Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
(1831-1891)
The life of Madame Blavatsky is rather too well-known to require an elaborate discussion at this time. Rather it seems more profitable to attempt to integrate her place in the descent of what might be termed "esoteric philosophy in the West".
For practical purposes orientalism as a philosophical factor in the thinking of Western man, first came into focus in the closing years of the 18th century. Prior to that time, East and West were so far apart and Western religious dogmatism was so intense that there was little, if any, cultural interchange. Thus for a very long time, nearly 2,000 years, Western culture attempted to maintain a complete isolation, refusing to admit its indebtedness to great Asiatic systems which were all before Western civilization was born. Colonel Robert [...] remarked on one occasion that the Chinese were compiling great libraries, indexing them, classifying them and researching in them, while Western European man was still mumbling the bones of animals in prehistoric caves. And this, perhaps slightly exaggerated, is not very far from the truth.
In the early years of the 19th century there was a decided break in Western orthodoxy. The rather conservative and inadequate litheralism — a protest in Christianity — was being assailed by a need within man himself. He was not getting the spiritual nutrition that he required for a well-integrated religious life. So we find that as early as Ralph Waldo Emerson efforts were made to enlarge and enrich the schools of Western Tradition. The universities were still more or less close to all liberal religious thinking. If today they are inclined to be brutally agnostic, at that time they were adamantly orthodox. Nearly all chairs of philosophy were occupied by Doctors of Divinity. And what has been called "the school of Scottish metaphysicians" dominated the educational world.
There were no breaks, as yet, in favor of liberalism in higher education. But individuals like Emerson began to recognize that beyond the sea, on the other side of the world, some interesting thoughts have come to the world, great scriptures have been written, wonderful classics have been compiled, great teachers have arisen — and that a rich legacy of spiritual tradition was completely locked from us, simply by the narrowness of our own thinking.
As a result of some moderate reading in not too substantial authorities, Emerson was able to sense some of the grandure of Eastern thinking, and he has revealed this to us through his essays on the Over-Soul and his essay on compensation. He knew the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the greatest mystical books of Asia. He was aware that in this distant area there was a deep, quiet, calm wisdom, which might be rather practical and useful in the confusion of the Western world.
In any event, let us realize that between about 1825 and 1850 there was a broad rise of mysticism, and esotericism, and transcendentalism in the Eastern part of the United States. And as the time went on, that happened which almost always happens under such conditions — there was an almost frantic searching upon more of this unusual information.
The result was more or less pathetic. The necessary texts were not available, there were practically no translations from Eastern languages and very few Western scholars who had any knowledge of Asiatic terms. There was no break in this wall between East and West, and only an occasional fragment drifted into our Western comprehension. It was, as a result of the unrest, the stimulation of the unknown, the sudden sensing of value out of reach, that the groundwork was laid for the rise of a strong Asiatic study group in Western civilization. And that the critical moment, when this appeared to be most valuable and most greatly desired, Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott founded in New York in 1875 the Theosophical Society.
This society was composed of many interesting and brilliant persons. While it surrounded largely the personality and the immediate personal achievements of Madame Blavatsky, it cannot be said that she was entirely alone in her activity. Through the inspiration which she provided, a number of Western, European and American scholars went to India. Gradually Indian religious writings were translated into English, much of the translation being done by Hindu students and scholars who associated themselves with the Society in India.
Little by little, a bridge was built, a bridge which perhaps made possible the later visit to this country of one of the first monofied oriental scholars, Swami Vivekananda. Not only was this oriental subject unknown, but, like many unknown things, it was subject to a great deal of animosity and persecution. We have not yet reached that point in international thinking in which we could be fair about the opinions, beliefs and convictions of other peoples. And even today if a poll were taken, I think it would be safe to say, to the majority of Western persons the Buddhists, Brahmans, Confusionists, Daoists are still regarded as heathens.
This situation has improved, but not entirely has it been corrected in public thinking. We have really no solid foundation for religious interunderstanding, even at the present time. The orientalist in the Western world is still regarded with certain suspicion, but a more liberal attitude on the theory of religion has brought with it a measure of tolerance, but not a measure of acceptance. I have recently examined a number of brochures and pieces of publicity that have come through our office, and many of them still contain words or at least implications that all these foreign beliefs are heresies, that they are the works of the devil set up to interfere with the development of literal Christian orthodoxy.
Of course, in the time [of] Madame Blavatsky the situation was still worse, although undoubtedly it was considerably improved over an earlier time in which all liberals were cheerfully burnt into steak — to reach the point where they were merely scandalized and insulted.
The original work of H.P. Blavatsky stands more or less unique even within the field of related literature. And as the result of the years which have passed since 1888 when the volumes were first published, we are aware that her own peculiar and particular insight still makes these works unique, remarkable and valuable. Madame Blavatsky herself was the first to admit that the books which she wrote would prove highly controversial. She frankly acknowledges that the type of proof which the scientific world requires simply was not available. All that was little to be gained by attempting to imply an authority that it was wiser that the book should be accepted as the works of an individual; that they represented a very careful study of a vast area of ancient tradition, the landmarks not available to the average student (those that are accessible [are] difficult to find); and that the only possible way in which the material could be verified would be for another person to go through exactly the same procedure that she went through. Needless to say, no such person has arisen since her time. And therefore, from a scientific standpoint The Secret Doctrine still remains an enigma. It is a mystery. Yet in the course of years a great deal has been done to clarify that mystery. Many of the remarks which she made at that time, which were highly controversial, are now generally accepted. Many of the findings which she reported and which amazed her contemporaries, now belong to our common knowledge.
Thus perhaps the only answer to a riddle of this kind is time itself, which justifies and validates that which is true. And most of the work of subsequent oriental scholars has to a great degree supported her findings — not in every instance but in the majority of cases.
Therefore, perhaps if we go back to 1888, at a time when things were not nearly so liberal, or progressive, or well-organized in knowledge as they seem to be today, we can appreciate the position which she took and the courage which it required to stand out against the rising force of scientific materialism, as well as religious orthodoxy. So I'd like to just read a few lines from the original preface of The Secret Doctrine to point out some of the elements with which she was primarily concerned:
This, I think, summarizes, in the main, her springboard, or her point of view. This brings us, of course, to the next important step. Having come to such a conclusion, what would it be natural to do about it? Believing this to be true, accepting it as a conviction, it is then necessary to build a strong testimony in favor of the concept that has been advanced. This is perfectly proper literary and scholastic procedure. It is the same premise upon which a thesis must be written. It is that having accepted or established a point of view, it is necessary to defend that point of view — skillfully, reasonably and adequately. And in the defense of a point of view from the standpoint of a thesis, the requirement always is adequate documentation, adequate reference to recognize twothority, adequate research in various highly specialized fields, and usually a prerequisite is intimate contact with sources of basic information. A thesis is not prepared merely to summarize knowledge. It must in every case advance some new conviction. It must in every case contribute something to that which is already known, it cannot be merely what you might term "a rehash".
In order to meet these requirements, therefore, Madame Blavatsky was not required — and would not be required by a modern university today — to prove beyond question every point that she makes. She is required, however, to prove beyond reasonable doubt that her basic assumption is well-taken. It was her responsibility then, as a writer of a serious scholastic work, to justify through her own research certain fundamental positions which she held and to provide an adequate bibliography, an adequate annotated reference frame for her work. Madame Blavatsky did this, perhaps more adequately than most highly respected scientific writers. And I think it will be safe to say that today, if this paper was submitted, this work was submitted as a thesis in a major university — it would be accepted. This does not mean that it would be approved as to content, but one point that has been highly controversial for many years in connection with The Secret Doctrine, is no longer valid: namely that the work is not adequately presented. It is adequately presented, according to every rule now in force governing such matters.
By being adequately presented in this case, it means that the book itself reveals not only thorough scholarship, but by quotation, particularly from sacred writings or from early commentaries thereon, it shows that the premise is justified from the original authorities. Also the work indicates a large enough personal acquaintance with the areas of thought involved to satisfy even a most critical committee selected to pass upon such a work. Thus we are in the presence of a work which, though it may be open to intense controversy, is not open to any criticism so far as the methodology of its presentation is concerned.
Now, how did Madame Blavatsky come into contact with the information by which this work, these volumes were made possible? Here we come into a highly controversial area, an area for which at the present time there is no final scientific point of view. She insists and states clearly that the knowledge which she presented was set forth on the premise, or foundation, that she was the writer of a book — but not the author of it. She displained, however, any psychic mystery in connection with the work. She simply held it to be a fact — to be accepted or rejected by the reader according to his own convictions — that the original material was communicated to her by advanced teachers, by leaders in the esoteric system of Asiatic knowledge; in other words, that this information came directly from initiated members of the secret schools of Eastern philosophy.
Now, here, of course, we come into a problem that even yet has not been solved to everyone's satisfaction. As yet, it has not been possible to so clearly and definitely identify these teachers that no question whatsoever as to their identity or their existence remains. These teachers were not generally known, they were not generally available to scholars, they did not act as exchange professors in any university. They taught in their own ancient Eastern way, and there is no question on the part of Madame Blavatsky that these teachers were real, that they communicated with her, that they taught her, that she regarded herself as their messenger or representative, and that through their assistance the writings of The Secret Doctrine and other esoteric papers of the Theosophical Society were made possible. In her own descriptions of her life and travels she is very clear on this particular point.
Others have followed in her way, others have attempted to follow the same path and course that she followed. For the most part, however, these later travelers have not been able to confirm the stories which she told. For a long time it was denied that Madame Blavatsky was ever in Tibet. And she is still not upon the official lists of those known to have reached this country at that time. There is, however, very little doubt that she really was there, inasmuch as some years ago there was published an autograph letter signed by the Puncheon-lama of Tasha-Lampu, the second most powerful religious leader in Tibet, to the affect that she had actually been at the monastery of Tasha-Lampu and studied there under his predecessor. This sort of settled this question which was one of the large questions. Many will still say that the word of the Puncheon-lama might be questioned. But if we go on questioning in this way, we can write off practically all unusual knowledge. We have to admit that something is reasonable or probable, and that persons of valid character and recognized integrity have to be accepted if no other evidence is available.
Wherever it has been possible to check Madame Blavatsky's various travels, excursions where various articles in Russian and other publications have been investigated, the facts have usually been demonstrated to be correct as she listed them.
