon nation. True, the formal, analytical mind of man is naturally individualistic and competitive, but as the higher attributes of the human intellect develop, the sense of self-separateness diminishes. The concepts of unity and co-operation for the welfare of all assume an increasing dominance. This growing recognition of unity will culminate in the ultimate establishment on earth of a world government founded upon the principles of brotherhood, justice and peace. The League of Nations, the United Nations Organisation and all the other numerous movements towards international co-operation are signs of this mental development in man which has been aptly described as a hunger for wholeness.

In consequence of that longing for world friendship, the time is certain to come when the people of the earth will agree that the advancement of man in both spiritual excellence and physical welfare is the common goal of all mankind. Universal peace will then be seen as essential to the attainment of that goal. Justice will in its turn be recognised as the prerequisite of peace; for peace and justice stand or fall together. The nations will one day decide to order their separate sovereignties in one government of justice and of peace.

Let us follow this idea of international co-operation a little further. The underlying principle of such a world government would be that the rights of man consist of the duty of everyone everywhere to serve with word and deed the spiritual and physical advancement of the living and of those to come. This would be accepted as the common cause of all generations of men. Man will have then learned to do unto others as he would like others to do unto him, and especially to abstain from violence except for the repulse of violence as commanded or granted under law. The duty of everyone, everywhere, will be to serve with word and deed the spiritual and physical advancement of the living and of those to come. This will be the common cause of all generations of men. Acceptance and fulfilment by individuals and nations of this their duty towards each other is said by leading men to be the heart and crux of the problem of world unity and world peace.

David Lilienthal, Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, put it like this: ‘It is important for us to recognise that neither the atomic weapon nor any other form of power and force constitutes the true source of American strength. Nothing could be more misleading, further from reality, or more dangerous to the future security of our nation and the peace of the world than that myth. For if we embrace the myth of the atomic bornb we will tend to relax when we need to be eternally vigilant in recognising and reinforcing the wellspring of our great strength. What, then, is the source of our strength? That source is our ethical and moral standards of precepts, and our democratic faith in man. This faith is the chief armament of our democracy. It is the most potent weapon ever devised. Compared with it, the atomic bornb is a firecracker’. So says Mr Lilienthal.

Such is the ideal. What is actually found when from such information as is available one examines what Lilienthal calls ‘the ethical and moral standards of precepts’ of modem man? Apparently two main attitudes and standards exist; they are held by those who do perceive the truth of unity and brotherhood and those who do not. Those who do are men and women who know, or are beginning to know, unity by instinct and intuition. These people perceive disunity as a denial of truth and feel impelled to labour in order to reveal their vision to the rest of their race and so bring about world unification. Such people are responsible for the League of Nations, U.N.O. and Rotary, Scouts, Y.M.C.A., the Inter-national Red Cross, and the many other movements based on brotherhood and service.

Happily, the number of those enlightened concerning unity steadily increases. They are to be found everywhere, in homes, businesses, factories, professions, town and city councils and in Parliaments. They are also at work in International Organisations. These men and women in whom the vision of the Oneness of Life has dawned, who are imbued with the spirit of unity, are regarded as the potential saviours of mankind, threatened as it is with atomic and bacteriological warfare and guided missiles. These world unifiers are the little leaven that leaveneth the whole.

The salvation of the world from enslavement, it is now being said, will be brought about by the action of men and women of vision in every walk of life. For these people, whether consciously or unconsciously, exert a pressure in the direction of co-ordination, collaboration, harmonious co-operation in the cause of human welfare. Here lies the heart of the problem of world freedom, namely, in the mind, in the motive for living of individual men and, therefore, individual nations. But, at present, there is another and darker side to the picture. Unhappily, selfish individuals combine into groups ruthlessly determined to exploit their fellow men for their own profit. These ruthless exploiters also exist in homes, factories, businesses, professions, town and city councils, Parliaments, and even in International Organisations. These selfish men are the initiators and wagers of class warfare, commercial, financial and political warfare. They are ruthlessly determined to obtain for themselves and their group the largest possible shares of world power and wealth. One example of their methods is the destruction of food to keep up prices.

Thus humanity is divided in this age into two classes of people: On the one hand there are those who have perceived the truth of unity, have outgrown the passion for personal power and possessions and have genuinely and seriously dedicated their lives to the service of their fellow men. And, on the other hand, there exist the dark fanatics of selfishness, the ruthless individualists who acknowledge no god but self, and no goal but self-interest, and pursue that goal relentlessly without regard for the interests of others. If these hear a voice of conscience or see a light of idealism, they silence the one and deny and scorn the other. It is these who hold up progress to world peace. Someone has said very succinctly: ‘Peace begins with the United Nations but the United Nations begins with you’. This brings us to the place of the individual in world progress.

If the historical process leading to the birth of the great ideal of One World is to be quickened, that quickening can only come as a sufficient number of men and women desire one world, think it, seek it, and diligently work for it. Therein lies the responsibility of every thinking individual; for the regeneration of human society depends very largely upon the regeneration of the individual. The world problem is the individual problem. A person who is at war with himself, his conscience, his family, his fellow citizens, cannot be a peacemaker for the world. A measure of peace within is essential to a positive contribution to world peace. Personal conflict with the outer world of society and the inner world of ideas and ideals inevitably renders one helpless, if not harmful, in the process of reconstruction, for all true reform begins with self-reform.

Thus, we have come full circle from the world to the individual and from the individual again to the world. As the individual grows out of his own enslavement into freedom, so on the vast scale of mankind the world will grow out of the danger of world enslavement into freedom and enduring world peace.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 12, No. 4, 1951, p. 46

171
The Came of Human Sorrow

No one at all sensitive to the pain of others can fail to be deeply concerned both by the immeasurable sufferings of mankind and by the unnecessary suffering continually inflicted upon animals by man. Concern is deepened by realisation that the motives for the latter are those of profit and pleasure. The meat, fur, serum, animal extract and animal experimentation industries are all extremely profitable.

Yet their ultimate cost to man in both money and misery of body, soul and spirit is so great and so far reaching as to be beyond computation. For, although these trades do produce immediate profit and pleasure, they are the cause of ever-mounting loss and misery. How and why is this? Because man’s suffering is the result of his infliction of unnecessary suffering upon animals and fellowmen.

All of the above activities of man bring excruciating agony upon animals. The animal kingdom in this Age is continually forced by man to endure infinite pain without known limits, pain beyond imagination and beyond description.

From the torture of animals it is but a short step to the similar treatment of man. Man’s inhumanity to man is proverbial.

Immutable Law

The appalling cruelty so prevalent at this time not only offends

The Cause of Human Sorrow common decency as well as every principle of justice and compassion, not only is it utterly useless in the prevention of ill-health, it also serves as a continuing source of human suffering and sorrow. For a mighty power, which no man can evade, rules this Universe. It is the power of Immutable Law.

The Apostle accurately described the operation of this Law upon man in his words, ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap’.

Knowledge of the sowing reveals the nature of the inevitable reaping. One has but to observe the sufferings of man during the past fifty years alone to see that reaping taking place. For the reaping is always exactly appropriate to the sowing, so perfect is the Law. Cruelty begets cruel pain. Kindness and mercy beget happiness and freedom from pain. Man’s continual infliction of cruelty afflicts the human race with cruel suffering, just as the expression of kindness generates happiness and health. Such is the Law which rules not only physically but mentally and spiritually as well.

The barbarous treatment of animals is a crime against Nature for which humanity is paying very dearly in the form of precisely similar suffering. If any doubt this, remembering that full health and strength are attainable without meat, let them first visit abattoirs and watch the killing and dismemberment, and vivisectors’ laboratories and watch the more cruel experiments. Then let them read the full reports of wartime concentration camps and war casualties, visit military and civil hospitals and homes for incurables, asylums, prisons, leper colonies spread like a scourge about the planet, and famine-stricken districts and scenes of catastrophes. Is the cause of all this indescribable and heart-piercing human suffering not abundantly clear and so also the cure? Is it not also perfectly plain that immediate preventative action is needed if the cycle of cause, effect and continuing cause is to be cut? Of course it is. Here is the opportunity of the world’s humanitarians and their Societies. Even more positively and powerfully than heretofore, both cause and cure need to be put before the whole world. Still more effective steps need to be taken to have done with these debauches of cruelty which sully human life and make of the earth a planet of unnecessary pain and premature death.

Mankind must by some means be brought to recognise the great truth that givers of happiness and happy individuals are one and the same people. They create their own serenity and peace under Law.

Similarly, the inflictors of suffering and the sufferers are one.

The Way of Sorrow’s Ceasing

In one way alone, as far as the author can discover, may the vicious circle be broken.

That way is to outlaw cruelty — the unnecessary infliction of pain — on earth as man is now seeking to outlaw war. Abolish torture and needless killing; replace them with humaneness in every department of life, especially the choice of recreation, food, clothing and in the practise of medicine. Then, with right thinking, the reverent use of the soil, correct nutrition and hygiene, by prevention the problem of disease will be solved.

The immediate task before all humane individuals and Humanitarian Societies is abundantly clear. Would that the numbers of both were multiplied a thousand-fold! For the task is well nigh impossible of fulfilment by the present hard-working and honoured few. Humanity must be led towards humaneness.

World Wide Suffering Calls for World Wide Action

Individual humaneness, vegetarianism and healthy living are magnificent first steps towards a solution of this world problem. Active Societies advocating these three essentials to health and happiness render far-reaching service to the Race. Means must immediately be found of strengthening them and of increasing their effectiveness. The gospels of humaneness, food reform and the healthy life must be spread throughout the whole world and with ever greater diligence and efficiency. Totality of attack is demanded.

—Extracts from the ‘Humanitarian’

The New Zealand Vegetarian Society, March/May 1958, p. 5

172
What Are We Going to Build?

The root cause of human frustration and failure is erroneous thinking. Wrong thought, founded on wrong concepts, has led humanity into a morass. One of the basic errors of man is his concept of the separated duality of the universe, of the material world as being disconnected from the spiritual. Gravity, for example, is regarded as a law governing matter only, and having nothing to do with spirit, which presumably is unaffected by gravity. The truth is that attraction and repulsion, like all fundamental laws, obtain throughout the Cosmos from highest spirit to lowest matter.

Mathematical laws and facts, Euclidean and geometrical principles are thought to apply to the material worlds alone — the Deity, if seriously considered at all, being regarded as extra-mathematical and supra-Euclidean. The truth, as Pythagoras taught, is that the whole universe is built and sustained by the law of numbers, the Logos being, above all, Divine Geometrician. Man, however, will not acknowledge either this truth or the Hermetic axiom, ‘As above, so below’.

One result of this basic error of human thought is that man deliberately performs material acts which contravene moral and spiritual law. He imagines the two separate, believes apparently that spirit is not involved in material affairs. Modem man seems to regard the material world as a cover, a cave, a God-raid shelter, within which God cannot either see him or get at him, and where what he does is either unknown to the Deity or outside that jurisdiction. God (apparently thinks modem man) comes in only in matters religious and spiritual. God’s power, God’s law, and God’s Presence are recognized only in things connected with religion, with worship, with prayer. God is thought to be concerned with man’s soul but not his body.

The body of man, with all organic forms, is believed to be evolving, however slowly, towards a higher type; but the soul was created once for all at birth as it now is and ever shall be. If any soul improvement is possible to man, such development is the concern of the Church and its Spiritual Fathers, and above all of the Redeemer of Men. If salvation is gained, it will be gained through meditation and in any case only after bodily death. — These are the great and tragic fallacies the acceptance of which throughout Christendom has been a calamity of planetary proportions. From these errors two world wars and an intervening depression have arisen; and unless man’s outlook on life is corrected, a third world war and another world depression will inevitably inflict mankind.

The truth is that the soul of Nature (and of man also) evolves to a higher state. This unfoldment occurs in parallel with the evolution of the body, the two being mutually interdependent. Bodily conduct, therefore, is of supreme importance to soul life and soul growth. The Redeemer of Men and His ordained Ministers mightily assist the unfoldment of the soul, but its coronation and salvation depend in essence upon man himself.

This working out by man of his own salvation, for and by himself, is done in the home, the workshop, the office, the studio, the consulting room, the law courts, the House of Parliament. In other words, salvation must be won by worship and by work in that Temple which is the material world.

Spirit and matter cannot be separated. They are the back and the front of one existence. They are the inside and the outside of everything. They are consistent and interdependent — as inseparable as are the inside and the surface of any object. They interact continually and both are governed by precisely the same laws. Spirit and matter are in fact one single creation, one existence.

What are the practical, day by day implications of this fact? In the simplest terms one — can say that our week-days are just as much

God-days as are our Sundays; that every day is equally a holy day; that in our conduct at home, at work, and at play, our soul welfare is equally involved with our bodily welfare. Our material and our spiritual natures are intimately interwoven.

Everything, in the management and conduct of life is of spiritual significance! The government of nations, of cities, of towns, and the management and conduct of professions, businesses and homes are all spiritual activities, all of immediate Divine significance. The building of the post-war world, therefore, is a spiritual as well as a material undertaking.

All our daily activities from rising to retiring — all planning, all thought, feeling, speech and action — all these are of profound spiritual importance both to ourselves and to all our fellow men. Every human activity, collective and individual, is Divine activity, an expression of the Divine life, ruled by Divine Law. This is the great truth which humanity as a whole must one day acknowledge. This truth of the spiritual nature of material life is inescapable, inexorable, basic. When man orders his life as if it were a wholly spiritual undertaking, then and then alone will war, disease, and the selfishness, ugliness and cruelty which cause them, be banished. Then alone will peace, health, humaneness, and therefore beauty, reign upon the earth.

One word best expresses the attitude towards the material world and all that it contains, especially one’s fellow men, which recognition of this truth produces. That word is REVERENCE. What the human race so greatly needs is a return to reverence — in thought, in plans, in word and deed.

This intimate interrelation of spirit and matter, of soul and body, of the sacred and the secular, is the single principle upon which, without evasion or equivocation, post-war reconstruction must be founded; by which, if it is to endure, the new age must be planned and established.

Since building is the task before us, it is of supreme importance that we decide correctly just what we propose to build. Are we going to build a better shelter and hiding-place from the Divine Presence? or are we going to build a Temple in which that Presence is recognized and revered? Are we going to build an armament factory, a barracks, a police station and a bank vault, in them worship force and gold, and regard such erection as a new world or are we going to build a veritable Temple in which Divinity is enshrined, Divine Law obeyed, the Divine Presence revered? Is the religion of the future to be one of lip service and observances, or a religion of noble deeds, of sincere devotion, of duty to God and our neighbour, honourably performed day by day and hour by hour? Is the keynote of the new civilisation to be ‘GET’ or is it to be ‘GIVE’?

This is the burning question at this critical hour in which victory and peace draw near. It must be answered by all who would be the builders, the law makers and the planners of the New Age; in other words, by every one of us. Unless we give the right answer, the new laws will be broken as freely as the old; the new towns will again be destroyed and humanity again be decimated by war. For man can by no means whatever hide away from God, or evade the operation of Divine Law.

Wordsworth truly said:

Our destiny, our being’s heart and home,

Is with infinitude and only there.

May this fundamental truth be recognized by the builders of the New Age!

The American Theosophist, Vol. 32, Issue 5, May 1944, p. 97

173
World Humaneness

I submit that one of the greatest needs in the world today is the adoption and continual increase of humanitarianism in the minds, hearts and lives of all mankind, this is the great need of this time.

The increase of cruelty and killing threatens mankind’s entry into the new age of intuitive recognition of the unity of the ONE DIVINE LIFE in all beings and creatures, and an increased compassionate concern for all that suffers.

How, can we permit, ‘the shudder-producing horror of the abattoirs?’

Fortunately, humanitarianism, in all its applications to the relationships between man and man and man and animal (in the broadest sense) is finding an increasing footing, a position of growing influence in the world-mind and in some of the activities of modem man.

The word ‘humanitarianism’, the ideal of humaneness in all human inter-relationships as well as those between animals and men, greatly needs to become the Gospel of the new age as far as the application of religious ideals to conduct is concerned.

Whilst this gradual — microscopic in some areas — development is however, slowly occurring, it very greatly needs to be hastened, quickened and expressed in human thought and conduct. To this end, all Adept ministrations in the worlds of spiritual, intellectual and purely mental awareness: the ever-positive and ever-productive aid of the Great Brotherhood of the Adepts — is continuously given to mankind. This aid may be thought of as a current of compassion-evoking influence with which the world of human thought is continually being flooded.

Human collaborators in this extremely important activity are greatly needed. Prayers and prayer-thought are able to evoke from divine sources powers and tendencies which, when they find entry into the human mind, move its possessor to greatly increased kindness in tiptoed and action throughout all relationships.

In itself, deeply sincere because deeply felt, humaneness arising from compassion is one of the most beautiful, even resplendent, of human qualities.

Thus, in homes and in schools throughout the earliest possible years, children from childhood to adulthood greatly need and could most valuably receive counsel and example from parents, teachers and other associates which would lead towards — build in actually — the presence of the spirit of kindness and natural repulsion towards thoughts and deeds which inflict pain. A CRUSADE FOR COMPASSION, already born and active to some extent greatly and gravely needs to be inaugurated on a world scale and chiefly, it is repeated, in the homes and educational Institutions through which young people pass and in which their attitudes towards life become established.

Granted, kindness in general is finding increasing expression but unfortunately, so also is its opposite — cruelty. So great, so serious, so calamitous is this evil in the world and in the minds and lives of human beings that an immensely powerful WORLD CAMPAIGN against it is urgently necessary.

No need beyond these statements for further commentary is here necessary. Let those who hear and respond take part in the extremely— nay extraordinarily necessary-action; for HERE IS A WORK FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL LIFE UPON THIS PLANE WHICH IS MOST URGENTLY

NEEDED. Here, however, it may perhaps permissibly be repeated that not only the inflicted suffering itself but the reactions upon the creators, producers of that suffering — the karma of cruelty — are immeasurably serious — urgently so.

World Humaneness is, perhaps the greatest need in the world today. Hatred is a basic cause of all human sorrow. Hatred, it must be recognised, however unready one is to do so, is one of the worlds great evils and one of the most difficult to eradicate from human nature. Cruelty is a basic cause of human sorrow and the two combined — hatred and human sorrow — are the most difficult to eradicate and that is why surely every great Teacher has stressed the over-riding importance of the opposite and positive virtue of love, Universal and personal. When considered as a virtue love should as far as possible be non-possessive. Its development and expression — the two being intimately related — being the all-important phase of human development for this epoch, especially in the field of the evolution of human morality. Eventually love and kindness or loving kindness must become so deeply developed in human nature that their expression is immediate, instinctual, natural and idealistic.

This is the task before mankind, hence the importance of humaneness stressed in THE VEGETARIAN SOCIETY. We have to humanise our natures with compassion for ALL THAT LIVES.

This is what U.N.O. [United Nations] and its agencies should also be working at in addition to the results of the opposite of Universal Love.

How could hatred be reduced and eventually eliminated being replaced by love? To answer this question, let us name the two tendencies which lead up to hatred, namely irritation and then anger! Since these so often mark the beginning of both hatred and cruelty then at home, at school and within oneself the two evils should be warned against and the virtue of loving kindness be extolled to the very highest degree; for there is none so high. The ‘ASSURED PREVENTION’ is AH IMS A — NOT HURTING. But Ahimsa itself arises from a natural and developed loving kindness. Finally if MAN DOES NOT BECOME MERCIFUL then war and disease will continue to be his self-created experience until that time and epoch at which Buddhic or Christ consciousness makes men naturally compassionate, merciful and kind.

IN THIS DEVELOPMENT YOU AND I HAVE OUR PARTS TO PLAY EVEN NOW, as we make non-injury, harmlessness the Gospel of our own personal lives.

New Zealand Vegetarian Society, March/May, 1974, p. 1

174
Theosophy for the Lawyer

Human law, in its impersonality, impartiality and strict justice, like mathematics, is a most direct expression on earth of the Divine in the Cosmos. For the highest possible definition of God is as the Principle of immutable Law under which all things great and small, macrocosmic and microcosmic, are conceived, made manifest, densified to the deepest degree, polished, perfected and finally withdrawn. In the Macrocosm all is law and law is all. This is the highest, noblest idea of God and ideal of Divinity. God is immutable Law.

Energy, Life, Intelligence, Form are the bases of Creation. Their existence, emergence, full manifestation and withdrawal occur under the absolute rule of perfect Law.

The lawmaker and legalist on earth, mundane in effect though their activities may appear, therefore follow a divine occupation. Human law mirrors divine law. The man of law is an agent of that law. The touch of heaven rests upon the miscalled dry-as-dust procedure of the administration of the law.

One part of the purpose of Cosmic Laws is to produce perfected human beings. This objective of Cosmos should ever be remembered by human administrators of law. The real purpose of protective laws is less to punish and more to perfect, less to restrain and more to redirect, never to crush, always to elevate.

The function of law, international, national and civil is to establish on earth the divine Order, to guide humanity in perfect living, to educate the individual in self control and right relationship with his fellows, and to establish flexible but firm foundations for civilisation.

The justice of man, therefore, whilst exact, should always be administered with the supreme and sublime purpose for human existence in view. The honest citizen is protected, the dishonest restrained and the deliberately criminal punished and segregated, always to the end of the production of a finer type of man. That is the acid test of the value, and even the validity, of any law, as of the work of any and all of its administrators.

Parliaments in session, Justices in office, Magistrates on the bench, detectives and police, all the personnel of the law, ideally should be guided by a sense of impartial and impersonal justice and a recognition of their larger and less mundane function of servants of the souls of men, each a pilgrim journeying towards perfection under absolute Law.

The penal aspect of human law presents the greatest difficulty in adhering to this ideal. Human feelings are inevitably involved. Justice becomes less impartial in the degree in which emotion is aroused and involved. This tends to be especially true, both of those who suffer at the hands of the criminal, susceptible as they are to the desire for vengeance, and of those prison workers upon whom the responsibility for fulfilling the decrees of justice and maintaining prison discipline devolves. Because the difficulty is here most critical, here also should be the greatest care in the training and selection of such officers. The spirit of vengeance, the infliction of cruelty, the undue application of disciplinary measures are contrary both to the spirit of impartial justice and to the well being and progress of the indicted and sentenced criminal. It is here, at the present stage of human evolution, that human law most frequently fails in both purposes. It is here, therefore, that reform is most needed. Parliaments in session, Justices in office, the Statutes of a Nation should approach most nearly that strict and impartial justice which is the ideal. The ultimate agents, the men and women responsible for the hourly carrying out of sentences, can if wrongly trained be farthest away from that ideal.

Under Cosmic Law, penalties for crimes are always meticulously exact in their appropriateness to the crime. There is no faintest possibility under the natural Law of Cause and Effect of the slightest injustice to any man. Furthermore, since in this realm also Administrators are appointed, the spiritual progress of the victim of law in its corrective aspect is never ignored. Quite the contrary; it is the one guiding principle of all those Intelligences who, embodying the principle of Law, are responsible for its application to human action.

Chiefly by extension over long periods, but also by the processes of delay and precipitation at unfavourable and favourable occasions respectively, and also by balancing carefully beneficent with adverse reactions from previous actions, these Intelligences secure strict justice for every human being, and at the same time the greatest possible measure of education and therefore evolutionary assistance. The beneficent results of worthy conduct, noble deeds and unselfish actions are similarly permitted expression in forms and in times when the greatest possible evolutionary benefit will be gained from them.

Just as on earth a hierarchy of officials from the Minister of Justice downwards is responsible for the administration of human law in a nation, so, at every level of human awareness, physical, psychical, intellectual and spiritual, a Hierarchy of Intelligences is responsible for the administration of Cosmic Law.

These two systems continually interact, the human being complementary to the Cosmic. Whilst the former may err, the latter cannot. In the process of interaction between the two, even the human errors and their effects in either lightening or increasing the weight of sentences also occur under Cosmic Law, since they have been earned by the recipient. Those who err, however, in their turn generate cosmic reactions upon themselves, always strictly proportionate to the deliberateness and the degree of error.

Error through lack of ability, or of careful reasoning, or close attention, and therefore with no motive of injustice behind it, produces less painful reactions than does deliberate error founded on the motive unjustly to cause pain. So in all human actions and all human relationships, impersonal Cosmic Law is ceaselessly set in motion by, and upon, man. In the ultimate, all decrees, whether immediately and apparently beneficent or adverse in their effects, are educative, teaching especially that violation of Cosmic Law does not pay. This too should be the long term, basic principle upon which human law is founded.

The wise man is he who by his actions ordains that all reactions under Cosmic Law shall be harmonious. Acting less and less from motives of personal gain, living his life more and more as an impersonal manifestation of the cosmic purpose which is evolution, he does not provoke self modification and self domination by Cosmic Law. He avoids these two effects of personally motivated action and so obtains individual freedom and individual serenity. Naught external, not even Cosmic Law, since he is fully its agent, then has power to shape his existence, limit his activities, or to enforce experiences upon him. He is self ruled and from within. He is then not only sage, but spiritual king. To the production of such men, human law, as also education and religion, should ever be designed and administered.

The Theosophist, Vol. 68, April 1947, p. 29

175
War and Disease — Their Cause and Cure

As my title indicates, I shall be dealing very largely with the underlying principles through which world peace and world health may be attained and maintained. Quite clearly, external organisations, however valuable and necessary, cannot alone be depended upon to solve two problems: that of the ever-present threat of increasingly destructive wars, and of hitherto unpreventable and incurable diseases. UNO, UNESCO and WHO have, for example, helped very greatly. Nevertheless, the two problems remain and tend to become ever more menacing.

Without wishing to cause distress, may I lead our thoughts towards a brief but factual recognition of the existing world situation? It is estimated that in 5560 years there have been 14,531 wars — 2 wars per year. In the last sixty years, more than one hundred million people have been killed in military action alone. No less than 40 wars have been waged since the year 1945. Up to now, more than 90,000,000 people have been killed in the wars of this century. During 1969-70, the money that human beings spent on the means of killing one another rose to an all-time high of $204 billion dollars. Dr Malcolm S. Adiseshiah, UNESCO’S Deputy Director General wrote:

‘UNESCO cannot go on spending perhaps one million dollars a year on peace building when $200,000,000 is being devoted every year to building an ‘arsenal of absolute annihilation’.

‘When will we learn that life is all of a piece, a vast mysterious entanglement of species, that the Earth is the home of all and what endangers one must have its ultimate effect on all others?’

John F. Kennedy: ‘We happen to live in the most dangerous time in the history of the human race’.

Winston Churchill: ‘Unless some effective world super-government can be brought quickly into action, the proposals for peace and human progress are dark and doubtful’.

Douglas McArthur: ‘We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system our Armageddon will be at our door’.

Consider this appalling announcement which appeared recently in one of the daily papers:

A KILLER RAY

(From an article by Peter Costigan, Washington D.C., U.S.A. Auckland Star, February 22, 1974.)

A major breakthrough is announced in the development of the ultimate weapon — the little, deadly black box that can kill and destroy, silently and undetected, from a great distance. New laser weapons have already been tested and proved to be deadly accurate at destroying any conceivable target with many times the energy needed for such destruction. The black box and laser equipment itself have already been tested and proved to work. The research into laser is so far advanced that the writing could already be on the wall for such popular weapons as supersonic bornbers, nuclear submarines and missiles.

Disease

The world problem of the continuance of sickness despite advances in medical science cannot here be discussed in terms of statistics. One may note, however, that causes and treatments continue to be studied very largely, if not entirely, from a purely physical, bodily point of view.

Such, in part only, is our world of today, with mankind looking almost in vain for the reduction and prevention of human sorrow.

What Does Theosophy Say?

Students of Theosophy are sustained by the knowledge offered undogmatically that human evolution on this planet is proceeding according to an ordered Plan which includes the progressive development through vast ages of powers of human self-consciousness and action. This development occurs and continues at the physical, the emotional, the mental, the intuitional and also at purely spiritual levels. Just now, for example, humanity is at the critical point of the full employment of the formal, reasoning, analytical, possessive and prideful human mind — a mental age, hence world difficulties. Happily however, increasing numbers have attained, and are attaining, the faculties of the next phase, that of actively used, intuitive perception, of implicit insight and innate wisdom. It is these few who seek to lead mankind in to the New Age of universal brotherliness, whilst the great majority still cling to the valuable capacities, but severe limitations, of the separative, concrete mind. It is, therefore, at ‘this moment’ in evolutionary time that grave dangers exist, and it is of this present moment that I am speaking.

The Real Causes

Why do existing organisations and individuals, however well intentioned, continually fail to ensure the two great human blessings—lasting peace and enduring good health? One part of the answer would seem to be: Because the Root Cause of both war and disease are not external alone! They are also, and far more, interior.

Thucydides said: ‘The tragedies of war take place not on the battlefield, but in the souls of men’. UNESCO preamble states, ‘War begins in the mind’. This being true, then in the human mind alone may war on earth be brought to an end.

How Solved?

How may these vast problems be solved? By combining the functions of effectively strengthened world organisations with an equally deliberate and equally worldwide procedure to eliminate the true causes within mankind.

Getting Down to Basics

What truly is the root, the very basic, cause of human sorrow?

World Sages, World Teachers and their modem representatives answer us with one voice and one word, namely 'ignorance’ — in Sanskrit, Avidya. Ignorance of what, then?

¹The true inner nature of every human being which is spiritual. As a result, man tends to concentrate his major attention upon his temporary, mortal bodily vehicle, the meeting of its needs and the gratification of its desires, neglecting his true Self almost entirely.

²The purpose for his existence which is evolution to the stature of perfected manhood or womanhood through successive lives on earth. Save for the few, the awakened ones, this true purpose is almost entirely ignored, the acquisition of worldly power and possessions becoming almost his only goal.

³The relationship between man and man — an inseparable spiritual unity which holds all human being forever as one.

The result of his ignorance is clearly before us ... continuing and ever mounting disaster — personally in the form of suffering and disease, and nationally and internationally in the form of war.

Cause and Effect

Is this man’s only ignorance? No! Of what else, then, is he painfully also ignorant? That human life is ruled by Law — a Law under which every intentional human action automatically produces or is followed by an appropriate reaction. Whenever action is intentionally performed by a self-conscious, human individual — allowing for modification by intervening conduct — an appropriate reaction inevitably occurs and is experienced by the actor.

As H.P.B. [Helena P. Blavatsky] says (The Secret Doctrine Vol.1, 1897, p. 705 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, p. 643-44])... ‘Verily there is not an accident in our lives, not a misshapen day, or a misfortune, that could not be traced back to our own doings in this or in another life. If one breaks the laws of Harmony ... the “laws of life,” one must be prepared to fall into the chaos oneself has produced’.

Briefly, actions intelligently based upon human kindness bring peace and health, whilst actions based upon human hurtfulness bring war and disease.

Cruelty, like a monstrous incredibly ugly beast, stalks the whole Earth! Violence has been and is, a dominant thread of history, and today it pervades man’s world like an epidemic.

Positive Cosmic Love

Supposing a mere supposition — we adopted non-injury as a way of life. What would be involved? Non-injury naturally implies non-killing, but non-injury is not merely non-killing. In its comprehensive meaning, non-injury means entire abstinence from causing any pain or harm whatsoever to any living creature, either by thought, word or deed. Non-injury demands a harmless mind, harmless voice and harmless hands. It is positive Cosmic Love. It is true sacrifice, forgiveness and also true strength, and power. I believe it to be of enormous importance. Each person must cease entirely from being a pain-producer and change to being the incarnation of non-injury in the eyes of his fellow men.

A crusade for compassion, already born and active to some extent, greatly needs to be inaugurated on a world scale, chiefly in the homes and educational institutions through which young people pass and in which their attitudes towards life become established.

Granted kindness in general is finding increasing expression, but unfortunately, so also is its opposite — cruelty. So great, so serious, so calamitous is this evil in the world and in the minds and lives of human beings, that an immensely powerful world campaign against cruelty is urgently necessary.

We Must Care Deeply

The highest expression possible to mankind of the fact of a shared Source of Existence or Divine Life consists of an unfailing love for all others, and the elevation of compassion, humaneness and simple kindliness to the most prominent position in the lives of individuals and communities. Gentleness, tenderness, caring deeply, and active watchfulness over others especially when they are, or could be in danger — these are the ways, however humble by which the very best in a person can shine forth. No man can ever reach the heights of either spiritual unfoldment or personal development as long as cruelty has any place at all in thought, feeling and the practice of daily life. If their religion, particularly in its practical expression were to be described, that description would be 'Care deeply for all others'. Then cruelty as the true cause of war and disease may decrease and eventually will disappear.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 35, No. 2, 1974, p. 39

176
The Masters and Human Cruelty

The appalling acts of cruelty revealed during the Second World War have given rise to such questions as: Why do not the Masters protect human beings from such extreme ill-treatment? Why do they not effectively prevent the grosser forms of cruelty and evil? Why did not one of Them appear to the persecutors at Belsen, Dachau, Buchenwald, as Christ appeared to St Paul? Why do They not intervene to protect and bring relief to animals in their acutest, long continued agony in the vivisects clamps and troughs?

One reason — perhaps the chief — why the Masters do not intervene phenomenally to prevent human cruelty and wickedness presumably is that man may not be forcibly influenced, even in his grossest errors and misdoings. The Adepts may not interfere with man’s free will. His development must be the result of his own efforts and achievements, his own experiences and his own mistakes. For each mistake can be a step to mistakelessness.

Tragic and even unjust though the suffering caused by error may appear to be, man is a free being in the cosmos apart from the operation of natural laws, free he must remain. The Adepts have given evidence of Their respect for this freedom even when They see it being misused to produce disaster. The Adept knows that His own Adeptship could not have been otherwise attained. He also knows that compensatory ministration to the recipients of cruelty will restore the balance of justice to its equipoise, however deeply it is for a time depressed on one side. This principle of respect for freedom apparently rules in all relationships between Adepts and men and is applied equally to beneficent as to maleficent conduct. Evidently man must above all things be free.

The Masters do not, however, leave humanity to descend into a maelstrom of error-born agony unaided and alone. Quite the contrary. They make every possible contribution within Their power to the reduction of suffering on this planet. The work of the Adept Brotherhood never ceases or diminishes from age to age. Moved as its members are by divinest compassion, all Their labours contribute towards the diminution and eventual elimination of the cruelty so continually inflicted by man upon fellow man and upon animals. But that elimination may not be enforced. It must be as natural as possible. Tenderness incarnate as They are, the Masters accentuate the opposites to all the cruel and evil impulses to which man is prone. They teach continually of the Law of Cause and Effect. They flood the souls of men with spiritual power, love and light. They direct spiritualising influences into the world mind. They guide and inspire receptive individuals and groups. But with freedom of physical action, apparently, They may only very rarely interfere.

Bodhisattvas appear amongst men as spiritual Teachers from age to age. With one voice They teach the unity of life and the Law of Cause and Effect, and extol compassionate love as the greatest human virtue. Adepts, initiates, disciples, saints, seers and philosophers, by precept and example, unceasingly teach these doctrines. Individuals do respond and change, but the majority of mankind pay little or no heed. Nevertheless, force may not be used. Human liberty, even if misused, is sacred. That, it would appear, is a principle which governs the labours of the Adept Brotherhood on this planet.

