THE INNER PURPOSE OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY/PART 1 -FINAL
IT falls to my lot to close this Tenth Annual Meeting
of the European Section of the Society, and to close it by saying a few words
on the inner purpose of the movement, on the future for which it is preparing,
on the work which lies ready to its hand. You have heard from the
President-Founder of the Society something of the road that lies now behind us
something of the hopes that inspired those who on the physical plane gave the
first impulse to the movement. You have heard from our brother from India
something of the dangers of the road along which we are walking, something of
the great ideal which inspires the hearts of all true Theosophists, as of all
spiritually-minded men and women.
We may go a little further along these lines of
thought that have been traced for us, and see how the inner purpose answers to
the outer work, how the impulse from the spiritual plane came to incarnate
itself in the world around us, how the true impulse came that made the Society,
from Those who gave it and who give it its life, Those who sent it out on its
blessed mission to the world, how They chose the time and the agents for
accomplishing once more on earth the work so often begun and still unended -
the work of sending the spiritual herald to announce a new step forward in the
evolution of humanity, to mark out the pathway along which men should travel in
accomplishing the stage thus opened, sounding the note which was to dominate
the whole, stamping on it the mark which was to be the sign of the growing,
making the principles known on which the form should be moulded, and giving to
the world the life which was to find a new body on the material plane.
That inner purpose of-the Society may be said to be
twofold: to the world at large, and to the members of the Society. To the world
at large to herald the forward step to which I have just alluded; to the
members of the Society to use them as the pioneers of that forward movement,
making possible the road along which mankind should tread, hewing out, as it
were, in front the path, smoothing that path with their own feet, giving their
lives to make it possible - nay, even to make it comparatively easy - for those
who should follow them. For as it is the glory of the Theosophical Society to
herald the onward movement of the race, so it is the privilege of its early
members to bear something of the burden which shall make that same burden
lighter for the race that is to be born; to have the glory of the struggle
though not of the victory; the glory of the sowing though not of the reaping;
the scattering abroad of the seed of progress, leaving to others the glad days
of harvest; content if in their day and generation they may make it possible
that the great life beyond shall pour in fuller measure over the world so
longing for its coming, and if they may be able by what they may learn - still
more by what, having learned, they may practice - to raise in front of the race
that is coming the ideal of a noble humanity, a humanity more divine than that
which yet we have touched, making the ideal which the coming race shall partly
realise, preparing the material out of which the statue of a divine humanity
shall be hewn.
How shall that be
done ?
Glancing at the past, trying to learn the lessons of
history that lie behind us, we see everywhere in history that when a new growth
is coming to man, when a new stage of evolution is approaching and man stands
on the threshold of a forward movement, that then from the great Elder Brothers
of the race, from Those mighty Ones who are the spiritual Guardians of
humanity, from Those who offer in Their own most sacred persons the perfect
ideal of man become divine, where strength and tenderness, where wisdom and
compassion are wedded in one perfect form and life - from Them, from Them
alone, comes ever the impulse that guides humanity forward. And at every critical
period of history, when a new race or family is to be born, there comes from
Them alone the first impulse for the new advance, and also the outline of the
form in which that advancing life is to be incarnate. Look back into the past
and you will see that with the birth of each great family of our Aryan race a
new religion has been given to the world, the religion before the people. You
will find that the religion thus proclaimed by some Great One, taking birth
among men as the Founder of the coming creed, you will find that in each case
He gives His religion for the moulding of a new civilisation, for the shaping
of a new type of humanity, for the building and the forming of a fresh body for
the life, and that in the main points of the religion you can foretell the main
outline of the dawning civilisation. That is true, as you will find if you care
to study alike in the history of India where the first family of the Aryan race
took root, or in the neighbouring country of Chaldea, where another shoot took
its place and left its life and wisdom, or westward still, when you come to
Greece and Rome of the Keltic race, with its great traditions of religion and
philosophy - moulding the civilisation of beauty in Greece and the civilisation
of law in Rome. You find the same with the later-born western nations, who
received even ere they lay in their cradle the great teaching of the Christ, to
be to them what the teachings of His predecessors were to the nations to whom
they were given, and to shape the western civilisation as the Others had shaped
the civilisations that went before. And when we find in history that the coming
of a new spiritual impulse has ever meant a forward step for man, when we find
that the nature of that impulse has outlined the nature of the coming evolution
- then what must we think when we see come another mighty impulse from the same
immortal source, and what can we learn as we scan the characteristics of that
impulse, as to the nature of the growth which lies next in space and time before
the advancing feet of man?
