The Writings of Annie Besant
(1847 -1933)
A Rough Outline of Theosophy
First Published November 1921
IN dealing with a great
theme within narrow limits one has always to make a choice of evils: one must
either substantiate each point, buttress it up with arguments, and thus fail to
give any roughly complete idea of the whole; or one must make an outline of the
whole, leaving out the proofs which bring
conviction of the truth of the teaching. As the main object of this
paper is to place before the average man or woman an idea of Theosophy as a whole, I
elect to take the inconvenience of the latter alternative, and use the
expository instead of the controversial method. Those who are sufficiently
interested in
the subject to desire
further knowledge can easily pass on into the investigation of evidences,
evidences that are within the reach of all who have patience, power of thought
and courage.
We, who are
Theosophists, allege that there exists a great body of doctrine philosophical,
scientific and ethical, which forms the basis of, and includes all that is
accurate in, the philosophies, sciences, and religions of the ancient and
modern worlds. This body of doctrine is a philosophy and a science more than a
religion in the ordinary sense of the word, for it does not
impose dogmas as necessary to be believed under any kind of
supernatural penalties, as do the various Churches of the world. It is indeed a
religion, if religion be the binding of life by a sublime ideal; but it puts
forward its teachings as capable of demonstration, not on authority which it is
blasphemy to
challenge or deny.
That some great body of
doctrine did exist in antiquity, and was transmitted from generation to
generation, is patent to any investigator. It was this which was taught in the
Mysteries, of which Dr. Warburton wrote: “The wisest and best men in the Pagan
world are unanimous in this, that the Mysteries were instituted pure, and
proposed the noblest ends by the worthiest means”. To speak of the Initiates is
to speak of the greatest men of old; in their ranks we find Plato and
Pythagoras, Euclid and Democritus, Thales and Solon,
Apollonius and lamblichus. In the Mysteries unveiled,
they learned their wisdom, and gave out to the world such fragments of it as
their oath allowed. But those fragments have fed the world for centuries, and
even yet the learned of the modern West sit at the feet of these elder sons of
wisdom. Among the teachers of the early Christian Church some of these men were
found; they held Christianity in its esoteric meaning, and used exoteric dogmas
merely as veils to cover the hidden truth. “Unto you it is given”, said Jesus,
“to know the mystery of the
Paul. In West as in
East, exoteric religions were but the popular
representations of the
Secret Wisdom.
But with the triumph of
ecclesiasticism, the Secret Wisdom drew back further and further into the
shade, until its very existence slowly faded from the minds of men. Now and
then one of its disciples appeared in Christendom, and gave to the world some
discovery which started thought on some new and fruitful line; thus Paracelsus,
with his discovery of hydrogen, his magnetic treatment for the core of disease,
and his many hints at secrets of nature not even yet worked out.
Trace through the Middle
Ages, too often by the lurid light of flames blazing round a human body, the
path along which the pioneers of Science toiled, and it will be found that the
magicians and wizards were the finger-posts that marked the way. Passing
strange it is to note how the minds of men have changed in their aspect to the
guardians of the Hidden Wisdom. Of old, in their passionate gratitude, men
regarded them as well nigh divine, thinking no honours
too great to pay to those who had won the right of entrance into the temple of
the Unveiled Truth. In the Middle Ages, when men, having turned from the light,
saw devils everywhere in the darkness, the adepts of the Right-Hand Path were
dreaded as those of the Left, and where-ever new knowledge appeared and obscure
regions of nature were made visible, cries of terror and wrath rent the air,
and men paid their benefactors with torture and with death, In our own time,
secure in the completeness of our knowledge, certain that our philosophy
embraces all things possible in heaven and earth, we neither honour the
teachers as Gods nor denounce them as devils: with a shrug of contempt and a
sniff of derision we turn from them, as they come to us with outstretched hands
full of priceless gifts, and we mutter, “Frauds, charlatans!” entrenched as we
are in our modern conceit that only our century is wise.
Theosophy claims to be
this Secret Wisdom, this great body of doctrine, and it alleges that this
precious deposit, enriched with the results of the investigations of
generations of Seers and Sages, verified by countless experiments, is today, as
of old, in the hands of a mighty Brotherhood, variously spoken of as Adepts, Arhats, Masters. Mahatmas, Brothers, who are
living men, evolved
further than average humanity, who work ever for the service of their race with
a perfect and selfless devotion, holding their high powers in trust for the
common good, content to be without recognition, having passed
beyond all desires of
the personal self.
The claim is a lofty
one, but it can be substantiated by evidence. I leave it as a mere statement of
the position taken up. Coming to the Western world today, Theosophy speaks far more
openly than it has ever done before, owing to the simple fact that, with the
evolution of the race, man has become more and more
fitted to be the
recipient of such knowledge, so that what would once be taught to only a small
minority may now find a wider field. Some of the doctrine is now thrown
broadcast, so that all who can receive it may; but the keys which unlock the
Mysteries are still committed but to few hands, hands too well tried to
tremble under their
weight, or to let them slip from either weakness or treachery. As of old, so
now, the Secret Wisdom is guarded, not by the arbitrary consent or refusal of
the Teachers to impart instruction, but by the capacity of the student to
understand and to assimilate.