Although she lived in a time of rather genteel femininity, Madame Blavatsky was by no means simply a titled Russian lady. She was one of those unusual persons who defy convention and tradition. She did not sit in some pleasant villa of the Riviera and write. She had an intensely interesting, dangerous, tempestuous and eventful life. She did almost everything that genteel ladies did not do in the 19th century. At that time if a lady rode horseback, she rode side-settle, with a very voluminous riding habit. When Madame Blavatsky wished to ride, she rode Western American style and made no apology for it. In traveling through the country on a train or in an occasion in which it is reported that most of the passengers during the trip, by one excuse or another, walked through the coach where she was sitting, as they had never before seen a well-dressed European lady rolling cigarettes with one hand and sitting with her feet up on the seat in front. (Laugh) Now, of course such things as these were scandal, they offended all of the people. As Madame Blavatsky herself points out, "Never did anything in this world except being offended by somebody." (Laugh) She offended people who had never a thought in their minds, but who objected to any breach in the traditional code of ladylike procedure. She was shipwrecked in the Mediterranean and arrived in Alexandria with nothing in the form of a wardrobe except the entirely water-soaked garment she was wearing. She engaged in numerous enterprises in order to provide the needs of her life because she was never a person of wealth. Her interests were widely diversified: she was a musician of quality and at one time supported herself as a concert pianist; on another occasion she manufactured artificial flowers. She did all kinds of strange things. Wherever you followed her course, you followed an eccentric and erratic career. She crossed the United States in a [..] wagon. At one time, presumably, the wagon was attacked by Indians, but nothing serious resulted.
She lived for a time in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the house where she lived is still pointed out as there is just that touch which was typically her — a large lime tree growing up through the middle of the floor of the living-room. (Laugh) This we would have expected, it was quite common. She turned up in mining towns in Northern California, and a little later appeared down in Central America to time when no-one knows how she got there.
Naturally she spent considerable time in Asia. She traveled extensively in the most difficult regions of the Far East — in years when such travel, even by European men, was almost unknown. Everywhere she went she proved a highly trained and skillful observer, contributing heavily to her own support through journalism and by constantly maintaining or preserving the integrity of Eastern peoples against the general assailing of the West. In the course of years she made a number of very staunch and influential friends, one of whom was Colonel Olcott who at one time was specially appointed to the President of the United States for a delicate diplomatic mission.
It might be interesting to know that even after all these years the issues around the founding of the Theosophical Society have never completely quieted down. I received a word not long ago that in Ceylon this year a special national holiday is being celebrated, not by members of any group but by the whole population of the island of Ceylon — to commemorate the work done in cause of education by Colonel Olcott. The entire festival is very largely in appreciation of the early work of theosophy in East-West understanding in Ceylon.
So the work went on in its own way, this interesting and remarkable person everywhere searching for unusual knowledge and with this point of view everywhere discovering facts and ideas that had generally been overlooked.
To understand The Secret Doctrine is a very large odor. It has to be read many, many times. It also has to be studied very carefully, and certain barriers of terminology have to be one by one overcome by familiarity with early languages. I think we can say, however, that it is built upon a certain ancient concept, a concept which does show through most of the primitive writings of the religious peoples of Antiquity, particularly of the Mesopotamian area and the Far East.
Her premise is that there was a basic doctrine concerning the creation of the Universe, the establishment of the Divine Powers, the formation of worlds and, finally, the generation of man; that these ancient records were more valid than the scientific knowledge which was possessed in her time and of which most of our scientific knowledge is merely an extension. In other words, there is an exoteric doctrine that has arisen from the observation of the externals of things — and there is an esoteric doctrine which has been perpetuated through the contemplation of the eternal and internal forces operating in the Universe. We are beginning to take cognicism of this, we are beginning to realize that somewhere in the background of man's consciousness' experience there was a general archetypal pattern. Man has within himself certain instinctive knowledge which he cannot always clearly express, a knowledge which perhaps is not even available to him for the most part — but a simple subjective realization of value. And that somewhere in the root of his own consciousness is a mathematical formula — the formula which explains his own existence. That what we might term "the search for knowledge" is finally man searching for the key to unlock his own internal record of eternal fact. That at various times individuals have to some measure, or degree, unlocked this inner storehouse — cannot be denied. That great systems of thought were established in ancient times that were valid, is beginning to appear more reasonable to us.
And Madame Blavatsky's position was a very simple one: that what we call "essential knowledge" has always been known, has always existed and always will; that this essential knowledge by its very nature, however, is not acceptable to any individual or group of individuals whose philosophy of life is built essentially upon materialism; that it is not man's inability to know that is his stumbling block — it is man's unwillingness to unlearn that which is not true but which he has come to accept over long periods of time. A hasty acceptance of opinions or attitudes that are not substantial, a willy allegiance to a pattern of knowledge which is not factual — these attitudes lock the individual toward the larger Universe of the infinite probabilities of things. Man, therefore, has darkened his own insight by insisting that he already knows — consciously — things which he does not know. He insists that knowledge is to be derived from the common experience of other persons like himself, and that if enough persons who do not know agree upon something, this something then becomes a known fact. (Laugh)
In other words, we are confronted with the problem of how much ignorance we have to stack up in order to achieve a mountain of truth. (Laugh) That this knowledge has actually been held as an esoteric secret, is intermated in The Secret Doctrine, but a point also gradually unfolds if we are observant and thoughtful: namely that what we term "esoteric" is not really a term for something that is unknowable or can be only known by a few. The term more generally means simply a continuing knowledge of reality which is rejected. That it is esoteric not because it cannot be known — but because we refuse to recognize it. Therefore, it remains a profound secret. Many things which we once held to be esoteric are now common knowledge, because we have gradually revised our attitude toward that which we thought we knew. Nearly every scientific discovery that we make even now is more than a simple extension of some previous idea; it is nearly always a statement that conflicts with the previous idea. We grow when we outgrow a mistake, and a land in world of knowledge is an area in which we are forever advancing by correcting previous beliefs, accepting the fact that these beliefs were inadequate or unreasonable but that we did not know this. To hold on to an idea that is inadequate after we know that it is inadequate is no longer devotion — it is just plain stupidity. We are still locked, therefore, in the primary dilemma of The Secret Doctrine: namely the belief that all knowledge must be attained by one slow, plodding, miserable, inconsistent technique; that we must gradually know or learn through forever setting up research projects of a particular kind or nature; that we must learn and know by pounding upon the outside and surfaces of things, rather than to recognize that while research projects are useful and very helpful, their success is determined largely by the point of view upon which they are built. A research project which says at the beginning that it can only advance according to rules already generally accepted and that it must come to no conclusions inconsistent with present knowledge, not as well fold up its tense like the Arabs and sleek silently away — it is not going to achieve anything.
So in the 19th century where we had an orthodox theology on the one hand, locked in literalism, in the juts and tipples of Holy Writ, whereas Bible students were far more concerned with the preservation of orthodoxies rather than the search for additional knowledge; and on the opposite side — scientists rising under the tremendous impetus, provided by Darwin and Huxley, were fighting to rescue the Universe from a sickly mysticism. While this conflict was going on, no-one was very much interested in the truth. Everybody thought they were, everyone insisted that truth was his only purpose — but it was very much like the famous story of the dove of peace that was trampled to death in the peace meeting. (Laugh) There was really very little actual understanding or integrity beneath the search for larger knowledge. Many persons have tried to work out, either in harmony with or in conflict with Madame Blavatsky's own premises, just what the basis of her presentation of the Eastern tradition might be. Madame on a number of occasions admitted that personally in her religious persuasions she was very much inclined to Buddhism. But she clearly points out in The Secret Doctrine that the Secret Doctrine is not Buddhism. And on this ground most Buddhist sects will concur. To many Buddhist groups The Secret Doctrine is as mysterious as it is to Christendom. Yet there is obvious fact in the background of this which must cause us to suspect that to a large measure at least the presentation of the material follows certain development of Asiatic belief. Whatever might be Madame's essential allegiances, when in the presentation of her material she gropes for terms or attempts to find fortuitous analogies, she most frequently turns either to Buddhism or reformed Hinduism. We very seldom find her searching for her terms outside of this area. Also her tendency is to bring other forms of knowledge — Chinese, Chaldean, Egyptian, Greek — into this pattern, join them toward the central focus.
In this there is an interesting and rather valid structure of doctrine which does arise from Buddhism, for it was taught from the very beginning that Gautama Buddha's essential teaching was divided into two broad schools. If we study the sutras, or the sacred books of Buddhism — certainly those prior to the last great reformation on the Mahayana — we find that Buddha is a strict moralist; we find that he refuses, under any condition, to explore the abstractions of cosmogony. He refuses to discuss the natures of deities, or the origins of worlds, or the developments of species, or types, or kinds, or races. He declines entirely to expand any concept of the future state of man, other than such concept as relates to the final extinction of negative individuality in the Mahaparanirvanic state.
Thus Buddha becomes a kind of philosophic, idealistic, ethical materialist. He is concerned primarily only with the problem of man, and with man only in the aspect of human suffering, its cause and cure. Buddha took the public attitude that his only problem and the only problem that the world had to face, and face head-on with every bit of courage that was available, the problem was: how man could civilize himself? How the human being could rise from the ignorance, selfishness and fear which dominated his life and establish a firm inward life upon adequate value? This was Buddha's principal concern. Yet from the very beginning of his philosophy, which was also in turn merely a reformed Hinduism, from the very beginning it was evident that a second school rose in the contemplation of Buddhist philosophy. We find in the Bible the same implication in the New Testament, where Jesus is said to have taught the multitude in parables, but to his disciples he taught certain other things. These certain other things have always been assumed to be the mysteries of his faith, the esoteric part of the Christian religion. And it is this part that the Gnostics claimed to have possessed and which is now being given some further consideration as a result of the discovery of the gnostic library Chenoboskion in Egypt.
But in Buddhism it was assumed, affirmed, maintained that Buddha taught his disciples, or his arhats, these certain other things; that to those whom he regarded as ready he gave a knowledge of universals; that he also gave a knowledge of the great forces and processes of creation, by means of which worlds are worked out of chaos, and the great systems of evolutionary procedure that have been preserved to theosophists through The Secret Doctrine in their famous concepts of Rounds and Races. That this esoteric doctrine in Buddhism did exist, there seems every reason to affirm, for the Buddhist arhats Buddha initiated in the Saptaparni cave, or the mysterious room, or cavern of seven rooms which was believed to be a symbol of the human heart.