One great difference comes at once - springing as it
were before our eyes - when we look at the difference between this movement and
the others that have gone before it - a difference so great, so vital, so
fundamental, that if we can see its meaning, some of the steps at least become
clear before us; that if we can assimilate its significance, we have a
veritable touchstone whereby we may test everything around us in science, in
philosophy, and in politics, an Ithuriel spear as it were which we can use to
touch every form that comes before us, to see whether within the form is hidden
an angel of light, or whether there is veiled within some dangerous misleading
demon who would draw humanity astray from the path which it ought to tread.
What is that
mark, that unique characteristic?
Every great Teacher coming to the world has brought as
His priceless gift to man some new proclamation of spiritual truth in the form
of a new religion. This movement alone, of all the great religious impulses of
the past, brings no new religion to mankind, proclaims in no new formal shape
the world-message, calls no men to come apart from other faiths and other
creeds and place themselves within a pale, which, while it shuts them in for
special teaching, shuts others out as not members of the faith, as outside its
special proclamation. Alone of all the impulses it speaks, not of a new
religion, but of the common basis of all religions alike. Differing from all
that went before, it does not build a new church, it does not found a new
philosophy, it does not raise a wall of separation round those who accept it,
those who reject it being without. It proclaims one basis for all. It teaches
religion, and not a religion; that which is common to all, not that which shall
be special to a new church or a new faith. It makes its basis in the unity of
all its forerunners, so that it joins all together instead of adding a new one
to the many faiths of the world. That is its great mark, that its unique
characteristic- one belief for all in one spiritual life, one common evolution,
one goal which all may approach, and approach by different roads. Every road
right for those who walk in it; every road divine, and men able to reach God
therein.
So at the beginning of our race was it stated, and now
practically that is put before the world as the stage that it should try to
realise; every man remaining in his own road, every man remaining in his own
religion, no converting from one faith equally divine to another, no proselytising
in one faith by another; all faiths equally divine, for all have one source and
seek one goal; every man of every race right in his own religion and only wrong
when he denies the inspiration of the religion of his brothers; right whenever
he raises loving hands in worship, wrong whenever he pushes out angry hands in
rejection; right whenever in his worship he knows that all languages are one in
the ears of the Divine that hears them, wrong only when he thinks his voice the
only one that can pierce the heavens and reach the divine throne; wrong when he
denies to his brothers the same Fatherhood that he claims as his own.
The unity of every faith that loves God and serves
man, that is the message which comes to the world as the inner purpose of the
Theosophical movement: to draw all faiths together, to see them all as sisters,
not as rivals, to join all religions in one golden chain of divine love and
human service. That is the purpose of our movement all the world over - to
reverence and serve religion wherever we find it, and to pierce through the
varieties of the outer faith to the unity of the hidden life.
That, then, our work. But if that be our work, then
are we not false to it in its most essential meaning, if anywhere we carry
strife instead of peace and speak words of exclusion instead of words of love?
They only are the true Theosophists, they only reflect in small degree the
spirit of the great Brotherhood of Teachers, they only are worthy messengers,
however feeble, of their divine message who carry out the spirit of brotherhood
amid all the warring creeds, and who not only carry the message of peace, but
live the peace they teach,, and show the ideal of brotherhood in life as
thoroughly as they proclaim its reality in words.