There is however evidence that phenomenal powers have been used in some extreme circumstances. Such intervention, though it might stop one cruel act and soften one cruel heart, cannot eliminate or very much diminish planetary cruelty. Even if one man or group were forcefully stopped, others would continue. If one vivisector, butcher or sportsman had St Hubert’s vision or St Paul’s ecstasy, others would continue to torture, kill and persecute. Since, also, the evil of cruelty is world wide, far more Adepts than are available would be needed to stop all cruelty on earth. Perhaps even the limitation of the activity of the whole Brotherhood to one function would be demanded.

So it is to be presumed that the Masters concentrate upon awakening the higher consciousness and instincts in mankind, by example and precept and by the provision of all possible instruction concerning and inducement to humaneness. The world’s humanitarians may be assured that individuals and groups who enrol themselves on the side of humaneness are welcomed as collaborators, and at once receive all the permissible assistance from which they and their cause can benefit.

In addition to the general Adept activity on behalf of all mankind, which has continued without intermission through millennia of centuries, specialised training is given to those human Egos and personalities who voluntarily place themselves under the jurisdiction and tutorship of the Masters.

The work of training disciples and of leading men and women along the Path to Adeptship has as its purpose and result the diminution of evil and suffering in the world.

Far more intervention doubtless occurs than is ever revealed for such spiritual and occult experiences are generally concealed from shame, from fear of ridicule, or because they are sacred. Direct action by the Masters must be largely limited to individuals. Mass phenomenal interference with man’s freedom of action, as in the sinkings of Atlantis, and possibly the two Armada storms, the Dunkirk calm, Hitlerian errors and defeat, and perhaps the discovery of atomic energy, are but rarely ordained. In a phrase: ‘Man has to grow by natural processes’. Although the Masters do Their best to quicken, They may not force that growth.

In view of the profoundly shocking revelations of cruelty during the recent war and of the dimensions of the cruelty continually practised in abattoirs, vivisectors’ laboratories, fur, whaling and serum-producing industries, and for sport, the call to individual humaneness and for a crusade for humaneness is almost irresistible.

The terrible effects of cruelty already experienced in the form of perpetual wars, the ever mounting toll of disease and disasters add both poignancy and power to that call. There seems to be only one method of breaking the karmic cycle. It is not intervention by Adepts, but action by man. The adoption and ratification in conduct by mankind of Ahimsa or harmlessness, alone, can stop the generation of adversity by eliminating cruelty from the earth. Man must outlaw cruelty as he is now seeking to outlaw war.

It is not sufficient to dismiss this great human problem with the affirmation that man will cease to be cruel when he develops the Christ (Buddhic) consciousness. The problem is immediate, and that development lies tens of thousands of years in the future for the mass of mankind.

The elimination of cruelty from individual lives and a world wide crusade for humaneness are urgent necessities. Those who lead and participate in such a cause would be certain to receive the fullest possible permissible Adept assistance. When man moves, the Masters can help. A world Ahimsa movement, I submit, is the way to sorrow’s ceasing. Who will join?

The Theosophist, Vol. 68, May 1947, p. 129

177
The Practice of World Brotherhood

Certain searching questions must be posed to obtain a realistic foundation for a topic of this vastness. Are we seeking to establish a stable world peace, or do our thoughts rise to fear and strife? Apparently there are two opposed ideals, showing even as two armed camps, instead of a humanity united into one co-operative family of nations. One group appears to work towards a world enslavement by tyrannical power, the other strives towards freedom.

A united humanity means basically a free humanity living in harmony. I do not mean one totalitarian world, one united under a dictatorship, nor a unity brought about through domination, force, or fear. World co-operation will come when free peoples live together under a democratic parliamentary system.

This is a practical proposition we may hope to see fulfilled, given certain conditions. Already there is a deep development in the human mind that brings the power to perceive unity amidst diversity. The number of people able to recognise in the human race a shared life and a common goal of spiritual excellence is growing surely. Given a sufficient number their influence will ensure the perception of brotherhood. There are indications that intense competitive individualism is slowly giving place to a recognition of the mutual interdependence of man upon man, and nation upon nation. The higher attributes of human intellect are developing, the sense of self-separateness then diminishes, and little by little the natural notes of the formal analytical mind, the individualistic and the competitive, are being silenced.

The concepts of unity and of co-operation for the welfare of all then assume an increasing dominance. As these grow the unity ideal will ultimately culminate in the establishment here on earth of the principle of working together in the principles of brotherhood, justice and peace. Picture the many movements, now widespread, working for international co-operation, the outward signs of this mental development in man. It has been aptly described as a hunger for wholeness.

Such development is a part of the historical process, the evolutionary trend, that is demonstrably in the direction of international co-operation and a realisation of unification within the world. During, say, the last hundred years, achievements in movements with these aims, in whole or in part, have been extensive. From the League of Nations we may pass to consider the United Nations Organisation, with its numerous specialised agencies; the groupings of peoples, as in the British Commonwealth, or, the Pan-American Union; specialised activity on a world basis, as, scouting, the Red Cross, Olympic Games, or Rotary — with a brotherly ideal of service above self; international agreements for rules and laws as, postal — traffic at sea, in the air, on the roads — patents and copyrights — the adoption of arranged nomenclature in music, anatomy, medicine, meteorology, and symbols in science and of Greenwich Mean Time. Here the examples given are indicative rather than complete.

In such and other ways there is the spread of the international spirit, a planetary outlook, a global vision of a general civilisation, a mutual interdependence between units personal and national. Despite inevitable divisions, history does show in man the power to rise above and think beyond national boundaries. Some of the human race begin to see the world as a whole. There is therefore ground for vigilant hope that this evolutionary process will continue and the increase in modem man’s hunger for wholeness will bring into existence a united humanity. The peoples of the earth are longing for world friendship, so that the time is certain to come when they will agree that mankind has a common goal, brotherly advancement in both spiritual excellence and physical welfare.

The attainment of that goal will demand as its essential universal peace. In its turn justice will be seen as the prerequisite of peace; for peace and justice stand or fall together.

The actualisation of world brotherhood must depend upon the understanding of that principle in its component parts, the individual nations. So first we regard the latest expression of the movement towards world unity — the United Nations. Sir Gladwyn Jebb, chief British delegate to the U.N., speaking in Ottawa on October the 8th, 1952, said that the racial problem would ‘wreck the whole concept of the United Nations. While industrialisation is being welcomed as having led to the raising of living standards it is suspected in under-developed countries as being in some way associated with European domination’.

Sir Gladwyn continued: ‘These are the doubts and fears which so largely animate the so-called Arab-Asian group in the U.N. This group is admittedly not held together by any common interest, but only by hatred of “colonialism” and consequent suspicion of the Western races as such. This attitude is dangerous as tending to stimulate race consciousness and race discrimination in vast areas. It is based on emotions that have become out of date. I feel these class-conscious, race-conscious emotions are really one of the greatest dangers to the United Nations’.

Despite much fine humanitarian work for the alleviation of sickness, suffering and misery, the U.N. has proved ineffectual frequently to deal with many grave situations as in Korea, Indo-China, Egypt and South Africa. Such failures are very largely due to a lack of support from the individual member nations. Why do not the brother-races work together? The advantages of closer co-operation between Governments in order to solve common problems, to share discoveries and techniques for improving the lot of man are so obvious that they hardly need to be enumerated.

This failure is surprising, for the ideals of the U.N. are shared by men and women of almost all economic, national, and religious groups. However, they cannot be translated into practical terms unless the citizens of the component nations feel, proclaim and live their innate brotherhood, and carry it out globally, giving their fullest support to this supremely significant task. Such collaboration would further the solution of the ever-present problem of collective security in face of the threat of aggression. How can brother-peoples face the great cost and waste in money and materials, and in the lives of men, involved in military resistance to aggressor nations — as well as the similar losses the latter must also suffer?

So far as world co-operation is concerned a World-Govemment which is able to solve conflicts between the peoples by judicial decision is essential. The U.N. underscores this point, perceiving the difficulties it finds in the fulfilment of that part of its task which concerns the establishment and maintenance of peace over the earth. A government embracing all races and countries will only become feasible when the majority — if not all — of these units make the intimate relationship of brotherhood not simply their spiritual goal — instead it must become a stable realisation, featuring the surrender of self-interest, mutual understanding, and the practice of nonseparateness.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 25, No. 1, 1964, p. 11

178
Theosophy and the World Situation

The world situation appears to be extremely delicate, not to say dangerous, just now. It is evident that, whilst the Masters continually radiate spiritual power upon the world and on rare occasions karma and the evolutionary necessities permit Them directly to influence an individual or an affair, for the most part man must learn for himself even if by his mistakes and their consequent sufferings.

We may, I think, safely assume that They need more and more tried and trusted representatives in the outer world, more agents upon whom They can depend. The call today would seem to be for men and women who are ready for this life at least to forsake self and selfish gratification in the cause of the welfare of humanity as a whole, who are filled with that spirit of ready self-sacrifice which is founded upon recognition of humanity’s great need and God’s Great Plan.

Apparently all types are useful to them as long as self does not intrude upon service, desire upon discipline, ambition upon humanity and egotism upon readiness to be led. Their army, depleted in recent years by the passing of many great souls from its ranks, must need new recruits. Many Egos who have served Them in the past must be in incarnation now, but either do not hear or are unresponsive to our Society’s appeal. That appeal must be strengthened until, for those who have the germs of Theosophy within them, it is irresistible.

The note of brotherhood supported by appeals to the reasoning mind must be sounded forth in the world as never before, lest nation after nation dash themselves to pieces against each other in war of appalling intensity, dimensions and destructiveness.

We, Theosophists, are truly fortunate. We know that, although humanity still lives in mental and spiritual darkness, and in physical danger, the mountain tops exist, and above them, the star shines ever undimmed. Bodies may be destroyed, cities and civilisations crumble, but the Self of man is indestructible and the Will of God omnipotent. Ours then to work as we have never worked before in this hour of humanity’s great need. Thrice blessed are those who work under the direction of the Guardians of the Race, serve under Those who have served without remission for thousands of centuries and under One Who has ruled for millions of years.

Thinking on the part played and to be played by the Theosophical Society in the present world crisis, one assumes the constant attention of the Masters Who are its Founders and the existence of a reservoir of power available for all progressive movements on this planet, from which power is allotted to Them for the work of the Society. If this impression be true through all our work on the physical plane there flows continually a great force — of which, indeed, workers are not infrequently aware. Doubtless large numbers of deceased Theosophists and others serve as links between the outer work and workers and the Causal and Buddhic worlds, from which the whole work is planned and directed.

Meditation brings glimpses at least of some of the inner aspects of this great organisation created for the helping of the world, realisation, however limited of the intensity of the concentration of the Masters ceaseless and unbroken age by age upon this and many other great activities. If but the fringe of their consciousness be touched the impression is received of power at an exceedingly high voltage, of a tremendous one pointedness and of great intensity of concentration. Apparently, temporary failure is without significance to Them. They are utterly unmoved by results. They know that the One Will must ultimately prevail and Their being is therefore rooted in unshakeable, calm, undisturbed peace.

Amid our pre-occupation with the outer aspects of our work, would it not be well to hold still more constantly than we do, in the background of our minds, the fact of Their existence, Their power and Their interests in Their movement? One can become self-centred even in Theosophy. We are prone sometimes to regard our own particular share of the work as an isolated activity instead of as part of a great movement for bringing Theosophy to the world, initiated by the Elder Brethren in the remote past, active in successive civilisations and now world wide; a movement unique in that it has its extensions and connections in the inner worlds from the lowest to the highest.

True, numerically, we, Theosophists, are insignificant, but the effect which we produce is out of all proportion to our numbers. This is due, first, to the possession of knowledge of Theosophy and the power which such knowledge bestows: second, to the fact that the Masters’ power intensifies everything we do and, third, that as Egos all true Theosophists constitute a great group of people linked together and capable of action as a unit.

Rightly or wrongly, I conceive of our Society, less as a huge organisation with hundreds or thousands of members — at least at this period, though later it may so develop — than as a means of attracting into Theosophy the special types of Egos suitable for the particular work for which the Society was called into being. Apparently, their chief characteristics are readiness to combine, to respond to an inner call, ability to accept intuitively the fact of the existence of the Masters, and an instinctive appreciation of the honour of working with Them. All of this is the result of work done with Them in past lives and of having followed by temperament a peculiar line of development in which Individuality and personal success have been subordinate to a great cause. This is the kind of people who seem to be attracted into the Society just now, and through them as members, the Masters are able to work. Selfless devotion is a marked characteristic of a great many Members of the Society and this may account for the absence from the Society of large numbers of pure intellectualists at this time. Apparently the solidarity of the few, and even the humble, is of more importance than the gathering in of the many and the intellectually great.

It is our common hope that through the Egos of the members, through the thought-forces engendered and released by theosophical study, lectures, classes, and conversations, and through the physical work of the Society, the Masters are able to influence the thought of the world, change the outlook of men generally, and use the Society for the fulfilment of part of their plans and the expression of Their ideas.

If this conception be at all true the chief work of our movement seems to be to affect the mental atmosphere, of the globe in certain directions, to change the outlook of humanity. Every theosophical meditation, study, lecture, class and even conversation plays its part in the production of that result. Every time we talk about Theosophy we are doing good. When we live our Theosophy we do an immense good.

In a way, Theosophists should serve as sentries over the mental world, guarding it from the intrusion of untheosophical thought. Each ‘live’ member is like an electrically charged coil which creates in its region a powerful field of force vibrating on its special wave-lengths — in this case, those of theosophical thought. The more there are of these mental generators and transmitters of theosophical thought the more quickly will the mental atmosphere of the world be brought into a theosophical condition, which implies the recognition of brotherhood and the acceptance, in whatever form, of that truth which is the highest religion.

The next note to be struck, as far as I can see, is the existence of the Great Plan, and, when that thought is established, of the Master as the inner Director of the Plan. It may be that gradually an impersonal relation between Them and humanity will develop, not unlike that of millions of subjects loyal to the King, their loyalty being quite independent and without thought of personal contact.

Accompanying such possible adoption of special aspects of Theosophy will almost surely be the recognition and deliberate use of mind-radio. The minds of certain scientists (e.g. experiments of the Duke University in America) are already being influenced to recognise and experiment with the hidden powers of the Mind.

Specially gifted people are being discovered and experiments being made in mental transmission and reception. This may probably be followed by the invention and use of special methods for training the intuition, and it would seem not to be unlikely that the motive in both cases will be commercial.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 1 February 1938, p. 10

Reprinted in Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 1, June 1940, p. 9

179
Thoughts on the Crisis

Concerning the major issue of racial evolution the well informed student of Theosophy knows neither doubt nor despair. The dangers and catastrophes of a particular period may cause him acute dismay, but they cannot shake his faith in the future of the race. He is completely assured of its gradual evolution out of barbarism into a condition of highly spiritualised individual and racial life.

Upon what is his faith founded? It is founded upon knowledge, and this knowledge is at least sixfold. First of all the student of Theosophy learns that it is but the form which perishes. An individual may die from the physical plane, the plane of effects; but he can never die from the spiritual plane, the plane of causes. A civilisation may vanish, but the Egos who built it, and even those who brought about its destruction, are themselves indestructible. Not only do they endure eternally, but they develop and reappear stronger, wiser, and therefore more capable, than before as builders of new civilisations.

Nothing essential is ever lost; all is stored within the oversoul, whether of the individual or of the race, as virtue, power, gift, capacity and wisdom. Death, therefore, whether of an individual or of a civilisation, cannot bring the student of Theosophy to despair.

Second, he learns that on the involutionary arc the blinding and imprisoning power of matter over spirit gradually increases and that when its grip is strongest war is inevitable; for during that cycle savage passion and selfish desire predominate over self-control, altruism and wisdom. The student of Theosophy learns that numerically the middle of the Fourth Root Race marks the turning point from the involutionary on to the evolutionary arc, where gradually the spirit of man will free itself from the grip of materialism. Not until long after that does he expect passion and selfishness gradually to give place to self-control and idealism. He further learns that for at least one whole Root Race, and probably for a further two sub-races, a period of intense conflict between these opposites is certain to be entered upon.

Third, the student of Theosophy knows that at certain times in planetary Schemes, Chains, Rounds and Races periods known as ‘judgment days’ occur. In the middle of the fourth Round for example (save for a few exceptions), ‘the door was shut’ for animals to enter the human kingdom. After this ‘no more Monads can enter the human kingdom. The door is closed for this Cycle’.^{^[173]} In the middle of the fifth Round a great ‘separation’ or ‘judgment’ will occur. Egos not sufficiently advanced to progress with the rest will be dropped out until a future Chain provides them with suitable evolutionary opportunities.

It seems reasonable to assume that there should be corresponding judgment days within the lesser cycles and sub-cycles of human evolution. Probably the great catastrophe which destroyed Atlantis in 75,025 B.C. constituted a racial judgment day in which those unfit to continue with the Fourth Root Race were ejected. Similarly, the Great War and the present crisis may together be the judgment day for the Fifth Root Race. This whole concept is well presented in articles by Mr G. E. Sutcliffe in The Theosophist for July, August and September, 1916.

Indications of this are not wanting. Two distinctly opposed ideals of human life are at this time presented in a clear cut and unmistakable manner for the choice of humanity both as individuals and as nations. These two ideals are democracy, which means freedom, justice and co-operation — national and international — on the one hand, and the present form of totalitarianism, which means their opposites, on the other. Thus the whole race today is being tested and, as one would expect at this Fifth Race period, the test is applied to the mind and the appeal is to the intuition. The test consists of the ability to recognise, accept and apply democratic ideals to human life. This issue is made unmistakably clear. No reconciliation, no compromise is possible; half measures will not avail. The unavoidable choice is before all nations and all men. Humanity must decide either to go forward to justice, liberty, brotherhood, co-operation, spirituality, or backward into tyranny, domination, warfare, materialism.

How will the nations choose? Who will pass the test of the present ‘judgment day’? Those nations who have already achieved democratic forms of government are at present standing firmly, if separately, for democracy. But the strain is great and the cost enormous. Will the democracies continue to stand firm and will they unite on this great issue? Will any dictator nations change over to a democratic form of government, or will the opposite occur? These are the vital questions and tests of this present sub-racial ‘judgment day’.

Fourth, the Theosophist knows that the process of the development of the mind is inevitably fraught with grave danger. The over development and misuse of emotion plunged the Fourth Root Race into dire catastrophe. A similar over-development of the concrete mind is certain to produce at least equal difficulties and dangers. Since we are now at the critical stage when the qualities and powers of the analytical mind are undergoing intensive cultivation and those of the synthesising intelligence are also beginning to be displayed, a physical and mental battle, for the apparently opposed ideals of the two orders of mental life must inevitably be waged.

Fifth, the student of Theosophy learns that whenever a new level of consciousness is entered upon by an individual or a race, resistance is always encountered, or, in occult terms, the dweller on the threshold must be met and overcome. Democracy as a political ideal is a physical expression of causal consciousness. Justice, liberty, freedom and internationalism are all causal qualities. In the process of racial evolution on the upward arc they are certain eventually to dominate human life for a time. Ultimately they will give place to the form of government selected by minds illumined by the light of intuition. This is that ‘autocracy of the wise which is the salvation of the foolish’. Before that the rule of democratic ideals must be established and in the process an intense resistance is certain to occur. The dweller on the threshold of the higher mind — monstrous manifestation of the mighty powers of the aggressive, individualistic, and separative concrete mind — must be met, fought, and in due course overcome.

Sixth, the student of Theosophy learns that time is with the race, that every year, every century, every sub-race period brings an increase in the power of spirit over matter, a decrease of the power of matter over spirit.

In times of difficulty and danger he especially remembers the great truth, the inspiring fact of the immortality and indestructibility of the spirit of man. For these reasons the student of Theosophy can never give way to despair.

Nevertheless it must be admitted that in times of crisis it is not always easy to hold fast to one’s faith. Separated events, however disastrous, can generally be faced with a measure of equanimity. But subversive trends and retrogressive tendencies, gaining power before one’s eyes, are not so easily faced with equanimity.

Two such tendencies must produce profound misgivings in the mind of the student of Theosophy at this time. I refer first to the gradual rise of the rule of force, and therefore of fear, as a predominant principle in international relationships, and second, to the general acceptance of that rule as if it were something inevitable. On the one hand a definite sign was displayed during the racial crisis that humanity as a whole is well advanced upon the upward evolutionary arc. The world wide revulsion against war was a most encouraging phenomenon. Even in Germany, where militarism has been implanted into the mind of the people from early youth and where they were in ignorance of the fact that Czechoslovakia was not the only enemy against which they were preparing an attack, a great loathing of war was shown, as also an immense relief at the preservation of peace. All this was an immense gain. Yet it must be admitted that it was not idealism alone which produced this almost universal reaction against war. Another force was at work, is still at work moulding man’s outlook on life today. That force is fear. So great is this fear of modern warfare that humanity is in danger of accepting almost anything as an alternative. Fear is destroying, if not paralysing man’s power of judgment, is silencing the voice of wisdom and idealism. This fact is placing tremendous power in the hands of the rulers. They are able to play upon the fear of their own subjects as well as those of other nations, and so put into effect legislation, the moral qualities and permanent value of which are of minor consideration when compared with their immediate efficacy in averting war. Mass panic and national fear, is perhaps the greatest danger which threatens modem civilisation. It is causing the European nations and America to spend almost all their resources in the building up of armaments to the grave neglect of social, educational and administrative services.

No real progress is now being made towards the establishment of a permanent peace. Even democracy itself is threatened from within itself by the presence of fear. In their dread of war the people are becoming complacent concerning increasing restriction and coercion supposedly necessary to preserve their nation in peace. Thus we are living today in an atmosphere of continual challenge, of threats to let loose mighty destructive forces, and, in consequence, of fear amounting to terror. Yet the approach and growing density of this miasma of fear is hardly noticed by the people.

In the face of this the student of Theosophy cannot but be filled with dismay; for he sees in it the danger of both mental and physical slavery and the very conditions in which tyranny, injustice, cruelty and corruption may be best expected to thrive. No Theosophist can contemplate this with equanimity. The very foundations of Theosophical idealism and activity are threatened. At this critical time, therefore, the work of The Theosophical Society is needed perhaps as never before. The opportunity of this decade is unique. The Society in its turn is probably passing through a great test, or ‘judgment day’. Shall we prove ourselves able to pass from theory to practice, from Theosophy inside the covers of a book and Theosophy within the walls of a lodge room, to Theosophy actively applied as a solution of the problems of the period of 1938 to 1950?

That, it would appear, is the test through which we, Theosophists, are now passing. Success would seem to depend far less upon the Organisation, the Movement itself than upon the individual thought and action of its members. Now for each one of us is the time for practical and active Theosophy.

One interesting development would seem to be foreshadowed by the events of the world crisis. Heretical though it may appear in these days when democracy is the highest political ideal, autocracy would seem to be foreshadowed as the inevitable form of government, national and international. True, democracy has not yet been tried. True no country, despite enfranchisement, is really democratic. But in the face of totalitarianism with its power of harnessing all the resources of the state and of swiftly co-ordinating and directing them to a common end, democracy with no powers to coerce, inevitably slow moving, is heavily handicapped. Obviously a compromise will have to be found between the full freedom of opinion and action, which is the democratic ideal, and the complete subjugation of the individual and the State, which is a totalitarian fact. In the discovery of that compromise there are almost certain to be experiments which lean too far towards subordination of individual freedom and rights. From these there will be a reaction, especially when the temporary danger appears to have passed.

What will the solution be? As I have already said, it will be a benevolent and wise autocracy. The establishment of such a regime depends first upon the development by the people of the power to recognise true greatness; second, their possession of both the intelligence and political machinery necessary to put their greatest citizens into office; third, upon the voluntary, and therefore contented, co-operation of the individual with the State and its rulers. A study of Theosophy shows that this will be the political system of the future.

Autocracy reigns in the inner worlds. Autocracy reigns in the Inner Government of the World. Eventually that which is now interior will become external. The Toltec Golden Age will be reproduced on this planet. This time man himself will produce and maintain it, though once more the guidance of the Adepts, now largely mental and intuitional rather than physical, will be the means of attainment.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 2 April 1939, p. 3

The American Theosophist, Vol. 27, Issue 5, May 1939, p. 99

180
The Post-War Crusade for World Reform

A Critical Situation

The writer or the speaker, if he would win a hearing, must avoid the utterance of truisms with an air of originality. In this article, I propose deliberately to enunciate certain truisms because some truths can be known so well that they are disregarded. In the realm of ideas, as well as of personalities, familiarity can breed contempt, or at least neglect.

Now for my truisms. After war comes peace. After destruction there must be reconstruction. Unparalleled in all history are both the present war and its destructiveness. Unparalleled therefore must also be man’s efforts and man’s sacrifices to establish peace upon a sure foundation and to build a new world.

Allied victory will by no means bring the crisis to an end. Thereafter an even greater crisis will at once arise, an even greater danger will have to be faced. A great conflict will then be waged, and again between those perpetual antagonists — the forces and intelligences of darkness and of light.

This coming struggle will not, however, be a war between nations, but between groups and individuals within the nations; it will be a civil war, a civic war, a social and economic war. One side will be represented by those who are determined at all costs to revert to pre-war conditions, to retain financial, industrial and political power, and the other side will be represented by all who are determined upon world-reconstruction and world-reform.

It is quite possible that this conflict will be more bitter and more ferocious than the second world war and that, in it likewise, victory will depend physically upon organised effort and concentration of power strategically employed. This is the critical situation, to face which preparations must immediately be made.

The present period is indeed amongst the most critical in world history. Only the intense and unified efforts of all who have at heart the welfare of the mass of humanity and the progress of the human race can ensure victory for the forces of light.

What, exactly, do we, Theosophists, mean by the term ‘forces of light’? We mean the forces of Nature directed by man to beneficent purposes. The forces of darkness are those same forces directed to evil purposes. From this it is clear that there cannot be light forces and dark forces by themselves. Associated with either manifestation of the same energy there must be human beings. To these associations are given the names, ‘the powers or forces of light’ and ‘the powers or forces of darkness’. Both are represented by men of varying intellectual stature and capacity. Inevitably they clash, for their aims are opposite.

Every human being reaches certain times in the course of evolution when the decision has to be made as to which side is to be taken. This is the real meaning of temptation, which is an experience of crisis in which a decision must be made. These crises occur continually and are of varying intensity. Minor tests occur perpetually. Major tests occur occasionally. In themselves, the minor tests are not decisive, but the aggregate decision is, or the balance of the decisions in minor temptations can be decisive when the big ones arrive.

Eventually a stand must be taken and adhered to ever after. This major judgement day in the life of the Ego comes soon after the development of spiritual awareness and of occult powers. It is referred to in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness and of the Lord Buddha in the forest. Both chose the way of light and thereafter moved on to final deliverance, to become mighty Embodiments and agents of the forces of light. Those who succumb and choose the way of darkness become embodiments and agents of the forces of darkness. Members of both of these groups exist upon this planet.

Periods of world-crisis represent judgement days, both for the whole race and for every individual who, however remotely, is involved in the issue. This is part of the significance to every human being of the present epoch. So great is the present crisis that it is possible that the twentieth century of the Christian era will prove to be of supreme importance amongst the thousands of centuries of the fourth incarnation of our earth.

A Spiritual Crisis

The world-crisis is, therefore, essentially a spiritual crisis. The challenge is one of principle, of morality, is religious in character. The power of world-religion ought, therefore, to be the deciding power, the greatest power in the great fight. Unfortunately, the word religion implies a group of doctrines and dogmas, an individual creed, evokes the concept of the division of the race into separate and mutually non-co-operative groups. This may explain the impotence of world religions to influence the great decision which has been so largely taken out of their hands and vested in purely temporal forces.

I return to this subject later, but submit here that a new meaning must be given to the word religion, a new word take its place. That word is idealism. For without idealism the new world-order cannot be built.

Of first importance in this as in all buildings is the foundation. In the building of a civilisation the foundation is a basic idea, a philosophic verity. What is the fundamental truth upon which alone an ideal human society can be successfully founded? It is of course the universal Brotherhood of Man. Without this foundation all such building invariably fails; with it, all endures. Thus, if lasting peace and social progress are to proceed from the second world war, from foundation to rooftop and banner flying above, without or within, the Brotherhood of Man must be foundation, architecture and indestructible cement of the new civilisation which humanity will raise.

At once the fresh difficulty is met, the first practical problem arises. It may be expressed in the form of a question. How may humanity at its present stage of evolution — individualistic and selfish — be brought to recognise the fact of human brotherhood? Such recognition must be interior, must be based upon experience, expansion of consciousness, vision. It cannot be conveyed or inculcated with success unless at the same time a change of consciousness occurs; for the Brotherhood of Man is a spiritual, not a physical fact. Its recognition is primarily a spiritual experience which produces enlightenment, whether intellectual, instinctual, or both. This interior experience and this enlightenment are essential to success in a world-reconstruction, for when they occur idealism, co-operation, service, naturally follow.

Idealistic plans for society are the essential materials of world-reconstruction. When practical and soundly constructed they must therefore be welcomed and encouraged. When operated by idealists such plans will succeed. But the finest and noblest plans will fail unless those who execute them are idealists, knowers of the Brotherhood of Man. Thus recognition of Brotherhood is an absolute essential in world-reconstruction.

Two Further Problems

Two further problems at once present themselves.

Where are to be found these idealists who shall save the world and how shall they be enrolled?

The answer to the first question is: they constitute the best type of human being in every nation, regardless of class. They are the kindly, straightforward, decent, hard working, home-building citizens in every walk of life. All these must arise, awaken, combine and prepare to defend all they hold dear.

The answer to the question of enrolment is: by voluntary enlistment.

The good citizens of the world must voluntarily enlist in a new international citizens’ army to fight by constitutional methods for the rights of man.

Before this enrolment can occur, there must be a world-awakening, a casting aside of sloth, apathy, self-centredness.

How may mankind be awakened spiritually and intellectually to the recognition of the unity and solidarity of the human race? One life, one purpose, one goal? I know of but two answers. One of them is ‘by education’, and the other is ‘by religion’.

Education is put first only because the future lies with the youth of the world, always responsive to great ideals raised up as landmarks of the future. The earliest mental efforts of modem youth must be based upon the one great fundamental concerning the nature of man — that all men are diverse manifestations of one divine power, one divine life, one divine consciousness. Since all emerge from one source and all share in the same three divine attributes all are essentially one. This sublime and basic truth, existent at spiritual levels, makes brotherhood a fact at all levels.

Whilst it is obvious that young children cannot comprehend metaphysics, the brotherhood concept can pervade the whole school and be inculcated in every one of its departments. Its implications in terms of thought and conduct can certainly be inculcated. Such subjects as ethnology, history and geography can be taught as concerning one great family with many branches, inhabiting one earth with many countries. War itself, with all its attendant horrors, can be held up as the dreaded effect of the blindness of these branches of the human race to their true relationship to each other. World peace can he shown to be only attainable when mankind lives in recognition of brotherhood.

If education as a whole would accept this task and adopt this method, aggressive militarism could be extirpated in two generations. In imposing peace terms on the Axis countries, the adoption of this educational programme should be a first demand. For the debasement of education has been one of Hitler’s most effective weapons. Nazi children leave school thoroughly poisoned with the virus of militaristic and egoistic patriotism. War is glorified in Hitler schools. Blind and slavish obedience is inculcated. Worship by millions of young Germans of force and of the man who directs its destructive manifestations is the result obtained by present day German education.

Democratic education can learn much from Hitler. For if he has found in education a means to debase and to enslave, the democracies can and must use education to ennoble and set spiritually and intellectually free the millions of their young people. Great and ferocious destroyers, ruthless enemies of the race demonically brutal and cruel agents of evil have been trained and developed in German schools. Great reformers great leaders, great builders of the new world, can be trained and developed in the schools of democracy.

At this point it may be objected that such activity belongs rather to the religious than to the educational field. My personal answer to this objection is that, in the true meaning of the word ‘religion’, the two should never have been divorced. It is the materialisation of education that is so largely responsible for the present world condition. Orthodox religion has, of course, its own specific sphere — the Church. Unfortunately, it is largely restricted to that field, and this too has contributed to the development of the present situation. By orthodox religion I here refer rather to theological doctrine and ecclesiasticism than to any interior spiritual experience to which they are designed to lead.

One of the most painful phenomena of the present world-crisis has been the inability of orthodox religion to influence the situation and the relegation of the great Heads of the various Christian Sects to positions of relative impotence as far as the progress of events has been concerned.

Religion and Reconstruction

What part, then, can orthodox religion play in world reconstruction? The answers are, I think, two in number, both of them also truisms.

The first answer concerns the interior life and condition in our own Christian Faith. Out of the fiery ordeal of the second world-war must arise not only a new and far better world, but a new and far better Christian practice, a new and dynamic Christianity. One of the great healing forces available to the shattered nerves, the broken hearts and shell-shocked minds of post-war humanity, is that of a living Christian religion. In the Synods, the Churches, the factories, the offices, the schools (especially important) and the homes throughout all Christendom, there should be present the inspiring, unifying and consoling influence of a vital religious faith, satisfying to both mind and heart.

A new presentation of Christian principles is needed and, above all, to be acceptable to modem man, this statement must satisfy the intellect, must be clear, precise, logical, practical, intellectually unassailable. If it is to be the religion of the new age, Christianity must offer a logically acceptable alternative to atheism, agnosticism, Fascism, Communism and to the present privileged caste system in Democracy, must be made applicable to and eventually applied to every phase of human life — government, finance, education, housing, employment.

The Church must not be dependent upon financial support and so inclined to favour the financially favoured classes and individuals.

In other words, there is needed a Christianity utterly true to the original principles, sincerely believed in, and, as far as human weakness will allow, sincerely lived by all, from the highest cleric to the poorest parishioner.

The Church’s aid will be urgently needed in the third world-war for justice, equality, liberty, fraternity, as it is urgently needed in the second. In this war the Church must harness and launch against the enemies of progress the mighty forces of the human spirit and the human mind, must enhance their energy by the invoked and ever-ready power of the great Founder and His Communion of Saints. Scientifically directed prayer and aspiration could liberate upon earth such spiritual power as would sweep the forces of darkness right off the planet. For all modern wars, one past, one present and one to come, are in fact battles of power, fights between forces and beings of darkness and of light.

The Church, recognising this as an actuality and not an orthodox dogma, could through its members generate, and from its Founder evoke, a veritable torrent of spiritual force which would be irresistible.

This, I submit, is one part of the great call to Christianity today, the great work open to our Mother Church to Whom we, Christians, all look for guidance and for light.

Success in this process depends primarily upon vision, reality of spiritual experience in the spiritual leaders and secondarily upon unity within the Church itself.