In any event, Buddhism is a living example of the point that Madame Blavatsky attempted and affirmed that she could prove: namely that there has been — and is — in the principal religions of the world a solid tradition that goes back thousands of years to the simple effect that religion is both an internal and an external mystery; that there has always been a secret, or esoteric, instruction; that this instruction is true and that this instruction covers not only the religious world but contains a full statement of the nature of the material universe, its laws and energies, and therefore covers the entire area normally assigned to science; that, therefore, there is not only a science of nature but a science of human nature and a science of divine nature; that the so-called esoteric tradition is the one and ultimate science, the science of sciences, through an understanding of which all other mysteries are solved and without which the individual plods desperately against areas of darkness, or areas of chaos, which he cannot organize with the faculties available to him as an ordinary person.
The Secret Doctrine then goes on to point out another situation which has been a subject of controversies since the dawn of human thought: namely that the final solution to the mystery of knowledge lies in the disciplining and cultivating of a gamut of extrasensory perception; that the faculties that we presently possess are not adequate for our understanding of the cause of Universe; that although we may be able to extend our domain throughout the surface of nature, that we may be able to travel to other planets, that we may force our conquests into space itself — that man's present group of faculties limits him, binds him, holds him strictly to a certain condition of the Universe which is called "matter"; that beyond matter and such energies as display themselves in matter or are rather obviously revealed through matter — outside of these man cannot cope with the Universe. And when he copes with energies, even those that are revealed through matter, he can discover their appearances, their consequences, as the wind moving up on the surface of water can be noted from the fact that it moves the water, but the wind itself cannot be seen. In the same way, wherever we come upon the operation of energies in matter, we can see the consequences of the activity of energy, but we cannot see, or estimate, or fathom the mystery of that energy itself. A point in case, of course, is electricity. We know what it does — we do not know what it is. And even the greatest scientist today hesitates to attempt a formal definition of a commodity that is now used carelessly and easily throughout the world. We seem to possess it, but we do not possess any real knowledge of what it is. We seem to conquer the world, but having conquered it, we suddenly awaken and find that we have no understanding of what the world is. We have our own existence — we live, and grow, and suffer, and die; but finally come to the conclusion that we do not know even our own identity.
Thus there has to be some other form of knowledge, some other way of solving this mystery — or the mystery remains unsolvable. Science is inclined to take the attitude (or was, until very recently) that the mystery simply is unsolvable, that it can NOT be attained, that there is no actual answer and that what we call "discovery" is a groping towards the unknown. With the hope, with the optimistic conviction that in the course of some immeasurable span of time we may discover that which we presently seek. But that there is no reason to suppose that we are going to hasten towards the knowledge of infinites, that this knowledge is simply beyond the capacity of man's finite faculties.
On the basis of the esoteric tradition, Madame Blavatsky affirms that the answer lies in the cultivation of faculties latent in man; that these faculties have always been known; that arts and sciences for their cultivation have always been known; but that the secrets of these arts, or mysteries, have not been generally communicated, for the reason that they constitute not only the most advanced possible form of knowledge, but to the measure the most dangerous of all forms of knowledge, for they bestow upon the possessor of them all of the power and authority and influence which absolute knowledge can confer; and that in order that such knowledge should be made available, it is first necessary that the aspirant to such knowledge should demonstrate conclusively that they are beyond and above the abuse of what they know. This was the burden of the great mysteries, and Madame Blavatsky does not hesitate to point this out. This also in its restoration as the Platonic philosophy of England in the 19th century was restated by Thomas Taylor, the one translator of the Greeks who really had insight into the meaning of these ancient rites and ceremonies.
But Madame Blavatsky, studying among the American Indians, observing the ruined monuments and symbols of Central America, wandering in the Gobi desert of Mongolia, studying in the great palace of Tasha-Lampu, talking and discoursing with the most learned yogins and Vedantic students of India, traveling everywhere: in the Muslim world, in the Christian world, in the Buddhist world and in the Brahman world — was convinced that she had discovered clearly the landmarks of this esoteric discipline of life, by means of which man alone can come to the apperception of Truth. Madame Blavatsky also realized that there is further proof of the availability of this extrasensory banned in man's consciousness. And this proof lies essentially in the sphere of classical mysticism. There have always been a few persons who have possessed the power to demonstrate these extrasensory faculties to a degree. There has been always somebody carrying on research or experimentation in this area. There has also always existed in the world a group of people who, by the peculiar validity of their mystical dedications to Truth, were able to break through the veil that the mind of the scholar could not penetrate. And the scriptures of the world, including our own and the old Jewish scriptures, all indicate the existence of prophets, of wise ones, of learned and good persons who communed with God or who went forth into the wilderness and fasted, and prayed, and received revelation. That, therefore, we do have a fairly substantial body of evidence indicating that man by a certain kind of life, by certain devotion or dedication, by conduct rather than by concept, is able to attain an intimate apperception of spiritual mysteries. Not that he shall attain them fully, or completely, but that he does penetrate far enough to prove that there are powers within himself which can break through the boundaries set up by a materialistic way of life, and that he can gradually come to know and to experience conditions of consciousness, states of being, areas of activity that are closed to the objective physical sensory perceptions.
Madame Blavatsky was convinced that this burden of concept is also set forth in the original teachings of Buddhism. She is likely also to find it just as quickly in the Brahmanic religious mysteries. And she quotes and cross-quotes, time and time again, to show the principles involved and the validity of the position which she holds, and is able to show very clearly that in every important religion of the world, both of civilized and uncivilized peoples, the same essential belief has been held; and that long before man knew what theology was, he realized that the essence of religion was the unfolding of faculties within himself, by which knowledge alone could be attained; and that all knowledge must finally be brought to fruition by the release of conscious powers, or faculties, within the person; that we cannot find the answer by loading the mind with objective phenomena; that we can advance sciences certainly, but these sciences advance on levels — they do not lead us to the next superior thing, they lead us only like the Wheel of the Lisp (?) into some infinite diverse area of speculation, they cannot bring us back again to the core of being.
In the early centuries, [...] prior or perhaps at about the time of the Christian era, there was a great resurgence of mysticism in Asia, and this revival set up largely around what we term today "Mahayana Buddhism". By this revival the entire doctrine of Buddha was opened up from within itself, as though a great bottom light suddenly expanded. Prior to that time the external parts of the flower only were visible. But suddenly it seemed that the internal heart was made obvious to the believer. A great system of Buddhistic metaphysics was loosed in Asia, a system which was intended to revive and restore that part of the instruction of Buddha which was given privately to his arhats.
We know that there was a similar resurgence of mysticism in Islam, following a few centuries after the passing of the Prophet Muhammad. We know desperately and definitely that there was a powerful trend toward mysticism in Christianity, but that this expansion in the Christian faith was to a measure aborted, because the tendency of mysticism was blocked and frustrated by the rise of the Inquisition. As it was, however, some mysticism did break through, and we have evidence of it in the peculiar devotional life of certain early Christian saints. We also know that this mysticism broke through Judaism, particularly about the beginning of the Christian era, when the rise of Qabbalistic speculation began. And the orthodox Jewish law was suddenly unfolded from within itself by [...] such as that cast, by "the book of the splendors" — the Sepher ha Zohar.
For practical purposes orientalism as a philosophical factor in the thinking of Western man, first came into focus in the closing years of the 18th century. Prior to that time, East and West were so far apart and Western religious dogmatism was so intense that there was little, if any, cultural interchange. Thus for a very long time, nearly 2,000 years, Western culture attempted to maintain a complete isolation, refusing to admit its indebtedness to great Asiatic systems which were all before Western civilization was born. Colonel Robert [...] remarked on one occasion that the Chinese were compiling great libraries, indexing them, classifying them and researching in them, while Western European man was still mumbling the bones of animals in prehistoric caves. And this, perhaps slightly exaggerated, is not very far from the truth.
In the early years of the 19th century there was a decided break in Western orthodoxy. The rather conservative and inadequate litheralism — a protest in Christianity — was being assailed by a need within man himself. He was not getting the spiritual nutrition that he required for a well-integrated religious life. So we find that as early as Ralph Waldo Emerson efforts were made to enlarge and enrich the schools of Western Tradition. The universities were still more or less close to all liberal religious thinking. If today they are inclined to be brutally agnostic, at that time they were adamantly orthodox. Nearly all chairs of philosophy were occupied by Doctors of Divinity. And what has been called "the school of Scottish metaphysicians" dominated the educational world.
There were no breaks, as yet, in favor of liberalism in higher education. But individuals like Emerson began to recognize that beyond the sea, on the other side of the world, some interesting thoughts have come to the world, great scriptures have been written, wonderful classics have been compiled, great teachers have arisen — and that a rich legacy of spiritual tradition was completely locked from us, simply by the narrowness of our own thinking.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
As a result of some moderate reading in not too substantial authorities, Emerson was able to sense some of the grandure of Eastern thinking, and he has revealed this to us through his essays on the Over-Soul and his essay on compensation. He knew the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the greatest mystical books of Asia. He was aware that in this distant area there was a deep, quiet, calm wisdom, which might be rather practical and useful in the confusion of the Western world.
Bhagavad Gita As It Is
In any event, let us realize that between about 1825 and 1850 there was a broad rise of mysticism, and esotericism, and transcendentalism in the Eastern part of the United States. And as the time went on, that happened which almost always happens under such conditions — there was an almost frantic searching upon more of this unusual information.
The result was more or less pathetic. The necessary texts were not available, there were practically no translations from Eastern languages and very few Western scholars who had any knowledge of Asiatic terms. There was no break in this wall between East and West, and only an occasional fragment drifted into our Western comprehension. It was, as a result of the unrest, the stimulation of the unknown, the sudden sensing of value out of reach, that the groundwork was laid for the rise of a strong Asiatic study group in Western civilization. And that the critical moment, when this appeared to be most valuable and most greatly desired, Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott founded in New York in 1875 the Theosophical Society.
H.P. Blavatsky and Colonel H.S. Olcott, 1888
This society was composed of many interesting and brilliant persons. While it surrounded largely the personality and the immediate personal achievements of Madame Blavatsky, it cannot be said that she was entirely alone in her activity. Through the inspiration which she provided, a number of Western, European and American scholars went to India. Gradually Indian religious writings were translated into English, much of the translation being done by Hindu students and scholars who associated themselves with the Society in India.
