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Theosophy
- Thread starter Nicholas
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Nicholas
Bodhicitta
A recent topical compilation of extracts is titled Timeless Truths of The Secret Doctrine. Here is a bit from the first of 56 topics, on the Absolute:
An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable
PRINCIPLE on which all speculation is impossible, since
it transcends the power of human conception and could
only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude.
It is beyond the range and reach of thought - in the
words of Mandukya Upanishad, “unthinkable and unspeakable.”
An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable
PRINCIPLE on which all speculation is impossible, since
it transcends the power of human conception and could
only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude.
It is beyond the range and reach of thought - in the
words of Mandukya Upanishad, “unthinkable and unspeakable.”
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
^ Expressed succinctly in the first verse of the Tao Te Ching thus....the Tao that is spoken of is not the Eternal Tao..
I like also this saying from the Hermetic tradition...
If anyone has a spiritual eye, let them go forth from their body to behold the Beautiful, let them fly up and float above not seeking to see shape or colour but rather that from which these things are created, that which is quiet and calm, stable and changeless, that which is ONE, that which issues forth from itself and is contained in itself, that which is like nothing else but ITSELF.
I like also this saying from the Hermetic tradition...
If anyone has a spiritual eye, let them go forth from their body to behold the Beautiful, let them fly up and float above not seeking to see shape or colour but rather that from which these things are created, that which is quiet and calm, stable and changeless, that which is ONE, that which issues forth from itself and is contained in itself, that which is like nothing else but ITSELF.
Nicholas
Bodhicitta
Now a snip from the second topic - Angels. By the way, each topic consists of several pages, not just the paragraphs I am quoting:
The whole Kosmos is guided, controlled, and
animated by almost endless series of Hierarchies of
sentient Beings, each having a mission to perform,
and who - whether we give to them one name or
another, and call them Dhyan-Chohans or Angels - are
“messengers” in the sense only that they are the agents
of Karmic and Cosmic Laws. They vary infinitely in their
respective degrees of consciousness and intelligence;
and to call them all pure Spirits without any of the
earthly alloy “which time is wont to prey upon” is only
to indulge in poetical fancy. For each of these Beings
either was, or prepares to become, a man, if not in the
present then in a past or a coming cycle (Manvantara).
The whole Kosmos is guided, controlled, and
animated by almost endless series of Hierarchies of
sentient Beings, each having a mission to perform,
and who - whether we give to them one name or
another, and call them Dhyan-Chohans or Angels - are
“messengers” in the sense only that they are the agents
of Karmic and Cosmic Laws. They vary infinitely in their
respective degrees of consciousness and intelligence;
and to call them all pure Spirits without any of the
earthly alloy “which time is wont to prey upon” is only
to indulge in poetical fancy. For each of these Beings
either was, or prepares to become, a man, if not in the
present then in a past or a coming cycle (Manvantara).
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Thank you Nicholas, that represents a wonderful conceptualization of THAT which transcends the power of human conception. https://www.religiousforums.com/members/nicholas-w.32334/
Nicholas
Bodhicitta
Here is an interview with a theosophic personage, Sri M., an Indian Sage. His accent is sometimes hard to follow, so use the Captions option.
410. Sri M, Second Interview
410. Sri M, Second Interview
Yes, it is no wonder indeed.
Nicholas
Bodhicitta
One of the best biographies of Blavatsky, who died May 8, 1891, is now in PDF format:
https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/cranston/HPB-Cranston_ebook.pdf
https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/cranston/HPB-Cranston_ebook.pdf
Nicholas
Bodhicitta
A recent issue of a theosophical magazine from the Netherlands:
http://www.blavatskyhouse.org/pdf/Lucifer-EN-Vol6-No2-June-2018.pdf
http://www.blavatskyhouse.org/pdf/Lucifer-EN-Vol6-No2-June-2018.pdf
Nicholas
Bodhicitta
The law of karma and rebirth powerfully affects human life. Here is a little from Christmas Humphreys booklet Karma and Rebirth:
"Only by studying, and to some extent grasping, an outline of the Wisdom of which Karma and Rebirth are part can the meanest vision of the doctrine be attained, and even then it is difficult to examine it apart from the Wisdom itself from which, as sunlight in the air, it is inseparable. Yet the difficulty is largely of our own making. For centuries the Western mind has been building up an utterly false notion of a separate ‘I’, and it is hard for us to grasp a view of existence in which the separative self is viewed as an illusion and the father of all suffering. It follows, whether or not the idea be pleasing to the scholar mind, that only he who treads the Way which leads to the end of separative self-hood will attain to understanding of the Wisdom wherein self, as something separate, can have no abiding-place.