Yet no single institution in the world is so divided against itself as the modem Christian Church with its innumerable denominations, each apparently far more concerned with difference of doctrine and jealously-guarded fields of activity than with the essential oneness of the divine life in all men and with Christ-like service to that life in every form.

This brings me to the second answer to the question of the part orthodox religion can play in world reconstruction. It concerns not only Christianity but all world-faiths.

Orthodox religion throughout the world can set an example to the world. The fundamental need of humanity at this time is world unity and world co-operation in every department of human life. Therefore the great need in the field of religion is for unity and co-operation. If the dedicated representatives and Ministers of the All Highest the world over will not show a common front, how then can nations, classes and individuals be expected to do so?

The unity of doctrine and of purpose in all religions is being recognised. A Fellowship or Congress of World-Faiths movement already exists and but needs to be developed. For there are no real doctrinal differences in the way.

There is but one Divine Source of all life, whether regarded personally or impersonally, whether worshipped by this name or by that. It is God.

There is but one great and central ethical message in all true religion. It is: ‘Love one another’.

There is but one basic doctrine in all world-faiths. It is: The Fatherhood of God and the spiritual unity or brotherhood of all men.

There is but one description of man in all religions. It is: Ye are Gods, created in the image of your Creator, sharing in His life and in no way separate from Him.

There is but one enunciation of the meaning and purpose of human existence. It is: ‘Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect’, or spiritual evolution to ‘perfection’.

There is but one statement to man concerning the location of the source of the divine power which ensures success in fulfilling this purpose. It is: Within you.

There is but one esoteric wisdom in all religions. It is the existence of the ever-open Path of Swift Unfoldment and of Those who have trodden it to the end, the just men made perfect, the Communion of Saints.

Since these great spiritual verities are shared by all faiths, why then the absence of co-operation by the great world religions at this time of world crisis, of man’s anguish and man’s need?

As the times are a challenge to world-education, so are they a challenge to world-religion. As brotherhood is the essential note to be struck in world-education of the reconstruction period and ever after, so unity is the great call to world-religion.

First, then, unity of action between all Christian denominations. Second, an active fellowship of world-faiths, each preserving its originality, its nomenclature and its followers. Together, all will unite to lead humanity to that vital religious experience which makes every man a natural reformer, a builder, a servant of his fellow men.

Thus I bring my series of truisms to a close. I make no apology for them. Forgotten, neglected save perhaps by lip service, they must now be resuscitated, recognised and applied to life. For without them we shall sink back into complacent acceptance of the old evils. Clever, unscrupulous men and nations will grab once more. An exploiting minority will possess the finest fruits of the earth. The exploited majority will be denied them. And the vast array of the intermediate will fall back into that appalling apathy which is the greatest barrier to all progress.

This grave danger now threatening the race may be met and overcome alone by the united efforts of all true reformers who must possess the necessary knowledge and must be armed with the necessary power. Theosophy is that knowledge. Theosophy provides the necessary power.

The task of spreading Theosophy throughout the whole world is therefore of immediate importance. The hour is critical, the call imperative. Theosophy in its most acceptable and practical form must be put within reach of every intelligent human being.

Here is a great call to us all to take our especially Theosophical part in post-war reconstruction.

The forthcoming reconstruction Convention can be of inestimable value in planning our answer to this great call.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1941, p. 12

181
A Reconstruction Convention

A Challenge

Many are the accusations which have been made against Theosophists. They have been charged with self-centredness, with coldness, crankiness, queemess, with pursuing an impracticable mysticism, with hiding personal inefficiency behind a shield of falsely assumed philosophic knowledge.

Intense individual interest in Theosophy, intensive study and personal application of Theosophy have perhaps contributed to the birth of these opinions. However that may be, now is the time to falsify them.

The planetary dimensions of the present war, of the spiritual, intellectual and physical reconstruction now forced upon humanity, collectively and individually, constitute both a challenge to us to prove our own worth and an opportunity to demonstrate the practical value of Theosophy. For in addition to a cataclysmic war, social and intellectual cataclysms are as obviously impending, if not already occurring.

New Zealand as a Social Laboratory

New Zealand is an epitome of the world. Its relative seclusion and compactness make it a perfect social laboratory. New Zealand is also the chosen birthplace and home of a new and advanced variant of Aryan Man and Aryan civilisation. New Zealand is a land set apart.

The social conscience of the people of New Zealand is awake and stirring. The New Zealand Section of The Theosophical Society has therefore a unique opportunity to advance solutions of the many practical problems upon which the fulfilment of its country’s destiny depends. The forthcoming Reconstruction Convention may well inaugurate a new phase in the life and work of the New Zealand Section. Far reaching results both for the Movement and for the country may follow from its deliberations.

Various reform movements exist and their leaders and members are susceptible to inspiration, guidance, light. It is within our power to give a great lead to this Nation as it gathers its ideas and forces for the great task of reconstruction which is even now in process. The present opportunity is unique and may never recur in its present dimensions. In order worthily to meet it, it will be necessary to plan, to prepare to give that lead.

The Present Critical Hour

To this end, it is important that every member who possibly can should attend the forthcoming Reconstruction Convention. To this end it would be most valuable if all members — civil servants, physicians and nurses, parents and teachers, those in the professions, in business and in industry, farmers and townspeople — would now apply themselves and Theosophy to the solution of those problems of which they are most acutely aware, as well as to those which seem to them to be of most vital importance. Thus may the New Zealand Section answer the clarion call of this present critical hour in national and international existence.

The Editor of this Journal has graciously offered me space for the brief expression of certain personal views concerning Reconstruction, and I gladly avail myself of the opportunity.

Basic Contributions

Theosophy seems to me to make at least three basic contributions to the problem of reconstruction. These are: The Universal Brotherhood of man is a fact in nature; the ideal state can only be founded and maintained by the ideal individual; education for idealism and service is a burning necessity.

Of these three, Brotherhood applied to life is the alpha and omega, the basic principle and test of all professions of faith whether religious, political or social. Without Brotherhood reform will fail, reconstruction will be imperfect, and lasting peace be unattainable. This is axiomatic, so I will pass to the second basic principle.

Totalitarianism denies the separate value, the rights and the freedom of the individual. Fascism relieves the individual of almost all responsibility save that of servile obedience, fanatical submission to mass regimentation, mental, emotional and physical. This is a reversal of the democratic principle that the state exists for and consists of its individual constituents.

Responsibility for the welfare of the state rests upon the individual, whether he is in office or not. This is an essential part of the social doctrine of the New Age. Fascism cannot succeed because it is retrogressive. The whole evolutionary trend is in the opposite direction. Indeed, as Brotherhood is the first, individual acceptance and fulfilment of civic, national and international responsibility is the second essential to harmonious and progressive national life, to successful and permanent reconstruction. Without the practical idealism of the individual, the wisest plans will fail. Amongst the essential qualities demanded in the successful builder of a new world, all important and basic is honesty.

How is idealism to be awakened, how may honesty in private and public life be obtained? This brings us to the third principle, for there is only one answer. It is by means of education.

Where else but in the home and the school can the latent idealism in man be awakened and directed? Education thus viewed assumes a position of supreme importance in all organised reform and especially in the present reconstruction era.

What then shall the scholar be taught in addition to the present subjects? The Theosophist would surely answer that at school youth should learn, primarily, the individual’s true fraternal relationship, and therefore duty to all other individuals, to his neighbour, his fellow citizens and to his world. Recognition of that true relationship of

Brotherhood, of the intimate spiritual bond between all men, will lead quite naturally to acknowledgement of individual responsibility and to its fulfilment through service.

This acknowledgement and fulfilment need to be fostered and wisely directed. Therefore every branch of national and civic government should be shown to the pupils of every school. Each should leave school with knowledge both of the management of the world he or she then enters and of his or her responsibility to that world. The pupils’ own special capacities for service should also have been discovered and developed, and they guided in their expression in service to the community.

If it be objected, as it is, that neither the country nor the parents can afford an education which is not of immediate commercial value and that brotherhood has no commercial value, I answer that humanity cannot afford another war.

Recognition of Brotherhood, the supreme importance of the individual, education for idealism and service — these three, it seems to me, are basic principles all important in the mighty task now before humanity of building a new world. To be of value they must be applied to the many practical problems confronting this country and the world at this time, and when especially peace is declared. To think out and discuss this application is a most interesting, valuable and truly Theosophical activity.

A Reconstruction Convention is not only most appropriate, but, in the writer’s view utterly essential at this critical time. From the point of view of applied Theosophy, nothing else matters.

A study of the basic principles involved can be most significant, not only for national and world reconstruction, but also and especially for that individual self-reconstruction without which world reconstruction must inevitably fail.

World Reconstruction and Self Reconstruction

World reconstruction and self reconstruction — these are as the twin foci of an ellipse, interdependent and inseparable. It is greatly to be hoped that both will receive their due meed of attention at our forthcoming Convention. If lodges and members co-operate to the full at this most critical epoch, this Reconstruction Convention will indeed be a most vital, interesting and inspiring occasion.

Let us all meet in Auckland at Convention. Let us take counsel together as to our part in the present world crisis in which, although the war is still far from being won, plans for the post war world must now be made. And above all, in our mutual search for light let us seek inspiration and guidance from Those Elder Brethren of Humanity to whom the Theosophical Society owes its origin and its life, Who comprehend perfectly the one Great Plan and Who must be exceedingly close to mankind at this great juncture in the life of our planet.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 2, October 1941, p. 130

182
Will the War Change the World?

I speak to you as an individual whose lot in life it has been for some fifteen years to wander about and around the world. I am still wandering, and as I go I study, observe, discuss.

In my travels I have met men with strange ideas, with strange thoughts, and, in the East, men with strange powers, and I have examined these three kinds of strangeness.

If you ask these men why we are here, they will say, to evolve into perfect wisdom. If you ask them why man suffers, they will say, because he violates natural laws. If you ask them why man violates natural laws, they will say because of certain undesirable attributes of human nature. If you ask how suffering may cease, they will say, by changing human nature for the better so that man does not violate natural laws.

If you then ask how human nature may be changed, they answer with one voice, these wise men, ‘by thought’, adding that ‘what a man thinks upon he becomes’.

If you ask how to help other people to change themselves, they say, by teaching them the truth about themselves and their place in Nature and amongst their fellow men.

With these ideas in my mind, I have been contemplating the pronouncement that up to the present thirteen million human beings have been killed in this war. I have been facing the fact that the war is not yet over. It may not even be half over. Though one does not wish to be pessimistic, before it finishes another thirteen million may have perished, ourselves amongst them. For there is no absolute assurance that the three Axis powers and the four pro-Axis powers will be defeated before they have carried the war over most of the earth.

Therefore I find it difficult wholly to keep my mind from either the present unparalleled world situation, or from the two colossal problems of post war reconstruction and the prevention of a third world war.

Of course one can take the historical view and from it realize that the present war will cease, life go on, and new civilisations and cultures arise. One can also know that civilisations may be destroyed, but Civilisation cannot. One can further say to oneself that the Soul of man is immortal and that only bodies die. All these statements are true. But one must also face physical facts, and, if one really cares at all about human happiness, one must seek for the solutions of the problems they present.

What organized agencies and forces exist in the world which are truly constructive and could be made truly remedial?

The answer is: Religion, Statecraft and Education. Of these three which offers the greatest hope? The clergyman will answer Religion, the politician, Statecraft, but I think Education.

Has presentday education any direct relation to these problems? If not, can it be brought into relationship with them? Can education be used to solve world problems?

Let us take the present war as an example of a world problem. At the present stage of human evolution, war is a symptom of a grave defect in human character. The naked aggression, the cynical and frank barbarism, the avowal that might is right, and the complete indifference to human rights and to human suffering displayed by the Axis powers are a dreadful indictment of the character of modem man.

If it be affirmed that these characteristics are limited to the group of peoples comprising the Axis forces, I fear that such a contention cannot be supported. Granted Hitlerism is a disease existing in an extreme form in Germany, but the qualities so blatantly displayed by the Germans, Italians and Japanese exist and are displayed, if less blatantly, throughout the whole world. Cruel, ruthless, cunning and unscrupulous men exist everywhere, and everywhere they seek and grasp power. Possessing it, they unhesitatingly use it for their own selfish and individualistic ends. Cruelty, ruthlessness, cunning and unscrupulousness are attributes of mankind at the present stage of human evolution.

How then may these characteristics of human nature be eradicated quickly, rather than by the slow processes of evolution? How may these defects be cured?

I know of but one answer. It is: by education. Of course, I do not mean by education as it is now. I mean by an educational system specially designed to cure them.

The opportunity of education is unique. The whole human family in its formative years passes through the hands of the teacher. I cannot escape the conviction, first that, given the direction and the time or periods, the teacher holds the solution in his or her hands and, second, that the time is at hand when we shall be forced by circumstances to extend our whole view of the scope and field of education.

Under present conditions the teacher cannot specialise in character building. He may say first that he is not responsible for human nature, and second that he is not a physician of souls. Both of these contentions are admitted. The teacher did not create man, and by the present methods of education he cannot turn every scholar into a saint, even if that were advisable. But the teacher and the educational system can and do mould character, and, to some extent, decide in which direction human energies shall be turned.

Could not these results be greatly increased? I hope so, for the only solution of the present problem of the capacity and tendency for man to injure and ruin himself that I can see is for the teacher definitely to become responsible for human nature and to become a maker of men and, where necessary, a physician of souls.

I am aware that it may here be objected that such is not the teacher’s task, but that of the Minister of Religion. The Minister of Religion has had the opportunity for centuries, and if it really is his responsibility, most lamentably has he failed.

During the historical period there have been eight thousand wars, and in the last three hundred years two hundred and ninety wars in Europe. Twenty years ago a World War ended. A second World War is now being waged. The problem of how to prevent a third war from following it is of supreme urgency.

I am forced to the conclusion that to solve it the aspect of education which directly affects human character and which inculcates civic mindedness and a recognition of national responsibility must be developed and greatly extended. This may be a dream hopeless of fulfilment, but it is a dream which in these days is constantly with me.

I am aware of the difficulties. I am aware that most radical and disturbing changes would be needed, for at present education is not primarily concerned with character, psychology and world planning and building. I am aware that capacity to earn a living is the prime necessity for almost every boy and girl, and that parents practically demand it as a result of school life. I am aware that the majority of children leave school at the end of primary education and so are too young for the development of civic-mindedness and the development of the higher qualities of character. I know this, but I cannot escape from two convictions. The first is that a way out of, over or around these obstacles must be found. The second is that, if it is not found, Europe will again be in danger of collapse. For the causes of the present collapse will still be present and active.

Sometimes it is pleasant and indeed useful to permit oneself to be Utopian. Besides, creative imagination is a positive use of the mind and such thinking is powerfully formative, not only upon one’s own mind, but upon the world mind. Let me then state a hypothesis.

Supposing the teacher were able to include character building as an essential and primary objective of education.

Supposing that in addition to imparting knowledge, to training in efficiency and to preparing for life, the teacher deliberately sought to awaken youth to a vision of excellence, to make men, great men, noble men, civic minded men, honest men, chivalrous men, men of goodwill, of sterling character, men who loved and served their fellow men.

Supposing the development of corresponding ideal types of women were made an educational objective.

Supposing that education turned out statesmen who cared nought for office and power, but cared supremely for the State, and lawyers who were tried and trusted friends of the family, men who put helping people along first, and acquiring a big bank balance second. (Some lawyers already do this.)

Supposing the majority of business men had been trained at school really to care for the health and happiness and progress of their employees and felt responsible for them. (Some business men do care.) Supposing also that — especially inculcated at school — honesty actuated the majority of business men and they couldn’t sleep at nights if a crooked deal or dishonest practice were either contemplated or completed.

Supposing the majority of employees were brought up from childhood always to give a square deal to their employers, whether private or Governmental. (Some employees do this already.)

Supposing the majority of doctors were trained in medical school, to think first and foremost of prevention of disease, so that the need for their profession would be greatly reduced, second of really curing, and only third of fees. (Some doctors do.)

Supposing brewers and saloon keepers couldn’t sleep nights because of the havoc wrought upon the public health and happiness by liquor, and simply couldn’t continue in their trade.

Supposing the owners of slum property really cared for the happiness, comfort and welfare of their fellow men.

Supposing ministers of religion said that within man is all he needs of power, peace and happiness, that each man is a God created in the image of his Creator, that blind faith and abject fear as attributes of worship are an insult to the Creator, that the threat of punishment and disintegration in the hereafter unless certain dogmas were accepted constituted spiritual blackmail, that a lost soul is an impossibility in Nature, that all men of all races and all creeds are one and equal in the sight of God, share in a common Life, and that the Brotherhood of Man is a fact in Nature.

Supposing the officials in all denominations were trained in their seminaries frankly to admit that division is both a denial of Christ’s teaching and a source of great weakness in spreading that teaching, and so joined together in one great service to humanity irrespective of creed and class.

Supposing the objective of religion were to ennoble human character and to lead each man to his own direct, vital experience of the Divine Presence without and within him.

Supposing Christianity became a living faith, were presented in a manner and form intellectually unassailable, were a faith practised as well as professed.

Supposing that from the first day at school to the last, all these ideals and truths together with eagerness to co-operate, self-responsibility, honesty, decency, clean mindedness, friendliness and courtesy were inculcated both by example and as an insistent influence throughout the whole establishment.

Supposing that, in planning educational systems and reforms, it were recognized that book knowledge alone is not a guide to living, and that the evolution of human consciousness, the unfoldment of man’s inner life, the development of the finest qualities of human character, and the establishment on earth of peace, justice and humaneness were considered.

Supposing that there could be unification, not a regimentation of the educational systems of the Democracies.

Supposing that such mobilised education would accept responsibility for the task generally allotted to religion alone — that of becoming the source of new power, lofty vision, noble ambition, love for all men, of educating the human race on this earth for a lofty standard of living, a high ethical code, of educating for world peace, for reconstruction, for world planning, for world service, for a world vision and the recognition of the Brotherhood of Man.

A Utopian dream? Maybe, but I believe that its realisation would be the best insurance against another war. Can it be realized? Will it be realized? That depends upon how deeply the sufferings of the present war have affected human mentality. Have we suffered enough? Would it be a pity from an evolutionary point of view if the war were to end this year? A young airman said to me the other day in effect: ‘I hope the war does not end too soon. If it does, we shall sink back into the darkness of pre-war injustices, oppressions and exploitations, and all the hate and vindictiveness which arise from them’.

Will the war have to go on or be repeated, the sufferings of mankind be deepened and extended, and the casualties be doubled and trebled before man ceases to be the source of his own age-long and continuing tribulations? Will mankind have to be driven by a succession of wars into planning a reasonable, a just, an equitable political, social and economic order, for its own safeguarding from itself? Or will mankind not wait for that? Will humanity proceed voluntarily now, and on the signing of peace, to make plans and to execute them for a world order really based on humane principles?

That for me is the great question of the hour. An affirmative answer depends, I am forced to conclude, upon whether we can harness the potential forces of education for immediate world reconstruction and for long term world building.

The Theosophist, Vol. 63, September 1942, p. 461

183
The Weapons of the Dark Forces and Humanity's Sure Shields ^{^[174]}

The student of the history of the cultural and spiritual evolution of Mankind on Earth recognises the existence of two opposing Forces. These are sometimes called the Forces of Light and the Forces of Darkness. All unselfish human beings, on whatever level of evolution they may stand, are representatives of the Forces of Light. All selfish human beings, from the cruel, lustful savage up to the highly intellectual enemy of human happiness, are representatives of the Forces of Darkness. Between these two a perpetual warfare is waged, of which the two World Wars were temporary physical expressions.

The Theosophical Society may be regarded as a battle operation of the Forces of Light. We, Theosophists, who have the privilege of being active in the work are soldiers of the front line: Let us, therefore, examine the enemy’s strength, his weapons and his methods of using them. Let us try also to conceive of the most potent shields, the most effective counter-attacks.

WEAPONS AND METHODS AND SHIELDS

Weapon 1. Maintenance and increase of the ignorance and mental confusion of humanity.

The cause of all human suffering is ignorance. The safeguard and cure is knowledge, leading to realisation.

Shield: Human enlightenment.

The Theosophical Society, the whole purpose of which is to enlighten the mind of man, is a shield against the evil forces in the world which sap and destroy the health of mankind, moral and physical. Theosophic activity is a most effective counter-attack. All effective movements with the same objective are part of this one sure shield.

Weapon 2. Alcohol.

Alcohol has long been known to cause more social degeneracy than any other agency, to make always for wastefulness and inefficiency, to weaken the manhood of a race, to bring in its train dishonour and degradation, the ruination of women, divorces, poverty, innumerable diseases, and generally to spread misery and shame wherever it is found.

Alcohol is one of the great weapons used by the powers of darkness and evil. With their usual demonical skill and ruthless efficiency, most successfully have those powers, and their human agents, employed alcohol to produce in the human race demoralisation, degradation, misery and decay.

Shield: Temperance. Education.

The world needs a great Temperance Crusade in order to defeat what is probably the most powerful weapon in the hands of the Dark Powers, and the greatest single evil in the world.

Weapon 3. Economic exploitation.

The deliberate misuse of money and the power which it brings. The skilful use of the human characteristics of greed, hate and fear. An equal evil with drink. Unlike drink, which is gaining ground, financial exploitation is losing during war. A gigantic effort will be made after the war to restore this great bastion of evil with its central citadel, which is the devilish doctrine — ‘Each for himself and the Devil take the hindmost’. T am not my brother’s keeper’.

Shield: World legislation against Poverty. Social security.

Weapon 4. Military aggression.

Shield: Brotherhood.

Weapon 5. Cruelty.

This includes all the nameless cruelties inflicted by man upon man, upon children, the weak, the aged, and upon the animal kingdom. In addition to physical cruelty there is the even more far-reaching cruelty of gossip, calumny, slander.

Shield: Kindness as a gospel and ideal of life.

Sooner or later, and the sooner the better for humanity, the doctrine of harmlessness will have to be adopted by the whole race, and applied to every aspect of human life. Particularly in the field of religion will harmlessness have to become an essential expression of the religious life.

Among successful counter-attacks are a universal Anti-Cruelty Crusade, a Vegetarian Society for New Zealand and every country, and support for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

‘Always be kinder than the situation demands’.

Weapon 6. Ugliness.

This is the special mark of the beast. It pervades all human life, even the Arts themselves, the supposed Sanctuary of Beauty. The words ‘black arts’ have a new meaning today. They connote not only the practice of black magic — another powerful weapon — but the defamation and degradation of the Arts themselves. Thus everywhere amongst civilised peoples are to be met black music, black dancing, black painting and very black advertising.

Shield: A crusade for beauty.

This must be initiated in the schools, where ugliness must be denounced and cultural ideals be inculcated, and the supreme necessity for beauty in human life accentuated.

Weapon 7. Exploitation of and injustice to woman.

Shield: Equality of status in everything.

Man also to accord respect, honour, chivalry to woman. These ennoble a race. In their absence a race degrades itself. Sex-reverence is urgently needed.

Weapon 8. Ignorance, superstition, Priest-craft and disunity in religion.

Compare the teachings of Jesus with the following dogmas:

FALLACIES OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

¹That God has human vices, anger, etc.

²That dependence upon an external Redeemer is essential to Salvation.

³That belief in material atonement inhibits the action of the Law of Causation.

⁴That Christianity is the only true religion, revelation and way to God. Followers of all other Faiths are pagans and damned unto Eternity.

⁵That a human soul can be lost.

⁶That eternal torment awaits the erring human soul.

⁷That the descent of spirit and of human consciousness into matter was a fall and a sin, for the expiation of which God had to send His Son that men might kill Him and so be saved.

⁸That the Bible is directly inspired by God, and literally true word by word.

⁹That damnation awaits those who do not believe this.

¹⁰That there is no pre-existence of the soul, or Special Creation.

¹¹That there is only one life on earth for each individual.

¹²The resurrection of the body.

To get these fallacies foisted onto Christianity, with all their incalculable harm, has been a very great victory for the Dark Powers. Here, as in the Arts, the Dark Powers have successfully invaded the very shrine and citadel of the Forces of Light — Religion itself. The World Faiths are mutually antagonistic. No institution is so divided against itself into innumerable sects, mutually non-co-operative, as the Christian Faith; as long as this situation continues it cannot increase as a spiritual power and shield against evil.

Shield: The dissemination of Truth, i.e., Theosophy.

Fellowship of World Faiths. Unity of Christian Denominations.

Weapon 9. Materialism. Behind all evil.

Material objectives for all effort. ‘Take and get’ the impelling motive, and success in both the test of success in life. Heedlessness in daily life. Everything is taken for granted. Little self-recollection. Little gratitude. Little or no sense of the Presence of God, and so of deep responsibility in life. No private religious life. No sense of interior communion. No ideal of spiritual attainment. No making of great men and women. Concentration on material power, possessions, property, popularity.

Shield: Spirituality — Vision.

For example:

We are all blind until we see

That in the human plan,

Nothing is worth the making, if

It does not make a man!

Why build we cities glorious

If man unbuilded goes?

In vain we build the world

Unless the builder grows.

-Edwin Markham

Weapon 10. Secularisation of education.

Another great success of the Dark Powers. The true aim of education is to build men, but now largely secularised.

Shield: Idealism in education.

Weapon 11. Materialism in the medical profession.

Mechanistic view. Vivisection, serums, alcohol and meat encouraged; money the predominant motive.

Shield: Theosophical knowledge of the Constitution of Man, the Purpose of Life and the Law of Causation.

Physician as priest, living a selfless, dedicated life.

From this consideration of the weapons of the enemy, and mankind’s defences against them, it is clear that a great and world-wide religious revival is needed, a rebuilding of spiritual faith, a return to moral principles and obedience to moral law.

‘I want a world in which religion will be a matter not only of Churches and rituals but a part of every person’s daily life’.

-Mrs Roosevelt

One great difficulty in this conflict is that the weapons of the Dark Powers are continually and successfully used by them with man’s concurrence. Many men welcome them, frankly and blatantly profit by them. For this reason if the Dark Powers are defeated in the present war, they are still far from being finally beaten. Hitlerism is rife everywhere.

The great Shield therefore consists of individual Gnostics, unshakeable believers, devoted crusaders great champions of the right, and organized agencies composed of men and women wholly consecrated to the service of the Powers of Light and the cause of human happiness and progress.

The Theosophist, Vol. 65, October 1943, p. 47

184
Ve Day Reflections

Today officially marks the defeat of the forces of Darkness by the Forces of Light, probably the most decisive defeat they have ever experienced. Surrender is not only unconditional, it is abject. The main physical organism through which the Powers of darkness have operated for ten years in this last cycle of their objective activity is destroyed by the sacrifice and skill of the nations who become agents for the Powers of Light.

Now, other agencies will be sought and found, both national and individual; for the Dark Powers themselves continue to exist despite the loss of national representatives. In fury, an even mightier and more ruthlessly cunning onslaught will be made.

For this second World War marks the turning of the evolutionary tide on this planet. Fifth Race man has successfully passed the Fifth Race Judgment Day by action on the physical plane. The decisive factor was ability to unite, and the development of that power is the mark of planetary and racial progress. Unity is the principle by which disunity is defeated. Unification the manifestation of that principle which ensures success. Continuance of unity and of unified action is the all-essential factor in the maintenance of the position now attained.

At this decisive moment in this decisive day, the Powers of Darkness are searchingly scrutinising the hearts and minds of Nations and of individuals. They seek there the seeds of disunity, individualism, selfishness. Wherever they find them they will water them, tend the young plants to the end of full flower in self-seeking nationalism and monstrous individualism.

Thus a new danger threatens the world, the danger that the evil power focussed so powerfully in the Axis Nations, and operating in concentrated form through them, may now be let loose over the whole earth and find a more universal representation in and through the people of all nations. Therefore amidst all our rejoicing there must be careful self scrutiny, a national and individual self examination and decision. The seeds of selfishness must be rooted up. The weeds of egoism must be torn out that the new life of selflessness and unity may unhindered be embarked upon.

For those nations and individuals that can respond, a wondrous opportunity will arise. The Powers of Light also continue Their activity. They will feed and cherish every noble quality of which mankind is capable, so that for all men the possibility has arisen for mental and spiritual advance far beyond the normal rate.

A new battlefield now exists. A new war must now be waged. Physical peace has come to the West and soon must come to the whole world. The battleground now is the mind of mankind, the test is that of character, the victory ensuring principle is spiritual vision leading to self purification and self mastery. A great surge forward and upward on the evolutionary way is indeed now possible for millions of men in consequence of the heroic sacrifice by which the battle has been fought and won and by reason of the victory itself.

A mental Judgment Day is now upon mankind, a vast weighing of the heart of humanity upon the Cosmic Scales. It will last a century or more, during which the great decision must be made. If conscience proves to have ruled conduct, then the Twentieth Century will mark the decisive upward turn in racial evolution from materialism and individualism to spirituality and world co-operation.

Physically, the present time is exceedingly favourable to mankind. Mentally, a crisis exists, upon the outcome of which the future greatly depends. Spiritually, great forces will be liberated, greatly to the benefit and upliftment of all who can and will respond to them. The open mind, the pure heart which weans the selfless heart, and the co-operative life, these are the three essentials to triumphant passage through the Judgment Hall into the Presence of the Divine Judge and Hierophant, the Osiris which is the Spiritual Soul of man.

The trial and the triumph have been immense, the victory momentous. Mankind as won for itself an unparalleled opportunity. World unity, world co-operation, world vision are the prizes for such great success. For individuals, the pathway to spiritual illumination and to entrance upon the Way of Holiness is wide open and easier to find than it has probably been throughout the whole history of mankind.

Such in part are the thoughts evoked by contemplation of the great trial and the great victory in the West which this day we celebrate.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1945, p. 67

185
Light in Our Darkness

Test of Courage

Ever since this war began we peoples of the Empire who are far removed from the battlefields, and still more so the peoples at home, have been called upon to receive almost continuous news of Allied failure and defeat. As a result, our faith and our courage are being tested continually. A further test awaits us all. Britain alone of the belligerent Democracies now remains to face a powerful and ruthless enemy. She is the only remaining Allied nation whose complete Empire is intact and whose fighting forces are undefeated, in first class order and of dauntless spirit. But she is alone. The hour is dark, the situation grave, the danger great and immediate.

Upon what facts may faith and courage be founded as the people of the British Isles now prepare to undergo their ordeal by fire? What can we British Theosophists overseas find to reassure us in this hour? Upon what supports, spiritual and material, may our faith be made secure?

Brotherhood of the One Life

Before I begin to advance a Theosophical view of the present situation, I deem it necessary to enunciate the one basic truth concerning life itself. This is the truth of Unity. From the point of view of the all pervading, Divine life, divisions of race are an illusion. For whilst its material forms are but transient, ephemeral, the One Life is eternal.

There are many brotherhoods. There is the basic and indissoluble brotherhood of the One Life. There is the brotherhood of common joys, of sorrows shared, and there is the brotherhood of common guilt. True these three human experiences are all shared in differing degrees, and we Allied peoples believe that Germany’s share of guilt is heavy indeed: Nevertheless we cannot wholly escape responsibility, for we are all one. The progress of the war thus far has demonstrated unmistakably the existence in every country involved of kindred spirits with those who have made Germany’s succession of victories possible. Let us face these facts and so avoid that false vision which complacency and self-conceit inevitably produce. Above all let us beware lest temporary enmity with the present form should blind us to the brotherhood of the Di vine Life within the form. For behind these brotherhoods of joy, of sorrow and of guilt exists the greatest brotherhood of all. This is the brotherhood of shared divinity, of oneness with God.

Racial Evolution

Even whilst remembering, as Theosophists must, this eternal verity, we temporary dwellers in the worlds of form are forced to recognize the existence of difference of form, of the many separate nations within which the One Life is incarnate.

First, then, let us look with Theosophical eyes at our own, the British race. To what belief has Theosophy brought us concerning racial evolution on our earth and our own part therein?

We believe in the existence of a divine plan for the spiritual and material evolution to ‘perfection’ of all life. We have knowledge of the existence of the Superman Who constitutes the World’s true government, all-wise, all-powerful, all-knowing. Under Its perfect direction we know that, despite human waywardness and human karma resulting, this world is safe and that the divine plan will be fulfilled.

We know also that the spiritual Self of man is immortal, indestructible and under perfect law is perpetually unfolding as does an opening flower. Human bodies and human civilizations are ephemeral structures. Although they die and disappear, the immortal Self of man endures unto eternity. This is the spiritual basis founded upon which our faith and courage are unshakable.

We have, however, material supports almost equally sure. Both history and the Ancient Wisdom reveal that the British people have been given a great opportunity to become builders of a World Empire which shall be a model of the unity of free peoples upon which the future World Federation of nations shall be founded.

Spain appears first to have been given this great task. One flaw in her character caused her Empire to crumble into the dust. That flaw was cruelty — a flaw be it ever remembered from which no nation and few individuals are free. The torch passed to England under Queen Elizabeth when Bacon was on earth. Three centuries have passed and today we are all part of the firmly established British Commonwealth of free nations. Success has been achieved. The model has been brought into existence whatever its imperfections. Its projection and its duplication by other peoples in varied forms has begun.

The United States of America form now a single nation. Pan-Americanism received a strong impetus from the deliberations at the recent Pan-American conference. Its purpose is to organize the American Continent into some form of Federation to secure peace in the new world and make it safe for Democracy. The Pan-European movement aims to make European boundaries invisible and to form a United States of Europe. The British Commonwealth of nations exists. The U.S.A. exists. Pan-Americanism and Pan-Europeanism are conceived and men are working for them.

Can Britain Fail?

With so much achieved, with so much at stake, it is inconceivable that the Empire — the great and living model — should fail. If it should fail, there will be two causes under the law. One will be the flaws in the individuals, their Governments and their regimes, and the other will be the consequent transgressions from which under the karmic law there will be a reaction in kind.

Let us look at the Empire from this point of view and try to assess her karmic position. Accurate assessment of the karmic situation, whether of an individual or a race, is quite impossible to the human mind, but we can at least examine Britain’s position with such knowledge as we possess. On the whole, whilst far from guiltless, Britain’s colonial administration is fitly crowned by the Statute of Westminster. She has set her Dominions free. She played a large part in the abolition of the slave trade from the civilized world. Sanctuary she has always given to those fleeing from injustice in other lands. She paid heavy debts to Nature by her sufferings and sacrifices both in the Great War and up to the present in its successor. Unlike her defeated Allies, her national self-purification and her awakening though late, have occurred before the invasion of England begins. Materially and spiritually Britain’s house is now as much in order as it can hope to be. The nation is unified as in the last war, which was won despite the fact that owing to the submarine menace and other factors the situation became even more dangerous than at present.

The Empire is possessed of a magnificent leader whom all can trust, and an efficient and truly National Government.

Even the disasters which have befallen the Allied cause have their favourable side. Britain is now free of external responsibilities. She no longer is forced to despatch very costly expeditionary forces on dangerous missions. She is able to concentrate all her power upon two tasks — the defence of the homeland and the Empire, and the ultimate defeat of the enemy.