Little by little, a bridge was built, a bridge which perhaps made possible the later visit to this country of one of the first monofied oriental scholars, Swami Vivekananda. Not only was this oriental subject unknown, but, like many unknown things, it was subject to a great deal of animosity and persecution. We have not yet reached that point in international thinking in which we could be fair about the opinions, beliefs and convictions of other peoples. And even today if a poll were taken, I think it would be safe to say, to the majority of Western persons the Buddhists, Brahmans, Confusionists, Daoists are still regarded as heathens.
This situation has improved, but not entirely has it been corrected in public thinking. We have really no solid foundation for religious interunderstanding, even at the present time. The orientalist in the Western world is still regarded with certain suspicion, but a more liberal attitude on the theory of religion has brought with it a measure of tolerance, but not a measure of acceptance. I have recently examined a number of brochures and pieces of publicity that have come through our office, and many of them still contain words or at least implications that all these foreign beliefs are heresies, that they are the works of the devil set up to interfere with the development of literal Christian orthodoxy.
Of course, in the time [of] Madame Blavatsky the situation was still worse, although undoubtedly it was considerably improved over an earlier time in which all liberals were cheerfully burnt into steak — to reach the point where they were merely scandalized and insulted.
The original work of H.P. Blavatsky stands more or less unique even within the field of related literature. And as the result of the years which have passed since 1888 when the volumes were first published, we are aware that her own peculiar and particular insight still makes these works unique, remarkable and valuable. Madame Blavatsky herself was the first to admit that the books which she wrote would prove highly controversial. She frankly acknowledges that the type of proof which the scientific world requires simply was not available. All that was little to be gained by attempting to imply an authority that it was wiser that the book should be accepted as the works of an individual; that they represented a very careful study of a vast area of ancient tradition, the landmarks not available to the average student (those that are accessible [are] difficult to find); and that the only possible way in which the material could be verified would be for another person to go through exactly the same procedure that she went through. Needless to say, no such person has arisen since her time. And therefore, from a scientific standpoint The Secret Doctrine still remains an enigma. It is a mystery. Yet in the course of years a great deal has been done to clarify that mystery. Many of the remarks which she made at that time, which were highly controversial, are now generally accepted. Many of the findings which she reported and which amazed her contemporaries, now belong to our common knowledge.
Thus perhaps the only answer to a riddle of this kind is time itself, which justifies and validates that which is true. And most of the work of subsequent oriental scholars has to a great degree supported her findings — not in every instance but in the majority of cases.
Therefore, perhaps if we go back to 1888, at a time when things were not nearly so liberal, or progressive, or well-organized in knowledge as they seem to be today, we can appreciate the position which she took and the courage which it required to stand out against the rising force of scientific materialism, as well as religious orthodoxy. So I'd like to just read a few lines from the original preface of The Secret Doctrine to point out some of the elements with which she was primarily concerned:
This, I think, summarizes, in the main, her springboard, or her point of view. This brings us, of course, to the next important step. Having come to such a conclusion, what would it be natural to do about it? Believing this to be true, accepting it as a conviction, it is then necessary to build a strong testimony in favor of the concept that has been advanced. This is perfectly proper literary and scholastic procedure. It is the same premise upon which a thesis must be written. It is that having accepted or established a point of view, it is necessary to defend that point of view — skillfully, reasonably and adequately. And in the defense of a point of view from the standpoint of a thesis, the requirement always is adequate documentation, adequate reference to recognize twothority, adequate research in various highly specialized fields, and usually a prerequisite is intimate contact with sources of basic information. A thesis is not prepared merely to summarize knowledge. It must in every case advance some new conviction. It must in every case contribute something to that which is already known, it cannot be merely what you might term "a rehash".
In order to meet these requirements, therefore, Madame Blavatsky was not required — and would not be required by a modern university today — to prove beyond question every point that she makes. She is required, however, to prove beyond reasonable doubt that her basic assumption is well-taken. It was her responsibility then, as a writer of a serious scholastic work, to justify through her own research certain fundamental positions which she held and to provide an adequate bibliography, an adequate annotated reference frame for her work. Madame Blavatsky did this, perhaps more adequately than most highly respected scientific writers. And I think it will be safe to say that today, if this paper was submitted, this work was submitted as a thesis in a major university — it would be accepted. This does not mean that it would be approved as to content, but one point that has been highly controversial for many years in connection with The Secret Doctrine, is no longer valid: namely that the work is not adequately presented. It is adequately presented, according to every rule now in force governing such matters.
By being adequately presented in this case, it means that the book itself reveals not only thorough scholarship, but by quotation, particularly from sacred writings or from early commentaries thereon, it shows that the premise is justified from the original authorities. Also the work indicates a large enough personal acquaintance with the areas of thought involved to satisfy even a most critical committee selected to pass upon such a work. Thus we are in the presence of a work which, though it may be open to intense controversy, is not open to any criticism so far as the methodology of its presentation is concerned.
Now, how did Madame Blavatsky come into contact with the information by which this work, these volumes were made possible? Here we come into a highly controversial area, an area for which at the present time there is no final scientific point of view. She insists and states clearly that the knowledge which she presented was set forth on the premise, or foundation, that she was the writer of a book — but not the author of it. She displained, however, any psychic mystery in connection with the work. She simply held it to be a fact — to be accepted or rejected by the reader according to his own convictions — that the original material was communicated to her by advanced teachers, by leaders in the esoteric system of Asiatic knowledge; in other words, that this information came directly from initiated members of the secret schools of Eastern philosophy.
Now, here, of course, we come into a problem that even yet has not been solved to everyone's satisfaction. As yet, it has not been possible to so clearly and definitely identify these teachers that no question whatsoever as to their identity or their existence remains. These teachers were not generally known, they were not generally available to scholars, they did not act as exchange professors in any university. They taught in their own ancient Eastern way, and there is no question on the part of Madame Blavatsky that these teachers were real, that they communicated with her, that they taught her, that she regarded herself as their messenger or representative, and that through their assistance the writings of The Secret Doctrine and other esoteric papers of the Theosophical Society were made possible. In her own descriptions of her life and travels she is very clear on this particular point.
Others have followed in her way, others have attempted to follow the same path and course that she followed. For the most part, however, these later travelers have not been able to confirm the stories which she told. For a long time it was denied that Madame Blavatsky was ever in Tibet. And she is still not upon the official lists of those known to have reached this country at that time. There is, however, very little doubt that she really was there, inasmuch as some years ago there was published an autograph letter signed by the Puncheon-lama of Tasha-Lampu, the second most powerful religious leader in Tibet, to the affect that she had actually been at the monastery of Tasha-Lampu and studied there under his predecessor. This sort of settled this question which was one of the large questions. Many will still say that the word of the Puncheon-lama might be questioned. But if we go on questioning in this way, we can write off practically all unusual knowledge. We have to admit that something is reasonable or probable, and that persons of valid character and recognized integrity have to be accepted if no other evidence is available.
Wherever it has been possible to check Madame Blavatsky's various travels, excursions where various articles in Russian and other publications have been investigated, the facts have usually been demonstrated to be correct as she listed them.
Although she lived in a time of rather genteel femininity, Madame Blavatsky was by no means simply a titled Russian lady. She was one of those unusual persons who defy convention and tradition. She did not sit in some pleasant villa of the Riviera and write. She had an intensely interesting, dangerous, tempestuous and eventful life. She did almost everything that genteel ladies did not do in the 19th century. At that time if a lady rode horseback, she rode side-settle, with a very voluminous riding habit. When Madame Blavatsky wished to ride, she rode Western American style and made no apology for it. In traveling through the country on a train or in an occasion in which it is reported that most of the passengers during the trip, by one excuse or another, walked through the coach where she was sitting, as they had never before seen a well-dressed European lady rolling cigarettes with one hand and sitting with her feet up on the seat in front. (Laugh) Now, of course such things as these were scandal, they offended all of the people. As Madame Blavatsky herself points out, "Never did anything in this world except being offended by somebody." (Laugh) She offended people who had never a thought in their minds, but who objected to any breach in the traditional code of ladylike procedure. She was shipwrecked in the Mediterranean and arrived in Alexandria with nothing in the form of a wardrobe except the entirely water-soaked garment she was wearing. She engaged in numerous enterprises in order to provide the needs of her life because she was never a person of wealth. Her interests were widely diversified: she was a musician of quality and at one time supported herself as a concert pianist; on another occasion she manufactured artificial flowers. She did all kinds of strange things. Wherever you followed her course, you followed an eccentric and erratic career. She crossed the United States in a [..] wagon. At one time, presumably, the wagon was attacked by Indians, but nothing serious resulted.
She lived for a time in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the house where she lived is still pointed out as there is just that touch which was typically her — a large lime tree growing up through the middle of the floor of the living-room. (Laugh) This we would have expected, it was quite common. She turned up in mining towns in Northern California, and a little later appeared down in Central America to time when no-one knows how she got there.
Naturally she spent considerable time in Asia. She traveled extensively in the most difficult regions of the Far East — in years when such travel, even by European men, was almost unknown. Everywhere she went she proved a highly trained and skillful observer, contributing heavily to her own support through journalism and by constantly maintaining or preserving the integrity of Eastern peoples against the general assailing of the West. In the course of years she made a number of very staunch and influential friends, one of whom was Colonel Olcott who at one time was specially appointed to the President of the United States for a delicate diplomatic mission.
It might be interesting to know that even after all these years the issues around the founding of the Theosophical Society have never completely quieted down. I received a word not long ago that in Ceylon this year a special national holiday is being celebrated, not by members of any group but by the whole population of the island of Ceylon — to commemorate the work done in cause of education by Colonel Olcott. The entire festival is very largely in appreciation of the early work of theosophy in East-West understanding in Ceylon.
So the work went on in its own way, this interesting and remarkable person everywhere searching for unusual knowledge and with this point of view everywhere discovering facts and ideas that had generally been overlooked.
To understand The Secret Doctrine is a very large odor. It has to be read many, many times. It also has to be studied very carefully, and certain barriers of terminology have to be one by one overcome by familiarity with early languages. I think we can say, however, that it is built upon a certain ancient concept, a concept which does show through most of the primitive writings of the religious peoples of Antiquity, particularly of the Mesopotamian area and the Far East.