But what does it foretell for the future? It foretells
the dawning of a civilisation where unity shall be the keynote instead of
strife; where co-operation shall be the means of life rather than competition;
where beyond the development of the individual in the combative intellect, the
spiritual unity shall begin to dawn in the eyes and in the lives of men. For as
surely as this truth is given in spiritual form, as surely as the existence of
that spiritual brotherhood of man is a fundamental truth in nature, so also it
is true that the life must find its fit form in which to incarnate, and that
deeper understanding, closer bonds, more real love between nations now apart,
shall tread in the wake of the Theosophical movement, and shall bring in due
course of time to the earth we live in a peace which at present lives only in
the higher regions of the universe. That is the promise which it lifts before
our eyes, despite the struggle of the warring world; that the hope - full of
peace and bliss - which it points to in the future beyond the battle-field and
the massacre, beyond the poverty and the misery, beyond the heart-break of the
present, into the heart-joy of the future. The work to which we are called is
to form a nucleus of souls at one, to show by our lives the unity we proclaim,
to live love in a world of hatred, to live peace in a world of strife. That,
and nothing less than that, the high mission to which we are called; that, and
nothing less than that, the noble duty that is bound upon our shoulders; and
just in proportion as we live it, we shall make it possible for others; just in
proportion as our lives are its preachers, will the sermon take effect on the
hearts of men.
But if you realise that, what can shake you in your
devotion to this movement? What can trouble your serene confidence in the
certainty of the joy that lies beyond? The Society in its outer form may be
shaken over and over again. It is well that it should be shaken from time to
time, for how can the weak and the strong be separated - as they must be separated
for a while until the hardest of the battle is over -save by so shaking the
Society that only those whose vision is clear, whose hearts are brave, whose
wills are strong, shall be able to stay within the pioneer band who are hewing
out the road to the future? The place of the weak is not in the forefront of
the struggle. The place of the weak is not in the worst shock of the combat.
Rather, easier strife for them, an easier pathway, sufficiently difficult to
draw out their strength, but not difficult enough to drive them to despair. For
those who are strong, as we heard just now, for them the place of hardest fight
and keenest struggle, and those who would be the pioneers of the future must be
willing to bear and strong to endure. Theirs the place within the forward rank
of the movement, making possible for the weaker the treading of the up-hill
path.
Matters it then to us, if this be true, that our
thought shall spread everywhere without our name? Rightly did our President
tell us that all over the world these thoughts were moving, and that within the
limits of the different faiths you find the Theosophical ideas proclaimed. That
is the testimony to the reality of our work, that the only reward that it is
well that we should look for - not that we shall be known as leaders, but that
the ideas may permeate throughout the civilisation in which we are living; not
that our names shall stand high as teachers, not that our names shall be known
as thinkers, but that the teaching shall spread everywhere, no matter what lips
proclaim it; that the knowledge shall spring up on every side, no matter by
whom that knowledge at any time be given. Enough to sow; let anyone have the
name of the sowing to whom it may happen to come; let those who can only work
when they are praised, let them have the credit of spreading the ideas
everywhere. Let us be content with the noble work of labouring, so that the
ideas may go everywhere, and let every church take them as its own - they are
its own if it only knew the treasures that its Teacher gave it. Ours enough to
point out where they may be found, and let others hold them up before the eyes
of the world. Those who are able to reach the people, let them take the truth
and speak it, so that everywhere its sound may be heard. When from Christian
pulpit a Theosophical truth is taught, let all our hearts see in that the
reward for which we have been labouring. If our Master's truth be told, what
matters it who shall tell it? If any eyes see His beauty, what matters whose
hand it is that lets fall the veil?