Theosophy postulates the
existence of an eternal Principle, known only through its effects. No words can
describe It, for words imply discrimination, and This is ALL. We murmur,
Absolute, Infinite, Unconditioned — but the words mean
naught. SAT, the Wise
speak of: BE-NESS, not even Being, nor Existence. Only as the Manifested
becomes, can language be used with meaning; but the appearance of the
Manifested implies the Unmanifested, for the
Manifested is transitory and mutable, and there must be Something that
eternally endures. This Eternal must be postulated, else whence the existences
around us ? It must contain within Itself That which is the essence of the germ
of all possibilities, all potencies: Space is the only conception that can even
faintly mirror It without preposterous distortion, but silence least offends in
these high regions where the wings of thought beat faintly, and lips can only
falter, not pronounce.
The universe is, in Theosophy, the
manifestation of an aspect of SAT. Rhythmically succeed each other periods of
activity and periods of repose, periods of manifestation and periods of
absorption, the expiration and inspiration of the Great Breath, in the
figurative and most expressive phraseology of the East.
The outbreathing
is the manifested world; the inbreathing terminates the period of activity. The
Root-Substance differentiates into spirit-matter, whereof the universe, visible
and invisible, is built up, evolving into seven stages, or planes, of
manifestation, each denser than its predecessor; the substance is the same in
all, but the degrees of its density differ. So the chemist may have in his
receiver water held invisible: he may
condense it into a faint
mist-cloud, condense it further into vapour, further
yet into liquid, further yet into solid; throughout he has the same chemical
compound, though he changes its condition. Now it is well to remember that the
chemist is dealing with facts in Nature and that his results may therefore
throw
light on natural
methods, working in larger fields; we may at least learn from such an
illustration to clarify our conceptions of the past course of evolution.
Thus, from the
Theosophical standpoint, spirit and matter are essentially one, and the
universe one living whole from center to circumference, not a molecule in it
that is not instinct with life. Hence the difficulty that scientists have
always found in defining life. Every definition they have made has broken down
as excluding some phenomena that they were compelled to recognize as those of
life. Sentiency, in our meaning of the word there may not be, say in the
mineral; but is it therefore dead ? Its particles cohere, they vibrate, they
attract and they repel: what are these but manifestations of that living energy
which rolls the worlds in their courses, flashes from continent to continent,
thrills from root to summit of the plant, pulses in the animal, reasons in the
man ?
One Life and therefore
One Law, everywhere, not a Chaos of warring atoms but a Kosmos of ordered
growth. Death itself is but a change in life-manifestation, life which has
outworn one garment, and, rending it in pieces, clothes itself anew. When the
thoughtless say, “He is dead”, the wise know that the countless lives of which
the human body is built up have become charged with more energy than the bodily
structure can stand, that the strain has become too great, that disruption must
ensue. But death is only transformation not destruction, and every molecule has
pure life essence at its core with the material garment it has woven round
itself of its own substance for action on the objective plane.
Each of the seven Kosmic planes of manifestation is marked off by its own
characteristics; in the first pure spirit, the primary emanation of the ONE,
subtlest, rarest, of all manifestations, incognisable
even by the highest of Adepts save as present in its vehicle, the Spiritual
Soul: without form, without intelligence, as we use the word — these matters
are too high, “I cannot attain
unto them”. Next comes
the plane of Mind, of loftiest spiritual intelligence, where first entity as
entity can be postulated; individualism begins, the Ego first appears. Rare and
subtle is matter on that plane, yet form is there possible, for the individual
implies the presence of limitation, the separation
of the “I” from the “not
I”. Fourth, still densifying, comes the plane of
animal passions and desires, actual forms on their own plane. Then, fifthly,
that of the vivid animating life-principle, as absorbed in forms. Sixthly, the
astral plane, in which matter is but slightly rarer than with ourselves.
Seventhly, the
plane familiar to all of
us, that of the objective universe.
Let us delay for a
moment over this question of planes, for on the understanding of it hinges our
grasp of the philosophical aspect of Theosophy. A plane may be
defined as a state marked off by clear characteristics; it must not be thought
of as a place, as though the universe were made up of shells one within the
other like the coats of an onion. The conception is metaphysical, not
physical, the
consciousness acting on each plane in fashion appropriate to each.
Thus a man may pass from
the plane of the objective in which his consciousness is generally acting, on
to the other planes: he may pass into the astral in sleep, under mesmerism,
under the influence of various drugs; his consciousness may be removed from the
physical plane, his body passive, his brain inert; an electric light leaves his
eyes unaffected, a gong beaten at his ear cannot rouse the organ of hearing;
the organs through which his consciousness normally acts in the physical
universe are all useless, for the consciousness that uses them is transferred
to another plane.