Her premise is that there was a basic doctrine concerning the creation of the Universe, the establishment of the Divine Powers, the formation of worlds and, finally, the generation of man; that these ancient records were more valid than the scientific knowledge which was possessed in her time and of which most of our scientific knowledge is merely an extension. In other words, there is an exoteric doctrine that has arisen from the observation of the externals of things — and there is an esoteric doctrine which has been perpetuated through the contemplation of the eternal and internal forces operating in the Universe. We are beginning to take cognicism of this, we are beginning to realize that somewhere in the background of man's consciousness' experience there was a general archetypal pattern. Man has within himself certain instinctive knowledge which he cannot always clearly express, a knowledge which perhaps is not even available to him for the most part — but a simple subjective realization of value. And that somewhere in the root of his own consciousness is a mathematical formula — the formula which explains his own existence. That what we might term "the search for knowledge" is finally man searching for the key to unlock his own internal record of eternal fact. That at various times individuals have to some measure, or degree, unlocked this inner storehouse — cannot be denied. That great systems of thought were established in ancient times that were valid, is beginning to appear more reasonable to us.
And Madame Blavatsky's position was a very simple one: that what we call "essential knowledge" has always been known, has always existed and always will; that this essential knowledge by its very nature, however, is not acceptable to any individual or group of individuals whose philosophy of life is built essentially upon materialism; that it is not man's inability to know that is his stumbling block — it is man's unwillingness to unlearn that which is not true but which he has come to accept over long periods of time. A hasty acceptance of opinions or attitudes that are not substantial, a willy allegiance to a pattern of knowledge which is not factual — these attitudes lock the individual toward the larger Universe of the infinite probabilities of things. Man, therefore, has darkened his own insight by insisting that he already knows — consciously — things which he does not know. He insists that knowledge is to be derived from the common experience of other persons like himself, and that if enough persons who do not know agree upon something, this something then becomes a known fact. (Laugh)
In other words, we are confronted with the problem of how much ignorance we have to stack up in order to achieve a mountain of truth. (Laugh) That this knowledge has actually been held as an esoteric secret, is intermated in The Secret Doctrine, but a point also gradually unfolds if we are observant and thoughtful: namely that what we term "esoteric" is not really a term for something that is unknowable or can be only known by a few. The term more generally means simply a continuing knowledge of reality which is rejected. That it is esoteric not because it cannot be known — but because we refuse to recognize it. Therefore, it remains a profound secret. Many things which we once held to be esoteric are now common knowledge, because we have gradually revised our attitude toward that which we thought we knew. Nearly every scientific discovery that we make even now is more than a simple extension of some previous idea; it is nearly always a statement that conflicts with the previous idea. We grow when we outgrow a mistake, and a land in world of knowledge is an area in which we are forever advancing by correcting previous beliefs, accepting the fact that these beliefs were inadequate or unreasonable but that we did not know this. To hold on to an idea that is inadequate after we know that it is inadequate is no longer devotion — it is just plain stupidity. We are still locked, therefore, in the primary dilemma of The Secret Doctrine: namely the belief that all knowledge must be attained by one slow, plodding, miserable, inconsistent technique; that we must gradually know or learn through forever setting up research projects of a particular kind or nature; that we must learn and know by pounding upon the outside and surfaces of things, rather than to recognize that while research projects are useful and very helpful, their success is determined largely by the point of view upon which they are built. A research project which says at the beginning that it can only advance according to rules already generally accepted and that it must come to no conclusions inconsistent with present knowledge, not as well fold up its tense like the Arabs and sleek silently away — it is not going to achieve anything.
So in the 19th century where we had an orthodox theology on the one hand, locked in literalism, in the juts and tipples of Holy Writ, whereas Bible students were far more concerned with the preservation of orthodoxies rather than the search for additional knowledge; and on the opposite side — scientists rising under the tremendous impetus, provided by Darwin and Huxley, were fighting to rescue the Universe from a sickly mysticism. While this conflict was going on, no-one was very much interested in the truth. Everybody thought they were, everyone insisted that truth was his only purpose — but it was very much like the famous story of the dove of peace that was trampled to death in the peace meeting. (Laugh) There was really very little actual understanding or integrity beneath the search for larger knowledge. Many persons have tried to work out, either in harmony with or in conflict with Madame Blavatsky's own premises, just what the basis of her presentation of the Eastern tradition might be. Madame on a number of occasions admitted that personally in her religious persuasions she was very much inclined to Buddhism. But she clearly points out in The Secret Doctrine that the Secret Doctrine is not Buddhism. And on this ground most Buddhist sects will concur. To many Buddhist groups The Secret Doctrine is as mysterious as it is to Christendom. Yet there is obvious fact in the background of this which must cause us to suspect that to a large measure at least the presentation of the material follows certain development of Asiatic belief. Whatever might be Madame's essential allegiances, when in the presentation of her material she gropes for terms or attempts to find fortuitous analogies, she most frequently turns either to Buddhism or reformed Hinduism. We very seldom find her searching for her terms outside of this area. Also her tendency is to bring other forms of knowledge — Chinese, Chaldean, Egyptian, Greek — into this pattern, join them toward the central focus.
In this there is an interesting and rather valid structure of doctrine which does arise from Buddhism, for it was taught from the very beginning that Gautama Buddha's essential teaching was divided into two broad schools. If we study the sutras, or the sacred books of Buddhism — certainly those prior to the last great reformation on the Mahayana — we find that Buddha is a strict moralist; we find that he refuses, under any condition, to explore the abstractions of cosmogony. He refuses to discuss the natures of deities, or the origins of worlds, or the developments of species, or types, or kinds, or races. He declines entirely to expand any concept of the future state of man, other than such concept as relates to the final extinction of negative individuality in the Mahaparanirvanic state.
Gautama Buddha
Thus Buddha becomes a kind of philosophic, idealistic, ethical materialist. He is concerned primarily only with the problem of man, and with man only in the aspect of human suffering, its cause and cure. Buddha took the public attitude that his only problem and the only problem that the world had to face, and face head-on with every bit of courage that was available, the problem was: how man could civilize himself? How the human being could rise from the ignorance, selfishness and fear which dominated his life and establish a firm inward life upon adequate value? This was Buddha's principal concern. Yet from the very beginning of his philosophy, which was also in turn merely a reformed Hinduism, from the very beginning it was evident that a second school rose in the contemplation of Buddhist philosophy. We find in the Bible the same implication in the New Testament, where Jesus is said to have taught the multitude in parables, but to his disciples he taught certain other things. These certain other things have always been assumed to be the mysteries of his faith, the esoteric part of the Christian religion. And it is this part that the Gnostics claimed to have possessed and which is now being given some further consideration as a result of the discovery of the gnostic library Chenoboskion in Egypt.
But in Buddhism it was assumed, affirmed, maintained that Buddha taught his disciples, or his arhats, these certain other things; that to those whom he regarded as ready he gave a knowledge of universals; that he also gave a knowledge of the great forces and processes of creation, by means of which worlds are worked out of chaos, and the great systems of evolutionary procedure that have been preserved to theosophists through The Secret Doctrine in their famous concepts of Rounds and Races. That this esoteric doctrine in Buddhism did exist, there seems every reason to affirm, for the Buddhist arhats Buddha initiated in the Saptaparni cave, or the mysterious room, or cavern of seven rooms which was believed to be a symbol of the human heart.
In any event, Buddhism is a living example of the point that Madame Blavatsky attempted and affirmed that she could prove: namely that there has been — and is — in the principal religions of the world a solid tradition that goes back thousands of years to the simple effect that religion is both an internal and an external mystery; that there has always been a secret, or esoteric, instruction; that this instruction is true and that this instruction covers not only the religious world but contains a full statement of the nature of the material universe, its laws and energies, and therefore covers the entire area normally assigned to science; that, therefore, there is not only a science of nature but a science of human nature and a science of divine nature; that the so-called esoteric tradition is the one and ultimate science, the science of sciences, through an understanding of which all other mysteries are solved and without which the individual plods desperately against areas of darkness, or areas of chaos, which he cannot organize with the faculties available to him as an ordinary person.
The Secret Doctrine then goes on to point out another situation which has been a subject of controversies since the dawn of human thought: namely that the final solution to the mystery of knowledge lies in the disciplining and cultivating of a gamut of extrasensory perception; that the faculties that we presently possess are not adequate for our understanding of the cause of Universe; that although we may be able to extend our domain throughout the surface of nature, that we may be able to travel to other planets, that we may force our conquests into space itself — that man's present group of faculties limits him, binds him, holds him strictly to a certain condition of the Universe which is called "matter"; that beyond matter and such energies as display themselves in matter or are rather obviously revealed through matter — outside of these man cannot cope with the Universe. And when he copes with energies, even those that are revealed through matter, he can discover their appearances, their consequences, as the wind moving up on the surface of water can be noted from the fact that it moves the water, but the wind itself cannot be seen. In the same way, wherever we come upon the operation of energies in matter, we can see the consequences of the activity of energy, but we cannot see, or estimate, or fathom the mystery of that energy itself. A point in case, of course, is electricity. We know what it does — we do not know what it is. And even the greatest scientist today hesitates to attempt a formal definition of a commodity that is now used carelessly and easily throughout the world. We seem to possess it, but we do not possess any real knowledge of what it is. We seem to conquer the world, but having conquered it, we suddenly awaken and find that we have no understanding of what the world is. We have our own existence — we live, and grow, and suffer, and die; but finally come to the conclusion that we do not know even our own identity.
Thus there has to be some other form of knowledge, some other way of solving this mystery — or the mystery remains unsolvable. Science is inclined to take the attitude (or was, until very recently) that the mystery simply is unsolvable, that it can NOT be attained, that there is no actual answer and that what we call "discovery" is a groping towards the unknown. With the hope, with the optimistic conviction that in the course of some immeasurable span of time we may discover that which we presently seek. But that there is no reason to suppose that we are going to hasten towards the knowledge of infinites, that this knowledge is simply beyond the capacity of man's finite faculties.
On the basis of the esoteric tradition, Madame Blavatsky affirms that the answer lies in the cultivation of faculties latent in man; that these faculties have always been known; that arts and sciences for their cultivation have always been known; but that the secrets of these arts, or mysteries, have not been generally communicated, for the reason that they constitute not only the most advanced possible form of knowledge, but to the measure the most dangerous of all forms of knowledge, for they bestow upon the possessor of them all of the power and authority and influence which absolute knowledge can confer; and that in order that such knowledge should be made available, it is first necessary that the aspirant to such knowledge should demonstrate conclusively that they are beyond and above the abuse of what they know. This was the burden of the great mysteries, and Madame Blavatsky does not hesitate to point this out. This also in its restoration as the Platonic philosophy of England in the 19th century was restated by Thomas Taylor, the one translator of the Greeks who really had insight into the meaning of these ancient rites and ceremonies.
