A DAY OF SUNSHINE

Looking At Nature and Observing Oneself

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Note:

No clear borderline divides

philosophical poetry from esoteric

wisdom. In the ancient world, both

Eastern and Western nations used to record

and to memorize religious teachings in the form

of verses. At all times, good philosophical poems

seem to directly speak to one’s higher levels of

consciousness. As to the following poem, it should

be taken into consideration that the whole Nature is

seen as divine, in theosophy as in  Baruch Spinoza’s

philosophy and the mysticism of every religion.  In

this context, “god” is but the eternal universal law.

“A Day of Sunshine” is reproduced from “The Works

of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow”, The Wordsworth

Poetry Library, U.K., 1994, 886 pp., pp. 319-320.

(C. C. A.)

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 Heart-consciousness in human

beings is linked to the energy of the Sun

O gift of God! O perfect day:

Whereon shall no man work, but play;

Whereon it is enough for me,

Not to be doing, but to be!

Through every fibre of my brain,

Through every nerve, through every vein,

I feel the electric thrill, the touch

Of life, that seems almost too much.

I hear the wind among the trees

Playing celestial symphonies;

I see the branches downward bent,

Like keys of some great instrument. [1]

And over me unrolls on high

The splendid scenery of the sky,

Where though a sapphire sea the sun

Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,

Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,

Whose steep sierra far uplifts

Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms

The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms!

Blow, winds! and bend within my reach

The fiery blossoms of the peach!

O Life and Love! O happy throng

Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!

O heart of man! canst thou not be

Blithe as the air is, and as free?

NOTE:

[1] Referring to the music of the wind upon reeds, H. P. Blavatsky wrote to a Russian newspaper:  “…There are many such natural orchestras in India; they are well known to the Brahmanas who call this wind in the reeds vina-devas (the lute of the Gods).”  See “From the Caves and Jungles of Hindustan”, H. P. Blavatsky, TPH, 1975-1983, p. 283. (C. C. A.)

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Always visit  www.Esoteric-Philosophy.com  , www.TheosophyOnline.com    and  www.FilosofiaEsoterica.com  .

If you want to have access to a daily study of the original teachings of Theosophy and to look at every aspect of life from a universal viewpoint, write to  lutbr@terra.com.br    and ask for information on the e-group E-Theosophy.

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MODERN SCIENCE DISCOVERS PLANETS

Scientists Follow Theosophy and

Say There Are Billions of Solar Systems 

Joaquim Soares

Our galaxy (image above) is teeming with solar systems

One of the great challenges of science, in which the scientific community has invested a lot of resources in recent decades and years, is the question of whether there is life on other planets.

It is a subject that also fascinates the public. For students of Esoteric Philosophy, however, this is a misplaced question first and foremost, since, in fact, “all is Life” in the universe.

The Cosmos presented by the Secret Doctrine is far beyond the mechanistic speculations offered by science. Theosophy recognizes the existence of various states of substance, worlds within worlds and demonstrates that consciousness is on the basis of the entire manifested universe.

The humanity to which we belong is not alone in the universe. Numerous humanities live and evolve throughout the vast outer and inner space, at every level of expression and conscience. The concept of a plurality of inhabited worlds is present in most of the ancient traditions. This is the teaching of Theosophy.

In one of the “Mahatmas Letters", written in 1882, one can read:

“…We know with the sole help of our naked eye a number of [planets outside the solar system]; every completely matured Sun-star having like in our own system several companion planets in fact.” [1]

Science is always quick in its progress and, in 2012, only 130 years after that 1882 letter, a group of scientists came to the same conclusion as the sages of the Himalayas.  

They realized that that “every star as a planet”, which means that there are indeed billions of planets. In a study published in the scientific journal “Nature” [2], researchers estimate that the Milky Way galaxy contains at least 100 billion planets, most of them being Earth-sized. The authors declare that “these planets are at least as numerous as the stars in the Milky Way”, and they conclude “that stars are orbited by planets as a rule, rather than as an exception.”

As someone said in the Yahoo e-group E-Theosophy:

“This is an indication that the so-called ‘Exact’ Science has a future. As a younger sister of Esoteric Philosophy, it is still naïve; but it is also promising already.” 

Perhaps it will not take too long for some scientists, while looking at the night sky, to come to the conclusion that many other humanities travel with us through Space, under the wise light of Stars.

NOTES:

[1] “Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett”, T.U.P., Pasadena,  letter XXIII-B, item 10, p. 165.

[2] “Nature”, Vol.481, Issue 7330, 12^th January 2012, pp.167-169.

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The first version of “Modern Science Discovers Planets” was published at the Yahoo e-group E-Theosophy in January 2012.