In the fulfilment of these tasks Britain still maintains her freedom of the seas and, unless immediate disaster befalls her, has reasonable hopes of attaining to a similar supremacy in the air.

The Spear-Point of Evolutionary Advance

Last and most important from the Theosophical point of view of the favourable facts which may here be adduced in support of our unshakable courage and faith, the Empire is on the side of Evolutionary progress. The British Army now constitutes the spear-point of the evolutionary advance of the human race upon this our globe. Therefore the mighty powers of the spirit, the irresistible pressure of the intelligent life force in all Nature, the direct attention — which means omnipotent Power — of the One Great Planner and of His Ministers in the Solar System, and on earth, must be upon the one group of peoples now remaining in arms to combat the forces of destruction and decay.

With all this on her side, can Britain fail?

Germany

What of Germany? Wishful thinking must here be avoided. For too long have we under-estimated the strength of her armies and airforce built up with one purpose during the past seven years. Germany is a mighty antagonist, but we have beaten her once within living memory, and we know that we can beat her again.

Germany is blockaded and despite her spoilation of conquered peoples, grievously lacking in those raw materials in which the Empire’s resources are inexhaustible and freely available. Her people are enslaved mentally and physically. The unified service to the State and the response to discipline and direction which the peoples of the Empire voluntarily give, the peoples of Germany are forced to give. For in Germany, man can trust no man, not even the nearest and dearest. The German people live not only in ignorance, but under the perpetual shadow of a dread brutality, which not even the news of great and successive victories can relieve.

The German Navy was far stronger in the last war than it was even at the beginning of this. Its power is now largely destroyed. Last time, Germany broke down from within. Signs are not lacking of a similar danger in this. Thus we may with reason assume that, flushed with victory though she is, Germany, even with Italian aid, is far from invincible.

France

What of France? The flaws in the chalice of the Nation’s life have proved too serious and too deep seated. In consequence a proud and glorious people have gone down into the darkness of humiliation and defeat, a spectacle which evokes the deepest compassion from us all. For the noble French Nation now lies bleeding at a ruthless conqueror’s feet.

Even in this great darkness, a light still shines. The spirit of France still lives. Fair France will rise again, free once more and bound by ties to all those brother Nations which shared her sorrows and will then share in her victory.

World Brotherhood and Peace

Out of such a unity, from such a brotherhood of sorrow and defeat, will there not most assuredly be established a unity which will not be lost, but will prove to be the nucleus of the future World Federation of all States?

The Theosophist answers in the affirmative, for he knows that as the consciousness of man penetrates more deeply beyond the mental into the intuitional worlds, the fact of the oneness of all life and therefore of the brotherhood of man will be increasingly recognized. That penetration is occurring. A new level of awareness is being entered by the race. The Christ Child is being born again, not in a stable in any one land, but within the hearts of the human race. As of old Herod sought the death of that which threatened his rule, so today the incarnated spirit of separateness and individualism seeks to destroy the dawning consciousness of unity and to render impossible the progress of the race to world-brotherhood and peace. The Herod-Nations little realize that by the very threat and its attempted fulfilment the peoples of the world are being unified. Just as the Christ Child escaped from Herod and returned to usher in a new age, so the new vision of human life lived in unity will escape its threatened destruction and live to establish a new world order. For such is the divine plan.

Spiritual Self of Man

One last thought. Above the storm which rages in these lower worlds there is a place of peace. Therein abides perpetually the spiritual Self of man. Even though the body falls, mangled and dying, the true Self abides in calm unshakable, in peace which nothing can disturb. When the hours of trial come, when bad news arrives as well it may, even should invasion threaten the lands on which we live, we, Theosophists, know that man possesses the power to rise above the battle and the storm, to awaken the sleeping Christ consciousness as the Disciples did of old, and all Disciples must ever do. In the power of his divine nature, his immortal Self, and invoking its majestic will, with certainty of obedience man can say to all storms external or interior, ‘peace be still’. For deep within the Inner Self we, Theosophists, know that we can unfailingly find that spiritual power which will not only preserve our own faith and courage amidst the darkness around us, but will make each one of us as stable as the Rock of Ages amidst the present storm, centres of stability upon which our fellow men may unfailingly depend.

As for myself, though without illusions as to the danger which threatens us all, I can but say that I am confident of victory, as I have never been since this war began. For me England shall not, cannot die. I believe her to be guarded, a citadel impregnable, spiritually and physically.

The Great White Brotherhood exists from eternity to eternity, and its members, not Herr Hitler, rule this world.

The whole world’s karma is being precipitated at this time in preparation for a great spiritual and cultural advance. Age old debts are being paid that the soul of humanity may be made free.

A deep darkness is now upon the British people. A deeper darkness may descend but it will be that darkness which precedes the dawn.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 1, August 1940, p. 10

186
Theosophy

SOLE SALVATION FOR A WORLD IN DANGER

A Master of the Wisdom has stated that the fundamental mission of the Theosophical Society is to spread Theosophy throughout the world. The fulfilment of this mission has, I submit, now become an urgent necessity; for Theosophy applied to international, national and personal relationships is the sole solution of the problems that for some time have been and are mounting in intensity at a very disturbing rate. Whilst ever remembering the complete freedom of thought — and therefore of resultant action — that is granted to every member, the present world situation is so grave and so dangerous to human life and security, that very great — and I am inclined to say extraordinary — efforts are now called for by those who find themselves thus moved.

A Clear-eyed Look

Clear-eyed, may we now face the present world situation, particularly from the point of view of mankind’s deliberately increasing capacity for mutual slaughter.

The latest figures show that 42 million people died prematurely in the ten years embracing the Second World War. Nearly 25 millions were civilian, and 17 millions were military deaths. These 42 millions were men, women and children who were starved, tortured, shot, blown to pieces, vivisected, frozen or gassed to death.

Since the end of the Second World War, the nations have vainly sought for that international unity and solidarity for which the great majority are longing; for, like twin swords of Damocles, atomic, bacteriological and nerve gas warfare hang over every Race, city and human being on Earth.

In the New Zealand Herald, 2/1/76, it was stated by Dr Frank Bamaby: ‘If the United States and the Soviet Union continue the production of nuclear weapons, they will soon have enough arms to destroy each other 100 times’. The Director of the Stockholm international Peace Research Institute said on January 1st, in Stockholm, that the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union are now thought to have similar strength in tactical nuclear arms, with each country possessing about 20,000 of these terrible weapons.

Russia’s Newest Rocket

(Newsweek, 8/9/75) Soviet rocket engineers are pushing development of a new solid fuel rocket with a range of about 2,500 miles — too short to reach the U.S., and therefore exempt from any ceilings set by the U.S. — Soviet strategic arms limitation talks. It would, however, pose a potent threat to Western Europe, the Middle East and China. Called the SSX-20, the new intermediate-range missile, carrying three warheads, could be deployed in underground silos, or ‘to confuse satellite reconnaissance’ mounted on mobile vehicles.

Whilst The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: No one shall be subjected to torture, to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, virtually every nation on earth subscribes to that straightforward principle. Yet, like most other U.N. pledges, the clause is widely and brutally ignored.

One of the grim truths of the second half of the 20th century is that rarely before in history has torture been in such widespread use.

Amnesty International, the widely respected rights organisation headquartered in London, estimates that in the last decade torture has been officially practised in 60 countries; last year alone there were more than 40 violating states. From Chile, Brazil, Argentine, Uruguay and Paraguay to Guinea, Uganda, Spain, Iran and the Soviet Union, torture has become a common instrument of state policy practised by ruling cliques against almost anyone seen as a threat to their power. ‘Torture’, says Marc Schreiber, Director of the U.N.’s Commission on Human Rights, ‘is a phenomenon of our times’. (Time, August 16th, 1976)

A Steadily Increasing Build up

In addition, week after week — sometimes almost day after day — news arrives that many of the evils above described are steadily increasing in the world. Statistical figures demonstrate this. As I write, for example, I have just read the following: ‘The International Institute for Strategic Studies has just released a new report on the latest hardware being developed or coming into service as part of the East-West arms build up. The biggest build up is in nuclear weapons. In numbers of strategic delivery vehicles — missiles and planes — Russia now has a 20 per cent lead over America: 2507 to 2097. But this is only one method of measurement. In deliverable warheads America has a huge superiority (8530 to 3250). This is because it is ahead of Russia in re-equipping its missiles with Mirvs — clusters of warheads directed to separate targets’ (New Zealand Herald, 13/9/76).

Millions Starving

More than 900 million people in developing countries are ‘engulfed by absolute poverty’.

Of the 1200 million people in the poorest nations, 750 million were among the ‘absolute poor’, living on less than $100 a year, with many of their basic human needs unmet. World Bank President Mr Robert McNamara, in an address to the joint annual meeting of the Bank and the International Monetary Fund (The Auckland Star, October 4th, 1976).

The Only Deterrent

World statesmen, national leaders and individuals would not be able, I submit, to contribute to the increase of this vast network of evil by deliberately embarking upon destructive modes of planning and action, if the following theosophical ideas and ideals were sufficiently well known and applied to the motives and the conduct of those who accepted them.

THE INHERENT LIFE PRESENT IN ALL NATURE, AND SO IN ALL SENTIENT BEINGS, IS ONE AND THE SAME LIFE. In consequence, in degree according to effects produced, actions which either help or injure one person inevitably influence everyone else. The word ‘family’ correctly describes the relationship between all people on Earth, each single inhabitant being intimately allied to every other. The word ‘Brotherhood’ well describes this interconnection. Nevertheless, the idea and resultant responsibility of a human family may perhaps be more pertinent.

THE PURPOSE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF ALL MEMBERS OF EARTH’S FAMILY IS ALSO ONE AND THE SAME. In a word it is ‘development’, meaning the steady and regular unfoldment to the highest possible degree of every innate, desirable quality and faculty. Just as plants grow quite naturally from seed to flower, and thence to fruit, so also every other living product of Nature is undergoing from within itself precisely the same procedure. In the case of man, this implies evolution from savagery to Saviourship, from domination over others to ministration towards them, from the motive of self-gain to that of intelligently planned, compassionately inspired service. St Paul wrote: ‘Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ (Ephesians 4:13), Our Lord also affirmed: ‘Ye shall be perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect’ (Matthew 5:48).

The human mind, brain, heart should ideally ever extend their interests and pursuits of happiness beyond the goal of gain for oneself to wisely planned gain for all others. Thus guided in the production of every important thought and deed, each based upon realized oneness with the Life in all that lives; thus loving, thus practically helping, growing multitudes of servers could arise throughout the world. Thus alone, I venture to affirm, may the dark night of world evil begin to experience the dawning of a new day. A ‘Sun’ of Universal Love and Wisdom — Theosophia — shining with Divine Intelligence would then appear above the ‘Eastern horizon’. Thus and thus alone, may the present civilisation be saved from the decline into which it would now appear to be so seriously descending.

Nothing less than this will save mankind from its present headlong rush towards possible mutual bodily annihilation by means of weapons of almost unlimited destructiveness now available. Selfless service is of special value when performed on behalf of those human beings who are greatly in need of help. This has been beautifully expressed by a great Master, Who wrote: ‘I would not let one cry whom I could save’.^{^[175]}

Two immeasurably urgent reasons exist for this transformation of human nature. One of these simply stated, is: Since every other single person is a member of one’s own spiritual family, bodily differences in no way detract from the fact of the identity of both the life principle in all and of the purpose for its varied manifestations. All members of the human Race are as mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers to each other. In consequence, benefit or harm to one inevitably affects, even invisibly, every other member of the human family.

THE SECOND IMMEASURABLY URGENT REASON FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF HUMAN NATURE IS THAT HUMAN LIFE ON EARTH IS LIVED UNDER THE ABSOLUTE DOMINION OF THE NATURAL PROCEDURE OF ACTION AND APPROPRIATE REACTION, CAUSE AND EFFECT. This has been summed up in and expressed by one of the world’s oldest tongues — namely, in Sanskrit, Karma.

Whenever nations operate as a unit for the apparent benefit of their people (or individuals do the same) at the cost of the health, happiness and wellbeing of others, an appropriate counter operation always takes place under this law. Pain giving produces pain, and happiness giving produces happiness, always in the degree in which the causative actions have been performed. Although these reactions may not be very often are not — immediate, and therefore not known to be related to the causative activities in terms of time, place and Individuality, nevertheless the law of action and appropriate reaction inevitably follows a course of interrelated procedures.

Although this truth has been enunciated by great teachers and leaders from time immemorial, the ‘time-gap’, together with the overpowering motive of self-gain, have contributed to its almost total neglect — hence the darkened and now more deeply darkening aspects of the history of the world.

The Lord Christ affirmed ‘It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one jot or one tittle of the law to fail’ (Matthew 5:18). ‘Judge not that ye be not judged’ (Matthew 7:1). ‘And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise’ (Luke 6:31) . . . ‘with the same measure that ye mete withall it shall be measured to you again’ (Luke 6:38).

How then one may ask, does exactly the appropriate effect actually reach the actor, particularly if he or she experiences bodily death before this occurs? The answer has also been enunciated throughout the ages by Seers and Prophets.

IT IS: THAT BOTH THE EVOLUTIONARY PROCEDURE AND THE FUNCTION OF THE LAW ARE BROUGHT ABOUT BY MEANS OF THE SUCCESSIVE REBIRTHS OF ONE AND THE SAME INDIVIDUALISED LIFE-PRINCIPLE, OR REINCARNATING SOUL. One may therefore sow the ‘seeds’ of either sweet scented, beautiful, happiness giving ‘flowers’, or those of ugliness in the form of pain and misery inflicted upon fellowmen in a particular physical life. One inevitably reaps the absolutely equivocal effects of personal conduct in successive incarnations, always modified by motives and actions that have intervened, be it ever remembered.

The evolution of the spiritual Soul of every human being to perfection — Mahatmaship, Buddhahood or Christhood, for example — is brought about by the operation upon man of Nature’s Universal Law of cyclic manifestation and ‘rest’, repeated withdrawal and re-emergence. In man, as we have seen, this takes the form of successive bodily rebirths, the conditions of which are governed by preceding conduct. Happiness giving action is always succeeded by happiness, whilst the production of misery is inevitably followed by misery, whether immediately, later in the same life, or in a following incarnation. Death only brings the end of one’s physical body and never of one’s true Self which lives on and unfolds unto Eternity.

INTERRELATIONSHIP IS THE KEYWORD INTIMATELY LINKING NATIONS, PERSONS, ACTIONS, REACTIONS AND EACH OF MAN’S SUCCESSIVE LIVES OR REINCARNATIONS. All of these are triply bound together, first, by the interior presence of one and the same Divine Life Principle second by Nature’s birth and rebirth procedure of unfoldment and third by the operation of the Law of Cause and Effect.

As applied more especially to physically embodied humanity, difference of race, colour of skin and of sex, in no slightest sense imply the existence of any separateness whatever in the inherent nature of the immortal Selves of all mankind. This truth also has been continuously advanced by the Teachers of the Race, but most unhappily again largely because of objective circumstances has in its turn been continuously disregarded. Hence the parlous condition of the world today. Indeed Adepts, saints and true seers have continuously appeared upon Earth and still do so. Having arrived at the goal of human evolution, these Great Ones dedicate Themselves to the task of bringing ageless truths to the notice of mankind; for, from personal experience They know that only by the acknowledgement and application to life of such fundamental truths can man’s self produced misery be replaced by self produced happiness.

The Theosophical Society is itself one momentous example of this Adeptic ministration. Now in its second hundredth year, it also presents the ‘keys’ whereby the ‘door’ of the Temple of Truth may be ‘opened’, passed through, and entrance be attained to the bliss producing Holy of Holies within.

THROUGHOUT THE AGES, AND THEREFORE STILL TODAY, CERTAIN OF THESE VERY GREAT BEINGS HAVE ESTABLISHED THE SPIRITUAL AND OCCULT RELATIONSHIP OF MASTER AND DISCIPLE BETWEEN THEMSELVES AND THOSE WHO DETERMINEDLY ASPIRE TO BE WORTHY OF THAT PRIVILEGE. A Disciple, male or female, is one who genuinely desires to save mankind from its present self produced sufferings, and to guide fellow human beings along the pathway of self produced well being and happiness.

Deeply touched in mind and heart by knowledge of, and often close contact with the sufferings of men, women, children and animals, such Disciples have already selflessly dedicated their lives both to the redirection of the kind of human conduct from which pain arises and to the healing of those who have become self-afflicted. Whether from actions previous lives or during the present incarnation, these Disciples are the men and women through and with whom the great Adepts can and do work more directly for the welfare of the human Race and for the freeing of the animal kingdom from the inhuman cruelty perpetrated upon it by man.

NO SINGLE PERSON WHO FROM THE REMOTEST TIMES HAS BEEN THUS MOTIVATED HAS EVER FAILED TO WIN THE SUPPORT, DIRECTION AND INSPIRATION — EVEN IF UNKNOWN TO THEM AT FIRST — OF A MASTER OF THE WISDOM. Needless to say those who would become Disciples, thereby co-operating consciously with the Brotherhood of the Adepts in world ministration, must have eliminated from their own lives — as far as their circumstances permit — the motive thoughts, desires and activities that are so painfully harmful to others, and therefore ultimately to themselves. As we have seen this reaction is brought about under the Universal Law that whether beneficent or pain producing, appropriate effect inevitably follows every causative deed.

The principle of unfailing response by the Perfected Ones to absolutely self-free dedication by a human being to the welfare of the sentient population of the Earth, ensures today, as ever, that the helping hand of the Adept collaborator will always be stretched out towards the practising idealist. From the beginning of human life on Earth, no such aspirant has ever been overlooked; for the light that has begun to shine within the Soul of such an one becomes instantly observed by those Great Ones Who maintain a ceaseless guarding watchfulness over the whole of mankind. This is especially true concerning the unfolding spiritual Soul incarnate within the named bodily person. In consequence throughout all time such ardent men and women have continuously come under the care and spiritual guidance of One Who has advanced beyond the human phase of Planetary evolution.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 38, No. 1, 1977, p. 1

187
The Future of the Human Race

A BROADCAST

In the lifetime of most of us, humanity has lived through years of the most diabolical evil the world has ever known. Estimates of the extent of the sufferings of humanity in the recent years of the second World War are now available. The latest figures tell that 42 1/2 million people have died prematurely as a result of that war. Nearly 25 million were civilian and 17 1/2 million were military deaths. These 42 1/2 millions were men, women and children who were starved, tortured, shot, blown to bits, vivisected, frozen and gassed to death. They were deliberately murdered by every conceivable method of fiendish cruelty at the hands of supposedly civilised, cultured, and mostly Christian Nations.

Since the end of the second World War, the Nations have sought vainly for that international unity and solidarity for which the great majority are longing. In vain, thus far, does humanity seek to satisfy its growing hunger for wholeness, its longing for friendship, peace and security. Like twin swords of Damocles, atomic and bacteriological warfare hang above the heads of the statesmen and people of every race, city, and home on earth.

In the face of these tragic facts, humanity might well despair, not only of world peace in our time, but of the whole future of our Race.

What has Theosophy to offer to mankind at this juncture and in this hour of urgent need? The answer to the question is ‘Knowledge — especially knowledge of guiding principles’: and such knowledge is all-important, most especially for those who aspire to play an effective part in the present world crisis. Theosophy provides that knowledge; for a study of Theosophy mentally lifts one to great heights from which a panoramic view of human life on earth is possible. Theosophy reveals the master plan of life, one part of which concerns the evolution of the human race upon earth.

The fulfilment of this plan, moreover, is stated to be utterly certain. Despite the adversities, cataclysms and decimations of the people of the planet age by age, the Race as a whole moves irresistibly onwards and nothing, no not even man’s own folly, can frustrate the Divine will ever pressing forward towards the fulfilment of the evolutionary process. Human bodies may be destroyed, civilisations and their monuments may crumble into dust, but the soul of man is immortal and eternal. No physical catastrophies, not even the atomic bornb, can reach and destroy the imperishable self of the individual and of the Race. Furthermore, the capacity to build civilisation after civilisation remains as a power of the human soul. Therefore, out of the possible ruins of one age, man arising Phoenix-like from the flames is well able to erect new civilisations of ever-increasing attainment and beauty.

This plan of gradual racial evolution, says Theosophy, is numerical in character and the governing number is the number seven.

Let me explain this Theosophical view of racial evolution on our earth.

The total number of major races — past, present and future — is said to be seven. Five races have already appeared. We all belong to the fifth, or Aryan race. Five branch, or daughter, races of the Aryan race have already been born. They are the Indo-Aryan, the Egypto-Arabian, the Iranian, the Celtic and the Teutonic which includes the Anglo-Saxon peoples. A sixth sub-race is now glittering on the horizon. From Theosophical teaching, we thus learn that we are rather more than half way through our Planet’s life.

The New Type

What, then, is the place of the Australian people in the plan of racial evolution on our earth? Simply put, the answer is that the Aryan Race is at this time producing a branch race and the four countries of America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand are the places of its birth and development. This branch of the Mother Aryan stock is being produced by emigration of peoples from Europe to new racial homes. The parents of the new race chiefly come from Britain. The racial plan is already well advanced, and the two great Wars of our times may be regarded as both death throes of an old organisation and birth pangs of a new one.

What will the New Age man look like? Here is the young man. In Australia he is physically tall, wiry and somewhat slender of form. In New Zealand, the build has perhaps been somewhat shorter up to now and stockier, though there, as here, increase in height is said to be occurring. The facial features when they do show are everywhere much the same. They are finely modelled and straight. The nose tends to be long and, in one variant, the chin is pointed, the forehead broad, making the face somewhat triangular. A certain eagerness, a vivid alertness, is stamped upon the whole face. The New Age man promises to be clearly very vital, handsome, chivalrous, strong, courageous, yet kindly.

The women especially display the quality of grace. They, too, are slender and athletic, and the ideal of physical beauty and perfection makes great appeal to them. Again, the face is triangular, the head pear-shaped, the features becoming clear cut, regular and more and more refined as the racial type is established. The texture of the skin is notably fine. Hands and feet are beautifully formed. These women move with a grace and a dignity all their own and there is a certain aura of vitality shining about them.

Even now, if you know what to look for, you may see these young people of the New Age, in the streets, in the shops, and on the beaches. Australia’s magnificent life-guardsmen who give voluntary service and save valuable lives are splendid examples of the manhood of the new race. Their photographs are in the papers. The faces of some of the contestants in beauty competitions show the pointed chin and broad high forehead. So much for apparent physical trends. What of the mental outlook?

Men of Intuition

From the point of view of recent world events and of the grave danger of a third World War, the mind and the outlook of the new racial type are all important. Can we forecast them? Yes, we can. The new psychological characteristics may be discerned by a study of advanced people throughout the world; for this new type of humanity is not only to be born in the four countries chosen as its chief racial homes, nor will it belong to a single nation. It is the new humanity which will seek unity and co-operation between free individuals and nations. The very essence of all action in the new sub-race will be the union of many to achieve a single object, and not the dominance of one who compels others to his will. To advance together in freedom to a goal that all realize as desirable of attainment, will ultimately become the method. This recognition of unity and this tendency to co-operate are two of the signs of racial evolution out of dependence upon mental processes, analysis, deduction, logic, into the exercise of direct intuitive perception.

This development of the intuition is abundantly evident today: amid the welter of peoples and ideologies there is discernible a subtle yet powerful change in the outlook of mankind upon our planet, the growth of one dominating idea with tremendous possibilities for the future. This change has been described as ⁶a hunger for wholeness’, and it is indeed a revolutionary event. It is almost comparable to a geological cataclysm, like the tilting of the earth’s axis or the descent of an ice cap. This intuitive perception of oneness must culminate, I suggest, in an irresistible will to world unity. This recognition of oneness and this determination to achieve world friendship and world co-operation constitutes a definite sign of the emergence of the new subrace.

Is it possible to recognise with any degree of certainty a person who is clearly of the New Age? Yes, it is, and if one is looking for a sign that any particular individual is beginning to show the marks of that new race type today, that sign may be found in a growing intuitiveness, in capacity to lead by love and sympathy and mutual understanding, and not by dominance of an imperious will. To advanced humanity, dominance is anathema and freedom a veritable religion. Thus a synthesising spirit will be found in the forerunners of the coming race. They will be able to encourage and also to unite diversity of opinion and of character, to gather round them the most unlike elements and blend them, whilst still free, into a common whole.

Those show forth already the desired characteristics who have the capacity for taking into themselves diversities and sending them out again as unities, and for utilising the most different individualities, finding each its place in freedom, and welding all together. That is one of the characteristics which marks the type of being out of which this new race is gradually developing. The ideal, as will be seen, is not a universal set of conditions and a uniformity of human Personality, but full individual development with readiness to combine and to co-operate in the great cause of human happiness and progress.

To the statement of this far reaching plan Theosophy adds that every individual can play his part, can participate consciously and deliberately in the progress of the race. Each one of us is important; for each of us can help or hinder the great historical process. If we all play our constructive part and if we can also inspire our young people with the vision of themselves as Nation Builders, then Australia and New Zealand will fulfil their present promise of rapid advance to magnificent nationhood.

In the light of such teachings of Theosophy, the truly alarming portents to which I drew attention at the beginning assume a less menacing aspect, dangerous though they are. The student of Theosophy need not fear that any futility overshadows man’s highest dreams and attainments; he need not be afraid that civilisation will be swallowed up in unheeding, everlasting night; quite the contrary; he is taught that man moves through innumerable ages to ever-increasing power and wisdom and glory.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 2 April 1952, p. 9

188
The Contribution of the Individual to World Peace

Today’, said U.S. President, J. F. Kennedy, on September 25th 1961, his youthful voice ringing round the great blue and gold auditorium of the U.N. General Assembly, ‘every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when it may no longer be inhabitable. Every woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging on the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment, by accident, calamity, madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of peace. And as we build an international capacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacities for war’. Will mankind achieve this Goal? In answer, I am going to ennunciate three fundamental ideas, which I shall then develop. These three ideas are:

First, that enduring world peace will eventually arrive as a result of the development in the human mind of the power to perceive unity amidst diversity. When a sufficient number of people are able to recognise in the human race a shared life and a common goal of spiritual excellence, then — and not until then — will lasting world peace have become a possibility; second, that the historical process is definitely in the direction of world co-operation, and so of world peace; third, as my title indicates, the part which the individual person can and must play. Concerning the first of these three ideas, the necessity for the intellectual perception of a shared life in all human beings, I do not believe that this is too much to hope for. There are indications, are there not, that intense competitive individualism is very slowly — all too slowly it is true — giving place to a recognition of the mutual interdependence of man upon man and nation upon nation. True, the formal, analytical mind of man is naturally individualistic and competitive, but as the higher attributes of the human intellect develop, the sense of isolated self-separateness naturally diminishes. As this occurs the concepts of unity and co-operation for the welfare of all assume an increasing dominance. This growing recognition of unity will culminate in the ultimate establishment on earth of a world peace founded upon the principles of brotherhood and justice. The League of Nations, the United Nations Organisation and all the other numerous movements towards international co-operation are, I suggest, outward signs of the development of this power to perceive, and in consequence desire, unity.

These achievements of co-operation have in common an international spirit, a planetary outlook, a global vision and a dawning recognition, I repeat, of the unity and interdependence of nations and men. Thus in recent history, despite the present divisions, also very evident, mankind has already displayed the power to rise above merely national boundaries. This evolutionary progress thus indicates that the nations will one day decide to order their separate sovereignties to the end of world justice, world unity and world peace.

How soon will this be achieved, and must there be a third world war? These two questions press for answers. The reply to both of them clearly is: that depends upon you and upon me, and on all the rest of the peoples of our earth. This brings me to my third idea — the contribution of the individual in the present crisis. In order that we may comprehend the nature of our personal responsibility, let us now follow the idea of international co-operation a little further. The underlying principle of functional world unity is far-reaching indeed. It would mean something like this; that the rights of man consist of the duty of everyone everywhere to serve with word and deed the cause of the spiritual and physical advancement of all men now living, and of those yet to come. Man will need actually to do unto others as he would like others to do unto him, and especially to abstain from violence except for the repulse of violence as commanded or granted under law. Acceptance and fulfilment by individuals and nations of this their bounden duty towards each other must one day come to be recognised as the heart of the problem of world peace. Such is the ideal. Such is the dream of those who love their fellow men.

What is the actuality? What is found when, from such information as is available, one examines the ethical and moral standards of modem man. Apparently two main moral attitudes and standards exist. One is held by those who do perceive the truth of unity and the other by those who do not. Those who do perceive unity are men and women who know, or are beginning to know it by instinct and intuition. These people perceive disunity as a denial of truth and feel impelled to labour in order to reveal their vision to their fellow men and so bring about world unification. Happily the number of those thus enlightened steadily increases. They are to be found everywhere — in homes, businesses, factories, professions, in town and city councils and in Parliaments. They are also at work in international organisations. These men and women in whom the vision of the oneness of life has dawned are to be regarded as the potential saviours of mankind, threatened as it now is with atomic, bacteriological and chemical warfare. These world unifiers are as the little leaven that leaveneth the whole.

The salvation of the world from war, I suggest, will be brought about by the action of such men and women of vision in every walk of life; for these people, whether consciously or unconsciously, exert a pressure in the direction of harmonious co-operation in the cause of human welfare. Herein, I submit, lies the heart of the problems of world freedom and world peace, namely in the mind and in the motive for living of individual men and women, and therefore of individual nations. Unhappily there is another and darker side to the present world situation. Selfish and unscrupulous individuals combine into groups ruthlessly determined to exploit their fellow men for their own personal profit. In today’s international political philosophy there is much reliance on force and cunning. ‘Let him take who has the power and let him keep who can’. Honour, morality and goodwill are but useful myths. Conscience is a jest; all right is founded on power. An exhibit in the Cleveland, Ohio, Natural History Museum illustrates this fact. It is captioned: ‘The most numerous large mammal on earth, a dangerous animal whose misuse of world resources and uncontrolled population growth is a threat to all living things’. The exhibit — a large mirror!

One example of this lack of a spiritual basis for human activities consists of modem T.V. It was stated in the Denver Rocky Mountain News, April 10th, 1961, by the National Association for Better Radio and Television, that: ‘In one recent week — and in viewing hours before 9 p.m. — 144 murders, 143 attempted murders, 53 “justifiable” killings, 14 cases of drugging, 12 jail breaks, 36 robberies, 5 thefts, 13 kidnappings, 6 burglaries, 7 cases of torture, 6 extortions, 5 blackmail cases, 11 planned murders, 4 attempted lynchings, 1 massacre scene with hundreds killed, 1 mass murder of homesteaders, 1 planned mass murder by arson, 3 scenes of shooting between rival gangs with many killed, 1 mass gun battle’ all this was shown in one single week!

This brings me to my third idea: the contribution of the individual. What, then, could you and I as individual persons have done since the founding of U.N. to bring about world peace? What can we still do? Can we either help or hinder? Definitely we can help, and as definitely we can hinder; for if the historical process leading to the birth of the great ideal of one world — one world of free peoples, please remember—is to be quickened, that quickening can only come as a sufficient number of men and women in the free nations of the world desire it, think it, seek it and diligently work for it. Someone has very truly said: ‘Peace begins with the United Nations, but the United Nations begins with you (U)' There lies the responsibility of every thoughtful individual, challenging him to be one who holds the great ideal of world co-operation in mind, who studies its basis and its method, and who lives it out practically, in the world of his or her own life.

This, I believe, is axiomatic; for the regeneration of human society depends very largely upon the regeneration of the individual. Indeed, the world problem is the ‘individual problem’. A person who is at war with himself, his conscience, his family, and his fellow citizens, cannot be a peacemaker for the world. A measure of peace within one is essential to a positive contribution to universal peace. Personal conflict between the outer world of society and the inner world of ideas and ideals inevitably renders one helpless, if not harmful, in the process of reconstruction; for all true reform begins with self-reform. The individual is thus of supreme importance. The would-be reformer is now, as always, confronted with the greatest single contribution he can make, namely the reformation of himself.

However helpless we may feel ourselves to be amidst what Mr Churchill called ‘the tornadoes and tides of world events’, nothing stands in the way of an immediate attack upon self-reform. We cannot wash our hands of responsibility. Pontius Pilate washed his hands and the world has never forgiven him. Co-operativeness and sharing in individual life and character; clear, unevasive, self-knowledge; right thinking without excuses and right living, meaning co-operative living these will save the world. The living stones of which the temple of the new civilisation must be built will consist of willingly co-operative individuals.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1964, p. 46

189
A World in Transition

FROM WARS CAUSED BY IGNORANCE TO PEACE FOUNDED UPON KNOWLEDGE

I have chosen my subject partly for the obvious reason that in a period of transition, the deliverance of the planet from war is an urgent necessity. It is a truism that if the future into which mankind is moving is to be an improvement on the past and the present, then war must be eradicated from human nature and eventually outlawed from our Earth. I propose to examine this idea largely from the point of view of the day by day and year by year public work of the Theosophical Society. As we meet peacefully and safely here a war is being waged. Men are fighting against and killing each other.

Five years ago a Norwegian statistician set a computer to work counting history’s wars. The machine announced that in 5,560 years there have been 14,531 wars — 2 1/2 wars per year. In the last 60 years, more than one hundred million people have been killed in military action alone. No less than 40 wars have been waged since the year 1945. The cost of armaments alone is staggering. Whilst President of the U.S., General Eisenhower described mankind as ‘hanging upon a cross of iron’.

The possibility now exists of the extension of war beyond the earth into space. A citizen’s committee recently advised President Johnson to seek international agreement on a code of human activity on the moon, in order to prevent the moon from becoming a military base for any nation.

Then, there is the psychological condition of large numbers of people, young and old. Certain psychologists and commentators describe mankind of this age by saying, ‘Man staggers, stumbles and wanders as if blindfold through the maze of human life on earth, as a frightened little creature, living in the shadow of weapons too horrible to contemplate, and unable to harness the tremendous power he has stumbled upon in his career on this planet. He seems to plunge helplessly in a swamp of dispute, of national and self-interest, and of general discord’. These situations of the threat of war and human bewilderment surely demonstrate an urgent need to make ever more readily available to mankind, the truths which our Society was formed to spread abroad by means of Theosophical lives, Theosophical literature and Theosophical lectures.

War, it is said, begins in the mind, and so must there be attacked. Theosophy reaches the mind. The Theosophical Society addresses the minds of men. Theosophy both offers knowledge and shows the pathway to intuitive perceptions including that of the oneness of all life.

As my title suggests and philosophers affirm, ignorance is the main cause of human error and of the suffering it produces. My theme this morning is that the worldwide spreading of the fundamental teachings of Theosophy constitutes an important part of the cure. It is obvious, to me at any rate, that the modem world desperately needs both Theosophy and the Theosophical Society; for this movement was specifically conceived to benefit mankind by removing man’s ignorance and replacing it with knowledge, avidya by vidya. This, I suggest, is the long-term — admittedly long-term — and fundamental solution of the problems of war and human bewilderment — the bestowal upon and acceptance by man of a knowledge of Theosophy. Our own presence here together as Theosophists in both freedom and mutual harmony might be interpreted as a demonstration of the unifying influence of Theosophy.