But he can see, hear,
understand, on the astral plane, see sights invisible to physical eyes, hear
sounds inaudible to physical ears. Not real ? What is real ? Some people
confine the real to the tangible, and only believe in the existence of a thing
that can knock them down with a lesion to prove the striking. But an emotion
can slay as swiftly as an arrow; a thought can cure with as much certainty as a
drug. All the mightiest forces are those which are invisible on this plane,
visible though they be to senses subtler than our own. Take the case of a
soldier who, in the mad passion of slaughter, the lust for blood, is wounded in
the onward charge, and knows not the wounding till his passions cool and the
fight is over; his consciousness during the fight is transferred to the fourth
plane, that of the emotions and passions, and it is not till it returns from
that to the plane of the physical body that pain is felt. So again will a great
philosopher, his consciousness rising to the plane of intelligence, becomes
wholly abstracted — as we well say — from the physical plane; brooding over
some deep problem, he forgets all physical wants, all bodily appetites, and
becomes concentrated entirely on the thought-plane, the fifth, in Theosophic parlance.
Now the consciousness of
man can thus pass from plane to plane because he is himself the universe in
miniature, and is built up himself of these seven principles, as they are
sometimes called, or better, is himself a differentiation of consciousness on
seven planes. It may be well, at this stage, to give to these states of
consciousness the names by which they are known in Theosophical literature, for
although some people shrink from names that are unfamiliar, there are, after
all, only seven of them, and the use of them enables one to avoid the continual
repetition of clumsy and inexact descriptive sentences. To Macrocosm and
Microcosm alike the names apply, although they are most often found in relation
to man. The Spirit in man is named Âtmă, cognizable
only in its vehicle Buddhi, the Spiritual Soul; these are the reflections in
man of the highest planes in the universe.
The Spiritual
Intelligence is Manas, the Ego in man, the 1immortal entity, the link between Âtmă-Buddhi and the temporary personality. Below these come
in order Kama, the emotional and passional nature; Prâna, the animating life-principle of the personality; Lińga Sharîra, the astral body
the double of the physical, but formed of the somewhat more ethereal astral
matter; lastly, Stűla Sharîra,
the physical body.
These seven states are
grouped under two heads: Âtma-Buddhi-Manas make up
the trinity in man, imperishable, immortal, the pilgrim that passes through
countless lives; the Individual, the True Man. Kâma, Prâna,
Lińga Sharîra, and Sthűla Sharîra form the
quaternary, the transitory part of the human being, the person, which perishes
gradually, onwards from the death of the physical body.
This disintegrates, the
molecules of physical, astral, kămic matter finding
all new forms into which they are built, and the more quickly they are all
resolved into their elements the better for all concerned. The consciousness of
the normal man
resides chiefly on the
physical, astral and kamic planes, with the lower
portion of the Mănasic. In flashes of genius, in
loftiest aspirations, he is touched for a moment by the light from the higher Mănasic regions, but this comes — only comes — to the few,
and to these but in rare moments of sublime abstraction.
Happy they who even thus
catch a glimpse of the Divine Augoeides, the immortal
Ego within them. To none born of women, save the Masters, is it at the present
time given by the law of evolution to rise to the Âtmic-Buddhic
planes
in man; thither the race
will climb millenniums hence, but at present it boots not to speak thereof.
Each of these planes has
its own organisms, its own phenomena, the laws of its own manifestation; and
each can be investigated as exactly, as scientifically, as experimentally, as
the objective plane with which we are most familiar. All that is necessary is
that we should use our appropriate organs of sensation, and
appropriate methods of
investigation. On the objective plane we are already able to obey this rule; we
do not use our eyes to listen to sounds, and then deny that sounds exist
because our eyes cannot hear them nor do we take in hand the microscope to
examine a distant nebula, and then say that the nebula is not
there because the field
of the microscope is dark. A very slight knowledge of our own objective
universe will place us in the right mental attitude towards the unknown. Why do
we see, hear, taste, feel ? Merely because our physical body is capable of
receiving certain impressions from without by way of the avenues of senses.
But there are myriads of
phenomena, as real as those we familiarly cognize, which are to us
non-existent, for the very simple reason that our organs of sensation are not
adapted to receive them. Take the air-vibrations which, translated into terms
of consciousness, we call sound. If an instrument
that emits successive
notes be sounded in a room with a dozen people, as the notes become 1shriller
and shriller one person after another drops out of the circle of auditors and
is wrapped in silence while still a note is sounding, audible to others there;
at last a pipe speaks that no one hears, and though all the air be throbbing
with its vibrations, silence complete reigns in
the room. The vibration-waves
have become so short and rapid that the mechanism of the human ear cannot
vibrate in unison with them; the objective phenomenon is there, but the
subjective does not respond to it, so that for man it does not exist.
Similar illustrations might
be drawn in connection with every sense, and it is surely not too much to claim
that if, on the plane to which our bodies are correlated, phenomena constantly
escape our dull perceptions, men shall not found on their ignorance of other
planes the absolute denial of their existence.
Only informed opinion is
of any weight in discussion, and in Occult Science, as in every other, the mere
chatter and vituperation of uninformed criticism do not count. The Occultist
can be no more moved thereby than Professor Huxley by the assertions of a
fourth-standard schoolboy.