Always visit www.Esoteric-Philosophy.com ,  www.TheosophyOnline.com  and  www.FilosofiaEsoterica.com .

If you want to have access to a daily study of the original teachings of Theosophy, write to lutbr@terra.com.br and ask for information on the e-group E-THEOSOPHY.

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PASCAL´S SPHERE

Examining an Infinite Sphere, the Center of

Which is Everywhere, and the Circumference Nowhere

Jorge Luis Borges

                                                          

 Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

A 2012 Editorial Note:

In her classical work “The Secret Doctrine”, Helena Blavatsky wrote:

“… The primordial form of everything manifested, from atom to globe, from man to angel, is spheroidal, the sphere having been with all nations the emblem of eternity and infinity - a serpent swallowing its tail. To realize the meaning, however, the sphere must be thought of as seen from its centre. The field of vision or of thought is like a sphere whose radii proceed from one’s self in every direction, and extend out into space, opening up boundless vistas all around. It is the symbolical circle of Pascal and the Kabalists, ‘whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere’ (…)”. (“The Secret Doctrine”, Helena P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Company, Los Angeles, volume I, p. 65.)

The Russian thinker also said:

“…The definition of Deity by the Circle is not Pascal’s at all, as E. Levi thought. It was borrowed by the French philosopher from either Mercury Trismegistus or Cardinal Cusa’s Latin work, De Docta Ignorantia, in which he makes use of it. It is, moreover, disfigured by Pascal, who replaces the words ‘Cosmic Circle’, which stand symbolically in the original inscription, by the word Theos. With the ancients both words were synonymous.” (“The Secret Doctrine”, volume II, p. 545.)

In the following text, Jorge Luis Borges shares the same viewpoint adopted by H. P. Blavatsky.

He practices contemplation of universal truths while examining philosophical aspects of human history. Writing to the great public with a high degree of bibliographical erudition, Borges hides his esoteric philosophy in humour and irony. [1]

We have added the subtitle.

(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)

Pascal’s Sphere

Jorge Luis Borges

Perhaps universal history is the history of a few metaphors. I should like to sketch one chapter of that history.

Six centuries before the Christian era Xenophanes of Colophon, the rhapsodist, weary of the Homeric verses he recited from city to city, attacked the poets who attributed anthropomorphic traits do the gods; the substitute he proposed to the Greeks was a single God: an eternal sphere.  In Plato’s Timaeus we read that the sphere is the most perfect and most uniform shape, because all points in its surface are equidistant from the center.  Olof Gigon (Ursprung der griechischen Philosophie, 183) says that Xenophanes shared that belief; the God was spheroid, because that form was the best, or the least bad, to serve as a representation of the divinity. Forty years later, Parmenides of Elea repeated the image (“Being is like the mass of a well-rounded sphere, whose force  is constant from the center in any direction”). Calogero and Mondolfo believe that he envisioned an infinite, or infinitely growing sphere, and that those words have a dynamic meaning (Albertelli, Gli Eleati, 148).  Parmenides taught in Italy; a few years after he died, the Sicilian Empedocles of Agrigentum plotted a laborious cosmogony, in one section of which the particles of earth, air, fire, and water compose an endless sphere, “the round Sphairos, which rejoices in its circular solitude.”

Universal history followed its course. The too-human gods attacked by Xenophanes were reduced to poetic fictions or to demons, but it was said that one god, Hermes Trismegistus, had dictated a variously estimated number of books (42, according to Clement of Alexandria; 20,000, according to Iamblichus; 36,525, according to the priests of Thoth, who is also Hermes), on whose pages all things were written. Fragments of that illusory library, compiled or forged since the third century, form the so-called Hermetica. In one part of the Asclepius, which was also attributed to Trismegistus, the twelfth-century French theologian, Alain de Lille - Alanus de Insulis - discovered this formula, which future generations would not forget: “God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” The Pre-Socratic spoke of an endless sphere; Albertelli (like Aristotle before him) thinks that such a statement is a contradictio in adjecto, because the subject and predicate negate each other. Possibly so, but the formula of the Hermetic books almost enables us to envisage that sphere.  In the thirteenth century the image reappeared in the symbolic Roman de la Rose, which attributed it to Plato, and in the Speculum Triplex encyclopedia. In the sixteenth century the last chapter of the last book of Pantagruel referred to “that intellectual sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere, which we call God.” For the medieval mind, the meaning was clear: God is in each one of his creatures, but it not limited by anyone of them. “Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee,” said Solomon (I Kings 8:27). The geometrical metaphor of the sphere must have seemed like a gloss of those words.