Thomas Taylor
But Madame Blavatsky, studying among the American Indians, observing the ruined monuments and symbols of Central America, wandering in the Gobi desert of Mongolia, studying in the great palace of Tasha-Lampu, talking and discoursing with the most learned yogins and Vedantic students of India, traveling everywhere: in the Muslim world, in the Christian world, in the Buddhist world and in the Brahman world — was convinced that she had discovered clearly the landmarks of this esoteric discipline of life, by means of which man alone can come to the apperception of Truth. Madame Blavatsky also realized that there is further proof of the availability of this extrasensory banned in man's consciousness. And this proof lies essentially in the sphere of classical mysticism. There have always been a few persons who have possessed the power to demonstrate these extrasensory faculties to a degree. There has been always somebody carrying on research or experimentation in this area. There has also always existed in the world a group of people who, by the peculiar validity of their mystical dedications to Truth, were able to break through the veil that the mind of the scholar could not penetrate. And the scriptures of the world, including our own and the old Jewish scriptures, all indicate the existence of prophets, of wise ones, of learned and good persons who communed with God or who went forth into the wilderness and fasted, and prayed, and received revelation. That, therefore, we do have a fairly substantial body of evidence indicating that man by a certain kind of life, by certain devotion or dedication, by conduct rather than by concept, is able to attain an intimate apperception of spiritual mysteries. Not that he shall attain them fully, or completely, but that he does penetrate far enough to prove that there are powers within himself which can break through the boundaries set up by a materialistic way of life, and that he can gradually come to know and to experience conditions of consciousness, states of being, areas of activity that are closed to the objective physical sensory perceptions.
Madame Blavatsky was convinced that this burden of concept is also set forth in the original teachings of Buddhism. She is likely also to find it just as quickly in the Brahmanic religious mysteries. And she quotes and cross-quotes, time and time again, to show the principles involved and the validity of the position which she holds, and is able to show very clearly that in every important religion of the world, both of civilized and uncivilized peoples, the same essential belief has been held; and that long before man knew what theology was, he realized that the essence of religion was the unfolding of faculties within himself, by which knowledge alone could be attained; and that all knowledge must finally be brought to fruition by the release of conscious powers, or faculties, within the person; that we cannot find the answer by loading the mind with objective phenomena; that we can advance sciences certainly, but these sciences advance on levels — they do not lead us to the next superior thing, they lead us only like the Wheel of the Lisp (?) into some infinite diverse area of speculation, they cannot bring us back again to the core of being.
In the early centuries, [...] prior or perhaps at about the time of the Christian era, there was a great resurgence of mysticism in Asia, and this revival set up largely around what we term today "Mahayana Buddhism". By this revival the entire doctrine of Buddha was opened up from within itself, as though a great bottom light suddenly expanded. Prior to that time the external parts of the flower only were visible. But suddenly it seemed that the internal heart was made obvious to the believer. A great system of Buddhistic metaphysics was loosed in Asia, a system which was intended to revive and restore that part of the instruction of Buddha which was given privately to his arhats.
We know that there was a similar resurgence of mysticism in Islam, following a few centuries after the passing of the Prophet Muhammad. We know desperately and definitely that there was a powerful trend toward mysticism in Christianity, but that this expansion in the Christian faith was to a measure aborted, because the tendency of mysticism was blocked and frustrated by the rise of the Inquisition. As it was, however, some mysticism did break through, and we have evidence of it in the peculiar devotional life of certain early Christian saints. We also know that this mysticism broke through Judaism, particularly about the beginning of the Christian era, when the rise of Qabbalistic speculation began. And the orthodox Jewish law was suddenly unfolded from within itself by [...] such as that cast, by "the book of the splendors" — the Sepher ha Zohar.
The Sepher ha Zohar
So in India, in China, in Burma, Ceylon, Japan and Korea these unfoldings were rather carefully noted. This unfolding also had some certain historical locational factors. Tibet was long associated with a strongly esoteric Buddhism. It seemed as though this remote area, almost out of contact with the rest of the world and living very largely in a highly contemplative state, a state perhaps even axelerated by the high altitudes and by the nature of the land on which these people lived. In any event, in the Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism, there seemed to be a peculiar descent of this esoteric tradition — less veiled, less completely hidden than in the Buddhism of Ceylon, or of Birma, or of China. In these monasteries, upon the higher peaks of the Himalayas, mystics studied the ancient scriptures, wrote commentaries upon them and also carefully preserved all the books that had come into their possession, when Buddhism in India was overrun by Hinduism and the Buddhist sects had to escape from the land of the beginning of their faith. These escaping arhats or departing believers took with them the ancient books. And many did move into the north area, escaping northward into the great mountain country which was religiously held in the highest veneration by members of nearly all Eastern religions. And here — in Tibet, and in Nepal, in Bhutan and in some other remote regions — libraries were built, the old works were protected, new copies were made of them and very early and cherished manuscripts were preserved as sacred objects, almost too precious even to be touched by human hands.
Thus, according to Madame Blavatsky, she was able to discover the primitive texts which were to be the basis of her commentaries on the great stanzas of meditation. Here were the archetypal records of the primitive belief of religious men in Asia. Here were statements, probably in themselves rather criddly given, but quite in themselves to be almost immediately closed in the most magnificent thoughts of the portion which was able to be called "the ancient symbols". Madame Blavatsky describes how these actual manuscripts were: that they consisted principally of designs, figures and emblems, each of which, however, became part of an important sacred text, when it was possible for the consciousness of the reader to fill in that which was not only between the lines, but locked within the mysterious orchestre of the originals.
This type of writing, this type of symbolism was part of Asia's way of doing things, it was never greatly altered, and in most of the libraries and museums of India and Burma today similar writings can be seen. I've seen many magnificent scrolls and rolls in the libraries of Rush-Bhutana (?) and other areas of Central India in which the same ancient truths are handed down from generation to generation — almost unread, seldom considered but carefully preserved for some better time that lies ahead.
This whole pattern makes sense in India. It doesn't make much sense to us, it would have made more sense to the Greeks and Latins. We actually began to fragment knowledge after we began to break it up into schools and systems and after the rise of humanism which caused this eternal and infinite fascination to the physical phenomena of existence. These old, dusty, forgotten records just didn't mean anything. We were so certain that the little that we knew was enough. We were so tremendously concerned with a small discovery that we forgot that the great mysteries of life flowed on unsolved. We were so proud of what little we did know that we forgot to be humble in the presence of the infinite expanse of unknowable, which we had not even touched.
Now, in India and through this whole area there was for a long time a mysterious school of the Kalachakra, the school that is supposed to have been revealed by Nagarjuna and Aryadeva. This school also mingled extremes with another very ancient Eastern transcendentalism called Tantra, and out of the minglings of these different systems came a magic that little by little degraded into a sorcery. That the great mysteries of the Kalachakra, or the Wheel of Time, were in themselves valid and out of these mysteries came most of the secrets of Yoga, most of the ancient magical arts for the unfoldment of the locked potentials of human consciousness. From this system in Asia probably also came most of the disciplines and religious doctrines that finally reached the Mediterranean and Greek areas to cause the rise of mysticism in North Africa — the Hermeticists and the Gnostics.
Kobo Daishi
At the present time, objectively and exoterically, the Tantra is probably best represented in one of the powerful Buddhist sects of Japan. That sect is the Shingon, or the Shingon Shu. This is called today by the same name as that which was given many years ago to the book by Mr Sinnett, a theosophist who studied with Madame Blavatsky, he published a book called Esoteric Buddhism. When you ask in the Orient today, particularly in Japan or China, "What is esoteric Buddhism?", they will point to the equivalent of what in Japan is the Shingon Shu, or the mysterious sect that was founded by the great Japanese transcendentalist Kobo Daishi. This was "the school of the miracles" and this was also the school which developed the great Mandala systems — the systems of the meditation manuals, the systems of the esoteric powers of sounds, of colors, of letters and of forms. The Shingon, therefore, while it is no longer a pure example of Trans-Himalayan mysticism, it certainly is one of the surviving monuments to the existence of a great secret art in Asia — the art, the mysterious science of the unfoldment of the powers in man by which he can know. And Madame Blavatsky in her own writings, except in the case of the esoteric instructions to her disciples and personal students, does not go too greatly, or too deeply, into what we would term today the Shingon Shu, or the Zen Shu, systems of thought. She was undoubtedly aware of them, but to her the very probability of communicating them would likely result in a further complex for other students and disciples: to realize that, on the one hand, these sects had already passed through a certain deterioration in Asia, such as [...] marked the descent and gradual decline of Daoism — and that, furthermore, they represented concepts and attitudes utterly beyond the comprehension of the average Western person of the 19th century. So she was content to point out that through the contemplation of the systems of the Higher Tantra it had been possible for the arhats, adepts and lorhans of the system to gradually restore the story of the Universe and the story of man; that this knowledge, essentially, came not from ordinary books, not from ordinary communication with other persons — but through inward meditation, through the gradual strengthening of the resources of the person to the inner contemplation of the mysteries of Universal Procedure. If these disciplines were accurately followed, if the individual's interior faculties were properly opened, they were just as reliable in their own world as our ordinary sense perceptions are in the material world, and probably much more reliable — very few people question what they see with their physical eyes. Now, is there a greater reason to question that which the individual can see if the Eye of the Dangma, or "the eye of the disciple", is opened? Therefore, there is an eye which sees into the causes of things, just as surely as there are two eyes by means of which we see into the world of the facts around us, these two eyes making possible a certain stereoscopic dimensionalism in the things we see. As the inner eye sees not in terms of dimension but in terms of quality, it is not necessary that it be doubled.
But just as surely as man sees with this single eye, his body is filled with light. So "the eye of the disciple", or the student, if it can be internally opened, reveals to him the universe of qualities. The moment such a universal mystery is unfolded, it becomes obvious that he is in the presence of values, situations and conditions which simply cannot be communicated. We have created a language — a language which was essentially intended for the ordinary transactions of physical life. We had originally gone a little deeper, because we had based our earlier concepts of language upon the remnants of old esoteric traditions. So, through the classical world of thinking, we did develop a bilanguage system, or two languages, for the administration of our affairs. The Egyptians had their common language and they also had a sacerdote language and the language of emblemism for their priests. As Dr Bristow told me, in the reading of Egyptian hieroglyphics we are by no means certain that each glyph does not have two different meanings and that one of these meanings concerns itself with a deeper aspect of Egyptian metaphysics. This is not yet certainly known, for it is quite probable that the Rosetta Stone was not the end of our search for the knowledge of the Egyptian language. We also know that through the Medieval period we use what might be called the common language of various countries — but scholars use Latin as a language set apart from [...] exchange for the contemplation of abstraction.