If it should here be answered: ‘But this spreading Theosophy is exactly what we have been and still are trying to do! ’ then I must reply: ‘True, but evidently not effectively enough and not to a large enough audience’. Apparently we are still not reaching mankind with the basic teachings of Theosophy to a sufficient extent. This is not in the least a criticism, for who can calculate both the visible and the invisible and immeasurable effect in the three worlds of the 90 years of work of members of the Theosophical Society?

If this view can be accepted, then I can move on to consider with you which teachings amongst others more especially are most greatly needed in the world today — a world in transition.

I recognize, however, that changes of approach are observable within the Theosophical Society itself. The Theosophical Society is itself passing through a period of transition. I recognize that the doctrines to which I am now going to refer may not be regarded by some members of the Society as likely to help mankind in the present situation. I respect but do not at present accept that view.

Permit me, however, to state my own views. First of all, I recognize that Theosophy is not to be regarded as a completed system to be accepted as such. On the contrary, as must be true of everything organic and spiritual, Theosophy cannot have a fixed geometrical outline, the whole of which can, as it were, be traced on paper by rule and compasses. Certain ideas, such as the concept and experience of oneness refuse to be objectively defined; for this would be setting a limit to both truth itself and to man’s capacity to discover it, to know it as an interior experience.

Nevertheless, certain ideas are generally agreed upon and it is to these that I will be referring as I proceed.

First of all, concerning the problem of war and the war spirit, I think, humanity urgently needs to know, realize, accept and apply to life the fundamental fact upon which human brotherhood rests. This is the spiritual togetherness of all mankind, the wholeness and the oneness of all the members of the human family, each one being a member of one spiritual Race, which is without divisions of any kind.

Our presence here, drawn from many nations and by a shared interest, demonstrates that such a fraternal relationship can be achieved by large groups of human beings, especially Theosophists. Humanity at large does not know this. And so the basic problem in the world today still remains. It is the Unification of Mankind.

Before this happy state can be universally achieved, the basic fact of unity with its many implications must, I suggest, be made clear to the whole of humanity. It will have to be intellectually recognized, deeply experienced, mystically realized, and then expressed in action. This single fact of oneness once grasped can bring to an end wanton aggression and reduce much of the crime and vice of the world.

I am aware that words read and words spoken, however eloquent, cannot alone produce realization of their truthfulness, but the right words can point to the direction where realization can be attained. This is of great importance; for the experience of universal oneness leads naturally to that of universal love, and from universal love will arise universal peace. More and more people will then accept Einstein’s dictum: ‘Each man exists for the sake of the other men’. This knowledge of unity is, I submit, the solution — I am tempted to say the sole solution — of many of the world problems of today, especially that of ever-recurrent wars.

Think what a change it would make if a sufficient number of people — Theosophists included — also realize — I accent that word REALIZE — that the human Race is a continually reincarnating family with a shared source, a shared life and a common goal! That we men and women of today are those of former times. That egoically we are the very same people. Under karma, the way we treated each other in the past, as nations and as individuals, completely decides our relationships with each other today, and also our personal conditions of life now and tomorrow. Knowledge of karma — especially of karma-nemesis — can also provide a very practical incentive for our brotherly treatment of each other.

In dramatic illustration of this doctrine of karma, we have the record of man’s proverbial and immemorial inhumanity to man and the tragic condition of mankind century by century and at this present moment.

From these general and somewhat idealistic views, I now advance some practical application of them to the work of the Theosophical Society, particularly its work of removing that avidya — that ignorance — which causes mankind to create such suffering for itself. If time permits, I propose also to refer to some of the more deeply interesting occult teachings which are included in Theosophia.

Obviously, our written and spoken presentations of Theosophy must be adapted to our audiences. The wrong information can drive earnestly seeking and greatly needing people away, whilst the right information can lead them to those treasures of Theosophical knowledge which can transform one’s outlook upon and mode of life. Amongst those who approach Theosophy are at least four general types, or perhaps seven types according to Ray.

A simplified — admittedly over-simplified — classification might be somewhat as follows:

First, then, the relatively unlettered and often deeply troubled enquirers who come for guidance to our book depots, libraries and lecture halls. Personally I regard these seekers as of very great importance. To them might be offered for example the main doctrines concerning man, his triple nature, body, soul and Spirit and his evolution to perfected manhood as the purpose of his existence. This knowledge when responded to can give the much needed meaning and purpose to one’s life. Next, reincarnation as the means and karma as the governing law. These I regard as most valuable, for these two ideas together explain so much in human experience, which without them is inexplicable, bewildering indeed. In addition, of course, as I have said, the spiritual unity of all mankind needs to be stressed, as does the assurance that received ideas can be transformed into direct knowledge, methods of doing this being also described.

To combat the ever increasing cruelty in the world, ahimsa, meaning ‘not hurting’, harmlessness or compassion in thought, motive, feeling, word and deed — a harmless mind, mouth and hand. This is a very great need in the modern world; for where there is ahimsa there is love, selfless service and the protection of the weak.

Second, the educated but philosophically uninformed. When these come to us seeking guidance in life, they should receive all to which I have just referred with, perhaps, enlargement upon the purpose of human life, reincarnation and karma, the pathway to Self-realization and the way in which it may be trodden. In a word — the plan. Also, again and always, unity as the underlying fact of human existence and to combat cruelty, the ideal of ahimsa.

Third, educators, religionists, scientists. Here also change, progress, transition are observable, as well as great advances in technology. Many problems exist and are being attacked. Amongst these might be mentioned: Who are we? What is man, animal, god or both, machine, computer or Divine Intelligence? Does the mind exist as an entity separate from the brain, or is mental activity the product of bio-chemical and electrical charges and changes within the brain? If the mind is mechanical, is there a ‘ghost in the machine?’ as the term goes? How does the experiencing self relate to the physical organ, to one particular brain? In physics, the actual processes of interaction between natural forces and natural phenomena also constitute a problem. Here the teaching of Occult Science could also be introduced, the study of the Divine Mind in Nature. This includes the principles, laws and processes of the emanation and evolution of universes. The gateway could be opened into the vast field of enquiry and research to which the Third Object directly refers.

The Law of Correspondences or Extension of Unity into the Cosmos could be advanced: that in the vast chain of cosmic being, all created things are linked together, everything being magically contained in everything else. Where one stands, there stand all the worlds. Everything is connected with everything else, and interpenetrates everything else, according to exact if mysterious law. Man himself may be seen as a symbolic transparency through which the secrets of the Cosmos could be discerned.

With Goethe: ‘The eye could not see the sun if it did not contain the sun within itself, and how could Divine things enrapture us, if we did not carry the Power of God within us?’ Also — Ahimsa — not hurting.

A fourth group could include mystics who seek direct personal experience of the Divine. These could usefully receive all of the foregoing and descriptions of the illumined state as given by great saints and sages. The technique of meditation and the practice of Yoga.

This last, meditation and Yoga, I regard as essential. For he who is steeped in Yoga, saturated with the potency of the Sacred Word, and who keeps the mind still and strong, he can realize oneness and meet and pass through adversity largely unmoved. For those thus illumined, the barriers which normally separate people melt away, replaced by a sense of intimate rapport, even of identity with all. Religious differences and antagonisms which so tragically divide humanity would then no longer do so; for spiritual illumination reveals the existence of the one Divine Principle and Its Presence equally within the Soul of every human being.

Such, in small part — a fringe only of a fragment of Adeptic teaching — are some ideas which, accepted and applied, can I believe, lead humanity from recurring wars to enduring peace.

I confess to a sense of urgency, of a pressing need wisely and ever more widely To Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy (P. A. K. O. T.); for the personal happiness of mankind and the establishment of permanent peace on earth depend upon the banishment of the darkness of human ignorance and its replacement by the wonderful light which is Theosophia.

(Lecture at the Theosophical World Congress, Salzburg, July 1966)

The Theosophist, Vol. 88, October 1966, p. 22

[See ‘From War Caused by Ignorance to Peace FoundedUpon Knowledge Chapter 194]

190
Mankind Moves Toward World Brotherhood

One Stupendous Whole

Human brotherhood is referred to in Theosophy as a fact to be recognized, an ideal to be realized, and a relationship to be established. The basis for this three-fold affirmation is that the entire universe is animated by One Life and that this Life expresses itself equally through all forms. In consequence, all beings are manifestations of this One Life. The existence of a One Alone is the reality upon which unity rests and upon which an effectively functioning world brotherhood can be established.

This oneness is not visible and is denied to the five senses of man by the innumerable diversities displayed on the outward plane. Nevertheless, seers, mystics, and illuminati testify with one voice that they have pierced the illusion of diversity and discovered the reality of oneness as an attribute of the soul of things.

In the esoteric wisdom, man has been described as a synthesis in miniature of the totality of the universe: ‘Nature has linked all parts of her empire together by subtle threads of magnetic sympathy, and there is a mutual correlation even between a star and a man’. Eliphas Levi wrote, ‘The mystery of the earthly and mortal man is after the mystery of the supernal and immortal One’. Lao Tzu stated that ‘The universe is a man on a large scale’. Thus the whole cosmos, with all its parts, is to be regarded as a single whole — one body, one organism, one power, one life, one consciousness, all evolving cyclically under one law. Sir James Jeans expressed this possibility when he wrote, ‘When we view ourselves in space and time we are quite obviously distinct individuals; when we pass beyond space and time we may perhaps form ingredients of a single stream of life’.

Numerous inspired utterances draw man’s attention to the fact that all men are brothers and that this spiritual relationship greatly needs to be recognized. Perhaps it is sufficient to include here the words of H. P. Blavatsky, one of the founders of The Theosophical Society: ‘It is a fundamental doctrine of Theosophy that the ‘separateness’ which we feel between ourselves and the world of living things around us is an illusion, not a reality. In very deed and truth, all men are one, not in a feeling of sentimental gush and hysterical enthusiasm, but in sober earnest. As all Eastern philosophy teaches, there is but One Self in all the infinite universe, and what we men call ‘self is but the illusionary reflection of the One Self in the heaving waters of earth. True occultism is the destruction of the false idea of self, and therefore true spiritual perfection and knowledge are nothing else but the complete identification of our finite selves with the Great AH’.

While philosopher, mystic, and seer may thus intuit and directly experience this sublime truth that man-spirit and universal spirit are one, there remains the urgent problem of the attainment of a similar realisation by the majority of mankind. How may this be done? How may every man enter into this experience? The Psalmist records the divine reply: ‘Be still and know that I am God’. The Yogi answers, ‘By the practice of yoga as a part of life, including regular silent contemplation of the divine’. Herein lies the difficulty, for the mind, almost incurably objective, must be allowed to fall into stillness in order that the inner consciousness may become aware of and convey to the mind the divine and eternal aspects of cosmos and man, or rather cosmos-man.

Clearly we live in two worlds. We are aware, as personalities, of our familiar surroundings, filled as they are with separate objects. Yet we have the capacity to become aware of that other world where all dualities are resolved into an interior unity. In order fully to experience the unity described by Psalmist and Yogi, and many others, we must transfer our centre of consciousness from brain-mind to universal mind. Then we may enter into the illumined state implied by such affirmations as ‘I and my Father are one’.

Therefore, all diversity will be known as illusion, unity alone as truth. Thus illumined, men will naturally be brotherly with each other, knowing by direct experience that all are members of one spiritual race which is without divisions of any kind. When a sufficient number of human beings have thus passed from illusion to reality, from dividedness to realized unity, then on our earth will there exist the possibility of the true brotherhood of man.

Why Dividedness?

In view of the assumption in the First Object of The Theosophical Society that the universal brotherhood of man is a fact in nature; humanity’s long continued, tragic dividedness poses a critical question. The immediate and obvious answer hardly needs to be stated, since each man clearly differs from every other in many fundamental ways, no two appearing the same. Theosophy, however, offers a second and fuller explanation which may perhaps usefully be given here.

Occult cosmogenesis advances the idea that the conjoined spirit-matter of the finite universe emanates from an infinite and eternal principle, designated the Absolute. This emergence primarily occurs in a state of extreme tenuousness. A procedure of densification follows until the extreme of hardness is reached, whereupon the process is reversed. A return, with added developments, leads to the re-absorption of cosmos into the Absolute. A great cycle of activity, known as the Maha-Manvantara, is then complete. Rest, known as Maha-Pralaya then follows until a succeeding, similar cycle opens. This procedure is followed ‘throughout the eternity of eternities’. H. P. Blavatsky writes, in The Secret Doctrine, ‘. . . this stupendous development has neither conceivable beginning nor imaginable end’.

During the process of densification, spirit-matter finds expression in many ways, in forms and vehicles of increasing resistance and restriction. The spirit-life is heavily encased in these innumerable forms. Eventually the densest point is reached and the return begins. In the human kingdom, self-consciousness is attained, but in a state of complete forgetfulness of the knowledge of the unity of the spirit-life.

This leads to the monstrous human egoism which pervades individuals and nations. From this egoism and dividedness — the ‘heresy of separateness’ arise all the evils to which man is said to be heir.

Human dividedness, so tragically apparent within the historical era, is thus due to the loss or ‘forgetfulness’ of unity, incurred during periods of deep encasement in matter with all its separate forms. Indeed, a possible diagnosis of the sickness of mankind is ‘spiritual amnesia’.

Dangers Confronting a Divided Humanity

Why are we told in no uncertain terms throughout our early theosophical writings that the Society is expected to start ‘a real universal fraternity; an institution which would make itself known throughout the world and arrest the attention of the highest minds’? This statement was made during the nineteenth century by one of the great Eastern geniuses, sometimes called Adepts. Did the Adepts foresee at that time the evils which would develop in the twentieth century? Voicing this prevision — presumably under inspiration — H. P. Blavatsky wrote in her magazine Lucifer for May 1889 these words: ‘... but if not [i.e., if Theosophy does not prevail], then the storm will burst and our boasted Western civilisation and enlightenment will sink into such a sea of horror that its parallel in history has never yet been recorded’.

As these dangers show evidence of existence today, many constructive forces are now uniting to meet them. The dividedness now so tragically apparent forces men to examine the spiritual fact of inherent unity. Teilhard de Chardin has written: ‘Mankind will be forced together by the growth of common travail, then men of the future will in some sort form a single consciousness’. A striking example was given recently by Stalin’s daughter, Alliluyeva Svetlana, who said, ‘I feel that humanity should be one, that mankind should not be divided’. This single consciousness is the central idea of the United Nations whose Secretary General, U Thant, has asked the simple yet tantalising question: ‘What could we not build if we worked together?’

This sharp reminder of the irony of the present state of mankind dramatises the persistent struggle between man’s wisdom and his folly, his strength and his weakness, his idealism and his baseness.

A computer recently announced that in 5,560 years of recorded history, 14,531 wars of aggression or defence have been fought. Of 185 generations of man’s experience, only ten altogether have known unsullied peace. At the present time, five powers possess nuclear bornbs, and Britain’s Minister for Disarmament warns that in fifteen years there could be double that number or more. The risk of nuclear war, therefore, could become twice as great as at present and, unless world agreement can be reached to stop the pursuit of nuclear power as a status symbol, the prospect is indeed appalling. The recognition, acceptance, and application of the brotherhood of man is now not only an ideal to be attained but also — and unhappily — far more, a necessity for survival.

Fortunately, in the long pilgrimage through matter, the path of return has been entered upon, and the memory of oneness is beginning slowly to be recovered. As this continues, it will eventually lead to the realisation of unity by the majority of men. Total world collaboration will then follow. Already, the phase of human development is beginning to be characterised by numerous co-operative actions, some of which are now to be examined.

The Foundation Stones of Brotherhood

The primitive instinct to band together in tribes for mutual protection has evolved through centuries into the vast system of international co-operation which continues to function even while wars, both hot and cold, are waged. Split on the surface, the world of men is one underneath, a fact now slowly beginning to be acknowledged. World literature has foreshadowed and perhaps helped to lead to this state. Plato, Roger Bacon, Sir Thomas More, Francis Bacon, Erasmus, and Edward Bellamy are among Western writers whose contributions are well known. The establishment of covenants between nations was foreshadowed in earlier days. Olympic Games were held regularly for over a thousand years in Ancient Greece. They were started again in modem times and are held every four years in different parts of the world. Ancient Rome developed a system of justice defined by Justinian in the words, ‘Render to every man his due’. In the end it was the lust for conquest and other serious mistakes in government that were Rome’s undoing. Her economic life was mismanaged, her moral authority collapsed, and her communications began to break down. It is axiomatic that while good communications can bring men together, only good citizenship can hold them together.

The first universities which then arose existed like oases in a desert of ill will, confusion, and bloodshed. Scholars shared a common language and resembled international clubs, while darkness lay over most of the European countries. Armed strife such as prevailed between religions and sects has brought misery to mankind. Nevertheless, after many centuries of strife and suffering, men are learning mutual respect and tolerance of differences as a basis for peace. Ecumenism is evidence today that this development has begun.

In the League of Nations, born out of the suffering and slaughter of World War One, a Covenant was drawn up consisting of 26 articles or sections setting forth principles for running a new world organisation. Thus, in spite of its defects and its many failures, it proved to be the foundation of a world constitution, for it exemplified a change taking place in human thought. Its failure to prevent a second world war revealed some of its weaknesses. It was a league of states rather than of peoples — of states still willing to wage war and let the interests of nationalism override a world covenant.

Then the United Nations Organisation arose from the ruins of World War Two. This time the United States and Britain drew up the Atlantic Charter. When the Charter was finally signed, President Truman called it 'a solid structure upon which to build a better world’. Reading the text of this Charter, one cannot help but realize its similarity to the First Object of The Theosophical Society. It pledges joint action to encourage universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. The principle of equality has not yet come to be accepted by the community of nations, but in this foundation stone of brotherhood it has been declared unequivocally.

From U. N. Charter to U. N. Action

The charter of the United Nations is based on the principles of the dignity and equality inherent in all human beings. The preamble states:

‘We, the people of the United Nations, determined ... to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women. . . .’ This indicates the inclusion of women to be recognized as having the same rights as men. The principle of equality has not come to be accepted by the community of nations as declared, nor has every man and woman been given freedom and rights without distinction of any kind. After all, in twenty years one could hardly hope, much less confidently expect, to reverse thousands of years of erroneous thinking. Yet an examination of the actual achievements of these two decades shows that mankind is indeed moving toward brotherhood despite setbacks and disappointments.

The twentieth century is remarkable for at least three human activities: first, the rapid progress in science and technology; second, the waging of the two most destructive wars in history and the threat of a possible nuclear successor; third, and strangely opposed to the second, human collaboration, which is now virtually world-wide. The heartening list of mankind’s achievements in international co-operation seems to indicate that pathways to peace are strangely paralleling the troubled lines of strife engaging so much more of our attention.

Who could have hoped for the organized effort to bring good health, adequate food, and schooling into the lives of millions of children that resulted from the establishment of a United Nations Children’s Fund? UNICEF, by its existence, has proclaimed to the world a United Nations belief that all children, without exception, deserve the best that mankind can give. Fortunately, what began as a humanitarian endeavour based on moral grounds, has now been recognized as economically sound and necessary. Programs for children occupy an important place in the United Nations Development Decade.

The revolutionary idea of a universal education system under which all pupils are taught the underlying unity of man is gaining gradual acceptance. Interchanges between scholars of different countries are being developed on an increasing scale. Young people are being inspired to create brotherliness for all, recognising its importance to themselves and to the welfare of the world.

A brief look at some of the international organisations functioning successfully is worth while. There is the International Labour Organisation, the World Health Organisation, the Food and

Agricultural Organisation, the International Telecommunications Union. The world’s communications systems are wholly dependent upon international co-operation, for if there were no receiving devices, terminals for ships and planes, international codes and agreements, these systems could not exist. A telephone line direct between the heads of two great world powers is possible only after many years of growing international co-operation along lines of communication. There are numerous other international systems — the Universal Postal Union, the international provision and maintenance of all needed aid to mariners, the International Red Cross, Interpol, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and there are Boy Scouts and Girl Guides and international businessmen’s service clubs. International law, with its separate headquarters, is slowly evolving to wider and wider service to mankind.

Nations are working together to eradicate such deep causes of conflict as hunger, disease, ignorance, poverty, and injustice. Tt lies within our power’, said U Thant, ‘to stamp out disease ... to harness our rivers, to improve our agriculture, to develop our industries, to house our people decently, and to raise the physical and social well-being of the almost sub-human two-thirds of the human race. A new freedom stares the wealthy nations in the face — the freedom to help or not to help their neighbours who still lie on the far side of abundance and who do not yet command the means to help themselves. At its profoundest level, the challenge of the Decade of Development is a moral challenge’.

The First Object of The Theosophical Society is thus in process of fulfilment. When the Society was founded in 1875, this appeared to be a dream — an aspiration perhaps centuries away from becoming a reality. It has been implemented by action, and now the recognition by more and more members throughout the world that universal brotherhood is a reality, even if a hidden and invisible one, is bearing fruit. Should they so wish, the members may assist in forming a visible nucleus of this fraternal relationship which will initiate a ‘chain reaction’ throughout the population of the globe.

In the nineteenth century, an Adept wrote: ‘The term “Universal Brotherhood” is no idle phrase.... It is the only secure foundation for universal morality. If it be a dream, it is at least a noble one for all mankind, and it is the aspiration of the true Adept’.

Since these words were written, dream and aspiration have begun to become realities. Mankind moves toward world brotherhood. One might dare to hope that the fulfilment of the dream has been to some extent aided by the thought and work of the tens of thousands of members of the 92-year-old World Theosophical Movement.

The American Theosophist, Vol. 55, Issue 11, November 1967, p. 267

191
Theosophy and the Modern World [4]

The Threat of Dictatorship

No one who surveys the material, intellectual and spiritual conditions of the world today can fail to perceive that two great principles are being made the focus for a determined and world-wide attack. I refer to justice and freedom. Already they have been virtually banished from the field of international relationship. This is serious enough, but a far more serious situation also exists — the frank disregard of the principle of freedom not only in the political and social realms, but in the spiritual and intellectual as well.

This spiritual tyranny is to my mind far more serious than the social. For it means that the search of the human soul for spiritual light and understanding is beset by obstacles and barriers which, save for the few, are practically impassable; that search can only succeed where the mind is unfettered and the spirit free to soar wherever inward inspiration leads. Yet we are witnessing in some countries the expulsion of religion, and in many others throughout Christendom the growth of an orthodox Christian dogma, designed to strike terror into the hearts of believers. Are not the mass of Christians threatened with eternal damnation unless they give implicit belief to an idea which is confined to orthodox Christianity alone among world religions the idea that there is only one way to God, our own, and only one hope of personal salvation, that offered through the mediation of the clergy. We are in the presence not only of political dictatorship but, far more serious, of an ever growing, ever spreading dictatorship over the very soul and spirit of man.

These two conditions of the modem world — aggressive political dictatorship and religious intolerance and dogmatism — together constitute a most serious menace to individual and national progress and happiness.

We, Theosophists, cannot afford to ignore these two attacks upon the freedom of man, however free for the time being some of us may be of their immediate effects. For they constitute not only a harmful state of affairs for humanity in general, but also a serious obstacle to the work of The Theosophical Society. Both Theosophy and its great philosophic brother— Freemasonry — are now prohibited in Russia and Germany.

Seeing all this, the student of world affairs, especially the Theosophist, cannot help being deeply concerned for the future of mankind, cannot but ask himself, when and where will the principle of freedom, essential to human progress and wellbeing, be established on earth. How can this movement be checked?

Only, I submit, by the combined and effective action of men and women who prize freedom, justice and truth above all else in human life. A strong and world-wide crusade is needed in defence of these principles, and for this purpose a great body of crusaders must go into action.

A Crusade for Freedom

For me, the work of The Theosophical Society is such a crusade. For me, The Theosophical Society, the tmths it teaches and the ideal of freedom on which it is based, are the spiritual and intellectual hope of the world. The Theosophical Society stands practically alone among great international movements in two respects, first its foundation upon the eternal verities and their propagation, especially the Brotherhood of Man; and second, its affirmation and insistence upon freedom, especially in the spiritual and intellectual life.

The task before The Society is at once apparent. It is an intensive effort to bring Theosophy in acceptable and attractive forms to the modem mind.

Consider the application of Theosophy as a treatment for the diseases of militarism and dictatorship. While I deplore the intense and militaristic nationalism of the totalitarian States, I conceive also that there may be a purpose behind it. Certainly there is a working out of the educative Law of Cause and Effect. We have only to look at the humiliating conditions imposed upon these States at Versailles to see an immediate cause of their intense nationalism and aggressive militarism.

Maybe an awakened if narrow and aggressive German race-consciousness — and the same may be said of Italy — is needed for the evolution and enrichment of Europe. Yet even if this is true, I feel very sure that the atrocities and persecutions were never in the plan of racial development. They are human perversions, false reactions to whatever inspiration and guidance the Elder Brethren are offering to the national consciousness.

Germany may need to be freed of Jewish influence for some purpose which only the Lord Manu of the Race can comprehend. Perhaps the Jews themselves need to be thrown out into the world, both for their own benefit and for that of other nations. The collective life especially the cultural life, of the United States of America, for example, has recently been immeasurably enriched by the presence of a small number of extraordinary immigrants, men and women of genius.

At the head of the list is Dr Albert Einstein, now of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. Then come Ernst Toiler, brilliant playwright; Max Reinhardt, theatrical producer; George Grosz, artist; Vicki Baum, novelist; Elisabeth Bergner, actress; Dr Otto Klemperer, renowned conductor; Julius Ehrlich, composer; Bruno Eisner, pianist; Dr Wilhelm Frei, dermatologist Dr Richard Goldschmidt, brilliant biologist and geneticist; Dr Carl Lange, bacteriologist, and Dr Siegfried Loewe, pharmacologist and biologist. At least fifty other distinguished German scholars have become residents in the United States.

Is it true that the countries to which expelled citizens emigrate need them, or rather that our Spiritual Elders who are guiding racial evolution need them there? Does China need to be shocked, goaded, driven into an intellectual and spiritual awakening and unity? Japan may be the instrument of that purpose, her imperialistic aims and her national need both being utilised by the Powers-that-be.

I do not for a moment suggest that the Masters deliberately initiate and foster aggression, militarism, persecutions and bloody revolutions. We are told in fact that every permissible effort was made, through the agency of the Master the Count de St Germain, now the Prince Rakoczi, to redirect the forces which led to the French Revolution. But I feel sure that in Their wisdom the Great Ones are able to produce ultimate good even out of international evils. I am not blind to this possibility when I study world affairs today, but my thesis is that such activities and events are accompanied by much that is gross and deplorable and which therefore needs to be combated. Even though good may come out of evil, the evil must ever be fought and never condoned.

A Purifying Fire

Now consider the possible effects of the adverse world conditions upon individuals. At this period of conflict between might and right, many souls are being chastened, their evolution quickened and their intellects awakened to the search for truth. Out of the present welter on a world scale of selfishness, ignorance and brutality there are arising, and will continue to arise, many thousands of men and women who have wakened to their own spiritual light. These will be part of the harvest of the present age, the first fruits of the present testing in the fire of individualism and fear.

No one can doubt that there exists in the world an individualism, a selfishness, a pride, and an unashamed, cold, cynical barbarism which is positively satanic. This produces in the hearts of millions of people a fear which is a veritable hell. Unless this fear is removed the intellectual and spiritual growth of those millions will be delayed. But those who triumph over it will emerge purified, enlightened, and in some cases ready for the Path of Holiness. Reborn, they will be come the leaders of the new age building on the foundations which we are laying today.

The New Age

Glance forward for a moment to the coming age. At the heart of every institution in the new age, it is reasonable to assume, Theosophy in appropriate forms will be found. Religion, education, politics, the arts and the sciences, will all be founded upon Theosophy. For what is Theosophy but the religion, art and science of life itself?

The reason for the failure of past civilisations has been in the period of decline the inability of the leaders and the majority of the people to continue to perceive the light of the Wisdom Religion. Of the four great Aryan civilisations which preceded our own, one alone remains — the civilisation of India, preserved through the ages by the presence at its heart of the Ancient Wisdom, and on Indian soil of the great Rishis and Mahatmas who are its Guardians and Hierophants. If our Western civilisation — and in that I include the new-race civilisations of Australia and South Africa is to endure, at its heart also must be established the Ancient Wisdom.

The Challenge of the Times

Western people may be said to stand at the junction of four cross roads. Behind is the past, the way they have travelled. One of the turnings leads to financial and political dictatorship. Another leads to increasing domination by a spiritual dictatorship. Straight ahead lies the way of safety into that spiritual and intellectual freedom and light by virtue of which alone a better civilisation can be permanently established.

Along this road we, Theosophists, in every land are already travelling. Apostles of freedom, ours is the opportunity to point the way to our fellowmen. The Theosophical call today is seemingly for men and women who know the Plan of Life, who recognise the reality of the Elder Brethren, who can point out the Path which leads to fuller conscious co-operation with Them: men and women who are awakening and perfecting their own powers of body, mind, and will, so that they may become increasingly effective in service. I conceive that the living membership of our international Society is one of the most powerful weapons in the hands of those Elder Brethren who called it into existence.

The world will never be reformed by means of parliaments, leagues and pacts. The world can only be reformed by the awakening of the human conscience and the development of men’s spiritual perceptions. Theosophy has power to produce these results. Therefore all who live and teach Theosophy are true reformers.

What special Theosophical notes should be struck at this time, what aspects of Theosophy should be emphasised?

First of all and fundamentally, friendship, brotherhood, which is the real solvent of all these national and international complexities. Then the unfoldment of hidden forces in Nature and in man; and the realisation of the hidden wisdom in the world scriptures, especially in Christianity. The Ancient Wisdom carries its own conviction. The subject of Theosophy in Christianity is particularly important. Christianity needs to be Theosophised in order to relieve Christendom of the prevalent spirit of domination and fear. I am inclined to go further and say that for Western audiences Theosophy needs to be Christianised so that it may be more easily understood and more readily applied to life.

Growing Evil of Black Magic

There is a growing interest in occultism. The literature on yoga is rapidly increasing. Here The Theosophical Society has important work to perform in clearly stating the need for right motives in occult development.

Theosophical teachings are being grossly perverted by individuals for personal aggrandisement and to increase material power and possessions. Occult knowledge is commercially offered to the world for developing a dominating personality with a semi-hypnotic influence over others. Psychologists, success-merchants, preach to the world for huge sums of money methods whereby the occult forces of the mind and the will may be phenomenally employed.

What is all this but black magic of a subtle and dangerous kind? ‘God’s abundance’, say the disseminators of this dark creed, ‘is there for all of us. Reach out and take it. Become wealthy, be strong and a ruler among your fellowmen’.

Here is a call to Theosophists the world over to fight this evil, this menace to the spiritual health and wellbeing of mankind. The prostitution of occult knowledge and power is a greater evil than war itself. War destroys bodies. Perverted occultism destroys souls. The temple of tmth is being defiled by the presence of money-changers, sellers of sacrificial objects and practitioners of the black arts. The scourge must be used to drive them out and to restore spiritual purity.

We, Theosophists, are ranged with the forces of light. All our strength, all our wisdom, all our purity and intensity of purpose are demanded to ensure victory in this great conflict. We must take Theosophy out to the world: out of books, out of the study, out of the lodge room. Theosophy must be lived and applied to the pressing problems which surround us.

If we, thirty thousand members of The Theosophical Society, would use but a fraction of the knowledge which we now possess, would apply the laws governing the mastery of the mighty powers of the mind and the will, would truly live our Theosophy, we alone could change the face of modem civilisation.

Masters and the Modern World

In founding The Theosophical Society, the two Masters — Morya and Koot Hoomi [Kuthumi] — in a certain sense threw Themselves and Their retreats open to the world. It is evident, I think, that They foresaw this crisis, and for the helping of the world offered to Western humanity not only the Wisdom of which They are the Guardians, but in considerable measure They sacrificed Themselves. For Them to emerge from the ‘silence of centuries’, to quote Their own words, was a sacrifice indeed — one for which the whole race owes Them undying gratitude.

The day is coming, I feel assured, is indeed not far away, when in their extremity, Western people will turn increasingly not only to the Wisdom-Religion but to its Mighty Guardians, the Masters of the Wisdom, for the aid which They alone can give.

(The substance of an address to the Australian Convention, held in Melbourne, Easter 1938.)

The Theosophist, Vol. 60, October 1938, p. 9

192
World Unity

The Birth of World Unity

If world unity is to be successfully fashioned in this age, it is abundantly clear that great sacrifices will have to be made both by individuals and by nations. Nothing new is ever born without the death of something old, and, this applies equally throughout the three worlds of physical matter, of emotion and of mind. The birth of world unity, for example, demands the death of competitive and aggressive nationalism, first as a physical characteristic, second as a false emotion of patriotism, and third as a national obsession. These three deaths, physical, emotional and mental, are the price of the birth of world unity.

Already in our own experience and before our eyes, these deaths and this birth are occurring, and already they are proving to be extremely painful experiences. Why need this be so? If unity is the truth and if evolution moves to world co-operation, why the great difficulties? Surely it is because of man’s resistance to natural processes. Tradition, crystallisation, rigidity, deliberate resistance from pride, cupidity, hatred, fear and selfishness; these are the obstacles to the birth and development of all new creative ideas, whether in the individual or the world Mind. Where they exist, that birth and development are inevitably accomplished in pain. The two world wars and the intervening depression, products of human selfishness, human hate and greed, are part of the price mankind has obliged itself to pay for the slow and pain-accompanied birth of world unity. Even so, the price will not have been too great. For the birth and establishment of world unity mean the end of war on this planet and in consequence an era of universal peace and prosperity.

World unity is indeed the most wonderful idea which as yet has begun to germinate in the mind of humanity. True, it is not new as an idea. In many individual minds and so within the world mind, this new and revolutionary idea of gathering the whole of the human race into a functional unity, has already dawned. Long ago in certain advanced minds the fact of unity has been full-formed and fully realized. But, with these exceptions, to the world mind in general such an idea remains as yet almost inconceivable. For the world mind contains a vast preponderance of individualistic and nationalistic minds, Herod-like and Hitler-like — the two figures symbolise the same truth and play the same role — the implacable individualists amongst mankind will ever resent and so ever resist, the birth of world unity. For its development means their end as competitive individuals; its beginning spells their doom. Herodian and Hitlerian individuals and nations cannot possibly assent to world unity. Individualistic, nationalistic, separative, prideful, full of hate, envious, unscrupulously acquisitive, insatiably selfish, they are unillumined by any vision of the larger Self of mankind as a whole. Rebels against world progress, individualists to the core, they will never voluntarily assist in a movement towards world brotherhood, co-operation, oneness.

Whatever their nationality — and they exist in all nations — these men are the real enemies of humanity. They will fight to the death to maintain the past system with its powerful and privileged minorities ruling and exploiting the rest of mankind. They know full well that when world co-operation is successfully established, individualists and nationalists will be rendered impotent.