Dante’s poem has preserved Ptolemaic astronomy, which ruled men’s imaginations for fourteen hundred years. The earth is the center of the universe. It is an immovable sphere, around which nine concentric spheres revolve. The first seven are the planetary heavens (the heavens of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn); the eighth, the Heaven of Fixed Stars; the ninth, the Crystalline Heaven (called the Primum Mobile), surrounded by the Empyrean, which is made of light. That whole laborious array of hollow, transparent, and revolving spheres (one system required fifty-five) had come to a mental necessity. De hypothesibus motuum coelestium commentariolus was the timid title that Copernicus, the disputer of Aristotle, gave to the manuscript that transformed our vision of the cosmos. For one man, Giordano Bruno, the breaking of the sidereal vaults was a liberation. In La cena de le ceneri he proclaimed that the world was the infinite effect of an infinite cause and the divinity was near, “because it is in us even more than we ourselves are in us.”  He searched for the words that would explain Copernican space to mankind, and on one famous page he wrote: “We can state with certainty that the universe is all center, or that the center of the universe is everywhere and the circumference nowhere” ( De la causa, principio e uno,  V).

That was written exultantly in 1584, still in the light of the Renaissance; seventy years later not one spark of that fervor remained and men felt lost in time and space. In time, because if the future and the past are infinite, there will not really be a when; in space, because if every being is equidistant from the infinite and the infinitesimal, there will  not be a where. No one exists on a certain day, in a certain place; no one knows the size of his face. In the Renaissance humanity thought it had reached adulthood, and it said as much through the mouths of Bruno, Campanella, and Bacon. In the seventeenth century humanity was intimidated by a feeling of old age; to vindicate itself it exhumed the belief of a slow and fatal degeneration of all creatures because of Adam’s sin. (In Genesis 5:27 we read that “all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years”; in 6:4, that “There were giants in the earth in those days.”)  The elegy Anatomy of the World, by John Donne, deplored the very brief lives and the slight stature of contemporary men, who could be likened to fairies and dwarfs. According to Johnson’s biography, Milton feared that an epic genre had become impossible on earth.  Glanvill thought that Adam, God’s medal, enjoyed a telescopic and microscopic vision. Robert South wrote, in famous words, that an Aristotle was merely the wreckage of Adam, and Athens, the rudiments of Paradise. In that jaded century the absolute space that inspired the hexameters of Lucretius, the absolute space that had been a liberation for Bruno, was a labyrinth and an abyss for Pascal. He hated the universe, and yearned to adore God. But God was less real to him than the hated universe. He was sorry that the firmament could not speak; he compared our lives to those of shipwrecked men on a desert island. He felt the incessant weight of the physical world; he felt confused, afraid, and alone; and he expressed his feelings like this: “It [nature] is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere.” That is the text of the Brunschvicg edition, but the critical edition of Tourneur (Paris, 1941), which reproduces the cancellations and the hesitations of the manuscript, reveals that Pascal started to write effroyable: “A frightful sphere, the center of which is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere.”

Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors.

Buenos Aires, 1951.

NOTE:

[1] The text “Pascal’s Sphere”, is reproduced from the volume “Other Inquisitions, 1937-1952”, by Jorge Luis Borges, University of Texas Press, Translated from Spanish by Ruth L.C. Simms, 1993, 205 pp.  Copyright English version, University of Texas Press. The subtitle - “Examining an Infinite Sphere, the Center of Which is Everywhere, and the Circumference Nowhere” - has been added by us. (C. C. A.)

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Always visit  www.Esoteric-Philosophy.com   , www.TheosophyOnline.com   and www.FilosofiaEsoterica.com   .

If you want to have access to a daily study of the original teachings of Theosophy, write to lutbr@terra.com.br  and ask for information on the e-group E-THEOSOPHY.

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THE THEOSOPHICAL MAHATMAS

Masters of the Wisdom Help Mankind In

Strict Accordance With the Law of Karma

Helena P. Blavatsky

 A Balance Scale Symbolizes the

Eternal Law of Equilibrium and Justice

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Some students think the following

article is one of the most powerful

and significant texts written by  H.P.B.

It is reproduced from “Theosophical

Articles”, H.P. Blavatsky, Theosophy

Company, Volume I, pp. 301-307.  It is

also published at “H.P. Blavatsky Collected

Writings”, TPH, vol. VII, pp. 241-249.

(C. C. A.)

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“Once that a theosophist would become

a candidate for either chelaship or favors, he

must be aware of the mutual pledge, tacitly, if

not formally offered and accepted between the

two parties, and, that such a pledge is sacred.