Those who have time,
ability, and courage, can develop in themselves the senses and the capacities
which enable the consciousness to come into touch with the higher planes,
senses and capacities already evolved and fully at work in some, and to be in
the course of ages the common inheritance of every child of man. I know that
the exercise of these powers often arouses in the minds of people convinced of
their reality an eager desire to possess them, but only those who will pay the
price can attain possession. And the first installment of that price is the
absolute renunciation of all that men prize and long for here on earth;
complete self-abnegation; perfect devotion to the service of others; destruction
of all personal desires; detachment from all earthly things. Such is the first
step on the Right-Hand Path, and until that step is taken it is idle to talk of
further progress along that thorny road. Occultism wears no crown save that of
thorns,
and its scepter of
command is the seven-knotted wand, in which each knot marks the payment of a
price from which the normal man or woman would turn shuddering away. It is
because of this that it is not worth while to deal with this aspect of Theosophy at any length.
What does concern us is the general plan of evolution, the pilgrimage of the
Ego, of the individual, encased in the outer shell of the personality.
The evolution of man
consists in the acquirement by the Ego of experience, and the gradual moulding of the physical nature into a form which can
readily respond to every prompting of the Spirit within. This evolution is
carried on by the repeated incarnation of the Ego, overshadowed by the Spirit,
in successive
personalities, through
which it lives and acts on the objective plane. The task before it when it
starts on the wheel of life on this earth; during the present cycle, is to
acquire and assimilate all experience, and so to energize and sublimate the
objective form of man that it may become a fit instrument and dwelling for the
Spirit; the complete assimilation of the Ego with the Spirit, of Manas with Âtma-Buddhi, being the final goal of the long and
painful pilgrimage. It
is obvious that such work cannot be accomplished in one lifetime, or in a few.
For such a gigantic task countless lives must be required, each life but one
step in the long climbing upward.
Each life should garner
some fresh experience, should add some new capacity or strengthen some budding
force; thus is built up through numberless generations the Perfect Man. Hence
the doctrine of Reincarnation is
the very core and essence of Theosophy,
and according to the hold this belief has on life, so will be the grasp of the
learner on all Theosophic truth.
There is no doctrine in
the range of philosophy which throws so much light on the tangled web of human
life as does this doctrine of Reincarnation. Take, for instance, the immense
difference in capacity and in character found within the limits of the human
race. In all plants and in all animals the characteristic qualities of species
may vary, but within comparatively narrow limits; so also with man, so far as
his outer form, his instincts and his animal passions are concerned. They vary
of course, as those of the brute vary, but their broad outline remains the
same. But when we come to study the difference of mental capacity and moral
character, we are struck with the vast distances that separate man from man.
Between the savage, counting five upon his fingers, and the Newton who
calculates the movements of a planet and predicts its course, how wide and deep
a gulf as to intellect! Between a barbarian dancing gleefully round the
bleeding body of his foe, as he mangles and torments the living tissues, and
the Howard who gives his life to save and aid the lowest fallen of his people,
how vast the difference as to character ! And this leaves out of account those
living men, who are as far ahead of Newton and of Howard as these are above the
least evolved of our race. Whence the great divergences,
unparalleled among the
rest of the organisms on our globe ?
Why is man alone so
diverse ! Theosophy
points in answer to the reincarnation of the Ego, and sees in the differing
stages of experience reached by that Ego the explanation of the differing
intellectual and moral capacities of the personality. Baby Egos — as I have
heard H. P. Blavatsky call them with reference to their lack of human
experience — inform the little-evolved humanity, while those who dwell in the
more highly developed races are those who have already garnered much rich
harvest of past experience and have thereby become capable of more rapid
growth.
The Ego that has
completed a span of earth-life, and has shaken off the worn-out personality
1that it informed, passes into a subjective state of rest, ere reassuming “the
burden of the flesh”. Thus it remains for a period varying in length according
to the stage of evolution it has reached. When that period is exhausted, it is
drawn back to earth-life, to such environment as is suitable
for the growing of the
seed it has sown in its past. As surely as hydrogen and oxygen rush into union
under certain conditions of temperature and of pressure, is the Ego drawn by
irresistible affinity to the circumstances that yield opening for its further
evolution. Suitable environment, suitable parents to provide a suitable
physical body, such are some of the conditions that guide the place and time of
reincarnation.
The desire for sentient
life, the desire for objective expression, that desire which set the universe a-building,
impels the Ego to seek renewed manifestation; it is drawn to the surroundings
which its own past has made necessary for its further progress. Nor is this
all. I have spoken of the fact that each plane has its own organisms, its own
laws; the Mănasic plane is the plane on which
thoughts take forms, objective to all who are able to perceive on that plane.
All the experiences of a life, gathered up after death, and the essence, as it
were, extracted, have their appropriate thought-forms on the Mănasic plane; as the time for the reincarnation of the Ego
approaches, these, with previous unexhausted similar thought-forms, pass to the
astral plane, clothe themselves in astral matter, and mould the astral body
into the form suitable for the working out of their own natural results.