For those of you who are members of this great
Society, who hold it the highest privilege that Karma could bring to you to be
one of the workers in this movement for humanity, for you what is the future
offered you, for you what the prize of the high calling which is in the far
future to-day? To know what Those who have gone before us have known, so that
our knowledge may be used for the helping of the ignorance of the world; to
tread the path which Those have trodden before us, that narrow, ancient path
that is opened for us by the Sages and can only be shut to us by our own
weakness, by our own folly, by our own sin. No other hand in heaven or earth
can close the gateway of that path against any human soul; only its own hand
can close it, for thus hath spoken the law. To you the path is clear in sight,
proclaimed again in the hearing of all. Coming into the Society you take, as it
were, your first step in that direction of which the ending is to be one of the
Saviours of the world.
What magic lies in those four words! What music in the
inspiration which they bring to the human soul! To be a world-Saviour - what
does it mean? It means that all the world's ignorance is less because you know;
that all the world's sin is lass because you are pure; that all the world's
sorrow is less because you are sharing it; that all the world's weakness is
less because you lend to it your strength. Struggle to be strong, not in order
that you may be strong, but that world may be stronger. Struggle to be wise,
not that you may be wise, but that the world may be the wiser. Struggle to be
pure, not that you may be pure, but that the whole world may be nearer to the
purity that is divine. Care not for your own joy, for your own happiness, for
your own satisfaction. Care only for the upward treading of the world and the
little help you may bring to it. You must either be lifted or lift. You must
either be a clog or wings to lift the world upward on its road. That is the
great choice which lies before you in coming into this movement.
Your Self has chosen that destiny even if your brain
as yet knows it not. That your brain may know it us your Self knows it, that
your intellect may recognise it as your Self has recognised it - that may be
the outcome of your worship, of your devotion, of your learning; for this only
is worth living for -that the world maybe better because we have been living in
it; this only is the one crown of humanity - that the man crowns himself with
thorns in order that others may be crowned with life immortal.
THE THIRD OBJECT
OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
A MEMBER asked me a few days ago:
Have we not as a Society rather neglected our Third
Object? Very few have investigated the powers latent in man at first-hand. Is
not the time coming when the Third Object should receive more attention?
We, who are members of the Society, have we attended
to it? Perhaps not very assiduously. There are obviously two ways of
investigating. People may make experiments for themselves, or they may study
the experiments made by others. The latter method is that which is usually
employed in the study of most sciences. It is only a few of us who take up any
science and actually experimentalize in it. All of us at school long ago
learnt something of astronomy; but I hardly imagine
that many of you bought a large telescope and went into the study at
first-hand. It happens that I did; therefore I may say that I have a little
first-hand knowledge of astronomy. Naturally, most of my information on the
subject comes from books; I cannot pretend to have made astronomical
investigations in the sense of trying to discover anything new; but I have at
least confirmed something of what I have read in the books; and most people do
not even go so far as that. I suppose that it is the same with many sciences. A
person may know a great deal about any subject without having actually tackled
it himself.
So you will be doing something in order to learn about
the powers latent in man if you read carefully what has been written of them,
if you try to understand what these powers are, and to convince yourself of
their reality by studying the enormous mass of printed evidence. Of course, you
can do a good deal more if you take the thing in hand and try for yourself. A
number of our members have been encouraged to do this, and a great deal of
instruction has been given in regard to meditation, which is one of the safest
of the methods of approaching this subject experimentally. But not all methods
are safe; we have to remember that investigation at first-hand into the
development of psychic powers has its dangers, and the tradition of our Society
has always been to discourage people from rash experiments - I think quite
rightly.
Many books have been written upon Yoga practices -
some of them, I fear, by people who have little practical acquaintance with the
subject; and in a number of cases harm has resulted from ill-judged attempts to
follow the directions given. I am told that there are Indian Yogis who give
instruction in these arts; but the Yogi usually teaches only those who are
definitely his pupils and follow him everywhere. He therefore has his
experimenters always under observation, and can at once check anyone who may be
running into danger; whereas the man who learns his Yoga from a book has no
such safeguard. I have myself received a large number of applications for help
from persons who have seriously injured their brains, their nervous system, and
their constitution generally, by plunging blindfold into this kind of psychism;
and, sadly, often no effective help can be given. It is so easy to lose one's
balance - so terribly difficult to regain it. That is why our beloved President
has forbidden the sale of such books at any of the Theosophical shops under her
direction.