It is a bond of seven years of probation.”

“No one forces anyone into chelaship; no

promises are uttered, none except the mutual

pledge between Master and the would-be chela.”

(H. P. B.) 

It is with sincere and profound regret - though with no surprise, prepared as I am for years for such declarations - that I have read in the Rochester Occult Word, edited by Mrs. J. Cables, the devoted president of the T.S. of that place, her joint editorial with Mr. W. T. Brown.

This sudden revulsion of feeling is perhaps quite natural in the lady, for she has never bad the opportunities given her as Mr. Brown has; and her feeling when she writes that after “a great desire . . . to be put into communication with the Theosophical Mahatmas we (they) have come to the conclusion that it is useless to strain the Psychical eyes towards the Himalayas …..” is undeniably shared by many theosophists. Whether the complaints are justified, and also whether it is the “Mahatmas” or theosophists themselves who are to blame for it is a question that remains to be settled. It has been a pending case for several years and will have to be now decided, as the two complainants declare over their signatures that “we (they) need not run after Oriental mystics, who deny their ability to help us.” The last sentence, in italics, has to be seriously examined. I ask the privilege to make a few remarks thereon.

To begin with, the tone of the whole article is that of a true  manifesto.  Condensed and weeded of its exuberance of Biblical expressions it comes to this paraphrastical declaration: “We have knocked at their door, and they have not answered us; we have prayed for bread, they have denied us even a stone”. The charge is quite serious; nevertheless, that it is neither just nor fair - is what I propose to show.

As I was the first in the United States to bring the existence of our Masters into publicity; and, having exposed the holy names of two members of a Brotherhood hitherto unknown to Europe and America (save to a few mystics and Initiates of every age), yet sacred and revered throughout the East, and especially India, causing vulgar speculation and curiosity to grow around those blessed names, and finally leading to a public rebuke, I believe it my duty to contradict the fitness of the latter by explaining the whole situation, as I feel myself the chief culprit. It may do good to some, perchance, and will interest some others.

Let no one think withal, that I come out as a champion or a defender of those who most assuredly need no defense. What I intend, is to present simple facts, and let after this the situation be judged on its own merits. To the plain statement of our brothers and sisters that they have been “living on husks”, “hunting after strange gods” without receiving admittance, I would ask in my turn, as plainly: “Are you sure of having knocked at the right door? Do you feel certain that you have not lost your way by stopping so often on your journey at strange doors, behind which lie in wait the fiercest enemies of those you were searching for?” 

Our MASTERS are not “a jealous god”; they are simply holy mortals, nevertheless, however, higher than any in this world, morally, intellectually and spiritually. However holy and advanced in the science of the Mysteries - they are still men, members of a Brotherhood, who are the first in it to show themselves subservient to its time-honored laws and rules. And one of the first rules in it demands that those who start on their journey Eastward, as candidates to the notice and favors of those who are the custodians of those Mysteries, should proceed by the straight road, without stopping on every side-way and path, seeking to join other “Masters” and professors often of the Left Hand Science; that they should have confidence and show trust and patience, besides several other conditions to fulfill. Failing in all of this from first to last, what right has any man or woman to complain of the liability of the Masters to help them?

Truly “The ‘Dwellers of the threshold’ are within!”

Once that a theosophist would become a candidate for either chelaship or favors, he must be aware of the mutual pledge, tacitly, if not formally offered and accepted between the two parties, and, that such a pledge is sacred. It is a bond of seven years of probation. If during that time, notwithstanding the many human shortcomings and mistakes of the candidate (save two which it is needless to specify in print) he remains throughout every temptation true to the chosen Master, or Masters (in the case of lay candidates), and as faithful to the Society founded at their wish and under their orders, then the theosophist will be initiated into ________  thence-forward allowed to communicate with his guru unreservedly, all his failings, save this one, as specified, may be overlooked: they belong to his future Karma, but are left for the present, to the discretion and judgment of the Master. He alone has the power of judging whether even during those long seven years the chela will be favoured regardless of his mistakes and sins, with occasional communications with, and from, the guru. [1] The latter thoroughly posted as to the causes and motives that led the candidate into sins of omission and commission is the only one to judge of the advisability or inadvisability of bestowing encouragement; as he alone is entitled to it, seeing that he is himself under the inexorable law of Karma, which no one from the Zulu savage up to the highest archangel can avoid - and that he has to assume the great responsibility of the causes created by himself.