Into this astral body
the physical is built, molecule by molecule, the astral mould thus, in its
turn, moulding the physical. Through the physical
body, including its brain, the reincarnated Ego has to work for the term of that
incarnation, and thus it dwells in a tabernacle of its own construction, the
inevitable resultant of its own past earth lives.
To how many of the
problems that vex thinkers today by the apparent hopelessness of their
solution, is an explanation suggested if, for the moment, Reincarnation be
accepted even as a possible hypothesis. Within the limits of a family,
hereditary physical likeness, often joined by startling mental and moral
divergences; twins,
alike as far as regards heredity and pre-natal environment, yet showing in some
cases strong resemblance, in others no less dissimilarity.
Cases of precocity,
where the infant brain manifests the rarest capacities precedent to all instruction.
Cases of rapid gain of knowledge, where the knowledge seems to be remembered
rather than acquired, recognized rather than learned. Cases of intuition,
startling in their swiftness and lucidity, insight
clear and rapid into
complicated problems without guide or teacher to show the way. All these and
many other similar puzzles receive light from the idea of the persistent
individual that informs each personality, and it is a well-known principle in
seeking for some general law underlying a mass of apparently unrelated
phenomena that the hypothesis which explains most, brings most into accord with
an intelligible sequence, is the one most likely to repay further
investigation.
To those, again, who
shrink from the idea that the Universe is one vast embodiment of injustice, the
doctrine of Reincarnation comes as a mental relief from a well nigh unbearable
strain. When we see the eager mind imprisoned in an inefficient body; when we
note the differences of mental and moral capacity that
make all achievement
easy to one, impossible to others; when we come across what seem to be
undeserved suffering, disadvantageous circumstances; when we feel longings
after heights unattainable for lack of strength; then the knowledge
that we create our own
character, that we have made our own strength or our own weakness, that we are
not the sport of an arbitrary God or of a soulless Destiny, but are verily and
indeed the creators of ourselves and of our lot in life — this knowledge comes
to us as a support and an inspiration, giving energy
to improve and courage
to endure.
This immutable law of
cause and effect is spoken of as Karma (action) in Theosophy. Each action —
using the word to include all forms of activity, mental, moral, physical — is a
cause and must work out its full effect. Effect as regards the past, it is
cause as regards the future, and under this sway of karmic law moves the whole
life of man as of all worlds. Every debt incurred must be duly paid in this or
in some other life, and as the wheel of
life turns round, it
brings with it the fruit of every seed that we have sown. Reincarnation under
karmic law, such is the message of Theosophy to a Christendom
which relies on a vicarious atonement and a swift escape to
But how, it may be
asked, can you urge to effort, or press responsibility, if you regard every
action as one link in an infrangible chain of cause
and effect ? The answer lies in the sevenfold nature of man, in the action of
the higher on
the lower. The freewill
of man on this plane is lodged in the Mănasic entity,
which acts on his lower nature. Absolute freewill is there none, save in the
Unconditioned. When manifestation begins, the Universal Will becomes bound and
limited by the laws of Its own manifestation, by the fashion of the expression
It has chosen as Its temporary vehicle. Conditioned, it is limited by the
conditions It has imposed on Itself, manifesting under the garb of the universe
in which it wills to body Itself forth. On each plane Its expression is limited
by the capacities of Its embodiments. Now the Manasic entity in its own sphere
is the reflection, the image, of the Universal Will in Kosmos. So far as the
personality is concerned, the promptings, the impulses, from the Mănasic plane are spontaneous, have every mark of freedom,
and if we start from the lowest plane of objective nature, we shall see how
relative freedom is possible.
If a man be loaded with
chains, his muscles will be limited in their power of movement. They are
constrained in their expression by the dead weight of iron pressing upon them;
yet the muscular force is there, though denied outward expression, and the iron
cannot prevent the straining of the fibers against the force used in their subdual. Again, some strong emotion, some powerful impulse
from the kăma-mănasic plane, may hold rigid the
muscles under lesion that would make every fibre
contract and pull the limb away from the knife. The muscles are compelled from
the plane above them, the personal will being free to hold them rigid or leave
them to their natural reaction against injury. From the standpoint of the
muscles the personal will is free, and it cannot be controlled save as to its
material expression on the material plane. When the Mănasic
entity sends an impulse downwards to the lower nature with which it is linked, conflict
arises between the animal desire and the human will. Its interferences appear
to the personality as spontaneous, free, uncaused by any actions on the lower
plane; and so they are, for the causes that work on it are of the higher not
the lower planes.