Even now, however, under evolutionary pressure, by the turn of events in the direction of unification and by social security legislation, such men are being forced to give way. But they will continue to fight. On the signing of peace, when humanity temporarily gives itself up to recuperation and profound relief, skilfully concealed and very powerful moves will be made to re-establish the pre-war individualistic system of finance and politics.

Evolutionary Pressure

All this conflict is part of the one great battle being fought to a finish in this our day, the battle of the spirit of individualism against the spirit of unity. The present world crisis is the mark and sign of the slow and painful death of an old age and the equally slow birth of a new. As I have said, the slowness and the pain are the result of human resistance. Both are caused by the intense efforts of certain men to delay the death of the old dispensation and prevent the birth of the new.

Nevertheless, born the new world order inevitably will be; for all evolutionary pressure and progress upon this planet as it affects man is driving irresistibly towards economic, political and cultural world unity. As the upthrust of the plant imbued with a vital power out of all proportion to the young plant’s apparent strength is able to force up great stones, so the spiritual fact of world unity will inevitably make itself manifest despite the rock-like resistance of human individualism and nationalism.

Spiritually, unity is an eternal truth. One day, therefore, it must become manifest in terms of time. When that day dawns, the very idea of separate, competitive individualism and nationalism will have been out-grown. Peace will then reign on earth, for it is the accentuated sense of separateness which has been the curse of mankind and the cause of all wars. Mankind will then look back upon the present era of cut throat competition and of war with the same horrified loathing with which modem man regards such primitive practices as cannibalism.

A world state, a world authority, a super-national world directorate to which sovereignty will have been voluntarily transferred by all nations — this apparently is the form into which the idea of world unity is even now being born. As it develops, a Federation of all the States of the World will most assuredly be achieved.

World Federation can come about in two ways, can be brought about by two, opposite means. These are voluntary acknowledgement, of world unity or enforced submission through fear. Mankind’s choice between these two alternatives is, I submit, the second great issue of our times, as winning the war is the first. Which will mankind choose? Will there be, an intelligent recognition that not only peace, progress and prosperity, but actual human survival on earth depends upon world unity? Or will there be more dreadful battles born out of resentment, separateness, selfishness, until mankind is driven by force, and, by fear into world co-operation? This is the great question of today,

Judging from present tendencies, the new world order will be the result of acceptance by the few and pressure upon the many. World unity is even now, on the horizon. If, it is to be established quickly, every phase of human life, family, class, civic, national and, international, will have to be redirected, reorganised towards this supreme planetary attainment.

A Planetary Leader

In certain minds a most interesting idea has come to birth. It has been suggested that a great planetary leader may appear on earth in the near future, a reincarnated Julius Caesar, a modern Akbar, who with super-national vision and superhuman power will himself reorganise human life on earth. Such visitations have occurred in past epochs and such expectations in no way violate historical precedent. In other minds, throughout the years and throughout the world, a far greater hope has lived. It is the hope that Divine Succour should come once again to a world so sorely in need. It is indeed but natural that men’s thoughts should turn in longing and in appeal to the Lord of Love and Light and Power Himself, that He should come again to a world that needs Him.

Men have so hoped and, men have proclaimed even as He promised, that He will come again to speak the word of peace which shall make the peoples to cease from their quarrellings, the word of brotherhood which shall make the warring nations know themselves as one. This hope also is built upon the sure foundation of historical fact. Age by age, the Love and Wisdom of God have found manifestation through a glorious and divine Personage Who has appeared amongst men and has led them with the Light of His Love, strengthened them with the splendour of His Power. Through Him the world of His day has been healed and blessed and led to a nobler vision, and a wiser way of life.

Even without such mighty aid, however, two great agencies already exist by which the advance of the human race out of separateness and into oneness could be undertaken. These two agencies are religion and education. All world religions and all religious denominations could, if they would, even now be both practising and preaching everywhere the gospel of the new day, which is the brotherhood of man. This, I submit, is most especially the great call, the great challenge to religion.

Also, through education at home and at school, the all-important youth of the world could even now begin to be imbued through and through with the spirit of the New Age. Upon the young people now growing up and those who follow them must be bestowed the vision of world brotherhood. I believe the youth of the world, ever responsive to high ideals raised up as landmarks of the future, would respond. If necessary the two world wars and the intervening depression could be shown to them as the dread results of the denial of the fact of the brotherhood of men.

Whether a world leader emerges or not, whether in His great wisdom the World Teacher comes to earth or not, by the aid of these two agencies alone, religion and education, I believe that man’s surrender of the spirit of competitive individualism could be made in this our day.

The Theosophical Society

Do we not see now the immense, the profound significance of the choice made by the Elder Brethren of Humanity of the Brotherhood of man as Their first and supreme object and message when founding The Theosophical Society? As long ago as 1875, and doubtless far earlier, They had foreseen the present crisis. So They began to sound forth the note of the New Age, the truth of the Universal Brotherhood of man. The effect of Their choice, Their decision and Their action is everywhere apparent. The Theosophical Society has been active for 67 years. Already for a growing number of men and women there is no sense of loss whatever in accepting world unity. Indeed, they are ready to throw aside gladly and forever as a crippling fetter both the sense and the system of separative individualism. They have already seen that ‘surrender and be free’ is the inscription over the doorway of the Temple of the New Age, that ‘give and serve’ are the passwords demanded from those who would pass within.

The door is now wide open for all. It but remains for humanity to enter in. A united states of the world could be fashioned in this age, and to each and every one of us this present world situation is a great call, a great challenge. As individuals we have now the opportunity of taking part in a movement of world significance. In every walk of life, in religion, the arts, education, science, philosophy, politics, economics and industry, the note of world brotherhood and world unity must from now on continually, be sounded forth. Especially must all who believe in human brotherhood labour as never before in the work to which we have been called of forming a nucleus, and from it a world cell of the brotherhood of man.

A poet (Sister Benedictine) has expressed, the vision-splendid which now begins to illumine the mind of modem man in these words:

“‘Creation rejoices and sings In tune with a Cosmic plan,

Nature eternally brings Wonders in stars and man.

The eagle in the summer sky,

The worm beneath the sod,

The sun, the moon, and you and I,

We live and move in God”.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1943, p. 36

193
Nobel Prize for H. P. B.

At a recent lecture of mine in New Zealand the following note was sent to me. When it was read out the audience applauded warmly. I forward the suggestion to the Editor of The Theosophist:

‘Has it ever been suggested that the Noble Prize be given posthumously to Helena Petrovna Blavatsky [H.P.B.] for her occult, scientific and brotherhood teachings?

‘It would help to carry on her ideals of World Peace in the various Lodges with their libraries.

‘None of the women portrayed on Turkey’s philatelic tribute to women equal her works, much less surpass them.

‘(Her findings on the atom — not split but elastic, fluidic.)’

194
From War Caused by Ignorance to Peace Founded upon Knowledge

[Geoffrey Hodson’s Address to Members at the Fifth World Congress at Salzburg, the theme of which was ‘A World in Transition’]

I have chosen my subject partly for the obvious reason that in a period of transition the deliverance of the planet from war is an urgent necessity. It is a truism that if the future into which mankind is moving is to be an improvement on the past and the present, then war must be eradicated from human nature and eventually outlawed from our Earth. I propose to examine this idea largely from the point of view of the day by day, and year by year, public work of the Theosophical Society.

Five years ago a Norwegian statistician set a computer to work counting history’s wars. The machine announced that in 5,560 years there have been 14,531 wars — 2 1/2wars per year. In the last sixty years more than one hundred million people have been killed in military action alone, No less than forty wars have been waged since the year 1945. The cost of armaments alone is staggering and General Eisenhower whilst President of the U.S.A., described mankind as ‘hanging upon a cross of iron’.

The possibility now exists of the extension of war beyond the Earth into space. A Citizens’ Committee recently advised President Johnson to seek international agreement on a code of human activity on the moon, in order to prevent the moon from becoming a military base for any nation.

Then there is the psychological condition of large numbers of both young and old people. Certain psychologists and commentators describe mankind of this age by saying that ‘man staggers, stumbles and wanders as if blindfold through the maze of human life on earth, as a frightened little creature, living in the shadow of weapons too horrible to contemplate, and unable to harness the tremendous power he has stumbled upon in his career on this planet. He seems to plunge helplessly in a swamp of dispute, of national and self-interest, and of general discord’. These situations — human bewilderment and the threat of war — surely demonstrate an urgent need to make ever more readily available to mankind the truths which our Society was formed to spread abroad by means of theosophical lives, theosophical literature, and theosophical lectures.

War, it is said, begins in the mind, and so must there be attacked. Theosophy reaches the mind. The Theosophical Society addresses the minds of men. Theosophy both offers knowledge and shows the pathway to intuitive perceptions, including that pertinent to my subject, namely the oneness of all life. Philosophers affirm ignorance to be the main cause of human error and of the suffering it produces. My theme this morning is that the worldwide spreading of the fundamental teachings of Theosophy constitutes an important part of the cure. It is obvious, to me at any rate, that the modem world desperately needs both Theosophy and the Theosophical Society; for this Movement, it is said, was specifically conceived to benefit mankind by removing man’s ignorance — avidya — and replacing it with knowledge — vidya.

This, I suggest, is the long-term — admittedly very long-term — and fundamental solution of the problems of human bewilderment and war, namely the bestowal upon and acceptance by man of a knowledge of Theosophy. If it should here be answered; ‘But spreading Theosophy is exactly what we have been and still are trying to do’, then I must reply: ‘True, but evidently not effectively enough and not to a large enough audience’. Apparently we are still not reaching mankind to a sufficient extent with the basic teachings of the Ancient Wisdom. This is not in the least a criticism, for who can calculate both the visible and the invisible, immeasurable effects in the three worlds of the ninety-one years of work of Members of the Theosophical Society?

If this view should prove acceptable, then I can move on to consider with you which teachings are more especially and most greatly needed in the world of today a world in transition, as the theme of this Congress indicates. I recognise, however, that changes of approach are observable within the Theosophical Society, which is itself passing through a period of transition, and that the doctrines to which I am now going to refer may therefore not be considered by some members of the Society as likely to help mankind in the present situation.

First of all, Theosophy is not to be regarded as a complete system to be accepted as such. On the contrary, as must be true of everything organic and spiritual, Theosophy cannot have a fixed geometrical outline the whole of which can, as it were, be traced on paper by rule and compass. Certain ideas, such as the concept and experience of oneness, refuse to be objectively defined, for this would be setting a limit to both Truth itself and to man’s capacity to discover it and to know it as an interior experience beyond the level of conceptual thought. Nevertheless, certain ideas are generally agreed upon, and it is to these that I will be referring as I proceed.

Concerning the problem of war and the war-like spirit in man, humanity obviously needs to know, realize, accept, and apply to life, the fundamental fact upon which human brotherhood rests. This is the spiritual togetherness of all mankind, the wholeness and the oneness of all the members of the human family, each one being a member of one spiritual Race which is without divisions of any kind. Our presence here, drawn from many nations and by a shared interest, demonstrates that such a fraternal relationship can be achieved by large groups of human beings, particularly those who are Theosophists. Humanity at large does not know Theosophy, and so there still remains the basic problem in the world today — the unification of mankind.

Before that happy state can be universally achieved the basic fact of unity with its many implications must, I suggest, be made clear to the large majority of men. It will have to become intellectually recognised, deeply experienced, mystically realized, and then expressed in action. This single fact of oneness, once grasped, can bring to an end both wanton aggression and much of the crime and vice of the world, for the experience of universal oneness leads naturally to that of universal love, and from universal love will arise universal peace. More and, more people will then accept Einstein’s dictum: ‘Each man exists for the sake of the other man’. This knowledge of unity is, I submit, the solution — I am tempted to say the sole solution—of many of the manifold world problems of today, especially that of ever-recurrent wars.

Think what a change it would make if a sufficient number of people realize — I accent that word ‘realize’ — that the human race is a continually reincarnating family with a shared source, a shared life and a common goal; that we men and women of today are those of former times; that egoically we are the very same people, and under the Law of Karma the way we treated each other in the past, as nations and as individuals, completely decides our relationships with each other today, as well as our personal conditions of life both now and in the future. Knowledge of karma especially of karma-nemesis seems to me to be of very great value, both as an explanation of the variety of human experiences and conditions and also as a very practical incentive to self-discipline and the brotherly treatment of one’s fellow men. In dramatic illustration of this doctrine of karma, we have the record of man’s proverbial and immemorial inhumanity to man and the tragic condition of mankind, century by century and at this present moment.

Following on from an expression of these general and somewhat idealistic views, I now advance some practical application of them to the work of the Theosophical Society, and particularly its work of removing that avidya, that ignorance, which causes mankind to create for itself so much suffering. Obviously our written and spoken presentation of Theosophy — always solely as proffered ideas — must be adapted to our audiences. The wrong information can drive earnestly seeking and greatly needing people away, whilst the right information can lead them to those treasures of theosophical knowledge which can transform one’s outlook upon and mode of life.

Amongst those who approach Theosophy are, perhaps, at least four general types. A simplified admittedly over-simplified — classification of both the people and the proffered ideas might be somewhat like this:

First, then, the relatively unlettered and often deeply troubled enquirers, who come to our book depots, our libraries and our lecture halls for guidance. Personally, I regard these seekers as of very great importance. To them might be offered, for example, the main doctrines concerning man, namely his triple nature — body, Soul and Spirit — and his evolution to perfected manhood as the purpose of his existence. This knowledge, when responded to, can give the much needed meaning and purpose to one’s life. Next they may learn of reincarnation as the means and of KARMA as the governing law, as I have already said. These two ideas together explain so much in human experience, which without them is inexplicable, bewildering indeed. In addition, of course, the spiritual unity of all mankind needs to be stressed, and the assurance given that received ideas can be transformed into direct knowledge, methods of doing this also being described.

To combat the ever-increasing cruelty in the world there is necessity for the teaching of the doctrine of ahimsa, meaning ‘not hurting’, harmlessness or compassion in thought, motive, feeling, word and deed — a harmless mind, mouth and hand. This is a very great need in the modem world; for where there is ahimsa there is love, selfless service and the protection of the weak.

This brings me to a possible second group, consisting of the educated but philosophically uninformed. When these come to us seeking guidance in life they should, I suggest, receive all to which I have just referred with, perhaps, enlargement upon the purpose of human life, reincarnation and karma; in other words — the Plan. The pathway to Self-realisation, and the way in which it may be trodden, may here be introduced and again, and always, unity stressed as the underlying fact of human existence and, to combat cruelty, the ideal of ahimsa.

A third group might include educators, religionists and scientists. Here also change, progress, transition, are observable side by side with great advances in technology. Many problems exist and are being attacked. Amongst these might be mentioned those concerning the human person. Answers are being sought to the questions: Who are we? What is man? Is he animal, god (or both), machine, computer or Divine Intelligence. Does the mind exist as an entity separate from the brain, or is mental activity the product of biochemical and electrical charges and changes within the brain? If the mind is mechanical, is there a ‘ghost in the machine’, as the term goes? How does the experiencing Self relate to the physical organ, to one particular brain?

In physics, the actual processes of interaction between natural forces and natural phenomena also constitute one of many problems. Here the teachings of Occult Science may usefully also be introduced, meaning, in general, the study of the Divine Mind in Nature. This includes the principles, laws and processes of the emanation, evolution and dissolution of Universes. The gateway could be opened into the vast fields of enquiry and research to which the Third Object of the Society directly refers. Received doctrines could then be transformed into personally realized truths. Beneficial changes in life habits could follow — the adoption of the ideal of service above self. This, in some cases, could lead to discipleship and initiation, and to the attainment of Adeptship in advance and on behalfof the human race. In other words the ideal of the PATH, the religion of the New Age, could perhaps be presented.

The Law of Correspondences, or extension of unity into the Cosmos, could also be advanced — that in the vast chain of cosmic Being all created things are linked together, everything being magically contained in everything else. Where one stands, there stand all the worlds. Everything is connected with everything else and interpenetrates everything else, according to exact if mysterious law. Man, himself, may be seen as a symbolic transparency through which the secrets of the Cosmos can be discerned. Goethe echoes this in his words: ‘The eye could not see the sun if it did not contain the sun within itself, and how could Divine things enrapture us, if we did not carry the Power of God within us?’

A fourth group could include the mystics, who by nature seek direct personal experience of the Divine. These could usefully receive all of the foregoing, together with descriptions of the illumined state as given by great saints and sages. Effective techniques of meditation, and the practice of yoga, could also be made available. This I regard as essential; for he who is steeped in yoga, who is saturated with the potency of the Sacred Word, and who keeps the mind still and strong, can realize oneness and meet and pass through adversity largely unmoved. For those thus illumined the barriers which normally separate people melt away, to be replaced by a sense of intimate rapport, even of identity, with all. Religious differences and antagonisms which so tragically divide humanity would then no longer do so; for spiritual illumination reveals the existence of the one Divine principle and Its Presence equally within the Soul of every human being.

Such, in small part — a fringe only of a fragment of Adeptic teaching — are some ideas which if accepted and applied could, I submit lead humanity from recurring wars to enduring peace. All people, I personally think, should know that Truth itself does exist, is discoverable, and can be found in Theosophical literature, libraries and lodges, as also, of course, from many other sources.

I confess to a sense of urgency, of pressing need, wisely and ever more widely to popularise a knowledge of Theosophy; for the personal happiness of mankind and the establishment of permanent peace on Earth depend, I am convinced, upon banishment of the darkness of human ignorance and its replacement by the wonderful light which is Theosophia.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 28, No. 2, 1976, p. 39

[See ‘A World in Transition’, Chapter 189]

195
The Opportunity of the Individual in the World Crisis

The one great question which most of us are asking at this time surely is: What is ahead of us — the third world war which seems to threaten or the establishment of stable peace? Which is it to be — world enslavement by a tyrannical power or world freedom? Must we go on indefinitely as we are at the time of writing, divided into two armed camps, or can humanity become united into one co-operative family of nations?

Before I offer an answer, I wish to make it clear that for the purpose of this article, the ideal of a united humanity means, a free humanity living in harmonious relationship. I do not mean one, totalitarian, world — a world united under a Dictator. I do not mean unity brought about by domination, by force, and by fear. I mean, only, world co-operation by free peoples living under a democratic, parliamentary system.

Is such an eventual unity of the peoples of the world too much to hope for? In answer, I am going to enunciate three fundamental ideas. First, that world peace will eventually arrive as a result of the development in the human mind of the power to perceive unity amidst diversity. When a sufficient number of people are able to recognise in the human race a shared life and a common goal of spiritual excellence, then — and not until then — will lasting world peace have become a possibility.

The second idea is that the historical process is in the direction of world co-operation. The third concerns the part which the individual person can and does play.

Perception of Unity

Concerning the first of these three ideas — the necessity for the intellectual perception of the shared life in all human beings — I do not believe that this is too much to hope for. There are indications that intense competitive individualism is, very slowly, giving place to a recognition of the mutual interdependence of man upon man and of nation upon nation. True, the formal, analytical mind is naturally individualistic and competitive, but as the higher attributes of the human intellect develop, the sense of self-separateness diminishes. The concepts of unity and of co-operation for the welfare of all then assume an increasing dominance. This growing recognition of unity will culminate in the ultimate establishment on earth of a world government founded upon the principles of brotherhood, justice and peace. The League of Nations, the United Nations Organization and all the other movements towards international co-operation are outward signs of this mental development in man which has been aptly described as, ‘a hunger for wholeness’.

World Co-operation

This brings me to the historical process— my second idea — the general evolutionary trend. History indicates that there is factual support for guarded optimism. Here is a partial list of achievements in world unification and international co-operation of the last hundred years or so: The League of Nations; the United Nations Organisation and all its many specialised agencies, such as UNNRA; UNESCO; UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund); the United States of America; the British Commonwealth of Nations; the Pan-American Union; the Boy Scouts; the Girl Guides; the YMCA; the YWCA; Rotary, with its ideal of service above self; the International Red Cross; the International Postal Convention under which all nations agree to carry each other’s mail; the International ‘Rules of the Road’ and Code of Signals for use at sea and in the air; Greenwich

Mean Time; the International system of units and symbols in science; the British pharmacopoeia and nomenclatures in anatomy, medicine and meteorology in world use; International nomenclature in music; International Laws, e.g., Patent and Copyright Law; the Olympic Games. This list could be greatly extended.

What have these achievements of unity in common? The answer, I submit, is an international spirit, a planetary outlook, a vision of a global civilisation, a recognition of the unity and interdependence of nation upon nation and of man upon man. So we see from history that, despite inevitable divisions, mankind does display the power to rise above, to think beyond, purely national boundaries. Some members of the human race, at any rate, are beginning to see the world as a whole. The evolutionary trend is obviously toward unification.

There is ground for vigilant hope that the historical process will continue until modem man’s increasing ‘hunger for wholeness’ brings into existence a united humanity. In consequence of their longing for world friendship, the time is certain to come when the people of the earth will agree that human advancement in both spiritual excellence and physical welfare is the common goal of all mankind. Universal peace will then be seen as essential to the attainment of that goal. Justice will in its turn be recognized as the prerequisite of peace; for peace and justice stand or fall together. The nations will one day decide to order their separate sovereignties in one government of justice and of peace.

How soon, and must there be a third world war? These two questions press for answers. The reply to both questions clearly is: That depends upon you and me.

What Can the Individual Do?

This brings me to the third idea, the place of the individual in the present crisis. Look at the latest manifestation of the trend towards unification — the United Nations. Despite most favourable humanitarian work in the alleviation of suffering, sickness and misery of countless forms, U.N. has proved completely ineffectual to deal with such grave situations as those of Korea, Persia and Egypt. What may we presume is the cause of this ineffectualness? I suggest that in part it is due to a lack of support from individuals who make up the component nations.

In order that we may comprehend the nature of our personal responsibilities, let us now follow the idea of international co-operation a little further. The underlying principle of a world government would be that the rights of man consist of the duty of everyone everywhere to serve with word and deed the spiritual and physical advancement of the living and of those to come. This would be accepted as the common cause of all generations of men. Man will have then learned to do unto others as he would like others to do unto him and especially to abstain from violence except for the repulse of violence as commanded or granted under law. Acceptance and fulfilment by individuals and nations of this their duty towards each other will be recognized as the heart and crux of the problem of world unity and world peace.

The Light and the Dark

Such is the ideal. What is the actuality? What is found when, from such information as is available, we examine what Lilienthal calls ‘our ethical and moral standards of precepts’? Apparently two main attitudes and standards exist. They are held by those who do perceive the truth of unity and brotherhood and by those who do not. Those who do are men and women who know, or are beginning to know, unity by instinct and intuition. These people perceive disunity as a denial of truth and feel impelled to labour in order to reveal and promote their vision of world unification. Such people are responsible for the League of Nations, U.N.O. and Rotary, Boy Scouts, Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A. the International Red Cross, and many other movements based on brotherhood and service.

Happily, the number of those enlightened concerning unity steadily increases. They are to be found everywhere, in homes, in businesses and factories, in the professions, in Municipal Councils and Parliaments, and in International Organisations. These men and women in whom the vision of the Oneness of Life has dawned, who are imbued with the spirit of unity, are to be regarded as the potential saviours of mankind, threatened as it now is with atomic and bacteriological warfare and guided missiles. These world unifiers are as the little leaven that leaveneth the whole. Whether consciously or unconsciously, they exert a pressure in the direction of co-ordination, collaboration, harmonious co-operation in the cause of human welfare. Herein, I submit, lies the heart of the problem of world freedom, namely, in the mind and in the motive for living of individual men and women and, therefore, of individual nations.

Unhappily, there is another and darker side to the present world situation. Selfish and unscrupulous individuals combine into groups and ruthlessly exploit their fellow men for their own personal profit. These also exist in homes, factories and businesses, in the professions, in Municipal Councils and Parliaments, and in International Organisations. These selfish men are the initiators and wagers of class warfare, of industrial, financial and political warfare. They are inflexibly determined to obtain for themselves and their groups the largest possible shares of world power and wealth. One glaring example of their methods is the destruction of greatly-needed food to keep up prices.

Thus, at this most critical time, humanity is divided into two classes of people. On the one hand, those who have perceived the truth of unity, and having outgrown the passion for personal power and possessions, have seriously dedicated their lives to the service of their fellow men. On the other hand, the dark fanatics of selfishness, the ruthless individualists who acknowledge no god but self, and no goal but self-interest, and pursue that goal relentlessly. If these hear a voice of conscience or see a light of idealism, they silence the one and deny and scorn the other. It is these who hold up progress to world peace.

‘One Stupendous Whole’

What, then, could you and I as individual persons have done to bring about world peace since the founding of the United Nations? What can we still do? What place have you and I as individuals in this accelerating progress towards unity? Definitely we can help or we can hinder; for if the historical process leading to the birth of ONE WORLD — one world of free peoples please remember — is to be quickened, that quickening can only come as a sufficient number of men and women in the free nations desire it, think it, seek it, and diligently work for it. Someone has very truly said: ‘Peace begins with the United Nations, but the United Nations begins with you’. There, I suggest, lies the responsibility of every thinking individual, challenging him to hold the ideal of world co-operation in mind, study its basis and its method, and practically live it out in the world of his own life.

This, I believe, is axiomatic; for the regeneration of human society depends very largely upon regeneration of the individual. ‘The world problem is the individual problem’. A person who is at war with himself, his conscience, his family, his fellow citizens, cannot be a peacemaker for the world. A measure of peace within is essential to a positive contribution to world peace without. All true reform begins with self-reform.

Thus, as ever, the would-be reformer is confronted with the greatest single contribution he can make, namely the reformation of himself. However helpless we may feel ourselves to be amidst what Mr Churchill called ‘the tornadoes and tides of world events’, nothing stands in the way of an immediate effort at self-reform.

The responsibility, then, is our own. We cannot wash our hands of it. Pontius Pilate washed his hands and the world has never forgiven him. Therefore, co-operativeness and sharing, in the individual life and character — yes, in the life and character of one individual these will most surely produce their outward and visible results.

Your and my right thinking without excuses, and our right living, meaning co-operative living, these will save the world. The living stones of which the temple of the new civilisation are being built consist of willingly co-operative individuals.

I close with a statement of a personal connection. As one who has been travelling throughout the world for the last 25 years, meeting the peoples living in many lands, speaking many languages and wearing skins of differing colours, I have gradually found myself obliged to recognise that below the surface of these outer differences amongst men, there exists the unity and the solidarity of the whole human race on earth. All people experience much the same hopes, sorrows and joys. All men come forth from one single divine source, are members of one spiritual race which is without divisions of any kind. The truth about the races of men on earth, I have come to believe, is that they are in fact all one, one brotherhood, one family, one purpose, one goal. As a poet has said: ‘All are but parts of one stupendous whole’.

World unity, a universal brotherhood of free men, is attainable on earth. This is because human brotherhood is not a condition to be created; it is a fact in nature to be recognized, to be acknowledged and to be ratified, as one day it will be. Whether this establishment of world co-operation comes soon or late depends, I suggest, very largely upon you and me, upon our thought, our motives for living and our lives.

Thus, we have come full circle from the world to the individual and from the individual again to the world. As the individual grows out of his own selfishness, so on the vast scale of mankind the world will grow out of the danger of world enslavement into freedom and enduring world peace.

Theosophy in Australia, 3, 12 December 1951, p. 7

Appendix A

A Theosophy to Youth Campaign [1]

By Sandra Hodson From Notes of a Talk to a Group

‘They do their Maker wrong,

Who, in the pride of age,

Cry down youth’s heritage,

And all the eager throng Of thoughts and plans and schemes,

With which the young brain teems”.^{^[176]}

One of the most important functions of the Theosophical Society is to serve as a modem gateway to knowledge of the Ancient Wisdom and into the Ancient Mysteries. This more especially applies to all reincarnating Egos who, in past lives, have been members of Mystery Schools and secluded Ashrams, as also, of course, to all mankind.

As one of those who have passed through that gateway into the Theosophical Society in this cycle of its life, I consider that no greater source of practical help and assurance of permanent happiness, wonder, beauty, wisdom and spirituality could ever have been made available to humanity from any other source than Theosophy itself, with all that the word truly means. A vital problem before all Sections and lodges is, I conclude therefore, to make Theosophy, as the happiest and most beautiful thing in life, available to all mankind and particularly to young people throughout the world. A Theosophy for Youth Campaign might well be a major objective for all lodges, and not only for this year of 1966 but for all the years to come.

A Round Table for Every Lodge

The establishment in each lodge of the Order of the Round Table would I am convinced, be of very great importance in carrying out this plan; for whilst they are very young — and at the most impressionable age — children can come into the Order of the Round table and the circle of Knights, Esquires, Companions and Pages and from there contact Theosophy. In the Order they learn to serve with devotion and dedication Our Lord the King, and to be a part of a group that accepts and practises in daily life the highest theosophical ideas and ideals. A most splendid aid to character development and so to Egoic self-expression is in consequence to be found in this unique movement of the Round Table, within which I include the Golden Chain; for these are actually two parts of one inspired and inspiring Movement. An additional value of the Round Table is that through their children, parents and other members of the family can be drawn in to help and so in their turn contact Theosophy. The Auckland Round Table and Golden Chain with its 700 members throughout New Zealand may serve as splendid examples of this service. There, Leading Knight, Mrs Lena Turvey and her helpers under the Chief Knight of New Zealand, Mr H. H. Banks, are doing a vital and invaluable work for both young people and the Theosophical Society in New Zealand, now and in the future.

Ceremonial, Drama and Display

In addition to the beautiful Ceremonials of the Round Table, other group work may be encouraged including drama, playlets, picture-talks, games and stories. These last may include simply told accounts of the lives of great humanitarians, educationalists, doctors, healers, prison reformers, heroes and animal lovers and leaders in all fields of human endeavour. Tales of the bravery, devotion and sacrifice shown by our younger brothers the animals and birds could well be recounted as examples to mankind. Naturally, all these accounts of the unique services and noble characters of great men and women will be used to illustrate the teachings of Theosophy, and it could always be pointed out that whether Members of the Theosophical Society or not, large numbers of people show by their lives that they are in fact true Theosophists.

The Group Leader of even the youngest members of the Round Table can do much through such talks and stories, games and dramas to draw out from children their own ideas and to deepen their powers of reason, intuition, courage and compassion, thereby allowing the Ego to have greater influence upon the psyche of the child. Attention can also be drawn, even at that early age — in very simple forms at first of course, to the teachings of Theosophy and their common sense applications to the important details of everyday life and in relationships with other people.

The Value of Discussion

Young people can very valuably be led to discuss all such matters freely amongst themselves, trying out one idea against another and so discerning the underlying principles of life, all within the framework of tolerance, courtesy and harmony. Interest in the ideas of others present, especially when they are contrary to their own thoughts, can usefully be developed. Constructive discussion can be an effective means of self-education, which can be a very fine form of learning through self-expression and of becoming able, as it were, to ‘think on one’s feet’! Undesirable forms of mental and verbal ‘warfare’ such as wrangling and argument would soon be seen as unacceptable approaches to the attainment of knowledge and wisdom. By such means, young people could come to understand that by reasoned discussion one can acquire wisdom, eliminate faulty premises and discover the synthesis or basis of truth underlying permissible and desirable variations of opinion. They would learn also that destructive argument and intolerance create mental bias and raise psychological barriers to true perception and the establishment of basic values. And so most usefully, I suggest, in every lodge there could be a valuable centre of childlight and life actively expressing itself in and through these beautiful and needed Movements of the Golden Chain and Round Table which are the first to receive the new personalities of the ancient ‘Immortals’, who seek again the eternal wisdom and the Path of Self-Discovery.

From Round Table to Theosophical Society

Entry into the Theosophical Society [T.S.], whether from the Round Table and youth groups or by the public, is made very simple and easy, as the International Rules indicate; for, under Organization, they state that, ‘Every person of ten full years of age, without distinction of race, creed, caste or colour, shall be eligible for membership in the Society, but those under the age of eighteen shall be admitted to membership only with the written consent of parent or guardian, and shall have no right to vote until they have reached the age of eighteen years’.[177]

From this we see that a child of ten years can, with the parents’ consent, become a Member of the T.S. This is rarely understood and one finds that instead of entering the Theosophical Society after they have become Round Table members our young people all too often depart from amongst us, apparently no longer having any desire to continue their theosophical associations by becoming Members. This is one of the Society’s problems to be solved. I expect there are many and varied reasons for this departure, but think that by inviting opinions from our Members many valuable solutions would be found and then applied to the question.

Not ‘Young Theosophists’ but ‘All Theosophists’

One of these could be to retain all our younger people as lodge Members and not separate them into ‘Young Theosophists’ with their own Rules and Constitution; for this distinction can become a cause of diversion from the lodge as a whole. Should we not rather keep them with us — as we do here in New Zealand — and take special care to make a very big place for them and their activities within our lodge life, and work? Then they can refresh it with their new mental growth, fresh vision and ways of approach, having as yet no inhibitions against the acceptance of such theosophical ideas as appeal to them. In this way we would also prepare and encourage some of them to become our leaders in the future.

Young People and Lodge Rooms

A change of adult attitude in some directions may also be called for with regard to the use by younger Members of the lodge itself, its rooms and its lecture hall. The question has been asked: ‘Are our young people made welcome in our rooms? May they dance, play games, have community singing and general fun and frolic there?’ I am aware of, but cannot wholly accept, the view that these rooms develop such a special atmosphere as to be almost sacred and that such activities would lower their occult vibrations!

Whilst happily rare, a situation can exist in which the older officials and members of a lodge lose touch with youth and its needs. This could make them somewhat intolerant of the views of young people and their sometimes extreme attitude towards life and cause them to become unsympathetic to youthful forms of recreation and ways of self-expression. In consequence, they may tend to keep the reins of government in their own hands — admittedly wisely on occasion. Here, in all fairness, one must admit that such action can be justified; for so often after accepting responsibility in the lodge young Theosophists do not turn up to carry out their work or sometimes show an attitude of irresponsibility, thereby failing the lodge officials who had trusted them and so the lodge itself.

Youth in Office

Another barrier to the infusion of young life and enthusiasm into our lodges is a hesitation to allow them to experiment, as in talks to Members, presiding at Members’ meetings with a view later on to taking the chair at public gatherings. Young Theosophists may feel discouraged, too, by unreadiness — again quite understandably in certain circumstances — to allow them to assist in the various lodge executive Offices, which would give them experience and practice, as in assisting Lodge Treasurers, Book-Depot Managers, Secretaries, Publicity Officers, etc, and so gradually and efficiently under sympathetic guidance entering into theosophical adulthood.

I am also well aware of and fully understand that many of our chief workers and leaders very naturally tend to become physically tired, their energies being used in so many different ways in their wonderful services to the lodge and in allied Movements. This also is a

basic problem, and in calling upon available helpers, care must of course be taken to see that no one loses the advantages of promotion in any of them. Indeed it would be very undesirable that a Member who is especially gifted in the service of young people and decides to help almost exclusively in the Youth Movement, should be allowed to lose their opportunity of becoming a Lodge President or other Official of the lodge or associated activity. By such means and by unified teamwork we may achieve success in all our Movements and not exhaust the energies and health of the invaluable nucleus of Members who bear the chief burden of organization, administration and active service in our lodges.