Thus, the chief and the only indispensable condition required in the candidate or chela on probation, is simply unswerving fidelity to the chosen Master and his purposes. This is a condition sine qua non; not as I have said, on account of any jealous feeling, but simply because the magnetic rapport between the two once broken, it becomes at each time doubly difficult to re-establish it again; and that it is neither just nor fair, that the Masters should strain their powers for those whose future course and final desertion they very often can plainly foresee. Yet, how many of those who, expecting as I would call it “favours by anticipation”, and being disappointed, instead of humbly repeating mea culpa, tax the Masters with selfishness and injustice? They will deliberately break the thread of connection ten times in one year, and yet expect each time to be taken back on the old lines! I know of one theosophist - let him be nameless though it is hoped he will recognize himself - a quiet, intelligent young gentleman, a mystic by nature, who, in his ill-advised enthusiasm and impatience, changed Masters and his ideas about half a dozen times in less than three years. First he offered himself, was accepted on probation and took the vow of chelaship; about a year later, he suddenly got the idea of getting married, though he had several proofs of the corporeal presence of his Master, and had several favours bestowed upon him. Projects of marriage, failing, he sought “Masters” under other climes, and became an enthusiastic Rosicrucian; then be returned to theosophy as a Christian mystic; then again sought to enliven his austerities with a wife; then gave up the idea and turned a spiritualist. And now having applied once more “to be taken back as a chela” (I have his letter) and his Master remaining silent - he renounced him altogether, to seek in the words of the above manifesto - his old “Essenian Master and to test the spirits in his name”.

The able and respected editor of the Occult Word and her Secretary are right, and have chosen the only true path in which with a very small dose of blind faith, they are sure to encounter no deceptions or disappointments. “It is pleasant for some of us”, they say, “to obey the call of the ‘Man of Sorrows’ who will not turn any away, because they are unworthy or have not scored up a certain percentage of personal merit”. How do they know? Unless they accept the cynically awful and pernicious dogma of the Protestant Church, that teaches the forgiveness of the blackest crime, provided the murderer  believes sincerely that the blood of his “Redeemer” has saved him at the last hour - what is it but blind unphilosophical faith? Emotionalism is not philosophy; and Buddha devoted his long self-sacrificing life to tear people away precisely from that evil breeding superstition. Why speak of Buddha then, in the same breath? The doctrine of salvation by personal merit, and self-forgetfulness is the corner-stone of the teaching of the Lord Buddha. Both the writers may have and very likely they did “hunt after strange gods”; but these were not our MASTERS. They have “denied Him thrice” and now propose “with bleeding feet and prostrate spirit” to “pray that He (Jesus) may take us (them) once more under his wing”, etc. The “Nazarene Master” is sure to oblige them so far. Still they will be “living on husks” plus “blind faith”. But in this they are the best judges, and no one has a Tight to meddle with their private beliefs in our Society; and heaven grant that they should not in their fresh disappointment turn our bitterest enemies one day.

Yet, to those Theosophists, who are displeased with the Society in general, no one has ever made to you any rash promises; least of all, has either the Society or its founders ever offered their “Masters” as a chromo-premium to the best-behaved. For years every new member has been told that he was promised nothing, but had everything to expect only from his own personal merit. The Theosophist is left free and untrammeled in his actions. Whenever displeased - alia tentanda via est - no harm in trying elsewhere [2]; unless, indeed one has offered himself and is decided to win the Masters’ favors. To such especially, I now address myself and ask:

“Have you fulfilled your obligations and pledges? Have you, who would fain lay all the blame on the Society and the Masters - the latter the embodiment of charity, tolerance, justice and universal love - have you led the life requisite, and the conditions required from one who becomes a candidate?”

Let him who feels in his heart and conscience that he has, - that he has never once failed seriously, never doubted his Master’s wisdom, never sought other Master or Masters in his impatience to become an Occultist with powers; and that he has never betrayed his theosophical duty in thought or deed, - let him, I say, rise and protest. He can do so fearlessly; there is no penalty attached to it, and he will not even receive a reproach, let alone be excluded from the Society - the broadest and most liberal in its views, the most catholic of all the Societies known or unknown. I am afraid my invitation will remain unanswered. During the eleven years of the existence of the Theosophical Society I have known, out of the seventy-two regularly accepted chelas on probation and the hundreds of lay candidates - only three who have not hitherto failed, and one only who had a full success. No one forces anyone into chelaship; no promises are uttered, none except the mutual pledge between Master and the would-be chela. Verily, Verily, many are the called but few are chosen - or rather few who have the patience of going to the bitter end, if bitter we can call simple perseverance and singleness of purpose.