The animal passions and
desires may limit its effective expression on their own plane, but they cannot
either prompt or prevent its impulses: man's true freedom is found when his
lower nature puts itself into line with the higher, and gives free course to
the will of the higher Ego. And so with that Ego itself: able to act freely on
the planes below it, it finds its own best freedom as channel of the Universal
Will from which it springs, the conscious willing harmony with the All of which
it is part. An effect cannot be altered when the cause has appeared; but that
effect is itself to be a cause, and here the will can act. Suppose a great
sorrow falls on some shrinking human heart; the effect is there, it cannot be
avoided, but its future result as cause may be one of two things; Kâma may
rebel, the whole personal nature may rise in passionate revolt, and so, warring
against the Higher Will, the new cause generated will be of disharmony, bearing
in its womb new evil to be born in days to come. But Kâma may range itself
obediently with karmic action; it may patiently accept the pain, joyfully unite
itself to the Higher Will, and so make the effect as cause to be pregnant with
future good.
Remains but space for
one last word on that which is Theosophy
in action — the Universal Brotherhood of
Theosophist recognises a brother to be loved and served, and in the
Theosophical Society, Theosophists, under the direction of the Masters, have
formed a nucleus for such Brotherhood of Humanity and have made its recognition
the only obligation binding on all who enter. Amid class hatreds and warring
sects it raises this sublime banner of human love, a continual reminder that
essentially all humanity is one, and that the goal to which we travel is the
same for all.
Without this recognition
of Brotherhood all science is useless and all religion is hypocrisy. Deeper than
all diversity, mightier than all animosity, is that Holy Spirit of Love. The
Self of each is the Higher Self of all, and that bond is one which nothing in
all worlds can avail to break. That which raises one raises all; that which
degrades one degrades all. The sin and crime of our races are our 2sin and
crime, and only as we save our brethren can we save ourselves. One in our
inception, one in our goal, we must needs be one in our progress; the “curse of
separateness” that is on us, it is ours to remove, and Theosophy, alike as
religion and philosophy, will be a failure save as it is the embodiment of the
life of Love.
History
of the Theosophical Society
For more info on Theosophy
Try these
Cardiff Theosophical Society meetings
are informal
and there’s always a cup of tea afterwards
The Cardiff Theosophical
Society Website
The National Wales Theosophy Wesbsite
Dave’s Streetwise Theosophy
Boards
If
you run a Theosophy Group then please
Feel
free to use any material on this Website
Theosophy
Cardiff’s Instant Guide to Theosophy
One
Liners & Quick Explanations
The main criteria for the
inclusion of
links on this site is that they are
have some
relationship (however tenuous) to
Theosophy
and are lightweight, amusing or
entertaining.
Topics include Quantum Theory
and Socks,
Dick Dastardly and Legendary Blues Singers.
No
Aardvarks were harmed in the
History
of the Theosophical Society
General pages about Wales,
Welsh History
and The History of Theosophy in
Wales
Her Teachers Morya & Koot Hoomi
The
Most Basic Theosophy Website in the Universe
If you run a Theosophy Group
you can use
this as an introductory handout
Lentil burgers, a thousand press
ups before breakfast and
the daily 25 mile run may put it
off for a while but death
seems to get most of us in the end.
We are pleased to
present for your consideration, a
definitive work on the
subject by a Student of Katherine Tingley entitled
Theosophy and the Number Seven
A selection of articles
relating to the esoteric
significance of the Number 7
in Theosophy
The Spiritual Home of Urban Theosophy
The Earth Base for Evolutionary Theosophy
Classic Introductory Theosophy Text
A Text Book of Theosophy By C
What Theosophy Is From the Absolute to Man
The Formation of a Solar System The Evolution of Life
The Constitution of Man After Death Reincarnation
The Purpose of Life The Planetary Chains
The Result of Theosophical Study
An Outstanding
Introduction to Theosophy
By a student of
Katherine Tingley
Elementary Theosophy Who is the Man? Body and Soul
Body, Soul and Spirit Reincarnation Karma
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky 1831 – 1891
The Founder of Modern Theosophy
Index of Articles by
By
H P Blavatsky
Is the Desire to Live Selfish?
Ancient Magic in Modern Science
Precepts Compiled by H P Blavatsky
Obras
Por H P Blavatsky
En Espanol
Articles about the Life of H P Blavatsky
Try these if you are
looking for a
local
Theosophy Group or Centre
UK Listing of
Theosophical Groups
Worldwide
Directory of Theosophical Links
General pages about Wales,
Welsh History
and The History of Theosophy in
Wales
Wales is a
Principality within the United Kingdom
and has an eastern border
with England.
The land area is
just over 8,000 square miles.
Snowdon in North Wales is the highest mountain at 3,650 feet.
The coastline is
almost 750 miles long.
The population of Wales as at the 2001 census is 2,946,200.
Nature is infinite in space and
time -- boundless and eternal, unfathomable and ineffable. The all-pervading
essence of infinite nature can be called space, consciousness, life, substance,
force, energy, divinity -- all of which are fundamentally one.
2) The finite and the infinite
Nature is a unity in
diversity, one in essence, manifold in form. The infinite whole is composed of
an infinite number of finite wholes -- the relatively stable and autonomous
things (natural systems or artefacts) that we observe
around us. Every natural system is not only a conscious, living, substantial
entity, but is consciousness-life-substance, of a particular range of density
and form. Infinite nature is an abstraction, not an entity; it therefore does
not act or change and has no attributes. The finite, concrete systems of which
it is composed, on the other hand, move and change, act and interact, and
possess attributes. They are composite, inhomogeneous, and ultimately
transient.