‘The Secret of Good Attendance is Interest’

Since inspiring lectures and profound teachings are not always easily obtained in our lodges, vital and dramatic substitutes may well replace them, always of course with due dignity. The criticism that our presentations are too dull, too uninspired and the level too flat might thus be met. Here young people with their active and lively minds and bodies can greatly help; for they themselves do not readily enjoy long discourses, learned lectures and erudite expositions.

This being so, would it not be valuable to have shorter talks and permit all present — public and members alike — to join in and discuss freely under a wise leader, who, when the occasion arose, would welcome and even join in, the right kind of laughter? I think it would; for happy laughter makes for good will between those sharing in it, and surely Theosophy is not a dry and gloomy topic to be talked about with long faces! Personally, I find it to be the most thrilling subject in the whole world, full of fun, romance, flights of the creative imagination which lift the mind to amazing heights. Theosophy is for me more exciting than all the detective stories and novels in the world — a fascinating, health-giving, mentally-rejuvenating and spiritually-reviving unlimited group of ideas which are so fully available within the pages of our splendid theosophical literature! Somehow this must be given out to Members and public alike, old and young, especially the young, and in new and dramatic ways. This is another of the great and pressing problems in our Society — to make our meetings interesting and full of life — and the endeavour to solve it is a very important activity, indeed a very urgent necessity in which I am convinced young people could play a vital part.

An International Bureau for Lectures, Plays and Subjects for Discussion

I would hope that a world theosophical forum could be established to include the finest brains of our Movement who would produce a theosophical educational series of brochures, giving guidance in public speaking and debate. Stories, dramas, playlets and duologues and patterns of discussions to be used in planning attractive meetings, illustrated lectures on all theosophical subjects in every field. Sections, lodges and groups throughout the theosophical world could then call upon this central bureau for such help and so receive first class material for world wide presentation of Theosophy. The fruits of such organized planning could then be specially adapted for the use of young people. A Youth Year, with discussion and debates wisely directed, could greatly help to vivify and give new life to Sections, lodges and youth groups.

In the absence of available lodge personnel suitable for these purposes, the methods of overseas organizations as well as of local youth movements could be studied and ideas gained for the formation and conduct of Youth Groups. Lodges could then recruit the younger Theosophists up to the age of say forty years into sub-committees under the Lodge President and Secretary. Youth leaders, those interested in drama and dramatic productions, the best writers and debaters, leaders of discussion groups — and all others who show real enthusiasm and capacity for Youth work could also be included.

Youth Rallies

I would further suggest the initial launching of two youth rallies with — if available — experienced Members in the chair. The first of these would be for Members of the Theosophical Society only and would include senior members of the Round Table and Theosophists up to the age of forty years. A discussion under the general title of HOW TO REACH THE PEOPLE OF ALL AGES WITH THEOSOPHY might well constitute the work of this gathering, which would include a choice of theosophical subjects and activities that would be most likely to attract youth and would be practically helpful in solving the problems of young people.

Forty Years Young!

How old may a so-called ‘young’ Theosophist be? The usual limit is thirty-five and perhaps rightly so. I would suggest, however — especially in the formation and early guidance of such a group — that the age be extended to forty years old. I have come to the conclusion that the extra five years brings out a greater maturity of viewpoint and an added capacity for leadership, without the loss of youthful freshness and vitality. Those of forty years of age are able to stabilize activities, to lead wisely and from behind to ensure fruitful decisions. I think it to be a waste of valuable potential to keep to a fixed age limit of thirty-five years; for by so doing a needed bridge between youth and maturity is lost, a bridge which is very helpful to young people in their life and in Theosophical work.

The Needs of Modern Youth?

A second rally could then be organized and attended more especially by young Theosophists and their friends, members of the public who are interested also being welcome. A theme for discussion at such a gathering might well be what are the needs of modem youth and how can they be met? or WHY, AND AGAINST WHAT, IS YOUTH REBELLING? If thought desirable, such a discussion could be followed by an entertainment provided by the young Theosophists to include dancing, dramatic sketches, community singing and other items, followed by supper. Other activities could usefully consist of debates, film and slide evenings, well conducted yoga and yoga-physical culture classes, group visits to welfare and civic centres and art galleries. In Wellington, New Zealand, for example, Mrs Ruth Eriksen—a Member of our Society — is a highly skilled group leader and teacher of yoga exercises for physical culture and if requested would, I feel sure, conduct such classes for lodge Members. Group creativity, particularly in the Round Table, though also by all young people, in formulating playlets with the help of an experienced producer and dramatist, could prove most interesting. Much fun could be had from such activity and from dramatizing theosophical ideas, the Seven Rays^{^[178]} being one suitable example; for the special faculties, difficulties, oddities and habits of the different Ray-types could successfully be brought out both seriously and humorously. References to and even portrayals of the great heroes of each of the Rays could also be included. Such sketches could be presented at Members’ meetings and, when suitable to the public as well, these being excellent forms of theosophical ‘lecturing’.

Other subjects for discussion — imaginative and topical could be:

‘Can I Become a Spiritual Astronaut?’

‘Does The Ego In Its Own World Experience Weightlessness?’

‘Can I Give Myself An Auric-Virtue-colour Bath?’

‘Can I Escape From My Mind-Rocket and Climb Out Into Superphysical Space?’

‘What Shall I See In The Space-Land Of The Ego?’

‘What Will My Ego Feel Like When It Becomes an Oceanaut?’

‘Describe The Ego’s Diving Suit; and Equipment?’

‘How Can The T.S. More Effectively Help The World Today?’

‘What Are The Rays Most Active in The Aggressive Nations and People of Today?’

‘State The Ideal Qualities and Virtues of a World-Leader of Today?’

‘Do Pain and Suffering Educate The Ego?’ What Value Have They?’

‘Can We Attain Adeptship Through, and in, Happiness Alone?’

‘How Do I Know That I Have an Ego? How Can I Prove It To Myself?’

FROM LODGE TO SECTION AND THE WORLD

Members of a Youth Group in any lodge which succeed in a form of youth activity could visit other lodges in the Section, demonstrate to the Members and Youth of that lodge the method and value of such work, and at the same time help their hosts to embark upon their own variants of such work.

I am well aware that the practical application of such plans would admittedly present some difficulties — especially at first — none of which need be insurmountable. Collaboration between lodge and Section and lodge Officials would, however, be necessary to full success. Members who are both interested in and well equipped for this important work with young people could offer their services to their General Secretary. He or she would then co-ordinate, lead and advise directly, and perhaps at a special Conference on Youth, plan a comprehensive Section Program.

I envisage for our Society an International Youth Campaign Group, drawn from the best talent of the Theosophical world, which would visit its various Sections. Such a group could effectively campaign for Theosophy to Youth using the finest possible techniques in a world-wide action to bring Theosophy to young people and through them to the world.

I close with this statement by my revered Teacher, C. W. Leadbeater [C.W.L.], to whom I owe all that is highest, noblest and best in my life.

‘It is hard to realize how many people are reasonably near the position where they might make rapid progress if only they could be awakened to it. I have myself, I suppose, seen it most among the young, because my work generally lies there. I see boys and girls by the score in almost any country who could make good progress along Theosophical lines, if the matter could only be put before them. But it is not, and they plunge off into the work-a-day world, and become very good people of the ordinary type. They will go on in that way for twenty or thirty incarnations, or more, though they are capable of taking up Theosophy and would be interested in it, if it were properly put before them. Surely that state of affairs throws a serious responsibility upon those who possess this knowledge. It is therefore our business to be capable and ready to put Theosophy forward whenever there is a suitable opportunity. There are plenty of people who might just as well enter upon Theosophical development now as in twenty lives’ time. It is, of course a question of their karma, but it is our karma to give them the opportunity, to put the matter before them — whether they take it or not is their affair. Until we have done our best we do not know whether it is their karma to be helped or not’.^{^[179]}

This splendid utterance comes from one who devoted his whole life to bringing the inspiration and beauty of Theosophy to humanity, young and old, especially the young. Unhappily as I believe, C.W.L. has recently been subjected to severe criticism. But it appears to be the inevitable fate of great Occultists to be misjudged and misunderstood. Happy are they who, privileged to have known C.W.L., avoid these two errors concerning him.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 27, No. 1, 1966 p. 24

Appendix B

A ‘Theosophy to Youth’ Campaign [2]: Suggested Topics and Titles for Discussion, Debate and Work Projects

[Continued from Appendix A ‘A Theosophy to Youth Campaign’]

By Sandra Hodson

A Karmic Study of Man, Physical and Superphysical

What karmic factors are involved in human rebirth, sex, choice of parents, nation, environment, length of life and manner of death? Is a study of the make-up of man essential to enduring happiness and well-being? Do the teachings of Reincarnation and Karma lead to psychological stability, self-control, the understanding and overcoming of sorrow, mental peace and spiritual fulfilment? What are the links in the chain of reasoning which can produce such basic changes? Was the Theosophical Society founded in order that a widespread acceptance at that time of the brotherhood of man, Reincarnation and Karma — as well as other doctrines — could have prevented the first and second World Wars? Would these same teachings, if attractively presented and widely propagated, help now to bring about interracial harmony and respect, prevent a third World

War and establish lasting world peace?

Operation New Age

Work out a scheme for such widespread propaganda. If successful, this could be a major part of the contribution of the Theosophical Society to the solution of present world problems.

Discuss Reincarnation and Karma Applied to the Following: Genius in children; wickedness in adults; marriage — happy and unhappy; divorce; jilting by either party; disloyalty in marriage — adultery, promiscuity; the evils and benefits of abortion; the for and against of birth control; misfits in home, school and the professions; spinsterhood; bachelorhood; causes and effects of parental treatment of children, favourable and adverse; rebels against law and society — why?; drug-addiction; alcoholism; careers — decided by personal choice or necessity?; the absence of interest or ambition in young people; what characteristics in youth give the ability to know both what is best for one and what leads to laziness and self-indulgence?

Cruelty as a Karmic Factor in Personal, National and International Life

Discuss the following subjects: The disintegrating force upon the race of human cruelty, the widespread increase of parental cruelty to children; physical and mental cruelty of husband to wife and vice versa\ cruelty of teacher to child, e.g., corporal punishment, undue severity, sarcasm, hardness of heart, favouritism, exclusion; cruelty of youth to youth and of youth to age; cruelty to animals for female vanity, sport and the advancement of science; its effect upon the individual and society.

Causes of Disasters to Human Beings

Are blindness, deafness, poverty, diseases, epidemics, thalidomide babies and all congenital diseases caused by transgressions in former lives? If so, what forms of conduct could bring about such disastrous effects?

Natural Disasters and Their Results

Is suffering karmic where caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, storms, floods, forest fires? If so, what forms of misconduct in former lives could produce these and their effects?

Education

Can a child’s psychology, and even life, be ruined by any of the following: Corporal punishment, mental cruelty, undue severity, sarcasm, hardness of heart, favouritism, exclusion? Is there insufficient respect for the Inner Divinity of the child in modem education? What difference would knowledge of Reincarnation and Karma make if applied to the educational system? What factors are lacking in the school curriculum for the making of great men and women? Is ‘Good Citizenship’ important as a subject in the school curriculum? Are example and ‘hero-worship’, if provided by school staff, an advantage in character building? Discuss the benefits to the nation of national heroes in the cultural life of the people. Discuss in the light of Theosophy an ideal system of child training for backward and advanced young people. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the competitive method of education. Does modem education fulfil the need of young people who require a more intelligent, humane and spiritually inspiring form of education? Is education for the advanced Ego urgently needed? Formulate a system of education deliberately and scientifically designed to provide for incarnating Egos the best possible conditions and training for their new vehicles. Does the modern materialistic form of education, with over-large classes, ‘mass production’ and accentuation of physical exercises and sport hold back the spiritual advance of the Race? Could the Seventh Ray ideal and method usefully be accentuated in home, school, civic and national life, e.g. drama, colour, pageantry, ceremonial, beauty, order, chivalry, chivalric codes?

Health in the Light of Karma

What conduct in past lives leads to good and bad health in lives which follow? How may good health in future lives be assured? What conduct in past lives leads to mental and psychological diseases?

The Seven Rays

Discuss human psychology and behaviour according to the seven human temperaments or ‘Ray’ types.^{^[180]}

Art

Discuss the fundamental ideas expressed in the word ‘Art’. Do the Arts offer opportunities for successful careers for young people? Do the Arts offer special opportunities for the expression of the spiritual Self? Is true Beauty an objective expression of the Divine?

Marriage

What forms of conduct in former lives lead to happiness and unhappiness in marriage and parenthood? Is the choice of the marriage partner always governed by karma? What other factors may be involved?

Divorce

Discuss the following: The right and the wrong of divorce; the attitudes of the Churches as to divorce, e.g., that marriages are made in heaven and cannot be dissolved; the effect of divorce upon the children; broken homes and cruelty as factors in delinquency; the effects upon the children of quarrelsome parents and unhappy home life.

Nationhood

What causes contribute to birth into totalitarian regimes in which the State is supreme and the individual subordinate?

War

Would the application of knowledge of Reincarnation and Karma help the cause of world peace, and if so how? Are wars of aggression distinct from wars of defence? Was the use of the atomic bornb justifiable? Consider the human ‘wreckage’ of war and the karmic situation?

The Penal Code

Discuss cruelty in the penal code as in solitary confinement and corporal and capital punishment; the causes and remedies for the world increase of sex crimes; the most effective forms of correction, reclamation and re-education of youthful delinquents, vandals and rebels against law and order; would birching be either effective or justifiable?

Human Follies and Their Adverse Consequences

Discuss the folly of giving way to sensual desires; breaking vows of chastity; being disloyal to the partner; stealing for personal gain instead of honest earning; careless driving with the danger of maiming or killing others; causing pregnancy and refusing marriage; ruining reputations by the evil of gossip and friendships by mischief-making; listening to gossip and acting unfairly without due investigation; tyrannizing over those in one’s power; beating children who cannot defend themselves under the pretext of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’; advocating cruel practices instead of humane ones; how the above actions affect the present health, psychologically and the future lives and psychology of those involved, whether actors or victims?

Business

Discuss the evils of, and possible remedies for, the following: Ruthless competition, as in ‘Each man for himself and the devil take the hindmost’; the corroding effects on character of a prolonged policy of dishonesty in business practice; sharp practice and whether it is or is not justified by the term, ‘it’s business’; the evil of greed and materialism in trade, e.g. advertising by using sexual stimulus; encouraging such disease-producing vices as alcoholic excess and smoking in order to obtain money, power and position; the exploitation of the female body as in advertising, movies and pornography; the derogation of woman in the above and in stories, comic-strips and cartoons; turning the female into a money-making machine in the world of business; the inciting display of the female body and its adverse effects upon youthful morality. Does such an attitude towards the female sex cause girls to think of themselves as ‘cheap’, and to engender towards womankind an attitude of disrespect? Is honest competition essential to maximum efficiency in business?

Religion

What is the true purpose of Religion in human life and evolution? Do the fanatic, the iconoclast and inquisitor have a place in Religion? Does strictly orthodox theology fail to meet the deeply religious and spiritual needs of humanity? Which doctrines in orthodox Religion — if any — should be done away with and which retained? Is the true purpose of Religion to lead to God-consciousness? What experiences are passed through in consciousness as the way to Self-realization is trodden?

The Occult Life

What is the place of the Guru in the Occult Life? Is it actually true that ‘when the pupil is ready the Master appears’? If so, how, when and where may He be expected to appear? Will He be the Master Himself or a human agent? Can a person working to earn a living become a disciple in the full occult sense? Is commercial life a barrier to occult progress? Why are great Occultists so often misjudged and misunderstood?

Change

What does the following excerpt from The Voice of the Silence really mean concerning change? ‘Beware of change, for change is thy great foe. This change will fight thee off, and throw thee back out of the path thou treadest, deep into viscous swamps of doubt. Prepare and be forewarned in time. If thou hast tried and failed, O dauntless fighter, yet lose not courage; fight on, and to the charge return again and yet again’. Discuss the following: Can change — as a basic philosophy or religion — be either valuable or dangerous? C. W. Leadbeater writes: ‘. . . during the period of change [do] not change one’s basis or essential attitude’[181]

Doubt

Has doubt both a constructive and destructive aspect? Debate what is meant by ‘the viscous swamps of doubt’ in the above quotation. Are doubts valuable if they lead one to discover the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom? Can the scientific method be applied to the examination of theosophical doctrines? (The scientific method consists of re-checked observations and experiments, objectively recorded with absolute honesty and without fear or favour.)

Propaganda

Give seven or more basic theosophical ideas that will be acceptable to the following people: Cynic, scoffer, Christians of all denominations, materialist, existentialist[182] (‘a philosophy of despair’), scientist, doctor, lawyer, parent, bereaved person, teacher, agnostic. Draw up a series of newspaper advertisements from the above theosophical ideas, calculated to appeal to a wide public.

Leadership

What are the advantages and disadvantages of leadership? Are the great principles and abstract ideas of Theosophy too high for acceptance by young people, too much for them to understand and appreciate, too far away from the thoughts, needs and lives of youth? Does youth need the leadership, authority or direct guidance of an outstanding or accepted living personality? Do young people need such a leader to help them to make up or to unmake their minds for them? Is ‘a new lift’ for the ancient ‘face’ of the ‘Ageless’ Wisdom needed in modem days? Why do the words ‘out of date’, ‘new look’, ‘new approach’, cause so many to make an emotional ‘breakaway’ from reasoned and spiritually fruitful systems of thought and life, to become rebels? Will an unorthodox movement — and so an unpopular cause — always be a ‘forlorn hope’^{^[183]} as Master K.H. [Kuthumi] called the Theosophical Society? Will the theosophical Cause be too difficult for most young people to champion before a world which so greatly values orthodox traditions and standards and highly prized popularity (being in the swim), worldly possessions and so-called status symbols?

Conclusion

How may the youth of the world become convinced that the great light of the ancient Wisdom is in their midst, and arouse their enthusiasm so that they will respond to the call of the prophet Isaiah: ‘Arise, shine for the light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee’.^{^[184]}

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 27, No. 2, 1966, p. 41

Glossary

Adept (Latin): ‘Adeptus’, meaning He who has obtained. An Initiate of the Fifth Degree in the Greater Mysteries, a Master in the science of esoteric philosophy, a perfected man, an exalted Being Who has attained complete mastery over His purely human nature and possesses knowledge and power commensurate with lofty evolutionary stature. A fully Initiated Being Who watches over and guides the progress of humanity.

Adi (Sanskrit): ‘The first, the primeval’. The Foundation Plane, the first field of manifestation, ‘the foundation of a universe, its support and the founts of its life’. For an exposition of the seven planes of Nature, see Through the Gateway of Death, by G. Hodson.

Ahamkara (Sanskrit): The first tendency towards definiteness, regarded as the origin of all manifestation. In man the conception of T, self-consciousness or self-identity, the illusion of self as a self-separate existence in contra-distinction to the reality of the universal One Self. The illusion of separateness, the ‘Great Heresy’, is regarded as the source of human sorrow and suffering. Self-emancipation from this delusion is the sure way to happiness and peace.

Akasha (Sanskrit): The subtle supersensuous spiritual essence which pervades all space. See Kundalini Shakti.

Seattle

2 weeks — Vancouver, B.C. in depth of winter, but splendid audiences.

Los Angeles

With five meetings — 500 addressed at the Hollywood Women’s Club — Large Vegetarian dinner at India House, Sunset Boulevard, attended by a great assembly of internationally notable people

13 Radio Broadcasts — Large audiences in San Diego — Denver — Colorado — Kansas City.

The Unity School of Christianity

Founded by the vegetarian, Charles Fillimore gathered 700 workers and members to hear Mr Hodson’s message on ‘The Spiritual Way of Life’.

Mr Hodson continues in U.S.A. then Mexico — Havana — Cuba —Canada, two months in California, a week in Hawaii, and back to New Zealand in October. Then guest speaker for our special DIAMOND JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS AND CONVENTION in Wellington December 28th, 1956 to January 3rd, 1957.

Theosophy in New Zealand, Vol. 17, No. 1 & 2, 1956, p. 18

Antahkarana (Sanskrit): The path or bridge between the Higher and Lower Manas. See Manas.

Archetype (Greek.): ‘First-moulded’ or stamped. The ideal, abstract, or essential ‘idea’. The Divine conceiving from which arises the Divine ‘idea’ of the whole universe in time and space; the governing power in creation.

Arhat (Sanskrit): ‘The worthy’. Exoterically, ‘one worthy of divine honours’. Esoterically, an Initiate of the Fourth Degree who has entered the highest Path and is thus emancipated from both self-separateness and enforced rebirth.

Arupa (Sanskrit): Bodiless, formless, as opposed to rupa, body or form. This term is most often used as a qualification of the Manasic Plane, the three higher or innermost conditions of this being described as the arupa levels.

Asekha (Sanskrit): In Buddhism, one Who has nothing more to learn; an Initiate of the Fifth Degree; one of the Occult Hierarchy, a stage above the Arhat; an Adept.

Ashram (Sanskrit): A sacred building, a monastery or hermitage for ascetic purposes.

Astral: The region of the expression of all feelings and desires of the human soul. See also Karma.

Asuras (Sanskrit): Exoterically, elementals and evil gods—considered maleficent, demons, and no gods. But esoterically—the reverse. For in the most ancient portions of the Rig Veda, the term is used for the Supreme Spirit, and therefore the Asuras are spiritual and divine.

Atlantis: The continent that was submerged in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans according to the secret teaching of the East and Plato; home of the Atlantean or Fourth Root Race. See Basic Theosophy by G. Hodson.

Atma (Sanskrit): Universal Spirit—The seventh principle in the septenary constitution of man, the Supreme Soul. The faculty which manifests as spiritual will.

Augoeides (Greek.): ‘The self-radiant divine fragment’, the Robe of Glory of the Gnostics and the Karana Sharira, Causal Body, of Hinduism.

Aum (Sanskrit): The name of the triple Deity. A syllable of affirmation, invocation, and divine benediction.

Aura: A subtle invisible essence or fluid that emanates from human and animal bodies and even things. It is a psychic effluvium, partaking of both the mind and the body, as it is the electro-vital, and, at the same time an electro-mental, aura; called in Theosophy the akasic or magnetic aura.

Avalokiteshvara (Sanskrit): ‘The on-looking Lord’, the manifested Logos, Ishvara.

Avatar (Sanskrit): The doctrine of Divine incarnation or ‘descent’.

Avatara (Sanskrit): ‘Descent’. The incarnation of a Deity, especially Vishnu, the Second Aspect of the Hindu Trimurti.

Bodhisattva (Sanskrit): Literally means ‘He whose essence (sattva) has become intelligence (bodhi)\ He who needs but one more incarnation to become a perfect Buddha.

Brahma (Brahman) (Sanskrit): The impersonal, supreme and incognizable Principle of the Universe, from the essence of which all emanates and into which all returns.

Brahma Vidya (Sanskrit): ‘The wisdom of Brahma, the Supreme Deity.

Buddha: ‘Awakened’ or ‘Enlightened’. Also used interchangeably with Sakyamuni (Sanskrit), i.e., ‘Sage of the Sakyas’ and Tathagata (literally, ‘Thus-Gone’ or ‘One Who has transcended Worldly Existence’.) In Theosophical literature, the term refers to the personage who in his last incarnation was Siddhartha Gautama, the first of the human race to have attained enlightenment. The term is also used to denote a personage of the Second Ray (the Ray of Love) who has attained the Eight initiation, and occupies the ‘office’ of the Buddha of the world for a particular Root Race. Hence, Gautama Buddha is the Buddha of the Fifth (Aryan) Root Race and Chaksusha Buddha is the Buddha of the Fourth (Atlantean) Root Race. The term is also applied to a highly evolved consciousness of the First Ray (the

Ray of Will) who has attained the Eight initiation and is referred to as a Pratyekha Buddha. See The Masters and the Path, by C.W. Leadbeater and Basic Theosophy, by G. Hodson.

Buddhi (Sanskrit): Universal Soul. The sixth principle in the septenary constitution of man, that of intuitive wisdom, vehicle of the seventh, Atma. The faculty which manifests as spiritual intuitiveness.

Causal Body: The immortal body of the reincarnating Ego of man, built of matter of the ‘higher’ levels of the mental word. It is called Causal because it gathers up within it the results of all experiences, and these acts as causes moulding future lives and influencing future conduct.

Chakra (Sanskrit): A ‘wheel’ or ‘disc’. A spinning, vortical, funnel-shaped force-centre with its opening on the surfaces of the etheric and subtler bodies of man, and its stem leading to the superphysical counterparts of the spinal cord and of nerve centres or glands. There are seven main chakras associated severally with the sacrum, the spleen, the solar plexus, the heart, the throat, the pituitary, and the pineal glands. Chakras are both organs of superphysical consciousness and conveyors of the life-force between the superphysical and physical bodies. See The Chakras, by C.W. Leadbeater.

Chela (Sanskrit): A disciple or pupil.

Chohan (Tibetan): ‘Lord’ or ‘Master’, A high Adept, or Initiate of the Sixth Degree. A chief, thus Dhyan-Chohan would answer to ‘Chief of the Dhyanis\ See Dhyani.

Dana (Sanskrit): Charity, love. One of the six Paramitas. See Paramitas.

Devachan (Sanskrit): The ‘dwelling of the Gods’. A state intermediate between two earth-lives, into which the Ego enters after its separation from Kama Rupa, and the disintegration of the lower principles on earth.

Devas (Sanskrit): ‘Shining ones’, spiritual Beings, Planetary Logoi, and Hierarchies of Archangels and angels. The main stages of devic development each have their own name. Nature spirits, like animals and birds, are actuated by a group consciousness shared with others of the same genus. Gods, Sephiras, devas, and angels have evolved out of group consciousness into separate Individuality, as has man. Archangels, especially, have transcended the limitations of Individuality, and have entered into universal or cosmic consciousness, as has the Superman or Adept.

Deva-Raja (Sanskrit): an Archangel—King Deva.

Dharana (Sanskrit): ‘Concentration’. That state of yoga practice when the mind has to be fixed on the object of contemplation.

Dharma (Sanskrit): (That which is to be held.) Moral and religious duty; justice; right and orderly action; virtue. ^‘Dharma is a wide word, primarily meaning the essential nature of a thing—that which makes it to be what it is externally; hence, the laws of its being—its duty. And it includes religious rites appropriate to those laws and customs—also righteousness’.—A. Besant.

Dharmakaya (Sanskrit): One of the three vestures of the Path. See The Voice of the Silence, by H.P. Blavatsky, verse 140-5, 306.

Dhyana (Sanskrit): ‘Contemplation’. A state of abstraction which carries the ascetic practicing it far above this plane of sense consciousness and out of the world of matter. In Buddhism, one of the six Paramitas. See Paramitas.

Dhyani (Sanskrit): ‘Expert in Yoga’. Also a generic name for spiritual Beings, Planetary Logoi, and Hierarchies of Archangels and angels. The term Dhyana signifies a state of profound contemplation during which the Dhyani becomes united with the highest parts of his own constitution and communes therewith. Dhyan-Chohans, ‘Lords of Contemplation’, are members of the Host of Spiritual Beings who live in this exalted state and supervise the cyclic evolution of life and form in a Solar System. Monadically, man is an embryo Dhyan-Chohan, and at the close of the Planetary Age will himself have become a fully developed ‘Lord of Contemplation’.

Ego: The threefold, immortal, unfolding spiritual Self of man in its vesture of light, the ‘Robe of Glory’ of the Gnostics and the Karana Sharira or Causal Body of Hindu philosophy. This higher Triad evolves to Adeptship by virtue of successive lives on earth, all linked together because they are reincarnations of the same spiritual Self. Thus the Ego is an individualized manifestation of the Monad, which is the eternal Self of man, the dweller in the Innermost, a unit of the Spirit-Essence of the Universe. The term is used to denote the unfolding spiritual Self of man in which the attribute of Individuality inheres. The adjective ‘Egoic’ refers to the Ego in this sense.

Esoteric: Hidden, secret, sacred. As contrasted to exoteric (outward or public).

Ether: A material medium at a plane of manifestation higher than the material. Confused with Akasa and with the Astral Light. According to the Theosophical Glossary by H.P. Blavatsky, it is neither in the sense which ether is described by physical science. Ether to the Theosophist is a material undetected agent, while akasa is a distinctly spiritual agent, while the Astral Light is the seventh and highest principle of the terrestrial atmosphere, as undetectable as Akasa and real Ether, because it is something of another plane of manifestation.

Etheric Double: Also called Linga Sarira. Used to denote the material medium for prana in man. See Basic Theosophy by G. Hodson.

Exoteric: Outward, public; opposite of esoteric or hidden.

Fohat (Tibetan): ‘Divine energy’, The constructive force of cosmic electricity, polarized into the positive and negative currents of terrestrial electricity; the ever present electrical energy; the universal, propellant, vital force.

Gandharvas (Sanskrit): Celestial choristers and musicians of mystical India.

Gnana (Jnana) (Sanskrit):

1. Spiritual insight; the deeper or divine vision; wisdom, gnosis.

2. The Second Aspect of the Trinity (composed of Divine Will, Wisdom and Activity).

Gnosis (Greek.): Literally, ‘knowledge’. The technical term used by the schools of religious philosophy, both before and during the first centuries of so-called Christianity, to denote the object of their enquiry. This spiritual and sacred knowledge, the Gupta Vidya of the Hindus, could only be obtained by Initiation into Spiritual Mysteries, of which the ceremonial ‘Mysteries’ were a type.

Gnostics (Greek.): The philosophers who formulated and taught the Gnosis or knowledge. They flourished in, but not limited to, the first three centuries of the Christian era. The following were eminent: Valentinus, Basilides, Marcion, Simon Magus and Philo Judaeus.

God: In occult philosophy the term ‘God’ in its highest meaning refers to a supreme, eternal, and indefinable Reality. This Absolute is inconceivable, ineffable, and unknowable. Its revealed existence is postulated in three terms: an absolute existence, an absolute consciousness, and an absolute bliss. Infinite consciousness is regarded as inherent in the Supreme Being as a dynamic force that manifests the potentialities held in its own infinitude, and calls into being forms out of its own formless depths.

Guna (Sanskrit): ‘A string or cord’. The three qualities or attributes inherent in matter: Rajas, activity, desire; Sattva, harmony, rhythm; Tamas, inertia, stagnation. These correspond to the three Aspects of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; or Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva respectively.

Guru (Sanskrit): An Adept Teacher.

Hierophant (Greek.): ‘One who explains sacred things’. The discloser of sacred learning and the Chief of the Initiates. A title belonging to the highest Adepts in the templates of antiquity, Who were teachers and expounders of the Mysteries and the Initiators into the final great Mysteries. See Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries, by G.E. Mylonas; The Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites, by D. Wright; The Mysteries of Eleusis , by G. Meautis.

Ida (Sanskrit): See note on Kundalini Shakti.

Individuality: The Human Higher Self or Ego. Theosophists differentiate between an immortal and divine Ego (Individuality) and the mortal Personality (or Personal Ego). The Individuality is immortal.

Individualization: According to occult philosophy, animals have souls that are animated by group consciousness, a herd instinct arising from a group soul, and not from a single spiritual Soul as in humanity. In the course of evolution, out of this group soul a number of self-conscious Souls become differentiated. In this way the indwelling and unfolding life in Nature, having evolved during vast ages through the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, attains to the status of manhood or womanhood—thus entering the human kingdom. This natural procedure is termed ‘individualization’.

Initiate: From the Latin Initiatus. The designation of anyone who was received into and had revealed to him the mysteries and secrets of occult philosophy.

Initiation: A profound spiritual and psychological regeneration, as a result of which a new ‘birth’, a new beginning, and a new life are entered upon. The word itself, from the Latin Initia, also implies the basic or first principles of any science, suggesting that Initiates are consciously united with their own First Principle, the Monad from which they emerged. Both the Lesser and the Greater Mysteries, ancient and modem, confer Initiations of various Degrees upon successful candidates.

Kabbalah: From QBLH, also spelled Qabbalah. An ‘unwritten or oral tradition’. The hidden wisdom of the Hebrew Rabbis from the secret doctrine of the early Hebrew teachers. See The Kingdom of the Gods, by G. Hodson.

Kali Yuga (Sanskrit): The dark age, see Yuga.

Kama (Sanskrit): Lower desire, lust, volition; the clinging to existence.

Kama-manas (Sanskrit): The desire mind.

Karma: A term which literally means ‘action’, used in connection with the law of action and reaction, cause and effect, and the result of its operation upon nations and individuals. It is also used in connection with the yoga of action or Karma Yoga.

Kenosis (Greek): A term which denotes self-emptying, as an attitude of mind and mode of life. A requirement for the spiritual life of the disciple.

Kriyashakti (Sanskrit): The creation of forms by means of thought; hence the power, divine or human, to manifest. See The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, p. 312, by H.P. Blavatsky.

Kumaras (Sanskrit): ‘Beings of original spiritual purity’. The four great Beings in Occult Hierarchy of Adepts Who help on the evolution of humanity; also applied to the Ever Virgin Youth and His three Disciples, who are said to have founded the Adept Hierarchy on this planet. Sanat Kumara is the name given to this deeply revered Head or Chief of Earth’s Adepts.

Kundalini (Sanskrit): ‘The coiled up, universal Life Principle’. A seven-fold superphysical, occult power in the Universe and man, functioning in the latter by means of a spiral action, mainly in the spinal cord but also throughout the nervous system. It is represented by the Greek Caduceus. When supemormally aroused, this fiery force ascends into the brain by a serpentine path, hence its other name, the ‘Serpent Fire’. See The Hidden Wisdom in the Holy Bible, Vol. 1, and Basic Theosophy by G. Hodson.

Kundalini Shakti (Sanskrit): The power of life, (shakti denoting power); one of the forces of nature, the others being fohat and prana, yet mystically, all three are one as there is ultimately only One Force and One Life in nature. The occult electricity intimately associated with Azoth of the Alchemists, the creative principle in Nature, and Akasha, the subtle, supersensuous, spiritual essence which pervades all space. The seven-layered power in the base of man’s spine, composed of three currents which flow along the three canals in the spinal cord, named Ida (negative), Pingala (positive) and Sushumna (neutral). These names are erroneously applied to the currents passing through the canals themselves. See The Kingdom of the Gods, by G. Hodson.

Lemuria: A modem term first used by Naturalists, adopted by Theosophists to indicate a continent that preceded Atlantis. It was the home of the Third Root Race of evolving humanity. See The Secret Doctrine by H.P. Blavatsky.

Lipika (Sanskrit): The Celestial Recorders, the Agents of Karma. Exoterically four and esoterically seven great ‘Scribes’. The Lords of Karma Who, as far as man is concerned, adjust beneficence and adversity resulting from former deeds so as to provide man with the evolutionary circumstances best suited for the mandated spiritual education required by the evolving soul.