What about the Society, in general, outside of India? Who among the many thousands of members does lead the life? Shall anyone say because he is a strict vegetarian -elephants and cows are that  - or happens to lead a celibate life, after a stormy youth in the opposite direction; or because he studies the Bhagavad-Gita or the “Yoga philosophy” upside down, that he is a theosophist according to the Masters’ hearts? As it is not the cowl that makes the monk, so, no long hair with a poetical vacancy on the brow are sufficient to make of one a faithful follower of divine Wisdom.

Look around you, and behold our UNIVERSAL Brotherhood so called! The Society founded to remedy the glaring evils of Christianity, to shun bigotry and intolerance, cant and superstition and to cultivate real universal love extending even to the dumb brute, what has it become in Europe and America in these eleven years of trial? In one thing only we have succeeded to be considered higher than our Christian Brothers, who, according to Lawrence Oliphant’s graphic expression, “kill one another for Brotherhood’s sake and fight as devils for the love of God” - and this is that we have made away with every dogma and are now justly and wisely trying to make away with the last vestige of even nominal authority. But in every other respect we are as bad as they are: backbiting, slander, uncharitableness, criticism, incessant war-cry and ding of mutual rebukes that Christian Hell itself might be proud of! And all this, I suppose, is the Master’s fault: THEY will not help those who help others on the way of salvation and liberation from selfishness - with kicks and scandals? Truly we are an example to the world, and fit companions for the holy ascetics of the snowy Range!

And now a few words more before I close. I will be asked:

“And who are you to find fault with us? Are you, who claim nevertheless communion with the Masters and receive daily favors from Them; Are you so holy, faultless, and so worthy?”

To this I answer: I AM NOT. Imperfect and faulty is my nature; many and glaring are my shortcomings - and for this my Karma is heavier than that of any other Theosophist. It is - and must be so - since for so many years I stand set in the pillory, a target for my enemies and some friends also. Yet I accept the trial cheerfully. Why? Because I know that I have, all my faults notwithstanding, Master’s protection extended over me. And if I have it, the reason for it is simply this: for thirty-five years and more, ever since 1851 that I saw any Master bodily and personally for the first time, I have never once denied or even doubted Him, not even in thought. Never a reproach or a murmur against Him has escaped my lips, or entered even my brain for one instant under the heaviest trials. From the first I knew what I had to expect, for I was told that, which I have never ceased repeating to others: as soon as one steps on the Path leading to the Ashrum of the blessed Masters - the last and only custodians of primitive Wisdom and Truth - his Karma, instead of having to be distributed throughout his long life, falls upon him in a block and crushes him with its whole weight. He who believes in what he professes and in his Master, will stand it and come out of the trial victorious; he who doubts, the coward who fears to receive his just dues and tries to avoid justice being done - FAILS. He will not escape Karma just the same, but he will only lose that for which he has risked its untimely visits.

This is why, having been so constantly, so mercilessly slashed by my Karma using my enemies as unconscious weapons, that I have stood it all. I felt sure that Master would not permit that I should perish; that he would always appear at the eleventh hour - and so he did. 

Three times I was saved from death by Him, the last time almost against my will; when I went again into the cold, wicked world out of love for Him, who has taught me what I know and made me what I am. Therefore, I do His work and bidding, and this is what has given me the lion’s strength to support shocks - physical and mental, one of which would have killed any theosophist who would go on doubting of the mighty protection. Unswerving devotion to Him who embodies the duty traced for me, and belief in the Wisdom - collectively, of that grand, mysterious, yet actual Brotherhood of holy men - is my only merit, and the cause of my success in Occult philosophy.

And now repeating after the Paraguru - my Master’s MASTER - the words He had sent as a message to those who wanted to make of the Society a “miracle club” instead of a Brotherhood of Peace, Love and mutual assistance -  “Perish rather, the Theosophical Society and its hapless Founders” [3], I say perish their twelve years’ labour and their very lives rather than that I should see what I do today: theosophists, outvying political “rings” in their search for personal power and authority; theosophists slandering and criticizing each other as two rival Christian sects might do; finally theosophists refusing to lead the life and then criticizing and throwing slurs on the grandest and noblest of men, because tied by their wise laws - hoary with age and based on an experience of human nature millenniums old - those Masters refuse to interfere with Karma and to play second fiddle to every theosophist who calls upon Them and whether he deserves it or not.

Unless radical reforms in our American and European Societies are speedily resorted to - I fear that before long there will remain but one centre of Theosophical Societies and Theosophy in the whole world - namely, in India; on that country I call all the blessings of my heart. All my love and aspirations belong to my beloved brothers, the Sons of Old Aryavarta - the Motherland of my MASTER.

H.P. BLAVATSKY

Path magazine, December, 1886.