3)
Vibration/worlds within worlds
The one essence manifests not
only in infinitely varied forms, and on infinitely varied scales, but also in
infinitely varying degrees of spirituality and substantiality, comprising an
infinite spectrum of vibration or density. There is therefore an endless series
of interpenetrating, interacting worlds within worlds, systems within systems.
The energy-substances of
higher planes or subplanes (a plane being a
particular range of vibration) are relatively more homogeneous and less
differentiated than those of lower planes or subplanes.
Just as boundless space is
comprised of endless finite units of space, so eternal duration is comprised of
endless finite units of time. Space is the infinite totality of worlds within
worlds, but appears predominantly empty because only a tiny fraction of the
energy-substances composing it are perceptible and tangible to an entity at any
particular moment. Time is a concept we use to quantify the rate at which
events occur; it is a function of
change and motion, and
presupposes a succession of cause and effect. Every entity is extended in space
and changes 'in time'.
All change (of position,
substance, or form) is the result of causes; there is no such thing as absolute
chance. Nothing can happen for no reason at all for nothing exists in
isolation; everything is part of an intricate web of causal interconnections and
interactions. The keynote of nature is harmony: every action is automatically
followed by an equal and opposite reaction, which sooner or later rebounds upon
the originator of the initial act. Thus, all our thoughts and deeds will
eventually bring us 'fortune' or 'misfortune' according to the degree to which
they were harmonious or disharmonious. In the long term, perfect justice
prevails in nature.
Because nature is
fundamentally one, and the same basic habits and structural, geometric, and
evolutionary principles apply throughout, there are correspondences between
microcosm and macrocosm. The principle of analogy -- as above, so below -- is a
vital tool in our efforts to understand reality.
All finite systems and their
attributes are relative. For any entity, energy-substances vibrating within the
same range of frequencies as its outer body are 'physical' matter, and finer
grades of substance are what we call energy, force, thought, desire, mind,
spirit, consciousness, but these are just as material to entities on the
corresponding planes as our physical world is to us. Distance and time units
are also relative: an atom is a solar system on its own scale, reembodying perhaps millions of times in what for us is one
second, and our whole galaxy may be a molecule in some supercosmic
entity, for which a million of our years is just a second. The range of scale
is infinite: matter-consciousness is both infinitely divisible and infinitely
aggregative.
All natural systems consist
of smaller systems and form part of larger systems. Hierarchies extend both
'horizontally' (on the same plane) and 'vertically' or inwardly (to higher and
lower planes). On the horizontal level, subatomic particles form atoms, which
combine into molecules, which arrange themselves into cells, which form tissues
and organs, which form part of organisms, which form part of ecosystems, which
form part of planets, solar systems, galaxies, etc. The constitution of worlds
and of the organisms that inhabit them form 'vertical' hierarchies, and can be
divided into several interpenetrating layers or elements, from physical-astral
to psychomental to spiritual-divine, each of which
can be further divided.
The human constitution can be
divided up in several different ways: e.g. into a trinity of body, soul, and
spirit; or into 7 'principles' -- a lower quaternary consisting of physical
body, astral model-body, life-energy, and lower thoughts and desires, and an
upper triad consisting of higher mind (reincarnating ego), spiritual intuition,
and inner god. A planet or star can be regarded as a 'chain' of 12 globes, existing
on 7 planes, each globe comprising several subplanes.
The highest part of every multilevelled organism or hierarchy is its spiritual summit
or 'absolute', meaning a collective entity or 'deity' which is relatively
perfected in relation to the hierarchy in question. But the most 'spiritual'
pole of one hierarchy is the most 'material' pole of the next, superior
hierarchy, just as the lowest pole of one hierarchy is the highest pole of the
one below.
Each level of a hierarchical
system exercises a formative and organizing influence on the lower levels
(through the patterns and prototypes stored up from past cycles of activity),
while the lower levels in turn react upon the higher. A system is therefore
formed and organized mainly from within outwards, from the inner levels of its
constitution, which are relatively more enduring and developed than the outer
levels. This inner guidance is sometimes active and selfconscious,
as in our acts of free will (constrained, however, by karmic tendencies from
the past), and sometimes it is automatic and passive, giving rise to our own
automatic bodily functions and habitual and instinctual behavior, and to the
orderly, lawlike operations of nature in general. The
'laws' of nature are therefore the habits of the various grades of conscious
entities that compose reality, ranging from higher intelligences (collectively forming the universal mind) to
elemental nature-forces.
10) Consciousness and its vehicles
The core of every entity --
whether atom, human, planet, or star -- is a monad, a unit of consciousness-life-substance,
which acts through a series of more material vehicles or bodies. The monad or
self in which the consciousness of a particular organism is focused is animated
by higher monads and expresses itself through a series of lesser monads, each
of which is the nucleus of one of the lower vehicles of the entity in question.