Study, deep study, quiet meditation on the living principles revealed in that study, and the constant, self-regardless application of those principles to daily life, these alone will provide the final ‘proof’ of the laws of Karma and Rebirth, and only he who knows them thus will be in a position to offer to the West, by the written and the spoken word and by the force of character, the Wisdom of which the West has so abundant and so urgent need."
Christmas Humphreys, 1942
"Only by studying, and to some extent grasping, an outline of the Wisdom of which Karma and Rebirth are part can the meanest vision of the doctrine be attained, and even then it is difficult to examine it apart from the Wisdom itself from which, as sunlight in the air, it is inseparable. Yet the difficulty is largely of our own making. For centuries the Western mind has been building up an utterly false notion of a separate ‘I’, and it is hard for us to grasp a view of existence in which the separative self is viewed as an illusion and the father of all suffering. It follows, whether or not the idea be pleasing to the scholar mind, that only he who treads the Way which leads to the end of separative self-hood will attain to understanding of the Wisdom wherein self, as something separate, can have no abiding-place.
Study, deep study, quiet meditation on the living principles revealed in that study, and the constant, self-regardless application of those principles to daily life, these alone will provide the final ‘proof’ of the laws of Karma and Rebirth, and only he who knows them thus will be in a position to offer to the West, by the written and the spoken word and by the force of character, the Wisdom of which the West has so abundant and so urgent need."
Christmas Humphreys, 1942
Nicholas
Bodhicitta
Humphreys continues:
"The word Karma, or in its neuter form, Karman (in Pali, Kamma), is a Sanskrit word from the root kri, meaning to do or to make. Karma is therefore ‘doing’ or ‘making’, but in the course of time the word has been applied to what Lessing has described as the oldest doctrine in the world. It may be viewed exoterically, from the material point of view, in which case it is merely the law of causation, the balance of cause and effect, the fact known in every science laboratory that action and reaction are equal and opposite. Esoterically, from the spiritual point of view, Karma is the law of moral retribution, whereby not only does every cause have an effect, but he who puts the cause in action suffers the effect. Professor Radhakrishnan has called it ‘the law of the conservation of moral energy’...
This law of merit and demerit, Karma in the sense of the reign of moral law, is neither particularly Hindu, Buddhist nor Theosophical. It is fundamental in all Oriental philosophy, and was preached by St. Paul. ‘Brethren, be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.’ For the first few centuries of Christianity it remained a cardinal belief in the West. But at the Council of Constantinople, in A.D. 551, the Christian Fathers, finding the doctrine of Rebirth incompatible with the curious system of thought which they were in the process of creating, decided that belief in Rebirth should be henceforth anathema, and with this doctrine went that which makes it necessary of acceptance, Karma."
"The word Karma, or in its neuter form, Karman (in Pali, Kamma), is a Sanskrit word from the root kri, meaning to do or to make. Karma is therefore ‘doing’ or ‘making’, but in the course of time the word has been applied to what Lessing has described as the oldest doctrine in the world. It may be viewed exoterically, from the material point of view, in which case it is merely the law of causation, the balance of cause and effect, the fact known in every science laboratory that action and reaction are equal and opposite. Esoterically, from the spiritual point of view, Karma is the law of moral retribution, whereby not only does every cause have an effect, but he who puts the cause in action suffers the effect. Professor Radhakrishnan has called it ‘the law of the conservation of moral energy’...
This law of merit and demerit, Karma in the sense of the reign of moral law, is neither particularly Hindu, Buddhist nor Theosophical. It is fundamental in all Oriental philosophy, and was preached by St. Paul. ‘Brethren, be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.’ For the first few centuries of Christianity it remained a cardinal belief in the West. But at the Council of Constantinople, in A.D. 551, the Christian Fathers, finding the doctrine of Rebirth incompatible with the curious system of thought which they were in the process of creating, decided that belief in Rebirth should be henceforth anathema, and with this doctrine went that which makes it necessary of acceptance, Karma."
Nicholas
Bodhicitta
In 1887 Charles Johnston a Sanskrit scholar & friend of Blavatsky interviewed her:
http://www.philaletheians.co.uk/stu...blavatsky-interviewed-by-charles-johnston.pdf
http://www.philaletheians.co.uk/stu...blavatsky-interviewed-by-charles-johnston.pdf
Nicholas
Bodhicitta
"Deeply sensible of the Titanic struggle that is now in progress between materialism and the spiritual aspirations of mankind, our constant endeavor has been to gather into our several chapters, like weapons into armories, every fact and argument that can be used to aid the latter in defeating the former. Sickly and deformed child as it now is, the materialism of To-Day is born of the brutal Yesterday. Unless its growth is arrested, it may become our master. It is the ******* progeny of the French Revolution and its reaction against ages of religious bigotry and repression. To prevent the crushing of these spiritual aspirations, the blighting of these hopes, and the deadening of that intuition which teaches us of a God and a hereafter, we must show our false theologies in their naked deformity, and distinguish between divine religion and human dogmas. Our voice is raised for spiritual freedom, and our plea made for enfranchisement from all tyranny, whether of SCIENCE or THEOLOGY."
From Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky's first book, published in 1877.
From Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky's first book, published in 1877.
Nicholas
Bodhicitta
"With religion and science; united two in one they were infallible, for the spiritual intuition was there to supply the limitations of physical senses. Separated, exact science rejects the help of the inner voice, while religion becomes merely dogmatic theology — each is but a corpse without a soul." From Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky's first book, published in 1877.
The Isis quote in post #95 deleted a word, whether by algorithm or person - b a s t a r d. If a publisher in 1877 tolerated it, surely in 2018 it can exist as written.
The Isis quote in post #95 deleted a word, whether by algorithm or person - b a s t a r d. If a publisher in 1877 tolerated it, surely in 2018 it can exist as written.
Nicholas
Bodhicitta
Student.—How is one to know when he gets real occult information from the Self within?
Sage. [Blavatsky]—Intuition must be developed and the matter judged from the true philosophical basis, for if it is contrary to true general rules it is wrong. It has to be known from a deep and profound analysis by which we find out what is from egotism alone and what is not; if it is due to egotism, then it is not from the Spirit and is untrue. The power to know does not come from book-study nor from mere philosophy, but mostly from the actual practice of altruism in deed, word, and thought; for that practice purifies the covers of the soul and permits that light to shine down into the brain-mind. As the brain-mind is the receiver in the waking state, it has to be purified from sense-perception, and the truest way to do this is by combining philosophy with the highest outward and inward virtue.
Student.—Tell me some ways by which intuition is to be developed.
Sage.—First of all by giving it exercise, and second by not using it for purely personal ends. Exercise means that it must be followed through mistakes and bruises until from sincere attempts at use it comes to its own strength. This does not mean that we can do wrong and leave the results, but that after establishing conscience on a right basis by following the golden rule, we give play to the intuition and add to its strength. Inevitably in this at first we will make errors, but soon if we are sincere it will grow brighter and make no mistake. We should add the study of the works of those who in the past have trodden this path and found out what is the real and what is not. They say the Self is the only reality. The brain must be given larger views of life, as by the study of the doctrine of reincarnation, since that gives a limitless field to the possibilities in store. We must not only be unselfish, but must do all the duties that Karma has given us, and thus intuition will point cut the road of duty and the true path of life.
From “Conversations on Occultism”.
Sage. [Blavatsky]—Intuition must be developed and the matter judged from the true philosophical basis, for if it is contrary to true general rules it is wrong. It has to be known from a deep and profound analysis by which we find out what is from egotism alone and what is not; if it is due to egotism, then it is not from the Spirit and is untrue. The power to know does not come from book-study nor from mere philosophy, but mostly from the actual practice of altruism in deed, word, and thought; for that practice purifies the covers of the soul and permits that light to shine down into the brain-mind. As the brain-mind is the receiver in the waking state, it has to be purified from sense-perception, and the truest way to do this is by combining philosophy with the highest outward and inward virtue.
Student.—Tell me some ways by which intuition is to be developed.
Sage.—First of all by giving it exercise, and second by not using it for purely personal ends. Exercise means that it must be followed through mistakes and bruises until from sincere attempts at use it comes to its own strength. This does not mean that we can do wrong and leave the results, but that after establishing conscience on a right basis by following the golden rule, we give play to the intuition and add to its strength. Inevitably in this at first we will make errors, but soon if we are sincere it will grow brighter and make no mistake. We should add the study of the works of those who in the past have trodden this path and found out what is the real and what is not. They say the Self is the only reality. The brain must be given larger views of life, as by the study of the doctrine of reincarnation, since that gives a limitless field to the possibilities in store. We must not only be unselfish, but must do all the duties that Karma has given us, and thus intuition will point cut the road of duty and the true path of life.
From “Conversations on Occultism”.
Nicholas
Bodhicitta
The whole of our literature proves that real Theosophists, worshipping universal wisdom, worship in reality the same wisdom which has been proclaimed by St. James in the third chapter of his Epistle [verse 17], i.e., “the wisdom that is from above (δοΦία ἄνωθεν [which] is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy,” avoiding, on the advice of the same Apostle [verse 15], wisdom that “is earthly, sensual, devilish (ψυχική δαιμονιώδης).”
Blavatsky
Blavatsky
Nicholas
Bodhicitta
True Ben, but not 'only'. One must not indulge the 'devilish' worldly wisdom, for it more familiar & thus stronger than the higher wisdom. Avoiding a worldly mind and also concentrating on the divine mind is needed.