NOTES:

[1] The period of outer and verbal communication between Masters and theosophists has been clearly and officially closed with the end of the 19^th century.  Yet outer forms of contact are superficial.  The real communion occurs in silence and wordlessly at the Buddhic and Buddhi-Manasic level.   It is the activity of his sixth principle which entitles any human being - and not just members of the theosophical movement, to receive higher inspiration and to deserve “help from above”. (C. C. A.)

[2] In a footnote, editor Boris de Zirkoff says that this is an indirect quotation from Virgil’s Georgics, lib. III, 8-9, whose literal translation to English (in Loeb Classical Library) says: “I must essay a path whereby I, too, may rise…”  (see “H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings”, T.P.H., volume VII, p. 245. (C. C.A.)

[3] H.P.B. is quoting here from the “The Great Master’s Letter”, also known as “The Maha-Chohan Letter” and “View of the Chohan on the T.S.”  (C. C. A.)

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THE USE AND MISUSE OF SECRECY

Examining an Aspect of  

The Eastern Esoteric Doctrine

Steven H. Levy, M.D.

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Steven H. Levy is an associate

of the United Lodge of Theosophists,

U.L.T., in Philadelphia, USA.

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The “Summing Up” section of “The Secret Doctrine” (SD) [1] begins with a demonstration of the need for the proper use of secrecy. The true value of secrecy can be best expressed in the meaning of the word “Upanishads” which is “the conquest of ignorance by the revelation of secret, spiritual knowledge”.

Esoteric knowledge is withheld when it will compound ignorance if given to the wrong person at the wrong time and place. It is revealed when it is likely to reduce ignorance. Ignorance is the greatest foe to human solidarity, happiness, and progress.

Secrecy may be abused if it is used to prolong ignorance when it is necessary and appropriate to reveal knowledge. The selfish withholding of knowledge is usually based on spiritual pride or the desire to control others through ignorance. With knowledge comes power and responsibility. The esoteric tradition on the history of the Upanishads - as explained in SD, Vol. I, pp. 269-272 -, is a lesson on use and abuse of secrecy.

The Upanishads are attached to the Brahmana portion of the Vedas. They contain esoteric keys to the understanding of the secret meaning of the Vedas. In truth, they can no longer be considered esoteric since they are attached to sacred Brahmanical writings that are available to all. In their present form they no longer reveal the “beginning and end of all human knowledge”. Half of their original contents have been eliminated while some of the portions have been rewritten and abridged. In their complete original form they were attached to the Brahmanas and used for the instruction of disciples preparing for initiation. No one else outside the sacred caste of Temple Brahmans had the right to study or read them. Of course, this was before the Brahmins became tyrannical, H.P.B. explains.

The sacred duty of silence and secrecy of the Brahmins and their disciples was to preserve and protect the mysteries of the Upanishads from distortion and abuse in the hands of those who were not prepared to receive them. Even so, a veil of impenetrable secrecy, more secret than secrecy itself, was thrown around the sacred esoteric texts. Even if they were to fall into the wrong hands, without the understanding of the mysteries of sound, rhythm, and intonation which could arouse the inner light of higher mind in the disciple, the inner meaning of the Upanishads and the Vedas would not be unveiled to the trespasser.

The key to the Brahmanical secret code and all their sacred knowledge and occult wisdom was known by the Initiates of a great seat of occult learning even before it had passed to the Brahmins. This refers to a vast geographic region that included Mongolia, Tibet, parts of China, and parts of India. [2] Gautama, the Buddha, had learned all the Brahmanical wisdom in the Upanishads and the occult knowledge of the Initiates and saw the similarity in the two. He recognized that much of sacred wisdom was being held unnecessarily by the selfish and proud Brahmins from the masses and contributing to the general ignorance, superstition, and suffering. Moved by indignation for the Brahmins and compassion for all, he resolved to popularize their so- called sacred and occult wisdom.

Whereas the earlier Brahmins maintained secrecy out of their sacred duty, the later seclusive and secretive Brahmins tried to create more confusion and deny their knowledge to the “Mlechchhas”, who were the ancient Indian equivalent of unfamiliar, foreign, uncouth, and incomprehensible barbarians. The Brahmins abridged the texts of the Upanishads and were able to publicly deny the correctness of the teachings of the Buddha. Secrecy held because of pride does not only manifest through sins of commission of deceit, it can also manifest as sins of omission.

Shankaracharya, one of the greatest initiates of all time, wrote many commentaries on the Upanishads. His original commentaries on the esoteric doctrines of the Brahmins are kept secret from disdainful and materialistic persons, but they are too jealously preserved in his monasteries. The Smartava Brahmins, a sect founded by Shankaracharya, has students learned in the esoteric doctrine, yet they are extremely exclusive, proud, and inclined by nature to be silent and restrained in communication. Silence is golden, but an indifferent tongue needs to be aroused to action and guided by truth so that its lead nature may be transmuted into gold for the benefit of all.