We have no equivalent of this today; true, we have a large of vocabulary — but this vocabulary has been built up almost entirely by the compounding of terms relating to physical phenomena. Therefore, nearly everyone working with abstract or creative philosophical or religious problems has difficulties with wording. There is no way in which we can be even reasonably sure that we can convey an abstract idea by means of words from one person to another — Zen does not even attempt it — rather taking the attitude that all communication of essential knowledge must be by internal superphysical faculties.
The same thing is true in every case of esotericism; as gradually a knowledge of the Universal Mystery unfolded, it was necessary to build by degrees a vocabulary to interpret it. The moment a mystery was placed in the common words of any people or placed in any readable or comprehensible language — it ceased to be esoteric, it then became part of the common body of knowledge: for it was esoteric only as long as it was unwritten, as long as it was communicated only to those having attained a certain esoteric standing themselves.
So The Secret Doctrine, as H.P. Blavatsky unfolds the book, cannot actually be regarded as an esoteric book — she points this out very definitely. It ceases to have esoteric status the moment it is printed — but it does contain an epic research to justify this beyond any question or doubt: a great deal of material that had been borderlined esoteric material for a long time, a material that was not entirely locked within the ancient schools or which had gradually over a period of time been legitimately released, for these schools had various times in their development, finding that humanity, by its own evolutionary process, have made certain natural attainments, released levels of this knowledge, releasing mostly such levels as had immediate utility for those evolving forms of life that required them. That the shepherd guardians, or the shepherd kings, of ancient times guarded their flocks. The shepherd priests with the symbolic emblem — the shepherd's crook or croisure (?) — definitely communicated to the sheep that which was necessary. And so by degrees a great deal of knowledge that had once been locked within the universities, colleges and mystery temples of Egypt, Greece and the Near East came to be more generally known. It is this gradual revelation that gave us, for instance, mathematics, gave us astronomy, gave us music, gave us by degrees the secrets of ancient medicine and law, made possible a variety of achievements for men. The great moral and spiritual codes of the world were originally part of the mystery tradition, but as man reached a point where he needed them, they were revealed to him by the ignited and initiated teachers, saviors, sages, prophets and seers of his race. So man gradually gained a certain knowledge of these esoteric matters.
According to Madame Blavatsky, the time came in the closing years of the 19th century with the tremendous advancement of material science, when a new kind of world [was] coming into existence, built upon unfortunately on almost adamanting materialism, required certain further directives; that these directives meant that for those who had the insight, for those who had the natural inclination, for those who realized the importance of a better kind of knowledge, something had to be available. Man will never cry out to heaven for guidance sincerely without receiving guidance; man never will be confused of a knowledge if he is sincerely willing to accept the ideas that are better than those of his time. But it is essential, always, that the gate of the sheepfold, or the temple of initiation, as it was anciently called, should always be opened; that there should always be more knowledge that man normally uses, so when there is an emergency, the individual can always find something better if he will seek where it is.
To act then is a tremendous kind of balancing force — not for the majority but for those who were dedicated to a higher concept of life, and there are adepts of the Eastern tradition resolved to make a revelation of knowledge, making it in one of the most distinct, interesting and incomprehensible zen-like ways that you can possibly imagine. And here is, again, where The Secret Doctrine has a very valuable psychological pattern to point out. It is always possible to assume that a great teacher, a great mahatma, priest, a great initiate could appear in the world in proper person with all necessary credentials and be able to prove his reality, his integrity and his validity beyond question. It would be perfectly conceivable that such a person could arise; that this person could perform before any group of persons evidences of superphysical attainments, could reveal forms of knowledge and insight that simply cannot be reputed; that in the presence of the greatest skeptics this type of person could prove conclusively the reality of esoteric powers and faculties over material obscuration. It is conceivable that this could happen, that such an adept could raise the dead, could cause any phenomena that he wanted, could force the extensions of consciousness upon the benighted minds of other people, that by degrees the authority, power and dominion of such a person could be so obsolete and his power of self-protection so complete, that he might even theoretically become a ruler of the world if he so desired. Nothing could oppose him, no secret could be kept from him, no resistance offered by others could touch him — therefore, he would stand immovable. But this very circumstance in itself, did it occur, would be absolutely fatal to the entire development of the human being, because man by his own nature, by his own needs must grow to certainty, and this growth must arise through a series of constant changing within himself. It would be a thousand times more detrimental for anyone […] that the trial and error patterns of human procedure than it would be for a parent to attempt to dominate a child after that child is old enough to take care of himself. Every effort to help would end in hindrance, every effort to control or direct would frustrate the natural growth of the person and force him into the bondage which must always exist, in which the weak is in slavery to the strong.
Also — and most important point of all would be — that the development of the human faculties, which must develop sequentially, would be disturbed if for any reason a sudden enlightenment struck the individual by whose nature such an enlightenment was not justified. Thus every degree of knowledge, every degree of insight must be earned. All learning must arise from a yearning to know, it cannot arise from a dictatorial impression of knowledge, even if this knowledge is correct — the experience of discovery is essential for the conscious growth of every creature. If this experience is taken away from him by dogmatic or dictatorial means, the individual is cheated out of his own inevitable need.
Thus it would be no part of the esoteric school to attempt to save man from himself or enforce a state of growth upon a creature whose own conduct did not justify it or whose own incentives did not voluntarily […], so that could be no such dogmatic dispensation set up. It was by no means time for the tenth avatar to appear surrounded by glory, because even if this resulted in immediate world peace, the purpose of evolution would be frustrated, because the purpose of evolution is that it shall end in peace, but that this peace shall arise from the unfolding consciousness of the individual and not from dictatorial legislations by arbitrary powers.
So in the presentation of the material in The Secret Doctrine, there could be no essential emphasis upon authority. The book was released to the world through the work of a person as frail as any other person, as subject to curious moods and eccentricities, as controversial and in some ways as inconsistent as anybody else; it is a work which could be rejected with enthusiasm by any individual who wanted to pick it apart; it is a work which could be utterly meaningless to the person who did not want to understand it. It also could be utterly meaningless to an individual who was not interested enough to find out what it meant. It brought no salvation or enlightenment to anyone on a platter, it gave no assurance of anything, it was simply set up as a point of enquiry, it stood there to intrigue those who were already willing and inclined to be intrigued. It could also lead the scholar to a further examination of things that he already wanted to know — or it could cause him to declare that it was the greatest monument of superstition in modern times and cast it in the waste basket.
This was exactly what was intended. It could not be dogmatic; it was not a revelation and it was never meant to be a revelation. It was, however, another availability — something that the individual might turn to, might find intriguing and might for him summarize the long course of knowledge which he had already followed and give him certain incentives to investigate further into the unconditioned worlds that lay ahead.
Actually, the structure of The Secret Doctrine is divided into two essential parts, of which the first is properly termed cosmological; it has to do with the cosmogenesis, or the formation of the Universe out of its own roots. In this concept is set forth practically all that is available in the wisdom of both East and West: we find here the concepts and speculations of the Greek astronomers and cosmologists, we find everything from Hesiod to [Ptolemaeus?], we find contemplations of Plato and the extraordinary investigations of Pythagoras, we find a careful estimation of the great symbolics of Aristotle, Euclid and all the other group. We also are given an insight into the points where these documents have been, in the course of time, either misinterpreted or intentionally distorted. We are helped to understand how the translations of these ancient writings have been heavily influenced by indoctrination, or by special beliefs, or by antagonisms, so that we cannot trust the modern prejudiced translator as being in all cases a valid witness for the subject with which she is presumably concerned. We also find the cosmogonies of the Vedas, we find the ancient doctrines of the Avestas, the teachings of the Chinese and the Buddhists relating to the origin of the Universe. We are confronted with the problem which has always been the root of all cosmological uncertainty — namely, the possibility of a creation emerging from the absence of itself: how did the beginning begin? How was that which was not to engender that which was? Can we ever assume that there was a state in which nothing existed?
All of these speculations are finally brought together under the concept of the Tibetan Tantric system, in the great laws of Cycles, the great processes of the Days and Nights of Brahma, the emergence of the Universe as the Great Breath setting up for the great geometric patterns in space by which worlds were generated — all of these processes are discussed and described not originally, inasmuch as there is really no indication — but this represented an original system […]. It is simply a magnificent gathering together of threads, of strands, of fragments until a common form is established into which the systems of the Greeks, the Hindus, the Chinese can all be fitted into a master concept, a concept which includes them all, leaves out nothing and requires no essential compromise of basic ideas.
Out of this entire concept comes this tremendous pattern of the living Universe — of a Universe extending far beyond anything that we can conceive, a Universe of systems upon systems, all of them essentially great units of consciousness, and that from the basic consciousness of each of these units vast systems of creation emerge, these systems always within the consciousness which created them, and within all these patterns the infinite divergence of individuality within unity. Much of this pattern is based upon the Great Sephirothic Tree of the Qabbalah. It is also the Great Tree of the Vedic mysteries, and we have the same concept arising in Mahayana Buddhism, in the scriptures which have to deal with the establishment of the Buddhas in all of the great directions of space. The whole theory is defined and developed in the concept of a world compendium of cosmological doctrines and, of course, the important point that arises from it is that all of the different systems will fit into this one pattern; that, therefore, there is much evidence that there was originally one system; that this one system was divided not in meaning but in term of gradually fragmented through interpretation and the gradual descent of ideas to [...] of persons not capable of fully understanding them until difference arises as a human era, not out of an inconsistency in essential principles.