Logos (Greek): ‘The Word’. Also denotes a divine entity. A manifested Deity, the outward expression or effect of the ever concealed Cause. Thus speech is the Logos of thought, and Logos is correctly translated into Latin as Verbum and into English as the ⁴ Word’ in the metaphysical sense.

Macrocosm: ‘Great universe’, as contrasted to microcosm or ‘Small universe’. A term to denote the cosmos and all the elements of a manifested universe.

Maha (Sanskrit): Great. A prefix and qualification of other Sanskrit words. See Maha-Chohan.

Maha-Chohan (Sanskrit): ‘Great Lord’. Descriptive of a Grade of Adeptship, that of the Seventh Initiation. See Basic Theosophy, by G. Hodson and The Masters and the Path by C.W. Leadbeater.

Mahatma (Sanskrit): ‘Great soul’. An Adept of the highest order. Exalted Beings who, having attained to the mastery over their lower principles are thus living unimpeded by the lower, and are in possession of knowledge and power commensurate with the stage they have reached in spiritual evolution.

Manas (Sanskrit): Mind. Also denotes the world of mind and mental forms; the field of consciousness that lies between the Buddhic and Astral Planes. Also denotes the mind of man. Manas is known to Theosophists under two aspects: first, the higher mind {Manas I) being part of the Individuality, and second, the lower mind {Manas II) which is part of the Personality.

Mantra (Sanskrit): Mystical sounds; a word or verse from the Vedas rhythmically arranged so that, when sounded, certain vibrations are generated, producing desired effects upon the physical and superphysical bodies of mantra yogis and the atmosphere surrounding them.

Manu (Sanskrit): ‘Thought’. A generic term referring to Creators, Preservers and Fashioners. Manvantara means, literally, the period presided over by a Manu. According to their function and office, they are called Race Manu, Seed Manu, Round Manu and Chain Manu and Root Manu, among others, and so on up to the Solar Logos Himself.

Manvantara (Sanskrit): ‘Period between two Manus\ Epoch or creative activity. A period of manifestation, as opposed to Pralaya.

Marga (Sanskrit): A path or way. Four paths to liberation are known in Hinduism: Karma-Marga (the path of action); Jnana or Gnana-Marga (the path of wisdom or spiritual knowledge); Bhakti-Marga (the path of devotion); and Dhyana-Marga (the path of contemplation).

Master: A term used in Theosophy to denote a Mahatma Who accepts pupils. See The Masters and the Path, by C.W. Leadbeater and Light of the Sanctuary, by G. Hodson.

Maya (Sanskrit): Illusion; the cosmic power which renders phenomenal existence and perceptions thereof possible. In Hindu philosophy, that Alone which is changeless and eternal is called reality; all that is subject to change is maya.

Medium: One who acts as a channel of transmission. A person whose Etheric Double is less closely knitted to the dense physical body than in the case with non-mediums. Such a condition renders the medium susceptible to the withdrawal of the substance of the Etheric Double and its use in producing psychical phenomena. The procedure is aided by the voluntary submission of the medium’s mind and will to such invisible entities as may be producing the occurrences. This extreme passivity also tends to lead to various degrees of unconsciousness in the medium, ranging from partial to complete trance, where the medium loses partial or complete control of mind and body. As a method of self-spiritualization and discovery of Truth, this ‘mediumship’ is not recommended by occultists. Some disadvantages are: the serious weakening, up to complete loss of, control of the Personality by the Immortal Self; self-delusion; obsession by an invisible entity and insanity.

Microcosm: Little universe, as contrasted to macrocosm or Great universe or Cosmos. The reflection in miniature of the Macrocosm. Thus the atom can be said to be the microcosm of the Solar System, and man may be thought of as the microcosm of the universe, since he has within himself all the elements of that universe.

Moksha (Sanskrit): ‘Liberation’. Same as Nirvana; a state of rest and bliss of the ‘Soul Pilgrim’.

Monad: ‘Alone’. The Divine Spirit in man, the ‘Dweller in the innermost’, which is said to evolve through the subhuman kingdoms of

Nature into the human and thence to the stature of the Adepts, beyond which extend unlimited evolutionary heights.

Mumukshattva (Sanskrit): Love. The fourth qualification for discipleship in At the Feet of the Master by J. Krishnamurti. It is said that if the disciple has this qualification, all others will follow, and without this, all others are useless.

Mysteries, The: From Muo (Greek), ‘to close the mouth’, and Teletai (Greek), ‘celebrations of Initiation’. The Sacred Mysteries were enacted in the ancient Temples by the Initiated Hierophants for the benefit and instruction of the candidates. A series of secret dramatic performances, in which the mysteries of cosmogony and Nature were personified by the priests and neophytes. There were explained in their hidden meaning to candidates for Initiation. See Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries, by G.E. Mylonas; The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, by T. Taylor; The Mysteries of Eleusis, by G. Meautis; and Illuminations of the Mystery Tradition, by G. Hodson.

Nadi (Sanskrit): The channel or nerve for the conduction of a current; used to refer to channels for the flow of the currents of kundalini. See Kundalini.

Nirvana (Sanskrit): ‘Having life extinguished’. Conscious absorption in the One Life of all existence, or absolute consciousness in Buddhism.

Niyama (Sanskrit): ‘Observances’. Second step in the eight-fold Raja Yoga technique. Niyama is composed of five aspects, namely: non-clinging to material things, contentment, austerity, meditational study of spiritual writings, and self-surrender to God.

Occultism: A term which means ‘hidden’, ‘not apprehensible by the mind’ or pertaining to those sciences involving the knowledge or use of the supernatural or the mysterious. In recent times, the term has shifted in meaning to denote the nefarious practices of black magic and witchcraft, which depart from their original usage in theosophical literature.

Occultist: A student of the ‘hidden’ powers, forces and intelligences in Nature. The power to produce occult phenomena is developed by self-training, but these are always the result of the will and the thought of the operator employed in full consciousness and complete self-command which are essential to success. The ultimate aim of the occultist is the realization of Truth or Divine Wisdom, and the ‘forces’ or ‘powers’ that are at the occultist’s command are but natural results of the flowering of the spiritual life. Hence the use of powers for selfish ends is frowned upon by true teachers of the Occult Sciences. See Occultism and Occult Science.

Occult Science: The science of the secrets of Nature, both physical and psychic; called Hermetic and Esoteric Sciences.

Om (Sanskrit): See Aum.

Parabrahma, Parabrahman (Sanskrit): ‘Beyond Brahma’; the Supreme Infinite Brahma or the Absolute, attributeless, second-less Reality, the impersonal, nameless, universal and Eternal Principle.

Paramatma (Sanskrit): ‘The Self Beyond’ or ‘Supreme Self. The term is derived from parama, primordial or supreme and atman meaning ‘self and is applied to denote the highest source of a cosmic hierarchy.

Paramitas (Sanskrit): In Buddhism, the six virtues, namely dana (charity); shila (purity); kshanti (patience); virya (energy); dhyana (contemplation); prajna (wisdom). See The Voice of the Silence, Fragment III, verse 198, by H.P. Blavatsky.

Personality: In Theosophy, the Personality is the aggregate of the physical body, the linga sarira (or Etheric Double), prana (vitality), emotion and the lower (or concrete) mind. It is contrasted to the Individuality, which is composed of the higher (abstract) mind, Buddhi (spiritual soul) and Spirit (Atma).

Pingala (Sanskrit): See note on Kundalini Shakti.

Pralaya (Sanskrit): An epoch of quiescence, a period of obscuration or rest, whether planetary or universal, as opposed to Manvantara (a period of manifestation).

Prana (Sanskrit): Life Principle; the breath of life; one of the three fundamental forces in the Cosmos (fohat, prana and kundalini).

Pranava (Sanskrit): A sacred word, equivalent to Aum.

Pranayama (Sanskrit): The suppression and regulation of the breath in yoga practice, with the resultant mastery of pranic energies. The fourth step in the eight-fold Raja Yoga technique, where mastery of the breath and the flow of prana allows the yogi to withdraw prana from areas of the physical body that distract the yogi during meditation.

Pratyahara (Sanskrit): Abstraction. In Raja Yoga, the fifth step in External Yoga where the consciousness is so abstracted so that all distractions to meditation are unable to impinge upon consciousness.

Rajas (Sanskrit): See Guna.

Rays: See Seven Rays.

Rishis (Sanskrit): Adepts; the inspired ones.

Rupa (Sanskrit): Body, any form, applied even to the forms of the gods, angels or devas, which are subjective to us. Distinguished from arupa, formless.

Rupa-deva (Sanskrit): Any deva or angel whose ordinary existence is on the four lower divisions of the mental world.

Samadhi (Sanskrit): A state of ecstatic and complete ‘trance’. The term comes from the words Sam-adha, ‘self-possession’. He who possesses this power is able to exercise an absolute control over all his faculties, physical or mental. It is the highest state of yoga. See An Introduction to Yoga by A. Besant and The Science of Yoga by I.K. Taimni.

Samyama (Sanskrit): The triple process of Internal Yoga in the eight-fold Raja Yoga technique, namely dharana (concentration), dhyana (contemplation) and samadhi (union or Self-Realization).

Sanat Kumara (Sanskrit): The Lord of the World; the Ever-virgin Youth, said to have come to Earth during the Lemurian era, to preside over the evolution of life on Earth. See Kumaras.

Sanskrit: The classical language of the Brahmans.

Sat (Sanskrit): The one ever-present Reality in the infinite world; the divine essence which is but cannot be said to exist, as it is Absoluteness, Be-ness itself.

Sattva (Sanskrit): See Guna.

Sephira (Hebrew): An emanation of Deity; the parent and synthesis of the tern Sephiroth when she stands at the head of the Sephirothal tree; in the Kabbalah, Sephira, or the ‘Sacred Aged’, is the Divine Intelligence (the same as Sophia, Divine Wisdom), the emanation from the ‘Endless’ or Ain-Soph.

Serpent Fire: See Kundalini.

Seven Rays, The: A term used in occult philosophy for the seven main classes of Monads and the powers, qualities and weaknesses by which they are expressed in the seven different types of human beings. See The Seven Human Temperaments, by G. Hodson, and The Seven Rays by E. Wood.

Shatsampatti (Sanskrit): In At the Feet of the Master by J. Krishnamurti, this term is used to denote six modes of conduct required of a disciple, namely: control of the mind, control of action, tolerance, cheerfulness, one-pointedness and confidence.

Skandhas (Sanskrit): Groups of innate attributes of the finite which endure between Macrocosmic manifestations and microcosmic manifestations, uniting and reappearing as inherent qualities at the dawn of Manvantaras and at each human birth.

Sutratma (Sanskrit): A current of spiritual life-force, a golden thread of continuous life upon which the seed ‘atoms’ or nuclei of the seven bodies of man are ‘strung’. See A Study of Consciousness by Annie Besant.

Tamas (Sanskrit): See Guna.

Theosophia (Greek): Theosophy, Wisdom Religion or Divine Wisdom. The substratum and basis of all the world religions and philosophies.

Upeksha (Sanskrit): Lit. ‘renunciation’. In yoga, a state of absolute indifference attained by self-control, the complete mastery over one’s mental and physical feelings and sensations.

Vairagya (Sanskrit): Desirelessness, dispassion. One of the qualifications for discipleship denoting the absence of desire to see the fruits of one’s labour; also denotes acceptance of karmic results of any action.

Viveka (Sanskrit): Discrimination. One of the requirements or qualifications for discipleship, denoting distinguishing the Real from the Unreal, the important from the less important, the True from the False.

Yama (Sanskrit): 1. ‘Restraints’. The first of eight steps in Raja yoga technique composed of harmlessness, truthfulness, non-stealing, mastery of sexual drive and non-acquisitiveness. 2. Also a term used to denote the personified Third Root Race in Occultism, see Theosophical Glossary by H.P. Blavatsky.

Yoga (Sanskrit): ‘Union’. The joint practice of meditation and the living of the spiritual life as a means of gaining Self-realization or enlightenment. The seven schools are:

1. Hatha Yoga: aims at realizing union with the Divine by mastering the lower vehicles by control of the body, breath and vitality.

2. Karma Yoga: aims at skill in action and perfection in service, especially at the physical level.

3. Lay a Yoga: seeks mastery of will and expansion of the mind; it includes the arousing of Kundalini.

4. Jnana or Gnana Yoga: seeks conscious union with the Supreme through knowledge and mastery of the intellect. This faculty of penetrative perception has almost nothing to do with what is popularly known as book learning.

5. Bhakti Yoga: seeks to express and develop devotion and love into the ‘wings’ on which to rise to the Supreme and into mystic communion and union therewith.

6. Mantra Yoga: uses mystical sound and sacred speech as instruments of thought power and aids to Self-realization and union with God.

7. Raja Yoga: gives mastery over all methods of Yoga plus the special powers of discrimination and dissociation from the restrictions of the personal nature, to know by direct and continuing experience that Man-Spirit and God-Spirit are ONE Spirit.

Yuga (Sanskrit): An age of the world. The Kali or dark Yuga is the turning or balancing point of materiality in a series of seven cycles or racial epochs, each with its four ages. According to Hindu philosophy as expounded in the Puranas, Kali Yuga began in the year 3,102 B.C., at the moment of Shri Krishna’s death. Each Yuga is preceded by an epoch called in the Puranas, Sandhya, ‘twilight’ or ‘transition’ period, and is followed by another age of like duration called Sandhyansa, ‘portion of twilight’. Each of these is equal to one-tenth of the Yuga, and in consequence, in accordance with this ancient system of chronology, the earth is now in the ‘portion of twilight’ of Kali Yuga, the dark or iron age. Hence, presumably, the difficulties to which the human race has been and is still subject.

[Glossary entries were compiled and adopted from the following sources: Light of the Sanctuary, by G. Hodson; Theosophical Encyclopedia, edited by P. Harris, V. Hao Chin, Jr and R. Brooks; and Theosophical Glossary by H.P. Blavatsky.]

Books by Geoffrey Hodson

(Booklets*)

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

The Call to the Heights Destiny

First Steps on the Path

The Inner Side of Church Worship

Meditations on the Occult Life

The Path to the Masters of the Wisdom *

The Pathway to Perfection

The Priestly Ideal

The Soul’s Awakening

The Spiritual Significance of Motherhood*

Thus Have I Heard

A Yoga of Light*

Light of the Sanctuary

The Yogic Ascent to Spiritual Heights

THE POWERS LATENT IN MAN

At the Sign of the Square and Compasses

Clairvoyance and the Serpent Fire *

Clairvoyant Investigations

Clairvoyant Research and the Life After Death *

Man’s Supersensory and Spiritual Powers Music Forms

Occult Powers in Nature and in Man

Some Experiments in Four Dimensional Vision

The Science ofSeership

THE THEOSOPHICAL PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

Basic Theosophy, The Living Wisdom

Highlights of Theosophy*

Lecture Notes, The School of the Wisdom (Vol. I & II)

Reincarnation—Fact or Fallacy?

The Miracle of Birth

The Seven Human Temperaments

Theosophy Answers Some Problems of Life

Through the Gateway of Death

Vital Ouestions Answered

INTERPRETATIONS OF SCRIPTURES AND MYTHS

Clairvoyant Investigations of Christian Origins and

Ceremonial

The Christ Life from Nativity to Ascension

The Concealed Wisdom in World Mythology

The Divine Wisdom in the Christian Scriptures *

The Hidden Wisdom in the Holy Bible (Vol. I-IV)

Illuminations of the Mystery Tradition

THE ANGELIC HIERARCHY

Angels and the New Race The Angelic Hosts

Be Ye Perfect

Fairies at Work and at Play

Man, the Triune God

The Brotherhood of Angels and of Men

The Coming of the Angels

The Kingdom of Faerie

The Kingdom of the Gods

The Supreme Splendor

HEALTH

Health and the Spiritual Life *

An Occult View of Health and Disease

New Light on the Problem of Disease

Plant Foods, Their Nutrient Properties *

Radiant Health from a Meat-free Diet *

The Way to Perfect Health *

ANIMAL WELFARE

An Animals ’ Bill of Rights*

Animals and Men, the Ideal Relationship *

Authentic Stories of Intelligence in Animals*

Our Friends the Animals *

The Case for Vegetarianism *

The Humanitarian Cause *

[1] Source material is in the hands of the Editor. The magazine of one Section of The Theosophical Society has for many years published as valid many similar ‘communications’.

[2] These definitions are taken from The Key to Theosophy, pp. 3,39, 40; The Theosophical Glossary (Theosophia), The Secret Doctrine, (Glossary), Adyar ed., V, 449.

^{^[3]} There is a Spirit, Kenneth Bolding.

[4] Op. cit., Vol. V, Adyar Edition 90.

^{^[5]} The Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky, Adyar Edition, Vol. 1. p. 278 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. l,p. 232].

[6] Esoteric Buddhism, Eighth Edition, C.I.V. A. P. Sinnett.

[7] Letter LXVIII, p.372.

[8] Letter LXVI, p.370.

^{^[9]} Letter LXV, p. 365.

^{^[10]} Letter LXII, p. 351.

[11] Letter LXII, p. 351.

[12] Letter LIX, p. 341.

[13] Letter XXXVIII, p. 252.

[14] Letter LIV, pp. 320.

^{^[15]} Letter XXVII, p. 207.

^{^[16]} Letter XLV, p. 265.

[17] Letter LIV, pp. 312.

[18] Letter LIV, pp. 312-13.

[19] Creative Intelligences — The Elohim, the first and the succeeding Emanations or Essences; the male-female Creative Hierarchies of Beings Who assist the Logos in bringing a Universe into objective existence.

[20] The Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky, Adyar Edition, Vol. I, p. 115.

[21] Genesis 9:9-17.

[22] Though apparently three, these are probably but one. The masculine is used for convenience only.

[23] The masculine is used for convenience only.

^{^[24]} Mark 10:15.

[25] Matthew 6:25.

^{^[26]} Matthew 6:28 and 29.

[27] Light on the Path.

^{^[28]} Psalm 46:10.

[29] Light on the Path

[30] Light on the Path

[31] Loc. cit. 1.2.

[32] Ditto.

^{^[33]} The Secret Doctrine Vol. 3 p. 79

^{^[34]} The Akashic Records: The memory of Nature reflected in the akashic element of the various planes of Nature.

Recommended amongst other valuable Theosophical works: The Earth and Its Cycles. E. W. Preston. .

^{^[36]} The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 4, p. 16 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 2, p. 449].

^{^[37]} Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 188 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, p. 130].

[38]The Theosophist, February, 1887, p. 303. See also Philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita by Subba Row, 1912, pp. 11, 12, 15 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, p. 130].

^{^[39]} The masculine is used throughout for convenience only, the Divine Principle — in no sense a Person — being regarded as equally masculine, feminine and androgyne in one omnipresent and transcendent, Supernal Power, Life, Intelligence and Law.

^{^[40]} The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 322 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, p. 280].

^{^[41]} The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett.

[42] Ruysbroeck.

[43] The Bhagavad Gita.

^{^[44]} Ibid., VI, 29-3l,lx, 29.

[45] John 14:20.

^{^[46]} The Bhagavad Gita, X, 28-39, 41.

[47] Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 111, VII, 29.

[48] The Bhagavad Gita XV, 7.

^{^[49]} Robe of Glory, a gnostic term for the Causal Body.

[50] Ultimate, indivisible atom.

[51] Rig Veda, x, 129, Griffith’s translation.

This is the first of a series of seven talks on Cosmogenesis, the Creation of Universes and of Men.

^{^[52]} Op. cit. 1:212.

[53] Op. cit. 13:17

[54] Op. cit. 3:184 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 2, p. 177].

^{^[55]} Ibid, 2:328 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, p. 604]

[56] Footsteps of Gautama the Buddha, M. B. Byles.

[57] The first golden age was Lemurian and the product of innocence. The second was Atlantean and the product of Adept guidance. The third will be produced by humanity illumined by the Ancient Wisdom.

^{^[58]} The 78th International Convention, Adyar; public lecture delivered on December 27th, 1953.

[59] The Secret Doctrine II, pp. 294-295, 1908 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 2, pp. 281-82].

[60] The Secret Doctrine II, p. 36 (1908) [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 2, p. 33].

[61] Textbook of Theosophy, by C.W.L., p. 131 (1914 Ed.).

[62] Man: Whence, How and Whither, Besant and Leadbeater, pp. 102-103.

^{^[63]} Ibid., p. 103.

^{^[64]} The Secret Doctrine II, pp. 294-295, 1908 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 2, pp. 281-82].

[65] The Secret Doctrine II, pp. 294-295, 1908 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 2, pp. 281-82].

[66] The Secret Doctrine I, p. 228, 1908 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, p. 207].

[67] The Secret Doctrine I, p. 229, 1908 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, p. 208].

[68] This was the fourth of the Diamond Jubilee Addresses delivered during the 1935 Convention. Mr Hodson prefaced it by offering the material ‘in the spirit of the student who postulates certain theories arising from investigations into the greatest of all fields of research — that of divine creative processes. Some of these theories are supported by exoteric religion, philosophy and science, and if anywhere a note of certainty is heard, let it be credited rather to the flame of enthusiasm kindled in the student by a glimpse of that which is truth for him, than to the faintest wish to dogmatize’. Such rare glimpses as are here given depend no less upon scientific deduction and imagination than upon the use of the clairvoyant faculty.

^{^[69]} J. Krishnamurti.

[70] There is no ingredient of judgment in this recognition of these two types, although they are probably indicative of evolutionary stature; for when a certain phase of evolution is entered, the individual feels that he must understand the meaning of life, and therefore begins to seek.

[71] Time, July 7, 1967, ‘Youth’

[72] Ibid.

[73] Daily News, Wednesday, June 28, 1967.

[74] LSD by Richard Alpert, Sidney Cohen, and Laurence Schiller; The New American Library, Inc., 1966, p. 62.

[75] Ibid., pp. 7, 17, 27, 39, 58, 63.

[76] Fawcett Publications, Inc. 1966, pp. 5, 7, 10.

[77] Warren R. Young is former science editor of Life Magazine and is co-author, with Joseph Hixon, of LSD on Campus; Dell Publishing Company, 1966.

^{^[78]} ‘LSD on Campus’, ‘The Acid Scene’.

^{^[79]} Monday, February 27, 1967, Reports, by Gladwin Hill, Special to The Province.

[80] Tuesday, May 23, 1967. Reports, by Harry Nelson, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post.

[81] Laya Yoga: That system of yoga in which the chief emphasis is laid upon awakening and directing the latent force of the kundalini which normally sleeps at the base of the spine.

[82] Kundalini (Sanskrit): ‘The coiled up, universal Life Principle’. A sevenfold, superphysical, occult power in the universe and in man, functioning in the latter by means of a spiral or coiling action, mainly in the spinal cord but also throughout the nervous system. It is represented in Greek symbology by the Caduceus. When supemormally aroused, this fiery force ascends into the brain by a serpentine path, hence its other name, the ‘Serpent Fire’.

[83] Initiation: A profound spiritual and psychological regeneration, as a result of which a new ‘birth’, a new beginning, and a new life are entered upon. The word itself, from the Latin initiatio, also implies the basic or first principles of any science, suggesting that initiates are consciously united with their own first principle, the Monad from which they emerged. Both the lesser and the greater mysteries, ancient and modem, confer initiations of various degrees upon successful candidates.

[84] Chakra (Sanskrit): A ‘wheel’ or ‘disc’. A spinning, vortical, funnel-shaped force-centre with its opening on the surfaces of the etheric and subtler bodies of man and its stem leading to the superphysical counterparts of the spinal cord and of nerve centres or glands. There are seven main chakras associated severally with the sacrum, the spleen, the solar plexus, the heart, the throat, and the pituitary and pineal glands. Chakras are both organs of superphysical consciousness and conveyors of the life-force between the superphysical and physical bodies. The Chakras, C. W. Leadbeater.

[85] ‘LSD and the Third Eye’ by John N. Bleibtreu, The Atlantic Monthly.

[86] Ego: The threefold, immortal, unfolding spiritual Self of man in its vesture of light, the ‘Robe of Glory’ of the Gnostics and the Karana Sharira or Causal Body of Hindu philosophy. This higher triad evolves to adeptship by virtue of successive lives on earth, all linked together because they are reincarnations of the same spiritual Self Thus the Ego is an individualised manifestation of the Monad, which is the eternal Self in man, the Dweller in the Innermost, a unit of the Spirit-essence of the universe.

[87] Causal Body: The immortal body of the reincarnating Ego of man, built of matter of the ‘higher’ levels of the mental world. It is called Causal because it gathers up within it the results of all experiences, and these act as causes ^moulding future lives and influencing future conduct.

[88]Buddhi (Sanskrit): The sixth principle of man, that of intuitive wisdom, vehicle of the seventh, Atma, the supreme Soul in man. Universal Soul. The faculty which manifests as spiritual intuitiveness. The bliss aspect of the Trinity.

[89] Atma (Sanskrit) The ‘Self. The Universal Spirit, the seventh principle in the septenary constitution of man, the Supreme Soul. The Spirit-Essence of the Universe (Paramatman — ‘the Self beyond’).

[90] The K.H. Letters to C. W. Leadbeater, C. Jinarajadasa.

^{^[91]} The Etheric Double, A. E. Powell.

[92] The Chakras, C. W. Leadbeater.

^{^[93]} Invisible Helpers, C. W. Leadbeater.

^{^[94]} C. W. Leadbeater. A Great Occultist. Compiled by Sandra Hodson and Mathias J. van Thiel.

^{^[95]} The Perfume of Egypt, Chapter, ‘Saved by a Ghost’, C. W. Leadbeater.

[96] Christ and Buddha, C. Jinarajadasa.

[97] Christ and Buddha, C. Jinarajadasa.

^{^[98]} The Perfume of Egypt, ‘Saved by a Ghost’ by C. W. Leadbeater.

^{^[99]} Christ and Buddha, C. Jinarajadasa.

[100] From a letter to Lord Burleigh.

^{^[101]}T. P. H, Adyar.

^{^[102]} Rider and Company

[103] John, xii, Verse 32.

[104] With apologies to Kipling.

[105] The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter 85.

[106] Editorial, ‘Our Cycle and the Next’, last paragraph.

[107] Alexander Pope.

^{^[108]} ‘... the amelioration of the condition of man . . . ’ The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett. Letter 85.

^{^[109]} The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett p. 235.

[110] Op. cit. 263, 264.

[111] Information concerning the operation of the Law of Cycles in the life of The Theosophical Society is given in an article by Mr Fritz Kunz in The Theosophist, August, 1922: Evidence of a Sustained Conspiracy against The Theosophical Society. In the June, 1930, issue of the same journal, Mr J. R. Wilkinson expounds the same theme in his article, The Theosophical Society in Western History. I express my indebtedness to both of these authors in compiling this article.

[112] The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah by A. E. Waite; The Kabbalah Unveiled by S. L. MacGregor Mathers; Transcendental Magic by E. Levi

[113] Transcendental Magic, p. 299.

[114] Ibid.

^{^[115]} Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Mackey, 1890, H. E. Lawrence & Co.

[116] For the one reason, that They know who is the Commander, who holds that place by right of His supreme Knowledge and Power; where His fiat is declared, They do not hesitate to act, knowing that in so acting They will reveal Their highest. — C.J.

^{^[117]} Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, Letter 1, First Series.

[118] The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett: Letter No. IX.

^{^[119]} H. P. Blavatsky in Lucifer, May 1889.

[120] I suggest that the ‘study of basic Theosophy’ include: the sevenfold nature of man — a spiritual being in vehicles of will, wisdom, abstract intelligence, thought, emotion, ether and flesh; the spiritual relationship of each individual to every other (shared spiritual life, brotherhood, family); the purpose of man’s existence (evolution to super-humanity); how achieved (reincarnation); law governing every human experience (cause and effect — karma); cause of all human sorrow (unwisely expressed desire); assurance of health and happiness (genuinely experienced and intelligently expressed love and sympathy for all sentient beings); the existence on Earth of perfected men and women (the Adept Brotherhood and its ministrations to mankind as ever-available instructors, the Masters of Wisdom); examples of Adeptic ministrations (ever-available knowledge and dissemination of Theosophia, the ever-open pathway of discipleship and initiation to the end of greater effectiveness in wisely chosen service; the Mystery Tradition).

[121] Adept communications make quite clear that under no circumstances does an Adept ever use spiritualistic mediums as channels of communication. All suggestions to the contrary are false, as every true occultist is fully aware. ‘Mediumship, as practice in our days, is a more undesirable gift than the robe of Nessus’. —Isis Unveiled. H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1, p. 488. (The blood of the centaur, Nessus, soaked into the shirt of Herakles, produced an agony as though he were in a burning fire, and ultimately brought about his death.) ‘Imperator cannot preach the occult sciences and defend mediumship ...’ The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter IX.

‘The medium and the chela are diametrically dissimilar and the latter acts consciously..Ibid., Letter XCIII.

‘You may understand why we oppose so strongly spiritualism and mediumship. . Ibid., Letter XVI.

Literature containing communications claimed to have been received by entranced mediums from those Adepts who participated in the founding of The Theosophical Society must, therefore, be recognized as spurious.

^{^[122]} The Golden Stairs, H. P. Blavatsky.

[123] The Light of Asia, Sir Edwin Amold.

[124] Galatians 6: 7

[125] Luke 16:17

^{^[126]} I write from sixty-four years of membership of the E. S. and attendance at its meetings in a great many countries in the world.

[127] Mark 1:17

[128] Anaktoron (Greek) The Secret Shrine in which Initiation was conferred at Eleusis.

[129] Vide ‘The Mahatma Letters.

[130] Vide ‘The Masters and The Path C. W. Leadbeater.

^{^[131]} Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett — Letter No. 4 Page 12

[132] A lofty Adept Official, the Maha-Chohan wrote: ‘We have to Popularise a Knowledge ofTheosophy’. Letters of the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series, by C. Jinarajadasa.

[133] Adeptic warning against Mediumship.

Adeptic communications make quite clear that under no circumstances does, an Adept ever use spiritualistic mediums as channels of communication. All suggestions to the contrary are false, as every true occultist is fully aware, The words to this effect are: —

‘Imperator (an Adept) cannot preach the occult sciences and then defend mediumship. . .’ The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter IX.

‘The medium and the chela am diametrically dissimilar and the latter acts consciously . . .’ The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter XCIII.

‘You may understand why we oppose so strongly spiritualism and mediumship . . The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter XVI.

In consequence, literature containing communications claimed to have been received by mediums from those Adepts who participated in the founding of the Theosophical Society, must therefore be recognized as spurious.

[134] Ahamkara (Sanskrit) motive of self-gain (in this context)

^{^[135]} The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter XLIV.

[136] The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter VI.

^{^[137]} The Maha-Chohan’s Letter, Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, C. Jinarajadasa.

^{^[138]} Mysteries — from the Greek word Mysterion, derived from Muo, ‘to close lips or eyes’, cf. English word ‘mute’. See The Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky.

^{^[139]} See Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, under ‘Mysteries’.

[140] This danger has been and still is being made very real to me by those seeking guidance and healing after following unwise procedures. Sometimes, also, such an appeal proves to be too late, notably where brain damage has been suffered.

[141] Invisible Helpers, C. W. Leadbeater; see my Lecture Notes of the School of the Wisdom, Ch. VII, Section 5.

[142] Later, they write from Durban of the formation of a ‘South African Youth Movement’ into which some hundred or more fine young people have already been drawn in the four cities of Pretoria, Johannesburg, Pietermaritzburg and Durban. Young people’s Theosophical study classes are also established. I enclose a copy of my Testament of Youth, printed by the Durban branch for free distribution amongst young people. Public lectures here draw some 380 people.

[143] Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series, ‘Letter 1’. C. Jinarajadasa.

[144] Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom. Letter 1. C. Jinarajadasa.

[145] H. P. Blavatsky wrote in her magazine Lucifer for May 1889 these words: ‘but if not (i.e. if Theosophy does not prevail) then the storm will burst and our boasted Western civilization and enlightenment will sink into such a sea of horror that its parallel in history has never yet been recorded’.

[146] Note especially the eminent production by the Department of Education there: Resource Catalogue.

[147] Carved upon the ancient Temple to Apollo at Delphi.

[148] Primeval Wisdom H.P.B. The Secret Doctrine, Adyar Ed., Vol. V, p. 434.

[149]‘Secret Knowledge', H.P.B. The Secret Doctrine, Vol. IV, p. 67.

[150] The Earth and Its Cycles, by E. W. Preston, p. 54.

^{^[151]} See Electronic Australia, pp. 20-23, and Electronic Today (Australia) pp. 60-62, both September 1971.

[152] Admittedly, tape-recording has now bestowed increased durability to theosophical lectures.

^{^[153]} Initials are used throughout for the purpose of brevity, no slightest disrespect being implied.

[154] Effective Government Supervision of the treatment of animals by man, with power granted to the police to act immediately to prevent or remedy the effects of cruelty, and to summon offenders.

[155] ‘For our doctrines to practically react on the so-called moral code or the ideas of truthfulness purity, self-denial, charity, etc., we have to Popularise a Knowledge of Theosophy’ (Letter 1, in Letters from The Masters of the Wisdom, 1st Series, compiled by C. Jinarajadasa.)

[156] The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter VIII.

[157] Isaiah 35:8.

[158] The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter LXXXV, 399

[159] Francis Bacon.’Of Ceremonies and Respect’

[160] Mary K. Neff, Personal Memoirs ofH. P. Blavatsky, p. 15. Ibid., p. 155

[161]Ibid., p. 155.

[162] Ibid., p. 55.

[163] The Mahatma Letters of A. P. Sinnett, Letter 140.

[164] Ibid., p. 169.

[165] Henry Steel Olcott, Old Diary Leaves.

[166] Jinarajadasa, Ed., Letters of the Masters of the Wisdom, Letters 7 and 8.

[167] Ibid., Letter 1.

[168] Mahatma Letters, Letter 85.

[169] Boris de Zirkoff, Ed., H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, pp. 104-5.

^{^[170]} Monad (Greek) ‘Alone, Man’s eternal, innermost, unitary Life-Centre, the ‘Divine Spark’.

[171] Revealed after the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in 1978. Recorded in The Auckland Star, 25/5/78.

[172] Avatar (Sanskrit) Divine Incarnation. The descent of an exalted Being.

^{^[173]} The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 205 [2-vol. ed.: Vol. 1, p. 182].

^{^[174]} Notes of a lecture.

^{^[175]} The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett Letter VIII.

^{^[176]} Chas. William Stubbs. D.D., Bishop of Truro, (1843-1912).

[177] The Theosophical Society Memorandum of Association and Rules and Regulations 1965.

[178] The Seven Rays, by Geoffrey Hodson.

[179] Talks on the Path of Occultism — A. Besant and C. W. Leadbeater

[180] The Seven Human Temperaments, by Geoffrey Hodson.

[181] Talks on the Path of Occultism, A. Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, p. 568.

[182] Existentialism, by Jean-Paul Sartre.

[183] Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, p. 35.

^{^[184]} Isaiah LX:1.