The President at least has been most careful not to
give any dangerous advice, and has explained to her pupils that they should at
once stop all meditation if any dangerous symptoms appear - even such as a
headache. Those to whom psychic unfoldment comes fairly naturally, who would
therefore be in very little danger, have been able to make progress along this
line. But no one wants to be responsible for people risking their lives or
their reason, and consequently those who know something about the subject have
been exceedingly careful as to what they said. I personally made no attempt in
that direction at all, until it was suggested to me by my Master that I might
with advantage make certain experiments. I took that to mean that he would
watch over them, so I made the experiments and the endeavour succeeded ; but I
dare not advise any other person to do the same thing. I suppose the Master
satisfied himself that in my case it could be done safely. I must not describe
the method - indeed, I promised not to do so; but I have written what little I
may as to the later stages of the training in my booklet How Theosophy Came
to Me.
Still, there are certain things that we can all try
without danger. The scheme of meditation which I have suggested in the final
chapter of several of my books is quite harmless; but remember that you must
not overstrain. These operations do involve a certain strain, whatever line is
adapted; but they should not involve direct pain of any sort. In ail such
cases, we are working either with the higher vehicles altogether, or if we are
using chiefly the physical brain, we are trying to make it do a little more
than it is intended to do; and that is always a dangerous thing to attempt, so
it must be done with the greatest care, and very gradually.
" Have we neglected our Third Object? " We
have always been told that the development of psychic faculty is not a
necessity till a certain rather advanced stage is reached. Obviously, then,
what we have to do first of all is to work at our character. Most of us find
that there is still something to do along that line. My own plan, as I have
already said, was to wait until I was directly told by my Master to move. That
is absolutely safe, of course. Many of us might be willing to run a small risk
for the sake of making some definite attempt in that direction; but that is,
naturally, a man's own responsibility.
It is an uncertain undertaking, for no one can tell
when any result will be reached. Some people with slight effort obtain at least
indications that psychic powers may open; others try for a long time without
any observable effect. At any time the man steadily working may break through,
and no one ever knows how near he may be to success. On the other hand, we are
bound to tell enquirers that we do not know how long or how difficult it will
be. No person undertaking to train another could promise anything; even if he
could see the past karma of the applicant, it would still be impossible to
speak with certainty.
The intermediate stage of carefully studying the
subject is always open to us, and is always useful. Study the case of the
people in whom such powers are developed. I myself learnt a good deal about
such things before I made any attempt to advance in them myself. I went into
the Highlands of Scotland to examine cases of what is called "
second-sight". That is a bad name for it - it is really foresight. I
examined very many cases, and absolutely satisfied myself that this strange
foresight is possible, though without trying any experiments of my own. I think
such a course might be called study of the powers latent in man, and of course
it is open to anyone.
Then there are experiments in telepathy or
psychometry; many people can do something in that way with a little practice.
Then there is always spiritualism, although the latter is chiefly concerned
with trying to prove the return of the dead to earth. A great deal in
mediumship, however, indicates the possession of latent powers by man; though
spiritualists preach the idea from another side, and wish a man to be
absolutely passive and lay himself open to influences of all sorts, which we
consider unsafe.
The line recommended to us has always been to try to
develop your own powers; to be active, not passive. It is true that the
spiritualist tries first of all to engage a " spirit-guide " - some
dead person who will act as a sort of guardian to the medium, and drive away
all evil influences, while leaving him open to what is good. But this is not
always sufficient; I have seen one case, at least, in which a spirit-guide was
absolutely overpowered by an evil entity; and if a certain great person had not
been physically present at that séance, it would have meant death for one or
two people. So the spiritualistic method of investigation is not to be unreservedly
recommended.
END OF THIS BOOK
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