Out of this tremendous cosmogony of things emerges esoteric anthropology: the emergence of man, his development in nature. The great question of science is still ponderated and will probably ponder for some time: namely the relationship between the person and his body; that the Darwinian theory or the […] law might apply to the body of man — no-one seriously questions. That whether of this pattern is applicable to the consciousness of man is another and far more serious doubt. In the esoteric tradition, therefore, man emerges as a principle to be embodied, he represents a universal fragment or frame from infinite life, containing within himself the infinite potential of the absolute unfoldment of the total universe within himself. He is, therefore, seminal, as the oracles of Zoroaster called it. He is a seed, a seed from which all creation can ultimately be born, this seed enveloped in matter, [...] in the dark earth of substance, is finally limited in body. The great story of anthropology is, therefore, the involution of man which is the descent of consciousness into form and the gradual obscuration of consciousness by form; finally, evolution, or the gradual restoration of consciousness from form, evolution being essentially at this time a two-fold procedure — a […] procedure based upon the long, unfolding path of future growth, by which over a vast period of time man will gradually collect the fragments of his own consciousness within his own personality, unite them, bring them into harmony and gradually create an abstract vehicle, or [...], for the expression of that consciousness, rather than the concrete mind that he now uses.
The second way, according to the esoteric tradition, is that the individual shall achieve evolution, or the release of consciousness from matter, by the disciplines of the esoteric schools, these esoteric disciplines constituting the meditative and contemplative disciplines of the Kalachakra, or the great school of the turning of the Wheel of Time. The turning of the Wheel in this case simply represents the reverse motion, or the reversal of that motion, by means of which man has been drawn into a state of materiality. As he is drawn into matter by a certain motion, as Plato says, he is by the reversal of this motion able to extricate himself from matter.
This discussion and the problems involved in it constitute the natural development of anthropology which moves gradually from the consideration of man as the Anthropos, or the being, the person, to the development of man as "Anthropos, son of Anthropos" in the Gnostic system, namely the emergence of "the psychic man", or "the man of mystery", "the invisible man", "the man of crystalling glass" of ancient alchemy.
Therefore, out of the mystery of matter rises the mystery of man as a psychic being. By "psychic" in this case we do not mean psychic in the sense of possessing psychic powers — but rather as the psychological "psyche", "the soul man"; and the point of importance being that man will ultimately move his center of function, his center of awareness, or his center of polarization, from the physical focus to the psychic focus. When he does this, he will find that he is living in a new world; he will find that gradually the old world will fade away, as the ancient forces perished in the void according to The Zohar. Man, therefore, does not dissolve a world but the world seems to dissolve itself. The individual does not depart, apparently, into some other place — he stays, and the world leaves him. Actually, however, the entire release of the psychic entity is a conscious living achievement of that which for most persons is possible only in the transition of death. Therefore, the prophets of old are said to have been taken to God without death because, actually and esoterically, the ritual of initiation and the ritual of the death ceremonies were regarded as equally symbolic of the same psychic procedure in man. Thus the release of man from body is a resurrection, a birth anew into a psychic existence, an existence in which soul power dominates all of a consideration.
The achievement of this is possible, according to the Kalachakra, only to the arhat, or the adept, only to the initiate of the mysteries — and this way of initiation is not open to the enquirer, there is no way in which at this time these teachers can be reached, or communicated with, by those other than the ones they themselves choose. The problem of choice, therefore, rests with a force or faculty beyond us, and the individual can only rely upon the development of his own integrity as a means of gradually coming in contact with these processes. The reason for this, again, is perfectly obvious: that under the present existing materialism, while our psychic code is far abused, while our moral levels are what they are, while our sense of ethics remains in its comparatively undeveloped state — any possibility of the extension of our faculties or the increase of knowledge would only further hazard the survival of our species. There could be no possible way to prevent the abuse of force unless the force was guarded in its own way by the only guardian that can protect force, and that is the absolute integrity of the individual. Therefore, until the person is above misuse, he will never be able to secure the power which he can misuse; what he might commonly regard today as the accidental attainment of a transcendental power, merely means that perhaps from one of many possible causes there may be flashes of insight or there may be temporary contacts with transcendental factors — but these are not dangerous for the most part unless they are violently misunderstood. They are not dangerous because the individual cannot control them; even though he has the experience, he cannot repeat it; even though he sees something, he cannot systematize what he has seen, nor can he interpret it correctly. Therefore, if there is a physiological or psychological experience, the individual is still protected: he is protected by the fact that the experience may reveal to him some meaning, some value greatly to be desired, some hope of future growth greatly to be longed for — but it does not provide him in any instance with the machinery by means of which he can control it. This machinery belongs only to the deepest aspects of the various Tantra or of the Kalachakra schools. It belongs to disciplines and ways of life which have to be lived, and the individual who is not able to live them cannot endanger himself, except by delusion. He can imagine things that are not so and greatly injure his own life. That is why so much of his material and all of the actual keys to it, even in Asia today, for there are schools working with it, are held in secret because the proof of man's inability to handle knowledge has come nearly in this physical world. What we have done in the field of electronics is obvious evidence that we cannot be entrusted with the foundables of Zeus. We cannot be entrusted with powers or energies a million times more splendid than any atomic fission, electronic process we know today. We cannot be trusted.
But Nature also knows that when we get toward the world of causation behind which lies the Secret Doctrine, this bridge between the objective and the subjective in our own consciousness is guarded; it is guarded by immutable natural law that we can do absolutely nothing about; and if we would cross this bridge, we must be like the Egyptian entering the wonderful fable lands of a man-cat, we must have the right word to the keeper of the gate, we must be able to answer the right questions and we must answer them correctly, we must have received that degree of knowledge which enables us to make this transition. Otherwise we could not be trusted very far or very long.
But Nature is not locking man away from something that he deserves, for the simple reason that the whole process of Nature is accomplishing this end. Every living thing, according to the esoteric school, is equally moving toward salvation. There are no lost souls, there is no individual who deserves better than he gets, there is no person who is all ready for knowledge — and no-one has noticed it. (Laugh) The fact of the matter is all these processes occur within the individual. And it is only through himself that he can enter the magic world of the esoteric tradition.
Now, there is much more that can be said about the subject, but that's about all we can do in the time we have, and I think that is perhaps the great lesson that is locked within the story of The Secret Doctrine. Now, thank you very kindly and I'll see you again one of these days.
Therefore, out of the mystery of matter rises the mystery of man as a psychic being. By "psychic" in this case we do not mean psychic in the sense of possessing psychic powers — but rather as the psychological "psyche", "the soul man"; and the point of importance being that man will ultimately move his center of function, his center of awareness, or his center of polarization, from the physical focus to the psychic focus. When he does this, he will find that he is living in a new world; he will find that gradually the old world will fade away, as the ancient forces perished in the void according to The Zohar. Man, therefore, does not dissolve a world but the world seems to dissolve itself. The individual does not depart, apparently, into some other place — he stays, and the world leaves him. Actually, however, the entire release of the psychic entity is a conscious living achievement of that which for most persons is possible only in the transition of death. Therefore, the prophets of old are said to have been taken to God without death because, actually and esoterically, the ritual of initiation and the ritual of the death ceremonies were regarded as equally symbolic of the same psychic procedure in man. Thus the release of man from body is a resurrection, a birth anew into a psychic existence, an existence in which soul power dominates all of a consideration.
The achievement of this is possible, according to the Kalachakra, only to the arhat, or the adept, only to the initiate of the mysteries — and this way of initiation is not open to the enquirer, there is no way in which at this time these teachers can be reached, or communicated with, by those other than the ones they themselves choose. The problem of choice, therefore, rests with a force or faculty beyond us, and the individual can only rely upon the development of his own integrity as a means of gradually coming in contact with these processes. The reason for this, again, is perfectly obvious: that under the present existing materialism, while our psychic code is far abused, while our moral levels are what they are, while our sense of ethics remains in its comparatively undeveloped state — any possibility of the extension of our faculties or the increase of knowledge would only further hazard the survival of our species. There could be no possible way to prevent the abuse of force unless the force was guarded in its own way by the only guardian that can protect force, and that is the absolute integrity of the individual. Therefore, until the person is above misuse, he will never be able to secure the power which he can misuse; what he might commonly regard today as the accidental attainment of a transcendental power, merely means that perhaps from one of many possible causes there may be flashes of insight or there may be temporary contacts with transcendental factors — but these are not dangerous for the most part unless they are violently misunderstood. They are not dangerous because the individual cannot control them; even though he has the experience, he cannot repeat it; even though he sees something, he cannot systematize what he has seen, nor can he interpret it correctly. Therefore, if there is a physiological or psychological experience, the individual is still protected: he is protected by the fact that the experience may reveal to him some meaning, some value greatly to be desired, some hope of future growth greatly to be longed for — but it does not provide him in any instance with the machinery by means of which he can control it. This machinery belongs only to the deepest aspects of the various Tantra or of the Kalachakra schools. It belongs to disciplines and ways of life which have to be lived, and the individual who is not able to live them cannot endanger himself, except by delusion. He can imagine things that are not so and greatly injure his own life. That is why so much of his material and all of the actual keys to it, even in Asia today, for there are schools working with it, are held in secret because the proof of man's inability to handle knowledge has come nearly in this physical world. What we have done in the field of electronics is obvious evidence that we cannot be entrusted with the foundables of Zeus. We cannot be entrusted with powers or energies a million times more splendid than any atomic fission, electronic process we know today. We cannot be trusted.
But Nature also knows that when we get toward the world of causation behind which lies the Secret Doctrine, this bridge between the objective and the subjective in our own consciousness is guarded; it is guarded by immutable natural law that we can do absolutely nothing about; and if we would cross this bridge, we must be like the Egyptian entering the wonderful fable lands of a man-cat, we must have the right word to the keeper of the gate, we must be able to answer the right questions and we must answer them correctly, we must have received that degree of knowledge which enables us to make this transition. Otherwise we could not be trusted very far or very long.
But Nature is not locking man away from something that he deserves, for the simple reason that the whole process of Nature is accomplishing this end. Every living thing, according to the esoteric school, is equally moving toward salvation. There are no lost souls, there is no individual who deserves better than he gets, there is no person who is all ready for knowledge — and no-one has noticed it. (Laugh) The fact of the matter is all these processes occur within the individual. And it is only through himself that he can enter the magic world of the esoteric tradition.
Now, there is much more that can be said about the subject, but that's about all we can do in the time we have, and I think that is perhaps the great lesson that is locked within the story of The Secret Doctrine. Now, thank you very kindly and I'll see you again one of these days.
Здравствуйте! Замечательная работа. Очень жаль, что проект заброшен.
ВідповістиВидалитиБольшое спасибо за поддержку. Проект не заброшен, он приостановлен в связи с невозможностью выполнять всю работу в одиночку.
ВідповістиВидалитиПонимаю Вас. Труд титанический.
ВідповістиВидалити