These excerpts from “The Secret Doctrine” illustrate the use and misuse of secrecy:

*  “The name, ‘Upanishads’, is usually translated ‘esoteric doctrine’. These treatises form part of the Sruti or ‘revealed knowledge’, Revelation, in short, and are generally attached to the Brahmana portion of the Vedas, as their third division. There are over 150 Upanishads enumerated by, and known to, Orientalists, who credit the oldest with being written probably about 600 years B.C.; but of genuine texts there does not exist a fifth of the number. The Upanishads are to the Vedas what the Kabala is to the Jewish Bible. They treat of and expound the secret and mystic meaning of the Vedic texts. They speak of the origin of the Universe, the nature of Deity, and of Spirit and Soul, as also of the metaphysical connection of mind and matter. In a few words: They CONTAIN the beginning and the end of all human knowledge, but they have now ceased to REVEAL it, since the day of Buddha.” [3]

* This lasted so long as the Vedas and the Brahmanas remained in the sole and exclusive keeping of the temple-Brahmins - while no one else had the right to study or even read them outside of the sacred caste. Then came Gautama, the Prince of Kapilavastu. After learning the whole of the Brahmanical wisdom in the Rahasya or the Upanishads, and finding that the teachings differed little, if at all, from those of the “Teachers of Life” inhabiting the snowy ranges of the Himalaya, the Disciple of the Brahmins, feeling indignant because the sacred wisdom was thus withheld from all but the Brahmins, determined to save the whole world by popularizing it. Then it was that the Brahmins, seeing that their sacred knowledge and Occult wisdom was falling into the hands of the “Mlechchhas”, abridged the texts of the Upanishads, originally containing thrice the matter of the Vedas and the Brahmanas together, without altering, however, one word of the texts. They simply detached from the MSS. the most important portions containing the last word of the Mystery of Being. The key to the Brahmanical secret code remained henceforth with the initiates alone, and the Brahmins were thus in a position to publicly deny the correctness of Buddha’s teaching by appealing to their Upanishads, silenced for ever on the chief questions. Such is the esoteric tradition beyond the Himalayas.” [4]

Thus, we have seen how the practice of secrecy is colored by the influence of the three Gunas - Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas.

When Sattva prevails, the soul is bound to secrecy by attachment to that which is true, sacred, and beautiful. The individual is silent and secretive in order to preserve and protect the true, beautiful, and sacred from degradation, misuse, profanation, ridicule, and the harm that may result. However, the motive may be tainted with spiritual pride and a feeling of superiority for possessing that which is true, sacred and beautiful.

When Rajas prevails, the soul is bound to secrecy by attachment to power, wealth, fame, and pride. The individual is silent and secretive, but performs selfish actions to preserve and protect one’s power, wealth, fame, and self- regard irrespective of the conflict, misery and ignorance it may cause for others.

When Tamas prevails, the soul is bound to silence and secrecy by attachment to the tendencies of the personal nature that are passive and indifferent. Silence and secrecy is the result of a natural inertia in the personality that leads to inaction in a deed of mercy or duty when there should be deeds and words.

When the soul has freed itself from attachment to these three great qualities of nature, the individual uses them rather than being influenced by them. The spiritually wise preserve and protect the truth because of their love of humanity and devotion to sacred duty. They actively guard the truth by veiling it when it is necessary and unveiling it in degrees when it is necessary and proper. They preserve secrecy indifferent and unresponsive to the pleasure and pain to themselves that may result.

NOTES:

[1] “The Secret Doctrine”, Helena P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Company,  Los Angeles, see Volume I, pp. 269-299.

[2] For further explanation of this ancient seat of occult learning, read the APPENDIX to the article, “Brahmanism On The Sevenfold Principle In Man”, by H.P. Blavatsky, notes 1, 2, and 3, which may be found in the volume “Five Years of Theosophy”, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, pp.177-182.

[3] “The Secret Doctrine”, H. P. Blavatsky, volume I, pp. 269-270.

[4] “The Secret Doctrine”, volume I. p. 271.

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The above text was first published at the Yahoo e-group E-Theosophy, in January 2012.

Always visit  www.Esoteric-Philosophy.com , www.TheosophyOnline.com  and  www.FilosofiaEsoterica.com .

If you want to have access to a daily study of the original teachings of Theosophy, write to lutbr@terra.com.br and ask for information on the e-group E-THEOSOPHY.

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