The following monads can be distinguished: the divine or galactic monad, the
spiritual or solar monad, the higher human or planetary-chain monad, the lower
human or globe monad, and the animal, vital-astral, and physical monads. At our
present stage of evolution, we are essentially the lower human monad, and our
task is to raise our consciousness from the animal-human to the spiritual-human
level of it.
Evolution means the
unfolding, the bringing into active manifestation, of latent powers and
faculties 'involved' in a previous cycle of evolution. It is the building of
ever fitter vehicles for the expression of the mental and spiritual powers of
the monad. The more sophisticated the lower vehicles of an entity, the greater
their ability to express the powers locked up in the higher levels of its
constitution. Thus all things are alive and conscious, but the degree of
manifest life and consciousness is extremely varied.
Evolution results from the
interplay of inner impulses and environmental stimuli. Ever building on and
modifying the patterns of the past, nature is infinitely creative.
12) Cyclic evolution/re-embodiment
Cyclic evolution is a
fundamental habit of nature. A period of evolutionary activity is followed by a
period of rest. All natural systems evolve through re-embodiment. Entities are
born from a seed or nucleus remaining from the previous evolutionary cycle of
the monad, develop to maturity, grow old, and pass away, only to re-embody in a
new form after a period of rest. Each new embodiment is the product of past
karma and present choices.
Nothing comes from nothing:
matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but only transformed.
Everything evolves from preexisting material. The growth of the body of an
organism is initiated on inner planes, and involves the transformation of higher
energy-substances into lower, more material ones, together with the attraction
of matter from the environment.
When an organism has
exhausted the store of vital energy with which it is born, the coordinating
force of the indwelling monad is withdrawn, and the organism 'dies', i.e. falls
apart as a unit, and its constituent components go their separate ways. The
lower vehicles decompose on their respective subplanes,
while, in the case of humans, the reincarnating ego enters a dreamlike state of
rest and assimilates the experiences of the previous incarnation. When the time
comes for the next embodiment, the reincarnating ego clothes itself in many of
the same atoms of different grades that it had used previously, bearing the
appropriate karmic impress. The same basic processes of birth, death,
and rebirth apply to all entities, from atoms to humans to stars.
14)
Evolution and involution of worlds
Worlds or spheres, such as
planets and stars, are composed of, and provide the field for the evolution of,
10 kingdoms -- 3 elemental kingdoms, mineral, plant, animal, and human
kingdoms, and 3 spiritual kingdoms. The impulse for a new manifestation of a
world issues from its spiritual summit or hierarch, from which emanate a series
of steadily denser globes or planes; the One expands into the many. During the
first half of the evolutionary cycle (the arc of descent) the energy-substances
of each plane materialize or condense, while during the second half (the arc of
ascent) the trend is towards dematerialization or etherealization,
as globes and entities are reabsorbed into the spiritual hierarch for a period
of nirvanic rest. The descending arc is characterized
by the evolution of matter and involution of spirit, while the ascending arc is
characterized by the evolution of spirit and involution of matter.
In each grand cycle of
evolution, comprising many planetary embodiments, a monad begins as an
unselfconsciousness god-spark, embodies in every kingdom of nature for the
purpose of gaining experience and unfolding its inherent faculties, and ends
the cycle as a self conscious god. Elementals ('baby monads') have no free
choice, but automatically act in harmony with one another and the rest of
nature. In each successive kingdom differentiation and individuality increase,
and reach their peak in the human kingdom with the attainment of selfconsciousness and a large measure of free will.
In the human kingdom in
particular, self-directed evolution comes into its own. There is no superior
power granting privileges or handing out favours; we
evolve according to our karmic merits and demerits. As we progress through the
spiritual kingdoms we become increasingly at one again with nature, and
willingly 'sacrifice' our circumscribed selfconscious
freedoms (especially the freedom to 'do our own thing') in order to work in
peace and harmony with the greater whole of which we form an integral part. The
highest gods of one hierarchy or world-system begin as elementals in the next.
The matter of any plane is composed of aggregated, crystallized monads in their
nirvanic sleep, and the spiritual and divine entities
embodied as planets and stars are the electrons and atomic nuclei -- the
material building blocks -- of worlds on even larger scales. Evolution is
without beginning and without end, an endless adventure through the fields of
infinitude, in which there are always new worlds of experience in which to
become selfconscious masters of life.
There is no absolute
separateness in nature. All things are made of the same essence, have the same
spiritual-divine potential, and are interlinked by magnetic ties of sympathy.
It is impossible to realize our full potential, unless we recognize the
spiritual unity of all living beings and make universal brotherhood the keynote
of our lives.
Hey Look! Theosophy in
Cardiff
Cardiff Theosophical Society
in Wales
Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 – 1DL
_________________
Wales Picture Gallery
The
Great Orme
Llandudno Promenade
Great
Orme Tramway
New
Radnor
Blaenavon Ironworks
Llandrindod Wells
Cardiff Theosophical Society
in Wales
Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 – 1DL
Presteign Railway
Caerwent
Roman Ruins
Denbigh
Nefyn
Penisarwaen
Cardiff Theosophical Society
in Wales
Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 – 1DL